Since Ben and Joss Beckett took over The Fair Maid and Falcon, they have had to deal with ghosts, gangsters and well dodgy goings-on. Despite that they have their own family of twin daughters and dogs, and a fabulous ‘found family’ of friends.

It was almost seven o’clock before the sound of small bare feet announced the arrival of Roz and Allie. They came quietly into the room, but seeing I was home ran to me bubbling joyously.
“Hello Mummy Beckett. We thought you might have gone back to work.”
“No. I’m having a sneaky half day.”
“How do you have half a day?”
“You work until lunch service is over, then you don’t work until the next day.”
“Like a Sunday?”
“Yes. Except everyone gets a half day on a Sunday. Today it was only me.”
Roz nodded wisely. “Grandmother says the bad man was very vexatious to your spirit. And Esme kept watch but she says he was very impressed by our mother.”
I laughed.
“Esme is biased.”
“What’s biased?”
“Biased means that you love somebody and that makes you think they are special.”
“They might still be special then?” That was Allie who is inclined to pick at loose ends.
Sian stepped briskly into the fray. “They might indeed. But they might also be embarrassed if people make big thing about how special they are.”
Both twins nodded solemnly. Their daddy having made a bit of a stand about being careful not to embarrass people it was something they understood well.
“Anyway,” I said. “You two have a decision to make.”
They swivelled their blonde heads to face me. “Why do we have a decision to make?”
“Because later on there will be adults having supper here. You pair can have your tea now and be in bed just before the people arrive. Or you can have a snack and then get your baths so you can have supper in your jammies and be off to bed quickly once supper is over.”
Roz narrowed her eyes. “Who will be eating supper?”
“Aunty Stella, Uncle Neil, Ellen, Sian, Morgan, Simeon, Daddy and me.”
“That is a lot of our favourite people. What is for food?”
I barely managed to keep a straight face. “There is chicken cooked in red wine with salad, new potatoes and focaccia.”
“And will there be pudding?”
“Yes. There will be lemon pudding with clotted cream or vegan ice cream.”
“Or both?”
Allie looked so hopeful that I had to grin.
“Or both.” I conceded.
They looked into each other’s eyes. “May we stay up please?”
“You may, but you must promise to go straight to bed when you have had your supper and no bratty behaviour.”
“We promise.”
I held out my arms and they came for a hug. Sian stood up.
“Cheese toasties?”
“Oh yes please.”
The twins packed themselves into my lap and began telling me all about the fascinating storm. After a while the inevitable questions started.
“Mummy. Is the electricity still off?”
“What do you think?”
“We think we doesn’t know.”
“How could you begin to know?”
They thought for a minute then Roz piped up. “We could look out of the window beside the front door and see if the street lights are on.”
“And we could listen for the generator.” Allie sounded pleased to have an idea of her own.
“Why don’t you do both and then let me know what you think.”
They scooted out into the passageway becoming very quiet before walking back in on soft feet.
“There is no street lights and we can hear the generators purring so we think the electricity is still off.”
“And you would be right. The last message from the electric company said it may be back tomorrow.”
They looked at me with round eyes. “When our friends doesn’t have electricity they has to use torches and eat jam sammiches. How come we has generators?”
“How could we run the pub if we couldn’t pump beer or cook food?”
“That is a very good question Mummy Beckett.”
Sian set two plates on the table. “People wanting to eat should wash their hands right now.”
The love of food trumps everything else and the smalls rushed to their bathroom. Sian brought me a glass of deeply rich red wine. She grinned wickedly.
“You look to me to be a woman in need of fortification and I’ve had this open to chambray. It’s even burgundy to match the colour.”
I toasted her with my upraised glass.
“What are you drinking?”
“Ginger beer. As are the littles, and Dad when he gets here.”
I made to get up and she motioned me to sit still.
“I’m the person who gets well paid to mind the gruesomes, you need to sit down and let me earn my crust.”
