Rather a Common Sort of Crime

by Joyce Porter

  ‘Well, I don’t remember,’ Eric insisted stubbornly. ‘I’ve got something better to do with my head than stuff it up with remembering stupid things like that. I don’t remember and I’m not going to say I do – so you can stop going on at me.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Time for my lunch,’ he announced. ‘See you around, dolly, and if you can’t be good, try and be original!’

  In an impotent silence the Hon. Con and Mr Hamilton watched the youth slouch out of the shop.

  ‘It makes you wonder what the country’s coming to, doesn’t it?’ asked Mr Hamilton dejectedly when the door had banged shut. ‘I’d have him out of here quicker than that but I know I’d only get landed with a bigger drip in his place. Well’ – he looked expectantly at the Hon. Con – ‘does it matter?’

  ‘Does what matter?’

  ‘Does it matter about Eric fetching the bottles into the shop when I served this Burberry boy?’

  ‘Search me,’ said the Hon. Con.

  The mention of lunch made the Hon. Con realize that she herself was feeling a little peckish and she decided to leave the rest of her detecting until she’d satisfied the inner man. Still not quite up to facing a cooked meal, she started looking round for a snack bar where she could have a quick sandwich and rest her feet. Totter-bridge was not exactly crawling with establishments of this kind and the Hon. Con hesitated for a moment as she wondered where to go.

  What about taking the bull by the horns and bearding the lion in its den? Or – to put it more simply – patronize the café that was located above and connected with the Kama Sutra? What was it called? Fionna’s – that was it. The Hon. Con’s round face screwed up unhappily. She really ought, she supposed, to go to Fionna’s and soak up some more atmosphere but, honestly, she just didn’t think she could. The place would probably be swarming with teenagers and they would all know about her visit to the Kama Sutra and that dreadful Mr Gorostiago would doubtless be hanging around and … No, she was blowed if she was going to go through all that again!

  She turned abruptly on her heel and marched off in the direction from which she had just come. There was that Jumping Cow milk bar place in the High Street. She’d go there.

  The glass door and the windows of the Jumping Cow were so thickly plastered with advertisements and posters that the Hon. Con was half-way inside before she caught sight of the girl allegedly serving behind the bar. The Hon. Con let rip with an unladylike curse. The droopy-eyed wench, too weary to raise a hand to conceal her yawn, was none other than Jack die John’s girl-friend! Oh, heck!

  The Hon. Con beat a quick retreat. Damn it, wasn’t there anywhere in Totterbridge that wasn’t infested with these dratted Kama Sutra kids?

  She decided to take no more chances. She knew of one haven for the middle-aged: Norah’s Kitchen. Refined, dainty and hideously expensive, it catered exclusively for the over forty-fives and the Hon. Con headed for it like a homing pigeon seeking its loft. Thankfully she eventually wedged herself into a cane-bottomed chair behind a tiny wobbly table and consulted the menu.

  The elderly waitress in a neo-Tudor cap and gown was not pleased to receive an order for welsh rabbit and a cup of coffee.

  ‘Wouldn’t moddam care to try one of our gâteaux?’

  The Hon. Con shook her head. Not at that price, thank you very much! ‘I’m on a diet,’ she lied with a craven smile.

  The waitress had obviously heard that one before but the Hon. Con didn’t really care. At least she was safe here.

  But not for long. The elderly waitress, who could spot a sixpenny tipper a mile off, wasn’t going to have customers lolling all day at her table over a welsh rabbit and a cup of coffee. She had the Hon. Con back on the streets of Totterbridge in double quick time.

  It was still only half-past twelve so the Hon. Con made her way to the chemist’s shop where Rodney had, according to the police investigation, bought the rat poison which had caused his death.

  It was a small dusty place with a rather furtive air about it. Rubber goods, thought the Hon. Con without having any very clear idea of what this meant but knowing that it was something nasty.

  The doorbell gave a loud and tinny ping as she entered the shop. It was very dark inside and all piled up with tins of baby food and plastic sacks of toilet paper. The place would have given the Hon. Con claustrophobia if she had happened to believe in it.

  The shop was empty. The Hon. Con closed the door loudly. There was no response. She cleared her throat and shuffled her feet. Nothing happened. She fished a half-crown out of her pocket and rapped on the counter.

  A confused sound came from behind the bead curtain. Was that a muffled giggle? A man grunting?

