Stone Cold Red Hot

by Cath Staincliffe

  I waved and he sped to the bottom, circled round and roared back up to where I was waiting. Asian boy racer.

  Once inside I gave him my address in Withington. “Go down the Parkway, yeah?”

  “Fine.” The dual carriageway had a higher speed limit which would suit his driving style and get me home quicker.

  I settled back into my seat, leopard print suedette covers, a pair of pink fun fur elephants dangling from the rear-view mirror along with his i.d., V. Chowdury. Did he choose to have the car tarted up like this? Was it meant to be ironic?

  We drove through the New Hulme; a huge development initiative that had replaced the massive Crescents, curving high rises and the nearby deck-access blocks with human-sized housing. I could see the graceful line of the Hulme Arch, over Princess Road, a symbol of optimism. Like Pauline had said this was the second attempt to renovate the area. Would it work? The houses looked nice enough, there had been a huge consultation exercise with the communities in the area as part of the project. They’d knocked down the old buildings but how would they get rid of the poverty, nestling like mould, spores ready to bloom and start the process of disintegration all over again?

  I pulled the wig off, delighted to be rid of it. I rubbed at my head and the back of my neck. The driver did a double take in the mirror. Opened his mouth and shut it again.

  A bit later. “Been waiting long?”

  “No, my car’s been nicked.”

  “Left it round there?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Have the shirt off your back round there, you know. You see that documentary the other night? Car crime capital of Europe, Manchester is. They ship some of them across to Russia, Lada’s and that. Others they do a make-over drive them down to Brum or over to Liverpool. Lot of money in it. A mate of mine, he’s parked outside the Palace, on Oxford Street, right, got a cab like...”

  I switched off and gripped the edge of my seat as he cornered the junction onto Princess Parkway. I grunted now and then while he regaled me with stories of autotheft. The narrative was seamless, one anecdote rolling into the next. When I did tune in again I noticed he’d an amazing eye for detail. “So she says, ‘it’s OK, I left the shopping in the boot,’ Marks and Sparks were doing a special offer on ready meals for one and she’d stocked up like. Now, she doesn’t eat meat but she’s mad on fish so there’s all these heat-and-eat dinners going off and the police thought they’s got a body in the boot...”

  Home at last.

  “So what do you do?” he asked as I fished out my purse.

  “I’m a private investigator.”

  He laughed.

  I looked at him.

  “What, you’re not winding me up?”

  I pulled out one of my cards and passed it to him.

  “Bloody ‘ell,” he said.

  I gave him a tenner.

  “So what do you do, missing persons and that?” He rummaged for change in a little bag.

  I thought of Jennifer Pickering. “Yeah, that sort of thing.”

  “Not missing cars though, eh?” he cackled.

  “Ha, ha.” Rapier-like wit.

  “Security and that, CCTV, bugs?”

  “No, I don’t do much of the high tech stuff.”

  He handed me my change and I tipped him.

  “Ta. See, I’ve got a mate who might be interested in this,” he waved my card. “His old man’s done a bunk. That the sort of thing you do?”

  “Yes.” He still seemed to doubt me, his eyes flicked me up and down. “What’s with the wig then?”

  I leant forward. “I’m in disguise,” I confided and removed the specs. “I don’t usually dress like this.”

  He laughed with relief. “Had me worried then,” he shook his head, “those glasses.”

  Those seat covers.

  We said goodnight. I could imagine I would become a new addition to his stock of city tales. “I picked up this woman right, grey hair, painful glasses...”

  Digger the dog greeted me at the door, had a sniff of my mac and sloped off, tail wagging slowly, back to sleep in the kitchen.

  What would happen to Digger if Ray moved out? I felt a rush of panic. Ray adored the dog although I’d actually brought him home in a fit of guilt after his owner had died while helping me on a case. I’d quickly realised I was not a doggy person but Ray came to the rescue. It would be awful if Ray left Digger here with me, the dog would pine away. And if he took Digger, Maddie would lose a beloved pet as well as Tom and Ray. I couldn’t think it through then, I was bone tired. I needed something to eat or I’d sleep badly. I made some quick porridge, smothered it in golden syrup and stirred in some thick Greek yoghurt. Perfect.

