by Cathy Ace
‘Are you the manager?’ asked Annie.
‘Landlord. A proper landlord, me. John Thelwell.’
‘Any chance I can use your loo, John?’ replied Annie. ‘Sorry, I wouldn’t ask normally – you know, before you’re open – but I’m desperate.’
The landlord appeared to take pity on Annie. ‘Toilets all done, Leno?’ he shouted. The cleaner nodded. ‘They’re over there,’ said John, jerking his thumb toward a sign beside a door.
Annie scuttled off.
Christine handed the phone back to the man. ‘Please take another look. The girl’s not where she should be today. Her employer is worried about her. We’d like to get some reassurance she’s just taking an unexpected sick day, and not in some sort of danger.’
The landlord rolled his eyes. ‘If her boss is worried about her she must be one hell of an employee. Half a dozen of my casuals could go missing and I’m not sure I’d be any the wiser; come and go as they please do some of them. Especially the bloody Aussies. Off to find greener grass at the drop of a hat, that lot.’
Christine had to decide how much to tell the man; too much and she’d possibly cause problems no one needed, too little and he might not make as much of an effort to be helpful as he could.
‘She’s a bit more than an employee, truth be told,’ she said, in her best conspiratorial tones. ‘She and her boss have become friends; she’s a wonderful second-in-command for her boss’s business, and her boss has sort of taken her under her wing. This girl works at a florist; JWF.’
John Thelwell’s eyebrows lifted. ‘JWF? That’s not a florist, that’s the florist, innit? Ain’t they the ones what do the flowers when anyone in the Royal family’s in hospital?’ Christine nodded.
John peered at her over his specs. ‘And you’re an honorable, eh?’ Christine nodded again. ‘Ah,’ said John; it was a syllable which carried a wealth of meaning.
‘Any chance of a G & T?’ Annie gasped as she returned to the bar.
Christine allowed her surprise to show. ‘You want a drink? At this time of day?’
Annie grinned. ‘Has the Pope got a balcony?’
Christine tutted.
‘And if it’s a yes,’ continued Annie, ‘my friend here will not only be paying, but she’ll also be having the same.’ Having spoken, Annie collapsed onto a nearby chair, and undid the buttons and belt on her well-worn mackintosh.
‘I really don’t think we have time,’ said Christine.
‘I could give you a soft drink,’ said the landlord hesitantly, ‘but I wouldn’t want to be selling nothing, outside hours.’
‘Ta. How about a large T without any G? I’ll imagine the G,’ replied Annie.
He moved behind the bar, and Christine followed him. ‘If you could just take another look at this photo. Please . . .’
‘Not from the newspapers, are you?’ John asked of Annie as he prepared her drink.
‘Nah. Private eyes, that’s what we are.’
John Thelwell looked astonished.
Christine wasn’t sure Annie was handling things the best way.
‘You two?’ He sounded as surprised as he looked. ‘Well, I s’pose it explains why the two of you’s together. Not a likely duo, are you? Indian tonic, love? Or we’ve got Mediterranean, Sicilian lemon, elderflower, aromatic, or cucumber. Gawd knows there’s enough of ’em these days.’
‘Just ordinary Indian, ta. Can’t stand all those fancy ones, me.’ The landlord rolled his eyes in what Christine took to be silent agreement. ‘And yeah, I keep this one in her place, when I need to,’ quipped Annie.
Christine thought it best to laugh; she’d deduced that Annie was trying to build an ‘us against them’ alliance with the landlord. It might work.
‘Nothing for you?’ asked John of Christine.
She shook her head. ‘No, thanks.’
‘So you didn’t recognize our girl, then, eh?’ asked Annie, accepting the glass of tonic water from the man.
He reached out his hand for the phone. ‘Lemme see that again,’ he said. He replaced his spectacles and Christine believed him to be truly concentrating. ‘Don’t suppose you know if she drinks a Summer Cup gin with cucumber tonic, do ya? We had a girl in last night drinking that, sayin’ she was sick of the winter weather. She looked a bit like this. And this bloke? Thinkin’ about it, I ’ave seen him before.’
Christine felt her tummy clench with excitement. ‘Do you know his name?’
