Rattling the Bones

by Ann Granger

  It was time I left. I stood up, then leaned over and took his hands in mine. ‘Mr Culpeper, don’t worry. I’m keeping a close eye on Edna.’

  ‘Thank you,’ he murmured, still distracted. ‘Thank you very much.’

  Adam must have been lurking in the corridor. As soon as my hand touched the door handle it was seized on the other side and the door was pushed open with such force I was propelled back into the room.

  He marched past me across to the window. ‘Do you need anything, Gramps?’

  I could no longer see Culpeper, only the back of his chair again, but his hand appeared to one side, waving a negative. ‘No, no, just tell Alice she can come and fetch the tray.’ The elderly voice sounded tired.

  Adam marched back to me and pushed me ahead of him down the corridor to the stairs. For two pins I think he would have pushed me straight down those as well.

  ‘You’ve upset him!’ he snarled. ‘I knew you would.’

  ‘No, I haven’t!’ I denied, although it wasn’t altogether true. ‘We got on fine.’

  Or we did until I told Culpeper about Edna being in the hospital.

  Alice had appeared and Adam relayed the message about the tray. She set off upstairs.

  ‘Well?’ demanded Adam as we left the house and Alice couldn’t overhear us. ‘What did you say to him? What did he say?’

  But I’d learned a thing from Lottie and Duane. ‘Confidential,’ I said.

  ‘Bloody hell!’ he exploded. ‘It’s not confidential from me! You’re working with Lottie and I hired the blasted agency!’

  ‘No,’ I told him, ‘your grandfather hired it.You were just his mouthpiece. I’ve made my report to Mr Culpeper and that should fulfil any contractual obligation you have with Lottie’s agency.’

  He seized my arm in a painful grip and spun me round. ‘Don’t get clever with me!’ he snarled. He didn’t look handsome now, just very angry and very unpleasant.

  I shook his hand off. ‘And don’t get stroppy with me, mate,’ I returned.

  ‘Street trash!’ he almost spat at me.

  ‘Tut-tut,’ I said. ‘Gramps wouldn’t like that.’

  ‘Go to hell,’ he said, ‘you can make your own way home!’

  He got into the BMW and roared away.

  I took my time walking back. I needed time to think. Until I’d met him, there had always been a niggling doubt in my mind as to whether the tale I’d been told, that Adam represented his grandfather in hiring the agency, was true. That Lottie believed it did not make it necessarily correct. She relied on Adam’s word. But in the end, it was right. Culpeper had hired the agency even if it had been on Adam’s recommendation. I still didn’t know quite where Jessica Davis came into all of this. Culpeper’s friend, yes, and confidante by the sound of it. But why had he asked her to check separately on Edna? Probably, I guessed, because he had still some lingering unease about using a professional agency, ‘a seedy business’ as he’d termed it.

  I made my way along my home street, my mind turning to cups of tea and the necessity of walking poor Bonnie who had again been left with Erwin. My dog must be thinking that I had abandoned her; she was seeing so little of me lately. The sky was overcast and everything looked grey including the young ‘hoodie’ standing on the pavement a short way ahead of me. I paid little attention to him; he was just one of these spindly kids who favour dull-coloured tracksuits with hooded top pulled up over the head and obscuring the face. From his general build and the slouch of his posture, I guessed this one to be about thirteen. He was mucking about texting a message to someone on his mobile phone. As I neared him, he stepped off the pavement and began to stroll slowly across the road in front of me, his eyes still on the text message, in his own little world.

  Not surprisingly he stumbled, probably helped by the trailing unfastened laces of his trainers. He sprawled full length, but still clutching the phone.

  ‘Hey! Are you all right?’ I called and walked out into the road where I made to bend over him. Behind me came the put-put noise of an engine.

  He was on his feet and dashed off down the street like greased lightning. I whirled round looking for his mates because this had the look, to me, of a set-up mugging. What I saw and heard, bearing down on me with a now terrifying roar, was a motorbike.

