Maggie's Boy

by Beryl Kingston

  ‘Or a criminal.’

  ‘Right’

  ‘So what are you doing out here?’

  Rigg screwed up his eyes and looked crafty. ‘Come to that, what are you doing?’

  ‘I was told to look you up. Always do as I’m told, me.’

  ‘I can’t put you up. The place is a tip.’

  ‘That’s all right. I got lodgings in town. I’m only here for a day or two.’

  ‘Sales rep are you?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘Then you’re lucky. You’ll get back home.’

  The self-pity on Rigg’s face was too obvious to be missed. Morgan decided to play to it. ‘Won’t you?’

  ‘Can’t. I’m stuck in this hole. Stuck for years and years.’

  ‘Sounds terrible.’

  ‘It is terrible. You don’t know the half of it. Two years I’ve got to sit it out here, did Francis tell you? No. Two bloody years. And all for a book-keeping mistake. That’s all. A book-keeping mistake.’

  Morgan made a sympathetic face and waited. So he hasn’t put the flat up for sale, he thought. That’ll interest Mr Fehrenbach.

  ‘It’s bloody unfair,’ Rigg complained. ‘It’s not my fault. There’s a recession going on. A worldwide recession. They should wise up. There’s companies going down the tubes all over the place. I can’t help it. It’s all the banks’ fault. Bloody vultures. One minute they’re all over you – have some more money Mr Toan, have another loan, take out second charges – and the next minute, what are they doing? They’re hounding you down, calling for blood. That’s what they’re doing.’

  ‘Still, you got your wife with you,’ Morgan said, trailing the bait to see what would be said.

  Rigg sniffed. ‘Don’t talk to me about her,’ he said. ‘She’s bloody useless. Wouldn’t come with me, would she? Had to stay with the bloody kids. She thinks more of those bloody kids than she does of me, I can tell you that for nothing. Wife? She doesn’t know the meaning of the word. You’d expect a bit of loyalty from a wife now, wouldn’t you? But not her. D’you know what she did?’

  ‘No,’ Morgan said, keeping his face expressionless.

  ‘She let them repossess my car. My beautiful car. This year’s BMW. Top of the range. She let them walk in and take it away. You’d have thought she’d have put up a fight for it. But no. Not her. She just let them walk in and take it away. Wrote me a letter. Your car’s been repossessed.’ He picked up the jersey and draped it across his shoulders. ‘Don’t talk to me about wives.’

  So now I know what you think of her, Morgan thought angrily. What a shallow young man you are. She’s worth ten of you. Time this conversation is brought to a halt, he decided. He never functioned well if he was angry and, in any case, he knew better than to push too hard at a first meeting.

  ‘Duw! Is that the time?’ he said, looking at his watch. ‘I shall be late for my appointment.’

  ‘That won’t matter,’ Rigg said lazily. ‘They don’t worry about punctuality here. Everybody’s late for everything. Lazy slobs, the lot of ’em.’

  Look who’s talking! Morgan thought, standing up and gazing down at the recumbent form of his quarry. ‘Better go,’ he said. ‘I don’t like bein’ late.’

  ‘See you around’, Rigg said, closing his eyes.

  ‘If you’re on your own tonight,’ Morgan offered, ‘How about dinner?’

  ‘That’s very kind of you,’ Rigg said, opening his eyes at once. ‘I ’predate that.’

  I didn’t think he’d miss a trick like that, Morgan thought. ‘Fred’s at eight?’

  ‘Right.’

  As he left the compound, Morgan looked back. The swimming pool was bright blue and shone in the sunlight as if it had been polished, the tropical trees looked like a film set, and Rigg was lying in his deck-chair in the midst of it all, with his eyes closed, apparently fast asleep.

  I’ll play this fish very carefully, Morgan planned as he drove out of the compound. He might look idle, hut the lazy ones are often the cutest. Slow but sure, I think. I’d better find somewhere to stay.

  He found himself lodgings in a hostel called the Sedeno which was right in the centre of the old town. His room had a balcony overlooking the trees in the garden and in any other circumstances he could have enjoyed it very much. But his mind was so fully occupied with stratagems that the beauty of it was lost on him. He’d dealt with several self-pitying crooks in the course of his career as a private eye so he knew the form. What he had to do was let him talk, pretend to be sympathetic, and hope it wouldn’t take too long before he’d brought him to the point where he could persuade him to come home.

