The Best British Mysteries 3 - [Anthology]

by Edited by Maxim Jakubowski

  Yeah, we’re social on the doorstep, in ways the people left inside just aren’t. That’s what I find. I mean, I haven’t done, like, the kind of research you read about in the papers, but it’s my experience, and I’m not special or different. I’m just ordinary. So I bet it’s true.

  There’s other things that follow from us being on the doorsteps. I mean, we’re out there at times when before everybody - us included - was inside. I won’t go so far as to say I think we’re healthier than our workmates because of the fresh air we get, but if some clever clogs did research that said so, it wouldn’t knock me down with a feather. And another thing is we see things that didn’t used to get seen, you know? We’re bound to, aren’t we? Being as how we’re out there looking around when nobody used to. So that’s the thing with smoking, there’s cons but there’s also pros.

  I work at Evening Eye, a fair size factory for the Marston Trading Estate - we have thirty-eight of us on the production side. I don’t know what ‘Evening Eye’ made when Jake, the owner, first picked the name. That was back when the factory was in the town centre, and before my time. But you have to be flexible to keep a business above water these days, what with the market ups and downs and all the new technological stuff. You have to be ready to respond to the market. Jake says so, and it makes sense. Whatever he made back then, now we make handbags. Not lumpy everyday bags a housewife will chuck all and sundry into. We’re up-market, us. We make evening accessories for the posh and famous. Not Posh herself, yet, but lots of other rich people, some of them so posh I’ve never even heard of them.

  Our bags are finest quality made from the best materials. A third of our output is filling special orders, but we do bread-and-butter top gear too, sold in high-tone catalogues and in places like Harrods. Not like Harrods. In Harrods. Well, you know what I mean.

  All of it, even the catalogue stuff, is handcrafted. It sells for a bomb. We’re in the haute fashion industry, so it ought to.

  Evie says back when we were in town Jake didn’t let us smoke on the factory floor either, because of the combustibility of stuff like the silks and velvets. But back then you could smoke in the canteen, no problem. Out here he doesn’t even have a canteen. A sandwich wagon parks down the street every day in front of the double-glazing place. If you don’t bring your own, that’s where you get your grub. Unless you’re one of them that goes off-site for lunch every day. I say them, but I mean only the one who does that on a regular basis, from the thirty-eight of us on the floor.

  Evie says Jake moved the business during really hard years when lots of companies were going under. He survived by selling up the town site, moving to the unit in the trading estate, and using the cash difference to retool. Committed to Evening Eye, is Jake. It’s his life and soul, anybody can see that. It doesn’t make him likeable, but we respect him for it. And the business is still here, even if the thirty-eight of us used to be ninety-six of us when he was in town, according to Evie.

  Evie used to be a smoker, like me. She tried to stop half a dozen times, and then all of a sudden it worked. She doesn’t know why. There aren’t nearly so many smokers now as there used to be, only three now, among the thirty-eight. But we three nowadays get together on the doorstep with the mattress-makers from across the road and the double-glazing people and the carpets man and the something-to-do-with-cars people. All the smokers of this section of the estate smoke together. And we have a good laugh. As I said, in some ways it’s more social than it’s ever been.

  Which is just as well, because back inside, at work, it’s less social than it used to be. Jake has never been an easy-going guy, but now he’s being monster-boss. That’s because he’s discovered that somebody’s nicking.

  What’s missing is from our catalogue bags. I don’t have the list of what’s gone, but I’ve seen Jake wave it around. It seems the thieving began when he went on holiday last June. That’s four - no, I tell a lie - that’s three and a half months ago. Not many bags - we don’t mass produce them - but enough to notice, obviously. Not enough to make a serious dent in profits, but enough to make a serious dent in Jake’s mood. He’s been on a rampage all week. Eight days. Eight work days. Since he discovered it.

  Now, this week, he’s put in a new policy. Each day when we leave work we’re all going to be searched. Someone will look in our bags - a bit ironic that - and even check our persons. Evie’s in charge. She’s been around so long, Jake trusts her.

  Not all the girls do, mind. ‘Who’s going to search Evie?’ one of them asked when Jake announced the new policy last Friday so we’d have the weekend to think about it. But she didn’t ask very loud and Jake didn’t answer. That was Sandra who asked. Bit of a rebel, Sandra. She’s one of the ones they suspect, I think.

  I don’t mind if Evie searches me. She can pat me down all she likes, so long as she doesn’t tickle.

  Sandra is not the number one suspect, though. The girls have another prime candidate. Linda. And the reason is that Linda is the one who goes off-site for lunch every day. Well, almost every day. You can tell ahead which days, because ahead of time - when we break for elevenses - Linda calls for a cab.

  Yep, a cab. You see her make the call on her mobile. And then you see the cab pull up at one. And then a couple of minutes to two she’s back - by cab again. Where does she go? some ask. How can she afford it? most ask.

  Especially now. Now somebody’s nicking.

