Sisteria (10 page)

‘The thing is,' Lenny said, ‘it's not just the food situation, there's another much more serious issue to consider.'

‘Like what?' Millie asked.

He beckoned the two women closer. As he pushed his spectacles on to his head, Queenie couldn't help thinking how attractive he looked.

‘Money has been going missing,' he said in a whisper, ‘and jewellery too.'

‘What?' the two women gasped in unison.

He nodded.

‘Last week Ronnie Silverstone had fifty pounds disappear from his wallet. Frieda - you know, with the legs - lost the necklace her husband bought her for their golden wedding anniversary. And other people have been reporting stuff going missing.'

‘Well, it's the first I've heard of it,' Millie said.

‘So why hasn't somebody called the police?' Queenie asked.

‘Well, when Ronnie lost the fifty quid,' Lenny started to explain, ‘he went straight to Lorraine and begged her to do just that. I was there when he asked her. You should have seen her. She just stood there, her arms round Ronnie's shoulders, nodding and smiling in that caring, patronising bloody way of hers. She kept telling him it was all in his imagination, that he was a confused old man and that she'd go and make him a nice cup of tea. She just didn't want to know. She laughed - made a joke of it. I tell you, she's in league with that villain Posner. They think that just because so many of the people here have lost their marbles, we're all sitting ducks. I reckon that between them they're coining it in. For God's sake, you only have to look at the pair of them to see they're up to no good.'

Lenny jerked his head to one side. Millie and Queenie turned in their seats. Through the serving hatch they could see Lorraine standing in the kitchen, clearly deep in conversation with Martin Posner. Every so often she would take a drag on a cigarette and turn to flick ash into the sink. Then she would look towards the old people in the dining room. Once or twice she pointed to a particular person. On the last occasion she pulled Posner to her by tugging gently on the gold medallion hanging round his neck and seemed to whisper something in his ear. As she moved away they both giggled.

‘You're right, Lenny,' Queenie said finally. ‘They're plotting something. I just know the pair of them are up to no good. I can feel it in my stomach.'

‘All I can feel in my stomach,' Millie said, ‘is wind from that bloody fish.'

‘What are you on about?' Queenie came back to her. ‘You didn't touch it.'

‘I didn't need to. With a sensitive digestive system like mine, even a smell can leave me in agony.' She let out a loud belch.

Raising her eyes heavenwards, Queenie reached into her handbag, took out a tube of Rennies and handed it to Millie.

‘So, what do we do?' Queenie said to Lenny.

‘What we do,' Lenny said, turning his head to check they weren't being overheard, ‘is build up a case. This means keeping our cool, going softly softly and taking our time to collect hard evidence against Martin and Lorraine.'

‘You mean watch them and then compile a... a dossier,' Queenie virtually squealed with excitement.

‘Then, and only then, when we are absolutely sure of our facts, do we go to the police,' Lenny said.

‘Yes,' Queenie said, ‘but it would be great if we could get some publicity along the way.'

‘I agree. Maybe we should get in touch with the local paper?' Lenny said.

‘Ach, forget the local paper,' Queenie said, waving her hand dismissively. ‘When the time comes to think about publicity, I reckon I just might be able to go one better.'

Chapter 8

The single pubic hair in the palm of his hand, Melvin climbed onto the double bed. Manoeuvring his head in such a way as to avoid bashing it on the candelabra-style simulated-dripping-wax centre light which hung over the bed, he picked up the hair with his fingers, held it up to the light and narrowed his eyes.

It was the third time that week that Melvin had come home from work, disappeared into the bedroom and gone hunting for signs of his wife's infidelity.

After checking for obvious evidence, such as lowering of the level of perfume in her one, ancient bottle of Coco, and searching for any suspiciously new underwear, the final stage of his obsessive routine involved pulling back the duvet and running the palm of his hand slowly over the fitted bottom sheet in order to seek out damp patches and foreign pubic hairs. For some reason, he assumed that if Beverley were to be unfaithful, she would lack the imagination and good taste to be it anywhere other than in their bed.

