The Clutter Corpse

by Simon Brett

  The paperwork was fiddly, and there was a lot of waiting around depots while the right person to deal with the return of goods was found. Despite my having agreed terms on the phone with most of them, there was still plenty of haggling to be done. Even though none of the boxes had been opened, some of the companies were unwilling to give full refunds on styles bought over two years before. I certainly earned my daily rate.

  But the great bonus of the expeditions was the opportunity it gave me to spend time with Dodge. Though he still never looked me in the eye, those hours spent in the Tipper forged a bond between us. By the time the last return had been made, I felt I had someone in my life who would support me in any crisis.

  At one point on that drive back, I observed, ‘Well, I have the satisfaction of a job well done, but I hope all of the things I take on aren’t as boring as this one.’

  Dodge grinned. ‘The two main elements of life are boredom and terror. Of those, boredom is preferable.’

  By then, knowing his love of quotations, I asked, ‘Who said that?’

  ‘I did,’ Dodge replied.

  That evening, when I got home, before I started cooking supper for Jools and Ben, I printed up my bill for Bruce Tallis. I had taken delivery of some quite swish-looking SpaceWoman invoice forms, and I relished making one out to my first client who wasn’t a personal friend. It was proudly numbered ‘0001’. I wondered whether I’d ever get to ‘1000’.

  I billed for four full days’ work and included the costs of hiring transport. I would pay Dodge direct.

  I looked at the completed invoice with satisfaction and emailed it off to Bruce Tallis.

  Slowly paid bills – or unpaid bills – were, I had been warned, a regular feature in the life of a small business. Advice varied as to how long was the proper time to wait before chasing payment. But most authorities seemed to agree that a polite email request after a month was entirely legitimate. So, I sent one to Bruce Tallis. It elicited no response. A week later I sent another. Still nothing.

  By then I needed the money. I had kept going with one or two minor bookings, but nothing on the scale of what I now thought of as the ‘Old Stables job’.

  I decided I couldn’t wait any longer. I didn’t relish what I had to do, but I knew it was part of the job and something I must inure myself to. I dialled Bruce Tallis’s mobile number.

  He answered straight away.

  ‘Good morning. This is Ellen Curtis of SpaceWoman.’ I kept my voice deliberately even. I was determined to avoid the excesses of anger and frailty.

  ‘Oh, is it?’ he snapped back. ‘Well, I’m surprised you have the nerve to ring me.’

  ‘I have the nerve to ring you because I sent an invoice for my services over a month ago and—’

  ‘Listen! I suggest you get off the phone bloody quickly! I’ve decided it isn’t worth the effort of taking you to court, but if you continue to bug me, I might change my mind!’

  ‘Take me to court? What on earth are you—?’

  ‘In fact, when I first realized what you’d done, I was all set to bring in the lawyers, but Kerry persuaded me not to. So, the fact that you’re still walking round a free woman is down to the generosity of my daughter.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ I was finding it increasingly difficult to keep my voice expressionless. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘I’m talking about the money that was refunded from the clothes purchases made by my wife.’

  ‘That was all accounted for and paid back into the bank account whose details Kerry gave me. Your wife’s account, I assume.’

  ‘My wife makes purchases on my account.’ Once again, he was boasting about the extent of his wealth. ‘I give her complete freedom to use my gold card.’

  ‘Very well then. The money was paid back into your account.’

  ‘Except it wasn’t.’

  ‘What are you saying?’

  ‘I am saying that the money was not paid into my account. You paid it into your account.’

  ‘But that’s ridiculous. I—’

  ‘So, I think you’ve got a bloody nerve to come whingeing about your crappy invoice when you’ve taken me for thousands of pounds.’

  No attempt to keep my voice even now. ‘I have not!’ I bellowed.

  Bruce Tallis ended the call.

  Again, Kerry took a long time to answer her mobile. Again, she sounded kind of spaced out. I told her quickly and angrily about the exchange I’d just had with her father.

