The Last Detective (10 page)

The large woman who practically elbowed one of my companions aside and addressed me by name was unknown to me, although the voice was familiar. She introduced herself as Molly Abershaw, the reporter who had phoned me late on Thursday. I was peeved, to put it mildly. I reminded her that I had nothing else to say to the press.

Miss Abershaw had obviously had time to work out her battle-plan, whereas I was reacting predictably. On reflection, I may have over-reacted. She said with a smile that she wasn't there to get a statement, she simply wanted to introduce someone to me. Then she reached behind her and thrust a schoolboy in front of me - Matthew, the child I had pulled out of the weir. The poor kid looked thoroughly uncomfortable. Miss Abershaw tried to prompt him into some kind of statement of gratitude, but before he opened his mouth I said it was unnecessary.

You can imagine the mystification of the people I was with. They knew nothing of my adventure in the weir. But Molly Abershaw hadn't finished yet. She said that the boy's mother had come to meet me. By this time, I was in no frame of mind to be civil with anybody, and when a camera flashed and I realized that I had been well and truly set up, I acted fast. I grabbed the photographer, who was obviously from the newspaper, and insisted that he expose the film and hand it over. The wretched man was rigid with fear, and that's not a response I'm used to getting from people I meet. I demanded that roll of film and got it.

Not the sort of incident one expects at a literary party.

AS SOON AS POSSIBLE AFTER the incident at Waterstone's I left the party. The drive to Chawton compelled me to think of other things. The cottage where Jane Austen spent the last eight years of her life is located this side of Alton, just off the A31, and is furnished as a museum by the Jane Austen Society, not a place I would normally have sought out, but the Steering Committee had concentrated my mind wonderfully. I took note of a number of items -manuscripts, family portraits and other memorabilia -that I decided were worth making enquiries about for a possible loan. My list didn't include the lock of Jane's hair recently dyed bright auburn, or the microphotographs of pieces of her skin still attached to the roots. I had ditched most of my donnish scruples, but there were limits, even with a hundred-foot Assembly Room to fill. Before leaving, I explained my interest to the curator and sounded him out about the possibility of borrowing items. It seemed I would have to approach the Society. There were the usual complications over insurance.

The worst of the day's heat had passed when I started for home, yet it was still an uncomfortable drive with the sun steadily penetrating the windscreen at a low angle. I stopped for a pint and a salad in Marlborough and got back to Bath shortly before nine - to an extra infliction. The mindless beat of disco music carried to me from my own garden even before I saw the line-up of large cars in the drive. I recognized a red Porsche and a grey vintage Bentley: Geraldine's Bristol crowd. The whiff of charcoal fumes and kebabs was in the air. A far cry from Jane Austen.

The front door stood open and a bearded man I had not met sat across the doorstep, tapping the disco rhythm with his fingertips on a 1935 Silver Jubilee biscuit tin belonging to me that was quite a collector's piece, and usually displayed on the Welsh dresser. 'Hi,' the man greeted me without looking up. 'What have you brought?'

'Nothing. I live here.'

Now the man raised his face to squint at me. 'With Gerry, you mean? Nice work, man. Want to come in?'

I stepped over his legs and walked through the house, and found Geraldine dancing on the patio opposite an estate agent called Roger, in striped shirt and red braces, who never missed these shindigs. Gerry gave me a wave. The music was deafening, so I turned down the volume.

Continuing to wriggle her hips, she called out, 'You're too early for the food. It needs another half-hour to get up some heat. You've got time to get into something more relaxing.' She was relaxing in an emerald green jumpsuit. Her feet were bare.

To say that I wasn't in the party mood would be an understatement. I said, 'For Christ's sake, Gerry - you might have told me you were planning this.'

'Didn't get the chance, dear heart. You were up and away too early this morning. Never mind, I've fixed you up with a date.'

'What?'

'A date. Skirt, or whatever charming expression you fellows use these days.' The cassette ran out and she stopped dancing and came over to me and tried to loosen my tie. Her manner was elated in a way that it rarely was when I was alone with her. I guessed she was on vodka, because I couldn't smell drink on her breath. 'So get yourself into something sexy,' she told me. 'She'll be here any minute.'

I said, 'Jump in the pool, Gerry.'

'I'm not shooting a line,' she persisted.

'I'm not shooting a line,' she persisted. 'This woman with a name like a man's called on the phone an hour ago and asked for you. Wait, it's coming to me. Some nineteen-forties film star with dreamy eyes and a trilby. Dana Andrews. That was it. Her name is Dana.'

'I don't know anyone called Dana.'

