by Gill Mather
"Well, she doesn’t like waste. You don’t either do you?"
"No but there's no logic to keeping it once it can't be eaten any longer."
"Poor Fyodore," crooned Orielle, kissing the cat on his neck. "Haven't you found a home yet? He was here just before you turned up then he vanished. He hasn’t been speyed. I think he's homeless. I was feeding him for a week or so. I was going to take him in but then he disappeared. Probably off looking for likely females. Weren't you you naughty boy." She kissed him again.
"You'll catch something yourself if you keep doing that."
Orielle smiled and kissed the cat some more.
"How do you know he's called Fyodore?"
"Well I don’t. I gave him that name."
"So even a cat has to have a name and a home."
"Yes. Of course you do don’t you," she crooned again at the purring feline. "If he keeps coming back this time, we'll definitely have to take him in. You'll have to keep him indoors for several weeks while we're at work to get him used to living here and being fed here. And we'll have to get him speyed."
Triss looked at the cat's rear end consideringly. Then he looked away and shook his head. “Perhaps,” he said, “I should get it done myself. It would get rid of at least one physical urge.”
"Oh," said Orielle, surprised. So he did have urges then! "Well anyway, come on, let's cut up the steak and give it to him before Georgie comes out."
IT WAS COLD OUTSIDE and starting to rain a bit so they went into the house shortly after. Orielle tried hard to get Fyodore to follow them in but he wouldn't.
"The awkward wretched feline," she said.
"Well there's an expression about herding cats isn't there. It obviously doesn’t work," said Triss.
Crossly, Orielle got out her laptop and set it up on their dining table plonking herself down on one of the unmatching chairs around it. Triss sat darning an old sock he'd picked up somewhere, threadbare but clean. Georgie was up in her room.
"Triss, that sock isn't worth saving. You're as bad as Georgie and her rotting fridge scraps. Look it's worn through almost in several other places and I don’t think it's even one of a pair is it? It's a complete waste of time."
"If you understood what time really is, you wouldn't say that. It makes no sense."
Orielle sighed and got on with logging into her bank account. Or at least she would have but hunting through her bag, she couldn't find her wallet with her bank cards in it.
"Oh no!" she wailed. "I left my wallet on my desk this afternoon when I had to look out my NI number. Damn! I need to pay off my credit card or it'll be too late and they'll charge me interest. And I hope it'll be safe there and won't get nicked, the characters that pass through that office!" Agitated, she turned the card reader over in her hands. Triss looked up just as the door bell rang. Orielle put down the reader and went to answer it. She brought back with her a well-dressed attractive woman in her early thirties.
"This is Teresa a barrister at the chambers," she said. "Teresa. This is Tristram. He's our….er….lodger."
"Yes, I think we've met in reception," said Teresa with interest.
"Hello," said Triss.
"Look. Teresa's brought my wallet."
"The cleaner brought it to me actually. I was in a bit later finishing off an interview with someone."
"Thanks Teresa. I was worried it might get nicked, you know by one of the cons maybe. Can I get you a cup of tea or something. Glass of wine perhaps?"
"Well I could probably manage a small glass. I don’t think there's much point trying to go anywhere just now. Cowdray Avenue is practically at a stand still at the moment."
Orielle poured a glass of Chardonnay for Teresa and one for herself.
"Teresa, you don’t mind if I do this internet banking while you're sitting there do you? Georgie and I are going out soon to our salsa class and I must get my credit card paid off. Triss'll entertain you!" It'd do him good she thought to have to talk to someone else and got on with logging in. However ignoring her suggestion Triss said to Orielle:
"I’m fairly sure that if you gave me the eight digit number produced by that card reading device, I could work out your online membership number and passcode. It might take some time.”
"It'd take forever I should think," said Teresa laughing.
Orielle agreed and handed Triss the numbers on a scrap of paper. It took him three minutes. He handed Orielle the piece of paper back with her internet banking membership number and pass code which she'd especially memorised written on it.
Teresa looked on sceptically.
“How do you do that? How did he do that?” Teresa said to Orielle. “You told him the membership number and passcode right? Or he saw you input them.”
“It’s just a process of elimination,” said Tristram seriously. “Anyone could do it given time. Or a sophisticated computer program I suppose.”
“So the system isn't secure then? Is that what you’re saying?” Teresa asked.
“Well I’d need to know a set of eight digit numbers produced by the device for this particular card first. I suppose one could get that from the hard drive of the PC. Getting it any other way could be difficult unless of course someone told you a set of numbers or wrote it down for some reason and left it lying about. And then to do anything with it I’d have to have that particular bank card for the chip embedded into it and a reader, though any reader would do. But then yes I suppose one could get into someone’s online banking quite easily and make transactions.”
“Well never mind,” said Orielle wishing Teresa hadn't been here to witness that. “It’s all done now. We can get ready to go out soon.”
Teresa looked at Tristram strangely. “So you’re living here, right?”
“I’m given somewhere to sleep.”
