by Baker, John
How did it happen? That was what Geordie was forever trying to work out in his mind. One day, when he was still a child, his mother had run off with a guy and left Geordie alone, and from that point everything had been a downhill slide. They’d taken him into what they called ‘care’, carted him off to an orphanage. For a while Geordie thought his elder brother would come and rescue him from that place, but his brother had signed up on a boat and was somewhere in South America. After he escaped from the orphanage, there’d been a period on the streets, then a spell in gaol. Finally he’d ended up in York and Sam had plucked him out of the gutter and found him somewhere to live and trained him up in detective work.
The downhill slide had ended there, and since Sam came along he’d been on an up. First Celia had become a friend, and then Marie and JD and Janet, and now there was Echo.
So how did it happen?
Geordie thought it was an important question. Because the answer was that Sam Turner came along and offered a helping hand. That’s what happened that made the difference. Just that. Nothing else. It all depended on one man.
Geordie thought that if it was possible for one man to turn his life around, to stop him being kicked from pillar to post and starving to death, then it was probably the same with governments and countries. They should put it on the TV, and in magazines, videos, tell people that they could help each other out, not be fighting each other all the time. Cut out the way people are always competing with each other, shove a bit of co-operation in there instead.
When he said these things to people, even to Janet, they’d nod and shake their heads and say he was naive. And Geordie would say, ‘Well, what’s wrong with that?’
Janet flicked the television off with the handset and put Echo over her shoulder. ‘I’m gonna take her for a walk,’ she said. ‘You should get some sleep.’
‘No, I’m going in to work,’ he said. ‘I talked to Celia on the phone. JD’s coming in, there’s a new case with a couple of sisters, one of them’s blind. And Sam’s not much good with only one hand.’
Janet shook her head. ‘You’ll be shattered.’
‘I’m always shattered,’ he said. ‘Just like you. I’m getting used to it now.’
Geordie and Janet both had six months’ leave from their jobs, so they could get used to being a family with a baby, do all the bonding work. But they took it in turns to keep their hands in; Geordie at the Sam Turner Detective Agency, and Janet at the bookshop.
‘D’you think we’re workaholics?’ Geordie asked.
‘No. I think we like the work we do, that’s number one. It’s good having Echo and I wouldn’t want to live without her now she’s arrived, but it’s good to have a job to get away from her at least some of the time, that’s number two.’
‘Yeah,’ Geordie agreed. ‘Horrible thing to say, but it’s the truth.’
Venus, Janet’s black-and-white cat, nudged Geordie’s leg with her nose. Her black sister, Orchid, watched from her perch on the windowsill.
They walked through the university grounds together, around the frozen lake. Echo was sleeping in her pram, not visible to passers-by or the ducks that skidded on the ice. Janet waited with him until his bus came, and then walked back again with her daughter. Barney, Geordie’s dog, looked back once or twice, wondering why he couldn’t do the bus ride.
Geordie blew on his fingernails and remembered dreaming that he’d turned up Salman Rushdie by mistake. He’d been on a case with Marie, which involved knocking on doors, looking for a witness to a miscarriage of justice. He’d come to a house with a large oak door and boarded-up windows.
‘Go round the back,’ he told Marie. ‘He might skip out that way.’
But the guy didn’t even try to escape. He came to the door in a dressing gown and a night-cap with a long tail and a pom-pom at the end. Round spectacles. His cheeks were red, as though they’d been scrubbed, but his grey-streaked beard looked greasy and unkempt. ‘Is it time?’ he asked Geordie.
‘No,’ Geordie told him. ‘I thought you were somebody else.’
Salman did a bit of a twinkle. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I am most of the time.’
Geordie couldn’t make out when the dream had been. As far as he remembered, he hadn’t slept for thirty hours. Maybe he’d dropped off while walking Echo round the sitting room.
He got off the bus at Clifford Street and cut through High Ousegate to Parliament Street. The pavements and roads were littered with shoppers, seemingly normal, healthy people who had suddenly been infected by the Christmas bug. The spending fever hadn’t got to Geordie. It felt to him as though there were still several weeks to go.
