To Catch a Creeper (32 page)

***

‘Urgent Sturgent! Urgent Sturgent!’

‘What?’ Henrietta cries in alarm.

‘Something Rosa and I used to say,’ I inform her. ‘I’d go urgent sturgent and she’d answer back sturgent urgent.’

‘Oh. Is it like a code for anything?’

‘It means All Troops Alert.’

‘Is it All Troops Alert?’

‘Is what All Troops Alert?’

‘Now?’ She sounds confused. ‘Is now an All Troops Alert? Am I to call for reinforcements?’

‘No. But if it was, that’s what I’d say. I’m preparing you.’

‘I think I understand. Except you know I’m not on back-up duty this morning, Janet is. You should really be preparing her.’

Janet agreed to do a shift today as she’s working from home and also she said she’d go revisit the estate agents to see if she can dig up anything I may have missed.

‘Well, I was only ringing for a chat really.’ And if I can avoid a conversation with Janet I will.

‘So you’re OK? Not in imminent danger?’

‘Yes, I’m fine. I’m in Mrs Baker’s garden. Pruning her roses. Her daughter’s just been over. Puffing smoke from her nose.’

‘Really?’

‘Metaphorically speaking.’ I snip away with the secateurs. ‘Funny thing is she knew all about my mum’s dad being an army major.’

‘Your granddad was an army major?’

‘Yes, he travelled all over during wartime, Singapore, India, Tokyo. Anyway, Eleanor knew about him. How come?’

‘Her mother told her maybe?’

‘Unlikely. They were having a furious argument. Doubt there’d have been time for friendly chit-chat about my family history. Interesting though it is.’

‘What were they arguing about?’

‘Something to do with trees I think. All I heard was…brother…home…walnut…oak. Maybe she’s getting them pollarded? There’s a massive copper beech overhanging our fence which keeps dropping…’

‘Walnut Oaks,’ Henrietta says slowly as if it means something.

‘Why, does it mean something?’

‘It’s one of the places where Isobel works – the nursing home – long-term residential. The one she’s always complaining about. You must have heard her. Anyway my next door neighbour’s nan was sent there and they wouldn’t even let her keep her little ol’ goldfish. By all accounts their kitchens are filthy and food portions tiny. Not that I’m blaming Isobel. She no doubt does brilliantly.’

‘You don’t think Mrs Baker junior’s trying to make Mrs Baker senior go there, do you?’

‘Cathy…’ she lowers her tone and for a second, I’m about to put the phone down before I’m abused for not paying some overdue invoice. Obviously her old dodder of a boss is coming back from the cellar when she suddenly adds. ‘Do you think she might have been listening?’

‘Listening? No
I
was the one trying to listen to
them
. Although I didn’t hear much as I was sitting on the stairs for half of it and the door’s too thick.’

‘No, remember you said, ages ago, that Mrs Baker thought she was being bugged.’

‘I did. Yes, but…’

‘Well,’ her voice goes odd, ‘maybe she was.’

***

Twenty minutes later and I’m still mulling over Henrietta’s theory when there’s a sharp rat-a-tat-tat on Mrs Baker’s door. It’s Janet, her cheeks rosy and hot-looking. I usher her inside.

‘What is it?’

‘I…jogged…way…here.’ Her whole body heaves up and down as she struggles to catch her breath.

‘From where?’

‘…estate…agents…Hardwick…Wiles.’ She bends over, drops her hands to the floor followed by her head before slowly lifting them up again in a kind of salute to the sun yoga-type move. Still flushed, sweat beads trickling down her brow. ‘…house…recognise…house…’

‘You found out something?’

She nods and draws another large breath which seems to escape from the side of her mouth as she wheezes. ‘I think I know who the Crouch End Creeper might be!’

Chapter 31

‘We’re calling this urgent meeting because…’

‘Because…’ Pimple joins in. ‘We have something of the utmost secrecy and gravest importance to discuss.’

‘So why’s the full contingent not here?’ queries Isobel. ‘The other members of the Neighbourhood Watch.’

‘Because…’ I pause dramatically and continue on, in as grave a tone as I can muster. ‘We think one of us is the Creeper.’

‘What!’ Henrietta and Isobel scream in unison, stare at one another, then at the rest of us while Janet, Pimple and I look smugly on.

When Janet announced her revelation I did what I always do when I’ve got a problem that I don’t know how to deal with. I called Pimple. It was her suggestion we got the WOWs together seven p.m. Henrietta’s house. So that’s where we are now.

‘This afternoon we had a breakthrough. It took a combined effort of thinking, deducing, analysing…’

‘And actual physical going in there,’ adds Janet.

