Joe recalled Ella Williams’s remarks about GM and said, ‘Probably. But it don’t mean you’re wrong.’
‘That’s how I see it. What I don’t want is this thing being wrapped up nice and tidy just to save the paperwork. I’d like to be sure someone was working hard at finding out exactly who this woman was, how she got in, what contribution if any she made to starting the fire. OK, I may be wrong about the police and they’ll do the job. But I’d feel a lot happier if I had someone on my payroll looking out for my interests.’
‘Me?’ said Joe. ‘You mean me?’
‘Why so surprised? You’re a PI, aren’t you? And you’ve got an inside track on this woman. No one’s going to be surprised if you show an interest. OK, I know you’ll only be here for a couple of days, but they’re the significant days, with the iron still hot, if you’ll pardon the expression. So what do you say?’
Joe opened his mouth to list all his objections.
Instead, weariness plus a bit of exasperation that this guy wasn’t showing the least concern for the wellbeing of the burnt woman, only for his own financial health, made him say, ‘I charge one fifty a day plus expenses.’
‘Fine. Two days’ advance be OK plus a ton on account of expenses?’
A wallet appeared bulging like a sumo’s bum.
Should’ve asked for two hundred, thought Joe as he took the crisp new notes.
‘Here’s my card. We’re heading back to town tomorrow. Ring me at my office number, not home, OK? This is something I’d prefer not to bother my wife with. She’s upset enough about the fire as it is.’
Why shouldn’t she be when it nearly killed someone? thought Joe. They had reached the college door. Haggard said good night and set off back up the drive. Joe pushed open the well-oiled door and stepped inside.
It was very dark. The residual light didn’t penetrate in here. He tried without success to find a light switch. Probably used rushlights or something. He conjured up a picture of his earlier passage through the hall and set off across its centre with his hands outstretched before him. With luck he should hit the opposite wall somewhere close to the doorway he’d come through that morning.
He was more than lucky, he was dead on target. He opened the door and went through. A long gloomy corridor stretched ahead. He couldn’t find a light switch but who needs light in a straight corridor?
Me, he answered himself after a little while. It seemed to go on for ever. Then he saw a faint rectangle ahead, traced in light. When he reached it, he saw a notice stuck to it which he could just make out. PRIVATE. NO ADMITTANCE TO COLLEGIANS.
Oh, shoot, thought Joe. This must be the door into the Williamses’ kitchen he’d opened that morning. He could hear voices behind it. Nothing to do but knock and admit to Ella Williams that he was lost again. Then one of the voices was upraised and he could make out words.
‘Whatever that stuff is, I want it out of there.’
It was Mrs Williams.
‘Don’t get your knickers in a twist, Mam. I’ll get rid of it tomorrow. I’m just looking after it for him.’
‘That all you’re doing for him? I thought I heard voices from your room last night …’
‘The radio, Mam, like I told you.’
‘It better had have been. If your father thought you’d started that up again …’
‘What would he do? Take to drink or something? Anyway, I’m not sure he’d know what it was all about, it’s so long since I heard any noises from your room –’
There was the sound of a slap. A cry of pain. And anger. Then a door opening and slamming.
Joe turned around. Not a good time to be asking directions, he thought.
He made his way back along the corridor and opened the door into the pitch darkness of the hall. There had to be a light switch here somewhere. He reached out and groped against the wall.
His hand touched something, but it didn’t feel like a switch. Fabric. Maybe one of those tatty banners hanging around. He pressed harder. Soft and yielding. Also warm.
Light came on in his mind at exactly the same moment it came on in the hall, and he found himself facing Franny Haggard with his hand resting on her breast, and hers on a light switch by the door he should have taken.
He whipped his hand back like he’d touched a snake.
She smiled and said, ‘Joe, I’m so glad it’s you.’
Take that any way you like, thought Joe.
He said, ‘Sorry. Didn’t realize you were in here.’