  ‘Anybody there?’ called the Hon. Con, feeling a bit of a fool and getting thoroughly cheesed off with all this waiting. ‘Shop!’ She banged her half-crown on the counter again.

  The bead curtain moved and the Hon. Con’s hopes rose. The bead curtain parted. A young girl pushed her way through, hastily buttoning up her pink nylon overall as she came.

  ‘Yerse?’

  The Hon. Con’s heart missed a beat. The girl was very, very pretty. The Hon. Con hadn’t seen such a pretty girl in a long time. So young! So fresh! It was a pity she’d got her face plastered with all that cosmetic muck but it hardly detracted at all from her shining beauty.

  ‘Did yer want somethink?’

  The pink clad lovely was getting bored. She had an excruciating accent but it sounded like the music of the spheres to the enchanted Hon. Con. What a little darling!

  The girl sighed crossly. ‘Look, dear, if yer want somethink, yer’ll have to say, won’t yer? I’m not a perishing thought-reader.’

  The Hon. Con took a grip on herself. ‘Er – yes. I’m so sorry – she laughed gaily – ‘I was just thinking of something else. Er – is the owner of the shop in, by any chance?’

  ‘If yer selling, he only sees commercials first think in the morning.’

  ‘No, no – I’m not selling anything. I’m not selling anything at all. Certainly – er – not. I’d just like to see whoever is in charge here for a minute.’

  ‘Wat for?’

  The Hon. Con swallowed. ‘It’s a confidential matter, I’m afraid.’

  The girl raised her pencilled eyebrows. ‘Suit yerself,’ she said indifferently, ‘but there ain’t nothink he can serve you with that I can’t. Yer won’t shock me, yer know, whatever it is.’ She turned away with exquisite natural grace and screamed through the bead curtain. ‘Mr Beecher, yer wanted!’

  There was another unintelligible grunt.

  ‘He’s coming,’ said the girl and moved off to the other end of the shop. The Hon. Con watched her avidly as she began rearranging some cut-price toothbrushes on a revolving stand.

  ‘Can I be of any assistance, madam?’

  Unwillingly the Hon. Con switched her attention to the newly arrived Mr Beecher. She found herself confronted by a seedy little man – bald, pasty-faced, middle-aged. He, too, was busying himself with the buttons of his overall but he listened politely while the Hon. Con explained the rather peculiar nature of her business.

  Mr Beecher remembered Rodney Burberry coming in to buy the tin of rodenticide as if it was yesterday. ‘Well, I would, wouldn’t I?’ he asked, smoothing a couple of lonely hairs across his bald patch. ‘I don’t get asked for Kil’mkwik not once in a blue moon these days. Proper old-fashioned stuff it is, and as lethal as the dickens. Kill an elephant, it would, never mind a few mouldy old rats. When this kid came in, I said, ‘‘ Kil’mkwik?’’ I said, ‘‘You don’t want Kil’mkwik, do you?’’ Well, he said yes, he did, so there was nothing I could do about it, was there? He said he’d been told to get a tin of Kil’mkwik so a tin of Kil’mkwik he got. The customer’s always right, isn’t he? No law against selling Kil’mkwik and there are some people who swear by it, though I wouldn’t use it myself, not if you was to pay me, I wouldn’t.’

  While he was talking Mr Beecher moved unobtrusively a little way down his count
er and began looking, not at the Hon. Con, but past her. Equally casually the Hon. Con shifted her position and followed the direction of Mr Beecher’s gluttonous eyes.

  The young girl assistant was stretching, very revealingly, to reach something in the window.

  ‘So, there you are,’ continued Mr Beecher, wiping his forehead with his handkerchief and breathing rather heavily. ‘This lad signed the poisons book – correct name and address and everything. The police checked it all and they were perfectly satisfied. Perfectly Marleen’ – he raised his voice a little – ‘just tidy up that bottom shelf while you’re at it, will you, dear?’

  ‘Yes, Mr Beecher,’ said Marleen demurely and bent down to the bottom shelf. Her mini skirt was very short. So was her pink nylon overall.

  Mr Beecher mopped the back of his neck. ‘Charming girl that,’ he murmured. ‘Restores one’s faith in the younger generation.’

  ‘Delightful!’ agreed the Hon. Con huskily. ‘Quite delightful! A really lovely child!’

