It was gorgeous, of course, but there was something about it that didn’t feel real, and it was smack dab in the middle of it that I found Mr Bryant’s shop, its boarded-up remains sandwiched between a shop selling upscale baby knitwear and a gluten-free crêperie. Even before the fire, his shop would have stuck out like a pair of Clarks at a Louboutin sample sale.
I doubled back on myself and headed towards the Hackney Road end. Here, the façade of pleasant gentility wore away to reveal its original, slightly grittier incarnation. The park was beautifully kept, but thankfully full of people who didn’t look like they’d fallen out of a Boden catalog. A bunch of schoolkids chased each other, squealing, as their mothers looked on impassively. A teenaged girl with Coke-can headphones on walked past clutching a cardboard box full of chips, the tinny thud of bass surrounding her like a cloud. And there, on a park bench, sat a pair of old men, hands resting on top of canes, heads angled in towards each other, just taking it all in.
They would be as good a place to start as any.
‘Excuse me,’ I said, striding over to them. ‘Do either of you know Edward Bryant?’
The two men exchanged glances. ‘Sorry, darling, never heard of him,’ the man in the flat cap said.
‘He owns the cobblers,’ I said, pointing down the street. ‘There was a fire there a few weeks ago?’
The man with the white moustache scratched his chin. ‘Doesn’t ring a bell …’
I sighed. ‘Do you live around here?’
The man in the flat cap gave me a long appraising gaze. ‘That’s a very personal question, young lady.’
‘Yes,’ the man with the moustache piped up. ‘Why should I tell you where I live? I don’t know you from Adam.’
‘You might follow us home,’ the flat cap man said.
‘Knock us on the head and rob us blind,’ the moustache man added.
‘I’m not – I’m just—’ I spluttered.
The two men looked at each other and broke into laughter. ‘We’re only joking, love,’ said the man in the cap. ‘Of course I know the cobblers. I’ve lived here nearly twenty years.’
‘He’s still settling in,’ said the moustache man, jerking his thumb towards flat cap. ‘I’ve been here since I was just a nipper.’
‘Great!’ I said brightly. ‘So can you tell me—’
‘Now where’s your accent from?’ The man in the flat cap rested his chin in the cup of his hand and smiled up at me.
‘America.’
‘Ah, America! Lovely place. Always wanted to go. Where in America are you from?’
‘New Jersey,’ I said reluctantly. I was always reluctant to admit to Brits I was from New Jersey. First of all, because they were always hoping for somewhere more glamorous – New York, Los Angeles, even Florida had a strange allure. And second –
The man in the flat cap lit up like a casino at Atlantic City. ‘Baddabing! New Jersey! Sopranos, right?’
I nodded wearily. ‘Right.’ The only things most British people knew about New Jersey came from The Sopranos, which meant that as soon as they heard I was from there, they assumed that I owned a fur coat and understood that pointing-at-the-nose gesture, neither of which was true.
‘Brilliant program, that,’ said the man with the moustache. ‘My son got me the DVD for Christmas one year and I watched the whole series in a month.’
‘Lazy git!’ hooted the man in the cap.
‘Yes, it’s a great show,’ I said, ‘James Gandolfini was an amazing actor. Now, about the cobbler shop—’
‘Such a shame he popped his clogs, isn’t it?’ The man in the cap looked positively mournful. ‘So young, too.’
‘True, but you can’t live like he did and not suffer the consequences,’ the man with the moustache said, gently caressing his own sizable stomach.
‘The fella did look like he loved a bit of steak, God bless him.’
‘Nothing wrong with that!’ The two men dissolved into laughter again. It was becoming increasingly clear that I wasn’t getting anywhere with them.
‘Look,’ I said, a little too impatiently, ‘I don’t have much time, so I’d really appreciate it if you could tell me a little bit about the cobbler shop.’ I saw the eyebrows shoot up on the two men, but ploughed on regardless. ‘Were you there the day of the fire? Did you see anything? Did you speak with Mr Bryant at all?’
The man with the flat cap rose to leave, leaning heavily on his cane for support. ‘Sorry, love,’ he said, ‘I’m afraid I can’t help you there.’
The man with the moustache joined him. ‘His mind’s not so good these days,’ he said, placing a steadying hand on the back of the bench. ‘And neither is mine. Good luck.’