  I was upstairs in the bathroom, brushing my teeth when Maddie cried out. I went in to her.

  “There was a thing, Mummy, in my dream.” She was sitting bolt upright, her face crinkled with anxiety. I sat beside her and put my arm around her.

  “What sort of a thing?”

  “Horrible.” Her voice wobbled.

  “Do you want to tell me your dream?”

  She shook her head emphatically.

  “OK, lie down then.”

  She began to protest.

  “It won’t come back,” I said, “it’s only a dream, a picture in your sleep.” She wasn’t having it, her mouth pulled ready for tears.

  “Maybe you could put your tape on,” I suggested.

  She paused, considering. “Will you stay?”

  I sighed.

  “Just a bit Mummy and then leave the tape on?”

  “Alright. I’ll just get changed.”

  She leapt out of bed. No way was she going to stay alone in the room after that thing had been in her dream. She shadowed me to my room and back.

  I settled her in, stuck the story tape in the machine and sat back in the rocking chair. Tom in the other bed slept undisturbed. Maddie mouthed the words to the story. I closed my eyes. When I opened them again she was asleep and the tape had finished. I padded across the landing and fell into bed. And then it was time to get up again.

  When I don’t get enough sleep my concentration goes to pot. I knew I was going to spend the whole of Tuesday in a fuzzy state. I had a big breakfast to compensate; half a grapefruit, mushrooms and scrambled egg, toast and honey. I dragged Maddie and Tom away from the telly and got them to school, went to my office straight from there. I made a coffee and drank it with my eyes closed and feet up before I attempted any work. I made a list of things I had to do in the course of the day. Then I considered my appointments. I’d a meeting with Frances Delaney at ten thirty and I was seeing Roger Pickering later to give him the lowdown on what I’d discovered. That would take all of five minutes, I thought in my disgruntled mood. I pulled out the report I’d started and glanced over it. Alright, I reasoned with myself, maybe you haven’t found Jennifer yet but you’ve established some facts that Roger wasn’t sure of. I counted them off on my fingers. One - she was pregnant, two - Maxwell was the father, three - she left for university a week before the starting date, four - her friends were surprised at her sudden departure...

  I was interrupted by the sound of footsteps up the path. I stood and craned my neck - caught sight of a Royal Mail uniform through the narrow basement window. I heard the clang of the letterbox and went up to check the mail. Most of it was for the Dobson’s, I left it on the hall table, but there was also something for me. Brown, window envelope postmarked Keele. Yes! I hurried back downstairs, opening it as I went.

  ‘Dear Ms Kilkenny,

  Further to your recent enquiry concerning Jennifer Louise Pickering, 4.3.58, I have checked university records for the academic year 1976-77. Miss Pickering accepted a place for that year, conditional on her A-level grades, but she did not register for admittance. She was not a student of the English Faculty, or of any other University department, during that period.

  Yours faithfully,

  MRS V.HALLIDAY (Administrator)’

  What?

  I
read it twice. Then I rang Mrs Halliday.

  Chapter twelve

  I introduced myself and thanked her for the letter. “I wanted to ask, registering for admittance - is that what students do when they actually arrive, during Fresher’s Week?”

  She expelled air quickly, sounding frustrated with my question. “Yes,” she said brusquely, “we have to keep track of numbers obviously, and if someone had been through admissions and joined the Faculty they would be on the general register.”

  “What if she’d been admitted but dropped out of the course early on?”

  “Then there would be a record of admission.”

  “Do you know if Jennifer contacted the university to say she wasn’t going to take the place?”

  I heard her tut in exasperation. “No. And that sort of documentation wouldn’t have been kept as a matter of course. Our records weren’t computerised until the mid-eighties, space was at a premium, official records were all we could find room for and there are boxes full of those, I can tell you.”

  “And you checked for other departments as well?”

