by Liz Evans
His bed linen was dark blue with an undulating pattern of lighter blues. It was like being in the ocean again. It seemed like a very tidy end to my birthday. I’d started the day bouncing stark naked in the waves with a couple of drop-outs for company, and I was ending it the same way but with a rich, good-looking banker appreciating my assets. Age definitely had its compensations. (The golden tan did go down to his navel, incidentally. In fact, it went all over.)
Later, when we were both curled up like a couple of warm spoons under the duvet, he returned to the subject of my (supposedly) new career path. ‘It seems a strange choice. What did you do before?’
‘Worked for the community,’ I said truthfully.
‘Care homes?’ Dan asked. ‘Mental health casework?’
‘That sort of thing.’ It wasn’t a total lie. Some of the people I came across in the police certainly qualified as mental cases.
‘That’s strange. If I’d had to guess, I’d have put you down as something in the artistic line. Painter or writer, something like that.’ He ran his fingers up my arm until they entwined with mine above our heads. ‘You have artist’s hands. They’re very expressive. Very deft.’
I demonstrated my deftness with my free hand until he told me to pack it in, he had to get up early in the morning. ‘It’s all very well for you idle artists, but some of us have to graft for a living.’
‘I’m not an artist.’ I applied a bit more deftness.
‘Bet you are. I’ll bet you’re a secret sculptress. Or a clandestine crayoner. No, I have it. You’re a frustrated writer. I’ll bet you’ve got the beginnings of the great unfinished novel of the century hidden somewhere, haven’t you?’
‘Not even a great unfinished shopping list. But you’re right about one thing.’
‘What?’
‘I’m definitely feeling frustrated over here.’ I rolled on top of him and the waves started crashing again.
I guess we both fell asleep after that. The next thing I remember was light, a raging thirst, a drilling headache, and the early-morning news on the portable television.
Daniel was already in the shower. I padded into the kitchen, found some aspirin, swallowed two with a couple of pints of water, and switched on the filter coffee machine. Whilst it brewed, I collected my confiscated tension pick from Dan’s discarded trousers and my clothes from the living room floor. The square bulge of the photo wallet was still there in my inside jacket pocket, but being a suspicious little bunny I eased a finger inside and counted: eighteen snaps all present and correct.
Carrying the coffee back to bed, I drank it listening to an earnest-looking health minister assuring the nation that the Government was doing all it could to trace the source of the diphtheria outbreak and there was really no need for anyone to panic. He was followed by a doctor describing the symptoms of diphtheria (just in case we all wanted to panic) and some outside shots of rent-a-rabble demonstrating outside a hostel of refugees.
We returned to the bright-as-a-button studio presenter as she told us how lucky we were to have the MP Faye Sinclair with us this morning. Gucci and pearls slid into focus; she must go to bed in them.
‘Mrs Sinclair, many of these cases have occurred in your constituency. As someone who is widely tipped as a future cabinet—’
I clicked the remote and consigned Mrs Sinclair’s solution to the current medical crisis to the digital otherworld.
Dan was using the brown towel on his hair again. I raised a hand as he emerged from the bathroom: ‘How!’
‘Very inventively, as I recall.’ He took the mug of coffee I passed over. ‘Look, I’m really sorry. I know this is going to look like I hit and run, but I’ve got to get going.’
‘No problem. I wasn’t expecting an engagement ring with my boiled egg and toasted soldiers.’
When I came out of the shower, he’d cleared up the debris of my birthday dinner. ‘Want a hand?’
‘It’s OK, thanks. Like I said, I really have to be out of here.’
‘OK. I’m gone.’ I started climbing into my clothes, trying to remember how you make a graceful exit from situations like this (it had been a while, as you may have gathered).
‘Can I see you again?’ Dan asked.
‘If you like.’
‘I like. My number is written on the phone.’
‘Right.’ I patted down my pockets and found only the bundle of picks and tension tool.
‘Here.’ Dan flicked a pen. I caught it and scribbled down the figures on the back of my train ticket.
‘And?’ he prodded.