'You will shortly. She was so desperate to speak to you that I invited her to my barbecue. She's the mother of that schoolkid you rescued from the river.'

'Mrs Didrikson.' It had been that sort of day. 'You birdbrain. Those people are a menace. They turned up at the Ted Hughes signing.'

'What's come over you, shyboots?' said Geraldine. 'I thought publicity was meat and drink to you.'

'Not this local hero stuff. I've had a bellyful. Look, I'm not having the press invading my house - least of all while this is going on.'

'She's coming alone, she told me,' said Geraldine.

'Yes, and pigs might fly.'

I went up to the bedroom, picked some fresh clothes off the hangers, looked into the
en suite,
discovered a woman already using the shower, and had to wash in the bathroom instead. And would you believe it, someone had removed the mirror from the wall.

My first idea had been to tell Geraldine to give the Didrikson woman her marching orders the moment she arrived. But Gerry couldn't be relied on, even when sober. I would do it myself. I dressed, returned downstairs, stepped over the man in the doorway and looked in the drive to see if another car had arrived yet. I walked out to the road. It was completely dark by now and blessedly cool.

In my days as a smoker this would have been a fine time to light up. I had no desire to join Geraldine's barbecue. I had nothing in common with her friends, although I was resigned to joining them ultimately. Trying to sleep would be futile.

I heard the approach of a car from the direction of Bath. Before it came into view, the headlights on full beam glowed high above the walls and hedges. Its progress was slow, as if the driver was looking for a particular house. Then the car itself appeared and the lights dipped. A Mercedes. It halted just across the road from where I was standing, but no one got out.

The driver was a dark-haired woman. She wound down the window and said, 'Would I be better off parking in the road?'

'Are you here for the barbecue?'

'Not exactly,' she said, hesitating. 'You
are
Professor Jackman?'

'That's right, but my wife is giving the party. You can park there if you like. Not much comes along at this time of night.'

She said, 'I think we're at cross-purposes. I just wanted a few minutes with you, Professor.'

'You're Mrs Didrikson?' I hadn't expected the woman to arrive in a Mercedes.

'That's right. Didn't you get the message that I was coming?'

'If you want to talk, this isn't the place,' I said, seized with a pleasing thought. I could outflank Molly Abershaw, who had no doubt set up this meeting, and escape the party for a while by getting a lift to the nearest pub. 'It would be easier in my local - the Viaduct. Do you have any objections?'

She hesitated. 'Well, no - if that's what you'd like,' she said.

I got in, chatted about the weather and the tourists for a mile and admired the way she took the Mercedes round the tight bends on Brassknocker Hill. She handled it as if she enjoyed her driving. I was curious why she hadn't chosen to drive something more like a sports car, for she was really too short for the Mercedes. She was propped up on two thick cushions.

The pub was busy. As she wanted something non-alcoholic, I suggested a St Clement's and ordered a large cognac for myself.

'I was so upset by what happened in Waterstone's today that I had to get in touch with you,' she plunged in as soon as we had our drinks. 'Believe me, it came as a total shock to Matthew and me when that photographer appeared. We were there in the belief that it was a chance to meet you informally and thank you for what you did. It seemed a good idea when Molly Abershaw suggested it. Now I'm kicking myself for being so dumb. Can you forgive me?'

I had given her no more than a glance in Waterstone's. The incident had been so unexpected that I had barely registered who the boy was before the camera flashed and triggered my angry reaction. Dana Didrikson's deep-set brown eyes now studied me with apprehension as she awaited my response. She didn't look as if she was out for more publicity. The shape of her face, the high forehead and neat mouth and chin, suggested intelligence without guile. Her small hands were clasped tighdy.

I said, 'Forget it, Mrs Didrikson. I blew my top, and I'm not too proud about that. Your son has fully recovered from the ducking, I hope.'

'Completely,' she said. 'I can't dismiss it just like that. Not without thanking you for saving his life - and words seem totally inadequate.'

'All right,' I said, smiling. 'In a moment you can buy me a drink and we'll both feel easier.'

'And the cleaning bill for your clothes?'

'They were due for cleaning anyway.'

'I should think the suit must have been ruined.'

I shook my head. 'You don't know my dry-cleaner. He's a genius, an artist. He should be restoring Leonardo's frescoes. Instead he has my trousers to clean.'

She was one of those women whose beauty is in their smile. 'And now I've taken you away from your party.'

'My wife's party,' I told her. 'Isn't it truer to say that I've taken
you
away from it? Gerry invited you, didn't she?'

'Oh, I didn't intend to stay.' She blushed. 'Sorry - that sounds rude. I'm rather tired. It's been a heavy week.'

'What's your job?'