“That’s what I meant.” She looked meaningfully at Orielle. She thinks Triss is going to start stealing from me, Orielle thought. I’ll have to speak to her tomorrow and tell her it’s a party trick we’ve been rehearsing to fill in the breaks during the quiz evenings they had started to do, Triss having got over his mood and having suitably toned down his questions. In fact it went through her mind that it would make quite a good trick during the intervals to entertain the punters. Take a Barclays Bank card reader with them and ask a member of the audience to use their card to obtain an eight digit number after which Triss could work out the internet banking membership number and password. Then she thought perhaps not. People probably wouldn't co-operate, thinking at the very least it would compromise their banking security. Or if it could be made to work, the subject would think afterwards that they’d have to go to the trouble to changing their membership number and password. And worse still if word got around about what Tristram was doing, it would probably cause quite a stir and they couldn't risk that. No. It was a non-starter and it was too complicated anyway. But perhaps they could think of something else less sensitive along similar lines. Maybe invite people to bring old newspapers to the quiz and get Triss to recall selected sections. Or take a calculator and get Triss to do complicated long division sums in his head. Something like that. She'd ask him about it.
Orielle realised that she’d been off staring into space for quite a few minutes, but when she looked over, Teresa was also very pensive, but she left soon after that. Thank goodness, thought Orielle. She was about to suggest to Triss not to attempt anything like that again in front of someone else when she saw Tristram was looking at her open wallet on the table with the photo uppermost of her erstwhile two-timing advertising exec boyfriend.
“Oh, it’s just someone I used to know,” she said.
“I know who it is and what he did.”
“Really! Yes, `course you do! Well he’s going in the bin now. Best place for him. Or better still, down the toilet!”
And she whipped out the photo, tore it into small pieces and went off into the hall. A few seconds later the toilet could be heard to flush. She came back into the lounge-cum-dining
room drawing her hands down the sides of her skirt, so practically and metaphorically wiping her hands of the faithless wretch.
THE COLCHESTER AUTUMN wore on. Orielle signed her training contract and got her car, just a little Fiat but considerably newer than Hugh's old four wheel drive. She also booked herself onto a police station representative course. The leaves on the trees of Castle Park were turning various shades of warm russet and would soon be gone completely and although Orielle liked her car, she missed the twice daily walk through the park and the drive often took longer than the walk would have done unless she left really early in the mornings before the traffic built up.
The quiz evenings were goinh well. Orielle helped with collecting the fees, the various announcements trying to introduce some levity into the proceedings and with the scoring. Triss agreed to the "tricks" in the intervals, memory tests and complicated multiplication and long division sums. The evenings were no huge money spinner but they did enable Triss to buy himself a second hand bed and some bed linen and move into the small spare box room and have a little savings left over. Georgie heaved a sigh and put up with it. To pay for his keep, she marshalled Triss into cleaning the house while the girls were out at work and would have made him cook their dinner but he said he really couldn't do it especially if meat was involved without feeling sick which put her off completely though she still got him to prep the veg. He was hopeless at shopping too, taking everything literally. When Georgie put two bags of carrots on the list, he came back with two huge carrier bags full to bursting. He also wouldn't go in the meat aisles at all. Again it made him feel sick. And he had to pay in cash so the girls had to make sure they drew out enough for the shopping.
The housework wasn't that consistent either. Sometimes Triss would just spend days on a particular task such as cleaning the toilet to the exclusion of everything else, trying he said to clean to at least a molecular level if not an atomic one.
Clothes washing was another thing that didn't go too well. Triss wanted to use soap flakes or nothing and was keen on hanging the clothes out to dry instead of using the, he said, wasteful tumble dryer. As a result, the washing started to go mouldy as there were so few good drying days. At his suggestion they invested in a laundry ball which was supposed to get washing clean without detergent but Georgie complained that she could still smell Triss’s male body odour on the sheets. To begin with she asked him not to get his own bed linen mixed up with theirs but banned the balls completely after deciding her bras and panties were starting to look grey and unwashed. So they went back to each doing their own washing.
While Georgie could rant and rave until the cows came home, Triss had an iron resolve and when he’d decided on a course, he was immovable. Totally. Georgie would attempt to lock horns with him over some issue but he’d refuse to be drawn in and Georgie would be left fuming at no-one because Triss would just start to read a book and answer her entreaties pleasantly but firmly and she’d become speechless with rage, almost apoplectic. Orielle, while entertained, worried a good deal about Georgie’s heart and blood pressure. She mentioned it to Triss once but he said Georgie was as strong as an ox and since he seemed to know most things, she accepted it and stopped worrying.
The house could have done with decorating and Georgie discussed it with Triss but abandoned the idea after hearing his views on noxious chemicals and his preference for natural materials. He wanted to use milk paint saying he wasn't prepared to pollute their living space with conventional toxic solvents. Georgie had never heard of such a thing. Neither had Orielle. They decided the house could wait until the spring
So, as the residents got used to each others’ likes and dislikes, life at the little house near the park fell into a gentle routine, and Orielle found that she was in fact deeply contented.
