Joe Sixsmith: The Roar Of The Butterflies Part 14

He shoved the unworthy thought out of his mind and rang Beryl's mobile. Her phone was off too, for which he was somewhat relieved.

'Hi,' he said. 'It's Joe. Listen, sorry about all that stuff this morning, but when you hear everything that's been happening, you'll understand. Main thing is, I'm still going to be away for a couple of days, well, four actually. So if you could do what you said about keeping an eye out for Whitey I'd be truly grateful. I expect you're up to your elbows in new-born babies or something now, so I'll ring you later, OK? Thanks a lot and I'm really sorry that moron George got you involved. Bye.'

There. Nothing there to get her heating up again. You are the master of diplomacy, Sixsmith. Now show you are also the master of self-preservation and get the h.e.l.l out of here!

He grabbed the bag he'd packed the previous night and headed down to his car.

A Message from Frank.

First stop was his office to check his mail, except that when he got there the postman hadn't been yet. He doubted it would hold anything but requests for money, whether official, commercial or charitable. It was far too early to go to the airport, but maybe hanging around here wasn't such a good idea. George, though no n.o.bel Prize-winner, was quite capable of checking the Yellow Pages.

In any case, his conscience told him, after his deception of the Young Fair G.o.d last night, he really owed it to him to put these hard-won hours at his disposal. But how?

All he could think of was Steve Waring. Porphyry had supplied the address of the lad's digs. Joe didn't have a great memory except for song lyrics, but he'd found he could extend this specialized skill to other areas such as addresses by fitting their rhythms to a melody in his repertoire.

Mrs Tremayne, 15 Lock-keeper's Lane marched very nicely with 'Give me some men who are stout-hearted men' from The New Moon. As for Upleck, this was a suburb of Luton whose name was engraved on Joe's heart as the site of the bus shelter in which he'd had his first experience of coitus which, perhaps fortunately, had been interruptus by the approach of the last No 27 bus. Later he sometimes mused that a five-mile walk home might have been a small price to pay for letting this supremely important encounter run its full and natural course.

He couldn't really see how a visit to Waring's might be helpful in the case, but as he couldn't see how anything other than a small miracle was going to help, he might as well drive out there. At least it was unlikely he'd run into George in Upleck.

A quarter of an hour later he was driving past the famous bus shelter. He slowed down to take a closer look. It looked as drab and draughty and uninviting as these things usually did.

What're you expecting, Sixsmith? he asked himself. English Heritage sticking a blue plaque on it?

Lock-keeper's Lane had indeed once been a lane, and a busy one too, carrying traffic down from the main highway to the LutonBedford Ca.n.a.l created to form a link with the Ouse to the north. Twentieth-century improvements in road and rail services had long since put paid to the ca.n.a.l's commercial claims to survival. From time to time proposals were made to revive it recreationally, but they always collapsed under the sheer weight of investment necessary to reconst.i.tute the ca.n.a.l from the sorry string of silted-up, overgrown and usually stagnant pools it had degenerated into. At its urban end, Lock-keeper's Lane had become just another dusty suburban street with few of its inmates sufficiently curious even to wonder where the name came from.

It was still early enough in the morning for both kerbs to be lined with parked cars. Joe drove slowly, looking for a s.p.a.ce. His luck was in. As he approached the estimated location of No 15, a silver Audi A8 4.2 Quattro pulled out and he gratefully slipped the Morris into the s.p.a.ce.

The house had a sign in the window saying Rooms to let vacancies. Joe rang the bell and a couple of moments later the door was opened by a woman who looked like Princess Anne in a bad temper after falling off a horse which had then kicked her.

'Yes?' she exclaimed.

'Mrs Tremayne, is it?'

Joe took the yellow-toothed snarl as an affirmative and pressed on.

'Sorry to bother you, but it's about one of your lodgers, Mr Waring '

'Him? Why's everybody so interested in him all of a sudden? And why can't they be interested at a decent time of day?'

'Mam!' yelled a voice from within. 'Something's burning!'

'Well, turn it off then! Jesus, what do they teach them nowadays?'

She turned on her heel and vanished inside. After a while Joe took the still-open door as an invite and followed. A spoor of charred bacon led him into the kitchen where a teenage boy sat at a table eating bran flakes while his mother sc.r.a.ped the blackening contents of a frying pan on to a plate.

'Here,' she said. 'Take that in to Mr Logan. Hurry up, before it gets cold.'

'You mean that would make it worse?' said the boy, looking at the plate with exaggerated revulsion.

'Just for once in your life, Liam, do something without being smart, all right?'

Joe caught the boy's eye and gave a sympathetic smile. He got blanked for his pains. He's a teen, thought Joe, probably sensitized to trouble and something about me says I could be trouble.

The boy seized the plate, kicked the door open and went out of the kitchen.

'Right,' said Mrs Tremayne, turning her attention to Joe. 'So what the h.e.l.l do you want?'

The interval since their first brief exchange had given Joe time to ponder.

He said, 'Who else has been interested in Mr Waring, then?'

'His brother,' replied the woman, surprised by the directness of the question.

'His brother?' Joe recalled the YFG talking about Steve being an only child. 'Which brother would that be?'

'His brother, Stephen.'

'So Steve's got a brother called ... Stephen?'

'Yeah, why not? I've got a sister called Elspeth. Anyway, that's what his friend called him.'

'Whose friend?'

'Mr Waring's brother Stephen's friend who helped him clear out his things.'

