by Issy Brooke
He turned as she got to him, and she recognised Alf, the owner of the run-down car repair workshop in the middle of town.
“You!” he exploded, and shook a fist at her. “Tell her I want my money back!”
Chapter Four
“What on earth do you mean?” Penny stood her ground, hands on her hips, as Alf jabbed his finger towards her. He had saggy grey jowls and wore a stained pair of brown overalls with dark stains at the knees and along the hips, where he must have often wiped his hands.
“I want my money that her good-for-nothing husband conned out of me!” Alf hollered, spit flying from his mouth.
Penny lowered her voice, and tried to appeal to his sense of decorum. “Her husband died last night. Perhaps you hadn’t heard…”
“Of course I heard! Everyone has heard. That’s why I’m here. If I can’t get it out of him anymore, then she’s going to have to pay, right? So where is it?”
Wolf and Destiny were wedged together, leaning forwards out of the upstairs window. Destiny screamed something quite foul, and Wolf followed that up with a suggestion that Alf went and counted chassis numbers on a busy motorway. Penny grimaced. Kali sounded as if she were trying to claw and eat her way out through the front door, but there was no sight or sound of Ariadne.
She squared up to Alf. “This is not the time nor the place! You cannot come and harass a bereaved person. That’s disgusting. If you have a legitimate claim for money that you think is owed to you, then I suggest you call the police!” Or get a solicitor, or contact Trading Standards, or something. She wasn’t quite sure what the procedure was. She wished she still had some of her earlier attempts at bread-making; one swing of her tote bag with that at the bottom, and she could have felled the nasty piece of work.
“The police?” he said. “What use will that lot be for the likes of me? Look at me! Look how I am, now! Nah, I have rights, even now, and I will have my money. I need it. I am not going till I have it.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Penny muttered. You couldn’t argue with people like that. It was like kicking bricks. She pulled her phone out to make a call to Cath. “I’ll call them, then.”
She only had time to flip open the leather case before Alf was lunging towards her, his pudgy hands groping at her phone. She tried to bat him away with her forearm moving in a wide arc, but his hand closed over her wrist and she yelped in surprise and pain, dropping the phone and instinctively moving backwards, which caused him to tighten his grip even more.
She hadn’t practised any self-defence moves for many years, and her muscle memory had faded. She stepped forward, hoping to catch him off guard, but as she did so, there was a rising shriek from the windows and something whistled through the air, catching Alf on the side of his head.
He let go of Penny and at the same time, the cottage door opened. Kali launched herself through the door, her hackles high all along her shoulders and spine, barking furiously at everyone and everything. She danced, stiff-legged, along the pavement towards them.
Alf ran. He took one look at the drooling Rottweiler, and unleashed an impressive turn of speed along the road.
Kali pranced a few steps after him, barking fit to burst, and then stopped. She reduced her volume to a mere blood-curdling growl, and looked up at Penny as her upstanding fur began to flatten down once more.
Penny patted her a few times, and then acted without thought. “Inside,” she said to the dog, and took off after Alf.
That man was not going to get away with this, she vowed as she pursued him back along the streets of Glenfield. I’ve never been a pushover and this is not the time to start.
* * * *
She could run at least as fast as the unfit older man, and she kept him in her view as she pounded along the pavement. She was so angry that her vision had darkened at the edges, focusing her sight along a narrow tunnel that contained only one thing of importance: Alf. She was puffing and sweating and knocking into people with her flailing elbows, and she didn’t care.
She was gaining on him by the time that he reached his tumbledown garage. It sat on a corner of a crossroads, right in the heart of Glenfield, and had two rusty fuel pumps out the front and a long single-storey building that served as shop, office and workshop. There was a fenced-off area that contained two cars. Alf dived through the door that said “Staff Only” but she had got to it before he could lock it behind him. Driven by righteous adrenaline, Penny flung her shoulder to the door, using her whole body weight to burst it open. She sprang into the office with a satisfying flourish.
The first thing she noticed was the smell in the room. It was damp, and musty, and mixed in with oil and petrol and goodness knew what else.
But then, given the level of disarray in the place, she was surprised it didn’t smell even worse.
Alf retreated behind his desk which was overflowing with yellowing paperwork. “Get out of my office!”
“Tell me about Owen Jones,” she countered. She held her hands up, palms out. “Look, I’m not here to argue. I simply want to know about this money.”
“Get out!”
“I’m Ariadne’s sister, you know. Right now, she’s suffered a bereavement and she can’t cope with things like this. It’s down to me. You can talk to me about it, okay? See me as her representative. Let’s get this sorted out.” She forced herself to sound calm and in control.
But Alf was not having any of it. He picked up a heavy-looking ledger and waved it at her. She was glad there were no old-fashioned letter-openers or those receipt-spike-things hanging around.
“You go back to her and you tell her that he owes me four thousand pounds and I know he’s got that cash, and I want it back, and I will have it back, whatever I need to do to get that.”
