Someone was leaning on the front doorbell. What? At this time of night? After ten. Whoever it was had no intention of giving up.
Maggie was returning back down the stairs, still with her mobile to her ear. ‘Who . . .?’
Bea went to open the door, and the garden gnome tripped over the doorstep and fell into the hallway. Slap, bang, down he went, falling sideways, landing flat on his back. There was blood on his forehead, which he was trying to cover with one hand, while clutching a handful of manuscript paper to him with the other.
‘So sorry,’ he said, not making any attempt to rise. ‘Shock. You know?’
He closed his eyes.
‘Who on earth . . .?’ Maggie switched off her mobile.
‘Jeremy Waite,’ said Bea. ‘Musician. Murder suspect, though I don’t think he did it. It looks as if he’s been duffed up.’
‘Not so.’ Jeremy opened his eyes but made no attempt to rise. ‘Shock. If I might just rest for a bit . . .’ His eyes went up to the ceiling and followed the plaster frieze around. ‘Nice bit of moulding, that. Early Victorian? Black and white tiled floor, probably. I do hope I’m not bleeding on to it.’
‘Er, no,’ said Bea, seized with an inappropriate desire to laugh. ‘Do we call the police or an ambulance?’
He jerked to a sitting position, still holding on to his head. ‘Neither. It was my flat they did in, not me. Fortunately, I was out when they arrived.’
‘When who arrived?’
A shrug. ‘Josie’s dead, so it can’t be her. Her photographer, I suppose. I’d popped out for ten minutes. Came back to find the front door downstairs open. Thought I must have neglected to pull it to behind me when I left, but when I got upstairs, I could see I’d been burgled. Or not burgled, probably, because what do I have that’s worth stealing?’
‘Nothing missing?’ Bea helped him to his feet and deposited him in a chair.
‘A random act of burglary?’
‘I might have thought that, if they hadn’t massacred the piano.’ He dabbed at his forehead. ‘Am I still bleeding? I’d gone out to fetch a pizza, was feeling peckish, and I still had the carton in my hands when I got upstairs and saw the mess. I thought that whoever it was might still be there, so I grabbed some paperwork and ran for it, but I must have caught my foot on the carpet, and what with holding on to the pizza and all . . . I took a tumble down the stairs.’
‘Yes, yes. Let’s get you cleaned up.’
Maggie and Bea lifted him up between them and carried him through into the kitchen, with him still talking.
‘So I got out my mobile and rang the police. And they said they’d log the incident and try to get back to me tomorrow and I looked at the front door and saw the lock had been smashed and I realized they could come back and get me at any minute so I couldn’t stay there. Only, I couldn’t think where to go, and I started walking up the road and suppose I must have dropped my mobile somewhere because I couldn’t find it to ring anyone else, and I remembered you lived nearby, and that’s why I’m here. Ouch!’
Maggie applied a dressing to his grazed temple. ‘Hold still, now.’
He took a deep breath, looking around him. They’d put him on one of the kitchen stools. His legs dangled way off the floor. ‘You haven’t got a biscuit or two handy, have you?’
‘And a cup of tea,’ said Maggie, refilling the kettle. Maggie was good with children of all ages. ‘I’m Maggie, by the way.’
Bea was thinking. ‘I agree you can’t go back to your flat, Jeremy. I suppose – just for tonight – you could sleep here, and then look for something better in the morning?’
Maggie chucked mugs on to the table. ‘The bed in Oliver’s room is already made up. I’ll put out some towels for him.’
Jeremy had already worked out that Maggie was going to be more sympathetic to his need for food than Bea. ‘You haven’t by any chance got a cheese sandwich, or perhaps something a little more substantial?’
‘An omelette?’ Maggie went into production. ‘Spanish: tomatoes, mushrooms, onions and potatoes. Right? With a baked apple and custard to follow?’
‘Bliss,’ he said. Then shivered. ‘It wasn’t a random burglary, was it? Not if they used an axe on the piano. The rest of the furniture didn’t amount to much, and they just tossed my papers around so I can easily catch up on my work, but the piano . . . what am I going to do without a piano?’
