The Work of a Narrow Mind

by Faith Martin

  Dale might start thinking that there was more to it than there was. That maybe he was being played. That he, Darren, might have something cooking with Barnes. Maybe even that they were planning some sort of a coup together. The trouble with top dogs, Darren knew, was that they were always paranoid about other top dogs trying to take away what they had.

  So going to Dale and having to tell him something he didn’t like, was never a good idea. Especially when he didn’t know what Barnes’s game was.

  Then there was a second thing to consider: Jake Barnes had said that he wanted to make him rich. Darren now knew that Barnes wasn’t talking out of his arse. He had more than enough money to spare to keep such a promise. What kind of a fool would he be if he didn’t at least find out what the man had in mind?

  Darren shifted a little in the seat. Outside, it was the usual shitty grey November day. Damp, dreary, cold. Like most of the rest of the population, he wanted to be in the sun, where the sky was blue, and the sea – a warm, clear blue sea – was only a short walk away.

  Since he’d risen high in Medcalfe’s empire, he’d had the opportunity to take Lisa away with him on some prime holidays. Not just to Spain either, or naff places like that where every tosser could now afford to go. Last year they’d gone to St Lucia. Now that was the life all right – living on an island in the Caribbean. They’d loved it – both of them. The food, the way of life, the people. ‘Course, he knew they had hurricanes and shit like that, but if you had the right amount of money, you had fancy architects build you stuff that was windproof, right?

  Ever since he and Lisa had begun to get a taste of the good life, Darren hadn’t been able to stop himself from dreaming about getting away from Oxford. It was why he’d begun to save every penny he could, why he’d set up the secret bank account, why he was careful to use every ounce of his muscle and cunning to cream off every last penny that he could. Not that he wasn’t careful, of course. Dale would know exactly how many ‘perks’ he was helping himself to, and he was very careful not to overstep the mark.

  At the rate he was going, he’d maybe have enough money to buy a small beach bar somewhere by the time he was forty, but he wanted more; so much more than that. And he wanted Lisa to have more, too. She was already talking about having kids. Hell, they’d been together nearly five years now. They’d met at school, and Lisa Soulsbury had been the prettiest girl there, long blonde hair and blue eyes. The lot.

  When they’d left school, and he went to work for Dale, their school romance had cemented into something good and solid. A girl from the neighbourhood, she knew that Medcalfe represented their best shot at the good life, and he didn’t want to let her down.

  So far they were doing OK. They had the flat they shared in Osney, the respectable ‘company’ car, the holidays, the high quality booze and clothes, but they weren’t doing great. They weren’t about to be able to go and set themselves up in the sun, far away from Oxford, and the bloody English weather, and the prospect of being able to do just that before they were both too old to enjoy it, had been very low. Except now there was Jake Barnes, and his offer to make them rich.

  Darren turned the ignition, but sat for a few minutes before driving away. He was no fool: nobody offered to make you rich for nothing. There were always going to be risks. He knew, far better than most, just what could happen to those who were stupid enough to underestimate or cross Dale Medcalfe.

  But Darren wasn’t about to underestimate him, was he? Or cross him, either, until or unless he knew for sure that the rewards would be worth it, and that the odds in the gamble of taking on Medcalfe were firmly stacked in his favour, and he couldn’t make up his mind about that until he knew just what game Jake Barnes was playing.

  From the moment he’d Googled the self-made multi-millionaire, there had been one burning question plaguing him. Namely, why would someone who’d made so much, so young, suddenly interrupt his playboy lifestyle to go and work for a pittance as a civilian consultant for the plod? Darren, who’d spent most of the previous night tossing and turning beside his lovely blonde Lisa, hadn’t been able to come up with any definitive answer. He just knew that Jake Barnes must have done it for a reason. He had to have some sort of an angle. Clearly, he had something in mind, just as he’d made contact with him, Darren, for a reason.

  The sooner he found out what it was, the sooner he’d know whether his dream of a new life for himself and Lisa was just a pipe dream, or whether it was actually within his grasp.

  But he’d have to be careful. So bloody careful. One wrong move, and Medcalfe would do for them both, but somehow the thought that at least Jake Barnes would share the same fate – with a cement block tied to his ankles as he was tossed into the Thames – wasn’t particularly comforting.

