by Liz Evans
It was pretty much a rerun of Saturday along the front - only more so. All the locals who’d been busy hitting the supermarkets and hoovering the bedrooms yesterday were now staking their claims on the beach; spreading towels, setting up deckchairs and banging in windbreaks to define their patch of sand. Within an hour or so the first arrivals from the M25 would be filling up the gaps until the whole of the yellow-grey areas were heaving with oiled flesh.
‘Just my luck to be heading north the first decent weekend we get,’ Annie remarked, clicking down the locks on her suitcase and adding it to the overnighter already standing on her lounge floor.
‘You can always go to Blackpool,’ I suggested.
I’d cut round via the park in order to wish her good hunting and run my theories re the probably-not-missing Kristen Keats past her. ‘I’ll miss you.’
‘Yeah. No one to scrounge biscuits and coffee from at work,’ she snorted, disappearing into the kitchen.
‘Cynic,’ I grinned, finishing off the ones I’d just helped myself to.
‘Realist.’
Her voice echoed from the depths of the fridge. She briskly dropped partially used cheese, milk carton and vegetables into a plastic carrier and pushed it at me. ‘Here, throw these in the bin on your way out. They won’t keep.’
‘How long you expecting to be gone?’
‘Depends what I find. Couple of weeks maybe.’
She locked up the flat and we made our way down to the ground floor and across to where her car was waiting by the park railings.
‘Want me to water the plants or anything?’
‘No, you’re OK. Zeb’s going to keep an eye on the place. Bye.’
Having waved her off, I couldn’t put off the moment any longer. I headed northwards, ready to face one of the tasks I disliked most in the world.
CHAPTER 9
‘Left?’
‘Scarpered, checked out, moved on to pastures new,’ I elaborated, since Henry seemed to be having difficulty with ‘left’. I’d already repeated it three times.
I’d come up here with the intention of refunding some of his advance. It’s always a wrench for me to give back money after it’s made itself at home in my heart, but in the circumstances not doing so would have seemed like stealing money from a blind man’s pocket.
‘She - Kristen - gave a month’s notice on her flat. And she told her neighbour she was going. It’s pretty water-tight, Henry. She intended to go - and she went. QED, as they say. I’m sure she’ll get the tapes back to you. Probably planning to pop back for a visit once she’s settled wherever.’
Henry didn’t look convinced. At least as far as I could tell behind the bottle-green-tinged glasses he didn’t. Even on a bright, sunny May morning, this room had a gloomy shadiness to it.
It was principally due to the large clump of rhododendron bushes that were tightly packed along the front garden wall, blocking out most of the light. At present they were decorated with feathery pom-poms of magenta, scarlet and apricot. But most of the time they must have been a solid wall of glossy green vegetation. I nearly asked Henry why he didn’t have them trimmed back; but I stopped myself just in time.
St John’s had been a classy address once. It was a continuation of one of the main shopping streets, and at the time most of the small double-fronted detached villas had been built, in the 1920s, they’d been intended for prosperous middle-class families.
Nowadays the sort of people who could pay for that amount of space bought it in one of the country villages, rather than in an area that was likely to be disturbed by the lager swiggers and candyfloss crunchers at weekends.
In the meantime the gardens in St John’s had been mostly concreted or gravelled over to make small car parks, and the rooms were either bedsits, dentist’s/doctor’s surgeries or some kind of council-financed help group.
The house before Henry’s was being used as a drug advice centre, and the one beyond it had the windows boarded up, but there was a notice announcing plans to turn it into a council playgroup.
‘It was bad enough having the damn druggies moving in,’ Henry had grumbled when he’d answered the door to me ten minutes previously. ‘Most of them are muggers or housebreakers. But screaming brats one side and unwashed addicts the other - it really doesn’t bear thinking about. Would you buy a property in that situation?’
‘I guess not. Are you moving then?’
