Threats at Three (36 page)

“What did you say, sir?” said Chris, coming in for her meeting with the boss.

“Never you mind,” said Cowgill. “It was a private call.”

I
N NO TIME AT ALL, THE PARKS AND GARDENS DEPARTMENT OF the local authority had supplied Cowgill with the names and addresses of all those made redundant after Jack Hickson had left the department. No, they answered when he asked about a punch-up in the department, they had no knowledge of any such disturbance. In fact, they were quite put out by the suggestion. Good staff relations were a priority with the authority, they insisted.

Cowgill had handed the list to Chris, filled her in with details of Jack Sr.’s fight with a fellow gardener and asked her to do some legwork. “Go and see them all,” he’d instructed, “and don’t let them know you’re coming. This one will be a slippery eel, I suspect. Even a hint that we’re on to him will send him slithering off to a new hideaway. Meanwhile,” he added, as she prepared to leave his office with a bundle of papers, “I shall be out for the rest of the day. I need to have a chat with my most useful contact in all of this.”

“Of course. I’ll find you somewhere in Long Farnden, then?”

“Get going, Chris,” Cowgill said.

 

 

NEW BROOMS WEEKLY MEETING BROUGHT TO AN END LOIS’S WORK on setting down information and endeavoring to make sense of it. She felt she had cleared up some of the puzzles, but was not a lot nearer solving either of the priorities. We’re going round in circles, she had decided. There must be another way in. Who else might be sitting on useful clues without knowing it? After his second disappearance, Jack Hickson Sr. was obviously keeping his distance and was unlikely to reappear in the village. But she was sure he wouldn’t be far away. From what Paula had said lately, it was not impossible that she and Jack could get together again.

As for the other man, Lois was not so optimistic. The only hope of him being still around was that the grudge had not been settled. Or, she thought, as the first of her team rang the door bell, maybe it is not wholly his show. Maybe someone else is pulling the strings, and he’s just the puppet? Perhaps they should be looking at the whole thing as a network of connected motives?

“Oh, lor, it get’s worse!” she said aloud, as the door opened and Andrew looked in.

“Okay to convene, Mrs. M?” he said.

The rest of the team followed, and Lois welcomed them. “Let’s hope this week we can concentrate on our jobs, without the distraction of missing kids and the police crawling all over us,” she said. “Now, Hazel, shall we start with the list of new potential clients?”

“Twenty of ’em,” Hazel said flatly. The others stared at her. This was at least twice as many as usual for a weekly count. “Seems the village being in the news has brought in an influx of helpless housewives. I reckon, and Mrs. M agrees with me, that they’re all nosy blighters who think one of us would be good for a juicy gossip. Anyway, Mrs. M and me have been through the list, and sorted out four clients most likely to stay with us, gossip or no gossip.”

“Can we cope with that many extras?” Sheila Stratford said. She was now the acknowledged senior cleaner, having been there longer than anyone else, and she usually spoke for the rest.

“Yes, I think so,” said Lois. “I’ve been through schedules carefully, and with Paula being able to do a couple more hours, and Andrew not having any interior décor projects on at the moment, we can work things out. I may have to look for another member of the team later. We’ll see. If any of you would like some extra hours, let me know.”

Dot Nimmo’s hand went up, like the girl at the back of the class. “Please, Mrs. M,” she said, “I would. I’ve got time on my hands now. My sister Evelyn has moved away, as you know, and to tell the truth, I’m lost for company.” Lois smiled. She tried not to have favourites among her staff, but she could not help having a soft spot for Dot.

Dot Nimmo! Of course! Why hadn’t she thought of her before? With her past connections with the underworld of criminal gangs in Tresham, she could well be sitting on information that would be vital! She was not even sure the connections were all in the past. After all, Dot’s husband and his entire family had carried on businesses which all sailed close to the wind, and involved the odd mysterious drowning or apparent suicide. Then Dot’s husband had died, as had his brother and father, and not all of natural causes, but this did not mean that Dot had lost touch with the rest. The reverse was more likely, Lois was sure.

“Good, that will be helpful, Dot,” she said. “Can you stay behind for a few minutes, and we’ll go through your schedule with Hazel. Now, any other matters?”

Floss had a breakage in a client’s house to report, but said that it had been a pottery figure of a clown that the owner had never liked, so there was no problem. Sheila reported that Edwina Smith was happy to give young Hickson some odd jobs around the farm at weekends, if he was interested. Now that she was a widow, she was having a hard time getting through the work, even with help from Sheila’s husband, Sam.

Finally all the details were dealt with, and the meeting broke up. Only Dot and Hazel remained, and in a short time Dot’s revised schedules were worked out. Then Hazel went, saying she would see everybody at the soap box grand prix on Saturday.

“Next year,” said Dot, “can we have a New Brooms soap box, Mrs. M? I know some of my nephews would be really good at getting a speedy one knocked up from odds and ends. Not sure where the odds and ends might come from, but no questions asked!”

This gave Lois the perfect opportunity. “Sit down again, Dot,” she said. “I wanted to have a chat about your family.”

Dot looked alarmed. New Brooms was her life now, and she dreaded something bad happening inside the Nimmo gang that would cause her to lose her job.

“Don’t look like that!” Lois said. “It’s nothing alarming. No, I really wanted to pick your brains. In strict confidence between me and you, and I really mean that, Dot, we are still not happy with Jack Jr.’s story about what happened to him. It might be that he’s made up all that stuff about being at a friend’s house.”