As he drew level with Feasegate there was a prickling sensation at the back of his neck, and he turned suddenly. A large woman with two parcels, one under each arm, collided with him, and Geordie and her packages clattered to the ground. ‘Holy mother,’ she said.
‘Sorry,’ Geordie said, scrambling to his feet. He retrieved her parcels and sent her on her way.
‘Great clumsy oaf.’
‘I’m sorry,’ he said after her. ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry.’
What it was, that prickling sensation, it was the feeling you get when someone is watching you. It was one of those psychic things he’d talked to Celia about. There were these people who could talk to the dead, and others who could read your mind, and there were young people who could make glasses shatter if they got mad. All kinds of things. Phenomena, that lived in the world. Most of it couldn’t be explained. It was just out there, like the wind or a shower of rain. It happened, and then it passed on, maybe visited somebody else.
Geordie hadn’t felt threatened. There was nothing that was particularly weird or scary about it. He had thought that somebody he knew was behind him, and when he turned he’d expected that he’d see whoever it was.
But a large Catholic lady had ploughed him down.
5
When Marie arrived at the office, they were all there. Sam was talking on the phone, and Geordie and JD were locked in some deep conversation about drugs that make you sleep. Celia was pouring steaming coffee into their mugs, humming to herself, an old Burt Bacharach/Hal David number, ‘Twenty-four Hours from Tulsa’.
‘Like your hair, Celia,’ she said. ‘Maybe I should do the same?’
‘I wouldn’t,’ Celia said. ‘Wait until the grey hairs start arriving. Then you can have it any colour you like.’
‘Something happening?’ Marie asked, glancing at the men around the room. She took her mug from the counter top.
‘New job, dear,’ said Celia. ‘Ladies in peril.’
‘More than one?’
Celia lifted an eyebrow. ‘Well, one in particular.’ Marie smiled, glancing sideways at Sam, still engrossed in his phone conversation. ‘As in, a young lady in peril.’
‘Keep going. You’re on the right track.’
Marie took a sip from her mug. ‘Sam interviewed her this morning, right?’
‘No more clues.’
‘OK, we’re talking about a gorgeous young lady in peril?’
‘Right,’ said Celia. ‘But there’s still something else. You’re warm, but you’re not burning your fingers.’
‘Something else?’ said Marie. ‘A gorgeous young lady in peril. That would normally be enough to get his teeth into. What’s missing? She would be... vulnerable in some way. She’s an unattached, gorgeous young lady?’
‘Yes, but you’re still not there. And whether they’re attached or not hasn’t made much difference in the past.’ Marie laughed. ‘Are we talking extremes here, Celia? Like an unattached, gorgeous, and far-too-young lady in peril with a built-in tragedy. She’s handicapped in some way. A one-legged gorgeous lady?’
‘No, you’re not going to get there,’ said Celia. ‘She’s blind, and she’s got an exotic name, and she wears clothes to die for, and she’s rich as well, I wouldn’t wonder. She’s all the other things you said, as well. I think I liked her.’
‘And is she a p
ossible soul-mate for the chief detective?’ Celia smiled wryly. ‘Well, dear, they’re all possible.’
‘Especially the young and the beautiful.’
Sam put the phone down and came over to collect his coffee. He picked up the mug with his left hand. ‘You talking about me?’
‘Is there anything else in here to stimulate a girl’s imagination?’ Marie asked.
‘We were speculating about your love life,’ said Celia. ‘Doesn’t seem to be a lot happening on that front.’
‘There’s the physiotherapist at the hospital,’ Sam said. ‘Seems like a possible.’
Marie and Celia exchanged glances. They both smiled. Sam eyed them both, Marie first, then he passed on to Celia. ‘I’m not gonna fall for this,’ he said. ‘You two trying to set me up with someone?’