It was during this last part of his search that Melvin had, today, struck gold. Or at least, ginger. Focusing clearly on the pubic hair, Melvin was in no doubt that when the light caught it at a certain angle, he could make out traces of a colour quite foreign to him. His own pubes were dark brown, almost black. Beverley's were a shade or two lighter. Neither of them possessed a bush which was even remotely ginger. He was now certain that Beverley was having an affair.

Finding such irrefutable forensic evidence as the pube was a conundrum for Melvin; the sane, logical side of his brain knew that Beverley was utterly faithful. He was also aware that his suspicions about his wife, which he had first felt a couple of years ago, rose and fell in direct proportion to the extent that his business was haemorrhaging money. Each time a new financial disaster loomed, he became more certain than ever that she was about to leave him for someone taller, better looking and more financially ept.

The thought of her leaving terrified him. For twenty years he had lurched from crisis to crisis and Beverley, endlessly tolerant Beverley, had been his constant rock and support. He simply couldn't go on without her.

This week's bout of lunacy had been prompted by two things. First there was his quarterly game of cat and mouse with the VAT people - with him, as usual, cast firmly in the mouse role. If that wasn't bad enough, Melvin was more certain than ever that Vlad the Impala had done a bunk with the five grand toupee money.

Melvin had been trying to reach him for days, but all he got was the answer machine.

“Thees ees world global headquarters of Tip Top eemport-export consortium in association with Snappy Styles Couture. Vladimir Rimsky-Korsakov Chernyenko at your service. Pliz to leave message after thees.'

‘Thees' was thirty seconds of Abba singing ‘Money, Money, Money'. Melvin had left umpteen panicky messages about the toupees, pleading with Vladimir to phone him at the shop. So far he hadn't heard a word.

He got down from the bed and flicked the pube into the air as he did so.

He began to pace. Beverley was about to leave him and that bastard Vladimir had unquestionably done a runner with his five grand. In his mind he could see himself in a few months' time. There he was, alone and on the street, rooting through litter bins for discarded bits of old burger bun and muttering to himself, while in some seedy villa in Magaluf or wherever, Vlad the Impala was impaling the local talent, drinking Stolichnaya from a pint glass and pissing himself with laughter at Melvin's gullibility.

There was no doubt in Melvin's mind. God had abandoned him. To Melvin it felt like the only light at the end of the tunnel was being shone on him from an oncoming juggernaut driven by Mr McGillicuddy and the entire staff of the Finchley and District Inland Revenue office.

Melvin went over to the dressing table and picked up a can of Soft and Gentle. He spritzed both armpits. Then, as he lifted his penis and began spraying his balls, logic started to take over from raw emotion and fear. He'd always known Vlad was into some dodgy deals, but he'd never been dishonest - at least not as far as Melvin was concerned. He might yet turn up. Maybe he was on holiday. He would simply sit tight, pray and keep phoning.

He suddenly realized he was still spraying and that his balls were now covered in snowy deodorant build-up.

‘Bugger,' he said, putting the can back on the dressing table. He was so busy saying bugger and flicking off the snow that he didn't hear Beverley come into the bedroom.

‘Sir's laundry,' she smiled, holding out three or four freshly ironed shirts on hangers. He looked up.

‘Amazing, isn't it?' she continued casually, opening the wardrobe door. ‘Twenty years we've been married and I've always thought your pubes were black. But do you know, when the window light catches them in a certain way, they've got a definite ginger tinge to them.'

‘Really?' he shot back. Then he said with faux breeziness, doing his level best to give the impression that he had no idea why on earth he'd questioned her observation, ‘Oh, yeah... I've always known that.'

Beverley finished hanging the shirts in the wardrobe.

‘Listen, Mel,' she said uneasily, closing the door and turning to face him, ‘I've got a really huge confession to make...'

