Scarlet Feather (40 page)

‘Are you allowed to have letters?’

‘No, the numbers, S is nineteen and F is six. If we forget, all we have to do is go through the alphabet. Even men can understand that, Simon.’

‘I don’t think that men are any more stupid than the rest of people, really,’ Simon said thoughtfully.

‘No, Simon,’ Tom was contrite.

They agreed to drive the children back to The Beeches, since it was on the way to Freddie Flynn’s house. Solemnly Simon and Maud watched as the alarm code was set.

‘Brilliant idea,’ Simon said.

‘No one would ever think of that,’ Maud agreed.

‘Imagine, we’re travelling with all the food for a posh party.’ Simon was pleased.

‘Yes,
and
all those nice shiny forks you polished as well.’

‘Why do they not have knives?’

‘Good question. They claim to have all the cutlery we need, but people never have enough forks. I went and checked; they don’t have nearly enough forks.’

‘You need to be quite intelligent for this work, don’t you,’ Simon said.

‘You do,’ said Tom as he counted and completed a checklist. ‘It’s all there, Cathy, ready to roll.’

‘Okay Tom, okay June, ceremony of the keys.’

Simon and Maud watched fascinated as they hung the keys to the premises carefully on a hidden hook at the back of the van. ‘Why do you put them there?’ they asked.

‘Whichever of us takes the van back needs to be able to open the place up, so we always have the ceremony of the keys…’ Cathy explained.

They had arrived at the Beeches. The two children ran into the big house with the huge overgrown garden.

‘Looks like a posh place,’ June said.

‘Yeah,’ Cathy said, ‘posh, dead sort of place.’

‘They have to be with their own parents, their natural parents. Don’t they?’ Tom asked.

‘To be honest, I’ve never exactly seen why,’ Cathy said, and put the van into gear with a crash as they drove off.

Freddie Flynn was most welcoming when they got there. ‘Now I know the drill, your aunt says you hate people saying to you this is the kitchen, this is the hot tap, this is the cold tap…’

‘You wouldn’t ever do that, Mr Flynn,’ Cathy smiled up at him from under her eyelashes.

Tom let out a low whistle between his teeth when he’d gone. ‘And you say that I put on the charm for the ladies… I never saw anything like that performance,’ he teased her.

‘I promised Auntie Geraldine he’d get the full treatment,’ she whispered.

‘Yeah, well.’

At that moment Freddie’s small, plump wife Pauline came in. ‘Freddie says I’m not to fuss, and I promise I won’t, but somehow it seems like cheating to let you do it all,’ she said.

Cathy felt a lump in her throat. This woman was being deceived by Frederick Flynn, important Dublin businessman, purchaser of diamond watches for Cathy’s aunt. ‘Not a bit of it, Mrs Flynn, you and people like you are providing Tom and myself with a generous living, we want to make it a huge success. Now your husband tells me you don’t want anyone to take the coats. Have I got that right?’

‘Yes, after all it
is
the summer, so they won’t have that many coats… But you see, we got the upstairs all decorated, and I sort of hoped they might go up and see it so that I could show it off.’

‘You are so right, let me see where I’m to direct them.’ Cathy ran lightly up the stairs ahead of Pauline Flynn, and saw the magnificent bedroom which had been spoken of. It was in beautiful shades of pale green and blue, and there was an elegant white dressing table. It wasn’t exactly a four-poster bed, but there was a ring with cascading curtains over the top; a white crochet bedspread and lace-trimmed pillowcases; doors opened on to a huge, luxurious bathroom with white fluffy towels alternating with others in baby blue. This place had all the appearance of an altar built to the god of pleasure. Cathy held her hand to her throat. Geraldine could not possibly know that Freddie’s dead marriage involved this kind of decoration.

‘Lovely room,’ she said in a slightly strangled voice to Pauline Flynn.

‘I’m glad you like it; I’m old and silly I know, but it’s what I always wanted and Freddie seems to think it’s nice too, and that’s what pleases me most of all.’

Cathy ran downstairs quickly.

‘Hallo Walter,’ the twins were surprised. They thought he would have gone to England by now.

‘Hallo,’ Walter grunted.

‘How was the business?’

‘What business?’

‘You said you were having a business meeting with Father and Barty.’

