Threats and Menaces (A Macrae and Silver Mystery Book 4)

by Scholefield, Alan

  ‘I won’t come in,’ he said.

  ‘Would you like some cheese straws?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You must have something.’

  ‘For Christ’s sake, leave me alone.’

  He stood at the door listening, knowing she was doing the same thing on the other side. At last he heard her retreating footsteps.

  He got undressed and put on the silk dressing-gown Duggie had given him on a holiday in Tangier. He lay down on his bed and stared at the ceiling. It was the same ceiling he had stared at for years and years, the same stains, the same grotty flaking paint. Once it had been white, now it was light brown.

  His mind had gone into neutral. He knew that rage and humiliation would come pouring back but just at the moment he felt nothing. He was empty.

  He heard the doorbell ring. Voices. He was as alone as he would ever be. This is what he and Duggie had craved and waited for; the aloneness that came when his mother took her pill. Neither he nor Duggie were bath-house people.

  But now there was no Duggie. He was really and truly alone.

  He stood on the end of his bed and reached on to the top of his wardrobe where the bottles of vodka nestled. He found one that was half full, took a swig, and looked at himself in the long mirror on the wardrobe door. He opened it a little, turned the dressing-table mirror at a slight angle, took off his dressing-gown, drank more vodka and lay down. He could see himself in several positions.

  Nothing happened.

  It should’ve but it didn’t.

  It always had when Duggie had been there.

  He felt so angry all of a sudden that his body temperature shot up, the adrenalin rushed through his veins. He was so angry he was frightened. But the fear came from the fact that suddenly he was someone he didn’t know, hadn’t met before.

  His mind fixed on death.

  It would be so easy.

  His mother’s sleeping pills. The vodka. But before that the letter. The ‘note’ as the papers called it. In an envelope by his bed. ‘My darling Duggie,’ he would write. No need to put the surname, his mother would be able to tell that to the coroner’s court. And no out and out condemnation. But enough to allow anyone reading between the lines to know that Duggie had been responsible for his death.

  That Duggie had killed him.

  What was suicide anyway but murder?

  My darling Duggie, Remember when…

  That would be the way. Like snapshots. Moments they would never forget. Like the time they had met in Spain. They’d both been at a club. Then they’d gone swimming. That had been the first time they’d made love. And when they came back to England they’d gone on seeing each other. In fact it was he who’d got Duggie the job in Rosemount.

  He’d get all that in the letter.

  And the time in Munich when they’d gone for a short break holiday and the proprietor of the small hotel had come into their room with a bottle of schnapps and they’d had a little party. And when Trevor woke at four o’clock the following morning Duggie hadn’t been in his bed.

  ‘Couldn’t sleep,’ he’d said later. ‘Went for a walk.’

  ‘Excuse me,’ Trevor had said. ‘In your pyjamas?’

  He’d get that into the letter too.

  And of course all about The Bastard.

  Trevor held up the gold Dunhill lighter and looked at it. He’d found it in an antique shop. Made in the fifties. Slim and elegant. For the smoker who had everything.

  They’d both smoked once. His father, the corporal, had smoked Capstan Full Strength. One draw was enough to bring you to your knees. His mother had thought smoking ‘manly’ then. Trevor had given it up a few years ago and had disapproved of Duggie continuing.

  So what could be more indicative of his feelings than giving him a lighter?

  Didn’t that express everything?

  Wasn’t it symbolic?

  That would also go into the letter.

  They’d met in the square. ‘Meet you in a couple of minutes,’ Trevor had said, just like he used to. Even as he spoke he could see Duggie across at Rosemount holding the phone to his ear. He didn’t have to say where. They always met under the big plane tree.

  Trevor was there first. Well, that was all right, Duggie played little games; little psychological games. He liked to walk through doors first. He liked to order the wine in restaurants. He’d probably watched Trevor come out of Selbourne and said to himself, ‘Let him wait.’

  OK. All right. He understood. Some people were like that. Just as some people liked expensive presents. He wasn’t going to get up-tight.

  Five minutes later Duggie came.

