Mixing With Murder Read online

  My listeners consisted of Ganesh, his sister Usha, her husband Jay and - ostensibly busy in the background with a stack of invoices - Uncle Hari. We were all gathered in Hari’s flat over the shop and, for the most part, sitting in near darkness. Hari had an old-fashioned green-shaded reading light on the desk where he was working. It cast a white glare on the paperwork and virtually no light anywhere else. The rest of us had to make do with sulphur-yellow street lighting seeping through the chink in the window curtains and the glow from the flickering television.

  Originally we were bathed in the dim radiance of the dusty chandelier in the middle of the ceiling directly above our heads. It held three forty-watt candle bulbs in glass bowls filled with dead flies. But we had been denied even this when Hari had pointed out that if we were watching television we didn’t need it, and had we any idea of the size of his electricity bill? So we switched off the light and sat in the gloom, even though none of us was taking much notice of the television, thus effectively getting the worst of both worlds. The telly offering was a long drawn-out whodunnit in which the detective appeared to have so many personal problems to deal with I wasn’t surprised it was taking him so long to work out who did the murder.

  Jay and Usha did not appear to mind either sitting in the near-dark or the rubbish on the television as they were far more interested in my adventures. Usha was particularly keen to hear the details of the Allertons’ marital difficulties. Ganesh, having heard my story before, sat mutinously introspective with his arms folded, glowering at the turgid police drama as the detective struggled through yet another row with his wife or female colleague or some woman or other. On telly or in real life, you couldn’t escape the battle of the sexes. But I had a feeling that, in his mind, Ganesh had substituted Uncle Hari for the victim in the screen story.

  ‘Living the sort of life he’s led,’ opined Jay in reply to my observation, ‘I’m not surprised Allerton looks older than he is.’

  I’ve always got on well with Usha. I like Jay too although he can be a bit pompous. He was squeezed next to his wife on the old sofa and I wondered, when the time came for them to leave, how they were going to extricate themselves. Usha’s baby appeared to be due at any moment; she was enormous. Jay had also put on some weight, perhaps in sympathy, and was quite a bit podgier than when I’d last met him. He looked every inch the successful accountant. Even in the dim light, I could see Ganesh kept giving him funny looks, partly wistful, partly envious and partly cross.

  ‘It is a great mistake to do business with such people!’ declared Hari, tapping madly into a pocket calculator. Hari has excellent hearing. It’s always a mistake to think he’s not listening.

  ‘I didn’t do business with him by choice,’ I reminded him. ‘He’s - or he was - holding Bonnie.’

  ‘He doesn’t have your dog now,’ said Jay tactlessly. ‘You are no longer under any obligation to him.’

  Usha dug her husband in the ribs. ‘We’re really sorry about your dog being lost, Fran. I expect she will turn up.’

  ‘Everyone’s looking,’ I said. ‘I hope she’ll find her way home but I want to be there when she does. I’ll have to go to Oxford first thing tomorrow morning to give Lisa the passport. Then I’ll consider I’ve done my bit and I’ll come back to London and concentrate on finding my dog.’

  ‘I’m coming with you to Oxford,’ said Ganesh in a loud firm voice.

  No one looked at him. We all looked at Uncle Hari, who dropped his pocket calculator and rose to his feet.

  ‘No argument, Uncle,’ said Ganesh. ‘I’ve not had any time off for ages.’

  ‘Tomorrow it will be very difficult!’ protested Hari. ‘Who will go to see the suppliers?’

  ‘It’s an emergency!’ insisted Ganesh.

  Hari gestured wildly, sat down and picked up his calculator. I fancied he hadn’t given way but was just waiting until he got Ganesh on his own to argue it out.

  ‘I think it’s a good idea for Ganesh to go with Fran,’ said Usha loyally. Ganesh was her little brother and she still stood up for him in any scrap. ‘She shouldn’t be on her own. There’s a killer loose out there in Oxford.’

