Jane Hetherington's Adventures In Detection

by Nina Jon

  “Thanks,” her boyfriend mumbled, pressing the thirty pounds promised into Johnny’s hand. He disappeared through the open front door, only to reappear almost immediately. He took out another twenty pounds which he also pressed into Johnny’s hands with the words, “She said yes!” This time he hugged Johnny before disappearing indoors again only to reappear for the second time.

  “If you still need work, Emma’s granddad’s looking for someone to help him lay a patio out front. He’s in his seventies and needs a bit of a hand. I can dig his number out for you, if you want?”

  II

  “He seems a nice enough old boy,” Johnny said on the way home, after coming off the phone to Emma’s grandfather. “He just wants someone to help him with the heavy lifting. The front gardens of those bungalows on Boland Close aren’t very big. If I get round for nine tomorrow morning, I reckon I’ll be home by lunchtime.”

  “You really don’t have to keep doing this, you know?” Charity said.

  “Yes I do,” Johnny said, “I’m going to prove to you two that I’m no longer the feckless, useless, son-of-a-bitch you fell in love with.”

  “What if we like the other guy better?” Jack asked.

  Johnny put his arms around Charity and Jack. “You won’t,” he promised.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Monty

  I

  Jane’s business mobile rang. The caller’s number was withheld, but she answered it even so.

  “Jane Hetherington speaking.”

  “Yeah my name’s Monty. I’m calling about that message on the rally’s website. About the man whose son is looking for him…” a male voice said “… Pete Lambert.”

  “Do you have any information about his whereabouts?” Jane said, her heart almost missing a beat.

  “I think so. I used to work at a bus depot with someone who looked just like the man in the photo. He was called Pete Lambert. He had a son he didn’t see. Can’t remember all the details, didn’t know him that well really, but he’d be about the right age.”

  “Do you have any idea where he might be now?”

  “Not any more. Don’t work there no more. He left before me. Heard he’d moved to Hull. I could ask around like. I’m still in touch with a few people from the depot, plus I got mates in Hull. They might know where he is. Thought I’d be speaking to Pete’s son as a matter of fact. You the mother?”

  “No, I’m a friend of his. I’m acting as an intermediary. How long ago did you work with Pete Lambert?”

  “Oh now let me see. Seven or eight years ago, something like that. Like I said, I didn’t know him that well, but I remember him mentioning he had a son he never saw. I’d never do that, me. If I had a kid, I’d make sure I was part of his life.”

  “I don’t suppose he left a forwarding address?”

  “Guess not. I could try and find out more.”

  “You’re being very helpful,” Jane said, wondering if she was about to be asked for money.

  Monty must have read her mind because he said, “You probably think I’m just some bullshiter on the make!”

  Jane was about to say, of course I don’t, when Monty said, “I’ve got a group photo with me and him in it. Someone took a picture of everyone at the depot and I asked for a copy. I’m happy to show it to you, to prove I’m legit.”

  “In that case we should meet up,” Jane said.

  Before the call ended, they’d arranged a place and time to meet.

  Call over, Jane was left to reflect. She was pleased by the turn of events, although whether this would turn into something remained to be seen. While her caller had been short on facts, nothing he’d told her flatly contradicted the possibility that he had actually worked with Johnny’s father. What’s more, he had a photo. Maybe, finally, she was closing in on her prey. She did hope so. The fruitless search for Johnny’s father was proving frustrating and upsetting. It was all very well being a private detective who prided herself on her efficiency, but what was the point, if she couldn’t even help her closest friends? She was dragged from her thoughts by the arrival of the post.

  She found a letter waiting for her on her doorstep. She recognised the handwriting. She opened it. It contained a poem, although not for her. It was addressed to the mouse in the summerhouse.

  To the mouse in the summerhouse

  ‘Rather than peeve us, it’s time to leave us.

  We all like guests, but you’re a pest.

  Don’t play dumb, it’s wearisome.

