Asking For Trouble (12 page)

‘Where are you going to start?’ Gan asked.

‘I’m going to talk to Edna.’

He tipped out the remains of his rice for the gulls. ‘And that’s going to be worth two hundred and fifty quid, is it?’

Needless to say, it wasn’t. Edna had chosen to obliterate everything from her mind relating to the man she’d seen and the cigarette packet.

‘Have you still got it, Edna? Or the packet of matches?’

She pushed her hands into the sleeves of her grubby coat and hunched on a tomb, sulking.

‘Come on, Edna, I’ll buy you a new packet.’

She wriggled away from me along the tomb. ‘Don’t want it.’

‘Has something upset you, Edna?’

She raised furious eyes. ‘They took them all away!’

I didn’t understand at first and then I realised that there was a curious absence of cats around the place. My heart sank. ‘Who, Edna?’

‘Animal charity, called themselves. Came with little cages in a van. I told them, they didn’t need any animal charity. They had me! I looked after them! She said—’

‘She, Edna?’

‘Skinny young woman in charge. Face like a ferret. She said, they’d find new homes for them. Don’t believe it. Don’t believe anyone. Don’t want anyone. Don’t want you!’

End of conversation.

I was more than disappointed because I’d already had thoughts I hadn’t confided in Gan. The book of matches Edna had shown me had been printed with the name of a wine bar in Winchester. Winchester wasn’t so far from Basingstoke, and that, in turn, was near Abbotsfield and the Astara Stud. That book of matches was evidence and it had gone.

It didn’t change my mind. The police were looking in London for the answer to the mystery. I had an idea that was the wrong place. Down there in Hampshire was where the story started. And down there in Hampshire was where I might end up having to go.

Having a permanent address of my own now, even if it was only the flat, helped in one way and I was able to find another job. I still had Alastair’s money, but it wasn’t for day-to-day living. It was for my inquiries, and so far they hadn’t cost me anything.

It was a pretty lousy job, waitressing in another café which sold nothing but fry-ups and slabs of bread pudding to truck-drivers and labourers from building sites. My clothes and hair stank of frying oil when I got home but the tips were good if the pay was meagre. I also got free food, which meant eating what was on the menu. I came out in spots but I saved money.

In between I trailed from pub to pub and squat to squat, trying to trace Terry. Sometimes my path crossed one left by the police. Generally they’d been ahead of me every time. I had to give them full marks. Whether they’d found out anything I didn’t know, but I doubted it. No one had anything to tell me and they were more likely to talk to me than to the coppers. I even found Lucy again but she had nothing to tell me. She’d met Terry by chance and knew as little about her as I did. Lucy had a job now, child-minding. She seemed happy. I was glad.

this time, I’d heard nothing from Squib which didn’t really surprise me. On the other hand I had been to the hostel and in theory, at least, he ought to know that. I wanted to know he was OK; I wanted to know what the police had been saying to him and he to them; and I wanted another talk about Terry. Squib was, after all, one of the few people other than myself who’d known her.

Accordingly, one evening after I’d finished my shift at the café, I went back to the hostel and settled myself on the stone wall outside. After a few minutes a woman came out, smiling, of course. Did they ever stop? She asked if I needed anything. I told her I was waiting for Henry and refused her offer of a nice, hot dinner which, from the smell oozing through the basement grill, was mostly cabbage.

She left me on my wall which was hard. The coldness of it seeped through my jeans. I wondered whether I’d get piles and kicked my dangling legs back and forth to generate a bit of heat. To occupy my mind, I listed my favourite films in order of preference. I’d done that before. It took me quite a long time and
The Good, The Bad and The Ugly
came out on top as it usually did.

As the evening wore on, the residents began to drift past me into the hostel and the boiled greens dinner. There were winos, who left their empty sherry bottles stacked by the door, dropouts and junkies, with the occasional out-and-out psycho, twitching and rolling his eyes, but no Squib. When it was nearly dark and I was about to give up, I saw a small white shape trotting towards me out of the gloom. Squib’s dog.

Squib himself emerged from the shadows. I jumped up and nearly hugged him. I can’t say he responded with equal enthusiasm.

‘Hullo, Fran,’ he said, trying to sidle past me.

I told him I’d been before and left a note, had he seen it? He mumbled and tried to get away again but I grabbed his sleeve.

