Blood Sympathy

‘Whitey, you look after the place. Anyone tries to get in, you bark like a dog.’

The cat looked suitably disgusted by the suggestion and snuggled into the cushion made warm by Joe’s behind.

Sixsmith envied him as he stepped out into the shadowy canyons of the estate, specially constructed so that where’er you walked, cool gales fanned your butt. With designs like this, who needed nuclear energy? The meeting was in the community room in one of the newer blocks about half a mile away. Normally he would have walked, but there was rain in the wind so he made for his car.

There were no purpose-built garages at this end of the estate. Back in the ’sixties you weren’t expected to own a car if you lived here. There were a dozen lock-ups available in Lykers Yard, a relict of the old nineteenth-century settlement, most of which had been demolished to make way for the high rises. But these were privately owned and let out at rates almost equalling what the council asked for its flats. Joe valued his old Morris, but not that much. It was not a model greatly in demand by joyriders, so, theorizing that crooks didn’t like a dead end, he usually left it parked on Lykers Lane facing into the exitless yard. So far it had survived unscathed.

On arrival at the community room, he hung around outside till he heard the Major’s unmistakable voice calling the meeting to order. Then he slipped in quietly, hoping thus to avoid the threat of Auntie Mirabelle’s latest introduction. But there was no escape. Seventy-five she might be, overweight and somewhat rheumatic, but she had an eye like a hawk, and she patted a vacant seat next to her with an authority that would have intimidated a cat.

On her other side was a woman Joe didn’t recognize, presumably Mirabelle’s latest candidate. He studied her out of the corner of his eye. She looked to be in her late twenties and had a strong, handsome face, which meant she was either a single parent or a psychopath. Suddenly, as if attracted by his appraisal, she glanced towards him and smiled. Flushing, he turned away and concentrated his attention on the Major who was introducing Sergeant Brightman.

Joe had mixed feelings about Major Sholto Tweedie. In many ways, with his cavalry officer’s bark, his hacking jacket, cravat and shooting stick, his habit of addressing anyone black in Bantu, and his simplified view of life as a chain of command, he was a comic caricature of a dying species. After a lifetime spent pursuing wild beasts and women between Capricorn and Cancer till Britain ran out of Empire and he ran out of money, he’d headed home to die in poverty. Landing in Luton, he’d presented himself to the Housing Department saying he understood they had a statutory duty to provide accommodation for anyone in need. A council official, irritated at being addressed imperiously by his surname, thought to get simultaneous revenge and riddance by offering the Major a one-bed flat in the darkest Rasselas block which was scheduled for demolition as soon as there was enough money available to hire the bulldozers.

It was a monumental tactical error. Instead of curling up or crawling away somewhere else to die, the Major, after sampling the conditions, exploded into life. He mounted an assault on the council, at first on his own behalf, but rapidly on behalf of the whole estate. This was not, Joe surmised, because the man’s politics had been radicalized, but simply because as an old soldier he knew that a general was nothing without troops.

The council had been gingered into doing repairs, improving the lighting and providing this community room, and the residents had been inspired to united resistance against graffiti, vandalism and general criminality.

You couldn’t argue with the results. Sergeant Brightman was reciting statistics to show the continuing decline on Rasselas of break-ins, car thefts, drug-dealing, etcetera. Indeed, by comparison with Hermsprong, its twin estate across the canal, he made Rasselas sound like Utopia.

On the other hand, thought Joe cynically, by comparison with Hermsprong, Sodom and Gomorrah probably came across like Frinton-on-Sea. Nor did he much like the sound of the Major’s latest scheme to organize security patrols to deal with offences like wall-spraying and peeing on the stairs. Tweedie referred to ‘residents’ platoons’ but they still sounded like vigilantes to Sixsmith, and to Brightman too, who was trying to steer a delicate path between applauding the Major’s leadership and warning him that private armies were against the law.

‘A watching brief is all they’d have,’ Tweedie cut across the policeman’s diplomacy. ‘No harm in that, eh? Call the boys in blue first sign of trouble. Now here’s what I propose. Battalion HQ, for general surveillance and overall control, myself, Sally Firbright, Mr Holmes and Mirabelle Valentine …’

He then ran through a list of sub-groups (which he called ‘sections’), pausing for comment after each area of responsibility and list of names. No one offered either query or objection. He’s got them scared witless, thought Joe with cynical superiority till he heard the Major say, ‘South-Eastern Sector to take in Bog Lane underpass and the Lykers Yard lock-ups, section leader, Joe Sixsmith; assisted by Mr Poulson and Beryl Boddington …’

Joe started angrily in his seat but Auntie Mirabelle’s fingers were round his wrist and she murmured, ‘Congratulations, Joseph,’ as she gave him a smile and a squeeze which defied him to make a fuss.

‘Everyone happy?’ concluded the Major. ‘Good. Section leaders, there’ll be a bit of bumph coming your way. Watch out for it. Thank you, everyone. Dismiss.’

