Risking It All (38 page)

Would I!

I took Ganesh along when I went to view the flat. There was no leaving him behind, actually. After my near-disaster with Norman’s place, Gan didn’t trust me to make a decision about my living accommodation. The house was late Victorian, double-fronted and divided into five flats. The one offered to me was on the ground floor. It was basically one large room formed from knocking two smaller ones into a single unit. There was a kitchen corner with a breakfast bar, and a shower room and loo built on. It had basic furnishings, a bed, a table and four chairs, but plenty of built-in cupboard space. Even Ganesh approved.

He went back to the shop and I went to the office of the charity to arrange details. As soon as I signed up, the man in charge shook my hand and welcomed me to ‘our number’. This was a bit spooky. He then passed me on to a capable-looking woman in the Sister Helen mould who led me to a stock cupboard of donated blankets, pots and pans and assorted dishes and cutlery. Between us we decided what I needed to start out and she promised someone would deliver it all to the new flat.

I came out of there unable to believe my luck. It really had seemed that there was nothing else left to go wrong, so perhaps, at long last, things were on the up.

I set off with quite a bounce in my step to tell Ganesh and Hari about it. But there was another, rather less welcome surprise in store for me. A few hundred yards away from the shop, a large sleek car purred up beside me and stopped. The rear-seat passenger leaned across and pushed open the door.

‘Get in,’ he invited.

Did I need this? Just when, for once, the sun was trying to shine on my little world? I stooped, stuck my head in and was about to tell this kerb-crawling Johnnie to get lost when I recognised the man in the car as Mickey Allerton. I managed to bite back the choice observation I’d prepared and got into the car instead. I had a feeling argument would be wasted. I made sure to leave the door open so that if the chauffeur tried to drive off, I could roll out.

Allerton looked as prosperous and well fed and watered as he’d done before. Clearly his life held none of the discomforts which dogged mine. His fish-silver eyes studied me with the same mix of amusement and disapproval they’d held on the previous occasion we’d met. ‘I hear,’ he said, ‘that someone’s been charged over Rennie Duke’s death. A little bird also tells me that you led the coppers to him.’

I wondered just which little bird in CID he was supplying with millet. ‘Something like that,’ I admitted.

‘You done well,’ he said with heavy approval. I was startled. I hadn’t expected praise, certainly not from Allerton. He reached into the inner breast pocket of his expensive bit of bespoke tailoring and took out a fat envelope. ‘There you go, darling.’

It had to be cash. ‘Whaffor?’ I asked suspiciously.

‘Just take it, darling.’ His mouth formed a smile shape. ‘No strings. Don’t be offended, but I can’t say I fancy you. I like women with a bit of shape to them. Let’s say Rennie played it straight by me and I like things tidied up.’ He ran an eye over my general appearance and heaved a sigh. ‘Buy yourself some decent schmutter, for Gawd’s sake.’

When in need, don’t quibble. I took the envelope, thanked him and scrambled out of the car. It drove off at once. I wondered if I’d seen the last of him, and felt uncomfortably that I hadn’t. Having his approval was more worrying than having him criticise me. Worst of all, he seemed to think I’d been efficient in finding Rennie’s killer. This private-eye lark was more complicated than I’d ever imagined. I peeked in the envelope. Two hundred quid. Why did it feel more like a retainer than a reward? There again, who was I to look a gift horse in the mouth? And while we’re on proverbs, cross your bridges when you come to them.

Two more people walked back unexpectedly and briefly into my life. One was Susie Duke. She called on me on my second day in the new flat, while I was still fixing it up.

‘Nice,’ she said, sitting down on one of my chairs.

‘I’m looking out for a second-hand sofa,’ I said.

She was delving into a large plastic carrier. ‘Here,’ she said, producing a wrapped object. ‘I brought a house-warming present.’

I thanked her, hoping it wasn’t a pottery cat. It seemed too heavy. It was a fruit-juicer, and I guessed quite an expensive one.