  The rider, in leathers and helmet, was crouched low over the handlebars, at one with his machine. I was there, stuck in the middle of the road and I had to go one way or the other. I made to go left and saw the rider veer off line to do the same. My God! I thought - he wants to run me down! I threw myself to the right, rolling over and over in the road, scraping my hands and nose on the tarmac, and landed in the gutter. I scrambled up. He had overshot the spot and was turning at the far end of the road to take another run at his target. I threw myself over the nearest low wall and landed amid a collection of wheelie bins which fell over with a clatter and spilled their contents. I was showered by someone’s garbage but that was the least of my worries. I heard the bike roar past again and waited, crouched and covered in stinking scraps of food and unknown and probably unmentionable waste.

  But he didn’t come back. He probably thought the racket I’d made might have attracted attention from inside the house. I rose from my bed of kitchen refuse and nappy sacks which had split releasing their fetid contents and limped home. As I reached the house, the front door opened and Bonnie shot out barking. When she saw me she began to spring up and down and perform a berserk dance round my feet, whining and whimpering in her excitement. She, at least, liked the smell.

  Erwin appeared behind her, filling the doorway. ‘Hey,’ he observed, looking me up and down, ‘the dog heard a noise. What’ve you been doing?’ He leaned forward and sniffed delicately. ‘Girl,’ he said in awe, ‘you stink.’

  Chapter Thirteen

  ‘I know,’ I said with as much dignity as was possible in the circumstances, which wasn’t a lot.

  ‘Hee-hee-hee . . .’ giggled Erwin, finding it funny all of a sudden.

  I collected my dog and went into my flat. Fortunately Ganesh’s mobile was still working. I rang the number Morgan had given me.

  ‘That motorcyclist who tried to run down Edna, you remember that?’ I said, and before she could start to argue the point added, ‘He just tried to get me.’

  ‘Where are you?’ she asked in her practical way, ‘and are you hurt?’

  ‘I’m at home and no, just bruised and I have to take a shower and change my clothes. I landed in some dustbins.’

  ‘I’m off duty,’ she said, ‘but I’ll come over straightaway.’

  By the time she arrived, I was changed and smelled rather better. The clothes I’d been wearing I chucked in a bin bag to take over to the laundrette. Bonnie was sniffing around it and pawing at it. She still thought it smelled rather interesting and wanted desperately to investigate further.

  Janice Morgan had undergone a transformation, or as near to one as mattered. I stared at her in amazement. She wore jeans, high-heeled boots with wickedly pointed toes, and a pink leather biker’s jacket. She had pinned her hair up, too, in a knot and wore a bright enamelled pendant round her neck.

  ‘Hey, you look great,’ I told her. ‘If this is the new Janice Morgan I’m all for it.’

  ‘I’m off duty!’ she retorted but she blushed.

  ‘Why don’t you dress like that when you go to work?’ I asked.

  ‘I have my reasons,’ she said in a sinister sort of way.

  ‘Yeah, yeah,’ I said. ‘You’re afraid you’ll be treated like a bimbo. That’s what comes of working in an old-fashioned sexist environment like a police station.’

  ‘Things are a lot better than they used to be,’ she argued. ‘Most of that old-time sexist attitude has gone.’

  ‘Most, possibly. All of it, no way. If it had you wouldn’t be scared of wearing that jacket to work.’

  The red deepened on her flushed cheeks but this time it was anger. ‘If I want your opinion, Fran, I’ll ask for it.’
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br />   ‘It makes me cross,’ I said, refusing to let her brush off the - very constructive - criticism I was kindly sending her way. ‘I’ll tell you why and then I’ll shut up about it. You think you’re supporting a woman’s right to be plain. I think you are letting yourself down. You’re successful. You’ve made senior grade already and you’ll probably go higher. You should do, anyway. Why the heck do you feel you can’t dress the way you really want to? Why do you have to keep that wardrobe full of that dreary stuff when you’ve got gear like you’re wearing now? You don’t have to prove anything to those dinosaurs down at the cop shop. If they’ve got a problem, it’s theirs not yours.’

