by HRF Keating
‘But you want to be off,’ Bolshy said. ‘Mustn’t keep the big boss waiting.’
‘No,’ Harriet said, disregarding the jibe. ‘No, we’ll wait here until your Miss Nyambura comes out. If as a sort of celebrity she fares better inside there than I did, a chat with her may be well worth having.’
Judging by the time that passed, it seemed Charity Nyambura had at least got past on-the-watch Tonelle, and presumably on up to see that icier proposition, Mrs Fishlock. But the wait in their tucked-away parking space proved to be longer than any encounter with Mrs Fishlock was likely to take.
Can this celebrity athlete, Harriet thought, have somehow got permission to see Robert Roughouse, however little conscious he is? Is she there beside him now? And — if he is perhaps able to talk a little — is she learning anything about what happened last night? Even why it happened? If Roughouse knows why, or has some inkling of it, isn’t this girl the most likely person for him to confide in? Always providing they are, as the gossip pages told Bolshy, an item?
The minutes went on ticking by.
Harriet, still irritated by the remains of cheroot odour in the car, wondered idly if she could somehow get a replacement for Bolshy, secure a more energetic DS — and one less obnoxious. Her thoughts drifted into contemplating bright-smiling, irreverent Tonelle and the way she had hurriedly pushed out of sight her illicit copy of the Guardian.
Hadn’t that copy in fact — Yes, this was what came into my mind as I walked past her — hadn’t that Guardian looked very like, not yesterday’s paper but last Saturday’s issue, the one John takes for its book reviews and fiendish weekend crossword? But, hey, yes, if it’s so much against clinic regulations openly to display a newspaper while on reception duty, then maybe I’ve got …
‘Right,’ she said, ‘I’m going back in there. See if I can at least find out from that receptionist what’s happening. I think, actually, I’ve got a way to put a little pressure on the young lady, if I have to. Not much, but something.’
Then, just as she set off, another thought occurred to her.
She turned back and told Bolshy to come to the house with her.
If my piece of pressure doesn’t work with Tonelle, then perhaps Bolshy’s cruder methods will.
At the foot of the steps up to the glass doors she tapped on the window of the waiting taxi. The driver looked up.
‘Sorry, love, booked by the lady, take her back to Birchester station.’
‘It’s Charity Nyambura, the marathon runner, isn’t it?’ she asked.
‘Yeah, that’s her.’
‘And did she say how long she thought she’d be in there?’
‘She didn’t. And I haven’t got a clue. But I’m happy, clock’s ticking away.’
Inside, Harriet, telling Bolshy to wait by the doors, went straight across to Tonelle and asked her point-blank how it had come about that Charity Nyambura was in the house when she herself had had such a hard time even getting as far as seeing Mrs Fishlock.
All she got by way of reply was a dazzling smile and ‘Well, you saw old Fishlock eventually, didn’t you?’
‘But only to get my nose bitten off.’
‘All right. But I did warn you, didn’t I?’
And again a big, perfectly friendly smile. And nothing more.
So, time for a touch of the Hard Detective.
‘Oh, yes, you warned me all right. But you shouldn’t have sent me up to that dragon when you knew perfectly well I’d get no further. So why don’t you tell me now what really made you let in Charity Nyambura just now and how it is she’s still here?’
Bright red generous lips set in a sudden firm line.
‘’Fraid I can’t do that. No way.’
‘Oh, come on. You can tell me. Why ever not? And then I won’t have to say anything to Mrs Fishlock about her receptionist sitting here reading a newspaper. Maybe lose you your job.’
But this simply provoked a coolly calculating look.
‘Don’t think you’d do that.’
No go, Harriet registered. She’s right. I’d never tell that unpleasant dragon of a woman that her receptionist defied the no-newspapers-on-duty rule. And Tonelle’s guessed I wouldn’t.
But Tonelle evidently thought something of an excuse was still necessary.
