‘And the other two?’
‘Same. ’Cepting they came on like extras in a Mafia movie. They even made the fuzz sound polite.’
‘Oh hell. You all right?’ asked Sixsmith, feeling guilty that his danger should have overspilled to include his friend.
‘Fine,’ grinned Merv. ‘They were in the back of the cab. I stopped on the Airport Roundabout, opened the rear door, showed them Percy and invited them to piss off out. Then I drove off and left them standing on the island. Shouldn’t be surprised if they were still there, all that holiday traffic!’
Sixsmith laughed. Percy was the biggest wrench he’d ever seen. Merv had kept it under his seat ever since an attempted mugging shortly after he stared cabbying. It was a fearsome sight to see him spinning it like a cheer leader’s baton. It was nice to know that Blue and Grey were also human.
‘You take care, Merv,’ he admonished nevertheless. ‘These are not nice men.’
‘So tell me about them, Joe,’ invited Merv. ‘I reckon I’m entitled.’
It was hard to argue, so Sixsmith gave a potted version of the story.
Merv looked at him with a new respect.
‘Sounds like you’re in deep, my son,’ he said. ‘And here’s me thinking it was all divorce and lost dogs. If I’d known this earlier, I’d have kneecapped them jokers with Percy while I had the chance.’
‘Steer clear,’ said Sixsmith flatly.
‘Like you?’
‘It’s my job. Anyway, all I want to do in this case is get that bull back and hand it over to Butcher.’
‘And you suss it could be at this kid Suzie’s place?’
‘Could be. But I don’t fancy going round there. First she lives on Hermsprong. Second, she’s cried rape once. God knows what she’d yell if I turned up on the doorstep!’
‘She lives on Hermsprong, you say? What’s her second name?’
‘Sickert, I think. Why?’
Merv’s face had split in one of his sunrise grins.
‘Joe Sixsmith, I always said that your fairy godmother turned up too late to stop you being short, bald and ugly, but to compensate she stuck this note in your nappy saying you were going to get more luck than a big black cat. You recall that dancer I was rushing off to collect the night I delivered the Indian lady? One of my regulars, from Hermsprong? Well, her name just happens to be Maisie Sickert, and I’ve heard her talk about her troublesome little daughter, Suzie, though I’ve never met the girl.’
He sat back in his chair, shaking his head as though he’d just discovered Joe was heir to a vast fortune.
‘And that makes me lucky?’ said Sixsmith. ‘Just because you ferry some tart around the clubs? Forgive me if I don’t order champagne.’
‘Not a tart. An exotic dancer,’ said Merv sternly. ‘You’re slower on the uptake than a Hermsprong lift, and none of them work. Listen, the point is this. If I turn up a bit early for Maisie, she always says, Come in, why don’t you? Make yourself comfy, have a drink, while she’s completing the camouflage.’
‘So?’
‘Joe, wake up, my boy! So if there’s a Spanish Bull lying around in that apartment, I’ll have it before you can say Speedy Gonzalez! End of problem.’
Sixsmith considered, then said grudgingly, ‘You do that, I’ll owe you.’
‘And you’ll pay. Starting now,’ said Merv, laughing.
‘You don’t want any more to drink, not when you’re driving that cab.’
‘No, but I gotta eat. Mine’s a cheeseburger with lots and lots of onions but go easy on the Glitter sauce.’
Fortified by Guinness and monosodium glutamate, Joe felt able to face clearing up the flat once more. He thought of looking in at his office but dismissed the idea. He didn’t anticipate there’d be queues on the stairs, and if anyone did call, it would do them good to think he was busy out on a case.
After a couple of hours’ hard slog, something like normality had been restored and he felt able to reward himself with a cup of tea and his daily reconstruction of The Times crossword. Tea was easy, but when he came to look for the paper he recalled that he hadn’t bothered to pick one up. Recalling his reasons, he felt slightly guilty.
‘We’ve all got troubles, Whitey,’ he said. ‘But that Mr Nayyar, he’s got a wife and kids to worry about too, while I’ve only got myself.’
The cat opened one outraged eye.
