by Sue Margolis
‘No, I couldn’t sleep,’ he said. ‘I’ve been tossing and turning all night. Mum, I’m really worried about Dad.’
‘Why? Wim said he’s definitely on the mend. They’re even talking about letting him out soon.’
‘I know, but it’s just something that happened yesterday evening when I went to see him.’
‘What?’ she said, suddenly concerned. She draped the towel over the bath. ‘Come and sit on the bed and tell me what happened.’
He followed her back to her bedroom. Beverley got under the duvet and Benny sat next to her on the edge of the bed.
‘OK, go on,’ she said.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘I took him a pile of magazines I found on your dressing table.’
She nodded.
‘He seemed really pleased that I’d remembered,’ Benny went on. ‘Apparently you’d forgotten them twice. Anyway, as he took the magazines from me, a letter fell out from between a couple of them. Dad picked it up and started reading it. I couldn’t see who it was from.’
‘A letter?’ she said with a shrug. ‘Can’t think what that could be.’
‘Well, anyway, he read it and then when he’d finished he just sat staring at it for ages. Then he started roaring with laughter. He wouldn’t stop. But it wasn’t happy laughter - you know, like somebody had just told him a brilliant joke. It was this mad, demonic, like, cackling. I tell you, Mum, something in that letter really upset him. He pulled it away every time I tried to get a look. Mum, think. Have you got any idea what it was?’
‘No,’ she shot back, defensively. ‘Absolutely none.’
By now Beverley had turned white and was starting to shake. She knew exactly what the letter was. It was a love letter she’d started writing to Tom weeks ago, but never got round to finishing. Careless idiot that she was, she must have left it out on her dressing table.
‘So, go on. Did he say anything?’ she said, doing her best to sound calm.
‘Nothing. He just carried on laughing for about ten minutes or so. In the end, there were tears streaming down his face. Then he got this mad attack of hiccoughs. I didn’t know what to do. I was really scared. In the end one of the nurses heard him and gave him a glass of water and a pill to calm him down. I tell you, Mum, Wim’s got it all wrong. I reckon that letter was just some circular or something and he’s started having mad delusions. God knows what he thought he was reading. I mean, if it was genuinely something serious, you’d know about it. I reckon he’ll be hearing voices next. Honestly, Mum, Dad’s much more ill than any of us could have imagined.’
Beverley sat staring into space. The unimaginable had happened. Melvin had found out about her affair with Tom, weeks before he was in any fit mental state to cope with the news. With his history of depression, God only knew what he might do now. She was feeling sick and her hands had started to tremble.
‘Mum, you OK?’
‘Yes, sweetheart, I’m fine,’ she said, running her fingers through her hair. ‘Just a bit concerned about your dad, that’s all. Look, after what you’ve told me I think I’d better get over to the Friary right away. Now then, I don’t want you to worry. I’m sure this will turn out to be nothing more than a minor setback. Promise me you and Natalie will go to school as normal?’
He nodded, but was clearly terrified.
‘OK,’ she said brightly, planting a kiss on his forehead. ‘Now disappear. I need to get dressed.’
Twenty minutes later, all thoughts shelved of whatever nonsense Queenie was involved in, she was driving round the North Circular in the heavy Monday-morning traffic towards the bin.
***
The Friary’s electronic glass doors slid open in front of her. Beverley dashed across the empty reception area and headed for the stairs.
‘Mrs Littlestone. Please. Wait,’ a voice shouted from behind her. Beverley turned round to see Jean, one of the nice lady receptionists, slam down the phone and come waddling towards her on fat ankles.
‘Oh, Mrs Littlestone, thank heavens you’re here,’ she said as she reached Beverley, her breathlessness bordering on asthmatic wheeze. ‘We’ve been trying to get you at home for the last hour, but your line’s been permanently engaged. And your mobile’s switched off.’
Beverley stared at Jean for a few moments, taking in the woman’s anguished face.
‘Oh my God, I’m too late, aren’t I?’ Beverley’s voice was trembling.
Jean stared down at the floor, clearly unable to speak.
‘Melvin’s gone, hasn’t he?’
