by Ann Granger
‘I can’t come now,’ I said. ‘Maybe tomorrow.’
‘I thought I could give you a lift over there now—’ he began.
‘I told you, tomorrow! I’ve had enough of coppers for one day, right?’ I was beginning to sound like Tig.
I saw his features stiffen. The man was really sensitive about being disliked for what he did.
‘Nothing personal,’ I said wearily. ‘But I’m sick to death of this whole business.’
He nodded. ‘I understand that. Tomorrow, then.’ He hesitated. ‘Oh, by the way, you might like to know you weren’t the only one to be burgled last night.’
If this was an attempt to console, it was cack-handed. I realised there must have been numerous break-ins of one sort and another in the Greater London area during the previous twenty-four hours.
‘Don’t get me wrong,’ he went on hastily, noting my expression. ‘What I meant was, a Mrs Joanna Stevens who lives in Putney came home last night to find someone had been in her house. Local police notified us because Mrs Stevens is Graeme Coverdale’s sister.’
Light dawned. ‘Oh,’ I said.
‘Coverdale used her house as a base in this country.’ Harford’s interest in property led him to reflect. ‘That’s a nice area. All those houses in Shaker Lane where she lives are big detached places. Four beds, quiet street, front shielded by laurel hedges, trees in the back garden.’ He pulled himself together. ‘Mind you, a burglar’s dream. She’s a widow with just one married daughter, so she was happy to give Coverdale a home. He wasn’t there all the time, always coming and going, according to her. But one bedroom was kept as his and he left all his spare clothes, books, personal documents, that sort of thing there. Yesterday evening she went out as she always does to a church women’s group. A friend called by to pick her up and off they went. When they got back, she invited the friend in for coffee. As soon as she got through the door, she says, she knew someone had been there.’
‘There was a hole in a window?’ I said.
He shook his head. ‘No, different modus operandi, suggesting a different man. The same, perhaps, who broke into the shop. Nothing appeared to have been taken, just like the shop. There was little sign of disturbance, again just like the shop. But Mrs Stevens is a house-proud lady living alone and it didn’t take much to attract her notice. A crooked mirror over the mantelpiece. Ornaments not facing straight forward. Coats on the hanger in the hall bunched together. When she went into the downstairs cloakroom she found the toilet seat had been left up. So she knew, she said, a man had been there – and he’d used the loo. She was more annoyed about that than anything else, I think.’ Harford grinned. ‘Anyway, we’d already been there and searched Coverdale’s room ourselves with her permission, so backed by her friend, she rang her local station. They took a bit of convincing, as nothing was missing, but she urged them to get in touch with us. We didn’t take any convincing.’
It wasn’t good news. The unknown man behind this needed those negs desperately. He, or his employees, would be back. But I said, ‘Thanks for telling me, anyway.’
‘Look, Fran . . .’ He’d flushed pink. ‘I was going to come round and see you anyway, because the other evening at the restaurant . . . it didn’t go the way I’d wanted it to. I mean, I wanted us to be friends, but we parted, well, a bit coolly. It was my fault.’
I hadn’t expected an apology and it took me aback. I told him it wasn’t anybody’s fault. No one struck up pally relationships over a corpse.
‘I really hope this will all be settled soon,’ he said. ‘Perhaps we can be friends then?’
His persistence niggled me. He couldn’t be that naive. ‘Look,’ I told him, ‘you lot have pegged Gan and me out to dry. You won’t release news of those negatives and as long as they – whoever they are, and you won’t even tell me that – think Gan or I have them, we’re both of looking over our shoulders and waiting for more break-ins. It’s time you spoke up.’
He looked unhappy, rubbing at his shock of hair. ‘It’s not my decision, Fran. Left to me, I’d do it, take the heat off you and Patel. There is a good reason for it, trust me.’
‘It’d better be good,’ I said sourly.
He hung around a few minutes more, perhaps hoping I was going to offer him coffee. I wasn’t going to do that. I was afraid, apart from the fact that Tig and Bonnie couldn’t stay in the bathroom indefinitely, that he’d wander into the kitchenette and see two plates, mugs, etc. He took the hint eventually and left, looking down in the mouth.
I tapped on the bathroom door and told Tig she could come out.
Bonnie rushed out and scrabbled at the front door. Tig emerged looking more frail and yet more determined than ever. She avoided my gaze and went past me in silence.
‘OK, you can stop sulking,’ I said crossly. ‘I didn’t know he was going to come.’
She’d found her gear behind the sofa and still neither speaking nor looking at me, began to stow it away in the rucksack. Bonnie ran over to her and put her front paws on the sofa, head tilted, her bright worried brown eyes asking to know what this meant. Tig’s hand dropped absently to the little dog’s head and then she carried on rolling up the sleeping bag.
My heart sank and I asked her what she was doing, knowing the answer.
She looked up, two red spots staining the white skin on her cheekbones. ‘I’m getting out. I’ll come back after Monday to see how you’ve got on with my people – but I’m not staying here. The place is crawling with bloody pigs. One lot here in the middle of the night, two lots here today. Every time anyone comes to your door, it’s a copper, either in uniform or plainclothes. I might just as well have taken Bonnie and myself down to the nick and asked them to give me a bed in a cell for a few days. I’d see fewer of ’em down there than I’ve seen here.’
