Dandelion Souls

Chapter 21 - Objets d’Art

Finney and Dee had taken the train and bus to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park for a day out, in part to visit the outdoor Henry Moore statues, an artist whom Finney greatly admired because he, too, liked to work in block sculpture and shape body related curves.  Dee was interested in the exhibition which was on, ‘Revolt and Revolution', about art and protest. The place being high up, the statues’ hollows were still filled with plump cushions of snow, which Finney and Dee brushed off with gloved hands to admire the pieces.  After some time walking about in the huge outdoor park and then viewing the indoor exhibition, warming up over a hot chocolate in the park’s cafe, Finney was enthusing to Dee about his plans.

“I love this idea, art in the park.  You know that exhibition we just saw?”

“Yes.  Great, wasn’t it?” said Dee.

Finney nodded, continuing,

“Dee, I want to do something different, too, over this Summer, before I start uni.  I’ve booked on a sculpture workshop course at the Henry Moore Institute, four days in August, but even without that, I think I could do it.”

“Do what?” asked Dee, intrigued.

“I want to start up an underground gallery and informal tutor workshop, make a bit of a name for myself and start building up a reputation.  But not in one place. It will move about. There are loads of empty buildings in the city. So my plan is, squat it, use it, show it, publicise it, then move on.  Not like a protest squat of a particular place but to make a free, moving space for new young artists like us to work and show in. We’d use the net to youtube vlog for spreading the word.”

“How would you get into the buildings?” hedged Dee, not wanting say anything crushing about this kind of thing having been tried before, variously.

“That’s easy.  There are always ways in, from all the underground tunnels, via access building to building, weak points of entry but the key to it, I think, is getting people on side to let you in.  We can tie in with people trying to stop buildings being knocked down for development. I’ve got a superb place to start in mind. It’s a disused, fully furnished temperance chapel above an old club that’s shut down.  It would be a fantastic first space. It’s got all its old fittings, pulpit, carved stalls, organ, huge stained glass windows. I’ve got an in there via some friends of mum and dad’s that are getting a petition together to save it and used to play in there, so they know the place backwards.  We can piggyback on highlighting buildings at risk, like that one, which they want to inflict an all mod cons job on, next year.”

“We?” asked Dee.

“Yes.  I got to thinking about it when you told me all about selling at Dream and having the mill as your studio.  So it’s down to you, really, the inspiration for it. Are you in?”

“Hell, yes!” said Dee, flattered and now impressed.  “If it’s feasible?”

“It is, believe me!” persuaded Finney.  “I’ve sounded a few people out who’d be up for it.  I thought we could hold a get together start up meeting soon on the old car showroom space near college.  It’s open but under a canopy, so it won’t matter if it rains. Dee, will you design a flyer for us to get online and float round the college and stuff?  You’re so brilliant at graphics.”

Dee knew she was and enjoyed his appreciation of it.

“I’d love to.  When are you planning this for?”

“Soon.  We’d need to get cracking to have a first body of work to go with that’s not our course stuff.”

Dee nodded and returned to what he’d said earlier.

“Finney.  Where are you thinking of for university?  What about ‘A’ levels?”

“I’ve got those under my belt already,” he said, but self deprecatingly.  “I did them early, just to get them out of the way, you know, so I could concentrate on the foundation course year.”

“You did?” exclaimed Dee, because this had never been mentioned before.  “How?”

“Oh, the school I went to and home tutoring” he said. ”I’ve got a bit of a photographic memory, you see, so it’s easy for me to study up just for passing the exams.  I’m not a prodigy or anything weird, Dee, don’t worry!” he assured her, with a smile to make little of this achievement.

“Oh!” said Dee, taken aback by the amount of strategic planning demonstrated already in this conversation by Finney, coming from the anarchically disorganised background she thought that he had.

“So, because of that, I’ve got offers already, depending on how I do in the course.  I’m hoping to have a good prospect of one specialising in sculpture, because that’s what I’d like to go for.”

“Of course,” agreed Dee.  “Where, though?”

“Glasgow, London, Leeds and home city, so far.  I haven’t decided yet. After that, I want a Summer School abroad in Florence, to carve Carrara marble, proper Michelangelo style!”  

Finney’s expressively intelligent eyes shone at the envisaged prospects before him.

“You’ve got it all planned out then, haven’t you?” said Dee, feeling left behind already.  Finney, understanding the edge to her tone, said,

“Hey, Dee, you haven’t lost your way!  You were the first of us to find it.  You’re already launched.”

“Well,” she said drily.  “ I was once told I had natural talent.  I can’t go to uni.  I haven’t done any exams.”

“But, if you do well enough in the foundation course and build up a very good portfolio, which you know full well that you can, you can be considered for uni places, too.  If that’s what you want,” encouraged Finney.

“I thought you didn’t do disappearing acts,” Dee said next, discomfited and changing the subject.

Finney laughed.

“I don’t.  You’ll know exactly where I am and if it’s not at home you can come there with me if you want to, doing anything you want to, studying or not but…..only if you want to.  Wherever it is, here or elsewhere, I’m not talking the other side of the world, am I?”

“No,” said Dee.  

“Well, then.  These are happy plans, not sad ones!  What I want to do is including you. You wait and see how the free moving art studio works out for us.  I think it will do us proud. Then you’ll have more than exams behind you, too, won’t you?”

“I can see it now,” said Dee, trying to rise to the occasion.  “Promising young artists start new wave art movement. What will you call it?”

“We.” said Finney.  “Any thoughts?”

“We’ll need two names.  One for the movement, one for the gallery exhibition.  How about, ‘Crash Start Art’ for the exhibition and I can play with the graphics for ‘art’ in the words? Does it capture that urban guerilla feel you want?”

“Yes!  I like it!”  Finney thought hard himself.  “ I want to channel practical, not arty farty.  How about ‘The Skills Guild’ for the group name?  Because it will be all sorts of different mediums and pieces and it’s learning as well as displaying.”

“I like that, too,” said Dee.  “Except, it does sound a bit jobcentre, maybe?”

“No, I think it’s good.  Let’s go with those for now.  Then it’s our brand, to start with.  I’m not talking soppy co-operative, here.  It’s our baby and it will stay that way. Otherwise, everyone falls out and some takeover merchant steams in and steals everybody’s thunder.  I’ve seen that plenty of times before with all my music family lot. I’m wise to that one. ”

“So we collaborate, but we’re not a collective.”

Finney laughed.  

“No.  There’s retro and there’s been there, done that, old hat.”

“Well,” said Dee, studying the one on his head.  “You’re the expert in that field. I’ll start some designs for flyers and I will think about what you said.  But, I don’t know, sometimes I feel a bit squashed in by the course. I don’t like all the essay writing stuff for the modules.”

“I know but sometimes you have to think longer term, Dee.  We have to support ourselves as well as create, and employers like those bits of paper, I’m afraid.  I thought, maybe I could teach art in future as well as do it, but even if I did it freelance for accredited workshops or summer schools, I’d still need the qualifications to apply.”

Dee looked a bit crestfallen, because she felt she’d sounded childish and this made her spiteful.

“Artists are supposed to be wayward rebels, like me, Finney.  You’ve had your boring old storyboard written up for years!”

Finney just smiled at her with understanding and went round to sit next to her, putting his arm round her.

“It’s only because I’ve always known what I wanted to do, Dee’, he said, without conceit.  “ Not everyone does. Just because you’re a talented artist doesn’t mean that’s all you’ll ever be interested in doing, does it?  You might be, you might not be. You just haven’t decided yet. Why should you have? “

This made Dee feel more in charge of her future prospects.

“What if I don’t stick at art then, but you do?”

“ I think, whatever you do, art will always stick with you, Dee, one way or the other.  I know I will, if you’ll let me.  I’m not a one man band proselytising my stuff to you, Dee.  We’re a team. That means I support you, you support me. It doesn’t mean we have to do the same things all the time.”

“No.  But, I do want to do this Skills Guild thing with you.”  Dee smiled and kissed him and they smooched a little, unselfconsciously.  

“Wonderful!” said Finney eventually, of both things, her statement and their kissing.  “If we do it right and it’s somewhere the Council wants rid of, they leave squatters in place for a while anyway, then say it’s been damaged beyond repair and knock it down. “

“But, isn’t that colluding with the demolition?”

“We won’t do that.  We’ll respect the space.  People won’t live in it. Have you ever tried living in a commune?  It’s fine when you’re five, you don’t care about mud and you like everyone if they’ll feed you, play with you and look after you.  After that, it’s a bit shit, to be honest. We’ll keep the venues secret, except for the chosen few participants. We don’t publicise till we’ve moved on to the next one, but start giving clues out as to where that might be.”

“That will take some planning, won’t it?”

“Sure, but it will be exciting!  One step ahead.”

“But, Finney,” cautioned Dee.  “There’s one trouble with secrets.”

“I know.  People like to share them.  We’ll just have to make sure our artists are really on board.  The secret is the price for free space, free tutoring, free publicity.  We do a few days, maybe a week tops, then move on. There’s plenty of space at mine to store exhibits and what not in between.  Phil the lodger’s got a van. I’ll get him on side. Like I say, we’ll do youtube vlog and local radio spots to showcase. They’re easy enough to get on to.  So get cracking, Dee. You’re full of ideas for your paintings.”

“I am right now.”

“Right now is all any of us have got for ideas, isn’t it?  Later comes later.”

Dee laughed and knocked his hat off on to the floor.

“It usually does,” she agreed.  “Well, we can only try and if we’re not too idealistic about it all, maybe we won’t fall flat on our pretty little faces.”

“Hey, if it flops it flops.  What’s to lose by trying? It’s still something good for the old CV, initiative wise.  Bit of vision, bit of style, bit of get up and go.”

“Bit of breaking the law?”

“Only in a street cred. kind of way.  Anyway,” he said, “since when did you have a problem with  people breaking the law?”  Dee thumped him on the arm.  “Come on, rebel girl! We’ll have fun and a purpose anyway, won’t we?” said Finney, retrieving his headgear and knowing, anyway, that he had won her over.  “Shall we get on, here, now? We can have a last look round outside before going back. There’s so much to see, loads of other artists on display right now!”

Dee agreed, so they buttoned back up for the outdoors and another tour of the sculpture park before journeying home.

Shortly after Andrew and Nolan returned from their separate holidays and Andrew had payed a quick visit to his parents to check on them after all the snow there had been in Cumberland when he was away, there was a big publicity splash about a combined sale to be held by the auction houses holding the Turkish earrings and the Diamond and Emerald Tiara.  It was being hosted, as befitted such a prestigious occasion, by a stately home which, like many such, could boast of visits by queen and consort in their lifetime and would no doubt benefit from this new occasion in the future. The national royal event, for this was how it was being billed, would be televised. It was costly but the two detectives had no problem now in finding the pricey entrance fee, also booking in for the additional overnight stay and dinner at a nearby country hotel which was part of an exclusive offer for limited numbers of ordinary members of the public to join the professional or private bidders, who had already registered their interest and were either attending or sending their representatives to act for them.  Andrew was driving them down and, having picked Nolan up, they were soon talking holiday highlights and well en route, when the car’s heater began to diffuse a highly noxious smell.

“What the hell?” exclaimed Nolan, frantically opening windows with electronic buttons.  “It’s coming from in there!”

He opened the glove box in front of him and recoiled from the appalling stench.  “Are you keeping roadkill in here?” he asked?

“Ah,” said Andrew, remembering.  “Once, it was a nice bit of ham.”

“Once!” exclaimed Nolan, hurling the offending packet out of his side window.  “It’s practically gone back to the land in there! Christ, man. Turn the heater off and leave all the windows open for  a bit. Get your speed up to fetch a breeze through.”

“Sorry,” said Andrew, complying and getting into the middle lane to bowl along more efficiently.  “I forgot about it. I haven’t driven this car for a couple of weeks or more and it’s been there longer than that.”

“It’s put me right off my pepperami snack sticks,” complained Nolan, who had been browsing his way down the motorway with a carrier bag full of assorted edibles he had brought.

“Sorry,” said Andrew again.  “I think it’s wearing off now.”

Nolan rummaged behind his seat for his overnight bag and, pulling out a bottle, sprayed jets of pricey, designer, New York bought men’s perfume around to dispel the remaining miasma.

“Let’s pull in at the next services?” he suggested.  “Coffee and doughnuts for shock, I think.”

“You’re incorrigible,” said Andrew.  “I reckon half your arteries had already furred up half an hour in.  How many bags of spicy Monster Munch has it been already?”

“I can’t abide health faddists,” Nolan replied loftily.

“You’re married to one.”

“Exactly.”  Nolan yawned and settled back.  “Jet lag,” he said. “Wake me up at the services.”

“Jet lag! Junk food blood sugar crash, more like,” derided Andrew.

Nolan nodded off, so Andrew, when he noticed, put the radio on a loud music station full blast, shocking him awake.

“My heart!” exclaimed Nolan.  “What was that for?”

“See?  Your body can’t take all that crap you shovel into it,” returned Andrew.  “I need to keep alert as the driver, don’t I? I don’t want to fall asleep at the wheel on the motorway, do I?  I need company for that and you weren’t giving me any.”

“How selfish can you be?” demanded Nolan, injuredly.  “Denying an exhausted traveller a harmless doze. You know what you are, don’t you?”

“A conscientious driver?”

“No.  That wasn’t it,” said Nolan, with a grin.  “Next turn off. Doughnuts.”

“Go on, then,” said Andrew, who quite fancied coffee and doughnuts himself.

Sufficiently supplied at the service station, Nolan asked Andrew:

“Do you really think it’s likely, about the jewellers?  I mean, why should it be them just because that shop is near Malc’s old agency?  And, how do you make it out to link to anything round there?”

