Asking For Trouble (11 page)

‘Is something wrong?’ I hadn’t realised Alastair had come out of his reverie.

‘No. We were getting funny looks from the next table so I gave them a funny look back.’

‘Oh?’ He almost smiled. ‘I see, quite.’

There was an awkward little pause. The waiter brought our food. I was feeling very hungry by now so I started on mine.

Alastair pushed a fork into his but didn’t eat. ‘Theresa first ran away from school when she was sixteen. She came home of her own accord but refused to return to the school. About six months after she came home, she ran away again. We traced her quite quickly and persuaded her to come back. When she was just eighteen she left again. We had more trouble finding her that time, because she was no longer under age and the authorities were less helpful. They pointed out she had a history of running away. There was no reason to suppose anything had happened to her. We tried every other way we knew to trace her. We even contacted the National Missing Persons Helpline and they managed to get that little magazine to show her photograph, the one the young people sell on the street.’

‘You mean,
The Big Issue
?’ I couldn’t see Alastair poring over the magazine sold by and on behalf of the homeless, and it almost made me smile, the image was so incongruous. Luckily I managed to keep a straight face.

‘We’d had no idea,’ he was saying, ‘until we contacted the helpline, just how many people go missing every year. Where are they all?’ He sounded bewildered.

I could have replied that some of them were on the streets and some had turned to crime. A few were probably dead and some others, against all the odds, had made perfectly good lives for themselves elsewhere. But I didn’t interrupt. He wanted to tell me about it. He was trying to explain what had happened, not just to me, but to himself.

‘As it happened, she came home again by herself, just as she’d done the first time. She had been travelling with a sort of hippy convoy. New-Age travellers, they call themselves. She was in a pitiful state and had developed a bad bronchial cough. She stayed with us until she was fit again and then, one day – it was so trivial . . .’

He was looking distressed so I finished for him. ‘There was a family quarrel of some sort and she left again.’

‘Oh, she told you?’

I shook my head and grimaced. It was always the same story.

‘The last time I ever saw my granddaughter alive,’ he said sadly, ‘we exchanged harsh words. I’d give anything in the world to be able to take them back. To have her back. She was wilful and undisciplined. But I just don’t understand how anyone could harm her. She was a beautiful girl.’

I mumbled that he wasn’t the first person to feel that way after a bereavement. That he oughtn’t to feel responsible for anything. Terry had been old enough to make her own decisions.

‘I know things weren’t easy for her.’ He’d listened to me but I don’t think anything I’d said had helped. He had to work it out for himself. ‘Her parents divorced when she was thirteen. Neither of them was in a position to offer her a home, so naturally she came to live with me. Looking back, I realise she may have felt unwanted, although I assure you she wasn’t! I did try, we all tried . . .’

His voice tailed away. I wondered, since Terry’s parents had taken off somewhere, who ‘we’ were. ‘We all’. That suggested more than two. I asked, ‘What did her parents do? After they broke up, I mean? Since neither of them had room for Terry?’

He gave a little start as if his mind had been drifting off again. Conversation with him was a little difficult in more ways than one. He wasn’t one of those elderly people who are confused. His mind was clear enough, but it didn’t like focusing on one person, me, for more than five minutes.

‘I do apologise!’ he said, as if he’d realised what I was thinking. ‘I suppose it’s one of the drawbacks of age that one wool-gathers! My son, Theresa’s father—’ Alastair’s voice had become stilted and it was obvious relations between father and son were cool. ‘He works in America and has remarried there. Theresa’s mother took up her former career which involved a great deal of travel. She’s in the fashion business.’

I thought of that expensive knitted jacket of Terry’s. A conscience-salving present from her mother?

Abruptly Alastair added, ‘Marcia – that’s my former daughter-in-law, Theresa’s mother, has been to see me. She’s naturally distressed and some harsh words were spoken. She was offensive. She seems to blame me for the way Theresa kept leaving home. I have taken the charitable view that Marcia’s words were spoken in haste and grief. In the circumstances, I shall overlook the unpleasant nature of them!’ He gave a snort. ‘My belief is that Marcia feels guilty. So she damn well should! I hope she feels as guilty as hell!’ He stopped short and muttered, ‘Excuse me!’

