by T S Hunter
In a handmade pot stuffed with pens, he found the tiny brass key he was looking for. Opening the desk, he found the contents to be just as neat as the rest of the room.
A pad of personalised notepaper, with Jean’s name and address on top, sat squarely in the centre of the desk. An ornate fountain pen stood in a copper stand behind it. A neat stack of matching envelopes to the left. Russell could imagine Jean sitting here, writing her correspondence.
There were three small drawers on the right-hand side of the desk. Russell opened each one in turn finding nothing too interesting in the bottom two—some old paperclips, a few biro pens, an eraser.
In the top drawer he found a bundle of photographs, wrapped in a folded sheet of paper. He opened the little parcel up and looked at the photographs, laying each one down in turn.
The first few were of Jean as a younger woman, clearly professionally shot—a series of charming black and white headshots, each signed in her delicate hand, but never sent out to her adoring fans.
After the headshots came a collection of photographs from a performance in a club. Jean on stage in each, a full house in front of her, dancing, watching, applauding.
In one, she stood alone in the spotlight, in front of the microphone, eyes closed, singing her heart out. It was hard to reconcile this striking performer with the frail woman they had seen earlier that morning.
Russell turned the photograph over, reading the handwritten inscription on the back: Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club, with Tubby Hayes. 1964. Arguably London’s most famous jazz venue, and Jean had been a star act.
Twenty-odd years later, and it wasn’t just Jean’s career that had faded. He wondered when she had stopped performing. Ron would know.
Russell tucked the photographs away in their paper cover, and was about to slide them back into the drawer when he noticed the corner of another photograph, shoved all the way to the back.
It had been pushed so far in that the edge had caught under the back panel, and Russell had to squeeze his hand into the drawer to get enough purchase to tease it out.
It was a picture of Jean from around the same time as the previous ones, but this time a snapshot, taken causally. Jean, Danny and another woman, smiling for the camera, Danny’s arms draped around both of their shoulders, looking like the cat that got the cream. It had been taken on the steps outside this house, the colours all fading into dull, opaque versions of themselves.
Russell turned the photograph over. In faint pencil on the back it said: Moving Day! Jean, Dan and Violet at Cumberland Terrace.
So that was Jean’s sister Violet? They didn’t look much alike. Jean’s lush golden curls, glamorous dress hugging her shapely figure, soft face, dancing eyes and warm smile were all entirely opposite to her sister’s features.
Violet was at least a foot taller, with shoulder length brown hair, long slender arms and legs. No makeup, flat shoes, a brown A-line skirt and a baggy, pale yellow cardigan.
Russell held the photograph up to the light to study them all in turn. Danny was beaming directly at the camera, Jean looking up at him and grinning happily. Violet, on the other hand had a smile on her lips that went no further. Where Jean was held close against Danny’s side, there was an awkward gap between him and Violet, though his hand still rested proprietorially on Violet’s waist.
Russell tucked the photograph into his coat pocket. He wanted to talk to Ron a bit more about their relationship, find out what he knew about why the two sisters had fallen out. Russell sensed there was more to Ron’s brother-in-law comment than he was letting on.
He tucked the rest of the photographs back in the drawer and locked the desk. Pulling the curtains closed again, he left the room almost as he’d found it.
Following the hallway further he found a huge kitchen and open-plan dining area. A high-ceilinged room, which extended directly onto a large glass atrium to the back, looking out onto a small, and now sadly overgrown, courtyard garden. In its day, this would have been beautiful. With a clean up, it could be again.
The whole room was full of clutter. Costumes, hats, wigs, flyers for concerts, posters half unfurled on the long kitchen table. A stack of dishes piled high in the sink. Empty takeaway cartons left to dry and grow mould on the work surfaces. Squalor.
This beautiful room had ceased to be place for entertaining a long time ago. It smelled of old food, mould and stale air. Russell crossed to the glass double doors leading to the atrium and flung them open, opening the door to the back garden as well. The cold blast of fresh air was a relief.
He walked back through the kitchen slowly, looking at the surface layer of mess. If anything had been troubling Danny recently, it would most likely be near the top of one of these piles. But where to start? He lifted up a pile of opened letters and began leafing through them.
Almost every one was a red bill, a final demand, or a threatening letter about foreclosure. Danny had been in a lot of trouble. Russell tidied the bills and put them to one side. He wondered what would happen with them now. Jean was in no fit state to deal with bills and payments, and now Danny was gone, the house would likely have to be sold to pay off their debts and her care bills. It felt like such a sad end for those happy faces in the photograph.
Russell found a pile of unopened letters from the Midland Bank. Some of the envelopes had coffee stains on them, some were wrinkled with age. Danny hadn’t been opening his bank statements for quite a while.
Russell took the pile with him into the atrium and sat down in a rattan chair near the door, enjoying the breeze. He opened the letters one by one, knowing that technically it was illegal to open someone else’s post, but figuring that no one would ever find out it was him who’d opened them.
The first few statements were perfectly normal. There were modest amounts in the account. What little money was going in more than covered the few bills the couple had going out. By the third statement he opened, Russell could see that the bills for the hospice were beginning to eat away into their balance, though.