Christ. Maybe it wasn't in his imagination. Perhaps Beverley really was carrying on behind his back. She'd been behaving oddly for nearly a week. He'd catch her staring into space while they were having dinner. Or he'd get to the end of telling her about something that had happened at work and she'd admit she hadn't been concentrating and ask him to repeat it.

He plonked himself down on the edge of the bed and looked at her like a puppy at the vet's awaiting the chop.

‘You see,' she continued, slowly, ‘these last few days I've been keeping something back. Something really important. I know I should have discussed it with you earlier and I'm really sorry. But I just wanted to be sure in my own mind that I was making the right decision.'

‘What?' he said, turning the same colour as his snow-covered testicles. ‘What is it you haven't told me?'

***

Notepad in hand, Naomi swept into Plum's cubbyhole of an office. (When she worked late, it went without saying that Plum did too.) As she sat herself down on the corner of his desk, Plum looked up nervously from his computer and waited for her to speak.

‘Right,' she announced briskly, ‘I've had this absolutely stonking idea. I think I should do a two-hour special some time during the next month about women who killed their husbands' lovers.' She suspected that even she would eventually be forced to submit to Eric Rowe's ‘good clean fun' directive, but their meeting had been days ago. She was over that now, and was beginning to feel defiant.

Plum picked up a biro.

‘... killed... their... husbands'... lovers,' he repeated slowly, taking this down in his laborious longhand. ‘Righty-ho, Nay-ohmi.'

‘Now then,' she continued, stabbing her notebook with her pen, ‘what we'll need is several in-depth interviews with the killers. You know the kind of thing: “I came home from line dancing, found them in bed together and something just snapped inside me...” '

‘... snapped... inside... me... ok... gotcha, Nay-ohmi.'

‘Oh, and I'll want the husbands too, and the lovers...'

‘... lovers... too...' He stopped writing and looked up. ‘Half a mo', the lovers will be dead, won't they, Nay-ohmi? I mean, aren't they the ones who got murdered when the wives came back from line dancing?'

‘Oh yes. Right,' she said, slightly flustered. ‘OK, forget the lovers then... No, wait. On second thoughts, don't do that. No, find me a clairvoyant, a medium who can raise one of the lovers from the dead. Get her point of view. You know the kind of thing: “As the blows from the meat cleaver rained down on my body, all I could think of was how my whippet was going to manage without me.” '

Plum thought for a moment.

‘Does it have to be a whippet, Nay-ohmi?' he said slowly. ‘I mean, would, say, a Scotch terrier or a miniature poodle do?'

‘No, Plum,' she said, for once managing to control her temper, ‘it does not have to be a sodding whippet. That was just an example.'

‘Ri-chew are. I thought so. It's just that I didn't want to spend ages finding somebody only to discover I'd got the wrong breed of dog.'

‘OK. So we're straight on all that now, are we?'

He nodded. ‘Now,' she went on, getting off Plum's desk, ‘I want that lot set up by tomorrow lunchtime latest, so that I can go into the editor's planning meeting on Thursday with everything sorted. Oh, while I remember, what luck have you had finding virgins who've been drugged and raped on a beach?'

‘Best I've got so far is a fifty-six-year-old grandmother who had sex in the Virgin Islands with a bloke she didn't know after downing ten pints of lager...'

‘Plum,' Naomi snapped, leaning towards him so that her face was no more than an inch from his, ‘read my lips. London is full of eager twenty-somethings desperate to get into TV who would be prepared to cut off a limb to work on this show. If you want to hang on to your job you will find me drugged and raped virgins by tomorrow morning. I don't care if you have to stay here all night. Do I make myself clear?'

‘Crystal, Nay-ohmi,' Plum said with the most timid of snarls. ‘Absolutely crystal... oh, by the way, you remember the British Association of Rose Growers were planning to name a rose after you? Well, they've done it. The new catalogue arrived this afternoon.'

