‘That’s me, son,’ said the man. ‘Surprised? Not as surprised as she were, I bet, when she clapped eyes on thee!’
Mrs Ellison returned. From the tintinnabulation of her glass she’d clearly gone in search of ice rather than solitude.
‘Forgive me, Mr Sixsmith,’ she said. ‘There is something of the Celt in me, emotionally speaking. I get upset very easily.’
It struck Sixsmith that she had not as yet acknowledged her husband’s presence.
He said, ‘You miss your cat so much, Mrs Ellison, I presume you’ve taken steps already to get him back?’
‘True. I’ve advertised widely. I’ve contacted the RSPCA. I’ve even informed the police. They were not sympathetic.’
Ellison said, ‘She contacted the cops in Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Essex. We live in Herts, and she expects the cops in Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Essex to be sympathetic!’
He shook the pages of his paper in angry disbelief.
His wife ignored him and said, ‘I’ve also conducted a search of my own, Mr Sixsmith, though with limited resources and no assistance, it has not been easy.’
Sixsmith screwed up his face and tried to look professional.
‘Did you search on a systematic basis, Mrs Ellison?’ he asked.
‘Yes. I’ve kept a record. Would you like to see it?’
‘Please.’
She left the room again and Ellison emerged from his paper once more.
‘You know how she’s spent most of her spare time, which means most of her time, this past week?’ he demanded. ‘I’ll tell you. She gets into her car and she sets off driving round the countryside. From time to time she gets out and she starts calling. Darkie! Darkie!’
‘Sorry?’ said Sixsmith.
‘Darkie. That’s the cat’s name.’
Sixsmith scratched his nose, sighed, and said, ‘Go on. She calls his name …’
‘But that’s not all. Oh no. Before she drives on, she removes some part of her clothing and lays it in a ditch or drapes it over a hedge. I bet half the police in Hertfordshire are out looking for the mad rapist of Baldock!’
‘How do you know this, Mr Ellison? Do you accompany your wife?’
‘No fear! No, my daughter went with her once. She told me.’
Mrs Ellison came back once more carrying a large desk diary and an Ordnance Survey map.
‘I’ve got it all charted and recorded here,’ she said.
‘Thank you. Mrs Ellison, why do you leave items of clothing scattered round the countryside?’
She said, ‘How do you know about that?’
Sixsmith sighed again and said, ‘I’m a detective, Mrs Ellison.’
‘I see. Well, it’s smell, Mr Sixsmith. The framework of a cat’s living space is smell. They lay a boundary of odour outside which they are in foreign territory. Darkie, wherever he is, is clearly lost. By leaving my garments where he might possibly find them, I am providing an oasis of familiarity in a desert of frightening strangeness.’
‘Have you had any results yet?’
‘How can I know? I leave the clothes for comfort, not as bait.’
Sixsmith said, ‘I mean, have you caught a glimpse of … er … Darkie yet? Have you had any replies to your ads? Have the police or the RSPCA been able to help?’
‘No. Nothing. The RSPCA keep me posted about any strays they get. The police, I fear, have done nothing. I’ve had several replies to my advertisements but they have so far either been frivolous or extortionate. Twice I have been offered cats which allegedly fitted the description. They were nothing like Darkie! The tricksters who tried to pass them off became quite aggressive when I told them what I thought. But it was clearly an attempt at fraud. Look, he is so distinctive, isn’t he?’ She handed him a colour photograph. It showed a cat rearing out of a wellington boot. It had a red ribbon round its neck. But it still managed to look dignified. And it was certainly distinctive, jet black except for a white patch on its head which involved most of its left eye and ear.
‘Very nice,’ said Sixsmith. It was time to talk business, he decided. When you were being hired by a wife who treated her husband as nonexistent, it made sense to find who controlled the purse strings. He had a sliding scale, based on how much he felt the customer could carry and how much he needed the work. So far it hadn’t slid off the bottom. This one was different.
He said, ‘Mrs Ellison, before we go any further, let’s put things on a firm professional basis. My terms are sixty pounds a day plus expenses, with two days’ pay in advance. How’s that grab you?’