‘I’m afraid he has, Mrs Littlestone,’ Jean said gently as she looked up. ‘I am most terribly sorry. There was absolutely nothing we could do.’
‘Please, do you think I could sit down?’ Beverley said, feeling sick and fearing her legs were about to give way.
‘Of course. Of course,’ Jean said, taking Beverley’s arm and leading her to one of the sofas by the main door.
‘Thing is, he couldn’t have picked a worse time if he’d tried,’ she continued as Beverley sat down. ‘All the staff were busy doing the breakfasts. Then there was an emergency. One of the paranoid schizophrenics thought he could hear his poached egg and an Earl Crey tea bag hatching a plot to assassinate Prince Andrew. It took five male nurses to calm him down. There was egg yolk everywhere by the time they’d finished.’
‘So Melvin was upstairs... all alone?’ A single tear rolled down Beverley’s cheek.
‘Yes. I’m sorry. By the time we got to his room it was too late.’
‘Was there a lot of mess? I mean, how did he...?’
‘Mess? No, he didn’t leave any mess. Such a tidy man, Mr Littlestone. Never gave the cleaners a moment’s trouble.’
‘So, how had he, you know... done it? What did he use? His belt? Had he been storing sleeping pills?’
‘Oh no, nothing like that,’ Jean explained, looking a little puzzled. ‘He used women’s clothing. A rather nice navy two-piece, actually, with cream trim on the pockets and lapels. Wouldn’t have minded it myself. Can’t imagine it doing anything for Mr Littlestone.’
‘What, Melvin killed himself with women’s clothing? I’m sorry, maybe it’s the shock, but I don’t...’
‘Killed himself?’ Jean said in astonishment. ‘Mrs Littlestone, Mr Littlestone isn’t dead. Good Lord, no. He escaped.’
‘Escaped?’ she repeated.
‘Yes, about two hours ago. There’s this woman in the room next to him - you know the one. Thinks she’s three people. Total basket case. Needs putting away if you ask me. Anyway, it seems Melvin went into her room while she was asleep, stole some of her clothes, make-up and a headscarf. Then he swans out of the door in drag, without anybody noticing. The staff searched the building and the grounds and then called the police... They’ll find him, Mrs Littlestone, I just know it. Now you sit there and I’ll fetch you a nice cup of tea.’
***
She sat. After a few moments Wim appeared. She’d spoken to him several times over the last six weeks, so was quite used to the fez, comedy spectacles and moustache ensemble. As he lowered himself on to the sofa, he confessed to being utterly perplexed by Melvin’s behaviour. ‘During last night’s group therapy session he seemed more upbeat than I have seen him in weeks. In fact, I was thinking seriously about letting him go home next week. Now I can only assume that this outward display of contentment was masking some deep-seated inner turmoil.’
‘Wim, tell me honestly, do you think he could be suicidal?’
Wim twirled the end of his moustache.
‘Let’s just wait for the police to find him,’ he said, avoiding her question and patting her on the knee.
But she couldn’t wait; wait for the police to walk in a few hours later to tell her they’d found Melvin swinging by the neck from a tree.
She was convinced he was still planning to kill himself. Why he had first gone to all the trouble of escaping dressed as a woman, she had no idea. Nor did she care. All that mattered to her was finding him.
She ran back to the car and decided to head for Richmond Park.
She’d been driving for a couple of minutes before she remembered that her mobile was still switched off. It was on the passenger seat inside her shoulder bag. She reached inside with one hand, pulled out the phone and stabbed the on button. It rang almost immediately.
‘Mrs Littlestone?’
‘Yes,’ she said, not recognizing the male voice.
‘You don’t know me. My name’s Phil Capstick, sergeant. Finchley police.’
‘Police?’ she repeated, her voice trembling. ‘Oh my God, you haven’t found Melvin already, have you?’
‘I’m sorry, Mrs Littlestone - not with you. Who is Melvin - a missing moggy?’
‘No he bloomin’ well isn’t,’ she shot back at the bemused sergeant. ‘Melvin’s my husband and he’s just gone missing from the Friary psychiatric hospital in Richmond.’