“I don’t really know,” said Andrew.  “Just a bit of a gut feeling that there’s a connection somewhere.  How, I don’t know. I agree, it sounds daft on the face of it but, if you’d been there....I just, felt something, I suppose.”  Nolan hummed the Twilight Zone theme tune briefly. “No!” said Andrew, “not that kind of something. It was more that the whole place around there and everything to do with it was odd.  Old fashioned, set up, a bit stagey.”

“Like Mr Keats himself?” asked Nolan.

“Yes, now that you say so.”

“So, actually, that’s why your gut feeling, then.  It’s our old friend, autosuggestion and an impressionable mind.  The agency’s the only link to him due to past associations but you were thinking about him and wanting to think there was more to it than that and that if other people round there remembered him, that might lead to something else.”

“Well. Yes.”

“But….they didn’t, did they?”

“Not anywhere I asked.  No.”

“So, is it a hunch or just imagination bumps?  YOU decide!” added Nolan, Big Brother presenter style.

“It’s hard to say,” Andrew continued.  “Perhaps they’re the same thing?”

“Detectives,” commented Nolan, eating his third selected doughnut (topped with salted caramel icing) “are supposed to work on logic, as well as professional instinct.  I can’t discern either of those in anything you’ve said there.”

“Put like that,” agreed Andrew, “neither can I.  But my observational skills do tell me that if you eat any more, you’ll be carsick.”

“Mate,” stated Nolan.  “I’m a garbage disposal unit.  Nothing phases my perfect specimen of a body.”

Nolan did indeed have a very good face and figure, untouched by his intake so far in life.

“Only,” said Andrew, studying him with continued disapproval as Nolan scoffed on through his doughnut, “because Billy keeps you on the straight and narrow when you’re not off the leash.”

“I train,” said Nolan, dusting icing sugar from his lips and fingers with a paper napkin and looking superior, “at the gym.  I need to have calories to burn off.”

Andrew sang ‘You’re So Vain,’ by Carly Simon, all the way back to the car, which Nolan turned an affectedly deaf ear to but which people they passed, at other tables and on the way out, Andrew not keeping his (quite tuneful) voice down, smiled at.

The stately home, when they arrived after dropping their bags off at the hotel, greeted them with cameras filming the arriving cars and occasional limousines.  It had been suggested that young royals might be coming, as a mark of respect to the ancestral Victoria, so the press were on the alert.  Then, Andrew and Nolan joined the crowd trooping up like wedding guests to the grand doorway, to go in for the auction itself.  This was being held in the one time ballroom, security staff in curtained alcoves round the walls like attentive footmen, and there was a bit of a self conscious hubbub among the participants being guided to their allotted seats after a complimentary glass of ‘champagne’ on arrival.

“Prosecco,” said Nolan dismissively.  “I had Moet and Chandon champagne in New York.”

“Did you?” exclaimed Andrew. “You’re blowing too much cash, Nolan.”

“Nar.  Billy’s treat.  It was our anniversary, remember?  Hence, New York.”

“I know,” said Andrew, not having remembered at all, however, which hadn’t gone unnoticed by either Nolan or Billy, because he had been Nolan’s best man.  “I’ve got a card for you both. I meant to bring it.”

“Oh, yes!” jeered Nolan.  “Of course you have!”

“Sssh,” said Andrew, opportunistically.  “Look! It’s starting.”

The lights had dimmed a little, making a huge projection screen the centrepiece, currently displaying the Turkish Diamond Earrings beside an image of the necklace they had once accompanied, then next, as worn originally, in a portrait of a young, pop eyed Queen Victoria sporting them, followed by one of her adorned with the Diamond and Emerald Tiara.

A TV presenter known for her appearances on the ‘Antiques Roadshow’ was giving a vivacious historical account of the jewellery to the audience, at the front of the screen, for the cameras, starting with the Turkish Diamond set.  They were, she explained, of great sentimental value, having been fashioned especially for her from the Sultan’s gift by Rundell and Bridge, who then held the royal warrant.  Personal favourites of hers, they were worn on her wedding day and to her children’s christenings.  The earrings (she pointed at the screen where they were being shown turning now in 3D), were two small diamond rosettes, connected to each other with three rows of diamonds.  The necklace had been last sold in July 1970 from the collection of the Duke of Fife, who had inherited it down the line.  The private buyer was then, and was still, anonymous.  The fate of the earrings had been, she said, to a highly strung audience waiting for the action to start, unknown until now.  She went on to the Diamond and Emerald Tiara, which had been similarly beloved by the late Queen and later lost to view.  It was all information which Andrew and Nolan had already researched, so they were busy scanning the audience around and behind them for any sign of anybody who looked like an incognito seller.  People were done up to the nines, one way or another but the only person who looked in any way Russian was a lady in a big white fur hat and matching stole somewhere near the back, which made her head and shoulders look enormous.  She had a pair of large, upswept, fashionably thick framed glasses on but it was impossible to see much of her face.

It was not clear how many people were there as bidders and how many to take part in what had been billed as a national Royal related spectacle, which it certainly was and the organisers were making the most of that.  Many of the serious bids had already been registered in advance on line, so that the benchmark was already set high for a starting price.  Winding herself up to an excited conclusion, the presenter got ready to hand over for the real proceedings.

“Hold yourself back,” Andrew cautioned Nolan.  “For God’s sake, don’t get carried away and start bidding.”

“I won’t.” promised Nolan.  “This isn’t my kind of gambling.”

The auctioneer came in now, with the gravitas of a hanging judge approaching his bench, then rose to his lectern like a preacher to a pulpit, gavel poised dramatically.  His lugubrious manner, in contrast to that of the presenter, seemed more ready to rain down hellfire than gemstones on successful bidders.  After a first flurry of activity in the room, the offers settled down between a diminishing number of people on their phones representing who knew whom.  Finally, following a sternly eagle eyed scan of the room for any last moves (Nolan twitched an arm beside Andrew just to unnerve him, and smiled to himself, still looking ahead, when Andrew grabbed his wrist in panic), the gavel came down, as if announcing the end of the world.  This was then repeated for the Emerald and Diamond Tiara.  Fantastical sums having been agreed but the mystery buyer or buyers remaining unrevealed, not being among those in the room, which was a little bit of a let down for the crowd, it was over.  People got themselves in hand again and gradually began to leave after a final excited summing up of proceedings at the front by the TV presenter.

“Wow, what a buzz!” said Nolan.  “That really was quite something, wasn’t it?  The atmosphere was electric!”

He and Andrew filed out to the carpark with the others and were part of a smaller set of visitors who had opted for the hotel stay and dinner but those guests, like themselves, did not seem to be in the super rich league of others who had been present.

“I wonder if we’ll find out,” said Nolan, choosing appreciatively from the menu options, “who got them?”

“I doubt it.  It looked like private buyer or buyers unknown again, didn’t it?” said Andrew.  “I tell you what, though, nobody questioned the pieces being genuine, did they?”

“No, so that blows your theory right out of the water, doesn’t it?”

“Not necessarily,” said Andrew.  “There have been well authenticated cases that have turned out to be fakes.”

“Yeah.  I guess.  You should have had this beef wellington.  It’s delicious.” Andrew was on the salmon.  “I wonder though, if the seller was there? It would be hard to resist, wouldn’t it, after all that Black Tie Black Friday carry on?”

Andrew wondered that, too, and looked around their fellow guests again after they had finished eating.  A large peacock feather fascinator, attached to a high pile of backcombed hair caught his eye at a nearby table, worn by someone with her back to them, in a hard pressed purple velvet and satin evening gown trying to encase her abundant curves and not quite making it.  She wasn’t the only one who was clad as if for a historical theme night, since people had generally seemed to feel the need to buy into the spirit of the Victorian age fashion wise for dinner at what was, well, really, a dress up event, Andrew supposed idly.  He wondered if she had been the wearer of the white fur hat and took a look at her front view on his way to the gents.  Heavily made up, she was looking down at her now empty plate, but he saw the oversize glasses frames and concluded that she was. There was something about those clothes, he thought, something costume like.  He looked again on his way back, making sure not to catch her attention in return.  The meal concluded, he returned quickly to his table and hissed quietly to Nolan, gesturing at her behind her back:

“Nolan. That woman.  Follow her on and see what room she goes to, will you?  I’m getting out of here so she doesn’t spot me.  I’ve got a good idea who that is.”

“Another hunch?” asked Nolan ironically.

“More than that.  I’ll tell you after.  I’ll go up to our room.”

Nolan nodded that he’d do as asked.  Andrew headed quickly out to get the lift up to their fourth floor to avoid being seen on the stairs.  After an interval, Nolan joined him.

“Level two,” he said.  “Room thirty.”

“Right!” said Andrew.  “Well done.”

“Come on. Spill,” said Nolan.

“If I’m right, and I think I am….”

“You always do,” Nolan couldn’t refrain from interrupting.

“....that,” said Andrew, ignoring him, “ is Sandra of the theatrical agency that represented Mr Keats in his glory days.”

“Really?” asked a startled Nolan. “Which means….”

“Which means, my dear, as Mr Keats himself would say, that my hunch was right and we’ve cracked it.”

“We have?”

“I think so.  Was she alone.”

“Definitely.  Flying solo.”

“Perfect.  Now, I don’t want to frighten her but I think we should do this together.  Will you knock on and say you’re room service, taking an on the house free evening drink order for bar or room?  I’ll be behind you and then we’ll both go in.”

“Oh, lovely!  Typecast again, am I?  Last time I fell off a lorry, now I’m the bloody bellboy!” objected Nolan, making the most of it.

“No!” said Andrew.  “Because she doesn’t know you, but she could just shut the door in my face, couldn’t she?”

“Come on then, “ agreed Nolan, adding meanly, “Let’s do it before she gets changed.  If we walk in on that unawares it could take some getting over.”

“You’ll be that size soon, guzzling like you do,” commented Andrew.

“Oh, shut up.  Let’s go, Slimfast.”

They went down two floors of luxury pile blue stair carpet.  Nolan prepared himself (having taken his jacket off before to appear, in white shirt and tie, at first more staff like) and knocked on the door.  After a moment the woman answered and Nolan played his opening gambit, a notebook for taking her order in hand, stepping adroitly forward as he said,

“A drink on the house, madam, courtesy of the hotel, for all guests.  I just need your room number and choice and whether you wish to enjoy it at the bar or in your own room?”

“Oh, how nice,” she was saying, as Andrew followed Nolan in and shut the door behind them.

“Sandra?” he said.  “Andrew Munro, detective.  You’ll remember me?  This is Nolan, my business partner.”

“Ah!” said Sandra, sitting down rather heavily on the bed’s counterpane.  “Busted! And it had all gone so well.”

Andrew, seizing the initiative, forged on.

“Joe at the jewellers near the agency made those earrings, didn’t he, and the diamond and emerald tiara.  I’ve been on to that for a while.” Nolan raised a quizzical eyebrow but said nothing.  “You set up Mr Keats yourself, Malcolm Shrewsbury, I mean, to host the Black Tie Black Friday Event.  Didn’t you?”

Sandra looked surprised, considered denying it and then gave up.

“Yes.”  She looked anxiously at the door with a defeated air.

“It’s just us.  No police involved as yet,”  Andrew said reassuringly.

“You can’t!” exclaimed Sandra.  “God alone knows what the penalty would be!  Death, probably, at the hidden hand of some defrauded buyer, let alone a prison sentence!  We’re not getting any of the money from the auction sale, I promise you that.  I came to see it through, to make sure the gems made it past the experts right to the end.  And they did, didn’t they? Joe’s a genius!”

She looked proud for Joe.

“If we’re going to be able  to help you,” (Sandra looked up here with a hopeful glance) “you need to talk us through why,” continued Andrew, assuming a sternly authoritative air to match Nolan’s arms folded stance.  

Sandra thought briefly, sighed and then gave in, because clearly Andrew’s guesses had been correct.

“It all started really because things were going wrong in our lives, for me and Dad, Mr Bryant and Joe.  Joe’s so good at what he crafts and, well, to be honest, we’d tried it out in smaller ways over time before and got away with it.  This was the big one.  The agency’s not making anything now.  I need to retire but the pension age has gone up and I’ve got massive fees to find because Dad’s going into a residential home.  I live at Dad's and I’d lose the house, you see, for money to live on myself and to pay Dad's fees, because it’s all the capital we’ve got.  The good times are long gone and there aren’t any savings.  Joe needs a trust fund to live on when his dad goes and Mr Bryant’s  not a well man, you know.  There isn’t too long. Joe can’t run the jewellers on his own, he’s not up to that.

“So, we came up with this and I got Malcolm in because he’s a damn good showman.  Plus, well, I wasn’t going to pay him really with any more than the up front fee we agreed.  My bit of revenge on Dad’s behalf.  Only, he nicked off with a good share of the last payment.  I had to laugh about that, it was so typical!  I saw him do it on the security cameras but we couldn’t come out, Mr Bryant and I, let him see us.

“Malcolm swallowed the whole set up without question because he was on his uppers, happy to play along with what little information we gave him.  I knew where he lived, his digs, wrote to him as a client who’d got on to him through his old agent, then set it all up by post, where he had to go, what to do, what to say.  We did the place up a treat for it, Mr Bryant, Joe and I.  It was in their house, actually, a big old place just left to itself for years, pretty much, since he was widowed.  They had the jewellery cases, the security cameras, from the shop.  I knew how to dress the set.  The rest was easy.  I know how to advertise and promote so I soon got people interested that I’d emailed to invite to the ‘Black Tie Black Friday Event’.  I got one of the school drama group I do a props deal for to film the clip of him advertising it and put it on the net.  Fifteen year olds have such nous, don’t they? I told them it was for a charity ball I was helping with organising.  The whole thing went terrifically well!”

“So, this Joe, he’s one of these idiot savants, is he?” asked Nolan tactlessly.

“Joe’s no idiot!  Don’t you go thinking that!  He’s got such a skill in one direction that, well, it leaves less brain space for the everyday stuff that any old Tom, Dick or Harry can do, that’s all.”