‘Look,’ she said, ‘it was the crossword. I’d got totally caught up by it. I’m not stupid, but some of those clues didn’t make an atom of sense to me. Listen, this is what I was on when you came in. Something about — what was it? — yeah, just listen to this. Up with a tent for — can’t remember. Oh, yes, I can For not quite a blonde. And then there was a little bit on the end, too. Yeah, East not zero leads to dug-out. How about that? Mean anything to you?’
‘Not a thing. But then I won’t ever even glance at a crossword. Fear of looking a fool, I suppose. Still, according to my husband, who always finishes the Saturday Guardian one, its clues do sometimes go beyond the rules of the game.’
Then an idea came to her. It might well be worth getting firmly on the right side of Tonelle. I’ll almost certainly have to come back here.
‘If I remember,’ she said, ‘I’ll ask John if he made anything of that one. Let you know.’
‘Well, thanks. Something like that nags and nags at me till sometimes I can’t bloody get to sleep.’
All right, lines of sympathy established. But no answer to how Charity Nyambura got in, nor to where she is now.
She turned to go. But, as she passed Bolshy standing just inside, she murmured ‘Have a word with the lady’.
*
But she had not been sitting in the car, windows wound well down to dissipate the cheroot smell, for much more than fifteen minutes when she saw Bolshy emerge from the house and come tramping towards her, face heavy with resentment.
So Tonelle’s defeated even his by no means subtle tactics, she thought. All right, a tough young woman. Yet I can’t help sympathising with her, however useful it would have been to get to see Roughouse in the way that Charity Nyambura seems possibly to have done.
Bolshy jerked open the door on his side.
‘Stupid bitch,’ he said. ‘All alike them blacks. Sticking together. Just went on and on saying bloody Charity was one of her own, what she called a sporting icon. A fucking icon, how about that?’
‘And she didn’t give an inch, not however unpleasant you hinted you might be?’
‘Didn’t bloody hint. I was. And icon, icon, icon she kept yacking. I bent the rules ’cos Charity’s an icon for all us blacks. I dunno.’
‘Well, DS, you can console yourself with remembering that my somewhat subtler approach was equally a failure. So let’s wait a little longer and see if Charity Nyambura, when she appears, will tell us rather more.’
They sat waiting again. And waiting.
After a while Harriet, feeling cold with the car windows still open, turned to Bolshy.
‘Look,’ she said, ‘I ought to be at Headquarters, certainly in half an hour from now. I’ll have to go. But I want you to stay here till Charity comes out, however long that is. And when she does I want you to ask whether she got to see Roughouse. If it turns out he was fit to talk, don’t press her to tell you what he said. Just get an address and phone number for her and say I’ll be coming to see her. You’ll have to call a taxi to get you back. But I dare say our black friend at reception will let you ring a local firm, however much of a hard time you gave her.’
‘Your orders,’ Bolshy said. ‘Pity they did no good, as per —’
Then he decided better of it.
Chapter Five
At Waterloo Gardens, after a sticky half-hour fending off the ACC’s questions and suggestions, Harriet found Bolshy already back. He was sitting at his ease in the newly set-up incident room — Happy Hapgood had already worked his miracle — another nasty little cheroot jutting from his mouth. She saw, too, that he was busily scribbling down his expenses on the left-hand pages of his notebook, doubtless adding a substantial extra
to the taxi fare he had just paid.
‘Right, DS,’ she said to him. ‘My office.’
There, telling him to extinguish the cheroot before he set foot inside, she asked at once whether he had seen Charity Nyambura.
‘Came waltzing out just after you’d gone, made a dive for her cab. But yours truly was up to that.’
‘You stopped her? Good work.’
‘Not much came of it, as per usual.’
‘Oh, and why was that?’
‘She wasn’t going to tell me nothing. No more than she bloody well had to. So, it was Yes, I saw him, and, no, he wasn’t able to talk. And that was it, more or less.’
‘But you got a phone number for her, as I asked?’
‘I do know what I’m about.’ Long pause. ‘Ma’am.’
Then a quick look.
‘Want the address? It’s 26-27 Colville Road, London W11, Flat 9, if I remember right.’
‘You noted it down, I trust.’
‘Did, matter of fact. But if you want me to check …’
With a great deal of tugging and twisting he pulled out his notebook and then began slowly flipping through its scrawled-over pages.