‘We’d decided you don’t need any help,’ Marie said. ‘That’s right. I don’t. If someone comes along, you’ll be the first to know. In fact, if past form is anything to go by, you two’ll probably know before I do.’
Marie looked at Celia, and they both fell on each other, peels of falsetto laughter filling the office.
While Sam, sitting on the corner of a desk nursing his right hand, told them about his interview with Angeles Falco, the others grouped themselves around him. Celia maintained her position by the coffee pot, Geordie sprawled in a chair, his long thin legs spread wide apart. JD had moved towards Marie, but had pulled up short before he reached her. It was as if he sensed an invisible barrier which he was not to cross.
There had been a time, when they first met, that Marie had fallen for JD in a big way. But he came with too many problems for her to handle. Marie’s counsellor, and Celia, most of her friends, all said she was too fussy, that the perfect man never happened. JD wasn’t that bad, he was kind and he kept himself clean, didn’t overdo the booze. Most women in her position would’ve settled for him. But Marie wouldn’t settle for anything. JD was fine, she could work with him; if it came to it, they could spend time together after office hours, but she didn’t want to find herself sharing the same bed with the guy. No, please.
Unfortunately, JD still thought there was a chance for him. Marie had told him several times that he had passed out of her sexual landscape, but he couldn’t grasp the concept. For a writer, the guy seemed to have a distinct difficulty with the language.
‘You mean you don’t want to screw me,’ he’d say.
‘Absolutely not. The only thing on offer here is friendship. Talking. Full stop. For physical contact to happen your life would have to be in danger.’
‘But we could have a meal together?’
‘Not with candles. And not in the evening. No dinner. We could have lunch together.’
He’d sigh. ‘What about movies? Do we have to se movies in the afternoon?’
‘Yeah, and on the front row.’
‘You could have a word with the manager, maybe he’d arrange to leave the house lights on.’
‘I want everything to be straight,’ she’d say. ‘There’s never going to be anything sexual about this relationship.’
‘You might change, Marie. After a while things could seem different.’
‘No.’
‘Why d’you have to be so rigid?’
He couldn’t take it in. By making sex a no-go area, she was aware that it became a more attractive proposition to him. Forbidden fruit. If she made her body available to him, he’d probably be sniffing around other women, especially the groupies who followed his band. But that wasn’t the answer for Marie. And anyway, she was already sharing her bed with a new boyfriend. David Styles, Steiner school teacher, probably the hairiest man on the planet. All she could do was keep JD at arm’s length until someone came forward to claim him.
‘The first thing is to cover Angeles Falco,’ Sam said. ‘I’ve yet to see her house, but I’m assuming it’s secure, or we can make it secure without much trouble. So we won’t have to watch her at night. But, at least for the first couple of days, I want her under surveillance all the time. That’ll mean two of us doing, say, six-hour shifts.’
‘Watching for someone who’s watching her,’ said JD. ‘Yeah. We’ll split that between us. You take the first shift, JD, then I’ll relieve you, and Marie can follow me.’
‘What about me?’ said Geordie.
‘Thought you was on leave?’
‘I am on leave. That doesn’t mean I can’t help out.
Especially with you having the bad hand. Me and Janet’ve agreed on that. That Echo’s the best thing that ever happened to us, but we’ve gotta be able to get away from her some time. Sam, babies drive you crazy. They ton people into vegetables. What she is, she’s kind of like a machine, and you stuff milk in one end, and before you can say Michael Owen, you’ve got liquid shit spurting out the other end. That’s like twenty-five per cent of the time. Seventy-five per cent of the time she’s in some kind of pain. It’s either she’s got wind from converting the milk into shit, and you have to find exactly where the wind is, and push it out of her; or it’s because you haven’t given her enough milk and cereals and stuff, and she’s stopped digesting for a few minutes. And that gives her so much gyp you think she’ll scream her lungs out. Then there’s the other, say, fifteen per cent of the time when she smiles and laughs and smells like she’s had a bath, probably because she has had a bath, and you love her mostly because of that fifteen per cent. See what I mean? You have to watch yourself or you lose the will to live.’
