by Dan Kavanagh
He was supposed to have been minding her, of course, but somehow that bit of the job had got blown off course. Well, maybe he’d better go and mind her for a while. Only earning his money, after all. He didn’t actually like Angela, which was one reason why he probably hadn’t minded her as much as he should have done. Another reason was the size of Braunscombe Hall: maybe he should have tied a beeper to her at the start of the job. Yet another reason was that she obviously didn’t much care for Duffy. It wasn’t that she was frosty with him — which he could have handled, or reacted to; it was just that he seemed not to exist for her. He was a sort of delivery boy who had strayed into the house and somehow kept turning up to meals, a consequence of Vic’s puzzlingly generous open-door policy. Duffy remembered that at no point had she thanked him for finding her up at Jimmy’s camp.
He tried saying poor kid to himself as he hitchhiked round the Hall looking for her; but he wasn’t really convinced. Poor kid for what happened up in the woods, sure. Poor kid for the life she led, sorry, nothing doing. Duffy didn’t soften at the sufferings of the rich. He’d heard about them often enough, he’d seen them all the time in American soap operas on the telly; but he didn’t buy the package. People with money didn’t have the right to whinge, that’s what Duffy thought. He’d known a lot of people with no money, most of whom frequently imagined that the solution to everything would be to have some; so it was up to rich people not to disillusion them. They had what everyone else wanted: shut up and enjoy it, that was Duffy’s line. Vic Crowther would probably have called it chippy, but Duffy didn’t care.
‘Do you mind if I show you something?’ He had found her in the family room, looking out of the picture window up towards the wood. A couple of upturned magazines lay on the floor; a cigarette busily smoked itself in the ashtray. She turned. Duffy could tell that when she was looking at you, when she dropped her lethargic profile and gave you the big brown eyes and the shiny red hair, she was in theory attractive; but he didn’t fancy her. No doubt that was chippy, too; he probably suffered from physical chippiness as well as social chippiness. Still, if he were to be tempted by upward sexual mobility, Lucretia would be the one to get the nod.
‘What?’
‘Do you mind if I show you something? It’s not far.’
‘Can’t you tell me what it is?’
‘I’d rather show you.’
Reluctantly, she accompanied him through the kitchen, out across the lawn and into the long grass at the edge of the lake.
‘We’ve found Ricky.’
‘Oh yes.’ Her expression, as she stared over his shoulder and took another puff of her cigarette, didn’t change. What had Vic said? She’s a sweet kid underneath it all. So why was there all that stuff on top?
‘Don’t you want to know where we found him?’ Don’t you want to know who I mean by ‘we’ anyway?
‘You’re going to tell me, aren’t you?’
‘I thought you might be pleased that we found him, so that you can bury him properly now.’
‘Is that why you found him, because you thought I’d be pleased? I don’t remember you asking. Did you ask me if I’d be pleased?’ Her tone was neutral and unimpressed; as if she couldn’t even get around to faking irritation.
‘Jimmy found him.’
‘Jimmy’s always good for useless things.’
‘Jimmy found him in the lake.’
‘Do you want to bury him now? Is that why you’ve brought me out here? Put flowers on his grave?’
‘Ricky had a rope round his neck when he was found. It was attached to a brick or something. Jimmy had to cut it away.’
‘I don’t think it matters what happens to people after they die. I only think it matters what happens to them while they’re alive. I don’t know why you didn’t just leave him in the lake.’
Right, my girl, thought Duffy, and grabbed her by the elbow. She tried to shake him free but her movements were as listless as her speech, and in any case Duffy had marched her several yards before she appreciated what was happening. He took her over to a bench and shoved her down on it. He remained standing, and faced her, leaning over.
‘Right,’ he said. ‘You don’t think it matters what happened to your dog after it died. So I’ll tell you. Jimmy fished it out of the lake, I took it to London and a bloke I know cut it up. He cut it up because I asked him to find out how it had died. Are you any more interested in knowing what happened to your dog before it died than after it died?’ Duffy’s tone was deliberately insulting, but she avoided his eye and let him go on. ‘Your dog died of an overdose of heroin. A huge overdose. Enough to kill a cow.’