‘Yes, well that too.’ God, trust her to go for the glory. It’s not like it’s
a competition
or anything. ‘Thing is,’ I place my right hand against my heart, ‘
I
more than
anyone
should have known. My first instincts were right yet I ignored them.’

‘What instincts?’ Henrietta looks bemused.

‘Get ’em off,’ screams Isobel, for a cheap laugh. Which she gets from Janet.

‘Clue 1,’ I start. ‘The profile we came up with is someone who’s moderately wealthy. Perhaps living in a smallish house but who has valuables more valuable than their earnings might imply.’

‘From all the booty they’ve collected.’ Isobel pours Pimple a glass of wine and refills her own.

‘Correct. Clue 2, the Creeper was on the books of Hardwick and Wiles so they could sniff around the properties before burgling them – and yet they didn’t tell us that they did.’

‘Who didn’t tell us? Hardwick’s or the Creeper?’ asks Mrs Baker, who insisted on coming with me.

‘The Creeper.’

‘Oh right.’ She passes round a saucer of popcorn. Not up to Henrietta’s usual nibbles standard but it was extremely short notice.

‘But why on earth
should
he tell us?’ asks Isobel.

‘Bear me out. Clue 3, the Creeper hasn’t come to rob you, Mrs Baker, as they
know
and I repeat
know
, it’s a trap.’

‘Got me,’ says Isobel, totally bemused now.

‘Clue 4, back to my instincts. Did I not start all this by saying he/she? Was I not coerced by everyone into believing the Creeper must be a man because according to statistics male offenders in this country outnumber female offenders by more than four to one?’

Pimple informed me of that fact earlier this evening. Read it in a Law Court leaflet apparently.

‘I wonder if Dad knows that?’ says Isobel interested.

‘I never coerced anyone,’ says Janet indignantly.

‘I’m sure I never said anything,’ Henrietta bursts in, ‘or if I…’

‘Order! Order!’ Pimple bangs a spoon against her glass.

‘Clue 5,’ I carry on when it goes quiet, ‘the Creeper never burgled a house while someone was at home. Our fatal flaw? We didn’t ask ourselves why. And we also didn’t ask ourselves was it because they were too weak to fight off the home owners?’

‘A sick person, you mean?’ suggests Isobel. ‘A patient you met while at the hospital helping deliver Rosa’s baby?’

‘Good try, but no.’ I cross my hands behind my back and begin pacing the length of Henrietta’s lounge. Ten paces turn about, ten paces turn about. I do this three times before I speak once more. ‘Clue 6, she looked like a transvestite because she was…’ Pause for effect. ‘A woman. A tall well-built stocky woman.’

Three sharp intakes of breath.

‘Clue 7,’ I start pacing again, ‘another reason, my learned friends – I mean, er, good friends – why the Creeper was especially quiet before she killed the vet was because she realised we have eight very capable detectives on the case.’

‘Nine surely,’ says Isobel, while Henrietta begins counting on her fingers with a baffled expression.

‘Or ten if you include Mrs Baker.’ Henrietta smiles sweetly across at her and Mrs Baker smiles sweetly back.

‘Clue 8, the Creeper joined the Neighbourhood Watch in order to keep an eye on the action.’

Three gasps, louder this time as one by one they twig.

‘So who is it?’ asks Isobel.

‘Take a wild guess,’ says Henrietta. ‘There’s only one woman on the Neighbourhood Watch panel, apart from the WOWs of course.’

‘Shilpa!’ yelps Isobel.

I nod and tap the tip of my nose twice with my index finger, then quickly drop my hand down as I remember this isn’t a game of charades. It’s deadly serious.

‘And she was wearing a new bracelet at the last meeting.’ Isobel gasps again. ‘Would you believe it? Shilpa a cold-blooded killer!’

Henrietta jumps up and rushes out to tell Neil. There’s a scrabble of voices. Questions.

‘Has she confessed?’

‘Does Norman know?’

‘How could she?’

‘Have you approached her?’

‘Stop, stop,’ I hold up my hand. ‘I doubt very much Norman knows and any direct approaches I think we have to leave to the Hornsey police. Pimple and I are going to go down there tomorrow with my big fat file.’

‘I was always rather fond of Shilpa,’ says Janet, glumly. ‘She was really nice.’

‘Takes some getting used to,’ I pat her hand sympathetically. ‘But she was obviously a Jekyll and Hyde character.’

‘She might not even have been aware of her “darker” side,’ says Isobel with her eyes bulgy again. ‘Maybe she has DID.’

‘Did? Did what?’ Pimple blows her nose.

‘Did murder the vet, obviously, durr,’ says Janet.