Sixsmith shot up like a man who is late for an urgent appointment, but Mirabelle’s wrist lock was still in place.

‘This your idea, Auntie?’ he said accusingly.

‘I put in a word,’ she admitted. ‘But no need to thank me. I thought, with you so keen to do the policemen’s work for them, this is a good way to get it out of your system. How’re you keeping anyway, Joseph? You look pretty peaky to me. Scruffy too. If your poor dead mother could see you now, the shock would probably kill her. You need someone to take care of you.’

Determined to head off this line of attack, Joe said, ‘Mr Poulson I know. Isn’t he waiting for his Zimmer? Some vigilante. But who’s this Beryl Boddleton?’

‘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.

CHAPTER 4

Whitey was still stretched out on the armchair. He kept his eyes closed but Joe knew he was watching. Mrs Bannerjee sank with a sigh of relief on to the sofa. The infant still slept in her arms and the little boy clung on to his bull with one hand and his mother’s sari with the other while his huge brown eyes took in the mysteries of this new place.

Joe didn’t disturb the cat. Standing was fine. He didn’t want this to get too cosy.

‘So what happened next, Mrs Bannerjee?’ he asked.

She said, ‘They took my husband away somewhere else, also our luggage. After a while a lady comes with a cup of tea and orange juice for the children. She asks a lot of questions about our holiday, where we have gone, who we have seen. I ask her, where is Soumitra, my husband? And she replies that he will be with me soon, and goes on asking questions. Then she leaves us alone. After a long time she comes back with my suitcase and tells me I can go with the children but Soumitra must stay. I ask why and she says to help with inquiries. I try to argue but she leads me outside. I do not know what to do. I think perhaps I will phone Mr Herringshaw, my husband’s employer in Birmingham, but I do not have his number and besides, it is very late to be disturbing such a man. Our car is in the car park but I have no key and I cannot drive. I think maybe I will take a taxi home but I do not have enough money for such a journey and in any case I do not want to go far in case they let Soumitra go. So I stand there undecided and though I try to be strong, I find that I am crying … Then your friend comes up to me …’

Good old Merv. He hated people being miserable. He’d been worth twice what he got paid at Robco just because of the job he did for shop floor morale.

‘Amal, be careful,’ said Mrs Bannerjee.

Her young son had gained sufficient confidence to detach himself from his mother’s side and kneel in front of the armchair to examine Whitey, who returned the compliment assessingly. The boy’s hand went out and touched the cat on the stomach. Joe held his breath. Whitey would claw Mother Teresa if he didn’t take to her. But now he stretched luxuriously, offering the whole range of his undercarriage to the child’s caress and began to purr like a hive of bees.

‘It’s OK,’ said Joe. ‘Look, Mrs Bannerjee. My friend Merv was right in one respect. What you need is help from the law, not my kind of law, but a real lawyer. I may be able to get someone. There’s this lady solicitor I know who works at the Bullpat Square Law Centre. If we can get her interested she’s very good. But it would help if we had some idea why they’re holding your husband …’

‘Why do you need to ask?’ she demanded scornfully. ‘Is it not obvious? They think he is smuggling something into the country.’

Sixsmith didn’t care for the scorn and in any case it wasn’t all that obvious. If they’d picked up Bannerjee on suspicion of smuggling, why on earth had they turned his wife loose without a much more thorough investigation of her possible complicity?

One reason suggested itself uncomfortably. They might have felt it worthwhile letting her loose and following her to see who she made contact with …

He went to the sliding window which opened on to a tiny balcony crowded with pot plants. Stepping carefully between them, he peered over the rail into the street below. Six storeys down he saw three police cars, sirens muted but with their roof lights still gently pulsating. A little further along was Mervyn Golightly’s taxi with Merv leaning against it, protesting loudly as a constable ran his hands up his legs.

‘Oh shoot!’ said Joe Sixsmith.

The doorbell rang.

He moved quick. He knew the Law’s way with a door when they wanted quick access. A short ring in lip service to legality, then …

Fortunately he hadn’t put the chain on. He seized the handle, turned it and pulled. The burly constable swinging the sledgehammer didn’t have time to change his mind. The weight of the hammer carried him into the flat and across the room and out of the open window on to the balcony, where the low rail caught him across his ample belly and doubled him up. For a terrible moment Joe thought he was going to go over. But he let go of the hammer and grabbed the rail with both hands as Joe dived after him and seized the seat of his pants.

Over the man’s shoulder he saw the hammer sailing through the night air with the breath-catching majesty of an Olympic medal throw.

Then, like a smart bomb, it revolved slowly as though seeking its programmed target, locked on, straightened up, and arrowed down.

Far below a constable looked up. He opened his mouth in horror, then screamed a warning. The doors of the middle of the trio of police cars flapped open left and right, and two uniformed men hurled themselves out in perfect sync a split second before the sledgehammer passed through the car roof like a cannon ball through canvas.