  ‘A killer?’ yelled Hari, leaping to his feet and sending the pocket calculator flying. ‘No one should go to Oxford, no one! Not you, Francesca, and not Ganesh. Most certainly not Ganesh. It would be most irresponsible.’

  ‘There might not be a killer, Mr Patel,’ I said as soothingly as I could. ‘Perhaps Ivo just tripped and fell in the river.’

  ‘One should not leap to conclusions,’ declared Jay. ‘I dare say this was an accident, you know. Just as Fran said, the fellow was jogging by the river, slipped and fell in. Possibly he could not swim. Not everyone can swim,’ he added a touch self-consciously.

  There was an awkward silence. Hari sat down again, muttering to himself. To get away from the subject of the proposed journey, I returned to the subject of Mickey Allerton.

  ‘I wouldn’t like to be in Mickey’s shoes when his wife catches up with him. She’s really on the warpath. She’s determined to get her fair share of Mickey’s assets and funds by hook or by crook.’

  This was financial talk and Jay came into his own. ‘Disentangling their finances will be very difficult.’ He shook his head. ‘Probably they have made no clear arrangement for such an eventuality. If he has property overseas it will be difficult for her to get a share of it. Also if, as she suggested to you, Fran, Allerton has been sending money out of the country . . .’ Jay shook his head disapprovingly. ‘It suggests he may not have been putting in accurate tax returns. Who are his accountants?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘Perhaps he does his own accounts?’

  Jay looked deeply shocked. ‘No wonder,’ he said loftily, ‘his affairs are in such a muddle.’

  ‘What does she look like, Mrs Allerton?’ asked Usha, more interested in the human element.

  ‘Pretty good. I think she must diet all the time.’

  Jay passed a hand over his spreading midriff, perhaps without realising he did it. ‘Why do you say this?’

  ‘She’s got that pared-down, greyhound look. Usha knows what I mean.’

  Usha nodded. ‘Not a spare ounce of fat anywhere. When I’ve had the baby, I’ll have to get back into shape.’

  ‘Shape, shape!’ (This from Hari.) ‘All this nonsense about weight! People nowadays don’t work hard enough, that is why they suffer from obesity. I saw a programme about it on the television not so long ago. Everyone is getting fatter and fatter. They eat too much and sit all the time in front of the television set, just as you are doing now. That’s what the programme said. It’s not eating; it’s inactivity, that’s the problem. Nobody who works hard for his living gets fat!’

  ‘No,’ said Ganesh, ‘he worries himself into a decline instead, and ruins his eyesight as well by working in insufficient light.’

  ‘I’d better be getting home,’ I said. All this was getting to be strictly family stuff. ‘Nice to see you, Usha and Jay. Good luck with the baby.’

  ‘I’ll see you out,’ Ganesh offered quickly, getting to his feet.

  ‘Listen,’ he said to me urgently when we were downstairs at the street door. ‘I’m coming with you tomorrow, no matter what my uncle says. I’ll be at your place early. Wait for me. Don’t worry about Hari.’

  ‘I don’t want to be the cause of a family row,’ I told him.

  ‘There won’t be a row,’ Ganesh assured me. ‘It’s just how he is with any new idea. He always says “no”. The only time I’ve known him agree to something without days of argument was when he agreed to put that stupid rocket ride outside the shop and look what a rotten thing that’s turned out to be.’

  ‘Don’t remind him of that,’ I said. ‘Or he’ll use it as an example of making up your mind in a hurry and living to rue it. By the way, is anyone going to fix that rocket? Has it ever worked?’

  ‘It worked when it came but only for twenty-four hours. It’s been fixed since but it’s gon
e wrong again.’ Ganesh gazed down the street where it was now dark and lamplight gleamed against shop windows, making them shine like silver mirrors.

  ‘What’s the matter with it?’ I asked.

  He shrugged. ‘Who knows?’

  ‘Are you sure, Ganesh? You haven’t—’

  ‘I’d better get back upstairs. See you in the morning, Fran.’ He shut the door rather unceremoniously on me.

