Mixing With Murder

by Ann Granger

  For the first time I took a good look at her. She had a faded prettiness and a strong resemblance to her daughter. But there were dark shadows beneath her eyes and lines of strain around her mouth. Her hair was short and neat and she’d had time, even so early in the morning, to apply powder and lipstick. She was keeping herself together with the desperation of one who has no alternative. I felt sorry for them both and sorry for Lisa who had to carry on her shoulders the burden of being the one ray of light in their dull world.

  I was too transparent. She read my thoughts. ‘Parents often talk of children being a problem,’ she said. ‘But parents can be a problem too, can’t they?’

  ‘Lisa loves you,’ I insisted. ‘You’re not a problem to her, neither of you. You mustn’t think that. It isn’t true.’

  She made a little dismissive gesture. ‘Are you close to your parents, Fran? What do they think of your choice of acting as a career?’

  I flushed and explained awkwardly that my parents were dead. ‘My dad died when I was just fifteen. My mother—’ I didn’t want to explain about my mother. ‘My mother died not so long ago,’ I said.

  ‘Oh, Fran, dear, I am so sorry!’ She was overcome with embarrassment and sympathy. She took my hand and patted it.

  ‘It’s all right,’ I assured her. ‘I’m used to being on my own. As for whether they approved of my acting ambitions, I think Dad did. My mother was quite interested.’

  How to explain that my mother’s interest in what I was doing had been of a superficial and painfully brief nature. We’d spent so little time together at the end and it had been dominated by other things than what I wanted of life. But in so far as she had been able to give her attention to me, lying there on her bed in the hospice, I think she was mildly interested and wished me well.

  I broke free of Jennifer with a few more awkward words and bussed my way back to Beryl’s guest house. Here I took out the keys I still had and let myself in. But Beryl was aware of my arrival. She must have been listening out for it. As I shut the front door, the kitchen door at the back opened and her helmet of bronze hair popped out.

  ‘Hello, dear,’ she greeted me. ‘You’ve got a visitor. She and I are just having a coffee in here.’

  Oh, no, I thought. Pereira has come back! It could only mean bad news if she had. I entered the kitchen trying for the nonchalant look and probably really looking as shifty as they come. But it wasn’t Pereira. It was Lisa who sat at Beryl’s table, drinking coffee and nibbling on a chocolate digestive.

  ‘I’ve got some things to do down in my flat,’ said Beryl cheerfully. ‘You two stay here and make yourselves at home. Make yourself a coffee, Fran.’ She hobbled away.

  I pulled out a chair and sat down opposite Lisa. ‘I’ve just come from your house,’ I said. ‘Why didn’t you ring and let me know you were coming over here? I’d have waited in for you.’

  She put down the half-eaten biscuit. She’d tied back her blond hair with a pink scarf and her face looked white and drawn except for the end of her nose which was also pink. There was something pet-mouselike about her, but an angry pet mouse.

  ‘What do you mean, you went to my house? I told you, I didn’t want you around my parents! It’s risky! What happened? Did you see them?’

  ‘Yes, I saw them. I had coffee with them.’

  I thought she might throw her coffee at me. ‘You had no right! They’re going to start suspecting—’

  ‘Not if you and I both act natural. We’re friends in London, right? I had coffee with them the other day. Why shouldn’t I stop and have another with them when I call for you and find you out?’

  Sulkily she asked, ‘What did you talk about?’

  ‘About the theatre. I think your mum was pleased to see me.’

  ‘I know Dad’s having a bad day. It isn’t anything unusual. Mum copes. I lend a hand when I can. I can’t be there all the time. They don’t expect that. It’s just a bad situation. There isn’t a way out.’

  She sniffed and rubbed at the end of her nose with a handkerchief she pulled from her sleeve. She was wearing another of those woolly chain-mail sweaters which looked as if they’d been knitted on a pair of snooker cues. This one was soft green in colour.