  The care home in Witney where Ruby Broadstairs now lived, had been built less than ten years ago, and was a substantial, pleasant-looking building with red roofs and walls of yellowish brick. On the outskirts of Witney, David Cameron’s own constituency no less, it had a small but pretty set of gardens, and was clean and pleasantly decorated throughout.

  Just inside a set of automatic doors, they signed their names in a ledger to satisfy the fire regulations and buzzed the intercom to be let in.

  A cheerful woman, rotund and red-cheeked, led them through a series of doors towards a residential area called Spindlewood, and there they were taken to a lounge, where a number of flowering pot plants livened up the atmosphere. An enormous flat screen television was on in one corner, but most of the residents were nodding off in their chairs. Only one old man seemed to be actually watching it. Double French doors let in a lot of light, and in the summer, would open out onto a pleasant garden, with benches for seating, and wide, paved paths for wheelchair access. Now, in November, the bird feeders were full of hungry blue tits and chaffinches, which one old lady seemed to find far more entertaining than the television.

  Hillary was with her on that.

  ‘This is Ruby,’ the care worker said, leading them to the far corner, where upright lime-green chairs had raised legs, to allow old bones to more easily sit down and get up again.

  ‘Ruby, visitors for you. Isn’t that nice?’ The care worker gently woke the old lady who’d been dozing, and Jake found himself surprised by a pair of beautiful dark-blue eyes that were suddenly turned on him. Ruby Broadstairs had obviously just recently visited the on-site hairdresser, for her white hair was a dandelion-head of newly washed and set white curls.

  ‘Hello. You’re not my grandson,’ Ruby Broadstairs accused him.

  Jake gently admitted that he wasn’t. He sat down in the chair beside her, leaving Hillary to pull out a chair to face the old lady. She carefully showed her their ID cards and explained who they were and why they were there. After a moment, Ruby sighed but nodded, and smiled at the care worker. Whereupon their escort, satisfied that Ruby wasn’t upset and seemed happy enough to talk to them, tactfully left them alone.

  ‘I remember Sylvia,’ Ruby said thoughtfully. ‘Nice woman. We went to the same club. Oh, years ago now.’

  ‘That’s right,’ Hillary encouraged gently. ‘You and she were rather fond of the same man, or so I’ve been hearing. Bit of a looker, was he?’ she smiled.

  ‘Oh, Maurice. Maurice, yes. A very nice man. Dead now, they tell me.’

  Hillary, who hadn’t known that, looked at Jake, surprised. Jake frowned, then shrugged. The latest information showed him still alive and living in Thame with his daughter.

  ‘Perhaps she’s a bit confused, guv?’ he murmured.

  ‘I’m not deaf, young man,’ Ruby said sharply. ‘Nor, unlike some of my friends here, am I losing my mind. It’s my legs that have gone,’ she admitted with another sigh, ‘which is why I’m in here. I couldn’t manage any more, even in an assisted living place. But this is a nice home – I like the people. In the summer they have trips out to the garden centre, and things like that. A nice young man wheels me around.’

  Ruby sighed, and glanced a
round at her fellow residents.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Broadstairs,’ Jake apologized, feeling both embarrassed at having been caught talking about her as if she wasn’t there, and uneasy and slightly absurd that they could actually suspect this lovely, feisty old lady of murder.

  ‘That’s all right, I’ll forgive you,’ Ruby said, reaching out to pat his knee. ‘Thousands wouldn’t, mind. Maurice died a couple of days ago. An old friend of mine, Rosie, comes visiting now and then, and she’d just heard the news.’

  Hillary nodded. ‘In that case then, we won’t be able to interview him, will we? Unless we hold a séance, that is.’

  Ruby laughed. ‘I like you. You’re much more fun than that other woman policeman who came to interview me. Oh dear, you can’t be a female policeman, can you? Oh well, you know what I mean.’

  ‘Yes I do. Her name was DI Jarvis,’ Hillary smiled. ‘So, what can you tell me about Sylvia? I understand that, on the day she … er … died, you were alone at home all day.’