‘Lives local, I think. At least, he comes in with his girlfriend sometimes. Not big drinkers. Nice enough chap. Big bear, name of Rob. Not with his girlfriend last night, but this one. Didn’t get a girlfriend vibe from her though. Small girl, right?’ Christine nodded. ‘Spotted a bit of ink on her wrists. Right?’ Christine nodded again. ‘Yeah, I reckon it’s them. Rob Brown, I think. Girlfriend lives over in Cranley Mansions, just down the road. I know that ’cos the first time he came here his girlfriend had just moved in there and the lift was broken; right old time they had getting all her stuff up the stairs. Summer it was. Last year. Bleedin’ hot. Sissy she is. Not Sissy Spacek . . . but summat like that. No, wait, it’s . . . Sissy Siddons. No, that’s not it.’
Christine wondered how long this might take.
‘Got it. It’s Helen Hunter. That’s it. Always get her mixed up with Sissy Spacek. But she’s really Helen Hunt, ain’t she? Anyway, this one’s Helen Hunter.’ John smiled. ‘Funny old thing, the brain, innit? What we remember, when we wants.’
‘You’re a prince, John, you know that?’ said Annie. ‘Don’t s’pose you know what number she lives in, do you?’
John chuckled. ‘You’re havin’ a laugh, ain’t you? I reckon I’ve done pretty good with what I’ve given you. You’re a private detective so you should be able to manage the rest on your own, if you’re worth your salt.’
Annie laughed – Christine was enjoying watching her colleague work. ‘You’re right. Ta, John – and thanks for the drink. Chrissy, give the man a tenner. We’ll take it from here. Most helpful, ain’t he, Chrissy, doll?’
Christine took her cue, and handed over the money. ‘You most certainly are, Mr Thelwell. Thanks ever so much. Our client will be most grateful.’
‘Tell ’er she can send me some flowers,’ he quipped, as Christine allowed herself to be dragged out of the pub by Annie.
‘You phone Carol as we walk,’ said Christine, ‘see if she can locate a Helen Hunter in Cranley Mansions. I’ll get in touch with Jacintha; I’ll see if any of this means anything to her.’
Both women talked as they walked. The pavements were busy, but they didn’t bump into too many people. Both finishing their phone calls at roughly the same time, Annie spoke first.
‘She’s in flat thirty-four. What did Jacintha say?’
‘Robert Brown is Poppy’s brother. He lives in Brighton, but spends most weekends here in London with his girlfriend. Poppy and he occasionally meet for a drink. She didn’t mention it was him she was going to meet last night, but Jacintha said it wouldn’t surprise her. Given that Poppy gets up so early she’s only able to meet people in the early evening.’
Christine wondered why Annie was grabbing her arm. ‘What is it?’
‘Coppers. Look. Coming out of Cranley Mansions. Uniform, two of them, one woman, marked car.’
‘I wonder what that’s all about,’ said Christine. ‘I certainly don’t think we want to be talking to them quite yet. Let’s find number thirty-four.’
Christine looked at the numbers above the arched entryway that surrounded and protected the large glazed doors before them. ‘If this entrance is for forty-five to seventy, then I suspect the other door will take us to one to forty-four. So we need the entrance the police were coming out of.’
The women shared a look of dread and set off along the car-lined street.
Entering the second set of doors they could tell that flat number thirty-four would be on the third floor. A rickety-looking metal-cage lift was on the right-hand side of the entrance. Chri
stine pushed the button. The lift clanked to a stop and she hauled open the gate. Their ascent seemed to be at a pace slightly faster than immobile, and they crawled up, passed on the way by a young man carrying three bags of shopping, who bounded up the wide marble stairs two at a time – making better speed than them. Finally they shuddered to a halt, and emerged, gratefully, from the cage. Annie pointed along the corridor in front of them.
‘There,’ she nodded.
Christine pushed the doorbell, which bong-ed inside the flat. A slim young woman wearing a giant fluffy bathrobe, and rubbing her wet, long brown hair with a towel, pulled open the door and shouted, ‘What now? I’m getting ready as fast as I can.’
Upon seeing Christine and Annie in the hallway she looked surprised and confused. ‘I’m sorry – I thought you were the police again. Who are you? Now’s not a good time.’
‘I’m sorry to bother you,’ muttered Christine, now dreading what she might discover. ‘We’re looking for Rob Brown. Is he at home?’