  He had a mincing walk, no doubt about it. That was something Trevor had mentioned to him early in their relationship. Tartish.

  Limp wrist. Invisible handbag. Cliche. And not very bright. The managing agents didn’t know the state of the art. He wasn’t sure what they’d have done if they’d found out. Nothing probably. But it didn’t do to make things too obvious. Might upset some of the tenants. He wouldn’t trust Mr Pargeter not to complain.

  And so he had managed to get Duggie to change his walk. Now he was mincing again. He’d have to mention it.

  No!

  No nagging. That was all over. Live and let live.

  He watched him come closer. Once someone at a club had said Duggie looked like Truman. Trevor had found a picture of the plain, dried-up, Kansas face of the former American president and didn’t think Duggie looked like him at all. Then he discovered that it was someone called Truman Capote whom he’d never heard of. Now Duggie’s baby face was becoming bloated. He’d always liked his food.

  ‘Yes?’ Duggie had said.

  Trevor had had it all set out in his mind. First the present. Duggie grateful, surprised. Then the slow re-establishment of feelings. Then the suggestion — thrown in as though just thought of — What about one of our evenings?

  ‘Yes?’ Duggie had repeated.

  Sometime, Trevor thought, when things were good again between them, he must tell Duggie that the new flowered ties simply didn’t suit him. They were too garish.

  ‘Are you just going to stand there?’ Duggie had said.

  Trevor pulled the box from his pocket and opened the lid. The gold Dunhill looked like a thoroughbred on its watered silk.

  ‘What?’ Duggie said.

  ‘For you.’

  ‘I’ve given up.’

  ‘Given up?’

  ‘We both have.’

  Trevor could feel tears of rage and misery flood his eyeballs.

  ‘I asked you dozens of times to give it up. You never would. But when he asks!’

  ‘Bloody nag… nag… That’s all you ever do. Or ever did for that matter.’

  He began to turn away. Trevor put his hand on his arm to stop him.

  ‘Oh, God, I’m sorry.’

  ‘For what?’ Duggie asked.

  ‘For nagging. For anything. For everything. You tell me.’

  ‘Your trouble is you don’t know when things are over.’

  ‘Over? No, they’re not over.’

  ‘They are! They’re finished! Go home to your mum. Have a beauty treatment.’

  ‘Oh, Christ, Duggie, that’s cruel.’

  But Duggie was walking away towards Rosemount. It really was a mincing walk.

  ‘Tart!’ Trevor shouted. ‘Whore!’

  He’d put all that in the letter too.

  Chapter Eighteen

  ‘I trying to remember,’ Alice said. ‘All day I try. What is this word sin… sinni… You say it.’

  They were on the roof in the warm dusk. Alice was eating the supper Dory had brought up.

  Dory said, ‘Scintillate, scintillate — I looked it up. It means shining.’

  ‘Sin-ti-late… I remember it… In Manila we have a priest, Cardinal Sin. Is funny in English, no?’

  ‘Yes. It’s funny. The papers say the man was murdered.’

  ‘Wha’ man is that?’

  ‘In your
house.’

  ‘In my house?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Where your mother now?’

  ‘In the bath.’

  ‘She never go out?’

  ‘She was mugged last year, she doesn’t like to go out. The man was killed with a hammer. That’s what the papers say.’

  Alice took a bite from an apple. ‘You know sometin’. I love apples.’

  ‘They found him in the kitchen.’

  ‘In my country we do not have apples. Is too hot for apples. Only rich people have apples.’

  ‘They say they’re looking for a woman.’

  Alice leaned back against the wooden wall of the shed. ‘You like stories, no? You write stories. You tol’ me. Your mother, she write stories. In my house my mother tol’ me stories when I was a nina, a little girl. Un tiempo… one time… How you say in English?’

  ‘Once upon a time. Is that Spanish?’

  ‘Once upon a time we a country of Spain. Everybody speak Spanish. Now only rich people.’

  ‘You were rich?’ There was a note of disbelief in Dory’s voice. ‘Once upon a time we have very much money. But before I born the money was lost. Now we live in a shack. But we still speak Spanish. We still some body.’

