Maxim Jakubowski - The Best British Mysteries III

Evie used to be a smoker, like me. She tried to stop half a dozen times, and then all of a sudden it worked. She doesn’t know why. There aren’t nearly so many smokers now as there used to be, only three now, among the thirty-eight. But we three nowadays get together on the doorstep with the mattress-makers from across the road and the double-glazing people and the carpets man and the something-to-do-with-cars people. All the smokers of this section of the estate smoke together. And we have a good laugh. As I said, in some ways it’s more social than it’s ever been.

Which is just as well, because back inside, at work, it’s less social than it used to be. Jake has never been an easy-going guy, but now he’s being monster-boss. That’s because he’s discovered that somebody’s nicking.

What’s missing is from our catalogue bags. I don’t have the list of what’s gone, but I’ve seen Jake wave it around. It seems the thieving began when he went on holiday last June. That’s four – no, I tell a lie – that’s three and a half months ago. Not many bags – we don’t mass produce them – but enough to notice, obviously. Not enough to make a serious dent in profits, but enough to make a serious dent in Jake’s mood. He’s been on a rampage all week. Eight days. Eight work days. Since he discovered it.

Now, this week, he’s put in a new policy. Each day when we leave work we’re all going to be searched. Someone will look in our bags – a bit ironic that – and even check our persons. Evie’s in charge. She’s been around so long, Jake trusts her.

Not all the girls do, mind. ‘Who’s going to search Evie?’ one of them asked when Jake announced the new policy last Friday so we’d have the weekend to think about it. But she didn’t ask very loud and Jake didn’t answer. That was Sandra who asked. Bit of a rebel, Sandra. She’s one of the ones they suspect, I think.

I don’t mind if Evie searches me. She can pat me down all she likes, so long as she doesn’t tickle.

Sandra is not the number one suspect, though. The girls have another prime candidate. Linda. And the reason is that Linda is the one who goes off-site for lunch every day. Well, almost every day. You can tell ahead which days, because ahead of time – when we break for elevenses – Linda calls for a cab.

Yep, a cab. You see her make the call on her mobile. And then you see the cab pull up at one. And then a couple of minutes to two she’s back – by cab again. Where does she go? some ask. How can she afford it? most ask.

Especially now. Now somebody’s nicking.

They also don’t like Linda much because she isn’t social. She’s not a smoker – that goes without saying – but she doesn’t mix much over coffees and teas either. Keeps herself to herself. Hasn’t been here all that long. All Evie knows about her is that she’s married to a tarmac layer and they have a kiddie at school. Even when she doesn’t go off on her taxi ride at lunch time she doesn’t hang out with the girls. Keeps herself to herself. Reads. Books. Well, no wonder they’re suspicious of her.

I reckon – though Evie’s never said it – I reckon that the whole search thing at the end of the day is just a way to justify searching Linda’s bag – and her person, if necessary. I think they have to search everybody in order to search the one they suspect.

Poor cow, Linda, I don’t think she even knows they suspect her. She does her job, keeps herself to herself, thinks she’s all right. Lost in her own world. Doesn’t notice anything she doesn’t have to notice, you know the type. She’s not social. If you’re social, you’re interested in what your workmates are up to. OK, maybe not to the extent of keeping track of every new tooth of every baby in every family – especially if you’re not lumbered with kids yourself and have no bloody plans to be. Gee, who could I be describing here?

And I also think that Jake and Evie figure that even if they don’t catch anybody in flagrante delicto, at least the searches will put an end to the nicking.

I’m sure Jake would sorely love to catch somebody – I know men like Jake. Well, he is a man, so he’s like the others, isn’t he? He hates the idea that somebody’s putting something over on him. He says it’s because he thinks of us as one big family at Evening Eye. He says anybody robbing him is robbing us all. But the truth is he doesn’t like some woman – because it’s all women here, except for him – he doesn’t like the idea of some woman cocking two fingers at him.

They’re all the same, these guys. Guys in charge of women. I ought to know. I’ve known enough.

And I know something else. Jake is not going to catch Linda out. He can wait all day to pounce, search her big pouchy bag and her bouncy bra. Even look inside one of her books to see if the pages have been carved out.

Do you know why?

It’s because what they think is the evidence against her isn’t. They ask, how can she afford all those cabs? She must go off in the taxi three, four times a week, and then back again. Who on earth in Evening Eye has money for that? And if she does, where does she get it from?

I wouldn’t put it past Jake to follow Linda around out of hours, to try to find where she sells the bags she supposedly nicks. Try to catch her going to a market and approaching a fashion trader who’ll give her a tenth what they retail for in Harrods, and she’ll be grateful for it.

But he can’t follow her all day and all night.

If he wants to know about Linda, what he ought to do is take up smoking. He ought to come out on the doorstep where I go and see what I see while I’m out there.

I told you, smokers these days, we see things that other people don’t. If Jake was to come out with me on the doorstep, and pay attention, he’d see Linda come out there or four times a week to her waiting taxi. And he’d see her arrive back at work at two minutes to two. Regular as clockwork.

But what he’d also see is that it’s always the same taxi. Linda’s shagging the taxi driver. Obvious. To anybody who cares to look. If any money’s changing hands, it isn’t coming out of Linda’s purse. That’s what Jake would see if he came out to socialise with the smokers.

But I very much hope he doesn’t. If he was to start hanging out with us smokers it would put a serious cramp in my style. That’s because it’s me who is taking the occasional bag, and passing it over to Molly from the double-glazing at break times for her to sell to her mate on the market.

She gets a tenth what they sell for in Harrods. So I get a twentieth. But that’s fine with me. Every little bit helps. Not least because they’re bloody expensive these days, cigarettes.

I have faced the cavalry of Ayub Khan and ridden a war pony stolen from the Pashtu, as its owner swept down a rocky gully behind me, brandishing a rifle. I rode with Karim Bey across the Wild Pass in the Serbian rebellion of seventy-eight. I have seen a major in the Bengal Lancers take a wild pig through the fundament, only to have his spear bury itself into sun-baked mud beneath.

Good days. I miss them.

My name is Colonel John Hamish Watson, late of the Bombay Sappers and Miners. I know the weight behind a charging horse. I have faced it and lived. Four fine horses harnessed to a carriage whipped by one of the Queen’s own coachmen carries enough force to smash a stone wall. So you will understand why I had little hope for the fool who stepped into my path on the high road through Kingston upon Thames.

There was, of course, little reason for my coachman to be whipping his horses so fast but I like to make my journeys at speed; the empire is large, the number of us who play the game surprisingly small and the rules complex, as you will realise from the fact I fought at Stara Planina with Karim Bey rather than the Serbs.