Macrae nodded.
“Now if any of these young buggers got wind of what was happening they might think I was a soft touch and go for Molly. Pick her up, hold her somewhere and bargain. And I don’t want that. You know how I feel about Molly.”
“Of course I do. But Artie are you sure? I mean — ”
“I told you. Three specialists. So anyway…let’s not talk about that. Affairs, George. Getting them in order. That’s what I want to talk to you about.”
“Artie, I know what you’re going to say and I — ”
“George, you haven’t a clue what I’m going to say. I wanted to see you to tell you that I don’t want that three thousand. That’s what I wanted to tell you.”
“Artie, that’s not — ”
“Yes it is, George. I know you’re a proud man and I don’t want you to take it amiss. But it’s the way I want it.” He smiled without humour. “Last wishes and all that.”
Macrae felt a surge of emotion that was unfamiliar, uncontrolled feelings of the kind he had last experienced as a boy. He felt inadequate and for a moment hated Artie for making him feel that way. Inadequate…beholden…grateful…sad…
“I know what you’re feeling,” Artie said.
“Do you?”
“’Course I do. But you mustn’t feel too bad. I told you when I lent you the money: three thousand isn’t heavy for me. I’ve got enough…I was going to say to last me out but that’s a joke. But enough to keep Molly in luxury. I’m sorry now we never had any kids. It would have been nice to have kids to leave something to. Anyway, that’s all water under the whatsit. That’s what I wanted to tell you, George. I just want you not to worry. If I thought you was a bent copper then I’d have asked for repayment. But you’re something of a rare species. You give the rest of us something to think about…
He looked at his watch and George saw that his face had gone grey. Till time. Well, not quite but near enough. And after pill time, race time.” He got up. “Good to see you, George. I still think of that ice-cream business. Still gives me a laugh. Don’t forget us. And don’t forget Molly.”
“Christ, Artie…”
“Don’t, George.”
Macrae turned and walked across the lawn, through the house, thanking God Molly wasn’t visible, down the steps and got into the car. Both Eddie and Silver noted his expression and kept their mouths firmly shut.
CHAPTER XIX
Once upon a time there was a gangrel…
What’s a gangrel, missus?
A vagabond.
Oh, yus.
Once upon a time there was a gangrel who walked the lonely roads, and along the rivers, and through the woods…
I love stories…
And his name was Rawley…
That’s my name, missus!
It’s a good name for you. Suits you. Good word too. I love words. Rawley…Jackanory…
In the Forest of Dean the weather had turned colder and clouds coming up from the south-west had darkened the sky. Occasionally there was a short rain-shower that passed over swiftly on a rising wind, causing the trees to clash overhead.
And one day Rawley, the gangrel, came to the Forest of Dean and there he met a princess.
Is that the princess who played with the red rabbit, missus?
Yes it is, and stop calling me missus. You can call me…let’s see…Princess. Yes, you can call me that. Anyway the little princess grew up into a beautiful young woman…
They were in the caravan. She said, “I don’t tell stories for nothing, Rawley Jackanory. Everything has to be paid for.”
He looked anxious. “But I ain’t got money, missus. I mean Princess. Never carry it. Too dangerous. On the road there’s thieves and murderers…”
“And gangrels…”
“And gangrels.”
“And reivers…and ruffians…”
The words made him afraid.
“Oh, yus.”
“Then you must work for your stories.”
She made him collect wood. She watched the bent figure make several trips into the undergrowth. When he had brought in enough she told him to saw it up then split it.
“Beautiful,” he said, looking at the saw. “Ain’t seen a saw like this for years. It’ll spoil on rough work.”
“Use it.”
“And a lovely axe.” He rubbed the blade with his thumb. “My husband loves his tools.”
He sawed up the logs and split them and soon there was a pile against the caravan that would last a week or more. “Now can you tell the story?”
“What story?”
“About Rawley and the little princess.”
“First of all make the fire up. Princesses don’t do work like that.”
He made up the fire and she heated two tins of beef stew which she had bought at the shop in Lexton. He ate his out of the tin with his own spoon. She wasn’t going to give him one of hers. When he’d finished he wiped the spoon on the grass and tucked it carefully away in one of his pockets. All the time he ate he had watched her with his slatey eyes.
“Do you like secrets?” she said.
“Secrets? Oh, yus. And stories.”
She smiled. “All right. I’ve told you one story, now I’ll tell you another…about Jack and his…”
“…brother…”
“No!”
“About Jack and his mother?”
“No!”
“Who then?”
“About the little princess and how she met her prince and how they lived happily ever after.”
“…ever after…”
Again he placed his arms around his body and rocked back and forth.
Once upon a time there was a little princess who grew up to be very beautiful and was loved by everyone. One day she met a young man…a beautiful young man with a gold ring in his ear. He was a carpenter and he carried his carpentry tools wherever he went. But that was only a disguise for she knew he was really a prince. And he said to her if you kiss me on the lips and touch this gold ring in my ear you can have three wishes.
…wishes…
And so she kissed him on the lips and touched the ring in his ear and wished her first wish.