  They also don’t like Linda much because she isn’t social. She’s not a smoker - that goes without saying - but she doesn’t mix much over coffees and teas either. Keeps herself to herself. Hasn’t been here all that long. All Evie knows about her is that she’s married to a tarmac layer and they have a kiddie at school. Even when she doesn’t go off on her taxi ride at lunch time she doesn’t hang out with the girls. Keeps herself to herself. Reads. Books. Well, no wonder they’re suspicious of her.

  I reckon - though Evie’s never said it - I reckon that the whole search thing at the end of the day is just a way to justify searching Linda’s bag - and her person, if necessary. I think they have to search everybody in order to search the one they suspect.

  Poor cow, Linda, I don’t think she even knows they suspect her. She does her job, keeps herself to herself, thinks she’s all right. Lost in her own world. Doesn’t notice anything she doesn’t have to notice, you know the type. She’s not social. If you’re social, you’re interested in what your workmates are up to. OK, maybe not to the extent of keeping track of every new tooth of every baby in every family - especially if you’re not lumbered with kids yourself and have no bloody plans to be. Gee, who could I be describing here?

  And I also think that Jake and Evie figure that even if they don’t catch anybody in flagrante delicto, at least the searches will put an end to the nicking.

  I’m sure Jake would sorely love to catch somebody - I know men like Jake. Well, he is a man, so he’s like the others, isn’t he? He hates the idea that somebody’s putting something over on him. He says it’s because he thinks of us as one big family at Evening Eye. He says anybody robbing him is robbing us all. But the truth is he doesn’t like some woman - because it’s all women here, except for him - he doesn’t like the idea of some woman cocking two fingers at him.

  They’re all the same, these guys. Guys in charge of women. I ought to know. I’ve known enough.

  And I know something else. Jake is not going to catch Linda out. He can wait all day to pounce, search her big pouchy bag and her bouncy bra. Even look inside one of her books to see if the pages have been carved out.

  Do you know why?

  It’s because what they think is the evidence against her isn’t. They ask, how can she afford all those cabs? She must go off in the taxi three, four times a week, and then back again. Who on earth in Evening Eye has money for that? And if she does, where does she get it from?

  I wouldn’t put it past Jake to follow Linda around out of hours, to try to find where she sells the bags she supposedly nicks. Try to
catch her going to a market and approaching a fashion trader who’ll give her a tenth what they retail for in Harrods, and she’ll be grateful for it.

  But he can’t follow her all day and all night.

  If he wants to know about Linda, what he ought to do is take up smoking. He ought to come out on the doorstep where I go and see what I see while I’m out there.

  I told you, smokers these days, we see things that other people don’t. If Jake was to come out with me on the doorstep, and pay attention, he’d see Linda come out there or four times a week to her waiting taxi. And he’d see her arrive back at work at two minutes to two. Regular as clockwork.

  But what he’d also see is that it’s always the same taxi. Linda’s shagging the taxi driver. Obvious. To anybody who cares to look. If any money’s changing hands, it isn’t coming out of Linda’s purse. That’s what Jake would see if he came out to socialise with the smokers.

  But I very much hope he doesn’t. If he was to start hanging out with us smokers it would put a serious cramp in my style. That’s because it’s me who is taking the occasional bag, and passing it over to Molly from the double-glazing at break times for her to sell to her mate on the market.

  She gets a tenth what they sell for in Harrods. So I get a twentieth. But that’s fine with me. Every little bit helps. Not least because they’re bloody expensive these days, cigarettes.

  <>

  * * * *

  Jon Courtenay Grimwood

  The Spy’s Retirement

  I have faced the cavalry of Ayub Khan and ridden a war pony stolen from the Pashtu, as its owner swept down a rocky gully behind me, brandishing a rifle. I rode with Karim Bey across the Wild Pass in the Serbian rebellion of seventy-eight. I have seen a major in the Bengal Lancers take a wild pig through the fundament, only to have his spear bury itself into sun-baked mud beneath.

  Good days. I miss them.

  My name is Colonel John Hamish Watson, late of the Bombay Sappers and Miners. I know the weight behind a charging horse. I have faced it and lived. Four fine horses harnessed to a carriage whipped by one of the Queen’s own coachmen carries enough force to smash a stone wall. So you will understand why I had little hope for the fool who stepped into my path on the high road through Kingston upon Thames.

  There was, of course, little reason for my coachman to be whipping his horses so fast but I like to make my journeys at speed; the empire is large, the number of us who play the game surprisingly small and the rules complex, as you will realise from the fact I fought at Stara Planina with Karim Bey rather than the Serbs.

  The first I knew of disaster was a shout from Hunter, followed by the frantic neighing of his horses and a thud. Something heavy catapulted across the roof of the carriage and tore varnished canvas above my head. A woman shouted, and the carriage tipped sideways.

  We travelled maybe five paces before the first of the horses went down, tripping that behind. The scream of a wounded animal is something one never loses. It was such a scream, heard in the hills behind Kandahar, which convinced me Mr Darwin was correct and we did not, after all, rank between the angels and the animals. A man with his leg badly broken sounds little different to a horse in similar straits.

  Using a window, which now showed only clouds, weak sunlight and the grey of an English sky, I crawled from the carriage, to find Hunter already knelt beside the head of a magnificent grey, tears in his eyes.