‘Thinking about it,’ he’d admitted, showing me into the sitting room. ‘Mind, I’ve been thinking about it for the past twenty years. If only I’d matched deed to thought, I shouldn’t be venting my spleen on you now. Take a seat. Throw the dog off if he’s in your way. He thinks I don’t know he slips on the furniture when I’m not looking. Don’t you, Beano old boy?’
He gave a sharp bark of laughter, as if this was a private little joke between them.
A black, shaggy-coated retriever cross who was lying across a deep armchair raised his head briefly from a tangle of front legs and waved a desultory tail.
‘Been a bit off-colour. Reason I didn’t bring him along the other day.’
Taking the matching chair across the fireplace, I asked if he managed to get around all right without the dog.
‘Oh, yes. He’s not a regular guide dog. Not trained, I mean. He just knows my little ways. Been flying solo for years. Do it with my eyes closed, you might say. Cup of coffee before you make your report, m’dear?’
He declined my offer of help in the kitchen, giving me time to take a quick look round the room. Beano’s suspicious eyes swivelled with me as I prowled, taking in the dark, heavy, old-fashioned furniture. The curtains and carpets were from the same period. Expensive when bought fifty-odd years ago, but now showing distinct signs of coming to the end of their rot-by date.
It took a second to realise what was odd about the room: there were no ornaments, pictures or mirrors. The television set and video recorder were also anachronisms. I could see the point of the hi-fi, but what was he going to do with a video?
I checked the banks of audio tapes in a glass-fronted cabinet and discovered that about a third were book readings and dramatised plays, and another third were classical music and dance-band stuff. The remainder were hard to classify because they were proprietary brands of tapes which I assumed Henry had used to make his own recordings. All the boxes had coloured plastic strips with raised dots taped to their spines. Braille, I guessed. I’d never actually seen it before.
Opening the bottom section of the cabinet, I found a well- stocked drinks cupboard. And judging by the labels, Henry didn’t believe in buying cheap when expensive would do. ‘Would you prefer a stronger snifter?’
His Moroccan leather slippers had let Henry slide up on me. He was staring straight ahead over the coffee tray, but I daresay he knew the sounds of his own cupboard doors. ‘Sorry. Penalty of the job. Terminal nosiness.’
‘I see.’
He moved with confidence across the room, lowered the tray on to the coffee table and poured two cups, using his thumb to judge the level.
‘Could you help yourself to milk and sugar?’ He leant forward, the cup waving slightly as he waited for me to intercept.
As I accepted it, he over-balanced and tilted forward, putting out his free hand to stop the fall. My sarong skirt had fallen open as I sat down, but I hadn’t bothered to adjust it since the dog hadn’t seemed upset by a view of my knickers. Now Henry’s questing hand landed smack on my thigh and sent a chill across the bare flesh.
‘Good lord, m’dear, are you wearing any clothes?’
‘Er ... yeah.’ Trying to balance the jiggling cup, I hastily dragged the sarong edges together and tucked them between my legs whilst knowing it was a stupid gesture. He was hardly in a position to notice if I was sitting here stark naked. Was he? Once again I’d had a terrible urge to snatch off those featureless glasses and waggle my fingers in front of his face.
I’d covered over the moment by giving him a quick rundown of the progress o
n his case. Which had taken all of two minutes and left him repeating blankly: ‘Left? Left?
‘I thought I’d best come round and tell you straight off. I’ll knock some kind of bill up and drop it in during the week with what’s left of your advance, OK?’
‘You mean you’re bailing out on me?’
‘Well ...’
‘Just because Kristen has moved doesn’t mean she’s left town, does it? Might just have found new digs.’
‘I guess so.’
Personally I didn’t think so. Why make such a mystery of it in that case? And why sell her car? My money would be on her finding a new job, complete with company car, well out of this district.
‘You could give Wexton Engineering a ring tomorrow,’ I suggested. ‘I expect they’ve a forwarding address for her.’
‘I’d rather you did that, m’dear. If you have no objections to continuing our partnership?’
I hadn’t any at all. After all, I was getting paid for it. But I felt obliged to point out it was an expensive way of placing phone calls.
