Eddie pointed to the outside and towards Sanford. “About half a mile along there?”
“The very place,” Joe agreed. “Eight o’clock tomorrow morning. Try not to be late.”
Smiling happily, Eddie left the café and Sheila locked the doors behind him. Joe finished his beaker of tea, moved to the back of the counter and pulled the drawer from the cash register.
“If you two wanna clear off, I’ll count the takings and go to the bank. And I’ll see you both tomorrow morning.”
“And don’t you be late, Joe,” Sheila warned.
“Joe? Late?” Brenda laughed. “Not while Eddie Dobson owes him fifteen quid.”
Chapter Five
Friday morning dawned and for the 6th day running, there was not a cloud in the sky.
Sweating and breathing heavily in the still air, clad only in jeans, trainers, a short sleeved shirt and an ageing, pale green fisherman’s gilet (he insisted he needed the pocket space the garment afforded) Joe walked along Doncaster Road dragging a small suitcase behind him.
He had risen at 5:30, as he did on every other morning. He even helped his nephew Lee, and wife Cheryl to prepare for opening, then leaving them with instructions on running the café during his absence, he had retired to his 1st-floor flat where he showered and changed before setting out.
It was the first time in many a year that Joe had left the café on a business day, and the thought filled him with dread. Lee, a former prop for the Sanford Bulls Rugby League team, was an excellent cook, but notoriously clumsy, and Joe fretted on the number of plates the lad would break over the weekend. Cheryl was better organised, and he could trust her with the financial side of things, but that was a responsibility Joe did not enjoy leaving to anyone else. He did it himself, as a consequence of which on those rare occasions when something went wrong, he was the only one to blame.
As he trudged along Doncaster Road, muttering under his breath at the uncomfortable heat and the oppressive fumes from the queue of traffic built up at the twin sets of lights, he had his first sight of the 70-seater bus from Sanford Coach Services pulling onto the car park at the Miner’s Arms and suddenly, he felt glad to be away from the Lazy Luncheonette. He was looking forward to a few days at the seaside, and even the problem of Nicola Leach’s death, the kind of mystery he loved to get his teeth into, could be pushed to the background until Monday.
Not that he was yet convinced there was mystery. There were questions which needed to be answered about Cora Harrison, but they were secondary to the sudden elation at the prospect of a weekend on the coast.
“It’s too hot,” Brenda complained when he joined her and Sheila on the car park.
The two women were busy checking the members onto the bus as they arrived.
“And in January you were complaining it was too cold,” Joe retorted.
Many people were already on the coach, some settling down to read or sleep, others fiddling with the overhead airflow controls. Bus driver Keith Lowry, the man designated to most of the Sanford 3rd Age Club outings, was busy stacking suitcases into the coach’s underslung storage area. Dressed only in dark, uniform trousers, with a white shirt and navy blue, company tie, he too complained when he slid Joe’s small case into the luggage rack.
“You people never get it right, do you? If it’s not freezing cold, it’s boiling hot.”
“Shut it,” Joe ordered. “Your boss makes a fortune out of us, and you don’t do too badly.”
“I deserve it,” Keith said. “Hauling a bunch of old crumblies like you all over the country.” He delivered his opinion with a broad grin. Tall, tubby and fair haired, Joe guessed him to be in his late thirties or early forties. He had been with Sanford Coach Services for as long as Joe could remember, and to his credit, he knew the roads and routes well, and he knew most of the STAC members like they were his family.
“Are you staying with us in Filey?” Joe asked.
Keith shook his head. “If you’d scheduled another couple of outings on the weekend, I woulda been, but with only the Abba show in Scarborough, the boss reckoned you wouldn’t need a bus on site for the duration.”
Joe frowned. “So how do we get from Filey to Scarborough tomorrow night? The deal was you would take us.”
“He’s sub-contracted it to a local firm out there,” Keith explained. “They’ll pick you up from your hotel Saturday, between six and six thirty, run you to Scarborough and bring you back about half ten, eleven o’clock.” Keith grinned again. “Give you time for a pint after the show.”