‘Is he at home? No, he’s not. The silly bugger’s lying in St Martha’s with his head split open and his ear nearly torn off, that’s where he is. And I want to get to see him as quick as I can. Why do you want him?’
Both Annie and Christine felt the impact of this news. It wasn’t good. Not good at all.
‘What happened to him?’ asked Annie, sharply.
The girl’s eyes narrowed.
‘What’s it to you?’ She looked from Annie to Christine, filling the doorway with her body.
Christine was also carefully considering the girl herself, and the situation. Must be the girlfriend: possibly in the shower when the police arrived; just been told her boyfriend’s been hurt; declined a lift to the hospital; trying to get out of the flat to see him. Christine decided to take the direct route.
‘I’m Christine, this is Annie.’ She handed the girl a business card. ‘Are you Helen Hunter?’ The girl nodded, and her eyes narrowed even further. ‘I’m terribly sorry about your boyfriend; we’re trying to track down his sister, Poppy. We can’t locate her, so it’s important that we talk to Rob. He might be able to help us. But, in the meantime, it would be useful to know how he was hurt.’
Helen looked to be giving Christine’s request some thought as she carried on rubbing at her hair. Then she lay the towel across her arm and nodded. She stepped back from the door and waved Christine and Annie inside.
‘Well, it can’t hurt, I suppose. The police just told me that Rob was found on the pavement, on a street in Belgravia last night, covered in blood. They think he’d been thrown from a moving vehicle. Something had been stapled to his ear. Stapled! I don’t know what they meant exactly, but it sounds brutal. Anyway, he’s got a possibly-fractured skull and he’s lost a lot of blood. He’d been drugged too.’
Tears welled in her eyes. It was clear to Christine that repeating the news she’d just received had, for Helen, made it all real for her.
Reaching out a hand to find a chair, Helen cried, ‘Oh my God – poor Rob. I mean he’s a big bugger and all that, but he wouldn’t hurt a fly. Why would anyone pick on him?’ She buried her face in the towel.
‘You need a cuppa,’ prescribed Annie. The girl looked dazed.
‘Maybe I do . . .’ her voice was dreamy, ‘but I want to get to my Rob.’
Annie and Christine looked at each other, and a tacit agreement was made.
‘Right-o then, I’ll make you a cup of tea while you get ready to get out of here, and you can tell us all about Rob, and Poppy – if you know anything about her – alright?’ As she spoke, Annie aimed for the kitchen.
The girl put up no resistance and was clearly happy to be mothered, just a little.
‘I’ll just get myself dressed, then,’ said Helen, and closed the bathroom door behind her.
Christine shouted, ‘I’ll give a friend of ours a ring and ask her if she can get us any inside info on Rob at St Martha’s. She’s good at that sort of thing.’
‘Ta,’ yelled Helen from the bathroom.
Annie called from the kitchen, ‘You get yourself sorted, Helen, and I’ll get a nice cuppa going – hot and sweet. Then we’ll get you into a taxi and you’ll be with Rob before you know it. Alright?’
‘Thanks,’ called the voice from the bathroom.
‘Mavis will get right on it,’ announced Christine to Annie. ‘She knows a ward sister at St Martha’s who was once one of her “girls”, so we might get something. And Carol’s going to investigate any and all odd goings-on in the Belgravia area last night. But what do you think? If Rob was with Poppy, and Rob ended up being dumped out of a car somewhere in Belgravia . . . what does it mean for Poppy?’
‘Gawd knows,’ was Annie’s honest reply. ‘I haven’t got a clue, but maybe Helen here’ll know more than she thinks. Look, the tea’s steeping, let me have a word with her while she’s getting dressed?’ Christine nodded her agreement.
The noise of the hairdryer inside the bathroom had stopped, and a slightly more alert Helen dashed from the bathroom to the bedroom in her underwear. ‘I’ll be five minutes,’ she shouted to the two strangers in her living room.
‘Alright, doll,’ called back Annie, approaching the closed bedroom door as she did so. She shouted through the door. ‘Did you see Rob before he went out yesterday at all, Helen?’