‘Oh yes, I bloody was.’

‘So it didn’t work?’ Simon was philosophical. ‘Muttie always says that you win some, you lose some.’

‘What does Muttie know about anything?’ Walter asked.

‘A fair bit,’ Maud said. ‘I think,’ she added doubtfully.

There was a silence. ‘We got a job like you said,’ Simon said eventually.

‘Good for you. Where?’

‘With Cathy and Tom… They have a fortune in their premises, it’s full of their treasures.’ Simon wanted to impress his older brother.

I’m sure,’ Walter laughed.

‘No, they do, all their worldly goods are there, they have two keys and a code lock in case anyone gets in.’

‘Oh yeah, I bet the whole world is trying to get in there and steal catering plates and paper napkins,’ Walter laughed.

‘They have a solid-silver punchbowl, it’s beyond price. They have loads of things,’ Maud said.

I’m sure it’s very impressive, but do you mind moving off for a bit, I’ve a lot to think about now.’

‘Okay,’ Simon and Maud were good-tempered.

‘And you’re not whining for food or anything.’

‘No. Cathy gave us something for the microwave.’

‘What is it?’ Walter asked with interest.

‘Pasta. It will take four minutes on high,’ said Maud. ‘Do you want some? There’s plenty for the three of us.’

‘Thanks.’ Walter was gruff.

They sat at the table, the three of them, Walter’s mind a million miles away as the twins talked on happily about the party that Tom and Cathy were doing that night.

‘They have money to burn, the Flynns do,’ Maud said.

‘I don’t think they really
are
going to burn it though, I think it’s only an expression that people use,’ Simon explained.

‘Yes, whatever.’ She brought Walter into the conversation. ‘Do you think we should get a burglar alarm here, Walter?’

‘Nothing for a burglar to break in here for,’ he said glumly.

‘We could set it before we went out and disarm it when we got back.’ Maud didn’t want to let the notion go entirely.

‘Yeah, can you see Mother and Father doing that? Can you see Barty coming to terms with disarming an alarm? It would be like a cops and robbers movie. We’d have the guards living here all the time.’

‘But it’s so simple,’ Simon said. ‘We know how to get into Cathy and Tom’s premises just after seeing it once.’

‘Sure, but do you have the keys?’ Walter took his plate across the kitchen to the sink.

‘No, but we know where they are,’ Maud said.

Walter came back and sat down with them again.

The party up at the Flynns’ was going very well. Twice Freddie put his head around the kitchen door to congratulate them.

‘They’re just loving it all,’ he said. ‘Well done.’

‘Why is a nice man like that unable to look me in the eye and tell me he needs me to be a significant part of his life?’ June wondered.

‘Hard to know all right,’ said Cathy as she piped out more creme fraiche on the little buckwheat pancakes that were disappearing with alarming speed from the platters.

‘You’d never think that a woman like Mrs Flynn would be enough for him,’ June said as she swept off with the new tray.

Tom and Cathy’s eyes met. ‘Funny old life, Tom, that’s what I always say,’ she grinned at him.

‘Women are just riddled with intuition, Cathy, that’s what always say,’ Tom replied.

Walter looked up the Flynns’ address in the phonebook. It wasn’t far away. He had been able to get the loan of a car from a night-owl friend for a few hours. He parked it beside the van and found the keys exactly where the twins had said. Through the windows he saw them all, Tom, Cathy, June and that creep Con moving about inside.

Geraldine moved restlessly around her apartment in Glenstar. Normally she never felt like this. She had been truthful in saying that she believed Freddie’s private life was just that… private, and no concern of hers. It was just that… well, she hadn’t planned to do anything tonight. She had taken work back to the apartment but she didn’t feel like doing it, and there was nothing she wanted to see on television. In a million years she would not admit it, not even to herself. Geraldine was lonely. Then her telephone rang.

‘I miss you,’ he said.

She forced her voice to be bright. ‘And I you. How’s it going?’

‘Fantastic. They’re very talented, those kids, it’s running like clockwork.’

‘I’m so pleased for you, Freddie, truly I am.’

He hung up. A stolen moment away from his guests, his wife. It had always been like this, and this is what it was always going to be like from now on. So why was she complaining? Geraldine had known the score when she signed up.

