EQMM, December 2007

by Dell Magazine Authors

  My thoughts were of Susan. Growing up with her aunt. Visiting her mother in jail. Rapidly becoming estranged...

  "If I didn't know better,” Sullivan said at length, “I'd say you were fixing up one of those phoney divorce cases."

  I said nothing for the simple reason that the next person I intended talking to was my lawyer.

  "Only the problem there,” he said, “is that Mr. Hall wasn't married."

  Mr. Who? Then the penny dropped. I may have booked room two-twenty-three for Mr. Cuthbertson and the lovely Mavis, but now I started to think about something other than covering my own backside, I realized that Mr. Cuthbertson wouldn't have been seen dead (pardon the pun) in a pale blue check suit. Relief made my knees tremble.

  "So do you mind telling me why you burst in on an unmarried commercial traveller to take his photograph, Miss Hepburn?"

  In fact I was so overcome with relief that I nearly blurted out the truth.

  * * * *

  "That new road-safety officer came to the school again today."

  Susan was sitting on my lap braiding my hair, and although she's a little too old and (dare I say it) a little too heavy, such moments are rare. For this reason alone, they are precious.

  "He's a scream,” she gushed. “Ever so funny."

  I really, really didn't want to talk about policemen right then, but children can be immeasurably cruel.

  "Do you know what happens if you don't look right?” she persisted, using my spiky, mismatched plaits as handlebars. I shook my head as best I could. “You go wrong,” she squealed.

  Maybe I would also have found this excruciatingly funny if I'd been nine years old. Somehow I doubted it.

  "Do you have a crush on this teacher of yours?” Because suddenly there was me just turned seventeen, Mr. Rolands my old maths master, and the only good thing to come out of that affair weighed seven and a half pounds and has his beautiful, soft golden hair.

  "Oh, Mum!” Susan rolled her eyes. “The road-safety man's not a teacher, and anyway he's old."

  What constitutes old to a nine-year-old? Mr. Rolands turned out to be thirty-six, and even now, I still wonder how I fell for that old I'll-leave-my-wife line.

  "So's Rock Hudson,” I pointed out, “but his face is plastered all over your bedroom wall."

  "That's different, he's a film star.” She stopped braiding and sighed. “If I had a daddy, I'd like him to be like the road-safety man. He's ever so handsome."

  If I had a daddy...? Next she'd be pulling out my fingernails with pliers.

  "More handsome than Elvis?” I asked, because all good mothers know how to change the subject, and within no time we were jiving round the living room to “Jailhouse Rock,” “Blue Suede Shoes,” and generally getting “All Shook Up."

  It was only later, with Susan tucked up in bed and me patiently untangling the knots in my hair, that the enormity of what I'd risked today hit me. I could have lost everything, and I do mean everything, on the turn of a door key. I needed to think seriously about the future. When the next solicitor telephoned, asking could I help out, would I? Would I risk it? I let Elvis run through “Don't Be Cruel” and thought, damn right I would. My daughter is not going to end up an unmarried mother at the age of seventeen. Susan's a bright kid, on course for the grammar school, and what's more, she's desperate to go. But. I reached for as wide a toothed comb as I could find. Grammar schools are expensive. There's the uniforms, the tennis racquets, the hockey sticks, the music lessons, not forgetting innumerable bus trips and a million other extra hidden costs. Truly, though, I do not care. My daughter will never be forced to earn her living grubbing through dustbins, following faithless husbands down lovers’ lanes, or tracing children who've run away because their home life's so damned wretched. Never. I will do whatever it takes to keep Susan from violent men and abusive women, and she will never need to take covert shots of homosexuals or men with prostitutes simply to pay the rent. Maybe, once she starts attending the grammar school, she'll be ashamed of me. Of what I do and what I am. I hope not, I really, really do. But that's another risk I am prepared to take.

  All the same, I don't sleep well. I worry.

  * * * *

  "Miss Hepburn."

  I recognised that distinctive gravel without needing to look up. “Inspector."

