by Ann Granger
‘People take the wrong turning,’ I said. ‘It’s a blind alley but they don’t know.’
‘This time was different,’ she said quietly.
I didn’t reply. I knew what she meant. This time what I’d heard was Rennie Duke being murdered. I felt very cold and knew I was in shock.
‘How exactly did you come to find the body?’ She sounded matter-of-fact, as if finding bodies happened all the time. It was beginning to feel as though it happened all the time to me.
‘I went to the shop to give Ganesh a hand with the morning papers. I told him someone had been messing around outside the garages and we went to check it out. You know, someone might have had the idea of breaking into the shop that way, or thought Hari stored things in the garage, the sort of things worth nicking.’
‘And you recognised Mr Duke straight off?’
‘Not straight away. I saw it was a Mazda car. We looked in. We thought the driver was asleep at first. It wasn’t until Ganesh tapped on the window . . . Look, I don’t know what he was doing there, all right? If I knew, I’d tell you. I’d like to know myself, so if you find out, tell me. I’d appreciate it.’
‘End of interview,’ she said suddenly. Cole switched off his little machine. ‘You’re going to be living in that garage for the foreseeable future, Fran? We’re going to be able to find you there?’
‘If Hari doesn’t chuck me out now,’ I said gloomily.
‘If you change address, you let us know straight away, right?’
‘Sure. I’ll let you know which doorway I’m sleeping in. Can I go now?’
They let me go. Ganesh had already left and was probably back at the shop trying to explain to Hari what had happened and why the cops were going to be round to see him at any minute. I didn’t like to think what sort of a state Hari would be in by the time I got back.
I was getting into a bit of a state myself. One big fat fact had detached itself from all the others and was running round and round in my head. Inspector Janice was absolutely right in saying it couldn’t be coincidence that Rennie Duke had been waiting outside my garage home. I knew that. He wasn’t to know I didn’t use the main doors. He’d expected me to emerge that way in the morning and was ready to jump out and nab me. I no longer had the slightest doubt he’d been the one tapping at the doors during the night and rattling the catch – something else I hadn’t told Morgan about. He’d wanted to talk to me in the middle of the night when no one else would be about. He’d wanted to talk to me urgently. He’d kept obbo outside, and as he waited, probably dozing in his car, someone had crept up on him and killed him. The way I worked it out, Rennie had been tailing me and someone else had been tailing Rennie. Oh yes, definitely tailing Rennie. This hadn’t been a mugging. I knew that because of something else Inspector Janice had told me. They’d found the newspaper clipping in Rennie’s wallet. A man who still has his wallet hasn’t been mugged.
I wondered whether Rennie had had any idea he was being followed. In his line of work, he ought to have been able to spot that kind of thing. Was that why he’d sought me out at dead of night? Gambling that whoever was watching him had to sleep sometime, and night was a safe period to contact me?
I couldn’t answer that one. The big question was, now that Rennie Duke was out of the picture, was the mysterious other person going to come after me?
If he was, I’d find out very soon.
Chapter Seven
I’d had no breakfast, unless you counted the tarry tea, and there was a sinking feeling in my stomach. My way home led me past Reekie Jimmie’s. I wondered if Jimmie would condescend to do me beans on toast, as an alternative to a spud, provided I asked nicely. I ought at least to be able to cadge a coffee. But when I got there, the door was locked and a notice hanging in it read Closed for Refurbishment. Jimmie wasn’t letting the grass grow under his feet. He’d really meant it about that pizza place.
There was a movement inside. I peered through and caught a glimpse of Jimmie himself, fag glued to his lip, stacking the furniture in the middle of the floor. I tapped urgently. He looked up, waved the smouldering cigarette at me in acknowledgement, and came to unlock the door.
‘Come on in, hen,’ he invited.
I slipped in and Jimmie, after a quick look up and down the street in case a horde of customers demanding food threatened to follow on my heels, relocked the door.
‘Want a coffee?’ he asked.
‘Please. I was hoping you’d be open for business. I’ve been down at the copshop and haven’t had any breakfast.’ I sounded wistful.
‘Why didn’t you get the boys in blue to give you some breakfast? They do a good bacon and eggs down there in the canteen.’
How did he know this? ‘Do me a favour,’ I pleaded. ‘Do I want to sit down there eating with the fuzz?’
Jimmie took the point. ‘Come on through. I’ll fix you a sausage sarnie. Could do with one myself.’
That was more like it. In Jimmie’s dingy back room, in a cloud of nicotine, we munched hot greasy sausage sandwiches with lashings of mustard. They were better than anything Jimmie had ever served in the café.
‘You ought to put these on the menu,’ I told him.
‘They’re not Eye-talian,’ he replied deadpan. He was taking all this seriously.
Jimmie managed to smoke and eat at the same time, taking alternate bites and drags.
‘Having a wee bit of trouble with the polis?’ he enquired sympathetically.