‘That’s a hundred and fifteen per cent!’ said Celia. ‘Impossible.’
‘This’s what I’m saying,’ said Geordie. ‘You gotta get away from her some of the time. You lose the power to add up.’
‘So, you wanna work?’ said Sam.
Geordie smiled. ‘Not every day. We can’t plan anything. But when I can, I wanna work. I got this idea I might stay sane if I work for you.’
‘I’m assuming that these sisters aren’t crazy,’ Sam said. I wanna proceed on the assumption that they are being watched.’
‘Have you talked to the other one yet?’ JD asked. ‘Isabel?’
‘Isabel Reeves,’ Sam said. ‘No, Celia’s been trying to get her on the phone, but she’s not available. Her husband says she went out this morning. He doesn’t know where and he’ll give her the message when he sees her.’
‘We don’t really have the manpower to cover them both,’ said Marie.
‘No. What I’d like is for Isabel to move in with her sister for a while, then it’d be easier to keep tabs on them both.’
‘Her husband will appreciate that,’ said JD.
‘The word is she’s ready to leave him, anyway.’
‘You think maybe someone’s got a grudge against the family?’ asked Marie.
Sam nodded. ‘Could be. The parents were killed in a road accident. Or it might be something far less insidious. But either way we’re gonna have to find out something about the family. We should interview anyone who knows them, and especially people who are close. Like Isabel’s boyfriend. I want to know if they’ve got enemies. That means talking to neighbours. Maybe start with the people who live around Isabel’s house.’
JD said, ‘And while we’re doing that we might end up talking to the guy who’s following them. Tip him off that I we’re after him.’
‘That’s possible,’ said Sam. ‘We have to take the chance.’
Geordie snorted and his head fell to one side. Marie and the others looked at him. His eyes were closed and his mouth had fallen open.
Sam smiled. ‘This is the guy who wants to work,’ he said.
‘Maybe he’ll be able to put the odd hour in,’ said Marie.
‘I’m listening to all this,’ said Geordie without opening his eyes. ‘I don’t have to have my eyes open to stay awake. And you know something else about babies? This milk, that the mother makes, it’s designed especially for that one baby on that particular day that the baby gets it. It’s designer milk, you know that? Like a mother rabbit, when sh
e starts producing milk, she puts so much protein in it that the baby rabbits double their weight in the first week. That’s why you shouldn’t drink cow’s milk, ’less you’re a calf.’
6
Angeles was writing an article about retinitis pigmentosa when the detective arrived. She left the computer and opened the door to let him in. He had a firm handshake with his left hand, large bones. She guessed he was almost a head taller than her. He projected his voice, enunciated each syllable clearly so there was no doubt about his intentions. But he didn’t shout, which was a relief. Angeles would have sacked him and gone looking for another detective if he’d shouted at her.
What was it with sighted people? So many of them thought if you were blind you must be deaf as well. A good percentage of them thought you were stupid, too. Since losing the battle with retinitis pigmentosa when she was seventeen, Angeles had made a study of the way the sighted world used the enigma of blindness, in its stereotypes, its metaphors and its prejudices. Much of her energy was now devoted to initiating the sighted into an experience of the world that most of them could not imagine.
He followed in her footsteps until they reached the large sitting room where she felt him veer off towards her computer. The screen-saver must have kicked in because it was playing a John Fogerty song, so low it was barely a rustle.
‘That Credence?’ he asked.
‘No, later.’
‘Yeah,’ he said ambiguously, difficult to know if he had recognized the period, or if he would’ve been amazed at anyone playing John Fogerty. ‘I’ll borrow that sometime, take it home and play it real loud.’ He spoke with a smile in his voice.
‘Would you like something to drink?’ she asked.
He began to protest, but she cut him short. ‘It’s really no bother. I keep coffee here, in a flask.’ She showed him the large stainless-steel thermos, loosened the top and poured some of the steaming liquid into a cup.