An Inch of Time

by Peter Helton

  I rolled the Norton out of the back with the aid of a plank of wood. ‘It’s going to Greece. Tomorrow.’ I followed Annis’s meaningful gaze around the interior. ‘The day after,’ I amended. ‘I’ll have this fixed up in no time.’

  ‘But of course.’ A second after Annis left, Derringer jumped in. I climbed in after him, closed the door against the wet and cold, and when I turned around the cat had disappeared. I opened cupboards and lifted lids but found no trace of him. ‘Nice trick,’ I admitted. Especially in a space that small.

  The gas cooker worked, despite the historical strata of gunk that covered the top. I found the fridge was a lightless hole in which something forensically challenging had perished a long time back. The shower discharged a dribble, and Jake had been right about the toilet.

  When, hours later, Tim’s immaculate Audi rolled into the yard, I was too deep in soap suds and Marigolds to notice until he came and stuck his woolly head through the door. ‘Ah. Was it me who suggested going to Jake’s for transport? I’m so sorry.’

  ‘Another doubting Thomas. Annis is cooking supper. We can have coffee in here in style afterwards. In the meantime, can you see what you can find on Kyla Biggs?’

  ‘Is she the damsel in distress you are hired to find?’ He ran a speculative finger over a sill, examined it, then wiped it on the back of the driver’s seat. Tim lived in a clinically clean ultra-contemporary flat in Northampton Street.

  ‘She’s the one. They gave me a name and a photograph and nothing else.’

  ‘And a thousand quid, I hear.’

  ‘Petrol money.’

  ‘You still owe me for the last job we did.’

  ‘Send me an invoice.’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘Damn. How much?’

  ‘Call it a hundred for cash.’ He held out a broad hand.

  I still had the envelope in my jacket and handed over a couple of crisp notes which disappeared into his jeans pocket.

  ‘I’ll see what I can do, then.’

  ‘You can use my computer,’ I offered.

  ‘No thanks, I’m not a field archaeologist. I’ve got my notebook in the car.’

  An hour later I stepped back to admire my work and thought Matilda’s interior looked worn but acceptable – at least by my standards, which admittedly have been called ‘bohemian’ by some. ‘Appalling’ by others. As I turned around, Derringer materialized from thin air on the table opposite the cooker. Some of his other tricks, besides appearing out of nowhere, were being able to smell if you thought of eating fish and the knack of opening doors by hanging from the door handle. ‘I know there’s no point in asking. Let’s go; must be feeding time.’

  It took me only a few minutes of fiendishly tricky detective work to find Morva Lennox’s phone number in Corfu in the back of an ancient diary. Morva’s work had always sold well enough to keep her in near starvation and teaching jobs. A few years ago, she and her husband, who was some sort of consultant, upped sticks and moved to Corfu where they bought a flat in the capital. Year after year I promised to take her up on the open invitation to come and visit, but now I couldn’t even remember when I had last written to her. I dialled the extremely long number with excuses at the ready. The phone was snatched up after the second ring and a forceful female voice barked something in Greek at me. I asked for Morva Lennox, repeating the name several times without appearing to provoke even a glimmer of recognition. The woman simply poured more Greek into my ear and hung up. Had Morva moved? I had the address, so I’d find out in a couple of days.

  When I came down from my shower, the kitchen radio was tuned to Planet Rock, a Tim Bigwood trademark. I briefly paused in the door frame. Tim and Annis were standing by the Rayburn talking while Annis checked on her cooking. She leant across and planted a laughing kiss on his neck. There was nothing unusual in this, yet I couldn’t help noticing how much like a couple they looked. Any outsider observing the scene might have assumed I was the visitor. I blinked the thought away and walked in.

  Annis heaved a black iron pan on to the table and lifted the lid. The smells of seaside, wine and garlic-charged steam rose from a multitude of mussels, Indian yellow in their slate-blue jackets. ‘Perfect timing, Chris.’

  ‘The smell alone takes me halfway through France.’

  ‘Yes.’ Tim sniffed the aroma. ‘La Rochelle or thereabouts, I think.’

  We gathered round the pot and were soon slurping away over our individual bowls of moules marinière.

