‘We have our moments,’ I agreed. ‘Though I don’t think she has your artistic bent, Mrs B. Fails to see what I am trying to say vis-à-vis fish-face here. Some people eh? I’m off to Mickey Travers’ later on, see about buying his chainsaw. Blind Lionel is selling me six of his railways sleepers, not that he owns them. Eight foot they are. I chop them in half, I got twelve carp on the go. You can help if you want with the painting. It would just be a matter of filling the colours in. That’s what that twerp Hirst has you know, a bunch of skivvies doing all the elbow work. Not that you’re a skivvy Mrs B. Not by a long chalk.’
‘I don’t mind being your skivvy, Al’ Alice said, the smile back on her face. ‘Not if it helps you put Master Hirst in his rightful place.’
I’d looked Hirst up in Poole library that morning. There was this book they had that had a picture of him, all grins and glasses. He reminded me of Robin. No wonder he pickled things. Must leave a nasty taste in the mouth, to look like that. Alice went back inside. She’s seen the pond, Torvill had seen the pond, but it wasn’t enough. I wanted Michaela to see it, how good I’d done, how quick. We were partners after all. She had a stake in all this. A Rump stake.
I put Torvill back on the mantelpiece and went round, knocked on her door. There was no sign of her. There’d been no sign of her all day. The last thing I’d seen of her was her bare arse in the moonlight, jumping over that wall. After that, nothing. You’d have thought she’d have come round sometime to see how I was getting on, particularly as she’d put in a serious amount of legwork herself, one way or another. I went round the side, tried to peek through the blinds, but it was clear she wasn’t there. She’d gone out for the day. Perhaps she was quizzing her friend when Rump would be out on the beat. Perhaps she’s gone for a work out in the gym. Perhaps she was visiting mystery man Nelson, having a turn on his telescope. And then it sprang in my head, what I could do.
You see, the funny thing was, back when Kim Stokie lived there, he’d given me a backdoor key. He had this wife, Gaynor, who refused to go out the house, locked all the doors and windows, wouldn’t come out, no matter what. Kim was afraid that if something happened, like a fire and he wasn’t there, she’d end up like a slice of Wonderloaf that’s been left in the toaster too long, so he gave me and Audrey this key, just in case. We’d kept it in the Lady Diana Commemorative Wedding Mug up on the top shelf, the mug that was still there in the kitchen. No reason to think the key wouldn’t be there too.
I retraced my footsteps, fished Lady Di down. She looked so young on the mug, more like a schoolgirl than a princess. And then our future king had waved his royal wand and bingo, suddenly she was the most beautiful woman in the world. I saw her once, up in London, coming out some kiddies’ clothing shop, two plain-clothes minding the door. I know it’s rude to stare, but I couldn’t help myself. She was better than her pictures, and that doesn’t happen often. The key still lay in the bottom, all covered in dust. Back at Michaela’s I slipped it in, turned the lock. It opened up, sweet and easy, like a randy sales assistant on her afternoon off.
I stepped in, closed the door soft behind me, stood dead still, trying to take it all in, the feel of the place. There’s usually a smell in a house, like a signature to who lives there, how they do it. Before I ran him over, with Audrey it was burnt saucepans and that bloody dog, Monty. Even after he died the place still reeked of him. Here it stank of polish, stuff you squirt down the shower glass, pour down the pan. As though no one had been here for months, save the cleaners. Time to look around.
I hadn’t been in Kim Stokie’s place much before. Him and his missus didn’t like visitors, neighbours especially, but I could tell right away the place had been done over, top to bottom; spanking new kitchen, all fake Yank, with breakfast stools and a dinky dining bar and one of those Chevrolet-chrome fridges that look like you could climb in, slip it into over-drive and tool down Route 66, picking up some tasty morsels on the way. Opposite the kitchen was a utility area, freezers and washing machines and tumble dryers, with an exercise bike standing in the far corner, Michaela’s evening shower wear draped over the handlebars. The main rooms, like mine faced the front, but here they’d been ripped into one, glass dining table one end and one of those humongous, black-hole, suck-the-life-out-of-you TVs at the other. The whole thing was real plush, abstracts on the wall, glass coffee tables, glass drinks cabinet, two cream sofas about as wide as the hard-shoulder on your average motorway, all set in this fluffy cream carpet that looked as if it had been bred for Crufts. Ideal for some gratuitous on-the-spot shagging if you came home in a hurry but an absolute bastard if you dropped your toast and marmalade into it. Nothing much of hers there though; a cycling magazine, a packet of half eaten dried prunes and a detailed map of the coastal area, with what looked like Rump’s cul-de-sac circled in red lipstick. She had been doing her homework.
