Rattling the Bones

by Ann Granger

  I jumped down from the train and filled my lungs with the familiar blend of engine oil, fast food, dirt and human sweat which passes for air at mainline railway stations. The loudspeaker was announcing delays just down the line at Vauxhall as I threaded my path through the crowds on the concourse. Vauxhall was barely out of Waterloo and the information boded ill for anyone thinking of taking a long journey to the south coast. Now they knew things were screwed up on the main line, would-be passengers milled about in a discontented mob. I stopped long enough at a bagel stall to pick up something for my lunch and plunged down into the Underground.

  But my luck was really out. In a situation mirroring that above our heads, an announcement came that there was a signalling problem on the Northern Line which resulted in fewer Tube trains and packed platforms. Several of the would-be Tube travellers had come down from the main rail terminal above and were equipped with a variety of luggage, including a fair sprinkling of Aussie backpackers laden up like camels. I didn’t fancy squeezing onto a train, when and if one came, in that crush. I moved over to the Bakerloo Line where it wasn’t much better but there were more trains running. I was able to take the Underground as far as the Baker Street station. I emerged thankfully into the fresh air through the main entry in the Marylebone Road, blinking blindly like a mole, and finally focusing my gaze to find myself face to face with Sherlock Holmes. I don’t mean a statue of the great detective like the one outside the Baker Street exit from the Tube station. I mean a flesh and blood one.

  All right, I know it sounds like a bad joke, but someone really was dressed up as him: deerstalker, pipe, caped coat and everything. This Holmes lookalike was walking up and down smiling pleasantly at everyone, something I doubted Conan Doyle’s Holmes ever did. In the stories he always struck me as a miserable old sod with a pretty high opinion of himself. He uses loyal old Watson as a target to practise his verbal and other cleverness on. If I had been Watson I’d have walked out.

  The sight of him was disconcerting. Not that anyone else seemed to find it in the slightest odd except me. They passed him by with busy step and nary a glance. Cripes, was I hallucinating? I couldn’t help staring and caught his eye. He beamed at me in a welcoming way. It was bad enough seeing him. I wasn’t getting into some weird conversation with him and, with some relief, I hopped on the first bus heading towards North London.

  The bagel rested on my stomach in an indigestible lump. I sought distraction. London buses are good at getting you places but they are often slow. You have plenty of time to sit on them, observe the world outside which is often moving at much the same pace on foot as you are in the bus, and think. I wanted to make some really good plan with regard to ensuring Edna’s safety but couldn’t come up with one, the main problem being Edna herself. Sherlock Holmes kept forcing himself back into my consciousness, largely because of the apparition outside the Tube.

  He had been just one of the many bizarre sights on our streets, regular enough to gain a kind of normality in their strangeness. Why should anyone stare at him? He was happy. There are many people who choose to remodel a world in which they feel ill at ease into one in which they are perfectly comfortable. Why should Edna be such an oddity, after all? Why should anyone care about her? There are scientists who shut themselves away for months in a self-contained, controlled environment encapsulated in a giant glass dome. It is accepted that no one should disturb them. Why disturb Edna in her self-created eco-system? In my own way, was I disturbing her? Was Ganesh right? Ought I just to let well alone?

  No! I told myself immediately. Biblical Eden had a snake in it: and a faceless threat prowled the undergrowth in Edna’s private Eden Project here and now. Of that, if of nothing else, I was quite certain. But how to flush it out into the open and with the minimum disruption to Edna’s life?

  I thought wistfully of the world Conan Doyle had created for his great detective. That was doing detection the gentleman’s way. There the old violin-scraper had sat in his comfortable rooms, with Mrs Hudson running up and down stairs with life’s necessities on a tray and poor old Watson sent out to do all the legwork. Holmes himself exercised his brain but precious little else. If you have a brain like the Great Man then perhaps you don’t need to do anything else. I know he occasionally bestirred himself to dress up and hide out on Dartmoor or hire a private train to take him somewhere but I have always thought that Holmes managed his detection in the way we’d all like to be able to do it, from the comfort of his armchair.