I sat and she gave me an earnest look.
“Joss. Will you be needing me to wrangle small people after the summer holidays are over?”
“I would like you to continue with the job. But it’s your call.”
“What would you want me for?”
“Weekends. Half term breaks. Holidays. But. Not all of the time. You will need some breaks for yourself.”
Her smile was a mile wide. “I hoped for something like that. But I wasn’t sure if I’m doing a good enough job.”
I held out my arms and she came for a hug.
“That’s on me and Ben. We think you are doing great. But we haven’t got round to telling you. Sorry love.”
“That’s okay. It’s been a bit of a weird summer.”
“Hasn’t it just. And I’ve a worm in my gut thinks it’s not over yet.”
The twins erupted into the room and clambered onto their chairs.
“Oh look,” Ali exclaimed, “there’s faces on our toasties.”
I went to look and saw that there were indeed faces on their sandwiches.
“How did Sian do that?”
“Don’t you know, Mummy Beckett?”
“I do not. So we’d better ask her.”
Sian ambled over and opened the panini press to disclose a wire frame with faces outlined in wire.
“Saw this on TikTok and Dad made it.”
The twins eyes were as round as saucers. “You and Uncle Neil are very clever.”
“They are indeed. But you’d better eat your sandwiches before they go cold.”
Needing no second bidding they dived in.
“I wonder if we could have lettering made so the pub toasties…”
Sian giggled and I poked her in the biceps.
“What’s so funny miss.”
“Dad owes me a tenner. I bet him you’d be after having Fair Maid and Falcon branded sandwiches as soon as you saw this. He reckoned it’d take a couple of days.”
I couldn’t help laughing, even if it was slightly reprehensible that the family was betting on my reactions. While I was trying to drum up a disapproving comment, Ali looked up from her plate.
“Uncle Neil is a idiot to bet against Mummy Beckett working things out very fast.”
Roz nodded wisely. “It’s what she does.”
Once toasties had been absorbed we had a happy giggly bath hour. Things went a bit pear-shaped when they were back in the family room, wrapped in their dressing gowns, and discussing which jammies were most suitable as party wear. Roz wanted pink with kittens and Ali pale green with bunnies. Before they could start one of their rare, but exhausting, shouting matches I held up a hand for quiet.
“You don’t have to wear the same as each other, you know. Is there any reason why Roz can’t wear pink and Ali green?”
They stared at me. And Ali squinted her eyes. “Is this like Roz being able to hear Grandmother in her head, and me not?”
“A bit. And I sometimes wonder if Daddy and I have done wrong by buying you identical clothes.”
They thought about that for a minute then swarmed into my lap.
“No. You and Daddy Beckett got us what we likes. But maybe it would be fun to not always be identical.”
“You aren’t identical twins,” Sian put in. “You are what they call fraternal.”
“What do that mean?”
“Literally brotherly twins. But the science is easy to explain. When twins are identical, they start out as one egg, which splits into two babies. Fraternal, like you two, comes about when two eggs get fertilised at the same time.”
“How can you tell if twins is one egg or two eggs?”
“Identical twins are the same gender. You can’t be identical if you are a boy and a girl.”
“But we is both girls so we could be.”
Sian wagged a finger. “You two are very much alike. But you aren’t identical, are you?”
Ali pressed the palm of her hand against her forehead in a wonderfully theatrical gesture. “Of course not. We have different eyes. Mine are brown and Roz’s are blue.”
“Which proves my point. And I have a suggestion for you to consider.”
“Which might be what?”
I was behind them, but I could imagine the stink eye accompanying that comment. Sian laughed.
“You pair can stop looking at me like that, or I won’t tell you.”
The twins climbed down and went to stand in front of her.
“Was we giving you a glare?”
Sian crouched down to their level.
“You were. And you know you were. Now arrange your faces into a suitably attentive expression and I’ll explain.”
“Is this better?”
“Yes. It is. So. You can either wear different jammies like Mummy suggested. Or…”
“Or what?”
“Or let me choose a set.”
They barely hesitated.
“You choose.”
“Okay. You wait here.”