She spoke with a rather maternal pride.

“Very nicely put, Sandra,”  said Andrew. “We’re not out to get you.  I promise.  Are you going to look after Joe, then, in the future, Sandra?  Is that the plan?” he asked, playing good cop.

“It was the plan.” she answered.  “ I’d like to hope it still could be,” she went on, looking up at them anxiously.  Neither of the two detectives admitted to being in possession of the money which Mr Keats had lifted and it seemed, now, that everybody was safe in that department.  Andrew said:

“Mr Shrewsbury hired us because he genuinely had lost his memory and we felt we should make sure that he wasn’t in danger, once we got on to the money and the jewellery.  Now we know he’s not, well, I’m sure, he will be as happy as you to let things stand.”

“One thing,” interjected Nolan.  “Why did you contact us back, when we sent the email round the theatrical agencies asking if anybody knew him?  If you hadn’t, well, maybe we wouldn’t have got to the right conclusion.”

“Because I wanted to know why detectives were asking about him, of course.  I thought we’d been found out because of him. Then when you came, Andrew, and asked about things the way you did, well, I realised (wrongly as it turns out) that we were home and dry. Old Malcolm had no doubt fallen so massively off the wagon with all that money that he’d lost the plot altogether, what little he had of it to start with.” Sandra looked at Andrew. “How did you put two and two together so effectively?” she asked.

“It’s what I’m good at,” said Andrew.  “That’s why I’m a detective.” Nolan coughed discreetly.  “Why we’re both detectives,” Andrew finished smoothly.

Andrew wondered, but only to himself, whether he had thought of asking at the jewellers about having a piece made by chance, or because seeing all those solitaires had already given him the idea that these items might indeed be confected fakes made up from gems of the period reset, or new ones cut to fit it by a very expert hand and the original settings redesigned, with help from the father, for the research aspect on how they should be done to achieve the requisite authenticity.  The idea of fakery had always been there from the start, from Mr Keats himself, who had said that it was probably all “a terrific scam.” Whichever it was, instinct or reasoning, without Sandra having been present at the auction, he wouldn’t have sussed it so completely, or not so soon.  Of anyone, he had been looking for Mr Bryant in the audience there.

“So, where is he now?  Malcolm Shrewsbury?” asked Sandra.   “Is he out to cause trouble?”

“Far from it.  I can assure you that he’s quite happy and has set himself up a new life due to that windfall.  He won’t be setting any hares running to make anybody ask questions.”

“Will you?” Sandra asked, looking from Andrew to Nolan.

They both shook their heads.

“Our job’s done,” said Andrew.  “You’ve made your pot.  The auction houses have made theirs.  Some rich buyer or buyers have invested in the gems.”

“And,” added Nolan, “If it ever does come to light that those are not the real items, well, diamonds really are forever, aren’t they?  They hold their value. ”

“Oh, yes, and they are of the very finest quality,” said Sandra.

“I don’t doubt it,” Andrew said.  Sandra continued to look uncertain.  “Oh, no!” said Andrew quickly, picking up on why.  “We’re not going to blackmail you, either.  We’ve been very fairly paid.  In fact, I think we’d both say, congratulations to you all on beating the system!”

“We sure would,” confirmed Nolan.

“Then in that case,” suggested Sandra.  “Let’s really go down to the bar, and as many free drinks as you want are on me!  Frankly, I think I owe you one.”

She didn’t but they weren’t going to tell her about that.  Other guests in the bar were amused by the mismatched but lively trio sharing two bottles of the best house champagne between them, with an oddball camaraderie that was rather endearing to watch.  Finally saying goodnight, they wished each other the very best of luck in the future and when Andrew and Nolan came down for breakfast and to sign out, Sandra had already left before them.  A sense of generous well being accompanied their own journey home, a feeling of having ‘done the right thing.’  There was also the warm glow of knowing that their ‘share’ was truly theirs, now.  They agreed not to tell Mr Keats about the auction, because, while they certainly would not give Sandra and the Bryants away to him, there was nothing else he needed to know about.

“I wonder if he saw it all on the telly?” pondered Nolan.  “We did tell him we’d go to it.”

“Well, he may have.  If he gets in touch, which I doubt, we’ll give him edited highlights.”

It was just a pity, for Andrew, that after this pleasing triumph, when he turned on the news that night and caught the local slot after the national part, it was, this time, highlighting the discovery of human remains in a garden, discovered by police searches, in the concrete foundations of a raised patio area, under a gazebo style garden seat.  A local man was being sought.  From crime caper to real life murder in a day.  The takeaway he had bought and was eating on his knee at the time lost its appeal.  No doubt, he would be hearing again himself from the police any time soon.  He did not know, really, why this made his sleep so uneasy.  It wasn’t as if he’d done something himself, after all, to Peter’s wife.  Nor had he ever even met her.  His conscience was clear, too, wasn’t it, as to whether anything could have been prevented. Barbara had clearly already been dead.  Or, had she?

When he woke up at five in the morning, yet again, he realised what had been bothering him. That garden work hadn’t been done when he first visited Peter.  So where was Barbara then?  He’d been all over the house more than once.  There was no sign (or smell) of anything untoward.  Had she been dead or not, and if not, could he have saved her? Rationally, he couldn’t see how, but it was this notion that was troubling him, he realised. Nolan, who was not given to notions of bad conscience due to an assumed responsibility, told him to lighten up.

“Morbid imagination, Andrew,” he admonished his subdued business partner.  “Come on, now. We’re sitting pretty, for once. Think about yesterday with Sandra at the hotel, and the auction.”

“Ever heard of comeuppance?” said Andrew, darkly.  “It’s all too good to be true.”

“Bannocks, ya wee misery!” said Nolan bracingly.  “ Scotch mist in the head again.” Andrew failed to smile, brooding on.  Nolan looked at him.  “Mate,” he said, for once sympathetically.  “You really are upset about it, aren’t you?”

“I can’t shake it off,” agreed Andrew.

“Black Scottie Dog?”

“Something like that.”

“You listen to your Uncle Nolan,” advised his partner.  “Number one, Nolan and Munro come good every time.  Number two, we got Dee back home and sorted everything out for that job.  Number three, we found out who Mr Keats really is, which is what he wanted. Job done again.  Number four, everybody’s quids in and nobody got hurt.  Number five, we’ve got shut of the Saleems.  Number…..what number am I on?”

“Number twelve.  Dig and delve,” said Andrew glumly, chin resting on hands, elbows on the kitchen table at Nolan’s, where he had turned up for coffee and consolation after his bad night.

“Peter’s garden, yes.  Right.  Well, you had it bang on the nose there and told the police.  If it hadn’t been for that, poor old Barbara would still be wearing her concrete housecoat, wouldn’t she?.”

“I know but, where was she before?  If I’d got on to that sooner, things being wrong there, I might have found her wherever he had her before he did her in.”

“You don’t know yet how long she’d been dead.  So you can’t have any real claim to thinking you could have saved her, nor, how.  Let’s take all that one stage at a time. Forensics will determine what the sequence of events was, when and where anything happened.  It’s too early to start beating yourself up.”

“You’re right!” exclaimed Andrew, brightening.  “I’m going to ring the police right now!”

“Whoa there, hoss,” cautioned Nolan.  “Not so fast, pardner. Let’s not go blundering in again before time where the the angels won’t plant their Doc Martens. Let them come to you.  And they will, I expect.”

Andrew got up and walked a restless couple of turns of the table, coming to rest at the kitchen window.

“I suppose you’re right,” he said reluctantly, fiddling with the taps and turning them on and off several times.  “It’s just, I had that feeling for so long, that it wasn’t right, but it took me too long to get a handle on why.”

“Will you sit down!” said Nolan.  “You’re skittering round the place like Scooby Doo on a ghost hunt.  And turn those taps off! It’s really annoying.”

Andrew finally laughed.

“Sorry,” he said.  What’s all that netting out there in the garden for?”

“Oh, because Billy’s sick of the pesky kids next door kicking their ball over and damaging his precious seedlings.”

“What’s he growing, then?”

“Oh, who knows?   Something inedible to the normal, red blooded male he lives with, I suppose.”

“Normal?” queried Andrew, turning to face Nolan with a smile, at last.

His phone rang and it was Sarah.  Nolan went out to give him some privacy, calling back as he did so:

“Invite her up.  Billy’s having one of his dinner dos on Saturday.  You could both come?”

Andrew asked her and she thought this was a nice idea, also that it was about time she saw his place.

“It’s more of a base than a place, like I’ve said.  That’s why it’s nice coming down to you,” said Andrew.  “But of course, that’s absolutely fine.  I’ll even clear out all my bachelor style trash for you.”

“Better had!” she said lightly and having made a few further arrangements, she rang off.

Nolan had come back in.

“Do you ever tell her work stuff?” he asked.  “Sarah?”

“No.  Very little.  Billy?”

“God, no.  He’d have fifty fits over most of it.”

“We’d best both keep it that way, then.”

“Your secret’s safe with me, darling,” commented Nolan.   “Now, come on. Buck up. All is well in Dingly Dell.”

Andrew laughed again.

“All right,” he said, cheered up.  “I suppose it is.” They went into Nolan’s work office to check for emails.  “Still agreed that we won’t get in touch with Mr Keats?” he asked, keener than ever now to be as clear as he could about things on his mind.

“Definitely.  Case closed.”

“Case closed,” agreed Andrew and they settled down to some of their other business work, accountancy messages having come in for Andrew and I.T. ones for Nolan.

Both of them, though, by now felt that Andrew’s ‘hunches’, having mostly turned out to be right, showed that his intuition was sound and that this, whilst supporting the agency work, suggested that he could yet be right about the fate of Barbara, despite all Nolan had said. Nolan hoped not, because Andrew was a sensitive soul who would fret about it, so after a while he said:

“Listen, Andrew.  If the police do question you again, don’t let them put you under any pressure.  It’s part of their techniques to make people feel as if they’re in the wrong. And believe me, whatever comes out about Barbara Haddon in the end, neither one of us could have done anything about it.  Wherever she was, she wasn’t there held in that house.”

“No, she certainly wasn’t.  I looked absolutely everywhere more than once, especially when I had my suspicions.   And the garden was just a garden, no dodgy sheds or outhouses, no garage.  His car was on the drive always.  I went in that with him a couple of times and there was no horrible smell in it from the boot or anything.”

“There you are, then.”

“Thanks, Nolan,” said Andrew, who was grateful and no longer had a fluttery sensation of dread troubling him, for now, at least.  “Don’t forget, as well, I was looking for her as a missing person, so I would have found any signs of her elsewhere if there had been anything traceable.”

“Exactly, Andrew.  That’s what I mean,” Nolan reassured him further.

When Nolan told Billy that he had suggested Andrew brought Sarah to the dinner party the following weekend, he’d said:

“Great idea.  We want to meet her, don’t we?  Why don’t you ask Dee along as well plus selected guest?  We haven’t seen her for a bit, have we? I’d like to look at some of her other work if she still has saleable items.  I’ve got a spot for another picture or two in mind. Ask her to take some phone pics to show me?”

Billy was in charge of decor, since he cared about it and Nolan didn’t.  Nolan considered things. It had probably been long enough, now, for there to be no risk of surveillance by Faisal of Dee’s movements and, besides, he still wanted to make amends for his outburst on the phone about Al that time, when he had actually been asked by Andrew to look out for her a little bit.

“Fine,” he agreed.  “Good shout, Billy.”

He checked first that Andrew would be agreeable to the proposal, which he was, so he phoned Dee, who was very happy to hear from Nolan, because she had been missing them both.

“Can I bring someone?” she asked.

“Of course,” agreed Nolan, assuming it would be Ed.  “Guest goes without question.”

“I’ve got some news,” said Dee, mischievously, in serious tones.  “You’re the first to know.”

“Oh?” Nolan responded cautiously, recalling that he had also been the first to know about Al getting in touch with Dee and experiencing a sinking feeling.

“Well, it’s like this, Nolan…..” she began, as if hesitating.

“Like what?” he demanded, firing up a bit.

“I’m seeing Finney from my art course now”, she said, with a laugh at having got a rise out of him..  “Can I bring him?”

“You cheeky monkey!” exclaimed Nolan.  “You nearly had me going there! Yes, of course you can bring him.  Andrew’s bringing his Sarah.”

“O-oh!” exclaimed Dee, with interest.

“Oh, indeed,” agreed Nolan.  “And Billy says to bring him a bit of a portfolio.  He wants another picture or two of yours for us.”

“Brilliant!” exclaimed a delighted Dee.  “The actual pictures, or a phone gallery?”

“On your phone, I think.  Saves you carting stuff.”

“That’s great news all round,” said Dee, very pleased.  “See you Saturday. I’m sure Finney will want to come.”

Finney, in fact, loved being invited, because Dee had told him by now quite a lot about Nolan and Munro and he reckoned having private detectives being hired to look for you as a runaway carried a certain coolness with it.  He was also impressed and glad for her about the painting sales proposal, helping her choose a selection of what she thought her best of what Billy might like.

On the evening of the dinner party, there were two other couples present as well, friends of Billy and Nolan, whom Dee and Andrew had met on earlier occasions, he more than once, Dee at the twelfth night party, so that, with Finney being socially at ease pretty much anywhere and Sarah turning out to be as openly friendly as her photograph suggested, there was no awkwardness over the canapes and drinks , or round the table later over the meal.  Billy was rather captivated by Finney, eyeliner and all and drew him into the discussion with Dee afterwards about choosing for the house gallery.

“You’ve got a very talented girlfriend here, you know,” he told Finney, who agreed that, indeed, he had and finished Billy off altogether with one of his glamorising smiles.  