  He lumbered into the inner office where I was typing up a perfectly legitimate infidelity assignment, but did not sit down. I wished to God I'd locked the filing cabinets, or even closed that open drawer, but Sullivan didn't glance at them. To be honest, I would have rifled through every last one, had I been in his shoes.

  "Room two-two-three,” he said, leaning with his back against the wall and folding his arms over his chest. “Rented one night to Stanley Hall, aged twenty-six, commercial rep in motor oil."

  I didn't know Stanley Hall, had never heard of Stanley Hall, could swear on a stack of Bibles that I was not involved with anything connected to Stanley Hall, and with great enthusiasm, I imparted this knowledge. “I know sod all about motor oil, too,” I added with gusto.

  "Hm.” Sullivan scratched his cheek and stared at the sparrows pecking at the crumbs along the windowsill. “What about a Mr. and Mrs. Cuthbertson?” he asked, still not bothering to look at me. “Know anything about them?"

  At times like this there's nothing else a girl can do but drop her file on the floor. “Name doesn't ring a bell,” I said, although my voice was a tad muffled, seeing as how my head was stuck under the desk.

  "No?” His suddenly appeared on the other side, and for large hands, they were surprisingly deft at picking up foolscap. “Only Mrs. Cuthbertson made a reservation yesterday morning, specifically asking for that particular room."

  I like that room, I wanted to say. It faces the sea front, and from the bandstand you can, if you stand on the furthestmost bench to the right, get a half-decent snap of anyone in the bay window. The courts liked that sort of thing, especially when they were presented with photos of the clients closing the curtains. Furtive always goes down well with a judge.

  "Really?” I scrabbled for an imaginary paper clip.

  "It probably doesn't mean anything,” he said, actually finding one. “Maybe they'd stayed there on their honeymoon, maybe she just liked the view."

  "Maybe,” I said and, still on my knees, pretended to arrange the scattered papers, even though I knew I'd never find anything in this damned file again.

  "Who knows?” If he wasn't craggy when he smiled, how come the wolf in Little Red Riding Hood suddenly sprang to mind? “But it seems they were so disappointed that the guest in two-twenty-three hadn't booked out as expected that when the Cuthbertsons were given three-seventeen, they hardly stayed more than a couple of hours."

  "Oh?” I murmured, rubbing the bump where I'd brought up my head sharply.

  "I expect it's a class thing,” he said, straightening up and brushing the dust off his trousers. “All the same, though.” He paused. “Don't you think it's strange they didn't check in until two-thirty-five, yet were gone by the time I went to question them at half-past four?"

  Was that squeak as noncommittal a squeak as I'd hoped? Because here's the thing. I'd agreed to supply the Cuthbertsons with evidence for a quick divorce. Their deposit was already earning interest in Susan's trust fund. So the minute Sullivan had finished questioning me the day before, I'd flown upstairs to three-one-seven, stuffed a new film in the camera, and grabbed the nearest chambermaid.

  At this point, I want to tell you about Mavis. She's nowhere near as common as her name suggests, and very pretty with it, in a busty sort of way. But her husband left her for a bus conductress last September and ... well, to cut a long story short, Mavis gets what I suppose you'd call lonely. I guess Mr. Cuthbertson got bored waiting for my knock.

  I think it's safe to say that this was one set of evidence the divorce courts would not be querying.

  * * * *

  "Can I go to the park with Lynn and Josie, Mum?"

  "Yes, o
f course.” I know the park warden. The girls will be fine. He beat that last flasher to a pulp.

  "There's a bag of bread for the ducks,” I said, nodding towards the table. “But take a scarf, love, it's cold."

  "Mum!” She dragged it into two syllables. “It's summer."

  "It's the second of October. Take a scarf."

  I couldn't help but smile, hearing her belt out “Hound Dog” at the top of her little off-key voice while she skipped upstairs to fetch it. You keep that crush on Elvis, I thought happily. You dream about Rock Hudson, girl.

  "You look over your shoulder,

  Before you stick your right arm out.

  When it's clear, then you manoeuvre..."

  "That's not Elvis."

  "It's what the road-safety officer taught us. He says that if you sing it to your favourite song, then you ain't gonna get mown down..."