  Sadly real life doesn’t permit it. I don’t have his brainpower or even Poirot’s amazing little grey cells and I would have liked to know how either of those great detectives would have dealt with my problems. I had a nutty old lady and an unidentified threat to her which was becoming hourly more dangerous. I’d fallen over a stiff whose last wish in life had apparently been a head-to-head conference with me. Holmes hailed a hansom cab when he wanted to get anywhere. I had to battle the vagaries of London’s modern transport system. Poirot had Inspector Japp grovelling before him. I had Morgan.

  Lottie wouldn’t tell me the name of her client so I didn’t know whether the client or someone else represented the threat. It was possible the client’s aim was the same as mine: to protect Edna. If so, I needed to find the client and talk to him or her.

  The bus lurched onward at increased speed and deposited me reasonably close to where I wanted to go, the hostel. I completed the journey at a jog trot, despite the bagel, and arrived breathless before its front door.

  Sandra wasn’t sitting on the steps today; instead she opened the door to me.

  ‘Hi,’ I said, rather taken aback. ‘Is Simon there, or Nikki?’

  Sandra stared at me silently. Her face with its unhealthy pasty skin was surrounded with long wisps of unwashed fairish hair. Her eyes were large, pale blue and vacant. She looked completely spaced out. I didn’t know whether this meant she hadn’t taken her medication or had taken too much of it. At least she wasn’t weeping.

  ‘Simon?’ I repeated more loudly, pointing past her in the general direction of the office. ‘Nikki?’

  She moved aside to allow me to pass by her, at the same time pointing silently towards the door of the office. I thought she wasn’t the best person to put in charge but perhaps this was part of her rehabilitation programme.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said brightly, more to cheer up myself than her. ‘Are they both in there?’

  Sandra’s forehead puckered and she pointed urgently at the office door again.

  ‘All right, all right,’ I said hastily, not wanting to set off the waterworks. All in all, I felt I was surrounded by strange beings, like poor Alice in Wonderland. Sandra’s long thin pale grey finger waggled at the door and I obediently followed its silent bidding.

  I tapped at the door and called out, ‘Fran Varady here, can I come in?’

  There was a rustle and bustle from the other side of the door. A chair scraped, voices murmured urgently. I realised I’d interrupted something. Sandra was not reliable as doorkeeper. I prepared to beat an apologetic retreat as footsteps approached, but the door was opened a hand’s breadth. A narrow vertical strip of Simon’s face peered out at me.That too was unsettling.

  ‘Sorry,’ I said, ‘I didn’t mean to interrupt. I’ll go and come back later.’

  From behind him a female voice spoke, that of someone I couldn’t identify. ‘Perhaps I should meet her?’ suggested the voice.

  Simon dithered and eventually pulled open the door enough to allow me, by now completely spooked, into the room.

  I didn’t know by now quite what I expected. The sight was surprising enough in its way. Seated in a chair by the dusty pine-cone-infested fireplace was a sophisticated-looking woman I judged to be in her late forties, possibly just fifty. With people as well groomed as that, it’s often difficult to tell. Her hair was short and expensively cut and I had to restrain an impulse to put my hand to my own thatch to smooth it. The visitor wore a wool two-piece outfit in an unobjectionable
caramel colour with an expensive-looking silk scarf tied loosely round her throat. The skirt was short but she could get away with it. She looked trim and fit and still attractive although no longer exactly the pretty girl she must once have been. Her chin was just beginning to lose its crisp line. All, including neatly trimmed eyebrows and enamelled nails, had been made up discreetly with a practised hand. A jarring note was provided by outsize gold and pearl earrings. In contrast to the rest of the outfit they seemed out of place. It was as if, at the last moment, she had surveyed herself in the bedroom mirror and decided to glam up a bit before setting out.

