Risking It All (28 page)

‘If ever I can tell you,’ I said, ‘you’ll understand, I swear it, Gan. If it’s any consolation, I really wish I could. I’m truly sorry.’

We exchanged sheepish smiles.

Jerry Wilde rang at twelve thirty, just as Hari had ordered me to go upstairs and have some lunch. His voice vibrated with ill-concealed fury. ‘I’ll meet you, but there had better be a good reason for this! I don’t want you coming anywhere near Kew. Nicola tells me there was a beggar cadging loose change in the street last night. We never have beggars in this street. Was that you?’

‘I don’t beg!’ I prevaricated. ‘I’m an actor, and in between I work where I can.’

He made a disbelieving noise. ‘Pull the other one. Anyway, shouldn’t that be actress?’

‘We don’t say that any more.’

Another snort. ‘Tomorrow’s Sunday and I can’t get away without Flora suspecting something. It’ll have to be Monday, and well away from Kew.’

We argued a bit about where to meet, and settled for five o’clock on Monday afternoon at Oxford Circus Tube station, by the ticket dispenser. It would be rush hour and like a madhouse. It was unlikely anyone would notice us.

‘Oxford Circus Tube?’ Ganesh said suspiciously, as I put down the phone.

‘The best place to hide is in a crowd,’ I retorted.

That afternoon I went back to Susie’s. I couldn’t help but be concerned about her, and anyway, I wanted to tell her I’d seen Allerton, though I wasn’t sure if that would prove any help.

The block of flats didn’t look any better by daylight. But Susie did look a lot better than the last time I’d seen her. She recognised me, which surprised me a bit, remembering her fuddled state.

‘Hello,’ she greeted me, pulling open the door. ‘C’mon in.’

She teetered ahead of me on insecure-looking black slingback heels. First sight of the living room showed me she’d tidied up the place and turned down the heating. No bottles or glasses were on view, though the ashtray was still filled with stubs. She made me coffee and we sat down to drink it under the gaze of the pottery cat in the fireplace. Susie had combed her hair back and twisted it into a roll secured with a big tortoiseshell clip. As well as the heels, she wore a black sweater, skirt and tights. A thought occurred to me.

‘It wasn’t today, was it?’ I asked cautiously. ‘Rennie’s – um – you know.’

‘Funeral?’ She shook her head. ‘No. I’m all done up like a dog’s dinner because I’m expecting my sister. I’ve got to look like I’m holding it together or she’ll be on to me to go back with her to Margate. She’s got a good heart,’ Susie conceded, ‘but she’s bossy, you know what I mean? If I give her a hint I’m not managing, I’m finished. So, I’m managing, right?’ She grinned at me wryly.

‘You’re doing great,’ I said, and meant it. I liked her a lot. I didn’t understand what she’d seen in Rennie, but, well, that was one of life’s many mysteries.

She held up a packet of fags to me, and when I shook my head, she took out one for herself and lit it. ‘I ought to give up, cut down at least. But right now, it’s not the moment.’

‘Have you had any more thoughts about keeping the business on?’ I asked.

She waved a hand to dispel the smoke. ‘I dunno. I’ve had some funny old news. Seems Rennie was holding out on me.’

I perked up at that and tried not to look more than mildly interested. What had she found? A secret ledger detailing illicit income? A list of blackmail victims? In a way it was something even more surprising.

‘He was insured,’ she said. ‘I never knew it. I found the policy, all paid up and everything in order. It was in there.’ She pointed at the pottery cat. ‘What a place to hide it. And he should’ve told me, shouldn’t he? Daft to say nothing. It was only by chance I found it. I was looking at the cat, thinking of Rennie, turned it over and, I don’t know why, looked through the hole in the base and saw there was something stuck in there, rolled up with an elastic band round it. I rang’em up. I’ll get a nice little sum of money. Poor Rennie.’ She gazed meditatively at the cat. ‘He did like his secrets.’

‘So you can pay for the funeral, then,’ I said, ‘and still have a bit over. Perhaps you ought to think about taking that holiday in Ibiza.’

