“All we have to do,” I said, “is to remember that this is just boys in the playground, posturing. A load of froth and hot air. A bit of dick swinging so that they’ll get their name into the newspapers a bit more.”
“Yeah,” Bev agreed. “Pathetic. Though I wouldn't mind having a sneaky peek at that Shaun Elliot's swingin' bits. But don't tell Dee I said that. She's got this thing about me fancyin' him. Always going on about it.”
Oh well, I wasn't the only person with a taste-bypass problem in these parts, then.
Gill pointed her piece of chocolate at Bev;
“Which patently, Bev. You don't.”
“Zactly. But anyroadup, bring it on, I say! Let them look like the nobsacks that we all know them to be. And then Sisters’ Space’ll get all the publicity around their bitchin' at each other, too.”
“Absolutely,” I replied, before realising that I had agreed with her that Michael was a nobsack. My phone began to bleep at me. It was Jake Bamber.
“Rachael, hun – sorry - but we’ve got a bit of a situation here. I’ve had to ask Martyn to come away from the office to see if he can try and get things moving. But it seems that even the kudos of our own CEO at New Banks isn’t holding any sway…”
“Hang on – what are you on about?” I half-yelled because Bev was back at the espresso machine and the hissing and slamming down of jugs was drowning his words out. I moved away from the noise so that I could hear him.
“We’ve done our best, Rachael, but it’s all gone a bit pear…”
“Sorry. I missed most of that. What’s happened?”
“Look – just get your arse over here asap to the town hall. If anyone can sort this out, you can. And it’s all… Well. A bit to do with you, really.”
“Great. Sounds ominous…”
“Not too bad. But you’re needed. We’re at the old entrance. Not the new bit where all the offices are. We’re at the back. Right next to the statue of Saint George. I’m stubbing my ciggie out on his shin, as we speak.”
“Ha. Living Marxism. I’ll be there in ten…”
I called back to the others that I was needed at the Town Hall and would be heading off home after that. But Gill's reaction was unexpected.
“Bleeuggh!” She had bitten into the piece of chocolate. Her face was a picture. “Jesus H Christ! What the hell’s wrong with this? It’s disgusting! Tastes like candle wax!” She reached for a serviette and spat it out. Bev picked up the chocolate wrapper, peering at it.
“Rachael, you pranny! You gave her one of the sample ones that we’re supposed to put on display. No sugar or owt in it. I'm always scrimpin’ an’ savin', me, I am.”
I grinned at Gill. “Sorry, Gill. Not your day, eh? See you tomorrow.”
“Call this a café?” I heard Gill’s voice as I headed down the corridor. “We’ll be lucky if we don’t get done for poisoning half of bloody Medlock!”
The town hall was only a short drive away. Martyn and Jake were loitering next to the statue that marked the entrance to the Victorian gothic monstrosity. The building had been erected in honour of Medlock’s finest (and no doubt Masonically-oriented) municipal men. Martyn looked glum, but Jake had that dangerous chink of mischief in his eye. And he was clearly back on his old chain-smoking habit, flicking a cigarette butt nonchalantly towards the market ground as we turned to climb the steps up to the foyer.
“Judging by the smirk, Jake, this doesn’t seem to be as serious as you previously indicated.”
Jake flashed several thousand pounds’ worth of Manchester’s premium orthodontistry output at me, but said nothing.
“It is serious,” pouted Martyn, arms folded and eyes narrowed as we stood at the top of the steps. It’s…” he interrupted himself with an enormous “ Waah-choo !”
“Mind if I move away?” I commented. “We’ve had enough back-to-school colds in our household, this term.”
“Not a cold,’ he sniffled. “… I tend to get a bit of an allergic reaction to perfumes and chemicals.”
“Jake – have you been overdoing it on the Jean Paul Gaultier again?”
“Ha. Very funny,” he responded. “No. It Vim. It’s the Vim powder that the old lady chucked at us.”
“ Waah-choo !” Martyn added again.
“Right,” I directed at Jake as Martyn smothered his face in a handkerchief. “Stop twatting about now. Tell me what the frig you dragged me out here for. It’s been a bastard of a week for me…”
And then I checked myself. That subconscious desire of mine, to swear in front of Martyn, was becoming an increasingly worrying trait.