  I walked home, imagining the scene upstairs in the flat now I was off the premises. Not a row, perhaps, but certainly a very lively discussion. Ganesh would get his own way, I guessed, because I knew when Ganesh had his mind made up. So did Hari probably, but he’d still put up a fight and sulk about it for days. I’m sometimes sad when I consider I don’t have any family to turn to. But then, on the other hand, I’m free to make up my own mind. Reasonably free, at least, provided no one like Mickey Allerton takes a hand in things.

  There wasn’t much traffic about but when I reached the house where I had my flat, I saw an elderly car parked outside it. Someone had a visitor. We are not, as tenants, car-owners. Most of us are too broke and in London, anyway, who needs personal transport? I walked past it without taking much notice but then I heard the car door open and a female voice called out:

  ‘Are you Fran Varady?’

  I turned. I could only see a dark bulky shape by the car. Nothing about it, certainly not the voice, was familiar. If the voice had been male I’d have worried but a female voice appeared less threatening. All the same, I wasn’t expecting a visit from a stranger.

  ‘Could be,’ I said warily.

  ‘It’s all right, love,’ said the woman. ‘Don’t be scared. I’m Cheryl. I’m the wife of Harry who works as doorman for Mr Allerton over at the Silver Circle. I was looking after your dog.’ She shut the car door and came closer. I could see her face now in the lamplight, puckered in worry. ‘Has she turned up, dear? I’m that worried about her I don’t know what to do. I’m really sorry . . .’ She peered at me, trying to distinguish my reaction.

  I had been feeling angry about the careless, as I’d seen it, loss of my dog by this woman. Now that I saw her and her evident genuine distress, my anger melted.

  ‘She hasn’t turned up yet. Do you want to come in?’

  She turned back to lock up her car and followed me indoors. In my flat, I switched on the light, invited her to take a seat and went to put on the kettle.

  When I came back she was sitting in an armchair but hadn’t taken off her coat. I could now see she was middle-aged and plump with short dark hair cut in a mannish fashion and no make-up. She wore tight dark leggings stretched over her plump thighs and calves, trainers and a zipped-up bomber jacket, also black in colour, so that altogether just looking at her one might have doubted what sex she was until she spoke.

  ‘I’ve been everywhere,’ she said. ‘I’ve been all over the park. I’ve asked everyone.’

  ‘Bonnie’s pretty streetwise,’ I said. ‘My best hope is that she’ll make her way back here. I don’t think she’ll get run over by a bus or anything. She knows about crossing roads.’

  In the background the kettle clicked off. I went to make us a cup of coffee each and brought it back. I handed Cheryl hers.

  She took it and cupped her hands round the mug. Her fingers were broad and spatulate with stubby ends and close-clipped nails. Her wide gold wedding band cut deeply into the third finger of her left hand and I guessed she couldn’t have removed it if she wanted to. One day she’d have to have the ring cut off.

  ‘She got on so well with my dogs. I really thought she’d be OK without the lead. But she just took off like an arrow. No way could I catch her.’ She gazed at me sadly, looking herself a little like a dog that’s been caught out being naughty.

  ‘Have you been waiting long out there?’ I asked. ‘You were lucky I came back. I’ve been in Oxford.’

  She looked a bit shifty. ‘I knew you were back in London.’

  I was surprised and a little alarmed. ‘How?’

  ‘You won’t tell anyone this?’

  I shook my head, wondering what was coming.

  ‘Well.’ Cheryl leaned forward confidentially. ‘Mrs Allerton rang the club to see if Mr Allerton was there. My husband took the call. Mrs Allerton said she’d seen you over at the flat. She was in ever such a state, so my husband says. Really upset. Anyway, I thought it was likely you’d come back home here tonight and not go back to Oxford until tomorrow, so I drove over and I’ve been waiting. Not long, not more than forty minutes.’

  ‘That seems like a long time to me. I’m sorry.’ I couldn’t think what else to say. ‘Cheryl, did you know Ivo, the other doorman at the club?’