She gave him a brief, tearful account.
‘South-west London’s rather off my patch, I’m afraid,’ he said when she’d finished. ‘But I’m sure the Richmond boys will pick him up. He can’t have got far with no transport and no money. And I’m sure if they’ve been briefed properly, and know he could be suicidal, they’ll be keeping a special watch on all the parks. Look, Mrs Littlestone, I realize you are under a great deal of stress and I don’t want to add to it, but it’s your mother, you see. One of my PCs has just radioed into the station to say she appears to be leading some kind of mutiny down at an old people’s day centre in Temple Fortune... One of the helpers there gave me your number and I thought you ought to know.’
‘Christ,’ Beverley exclaimed, remembering Millie’s cryptic message on the answer machine. ‘So what exactly is going on?’
‘Mrs Littlestone, your mother is on the day centre roof and refusing to come down. The roof is large and flat, but they’re old folk, and we’re frightened one of them could miss their footing and...’
At that moment Sergeant Capstick’s voice began to crack up.
‘Hello? Sergeant Capstick, speak to me.’
Nothing.
Beverley looked at the mobile, which was showing the ‘no service’ message.
‘Shit,’ she muttered, throwing it down on to the passenger seat.
***
Beverley had never felt so emotionally torn in her life. On the one hand, there was Melvin, missing and suicidal; on the other was her mother, who any moment could slip and fall off the day centre roof.
She drove through the gates of Richmond Park and decided she would go twice round the park and then, assuming she hadn’t found Melvin - or, God forbid, his corpse - head back to north London. She couldn’t bear not knowing what was happening to her mother. It also occurred to her that Melvin might have had some money on him after all and could be on his way home.
***
Just her luck. The eastbound traffic along the North Circular was the heaviest she’d ever seen it. In the two hours it took her to reach Temple Fortune, she kept trying to call the Friary and Sergeant Capstick, until her phone battery gave out.
Beverley pulled into the day centre car park. It was packed. She assumed most of the cars belonged to the old people’s relatives. There were also two ambulances.
She climbed out of the car and looked up at the roof. Queenie was standing close to the edge, holding one side of a giant white banner which was billowing in the breeze. Lenny was holding the other end. Emblazoned across it in huge black felt-tipped letters were the words: ‘Greys Embrace Violence and Unrest in search of Legality and Truth’.
‘GEVULT,’ she exclaimed, looking at the even huge first letters of each word. It was clearly the name of the old people’s action committee.
Their friend Millie was holding half of another sheet, which read in untidy upper-and lower-case letters: ‘Posner must fry - in bacon fat.’
Behind them, another twenty or thirty elderly men and women, many stooped over walking frames, were waving smaller ‘Grey Pride’ banners or standing chatting in groups. It was only when she looked closely that she realized there wasn’t a woolly hat, a pair of polyester slacks or a long cardigan in sight. Each person was wearing a bright red track suit and a baseball cap. She could just about make out ‘GEVULT’ written in gold across their sweatshirts.
‘Mum,’ Beverley screamed, having seen her mother take another step closer to the roof’s edge, ‘for Chrissake come down.’
At that point Beverley heard a man’s voice behind her. She turned round to see a uniformed policeman.
‘I don’t think she can hear you from this far away,’ he said. ‘You’re Mrs Littlestone, I take it.’
She nodded.
‘Sergeant Capstick,’ he said. He was about fifty, she supposed, with a kindly community copper air about him.
‘Perhaps you’d like to come with me and I can explain exactly what’s been going on.’
***
Once they were sitting down in Lorraine’s office, Sergeant Capstick told her that a couple of hours ago one of the old boys had come down from the roof and handed him a letter signed by all the protesters.
‘To cut a long story short, it seems the old folk managed to remove several packets of out-of-date meat from the day centre deep freeze which they handed over to the public health people. They also managed to uncover a large quantity of stolen watches and items of jewellery. These items are now down at the station. Most of them were wrapped in plastic and hidden in sacks of flour or tins of instant coffee. It must have taken hours of painstaking searching to find this lot. How they pulled it off - right under Lorraine’s nose - I’ve no idea. I tell you, Mrs Littlestone, if I didn’t know better, I’d swear they broke in.’
