Like most of his forays into diplomacy, it failed miserably.
The girl leapt to her feet, clutching Whitey to her breast.
‘That’s a filthy thing to say!’ she screamed. ‘Think I’d ever let that cow touch me? I’d rather roll in a cat tray!’
Whitey yelled in protest, both at the sudden movement and the implied insult. Long Liz and the other customers looked their way with lively interest.
‘You must have a bigger cat than me,’ said Joe, reaching out to stroke Whitey’s head.
The fury vanished from the girl’s face as quickly as it had come.
She said, ‘I’m so sorry …’
She was speaking to the cat. Joe didn’t mind. But he did mind having an audience.
He said, ‘Look, let me give you a lift back home. School will be out soon.’
‘What’s the matter? Scared some randy bastard’ll rape me round here?’ she snapped.
‘Not really,’ said Joe truthfully. While a naked virgin with a bag of gold might have been ill advised to wander round Dextergate after dark, it was a pretty respectable area during the day. ‘Just think we should maybe sell tickets if we stay here.’
She took his point and said, ‘OK. Thanks.’
He patted her avuncularly on the shoulder, then asked Long Liz to see his smalls through their final cycles. She agreed rather chillily. In her book, emotional girls needing comfort were definitely rivals.
On their way back to the car, Mavis kept looking nervously around her. Doesn’t fancy being spotted by some friend of her parents wandering round with me during school hours, surmised Joe.
There was a large billboard on the side wall of Wyatt House advertising the alleged attractions of the flats. It had been there as long as Joe had been illegally parking there and he’d never paid it much heed before. But the name of the developers had never meant anything before.
‘Hey, there’s a thing,’ he said.
‘What?’ said the girl.
‘Oh, nothing. Just that they’ve knocked another two thou off the price. Keeps on like this, I’ll be able to afford one early next century.’
For once, he’d thought before he spoke. What he thought was, it wouldn’t contribute anything to the occasion to point out that Thomas Barnfather Estates Ltd was Georgina Woodbine’s family firm.
In the car he asked, ‘You rung Sally to see how she is?’
‘I told you, we’re not speaking.’
‘If she’d been a bit nearer the kitchen when the oven blew, could be you’d never be speaking again,’ said Joe.
She didn’t respond. Joe tried to recall whether such a morbid appeal would have had any effect on him at her age, but he couldn’t conjure up that distant country. Besides, he hadn’t been a girl. This original thought made him smile. That stirred Mavis like his homespun philosophy hadn’t been able to.
‘What’s so funny?’ she demanded heatedly. ‘I can’t see anything to laugh at.’
‘Shoot,’ said Joe. ‘When you’re as antique as me, sometimes you’ve just got to chuckle at having fooled the dear Lord into letting you live so long.’
‘How old are you, anyway?’ she asked.
‘Let’s just say I’m bumping up against the big four oh.’
‘You’re not forty yet?’ she said in dismay. ‘But my dad’s in his thirties too …’
‘I’ve been shut out of a lot of things in my time,’ said Joe. ‘Clubs, pubs, and even a taxi cab. But no one’s ever tried to shut me out of a whole decade.’
She flushed and said, ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be rude.’
Joe said gently, ‘I know you didn’t, but sometimes we get things wrong without thinking. Maybe you’ve got it wrong about Mrs Woodbine …’
But immediately that stubborn unrelenting look was back on her face and she said, ‘No! She’s really evil. Someone’s got to do something about her!’
Joe dropped her at the end of her street. No point in puzzling the neighbours. As she got out, she said, ‘Maybe I will ring Sally.’
Joe said, ‘Why not? If you only stay friends with folk who think exactly the same, you spend a lot of time sitting in front of the mirror.’
She nodded, placed Whitey carefully on the front seat, then strode away, tall and willowy, her long brown hair bouncing like on a shampoo ad.
As he drove away, Whitey gave a little derisive miaow which Joe had no difficulty in interpreting as, ‘Ever think of writing mottoes for a calendar?’
‘You so clever, how come you can’t buy your own chips?’ asked Joe.
