AHMM, Jul-Aug 2005

by Dell Magazine Authors

  "The tools in me shed on me allotment."

  "You've got an allotment?” This was new. The thought of Eggy Edgworth as a horny-handed son of the soil, spading the loam, bringing up tomatoes and leeks, was a new one.

  "Since me uncle died,” he said. “What it was, the allotment was me uncle's. Ernie Jones. Well, Ernie Jones, deceased, as he is now."

  "Hang on,” I said. “Ernie Jones. Not the Ernie Jones."

  His little face creased up in what in a normal face might be described as pleasure. On him it looked as if his skull was slowly imploding.

  "You knew Uncle Ernie, then?” he asked.

  "Not as such,” I said. “I've never had the pleasure of nicking him personally, but I've heard of him. Everybody's heard of him. Our most unsuccessful cat burglar. It was him that came off the sixth floor of the Building Society and walked away without a scratch. Wasn't that him?"

  "Don't remember,” he said sulkily.

  "Yes, you do,” I said. “Indiarubber Jones they called him after that. Dear me. So that was your Uncle Ernie, was it? What a small and interesting world we live in."

  "Anyway, we had a very nice funeral last Friday,” Eggy said. “Most moving."

  "Glad to hear it,” I said, “now, get on with it."

  "Right,” he said. “Anyway, after he died, me Auntie Winnie asked me if I'd take his allotment on. I wasn't sure at first, but she went on at me, said she'd like his allotment to remain in friendly hands, as a sort of memorial to him. So I said yes. She sorted everything out with the association and that was it."

  I was impressed. Eggy's Auntie Winnie must be a force to be reckoned with. Allotments associations don't mess about.

  "I put a new shed up just this Monday. Me uncle's was a disgrace, falling down nearly, didn't even have a floor. So I ordered a new one last week, Norwegian spruce, the biz. Laid down a load of aggregate, put down some foundation beams, and it went up a treat."

  "And that's where the above-mentioned tools are,” I said, to show I was keeping up.

  "Right. And when I went round this morning to get on with me weeding and stuff, I unlocked the shed and there were the tools all over the place. Someone had been in there, trying to steal them."

  "So why didn't they?"

  "I dunno. Must have been interrupted, heard someone in the lane, I dunno. So they did a runner."

  "Taking the time to lock up after them."

  "That's it,” he said. “There're three great padlocks on that door, and I've got the only keys."

  I said, “A Locked Shed Mystery. How rustic."

  "I thought you might be interested. You've had the training and everything. And seeing as how you might have a bit of time on your hands."

  "Have you had an ask-around the allotments?” I said. “Anybody else missing stuff?"

  "I haven't commenced any real inquiries,” he said. “I thought I'd come and have a word first. Can you give us a hand?"

  "I'd like to, Eggy,” I said. “No, let me put that another way. I wouldn't like to."

  "For old times’ sake,” he had the nerve to say. “Go on, Mr. Tattersby, it's only ten minutes away, you could have a quick look, tell me what you think. I've left everything as it was. For the forensics and that."

  For the forensics and that. God preserve us.

  * * * *

  So we went up to Eggy's allotment. Why, I still can't explain. Slice it where you will, it was a bit of a come-down to be helping a convicted criminal with his inquiries. But Eggy was the first person to walk into my house since Pauline had walked out four months before, and perhaps that needed celebrating. And it was a nice day for for a walk. Blue, blue sky with a northeasterly breeze. Nippy, but nice.

  We walked, since the DS is still in the garage and likely to be there for some time to come. The Citroën DS is the world's most comfortable car, but it has a hydraulic system as complicated as the French political system, to the point where you imagine that the one was modeled on the other. To get a part replaced takes a lot of patience and a second mortgage. So it's sitting in my garage and I'm on foot.

  Which is no bad thing on a bright morning. We walked up the lane bordered on one side by the allotments in question and on the other by a rise covered in thick brambles and alders and such. On the other side of that rise was the new council housing estate, where once there had been a great sloping pasture where sheep might safely graze. But no more. Ichabod, Ichabod, the glory has departed.

