Vintage Babes (46 page)

‘I was hoping you would read this for me. Please,’ she appealed, taking sheets of paper from her rucksack. ‘I’m on my way back from an after-school swimming practice and I made a special journey. Could you read it? I’d be way grateful. It won’t take long. Just a few minutes.’

I hesitated. My day had been far from productive and even a few minutes were precious. But Debbie was so eager.

‘Alright,’ I agreed. Both Melanie and Tony were out, so would not be disturbed by our conversation.

She smiled. ‘Thank you.’

Entitled ‘A Sticky Hero’, the story had been typed on a typewriter smitten with shadowed ‘a’s, ‘e’s and ‘o’s’. The paragraph indents varied, the double spacing narrowed to single halfway down the third, and last, page and there were several spelling mistakes. The plot concerned a teenaged girl and her adventures with a pet. To date the pets in Debbie’s stories had been two dogs, a Persian cat, a rabbit and a three-legged gerbil, but this time it was a stick insect. An accident-prone and exceedingly affectionate stick insect called Kyle.

‘It’s good,’ I declared, as I reached THE END. ‘Funny, touching – never imagined I’d get emotional over a bunch of mobile twigs – and keeps you wondering what’s going to happen next. Your best yet.’

Debbie beamed. ‘One of the mags I read prints short stories, so I could send it up to them. What d’you think?’

‘Do it. But any manuscript you submit must be properly presented and, frankly, this is a shambles.’

‘I know. I use the computer and printer when I’m at home, but all Dad has is a portable typewriter which belongs in a museum.’

‘Another reason for considering a return,’ I said.

She nodded. ‘Is the spelling correct? I’m not too clever at spelling. ‘’Scuse me,’ she said, as a ringing sounded from her rucksack and she took out her mobile. ‘Paul, what is it?’ she demanded, in the impatient tones of an older sister plagued by a younger brother. Then she sat upright. ‘What? She’s said yes? You lucky devil. When?’ As Debbie listened, a smile stretched slowly, wider and wider, across her face. ‘Tell Mum I’m coming with you to collect it.’ From her subsequent scowl, I guessed that her brother had objected. ‘Yes, I can. I can be home in loads of time. Like in half an hour. And it won’t be just yours, it’ll be mine, too, because I’m moving back. I’ve decided. Hold on.’ She got to her feet. ‘Need to speak to Dad,’ she informed me, and sped away to his office.

I had corrected the faulty spelling, when Debbie returned. She looked happy.

‘Thanks for reading my story,’ she said, collecting up the pages.

‘Best of luck with it. I’ve sorted the spelling,’ I told her.

‘Ace. And now I’ll be able to sort the typing.’ She hooked her rucksack over her shoulder. ‘In a hurry. Got packing to do. Dad’ll explain. Bye.’

‘Goodbye.’

The girl was halfway out of the door when she stopped. She giggled. ‘By the way,’ she said, ‘I dug the photo of you and Dad in the paper.’

I frowned. I didn’t want her to get the wrong idea and imagine the kiss might indicate a serious involvement. ‘You do realise –’ I started, but the door had swung shut.

Consoling myself with the thought that Debbie had seemed amused rather than concerned, I resumed my writing. Concentrate, I instructed myself. Concentrate. I was wondering if I should include some of the history of the woodland, which was reputed to have been part of Henry VIII’s stamping ground, when Steve came in.

‘Great news,’ he said. ‘This evening I’m to drive my daughter and all her belongings back to her mother’s house where she will be living from henceforth.’

‘I rather gathered that from her phone call with her brother, but why?’

‘Because, after years of Debbie and Paul nagging and pleading and wearing her down, Annette has agreed to accept a pet into the household. One of her New Age chums owns a Dalmatian which has produced a litter and there’s a puppy going spare. And Debs is determined not to miss out, so back she trots.’

‘Regardless of the lentil burgers?’

He grinned. ‘Regardless. Though I suspect she was on the brink of a return anyway, thanks to you.’

‘Me?’

‘Debbie said just now that, on several occasions, you’d pointed out advantages to her being back home.’

‘Never missed a chance.’

‘Thanks. I appreciate it.’

‘Hope we’re not intruding,’ a familiar voice said, and I looked round to find my father walking into the office, accompanied by Ernest.

‘Not at all,’ Steve replied, and went to greet them.

I welcomed them, too, though with a degree of reluctance. Would I ever complete the woodland piece? It had gone five and I was beginning to weary of it, and to feel weary myself.

‘My brave girl,’ my father declared, hugging me. ‘Everyone at Bridgemont thinks you’re wonderful.’

I gave a suitably modest smile. Had everyone at Bridgemont, my dad included, seen the newspaper photograph? If so, was he about to comment on it? Joke and infer and assume? Please don’t, I begged silently.

‘We’d planned to come earlier,’ my father continued, ‘but this one –’ he jerked his head at his companion ‘– nodded off after his lunch and was asleep for ages.’

‘It’s a reaction,’ I said, wondering if my weariness could be reaction, too. ‘He suffered an extremely stressful experience yesterday.’

‘That’s what I told him,’ Ernest declared righteously, and brandished a plastic supermarket bag. ‘I have a presentation I wish to make.’

‘Then how about we all go into my office?’ Steve suggested. ‘It’ll be more comfortable in there.’

As he escorted the visitors along the corridor, I locked the public door and dealt with the phones. Then I joined them.