  “According to the formal admissions records Jennifer Pickering did not attend this university at all.”

  I was stunned. Everything had been resting on Keele. Jennifer’s last known residence. Except it hadn’t been. I’d hoped to find a firm lead there, a forwarding address, perhaps the names of course mates who might still be in touch. I made another coffee and tried to work out what this meant. Jennifer never went to Keele. Everyone assumed that she had. There was more to it than that. I dug out my earlier notes and went back over them. Both Roger and Mrs Clerkenwell had spoken about Jennifer dropping out of her course, so had Lisa MacNeice. And who had told them that Jennifer had left Keele? Mrs Pickering - Jennifer’s mother. And who had told Mrs Pickering? Had Jennifer pretended to be at Keele when she was really elsewhere? Or had the Pickerings invented the story for reasons of their own? I had to talk to her. She must be able to tell me more about where Jennifer went at the end of that hot, dry summer. When I saw Roger later that day I would insist on meeting Mrs Pickering as a condition of carrying on with the case.

  I looked at the letter again and tried to adjust my view of events to fit. I must erase the part about Jennifer going off to university. Why hadn’t she gone? Her grades were good, people said she was excited about the move away, looking forward to it by all accounts. The pregnancy must have changed things. Did this mean she hadn’t had an abortion but had decided to keep the baby, or at least continue the pregnancy? Where had Jennifer gone if not to Keele? To a mother and baby home? Couldn’t she have deferred her course for a year while she had the baby?

  I picked up the little mosaic vase that Mrs Clerkenwell had given me and turned it to and fro, examining the tiny fragments of glass mosaic the glinting gold pieces, the irregular colours of the small tiles. It felt cool to the touch. Together the broken pieces made something whole thanks to the craft of its maker. My work felt like that, lots of bits that needed matching together; facts, secrets, hearsay, rumours, all needed fixing in the right place, juxtaposing with the others until the true shape could be discerned. I was re-creating truth not beauty. And truth could be hideous or poignant or whimsical or mundane.

  I felt uneasy about the job. It had been hard enough at the outset with so many years since anyone had seen Jennifer but now to find that one of the few facts I had to work with was false made it feel even more of a lost cause. I shivered. The office suddenly felt small, cold and confining.

  I rubbed my eyes, got up and switched on the heater, looked at the list I’d made first thing. Tell insurance, borrow car. Who from? Diane didn’t have a car, she roped me in everytime she had to transport frames or canvases or collect new tubs of inks and chemicals. Ray hadn’t got one at the moment, he borrowed mine too and more recently made use of Laura’s. Everyone I could think of who had a car actually used it and wouldn’t be prepared to lend it out. I thought about the next few days. Most of my appointments could be done by bicycle. I should be able to manage. If Mr Poole rang again I’d get a taxi.

  That reminded me to get the tape off to Mandy Bellows. I’d brought it to the office. I replayed a section of it in the camera to check that it was reasonable quality. It was. I could make out the individuals, cocky faces sneering as they took turns to ram the ball against the house. I packed the tape in a jiffy bag and rang the courier service I use.

  Then I rang the insurers and began the long, slow process of giving them all the details they needed about my stolen car.

  Once the courier had called I got ready to leave. There was a noise upstairs, someone coming in. Unusual, as Grant and Jackie Dobson are teachers and rarely home when I am there, and their daughters are at school.

  I went upstairs quietly, feeling foolish at how hard my heart was beating. There was someone in the kitchen. I positioned myself near the front door before calling out, “Hello?”

  “Sal?” a husky voice replied and Vicky Dobson, the eldest daughter, popped her head round the door. “Hiya. I’ve just got back. Don’t come too near, I need a bath, seriously.” Vicky had been doing the festivals; Glastonbury, Reading, WOMAD and had gone backpacking round Europe in-between. She looked the part; muddy blonde dreadlocks, a set of rings in each nostril, enough in her ears to hang curtains on, a stud in her eyebrow, distressed clothing, acid green Doc Martens. She looked great.

  “Good trip?”

