The Cinderella Moment

Cass laughed. ‘Is that what Jake said about me?’

Barney nodded as they stepped up to take the next taxi in the rank. ‘That and the fact that you’ve got the most terrible taste in men.’

Barney’s enormous basement flat looked as if it could easily have belonged to the man on the station, the one with the hairy ears and the well-stained sweater. As Barney guided Cass in through the little outer lobby and then the galley kitchen that ran parallel to an enormous sunlit sitting room, he looked decidedly apologetic. ‘I need someone to take care of me,’ he said miserably.

Cass looked round. He was right. It was the most beautiful room – or at least it once had been – with large windows at street level, giving ample light even though they were below ground. By the enormous open fireplace stood a scarlet linen sofa and two huge armchairs draped with ornate embroidered throws. There was a gilt mirror on the wall opposite the windows, another above the fire catching every last glimmer of sunlight, and waist-height bookcases running all the way round the room, full of everything from first editions through empty milk bottles, cans of paint, cats’ skulls, odd shoes and umbrellas, to piles of what looked like striped pyjamas and a checked dressing gown. On one shelf stood a row of old clocks in various states of disrepair, while below them, on the broad bottom shelf, half on and half off the well-worn, well-chewed wood, lay a grizzled black and white greyhound, sound asleep amongst a nest of old magazines and newspapers, and an enormous ginger cat curled up against the dog’s belly. The cat watched their progress through one rheumy, world-weary eye.

Barney waved towards them. ‘The dog is called Kipper, because that is what he does best, and the ginger menace is called Radolpho. In the world of the brainless dog the one-eyed cat is king, and needs to be saved from himself, prevented from stealing from shopping bags, eating dog food and anything he can prise from the fridge, your plate or the bin. He likes to pee in the sink and the dog likes to have sex with stuffed toys…In fact, they both have very sordid tastes in general.’

The cat closed his eye, stretched and then settled down.

‘I really need someone to help me get the place under control,’ Barney said reflectively, flicking a long tail of cigarette ash into the bowl of a dead pot plant.

‘I can see that, but I’m not a cleaner or a housekeeper, Barney,’ said Cass, setting her suitcase down amongst the debris.

He looked aghast. ‘Good Lord, no – of course you’re not. I wasn’t suggesting for one moment that you were. But you could find one for me. I can’t do any of that kind of thing. I’m completely useless. I get myself into the most terrible muddles, get taken in and hire people who use my credit cards to buy sports cars and then steal my shoes. It’s dreadful.’

Cass looked at him. ‘Barney, you don’t need me, what you really need is a wife.’

He shook his head. ‘No, no, I don’t,’ he said emphatically. ‘No, I’ve had several of those and, trust me, while it sounds all very well and good in principle, it always ends in tears. Besides, my mother invariably hates them.’

‘Your mother?’

Barney nodded. ‘Extraordinary woman. She’s upstairs now, so I don’t have to worry about her quite so much, knowing where she is.’ As he spoke, he looked heavenwards. ‘It’s been a weight off my mind.’

Cass hesitated, wondering if ‘upstairs’ was a euphemism for dead as a stuffed skunk, but apparently not.

‘She used to be such a worry when she lived up in town. She pretends she is as deaf as a post, drinks like a sailor, is built like a wren, and has the constitution of a Chieftain tank. She terrifies me. I keep thinking the only way I’m ever going to get rid of the old bat is to shoot her.’

At which point Cass’s mobile rang.

‘I hate those things,’ grumbled Barney.

‘Is there anything you do like?’ Cass said in a voice barely above a whisper while pulling the phone out of her bag.

Barney considered for a second or two, apparently taking the question seriously. ‘Quite a few things, actually. Strip clubs, blue paint, those nice little cups they serve espresso in. Seasonal vegetables. Oh – that woman on breakfast TV with the fabulous…’ He mimed those parts that he was particularly fond of.

Cass decided to ignore him and looked at the phone to see who was calling.

‘Hi, Jake, how are you?’ she said, pressing the phone to her ear. He didn’t answer at once, which was ominous. ‘Is everything all right?’

‘Well, it depends really,’ he said.