  ‘Yes. But I couldn’t prove it, as DI Jarvis pointed out to me,’ Ruby said, with some spirit. ‘Thinking I’d kill the poor woman over Maurice. I mean, really. He was a lovely man, mind, I’m not saying he wasn’t,’ Ruby admitted with a defiantly flirtatious sigh of remembrance. ‘And I’m not saying that he wasn’t a bit of a charmer and a rogue. Funny how those two things often go together, isn’t it?’ she interposed wistfully. ‘I mean, I thought he and I were coming to an understanding, so it was a bit of a shock when Sylvia and I got together, and we learned that she thought so too.’

  Ruby paused, and then reached into the sleeve of her cardigan to pull out a tissue and gave a delicate lady-like cough into it. ‘Sylvia was very angry with him. More so than with me, really. I suppose I forgave him more easily. My husband, dear man that he was, was something of a rogue too, on the sly. I had to turn a blind eye more than once. But I don’t think Sylvia ever had to. Not to hear her talk, anyway. Her Joe was as faithful as a spaniel, apparently.’

  Ruby’s big baby-blue eyes suddenly twinkled. ‘Mind you, with Sylvia as a wife, he probably wouldn’t have dared to stray. Ah well.’ She shrugged one painfully thin, bony shoulder. ‘That’s life. In the end, neither one of us got him. Maurice, I mean. He moved away from the village not long after that awful business with Sylvia. I think one of his daughters took the view that he should get well out of it. I think your DI Jarvis made his life pretty hot for a while back then.’

  This time her blue eyes were definitely twinkling.

  ‘Do you think Maurice might have had anything to do with Sylvia’s death?’ Hillary asked, but she was smiling too. ‘Rogues and charmers have been known to turn nasty when they don’t get their way, after all, and according to DI Jarvis’s notes, Maurice had no alibi either.’

  ‘Oh not him,’ Ruby said at once. ‘If anything, I’d have said it would be the other way around. Had Maurice called on Sylvia, the mood she was in in those days, she’d probably have brained him. Oh! Now that sounded heartless, didn’t it? And I didn’t mean it to. I keep forgetting what really happened to poor Sylvia. It’s horrible.’ The old lady looked and sounded suddenly genuinely distressed now.

  ‘Please, don’t upset yourself, Mrs Broadstairs,’ Hillary said quickly, shooting a quick look over her shoulder to see if they’d attracted the attention of any of the carers. ‘We won’t take up much more of your time,’ she promised.

  ‘Oh no, dear, you carry on,’ Ruby said robustly, stiffening her shoulders visibly. ‘It’s my duty to help the police, I know that. I want you to catch whoever killed poor Sylvia. It’s not right that he should still be running free, is it?’

  ‘No,’ Hillary agreed flatly. ‘Did Sylvia ever say anything to you that now strikes you as odd? Was she worried about getting threatening phone calls, or was someone pestering her? Following her, maybe spying on the house, or anything like that?’

  ‘Oh no dear. I’d have remembered if she’d said anything like that. Besides, your DI Jarvis asked me the same thing at the time. And I can tell you, as I told her, Sylvia seemed totally normal. Her behaviour was just the same as ever. She didn’t seem worried about anything in particular.’

  ‘All right. Well, thank you, Mrs Broadstairs. I don’t think we’ll keep you any longer,’ she said, and over in his chair, she saw Jake nod silently in relief.

  They had to find a care worker to punch in the access codes to let them out, and were reminded to sign themselves out in the register. Once in the car park, Jake took a long, slow breath.

  ‘Places like that always give me the creeps,’ he said, a trifle shame-faced.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. I thought it was a nice place. Well run. You hear such horror stories sometimes about old folks’ homes, but everyone there looked happy and well cared for,’ Hillary pointed out.

  Although she understood exactly what he meant.

  ‘I know, I know. It’s not that,’ Jake said, a shade helplessly.

  ‘It’s just the thought that you might end up in such a place yourself someday, if you’re unlucky enough to live so long,’ Hillary said drily. ‘That’s what’s really giving you the heebie-jeebies.’

  Jake smiled uncertainly. ‘Maybe. But for me, unless disaster strikes, I’ll still be rich enough to be able to afford to stay in my own home and hire a whole bevy of hot and cold running nurses to see to my every whim, and allow me to grow old disgracefully, thank you very much.’

