by Ann Granger
I brooded alone. I hadn’t lost any Christmas presents because to date, I hadn’t bought any and no one had sent me any, either. But it did seem likely I’d lost all my few possessions and worse, was left with nowhere to go. I had no family and no money for hotels.
Daphne, divining what was in my mind, tapped my arm and whispered, ‘Don’t worry, Fran. We’ll be able to go back to my house once they’ve checked the wiring is safe. With the steps, the water couldn’t rise to the level of my door.’
I hoped that was true.
‘You can stay with me until the basement is fit to live in again,’ she went on.
I thanked her, but said that wasn’t on. ‘It could be months,’ I pointed out. ‘I couldn’t doss at your place for so long. It wouldn’t be fair. There’s Bonnie. Anyway, what about your nephews?’
‘Oh, blow my nephews!’ said Daphne.
But I couldn’t stay with her for that length of time. Apart from all the other considerations, the flood had thrown a major spanner in Foxley’s plans. When Ponytail came back, if he did, he’d find the flat empty and locked up.
‘I’ll go down the housing department in the morning,’ I said, ‘and ask for emergency accommodation. They can’t refuse me, surely.’
They mightn’t refuse, but they’d stick me in some God-awful hole of a place for sure. And what about Bonnie? Few places accepted animals.
‘I might ask you to look after Bonnie for a bit, if you would,’ I ventured.
‘You listen to me, Fran!’ said Daphne firmly. ‘We’re only days away from Christmas and I won’t hear of your turning to the council at a time like this. I have a four-bedroomed house and I insist you stay with me – at least until New Year. Then we’ll talk it over. In any case, I’ll look after the little dog. She’s no problem.’
Bonnie, in front of the gas stove, twitched her ears.
‘We won’t be able to use the tap water,’ said a man gloomily. ‘It’ll be contaminated. They’ll bring one of those water tankers round and we’ll have to fill plastic containers.’
‘I drink a lot of bottled water, anyway,’ Daphne said. ‘At least I’ve got a supply of that in.’
‘Shops round here will soon run out of that,’ said Jeremiah.
It was four in the morning. I pulled my blanket round my ears and wondered how my boots were drying. One of the stalwart ladies had stood them upside down on newspaper to drain, near to the fire. My co-refugees kept giving them mistrustful looks.
‘The freezers will have shorted out!’ screeched the young woman who’d lost her Christmas gifts. ‘The turkey will be ruined!’
They all began again to talk about insurance. I didn’t have that, either. That was to say, I supposed Daphne’s house insurance took account of the building, but my personal possessions, well, that was another matter. Not that what I had was worth insuring. But that meant that, by Sod’s law, I had neither the goods nor a cheque on its way in the post. The less you have, the more you have to lose at a time like this. I tried that line of argument out on the computer buff, but he didn’t take the point at all. ‘A year’s work!’ he moaned repeatedly.
I left him alone with his misery.
Daphne and I had steeled ourselves to finding a mess, when we returned home just before ten, but neither of us had anticipated the level of destruction in the basement flat. The water, before they’d pumped it out, had reached a level of some forty centimetres. A tidemark round the walls confirmed it. The old rep sofa had soaked it up like a sponge and would have to be thrown out. The telly would probably never work again. It hadn’t worked well before. The pine coffee table might be salvaged. The carpet was ruined. Both bathroom and kitchen tiles had lifted. Worst of all, sewage had contaminated the water and the place stank. Bonnie picked her way fastidiously across the wreckage and returned with the bloated body of a dead mouse which she deposited at our feet.
‘Come on!’ said Daphne briskly. ‘We’ll move everything we can upstairs.’
It took us the rest of the morning, carrying the heavier items between us, up my steps, Daphne’s steps and down her hall to the utility room at the back where we stacked them up. Some things we couldn’t move, like the bed and the cooker, so they had to be left. The water tanker had turned up and so I also hauled plastic jerry cans back to the house to stock up. My arms, thanks to Ponytail’s embrace, had ached before. Now the muscles shrieked protest at every movement. So busy were we, it wasn’t until Daphne spoke of making something for lunch that I realised I’d quite forgotten about Ganesh and that I was supposed to have been at the shop. I went round to explain.
‘I heard about it,’ he said. ‘It was on local radio, breakfast-time, with the traffic news. Motorists to avoid your street. I wondered if you’d been affected and when you didn’t come in, I realised you must be. I’m really sorry. I was going to pop round later to see you.’
‘You bet I’m affected,’ I said. ‘Flooded out and homeless again.’
He frowned. ‘You can stay here until Hari gets back.’
‘No, I can’t. One of your family might turn up and find me and there’d be hell to pay. Daphne will give me a bed, at least until after Christmas.’
The bell jangled and Hitch came into the shop. He looked cheerful. ‘Hullo, darling!’ he hailed me. ‘I hoped I’d find you here. I’ve been down your street and I saw your place was one of the ones flooded out. Here, you take my card and give it to the old girl who owns the house.’ He thrust one of his business cards at me. ‘You tell her, when she’s getting quotes for the insurance, to come to me. I can give her a very good price for fixing that flat up.’ He lowered his voice. ‘And if you was to fancy lilac paint for the walls, I’ve got a job lot of that.’
