Strangeways to Oldham

by Andrea Frazer

  ‘So your father was a black marketeer and a gun-runner, and your mother was a brothel-keeper?’ Hugo asked, hardly able to believe what he was being told.

  ‘That about sums it up!’ said Lady Amanda, in a very matter-of-fact voice.

  ‘You make it all sound so reasonable, Manda.’ Hugo spoke in a horrified voice.

  ‘Well, it was! It was business at its most basic level, and everyone was a winner. You can’t be squeamish, when you’re faced with either bankruptcy, or a little dodgy business. It was dog-eat-dog back in those days, as you well remember. We all have choices to make in life, and our way to make in the world, and, I must say, I’ve certainly enjoyed the benefits of my parents’ ill-gotten gains, as are you, now.

  ‘May even sell the whole bang-shoot one day, and buy a luxury villa in the Caribbean. I’d take you and Beauchamp, of course, if you wanted to come, and I’d employ some staff, so that Beauchamp can have some sort of retirement, too. I don’t think I would survive very well in a dingy little flat somewhere. I’m quite at ease with myself. Does this make any difference to the way you feel about me and this place, Hugo?’

  Hugo sat wreathed in silence for another few minutes, and then looked up at her again. ‘Not a jot, old girl!’ and he smiled. ‘One can’t change the past. All one can do is make the best of the present, and hope that the future is a little further away than tomorrow, and that it treats us kindly. Oh, and by the way, I’d love to come with you; warm my old bones in some Caribbean sunshine, for the rest of their days, which I hope will be many.’

  ‘That’s that, then! And remember, not a word to a living soul!’

  ‘Be like Dad. Keep Mum!’ Hugo quoted, from a wartime poster. ‘Loose lips sink ships!’

  They planned to go to visit Enid Tweedie again after afternoon tea, and, as usual, retired after luncheon, for their usual post-prandial naps. Hugo was first up and about again, today, and as Lady Amanda descended the stairs from her bedroom, she heard Hugo in the drawing room, singing to himself:

  ‘Whistle while you work,

  ‘Hitler is a berk,

  ‘He is barmy,

  ‘So’s his army,

  ‘Whistle while you work.’

  He had a pleasant baritone voice, but seemed deeply embarrassed when she walked in on him. ‘Sorry about that,’ he apologised. ‘Just a bit of nostalgia, after our little talk about the war, earlier, but I’m really not sure about the third line. I’m sure I haven’t got the words quite right.’

  ‘You could hardly be expected to, after all this time. After all, the war is a long time ago, and you were only ta child yourself back then - and I wasn’t even a twinkle in my father’s eye,’ Lady Amanda commented.

  ‘Sometimes those days seem more clear, and nearer, than yesterday. The older I get, the more I forget silly things, like what I had for lunch, or whether I’ve done something or not, and even where I’m going, and what I was going to fetch, when I get there.

  ‘Memories from my childhood and youth, however, are as bright and colourful as ever. As if I could just reach out my hand and touch them.’

  ‘It comes to us all, Hugo. It’s a symptom of getting old, but the alternative’s unthinkable.’

  ‘What’s that, then?’

  ‘Dying young! Best to just trot along as we are, and get the most out of every day. Live every day as if it were your last, Hugo, because, one day, you’ll be right!’ she advised him, with unchallengeable common sense and logic. ‘Carpe Diem, Hugo! Carpe Diem! I say! Do you fancy another lesson on the old trike, before we have tea?’

  ‘I’m not seizing anything that hard!’ Hugo stated, showing a little spirit, at last.

  As Lady Amanda went into the hall to collect the light jacket she would wear that afternoon, for their visit to Enid Tweedie, she found Hugo at the foot of the stairs, tapping the barometer. Again!

  ‘Hugo!’ she expostulated, ‘you’re always tapping at that thing. What’s the fascination?’

  ‘I’ve missed having my own, what with being in that place, and everything.’

  ‘But do you have to do it, what seems like every hour, on the hour?’ she chided.

  ‘Is it really that often? I had no idea. Short-term memory and all that.’

  ‘If you carry on like that, you’ll have to do what Enid did a couple of years ago.’

