Running Scared

by Ann Granger

  I crept up to the door and cautiously stretched my hand through the gap, feeling for the light switch. He was on the further side of the room now. He stumbled over a piece of furniture and I heard a muffled ‘Blast!’ That wasn’t Ponytail.

  I switched on the light and dropped Bonnie to the floor.

  Then everything happened at once. Bonnie rushed across the floor, barking. The burglar let out a high-pitched shriek, stumbled back and fell over, bringing down a little table over which he’d been bending. It was one on which Daphne kept a display of small silver antique items – spoons, salt dishes, pillboxes, that sort of thing. All these items spilled from the table as it crashed to the carpet, and rolled away in all directions. The burglar had become tangled up in the table legs and flailed about on the floor like an upturned tortoise. If you’ve never kept a tortoise, I can tell you that, once turned upside down, they can’t get the right way up again, and lie there with all four legs working uselessly. Our intruder was, I was now able to see, somewhat tortoise-like in shape; round of body and short of leg. He was wearing dark pants and sweater and a ski-mask over his head. This round woollen head, with just two eyes showing, enhanced the tortoise impression.

  Bonnie wriggled through the obstacle and grabbed the burglar’s trouser cuff in her strong little jaws. She began to worry it, growling ferociously. I could see she was having the time of her life.

  ‘Let go, you wretched brute!’ came in a howl from the ski-mask. He struck out at Bonnie with his torch.

  ‘Don’t you hit my dog!’ I shouted. I darted across and snatched the torch from him as he waved it wildly in the air. He was trying to kick out his snared leg and shake Bonnie off. No chance.

  ‘Fran! What’s going on?’

  Daphne had appeared in the doorway holding a walking stick in businesslike fashion.

  ‘Call the police, Daphne!’ I gasped. ‘Before he shakes Bonnie off!’

  ‘No!’ yelled the ski-mask frantically. ‘Don’t, I can explain!’

  There was something familiar about that voice. Daphne and I must have recognised it at the same time. She put down the walking stick and I pulled Bonnie away.

  Released, the intruder sat up and began to disentangle himself from the table legs. I reached over and pulled off the ski-mask.

  ‘Bertie!’ exclaimed Daphne. ‘What on earth do you think you’re doing?’

  ‘If you weren’t so obstinate, Aunt Daphne,’ said Bertie a little later, ‘Charles and I wouldn’t have to resort to desperate measures.’

  We had righted the table, picked up the silver objects and retired to Daphne’s kitchen, the centre of operations in this house. Bertie sat on a wooden chair, his ski-mask lying on the table. His exertions, and being imprisoned in a woollen hood, had left his face very red and sweaty and his thinning hair ruffled. He was clearly conscious of the ridiculous figure he cut in his black polo-neck sweater and new-looking black jeans. Had he gone out and bought these items of clothing specially for tonight’s expedition? No doubt he’d decided that was what house-breakers wore. Also on the table lay a dark blue canvas shopping bag.

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ said Daphne. ‘And how did you get in, Bertram?’

  He looked sullen, crossed and uncrossed his short legs, and confessed, ‘Charles took the spare key from the hook in the kitchen when he called round the other day. You weren’t here.’ His small angry eyes fixed on me. ‘She was!’ He pointed a stubby finger.

  ‘I thought he took his time letting himself out,’ I said. ‘I should have escorted him to the door. Why did he send you? Why didn’t he come back himself instead of sending you in, all togged up like The Shadow?’

  ‘I don’t owe you any explanations,’ snarled Bertie.

  ‘You owe me several!’ Daphne told him. ‘I hardly know where to start. Why did Charles take the key? Why have you embarked on this ridiculous escapade? If I, and not Fran, had heard you and come downstairs, I’d have been frightened out of my skin!’

