‘But did you recognise him? Watch those steaks, petal. When I said rare I meant it.’
Rose pulled out the grillpan and turned them over. The smell was appetising. She was changing her mind about eating one, even though it had been in such close contact with Ada. ‘No. I didn’t, but I wouldn’t, would I?’
‘Something’s got to click some time. What did you say his name is?’
‘Jeremy Barker. Or Parker.’
‘Pity. There must be hundreds in the phone book.’
Presently Rose lifted the pan from under the grill and asked if the steaks would do.
She scooped some vegetables into a colander. They took everything upstairs on trays and sat on their beds to eat.
Ada said, ‘Stupid of me. We should have liberated some wine. You shouldn’t eat fine steak without wine. They do a superb vintage Rioja.’
‘How do you smuggle out a bottle of wine?’ Rose asked in amazement.
‘With style, petal, and a piece of string.’
‘String?’
‘The best Rioja is always covered in fine wire netting. You thread the string through and hang the bottle under your skirt. It’s bumpy on the knees, but you don’t have to go far.’
Rose watched Ada start on her third fillet with the same relish she had shown for the others.
‘You said you couldn’t think on an empty stomach. Has this helped?’
‘It’s beginning to,’ said Ada. ‘What am I to think about – your problem?’
‘It would help.’
‘Things are becoming clearer, aren’t they?’ said Ada. ‘If that kid in Sainsbury’s had his head screwed on right, you were seen recently on a train travelling from London Paddington to Bath Spa. Some time since, you were in a tangle with a motor vehicle – and came off the worse for it. There’s a good chance it was driven by a local couple who brought you to the Hinton Clinic and later phoned to enquire if you were still in the world of the living. Their car may have had a silver fish mounted on the bonnet. Fair summary?’
‘I think you’ve covered all of it.’
‘No, I haven’t. There’s yourself. A well brought-up gel, going by the way you talk. Southern counties accent, I’d say. Certainly not West Country. Anyway, that’s a London haircut, in my opinion. True, you’re a casual dresser, but none of the stuff you told me you were wearing is off the bargain rail. It all suggests to me that you work for a living, in a reasonably well-paid job that doesn’t require grey suits and regular hours. And you’re not a bad cook, either.’
‘Thanks. But where do I go from here?’
‘We could see if the Winemart down the hill is still open.’
‘But I’ve got to be careful with my money…’ Then she saw the gleam in Ada’s eye and said, ‘No way. I’ve taken enough risks for one day.’
They finished the meal in silence.
Eight
Ada was out of bed early. She muttered something about phoning a friend and then plodded downstairs.
Rose lay awake, but without moving, disappointed that another night had passed and no old memories had surfaced. Her known life still dated from less than a week ago. And now she was putting off doing anything else. She wasn’t idle by nature, she felt sure. She hated the frustration of having no purpose for the day. She didn’t want to spend it sitting in Harmer House or aimlessly wandering the streets of Bath. She wept a little.
What an opportunity she had missed by walking away from the little boy in Sainsbury’s. She was certain in her mind that he really had seen her on the train. She should have asked him to take her to his mother. In a train journey of an hour and a half, she and the woman must have exchanged some personal information. Must have. Clearly they had been on talking terms, or she would never have bought cookies for the child. Two women of about the same age had things in common. At the very least they must have talked about their reasons for travelling to Bath.
If Ada hadn’t involved me in the shoplifting, she thought, I might be lying in my own bed this morning.
Sod Ada.
She wiped away the tears, sat up awkwardly and examined her legs. The bruises had gone from blue to greenish yellow. Her ribs still hurt, but the body was recovering. Then why not the brain?
In this chastened mood, she speculated what would happen if her memory never returned. Unless she took drastic action, she was condemned to eke out her existence in places like this, or worse, dependent on welfare handouts.
She had no skills or qualifications that she knew of. The descent into self-neglect, apathy and despair would be hard to resist. That was how people ended living rough.
