Running Scared (32 page)

‘Where is my aunt?’ he demanded.

‘Tied to the nearest railway line,’ I said wearily. ‘She’s gone out.’

He huffed a bit, then made up his mind. ‘Then we have time for a little talk.’

‘I’ve nothing,’ I said, ‘to say to you.’

‘Dare say not! Useless trying to justify yourself!’ He was marching up and down Daphne’s sitting room now, preparing to hold forth at length. ‘But I’ve got a few things to say to you.’

‘You’re not going to blame me for the flood, are you?’ I asked cheerfully, not because that was how I felt, but because I wanted to annoy him.

‘This is not an occasion for levity,’ he retorted. He had fetched up before the fireplace and stood there on his stubby legs, with his hands behind his back and his brogued feet planted apart.

‘You’re telling me,’ I returned. ‘That was my home.’

‘No,’ he said. ‘It was, is still, part of Aunt Daphne’s home. You were merely the tenant. Where is the other girl? The one with the dog? You had no right to sublet.’

‘She was a friend staying a day or two and she left before all this happened.’

Charlie made his way to an armchair where he plumped himself down, his hands on his knees. ‘And when will you be leaving?’

I took the opposite chair and braced myself for the outburst which must follow my reply. ‘After Christmas. Daphne has asked me to stay here until then.’

I had been expecting Charles to rage, but instead he looked triumphant. He leaned forward and hissed, ‘Staying here, indeed? I knew it! You just listen to me, young woman! I saw this coming, you know. So did my brother. We knew you were trying to work your way into our aunt’s confidence. You think you’ve managed pretty well, eh? Well, it hasn’t gone unremarked. We know what’s what.’ Here Charlie tapped the side of his pudgy nose. ‘Don’t count your chickens, that’s all I have to say to you. We’ll have you out of here before you can say knife!’ He slapped his knees and sat back, looking pleased with himself.

I hit back by leaning forward myself and hissing back, ‘Yes, and I know what’s what, too! You’re trying to gyp Daphne out of this house. You may be interested to know that I’ve already mentioned my concerns to a police officer I happen to know.’

Charlie collapsed in his seat as if I’d reached across and felled him with an uppercut. His eyes bulged, his face turned purple and I began to be seriously alarmed. Just when I was thinking that, revolting though the idea was, I might have to go over there and loosen his tie and unbutton his shirt collar (actions which he’d no doubt misconstrue), he found his voice, pitched low and full of real hate. The words hung in the air between us, each issuing distinct on a puff of breath.

‘You-go-too-far!’

‘Just remember,’ I said, ‘I’m on to your little game.’ And I imitated his earlier gesture, tapping my nose.

Charles rose to his feet, straightened his jacket and tugged at his cuffs. ‘You will be very sorry for all this. I shall come back later when I hope to find my aunt at home and have some private conversation with her. Don’t make yourself too comfortable and don’t trouble to see me out. I can find my way.’

I let him go. After a moment or two, it did occur to me that it was taking him a long time to walk down the hall, but just as I was about to go and investigate, the front door slammed. I went to look out the window and saw him marching away along the pavement. If I hadn’t been so preoccupied with other matters, I’d have worried about him more.

Chapter Sixteen

The following couple of days passed uneventfully. Normally, that would be a plus. In this case, it meant that Ponytail hadn’t contacted me with the reply to my offer to meet Grice. Uncertainty heightened my nervous state to the point where I jumped out of my skin at every ring of the doorbell or phone, every time a customer walked into the shop, every time a car slowed by me as I walked along the pavement. I took to hugging the buildings, so that it would be more difficult for someone to bundle me into a vehicle. I scurried home to Daphne’s at the end of the day and, apart from walking Bonnie round the block at top speed last thing at night, didn’t put my nose out of the door till morning.

A person can only go on like that for so long without it becoming noticeable.

‘Are you all right, Fran?’ asked Daphne. ‘I know you’re upset about the flat, but even so, you don’t seem your usual bright self.’

‘Winter blues,’ I told her.

Ganesh, too, had noticed my jumpiness. ‘What’s going on?’ he asked.

‘Nothing,’ I told him, but he didn’t believe it.

‘All I can say is, I hope you haven’t done something stupid, Fran. This hasn’t got anything to do with that whizz-kid inspector, has it?’

‘You know what I think of Harford,’ I told him.

He snorted. ‘I know what you thought of him when you first met him. It strikes me you might be changing your mind about him.’

I told him that was rubbish.

All the same, I felt a pang of disappointment when, Daphne having told me at breakfast-time the following morning the police were on the phone for me, I picked up the receiver to hear Parry’s unmistakable tones. I did think Harford might have rung himself.

‘Hi, Wayne!’ I greeted him, just to let him know that his secret was out.

He answered grumpily, asking if I had anything further to report.

Whispering furtively into the receiver, I told him no more contact had been made and I was still awaiting confirmation of arrangements. I felt perfectly ridiculous saying things like this, as if I’d escaped from a spy thriller.

‘You let us know what they are, straight away!’ he ordered.

I needed to explain the call to Daphne. I put my head round her door and said, ‘They haven’t got any lead on my break-in yet. They don’t suppose they will.’ I didn’t like telling her fibs.

‘It all seems rather less important now than the flood,’ said Daphne. ‘But it was nice of them to ring and let you know their progress, or lack of it.’

She didn’t know the half of it, that was the trouble. I wrestled with my conscience for the rest of the day. What would happen if Ponytail turned up on my landlady’s doorstep? Poor Daphne would be totally unprepared. But ignorance was probably better in her case. Safer, certainly. I just hoped he’d contact me some other way.

