by Ann Granger
I gave them my address and informed them I’d been at home all night, thank you. Unfortunately, I couldn’t give them a name of a witness who’d verify that. I lived alone. Yes, alone.
They received all this with a world-weary air. ‘We know it’s embarrassing,’ said the policewoman, ‘but best to tell us exactly what happened. Wasting police time is an offence. Now, you had a bit of a quarrel, did you?’
‘We didn’t quarrel!’ I yelled, losing my cool. ‘I wasn’t here and I certainly didn’t bash Gan over the head!’
‘Well, if it isn’t our own Calamity Jane! In trouble again, Fran? Can’t leave you for five minutes, can I?’
We all turned to the door. Sergeant Parry stood there, grinning like the Cheshire Cat, the pale sun playing on his ginger stubble.
‘Nothing here for plainclothes,’ said the policewoman. ‘Who sent you over? Just a break-in, nothing taken, so he says.’ She glanced at me. ‘Possible domestic.’
‘’Sall right,’ said Parry. ‘You let me take care of this one. I’m already on this case.’
They exchanged glances. The policewoman shrugged, closed her notebook and gave me a dirty look. They took themselves off.
Parry shut the door, checked that the closed sign was showing, and came back into the room.
‘Right,’ he said. ‘What’s been going on here?’
Before Ganesh could begin to tell his story again, there was an interruption. From the back yard came a loud but tuneless whistling followed by the clatter of noisy entry. Hitch arrived and stopped, surveying the scene. Marco appeared behind him, saw Parry, and melted back out of sight again, probably to shove his private grass supply down the nearest drain.
Hitch had also identified Parry. ‘Got the strong arm of the law here, I see. Sergeant Parry, I do believe. What’s up? Can’t keep away from us?’ He turned his attention to Ganesh in his bandages and then to me. ‘Hullo, darling. Been knocking the poor bloke around again, have you?’
Chapter Eight
‘It was a joke,’ I said wearily. ‘It’s Hitch’s idea of a joke.’
We were sitting upstairs in the flat, Parry, Ganesh and myself. Ganesh was drinking tea and swallowing aspirin, and looked as if he ought to be lying down quietly in a darkened room. Parry was walking round the place examining everything, and I was sitting in the basketwork chair suspended from the ceiling, a sort of Indian equivalent of a rocker.
Hitch had been sent home, Parry warning him yet again to keep his mouth shut or else. Marco had vanished without being sent.
‘That’s all right,’ said Parry. ‘I didn’t think you and him –’ he nodded at Ganesh – ‘had had a barney. Or at least, I didn’t think you’d taken up GBH. Give it time, eh?’ He grinned at me. He needed to see a dentist and get a scale and polish.
I decided that if ever I were tempted by a spot of grievous bodily harm, it’d be directed at Parry.
‘By the way,’ I said, ‘before we start on any other business, I’d be glad if you’d stop telling everyone my private history. I’m not some villain whose past form is everyone’s to know.’
‘Ah,’ he returned, unabashed. ‘You’ve had a visit from his nibs, haven’t you? How’d you get on with the boy wonder?’
‘He was making a lot of fuss about those photos, but he wouldn’t tell anything about them.’
‘Nothing to tell,’ said Parry unconvincingly.
‘Do me a favour. Why tell us all to shut up about them, then? Me, Gan here, Hitch, Marco . . . Last night’s intruder was looking for that film they found in the washroom, wasn’t he? Don’t say you can’t be sure. I’m sure. Who is the guy in the prints?’
Parry grinned mockingly. ‘That’s for us to know and you—’
‘To find out,’ I finished.
He glowered and shook a sausage-like finger at me. ‘No! No detective work this time, Fran! I mean it. You’ve already interfered and messed up enough. You had no business getting that film printed up. You could screw things up badly for us. What I was going to say was, for you to keep quiet about.’
‘I’ll have to keep quiet, won’t I?’ I said sarcastically. ‘Seeing as I don’t know anything and you won’t tell me.’
He nodded. ‘And that’s the way it stays. You keep your trap shut – unless, of course, there’s anything you’ve forgotten to tell us. Now’s your chance if there’s something you want to get off your chest.’
Here Parry appeared sidetracked and allowed his bloodshot gaze to rest on the front of my sweater. Dream on, I thought. That’s as far as you’re ever going to get.
Parry caught my eye, flushed and turned to Ganesh. ‘All right, then, let’s have your story again, from the top.’
‘He ought to be lying down,’ I protested. ‘He can’t keep going over it again and again. He’s concussed. Anyone can see that.’
‘He can go and lie down all day, once he’s told me his story.’
‘No I can’t!’ mumbled Ganesh, whose eyes were beginning to look distinctly unfocused. ‘I gotta open up the shop.’
‘Shop’s closed for the day,’ said Parry. ‘Fingerprint guy is coming over to dust the back door and all around. Your visitor last night was a professional. He knew all the wrinkles and he had help. Of course, if you hadn’t forgot to set that alarm . . .’ Parry oozed suspicion. ’Funny coincidence, that.’