Knowing his underwear was in good hands, he made for the office.
The phone rang as he entered. It was Dora Calverley.
‘Just checking in to see if you’ve made any progress. Also, I’ve got an idea,’ she said.
More than I have, thought Joe.
He said brightly, ‘It’s still early days, but I’ve got an associate working on it.’
Worldly wise ladies are not so easily fooled as teenage girls.
‘An associate?’ said Mrs Calverley incredulously. ‘You mean, like that moggie you drag around with you?’
Joe looked at Whitey and hoped he hadn’t overheard. He also thought that the cat and Dora Calverley had never met. She’d certainly checked him out pretty thoroughly.
He said as acidly as he could manage, ‘No, I mean Mr Duncan Docherty of the Bugle. You may recall he did a piece a while back on homeless kids in Luton. He’s got contacts it ’ud take me an age to make. And no need to worry about extra expense, he owes me a favour.’
That was a low shot, but she’d got to learn that the paddy fields stopped at Luton Airport.
She was a quick learner.
‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I didn’t mean to be rude. That sounds good. This Mr Docherty, I know a couple of people on the Bugle, but I’ve not heard of him …’
No point in bulling her, thought Joe. She probably knew the editor!
He said, ‘No, you won’t have done. He’s just a kid himself really, looking to make a name. That’s what makes him ideal for this kind of job. He’s the right age, knows all the moves, fits into the background.’
He didn’t feel it necessary to add that Docherty’s last attempt to fit into the background had cost him a busted nose.
‘Well, that sounds excellent, Mr Sixsmith. Well done.’
‘Thank you,’ said Joe. ‘You said something about having an idea yourself? I’m always open to suggestion.’
Having established his point, no reason not to be conciliatory. Also, it could be her idea might be more productive than the cocky but cack-handed Dunk Docherty.
‘No, it was nothing really,’ she said. ‘I see you have things well in hand and don’t need any interference from your client. Do keep in touch.’
The phone went dead. She took her bumps well, thought Joe. And there’d been just enough of a stress on client to put him in his undeniable place.
‘Come on, Whitey. Let’s go home and make us some tea,’ said Joe.
He stopped by at the Kwik Klene. Long Liz had all his stuff ready
‘Get your little friend home, did you?’ she said, still frosty.
‘What? Oh yeah. Is it my mistake or do kids today seem to have more troubles than we had?’ said Joe.
‘Maybe they don’t have our kind of trouble so they’ve got to find their own,’ said Liz. ‘You got real trouble, you go looking for happiness.’
‘Hey, I like that,’ said Joe. Whitey was right. He did have a weakness for the greeting card school of philosophy.
He smiled at Long Liz. It was a frank open smile, marking a shared moment of mixed regret and relief that they were no longer kids. It hit the woman’s chilly surface like a sun blast, melting her reservations and sending Joe soaring back up her list of possibles.
When he offered her the customary honorarium, she shook her head saying, ‘That’s OK, Joe. You can buy me a drink sometime.’
‘My pleasure,’ said Joe with instinctive court
esy, unaware that the gods sometimes use our pleasant virtues too for the manufacture of instruments to plague us.
‘And mine, I’m sure,’ smiled Long Liz.
16
That night Joe’s sleep was troubled by dreams of Mavis Dalgety being chased by Georgie Woodbine round a large room at Hoot Hall where he was trying to sing a selection from the Gary Glitter Song Book, accompanied by Sally Eaglesfield on the clarinet while Mrs Calverley looked down from a minstrel’s gallery and observed that this was not how they arranged things in Bulawayo.
He awoke feeling like a lost traveller who’s not even sure he’s looking at the right map.
Whitey, sensing his partner was out of sorts, watched hopefully as he prepared breakfast. But the fried bread, kidneys, tomato, sausage, scrambled egg and mushroom were divided seventy-thirty as usual and Joe’s plate was wiped clean with a slice of Mother’s Pride (thick cut). As Aunt Mirabelle had often reminded him in his young days, if you don’t empty your plate for God, He’ll surely empty it for you.
