Jack of All Trades Box Set: books 1 to 3

by DH Smith

  He took the door and laid it sideways in the corridor. Coming down it was Ellie. He was instantly charged and found guilty, thinking of the lies he’d told Mia. Pictures of horses… How stupid. He knew that Ellie had come to see him. Why else would she be here? Down, boy. He really needed to get some work done and earn some cash.

  She stopped a metre or so away, perhaps wary herself. She had changed her t‑shirt and jeans. Blue top, green jeans, her hair washed.

  ‘Been home?’ he said.

  She nodded. ‘After I’d been interviewed, the police said I could go, but wanted me back straight away. I hardly know why. I’ve told them all I can. How’s your daughter?’

  ‘She’s at my mother’s,’ he said. ‘A little confused,’ he added hesitantly. ‘Apart from finding the body, she saw us kissing, and then going into the stock room. I told her we went in to look at some pictures.’

  Ellie laughed. ‘Good pictures, were they?’

  ‘Pretty good. Though not the best place to keep them.’

  ‘No.’ She had darkened.

  ‘You alright?’ he said.

  ‘Not really,’ she said with a long sigh. ‘It’s all catching up with me. My father’s death… The police. They’ve taken his body away. I can’t understand why they’re still here.’

  ‘What do you think happened?’ he said.

  ‘An accident. Isn’t it obvious? Daddy was drunk. And went out for a walk. I said to him, just the other day, you wander around like that and you’ll end up in the lake. Of course he was drunk then too, and it’s pointless saying anything to a drunk. He never remembers anything afterwards. Who he’s insulted, where he’s been. A blank.’ She shrugged. ‘It was an accident waiting to happen.’

  ‘The police are not sure it was an accident.’

  ‘Did they say that to you?’

  ‘No. But setting up a crime scene… Searching down there, taking plaster casts. You don’t do that unless you think there might be some other explanation.’

  ‘It was an accident,’ she said firmly. ‘That’s what they’ll come down to.’

  ‘I’m not sure.’

  ‘So what do you think, Mr Holmes?’

  He shouldn’t have started, he knew at once, the victim being her father, but he’d begun.

  ‘I think the caretaker knows something about it.’

  ‘What?’ she shot back.

  Now he was out of his comfort zone, putting someone in the frame with the flimsiest of evidence. Hardly evidence at all.

  ‘He knew your father was dead before I told him,’ he said.

  ‘How do you know that?’

  She was staring at him, trembling. He should not have started this.

  ‘The way George was,’ he said. ‘His eyes. He was trying so hard to convince me it was an accident…’

  ‘Like I’ve been?’ she said, her eyes wide.

  ‘I didn’t mean that.’ He was itchy round the neck and took a breather for a rethink. ‘After we found the body, I went to see him first, to leave Mia there, so I could tell your mother. And I swear, he already knew your father was dead.’

  ‘I’m not sure where this is going, Jack.’ She was agitated, striding about, swinging her arms. She turned back on him. ‘Let’s suppose George did know, for argument’s sake. It doesn’t mean he killed my father.’

  ‘But why lie about it? And think about it, he had the best of motives. He and Jenny hated him.’

  She threw her hands up. ‘Stop, stop, Jack. This is all baseless. You could be totally wrong. You have nothing but your feelings to go on.’ Her hands rushed to her cheek, an urgent thought. ‘You haven’t told the police?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘Then don’t. It’s all supposition. Amateur detective stuff. Leave it to the professionals.’

  He nodded. She was more than likely right. It was all a feeling, and feelings can be utterly wrong. He should have kept his suspicions to himself.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘It was tactless of me. You’re right. They’ll probably conclude it was an accident.’

  ‘What else can it be?’ she said. ‘When they cut him open, they’ll find him loaded to the gunnels with booze.’

  Jack’s phone rang. He took it from his pocket.

  ‘Excuse me,’ he said. ‘It’s my daughter. I’ll keep it short.’ He turned away, ‘Hello, Mia.’

  ‘Hello, Dad.’

  ‘What’s it like at Nan’s?’

  ‘We went to this park. They’ve got a bird house and a butterfly greenhouse. Had ice creams and cake. Can I stay the night? Nan wants to take me to a play a friend of hers is in. An Agatha Christie crime thing.’