It was in the bathroom I made my first discovery, the bathroom with the walk- in shower unit and the bamboo armchairs and the sunken Jacuzzi with a mud face pack and the lady razor on the side. The shelf above the washbasin was crammed with sun tan lotion; deep tan, light tan, Bondi-Beach-Girl-tan, tan you dabbed on, tan you sprayed on, tan you lay on your back and rolled in, like a bitch on heat. Michaela didn’t tan natural at all. She had to be basted like a chicken on a spit. It had struck me a couple of times the night before, that she was that colour in the most unlikely of places but then the light had been fading, and I had other things on my mind. Next time I’d take a closer look, perhaps weave it into the conversation, just as we were getting into the swing of it. See what Nelson would have to say about that.
The bedrooms were off at the far end, two of them, the guest and the master, both with a double bed in, one ordinary, one King-size. The guest room was full of her luggage, dark green cases with stickers all over them, Sydney, San Francisco, Buenos Aires. I hate that, people putting stickers on their luggage boasting about the poncy places they’ve been to, like we’re supposed to what, slap them on the back, give them a medal, like we fucking care? I mean why do they think we would want to know? We don’t. Not only don’t we want to know where they’d been, we also wish they’d never come back. Stay in Buenos Bloody Aires if you like it so much. Open up another tin of corn beef. Get a decent dose of food poisoning. Of course, used properly, the appropriate sticker could do you a power of good. Ex-prisoners on a crowded train for example. Imagine if they had a few stickers on their luggage indicating where they’d spent the last few years, Wormwood Scrubs, Pentonville, Broadmoor. You slap that on your luggage and you’d clear the carriage in three minutes flat.
Another two cases were lying open and empty on the bed, two sets of golf clubs propped up against it. I recognised one of them right away, Audrey’s, with the little yellow gloves poking out one of the side pockets and the green and orange covers to protect her clubs, the ones she had knitted special to match her favourite golfing jacket, the one she’d worn that last night up in the camper van. Of course Michaela would have had to bring Audrey’s stuff with her after she’d been sent down, that or give it all away. That golfing jacket was probably in one of those cases right now, that and a load of Audrey’s other gear that I’d recognise. It had gone all around the world and now it was back here, not twenty yards from where it had all began, clothes I’d touched, taken off her, clothes that, sweet Jesus, probably still smelt of her. I backed out of there quick as I could. It didn’t bear thinking about.
The master bedroom was like the rest, all neat and sterile, like no one had so much as let off a proper fart there in years. The bed was made up, a bright bedspread, with a green Y running through the centre, covering the duvet, floor-to-ceiling mirrors on the walk-in cupboard, one of the sliding doors half open, her suits and jackets and pressed trousers all arranged like the colours in a rainbow. She was a jacket-and-skirt, jacket-and-trousers woman, Michaela, no mistake. There must have been about thirty of them hanging there. No wonder she did her gardening in such smart clobber. By the looks of
things she didn’t have anything else to hand. A modern dressing table took up most of the other end, marble top with the usual army of female necessities lined up like squaddies on parade; perfumes, powders, creams, sprays, stuff to dab it on with, stuff to wipe it off, a bloody great tilting mirror to do it by and an old-fashioned jewellery box propping up the angle, like it had once belonged to someone’s granny. I drew it towards me, opened it up, snapped the lid shut fast. It was one of those singing boxes and a dinkly tune had broken out all over me. It was daft I know. I knew no one else was in the house, but my heart was banging like crazy, Audrey’s clothes and now this. It was like I was chancing my arm, if I let that tune run riot, like it would still be there, hanging on the walls when she came back. But I wanted to know what it played, wanted to see too, what trinkets lay inside. I lifted the lid again, slowly, but slammed it down as quick as before. It was on a hair trigger, that tune and it seemed even louder than before. Then I caught sight of something else. The mirror was tilted down now, taking in the bed and the bedside table, and on the table, under the lamp was a postcard, picture face down, writing on the back, a biro laid across it. I walked over, picked it up.