  ‘Anyway,’ I said. ‘The reason I went to your house is because I’ve still got to talk to you about Mickey Allerton. That’s another bad situation and you’re already out of it. But I’m not. If I can spend time sitting with your dad, you can help me out with Mickey. It’s only fair.’

  ‘I came to Christ Church Meadow yesterday morning to talk to you about him, like I promised!’ she snapped. ‘But when I got there, half Oxford was milling about. People were saying someone had drowned and the local radio station last night reported someone drowning there. Was that what it was all about?’

  ‘It was.’ I hesitated. ‘I found the body.’

  She stopped rubbing the end of her nose with her hanky and stared at me, eyes popping. ‘Shit,’ she said. ‘That was bad luck.’

  ‘Yes, and it was a bit worse than you might think,’ I said. ‘I recognised him.’

  She frowned and looked suspicious. ‘I thought you didn’t know anyone in Oxford.’

  ‘This wasn’t an Oxford acquaintance. It was a London one and you know him, too. It was Ivo, the doorman at the Silver Circle.’

  She’d had little colour in her cheeks but now even that drained away. ‘So you lied!’ she gasped. ‘You said you hadn’t brought anyone with you from the club!’

  ‘I didn’t. I didn’t know he was in Oxford and I don’t know what the hell he was doing down there in the river!’ I snapped. My nerves were frayed. I’d had enough.

  Lisa looked terrified, as well she might. Her fingers gripped the mangled handkerchief so tightly her knuckles showed up as white bony protuberances beneath the stretched skin. Her lips moved soundlessly. When she could speak she whispered, ‘Mickey sent him. He sent him to check on you and me.’

  I shook my head. ‘I spoke to Mickey on the phone yesterday and he didn’t seem any the wiser about what Ivo was doing here than I am. He didn’t send him to check on me. He sent a guy called Filigrew to do that, a weaselly-looking type in a business suit.’

  She bit her lip and stared at me while she thought it out. ‘Then he came here on the same job as you’re doing, to try and get me back to London!’

  ‘Mickey sent me to do that. Why would Ivo take it upon himself? He’d be more likely to mess things up.’

  She was shaking her head furiously. ‘Ivo wouldn’t think like that. He’s not very bright. Neither is Jasna but put the two of them together and it’s the sort of dumb plan they’d come up with.’

  ‘Jasna?’ I recalled my late-night mental meanderings. ‘Right, that’s the girl who works at the club, the one who squirrelled your home address away in her memory and gave it to Mickey. Or that’s what you said you thought must have happened. Is she Ivo’s girlfriend?’

  ‘I still think that’s what must have happened!’ she said impatiently. ‘Look, Ivo and Jasna are just mates as far as I know. They’re compatriots, both Croats. I shouldn’t think either of them is working legally. Jasna’s been scared Mickey is going to sack her. She’s a lousy dancer. I don’t think she ever had any training. She’s vulgar. Mickey doesn’t like that.’

  I thought of Lisa in her cowgirl outfit and something of my doubt must have shown in my face.

  ‘There’s erotic and there’s plain vulgar,’ Lisa said. ‘You should know that. Mickey likes his acts to have class. I bet she knew Mickey had sent you here to bring me back to London and she told Ivo, if he could do it, then Mickey would be grateful and Ivo could ask for Jasna to keep her job.’

  ‘All right,’ I said. ‘I’ll buy that for now. But it doesn’t explain Ivo being in Christ Church Meadow the morning I’d arranged to meet you!’

  ‘Well, I don’t know how he got there, do I?’ she shouted. She pulled out her hanky again and rubbed furiously at her nose.

  ‘Got a cold?’ I asked
sympathetically.

  ‘Hay fever,’ she snapped.

  I made a lunge across the table, seized her wrists and yanked her hands towards me. I pushed up one of her sleeves and then the other. There were no needle marks.

  She was yelling at me and swearing fit to turn the air blue. I released her. She snatched back her arms and pulled her long sleeves down, still swearing.