He decided to drop in at the Bullpat Square Law Centre. First thing in the morning you had a chance of beating the hordes of the distraught, the disadvantaged, and the dispossessed who put Butcher out of bounds during most of the working day.
Early as he was, the miasma of cheroot smoke hovering above her desk told him she’d been there a lot earlier.
‘Sixsmith,’ she said. ‘Good to see you.’
‘That’s nice,’ he said, flattered.
‘Don’t get carried away,’ she said. ‘I only mean it’s good to see you because (a) you’re not a customer and (b) I can tell you to sod off. As it happens, for once your incredible impatience can be rewarded. Piers happened to ring me yesterday. I put your point to him and he came back with an answer last night.’
‘That’s fast service,’ said Joe. ‘What you got on the guy? Headless photos?’
‘Moral superiority,’ said Butcher. ‘Reason your Taras Kovalko appears in the frame is there was a Boris Kovalenko who got trained as an SS auxiliary, and ended up as a guard at Regensburg. Nothing further known.’
‘And because Kovalenko’s only a couple of letters more than Kovalko that was enough to set the dogs sniffing?’ asked Joe incredulously.
‘There’s a bit more. If we’re thinking fiddling identity cards, Boris isn’t a million miles from Taras either. Also, they were both born in Vinnitsa. And Taras originally surfaced in a US Third Army field hospital when he got blown up in April ’forty-five as the Yanks advanced on, would you believe, Regensburg?’
‘What happened then?’
‘Displaced person camps, I suppose, till finally in ’forty-seven he got accepted to settle here.’
‘There must have been some serious vetting done?’ said Joe.
‘What’s serious when you’re dealing with thousands?’ said Butcher cynically. ‘Taras’s story was he’d been sent off to a forced labour camp by the Germans. Not much future in that, a hell of a lot of them died. But Taras was lucky. One of the German officers spotted he was a trainee chef and put him in the officers’ kitchen, which explained why he was comparatively healthy when the Yanks found him, except for the shell splinters they’d pumped into him, of course.’
‘Sounds reasonable,’ said Joe. ‘He’s made his living as a chef since he came to England.’
‘So? English cuisine back in the fifties, you didn’t have to be Michelin guide standard to get by.’
‘That so? I was still on Mammy’s milk so I wouldn’t know,’ said Joe.
‘Second time round, maybe,’ said Butcher. ‘To get back to your original question, back in the seventies when Wiesenthal’s Nazi hunters were trawling their records to try to get a line on bastards like Ivan the Terrible, Boris Kovalenko’s name came up. Nothing special against him, you understand, just the normal acts of brutality that went with the job of camp guard. It was circulated with a lot of others to all the countries he might have sought refuge in, including the UK.’
‘And some bright civil servant thought Boris Kovalenko, Taras Kovalko, hello. Let’s ruin someone’s life.’
‘Hey, it was across in Germany people’s lives were ruined,’ said Butcher. ‘And it was probably a computer threw Taras up. You can see why. Name not dissimilar, picked up close to Regensburg, born in Vinnitsa …’
‘This Vinnitsa place, it’s what? Some kind of village? Pop. two hundred and fifty maybe?’ said Joe.
‘I think you know it’s not, Joe,’ said Butcher regarding him thoughtfully. ‘You’re not letting yourself get too involved here, are you? OK, so you’d prefer it if Taras gets a clean bill of health. But if he doesn’t, it’s not your problem.’
‘I think maybe it is,’ said Joe.
‘You do? Well, so long as it doesn’t cloud your judgement. OK, Vinnitsa has a population somewhere over a hundred thou, so it’s not such a big coincidence. But worth a look, you must agree?’
‘And they took a look and came up with nothing,’ said Joe.
‘You know about that? Then you’ll understand how he came to be on List “C”. It’s like a query about your credit rating getting into the system. All a mistake but it’s bloody hard to get out. How did you find out about the seventies check anyway?’
He told her about Dunk Docherty, just twisting things slightly to make it sound like he’d tracked the reporter down rather than just found him on his doorstep. Not that there was anything to be ashamed of in having a talent for finding things on your doorstep, but even from Butcher you got more credit for the conventional skills.
