Going Too Far

by Catherine Alliott

  ‘That’s about the size of it, Bruce,’ agreed Nick.

  ‘You bastard!’ screeched Bruce, bouncing up and down hard on Sam’s shins. ‘You pretended you were so concerned and all the time you were trying to get me put away. How dare you!’

  ‘Crap,’ spluttered Sam into the carpet, ‘it’s all hearsay, won’t stand up in court. You’ve got nothing on me, nothing!’

  ‘Tell that to the police when they get here,’ said Nick grimly. ‘OK, Polly, I’ve got him now, run and phone.’

  I leaped up and ran to the hall, but as I picked up the receiver a police siren came wailing round the corner and up the road. Through the stained-glass window in the front door I could see a blue flashing light. It stopped right outside the house. A car door slammed and then another – heavens, were they here already? I flung open the front door to see two burly policemen legging it up the path towards me.

  ‘You all right, luv?’ one of them panted. ‘Your neighbour rang to say she’d heard smashing glass, thought it might be an intruder, a burglar.’

  ‘Yes! Yes, you’re right, in there, quick!’ I squeaked.

  They pushed past me into the sitting room. I scurried after them.

  ‘All right, sir,’ said the larger policeman to Nick, kneeling down and grabbing Sam’s hands, ‘you can let go now, I’ve got him.’

  Nick got up and Bruce leaped off Sam’s legs, scurrying quickly back behind Nick, out of harm’s way. The two policemen heaved Sam to his feet. They clamped his hands behind his back and snapped a pair of handcuffs on him.

  ‘Right, mate, I’m arresting you on suspicion of burglary at Fifty-two Stanbridge Villas, Kensington –’

  ‘Don’t be bloody ridiculous!’ screeched Sam.

  ‘ –You are not obliged to say anything, but anything you do say will be taken down and used in –’

  ‘Er, excuse me,’ cut in Nick, ‘you’re absolutely right, he is a burglar, but he hasn’t actually burgled this house.’

  ‘Course I bloody haven’t!’ exploded Sam. ‘Haven’t burgled any bloody house! I’ll have you for false arrest! I’ll sue you, I’ll sue the lot of you!’

  The policeman frowned. ‘But … he came through the window?’

  ‘Well, no, actually I did,’ said Nick. ‘You see –’

  ‘You see, it’s a set-up!’ screeched Sam. ‘I was simply sitting here minding my own business, talking to Polly, when these two idiots came crashing through the window like the bloody SAS! Talk to them about breaking and entering, not me! I want my solicitor here right now. I’m not saying another word until he gets here! Treating me like some sort of petty thief – it’s outrageous – get these handcuffs off me right now!’

  The policeman looked bewildered. ‘So this bloke isn’t a burglar?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ I assured them, ‘he’s a burglar all right, but not a petty thief. He didn’t break in here to steal the video or anything, he’s wanted in connection with a haul of Meissen porcelain that went missing from our house in Cornwall recently, about two hundred thousand pounds’ worth, in fact. If you check with the police in Helston, they’ll fill you in on all the details. This is most definitely your man, Sergeant, he’s just admitted to it. His accomplice, by the way, is a Miss Serena Montgomery. Shall I write that down for you?’

  The policeman looked dumbfounded. ‘The actress?’ He took off his cap and scratched his head. ‘With all due respect, madam, I’m not sure we can arrest this man just on your say-so, let alone a famous actress, especially on suspicion of a crime committed all the way down in Cornwall. We’re going to need a bit more evidence, a bit more proof, like.’

  ‘Hang on a minute, you’ve got it!’ I squealed, suddenly running to the hall. I grabbed the Dictaphone and dashed back.

  ‘Here,’ I cried breathlessly, ‘it’s all here! I got every word of it! At least I hope I did.’

  I pressed the rewind button. Five men stared at me open-mouthed; the police in astonishment, Nick in wonder, Bruce in joy and Sam in absolute horror. I snapped the play button at random. Please God, let it work.

  ‘… Say what you like, no one will ever believe you,’ sang Sam’s dulcet tones. ‘We were too clever, and you were too stupid and drugged up to the eyeballs with –’

  ‘Yes! Yes!’ yelped Bruce, jumping up and down and clapping his hands with glee. ‘Got him!’

  ‘Give me that!’ screeched Sam, making a lunge for the tape recorder.

