***
She reached The Happy Days Retirement Home at Beckingham and roused Graham Johnson after a short while of futile hammering on the front door and getting no reponse. Weren’t these places supposed to have all-night vigilance for their residents?
‘Yes? What the devil do you want? This is a respectable establishment, and we don’t take in casuals,’ Johnson snapped, blinking owlishly at this unwelcome visitor at three in the morning, his purple and green striped dressing-gown pulled ludicrously tightly over his portly frame.
As if anyone would want to see anything that was underneath that towelling monstrosity, Alex thought. She was starting to feel light-headed, and the image of pink chipolata sausages flitted unwillingly through her mind.
‘Mr Johnson, I’m sorry to disturb you. My car’s broken down, and if you could let me have a room for tonight, or what’s left of it, I’d be awfully grateful,’ she almost gasped.
And then to her fury, she staggered, and was forced to lean against him as her legs threatened to give way. His arms went around her at once, and she could smell the sleep on him.
She forced down the sudden urge to throw up, and struggled out of his embrace, but he still gripped her arms as if afraid she was going to fall down at any moment. Which wasn’t so far from the way she felt.
‘My dear Miss Best, please come inside, and I apologize for my lack of manners,’ he oozed when he recognized her.
‘Oh, I don’t blame you. Mr Johnson — I just need a bed for a few hours if it’s not an imposition—’
‘Of course it’s not,’ he said, fussily efficient at once. ‘We have a few vacancies at the moment—’
Alex didn’t need three guesses as to why. She just hoped the room had been cleaned and fumigated from the elderly patient who would have breathed her last in it... and that wasn’t being churlish, it was just being bloody hygienic.
But a short while later she was lying on a narrow bed in one of the plush rooms the well-off residents paid so dearly for. She had curled up beneath the duvet in a protective foetus position without bothering to take off anything except her shoes. And she was shivering with relief that she was here, and she was safe. For now.
She was woken by the sound of someone tapping on her door, and as she opened her eyes a fraction, she didn’t have the faintest idea where she was for a moment or two. And then she remembered — and wished she didn’t have to.
A young girl came in with a breakfast tray, and Alex suddenly felt very old at the sight of the bright young face and pony-tailed hair and big blue eyes. Baby blues, Gary would call them.
‘Mr Johnson says you’re to come to his office as soon as you feel like it,’ the girl recited.
‘Thank you—’ but the girl was already gone, before she could say that she didn’t want bacon and fried egg, thank you very much.
Except that the smell of it was wafting into her nostrils now, enticingly mouthwatering, and without another thought, Alex devoured the lot, only just realizing how long it was since she had eaten anything at all.
She felt decidedly better once she had finished, and was thankful that she hadn’t had to join the old dears in the dining-room, where questions would certainly have been asked. All the rooms were en suite, so she didn’t have to use a communal bathroom, thank God.
Half an hour later, she went to Johnson’s office, more refreshed than she had expected to be, and with last night’s memories a fraction less nightmarish now. Just. This place was definitely a haven, though, and thank God she had thought of it before heading off to nowhere in particular.
She realized she was thanking God a lot lately, despite not being overly religious, and she hoped fervently that He was feeling benevolent towards her.
‘Come in, Miss Best.’ Graham Johnson beamed at her now. ‘I’m sorry if I was a little brusque when you arrived—’
‘Good Lord, you don’t need to apologize to me, Mr Johnson. You must have thought me a madwoman, barging in on you like that in the middle of the night—’
‘Not at all, dear lady. I understand the needs of a person such as yourself, and I’ve no doubt you were on a case, and needed sanctuary for a while.’
And how many Agatha Christie novels have you been reading lately? Alex thought, resisting the urge to laugh as he looked at her eagerly, obviously fancying himself as a Captain Hastings to her Poirot…
‘It was something like that,’ she murmured, seeing no need to disillusion him. Though Miss Marple would be more like her alter ego, she thought, bumbling about as she did…
‘So how can I help you? If you want to stay here for a few more days, I could accommodate you, although—’
‘Although you would naturally expect me to pay for the room,’ she finished for him.