  "I used to come up there when I was a kid,” I told Eggy, seeking merely to pass the time, “to try and catch rabbits. It was a regular Rabbit City over there."

  Eggy gave this the respect it deserved and we walked on in an atmosphere of companiable introspection. Then we were at his allotment. Eggy opened a rickety gate, and beckoned me in. The allotment was an allotment, there's nothing much else you could say about it. Thirty yards long by ten yards wide. Ten poles (or rods or perches if you like). Hard by the entrance was a shed, gleaming with newness, and beyond, in serried ranks, were the furrows containing cabbages, leeks, potatoes, turnips, and what have you.

  Eggy fished out a bunch of keys. I had a quick look before he started faffing, but there didn't appear to be any untoward scratches. They weren't much cop, his locks.

  "I could open these with a piece of damp string,” I said. “It would take me a while, but I could."

  "Look,” he said, ignoring this, “they even wheeled up a cart to take me tools away. You can see the tracks."

  He was right. I could see the tracks. There were two sets of them and they led right up to the very door.

  "Cheeky articles,” Eggy said.

  "Funny sort of cart, though,” I said. “You don't see many carts that leave tracks like that."

  "Point is,” said Eggy, now on his third padlock, “they planned it like a military operation."

  He flung open the door. I don't know what I expected, but the inside of a shed was what there was inside, with a bench and a couple of chairs. It still smelled of new wood, and the floor planks creaked a little under our feet. Eggy hadn't, as another more conscientious shedbuilder might have done, laid a concrete foundation. He'd simply laid an aggregate bedding then spiked the foundation beams on that, laid his floor, and proceeded upwards. Not really the right way to go about building a shed. Not if you want it to last, that is.

  He was right about one thing, though—it was a real bazaar in there. There were tools everywhere, lying higgledy-piggledy in piles on the floor. There were one or two still hanging in their places on the walls.

  "See what I mean?” said Eggy. “Look at that. See, there's no window. So they picked the locks, started sorting the tools out, and then scarpered."

  "But they had the time to lock up after them. Presumably using the same piece of damp string."

  "It's a real mystery, in't it?"

  "Well, no actually,” I said. “At the mo, it's just a curiosity. The real mystery is what these crowbars are doing here. What particular gardening task needs crowbars? I thought you said you were going straight?"

  "I am!” He was very indignant at this; his little face got all creased and red. “Me uncle were a lorry driver—"

  "When he wasn't falling off office buildings,” I reminded him.

  "Don't speak ill of the dead, Mr. Tattersby. Me Uncle Ernie was much liked by all. A lot of these tools were his. I just hung ‘em up. It's always the same with you lot.” He was really nettled now. “Give a dog a bad name. It were the same pigging story down Priestley Road nick at the weekend."

  "What were you doing down at Priestley Road?” I asked. This was a slight deviation from the business in hand, but interesting.

  "That Crabtree pulled me in at five o'clock Sunday morning, kept me there all day and all night. When I should have been putting me shed up."

  "And what did D.S. Crabtree want with you?"

  "I dunno. Something about a post office job. It was all a load of bollocks. But he turned over the flat, went round and bothered me mum an
d everything."

  "Sadly, it often is a load of bollocks,” I said. “Come on, I've seen enough."

  While Eggy was locking up, I had a look at the geography. I always like to have a look at the geography when I'm on a crime scene, if you could call this a crime scene. There's always a reason for something happening in a particular place as opposed to any other. On one side we had the lane. On the other side there were the allotments and then the gardens belonging to those old Victorian houses in Emersley Road. There was an old Victorian householder looking over his wall at us. I nudged Eggy and indicated the watcher. Eggy strolled off down the thirty yards or so to the end of the allotment. The little man watched us come without moving.

  "Now then, Mr. Mosscrop,” Eggy said.

  The little man nodded.

  "Now, Cyril,” he said, “how you doing? Sorry to hear about your Uncle Ernie. He was all right, was your uncle."

  I must have known once upon a time that Eggy's real name was Cyril, but I'd forgotten it, or more probably suppressed it.