  ‘Done for,’ Hunter said. ‘Legs, ribs... All broken.’ For Hunter this was almost a speech.

  ‘Bad luck,’ I said. Undoing my loden coat, I loosened a holster that kept a Bulldog in place. ‘Here.’

  Taking my proffered revolver in silence, the coachman put its blunt muzzle to the side of his horse’s head.

  ‘At the back,’ I suggested, ‘or directly from the front. I can do it if you’d rather.’

  Hunter stared at me, although it’s unlikely he saw much.

  ‘Let me,’ I said, and when he looked doubtful, in as much as a face carved from Irish oak can carry that expression, I admitted something few people know about me. ‘I have a fine understanding of anatomy.’

  ‘You, sir?’

  ‘I used to be a surgeon.’

  There are advantages in my world to being seen as a coldblooded killer, and to admit to saving as many as I had killed. Such admissions can do harm. Although the truth is far stranger, because I have killed fewer people than most believe and saved many more than I am prepared to admit.

  Taking the revolver from Hunter, I clicked back the hammer and clambered across a broken shaft to reach the animal’s head. Speak kindly and most people will give you their trust. The same applies to animals. With one hand I stroked the dying animal and with the other I put my revolver between its eyes and pulled the trigger. It died with a kick and a spasm, but the fact its skull contained myriad cavities did much to baffle the sound and gave me an idea for later.

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ Hunter said, thus using up another week’s worth of words.

  It was only then I remembered the unfortunate cause of our crash. I could see where he lay by the interest his agony attracted. A smaller crowd had come together around my wrecked carriage, drawn by its quality, but a far larger crowd was gathered a dozen paces behind this, and it was here the human cause and casualty of our accident lay.

  They grew quiet at my approach, the crowd. Men fell back and women looked away, averting their eyes. A small girl burst into tears and a youth old enough to know better stared openly into my face. That was when I realised it was my revolver which earned their silence.

  ‘You have killed me...’ The voice was high, slightly strange and the man who spoke indeed looked on the edge of death, which was an improvement on what I had been expecting.

  ‘It is always a bad idea to step in front of a moving carriage,’ I replied, unwilling to have him meet God believing the fault mine.

  ‘Please,’ he said, ‘fetch me a doctor...’

  He had the hollow face of a classics master and the fingers of a second violinist, somewhat bitten around the nails. Behind me, I could hear muttering and a woman bustled forward, mouth already opening to share her news. ‘A doctor recently took residence in a street behind.’ Several of the crowd began to agree, and one, a clerk from his dress, which was careful if none too clean, crouched beside me and offered to fetch this man.

  I am a...

  I almost said those words aloud, but instead I gave the clerk a guinea, to show the doctor his fee would be paid and told the man to run as swiftly as possible. Had I done what first occurred to me and announced myself a medical man, my coming retirement might have been very different.

  ‘Tell your doctor to hurry,’ I said. ‘This patient needs urgent attention.’

  A man running is always a ridiculous sight and the clerk confirmed this fact, his feet slapping cold cobbles and his elbows flexing like the wings of a game bird. A handful of seconds after he started, he disappeared down a narrow alley in a sideways skid that almost had him on his back. With nothing else to occupy the seconds, I sat back and waited.

  Close examination of human blood has taught me three things. It is as thick as paint, it is surprisingly nutritious and, finally, like excreta, we do not find that our own excites a reflex of disgust.

  The man lying on cobbles kept gagging at the taste of the watery red liquid which dribbled from his lips, and it was this that gave him away. A sponge, I guessed, hidden in the corner of his mouth and worked by his tongue. Chicken’s blood, most probably, it looked too thin for pig.

  His legs lay at strange angles, no bones visible through the cheap tweed of his trousers but obviously broken, at least, obviously broken to those who did not know how such breaks looked in real life.

  If the clerk had looked ridiculous, the doctor was even more so, his short legs pumping and his face as red at that of a Sioux brave. He wore a frock coat that had seen better days and once belonged to someone else; unless our man had shrunk several inches in height as
he filled out around his waist.

  ‘Stand back,’ he demanded. ‘Stand back.’

  Those around the injured man did as they were told.

  ‘Ahh,’ said the doctor, seeing me stand alone. ‘You must be the unfortunate owner of that unhappy...’ Shrewd eyes flicked from my carriage, which had him frowning, to my clothes, which seemed to put his mind at ease.

  ‘A shocking accident,’ he said, ‘most shocking.’ A refrain quickly taken up by a woman in the crowd and then by several people around her.

  Kneeling, the doctor touched his hand to the victim’s throat in a manner that would have been entirely convincing had be been checking a body for a pulse. Since the patient’s eyes could be seen fluttering in his head such checking seemed entirely redundant.

  Next the doctor reached inside the thin man’s coat to feel for his heart, and when the doctor took his hand away, his fingers were red with blood. This was enough to make a woman faint. Needless to say, it was the woman who’d first taken up his refrain and as she fell, she twisted to land elegantly, revealing rather more ankle than was seemly.