Relief Valve: The Plumber's Mate, Book 2 (3 page)

“Yes, but after she married Mr. Morangie, she lived in Mill Hill with him, remember? And their son. Until she left him.”

“What? Auntie Lol had a kid? No way. She never mentioned that when she wrote. Nah. Must be some mix-up.” She’d always been so, well, motherly to me. I felt a bit weird about it, to tell the truth. Not to mention guilty. Yeah, we’d kept in touch, but I hadn’t really made any effort to see her after she’d married. She’d visited me in hospital a few times back when I was seventeen—on her own, so I wasn’t sure now if it was before or after she’d married—but after that, I hadn’t seen her again. To be fair, I’d been a bit busy relearning how to walk and sorting out my life.

“He was her stepson. I don’t really know much about him.”

I frowned. “S’pose he stayed with his dad, then.” It still felt funny to think of Auntie Lol leaving him behind. “What’s the deal with the house, then? If it was hers, how come she was the one who left?” Somehow I didn’t reckon Cherry would have said it was
her
house if it’d been the husband who’d owned it. Who still owned it? This was getting confusing. “Or, you know, how come it didn’t get sold when they split up?”

“I don’t know, do I? You’re the one she stayed in touch with.”

“So who owns the house now? The husband, right?”

“No.” Cherry glared at me. “Actually, you might own half of it.”

“What?”

“That’s what’s so annoying. As far as I can see, she really didn’t have anyone else to leave anything to.”

“No? What about the girlfriend?”

“They split up a while ago.” Huh. Just another thing she hadn’t mentioned. I was beginning to wonder just how well I really knew Auntie Lol. “And she didn’t have any other family. But we don’t have the full version of her will—that’s what you have to find. For all anyone knows, she could have left you anything or everything. Including half of the house.”

“Hang on, though. That’s not how it works. You can’t inherit half a house.” Hadn’t Phil said something about the other half of his flat just going to him automatically when the Mysterious Mark popped his squeaky-clean little clogs? “Doesn’t it all go to whoever’s the joint tenant or something?”

“
If
they’re joint tenants. But they weren’t. They were tenants in common.”

“’Scuse me while my head explodes.” I guzzled the last of my diet Coke—wasn’t caffeine supposed to be good for headaches? “So you’re saying I
might
co-own a house with some old bloke who used to be married to Auntie Lol? Or it might all be some April Fool’s joke from beyond the grave?” Actually, I kind of liked the idea of Auntie Lol looking down from heaven and laughing herself silly.

“I told you it was annoying.” She speared the last bit of salad with a vicious jab of her fork. “And I really don’t think she thought it all through. What if her husband doesn’t want you to go rummaging through his home?”

“Oi. I don’t rummage.”

“Sniffing like a bloodhound, then.”

“Don’t sniff either. Course, I have been known to bury the odd bone in the back garden—”

“Very funny.” It was a good thing Cherry had already finished her lunch. The prunes would have shrivelled up into currants at that tone of hers.

“What happens now?”

“
Now
, we have to speak to Mr. Morangie. And hope he isn’t going to be difficult about things.”

“Is he even still living there? Or, hang on,
could
he sell up without her, with this common tenants thing? Or—”

“Yes, and yes. Well, theoretically. Although I can’t imagine who’d want to buy his half of the tenancy in common, and of course he wouldn’t have been able to buy a comparable house with the proceeds. He was better off staying in the property, as long as she was happy for him to do so.”

“Could she have kicked him out, then?” Seemed a bit unfair if the house was half his.

“Well, she’d have had to go to court and try to force a sale. It’s what I’d have done, though.”

“Yeah, but court’s like a home from home for you. Not everyone wants to get into all that legal stuff if they don’t have to.”

Cherry frowned. “It still seems odd she never tried. I suppose she mustn’t have needed the money.”

“Maybe she was worried about legal fees, thought she’d end up worse off than she’d started. Or maybe she just didn’t want all the stress. Anyway, so what you’re saying is, Mr. M’s still living there, and we’ve got to go and pay him a visit, right? When’s the funeral, anyway? I know it’ll be up in Scotland, but I’d like to go. Pay my last respects, that sort of thing.”