‘And you too,’ added Joe hastily. He glanced at his watch. Just gone four. He was due at choir practice at five-thirty. Time to call at Nayyar’s shop, pick up his paper, exchange words of mutual comfort before getting to grip with Haydn’s Creation.
It was a dark, dank day. The low cloud cover would be forcing the big jets at the airport to rely on electronics till the very last moment, when the lights of the runway came into view and you knew whether or not you’d got it right. Detection was like that, mused Joe Sixsmith. At least it was to him. Flying blind till you saw the lights, and hoping that the lights you saw weren’t running down the central reservation of the by-pass.
He was aware of a figure ahead of him as he turned into Lykers Lane, aware too that it was walking very slowly as if unsure of its direction but it wasn’t till he came alongside and the man turned to look at him that he recognized Stephen Andover.
Surprise made both of them tongue-tied. Andover recovered first.
‘There you are,’ he said accusingly. ‘How the hell does anyone find their way round this Godforsaken maze?’
‘Mr Andover, how’re you doing?’ said Joe. ‘Can I help you? What is it you’re looking for?’
‘You!’ snarled Andover. ‘I want a word with you, Sixsmith.’
‘Oh yes?’ said Joe taking a cautious step sideways. He’d started their acquaintance by wanting to keep space between him and this man, and first impressions weren’t always wrong. ‘You got a problem?’
‘What the hell do you mean by molesting my secretary?’ demanded Andover, matching Joe’s step with one of his own which brought his face up very close.
Sixsmith put in another step, backwards this time. Andover followed. It must look like we’re dancing, thought Joe. Except there was no one for it to look like anything to. He was beginning to have bad feelings about Lykers Lane.
He said, ‘Look, Mr Andover, I’m sorry about that, but I got it sorted with the police. It was a silly misunderstanding, is all. Just a daft coincidence.’
‘That’s what they told me when I complained,’ said Andover cynically. ‘Well, that might be good enough for the police, Sixsmith, but in my line of business, you soon learn to distrust coincidence.’
Joe looked at him with interest. It wasn’t every day you met someone who thought the cops were too trusting.
He said, ‘You mean, like if you insured an old banger and it rolled over a cliff next day?’
‘That sort of thing, yes.’
‘How about a man has a dream of murder and it comes true, Mr Andover? Is that a coincidence too?’
‘What the hell are you trying to say?’ asked Andover furiously.
Sixsmith wasn’t really trying to say anything, just trying to keep things verbal rather than physical. But he knew from experience it was possible to say clever things by accident, which was why not so clever people should be listened to just as carefully as clever ones. Especially by themselves.
‘Nothing, I’m sorry, they’re not the same, are they?’ he said with a conciliatory smile. ‘One makes people suspicious; the other, if it does anything …’
He paused, feeling himself teetering on the edge of cleverness once more. The wind suddenly gusted, driving a tornado of dust and litter into the open maw of Lykers Yard.
‘Look,’ he said. ‘This is no place to talk. Why don’t you call in at the office some time …’
‘Why don’t you?’ said Andover accusingly. ‘Why do you think I’m wandering round this awful bloody place?’
‘We can’t all live in Coningsby Rise,’ snapped Joe defensively, realizing even before the wo
rds were out that it wasn’t the most sensitive thing to say. Interestingly, though, it seemed, to have a soothing rather than incendiary effect on Andover.
‘No,’ he said reflectively. ‘You’re right. An Englishman’s home is his castle, no matter how humble.’
Preferring greetings card sentiment to any kind of aggression, Joe said, ‘Well, got to get on. Can I give you a lift back to where you left your car?’
The man said disbelievingly, ‘Are you taking the piss, Sixsmith? Or have you just forgotten that I don’t have a car because my brother-in-law drove away in it after murdering my wife?’
Oh shoot! thought Joe. Me and my big mouth.
He said, ‘Sorry. Let me give you a lift then, I’m driving into town.’
The man hesitated, then a force ten blast down the funnel of Lykers Lane convinced him this was not a place he wanted to be.
‘All right,’ he said grudgingly.
In the car, Joe said, ‘Any news about Rocca yet?’
