‘Spur of the moment,’ she answered as if she hoped that might satisfy him. She smirked but uncertainly, holding the gerbil in front of her like a protection. It lay there in her hands rolling its eyes as if it knew.
‘For God’s sake,’ he said angrily. ‘Can’t I have lunch with my own wife without you rearing your . . .’ He saw her expression fall. ‘. . . Popping up and making a drama?’
‘I thought you didn’t love each other any more. That’s why you don’t live together.’
‘That is not the damned point. It’s none of your business. You are not involved.’
Korky sat subdued on the sofa, stroking the gerbil who still regarded Savage with caution and visibly cringed at his raised voice. ‘Why?’ Savage repeated standing before her.
‘Don’t sound like a sergeant, or whatever. I only wanted to see what she was like,’ sighed Korky looking towards the other end of the room. ‘It’s a woman’s instinct. To see how her rival looks.’
He stamped on the carpet, conscious that the movement came from the parade ground. ‘She is not your rival! I am not, repeat not, involved in a relationship with you. Here you are merely a lodger.’
Korky put her narrow nose in the air. ‘Here you are meeerely a lodger,’ she mimicked. ‘All right, then, why didn’t you tell her who I was? At the beginning, as soon as I came in. I’ll tell you why, because you were scared to tell her. And after that it was too late.’
He sat down. ‘We were meeting to discuss our eventual divorce,’ he told her trying to be patient.
At once her face glowed. ‘Oh, that’s good,’ she enthused. ‘That’s a lot better news, that is. There was me thinking you were going to get together again. I knew you were going to meet up because you wrote “Irene” and the restaurant and the date and the time on your telephone pad. But I thought it was all going to be patched up. But . . . divorce . . . that’s a bit different.’
‘It’s not different,’ he told her truculently. ‘So you can forget that for a start.’
‘I wouldn’t have you,’ she returned haughtily. ‘Not if you was giving yourself free. Anyway I got in the sack with Freehold Freddie yesterday.’
‘Oh, did you.’ He tried not to sound shocked.
‘Yes, and it was all your fault.’
‘How could it be my fault, for Christ’s sake?’
‘Don’t swear. Jesus doesn’t like it. I did it for revenge.’
Sitting wearily down beside her, he lowered his head into his hands. ‘Revenge? What are you talking about now? Revenge.’
‘Revenging myself on you because I thought that you and your Irene would be making it up, getting together. I did it to spite you.’ She paused. ‘Freddie kept his tie on in bed.’
‘Why would he want to do that?’ Savage asked dully. He felt defeated.
‘In case he got a call. To go and sell a house. He’s very keen. He’s on commission. I thought your Irene was nice.’
‘She’s not my Irene,’ responded Savage.
‘All right, your ex-Irene then, your former Irene. Has she got somebody else?’
‘Yes. She wants to marry him.’
‘Everybody meets somebody but me,’ she complained.
‘You haven’t done badly for someone not yet eighteen.’
‘Anyway, then you’ll be free,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘After your divorce.’
‘And I intend to stay free.’
‘A soldier of fortune. That’s what you want to be.’ It was a hint of mockery. ‘What about Jean Thing. Jean Whatsit.’
‘Jean Deepe?’ he said, surprised. ‘That’s finished. It hardly started. You put the kibosh on that.’
‘Being seriously ill,’ lamented Korky. ‘I’ve buggered up your big romance.’
‘It was not a big romance.’
‘I don’t like her anyway, that Jean Whatever-she’s-called. I prefer your wife.’
It took a moment for Savage to realise. ‘How do you know what Jean’s like?’ he asked slowly, eventually. ‘You’ve never even seen her.’
Korky emitted a small yawn. ‘That Jean. I have. She was here the other day.’
‘Here! You didn’t tell me.’
‘Forgot,’ she lied easily. ‘She was here in this flat. Standing right there. Said she was doing the regular security whatever-it-is. Something to do with shooting down Prince Charles’s helicopter. I told her to get on with it.’
‘Where was I?’
‘At the library.’
‘But you didn’t tell me. Don’t make out you forgot. You wouldn’t forget something like that.’