  ‘What’s that?’ asked Hugo, turning round in interest.

  ‘Go into hospital and have your ‘aneroids’ out. That’s what!’ she told him, and had to stifle a snort of laughter.

  Enid was still in her element, being waited on, and generally feeling like a minor member of the royal family. She had also been busy in her role as undercover agent, and had managed to get a surname out of one of the permanent members of staff who was familiar with many of the agency nurses locally.

  Using the ruse that the son of a friend used to work here on a temporary basis, she made enquiries about a young man called Derek, having surmised that this was the name from which Del was derived.

  Lady Amanda had already confided in her that they already had the name of one Derek Foster, but hinted that she (Lady Amanda) needed to be doubly sure, before she did anything. To have nabbed the wrong man would be unthinkably embarrassing. And on Enid’s first enquiry, she had hit the jackpot.

  Derek Foster, as he was called, had been employed there as an agency worker for only a week or so, a couple of years ago, but one particular nurse felt it her duty to recall not only past members of staff, but the names of anyone visiting the home. Recalling Derek was no problem for her, although she had not actually seen him when he had visited Reggie Pagnell.

  ‘Must have managed to slip in when she wasn’t rota-ed for duty,’ guessed Lady Amanda, sitting on Enid’s bed and munching distractedly on her grapes. ‘Don’t know how he’d found out, but he must have been very careful about when he came here.’

  ‘The staff has quite a high turnover here,’ added Enid. ‘The nurse I spoke to said that there was no one here who had worked for the place for longer than eighteen months or so, except her, so he’d have no worries about being accosted by Matron, for she wouldn’t know him from Adam.’

  ‘Except for the obvious one, that she’s a right old dragon.’ This was Lady Amanda again, now sucking noisily on a boiled sweet, purloined from a bowl on the bedside table. ‘As long as he was sure your nurse with the photographic memory was out of the way, he had a clear field in which to commit his dastardly deed,’ she concluded, in a slightly muffled voice, as the sweet had decided to try to escape from her mouth, and nearly ended up on the bedspread. They could be like that, at times, boiled sweets!

  ‘Well, at least we have a confirmed name to work with now, Manda. That’s something, isn’t it?’ Hugo said hopefully.

  ‘It’s not the same as having an address, though, is it?’ she retorted. ‘How the hell do we find him with just his name? He could live anywhere. There’s nothing to say that he has to live in Belchester, is there? I knew we should have followed him after the reading of the will, and not stayed behind to try to pump that old bag of wind Williams.’

  There was a silence that stretched out into the eternity of three minutes, then Lady Amanda spoke again. ‘I suppose there’s no harm in me actually visiting the offices of Edwards’s Nursing Services, posing as a client with a relative in need of care, and enquiring after a Derek Foster, whom a friend has recommended to me, as excellent?’

  ‘That’s sounds like a good ruse, Manda. You might be able to get his address from there. Who is supposed to be the patient?’ asked Hugo.

  ‘Why, you, of course, you silly sausage! Who else around here is as doddery as you are?’ she asked, and received a furious scowl and a childish pout in reply.

  ‘Will you go in disguise, Lady Amanda?’ asked Enid, memories of post-war spy films flooding her memory.

  ‘Of course not, you dolt! That sort of thing only goes undiscovered in fiction. If I put on a wig and lashings of make-up, anyone would spot at once that I was up
to something dodgy. This isn’t some caper film! This is real life, Enid. This chap is dangerous, and I don’t want to be his next victim.’

  ‘Who says there’s going to be a next victim?’ asked Hugo, now looking decidedly nervous.

  ‘There always is, isn’t there!’ declared Lady Amanda. ‘The first murder is the hardest, then it just gets easier and easier to kill. It’s like a compulsion. Who knows how many victims there will be if we don’t stop him.’

  ‘I wish you’d stop talking about it, Manda. You’re making me very anxious. He’s already seen us once, at Reggie’s funeral, and then we turned up at the reading of the will. If he sees us again, he’s going to work out that we’re on to him, somehow. I don’t want him setting his mind to wiping us out, because we’ve worked out what he’s done.’

  ‘Never fear, Hugo! We shall come out of this unscathed, and he will be headed behind bars.’

