As I’ve probably made over-clear by now, it was a very long time since I had thought of a man in a sexual way. But there was absolutely no doubt that was how I was thinking about Tim Goodrich. And I didn’t think I was flattering myself to believe he shared my feelings. ‘You’ll know when it happens,’ my girlfriends would tell me at the end of drunken evenings when I had resolutely insisted on my lack of interest in any such entanglements.
And now I think it had happened and I did know. My buying the new underwear – even if it was only M & S – was an indicator from me. And Tim’s deliberately booking dinner at the hotel he was staying in was an indicator from him.
It all felt pretty simple. And I didn’t feel any guilt. There was none: What would Oliver have thought? I was a grown-up woman, possibly opening up a new chapter in my life.
Two worries did remain, however. One was the state of my body, which I had hardly given a thought for the last few years. I suppose Oliver was the last man to see me naked and, in the time since then, I had knocked off a quick – and, mercifully, not too disruptive – menopause. That was another thought, actually. I would no longer have to worry about having an inconvenient period – or indeed getting pregnant. All that seemed a long, long time ago.
But, although I hadn’t spent time chronicling and bemoaning every new line and wrinkle on my body, I knew there must be some. Hmm …
I’d steel myself to looking in a mirror when I tried on the new underwear.
The other worry made me feel rather stupid. At almost any other time since Oliver’s death, I could have returned in the small hours or spent the whole night away from home without anyone either knowing or caring. This Saturday, both my children would be in the house.
It was all the wrong way round. Parents worrying about what sexual shenanigans their children are getting up to is a common enough experience. Parents hiding their amorous activities from their children is a whole different ball game. And a rather embarrassing one at that.
Seaside towns have an inherent tackiness. Attempts at gentrification in them never seem to be completed. With some, this contributes to their charm. There’s an appealing loucheness about Brighton or Hastings or Littlehampton. The ones that have declined from fashionable grandeur, like Bognor Regis or Folkestone, are just sad. But the most depressing areas are to be found in seaside towns with a naval history. Like Portsmouth.
Which is where I was on the Saturday morning with Ben. After some sustained good weather, it was raining heavily, which only made the drab streets more dispiriting.
But the mission we were on should have been cheering. Ben had managed to make contact with one of Dodge’s ‘friends’ and the fact the man had agreed to meet us raised the possibility that we would soon find the fugitive. Then, hopefully, convince him that he had nothing to fear from the police. Though I couldn’t announce that they’d found out who poisoned Cedric Waites, I still had confidence in my powers of persuasion if I saw Dodge face to face.
I had been in two minds about leaving Jools on her own. But, though she currently had serious mental health issues, I didn’t have the same worries with her as I had with Ben. She was certainly in a strange state but not suicidal. Now she had got over the days of weeping that had started the week, she appeared very rational, even serene. I hadn’t dared ask for details about the extent of her debts and the collapse of her career. Indeed, I found myself doubting how much that career had ever existed. Had it all been some online fantasy? But explanations for all that could wait.
When Jools volunteered to continue the tidying-up job at 14 Seacrest Avenue, I thought that was a really good idea. She had caught on very quickly to what the task required. And though I tried not to work at weekends, if Jools wanted to, good for her. That elusive fantasy of my collaborating with my daughter in SpaceWoman wouldn’t quite go away.
Ben was still as tight as a coiled spring, but I think glad to be distracted by a visit to Portsmouth. I knew what was biting him but, remembering the outburst my enquiry had prompted the day before, was too canny to mention the TOCA Award. I also knew there was no chance of my son’s mood settling until the result were made public that evening. He had let slip that would happen at around eight o’clock Italian time, an hour earlier here.
I understood how much this thing meant to him. Winning the award would offer a validation, a pointer to the future. It would place him in the ranks of professional animators and show the possibility of a career path opening up. Then, in time, one day Ben might be able to tell his sister that his day job was animation rather than furniture-making.
With those thoughts, though, came the fear of how he might react if he didn’t win. His current feverish sparkiness was not a good omen. I had the seen the consequences of such moods too often with Oliver.
‘Pat’s a nice guy,’ said Ben, referring to his Portsmouth contact. ‘Really rates Dodge. You could tell. When he came over to the workshop, he said he owed Dodge a lot. Said he owed him his life perhaps.’
I can imagine that. Dodge would do anything for anybody else. It was only himself he despised and neglected.
‘So Pat was someone Dodge had met through his drug rehabilitation work?’
‘Must’ve been. Not that Dodge ever said anything about it. He never mentions that stuff.’
‘No.’ I wanted to ask Ben whether he’d been given any more information than I had about the circumstances of Dodge’s breakdown, but I bit back the temptation. If Dodge had wanted me to know more detail he would have told me. If he confided more in my son, well, that was up to him.