  ‘Oh no you don’t, mate,’ said the policeman, roughly yanking him back. He took the Dictaphone from me. ‘Thanks, luv, I’ll take this for the time being.’

  ‘I think you’ll find there’s everything you need there, Officer,’ I beamed, bouncing around a bit. ‘Let me know if you need any more information, won’t you; if the recording gets a bit faint I’m sure I can fill in the gaps. Oh, and, incidentally, he used quite a lot of threatening behaviour, violence even, that might not come over too clearly on the tape, but I can certainly tell you all about it. I might even have some bruises to show you.’ I pulled my T-shirt off my shoulder to have a look where Sam had shaken me, but rather disappointingly there didn’t seem to be much of a mark.

  ‘You bitch,’ breathed Sam between clenched teeth, ‘I’ll get you for this. I’ll, I’ll –’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, all right, all right, save it for your court appearance, mate,’ said the policeman. ‘Come on, you’re nicked.’ He shoved Sam over to his younger colleague. ‘Take him to the car, Bob, and wait for me there. I just want to listen to the rest of this tape in case this lady needs to explain any of it.’

  ‘Right you are, sir.’

  The other policeman gave Sam a gratuitous shove in the back and pushed him towards the door. Sam turned and gave me one last contemptuous glare before he was propelled through the front door and led away into the night. Bruce and I watched through the broken window.

  ‘Good riddance to you, you bastard!’ yelled Bruce as Sam was hustled up the garden path.

  ‘Right then, let’s see what we’ve got here, shall we?’ The policeman sat down on the sofa and wound back the tape. I came away from the window and waited anxiously. Nick stood behind me and put his hand on my shoulder as the recording began.

  I needn’t have worried, it was all there. From Sam bragging about blackmailing Bruce, to drugging me in the nightclub, stealing the porcelain with Serena, and finally my piercing scream as he threatened me. When the tape finished there was a silence. Nick squeezed my shoulder hard. Suddenly I realized I was shivering. The policeman opened the recorder and took out the cassette.

  ‘Thank you, madam, I think that’s all pretty self-explanatory. I’ll look after this, if you don’t mind.’ He pocketed the cassette and stood up. He grinned. ‘How very neat, a taped confession. I wish all our arrests were as easy as this.’ He patted his breast pocket with satisfaction. ‘Helston, you say?’ he asked Nick as he made for the door.

  ‘That’s right, speak to an Inspector Carter at the station there – he’ll fill you in on all the details.’

  ‘Right you are, sir, will do. Goodnight to you all.’ He touched his cap briefly and made for the door.

  When he’d gone Bruce turned to me, his eyes shining with tears. He grabbed my hand. ‘Polly, I – I don’t know how to thank you. If it hadn’t been for you, I don’t know what would have happened. I might have gone to jail!’

  I patted his hand. ‘Think nothing of it, Bruce,’ I gave a wry smile, ‘all part of the Polly Penhalligan super-sleuth service. But I must say I can’t quite believe I did that, I mean, I can’t quite believe I had the nerve to tape him.’

  ‘Neither can I,’ admitted Nick admiringly. ‘You took a hell of a risk. What if he’d popped into the hall and seen that thing recording? I hate to think what he’d have done to you.’

  ‘So do I. Thank God you arrived when you did. But how come you were both out there anyway?’

  ‘Well, I came up from Cornwall to find out what the hell was going on here – I’d had an extraordinary conversati
on with Lottie and a weird message from you on the answering machine – and when I arrived I found Bruce sitting outside in his car.’

  ‘I’d just come round to talk to you, Polly,’ said Bruce. ‘I’d had a really bad day and I needed a shoulder to cry on, and you were the only person I could think of who wouldn’t mind the fact that it was so late. I rang the bell loads of times but nobody answered.’

  ‘Oh, so that was you ringing the bell?’

  ‘Yes, and when I got no reply I thought I’d just sit in the car and wait for you to come back from wherever you were, then Nick showed up.’

  ‘Bruce was just telling me there was no one in when we heard the most almighty scream. That’s when we came crashing through.’

  ‘Well,’ grinned Bruce, ‘Nick came crashing through. I was what you might call the rear party.’

  ‘Crucial,’ smiled Nick, ‘couldn’t have done it without you, Bruce.’

  ‘Well, thank heavens you did come in then – I think I was about to have my brains bashed in.’