The sound of the stairs groaning under pressure blended in with her mood. Then her thoughts were blasted away by a spectacle almost psychedelic in effect. At nights Ada wore an orange-coloured T-shirt the size of a tent and Union Jack knickers. She seemed to relish prowling about the hostel dressed like that, startling the other inmates.
‘I’ve got Hildegarde started on the cooking. She would have overslept. I said you’d probably want mushrooms with yours, am I right? She can’t say mushrooms, but she knows what they are now.’
Rose started to say, ‘I don’t think I-’
‘Yes, you do. Get a good breakfast inside you. We’ve got things to do.’
‘Oh, yes – like another supermarket? No thanks, Ada.’
Ada made her feel mean by announcing that she’d been on the phone to a friend who had forgotten more about cars than she or Rose were ever likely to find out. If anyone in Bath knew about silver fish mascots, it was Percy. He had promised to see them in his used car mart on the Warminster Road at ten.
The overheads at Percy’s Car Bargains were minimal. He had about eighty used vehicles lined up on a patch of gravel beside the A36 and his office was a Land Rover. Two tattooed youths were employed with buckets and sponges. They probably got paid in used fivers, with no questions asked about tax and National Insurance.
‘My dear Miss Shaftsbury, my cup overflows,’ Percy said in an accent that would not have been out of place in the Leander Club marquee at Henley. ‘You and the young lady of mystery.’
‘How do you know that?’ said Ada.
‘Well, unless I’m mistaken,’ he said, pausing to scrutinise Rose as if she might be a respray job being passed off as new, ‘you’re the one who turned up at the Hinton Clinic the other night.’
Rose felt a sudden outbreak of goose-pimples.
Ada said, ‘Percy, I didn’t tell you that on the phone.’
‘I saw it in last night’s Chronicle, my dear. “Lost Memory Mystery” or some such. There was a photo of a stunningly attractive young lady, and I thought to myself that I wouldn’t mind being introduced.’ He turned to Rose. ‘You had some injuries from a car – is that right? We’re supposed to tell the plod if we can help.’
‘I’m in the paper?’ said Rose, appalled.
Ada clicked her tongue. ‘Didn’t I tell you it was a mistake to let them take pictures?’
‘But no one asked my permission.’ As Rose was speaking, she recalled the policewoman saying that her superiors would take the decisions.
Ada explained, ‘Rose didn’t want this. She wanted to deal with her own problem.’
Percy crowed his sympathy to the entire fleet of used cars. ‘Bloody shame, my dear. You can’t trust anyone these days, least of all the guardians of the peace, I’m sorry to say. I would have told you that myself, given the chance.’
Rose sighed deeply and looked away, across the rows of cars towards the trees, trying to compose herself.
‘Percy knows exactly how you feel,’ Ada said to Rose. ‘He’s a very understanding man. The world’s most perfect gent. I haven’t told you how we met. It was at Swindon Magistrates’ Court.’
‘So it was,’ said Percy.
Ada continued to discuss her gentleman friend as if he wasn’t present. ‘I was up for shoplifting and he refused to believe I was guilty.’
‘You’re a magistrate?’ said Rose.
‘No, my dear,’ said Percy, smiling. ‘Like Miss Shaftsbury, I was waiting for my case to come up. Falsifying documents, or instruments, or some such nonsense, the sort of horse manure that is regularly dumped on a person in my profession. Well, we had an instant rapport, Miss Shaftsbury and I.’
‘Percy, I do wish you’d call me Ada. He gave me his visiting card,’ she told Rose, ‘and he offered his services to my solicitor as a surprise witness. Petal, you should have been there. It was like one of those old Perry Mason films. Percy came into court and swore blind he was with me at a tea-dance at the time of the offence. A tea-dance, would you believe? He was brilliant. He said he partnered me in the square tango and it was etched on his memory for ever.’
Rose smiled, the image of Ada at a tea-dance temporarily pushing her other troubles into the background.
Percy frowned. ‘Did I say that?’
‘Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten,’ said Ada sharply. ‘It was the nicest compliment anyone ever paid me. You said dancing with me was bliss.’
‘She must be right,’ said the world’s most perfect gent. ‘I must have said it.’