‘I don’t mind the money. What else do I have to spend it on, apart from Beano?’
The dog waved a lazy tail in response to its name.
‘Are you still on the furniture, you rascal? Come on.’ Henry clicked his fingers sharply.
With a yawn, Beano ambled over, sniffed me delicately - and poked his nose in a very personal place.
‘Do you mind, you cheeky mutt, I hardly know you.’ I struggled to dislodge the enthusiastically sniffing nostrils. Beano seemed to take it as encouragement to push harder.
‘What’s he up to?’ Henry followed the dog’s backbone up over his head, down the muzzle and around the moist nose. ‘Come out of there.’
Cupping the muzzle, he managed to get the slobbering beast out of my crutch. I hastily rearranged the sarong and reclamped my legs together.
‘I’m so sorry about that. If it’s acceptable to you, Grace, I’d prefer it if you did the initial recce at Wexton’s. I don’t wish to look ... foolish.’
‘Fair enough. I’ll get back to you soon as I have a line on Kristen. OK?’
‘A-OK,’ Henry beamed.
The front was well and truly buzzing by now. Crowds were wandering up and down along the seaside promenade and milling around the entrance to the games arcades, rock shops and souvenir booths.
The children’s play area was doing brisk business on the swing boats, roundabout and trampolines, and a light wind was teasing at the striped canvas fringes of the Punch-and- Judy booth which had already set up for business.
Further away, on the cusp between the powdered dry sand and the wet flats left by the retreating tide, a string of donkeys plodded placidly up and down with small children clamped to their high-sided saddles and a medium-sized figure in dark trousers, rolled-up shirtsleeves and a battered straw trilby following at the end of the string.
All in all, I decided, it wasn’t a bad old place to live at times.
The sun was burning down on the back of my neck and arms, reminding me I ought to buy some suntan oil. Fortunately I don’t burn easily. The blonde hair is out of a packet and my skin type has more in common with my brown eyes than Scandinavian-type fairness.
I wandered along to the kiosk where I’d stopped with Figgy the other day, and asked for the cheapest bottle they stocked. ‘That’ll be six pounds eight pee, love.’
‘You what! They charge less for the stuff they pump out of the ground!’
‘Well, love, if you want to rub raw petroleum over yerself, be my guest. You want this, it’s six pounds eight pee.’ Once I’d greased myself up like a chip destined for the fryer, I flicked off my sandals, carried them over the sands and helped myself to a seat on the upturned bucket that served the donkeys’ owner as a chair.
‘Afternoon, December.’
December Drysdale nodded his hellos before taking off the trilby and running the back of his forearm over his head and a pair of eyebrows the texture of scouring pads. ‘Aft’noon, lass. Who’s next then?’
The first child in the queue for rides pushed forward and pointed: ‘I wanna ride that one.’
December folded his arms and glared down at her. ‘And what’s the magic word?’
Blue eyes widened. ‘Dunno.’
‘Please. I want to ride that one, please.’
A larger boy behind her swaggered forward. ‘Don’ yer tell our Chantal to say no fucking please. We’re paying, ain’t we? You gotta do what we say, Grandad.’
‘I’m not your grandad, son. Some other poor devil’s got that problem. And anyone who wants to ride my donkeys says please. Got it?’
‘Stuff it then. C’mon, Chantal, we’ll go on the trampolines ’stead.’
As a piece of business acumen, telling your customers to get lost might not strike you as too bright. But what most people didn’t know about December was that running the donkey string was more or less a hobby as far as he was concerned. He did it because he loved them.
He actually lived on the income from being part-owner of one of the busiest nightclubs along this stretch of coast, plus assorted bingo halls, cinemas and a considerable collection of shrewd business investments that he’d been building up for the past forty-odd years. Which - apart from the fact that he’d become a friend during my last case - was one of the reasons I wanted to talk to him.