They nodded at me curtly and shuffled towards the exit of the park. I suppressed the urge to scream.
‘Not going too well, huh?’ I turned to find Jackson smirking at me. He held out a paper takeaway cup. ‘Thought you could use a coffee.’
‘Thanks,’ I said, snatching the cup from him. I took a sip. The coffee was hot – I felt the tip of my tongue sizzle on contact – but delicious. ‘I thought I told you to stay in the café.’
‘It’s exactly that sort of charming attitude that got you so far with those two gentlemen,’ he said, nodding towards the now-empty bench. ‘You sure you don’t need a hand? I’m telling you, I’m good with people.’
I sighed. ‘Fine. But only because I know you’re not going to leave me alone anyway.’
He fell in step as I walked back towards the street. ‘Great! Where to next?’ He rubbed his hands together. ‘This is like being a private eye. I always wanted to be a private eye, didn’t you? All those Chandler novels …’
I glanced over at him. ‘You read Chandler?’ Somehow Jackson didn’t strike me as the Chandler type. He was too … glib. Although, frankly, he didn’t really even strike me as the reading type.
His eyes lit up. ‘Oh, man, I love Chandler! The Big Sleep. The Long Goodbye.’
‘Farewell My Lovely,’ I added.
‘That’s my favorite.’
‘It is?’ It was mine, too.
‘Absolutely! It has the best character name in fiction.’
‘Moose Malloy!’ we chorused.
He grinned at me. ‘I’ve never met a woman who was a Chandler fan.’
‘Really?’
He shrugged sheepishly. ‘I don’t tend to go for brainy types, if you know what I mean.’
I pictured a long line of pert blondes fanned out in front of him like a deck of mildly erotic playing cards. ‘That doesn’t surprise me,’ I said ruefully.
‘Hey, you can’t have it all. Have you watched the films?’
I nodded. ‘Most of them.’
‘Who’s your favorite Philip Marlowe?’
I considered this as we turned left and towards a row of neatly kept houses. ‘Everyone always says The Big Sleep, and of course you can’t argue with Bogart and Bacall—’
He shook his head and took a sip of his coffee. ‘Can’t argue with that at all.’
‘But I think the best Marlow is Elliott Gould—’
‘In The Long Goodbye!’ he chimed. ‘He’s amazing, isn’t he?’
I found myself beaming. No one ever knew about Elliott Gould. ‘Totally!’
‘That movie is so weird and 70s-trippy, right?’
‘Those girls living across the hall from him …’
‘And that scene in the house in Malibu!’
We nodded at each other like a couple of those bobble-headed dolls you could get in cheap souvenir shops around Leicester Square. Just then, a scraggy-looking dog bounded up to us, tongue out, tail wagging. I took a step back – when I was little, my mother had warned me not to pet strange dogs because they could ‘bite my face off’ – but Jackson was on his knees in an instant, scratching the dog behind its ears while it thumped its tail happily on the ground. I watched as the dog rolled over and showed him its belly. ‘Good dog,’ he cooed, getting right down on the ground beside it.
>
‘Jackson,’ I cautioned, ‘be careful. That might be an attack dog or something.’
He took the dog’s face in his hands and held it up for me to see. ‘This dog?’ The dog looked dazed with happiness, a thin thread of drool hanging from the corner of its mouth.
I took a cautious step forward. ‘I’m just saying, you don’t know what kind of dog it is.’
Jackson took the dog’s cradled head and stared into its eyes. ‘What kind of dog are you, huh? Are you a bad dog, like the mean lady says?’
‘Jackson!’
‘Or are you a good dog? I think you’re a good dog, yes I do.’ A brief bout of play wrestling commenced, and it was difficult to tell who was having more fun – Jackson or the dog.
It was amazing, really. I spent my whole life calculating risk, weighing up the options, and following the rules, and here he was, just ploughing through like a bull on a bender. And I still couldn’t decide if he was a genius or an idiot because of it.
Just as I mentally debated the point, a frazzled-looking middle-aged woman with a bouffant of light blonde hair tore across the park towards us. ‘Max!’ she shouted, ‘Max!’ The dog momentarily stopped licking Jackson’s face and gazed quizzically at the woman, who arrived by our side huffing and puffing like she’d just won the 400-meter hurdles. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said, grabbing for the dog’s collar. ‘She was there one minute and when I turned around – whoosh! – she was off like a bloody rocket! Pardon my language.’
