Dying on Principle

by Judith Cutler

  ‘You should keep that up,’ he said. ‘If you let it sag, it’ll swell up worse.’

  So I had to recline like an overdressed Cleopatra while Phil first paced before me like a humble suitor, then, gathering his courage, perched on what space was left by my legs. ‘Like I was saying, can’t be too careful. You never know, do you?’

  ‘Know what?’

  ‘I was telling you, you can’t trust people. Not these days. Electronics,’ he said darkly.

  I nodded. Then shook my head for good measure. ‘You found something, then?’

  ‘Could be something, could be nothing. Got past the password, into the list of suppliers, anyway.’

  ‘Anything interesting?’

  ‘Well, like I said Sunday, ever since I’ve been here, and that wasn’t yesterday, I don’t mind telling you, we’ve been to the same firm for our computers. Them dear old BBCs, your Amstrads, everything. And now we don’t. Since Christmas or thereabouts. And you’ll recall I said I thought the name of the new suppliers would be on Her Nibs’s files.’

  I nodded.

  ‘Well, it was. So now we know where we’ve been getting them since Christmas.’

  ‘And where do we get them from now?’

  ‘Firm I’ve never heard of. PRT Computers.’

  ‘You wouldn’t have their address?’

  ‘Only for e-mail.’ He passed me a slip of paper.

  Resisting the urge to memorise the message and swallow the paper, I thrust it instead deep into my jeans’ front pocket.

  ‘Like I was saying, doesn’t do to hang around,’ he said, scrambling to his feet. He hovered awkwardly, ready, no doubt, to hoist me to the vertical. I preferred to do it under my own steam.

  We walked less urgently back to the main entrance. The sun was now fully out, and was giving everything a summer’s glow of wellbeing. The cars in the management spaces were sleek, newly cleaned and polished, and someone with a sense of humour had parked them with consecutive numbers side by side.

  I stopped. ‘Tell me, Phil, am I seeing things?’

  He shook his head. ‘What sort of things?’

  ‘Things like four Saabs in a row.’

  ‘They’re company cars, Sophie. Now we’re a corporation we have to have proper cars.’

  I glanced at him; I couldn’t tell from his tone whether he was being ironic.

  ‘Quite an investment in corporate identity,’ I said. These weren’t bottom-of-the-range models, either.

  ‘Chief Executive; Deputy Chief Executive; Assistant Principal, Support Services; Assistant Principal, Financial Services,’ Phil read off the newly painted boards over each parking space.

  ‘Are they really doing enough mileage to justify communal cars?’

  ‘Bless you, they’re not communal. They’ve got one each.’

  ‘They take them home each night?’

  ‘You wouldn’t expect them to walk, now would you? Not to Knowle and Lichfield and Stratford.’

  ‘No. But I’d expect them to use their own cars! Unless they plan to buy me a bike,’ I added, to lighten Phil’s frown.

  Before I returned to my room, I called in to Polly’s. The door was closed, but she opened it to my knock. The sunlight flooding into the room behind her made it impossible to see her face until we were both in the room. And then I was afraid I might know the answer to my question: ‘Any news of Tom Hendry, Polly?’

  She nodded. ‘Another attack last night. He’s still alive. May pull through. But it’ll be a long job, and he was one of those who signed the new contract.’

  ‘The one the Trevelyan woman signed?’ To my shame I couldn’t remember her first name. Or had I ever known it? ‘The one with limited sick leave?’

  ‘That’s the one. A bugger, isn’t it?’ she said, slamming her fist hard on her filing cabinet.

  ‘Have you heard anything about her? Is she still bad?’

  ‘Ena?’ She covered her mouth, guiltily. ‘You know, I’d completely forgotten about her. I know there was a collection, and I’ve an idea she’s still in the Queen Elizabeth. Jesus, fancy forgetting that!’

  I pointed to the filing cabinet. ‘You’ve had enough to worry about. There’s no sign of the missing files, I suppose?’

  ‘As it happens, yes. I found them in a pile at the top of the stairs. Weird. Very weird.’