  It took twenty four hours and considerable patience. They dined at Fred’s that night and Morgan saw to it that Rigg’s glass was always full so that he was soon muddled with drink and awash with self-pity. He talked about the Inland Revenue and how unfair they were, about the banks and the folly of credit cards, about creditors and how cruelly they were persecuting him. He ended up with the story of his perfidious friend, Harry Elton.

  ‘Walked off and left me,’ he said, staring into the wine glass. ‘Took all my money and left me. What’s the use of anything. Entrepreneur, tha’s what I am. Backbone a’ the nation. Prosperity a’ the nation depen’s on me. An’ what do they do? Walk off an’ leave me. Stuck out here. No frien’s. All on m’own.’

  ‘Perhaps you should go back and show ’em you mean business?’

  That ploy failed.

  ‘Can’ do that,’ Rigg said. ‘Got to stay here. Gave me word. Good feller. Stay here. British. Honour a’ the fag – the frag – the f-lag.’

  ‘Time I was off,’ Morgan said. ‘See you at breakfast’

  The following morning they met at the pool and Rigg was in a philosophical mood.

  ‘I been thinking about what we were saying last night,’ he said, when he’d greeted his new friend.

  Morgan was surprised he could remember a word.

  ‘Greed,’ Rigg said. ‘That’s what it comes down to. Sheer greed. All these bankers. They want their money and they can’t wait for it. They want it now. Yesterday. If I went back to England they’d have me up before the courts before I could say knife. They’re a vindictive lot of buggers.’

  ‘You’re right there’, Morgan said, seeing his opportunity. ‘That’s just what they are. If you stay out here, they’re going to set Interpol on to you. They’ll have you brought back in handcuffs.’

  That was a shock. ‘Bloody hell! You’re joking!’

  ‘No. It’s no joke. That’s what they do.’

  ‘They don’t! How do you know? Anyway they can’t. They don’t know where I am.’

  Time for the crunch. ‘I’m afraid they do Rigg.’

  ‘How d’you make that out?’

  ‘They sent me over here to find you. I’m a private investigator.’

  The news pitched Rigby Toan into fear and fury. ‘Christ Almighty!’ he yelled, leaping to his feet. ‘Who did? Who sent you? Good God, can’t a man get any peace! Who sent you?’ Face suffused with anger, he balled his fists, bent over Morgan and shouted. ‘You’ve got no right to do this to me. You’re invading my bloody privacy. Tell me who sent you or by God I’ll…’

  Morgan didn’t move or look away. He simply sat where he was, perfectly calm and perfectly contained, allowing his superior size and muscle power to speak for him. The technique worked, as it usually did. Eventually Rigg stood upright, shrugged and moved off towards the swimming pool.

  ‘So you’re a bloody spy then?’

  ‘That’s my job,’ Morgan said.

  Rigg thought for a while. Then he changed tack and became reasonable. ‘So who sent you?’

  Morgan answered reason with reason. ‘You know I can’t tell you that,’ he said. ‘It’s more than my job’s worth. I can help you though.’

  ‘Oh can you?’ Rigg said, still growling. ‘I don’t see how.’

  ‘I been helpin’ you already, if you did but know it,’ Morgan said e
asily. ‘I been a good friend to you. I know where you are but I haven’t told them yet. And I can tell you what to do to get out of it. There’s nothin’ to stop me doin’ that.’

  ‘What do you mean get out of it? How can I get out of it? I’m stuck.’

  ‘No, no. You’re not. You got a passport, right?’

  ‘Right’

  ‘So you get on the first flight out of here and go back to face the music’

  ‘I can’t do that. I told you.’

  ‘It’s the only thing you can do, believe me. The longer you stay here, the worse it’ll be when they catch up with you. Go back, face ’em, you spike their guns.’

  ‘You really think so?’ Rigg seemed uncertain. He was thinking hard, trying to work out if it would really be to his advantage. Since Francis had gone home he’d been bored out of his skull. It’s not in my nature to be idle, he thought to himself.

  ‘It’s the only thing,’ Morgan said, encouraging him.

  ‘Go back and face ’em?’

  ‘Right.’

  There was a long pause while Rigg went on thinking.