  ‘Ah yes, your Miss Biggs.’ Tim pointed a mussel shell and sprayed garlic sauce over a sheaf of A4. ‘I printed those out on the Gutenberg press in your office, hence the streakiness. I didn’t find much on her. Owns a flat in Marlborough Buildings, which means they pay her well.’

  ‘What’s this?’ I pulled the printouts towards me.

  ‘That’s a press release, couple of years old now. It’s not about her – it’s really about food – but it mentions she was employee of the year. There’s a picture.’

  ‘Right, I’ll have a look at it later. What do you think is the best route to Corfu? Left or right?’

  ‘Oh, you don’t want to go through the Balkans; that’ll be slow going. I’d go all the way down Italy and take the ferry from Brindisi, smack opposite Corfu. You can book the ferry tickets in advance online.’

  ‘You can?’ I pleaded. ‘Dover to Calais, too?’

  ‘No sweat. I’ll do it for you in a minute.’

  After the meal I issued my invitation. ‘Coffee in Matilda. Dress casual. And for warmth.’ The box that Sally had donated to the van contained sets of cooking gear and crockery, all lightweight and curiously reduced in size, which had rekindled my playing-house instincts from deepest childhood. Tim and Annis indulged me by sitting expectantly in their jackets and scarves at the little table while I prepared coffee, using a dented whistling kettle on the two-ring Leisure Princess. The rain was drumming on the roof and I discovered little leaks here and there. And there.

  ‘It could be quite cosy in here once you reach warmer climes, but at the moment it’s little better than sitting outside,’ Tim complained.

  ‘Yes, hurry up with that coffee,’ Annis agreed.

  The kettle began to hum. ‘Any minute now.’ The gas flames shrank, spattered and went out. The bottle was empty. We all traipsed back indoors to have grown-up coffee in front of the fire.

  THREE

  ‘Come and say goodbye again,’ Annis murmured suggestively from inside a tangle of hair between the pillows.

  I ran a thirsty tongue the length of her spine, tasting the salt of her sweat. ‘I think I’d better; otherwise, you might forget me the moment I’ve crossed the channel.’ A scrabbling noise at the door followed by a slight draught told me that Derringer had opened the bedroom door by swinging on the door handle. A moment later he walked on to my back and after a minute of sniffing settled between my shoulder blades, making me the filling in a girl-and-cat sandwich. ‘I think you should at least look at me while I say goodbye to you,’ I complained to Annis.

  Her half-asleep moan could have meant anything, but she dutifully wriggled around, eyes still closed, and wrapped her arms around me – and the cat. ‘Oh my god, that’s so weird,’ she said, eyes wide open now. Derringer stood up and dug his claws into my shoulders. ‘That’s like an illustration from a children’s book; all we need now is a cockerel on top of him. That’s too weird; goodbye, Christopher.’ She kissed me wildly for three seconds, then slithered from under me and made for the shower.

  I subsided into the empty space and shrugged off Derringer. ‘Now look what you’ve done. I’ll make sure to return the compliment one day.’

  Despite taking my time over breakfast, the world was still dripping darkly with fog when I stepped into the yard. I had packed and loaded Matilda the night before and would buy more provisions on the way.

  Annis kept up her encouragement. ‘Just as well the Landy’s got a tow bar. Give me a call when she rolls to a stop and I’ll come and fetch y
ou home. This side of the channel only, mind.’

  ‘Oh ye of little faith. I do wish you were coming with me.’

  ‘I might join you later. If the cheque from Simon Paris comes. If my painting is finished. And if you’re still there. Then I’ll get a cheap flight from Bristol.’

  I cheered up. ‘Great, we’ll have a holiday in the sun.’

  ‘And it’ll take me three hours to get there,’ she said with heavy stress on ‘three hours’. ‘You’re completely mad, Honeypot. There’s still time to change your mind and get on a plane like a normal person. You could be there in less time than it takes to drive this piece of junk to Dover.’

  ‘You’d have to shoot me with a tranquillizer dart first.’

  ‘Tempting, but we still haven’t paid the last vet bill.’

  We kissed again through the open window, then looked each other in the eye for a quiet minute while the crows stirred in the trees by the millpond. I started the engine. Annis waved a melancholy goodbye as I drove out of the yard and bumped Matilda up the narrow unmade track to the road. The madness had started.