  Nikki, dressed in her usual thrown-together style and seated at her spot by the computer, observed rather than asked, ‘Sandra let you in.’

  ‘Was she not meant to?’ I countered.

  Simon cleared his throat and glanced briefly at his co-worker. Sandra was a resident and not to be discussed before me. Their obstinate adherence to discretion was beginning to bug me. Were they going to tell me who the woman with the pearl earrings was? Or would she tell me herself? It was easier to find out for myself.

  I marched over to her briskly and held out my hand. ‘Hi,’ I said cheerfully. ‘I’m Fran.’

  Simon and Nikki both looked horror-struck at losing the initiative. Tough. The woman blinked once and then took my hand, giving it a brief firm shake. Her skin was very soft; regular application of hand cream and not much housework, I guessed.

  ‘I’m Jessica,’ she said. Her voice was as pleasant as the rest of her but I was on the receiving end of cool grey eyes. She wasn’t someone easily thrown off balance in any social situation.

  OK, Jessica what? Was I not to be given any surname? Not yet, anyway, it seemed.

  ‘I overheard you say to Simon that perhaps you ought to meet me,’ I went on, ignoring Simon’s increasing distress and Nikki’s ferocious scowl. ‘That wouldn’t be because you’re here asking about Edna Walters, would it? Because if you are, then I agree that you and I need to have a talk.’

  ‘I’m terribly sorry, Jessica,’ said Simon to the woman. He rubbed his thin hands together. ‘This really shouldn’t have happened. She ought not to have been admitted. Sandra ought . . . No, I can’t blame Sandra.’ He realised he was about to blame someone in his care and that wasn’t in order. ‘I should have locked the door.’ His misery was now complete.

  Unexpected support for my position came from Nikki. ‘No, Sim,’ she said. ‘Fran’s right. Jessica needs to hear from her. After all, we told her about Fran’s interest in Edna.’

  I continued excluding the two of them from my attention and addressed myself to Jessica.

  ‘You know my interest in Edna. I’d really like to know yours. Are you the person who has been looking for her?’

  She remained cool, poised and unfazed by my slightly hostile tone. ‘I have been making enquiries about Edna but whether I’m the person you’re talking of, that I can’t say.’

  ‘Because you don’t want to or because you’re acting on behalf of a principal and can’t say?’

  She wasn’t my idea of another private detective but she might still be asking on behalf of someone else. I realised with dismay that I was in the situation poor Duane had found himself in when he’d discovered me. Here I was thinking I just about had my finger on the pulse, when a brand new and totally unknowable element presented itself.

  She smiled. ‘I get the impression, Fran, that you feel people haven’t been open with you.’

  ‘I think I’ve been given a real run-around,’ I said bluntly. But I was calming down. She had that effect on me and in any case, if I offended her, I’d get nowhere. ‘I really want to know what’s going on,’ I added.

  ‘I see.’ She paused and appeared to be sorting through the facts at her disposal: what I might be told and what I might not know. She did this without any attempt to hide it.

  ‘You’re quite right in thinking I’m making enquiries on behalf of someone else,’ she began. ‘You’re very shrewd, Fran, if you don’t mind my saying so. The person concerned is an elderly gentleman. He would like to know Edna’s whereabouts and circumstances. He’s not in a position to carry out enquiries himself. He’s well over eighty and his health isn’t good.’

  ‘Are you related to him?’

  ‘He’s a friend,’ she said quickly. ‘He’s asked me to do this for him as a favour.’

  ‘All right,’ I said, ‘and in order to do him this favour have you hired a private investigation agency based in Teddington, run by Duane Gardner and Lottie Forester?’

  Her smooth brow crinkled in a frown which was quickly erased. ‘No,’ she said simply.

  ‘You don’t know anything about them?’

  ‘I’ve had no dealings of any kind with them.’

