by Ann Purser
Whippy whimpered pitifully, and began sniffing all round Gus’s cottage, looking for traces of him.
“We’d better be methodical, Deirdre,” Ivy said. “You go upstairs and see if you can find any documents in that little room he used as an office. Me and Roy will get going downstairs. We’ll start with that little desk over there, though that looks more ornamental than useful. And we’ll say good-bye for the present, Miss Blake. We’ll be sure to let you know if we hear anything, and I’m sure you’ll do the same for us.”
Miriam bridled at being shunted towards the door, but went off muttering that if Miss Beasley was so keen on keeping Gus to herself, perhaps she would like to take a turn at looking after his dog.
“Be careful to put everything back in its place,” Roy said. “Of course, when Gus comes back, we’ll have to tell him we’ve been here, but at least he’ll find everything in its right place.”
“If he comes back,” Ivy said quietly, so that Deirdre would not hear.
Roy stopped opening drawers and looked at her. “Do you mean that, Ivy?” he said.
“It’s possible,” she answered, and then pointed up the stairs and put her finger to her lips.
They continued searching in silence, and Ivy moved on from the small desk, having found nothing but a tatty piece of used blotting paper and an incongruous bow of blue ribbon. She wondered what past owner of the desk had kept this souvenir of a loved one.
“I’ll try this cupboard by the fireplace,” she said, and tried to open the door. It was stuck, and as there was no keyhole for locking it, she concluded it had swollen with damp. She shivered. “Shall we have a cup of coffee?” she shouted up the stairs to Deirdre. “It’s damp cold in here. I’m not happy about Roy being in this atmosphere.”
Deirdre came down, and looked at the pair of them. She was suddenly appalled at the ridiculousness of their quest. “Come on, both,” she said as cheerfully as she could manage. “We’re not going to do any good here. If you think about it, Ivy, a man like Gus with secrets to hide is not going to leave anything where an intruder could find it, is he? I mean, there was that time when that awful man broke in and whopped him one over the head.”
“Good thinking, Deirdre,” Roy said, and made for the front door, only too pleased to be let off guard duty.
“No, wait a minute,” Ivy said. “Let’s remember why we’re here. Gus has gone missing. We’ve heard nothing, and he’s probably been taken where he can’t get in touch. God knows why, but that’s the fact. We want a contact, like his ex-wife, so we can get to him as soon as possible. After all, he is a colleague, isn’t he?”
Deirdre nodded. “And a friend,” she said. “But then you two don’t need to be here. Why don’t you go and sit in the garden in the sunshine while I have a quick search round the most likely places?”
“You could start with this cupboard,” Ivy said, taking hold of the knob and yanking hard. It gave way suddenly, and she tottered, rescued from falling over by Roy who was standing behind her. Straightening up, she put her hand inside, reached to the back and pulled out a small tin box.
“Ah,” said Deirdre, “that looks promising. But is it locked?”
Ivy tried the lid, but it did not move. There was no sign of a key, though she searched the entire contents of the cupboard. “Nothing but a pile of old paperbacks,” she said.
“Give it here, Ivy,” Roy said, and fumbling in his pocket brought out an unbent paper clip. “Never without it,” he said. “Not much use for it in Springfields, ’tis true,” he added, “but I’ll have a go.”
The two women looked at him sceptically. Silly old fool, thought Deirdre, and even Ivy could not keep doubt from her eyes. Still, let him try, she thought. There’s a lot I don’t know about Roy, and maybe picking locks is one of his skills.
After Roy fiddled about with it for a minute or two, there was a tiny clicking sound, and he looked up. “There we are!” he said triumphantly. “Who’s going to look inside?”
“Well done, Roy!” Deirdre said, and Ivy nodded in agreement.
“You’d better look, Deirdre,” Roy said. “Your eyes are better than ours.”
Deirdre opened the lid and took out the dog-eared address book. She looked at Ivy. “Not a waste of time, after all,” she said. “Sorry. Now, what shall I look under? Do you think his ex still uses his name?”
“That’s all we’ve got,” Ivy said. “So at least start there. Halfhide. Can’t be many of those around.”