As per instructions, I’d parked the Yeti at the end of a row of dilapidated lock-ups, brick arches that had once supported some defunct railway line. There was a lot of rubbish around, in the distance a blackened oil drum which probably, in colder weather, hosted impromptu fires. I felt sure, when we got out of the car, our feet’d be crunching on the detritus of syringes.
I looked at my watch. ‘He did say half past ten, didn’t he?’
‘Yes, Ma.’
‘It’s quarter to eleven.’
‘He’ll come. As I think I said, his type are not the most reliable.’
‘No.’
‘Ah. That’s him, Ma.’
A dangerously thin young man had just ambled round the corner towards us. He wore grubby jeans and a faded T-shirt advertising a tour by some defunct rock band. Ben got out of the Yeti and stood on the pavement to greet him.
‘Hi, Pat.’
‘Hi.’
I joined them. ‘My mother, Ellen,’ said Ben.
‘Hi,’ said Pat. ‘Dodge talked a lot about you.’
‘Really?’ It was hard to imagine Dodge talking a lot about anything.
‘He trusts you. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be doing this.’
‘You know where he is?’ I asked urgently.
Pat nodded. ‘He made me swear not to tell a soul, but I’m worried about him.’
‘Is he ill?’
‘Not in his body …’
I nodded. ‘I know what you mean. Needs help?’
‘I reckon, yes. He’s in a bad way. Seems to be seeing things. Having hal-hal- … what’s the word?’
‘Hallucinations?’
‘That’s it, yes.’ Pat looked worried. ‘Dodge is going to be well angry that I’ve told you where he is. But, like you say, he needs help.’
‘You’re doing the right thing, Pat. You know you are.’
‘Yeah. Dodge’s done so much for me, I feel I’ve got to help him.’
‘You have to, yes. Have you been taking food to him?’
‘No, he says he’s got stuff.’
I wouldn’t have worried if it’d been anywhere else. Put Dodge in the middle of the countryside and there’s no one better at foraging. But in the seedy back streets of Portsmouth …
‘All right,’ I said. ‘Where is he?’
Pat jerked his head in the direction of the lock-ups. Ben and I followed him in silence till he stopped outside one whose paint had almost all been worn away. Rainwater pooled in front of it. There was a narrow, uneven gap between the double doors. The rusted accumulation of padlock hasps and staples on their sides maybe bore witness to the number of times the place had been broken into.
Pat had a key to the one functioning padlock.
‘Is he actually locked in?’ I asked.
‘Yes, but he can reach this to let himself out. Don’t think he’s done that much, though. Been lying low.’
Pat neatly undid the padlock and, before opening the sagging doors, whispered to Ben, ‘Be on your toes in case he tries to make a dash for it.’
With that, he swung the doors outwards, to reveal the very welcome sight of a familiar blue 1951 Morris Commer CV9/40 Tipper van.
Of Dodge, though, there was no trace.
Maybe he’d somehow got an inkling of our planned rescue mission. Or maybe he was just reacting to his mounting paranoia.
Either way, he had once again done a runner.
The atmosphere when we got home could have been more relaxed. I knew why Ben was bouncing off the walls. I didn’t know how he would hear about the TOCA Award results. It was far too low-key an occasion to be televised, but no doubt there was some online service that would report the winners and losers.
He couldn’t settle to anything. Hardly touched the late bacon-and-egg lunch which I made when we got back from Portsmouth. Kept disappearing upstairs, then coming down again, switching the television on to watch random bits of sport (and Ben had absolutely no interest in sport).
I knew and understood his tension. But I didn’t say or ask anything, for fear of getting my head bitten off again.
Anyway, it was all right for Ben. He had an acceptable reason for being twitchy. How could I explain my matching twitchiness without saying too much? Neither Ben nor Jools had shown much interest when I said I was ‘going out for dinner with a friend’. But it was hard to hide my bubbling anxiety and excitement about the forthcoming encounter. And I still hadn’t checked out my aging body in the mirror.
Fortunately, I was distracted mid-afternoon by a phone call.
‘Hello. It’s Vi Spelling.’
‘Hi.’
‘I hope you don’t mind me ringing, but something rather odd has happened.’
‘Oh?’
‘I’ve been remembered in Cedric Waites’s will.’
‘Ah.’ Better keep quiet about the fact that I already knew.
‘And I was just wondering …’
‘Yes?’
‘Whether you had too.’
Vi definitely wanted to talk. She was coming into the centre of Chichester to do some Saturday afternoon shopping and readily accepted my invitation to drop in for a cup of tea. It would be a welcome distraction for me and, though my mind was full of Tim Goodrich, I did still want to solve the mystery of Cedric’s death. If he was leaving Vi Spelling half of his estate, then maybe they’d had a closer relationship than she had implied.
She clearly found my house intriguing. Maybe she found all other people’s houses intriguing. I got the impression Vi didn’t have much of a social life. And remembered, of course, that she’d spent so much time looking after her reclusive brother, Clark.
