Grace Smith Investigates

by Liz Evans

  ‘Tomorrow?’

  Neither of them was keen on that idea. They both preferred Thursday, when the regular guard had a night off and was replaced by assorted stand-ins.

  ‘They won’t know if you’re a new cleaner or not,’ Nola explained. ‘It’ll be OK if yer with me. They got a bit keen a couple of years back, after the break-in. But they ain’t too bothered again now.’

  Bonnie said ‘Me wages.’

  ‘What? Oh yeah. Bonnie keeps her money for the shift, all right?’

  I agreed that was fair enough.

  ‘And a tenner,’ Bonnie added.

  We arranged that I’d meet Nola by the social club at six thirty. She’d pressed for earlier but I wanted to give Ms Ayres and Stephen Bridgeman time to get out of the building. As it was, if either of them was working late, I was going to have to do the Cif Shift again later.

  Since I’d nothing else to do, I stayed on for another round and watched a dire American quiz show on satellite TV before driving back to the flat.

  My first thought - that the figure hunched on the staircase down to my basement flat was looking for somewhere to sleep off a few early six-packs evaporated when he raised a pale face topped with a thatch of light-brown hair and I recognised D.C. Smith, Annie’s brother (the one blessed by his parents with ‘Zebedee’, if you were paying attention to an earlier chapter).

  ‘Hi, Zeb. Coming in?’

  ‘Thanks.’

  He accepted coffee (black, I still hadn’t cracked the milk shortage) and slumped on the bed, cradling the hot mug to a chest that plainly contained an aching heart.

  I hoped he wasn’t going to start confiding in me about his love life. I’m no good at that kind of empathy stuff. I have enough trouble making sense of my own emotions.

  ‘What’s up?’

  ‘Annie’s flat.’

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘It’s got squatters.’

  CHAPTER 15

  ‘You can’t stay in there!’

  ‘Don’t see why not.’ Lounging in the small gap left once the safety chain was on, Figgy folded his arms across his chest and grinned.

  Despite the fact he was inside - inside my best friend’s flat, to be exact - he was still wearing his sunglasses, so I could see my own tight-lipped face reflected in the convex glossy blackness.

  ‘Because it’s not your flaming flat, Figgy, that’s why not.’

  ‘Lots of people live in flats that ain’t their own. Bet you do yourself.’

  ‘Yes, but they pay this thing called rent.’

  (OK, I didn’t. But I wasn’t getting into that right here.)

  ‘I don’t mind paying rent. You tell your mate to get a contract drawn up and me and Mickey’ll sign it.’

  ‘Annie doesn’t want rent. She wants her flat back.’

  ‘Told yer that, did she?’

  ‘Yes,’ I lied firmly.

  Annie hadn’t actually instructed me to regain possession, for the simple reason that she didn’t know she’d been dispossessed. Zeb hadn’t got around to telephoning her with the good news yet.

  ‘Why not?’ I’d demanded, as he’d sat on my bed sharing my coffee and his troubles.

  ‘Well ... you know ... no sense worrying her if we don’t have to. They might have gone before she gets back.’

  ‘You mean you hope they will. And what’s with this we. She left you to mind the flat. Probably thought she could trust a policeman.’

  He raised pleading eyes. ‘What am I going to do, Grace? She’ll go spare if she finds out.’

  ‘I don’t know. You’re a cop. What about arresting the pair of them? Squatting is illegal now. And you could get them for criminal damage too,. They must have broken in.’

  ‘Aaah!’

  ‘Aaah what}’

  ‘I went round to see if the place was OK. And ... well ... when I was cutting back across the park, the bloke ran into me and knocked me over. He was on roller-blades.’

  ‘He always is.’

  ‘He was very apologetic. Even offered to pay for dry- cleaning my jacket. I told him to forget it ... I was on duty, see ... and, well ...’

  I could see what was coming. ‘When did you notice Annie’s keys were missing?’

  ‘Later. Well, quite a bit later,’ he admitted sheepishly. ‘That’s why I went back to the park. To look for them. And then I saw the lights were on in Annie’s flat.’

  ‘Prat.’