‘It’s not my fault,’ I began, ‘I don’t want them here, either.’
‘Then why’re you so bloody thick with them?’ she retorted.
I drew a deep breath. If she left, I wouldn’t see her again. Jo Jo might find her, or she might go back to him, but she wouldn’t come back here. Any trip I made to Dorridge would be for nothing. Pleading with her would do no good. I had to meet the problem head on. After all, it was her problem, not mine.
‘Go on, then,’ I said as brutally as I could. ‘Run. That’s what you do best, isn’t it, Tig? Run?’
She looked up at me in surprise. Bonnie pricked her ears and looked puzzled and alarmed at my change of manner.
As they both stared at me, I went on, ‘You didn’t get on with your family, so you ran away from them. Where did it get you? Nowhere. You took up with Jo Jo and that didn’t work out, so you ran away again – here. Now you’re going to run yet again. Where to this time? You can’t keep running, Tig, you’ve got to stand and face your problems. You’ve got nowhere else to go now. You’ve got to get a grip.’
Her lips moved stiffly as if she forced them to form sounds. ‘I told you – I just don’t like pigs.’
‘So, how are you going to get on when you go home, back to your parents’ place? People there, Tig, won’t run at the sight of a copper even if they’ve done nothing. People there won’t hide every time a stranger comes to the door. People there won’t assume everyone’s an enemy, or just won’t like them – as you said Daphne wouldn’t like you. Why shouldn’t she?’
She stared at me for a brief moment, her face working soundlessly, her eyes blazing with unexpressed emotion. I braced myself for an earful of abuse, but I was caught out when, without further warning, Tig launched herself at me.
‘Bitch!’ she yelled. She wrapped both arms round me, pinning my arms to my side. The combination of the impact and being unable to balance myself left me helpless. I stumbled back, slipped and crashed to the floor. Tig threw herself on top of me, pummelling me with both fists and all the time, sobbing, ‘Bitch – bitch – bitch!’
Bonnie darted around us hysterically as we struggled, not knowing whose side to take, and nipping indi
scriminately at any bit of body within her reach. I managed to thrust Tig off me and roll aside. She scrambled to her feet and aimed a kick at me, but that was her undoing, because I caught her foot and twisted it. She yelped and crashed down to the floor where she scrabbled to a sitting position, her back against the sofa, and glared at me, her eyes bright with tears.
‘All right,’ I panted, taking advantage of the standoff to regain my feet. ‘What’s all this about?’
‘You—’ she gasped. ‘You should bloody know—’
I interrupted her. ‘Yes, I know. I understand why and how you’ve got like this, Tig, not trusting anyone, not even me. I know why you’re scared of the police—’
She shook her head. ‘You don’t – you don’t know . . . You know sod all.’
‘All right, I don’t know it all!’ I was hanging on to my own temper here, more angry with myself than with her, because I didn’t know what to do or say. ‘Don’t you see, Tig?’ I pleaded. ‘If you’re to go home and get back into a different sort of life, which is what you say you want, then you’ve got to get over all these hang-ups. I’m sorry about the place crawling with coppers today, but it’s not my fault, is it? It’s because that guy tried to break in. I don’t like them round here any more than you do, but I don’t freak out. I deal with it and get rid of them.’
‘You’re you and not me,’ she muttered.
‘I’m not saying it’s going to be easy,’ I told her. ‘But if you can’t hack staying a week in my flat, how do you think you’re going to cope with being home again with your family and dealing with them?’
I thought she might have another go at me, but instead she got up, smoothed back her hair, and with her back to me, resumed her packing.
I thought, I’ve blown it. She’s taking off and that’s that. I won’t see her again. But after a few moments during which she struggled inefficiently with the rucksack, she chucked the whole lot to the floor and sat down on the sofa, head hanging, her wispy fair hair veiling her face.
‘OK, now, Tig?’ I asked tentatively.
‘I’ve been thinking about it, too, Fran, you know,’ she mumbled. ‘I’m not the same person I was when I left home. How can I go back? They won’t understand, my parents. They’ll expect me to walk in just the same little girl who walked out. That’s how they think of me, their little girl. I don’t think I can cope with it and I don’t think they can. Perhaps we’d better scrap the whole thing.’
I hunkered down in front of her and took hold of her hands. They were icy to the touch. Bonnie jumped up on the sofa beside her and pushed her muzzle into Tig’s side, wanting to add her own comfort.
‘We made up our minds to do this, Tig, you and I. You asked me to go to Dorridge and I said I would. Neither of us is going to welsh, right? It’s a pact. I’m going there on Sunday, and you’re going to wait here until I come back. No one’s saying this’ll be easy, but it’s like you said. It’s your one chance. Don’t muff it. Don’t just duck out and run.’
She looked at me miserably through the curtain of hair. ‘All right. I’ll stay. But you’ll have to tell them the truth, Fran. You’ll have to tell them everything.’