  ‘Leave it out, Fran!’ she snapped. ‘That’s enough. If I want to have my ear bent with that sort of thing I can visit my mother.’

  That did silence me, I admit.

  But I’d released some outpouring from Janice. She fumed on. ‘As for my colleagues, whether they’re my problem or not, it still only concerns me. I didn’t come over here to discuss them or to discuss me and my clothes, come to that. Put your own house in order and in the meantime stop wasting my valuable and scarce free time. Tell me about this motorcyclist.’

  I told her.

  ‘So,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘Whoever this is, he doesn’t act alone. There’s the kid you saw.’ She leaned back and propped one booted foot on the knee of the other leg. I was by now envying her the pink leather biker’s jacket and wondering where she had bought it and how much it had cost. More than I could pay, probably. I didn’t dare refer to it again. Anyway, she was right: this wasn’t the time for girl talk.

  ‘He could have been paid by the cyclist to decoy me out into the road. Some of the kids round here are a little weird. You won’t mention this motorbike business to Ganesh Patel if you should see him, will you?’ I added anxiously. ‘I’d rather he doesn’t know.’ Much rather he didn’t, truth to tell. It would give Ganesh critical ammunition against my activities for weeks to come.

  She nodded. ‘Sure. I understand he’d be worried.’

  ‘It’s his uncle who worries. Ganesh lectures. I can put up with Hari worrying but Gan lecturing gets me down. Would you like a coffee or a glass of wine?’

  ‘If it’s the same wine you offered me the last time I was here, I’ll settle for the coffee,’ she said promptly.

  ‘Yeah,’ I mused. ‘I should pour the rest of that wine down the sink. It’s pretty foul. But it should clean the waste pipe out.’

  When I’d brought the coffee, I continued my account of the afternoon’s adventures by summarising my visit to Culpeper. ‘He knows about my finding Duane dead but I didn’t really have much of a chance to discuss that aspect of things. Adam came marching in with the hired help and the tea tray. He didn’t like me being there and especially didn’t like me talking alone to his grandfather. But I reckon the old boy is pretty devious in his own way. I know Jessica Davis is reporting back to him. He admitted that. Has she been to see you yet?’

  Her hands cupped round her coffee mug, Morgan shook her head slowly. ‘No, I don’t think she’s going to come, at least, not unless something else happens to change her mind. After all, she has no reason to call on me. She wasn’t involved with Gardner directly as far as we know; that was Culpeper, via his grandson. Perhaps I should go and see Culpeper. From what you’ve said my guess is that before she came to see a police officer like me, Jessica Davis decided to check back with Culpeper and he told her he didn’t want anything to do with the police, so she changed her mind. After all, the old man has already got a lot more than he bargained for when he agreed to let Ferrier hire the agency. However, when people don’t want the police knowing their business, it always makes me curious.’

  She sighed, drained her mug and set it down. ‘I am investigating Gardner’s death, nothing more, nothing less. That doesn’t mean it is the only thing on my desk. I wish a detective’s life was like it is in books and on the telly. Off goes the telly-tec with a trusty sergeant and spends his whole time tracking down one villain. If only! I’ve got half a dozen things on the go, calling on my attention. I know what you want me to do, Fran. You want me to go haring off interviewing each and every person you come across who seems interesting to you. But I just can’t do it. I have to justify my time spent. I have to work within the constraints of a budget. I can’t afford to look a fool chasing shadows.’

  I opened my mouth and closed it again. She was right. I was the amateur and she was the professional. I could pick and choose which hares I chased. She couldn’t.