Penny sighed and let her arms fall to her sides. She took a deep breath and tried to think for a minute. She only wanted to know the details, and protect Ariadne. Alf kept the hard-backed book raised high though his arms were quivering with the effort. He seemed stuck between wanting her out of the office, and making her give him the money, as if she walked around with four grand in notes stuffed in her bag all the time. His uncertainty made him unpredictable. And therefore dangerous.
I’m in his space, she thought. And that makes me a threat. Deliberately, she stepped backwards, and stopped staring at him. Instead, she forced herself to be casual. She began to study the various certificates and framed notices on the walls. There were the usual garage posters about the arrangements for viewing the MOT and not to ask for credit and a few jokey cartoons of overworked staff. There was also, incongruously, a framed school photograph in black and white, the boys in ranks along benches, sitting stiffly in curious suits with straw boaters.
She peered a little closer but before she could ask if his father was on the photograph, Alf slammed the book onto the desk, drawing her attention back to him.
“You want to know?” he shouted. “You want to know about that lowlife? He sold me a turkey, that’s what. Four thousand pounds for a car that’s worthless, just two other cars stitched together, and stitched me up, he did, like the cars were.”
“Oh.” It sounded exactly like the sort of stunt that Owen would have pulled. A cut-and-shut, she thought. She was surprised that a longstanding and experienced garage owner like Alf had fallen for it. It wasn’t as if Owen presented himself as any kind of knowledgeable businessman; unlike Brian Davenport. “Oh,” she said again. She could hardly contradict Alf and she felt sorry for him now. “Isn’t there a small claims court you can go to?”
“Against who? A dead man? No, his wife will have the money and she owes it to me.”
“He only died yesterday! Have you no heart?” Her sympathy for his plight turned out to be very short-lived, and it had already disappeared in the face of his callousness. “For goodness’ sake, let her have a little time.”
“She’ll have spent it within a week. I know what women are like. I need it now.”
Now Penny herself wanted t
o pick up the heavy ledger and smack him on the side of the head with it. What made people act in such an unfeeling way? Impulsively, she said, “What sort of car was it? You know, that Owen sold to you.”
“A BMW. Mostly.”
“Are you sure? It wasn’t a Range Rover or anything, was it?”
He stared at her and she felt her cheeks fire with a blush of shame.
“Ah, right, yes, sorry, of course,” she said. “You would know, I suppose. Look. I can’t do anything for you. I am sure you will get the money back. I’ll talk to my sister but please, please don’t come around and bother her again. Not at the moment. I’m begging you, just let her have some space and we can sort this out…”
“Oh, shut up,” he snapped, and moved around the desk. “I need that cash today, if not sooner, and you need to go back there right now and get her to pay up, and if I see that dog of yours again, I’ll be reporting it as a dangerous dog to the police, all right?”
He was advancing on her and she stood her ground, changing her tone from placatory to firm. “No, it is not all right. You’re threatening me!”
“Yes, I am.”
“Well, don’t,” she said in the weakest verbal defence in the history of arguments. It was as if she couldn’t act and think at the same time. She sighed internally and set her teeth, trying to summon up something a little more impressive to say, but her mind had gone blank in a panic as he came to a stop about seven inches away from her.
They stared at one another, both their brains whirring. She could see confusion and hesitation in his eyes, and it mirrored her own feelings. What now? She was not going to step back but neither could she step forwards. And he seemed unwilling to lunge at her physically.
Seemed.
She was wrong.
Alf pounced. Whatever social convention it was that prevented most men from swinging a punch at a woman was working, and he didn’t try to thump her. Instead, he flung open his arms and grappled her into a huge bear hug, trying to pull her towards the door, and she screamed.
His meaty arms were strong but she had fingernails and terror on her side, and a very loud voice. “What are you doing?” she shrieked. She had not expected this. She had one free arm, with the other pinned to her side. She clawed at his shoulders and back and neck.
“I’ve. Had. Enough,” he grunted out and there was a catch in his voice like he was trying not to cry.
“It doesn’t have to be like this,” she hollered, scratching at the bare flesh of his neck. She found herself oddly reluctant to do him any real damage; if she could wrestle herself free, that would be enough.
“Alfred Smith and Penelope May! Do not make me taser either of you!” Cath’s voice split them apart as effectively as any baton could have done. “Because I will…”
Alf leaped backwards and at first Penny thought he had, indeed, been handed an electric shock. He was purple from effort, and sweating heavily, his eyes rolling in his head. Penny couldn’t quite believe what was going on. But one look at Cath’s face told her that she was in deep trouble.
She bit back her stupid comment of “He started it!” Instead she drew herself up and tried to look dignified. “There is a disagreement about money,” she said. She rubbed her arms.
Alf said nothing.
“Mr Smith?” Cath pressed.
He shook his head and refused to speak.
“Are either of you hurt?”
“No,” Penny said. Alf remained mute.
Cath blew out her cheeks in exasperation. “Right. Come on, Penny. Let’s go.”
“We haven’t got this sorted out–”
“Now.”
Cath grabbed hold of Penny’s arm above the elbow, just where Alf had been crushing her too, and dragged her out of the garage. Penny squealed in pain and frustration but Cath didn’t let up until they had crossed the road. A passing car beeped at them and someone laughed out of a window. Penny scowled.