Korky made a face. ‘She’s not for you,’ she asserted as though that were sufficient answer. ‘She’s a copper lady but she’s a tiny bit sly. Maybe that’s why she’s a copper lady. She’s a bit tarty too, I think.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake. I can’t get over you not telling me.’
‘I’m doing it now. I’m telling you, aren’t I? It was only a couple of days ago. Anyway, I knew you were going to meet Irene and I didn’t want anyone to spoil it for the two of you.’
‘You certainly come out with some beauties.’
Korky shrugged. ‘Really that Jean only came to get a butcher’s at me,’ she said. ‘Same thing as me wanting to see what your wife looked like. Women are like that. They get curious about other women.’
‘Did Jean leave a message?’ asked Savage in a spent voice.
Korky hesitated and he knew she was going to lie. ‘Did she?’ he insisted.
‘All right, she did. But I wouldn’t bother about her, if I was you, Savage. She’s trouble.’
He had kept the policewoman’s telephone number but now he could not find it. Korky helped him to search but with such unconvincing conviction that he guessed what had happened to it. She went out to do the Saturday shopping and said she was going to Shepherd’s Bush market. These days she always told him where she was going; at least where she said she was going, and she came back.
He got a taxi to Westbourne Grove. He rang the bell of Jean’s flat and realised there was an eye scrutinising him through the security spy-hole. ‘You got my message,’ she said when she had opened the door. ‘I’m amazed.’
‘Slightly delayed,’ he admitted. He walked into her sitting room, feeling a sense of surprise that it looked the same. So many things had happened to him in the few weeks since he was last there.
‘I’m amazed she passed it on,’ said Jean. She was slight in jeans and a cream sweater. Her hair was tied behind her head and with no make-up her face looked stark and thin. Cigarette ends were mangled in the ashtray. She was smoking nervously.
Uncertainly Savage sat down and she went at her businesslike pace into the kitchen and made some coffee. She returned more slowly. ‘It took a couple of days for her to tell me,’ he said. ‘But she came out with it in the end. Korky has a conscience. It gets the better of her eventually. But then I’d mislaid your phone number and I didn’t want to call you at the station.’
They faced each other over the low ceramic table. ‘Well, I’m glad you came over, Frank,’ she said looking down at her cup. She picked up the cigarette she had put on the edge of the ashtray but then stubbed it out. ‘I ought to apologise for the hard time I gave you that night you were looking for her. She turned up anyway.’
‘She was at home,’ he nodded.
‘She’s a funny thing, isn’t she,’ said the policewoman thoughtfully. ‘Streetwise as hell, watch her eyes. But she doesn’t look as though she wants to be out in the streets.’
‘Korky’s unusual,’ he conceded.
‘You’ve been good to her.’
‘She’s been good for me, I think. She’s given me something different to think about. God, if you could have seen her when I found her that first night. She wasn’t far off being dead. It was a month before she got over it.’
‘What are you going to do with her?’ The eyes rose professionally.
‘Do with her? Well, we have an arrangement. As soon as she gets se
ttled into a job then she’s going to fix herself up with somewhere to live.’ He looked abashed. ‘We’ve shaken hands on it.’ Jean was still studying him. He added lamely: ‘We’re sort of . . . well, like father and daughter.’
She laughed knowingly. ‘I bet that young lady doesn’t see it quite like that.’
‘Well, that’s how it is,’ he said firmly.
She put her cup on the table and he put his down also. She stretched forward over the cups and he leaned forward too and they kissed. ‘I’ve had problems,’ she said quietly. ‘Big ones.’
‘In what way?’
She stood up and went to the window and seemed to be searching the street. ‘I’m glad you came,’ she said without turning around. ‘I need a bit of moral support.’
‘What’s it about?’
‘A man called Brendan Brownlow,’ she said turning towards him. She looked shaky even mentioning the name. ‘He’s a bastard, a right villain. He’s inside just now but he’ll be out soon. He’s applied for parole and the way they dish it out these days he’ll probably get it.’
‘What’s the connection?’
