‘You know, Fran,’ said Pereira, rising to her feet. ‘I can’t help feeling that you’re not keen for me to know your business.’ (Translate as: you are holding out on me.)
‘Should I be?’ I snapped.
She shrugged. ‘No. But I sense more than usual reserve. Did you find your friend?’
Heck. I remembered telling her I’d come to Oxford to track down a friend.
‘No,’ I said. ‘I thought she might be staying at this guest house but she wasn’t. But as I’d come, I decided to stay on for a few days and see the sights.’
‘And have you?’ asked Pereira. ‘Seen the sights?’
‘I went to the Natural History Museum yesterday,’ I was able to tell her with perfect truth.
‘Oh? That’s an interesting place. What did you like about it? Anything in particular among the exhibits?’
I gave her a tired look because I’d be daft if I didn’t know she was checking on what I’d told her. ‘The architecture of the place is pretty eye-catching,’ I said, ‘all those Gothic arches. There was a very interesting Romano-British skeleton in a glass display box on the upper gallery. But I didn’t know I’d end up seeing another body today. I didn’t expect that to be one of the sights of Oxford. Perhaps it would have been better if I’d gone home when I didn’t find my friend.’ It still sounded thin. But it was the best I could come up with. I hoped I wasn’t asked to explain my deep interest in Natural History.
‘Don’t go home, will you?’ she said. ‘Not without letting me know.’
‘I can’t hang around waiting for an inquest,’ I objected.
‘Of course not. You must have a job to go back to.’
‘I’m an actor,’ I said. ‘I’m resting. I was working as a pizza waitress but the restaurant folded.’
‘That’s a pity,’ she said. ‘An actor? So if you’re between acting roles, you must be willing to take almost any job going.’
‘I’m working part-time in a newsagent’s.’
‘And yet you have enough money to come on holiday to Oxford?’ She raised an arched eyebrow.
‘I’m not broke,’ I said. ‘I told you, I was working.’
‘Living in London is expensive, though.’ She wasn’t giving up.
‘I live in a place with a controlled rent,’ I returned. ‘The house belongs to a charity.’
‘You’re lucky,’ she said, I thought sarcastically.
‘Not really,’ I muttered. Some luck.
She decided to let me off the hook for the time being. ‘I just need you to stay around, if you can, until I complete my inquiries. It ought not to take long.’
I thought she was leaving, but at the door she paused and looked back. ‘We do have a drugs scene in Oxford, Fran, but we work hard at tackling it.’
‘Leave it out, will you?’ I shouted at her. ‘I’m not a druggie and I’m not a pusher!’
‘That’s all right, then.’ She smiled at me and was gone.
I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. She suspected I might be in Oxford on dodgy business and thought I was some sort of runner for a drug baron. She’d seen my request to change in the bathroom as a ploy to empty my little packs of white powder down the loo. But she didn’t have grounds yet to search me or my belongings. I just hoped that, when they got Ivo on a slab down at the morgue, they didn’t find any puncture marks in his arms. Pereira would be back here like a greyhound out of the trap. It’s not much fun being the rabbit.
Chapter Seven
As luck, or the lack of it, would have it, Pereira had barely left my room and started on her way downstairs when Tom and Maryann returned to the guest house. They must have met up in the hall because I heard their voices and Pereira’s in conversation. Pereira was introducing herself, offering her ID. Tom was protesting they had already made statements.
Pereira uttered those words beloved of coppers. ‘Just a couple of points, sir. It won’t take a moment.’
‘Yes, but we . . .’ Maryann joined in.
Abruptly the sound of their wrangling was cut off and at the same time I fancied I heard a door shut. I ventured out of my room and hung over the landing banister. The hallway below was now empty and silent, the only movement that of the dust particles dancing in the shaft of light entering through the transom window above the front door. The air held the lingering odour of breakfast bacon overlaid with lavender room freshener and a whiff of small dog. Through the closed breakfast-room door I could again hear the murmur of speech, although much as I strained my ears I couldn’t make out any words. Prudence advised against creeping downstairs and listening at the door. I felt sure Pereira had all the instincts of a natural hunter and would know I was there, however careful I was.
