Joe decided to ignore whatever ‘ism’ she’d committed by her crack about his friends’ politics and said, ‘You mean the kids who’d been rich longer got at you?’
‘Certainly. You can’t really blame them. Most of them were like me, away from home for the first time and scared to death, so naturally they looked around for someone to feel better off than. It gave them common ground with the others and provided a buffer between themselves and absolute misery.’
‘You’re very forgiving,’ said Joe.
‘I’ve paid in full for my advantages, haven’t I?’ she said, smiling wickedly. ‘You don’t think I’m going to undervalue them now?’
‘And as a House Fiend, Mrs Calverley helped you out?’
‘That’s right. She saved me from a deal of grief.’
‘I expect you were pretty grateful,’ said Joe.
‘I was madly in love with her,’ said Georgie. ‘Oh, don’t look shocked. It doesn’t do your PI image any good. You’ve heard of schoolgirl crushes, surely? Well, mine was the heaviest crush imaginable! I would have killed for her. And don’t ask what I did do for her. Your dirty little male mind must devise its own fantasies. I’m not about to tell you.’
‘I wasn’t about to ask,’ said Joe sturdily. ‘In fact, I haven’t asked you to tell me any of this, Mrs Woodbine.’
‘You haven’t?’ She sounded genuinely surprised. ‘No, I don’t suppose you have, not in words, anyway. So why am I telling you? Oh, yes. So you will satisfy my idle curiosity about the nature of your business with Dora.’
She turned her wide-eyed mock innocent gaze upon him. Joe thought, idle curiosity my aunt!
He said, ‘So how come you and Mrs C. stopped being such good chums?’
‘What a nice old-fashioned word,’ she said. ‘But in fact we were never really chums. I was mad about her, true, but that’s something different. Absolute passion either blows itself out, or is blown out by absolute betrayal. Such has been my experience anyway.’
Joe began to wonder if Willie had been putting it about. How come she’d ended up marrying Willie in the first place? How come, for that matter, with her well-off family and private education, she’d ended up as a teacher in a state comp?
And how come the most interesting questions were always those it was almost impossible to ask?
But you could get close. He said, ‘This quarrel you had with her, what was that about then?’
She considered the question carefully, then shook her head.
‘Perhaps you should ask Dora about that. Now it’s your turn, Mr Sixsmith. What are you and she up to?’
He said, ‘Sorry, can’t say. But perhaps you should ask your husband. He knows all about it.’
He expected some kind of anger that he’d broken her one-sided deal, but she merely laughed her deep-draughted laugh and said, ‘You detectives stick together, do you? I must remember that in future.’
She was definitely an odd one. But was it the kind of oddness that could lead to some kind of criminal interference with the kids in her care?
And what the shoot do I know about the way women work anyway? Joe asked himself as he made for the front door.
‘It’s been nice talking to you, Mr Sixsmith,’ said Georgie. ‘No doubt we shall meet again tomorrow evening.’
‘What? Oh yes, right. Rehearsal. The Creation.’
‘That’s right. The Creation. Though if, as one imagines He must have done, the Almighty foresaw what we were going to do with it, can you suggest half a dozen good reasons why He bothered?’
The Glit … draught Guinness … Luton Town … breakfast fry-ups … Whitey … and … and … Beryl Boddington’s body moving beneath her uniform.
‘Beyond me, Mrs Woodbine,’ said Joe Sixsmith.
14
Back in the car, Whitey let out a plaintive howl which reminded Joe they hadn’t had a proper breakfast.
‘I hear you,’ said Joe.
It was lunchtime near enough, so he drove to the Glit. Merve Golightly was there drinking the Pepsi and lime which was his on-duty tipple, and eating a Glitterburger.
‘Hey, Joe,’ he called. ‘What happened to you yesterday? When you didn’t ring, I drove back to the pigs’ party to pick you up anyway, and what do I find? Devastation, and you long gone. Now that’s what I call suspicious.’
‘I’m out on bail,’ said Joe. ‘How’s the burger today?’
‘Delicious. I think Dick’s changed his kennels. Whitey, my man, how’d you like a piece of the enemy?’
He tossed the cat a morsel of burger. Whitey sniffed at it disdainfully, expressed his opinion by trying to cover it with floor tiles, then clawed at Joe’s trousers till he got a packet of cheese and onion crisps and a saucer of lager.