THEO ROUSSEL WAS also looking up telephone numbers. He had been browsing through his father’s old books about rare breeds when he remembered to ring Freddie Armstrong. It took him some while to find the number, and when he rang, it was engaged. He put in a ring-back request, and started to doodle on a piece of paper on his desk. Not much like a horse, he decided. There had been no trace of artistic talent in the Roussels, and Theo was no exception. He tried a dog, but it looked more like a cat, and he screwed up the paper and threw it into his wastepaper basket. Then the telephone rang.
“Hello, Freddie! Theo Roussel here. Yes, Theo from the past! What are you doing with yourself these days? Still a racing man?”
Freddie Armstrong was delighted to hear from someone who had been a close friend in the giddy round of hunting, horse racing and gambling in casinos years ago. “Wonderful to hear from you, Theo!” he said. “Coming back to us, are you? Things have changed, old chap, but we’ll keep an eye on you until you’re back into the ways of our wicked world!”
Theo laughed. “Can’t afford it anymore, Freddie. Cares of the estate, I’m afraid. No, this is a small plea for help. Not too serious, as far as I’m concerned, but a dear girl is worried about the disappearance of her friend Augustus Halfhide. Yes, I’m afraid that is his name. What? You remember him? Well, that’s marvellous! Left his wife, apparently. Oh, you knew her, too? Don’t have a contact for her, by any chance? Oh, wonderful. Yes, pen at the ready. Fire away.” He scribbled down a name and address, and after fond farewells, ended the call.
Noreen knocked at his door and came in with a mug of coffee balanced precariously on a tin tray, with a plate of biscuits sliding from side to side. “No brown sugar, Mr. Theo,” she said. “Still, I always say white’s much cleaner. You never know where that brown stuff has been. Anything else you want?”
Yes, said Theo to himself. I want to see the back of you, Noreen, and have little Katya filling the house with sunshine and efficiency. But aloud he said there was nothing, and waited until she had gone before dialling Deirdre. She was out, and he left a message to say he had some information for her, and why didn’t she come up for a drink this evening? He put down the phone and forgot all about Augustus Halfhide.
Twenty-five
GUS HAD SLEPT fitfully on the uncomfortable camp bed. Noises from the café and surrounding streets had woken him almost immediately after he began to doze. He was cold and hungry, and already there were strong smells of spicy meat being cooked below. He desperately wanted to shower and shave, and clean his teeth. The inside of his mouth felt gritty, and he craved a glass of pure water. Well, that’s something new for Gus Halfhide, he said to himself wryly.
“Morning, Gus!” Keys turned in locks, and the time it took to open his door made him think this wasn’t the first time his disgusting room had been used to confine a prisoner. Martin slid in, going once more through the elaborate locking process. He was carrying a plastic carrier bag, which proved to contain a generous chamber pot. “Use this,” he said. “It’ll be emptied now and then.”
I could kill him easily, let myself out of here and escape, Gus thought. But good sense prevailed, and he decided to say absolutely nothing for as long as he could keep it up. That way he was bound to learn more from them. They would give themselves away, sooner or later, and he intended to be around when it happened.
“I expect you’d like some breakfast? And, by the way, you may as well call me Max,” the man said. “I am, of course, familiar with the real Martin.” He laughed,
and Gus thought it was one of the ugliest sounds he had heard for a long time.
“Not answering this morning?” he continued. “Shall we just have a little chat about this and that now?” He began asking questions. How did Gus like Barrington? Had he made many friends? What did he do with himself all day?
“Well, if you won’t even give me your order for breakfast, I can’t bring you any, can I?” Max said after a while. “We shall just have to see if you’ve found your voice in time for lunch. Of course, before that we shall need some answers to more questions we’ve prepared. We’ll be back later.” He left, this time fumbling impatiently with the locks. Gus remained silent.