‘Rent one,’ said Maggie. ‘I can arrange that for you. No, wait a minute; it would be almost impossible to get a piano up to the third floor here. How about a good electronic keyboard? Would that do you?’
He turned his glowing, innocent smile upon her. ‘You are an angel.’
Bea escaped into the living room, where she doubled over, giving vent to a bout of painful laughter. The little man reminded her of Rumpelstiltskin, the dwarf in the fairy tale who came to an unfortunate end, but this modern-day gnome always fell on his feet, didn’t he? He was like one of those toys that, no matter how often you laid them down, bounced back to an upright position as soon as you took your hand away.
She got out her mobile and keyed in CJ’s number. ‘Yes, I know it’s late, but you’ll never guess what’s just happened. I appear to be sheltering a suspect from a murder enquiry. Do the police need to know I’ve got him?’
FIVE
Thursday evening
‘Nance, he’s slippery as an eel. We got in, no problem, the cafe downstairs had closed for the night, no one around, forced his front door open. He wasn’t there. We roughed the place up but couldn’t wait for him, because Jonno had double-parked the van outside and a car came up behind us, honking his horn and shouting, so we left and drove off before they called the police.
‘We hadn’t got to the end of the road before I spotted him returning to his flat, but there was this car right up to our bumper and no room to turn round. We had to circle right round the block to get back to his place. I left Jonno in the van with the engine running and went back up the stairs, but he’d only been and gone again, hadn’t he!’
‘How do you know he’d been and gone?’
‘Dropped his pizza on the stairs. Mushroom and pepperoni. No sense it going to waste, so we brought it away with us. I’m thinking I might pay him another visit if you don’t want me for anything, right?’
Friday morning
Bea stumbled downstairs, yawning. The first person down – usually Maggie – turned off the house alarm. Bea, groggily, checked, because if it wasn’t turned off, the agency staff would be ringing their doorbell, trying to get in. Ianthe knew how to turn it off, of course, but she wasn’t always the first to arrive.
It was off. Good.
There was no sign of Rumpelstiltskin at breakfast. Maggie said the little man was still snoring, and she’d thought it best to leave him be. Bea agreed. Not even someone as resilient as Jeremy could have his flat trashed, his piano chopped up and survive a fall down the stairs, without suffering some degree of trauma.
Maggie said she’d keep an eye out for him and accompany him back to his flat if the police arrived to inspect the damage. Besides which, he had only the clothes he stood up in, and it might be possible to rescue the rest of his belongings if someone held his hand while he did so.
Maggie seemed to understand Jeremy, and Bea was happy to let the girl play at being nanny. Bea certainly didn’t feel like looking after him herself.
‘Now, Maggie; about that estimate you wanted typed up. Give me the name of the client. I’ll get the paperwork from Ianthe and deal with it myself.’
‘Would you really have the time?’
‘I’ll make time,’ said Bea, and she marched down to her office. Her staff were already there and hard at work. Telephone lines were buzzing, computers were flickering, all was muted efficiency. Splendid.
Ianthe smiled and bobbed her head at Bea as she passed through the main office. Ianthe was on the phone.
Bea tried to boot up her computer, and it failed to respond. She unplugged it, put the plug back, tried again.
It gulped at her and produced a blue screen. Bea stared at it in horror. Blue screens meant sudden death. Rest in Peace. Finis.
‘Oh no, you don’t!’ Switch off. Unplug. Switch on again. This time the screen produced the usual start up . . . and then asked for the day’s password. Which of course she didn’t have.
She left her desk to stand at the French windows, looking out into the garden. It was going to be another hot day. Her phone rang. She had an idle thought: would Ianthe pop in to give her the password, the moment Bea answered the phone?
Of course not. That would mean that Ianthe was working against, and not for, Bea.
She lifted the phone to find it was a complaint. Bea often dealt with complaints herself. Sometimes the client had been mismatched with the customer. Sometimes the customer had asked too much. Bea was always anxious to soothe ruffled feelings and make recompense if by any chance the agency had not been able to fulfil their brief to everyone’s satisfaction. As seemed to be the case this time. Didn’t there seem to be rather a lot of complaints recently?
