I shut myself in my room and perched on my bed to phone Ganesh at the shop. He sounded relieved to hear my voice and asked when I was coming back. I told him things were progressing as well as could be expected, in fact rather better and, if it all went according to plan, I’d be home soon. I won’t say I felt smug telling him this, but I felt a certain satisfaction. It was nice to be able to inform him I was handling a tricky situation so well.
‘I’m meeting her tomorrow morning early down by the river on Christ Church Meadow. We won’t be disturbed there and can have a really good chat. I’ll get her to see reason. What would it cost her to speak to the man on the phone?’
Ganesh did not sound impressed by my optimism.
‘Why can’t she meet you later today?’ his voice asked fretfully. ‘Why must you wait until tomorrow morning?’
‘That’s what suits her. She doesn’t want to arouse her parents’ suspicions and, besides, there’s a friend she’s keen to avoid have interfering. If she meets me in the evening the friend could find out, so it’s better if she meets me in the morning. Considering the circumstances, she’s being pretty reasonable,’ I added before he could object. ‘She and I together can sort it out, I’m sure. If I can just get her to phone Mickey I’m off the hook.’
‘I hope so,’ growled Ganesh down the line. ‘I don’t like any of this business. I don’t like the story Mickey Allerton spun you. Tell him to do his own telephoning.’
‘She’ll hang up on him. That’s why I’m here.’
‘You’re there because Mickey is playing some dodgy game. There’s something going on, Fran, that you don’t know about. Be careful, right? Be very careful.’
‘Trust me,’ I told him airily.
‘Hah!’ I gathered he didn’t have that much confidence in me. ‘By the way,’ he said. ‘I went over to that club and asked the bouncer, the bald one, if your dog was all right.’
I nearly burst into tears. ‘Oh, Ganesh, you shouldn’t have done that. Mickey wouldn’t want you interfering in his business. He could get rough. What did he say?’
‘He promised me she was fine. It seems his wife keeps a couple of pet dogs. She likes animals. They’ve got no kids. She took Bonnie to a canine beauty parlour.’
‘What for? She didn’t need a bath!’ I said indignantly.
‘Don’t ask me. I just thought you’d like to know I checked on her.’
I thanked him again and asked him how the pink and yellow rocket was doing outside the shop. Making money?
‘Not at the moment. It’s bust. A guy is coming tomorrow to fix it.’
‘How did it get to be broken?’
‘We’re not sure,’ Ganesh said vaguely. ‘There were some yobs outside late last night, after the pubs closed. They were horsing around. We think they mucked about with it and broke it.’
‘What a shame. I expect your uncle is upset.’
‘Oh well,’ said Ganesh, I thought a little unfeelingly, ‘if he wasn’t upset about that, he’d be upset about something else. You know Hari.’
I became aware of a rattle and creak outside my door. There was a brisk knock.
‘Got to go,’ I said to Ganesh and cut the connection.
The door opened and Vera came in with her arms full of towels. Behind her I glimpsed her little cart. ‘I clean room,’ she said firmly. No offer to come back later.
‘It’s not dirty,’ I said. ‘I don’t need new towels.’
‘My job is to clean. I clean,’ she said.
It wasn’t for me to be awkward and upset her routine. I left her to it and went downstairs.
There were sounds of someone busy in the kitchen, so I tapped on the door. Beryl opened it and, when she saw who it was, smiled and stepped out into the hall, pulling the door neatly shut behind her.
‘To keep Spencer in,’ she explained. ‘He will jump up at people. Everything all right, dear?’
From the other side of the door Spencer barked and scrabbled at the panels. He didn’t like being kept out of things.
‘Everything’s fine,’ I said. ‘But there is one thing I should tell you.’ I explained that I had told people she was my aunt.
‘I’m sorry,’ I apologised. ‘I should have asked you first if you’d mind. But I had to give a reason for coming to Oxford and I didn’t want to mention Mickey. So I just said you were an aunt and I’d come to see you. I don’t suppose anyone will check and find out I don’t have any aunts. But I wanted you to be prepared for anyone mentioning it, if it happened.’
The person I had largely in mind was Ned, but I admit DS Pereira was lurking in my subconscious. It was a funny thing, but just as I knew Ned would pop up again, I had this nasty feeling so would Pereira, if only to wave me goodbye as I set off back to London. Pereira didn’t want me on her patch. I made her nervous. She made me nervous. This is not an unusual situation between me and the police. We treat one another with distant caution. Even Inspector Janice Morgan, on whose manor I live back in Camden, and who is by far the fairest copper I’ve ever met, has a way of studying me every time we meet as if assessing my relevance to any situation she might be handling. It’s as if I were some strange object found at a scene of crime and she’s debating whether or not to drop me in a plastic bag and send me over to forensics.
Beryl was a trouper and took the news of her promotion to the status of aunt without a blink of an eyelid. ‘Aunties and uncles aren’t necessarily blood relations,’ she observed. ‘Old friends of the family get called that. That’s me, then, an honorary aunt. I’ll tell anyone who asks that I’m an old friend of your family.’
‘Better say of my mother,’ I advised her, ‘I don’t have any family so no one can check, but my mother, as far as I know, got around and knew a lot of people so it would be hard to disprove that you knew her. Thanks, Beryl.’
‘No problem!’ she said cheerily. ‘I rather fancy being an aunt.’
She went back into the kitchen, closing the door again. From behind it I heard her say, ‘Everything’s OK.’ Perhaps she was speaking to Spencer and there again perhaps she wasn’t. I stood where I was listening for a few moments. I was rewarded with sounds of a chair scraping back and a man’s voice, speaking quietly. I couldn’t make out the words but I thought I could identify the voice. Mr Filigrew, the stationery rep, wouldn’t be clocking up mega sales this trip, not if he was spending all his time hanging around Beryl.