Damn it, he’s deliberately keeping me waiting, Harriet realised. Shall I get rid of the insolent bugger, come what may? Should have said something about him when I saw the ACC just now.
Then Bolshy saved himself. He showed her Charity Nyambura’s scrawled phone number and her address which, it seemed, he had remembered perfectly correctly. And he did better.
‘Oh, yeah, ma’am, something I forgot to tell you. That Roughouse, found he’s got a nice old country mansion. Not far away, matter of fact.’
‘You forgot to tell me?’ Harriet snapped out. ‘Don’t you ever let me hear you saying that again, not while you’re assigned to me. Yes?’
‘All right.’ But, once more, the long pause. ‘Ma’am.’
‘OK. So tell me about this place of Roughouse’s, every last thing.’
‘Ain’t much. But this is what I got, for what it’s worth. It’s a bloody manor house, out a bit beyond the Masterton place. Gartham Manor, it’s called. Plus he’s got a London pad, what they call a service flat. I dug that out for you, too. It’s somewhere in posh Chelsea.’
Harriet thought for a moment.
All right, tomorrow while Im seeing Matthew Jessop in hard-to-park Notting Hill bloody Bolshy can go on to Chelsea and have a snoop round that service flat. Might be something to be learnt there before my search order comes through. Simple task like that should be right up his street. Then he can come and collect me from Charity Nyambura’s. Her place in W11 shouldn’t be far from Jessop’s house.
She began then to go through the wearisome protocol of informing the Met that, next day, officers from another force would be entering their territory on duty.
‘All right,’ she said to Bolshy, as at last she put down the phone, ‘we’ll go right away now to — what did you say the place was called? — Gartham Manor.’
‘No rest for the bloody wicked.’
‘No, DS, there isn’t.’
*
With Bolshy at the wheel — he was at least a good driver, with an excellent bump of locality — they had no difficulty in finding isolated Gartham Manor. Harriet made him halt just inside its gates, held wide open by the entwined tufts of autumn-dry grass climbing up them. Then she took a long assessing look at the house ahead.
Plainly it lacked altogether the discreet smartness of the Masterton’s well-painted white woodwork contrasting with its swathes of lushly green ivy. Robert Roughouse, it seemed, can have taken few pains, however wealthy he is, to keep the place in good repair. The paint on its window frames was grey rather than white. The bare walls were streaked and stained by damp.
It all tells me more about Roughouse? Of course. That he’s ever eager for something new. Think of his Innovation Party. Or of his insisting, when anti-hunting protests are flavour of the month, on putting himself on display, calculatedly challenging in his riding get-up. All right, a brave, appealing figure, but impulsive. So, little doubt that his ‘ancestral pile’ has been long neglected in favour of a ties-free Chelsea service flat and its opportunities to throw himself into whatever happens to catch his fancy.
In a sudden switch, she thought of her own home life. Rocksteady husband and two sons who had followed her into her own profession — until there had come the moment when that terrorist bomb had ended Graham’s life and injured Malcolm, wrecking his career.
But how truly close had the boys actually felt to us, she asked herself. Would they have one day, like Robert Roughouse, abandoned their first careers and gone off, say, to America, in search of the new? Become distant, hardly known, figures? They might have done. But now I find it hard not to think of them both almost every day of my life. Look at the absurd way I even carry about with me everywhere that little bright-coloured mobile Malcolm once gave Graham.
But no time now for thoughts like those. There’s a trickle of smoke coming from one of the chimneys down there. Somebody, perhaps even several people, must be inside. So let’s find out what’s there to be learnt.
Leaving Bolshy in the car again, no doubt to fill it once more with vile-smelling cheroot smoke, she set off down the long slope of the weed-pocked gravel drive. But at the door of the big, decaying mansion it seemed as hard to gain entry as it had been to get into the Masterton. Or even harder. A tug at the long-unpolished bell-pull beside the time-seamed oak door resulted in nothing. Blank, still silence. Only, somewhere in the distance, a solitary cow could be heard bleakly mooing.
