Also he felt rather let down. Had the Sergeant arrived in five minutes, he would have been welcomed as a questing knight, riding to the rescue. Had he arrived in fifteen minutes, Joe would still have felt grateful. But as the clock ticked round for almost an hour, all Joe could think was what a blasted cheek the man had, telling him to stay put as he was on his way!
Thus he didn’t even bother to look up from his almost completed crossword when Chivers burst in with more apparent violence than his immediate predecessors.
Joe said, ‘Five letter word, blank b blank blank j.’
‘Eh? What’s the clue?’
‘Won’t know that till I’ve got the word,’ said Joe.
‘Sixsmith, are you sure you’re in the right business?’ said Chivers. ‘In fact, are you sure you’re in the right town?’
‘Sorry, Sergeant?’
‘What I mean is, have you never thought of making a new start, all fresh and clean? Somewhere like the Falklands maybe?’
‘Has something happened?’ said Joe.
‘You’ve happened,’ said Chivers grimly. ‘I’m a busy man. With a quadruple murder to investigate, we’re all busy men. But we keep on getting interrupted. First of all, we’re a car short because (and this I find really hard to believe) a sledgehammer dropped on it from your balcony. Then some poncy Drug Squad DI comes in and starts throwing his weight about, wanting everything we’ve got on you. Then we get a call from Andover demanding to know if we’ve put you up to harassing his secretary …’
‘It was his secretary, then,’ said Joe, pleased with himself. ‘Hey, man, I worked that out.’
‘What? You mean it’s true? You have been harassing her?’
‘Of course it’s not true. When did Andover see her? I thought he was struck down with grief.’
‘He rang his office this afternoon to make sure his work was being covered,’ said Chivers. ‘He says Miss Stipplewhite, his secretary, sounded most agitated and when he asked why, she told him that you were spying on her at lunch, then followed her back to the office. Andover wanted to know what the hell was going on, and so do I.’
‘Nothing’s going on,’ said Joe. ‘I didn’t even know the woman was his secretary. We just happened to leave the Tea-Room at the same time …’
‘The Georgian Tea-Room?’ exclaimed Chivers, his eyes alight with suspicion. ‘You had lunch in the Georgian Tea-Room? Doesn’t sound like your kind of place, Sixsmith. And before you get all discriminated against, it’s not my kind of place either. In fact, the only reason I’d be seen there would be by way of duty. So was that how it was with you? On a case? If so, which case, ’cos, if you’re sticking your nose into the Casa Mia case, it’ll give me great pleasure to chop it off.’
‘Wrong again. I went there to see Ms Butcher.’
‘That bolshy brief from Bullpat Square? Doesn’t sound like her kind of place either.’
‘That’s why she’s a regular. She says it’s the best spot in town for avoiding real people. Miss Stipplewhite was there with her aunt …’
‘You know a hell of a lot for a man who knows bugger all!’ said Chivers.
Ignoring this, Joe went on: ‘We left at the same time, I headed for the library and her office is on Dartle Street too. She obviously got agitated, she must be all shook up, being close to something like that Casa Mia business … But how did she know who I was? I’m not exactly a household name.’
Chivers said sourly, ‘You are in our house. Most likely it was Andover who made the identification when she described you.’
‘Which means she was agitated because she reckoned she was being followed by some big black buck whose sole aim was to mug or rape her?’
‘Why not? Hysterical woman can turn the most unpromising material into Superstud,’ mocked Chivers.
‘Maybe. But in that case, isn’t that how she’d describe me to Andover? So how come he manages to get me out of a description like that?’
He looked challengingly at the detective, but Chivers didn’t look impressed.
‘You try to make everything so bloody complicated,’ he said. ‘Or perhaps you’re just throwing up a smokescreen. Except I don’t reckon you’re clever enough for that. So I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt this time. Only remember, if I catch you within spitting distance of the Casa Mia case from now on, I’ll go after you so hard, you’ll be glad to swim to the Falklands.’
‘Pardon me, Sergeant,’ said Joe courteously, ‘but have you come all the way round here just so you can threaten me personally? You so busy and all?’
