by P. F. Ford
'Maybe in a previous life,' said the driver, 'but not these days. Do you want to speak to Jerry, or do I leave you here? It's your choice.'
'Well, you can count me in,' said Darling. She stepped forward, opened the back door, and climbed in. 'I don't know about him, though,' she said as she slid across the seat. 'He has a problem sharing his thoughts.'
The driver looked confused.
'Take no notice,' said Norman as he climbed into the car. 'She seems to have got out of bed on the wrong side this morning.'
The driver took a look at the two of them in his mirror, put the car into gear, and eased away from the kerb. 'So it's Norman and Naomi,' he said. 'It's got a nice ring to it. I'm Dennis, by the way.'
'I have to say, this isn't quite how I thought this would work,' said Norman.
'What, you were expecting machine guns too?'
'Not guns exactly. I figured that would be a bit out of place in a town like this. I thought maybe two or three guys and a lot more threatening language, like you see in the movies.'
Dennis laughed. 'Sorry to disappoint you, but I meant it when I said you didn't have to get in the car. Jerry would be disappointed because he wants to talk to you, but he's not about to force you to come if you don't want to. You can still change your mind and get out if you want.'
Darling looked at Norman and raised her eyebrows. He was just as surprised. This wasn't at all what he was expecting. 'No, it's okay, Dennis,' he said. 'I think you've created enough intrigue that we just have to see this through now.'
'Oh, good. Jerry will be pleased.'
Chapter Eighteen
They had driven about a mile out of town when the Mercedes slowed and then turned left off the road. 'Is this it?' asked Norman.
'Just up the drive here,' said Dennis. 'Jerry asked me to take you to the gazebo.'
'Did you say gazebo?' asked Darling.
'He likes his garden, does Jerry. The weather's a bit shit for sitting out this time of year, but he can still enjoy it if he uses the gazebo.'
'What's he like? Is there anything we should know?'
'He's not everyone's cup of tea, but I like him,' said Dennis. 'He looks after me, and I look after him, but even though I work for him, he never looks down on me, you know? Just be straight with him and you'll be fine.'
'You make him sound like an all-round nice guy,' said Norman.
'Yeah, well, that's because he is.'
'That's quite an unusual quality for a drug dealer.'
Dennis pulled a face. 'But he's not a drug dealer.'
'That's not what I heard,' said Norman.
'Maybe you've been talking to the wrong people,' said Dennis, bringing the car to a stop. 'This is where you get out.'
'Did I say something wrong?' asked Norman doubtfully.
'No, don't worry, you're fine. I'm not throwing you out. You have to walk the last bit to the gazebo.' Dennis pointed to a group of trees about fifty yards away. 'Follow the path down to those trees. The gazebo's just behind them. You'll see it when you get down there. When you want to go home, just come back here, and I'll be waiting.'
Norman wasn't convinced this wasn't some sort of trap. He looked at the trees and back at Dennis.
'You don't trust me, do you, Norman?' asked Dennis.
'I'll admit I'm not exactly one hundred per cent happy with this situation.'
Dennis turned to Darling. 'Have I done anything to suggest you're in any danger since I picked you up?'
'No, you haven't. Come on, Norm. We've come this far. We might as well see it through.'
Before Norman could react, she had opened the door and stepped out. 'Hey wait,' he called after her as he scrabbled to open his own door. 'Don't rush off on your own. Wait for me.'
She was halfway to the trees before he caught up with her. 'I thought you were the one who was worried about what could happen.'
'Yeah, well, we're here now, aren't we?' she said. 'And like you said, Dennis the driver has made this Jerry sound so intriguing, we've got to see what we've been missing, haven't we?'
'I was worried about you! I thought you were scared.'
'Oh, come on, Norm. I'm an adrenaline junkie. I can't help it.'
'False bravado can get you into a lot of trouble,' he warned.
'It's not bravado, and it's not false,' she said. 'I just don't scare easily. Ask yourself – when have you ever seen me really scared of anything?'