  As I stuffed sage and onion into a chicken, I consoled myself with the fact that the RSO was “old,” and that if she did have a crush on him, she'd soon grow out of it. Lightning surely can't strike twice?

  "And you wrap it round your neck,” I insisted.

  My daughter knows when she is beaten. She might have stuck her tongue out, but that scarf went round twice.

  "Mummy, what's a bastard?"

  Four pounds of poultry slid straight through my fingers. Nine years I'd been waiting for this moment. Every single day for nine years I'd braced myself. And I still wasn't ready.

  "It's ... someone whose parents aren't married, darling.” I have a feeling my voice was rather quaky as I explained the intricacies of illegitimacy, the fact that there was still a stigma attached to such children, though there shouldn't be because it certainly wasn't their fault, and that anyone who called children by that name ought to be shot.

  "So when Peter Bailey called Jimmy Tate a little bastard, he was being horrid?” she asked, tipping her head on one side.

  "P-Peter Bailey?"

  "In the playground yesterday. Jimmy took his penknife and dropped it down the drain, so Peter called him a dirty little—"

  "Hey! That's enough bad language out of you, my girl!"

  Relief rushed through me like water down a flood drain, and my knees were still imitating aspens as the door banged behind her, so much so, I didn't even yell at her for slamming. But as she wheeled her bike adroitly through the gate then pedalled down the road, it wasn't really Susan I was seeing. It was maths teachers. It was schoolgirl crushes, sleepless nights, schoolgirls growing into typists, then bumping into her old teacher one summer's day.

  Why, Mr. Rolands! Those same old palpitations.

  Please. It's Stephen, now.

  I should have stuck with “Mr.", because images of stolen kisses, secret meetings, declarations of true love flashed through at breakneck speed, and no doubt it was the pain of that damned chicken landing on my toe, but my eyes were watering like crazy. All I could think of were promises and reassurances that were as empty as his heart.

  And over the kitchen chair, draped casually, as if by chance, hung Susan's scarf.

  * * * *

  "Are you busy, Lois?"

  Lois. He calls me Lois now. “I'm always busy, Sullivan. It's how I pay the rent."

  I shoved the incriminating photographs of Mr. Cuthbertson back in the envelope, and thought, Really, Mavis! That's no way to treat a hired fox fur! And that's when you realize that, civilized or not in the way rich people handle things, the cracks in that marriage were very wide indeed.

  "I know how you pay the rent,” Sullivan rumbled, and there seemed twice as much gravel in his mouth this time. “That's why I want to talk about the camera you were waving round room two-two-three.” He made himself comfortable perching on the edge of the desk and I thanked God it was solid oak. “You're sure there was no film in it?"

  "I showed you. It was empty.” I can do innocent. You just bulge your big brown eyes. “I even let you go through my handbag and pockets at the time."

  "Women have a surprising number of storage facilities,” he said in a way that suggested the species was foreign to him. “Tell me you're not holding back on me, Lois."

  "But I explained."

  "Yes.” He nodded patiently. “You were visiting an old school friend, a Mrs. Martin, on her honeymoon, in your hired mink, of course—"

  "Who says it's hired?” I asked indignantly.

  "Lois, you rent a ground-floor flat on Albert Street, which is not a prime location, where you live with your daughter and no husband, and you also pay the rent on these offices, which are in a prime location but which are far too large for you, in order to sustain the fiction that this is a much bigger business than it is. Does a woman in that position really splash out on furs?"

  "I wanted to impress my friend.” It sounded weak, even to me.

  "I'm sure bursting in unannounced with a blank camera would have been very impressive indeed. Had Mrs. Martin ever heard of you. Had you not asked the housekeeper to open room two-two-three with her master key. Had—"

  "All right, that was a lie.” What else could I do, but admit it? “But I'm going to claim client confidentiality here, Sullivan, and you'll just have to take my word that it has nothing to do with Stanley Hall's murder."

  That grunt sounded unconvinced, but he didn't follow up.

  "As for the film,” I said, “There were a dozen witnesses who can swear I never touched that camera, including the Belle Vue's director, his security manager, and that stuffy little desk clerk."