  ‘But I didn’t mean you to hear me!’ protested Bertie. ‘For crying out loud, I didn’t know she’d brought a blasted dog with her. It wasn’t here when Charles came the other day. We thought that other girl, the one staying with her—’ the finger jabbed at me again – ‘we thought she’d taken the dog away with her.’ Bertie smoothed his hands over his ruffled hair and attempted some of his former confidence. ‘If we’d known about the dog, we should have thought of something else.’

  ‘I think,’ said Daphne, ‘that you’ve both taken leave of your senses.’

  ‘I can explain, Auntie,’ said Bertie. ‘If you’ll let me. But I don’t choose to do it in front of that girl.’

  ‘I hardly think,’ said his aunt icily, ‘you are in a position to make conditions. You’ve given Fran a terrible shock. You owe her an explanation as much as you owe me one.’

  ‘Well, all right.’ He folded his short arms awkwardly over the polo sweater. ‘Charles and I have repeatedly told you that we think this house quite unsuitable for a lady of your mature years, living alone. Not only is there the responsibility, there is the security aspect. The recent and regrettable flood has, we hope, brought home to you the extent of the responsibility a house of this size carries with it. We wanted to underline the security aspect, or lack of it. She –’ finger jab – ‘suffered a break-in, or an attempted one, at the basement flat. It gave us the idea to stage one here, in the house proper. All we thought we’d do was break in, just the one of us. We cut cards to decide who. My intention was simply to remove some small items. Then, in the morning, Charles and I would have called round openly, returned the articles missing, and pointed out to you how easily an intruder could get in.’

  ‘An intruder wouldn’t normally have a key,’ I said.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ said Bertie. ‘Neither my brother nor I are professional house-breakers. How on earth should we know how to get in without a key?’

  ‘And what,’ asked Daphne, ‘if before you had called round, I had called the police?’

  ‘Ah,’ said Bertie, looking smug. ‘Thought of that. We knew you didn’t use this room much, never went in it from one end of the week to the other, unless we came. We knew about the collection on the table. I was just going to take one or two things. It was highly unlikely, even if you’d glanced in, that you’d have noticed.’

  I’d been listening to all this with growing scepticism. ‘Or,’ I said now, ‘Daphne might have been tempted to think I’d pocketed them – or I’d let in some accomplice to make off with the lot and anything else he could find. I can’t see why you needed to bring that shopping bag if all you were going to remove was a couple of teaspoons.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Daphne grimly. ‘You’re sure this wasn’t some ridiculous plan to get rid of poor Fran?’

  ‘Look at the company she keeps!’ squawked Bertie. ‘When Charles called round the other day, he found her here alone. She could have gone through the place and taken every pocketable valuable you have, Auntie! We really think you’re out of your mind to have invited her to stay here! I’m surprised the police haven’t warned you. Or have they? For goodness’ sake, surely you can see we’ve acted in your interest, Auntie?’

  ‘This is enough!’ Daphne ordered. ‘I won’t listen to another word of this rigmarole. Where is your brother?’

  ‘He was waiting round the corner in the car,’ said Bertie miserably. ‘But he’s probably pushed off home by now.’

  ‘Hardly very loyal of him,’ said Daphne. ‘But I suppose I shouldn’t expect Charles, or you either come to that, to be anything but cowards.’

  Bertie opened his mouth to bluster but thought better of it.

  ‘You had better go,’ said his aunt. ‘Kindly do not call round in the morning, or telephone, or even write. It will be a very long time before I want to see or hear anything of either of you again.’

  Bertie got to his feet, picked up his ski-mask and shopping bag, and hovered uncertainly.

  ‘Well?’ Daphne asked.<
br />
  ‘Look here,’ he said. ‘If Charles has left me here in the lurch – I mean, I’ve got no transport.’

  ‘Walk!’ Daphne and I said together.

  Bonnie barked in support.

  When Bertie had taken himself off, Daphne fetched the bottle of wine we’d started that evening and poured out a couple of glasses.

