by P. F. Ford
‘So, what are you waiting for?’ said Slater.
‘You don’t mind?’
Slater was a little miffed Norman would even ask such a question. ‘I’m not even going to answer that. You’ve made it quite clear you think I should be working somewhere else, and if I take your advice, that will make this your business. As the boss, it’s up to you how you run your business, right?’
Norman looked at him uncertainly.
‘Well go on!’ said Slater. ‘What are you waiting for?’
‘Oh, right, okay. I’ll catch you later.’ Norman left in such a hurry, he tried to push the door when he should have pulled, but eventually he managed to make his way out and to his car.
‘What was all that about?’ asked Watson.
‘It’s a long story,’ said Slater. ‘Jane used to be part of our team, but there was an unfortunate incident involving her husband and Norm—’
‘Oh! Was that when he was kidnapped?’ asked Watson.
‘Of course, I forgot, you already know about that, right?’
She looked rather embarrassed again. ‘Like I said, it was just a bit of background, know who you’re going to be working with, that sort of thing.’ She was silent for a moment. ‘Anyway, I think it’s really sweet,’ she said brightly. ‘Look at him, like a fifty-something teenager in love with the girl of his dreams.’
‘Yeah, unfortunately it’s not quite that simple,’ said Slater.
‘Life never is, but I can’t see him doing anything inappropriate.’
Slater pulled a face. ‘You’re probably right about that, but then again, he hadn’t done anything last time, and look what happened. The thing is, Jane’s husband is due out on parole very soon, and he wants to see his kids. I worry what he’s going to make of it all.’
‘Gosh, that could be awkward.’
‘Quite,’ said Slater. ‘But they’re all adults, and much as I don’t want to see anyone get hurt, it’s not really our business what they get up to.’
‘D’you think there’s going to be trouble?’
Slater shook his head. ‘I honestly don’t know the answer to that, but I sincerely hope not.’
Chapter Thirteen
‘We might as well start with Rosie,’ said Norman, as he parked his car outside her house.
‘Do you want me to start knocking on some doors while you talk to her?’ asked Jane.
Norman looked at her dubiously.
‘I’ll be fine,’ she assured him. ‘Like you said, I just need to get back into it, and this should be a gentle reintroduction. That’s what you said, wasn’t it?’
Norman had thought it would be a breeze, but now they were here, he was beginning to wonder if it really was such a good idea. It was quite ironic she was showing no nerves whatsoever, and here he was full of doubts and second thoughts.
‘I’m not sure I’m happy about letting you go door-to-door on your own.’
‘Look, you said yourself they’re all pensioners along here,’ Jolly argued. ‘I’m hardly in any sort of danger, am I? On the other hand, what’s going to be more intimidating for them – answering the door to find a lone woman on the doorstep or finding a woman with a bodyguard? I’ll just show them the copy of the flyer, ask if they’ve seen it before, and then leave. What can possibly go wrong?’
‘Do you know how many times I’ve heard someone say those words and regret it?’ asked Norman. ‘I hate it when someone says anything like that. It’s almost inviting trouble, and I’d never forgive myself if anything happened to you.’
She patted his knee. ‘That’s very sweet of you,’ she said, opening the car door, ‘but I’m nearly forty years old, I’m a mother of three, and I’m old enough to make my own decisions. I promise you, nothing is going to happen to me. I’ll be extra careful.’
Armed with a copy of the flyer, she stepped from the car and strode purposefully towards the nearest house.
‘Crap!’ said Norman quietly to himself as he watched her approach the house. ‘Why do women have to be so independent? And how come I feel guilty because I care? How does that work?’
He sighed in resignation and climbed from the car, keeping a watchful eye on her progress the whole time. He closed the car door and stopped to watch. She was showing the flyer to a silver-haired lady at the first house, but the shake of the head made it clear she didn’t recognise it. Jane thanked the lady, said goodbye, and turned away from the door. As she walked up the short path, she clocked Norman watching her. She stopped, hands on her hips, and glared at him, making it quite clear she didn’t think she needed chaperoning. When that didn’t work, she started making little shooing motions with her hands. Eventually, Norman decided he’d better do as she asked.