‘Listen,’ muttered Ganesh, propping his head in his hands. He sounded deeply despondent. ‘There’s something I’ve got to tell you about the alarm.’
‘Oh, yes?’ Parry sounded ominous. ‘What’s that, then?’
I saw Ganesh take a deep breath and wondered what on earth he was going to say. My heart sank. It had to be bad news.
It was. I couldn’t believe my ears.
‘A fake?’ yelled Parry, when Ganesh had stopped speaking. He wrestled for control, gave up and, breathing heavily, glared at us both in a way which made me seriously alarmed for his mental and physical health.
Ganesh, totally dejected, mumbled, ‘Not my fault. My uncle—’
‘Your uncle is a bloody idiot!’ yelled Parry.
‘Hey, wait a minute!’ I broke in. I was really worried about Ganesh by now. I’d never seen him look so ill. ‘I don’t know what’s gone on here, but yelling at Gan won’t help. He’s not fit, right? He’s got to go and lie down.’
Before Parry could object, I grabbed Ganesh by the arm, hauled him up from the chair and propelled him into the bedroom.
‘Lie down, right?’ I ordered. ‘And stay there until Parry’s gone. I’ll handle it. I’ll see to everything. I’ll open up the shop when the cops are out of the way and everything. You are sick!’ I gave him a shove in the direction of the bed and retreated, closing the door firmly behind me.
Back in the sitting room, Parry was waiting and now having only one person to vent his fury on, advanced on me, flecks of spittle flying as he spoke.
‘Of course it didn’t go off last night, did it? Because it wasn’t set? No. Because the sodding thing’s a dummy, a phoney! The bloke who owns this crummy shop is too damn mean to pay for proper security, so what does he do? He rigs up what he hopes will fool a burglar. Does it? Does it hell. A professional break-in artist was always going to rumble it straight away –and one did, didn’t he?’
Silently I cursed Hari. One positive thing came out of this, however, I thought. I no longer had to worry that Ganesh was going to get it in the neck for having the washroom done up. Hari deserved to be made to pay. He could hardly grumble, however much Hitch charged for whatever kind of job he did. If Hari hadn’t been so penny-pinching, Gan wouldn’t have got knocked cold.
But that was for the future. Right now, I had to calm down Parry. Things were looking bad for Ganesh. I let myself drop into the chair vacated by Gan near the-table, and rested my elbows on the red chenille tablecloth. ‘OK, I agree with you, for what it’s worth. But making a fuss about it now isn’t going to get us anywhere, is it?’
Reason was wasted on Parry who stormed over, put
both palms on the table and loomed over me.
‘You can’t dismiss it just like that, you know. When I got here, Patel had already reported the break-in to the uniformed boys. I don’t think – correct me if I’m wrong – he told them that all he’d got out there on the wall was a painted tin box without a perishing bit of wiring anywhere near it! That’s wasting police time, that is. That’s withholding essential information. That’s actively misleading police enquiries, that’s—’
‘Oh, shut up!’ I snapped. ‘He’d been bashed on the bonce. He wasn’t thinking straight. He was dozy—’
‘There,’ Parry interrupted sarcastically, ‘I agree with you. Dozy is one word for it. I can think of others. If he’s lucky, that bang on the head will have knocked some sense into it.’ He paused. ‘Here,’ he said at a new thought, ‘I bet the insurance company doesn’t know about that little setup. That could be an attempt to defraud. Strikes me, your mate is in a lot of trouble.’
‘He isn’t,’ I insisted. ‘Hari is. You can’t blame Ganesh. It’s not his fault. He only works here. He’s not stupid, he’s in a difficult situation. Hari is his uncle. He couldn’t shop a family member to the insurance company, could he?’
‘Why’re you so bloody loyal to him?’ Parry demanded.
Taken aback, I retorted, ‘Because he’s my friend, and everything I said is true.’
‘Yeah, yeah.’ Patry chewed the end of his ragged moustache. ‘I’ve been a good friend to you and all, seems to me. Fat lot of thanks I’ve got for it.’
‘When?’ I gasped.
‘I’ve stood between you and a lot of trouble. You could’ve been charged with interference in investigations before now, if it weren’t for me.’ He managed a sickly leer. ‘And you’re going to need me again, this time, aren’t you, if your pal Patel isn’t to be dropped in the brown stuff? I don’t have to put this dummy alarm business in my report, you know. You think about it. Only don’t take too long. I’ll be filing the report as soon as I get back to base.’
I met his bloodshot gaze and held it. ‘Do you know,’ I told him, ‘I don’t know which of you makes me want to throw up more – you or Charlie Knowles.’
Parry flushed, then grinned evilly. ‘That old feller been patting your bum?’
‘Something like that.’
‘Dirty old devil.’
‘Well, he’s not the only one living in hopes, is he?’ I snapped back.
Parry straightened up and shook a yellowed fingernail at me. ‘One of these days, you’ll wish you’d been nicer to me, you’ll see.’
‘At your funeral,’ I told him.
‘Very funny. We’ll see who laughs last, eh?’
‘Listen,’ I’d had enough of this, ‘why can’t you and Harford let it be known you’ve got the negs and pics? That would take the heat off the rest of us.’