My dimpled darling,
Fish almost cooked. Al hooked on mystery woman. Even more repulsive than you described. Will put up…
She hadn’t finished it, not that I hadn’t read quite enough already. Even more repulsive than you described? What a thing to say. I mean what was so repulsive about me? I cut my toenails regular, had a nice line in jocular banter, even knew how to deliver a decent sized pizza when required, and this was the thanks I got. More repulsive than you described? Did she really think that or was she just saying it to keep Audrey sweet? Perhaps it was both. Perhaps she did find me repulsive, though in that case why the Easy-slumber Sofabed, why the shower, and why the conservatory with her teeth sunk into the baby Jesus cushion which Audrey had brought back from Lourdes?
Then it came to me, what this postcard really meant. Audrey had been in on this caper from the very start, planned it as much as Michaela, planned it with her, planned it probably before I came out and before she went in. Fish almost cooked? Michaela wasn’t the mastermind behind all this. Michaela was the bait. I mean who was stealing this fish, taking all the risk? Yours truly. And why? Because of what Michaela had promised me. But maybe Michaela had never met my woman on the cliff. Maybe she was just making it all up, just to get me to help her steal Rump’s fish. This had Audrey’s fingerprints all over it. I could just see how it happened. Michaela tells Audrey she has a good mind to nick Rump’s precious fish, to get her hands on the money that by rights should be hers, considering all the years she put up with him. Two hundred thousand smackeroos going on his fish! I should cocoa. That’s how these women think isn’t it? Bonsai idea says Audrey, but how you going to steal the bastard? No idea, Michaela says, with a big net? It isn’t that easy, Audrey tells her, as one who knows. They’re temperamental buggers, fish. I know, we’ll get Al into helping you. He knows all about fish. And why the hell should your ex-husband help me? Says Michaela, not fully appreciating the depths to which Audrey’s sick mind can sink. You offer him something he can’t resist, Audrey tells her, sweating under the arms as she does when unnaturally excited. Michaela shudders. You’re not suggesting…Audrey laughs. No, though you should dress up a bit, let his eyes wander, lower his guard. No, you tell him you know all about the woman on the cliff, the one he really did push off. Tell him you saw her, tell him you met her, talked to her. Strike a bargain. Steal Rump’s fish and you’ll tell all. He’ll want to know. He knows he shouldn’t but he won’t be able to help himself. He’s that kind of man. And they’d have giggled the two of then, gone to bed on it, rolled about together, a four-breasted sandwich, with good old Al Greenwood the filling in between. I’d thought, locked away inside, I was safe from her, and yet here she was, sitting in her cell, her clothes in the next room, waiting to hear from Michaela how it was all going, Rump, the fish, and me.
I needed a drink, and not a whiskey on my own or a sherry with Mrs B. All these crazy women were doing my head in. I needed to get down to the pub, sink a few pints of testosterone, get pissed, have a laugh, a bit of a barney, be a man again. The Spread Eagle called.
Doc wasn’t there but Mickey Travers was. He was a little fellow Mickey, face like a squashed banana, thin, heavy-drinker’s legs, his voice high pitched excitable, like one of those old 33’ long playing records played at ‘45. He wore a pork pie hat, never took it off, least not when I’d been around. The Travers and the Stokies were mortal enemies, so in the past he’d never talked to me much, seeing as Kim Stokie had been my next door neighbour, but now Kim was gone, it was different. He held his hand out. I took it firm. He’d been in prison once himself. Setting fire to a Stokie fishing boat.
‘Doc was in earlier. Told me you’re looking for a chainsaw,’ he said, getting straight to the point. ‘I got just the job. Mavis says its either her or the saw that goes, and I wouldn’t get much for her now, not after what’s happened. Mavis, show him your hand.’
