by Baker, John
‘The other what?’
‘You said there were two problems.’
‘Oh, yes, his hands.’
‘He can’t keep them to himself?’
‘No kidding,’ she said. ‘The man’s an octopus.’
Quintin Reeves was almost unrecognizable. Although his facial characteristics had been left relatively unchanged by the ravages of the stroke, the inner man had undergone a metamorphosis.
When Rosemary showed Sam into the living room Reeves was sitting in a Windsor chair by the window. He turned and recognized the detective immediately. He got to his feet and walked forward with a strange Chaplinesque motion. His right leg was paralysed but he managed to throw it out and forward and follow through with his good one. This action had the effect of unbalancing him and he used his left arm to right himself, swinging it around at shoulder height like a boom.
Sam was impressed. The guy had been as rosy as a freshly turned bed the last time they met. Here they were again, less than a month later, and the same man could’ve given Quasimodo a run for his money. But he had a smile on his face as wide as a bay window, something his former self would never’ve managed.
‘Come in, come in,’ he shouted, his voice rising and falling a full octave within the span of the two syllables. 'Have a seat. Sit down.’ The arm waving around, seemingly unable to remain motionless. ‘Thanks for coming. Beautiful day. How did you get up the...?’ Sam waited, watching the man struggling for the word. But it wouldn’t come.
‘How did you get up the... up there -’ He pointed out of the window. ‘Thing that goes up and down?’
‘Hill,’ said Sam.
Reeves laughed. ‘Hill, yes. Can’t always find the words I That’s why I’ve got a nurse.’
‘You’re doing fine, Mr Reeves,’ said Rosemary. She moved forward quickly and plumped the cushion on his I chair before he sat in it.
‘Thanks to you, my dear.’ Rosemary side-stepped briskly as his wild hand came close to her behind. Sam wasn’t sure if he’d consciously intended to slap her bottom or if the hand had a mind of its own. Reeves turned back to Sam. ‘How did you manage the hill?’ .j ‘It was touch and go,’ Sam told him. He glanced at Rosemary, but she was concentrating on keeping her distance.
‘You asked me to come out here,’ Sam said. ‘How can I help you?’ He noticed that Reeves had been freshly shaved but several clumps of beard had been missed. He had a single-sided wispy moustache and a small red patch of whiskers on his lower cheek.
Reeves looked at him. He’d brought his arm under control and was holding it down on his lap. ‘I want you to find who killed my wife, Mr Turner.’
‘I’m already retained by your sister-in-law,’ Sam reminded him.
‘That’s all right. There’s no law says you can’t work for me as well. On the same...’
‘Case?’ said Rosemary.
‘Dammit, yes. The same case.’
Sam shook his head.
‘What’re you worried about? There’s no conflict of interest. I’m offering cash up front.’
‘I don’t understand your motives,’ Sam told him. ‘I’m already working on the case for Angeles. I have to find Isabel’s killer, get him off the street so Angeles is safe.’ j
‘I want to help,’ Reeves said. ‘The police are so damn slow. They never tell me anything. I thought if you had more money, resources; well, it’s not going to work against you, is it? I’m stuck in the house here, I want to be more... more...’
‘Useful?’ Sam said.
Reeves exhaled. ‘Yes, I want to be useful.’
He was wearing a tie, of course, striped in blue and gold, and the yolk of an egg had dribbled down it for five centimetres before solidifying. The zip at the front of his trousers had stuck half-way and he gave it a polite tug from time to time but it didn’t move.
Sam said, ‘I’ve got everyone I know involved on the case. Even part-timers. Doesn’t really matter how much you pay me, I’m still gonna have the same number of people.’
‘I want to help, Turner. There must be some way.’
‘How about you solve a little problem for me?’ Sam said. ‘You know anything about ice skating? Something connected with Angeles?’
Reeves looked blank. ‘Ice skating. It’s one thing I’ve never done.’
‘What about Isabel?’
‘Isabel? Oh, no. Isabel had a thing about ice altogether. Avoided it like the plague. She’d never’ve gone skating.’
‘A thing about ice?’ Sam said. ‘What does that mean? She had a phobia about ice?’
