Rattling the Bones (16 page)

‘Only me, gal!’ came a rough male voice which sounded very familiar. I frowned.

Lottie relaxed and put her hand to the latch. ‘It’s all right,’ she said to me over her shoulder. She opened the door. ‘You gave us a fright, Les. You ought to have said you were coming over.’

‘Yes, Les,’ I said brightly from behind her, ‘you really should let people know what you’re up to.’

I’d never seen a grown man look so shame-faced and awkward. ‘Oh, ’ullo, Fran,’ he growled, ‘fancy meeting you here.’

‘Yes, just fancy.’ I turned back to Lottie. ‘So this is how you found out about me occasionally working for the Duke Agency? I think I’d like to talk to Mr Hooper. I can do it here and now or I’ll sit on your doorstep until he’s finished his social call, which?’

‘You’d better both come back to the office,’ she said. ‘Bloody hell, Les, why didn’t you telephone first?’

Chapter Eight

The little office which had been snug with just me and Lottie in it became, as did Susie’s little office, uncomfortably crowded with Les’s burly frame squashed into one of the swivel chairs. It was Les’s way that he dominated any area not by personality, in which he was lacking, but by sheer bulk and miasma. He exuded a faint air of nicotine, sweat and dogs. I wondered if he owned a dog or just hung around with people who did. Did I smell of Bonnie? I hoped not. I had showered before I came out and I doubted Les had. He hadn’t even shaved very well. He looked very much as if he’d like to light up a cigarette right now but didn’t dare. At any rate, put Les in the middle of an empty Wembley stadium and he’d still manage to overpower the place.

I’d retaken my previous seat and Lottie perched on the typist’s stool by the computer. She was looking from Les to me and back again with a kind of dispassionate interest, as if we were zoo animals and might, if she watched long enough, do something justifying her attention but it wasn’t guaranteed.

I decided to get the ball rolling. ‘OK, Les,’ I began. ‘When I described to you and Susie the person I’d seen watching Edna, you recognised him as Duane Gardner but you didn’t say so.’

‘No point in blowing Duane’s cover,’ Les croaked, giving Lottie an apprehensive glance tinged with appeal. ‘I didn’t know what he was up to but I reckoned it must be in the line of business.’

‘In a line of business you work for Susie Duke,’ I snapped.

But here he rallied and had a counter-argument. ‘I’m freelance, ain’t I? I don’t work for Susie regular, no more than you do. When she needs me, she calls me. I work on the same basis for others, like Duane and Lottie here. I work for a lot of private agencies. They know they can call on me. Blimey, gal, if I only worked for Susie Duke, I’d starve.’

Lottie chimed in, confirming his claim. ‘He works for us on an occasional basis. Now and again we need someone. Duane could handle most of it but sometimes he needed help.’

She broke off and frowned. Perhaps it had occurred to her that if she was going to continue in the business, she’d need the services of Les or someone like him a lot more. Using Les from time to time was one thing. Having Les around permanently was another. She gave him a speculative look and fell to chewing her lower lip thoughtfully.

‘Yus, that’s right,’ said Les with some confidence.

I guessed he was thinking along the same lines. No wonder he was round here touching base. He foresaw a lot of work coming his way from what was now solely Lottie’s agency.

‘What was Duane doing in Susie’s office?’ I asked him bluntly.

His confidence drained away with almost comical rapidity. ‘I dunno, darling. So help me, I’ve got no idea.’ He spread out his hands to underline his statement.

‘Had he gone there to meet
you
?’ I had been assuming Duane had gone there to find
me
. Morgan was thinking the same. But the person Duane had known far better and longer than me was Les, his old mate and occasional fellow-sleuth. Was it Les he’d arranged to meet? Or had he in fact met him there on that fateful morning? Was I staring at Duane’s killer?

From the corner of an eye I saw Lottie blink in that catlike way she had, slowly and appraisingly.