CHAPTER 8
ORIELLE HAD HAD a helluva day. First she’d been sent by Peter to interview an elderly man, Major Higgs, who alleged he couldn't get into the office and who’d been charged with cheque fraud and other types of deception. The house was packed with antiques which Orielle tried hard to ignore including some nineteenth century printing equipment, many magnifying glasses and different inks. The man had turned out to be very sprightly indeed and had tried hard to sell her a scroll which he said was one of the first official copy extracts from the Magna Carta. He said it was made from the skin of beheaded noblemen and became very insistent about it. Her spirits plummeted as she realised she must look completely gullible for him to make such a pitch to her. She found it impossible to pin the man down on any subject. The statement she’d taken was sketchy as a result and when she’d typed it up back at the office and taken it to Peter he hadn’t been too pleased and said she shouldn't allow seasoned cons to overwhelm her.
“But the man was impossible!”
“Well you’ve got to show them who’s boss. He’s on legal aid. We’re on a budget. We need to get the necessary material as quickly and efficiently as possible.” Orielle tried not to think about all the antiques in the house. But with his track record, they were probably all fakes. She’d better believe that.
“Next time,” said Peter, “I’ll come with you and show you how it’s done.”
“But he could come into the office without any difficulty. There’s nothing wrong with him.”
“Yes there is,” said Peter determinedly. “It’s part of his defence that he couldn't have committed the offence because he can only hobble along with a stick and needs to take regular rests.” He looked down. “And he has an old army injury to his right arm that means his writing is impaired making it impossible for him to have forged the signature. I shall be defending him in court on that basis.”
Orielle sighed. “In that case, I’d better go back and see him on my own.”
“Perhaps you should then. Take Edna with you.” Edna was Peter’s no-nonsense secretary who’d come with him from his old chambers, well into her sixties who refused to be retired.
The afternoon was spent drafting an application for a judicial review of a number of points in a rape case. She’d had to dig out various old files to help her draft the application plus she’d researched precedents online but nothing seemed to exactly fit the circumstances of this case. After struggling for several hours, she ran it off and took it to Hugh.
“No, no. This won't do Orielle. You’ve only got half the salient points here. You know the application’s got to be in by tomorrow. Sorry but you’ll have to stay until you’ve got it right.”
And it was already four fifteen Orielle noted, looking surreptitiously at the wall clock.
So she didn't get home until seven thirty and was none too pleased as she put her key in the lock to hear her mobile sounding and seeing it was her mum. She nearly let it go to voicemail. Her mother normally was just after information. How was work? Had she got over the advertising exec? What was her boss like? She’d seen photos of him online. Was he married? How was she settling into the house? Had she got a new boyfriend yet? If not, why not? She was only young once. Etc, etc.
But of course she did answer it. She always did.
She wondered to begin with if the mobile was malfunctioning and some stranger’s wrong number had come up as her mother’s number. There was a shrill wailing at the other end. Sobbing, loud sniffing back of snot. It flashed through her mind that her mother had been abducted. Or had been in some major disaster and was making her last calls to her loved ones while she was still able to.
“Mum?” she said holding the `phone against her shoulder as she got in the door and started to shake off her mack.
“It’s terrible,” said her mother and the wailing started up again.
“What’s happened?” Orielle shouted down the `phone. If only she could have been so firm this morning with the Major.
“It’s your brother,” her mother sobbed. “He’s been charged with attempted murder!”
“Which brother?”
Her mother instantly sharpened up. “Why Will of course!”
There was no “of course” about it as far as Orielle was concerned. To the best of her knowledge, both her brothers were capable of unwittingly getting into all sorts of scrapes. They shared their cousins’ propensity to get the most out of life and damning the consequences. It must be genetic through their mothers’ genes.
“When?”
“Last night. We didn't find out until this afternoon and by that time he’d been interviewed and charged.”
“Didn't he come home last night? Didn't you worry?”
“You know they often don't come home after a night out.” And she started wailing again.
“Hang on mum. Calm down. What happened?”
“You know what it’s like at nights on the streets,” her mother said through sobs. Orielle did know. She’d had more than a few nights out in Newcastle and it could get pretty rough. Anyone with any sense would keep their heads down at times. But of course Will and Ben had no sense at all.
“Yes but that doesn't tell me what happened. How it happened.”
“We don't know.”
“What do you mean you don't know.”
“Your brother can't remember.”
“Well what about Ben? Wasn't he with Will?”
“He can't remember either!”
Oh great! She could imagine why. Both tanked up to their eyeballs. Paralytic no doubt.
“So what’s the situation at the moment?”
“Will’s got to spend another night in jail then in the morning there’s a bail hearing.”
“Has he got a Solicitor?”
“Yes.” Her mother named someone. Well that wasn't so bad Orielle thought. He was well known in Newcastle and well regarded though attempted murder was really serious.
“If Will doesn't remember, then what are the police saying happened?”
“Just the usual thing. Someone said something and someone else didn't like it and someone threw a punch and a bundle started. Someone’s given a statement that Will went outside with this other lad and beat him up and he’s seriously ill now in hospital. On life support!” she wailed. “Several people say they saw it happen.” She could hear her mum’s Geordie accent, normally carefully suppressed, coming out loud and clear just now.