I thought Marcia was lucky the old chap was so well bred. It now seemed Terry and I had had more in common than I’d thought. At least only my mother had dumped me – and my dad at the same time. Terry’d been effectively dumped by both her parents.

‘When Philip and Marcia parted,’ Alastair was saying, ‘it seemed the only practical solution for Theresa to remain with me. It meant I had the melancholy task of informing both her parents of the dreadful tragedy.’

Unaware of what Janice had told me, he went on to explain, ‘We saw it in the newspaper. That is, I didn’t see it, but – someone else did. Only a small item, a young woman, police seeking next of kin. We all felt it would be Theresa. We’d been expecting something of the sort. Yet it was still a terrible blow.’

He raised his eyes to peer at me over the table. They were very pale blue, the whites discoloured, the rims watery. He looked frail, for all his neatness and upright bearing.

‘She was an innocent. She thought she knew about the world, about life. But of course, she didn’t. She didn’t see the dangers. I tried to warn her that living as she did, she ran such risks. She wouldn’t listen. I was just an old man who knew nothing about modern youth. But some things don’t change. Human nature doesn’t, more’s the pity. Sooner or later she was going to find herself dealing with people who would be stronger, more ruthless, and I have to say, cleverer than she was. One wants to protect . . . one can’t. That is the worst of it. I couldn’t protect her. Too old. Just too old.’

He rubbed his hands together in a nervous gesture. The skin was thin over the back, paper-like, and the veins stood up corded and thick. I didn’t know how old he was and wished I did. But I noticed a slight yellowness to the fingertips. He was a life-long smoker.

I remembered Edna and her golden packet and the matches, too. But this old man couldn’t have done violence of the kind I’d seen done to Terry. Nor would he have wished to harm her. He had loved her.

He pulled himself together and began to speak again, more briskly. ‘My son is flying over for the funeral. They – the police – say, we’ll be able to bury Theresa quite soon. They’ll be finished – all they want to do.’ He pushed his plate away and I didn’t fancy eating any more, either.

When he spoke again, however, his voice was firmer. I guessed he thought out beforehand what he wanted to say and had it well rehearsed. He didn’t look at me as he spoke, but kept his eyes fixed on his hands, clasped on the tablecloth.

‘There is a strong possibility that her death came about through murder, not suicide or any other kind of mishap. The police have classed it as suspicious.’ It must have cost him, but he went on, ‘They believe she was knocked unconscious by someone who stood behind her and a little to one side. Almost certainly someone she knew and had admitted to the house.’

He cast me an apologetic look to show he wasn’t accusing me. ‘Whoever did it arranged her body afterwards to make it look as if she’d hanged herself. Even if she’d started to come round before he completed his task, it would have been too late to defend herself, to stop him . . .’ His voice faltered but he went on steadily enough, once he’d had a moment to pull himself together. He was a tough old fellow under the outward frailty. ‘You saw the body.’

It was a statement, not a question. I nodded confirmation.

‘The – ah – fixture in the ceiling from which she – the body – hung wasn’t particularly secure. My granddaughter weighed very little. All the same, had she been conscious at any stage and thrashed around, she, the rope, everything, would’ve come crashing down. It leads the police to conclude that she was unconscious throughout. That, in turn, would seem to rule out suicide.’

It was true that Terry had been an anorexic seven-stoner. Anyone, virtually, could have lifted her. I could have done so in an emergency. To talk of ‘he’ might be jumping to conclusions. A woman might well have done it. But dead weights are more difficult to handle, or so I’d been led to believe. If Terry was unconscious, would that have made her necessarily easier to lift? I wasn’t sure.

He had raised his eyes and was studying my face. I’d been lost in my own thoughts and must have looked startled. He gave a small, dry smile.

‘I want to know for sure, Francesca. I want to know what happened. I want to know if it was, after all, suicide. The police have not completely ruled that out. Or if it was murder and if so, who killed her and why. I want your help.’ He hesitated. ‘This is an unpleasant subject to discuss with you. Perhaps I shouldn’t have done so. But I came to you for a particular reason.’