  ‘You know I appreciate this, Morgan,’ he said at last. ‘You didn’t have to tell me any of this, did you?’

  ‘No. I didn’t.’ Morgan gave a wry smile. He’s a devil, he thought, but a smart one.

  ‘No,’ Rigg agreed.

  ‘I tell you what I’ll do,’ Morgan said, clinching the deal. ‘I got to fly back tonight. Tomorrow’s Monday. I’ll write my report when I get back to the office but I won’t post it till Wednesday. That’ll give you time to get back, see your insolvency consultant, start getting things cleared up. How’s that?’

  It was agreed. ‘I appreciate it, Morgan,’ Rigg said again. ‘I really do.’

  Below them on the other side of the promenade, the Mediterranean winked with a thousand wicked eyes.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Harvey Shearing’s office was a bow-fronted Georgian shop in the middle of Ashenridge High Street. It was a classy-looking place, with fresh white paint and brass fittings to impress you on the outside and a green carpet and leather armchairs to welcome you within – just the right setting for a man who owned two restaurants, a hi-fi shop, a cottage in Normandy and his own private plane.

  The 1986 Insolvency Act had opened the door to a new life for Mr Harvey Shearing. There are good pickings to be taken from a recession if you understand the rules, and Harvey understood them very well. Everything conspired to help him. With a General Election looming, the government didn’t want a crop of bankruptcies to ruin their chances of a fourth term, so it was a good climate in which to persuade the courts and the Inland Revenue to endorse arrangements. He had plenty of clients. There were thousands of misguided fools around, men who’d sunk their redundancy pay in small businesses, made a pig’s ear of it, and were now queuing up to enter into a voluntary arrangement to avoid the shame of going bankrupt.

  On Monday morning he came whistling to work, ready to advise the next batch of inadequates, and was annoyed to discover that the mail hadn’t been opened and that both his secretaries were huddled over the newspapers, reading the news.

  ‘What’s this?’ he asked. ‘What’s this?’

  ‘The troops have gone in,’ Sandra said, looking up from the paper. ‘It’s operation Desert Storm.’

  ‘I know that,’ Harvey said. ‘They invaded yesterday morning. What of it? There’s work to do.’

  Both women stopped reading the paper but, to his annoyance, he realised that neither of them was looking at him. He swivelled round to see what had caught their attention and found himself staring at Rigby Toan, unshaven, crumpled by travel and gloweringly angry.

  ‘Good Heavens!’ Harvey said. ‘What are you doing here? I thought you were in Spain.’

  ‘Don’t give me that,’ Rigg said belligerently. It had been an uncomfortable flight and, now that his car was gone, he’d been forced to travel to Ashenridge by train. ‘You know bloody well what I’m doing here.’

  ‘Come into my office,’ Harvey said quickly. There was no need for the girls to listen to this sort of stuff. When they were safely behind a closed door, ‘Now tell me. What’s all this about?’

  Rigg prowled to the window. ‘Giving my address to a private eye,’ he said. ‘That’s what all this is about. I thought you were my friend. Fine sort of friend you’ve turned out to be.’

  ‘Sit down,’ Harvey commanded, ‘and tell me what’s happened. I haven’t given your address to anybody. The whole purpose of a voluntary arrangement is to keep creditors and debtors apart. Think about it.’

  Rigg had been in such a rage at having his cover blown that he hadn’t stopped to think at all. Now he sat down and told his story, biting his nails between sentences, his language becoming more and more lurid.

  ‘Well, whoever it was, old son,’ Harvey said, when he’d finished, ‘it wasn’t me. If you’ll take my advice, you’ll go straight back to Spain and concentrate on selling the flat, the way we agreed.’

  ‘But that was my hidey-hole,’ Rigg said through gritted teeth. ‘There’s no point in having a hidey-hole if everyone knows where it is. Somebody hired a private eye to come and find me.’

  ‘Then you’ll have to find somewhere else to hide.’

  ‘Oh lovely! That’s lovely!’

  ‘Meantime, I’ve got work to do.’

  In a second Rigg’s expression altered. ‘You couldn’t lend me a tenner, could you?’ he asked. ‘I had to buy a train ticket, so I’m cleaned out.’

