Janice Gentle Gets Sexy (11 page)

She saw her father, Mr Perth, duster in one hand, Boy George

T
-shirt in the other, laughing as a customer selected dog turds and hot sweets. And then Mrs Perth again, who, after his death, retired to the centre of Birmingham, having seen, as she said, quite enough of the open horizon. She would not sell the shop, only lease it, since she was contemptuous and unbelieving that the lure of the Costa del Sol would endure. Skin cancer proved her right and, with a last triumphant flourish, she went back to her trade, bought tin buckets now that plastic was outcast, raffia instead of rubber, and did very well. Now she lived in self-paid-for comfort in an old folk's home suburban to Birmingham. Sylvia saw her mother as she was now, and saw herself on the rare occasions she visited her, dressing down for the part of humble daughter, struggling into a chain-store frock and shoes, buying low-brow chocolates as advertised on TV, bringing with her the latest Janice Gentle in
paperback —
a double-edged irony which Sylvia enjoyed — travelling by bus from the station. These were her extreme moments of penance and a goodly reminder of how not to end up.

Mrs Perth's insight deserted her when it came to her daughter. She never suspected that she had become rich, as she never suspected the truth about Sylvia's unmarried state. She saw her daughter as comfortably well off and dull to drabness, seldom free to visit her, being tied to London to earn her wage.

'If you made more of yourself,' she said through a montelimar on Sylvia's last visit, 'there's still no reason even at your age why you couldn't get yourself a well-to-do husband. One who could help you a bit with the business. No reason why you shouldn't get on the gravy train.' With sticky fingers she picked up the paperback of Janice
Gentle
's latest. 'See this?
She's
a winner. Better than that Betty Cartland woman. Bit realer, bit more meat to it, I always feel as if I
know her
people. They could live next door, really. Do you know a Janice Gentle book once made me
cry?'
She nodded her head in personal wonderment. 'Thanks for bringing it. Chocolate?'

Despite the pain Sylvia chortled: discovering the truth might kill her mother off, too. Hah, hah, that'd be ironic . . .

She gasped. The cell seemed airless. Rohanne Bulbecker. First her voice, then her face floated, swam into the closed-in space. Why ever had she said those final words to her in the restaurant?

'Over my dead body, Rohanne. Over my dead body, Rohanne Bulbecker,
dear . . .'

Ho, ho . . .

Ho.

Chapter Six

Over
Sy
lvia Perth's dea
d body Janice put several slightly
used tea towels, the first things which came to hand. She had wedged the lift door with one of Sylvia's handmade Corizon shoes, and from below the lift shaft came the sound of a frustrated would-be ascendant. Janice never had, and certainly did not now want, social confrontation with any of the other tenants or their acquaintances, so, having done all that she felt she could under the circumstances, she went back into her own flat and pushed the door to. The screen of the word processor blinked at her, mocking.
Phoenix Rising,
it said, and Janice felt a terrible emptiness in the pit of her stomach.

As she passed the table with the scones, she picked one up and bit into it, which calmed her a little. That, at least, had a sense of reality. She looked at the jam but it no longer enticed. Its redness was a bit too lurid and alive; apricot, she found herself thinking, it should have been apricot, a far less angry and disturbing colour. As she shuffled across to the telephone, she wondered why she had never thought of it before. Apricot. Pale scones, white cream and the gentle, translucent gold of a precocious fruit.

She telephoned the caretaker with no idea of what she would say and waited for him to speak first. 'Yes?' he rapped out loudly.

Janice jumped. 'My agent has just died halfway out of the lift,' she said. 'Fifth floor. Could you come up, Mr Jones?'

Then she dialled the emergency services, thought Ambulance, but said Police, and went back to the table again, waiting and listening as she chewed and swallowed, hoping it would all go away.

Mr Jones, who had been pickling onions, thought it was his hearing-aid on the blink again. He stirred the chillis and peppercorns into the boiling vinegar and hoped that the sieved raspberries with which he was experimenting would colour the onions as positively as they had coloured his fingers. Sighing, he turned the pan down to simmer, and picked up his toolbox. By rights he ought to stop and put on his boiler suit, but it was a warm day. Tenants, he thought, tenants! There was always something. He knocked the handle of the pan slightly and it slopped some of the vinegary juice on to his bag and his shirt. His already darkened brow darkened more. He looked extremely fierce.

Out of his basement door he came, slowly, grudgingly, and with the hot odour of acidic onions wafting around him. At the front entrance to the building he paused to look up at the sky, took a deep breath and closed his eyes, enjoying, just for a moment, the afternoon peace which should have been his by rights. He took another, deeper breath and felt rather uncharacteristically that life was quite good after all. And then he changed his mind. He remembered the raspberry juice, he remembered being disturbed, and he resumed his fierceness through closed lids as the tranquillity was violated by the ear-splitting sound of a siren (nothing wrong with the batteries, after all) and the protesting squeal of hard-pressed brakes. He winced, and then winced again as something jabbed him in the ribs. He opened his eyes and met an excited pair, shaded by a cap of authority, which stared poppingly into his. A voice, thrill-edged, spoke ra
pidly and with a hint of Transatl
antic Patrolman.

'Where is it, then? Come on. Where's the body?'

'What body?' said Mr Jones, not unreasonably.

Sergeant Pitter looked at the tool-box and noticed its owner was sweating, he saw that the hand which grasped the tool-box was bloody. There were also suspicious stains on the tool-box itself and on the man's garments. Oh, joy of joys. His heart, a somewhat depressed organ for most of the time, leapt within his breast. This was no hoax call from a bored housewife — this was
real.

'You do not have to say anything,' he began (more joy, how he had longed to utter those words), 'but anything you do say may be. . .'