Duffy watched her face as she took another draw on her cigarette. She showed no anger, either at the event or at the bringer of the news. He put one foot up on the bench and leaned over. He became sarcastic as well as aggressive. ‘Now I think we can rule out the possibility that Ricky was an addict who got his sums wrong. I don’t think his paw slipped on the plunger. I don’t think he suddenly started using with pure stuff because he forgot to cut it with something else. I don’t think that happened. Someone took your dog,’ he leaned more closely towards her, ‘and shot enough heroin into it to kill a cow.’
‘I’d have had to get rid of Ricky anyway,’ she finally said. ‘Henry’s mother drew the line at him. Perhaps it was providential.’
‘Jesus,’ said Duffy, and slumped down on the bench beside her. ‘Jesus. You mean you’re tabbing Henry’s mum for this job? Came creeping round in her pink running-shoes and snaffled Ricky? Got some other old-age pensioner to help her chuck him through the window?’
‘It’ll never happen,’ said Angela. Her voice wasn’t lethargic now, but sharply sad. ‘It’ll never happen.’ She threw her half-smoked cigarette out into the grass and immediately lit another.
‘What’ll never happen?’ asked Duffy, as gently as he could.
‘I’ll never get married,’ she said. ‘I’m going to come to a bad end, I know it.’
‘Course you’re getting married. I’ll see you up the aisle myself, if you like.’
‘Hah.’ Angela laughed, the first sign of animation since Duffy had taken her outside. ‘Why do they always say that, up the aisle? You don’t go up the aisle. You go up the bloody nave. The aisle’s the bloody side thing. Do you see,’ she turned to Duffy and was shouting now, ‘it’s up the nave not up the bloody aisle.’
Duffy, who had got the point fairly early on in this outburst, said, ‘I’m not married myself.’
‘It’s not going to happen,’ Angela repeated. ‘I’m going to come to a bad end.’
‘No you’re not,’ said Duffy quietly. He was suddenly sorry for her. He didn’t like her, but he was sorry for her. He knew terror when he heard it.
‘Anyway I haven’t been a user for ages.’
‘But you were?’
‘Who wasn’t?’ she said, her voice regaining its original apathy. ‘They sent me away a couple of times. I beat it, I really did. I haven’t used for about five years. I sometimes think it’s the only thing I’ve done in my life, stopping, I mean. But then again, I sometimes think I might as well have gone on, because I’m going to come to a bad end anyway.’
‘But you take … other stuff.’
‘Not really. It’s pills mainly. They keep you going.’
‘What about the tobacco that keeps the wasps away?’
‘You’ve been talking to Mrs Colin,’ she said suddenly. Damn, thought Duffy, damn. But her neutral tone was swiftly resumed. ‘Well, who doesn’t? Anyway, it’s only a puff. But I haven’t used for years. I really, really haven’t.’
‘I believe you,’ said Duffy. ‘And I’ll get you up the nave or whatever you like to call it.’ Even if Henry’s mum was lurking behind a pillar in her pink running-shoes with a syringeful of smack in her handbag.
‘It’s not that I didn’t care about Ricky when he was alive. It’s just that caring about him seems pointless after he’s dead. I don’t want people caring for me
after I’m dead. It wouldn’t be worth it.’
Christ, thought Duffy, she really could be on the edge. She needs minding not just because of what someone else might do to her. There was a silence as they both gazed across towards the lake for a minute or two. Finally, Duffy said, ‘Do you know who it is that’s blackmailing you?’
‘Some foreigner,’ she replied wearily. It seemed not to matter any more, now that she wasn’t going to get married anyway.
‘Anyone you know?’
‘No.’
‘How much?’
‘Two thousand quid a couple of weeks ago. Two thousand quid last week.’
Christ, thought Duffy. He must really have got something on her.
‘Where do you pay?’
‘Oh, it’s not far. Very considerate, really. End of the drive, turn left, and it’s only half a mile or so.’
‘Same place each time?’
‘Yes.’
Amateurs, thought Duffy, amateurs. Greedy amateurs, mind. ‘What’s it about?’
‘The usual thing.’
‘What’s the usual thing?’
‘Sex,’ said Angela. ‘That’s what everybody means by the usual thing, isn’t it?’