Wearing black cotton gloves, Walter let himself in and used the code to disarm the alarm. Where were all these treasures the kids had talked about? He must be quick; he needed to get the stuff hidden in his garden shed, the key back into the van and the truck back to the friend who would be starting his evening at around ten p.m. It looked like it had always looked, a big ugly catering kitchen, a lot of stainless steel, coloured tea towels drying on the backs of chairs, shelves of inexpensive china, drawers of worthless cutlery. He pulled out possible items like a toaster, an electric grill, a microwave oven. But these things were peanuts. They wouldn’t bring him a fraction of the money he needed. The money he had lost with that fool friend of his father’s, old Barty, who knew a great game and had brought Walter along. On the table in the front room, he saw the big silver punchbowl the children had spoken of. It wasn’t solid silver at all, and he pushed it aside in disgust. There were boxes of supplies, unopened steamers and saucepans in the storeroom; they might make
something
if he could just unload them on the right person. And he needed something, even if he got a couple of hundred quid it would be a start. He began to drag the items towards the front of the premises, and knocked over a tray of glasses as he did so. The splinters of broken glass were everywhere. They wouldn’t like that when they got back. Something welled up in him, and he swooped an entire shelf of plates onto the floor as well. It was somehow satisfying. He would do more later.

He worked for forty minutes, unscrewing and transporting what might possibly change hands in an iffy market he knew about. Then, with his elbow, he raised the end of one of the china shelves so that all its contents went in a great crashing slide to the floor. He pulled out the plug of the freezer and tossed items out of it at random. He noticed with annoyance that they had a very poor stock of alcohol, and remembered that they usually arranged for a wine merchant to deliver straight to the venue. Still, there was a bottle of brandy and some other off-looking liqueurs; it would keep the guy who owned the car cheerful. He remembered one day how they had been going on and on for ever about what message to leave on the answering machine, so he wrenched it from the wall and stood on it. He hit the light bulbs with a stick and leaped aside as the shattered glass came tumbling down. He packed the car, taking the punchbowl at the last moment. He might get £20 for it anyway, and these days that couldn’t be laughed off. What fools to tell the children that these things were treasure! They were so bloody smug, those two. This would show them.

Even if they hadn’t had to tell the story two dozen times, they would never forget the return to the premises that night. They were high with the success of the party at the Flynns’.

‘We’ve got so much better,’ Tom said as he reached for the keys.

‘I hope so. Sometimes I think we’ve just got more confident, you know, papering over the cracks,’ Cathy said.

‘No, we
are
better,’ said June.’I met the Riordans there, remember, the people who had the christening… They said our food was in a different category altogether.’

Tom and Cathy loved the way June considered herself part of it all; even young Con was beginning to feel the same way. Then they opened the door. They had often heard that people who were robbed felt this strange sense of being violated. This was what it was like. When they walked into the front room, Cathy saw the clock Joe had given them lying on the floor inside the door, broken beyond repair. Tom saw the huge vase that Marcella had chosen with such care in three pieces beside the overturned table. And all their plates knocked from the shelves. June saw the drawers opened and their contents spilled and the telephone and answering machine dragged from the wall. Cathy saw that her punchbowl, the only prize she had ever won in her life, was gone from the table. They couldn’t take it all in. Tom was the first to speak.

‘Bastards,’ he said. ‘Total bastards. There’s nothing to steal, and so they’ve destroyed everything we have…’ There was a catch in his voice which released the tears. He clung to Cathy and June.

The guards were mystified. No sign of a break-in, no forced entry, nobody else had access to keys. They had no idea of anyone who harboured malicious feeling towards them. Had they? They couldn’t think of anyone at all. Rivals over work, possibly? No, they weren’t in the business in a big enough way, they explained. One of the young guards who had already asked twice about insurance mentioned it yet once more to Tom.

‘Yes, I told you,’ Tom said a trifle impatiently. ‘Our accountant insisted we pay what we think is a huge premium, but that’s not the point… That’s not going to sort this out.’

‘I know, sir. They can take it up with you themselves,’ he said.

‘Who can?’ he asked.

‘The insurance company, sir,’ he said

Neil was asleep when Cathy rang. ‘Yes, Neil Mitchell,’ he said sleepily.