  Hillary laughed. ‘Sounds like a plan to me.’

  ‘So, are we ticking old blue eyes back there off the list of suspects?’ Jake asked, nodding his head back towards the building that they’d just left.

  ‘You know my methods by now, Jake,’ Hillary said. ‘No one get’s ticked off unless we’ve the proof in hand to clear them. But she goes to the bottom of the list, certainly.’

  Jake laughed. ‘That’s a relief. If we’d had to arrest her, I’d have felt like…. Like … I don’t know. Like the biggest bastard since….’ But words failed him.

  Hillary smiled. ‘Yes, I get the picture. Still, if it does turn out to be Ruby after all, it won’t be me or you has to arrest her, will it? We don’t have the authority. I think we’ll let the new boss have the honours instead. See what Rollo Sale makes of that.’

  Jake grinned. ‘Welcome to the CRT,’ he drawled.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  After Jake had typed up his report for the murder book, he decided to take off early. Since Hillary was still closeted in the new boss’s office with Steven and Rollo Sale going over the monthly review, he told Jimmy, who merely grunted.

  ‘S’long as you’ve worked your hours,’ Jimmy said unconcernedly, and apparently deep in his perusal of computer print-outs of all known muggers who targeted the elderly. But the moment Jake had collected his gear and left, the older man stood up and stretched.

  To Wendy, who was helping Jake with his research into Freda de la Mare, he said casually, ‘I’m off to the canteen for a bite. I missed lunch.’

  Wendy, who was studying a critic’s favourable review of one of the artist’s shows, barely heard him and vaguely nodded her head in acknowledgement.

  Once outside the office, Jimmy picked up his pace, and was not far behind Jake, when he reached his E-Type in the car park.

  At least, Jimmy thought happily as he got into his own humble Ford, an E-Type Jag was an easy vehicle to follow. It wasn’t as if it could blend in with the crowd.

  When Hillary finally finished wrangling with budgets and the latest, unhelpful memos from head office on how to do her job, she found the small communal office oddly empty. Only Wendy looked up when she poked her head around the door.

  ‘I’m off to interview some of the other members of the Forget-me-not Club. Want to come?’ she offered.

  ‘Sure,’ Wendy said with enthusiasm. Although Freda de la Mare was an interesting study, she wasn’t so fascinating that Wendy would pass up the chance to watch Hillary Greene in action.

  Jake had no difficulty in finding th
e smart, mock-tudor house in Aylesbury, since the private investigators had been very clear in their directions. It was just that somehow the destination was not what he’d been expecting.

  As per his other instructions, Jake had bearer bonds in his briefcase to the tune of £50,000 and he turned off his mobile phone. His other various electronic gadgets he also locked away in the car’s glove compartment. The man he was about to meet was certainly very careful about not leaving any footprints – electronic or otherwise – that might lead to his front door.

  As he climbed out of the car and looked around, he didn’t see the small, anonymous runabout that was Jimmy’s own modest pride and joy pull up in a gap in a line of parked cars. The area was strictly residential, and in the middle of the afternoon there was both a lot of parking and a lot of cover to be had. Most families nowadays had to two cars, and Jimmy was confident that the Boy Wonder hadn’t spotted him.

  He stayed in the vehicle though as Jake glanced around, and was relieved to see that he was just checking the house numbers. So, it wasn’t so much as if he suspected that he was being watched, as that he just hadn’t been here before and wasn’t sure of his surroundings.

  Jimmy too, looked around curiously. The road was wide and lined with lime trees and horse chestnuts. The houses were all fairly large and detached, of mixed styles, with garages and large gardens. All of them had that casually prosperous look that screamed comfortably off, upper middle class.

  Jimmy waited until Jake had selected his house of choice and disappeared inside a garden gate – in this case, a black, wrought-iron double gate, that allowed access to the drive and garage. When he was confident that enough time had passed, he got out and followed, wincing as a niggling little bolt of pain shot down his lower back. It was becoming a more and more common occurrence for him nowadays, and he could only hope that it wasn’t an omen of bad things to come. Was it lumbago when your back started to go like that, or something else? Jimmy couldn’t remember. And didn’t much care.