Asking For Trouble (20 page)
Jamie slammed his door and locked up. We parted at the top of the road and I was able to look at my hand, the one I’d reached under the seat. The fingertips were smudged with blue colour. I reached in the pocket and took out the small, pyramid-shaped object.
It was an end of blue chalk. One of Squib’s chalks, I was almost sure. And it tied Jamie into the squat along with the cologne smell and the fact that his general description was a match to that of the man seen by Ganesh. The chalk scrap must have been trapped in his shoe or maybe he’d worn trousers with turn-ups that day. Three things were too much for coincidence.
So it
was
you, Jamie! I thought and it was followed by a even more alarming thought. The note I’d stupidly made about ‘the man Gan saw’. If I was right and Jamie was the man, that put Gan in real danger. It was quite possible Jamie was a killer, and I had kindly suggested his next victim. Supposing the next not to be myself.
Winchester came as a surprise to me. I hadn’t expected it to be so busy but it was obviously on the tourist trail. The pavements were crowded, the streets blocked with traffic. There were a number of expensive boutiques and any number of places to eat or drink. Seeking out one wine bar wasn’t going to be so easy as I’d imagined.
Now that I had even less reason to trust Jamie, I had to make doubly sure he wasn’t following me. In these crowds it wouldn’t be difficult to do it unobserved. I dodged in and out of pedestrians, nipped across the road between cars risking my neck and getting a fair amount of abuse, and eventually decided that I must have given him the slip, if he had tried to trail me. If he saw me now, it would be just bad luck.
I couldn’t remember the exact name of the wine bar on the match packet, but it had been something to do with ecclesiastical architecture, Crypt or Vault or Cloister, something of that sort. There had been a thumbnail sketch of a gothic arch on the packet. I decided it would be located centrally, where most tourist trade was. But it took me a while, trudging round (it goes without saying, that everyone I asked turned out to be a visitor). Eventually I stumbled across it in a narrow side alley. It had to be the one, not only because I was exhausted and there had to be a limit to the number of watering-holes in this place, but it was the only one so far with a name remotely in the category I sought.
Beneath the Arches
, it was called. I’d been near enough.
I went in. It looked old, and certainly had arches. It was nearing lunchtime and already pretty well packed out. I squeezed into a corner and ordered a glass of red wine and a cheese sandwich, that being the cheapest thing on the menu. There was an ashtray on the table and, propped in it, an identical packet of matches to the one Edna had so proudly displayed. I pocketed it. I was in the right place.
I wasn’t quite sure how much further on that would take my investigations. The sandwich and wine arrived. As I ate, I reviewed what I’d learned so far and came up with several theories, each of which I discarded two minutes after deciding that it must be the right one.
I paid my bill and went along to the Ladies Room. I discovered, as I’d hoped, that just outside the toilets was a public pay-phone and, thank goodness, one which took coins, not cards. I rang the Patels.
As bad luck would have it Mr Patel answered and, although I asked him to fetch Ganesh, he started talking to me himself. I didn’t want to upset him, but I did try and get across to him that public phones eat money and I didn’t have that much loose change.
Eventually he fetched Ganesh when I was nearly out of coins.
‘Listen!’ I ordered Ganesh before he could start. ‘I’m nearly out of money so can’t waste time. I’m in Winchester in the wine bar which advertised with that book of matches Edna had.’
‘What’s this about a book of matches?’ Ganesh asked. ‘You told me it was a cigarette packet.’
Down the line came a tremendous crash of falling crates and voices upraised in dispute, somewhere behind Ganesh. I hoped he could hear me.
‘There was a match book, too! Don’t interrupt, Gan, please! I told you, I’ll run out of money. I believe the man you saw in the street is down here and his name is Jamie Monkton. He’s also the one who dropped the cigarette packet. I feel sure of it. And Gan – Jamie knows you saw him, so take care! He’s a nasty bit of work. I’ve also found something else, a letter. I think all of this has to do with a will.’
Someone at Ganesh’s end of things had now begun bashing some metal object with a hammer. ‘Will who?’ he shouted.
‘A will!’ I yelled. ‘Testament! Saying who gets your goods and chattels!’
‘Now you’ve found all this out, come back!’ He didn’t sound particularly impressed.
‘Can’t. Met someone today who might be able to tell me more. A farmer.’