Joe clucked. “What makes you think I’ll be able to afford to drink? Do you know how much this gig is costing me personally?”
“Come off it, Joe. You’ll need a cooling beer after watching them Abba sorts. There’s a rumour you have pictures of the blonde all over your bedroom wall.”
“I may have, but this isn’t the real Agnetha. It’s just a look-alike.” Joe moved to the front of the coach, where Sheila and Brenda were studying the clipboard on which was a list of members expected. “How are we doing?”
“About half a dozen to come,” Sheila replied.
Joe took out his tobacco tin. “I must have time for a last gasp before we set off.” He began to roll a cigarette. “Is your bloke on?”
Sheila glared. “Who do you mean, ‘my bloke’?”
“Eddie Dobson.”
“Eddie,” Sheila snapped, “is not my bloke. He’s a club member like all the others. And yes, he is on.” She handed the clipboard to Brenda and climbed on the coach.
“Well done, Joe,” Brenda said. “That’s got the weekend off to a flying start.”
Joe licked the gummed edge of the cigarette paper and completed the smoke. “Too bloody touchy. The pair of you.”
“You know how sensitive Sheila can be. She’s never bothered with any man since Peter died.” Brenda narrowed a quizzical gaze on him. “Which makes me wonder what you might have been up to since Alison left.”
Joe tucked the thin tube in his mouth, and lit it. Hissing out a lungful of smoke, he said, “And unlike Sheila, I won’t snap at you. I’ll just tell you to mind your own bloody business.”
Brenda shuffled herself intimately close to him and grinned. “Go on, Joe. You can tell me. I’m broad-minded.”
“So I’ve heard. Now back off, you’re crowding me.” His mobile sounded for attention. Taking it from his pocket and checking the menu, he readunknown number. “This’ll be Gemma,” he said, and made the connection.
“Uncle Joe? It’s Gemma.”
Joe silently congratulated himself on his perspicacity and took another drag on his cigarette. “Hi, sugar, what’s up?”
“Just thought I’d let you know, we got the report back from our acoustics boys this morning. The 999 call? They agree with your man. Cora Harrison, or whatever her name might be, was inside a vehicle and the engine was a diesel, with some mechanical problems, which don’t make any sense to me.”
“Piston slap?” Joe asked.
“That’s exactly what it says here,” Gemma congratulated him. “It’s still means nothing to me. Anyway, from the balance of various sounds, the sound engineers judged that the vehicle was an older one with less sound insulation than more modern cars and vans. They also suggest it sounds like a van or, as you said, a Land Rover.”
Joe beamed a smile, causing Brenda’s eyebrows to rise. “I told you. Always listen to your Uncle Joe.”
“It still doesn’t mean she had anything to do with the accident,” Gemma insisted. “That would be very difficult to prove without witnesses. And it still doesn’t give us a lead on whether she gave us a false name or who she really was if she did.”
“Very suggestive, though, isn’t it? If I were you, I’d look into Nicola and her activities. That’s where you’ll find the answers. Listen, Gemma. We’re on our way to Filey in a few minutes, so I’ll catch up with you on Monday afternoon.”
“Hokey-cokey. Have a nice weekend.”
Joe slipped the mobil
e back in his pocket and pulled on his cigarette again. “See,” he beamed at Brenda, “Harry at Broadbent got it dead right.”
Five minutes later, with Les Tanner and Sylvia Goodson the last to arrive and board the bus, Brenda joined Sheila on the front seats, Keith got behind the wheel, Joe took the jump seat across the aisle from the driver, and to a muted cheer from the passengers, the coach pulled out into the heavy, rush hour traffic of Doncaster Road.
Joe half turned to look at his two companions. “Pass me the mike, please Sheila.”
Her face still prim and irritated, she reached up, detached the PA microphone from its clip and handed it down to him. Joe switched it on, tapped the head to ensure it was working and then began to speak.