Roz and Ali came and huddled against my legs. Sian didn’t keep them in suspense for long, returning with pale blue pyjamas with a frieze of small forest creatures under umbrellas. The girls clapped their hands.
“Rainstorm babies. Oh you are clever, Sian.”
“She is. Isn’t she? Now you go and sit by the wood burner. I’ll bring you your iPads and you can look at a couple of cartoons while we make supper ready.”
They went happily.
Sian and I laid the table, prepared salad, put tiny new potatoes on to boil, and placed bread rolls in the warming oven. Once the gruesome twosome were fully occupied I beckoned Sian out to the boot room where I gave her the biggest hug. She hugged back, then looked at me questioningly.
“Just a thank you for averting a screaming match.”
“Them two are so close that when they do disagree it’s a very big thing,” she said wisely. “If it’s a daytime disagreement I just let them have at it, but when they need to be calm I step in firmly.”
“You do. But without swinging your authority.”
“Course not. I save that for intentional naughtiness. And I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t work when they get past themselves. Distraction is the thing then.”
“You really are good with children.”
She grinned, then sobered. “I hope so, because I’d like to be a teacher.”
“You’ll be brilliant.”
Her eyes sparkled and I understood how important this was to her.
“Me and Ben will help if you need.”
She burrowed in for another hug only to be interrupted by Allie’s voice.
“What are Mummy and Sian talking about?”
“How horrible small girls are…”
We were saved from retribution by the arrival of our supper guests.
We all enjoyed our meals, and had just reached the coffee stage when I felt Esme very close, and Ben’s phone rang. Esme put her cold little hand in mine and Ben took the brief call.
“There’s a minibus full of muscle parked outside the memorial garden. Finoula says they are screwing up their courage to go in.”
“We don’t want that, do we?” I felt my hackles rising.
“No. We don’t.”
Simeon stood up and bunched his shoulders. “I’ll just pop across to the bothy and collect some reinforcements.”
Morgan looked at me and her eyes were fierce. “Us girls will stay here shall we?”
“Please.”
Ben opened his mouth and I held up my hand. “No, love. I have to come and talk to them.”
For a second he looked mutinous, but then he grinned. “I have,” he said, “just been put in my place by an indomitable spirit.”
“Did Grandmother tell you off?” the twins asked.
“She did. And what did she say to you pair?”
“We has to stay here and not be worried because Mummy Beckett will send the men home with a flea in their ear. Which we doesn’t understand.”
Sian smiled. “It just means they will feel like you feel when your mummy is really cross.”
“Oh good. They will be very sorry.”
I was just absorbing that when Simeon returned. He had half a dozen brawny lads with him. And four of the hard handed Smith men.
“Security in the pub beefed up. Two will stay here with the family.”
“Right. We’ll leave the staffies here guarding Roz and Allie, but Stan and Ollie come with us.”
“Okay.”
“How hard is it raining?”
“It’s not. The sky is clearing and the moon is coming out.”
“That’s a help then.”
Grandmother spoke quietly in my head. ‘They search for Cherry’s resting place. Their clairvoyant will know she is not there. They will ask where she is.’ This cleared the way for me, I thought.
“Listen up,” I said. “These people have bought a clairvoyant with them.”
Allie nodded. “Yes. They want to steal Cherry’s bones.”
“I know. But she isn’t there. And I’m not prepared to have them stomping in and out of that peaceful place with their entitled ways.”
Roz smiled at me. “Are you going to spank their bottoms?”
“More or less. You two be quiet and good. We won’t be long.”
They smiled at me and nodded.
Ben’s phone chirped again. He listened briefly then showed his teeth in a sharp sort of smile.
“Jed and Finoula and Clancy are waiting for us at the gate of the market garden.”
“Okay. Let’s do this. Are you willing to leave the talking to me?”
They all nodded, and we made our way out into the boot room. We shrugged our way into fleeces and stamped our feet into wellies. Just as my hand touched the back door two small pyjama clad figures appeared behind us.
“Good hunting, Mummy.”