All right, try again.
A more vigorous triple pull appeared to do no more than produce a long discordant jangling from somewhere deep inside.
Then at last she thought she heard footsteps, though not very evident ones, hardly more than a distant weary shuffle, far removed from the ponderous steps of the butler or footman the house might have provided in its prime.
And, yes, it was an elderly apron-clad woman, even a very elderly woman, who eventually dragged open by a foot or so the heavy oak door.
‘Good afternoon,’ Harriet said briskly. ‘I am Detective Superintendent Martens, Greater Birchester Police. I am making inquiries in connection with the bomb attack which, as you may know, severely injured Mr Robert Roughouse last night.’
‘Mr Robert hurt?’ the old woman cried out. ‘No one’s told me. Is he bad? He’s not in hospital, is he?’
‘I’m afraid he is. Or, rather, he’s in the Masterton Clinic, if you know it. And I’m sorry to have to tell you that he has not yet recovered consciousness.’
‘Oh, my gracious, my poor little Robbie. Did you say a bomb? What sort of a bomb? Was it one of those terrorists you hear about? Why did they want to go throwing one of their bombs at Mr Robert?’
‘We don’t know yet what exactly took place,’ Harriet answered, as soothingly as she could. ‘I’m here to see if you, or anybody else in the house, can help us in the police find out more about Mr Roughouse’s life in recent months. Something that may give us an indication why the attack on him happened.’
‘Oh. Oh, well, there’s nobody here but me. Mr Robert comes only once in a blue moon nowadays. So his old Nanna is the only one left to look after the place. Yes. The only one.’
Harriet felt a small descent in her hopes. Not much to be learnt about Roughouse’s current activities from his ‘old Nanna’. Hardly likely that tales of his childhood will yield anything worth having.
But perhaps a look indoors …
‘Tell me,’ she said, ‘does Mr Roughouse have a study or an office of any sort here? Could I perhaps have a look at it, if he does?’
‘Oh, no. No, he did use to have his desk in the Book Room. But he emptied it of everything, every last thing, when he decided it’d be best to spend his time down in London. Though why he should want to live in a nasty place like that is more than I can understand, country-loving lad as he always was. No, he only comes up her
e these days when —’
She came to a full halt.
‘Yes? When what?’
Harriet saw now that a faint blush had crept on Nanna’s withered cheeks. A moment’s thought, and she guessed why that might be.
‘Is it when he comes with a young lady guest?’ she asked, making the question sound as innocuous as she could.
‘Well, yes. Yes, that’s what it was just the weekend before last, when he brought that — when he came …’
She fell altogether silent.
What on earth’s causing her all this awkwardness?
And at once she thought what it might be. Didn’t Bolshy tell me Charity Nyambura and Robert are an item? If Kenyan Charity was the young lady Roughouse brought to Gartham Manor a fortnight ago, won’t that be something this old retainer doesn’t want to talk about? Even think about?
But how to overcome her reticence?
Mercifully, Old Nanna conquered it for herself.
‘They hardly spent any time at all here. Just that one night, you know,’ she said, as if somehow one night could more easily be blotted from her memory. ‘And what a gentleman like Mr Robert does is not for me to think about. I know my place, even though I had all the upbringing of him when his poor mother and father died in that same terrible car accident.’
‘That must have been difficult for you,’ Harriet said, doing what she could to gain Nanna’s confidence.
‘Well, it was, and it wasn’t, so to speak. You see, the trustees saw to it that I had everything I needed, for myself as well as the poor wee child. And then, as soon as he got to be seven, away he was taken to boarding school, the little mite. Not that he was so little. A good healthy youngster, big for his age and up to everything.’
‘So after that you saw less of him?’
‘I did. He’d come for a few days either side of term-time at school and in what they call the vacations when he went to Cambridge University. All I had to do was see to his washing and that, and then off he’d go to stay with one of the trustees. So all I really did was look after the house. And I still do. The bank sends me my money every month, on the first, except when that comes at a weekend. So I never want for anything, and I’m able to ask for whatever’s needed for what they call the upkeep.’