He pulled the low coffee table closer to him and laid the statements all out side by side. Another couple of month’s worth of slowly diminishing balances, and then came the statements for the last three months that each showed a huge drop in the total balance.
Russell scrutinised the bills, but there were no large individual sums that stood out, other than the hospice fees, and they weren’t enough to reduce the balance as much as they had.
Running his finger down the transaction list, he realised that there had been a series of almost daily cash withdrawals of one hundred pounds a time, adding up to almost ten thousand pounds over the last three months. Why had Danny been withdrawing all that cash?
He folded the statements up and tucked them all back into their envelopes. The cash was untraceable, there was no point holding on to the statements.
At the bottom of the pile of bank letters was one envelope that had been opened. Russell took out the single page letter, also from the bank, rejecting Danny’s application to remortgage the house—with no fixed income coming in, the bank wasn’t willing to risk it.
Good job too, they were both too old to have got decent terms. Danny would have ended up losing the house if he hadn’t lost his life first.
He put all the bank correspondence back on the table on his way through the kitchen and spent a few moments rifling through other bits of paper, documents, receipts and letters. There were no clues to what Danny had spent all that cash on.
His search of the rooms upstairs was just as fruitless. The master bedroom showed signs that Danny had been living in there, with a full laundry basket and a ruffled bed, but otherwise, the top two floors seemed as untouched as Jean’s sitting room.
Russell wondered when the last time anyone had visited the couple was. Danny had seemed such a gregarious sort on the few occasions he’d seen him out and about, and Russell had never thought about the man behind the cabaret host’s persona. With his wife terminally ill and the bills mounting
, the house had become a kind of monument to the couple’s decline.
On his way out, Russell spotted a sealed envelope on the telephone table by the front door, addressed to Crown Estate Agents. There was a stamp affixed, but it was obviously yet to be posted.
He eased the envelope open and pulled out the thin sheaf of papers inside. It was a contract from the local estate agent, agreeing to put the house on the market. Danny had signed it, but not sent it off.
So he was planning to sell the house to cover their debts. Russell guessed there hadn’t been much choice if Jean needed on-going care at the rates they were paying. Danny’s work at the revue bar in Camden would have earned him little more than pocket money. Nowhere near enough to cover the kind of bills he’d signed up to with putting Jean in that specialist hospice. So why had he been taking out their remaining savings as cash, and where had it all gone?
By the time Russell got back to his flat just off Soho Square, he was starting to feel quite hungry. The smells coming from the kitchen as he walked in were amazing.
There was a lot to be said for Joe’s new French boyfriend, Luc, staying over all the time, even if it meant they all had to share just the one bathroom.
Luc was an excellent chef, he had time on his hands while he looked for permanent work, and he was very easy on the eye.
When Russell had asked Joe to move in, it was because he recognised that they both missed their friend Chris, and with Chris gone, Russell needed to let the room out anyway, given his reduced income since leaving the force.
He hadn’t really intended to take on two flatmates for the price of one, but Luc seemed to spend more time here than he ever did in his crappy little hotel near King’s Cross.
Russell walked into the kitchen to find the boys sitting at the table, chatting away as usual, laughing together. He envied them their easy rapport. It was something he’d never been able to achieve.
He was only fifteen years older than either of them but he felt like they’d grown up in a different time. Somehow, it was easier for guys in their twenties these days to come out, and be proud of who they were. Not easy by any stretch of the imagination, but easier than it had been when he was their age. Or perhaps it was just that he’d always just been more uptight and less comfortable in himself than they were. Who knew?
He was truly happy for Joe, but seeing them so at ease together made him wish for something similar himself. Maybe one day.
Having been pushed from his job, Russell was finally able to be a little more open about his sexuality, but he still wondered whether he would ever find himself a partner, or if he was destined to just pick up casual lovers who ran off at the first sign of commitment.
“Evening lads,” he said, interrupting their conversation.
Luc got to his feet and tinkered with a pan at the stove. Russell had tried to make him feel welcome, but he always felt that Luc was embarrassed every time Russell came home to find him here again.
“Something smells good, Luc. We might have to keep you.”
Luc smiled. He really was a beautiful boy. Joe looked at Russell expectantly.
“Well? Where have you been? And, more importantly, what have you found out?” he asked.
“Give me a chance to take my coat off,” Russell laughed. “Is there any wine going?”
Joe poured him a glass while Russell hung his coat in the hallway and flopped down in a chair at the kitchen table.
“I got hold of Violet, by the way,” Joe said, sitting down again opposite him. “She wasn’t particularly charitable about her sister.”
“Did you tell her about Danny?”
“I did. She seemed shocked, but she didn’t pretend to care too much.”
“Nice,” Russell said. “The rift lives on then. Will she go back to see Jean again?”
“Well, that’s the weird thing,” Joe said. “Violet says she hasn’t seen her sister for years, but I got the impression Jean had seen her recently. Didn’t you?”