Susie shook her head. ‘Not without Rennie. Like sitting on the beach with a ghost. No, but I’ve got time to think.’Course, what I’d really like is to get away from here . . .’ She gestured at the window to indicate the estate. ‘But I don’t know if I’ll have enough to do that.’

She leaned back on the sofa and crossed her legs. The skirt was very short and if she flashed her pins like that at the funeral it would brighten up the undertaker’s day. ‘Rennie sometimes went to some really nice places in the line of business, you know. I don’t mean clients invited him into their homes. They don’t do that. The last thing they want is the neighbours knowing. But when he was carrying out enquiries, stake-outs, checking out the lie of the land, he went all over the place. He’d come home and tell me about it. There are some really nice places to live, you know, if you’ve got the readies.’

I thought of Mrs Mackenzie out at Wimbledon, and Flora and Jerry in Kew. None of them had even set foot in a place remotely like this flat in its crumbling, vandalised block. ‘Yes, there are,’ I agreed.

‘Nice places and nice people,’ Susie said dreamily. ‘It must be lovely . . . Round here it gets worse every day.’

I told her I’d seen Allerton. She was interested but not hopeful. ‘Thanks for trying, anyway,’ she said. Her eyes rested on me speculatively. ‘Why’re you interested in who killed Rennie?’

I prevaricated. ‘On the off-chance it might have something to do with me. He was found outside my place. I want to know if someone’s tracking me.’

‘You find that Mrs Marks?’ she asked suddenly. She hadn’t been as fuddled as she’d appeared last time.

Reluctantly, I admitted that I had. ‘But Rennie hadn’t been to see her. He’d phoned her and asked if he could, but he didn’t – couldn’t. She didn’t know what he wanted. He hadn’t said.’

I don’t know if she believed I was telling the whole truth, and doubted she did. But she made as if she accepted that that was it. ‘We’ll never know what it was, then,’ she said.

I left her, feeling cheered because she was making out a lot better than had seemed possible on my first visit. I passed a woman on the staircase. She was hurrying upwards. She wore a red raincoat and carried a dripping umbrella. She had the same blonde hair and thin features as Susie, but wore a truculent I-don’t-stand-any-nonsense look. The Margate sister, a battleaxe, but one who cared. Susie would be all right. She’d been an additional worry lurking at the back of my mind, but now I could forget about her and concentrate on my own problems. No lucky pottery cats in my life.

Chapter Fourteen

On Sunday Ganesh borrowed Dilip’s car again and drove me to Egham. It was quite a nice day, cool, but the rain was holding off and the sun managing to cast a pale glow over everything.

Ganesh came in to say hello to my mother, and when he’d gone, she said again what a nice young man he was. She then gave me the sort of look I remembered getting from Grandma Varady every time some unattached male personage of roughly suitable age with prospects of a steady job hove into view.

This visit I had some really nice news for her. ‘I’ve spoken to Nicola, Mum. Only very briefly. I met her outside her house. She was on her way home. She’d got her violin case with her.’

Mum’s face lit up. ‘What did she say?’

This was a tricky one, but instinct told me that to invent a cosy conversation would only get me in deeper. It’d be a green light to Mum to ask me to go back and chat Nicola up again.

‘She didn’t know who I was,’ I explained awkwardly. ‘She, um, thought I might be a beggar.’

‘I hope you told her you weren’t!’ Mum said indignantly.

I mumbled some reply before going on, ‘Look, Mum, I’ve done all I can. I’ve found her, seen her, spoken to her. I’ve seen inside the house. I know she’s musical and studying the violin. I don’t think anyone could’ve found out more for you.’

‘No,’ she agreed. ‘But it does seem a pity . . .’

‘No, Mum,’ I said gently. I put my hand over hers. ‘She’s a bright kid and she’ll smell a rat if I follow this up any more.’

‘I suppose so,’ she said reluctantly. ‘Thank you for doing so much. I don’t think even poor Rennie could’ve done better. You ought to be a professional, Fran.’

It was a compliment, I supposed. I didn’t tell her it hadn’t been my first effort at tracking someone down and I considered myself to be quasi-professional already. In a sort of way.