‘No need to apologize,’ Jackson said, getting to his feet and dusting down his knees. ‘Max and I were having a good old time, weren’t we, girl?’
‘She’s such a tart,’ the woman said, shaking her head. ‘I’m Marjorie, by the way.’ Jackson and I introduced ourselves, as Max rolled around in a patch of grass. ‘Fox poo,’ Marjorie said, pointing at the dog, wriggling merrily on her back. ‘She can’t get enough of it. Disgusting, really.’
‘My dog was just the same,’ Jackson said. ‘He’d find a foxhole and go nuts for it.’
‘Dogs are strange creatures, aren’t they? Really, I don’t know why I put up with her.’ The indulgent smile on her face told a different story.
‘They’re crazy all right,’ Jackson agreed. ‘That’s what I love about ’em.’
‘Well, I don’t want to take up any more of your time,’ Marjorie said, producing a leash from her jacket pocket and bending down to secure it to Max’s collar. ‘Lovely meeting you.’
‘You too,’ I said, reaching down to give Max a tentative pat on the back. Her fur was thick and coarse, like horsehair, and the smell of her lingered on my hand.
‘Say,’ Jackson said, getting back down on the ground and gathering Max in his arms for a hug. I was starting to wonder if we should leave them alone for a while. ‘I don’t suppose you could do us a favor? My friend and I here were looking to talk to someone who saw that fire at the cobbler’s place up the road. I don’t suppose you know anyone who might be willing to have a chat with us?’
I shot him a look. He was being way too upfront. There was no way this woman was going to—
‘Of course!’ Marjorie trilled. ‘Now, I saw the smoke from my house – I live on Wellington Row, just over there – but I didn’t see much else. Betty Cranfield, though – she’ll have seen it. That woman sees everything around here. I swear, she must have been a member of the SOE during the war.’
‘She sounds like our gal,’ Jackson said, beaming up at her. ‘Could you tell us where we could find her?’
‘Let’s see,’ she said, consulting her wristwatch. ‘It’s ten to four on a Friday, so she’ll be having her hair set in Daisy’s just up the road.’ This was impressive knowledge of Betty Cranfield’s schedule. Marjorie must have clocked my surprise because she laughed and said, ‘I know that makes me sound mad, but I always take Max for a walk at the same time every day, so you get used to seeing the same people in the same places. And every Friday, Betty’s under the blower at Daisy’s. You’ll find her there, I’m sure.’
‘Thank you so much,’ I gushed.
‘No bother! It’s always a pleasure to meet a fellow dog lover.’ She addressed this to the top of Jackson’s head, and by the look on her face, I was pretty sure it wasn’t just his appreciation for canines she was admiring. ‘Just tell her Marjorie sent you, and tell her I’ll be round in the morning with the papers once I’m finished with them. Saves her a trip to the shops,’ she explained.
‘That’s very sweet of you,’ I said.
She straightened her shoulders. ‘It’s a small community around here. It may be all posh bloody cafés and fancy boutiques on the street, but most of us have been here for ages. We look after each other.’ I picked up a slight defensive tone in her voice, and wondered if she wasn’t just talking about bringing Betty the paper. Maybe she knew more about the fire than she was letting on. ‘Right then,’ she said, tugging on Max’s lead. ‘Come on, you, let’s get you back to the house. She’ll be dead on her feet after all this excitement.’
Jackson gave Max a final scratch and reluctantly climbed to his feet. ‘A pleasure to meet you, Marjorie,’ he said, taking her hand in both of his. Marjorie swayed slightly under the weight of his charm offensive, and I had to physically restrain myself from rolling my eyes.
‘Lovely to meet you, too, Jackson. Maybe I’ll see you again around the park …? I know Max would love that.’ Yeah right, I thought. Max is the one who’ll be pining away.
‘I hope so, too,’ Jackson said, dipping his head and giving her a little wink. Jesus, the guy was really laying it on thick.
‘Nice to meet you, too, Janice,’ Marjorie said, giving me a cursory wave before turning to leave.
