by Dan Kavanagh
So it was only Henry and Sally, sitting at opposite ends of the pink chintz sofa, who watched Duffy break off — none of this fancy stuff, just a normal prod with a touch of right-hand side — in the best-of-five Braunscombe Hall snooker final. When Damian offered a little bet, Duffy replied, ‘I should have thought the satisfaction of winning was enough.’ When Damian started chatting to Sally, Duffy suggested that such conversation as there might be should only be about the frame in progress and not about whether Petronella Pipedream’s Pimms Party was on Tuesday or Wednesday. When Damian left his cube of blue cue chalk on the rail, Duffy pointed this out as a breach of etiquette and asked him to remove it before his next shot. Duffy played it very cool, and he also played it carefully, suspecting that Damian was one of these players who might auto-destruct when under the cosh.
Sally retired to bed, or so she said, but maybe it was just for more supplies, when Damian was leading two frames to one. Despite the fact that Angela must now have been alone between the sheets for almost an hour and a half, Henry stuck solidly on the pink chintz. Duffy pulled back the fourth frame with the help of a canny bout of snookering, but was always behind in the fifth. By the end, he needed blue, pink and black to win, and his attempted safety shot on the blue sent the white rolling gently into the middle pocket. ‘In-off,’ cried Damian for the second successive evening in Duffy’s hearing. Duffy racked his cue as an admission of defeat. ‘Must tell Sally,’ said Damian. ‘Excuse me for a little gloat.’
All through the match Henry had sat silently. You couldn’t tell from his expression whether he could follow what was going on in front of him or not. Now he rose, picked the longest cue from the rack, put the white back on the table, and said, ‘I think you’re not staying down on the shot long enough.’ He mimed the little head-jerk which Duffy knew was an all-too-frequent feature of his cue action; indeed, he played the same shot twice for Duffy’s benefit, missing the pot on the blue by a couple of inches when using the special Duffy head-twitch, and rolling it home without touching the sides of the pocket while using his own personal set-in-concrete head-positioning. Then he potted a long and difficult pink, and followed it by doubling the black the length of the table into the top pocket.
‘You’re very good,’ said Duffy. ‘You must play a lot.’
‘Billiards. Billiards with Daddy from an early age. Never really played snooker. Daddy thought snooker was a degenerate game.’
‘Played by yobs,’ suggested Duffy.
‘No, not that. It was more that the game itself decided how long it went on. Daddy thought billiards was a gentleman’s game because the players decided how long it lasted. More subtle, too, of course.’
‘Anything else apart from the head?’ asked Duffy.
‘I think you’re holding the cue too far back. Small chaps often do. The forearm isn’t hanging vertically enough.’
‘Anything else?’
‘I think you should have gone for the first frame more. The first frame’s vital.’
‘I know. I was going for it.’
‘Oh, well.’
They sat on the sofa, Duffy still wondering what Henry was doing downstairs. It must be nearly half-past eleven.
‘How’s Angela?’
‘She’s fine.’
Why did everyone keep saying that to him. ‘She’s fine.’ Did they think he was an idiot? Or were they just telling him to mind his own business?
‘The Ricky thing must have upset her.’
‘Ricky was a lovely dog,’ said Henry, not quite answering the question.
‘Was he Angela’s or yours, or both of yours?’
‘No, he was hers. Mind you, he was everybody’s around here. They all loved him. Sally loved him, too.’
‘Sally?’
‘Yes, I should think she took him for walks as often as Ange did. Probably more often.’
‘Damian?’
‘I don’t see Damian as a dog-walker.’
‘Check.’ There was a pause. The evening was coming to its end. ‘Well,’ said Duffy, turning to Henry in what he hoped would sound like a jolly male stag-night tone, ‘Only a couple more weeks before you tie the old knot. Can’t be too soon, I shouldn’t think.’ Duffy wondered if he should elaborate his new theory of marriage as three-day eventing, but thought it might not be appropriate, or at any rate might take too long.