‘Oh shoot,’ said Joe.

‘Will you get your black hands off my white arse!’ snarled the burly man.

Joe could understand his ill temper but that gave him no entitlement to racist cracks.

He let go of the trousers and said, ‘Hey, friend, look what you’ve done to my begonias. Someone’s going to have to pay for this.’

Then he turned in search of the bossman.

There were two of them, a DI from the Drug Squad and a Senior Investigation Officer from Customs and Excise. At first they vied for control, but as Joe repeated his story, and Mrs Bannerjee repeated her story, and confirmation came from below that Merv the taxi man was repeating the same story, gradually the two men each tried to back out of the limelight, leaving centre stage to the other. The flat meanwhile had been well turned over without result and the searchers were reduced to a close examination of the balcony plants in hope of discovering some illegal growth.

‘That is a pelargonium,’ said Joe, indignantly snatching a pot from a pair of clumsy hands. ‘Who’s going to clear up this mess? I want compensation. What right you got to come in here, wrecking my flat, scaring my cat, and terrifying this poor woman and her kids?’

The men looked unimpressed and it was true that Mrs Bannerjee seemed more indignant than afraid, while her daughter hadn’t even woken up and the little boy was sitting in a corner with Whitey in his arms, both of them watching the activity with wide-eyed interest.

‘I’m going to ring my lawyer,’ said Joe. ‘But first I’m going to ring the News, tell them there’s a great story here, cops and Customs men busting an innocent man’s place up, not to mention throwing sledgehammers through police cars. Now that should really make a headline!

It was the threat of ridicule which did the trick. The searchers began to do some token clearing up, while Mrs Bannerjee, her kids and her suitcase were being ushered from the flat.

‘Where are you taking that lady?’ demanded Joe.

‘Helping with inquiries,’ said the DI who had lost the battle to shed responsibility and signalled this by grudgingly admitting his name was Yarrop. ‘Don’t worry, she’ll be well taken care of.’

Joe doubted it. Having let Mrs Bannerjee run free to see where she went, now presumably they would put her in the same room as her husband and bug their conversation. The last thing on their official minds would be genuine concern.

‘Suppose she doesn’t want to go?’ he said.

‘It is all right, Mr Sixsmith,’ said Mrs Bannerjee. ‘I never wanted to go away from my husband in the first place. Now they say I will see him. But, please, you mentioned a solicitor …’

‘I’ll see what I can do,’ said Joe. ‘I’ll try to get hold of the woman I told you about. Her name’s Butcher.’

‘Thank you very much, Mr Sixsmith,’ said the woman, smiling for the first time. She was rather pretty when she smiled. ‘You have been very kind. Amal, say thank you and goodbye to Mr Sixsmith.’

‘Thank you very much, Mr Sixsmith,’ piped the little boy to Whitey whom he had released with great reluctance.

He thinks the cat’s in charge, thought Joe. Maybe he’s right.

The Bannerjees went out.

Yarrop said, ‘I’m sorry about this. Can’t win ’em all.’

‘Well,’ said Joe grudgingly, ‘at least you can admit a mistake.’

‘Mistake,’ echoed the man thoughtfully. ‘Maybe. It would certainly be a mistake to start disturbing solicitors at this time of night, wouldn’t you say? Let’s both try to avoid any further mistakes, shall we? Good night now!’

He left. Joe went to the phone and dialled. He had a sense that Yarrop had gone no further than the other side of the door but he didn’t care.

A woman’s voice said, ‘Bullpat Square Law Centre.’

‘You really work late,’ said Joe approvingly. ‘Now that I admire.’

‘I know that voice. Is that you, Sixsmith? I heard you’d gone bankrupt.’

‘You heard wrong.’

‘You sure? I could swear I saw you flogging apples off a barrow in the market.’

‘Still can’t tell us apart after all these years? No wonder you’ve got to work long hours to make a living.’

‘And I want to get back to it, so why don’t you come to see me in the morning. I can maybe manage a two-minute slot around ten?’

Joe said, ‘I need you now, Ms Butcher.’

‘Ms? Such politeness means trouble. But it’s no good, Sixsmith. I’m not moving out of here, not even if you’ve been gang-banged by the entire Bedfordshire Constabulary.’

‘Not yet,’ said Joe. ‘But there’s a man called Bannerjee in a fair way to being screwed.’

He explained. There was a long silence.

‘You fallen asleep?’ inquired Joe courteously.

‘Chance would be a fine thing. How do you know this Bannerjee guy isn’t a pro dope-smuggler?’

‘I don’t,’ said Joe. ‘But I don’t think his wife is. And I’m certain his kids aren’t. And the way the cops came bursting in here, they’re pushing this thing very hard, and that’s the way innocent people get squashed against the wall.’

‘God, you’ll be telling me next you’ve got a dream. These guys who turned you over, they had a search warrant, I take it?’

‘I forgot to ask,’ admitted Joe.