  Despite a lingering sense of unease, I worked hard for the rest of the day. I managed to din some ideas into my GCSE class, who were clearly as tired of me as I was of them, and then dug into the project, making the sort of progress that leaves you pleasantly tired. I was in fact enjoying myself so much I almost forgot my physio appointment. I looked at my watch: four already. There was no way I could walk into Harborne that briskly, not in my present condition. I blushed at the thought of catching a bus for only four stops, but headed for the 103 bus stop anyway. This time the driver waited for me with great courtesy, and waited for me to clutch the grab handles before pulling gently away.

  ‘Over your accident, are you? Must have shaken you up a bit.’

  I could hardly believe my luck. ‘Did you see it, then?’

  ‘Your fault, of course. Should have used the crossing. But I’d say he drove at you. Smiled while he was doing it, too.’

  ‘Didn’t stop afterwards.’

  ‘Maybe he thought he’d hit you. Panicked, like.’

  ‘That’s no excuse. Damn it, I’m young and fit. What if he’d done it to someone with a dicky heart?’

  ‘Don’t suppose he would have. Picked you out on account of your skirt. I dare say he thought it was a bit of fun – until you started screaming blue murder.’

  ‘I never!’

  ‘Wouldn’t have blamed you if you had. I got a knee does that. Bloody agony. Patella, they call it.’

  ‘Hope he’s got one too!’ I said viciously. We both laughed. ‘Didn’t notice his number, did you?’

  There was a little tailback by the island. I prayed it wouldn’t clear just yet.

  ‘Funnily enough – it made a word. SEA. That’d be a West Bromwich number. Can’t remember what year, though. Here you are, darling; and remember, mind how you cross the road!’

  I could have kissed him. I probably would have done, if he hadn’t called me ‘darling’.

  Aggie, my next-door neighbour, was weeding her front garden when I got back. If I wasn’t careful, she’d be round doing mine, despite her seventy-odd summers, so I was glad I could truthfully tell her that the physio had told me that mild exercise would help the knee.

  She seemed a bit offhand. I racked my brain for something I might have done to offend her. I couldn’t think of anything, but I was too fond of Aggie, and too aware of her constant kindness to me, to want any trouble between us. So I went in to make a cup of tea for us both. Standing in the sink was an enormous bouquet, its stems secure in a cellophane balloon of water. Aggie must have taken it in. I filled two mugs and carried one out to her. ‘Thanks for taking in the flowers.’

  She nodded. We sat on her front step drinking in silence and watching the rush-hour world go by.

  ‘Never came back,’ she said at last. ‘That man. To do your gutters.’

  ‘Gutters?’

  ‘You hadn’t mentioned them to me. He came round yesterday. Meant to tell you; my memory can’t be what it was.’

  ‘What time?’

  ‘I was just getting in from our Jean’s, must have been about this time. A bit earlier, now I come to think of it. Yes, her Craig gave me a lift, so it would have been earlier. And there was this car parked outside your house. Just pulling up, he was.’

  ‘Any idea what sort of car?’

  ‘Our Craig’d know. Can tell you anything about cars, our Craig.’

  ‘And he asked about my gutters? Had he got ladders and everything?’

  ‘No. Just an ordinary car. Blue. Said you wanted an estimate. Thought it was a bit funny, like, because you and me always share things like that.’

  I nodded. ‘I’d have talked it over wit
h you first, of course I would. And, come to think of it, I suppose they might need doing. But not by him.’

  She turned to look at me. ‘Something’s upset you, me love.’

  ‘What did you say to him?’

  ‘Told him to come back when you were here. Didn’t let him in or nothing, not after what that nice young Chris said last year. He said if I’d been here they wouldn’t have made that mess of your house. He said I was the best guard dog you could have. Tell you what,’ she added, blinking away her emotion, ‘I’ll get on to our Craig for you about that car.’

  15

  The rhythmic clatter of an old cylinder lawn mower pushed by one of Aggie’s grandchildren made relaxing muzak to accompany my supper with Chris. He’d brought in a pizza and a packet of prewashed salad, some early strawberries and low-fat cream, and a bottle of Australian Chardonnay. He’d then exhumed a sun lounger from the back of my garden shed and insisted I lounge, if not in the sun, at least in the peaceful shade of a pleasantly warm evening, while he did the honours with the food. He didn’t have to ask where he’d find garlic, oil and vinegar.