There will be more from Joss, Ben and their friends, courtesy of Jane Jago, next week, or you can catch up with their earlier adventures in Who Put Her In and Who Pulled Her Out.

Dying to be Roman by Jane Jago and E.M. Swift-Hook is a whodunit set in an alternative modern day Britain where the Roman Empire still rules.

As they left their vehicle Julia stopped suddenly.
“You have to understand how I see it, Dai. My thinking is that this is something that could kill more people if we don’t act fast – Britons and Romans both.” Her expression was a taut mix of appeal and demand. “We know that three bodies turned up in the arena and no one saw anything and there was nothing on the external security. The internal surveillance was offline both times and no one seems to know how or why that could come about. The one person who might have had some idea is now dead. To me that says there is something happening here.” She gestured to the Augusta Arena. “That means it would have been a complete waste of time searching that apartment.”
“But what if there is something there that -”
“Then the forensic people will find it. They will be over the place with a pixel by pixel search.”
“But we didn’t even log the murder, that is basic procedure. If my Prefect – “
“I will get Decimus to pull rank and silence her if she gives you any grief. I am sorry if that offends your integrity, but it is the best I can do.”
Dai stared at her, wondering why she couldn’t see how that was so wrong.
“It’s not about that – it’s not even about my integrity. It’s about the fact that all this – this magic, can happen for a Roman. But if it was only those poor bastards from the Game who had been killed, regular Britons, there would be no magic, and odds are it’d be filed as unsolved when my resource allocation and timesheet expired on it.”
She frowned for a moment then seemed to look at him as if she had just seen something there she had missed before.
“Dai, I didn’t make the rules and I don’t like them any more than you do. If you think I’m only in this to find out who killed some Senator’s spoiled brat, then you are missing the point. If I can use my ‘magic’ for your Britons too, then I’m going to do so. It’s called justice and that happens to be something I care about a lot.”
She did not wait to see his reaction and despite her shorter stride he didn’t catch up with her again until they went up the steps to the dramatic portico that fronted the building. Dai scanned the area for the security, both static and mobile, he had seen on the plans.
“I want to talk to their security guy again,” he said as the door slid open and a cool breeze washed over them from the perfectly conditioned air inside. Julia glanced up at him.
“Your report said he had no idea how it had happened,” she said. “And your own IT people reported it had been an internal virus. What more is there to ask? You changed your mind and think he might have done something?”
“I don’t think he had anything to do with it. But I think he might know who did – just not that he knows it. Or at least not yet.”
Julia’s face resolved from a frown into a smile.
“I would like to say that makes sense, but it doesn’t. So maybe we should talk to him after all.”
Torkel Njord was typical of his people. He was big boned, blond and bearded. He also had an attitude problem that Dai had found to be typical of his people too. It was easy enough to understand. The Gens Germanicus had been the last part of the continent to be drawn into the Roman Empire. The original resistance from the early Germanic tribes had coalesced in the far north where they succeeded in maintaining their ferocious independence until a little over a hundred years ago when, the rest of the world comfortably subdued, the then Emperor Aurelius Galerius Valerius Pravus had reneged on a centuries-old treaty and invaded. The northern lands had been created a new diocese, broken up into provinces and placed under the Prefecture of Gaul.
Which was no doubt why Torkel, who had been very willing to co-operate with Dai and Bryn, took one look at Julia and clammed up.
“The domina is welcome to look at my records. She will find they are all in order,” he said when she asked.
“The records are not of so much interest as your thoughts,” Julia told him and was rewarded by a glacial stare.
“I am sure my thoughts could never be anything of value to the most noble domina.”
“You might be surprised, I find most people very interesting and valuable.”
“If the domina says so.”

Part VIII will be here next week. If you can’t wait to find what happens next you can snag the full novella here.