I wouldn’t put it that strongly,’ said Reeves. ‘She was frightened of it. Irrational, really. Something happened when she was a child. Some kind of accident.’
‘You don’t know exactly?’
‘Can’t say I do,’ said Reeves. ‘She mentioned it a couple °f times. The village pond, I think it was. All fall down.’
‘Angeles as well?’
Quintin Reeves sat shaking his head. He didn’t know any more. ‘I think so, yes. Childhood trauma. What about it, Turner? Are you going to let me help? I’ve got money.’
All answers, if they were answers worth having, were vague. The answers that weren’t vague were the ones to worry about. When you asked a question and the answer came back with no margin of doubt, then it was time to start worrying. Maybe this ice-skating thing would lead nowhere. Even if there was someone who was there at the time, could explain Angeles’ reticence and Isabel’s phobia, it still might not be relevant to the case. Difficult to see how it could be, really. Ice skating, an accident on the village pond, two little girls in pigtails; not the kind of scenario that leads to murder. Not usually, but then again, murder wasn’t a usual occurrence.
‘Tell you what,’ Sam said. ‘I’ll take the case. I’m gonna charge you exactly the same as I’m charging your sister-in-law. We’ll double everybody’s wages, kind of Christmas bonus.’
Quintin squealed. He did the happiest face Sam had seen since Echo was born. Didn’t seem to matter that the guy had done up the wrong buttons on his shirt. ‘Do you want me to get cash?’ Reeves asked. ‘I could go to the bank.’
Sam glanced out of the triple-glazed window. Deep and crisp and even. ‘Hell, no,’ he said. ‘I’ll send you a bill.’
On the way back to York the snowstorm returned and Sam ploughed his way through it. A blizzard was how Angeles described what she saw at night, shadows in a blizzard. There were times he thought he could empathize with her and then the time would pass away and he’d feel only pity. She’d hate that, being pitied, because it was less than she deserved. It was less than love; pity was an emotion that could never be productive. Sam would throw it out, dig deep for the more complex empathy again; but when he wasn’t looking the pity began creeping back in.
Hitting the A64, leaving those country roads behind, was like landing back on earth after a trip to another planet. He drove and watched the lights of oncoming traffic swimming towards him like huge shoals of fish.
37
Celia sighed inwardly when Lorna George entered the office. Lorna was one of those women who come from so low down the social scale that it is immoral to dislike them. You know all the liberal arguments which prove that Lorna’s unfortunate personality is not her fault - she’s the product of a broken home, sexually abused by her father and brothers, teenage pregnancy and a long history of failed relationships - and you want to run a mile when you see her on the street.
‘Bloody freezing out there, Celia.’ Still a trace of a South African accent after all these years. She placed a well-used cardboard file on the reception counter and blew into her cupped hands. She’d found the time to fix her false nails before facing the world this morning: two centimetres long, flecked with gold. ‘Ooh, I love your hair.’
Pass the bucket, Celia thought, watching her long-held Christian principles wither away. And she gave Lorna a smile which, fuelled by guilt, went gushing over the top.
Lorna was a hack, the kind of
journalist you find if you turn over a large stone. She edited a local free magazine but doubled as a freelance whenever she got a whiff of the unsavoury or the rotten. Police and local government leaks were all funnelled through Lorna George. Occasionally she got her dirty little fingers into national scandals.
She was in her mid-forties now, wearing a grey suit with a knee-length skirt, fashioned from a cloth that contained a minimum amount of cotton. There were wrinkles in the material around her hips and thighs. She wore black tights and high-heeled shoes and her hair was dyed an unnatural shade of black and pinned up in a bun.
She shook a long chocolate-coloured cigarette out of a pack and put it between her lips. ‘D’you mind, Celia?’ She raised the pencil lines which had replaced her eyebrows.
Celia shook her head. ‘You’ll have to wait, I’m afraid. We’re all ex-smokers here, fanatics. The office’s a smoke-free zone.’