  ‘You want some more?’

  ‘You got juice?’

  Dory gave her a fruit juice.

  ‘You my mother, but you also my brother, my sister.’ She sucked up the juice. ‘One time I secretary in a office for a Chinese man. He say me your mother calls on the phone. Your brother is sick. My brother drive a truck but he coughin’ blood and he can’t drive no more. The doctor say he must go to a hospital. But that costs much money. So I must work in a rich country.’

  ‘For the man in house?’

  ‘There are agencies in Manila where you can go. They send you to work, but it costs much money.’

  ‘I know you didn’t do it.’ Dory was vehement.

  ‘First, you must pay back the agency. So you never gettin’ no money.’

  ‘It must have been someone else.’

  ‘How you ever going to pay the hospital and the agency?’

  ‘You were in the park. I saw you go. Someone must have come in while you were gone. A robber maybe. And the robber goes into the kitchen… and the man comes down…’ Her voice was becoming more urgent. ‘And the robber is taking things… stealing things… and the man tries to stop him… and the robber hits him with a hammer and…’

  They heard footsteps. Alice remained by the shed wall where she was hidden from sight. Dory said, ‘Hello, Mr Pargeter.’

  He was standing at the parapet with his binoculars.

  ‘Dory? Is that you? I thought you’d be in bed by now.’

  ‘Not this early,’ Dory said, acidly.

  He was holding his binoculars on his chest.

  ‘Do you like watching birds at night?’ she said.

  ‘No… well, I mean… sometimes you can see something. I didn’t realize how dark it was. I’ll go down.’

  He began to shuffle along the roof.

  Dory saw that the windows at Rosemount were dark. She could have told him that. Saved him a trip.

  ‘Good night, Mr Pargeter.’

  *

  ‘Have you ever come across one?’ Macrae said.

  ‘What?’ Frenchy asked.

  ‘You’re not listening.’

  They were in Macrae’s sitting-room late at night. Frenchy was concentrating on an astrological magazine. She marked her place with a finger.

  ‘I’m listening now.’

  ‘One of those Filipino women. Or Filipinas, as Silver calls them. Feminine ending. That’s what he learned at the university. Not a lot, but something.’

  ‘You’re jealous, George.’

  ‘Me?’ He sounded outraged.

  ‘Course you are. You said so once. You said you wished you’d been. You should’ve. Capricorns should go to university.’

  ‘Oh, Christ, not that again.’

  ‘You always sneer.’

  ‘Because I don’t believe in rubbish like that.’

  ‘Well, I do.’

  ‘We all know that.’

  ‘You don’t believe in anything, that’s your trouble.’

  ‘I had too much belief bashed into me when I was a kid.’

  ‘Just because you hated that Scottish religion, or whatever it was, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t believe in something. Everybody has to believe in something. Stands to reason.’

  ‘And you believe in that cr —’

  ‘Don’t say it, George!’

  She went back to her magazine and began to hum tunelessly. Macrae hated her humming, but said nothing.

  ‘Now if you were Gemini…’ Frenchy said. ‘Listen to this. With the position of Saturn in Aquarius and Jupiter in Libra after mid-October you —’

  ‘But I’m not bloody Gemini, am I?’

  ‘I’m saying if you were.’

  ‘Why don’t you just answer my question. Have you come across any of those Filipinas who’re working here as servants doing the business?’

  ‘I dunno, George, I may have. They don’t go round saying, I’m a Filipina I’m from whatsit. They do their work. Black, brown, yellow, who cares? Not the punters, that’s for certain. Except that some of the men like black girls.’

  They were silent. Macrae was staring at Come Dancing with the sound turned down. Frenchy was on the sofa wearing a shorty nightdress through which a partially sighted person might easily have read small print.

  ‘It says each new day now is a new adventure.’ Frenchy said. ‘Fabulous. Bloody marvellous.’ He took a mouthful of the Grouse and said, ‘Are they asleep?’ He pointed upstairs.

  ‘Probably.’ She closed the magazine. ‘George, you’ve got to do something about them.’

  ‘Do something? What does that mean?’