‘A what?’
‘A farmer—’ Peep-peep-peep. ‘I’ve got no more money.’
‘Fran—!’
The phone went dead.
I had a cup of coffee in order to collect more coins in change. This time I rang through to the police station and asked for Janice. They tried to stall me and find out what I wanted first, but I wasn’t having that. I told them, either I’d talk to Janice or no one. If she wasn’t there, I’d call back when she was.
Eventually they put me through to Janice.
‘Fran!’ Janice’s voice, howling down the line, nearly dented my ear-drum. ‘What on earth do you think you’re playing at? You had no business to leave town without telling me of your intention and giving me your new address! Where are you?’
I’d learned something from my call to Ganesh. I told her I only had a few coins, so would she ring me back? I gave her the number of the pay-phone and hung up.
The phone buzzed almost at once. I picked it up. ‘Janice, listen. Don’t yell. You can yell at me when I get back to town.’
I told her what I’d told Gan and explained why I was in the wine bar, that Edna had shown me the match book, and had probably seen the same man as Ganesh had spotted. ‘I smelled cologne in the squat when I got back that evening. Didn’t I tell you that? Jamie Monkton uses a very similar cologne.’
She stopped shouting and became quiet and businesslike. ‘Fran, you could cause us all a tremendous amount of trouble. You’re intelligent enough to know you shouldn’t be blundering around in police investigations. As for the letter, you’re not authorised to remove anything from that house and, if you do, it’s theft.’
‘I’ve got this gut feeling it’s the key to the whole thing!’ I was beginning to get exasperated. She really didn’t have to be so dense. Was someone else listening in at the cop-shop? Yes, I thought, someone probably was.
‘We need more than your gut feelings, Francesca. I’ve already got more than enough cause to charge you with obstructing the police. As for Jamie Monkton, I can’t proceed on your flimsy evidence. The baglady’s testimony is useless. She’s certainly not mentally competent. As regards the so-called identification of an after-shave scent, all those male toiletries smell more or less the same. Tom uses them. They all stink.’
‘Not like this one! How is dear old Tom, anyway?’ I asked because she was being awkward and I wanted to needle her.
‘Still being a shit. He wants to move back in.’
‘You’re going to let him?’
‘He wants to rebuild our marriage. He’s made an appointment for us to see a Relate counsellor.’ She changed her tone. ‘However, this is nothing to do with the matter in hand! I can’t go by a smell you think you can identify. This isn’t some party-game. As for a vague description made to you by your chum, Ganesh Patel!
You
didn’t see this mystery man in the street! You don’t know it was Jamie Monkton. You’re
guessing
, Fran. That’s all.’
She was beginning to give me doubts. I could be wrong.
‘The chalk . . .’ I said desperately.
‘Fell out of your jacket pocket with the coins.’
‘It didn’t! There was no chalk in the pockets, I know that!’
‘Prove it. You can’t. Look, I’m engaged on police work here, not kid’s games. If you want to play detective, go and buy yourself a box of Cluedo.’
‘But I may have put Ganesh in danger!’ I bellowed into the receiver. Two women passing by on their way to the loo gave me alarmed glances.
‘
You’re
in danger,’ Janice said silkily. ‘You’re in danger from
me
! Get yourself back here to London
pronto
? Understand? And no nonsense. If you try any more playing at detectives, I’ll see you really are charged with obstructing police inquiries!’
‘Stuff your police inquiries!’ I said. Her ingratitude had really got to me. I hung up the receiver before she could reply.
I stomped back into the wine bar in a rage and it was nearly my undoing.
Jamie was there, sitting at a table, making a start on what looked like steak and kidney pie and talking to a pallid man in a business suit. The pallid man was sipping soup and looked as if he was making it his meal. A bottle of mineral water stood by his glass. Perhaps he had an ulcer. He looked depressed enough. Although having to sit in a cramped room full of tourists, watching Jamie munch through pie and chips and knock back half a bottle of plonk by himself would depress anyone. They must have come in just as I left to find the phone. It was a bit of luck because if I’d been at a table, they’d almost certainly have seen me. Equally, if I hadn’t gone to find the phone, or if Mr Patel hadn’t kept me talking, I might have left and missed them. But there he was, Jamie, large as life. This must be one of his favourite eating spots.