  ‘You can have ten pounds from petty cash,’ Harvey said, taking a note from his wallet. ‘I’ll accept your IOU.’

  ‘It’s bloody impossible without a car.’

  ‘I’m sure it is.’ Harvey did not sound sympathetic. ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me…’

  Feeling more and more sorry for himself, Rigg fed his anger all the way to Hampton. If Harvey hadn’t given the private eye his address, there was only one person who could have done – and she was going to pay for it.

  The train ambled through water-logged meadows on its approach to Arundel. Everything in the landscape was exactly the same as ever, the same straw-coloured reeds fringed the same puttycoloured river, Arundel Castle rose stolidly from the same wooded slopes, the same cows browsed in the fields. I’m the only thing that’s changed, Rigg thought, and I’ve been stripped of everything that makes life worth living, my shop, my car, my privacy, all my achievements. The image of his precious BMW being repossessed made him yearn with anguish. I can’t function without a car. I’ve got to get another one.

  At Hampton, he took a taxi to his mother’s house. Funds were parlously low but it was a gamble he had to take. It’s all up to the old dear now, he thought. Let’s hope she’ll put her rotten hands in her pocket.

  Margaret Toan had only just got up when he arrived. She was drifting about the kitchen in her dressing gown, smoking a cigarette and trying to get her mind into focus. She was delighted to see her darling, naturally, but he was in such an excitable state, and told her so much and so quickly, that she became confused.

  ‘I haven’t had breakfast, Rigby,’ she said feebly.

  ‘Have some then,’ he said. ‘I’m not stopping you. Imagine them taking my car. The cheek of it! I’ve had the most terrible time, Mater. Stuck out there in that God-awful hole. It’s a wonder I haven’t been ill, what with the worry and being on my own.’

  ‘Shall we make some coffee?’ she suggested.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. But he didn’t offer to help her. Instead he continued with his stream of complaints.

  Maggie was feeling pretty dreadful, ‘Look,’ she said, when he stopped to draw breath. ‘Tell me what you want, my darling, and I’ll see what can be done.’ She couldn’t listen to any more of this. Even if it meant paying him, she had to stop him.

  ‘£5,000 would do,’ he said, at once and happily. ‘To buy a new car.’

  Maggie got up and went over to the sink. ‘I can’t give you that sort of money,’ s
he said, struggling to turn on the tap and fill the kettle.

  ‘But it’s coming to me anyway, when I’m thirty five.’

  ‘We can’t talk about that,’ she said. ‘You’re not thirty five.’

  ‘Lend me one thousand then. For the deposit.’ With a grand he could pay two instalments on a new BMW. He’d have to go to a different agent of course …

  Fragile though she felt, Maggie Toan could still bargain. ‘Five hundred,’ she said. ‘And that’s not a gift, mind you. It’s a loan. You’ll have to pay it back.’

  Rigg was doing sums. It was a measly amount but it would have to suffice. ‘You’re a darling,’ he said, deciding on the soft soap approach.

  ‘So I am,’ she agreed. ‘Now make this coffee for me, there’s a good boy, and I’ll write you a cheque.’

  He did as he was told, with as good a grace as he could pretend.

  ‘Where are you going next?’ she asked, when he put the coffee in front of her. ‘Oh darling! Not in a mug. Couldn’t you have found a cup?’

  ‘I’m going to see my wife, if you must know,’ he said, turning back to the kitchen with the offending mug. ‘My wife and my children.’

  ‘They’ve moved,’ she called after him. ‘You know that, do you?’

  Rigg poured the coffee into a cup, slopping it into the saucer. ‘What?’

  ‘She sent me a card with her new address,’ Maggie said, watching his face as he balanced the coffee cup in one hand. ‘It’s on the mantelpiece. Under the clock.’

  ‘She can’t have moved,’ Rigg said crossly. ‘What’s she playing at? Has she sold the house? Is that it?’

  ‘Don’t ask me, darling,’ his mother said, dropping her aching head into her hands. ‘I don’t know what she’s doing. She was talking a lot of nonsense the last time she came round. I kept the card, that’s all.’

  Rigg frowned at it for a long time. Then he put it in his pocket. He was annoyed with both of them, Ali for springing this on him, his mother for telling him about it. Well, he thought, this is one more thing Ali will have to explain and it had better be good. First I’ve got to get me a car.