'What about the rat?'
'Alright, apart from rats.'
'Well, now you come to mention it . . .'
'Exactly. I just don't feel it like other people do.'
They had reached the trees now, and they could make out a rather magnificent gazebo just beyond. They followed the path through the trees. 'There it is,' said Darling as it came fully into view. 'Wow! Look at it.'
'Jeez, that's as big as a house,' said Norman.
The path led up to a door that was ajar. Norman knocked and pushed the door, which swung open to reveal a small hallway. He led Darling inside and pushed the door closed behind them, leaving the chilly autumn air outside.
An inner door opened to reveal a man Norman guessed to be about forty years old. He was about six feet tall, with long, straggly hair and an untidy beard. He looked as if he hadn't slept recently. 'Hi,' he said. 'You must be Norman, and you're Naomi, is that right?'
'Yes, that's right,' she said.
'I'm Jerry. Why don't you come on in?'
Norman looked at Darling, who gave an almost imperceptible shrug. This whole situation was so unlike what he had been expecting, he was still struggling to come to terms with it, and he really wasn't sure. There again, they'd come this far . . .
He looked at her again, and this time he was sure she nodded. He looked at Jerry, who smiled encouragingly. 'Yeah, sure, why not?'
He ushered Darling through the door, following closely behind her.
'I've got coffee, or would you prefer tea?' asked Jerry as he led them into the main part of the gazebo. He pointed to a dining table and some chairs set out in front of a huge window that gave a view across the garden and on for miles beyond.
'Wow!' said Norman. 'This is quite a place. And this is just the gazebo? I could happily live in a place this size.'
'It's pretty cool, isn't it?' asked Jerry. 'I'm renting this place at the moment. I'd quite like to buy it, but it's not really where I want to settle.'
His eyes seemed to suddenly glaze over, and for a moment, Norman thought he was going into some sort of trance, but then he seemed to shake himself out of it. 'Mind you,' he said gloomily, 'everything's changed now, so I don't know what I'm going to do.'
He seemed to be about to drift off again, but Norman wasn't having any of that. 'The message we got was that you wanted to talk to us.'
'What? Oh, yeah, that's right,' said Jerry, dragging himself back into the real world. 'A little birdie tells me you've been looking into what happened to Jenny.'
'That little birdie wouldn't be called Jasper, by any chance, would he?'
A smile flitted across Jerry's face. 'He said he thought you'd probably made him,' he said. 'It helps to have ears on the ground, you know? My brother taught me that.'
'But why would you need to have ears anywhere?' asked Norman.
'Right now I seem to have a lot of enemies, and when that happens, it's usually a good idea to keep track of what's going down and when.'
'How d'you come to make so many enemies?' asked Darling.
Jerry gave them an indulgent smile. 'Sorry, but that isn't how this is going to work. I didn't ask you out here so you could question me. You're here so I can ask the questions, and you can give the answers.'
'Maybe we need to ask you some questions to help us work out all the answers,' said Norman.
Jerry nodded once. 'Perhaps,' he said. 'But you answer my question first. Are you investigating what happened to Jenny?'
'You didn't know her as Ginger, then?'
'That was her street name, we all know
that, so let's stop playing games.'
'Yeah, we are investigating,' Norman said, 'but what's it to you?'
Jerry's eyes flashed angrily. 'She was everything to me,' he snapped. 'We were going abroad to start a new life together, but someone murdered her before that could happen. I want to know who it was.'
'You think she was murdered?'
'She was found with a syringe in her arm, but she never, ever touched drugs. She wouldn't even smoke a little dope.'
'We kinda worked that one out too,' Norman said. 'We also guessed you were the reason she was here, and I'm really sorry you've lost her, but we can't tell you who did it because we don't know. And even if we did know, we couldn't tell you. You must know that.'
'I can pay. You'd never have to work again.'
Norman sighed. 'Yeah, but you see, it's not about the money. Even if it was, that would mean accepting bad money, and I'm not even vaguely interested in doing that.'