He fluttered like an oversized cabbage-white in his anxiety not to embarrass her by speaking about money. But Alex knew very well he was as grasping as the next man when it came to getting his fat fees from the old dears in his care. They certainly got every care, though, and compared with some of the oldies she had seen living a wretched existence on the streets and in the subways, she could forgive him anything.
‘I would like to stay, if it’s no inconvenience,’ Alex said. ‘I’m travelling incognito for the moment,’ she added, knowing he would savour the detective lingo, as well as the fact that she was apparently taking him into her confidence.
‘I understand,’ Johnson said, tapping the side of his nose with the tip of a pudgy finger.
God, it was like watching a bad movie, Alex thought. And she was playing the star role, even though it didn’t feel much like it. Did Poirot ever have such jitters?
‘An important case, is it?’ he went on.
‘Now, now, Mr Johnson, you know we private eyes never divulge any information while an investigation’s going on,’ she chided him, and cringing at her own twittering. But it was an approach that made him smile with satisfaction.
‘I can arrange for a mechanic to come up here from a local garage if you like—’
‘What?’
‘Your car. You said it had broken down.’
So she had. Shit. ‘Thanks, but I’ll try it first. It’s temperamental, and it may be all right again now that it’s cooled down. I’ve been racing the engine a bit recently.’
And if he thought she had been involved in some high-speed car chase, so much the better. He was clearly a man who had only ever lived a vicarious life, and she was adding a little spice to it.
She was glad to leave his office and go and sit in her car. She needed to think what to do next, while revving up the engine now and then as if to check that it was still serviceable.
The village of Beckingham was little more than a dot on the map, but it would almost certainly have a newsagent and general store. With luck, it would have the national newspapers as well as local rags, although there was unlikely to be any mention of a hit and run accident in Lambeth until the evening editions. If there was any mention of it at all.
Such statistics were depressingly frequent these days, and Harold Dawes’ death would be seen as just one more tragic incident. Unless there was information to the contrary, no one was going to connect it with a murder.
And remembering how deserted the Mews had been before he had come out of his home, there was almost certainly no other witness but herself. She could tell. . . .
If she chose, she could give Harold Dawes a little posthumous dignity, and even deny that he had been lurching drunkenly across the street and had just been in the wrong place at the wrong time... but why should she?
He hadn’t shown any mercy when he had strangled Moira and drowned her in her own swimming-pool. Either him, or MB.
Whichever one of them it was, they deserved what they got, Alex thought viciously, and eventually MB had it coming to him too. If she could nail him, she would show as little mercy as he had shown his victims, whether or not he had stabbed them in the back, or drowned them, or run them down.
She jumped a
s she heard someone tapping on her car window, and she wound it down as she saw a man she didn’t know leaning towards her.
‘Having trouble, love? You won’t get much joy out of the old geyser here,’ he said.
‘It’s all right, I know Mr Johnson, and I’m staying here,’ she said quickly.
The man whistled, reminding her of Gary for a moment. But that was the only similarity, because this guy was around forty-five years old and running to seed.
‘Well, whatever pep-up pills they’re giving you, I want some!’ he said with a laugh.
Alex didn’t follow for a moment, until she saw the way he was peering down at her legs in their tight black trousers.
‘I’m not an inmate,’ she said, laughing back.
‘Pity,’ the guy said cheekily. ‘Me and old Johnson might have made our fortunes if I’d got you in the frame.’
‘What?’ she said, startled by the hint of police jargon. But it clearly had a different meaning for this guy.
‘I come here quite often to photograph the old dears. Makes ‘em feel good when I touch up their pies to make ‘em look like film stars. They know I do it, of course, but it makes ‘em happy. But you wouldn’t need any of that!’