  Save us the rigmarole, find a new watering hole.

  Please don’t tease, just pack up your cheese,

  and be on your way, eater of hay.’

  See you tonight, Jane - Your Stanman’

  II

  Although Jane couldn’t entertain the thought of entering into a relationship with another man, not just yet anyway, there were men in her life to whom she was close. There was Johnny next door, for example, and Jack, although he was really more a surrogate grandson than anything else. Then there was Felix Dawson-Jones and Ant Dillard, the chair of the Magistrate’s Court where Jane was a part-time Magistrate. He was more than a colleague, he was a good friend.

  There was also Stanley Marshman, a well-known writer of comic poetry, which he published under the nickname by which Jane had always known him – Stanman. Jane had once been in love with Stan, and had even become engaged to him.

  She was just eighteen at the time, and he only slightly older. That teenage relationship had been about sex and a misguided teenage belief that young lovers always lived happily ever after. They hadn’t. Jane had married Hugh, and Stan a girl called Elsie. Thereafter their lives had diverged.

  It had been Jane who’d contacted Stan after Hugh’s death. She hadn’t thought long and hard about it. It was something she did, just like when she became a private detective. It felt right and so she did it. They’d met up. Elsie was still alive, she learnt, but in the grip of dementia, the woman she’d once been, lost to her family forever.

  At that first reunion, both agreed that whilst neither was ready for the type of relationship they had once enjoyed, neither wished to lose touch again for decades as they had before. Their monthly evening get-togethers, such as the one they’d arranged for that very evening, were to ensure they didn’t. She smiled to herself. She was looking forward to her evening out.

  III

  The poem reminded her to check her summerhouse to ensure the hair and the siren had driven the mouse away permanently. One look inside told her they hadn’t. She returned with a dustpan and brush.

  “How am I going to get rid of you, my friend?” she said to her rodent lodger while she swept the summerhouse floor. This was like the time the ants invaded her kitchen her first summer in the Pink Cottage. Jane, still young and naive, hadn’t wanted to use chemicals, unlike her husband. She’d visited the library to research alternative, natural ant-deterrent, returning with a list.

  “They have a very sophisticated sense of smell,” she’d explained, pouring scented talcum powder over the back doorstep. “If this doesn’t work, something else on the list will,” she’d added.

  “If you say so, dear,” Hugh had replied.

  The talcum powder wasn’t much of a deterrent, any more than was the salt, vinegar, baking soda, peppermint oil, black pepper, nor even a noxious mixture of all of them, which she’d spread over the back doorstep in desperation.

  The attempt to rid her property of the ants humanely had ended with her looking down on the ants swarming across her so-called deterrent, under her back door and into her kitchen, and Hugh looking at her.

  “Okay,” she’d said, thrusting a carton of ant powder into his hand, “you win.”

  She looked around her summerhouse one last time and sighed. Before she left, she pinned Stan’s poem on the wall. It would give the mouse something to read if nothing else.

  She returned to her cottage to find Charity waiting by her back door.

  “That mouse is back,” Jane said.r />
  “A nice blow dry and set will take your mind off it,” Charity replied, following her into the house.

  They moved to the bathroom, where Jane took her normal place in front of the mirror, with Charity behind her, hairdressing equipment laid out at her side. “I think I’ll put some colour through, Jane, to lighten it. It’s nearly spring after all, and…”

  “And?”

  “I know – you and Stan are just good friends, but you still want to look your best for this evening, don’t you?”

  “I always want to look my best, Charity.”

  “Exactly!”

  While Charity mixed up a thick orange paste in a bowl, she asked Jane how the search for Johnny’s father was going.

  “It’s been like looking for a needle in a haystack, Charity. Everywhere I’ve looked, I’ve drawn a blank. Even Stella was unable to shed any light on things. However, I think I’ve got a new lead though – someone who says he used to work with a Pete Lambert. He thinks it might be the same Pete Lambert who is Johnny’s father. He says he’s even got a photograph to prove it. We’re going to meet up. Hopefully it will lead to something.”