“So he could’ve been taken, after all?” Dot’s eyes had brightened with the chance of a good mystery to work on. In the past, she had loved the idea of being Mrs. M’s assistant in the ferretin’.

“Look, Dot, your family knows every dodgy character in Tresham, every member of other gangs, and you could find out if any of ’em specialise in abduction.”

“Could well be,” Dot answered, “but if they were after money, they’d pick somebody else. They may be villains, but they’re not stupid. Why snatch the son of a woman on benefits, with a husband gone missing and living hand to mouth in a council rented house?”

“On the nail, as usual,” said Lois. “That’s it, Dot. So why?”

“Settling a score, that’d be the most likely reason. You’d be surprised, Mrs. M, how long these grudges last. Some of ’em from generation unto generation.”

“Very biblical, Dot,” Lois said, and laughed. “But that’s where you come in. Can you do a bit of ferretin’ for me and find out if there are any really wicked grudges still around in your family’s acquaintances. I won’t say friends.”

“Don’t worry about offending me,” said Dot. “My eyes were opened when I married my dear departed. Nothing shocks me now. Leave it to me. Say a couple of days, and then I’ll report back?”

“Great,” Lois said. “Off you go, then. And thanks for offering some more hours. It’ll be good to keep the new clients going. Times is hard, as everyone knows, and even New Brooms will need all the work we can get.”

As Dot went down the path, she saw a tall figure approaching. She recognized him at once, and hurried past, hiding her face.

“Morning, Mrs. Nimmo!” said Cowgill cheerily. “Family all well?” He carried on, chuckling to himself, and as he approached the front door, it opened. “What do you want?” said Lois.

“Don’t pretend you’re not delighted to see me, Lois Meade,” Cowgill said. “And don’t worry, it’s business, so can I please come in?”

“There’s nothing more I can tell you at the moment,” Lois said, half closing the door.

“At the moment?” said Cowgill, sticking his foot in the opening. “Then perhaps you could elaborate on that? I shan’t keep you long. I can smell good smells coming from Gran’s kitchen, and I must get back to my lonely sandwich in the office. And seriously, Lois, I do have one or two things to ask you. Thanks, love,” he added, as she opened the door wide and he stepped inside.

I
WANT YOU OUT OF HERE BY THE TIME I GET BACK THIS EVENING,” Ross’s sister said, hands on hips and a threatening expression on her face.

It was ten o’clock in the morning, and her brother was reading a newspaper spread over his unwashed breakfast dishes still on the table. He was unshaven and had wrapped himself in an old dressing gown which had belonged to her late husband. This grubby garment had been the last straw. It reminded her that she had rejoiced at getting rid of one useless man about the house and now here was another, apparently staying indefinitely. Well, he could think again.

“And if you’re not gone when I come back from the shop, I’m dropping a helpful hint to the Tresham constabulary.”

He looked up at her sharply, hastily covering up the blonde on page three. “What d’you mean? I’m not wanted for nothing.”

“I can think of something,” she said caustically. “Always stayed on the right side of the law, have you? Don’t make me laugh. No, you think about it. And I don’t want no forwarding address. Just be gone when I get home.” She turned and went out of the door and he heard her footsteps disappearing along the path outside.

Never mind about brotherly love, he thought, what happened to sisterly loyalty? He sighed. She always meant what she said, so he supposed he’d better be on his way. He got up, stacked the dishes in the sink, and went upstairs to get dressed. He was thinking hard about where he should go. Not to a country retreat yet. He smiled at the idea of himself as a country bumpkin. He still had a job to do for the boss and one of his own, and he had a plan worked out. Anyway, finding a bed for a week or so with one of the shadier contacts he’d made since being out of work shouldn’t be too difficult.

 

 

DOT NIMMO LET HERSELF INTO HER REDBRICK TERRACED HOUSE in Sebastopol Street in Tresham. It was a long street, built cheaply to house workers in the days of industrial expansion in the town. New Brooms office was at one end of the street, and Dot’s house at the other. She almost never called in to see Hazel in the office, not wanting her old friends and associates to connect her too closely with Mrs. M. Lois Meade was now well-known to the gangs in town as Cowgill’s favourite grass, and Dot was anxious that her family should not clam up on her.

She sat down with a cup of tea and a sausage roll from the shop on the corner, and began to consider who best to approach. Her sister Evelyn had cut herself off completely from the family, but there were several of the next generation who could be useful, Evelyn’s son for one. He had also been included in the persona non grata cutoff by Evelyn, who had been disgusted when he was caught supplying to known dealers. Getting caught was the crime! Dot loathed him, with his flash clothes and smarmy ways, but she was quite capable of pretending family affection if it looked like being productive. She picked up her telephone.

“Hello? It’s Auntie Dot. No, I do not want a taxi, Victor! Are you at home this evening? I just need to pick your brains. Ha-ha! Of course you got brains. All the Nimmos got brains.” Of a sort, she added to herself, and then said she’d call in around seven o’clock. “That’ll still give you plenty of time to get to the pub,” she said. “See y’ later.”

Now, what to do next. Dot had to be at her new lady at two thirty, and it was only just after half past one. Who else in the Nimmo circle could she have a chat to? There was one old friend, but she hadn’t been in touch with her for years. She had had a family, all still around Tresham, so it might be worth giving her a bell. What was her name? She’d been at school with Dot, in the same class. Martha? Martha Ross! That was it. And she married a Smith. Oh God, finding her in the telephone directory would take a while, and even then she might not get the right one. More thought needed on that one.