Something about his tone made Cass’s heart sink, although surely it couldn’t be anything too awful; she had taken Danny to her mum and dad’s to stay overnight. If anything had happened to him, then they would have rung her, wouldn’t they? What about the dog? The cat? In the split seconds before Jake began speaking, Cass’s mind was running down a mental checklist that included fire, flood, pestilence and sudden pet death.

‘The police have been round.’

‘What?’ The police featured nowhere on Cass’s checklist. Although hot on the heels of that thought it occurred to her maybe something had happened to David, something nasty and well deserved…

‘You know that phone you found on the train?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, apparently the man it belonged to has disappeared.’

Cass laughed. ‘Of course he’s disappeared – he was going to Rome.’

‘Unfortunately that isn’t what his wife said. Apparently he was meant to be going to some sort of shareholders’ meeting in London, and then going home. He hadn’t got his passport with him, and no one has seen or heard from him since.’

‘You can’t be serious. That was last week – what, four or five days ago?’

‘His wife has reported him as missing.’

‘The one who rung me? God, if I was married to her I think I’d go missing. She was a complete cow. He told me he was going to Rome.’

‘Whatever, they would like to talk to you. I’ve told them you’ll be back tomorrow.’

‘OK, I’ll sort it out when I get there. There’s not much I can tell them. How’s Milo?’

‘Fine – farting and scratching, and sound asleep on my sofa at the moment.’ Jake laughed. ‘He knows we’re talking about him; his tail has started to wag.’

‘And Bob?’

‘Sunning himself on the window sill in your kitchen about half an hour ago when I went round with a can of Felix. How’s Barney?’

Cass laughed. ‘Farting and scratching and –’

‘I’d worry if his tail starts to wag. He’s a good man. Bear with it.’

‘He’s barking mad.’

Jake was quiet for a few seconds as if considering the possibility. ‘Yes, but in a good way. Have you seen his shop yet?’

‘No, we’re going there next. We’re at the flat at the moment.’

Jake laughed. ‘Wait, it gets better. You’ll love it.’

‘I’m sorry. No comment,’ said Margaret Devlin weakly, raising a hand to fend off any questions, while pressing a large white lace-trimmed handkerchief to her exquisitely made-up face with the other. She sniffed, struggling to hold back a great flood of tears. ‘I’ll be issuing a statement through my solicitor later today, but in the meantime I would just like to say that this has been the most terrible time for our whole family. James’s death is a tragedy. I’d like to thank everyone for their tremendous support and help over the last few days. James was so very special, so very precious to us and everyone who knew him. I always saw him as a bright flame in an otherwise dark and uncaring world. Thank you.’

Margaret’s voice broke as she tried out a brave little smile on her reflection in the sitting-room mirror. Not bad at all. Although, if she was going to wear black, she would need a lot more lipstick and maybe some bigger earrings.

She leaned forward and adjusted the brim of her hat so that it framed her face a bit more and emphasised her eyes. Black was so chic, so flattering. She turned to gauge the effect. Perhaps she ought to buy a couple of new suits; after all, she wouldn’t want people thinking that she had let herself go now that she was a widow – and she would be able to afford it, once the insurance paid out. If James Devlin was dead, then Margaret would be a very wealthy woman indeed. Both of their houses paid for, the large endowment policy that had blighted their lives for so long would cough up, and she would finally be able to get her hands on all his assets: the boat, the villa in Spain, the flat in Paris, the plane, the stocks and shares, the Monopoly hand of properties he had bought to let. At last it would all be hers and she would be free of him – the tight, philandering, double-dealing, double-crossing, arrogant bastard.

James Devlin, dashing entrepreneur and man about town, always appeared so warm and affable to everyone else, but Margaret knew the truth; she knew how selfish and cruel and self-centred he could be. But if he was dead, that was a different matter altogether. She would get his pension, his savings, his classic car collection, and lots and lots and lots of sympathy. Death somehow wiped the slate clean and tidied away so many of life’s little misdemeanours.

And Margaret would have no problem at all mourning James once he was gone. Oh no, she would smile bravely and, in stronger moments, joke about what a card he had been. What a lad, what a character, but Margaret of course had always loved him, and James had always come home to her despite the other women and the gambling and the drinking and the string of questionable business deals.

She tipped her head to one side, trying to look philosophical and understanding. James Devlin was a man’s man in a world where such men were rarities. Margaret took another long hard look at her reflection framed in the mirror and made a mental note to practise looking up coyly under her eyelashes.