“You’re hurting me!”
“Keep walking. Right. So tell me what all that was about. The shame! Your poor sister.”
“My poor sister? It was on my poor sister’s account that I did this.”
“You just pursued and attacked a local garage owner because of your sister?”
“Cath, please, listen. He was outside my house when I got home just now, shouting and threatening Ariadne.” She quickly outlined what Alf claimed the problem to be.
“You shouldn’t have run after him,” Cath said. They were walking down River Street, back towards Penny’s cottage. “I can totally understand why you stepped in at first, but as soon as you went after him, everything changed. When you went on the offensive…”
“I don’t see how. I was defending my sister.”
“You don’t defend someone by chasing someone else through town and forcing your way into their own office.”
Penny kicked at a stone mulishly. “He was threatening all sorts of things.”
“Right, so you should call the police.”
“I was doing that! I was calling you but he knocked the phone out of my hands. Speaking of which … where is it?” She scanned the pavement in front of her cottage as they approached, trying to ignore the neighbours who were peeping out of windows and from behind cars.
“When I saw a missed call from you, I decided to leave the crime scene and come here. I had a feeling. It’s not like you to not leave a message, and in the light of what I’d told you, I thought I’d better come and see. When I got here, Ariadne and her children told me what had happened, and they must have picked your phone up.”
The door to her cottage creaked open, and Wolf appeared, hanging on to Kali’s collar to stop her lunging out into the street. Penny held up her hand, flat, palm out, and Kali stopped pulling. “Sit.”
“That was amazing!” Wolf said, and Destiny’s grinning face appeared at his shoulder.
“Did you belt him one? Did you smack that man?” Destiny wanted to know.
“I did not!” Penny said. “Did you pick up my phone?”
“Absolutely right. She did not smack anyone,” Cath said fiercely. “And she is not going to. I’m going to go back and talk to Alf now, and get his side of the story. I’ve been in and spoken with Ariadne,” she added in a gentler voice. “She knows where we are up to with Owen Jones. About the car, and that.”
Destiny handed Penny’s phone back to her and she tucked it away. She looked at the floor but muttered, roughly in the direction of Cath, “Right. Okay.”
Cath waited. Ariadne pushed past her children and came out onto the pavement, looking embarrassed. She wrapped her thin arms around her waist.
A neighbour from a few doors down was watching proceedings without any shame at all. He shouted out, “She is waiting for you to say sorry, Penny!”
“But I am not sorry,” Penny said. “He threatened Ariadne.”
Ariadne hung her head. “Not on my account, please. I don’t want a scene.”
Cath rolled her eyes as well as Destiny ever could. “Penny, I suggest you get inside, have a nice cup of tea, and a good long chat with the most important people that are affected by all this. The most important people. That’s not actually you. All right?”
Cath whirled around and stalked off, her shoulders very square and her heels thudding into the ground. Penny turned to the trio, plus dog, and shrugged. “I am sorry for showing you up,” she said with honesty.
Wolf let go of Kali with his right hand and gave her a thumbs-up, and Destiny said, “You rocked.”
Ariadne half-turned and hissed at them both. “Get back inside, right now.”
“But mum–”
“Now.”
Chapter Five
Penny followed them into the house but Ariadne made it very clear she was not in the mood for talking. She was looking in the local paper for accommodation, and later on, she went out “to see to things.” Penny didn’t know what “things” might be, but she was happy that Ariadne seemed to be keeping busy, and Penny thought tha
t it was the best thing she could do at the moment.
The next day, Penny was woken early by her mobile phone. It wasn’t quite eight o’clock and it was a withheld number. She propped herself up and answered it groggily.
“Penny? It’s Inspector Travis.”
That brought her fully awake within an instant. “Uh, good morning.”
“I needed to catch you. I’m sorry to call so early. I didn’t wake you, did I?”
“Yes, you did.”
“Oh. Oh well. You’re wasting the best part of the day! Anyway, the investigation into the death of Owen Jones is more complicated than we had first thought. I know that Cath spoke to you and your sister, so you are aware that we’re looking for a vehicle linked to the scene, and we are currently treating his death as suspicious, aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“I know that in the past, we’ve had an informal understanding,” the Inspector went on. “It has been useful to have extra ears on the ground. We perhaps should have gone down the route of making you an official informer but the paperwork, sorting out handlers, you know… it was all a bit much. It seemed unnecessary to formalise the arrangement.”
Penny sat bolt upright. One word stuck in her sleep-addled head. An informer? She didn’t actually like the sound of the word. She made a grunting noise, and Inspector Travis continued.
“Anyway, Penny, so with this case, it’s a little more complex. You’re too close. I know you will understand. Technically, you’re involved, far more than when you found the body of the farmer and first came to our attention. Your priority needs to be your sister and her family.”
“You’re telling me to back off,” Penny said.
She heard him sigh. “Yes, I am,” he admitted. “I heard about your attack on Alf Smith yesterday, and it cannot happen again. Leave it to the professionals.”
“I didn’t attack him! Not much. And anyway, it was provoked. And I can be useful. I can be helpful because I am too close…”
