The Tropical Issue (22 page)

‘Just as well,’ he said. It could have been a threat: it was hard to tell. I would dearly have liked to know where Johnson was at this moment, but I wasn’t going to ask this guy.

Then I realised what he was saying.

I looked at the landslide of white fluff asleep at our feet, and at Celia. I said, ‘Don’t say Bessie came . . .?’

‘From here? Yes, of course,’ Celia said. ‘Trained, too. Big stage career, that bitch had.’

‘As Nana,’ said Jim. ‘The
Peter Pan
nursemaid. Used to carry the postman on his rounds every morning. Should have been put down long ago. The bitch, not the postman. But there you are. Well, now.’

He had glanced at the clock, but briefly. He was always busy. He said, ‘Here’s Mr Johnson’s henchman come to look over dogs, and he finds himself dragooned into training a warhorse.’

‘I volunteered,’ Raymond said.

‘You did. So what can we do for you, young Rita?’

Young Rita.

Hell.

And with Raymond present, double dammergung.

I said, ‘Just advice. I’ve been left one of your parrots by someone living abroad. It’s great, but I’ve nowhere to keep it. D’you want it back?’

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Raymond put his cup down, very carefully. Jim Brook said, ‘One of ours? We don’t usually keep them.’

‘An old one. One of Lee and Amy’s, I think. I brought a photograph of it,’ I said.

Raymond was still staring at me. I brought out the picture. It was a colour one, taken for me by the man who photographs tourists in bullock carts.

Jim looked at it, and Celia got up and bent over it, too. Jim said, ‘It’s a St Lucia.’

‘Red Data Book. That’s a shame, honey,’ said Celia.

Apart from its language, it was a perfectly ordinary green parrot, quite big, with a blue head and bits of red here and there. ‘A what?’ I said.

Celia sat down and took pity on me. ‘It’s a rare parrot,’ she said. ‘Comes from the island of St Lucia. That’s in the West Indies. Eats bananas, so the banana people haven’t been kind to it. As a result, it’s in the Birds and Mammals Red Data Book, the internationally agreed list of rare and endangered species.

‘They don’t get exported from St Lucia at all, and anyone wanting to move one from anywhere to anywhere has to go through hoops till kingdom come, explaining what they want them for, and why. Where is it?’

‘Madeira,’ I said.

‘It’s an old one,’ said Jim. He held the picture up. ‘Must have come in before the regulations. Before quarantine even, probably.’

‘Quarantine?’ I said. ‘Six months in solitary, like dogs and cats?’

‘No,’ Celia said. ‘Or at least, I’m pretty sure not. As I say, we don’t have parrots now. But it used to be sort of house arrest only. That is, you could keep it in your house for the quarantine period, provided that it was in a special room, and it had no contact with other birds. A terrible fuss, but at least it didn’t interrupt the lessons if you were training it. Is this one trained?’

‘On film dialogue,’ I said. ‘It knows the catchphrases of every old film you ever saw. Its owner used to watch them on video.’

‘It might be more than that,’ said Jim Brook suddenly. ‘If the owner had had it a while, it might have come before the regulations from America. If it was a Faflick parrot, it probably did. So what was its name?’

‘Cone,’ I said. And a damned stupid name, although I didn’t say it.

Celia and Jim Brook looked at one another.

‘Then there you are!’ said Jim.

I looked at him.

‘Call yourself a film buff and don’t know the name of one of the biggest studio bosses? Who do you think had that parrot in his office in Hollywood?’ said Jim Brook.

Upon which, I got it.

Not Cone, but Cohn. I should have known. It hadn’t stopped talking since its Bar Mitzvah.

And that would be why Natalie had given it to Kim-Jim all that time ago, when she first bought a house on Madeira, and Kim-Jim had moved in. There hadn’t been any import certificates and there would have been, if the parrot had popped in and out.

It had been another bit of proof, if I’d needed one, about Natalie’s relationship with Kim-Jim.

When I’d asked her, she could remember nothing of interest about the parrot’s past. Except that it had struck her, as she put it, ‘that he and Kim-Jim deserved one another’.

She was perfectly content that it should pass to me, with the rest of the things he’d been fond of.

I said, ‘If it’s too much form-filling, maybe I should ask Mrs Sheridan to let it stay in Madeira. You could let me know if Lee or Amy would like it here, or on the American side. It’s a piece of history, sort of.’