Ah, so that’s it, thought Gus. Starve the prisoner until he’s so hungry he’ll tell you anything for a slice of bread. Well, I suppose these idiots have no way of knowing that I can go for days on nothing but deep gulps of fresh air. Not that the foetid air in this room could be called fresh, by any stretch of the imagination. Anyway, real Martin will embark on a hunt for me soon, I hope. But maybe not. Maybe he’ll shrug his shoulders and think Gus Halfhide is as unreliable as ever, and forget him. It was so long since he’d seen him that he was not at all sure Martin would still have the clout, or, more seriously, the desire, to rescue a retired colleague who had lost the knack of keeping himself out of trouble.
Well, the one thing he had time to do now was to think about why an apparently innocent victim had been found dead in his cottage in the village of Measby, and what it had to do with his present imprisonment. It must be dangerous and widespread for the department to have bothered with it in the first place. Maybe the imposter Martin and the woman Margaret wanted to question him to get one jump ahead of an undercover investigation into whatever they were up to.
And then he had another thought. It was possible they suspected Enquire Within’s involvement, and needed to find out exactly what the four of them had discovered.
BACK HOME IN Springfields, Ivy and Roy suggested Deirdre come in for coffee and a discussion on their next move. They had found no Halfhides in the address book, but then, as Ivy said, you wouldn’t expect Gus to need more than a Christian name to contact his ex-wife.
“The trouble is,” Deirdre said, as they settled in Ivy’s room with comforting hot coffee and Katya’s cookies, “there are a good few women’s names without surnames right through the address book.” She fished it out of her pocket and began to turn the pages. She stopped at D, and was embarrassed to see her own name, without Bloxham attached.
“No probs,” said Ivy blandly, daring the other two to comment.
Roy did. “No probs, Ivy? Where on earth did you hear that expression?”
Deirdre laughed. “It’s obvious, Roy,” she said, riding to Ivy’s rescue, “it means no problems. And Ivy’s right. We shall just have to go through the whole lot. If we don’t get the right answer, we’ll just say it’s a wrong number and ring off.” Mindful of the cost involved, she added that she would go through them on her mobile right now, and they could tell her the numbers.
“There’ll be no need for you to try the one under D,” Ivy said with a smirk.
Ungrateful old trout, thought Deirdre, but she said there was no time like the present, and they should make a start with A.
“Right, this one’s called Anita, and here’s her number.” There was no reply, so Roy made a note, saying they could try later. “On to the next, then, Ivy,” he said, and soon they had a system going, but with no luck until they reached K. They had just passed by Katya, with tut-tutting from Ivy, and had found a Katherine, with a London number.
“Hello? Oh, my name is Deirdre Bloxham, and I am sorry I don’t have your name, except for Katherine. I don’t know if you can help me, but I am trying to contact a person called Augustus Halfhide—”
She got no further. There was what sounded like an explosion at the other end of the line, and then the woman’s voice said Mrs. Bloxham must be out of her mind wanting to contact that rotter!
“Oh, so you know him?”
“Know him? I was his wife, and I could tell you more than you’d want to know about Augustus Halfhide! Except, of course, where to find him, and that’s par for the course. I hear from him from time to time, but only when he wants something. Anyway, have you tried his mobile?”
“Yes,” said Deirdre, her voice growing chilly at this woman’s reaction. “It’s dead. And there’s a strong possibility he may be dead, too,” she added.
“Deirdre, don’t say that again!” Ivy mouthed at her cousin, who was still talking. But evidently the rash remark had caused the woman to calm down and be a little more helpful. She gave Deirdre three possible telephone numbers, and said that if all else failed, she could try a number he had given her to use in emergencies. Deirdre recognised it at once. It was her own.
BY THE TIME Deirdre was back home at Tawny Wings, she had three messages on her answerphone. Two were trying to sell her car insurance, and the other was from Theo. She rang his number, and when he answered with an invitation to go for a drink, she accepted with alacrity, glad of the chance for a little light relief. There was no getting away from the fact that even Springfields, well run as it was, had occasional moments of unhappiness and decay. Perhaps she was being oversensitive, but she realised that if Ivy and Roy had not become friends, and found much to talk about and views in common, not to mention an obvious growing affection, their lives would have been very different. And, of course, if Gus had not gone missing, everything would be different. She busied herself with the garden, sweeping up leaves that the gardener had missed, storing garden furniture ready for the winter and picking remaining golden plums that hung like grapes on the old tree she and Bert had brought from Thornhill as a tree sucker from his parents’ garden. Gardening usually relaxed her, but she still felt very much on edge. Perhaps it was the approach of autumn, with its cold nights and blustery days.