‘Listen, you don’t want whatever they’re dishing up in there. I’ll buy you egg and chips. I’ve got the money.’

‘Cafés don’t let dogs in,’ he muttered.

‘Then I’ll buy us all a burger from the van along the street there, the dog too.’ The van had arrived about ten minutes earlier and was setting up in business, smoke belching from it. ‘I’ve been sitting here waiting for you for ages and my backside’s numb,’ I added.

He gave in and we went to the van, first customers of the evening and the food hadn’t yet got leathery. I bought Squib and myself a burger each with all the trimmings, and one for the dog without onions, mustard or pickle. We sat on a bench under a streetlight to eat them.

‘How’s it going, Squib?’ I asked, licking my fingers.

‘I’m going to be clearing out soon,’ he said. ‘I think I’ll go travelling again.’

‘They’ve told you to go?’

‘Naw, but they don’t like him.’ He pointed at the dog which had gobbled up its burger and was eyeing mine. ‘And I don’t like them.’

‘What about the police? They’ve been in my hair.’

‘I gotta report in twice a week and stay at the friggin’ hostel. Otherwise, they don’t bother.’

I told him there was no justice. They didn’t leave me alone. Why didn’t they pester him in the same way?

‘You’re bright, ain’tcha?’ said Squib. ‘They ask you questions because they think you got answers. Me, I’m thick. They don’t bother.’

‘I don’t know anything, Squib, but I’m trying to find out.’

‘Whaffor?’ He was getting bored, fidgeting and wanting to get up and walk off.

I wasn’t going to tell him about Alastair. I told him, ‘For my own sake. I want to know why she had to go and die in our house, like that. I want to know more about her.’

There was a silence. ‘There was a bloke asking for her one time.’

It was Squib speaking but the words were so unexpected I found myself looking round to see if someone else had joined us. ‘What do you mean? At the house?’

‘No, in the pub, couple of streets down, The Prince of Wales. He had her photo and was showing it around. He showed it me. I don’t split on a mate, so I said I didn’t know her. He said he was going round all the pubs. I wished him luck. Off he went. Flash feller.’

I suppressed a tingle of excitement. ‘When was this, Squib?’

Asking him to be specific was a little like asking Edna. He looked vague. ‘Couple of weeks before she topped herself.’

‘And you didn’t tell any of us?’

In the lamplight his face had an eerie sheen on it and his expression was aggrieved. ‘Matter of fact, I did, see? I told her, told Terry. Reckoned she ought to know.’

‘What did she say?’ Keeping my own tone nonchalant was getting difficult. I had to try not to squeak.

Squib racked what passed for his memory. ‘She was scared, I reckon. But I told her it would be all right, because I’d said nothing. She give me a fiver.’

‘Five pounds? Terry did?’

‘Yeah.’ Squib frowned. ‘It was more’n I expected. But he’d have given me that, wouldn’t he? The bloke in the pub? If I’d told him. So it was fair.’

Both fair and shrewd. Squib hadn’t given away information that time, but he might be tempted if the inquirer came back again, brandishing a fat wallet. Terry had been making sure. I was annoyed, though, remembering how she never had any money when it came to household expenses.

‘I wish you’d told me,’ I said.

He settled his woolly hat over his ears. ‘Why should I? Wasn’t nobody’s business but hers.’

True – at the time. Now it was mine. ‘Come on, Squib!’ I ordered him firmly, ‘what else did she say?’

‘Nothing!’ he protested. ‘I forget.’ After a moment, he added sulkily, ‘She said her people must be trying to find her. That’s where the bloke had come from.’

‘Did she name a place?’

‘Chuck it, Fran, will you? I forget!’

‘Basingstoke?’ I tried. ‘Winchester? Abbotsfield? Ring any bells?’

‘Horses,’ mumbled Squib. ‘It had something to do with nags.’

‘Squib,’ I said, ‘was it called the Astara Stud?’

He muttered, ‘Can’t remember!’ but he didn’t mutter it fast enough. He remembered, all right.

I sat there, both excited and frustrated, because he was still holding out on me.

Suddenly he asked, sounding odd, sort of shy and hopeful mixed, ‘Reckon her people got money?’

‘Probably,’ I said. ‘Everyone’s got more money than us.’