‘Yes,’ a muffled voice called over the slamming of doors and drawers. ‘He was off to The Hereford Bull to meet Poppy, then he was due to meet up with some rugby friends afterwards. I didn’t expect him to be home until late, if at all. He said he might be out all night; he often is when he’s with his rugger bugger mates. Which is why I didn’t miss him. Though, he usually phones to say when he’ll be home. Oh God,’ Christine could hear her crying. ‘I should have known something was wrong . . .’
‘Now, now,’ called Annie, as comfortingly as was possible, given she was shouting through a door, ‘it wasn’t your fault. If he’d said he’d be out all night then you couldn’t be expected to know anything was wrong.’
‘You’re blaming yourself for nothing Helen,’ added Christine.
Helen appeared at the bedroom door wearing an oversized England rugby shirt and jeans. Her face was wet with tears. She hooked her long hair behind her ears and gulped down a sob.
‘I love him, you know? But I don’t tell him enough. He’s a lovely man; big, and cuddly, and fun. What if he doesn’t make it?’ The question hung in the air, to be joined by the trilling of Christine’s mobile phone.
‘It’s the office,’ she announced. ‘Maybe there’s some news from Mavis.’
Christine listened carefully and took notes, while Annie watched over Helen as she sipped at her tea, still crying.
‘Listen,’ Christine announced, having disconnected her call, ‘Mavis tells me she’s spoken to one of the nurses who’s tending to Rob, and he’s going to be just fine.’
A look of hope lit up Helen’s face. ‘Really?’ Her expression showed she hardly dared believe the good news.
‘Really,’ comforted Christine. ‘The damage to his ear is superficial – though, you’re right, he did lose quite a lot of blood because of a neck injury. He has a minor skull fracture, but the nurse has seen much worse get fully mended. And there’s no brain damage of any kind, though they’re still testing him for a concussion.’ Christine beamed at Helen.
Helen looked horrified. ‘I never even thought of brain damage,’ she cried. ‘Oh, my poor Rob.’ She started to sob again.
Annie comforted the girl and pushed her tea toward her once more. ‘Come on, drink up, it’ll do you good. And now you know he’ll be alright, it won’t be such a bad journey to the hospital.’
Helen took the tea, shakily, and sipped, then gulped, nodding.
‘Anything else?’ asked Annie of Christine, warily.
‘Not that would interest Helen,’ replied Christine. ‘How about we find her a cab and let her get on her way?’ she suggested, and nodded toward the front door indicating that they, too, sh
ould be on their way.
‘Good idea,’ responded Annie jovially. Before she took the mug from Helen’s hands, she asked, ‘Did Rob send you any texts or anything telling you what his plans might have been with Poppy last night, at all?’
Helen looked uncertain. ‘I don’t think so, but I was out with the girls last night; I get Friday and Saturday off, but work Sundays, see? Let me check my phone. I wasn’t really awake when the police came.’
She scrabbled around in her handbag and pulled out her phone. ‘Oh look, he sent me that photo you just showed me. And then a text: “Poppy a bit off color. Taking her home. Found someone to give us a lift.” It was timed at eight twenty-two p.m. Does that help? Do you know where Poppy lives? Is she there?’
‘We do, and she’s not,’ was Christine’s concerned reply. ‘Any other texts? He didn’t say who was giving them a lift, did he?’
Helen shook her head, then finished her tea.
‘Best we make a move,’ said Christine.
Annie took the empty mug from Helen and asked, ‘Got all your bits and pieces?’ She made no excuses for the lack of ceremony with which she was hurrying along the young woman.
‘Do you think I should stop and buy some pajamas for Rob on the way?’ Helen asked as they began to rush down the stairs.
‘I’m sure they’ll have put him in something suitable there; why don’t you just go and see him and ask him what he needs, eh?’ Christine could see that Annie’s mothering had stopped, but she managed to keep the concern in her voice. ‘Look, there’s a cab now.’
Annie jumped out into the path of a taxi, which screeched to a halt just feet in front of her. She dragged Helen toward the passenger door, pushed her inside and shouted, ‘St Martha’s Accident and Emergency – fast.’ She slammed the door on the still-confused Helen. ‘Give Rob our love,’ she shouted at the disappearing cab, then she grabbed Christine by the arm and shouted, ‘So?’
‘Okay, don’t yank at me,’ replied Christine testily. ‘We need to get ourselves back to The Hereford Bull – fast.’ She pulled Annie’s hand off her arm and led the way.
