Born Guilty

‘It happens,’ he said. ‘And even if it is connected, well, if there’s nothing to find out, then this guy will just give up and go back and say so.’

‘If?’

Building society mode or exotic alien, the look she was fixing him with was cold enough to kill.

You stupid git! Joe accused himself. Putting up the possibility that all her certainties are calculated to hide.

He played dumb. It wasn’t difficult.

‘Yeah, you know, there’s no mileage in these guys making something up. He probably found out day one there was nothing to find and he’s been spinning it out a bit for expenses. He could be back in Whitehall now wondering who to bother next.’

She shook her head.

‘I don’t think so, Mr Sixsmith,’ she said. ‘I think he’s still around and he’ll keep on digging and digging till something shows up. I’ve read about these people. They don’t ever give up.’

Joe looked at her with a heart-squeezing pity he didn’t dare show. It was herself she was talking about as much as the nosey stranger. Apart from lying in permanent ambush, Joe didn’t have a clue how he might get a line on him or what he could do if he did. But that didn’t matter. The real focal point of all this trouble was old Taras and the way he was reacting. That was where the doubt whose existence was too terrible to admit had started.

He said, ‘It might help if I could get into the club, socially, I mean. Chat to Mrs Vansovich without making her curious.’

‘That friend who brought you there last time …’

‘A client, rewarding me with a drink,’ said Joe. ‘If I ask him to invite me back, that would really make him suspicious.’

She frowned, then her face cleared.

‘There’s a family night day after tomorrow. Mum’s told Grandda he may not feel like going out, but he’s jolly well going to that! People often bring friends. I can invite you.’

‘As a friend?’ said Joe, thinking how most parents he knew would react to their little girl bringing home a ‘friend’ who was black, balding, and twice her age.

‘Why not? You are, aren’t you? Besides, people do turns. You’re a singer. Everyone down the Glit thinks you’re great. There you are. A performer, an important customer from the society, and a friend! Dead natural I should invite you, isn’t it?’

She spoke with utter conviction. Oh the youth of the heart, thought Joe. All that innocence which loving parents think is at risk when their daughters go out into the world and start painting their faces and flashing their flesh. But guilt, like charity, begins at home. It’s in the genes. It’s an hereditary disease.

‘Yeah, dead natural,’ smiled Joe.

6 (#ulink_b7bce0cd-a0bf-5bf4-9f5a-1ce6f5dcff73)

Aunt Mirabelle’s favourite reading in the Good Book was the Lamentations of the prophet Jeremiah, and she had his style off to a ‘t’. On their way to St Monkey’s that night, Joe could not but admire the way in which his lousy job, his squalid lifestyle, and his terrible driving, were woven into a seamless whole.

The flow didn’t halt till the car did in St Monkey’s Square.

‘What you doing?’ demanded Mirabelle.

‘I’m going to drop you here then go find somewhere to park,’ he explained.

‘What’s wrong with that parking place back of the church?’

‘The Cloisters? I think that’s reserved for special permits.’

‘And I’m not special? You drive round there, Joseph. Good Baptist’s more special than a good Anglican any day!’

There was one space left. As Joe backed in, the Visigothic verger appeared, wearing an expression that fell a furlong or so short of Christian welcome. But when Mirabelle eased her bulk out of the car and greeted him with a hearty ‘Good evening, brother!’ he remembered urgent business elsewhere.

Pity he hadn’t been so conscientious the previous night, thought Joe. If the boy in the box had been found a couple of hours earlier, there might have been time to save him.

No sign of Mrs Calverley’s Range Rover tonight. Maybe her peep over the edge had dulled her appetite for eavesdropping on The Creation. He guessed she might have a reputation for toughness, but last night’s experience had visibly upset her.

The rehearsal went fairly well. As he sang, Joe studied the clarinettists and tried to guess which of the two young women was Mavis Dalgety’s ex-friend, Sally Eaglesfield. He settled for the smaller, darker girl who studied her music with unblinking intensity as though fearful it might blow away. He didn’t know what instrument Willie Woodbine’s wife played and as the Sinfonia was an equal opportunities orchestra with women puffing and banging and scraping everywhere, there wasn’t much hope of picking her out. Maybe the girl he thought was Sally would identify her by making a beeline for her after the rehearsal was over.

He was distracted from this bit of great detectivery by Mirabelle, who materialized at his side while the last Amen was still trembling on the air. He guessed the little side door was probably nailed up too.

‘Now look who’s there,’ she exclaimed in a tone of surprise that rang as false as a cracked bell. ‘Beryl. We were just talking about you.’

‘Hi, Mirabelle. Hi, Joe. Sorry, can’t stop to talk. I’m on my way to work.’

She was a nurse at the Royal Infirmary and, cap apart, was already kitted out in her uniform.

Mirabelle said, ‘Joseph was just saying he’d run you there, weren’t you, Joseph? All them attacks, you don’t want to be walking round there by yourself.’

There’d been a couple of recent incidents with a flasher in the hospital grounds and the police were advising extra caution till the intruder was caught.

‘Well, that’s very kind of you, Joe …’

‘No trouble at all,’ assured Mirabelle. ‘Now excuse me, I want a word with Rev. Pot.’

She moved off and Joe found Beryl regarding him quizzically. He returned the look with pleasure. She was … he sought for the right word and all he could come up with was sturdy. This was why he had to invent answers for crossword puzzles and make up his own clues to fit them. On the other hand, what was wrong with sturdy when it expressed not just a physical but a spiritual characteristic? Strong, self-reliant, dependable, trustworthy …

‘What are you staring at, Joe?’ she asked.

‘You. You look great,’ he said. Smooth talker he might not be, but he knew better than to offer sturdy as a compliment. Not that sturdiness meant lack of shape. And those wide brown eyes and full red lips …

The full red lips opened to show strong white teeth in a moist pink mouth as she yawned.

‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘Nothing to do with you.’

He looked even more closely at her and saw that as well as sturdy and great she looked tired.

‘You getting any sleep?’ he asked.

‘Surely. Between getting home in the morning, doing the chores, and picking Desmond up from school at three, I usually manage to snatch a couple of minutes,’ she laughed. ‘Are you serious about this lift?’

He led her out to the Cloisters.

‘Going up in the world, aren’t we?’ she mocked. ‘I thought only the nobs got to park here?’

‘I’m Tin Can’s token PI,’ said Joe.

She laughed. He liked making her laugh.