‘I wanted a word, so I came looking for you. Hope you don’t mind.’
‘Good-looking film star comes looking for me, what’s to mind?’ asked Joe.
‘You say the sweetest things,’ she said coyly, then, very businesslike, ‘Joe, it’s about that girl you pulled out of the cottage –’
He interrupted, thinking that he was too tired to cover the same ground twice.
‘If it’s about the insurance –’ he began.
‘Insurance? Hell, no,’ she interrupted back. ‘Listen, Joe, I’ll lay it on the line. I think there’s a good chance Fran knows who this woman really is. I’ve suspected for some time that he’s got something going, without being able to point my finger at a prime suspect. It seems to me altogether possible this woman had a date to meet Fran in the cottage. How else could she have got inside, unless he’d given her a key? He’s always having to take off on unexpected urgent business meetings, and I bet he’d have been called away today, then high-tailed it up here for a bit of humpty on my waterbed, the bastard!’
Waterbed, thought Joe.
He said, ‘Look, Mrs Haggard …’
‘Franny,’ she said.
‘Look, if this woman’s a friend of your husband’s, surely he’d be all broken up by what’s happened? I mean, really broken up.’
‘Fran can be a cold son of a bitch,’ she said, without any heat herself, as though this wasn’t a condition which seriously offended her. ‘Prides himself on rolling with the punches, know what I mean? When push comes to shove, it’s everyone else out of the balloon without a parachute, no regrets, so long as Fran gets a soft landing. It’s just the way he is. Any tears he’s got for this tottie he’ll save till he feels he’s got himself in the clear.’
‘Yes, but …’
… but if the burnt woman was Fran the Man’s bit on the side, why had he hired Luton’s top tec to (a) find out who she was and (b) if possible prove she started the fire?
‘But what?’ said Franny.
Maybe she had seen him talking to her husband and was simply trying to provoke him into telling her what had passed between them?
Joe shook his head to clear it. Trying to follow the convolutions of other people’s thought processes always gave him the grey crinklies.
‘But why are you telling me this?’ he asked.
‘Because I want you to find out all you can about her for me, Joe,’ she said. ‘Fran can play real rough and I need to keep ahead of the game. So anything you can find out, I’d be really grateful. I mean really.’
Her tongue ran round her magenta lips and her hand went into her blouse. For a second Joe thought she was going to offer to pay him in kind; before he could work out a way to get free of this with his dignity and virtue intact, the hand emerged clutching a thin cylinder of paper.
‘I’ve written a cheque to cover two days’ retainer,’ she said.
‘But you don’t know what I charge,’ said Joe weakly.
‘I’ve used London rates,’ she said. ‘If it’s not enough, add it on to your expenses bill.’
She took his right hand and pressed the cheque into his palm. It felt warm.
‘The number on the back’s my mobile,’ she said. ‘Let me hear from you, Joe.’
‘Yes, but …’ said Joe again.
He was pretty sure he was going to come clean about his deal with Fran the Man, but into the gap between pretty and sure fell a noise like a stifled sneeze.
The woman’s hand shot out and the room wa
s once more plunged into darkness.
After a moment Joe hissed, ‘You there?’
No reply.
He commenced a careful groping for the switch, ready to jump back a mile if his fingers encountered anything soft and yielding.
They did. But even as he jumped, he registered that though definitely flesh, what he had just touched was a lot harder and rougher than any part of Franny ought to be.
Then the light came back on and he found himself looking into Ol’ Blue Eyes’ ol’ red eyes.
Behind Dai Williams the door Joe had come through that morning was open. Of Franny Haggard there was no sign except for a faint wisp of expensive perfume which was presumably beyond the scope of the caretaker’s blocked-up nose.
‘Cat’s eyes you must have,’ said Williams, ‘to be wandering around in the dark.’
‘Couldn’t find the light switch,’ said Joe.
‘Enjoy your fancy dinner, did you?’