Martyn was busy blowing his nose, so Jake explained.
“Well Miss Simpson - you know, the old dear that you helped - along with your newfound fr…” he stopped himself just in time. Jake knew that the minister had been on the scene when I had helped to rescue the elderly lady from her flooded home in Mottram. He had also carried out some accurate guesswork in relation to what Michael and I had gotten up to later that evening. But he had been sworn to secrecy - and the look on my face halted him in his tracks. Jake had always been a tad bit afraid of the ‘Rachael Scary Glare-y’ as he referred to it.
“Yes…” he continued, mentally reprimanding himself. “Well. Shaun Elliot’s lot at the town hall are still being stroppy about the whole thing; exactly as I said they would do. They told us that they won't pay for more than just the original two weeks stay for her at the hostel on their side of the Manchester boundary.”
“So,” Martyn put his handkerchief back in his pocket and took up the tale. “We pulled out all of the stops to get Miss Simpson's maisonette shipshape again. Anything to get Shaun off our backs. The man never needs an excuse to try and get one over on us. And the warden – you know Brenda, at Lancaster House?” I nodded. “Well, Brenda spent a good hour with Miss Simpson, explaining that we’d adapted the flat especially for her. You know, put some grab rails in for her, installed a panic alarm – even whacked a new heating system in. She told her that New Banks had even put new carpets in, to replace the water-damaged ones. That we’d help her to move her things back into the flat too. And that now that we’re all aware of what an awful state her home – yes, her entire life, the poor thing - had actually been in…”
“… not to mention the dementia …” Jake chipped in.
“… yes, and all of that of course. Well, we’re going to try to put a nice little parcel of support for her, in partnership with social services. Maybe a bit of help with her bathing and personal care. So, she…”
“Doesn’t stink of piss so much,” added Jake. Martyn frowned.
“So, Brenda – and Jake – explained to her that all of this means that there’s no reason for her to be staying at Lancaster House anymore.”
“And it also means that we can now tell Shaun Elliot to get off our backs and to Fuck Off.”
“Tone the language down please, Jake,”
“This is Rachael, Martyn – she’s hardly…”
Martyn ignored him. “But come D-day yesterday morning. Brenda found that Miss Simpson was nowhere to be seen at the hostel. That she’d gone AWOL.”
“Oh, shit!” I started. “She’s so frigging vulnerable, Martyn! She’s…’
Jake flapped a tanned hand at me. “Oh, you don’t need to tell us that! We know! We had the police out looking for her. Bloody helicopters through the night and everything. One big search party – everyone worried because the temperature has dropped so much the last couple of days. But this morning we found her.”
My stomach knotted. I’d spent an entire day trying to help Mary Simpson out. I’d even ferreted through her great and greying knicker drawers. I’d grown rather fond of her.
“Alive?” I asked.
“Oh, Christ yes. Very much alive!” Jake shook his head. “Do you think I’d be looking this amused if she’d kicked the bucket?”
Martyn glared at him. “None of this is funny at all, Jake – Waah-choo! ” He reached for his hankie again.
; “Sorry, Martyn. It was just… one of those moments.”
I was getting really exasperated now but Jake was chewing the inside of one of his cheeks. Trying not to laugh. He flicked his head towards the inside of the building.
“She’s round the corner. In the caretaker’s broom cupboard.”
“In the what?”
Martyn cleared his throat. “Well – Derek – the town hall's Technical Supervisor – he doesn't like to be called a 'caretaker', Jake.”
“Whatever.”
“Plus, he chooses to refer to his ‘broom cupboard’ as his 'office.’ Well, Derek was most upset this morning, on turning up to work to find that a ninety-one-year-old lady had… Waah-choo !”
“… had somehow managed to get over from Manchester to Medlock,” said Jake. “Early morning bus, probably. That she had seized his workspace. And that she's now claiming squatter’s rights. She’s locked him out. Viva La Revolution!” Jake gave me a delicious wink as he stroked his goatee with those immaculately manicured fingers.