Bea let a torrent of abuse wash over her. With one part of her mind she was thinking that this woman had been badly served, and with the other she was half listening for . . . ah yes. There was a tap on the door, and in came Ianthe’s head.
‘Oh, I see you’re busy, Mrs Abbot. The password is . . .’
Bea covered the receiver with her free hand. ‘Will you write it down for me, please, Ianthe? Here, on my pad. You got my memo about writing down the password for me?’
‘Oh, yes. Silly me. There’s such a lot happening . . . so busy as we are—’
When had Bea realized Ianthe’s fluffy mannerisms hid a brain made of steel?
‘Hold on a minute, will you?’ Bea put the receiver down on her desk, still quacking away to itself, and tapped the new password into her keyboard. Incorrect password. Well, now; there’s a surprise. Bea turned back to Ianthe, who was halfway out of the door by now. ‘Ianthe; I think I shall have to set the passwords in future. This one doesn’t seem to work.’
‘Doesn’t it? Oh, how silly of me. Do you think I’ve given you yesterday’s password again? Dear me, so I have. Today we have all the numbers in the middle.’
‘Right.’ Bea tried that, and it worked. ‘Don’t go, Ianthe. I understand there’s been a spot of bother with work for Maggie—’
‘Well, yes. I hate to bring it up, because we all know she’s a great favourite of yours, but her handwriting is not at all easy to decipher, and the girls really don’t like taking time out to puzzle over her stuff when everything else is piling up around them.’
‘If you’ll find the handwritten estimate she’s prepared – the one that’s got to go out this week – and bring it to me, I’ll type it up for her.’
Ianthe’s hands twisted themselves together and her rings flashed. ‘Oh, but Mrs Abbot, are you sure you can spare the time when there’s so much else that needs attending to at the moment? We’re run off our feet and—’
‘We always had time in the past.’
‘Yes, but things have moved on, haven’t they? I put it down to the agency in the High Street going bust and all their clients transferring to us.’
That might well be. Bea nodded and picked up the still quacking phone. It sounded as if the client had done the threatening-with-solicitors’-letters bit and got to the tearful stage. ‘Of course you’re upset. I would be, too,’ said Bea in her most soothing tone. ‘Now, give me the details again so that I can write them down and refund your money. And next time, ask for me and I’ll see to it personally that you have someone more satisfactory. Did you say you wanted someone next week as well . . .?’
Two phone calls. An experienced chef located and booked. Client reassured. Problem solved.
Bea put down the phone and went through to the main office. Ianthe was on the phone so Bea asked the nearest girl for the complaints folder and took it back with her to her own office.
The file bulged in ominous fashion. Why hadn’t she been told there were so many complaints? In the old days there had been the odd problem client or customer. Sometimes the client had been mismatched with the customer, or there had been some mishap with the paperwork. That happened even in the best regulated of families.
But the current file contained an appallingly high number of complaints which didn’t seem to have been dealt with, but left on file. Why hadn’t Ianthe brought them to Bea’s attention?
The agency might be doing well on paper, but complaints meant clients would be wary of using their services again. Flicking through the letters, again and again Bea noted the words ‘inefficient’ and ‘badly trained’. This was not good news. The Abbot Agency always vetted their staff carefully. Or rather, Miss Brook had always done so. Query: who was vetting them now? Ianthe?
Bea decided to have a word with Ianthe about this when things were quiet.
In the meantime, she would go through the file herself to see how bad the situation might be. It was going to be a massive job. In the past . . . Ah, well, they didn’t get through so much business then, did they?
She started to make notes. Where there had been complaints about the behaviour of the staff employed, she found a number of names unfamiliar to her . . . new to the Abbot Agency . . . interviewed for a job by . . .? One of the new members of staff. Previously employed by . . . Mm. Another agency. Now, she knew something about that other agency, didn’t she?
She was interrupted in her work half an hour later, when Ianthe popped her head round the door with the news that Maggie’s paperwork couldn’t be found anywhere. Was Mrs Abbot absolutely certain that the girl had handed it in, because Maggie had been known to mislay things, hadn’t she?