‘Very nice. You enjoy your night out with the boyos?’
‘Yeah. Joe, I’m sorry how it ended. Reason I stayed on and let Bron drive you back was there were a couple of things I needed to say while the iron was hot, so to speak. Real ashamed they are, one or two of them, for getting so excited. It’s in the blood, see, doesn’t mean anything, and they send their apologies, hope you’ll come back for another drink if you have the time.’
He’s spoken to Bron, found out just how little Welsh I really know, thought Joe.
But he doesn’t know I’ve worked that one out.
He smiled and said, ‘No problem, Dai. They seemed a nice bunch of guys. Give them my best.’
‘Will do,’ said Williams. ‘Now I’d better do my rounds.’
‘And I’d better get to bed,’ yawned Joe. ‘Good night.’
He went through the doorway. In the light from the hall he saw a switch on the flaking brown wall. He clicked it on and closed the door behind him.
There was a faint damp patch on it, about four and a half feet up, just where a man standing in the dark with his head pressed close against the woodwork, listening, might have sneezed.
It felt like it might be a significant deduction. But all it meant to Joe at this moment was that he must remember to have a good antiseptic gargle before he climbed back into the bed he was wishing he’d never left.
One last task, though.
He picked up his mobile and dialled.
‘Luton Police. Can I help?’
‘Speak to DC Doberley, please.’
‘Who’s calling?’
‘Never mind that. He knows me.’
He hoped his huskiness made him sound like a snout.
A long pause, then Dildo’s voice said, ‘Doberley.’
‘Dildo, it’s me. Joe.’
‘Joe Sixsmith? You still sound like shit. What’s up, ringing me here?’
‘Nothing’s up. Just something I’d like you to check. Just listen if you can’t talk.’
‘It’s OK, I got the place to myself. But it don’t make no difference, Joe. I’ve told you before. I can’t be acting as your in-house gofer. Chivers would have my guts!’
‘Don’t want you to gofer nothing. Just have a look in one of them big books you got, tell you everything about everything, and see if there’s anything there about some pills, colour blue, diamond-shaped, got the name Decorax on them, made by some outfit called Charon. Got that? I’ll be in touch. Love to Whitey. Cheers.’
He rang off before Dildo could tell him to get knotted. He knew the young cop well enough to put money on some small accident having occurred during his occupation of Joe’s apartment – broken crockery, overflowing bath, exploding oven. With luck and on reflection, it might strike his wheeling-dealing mind that putting Joe a favour in debit would be no bad thing.
And if he didn’t bother, so what? Probably best if he didn’t. Generally speaking, it was Joe’s experience that the more you knew, the bigger the trouble you got into.
And all he wanted to get into now was his bed.
Chapter 11
Joe woke up next morning full of high moral resolve that the right thing to do was give up both the Haggards’ commissions.
He climbed gingerly out of bed and was delighted to find that far from setting him back, last night’s activity seemed to have reduced his aches and pains to a distant nag, no worse than a moderate hangover.
There was a note on the mirror above the hand basin.
Hi, Dozy. Us workers are off to the village to get down to work. ‘Sets’ today. Hope you’ll be fit enough to come and applaud. Love B xxx
‘Shoot,’ said Joe, annoyed he’d slept through Beryl’s visit to his bedside.
‘Sets’ were set pieces designed to test the various strengths of a choir. Formats at festivals varied. Here at Llanffugiol, there were two sets marked by a judging panel of three, whose marks made up fifty per cent of the total. The other fifty per cent came from the two freely chosen pieces to be sung tomorrow, whose only limitation was of length (twenty-minute maximum) and which would be judged by another panel with no knowledge of the ‘sets’ marks.
Ever since the great Dyfed scandal of two years ago when accusations of fix were hurled around like custard pies in a silent movie, festival organizers had been at pains to demonstrate impartiality.
Brushing his teeth, Joe returned to the moral problem of the retainers.