‘Oooh, really?' Naomi squealed. ‘Show me. Show me.'

Plum handed her the open catalogue and pointed to the huge yellow rose.

‘Naomi Gold,' she read aloud. ‘Not ideal for bedding, but fine up against a wall.'

The memory of Naomi's murderous expression, not to mention the way she flounced out, didn't make Plum's task of finding raped virgins and bludgeoned lovers any easier. It simply made it a tad more bearable.

***

Back in her own office, Naomi sank into her leather swivel chair and began ripping into a packet of Revels. She tipped back her head and poured at least half of the contents into her mouth. The chocolate hit came almost immediately and she felt herself start to calm down. As she sat gently swivelling the chair from side to side and chewing the last of the chocolates, she couldn't make up her mind whether to call it a day and go home, or phone her mother first. It had been nearly a week since she'd made her promise to call the old bat. She'd been putting it off ever since. Naomi knew the two hundred and fifty grand alone wouldn't be sufficient bait to hook her sister. She was such a soppy, sentimental cow. To stand any chance of getting her to agree to the surrogacy, she needed to convince Beverley she was ready to play happy sodding families as well.

Naomi took a deep breath. God knows she'd used up every last ounce of her emotional energy being nice to her sister. The mere thought of getting in touch with her mother and trying to play the caring, affectionate daughter turned her stomach.

She spent the next few minutes on delaying tactics. She went to the loo, did her make-up, tidied her desk. Finally, deciding there was no point in procrastinating any longer, she picked up the phone. Her fingers hovered over the buttons for a few seconds. Then she punched out Beverley's number. After eight or nine rings she breathed a sigh of relief. There was clearly nobody home. She was just about to hang up when somebody answered.

It was Queenie. Shit. She'd been hoping against hope that Beverley would pick up and say Queenie had gone down with some lurgy or other and taken to her bed.

‘Oh, hi, Mum,' Naomi said with forced cheeriness. ‘It's me.'

‘Me who?'

‘Me. Naomi. Your daughter.'

‘Naomi?' she squealed down the phone, causing considerable pain to her daughter's right ear. ‘Is that you? Really you? Beverley told me the two of you had got together for lunch and that you might phone. I can't believe it. Oh, sweetheart, I've missed you so much. How are you?'

‘Yeah, you know, fine,' Naomi said, shifting the receiver to her other ear. ‘So listen, Mum. You been watching me on the telly?'

‘Of course, darling. I never miss. Naomi, I'm so proud of you. You wouldn't believe how much I show off about you at the day centre. Mind you, I would say just one thing, darling. Don't be offended, but I think maybe with your high forehead you should bring your hair more forward. And that suit you wore the other night. Admittedly it was beautiful. Must have cost a fortune. But with your pale complexion, cream is so draining.'

At that moment, Naomi's complexion was more red with a hint of purple. How her sister put up with this day in day out, she couldn't imagine.

‘So listen,' Queenie went on, ‘when am I going to get to see you? It's been such a long time.'

‘Well, the thing is, Mum, I'm really busy in the run-up to Christmas, but I was wondering how you guys were fixed for Christmas Day. There's this gorgeous new man in my life. His name's Tom. Tom Jago. He's a famous TV drama director. I'd love you to meet him. I was wondering whether maybe the two of us could come for lunch.'

‘Christmas? But that's a couple of months away. I thought maybe we could get together a bit before then.'

‘Sorry, Mom. That's the best I can do,' Naomi said, looking at her nails and noticing some of the paint was chipped. She began thumbing through her Filofax to find her manicurist's number. ‘But I promise faithfully, we'll have a really good talk. Beverley's right. It's time we started being a proper family again.'

‘All right, darling. That would be wonderful. I'll mention it to Beverley. I'm sure she'd be only too pleased for you to come. I can't wait to see you, Naomi. I just can't wait.'

‘Yeah, me too,' Naomi said flatly.