I took the card without comment.
‘Gan,’ I asked, ‘I need to use the phone up in the flat, OK?’
I left him with Hitch and ran upstairs. My luck continued out. I couldn’t contact Foxley, Harford or even Parry at the nick. They passed me to someone I’d never heard of, called Murphy, and I had to tell him that Grice had been in contact.
‘Himself or one of his boys?’ asked Murphy, not sounding particularly interested.
I explained and he said, ‘Fine, I’ll tell the super. Let us know when he gets back to you.’
Then he hung up on me. I glared at the phone. For two pins, I’d have rung again and called the whole thing off. Then I remembered I couldn’t.
Hitch had left when I returned to the shop. I told Ganesh I hoped to be into work the next day as normal, but he said if I needed to mop out the flat, he could manage. We left it at that.
I dropped Hitch’s card in the waste bin on my way out.
I arrived back at the house in time to meet Daphne, who was just taking Bonnie out for a walk. An old leather dress belt in sky blue was looped round Bonnie’s collar as a lead. ‘Better than a bit of string, anyway,’ said Daphne, setting off down the street.
I let myself in, went out into the kitchen and was just about to make coffee, when the doorbell rang. I froze. Had Ponytail tracked me down already? I crept into the front room and peered out the window. I was afforded the fat rear view of one of the Knowles brothers. I had just decided to let him stew out there, when he turned and saw me.
‘Open the door!’ he shouted. It was Charlie.
I opened up and he stormed in, passing me rudely and marching through to the back sitting room.
‘Where is my aunt?’ he demanded.
‘Tied to the nearest railway line,’ I said wearily. ‘She’s gone out.’
He huffed a bit, then made up his mind. ‘Then we have time for a little talk.’
‘I’ve nothing,’ I said, ‘to say to you.’
‘Dare say not! Useless trying to justify yourself!’ He was marching up and down Daphne’s sitting room now, preparing to hold forth at length. ‘But I’ve got a few things to say to you.’
‘You’re not going to blame me for the flood, are you?’ I asked cheerfully, not because that was how I f
elt, but because I wanted to annoy him.
‘This is not an occasion for levity,’ he retorted. He had fetched up before the fireplace and stood there on his stubby legs, with his hands behind his back and his brogued feet planted apart.
‘You’re telling me,’ I returned. ‘That was my home.’
‘No,’ he said. ‘It was, is still, part of Aunt Daphne’s home. You were merely the tenant. Where is the other girl? The one with the dog? You had no right to sublet.’
‘She was a friend staying a day or two and she left before all this happened.’
Charlie made his way to an armchair where he plumped himself down, his hands on his knees. ‘And when will you be leaving?’
I took the opposite chair and braced myself for the outburst which must follow my reply. ‘After Christmas. Daphne has asked me to stay here until then.’
I had been expecting Charles to rage, but instead he looked triumphant. He leaned forward and hissed, ‘Staying here, indeed? I knew it! You just listen to me, young woman! I saw this coming, you know. So did my brother. We knew you were trying to work your way into our aunt’s confidence. You think you’ve managed pretty well, eh? Well, it hasn’t gone unremarked. We know what’s what.’ Here Charlie tapped the side of his pudgy nose. ‘Don’t count your chickens, that’s all I have to say to you. We’ll have you out of here before you can say knife!’ He slapped his knees and sat back, looking pleased with himself.
I hit back by leaning forward myself and hissing back, ‘Yes, and I know what’s what, too! You’re trying to gyp Daphne out of this house. You may be interested to know that I’ve already mentioned my concerns to a police officer I happen to know.’
Charlie collapsed in his seat as if I’d reached across and felled him with an uppercut. His eyes bulged, his face turned purple and I began to be seriously alarmed. Just when I was thinking that, revolting though the idea was, I might have to go over there and loosen his tie and unbutton his shirt collar (actions which he’d no doubt misconstrue), he found his voice, pitched low and full of real hate. The words hung in the air between us, each issuing distinct on a puff of breath.
‘You-go-too-far!’
‘Just remember,’ I said, ‘I’m on to your little game.’ And I imitated his earlier gesture, tapping my nose.
Charles rose to his feet, straightened his jacket and tugged at his cuffs. ‘You will be very sorry for all this. I shall come back later when I hope to find my aunt at home and have some private conversation with her. Don’t make yourself too comfortable and don’t trouble to see me out. I can find my way.’
I let him go. After a moment or two, it did occur to me that it was taking him a long time to walk down the hall, but just as I was about to go and investigate, the front door slammed. I went to look out the window and saw him marching away along the pavement. If I hadn’t been so preoccupied with other matters, I’d have worried about him more.