Upright things looked a little different. OK, so he couldn’t keep them both, but he was a pro, this was his living, and he’d be mad to turn down a job which ran parallel to his own inclination. He wanted to find out all he could about the burnt woman. What was it the Chinese said? Save a life and it’s yours for life? Or was that one of the medics in ER?
Choice of which client was easy. First come, first served. Also Fran the Man had paid in hard cash. Much easier to return a cheque than part with hard cash.
He looked through his pockets to make sure he’d still got it. There it was, still in the tight little cylinder which Franny had rolled to store in her cleavage.
The thought made him languid and he quickly unrolled the cheque to suppress unclean thoughts.
Then he saw the figures she had written and discovered as many before him that money can be more potent than sex.
‘Shoot!’ he said.
What was it she’d said? London rates. Didn’t know who she’d been using in London but the guy surely knew how to charge.
Suddenly it seemed silly to be sticking with Fran the Man when he could be getting so much more for the same work from his wife.
But the man had been first. And he couldn’t take money from Franny to check out something which couldn’t be true, else her husband wouldn’t have hired him in the first place.
Unless, of course, what Fran the Man really wanted from him was reassurance the cops were nowhere near making a connection between him and the burnt lady …
Far-fetched, maybe, but he’d come across motives which were fetched a lot further.
Anyway, politicians and lawyers made a good living out of being able to believe two or three different things at the same time, so why shouldn’t a PI?
He looked in the mirror to comb his thinning hair. What he saw there was no silver-tongued spin doctor or sharp brief but the same round brown face that had always failed Aunt Mirabelle’s lie-detector test during childhood.
Best he could do was postpone a decision till he saw what, if anything, he turned up.
Anyway, there was a more important matter to occupy his deductive powers, which was, where did a man get breakfast round here?
His instincts and his nose took him to a room labelled Refectory where tables, benches and a serving hatch to a large kitchen gave him hope. But though his nose caught traces of the Great British Breakfast, that was all he could find.
His best bet, he decided, was Ella Williams, but he felt reluctant to do anything as blatant as knock on her door and ask her direct. She’d been good to him yesterday and he hated anything that looked like tak
ing generosity of spirit for granted.
He made his way outside and as he turned into the rear courtyard he thought he might have struck lucky. Dai Williams was there, standing by his pick-up, talking into a mobile phone. He didn’t look happy and as Joe approached, working out strategies for bringing the conversation round to hungry PIs and big-hearted wives, he said something short and savage in Welsh, climbed into the pick-up and started the engine.
‘Excuse me, Dai,’ called Joe, and realized he was in duet with Bronwen, who’d come out of the kitchen door and was shouting, ‘Hang on, Da!’
Dai was in no mood to make it a trio. Without a glance in their directions, he accelerated away at a rate which had Joe wincing with remembered terror.
‘Hope he remembers what time of day it is,’ he said to the girl, who’d come running forward to join him.
She was wearing an old woollen dressing gown. She may have had something on under it, but Joe didn’t think so. He looked her straight in the eyes to make sure he didn’t find out.
She said, ‘Where’s he gone? He promised me the pick-up this morning.’
‘Don’t know. Maybe he’ll be back in a moment.’
‘Maybe the English will give us back Cheshire,’ she snarled, turning away and striding back to the house.
Not a good time to enquire about breakfast, thought Joe, sadly.
He watched the girl go. A casual observer might have thought there was something prurient about his gaze, but it was the yawning cavities in his stomach not in his sex life that his mind was exploring. So rapt was he that when a hand touched his shoulder and a voice said, ‘Mr Sixsmith,’ in his ear, his feet leapt six inches off the ground and his heart even higher.
‘Shoot!’ he exclaimed when he’d returned to earth and identified the source of the shock. ‘You on commission from a cardiac clinic?’
‘Sorry,’ said Owain Lewis. ‘Didn’t think.’
Singing the Sadness Page 11