‘What about you, Joe?’ asked Dick Hull.
‘Well, I escaped with my life yesterday, so I’ll ride my luck and have a double Sweenie and chips.’
The Sweenie Weenie was the Glit’s famous savoury sausage.
‘Ha, ha,’ said Dick. ‘Joe, my son, this Creation thing you’re doing down St Monkey’s, anything in that for our next Big Sho-Nite? Three or four of your mates from the chorus line came down and give us a couple of the snazziest numbers? There’d be a drink in it, and the publicity couldn’t do your ticket sales any harm.’
‘It’s a kind thought, Dick,’ said Joe gravely. ‘I’ll mention it at rehearsal tomorrow.’
Merv said, ‘Don’t be a prat, Dick. It’s all hymns and such, ain’t that right, Joe?’
‘Nothing wrong with hymns,’ said Hull. ‘When old Stell Teacher from Gluck Street sings “Amazing Grace”, there’s not a dry eye in the house.’
‘But lots of dry throats, you hope,’ said Merv. ‘Dick, while you’re getting Joe’s Sweenies, cut me a slice of rum ’n’ plum gateau, will you?’
The manager moved away and Merv said, ‘So what did happen up the Heights, Joe?’
Joe gave him the full story. Merv he counted as a sort of silent partner, though ‘silent’ wasn’t a term many people would apply to the rangy taxi driver. But when it came to keeping his mouth shut about stuff Joe told him was confidential he could be quieter than a stopped clock.
When Mrs Calverley was mentioned he said, ‘She the one lives out at Hoot Hall?’
‘Yeah. You know her?’
‘No, but I took the son home once, high as a house.’
‘Fred? And you say he was drunk?’
‘Well, he was high on something, though it could’ve been going up his nose as well as down his gullet, know what I mean? Talked a lot about mumsie and what she would say.’
‘Scared of her, was he?’
‘Wouldn’t say that,’ said Merv. ‘I got the impression Fred knew she wouldn’t be too pleased but was confident she wouldn’t be able to resist his bonny blue eyes for long.’
This figured. Mrs C. might be tough with cops, vicars, Pis and houseboys, but when it came to sons, she folded like a pipe cleaner. And what had she given as her reason for wanting to identify the boy in the box? Somehow he reminded me of my own boy …
‘Even a cop is somebody’s son,’ said Joe inconsequentially.
‘Never believe it,’ said Merv. ‘Just a rumour the Pope’s putting about. Word down the cabbies’ shelter is, you do a job for Mrs C., get your money upfront.’
This echo of Woodbine’s remark struck Joe.
He said, ‘But the Calverley estate … ?’
‘You been out there, you seen it,’ said Merv. ‘They were once rotten rich but the last lot knew how to spend it better than make it. Dickie Calverley, her husband, he wasn’t mainstream family, but he had the knack, I gather. He had a job at the University, bit of a shafter by all accounts, lots of scandal brewing, then some ancient uncle pops his clogs and leaves him this farm out in the jungle … Rhodesia, I think it was …’
‘Zimbabwe,’ corrected Joe.
‘Could have been,’ agreed Merv. ‘But the jungle anyway, so he ups and marries this Dora Strang and off
they scoot to the mysterious Orient.’
‘With geography like yours, how the shoot do you manage driving a cab?’ wondered Joe.
‘I charge extra for the scenic route,’ said Merv. ‘Anyway, all the Calverleys back here snuff it, and Dickie goes out in sympathy down there on the veldt, and young Fred cops everything that’s left, which isn’t much. Oh look. Here comes another hedgehog that didn’t make it.’
Dick Hull had put his rum ’n’ plum on the bar along with Joe’s sausages.
They began to eat and into the silence necessitated by the superglue properties of the cream on the pudding and the Glittersauce on the Sweenies, Dick Hull said, ‘She was in again last night, Joe, with her friends.’
‘Who?’ managed Joe.
‘Galactic Galina, the Doll from Outer Space,’ said Hull. ‘Let’s into the secret, Joe. You giving her one, or what?’
Before he could reply, the manager was summoned to the other end of the bar by a customer.
Merv said, ‘Dirty-minded sod. But it’s a good question.’