‘Ah, no!’ said Les quickly, leaning forward and waving a sausage-shaped and tobacco-orange finger beneath my nose to emphasise the point. ‘He wouldn’t have done that. If he wanted me, he’d see me down the pub. If it was urgent, he gave me a buzz on the old mobile. Nah, he wouldn’t have come over to Susie’s place for me. No need, see? Usually he rang me and I went to him, that is, I come here, don’t I, Lottie?’

This time her endorsement of his argument was half-hearted. She was no longer paying such close attention to what he had to say but was mulling over some line of thought of her own. I guessed it was probably not a million miles away from my own. ‘Mm,’ she mumbled.

Les threw her a reproachful look. ‘I don’t know what he was doing in the office, girls, I swear.’

He was beginning to work up quite a sweat and his body odour was getting worse, gaining a hint of additional origins like fried food. The advertising people who write up those posh wines could create a good description of Les: full, mature and fruity with a hint of chippie and back-street repair garage.

‘Did you lend him the key? Susie told me you hold a key to the outer door.’ I leaned forward in best interrogator fashion as I asked, and fixed him with as direct a look as I could manage.

He looked alarmed, as well he might. I don’t know whether the question or the body language worried him most. ‘No, and don’t you go putting that idea in Susie’s head. She’d kill me.’

There was an awkward silence during which even Les seemed to realise that he had made a less than tactful remark.

‘I never gave him the key,’ he repeated at last in a more sullen tone. ‘I’ll swear it on a stack of Bibles.’

‘Did you know he would be going there?’

‘No! Leave it out, willya, Fran? It’s no use giving me the old third degree. I’m sorry for what happened to Duane, honest, Lottie. He was a really good bloke. But I don’t know what he was doing over at Susie’s place. How the hell should I? He didn’t tell me he was going there.’

He was getting rebellious and very soon would tell me in no uncertain terms that he wasn’t going to sit there and let me quiz him indefinitely. I got in my last questions while I still could. ‘OK, Les, did Duane tell you anything about his client or why he was tailing Edna?’

At this Lottie looked up quickly.

Les shook his head.

‘But you told him I worked for Susie Duke, on and off, like you do yourself.’

Les fidgeted. ‘Look, Fran, I’m being honest with you. Business is slow everywhere in the private enquiry line. Susie has no work for me no more than she has for you right now.You heard her say so yourself that day you came into the office and told us you’d seen someone watching the old lady. After that I went and called on a couple of fellows I know in the private enquiry lark just to see if I could get a job from them, but they told me the same. Any work they had on at the moment, they could handle themselves. So I thought, I’ll go out to Teddington and see if Duane has anything for me. I knew from what you’d told us that he must have a job of some sort. I hadn’t said anything to him straight away about you spotting him because, well, it didn’t seem to matter that much. You didn’t know who he was and you weren’t likely to see him again. In the same way, I didn’t tell you that I’d recognised him from your description. I’m discreet, see? I try to keep everyone happy,’ Les added plaintively, ‘and look where it gets me!’

He gazed at us beseechingly, inviting our sympathy, but he didn’t get it.

‘Go on,’ I ordered.

He gave a wheezing smoker’s sigh. ‘I saw him down at the pub here, locally, the night before he - the night before you and Susie found him in the office. First I asked him if he had any jobs I could do and he said he hadn’t.’

Les looked pathetic. It was awful, like a mistreated bloodhound, baggy eyes, drooping jowls and all. ‘I wanted to remind him I was useful, got an ear to the ground. That’s why people like Susie or Lottie here use me, because I know what’s about. So I told Duane about you coming in and describing someone who sounded a lot like him and if it
had
been him, following someone around Camden Town Tube area, he ought to know he was being picked up.’

‘And?’ It was Lottie asking the question now, not me. Her tone was distinctly chilly.

He gave her another beseeching look. ‘He bought me a pint. He said, “Cheers, Les, and thanks for the tip.” That’s it and all about it, I swear.’ His meaty paws closed on the arms of the chair.