'I'm a company driver, for a brewery.'

'You sound like someone worth getting to know.'

Another quick, self-conscious smile. 'I don't get samples. And the car belongs to the firm.'

'Is it hard work?'I asked.

'I have to earn a living.'

'Are you, er...?'

'Divorced.' She said it evenly, without emotion. 'Mat's father went back to Norway. We married too young.'

'Is it difficult to raise a son? I don't have children.'

She looked down at her drink, considering the answer. I particularly noticed that - the fact that she didn't trot out some superficial statement. 'It's a matter of being alert to the way he develops. Mat's twelve now, coming up to Common Entrance. He's coming to terms with manhood. He's neither small boy nor man. I keep reminding myself not to be too surprised by his behaviour. My worry is that he'll lose his respect for me. How am I going to be a support to him if he disregards me? I see signs of it and I'm torn between checking him and clutching him to my bosom.'

'Difficult. Does he have any contact with his father?'

'No. We don't hear from Sverre. Mat is fiercely proud of his dad's reputation - he's a chess international - and he has a collection of press-cuttings and some photos I gave him, but it's like worshipping a wooden idol. There's no response.' She drew back from the table and flicked her dark hair behind her shoulders. 'How did I start on this? Are you ready for that second drink?'

I watched her carry the glasses to the bar, exchanging some banter with a couple of men she recognized at another table. She was small, yet she conducted herself with confidence. Work must have toughened her. I felt privileged that she had been willing to tell me about her conflict in being both mother and father to Matthew. When she returned with the drinks, though, she made clear her wish to turn to other matters.

'Did I catch it right on television the other night - are you putting on an exhibition about Jane Austen?'

'Under protest, yes. I drew the short straw. In my spare moments I drive around southern England looking for exhibits. There's a worrying shortage. If you hear of a firescreen she embroidered or a bonnet she wore going cheap, I'm the man to contact.'

'Anything
to do with her?'

'Absolutely. Strictly speaking, it's the
Jane Austen in Bath
Exhibition, but I won't turn any offer down - lace handkerchiefs, teapots, old shoes, tennis rackets.'

'Tennis - in Jane Austen's time?'

'Joke - I've got to fill the Assembly Rooms with something.'

'She lived in Gay Street, didn't she?'

'She did, indeed. Forgive me being tactless, but how did you know that?'

'It's part of a project Matthew is doing at school.'

'Obviously I should enlist Matthew's help. Yes, apart from Gay Street there were three other houses in the city where the Austen family resided: in Sydney Place, Green Park Buildings and Trim Street. She also stayed at Queen Square before the family moved here, and at 1, The Paragon, where her scandalous old aunt lived.'

'Jane Austen had a scandalous aunt?'

Now that I had vilified Aunt Jane and made Mrs Didrikson curious, I felt duty-bound to tell the story. 'It's been rather glossed over in the biographies. The aunt may have had The Paragon for her address, but she wasn't such a paragon herself. She was put on trial for shoplifting, which was a capital offence. She was supposed to have stolen some lace from a milliner's. Do you know the dress shop on the corner of Bath Street and Stall Street, just opposite the entrance to the Baths?'

'You mean Principles.'

I smiled at the name. 'There's irony. Yes, that would be on the site of the shop. Well, one August afternoon in 1799, Aunt Jane bought a card of black lace there and walked out with a card of white that she hadn't paid for. Shortly afterwards, the manageress stopped her in the street and challenged her. Aunt Jane claimed that they must have made a mistake in the shop, but they pressed charges and she spent seven months in custody waiting for her case to come up.'

'That must have been an ordeal in those days.'

'It could have been worse. Because she moved in elevated circles, she was allowed to lodge in the warden's house instead of a prison cell and her husband moved in with her. Jane Austen almost went too. Her mother offered the services of Jane and her sister Cassandra as additional company, but the accommodation wouldn't stretch to it.'

'Good material for a writer.'

'Whether Jane would have thought so is another question. The warden's wife had a habit of licking her knife clean after cooking fried onions and then using it to butter the bread.'

Mrs Didrikson grimaced. 'But I suppose it was preferable to bread and water. What happened at the trial?'

'Aunt Jane was acquitted eventually, and it used to be accepted that the poor old biddy was the victim of a trumped-up charge and perjured evidence, but modern writers who have analysed the quality of the evidence are more sceptical. She seems to have got off mainly on the strength of her reputation as an upright citizen. Witnesses galore were called to defend her character - members of parliament, a peer of the realm, clergymen and shopkeepers. All this was stressed by the judge in his address to the jury, coupled with the suggestion that a rich, respectable woman had no need to go shoplifting.'