Henry didn’t react for a while, then smiled distantly and got up. ‘Oh well, Mother calls.’ He clapped Duffy on the shoulder for no obvious reason, then shook his hand, grinning all the while. Duffy was left alone in the snooker room, practising a few shots and supposing it was normal that Henry went home to his mother instead of staying with his girlfriend.
The next morning, over breakfast, Duffy made the noises he and Vic had planned about how he had to go down to London to get some pieces of equipment for the alarm system which were obviously unobtainable on the Buckinghamshire/Bedfordshire borders. He might be back that night or he might not. One thing he’d make sure to bring with him, he thought as he crossed the gravel, was his own dressing-gown. Not that he worried about Damian. In fact, if he had any sense he’d forget about Damian altogether. Three-two. Damn. If only he hadn’t been over-ambitious on that long red in the final frame and let old Waggly-Nose in for a break of twenty-two. Perhaps he should get some practice. That was a thought. Maybe when he got back to London he’d call the local hustler and get himself seriously beaten.
He walked casually round his white Sherpa van, inspecting it with care. At least Sally hadn’t retired early last night in order to let down his other two tyres. He examined the locks and the join of the rear doors to see if anyone had tried inserting a metal instrument and wrenching. No sign of anything. Well, this proved one negative at least: that Jimmy had kept quiet about finding Ricky. The Sherpa started at the second touch, and Duffy drove off taking a deep breath. Perhaps he’d wind the window down, swear a lot, play some junky music on the radio, and stop off at a motorway caff for some real food of the sort that would make Basil Berk throw up all over Lady Berk.
First, though, he had to retrieve Ricky. Duffy turned off the road a couple of minutes east of Braunscombe Hall, and went up a quiet track still marked by his tyres from last night. Blue plastic was quite a vivid colour, so he’d carefully piled a few branches and lots of bracken on top. Such a brilliant piece of camouflage he almost missed it. Go on like this, Duffy, and you’ll get your woodcraft badge. He picked up the laundry-bag and put it in the back of his van. Ricky was already beginning to pong a bit and some of the hair had fallen out of his tail. Duffy wondered if he’d better stop and grab himself a hamburger with lots of extra onions just to make the van smell nice.
When he got back to the flat he made a few telephone calls. There wasn’t anywhere obvious you could go — Yellow Pages weren’t any help — but eventually he tracked down someone from his past, someone from forensics who’d always done a bit of freelancing. Then he drove to an address in Kensington near the Natural History Museum and handed over the laundry-bag. He recognized Jim Pringle at once, while noting that he was losing his hair almost as fast as Ricky.
‘Sorry about the smell,’ said Duffy.
‘You should take something for that, you know. Might start interfering with your social life otherwise.’
‘Check.’ Jim was always like that. Didn’t mind who he said what to, either. Perhaps that was why he hadn’t had the promotion he deserved. Still taking in laundry after all these years.
Duffy explained what he wanted, asked Jim not to make too much of a mess, in case Ricky had to be returned to the grieving widow, and left a couple of telephone numbers. As he turned to go, Jim said, ‘Do you want him stuffed as well?’
‘Eh?’
‘Stuffed. Stuffed and mounted. I could do you an all-in price. The thing is, if you’ve got to cut him open anyway …’
‘Jim, I’ll get back to you.’
‘It’d be cheaper if I knew now.’
Back at the flat, he op
ened the freezer to see if Carol had eaten the fish with the low-calorie sauce. No. She must have eaten the pizzas, then. No. What had she been eating? Where? Who with? She’d been seeing that Robert Redford again and that Paul Newman and that Steve McQueen … No, he was dead, she wouldn’t have been eating at the Poison d’Or with Steve McQueen. Duffy’s brain skedaddled off on its usual track of mild paranoia. Look, if he had rights, she had rights … Sure, sure. And if you don’t have to tell, she doesn’t have to tell … Sure, sure. And if it doesn’t mean anything serious for you and doesn’t affect the relationship, it’s the same for her, too … Sure, sure. I just want to know why she didn’t eat the fish in the low-calorie sauce.
‘You didn’t eat the fish,’ he said rather sharply when Carol walked in.
