Looking for Trouble (15 page)

‘God, Jackie, I’m sorry. The mess and...’

‘Don’t worry about that.’

‘But it’s your home.’

‘My cellar.’ She laughed. ‘Sal, our school gets this sort of treatment every month. She’s right. There’s a lot of it about. I don’t let it get to me anymore. I’d go loopy. At least they didn’t touch the rest of the place and nothing seems to have been stolen. And they didn’t leave a calling card.’

‘What?’

‘They often have a shit for good measure.’

‘Oh, no.’

‘What was all that about it being a message for you? What’s going on? Can you talk about it?’ Bless her cotton socks. It was just what I needed. I swore her to secrecy.

‘It’s a bit confusing. I started off with a woman called Mrs Hobbs. She wanted me to find her son, Martin. I find him and he wants nothing to do with her. Two weeks later this woman is murdered and it turns out she’s not Mrs Hobbs at all. Not Mrs anything. She’s Janice Brookes and I haven’t got a clue why she wanted me to find Martin. The man who gives Martin a lift home denies ever having seen him and a friend of Martin’s who never touches drugs is found dead from a heroin overdose. Meanwhile, the real Mrs Hobbs does exist, she has got a son called Martin and he has left home. But the family are putting it about that he’s in hospital, a schizophrenic.’

‘What?’

‘Plenty of deception, eh?’

‘So the dead Mrs Hobbs is the impostor?’

‘Yes, really Miss Brookes. She did a hell of a job acting the distressed mother. I fell for it. Right from the word go.’

I told Jackie the lot, starting with that first visit from the nervous ‘Mrs Hobbs’, right up to calling on Fraser Mackinlay. Then I talked myself out of breath about whether the attack was just a random crime or a warning to me.

‘It’s a bit oblique, as far as warnings go,’ said Jackie.

‘Yeah. You think they’d have made it plain. Slogans on the wall or a wreath in the mail.’

‘What?’

‘They send people wreaths or hearses,’ I said. ‘I read it in a book.’ Suddenly the idea struck me as funny and I had a fit of the giggles. ‘I suppose headstones are too expensive,’ I spluttered, ‘and coffins would be a bugger to wrap.’

When I’d calmed down, Jackie asked me what I was going to do.

‘Oh, I don’t know. Clean up. I can’t afford to replace anything. I never renewed the insurance.’

‘Oh, Sal.’ She shook her head at me, got up and began to get potatoes from the veg rack.

‘Don’t say it. It hardly seemed worth it and I never had the money to spare. I only took it out for the first year ‘cos I thought the Enterprise Allowance people might check.’

‘Well, if there’s anything in the other cellar you can use, feel free. But what are you going to do about these loose ends, as you put it?’

‘I don’t know. Sleep on it. Work out whether I’m being paranoid or stupid.’

‘I think that policewoman was right, you know.’ She began to scrape the potatoes. ‘It did look like kids messing about.’

‘Coincidences do happen,’ I sighed. ‘I’m going to have another look.’

As I stood in the doorway and surveyed the mayhem, I began to wonder whether it was really worth replacing anything. My work paid the bills if I was lucky and frugal. There were aspects of it I relished: No two days the same; out and about; no boss peering over my shoulder; following people; checking things out; adding them up; the challenge of unravelling each trail. I loved the look on people’s faces when they asked what I did. The whole seedy romance of being a private eye.

And then there was the rest. The long wait in between jobs, red herrings and false starts, the isolation, the potential for nasty situations. I was starting to get maudlin.

How the hell had I come to this? After the stabbing, I’d sworn to myself I’d only take safe work. Checking on erring spouses, watching light-fingered employees, tracing missing persons. No murders, no violent crime, no security stuff.

Martin Hobbs had started out as a missing person. It’d all seemed so straightforward. Cast about a bit, see if anything bites. If not, no loss. Since then, JB had gone looking and he was dead. Janice Brookes had gone looking and she was dead too. I’d gone looking and some prat had sloshed lilac emulsion all over my office.