The result was that a bewitched Billy chose a set of four pictures to go up the staircase wall,  together with a larger one for the landing and Finney drove a rather hard bargain on Dee’s behalf, pressing home his advantage.  It was agreed that Finney would come with Dee to help hang them. Billy, a bit merry anyway, half whispered,

“He’s a cracker!” to Dee, who smiled proprietorially and concurred that, yes, Finney was.  “Look at that hair!” Billy went on. “It must be like having your very own Barbie Doll Head to brush.”

“I get quite enough of that from Dee’s kid sister, thanks,” returned Finney.  “It’s a wonder I’ve got any locks left!”

“Oi!” said Nolan, passing them just then and slapping his husband on the behind.  “You’re a married man, you know.”

“A cat,” replied Billy, with stately aplomb, “may look at a queen.”

“Yes, except he isn’t one, is he?” replied Nolan kindly.  “Come on, sunshine. Post dinner liqueur time for the guests.  You can have a coke, Dee. You’re underage.”

“Oh, no!” she protested.  “Why? I’ve already had wine with the meal.”

Nolan laughed, having got his own back with a return tease.

“Have what you like, chuck,” he offered now, so she opted for a Tia Maria.

Afterwards (Billy, Sarah and the other guests remaining round the table chatting)  out on the small patio decking area by the French windows in front of the netted garden plot, Finney was handing round a spliff he’d brought, sharing it with Nolan and Andrew, along with his idea for ‘The Skills Guild’ and ‘Crash Start Art’, which germ of inspiration he attributed to Dee’s early success at Dream, her work at the mill and, generally, just doing it for herself.  Dee, who had come out too but wasn’t partaking, forbore to mention that Al had, in fact, been the giver of art materials, workspace, inspiration to go for it and the person who had acted as her promoter, it not being politic to give him his due in the present company.  Besides, it was rather nice being bigged up by Finney to them, rather than hearing people sing his praises instead, art wise.  Here, she was the discovered talent. Andrew and Nolan made encouraging and admiring noises in return and seemed disposed to think well of the project as they elaborated on it, which was flattering to both of them.

Privately, Andrew and Nolan discussed the possibility of giving a cash boost to them to help things get off the ground.

“Let’s see if it comes to anything first, before we mention that,” said Nolan.

“Agreed.  But he doesn’t seem a pipe dream sort of person, does he, young Finney?  Not all talk,” observed Andrew

“He’s all right,” agreed Nolan, approvingly.  “A far better match for her than Al, wouldn’t you say?”

“Yes, but he’s a bit of a charmer, too, isn’t he?  Very confident for eighteen.”

“Some people just are,” shrugged Nolan.  “Note of caution?”

“Only a semiquaver of one.  No, I like him but I do think he’s seeing that moving gallery thing primarily as a vehicle to get a name for himself career wise more than anything, Dee being along for the ride, as it were.”

“Maybe,” said Nolan.  “But then again, I don’t think shrinking violets hold much appeal for Dee, do you?  He’ll need to be able to hold his own by having her well involved in the action with him if Al ever comes back for her.  Won’t he?”

Andrew agreed that this was very true and only hoped that it wouldn’t happen.  They both agreed that there was no knowing but, at least, Dee had, finally, moved on, which could only be a good thing.

Dee spent some time drafting designs for the flyer and coming up with stylish and memorable logos for ‘The Skills Guild’ and ‘Crash Start Art’, and they disseminated them online via email and around the college to the people Finney had scoped out as ones he wanted to involve.  Finney gave a rousing presentation of plans and possibilities to the crowd gathered under the canopy of the closed down car showroom lot on the main road behind the college campus area.

“This could be our year!” he concluded.

There was some applause and a bit of cheering and then someone heckled,

“It could be your year to die in if you get it wrong, then there’s plenty of years after that for people to forget about you!”

Nihilist, dry and ego puncturing - who had said that?  Dee looked into the crowd for the source of the dismissive response to Finney’s call to join them.  A truculent looking individual, who had a space around him already from people steering a bit clear, was planted stockily in the middle and staring at them subversively.

“It’s not about the year, this year, next year. It’s about doing it!” countered Finney spiritedly.  “Anyway, who says we’ll die?” he appealed to the crowd in general, to gather them back in.

“Not you.  Your ambitions.  Might as well spray paint graffiti,”  said the other.

“Banksy did O.K. with that” retorted Finney.

“Banksy!” snorted this caustic figure.

“Don’t join us if you don’t want to!”

“I won’t!” derided his opponent but he remained standing there, a contemptuous challenge simply in himself.

“Well, you go and get yourself into the Royal Academy, then,” said Finney.

“I have.”

There was a silence.  Finney, Dee could see, did not like this.

“Anyone interested, get in touch.  You’ve got the email. If not,” he shrugged, his moment spoilt for him.  “Don’t.”

There was scattered applause by way of support as Finney turned to leave, the small coterie of the already chosen for ‘The Skills Guild’ preparing to follow him.  Dee glanced at the renegade, who said,

“Well, that was nice.  I’m off for a pint.” Dee took Finney’s hand in a gesture of solidarity.  “How touching!” added the stranger, nastily.

He was their age but had sleepless shadows beneath a hard, manic eye.  A disturbing cynicism seeped from him, making people uncomfortable, and you could tell that he liked that.

“Do you know him?” Dee asked Finney as they left.

“Yes.  And you don’t want to.  Trust me,” said Finney.

The heckler, indifferent to being solitary in a crowd, went his way.

“Who is he?”

“Old schoolmate.”

“Not much of a mate by the looks of it?”

“No.  He’s a cunt.”

“”What?”  Dee was startled, this being an out of keeping use of language for Finney.

“Well, he is,” asserted Finney.

“Right.  He certainly doesn’t seem very nice,” said Dee.

“Nice isn’t in his lexicon.  Difficult sod is as decent as he gets.”

“Does he bother you?”

“Not any more,”  said Finney shortly.  “If he tries to muscle in and ruin this, I won’t be happy.”   

“It didn’t sound like he wanted to,” comforted Dee.

“We’ll see.  He turned up, didn’t he?  I certainly didn’t ask him to.”

“Never mind him, Finney.  It went really well. You inspired them all.”

“He once painted his girlfriend’s portrait,” Finney told her, his mind still on this perturbing character.   “Portraiture is his thing, too, so he never liked me or my work. Anyway, she sat for him for ages and when he showed it to her, (he’d called it ‘Dryad’) it was a painting of a tree in Winter. Just a bare tree. She said he told her it was because she was dead wood."

“That’s cruel, but maybe he meant it to be a bit funny?”

Finney looked at her.

“It wasn’t funny to her, believe you me, because then he dumped her. He pushed her to the limit, poor girl.”

“Oh.  I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to sound heartless.”

“You’re far from that, Dee,” said Finney, hugging her.  “But he is.”

“What’s his name?”

“Never mind his name, I’d rather you never met him.”

”But what if he’s one of the ones who gets in touch to ask where we’re getting set up?  I won’t know to avoid him, will I?”

“I suppose not,” Finney said reluctantly.  “All right, then. His name’s Baz Jackson.”

“Is Baz short for Bastard, then?” asked Dee, trying to lighten the moment.

“It ought to be,” said Finney, not softening.

They had held the meeting at lunchtime so had to go back into college then and those who had joined them in the car lot came to say well done, to Finney,  and many were interested,  so that by the end of the day, he was back to feeling ebullient about the project again. 

Chapter 22 - Coming to Conclusions

The central heating, such as it was in the house, didn’t permeate far across Finney’s big attic room, so he and Dee were looking out at the day’s recurrent snow showers from under the duvet but cuddled up in their clothes, until it was time to get the bus into town to be sneaked in for a look at the disused chapel space.  They had retreated from the studio room, where Dee had posed for him under the protective warmth of the halogen heater in there, while he took some shots to sketch from later. Across the room now, in her bag, Dee’s phone chimed a couple of times with message alerts.

“Hadn’t you better check that out?” enquired Finney, casually.  “Your mob’s The Skills Guild contact number on the flyer for interested new parties, don’t forget, Madam Secretary.”

“Oh, it’s probably only update messages, I expect.  I’ll have a look in a minute when we brave getting up again.”

“Well, we better had.  It’s nearly time to go.”

The chapel, when Dee and Finney were given entry to it, was indeed wonderful but Dee looked round it a bit doubtfully.

“Cold feet?” asked Finney.

“It would be bad if we spoilt it,” said Dee.  “Are you sure about us being able to handle that?”

“Of course.  It’s only you, me and a few of the others to get started, remember.  Do an initial promo vlog. This is more for the setting. The next spaces I’ve got in mind are empty spots in places.  Come on! It’s exciting!”

Dee, though, was a bit distracted, because her messages, when she had looked previously, were unexpected alerts that Al had contacted her, but she hadn’t had chance to read them in Finney’s presence and didn’t want to tell him, saying instead that it was just junk mail stuff coming in, as she’d thought, nothing interesting. She was worried.  From longing for Al to turn up again, now she was dreading it. She envisaged him sitting round the corner outside her parents’ house already, perhaps.

“It’s a brilliant spot to start off in, I agree,” she said in answer to Finney now.  “It’s freezing in here, though.

“Yes, well, we’ll have to tough that kind of thing out,” said Finney.  “Are you O.K.? You look a bit….”

“Just cold,” asserted Dee, untruthfully

“Come on, then.  We’ll go for a hot drink,” said Finney, still looking around the chapel’s ornate fittings admiringly.

In the cafe they went to, not Dream this time, Dee retreated to the ladies to read her phone messages.  There were two, saying ‘Coming soon’ and ‘Stay true.’ It was a bit late for that, thought Dee, feeling upset by them but deciding not to respond right then.  Who knew what ‘soon’ meant in Al’s calendar of activity, anyway, she reasoned? She returned to Finney, who didn’t notice anything, full of plan making for the launch.  Hearing no more from Al in the following days and several weeks, she began to relax again as their venture got underway, very conflicted and unsure about what it would be best to do if and when the time did come to speak to Al directly.

“Well, Mr Munro, I’m not very happy with you,” announced Peter Haddon, whom Andrew found sitting in the agency office under the veranda when he returned from a quick corner shop trip for milk.  “And I must say that for a detective you’re not very security conscious with that door down there. You didn’t even close it properly. Obviously, you were only going to be a minute,” he added, gesturing at the carton of milk, “but all the same.”  He had a comfortable sort of voice, Mr Haddon, at odds with the gun he was pointing at Andrew, making beating a hasty retreat risky. “Oh, it is real,” he continued, in the same conversational way, seeing a horrified Andrew looking at it. “If you’re going to make a hot drink, I’ll have tea, no sugar, a splash of that milk.  Then, perhaps, you’ll sit down at your desk. On second thoughts, just do that, would you? I don’t want you trying anything on with boiling water.”

Andrew did not intend to try anything on, fight or flight mode being in shocked suspension.  He sat down at his desk as bidden, saying nothing. “My garden,” continued Mr Haddon, “is a wreck.  I worked hard on that for Barbara. It’s what she wanted. A patio and a gazebo seat. What have you to say to that, eh?” he asked, cocking his head a little to the side.

“Er, have the police….?” asked Andrew, trying to look baffled.

“Oh, I haven’t spoken to them,” said Mr Haddon.  “No. But prior to my return, I had spoken to my neighbour.  All was still well, then, but he did update me, when I asked if there was any news, my having asked him to keep an eye on the place for me while I was away, about your little visit, sailing under false colours as a family friend.  From his description, I knew of course that it had to be you, but why, I wondered, the follow up, since I had previously told you I’d concluded my dealings with your firm? So I thought it wise to come back alone first, just in case anything had gone wrong.  Barbara’s furious, by the way.” Andrew looked startled, beginning to wonder just how crazy Peter Haddon was. “Oh, it isn’t her they found under there,” clarified Mr Haddon.  “That will soon be evident. No. But, we can’t come back now, can we?” he posited, as if reasonably.

“Not, not her?” stumbled Andrew, a strange kind of relief washing through him that he had not, after all, apparently, failed the missing Barbara.

“No.  I may seem an unlikely candidate by now for a love triangle.  But things had gone a bit too far for Barbara. So she did her in, you see. Frankly, I was grateful.  One of those dreadful people who starts out being all independent and then turn needy without warning.  You understand the problem, I’m sure. Obviously, I didn’t want to leave Barbara for her and Barbara didn’t want me to, either.  So Barbara took things into her own very capable hands. She’d been waiting in Florida for me to join her once I’d ensured (through your good offices) that Barbara was supposed to have left me for a lover instead and that nothing was suspected. We’ve just had a very nice holiday together. We were going to return any time soon, with a lovely reunion story for our caring neighbours,” he said reproachfully.

“Why do you think I’ve got anything to do with what the police have found in your garden, then?” asked Andrew, surreptitiously nudging the mouse by the computer.  

A dormant screen with a google hangout chat he and Nolan had been having earlier still showed.  Holding Mr Haddon’s bifocaled gaze, he began to tap his left, visible hand nervously on the table and under cover of that noise, with his right, (concealed by the monitor screen) touch typed ‘help’ quickly.  He could only hope that Nolan was still working at home and would both see it and take it seriously.

“Because it turned out that I’d been quite right to come alone, didn’t it?” went on Peter Haddon.  “I spoke to my neighbour again first, on the phone as if still away, and he mentioned a chatty policeman calling and saying they’d been asked to speak to neighbours about what they knew regarding the vanishing of Barbara.  Some kind of tip off. Probably nothing, this policeman thought, and of course, my neighbour quite agreed. Was offended on my behalf, in fact. Since then, I’ve been lying low and keeping a careful eye on the news and when I saw it the other day in my hotel room, that since I spoke to him a body had been found, well, there we have it.  There was only one person likely to have raised any alarm after all this time, the one who had been poking about after I’d asked him to finish making enquiries. You. Yes, I can see by your honest, blushing face that I’m right. As a matter of fact, you’ve turned out to be a far better private detective than I had you pegged for. Frankly, I thought you were pretty useless. That’s why I went on to hire you after our initial appointment.”