  Zeb looked even more guilty. He really is very easy to intimidate. Annie says it comes from having four big sisters. ‘Do you think I should phone Annie?’

  ‘No. Not yet. I mean, they may only stay a few days. Could be gone by the time she gets back.’

  Zeb clutched this straw with visible relief. ‘They could, couldn’t they? I don’t know why they had to pick on Annie’s in the first place.’

  I’d been thinking about that. And I had a nasty feeling I could just have had a hand in it. Figgy’s sneering remarks about Annie as he’d skated up the promenade with me the other day came back. What had I said? Something about her having a flat by the park? And packing to go on a business trip? But I’d never mentioned her surname, had I?

  On the other hand, he had needled me into telling him she was a private investigator. And Vetch’s was the only PI business in town.

  I’d checked with Janice the next morning. ‘Has anyone been in asking for Annie recently?’

  ‘Several people. She has clients.’

  ‘You’ve definitely got to sue that correspondence course, Jan.’

  ‘What correspondence course?’

  ‘Charm by Post. Ten easy lessons on how to get on with people. I reckon they left out Lessons Two to Eight.’

  ‘Ha-bloody-ha!’

  She glowered at me. And unlike most of the females I came across, she could do it eye to eye. In fact, I think she had an inch on me.

  I told her she’d have liked the bloke I was asking about. ‘Black’s his favourite colour too,’ I explained. ‘He’s midnight from hair to calf. With bright-yellow roller-blades. Looks like a puppet from Sesame Street.’

  Running complacent hands over her own black outfit of tights, shorts and sleeveless waistcoat, Jan had denied ever having seen Figgy. But she did finally admit that someone had phoned describing Annie and asking what surname to put on the credit check report they were sending her.

  Great. The local directory listed twenty-five A. Smiths. But only one had an address bordering the local park. Figgy must have thought it was a sign from heaven when Zeb turned up with the keys.

  I glared at him now and asked: ‘Can I come in?’

  Figgy shook the black spikes. ‘Nope.’

  ‘Oh come on, Figgy. I can hardly throw you out single- handed, can I? I just want to see the flat’s OK.’

  He shut the door in my face. I thought that was it. But to my surprise, it opened a second later - minus the safety chain. ‘Come in, your Graciness. Mickey, we’ve got a guest.’ Mickey came out of the bedroom. She looked shy and uneasy, both hands restlessly twisting the mousy hair over one shoulder whilst she nibbled at her split ends.

  ‘Coffee?’ Figgy offered.

  ‘Thanks. It’s in the green and gold canister. I know because this is my friend’s flat.’

  Mickey looked even more worried. Figgy simply grinned. I was relieved to see he’d taken the roller-blades off. At least we wouldn’t have to worry about getting the floorboards repolished.

  Mickey made the Coffee, handling each item with almost reverential care.

  ‘What happened to the beach hut?’

  ‘Couldn’t stop there no longer, could we, Mickey? Need a bit of TLC, don’t you, baby?’

  Mickey flushed. She ducked her head, but I could see a tide of pink rising up the back of her neck.

  She put the crockery and cafetiere on a tray. Figgy took it from her. ‘I can manage, Figgy.’

  ‘Go sit down. I’ll be Mum today.’

  Mickey blushed again. And the penny dropped. The baby who
needed the TLC wasn’t Mickey.

  ‘Congratulations. When’s it due?’

  ‘N’vember.’

  She wriggled back on Annie’s sofa, one hand laid lightly over her stomach as if she couldn’t quite believe what was in there.

  ‘You still can’t stop here. Go down the DSS, they’ll have to give you something if Mickey’s expecting.’

  ‘They wanted to put us in a bed and breakfast. But that ain’t what Mickey needs. A proper home, not a load of moody from some landlord about what time you get in your room. And some grotty bathroom covered in everyone else’s crud.’

  Mickey was holding her coffee cup as if she was afraid it was going to explode. She plainly wasn’t comfortable here, so I decided to put the pressure on her.

  ‘Annie will be able to get back in easily, you know. I mean, this is her home. No court is going to expect her to sleep on the beach so you can scrounge a free ride.’