“Oh.”

I had a bad feeling about that
oh
. “Oh, what?”

“Well, it was a few days ago.”

“A few days ago? And you didn’t think I might want to know about it? For fuck’s sake! Even if I couldn’t have gone, I’d have wanted to send flowers. Did
anyone
know? Or did you just tell them to bury her in the first hole in the ground they could find and not bother with a service or, you know, any sodding mourners?”

“
I
didn’t tell them anything. Mr. Morangie arranged it all with a local undertaker, up in West Lothian. She was cremated. No flowers.”

“Was that what she said she wanted?” Auntie Lol had loved flowers. She’d had a garden full of them back when she’d lived in St Albans, and she used to let me pick bunches and take them back home to Mum.

“She didn’t leave any instructions about the funeral, so her husband did what he thought best, I suppose.”

“He wasn’t her husband. He was just some git she married and then thought better of it. I can’t believe you didn’t tell me about it in time.”

Cherry stared at me. “Well, if I’d known you were going to get upset about it…”

“I’m not upset.” All right, maybe that was a lie. “Right. So when am I supposed to be going over to his place for this
rummage,
then? You coming too? Fancy a good rummage, do you?”

“You’re so
bloody
childish, sometimes. I’ll set something up. All right?” She pulled out her purse and peeled off a couple of twenty pound notes that looked like she’d ironed them this morning. Nah, what was I thinking? She probably had all her money dry-cleaned. “That should take care of lunch. I’ll call you when I’ve arranged things with Mr. Morangie, but it may be a while. Some of us have work to do.”

Whereas the rest of us, apparently, just mucked about with a set of tools from Toys “R” Us, tinkering with taps. I watched her clump off in her sensible black shoes and sighed.

“Would you like anything else? Coffee? Dessert?” The waitress with the hips smiled kindly as she started to clear the plates.

“Just the bill, thanks, love.”

“Sure? The chocolate-and-hazelnut panettone’s on special.” The dimples were out in force again. “And it’s not like
you
need to worry about your figure.”

I had to smile. “Sounds great, but I’ve got to get back to work. Maybe I’ll come in for it some other time.”

“I’ll look out for you.” She balanced the plates with practised ease and swept off, swishing back with the bill a lot quicker than I was expecting.

Cherry’s forty quid covered it easy and then some. “Keep the change. Have a panettone on me.” I winked at the waitress.

“I wish. That stuff goes straight to my hips.” She slapped herself on the bum, then dithered a moment, fiddling with the plateful of money. “None of my business, but you could do way better.”

“Come again?”

“That woman you were with. She didn’t look like your sort at all.”

I sighed and pushed back my chair. “Don’t I know it. Cheers, love.”

“You have a good afternoon.” She smiled at me again and wiggled her way back through the tables.

I glanced at the receipt before shoving it in my pocket. It had a phone number scribbled on it in felt tip, and the name “Angie” with a little heart instead of the dot on the “i”. I smiled, and shook my head.

On the way out, I passed one of the mummies turning a suitcase-size handbag out onto the table looking for something, so, being a helpful sort, I paused to listen in.
There
. I reached into the recesses of a nappy bag, hoping to God I wouldn’t come across any dirties, and pulled out a mobile phone. “Here you go, love,” I said, handing it to a baffled mum.

“Oh my God! How the hell did it get in there? Georgie, did you put Mummy’s phone in your bag? He must have thought it was one of his toys,” she excused him, turning back to me. “Um, thanks,” she added.

“No problem,” I said with a smile and a cheery wave at a pesto-smeared Georgie, who sent back a rabbit-in-the-headlights look. He knew he’d been caught bang to rights.

Thought it was a toy, my arse. My
thing
, as Cherry put it, only works for stuff that’s been deliberately hidden. The only reason I’d been able to find that phone was because Georgie had known he was being a little sod when he put it there.