“Thanks!” said Andrew, put out by the slur, even in the face of the gun and the conversation they were having.

“So, you’re going to have to make amends.  Aren’t you?”

“Um?” queried Andrew, hoping this wouldn’t be by being shot in retaliation.

“You’re going to ring the police and tell them that I’ve delivered you a suicide note at the office here.  You found it under the door this morning. It’s in this envelope,” said Mr Haddon, reaching it out of his inside jacket pocket and putting it on the desk between them.  “I realised that the game was up on my return and can’t live with the guilt of it all. According to this, Barbara has indeed left me. I don’t know where she is and the murder of my lover was a crime passionelle as a result of my distress at that unlooked for outcome.  I have been in a terribly depressed state ever since, as you can imagine. I have delivered the note to you as my trusted employee, who did his best to find my beloved Barbara for me once I’d got rid of the mistress so successfully, unbeknown, of course, to you, or Barbara herself.  Now the body has been discovered, it’s the end for me.

“I can’t have Barbara implicated now, Mr Munro, do you see?  Not after all the trouble we’ve taken. So I take the rap and off myself.  Obviously, I don’t go through with it but only you and I know this and they won’t find any sign of me, naturally.  You’re going to drive me next to a private plane I’ve organised to get back to Barbara. Not now in Florida by the way.  Or here, of course. After that, you will drop off the note. It should delay them nicely. It’s the least you owe me after all I’ve paid you.  Oh, and of course, do keep your mouth shut afterwards. If you don’t, I’ll have to put the hitman I’ve organised for into action and we don’t want that, do we?  It is a pity about the house but then, it was only a tiny part of our capital. Barbara was very fond of it, though. As I say, she’s absolutely livid. I will have to find somewhere especially nice for our new future.  Not in England, clearly. Where? Well, I really don’t think I need to compromise your life further by sharing any more knowledge with you, do you?”

Andrew shook his head, agreeing.  On the computer screen, a speech bubble from Nolan appeared, asking, ‘huh?’

“I’ve got no choice, then, have I?” said Andrew.  “My phone’s in my pocket, though.”

“Get it out, then,” suggested Mr Haddon, equably.

Andrew reached for it with his left visible hand and touch typed ‘help’ again with his right, all he dared risk without attracting attention to his action.  He then had to use both hands to search out and call the station number he had been given for the officer who had interviewed him. It went to voicemail, so he left a message that he would be calling in later with important information for the police about the case.  Peter Haddon nodded approval and said,

“Come along, then. Bring that with you,” (Andrew obediently picked up the letter and put it in his own pocket) “ and we’ll be off.  You’re fully aware, aren’t you, that my threat is not an idle one about the hitman?”

“Yes,” said Andrew, terrified enough by the gun presently on him and in no doubt of the very cold blooded organisation that had already gone in to handling the crime committed by Mr Haddon’s wife.  “But, why did you tell me what had really happened?”

“Why not?  I’ve got all angles covered and you needed putting in your place for trying to be a clever sod.  You got it all wrong, matey. Didn’t you?” He chuckled. “Didn’t cotton on to my extra maritals, did you, and I’ve got quite a long hidden history, believe you me!  She wasn’t the first by a long way, even though she was the most trouble in the end. Which, of course, is why Barbara found out about her, even though I always played well away from home, in her case as well.  They might have a job working out who she is, given that. Well, I’ll let you wait and see on that one as well, I think. Best be on our way.”

Andrew, walking to his car with Peter Haddon to drive him where instructed, could only hope that there wasn’t already a further fatal fate in store for him regardless of what he did with his newfound knowledge but there was nothing he could do about it right then.  Back in his home office, Nolan, having picked up on something being amiss, had replied, ‘on way,’ but Andrew wasn’t there to read it. By the time Nolan had driven to the agency office himself and approached with slightly baffled caution, (hearing nothing from upstairs and getting no answer to his call of hello) and feeling the unmistakable sense of an empty room up there, Andrew was on his way at speed to a local private air strip.

Andrew’s mobile was on the desk, left there at Peter’s instruction, which gave Nolan pause for thought, but there was no further clue as to Andrew’s reason for typing ‘help’ twice. Nolan checked the phone for the last number dialled and got through himself to the policeman’s answerphone, name, rank and station stated after “ you have reached the voicemail of”. Ringing off and looking out of the window to check again, he saw that, as he had thought on his way in, Andrew’s car had indeed gone.  Nolan concluded that he must have been too slow in responding to the message and Andrew had dashed off hastily on whatever mission it was, forgetting his phone. Given the last number dialled, he’d probably, as he feared, been asked to go down to the station to make a further statement, Nolan thought, got himself worked up about it, sent his plea for help without reply and then went off forgetting his phone.

“I told you, “ Nolan addressed the absent Andrew, “not to call the police in the first place,” a sentiment which, just then, his business partner would readily have agreed with.

While supposing that it might be possible to try something in the car, Andrew couldn’t see what, without risking a crash or shooting injury. Honking the horn to attract attention would only put him at risk and engender road rage in others, so he saw no point.  At the airfield, a small plane was waiting and as Peter went to get out, Andrew closed his eyes momentarily, expecting the worst, but the only bang was that of the car’s passenger door shutting. He reversed hastily back as Peter climbed the short steps up to the craft and spun the car round to drive to a safe distance as the plane taxied off, where he stopped for a few minutes hoping not to have a heart attack or pass out, unsure which might be imminent, until his fear had subsided enough for him to take a few deep breaths and continue.

Nolan waited a while at the office for Andrew to come back.  Eventually his phone rang. It was Billy, who said, sounding slightly anxious,

“Andrew’s here.  I think you’d better come.  He’s in a bit of a state about something, I think.  Oh, and can you bring his phone, he left it there in the office, he says.”

“What’s up, then?” asked Nolan.

“I don’t know, says he’s fine but when did you ever see Andrew looking as white as a sheet?”

“Hmmm.  All right.  I’ll come straight there.  He’s probably just in a tizz for no good reason,” soothed Nolan, not wanting Billy to have a reason to start harping on again about work related risk-taking at them both.

“I think I’ll give him a brandy,” said Billy.  “I hope I’m not going to need one as well.”

“Not at all, my love,” said Nolan.  “It’s all quiet on the Western Front, agency wise.”

“Is it, now,” said Billy skeptically, ringing off.

Nolan actually found Andrew and Billy drinking tea.

“He’s had a sandwich,” said Billy paternally, “to perk him up a bit.”

“Yes, thanks, Billy,” said Andrew.  “I think I just forgot to eat today.  I’m fine, honestly. I expect that’s why you thought I looked a bit shaky.”

“That’s as maybe, said Billy.  “Go in the office with Nolan and tell him what’s really on your mind.  I hope the two of you aren’t getting yourselves in a mess with this detective lark?  It’s not as if you have to do it, is it, you’ve both got other professional skills?”

“No!” scoffed Nolan.  “We’re strictly low level stuff.”

“Well, I hope so,” said Billy.  “Right, I’m off back to work shortly then.  I only came home for lunch because I thought Nolan was working from here today.”

Nolan didn’t enlighten him that he had been doing so but had gone off in response to Andrew’s S.O.S. and neither did Andrew.  He left them to it and they went into Nolan’s office..

“So, what’s happened, nervous wreck?” asked Nolan.  “I know you can flap a bit sometimes. Was it the police again?”

“No.  It wasn’t.  I went out for milk and when I came back Peter Haddon was sitting there waiting for me with a loaded gun in his hand.”

“What?” exclaimed Nolan.

Andrew filled Nolan in with the details and Nolan, in spite of himself, was impressed by Andrew’s quick thinking in trying to call him to the rescue, less so by his having gone meekly along with driving Peter to the airfield but then Andrew, by his own admission, was no action man.  Andrew, of course, was now in a dilemma about what, if anything, he should tell the police, or if he should, given the (however outlandish it seemed) threat that he had received. Nolan thought about it.

“How do you know it was true?” he asked finally.

“If what was true?”

“Any of it.  It could still turn out to be Barbara who was under there.”

“I don’t think  so. Well, perhaps... but it looks as if another woman’s missing, doesn’t it? “

“Mate,” cautioned Nolan, “all things considered, I’d leave it to the police investigators now.  They’re the forensic experts, not us. Take that note in and say nothing else.”

“But - what if we were caught on CCTV together, or driving to the airfield?”

“You’re panicking again.   If that comes out, you’ll have to say you were acting under duress.  Personally, I doubt it will.”

“It feels all wrong.”

“I know, but safe wrong rather than dead wrong.”

“All right,” agreed Andrew, “I’ll stick to what he told me to do.”

“Good lad.   Leave it to the police.  They’re less than impressed with us already.”

“True,” Andrew agreed again.

Nolan went with him for moral support and he left the letter with the duty officer, saying who’s attention it was for, as the policeman in question was still out on other duties when called through for.  Andrew said that he would wait to hear back from him when asked if he wished to see him, and they made their, in Andrew’s case, slightly unhappy escape.

The chapel having been set up for ‘Crash Start Art’ and The Skills Guild’s  work in progress filmed, together with the initial exhibits and artists involved, a startup vlog featuring Finney’s introduction and continuing commentary to camera was launched on the internet.  It generated immediate interest due to their earlier publicity and quickly picked up followers. ‘Crash Start Art’ was a success from the off. They all worked well together, the small group that were The Skills Guild and took the approach of mentoring one another, as well as the other participants, stronger skills lending support to weaker ones, by way showing sharing techniques to improve.  The fun they had with it and their gleeful sense of a bit of naughty derring do running through the project’s dynamic, gave their internet vlogs an energetic panache which boosted and widened their popularity very fast. Finney stood out physically. The camera liked him and he was quite at his engaging ease as chief talker and presenter. He never gave any clues to camera as to where they actually were, so the guessing game of what the venue was became part of the followers’ interested feedback posts.  After the first chapel workshop place, at each new ‘secret’ one, they found themselves entering to an already created graffiti motif , as prominent as possible on all available surfaces. It was a stylised but clear rendering of the initials, ‘B.J.’

Baz Jackson, it seemed, was  getting in on the act by thumbing his nose at them about the work they were doing, using his dismissive graffiti reference from that first open air meeting as a coded insult to them, or more particularly, to Finney, who had no doubt who the graffitist was, though he had no idea as to who their secret mole might be.  He refused to countenance any accusatory discussion or investigation amongst them, though, on the basis that this mischief was meant to sabotage their trust in one another and send ‘Crash Start Art’ into meltdown. Of B.J. himself, there was no sign. When Dee asked why Baz Jackson was doing this, if it was him, Finney shrugged and said,

“He’s a twisted thinker.  He doesn’t want to be part of it but he’ll be jealous of us and arrogant about us being rubbish anyway at the same time.  He likes goading and pushing buttons from the outside. He’s trying to show us how small we are and that he’ll always be one step ahead as an artist.”

Dee thought that Baz Jackson in person had reminded her a bit of Al’s brother, Zulf, because there was something implacable about his evident sense of superiority and the emanation of antagonism from his demeanour.

“Is he a good artist?” she asked.

“Very.  Just a shitty human being,” said Finney.  “Ignore it all and he’ll get bored.”

The vlog followers, though, did not ignore it all, caught up in asking on posts about the initials’ significance and who or what that was all about in the background of the ‘Crash Start Art’ vlogs?  Without saying a word, the anonymous ‘B.J.’ soon got as much attention in the feedback as Finney already got. Finney took it on the chin, though and stood firm about making no response, even though Dee knew it galled him deeply to think of this character sitting there somewhere reading the feedback on line and enjoying himself thoroughly at their imagined, or perhaps reported, discomfort.

They had by now garnered enough interest for Finney to capture a spot on a popular local radio station to promote them and there was even talk of a breakfast television interview in the offing.  Dee was in her room at home listening as the presenter said, with the inevitable relentless chuckle of the hardened radio D.J running through his voice:

“With me in the studio today is homegrown artist, Finney, who’s busy spearheading a new underground movement for himself and other new young artists in the city.  There are a lot of people talking about you, aren’t there, Finney? Tell us what’s going on. What are you called?”

“We’re called ‘The Skills Guild’ and the exhibition is called ‘Crash Start Art.’ “said Finney’s voice confidently.

“I believe you have a very successful vlog already showcasing ‘Crash Start Art’,” said the presenter encouragingly.

“Thank you!” said Finney enthusiastically and went on to describe the various ways and mediums with which they were all working, the aims of the project and outline that they were hoping along the way to help save some very good buildings from demolition.  The presenter congratulated him on their vision and ideals and asked,

“So, this graffiti that’s appearing everywhere you go, isn’t that a bit of vandalism by The Skills Guild rather than preservation?” he asked next, provocatively.  “Who is ‘B.J.’, that’s what everyone wants to know, isn’t it?”

“No, not at all,” said Finney.  “We remove it professionally before we leave for the next spot.”  He gave a relaxed laugh, belying the actual problem that this caused them.  “It’s all part of the show, you know, to raise curiosity and interest. Who’s to say that there is any real ‘B.J.’?”

“So, they’re not part of The Skills Guild Team, then?”

“Not in person,” said Finney, managing to imply that they may or may not be an actual person.  He laughed again. “All publicity is good publicity, you know.”

“So they say, Finney, “ the presenter agreed, laughing with him.  “How long will you be continuing?”

“It’s an in your face thing, to break down barriers,” improvised Finney.  “ We’ve done five moving workshops now and we’re trying to push our boundaries.  We’ll stop when we feel we’ve done all we can. Or until we get stopped,” he added, to emphasise their slightly outlaw like credentials, which were going down well with the public.   “So far, so good!”

“Well, keep up the inspiration, gang,” said the presenter, rounding up.  “I think a lot of people are very impressed and will continue to be. Your vlog’s gone viral already, hasn’t it?”

