Twenty-two minutes after leaving Scarborough bus station, the vehicle pulled into the small square of Filey terminus and they got off into hot afternoon sunshine, strolled along the main street and paused to study window displays in the various shops and stores. Under their joshing, Joe invested in a new tobacco tin with a grumpy cartoon face on the front, bearing the legend,Don’t hassle me, I’m having a bad day, and they moved on.
Outside a gents’ outfitters, the women paused and admired a Crombie overcoat.
“You should buy yourself one of those, Joe,” Brenda suggested. “They’re smart and dressy.”
“Oh sure,” Joe sneered, his eye on the price tag of several hundred pounds. “It’s just the kind of thing you need for serving a full English to a shop full of lorry drivers. Shall I take the bowler and cravat to go with it?”
Brenda clucked impatiently. “You don’t understand, do you? It’s not a case of function, it’s appearance. It’s all about being seen in it, letting people know you own expensive clothing.” She walked on to catch up with Sheila who was now examining the goods on sale in a china shop.
Joe stared after her wiggling behind, thinking of all the times when he had been tempted to grab a handful of it. In her own way, Brenda could be a pain in the nether regions, but she was a good-hearted woman, hard working and utterly dependable. There were also those times when, without even being aware of it, she supplied answers to life’s mysteries, and right now was one of them.
Eventually, they reached The Crescent, and meandered past grand, white fronted hotels and guest houses, harking back to a gentler, more refined age, and into the grounds of the Beachside. Walking into reception, where Joe collected the keys from Kieran Pringle, he passed the women theirs and followed them to the lifts for the journey to the second floor.
He paused at his door. “Don’t forget. The bus leaves at half past six. I’ll see you in the dining room at five.”
He turned the key in the lock, opened the door, stepped in and stopped dead.
His single, battered suitcase was on the bed, open, its contents spread around the bed and floor. His travel alarm had been pulled apart, the batteries removed and tossed, along with the clock itself, on the bedside cabinet. The dresser drawers were open, his possessions dumped everywhere, and the wardrobe too was open, his clothing strewn about the floor.
***
“I can assure you, Mr Murray, that I trust my staff and none of them would do anything like this,” Sarah Pringle said.
With Sheila and Brenda helping Joe tidy the room, Sarah had only just arrived back at the Beachside when they called her up to the room. While his two female companions collected and folded his clothing neatly back into place, Joe argued the toss with the hotel manageress.
She had changed again from the way he saw her in the town. Now dressed in her uniform skirt, blouse and waistcoat, minus the wig, her hair was pulled back and collected into a ponytail at the rear, tightening the skin at her temples, where the touches of grey she had spoke of could be seen amongst the dark brown.
“So you’re saying it’s one of your guests?” Joe demanded.
“I have fifty rooms, and your party has taken three quarters of them. None of my other guests are likely to know who you are, or that this was your room, and in addition there are no other reports of rooms being broken into, so I would suggest you look at your own people.”
Joe felt his gorge rising. “Listen, Mrs Pringle, I know my people. I run the club for God’s sake. These are honest folk and I’d trust ’em with my life… maybe not my wallet, but certainly with my life.”
Mrs Pringle was no so easily persuaded. “Are you certain you locked your door?”
“Hey, lady, I’m a businessman, same as you. Ialwayslock doors.” He crossed the room and checked the lock. “It doesn’t appear to have been forced, but then…” He twisted the deadlock back and forward. “Someone with the right skills could have tripped it with a credit card.”
Sarah Pringle turned bright red. “Mr Murray, are you suggesting that I routinely provide board and lodgings for burglars?”
“Would you know if you did?” Joe demanded. “I don’t recall you asking me what I do for a living and even if you did put burglars up, do you think they’re gonna tell you?” His voice dripped bile and cynicism. “Right, Mr Smith, what do you do when you’re not sneaking off for a dirty weekend with your secretary, also known as Mrs Smith? Oh, I break into other guests’ rooms and rifle them for goodies.”