  "I know.” There it was again. That wolf-from-Little-Red-Riding-Hood smile. “Which is why I'm asking you directly."

  "Then trust me.” I'm also very good at lying directly. “There was no film in the camera and no photograph of Mr. Hall sprawled with his neck at right angles on that bed."

  "Right angles, eh.” He looked at his watch. Looked at the clock on my wall. Checked with the church clock over the street. They all read eight minutes to one. “Get your coat, Lois."

  My heart sank. This meant police stations, formal questioning, warrants to search my offices and home and, even as he held the door open for me, I was frantically working on ways to weasel out of the lie.

  "I don't know why you women wear high heels, if walking in them makes you limp,” he said, in the street.

  "It's not the shoes. I dropped a chicken on my foot."

  "Hm,” he said, and I'm not sure at what point he linked my arm through his, but the support certainly made walking easier. “Right, then. Here we go."

  I thought he meant the car, although I wouldn't normally have associated beige sports models with police cars. Instead, he meant the restaurant, decked out in red, white, and green stripes.

  "Surprised?"

  "You could say that.” Italian, too. “You struck me as the sort who only eats at the police canteen."

  "You struck me as the sort who doesn't eat at all,” he said, looking me up and down as if I were a racehorse, and I must admit I do lose track of time when I'm working, but was I honestly that bony? I looked at my wrists and thought, damn.

  "How did you get into the P.I. business?” he asked, over antipasti of sardines and tomatoes.

  It seemed an innocuous enough question, so I explained how I'd been temping as a shorthand typist in a solicitor's (no one offers unmarried mothers permanent employment), and how, during the course of my assignment, I was privy to various telephone conversations between the partners and firms of private eyes. It didn't need Einstein to calculate the difference between shorthand typing and the amount of money that could be made from divorce. Strangely, it took me right through the saltimbocca and halfway into my tiramisu to explain all this, though I omitted to mention that this was the first time I'd ever told anyone my history.

  "You never wanted to get married?"

  "To the father of my child? Of course I did!” What kind of strumpet did he take me for? “Unfortunately, he never had any intention of leaving his wife and at the first sniff of the word pregnancy, he dropped me l
ike a brick."

  No offer of child support. In fact, no support of any kind. And he knew I was far too sweet to go blabbing to his wife.

  "Dammit, Sullivan, he even denied the baby was his!"

  "I, er, meant afterwards. The last few years."

  Oh. “Too busy,” I said, and then, in another burst of unaccustomed frankness (I blame the Chianti), I admitted that no one had ever asked me. “Men aren't exactly tripping over themselves to put a ring on an unmarried mother's finger."

  Instead they think of us as easy, which is why I took up judo and why I make Susan go to classes every Tuesday.

  "What about you?” I asked, calming down over the coffee. “Are you married?"

  "Nope.” He shrugged. “Engaged once, but she didn't like the hours I kept and married a nine-to-five accountant. Then again.” He grinned. “It might have been because I'm so damned ugly."

  Not handsome, that's for sure. Craggy/rugged/lived-in, call it what you will, that face was never going to end up on an advertising poster. But ugly ... ?

  "We'd better go,” he said. “The restaurant is closing."

  Was it? I hadn't realised we'd been sitting there so long, and though I can't remember how we ended up going from trattoria to cinema, I have vague recollections of someone saying something about Cary Grant, which led to the fact that North by Northwest was playing at the Odeon, which in turn led to there being just enough time to catch the matinee before I met my daughter after tap class.

  I knew full well what Sullivan was playing at. Softening me up, winning me over, drawing me into his confidence. It wouldn't work, I didn't care. It was the first time I'd been to the pictures in a decade. I'd forgotten what popcorn tasted like. It tasted bloody good.

  * * * *

  October turned to November. Sunshine turned to rain. The nights began to draw in really fast. From time to time, like twice a week, Sullivan would drop by my office to discuss the Belle Vue murder—or at least vent his frustration at the lack of leads and progress—and invariably we'd end up having lunch or taking in a film. Ben-Hur. Rio Bravo. Some Like It Hot with Jack Lemmon and Marilyn Monroe.