  ‘Don’t.’ Nick grabbed me and held me close. I buried my face in his neck. He smelt of fresh air and hay lofts. We stayed like that for a minute, clutching each other, holding on. Then we remembered Bruce. We pulled apart sheepishly.

  ‘Oh, don’t mind me,’ said Bruce with a grin, ‘go for the full-blooded reunion. I was just off anyway.’

  ‘Just off? Where?’ I asked.

  ‘To see my mother. I’m going to drive down there now.’

  ‘Now? In the middle of the night?’

  ‘Why not?’ he said defiantly. ‘She hasn’t got much longer to – well. Let’s just say I want to make sure I make it in time. If I leave it till tomorrow morning, it might be too late.’

  ‘But – what about your bail?’ asked Nick. ‘Are you allowed to do that?’

  ‘Probably not, but since it was so obviously Sam who stole the porcelain, and not me, what does it matter? The whole story will be out by tomorrow and presumably the police will drop the charges so there won’t be any bail, will there? They can hardly accuse me of concocting false evidence with my mother if there’s nothing to concoct, can they?’

  Nick grinned. ‘No, I suppose not. But – will you get into the nursing home at this time of night?’

  ‘Well, it’ll be about five or six in the morning by the time I get there, and I guess it’ll all be locked up, but the windows are usually open. I’ll climb in and sit by her bed. I want to be there when she wakes up.’ He looked calm and determined.

  Nick smiled. ‘Good for you, Bruce. I’m so glad it’s turned out like this.’

  ‘So am I,’ said Bruce with a heartfelt smile. ‘Never been so relieved in my life!’ He held out his hand rather shyly to Nick. ‘Well, goodbye then, and thanks for everything.’

  Nick shook it heartily. ‘Goodbye, and good luck.’

  He turned to me and gave me a great big hug. ‘Thanks again, Polly,’ he whispered.

  ‘Bye, Bruce.’ I squeezed him hard. ‘Give my love to your mother, won’t you?’

  ‘Will do.’

  He gave us one last triumphant wave and then turned and left. We heard him run, or maybe even skip down the path to his car. The engine turned over and he roared off.

  When he’d gone the room seemed strangely silent. Nick took my hand.

  ‘Polly, I’m so sorry,’ he whispered.

  I turned in surprise. ‘But why should you be –’

  ‘Shh …’ He lifted my chin gently and his lips found mine. We kissed. A long, tremulous kiss, full of the sense of being apart for too long, of nearly losing each other. The great boulder of distrust and unhappiness that had kept us apart had finally been rolled away, but not before we’d both caught a glimpse of what life would have been like without each other. We’d had a near miss. Tears of joy and relief sprang to my eyes as we drew apart. They flowed down my face.

  ‘Sorry,’ I sniffed, wiping them away. ‘I’m just crying because I’m so pleased to see you, ridiculous, I know.’

  Nick hugged me back to him again. ‘I know,’ he muttered into my ear, ‘and so much of this has been my fault. Can you ever forgive me?’

  I pulled away in surprise and wiped my eyes. ‘What for?’ I sniffed.

  ‘For not believing you. When I heard on that tape how that creep had drugged you and dumped you in that hotel room – Christ, you could have gone into a coma or something; you could have died!’

  ‘Could I?’ I gasped in alarm, my eyes wide with horror. ‘Could I really? What – swallowed my tongue, gagged on my vomit or something?’

  ‘Well, it’s possible, but let’s not dwell on it; it didn’t happen, thank God.’

  ‘No. Thank God,’ I muttered, feeling a bit shaky. It hadn’t occurred to me that I might have had a bit of a close shave. I shuddered. ‘But – what I still don’t really understand is why you came up here in the first place. Why didn’t you ring?’

  He sat down on the sofa and dragged me down next to him. ‘I was worried, Poll. I came up to see what on earth was going on. First of all I had this weird telephone call from Lottie, last night, in fact. She kept asking me if you were all right because a friend of hers had seen you being carried out of Annabel’s by some film director, said you were actually unconscious. Well, that really made me think, I can tell you. Then I got your garbled message on the answering machine about how you were beetling off to investigate Sam, and that worried the hell out of me. The Helston police had already said they thought he and Serena might be involved in some way and I had visions of you waltzing round to his house and confronting him, only to be boffed on the head and dumped in the Thames in a black bin liner. I wasn’t far wrong as it happened, was I? I hate to think what he might have done if I hadn’t been outside – you don’t half jump in feet first, Polly. I rang at lunchtime to tell you to back off and stay away from him, but there was no answer.’