His sarcasm was lost on Sarah. “If you are unhappy with my hotel, or the way I run it, then I suggest you call the police.”
Joe thrust his hands deep into his trouser pockets. “They’ve got enough to be doing looking for Eddie Dobson’s body.” His fingers closed around a rabbit’s foot fob and the attached keys and a frown furrowed his brow. “I wonder…”
“I beg your pardon.”
“No. Nothing. All right. As long as you know about it so that if there’s anything missing, my insurance company can come back to you for confirmation.”
Mrs Pringle pulled herself primly upright. “In that case, I shall bid you good evening and I hope you enjoy the rest of your stay in Filey.”
“I don’t see why we should. It ain’t been much cop so far.” Joe watched her leave and then joined Sheila and Brenda tidying his effects.
“I’ve a travel iron with me, Joe,” said Brenda, neatly folding his best trousers. “I’ll press your jacket and pants before we go out.”
“Thanks, Brenda.”
“I think this needs ironing too, Brenda,” said Sheila, draping his white shirt on a hanger. “Why would anyone want to break into your room, Joe? Everyone knows you never leave your wallet anywhere.”
Joe shook his head. “It wasn’t a robbery. Well, not in the usual sense of the word, it wasn’t.”
Both heads turned quickly to stare at him. “What?” Brenda demanded.
“They were not trying to rob me. Look at the place.” He threw out an arm towards the dresser. “My netbook is there. The battery’s been taken out of it, but it’s still there, and so is the computer. They even pulled the batteries from my alarm clock. They weren’t looking for money and they weren’t after things they could sell on the black market or down the pub. They were looking for something small and easily hidden.”
“What, then?” Sheila asked.
Joe fingered the keys again. “It certainly wasn’t my wallet. Your room hasn’t been touched?”
They shook their heads.
“So how did they know I had it?”
Chapter Eleven
At five thirty, after their early evening meal, they retired to the terrace where Joe could enjoy a cigarette. Still high in the cloudless sky, the sun had disappeared over the right shoulder of the Beachside, providing pleasant shade from the searing heat.
Wearing a pair of freshly pressed, dark, casual trousers and white, short-sleeved shirt, much to the dismay of his companions Joe had also opted to put on his thin, pale green and shabby fisherman’s gilet.
“I need the space,” he had told them, dropping items like his tobacco tin, cigarette lighter, mobile phone and wallet into the garment’s many pockets.
“You told us you were no fisherman,” Brenda pointed out, “so why are you wearing a fisherman’s wossname?”
“I have a pair of pit boots at home, but I’ve never been a miner,” Joe retorted.
Enjoying the cooler air of the terrace, while Sheila and Brenda chatted excitedly about the coming show, Joe chewed on his cigarette, the day’s puzzles weighing and preying on his mind.
Three tables away, Les Tanner sat with Sylvia Goodson and Alec and Julia Staines. They joked and laughed as they chatted and Joe guessed that, like he and his two women, they were in a state of high anticipation over the evening’s entertainment.
The roar of a rough diesel engine assaulted his ears. A dark red van turned right and up the side of the hotel. Looking over the potted plants on the hotel’s balustra
de, Joe could just make out the top of the letters ‘S’ and ‘G’, enough to tell him it was one of Scarborough Gases’ vehicles. He heard it slow down, and then disappear around the rear of the hotel and it reminded him of the puzzling location of the key.
He stood up. “Won’t be a minute, just wanna check on something.”
He walked from the terrace, through the hotel gate and turned right, then right again, up a residential street of guest houses and small hotels. Cars choked both sides of the road for as far as he could see, but there were few people about. Most of the holidaymakers would be back in their digs, he guessed, either enjoying or getting ready to enjoy their evening meals.
Walking up the slight hill, he turned into the narrow street at the rear of the Beachside, and found the Scarborough Gases van, its rear doors wide open, parked near the hotel’s rear entrance. It was full of gas canisters of varying sizes and markings. As he neared the van, the driver emerged from the hotel’s rear yard carrying a couple of empty cylinders.
“All right, boss?” the driver asked.