  While the pizza cooked, he came and sat on the patio for a companionable drink. We’d been talking for some minutes about the chances of West Bromwich Albion scrambling up into the First Division before I remembered Phil’s scrap of paper.

  ‘Are you seriously asking me to believe,’ he said at last, ‘that you’ve had this all day and haven’t tried the number?’

  ‘There are some things,’ I said mildly, ‘that are best left to professionals. I reckon there’s a can of worms there, Chris, and I wasn’t sure it was one I wanted to open.’

  He looked at me sideways. ‘Come off it. What’s this sudden aversion to worms?’

  ‘Well, to be honest, I’d forgotten about it till a few minutes ago. And my computer isn’t yet hitched to the great information superhighway. But I reckon there is something going on. The firm’s called PRT Computers. I couldn’t find them in Kelly’s directory, though I suppose they may be too new for that.’

  ‘PRT? Never heard of them.’

  ‘I did have a perverse hope that it was run by the not late but unlamented Dr Trevelyan, but I find her first name’s Ena.’

  I was interrupted by the oven bleeper; it made such an unpleasant din even out here that Chris got up. He returned a few minutes later with the food.

  ‘And whence, since I’m being nosy,’ he continued as if he’d paused only for a breath, ‘that huge wodge of flowers in the living room?’

  ‘I seem to have acquired an admirer,’ I said.

  ‘Another one! You don’t sound very keen.’

  ‘I’m not. Were I that way inclined, there might be things to commend him, like a brand new BMW Seven Series – and excellent taste in food and wine. He took me to Le Provençal last night. And, as you can see, extravagant gestures when one has a grotty knee. But—’

  ‘I didn’t think you’d have objected to any of those.’ Chris’s voice was hard and tight.

  ‘As I said, there is a but. I don’t like him. Don’t even fancy him,’ I added with more honesty than tact. It was not unknown for me to make a cake of myself with rich men, however unlikeable. ‘Besides, he’s much too old for me. And there’s something …’

  ‘What sort of something?’

  ‘Something about him I find unpleasant.’

  ‘You have an odd way of showing it.’

  ‘So what should I have done with the flowers? Put them on the compost heap? And last night I needed to eat and he organised it without asking me.’

  ‘Not like you to accept something you don’t want.’

  ‘I wasn’t in a state to do much else last night. And the food was excellent. But I can’t say the same of his company. We have precisely zilch in common. And there’s something else … I don’t know. I’ll have to creep up on it and surprise it – like the details of that Escort.’ I smiled, to establish friendly relations again. ‘Do you think, by the way, it could be a complete coincidence that Aggie intercepted a bloke in a blue car last night?’

  ‘Where?’

  I jerked my thumb in the general direction of the front garden. ‘There. About four thirty, I’d guess. You can check with her yourself later. I wonder if it might have the same number as the car that drove at me?’

  ‘Sophie, you haven’t—’

  ‘No. But a 103 bus driver has. Remembered the letters at the end because they spelled “sea”.’

  ‘That’ll be West Bromwich. What about the year? The number?’

  I shook my head. ‘Your magic computer?’ I prompted hopefully.

  ‘Oh, it was probably stolen,’ he said. But the smiling crows’ feet round his eyes belied the dourness of his voice. He topped up our glasses, and we were into friendship mode again.

  Whenever Chris visited Aggie, I knew he would be made to eat something. She saw it as her mission in life to put a bit of flesh on his bones. What I’d never had the heart to tell her was that the first extra ounce would condemn him to an extra half-hour’s running to get rid of it, so he’d end up stringier than ever.

  While he was round there I pottered in the kitchen, loading the dishwasher and tipping the remaining salad into a lunch box. He was back sooner than I expected, however.

  ‘What the hell are you doing? You should be resting that leg!’