‘Don’t say I shouldn’t have,’ said Susie before I could speak. ‘I owe you over Rennie. Without you, they wouldn’t have got that Ben Cornish feller. Besides, I told you, with Rennie’s insurance paying up, I’m in the money, for a while anyway.’

‘What about the business?’ I asked. ‘Will you keep it going?’

She pursed her scarlet lips. ‘Thinking about it. Actually, I wanted to talk to you about it. See, I couldn’t manage it on my own. I wondered if you’d be interested in coming in with me, partners. You’ve obviously got the knack of it.’

I thanked her for the compliment but told her I wasn’t sure about committing myself to any kind of permanent arrangement. I stumbled through a list of reasons: I’d promised Jimmie I’d work for him at the new pizzeria; Ganesh would make a heck of a fuss, and while I obviously didn’t take orders from him, I didn’t like doing things in the face of his opposition because I’d so often had to call on his support. He was still feeling sore about being left out of recent events. Chiefly, I was used to being on my own, deciding what I’d do and what I wouldn’t.

Susie listened to all of this and nodded. ‘Fair enough. But keep in touch, right? Perhaps if I find I need someone, I could ask you if you’d be willing? You could always turn me down. You’d be a sort of freelance.’

That sounded all right and I said so. It wasn’t until she’d left that I wondered just what I might be letting myself in for. I decided not to mention it to Ganesh, not yet anyway.

The other person I saw again was Nicola. (I still called her that, since it was the only name she’d known, and she seemed still to be using it.) She rang the shop asking me to get in touch and leaving the number of her mobile.

I met up with her in a health-food café in Kew. She looked pale and tense, with dark shadows under her eyes, but she was still stroppy. She was my sister, after all. Our relationship was the point she raised at once.

‘You should have told me!’ she accused me. ‘You could have told me that evening you were waiting in the street outside our house.’

‘No I couldn’t,’ I retorted. ‘You wouldn’t have believed me, anyway. Nor was anyone supposed to know the truth, that wasn’t the idea. No one would have known if it hadn’t been for Ben.’ I didn’t mention Flora.

Her stroppy air faded, replaced by despair. She looked as if she was going to cry. ‘I can’t believe Ben did those things. He’s too nice.’

‘Yeah, well, nice people do nasty things,’ I said unkindly. It was something she was going to have to face. It was just a pity that, on top of everything else, she’d had to find out her idol had feet of clay. When first love comes crashing down, it destroys your belief in the fairness of the world, in love itself, in any relationship, in what people are like and our own ability to judge them, everything, really, for a time. I remember. I’ll tell you about it some day.

‘Well, someone should have told me!’ she said passionately, her pale little face flushed. ‘I’ve been living a lie!’

It was true, she had. But it still seemed a corny way to describe it. ‘You didn’t lie,’ I countered. ‘You accepted what you were told about who you were. That’s natural. Why shouldn’t you?’

‘But that was a lie!’ she persisted. ‘I’ve been walking around all my life thinking I’m one person, when actually I’m someone else!’

‘No you’re not, Nicola,’ I argued. ‘You’re you. You’re the same person. You like the same food, the same music. You just – just got a different name very early on, before you knew anything about it.’

‘Doesn’t a name matter? I’m this other person, this Miranda Varady, and I know nothing about her. It’s no use telling me she’s me and I’m her and I’m the same as I ever was, because I’m not! I haven’t got the same parents, for a start, and the ones I have got have lied to me all these years. How could they do that?’

‘They love you,’ I said simply.

‘Then why didn’t they trust me enough to tell me the truth?’

‘You know why, because the deal they did with my – with our mother was unofficial. They’ve been afraid of losing you.’

This explanation didn’t seem to wash with her. She was completely convinced that somehow, she’d ceased to exist. It was hard for her, and I was sorry. I hoped she’d get through it eventually, and in the meantime, I distracted her by asking if any decision had yet been taken about her situation. Obviously she was still living with Jerry and Flora.