‘No, not did,’ Isobel waggles her finger. ‘DID. Dissociative Identity Disorder. The existence of at least two distinct identities in a person, each with its own way of relating to stuff around them. Sometimes the patient’s personalities control their actions, and there can be memory loss too with it so Shilpa might not remember what she did.’

‘Would she have been born with it?’ asks Henrietta coming back into the room.

‘Most probably caused by her parents or other adult relation. Often due to sexual/physical abuse as a child. Shilpa did mention something about an overbearing uncle.’

‘Isobel, have you ever thought of becoming a counsellor yourself?’ I ask.

‘Me?’ She looks surprised.

I nod. ‘You might end up better than Larry. You know so much about it.’

‘Oh I don’t really. I just leaf through the case studies, you know, when the children are in bed and I’m at a loose end. I’ve never thought about it before.’

‘Well maybe you should.’ I pick up some empty glasses. ‘Now if you don’t mind, ladies and gentlemen, I’ll hand you over to Janet. After all, she did do the very
last
bit.’

I head for the kitchen, leaving them all oohing and aahing while Janet holds court.

‘Well thank God, for that.’ Neil takes the glasses I hand him and places them into the dishwasher. ‘At last with the Creeper caught we might be able to sleep peacefully again.’

‘Yeah.’ I peer through the serving hatch. Janet’s standing on a chair giving a question and answer session, pointing and saying things like, ‘You with the hair in the bun and turtle-neck sweater next to the lady in the apron’ to Isobel and ‘You, with the grey hair and folder on your lap’ to Pimple.

Living two doors down from Shilpa, Janet had recognised the house the instant Eager Eyes showed her the particulars. Then she made enquiries to double-check. Like who it belonged to – ‘Indian lady, tall, black hair flowing over shoulder’she was told. How long on market – ‘Three months,’ Eager Eyes had replied. Just before the first burglary took place.

‘So,’ Neil turns from the dishwasher, ‘now we have to watch the Neighbourhood Watch?’

‘Oh I’m quite certain the others are completely oblivious to Shilpa’s shenanigans. Although, saying that, we’ll probably have to keep a button on it until after the arrest.’

‘You saved our marriage you know, Cathy,’ he says quietly.

‘Oh come off it.’ I squirm, never one for taking compliments comfortably. ‘Wasn’t all me.’

‘You’re far too modest.’ He squeezes my shoulder. ‘I’m just grateful it’s over. Henrietta and I had never had a crisis before. We just didn’t know how to resolve it.’

‘You’d have worked out a way.’ I think back to that awful miserable day at HornseyPolice Station. ‘Can I ask you a question?’ I rinse a J-cloth, squirt a puddle of some earth-friendly cream cleanser on it and start going over the surfaces. Not that they’re that disgustingly dirty or anything, just always much better cleaning someone else’s kitchen than your own.

‘OK, but only one,’ Neil smiles.

‘Why do you do it? I mean what makes you want to…’

‘Dress up?’ He closes his eyes a second. ‘I guess I just yearn for the gentle fabrics of feminine clothing. I love the colours – the dusky pinks, violet hues, powder blues. I love the elasticity of the underwear, the sensation of the delicate silk and satin against my skin.’

‘Or in my case the M&S cotton rich with stomach-reducing panel.’

‘Even those have a certain appeal,’ he smiles again. ‘You know when I dress up at home, in my bathroom and I look in the mirror, I feel so alive…and different…like someone else.’

‘But why do you want to walk the streets?’

‘Because…’ he looks a shade bashful, ‘it excites me. No, I don’t mean sexually.’ He stops my embarrassed flush in mid explosion. ‘I want to be seen as this person, not just in front of the mirror or in front of Henrietta…but this woman I’ve created, this she – is another me. She wants to go out, show off her coral lipstick, her rouged cheeks, new waterproof lilac mascara. She wants to have fun – even if it only means walking the streets at night. I hope it doesn’t turn you off me. I mean you and Declan are still going to socialise with us, aren’t you?’

‘Nothing could put me off you, Neil,’ I tiptoe up to kiss him. ‘Nothing at all.’

Chapter 32

Friday morning. Bright and early. Declan’s sleeping quietly next to me, all warm, innocent and utterly unaware of our great discovery. I want to open up the window and bellow out, ‘We know who the Creeper is, na, na, na, na, na’ but then it reminds me of Oliver Twist again, listening to all the market traders singing, ‘Who will buy, my lovely strawberries/beautiful grapes/smelly roses, whatever’ and then it all goes wrong for him and I don’t want it to go wrong for us. We’ve figured out the culprit, we’ve got the information in a big file, which Henrietta promised to type up after her batch of debit notes. We’re going to hand it over to the police later this afternoon, when Pimple finishes her shifts and then smack hands, hey ho, back to normal life.