  ‘Well, aren’t you going to say thank you?’ she asked.

  ‘“Thank you”? To you? What on earth for?’

  ‘I persuaded Daddy not to take you to court.’

  ‘There’s no reason I should be in court. A quick check with my bank would show that none of the return money ever entered my account.’

  ‘That’s not what Daddy thinks.’

  ‘Well, “Daddy” is wrong then, isn’t he?’

  ‘Daddy doesn’t like being told he’s wrong.’

  ‘In this case he should be. He’s accusing me of stealing thousands of pounds. That’s a slander against me as a person and against my business.’

  ‘Business? Pretty tinpot business, isn’t it? Hardly the sort that’s going to be able to afford decent lawyers.’

  ‘This needn’t involve lawyers. You just tell your father that I have not stolen any money from him and that all I’m asking for is the agreed payment for my services, as detailed in the invoice which I sent over a month ago.’

  ‘Ooh, I don’t think I can do that,’ said Kerry, annoyingly winsome.

  ‘Why not?’ An idea ‘why not’ was beginning to form in my head. ‘Those bank details you gave me …’ She didn’t respond. ‘If they weren’t for your father’s account … and they sure as hell weren’t for mine … whose account did the money go into?’

  ‘I’ve no idea,’ she said, still playful.

  ‘Unless of course it was yours …?’

  ‘Hard for you to prove that.’

  To my mind that was an admission of guilt. I was furious. ‘If you’ve taken that money and told your father that I took it—’

  ‘Who do you think he’s going to believe – you or me? Listen, I have very generously persuaded him not to pursue you through the courts …’

  ‘It’s not that generous. My innocence could be easily proved, as I said, by just checking my bank account. And the only reason you persuaded him not to sue me is so that he doesn’t find out where the money has actually gone.’

  ‘But if Daddy thought someone was accusing me of stealing, have you any idea of the kind of lawyers he could call on to sue you? And, if you think I’d have been stupid enough to put the return money into my own usual personal account, you underestimate my intelligence. It’d take a long time to find out where the money actually went. Indeed, the account might never be found.’

  There was no question about it now. Kerry Tallis was admitting she had stolen the return money. But she continued, with infuriating confidence, ‘And while that search is going on, the charges against you would still be in place. Daddy’s lawyers could keep that going for a long time. And do you have the financial resources to set up your own defence team against them?’

  She knew I didn’t. Though Kerry had admitted to me that she’d stolen from her father, there was nothing I could do to see justice done. I wasn’t too worried about the reputational damage the situation might have caused me, because I knew she’d encourage him to keep quiet about the whole business, but it looked as if there would be no chance of my getting my invoice paid. And that was a very bad outcome for one of the first major jobs to be undertaken by SpaceWoman.

  Which was why any mention of the name ‘Kerry Tallis’ always left a sour taste in my mouth.

  NINE

  ‘The thing I could never understand,’ I said to Dodge that day I went to see him after Kerry’s death, ‘was why she stole from her father. Taking all the money from Jeanette’s returned clothes. From what I saw of
the two of them, Bruce spoiled her rotten, gave her everything she asked for. Why would she need more money?’

  ‘Ah,’ said Dodge, ‘I might be able to explain that.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘The fact is that Kerry had a serious heroin habit.’

  ‘What? Why didn’t you ever mention this before?’

  ‘I didn’t know before. You know, back when you first met her, I didn’t know anything about the family.’

  ‘But do you think she was using heroin back then?’

  He shrugged. ‘Would explain why she needed to steal from her father.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose it would.’ I thought back to the tall, elegant, beautifully spoken girl I’d seen at Lorimers. Not the typical image of a heroin addict. Then I thought of the emaciated, tattooed, ravaged corpse I’d found in Portsmouth. Those were the kind of changes drug use could wreak on a human body.

  ‘How do you know she’s a user, Dodge?’

  He looked even shiftier than usual. ‘It’s not really something I should talk about,’ he mumbled.