‘Don’t spoil it now,’ Ada warned him. She turned back to Rose. ‘He said he was a hopeless dancer normally and this was bliss because he could tell the minute we linked arms that there was no risk of treading on my feet. He said he would remember me anywhere.’
‘Absolutely true,’ said Percy.
‘He offered to pick me out in an identity parade. He had the entire court speechless with laughter. Can you see me in a line-up? I don’t know if they believed a word of it, but they had a ball and my case was dismissed.’
‘And mine was deferred for two weeks,’ said Percy. ‘By which time I got myself better organised. Now, ladies, I’d like to invite you to sit down, but the best I can offer is the back of my Land Rover and I’m not sure if it’s such a good idea.’
‘That’s all right, love,’ said Ada. ‘If I could squeeze inside, which is doubtful, I’d be sure to bust the suspension. We’ll talk here.’
‘I can offer something very agreeable from a flask if you don’t object to paper cups.’
Ada insisted that they hadn’t come for hospitality. ‘This silver fish mascot I mentioned on the phone, Percy. Have you ever seen anything like it?’
‘On a modern car? No, I can’t say I have,’ he said. ‘Sorry to disappoint. Mascots of any sort are rare these days, with a few obvious exceptions. They were used to decorate the radiator cap originally. Like figureheads, which is what we call them in the trade. Common enough before the First World War and into the twenties and thirties. I’ve seen monkeys, dragonflies, dancers. They looked rather fetching on the front of a handsome vehicle. No offence, but the most popular by far were naked ladies. I have seen fish. But not mass-produced, if that’s what you’re asking.’
‘We’re not,’ said Ada. ‘All we want is to find this car.’
Percy’s face twisted into a look of pain as he plumbed the depths of his memory. ‘There was a leaping salmon designed by a firm in Birmingham. That was silver – well, chrome – but I haven’t seen one in the last thirty years. A silver fish on a modern car… As I say, I don’t believe any motor manufacturer uses a fish. All I can suggest is that it must be something the owner had fitted.’
‘Custom made?’ said Ada.
He nodded. ‘You come across them once in a while. The most bizarre I heard of was the late Marquess of Exeter, David Burghley. He had a Roller, you know, a Rolls Royce, being one of the elite. Poor chap had terrible arthritis of the hips in middle age, which was sad considering he’d been a marvellous athlete in his time. Won the Olympic hurdles – that’s how good he was. Remember Chariots of Fire, racing round the quad at Cambridge while Great Tom was chiming noon? That was based on one of his exploits. Anyway, he made light of his handicap. Had one of the early artificial hip replacement operations in the days when the things were metal, and when it was later removed, he had the stainless steel socket mounted on the front of his Roller in place of the Spirit of Ecstasy that you see on all of them. So, you see, it can happen. Some people go to exceptional lengths to personalise their cars.’
‘You think we could be looking for something unique,’ said Ada. ‘That’s got to be helpful.’
‘If we can rely on our information,’ said Rose, thinking how old Mrs Thornton was, and wishing her witness was more dependable.
‘It seems to me,’ Percy summed up, ‘that you’ve got to look for an owner in some way connected with fish. An angler. Plenty of them in this part of the world.’
‘Or somebody called Fish?’ said Ada.
‘Pike,’ said Rose resignedly. ‘Or Whiting.’
‘Equally, this might be a chappie in the fish and chip business,’ Percy suggested. ‘It’s got all kinds of connotations when you begin to think about it. There are tropical fish-keepers.’
‘Don’t go on, Perce,’ said Ada. ‘We’ve got the point. It’s going to be easier to look for the car than work out who owns it.’
‘I’ll see if I can discover anything through the trade,’ Percy offered. ‘Ask around. That’s the way to find things out.’
They rode back to the city centre in a minibus. Before climbing aboard, Ada got the usual dubious look from the driver. She needed the width of two seats, but nothing was said and she paid the same fare as Rose.
‘He’s a poppet,’ said Ada, meaning Percy.
‘Yes.’ Rose was still weighing the morning’s developments.
‘He’ll get weaving now. He’s got all sorts of contacts.’