Chapter Sixteen
The following couple of days passed uneventfully. Normally, that would be a plus. In this case, it meant that Ponytail hadn’t contacted me with the reply to my offer to meet Grice. Uncertainty heightened my nervous state to the point where I jumped out of my skin at every ring of the doorbell or phone, every time a customer walked into the shop, every time a car slowed by me as I walked along the pavement. I took to hugging the buildings, so that it would be more difficult for someone to bundle me into a vehicle. I scurried home to Daphne’s at the end of the day and, apart from walking Bonnie round the block at top speed last thing at night, didn’t put my nose out of the door till morning.
A person can only go on like that for so long without it becoming noticeable.
‘Are you all right, Fran?’ asked Daphne. ‘I know you’re upset about the flat, but even so, you don’t seem your usual bright self.’
‘Winter blues,’ I told her.
Ganesh, too, had noticed my jumpiness. ‘What’s going on?’ he asked.
‘Nothing,’ I told him, but he didn’t believe it.
‘All I can say is, I hope you haven’t done something stupid, Fran. This hasn’t got anything to do with that whizz-kid inspector, has it?’
‘You know what I think of Harford,’ I told him.
He snorted. ‘I know what you thought of him when you first met him. It strikes me you might be changing your mind about him.’
I told him that was rubbish.
All the same, I felt a pang of disappointment when, Daphne having told me at breakfast-time the following morning the police were on the phone for me, I picked up the receiver to hear Parry’s unmistakable tones. I did think Harford might have rung himself.
‘Hi, Wayne!’ I greeted him, just to let him know that his secret was out.
He answered grumpily, asking if I had anything further to report.
Whispering furtively into the receiver, I told him no more contact had been made and I was still awaiting confirmation of arrangements. I felt perfectly ridiculous saying things like this, as if I’d escaped from a spy thriller.
‘You let us know what they are, straight away!’ he ordered.
I needed to explain the call to Daphne. I put my head round her door and said, ‘They haven’t got any lead on my break-in yet. They don’t suppose they will.’ I didn’t like telling her fibs.
‘It all seems rather less important now than the flood,’ said Daphne. ‘But it was nice of them to ring and let you know their progress, or lack of it.’
She didn’t know the half of it, that was the trouble. I wrestled with my conscience for the rest of the day. What would happen if Ponytail turned up on my landlady’s doorstep? Poor Daphne would be totally unprepared. But ignorance was probably better in her case. Safer, certainly. I just hoped he’d contact me some other way.
That night, as we sat in her kitchen over a bottle of wine, I ventured, ‘Have you had any callers today?’
She sighed. ‘Only the boys. I wasn’t going to tell you because I know you don’t get along with them. I must confess,’ went on Daphne, lowering her tone as one about to confide a startling secret, ‘I am beginning to find them rather tiresome myself. I always found them unnecessarily fussy. But I believed – still believe – their hearts are in the right place. And they are, you see, my only family left.’
Who needs families? I thought, not for the first time, although mine hadn’t been like that and I still missed Dad and Grandma. It was getting late. I said good night and went up to bed.
Bonnie bounced ahead of me. I had put an old blanket over the end of the bed to save the counterpane from dog hairs. An attempt to get Bonnie to sleep in a basket which Daphne had unearthed from somewhere, had proved doomed. Bonnie remained firmly convinced that we all slept together in a heap.
It must have been around three in the morning when she woke me, licking at my face and whining as she’d done on the night of the flood.
I sat up, bewildered for the moment, and thinking myself back in the flat. It was pitch dark in the bedroom. Daphne believed in thick lined curtains for winter. Bonnie slid off the bed, landed with a muffled bump on the carpet, and ran to the door where she whined again.
I thought, damn it, she wants to go out. She’d never done this to me before. Her late evening walk usually enabled her to last out till morning. I got out of bed, pulled on the old dressing gown my landlady had lent me, opened the door and made for the stairs.
I didn’t want to disturb Daphne and hesitated to put on the light. Out here on the landing, streetlighting shone through an uncurtained window. I scooped up Bonnie and began to make my way downstairs with her tucked under my arm, the other hand clinging to the banister in case I lost my footing. Halfway down she began to struggle.
‘Stop that!’ I ordered her quietly. But she whined and then growled.
At the same moment, I heard a slight noise from the hall below. Immediately I clamped my hand over her muzzle and froze where I was on the stair. Oh my God, I thought. It’s Ponytail! He’s let himself in just as he did at the
flat.
I didn’t want to face the man but even less did I want Daphne to come face to face with him. I made my way down the remaining stairs as quickly as I could, Bonnie squirming beneath my arm.
The intruder had moved from the hall and was in the drawing room at the front of the house. More streetlight falling through the transom above the front door let me glimpse the erratic beam of a torch which was being flashed around in there. By now, I’d got a grip of my nerves and my brain was functioning better, too. If it was Ponytail, surely he didn’t intend to search this large house, belonging to someone who had no connection with Coverdale, on the off chance I’d hidden the negatives here? I had told him I was prepared to hand them over. All he had to do was tell me where and when. Wasn’t it more likely that, whoever was in that room, he was no more than a common thief?