  Tim had not only booked my tickets but had also printed out a route map and itinerary for me and I had my trusted road atlas on the passenger seat. It was ten years out of date but I was working on the assumption that the basic features like the Channel, the Alps and the Med would still be where they were when it went to print.

  I had sobered up a little since the first excitement of being paid to escape this gloomy tail end of the British winter and a few tiny doubts had begun to creep in. What I had said to John Morton was true: Corfu was a large island. I’d looked at a map of it and found it had lakes, rivers, mountains and hundreds of villages. I didn’t speak a word of Greek and knew absolutely nothing about the place.

  And less about Kyla Biggs. The information Morton had given me was sparse and the picture he had furnished me with represented my only real knowledge of the woman. I needed to get more of a feel for who I was trying to find, yet the only thing I had was the address Tim had found for me, so that was where I headed first.

  Marlborough Buildings was a row of grand Georgian town houses, many converted into flats, with views front and back across the fifty or so acres of Victoria Park. The first floors of most of the houses were graced by narrow wrought-iron balconies and it turned out, according to the name on the bell, that Kyla Biggs owned a first-floor flat in the middle of the row, with a view not just of the park but also of the Royal Crescent. I shuddered to think what the mortgage on a recession-proof place like this must cost. I idly pressed the bell button, for no other reason than that you never know.

  ‘Can I help you at all?’ The voice emanated not from the intercom but from an elderly woman behind me, clutching a large leather handbag and a bunch of keys like weapons. She eyed me with distaste or suspicion, a reaction the sight of men with long hair and leather jackets can easily provoke in elderly strangers. I’m really quite harmless and most people quickly realize that.

  ‘My name is Chris Honeysett. I’m a private investigator and I’ve been asked to find Miss Kyla Biggs.’ I managed to find a slightly scuffed card in the lining of my leather jacket and handed it over.

  Her expression had already changed from suspicion to concerned interest. ‘Oh yes? I have never met a private detective before.’ She even managed the hint of a smile as she reappraised my appearance. ‘I suppose you’re in disguise. Well, you won’t find her here. Kyla went on holiday to Greece and hasn’t returned. If you really want to find her, and I wish someone would, you’d have to go to Corfu, I fear.’

  ‘I’m on my way there,’ I assured her, ‘but I thought coming here might give me more of an idea who it is I’m looking for. I’ve not been told much.’

  ‘Who hired you, if I may inquire?’

  ‘Her employers did.’

  ‘Oh, did they? Well –’ she reached past me and unlocked the door – ‘in that case, you’d better come in, hadn’t you? I’m Mrs Walden. I live on the ground floor.’ I followed her inside her flat through a door with highly polished brass fittings. ‘Please sit down while I make tea. You will have a cup of tea, of course.’

  I said I would. I knew that there was no need to call ‘milk, no sugar’ after her as she disappeared towards her kitchen. Even though it was obvious that Mrs Walden had sold every piece of furniture she could bear to live without and I could see lighter patches on the wall where paintings had once hung, I knew tea would arrive on a tray with milk jug and sugar pot. I was sure Mrs Walden had standards. Two unmatched armchairs either side of a polished mahogany coffee table in front of the fireplace and a dark dresser in a corner were the only furniture left in this large, high-windowed room. The grate contained an unlit coal-effect gas fire. On the mantelpiece, between a radio and a stopped clock, stood a row of library books, all of them detective novels, which probably explained how I had made it through the door.

  ‘So, you are working on the case of Kyla’s mysterious disappearance?’ she asked, pouring tea into flowery china cups. ‘Would you like the fire on? You may find it a bit chilly in here. I don’t usually have it on until the evening.’

  ‘Oh, it’s fine,’ I protested. The temperature in the room was just this side of hypothermia and I regretted having turned down her offer since she looked a little disappointed at having been denied an opportunity to indulge in the extravagance of early warmth. There was more disappointment when she realized that I knew next to nothing about what I sincerely hoped would not turn out to be a case. ‘How well do you know her?’ I asked.