  ‘Thank you very much, Enid Blyton,’ remarked Enid, gleefully getting her own back for what Lady Amanda had said to her just a short while ago, and Hugo offered his two-penn’orth as well.

  ‘Eat your heart out, Agatha Christie. Now, can we get back to Belchester Towers, where I feel rather safer than out and about visiting?’ he asked, acidly.

  Lady Amanda’s retort was curt and to the point. ‘Sure can, you yellow-bellied jackal!’

  That had been the nearest the two of them had come to a disagreement, and the journey home was unusually silent, both of them too embarrassed to refer to the incident. Although it had been very short, it was the sharpest exchange between them but, on entering Belchester Towers, Lady Amanda’s joie de vivre was instantly restored, when she checked the time, and found that it was not quite five o’clock.

  ‘There’s still time to make an appointment with that chap Edwards, before the office closes,’ she declared, heading for the telephone directory, with hasty steps. ‘I might even be lucky enough to get an appointment tomorrow.’

  Wasting not a second, she looked up the number in the Yellow Pages, and immediately dialled, without giving herself too much time to think of a story. It would be better if it was spontaneous. If she invented and rehearsed something beforehand, it would end up too complicated and convoluted, and she would forget what she had already said, and trip herself up, contradicting things she had already stated. It was much better off the cuff, then Hugo could remember for her, as he’d be listening to her end of the conversation.

  Hugo eavesdropped out of necessity, as the call was answered at the other end. ‘Good afternoon,’ began Lady Amanda. ‘I have a relative living with me who suffers mobility problems, and could do with someone visiting, maybe twice a day … Sorry, I can’t discuss this on the telephone. He might overhear.’

  He was overhearing perfectly well, thank you, and had been surprised to be referred to, firstly, as a relative, and secondly, as having mobility problems. He might be a bit slow getting around, but he was doing just fine, now he had Lady Amanda and Beauchamp to help him. He was just a bit slow: that was all.

  ‘I wonder if I could make an appointment to come to your offices to discuss my requirements.’ Lady Amanda asked, puzzled as to why Hugo seemed to be scowling at her. ‘No, I don’t need someone to come in as a matter of urgency; that’s quite all right.’ She paused, listening to the voice at the other end of the line. ‘Tomorrow morning at ten-thirty? Yes, that would be very convenient. My name is Lady Amanda Golightly, and I look forward to meeting you on the morrow, to discuss my little problem,’ she concluded, putting down the telephone receiver. ‘Well, how was that?’ she asked Hugo.

  ‘Speaking as your “little problem” he replied, somewhat tartly, ‘I don’t think you should have given him your real name.’

  ‘Horse poo, Hugo! What harm can that possibly do?’

  ‘When you’ve made your enquiries about this chap Foster, it might get back to him that someone has been asking about him, and you’ve just given him your real name on a plate. Round here, it won’t take much effort to find out that you live at Belchester Towers, with only an elderly manservant and your ‘little problem’ for company. Then, where will we be?’

  ‘Don’t be so melodramatic! I’m sure he’s not going to come tearing round here with a gun or a machete, or even a lethal cocktail. We’ll just tell the police all we’ve found out, hand over the “evidence” – the cocktail glass – and they’ll lock him up.’

  ‘Sez who?’ asked Hugo, sarcastically. ‘That inspector took no notice of you whatsoever before. Who says he’s not going to do the same thing, next time you go to speak to him?’

  ‘He won’t be able to deny the evidence, when I go to see him again. He’ll be compelled to take action,’ she replied, somewhat huffily, as the memory of how she had been dismissed out of hand by Inspector Moody, on her previous visit, stirred in the back of her mind.

  ‘Come along! The weather’s fine and it’s quite a while till cocktails. Let’s go and get you on that trike again. It’s about time you had another lesson,’ she suggested, getting her revenge on Hugo, for his lack of faith in her powers of both detection, and persuasion.

  Hugo fared a little better this time, managing both the art of pedalling, and that of using the brakes. He was tired after half an hour, but in that time, he had demonstrated that he was perfectly capable of controlling the tricycle, at very low speeds.