I gave him the office number and then - because I had a sudden nightmarish vision of Jan fielding the call - added my home number. ‘I’m out a lot,’ I said, giving it the cool, busy-busy, girl-about-town performance. ‘But, you know ... if you catch me ...’
‘I’ll do my very best.’
‘Great.’
Goodbye was awkward. In the end we settled for a peck on the lips.
There must be an awful lot of worms in London, judging by the early birds flocking at this time of the morning. I surged down the tube with them and wedged myself in amongst the tabloids, polystyrene containers of breakfasts eaten on the hoof and breaths of last night’s curry suppers. Occasionally I caught glimpses of myself in the train windows as we went through the tunnels. I had a great big stupid grin plastered all over my face.
The ticket clerk at Victoria managed to wipe it off by telling me the day-return I’d bought yesterday was no longer valid. I needed a new ticket to travel today. It didn’t matter that it was going on Barbra Delaney’s bill in the end - I hadn’t enough cash on me to get home.
‘It’s only a third of that price if you travel after nine thirty,’ the clerk said helpfully.
That was fine by me. I bought a cappuccino and croissant from the cafe and sat out at one of the tables on the concourse, watching the wage slaves tearing off the commuter trains.
I had a lot of time to waste people-watching, and there’s a limit to the time even I can stretch out one cappuccino. I spooned the froth at the bottom of the cup and wondered whether to use up the last of my change on a refill. That was when fate decided I’d been enjoying myself for a tad too long. I remembered the fifty- pound birthday present.
Breakfast probably wasn’t what my mother had had in mind, I reflected, disentangling the photo wallet from my jacket pocket, but so what - it fitted my definition of ‘something nice’.
Something was wrong. It took a second to register. There was no time and date stamp on the back of the first print. I snatched out the snaps from their pocket and spread them across the table.
They were a varied assortment taken over a period of time, judging by the different weather and lighting. A pagoda-shaped pavilion with a curly red roof was bathed in intense sunlight; a lake with a mother swan spreading its wings threateningly over its cygnets was dull and overcast; whilst an odd teapot-shaped rock on a cliff edge and a city street with a van propped on bricks were lit by that bright, sparkly sheen that said ‘perfect spring day’. There was nothing remarkable about them - except for the fact I’d never seen any of them before in my life.
At least he’d had the good manners to leave my fifty pounds alone. I found it tucked inside the slot for the negatives. It must have given him a nasty taste in his mouth to find that they were missing. At least I hoped it did. I couldn’t decide which upset me most, the knowledge that he didn’t trust me enough to keep my promise not to flash those photos of Rainwing around, or the idea of him sneaking out of our bed in the night to search through my stuff. He must be a hell of an operator. Normally I’m a light sleeper and someone moving around a strange room like that would have disturbed me. On reflection, though - given the amount of champagne I’d drunk - perhaps it wasn’t so surprising. Had that been the idea all along when he’d started pouring ninety-pound fizz down my throat? I headed for the phone booths, rehearsing some of my better insults.
The answering machine picked up at Dan’
s flat. His voice sounded less attractive over the phone. Or perhaps I’d just lost my rose-tinted ear lobes since last night. Instead of the usual leave-a-message-after-the-tone it instructed callers not to bother ‘because this damn tape always runs out’, but urgent messages could be left with his secretary at Bundell-Heishmann’s Bank, number as follows ...
His secretary was sorry that she couldn’t put me through to Dan. ‘Look, tell him it’s Grace. Tell him ... tell him it’s about eliminating the negative.’ I figured that the promise of getting his hands on those might at least bring him to the receiver so I could tell him what I thought of his cheap little trick. I hummed a few bars of the tune: ‘“. . . accentuate the positive . .. eliminate the negative .. . and don’t mess with Mrs In-Between, buster ...’”
‘I meant,’ she said, interrupting my recital, ‘I can’t put you through, because Daniel isn’t here. He’s away from the office at present.’
‘When do you expect him back?’
‘Six more weeks, perhaps.’
What did she mean, more? ‘Sorry? Where is he exactly?’