Reluctantly, he turned away and knocked on Rosie’s door, but he couldn’t help looking over his shoulder as he waited for the door to open.
‘Ooh, hello, Mr Norman,’ said Rosie, when she opened the door. ‘Come on inside.’
‘It’s okay, Rosie, I don’t need to come inside. This will only take a minute.’
‘All right, if you’re sure,’ she said, disappointed. ‘What can I do for you?’
He showed her the flyer before taking another glance over his shoulder. ‘Have you ever seen this before?’
She looked at the flyer and then looked up at him as if he were simple. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘You know I have. I gave it to you the other day.’
‘Well, yeah, I know that,’ said Norman. ‘What I mean is, have you seen it before that? Did you have one of these pushed through your letterbox?’
‘The first time I ever saw that was at Joe’s,’ she said.
‘You’re sure?’ he asked, unable to stop his head automatically swivelling around again.
Rosie stood on her toes and looked over his shoulder. ‘What you lookin’ at?’ she asked, then she spotted Jolly walking up to another door on the other side of the road. ‘Who’s that, then?’
‘She’s a colleague,’ Norman said, turning back to her, a faint blush on his face.
‘Yes,’ said Rosie, knowingly. ‘Of course she is.’
‘I’m just keeping an eye on her.’
‘Yes, I can see that. She looks very nice.’
‘Yeah, she is,’ agreed Norman, his face colouring up even more. ‘Anyway, getting back to this flyer – you’re quite sure you haven’t seen it before?’
‘Cross me heart and hope to die,’ she said.
‘Right. Okay, thanks. That’s all I wanted to know. Thank you for your time. I’m sorry to disturb you.’
‘That’s all right, dear,’ she said. ‘You get back to your girlfriend. You’re obviously worried about her.’
‘She’s just a colleague,’ said Norman as he turned to leave.
‘Yes, and I’m the Queen of Sheba,’ Rosie said, loud enough for Norman to hear, as she stepped back inside her house and began to close her front door.
Norman thought about a retort, but then he heard the door close, and the chance was gone. He made his way down the road on the opposite side to Jane, calling at each house as he went. She finished her side of the road, crossed to his side, and began working her way back until she met up with him.
‘Any luck?’ he asked.
She shook her head. ‘Not one.’
‘Nah, me neither. Come on, let’s get back before it starts raining.’
Norman had left his car outside Rosie’s, and they were just about to climb in when Rosie’s front door opened and she called out to them. For a moment, Norman’s heart sank as he envisaged an embarrassing scenario where Rosie interrogated him and Jane about their relationship, but then he realised she was looking a little odd.
‘Are you okay, Rosie? Are you feeling unwell?’
‘No, no, it’s not that,’ she said. ‘I’ve just had a bit of a shock. You’d better come on in. There’s something I need to show you.’
He looked at Jane, but she was already walking around the car towards Rosie’s door, so he followed her up the path.<
br />
As Rosie stepped back to let them in, Norman made the introductions.
‘Rosie, this is Jane. Jane, this is Rosie. I’m hoping Jane’s going to come and work for me.’
‘Ooh, that’ll be nice and convenient for you both,’ she said with a cheeky grin.
‘Has something happened?’ asked Norman, ignoring the inference. ‘You haven’t had another break-in have you?’
‘Oh, no,’ she said, leading them through to her kitchen. ‘I’ve had a letter. Well more of a small package, really. From Joe!’
‘From Joe?’ echoed Norman.
‘Yes. How can he send me a letter when he’s dead?’
‘Can I see it?’
‘It’s there, on the table. The postman only came a couple of minutes before you, but you knocked on the door before I’d had a chance to open it.’
There was a small padded envelope on the table. A brass key lay alongside it, and a small note was scrawled on a scruffy piece of paper.
‘Is it okay if I read it?’ asked Norman.