  The next, obvious, stage, was to get him controlling the steering and brakes, with the motor running, as Lady Amanda suggested, as they walked slowly back indoors for their nightly cocktail.

  ‘Dear Lord, Manda, give me a break! I’ve only just got the hang of riding the thing under my own steam. Let me get used to that, before you put a rocket in my saddlebag.’

  ‘It’s invigorating, to learn something new,’ she retorted, contrarily.

  ‘That’s as may be, but not quite so invigorating, if one dies in the attempt. Let me take it at my own pace. I will manage it, but slowly-slowly. I’m not going to let you bully me on this one. You’ve already had me scare myself half to death on that thing, and it’s just going to have to be left up to me, when I’m ready.’

  ‘Fair enough, Hugo,’ she agreed, rather meekly for her, but she was just pleased to have, sort of, got her own back on him with the trike lesson, for doubting her detection abilities. She knew she had acted pettily, and was feeling just a teensy bit ashamed of herself.

  ‘Cocktail time, Hugo! Then din-dins! My favourite part of the day,’ she said, encouragingly, and led the way into the drawing room for their daily libation.

  Chapter Eleven

  ‘Of course you can’t come with me, Hugo. Don’t be silly! There’s no point in me explaining all about my ailing relative with mobility problems, if you’re sitting beside me in his office, looking as right as ninepence, is there?’

  ‘I don’t know why he has to know I’m the supposed sick relative,’ Hugo countered, sulkily.

  ‘Because we might have to carry this charade to the point where someone visits you here, to assess your daily nursing requirements, that’s why,’ she explained, as if to a child.

  ‘Oh, I see,’ he replied, then added. ‘I don’t think I’d like someone poking and prying around my habits and abilities, let alone my body, to assess me for anything.’

  ‘It probably won’t come to that, but we must be prepared to go to any lengths necessary, to catch this chap,’ she assured him. ‘Just leave this one to me, and I’ll do my level best to find out where he lives, from this Edwards person, this morning. If I can wheedle and smarm, and use a bit of charm, I might just come home with the goods, and we can go to visit Inspector Snooty, and give him one in the eye.’

  ‘Might I not come in the car?’ asked Hugo wistfully. ‘If anything goes amiss, it might be good to have your co-conspirator around, for safety’s sake?’

  ‘I shall have Beauchamp with me, waiting in the car,’ she explained airily. ‘You’d better stay here out of the way, in case we need you to be the patient. If you’re at all bored, you can w
rite a narrative of our adventure so far – be a Watson to my Holmes. Dr Watson always wrote the stories, didn’t he?’

  ‘Holmes and Watson weren’t real people, Manda! You really must stop living in the land of fiction,’ he replied, getting another one in, on behalf of poor old Enid, yesterday, with her Hollywood-inspired spy fantasies. ‘Anyway, I fancied us more as Tommy and Tuppence Beresford.’

  ‘That couple of wet fish? Oh, Hugo, do set your sights higher. They were the most ghastly couple of drips who ever disgraced crime fiction!’ Lady Amanda made it abundantly clear that she was not a fan.

  As the front door slammed, however, Hugo reconsidered the idea of writing a Watson-esque journal, and saw that it was good. If anything happened to them, at least there would be written evidence of what they had become involved in. He also rather fancied the idea of being Watson, faithfully recording the adventures he became caught up in with his friend, Holmes.

  Taking himself off to the library, he hunted out paper and writing implements, and sat down at the desk, to await inspiration for his title. After a couple of minutes chewing the end of his pen, he gave a small cry of, ‘‘Aha!’ and wrote The Adventure of the Terminal Cocktail, and underlined it. It might not be the best of titles, but it would do for now.

  Taking up his fountain pen again, he began to write: I find it recorded in my notebook that it was a sunny but not particularly warm day, when this matter raised its ugly head.

  At its launch I was, myself, incarcerated in a nursing home, being cared for after my old war wound had flared up again. Each day being like any other, I whiled away my time solving crossword puzzles, and wandering up and down the veranda with the aid of my trusty walking cane, smoking my faithful old pipe.

  On the day in question, I had just finished reading the morning paper, when a familiar old voice called out my name, and who should enter my room, but my faithful friend from childhood, Lady Amanda Golightly.