A Prospect of Vengeance (15 page)

Mrs Simmonds’ name was not the one to drop, decided Ian. And, in any case, he had a much better name to open Gary up. ‘You had a friend there—‘ As he spoke, Mrs Simmonds’ parting words echoed in his head: “
She let them chat her up
—
even a dreadful ugly little beast like Gary. At the time, I thought it was disgusting. But perhaps I was wrong: perhaps she was just being kind to him!
’
;
but now he observed Gary in the pitted flesh neither conclusion quite fitted ‘—a Miss Francis—Miss Marilyn Francis, Mr Redwood—?’

A succession of different emotions twisted across the moonscape face, ending with a scowling grimace. ‘Who told you? Not that fucking old bitch Simmonds?’ Gary spoke with surprising clarity as well as bitterness. ‘You don’t want to believe anything she says—right?’

It would be a mistake to underrate Gary, in spite of appearances. ‘She only said you were a friend of Miss Francis, Mr Redwood.’

Gary shook his head, as at some crassly stupid statement. ‘About Miss Francis—
Marilyn
…
she’s who I mean. You don’t want to believe anything the old bag said about
her
—
right?
’
The corner of his mouth twisted upwards. ‘It don’t matter what she said about me. Who gives a fuck for that, eh?’

There had been a sum of unaccounted petty cash outstanding between Mrs Beryl Simmonds and Mr Gary Redwood, back in 1979. But who gave a fuck for that? What mattered was that, once again, Marilyn Francis had been memorable. ‘But … Miss Francis
was
a friend of yours, surely?’

‘Yeah—‘ Gary stopped suddenly. ‘No. I just talked to her—that’s all.’ He looked past Ian, down the length of the timber-loft. ‘She was a smasher—a right little smasher! Bloody IRA—
bloody bastard sods!
’
He came back to Ian. ‘I was only a lad then. First job out of school, like … But she was a smasher, she was—Miss Francis.’ He pronounced the smasher’s name almost primly. ‘Why d’you want to know about her?’

Ian was ready for the question. ‘Not for anything wrong, Mr Redwood. I’m just a solicitor’s clerk, and we’ve got this will to check up on—next-of-kin, and all that. And probate, and death duties, and all the rest of it—‘ He shrugged fellow-feeling at Gary, as one loser to another ‘—I just do the donkey-work for my boss … ’ For a guess, Gary wouldn’t know probate from a hole in the road. But it might be as well to divert him, just in case. ‘She seems to have been a decent sort—Miss Francis?’

‘She was.’ He looked past Ian again, but only for a second. ‘Yes.’

‘And pretty, too.’ Ian followed Gary’s eyes, and his own came to rest on a copy of the
Sun
which lay folded on top of a bomber-jacket beside the wood pile. ‘Like Page Three—?’ He pointed at the newspaper.

‘What?’ Gary squinted at him. ‘Like—? No, not like that … That’ll be that old bitch going on—like she always did. She just dressed smart—Marilyn—Miss Francis did. But she was a lady. More of a lady than old Mrs Simmonds. And not stuck-up, like some of ‘em … She’d
talk
to you—really talk to you—not treat you like dirt, see?’

Ian wasn’t quite sure that he did see. It wasn’t just that Mrs Simmonds’ and Gary’s views diverged on Marilyn Francis, that was predictable. There was something here that was missing. But he nodded encouragingly nevertheless.

‘An’ she was
clever
.’ Gary nodded back. ‘She
knew
things.’

‘What things?’

‘Oh … I used to talk to her about the Old West,’ Gary trailed off.

‘The old—what?’

‘West.’ Gary’s eyes lit up at the memory. ‘Cowboys and Indians … and the US cavalry—General Custer … It’s my hobby, like—I read the books on it … And she knew about it—knew who Major Reno was, for instance—I didn’t have to explain about him getting the blame for Custer getting hisself killed—
she knew
. We had a good talk about that once, while she was helping me with the deliveries all round the office. Which she didn’t have to do, either … All about whether the Sioux had used more bows and arrows than Winchesters an’ Remingtons—she didn’t think they had many guns.’ He nodded vehemently. ‘An’, you know, she was probably right—there’s a new book I got out of the library just last week that says that … She was
clever
, I tell you.’

So it hadn’t been just the see-through blouse with Gary after all—or the peroxide hair and the red nails. It had been General Custer and the Sioux (and Major Reno, whoever the hell he had been!). But—

‘An’ she knew about guns.’ Another decisive nod, which brought a cow-lick of hair across the bright-eyes. ‘Knew more than any girl I ever met—repeating rifles, an’ double-action revolvers … An’ we talked once about the SLRs what the army had. ‘Fact, she said I ought to join the army—said I’d make a good soldier, knowing about guns like I did—‘ Gary’s gargoyle features twisted suddenly.