  ‘Mustn’t let it stiffen,’ I said. ‘The physio said so. All her high-tech stuff and those frozen peas have done it a power of good. I should be back on my cycle by the end of the week. What’s the news?’

  ‘By some strange coincidence, that grandson of hers reckons it was a blue Escort with go-faster stripes. But he didn’t notice the registration number.’

  ‘You look like an expectant father,’ I said. ‘You go and phone Ian or whoever, and see what your computer will throw out, and I’ll make some tea. Earl Grey?’

  The computer, Chris said as we took in the last of the evening air, had offered a car registered in the name of Mrs Sarah Lloyd, a lady from Bearwood who’d reported it stolen from Tesco’s at Five Ways. She’d loaded it with the week’s food, including fresh fish, before locking it and toddling off to Boots on the other side of Broad Street.

  ‘When she got back, there it was – gone,’ he concluded.

  ‘No further forward then,’ I said, fishing the lemon out of the Earl Grey.

  ‘On the contrary, I’d say we were. I’d say that you are honoured with the attentions of a professional hit man.’

  ‘Lucky me. But he couldn’t have known I’d be crossing Harborne High Street at that particular moment. Not unless hit men have psychic powers.’

  ‘Sometimes,’ Chris said, stirring his lemon round and round, ‘they have luck. He could have made that call simply to make sure you didn’t go straight home, for instance.’

  ‘Or to get me out of my room at Muntz,’ I said slowly. ‘This sounds daft but, Chris, I’m sure someone had been in there when I arrived this morning. I told myself it must have been the cleaners. But I just had a feeling.’

  He looked at me hard, then reached for my empty teacup. He gathered both lemon slices, spun them, frisbee-like, on to the compost heap, then stood up and offered me his hand. ‘If you’re up to a little light exercise I suggest a gentle stroll to the Court Oak, taking in Muntz on the way. Because you’ve left something vitally important in your room there—’

  ‘Some fresh fish, like Mrs Sarah Lloyd’s?’

  ‘Why not? And you simply have to retrieve it tonight.’

  As it happened, no one questioned our right to be in the building at gone nine o’clock. There were still some evening classes running: we caught snatches of earnest if hesitant conversations in a variety of tongues. Chris signed in, although the book lay unguarded on the reception desk. I noticed he gave himself his full title.

  My room was just as I’d left it. I felt very foolish, but Chris didn’t seem to need an apology. Quietly and purposefully he removed each drawer, sorted through the papers and retu
rned it. When he got to the one I keep tampons and spare tights in, he tried to cover his embarrassment with a laugh, but that didn’t stop him opening the tampon box. I sat watching, resting my leg as before on the bin. Then he made a thorough check of my filing cabinet, made easier because there was hardly anything in there: most of my stuff was safe at William Murdock. Chris looked steadily more exasperated. He pulled aside the curtains, ran his fingers over the window frames. At this point the telephone book and Yellow Pages did their inevitable collapsing act, and I howled with pain, in an adult and responsible way kicking the bin as hard as I could with the other leg. It landed right under the desk. There was no way I could bend to retrieve it. Shamefaced at my tantrum, I pulled a suitably apologetic face, but Chris was already on his knees. He set the bin upright again and put the directories on my desk without a word of rebuke. In fact, he seemed distinctly pleased with himself.

  ‘Come on, Sophie. Time for the pub.’

  ‘Will you carry the fish, then?’ I asked, remembering our excuse for being there.

  ‘But of course. Pray allow me!’

  At the Court Oak we found a quietish corner for our halves of mild.

  ‘Well?’ I permitted myself to ask, after he’d opened an uncharacteristic packet of crisps.

  ‘What would you say if I told you I had found a neat little transmitter on the underside of your desktop?’

  ‘I’d say, “Gosh!” Or something equally inadequate. What’d you say if I asked you what it looked like?’

  ‘I’d tell you it’s a neat little plastic box, somewhat smaller than a cigarette packet. And I think I ought to tell you it’s still there. If I’d taken it away, whoever put it there would notice it had stopped transmitting.’

  ‘Why me?’

  ‘May not be just you. Maybe your boss just wants to keep his ear to the ground.’