  ‘You know as well as I do. It’s no good them being here.’ ‘What am I supposed to do about it? I don’t like it any more than they do.’

  ‘I’ve been thinking.’

  ‘That makes a change.’

  ‘Don’t. Maybe I should stay away for a while.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘They’ll never settle down with me here. I’m not really like a mum, am I?’

  ‘You’re not supposed to be like a mum. That’s the whole bloody point.’

  ‘But it’s what they need. I mean you’re not even — ’

  ‘Not even what?’

  ‘You know as well as I do.’

  ‘No, I don’t know. Why don’t you say what you’re thinking.’ ‘All I meant is that you’re not here most of the time and — ’

  ‘No, you didn’t. You meant I was no bloody good as a father. Didn’t you?’

  She was silent.

  ‘Didn't you?'

  ‘Don’t shout, George, you’ll wake them.’

  ‘Well, did you or did you not mean that?’

  ‘I’m not some yobbo you’ve collared on the street. I’m not in one of your interrogation rooms or whatever they are.’

  ‘No, you’re just a — ’ He checked himself.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘It’s your turn now. Say it.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  ‘Yes it does matter! You listen to me; I’m not ashamed of what I do. I’m in a service industry. That’s what it is. I serve a need.’ ‘OK. All right.’

  ‘No, it’s not all right. You were about to call me a tart or something worse. Yes, you were.’

  She had risen from the sofa and was standing over him, an angry, full-breasted, Junoesque figure who looked threatening and appealing at the same time.

  ‘Away with you, lassie, I wasn’t going to —’

  ‘Don’t give me that shit, George. I have to take it sometimes from the paying customers but not from you.’ She flung down her magazine. ‘Honest to God I don’t know why I bother. I do the washing and the cleaning and now I’m looking after your kids and all I get is ag
gro.’

  ‘All right. I’m sorry. I apologize. Is that what you want to hear? OK then, you’ve heard it. Now —’

  There was a sudden screeching of brakes outside the house then raised voices and the slamming of a car door.

  Macrae and Frenchy paused in their argument.

  A woman’s voice screamed an imprecation, a man’s voice shouted back. There was the sound of a scuffle.

  ‘Oh, bugger it!’ Macrae said, getting up and opening the curtains. ‘Jesus!’ He ran for the front door.

  His second ex-wife, Mandy, was in disarray on the pavement. She had fallen over her suitcase, the contents of which were scattered about, and was on her knees.

  ‘You rotten bastard!’ she shouted at the receding tail lights of Roger Gammon’s taxi.

  Macrae put his hand under her arm.

  ‘Sod off!’ she said. ‘Oh, it’s you, George.’

  ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘You tell me!’ He helped her to her feet. ‘He came home from work and said get packing. I thought we were going somewhere. He’s always talking about going places.’

  Macrae helped her stuff her things back into the suitcase.

  ‘I thought: great. Some nice hotel somewhere. A bit of luxury. But then he says no, he’s throwing me out. Him throwing me out!’

  Lights were going on in neighbouring houses. ‘Let’s go inside,’ Macrae said.

  Frenchy was in the hall. She had put on a shirt and trousers. The women greeted each other coolly.

  ‘Let me get you a drink,’ Macrae said. Mandy steadied herself on a chair, took the whisky, and gave herself a good belt.

  ‘The rotten sod!’ she said.

  ‘Sit down,’ Frenchy said.

  Mandy scowled at her, but sat.

  ‘Did he say why he was throwing you out?’ Macrae asked, casually.

  It was almost too casual and Frenchy looked at him sharply. But Mandy did not sense anything amiss. ‘Said he didn’t think we were a couple. What sort of cock is that? We were a couple all right when he had me in the back of his taxi. Now suddenly we’re not a couple.’

  ‘Why didn’t he take you to Joe’s?’ Macrae asked because it was the time to ask it, but he knew very well why. This was Roger’s way of saying two can play.

  ‘How the hell do I know? Only a couple of days ago he was talking about getting married. Look!’ She held up her left hand and Macrae saw a platinum eternity ring.