Mr Jones, anxious about leaving his pickling spice in too long, turned on his heel. He had done nothing wrong, his conscience was clear and he could not make head nor tail of what the policeman was saying. It was probably raffle tickets. It always
was
raffle tickets. Well, poking him in the ribs and being aggressive about it weren't going to get
h
im
digging in his pockets. And if the raspberry extract simmered for too long, it would be jam. He entered the block of flats swiftly. Sergeant Pitter danced after him.

'Cover the back entrance,' he said to his driver. 'Thinks he's 007,' muttered the constable, but he went to try and find one.

To Mr Jones Sergeant Pitter continued excitedly, following him in,'. . . may be taken down and used in evidence . . .'

'Ah, Jones,' said a tall, thin man with a walking-cane and a respectable air. 'Lift's up the spout again.'

Mr Jones lacked humility. 'Use the stairs, then,' he said peremptorily. Afternoons were definitely supposed to be his quiet time.

'Now, look here, Jones,' said the respectable man, waving his cane, 'you know perfectly well my leg's dicky.'

It was beyond even Sergeant Pitter's hopeful imagination that this could be an impromptu exchange between felons. 'Excuse me, sir,' said Sergeant Pitter sadly, 'do you know this man?'

The man tapped his cane, prepared to speak, but Sergeant Pitter had gone, trailing the shadow of the absenting Mr Jones.

'Who are you?' the sergeant puffed at Mr Jones's resolute backview. But in his heart a creeping despondency told him that he already knew. The evidence for a trained police officer was overwhelming. This was not, after all, the Boston Strangler. This was a genuine caretaker, and the sweat, like his own, was to do with the air temperature and sudden exertion. No doubt the redness had some legitimate source, too. He followed him, keeping his distance, for despite his disappointing reassurances about normality, the man smelled very strange.

On the fifth floor Janice peeped out as she heard footsteps approaching. She too was sweating, both hot from the day and cold from fear. The point was, she argued to herself, that Sylvia Perth was now deceased. No amount of standing around and debating cause and effect would change that. It was the ultimate truth and required nothing further than its acceptance. Therefore, she was not going to communicate with any of these people. She was no good at it, didn't want it, and despite the fact that Sylvia Perth had been on her way to visit her - well, she hadn't exa
ctly
arrived,
had she? Therefore, she - it - was not Janice's responsibility. She did not want responsibility, she did not want participatory dialogue. That was why supermarkets were so nice. Perhaps, she thought, she could just say, 'There it is, take it away,' and go back into her own safe world to mourn in peace. It was, you might say, but the shell, the soul having clearly departed. Nevertheless, if Janice was a poor communicator, she was not a fool. She would have to say more than this, and besides, there were her tea towels to consider. She wished she had never taken the things out there now. In any case they looked shamefully incongruous and by no means freshly laundered.

At the penultimate turn of the stairs a depressed Sergeant Pittef paused and listened. There was no doubt about it, the plodding Mr Jones was whistling. Sergeant Pitter became even more depresse
d. The caretaker would not whistl
e unless he were innocent.

'Stop that,' he called.

'Eh?' Mr Jones turned, confused.

'Stop that whistling,' said the sergeant tersely. And he wondered how Mr Jones could appare
ntly conti
nue the noise while not moving his lips.

'Eh?' said Mr Jones again, and he tapped his earpiece. The whistling stopped.

'That's better,' said Sergeant Pitter, feeling more secure now that the authority of his uniform had appare
ntly
had its effect.

'Just round here, officer’
hazarded Mr Jones. 'Next landing.'

They turned the corner and the policeman's heart sank.

There was no body to be seen. Merely a pile of laundry sticking out of the lift doors. Tea towels, by the look of it. A hoax? A joker? Someone would pay for this. He looked up and saw a door move infinitesimally, caught the gleam of a bespectacled eye peering out, a bespectacled eye that was not without a hint of guilty rectitude. He pounced.

'Gotcha,' he cried, hauling Janice out into the corridor, or attempting to. But she was heavier and larger than the crack in the door suggested.
Much
heavier,
much
larger and, more to the point, unwilling to be moved.

He felt his back go ping, muscles spasmed, the pain was savage. He released Janice's Rubenesque shoulder, sank to his knees and, crawling, turned himself round. And it was in so doing, as Mr Jones whipped off the tea towels, that Sergeant Pitter came face to face, quite literally, with his first stiff. Big red tongue, livid cheeks and popping, accusing eyes. Sergeant Pitter attempted to retreat on all fours.

'What about the kiss of life, then?' asked Mr Jones.

Sergeant Pitter retreated even further and bumped up against Janice's legs. 'Do you know this person?' he began, attempting to swivel his neck to address the quivering Janice . . . And then he fainted.

Janice let out a hearty scream. Not for the sight of her once living agent, nor for the sight of Mr Jones attempting the kiss of life on her once living agent (part of a caretaker's job, first aid to the injured), but because she had a presentiment that this whole episode was the beginning of the end of her peaceful enclosure. Janice could not
quite
mourn for Sylvia, for she had been too afraid of her, but she could mourn for the passing of her protection, her greatest gift.

Well, nothing was to be gained by standing out here and getting caught up in all this.

She moved swiftl
y.

Mr Jones gave up and replaced the tea towels. Sergeant Pitter murmured in his unconsciousness. Janice slipped back into her apartment and closed the door, but not even the pale familiarity of her apartment soothed her. She picked up the jam dish and washed the contents away down the kitchen sink as if she had been the murderer. Then she tidied away the table and the things that had been set out for two, switched off the screen's insistent eye, and waited on the settee for the knock to come, with a Mars bar and Chaucer's
Criseyde.
Double solace.