  “And what if it does? We don’t even know if his dad will want to meet him. He hasn’t made much attempt to get in touch so far, has he?” Charity said, applying the colour to Jane’s hair. “Say you find him, and Johnny contacts him and he’s not interested. Then what?”

  “I hear what you’re saying, Charity, but surely you don’t want me to abandon my search without telling Johnny, do you?” Jane asked. She would have some reservations about this.

  “I just don’t want him getting kicked in the teeth again, that’s all. He’s been through enough.”

  “I don’t want that either, Charity, you know that. But Johnny must have known what he was getting into when he asked me to help him find his missing father. I feel that unless he tells me otherwise, I must carry on.”

  “Say you found his dad. What’s to stop you trying to find out if he wants Johnny back in his life before you say anything to him?”

  “And if he doesn’t?”

  “Pretend you haven’t been able to find him.”

  Jane wasn’t sure about this. Charity may well be right. Johnny’s father might well have no more interest in his son than he did when he abandoned him all those years ago. She didn’t want Johnny to have the door slammed in his face by his father anymore than Charity did, nor did she want to have to tell Johnny that his father had rejected him for the second time. Charity’s solution, a simple white lie – I have been unable to find your father, I’m sorry – would save his feelings, certainly, but might leave her feeling like a fraud. The truth might be crueller than the fiction, but the fiction would be a betrayal of his trust in her. Abandoning her search on the quiet was, in her view, no better. What to do?

  “My goodness, Charity. What a can of worms we’ve opened,” she said. “We’ll just have to hope that if I am able to locate Johnny’s father, he does want his son back in his life.”

  “And if he doesn’t?”

  “I think we’ll have to cross that bridge, when we come to it. Where is Johnny, by the way?”

  “Helping someone lay a patio.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Patio-Man

  I

  Johnny revised his first impression of Emma’s granddad, when the ‘nice enough old boy’ opened the door with: “You’re late!”

  “No I’m not!” Johnny said, pointing to his watch. “You said nine o’clock. It’s only nine now.”

  “I said to start at nine, which means you’re late. You can start by digging up that lot and piling them up by the gate,” Emma’s grandfather said, pointing to the paving slabs, which covered two thirds of the small walled front garden. A flower-bed made up the rest of the garden. A spade leant up against the wall next to a wheelbarrow. “I’ll be indoors eating my breakfast,” the man said, shutting the door without another word.

  The old Johnny would have walked away from the job there and then, but the new Johnny was determined to prove to his girlfriend that he could stick at things however tough those things got. Therefore he took his jacket off, rolled up his sleeves and got to work. Using the spade provided, he slowly loosened a paving slab and prised it up, walking it across the garden, to lean against the wall near to the gate. This done, he returned to the patio and removed the next paving slab.

  By the time the front door opened again and patio-man, as Johnny had nicknamed him, stepped outside, Johnny had dug up and moved three of the seven rows of paving slabs.

  “I’ve been watching you wasting time,” patio-man snarled. “I’m not paying you money to spend all day texting.”

  “What?” Johnny replied, throwing his spade on the ground. He had no idea what patio-man was talking about. He pointed to his work, and was about to say, “Who do you think moved that lot?” when patio-man said, “I saw you on the phone.”

  Johnny suddenly realised patio-man must have overseen the brief text exchange he’d had with Charity over the purchase of milk. “I took two seconds to text the word okay to my girlfriend,” Johnny said defensively.

  “I’m not paying you good money to spend all day texting your girlfriend, and if you throw my spade on the ground again, you’ll be buying me a new one! What are you standing around for now?” the man barked. “When you’ve finished moving the old ones, bring the new ones round from the back. I want that soil turned over and any roots and stones removed before you start laying the next lot. I’m going out for a paper, but my wife’s inside and I’ve told her to keep an eye on you – so no more time wasting,” he said menacingly, before leaving the garden.