‘Been having an affair with Paul Newman, haven’t I?’
‘Why didn’t you eat the fish?’
Carol was tired. It had been a long shift, and there’d been that midday alkie. You’d have thought daytime drunks would have had less of a skinful than evening drunks; that they’d be less belligerent. But they weren’t, and she’d had to radio for assistance. She didn’t like having to do that, not in a crowded street, anyway. She kicked off her shoes and fell on to the sofa. ‘They’re your rules, Duffy,’ was all she said. ‘Kiss?’
Sure, kiss. And they were his rules after all. Perhaps they ought to discuss things again. They hadn’t done so for years, it seemed to him. But that’s what they’d agreed. In the old days there’d been explanations and openness and No-you-just-go-ahead, but that hadn’t worked. Then there’d been discussions and rules — the main rule being No Discussions. Had that worked better? Duffy kissed Carol again and she yawned, but politely, and he went to transfer some chicken Kiev from the freezer to the microwave.
‘So how’s old Vic doing?’
‘Vic’s doing all right for himself. Bum in the butter. Don’t know where he gets the money from.’
‘No one ever did. And how’s Little Miss Tits?’
‘Belinda. Very horsey. She’d be all hoity-toity if you called her that. You could say she’s putting her front behind her.’
Carol laughed. ‘Bet you thought that one up in the van on the way down.’
He had, too. ‘You know me too well,’ he said.
‘It’s not bad, knowing you too well, Duffy.’
He kept his head down and picked at his dinner. It tasted a bit funny to him. ‘Do you think the sauce needs a touch more seasoning?’
‘You what?’
‘Do you think the sauce needs a touch more seasoning?’
This time Carol really laughed. Much louder than at his joke. She got up, went to the fridge and came back with a bottle of Heinz. ‘Here, have some red stuff in it. That’ll make it taste different.’
‘Do you ever want to go to a really pricey restaurant?’
‘If you’ll take me, I’ll go.’
‘There are some nice fish restaurants in Chelsea.’
‘Duffy, I think you’ve been mixing with too many Hooray Henries.’
He grunted. ‘More like Hooray Nigels. Bit of a mixed bunch, really. Mind you, what’s going on is a bit of a mixed bunch. We’ve got dead dogs, stolen spoons, blackmail except everyone’s denying it, a bit of drugging except everyone’s denying it. My main job is to see that someone gets married.’
‘Don’t they want to get married?’
‘Sure.’
‘Then what’s the problem? Can’t afford the ring?’
‘No. Well … no.’ That was another rule. Not to bring too much work home with you. Carol always obeyed that particular rule. Duffy was less good at it. ‘Got beaten at snooker last night. Three-two. On the blue. I had this problem with my head …’ Carol smiled, but Duffy didn’t notice. Without specifically — or even generally — being asked, he talked her through each frame, describing the key shots, characterizing his opponent’s style of game, discussing aloud where he might have gone wrong. At one point she murmured, ‘Sounds as if you deserved to win,’ but the irony was lost on him, and he explained, again with vivid detail, how that was indeed more or less the case.
He packed a holdall, twice checking that he’d included his towelling gown that came down to well below the knee, and put it by the front door for the morning. As things turned out, this was a sensible move. They went to bed early, but Carol’s encounter with the drunk had taken it out of her, as perhaps too had Duffy’s extended account of his snooker match with Damian. She lay turned away from him, a heap of dark curls on a pillow, all just visible in the orange burn of a street light filtered through a curtain. Duffy was propped on one elbow, smiling at her in the dark, when the telephone rang.
‘Get your arse up here, Duffy, and pronto.’ It was Vic.
‘What’s happened?’
‘Angela’s disappeared.’
5. Grounds
WHICH DID HE PREFER, the daytime drivers on the M1 or the night-time ones? It was like asking Carol whether she preferred tangling with an aggressive drunk in a crowded shopping street or in a deserted alley lit only by a smudge of sodium. There wasn’t really much in it. Duffy joined the other half of the Le Mans 24-hour race, with the maniacs driving just as fast and just as close, yawning away as the radio disgorged some disc jockey with a voice as smooth as yoghurt, and only shaking themselves awake again when their heads hit the steering wheel. He kept to a steady fifty-five, the same as in the daytime, but now found himself being shunted across into the slow lane. That told you something.