With a flourish, Ernest produced a magnum of champagne from the carrier and handed it across the desk. ‘For my deliverer from harm,’ he said.

‘Thank you. That’s very generous.’ Smiling, Steve accepted his gift.

‘It’s just a token. You deserve so much more. Both you and Carol. Don’t they, George?’

‘They certainly do,’ my father agreed.

‘People have been telling me how you took some nasty blows and digs in the ribs yesterday,’ Ernest said, speaking to Steve. ‘Painful, are they?’

‘Tender rather than painful,’ he replied, ‘though I’m a mass of technicolour bruises. However, I can still drink champagne. We’ll need to swig it out of mugs, but shall we open it now?’

‘No, no, it’s for you,’ his benefactor said hastily.

My father gave a wry laugh. ‘And he couldn’t take one more drop of alcohol. He’s still recovering from all those whiskies Dilys fed him last night.’

‘I have had a bit of a hangover,’ Ernest confessed. ‘I’ve been drinking tea all day to try and clear it.’

‘Perhaps you’d like a cup of tea now?’ I said, for that was plainly the message.

‘Medium strong, dash of milk, two sugars,’ he replied, and my father nodded.

I looked at Steve. ‘Coffee, as usual?’

‘Please.’

When I returned with a tray bearing the teas and coffees, plus a packet of shortbread biscuits, the visitors were eagerly relating how a team of police officers had spent most of the morning at Bridgemont.

‘You remember how you two suggested to the policeman that they’d be wise to inspect Dilys’s garage?’ Ernest said. ‘And to visit her son’s house out in the country?’

Steve frowned. ‘You heard us?’

‘Sharp ears,’ he declared, pulling at a lobe, ‘though it passed Dilys by. Anyhow, the garage turned out to be a real Aladdin’s cave. Suitcases crammed full with jewellery, figurines, silver salvers and –’ his eyes gleamed ‘– every bit of it stolen.’

‘So we understand,’ Steve said. ‘We were at the police station earlier and they told us how William and his accomplices had been robbing shops in the area for the past few months and that his mother’s garage was where William stored the loot. Stored it temporarily, until he could dispose of it. Which is why he panicked when he found you in there.’

‘I was only being neighbourly, checking to see there were no leaking water pipes or any evidence of mice,’ Ernest defended himself, then changed tack. ‘Did the police thank you for suggesting they take a look?’

Steve nodded. ‘They were grateful.’

‘So they should be, because it was a monster of a find! I got talking to one of the officers this morning, a sergeant, lives in a semi opposite the church and plays ice hockey in his spare time, and it seems there were also a couple of very valuable oil paintings, still life miniatures they were, and clocks and watches and –’

As the old man listed the haul, I handed round the teas and coffees and indicated that everyone should help themselves to biscuits.

‘Apparently one of the shops William robbed was Gifford’s,’ my father said, when Ernest ended his recital. ‘Remember, Carol, I told you about a bracelet he’d given his mother? Gold inlaid with diamonds. Turns out it was pinched from there.’

I grimaced. ‘Oh dear.’

‘Though Dilys didn’t know,’ Ernest put in quickly.

‘Maybe not,’ said my father, ‘but the fact that she showed the bracelet to the police makes you think she’d suspected it wasn’t kosher. And she must’ve suspected that whatever it was William was keeping in her garage wasn’t kosher, either. Alright, she never ever looked inside a suitcase – that’s what she told the police and I believe her, she would’ve been too afraid – but she had to have guessed he was up to something fishy. Especially considering his history.’

Ernest grunted, then took a mouthful of tea.

‘Seems that after they’d done a robbery, skedaddled, and removed their paper suits, William dropped his accomplices off and carried on to Bridgemont with the spoils,’ my father continued. ‘And no one’s likely to suspect a block of retirement flats of harbouring illicit goods.’

‘It was smart thinking,’ Steve said.

Ernest took up the tale. ‘Then, after a robbery, William usually spent the night at the guest flat and drove out to his house in the country the next day. Often transporting some of the loot because, of course, by then no one was looking for the getaway car. He kept several old bangers in a barn there and used them in turn for thieving.’

Steve looked at me. ‘We weren’t aware of that.’’

‘Like I explained, I was talking to an officer about William’s methods this morning and –’ the old man took a second biscuit ‘– he revealed all.’

I could imagine the questions Ernest would have asked, on and on and on, and how the policeman could have told him more than he should, in an attempt to silence him.

‘And,’ my father said, ‘a couple of the ladies at Bridgemont have provided dates and times for when William arrived in one of his old bangers, together with the colour of the car –’

‘They weren’t so smart on the make,’ Ernest inserted, spraying out shortbread crumbs.

‘– and they fitted with the dates of various robberies, so the case is virtually sewn up.’

‘The ladies knew the dates and times he arrived? How come?’ Steve enquired.

‘Nora, a pleasant woman who used to clean for me and suffers from an ingrowing toenail – very painful – could remember William arriving on a couple of Fridays, after lunch, because on Friday mornings she went to the chiropodist’s and in the afternoons she rested. Two of the robberies took place on Friday afternoons. Nora’s flat overlooks the entrance and the garages, and if she hears a vehicle she often has a quick peek to see who it is.’

I sipped my coffee. She
always
has a quick peek, I thought, recalling the twitch of curtains whenever I visited.