‘No,’ admitted Chivers. ‘There are a couple of points we need to check in your statement. Also I’d like your fingerprints for elimination. If that’s OK with you.’
Joe rubbed his face to hide his grin. He’d got the picture. Woodbine didn’t care for Chivers, he’d spotted that yesterday. And when he’d found out that there were fingerprints in Casa Mia which didn’t belong to any of the family and that Joe’s prints hadn’t been taken, he had dumped the responsibility bang in the Sergeant’s lap.
‘And you go to him,’ Joe could hear the DCl’s voice saying. ‘Be courteous. It’s your cock-up, remember?’
‘No sweat,’ he said magnanimously. ‘Though I’ll need to see them destroyed when you’re finished with them.’
‘Sure,’ said Chivers unconvincingly.
Taking the prints seemed to dilute the Sergeant’s ill-temper. Perhaps the physical contact with his hands firmly in control of Joe’s had confirmed his superior role. When he was finished and Joe was cleaning his fingers in the tiny washroom, Chivers said, ‘Now about your statement. Nothing to worry about. It’s just this dream thing. For some reason it seems to be bugging Mr Woodbine. He wants to be sure you got the details right as Andover told them to you.’
Carefully Joe went through his story again.
‘Yes, and that’s what Andover told his doctor too,’ said Chivers.
‘So what’s the problem?’
‘God knows. If I did, I might have a better chance of making DCI some day,’ grunted Chivers. ‘First Mr Woodbine says he doesn’t believe in dreams, I mean, in them being forecasts, so to speak. Then he starts wondering why the dream and the reality weren’t the same.’
‘Yes, I noticed that too,’ said Joe. He almost went on to say that in his version, all the bodies were once more round the table, but decided that the fragile truce between himself and the cop would hardly bear the weight of another dream.
‘And when I say that if you think dreams are a load of cobblers anyway, there’s no point wondering why they don’t tie in exactly with reality, he gets all sarcastic.’
‘Maybe,’ suggested Joe, ‘he’s got someone over him who’s being sarcastic about dreams too.’
The idea seemed to comfort Chivers.
‘You could be right,’ he said. ‘The Chief Super doesn’t rate airy-fairy notions. Bodies in cells is what he’s all about. Once we finger Rocca’s collar, everyone’ll be happy. Now what really happened with this sledgehammer?’
Joe told him. The discomfiture of the Drug Squad DI clearly more than compensated for the loss of a vehicle and Chivers was almost amicable as he left. It was perhaps a chance to mention the visit of Blue and Grey, but Joe didn’t take it, figuring that all he’d get was if-you-can’t-stand-the-heat-get-out-of-the-kitchen routine.
Also time was marching. He wasn’t yet certain just how far he was prepared to go with Gwen Baker’s job, but there was no harm in going far enough to cover the crisp new banknotes in his wallet.
He’d worked out the best time to take a look at Meg Merchison would be at the end of her working day, between the distractions of work and the security of home. This seemed like a pretty good plan to Joe and he never liked giving up pretty good plans. So he said goodbye to Chivers, picked up Whitey, went out to the Morris Oxford, and headed out of town to the University, which plugged the gap, both physical and cultural, between the former hamlet of Lower Stemditch which was now an exe
cutive suburb and the former hamlet of Upper Stemditch which was now an industrial estate.
Joe had more acquaintance with the latter sad change than the former. He’d travelled there every morning for nearly twenty years until that morning when he learned that he wouldn’t have to travel there any more. Now he realized without surprise that he’d missed the turn-off to the University and was moving slowly along the familiar road which would take him to Robco Engineering.
There it was. The sign was still up, but the gate was padlocked and there were nettles and foxgloves crowding against the steel mesh fencing. It looked shabby and derelict, more like a disused prison camp than the thriving, bustling business he recalled.