Though the biggers never see it, there is much going on in their own backyard where the ‘nomes make their home…

The gnomes were fascinated. What could the biggers be up to now? The builders arrived early one morning, they scrabbled and scrooged and poured liquid rock into a hole in the lawn. They set poles in the stuff and built an open-sided house in which they put a water pond. It was high and tall, and it made steam and bubbles.
There’s always one idiot around, and Harvey Gnome was it. He jumped into the foaming wetness, promptly sinking. When they dragged him out all his paint had come off and he stood naked and screaming in the moonlight.

Jane Jago

A dictionary for the bemused by Jane Jago…

a slong (noun) – Gaelic drinking song with obscene gestures

Anywa (proper noun) – less known sister of Pocahontas who kicked a certain young British officer in the balls when he tried it on with her

beeter (noun) – person who hits vegetables

blof (noun) – pre blog status when trying to construct witticisms

chater (noun) – to converse about one’s unfaithful spouse

earleir (noun) – aristocratic listening device

inc ase (noun) – tattoo on butt cheek

nagel (noun) – celestial being much given to homilies and finger wagging

naybe (noun) – the act of not being

poliete (noun) – parrot food

questoon (noun) odd-shaped vegetable of dubious origin

scharacteromeone (noun) – garden gnome with attitude (bad)

shhabby (adjective) – of cats having slightly moth-eaten looking fur

teh – (noun) strange brown beverage made with ground leaves and hot water

thnakees (noun) – very low slung scrotum

udnerstand (noun) – wobbly milking stool

winteractith – (noun) pagan festival including naked snow fights and much raucous singing

Disclaimer: all these words are genuine typos defined by Jane Jago. The source of each is withheld to protect the guilty.

Telling an entire story in just one hundred words…

“It must be a terrible place to live,” Oliver observed as the documentary went on, “I mean, having a social score based on who you’re friends with and what you buy, determining whether you can get a train ticket.”

Krista nodded agreement and finished leaving a bad rating for the delivery driver. He’d been five minutes late. Some pathetic excuse about traffic. “Just glad we live in the free West.” Her fit-watch vibrated and she sighed. “I’ll have to leave you to it. If I don’t get enough steps done today they’ll cancel my health insurance – or quadruple the price.”

E.M. Swift-Hook

Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV takes time from his immensely important life to proffer profound advice to those who still struggle on the aspirational slopes of authorhood…

Dear RWW,

San Francisco, that city by the bay. How the romance of it catches one by the throat, and how its skyline calls to one’s heart. One sits in a tiny bistro where a barista of exquisite coolness looks down her aristocratic nostrils at the assembled company and one sips hazelnut latte and masticates delicate macaroons…

It is one, Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV, author extraordinaire, handsome, debonair, world traveller and man of means.

One arrived in this fine city without a clue of what one was walking into, and now one is thanking the gods who favour the beautiful for their intervention in the homely shape of a gentleman from New York City. Said gentleman awaited one when one alighted at San Francisco International airport. Almost no sooner had one’s delicate tootsies touched American soil than this oddly misshapen gentleman shuffled over and introduced himself. He was, it appears, the attorney of one’s late grandfather and his mission in San Francisco was to guard the interests of yours truly at the hands of Messrs Schuster, Schuster, Abramowitz, Flugelhorn, and Metheringham. He was, he opined in a thick New Jersey accent, pretty sure one had been brought across the Atlantic to be royally stitched up.

One assumes the little man was right. Because he accompanied one like a dark shadow. He read documents, cross-examined one’s pater, abused the stringy tart roundly, and actually threatened to punch one of the Mister Schusters before writing a document which my parent reluctantly signed. It all went a little over one’s head.

However, the outcome seems to have been advantageous to one. Although one had, and still has, very little understanding of either the process or the precise outcome. It sufficeth one to know that one’s income would seem to be guaranteed and that one’s slithering alligator of a father no longer has the means to interfere with the moneys left in trust by one’s grandfather.

Ergo, one sits under the eye of a sneering barista and contemplates the Golden Gate Bridge.