Feeling my lungs seize up and wondering if I’d collapse over the table at any minute, overcome by smoke inhalation, I told him Gan and I had found a dead man in a car parked by the garages. News of the discovery would reach Jimmie soon anyway. I didn’t tell him we knew the corpse’s identity.
Jimmie took the information in his stride, commiserated with me over my bad luck, and turned to the matter uppermost in his mind, transformation of the premises.
‘The idea I’ve got is to paint the whole place red and white. The staff can wear white shirts and red waistcoats. I’m going upmarket, you know, attract a classier type of punter. Put the prices up.’
‘Staff?’ I exclaimed, not very politely.
‘I told you,’ he reminded me. ‘I offered you a job. You accepted. I’m counting on you.’
‘Did I? Oh yes, so I did. Does this mean I’ll have to wear the red-and-white outfit?’
‘You’ll look bonny,’ said Jimmie firmly. ‘Wearing one of those full skirts with coloured braid stitched round the hem. The Eye-talian peasant look.’
I asked him if he was sure Italian peasants dressed like that.
‘More or less,’ he said confidently. ‘All those folk costumes look the same. I’ve got a contact down at the market who knows someone who’ll run up the costumes cheap. I’ve got a load of other ideas. At weekends, I’m going to have live music.’
This was pushing the boat out. ‘A band?’ I asked incredulously.
He shook his head. ‘A band would be way too expensive. Just a feller playing the accordion, wearing a red waistcoat like the rest of you.’
‘You’ve got someone lined up for this?’
‘A friend of mine,’ said Jimmie. ‘For fancy fingerwork, you can’t beat him. He’s just done a wee spell inside so he’s looking for a job, a legit one.’
‘What was he inside for?’ Perhaps I shouldn’t ask.
‘He and a mate worked the racecourses,’ said Jimmie. ‘You know, lifting wallets.’
Fancy fingerwork indeed. As tactfully as possible, I suggested to Jimmie that there might be disadvantages in employing a known dip.
Jimmie reassured me. ‘It’s all right, hen. He’s given all that up. He lost his nerve. You’ve got to have the nerve for that sort of thing. He could still lift the wallets but then he started dropping them when he passed them to his partner. You can’t have that, can you? I mean, a runner’s no good to a relay team if he keeps dropping the baton, is he?’
Fair enough. But I couldn’t help feeling all this was
becoming an obsession for Jimmie. Nobody can keep that level of interest up for ever. At least, Jimmie couldn’t. He was a man who’d made a lifestyle out of doing the minimum. I just hoped it wouldn’t, as Grandma would’ve warned, all end in tears.
I put my head round the shop door nervously. Gan was moping about by the till. There was no sign of Hari. I went in.
‘They let me go,’ I said, obviously. ‘Where’s Hari?’
‘Where do you think? Upstairs drinking herbal tea and having a nervous breakdown.’ Gan scowled at the ceiling.
‘He’s going to want me out of the garage now, isn’t he?’ There was always the room Norman had offered me, even if it was rather like proposing to stay at the Bates Motel. The owner of that had been called Norman, too. How many bad omens flocking in from the left did I need?
Tentatively, I mentioned it to Ganesh, who retorted that I couldn’t possibly lodge with Newspaper Norman. I’d get raped.
‘By Norman?’ I asked. ‘I don’t think he’s interested.’
‘No, not by Norman, by all the other psychopaths he’s got living there. You’re safer in the garage.’ Gan heaved a sigh. ‘It’s not Hari you’ve got to worry about. It’s the rest of the family. Once they get to hear of this, they’ll all be here.’ He paused. ‘I phoned Jay. I thought he’d be the best person to tell them what’s happened here. He wasn’t too happy about it but he said he’d do it.’
‘How’s Usha?’ I asked. Usha was Ganesh’s sister and Jay’s wife.
‘Fine. Fingers crossed, expecting a baby.’
‘Good news, then.’
‘We could do with some,’ said Ganesh grimly.
‘It seems to me at least,’ I told him, ‘that it would be a good thing if I kept out of the way for a bit. I don’t mean skip out. Inspector Janice would go bananas. I mean, just not be here too much.’
This was paving the way for my absence the next day, when I intended to go out,to Kew. Gan didn’t know about that, but I hadn’t forgotten my promise to my mother. ‘This afternoon,’ I went on, ‘I’ll go to Egham, to the hospice.’
‘I can’t get time off to drive you,’ Gan said. ‘I can’t leave Hari. The old chap’s in a terrible state. Morgan said someone would be round to interview him this afternoon. I’ve told him all he’s got to say is that Duke came into the shop and asked for you. That’s the one and only time Hari saw him. But you know Hari. He keeps saying we are all under suspicion.’
I could imagine it. The way the police mind works, it might be true, at that.
‘Then I’ll definitely keep out of the way. Don’t worry, I’ll get the train out to Egham.’
I set out for the hospice shortly after this conversation, via Waterloo, as I’d told Gan. When I got there, I took a bus up the hill. It dropped me near the hospice. The rain had stopped but the day was dull. It had rained out here earlier too, and water dripped from the rhododendron bushes as I turned in the hospice gates.
