I was offered the job by Mr Buckle himself one evening when he used my cab for a trip from Bath to his home in Bristol. On a few previous occasions he had been my passenger and I'd got into conversation and found him pleasant enough, with just a suggestion of the mild flirting a woman cabbie gets from middle-aged males. Nothing I could take exception to. At that time I didn't know he was the Realbrew boss. I had a vague idea he had stakes in several businesses in Bath and Bristol, and of course I'd seen his beautiful house overlooking Clifton College, so I was pretty certain he wasn't stringing me along when he offered me the job. At the end of the run home, he simply asked me how much I took in fares in a good week and offered to match it with a regular salary in return for a six-day week and no nights. I would be allowed to use the company car whenever I wished, as long as I kept an accurate log of mileage.
I didn't hesitate. The taxi-driving had been a living, but it was a treadmill. Until that evening I'd seen no possibility of escape.
Of course you know about my son's fortunate rescue from drowning last July. You'll have heard about it from Greg – Professor Jackman. That was one of the most horrible days in my life, and not just because of what happened to Mat. I was in trouble with the police before I even heard about Mat. Not here in Bath, or you'd have known about it, wouldn't you?
I'm sorry. This doesn't sound very coherent, does it? I'd better tell you exactly how that day turned out, because it all links up with what happened later on.
Early in the morning, Mr Buckle rang me. He needed the car, so would I drive over to his house at Clifton by 9 a.m.?
This usually meant that he was making a business trip to London, and wanted to be ferried to Bristol Parkway in time to catch the train; the InterCity service was a full hour quicker than a belt along the motorway. But when I arrived at the Buckle residence that morning I had to revise my ideas. It was building up to be a really hot day, by the way. Not a cloud in the sky. The Filipino maid escorted me to the rear of the house, where my boss, flaunting a straw hat, powder-blue shorts and mirror sunglasses, was stretched out on a lounger beside the swimming pool. The only concession to business was a cellphone within arm's reach on the paving. He waved me towards a metal chair.
Mr Buckle was in a mood to match the weather. He apologized for bringing me out so early and offered me a fresh grapefruit juice. Then he asked me if my son had got his Common Entrance result yet.
I told him Mat wasn't taking the exam until next year when he'd be thirteen.
He said, 'In that case, take a tip from me, Dana. Give him a rest from books now. Let him get out and enjoy the summer.'
I nodded. Men are always giving me advice I don't ask for, as if male solidarity requires that Mat doesn't end up as that reviled creature, a mother's boy.
With that off his chest, Mr Buckle pitched his voice lower. 'The reason I asked you to come is confidential.' To reinforce the point he tapped the side of his nose. 'Family jewels, right?'
I shaped my mouth into an 'O' that was meant to imply that I understood without agreeing to anything.
'Far be it from me to lead young ladies off the straight and narrow,' he confided to me with a wolfish grin. The irony was that he was right. Charmian, the tigress he lived with, would claw out his vitals at the swerve of a roving eye. She'd made that very clear to me the first time we had met. 'What I'm proposing is rather naughty,' Mr Buckle went on. 'You're a Realbrew driver, and the Merc is a Realbrew car, but I have other stakes in business, as I'm sure you know. I want to borrow you for the day, so to speak. There's a small consignment of goods awaiting collection in Southampton. All my regular drivers are spoken for. Would you be an angel on this occasion and help me out?' His eyes uplifted in appeal reminded me of one of those plaster dogs used as collection-boxes for animal charities. 'It is extremely urgent.'
I hesitated. If he had given me my orders straightforwardly, I wouldn't have thought twice about them. The way he'd asked made me suspicious. In view of his lifestyle I'd sometimes wondered if all his activities were strictly within the law. The last thing I wanted was to get drawn into some racket. 'What exactly is it?' I asked.
'Teddy bears.'
After an interval to be certain that I'd heard correctly, I said, 'Teddies?
