Bucket's List

by Gary Blackwood

  None of the appeals that have arrived by post, addressed to Inspector Bucket, is particularly dire or urgent. He has no trouble turning them down. But there are two other, more difficult matters that he really can’t ignore. He’ll just have to attend to them in the evening, when Audrey is soundly asleep.

  The first is a trip to Westminster Hospital to look in on Lochinvar Mull, something Charley has been dreading. Though the lad is still hanging on, Hanora, who visits him daily for an hour or so, hasn’t seen any real improvement in his condition. Nor does Charley, when he approaches the constable’s bedside. Beneath all those bruises and lacerations, Mull’s face is ashen; his forehead is covered in beads of perspiration. Charley sits on the edge of the bed and, taking out his new bandana, gently pats the boy’s brow with it.

  He’s always considered bandanas to be a very useful accessory, but he never suspected they had restorative powers. No sooner has he finished soaking up the sweat than Young Lochinvar’s eyelids flutter, then struggle open a little, like the cocoon of an emerging butterfly. The boy’s dry, cracked lips do the same, and a word comes forth: ‘Jesus.’

  ‘Not just yet,’ says Charley. ‘It’s only me.’

  ‘Jesus,’ the constable says again. ‘I hurt.’

  ‘If you keep trying to talk,’ says Charley, ‘you’re going to hurt a lot more, because I’m going to throttle you. Just lie still, now, and let me do the talking.’ He proceeds to give the lad a quick summary of the events of the past few days – well, as quick as is possible, anyway, given all that’s happened.

  When he’s wrapped up his tale, Lochinvar speaks again. ‘I’m sorry,’ he says.

  ‘Sorry? For what, lad?’

  ‘I should never have … gone after Neckless.’

  ‘No. You shouldn’t. But if you hadn’t, I might never have thought to investigate the orphans’ home.’ He pats the young constable’s shoulder gently. ‘If you want to know the truth, I’d have done exactly the same thing.’

  Mull gives a weak smile. ‘But I’ll wager … you’d have given them … more of a fight.’

  ‘Well, when you get back on your feet,’ says Charley, ‘I’ll give you a few lessons.’

  As he’s leaving the hospital, the bells of St Margaret’s are tolling ten o’clock. There’s still time, then, to accomplish his second task. He doesn’t relish it any more than he did his visit to Young Lochinvar. But that went far better than he expected; perhaps fortune will continue to smile. He’s going to need a bit of luck if he’s to be in and out of Miss Fairweather’s town house before she returns from the theatre. But it’s a pleasant evening; maybe she’ll walk home. Or it could be that after the show Mr Elton will buy her a drink or two at the Horse and Groom or, who knows, invite her to his lodgings. Though that possibility makes Charley cringe, there’s no denying that it would give him more time to conduct his investigation.

  Just to be safe, he catches a cab, which has him there in no more than a quarter hour. To be even safer, he circles around to the rear door, where he’s less likely to be noticed while plying his picks. The interior is silent and lit only by a single sinumbra lamp, turned low. He carries it with him up the stairs. He’s already searched the cellar, the sitting room, and the maid’s room. All that remains is Miss Fairweather’s bedroom.

  Charley isn’t certain what he hopes to find there, or hopes not to find; he’s simply doing what he does best – poking about. Though most coppers – unwittingly, of course – adhere to the principle of Ockham’s razor and search all the likeliest places first, Charley has always done quite the opposite. After all, a person with something to hide doesn’t stick it behind the painting or in the stocking drawer, does she? Not unless she’s stupid, and Miss Fairweather is far from stupid.

  Nor does she necessarily have anything to hide. He can’t shake the feeling, though, that there’s something she’s not telling him. Well, in fact he knows there is; she must surely have been aware that Arly, the house girl, was dismissed, and yet she said nothing about it.

  It makes no sense. Of the many murders Charley has investigated over the years, a startling share involved employees who felt they were unjustly sacked or poorly paid – look, for example, at the cove responsible for spiking Dr Benjamin’s Panacea with arsenic. Perhaps an even greater number were committed by jealous lovers. Both motives could, in theory at least, be attributed to Arly. The girl had plenty of reason, then, to pack her things and hurry home to County Clare. But why wouldn’t Julia just tell the coppers that she’d hooked it, and let them bring her back? Charley can’t think of a single reason. Unless … unless Julia wants her gone. Suppose, for example, Arly knows something incriminating, something that Julia doesn’t want revealed?

  Well, there’s no point in conjecturing, is there? People are such complicated creatures, speculating about their motives is like betting on a horse race. Guesses aren’t much good, not even educated ones. What he really needs is evidence.

  And after only a few minutes of searching, he finds some, tucked away in the narrow gap between the wardrobe and the floor, at the very back, where no one but the most ferret-like of investigators would bother to look. At first, he doesn’t know what to make of it. How could a stout cane of Indian mahogany simply break in two that way? But when he dons his spectacles and examines the broken ends more closely, the answer comes clear: they aren’t jagged at all, as they would be if the wood had just snapped; no, the cane has been neatly cut, following the lines of one of the carvings, and then glued together so that, as soon as any weight was put on it, it would give way.

