by Ann Granger
‘Do you know why he was still watching me? Even though he’d done the job?’
She shook her head. ‘Didn’t know he was doing that. Knew he was busy about something or other. He didn’t always let on what he was up to. We were husband and wife, but not business partners. Any work I did for the business was strictly as an employee. Rennie said it was best for tax reasons. But really, he liked to run things, he liked playing his cards close to his chest. He used to say that what I didn’t know couldn’t do me any harm.’
She gave a snort of bleak amusement. ‘I suppose in his own way he was trying to protect me. I knew he sometimes rooted around on his own account if he got interested in a case. The clients, they never tell you more than they’ve got to. But Rennie, he didn’t like loose ends. Always wanted to dot the i’s and cross the t’s. It didn’t do any harm, though I used to tell him he was a nosy blighter. “That’s right, Susie,” he’d say. “Got a nose for other people’s secrets.”’
That was something he’d told me himself, something I should have realised was likely to affect me. I wasn’t sure his talent hadn’t done Rennie any harm in the end. I leaned forward. ‘Did he tell you anything at all about Eva? Other than that she’d asked him to find me and he had? Please try and remember. Had he talked to anyone about her?’
‘I don’t know.’ She shook her head again. ‘It’s no use asking me. Like I said, he didn’t tell me everything. The police took his computer and all the files, the lot. I suppose I’ll get ’em back. They’ve kept the car an’ all. It’s really inconvenient. They say they haven’t finished going over it. What do they think they’re going to find?’
‘Clues,’ I told her. ‘Perhaps the killer dropped something inside, or had special mud on his boots.’
‘Yeah, right,’ she said brusquely. ‘Like in books.’
I persevered, getting to the point of my visit. ‘Did Rennie ever mention a Mrs Marks? He wrote her a letter.’
‘Didn’t mention her to me. If he wrote a letter it’ll be on the computer, most likely, but the cops have got that, I told you.’ Her forehead puckered as she dredged up a memory from the fog that enveloped her brain. ‘The police asked me about her, Mrs Marks. But I told them I didn’t know nothing. They never give up, do they, cops? They keep on and on even when you tell them you can’t help ’em.’
I had no argument with that. On the other hand, I was about to keep on and on, as she put it, myself.
‘Susie,’ I urged, ‘is there anywhere else he might have made a note of Mrs Marks’s address?’
‘They took it all,’ she said. I don’t think she’d heard me. She’d become hooked on her grievance. ‘Every scrap of paper they could find. Ferreting about in all the drawers and cupboards. I asked if they had a search warrant. They asked if I objected. They were trying to find Rennie’s murderer, they said. Surely I wanted to help? Cheeky blighters. Fat chance they’ll ever find who killed poor Rennie.’
A tear trickled down her cheek and her hand reached for the gin bottle. It was nearly empty. I was prepared to believe she had a stash of them. I neatly intercepted her and moved the bottle out of reach. She looked surprised but not angry, more resigned.
‘Susie,’ I began, ‘I know this is a difficult time for you. You say you don’t think the police will have much luck finding out who killed Rennie, but you’d like him found, wouldn’t you, Rennie’s killer?’
‘They oughtn’t to get away with it,’ she mumbled.
‘Quite right. I want to know too. You’ve done detective work, so’ve I. Perhaps together we can do better than the cops?’
For a moment she looked almost as if she were going to latch on to this with some degree of enthusiasm. But then she slumped in her chair and muttered, ‘I’m not up to it. I suppose I’ll have to try and keep the business going, but right now, I can’t put my mind to it.’
‘So let me try?’ She shrugged, which I took as a yes. ‘What about someone Rennie may have upset in the past? Someone with a criminal record or dodgy dealings? You know, someone who might have a bit of hired muscle.’
I was throwing out feelers here. I still felt Rennie’s death was linked to me and my mother’s quest, but it doesn’t do to be tunnel-visioned in investigations. After all, the only way I could really be sure his death was down to Mum’s secret was by eliminating anyone else with a grudge. In Rennie’s case that would be a long job and well-nigh impossible to complete, but I could try.
She was doing her best to think, frowning and blinking in the spiralling cigarette smoke. ‘Over the years, several people have reckoned Rennie crossed them. Some of the clients turned out bloomin’ ungrateful, no other word for it. After all Rennie had done for them, too.’
This tied in with what Morgan had told me of Rennie’s relationship with his clients. Did Susie really have no idea that he might have had a lucrative sideline or two?
‘Anyone more ungrateful than most?’ I coaxed. ‘Anyone recently?’
Chances were, if someone like that was involved, it’d be someone Rennie had dealt with in the near past. People living on the edge of the law generally don’t let grievances fester. They settle them asap.
‘Things have been quiet recently,’ she admitted. ‘Rennie was getting worried about the work not coming in. I don’t think anyone was after him. Not during these last six months or so.’
I regretfully shelved that possibility, always an outside chance in my book. I had another idea. ‘Is there anyone Rennie worked for more than once? Someone with an ear on the street, perhaps? Someone who might be interested in helping to track down his murderer?’