‘It’s OK,’ I told him, trying to disguise my unease.

‘I have a proposition to make to you, Francesca.’

The people at the next table clearly thought he had, too. The murmured words, ‘at his age . . .’ floated across. I hoped Alastair hadn’t heard them.

‘The police are working hard on this. I have no criticisms of them. However, they didn’t know Theresa and you did. They didn’t live in that house with her, and you did. They don’t know the world she moved in – and you do. I want to ask you if you would undertake inquiries for me into her death.’

‘Me?’ I must just have gaped at him. It had been the last thing I’d been expecting. I began to stutter objections, that I didn’t know how, hadn’t the facilities, that there were private inquiry agencies better placed than I was to do as he wished.

He cut me short. ‘Private detective agencies don’t handle that kind of investigation. I’ve been in touch with a couple. They seem to spend their time serving summonses and following errant spouses around town. In any case, I’ve the same objection to them as to the police. They don’t have the first-hand knowledge that you have.’

‘The police won’t like it,’ I said. Janice’s reaction didn’t bear thinking about.

‘They won’t have to know.’

That took my breath away. He was a surprise, was old Alastair, in more ways than one. But he was right, the police would have to be unaware of my activities or they’d put a stop to them immediately. With or without a charge of obstruction.

‘I’m sure you can be discreet.’ He cleared his throat. ‘I admit I had some reservations about asking a young woman to do this unpleasant task. But Nevil Porter was clearly in no state, when I saw him, to undertake anything. I understand the third member of your group might be unsuitable. I haven’t met him, but from what I’ve heard, I fancy he would prove unreliable.’

‘You think I’m reliable?’ I had to ask.

His faded eyes fixed mine with disconcerting sharpness. ‘Yes, I do. I thought you would be before we met, and now we have met and talked, I’m sure of it. I will, of course, meet all your expenses and – if you obtain any firm evidence of either suicide or murder – pay you a further sum. Oh, and should you get into trouble with the police over this, I shall naturally come forward and provide any legal representation you might need.’

That was a relief. Of a sort.

He put a hand to his inner breast pocket and took out an envelope which he put on the table, propped against a wine glass. ‘Two hundred and fifty pounds on account. There will be a further two hundred and fifty on positive results. Does that seem fair to you?’

It sounded like a fortune to me, but I had to make it clear to him, that he might be throwing money away. ‘I may turn up nothing.’

‘I realise that. But I sense you are a determined young woman. Perhaps, if you turn up nothing, as you put it – it will be because there is nothing to find? In other words, perhaps my girl took her own life, after all. Will you do it?’

‘You’re crazy,’ said Ganesh with such finality that I didn’t feel like arguing with him about it. I’d already worked out for myself that I couldn’t be in my right mind.

‘It was difficult to refuse him, Gan. Poor old chap. Basically, he just wants to know what she’d been doing in the weeks before she died. He’s desperate to fill in the gap between the last time he saw her and – when we found her.’

‘It’s occurred to you that grief might have unhinged the old fellow?’

‘He seemed pretty sane. He gave me his card.’ I took it out and put it on the greasy table in the café where we sat discussing Alastair’s request. The proprietor was writing up the day’s menu on a blackboard. He was having a little trouble.

Sosages and egs

Pissa with toping of choise

There was nothing to suggest that his cooking was an improvement on his spelling. Certainly not the smell of ancient grease coming from the kitchen.

‘We’re not eating here, are we?’

Gan grunted and shook his head. He was turning the card over and over, although nothing was written on the back. ‘Abbotsfield near Basingstoke, Hampshire,’ he read aloud. ‘And what’s this, Astara Stud?’

‘Horses, I assume.’

‘What sort of horses? Racehorses?’

‘I don’t know, do I? I’ve taken his two-fifty on account and I’m going to do my best to earn it, right?’

‘Don’t look at me,’ he said discouragingly. ‘I’m not going to help you.’

‘Well, thanks. I’ll manage on my own.’

We left the café and bought two foil boxes of special fried rice from the Chinese take-away. We sat by the river to eat, looking across at the Crystal City.