  "Thank you, Mr. Mosscrop,” Eggy said. “This is my friend, Mr. Tattersby.” The small man nodded amiably at me as well.

  "How do,” he said.

  "He's having a look at my shed,” said Eggy. “Someone's been mucking about in there."

  "Oh aye? That'll likely be kids, will that."

  "You haven't heard anything going on, have you?"

  "Oh there's always something going on,” he said. “That lane's known for it. And there was a right to-do last Sunday night. Shouting and scuffling and carrying on. Some of us came out to have a look, but it was too dark to make anything out. They quietened down, anyway."

  "What time was that?” I asked. The question habit dies hard.

  "Midnight near enough."

  But that, it turned out, was the sum total of Mr. Mosscrop's knowledge. After some traditional exchanges on the weather, followed by expressions of mutual esteem, we left him.

  "What d'you think?” Eggy said.

  "Well, it's hardly the Great Train Robbery, is it?"

  "No, but something's going on. Somebody's after me tools."

  I sighed. “I'll ask around, but it's hardly worth it. It's probably kids. Although..."

  "What?"

  "Has it occurred to you, Eggy, that you might have bought a haunted shed?"

  "I what?"

  "Oh, it's rare, I'll give you that. But it could be a mischievous spirit that doesn't like tools. Or you."

  "Oh. Well, thanks a bunch for that,” he said. “I didn't have enough worries."

  I left Eggy to plow his lonely furrow. Not that I believed in the existence of an evil shed-dwelling, tool-throwing spirit, but it pays to keep people on their toes.

  I walked back home and bought some fish and chips on the way. While I was eating my frugal repast straight out of the paper on my knees, the phone rang. Sod's Law, Subsection One: When Thou Hast A Mouthful Of Haddock, Then Shall Some Bugger Decide To Call Thee.

  Linda, my daughter and personal Steering Committee, said, without preamble, “Can you please turn that music down? I can hardly hear myself think."

  Linda is very keen on thinking, because her husband, Gordon, is an industrial psychologist, if you please. They live over in Manchester. Well, somebody has to, I suppose.

  I turned the music down. I was playing an old record of my father's, Peter Dawson singing Songs of the Fleet. I used to love those songs when I was a kid. They made me think of blue water and battlesmoke and buried treasure. Still do, funny enough.

  "Why is it so echo-ey?” she said.

  "It's echo-ey because I'm in an empty echo-ey room, thanks to your mother."

  "Oh, I see,” she said, “you're listening to your manky old records and reading your old crime novels."

  "There's nothing wrong with crime novels. You can learn a lot from crime novels."

  "Yes, you can. I bet Phillip Spade or Sam Marlowe didn't lounge about feeling sorry for themselves. They got out and solved stuff."

  "First,” I said, “it's the other way round; secondly, I'm not feeling sorry for myself; and thirdly, I'm not doing a lot of lounging just at the moment because your mother took the sofa."

  "You are feeling sorry for yourself. You've shaved your mustache off for a start. I can tell from your voice."

  How does she do that?

  "You always shave it off when you're being a martyr. And now you're blaming it all on Mum."

  "No I'm not. It was my fault for telling her to take whatever she wanted, which turned out to be pretty much everything except the wallpaper which she'd never really fancied. How is the old bat anyway?"

  "I've warned you about this, Dad,” she said. “I'm not getting into a three-way slanging match with you and Mum. She's all right, as it happens. She and Auntie Maureen have found a house they like, and they're moving in, in a month, I think."

  "That Maureen,” I said, “is certifiably loopy. Can you imagine what that household's going to be like?"

  "I don't bother imagining,” she said, “and neither should you. You've got too much time on your hands, that's your problem. You've never been an easy man, Dad. And then when you got chucked out of the police—"

  "Retired."

  "All right then, when you retired, you were bloody impossible. After twenty-three years of you never being there, wandering in at all hours, suddenly she had you on her hands twenty-four seven. She realized she didn't like you enough to put up with you lurking round the house, looking out the windows, obsessing on about Tommy Backhouse and the great conspiracy."

  "So it was all paranoid delusions was it, is that what you're saying?"