She looked a bit despondent at that and said that Rennie had had few friends. Then she perked up. ‘There’s Mickey Allerton. Rennie did a couple of jobs for him. He ought to be grateful. Doesn’t mean he will be, though. Still, he’s got the sort of contacts you mean.’
He might also have a sense of justice. Not the type dispensed by the law, but street justice. ‘Where can I find him?’ I asked.
She told me Allerton owned a club in Soho. The Silver Circle. ‘Stage show, strippers, that sort of thing. Private membership though any punter can join at the door if he gets past security and Mickey don’t object to his face. Got a lot of high-rolling foreign guys there, don’t want their names known or faces seen. He’s mostly there over lunchtime. They’re busy then.’
I could check it out, provided I got past the heavy bound to be on the door. Meantime, there was Susie to consider.
‘Susie, have you had anything to eat?’ I asked. She couldn’t go on knocking it back on an empty stomach.
She looked vague. ‘Can’t remember. I suppose I must have done.’
‘I’ll fix you a sandwich.’ I got up and made for the kitchen, which was behind the sitting room and communicated with it through a serving hatch.
Susie might be well supplied with the stuff in bottles but she didn’t have much in the grocery line. Some bread in a bin looked stale. A lump of cheese in the fridge was beginning to show signs of mould. There was a box of hamburgers in the freezer compartment but no buns. I scraped the mould from the cheese and made a toasted sandwich under the oven grill. It hadn’t been cleaned since the last use, and as it heated up, the smell of burnt fat permeated the kitchen. Susie wasn’t a slattern, I’d seen that. But Duke’s death had knocked her all of a heap. I kept an eye on her through the hatch while I grilled the sandwich, and saw with dismay that she had indeed opened another bottle.
I took the sandwich to her and put it on the table. Then I gently removed the bottle from her hand. ‘Eat up. You’ve had enough of this stuff. You’ll have a hell of a head in the morning. I’ll make some coffee.’
Luckily she did have coffee and some milk. When I went back, she was chewing the sandwich in a half-hearted way.
‘Have you got anyone who can come and stay with you for a bit? A friend? A relative?’ I asked. I was really worried about her. I liked her. She’d loved the poor little runt. There was no accounting for tast
e.
‘Got a sister in Margate,’ she said.
‘Can’t you go and stay with her for a few days? A bit of sea air would do you good.’
She shook her head. ‘She’s got kids. They do my head in. Rennie and I couldn’t have any, not after my hysterectomy. I didn’t mind too much. But I think Rennie did. Rennie liked kids. Not the ones who come and write filth on our wall and spray paint on the window, of course. But little kids, you know, in buggies. He liked kittens and puppies too. He was sort of sentimental. He bought that.’ She pointed at the pottery cat. ‘Only got it down the market. Still, it’s nice, isn’t it?’
I nodded. I’d seen worse pottery cats. But something she’d said had set my mind running off in a new direction. Rennie had liked kids. The Dukes were childless. Rennie had tracked me down for Mum without charging her any fee. For old times’ sake? Or because he’d wanted to find a lost child and reunite her with her mother? In the same way, had something Mum said given him the idea that she had more than one lost child? Had some altruistic impulse set him on the trail which had led him at least as far as Mrs Marks? Or had he just been dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s as Susie described. I hadn’t known Rennie and now I never would. It was a downer, all right.
I put the gin bottle back in the cabinet. ‘Promise me,’ I said, ‘you won’t knock back any more of the hard stuff tonight. Go to bed. Get some sleep. You look all in.’
‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘I know I’m in a helluva state. I’ll be okay.’
I took the plate and the glasses back to the kitchen and rinsed them under the tap. I opened a couple of cupboards and found the one where the crocks were stored. Tidily I carried the things across, and as I did so, my eye fell on the telephone fixed to the wall nearby. What’s more, when I closed the cupboard door, I saw, tacked up by the phone, one of those laminated cards you write notes on and wipe clean with a damp cloth. My old optimism returned. It was scribbled all over, but a diligent search revealed, written at the bottom, the letters EM followed by a phone number. Eureka! As the guy said when he found the bath water was too hot or something.
I went to the hatch and called through it. ‘Susie, do you know anyone with the initials EM?’
She thought and shook her head. ‘Don’t think so.’
Right. Gleefully I copied down the phone number. Morgan had removed all Duke’s records, but she and her minions had missed this.
Outside the block of flats kids were racing round on roller blades. They nearly knocked me over. I yelled at them. They took no notice. In a gloomy corner, someone was breaking into a parked car foolishly left there by its owner. I pushed my hands into my pockets and walked quickly away. Sartre wrote a play about a lot of people stuck in a place with a bunch of others they can’t get on with and can’t leave. It turns out to be Hell. Something like this place, I thought. Still, I was leaving here with a couple of leads, and no one could say my journey had been wasted.
I didn’t want Ganesh to know what I was up to. So the following morning I decided not to ask to use the shop phone to ring the number I’d cribbed from Susie’s kitchen board. I’d nip down the road and hope to find an unvandalised kiosk.