‘Be my guest,’ she said. ‘Perhaps you can make some sense of it, because it means nothing to me.’
Norman looked at the note and read it aloud.
Dear Rosie,
You already know I’m gone. This key is for you. You can work out what it opens. Just think of two little ducks.
Norman turned it over to read the other side, but that was it. He passed it across to Jane.
‘Is that the key?’ he asked, pointing to the key on the table.
‘Yes,’ said Rosie, ‘and I’ve been wracking my brains, but I haven’t got a clue what he’s on about. I know two little ducks is twenty-two at the bingo, but I don’t understand how that helps. He didn’t even play bingo, so I have absolutely no idea what it’s for.’
Norman picked up the key, placed it in the palm of his left hand, and studied it, then he turned it over and studied the other side. There were no distinguishing marks of any kind; no clue to its origin or its purpose.
He placed it carefully back on the table and picked up the padded envelope. There was a postmark, but it had been so badly smudged he doubted it would be legible, so no clues there either.
‘Can you make out what that postmark is?’ he asked Jane, passing the envelope to her.
‘How can he send me a letter when he’s dead?’ Rosie wrung her hands. ‘It’s quite creepy.’
‘I’ve seen this sort of thing before,’ Norman explained. ‘How it works is quite simple. You register with an agency. You leave the message, package, or whatever it is you want delivered, and you set up a sort of rolling deadline. For example, you might set up some sort of system whereby you check in regularly, say once a week, or once a fortnight. Then you would set the trigger, which might be the first time you didn’t check in, or it might be if you don’t check in two times running. Whatever, once the system’s triggered, the package gets sent. It’s very simple, but very effective.’
‘But he’s been dead for two months now!’
‘But you can make your trigger deadline as long as you like. It could be he set it so it was triggered after one month, but there was a delay of another month built in before it was posted.’
‘But why?’ she asked, puzzled. ‘Who would want to send a message from the dead?’
‘You’d be surprised,’ said Norman. ‘A vengeful wife, maybe, or someone who wanted to frighten someone else, maybe. Or perhaps in this case, Joe just wants you to have whatever it is he’s been hiding.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ she asked suspiciously.
‘It’s a bit complicated,’ said Norman, ‘but we’re beginning to think Joe might have been hiding from someone because he has something they want. Seeing this key might confirm our suspicions.’
‘But who’s he hiding from?’
‘Well, that’s just it,’ admitted Norman, carefully. ‘We have no idea at the moment.’
‘If you’re suggesting there was something shady about him, I can tell you, he seemed all right to me,’ she insisted.
Norman wondered if Rosie thought someone had to wear a striped jumper and carry a bag marked “swag” to appear suspicious, but he resisted the urge to say so.
‘Is it okay if we take all this stuff with us? We may be able to work out what that postmark is.’
‘You take it, dear,’ she said. ‘It’s no good to me if I don’t know what it’s for.’
‘If we figure that out I’ll let you know,’ said Norman.
***
‘I have to say, I think it’s great to see you back out on the street,’ said Norman as he drove away from Rosie’s house.
Jane laughed out loud. ‘Ha! I don’t think I’d make much money doing that.’
‘What? No! What I mean is, it’s—’
She put a hand on his arm. ‘It’s all right, Norm, I know what you mean, and I must admit, it felt good to be back out there.’
‘We always were a pretty good team,’ said Norman.
‘But I don’t think we’ve set the world alight this time, do you? We haven’t even managed to find anyone who’s seen one of those flyers, so it was a complete waste of time, wasn’t it?’
‘I’ll think about that and get back to you,’ said Norman.
‘At least we got the key. That might be useful.’
‘Let’s hope so,’ said Norman. ‘But my instinct’s telling me we also learnt something useful from the house-to-house. I just haven’t figured out what it is yet.’
Chapter Fourteen
‘What? No one?’ asked Slater, his disappointment clear. ‘Jeez, what a waste of time.’