  When she ran out of breath, I said. ‘OK, so you don’t mainline. But you snorted a line or two before you came out this morning.’

  ‘Wouldn’t you?’ she asked bitterly. ‘If you were stuck in a bloody awful situation like me?’

  ‘I’ve been stuck in any number of bloody awful situations and I’m in one now,’ I retorted unsympathetically. ‘I’ve always got by without drugs. Where did you get the coke?’

  ‘This is Oxford,’ she mumbled. ‘You can buy anything.’

  ‘I don’t care what you do,’ I said. ‘I really don’t, except in one respect.’

  ‘I’m not going back to London,’ she said, and she meant it.

  ‘All right, then phone him and say so. But just speak to the guy, will you? Then I’ve fulfilled my commission, done the job to the best of my ability. He won’t pay me but he won’t be mad at me, either.’

  ‘I’m not contacting Mickey Allerton in any way. I’m not speaking to him on the phone.’ Her mouth was set in a thin obstinate line.

  ‘Then I don’t get my dog back,’ I said.

  She boggled at me.

  ‘My dog means a lot to me,’ I said. ‘I’m not being sentimental. She’s a real part of my life and she’s Mickey’s prisoner. Look, I’m asking you nicely. Phone Mickey and speak to him. What have you got to lose?’

  ‘He’ll only say I have to go back.’

  ‘You haven’t got to. Even Mickey must know that. What’s the hassle? Look, he’s not insisting you go back to London. He says there’s some job lined up for you in Spain.’

  ‘Yeah, he mentioned it,’ she said. ‘Like, he didn’t tell me the details. It was just, “How would you like to work in Spain, doll? Live in a nice place out on the costas?” I don’t, right? I don’t want anything that has Mickey Allerton attached to it.’

  We seemed to have reached an impasse but she was eyeing me thoughtfully. ‘Fran, we could do a deal on this.’

  I didn’t reply. If she wanted to talk, let her. If she had some bright idea, I needed to hear it. I didn’t need to commit myself in advance. I should have shut up about Bonnie. She probably guessed I’d do anything halfway legal.

  She leaned across the table. ‘I’ve got a way out of this, for the time being, at least. A friend rang me last night. She’s a dancer like me but she works on the cruise ships. Those ships run a cabaret every evening for the passengers. She’s signed up for the summer with a company sailing the Norwegian fjords but she’s hurt her ankle. The ship’s at anchor in Amsterdam waiting to sail out again. It leaves the day after tomorrow. If I can get out there I can be a temporary replacement for my friend until her ankle gets better.’

  ‘So go,’ I said. ‘What’s stopping you?’ I felt numb. She didn’t need to do any deals. All she had to do was go to Amsterdam on a budget flight and for six weeks or so she was safe aboard doing nightly dance routines as part of a group. Six weeks was way long enough for Mickey to lose interest and give up. So what had brought her here to see me? She could cut me right out of the loop.

  ‘I haven’t got my passport. I left it behind in London when I decided to chuck it all in. I took off in such a hurry, I just forgot it.’

  The penny dropped. ‘Ah,’ I said. ‘You want me to fetch it for you.’

  ‘Fair’s fair,’ she retorted like a child. ‘I want my passport. You want your dog. You get my passport for me. I phone Mickey for you.’

  ‘The other way round,’ I said. ‘If I do it, you phone Mickey first.’

  She sulked again but gave in. ‘OK.’ She pulled the hanky from her sleeve once more and snuffled into it.

  ‘But I don’t see why you can’t go and fetch it yourself,’ I added.

  ‘Mickey knows where I live, doesn’t he?’ She started getting angry again. ‘He’s probably got someone looking out for me, just in case I turn up. They won’t know you.’

  Like everything else about this business, I didn’t like it. But I agreed. It seemed straightforward enough.

  Now we’d come to an agreement, I said, ‘We’ll phone Mickey right now. Have you got a mobile?’

