Джон Пристли - Salt is Leaving

"We can do that better than you can, Dr Salt. And we don't encourage amateur investigations-"

"Don't worry. I've never fancied myself as a detective."

"Glad to hear that, sir," said Hurst, smiling. "Very relieved. I just had a feeling you might do."

Dr Salt nodded but didn't return the smile. "I've a feeling too. Not based on any real evidence. Kind of gloomy hunch. I can't help believing that Noreen Wilks never left Birkden. And if she didn"t, then I think she's dead."

2

Dr Salt drove to a garage he knew, where he persuaded one Bert to take a little time off from his football pool sheet to attend to a headlight. "I'll be back about three, Bert."

"Why – what's the idea, Doc? It's been like that for months. Why the sudden rush?"

"I'm hoping to sell it – that's why."

"Then you"re dead right. The least bloody thing, they want to take quids off." Bert gave him a sly look. "How much you asking, Doc? I might know somebody."

"Bert, you attend to that headlight first. And before three o"clock, don't forget."

There is always a lot of traffic at midday in the centre of Birkden, and even the broadest pavements seem crowded with people busy not working. Dr Salt tried to saunter to enjoy his pipe and the pleasant October day, but soon realized he had chosen the wrong place and gave it up. He looked in a bookshop but found nothing he wanted. He spent twenty minutes, making rather a nuisance of himself, in the gramophone and record department of Birkden's largest store, which was very warm and seemed to smell of hot pastry and face powder. Every time he asked the girl about another record, she closed her eyes, as if he mightn't be there when she opened them again. Finally it worked – he felt it was the least he could do – and without waiting for her answer he hurried away, sweating it out down to the street level.

A few minutes later he turned into a side street and found his way into the Snack Bar of the George . The counter was thick with high blood pressures and potential coronaries, either shouting at one another or at the waiter and the barmaid. After a few more minutes he extracted out of this tumult a bottle of stout and a slab of veal-and-ham pie, out of which a profit of about four hundred per cent was being made by somebody. There was one small unoccupied table in the far corner, and there he munched and swallowed and read an early edition of the Birkden Telegraph that had been left behind. Before trying to find any news – not always easy to find in this early edition – he looked carefully through the advertisements of Birkden's larger cinemas. His eye rested longest on that of the Lyceum.

Just before two o"clock he was climbing the stairs up to the Circle entrance to the Lyceum. The stairs were broadly and deeply carpeted; the walls below and above the photographs of film stars were panelled in wood or plastic of the same light-brown shade; and the general effect suggested a palace made of milk chocolate. The old-gold lighting did nothing to spoil this effect, but a bright green notice, above a door on the left of the half-landing, was out of key: it said Gents . The next flight was shorter than the one below; it led him into a great milk-chocolate space that had two or three doors marked Private on the right, and on the left, in the centre, showed him the curtained entrance to the Circle. A girl was standing there, waiting to look at tickets. She wore a uniform brown coat and short skirt, a pink blouse, black stockings; a neat compromise between the severe and the sexy, the severe to demand the tickets, the sexy a foretaste of the lush pleasures inside. At first Dr Salt did not recognize her, and it was only when he was a few feet away from her that he saw that she was Peggy Pearson.

"Peggy," he began.

"Oh – it's you, Dr Salt." She had rather prominent muddy eyes, a wide pout of a mouth glistening with lipstick, not much nose and chin. "Are you coming in? Everybody seems to like it this week."

"No, I want to talk to you, Peggy."

"Well, it's a bit awkward here-"

"I know. But it's important."

"I'll bet it's about Noreen, isn't it? Well, if you don't mind me stopping all the time – y"know, people coming in – there's one now."

He waited, standing on one side, until she had looked at a ticket, torn it in two and dropped one piece into the tin receptacle. Then he went close to her and spoke in a low voice. "You were a friend of Noreen's and she stayed in your house after her mother died – um?"

"That's right. But that was my Mum's doing. She got two-ten a week out of Noreen just for bed and breakfast. Noreen and me were always together, one time. But, then, when she lodged with us, I hardly saw her. I was up when she was still fast asleep, then at night she was still out when I'd be going to bed. She'd stopped working then and was going out to posh parties. But still – some afternoons she'd come to the caffy here and if I could get half an hour off we'd talk. Excuse me."

He waited on one side again while she dealt with a slow-moving elderly pair of patrons. "When was the last time you talked?" he asked as soon as she was free. "Try to remember, Peggy."

She waited a moment, trying hard. "It was some time in the second week of September-"

"The last time she came to my surgery was the morning of September the 12th-"

"And if you ask me – that's the day she went out at night and never came back. I'm nearly sure my Mum says it was the twelfth. And I'll bet anything," Peggy continued, excited now, "it was the day before that when she came here for the last time. She was in a great state of excitement and had to tell somebody. And if you want to know where she is, I believe I can tell you – if it's important, Dr Salt-"

"It's very important, Peggy, or I wouldn't be bothering you now – oh, I'm sorry!" He disentangled himself from two young men and a girl. One of the young men gave him a curious glance while the other produced their tickets. Even when they had gone through the curtains, Peggy shook her head and waited a few moments.

"They could be a bit nosy, that lot," she explained, speaking now in a rapid whisper. "Well, you see, Noreen told me that one of these posh party boys she'd been playing around with had said he'd take her to the South of France. And after that she thought he'd want to marry her. He was mad about her, she said. Well, of course, we've all heard that before, but I believed the South of France part. She wouldn't tell me his name. No, not me. I'm just Peggy Pearson. I don't go to parties at the Fabrics Club. I've just got to wave and cheer, not ask for names – me. But if you want to know where she is – I think she's somewhere in the South of France – drinking martinis in bikinis-"

"No, Peggy, she isn"t."

"Just a minute. Here's another one." She was soon rid of her. "Right, Doctor. How d"you know she isn"t?"

"She hadn't a passport. I signed her application form on the morning of the 12th."

"She could have gone to London with this chap and got one there, couldn't she?"

"She could, but I don't think she did. Now – this Fabrics Club. Is that where she used to go with her boy friend?"

"I think so. But they went elsewhere – she was sleeping with him, I know that much. And I'll tell you something else. From what she told me some of these so-called 'party boys' would never see fifty again – dirty old men – but this one who was mad about her really was young, not much older than her. Money there too, she said. But that's Noreen – not much sense, if you ask me – but lucky – lucky all the way."

"I don't think so, Peggy. Only part of the way – and not very far at that." He had to stand aside again. He asked the next question hurriedly, as if he had had enough of this dodging about. "Nothing else you can tell me?"