We watched her and Max make their way across the park, Max stopping at every bush, rock, bench, and fellow dog to have a sniff, while Marjorie tutted and tugged on her leash. It took me a few seconds to realize Jackson’s shoulders were shaking with laughter.
‘What’s so funny?’
‘Oh, nothing,’ he said, a grin spreading across his face. ‘You ready to go, Janice?’
‘Shut up,’ I hissed, but soon I was laughing, too. ‘What about you, Casanova? You were practically clutching a rose between your teeth while doing the tango back there. I don’t know who was more taken by it – Max or Marjorie.’
‘Marjorie, I reckon.’ I reached out and smacked him on the arm. ‘What? It worked, didn’t it?’
I rolled my eyes. ‘We’ll see about that. Come on, let’s see if you can work your magic on Betty, too. Something tells me she’s going to be a harder sell than poor Marjorie.’
Jackson interlaced his fingers and cracked his knuckles. ‘Sweetheart,’ he said, ‘I’m just getting started.’
In the end, we were both right. Betty was indeed a tricky customer, all sidelong looks and tuts and sighs, and Jackson was indeed up for the challenge, all winks and grins and ma’ams. In fact, he basically ma’amed her into submission. No one could have withstood the tidal wave of ma’ams he unleashed, regardless of their suspicion of outsiders or the state of their bunions or their overall abiding sense that these two Americans were trying to pull a fast one.
We found her just where Marjorie said we would, her white hair neatly sectioned and pulled tight around a set of bright pink curlers, the tang of ammonia and the floral scent of her perfume heightened by the heat of the hood dryer that hummed above her head. Daisy’s itself was set in time as tightly as Betty’s perm, with its black bucket seats, checkerboard floor, and photos of elegant women displaying the latest hairstyles from 1963 tacked up on the wall. I wondered how this place had survived the transition into hipsterville, but the steady stream of nicely turned-out ladies of a certain age clutching rolled-up umbrellas and pulling check-printed shopping carts into the salon quickly answered my question.
So, after much cajoling and charming and downright flirting, Betty told us about the fire.
Well, she told Jackson about the fire, while I tried to make myself as inconspic
uous as possible. Betty had taken one look at me in my Zara trousers and my court shoes and my trench coat and had decided that I was not trustworthy in the least. Worse – that I should be ignored at all costs, like a lunatic singing Abba tunes on the 134 night bus.
‘I’ll tell you what I saw,’ Betty said, peering at Jackson above her bifocals, ‘though I don’t know what good it will do you. I was sat at the café across the street – you know, that trendy one that does the croissants with chocolate in them – and I was having a cup of tea – they do do a nice cup of tea, mind – when I smelled a funny sort of smell.’
‘What kind of smell?’ I asked. She ignored me.
‘So I said to Sophie – she’s the girl who runs the café, lovely girl even if she has ruined her face with that piercing – I said, can you smell that? And she said, yes, I can, it’s a sort of acrid smell. I think it’s coming from outside. So the two of us went outside and there was smoke coming from the front of Ed’s shop. Great thick black clouds of it.’
My mind whirred. Electrical fires usually produced white smoke. It was flammable liquids – like gasoline – that produced black smoke.
‘I said to Sophie, quick, call the fire brigade! She went off to phone them and I stood outside and shouted up to Ed, in case he was home. “Ed!” I shouted. “Ed, your shop is on fire!” But there was no response. So I started worrying that maybe he couldn’t hear – he’s a lovely man, Ed, but deaf as a post – but then there he was, scuttling up the street fast as anything. The look on his face – well, I’d never seen anything like it.’ She shook her head at the memory. ‘Just horrible. He’d spent his whole life in that shop, and he’d only recently lost his Vicki …’
Jackson glanced at me. ‘Vicki was his wife?’
She nodded. ‘An absolute gem, she was. They were childhood sweethearts, you know.’
My heart softened at this. ‘Have you seen Mr Bryant since the fire?’
‘Oh no,’ she said. ‘As soon as the flames were out, he up and left. We haven’t heard from him since.’ She gave Jackson a beseeching look. ‘You’re not here to tell me he’s dead, are you? I don’t think my poor heart could take another shock.’
Jenny Sparrow Knows the Future Page 20