‘I don’t know. I didn’t think anyone cared about it so much. I mean, I didn’t think anyone paid out for it any more.’
‘You don’t live in the country,’ she said, turning and looking him in the eye. ‘You aren’t marrying a man who is saving himself for marriage. You aren’t having to get through a whole year without sex and finding it difficult. You aren’t expected to know how to behave because you’re going to give that old baggage up at the House a grandchild. You didn’t find it hard to take and you didn’t do something bloody silly and stupid just four months before your wedding.’
It was quickly told. Henry had been going through a patch of keeping away from her. There’d been this nice boy, just down for a week from London, she’d been a bit drunk, well, why not, who’s to find out? Yes, at her cottage, and then once again, here at the Hall, it had seemed safer here, and she’d got away with it, she really thought she had. The boy had gone back to London, he’d understood, he hadn’t made a fuss, and then three months later, out of the blue, a telephone call from some foreigner. How he was sure she wouldn’t want him to spoil the lovely wedding and all that. How he needed some money to go back to his own country.
‘Did he have any proof?’
‘What, like polaroid photos? He didn’t need them, did he?’
‘Did you tell anyone?’
‘Not about the boy. I sort of told Vic about paying out.’
‘Do you think this foreigner sounds like the boy?’
‘No. Anyway, he’s not that type.’
‘Why did you pay?’
‘Because I could afford it. Because it was only a few weeks to the wedding. It seemed easier.’
It always did. That was blackmail’s false sweetness to the victim. Duffy used to have a dentist who’d say to him, when drilling a cavity, ‘Once more and that’ll be the end of it.’ This was the blackmailer’s promise. Once more and that’ll be the end of it. But then the drill came back again and again, and there was never an end to it.
‘It’s getting cold,’ she said. They rose and started back towards the house. Halfway across the lawn, she went on casually, ‘He asked for another payment tomorrow. But I thought I wouldn’t this time. Not if I’m not getting married. Not if I’m coming to a bad end.’
‘Have you told him you’ve changed your mind?’
‘Haven’t got his telephone number, have I?’
‘Pity about that,’ said Duffy. Though good in another way, of course.
At dinner everyone was a bit subdued. Even Sally wasn’t giggling so much; perhaps she hadn’t got a good enough offer for the burnt-out bits of her Datsun Cherry. Angela was quiet; perhaps the fate of Ricky was getting to her at last. Jimmy’s absence was also having an effect. It wasn’t that Jimmy was good company; he was pretty slow, and all his jokes had mould on them. But he made everyone else feel good company, made them feel bright and witty and sophisticated and successful. They didn’t do much, this crowd, thought Duffy, and they really needed the presence of this hopeless estate agent who hadn’t knowingly sold a single bungalow.
‘Cheer up, you laughing girls and boys.’ Damian, of course, was the first to react against the general mood. ‘How about getting out the old modelling albums, Belinda?’
But Belinda didn’t think this a smart idea. She reacted as if he’d said, ‘Belinda, why don’t you show us your tits?’ — which in a way, of course, he had. Damian tried again.
‘My dear Taffy, there must be a really violent gangster film on the box.’
‘I don’t like that stuff,’ said Taffy. ‘It’s not … realistic enough.’
‘Not enough blood for you, Taff?’
‘No, not that. There’s too much for me, usually. It’s just, things aren’t like that. Not enough goes wrong. Or it may go wrong for one side but not the other. Out in the real world it goes wrong for everyone. It’s just a question of making less mistakes than the other side.’ Duffy was yawning already. And the other thing the films get wrong is that they don’t show villains with phobias. Very delicate, some of our finest criminal minds, they are; got phobias about fire, or dogs, or being locked up, or whatever.
‘Was that a yawn I espied?’ Uh-uh. Damian didn’t miss too much. ‘How about a clatter round the green baize, Duffy? Touch of the old in-off and six away?’
‘I don’t think I’m ready for you yet, to be honest. Give me another couple of days.’
‘Well, I can’t say I’ve caught you putting in much practice. Sneaking down in your shortie dressing-gown in the middle of the night, are we?’
‘No,’ said Duffy. He half-expected Sally to giggle, but she was silent.
