‘Oh, that’s all right,’ she said. ‘I won’t say a word. They did tell me not to talk to journalists, but then, you’re not a journalist, are you?’ She gave a rueful smile. ‘I’m used to not talking about Gray’s business, partly because I knew so little about it, and partly because he wouldn’t have liked it. Poor Gray. My father wanted him to be an accountant, you know? It would’ve been a lot safer.’
I made my way back to the shopping precinct, wondering whether Tig would still be there. It was quite dark now and had got a lot colder. Some of the shops, including the florist’s, had closed up for the day, but a supermarket was still open and brightly lit. No one was sitting on the benches. I wondered whether she’d gone off to find a coffee or perhaps gone into the supermarket to buy a can of Coke or something. At least, I hoped she’d buy it and not try and slip it in her jacket, but by now, I realised I couldn’t rely on her. As I approached the store entrance, I heard a familiar voice.
‘Got any change?’
My heart sank. There she was, hanging by the exit, wearing that tragic look and waylaying shoppers. I grabbed her and hauled her away.
‘What do you think you’re doing?’
‘Hullo, Fran,’ she said. ‘You were a long time and I got bored. I thought I could get back the money you spent on those flowers, but they’re a stingy lot round here. I only made just over a quid. We could try somewhere else.’
‘We’re going home,’ I said. ‘Before you get us both arrested!’
The two days left before my trip to Dorridge passed off uneventfully, to my great relief. I worked extra hours at the shop because we were really busy now, Christmas being so close. We did a brisk sale in festive cards, decorations and wrapping paper, boxes of chocolates, all the things people pour out money on, grumbling all the while about how expensive a time of year it is. Tig behaved herself (or as far as I knew she did). She walked Bonnie by the canal and didn’t encounter Jo Jo. With luck, he’d found himself another girlfriend by now. He hadn’t looked to me the sort who’d pine.
I did go over to the nick to look at their book of criminal mugshots. At first they left me alone to study it but after a while Parry came in and asked if I wanted a cup of tea. I said yes, please. He brought it in polystyrene cup and hung around for a few minutes until I told him he was distracting me. After that I had more time alone until Harford turned up.
‘How’s it going, Fran?’ He took a seat beside me.
Normally I’d have given him the same treatment I’d given Parry, but by now, I was getting bored with looking at one broken nose, cauliflower ear and schizophrenic stare after another, so I took a break and said I was sorry, but really, so far I hadn’t seen anyone remotely like the man who’d tried to break into my flat.
‘Keep trying,’ he encouraged. He moved his chair a little closer, his knee not touching mine, but not that far away either. Hmm, I thought. Now what?
He’d begun to turn the pages. ‘Was he anything at all like this one, or this? You know, a year or two can make a difference and some of these mugshots are quite old.’ He leaned towards me. He smelled quite nice, of expensive aftershave, unlike Parry who always seemed to niff of sweat, high-tar cigarettes and cough lozenges. He was also starting to confuse me. One minute I was getting the big freeze, the next he was trying to be friends. Well, I was prepared to be friends. I’m prepared to be anyone’s friend. But, don’t get me wrong on this, I’m not desperate for a shoulder to lean my head on and I like to know where I am with people. If Harford would stick to being snooty, it would be easier. At the moment, it was like the ‘nice cop, nasty cop’ scenario, all rolled into one man. I wondered if he’d quite got the hang of it.
I told him I really was trying, and we persevered onward through the book. Parry reappeared in the doorway midway and, seeing us with our heads cosily together, gave us a funny look.
‘Yes, sergeant?’ asked Harford crisply, looking up.
‘Just come to see how she’s getting on, sir,’ said Parry, his look now indicating that he thought Harford was getting on all right, even if the identification exercise wasn’t. ‘OK, Fran?’
‘All right, thank you!’ Harford answered for me. Parry gave me a reproachful glance and left.
I did wonder vaguely whether Harford’s hand might eventually stray to my knee, but he had more style than Parry – or Parry’s interruption had put him off. We reached the end of the book without a word or move which could have offended a Victorian dowager.
‘No,’ I said. ‘Not even allowing for old pics, blurred pics or plastic surgery. He’s not there.’
Somehow, I wasn’t surprised, and I could see that neither was Harford, who closed the book, looking resigned.
‘If he’s foreign,’ he said, ‘he might have arrived in this country only weeks ago. In fact, he probably has.’
I asked him why he was so sure of this. He replied evasively, because the man hadn’t had time to get into trouble yet officially.
‘No form,’ as he put it, sounding a little self-conscious as he used this well-worn scrap of police jargon.
‘Well, I’ve done my bit as good citizen,’ I said, standing up.
‘I’ll run you home,’ he offered. I nearly accepted, but then I remembered Tig back at the flat. If I turned up yet again with a plod in tow, she’d freak out. ‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘I’ll walk. I’ve got a spot of shopping to do.’
I did fancy he looked a little disappointed. But perhaps I was only flattering myself.
So Sunday dawned and Tig and I went over to Marylebone for me to catch the Dorridge train. It was early morning and none too busy at the weekend. Being at Marylebone awakened memories in me, however, and I found myself looking around the place, my eyes searching for ghosts.
‘Who’re you looking for?’ asked Tig, ever suspicious.
‘Someone who won’t be here. I met an old wino here once, Albie Smith, he was called. I was just thinking about him.’
Tig wasn’t interested in my past life. She pointed up at the smart computerised arrivals and departures screen, new since my last visit, and drew my attention to the platform number which had appeared alongside my train time.
‘It’s in, you’d better go on.’
I don’t know why she was in such a rush. At that time of the morning and on a Sunday at that, it wasn’t going to be full.