“Morning, people. We’re a minute or two ahead of schedule, but the traffic will probably eat that up long before we get to Filey. We’re due at the Beachside Hotel about ten o’clock, or maybe a little earlier. When we get there, the drill is as it always is. Check in, drop your bags in the room and the day is yours. Don’t forget, I’ve arranged with the hotel management for us to hold a sixties disco tonight in their bar. We start about eight thirty. Tomorrow, your time is your own, but the bus will leave the Beachside for Scarborough at about half past six. The show begins at eight. Keith tells me there’ll be a little time after the show for a drink before we go back to Filey. Then on Sunday, you have all day to yourself and we’re running aseventies disco in the Beachside. We have to check out of the Beachside before ten on Monday morning and we leave Filey at noon.”
“What about tickets for the Abba show, Murray?” Les Tanner called out.
“Sheila, Brenda and I have them,” Joe replied. “We’ll issue them on the bus from Filey tomorrow evening.”
“Do you not think we’re capable of looking after them ourselves?” Tanner goaded him.
“Considering you work at the Town Hall, I wouldn’t think you’re capable of looking after a receipt for my laundry.”
Someone laughed and Tanner turned his vexation on them, allowing Joe to return to his ad-hoc announcement.
“Sheila and Brenda will be passing out printed itineraries when we get on the motorway away from this stop-start traffic. Just a reminder to you all. None of this is compulsory, but you’ve paid for it, so it’s all up to you.” He switched the microphone off and handed it to Sheila, who clipped it back in place. “You got the itineraries?”
Sheila patted a document folder on her lap. “They’re in here.” She had put aside her irritation with him. “What did Gemma have to say about Nicola?”
“Not much,” Joe replied. “Just that Harry was right about the vehicle.”
“And you still think this Harrison woman was involved in the accident?”
Sitting down again, fastening his seat belt, Joe turned his legs to the side so he could look at the two women as he spoke. “All I’m saying is it’s suspicious and it should be investigated. If I hadn’t piped up over this, they’d have chalked it down as a hit and run and investigated it half-heartedly, as manpower permitted. I’ve given Gemma grounds for looking deeper into it.”
“You’re talking nonsense,” Brenda insisted. “They don’t have a clue who this woman really is, do they?”
“No, but there are ways and means of finding out,” Joe insisted.
“Name one,” Brenda said.
“CCTV,” Joe retorted quick as a flash. “This is the Big Brother age, Brenda. There are cameras all over Sanford. All they have to do is check the footage of those cameras the Land Rover might have passed after it hit Nicola, and see whether there aretwo Land Rovers, or a Land Rover and a van.”
Brenda looked to Sheila for support. “Will they do that?”
“Well, they might,” Sheila agreed. “Peter was an inspector in the traffic division, you know, and they treat hit and run deaths as manslaughter unless there’s evidence to indicate otherwise. Joe has opened up a potential can of worms, and it’s possible that they’ll go to a lot more trouble on the off chance that it may be murder. It would be up to the Superintendent in charge at Sanford, but he would probably need more than the theories Joe is putting forward.” She gave the matter some consideration as Keith turned the bus onto the M62, heading East. “I think they may look into Nicola’s, er, love life and see if there is any possible motive. It’s all a bit thin.”
Brenda laughed. “If they look into her love life, it won’t be thin. Her bed-hopping would make War and Peace look like a Betterware brochure.”
Sheila opened the document folder and took out the wad of itineraries. “Why did this witness tell them it was a Land Rover, Joe? Surely if she was involved and prepared to lie about her name, she would have lied about that, too.”
“You’re forgetting the bit of the bull bars that young Vinny and his mate picked up near the scene of the accident. It was a four-by-four. Remember?”
Passing about half the sheets to Brenda, Sheila said, “I don’t mean that. I mean how can you say that she was involved?”
Joe shrugged. “We won’t know until they can track her down.”
Brenda’s face became slightly more serious. “I can point to one of Nicola’s men.”
“You can? Who?” Joe demanded.
Brenda unclipped her seat belt as the coach accelerated along the motorway. Standing up, the thin stack of itineraries in her hand, she said, “Eddie Dobson.”