  ‘Of course you can stay. I’ll see you tomorrow then. Now I must get back to work…’

  ‘You on your own, Dad?’

  ‘Course I am.’

  ‘Not with that lady again?’

  ‘What do you think I am? I’m on my own,’ he said, ‘in the middle of a job. I’ve got to earn some money, you know. I haven’t done much today, what with the police…’

  ‘And that lady.’

  ‘So I just have to get back to work. Enjoy the play. You can tell me all about it tomorrow. Bye, Mia.’

  ‘Bye, Dad.’

  Jack switched off and put the phone back in his pocket.

  Ellie came up to him and poked him in the chest. ‘On your own – are you?’

  ‘Kids!’

  He put his arms round her and they embraced. A long kiss.

  ‘And you’re on your own tonight, I hear,’ she said in a break. ‘Want company?’

  Chapter 38

  Jenny was in her elder son’s room. She was wearing a long blue dress that she’d almost torn up for rags. And maybe would when all this was sorted out. Whenever that might be. The walls in the room were stripped of posters, the single mattress bare. The floor was packed with plastic bags, cardboard boxes and tea chests, full with juvenile paraphernalia, books and clothing.

  She took a plastic bag and upturned it on the bed. Out came an assortment of underwear and socks. She opened a drawer and put them in. Not bothering for neatness, just in. She tipped out another bag; this one of t-shirts and sweaters, opened a second drawer and put the clothes back in the same drawer they’d come out of a day earlier.

  Get them in, sort them out later. How she longed to be rid of all these boxes and bags. To have a home once more. Bare walls and empty drawers were so dispiriting. She wanted her house back.

  George came in with two mugs of tea. He handed her one.

  ‘What a palaver!’ he said, looking about him.

  She sat on the bed with hers. He was by the door gazing at a room that had lost its familiarity.

  ‘It’s like digging holes and filling them in again,’ he sighed.

  ‘I am so demoralised,’ she said.

  ‘But it’s ours again, love.’

  ‘Is it?’

  ‘It’s in writing. We are fully re-instated. Jobs and home. Two years, the letter says.’

  She shuddered. ‘I just don’t trust the DeNeuves. It’s all given so grudgingly. Well, not given at all. You blackmailed them.’

  ‘I wouldn’t call it that.’

  ‘What else is it?’

  He didn’t speak for a while, but sat on a hard chair, drinking his tea. She had her back to him, sunken.

  ‘They hate us,’ she said to the bare window. ‘That’s what kills me. Living and working where the boss hates you.’

  ‘What choice do we have?’ he said. ‘He gave us a month’s notice on our jobs and the house. A month! The bastard. Now at least, we can look around. One of us find a job, then the other, then see if we can sort out somewhere to live. Say over 18 months. We’ve got a two year cushion. Not have everything thrown at us like an avalanche. And oh yes, they’ll give us brilliant references. Just to see the backs of us.’

  ‘It’s better to be in than out, I suppose.’ She patted his hand. ‘That’s got to be so. But I can’t dance for joy when I see all this lot,’ she
indicated the boxes and bags all around, ‘two weeks to get this far. And now we have to unbundle them, just to be where we were. Correction. Not quite where we were. Here on sufferance.’ She turned to her husband. ‘Facing the evil eye every day.’

  ‘I know that alright. I had it up at the house. They’d love us away from here and forgotten.’

  He punched a fist into a palm.

  ‘You’re a witness, George,’ she said. ‘They’ve killed the head. They’d love to see you dead too.’

  ‘But I’m not drunk and helpless. By God, I’m not.’

  She sighed. ‘I wonder whether we might just be better off going. We haven’t cancelled that place yet…’

  ‘That hole in the wall. No way are we going there.’

  ‘But we’d be obliged to no one. Not like here. We’ve got some savings.’

  ‘No. We are staying, Jenny. We have two years to sort out somewhere. Don’t let them push us around. We’ll get ourselves unpacked and we’ll stay. On our terms, till that contract runs out. Chin up, love. They can’t push us around anymore. We are here. Whether they like us or not. We’ll do our jobs and we’ll stand our ground.’