‘You asking it?’ said Joe.
‘None of my damn business,’ said Merv.
‘In that case, I’ll tell you,’ said Joe.
Merv whistled when Joe finished.
‘Sodding journalists,’ he said indignantly. ‘Always looking to dig dirt. But no problem now this Docherty’s asked you to help him, is there?’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Easy. All you do is tell him he’s barking up the wrong tree. Word of a pro sleuth. And if he doesn’t buy that, then you fall back on little Gallie’s scheme and give him a good kicking. You want some extra muscle, me and Percy are at your service.’
Joe smiled to himself. In a tight corner, Merv was no chicken, but he was better talking tough than acting it, relying on his own and Percy’s great length to divert trouble to easier targets.
He said, ‘Thanks, mate, but what Dunk Docherty thinks isn’t really the point here.’
‘Then what is?’
‘What Gallie thinks. The poor kid needs to be really sure that her granddad’s not a war criminal.’
Merv thought about this then said, ‘But you said she got almost homicidal just because this newshound could even entertain the possibility …’
‘Yeah. Think what that makes her feel about herself,’ said Joe.
Merv shook his head.
‘Joe, you sometimes worry me,’ he said, ‘this topsy-turvy way you see things. Why don’t you just do what you get paid to do, always assuming you are getting paid. This girl wants you to find out who this guy is and what he’s up to. You’ve done that. As a bonus you can maybe stop him doing it. Chances of her granddad being a war criminal are pretty slim. Chances of you proving it one way or another are non-existent. So forget what you imagine her feelings are. All that stuff was fifty years ago anyway. The old man will be dead in another ten, fifteen years, tops, maybe a lot earlier. When she’s settled down with her own family, what’s it going to matter to her what happened in some far-off foreign country a whole lifetime ago?’
‘Like it or not, we’re all what we come from, Merv,’ said Joe.
‘Well, shave my arse and call me Cheetah,’ said Merv. ‘The way you tell it, we’re all born guilty, right?’
‘That’s what the Bible says,’ said Joe. ‘Least, that’s what Aunt Mirabelle says the Bible says.’
‘You tell Mirabelle she’s way off beam,’ said Merv. ‘We’re all born innocent. It’s getting guilty that makes life worth bothering about. Hey, I gotta run. You take care, Joe. Don’t get into any fights without me around.’
‘It’s all right, I’m going down Dextergate to wash my dirty linen in private,’ said Joe.
‘You mean, Long Liz at the Kwik Klene?’ said Merv. ‘Now that’s a real woman. Forget your dolly birds. Long Liz’ll tumbledry you so clean, you’ll think you’re a white man.’
‘Does that mean I could join the golf club?’
‘They’d be begging you.’
‘Then I shan’t bother,’ said Joe.
15
Joe was very fond of the Kwik Klene launderette. If he was busy he just left his bundle in the care of the manageress, Mrs Elizabeth Pring, known to her friends as Long Liz, who for a consideration would sort it, wash it and have it all neatly parcelled for collection at the end of the day. But whenever possible Joe did his own. The launderette was to him like a church to a medieval felon. Here he could seek sanctuary and let his troubles drain away and feel his soul being cleansed with his socks.
Unfortunately, parking was bad in Dextergate which had more double yellows than a Bengal tiger. It was OK to leave the car for a quick dash in to dump your bundle, but anything longer would get you a twenty quid spot fine from one of Luton’s incorruptible traffic wardens.
Happily, at the end of the eighties a hopeful developer had erected Wyatt House, a block of fairly swish apartments on some waste ground opposite the launderette, only to find when the property market went into a dive shortly afterwards, he was left with at least half the flats on his hands. This meant there was a surplus of parking spaces behind the block which, though technically private, were not guarded by any means as zealously as the Cloisters at St Monkey’s.
After a quick check to make sure the Wyatt House janitor was nowhere in sight, Joe parked the Morris, then, with his bundle under one arm and Whitey under the other, he set off to the launderette.
As he walked along the narrow service road down the side of the apartment block, he thought he heard a footstep behind him. He turned just in time to see a figure step back into a doorway.
He called, ‘Hey, don’t I know you?’
After a moment, the figure reappeared and moved slowly towards him and he saw he’d been right.
He said, ‘Mavis? It is Mavis, isn’t it?’