There but for the grace of God and Maggie Thatcher, not necessarily in that order, he might have spent half the waking hours of the rest of his working life. It had been a fate he was resigned to. No, not resigned. You resigned yourself to something you didn’t really care for. He’d been happy here. More importantly he’d been secure too. That’s what the bastards had pulled the rug from under. His sense of security.
He’d been happy again on occasion since he’d left. You couldn’t deny happiness. Do what you would, it just came sneaking up on you. But he’d never let himself feel secure again.
He was passing through the newer, more prosperous hi-tec section of the estate, though even here he knew recession was starting to bite. Another company sign caught his eye. Sun gold on a Caribbean blue background, BAKERTRONICS INC. No dereliction here, everything sharp-edged and new-painted, and the car park full of gleaming late registered cars.
Could the woman who ran a state-of-the-art hi-tec business like this really believe that witchcraft stuff?
Why not? he answered himself. It was no crazier than a PI talking to his cat.
Or a man who couldn’t solve crossword puzzles setting up as a PI.
There were people coming out of the plate glass doors and getting into the cars. It was going home time. If he didn’t get a move on he’d miss Meg Merchison.
He headed for the University.
He’d never actually been here before though he’d passed the turn-off sign twice a day for all those years. Somehow he’d imagined it would be one big building with a main exit outside which a man could sit till he spotted who he was looking for. Instead it turned out more like the industrial estate, a higgle-piggle of unconnected buildings, each with its own label. He kerb crawled past Oriental Languages, Political Science (where presumably Gerald the Hyphen worked) and Medieval History, keeping pace with a young female jogger in a fluorescent green skintight one-piece that started at her thighs and stopped at her thorax and left nothing between to the imagination.
This was getting him nowhere, thought Sixsmith as Paleontology hove into view.
He wound down the window and said, ‘Excuse me, maybe you can help me …’
The girl looked at him and said, ‘I don’t believe this.’
‘Thing is, I’m looking for a woman …’
‘You fucking freak. Right on campus. Jesus!’
She was holding a small cylindrical device in her right hand. Her thumb pressed a button on top of it and next moment a hideously high-pitched wailing note ripped through the air.
Whitey, asleep in the front passenger seat, erupted into wakefulness and on to the dashboard where he added his own decibels to the discoid. Suddenly the road was filled with young people who seemed to have materialized out of the air. Sixsmith could see mouths opening and shutting but nothing was audible above the pulsating cylinder. One young man took it from the girl and tried to turn it off. Good old masculine know-how proving inadequate for the task, he fell back on good old masculine strength and hurled it at Paleontology, where it continued to scream but at a distance which no longer interfered with communication.
‘OK, Josie, what’s up?’
‘Kerb crawler,’ said the jogger, pointing accusingly at Sixsmith. ‘Can you believe the nerve of it? This guy propositioning me in broad daylight?’
‘Come on,’ said the young man. ‘You’re not that ugly.’
This drew a few masculine laughs but only indignant exclamations from most of the females, who had a lynch mob glint in their eyes.
‘OK, fella,’ said the young man, trying to re-establish his political correctness. ‘Out you get. Someone call the police.’
‘No, hang about,’ said Sixsmith who had taken the precaution of locking the car doors as soon as he grasped the potential danger. ‘I only want to ask the way.’
‘That’s what they all say,’ cried a broad-shouldered woman who looked like the one who’d be pulling on his legs. ‘Get him out of there. Let’s show him and his kind what they can expect if they hassle us!’
This seemed to win general approval. The youngsters pressed close around the car and there were the beginnings of a chant of ‘Out, out, OUT!’ when a youth with the bespectacled earnestness of the true seeker after scientific knowledge said, ‘What do you imagine he does with the cat?’
This caused a more general laugh and Sixsmith seized on the slight reduction in tension to say to the first young man, ‘Listen, when I said I was trying to find a woman, what I meant is, I’m looking for Meg Merchison, she’s a lab assistant here, she was in the papers …’
‘Yeah, I know. You mean you’re another sodding reporter?’
‘That’s right,’ said Sixsmith who would have admitted to being worse things if it meant getting out of this stupid situation.