‘Well, if you don’t all perk up a bit,’ said Damian, ‘I shall sing you “The Dogs”.’
‘Oh, not “The Dogs”.’ Even Sally, who clearly went along with everything, registered a protest.
‘Yes, “The Dogs”, “The Dogs”.’ In a creamy baritone, with the swanky over-emphasis of an opera singer on television, he began:
‘The dogs they had a meeting,
They came from near and far;
And some dogs came by aeroplane,
And some dogs came by car.’
Damian paused. Duffy half-recognized the tune. It was one of those hymns. He didn’t have many hymns at his beck and call, to be honest, and he didn’t know if he’d ever sung this one. The tune sounded a bit posh for him. Perhaps he’d heard someone else singing it. He was waiting for the second verse, when Lucretia said, ‘Damian, you can be a real berk, you know,’ and nodded towards Angela.
‘God, what long memories people have,’ said Damian wearily.
‘Actually, I don’t mind.’ Angela didn’t seem to. ‘I’m sort of over it now. It doesn’t matter.’
Lucretia looked across at Damian as if to tell him Angela didn’t mean it. Sally said, ‘Go on, Dame, what’s next?’ even though she had heard the song dozens of times.
‘Won’t,’ he replied. ‘You’re so boring this evening. Damian’s going to sulk in the snooker room.’ He did a stage pout, and left the room. The evening broke up. Duffy tried to catch Lucretia’s eye, but she failed to catch his back. Instead, he found himself in the kitchen with Vic. Perhaps Vic had been a bit quiet at dinner because he was wondering how long he’d have the coppers inviting themselves round for a rummage whenever they felt like it.
‘Couple of things, Vic.’
‘Sure.’
‘The dog business. Anything to do with you?’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Well, any … troubles lately? Could it have been meant for you?’
‘Me?’
‘A warning or something.’
Vic did his honest-citizen chuckle. ‘You don’t let go, Duffy, do you? I mean, only another twenty years and I might convince you I’m le
git.’
‘You and Taffy should stand for Parliament,’ said Duffy.
‘And the other thing?’
‘When Angela told you about being blackmailed, did she say anything else?’
‘No, I said.’
‘But … how did it come up?’
‘Well, things don’t really come up with Angela, do they? I mean, you may have noticed, she doesn’t exactly follow the normal rules of conversation.’ Duffy nodded. ‘So, we were just talking about something else and out of the blue she said she was being blackmailed. No who, no why, no anything. Shut up at once. Told me not to tell anybody.’
‘Guesses?’
Vic shook his head. ‘Have you tried asking her?’
‘Mmm. She wouldn’t tell me a thing.’
In bed that night, Duffy found himself re-reading Basil Berk’s restaurant column in the Tatler. He’d have to put up his daily rates if he was ever going to afford the Poison d’Or. Half asleep, he found his brain idling over two things: the location of tomorrow’s drop, and the location of Lucretia’s bedroom.
One of these sites was more easily identified than the other. Duffy was fairly sure they were dealing with amateurs: the time, the place, and the amount of money hadn’t changed over three successive weeks. The drop was ordered for three o’clock that afternoon; so he reckoned it was probably safe for Angela and him, quite by coincidence of course, to run into one another at the top of the drive during their morning constitutionals.
Left at the gates, and half a mile took them to a T-junction. Well, maybe not so amateur: that made three directions in which to escape if necessary. On the opposite verge was a large County Council grit-bin, painted green. The sort of object the eye didn’t notice for eleven months of the year; only in the twelfth, when snow fell and motorists got panicky, did you suddenly spot it. You might even go across to it out of curiosity, pull up the heavy lid, and wonder why it was empty.
‘In there,’ said Angela, with a spectacularly stagey nod of the head.
‘Keep walking.’
It wasn’t a bad place for a pick-up. Nor was it a bad place for hiding in the trees and jumping the postman. On their way back to the Hall they had the argument about whether Angela should be allowed to watch with Duffy. It sounded a terrible idea to Duffy, but Angela, who only yesterday had seemed apathetic about the idea of being blackmailed, now started insisting that as it was her money, she should see where it was going. Duffy gave in.