She looked at him with the cold eyes of her class which admits silliness about anything except money. But before she could speak, Ellison said, ‘Sixty quid a day? Jesus fucking Christ!’
That did the trick.
‘That’s perfectly agreeable, Mr Sixsmith. I’ll give you a cheque before you leave,’ said the woman.
‘I’m a cash man, as far as possible,’ said Sixsmith. ‘And before I start would be better.’
He thought he’d gone too far, but after a moment she left the room once more.
‘My God, you’re cool for a darkie,’ said Ellison. ‘Darkie! Hey, there’s a thing!’
‘Yes, sir, there’s a thing,’ agreed Sixsmith. ‘Tell me, Mr Ellison, do you and your wife never speak, or is this just a lull in the storm?’
‘Don’t get cheeky, son,’ said Ellison with no real resentment. ‘And don’t think just because she can dig up a hundred quid from her china pig that she’s the banker round here. This is my house and it’s my money that makes this family tick, God help us.’
‘I believe you, man,’ said Sixsmith. ‘What do you do, Mr Ellison?’
‘Apart from lying around here reading the paper, you mean? Precious little. I’d better tell you about myself, if only because I don’t reckon you’ve been at this game long enough to nose around, asking questions about me, without causing embarrassment. I had my own business up in Bradford till ten years ago. Then I got took over. I didn’t complain, I made a packet and part of the deal was an executive directorship on the board of the boss company, which meant a move down here, which pleased her ladyship no end. Last year, they managed to shuffle me out altogether. Golden handshake again, so I’m comfortably set up for life only I’ve not yet made up my mind what life is. That answer your question, son?’
‘Great,’ said Sixsmith, wondering among other things why Ellison should assume that pursuing his wife’s cat should involve asking questions about his own background and character.
The door opened and the boy, Auberon, came in.
‘Is Mum doing lunch?’ he demanded. ‘Tittie says she’s not doing it again.’
‘Why don’t you have a go?’ retorted his father.
‘Jesus! This household’s falling apart, you know that? Have we advertised or anything?’
‘Only about the cat,’ said Ellison. ‘Now, shove off and make a few sandwiches, you don’t need O-levels for that!’
Surlily the boy left, slamming the door behind him.
‘You got kids, Sixsmith?’ asked Ellison.
‘Not to keep,’ said Sixsmith.
‘Bloody wise,’ grunted the man.
‘You having domestic trouble? I mean, with domestics?’
‘Both,’ said Ellison. ‘We’re what you call between help. Or do I mean beyond help? Time was when women could control a kitchen and their daughters were pleased to give a hand. We’ve grown beyond that, it seems. You don’t cook, do you, Sixsmith?’
‘That’d cost you another sixty, man,’ said Sixsmith.
The door opened and Mrs Ellison returned carrying an envelope.
‘When are we getting someone new to help in the kitchen?’ demanded Ellison instantly.
This sudden rupture of their angry silence did not disturb the woman in the least.
‘What’s the matter? Finding your appetite again, are you?’ she replied with icy scorn.
The answer meant a great deal more than it said, judged Sixsmith.
Mrs Ellison handed him the envelope.
‘I think you’ll find that in order,’ she said.
He put it in his pocket.
‘Not counting it?’ said Ellison.
‘Never got beyond ten,’ said Sixsmith. ‘Mrs Ellison, now I’m officially on the case, can I have a word in private?’
The woman looked at the man. He grinned ferociously and stretched himself out on the sofa.
‘Follow me,’ said Mrs Ellison.
She led him into the hallway. Through an open door he glimpsed the boy sawing at a loaf of bread in a high-tech kitchen. The girl had vanished but the distant thud of a stereo suggested she was upstairs. Mrs Ellison opened a door which gave him a glimpse of a small booklined room with a television set and a couple of deep armchairs.
‘No,’ she said, changing her mind. ‘In here.’
They went back down the hall and into a dining-room.
Perhaps she believes we really do all have huge uncontrollable dicks and wants to keep a table between us, thought Sixsmith.
He was almost disappointed when she pulled out a couple of chairs and invited him to sit alongside her.
‘Yes, Mr Sixsmith?’ she prompted.