Lorna shook her head and put the cigarette back in the pack. It wasn’t clear why she was shaking her head. Could have been because of the no-smoking rule or simply that Lorna didn’t understand why anyone would want to give up smoking, or why anyone would want to give up anything. Especially if it was in the area of sex or drugs or money. ‘Is the great detective in?’
‘I’m afraid not; it’s difficult to catch him without an appointment.’
‘Didn’t use to be like that, though. Know what I mean?’ Lorna said. ‘After a couple of drinks you could net him with a wink in the old days.’
Celia didn’t reply. She kept a deadpan face and held Lorna’s eyes, daring her to go on. That was a mistake.
‘He’d booze all your money away, shag you stupid and dump you for the next broad with a bottle or a jingle in her purse. He was a knight of the round table, chivalry dribbling down his trouser leg.’
‘Is there something I can help you with, Lorna?’
‘Now he’s got his office and his big house and it costs an arm and a leg to speak to him. But he’s still the same guy underneath. People don’t change. Not that much, anyway. And men don’t change at all. Isn’t that the truth, Celia?’ Celia put both hands on the counter. ‘Lorna, if there’s something you want, I’ll do my best to help. But if you’re here to run Sam down, it would be better if you left.’ The journalist smiled. ‘Loyalty. How touching. I heard a rumour about a note that was sent to Angeles Falco. D’you want to tell me what it said?’
Ah. That’s why she was here. ‘I don’t know anything about it,’ Celia said. ‘Sam’s handling the case personally. You’ll have to talk to him.’
‘But you’re not denying that there was a note?’
‘I’m not denying or confirming anything,’ said Celia. ‘I don’t know if what you say is true or not.’
‘Because,’ Lorna said, opening the cardboard file, ‘I just happen to have a photocopy of the note here. What d’you say about it now?’
Lorna George left the great detective’s office and crossed over the square to Betty’s. She waited for a window table so she’d see Sam when he returned from his jaunt. The irony of watching the detective while the detective was watching over his client was not lost on her. Lorna was good at watching people, watching situations, that’s what being a journalist was about. Keeping your eyes skinned, being able to see the moment when a story starts to break. Under different circumstances, Lorna always said, she would have made an excellent spy.
What Lorna liked least about the situation was having to spend time in Betty’s, paying Betty’s prices for the sake of a cup of coffee. So waitress service costs more to provide? Who cares? Get rid of the waitresses, bring the prices down.
That Celia was a silly old cow. She knew as much about the note as her boss did, just as she knew where Angeles Falco was hiding out. What was it about Sam Turner that his women were so loyal, even the ones he wasn’t poking?
At least she didn’t think he’d be poking Celia. You could never tell, though; the dirty bastards were capable of screwing rubber dolls. Guys who’d do that were capable of anything. And they all did it.
He came around the corner into the square and made for the entrance to the office building. He was wearing grey cords with highly polished shoes and a bomber jacket to show off his tight little bum. He walked with a pronounced limp, no doubt introduced artificially to elicit sympathy. Lorna left her file and scarf on the table and went across to intercept him before he got to Celia.
He turned when she called his name but he didn’t see her immediately. She watched him scan the square, looking for something younger and sexier, and when he finally focused on her his face closed down like a vegetarian who’d found a venison steak on his plate. He was good, though, managed to resurrect a smile as colourful as a Kalahari sunset.
‘Lorna,’ he said. He gave her the once over. ‘Shouldn’t you be wearing a coat?’
‘It’s in Betty’s,’ she said. ‘I was having a coffee. You want to join me?’
Hesitation. For a moment there, a dithering detective. ‘Is this business?’ he asked.
‘Could be pleasure as well, Sam. Depends how you want to play it.’ She watched his breath on the icy air.
He glanced at his watch. ‘A few minutes?’
‘I’m offering you coffee,’ she said. ‘Not a package holiday.’
The waitress brought Sam a coffee and set it down in front of him. He sipped from the cup and put it back on the saucer. He waited.
Some minor showbiz personality was at the table by the piano, probably in town to open a new hotel, and the local fans were out in force. The waitresses tripped back and forth in their black and whites, offering professional smiles to their customers. On the other side of the plate-glass window a juggler, his face as misshapen as a used condom, threw a spray of fire-clubs up into the frozen air.