I was thinking about my mother and what I was going to say to her and not paying much attention to anything else, and it nearly cost me dear.
There was a sudden roar of engine and crunch of tyres on gravel. A car sped down the drive towards me, causing me to leap for my life into the bushes. I had a brief glimpse of the driver, a man in his thirties or early forties with a pale, set face and eyes staring ahead of him. With a screech of rubber on tarmac he turned right and belted off. I hoped the idiot would encounter a speed camera. I didn’t think he’d noticed me at any time, on the drive or sprawling in the greenery. I disentangled myself and wiped trickles of water ineffectually from my jacket. Perhaps the Wacky Racer had just made a difficult visit to a hospice patient and his mind was all over the place. He could still kill someone, driving like that. He’d nearly killed me.
I carried on up the drive and made my way into the hospice. I tapped at the office door just inside the lobby. Someone called out for me to enter.
Sister Helen was standing by the window, looking out at the drive. She appeared flushed and not as in control as when I’d last seen her. She looked round, saw me and said, ‘Ah, Fran.’
I saw the mask of composure slip neatly back into place. Working here, it was something she’d had to cultivate. I admired her for doing such a difficult job, but she was looking at me in a speculative way which made me wonder what was in her mind. As it was, I had something on mine.
‘Someone nearly ran me down,’ I told her indignantly.
‘That,’ she said, ‘would be Mr Jackson. I saw him leave.’
She paused as if I would have some comment to make about this. When I didn’t, she indicated a chair. We both sat down.
‘You didn’t recognise the car?’ she asked. ‘Or see the driver? The name doesn’t mean anything to you?’
I shook my head. ‘I saw his face. I didn’t know him.’
She made a noise like ‘tsk!’ and frowned. After a moment she appeared to make up her mind and said, ‘Your mother’s been sleeping most of the day. I’ll go along and see if she’s awake in a moment. Perhaps we could have a word first.’
I didn’t like this but I couldn’t refuse. I asked, ‘What about?’
‘Well, Mr Jackson for a start, though you say you don’t know him. I was hoping you might. Fran, I know something’s worrying your mother. It’s been on her mind since she first arrived here. Before Mr Duke found you I thought it was that she feared he wouldn’t – or that you wouldn’t come even if he did. Now she seems so eager to see you again, but it’s not the usual kind of eagerness. It’s as though she’s expecting you to bring her some kind of news.’
I shifted on my chair and must have looked guilty but I said, ‘I can’t explain that.’ Which, as far as it went, was true. I wasn’t free to explain. If she took my words to mean I was ignorant of the cause of my mother’s nervy state, so much the better. I wasn’t sure she did. She was too sharp. I thought she probably understood that I knew but wouldn’t tell.
‘We get all kinds of people calling here,’ she began now. ‘Usually they’ve been in touch first, or the person they’re visiting has told us about them. Mr Jackson just turned up about half an hour ago, wanting to see Mrs Varady. When I asked if she was expecting him, he said no, but he was an old friend. So I asked who had told him she was here. But he was vague about that and distinctly jumpy. I told him Eva was asleep and suggested he wait. He did sit in the lobby for a few minutes, fidgeting all the time. Then he went outside and called someone on a mobile phone. I couldn’t hear the conversation, of course, but I could see him through this window. He looked very agitated, even quite shocked. When his call was over he just jumped in his car and drove off without coming back to tell me he was leaving. I’m not happy about any of it. I was very relieved to see you. I thought you might be able to explain some of it.’
‘I don’t know Jackson,’ I said. If that was his real name. I doubted it. Another unknown bobbing about in the equation. Wonderful.
‘Sister,’ I said, ‘I do have some news for you but it isn’t good. It’s about Mr Duke. He’s dead and it’s in the hands of the police.’
She stared at me with her clear gaze, which seemed able to see right into my head. ‘You mean it’s a suspicious death?’
I nodded. ‘But my mother mustn’t know he’s been – that he’s dead. I’ve explained to the police about her but they might come round, wanting to talk to her, even so.’
‘We can handle that,’ Sister Helen said, and I felt comforted. Morgan and Cole wouldn’t get past this defence easily. She rose to her feet. ‘I’ll just go along and see if Eva’s woken up.’
My mother was propped on her pillows. She looked tired and more frail than when I’d last seen her. She held out her hand wordlessly. I took it and sat by the bed.
‘I went to the address you gave me, in Wimbledon.’
She turned her head, watching, saying nothing.
‘The Wildes don’t live there any more.’
I felt her hand twitch in mine. Now, I have a confession
to make. It had occurred to me, sitting in the train on the way there that afternoon, that I had a cast-iron excuse for putting an end to this chase after the Wildes right now. All I had to say was they’d moved and I hadn’t a clue where they’d gone. But now I knew I couldn’t lie to a dying woman.
‘I’ve got another address, from a neighbour. It’s in Kew. I hope I’ll be able to go there tomorrow.’