  "Dad, face it, you've always been paranoid."

  "Nothing wrong with paranoia,” I said. “'The man who is not paranoid is a man who is not in possession of all the facts.’ Gore Vidal."

  "Stuff Gore Vidal,” she said. “He doesn't live up your way, unless something's going on I haven't heard about. You should get out and do something. Go and buy some furniture."

  "Linda,” I said, “after the vast personal loan I had to take out to buy your mother's share of the house off her, and after the whack she gets out of my pension, I don't have any money to go throwing around on furniture. Anyway, I've got a chair."

  That much was true. I also had a bed and a kettle. More than that no man needs. I told her so.

  "Pure self pity, is that. Well, it's got to stop. It's seven months since you got—since you left the police, and it's four months since Mum left, and that's enough. You've got to get off your bum and take charge again."

  Here it came. My regular dose of psychotherapy.

  "All your life you've been in charge of things. And suddenly people were doing things to you, chucking you out of the police force, divorcing you. You've got to get back on top, take charge again, of something. Anything. No matter how piddling and inconsequential it is."

  "As a matter of fact,” I said, “somebody did ask me to to look into something like that only this morning. Very piddling and extremely inconsequential."

  "Well, do it. Get out and do it. And Dad—"

  "What is it,” I sighed, reflecting that you can be an ex-copper, an ex-husband, but never an ex-father.

  "I love you, even if you are a grumpy, paranoid ex-copper."

  Yes. Well, maybe being an ex-father wouldn't be all that wonderful anyway.

  I love my daughter dearly, but like all women, she has a knack of bringing up exactly the subject you didn't want brought up. I'd been trying, unsuccessfully, not to think about Tommy Backhouse for seven months. I'd just about got it cracked and there you are. With one careless remark, Linda sent me hurtling back a year and a half. To a time when there was more furniture in this room. A sofa, for example.

  * * * *

  Tommy is sitting on the sofa, looking into the fire, looking very relaxed and expansive. I'm fixing us a drink. Scotch for me, brandy and soda for him. Expensive tastes, our Tommy has, and always had. He's a big man, large face, plent
y of teeth that have never felt the dentist's drill. He's wearing a suit that couldn't have been built outside of London and shoes to match.

  He grins at me when I give him his glass.

  "Pauline not in tonight, then?” he says.

  "Come on, Tommy,” I say. “Tonight's her origami class. But you knew that already, or you wouldn't be here."

  "Don't be so bloody sensitive, Harry,” he says. The way he says bloody is still a little weird. He has the same accent as most of us, but from time to time there's just a little hiccup, a tiny mispronunciation or an odd emphasis that tells you he's not from round here.

  "Cheers,” he says and lifts his glass to me. “Here's to you, Harry. To your continued success."

  "You talking about me?” I say.

  "Seriously, Harry, you've done very well."

  "D.I. at the age of forty-four is hardly meteoric, Tommy."

  "And you know why, Harry. You're a founder member of the awkward squad. You just won't fit in. You never were a joiner. I can remember you in the playground at Skeffington Road."

  I can remember him too, and I can remember refusing to be in his gang. That cost me a beating-up.

  "The eternal rebel, Harry. And the pity of it is it doesn't have to be like that. You don't have to stay a D.I. for the rest of your days."

  "All it needs is a little helping hand, is it?"

  "A little help goes a long way. Remember me? A little snot-nosed refugee who could hardly speak English, and now look."

  "I am,” I say, “one of the most important men in town, perhaps the most important, what do I know? Big comfortable house, nice wife, nice big plant-hire company, nice comfy seat on the council, and lots of nice powerful friends."

  "All right, I have a lot of friends—what's wrong with that? You could be one of them."

  "I like to choose my friends, Tommy."

  "Don't be so bloody minded, Harry. Yes, I've got a long arm, and there could be a helping hand at the end of it."

  "I sense an ‘if’ there, Tommy. If what?"

  He's silent for a moment, staring into the fire and shaking his head slightly.

  "Why are you asking questions, Harry? Why do I keep hearing that people have been taken aside and quietly interrogated?"