Clever little Marilyn
, Ian had been thinking. Mrs Simmonds had said it, and Gary had said it—on that they were agreed. And he was himself thinking it:
clever, clever Miss Francis
!

But Gary was staring up at him. ‘You didn’t join up, though—?’

Gary straightened up. ‘Got flat feet—haven’t I!’ He scowled horribly. ‘Went down to the Recruiting Office—went down the day it was in the paper … Flat
bloody
feet, is what I’ve got.
Bloody
stupid!’

Ian became aware that he was returning the scowl. ‘What … paper?’

‘That one.’ Gary gestured toward the
Sun
. ‘In all of ‘em—about the IRA shooting her. Christ! I’d ‘uv given ‘em
shooting
if I’d ‘uv got into uniform, and got to Ireland, I tell you—killing her like that, the bastards!’

Lucky Ulster
! Ian’s thoughts came away from
clever Miss Francis
momentarily. But now Gary would give him everything.

‘She talked about Ireland once—funny, that.’ Gary’s eyes were still bright with Marilyn Francis’ memories. ‘It was when we were talking about the army—about my joining up, maybe … She said it was a better job than running messages, an’ delivering the post an’ that, in Brit-Am. “No future for you here, Gary,” she says. “But you could be doing a good job in Ulster, keeping the peace, an’ protecting people. And they’ll teach you a trade too, most like—an’ you can practise your shooting for free!”’ One broad shoulder lifted in resignation. ‘She didn’t know about my flat feet … But, then, she’d have been sorry—she was … all
right
, I tell you—‘ He stopped suddenly again. But by this time he had remembered Ian, not Miss Francis. ‘What you on about, then—asking questions—?’

Mills and Boon came to the rescue again, like the US cavalry in Gary’s old West, trumpets blaring romantically: Gary, feeling as he did about Marilyn Francis, would not be able to resist Mills and Boon either.

‘Well, Mr Redwood, it’s like this—‘ He looked around the empty timber-loft, and then advanced cautiously across the unstable planks so that he was able to lower his voice confidentially. ‘—Miss Francis had a child—a little boy … And I’m trying to trace him, so that we can give him some money, which is due to him—his inheritance, from his uncle.’

‘What?’ Gary frowned. ‘I didn’t know about—?’

Ian raised his hand. ‘It was very secret—you mustn’t tell anyone, Mr Redwood.’ Actually, on reflection it was as much Charles Dickens as Mills and Boon. But Dickens would do just as well. ‘There are those who would like me not to find Miss Francis’s little boy, Mr Redwood. Because then they’d get the money, you see—eh?’ He gave Gary a sly look.

‘Yes—?’ Gary checked the timber-loft himself, but more carefully, before coming back to Ian. ‘What d’you want to know?’ Then he frowned. ‘It was a long time ago … But—?’

‘Did she have a boyfriend?’ The trouble was, Gary was dead right: it was a long time ago, 1978. And it might all be a waste of time, anyway. But … somehow Marilyn Francis was alive again now, in her own right; and he wanted to know more about her, quite regardless of David Audley and Philip Masson and Jenny and Reg Buller and John Tully. ‘Was there anyone who visited her—
anyone
you can remember—?’

‘No …
yes
—
‘ Gary’s brow furrowed with concentrated effort. ‘—there was a bloke I saw her with once, one night, just down the road from Brit-Am … I was just going past, an’ she didn’t see me … I thought he was chatting her up, at first.’

‘But he wasn’t—?’

‘No. Because she gave him something—an envelope, or a package, or something.’ The frown deepened. ‘Good-looking bloke, in a Triumph … But she didn’t like him—I could see
that
—
‘ He pre-empted the next question ‘—because she gave him the brush-off, as well as the packet, whatever it was, an’ walked straight on without turning round, an’ just left him there—see?’ He brightened at the memory. ‘So he wasn’t any boyfriend of hers, anyway.’

‘No?’ She must have been hard-pressed to have taken such a risk, so close to Brit-Am. ‘But … didn’t she have any friends, Gary?’

‘Naow, she was just a temp. So she didn’t know no-one, see?’ Gary shrugged. ‘Each night … she just went back to ‘er digs.’

Ian controlled himself. ‘Her … digs?’

‘Yeah,’ Gary dismissed the question. “Er digs. Old Mrs Smith.’