We turned to look at a couple sitting in the corner, Mavis, his missus, with his eldest daughter, Mary. Carol had been real thick with Mary when they was teenagers, always stopping there for sleepovers. Mad on horses Mary was. We all thought she’d join a stable or something when she left school, become a vet, but here she was, twelve years later with her sad, droopy face, no man in her life, no kids, no proper job, still living at home. She had that washed up look. They didn’t see each other much, Carol and her, after Carol left for secretarial college, but kept in touch over the years, letters and Christmas cards, even phone calls. Christ, Mary had known about Carol losing her leg before we did.
Mavis raised her hand. There was a rough looking bandage where her thumb should be.
‘Cut right through it just like that’ Mickey said snapping his fingers proudly, like he’d done it on purpose. ‘Shot it clean across the room. Nothing I could do about it. Would have to be her right thumb. Can’t make a decent pancake batter now to save her life.’ I shook my head in sympathy.
‘I thought they could sew thumbs like that back on, Mickey.’
‘Dog had it. What are you drinking?’
I had a double gin and tonic, easy on the tonic. After fifteen minutes of ping-pong, I bought his chainsaw for sixty quid, bought him a drink to seal the deal, bought Mavis one, Mary too. I took them over, sat down at their table, opened up a packet of prawn-flavoured crisps.
‘Long time no see Mary,’ I said, offering them up. ‘You still working for the car park down by the cove?’
She shook her head.
‘Left that years ago. I got a job up the camp. Cleaning.’ I nodded.
‘There’s always work in the camp. And who knows. You might meet a military man to sweep you off your feet.’
‘That’s what I tell her,’ her mother put in, ‘but she doesn’t want to know. It’s like being in an orchard and not picking an apple or two. Wilful I call it.’
‘Mum!’
I shot Mary a simpatico look.
‘Well, you can’t hurry love. That how the song goes, isn’t it Mary? You still riding? That horse of yours, the black and white one, what was his name?’
‘Bamber. He was brown and white.’
‘Brown and white, that’s the fella. You were potty over him, used to ride him up the Beacon, out along the top.’ She sniffed at the memory.
‘He was lovely, Bamber. A real gentleman.’ There was light in her eyes, like she’d come alive. She looked at me, grateful that I’d put it there. ‘I was ever so sorry about what happened, Mr Greenwood, you and Miranda. We were never that close her and me, but still…’ She ran out of words, blushing.
‘Very nice of you to say Mary. I appreciate it. Happy days they weren’t, not just me or Miranda, the whole village suffered, I reckon. You got caught up in it too, if I remember, seeing that woman in the car park the day Miranda…’
‘Did I? Oh yes. It weren�
�t important though. I knew it weren’t Miranda.’
‘Still, she must have stuck in your mind, a woman going up to the Beacon in weather like that.’
‘At first I thought she was one of them walkers. They don’t care about the weather, but she had this limp. I suppose you could be a walker with a limp but there was something else about her. She had this funny bag wrapped around her neck, bright orange, not a hiker’s bag at all.’
‘You didn’t get a good look at her then?’
‘No, she had her hood up, but I heard her. She was on her mobile or something.’
I took a careful sip.
‘Oh? Did you hear what she was saying?’
‘That’s just it. It was only one word, but it made me laugh.’ She put her hand to her mouth. ‘She said “twerp”.’
It was like she’d punched me below the belt. I choked on my gin, the drink running down my chin.
‘Twerp! Well I never. Not something you hear very often. Nothing else? Didn’t call him by name then?’ I stuck my fingers into the crisp packet, pulled out a handful. I was showing too much interest, but what could I do?
‘Nothing else. Just twerp.’
‘Like she was angry?’
‘Not angry. More like she was laughing or crying, it was hard to tell in that wind.’
There it was again. I hadn’t been able to tell either. She was going through something though.
‘It’s a funny thing to say on its own, isn’t it, twerp?’
‘I don’t see why. She reads a text from some pillock, doesn’t think much of it, calls him a twerp.’
‘Not necessarily a him?’ She wrinkled her nose at me.
‘Don’t be silly Mr Greenwood. All blokes are twerps one way or another after you’ve scratched the surface, didn’t you know that.’ She was sitting straight now, the spark back in her.
Fish Tale (Cliffhanger Book 2) Page 12