  ‘Child?’ Mr Beecher was shocked. ‘She’s over sixteen. She may not look it but she’s definitely over sixteen. I made a special point of checking that. I always do. Well, it’s just asking for trouble otherwise, isn’t it?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ mumbled the Hon. Con vaguely. She was beginning to get a bit hot round the collar herself. ‘Must be a very responsible job, working in a chemist’s shop.’

  Mr Beecher tore his eyes away from Marleen and looked doubtfully at the Hon. Con. ‘Quite,’ he said. ‘Oh, quite. Well,’ his glance, slid inexorably away again, ‘was there anything else you wanted to know? If not, I ought to be giving Marleen a hand’ – he swallowed hard – ‘with setting out the window.’

  The Hon. Con blinked and tried to get her thoughts back to the job in hand. ‘You said Rodney Burberry said he’d been told to ask for Kil’mkwik?’

  Mr Beecher took a long time about answering. ‘ Mm … that’s right.’

  ‘So he was buying the stuff on behalf of somebody else?’

  ‘Mm … well, yes, I suppose that’s the sort of impression I got. At the time I kind of assumed that it was the man who’d rung up about a week before asking if I stocked Kil’mkwik.’

  ‘What man?’ The Hon. Con forgot, temporarily, about Marleen and spoke sharply in an attempt to recapture Mr Beecher’s attention.

  ‘I don’t know what man,’ said Mr Beecher, catching his breath as Marleen made a sudden dive after a small cardboard box which she had accidentally dropped on the floor. ‘ Just a man. He didn’t give a name or anything. Just asked me if we sold it. Nothing all that odd about that, is there? I should think we’re the only shop left in Totterbridge that does. I told you, it’s real old-fashioned stuff. I shan’t order any more when I’ve got rid of these last few tins. Nasty stuff to have hanging around, arsenic is.’

  ‘It wasn’t young Burberry himself, was it?’

  ‘What?’ Mr Beecher dabbed the palms of his hands with an air of increasing desperation.

  ‘Was it young Burberry who phoned up earlier to ask if you sold Kil’mkwik?’

  ‘Mm … eh? Oh, no, I don’t think so.’ Mr Beecher shook his head slowly. ‘The man on the phone was older. Had a deeper voice. No, I’m sure it wasn’t the boy.’

  ‘But you think there was some connection?’

  ‘Mm …’ The pause was even longer this time as Marleen mounted daintily on a chair to reach one of the higher shelves. ‘Gawd!’ gasped Mr Beecher softly. ‘Eh? Oh, well, only because of the Kil’mkwik, you see. As I’ve told you, I don’t sell a tin of the damned stuff once in six months.’ He wiped the top of his head. ‘Got lovely straight legs, hasn’t she?’

  The Hon. Con cast a connoisseur’s eye, ‘Beautiful!’ she echoed admiringly. ‘Smashing pair of – er – shoulders, too.’

  ‘Smashing! She’s a simply delightful girl altogether. Everybody thinks so. She’s very popular with all my customers. Lovely character, too, quite lovely.’

  The Hon. Con nodded her head in fascinated agreement. Marleen stepped down from her chair and disappeared momentarily out of sight behind a show case. Mr Beecher heaved a deep sigh and turned, sadly, to look at the Hon. Con.

  ‘Well, there you are, aren’t you?’ he said. ‘ Really, it’s just what I told the police. There’s no doubt that it was this Burberry boy himself who bought the poison and, as far as I was concerned, it was a perfectly ordinary sale.’

  ‘Was Rodney Burberry a regular customer?’

  ‘He’d been in once or twice before, I think. After-shave and hair cream – that sort of thing. Of course, he knew Marleen. She brings in quite a lot of custom, bless her! Well, it’s these teenagers who’ve got the money nowadays, isn’t it?’

  The Hon. Con frowned. ‘I didn’t realize that Rodney Burberry and Marleen were friends.’

  ‘Oh, I wouldn’t say friends, exactly,’ said Mr Beecher. ‘They knew each other, of course. They were both members of the same youth club or whatever it is – that basement place in Blueboy Street. As a matter of fact’– he giggled coyly – ‘Marleen hasn’t all that much time for these young boys. She prefers older men, she says.’

  The Hon. Con looked at Mr Beecher in some alarm. ‘Do you mean that Marleen is a member of the Kama Sutra Club?’

  ‘That’s right. She goes there most evenings.’ He giggled again. ‘She’s even offered to take me along one night but there’s the wife, you understand.’ He sighed, ‘Some women develop very suspicious minds as they get older.’