Sam was staring off into the old days.
‘Angeles Falco,’ Lorna said. ‘A note demanding money or her life.’
‘Why ask me? You’ve got your own sources.’
‘I want it from the horse’s mouth.’
Slight curl to his lips. ‘I’m always happy to be called that end of a horse.’
Lorna took the photocopy of the note from her file and handed it over the table. ‘Two questions,’ she said. ‘Is it kosher?’
‘What are you going to do with it?’
‘I’m a journalist. What do you think I’m going to do with it?’
‘It won’t help catch the guy,’ Sam told her. ‘If you publish now, we’ll never hear from him again.’
Lorna shrugged. ‘You just answered the first question. Number two: Ms Falco is not at home. Is there anything to the rumour that she’s living at your house?’
His eyes reflected red. You could see the violence building up inside him.
Lorna smiled. ‘Or is she more than a house guest?’
Sam finished his coffee and put the cup down. ‘I don’t suppose there’s any point in asking you to keep this under wraps?’
‘None at all, darling. It’ll be in the paper tomorrow.’
Sam got to his feet. ‘You’re not a journalist, Lorna. You’re a fuckin’ menace.’
She let the malice boil out through her pores, didn’t mind at all that it disfigured her. ‘And you don’t have to rely on good looks alone, Sam. You’ve got the blarney and you’re gracious too.’
38
She watched Geordie come down the stairs with his hair uncombed, sleep still clinging to him. Barney got out of his basket, shook himself and went over to lick Geordie’s hand. Venus and Orchid both ignored him. He came over and put his arm around her shoulder and nuzzled into her neck.
‘Echo’s still sleeping,’ he said. ‘Did you feed her?’
‘Yes, I think so. I seemed to be feeding her all night. Every time I woke up she was rooting for more.’
‘It’s a design flaw,’ Geordie said, ‘that blokes can’t feed them as well. It’d be easier if we could take it in turns. One day on mum’s milk, next day on dad’s.’
‘It’d
take some of the pressure off me,’ Janet agreed. ‘As it is I’m gonna have to think about giving her a supplement.’
‘You said breast was best,’ Geordie said. ‘The classes we went to, everybody said it was.’
‘I’m not changing my mind, Geordie. But I don’t have enough milk. That’s why she’s hungry all the time. We’ll have to do something.’
He scooped muesli into a bowl and mixed in the milk. He’d started off saying he’d never use skimmed milk if he lived to be a hundred, and there he was, still in his twenties. Now, if Janet got a pint of whole-milk from the supermarket, he’d refuse to use it. Said it felt like raw fat in his mouth.
‘The best thing,’ he said with a mouthful of cereal, ‘would be if everybody had tits and everybody could feed babies on demand. Then Celia or Sam could have a go as well; she’d get more milk than she needed.’
Janet laughed at the thought of Sam Turner suckling Echo. She had a mental picture of him lifting his shirt and finding the nipple, slipping it between the baby’s lips and settling back with a contented smile on his face. ‘I think she’d get more than she needed with you and me, Geordie.’
‘Yeah, I suppose we should keep it in the family; just you and me and Ralph.’
‘Not Ralph,’ Janet said. She turned away from Geordie. She opened the knife drawer and shut it again without taking anything out.
‘Me and you,’ Geordie said. ‘Not Ralph. It’d be great if I could feed her.’
‘I wouldn’t let Ralph feed her a bottle,’ Janet said. ‘I don’t want him touching her.’
Geordie took a mouthful of muesli. He glanced across at Janet a couple of times, but she didn’t want to meet his eyes. She could feel her heart pounding away, the blood rushing around her brain. She didn’t want to say or do anything she might regret, but her self-control was tenuous.
‘Where is Uncle Ralph?’ Geordie said, trying to sound casual.
‘Where do you think? He never gets out of bed before midday.’
‘Yeah.’ Geordie took his bowl to the sink and rinsed it, stood it upside-down on the draining board. ‘Why don’t you have a lay down,’ he said. ‘Catch up a bit while Echo’s asleep.’