  Cheryl pulled a face. ‘Oh, him. I met him. I always thought he was bonkers. So did my husband. He was a good-looking bloke, I suppose, but he’d got a funny way of looking at you. I heard he had an accident up there in Oxford.’

  Cheryl spoke of Oxford as any true Londoner speaks of the no-man’s-land north of Watford.

  She frowned. ‘I can’t really say anything nice about him, even though he’s dead. I don’t wish anyone dead, mind you. Don’t get me wrong. God rest his soul and all the rest of it,’ she added piously and I wondered briefly if, like me, nuns had dominated her infancy. ‘But he wasn’t someone you’d turn your back on,’ she went on. ‘There was that way about him, like you never knew what he thought or what he might do. To tell you the truth he plain gave me the creeps. My husband said the boss was all set to give him the push. He’d probably have had to go anyway once the new regulations come in.’

  ‘New regulations?’ I sipped my coffee and tried for nonchalant.

  ‘Regarding door personnel,’ Cheryl said. ‘It’s not a job anyone can do, you know. Of course, a lot of blokes think they can, just because they’re big. But you’ve got to have finesse.’ Cheryl nodded as she produced this word, which she pronounced ‘fine-ess’. ‘And good judgement. Be a bit clever. I mean there are people you don’t let in, right? That’s pretty straightforward. Then there are people you don’t want to let in but you don’t want to upset, right again?’

  I nodded.

  ‘Then even when you don’t let them in, or if you’re escorting them out, there’s a limit to what you can do. Too much rough stuff and the doorman’s in the wrong. You’ve got to get it just right and that Ivo, well, you couldn’t rely on him not to overdo it. There were a couple of incidents that didn’t leave the boss any too pleased. With these new regulations, in the future doormen are going to have to go on a course to learn how to do it properly and be licensed. It’ll cost money for the course and the licence. Mr Allerton says he’ll pay any cost for my husband because he wants to keep him. But Ivo, he was a different kettle of fish. I don’t reckon he’d have got by on any course, anyway. His English wasn’t very good and, like I said, he was too quick to get nasty. He was weird in other ways, too. He was funny about animals.’ Cheryl shook her head. ‘I don’t ever trust anyone who doesn’t like animals.’

  ‘So you’re not sorry Ivo is dead,’ I said. ‘How did you hear, Cheryl?’

  ‘Mr Allerton took the call in his office and my husband was there. The boss was pretty angry. He doesn’t want the police coming round the club asking questions and—’

  Here Cheryl grew suddenly cautious and broke off. ‘Who would?’ she added obscurely and busied herself drinking coffee.

  ‘You were going to say that Allerton doesn’t want the police asking Lisa Stallard questions,’ I supplied. ‘I do now know what was going on, Cheryl. I’ve been to Lisa’s flat and I’ve spoken to Julie Allerton, remember? Allerton and Lisa have been having an affair and he was keeping Lisa in that flat.’

  Cheryl put down her empty mug. ‘I knew it would end in tears,’ she said. ‘That girl and Mr Allerton? Well, I ask you. She just wasn’t like the other girls who worked at the club. I said to my husband, you mark my words, I said, that girl will go off back home to Mummy and Daddy one day. You see if she doesn’t! She wasn’
t the type for the club. That’s what the boss liked about her, I suppose, she was upmarket. But she was trouble. You could see it just looking at her. Mrs Allerton’s a nice lady, you know. I keep hoping she and Mr Allerton will make it up. But I don’t suppose they will now Mrs A’s going for a divorce. I dare say the boss wasn’t what you’d call the perfect husband. Any man who owns a club and employs a lot of pretty girls is going to stray once or twice. Some of those girls are really beautiful, I’ve seen them.’ Cheryl looked wistful. ‘Not just good-looking but with beautiful bodies. They’re dancers and keep fit. Not an ounce of spare fat.’ She sighed and tapped her robust midriff. ‘I can’t seem to get any weight off and I’m out walking my dogs every day. I suppose we eat the wrong sort of stuff but you can’t feed a man like my husband on salad, can you?’