Oh to be wealthy
In a San Francisco bar
Beautifully rich

A bientot.

Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV

You can find more of IVy’s profound advice in How To Start Writing A Book courtesy of E.M. Swift-Hook and Jane Jago.

He said. If you argue I’ll leave you here
And I’ve got the map and the car
I looked in his eyes and I sat down
He left but he can’t go far
He crashed through the undergrowth in his boots
Angry as he could be
I looked at the ground and tried not to laugh
I’ve got the bloody car key

©️jane jago 2024

Since Ben and Joss Beckett took over The Fair Maid and Falcon, they have had to deal with ghosts, gangsters and well dodgy goings-on. Despite that they have their own family of twin daughters and dogs, and a fabulous ‘found family’ of friends.

Once I was sure he’d gone I allowed myself to wilt against the hard wall of Ben’s chest.
“Sheesh that was weird.”
“It was. Who the heck was that?”
“I dunno. But I do know he’s a person to be reckoned with. The hardest of the hard at a guess. But he knelt down in the sodden grass in the orchard and I guess he really did pray.”
Ben looked down at me and I could feel him thinking, he kissed the top of my head.
“Are you thinking about the colour orange?” He asked.
“I am. Though I’d like confirmation if we could get it. I just don’t see how.”
He fiddled with his phone and showed me the screen. Cormac’s ice-eyed face looked at me.
“How’d you get that?”
“I didn’t. Ellen stuck her phone out of the back corridor and took a burst of shots.”
“Sheesh. She’s got bottle, though I’m not sure she ought to have done that.”
“Me neither. I told her off, but she laughed at me. Said he was too busy drowning in your eyes to notice a phone at floor level.”
“Drowning in my eyes? What the actual fuck?”
“It’s a truth. You have the clearest, calmest eyes, and they feel like cool river water when you look into them.”
I could feel myself frowning and he rubbed his thumb across my forehead.
“Never mind, love.”
I gave him a brisk hug. “Okay. I’m just going to file that one under Joss Bennett mythology and not pick at it. Meanwhile will you please send that image to Mark. And tell him I don’t want to know who our visitor was.”
“I can do that. If you will go home for an hour and have a sandwich and a bit of respite.”
“I can do that.” I saluted him and skipped off before he could exact vengeance.
It was still absolutely pissing down, although the electrical storm had passed over. I slid my arms into the sleeves of my yellow jacket and rammed the matching sou’wester firmly onto my head.
“C’mon dogs. Let’s go see what Roz and Allie are up to.”
We ran across the garden and more or less erupted into the kitchen/family room that was one of the delights of my heart. Sian and the twins sat at one end of the big, oak table. Sian was reading aloud and I recognised ‘The Secret Garden’, which sweet old-fashioned fantasy seemed ideal for such a dramatic day. The girls were absolutely entranced sitting as quiet as mice as the story drew them into Misselthwaite Manor and its secrets.
I signalled for Sian to carry on reading and hung my wet stuff in the boot room. Stan and Ollie made the staffies shove over so they too could lay beside the fire, while I made myself a sandwich. I sat at the other end of the table and ate my late lunch with a good appetite. Sian finished a chapter and gently closed the book.
“More tomorrow,” she said.
The twins nodded and Roz came over to lean on my leg.
“The bad man won’t be coming back. Grandmother said you satisfied his curiosity and gave ease to his troubled soul.”
“I never knew I’d done that. All I did was tell him the truth and let him see where you two found Cherry.”
Allie came to my other side. “Mis Finoula telled me one time that you are a person who does the right thing for its own sake. And that you don’t do things for praise or profit.”
“Well. She’s maybe partly right. But I do run the pub for profit.”
“We know that. Daddy Beckett explained us about how everyone relies on the pub making the money to pay their bills.”
Allie yawned enormously. “If we wasn’t nearly seven years old we could maybe take a nap.”