Old Mrs Smith
! Ian warmed himself on the recollection of Gary’s ‘old Mrs Smith’ as he came to the end of the low wall which separated the churchyard from Lower Buck-land Village Green.

He stopped in the shadow of the huge old yew tree at the corner and studied the scene. It was purely a precaution, and an unnecessary one at that: if there
had
been any car behind him earlier he had certainly lost it at one of the three consecutive stretches of road works on the edge of Rickmansworth. And it still took an effort of will—almost a suspension of rational belief—to accept Reg Buller’s warning. So now, when he was aware that he was basking in self-satisfied success, was the moment to guard against carelessness and over-confidence, and make doubly sure before he searched for a telephone—

‘Mrs S—‘ In that instant, as he registered the tall, painted, blue-rinsed presence in the doorway, and married it with the legend on the painted sign (THE ELSTREE GUEST HOUSE—
Proprietress: Mrs Basil Champeney-Smythe)
, Ian amended the question ‘—Mrs Champeney-Smythe?’

‘Yahss.’ The blue-rinsed presence looked down on him from the great height made up of two steps and her own extra inches. ‘I am Mrs
Basil
Champeney-Smythe—yahss.’

‘Robinson, Mrs Champeney-Smythe—‘ He had somehow expected an unobtrusive lodging-house in a back-street, not this genteel four-storey Edwardian yellow-brick survival, with its ancient genteel landlady (Dame Edith Evans playing Lady Bracknell, to the life). But now plain Mr Robinson wasn’t good enough, anyway ‘—Ian Drury Robinson, of Fielding-ffulke, Robinson, Mrs Champeney-Smythe—Fielding-ffulke, Robinson, of Chancery Lane—?’ He repeated the contents of his card as he offered it to her as though he expected everyone to recall it from the legal columns of
The Times
.

Mrs Basil Champeney-Smythe (alias ‘Old Mrs Smith’) accepted the card with one skeletal hand while raising a monocle on a gold chain to her eye with her other claw.

And …
this wasn
’
t going to be so easy
, thought Ian, considering his various scenarios: how the hell did Marilyn Francis, either as a blonde man-eater or an expert on General Custer’s Last Stand, fit in with
The Importance of Being Earnest?

‘Yahss?’ She returned the card, wrinkling her nose at the pronounced smell of curry which emanated from the Indian restaurant-cum-takeaway just across the road behind them.

Ian decided to acknowledge the smell by wrinkling his nose back at her. ‘If you could spare a few minutes of your time, Mrs Champeney-Smythe—on a matter which really only involves you indirectly—‘ This was important, he remembered: ordinary folk always felt threatened by strange solicitors on their doorstep ‘—in fact, in a legal sense, doesn’t involve you at all … But you could be of great help to one of my clients. So … perhaps I might step inside, for a moment—?’ He sniffed again, and glanced deliberately over his shoulder at the source of the nuisance, which must be wafting in through her open front-door even now.

She considered him through her spy-glass for a moment, and he was glad that he had selected his best charcoal-grey pin-striped Fielding-ffulke, Robinson suit and Bristol University tie. Then she drew back, leaving an opening for him into the darkness beyond. ‘Yahss … ’

That was the first hurdle. Long before, in the old days, he could well remember trying to get past the porter of a minor Oxford college to interview the Master about an alleged sex-and-drugs scandal for the
Daily Mail
, only to be rebuffed by the loyal college porter with ‘
You just fuck off! We know your sort
!’ (And, actually, he had been wearing a decent suit and his Bristol tie on that occasion, also.)

The darkness dissolved slowly, and the curry-smell was repelled by a mixture of furniture-linoleum polish, Mrs Champeney-Smythe’s face powder and the steak-and-kidney-pie-and-cabbage, which had presumably been the Elstree Guest House residents’ lunch not so long ago.

‘If you would be so good as to ascend the stairs,’ Mrs Champeney-Smythe indicated his route, but then pushed ahead of him after closing out the Indian invasion.

Ian followed her dutifully, up the stair and across the landing, into what was obviously the best room in the house; which, in commercial terms, meant that she wasn’t down on her uppers for money, if she could keep it as her own sitting room.

And the tall windows let in the light, so that he could instantly make out all Mrs Champeney-Smythe’s lifetime accretion of memorabilia and bric-a-brac, which was consciously arranged around him on occasional tables, and sideboards, and bookcases, and windowsills: silver-framed pictures, and little boxes, and brasses, and paperweights, and innumerable meaningless objects which meant so much to her.