  ‘Why not?’ The thought came to me suddenly. ‘Are you saying that you know her because you have the same problem?’

  ‘Had the same problem, Ellen, had the same problem.’

  Was this the explanation for the breakdown he had talked so little about? It was not the moment to probe. ‘So, what do you know about Kerry’s problem?’

  Dodge looked even more uneasy than usual.

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘It’s just … an issue of confidentiality.’

  I was ahead of him, my mind making quick connections. ‘I think I know what you’re talking about. The charity work you do … it’s with drug users, isn’t it?’

  He nodded in a way that was almost shamefaced. ‘It’s called “ReProgramme”. In Portsmouth,’ he said.

  ‘That’s where you’ve come across Kerry recently?’

  Again, a small nod.

  ‘And, obviously, there’s an issue of confidentiality there?’ Of course. As I had insisted on from the start in my own business … I went on, ‘What’s said in the room where you meet stays in the room where you meet?’

  ‘Exactly. The users wouldn’t come if they thought we were going to blab about their problems to all and sundry.’

  ‘I fully understand that, Dodge.’

  ‘Good.’ He seemed relieved.

  ‘But the circumstances change if someone dies, don’t they?’

  ‘I’m not sure.’

  ‘Kerry Tallis is dead. Almost definitely murdered. Talking about her drug use can’t do her any more harm, can it?’ Again, he looked uncertain. ‘Dodge, there’s going to be a murder investigation. It won’t take the police long to find out about her drug use and come to the clinic she’s been attending to—’

  ‘ReProgramme’s not really a clinic. It’s more a drop-in centre. We run regular courses for users.’

  ‘Whatever it is, the police are going to be round there pretty damned soon, aren’t they?’

  ‘I suppose so.’ He was silent for a moment. ‘Do you want a drink?’

  ‘I’ve never refused your nettle tea, have I?’

  It was quite a while since I’d been inside Dodge’s living quarters. The only difference I noted was that there were now two chairs, both from his own pallet designs. Whether this was a sign of his becoming more sociable, even having a partner, or just in response to my earlier phone call, I didn’t know. And I knew better than to ask.

  While the kettle boiled, Dodge told me about the charity he volunteered for. It wasn’t funded by the social services, but it worked closely with them. A town like Portsmouth is bound to have major drug problems, and it too had suffered from government funding cuts.

  ‘I go to ReProgramme a couple of days a week,’ he said, continuing with disarming honesty, ‘I know how easy it is to get into a state of dependency … and how difficult it is to get out of it. So, I … well … do what I can.’

  ‘And who are the clients?’

  He spread his hands wide. ‘You name them, they’re there. Every addict has a different story. Getting into the wrong company, being in care, gang culture, picking up bad habits in prison – you name it.’

  ‘Hardly the sort of background Kerry Tallis came from,’ I said, as he crossed to infuse the nettle tea.

  ‘Addiction is wonderfully undiscriminating, Ellen. Doesn’t matter what your background is, it can still catch you. Look at me – nice middle-class boy, university education, city high-flyer. People would say that drugs ruined my life.’ He was silent for a moment. ‘Though I’m more of the view that they made my life. Getting off them did, anyway.’

  Again, I didn’t ask for any elaboration. He passed me my mug. I took a restorative slurp, then asked, ‘And it was at the ReProgramme drop-in centre that you met Kerry again?’

  ‘Yes, but I didn’t know it was her.’

  ‘You did only meet very briefly that time at Lorimers.’

  ‘If I’d known her for years, I still don’t think I’d have recognized her. Hair dyed black, covered with tattoos and … the state of her body …’

  He didn’t need to say more. I had seen her.

  ‘Calling herself “Celeste” by then. I only found out her real name because I had to check through some paperwork about her hospital admissions.’

  ‘How long had she been going to ReProgramme?’

  ‘Last year, I suppose.’

  ‘And where was she living?’

  He shrugged. ‘Friends’ places. With other druggies. On the streets sometimes.’