The bathos made me smile. Sod it. Time enough for big decisions. Time to go home. I’d take the kids to the park, wear them out. And once they were in bed, I’d get well and truly drunk.

I walked into the kitchen to find Ray mopping the floor.

‘Oh, shit, your mother’s coming. Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that. I forgot all about it. My office is a right mess, paint everywhere. The police reckon it’s the local youth. Where are the kids?’

‘Out doing over someone’s house.’ Ray straightened up and brushed his dark hair back. His forehead was gleaming and he was breathless.

‘Good exercise, floor mopping, you ought to do it more often.’

He ignored me. ‘Clive’s taken them to the park; Digger too.’

‘Clive has!’ Clive had never taken the kids anywhere.

‘He’s got a woman with him. I think he’s trying to impress her with his caring male persona.’

‘Bloody typical.’

‘Have you said anything to him?’ Ray asked.

‘No, I haven’t had a chance.’ It came out defensively. ‘Can’t you do it? Just tell him we want a meeting.’

Our conversation was interrupted by the party’s arrival back from the park. Clive disappeared upstairs with his friend. I entertained the kids while Ray cooked. The smell of real minestrone began to permeate the house.

The doorbell rang. The kids ran to get it, chanting ‘Nana Tello, Nana Tello.’ I gritted my teeth. We always seemed to rub each other up the wrong way.

She bustled in, chiding Maddie for shouting and stooping to rub Tom’s face with her hanky.

‘Sal,’ she said, ‘you look tired. You getting enough iron? Liver. You need liver for the blood. When Raymond was little, I ate liver twice a week. You should try it. Now, where is that boy?’ She sailed past me into the kitchen. I trailed after her like a sulky teenager. The woman infuriated me. She was bossy, brusque, insensitive, manipulative. And I felt guilty for feeling so unsisterly.

She regarded me as the major obstacle to Ray settling down with a nice Catholic girl. I don’t think she believed our relationship was platonic. Once in a while, I made a renewed effort to call a truce with her, to find some common ground, to talk to her like I would any other woman. But we always ended up behaving like stereotypes, overbearing mother and bolshie daughter.

I survived the meal without rising to any of the jibes that came my way. I drank lots of red wine. Ray drove her home. I got the kids to bed and opened another bottle of wine. Ray came in and flung himself on the sofa.

‘Mothers,’ I said. ‘More wine? Do you think Tom and Maddie will feel like this about us one day? I’m regarding you as a surrogate mother for the purpose of the discussion.’

‘Don’t they already?’

The phone rang. I heaved myself out of the chair to answer it. It was Mrs Hobbs. The real Mrs Hobbs. She wanted to see me. I had an unnerving flash of déjà-vu. I’d been here before. And I didn’t fancy a re-run.

‘Why did you want to see me?’ My question jerked her attention away from the cup of coffee she was stirring. She darted a glance up at me, blinked rapidly and ducked again. We were sitting in the cafe at the Royal Exchange Theatre. It was all very civilised. We’d already been through the banalities of queuing for coffee, choosing a table, settling in.

‘Martin,’ she said quietly. ‘You said you’d spoken to him. Was he really alright?’

I cut her off, ‘Why?’

‘What?’ Her brow creased.

‘Why do you want to know?’

‘He’s my son. I...’ Her eyes filled up. She pressed her mouth shut. Fought to keep control.

‘Martin doesn’t want any contact with you.’

She let her breath out in a shudder. ‘The things you said,’ she faltered. ‘This is very hard for me...I can’t believe...Keith would never. There must have been some terrible misunderstanding.’

‘You still don’t believe Martin.’

She didn’t reply.

‘Whose idea was it to tell the neighbours Martin was ill?’

‘There’d been a terrible scene. I wasn’t there, but Martin, he’d...he’d threatened Keith with a knife. He’d always been a bit moody, shy...but never violent. Keith was very angry, very, very angry. He’s got heart trouble...it could’ve...’ She shook her head at the thought. ‘Martin had stormed off. Said he was never coming back. Keith said it was best to leave it be. No point in dragging the police into it all. It was difficult to know what to say to people...’