  I groaned. ‘Oh God, I popped to the shops for literally two minutes.’

  ‘Well anyway, by that stage I was so hyped up and worried I couldn’t just sit around in Cornwall waiting for you to get to the phone, so I jumped in the car and drove up here. Bruce was sitting outside when I arrived. We were just saying we thought we recognized Sam’s Range Rover in the road and how odd it was that your car was here too – parked, incidentally, at a most artistic angle in the front garden – when we heard a scream. That’s when I came through the window.’

  ‘Thank God you did – he was about to rearrange my face.’

  ‘Was he?’ Nick sat up and looked alarmed. ‘He didn’t really hurt you, did he?’ he asked anxiously.

  I grinned. ‘Nah, you know me, tough as old boots. He just shoved me around a bit and scared me half to death, that’s all, nothing serious. I was jolly glad to see you when I did, though; things were certainly getting a bit hectic. He’s an absolute nutter, you know, Nick. I really thought he was going to kill me.’

  ‘Don’t.’ Nick held me close. ‘I wish I’d punched his lights out instead of just twisting his arm.’

  ‘Should have let me brain him with that vase.’

  ‘Couldn’t be sure you wouldn’t miss and get me instead. You never could aim, Polly.’

  I grinned and snuggled up to him. Suddenly I pulled back and frowned.

  ‘What did you mean about the police in Helston getting on to him? How did they know?’

  ‘Oh, old Mrs Bradshaw started to cough.’

  ‘Mrs Bradshaw!’ I sat up. ‘What did she have to do with it?’

  ‘Quite a lot, actually. Serena and Sam popped round to her house that Saturday night and collected the keys from her prior to lifting the Meissen.’

  ‘What! She gave them the keys? To our house? But why?’

  Nick grinned. ‘Because she hates your guts, darling, or so I was reliably and eagerly informed by the entire village. Furious with you for firing her, apparently. It also turns out that she stayed pretty thick with Serena, two of a kind I suppose, and of course she’d never really forgiven me for marr
ying you instead of her.’

  ‘Don’t I know it?’ I said grimly. ‘She never could get used to charring for an erstwhile secretary instead of a Hollywood movie star.’

  ‘More Pinewood than Hollywood, but I know what you mean. So, anyway, when Serena asked her for the key she was pleased and flattered to be asked to do a favour, I imagine.’

  ‘But did she know they were going to rob us blind?’

  ‘Apparently not. Serena just told her she needed to collect a few things from the house, stuff that belonged to her that I’d been too mean to give back – or some such spurious excuse. Anyway, she handed the key over without a murmur, and then, rather cleverly, Serena got her involved even deeper, making it hard for her to extricate herself and say she knew nothing about the burglary.’

  ‘Why, what did Serena do?’

  ‘She asked her to go to the nursing home where Bruce’s mother was and put a package on her bedside table. Old Ma Bradshaw didn’t know what it was all about or what was in the package, but again I reckon she was flattered to be asked and much too much in awe of Serena to say no. Anyway, off she toddled with this piece of porcelain in her bag, and of course no one turned a hair when she wandered into the hospice. There are so many old dears wandering around visiting each other she just blended into the scenery. Just another geriatric in a plastic mac clutching a Co-op bag. All she had to do was pass by Bruce’s mother’s bed when she was asleep, slip it on the bedside table, and waddle away again.’

  ‘So that’s how they did it,’ I breathed. ‘The sneaky bastards, and they blackmailed Bruce to make it look as if he was really desperate for money.’

  ‘Exactly. But when Bruce was arrested, old Mrs B began to put two and two together. She realized what she’d done and began to wobble a bit. Apparently she got hold of Serena, who put the fear of God into her by saying she was in much too deep to get out and would definitely go to prison for her part in it if she so much as breathed a word.’

  ‘God, poor old Mrs B. I almost feel sorry for her.’

  ‘Well, quite, it was a pretty dirty trick, and of course Mrs Bradshaw was so terrified she kept quiet. Then the other day old Ted Simpson popped over to her place with a bottle of cherry brandy which the two of them sank together, and that’s when she started to blab. She burst into tears and told Ted all about it. Of course, Ted promptly told Mrs Stanley at the post office, Mrs Stanley told her daughter, her daughter told her husband and her husband went to the police.’