  ‘You’d think, with a father who doted on her like that, someone who was so rich … he wouldn’t have let her get into a state like that.’

  ‘I gather he would have supported her, but she cut off contact with him. Went underground.’

  I remembered when I had first met Kerry, the blonde, beautifully groomed Daddy’s girl, perched intimately on the side of his chair. ‘Why would she do that? Why would she cut herself off from him?’

  ‘I’m not absolutely certain, but I think she needed a change of identity.’

  ‘Why, though?’

  ‘To avoid trouble with the police.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘I pieced this together from a lot of conversation with Celeste … Kerry. They were pretty garbled at times, but I think I got the main outline. She made no pretence about her background, she said that she’d come from a rich family. I think she intuited that she and I might have something in common in this respect, so she kind of bonded with me. Other staff at ReProgramme were very keen on that, developing personal empathy with the clients. It offered the chance of being able to get to the root of their problems. Anyway, Celeste said that her father had always been generous, but she didn’t want to push him too far. She didn’t, basically, want him to know about her habit, to let him preserve the image of her as Daddy’s precious little girl. She said she stole some stuff from her father, and jewellery from her stepmother, but she couldn’t take too much or they’d start to get suspicious. But she had a habit that was getting increasingly expensive.’

  ‘So, what did she do?’

  ‘She started stealing from her father’s friends.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘Friends apparently from some golf club he belongs to.’

  ‘The West Sussex. Bruce Tallis is very proud of his membership there.’

  ‘Well, apparently one of his golfing chums surprised Kerry in the act of stealing his wife’s jewellery. And when that came to light, other members also reported thefts, and it seemed pretty likely she was responsible for those too. Kerry’s father apparently offered to reimburse them for what was missing, but the one who’d caught her red-handed was of the old school. Thought she ought to be arrested and go through the courts. That’s when the blonde Kerry Tallis disappeared and a black-haired Celeste started hanging round on the Portsmouth drug scene.’

  ‘Do you know if her father was still in touch with her? Did he somehow
continue to send her money?’

  Dodge shrugged ignorance. ‘Don’t know anything about that.’

  ‘Still, at least the fact that she was going to the ReProgramme meetings meant she was trying to deal with her problem.’

  Dodge twisted his lips in disagreement. ‘Maybe. She was a very irregular attender. She’d come along to the sessions and, you know, when she wasn’t drugged up, she sounded very rational. Cut-glass vowels, like talking to one of the genteel matrons of Chichester. Then she’d start using again and … disappear for weeks, be totally incoherent when she came back.’

  ‘What brought her along to ReProgramme in the first place? Was that just her trying to get her life sorted?’

  ‘Maybe a bit of that. But no, first time a friend brought her. That’s the way it usually happens. Someone gets on the scheme, starts to make some progress, thinks of a mate with the same problem, brings them along. In Celeste’s case, it was a guy called Les.’

  ‘A user?’

  ‘Yes. And dealer in a minor way. Had served time for dealing more than once. Just come out of Gradewell when he first came to ReProgramme. Really seemed to have seen the error of his ways, wanted to make a new start. We had hopes for him, thought he might go through with the training as a counsellor and join the staff. That’s how most of us came in; had some bad experiences, thought maybe we could help people with similar problems.’

  ‘Your tone of voice implies that Les didn’t complete the training.’

  ‘No. It was all going well, but … I think it was meeting Celeste that put paid to his career as a counsellor.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘There was clearly a spark between them, right from the start, first time he brought her along. I think he really thought he could help her and, who knows, if she got clean, perhaps he saw the prospect of some kind of relationship developing.’

  ‘Do you think that was likely?’

  ‘Who can say? A clean Kerry Tallis would have been way out of Les’s league. A using, dependent Celeste would go with anyone.’

  ‘So, what happened?’

  ‘She, I’m afraid, dragged him down to her level. They went off together. Haven’t seen either round ReProgramme for months.’