Bea said, ‘I will enquire,’ and went upstairs to find Maggie feeding their refugee’s face with a fry up and coffee.
‘Maggie, they seem to have lost your paperwork downstairs. Can you rough it out again for me? I’m going out for an hour and will do it when I get back.’
‘She’s going to help me rescue my clothes from the flat.’ Jeremy displayed the confident, hopeful smile of a child looking forward to a treat. ‘Then she says we’ll have to speak to the police and the letting agency about the damage, because I don’t suppose I’m insured though Maggie says I may be. After that we’re going to look at some electronic keyboards for me. The Japanese make a good one. I think I’ve got my gold credit card somewhere. I do hope I didn’t drop it in the street. I usually keep it in the back of my Oyster travel-card but I’m not sure I’ve still got it with me.’
He rummaged through pockets and produced a torn orange plastic folder. ‘Triumph! I suppose I’d better get another mobile . . .’ And, at that very moment, his mobile phone fell out of his back pocket. He pounced on it with glee. ‘Eureka! My lucky day!’
Bea rolled her eyes at Maggie, who rolled hers back.
Bea said, ‘Back in an hour or so.’ And fled.
‘Come!’ Piers had left the door to his studio ajar, so Bea walked in. Piers was something of a nomad, who liked a frequent change of scene. He was currently occupying a spacious flat at the top of a red brick terrace near Earls Court. The main room – doubling as sitting room and studio – had a good north light.
Piers never seemed to feel the heat or the cold, and ate out when he felt like it.
Bea would have taken a bet that the oven in the kitchen was pristine, but that his top-of-the-range coffee machine and microwave were in constant use.
He was alone and at his easel. ‘Can you manage the coffee machine? If so, help yourself to a cup. There’s milk in the fridge, I think. Take a seat. I can do this bit in my sleep.’ He was painting a mayoral chain on to the head and shoulders portrait of a fat-faced businessman.
Bea admired his technique as he flecked highlights on to the gold links. ‘You’ve caught a sly look in his eyes.’
‘He’s so pleased with himself he won’t see it. Knighted in the last honour’s list, highly esteemed in his home city. This portrait has be
en commissioned by a grateful council to be hung in the mayoral parlour. Unless, of course, the law catches up with him first. I insisted on money in advance, just in case.’
Piers was tall, dark, slender and not at all handsome; but he had brains, charm and was doing very well for himself as a popular portrait painter. He liked to say he cared little for the fripperies of fashion, but his clothes were always of the finest quality – usually in black, which suited him.
Bea managed to make a cup of coffee for herself though – surprise! – there was no milk in the fridge. She shrugged. She would drink it black. It was good coffee. ‘Have you time to listen to my problems?’
Piers stood back to scrutinize what he’d done, nodded, and changed brushes to work some more detail into the collar. ‘Max has been round. Says you think it’s time you retired and took life more easily.’ He flicked at the painting, frowned, and stood well back. ‘The trick is to know when to stop.’
Well, yes. Bea had to agree this was true in art as in life.
Piers cleaned the brushes he’d been using and stuck them in an old coffee mug. ‘There’s no need to do anything in a hurry, is there? Unless you want to up sticks immediately?’
What a relief ! Why hadn’t she thought of that? ‘Good advice.’
He rubbed his chin. He hadn’t shaved that morning, but designer stubble was fashionable at the moment; and if anyone understood fashion, it was Piers. ‘Max got me thinking. I wouldn’t like to lose you. I know I was a spectacular failure as a husband, but we’re good friends now, aren’t we?’
‘That’s why I wanted your advice, not only about Max but—’
He lifted his hand. ‘Don’t say anything till you’ve had time to think over what I’m about to say. Will you promise me that? Not one word, right?’
What absurdity was he going to come up with now? ‘Well, yes; I suppose so.’
‘I’m not suggesting that we get married again. It didn’t work first time round and I’m not sure I could promise fidelity. But, the lease on this flat is up in a couple of months, and I’ve always liked that big house of yours. Suppose I move in with you, separate bedrooms if you wish, and I could work from the top of the house in the loft conversion Max has been telling me about.’
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