'What do you mean, bad money? My money's as good as anyone's.'
'We have little birdies that talk to us too,' said Norman. 'They're not the same ones you talk to, but I reckon ours are probably better informed. Anyway, one of our little birdies told us you deal drugs, and that means your money is drug money. Like I said, that's bad money.'
'I'm not involved in that any more. I promised Jenny I'd leave that life behind me and we would start again.'
'Well it's always good to hear someone's changing their life for the better,' said Norman, 'but I expect you're doing it with a nice healthy bank balance, right?'
'Well, yes, of course.'
Norman shook his head and tutted. 'And that bank balance was created by selling drugs, right? It doesn't matter which way you look at it, that's not really starting again, is it?'
'What gives you the right to judge me?' Jerry asked angrily.
'Hey, I'm not judging you. I just have a different moral code, and what you do doesn't fit with my code. That's just how it is. If you can do what you do and live with yourself, well, good for you, but I don't want any part of it, and that especially includes your money.'
'Well, at least tell me what you know.' Jerry was pleading now. 'I can't even find out what really happened to her. The police won't tell me anything.'
Norman looked at Darling. 'Well, I suppose at least now we know it's not Jerry here who's paying Sergeant Casey to keep his mouth shut.'
'That explains why he wouldn't take my money,' said Jerry.
'Yeah, someone's beaten you to it,' said Norman, 'and whoever it is, I reckon they must be paying him top money. So who around here would be able to do that?'
'I don't know anyone here,' said Jerry. 'The only reason I came here was to meet Jenny. We were going to stay here for a couple of weeks while we made our plans, and then we were going to run away.'
'Run away?' asked Darling. 'Why would you need to run away? Who are you running from?'
'It's just a figure of speech,' said Jerry hastily. 'We were going to get new passports and new IDs, set up somewhere abroad, and never come back.'
'Look,' said Norman. 'I wouldn't take your money if it was the only thing that would keep me alive, but I do want to find out what happened to Jenny. I don't know if she ever told you, but I knew her, and she spent a lot of time living with a friend of mine, so this case is a bit personal to me.'
Something seemed to click in Jerry's mind. 'You mean that Dave Slater guy? Yeah, Jenny told me about him. You must be Norman Norman, right? I should have put two and two together when Jasper told me your name.'
'One of the reasons we're here is so we can tell Dave Slater what happened to Jenny. I think after he looked after her for so long, you owe him that much, don't you?'
He was surprised to see Jerry looked guilty.
'Naomi has always had this theory that Jenny was using Dave. I didn't think she was right at first, but now I think she's got it spot on. Jenny was waiting for you to get in touch with her, wasn't she? So how about you tell us why she had to hide? It might just help us figure out who's behind what happened here.'
Jerry didn't look convinced, and for a few moments, Norman thought that was going to be the end of the conversation, but then he relented. 'Okay, how far back do I need to go? I take it you know about the court case?'
'That's where you met her, right?'
'Yeah. I knew from the first moment I set eyes on her that she was special, and we hit it off straight away, but being in the business I was in, it was never going to be easy, was it?'
'You mean drug dealing? You're right, it's not exactly the best career for the boyfriend of a barrister.'
'Let's get something straight, can we?' Jerry said firmly. 'It's my brother, Ben, who's the drug dealer, not me. I'm just an accountant.'
'Specialising in creative accountancy on your brother's behalf, no doubt.'
'I didn't ask where the money came from, right? I just kept the books.'
'And because you kept your eyes averted, that made it alright, did it?' asked Darling.
'D'you want to hear this or not?'
'Yeah, we do,' said Norman, 'but can you stop playing the innocent? You might not have actually handled any drugs yourself, but you knew exactly what was going on, and you were happy enough to take the money.'
It was clear from their faces that Norman and Darling weren't about to change their opinions. After a few moments, Jerry continued his story.