‘Him and me.’ She sat at the table again, her fingertips together. ‘I had a bit of a fling with him once, Frank. Not long after my husband died. I was very low when I met him. He had a record and I knew about that, but I picked him up. I must have been mad but I needed somebody. The Met had not been particularly helpful or even sympathetic over Malcolm. They made the right noises and that was about it. A copper inconveniently dying after a pub brawl is not like a copper killed by a terrorist bomb. Different sympathy category altogether.’
Her fingertips tapped. Once more he thought how slight, how furtive, she was. She breathed confessionally. ‘Anyway, our Brendan then did a jewellery job. He got shopped and put away.’
‘And now he’s about to reappear.’
‘It’s worse than that. He thinks I shopped him, or I was in on it with the bloke who did.’
‘You weren’t.’
She quickly avoided his face. ‘There was a reward,’ she said. ‘The informant picked it up. Twenty-five thousand.’
Apprehension floated in her eyes. ‘He’s just sent me a letter. Well, just one sentence. It said: “See you soon.”’
‘And that’s a threat?’
‘I think it could be.’
Rising she went to the window again. ‘Frank,’ she said. ‘Be a friend. Just keep an eye on me, will you. Keep in touch. Just for the next few months. They might even let him out earlier. They do sometimes if there’s a special reason. He could say it was his dear old mother’s birthday. Anyway, he’ll be back. There’s nothing more certain.’
Again she was smoking, drawing quickly on the cigarette.
‘And you can’t tell anyone?’ he said.
‘The police? Obviously there’s no way I want to get them involved. I’d get protection but there would be a lot of difficult questions asked.’
‘What about the man who got the reward?’
‘He’s inside now as well.’ She looked directly at him. ‘I haven’t been too particular with my friends.’
‘I’ve got a gun you could have,’ he said.
‘I know all about your gun,’ she replied flatly. ‘Your Korky told me.’
‘She tells everybody.’
‘It’s useless anyway,’ shrugged Jean. ‘No ammo either. I had a look at it. She took it from under your bed for me.’ She waited then went on: ‘The gun is not a problem. I’ve got one. But that doesn’t stop me being scared.’ She glanced up. ‘Can I give you a key?’ she asked. ‘Then you can get in any time. If I call you.’
Savage looked at her more steadily than he felt. ‘All right,’ he decided. ‘Give me a key.’
‘Come and see me,’ she smiled tightly. She kissed him on the mouth but her lips were like a beak. ‘Whenever you like.’
Thirteen
Fine weather moved across the London sky by the end of the first week in May. The gerbil was installed in a hutch on the tight balcony of the side window which faced east and received the sun until almost afternoon. He stayed in the dark away from it. Korky had triumphantly carried the wooden rodent house from Portobello Road; she bought it with her only week’s wages as a child minder. ‘It’s meant for rabbits. It’s antique,’ she claimed happily as she manoeuvred the box on to the balcony. The gerbil, sensing an involvement in the excitement, sniffed around her feet. ‘There’s even old droppings in the bottom.’
After some wariness the animal was persuaded to enter. ‘There, John,’ said Korky. ‘Now you’ve got a home as well.’
She was not easily employed. Hopefully they read the Situations Vacant in the Evening Standard but it was Mr Tomelty who provided the most promising opening.
‘Child minder,’ said Korky. She glanced for support towards Savage. He said doubtfully: ‘Excellent.’
‘The people live in the next block,’ said Tomelty. ‘Out all day like a lot of them are. Two mites. They had a girl to help, from the East by the look of her, but she’s gone. Back to the Orient maybe.’
Korky was not exact with the children’s ages. ‘The boy can walk but he can’t talk much,’ she reported after her first day. ‘The baby can’t do anything. Except the usual.’
‘What are the parents like?’ asked Savage still peering at the word processor. He was accustomed to it now; he could write and correct and print. He had no need to attempt anything more ambitious.
Korky was not impressed with the parents. After three days she reported: ‘They come in shagged out and they talk in numbers – all they talk about is money and numbers and who’s having it away with who. She makes sure I change the baby’s bum before I leave because she almost goes into a faint doing it. They want me to move in there full-time.’