  As Charley sits there, mulling over what this means, he hears the front door open and close. He makes no attempt to flee or to conceal himself; he can tell from the sound of the footfalls that it’s Julia, and that she’s alone. ‘Hello?’ she calls in a voice that he almost doesn’t recognize, it’s so tremulous, so different from the self-assured way she ordinarily speaks. ‘Is someone here?’

  Charley lifts the lamp and makes his way to the top of the stairs. ‘It’s me – Inspector Bucket.’ He realizes how odd it must sound, identifying himself that way. But it feels right somehow, for it seems that the tables have turned and he’s the one playing a role, now.

  Julia appears at the bottom of the steps and gazes up at him, a tentative, puzzled smile on her face – which, even cast in shadow, is disturbingly lovely. ‘Charley? What on earth are you doing here?’ Though she’s clearly trying to take command of the situation, she comes across like the understudy who is suddenly called upon to perform a part she’s not prepared for. ‘No, don’t tell me. You’re poking about again. And it looks as though you’ve found something.’

  Charley has always rather enjoyed the interrogation process; it’s a sort of game, really – though one in which the stakes may be dauntingly high – and over the years he’s become very good at it. He’s not eager to question Miss Fairweather, however, or to make accusations. Some part of him still wants to protect her, to rescue her, and it’s hard to let go of that, to have Julia regard him not as a Galahad but as more of a Mordred.

  As it turns out, no interrogation is necessary. Once she’s had a few sips of brandy, she seems almost anxious to reveal all she knows about the cane and about the disappearance of Arly, as though those matters have been weighing heavily on her mind. ‘I was very distraught after the accident, of course,’ she says, and she’s distraught again, just recalling it. ‘And yet I couldn’t help noticing how … how unnatural the broken cane looked. When I examined it closely, I could see it had been tampered with.’

  ‘Then why hide it? Why not turn it over to the constable?’

  She stares at him as if the answer should be obvious. ‘Don’t you see? It wasn’t Arly they’d suspect; it was me! I was the one with the motive!’

  It takes Charley a moment to catch up. ‘So … so you knew all along that Monty left this place to you in his will.’

  Miss Fairweather shrugs. Another question with an obvious answer. ‘Of course I did.
But I could hardly admit it, could I?’

  ‘I’m sorry to be so dense,’ says Charley irritably. ‘No doubt you can also explain why the house girl should want her employer dead.’

  ‘Yes, I believe I can.’ Her dark eyes meet his and her face seems to soften. ‘I think you were right, Charley; I think she never forgave him for transferring his affections from her to me.’

  Charley feels a disproportionate degree of gratification; he got something right, at least. ‘But if she resented you so much, why didn’t she do you in?’

  Miss Fairweather is not quite so prompt to answer this one. She stares down at her glass of brandy and reflectively puts a hand to her face – in fact to the very spot where, a fortnight earlier, she sported that ugly bruise. ‘Because,’ she says softly. ‘Because she understood that I was not the villain of the piece. Like her, I was … I was a victim.’

  Charley winces. ‘He actually did beat you, then.’

  She nods.

  ‘And Arly as well?’

  Another nod. Charley can tell that she’s done talking; there’s no point in pressing her any further. He rises from the dining room table. When he picks up the broken cane, Miss Fairweather gives him a worried glance. ‘It’s all right,’ he says, ‘I’m not going to turn this over to Scotland Yard. Not just yet, anyway.’ Thoughtfully, he reconnects the two halves. ‘What a shame; it’s a beautiful piece of work. But you know, I hear they have some very clever craftsmen in Ireland; perhaps I’ll take a trip over there. I may find someone who’ll help me fit the pieces together.’

  TWENTY-NINE

  Of course Charley has no intention of traveling all the way to County Clare and confronting the house girl, at least not right away. When he mentions Ireland, it’s mainly to see how Julia will react. Though she’s an accomplished actress, even the most seasoned trouper may be thrown off balance by a fellow actor’s ‘gagging’ – straying from the script and saying something totally unexpected. For the briefest of moments, her face registers alarm, even fear, before she puts on a sly smile and says suggestively, ‘Well, then, perhaps I’ll come with you.’

  Though it’s a tempting prospect, Charley knows well enough that it won’t happen. Even if she were serious, he has other, more urgent matters to attend to. Besides, if he tracks Arly down, unlike Julia she might actually tell him the truth, and he’s not at all certain he wants to know it. Not very detective-like of him, but there you are.

  It’s a long walk to the Holywell Street house, but he needs a bit of a hike in order to clear his head – and in order to prepare himself. If he’s going to spend more time there, as he promised, he’ll have to get used to that sense of slowly suffocating, to weighing every move he makes and every word he says before he makes or says it, to wearing that deuced smoking jacket – and yet being forbidden to smoke – and not wearing his vulgar Mongol vest.

  Near College Gardens he stops at a cozy-looking coffee stall with a cloth-draped trestle table, a bright oil lamp, even relatively intact china cups and saucers. Despite some misgivings, he orders a cup of Mocha and ‘two thin,’ as they say. To his surprise, both the bread and the coffee are quite palatable, and he tells the proprietor so. ‘Well, it’s got to be, don’t it?’ says the man sourly. ‘Thanks to Mr Dickens and his journal, most folk won’t settle no more for stuff that’s made of ’orse peas and plaster.’