  ‘They hate our guts.’

  ‘It’s mutual. No pretending now. But we’ll get respect. We insist on that. Respect. No doormat treatment from now on.’

  ‘What are you going to do with those computers?’

  ‘Bloody things. I’d put them back if I could, but they’ve been reported stolen. I wish I’d never taken them. But how was I to know that this was going to happen? I thought, get something out of Bramley after 17 years. Anyway, they’re safe in the cellar. There’s no reason for the cops to go down there. And as soon as they’re gone, I take them to the dealer.’

  The silence engulfed them, the boxes and bags pressing on them like added gravity.

  ‘I should be pleased,’ she said. ‘We’re back. You got us two years. But I’m just tired.’

  He put a hand on her shoulder. ‘It’s the boxes, love. It’s the strain. The quicker we get unpacked, the quicker we get some heart back.’

  ‘Whatever we do, George,’ she said, ‘it’s not ours. And that’s the truth of it. Sooner or later, we’ve got to go.’ She closed her eyes. ‘I want to live somewhere where we are not despised.’

  ‘Who wouldn’t?’ said George. ‘But we haven’t got that choice. I am the caretaker of Bramley again. You are catering manager. This is a damned good house. And it’s ours. For the time being.’

  Chapter 39

  The DeNeuves were in the garden, on the patio. Vicky had done a little dead heading in the herbaceous border. She wanted to hoe the vegetables, but Cathy had insisted on a family chat before she went home. Another one. It had been such a long day, two packed into one. She’d hardly slept the night before, what with all the busyness at the lake. You don’t simply snooze till morning, having killed your husband. It was so engulfing, she wished the day done with. Presumably, one in time got used to the facts as they now were, and lived as one used to, but sans husband. A widow, accustomed to her widowhood.

  ‘What are we going to do about Mr Grove?’ said Cathy.

  ‘Nice dog he’s got,’ said Ellie. ‘But I’d rather not have seen it last night.’ She was stirring the lemon and ice in her elderflower cordial.

  ‘He came here,’ said Vicky sipping her drink, ‘like Caesar demanding tributes.’

  ‘Which we promptly gave him,’ exclaimed Cathy. ‘He made a fool of us. A caretaker for God’s sake. He simply came here, demanded his job back and that of his stupid wife, and his house. His house! And we caved in.’

  ‘We didn’t have much choice,’ said Vicky. ‘What do you say, Ellie?’

  ‘Serves us right, I suppose. Daddy sacked and evicted them in one fell swoop. What would you do in their position?’

  ‘Have you been talking to your builder again?’ said Cathy.

  ‘His name is Jack.’

  ‘And he’s standing up for the rights of the working man… Soon we’ll have the unions here, picket lines before you know it.’

  ‘I was just putting myself into George Grove’s shoes, Cathy. I know it’s not usual in mathematics but we do it in English literature all the time.’

  ‘He’s not Othello, he’s a bloody caretaker!’

  Vicky poured herself another cordial, avoiding the lemon slices accumulating in the jug.

  ‘He’s getting very bolshie, I must say,’ she said. ‘He gave us an ultimatum, a letter of reinstatement or he’d go straight to the police. And I had the feeling he would.’

  ‘In spite of the fact he’d get in trouble himself?’ queried Ellie.

  ‘In spite of it.’

  ‘That’s a lot of resentment,’ said Ellie.

  ‘I don’t think we need write an essay on his character,’ said Cathy. ‘What are we going to do about him?’

  ‘I’m sure they are unpacking right now,’ said Vicky.

  ‘As if the house was theirs!’ exclaimed Cathy. ‘I shudder what they’ve done to the place.’

  ‘Well, we know what to do. We either kill him or live with him for two years,’ said Ellie. ‘That’s not forever.’

  ‘Two years in which he will not take orders, my simple sister. He’ll do what he damn well wants. He’ll walk all over us.’

  ‘So what’s your suggestion?’ said Ellie.

  ‘I simply know you can’t have employees ruling the roost! Bramley is ours. Not theirs. Suppose…’ She thought for an instant. ‘I ask him to polish the hall floor. He says he doesn’t feel like it. What do I do then?’