  I was feeling less sure of myself. This conversation wasn’t working out as I had expected. Her answers worried me. Was I being given another run-around? Was I getting neurotic? I had to assume, for the time being at least, that she was speaking the truth. Why shouldn’t she be? Well, then, had someone else hired Duane and Lottie, neither the elderly gent who had asked Jessica for her help nor Jessica herself? How many people were there out there looking for Edna? For probably more years than my lifetime Edna had been of no interest to anyone. Suddenly everyone wanted her.

  ‘You’re not a lawyer, are you?’ I was struck by this possibility.

  She shook her well-groomed head. ‘No, I teach ballet and mime.’

  That certainly took my interest. To begin with, given my own theatrical interests, teachers of dance and mime were in much the same business as I was. Secondly, stagecraft is taught in various forms but they all train the student to perform in public, how to assume a character and how to control face and speech. If Jessica was lying to me, I’d have a very difficult time picking out just the moment it happened. Moments earlier I’d been prepared to believe everything she said. Now I was cautious. I thought over the answers she’d given me and realised that on the face of it they had been simplicity itself. But in fact they had also been elusive. If you are going to tell lies, as I know from experience, don’t elaborate. If someone asks you a question just reply as briefly as you can. No one can accuse you of falsehood if you haven’t said anything. I wondered again if Jessica was being open with me or just very clever.

  In one way my curiosity was satisfied. The gold and pearl earrings were a theatrical touch. Jessica wanted to catch the eye when the curtain went up. Simon and Nikki constituted Jessica’s audience and now I was part of it.

  I didn’t tell her of my own ambitions. Just as Duane had changed his mind about me once he knew I had a connection with the Duke Agency, so Jessica would begin to think about me the way I was now thinking about her, once she knew I’d had stage training.

  Jessica had turned to Simon and Nikki. ‘You had just begun to tell me, shortly before Fran arrived, that some young man had been following Edna about. Would he be this person Gardner?’

  She leaned back in the rickety armchair as she spoke and crossed her legs. She probably wasn’t as relaxed as she looked but she knew how to put it on. I took the opportunity to glance at her legs which, though slender, were exceptionally muscular. She was a dancer, all right.

  Nikki indicated me. ‘Ask her. She knows about him. Neither Sim nor I has ever seen him.’

  ‘Yes, it was Gardner I saw tailing Edna,’ I said. ‘It was part of a job given to the agency he and his girlfriend run at Teddington.’

  ‘Ah . . .’ Jessica expelled a long soft breath. ‘Then perhaps it’s time I had a chat with Mr Gardner.’

  I shook my head. ‘Sorry, you won’t be able to do that.’

  ‘His agency is located in Teddington? I can find it easily enough then,’ she returned.

  ‘You’ll find the house and you’ll find Lottie Forester, his partner. But unfortunately Duane can’t be interviewed by you or anyone else now. He’s . . . he met with a fatal accident.’

  ‘What?’ they all three exclaimed at once.


  Jessica looked shocked, quite genuinely so, I’d have sworn to that. But just for the moment, then she rallied and murmured, ‘I’m very sorry to hear that.’

  Simon’s reaction was more physical, jumping to his feet and waving his hands desolately, his mouth opening and closing as he sought the right way to ask what had happened.

  Nikki wasn’t so scrupulous. ‘What happened to him?’ she demanded roughly. ‘How can he have a bloody accident now?’

  She was a shrewd one, too.Yes, it’s shocking and sad that anyone can meet sudden death but in Duane’s case, why now?

  ‘Perhaps you’d better contact the police,’ I told her. ‘Inspector Janice Morgan is handling it. You can tell her I told you.’

  Jessica had been sunk in thought. Despite her outer poise, she was still clearly shaken. She turned her attention to Nikki. ‘I’d better do as Fran suggests. I’ll go now and try and talk to this police inspector.’