  Charley can’t help smiling a little, but he hides it by turning his attention to his notebook. He tears out the first two pages, the ones devoted to Neck and Neckless, crumples them, and tosses them into the coke fire that burns beneath the tin coffee boiler. There are still half a dozen of his old nemeses at large, including Bad Hat Henry, William Hubbard, Kelley the Club, and a cove known only as Rat Man, but he’s making progress – or at least he was. Now he’s going to have to fill out a new page. On the first blank sheet, he carefully prints:

  Name: Arly _______?

  Age: 30?

  Description: Attractive?

  Occupation: House girl

  Crimes: Murder?

  Last known location: County Clare, Ireland

  Directly below this, he makes a second entry:

  Name: Julia Fairweather

  Age: 35

  Description: Untrustworthy

  Occupation: Actress

  Crimes: Murder?

  Last known location: Southam Street, Covent Garden

  So much for progress. He pays the proprietor, throwing in an extra tuppence for goodwill, and trudges on. When he enters the house, all is quiet except for his wife’s faint snoring. Hanora will have gone home long ago – too bad; she’ll want to know that her beau’s condition has improved. He looks in on Audrey, just to make sure she’s sleeping peacefully, and then repairs to the kitchen to fix himself a sandwich.

  It’s quite a large one, and he’s no more than halfway through it when a small voice behind him says, ‘Hello, Inspector.’ Oddly enough, the words are then repeated, by an even smaller voice.

  Charley wipes the mustard from his mouth and turns to Audrey. ‘What are you—?’ Then he notices the doll cradled in her arms. ‘The devil take me; is that you, Charlene?’

  ‘Yes, it’s me,’ says Audrey, in tones befitting a porcelain doll, then adds, at her normal pitch, ‘Mrs Field found her, in Mr Priestley’s office. We’re glad you’re home.’

  ‘You feel safer, now?’

  She smoothes her rumpled nightgown and yawns. ‘Yes. But that’s not the reason. We’ve been wanting to have a talk with you.’

  ‘Oh, dear,’ says Charley. ‘What have I done now?’

  She snickers. ‘Nothing, silly. There’s something we want you to do.’

  ‘And what might that be?’

  She holds up her arms and he hoists her and Charlene onto his lap. ‘We want you to find those other girls and bring them back.’

  ‘I will, my dear. I promise. It may take a while, though.’

  ‘Mrs Field says you don’t want to leave because of what I said – that I didn’t feel safe. That was selfish of me. I know she and Hanora will protect me. It’s those girls in the mills who aren’t safe. You need to go after them as soon as possible. Tomorrow. Right, Charlene?’ The high, soft voice returns: ‘Right, Audrey!’

  Charley laughs. ‘You sound more like your mother every day. She was always thinking about someone else. Which reminds me—’ From the pocket of his frock coat he retrieves Rosa’s cameo, which he’s been carrying around for months, and places it in her hand. ‘She wanted you to have this.’

  ‘Thank you. She’d have wanted you to save those other girls, too, you know.’

  ‘Yes, yes, I know.’ He gives Audrey’s close-cropped head an affectionate rub. ‘All right. And if it makes you feel any better, you may soon have another protector as well – an actual police constable.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Well, he won’t be much use at first; he’s badly hurt. But the doctor says he’ll heal faster if we bring him here, where Hanora can look after him properly. All we have to do now is convince Mrs Field.’

  ‘Leave that to me,’ says Audrey. ‘I can be very persuasive.’

  ‘You can, indeed.’

  ‘I’ll help look after him, too.’

  ‘Good, good. I just want to know one thing.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Who’s going to look after me?’

  Audrey lets out another little laugh. ‘You don’t need looking after, Inspector; you can take care of yourself.’

  Charley shrugs and gives a rather rueful grin. ‘I suppose you’re right. Only sometimes I wish …’

  ‘What? Charley? What do you wish?’

  Charley doesn’t reply. He’s thinking about Rosa: about how sweet she was to him; how much she enjoyed his company, or said she did; how she rubbed his aching shoulder muscles; how, after making love, they lay there, barely touching, and talked in muted voices about what he’d done that day to try to make the world – or at least his part of it, his beat, as it were – a slightly bett
er place, and about her plans to make a new life for herself and her daughter. Sometimes they talked of nothing in particular or just lay there silent, listening to the sounds from the other rooms or from the street, and that had a soothing sweetness of its own.

  Some part of him wishes it could be that way with Jane, but he knows it never will be, and really it never was, and that’s all right. We can’t hope to have everything we wish for, or even half of them, and that’s all right, too. There are enough good things in life that come to us without our wishing for them or expecting them or likely even deserving them. We’re all of us guilty of something, after all; each of us appears on someone’s little list of wrongdoers, and if we got only what we deserved … well, life would be a pretty sorry affair. And, though you were warned at the very outset of this novel that it might not always tell the truth, that is, I promise you, the truth.