‘It’s all right, everyone,’ called the youngster. ‘Josie’s got it wrong as usual. It’s just another sodding reporter about that plane crash video.’
There was a groan of disappointment and someone shouted, ‘I’ve called the cops.’
‘You’d better uncall them, then,’ said the youngster.
The crowd began to disperse. The girl, Josie, looked angrily at Sixsmith and said, ‘Well, I still think he was propositioning me.’
‘Yeah, sure Josie. You stick at it, girl, it’ll happen one day,’ said the boy cheerfully.
The girl stalked off to retrieve her alarm which was hiccoughing to silence under a dying azalea.
‘Hey, thanks, man,’ said Sixsmith. ‘Now where will I find this Merchison woman?’
‘She works in the Animal Path lab, take the next left, then right, and it’s the single-storey white building straight ahead. But you’re a bit late, aren’t you? Anything she could sell, Meg must’ve sold already.’
‘Human interest,’ said Sixsmith. ‘You know her, then?’
‘I use the lab, yeah. And when you see something as lush as that around the place, you make yourself known.’
‘Any luck?’
‘No way. She knows her own value and is definitely SCR meat, not even a scrap of bone for a poor starving student.’
‘Oh yes?’ said Sixsmith. ‘Anyone in particular?’
The youngster looked indignant and said, ‘Come on! You think I’m going to peddle muck to the tabloids?’
Sixsmith opened his wallet, took out one of Gwen Baker’s nice new notes.
It vanished into the protector of public morality’s pocket.
He said, ‘There’s a guy called Collister-Cook, he’s an economist, I think. One of my mates reckons he caught him with his head up Meg’s lab coat in the Preparation Room.’
‘The Preparation Room?’
‘That’s where she prepares the specimens for us poor students to work on. Kinky, huh? All that blood and guts!’
Not necessarily, thought Sixsmith as he drove on. It depended whether Gerald the Hyphen did it because of the blood and guts or in spite of them.
One thing occurred to him. If Merchison wanted to lay her hands on a rabbit’s foot, toad’s eye, or snake’s tongue, she was ideally placed.
The boy’s directions were good but he didn’t need them. The first thing he saw when he turned the final corner was Meg Merchison and if he’d just been cruising around on spec, he’d still have spotted her. In the flesh she was
even more striking than on the back page. Close to six feet tall, she was standing on the pavement outside the white-painted lab, her raven-black tresses winnowed by the same wind which pressed her thin blouse against her thick breasts and drew her loose skirt between her long legs.
Lady, thought Sixsmith, if you wanted me, you wouldn’t need no witchcraft.
He drew up alongside her and rummaged in the glove compartment for the small instamatic camera he carried there. It was less for detective work than in case of accident. It was a tip he’d got from Butcher. ‘You have a bump, first thing you do is start taking pictures. Doesn’t matter if there’s no film in, it scares the shit out of the other guy, even if it’s your fault.’ He hadn’t set out with any firm idea how he’d approach Meg Merchison, but as so often happened, God in the shape of the young student had shown him the way.
Clutching the camera in his hand, he got out and approached the woman.
‘Miss Merchison?’ he said. ‘Could I have a few words? I’m a journalist …’
She gave him a look of such undisguised incredulity that he felt constrained to expand on what he’d rather have slid round.
‘… freelance; well, actually I’m just getting started, and when I read about you in the papers …’
‘I’ll give you a tip,’ she said. ‘When you read about something in the papers, that usually means there’s been someone there before you. Try to remember that. It could help you a lot.’
Sixsmith smiled. He liked to smile at people who made superior jokes. It put them under an obligation.
He said, ‘I know that the plane crash story’s gone, but what I was after was more human interest …’
‘Human interest?’ she said as though the phrase puzzled her.
‘That’s right. I saw your photo and I thought …’
He tailed off, not quite sure what a freelance journalist might have thought. But she was smiling, showing white teeth that looked specially designed by experts for noctitudinal nibbling.
‘Oh, that kind of human interest, you mean?’ She put her face so close to his he could feel her warm breath.
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