I wished I had the nerve to go back and call Janice again. Because here was another coincidence, and even she would have to admit it was one too many. If Jamie hadn’t dropped that match book, someone else had, who’d been in this Winchester wine bar. The likelihood of that was nil.
I hadn’t asked Jamie his reason for coming to Winchester today, in any case it was unlikely he’d have told me. Clearly it was a business lunch of some kind. I wished dearly I knew what they were discussing. Jamie was doing most of the talking, the pallid man pushing the spoon around his bowl and crumbling a bread roll in gloomy silence as he listened. I hoped that Jamie was so intent on getting the point across that he’d be oblivious to all else around him. I had to walk past their table to get out into the street.
I edged past, trying not to look at them. If someone is looking at you, you sense it. I got to the door without anyone calling after me and glancing back, saw that Jamie was still talking away, and refilling his own glass at the same time. Even from the back, the man in the business suit looked depressed.
I reached the street. Safe. I set off. I had some shopping to do.
I went to the nearest chemist and bought a new film for the camera. I wanted to get back to Astara Stud quickly and the bus services would be too slow. Nothing for it but to hitch.
I was in luck. A middle-aged woman stopped for me, concern on her face as she peered at me through the window.
‘My dear? You really shouldn’t be doing this. It’s very dangerous. Anyone could offer you a lift, just anyone!’
‘I wouldn’t go with just anyone, honestly,’ I told her. ‘And I wouldn’t be doing this if I wasn’t desperate. My boyfriend dumped me here. We had a quarrel. He’d pushed me out of his car on this road and just drove away and left me. I don’t even know where I am. I need to get to a place just outside Basingstoke, Abbotsfield.’
She was shocked. ‘How callous! What an irresponsible young man! Really, there can be no excuse for that sort of behaviour!’ Indecision showed on her face. ‘I don’t normally give lifts to hitch-hikers. One never knows . . .’
She peered at me again and I tried to look innocent, harmless and hard done by.
‘I suppose it’s all right,’ she said. ‘I’m going near Basingstoke. I can drop you on the main road in.’
I hopped in the car before she had time to change her mind, thanking her profusely.
‘What did you quarrel with your young man about?’ she asked as we drove off.
This was a tricky one. But I noticed a mascot swinging from the key-ring holding the ignition key, a little plastic dachshund.
‘He made me get rid of my dog,’ I said. ‘He wouldn’t let me keep her.’
‘What!’ The car swerved. Perhaps I shouldn’t have picked on something she felt so strongly about. ‘What did you – he – do with your dog?’ she demanded sharply.
I had to get this right. ‘A friend took her. A good home, I know that. In the country and everything. It’s not that any harm’s come to my dog. It’s just, I had to give her away. I was very fond of her. She used to sleep on my bed. That’s what he didn’t like. He said he was allergic to her. I don’t think he was. He just wanted rid of her, you know.’
She sniffed. ‘Couldn’t you have compromised? Bought a dog basket?’
‘He wouldn’t,’ I said firmly. ‘He said she had to go.’
‘What sort of dog is she?’
One can over-egg the pudding. I turned my eyes from the dachshund mascot, bobbing on the key. ‘Part retriever, part German shepherd.’
‘Goodness, wasn’t she rather large to sleep on your bed? I must admit, dear, I can see why your young man might object.’
‘But she’d slept on my bed since she was a puppy,’ I said pathetically. By now I’d begun to believe all this myself. I felt quite aggrieved.
She sighed. ‘I know how it is with animals. It’s so easy to spoil a puppy. Such adorable little creatures. Bad habits set in. And if it grows into a really big dog . . . You were rather unwise, dear.’
‘Yes, I know that now,’ I said meekly. ‘I won’t make the same mistake again.’
‘You’re going to get another dog?’
‘Yes. And another boyfriend.’
‘Perhaps you should get a smaller one,’ she said thoughtfully.
‘Yes, this one was a body-builder and it was hopeless arguing with him.’
‘No, dear, I meant a smaller dog!’ She frowned. ‘A body-builder? Sharing a bed with a German shepherd-retriever cross and – er – and you? It really couldn’t have been very comfortable.’
She had been intending to stop just outside of Basingstoke, but in view of my predicament, as she termed it, and the distress I was obviously feeling over parting with my dog, she insisted on taking me right into town and putting me down at the bus station.