  ‘Polish it yourself?’ said Ellie with a chuckle she made no attempt to hold back.

  ‘Oh shut up, you little slummer!’

  ‘A little manual work wouldn’t hurt us once in a while…’

  ‘Where are you coming from? This is an independent school. What would parents think if they saw me or you polishing the school floors?’

  ‘In that suit?’ said Ellie. ‘Now I know why you never take it off. In bed, even?’

  Cathy threw her hands in the air. ‘This is a waste of time. She refuses to see the situation, Mummy. Where we are. What this does to us. As if nothing at all has changed.’

  They were silent, jiggling ice cubes, thinking about themselves, their father, Bramley and a caretaker who had too much power.

  ‘Kill him or live with him. We haven’t really got beyond that,’ said Vicky. ‘Though I wonder how legal that letter is. Might it be worth going to a solicitor with it?’

  ‘Not just yet, Mummy,’ said Ellie.

  ‘No,’ she said, ‘but after the inquest and cremation… And if the solicitor says it’s not contractual then we fire him.’

  ‘And if the solicitor says it is contractual?’ said Cathy. ‘Or the Groves take us to a tribunal?’

  ‘He’d get a lot of sympathy,’ said Ellie. ‘The underdog in a tied house, with a bully of an independent school taking home and job away, in spite of the letter signed by you…’

  ‘He could get a lot of money out of us,’ sighed Vicky, ‘if we go that road. Damn the man. We may simply have to live with him for the term of the letter. Then… and only then, we terminate.’

  Ellie laughed. ‘You might yet be polishing the hall floor, Cathy. And pregnant too. That will be a sight come December.’

  ‘Oh God,’ moaned Cathy. ‘Live with that prick for two years. He will take such pleasure in tormenting us. We might as well not have a caretaker for all the work he’ll do.’

  ‘Have you another tactic?’ said Vicky.

  ‘I simply know I will not be humiliated.’

  Chapter 40

  Ellie shook herself. She had nodded off. And for a moment wasn’t sure where she was. Her classroom, at her desk. Her laptop open in front of her, showing the screensaver of a dancing coloured ball. How long had she been out? At least ten minutes for the screensaver to cut in. She wriggled her neck and rubbed the top of her shoulders. Her energy came in waves today. One moment hyper, the next dopy,
drifting off. The builder had been a hyper moment, can’t have been long since she was with him outside the computer room. Flooded with energy. Must be adrenaline. Fight or flight. Sex. She hoped it wasn’t too obvious. But what if it was?

  He was sharp for a builder. Oh, what a snobby thing to think! Why should a builder be stupid? You have to be able to use tools, select the right materials, calculate. Just because he didn’t go to University – as Cathy might say. He was good looking and he challenged her. Mostly she liked that, verbal fencing, but not when it came to what happened to her father and the caretaker’s connection. Jack had picked up that George was lying. She just hoped she’d put him off. Or had he picked up on her? Her lies.

  This dreadful business.

  She half laughed, thinking of Cathy in the garden. Was she really contemplating killing the caretaker? When you’ve done one, the next is easier – they say. The tenth a doddle. She became quite stupid with Cathy around. Had to beat her, at all costs. No matter that the real problem was the caretaker. Yes, he had a hold on them. But at the meeting it was Cathy. Cut her, insult her. Never mind the business on hand. So childish. But she would not back down. Not with her sister, who would only see it as weakness.

  Ellie massaged her shoulders and the back of her neck. She should move, stuck in her chair. Not the best place to nod off. She looked about the classroom, at the bare walls. And sighed, so much to do before the start of term. Displays to go up, the curricular work which Cathy had already completed. But it wasn’t going to get done today. She was utterly washed out. Jack had gone, so no more hyper moments with him, until she got to his place in a couple of hours. She wondered how he lived. His flat. Slumming as Cathy put it. Well, soon she’d find out.

  Ellie shook herself. She’d nodded off again. Would she be alright to drive home? Perhaps she should get a taxi. So little sleep… None actually. How can you when you’ve just drowned your father? The three of them, teamwork at last. Topping him up with booze, getting him out of the house and into the wheelbarrow, into Cathy’s car and down to the lake. They should have had a picnic. Got a boat out. A champagne send off.