'Eight hundred teddies made in Taiwan. Very small. About this size.' He made a space between the thumb and forefinger of one hand. 'They don't weigh much at all. They're in four cartons that will easily fit into the car.'
An alert was sounding in my head. My brain hammered out possibilities like a teleprinter. Southampton docks… import licence… dangerous toys… hidden drugs…
'The paperwork is all in order, if that's what you're thinking about,' he said to reassure me. 'You just show the pass I'll give you, Dana, collect them from the warehouse and bring them back here. Well, not here. There's a lock-up garage in Whiteladies Road. I'll give you the key.'
'May I ask what the urgency is, if it's just a load of teddies?' I enquired, trying to sound merely curious.
He spread his hands as if it were obvious. 'Come on, you must have heard of the big charity day at Longleat House. The Teddy Bears' Picnic, this Saturday. Every bear of any distinction is there. Hundreds of teddies. And children, of course. I've been asked to supply these mini-bears for souvenirs, and I can't let the kiddies down.'
'Oh.' I could almost hear that song about the teddy bears' picnic. Suddenly I felt extremely foolish.
And Stanley Buckle was grinning.
I agreed to make the delivery, of course.
I was on the A36 approaching Warminster when I was stopped. The trip had gone smoothly enough until then. I had found the warehouse in Southampton docks without difficulty, signed for the teddies and loaded the four cartons into the back of the Mercedes. I'd travelled some forty miles on the return and was through Heytesbury when I noticed a red car following me. At one stage I moved over, but they made no attempt to overtake, so I put my foot down a little because I didn't like being tailgated. A mile or so further on, I looked in the mirror again and saw a blue flashing light on the roof of the pursuing car. It hadn't been there before. The two men inside weren't wearing police uniforms as far as I could make out, but they were flashing their headlights like crazy, so I stopped at the next lay-by, and so did they.
I wound down the window.
The man at the car door told me he was from the police. He held up an identity card that looked official. He told me to turn off the engine and remove the key.
I obeyed, and the conversation went something like this.
'Did you know you were exceeding seventy miles an hourjust now?'
'I wasn't aware of it.'
'Do you know the limit, miss?'
'Sixty on this stretch.'
'Where are you travelling?'
'Bristol. I've come from Southampton.'
'Business?'
'Yes.' As I spoke I thought of the packages in the boot.
He asked for my name and some form of identification. Then he asked the nature of my business. I described myself as a driver. There was a horrid sense of inevitability about the whole thing. I was asked to step out of the car and somehow I knew it wasn't to be breathalysed.
The second man had got out of the red car and walked over to join us. He showed me his identification. He was a detective inspector.
'Is the boot locked, miss?'
'I believe so.'
'Would you unlock it, please?'
I obeyed and pulled up the lid.
The four cartons lay there. I thought of my boss at leisure beside his pool while I went through this ordeal. If they found something and charged me, I would bloody well see that Mr Buckle took the rap. There might be honour among thieves, but I was no thief. Nor did I knowingly have possession of whatever items of contraband might be in those boxes. I would lose my job, but that would be less of a disaster than acquiring a criminal record.
One of the policeman asked, 'What's in those, miss?'
'Teddy bears,' I said, trying to sou
nd convincing. If I was going to plead not guilty it was vital to stick to the story I'd been fed.
Glances were exchanged. The first said, 'What did you say the name of your firm is?'
'You didn't ask me. It's Realbrew Ales Limited, but I was asked to collect the teddies as a personal favour to my boss.'
'Personal. He likes bears, does he?'
I explained about the picnic at Longleat.
'I think we'd better have a look at these teddies. Would you mind opening one of the cartons?'
Squirming on the hook, I said, 'They don't belong to me. I require some authority.'
The inspector nodded. 'You can tell the owner we identified ourselves as policemen and asked for your co-operation. I take it you're willing to co-operate?'
I was handed a penknife. The pulse was still thumping in my head. I cut a line along the vinyl tape that sealed the lid.
'Remove the packing, miss.'