“Thanks.  Not quite!” said Finney.  “Maybe one day.”

“Well, I’m sure whatever all you young artists do one day, it will be a great success.”

“Thank you very much, “ concluded Finney.  “Many thanks for having me on the show.”

“My pleasure, “ finished the presenter, and moved on to his next item.

Dee’s phone rang shortly afterwards and she answered happily, expecting a delighted Finney to be on the line.  Instead, to a speakerphone echo accompaniment, there was a slow handclap followed by a flat, local voice saying in a scornful drawl,

“So, The Skills Guild’s a team, is it?  You want to tell Finney it’s not all about him, love.  I think I’ve shown that. Don’t you? There is a real B.J.”

Baz Jackson rang off on that valedictory note of mock tribute to himself before she could answer, leaving her rattled, irritated and also, annoyingly, thinking that he might have a bit of a point, because Finney did seem to be taking most of the glory one way or another, even if nobody else had been keen to act as frontman.  It had been his idea anyway, all of it, hadn’t it, and the organisation of it was mostly down to him? Never mind, she thought, I was the muse and none of it would have come about anyway without all my own artwork and selling it giving Finney the idea. She wasn’t going to let the message of this deflating phone call be passed on to Finney or spoil the occasion.  Another thing she wasn’t going to tell him, then, she also thought.

On their next Youtube vlog, they ran Finney’s interview as the soundtrack behind shots of them all standing together in a united group somewhere where there was no graffiti (it being in Finney’s house) and Finney had his arm proudly round Dee’s shoulders in the centre, the main couple of the set, although there were also others among them.  They had by now, it seemed, gone very public.

It was almost without surprise, then, it being in the back of her mind that he might have, that soon afterwards, she found herself answering her phone to Al, who had seen the vlog footage of their enterprise on the internet.

“Dee!” he said abruptly, out of nowhere.  “That guy again! You really are seeing someone else, aren’t you? Did you lie to me?”

“Not then,” said Dee, “ and yes,” she forced herself to say, “ I am seeing him now.  What of it?”

“What of it? “ he exclaimed furiously.  “I told you I was coming for you!”

“You can’t just do that, “ Dee told him.

“Do you live with him?”

“No.”

“Do you want to?”

“No.  I don’t know.  Not yet,” Dee faltered, thrown by his directness.

“Then,” said Al, “you’ve got yourself in a bit of a fix, haven’t you?  You should have waited for me.”

“Waited for you!  How long for?”

“Until now,” said Al.

“It’s too late now.  Anyway, what about Rifat?”

“What about her?  And no, it’s not too late.  We can both get back to where we want to be.”

“Where’s that, Al?”

“Together, Dee.  Where else?”

“You really had a plan?”

“Have, Dee.  I have a plan.  It’s all set up.”

“Where are you?” asked Dee.

“Here.  Hiding out.  But I have an ally.  She’ll come for you.”

“She?  Who? Not, not Gemma!”

“No! Sahara.”

“Faisal’s wife?”

“Yes.  She’s on our side, particularly, mine.  She argued for me against Faisal, Zulf and Hamid about keeping me away.  We’ve talked in secret since and she’s ready to help us out. She liked you and she’s very fond of me.  This is our chance. Rifat’s away from me right now with her family. She wanted to be with her mother after….”

He stopped, trailing off a bit.  Dee immediately got it.

“After your baby was born,” she finished for him.

“It wasn’t agreed to,” said Al.

“So it was a full marriage,” said Dee.  “You were sleeping together as man and wife.”

“Yes,” said Al, shortly.   “As you have been doing with someone else.”

“You once said that would be it, if I did,” Dee pointed out.

“Different circumstances, Dee.  I’d been taken from you and you didn’t know what was going to be,” he surprised her by saying.

“So, really, where are you now?”  Dee asked again.

“Near enough.  Come. Sahara will bring you.  Then we can take it from there.”

“Al,” said Dee.  “I haven’t agreed to anything.”

“But you want to,” said Al.

Her emotional response to him told her that she did.  In spite of herself, reason was already trailing behind.  Instead of saying, as she meant to, "no", and, "I can’t", she found herself saying,

“What are your plans, Al?”

“To get you and go, Dee.  It’s that simple.”

“I’m not running away with you again to lose everyone, all my family.  Not again,” Dee declared staunchly.  “It’s not fair of you to expect it.”

“I’ll be losing all mine.  Just as you told me I’d have to, last time we met,” countered Al.

“But, what have you actually sorted out, Al?”

“You know me, Dee.  I can always sort something out.  The world’s a big place.” Dee fell silent.  “Meet me,” he urged.

“No,” said Dee, miserably.

“No?” he asked, astounded.  “Seriously? No?”

“Seriously.  No. You haven’t come for me, not really.  You’re just running away yourself. From your responsibilities.  What about my future?  And what about if I want a baby one day?  What then?”

“That would be different.”

“Would it?”

“Of course!”

“I’m not so sure about that, Al.”

“Is it because of him?”  Al asked next, angrily.

“No, Al,” Dee replied slowly.  “It’s because of you.  And because of me.”

“I thought you loved me.”

“I do,” said Dee. “But I can’t do this and neither should you.  Not like that.  Is it only Sahara who knows you’re here?”

“Yes.  I came earlier than they’re expecting, to get a head start.”

“So they are expecting you!” Dee accused.

“Yes, but I’d already have gone, with you.”

“Where to, Al?  You’ve just put Sahara on the spot, haven’t you?” Dee perceived.  “Got in touch and said, I’m here, get Dee for me.  And all this because you caved in to your brothers in the first place.  No, Al.  You’ve got your wife.  You’ve got a child together now.  You can’t have me as well.  See them all as they expect you to, when they expect you to.”

“Dee!” cried Al, agitatedly.   “You don’t mean it! You can’t mean it!”

“I do mean it!” Dee shouted at him and then rang off in an agony of tears, racked by her refusal, right though she knew she had been to make it.

She switched her phone off and sat out the rush of grief and regret which followed, together with the absolute longing for his presence that the sound of his voice had instantly made her crave.  It couldn’t be and that was all about it, she told herself firmly.  Al had left her once as suddenly as he meant to leave Rifat now.  Who was to say that, under pressure, he wouldn't do it again?  She thought of Finney.

“I don’t do disappearing acts”, he had said, “and I don’t expect them from anyone else, either.”

She wasn’t going to participate in one with Al again and let Finney down.  Finney deserved better than that from her.  Everyone did, she felt, including Al himself.  If he genuinely wanted that freedom in life, he needed to find it for himself first.

To fight off any possibilities for temptation in case Al came looking for her, Dee fled to Finney’s house for a few days to keep out of his way and anywhere he knew of that she might be.  It was hard for her to do it, very hard but she made sure that she did.  There was a lot going on anyway, Finney and The Skills Guild being feted and the flavour of the moment and his busy house was even busier as a result, his previous admirers and friends added to by other droppers in.  Dee kept a careful eye on her phone but heard no more from Al and somehow, instinctively, she knew that she wouldn’t, that sense of a mental tether, for the first time, broken.  She kept it to herself, however, deciding that it would only cause needless distress to Finney as well if she confided in him, because she had dealt with it, bravely and at personal cost without a doubt, but she had.

A few weeks on, Finney and Dee took the paintings Billy had chosen round on a bright Sunday afternoon, courtesy of a lift in Phil the lodger’s van.  They had been invited for a cream tea to be provided by Billy to mark the occasion.  By now, following the success of ‘Crash Start Art’, hers were not the only commissions the group had enjoyed and there was a definite feeling of their coming trailing clouds of glory.  It was, after the long, cold Spring which had continued well into the start of British Summer Time, a warm day and they ate their finger sandwiches and scones in the garden, a picnic table set out.  Billy had Finney pour the tea, he being the one, Billy remarked, who looked most fitted to the role of Mad Hatter, thanks to his offbeat headgear.  Today’s effort was, as Billy said, more crushed than velvet, although, as he also said it ‘looked the part.’  Finney took all this good naturedly, because strident banter from Billy, undercut with a flirtatious edge, was the norm.

Pansies and violas, darkly soft centred, mingled with marigolds in borders and hanging baskets.  Vegetable leaves sprouted up in the raised beds formerly netted against the next door children’s overshot shuttlecocks and tennis balls.  There was honey in the air, as well as on the table.  Fresh greens dappled the trees bordering gardens, lapping sun gloss on to Finney’s now bareheaded hair as the breeze moved branches.  It shone brightly, as he was doing in conversation.  Billy was drawing him out about what he wanted to do next, having been duly impressed by ‘The Skills Guild’, which, as Finney was saying, could always re-form at any time, for new people as well as their first established set of members.

Dee got up to wander about the garden and catch flower shots on her phone, because this was all familiar talk to her by now.  Nolan had joined them later on, grazing on remaining cake items. He came over to Dee, leaving Billy and Finney talking at the table.

“You’re quiet, Dee?” said Nolan inquiringly.

“Well….you can’t get a word in, can you?” she said, with a laugh but meaning it.

“Nope.  Billy’s in full canter and Finney’s not far behind, is he?”

“Oh, Finney can gas for England!” exclaimed Dee affectionately.  “He’s never short for words.”

“So, how are you getting along, then?  You two?” asked Nolan.

“It’s good.  Thanks for asking,” said Dee.

“I doubt you’re ever bored, are you, with that one?” asked Nolan, with a nod in Finney’s direction.

“No.  There’s always so much going on!” said Dee.  “Too much, at times. Well. You know what I mean.”

“I think so,” said Nolan.  “You want to be part of it all but not find yourself carried out with the tide.  And, you like a bit of time to yourself.”

“Yes!  How did you know?” asked Dee.

“Fellow feeling, sweetie", said Nolan.  “Billy’s a mile a minute merchant as well.  Always wants action, socialising, a full programme of activities.  That’s why I like what I call my ‘loafing time’ to think my own thoughts.  The agency and Andrew come in handy for that.”

“A useful get out, you mean?”

“Exactly and a bit of vagueness on the personal whereabouts front. So,” Nolan pursued, “no regrets?”

Dee knew what he meant.  Just then, Billy called over to her to come and help with hanging the pictures.  Being the artist, the display should be at her direction, he said, then calling across to Nolan, too, he added,

“You’re not helping, you great lummox!  If you try to knock a nail in, the whole shebang will come down.  He’s not like a herd of elephants, he’s more of a one man stampede,” he added, for Finney and Dee’s benefit.  

“Fine by me,” shrugged Nolan, indifferent to this rather unfair accusation, lighting up a frowned on fag.  “I’ll stay out here for a smoke. So,” he said again to Dee, sotto voce, before she moved away, “no regrets?”

“I wouldn’t say that”, she answered quietly, going in to help as requested.

“Ah,” Nolan said to himself.  “As I thought,” and he wondered, from something in Dee’s manner, if anything further had happened on the Al front.  

He decided not, since she seemed to have been exclusively in Finney’s company for the last couple of months at least, one way or another but he wondered, all the same.   There was a shadow of the past in Dee’s face which hadn’t been there for quite some time.  He sat on, smoking and contentedly watching a population of green caterpillars mooching through Billy’s brassicas.  Pretty little things, cabbage whites, he thought, and far more partial to their namesake than he was.

“Bon appetit,” he addressed them in comradely fashion, flicking his cigarette end forbiddenly into the compost heap and getting up with a languid stretch.  Less mulch, less veg, was his outlook but it never did catch fire when he did that.

He looked more closely at the gateway, where he had thought, for a moment, that a face was looking in through the climbing tangle which arched above it on a trellis, which, it being at the bottom of the garden, would be highly unusual.  He went over and looked out but the unadopted, rough surfaced little road that ran behind their street and the next was empty in both directions. Funny, he thought, just a trick of the light, the leaves and having Al Saleem in his thoughts, for the face which had startled his reverie had looked, for an instant, like that very person, or one just like him.

“Jesus, Dee,” he said to himself, going inside.  “You’re thought projecting the little bastard now.”

Nolan still smarted at the recollection of that night at the mill and, if there wasn’t much real difference between him and Al in height or build, he could at least diminish him pejoratively in his own mind.  He peered down the garden through a houseplant on the kitchen windowsill but no handsome face was framed by the sweetheart vine in return. A fearful racket of hammering and shouted instructions on hanging and picture straightening spilled through the house.  Billy was adding his own special stress brew to the occasion.

“Now, then,” Nolan said, going through to calm it down a bit.  “You’ll have the neighbours worrying we’re knocking through. Cool it, gang.  Let’s have a look, see.  Ah, now, they’re fantastic, Dee!  Perfect as they are.”

Dee glowed a little.

“Thank you, Nolan,” she said proudly and Finney looked glad for her.

When Finney and Dee left, Nolan uneasily checked the road again outside, front and back but there was still nobody to be seen who shouldn’t be there, so he said nothing of it.

Coming out of college the following day to go back to her own family home, Dee found herself once more cornered by Faisal.  Finney wasn’t with her, having left early to head off for a venue meet up with somebody for the next and last workshop for the time being, their coursework needing attention now to finish their modules.  A new Audi pulled alongside her and Faisal’s voice called to her cordially,

“Hop in, kiddo.  I need a word.” She considered refusing and he could see that she was doing so.  “Come on. It’s either that or I knock on your door. Or someone else’s. I know where you go, who you see.”

“Nice to know I’m being watched over,” said Dee sarcastically.

“That’s right,” he returned with his genial smile.  “I’m your guardian angel, Dee. You wouldn’t think it to look at me, would you?”

“No!” said Dee, obstreperously, but she got into the car obediently, all the same.

Faisal set off.

“I’ll drive you home again.  Now, have you heard from Al in the last couple of weeks or so?”

“No,” said Dee, truthfully.

“O.K.” said Faisal, still sounding relaxed.  “And less recently, shortly before that, perhaps?”  Dee’s slight hesitation gave her away. “So you definitely did.  I need to know what went down, and be honest about it, Dee.”