  ‘I really can’t believe it,’ she said, taking a swig. ‘The worst of it is, one doesn’t know whether to laugh, cry or just scream in frustration. Whatever did he think he looked like? That silly sweater and the ski-mask! Oh, my God!’ Here Daphne let out a great hoot of laughter.

  I was rather taken with the image of them cutting cards to see who would take the risk. I was sorry it hadn’t been Charlie I’d trapped in the drawing room. That would’ve been sweet revenge for having been cornered in my basement bedroom by him.

  Daphne sighed. ‘I blame their upbringing. Their mother, Muriel, was a very odd woman. She dabbled in the occult.’

  ‘Cripes,’ I said, impressed.

  Daphne waved her wine glass dismissively. ‘She never took up anything properly. I always say, if you’re going to do anything, do it thoroughly. Muriel fiddled round the edges, as it were, with things. Spiritualism, what she liked to call “white magic”, oriental philosophies, whatever took her fancy of the moment. She was very beautiful, you know. That often means trouble. People forgive things of a beautiful person they wouldn’t forgive in someone as plain as a pikestaff. She had a dreamy, slightly loopy way with her, which passed for charm. A lot of men fall for that kind of thing. My brother, Arnold, did. But then, he hadn’t a jot of imagination himself. Believe me, Fran, I’ve met so many beautiful women who’ve been unstable. Arnold should’ve taken a grip on things, but he never did, of course. Putty in her hands.’ Daphne snorted. ‘You see, you can’t blame the boys for turning out as they have. The atmosphere in that household was always unreal. I never had any looks and really, I thank God for it. I feel I’ve been spared so many complications.’

  We’d finished the bottle. I added it to the pile of empties which had been growing in the corner since I’d arrived.

  ‘I’ll take these to the bottle-bank in the morning,’ I said.

  Daphne gazed at them as if she’d only just seen them. ‘Goodness, I know the boys have been calling round rather more frequently than usual, but I never encourage them to linger. I mean, a glass or two is all I offer them. You and I, we couldn’t have polished off all that lot, could we?’

  I thought we probably could’ve. It was now almost five in the morning. It hardly seemed worthwhile going back to bed for me. Daphne went off but I stayed downstairs and fed myself and Bonnie on Weetabix. At six, I showered, dressed and walked round to the shop.

  ‘Early bird!’ observed Ganesh, staggering indoors with a load of newspapers which had been delivered to the pavement outside.

  ‘Not much choice.’ I told him about the events of the night.

  ‘I warned you,’ he said, ‘those two wouldn’t rest until they got you off the premises.’

  ‘Daphne says their mother was a white witch, no kidding, Gan.’

  He looked worried. ‘You oughtn’t to meddle with that sort of thing, Fran. You never know.’

  ‘I might even take it up,’ I returned. ‘Nothing else seems to work for me.’

  ‘Don’t even joke about it!’ he urged. He cleared his throat, preparing, I realised, to make a speech.

  ‘You’ll have to move out of there right after Christmas now,’ he said, ‘even if the council won’t give you temporary accommodation. If you won’t come here, you can sleep in Hari’s lock-up, I suppose, until he gets back. But you can’t stay with Daphne. Weird as the Knowles brothers are, and dodgy with it, they’re Daphne’s nephews and it’s not for you to come between her and her family.’

  ‘Even if they’re trying to cheat her?’

  ‘It’s a family matter, Fran!’ he said obstinately. ‘She’s not a fool. She knows what they’re like. It’s up to her whether she puts up with them or not.’

  I supposed he was right. Daphne had to make her own decision. Like Tig, she had to accept her family or reject them. Once she made up her mind, she had to live with the decision, same as anyone else.

  Ponytail rang the shop at a little after eleven that morning. What with one thing and another, plus being tired after a disturbed night and the shop being busy, I’d even managed to forget about the wretched bloke for an hour or two.

  When the phone rang, I answered, luckily. I afterwards wondered, if Gan had answered, whether Ponytail would just have hung up and tried again later.

  ‘Miss Varady?’ He didn’t offer to identify himself but I recognised his voice at once. Even down the phone line, it gave me the shivers.