Sian chuckled. “How old is your Uncle Neil?”
“Eleven-ty fifteen,” Roz chortled.
“So he is. And he still has afternoon naps.”
“He does?”
“Yes. So there’s absolutely no reason why you pair shouldn’t have a rest. I’ll tuck you in.”
She ushered them bed-wards and I enjoyed a rare moment of nothing at all to do.
When Sian returned I was sitting having a bit of a think. She grinned at me.
“There’s a rarity. Joss relaxing.”
“I think the latest ‘bad man’ wiped me out a bit.”
She looked quizzical.
“He was even more beautifully tailored than Mark, and he had the coldest most reptilian eyes it has ever been my misfortune to look into. But. He dressed himself in that ratty old parka from the dog bed by the back door and a pair of wholly repulsive wellies and followed me into the orchard. When I showed him the tree he knelt in the mud and actually prayed. It was all too surreal.”
Sian smiled wisely. “Them boots belong to Jack Ellis and he wears them when he’s clearing out the slurry pits. Left them here last night because Brenda wouldn’t get in the Land Rover with them.”
“How did you?”
“Mum called me, because she needed to laugh.” Then she stood sword straight in front of me with her hands behind her back. “I’m afraid I overstepped.”
“How’s that, love?”
“The dog leads.”
I laughed. “No. It was a bit surprising, but nothing to be bothered about.”
“Thanks Joss. Thing is it was their idea.”
I thought about that for ten seconds then laughed.
“Why am I not surprised? Tell me all.”
She relaxed. “They wanted to go outside and see the storm. I said fine, but you have to promise me you will stay on the flagstones and under the roof. But they couldn’t promise so I said no outside then. They went into one of their huddles and disappeared. They came back with Bud and Lew’s leads. They each hitched a lead onto the other’s jeans then handed the leads to me. ‘Now we can’t be bad,’ they said. I went along with it, only now I’m thinking perhaps I shouldn’t have.”
I stood up and hugged her. “I’d a done precisely the same. One thing being these two’s mother has taught me is that the unconventional is often the only way to deal with them.”
Her smile was as bright as the sky was dark.
My phone made a peculiar noise before telling me Ben wanted a word. I poked the screen.
“What is your pleasure my beloved. But before you reply you should perhaps take note that Sian is standing beside me.”
He blew me a raspberry. “Look. There’s nothing over here that needs your attention. Morgan has the office, with help from Ellen. Stella’s on duty for afternoon tea and expecting to be bored. And there’s a full brigade on for tonight.”
“That’s all sense. Does it make me redundant?”
He chuckled. “Yup. Unless you feel like making supper for the family. About half nine maybe?”
“Family?”
“Me, You, the monsters, Stella, Neil, Ellen, Sian, Morgan and Simeon.”
“I could do that. But maybe not the twins. Nine thirty’s a bit late for them to eat.”
“That’s true. Will you explain to them?”
“I will. See what’s what. They are having an afternoon nap so maybe they can stay up.”
“It’d be nice.”
He ended the call and I looked at Sian. “If I give you a basket will you go over to the kitchen and steal some stuff?”
“If you give me a list as well.”
“I will.”
She scurried off and I got started. When she returned, staggering theatrically, I relieved her of her load and she scrubbed up. We worked together in amiable accord until everything was as prepared as it could be. I slid a huge chicken and red wine casserole into the oven while Sian finished loading the dishwasher. She set it going and grinned at me.
“I always like cooking here with you.”
“And I with you.”
We moved over to where the wood burner simmered away gently and sat chatting quietly as the wind and rain howled around the sturdy walls.

There will be more from Joss, Ben and their friends, courtesy of Jane Jago, next week, or you can catch up with their earlier adventures in Who Put Her In and Who Pulled Her Out.

Dying to be Roman by Jane Jago and E.M. Swift-Hook is a whodunit set in an alternative modern day Britain where the Roman Empire still rules.