She responded flatly, ‘Good.’
They got off at Cleveland Place and crossed the bridge to return to the hostel, for lunch, as Ada made clear.
Neither of them paid much attention to the line of cars outside Harmer House. Parked cars fitted naturally into the scenery in Bathwick Street. Only a space in the line might have merited some interest, for in this part of the city one vehicle always replaced another in a very short time.
Ada continued to talk optimistically of Percy’s networking skills, while Rose heard without really listening.
They were passing the building next to the hostel when a car door opened somewhere near. Rose didn’t even glance towards it, so she had a shock when a hand grasped her arm above the elbow. Turning, she looked into the face of a thin, youngish, black-haired man with a forced smile. ‘Hello, love,’ he said without raising his voice. ‘You don’t have to go in there after all. I’ve come to take you home.’
‘What?’ she said, startled. She didn’t know him.
His grip on her arm tightened. ‘The car’s over there. Look lively.’ He was still grinning like a doorstep evangelist. He needed a shave, but his clothes were passably smart.
‘Who are you?’
‘Come on, love. You know me,’ he answered, tugging on her arm.
She was forced to take a couple of steps towards him.
Ada had barely noticed this going on, but now she turned and said, ‘Someone you know, petal?’
Rose’s fear came out in her voice. ‘I don’t remember.’ She told the man, ‘Let go of my arm, please.’
Ada asked him, ‘What’s this about? Who are you?’
He said, ‘Keep out of this. She’s going with me.’
‘She isn’t if she doesn’t want to,’ said Ada. ‘Let’s talk about this in a civilised way.’
Civility was not on this man’s agenda. He tugged Rose towards him, wrapped his left arm around her back and hustled her across the pavement towards the open rear door of a large red Toyota. The engine was running and someone was in the driving seat.
Rose cried out in pain from the contact of the man’s hand on her injured ribs. He leaned on her, forcing her to bend low so as to ram her into the car, at the same time pressing a knee against her buttocks. She tried to resist by reaching out and bracing her arm against the door-frame, but it was useless. Disabled by her injury, she was incapable of holding on.
&n
bsp; She screamed.
Her face jammed against the leather of the back seat. She braced her legs and tried unsuccessfully to kick. He had grabbed her below the knees. Only her shins and feet were still outside the car and he was bundling them in like pieces of luggage.
Then Ada acted.
Excessive weight is mostly a burden, but on rare occasions it can be turned to advantage. Lacking the strength to pull the man off, Ada charged him with agility that would not have disgraced a sumo wrestler and swung the full weight of her ample hips against him. The impact would have crushed the man’s pelvis if he had not turned instinctively a moment before the crunch. The car suffered the major damage, a dent in the bodywork the size of a dinner plate. The man caught a glancing thump and was thrust sideways. He bounced against the door so hard that it was forced past the restrainers on the hinges. Ada gave him a shove in the chest. He grunted, crumpled and hit the pavement.
They couldn’t expect to hold him off a second time. Ada grabbed Rose by the belt of her jeans, scooped her out and swung her across the pavement towards the entrance to the hostel. ‘In the house, quick!’ she gasped.
Rose needed no bidding. She dashed inside and upstairs. Behind her, Ada stood between the stone gateposts ready, if necessary, to do battle again.
There was no need. The man picked himself up, crawled into the car and gasped something to his driver. They were on the move with the door still hanging open. It was unlikely if it would shut or if they cared.
‘Take me a while to get my breath back,’ Ada said when she rejoined Rose upstairs. She slumped on her bed.
Rose thanked her. She was stretched out fighting for breath herself.
They lay like that for some time, recovering.
‘What was it for?’ Rose said eventually. ‘What was he going to do with me?’
‘I wouldn’t put money on a candlelit supper,’ said Ada.
‘Yes, but…’
‘If he’s really your bloke, you’re better off without him until he calms down a bit.’
‘My bloke? He isn’t my bloke,’ Rose shrilled. She was appalled that Ada should think it a possibility. ‘I’ve never laid eyes on him.’
Upon A Dark Night Page 6