  Tears filled Mickey’s eyes. I felt a real cow.

  ‘Oi!’ Figgy showed he was really serious by resettling his glasses and pushing them close to my face. ‘Listen, let’s get it straight, Miss Detective. We’re not scroungers. We can’t get a flat because we haven’t got a deposit or references. And we ain’t got the deposit because I can’t get a job, because we haven’t got an address to put on the application form.

  ‘Yes. OK, I’ve got the message. Life’s tough. That’s no reason to expect Annie to bail you out.’

  ‘I don’t. I just need to borrow her flat for a bit. We’ll keep it clean. And soon as I get a bit of cash together, she can give us a reference and we’ll move on.’

  ‘A reference! For what?’

  ‘Being great tenants ...’

  ‘Don’t push your luck, Figgy.’

  ‘You know, you want to take up meditation. Deal with that internalised stress.’ He gave me a big grin. ‘Don’t want to rush you, your Graciness, but we’ve got to get a bit of shopping in.’

  I guess the hope showed on my face.

  ‘I’ll be stopping at home while she goes up the shops, if you were thinking of calling round with another set of keys. Byeeee ...’

  We didn’t actually have another set of keys and Zeb had vetoed my suggestion of simply breaking in and arresting them on the grounds that we’d have to replace the locks and possibly the door and then we’d have to tell Annie why. I didn’t share any of this with Figgy.

  Annie rang me that afternoon from Leeds. She was a bit stressed out trying to track down the background of a candidate of Asian descent.

  ‘I wish I’d learnt a bit of Urdu, or something. Everyone seems to be related to everyone else. And all the kids are named after grandfathers, or uncles or whatever, so you get four or five generations all with the same name.’

  I made soothing noises and rubbed the auricle of my ear, which was sore after a long session on the phone dialling every bank in the Manchester and Leicester areas doing the stranded-motorist-rescued-by-Kristen-Keats routine. None of them had an account in that name.

  ‘So what are you going to do next?’ Annie asked.

  I explained about my new career as an office cleaner.

  ‘Are you sure you can remember how to operate a duster? Only there’s never been any sign of a talent in that direction in your office or flat.’

  ‘There’s no need to get sarky. I’m a great believer in the Quentin Crisp theory of housewifery.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘After four years the dust doesn’t accumulate any further.’

  ‘You’ve proved that one twice over, I reckon. Anyway, I mustn’t keep you any longer. My phone bill must be into three figures by now.’

  ‘What makes you think I’m on your phone?’

  ‘Vast experience. Well, I think I’ll just have a quick dip in the pool before I hit the trail again. Is my flat OK, by the way?’

  I assured her Zeb had checked it out twice. And I’d swung past that way myself only that morning.

  ‘Great. Have fun with the polishing then. And get off my phone.’

  Resetting the lock-out code which I’d managed to bypass (she’d used Zeb’s birthday), I shut up Annie’s office and informed Janice I’d be at home tomorrow since I’d be expending kinetic energy in domestic lavation.

  ‘Going to muck out at last, are you?’ she called, not taking her eyes from the word processor.

  She’d definitely been memorising the thesaurus. I’d have to find out what all this self-improvement was about some time. In the meantime, there was the flat to be tackled. I drove up to the supermarket and picked up bleach, washing powder, scouring cream and polish.

  I don’t believe in piecemeal laundry. Everything at once should last me until September, I reckoned.

  I lugged the curtains, blankets and duvet round to the launderette first thing and then divided everything else into same-shade heaps. The washing machine only seemed to work at one temperature anyway, so I’ve never found there was any point in worrying whether it was wool, silk or woven yak’s hair.

  Once the first lot was sloshing away in its biological solution, I filled a bucket with water and started on the flat.

  After the first half-hour, the clothes I was working in were soaked and filthy. Stripping them off, I dropped them on the ‘whitey-yellow-greyish’ washing pile and made myself a nifty little mini-dress from a black plastic rubbish sack.

  We all had washing lines strung across the back yard, and by using the other tenants’ and adding a couple more of my own, I had every scrap of fabric in the flat flapping around out there by the evening. Virtue oozed out of my every pore - along with a fair amount of sweat because the plastic was acting as a sauna.