  Marleen hove once more into view and presented a full and heady profile to her admirers. Mr Beecher shuddered ecstatically from head to toe. ‘Well, if that’s all, madam,’ he croaked, ‘I think it’s about time we shut up shop for lunch. Marleen, dear, would you like to go through to the back and – er – put the kettle on?’

  ‘Yes, Mr Beecher.’ Marleen swayed seductively past them and went through the bead curtain.

  Mr Beecher shot out from behind his counter, crossed the shop and held the door invitingly open. The Hon. Con had no choice but to pass through it. She had barely got outside when she heard the door shut smartly behind her and the bolts rammed home. She turned somewhat indignantly so see Mr Beecher, grinning like a demented satyr, already turning his little sign so that it read CLOSED – EVEN FOR BEDFORD’S ORIGINAL CORN PLASTERS!

  Mr Beecher caught the Hon. Con’s eye. He gave her a knowing wink and pulled down the blind.

  Chapter Nine

  ‘A conspiracy, dear?’ There was more than a suspicion of indulgence in Miss Jones’s voice. ‘ Oh, do you really think so?’

  ‘Certainly do,’ retorted the Hon. Con crossly. ‘Wouldn’t say so if I didn’t, would I?’

  ‘You do sometimes tend to let your imagination run away with you, dear.’

  ‘Oh, stuff!’ The Hon. Con, accustomed as she was to being a prophet without honour where old Bones was concerned, might have got really shirty if she hadn’t been so exhausted.

  The conspiracy idea had come to her a few minutes after her departure from Mr Beecher’s shop and it had shaken her so badly that she’d decided to walk all the way home to Shangrila. In spite of her much vaunted physical fitness, the two-mile trek had proved something of an ordeal. She arrived home, limping heavily, to find Miss Jones quietly getting on with her housework. The Hon. Con soon put a stop to that.

  ‘Blisters!’ she had explained tersely as she collapsed with a dramatic groan on to one of the kitchen stools. ‘Oh, my poor old barking dogs!’

  Luckily Miss Jones had read all about private eyes and the excessive amount of leg work they had to do. She dashed upstairs for the Epsom Salts and then filled the washing up bowl with scalding hot water while the Hon. Con removed her shoes and socks and rolled up the ends of her trousers.

  ‘It’s too hot!’ screamed the Hon. Con.

  ‘Nonsense, dear!’ Miss Jones took no notice of the pitiful protests and rammed the Hon. Con’s feet into the bowl. ‘Don’t be such a baby! Now, you just sit there quietly while I make a
cup of tea.’

  The Hon. Con waited until Miss Jones was warming the pot before she told her about the conspiracy. Miss Jones, as we have seen, was inclined to take the matter rather lightly.

  ‘It’s true’ the Hon. Con insisted. ‘The town of Totterbridge is in the grip of a dark and sinister conspiracy.’

  ‘Well, it’s the first I’ve heard of it, dear,’ said Miss Jones cheerfully.

  ‘Of course it is! It wouldn’t be a conspiracy if every Tom, Dick and Harry knew all about it, would it? Don’t be such a chump, Bones!’

  With the deftness born of long practice Miss Jones turned away the wrath. ‘What sort of a conspiracy is it then, dear? I mean – what are they conspiring about?’

  ‘To take over Totterbridge’ said the Hon. Con grimly. ‘Lock, stock and barrel. At least, that’s what I suspect at the moment. Can’t tell what dire plots further probing might not uncover.’

  ‘Oh, the Mafia?’ said Miss Jones brightly. ‘Like that American film we saw on television the other night?’

  The comparison was made in all innocence but it brought a black scowl to the Hon. Con’s face. If there was one thing that she couldn’t stand, it was not being taken seriously. And, if there was another, it was veiled accusations that she borrowed her wilder flights of fancy from the telly. ‘ Yes,’ she snorted, defiantly, ‘just like that film! Only this is Totterbridge and we’re being taken over by teenagers, not a lot of gangsters.’

  The whistling kettle whistled and Miss Jones thoughtfully made the tea. At least this was a new obsession on the Hon. Con’s part. Most of the conspiracies she uncovered were directed personally and exclusively against her and had, reputedly, no purpose other than stopping her doing what she wanted. Miss Jones sighed. Maybe this desire to protect the welfare of Totterbridge in general was a change for the better. Absent-mindedly she tipped the remainder of the boiling water into the Hon. Con’s footbath. ‘It’ll just warm it up, dear,’ she murmured.