Alternatively, he could keep sticking his nose into business for which no one was paying him and off which he’d been specifically warned.
That would be really stupid, but he hadn’t got where he was today by being afraid of being really stupid.
He still hadn’t made up his mind when he arrived at Boyling Corner Chapel just before five-thirty.
The Reverend Percy Potemkin, known throughout Luton as Rev. Pot, believed in catching his choristers on their way home, ‘before they get food in their bellies to coarsen the voice and telly in their eyes to depress the soul’.
Joe, after an alienating diet of enforced attendance throughout his youth, now only rarely showed up at Sunday service. Rev. Pot didn’t waste words admonishing him. ‘Your soul’s between you and the Lord, Joe,’ he said. ‘But your voice belongs to me. I’ve put too many years into that reedy baritone to let it go without slitting your throat.’ So Joe still sang in the choir, not the Sunday service choir which consisted of a few old faithfuls led by the vibrant contralto of Auntie Mirabelle, but the famous Boyling Corner Concert Choir, twice winners of the Laurel Wreath at the Luton Terpsichorean Festival. The choir was ecumenical if not eclectic. Voice was all that mattered, virtue didn’t come into it. ‘I make them sing unto the Lord,’ said Rev. Pot. ‘It’s up to Him to hand out prizes.’
Thus it didn’t bother him that Detective-Constable Dildo Doberley had joined only because he had immoral longings for the well-developed chest of Deirdre Carnell, pride of the mezzos. Dildo was that rarest of beasts in the amateur vocal world, a genuine basso profundo, and this would have got him in even if he’d been dragging a forked tail behind him.
Joe bumped into Dildo in the doorway and this almost made up his mind for him. Here was a chance to offload what he’d found out about Rocca’s former flat with minimum hassle. But before he could speak Dildo said, ‘Hello, Joe. She’s a bit sharp, that brief of yours. You should keep her on a leash.’
‘Still giving you bother, is she?’ said Sixsmith, not displeased.
‘You’d have thought we’d had you over a slow fire all night,’ grumbled Dildo.
‘That’s all right. I’m not going to sue,’ said Joe magnanimously. ‘And at least you got a result out of it.’
‘Result?’
‘Yeah. Those two Brits. Torching Mr Nayyar’s shop and trying to fit me up for rape. That must be worth a slap on the wrist and five minutes’ community service at least.’
As he spoke he saw an uncharacteristically shifty look come over the detective’s face and he said, ‘Dildo, they are being charged, aren’t they?’
‘Sorry, Joe,’ said Dildo. ‘They got a brief too, one of your Ms Butcher’s mates from the Law Centre. It works both ways, see? Everything points to them doing the shop, but without either a clear sighting or firm forensic, there’s no case.’
‘All right, but they tried to fit me up on a rape charge, didn’t they? Surely you can do them for that?’
‘’Fraid not, old son. Little Miss Sickert’s withdrawn the accusation. Says she may have been mistaken about the car number and she was certainly mistaken about the anklet. Now she’s had a closer look, it wasn’t hers after all. She’s got the cheek to say CID pressurized her into identifying it! So it was some other black man in some other car who assaulted her, and her mother’s shouting the odds about how bloody useless the police are.’
‘She’s not far wrong,’ snapped Joe.
They went inside. Mirabelle was there with the nurse, Beryl Boddington. Fortunately she was introducing her prodigy to Rev. Pot and could only fix Joe with a gaze like a Star Trek tractor beam, but his irritation with Dildo protected him like a force-field. At least the exchange had made his mind up about the Samgarth House information. Why waste it on incompetents like the cops?
‘You were what?’ Rev. Pot’s voice rose above the general hubbub and stilled it so that Beryl Boddington’s reply was clearly audible.
‘I was once a fairy in Patience,’ she said.
Joe grinned broadly. In Rev. Pot’s musical league, Gilbert and Sullivan came somewhere under Heavy Metal.
His lightening of spirits was shortlived. Rev. Pot said, ‘Well, I see Joe Sixsmith’s here, so we must be late. Let’s make a start.’ And for the next hour and a half as they grappled with Haydn’s Creation, Joe found himself singled out with what felt like a malicious frequency.