I lifted aside a layer of foam rubber – and a tremor of relief ran through me as I saw twenty-five small yellow teddy bears in five ranks lying on a bed of polystyrene.
The police insisted that I lift out each layer of bears until they had seen the entire contents of the box. Two hundred bears. Then they asked me to unfasten the other cartons. There was nothing to be gained by protesting; clearly they expected to find something. I felt the same flutter of nerves at each layer, but rank after rank of teddy bears gazed innocently up at me until the entire consignment had been checked.
The inspector picked up one of the bears and turned it over, examining it minutely. He and the other policeman withdrew a few yards and conferred. I watched them twist the teddy's head and limbs. The inspector gave it a shake and held it to his ear. He put it to his nose and sniffed it. The whole thing would have been laughable if I hadn't felt so intimidated by their suspicion.
Whatever they'd decided, it required some authority, because the inspector went to their car and used the two-way radio.
I tried to contain my anxiety by busying myself repacking the cartons until the policemen approached me again. The inspector handed me the teddy bear.
'In view of the way you have co-operated, I won't be reporting you for exceeding the speed limit on this occasion, miss, but take this as a serious warning. The limit is for your own protection as well as that of other road users.' He said nothing about the bears.
I murmured something suitably contrite.
The pair of them returned to their car and drove away.
Mr Buckle was still beside the pool when I returned to his house. He had turned the lounger the other way to stay facing the sun and his skin looked as if it might be sore later. He wasn't alone. There were two other middle-aged fellows in shorts playing cards under a sunshade beside the pool. They didn't look up. A third man was swimming lengths with a slow breast-stroke, and I had to look twice at his long hair, fanned on the water, before deciding that it wasn't white, but pale blond. He glanced across and assessed me in the way that men do. Apparently I wasn't worth even a passing nod.
My boss was asleep. I had to say his name twice. Then he stirred and asked me what time it was.
I told him and asked if we could speak privately, to which he said ther^ "'s nothing he couldn't discuss in front of his friends.
So I told him what had happened on the road.
He paid close attention and didn't interrupt or comment.
'I think I'm entitled to know what it was all about,' I said in conclusion, and it was more of a demand than a request.
He rubbed the back of his neck. 'All this is a puzzle to me, Dana. Did they mention my name at all?'
'No.'
'That's the way they work, of course. You commit some minor traffic offence and they throw the book at you. Did they test your tyres and brakes?'
I shook my head. 'Didn't I make that clear? They weren't interested in the state of the car.'
'Well, it's nearly new. They could see that,' he said, 'so they tried to get you on something else. You did well to keep your cool, my dear.'
Still sure that I had been duped in some way, I went so far as to say, 'I think they were acting on a tip-off. They seemed so sure of themselves.'
He didn't seem impressed. 'I doubt it,' he told me firmly. 'It's their mentality. They see a big shiny Mercedes and they think it must be part of some scam. You'd better get used to this sort of thing happening, or drive more slowly.'
'You sound like one of them.'
He grinned and asked if I would
He grinned and asked if I would care for a swim. He could find me a two-piece if I wished. 'Or just the one piece, if you feel inclined,' he added.
He was playing the philanderer again. Presumably Charmian was out for the afternoon.
I made some excuse and was about to leave when he remembered that there was a phone message for me. Would I call the switchboard at the office urgently? He handed me his cellphone.
And that was how I learned that my son had been taken to hospital.
Chapter Two
YOU CAN IMAGINE THE TURMOIL I was in. Anita, the switchboard operator at Realbrew, broke it to me as gently as she could, saying that apparently Mat had been taken to the Royal United only as a precaution after falling into the river, but when you get news like that about your own son you immediately put the worst construction on it. You think everyone is glossing over the seriousness of what has happened so as not to panic you.
Horrific possibilities filled my head while I was driving at high speed to the hospital, putting my licence and my livelihood in jeopardy. Things are never as straightforward as people would have you believe. Matthew was my only child, my entire family. I parked the car in the bay outside Casualty Reception, ran up to the entrance, took a deep breath to control myself, walked in and announced who I was.