“He said he was here.  Wanted me to go to him,” Dee gave him, as briefly as possible.

“Mmhm.  And here, was...?”

“I don’t know.  I - I said no. I didn’t  meet him.”

“I thought as much,” said Faisal. “That explains a couple of things.”

He waited for her to ask him what they were and after a moment, she couldn’t hold back from doing so.

“Why?  Where is he now?” asked Dee, finally, not wanting to implicate Sahara, but it seemed from what he said next, that he knew a fair bit already.

“Good question.  We didn’t realise he was a missing link that end or this end, till he didn’t appear over here as expected a fortnight ago.  Also, Gemma has been incommunicado for several weeks now.”

“He, he’s gone off with her?” interrupted Dee.

“Looks like it, doesn’t it?  I gathered from my wife that he’d had the knock back earlier from the one he really wanted to run away with.”

“Me,” said Dee.

“You,” agreed Faisal.  “Sahara, bless her, didn’t want to give him away.  Too soft hearted by far. But then, that’s why I love her.”  Dee looked askance at him. “Oh, I do. The Gemma set up, as you know, was purely a diversionary tactic.  Ironic, isn’t it?” he said with his warm chuckle. “She’s now got her first choice of man but she’s most definitely second best herself.  It’s going to be a pity for Gemma, because she’ll be completely ousted now and shipped off safely elsewhere in the business.”

“Why?” asked Dee, wondering, safely for whom?

“Because she’s proved herself unworthy of our trust, hasn’t she?  Well, I’ll have to go and yank on Al’s invisible chain to Hamid again, won’t I?”  He smiled at Dee’s expression. “You didn’t think he wouldn’t leave us a clue, did you?”

“No,” said Dee, who had thought this all along and was sad for Al.

“Listen,” continued Faisal.  “You did the right thing for both of you, Dee.  You’ve got this new lad now, haven’t you?   Each to their own, I suppose,” he smiled, judgmentally, of Finney, “but you seem to get on all right from what I’ve seen.  Just in case, though, I’m going to tell you something about Al. Something you need to know.”

“I already know,” said Dee.  “I guessed.  He has a baby.”

“That’s right,” said Faisal, giving her a look appreciative of her intelligence.  “Is that why you turned Al down?”  (There was something in his voice which suggested that he couldn’t believe his good looking and beloved by Dee cousin had been refused by her only for the very different Finney, when Al had come back for her).

"Partly,” answered Dee.  “More because, if he wanted to leave, he shouldn’t have done it just by running off when his wife was staying without him at her mother’s.  And he can't turn up to collect me like a parcel waiting for him either, without any warning, no plans.”

“Yes.  Even Al will have to grow up one day,” returned Faisal.  “It’s family, you see, Dee. Family’s the thing with us.”

“You don’t have the monopoly on that!” objected Dee, with spirit.

“No, but.  You know what I mean.”

“I know exactly what you mean!” exclaimed Dee.  “If Al doesn’t sort himself out about that, he’ll never be allowed to grow up.”

“Exactly,” agreed Faisal but they had two different mindsets on what they understood by that part of the conversation. Faisal pulled up near Dee’s parents’ house.  “I’m not going to ask you to tell me if he contacts you, Dee, because I know you won’t. You’d see it as a betrayal, I imagine.”

“I would,” agreed Dee, frankly.

“All right.  Just remember, though, if we don’t bring him back, his wife’s family will.  That will be by far the worst option, both for Al and for anyone who has the misfortune to be found with him when they do.   I expect he’s been canny enough to contact her so as not to raise any alarm that end.  For now, they don’t know he’s missing.  I’d like to keep it that way.  I think you would, too.”

“Is that a threat, or a warning?” demanded Dee.

“Which do you think?” said Faisal, kindly.  “I’m looking out for you, Dee. I always have done, haven’t I, as best I could?”

“In your way," said Dee ungraciously.

Faisal laughed easily.

“You’ve learned to sulk like Al.  Not the best of his traits to pick up, Dee.”  He turned to grin at her. “And don’t tell me to fuck off.  I know you want to.”  Dee, despite herself, half smiled back. “I’ll tell you one thing,” Faisal went on.  “We’ve all been pretty impressed by your vlog.  Al less so, for obvious reasons.”

“Thanks.  I think,” said Dee.

“Good luck, then, kiddo,” said Faisal, as she got out.

She watched him drive away and looked up and down the street, half expecting to see Al but nobody else appeared.  Her phone rang, making her jump, but it was the sardonic voice of Baz Jackson at the other end, saying,

“Just letting you know I’ll turn up for the finale.  Tell Finney, would you?”

“Fuck off!” Dee did say this time, vehemently.

“Potty mouth,” said ‘B.J.’ drily, ending the call.

After a minute, Dee searched back in her call records and tried the number Al had called her from last but it was dead.  Back to using disposable phones, then, she presumed. She would have warned him, if she could have, that Faisal was coming.  The thought of him having turned to Gemma was burning her up.  Al, back with Gemma!  No, he’d never stay with her, surely? It didn’t sound as if he would be allowed to do so, anyway.  Good, thought Dee. If she couldn’t have him, she certainly didn’t want Gemma to.

A few nights after Finney and Dee had been for their afternoon tea, when Nolan was coming back in from a trip to the offy just after dark, a figure detached itself nonchalantly from the tree it had been leaning against, followed him up the path and said,

“A minute, bruv.”  Nolan turned to find himself facing Al, inches away.  “We’ve met before, haven’t we?” Al said next but not as a question.

“What do you want?” demanded Nolan, seeing no point in denying it.

“I want to know why my Dee and that clown she’s seeing were at your house last Sunday.”

“Dee?”

“Yes.  The once you’re clearly so friendly with.  My girl.”

“My partner and I bought some of her paintings, “ Nolan said, an oblong of hallway light round the edge of the front door he had fractionally opened promising sanctuary, if he could reach it without letting Al, who had doorstepped him so effectively, in as well.

“Good,” said Al.  “That pleases me. But, what’s the connection? You were at the mill, poking about with that other one, George Conway.”

“You don’t know?” asked Nolan.

Clearly, Faisal had not passed on to his cousin the exact details behind finding the business card and discovering their occupation as private detectives but then, he didn’t know them, did he?  Nolan hadn’t appraised him of the truth.

“I’m asking, aren’t I?” said Al with a hint of menace.  Nolan saw the large knife he had already seen Al holding catch a glint from the sliver of light from the doorway.  “I knew I’d caught on to something off about you two. I want to know exactly who you are working for.”

Al was still hoping to make something of this to use to  bargain with his family about his current position when he was forced to emerge, not having got clean away with Dee.  He knew his money sources were close to being cut off and he, too, didn’t want Rifat’s family to come looking for him.  He had gone with Gemma on a rebound reaction almost instantly regretted, which was why he had not followed through and was still flitting about in local hiding with her.  They wouldn’t be far behind him by now, his own family and he was seizing on what he thought of as his opportunity to get some advantage to plead his case with them, when they did catch up.

“Calm down, calm down!” urged Nolan.  “We were working for Dee’s parents.  We’re a missing person’s agency.  They hired us to find her when she ran away.  That’s why we were around.  Nothing else.”

There was a short, stunned silence from Al as things fell into place in his mind.

“Did she know about you?  Dee?” he asked, still tensed up and on the offensive.

“No!  Not then.  She had no idea who we were.  Only after you’d legged it.  We could get her home safely, then.  And we did.”

Al lowered the knife, looking suddenly defeated.  After another nonplussed pause, he gathered himself together.

“Next time you see her,” he said to Nolan, seeming to have made some reluctant personal decision as a result of this,  “tell Dee I’m going back.  Like she told me to.  She’ll think better of me then, maybe.”

“Back?” asked Nolan.

“Back to Mirpur.  You see,” he said, with another bitter laugh.  “I’m going to be a father.”

“Oh,” said Nolan.  “Congrats.”

“Thanks,” said Al, flatly.

“Does, er, does Dee know?”

“Yes.”

“So, she’s, um, not your girl any more?”

“That much,” said Al, “you obviously already know.  Tell her I’m going alone.  No Gemma.  Oh, and, I wouldn’t have used this,” he said, of the knife.  “Just for effect.  Goodnight, bruv.”

He slipped quietly away back into the shadows and Nolan hastily went inside, locking the door behind him.  Billy was not home, so Nolan had time to recover a bit.  He had been right, then, on Sunday.  Al was, or had been, following Dee around.  But since when, he wondered, also wondering if Al might have wanted to have a jealous go at Finney.  Perhaps, though, pride would prevent that because from what Al had said, it sounded as if Dee had already had some critical words with him.  If Al had wanted to go after Finney, he probably could have done so before.  There was clearly still love between them, Al and Dee.  Maybe Finney had been spared because harming him would hurt Dee.  Nolan determined to find out what had gone on.  He rang Dee.

“Nolan!” she said, pleased.  “How are you?  Do you and Billy still like the pictures?”

“Love them,” said Nolan.  “The pictures are great. Now, prepare yourself a bit, sweetie.”

“What is it?” asked Dee.

“Al turned up tonight.”

“What?”

“He wants me to tell you that he’s going back now to Mirpur and that he hopes you’ll think better of him for doing it.  He said to say he’s going alone.  No Gemma.  Does that make sense?”

“It does.  In a way.  But, why has he come to see you, Nolan?"

"He knows about me and Andrew, now, that we were hired to look for you.  But that was coincidence. He’s clearly been tailing you recently, trying to see what’s going on with you. When you and Finney came to ours on Sunday and I stayed in the garden, he saw me and recognised me, from the mill.”

“So he came back?”

“Yes.  I think he thought Andrew and I were up to something else, related to their turf war business.  I’ve got a feeling he was hoping to get some angle on that to help him out, give him a bit of an advantage with his family, no doubt.  When I told him the truth, he just sort of fell apart and gave up.  Like that was his last chance.  But why, I don’t know.”

“Faisal spoke to me yesterday,” Dee told him.  “They’re on to Al having tried to run out on things at home now.  You see, Al rang me about a month ago, wanting me to go off with him again.  But I said no.  So then, he turned back to Gemma.  I didn't know about that until Faisal told me yesterday.  But, Al wasn’t really gone, then, was he, away from here?  They must still be hiding out locally.  Faisal said he only had to yank on Al’s invisible chain to find him.  Al still near and I never knew,” she finished sadly.  “I ran off to Finney’s, you see, in case he came to find me for real again.  Just in case….”

“In case you couldn’t resist the pull to go with him and be with him,” Nolan said, understandingly.  

“Yes,” said Dee.

“That took courage and maturity.  Well done, Dee.  Really.  I mean that.  Never think you made the wrong decision.”

“I don’t,” she said.  “They’d always have made him go back, you see.  It’s best he does it by choice.  It’s hard to feel glad that he will but I know it’s the right thing for him to do now. His wife’s having a child, you see.  It’s his own fault, Nolan, for not standing up to things when he should have done.”

“Perhaps, in reality, that’s not so easy for Al to do,” suggested Nolan.

“It’s not,” said Dee.  “My poor Al.”

“He still called you ‘my Dee’, "  said Nolan, feeling for her.

“He did?”

“Oh, yes,”  he confirmed.  Dee was quiet for a moment.  “The course of true love, eh?” said Nolan sympathetically.  “You’ve got Finney now, though, haven’t you?”

“Yes,” agreed Dee.  “I’ve got Finney now.  I’m very lucky, aren’t I?”

“You know?” said Nolan. “I really think you are.  And so is he.”

“Yes.  And, he doesn’t know, Nolan, about Al having got in touch with me again.”

“Best that way,” Nolan said supportively.

“Yes,” Dee said, mixed feelings wavering though her voice.

“Where are you now?”

“Mum and Dad’s.”

“O.K.  Keep your head down and we’ll see you again soon, I promise.  Stand fast, lass. You’re doing great.”

“I will.  Thank you for telling me, Nolan.”

“My pleasure,” said Nolan, for whom it was, the idea of finally seeing the back of Al Saleem for good being, for him, a very welcome one.

He thought about and decided against, telling Andrew, who had still not got over the Peter Haddon business and had gone to stay with his girlfriend, Sarah, for a week, after what he had described as a very difficult follow up interview with the inspector who had read the suicide note and pursued enquiries, without discovering the actual body of the suicide relating to it.  Again, the questioning style was abrasive, implying things undisclosed (which there were) and that Andrew knew more than he was saying (which he did) and overall, expressing a thorough distaste for the involvement of private detectives in serious matters.

“But,” Andrew had protested.  “I came forward with my concerns.”

“Not soon enough!” the inspector had hit back.  “There were significant delays.”

“I hadn’t found anything wrong, though!” Andrew had objected, his fresh colour rising quickly and making him look as flustered as he felt.

The inspector, an angular individual with eyes as impenetrable as fire doors, regarded him unreadably but with, Andrew felt, the palpable disdain of superior to inferior.  

“You can go now, Mr Munro,” he then said.  “We’ll take it from here.

“Oh, yes,” agreed Andrew.  “Of course.”

“You will be contactable, though?”

“Certainly,” confirmed Andrew.  “You have my mobile number.”

“We do,” said the inspector, who watched him go, unsmiling, with a curt nod.  

Andrew left with no further knowledge of the identity of the body in the garden, or what the police really believed.  The thought of his aiding and abetting the escape of Peter Haddon practically brought him out in prickly heat all over whenever he allowed it to cross his mind, even if, at the time, he had had no choice.  He was still withholding information, wasn’t he, a further criminal offence, and he had a deep rooted fear that the investigating officer knew it somehow.  He was very pleased to escape to Sarah’s and have a week with her away from it all.