‘It could have been rather awkward for your husband if the police had been involved. After all, Martin might have spilled the beans. I think that’s why your husband was so keen on the hospital story.’

She shook her head. I wasn’t giving her the reassurance she wanted. ‘Please, just tell me he’s alright. I’ve been out of my mind with worry. Is he living in Manchester?’

‘I don’t know. I saw him briefly. He was upset, angry. I didn’t find out where he was living.’

‘Did he say anything about me?’ she asked.

I stalled, wondering what to say.

‘What did he say? Tell me. What did he say?’

I took a breath. ‘He thought you’d hired me to find him. He said you’d never cared before.’

‘That’s just not...’ She pressed her lips tight together, but the tears still coursed down her cheeks. ‘It’s not...’ Her voice rose in pitch, then she broke off.

‘Mrs Hobbs, I have to ask you this. The woman I talked about – Janice Brookes...’ But she’d already lurched to her feet, rocking the table, spilling the coffee. I let her go. I could hardly force her to stay, to talk. She pushed her way through the crowd. I lost sight of her.

I felt lousy. Perhaps I shouldn’t have told her what Martin had said. It was pretty brutal, after all. But then maybe it would help her to believe Martin’s version of events. Ignoring the curious glances of other patrons, I shook coffee off my jacket, rubbed my trousers with a hanky, stuffed it in my pocket and left.

I walked back to Victoria train station where I’d left the car. The day hadn’t started too well. I ran through the possibilities for the rest of it. Go home and be domestic? Plenty to do, but then Clive might be hanging around. I wanted Ray to be the one to tell Clive we needed to meet. Not just because I shrank from the task, but also because I was sick of being the one to initiate that sort of thing. It was time for Ray to take his turn. Not home then. What else? I could tire myself out, window-shopping in town. Gaze at all the lovely summer clothes that Maddie and I would have to manage without. Yeah, great. End up exhausted and envious.

I got in the Mini and took the road down to Strangeways, past Boddingtons brewery near the prison and through Salford, to join the motorway to Bolton. Might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb. I’d already shattered one mother’s day and this would be even trickier. I had a whole heap of questions for Mrs Brookes, Janice’s mother, but the main one concerned Martin. Why had Janice wanted to find him?

Sheila Hobbs had lost her son. Mrs Brookes had lost her daughter. Martin Hobbs had run away. Janice Brookes had run after him. And been killed.

Why? I hadn’t the faintest idea.

The hamlet outside Bolton was shrouded in an unseasonal mist. The sky was grey and leaden. No point in stopping to admire the view. The black Datsun was still there. The woman who’d driven it was probably a neighbour, then.

I mounted the steep steps, in-between walls spilling aubretia and alyssum. I rang the bell.

The black woman who’d accompanied Mrs Brookes to the inquest opened the door. Whoops. Was this her house? Did Mrs Brookes live next door? Up close, she was younger than I’d thought. She wore her hair pulled tightly into a top-knot. Sloppy T-shirt, cycling shorts.

‘Hello, I’m looking for Mrs Brookes.’

She frowned. Suspicion in her eyes. ‘Who?’

‘Mrs Brookes. Janice’s mother.’

I caught a flash of anger. ‘You from the papers?’ She moved towards me, blocking the door.

‘No, no. I knew Janice. I wanted to talk to her mother, if she’s in.’

‘She doesn’t live here.’ She was very cagey. I felt as though I was making a right fool of myself. Admit it.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I must have made a stupid mistake. If you could just give me the right address?’ She stared.

‘Or her sister,’ I carried on. ‘Do you know where she lives?’

‘I’m her sister.’

‘Oh. God.’ That threw me completely. ‘Look, I’m sorry...about Janice. I didn’t realise...’

The look in her eyes told me that she’d been here countless times before. Watching people grapple with the surprise; black woman, white woman – sisters.

‘Half-sister,’ she said. ‘You were at the inquest, weren’t you? What’s this all about? How did you know Janice?’

‘I was working for her before she died.’

‘Working for her?’ It was her turn to be surprised.