He chuckled.
‘There’s an image to conjure with.’ She leaned back in her chair and laughed far too loudly. ‘OAPs in stocking masks and balaclavas. I don’t think so.’ She would bloody kill her mother if and when she got hold of her.
‘I have to say,’ Sergeant Capstick continued, failing to notice that Beverley’s face had suddenly turned scarlet, ‘their initiative has been quite remarkable. They also hid a tape recorder in this office, in the hope that the pair would incriminate themselves. And they did. Their recording equipment was pretty sophisticated, I have to admit, but bearing in mind this was only a ninety-minute tape, their luck was beyond extraordinary.’ He waved the cassette in the air.
‘What I have here is these Lorraine and Posner characters on tape, laughing and joking with each other about serving up rotten food and the fact that they were stealing money and jewellery.’
‘But I don’t understand,’ Beverley broke in. ‘If they handed you the letter, the booty and the tape, why are they still demonstrating?’
‘I spoke to the chap who gave me the letter and asked him the same thing. It seems they don’t trust the police to act quickly. They say we won’t take them seriously because they’re old and that by the time the DPP decides whether or not to prosecute, Lorraine and Posner will be long gone, and most of them will be pushing up daisies.’
‘So you haven’t found the pair of them, then?’
‘’Fraid not. I can only assume they smelled a rat. Neither of them turned up for work this morning. But I’m sure we’ll find them. The CID boys did some checking on the Police National Computer and it turns out they’re actually known to us. Seems they’ve spent the last ten years working with the elderly in various parts of the country. Several complaints have been made against them - usually accusing them of theft - but we’ve never been able to pin anything on them until now.’
‘So what do you want me to do?’ Beverley said. ‘Why have you brought me in here and not taken me to the canteen with the other relatives?’
‘Well, you see, your mum is one of the ringleaders. If she decides to come down, the others will follow. We think you can persuade her. They’ve already said they’ll talk to you - or to your sister. Apparently she’s a journalist?’
Beverley nodded.
; ‘OK,’ she said, ‘I’ll give you my sister’s number. Perhaps you could phone her. It’s a bit complicated, but we’re not actually on speaking terms at the moment. You know what families are like.’
‘Fine... Look, what we want you or her to do is convince them we will take their complaint seriously and that we will act. I hope you don’t mind heights, Mrs Littlestone.’
***
While Beverley was being briefed by Sergeant Capstick, Naomi was being given her marching orders by Eric Rowe. In the last ten minutes, his voice had assumed the tone of a rather benevolent hanging judge.
‘So you see,’ he continued gravely, ‘my senior colleagues and I have decided that Naomi! is in dire need of an image change. Presenter-wise, we see somebody a little more fresh-faced.’
‘I can do fresh-faced,’ she leapt in, her enthusiasm nothing short of desperate. ‘I’ll book a laser treatment tomorrow. Add some khaki combats and a cropped T-shirt, in forty-eight hours, I can look eighteen.’
‘No, Naomi, you misunderstand me,’ Eric said, drawing gently on his pipe. ‘When we say “fresh-faced” we don’t necessarily mean youthful, we mean more, er... wholesome. The general consensus of opinion is that we would like an earth-mother type to present this show. I myself, personally - along with my wife Audrey and her Wl pals - see this person as a placid, heavily pregnant lady, her ample, milk-engorged breasts swaying under her floral smock. It’s Channel 6’s view that it would be quite mould-breaking to have the first pregnant daytime show presenter.’
‘Bollocks,’ she retorted.
He winced.
‘This has nothing to do with you wanting a change of image,’ she said furiously, standing up and leaning over his desk so that she was only inches from his face. ‘This is just a ploy to get rid of me.’
He drew on his pipe again.
‘I’ll be honest, Naomi,’ he said, leaning back in his chair. ‘We were heading for an image change anyway, but I admit that your flagrant disregard of our commitment to decent family entertainment made it happen sooner rather than later. What finally put the tin lid on it was your constant refusal to produce this battling grannies story.’