Vic was standing in the porch when Duffy arrived. ‘Where’ve you been?’ he grunted, adding wearily, ‘Look what you’ve done to my gravel.’
‘Have you found her?’
‘No.’
‘When did she go missing?’
‘Don’t know.’
‘What do you mean you don’t know?’
‘We don’t know when she went missing. No one saw her go missing.’
‘When did you last see her?’
‘Lunch.’
‘When didn’t she turn up?’
‘Dinner.’
‘Have you called anyone?’
‘Only Henry. To see if she was there. She wasn’t. He’s here.’
‘Who saw her last?’
‘Everyone. At lunch.’
‘Called the coppers?’
‘You know me.’
‘Right, we’ll search the house.’
‘We’ve searched it.’
‘We’ll search it again.’
They left Sally, Damian and Belinda having stiff drinks together in the kitchen. Vic, Henry, Jimmy, Taffy and Lucretia started in the not-quite Lord Mayor’s wine-cellar. They looked in all the spaces large enough to contain Angela, then in all the spaces large enough to contain half of her. Duffy directed the other five and together they lifted sofas, turned over beds, climbed up to look on top of wardrobes, moved large industrial Hoovers, even — you had to be logical, however silly — opened the doors of grandfather clocks. By four o’clock they had established that Angela was not in the house — not unless she’d been dodging round them all the time. The others wanted to call it a day, but Duffy insisted that they carry on and clear the outbuildings. Partly they had to do it, and the sooner the better; partly, this was something he knew about, and doing it with Lucretia’s eye on him wasn’t entirely displeasing.
They shifted the horses to one side and poked around among their bedding. They looked through the garage and opened the boot of each car. They knocked up Mr and Mrs Hardcastle, who were awake anyhow, and apologetically rummaged through their cottage. In a criss-cross of flashlights they examined the coal bunker and the wood store. They got to the garden shed.
‘This open?’ asked Duffy rather gruffly. He hadn’t told Vic about Ron Hardcastle having exactly the same taste in wine as his employer, and he wasn’t sure that now was the time, but there was no avoiding it.
‘The key’s under that flowerpot there,’ said Ron. ‘No, the little one.’
&nb
sp; Duffy opened the shed and pointed his flashlight round it. Spades and forks as usual, and a square mound covered by some sacking. Vic was beside him as he pulled the sacking away. Piled neatly underneath were six slatted boxes of freshly picked apples.
By a quarter to five the sky was getting light and they had found no sign of Angela. As they walked across the gravel Duffy said to Vic, ‘Call the coppers.’
‘Suppose there’s no other way,’ Vic replied.
Everyone assembled in the kitchen, where Sally and Belinda were still patronizing the whisky bottle. Vic’s speech was short and to the point. ‘We haven’t found her. I’m going to call the coppers. The coppers will have to search the house again. If any of you have got anything you think it might be a bad idea for the coppers to see, I suggest you get rid of it now. I also suggest that if we all leave the room at the same time, then none of us will start thinking naughty things about the others.’
There was a shuffle of chairs. Belinda asked, ‘You didn’t find anything?’
‘Not really,’ said Vic. ‘Oh, we found the cutlery.’
‘The cutlery?’
‘Yeah. It was under Mrs Colin’s bed.’
Duffy caught Vic by the elbow as the others were leaving. ‘When you call the coppers, better tell them they might need a diver.’
Detective-Sergeant Vine had not had a good Bank Holiday weekend. The roses had needed pruning, the grass seemed to have grown a foot, the kids wanted to be taken to the public baths, and the one-day cricket final, which was about the only thing he’d actually been looking forward to, was rained off. He was glad to get back to work, and there were worse ways of doing so than dealing with a disappearing female. They said they’d searched the house, in fact they said they’d searched it twice, but they were only amateurs, so he got Constable Willey to do it in a professional manner.