Afterwards when, inevitably, Mirabelle got to him, he said, ‘Rev. Pot’s in a bad mood tonight, isn’t he?’
‘No, Joseph. You’re in bad voice. Something on your mind, is there? It always shows. You gotta give this music everything!’
‘Oh yes? That why Dildo gets told he’s singing so well, when all he’s got on his mind is getting into Deirdre Carnell’s underwear!’
‘Remember where you are!’ exclaimed Mirabelle. ‘You not so big I can’t still wash your mouth out with soap.’
He caught Beryl’s amused gaze upon him and flushed. It wasn’t helped by memories of occasions when his aunt actually had washed his mouth out. In fairness, though, he had to admit the brutal tactic had worked. It was only very rarely that he swore and when he did, his mouth tasted of Palmolive.
‘Sorry, Auntie,’ he said. ‘Look, I’ve got to rush.’
‘You’re always rushing. That car of yours mended, is it?’
‘What?’ he said, puzzled, then remembered his lie at the Residents’ Meeting. ‘Oh yes. All fixed.’
Again he felt the nurse’s gaze upon him, quizzical this time. He was convinced she’d spotted him as he drove by her in the rain.
‘Then nothing to stop you giving this young lady a lift tonight, is there?’
He said, because there was nothing else to say, ‘Well, OK, I suppose so. If she’s ready now, straightaway …’
‘No, thanks,’ said Beryl Boddington coolly. ‘I don’t start my shift for a while yet, and there’re a couple of things I need to do. Good night, Mirabelle. Mr Sixsmith.’
‘See what you’ve done?’ said Mirabelle, watching her go. ‘Last night she was calling you Joseph.’
‘Then we’re moving in the right direction,’ said Sixsmith. ‘Good night, Auntie.’
In the car Whitey gave the pathetic mew which meant, ‘My stomach thinks my throat’s cut.’ Joe drove to Lucky Luciano’s chippy on Gripewater Lane where he got haddock and double chips. He’d have preferred the plaice, but Whitey liked haddock and Joe was feeling guilty at the way he was messing up the cat’s routine. At least they agreed that Lucky made the best chips in Luton.
They ate these parked up against the ten-foot brick wall which was the only physical remnant of Sir William Samgarth’s estate. Sir William was an eighteenth-century entrepreneur, knighted for services to commerce and ‘the King’s friends’. His business acumen proved to be non-communicable, but its quality can be judged by the fact that it took his feckless descendants the best part of two centuries to spend what he had got. Bit by bit, however, the rolling acres were sold off till all that remained was the original Samgarth House which burnt to the ground with the last Samgarth in 1974. The story was that, having drunkenly decided to subsidize his remaining years by means of the fire insurance, the pi-eyed knight had forgotten to make sure the doors of his escape route were left unlocked.
During the loadsamoney ’eighties, the new gold and blue Samgarth House had risen out of the ashes, and its upper storeys looked down scornfully upon the dilapidated villas which lined one side of Chestnut Avenue where Joe was parked.
There were no buildings on the side of the avenue nearest the wall, just a line of ancient chestnut trees, a favourite resort of the kerb-crawling cars which infested the old Victorian suburb. Despite the earliness of the hour, the area looked like Tesco’s car park already. Choir practice wasn’t the only activity which got Luton folk home late.
‘I bet,’ said Joe in a tone midway between self-righteous and regretful, ‘I’m the only fellow here who’s got his trousers on.’
It didn’t
seem a profitable line of speculation, so he turned his mind to strategy. As usual, nothing better than the obvious suggested itself.
He’d just walk in and see what happened.
He spread the chip paper on the floor of the car.
‘OK, you finish them off,’ he said to Whitey. ‘But don’t chew the paper. You know the Star makes you sick.’
Fifty yards ahead there was a hole in the wall which had once held a small gate, presumably the tradesmen’s entrance to the estate. Sixsmith went through. It was like stepping through a time warp. Behind, the shabby gentility of the last century and shadowy sub-life of this; ahead, the pastel blue concrete and if-you’ve-got-it-flaunt-it glitz of the next God knows how long.