  She reached down to a canvas sack at her feet and pulled out a dinky little model with a puce overcoat.

  ‘Let’s have it!’ I invited.

  She handed it over. I tapped in the number Mickey had given me and waited.

  ‘Yes?’ He didn’t need to say more.

  ‘Hello, Mr Allerton,’ I said. ‘It’s Fran. I’ve got Lisa here. She doesn’t want to return to London but she’ll speak to you.’

  ‘Then put her on!’ he said. ‘Why am I wasting time with you?’

  Such a nice man. I handed the phone over. Lisa scowled and, holding it gingerly, as if Allerton could somehow jump out of it and join us in the kitchen, said, ‘Hello? This is Lisa.’

  I watched her as Allerton said whatever he said. He took his time about it. She listened, stone-faced.

  ‘I don’t want that,’ she said at last when Allerton had presumably paused for breath.

  Another long spiel at the other end.

  ‘I’ve told you,’ Lisa’s voice rose plaintively. ‘I don’t want to go to Spain. I told you when you suggested it before.’

  More from Allerton. Now they were in conversation I ought not to eavesdrop, at least not openly. I got up and tactfully left the kitchen. I stationed myself in the hall, ear pressed against the door panels.

  ‘I’m not bloody going and I’m not bloody coming back to London! I’ve quit, got that? I’ve quit!’ I heard Lisa yell.

  There was a lot more I couldn’t make out. They were obviously having a real barney over the phone.

  He must have changed tactics because eventually she seemed to calm down. The last thing I could make out was, ‘Just give me some time, can’t you?’

  Was she weakening? Was she seeking to string Allerton along until she could get away on the cruise ship?

  I pushed open the door and slipped back into the kitchen.

  Obviously the last answer hadn’t pleased Allerton and he had gone off the deep end again. Even I could see the phone was nearly jumping out of Lisa’s grip as he expressed his frustration and fury. Eventually she handed the phone back to me, still stone-faced. ‘He wants to talk to you.’

  ‘Fran!’ barked Allerton. ‘You can come back to London. I’m washing my hands of that little cow!’

  ‘What about my dog?’

  ‘Dog?’ He seemed taken aback as if he’d forgotten Bonnie. ‘Oh, yeah, you can have your dog.’

  I handed the phone to Lisa who cut the connection and shut it down. She dropped it back in her bag. ‘All right, then? You’ll go to London, now, this afternoon?’

  ‘All right,’ I said. What was there left to worry about? I’d got Lisa to speak to Allerton. He’d washed his hands of her. He’d promised my dog would be returned. A quick trip to fetch Lisa’s passport seemed nothing.

  We both stood up. Just then the kitchen door opened and Vera marched in. She stopped, looked at me, looked at Lisa and then turned and bolted out again.

  ‘What . . .’ I began.

  But Lisa had turned from white to red in the face. She pushed back the table with a teeth-grinding screech on the tiled floor and hurtled towards the door.

  ‘You just come back here!’ she was yelling.

  But Vera had made good her escape and it was Lisa who returned, panting.

  ‘You didn’t tell me about her!’ she charged, glaring at me.

  ‘Tell you what? She makes the breakfasts and the beds. Her name is Vera.’

  ‘Yeah,’ stormed Lisa. ‘And she’s another mate of Jasna’s, isn’t she? Another Croa
t! They all hang together! I’ve seen her waiting outside the club for Jasna and they’ve gone off to do the shops, excited like a couple of little kids.’

  I remembered Vera with her little cleaner’s cart outside my bedroom door while I was speaking to Ganesh on the mobile, telling him I had arranged to meet Lisa at Christ Church Meadow. I recalled finding her sitting on the stairs eavesdropping on another of my phone conversations with Gan.

  ‘She snoops,’ I said.

  ‘You bet she snoops!’ said Lisa viciously. ‘She’s like her pal, Jasna. She listens and she stores stuff away in her head because one day it might be useful.’