‘You’ve done well,’ she said, a faint surprise in her tone slightly compromising the compliment. ‘So all you’ve got to do now is persuade him he’s barking up the wrong tree.’
‘That’s right,’ he said.
His tone must have lacked conviction for Butcher went on, ‘Word of advice. When in doubt, follow the client’s instructions to the letter.’
‘Like a lawyer?’ he said.
‘That’s right. Which reminds me, that’s what I am and that’s why I’m here at this ungodly hour. Good to see you, Sixsmith. Now sod off!’
‘Wait,’ said Joe. ‘It wasn’t Kovalko I came to see you about. It was Mavis Dalgety.’
He described his encounter in Dextergate.
Butcher frowned and said, ‘You think she was following you or something?’
‘She’d have had to run fast. I was in the car, remember? But it was an interesting coincidence. Look, I’m wondering if there’s not something going on here I don’t understand. I’ve met Georgie Woodbine now, and to be honest I just can’t see her doing, well, whatever it is she’s supposed to have done!’
‘So Mavis is making the whole thing up because she’s jealous?’
‘Could be.’
‘Yes. And it could be you’re running scared because dear old Georgina is Willie Woodbine’s wife!’
‘No,’ he said indignantly. ‘It’s like this Kovalenko business, it’s easier to chuck mud than wipe it off.’
‘It’s completely different,’ she said. ‘All the big guns are on Georgie’s side. She can take care of herself, you’d better believe it.’
She spoke with what seemed unwarranted force, or so it appeared to Joe.
He said, ‘Why do I get the impression you know the lady personally?’
‘Oh, we’ve met. A long time ago.’
Suddenly he grinned his sunrise grin.
‘Hey, this fancy school you try to pretend you didn’t go to, it wasn’t Meegrims, was it?’
He saw he’d hit the mark.
‘She’s a lot older than you though,’ he added diplomatically.
It occurred to him he’d had this kind of conversation with Georgie herself the previous morning.
‘She was in the Fifth when I started,’ said Butcher.
‘So you’d not know her that well?’
‘Well enough,’ said Butcher rather grimly.
‘She wasn’t your House Fiend, was she?’
Suddenly Butcher was regarding him with deep suspicion.
‘What the hell do you know about House Fiends?’
There was nothing to do but explain.
‘Well, well. You do get into odd corners without trying, don’t you?’ murmured Butcher. ‘So Dora Strang was Georgie’s Fiend.’
‘You know her too?’
‘Just by reputation. She’d left before I started. Tough cookie by all accounts.’
‘But a good House Fiend to Georgie, though this didn’t have a knock-on effect, right?’
‘What makes you say that?’
‘Because I get a distinct impression you dislike her so much, you’d be willing to believe it if Maggie Thatcher bad-mouthed her!’
He couldn’t hide his satisfaction at having got back at her so quick for the crack about letting himself be influenced by fear of Willie Woodbine.
She said, ‘I don’t deny that my experience of her when I was eleven and she was sixteen doesn’t disincline me to believe Mavis Dalgety.’
This was real lawyer-speak. Time to cut the crap.
‘So what happened?’ demanded Joe. ‘Look, we told all the dirty jokes and read all the dirty magazines at Robco Engineering. But I’m not sure this qualifies me for Girls’ Own stuff.’
‘Sorry, Joe. Nothing happened, or not much, not with me anyway. Nearest I can get personally is that once she offered me the choice of three across the knuckles with the edge of a ruler or one across my bare bum with the flat of her hand.’
‘She could do that?’ said Joe, appalled.
‘Not officially. But like any closed institution, its own laws and conventions had developed over the years.’
‘So what did you choose?’
Butcher made a face as if the question offended, then said, ‘Naturally, I chose to tell her that if she touched me in any way, I would write to my MP. Also, I took the occasion to inform here I was opting out of the House Fiend system, and in future if she wanted her errands run, her toast buttered, or her knickers rinsed through, she could do it herself.’
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