‘Let’s get down to cases, Mrs Ellison,’ he said with what he hoped sounded like brisk professionalism. ‘What do you really think happened to your cat?’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Lady, just because you’re paying me to act clever don’t mean you’ve got to act dumb,’ he said in exasperation. ‘Look. Your cat goes missing. Most probably it’s strayed. That’s what you work on, advertising and searching and such. But there’s something else bothering you, and when you get no results, you call in a private eye. Me. Now, you’re not paying me sixty a day and expenses just to find a stray cat, are you, Mrs Ellison?’
‘It would be cheap if you could find him,’ she answered. ‘But no, you’re right, of course. But I’m not sure how to put what I half suspect. It sounds so absurd …’
For a second she looked vulnerable enough for Sixsmith to glimpse her with a couple of decades peeled off. Twice the girl her pudgy daughter was, he guessed. He thought of those boobs and shuddered.
‘You reckon someone’s either stolen your cat, or maybe killed it, am I right?’
She nodded as if this were a less binding form of agreement.
‘Right. Who’s your money on, Mrs Ellison?’ he said.
Immediately she was herself again, formidable and contained.
‘My money is on you, Mr Sixsmith. Quite a lot of it,’ she said. ‘I suggest you start earning it.’
‘All right,’ he said, reaching into his inner pocket for a notebook and ballpoint. ‘Let’s get the facts. Mrs Ellison, when did you last see your pussy?’
For a woman plunged in such grief at a pet’s disappearance, Mrs Ellison proved to be rather vague about her last sighting.
It had been a Friday almost three weeks earlier. Then she had been away for the weekend and when she returned on the Monday, Darkie had disappeared.
‘Where was he when you saw him?’ asked Sixsmith.
‘Going out,’ she replied promptly.
‘Through the cat-flap, you mean.’
‘Yes.’
‘What time was that?’
‘Late,’ she said after a hesitation.
‘Late. Before you went away for the weekend?’
‘That I should have thought was a sixty-pence rather than a sixty-pound question,’ she said acidly.
‘Yes, right. Sorry. Was the whole family away with you, Mrs Ellison?’
‘No,’ she said shortly. ‘I went by myself.’
‘Uh-huh,’ he said. ‘Who took care of Darkie while you were away normally? Your husband? The children? The au pair?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said.
That really surprised him.
‘Don’t know?’
‘No, what I mean is, not being here, I can’t be sure …’
‘That’s a sixty-pence answer, Mrs Ellison,’ he grinned.
‘Don’t be impertinent!’ she snapped. ‘All I meant was that normally when I’m away, I leave strict instructions in writing for his feed and changes of water.’
‘I see. And you leave these instructions with … ?’
‘With the au pair normally,’ she said.
‘And did you do this on this occasion?’
‘No, I didn’t,’ she said.
‘Why not?’
‘It wasn’t possible. The au pair was not available.’
‘You mean she’d left?’
‘Yes. She’d left.’
Sixsmith digested this. Three weeks of looking after themselves! How had the Ellisons survived?
‘So presumably the family looked after the cat that weekend,’ he said. ‘I’ll need to talk to them, Mrs Ellison.’
‘Of course,’ she said.
‘Presumably you’ve already questioned them.’
‘To very little effect,’ she said savagely.
‘How little?’
‘The children cannot distinctly recall seeing Darkie any time during the weekend.’
‘And your husband?’
‘I’ll leave you to question my husband, Mr Sixsmith.’
So there it is, thought Sixsmith. Suspect Number One is Ellison. Two and Three, presumably the kids. And is there a Four?
He said, ‘Neighbours. I may need to talk to them as well. To check on sightings. Will you mind?’
‘I shan’t mind,’ she said significantly. ‘You can confine yourself to the Bullivants next door. As you will have observed, Mr Sixsmith, to the rear and the left, this house abutts on to Brock Wood. Our sole immediate neighbours therefore are the Bullivants to the right. She is a rather silly, but on the whole harmless, woman. He … well, I’ll let you judge for yourself.’
‘They would know Darkie?’