That night, as we sat in her kitchen over a bottle of wine, I ventured, ‘Have you had any callers today?’

She sighed. ‘Only the boys. I wasn’t going to tell you because I know you don’t get along with them. I must confess,’ went on Daphne, lowering her tone as one about to confide a startling secret, ‘I am beginning to find them rather tiresome myself. I always found them unnecessarily fussy. But I believed – still believe – their hearts are in the right place. And they are, you see, my only family left.’

Who needs families? I thought, not for the first time, although mine hadn’t been like that and I still missed Dad and Grandma. It was getting late. I said good night and went up to bed.

Bonnie bounced ahead of me. I had put an old blanket over the end of the bed to save the counterpane from dog hairs. An attempt to get Bonnie to sleep in a basket which Daphne had unearthed from somewhere, had proved doomed. Bonnie remained firmly convinced that we all slept together in a heap.

It must have been around three in the morning when she woke me, licking at my face and whining as she’d done on the night of the flood.

I sat up, bewildered for the moment, and thinking myself back in the flat. It was pitch dark in the bedroom. Daphne believed in thick lined curtains for winter. Bonnie slid off the bed, landed with a muffled bump on the carpet, and ran to the door where she whined again.

I thought, damn it, she wants to go out. She’d never done this to me before. Her late evening walk usually enabled her to last out till morning. I got out of bed, pulled on the old dressing gown my landlady had lent me, opened the door and made for the stairs.

I didn’t want to disturb Daphne and hesitated to put on the light. Out here on the landing, streetlighting shone through an uncurtained window. I scooped up Bonnie and began to make my way downstairs with her tucked under my arm, the other hand clinging to the banister in case I lost my footing. Halfway down she began to struggle.

‘Stop that!’ I ordered her quietly. But she whined and then growled.

At the same moment, I heard a slight noise from the hall below. Immediately I clamped my hand over her muzzle and froze where I was on the stair. Oh my God, I thought. It’s Ponytail! He’s let himself in just as he did at the flat.

I didn’t want to face the man but even less did I want Daphne to come face to face with him. I made my way down the remaining stairs as quickly as I could, Bonnie squirming beneath my arm.

The intruder had moved from the hall and was in the drawing room at the front of the house. More streetlight falling through the transom above the front door let me glimpse the erratic beam of a torch which was being flashed around in there. By now, I’d got a grip of my nerves and my brain was functioning better, too. If it was Ponytail, surely he didn’t intend to search this large house, belonging to someone who had no connection with Coverdale, on the off chance I’d hidden the negatives here? I had told him I was prepared to hand them over. All he had to do was tell me where and when. Wasn’t it more likely that, whoever was in that room, he was no more than a common thief?

I crept up to the door and cautiously stretched my hand through the gap, feeling for the light switch. He was on the further side of the room now. He stumbled over a piece of furniture and I heard a muffled ‘Blast!’ That wasn’t Ponytail.

I switched on the light and dropped Bonnie to the floor.

Then everything happened at once. Bonnie rushed across the floor, barking. The burglar let out a high-pitched shriek, stumbled back and fell over, bringing down a little table over which he’d been bending. It was one on which Daphne kept a display of small silver antique items – spoons, salt dishes, pillboxes, that sort of thing. All these items spilled from the table as it crashed to the carpet, and rolled away in all directions. The burglar had become tangled up in the table legs and flailed about on the floor like an upturned tortoise. If you’ve never kept a tortoise, I can tell you that, once turned upside down, they can’t get the right way up again, and lie there with all four legs working uselessly. Our intruder was, I was now able to see, somewhat tortoise-like in shape; round of body and short of leg. He was wearing dark pants and sweater and a ski-mask over his head. This round woollen head, with just two eyes showing, enhanced the tortoise impression.

Bonnie wriggled through the obstacle and grabbed the burglar’s trouser cuff in her strong little jaws. She began to worry it, growling ferociously. I could see she was having the time of her life.

‘Let go, you wretched brute!’ came in a howl from the ski-mask. He struck out at Bonnie with his torch.

‘Don’t you hit my dog!’ I shouted. I darted across and snatched the torch from him as he waved it wildly in the air. He was trying to kick out his snared leg and shake Bonnie off. No chance.

‘Fran! What’s going on?’

Daphne had appeared in the doorway holding a walking stick in businesslike fashion.

‘Call the police, Daphne!’ I gasped. ‘Before he shakes Bonnie off!’

‘No!’ yelled the ski-mask frantically. ‘Don’t, I can explain!’

There was something familiar about that voice. Daphne and I must have recognised it at the same time. She put down the walking stick and I pulled Bonnie away.

Released, the intruder sat up and began to disentangle himself from the table legs. I reached over and pulled off the ski-mask.

‘Bertie!’ exclaimed Daphne. ‘What on earth do you think you’re doing?’

‘If you weren’t so obstinate, Aunt Daphne,’ said Bertie a little later, ‘Charles and I wouldn’t have to resort to desperate measures.’

We had righted the table, picked up the silver objects and retired to Daphne’s kitchen, the centre of operations in this house. Bertie sat on a wooden chair, his ski-mask lying on the table. His exertions, and being imprisoned in a woollen hood, had left his face very red and sweaty and his thinning hair ruffled. He was clearly conscious of the ridiculous figure he cut in his black polo-neck sweater and new-looking black jeans. Had he gone out and bought these items of clothing specially for tonight’s expedition? No doubt he’d decided that was what house-breakers wore. Also on the table lay a dark blue canvas shopping bag.

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ said Daphne. ‘And how did you get in, Bertram?’