'Shortly after the case ended, Jenny's mother died, and with no one to look after her father, she had to put him into a nursing home. He has Alzheimer's, you see, and he needed constant attention. She stopped going to see him in the end because he had no idea who she was. She hated herself for it, but she just couldn't deal with seeing him like that.'
Norman's brow creased. 'She never told us about any of that. How do we know this is all true.'
'You're detectives, aren't you?' said Jerry mockingly. 'It can't be that difficult to check it out if you don't believe me. It seems there are a lot of things she didn't tell you. She didn't tell you about me, did she? Some people share everything, and some people keep it inside. She preferred to keep it inside. It's how she dealt with stuff.'
It was becoming increasingly clear to Norman he hadn't actually known Jenny at all, so he didn't feel he could argue the point any further.
'Anyway, like I said, we just seemed to hit it off, and when all the family stuff happened, I think she needed someone to lean on, and I was there. It was a case of right time, right place, as it were. Within a matter of weeks, she'd moved in with me.'
'How did Ben feel about that?'
'He was fine about it. Why wouldn't he be? It didn't make any difference to what he was doing.'
'He didn't think her being part of the legal system might be a problem?' Norman asked carefully.
'But she wasn't part of it any more, was she? She left all that behind to come and live with me.'
'It could be argued that getting involved with you destroyed her career, and that coming to live with you was the only option she had left.'
'Yes, you could argue that was the case, but it wasn't like that. The loss of her mother and the situation with her father had turned her life upside down. Maybe that's what drove her decision, but whatever it was, she chose me over them.' Jerry stared at Norman, daring him to argue.
'Whatever,' said Norman, unconvinced. 'So what then?'
'It was good for a few weeks. She started to get over her problems, and we were really happy, and then things started to happen. First of all, we started getting threatening letters saying Jenny was going to be a target.'
'Who from?'
'We had no idea at the time, but it got even worse. I expect you know Jenny likes to keep herself fit?'
Norman nodded.
'She used to go jogging for half an hour or so every morning. One day, someone jumped out of a car and tried to grab her.'
'Did she see who it was? Or recognise the car?'
'She managed to slip away, but she was so scare
d she couldn't even remember the colour of the car. She stopped jogging after that. I offered to get her a bodyguard to go jogging with her, but she was adamant there was just no way. She didn't run again until she was with Slater.'
'So how did she end up on the street?'
'I'm just getting to that,' Jerry said. 'The threats against her started to increase. There were phone calls, letters, you name it, we got it. Ben was getting them too. When a couple of our guys lower down the food chain got bumped off, Ben thought it was the beginning of a turf war and a rival gang was trying to scare us off. They obviously didn't know Ben very well.'
'Tough guy, huh?' asked Norman.
'He's not someone you threaten unless you're prepared to carry the threat out and suffer the consequences. I know he's my brother, but Ben's not someone you want to mess with. He's the sort of guy who would start a war if someone looked at him the wrong way.'
'So you thought whoever was making the threats must be serious,' Darling suggested.
'Or incredibly stupid,' Jerry said. 'Anyway, I wasn't prepared to put Jenny's life at risk, so we came up with a plan whereby she would go underground, and I would let people think we'd had a bust-up and I'd thrown her out.'
'Who's "we"?' asked Norman. 'You said "we" came up with a plan.'
'Well, it was actually her idea. I think it might even have been a way of punishing herself for putting her father in a home.'
'And you went along with letting her live on the street?' asked Darling. 'Do you know how much danger a woman living on the street has to face?'
'Of course I knew the risks,' snapped Jerry. 'But she insisted, and if there was going to be a turf war, I couldn't guarantee she would be safe with me. It was the last place anyone would look for her, and she was pretty sure she could find this Dave Slater guy. And if she did find him, she thought he would look out for her. And she was right. He did.'
Norman sighed and exchanged a look with Darling, who pulled an 'I told you so' face, but there was no satisfaction in her voice when she spoke. 'Didn't I tell you she was just using him?'
'That was something she just had to do,' said Jerry.