  There was just one more chore left to do. I’d noticed brown water-staining on the ceiling in one corner of the main room a few weeks ago and had scrounged a part-used tin of white paint from the upstair tenant for a touch of remedial DIY. As there were no dry scarves left for head protection, I used a plastic shower cap I’d once filched from a hotel somewhere.

  By standing on tiptoe on a chair, I dabbed out the stains quite effectively. I’d just jumped to the ground to admire my efforts when the doorbell rang.

  Assuming it was Zeb with another update on the squatter problem, I ripped the door open. My mouth fell open. I knew it was hanging on my chest, but somehow my jaw muscles seemed to have become paralysed. Along with just about everything else.

  Kevin Drysdale’s brown eyes travelled up the bare feet and paint-streaked rubbish sack and stopped at the elastic band of the shower cap that was cutting into my eyebrows.

  ‘Hi, sexy.’

  CHAPTER I 6

  ‘Pasta, steak?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘Which?’

  ‘Both.’

  ‘Something’s given you an appetite.’

  Kevin smiled. The light from the candle in the middle of our table flickered, deepening the crevices in his face and smoothing out the rest of the blemishes in an even golden glow.

  Once I’d overcome paralysis and an irresistible desire to slam the door in his face, I’d gone for the cool hey-what’s- the-big-deal approach to my grunge outfit.

  ‘I was wondering whether you might fancy dinner?’ Kevin had said, lounging on my doorstep all blue silk shirt, chinos, sports jacket and seriously gorgeous smile.

  ‘Tonight?’

  ‘Unless it’s inconvenient.’

  ‘Why would it be?’ I asked, feeling the sweat running down under the rubbish sack dress. ‘Give me half an hour.’

  I pushed him out to amuse himself for thirty minutes whilst I dumped the bag-lady ensemble, and swore revenge on the malicious spirit that had done this to me.

  The bathwater was cold after my marathon laundry session. And I’d washed all the towels.

  Haring around the back yard, I dragged the least damp towel from the line and added anything that felt dry, dumping the muddled pile on the stripped mattress before jumping in the bath and splashing like a demented seal.
<
br />   Thank heavens for a drip-dry hairstyle. I disentangled underwear and a slip-style dress from the jumble on the bed, added jewellery, strappy sandals and a (dryish) shawl and I was ready for anywhere.

  Which turned out to be an Italian restaurant in the middle of Canterbury.

  ‘I’ll have the spaghetti marinara,’ I told the hovering waiter. ‘The full-size portion.’

  He scribbled on his pad. ‘And for a starter, signora?’

  ‘That is for starters. For the main course I’d like a fillet steak - well done. Assorted vegetables and extra onion rings. And can you bring some more bread sticks, please.’

  We had a litre of the house red.

  After a few large swallows I felt myself starting to relax and enjoy the atmosphere. It was a genuinely old building of rough stone walls, uneven floors and beams blackened by open fires.

  I put my elbows on the table and linked my fingers, intending to rest my chin on them. It always looks good when the heroine does it on the TV. Presumably her hands never stink of bleach. I hastily unlinked before I was gassed. ‘How’s your dad? I didn’t see the donkeys on the beach.’

  ‘He’s been taking them down. Shorter hours, though. You must have missed him.’

  The smoke from the guttering candle was stinging my eyes. Kevin moved it to one side, leaving only a basket of bread as a barrier between us.

  Did I want a barrier? I wasn’t too sure. In fact, I wasn’t too sure why he’d suddenly turned up again. So I asked him.

  ‘I was rather hoping you might phone me, Grace.’

  ‘Why?’ It came out more abruptly than I’d intended.

  ‘Because I like you. And you seemed to like me. And it is considered acceptable for the woman to make the first move these days. Isn’t it?’

  ‘I can’t remember,’ I admitted. ‘I mean, it’s been a while since I’ve moved in either direction, forward or backwards, if you see what I mean. How about you?’

  ‘I’ve been rather static since I married Minnie.’

  ‘When was that?’

  ‘Nine years ago.’

  ‘How long have you been separated?’