"It doesn't work," Diane Jackson said. "Like most of the estate staff who were supposed to have been keeping the place straight. I seem to be doing nothing but making lists of things that need fixing."
She kicked something in the gloom, and stopped briefly to pick it up. It was a Speak amp; Spell.
"Jed's," she explained. "He's going to be a litterbug when he grows up."
There was more evidence of Jed's presence on the pinup noticeboard alongside the kitchen door. It was covered in paintings and crayon drawings, obviously by a child of preschool age. The largest and most colourful of them showed a woman with a shotgun, blasting away at Red Indians.
Stopping to look was a mistake. By the time that he'd stepped out of the kitchen and into the main hall, he'd lost her.
The hallway was of a fair size, high ceilinged and with an oak stairway that led up to a gallery style balcony. The floor was of black and white marble tile, some of them cracked and none of them even. The few pieces of furniture looked old, solid, and unprepossessing, the kind of stuff that Pete would have expected to see at the bargain end of a market-town auction. The light, as soft and grey as evening snow, came from an ornate wrought-iron skylight at the ceiling's centre.
Her voice led him to her. "I'm not a great shot," she was saying, "but I'm getting better. There's an old clay range up in the woods, and I've been practising on that. I'll turn myself into a countrywoman yet."
She'd gone on into a book-lined room which appeared to be in use as an office, and she was placing the shotgun along with two others in a locking steel cabinet. From the doorway, Pete watched her turn the key on it with a certain relief.
"Now," she said, turning to him. "Shall we go upstairs and get this out of the way?"
"Upstairs?" Pete said.
Diane Jackson was already on her way past him, and heading for the wide stairway.
"I am desperate," she admitted. "It's getting so I can't even think, let alone sleep. I've told Dizzy that I want the whole works, and I don't care what it costs him."
"What exactly were you expecting me to do?" Pete said uncertainly.
She stopped on the third step, and looked back at Pete. She looked good in the soft light, he was thinking, but then she had the kind of face that you didn't need to flatter. She looked good in country clothes as well; in fact she looked pretty damned good all round, and right now it was the world's greatest pisser that he was no more than a rough-at-the-edges motor mechanic whose chances with her had to rate at somewhere close to zero.
There was a growing puzzlement in her expression. She said, as if she was seeing the possibility of doubt for the very first time, "You are the man from the pest control?"
"No," he said, "I'm the man from the auto-marine. I'm here to do an inventory on your cruiser."
If she'd stung him before then he got his revenge now, and in spades. Her mouth fell open, and she clapped a hand over it. She went pale, and then coloured up red.
And when she could speak again, she said, "I thought you'd come about the pigeons! Oh, god, what must you be thinking?"
He was tempted to tell her.
But he didn't.
Wayne's antennae went onto visible alert when he saw the two of them emerging from the Hall. The ice not so much broken as dynamited and blown out of the water, they were both giggling like kids out of school. Pete went over to the wagon, and as he was taking out the inventory clipboard he explained that they'd be going down to the boat house in Diane's pickup truck.
"Big treat, Wayne," he added. "You get to ride in the back."
"Wow," Wayne said, obviously wishing that he could stay in the front and eavesdrop.
Her Toyota was a big red Hi Lux with four wheel drive, much easier for her to manage than the estate's lumbering ex-army Land Rover. As they bumped down the narrow track from the house to the lake shore, Pete asked her exactly what her job entailed.
"Basically it covers just the house and the immediate grounds," she said. "All the woodland's leased to the forestry people. I want to get sorted and ticking by the time that Dizzy and his pals arrive. Sometimes I feel as if I haven't even started."
"What's he like to work for?"
She looked at him, and half smiled. "You want the truth, or the reputation?"
"I already know the reputation."
"You, and everyone else around here." She returned her attention to the track, just as a couple of low branches took a swipe at the cab roof. "He's fine. A bit self-centred, but nothing like most people seem to think. It was my ex who got me fixed up with the job; Dizzy owed him, and he owed me maintenance for Jed, and I wanted to get away from town and get involved in something where I could start to respect myself again… everything kind of fitted into place. Balancing the books has been the toughest part. The estate income's pretty regular, but it can't handle big bills that all come in at once. So if the furnace needs an overhaul and Dizzy wants to throw a party for the locals to improve his image, then Dizzy's Princess might just have to go."
"The party idea's for real, then?"
"So he tells me."
Most people in Three Oaks Bay were awaiting Dizzy Liston's return with mixed feelings; mainly apprehension, mixed with trepidation. Rumours of a social evening at the Hall with the entire village being invited hadn't exactly dispelled all worry, since it was his summer parties that had made him so unpopular around the area in the first place. Free booze for the locals was all very well, but what would happen when the famous charmer got too well oiled and started to proposition all the schoolgirls?
But when Pete mentioned this — in rather more diplomatic terms — Diane said, "That's the point, he can't. He can't drink for six whole months, that's why he has to get himself away from town and temptation and live out in the country. Otherwise he's been told that he won't even be able to sell his liver for cat food. It's perfect."
And with that thought in mind, they reached the boat house.