‘Don’t make a fool of me, Tig,’ I said, before it drew out. ‘Be here when I get back.’
‘Promise,’ said Tig. Bonnie, attached to a length of string and sitting on the platform at Tig’s feet, gave a short bark of support. The train drew out and she waved at me. I had to trust her.
I sat back and reflected that even if I was successful in fixing up Tig’s return, she’d declared herself unable to take the dog with her. I was going to be left with Bonnie on my hands. Still, getting Tig
off
my hands would be a start.
It was a long journey, much of it through nice countryside, but my head was filled with the forthcoming meeting with the Quayles. If Ganesh was right, I’d be met by a reception committee, probably including their solicitor and a magistrate or two who just happened to be their good friends. According to Ganesh, I oughtn’t to be surprised to find a tactical response unit in body armour.
Tig had given me precise instructions on how to find the house. She hadn’t described the place itself, but I’d guessed it would be a lot like Shaker Lane back in Putney, and it was. The house was thirties-built with bay windows and, even in winter, the front garden looked neat and cared for. Every other house in the street looked the same. Some had cars in the drive and all of them were polished and new. I felt out of place and apprehensive. There hadn’t been that much money left over from Tig’s savings once I’d bought the train ticket, and my fee was negligible. I was earning it several times over.
I approached the glass porch and rang the bell. The front door on the further side was opened almost at once. She must have seen me hovering outside as I sized up the place. We stared at each other through the porch door, then she came towards me and opened it up.
‘Miss Varady?’ she asked.
Her voice trembled. She was a small, slightly built woman and I could see Tig in her. Mrs Quayle must have been in her forties but had hung on to her figure. Her hair was done by a hairdresser, the grey rinsed away, and her very fine skin, starting to become lined as such skins do, was carefully made up.
I acknowledged my identity and said I was glad she’d agreed to see me. I wondered where Colin Quayle was.
She ushered me inside. The hall gleamed with new paint, new-looking carpets and shiny furniture redolent of the sort of perfumed wax you spray from a can. It made Mrs Stevens’ place look scruffy. I had the feeling I ought not to come into contact with any of it, but shimmer across space a few inches above the ground in a sort of levitation experience.
As it was, I clumped my Doc Martens way into a painfully tidy drawing room (there was no other term for it) and sat down in a velvet upholstered armchair with snowy white, starched, crocheted protectors to save the soiling touch of the human hand. I could certainly see why Bonnie wouldn’t be welcome in here.
‘Coffee?’ asked Mrs Quayle, still nervous. She stood in front of me, eyeing me in much the way the coppers had eyed Bonnie, as if I’d bite given half a chance.
‘That would be nice,’ I said, because I felt that was the answer she wanted. Still no Mr Quayle. I asked, ‘Isn’t your husband going to be here?’
‘He’s gone to church,’ she said. ‘He’s a sidesman today. He’ll be here shortly.’
She scurried out to make the coffee. I leaned back uneasily in my chair and studied the room further. There were china figurines of Edwardian belles on the mantelshelf and a photograph of a little girl in a ballet tutu.
I thought of Tig as I’d last seen her on the platform at Marylebone, in worn jeans, Doc Martens like mine, a grubby donkey jacket and holding on to a piece of string with a scruffy terrier attached.
Mrs Quayle was coming back. I got up to help her with the tray and she mumbled thanks. The coffee was in a cafetiere, the cups were bone china, the spoons were proper coffee spoons with enamelled plaques at the end of the handles depicting flowers. There was a plate of homemade shortbread biscuits.
‘Do you take sugar, Miss Varady?’ She was observing the niceties in a desperate way, clinging to form as a drowning man might cling to a wooden spar.
I told her I didn’t and asked her to call me Fran.
‘I’m Sheila . . .’ she said, handing me a cup of coffee. It slopped in the saucer. I felt sorry for her and wished I could put her at her ease. She was wearing a three-piece woollen outfit in a respectable, muddy brown: long skirt, sweater and long sleeveless jacket. It looked expensive. Her fingernails were painted a brownish-orange to team with it and matched her lipstick exactly. My feeling of pity for her increased. When Tig had walked out, this poor woman had been left with nothing to do but polish the furniture, visit the hairdresser and shop for painfully smart but respectable outfits. But how would she cope with Tig’s return?
‘Is Jane—You’ve seen Jane recently?’ she asked now, leaning forward slightly, her eyes pleading.
I told her I’d seen Jane that morning and she’d been fine.
‘I still don’t know why she couldn’t come herself,’ Sheila Quayle said fretfully, and I recognised the tone of voice of the woman on the phone. She felt all this was unfair. She’d lavished care and attention on her family, her home, and in keeping herself looking nice. Her reward was this: desertion by her only child and a temporary desertion by her husband who, just when she needed him, was away doing his own thing. He’d left her here, facing a total stranger and one of an unknown species at that, begging for details.
She then floored me with a question I hadn’t anticipated. ‘There isn’t a baby, is there?’ There was a world of dread in her voice.
I gawped at her. ‘No,’ I said foolishly.
She flushed, her tissue-fine skin turning a dull rose-red. ‘Only, these days – I mean there are so many single mothers and I thought, perhaps the reason Jane didn’t come home – or even, the reason she’d left . . .’
I sighed. Since Tig had left, her mother had sat here asking herself, why? To her way of thinking, this perfect home couldn’t be at fault. That must be nonsense. Her daughter had been working hard at school, so that couldn’t be it, either. Sheila Quayle had come up with the only other thing she could think of. Explaining was going to be much more difficult than , I’d imagined in my wildest moments.
‘There’s no baby,’ I said, underlining the fact.
She looked relieved but then that fretful expression came back. ‘Then I really can’t see why—’