I waited until he’d finished the next trip before joining him at the head of the queue and helping to lift the next lot of paying customers into position. Several of the donkeys came across and nuzzled at me, whickering moist breath into my hair. They remembered me. I felt absurdly privileged.
Once they made tracks along the beach again, I fell into step beside December at the rear and we followed the hypnotically swaying tail of a donkey who went under the name of Errol Flynn.
‘Where are you stabling them now?’ I asked.
During my last case, December’s donkey stables had ended up partially burnt to the ground and I’d been lucky not to go up with them.
‘Farm where I winter them. I brought them in in the horsebox this morning. It’s a bit of a bother, but I didn’t want to disappoint the kiddies. And it’ll only be for the week. This weather’ll break by the weekend.’
‘How do you know?’ I scanned the sky, expecting some bit of countryman’s lore relating to early-nesting gulls or fur- covered crabs.
‘Bank holiday, isn’t it? And half-term. Stands to reason.’
We’d reached the furthest point of the donkeys’ route. They wheeled on an invisible roundabout, Lana (Turner), the big lead grey, taking them round in an arc before the leisurely trek back.
‘So what can I do for you, lass?’
‘What makes you think this isn’t a social visit?’
‘Is it?’
‘No.’
‘Well then?’
‘I was hoping you might be able to fill me in on a couple of companies. Wexton Engineering for starters.’
‘One of our few local manufacturing industries.’
‘Yeah, I know that.’ Even I’d recognised the name. They cropped up occasionally in the local papers doing their civic duty for the area by sponsoring flowerbeds and carnival floats, or donating computer software to the local primary school. I said as much to December. My natural suspicion of businesses who want to kid you they exist purely to serve the community must have tinged my tone.
‘Nothing wrong with doing a bit for those less fortunate. Maybe if you tried it, people would like you better.’
I’d forgotten December’s ability to go straight to the heart of the problem without feeling any necessity to travel via tact or diplomacy.
Maybe, I informed him tartly, if people liked me better, I’d be more inclined to do things for them.
‘Maybe,’ he agreed placidly. We’d reached the end of the ride and he loaded the next contingent of riders before asking me what I wanted to know about Wexton’s.
‘I was rather hoping you might have an “in”. Yo
u know, own shares in the company or something.’
He shook his head. ‘It’s not a public company. The family still own it, far as I know.’
‘The Wexton family?’
‘I imagine so. Although I don’t think there’s been any Wextons on the board for years. Old Jack Wexton started it back before the last war. He did very well in that particular piece of unpleasantness. Made a fortune turning out machinery parts for the fighting forces, by all accounts. Bloke who runs it now is called Bridgeman. Stephen Bridgeman. Married to Jack’s granddaughter, I think.’
The breeze had strengthened slightly, sending a cooling draught to ruffle my sarong and tease my hair. Lifting up my face, I enjoyed the sensation, whilst my bare toes gripped the ribbed sands and squeezed the soft worm casts left on the surface.
December’s gravelly tones broke into my thoughts. ‘There were rumours they were in trouble a few years back.’
‘What kind of trouble?’
‘Financial. Same as most companies in the recession. Especially those who’d been relying on military contracts.’ We wheeled again. The deckchairs were encroaching on to the wet flats now, where there was more room for childish civil engineers to construct castles, ditches and complicated drainage channels. It would be hours before the sea rushed back to fill in their efforts. The tide here was a big one and the waves retreated for miles over flat sands. At the furthest point of low tide, the ocean would be no more than a silver ribbon on the horizon.
‘Why those companies relying on military work especially?’ I asked, returning to the subject of Wexton Engineering.
‘Competition. Value for money. Free markets. And them other right-sounding phrases the government suddenly started throwing at the voters. See, before it was like a sort of exclusive club. You got on the list for government work, and after that they just kept putting in the repeat orders. Well, didn’t have much choice really, did they? If they wanted more of your gizmos, they had to buy them from you. And since no one in their right mind ever made a gizmo that could be replaced by a rival manufacturer’s gizmo, it was as good as printing your own money.’