  Patio-man disappeared down the street, with Johnny staring after him indignantly, his hands on his waist, mouth open. Johnny knew if he left now, he wouldn’t get paid for what he’d done, otherwise he’d be on his way home. What a nerve, Johnny thought to himself. He heard a loud rapping on the window and turned around to find his employer’s wife pointing to the remaining paving slabs and mouthing the words, “Get working you!”

  II

  Patio-man returned hours later without the paper he’d left to buy, stopping by the gate to survey Johnny’s work. New patio slabs covered one third of the garden, upturned soil the rest. Johnny, who felt quite proud of having managed to remove the old patio, and lay a third of its replacement in such a short time, waited expectantly for this to be remarked upon. It was.

  “Haven’t you finished yet?” patio-man said. There was a slur to his words and his breath stank of the beer.

  Johnny stared coolly at patio-man for a few moments, before saying, “Oh, is there a pub nearby? I’ll go and have my lunch then. See you later.” He laid the spade against the wall, picked up his jacket, and walked down the road in the direction taken by patio-man.

  He returned after lunch to find the patio as he’d left it, even the spade remained unmoved. The couple’s car wasn’t in the drive any more, he noticed, and the house stood in darkness. He knocked on the door a couple of times, to let them know he was back, but no one answered it.

  “They’ve gone to her sisters,” the couple’s neighbour informed them, almost apologetically, through an opened downstairs window.

  “They didn’t happen to mention when they’d be back?”

  “Won’t be till late, if they get back tonight at all,” the neighbour said, looking as though he felt rather sorry for Johnny.

  Johnny knew what was going to happen. Whether he finished the job today or not, he was not going to get paid for it. Not for months anyway, and only then if he threatened legal action. Right, he thought. We’ll see about that!

  He looked at his watch. School would just be breaking up. He telephoned Jack. “I need you and as many of your friends as you can spare,” he said.

  It took Jack, and the two friends he bought with him, only a few minutes to arrive at the bungalow.

  “You’re going to put the old patio back?” Jack said.

  “Every last
paving slab. And I’m going to put the new ones back where I found them.”

  “Cool!” the boys all agreed.

  With four pairs of hands on the job it didn’t take Johnny and his team of helpers long to dig up the newly-laid patio slabs and replace them with the old ones. They returned the new slabs at the back of the house. Job complete, Johnny and his team surveyed their work.

  “Good work, men. Fish and chips all round, I think,” he said, just as a woman walked up to the property. She stopped and studied Johnny silently.

  He would have put her in her mid-thirties. Johnny straightened himself up. Although it was only March, he was perspiring heavily, and had stripped off to the waist. He used his hand to mop his brow, and sweep his hair back. She looked him up and down. The boys looked at her and then back at Johnny.

  “Found you at last,” she said, “I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”

  III

  Charity, Johnny and Jack, all arrived home at the same time.

  “Johnny’s going to be a glamour model,” Jack announced the moment the three converged by the back door.

  “You’re going to be a what?” Charity asked.

  “Some woman spotted me potential when she saw me streaking through Failsham in my thong, but she was in her car and couldn’t stop. Said she’s been looking for me for the last few days. She wants me to do some modelling for her on-line catalogue.”

  “Why you?” Charity asked suspiciously.

  “What a ridiculous question. Because I’m young, handsome and way cheaper than a professional model, of course.”

  “What exactly does she want you to model?”

  “Men’s underwear.”

  “Basically he’s going to take his kit off for money!” Jack said.

  “Only ninety-nine percent of it,” Johnny pointed out.

  “You’re going to do what?” Charity demanded, slamming the bag containing her hairdressing equipment down so hard on the ground that a couple of rollers fell out of it and rolled away.

  “Keep your knickers on, old girl!” Johnny said, with a wink in Jack’s direction.