On the way back to the van, I took a detour through the market to pick up a couple of bits for tea. Darren was there on his stall—well, technically, he was on a box behind his stall—and he greeted me with a cheery, “All right, shortarse?”

I never know what to say when he brings out the short jokes. Him being all of four foot six himself. So I went with, “Can’t complain. How’s the fruit-and-veg business going? Making a killing on dodgy kumquats?”

Before you ask, I do actually know what a kumquat is, and it’s not just from watching
Masterchef
. They sell all sorts in the greengrocers down my way, and they’re pretty good at telling you what to do with the weird stuff.

In the cooking sense, I mean.

Darren leered at me. “Nothing dodgy about my kumquats. Ask Gary. There you go, love, that’ll be a pahnd,” he added to the old dear he’d just handed a paper bag full of mixed veg. He waited patiently as she stowed it securely in one of those wheeled tartan trolley things, then counted out a pound’s worth of change. “You enjoy those parsnips, and if the old man don’t like ’em, you tell him to come talk to me about it.”

“Oh, I will, dearie.” She dimpled and doddered off with a spring in her orthopaedically booted step.

“I’m seeing Gary tomorrow—you coming along?” I tried not to make it sound like a loaded question. Ever since him and Gary got together, Darren’s had a habit of turning up when I meet Gary for a drink. Which, don’t get me wrong, he’s an all right bloke, but sometimes you just want a natter with your mate without significant others muscling in.

“Nah. Thought I’d let you and him enjoy a girls’ night out without me.” He grinned. “Gary’s got something to tell you.”

“Yeah?” If that was the case, I was surprised I didn’t know already. Not one for keeping secrets, Gary isn’t, even when they’re his own. “What’s that about, then?”

Darren tapped the side of his nose. “Have to wait and see, won’t you? Right, you buying, or you going to shift your arse and let my customers through?”

I grabbed some onions and red peppers. “Pahnd?” Everything’s a pahnd on Darren’s stall. Unless it’s the end of the day, when it’s two fer a pahnd.

“On the ’ouse. Mind how you go, then.”

“Cheers, Darren.”
 

Chapter Three

I met Gary in our usual place, Thursday night, the Devil’s Dyke pub in Brock’s Hollow. It’s a proper old-fashioned country pub, with horse brasses on the walls and signs on the low ceiling beams warning you to “Duck or grouse”. Harry, the landlady, was having a break, perched on a bar stool with her border collie Flossie at her feet and a cup of tea by her elbow. Which was no reflection on the quality of the beer in the place, nor on Harry’s ability to take her drink. She’s a head taller than me and fights at around twice my weight—or at least, she used to; these days she only dusts off her boxing skills on the rare occasions when the customers get rowdy.

I was a bit late getting to the pub—Mrs. G’s downstairs loo had turned out to be a total bastard—and Gary looked like he was well into his third vodka martini by the time I stuck my head in the door and spotted him at the back of the room.

Gary managed to simultaneously wave a welcome and roll his eyes at my timekeeping. At least, I hoped it was my timekeeping he had the problem with, although to be honest, I’d had my doubts about the shirt I was wearing when I’d put it on. I made buying-a-pint gestures, followed by can-I-get-you-one-too gestures, and Gary replied with his version of cheers-mate gestures, which consisted of pointing to his martini glass, clapping his hands to his heart and blowing me a kiss.

Next time, I decided, I’d just go over and ask, and sod the bloody sign language.

There was a new member of the harem behind the bar. She looked all of fourteen, but I knew Harry wasn’t daft enough to risk her licence by employing someone under age. Even someone as pretty as this girl, who was tiny, bubbly and had a My Little Unicorn tattooed on her shoulder.

“All right, love? Pint of bitter, please.”

She smiled, showing off her tongue piercing. “Hopfest, London Porter or Mr. Squirrel?” She had a strong West Country accent.

I pursed my lips. “Go on then, hit me with the squirrel. You’re new here, aren’t you? I’m Tom.”

“Marianne. It’s my first day, so be gentle with me. You’re with Gary? He’s lovely, he is.”