I guessed Tom and Maryann were repeating their version of events at Pereira’s request. That meant Tom would be giving his view of it and Maryann was probably interrupting at intervals to accuse me of being a violent mugger. I thought wryly that Pereira hadn’t brought them upstairs to their room as she had me to mine. She didn’t want them walking into me.
I went back to my room and lay down on the bed. I was exhausted. My limbs were weak and felt disjointed. I must have resembled a puppet whose strings had snapped. I didn’t know how I was going to get out of this. I didn’t know if or when they’d identify Ivo. I forced the image of his floating corpse into my mind although my deepest wish was to blank it out. I strove for any tiny detail which might give me a clue. All I could remember was that he’d worn shorts and a cotton top. I couldn’t recall seeing any jewellery like a chain and medallion round his neck, or one of those identity bracelets, anything distinctive. It could take a long time before they found out who he was and by then I’d be back in London. They couldn’t keep me here indefinitely. In theory, they couldn’t keep me here at all. They had my London address. They’d check it out, of course they would. But once they confirmed it was all in order, well, there was nothing to stop me leaving.
Except that I hadn’t done the job Mickey Allerton had sent me here to do. I’d met Lisa, I’d spoken to her, and she knew I came from Allerton. But I’d yet to persuade her at least to call him. I reckoned there was no chance of persuading her back to London.
I pushed myself up to a sitting position, dragged the pillows into a mound behind my back and tried to work out some plan of action. Did I go looking for Lisa? Or, in the circumstances, did I stay away? Did I phone her? She’d seen the crowd and she’d got my telegraphed message to clear off out of it, but had she learned from a bystander why the crowd had gathered? That a body had been discovered? Even if she had been told, she hadn’t been near enough to see it. She couldn’t know it was Ivo. Did I tell her? She’d freak out if I did. She’d bolt away from Oxford and I’d never find her.
There was a tap at my door, heralding Beryl with a steaming mug of tea and some chocolate biscuits. ‘For shock,’ she said briskly. ‘When the Americans came back, they said you’d found a body in the river. Shame,’ she added thoughtfully. ‘Bloody nuisance, that.’
‘Too right, Beryl,’ I agreed. Her use of the word ‘nuisance’ showed that she had her priorities in strict order and I wasn’t first on the list. Mickey Allerton was. She knew I was here on his business and a police inquiry would not be welcomed by him. Any inconvenience to me personally was a secondary issue. Not that Beryl lacked sympathy for my plight, as the tea showed. I was glad of it, despite having refused Pereira’s offer to fetch some.
Beryl put the tray on my bedside cabinet. ‘Eat the biscuits. The sugar’s good for shock and chocolate gives you a boost,’ she ordered.
‘I will,’ I promised, ‘thanks. Beryl, I need to contact Mickey Allerton. I’ve lost my mobile phone. I don’t want to use the public phone in your hall. I can go uptown and find a kiosk . . .’
She shook her burnished auburn helmet of hair. ‘No, no need. When the copper’s gone, come down to my flat and use the phone there.’ She stared at me thoughtfully and sat down on the chair vacated by Pereira, her false leg stuck out awkwardly in front of her. I realised how difficult it must have been for her to bring the snack upstairs for me and felt embarrassed as well as grateful.
‘Listen, dear,’ she said, ‘I’m not asking your business or Mickey’s. All I’m asking is, the phone call you want to make to Mickey, is it about your finding this dead bloke in the river?’
‘Yes,’ I admitted.
‘Is it likely to worry Mickey?’
‘Yes,’ I agreed.
‘I see.’ She bit her lower lip and scarlet lipstick smudged her top teeth. ‘Well, dear, in that case, I’ve got a suggestion. Before you go phoning Mickey, you’d better have a word with Mr Filigrew.’