Annia Belonia Flavia was not at her place of work and it took a combination of Dai’s bardic charm and Julia’s patrician authority to learn her home address from her subadiuva, a woman who seemed either fiercely protective of her boss or frankly terrified of her. Dai found it hard to be sure which.
Flavia lived in a very posh apartment in one of the new towering insulae built on the edge of the Tamesis. They were loosely modelled on the tenements of Rome in their outer appearance, but the irony was that these were top class luxury all the way. Even the floors of the public areas had the soothing warmth of a built-in hypocaust. They were tiled with mosaics showing the Divine Diocletian defeating the rebellious self-proclaimed Restitutor Britanniae in the failed Carausian Revolt. It was a popular meme in all Britannia, especially here in Londinium where the final hope of British independence had fallen forever with the dying bodies of those last loyal men. The place it supposedly happened, was now marked by a tall pillar,  guarded by stone lions and topped by the Roman hero of the hour, Constantius.
Not that the bastard had even been there, but like all the Romans Dai had ever met, he was probably very good at taking the credit and burying the name of whichever Gallic auxiliary had actually achieved the victory for him.
The lift slid silently upwards and Dai wondered how much it must cost to live in this kind of place. Certainly far more than his humble salary. Not that he would have the option to live here even if the salary he earned ever reached that kind of level. He had seen the stone eagle above the main entrance, its wings outstretched to embrace the chosen few and the letters ‘SPQR’ clutched in its grasping talons. This was a place where only Citizens could live. Regular Britons, such as himself, were confined to the huddled suburbs of Londinium where concrete leviathans provided hutch-sized boxes for people to live in. Those who were licensed to do so, of course, which meant having a job that qualified as ‘essential’.
The door to Flavia’s apartment was open. Not so surprising when it had a foot lying over the threshold – bare, with toenails carefully manicured and painted. The foot was still attached to its owner, who lay with her bare buttocks on the face of the Divine Diocletian that was mosaiced into the floor. Dai could tell it had to be Diocletian by the inevitable wreath and halo which surrounded the image. It was obvious Flavia was quite dead. It was not at all obvious what had caused that. She was completely naked and her hair was in damp curls around her face, which wore a look of surprise.
Dai reached for his identipad so he could officially confirm her identity and log the death, but Julia’s small hand gripped his arm.
“No. We’ll leave that for the forensic team. I want to get back to the arena. If she has been killed to silence her, the sooner we can find out why, what she was being silenced for the better. Whoever did this is starting to panic.”
Dai opened his mouth to object, then closed it again. It was not his call to make. Julia had done such a good job of making him feel like a partner he had almost forgotten she was the one holding the nerve whip. He straightened up and forced a smile.
“Of course, domina. Whatever you say.”
Julia did not even seem to notice, she was speaking rapidly into her wrist phone to report the murder and call in the necessary forensic team. Before she finished she was leaving the apartment, still snapping brusque details as she went.
Dai stood beside her in the lift and felt his stomach plunge lower than the ground floor.
“I’m sorry.”
He looked down to see her small face, so like a child looking up at him.
“You have nothing to apologise for, domina.”
“Clearly I do or you would not be calling me that.” She studied his face for a moment then looked away. “I have to make executive decisions, Dai – and you may think you know this crime better than me, but this is a Roman crime, not a British one. I know the signs.”
Dai had no idea how to answer that, and the rest of their journey back to the Augusta Arena took place in a tense silence.

Part VII will be here next week. If you can’t wait to find what happens next you can snag the full novella here.

Though the biggers never see it, there is much going on in their own backyard where the ‘nomes make their home…

It was getting towards spring and the gnomes watched with mild interest as the biggers came out of the brick place and started their annual frantic scrabble in the soil.
“Why’d they do that stuff?” Camille was watching a female bigger on her hands and knees in a puddle poking what looked like flower bulbs into holes is the cold sodden earth.
“Do what?”
“Kill flowers. I mean, surely they know Mother is still cold and dormant. And that female is planting them bulbs downside up.”
Bertha looked over her spectacles. “It’s a bigger Camille, they truly don’t know nothing.”

Jane Jago