‘Nothing. The police seem baffled. But a man can’t just disappear.’
‘No, but he can lie low. You able to give them any pointers there, Mr Andover?’ said Joe.
‘What do you mean?’ demanded Andover, looking ready to be angry again.
‘Nothing. Believe me, Mr Andover. There’s no need to be so negative about me. I’ve done you no harm, have I? In fact, the opposite. If I hadn’t happened to be along when you found the bodies, that’s when you’d have found out just how distrustful the cops can really be!’
Again he heard that distant echo of divine applause at some unconscious bit of cleverness.
He went on, ‘What I meant by pointers was, you might know the kind of place he’d hole up. Holiday spots, that kind of thing. Or what about his old house? Could he still have a key to that?’
‘Very clever,’ said Andover nastily. ‘Except he didn’t have a house, he leased a flat, and when his electrical business went bust he had to give it up, which is why he came to live with us, remember? So he’d hand back his keys, and even if he kept one, I think the new tenant might notice a strange Italian with a big moustache hanging around her living-room, don’t you? This’ll do. I’ll get out here.’
They weren’t anywhere in particular, but Sixsmith wasn’t arguing.
Before he closed the door, Andover leaned into the car and said, ‘Just remember, Sixsmith, keep away from Debbie Stipplewhite. In fact, keep your nose right out. I want the police to find Carlo and bring him to justice, and I doubt if it will speed things up if they’ve got an incompetent amateur under their feet!’
He slammed the door with a force that made the car shudder.
‘And thank me for the lift,’ said Joe as he drove away.
He realized he had driven past Mr Nayyar’s shop. No matter. He could see the man any time and he no longer wanted The Times. You didn’t need a crossword puzzle to play the game of putting solution before clues. For instance, suppose he tried the interesting solution that maybe after all it hadn’t been simple coincidence that put him with Andover while the murders were being committed and when the bodies were discovered. Suppose Andover had wanted to make sure he had an alibi?
He tossed this idea around in his mind as he drove rather erratically down the High Street. It was certainly clever enough, but it might as well be a five-letter word with three zeds when it came to devising clues to fit it. It implied some kind of conspiracy between Andover and his brother-in-law, and that made little sense unless Rocca was such a thickie he agreed to join a conspiracy in which he did all the dirty work and then took all the blame!
Forget theories, stick to facts, Joe reproached himself. When you were coming down through low cloud you had to trust your bleeping screen, not strain your eyes for the runway lights below or the distant stars above.
Fact: Andover had got really shirty at the mention of Rocca’s old pad. What was it Mirabelle liked to say about sarcasm? ‘Don’t you get sarcastic with me, Joseph Sixsmith. Man who can’t talk straight must have something to hide.’
‘What do you think, Whitey?’ said Joe.
The cat, who had scrambled over into his customary front seat as soon as Andover got out, yawned as if to say Joe would be better advised to mind his own business, but Joe was not deceived. Whitey loved a new scent above all things, and the more disgusting, the better.
He parked illegally alongside a telephone-box. It contained a tattered and out-of-date directory but that was exactly what he wanted. There was only one entry under ROCCA. It read Flat 22, Samgarth House.
They liked to live well, these guys who married the Tomassetti girls, thought Joe. Not that he’d ever been inside a Samgarth House flat, but he had seen the ads in the Bugle when the purpose-built apartment block had been opened a few years back. He tried without success to recall the name of the managing agents. Then he had another inspiration. On the corner a few yards away an old man was selling Bugles with a melancholy cry of ‘Nominnyliff.’
Joe bought one and opened it in the car.
He’d been right. Again. If he went on like this, he might just go in for the Open University.
Rare opportunity to acquire remaining three years of seven-year lease in Luton’s most prestigious apartment building.
The management firm was Cornelian Estates of Oldmaid Row. Which was scarcely a hop, step, and jump away for a clever dick on a hot scent.