  “Top. I’m knackered. And starving. I must eat - you want anything?”

  “No, I’ve got to get going. See you soon.”

  Frances Delaney had a baby draped over her shoulder when she answered the door. “Typical,” she said, “he always sleeps at this time, until I arrange something. Come in.”

  “Don’t worry,” I said, “mine was just the same.”

  “How many have you got?”

  “Oh, only the one of my own but we share a house so there’s a little boy as well.”

  “I’ve four,” she said, “well, four at the moment.”

  “You’re having another?”

  She smiled. “I always wanted a big family, sometimes you get what you want.”

  We sat in a large room, strewn with baby gear and children’s toys. There was a distinct smell to indicate she’d just changed a nappy. She wore a shapeless, navy jogging suit and moccasin slippers. Her dark wiry hair was pulled back in a yellow hair band. The baby wriggled on her shoulder, she rocked and patted its bottom. She looked ridiculously happy.

  I asked her to tell me about the weeks before Jennifer left. I wouldn’t let on to Frances that Jennifer had never gone to Keele; it was my job to find things out not divulge them. Roger Pickering was paying my way and any information belonged to him first and foremost.

  “I remember it well, actually, with it being so hot. It was incredible, everything drying up. We used to watch her father watering his plants, every night after work he’d be out there.”

  Like my Dad with his vegetables.

  “You watched him?” I was trying to picture where the girls had been.

  “From my room, it overlooked the gardens. Jenny would come round a lot, our house was right at the back of theirs. We could see across to each others bedrooms.” The baby grizzled and made climbing motions, the stretch fabric of the baby-gro outlining his small limbs and feet. Frances shifted him onto her lap, laid him across her knees on his stomach and stroked his back. His head bobbed like those nodding dogs people used to have in the back window of their cars.

  “Jenny would come over through the back, climb over the wall and come in our back door. We even had a code,” she laughed, “if I was going out I’d close my curtains so she’d know not to call.”

  “She always came to yours?”

  “Yes, her family were pretty old fashioned, it was easier at mine,” she shrugged. “That summer Jenny was working up at The Bounty and I was just messing about. I’d got a place at Manchester University. Jenny and Lisa went off to Knebworth, I don’t know why I
didn’t go, short of cash I suppose. I went up to the Lakes with my family for a week. When I got back Jenny came over. She told me about the baby.” She looked at me to check my reaction, had I known? I nodded, it wasn’t news to me.

  “Did she say whether she was going to keep it?”

  She shook her head, her expression clouded. “We didn’t talk about it much. I was pretty anti-abortion then, Jenny knew that. We had a lot of visits from LIFE at my school, gory slide shows.” She sighed. “So, I told her places she could go, have the baby adopted, but she was very mixed up. After that we skirted round it, really. I was pretty blinkered back then. You know how teenagers can be, everything’s black and white, we all think we know it all. I think I’ve mellowed since then, I hope so. When I got to university I got involved in the Catholic Feminist Society.”

  Something of a contradiction in terms I thought to myself.

  “It was all very radical, certainly opened my eyes. We wanted to reform the position of women in the Church and challenge a lot of the dogma. I suppose my position changed but I never saw Jenny again.”

  “Can you remember the last time you saw her?”

  The baby wailed, a loud, harsh cry as though the world had suddenly ended. “Shush, shush, come here,” she turned him over, cradled his head and body in one arm while she lifted the corner of her top with the other and slipped him onto her breast. “You’d think he hadn’t had a feed for hours,” she commented. The baby was quiet immediately.

  I had a flash memory of the sensation of breast-feeding, breasts tender and heavy with milk, the initial buzz almost painful as Maddie latched on, the relief as she sucked, the other nipple leaking in sympathy. I’d had my share of problems, two bouts of mastitis when it felt as though someone had poured hot concrete laced with acid into my breast but apart from that I’d loved it.

  “I couldn’t tell you what day it was, or anything, but I remember it because Jenny got upset and I wasn’t sure if I’d said something, you know, something stupid...”