Time to go in and clean up for Theo. She put away her tools, and went to have a hot shower. Maybe that would brighten her up. But when it didn’t, she got into her car and set off for the Hall. As she drove past Hangman’s Row and Gus’s empty cottage, she admitted to herself something she had up to now kept at bay. She was missing Gus himself, mysterious old Gus, and she shed a tear.
Twenty-six
BETHAN ARDLEY SHOUTED to the boys to turn down the sound. She couldn’t hear what the voice on the phone was saying, although she knew it was her sister Bronwen.
“What? Sorry, just a minute. I have to go and turn down the sound.”
Bronwen sighed. Why didn’t her sister just turn the wretched thing off? Those boys spent far too long watching the flickering screen. She had said so to Trevor, but he had answered that kids learn far more from the telly than they ever had from school. So what did he know about kids? She thought this was nonsense, but gave up, as she did so often these days.
“Hello? Bronwen? Still there?”
“Yes, oddly enough. As you know, I’m a very busy person, and not used to the tantrums of two small boys.”
“Not tantrums. Just their point of view needs to be respected. Anyway, is this a sisterly chat, or do you want something else?”
“It’s Mother,” Bronwen said. “She’s being very cagey about money and her will, and all of that.”
“You mean she won’t lend you any?”
“No need to be nasty,” Bronwen said. “Trevor and I were wondering whether we wouldn’t get together with you two, and Mother, and in the nicest possible way thrash out some sensible course of action for the future.”
“Like power of attorney, for when she gets gaga?”
There was a silence, and then Bronwen said, “Yes, possibly something like that. For all we know, she may be chucking away her savings right, left and centre! There’s plenty of no-goods around trying to get old folks’ money out of them. And we’d never know, Bethan, until she . . . well . . .”
“Until she dies? And since you mention it, there’s other people besides no-goods trying to get
money out of old folks.”
There was a pause, and then Bronwen said, “Well, yes. So wouldn’t it be best to organise something now with the four of us. Or, more properly, between you and me. Don’t you agree?”
“No, Bronwen, I do not agree. If our mother was gaga already, then you might have a point. But she’s got all her marbles, and as far as we know she is managing her own money satisfactorily. She’s got a good brain. Has had to have over the years, bringing us up on her own, as even you must accept. If she’s spending her savings—her savings, hard earned over a long career—on drink and gigolos, then good luck to her. Does that answer your question?”
There was no reply, and the call cut off. Bethan returned to her boys, turned up the sound on the telly and went to make herself a cup of tea. What a shame, she thought, that Bronwen is so tricky. It would have been nice to be close to my only sister over the years. But there it is. And now Bronners is out of a job and she and her slimy husband are in debt and facing hardship.
“What’ya laughing at, Mum?” called her elder son.
“Nothing, love,” she replied. “Just something Auntie Bronwen said.”
“WE SEEM TO be going round in circles,” Deirdre said, as she sipped a large gin and tonic in Theo’s tranquil drawing room. The sun was low in the sky, and he had half drawn the blinds to shield their eyes from the glare. The room was full of the scent of late-flowering lavender from a bed outside the open window, and Deirdre slowly relaxed. Theo had told her the result of his conversation with Freddie Armstrong, and the telephone number he had been given was, of course, the same as Deirdre and the others had found in Gus’s address book.
“Not quite circles,” Theo said. “Since I spoke to Freddie, I have been thinking back to the old days, when I was a gambling man myself. I never came across Gus Halfhide, but I do remember a cheating scandal in one of the poker schools set up in a London casino that no longer exists. Freddie and I often played there, but the stakes were high and one or two friends ruined their lives. It can become an addiction, you know, Deirdre. If Halfhide was also a regular there, he may well have been one of the victims.