He licked his fatty fingers, hitched his pants and went inside. He found himself in a small but nicely appointed vestibule that wouldn’t have shamed a first-class hotel. There was a lift but the wall around it was freer of buttons than a hook’n’eye Baptist. High in a corner something blinked redly like the eye of a hungover God. Then a still small voice said politely, ‘Can I help you, sir?’
‘Er, yes. I hope so,’ said Sixsmith, casting round for some form of assistance that wouldn’t get him the immediate elbow. ‘I’ve come to look at an apartment.’
He remembered the details he’d got from Cornelian. They were still in his inside pocket. He pulled them out and waved them vaguely in the air, his still greasy fingers leaving prints all over the pristine white paper. Rather to his surprise, the tactic worked.
‘That’d be No. 18, would it, sir?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Mr Stornaway is already up there. Please go ahead.’
The lift door opened. Sixsmith entered. Stornaway was the cool Miranda’s boss at Cornelian, he recollected. It had fallen nicely that he was actually planning to show someone round this evening. Bit of luck. Or something. No point speculating. If you’ve got it, ride it!
He got out on the first floor in case the Eye was still on him and walked along the corridor till he saw a door marked Fire Stairs. He went swiftly through it and ran up to the next floor where he found that the stair door opened on to the corridor almost opposite No. 22.
Once more he cast around for inspiration. This was the danger zone. When he rang that doorbell he had no idea what was likely to appear but there was a reasonable possibility it could be a homicidal Italian with a stiletto in his hand. So he decided to do what he hadn’t done since a little boy, ring the bell and run.
He pressed the button firmly and stepped back immediately through the door to the staircase, holding it open just a crack so that he could see without, he hoped, being seen.
There was a long pause, so long he began to think that possibly the flat was empty.
Then the handle turned and the door opened. A woman stood there, looking lovely, puzzled, and very familiar.
She was wearing a bathrobe, and the shower had dampened her hair from yellow to bronze, but he had no difficulty in recognizing Debbie Stipplewhite.
While his mind was still trying to accommodate this new factor, his ears were registering two noises.
One was the lift door opening at the far end of the corridor, the other was steel-toed footsteps coming quickly up the stairs.
Debbie had heard the former. She looked along the corridor, then her face broke into a smile which made her look even more attractive and she said, ‘Stephen, darling.’
Next moment she was in Andover’s arms and he was kissing her with a passion which looked so whole-hearted it threatened to become whole-bodied too.
The girl, conventional enough not to want to be taken on the corridor floor, began to pull him inside. The footsteps were at the half-landing. One more turn would bring the footstepper in sight of the lurking PI.
It could be that some energetic inmate of Samgarth House preferred to use the fire stairs and happened to think steel toecaps were ‘in’ this year, but Sixsmith guessed it meant Security. Or maybe even Blue and Grey.
The thought was like a match to blue touch-paper. He shot forward, shoving Andover’s slowly retreating back with such force that he and the girl collapsed to the floor; then, stepping over the closely bonded couple, he kicked the door shut behind him.
The girl, eyes firmly closed, clearly took this sudden collapse to the horizontal as evidence that her lover’s passion had reached explosion point, and was desperately wrestling with his trouser belt.
Andover, not so far gone that he couldn’t distinguish a premature knee tremble from a push in the back, was equally desperately trying to disengage himself.
Sixsmith, while suspecting that what he had here was in every sense a whole new ball game, couldn’t easily shed the suspicion that somewhere close lurked a mad Italian knifeman, so with the courage born of insupportable fear he went quickly through the apartment and found to his relief that it was empty.
Except, of course, for the lovers.
At last the girl had caught on that Andover’s violence of movement had something more than passion in it. She opened her eyes and found herself looking up at Joe Sixsmith. Now she unglued her lips and began to scream.
Andover, with a speed of thought that made Sixsmith sigh with admiration and envy, immediately worked out that the last thing he wanted was a crowd of curious rescuers, and shut the girl up by slapping his mouth back on hers.
Debbie, mistaking this for an exhibitionistic attempt to resume their interrupted coupling, now began to fight him off with a ferocity outstripping his own previous efforts to break the embrace, while he confirmed her fears by grappling her to him with all his strength.