‘South America. He’s been out there for a few weeks. Is there a message ... ?’
‘No message.’
I didn’t believe it. Well, maybe I did. But I had to confirm it anyway. Before I did, I rang Barbra down at Wakens Keep. She wasn’t too thrilled to hear I’d ruined all her photos by dropping them in the bath, but she agreed to get another set run off.
‘I’ll drop them off. Something’s come up,’ she said. ‘I need to see yer anyway. Thought we’d have a chance for a natter last night. See yer.’
The library was my first stop. Leafing thought the yellow page directories I pinpointed a shop selling work-wear off Regent Street. Some of my fifty pounds went on a plain navy nylon zippered boiler suit edged in red binding and a peaked navy cap. An office stationer’s yielded pencil, sticky tape, cardboard, scissors, brush and paint. I spent a couple of hours in Regent’s Park neatly tracing and cutting out letters from the cardboard sheet, sticking it to the back of the boiler suit and carefully painting inside the makeshift stencil.
The pub where I’d staked out Dan’s place yesterday was already buzzing. Lunchtime starts early and finishes late on warm, sunny August Fridays. I breezed into the block of flats with the confident poise of a bona fide caller. A couple emerged from one of the ground-floor doors as I made my way through the lobby. I tweaked my cap a little lower; they barely glanced at me. Once on the third floor, I laid out my picks and tension wrenches openly on the landing and got to work on Daniel’s door.
A good lock-picker can open a door in seven seconds. I’m not a good lock-picker and I rarely practise. Hence it took me fifteen minutes of jiggling and cursing under my breath before I finally managed to get inside. Whilst I was working, a forty-something female with a mobile clamped to one ear and a briefcase in the other hand rushed from another flat on the third floor landing, and an elderly woman cradling a tiny dog rode the open-cage lift past to the top floor. They took no more notice of me than that couple on the ground floor.
Why should they? Who sees workmen? I’d become invisible in that cap and overall with its newly painted ‘Acme 24-Hour Locksmith Service’ logo on the back.
I padded through the empty rooms half hoping he’d be here, even though the dead stillness told me he wasn’t.
In the bedroom the ocean-inspired duvet had gone; the bed linen was a geometric mixture of black and white. The brown and striped towels Rainwing had used were also missing. In fact there were no damp or crumpled towels in the place at all - just a neat stack of dry white and blue ones in the bedroom cupboard. I checked the shower tray - it was bone dry.
Daniel had expensive taste in clothes. All the stuff hanging in his fitted wardrobes screamed money. What he didn’t have was a pair of black cargo trousers or a plain silky white shirt.
The rubbish bin was empty. The stainless-steel inside gleamed back mockingly as if asking whether I really expected to find it full of takeaway Chinese dishes and empty champagne bottles. I even went over the sofa we’d leant against last night - I couldn’t find one solitary grain of cold rice stuck to the cushions.
Finally I used the picks to open the filing cabinet. The stacks of household bills, travel invoices and bank and credit card statements confirmed this was Daniel Sholto’s property.
As a last resort I went down to the offices of Bundell- Heishmann in Blackfriars. Despite the ancient location, it was a modern corner block of gleaming whiteness, silvered windows and curved lines. Bundell-Heishmann occupied the top four floors. They must have had a terrific view out over the Thames from there. I never found out, because the only way up was via lifts guarded by a couple of muscular security officers and Daniel Sholto’s secretary decided to come down to the reception hall on the ground floor. She was a stick insect in a mini-skirted designer suit and big hair who didn’t take my hint that she was just being overprotective, and Daniel was really hiding in his office, too well.
‘I’ve already told you, Danny is in South America.’
‘I had dinner with Daniel last night. Perhaps he flew back without telling you.’
‘I hardly think so.’
‘Could he have loaned his flat to a friend? Late twenties, my height, dark-haired?’
‘That’s Daniel. And I can assure you he hasn’t loaned his flat to anyone. If he had - I’d know.’
‘How about giving me his phone number in South America? I’ll give him a ring myself. See if I can work out what’s going on here.’