Before I could do so, however, Ganesh appeared in the garage and asked, ‘Where did you get to yesterday evening? Were you with that woman copper?’
I could have lied and told him I had been, but I don’t lie to Ganesh. I filter the truth sometimes, when necessary, or refuse to answer, but I don’t lie.
‘No, only for about an hour. She bought me tea and cake. After that I was just out and about. Why?’
‘We didn’t see you all yesterday!’ he said accusingly. ‘Not until you waltzed in late afternoon and out again with Inspector Morgan. I waited up. I thought you’d call by and tell me what she wanted.’
Waiting up late for me, when he had to get up so early the next morning, had been a sacrifice. My not turning up had made it useless. No wonder he was grumpy.
I countered with, ‘What is this? Have I got to report in, or what?’
‘Don’t give me that. You’re always in and out of the shop. You usually turn up for a coffee at some point in the day if nothing else – or lately, to sneak a look at the A to Z! You weren’t here yesterday evening. So where were you?’ He sat down on a packing case and folded his arms with the air of a man who wouldn’t go without getting an answer. ‘You know,’ he went on, ‘you’re getting really furtive. I don’t like it. Don’t you trust me?’
‘Come off it, of course I do.’
‘So tell me what’s going on. Starting with yesterday evening.’
I know Gan well enough to realise that I had to give him some sort of explanation. So I told him the truth, that I’d been to see Susie Duke.
‘Why?’ he asked suspiciously.
‘Give her my condolences. Be polite.’
Gan unfolded his arms and stabbed a finger in my direction. ‘Don’t come the sweet innocent with me! You’ve been playing detective again.’
I told him I didn’t play at detective. I reminded him that I had, on previous occasions, detected for real with some success.
‘Don’t get big-headed about it,’ he retorted. ‘You’ve been lucky. Luck doesn’t last for ever. It runs out. Duke’s did, and he was a proper professional. I suppose you think you can find out who killed him?’
‘Gan,’ I said, ‘I have to find out who killed Duke.’
‘I don’t see why,’ he replied. ‘Or if you’ve got a reason, you’re not telling me what it is.’
‘He died out there!’ I flung out my hand to indicate the area before the garages. ‘He was waiting for me. I know he was. He wanted to talk to me. He was scrabbling at the door during the night but I didn’t open up. If I had, he might be alive today. What did he want? Who wanted to stop him? It all makes me very nervous.’
‘You make me nervous,’ said Ganesh. ‘Honestly, Fran, I just can’t trust you an inch. I never know what you’re going to do next.’
‘Believe me,’ I told him, ‘it’s better that way.’
He stomped off back to the shop. I felt really bad about not confiding in him. I knew his feelings were hurt. Yesterday, I’d been ready to tell him everything, and had it not been for Morgan, would’ve done. But overnight I’d got over my weakness, as I now saw it. I’d started on this alone and I’d see it out alone. God willing, as Grandma Varady would’ve piously added.
I went out and managed to find a public telephone that was in working order, though plastered with pictures of girls offering their services with assurances that everything was real. But it isn’t, and any woman working like that has some pimp taking most of the dosh. It makes me mad.
I knew I was through to the right number as soon as someone answered. In the background I could hear children’s voices and the discordant jangle of a toy xylophone. ‘Mrs Marks?’
‘Speaking.’ She sounded harassed.
‘My name is Francesca Varady. I’m the daughter of Eva Varady. I think—’
She interrupted. ‘The police have been here already, asking about Eva. I couldn’t tell them anything. I looked after the baby for a couple of weeks, no more. It’s nothing to do with me.’
‘Please,’ I begged. ‘Can I come and talk to you?’
‘I’m busy,’ she snapped. ‘I run a crèche.’
‘Ten minutes,’ I said. ‘I won’t be in the way. I’m good with poster paint.’
That was a lie. My infant encounters with poster paint had generally ended with more of it on my clothes than on the paper.
‘Come this afternoon, around three thirty,’ she said. ‘Several of the kids will have been picked up by then. It’ll be quieter. But you’re wasting your time.’
‘Great. Can I have your address?’
She gave a hiss but told me the address before hanging up with a clatter of the receiver that made my eardrum zing.
After I’d arranged to see the child-minder, I set off for Waterloo station. I had to get out to Egham to see my mother
and warn her that officialdom was taking a hand in things. I also had somehow to put Sister Helen on the alert without spilling the beans. There’s nothing like making life difficult for yourself, and just to add insult to injury, I discovered that the zip of one of my nice new boots was knackered. I had to put on my old lace-ups, and as I was doing that, one of the laces broke, which made it too short, and I could only lace halfway up the ankle. As a result my lower right leg moved freely in the unlaced leather, whereas the left one was tightly supported. It gave me a lopsided gait.
‘She was a little poorly during the night,’ Sister Helen told me. ‘But she’s awake this morning and anxious to see you. Brightened up quite a bit. It is your coming to see her which keeps her going, you know.’
In a sense. It was the hope that I’d find Nicola which kept her going. But my resentment at that was fading. I was slowly coming to terms with it. News that my mother hadn’t been doing so well since my last visit, however, worried me.