  She gave me a sympathetic smile. ‘However, it does begin increasingly to look as if Gardner’s death has to do with his search for Edna.’ She held up her hand to forestall me because a sudden ray of hope had enveloped me and I had sat up. ‘Hold on, Fran. That still doesn’t mean I can go chasing down every lead you bring me. My biggest problem is this: Gardner had found Edna. That’s what his employers, Culpeper and Ferrier, wanted. They should have been overjoyed and ready to pay the man a bonus! We can count both of them out of the suspicious death scenario. So there I am down a blind alley again. Yes, it’s interesting. Is it likely to forward my search for Gardner’s killer? No, it isn’t.’

  ‘Someone wants to kill Edna,’ I countered.

  ‘I still don’t agree that anyone does. But, for the sake of argument, let’s suppose you’re right. Then at least it’s not Culpeper or Jessica Davis,’ countered Morgan. ‘From all you’ve told me and what they said to you, they are very concerned for her welfare.’

  ‘Edna’s no threat to anyone,’ I mused. ‘She can’t possibly be.’

  We sat in silence. Then I said, ‘You might like to visit Culpeper if only to see the house. It is out of this world. It must be worth a fortune. I don’t know if that gives less significance to Culpeper hiring an enquiry agency, or more. I mean, if you’re rich, you can indulge yourself in a whim, can’t you? It’s not like you’re breaking open the piggy bank, something you’d only do if it really mattered a lot. Besides, I got the impression Culpeper likes people to report back to him. He’s a virtual prisoner in his own home but once upon a time, I bet, he was one of life’s movers and shakers and he still likes to keep a finger on the button. Perhaps it gives him a buzz to know he can still get people to jump when he says so.’

  Morgan gave a muffled growl.

  ‘He’s a nice old boy,’ I went on hastily, ‘I honestly liked him, but I wouldn’t try and fool him. But if someone like that is bored, he might just decide to set Duane the task of finding Edna as a kind of hobby. It might just all be an intellectual exercise to him, like a crossword puzzle, something to pass the time. But on the other hand he seemed genuinely upset to learn that Edna had been living rough when I first met her. He didn’t fake that. He hadn’t known it and he was shocked. He really cared. When I told him she was in hospital he went all to pieces.’

  ‘I’m always interested in what rich people do,’ Janice Morgan said simply. ‘They sometimes wind up murdered.’

  ‘No one could get to Culpeper. He’s surrounded by security - except at the bottom of his back garden. That runs down to the canal but I’m sure there are all kinds of devices hidden in the undergrowth to let you know if there’s an intruder. Besides, he doesn’t go out and very few people get in to see him - except his family and his spies. It’s all a bit like The Godfather.’

  ‘Money makes motive,’ said Janice.

  She sniffed the air. ‘Your dog’s clawed a hole in that bin bag and is dragging out your dirty clothing.’

  ‘You’re very quiet,’ said Ganesh.

  It was evening and we were on our way to the hospital to see Edna again.

  ‘I’ve had a busy day, going to see Culpeper. You should see that house, Gan. Poor old chap, he’s lost both his lower legs. He’s pretty with it mentally, though. He must be really frustrated.’

  ‘Sure,’ murmured Ganesh giving me a careful once-over look. ‘What happened to your nose?’

  I touched my nose and winced because i
t was tender. ‘Nothing.’

  ‘It looks swollen.’ His tone grew suspicious.

  ‘Oh? I tripped over Bonnie.’

  ‘Right,’ he said in a way which indicated he didn’t believe me.

  We found Edna sitting beside the bed looking quite pink and chipper in what looked like a brand-new blue towelling dressing gown. Around us other visitors chatted to patients and plied them with grapes and Get Well cards. I handed Edna the bar of chocolate we’d brought from the shop.

  ‘Thank you, my dears!’ she said graciously and squirrelled the chocolate away in a pocket of the dressing gown. ‘I’m going back to the hostel tomorrow.’

  ‘Are you sure, Edna?’ I asked in some dismay. It was what I’d told Morgan I wanted for Edna, to be released from hospital. But I had to admit she was safe in here from homicidal motorcyclists. She looked so much better in herself today that it allayed my fears the hospital would get her down.