“Coulda been worse if you’d hit me in Scarborough earlier today.”
“Not me, gaffer,” the driver said placing the cylinders in the van and strapping them into place. “Haven’t been back to the depot since ten this morning.” He grinned at Joe. “We have a dozen vans out and about, you know.” He collected two full cylinders and hurried back into the hotel.
Joe stood at the gates, looking up at the hotel. The errant fire extinguisher had been removed from the rear yard, but using the large refuse bin and the washing line he had seen from Eddie’s room as guides, he looked up at the first floor. A drainpipe ran up the wall close to what he believed was Eddie’s window. Was it possible? Could someone have climbed up there?
Joe turned to leave and the driver emerged from the hotel again, this time carrying a standard, black cylinder and two painted bright yellow.
Joe laughed. “What are they for? Lemonade?”
The driver chuckled and secured the cylinders in his van. “Scuba diving, them, boss. Billy and his lad, Kieran are members of the local club. Shows you how much money there is in running hotels, eh?” He patted the scuba tanks. “These things cost a bloody fortune.”
“Why yellow?” Joe asked. “Another one of these crazy European rules?”
“Nah, mate,” the driver replied, slamming the doors. “There are rules for the labels and the tank shoulders, but divers like them painted yellow cos they’re easier to see underwater. See ya.” The driver grinned again. “And watch out for our lads when you’re crossing the road. We’re all nutters.”
Joe watched the van drive off and then retraced his steps to the front terrace, his agile mind mulling over the things he had learned.
“So, does the master have a solution?” Brenda asked.
Still mentally trying to slot together the pieces of the jigsaw, Joe gazed absently across at the Staineses, Tanner and Sylvia. It was only the slightest of movements, made under the table, but Joe saw Tanner pass something to Sylvia. The Staineses could not have seen it because they were too close, but Joe understood immediately and nudged Brenda for her to see.
She chuckled. “The key to his room, I’ll bet.”
“Was he really a Captain?” Sheila asked, keeping her voice low. “As long as I’ve known him, he’s worked at the town hall.”
“Territorial Army,” Joe said, putting a light to his cigarette. “Toy soldier. Playing war games outside York two weekends outta three.”
“The Territorials are usually the first to be called up in an emergency,” Sheila pointed out, “and they get the same training as regular soldiers, albeit on a part time basis.”
Joe chuckled. “Looks like he’ll be getting the same fringe benefits as regular soldiers tonight. Why do they bother trying to keep it secret? Everyone knows they’re at it.” He checked his wristwatch. “Pushing six. The buses will be here soon.” He lapsed into a brooding silence and toyed with his Zippo lighter, turning it end over end on the table.
“What is wrong with you, Joe?” Sheila demanded. “We’re used to your miseries at the café, but why so glum now?”
“It’s this Nicola Leach and Eddie Dobson business, and someone breaking into my room,” he replied. “I can’t get it out of my head.” He half turned in his seat. “Brenda, when you were chatting Eddie up last night…”
“I was not chatting him up,” Brenda cut him off. “I was simply being friendly.”
Joe puffed out a cloud of carcinogens. “When you were being friendly with him last night, did you find out what he did for a living?”
Brenda shook her head. “He was in the navy for years. He told you the same thing. But he never told me what he did, and I don’t know what kind of work he was looking for.”
Joe’s crumpled features split into a broad smile. “The navy. Of course he was. Now I wonder…”
***
The memory of Abba’s music still ringing in their ears, Joe, Sheila and Brenda, along with several hundred others, emerged from Futurist Theatre onto Scarborough seafront.
“Oh look, it’s still daylight,” Brenda said.
Joe checked his watch. “Only half past nine. The sun’s not gone down yet and the bus doesn’t leave until half ten. Keith said we’d have time for a beer after the show. Shall we?”
They agreed and turned left, ambling along the promenade, its pavements crowded with summer tourists, families seeking a late snack or waiting for children by the funfair rides on the beach. Evening revellers sought their next watering hole, and the lights of souvenir shops and amusement arcades cast an almost festive glow onto the twilight pavements.