‘Oh, Gawd . . .’ I groaned, falling back on my pillows. ‘He’s Mickey’s tail on me, isn’t he? I thought he was a dodgy sales rep with a woman in every port of call.’
‘Oh, yes?’ said Beryl, giving me an old-fashioned look. ‘Think I can’t recognise one of them when they turn up?’
‘Someone should have told me,’ I said grimly. ‘Either you or Filigrew or whatever his name is. What is he? Some sort of solicitor?’
‘A proper one!’ said Beryl earnestly.
‘Hah! So, did Mickey think I might fall foul of the law? If so, why?’
‘No need to worry you, dear,’ she soothed. ‘Mickey was acting for the best. Mr Filigrew is only here in case you had any trouble.’
‘Yeah, well you can tell him I’ve got lots of that.’ I picked up my mug of tea. ‘And tell him I don’t want him phoning Mickey before I do!’
‘You can trust Mr Filigrew,’ Beryl assured me before hobbling away.
I considered that the first blatant untruth she’d told me although perhaps she believed it at that. I knew I couldn’t trust Mr Filigrew. I wasn’t paying him. Nor did I think his presence in Oxford meant he would lend me a helping hand if I had trouble. He was here in case Lisa had any.
I paused with the tea halfway to my lips. ‘Why should Lisa have any trouble requiring a dodgy lawyer?’ I wondered aloud. ‘Or is Mickey worried she might make damaging allegations of some sort?’ Was Filigrew here to pay off Lisa, if need be? How many mysterious ingredients were mixed into this brew?
When Pereira had finally left and Tom and Maryann clattered upstairs and past my room, still arguing, I slipped down to Beryl’s basement flat.
‘Ah, there you are, dear,’ she greeted me cosily, as she opened the door at the foot of the stair, just as if I’d dropped by for a nice chat. ‘Come along in, then. Spencer! Behave!’
Spencer was bouncing around in his demented fashion, jumping up at me. I scratched his ears and thought again of Bonnie. I heaved a sigh. Whatever happened, I had to get Lisa to make that phone call to Allerton and then they could sort out their differences without my further help. I could go home and reclaim my own dog. That was all that mattered to me. The police could sort out the business of Ivo in the river. That was their job.
Beryl’s flat displayed an extension of the style in which my room was done out. It was all frills and flounces and cute ornaments and photographs of Beryl in her heyday including one in which she was dressed up like Marlene Dietrich in a top hat and fishnet stockings.
‘I wasn’t bad, was I?’ asked Beryl, seeing me study it.
The sound of a throat being cleared prevented my reply. Mr Filigrew was sitting bolt upright in an armchair wearing what I supposed were his off-duty clothes, that is to say he’d taken off his jacket and replaced it with a navy-blue knitted cardigan. On his feet were leather slippers. A newspaper on his knees lay folded at the crossword puzzle. Quite making himself at home. He still wore the flashy tie.
Seeing that my attention was turned to him, he took off his rimless specs, polished the lenses with a little bit of yellow cloth and invited me to, ‘Sit down, my dear.’
Now there are two things I don’t like and he managed to score both of them in one short sentence. I don’t like being called ‘my dear’ by any person I don’t look upon as a friend. I don’t like it when people assume an authority they don’t, in my view, possess. This was Beryl’s flat and any invitation to sit down should come from her. Moreover, he was attempting to take the initiative in any conversation we were to have. He didn’t know me. He soon would.
‘My name is Fran,’ I said coldly. ‘All right if I sit here, Beryl?’ I indicated a funny-looking chair with no arms and a floor-length flounce all round it. It looked as if it might dance away across the carpet.
‘Anywhere, dear,’ said Beryl. It was all right when she used the endearment. I did count Beryl as a friend. She was Mickey’s friend before she was mine, of course, but I felt she was well disposed towards me.