‘That parrot,’ said Celia, ‘is coming here, if I have to threaten to walk out to get it. Yes, Jim?’

‘If Rita doesn’t want it,’ said Jim Brook. ‘And if she changes her mind, she can always get it back. You leave it to us. I’ll write to Lee. And the regulations will be our affair. We do it all the time. O.K., Rita?’

I’d got all I wanted, and they were busy. I got up, and Raymond said, ‘Run you back to town?’

He still had his leg-plates on. I said, ‘I thought you had to see a man about a dog?’

‘Oh, I’ve finished,’ he said. ‘Arranged a short leet for the boss, when he’s back. I’ll get my shoes.’

I let him go to get his shoes, and left while he was away. The taxi I’d ordered, thank God, had arrived and stood at the end of the drive.

I got the taxi to drive into the next sideroad and stop, until a red sports car came snoring out of the Faflicks’ and roared up the London road, with Raymond at the wheel.

I gave him five minutes, and then the driver got me to the station in good time for the next train to London. He thought that young Hurrah Henrys that pestered a girl ought to be told off by the authorities, and I agreed.

I rang Natalie from the Hilton but she didn’t need me that day or next.

Clive Curtis’s nephew, young Porter, had dropped in, she said, and been very helpful. He might as well come along next morning and finish what he’d started, since he seemed to be at a loose end, and didn’t mind.

I wondered what he’d started, and reminded myself what I’d already decided. It was time to make up my mind what I wanted.

I was thinking about parrots when the phone rang.

It was one of my nicer Debrett’s cancelling an appointment, but asking if I would mind, as a personal favour, transferring it to a delightful friend, whom I would like very much.

It was for the following morning, at a Knightsbridge address not all that far away from where I was.

I agreed, and switched off the tape recorder, and rang room service to get some sandwiches sent up. I had even picked up the paper to see what the telly had to offer that might be useful, when something about that appointment struck me as odd.

I never write appointments down. I always record them.

I played the tape back.

The address was quite ordinary: one of those grand terraced houses off Belgrave Square that always have horse shit lying in front of them.

The name had seemed quite ordinary too, until I remembered where I’d come across it before.

Lady Emerson, my new client was. The tough, good-looking mother of Joanna who had ordered Johnson about, and told me to sit on his Gay letters.

No friend, one would hope, of Raymond’s.

I thought about it all for quite a while, and only realised afterwards that I’d missed
Lost Horizon
and the Shangri-la corpses again.

I got three more phone calls from people wanting special occasions, and one from a T.V. company and one from Porter, Kim-Jim’s nephew, saying what the hell did I mean coming back to London without letting him know, and he’d got stuck with The Hag, but could I come out with him as soon as he was free tomorrow.

The Hag. It wasn’t nice, but my heart fairly warmed to him. I said I would.

After that, Lady Emerson didn’t seem any great deal, either then or next morning.

I had breakfast, and then I did what the cop thrillers always don’t do, and taped and left in my room a full note of where I was going and why, for the police, in case my body turned up under the horse shit.

Then I packed my tackle-case, put on my white cotton blazer with drill trousers to match, and Jesus sandals, and a headband that showed both the blue and orange bits in my hair, and went off by taxi to Belgravia. In honour of the occasion, I had not painted stripes on my face.

The door was opened by a nice maid, in uniform. The hall was floored in black and white marble and there was a wrought-iron staircase with red carpet on it.

I was taken up to the drawing-room floor, and then further up to the private floor, and Lady Emerson’s bedroom and boudoir.

The boudoir was more of an office, and not very well lit for make-up. I hoped she had a decent dressing-room somewhere. The maid shut the door behind me, and Lady Emerson got up and came forward.

As I’ve said before, she was a good-looking woman, with curling hair fading a bit at the temples, and a thin, longish face with good cheekbones.

As before, she was dressed more country-style than you would expect for someone being made up for a lunch date, although the silk blouse was a classic and the tweed skirt fitted her hips like an ad.

She said, ‘Miss Geddes. You must have remembered the name. I’m glad you didn’t mind coming. Perhaps a sherry, before we begin?’

‘That’s all right,’ I said. ‘Thank you.’

I looked about, while she fetched it.