‘You’re a photographer?’ she said, ignoring his last words, and echoing him as if she was a bloody parrot.
‘Well, part-time. I do it as a favour, because the old loves know me and don’t get flummoxed because there’s a stranger in the camp.’
Alex got out of the car, and leaned against it, giving him the benefit of seeing her long-limbed body in her well-filled skimpy black t-shirt and trousers.
‘Do you do it commercially, or privately? What I mean is, do you do all the developing and printing yourself, or do you have to send the films away?’
‘Gawd no, begging your pardon, love. It’s just a hobby, but I’ve got my own dark-room at my cottage in the village. You could come to see it if you’re interested. When I’ve finished here, of course.’ He grinned. ‘Makes a change from asking somebody to come and see my etchings, eh?’
Alex agreed with him, trying to hide her excitement. And oh yes, there is a God, she breathed inside her head.
‘I might just do that. And maybe you could do me a little favour too.’
Chapter 12
The photographer told her his name was David Bailey. Alex started to laugh until she realized he was serious. Well, why not? Somebody had to be.
Not the one, she asked solemnly, and he assured her just as solemnly that unfortunately he didn’t have that honour.
The old ladies at Happy Days clearly adored him. He was definitely a ladies’ man as he encouraged them to look at the camera, think of sex, and smile. He could coax the old boys into a grudging grin by the same method, though with some of them it was more of a lecherous leer.
And by now Alex was acting as unpaid assistant, suggesting how the ladies with good hands should hold them loosely in their laps, or sit three-quarters on to the camera to hide thickening chins for the best profiles.
‘Have you ever done any modelling?’ David asked.
‘God, no. I’m just a woman, but I know how to pose.’
‘I’ll vouch for that,’ he said cheekily. ‘When it comes to arranging different angles, I’m still an amateur, but you seem to know how to get the best out of them.’
‘It’s just luck, but why shouldn’t they end up with the nicest and prettiest photos they can have? They weren’t born old, and a bit of pampering never did anyone any harm.’
She wouldn’t admit, even to herself, that she might be giving more than half a thought to her own parents at that moment, who’d never had any pampering in their lives, and had endured the rigours of the harsh Yorkshire winters.
And if she was getting soft, it was a welcome diversion from last night’s trauma, enabling her to push aside the memory of the hit and run killing, if only for a little while.
‘We’re all done,’ David Bailey said, a couple of hours later. ‘I’ll get back and develop the films after lunch, and you’re welcome to come and watch. I always try to deliver the proofs as soon as possible before any of ‘em pop off. You never know how long some of ‘em are going to last.’
Alex didn’t get his meaning for a minute, and then she did. His words were crude, but she couldn’t deny that some of the sicklier ones didn’t look as if they would last another day.
She smiled more warmly at the circle of them in the sunny day-room, most of them nodding away in their armchairs after the excitement of the photography session. And thinking how awful it must be to wake up every morning and wonder whose was going to be the next empty chair. . . .
‘Miss Best,’ she heard Johnson’s voice. ‘There’s coffee for you and Mr Bailey in my office when you’re ready.’
David chuckled. ‘He probably thinks I’m monopolizing you. He doesn’t like me much, because the old dears always fawn over me when I come. Still, it gives them something to think about other than death, doesn’t it?’
‘How often do you come here then?’
‘Christmas, Summer — and any birthdays and anniversaries that they request. I supply folders for them to send the photos to their relatives if they want them. They usually do. It reminds those outside that they’re still alive.’
‘And they pay you, of course.’
‘I’m not in it for my health, love. And you only have to look at them to know they can afford it. I enjoy having a jaw with ‘em, though,’ he added, belying his first words.
‘Did you ever meet Trevor Unwin?’ she said, as they left the day room for Johnson’s office. ‘You know, the one who—’
‘Oh, I know who he was all right. I did meet him here once,’ David said. ‘Creepy kind of feller. Didn’t surprise me at all to learn that he’d topped himself.’