‘Yeah, that’s what Jane said, but I think it depends how you look at it,’ said Norman. ‘Maybe we didn’t find anyone who’s seen the flyer, but I’m not so sure it was a waste of time. In fact, I would suggest it was quite the opposite.’
‘How do you work that one out?’ asked Slater, gloomily.
‘What if Joe was the only one who actually had that flyer posted through his door?’
‘I’m not with you.’
Norman grinned. ‘Allow me to elaborate. Here’s a theory I’ve been developing on the way back here. We know Joe’s not really Joe, right? Now there could be plenty of reasons for that, but we suspect he’s hiding from someone, possibly Ronnie Scanlon, so let’s run with that idea for a minute. What if Scanlon, or someone working for him, had tracked Joe down? Now he could just smash his way in, beat the crap out of Joe, and hope to make him talk, but that would probably arouse a lot of suspicion, right? Being cautious, Scanlon would prefer to figure out a way to get into Joe’s house when he’s not there, so he watches, and observes, and learns when Joe comes and goes. But then, as he’s watching, he notices Joe has bad arthritis in his hands and struggles with the lock on his door.’
Slater nodded his approval. It sounded good so far.
‘Go on, Norm,’ he said. ‘I think I see where you’re going with this.’
‘Poor old Joe is finding it harder and harder to get his door open,’ continued Norman, ‘and he knows it’s not going to get any easier as his arthritis gets worse, but then, suddenly, lady luck smiles on him and a locksmith pokes a flyer through his letterbox. Joe thinks this is just perfect timing, so he phones the guy, who comes around and fits a new lock. Now Joe’s over the moon because he can open his door without struggling, but what he doesn’t know is the locksmith is really working for Scanlon, who’s also happy because now he’s got a key that fits Joe’s front door and he can get in any time he wants. What do you think?’
‘I think it makes sense,’ said Slater. ‘The phone number was probably an unregistered mobile, yeah?’
‘That’s right,’ said Watson, ‘and the locksmith probably used it to answer the one call from Joe and then ditched it.’
‘Yeah, easy peasy,’ said Norman.
‘I have a question,’ said Watson. ‘Are we still working on the assumption Joe’s death wasn’t from natural causes?’
Norman no
dded.
‘So, are we now saying Scanlon, or one of his cronies, killed him? If he did, what happened to the cautious approach? Why go to all this trouble to get a key if he didn’t care whether Joe died? Why not just knock on the door and force his way in?’
Slater and Norman exchanged looks.
‘It’s a good point,’ admitted Slater.
‘I never said I had all the answers,’ said Norman. ‘It was just a theory about where the flyer fits in.’
‘There is another scenario,’ said Watson. ‘What if Joe came home and actually found one of Scanlon’s men in his house? Maybe there was a struggle, or perhaps he just died of fright. Perhaps it really was a case of accidental death, but caused by a burglary that went wrong.’
‘We still don’t know for sure if Scanlon is involved,’ said Slater, ‘but if you add Watson’s accidental death to your theory, it would suggest murder wasn’t the motive. I reckon he just wanted to get inside to search for something when Joe wasn’t there. If only we knew what that something was.’
Norman flashed them all a beaming smile. ‘Well, it just so happens I might be able to help you there,’ he announced. ‘Cue drumroll . . .’ He put his hand in his pocket, and with a suitably theatrical flourish, he pulled out the key he had collected from Rosie’s. ‘You can applaud now.’
Watson peered at it. ‘What is it?’
‘It’s a key,’ said Norman.
‘That’s a relief,’ said Slater, sarcastically. ‘For a minute there, I thought I was missing something.’
Norman looked pointedly at him. ‘It’s a key,’ he continued, patiently, ‘that Joe had arranged to be sent to Rosie if anything happened to him.’
‘Gosh!’ said Watson.
‘Now, that’s significant,’ said Slater, ‘because it suggests he knew someone was looking for him, and he thought there was a good chance he was going to be found.’
‘That’s exactly what I thought,’ said Norman. ‘And the recent deposit of twenty-five grand for Rosie suggests he knew he was going to be found soon.’