‘Oh yes,’ she said significantly. ‘They would know Darkie. Bullivant and I have had many conversations about Darkie. That stupid man on more than one occasion has accused the poor dear of scratching up his seed-beds and even of damaging his cold frames. He has uttered threats, Mr Sixsmith, and doubtless will utter them again when you see him.’
Sixsmith scratched his bald spot with his ballpoint.
‘You’ve spoken to him already, I suppose?’ he said.
‘Indeed,’ she replied.
Jesus! He’s going to love me! thought Sixsmith, beginning to wonder if he’d undercharged.
‘Just one more thing,’ he said. ‘Brock Wood. Do you get many people in there?’
‘Too many,’ she retorted. ‘There’s a great deal of activity in there, day and night. Children mainly; courting couples – it can be quite disgusting! And shooting too. We frequently hear gunshot. Pigeons, I presume. Crows. Anything that moves. They’re like Frenchmen round here. Frenchmen!’
Sixsmith wasn’t clear if she meant the shooters or the lovers. He didn’t ask, but said, ‘Did Darkie ever get into the wood?’
‘Never,’ she said firmly. ‘We have a heavy duty security fence between our grounds and the wood. Apart from our own private gate which is kept invariably locked when not in use, there is no way through, not even for a cat.’
Sixsmith doubted this, but again he held his peace.
‘I’d like to talk to the children now, if I may,’ he said.
‘Auberon is in the kitchen. Tittie is upstairs, I think. I’ll tell her you want to see her.’
‘In a couple of minutes,’ he said. ‘I’ll parley with the boy first.’
In the kitchen, Auberon was devouring a sandwich resembling a pair of badly laid bricks. The table on which he’d prepared it was a bomb site. Sixsmith sat down opposite and looked in vain for a place to put his elbows.
‘Good, is it?’ asked Sixsmith.
The sandwich was lowered momentarily and the chutney-ringed lips said, ‘’S all right.’
‘Can’t be much fun, making your own eats, though,’ continued Six
smith.
This question was treated as rhetorical.
‘Your mum’s upset about her cat,’ said Sixsmith. ‘What about you, Auberon? Are you upset?’
The boy swallowed.
‘Not much,’ he said. ‘Always under your feet. Got locked in my room once and pissed in my wardrobe.’
‘What did you do?’
‘Put my boot up its arse, what do you think?’
Sixsmith pushed his chair back and studied the boy’s feet. They were large. In fact, the boy was pretty large all over. The immature face and blue-tinted hair distracted attention from the fact that there was a man’s body beneath them. Probably also a man’s desire. Sixsmith recalled the slap he’d heard just after the girl had flashed her tits at him. He guessed the boy had tried to cop a feel. Christ, when you were that age and not getting it, you’d give one of your ears for a grope and both for a real bounce! Incest taboos didn’t come into it.
Which was not to the point. What was to the point was that a good kick from one of those highly expensive bovver boots could break a cat’s neck.
He said, ‘Tell me about that weekend.’
‘What weekend?’
The boy spoke aggressively but his eyes were on the defensive.
‘You know,’ said Sixsmith confidently.
‘Nothing to tell,’ said the boy, taking refuge in his sandwich.
Sixsmith let him chew, noting he had to help mastication with a slurp of milk straight from a bottle. Dry mouth, he told himself, feeling like a real detective.
‘Start at the beginning. Friday. What did you do after your mother left?’
‘Went back to bed,’ said the boy sullenly.
Sixsmith was surprised.
‘Hey, man, I know you’re a growing boy and need your rest, but wouldn’t that be just a little before your normal bedtime?’
‘It was midnight. Mebbe later. Don’t you know anything?’
The question was meant as a piece of rhetorical scorn, but Sixsmith could see the boy downgrading it to simple interrogative and being surprised by the answer.
‘Look, what’s all this about? The cat? I never saw the fucking cat, OK? I didn’t even know it was missing till Mum came home on the Monday and started making a fuss. She was more concerned about the fucking cat than who was going to do the cooking! Christ, it really makes you realize where you come in the pecking order when your own mother’s happy to let you starve so she can go out looking for a bloody cat!’
There are No Ghosts in the Soviet Union Page 9