It was a nice room, worn and comfortable, with an old writing bureau in the corner, its flap covered with papers. There were sweet peas on the table beside it, and photographs in heavy frames, groups and single ones.

One of them was of a thin girl in her teens: the absent Joanna of the drippy jam, maybe. One was of a girl too old to be Lady Emerson’s daughter, but younger than me. Someone in films, maybe. She was as good-looking as that.

One was taken in winter, at a ski-jump. A competition, by the look of the crowds. The camera had focussed on the jumper, skimming off into the sunlight, sharp and clear.

Flying black hair, and goggles, this time, instead of bifocals. The precrash Owner.

‘Here’s your sherry,’ said Lady Emerson, and looked where I was looking. She said, ‘I ought to put those away. Come and sit down.’

We sat. Women are often nervous when they’re about to be made up. I’m used to it. If they suggest a drink, I always agree. It helps them, and I don’t mind.

Lady Emerson wasn’t exactly nervous, so much as concerned, I thought, about how I was taking it. We talked about nothing. We talked about Madeira, and she suddenly took the bull by the horns and said, ‘Well, of course, I know you were there: Johnson told me. And what happened. I’m very sorry about that.’

‘That’s all right,’ I said. I wasn’t going to talk to her about Kim-Jim.

She said, ‘Johnson can be quite helpful sometimes. I hope you made use of him. I don’t think he realises yet, as I do, how much good you did, that time you stayed at the flat.’

I wondered what she thought I’d done in the flat, apart from walking the dog and saving the grapes from going bad. And getting up the Owner’s blood pressure by suggesting he put down his life’s companion.

I remembered the fuss about the phone bills and the bet over the sledge, and concluded she didn’t know her bloody Johnson. I said, ‘I enjoyed it.’

Which was not so far from the truth. Bossy Rita. Says my aunt.

‘In that case ...’ said Lady Emerson, and stood up. She was frowning. She said, over my shoulder, ‘Really, this wasn’t in the contract. Come and do your own dirty work.’

I turned round and got up as well.

As I’d hoped, she did have a dressing-room. The door to it opened behind me. A black-haired man wandered out of it and, steering past the bureau and table, hitched himself on to a chair arm. After the photograph, I wasn’t all that surprised to see who it was.

‘It’s all very well for you,’ said Johnson Johnson. ‘Hyped up on sherry. But I’ve got to do all this cold. Miss Geddes, I’ve kidnapped you again.’

It wasn’t an Owner voice or a Maggie voice. More the ordinary style of the guy in the kitchen.

‘So I notice,’ I said. ‘Can I leave now?’

‘If you like,’ Johnson said. ‘But you’ll miss my Black Belt throw and another sherry. I just wanted to tell you something.’

‘What?’ I said.

I wasn’t worried. I could beat them both to the door.

‘That I think you’re right,’ Johnson said. ‘That I think Kim-Jim Curtis was killed. And that I’d like your help in finding who murdered him.’

I have heard of some revolting faces in my time, but
that
from a guy who had taken the trouble he had to pour cold water on all my suspicions ... that beat everything.

I stayed on my feet. I had no doubt what to do.

‘Great,’ I said. ‘I’ll go to the police with you.’

There was a short silence. Johnson, I saw, was looking over my head at Lady Emerson. ‘I told you,’ he said. ‘I need a sherry.’

‘Jay. You mustn’t,’ she said.

From the way she said it, he had to be an alcoholic.

‘Yes, I must,’ he said.

He didn’t rush for a drink, but turned the bifocals without fuss on me.

‘Look,’ he said. ‘Before you believe me, I have to tell you why I won’t go to the police, and why I want your help anyway. Right?’

‘Right,’ I said.

‘But you want to stay handy for the door. Frances, lady mine, could you turn that chair round? Miss Geddes? Would you feel safe in that? Frances used to be a great quarter-miler but she’s got a tight skirt on, and as you have cause to know, I am still just held together by paperclips . . .’

His mouth got wider. ‘Anyway, I bet you left a message for Scotland Yard on your tape recorder,’ he said.

Bloody Owner. I sat down. I couldn’t help it. So did Lady Emerson.

Johnson stayed where he was, looking rather uncomfortable on the edge of the desk. The Madeira sun had caught his face a bit and taken some of the deadness out of it, and his hair had more life in it. He didn’t have cancer.

‘Right,’ he said. ‘Begin at the end.’