‘Oh, I think we both know that already, don’t we, desperate?’ Her eyes swept me from head to toe with all the gentleness of a wire brush encountering oil-stained concrete. I’d lost the boiler suit and returned to jeans and top mode. Her cute little nose wrinkled. ‘Look, face it, you’re history. I mean, you’re not the first to try this one, you know ... Oh, Jemima love, I’ve lost Dan’s number, which hotel was he staying in again ... ? Get this - Dan is no longer available. He’s taken ... he’s not on the market any more. Do you want me to spell it out for you?’
‘No thanks. I think I can manage that for myself. Let’s see. C.O.W. and D.E.L.U.D.I.N.G. plus S.E.L.F. It’s just a question of getting them in the right order really, isn’t it?’
It wasn’t until I left the building that it occurred to me she probably thought I was referring to myself. Perhaps she was right. Whoever Rainwing was, it would seem he wasn’t Daniel Sholto. Whichever way you looked at it, I’d been well and truly screwed by the conniving Crow.
I got back to Victoria to find the lines to Seatoun had been closed by a landslip, and ended up spending the night on the station concourse along with several hundred other commuters who couldn’t afford the price of a London hotel room.
They finally started running the service again after lunch on Saturday. As compensation they had taken any restrictions off our tickets, so I used the opportunity to hop off and tackle Violetta about her tax-free lodgers and that oh-so-convenient book she’d happened to come across in ‘Daniel’s’ bedroom.
She’d done a flit.
‘Gone visiting for a few weeks. My son’s seeing to the birds,’ a neighbour explained. ‘Do you want to leave a message?’
‘Yes. But I won’t. Wouldn’t want to shock the little fellows out of their feathers, would we?’
I caught the next train back to Seatoun - to the news that my office had been burgled.
15
Well, to be strictly accurate, all the rooms on the upper floors had been trashed. But I was principally concerned with the devastation in mine. Which was fair enough, because Annie was plainly right out of empathy for anyone’s misfortunes but her own. Kneeling on the floor, she oozed get-out-of-my-face from every pore.
‘Bloody stupid idiot, if I had enough energy left I’d kill him,’ she raged, slapping files into piles. It was like watching a demonic game of snap.
Apparently she’d spent the best part of the day reassembling the contents of her
office files, which had been dumped over the carpet. My own office was in much the same state. I made a few ineffectual attempts to clear up and decided I just couldn’t be bothered at present.
One advantage of having an office that’s taste-challenged is there’s not much to mourn. Annie, on the other hand, had put a lot of effort into decorating her territory. She feels it’s important to make clients - particularly the female ones - feel relaxed, since it makes them talk more freely. To which end she’d set up one half of the room to reflect a homely atmosphere. At present it was only going to feel that way if you happened to be shacking up with a couple of acid heads.
I turned as she swore loudly and found her clutching the upper section of her computer. The base lay on her foot in a tangle of boards and wires.
‘Do you want a hand?’
‘No, I’ve got two of those. It’s a new set of toes I need.’ Easing off her shoe, she massaged the bruised ones. I asked how they’d got in.
‘Bathroom looks like the point of entry.’ She jerked a thumb in the direction of the third door on our landing.
There was only one small window overlooking the back yard in there. Or there had been. Now there was a hole framed by glass shards. I wriggled my head cautiously into the gap and squinted upwards. The gutter next door was partially detached, and by easing out a little further I discovered the nearest window to us was wide open. There was nothing surprising about that - it was, after all, the middle of a heat wave. But that house was being converted to bedsits and was currently unlet - according to the police.
‘They checked this morning. Asked a few questions, filled in a few reports, you know the form,’ Annie explained, disembowelling her computer. ‘It looks like the visitors swung across the roof. It’s a pity they didn’t break their flaming necks.’
‘Do our finest have any clues?’
‘None.’ A lump of computer innards was added to one of the filing piles. ‘And since nothing much seems to be missing and no one was injured, we aren’t exactly top of their list for the allocation of resources. I shouldn’t hold your breath for an arrest, unless you’ve got the lung capacity to swim the Atlantic - underwater.’