“Yeah. She said something about seeing her one more time, didn’t she? Maybe she meant after all these years.”
“So it’s not only me who finds your language confusing,” Luc said, laying the table around them. Joe smiled at him.
“But she’ll go then?” Russell asked.
“Only if I go with her, she says.”
Russell frowned.
“Weird. Why would she want a complete stranger to go with her?”
“Moral support, I guess. Or maybe as a witness. I got the feeling she’s frightened of Jean. I did reassure her that she was very frail and just wanted to make her peace, but I don’t think she was convinced. Anyway, I agreed to meet her at the hospice tomorrow lunchtime. I can’t really take any more time off work without them getting the hump.”
“Fair enough, do you want me to come?”
“No, I’ll be fine. I’m hoping I can just make the introduction and leave them to it.”
“Voila,” Luc said, presenting them with a delicious-looking bowl of pasta each. He settled down between them and topped up his own wine glass.
“Bon appetit,” he said, smiling.
“Thanks Luc, this looks amazing,” Russell said. And it did.
“So,” Joe prompted. “Enough about that. What did you find out today?”
“Well,” Russell swallowed his mouthful. “It turns out Danny left his keys and wallet in the dressing room at the Red Lion. Ron didn’t seem that interested, so I may have liberated the keys while he wasn’t looking and gone round to the house.”
“You didn’t,” Joe laughed. “Breaking and entering. Tut tut.”
Russell held his hands up, smiling too.
“Does Ron know?”
“No,” Russell replied. “He seems quite protective of Danny and Jean. I didn’t think he’d be that keen on me snooping around on my own, but I didn’t really want him to come with me either.”
He took another mouthful, rolling the flavours on his tongue. Simple and delicious. A lot of garlic.
“Anyway, I get the feeling that whatever happened between them all in the past, none of them really want to talk about it.”
“No,” said Joe, “I got that impression from Violet today too.”
He looked at Russell while he ate another mouthful.
“Well, come on then,” he said. “What did you find at the house, ’cause I can tell by your face you found something.”
Russell smiled.
“Okay, so Danny was definitely in denial about their money troubles. I found about six months’ worth of unopened bank statements, a rejection of an application to remortgage the house, and a mountain of final demands. He was right at the end of the line, financially.”
“How, though? He always gave the impression he had cash to spend.”
“Pride, perhaps,” Russell said. “The hospice was certainly making a big dent in their balance, but Danny had also started withdrawing cash. About one hundred quid every day. Ten grand’s worth in total.”
“Jesus. Who needs that kind of cash in their pocket?”
“God knows. But he certainly wasn’t using it to pay any of his bills, they were about to be cut off of most things.”
“Do you think Jean knows?” Joe asked.
“I doubt it,” Russell said. “I don’t even think he was admitting it to himself.”
“So what was he spending the cash on? You don’t think he’d got into gambling, do you? Got himself into debt trying to win big enough to solve their problems?”
It wasn’t a bad suggestion. Russell hadn’t thought about gambling, but it would make sense. If there was nowhere else to turn for money to pay for Jean’s care, and the bank had rejected their mortgage application, perhaps Danny had turned to gambling to solve their problems.
“I can ask around,” Russell said. “See if he’s been seen in any of the bookies, or down the track. He’d be pretty hard to miss, even in his regular clothes.”
Danny had a reputation for always looking dapper. Crisp s
uits, smart shirts, good shoes. The perfect impression of a fine gentleman.
“Perhaps that’s what got him killed,” Joe said. “He got himself into debt and couldn’t pay.”
“Stop talking and eat,” Luc said, tersely. “It’ll get cold. You two are always so busy trying to solve your mysteries.”
His French accent was adorable, but he had a tendency to boss Joe around. Still, the food was delicious and neither of them argued. They ate in silence for a while, but Russell couldn’t stop his mind whirring.
“She was quite the celebrity in her time, you know, old Jean?” Russell said.
Luc sighed.
“She sang in Ronnie Scott’s and everything. Seems to have performed with all the greats. There are some amazing photos of her in her heyday. It’s such a shame they both ended up like this.”
Remembering the other photograph he’d found, Russell stood up, heading to the hallway to retrieve it.
“I found this,” he said. “Of the day Jean, Danny and Violet moved in to Cumberland Terrace together. They all look happy enough. I wonder what happened between Jean and Violet to end all that?”
Joe froze mid-mouthful, staring at the photo. He dropped his fork and picked the image up, studying it closer.
“When was this taken?”
“Sixties sometime,” Russell said. “It says so on the back. Why?”
“This woman...”
“Violet? What about her?”
“This is the woman I saw in the club on the night Danny died,” Joe said.
“What? It can’t be. She’d be much older these days.”
“No, that’s just it,” Joe said, looking at Russell, confused. “She looked pretty much exactly like this.”
“What?”
“And I think Danny saw her too. There was a moment when I was talking to him before I went backstage to find Patty, and he looked out into the crowd and seemed to freeze. He looked really shocked. He must have seen her.”
“But it can’t be her,” Russell said. “Violet would be twenty years older by now.”