I recognized the receptionist, but she gave me one of those plastic smiles that are supposed to ease the strain in Casualty, and told me that Matthew was being examined by Dr Murtah. I asked if he was injured in any way, and she wouldn't tell me a blessed thing, except to take a seat. Oh, and I remember that she half turned away and then took a second look and asked if she had seen me before.
I simply hadn't the mental energy left to remind her that I worked for Realbrew and had brought in a man whose arm had been fractured on the production line the previous week.
I went to a seat in the front row and rubbed the backs of my arms. The gooseflesh wasn't because the place was cold. This was July, remember. I'm often accused of taking life too seriously. No use protesting that I like a good laugh; as I told you, I'm guarded in my reactions to all but the closest friends. That's no bad thing. Anyone who drives for a living has good reason to treat the rest of humanity as wolves and vampires.
Presently, a white-coated man came over to me. He introduced himself as Dr Murtah and invited me to follow him. As we went through a swing door, he announced in the rather formal speech that Asians use that the young fellow – meaning Mat – should be none the worse for his misadventure. There was superficial grazing. And he'd had a jab in his backside. Dr Murtah had thought it wise to give him a precautionary shot of penicillin in case of infection.
He asked me whether Mat often played by the river, and I answered truthfully that I'd had no idea he was there. I could only assume he must have been playing truant from school.
'He is a scholar at the Abbey Choir School, he tells me.'
'Yes. A day boy.'
'Far be it from me to interfere, Mrs Didrikson, but when all is said and done he seems a good lad. We don't want a repeat of this misadventure. If I were you, I would ask your husband to read him the Riot Act. I wouldn't chastise him this time. He had a pretty unpleasant physical shock. However, I would leave the young tearaway in no doubt.'
'I understand.' I didn't say I was divorced. 'Thank you for attending to him, Doctor.'
He waved me into a cubicle and left me with Matthew, a distinctly chastened young tearaway sitting up on an examination couch.
'Mum.' Mat's eyes glistened.
I went to him and held him a moment, not saying a word. I didn't trust my tangled emotions.
He said, 'I'm-'
I put a hand over his lips. 'Later. We'll talk about it later. Not here.'
He said, 'They lent me this dressing gown. My clothes are still wet.'
'Doesn't matter,' I told him.
A nurse came in and asked if we had any transport, and I confirmed that we had. She told me Mat had better wear the dressing gown and sandals home, and I promised to return them later.
I tried to let the practical arrangements fill my mind. I stooped to help Matthew get his feet into the sandals, but he put his hand to them first. He didn't want to be mothered, you see. When he stood upright I was reminded that he was an inch or so taller than I – at twelve years old. It's curious how the relationship has altered since he gained that extra height. It's so easy to fall back into the old ways and treat them as babes in arms.
As we passed through the swing doors again, the receptionist stepped forward with a form in her hand and asked me to fill in a few details. She said it had to be done, and it wouldn't take a minute.
It was just a matter of my name and address and Matthew's date of birth and the name of our GP. While I was filling it in, I was surprised to overhear Matthew in conversation with someone. I looked up and saw him by the tea trolley with an overweight girl with cropped blonde hair and large earrings. She was wearing a blue linen coat, unbuttoned, over a red teeshirt and white jeans and at first it appeared that she was in charge of the trolley. Then she and Matthew came away from it carrying cups and I realized that the coat wasn't a uniform. It was part of her ensemble.
I went over to them. 'I thought you'd appreciate a cuppa,' the girl explained with a dimpled smile. 'Shall we sit down for a minute? How about the back row, Matthew?'
It crossed my mind that she was possibly something to do with the almoner service. I was handed a paper cup. 'Thank you, but I don't think I know you.'
'You may have heard of the name,' she told me. 'Molly Abershaw.'
I hadn't. I didn't know it and I hadn't seen her before. The remark smacked a little of self-importance, I thought.
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