‘Sure,’ I said encouragingly. It was all right promising. How I was going to manage that interview, I hadn’t the slightest idea. In the meantime, however, I had other fish to fry.
‘Come on,’ I said. ‘We’re going out.’
‘Where?’ She was immediately suspicious again.
Putney. We’re going to do a bit of investigating. I want to know what’s going on and there’s only one way I’m going to find out and that’s by doing it myself. Just wait here a tick while I nip up and ask Daphne to let me take a look at her A–Z.’
‘You leave me out of this, whatever it is!’ Tig burst out. ‘You start going out there and pestering this woman he was talking about, the one who had a break-in, and you’ll have all the coppers you want round here. But you won’t have me! I don’t know what you’re into, but you’re not involving me, right?’
‘Take it easy. I won’t involve you. I’ll have to go and see this Mrs Joanna Stevens on my own. She’d be worried if two of us turned up. All I want is for you to come out to Putney with me, and hang around while I call on her. I’m not leaving you here on your own, Tig. You’ll start brooding about going home and get into a state – and before you accuse me of not trusting you, let me tell you, that’s not it. I just think you’re better not left alone this afternoon. We’ll leave Bonnie in charge of the flat.’
Chapter Twelve
We got out to Putney and found Shaker Lane all right. That was no problem. But I did have two other problems to deal with, before I ever got near Mrs Stevens. One was that the early dusk meant light was already fading by the time we got there. That worried me. I didn’t want to knock on Mrs Stevens’ door in the dark. She might be even more unwilling to let me in than I anticipated she’d be anyway. The other problem was Tig, who grumbled and threatened to desert all the way there. I wouldn’t have brought her along if I could have safely left her back at the flat in the mood she was in. However, when we actually reached Shaker Lane, she bucked up a bit and started to get interested.
‘This is it, then?’ She looked up and down the road. The word ‘lane’ was a misnomer. Probably there had been a lane there once, donkey’s years ago, but any trace of a rural path had disappeared. The road was as Harford had described it: prosperous. The houses pretty well all answered the description of Mrs Stevens’ he’d given me. I wondered which was hers. ‘What are you going to do now?’ Tig asked.
Good question. ‘Come on, Tig,’ I said. ‘Back to that little shopping precinct.’
The precinct in question wasn’t much more than a row of shops and a paved area with a couple of wooden seats around a depressed-looking tree. It lay off the bottom end of Shaker Lane and we’d walked through it on our way there. I’d noticed, as we did, that it contained a florist’s.
‘They cost a lot of money,’ said Tig, as we stood outside the shop, surveying the bunches of blooms in buckets. ‘You could go inside and distract the assistant and I’ll nick bunch, if that’s what you want.’
‘It’s not what I want!’ I said firmly. ‘I thought you wanted to stay out of trouble, Tig? You’ve got a funny way of going about it. We’ll both go in.’
‘I want some flowers to take to a lady who’s bereaved,’ I told the assistant. ‘Only I haven’t got much dosh. What can you let me have?’
The girl cast an eye over me and nothing she saw disproved my claim to be broke. ‘Someone round here, is it?’ she asked.
‘A Mrs Stevens. She lives in Shaker Lane.’
‘Oh, right!’ She brightened. ‘Several people have been in buying flowers for her. Her brother, wasn’t it? He got knifed. Horrible, only it didn’t happen around here, thank goodness.’ She stared at us with increased curiosity.
‘That’s right,’ I said, not parting with any more info, something which clearly disappointed her. ‘So, what have you got?’
‘Well, we’ve sold quite a lot, like I said, on account of her,’ said the girl. ‘And it’s getting late in the day. You can have any of that lot, half price.’
I said fair enough, and parted with the cash for two bunches of freesias and some ferny stuff. They smelled nice and when I put them all together, they looked a lot.
‘You don’t know what number her house is, do you?’ I asked. ‘I had it written down but I left the bit of paper at home.’
‘Hang on,’ she said, going to the counter and opening a ledger. ‘It’ll be in the order book. She came in asking about wreaths. Yes, here it is, number fifteen.’
‘See?’ I said to Tig, as we left the shop. ‘All you’ve got to do is haggle a bit. You don’t have to nick ’em. And I found out the number of the house as well. That’s being a detective.’
‘They’ve got loads of them,’ said Tig. ‘They wouldn’t have missed them. You could’ve gone in asking about the house number while I pinched some.’<
br />
It occurred to me that, if and when Tig got home to Dorridge, rehabilitating her was going to be a job and a half. Thankfully, it wouldn’t be mine.
‘You stay here,’ I said. ‘Sit on one of those benches. I won’t be long.’ If Mrs Stevens wasn’t at home, or if she shut the door in my face, I’d be very quick.
It was darker by the time I got back to number fifteen, but someone had switched on a light downstairs, so I was in luck there. I rang the doorbell.
After a few minutes, it opened on the chain. I could just make out a woman’s face, pressed against the crack. ‘Yes?’ she asked cautiously.
‘Mrs Stevens? I’ve brought some flowers.’
‘Oh, wait a tick.’ She pushed the door to. I heard her unhook the safety chain. It reopened and I could see her properly in the hall light.