When I rejoined Gan outside he’d been reading the map in the car and discovered Windsor Great Park was just up the road. So we drove there and parked and walked amongst the trees and lawns. It was all so nice and peaceful. There were plenty of other people walking, respectable, solid citizens with little children and little dogs. I felt happier than I had since Duke had first popped up in my life. I’d done what Mum wanted. She was pleased. All I had to do now was tell Jerry Wilde the police were looking for my missing sister and, having successfully passed the buck to him, skedaddle. How Wilde took the news and what he did about it was his own business.

Happiness took a bit of a dent at this point. If Wilde had killed Duke I wouldn’t be safe until he thought he and his family were safe. The information I had for him told him they weren’t, not by a long chalk. The most prudent thing I could do was to stay away from the Wildes as Jerry had demanded. Instead, I’d arranged to meet him the following day. And why? Because my conscience wouldn’t let me rest if I didn’t give them a warning. Sooner or later, I guessed, Mrs Marks would pass on to the police what she’d told me. From then on, to the Wildes, it was only a step.

I got to Oxford Circus Tube station at ten to five on Monday afternoon and took up position by the ticket machines. I wanted to see Jerry Wilde coming before he saw me. I reckoned he’d come up the escalator from the northbound Bakerloo Line, having changed from the District Line at Embankment. At Oxford Circus, the Central, Victoria and Bakerloo lines intersect. That and its central London location, with direct access to the shopping of Oxford and Regent Streets, make the station a hive of activity at most times. At this hour of the afternoon it was just a rugby scrum. Everyone was in a hurry to catch a train, to get home. They’d spent long hours in the area’s offices or trailing from big store to big store and were tired and bad-tempered. It’s difficult to keep your cool in those circumstances. I was already feeling hassled myself, having got there via the Northern and Central Lines, as a journey a general free-for-all.

At least down here in the Tube it was warm, gusts of hot, stale air billowing up from the depths. The homeless would come down here to thaw out, given the chance, but the police regularly chase them out. The buskers are better at eluding authority, and despite notices everywhere on the Underground system, few of the corridors are without music. Personally I think the travellers like it. One or two of the buskers are really good. Some, like a chap I once knew called Sam, aren’t. He was really rotten; his guitar playing was crap and he couldn’t sing to save his life. Day after day he assaulted people’s eardrums with discordant yowlings, but he made more money than some of the better ones because people pitied him for his lack of talent and admired his sheer brass neck.

I sipped from a can of Coke and kept my eye on the automatic gates at the head of the escalators. I saw one kid slip through without a ticket. He was about twelve and skinny. He’d been hanging about, waiting for a suitable person to follow. He spotted one in an absent-minded matron laden with Selfridges carriers. She fed her ticket into the slot and at that precise moment, beautifully timed, the kid stepped right up close behind her. The gates flew open, and both went through before she became more than marginally aware from the slight pressure at her back that she’d acquired a shadow. The gates snapped shut but only skimmed the kid’s backside.

An orange-jacketed London Transport employee had spotted the manoeuvre, however, even in the milling crowd. He yelled out, ‘Oi!’ but he was too late: the kid was off, diving down the escalators, pushing by other travellers. The LT man was joined by a colleague and they debated what to do, before abandoning the prospect of a hopeless chase. As for the elderly shopper, she just looked bewildered, still not quite understanding what had happened. One day soon, when the kid had grown a fraction bigger, it wouldn’t work any more. The gates would slam shut against his diaphragm, winding him. Then he’d have to think of something else.

I leaned back against the wall. The palm of my hand, gripping the can, was sweaty. I was nervous, even with so many people around. I was wearing my puffa jacket and clean jeans (courtesy of Hari’s washing machine), but any claim to respectability was let down by my right boot, still laced with Ben’s garden twine. I tipped that foot sole-up against the wall to disguise it. Then I glanced about me and froze. A little way off, intently studying the Tube plan on the wall, stood a familiar figure, hands in the pockets of his heavy winter-wear leather jacket, long black hair falling over his face. My heart sank. Just what I didn’t need but should have foreseen. Ganesh had appointed himself my minder.