‘It’s complicated,’ she said moodily, twisting her finger in a lock of crimped blonde hair. ‘I’m thirteen next week and Social Services can’t just pick me up and dump me anywhere, like a three-year-old. I’ve made that absolutely clear to them. They’ve got to listen to what I say. All the same, I’m technically in their care now. Mummy and – ’ she broke off and amended ‘ – the Wildes are fostering me until it’s sorted out.’

‘When’s the violin exam?’

‘Oh, that . . .’ She shrugged. ‘I’ve pulled out of that. I can’t concentrate on music at the moment.’

‘Don’t let it go,’ I urged. ‘Don’t ever let any dream go just because the going’s got tough. I’ve not given up wanting to be an actor.’

She stared at me meditatively. ‘It’s funny knowing that my real mother was out there all the time and I didn’t know her.’

‘I didn’t know her either,’ I said. ‘Even though I had a memory of sorts.’ I hesitated. ‘Whose idea was it that you go and see her?’

‘Mine, of course!’ she snapped. ‘When they told me who I really was, I just couldn’t take it in. I said, “Right, where are my real parents, then?” They hummed and ha-ed and said that my father – my real father – was dead and my real mother was dying. So I told them I wanted to see her. I wanted to see her with my own eyes. I felt, you know, I wouldn’t believe it until I saw her. So I told that drippy social worker they’ve attached to me to get on and fix it.’

‘And are you glad you saw her?’ I asked. ‘Did it help?’

‘I think so,’ she said. ‘I think it will help, when I’ve got used to the idea. Anyway, my – our mother seemed pleased that I’d come. She kept calling me Miranda, which was a bit difficult. She knew I played the violin. Did you tell her? She knew about
me
but I didn’t know about
her
. You should have told me, Fran, you really should.’

She seemed close to tears again, so I didn’t argue, just gestured wearily.

‘It wasn’t nice seeing her so ill,’ Nicola said after a moment. She paused. ‘I thought I might feel cross with her, you know, for giving me away like that. But when I saw her, I just felt very sorry. Not just for her, but for all the things that had happened. The way it had turned out.’

She was messed up but basically a bright kid, and honest. She had guts, the most important thing. I wouldn’t have wanted to be her social worker! I wished her all the best for her upcoming birthday and gave her my new address so that we shouldn’t lose touch. I hoped she had enough nous to keep it hidden from Flora.

So I’m working at the San Gennaro. The place is doing pretty well. The barman is Italian and the accordionist, the one Jimmie hired, has turned out to be called Pietro, so I guess that’s where Don Silvio got to hear of Jimmie’s plans. The other waitress is Polish. Jimmie is manager. That means he hangs about in the back room, now called his office, and makes phone calls to his mates. Mixing in new company has rubbed off on him, and he’s taken to wearing a blue suede jacket, cream chinos and shades whether there’s any sun about or not. He still smokes like a chimney. I gather Don Silvio has an accountant keeping an eye on the books. Silvio himself has popped in a couple of times, just checking. The barman and Pietro are both very polite to him. I’ve told Ganesh that if I ever see either one of them kiss his hand, just once, I’m off.

Marty has delivered a practically illegible typescript of his adaptation of
The Hound of the Baskervilles.
Or, as he’s typed it,
The Hond of the Biskervils
. I suspect he’s dyslexic, and if so, we must keep him away from the posters advertising the show. We’re reading it through next week. Whether Irish Davey is bringing his dog along, I don’t know. I rather hope not.

I sent Nicola a birthday card, though I don’t know whether Flora intercepted it. I’ve seen Janice Morgan a couple of times. It seems that forensics did, after all, find traces of some special tropical plant potting compost in Rennie’s car. So Susie was wrong to be sceptical about that. I haven’t heard from Susie again, nor has Mickey Allerton reappeared – yet. Watch this space.