They were eating Chinese take-away; Savage’s eyes came up to fix hers, noodles hanging from his fork. ‘But I’m not going to,’ she forestalled him, biting into a spring roll. ‘You never know how long I might last.’
She found it humdrum pushing a pram in the park. On her final afternoon, she propelled it along the Kensington Gardens path and, in an attempt to ease her boredom, let it go. It rolled away from her with the boy and the baby, both aboard, shouting with the fun of it. Playfully Korky waved them off but she mistimed her pursuit. Gathering pace, the pram rumbled into the chilly shallows of the Round Pond, scattering ducks, and halted, fortunately upright, with the grey water lapping its wheels. Korky ran shouting, but as she caught the handle the vehicle toppled and the boy tipped into the shallows. People passing rushed to help. Korky hoisted the soaked and howling child clear of the water and the bystanders tugged the perambulator with its excited baby to the bank.
She might have got away with it; since neither child could speak she could have got back to Kensington Heights in time to change their clothes, but one of the rescuers was a neighbour. She was given immediate notice even though the parents had a big business lunch the following day. ‘I rescued him,’ she complained to Savage. ‘He could have drowned.’
Her attempt at being a waitress in a Fulham bistro was similarly brief. ‘There were collisions,’ she shrugged. ‘I could never remember which door you went into the kitchen and which you went out.’ Moved by her tears the manager said she could stay and load the dishwasher but that lasted only an afternoon.
‘I’m not cut out for the catering trade,’ she said.
Her lack of servility did not suit her for employment in the big stores of Knightsbridge and Kensington. Eventually, and surprisingly, however, she did find a job in a second-hand bookshop in Bloomsbury and there she stayed.
‘It’s all dirt and dust and books,’ she related with satisfaction. ‘Been on the shelves for years, some of them. Nobody buying them, nobody even opening them up, poor things. I’ve told Mr Furtwangler I’m going to have a good clear-up. He wasn’t that keen because he said he knows where to find everything. He doesn’t even seem worried whether we sell any. There were only five people in
today but he doesn’t mind. He went off for a couple of hours this afternoon, to a gallery or somewhere, and left me in charge. It was lovely, really, Savage, and cosy.’
She knew Savage had Jean Deepe’s key in his bedside drawer. It was a strange key. Mr Kostelanetz said it was specially made, the sort of key which was very difficult to copy although he knew a man who did that sort of work.
When she had the duplicate Korky telephoned West London police and asked to speak to PC Deepe on a private matter. They said the officer would not be on duty until eight o’ clock the following morning. Korky went and loitered near the flat in Westbourne Grove and watched her leave. Quickly she was inside the apartment. She was frightened but she wanted to see the place where this woman lived, where Savage went.
It was ordered and dim. The blinds were down. She sniffed the cigarette smoke and went towards the bedroom touching the door open with one fingertip. There was the bed. There were stubs in the ashtray beside it. She curled her nose at the quilt and the two embroidered cushions propped against the bedhead. Her heart sounding she stepped forward, turned back the covers to the sheet, and gave a little spiteful spit at it.
As she went back into the diffuse sitting room there was a sound outside the front door. She felt her eyes widen. Stepping back into the bedroom she peered through the thin aperture of the door. Through the letterbox dropped two letters. They bounced on the carpet. Korky took her hands from her chest and, after a full minute, went towards the letters and picked them up. ‘Bills,’ she said with a satisfied sniff. ‘I hope they’re big ones.’ She dropped them back on to the carpet and then, with another guilty glance around the room as if she suspected some hidden witness, she let herself out of the apartment.
She stood behind him as he worked at the word processor. ‘You’re nearly getting the feel of it now,’ she approved. ‘Don’t hammer it so much.’ He could feel the front of her sweatshirt slightly touching his shoulder. He had reached the Dodecanese. ‘What’s the most out-of-this-world island then?’ she asked. ‘The furthest, I mean. From anywhere else. Where nobody goes?’
Savage clumsily worked the pages back. She leaned over and deftly did it for him. ‘Tell me when to stop.’ she said.
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