Only Sixsmith remained a free agent.
He said, ‘Look, I’m sorry if this is an awkward time, but I’d like a chat, so can’t we all sit down and talk things over? I could murder a cup of tea.’
Perhaps it was the word murder which was the Open Sesame.
Their lips separated. The girl didn’t scream. The man’s grip relaxed. They both scrambled to their feet. Andover’s trousers fell down.
Sixsmith said, ‘I’ll put the kettle on, shall I?’
While the girl got dressed and Andover pulled up his pants, Joe made a pot of tea. The others ignored it with scorn, preferring a schooner of sweet sherry and a tumbler of straight vodka respectively.
With his trousers fastened, Andover had recovered his aplomb.
He said bitterly, ‘So I was right, Sixsmith. You were watching Debbie.’
Sixsmith smiled enigmatically. Despite Auntie Mirabelle’s asseverations, the truth was not always his friend. There was still a chance that Andover and Rocca had conspired to kill the Tomassettis, but, right or wrong, he didn’t want to show his cards in this place at this time, particularly as he was still batting blind.
The girl said, ‘Why don’t you ring the police, Steve, and get him thrown out?’
Sixsmith said, ‘Yes, Steve. Why don’t you do that?’
Andover emptied his glass and said peremptorily, ‘I’d like a coffee now, Debbie love, would you mind?’
Debbie looked as if she’d mind very much, but after a brief eye battle she stood up and flounced into the kitchen, slamming the door.
Sixsmith did not doubt her ear would be flattened against it, and Andover clearly felt the same for he dropped his voice a decibel or two as he said, ‘OK, Sixsmith, what’s your game?’
It was a good question. Not having any matching answer, Sixsmith thought he might as well recycle it.
‘Never mind that,’ he said authoritatively. ‘More to the point, what’s your game, Mr Andover?’
‘I don’t have to answer to you,’ retorted Andover.
‘That’s true. Look, why don’t we take your girlfriend’s advice, ring the police and get me arrested? Trespass or something. Yeah, that would be it. Trespass. Hey, in court I could say, forgive us our trespasses, couldn’t I? You know how the Press love a good quote. And when my lawyer asks what I was doing here, I could say I saw you in the doorway and I thought you
were attacking this young lady, and if I’d realized you were only getting ready to hump her, I’d have naturally looked the other way and passed on by.’
He paused.
Andover said, ‘I could sue you for slander.’
‘Not for anything I said on the witness stand, you couldn’t. Anyway I’d plead truth. Shoot, Mr Andover, no one’s going to think any the worse of you. Man can’t be expected to mourn for ever. It must be all of forty-eight hours since your wife had her throat slit.’
He thought he’d overcooked it and that Andover was going to explode into violence. But the moment passed and the insurance man shrivelled into his chain store suit.
‘I suppose it must look pretty terrible,’ he said in a low voice.
‘I’m not bothered how it looks man,’ said Sixsmith, though to tell the truth he did think it was a pretty shitty way for a man to behave, even if he was in insurance.
Andover seemed to catch the disapproval behind the denial for he went on insistently, ‘Look, to all intents and purposes it was over, our marriage, I mean. In fact it hardly ever got started, really. After the first flush of romance it was downhill all the way, a complete clash of cultures, I can’t imagine how I ever thought … Well, you don’t want to hear about that. All you need to know, Mr Sixsmith, is I’m sorry my wife had to die the way she did, but I’d be a hypocrite to say that I miss her. Debbie has been a great comfort to me during the past year. Why should I be expected to deny myself that comfort just now when I need it most?’
‘That’s not for me to judge,’ said Sixsmith rather pompously. ‘So you set her up in this flat …’
‘Apartment,’ said Andover. ‘No, it wasn’t like that. You make it sound like I’m some dirty old man setting up his fancy woman. She was looking for a place just about the time Carlo went bankrupt. The management company, Cornelian Estates, were about to retake possession, Carlo was way behind in his ground rent and his management fees, and they were entitled. So I got in quick, took over the lease on reasonable terms, which meant that Carlo got a bit of money …’
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