‘Hang on!’ I said. ‘Did he tell you he and I had met again in the grounds of Golders Green cemetery?’

‘Blimey, no! What were you doing out there?’ Les looked really taken aback and goggled at me. ‘Funny place to go to meet someone, ain’t it?’

‘It’s quiet,’ I said curtly.

‘Can’t argue wiv that,’ said Les. ‘Here, Fran, you don’t have to be mad at me. What’s wrong wiv telling him you work for Susie, off and on? It ain’t a bleeding state secret, is it?’

Les spread out his huge callused hands in a gesture of innocence and gave us a look intended to inspire trust. I’d never trusted him and I wasn’t about to start now. I wondered to what extent Duane had trusted him, even if he had used him from time to time. He had thanked Les for the information about me, but he’d not told Les of our meeting in the cemetery. That would have been discussing a job with him and if Les wasn’t working on it with him, then that was none of Les’s business. Duane’s watchword had been ‘confidential’.

Lottie was rather less keen on Les, I guessed, than she had been when he arrived. We both glared at him.

‘I’ll come back later, Lottie,’ Les said in the face of our silent hostility. He struggled to his feet and she followed him out.

When she returned from the front door, I said, ‘I wouldn’t take him into your confidence, Lottie. Not because I’m saying he did anything to bring about Duane’s death but because he’s unreliable. Did you know he worked for other people?’

‘Yes. We didn’t think it mattered. We didn’t think he’d blab our business and as far as we - as I know, he never has. He’s a rough diamond but he’s all right.’

As far as I was concerned the only kind of diamond Les was, was paste.

But her voice had wavered on the last statement. She suddenly looked very tired and a tad bewildered. She needed to be alone. It was time for me to go.

‘Well, watch yourself, anyway,’ I advised. ‘Don’t forget what I told you about asking the police to move you to a safe place. If they do, don’t let Les know the address!’

Chapter Nine

I hurried back into London as fast as I could make it. The suburban train link was fairly frequent and it wasn’t a long run, but still by the time I got to Waterloo I was in a lather of impatience.

Thoughts had been churning around my brain during the journey and of course Les featured in most of them. Although I’d told Lottie I was not accusing him of anything to do with Duane’s death, I hate coincidences. It did seem awfully odd to me that the morning after Duane learned about my association with the Duke Agency from Les, the poor guy turned up dead there. Or had it just been a natural progression of events? I didn’t mean Duane being murdered. That was out of any ordinary progression of any kind. I meant that as soon as Duane learned I was in the same line of business, he was off like a hare to find me and accuse me of double talk during our chat in Golders Green.

I jumped down from the train and filled my lungs with the familiar blend of engine oil, fast food, dirt and human sweat which passes for air at mainline railway stations. The loudspeaker was announcing delays just down the line at Vauxhall as I threaded my path through the crowds on the concourse. Vauxhall was barely out of Waterloo and the information boded ill for anyone thinking of taking a long journey to the south coast. Now they knew things were screwed up on the main line, would-be passengers milled about in a discontented mob. I stopped long enough at a bagel stall to pick up something for my lunch and plunged down into the Underground.

But my luck was really out. In a situation mirroring that above our heads, an announcement came that there was a signalling problem on the Northern Line which resulted in fewer Tube trains and packed platforms. Several of the would-be Tube travellers had come down from the main rail terminal above and were equipped with a variety of luggage, including a fair sprinkling of Aussie backpackers laden up like camels. I didn’t fancy squeezing onto a train, when and if one came, in that crush. I moved over to the Bakerloo Line where it wasn’t much better but there were more trains running. I was able to take the Underground as far as the Baker Street station. I emerged thankfully into the fresh air through the main entry in the Marylebone Road, blinking blindly like a mole, and finally focusing my gaze to find myself face to face with Sherlock Holmes. I don’t mean a statue of the great detective like the one outside the Baker Street exit from the Tube station. I mean a flesh and blood one.