“Yes,” Martyn added. “Jake was summoned down here as soon as the police put two and two together and realised that she was our missing tenant from the hostel on Brindleford. And then I got roped into it all. And so, it was down to us - and to a duty social worker - to try and coax her out.”
“No luck?”
“Well,” Martyn huffed. “We thought we were onto something when she finally unlocked the door and opened it. But instead of permitting us to escort her off the premises she threw a load of Vim cleaning powder over the social worker.”
He pointed to the freckles of white, spattered across his jacket; “And then she locked the door again, quick smart.”
“Bloody hell, Martyn,” I commented, “and here’s me just thinking that you had a particularly bad case of dandruff today.”
Martyn shook his head. “It really isn’t as amusing as it all sounds. The social worker was standing in front of me and she caught the most of it. She was wearing glasses, so that stopped it from getting into her eyes, at any rate. She’s had to go home to get changed.”
“So, where’s Derek the caretaker now?” I asked.
“He lost his temper. And stomped off round to the council offices to get…”
“… someone who isn’t as fucking incompetent as we are,” Jake added.
Martyn frowned.
“Well, those were his exact words, Martyn.”
“Maybe, Jake. But the last thing we need is yet another run-in with Medlock Council over Miss Simpson.”
“Speak of the devil…” grimaced my old buddy, as he nodded towards the bottom of the town hall steps.
CHAPTER 22
Shaun Elliot was striding up the stone town hall steps. Three at a time. His winter rain mac, the colour of soot, flapping behind him.
Very à la Darth Vader. Very Big Foreboding Fella With a Mood on Him…
The chill of the Empire was heightened even further, thanks to the presence of the Leader of the Council - Councillor Kathleen Casey - as she wobbled behind Shaun in her high heels.
Casey was in her early 60s; surely, she should have grown some footwear-sense by now, I thought to myself. She also appeared to be wearing a cowl – or some kind of a snood. I suppressed a snigger. With the sour-faced expression and the creepy hood-thing, she looked even more like Darth Vader’s power-crazed little friend. The Emperor in stilettos.
Another figure jiggled up the steps behind them, panting and mopping his brow. This must be Derek the Caretaker. The third party involved in a rather marvellous Star Wars cameo. A short and stocky man, with hair sprouting from every visible orifice, the moustache, the beard, the Denis Healey eyebrows… the works. And even more so. He was growling every incomprehensible curse imaginable in relation to his perceived territory. Which had apparently been “Seized by a mad old cow!”
Yep. Derek portrayed the very image of an Ewok.
But Martyn had always been one to rise to the occasion – to stand on ceremony. He visibly shook the powder off his shoulders and declared;
“Good afternoon, Shaun. And nice to see you again, Kathleen.” Martyn forced a smile as the party arrived at the entrance to the town hall. I noticed that he had hiked himself slightly up; that he was ever-so-casually teetering on the edge of his toes. Subconsciously, no doubt - because a good foot of height existed between Shaun and Martyn. Shaun had always mercilessly ribbed his adversary about his ‘Little Issue’ back in the days when we had all worked together at Whalley Range.
“Councillor Casey, this is Jake Bamber,” Martyn informed the woman. “Jake is one of our senior housing officers at New Banks Housing. And this is Rachael Russell - the manager of the women’s centre in Medlock. They do incredible work with women who have suffered abuse and who are turning their lives around. I’m sure that you already know about them.”
Councillor Casey winced. Either it was a smile as forced as Martyn’s, or she was experiencing a bout of wind.
“Yes. I know all about The Sisters’ Place,”
“Actually – it’s Sisters’ Space ,” I corrected her. “And you really should stop by sometime, Councillor. We run some fantastic courses on…”
But Shaun interrupted my flow. Perhaps second-guessing that I was going to suggest some of our passive-aggressive training sessions to her. And even though Shaun could pip all of us at the rudeness game, he wasn’t going to let me deliberately needle the woman who was, no doubt, the key to his coveted Numero Uno Chief Exec’s post, once Roger Dawson had shuffled off into retirement sunset. He barged in with;
“So, Rachael. You’ve got it all sorted here then?”