He shook his head. ‘No way.’
‘Oh great,’ I muttered. ‘Ganesh gets laid out senseless. I could be next, or Hitch or Marco as well, I suppose.’
‘We’ve warned the two cowboys fixing up the washroom. But to lay it on the line, if chummy approaches either of them, they’ll pass the buck so fast, it’ll be a blur. All they did was find a sealed package. They gave it to you and Sleeping Beauty in there.’ He nodded towards the bedroom door. ‘They saw nothing, no negatives, no prints. Not like you, eh? You went running along to the chemist and got the film developed, didn’t you? Not smart, Fran. Take my advice – it’s official – don’t go opening the door to anyone you don’t know, right? If anyone comes here to the shop, or to your flat, or makes any kind of approach, phone call, anything, you let us know straight away. It’s in your interest, remember. Do yourself a favour, Fran. Wise up.’
‘I told you, someone already came to the shop, asking.’
‘Yeah, well, you didn’t give him the right answer, did you? He came back last night. He didn’t get any joy then, either, so he’s got to keep trying.’ Parry leaned forward again. ‘He needs that film.’
‘Who does?’ I countered.
The only reply to that was a spiteful grin. Parry walked to the door. ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘I’m still not sure whether to put that dummy alarm in my report. Let’s say, I’m holding that as a sort of guarantee of your future behaviour, Fran.’
I told him to get out, but he’d already gone.
I didn’t get the shop open until after three in the afternoon, just in time to sell the day’s Evening Standard, a few packets of ciggies and a couple of girlie mags. In between, I had to keep nipping upstairs to check on Ganesh, who was sleeping so soundly I began to worry if I ought to wake him up. He might be in a coma for all I knew.
Everyone who came in the shop wanted to know why we’d been closed earlier. Since several of them had seen the police cars outside first thing, I had to put out some kind of story. I said there’d been an attempted break-in, but the intruders had been disturbed and fled empty-handed. That was true, as it happened.
Every listener to this story told me we’d been bloody lucky. They were right.
At six, I shot the bolts across and went upstairs to check on the invalid. Ganesh, to my great relief, had woken up and was moving around the kitchen in slow motion. I opened up a tin of soup and made toast, but he wasn’t very interested.
‘You ought to see a doctor,’ I said.
But he wasn’t having that. ‘I’ll be fine tomorrow.’
‘Gan?’ I had to mention it. ‘About that dummy alarm.’
He waved both hands, fending off the question and the look on my face. ‘I know, I know.’
‘I’m not blaming you. But you ought to get your family on to Hari. He had no right to leave you here with nothing but an empty mock-up on a wall for protection.’
A hunted look crossed Ganesh’s face. ‘You haven’t let my family know about this, have you?’
‘Relax, of course I haven’t.’
‘Only they’d write to Hari and he’d be back from India on the next flight. He’d say it was my fault. He’d never leave me in charge again. He must never know anything about any of this, Fran!’
‘All right, all right!’ What with the coppers telling me not to talk and Ganesh joining in, I might as well take some kind of Trappist vow and be done with it. I went back downstairs and reopened for business.
I left around eight. Ganesh had promised to go to bed early and I’d promised to be at the shop at seven the next morning to help with the papers. I hoped my rusty old alarm clock did its stuff. Sometimes it just sat sullen and silent. I ought to get a new one, but normally I had no need of a morning alarm. I never seemed to stay in employment long enough.
A thin drizzle was falling. The pavements were wet and the light from bar and café windows threw yellow strips across them. Through the windows I could see the Christmas decorations strung around walls and ceilings, lots of glittering tinsel, paper bells and plastic holly. It looked really festive and made me feel sad. Everyone was getting into holiday mood. People were going out for the evening, hurrying past me, chattering and laughing. They’d stop, study a menu fixed up outside a place perhaps, decide against it and move on, or go in, whichever. They were out to enjoy themselves.
I never went out in the evening. I never went anywhere and the one recent time I had gone, for our staff Christmas dinner, I’d come home and found a body in the basement. Why does this happen to me? Why doesn’t it happen to other people?
I began to think about Coverdale and his unfulfilled wish to talk to me. The more I thought about it, the more uneasy I became. His killers would want to know why he’d been keen to see me. They’d checked the shop because they were thorough. But what they’d decide in the end was that either Coverdale had given me the film – or I’d found it and Coverdale had come round to see me and get it back. This was what probably had happened. Either that, or he’d come to tell me where he’d hidden it and to ask me to get it for him. He wouldn’t have risked returning to the shop in case the guys after him were watching. They were watching
him, as it happened, rather more successfully than he’d realised.
So, whichever way you cared to look at it, the villains were sure to reckon I was the link to the negs. The police had embargoed the news that they had them. I was left, staked out like a goat in a clearing, waiting for the tiger. Or even several tigers.
It wasn’t a cheery thought and it made me highly nervous. I kept looking over my shoulder and wondered if I ought to go straight home, or adopt some devious route, designed to throw anyone following off the trail. But if they’d killed Coverdale outside my front door, they didn’t need to follow me to find out where I lived. They knew.