TEN
The boat house resembled a small chapel built into the sloping land that led down to the water's edge, except that it was windowless and the bell in the tower no longer rang. No lights came on when they tried the switch just inside the heavy oak door, but a minute's search with a flashlight found the main fusebox further in along the wall. Throwing the contact breaker caused the overhead lights to flare briefly, and a well aimed thump on the side of the box made them come back up. This time, they stayed on.
"High tech," said Pete.
"Another job for the list," Diane said gloomily.
They were standing on rough wooden boards. These extended like a hayloft about one-third of the way into the building. Beyond the rail, reached by a stairway so steep that it was almost a ladder, was the main lower level.
"There it is," Diane said as they moved to the rail. "Just don't ask me anything technical about it, that's all."
The lighting was from downward angled spotlights on the roof grid that gave the place an odd, studio-like atmosphere. Pete and Wayne looked down, and saw a sleeping princess.
It was actually a Princess 414, more than forty feet of white GRP hull with blue flashes and waterline markings. It had been run nose-first into the boat house where it lay like a huge, sleek beast in an undersized pen, the deep V of the forward end tucked under the gallery on which the three of them were standing.
Pete held out the clipboard. "Do your stuff, Wayne," he said.
After a moment's blankness Wayne took the board, and the hint that came with it. He slid down the stairway in one easy jump and hopped from the quay to the cruiser's deck, and within a minute he'd located the power switches and was down below, checking through the fittings.
Pete and Diane stayed at the rail.
Diane said, "What will happen after this?"
"Well, we'll get a list of everything on board plus the age of the boat, condition, everything like that. Then Ted can work out a market price and phone it through to you in a day or so. If you like what you hear, we'll put it in the yard
and advertise it and take a commission on the sale. If you don't, there are other good yards you can try. But Ted's okay. He's dead straight."
"I know," she said, "I've met him. In fact, that's where I first saw you."
"You remember? I was pretty sure you didn't."
"Mind on other things. You'll have to forgive me."
"I'll think about it," he said.
Diane glanced at the cruiser, and lowered her voice in case Wayne should be able to hear. "Is that Ted Hammond's boy?" she said.
"His name's Wayne. There's another one, an older boy called Shaun. I never met him, he works abroad somewhere. I don't think they ever got along. Wayne's as good as you'll get, though."
"Didn't Ted's wife die young?"
"You heard about that?"
"Talk about gossip around here… you couldn't get the news faster with a satellite dish. I heard stuff about you, too."
"Really?" Pete said, suddenly getting extremely interested. "Like what?"
"I'm not telling you," Diane said.
And then Wayne climbed out onto the cruiser's deck, and they let the subject drop, and Wayne was left standing there glancing from one to the other, damned sure that something was going on, here, and equally damned if he could tell what it was.
Pete gave another look over the Princess, and wondered what Ted would have thought of the berthing arrangements had he been here to see them. It had been such a tight squeeze to get the Princess into the boat house at all, that someone had come up with the bright idea of removing the edge boards from the quay platforms on either side. This had given a couple of extra feet of clearance, but it had also left the steel ends of the support joists exposed. They'd been muffled with rags and pieces of tyre, but it was still a lashup. The Princess deserved better; a high-performance seagoing cruiser, it would be wasted on such a sedate stretch of inland water as the lake beyond the boat house doors. But what could anyone expect? Dizzy Liston had won the cruiser on a bet, or so the story went. It was hardly going to be any great wrench to part with something that had been picked up so casually.
"All okay?" Pete called, and Wayne signalled that it was. So Pete and Diane left the rail and stepped out of the boat house into the mild spring air to wait for him.
"What are they saying about me?" he said, but she stayed tight lipped and shook her head. Probably nothing, he was thinking, she's only winding me up, and the thought that she was gave him a pleasurable kick.
Wayne handed the clipboard to Pete, and then locked the boat house doors behind him.
Pete said, "Any problems?"
"No, massah," Wayne said, and then he turned to Diane. "Will you want us to hang onto the keys?"
"You may as well. No one else ever comes here, and you'll need them before I will."
"Okay," Wayne said, and he stuck the bunch into his jeans pocket.
The beeper alarm on Diane's watch sounded as they were driving back, the signal that it was time for her to go and collect the litterbug Jed from his minder. This meant a quick goodbye at the Hall, and an instant disappearance from Diane. Pete stood with the clipboard under his arm and his hands in his pockets, watching the dust behind her Toyota as she sped off down the service road.
There was no longer any sign of her when, with Wayne once more behind the wheel, the breakdown wagon emerged into the outside world in Diane's wake. Pete had arranged himself in the passenger seat so that he could get his feet up on the dashboard. Wayne said nothing for a while, and Pete allowed his attention to wander down the inventory list; his eyebrows raised at the mention of a waterbed, a hi fi system and a video hookup in the after stateroom. None of these was Marine Projects standard, and he couldn't help wondering what kind of water sports the original owner might have gone in for.
Just before they got to the village, Wayne cracked his silence. Pete had known that it was coming — the only question had been, when?
"She actually fancies you," Wayne said, almost unable to believe it.