That seemed to make an impression on him and he sat thinking about it until, without warning, he stood up. The dog, which had been curled up under the bench, jumped up too.

‘It’s getting late,’ he said. ‘They close the doors nine o’clock. After that, you’re locked out. It stops us staying down the pub late. They don’t allow drink, no beer, nothing.’

He was already setting off down the street. I called after him, ‘You can still set out your bedroll at my place!’

‘Forget it!’ he called back. ‘I got plans.’

I dismissed that because Squib had never been known to have a plan of any kind, ever.

I should have paid more attention. Especially I should have realised that, being a novice where thinking was concerned, if Squib had finally got a plan, he was bound to screw it up.

Chapter Seven

My life continued on its usual doomed course. After two weeks of dishing out fry-ups by day and sleuthing around the less savoury parts of London by evening, someone left the fryer switched on overnight by mistake and my place of employment burned down. So I was out of work again. I sat in my highly undesirable residence and wondered where else I could go to ask about Terry. I’d reached the end of the road, as far as I could see.

By now I’d read nearly all Nev’s books and reached the point where I couldn’t stay in that flat another forty-eight hours. The estate’s kids had taken to rampaging up and down the staircase. I had to lock and bar the door. The mould on the bathroom wall, despite my washing it down with bleach, was spreading and there were scuttling noises behind the rotten skirting boards which I was sure meant rats. I’d had enough.

Parry hadn’t been to see me for a while, nor had Janice been in touch again. I felt a little hurt by that. I wondered if she was still on the case. Maybe she was having problems over the divorce and her mind was on that.

I knew I wasn’t forgotten by the police in general. I’d never be forgotten until they closed the file on Terry. But I didn’t see how they ever would. No one knew what happened that Monday afternoon.

I was still thinking about Terry in the way I’d started to think after Janice’s last visit. I still felt I owed her and there had to be something I could do. I’d made a start. I had what Ganesh and Edna had told me, added to Squib’s story. I wished I also had Edna’s packet of matches but, unfortunately, that was lost for ever.

I did go back to the hostel and try to see Squib again. But they told me, still smiling, that he’d cleared out, as he’d told me he meant to do. Everything was pointing me in one direction only.

I took myself to Victoria Coach station and asked about National buses down to Basingstoke. The return fare was cheap enough even for me. I went to see Ganesh and asked if I could borrow a camera. It seemed to me the sort of basic equipment a detective would need, although I wasn’t sure what I would snap with it.

‘Not an expensive one, just an ordinary one, easy to use. Nothing that it would be disastrous to lose or anything. Though I’ll take great care of it.’

‘What are you up to now?’ he asked suspiciously.

I told him I intended going down to the country, to the Astara Stud, and seeing what I could find out.

He was aghast. ‘You can’t do that! The old fellow thinks you’re investigating up here, scene of the crime. He doesn’t expect you down there, stirring up trouble! If you ask me, it’s time you called him and told him you’re quitting. You have tried and you can’t do more than that.’

‘I’ve done nothing, Gan, except trail round in the footsteps of the police, asking the same questions they asked and getting the same blank looks. I’m nowhere further on and frankly, it’s a matter of pride! I
will
get to the bottom of this!’

‘You’re in enough trouble, already,’ he argued. ‘You don’t know anything about this family except what the old man told you over lunch. Who’s to know how accurate that was? You said his thoughts kept wandering off. He probably forgot half a dozen things. That woman inspector would throw a wobbly if she knew you meant to go there. You know sod all about being a detective. What have you found out so far? Nothing! You admit it yourself!’

‘All the more reason to try somewhere else,’ I growled.

He gave me a superior smile. ‘What would you do if you turned up a murderer, down there in the sticks? On top of everything else, you don’t know anything about the country.’

‘What’s to know?’ I asked airily. ‘It’s got fields and cows and people saying
aarrh!
’

‘It’s different!’ Ganesh snapped. ‘You won’t know your way around there, as you do here. You don’t know those kind of people. Here in the city, people are too busy to bother what you do. Down there a stranger will attract attention. You will, that’s for sure!’

‘Why me?’ I was insulted.

‘Look at you!’ he said unkindly. ‘Jeans with holes in the knees and a black leather jacket, Doc Martens boots. They’ll barricade the doors when they see you coming.’