‘Really? Why do you say that?’ Alex said.
David shrugged. ‘He didn’t have the bottle to carry out a murder without either being goaded into it, or being very well paid to do it. It stood to reason that the worry of what he’d done would get to him eventually. He wasn’t a natural killer.’
‘That’s interesting. You’re quite a philosopher on the quiet, aren’t you, David?’
He gave a hooting laugh. ‘Hell’s bells, I’ve been called many things, but never one of them before!’
‘Listen, when we’ve had coffee, how about lunch in a local pub? My treat.’
‘Sure, why not? I always fancied being a kept man,’ he said lazily, his eyes twinkling. ‘And then we’ll go to my dark room and see what develops.’
‘Oh God, not that old chestnut,’ Alex groaned. ‘And don’t let it go to your head. I want to talk business.’
***
They got back to David’s cottage in the early afternoon, with the smell of beer on his lips, and the taste of curry on hers. Alex had resisted drinking at lunchtime, needing to keep her head clear and her fingers crossed for anything that might show up on the shots she had taken in Battery Mews.
She had always enjoyed watching the magic of developing and printing, and had once thought of dabbling in it herself. It would make a lot of sense, instead of sending her pics away to be developed, and risking some keen-eyed assistant sensing that there might be a scoop here…
She instinctively trusted David Bailey, but she wasn’t going to pass over her own film until they had done the morning shots from the retirement home. Once his films were through the developing stage they were quickly dried, so that he could print off a set of proofs, and then enlarge the ones he intended showing to the residents.
Like all photographers, he had taken plenty of them, and they spent an absorbing couple of hours before he was satisfied with the selection he had to show his sitters the following morning.
‘We’ll take a break for a cup of tea, if you like,’ he said finally, straightening his back. ‘I’ve got some chocolate biccies somewhere, I think.’
‘David, you’re a man after my own heart,’ Alex said with a grin. She fe
lt quite safe saying it, sure it was all he was after. By now she knew that he was a self-employed market gardener and had been a widower for many years.
But now he was doggedly single and proud of it, content enough with his life to do no more than chat up the elderly ladies he came into contact with in his side-line.
‘You never did tell me what you’re doing at Happy Days, Alex,’ he remarked over the shared sensual intimacy of dunking biscuits in their tea until the chocolate began to melt. ‘Do you have someone who’s going to live there?’
She shook her head. She trusted him, but she wasn’t prepared to tell him any more than she had to. And only Graham Johnson at the retirement home knew her true profession.
‘I met Mr Johnson a while ago, and he was kind enough to say that if ever I needed a little break, I should call in. I’m a business consultant, and sometimes you just have to get away from the rat-race. Need I say more?’
David put his hand over hers in a mute gesture of understanding, when in reality she had told him nothing.
‘So what’s this little favour you think I can do for you, then? You only have to ask, and if I can oblige, I will.’
As he squeezed her hand, for a weird second the image of Gary Hollis was strong in Alex’s head. If Gary had said those words they would have been loaded with innuendo, and there wouldn’t have been any doubt as to whether he could, or would, oblige…
She blinked, wondering what the hell she was thinking of, when there were far more important matters to deal right now than Gary’s ever-rampant libido.
‘I’ve got a film to be developed, and I need some enlargements made of the prints. I know it’s a bit of a cheek when we’ve only just met, and I’ll pay you, of course—’
‘No, you won’t. It’ll be a pleasure, and your company’s all the payment I need.’
He was a love, she thought. He didn’t question her, though he might well be more curious when he saw how many shots she had taken of a man crossing a road at night…
***
‘Gawd!’ David frowned through his magnifying glass at the dark negatives. ‘Not the best shots in the world, are they? Who is he, your boyfriend out on the razzle or something?’
Illusions (Alexandra Best Investigations Book 2) Page 21