  I croaked, ‘Yes?’

  ‘Tomorrow, twelve noon. At the statue of Nelson Mandela outside the Festival Hall cafeteria.’

  He hung up.

  ‘Who was that?’ asked Ganesh.

  ‘Nothing – someone wanting the chemist’s. Gan, is it OK if I go upstairs and make a call from there?’

  He said, ‘Sure,’ but gave me an old-fashioned look. He knew something was going on and I was keeping secrets. But one of Gan’s many good points is that he doesn’t badger me. If I don’t choose to tell him, he lets it go. He knows it’s one of the unspoken rules of our friendship.

  I rang the police station and, thank goodness, got hold of Jason Harford. ‘I need the negatives and snaps,’ I said. ‘Like as of now.’ I repeated the message Ponytail had given me.

  ‘I know the place,’ Harford said. ‘It’s always pretty busy. Damn. There’s umpteen ways in and out and it’ll be difficult to stake it out. It’s right by the Hungerford footbridge and look how many people go back and forth over that. We can’t close it off. It’d be obvious and cause chaos.’

  ‘He chose it for a reason, I suppose,’ I said sourly. ‘How you go about it is up to you. Just give me the negs. I give them to Grice and he gives me the money. That’s all I’m contracted to do. Whatever else you’re planning, make sure I’m clear, out of the way, before you do it. Grice has a very unpleasant minder.’

  ‘Don’t count on the money,’ he said. ‘What time are you leaving the shop today?’

  I told him, probably at one. ‘But don’t come here, for God’s sake. He might be watching.’

  ‘Relax,’ he urged. ‘We’ve got it under control.’

  All right for him to talk.

  I walked out of the shop just before one feeling as if I were walking across red-hot coals. No cars lurked on the double yellow lines. The usual cross section of humanity surged past. A ragged, lunatic-looking old fellow, grasping a wad of badly printed leaflets, was trying to stop passers-by and press one of his scraps of paper on them.

  ‘Bargain sale,’ he urged in a piping voice. ‘All quality goods. Fire-damaged stock.’

  Most people hurried past. A few took a leaflet, perhaps to placate him, and dropped it to the pavement almost at once, turning the immediate surrounds into a litter-bug’s dreamscape. A crisp wind blowing straight down the street picked them up and tossed them around, before bowling them off in all directions. They fluttered out into the road and were flattened by double-deckers. They fetched up in shop doorways. One had even been carried by an updraught clear up into the sky like a tiny kite.

  ‘Here you are, dear!’ He lurched at me, greasy old raincoat flapping. His feet were wrapped round with plastic bags. Of a pair of trainers, all he had left were the soles, tied on to the wadded bags by string. His hair was long and unkempt. He might have been anything from just an old alkie to a lost soul condemned to care in the community. No wonder people scurried past.

  I felt sorry for the poor old devil. He was probably being paid a pittance to stand out here for a couple of hours, kept going by the hope of getting enough out of it for a couple of cans of lager. I didn’t want a bargain video recorder, ‘fire damaged’ being an euphemism, I suspected, for ‘hot’, but I hesi
tated.

  He moved in front of me so I couldn’t walk on. I cursed myself for the momentary weakness which had let him latch on to me. I knew from experience that people like him were often difficult to shake loose again.

  ‘Go on, love,’ he persisted, pushing his face into mine. Close to, he wasn’t nearly so old nor so decrepit. His eyes met mine and sparkled with something which might have been intelligence or just malice. He pushed a couple of leaflets into my hand. ‘Buy yourself something nice. Dead cheap!’

  I said, ‘Yeah, why not?’ and thrust the leaflets into my pocket.

  I didn’t take them out again until I was safe indoors. I wasn’t surprised to find I had not two leaflets, but one leaflet and a brown paper envelope.

  I opened the envelope and shook out on to Daphne’s kitchen table a strip of negs and four prints I recognised as old friends.