I had always possessed the knack for reading his body language, but today I was struggling with it. His face was expressionless. His hands were stuffed into the pockets of his mac – but his eyes… his eyes danced over to Jake. He was checking out his reaction.
Ha, yes. That would be it; Shaun would be wondering whether I had confided in Jake about either of the most recent encounters between us.
Well, sweat it out, Shaun-baby…
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“I mean, surely you’ve sorted the old lady out by now?” He tipped his head to one side. Doing the cheeky Yorkshire bloke thing. “’Cause, wherever Rachael Russell’s hallowed feet tread… she ends up liberating oppressed women of the borough. Whether it be OAPs or pregnant teenage druggies. So, I would have thought that you could have coaxed some pensioner out of the broom cupboard by now.”
Councillor Casey stifled a giggle. I ignored the annoying old troll.
“It’s not a broom cupboard!” Derek blurted. “It’s my office! I’ve got paperwork in there! I’ve got a proper filing system and everything!”
Shaun narrowed his eyes at him. Shut up furry, minor Star Wars character. Then back at me;
“But, Rachael. When you do manage to extract your pal from the mop bucket, can you at least have the courtesy to check with us about where she goes to for her bed and board this time? Because last time , the Russell-rescue cost us a bloody fortune; when you drove her over to Brindleford. Never mind the accommodation charge that Manchester Council slapped onto us; that taxi fare you claimed for was truly extortionate. Was Prince William in the taxi with you? Or some other special VIP?”
Accusing me of wasting public resources was a purposeful red rag to the She-Bull. Even without the not-so-thinly-veiled allusion to the fact that Michael had been with me.
“Well, to begin with,” I told him, “I wasn’t even working on that day. As you already know – it was a Saturday and I just happened to be passing her house when a couple of kids told me that it was flooded. And – as you well know – all of the B and B’s in Medlock were full that weekend. So, I had no choice other than get her over to Manchester to get her safe and dry and…”
But Shaun was now checking his phone for messages - had conjured up his best bored-on-purpose expression. He knew that I had played everything by the book with Miss Simpson. He was simp
ly having a pop at me in public because I’d naffed him off over the way that I had managed to get him to sign the loan documents.
So, it would only be fair to have a swing back at him, wouldn’t it?
“But you know what, Shaun? If the whole thing with Mary Simpson bothers you that much, I’ve got a better idea. The next time I encounter an incontinent, smelly and confused old lady who’s about to die of hypothermia – I’ll give you a tinkle on your mobile. You can come and pick her up in one of your cars. Maybe that top of the range Lexus of yours. Although I imagine that you'd be very concerned about getting stains on your seats…”
I caught Jake’s eye. He flashed me a saucy grin. He knew a little bit about me, Shaun and sex in parked-up cars. But my jibe had soared over the heads of the others; Martyn being far too much the religious innocent to guess the back story about stains and car seats, Kath Casey being far too up her own arse to think that anyone else had a life. And poor Derek the caretaker being too worried about whether Miss Simpson was going to steal his paper clips or snaffle his Mr Muscle.
But Shaun just shoved his phone back into his pocket and deliberately made no eye contact with me. He turned towards his old-time career rival and decided to go for the double-pronged insult; a Two For One aimed at both New Banks fellas.
“So, Martyn… interesting choice of design for your suit there. Has Tinkerbell here - been sprinkling you with his magic dust? Have you got your boss flying alongside you and the other fairies yet, Jake?”
Martyn – to his credit - didn’t rise to the bait.
“Actually, as I was just saying, we shouldn’t really make light of it, Shaun. Of course, we all know that Mary Simpson suffers with dementia – but we can’t really let her go round attacking members of staff, can we? I was quite worried about your own employee actually – that poor social worker… she caught the worst of it. And I seem to have developed quite an allergic reaction to the Vim myself…”
He snuffled into his handkerchief again. Shaun commented;
“Well, and there’s me thinking that you always got your biggest kicks because of your Mr Squeaky Clean image.” He paused, looked at us all and then suddenly slapped those large hands of his together.
Cuckoo in the Chocolate Page 23