At this point Mrs Tremayne registered that somehow she'd been bounced into co-operation and exclaimed, 'Who the h.e.l.l are you anyway and what am I doing standing here in my own kitchen answering your sodding stupid questions?'

'I'm a friend of Mr Waring and I'm here to clear out his things,' said Joe who, not being a very good liar, was happy to pick up his lies ready-made, off the peg. 'Looks like I got my wires crossed.'

'That's right, so why don't you sod off before I cross your wires some more?'

She didn't look like the kind of woman who made threats lightly, but even though Joe didn't really know what it was he was looking for, he knew he needed more time to look for it and cast around for something to gain a stay of execution.

Money. He'd never met a landlady yet who wasn't interested in money.

He said, 'Mr Waring all paid up when he left, was he?'

'No, he was not! Why're you asking?'

'Just thought if you could work out what he owed, I might be able to sort things out when I see him.'

She regarded him speculatively.

The door opened and out of the corner of his eye he saw the boy come back into the kitchen.

'And maybe I could pay a little on account,' added Joe, recalling the saying of that great student of female psychology Merv Golightly that most women were suckers for promises except landladies, who were softened by nothing but hard cash.

Mrs Tremayne was nodding as if at last she was hearing something that made sense.

Liam said warningly, 'Mum ...'

'Don't interrupt,' she snapped.

'Mr Logan says he doesn't want it. He says he'll buy a Mac on his way to work and knock it off his bill.'

Now he had his mother's full attention.

'He says what? We'll see about that!'

She s.n.a.t.c.hed the plate from the boy's hand. Young Liam was a lad of some discernment, thought Joe. Cold, the breakfast looked even worse.

With her Habsburg lip thrust out like a locomotive's cowcatcher, Mrs Tremayne stormed out of the kitchen.

Joe caught the boy's eye and tried to share a poor-sod smile, but Liam wasn't having any.

On the whole, Joe got on well with kids. Just because most of today's teenagers chose to shuffle around with their pants at half-mast, talking in grunts and looking like they hated the universe didn't mean they were flesh-eating zombies on their way to an eat-in. Except on Hermsp.r.o.ng, where it might.

This boy seemed to have his wits about him. And there was that warning note in his voice when he'd come back into the kitchen and heard what Joe said to his mother ...

He said, 'You get on all right with Mr Waring?'

'Steve? Yeah, he was cool.'

'Didn't say anything to you about going away, did he?'

'Nah.'

'This brother who collected his stuff this morning, did he look much like Steve?'

'Nah.'

'Didn't show any ID or anything, just to prove he was Steve's brother, did he?'

'Nah. You a cop, yeah?'

There it was. He'd been right. The kid had sussed he was nosing around soon as he'd seen him, but he'd jumped to the wrong conclusion.

Joe said, 'Sort of. PI.'

This finally got the boy's interest.

'You mean like private?'

'That's what the P means, I think.'

The boy looked like he might have some other suggestions, but he kept them to himself.

'You think something's happened to Steve?'

'Would it surprise you?'

Liam thought about this. Involvement was humanizing him. Also, Joe guessed he really did like Waring.

'Don't know. Thought it was odd he went off without his Frank Lampard picture.'

'What's that then?'

'He was a big Chelsea fan. Couple of years back he'd gone down to watch them and that night when he was wandering round the West End, he saw Frank getting out of a cab to go into a posh restaurant and he went up to him to ask for his autograph. Some of the guys with Frank told him to bog off, but Frank said no, it was fine, and he asked what Steve's name was and he signed this photo of him that was in a fan mag that Steve had.'

'And that was one of Steve's treasured possessions, was it?'

'Oh yeah. He'd got it in this gold frame and he had it on the wall at the bottom of his bed where he could look at it.'

'And you were surprised it hadn't gone.'

'Yeah, but I expect his brother took it this morning.'

'Couldn't check, could you, Liam?'

The boy went out. From what must be the dining room came the sound of Mrs Tremayne in full flow, counter-pointed by a desperately querulous male voice.

Joe moved across the kitchen. On a shelf between two wall units he'd noticed a jar full of ballpoints alongside a blue duplicate receipt book. He opened it and looked at the last carbon. It had today's date on and was headed Re Mr S. Waring. Beneath this he read Back rent received up to and including breakfast Wed July 12th 135 payment. Then on another line To cover period July 12th to present July 19th 40. And finally Total received 175 cash, followed by Mrs Tremayne's signature.

This confirmed what Joe had guessed. No landlady let anyone remove an errant lodger's belongings without she got payment first. It also explained Liam's admonitory tone. The boy hadn't wanted his mother to get involved in ripping off a cop.

He heard footsteps outside and quickly replaced the receipt book.

A moment later Liam returned clutching a photo in a cheap gilt frame. Across it was scrawled, To Steve, good luck, mate! Frank.

'He didn't take it,' said Liam. 'Steve will be gutted. He really liked that picture.'

'Yeah,' said Joe. 'Nice message.'

He was thinking, you send someone to pick up your stuff, you mention what you value most. But you come to clear all traces of a guy out of his lodgings, you don't look at what's hanging on the wall.

He said, 'This brother who came, you see what he was driving?'

'His mate was driving, but it was a silver Audi,' said Liam, confirming what Joe had guessed. But the boy hadn't finished, 'That's how I knew it was all right.'

'Sorry?'

'Yeah, I saw Steve in the car before.'