He’d only seen the girl once and she had that sullen suspicious air which makes so many teenage kids look alike. But her long brown hair and also the Grandison comp uniform helped him identify her.
‘Hello, Mr Sixsmith,’ she said.
‘Hi. What you doing round here? Long way from Grandison, isn’t it?’
‘I know,’ she said.
He thought about this then said, ‘I get it, you’re bunking off from school so you want to be a long way away, right?’
He felt quite pleased with his deduction. She gave a half smile, perhaps in acknowledgement, and said, ‘Yeah, I suppose so.’
Her eyes were fixed on Whitey. Joe said, ‘You’ve not met my partner, have you? This is Whitey. Whitey, this is Mavis. Be nice to her. She’s a client.’
The girl put out a tentative hand. Whitey eyed it, sniffed it, licked it, and closed his eyes.
‘He likes you,’ said Joe, meaning, he doesn’t think you’re edible.
‘What are you doing here?’ the girl suddenly demanded. ‘Are you working?’
‘No,’ said Joe, surprised at the aggressive tone. Maybe she thinks I’m following her! ‘I’m just on my way to do my laundry. Come and sit and talk a while, if you’re in no hurry, that is.’
‘Yeah, why not?’ said Mavis.
Long Liz greeted Joe with a warm smile, until she realized Mavis was with him. A handsome if stately dame who admitted to forty-nine under subpoena, Liz felt pretty proprietorial about her unattached male customers. She hadn’t been lucky with men, or they with her. At the moment she was between husbands, having just laid her fourth to rest in the boneyard. Joe was on her shortlist. He naturally was blissfully ignorant of this, just as Liz was ignorant she didn’t figure on any list of Aunt Mirabelle’s. This wasn’t because of either her age or track record. Truth was, a mature woman with plenty of experience of keeping men in order was just what the doctor ordered. But Mirabelle had a firm sense of proportion and no man should be expected to stand up before God’s priest with a woman ten inches taller than he was!
‘Can I hold the cat, Mr Sixsmith?’ asked the girl as they sat down.
‘You can try,’ said
Joe, placing Whitey on her knee.
He turned round twice to make himself comfortable then went back to sleep, while Long Liz, reassured by the formal address, retreated out of earshot.
‘Hey, I met your dad yesterday,’ he said, putting his clothes into a machine.
She didn’t look overjoyed and he made a guess at the reason.
‘No. I didn’t mention you,’ he said. ‘It was just social.’
‘You were at that cow’s party, you mean?’
‘That’s right,’ he said. She was looking at him with something like respect. Thinks I was there on her business, thought Joe. Well, so I was, in a manner of speaking.
‘I met Sally Eaglesfield.’
‘Yeah, she was off school this morning. Georgie too. Doesn’t miss a chance to please herself.’
She spoke with great bitterness. Maybe she thinks Georgie and Sally are together, thought Joe.
‘Mrs Woodbine did have her kitchen wrecked,’ he pointed out. ‘House is full of workmen. She certainly didn’t look like she was enjoying herself when I was round there this morning.’
‘You’ve seen her today?’
‘Yes, this morning. And you’d have seen her this afternoon if you’d gone into school. She said she was going in.’
‘You’re sure she said that?’
‘Yes, I’m sure,’ said Joe, wondering if the girl feared Georgie’s eagle eye would notice her absence. But surely someone would anyway?
‘Thinks the place can’t run without her,’ sneered the girl, but without much force. ‘This explosion, no one got hurt, then?’
‘Didn’t your dad tell you?’
‘He just said something about an accident in the kitchen.’
Joe told her about the ruined buffet, keeping it light and comic. She laughed out loud, not so much at his comic style as in malicious pleasure at the thought of all Georgie’s efforts going to waste. She and Butcher, they certainly both hated the woman, thought Joe.
He realized he’d never yet spoken directly to the girl about her allegations. It wasn’t something he fancied doing, but it was always best to get things direct from the horse’s mouth.
He said, ‘Mavis, this thing that’s bothering you, you are sure about it? I mean, OK, so you think something goes on at these out-of-school meetings. You ever actually been to one? What I’m saying is, you have any evidence from personal experience? Like, has Mrs Woodbine ever said anything to you or tried to touch you, anything like that …?’
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