He glanced at his watch. Did he have time? Choir practice at five-thirty. Occasionally he dared be late for the Rev. Pot, just as occasionally he dared be late for Auntie Mirabelle. But to be late for both of them at the same time …
Whitey howled a warning. He looked up to see the chunky traffic warden who’d fled from Blue and Grey approaching purposefully. Clearly she’d licked her wounds and re-emerged, determined to wipe out the shaming memory.
Joe dropped his paper on his lap and drove away as fast as he could.
Oldmaid Row was one of the loveliest bits of Luton, a Regency terrace facing on to a tiny elliptical park full of lime trees which had survived everything the polluters and the vandals could throw at them. Now entirely corporate, the terrace wore the medals of long and distinguished domestic service in the shape of several royal blue plaques which advertised to a wondering world the Luton notables who had resided here, though what the world probably wondered was who the hell were Theobald Blacktooth, Inventor; Simeon Littlehorn, Poet; Daphne Margrave Podd, Missionary; Dr Oswald Polidor, Chirurgeon: and many others.
The offices of Cornelian Estates had once housed Marcus Astribe, Banker, and his spirit obviously lived on in the young receptionist whose steely blue eyes unabashedly totted up the cost of Sixsmith’s cracked slip-ons, baggy trousers, balding corduroy jacket and round-collared shirt, multiplied it by his lack of rings, bracelets and gold neck ingots, and came up with nothing.
‘Can I help you, sir?’ she said in a tone which dripped doubt, but at least tagged the sir on.
‘You got a flat in Samgarth House,’ said Sixsmith.
‘That’s right, sir. An apartment. It’s the remainder of a short lease. The vendor is looking for a premium of somewhere in the region of forty thousand.’
‘Oh yes? Discount for cash, is there?’ said Sixsmith. ‘You do all the Samgarth flats, do you?’
‘Yes, sir. We’ve looked after all the Samgarth apartments from the start.’
There followed a pause as Sixsmith racked his brain to think of where to go from here. It was all right being a fast-thinking, fast-talking PI when you had some movie scriptwriter smoothing the way for you. His own experience was that while it was easy enough to get in this kind of potentially useful situation, making progress was almost impossible.
He said, ‘I got a friend lives there, is why I’m interested.’
‘Oh yes. Then you’ll probably know about the ground rent. And the management fee, which is quite heavy, but it has to be to cover the kind of services such a prestigious development requires.’
No inviting gap there. And i
f once he mentioned Rocca’s name, then her alarm button already half depressed would surely make full contact.
As if translating his metaphor into reality, there was a peremptory buzz from her intercom.
‘Miranda, can you step in here for a mo?’
‘Right away, Mr Stornaway,’ she said, pressing a switch. ‘I’m just finishing with a client.’
She had the grace to flicker what might have been an apologetic smile at Sixsmith as she said, ‘Look, why don’t I give you the details and you can think it over?’
She went to a rosewood filing cabinet, pulled open a drawer and extracted some sheets of paper which she then placed in an ornate folder and presented to Sixsmith.
‘You’ll find everything there,’ she said. ‘Including the general house rules contract which is of course binding even when the apartment is sub-let.’
He recognized a fail-safe in case he was fronting for a Heavy Metal group with a couple of Dobermans.
‘If you’re still interested, after reading it,’ she concluded, ‘we can make an appointment for our Mr Stornaway to show you round.’
‘Great,’ he said. ‘I’ll be in touch.’
He waved at her from the doorway. She didn’t wave back.
He stood outside in the foyer and counted to twenty. Then he slowly re-opened the door.
The reception area was empty.
He moved swiftly to the rosewood filing cabinet. The drawer she’d used slid silently open. Thank God for expensive furniture.
Right at the front was what he wanted, a general index to Samgarth House. He took it out and ran his eye down the list.
Bingo.
No. 22. The name of Rocca was carefully crossed out with a date some six months earlier alongside, followed by the name of the new tenant.
Mr Stephen Andover.
CHAPTER 13
Here was another one for the Sixsmith book of wit and wisdom: finding things out is easy compared with deciding what to do with them once they’re found.
Tell the cops was the obvious move. Except they’d probably either sneer ’cos they knew already, or be dismissive ’cos they didn’t want to know anyway.
Blood Sympathy Page 12