And he said, what is your wish?
And she said, I wish I could be loved by a prince forever and ever.
You are loved by a prince, he said.
For ever and ever?
And he said, There is no such time as forever. Do you want a second wish?
So she kissed him on the lips and touched the ring in his ear and he said, what is your second wish?
And the princess said I have been sick for many years. I want to be well for ever and ever.
And the prince said, you will be well.
For ever and ever?
And he said, There is no such time as forever. Do you want your third wish?
So she kissed him on the lips and touched the ring in his ear and he said, what is your third wish?
And the princess said…she said…my third wish is a very great wish…
What? What did the princess say?
The princess said, I wish someone would kill my father!
Oh God in heaven!
Goater’s tart.
Macrae had said it first and it had stuck in Silver’s mind. Hazy, a product of the movies. If he had been asked to describe her sight unseen it would have been some upmarket whore. Out of Klute perhaps. He would have been wrong.
It was early afternoon when they reached the house in Swiss Cottage, just a short drive from Artie Gorman’s in Gospel Oak.
Here most of the houses had been sub-divided into apartments. But not the house belonging to Goater’s tart. It was tall and elegant and brilliant white with a black front door and a shiny brass knocker.
The woman who came to the door fitted Silver’s expectation perfectly. She was eighteen or nineteen, blonde, and looked like a Swedish tennis player.
“Mrs Spilsbury?”
“No. My name is Inge. Mrs Spilsbu
ry fetches the children from school.”
She spoke languidly, the smoke from her cigarette curled up past her face and in the other hand she held a paperback novel.
Macrae identified himself and Silver and said, “You live here?”
“I am the au pair.”
At that moment a large silver-grey Volvo estate pulled into the driveway and a woman of about twenty-seven, with two small children, got out.
“Here is Mrs Spilsbury,” said Inge.
Silver watched her come towards them. She was of middle height, with a wide face and high cheekbones. She was not as obviously pretty as the au pair but she was attractive. Silver had seen scores of women like Mrs Spilsbury waiting for their offspring outside kindergartens in the ritzier suburbs of London. In the vernacular, she was a sophisticated young mum.
Was this Goater’s tart?
She came towards them, her eyebrows raised like two question marks.
The au pair said, “They are from the police.”
The eyebrows rose further.
Silver thought she looked Slavic but her voice was English and educated.
“Have I been parking on the pavement?” She smiled but her eyes were hooded and her tone was crisp. “Inge, would you take Sarah and Edward, please.”
Inge and the children disappeared into the house.
“Come into the drawing room.”
There was evidence of money everywhere, from the Persian rugs in the oak parquet hall to the pale peach Wilton in the drawing room, the modern teak furniture, the grey-green Chinese silk wall-hangings.
She seated them and said, “Now what can I do for you?” Macrae looked down at his notes. “Mrs Lucy Spilsbury?”
“That does sound ominous.”
Macrae waited.
“Yes, I’m Lucy Spilsbury. What’s all this about?”
Macrae said, “Do you know someone called Lysander Goater.”
For one second she looked disconcerted then the mask slipped back and she said, “Aaah. What about Mr Goater?”
“Is he a friend of yours?” Macrae said, picking his words carefully.
“You might say that.”
“Or a business acquaintance?”
“You might say that too.”
“Well, then you know what we’ve come about.”
“Healey,” Mrs Spilsbury said.
“Robson Healey,” Macrae said.
“I think I knew that something like this might happen sooner or later. Not murder but something unpleasant.”
“It was a chance you took.”
“A chance.”
“What happened?” Macrae said.
She looked towards the door as though to make certain it was closed against listening ears.
“Nothing happened in that sense. It had all happened. I mean — ” For a moment, as she cast her mind back, her brittle exterior seemed to soften and bend.
Silver realised Macrae was taking it too fast. If he pushed her, Mrs Spilsbury would start yelling for her lawyer. He said quickly, “You have a lovely house.”
Silver could feel Macrae’s hostility but ignored it.
Lucy Spilsbury said, “And two lovely children. And I aim to keep them and it. I’m looking for a deal.”
“This isn’t LA Law,” Silver said.
“Isn’t what?” Macrae said, baffled.
“I’m not the assistant DA,” Silver went on. “We don’t do deals.”
“Everybody does deals. The world’s built on deals. That’s something I’ve learned the hard way.”
Macrae said, “What sort of deal?”
“I tell you what happened and you keep me out of it — at this stage anyway — until you make an arrest or it comes to trial. And then we change the situation slightly. Otherwise I ring a lawyer. Now.”
“In what way slightly?” Macrae said. “And why the deal?”
“Why the deal? Because I’d never work again, not for Mr Goater. And I need, Mr Goater. I need the top drawer, not a quickie against the wall down at King’s Cross. You see, before my husband was killed in a crash a couple of years ago we had a good life. All this.” She indicated the house. “He was making a lot of money in the City. I’d never been trained for anything. Then suddenly — bang! The phone rings. They tell me about the smash. Not that he’s dead, you understand, but that he’s been injured. That was to prepare me. I said how bad? And they said very bad. Very, very bad. And then I knew.”