***
At 9:45, after manoeuvring his vehicle through the narrow, tortuous streets of Filey, Keith finally pulled up outside the gates of the Beachside Hotel.
It was a misnomer. Situated at the far end of The Crescent, the place was actually a hundred yards or more from the sands. For anyone coming out of its gates and crossing the road, there was a stepped path that ran down the steep hill to the promenade, and even then the beach was a good 20 feet lower down.
A four-storey, white-fronted building, built sometime in the 1920s or 30s, its sheer size made it stand out amongst the various hotels and holiday apartments in the immediate vicinity. Despite its distance from the sands, the front terrace, immediately outside the dining room and lounge bar, granted magnificent views across the calm waters of Filey Bay from the Brigg in the north to Speeton Point in the south. It had an instant, calming effect on Joe and, he noticed, most of his fellow travellers. Julia and Alec Staines sat on the low, white painted walls, taking the sun and watching Keith pass Eddie Dobson’s single suitcase to its owner. George Robson, Owen Frickley and Cyril Peck were chatting near the gates, probably weighing up which pub they would tackle first, and while he rolled a cigarette, Joe basked in the sunshine and serenity.
But something was nagging at him. Something, he knew, was not quite right.
Les Tanner, complimentary for once, interrupted his train of thought. Collecting his suitcase from Keith, he said, “A fine place, Murray. An improvement on your usual cock-ups.”
“How did you make Captain in the army?” Joe asked. “Were you promoted on the Peter Principle?”
Tanner turned and walked stiffly away to join his lady friend, Sylvia.
“Berk,” Joe commented after the Captain’s departing back.
“Les annoying you again, is he, Joe?” Brenda asked.
“He’s the only man I know who can get up my nose just by breathing the same air as me.”
“What’s the Peter Principle?” Brenda wanted to know.
“You have someone in middle management who is so inefficient that he’s almost dangerous,” Sheila explained. “He’s difficult to fire, so you promote him even higher where, thanks to the inertia of those below him, he can’t do anymore damage.”
“Similar to me leaving Lee in charge of the Lazy Luncheonette. I’d have to promote him above me to save money.” Joe looked around at the melee of club members crowding the drive. “Excuse me a minute, Brenda. I just need to speak to Eddie Dobson.” Joe ducked and weaved his way through the crowd and caught up with Eddie by the hotel entrance. “Eddie. A word?”
Eddie came o
ut of the throng and off to one side. “What’s up marrer?”
“Coupla things. First, can I remind you, you owe me fifteen pounds?”
Eddie’s face turned beetroot red. “Oh, crikey. I’m sorry, Joe, I forgot all about it.” He dug into his pocket and brought out his wallet. Opening it, he showed it to Joe. There was a single debit card tucked into the slots, and two empty compartments at the rear. “I’ll get to the bank once we’ve checked in, and catch you later in the day.”
“Sure, sure. Long as you don’t leave town.” Joe grinned. “Second thing. I’ve been told that you had a bit of a fling with Nicola Leach.”
Again Eddie blushed. “Well, we went out a time or two. I dain’t knah if you knew her well…”
“In the Biblical sense, no, but I knew of her reputation.”
“Aye, well, we had a bit of thing for a few weeks, but she wasn’t the kind of woman to stick with one man.”
“So you weren’t out with her the other night, at the Foundry Inn?”
Eddie shook his head. “I’m a bit short of readies at the moment, Joe, and I used most of me money for this trip. I never went out on Tuesday.”
“Okay. No problem thanks, Eddie. I’ll catch you later, and don’t forget the fifteen notes. I just like to keep the books straight.”
Watching the queue waiting to get into the hotel, his eyes flashing above the door to a chocolate coloured notice which read,William Pringle, licensed to sell intoxicating liquors for consumption on the premises, then switching to the plaque awarded by theGood Accommodation Guide, the nagging doubt came back to Joe. Was it something missing or something extraneous? Had talking to Eddie helped or hindered?
He never got the opportunity to exchange views with his friends. The check-in process was slow and ponderous and when he received several complaints from his members, Joe approached Sarah Pringle.
The Filey Connection Page 6