"Of course she does," Pete said. "I'm a wonderful specimen of a man."
Wayne glanced at him, less than one hundred per cent certain that he wasn't being sent up.
He said, "She's all right, as well."
No response to this from Pete.
"A bit old, though," Wayne ventured again, and Pete slowly turned to give him a stony look.
"Just drive," he said.
ELEVEN
It was dusk when Pete finally made it back up the track to the old wooden cottage. He switched on the Zodiac's headlights, for the shadows. The damaged one was still working, although it was a little way out of alignment. The rest of the afternoon had been more or less normal for the time of year except that Ted had been following Pete around for most of it, trying to pump him for details of what had happened between him and Diane Jackson. He'd been exactly the same once before when he'd found out that Pete had seen Last Tango in Paris ("Yeah, but what did they actually do?") and now, as then, Pete had taken care to fine-tune Ted's frustration to the point of obsession.
Finally, as Pete had been opening out the canvas deck cover on a relaunched Fairline Fury while Ted paced the dock alongside, he'd looked up at his employer and said, "You really want to know?"
"I really want to know."
So then Pete had told him, truthfully, word-for-word and without any embellishment; about the shotgun, and the pigeons, and the misunderstanding on the stairs. And when he'd finished, Ted had stared at him for a moment in open disbelief.
"Oh, piss off," he'd said finally, which was exactly the reaction that Pete had been expecting.
Now it was getting late.
He pulled in onto the rough ground before the house, switched off the engine, and got out. Sometimes he remembered to lock the car behind him, sometimes he didn't, and sometimes he remembered but couldn't be bothered. In all the time that he'd been living out on the Step Pete had seen only one stranger go by, and that was a hiker who'd stopped to ask the way because he'd been lost. The Zodiac was no big attraction to a thief, anyway. Most of the time he'd nothing more serious to worry about than squirrel shit on the seats if ever he left the windows open.
When he stepped up onto his porch, he saw that the front door was ajar. The windows to either side had been thrown wide as well, and the ends of the tattered old curtains had blown out to hang over the sills. It looked as if somebody had been giving the place a pretty thorough airing, and it wasn't too hard to guess who. He went inside and the kitchen scents hit him then, laying down a trail that drew him across the creaking boards and down the hall.
He paused for long enough to throw his jacket onto one of the hallway hooks, and called out, "It's me."
"Through here," Alina called from the back of the house.
He went through.
The first thing that he noticed was that the lights were out and that she'd set up candles from his emergency supply in one of the kitchen cupboards. They were on the dusty painted dresser, on the shelves, and on a tin tray before a freckled old mirror that had been hanging in the bathroom. The big pine table in the middle of the floor had been set for dinner, and on it stood a bottle of cheap wine from the village store. Pete picked it up, looked at the label, and then set it down again; and as he was doing this, Alina appeared in the doorway.
Her eyes shone in the warm tallow light.
Pete felt a stirring of apprehension then, rising like a deepwater fish to the sunlight; and although he tried not to let it show, Alina seemed to perceive it.
"Wait," she said, moving into the room. "Wait, I know what you're thinking."
"I'm not thinking anything."
She stood before him, looking up into his eyes. "Yes, you are," she said. "Look, I'm not about to invade your life. But I like this place, Peter, I like this valley. Today I got a job."
"What kind of a job?"
"A waitress job." She gestured at the table. "So, don't get the wrong idea about all this… tonight I get to practice on you, so tomorrow I don't look so stupid."
"A waitress job?" Pete said. Was this girl a fast operator, or what? She saw his expression, and grinned.
"I know," she said, "I'm shameless. You wouldn't believe what I had to do to get an introduction to the sisters. But now I'll meet more people, I'll begin to feel at home. And then as soon as I can find somewhere else, I'll move out and leave you alone. I'm nobody's charity case, and I won't be a burden to you. You've been good to me, Peter, I wouldn't want to see you hurt by having me around."
"Really, it's all right," Pete protested.
But there was a sadness in Alina's eyes now, unlike anything that he'd seen there before; a sadness not for what had been, but for what could never be.
"No," she said. "It isn't all right."
And then she turned away, and went over to check on the stove.
She was, almost without exception, the worst cook that Pete had ever come across. Worse even than Ted Hammond, who'd once closed the yard for three days with the aftereffects of a home made chili. This meal was a haphazard trawl of the village store's shelves, an unappealing source of supply at the best of times; Pete realised with a sinking feeling that he'd no choice other than to put his head down and plough on through like a pig at the trough. Alina seemed to think that everything was fine.
The alphabet pasta, that floated in a sauce of over-thickened packet soup.
The frozen peas, that she'd fried.
The…
Oh, God, he didn't even want to think about it.
Fortunately, the conversation was better. There seemed to be a sense of ease in their company that hadn't existed the night before, and she opened up a little on her background. She'd been a schoolteacher once, she told him. She'd lived in Leningrad for ten years but she'd had no work for the last two of them. Her father was dead but her mother was still alive, and had managed to hang onto the old apartment where she now used the extra space to accommodate short-stay workers who needed a bed in the city. As soon as she could, Alina planned to write to her.
The Boat House Page 7