While Joe mused silently on the day’s events, his two companions compared notes on the performance.
“Did you see the girl playing Agnetha?” asked Sheila.
Brenda nodded enthusiastically. “I thought she was very good. She looked the part and she had a marvellous voice.”
“Oh, yes,” agreed Sheila, “but did you notice the size of her bottom?”
“About the size of Norfolk,” said Joe, snapping out of his reverie.
“Trust you to notice spot that,” Brenda chuckled. “Mind you, I wouldn’t have said Norfolk.”
“West Yorkshire, perhaps?”
Sheila’s comment dissolved both women into girlish giggles.
Opposite the harbour, where the speedboat which took passengers out for a ten minute, high-speed ride across the bay, was tying up after its last trip of the day, Joe led the way into the Lord Nelson.
The bar was crowded, the karaoke in full swing. To one side, in an appalling, gravelly voice, a young man crucified,You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling causing Joe to comment, “If he sang to her like that, I’m not surprised she went off the boil.”
Sheila and Brenda found seats as far away as possible from the music while Joe threaded his way through the crowds at the bar.
It was fully ten minutes before he was served, by which time the wannabe singer had moved off the dais, and been replaced by a young woman who, in an ear-shattering falsetto, belted outSend In The Clowns.
Placing a gin and tonic before Sheila and a Campari and soda in front of Brenda, Joe sat down with his half of bitter, took out his tobacco and rolled a cigarette, his face screwed up in disgust at the noise of the karaoke.
“I dunno about sending in the clowns, they wanna send in the lawyers and prosecute her for describing that racket as singing.”
“You can’t smoke that in here,” Sheila warned.
“I know, I know. I was just rolling it for when we leave.”
“What on earth is wrong with you, Joe?” demanded Brenda. “You sat sulking through the show, almost as if you didn’t enjoy one minute, and I thought you liked Abba.”
“I’m still preoccupied,” he explained. “Nicola and Eddie Dobson... again. And I do like Abba.”
“What’s your favourite number?” Sheila asked.
“Money, Money, Money, I’ll bet,�
�� chuckled Brenda.
The women laughed, across the pub the young woman ceased her caterwauling and Joe took offence.
“As it happens, you’re wrong. My favourite Abba track is… oh God, that’s it.”
Sheila exchanged a frown with Brenda and said, “I don’t remember that title.”
“No, no. Don’t you see?” Joe urged them with an intense stare. “The police found Eddie Dobson’s wallet, but there was nothing in it other than the STAC membership card.”
Once more the women looked at each other. Brenda turned back to Joe. “Yes. What about it?”
“No money,” Joe declared. “He went out this morning and he had no money, no credit cards, nothing, except maybe a little small change in his pocket. He had no food or drink with him and no money to buy any. What kind of man does that?”
Sheila answered slowly. “One who doesn’t need either, and what kind of manknows he won’t need money?”
“One,” echoed Brenda, “who knows he isn’t coming back?” The tears formed in her eyes again. “Oh dear, I think I’m going to…”
Sheila patted her hand and Joe took a celebratory sip of his ale.
“It’s more complicated than that,” he told them when Brenda had calmed down. “Eddie Dobson wasn’t committing suicide. He just wanted it to look that way. And that’s the reason he wanted to look like a fisherman, and why he took his coat with him.” He glowed with pride under their puzzled stares. “I guessed about his coat earlier, when Brenda said I should have bought that overcoat in Filey because it has to be seen. It was the same with Eddie’s wax jacket.” He sat forward in an effort to help them follow his logic. “The cop, Flowers; he told us the currents on the north side of the Brigg were fast moving. Eddie needed to let them know what happened to him. His body will have been swept away on the currents, but his coat magically got tangled on the rocks and that’s why he took it with him. He knew the police divers would find it. Oh yes. He wanted everyone to think he was committing suicide all right, but that’s not what he was about.”
He took another drink of his beer, and revelled in his deductive powers.
The Filey Connection Page 13