She was excessively grateful for her tea and, when I produced biscuits, confessed to a sweet tooth. I laid off them myself, anticipating a good dinner at the Chichester Harbour Hotel. The thought of that made me suddenly and inexplicably worried that, come the evening, I might not be able to eat anything. Most peculiar, not like me at all.
‘Anyway,’ said Vi, comfortably settled into one of my armchairs, ‘the reason I asked whether you got anything in Cedric’s will was because it seemed so unlikely that he’d leave me anything. I didn’t do much for him, you know, just cook the odd meal. You did more, what with all the tidying-up after he had his fall.’
‘Not that much. Anyway, he didn’t leave me a thing. And I certainly wasn’t expecting anything.’
‘So where does the rest of the estate go?’
Since Cedric’s will was now a public document, I couldn’t see any reason not to tell her that her co-inheritor was Tim Goodrich.
‘The executor?’
‘That’s right.’
‘So, Roy and that ghastly wife of his …?’
‘Get nothing.’
‘That’s a bit of a slap in the face, isn’t it?’
‘Such a slap in the face that it must have been deliberate. Cedric was making a point.’
‘Well …’ The old woman rubbed her chin thoughtfully. ‘I can see why. They never came to visit him. One measly phone call a month … I wouldn’t call that caring for a parent. Would you?’
‘No.’
‘When I think how I looked after my mum and dad till they passed … And I’m not giving myself a pat on the back here, because I loved them to bits and I wouldn’t have had it any other way. But, you know, it did take a lot of time, took a lot of my life. Most of it really,’ she added wistfully, ‘if you include what I done for Clark.’
There was a silence. Then, with a change of tone, Vi went on, ‘I didn’t know I was going to get this. This inheritance. I never knew about it till the executor … Tim Goodrich … rang yesterday.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘No reason why you should have known.’
‘It’s just … if people talk …’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, there’s talk going round that Cedric was poisoned.’ Yes, of course, the rumour mills of Chichester must’ve been working overtime. ‘And people know that I did food for him and they might think, if I knew I was going to inherit something, well … that I might have hurried him on his way.’
I was going to argue that nobody would think that, but I knew how, in a small city like Chichester, they probably would. So, I just said, ‘You shouldn’t worry about it.’
‘Well, I …’ She looked uncertain. ‘I think Cedric was very disorganized with his food. Everything was shoved in the freezer, in any old order, and he just grabbed something when he felt hungry. I don’t think he was particularly worried about “best before” dates.’
‘No, I don’t think he was.’
‘So, he could easily have got poisoned by something that had just been left in there too long.’
‘Yes, he could. On the other hand, he must have defrosted the freezer from time to time. Otherwise, it would have just seized up and stopped working.’
‘Hm. Anyway, people are saying that it wasn’t that. They’re saying it wasn’t accidental, that someone did deliberately poison him.’
‘I’ve heard that rumour too.’ I didn’t want to worry Vi even more by bringing the police into the discussion.
‘But I don’t like it,’ she persisted, ‘the thought that someone wanted to kill Cedric.’
‘It’s not a nice thought, I agree. But, honestly, Vi, you don’t have to worry. Nobody would ever imagine that you had anything to do with it.’
‘No.’ She sounded partially, but not wholly, reassured.
‘And there’s nothing else you saw … you know, as a neighbour?’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Anyone unexpected going to Cedric’s house?’
‘Well, he wouldn’t let anyone in, would he?’
‘No, but I was wondering whether you’d seen anyone trying to make contact, knocking on his door or …’
‘Oh, I see what you mean.’ She thought for a moment. ‘No, can’t remember anyone.’
‘If you do think of anything – or anyone – do let me know.’
‘Of course.’ There was a silence. ‘I don’t know what I’ll do with it.’
‘With what?’
‘The money. My inheritance. I’ve no use for it now. My pension covers everything I need. Mind you, if I’d got the money forty years ago, I don’t know what I couldn’t have done with it.’
Her eyes glazed over as she looked forward to the future. Not a very long future, after a lifetime of unrealized ambitions.
Round half past six I got dressed for the evening. I’d decided earlier in the week what to wear and I didn’t allow myself to be sidetracked by other possibilities. I put on the new underwear automatically and then the trousers and top. It was only when I was doing my make-up that I realized I hadn’t done my promised look at my body in the mirror. Probably just as well. No need to frighten the horses.
It was just before seven when I finished. It’d only take me ten minutes to walk to the Chichester Harbour Hotel but, in the mood he was in, I really didn’t want to leave Ben on his own. I was surprised Jools hadn’t come back yet, and then I started worrying about her.
I knew it. My evening was going to be a disaster. I rang my daughter’s mobile.
She answered – thank God.
‘Just wondering where you were …’
‘Still at Fourteen Seacrest Avenue. And, Mum, you won’t believe it – I’ve just found Cedric’s laptop!’