Reginald Hill - Blood Sympathy

‘Boddington,’ said Mirabelle, with a broad smile which warned Joe too late of the trap that she had laid for him. ‘You want to meet her? Why, here she is. Beryl, this here’s my nephew Joseph I’ve told you about. Also your section leader. Joseph, meet your new neighbour and team colleague, Beryl Boddington. Just moved into my block. Beryl’s a nurse at the Infirmary. Good job, regular money, career prospects, more than can be said for some people who should know better!’

The woman held out her hand. Beneath her coat Joe could see a nurse’s uniform clinging to a sturdy but shapely body. She smiled as he shook her hand. Two smiles without saying a word; I bet she’s been coached to show off her teeth, thought Joe unkindly.

‘Pleased to meet you, Joseph,’ she said.

‘Joe,’ he said, instantly regretting this tiny invitation to intimacy.

‘Joe,’ she echoed, smiling again. She did have very nice teeth.

‘You two will need to talk about your team tactics,’ said Mirabelle.

Joe’s mind instantly started lumbering towards excuses for doing no such thing, but Beryl Boddington was ahead of him.

‘Sorry, not now,’ she said as if he were pressing her. ‘I’ve got to be on duty in twenty minutes.’

‘Joseph’s got a car, he can give you a lift, ain’t that right, Joseph?’

To Sixsmith’s jaundiced ear this sounded like a well-rehearsed exchange in a second-rate soap.

He said brusquely, ‘Sorry, but I got trouble with my carburettor. I’m just heading back to fix it.’

The nurse said indifferently, ‘That’s OK. I’ll get the bus. See you, Mirabelle.’

‘Don’t forget the choir practice,’ said Mirabelle. ‘Rev. Pot’s desperate for sopranos.’

‘I’ll see. But with shifts, it’s not easy. ’Bye now.’

The nurse turned and left.

Mirabelle said, ‘Joseph, why are you so rude?’

Sixsmith might have felt a little guilty if it hadn’t been for the revelation that his aunt was mounting a second front at the choir.

He said, ‘Don’t know what you mean, Auntie. Excuse me. I need to talk to Sergeant Brightman.’

The Sergeant greeted him accusingly.

‘Joe, that’s a real hornets’ nest you stirred up. You’ve got everyone running around like mad downtown.’

‘Hey, Sarge, I didn’t kill them,’ protested Sixsmith. ‘How’s it going? They got this Rocca yet?’

‘Give us time, Joe. It’s only you PIs in books that get instant results. Real police work takes a bit longer. Isn’t that right, Mirabelle?’

Joe realized his aunt hadn’t let herself be shaken off so easily. Fortunately the Major, whose keen military eye had quickly recognized good warrant officer material, seized her and said, ‘Belle, my dear woman, we must talk about disinfectant for the back stairs. I gather the council’s still dragging its feet.’

‘That’s right. And did you see the mess they left last time they emptied the bins?’

Sixsmith headed for the door. A man who didn’t grab his chance to escape deserved to stay locked up.

Outside he found the forecast rain coming down in earnest. His headlights picked out a figure leaning into the wind-driven downpour. It wasn’t till he was past that he realized it had been Beryl Boddington.

He hesitated, then said, ‘Oh shoot!’ and pressed on. She probably hadn’t spotted him and to stop now would be a tactical error of monumental proportions.

But he still felt guilty.

He parked his car in Lykers Lane and set off at a brisk trot for his block. There was a taxi outside the entrance. An Asian woman in a sari with a small child in her arms got out, followed by a boy of five or six carrying a large plastic bull with purple horns. The taxi-driver grabbed a suitcase from the boot, then shepherded the party to the shelter of the entrance, stooping over them from his great height as if to protect them from the rain.

Joe knew the man. Mervyn Golightly, one-time fitter at Robco Engineering till the same collapse which sent Joe down the road had dumped him too. He’d put his redundancy money into a cab and he and Joe had a vague deal—‘Any of my customers need a PI, I’ll pass them on to you, any of yours need a cab, you pass them on to me.’ It didn’t occur to Joe that Golightly’s presence here tonight might have something to do with this so far unproductive arrangement.

‘Merv,’ he said. ‘How are you doing? This is some lousy weather.’

‘Joe Sixsmith,’ yelled Golightly, slapping his hand with so much force he almost knocked Joe back out into the wet. ‘Now this is fortunate. Lady, this is the man I was telling you about. Luton’s answer to Sam Spade and Miss Marple all in one. Joe, I’m dropping a punter at the airport when I spot this lady and her family standing all forlorn, so I ask her, what’s up, lady? And she tells me they won’t let her husband into this great free country of ours, did you ever hear such a thing? Her and the kids they let through, but her husband they hold on to. What’s she supposed to do? She says she needs a lawyer, but where do you get a lawyer in Luton this time of night? You can get laid, you can even get a plumber if you’re a millionaire, but a lawyer, no way. Then it hits me, if you can’t get a lawyer, next best thing is my friend Joe Sixsmith. So here she is. Name’s Bannerjee, do what you can, huh?’

‘Merv, I don’t see what—’

‘You’ll think of something. I’m out of here. Regular pick-up over in Hermsprong. Exotic dancer, if she’s not shaking her stuff in Genghis Khan’s in forty minutes, she’ll uncouple my tackle. Ciao, bambino!’

He gave the Indian family a smile like a neon sign, waved aside the woman’s attempt to open her purse, and folded himself dexterously into his cab.

‘Merv, wait!’ yelled Joe. ‘We need to talk!’

‘We’ll sort out my commission later, Joe,’ yelled Merv. ‘See you!’

He gunned his engine and shot away in a screech of spray.

It was time to be firm, decided Sixsmith. He felt sorry for this woman, transported from her Third World rural environment to this cold unwelcoming country, but she had to understand from the start that there was nothing he could do for her except point her to the right authorities.

He said, ‘Mrs Bannerjee, I’m sorry. My friend has made a mistake. I don’t do immigration work. I’m a private detective. What you want is the Immigrant Advice Centre …’

She was looking at him like he was raving mad.

‘What is all this about immigrants?’ she demanded angrily. ‘I have been living in Birmingham for fifteen years. My children are all born here. I have a National Insurance number, and a job as part-time receptionist at the Sheldon Airlodge Hotel.’

‘Oh shoot,’ said Joe. He’d made the same kind of bonehead assumption that so irritated him when people made it about him. This was clearly his night for guilt.

He said, ‘I’m sorry, I thought when Merv mentioned the airport …’

‘We are coming back from holiday, ten days in Marbella, three star hotel. We arrive at Luton, very good flight, only ninety minutes late, and as we go through Customs green light, a man says, will you come this way, please? And he takes us to a little room … please, is there somewhere we could sit down? This has been a very tiring day.’

Joe didn’t know if it was written somewhere, never let a woman with two kids and a suitcase into your home, but he guessed it was, probably in the Dead Sea Scrolls or on a pyramid. Maybe it went on to give advice on how to keep them out, but not having the benefit of a classical education he lacked the art. And the heart.

He picked up the suitcase. It was very heavy.

‘You’d better come on up,’ he said.