Neither Macrae nor Silver spoke.
They say life stops. Well, it doesn’t. I had to fetch the kids from school, see that they were told and fed and that they bathed and washed behind their ears. That helps, of course. But it doesn’t pay the rent.”
“How did you get on to Goater? A contact magazine?”
“Mr Goater doesn’t advertise. Certainly not in contact magazines. He’s exclusive. No, I knew that there had to be someone like Mr Goater because after I left school one of my friends needed money and she found herself a Mr Goater. That was some years ago, but she knew the route.”
“You could have sold the house,” Macrae said.
“Have you tried selling a house recently? Don’t make me laugh. In this part of London you can hardly see out of your windows for For Sale boards.”
“So you decided on the carriage trade,” Silver said.
Lucy Spilsbury turned and gave him a slightly cynical smile. She had magnificent teeth.
“That’s right,” she said. “The carriage trade. And compared to some boardroom takeovers in the City it’s clean and decent.”
“Who are these people?” Macrae said, unamused.
“Mostly businessmen. Mostly from abroad.”
“I thought they brought blow-up dolls.”
She didn’t bother to comment. “The Japanese are the easiest. They don’t talk much. And they pay on the nail. Most are lonely, far from home, terrified of AIDS. I try to talk to them on their level. Which is more than the average bimbo can offer — and probably their wives as well. By the time I go and see them I’ve read that day’s Financial Times and Wall Street Journal and I know what the markets are doing, what the Hang Seng Index is standing at and the Australian All Ordinaries. In other words, I’ve done my homework.”
“But you don’t chat about the Stock Exchange all the time,” Silver said.
“There was always the “entertainment”.”
“Is that what it’s called these days?” Macrae said.
“It’s what I called it. That’s what they were getting. I don’t pretend otherwise.”
“Tell us about the entertainment at Robson Healey’s house.”
She’d had a call from Goater before lunch on Sunday. She’d been to Healey’s house before. She didn’t particularly like him but didn’t dislike him either.
“What about his proclivities, if any?” Silver asked.
She smiled again, the eyes widening, the teeth showing white and shining, the rather ordinary face transforming itself into something quite different.
“Proclivities,” she said. “What a lovely word. No, he didn’t have any proclivities. I think I was a wife surrogate. We’d usually have a drink. Go out to dinner. Come back to his house. It was civilised.”
“Then the entertainment? Or was that before?”
“No. After dinner.”
“So what about Sunday?”
“I got there around six. I’m not absolutely sure of the time. I rang but no one came to the door. I tried it and it was open. It didn’t surprise me. It had happened before when he was expecting me.
“When he wasn’t in the drawing room I went to the bedroom. He was on the floor. Dead or dying I didn’t know which. I didn’t stay long enough to find out. All I knew was I had to get out of the place.”
Macrae said, “So you ran.”
“Yes, I ran.”
“What were you wearing?”
“A white blouse. Black trousers. Black high-heeled shoes. Not much good for running.”
“And carrying a b
ag,” Silver said.
“It had my make-up in it and a nightgown. He wanted me to stay the night. How did you know about the bag?”
“You were seen,” Silver said.
She looked down at her hands. “I don’t often panic. I don’t even like the word. I don’t like people who get flustered.”
“But that flustered you,” Macrae said.
“I panicked.”
“And then?”
“Drove around for a while and then I came home. There were spots of blood on my blouse. God knows how they got there. I never went up to him. So I cut it up and burnt it. I think I knew…that it was only a matter of time before you gentlemen arrived.”
CHAPTER XX
“She was the one old Lady Hickson saw,” Macrae said. “So that means there must have been someone before her. Someone who came and went while the old girl was asleep. She said she’d dropped off, remember?”
“That’s if you believe Spilsbury, guv’nor.”
“Can’t think why she’d lie. Don’t see any motive, do you, laddie?”
Eddie said, “What number?”
Silver told him and he began to slow down.
“That’s the block over there,” Silver said, pointing to the mansion flats where his parents lived. He had taken the opportunity, while they were in north London, to ask Macrae if he could drop in and tell his mother and father of his changed holiday plans.
The plans had become somewhat truncated, a fact which Zoe did not yet know.
He had wanted to postpone the holiday because of the Healey murder but when he mentioned it Macrae had said, “You haven’t had a holiday for a year. You’re no bloody good to me if you become stale. Anyway, I can get Geddes to help me on this.”
Jack Geddes, a thrusting detective sergeant who’d come out top of his year at the training college, was younger than Silver, and Leo was unhappy at the thought of Geddes stepping into his shoes and working with his boss.
So he had argued with Macrae and the new arrangement was that he would go to the Wye for the weekend and if the investigation hadn’t closed, he’d come back and work on it until it was finished before taking the remainder of his leave. He was not thrilled about the prospect of telling Zoe this.
“There’s always the possibility he started getting rough with her,” Silver said, returning to the Spilsbury-Healey “entertainment”.
Thief Taker (A Macrae and Silver Mystery Book 3) Page 13