Peter Lovesey - Upon A Dark Night

‘How can I do that? I don’t have any money.’

‘But I have chums. I could find you a squat.’

One stage closer to sleeping rough. Rose didn’t care for that one bit. ‘I’ll think it over,’ she said.

‘Feel any better now?’ asked Ada.

‘I’m not shaking so much, if that’s what you mean.’

‘Good. Let’s eat. It’s okay…’ Ada held up her hands in mock self-defence. ‘…we don’t have to go to the shops. I have a stack of pork pies in the fridge.’

Ada was right about one thing. To move out of Harmer House was Rose’s top priority now. She had no liking for the place. She wanted to leave right away; but not to enter a squat, as Ada had suggested. She would ask Avon Social Services to relocate her. She called their office to make an appointment, and was told that Imogen was in court. The earliest she could manage was next morning.

After an uneventful night, she walked alone all the way down to the office in Manvers Street, nervously eyeing the stationary cars she passed, yet feeling better each step of the way for showing some independence. She was not ungrateful to Ada, who had offered to come in support, but this time it would not have been wise. Ada knew everyone at Social Services and boasted that she could get some action out of ‘that lot who never get off their backsides except to switch on the kettle’- an approach that might have achieved results, but not the sort Rose hoped for. Besides, her own experience of Imogen was fine; she couldn’t fault her. She had thanked Ada warmly and said she felt this was one matter she had to sort out for herself.

But she was reminded of Ada’s remark when Imogen, seated in the office, said it was one of those days that sapped her energy. ‘It’s so heavy again. The air isn’t moving.’

And neither are you, blossom, Rose found herself thinking as if by telepathy.

‘Shall I make coffee?’ Imogen suggested.

Rose told her not to trouble. She gave her account of the incident outside Harmer House.

Imogen became more animated, fingering her beads and saying, ‘That’s dreadful. Deplorable. What a brute. We can’t have that happening to women in our care. You didn’t know the man?’

‘I hope not,’ Rose answered. ‘I really hope not.’

‘You poor soul,’ said Imogen. ‘You still haven’t got your memory back?’

Rose shook her head.

‘What a bind.’

‘You’re telling me.’

‘Look, there’s got to be something wrong here,’ said Imogen, shifting the emphasis in a way Rose was unprepared for. ‘They were very confident at the hospital that you’d be all right in a matter of hours.’

‘Well, it hasn’t happened.’

‘Harmer House was just an arrangement to tide you over. There was no intention you should become a resident there.’

‘Can you find me somewhere else, then?’

‘I can certainly try. More important than that, I think we should get some fresh medical advice, don’t you?’

This wasn’t what Rose had come for, yet she had to agree it was sensible.

Imogen picked up the phone and proved her worth by taking on the formidable appointments machinery at the Royal United Hospital and winning. ‘Two-fifteen this afternoon,’ she told Rose. ‘Dr Grombeck. Cranial Injuries Unit. Would you like me to come with you?’

Rose said she could manage alone.

The desk sergeant at Manvers Street hailed Julie Hargreaves over the heads of the people waiting in line to report lost property, abusive beggars and complaints against their neighbours. ‘Inspector Hargreaves, ma’am, can you spare a moment?’

She looked at her watch. She was about to slip out for a quiet coffee with Peter Diamond, away from the hurly-burly, as he called it, meaning John Wigfull and his henchmen. Diamond had asked for the canteen gossip and he would be waiting for it in the Lilliput Teashop at ten-thirty.

Julie had some sympathy for the sergeant. She had worked the desk in her time and knew the pressure. ‘Just a jiffy, then.’

‘It’s the old problem. A tourist. No English at all. I don’t know if she’s lost, or what. Could you point her in the direction of the Tourist Information Office? They’re more likely to speak her language than I am.’

The woman’s eyes lit up when Julie approached her. Clearly she was as frustrated as the sergeant at the lack of communication. Before Julie had taken her across the entrance hall to a quieter position, she asked, ‘Spricht hier jemand Deulsch ?’, and Julie knew she would not be of much more use than the sergeant. She had a smattering of German, no more.

This was no schoolgirl looking for her tour-leader. She was about Julie’s age, around thirty. Her worn jeans and faded grey tracksuit top were too shabby for a tourist. She could easily have come from the queue outside the job centre. The face, pale and framed by short brown hair, had deep worry lines. She was in a state over something.

Without much difficulty, Julie established the woman’s name. Hildegarde Henkel. She wrote it down. But progress after that was next to impossible without a German/English dictionary. It wasn’t even clear whether Ms Henkel wanted to report an incident or register a complaint. Sign language didn’t get them far.

Julie ended up speaking to herself. ‘I really think the sergeant is right. We’ve got to find someone who speaks your language.’ She beckoned to the woman and walked with her to the Tourist Information Office in Abbey Chambers.

She left Hildegarde Henkel deeply relieved and in earnest conversation with one of the staff. It seemed to be about some dispute in the street the previous afternoon involving a car. The German-speaking information officer said she would phone the police station with the salient details.

More than ten minutes late for coffee with Diamond, Julie cut through York Street to North Parade. He was seated with his back to the Lilliput’s bow window, making inroads into a mushroom omelette. ‘You didn’t see this,’ he said when she got inside. ‘I’m supposed to be watching my weight. Haifa grapefruit and some toast for breakfast. I was fading fast.’

‘A diet?’ said Julie, surprised.

‘Nothing so drastic.’ He forked up another mouthful. ‘Just being sensible. Doctor’s orders.’

‘I see.’ Really, she didn’t see at all. Diamond kept away from doctors. And missing his cooked breakfast was on a par with the Pope cutting Mass. She explained about the detour with the German woman.

‘Probably wanting to find Marks and Spencer,’ he said amiably. The omelette was improving his mood. ‘They come over here and buy all their underwear at M and S, Steph informs me.’ He wiped his mouth. ‘Coffee and a scone, is it?’

‘Just the coffee, thanks. She wasn’t a tourist.’’ Student, then.’

‘Different age group.’

Immediately the order had been taken, he dropped the subject of the German woman. ‘What’s the inside story on the dead farmer?’

‘You’re going to be intrigued. According to the blokes who drove out there, the place is really isolated. Only a few acres, a couple of fields. The farmhouse is a tumbledown ruin. He’s lived there all his life, just about.’

‘I got most of this from Wigfull,’ he muttered.

‘Don’t shoot the pianist – she’s doing her best,’ Julie countered. ‘There’s something he didn’t tell you.’

‘What’s that?’

‘I’m coming to it. I haven’t even got my coffee yet. The old man has lived at this dump all his life, just about. He used to work the land and keep a few animals, but he gave up the heavy work a few years ago, when he got arthritis of the hip. Now there are a few pathetic chickens, and that’s all. The lads are not surprised he decided to end it all. They say there’s no electricity or gas. Damp everywhere, fungus growing on the ceiling.’