  ‘Reasonably well. Kyla is a kind, caring sort of person. She works for the supermarket but not on the shop floor; she is educated. Though, of course, that’s no longer a guarantee of a good job these days, is it? She brings me things sometimes – items of food, things she gets for free, even a bottle of wine once in a while. Very neighbourly. So it’s such a shame and so unfair to have her flat broken into while she is missing.’

  ‘Broken into?’

  ‘Three . . . yes, three days ago. Didn’t you know that?’

  I could see that in Mrs Walden’s eyes I compared badly with the detectives on the mantelpiece. ‘No one mentioned it. I’m not sure even her employers knew, but then why would they? How did they get in?’

  ‘Through the basement, then they jemmied open her front door. They were very quiet, I give them that; I’m quite a light sleeper and I didn’t hear a thing.’

  ‘Was much taken?’

  ‘Well, it was hard to tell. The police asked me to take a look around, see if I noticed anything obviously missing, but I couldn’t tell. She has a laptop computer and it was not there, but she might have taken that with her on holiday, of course. I told the police that I don’t think this was an ordinary burglary. There were valuable things that any self-respecting burglar would have taken.’

  ‘That’s certainly curious.’ If it was true. Some burglars specialized, and if they found the jewellery box, the car keys or some money, they might leave other valuables untouched. ‘Does Miss Biggs have a car?’

  ‘Yes, that’s still in her garage across the road; the officers checked for that. Are you going to Corfu to find her? The police are clueless, you know; they seem to think she ran off with a Greek waiter. Ridiculous.’

  ‘Talking of which, did Miss Biggs have a boyfriend, fiancé . . .?’

  Mrs Walden lifted her chin and shook her head just twice. ‘Nothing of the sort. She is a sensible young woman and wastes no time on boyfriends. That’s what makes the Greek waiter theory so unlikely.’

  ‘I don’t suppose she told you where in Corfu she was going, where she was staying?’

  ‘No, but perhaps this might provide a clue. Just a minute.’ She left the room and returned with a postcard. ‘This came only yesterday.’

  I quickly read the few lines Kyla had written: ‘Not much sun today and we had a terrific thunderstorm last night but sea and sand are plentiful. Back before you receive this, I’m sure. Love, Kyla.’ I tu
rned it over. The picture was of a restaurant with tables shaded by vines, near a stretch of water. The handwritten sign over the door spelled ‘Niko’s Taverna’.

  ‘This could be useful,’ I admitted.

  ‘You may keep it.’

  She wished me good luck as she let me out by the front door. ‘Go and find Kyla, Mr Honeysett. And Godspeed.’

  I’d left the van parked nearby in the avenue that ran through the park. Before I could set off, however, there were one or two things I needed. First stop was the McBooks in Milsom Street. The language section in the basement had several Delude Yourself packs for Greek, but each cost a fortune and required a CD player, while all Matilda could offer was an ancient radio-cassette combo. The nearby library had just what I needed – a Greek Made Easy language course with a book and cassettes. It looked to be of an age with the van. By the time I’d get there I was sure I’d have a working knowledge of the language. If small children in Greece could speak it, then how difficult could it be? I got my ticket blipped and returned to Matilda. At the petrol station I bought a replacement for the empty propane bottle, and, with a full tank of fuel, headed for Dover.

  The van behaved impeccably. I was used to driving classic and/or rickety machinery around and soon found that the optimum speed for Matilda was fifty-four mph. Below that, it felt like riding a pregnant hippo, and going faster soon resulted in the kind of vibrations that made my hands go numb on the steering wheel, blurred the mirrors and had the crockery singing in the cupboards.

  It was the off-season for passenger travel from Dover and I had an open ticket for whatever SeaFrance ferry was available. SeaFrance used the Eastern Docks Ferry Port. The signposts were big and unequivocal, and even the greatest confusenik would have had problems getting lost (as the lorry driver I asked for directions kindly pointed out).

  In August the place would be overrun with coaches and holidaymakers; now I simply rolled up to Frontier Control, had my papers checked and fifteen minutes later, with Matilda parked in the fume-laden hold of the ferry Berlioz, I stood on deck enjoying the sea air for about ten seconds. Then a hard, uncompromising wind blew straight out of the east and swept me inside and into the warmth.