I’d had a few twinges of conscience about using Beryl’s name so her assurance was nice to have. Add to that, Bonnie was all right, even if she’d been given canine beauty treatment. I imagined her soft and scented and being fed best steak and chocolates. All this added to my general sense of wellbeing.
I now had a little free time. I ought to try and visit some of the city sights. By the hall telephone was a wooden rack with more of those tourist leaflets. I checked them over and was attracted by one which urged me to visit the Natural History museum. I hadn’t forgotten my encounter with Arthur in the Stallards’ garden and it irked me that I’d panicked and made a fool of myself over a harmless reptile. I’d shown myself to be lamentably ignorant about the world around us. Besides, Uncle Hari would be sure to expect me to have made some educational use of a visit to such an illustrious place as Oxford. It was already midday. I decided to have an early lunch and set out immediately afterwards.
I returned to the wine bar where I’d eaten the previous evening and despite the hearty breakfast at Beryl’s I managed to make short work of a pizza. If nothing else, I’d put on weight during my stay here if I didn’t do something to burn off the calories. I fished out Hari’s tattered map again. He’d be disappointed if he felt I hadn’t made sufficient use of it. I traced my way across Magdalen Bridge, up the High Street, through Catte Street, past the Radcliffe Camera to Parks Road and the museum. I set off on foot.
I had reached Magdalen Bridge when I was overtaken by another brisk walker and recognised Vera. She was carrying a cheap plastic briefcase of East European look.
‘Hi,’ I said in a friendly way.
She scowled at me and reluctantly slowed her pace. ‘Hello,’ she said, adding, ‘Where are you going?’
I was a little surprised at being asked but decided that Vera was taking an opportunity to practise her English. ‘Sightseeing,’ I said. ‘I’m a tourist.’
She gave me a doubtful look. ‘You are not like other tourists,’ she said.
This both annoyed and puzzled me. What was it about me that meant Pereira instantly identified me as someone she needed to keep an eye on and told Vera here I wasn’t like ‘other tourists’.
‘Why not?’ I asked her.
Vera shook her mop of hair. ‘Not enough luggage,’ she said. ‘No guidebook in your room. You should have suitcase or big backpack. You only have little bag and not many clothes, also no camera or camcorder. All tourists have camera.’
‘Hey!’ I said indignantly. ‘Have you been looking through my stuff?’ I knew I’d played detective in the past but that didn’t mean I liked the tables being turned and Vera playing detective among my possessions.
‘I clean room,’ said Vera defensively. ‘I tidy.’
‘Yeah, well, I travel light, OK? And I’m not interested in photography. If I want a picture of something I buy a postcard.’ I decided to lob a few questions at her. ‘Where are you going?’
‘To library,’ said Vera, holding up the plastic briefcase.
‘OK. Where’s that?’ I asked. I wasn’t bothered to know, but I wondered how far Vera would be accompanying me.
‘In the Westgate Centre.’
‘Beryl told me you’re here to improve your English,’ I said. ‘Are you a student back home where you come from?’
‘I am student at
filozofski fakultet
in Zagreb,’ said Vera. ‘If my English is good enough I can get good job, in export business or in tourist business. But I am not from Zagreb, I am from Split. My parents run a small restaurant. Before the war with Serbia we had many foreign customers, tourists, and now the war is over they are coming again. So I have seen many tourists and they are not like you.’
She seemed absolutely determined to make this point.
‘Can’t help that,’ I said.
She gave me a sideways-through-half-closed-eyes look. ‘If you visit famous buildings I can come with you. I too like to see these things.’
But I had no intention of lumbering myself with her all afternoon. ‘That’s all right,’ I said. ‘You carry on to the library. You’ve got better things to do.’
That gained me another scowl but she walked on and I dawdled until I was sure she was well ahead of me.
Speaking of postcards to Vera reminded me that both Hari and Ganesh probably expected some ‘wish you were here’ message from me. So I bought a couple of cards, scribbled a message on them and put them in my pocket to send off before I went back to the guest house. If all went well, I’d tie up things here tomorrow early and I’d probably arrive at the shop at the same time as my cards. But it’s the thought that counts.
The Natural History Museum turned out to be housed in an impressively ornate building set back from the road. I crossed the dark entry, climbed a few steps and pushed at a solid wooden door, feeling I was about to breach the fortifications of some mediaeval stronghold, even if a Victorian idea of the Middle Ages. I peered in. I was faced by a huge high vaulted area with pillars and Gothic arches and an army of skeletons and stuffed things in glass cases. I sidled through and stood surveying it all with my mouth open. I was relieved to see there were other visitors here carefully making their way around, as awestruck as I was. I didn’t fancy roaming around so many dead things all on my own. I followed their example and started off down one side with the intention of working my way between rows of exhibits. It was as I was rounding the skeleton of a horse that I came face to face with another visitor. We stared at one another. He spoke first.
‘What are you doing here?
‘Hello, Ned,’ I returned politely and tried to step round him but he moved and blocked my path again.
‘Look,’ I said as patiently as I could. ‘This is hardly the place for us to have a row. I don’t want to talk to you. Please accept that and just leave me alone.’
‘But I want to talk to you!’ he argued, sticking out his jaw and flushing. He really was one of those people you just couldn’t reason with. The expression is ‘obstinate as a mule’. I thought it might have been coined for him. I’m pretty obstinate myself, in that if I decide on a course of action, I stick with it. But I do try and be a bit clever in how I go about things. Ned just had an object in view and went straight for it. What they call bone-headed.
‘Not now,’ I said. Not ever, actually, but ‘not now’ was less confrontational. See what I mean? You’ve got to work round an obstacle.