Online news and the tabloids revealed an Interpol search for Peter and Barbara Haddon was being conducted with a view to having them extradited from wherever they were found.  So far, they had not been. They were pictured together, a deeply suntanned and smiling couple, on some former foreign beach holiday featuring huge, fruit filled cocktails on a table under a palm fronded sun umbrella.  There was also, in most articles, a photo of a furtive looking Andrew hastening back to his car outside the police station, following his second interview there. The caption for this read: 

“Private Investigator Hoodwinked by Suicide Note”, accompanied by a small piece from a police spokesperson outlining a cautionary tale of amateurs hampering the professionals with avoidably dangerous delays. 

The dead woman found was named as Naomi Fieldhouse, believed to be the former mistress of Peter Haddon.  A divorcee in her late forties, she was described as being a company executive who lived in some style in a rich area of the kind which meant the neighbours were not likely to notice that your curtains were still drawn some days on, or that they hadn’t seen you for a while scooting down your long private drive in your expensive car.  She had only recently been reported as missing, her sister being the one who had finally realised something was wrong when their sporadic contact had broken off entirely. The sister said of her that Naomi was ‘confident and fun-loving,’ which together with a picture of her capturing an expression that seemed to say, ‘I know what I like and I get it’, somehow translated more as her having been hard faced and selfishly apt to do whatever she wanted. 

Nolan downloaded all this for Andrew’s future reference, just in case he (being away with Sarah on a short walking holiday somewhere off grid in the hills) hadn’t spotted it.  After all, Nolan reasoned, looking forward to showing Andrew the shot of him and the caption, he wouldn’t want to miss that photocall moment, now, would he?  It did seem, though, that as far as having been involved by Peter Haddon in his getaway, Andrew had managed to get away with that himself.   

“Good job you listened to me,” Nolan made a mental note to tell him.  “Like I always say,” he told himself smugly. “Some of us have it and some of us don’t.” 

The final workshop for ‘Crash Start Art’ was to take place in a small, disused cinema, an Art Deco building in the midst of a main road development area.  They were using it to put on a display of all the work done under the auspices of ‘The Skills Guild.'  There was about it, as they travelled down in the van still kindly driven by Phil the lodger to start setting up, both excitement and regret that it would be over soon.  Finney and Dee were going to lay it out together and would then be joined by the core ‘Skills Guild’ members, to be filmed by their pieces and to talk individually about what it had meant to them to take part. 

Finney went first to reconnoitre and make sure they could get access as planned, which was their usual routine and he rounded the corner to the back entrance as agreed, while Dee waited with Phil in the van.  A longer time than expected went by without Finney reappearing.

“Where is he?” asked Dee, puzzled. 

“I don’t know,” said Phil uneasily, “but a police van’s just gone along from round that side street there.”  He nodded to their right. “Wait here. I’ll check it out,” he said. 

Dee wanted to go with him, though, so they both went together.  The back door of the building had already been smashed open and damaged in the process.  Inside, the familiar graffiti signature of ‘B.J.’ was gigantically stencilled throughout.  Dee’s phone rang. 

“Oh, dear,” said Baz Jackson.  “Not gone according to plan?” 

“This is down to you, isn’t it?” exclaimed Dee. 

“I’m afraid, if Finney claims all the glory, he has to pay the price.  I told you. There is a real ‘B.J.’” 

“Where is he?” demanded Dee. 

“Down the cop shop, I expect.  Isn’t that where they take you for breaking and entering?” responded the other nastily. 

“Shit!” cried Dee.  “You bastard!” she concluded, ringing off.  “Phil, we should get out. In case they come back.” 

They duly legged it back to the van and agreed that she and Phil would take the exhibits back to Finney’s where they had been stored.  Dee and Phil debated what to do, after she had told the rest of the group not to turn up because something had gone wrong at the venue and they couldn’t go ahead.  Finney did not call or reappear while they got on with this, since the police were taking a dim view of all their former activity, with him as the bespoke ringleader, and were disposed to view his entry into the old cinema as illegal trespass and criminal damage.  Finney protested vigorously that he hadn’t actually broken in, just walked in finding the door smashed open and had been looking at the graffiti when the police arrested him. When asked "who had been responsible then?", he said he didn’t know.  He also said he always arrived alone first to do a final place safety check before the art group moved in to use it.  The police said that the building’s owners had alerted them to the break in.  Finney said the building’s owners had given their permission.  He was there for several long hours while the police, at their leisure, checked this out.  Eventually, they agreed to inform Dee what station he was at.  His story having finally turned out to be true, he was released with a caution. 

Meanwhile, Dee had phoned, first Andrew, who didn’t reply, his mobile being out of signal range and then Nolan, who said not to worry too much and wait and see.  Dee was vague about whether they had been given the all clear from the building owners but thought Finney had said they had.  She was all for flying down to the station and telling the police who had set them up.  Nolan advised best not, don’t get naively involved, as did Phil, so reluctantly, she sat tight. They didn’t need to alert Finney’s family as, once more, they were away touring, it being the season for fetes and festivals of various kinds.  Several hours later, Finney phoned Dee to say he was out and she and Phil drove down to get him. He was a bit shaken by the experience but ready to be celebrated as the hero of the hour. 

“No more ‘Crash Start Art’ for us!” said Finney.  “I tell you what. We’ll just set up again here to show all the final exhibits and do our stuff.  We can get a bit of kudos from me being arrested before our last session.” 

“Yep.  You’re a real rebel artist now, Finney” suggested Phil, amiably. 

“What are we going to do about Baz Jackson?” asked Dee. 

“Nothing,” said Finney. 

“Nothing?  But - won’t he only get worse if we don’t tackle him?” 

“How can he?  We’ve finished.  We’re a success. He’s just trying to point score because I got one over on him when I did that radio interview.” 

“He’s hateful!” 

“I did tell you he was, Dee,” Finney grinned.  “He left it too late for sabotage, though.  This was a place we weren’t trespassing in because the owners wanted to let us use it.” 

“Why didn’t you tell the police it was him?” 

“I don’t think trying to pin the blame on someone I know would have gone down well.  I was being all injured nice kid innocence!” laughed Finney, a bit euphoric from the relief of being home again. 

Dee had to smile, too, because ‘nice kid’ was not exactly how Finney came over, appearance wise.  She phoned Nolan to say all was well now and he had a word with Finney to make sure about the situation and said, having done so, that he doubted any more would come of it from the police side of things.  In fact, it didn’t, because they had never actually forced their way in anywhere, Finney always having brokered a deal with someone who had legitimate access and wanted the extra public profile to support the campaign against demolition which this youthful venture gained them, so there were no real further charges in prospect.   

With the fame of the Youtube vlog having made their names and having passed their foundation courses by the end of the term, in each case, with flying colours, Finney had no trouble in gaining the offers he wanted and Dee, having an excellent portfolio by now, with her own creative ingenuity evidenced by her part in ‘Crash Start Art’ and ‘The Skills Guild’, was offered places too where she ventured to apply.  This being so, she decided to pursue the degree path as well, delighting her parents and Finney in equal measure.  Her parents because she was finally back on track in their view and Finney because they would be able to study and live together, both having decided on Leeds as the preferred place to be.   

Their future, for the present, was one to be looked forward to and what more, as Andrew and Nolan said at the celebration party Finney threw at his family home, to which they both came, could anyone wish for?  By the time Finney went on the Henry Moore sculpture workshop in August and Dee went with him so they could look for digs simultaneously, Andrew and Nolan had also been enjoying a sabbatical for the rest of Summer from the detective agency, things having proved, as they both agreed, pretty hectic over the previous year or so, and that decision had the advantage of pleasing Billy, too.  Overall, it was a contented season, where much was felt to have been resolved amongst this small group of people who had found themselves, one way or another, brought together by the life’s vagaries and, having remained close as a result, it seemed likely that they would continue to do so.  Dee, most certainly, hoped that they all would.

Chapter 23 - In the Meantime

There were, for all of them, memorable moments in the intervening period.  The bolshie Baz Jackson, who hadn’t quite finished with things, was featured himself in a local glossy arts periodical, popular among the fashionable young cognoscenti, interviewed about his Royal Academy success and coming out of the woodwork as the mysterious “B.J.” who had gatecrashed ‘Crash Start Art’, for purist purposes, he claimed.  He talked about “easy notoriety” as opposed to “serious work” and explained his graffiti act had been to point this up and show how quickly you could gain a public profile with very little.  Art, he said, was not for glib self promotion but about a disciplined and dedicated approach to perfectionism.  When questioned what perfect was, he said that was different for each individual artist but that you couldn’t achieve it working by committee, you had to work for it unsparingly yourself.  He didn’t believe in schools of artists, didn’t rate being part of a new ‘so called movement’, he said.  Had he achieved it himself, then, perfection, he was asked next?

“Of course not!” he replied.  “No real artist ever believes they have.  That’s why you spend your life trying to but you have to work for it.  It’s not an easy ride.”

This was why, he went on, he had infiltrated ‘The Skills Guild’, which needed its vanity taking down a peg or two.  He refused to elaborate on how he had done this, somehow giving the impression of nobly taking the blame as well as really being responsible for the fame, while continuing to aspire to a deserved reputation.  The portrait he had had accepted by the Royal Academy was pictured as an illustration of this true work.  A number of people, both involved and not involved in the ‘Crash Start Art’ project, brought the article to Finney’s attention.  He claimed not to care about it but Dee knew that he did.  She asked him how long the pair of them had been sparring rivals.

“Since day one, when he came into my secondary school from somewhere else in third year.”

“Why?”

“Because, despite appearances, I don’t care about being popular but it comes easily to me to make friends.  He does care about it but people don’t like him. So he pretends to enjoy being a predatory lone wolf.  Anything you can do, I can do better.  Aggressive competitive.”

“So, he was jealous of your popularity?”

“Yes, of anyone’s, and dismissive of it.  Sneery, you know, arrogant.  He tries but he soon gets tired of people and fucks them off, friends or girlfriends.  People try back because he’s intelligent and they think he’s different, got problems they can solve but he’s way too much hard work for anyone.”

“Has he?  Got problems?”

“Not that I know of, apart from being one,” shrugged Finney.  “He’s the sort that will have, if you ask me, down the line, though.”

“What sort?” asked Dee.

“The usual ones loners have - drink, depression, drugs maybe.  I dunno.”

“He’s not cold, though, is he?  He seems very passionate about his belief in things.”

Finney snorted.

“If you like ragingly emotional and no holds barred personal attacks on you, I guess you could say he’s a person of strong feelings, yes.  When he rips people apart, they don’t get over it.  He does damage, Baz Jackson.”

Dee returned to the magazine article and the photograph of Baz himself, where you didn’t notice anything so much about his features as register a forceful character behind his uncompromising stare to camera and challengingly unsmiling expression.  He looked like someone who didn’t care about appearance, never slept and rarely combed his dusty coloured, roughly cut curls but he also looked like someone, someone to be reckoned with.  She also thought that if he could, he’d continue to be a thorn in his side for Finney in the future because what Baz’s actions had shown, in her view, was that he didn’t see Finney as some dilettante in reality but as an equal talent to be wrestled with in contest but she didn’t say anything more to Finney about that since he’d just gone out of the room to answer the door to one of his half siblings dropping by.

They were going out often with their mixed group of college friends, which Dee, having lost her old school friends, enjoyed, not having had a lot of girl company in her life recently.  She would go out with them on her own, too, Finney not being the clingy or separator sort of boyfriend and resumed a social life including cinemas, bands, lunches and girls nights out which had been missing from her activities.  She wondered if, lost in a crowd, Faisal or anyone else still bothered to watch her. Once or twice, on the periphery, if out with ‘The Skills Guild’ girls, she would see Baz Jackson with a pint in his hand, not obviously with anyone, but clearly there by association with one of them.  He didn’t mix, just lurked with that space around him which his presence seemed to create.  She watched covertly but never saw any of them leave with him when he cleared off, so it was never evident who was linked with him and had been his inside operator.

The Grand National was one annual occasion when Nolan’s betting prohibition was lifted.  It was another of the one off summery days this Spring had glimpsed.  Billy was throwing a small garden party in the afternoon prior to the race.  There were jugs of fruited and iced Pimms, home baked savoury and sweet patisserie tartlets with tiny berries gem- like in the creme anglaise and a big cut glass bowl of strawberries and clotted cream to delve into.  Finney, Dee, Ed and his girlfriend and Andrew and Sarah were there.  Everyone had chosen their hopeful winners and all bets were on.  Nolan was keyed up, enjoying the chance of having a serious punt amongst the rest having a little flutter.  Finney was circulating, Ed and Andrew were talking walking, their planned Lake District excursion still on the books and Billy was flying about as host.  Dee found herself alone for a time with Sarah and Claire.  Although they got on, there was not much in common and without the others to maintain the momentum, conversation felt as slow as old glass flowing down itself.  It had not entirely halted but its progress was invisible.  Dee excused herself to go to the bathroom and spent a little time looking at her paintings hanging on the stairs and landing walls.

Some of them were ones she had done at the mill and she was caught amidships by an acute memory of Al and being with him.  Nolan had told her that the last time she had been here, for the afternoon cream tea, Al had been there, looking at her unseen.  She was assailed by the familiar hollow pang of desire to see him and for him.  On impulse, she took a picture on her phone of herself standing by one of the paintings which Al himself had particularly liked.   She had used the concept of symbolic jewel colours in medieval stained glass and her abstract, bold design made you feel you were looking through the middle of such a church window, the sun behind giving brilliance to the thickly applied impasto oils in rich reds, topaz, whites, blues, greens, and golds she had used, which almost had a three dimensional quality of density.  Before she could think better of it, she sent it to him via the app service they had last used together. He might never get it but then again, he might.  She hoped so.  She didn’t add any message because there was no need to.  The gesture said she was thinking of and remembering him and the two of them.  Returning to the garden, she found that the company had moved round again.

“There you are!” said Finney, as she reappeared.  “Come on, let’s get some more eats before the race starts.  Everyone’s starting to go in.”

Dee smiled and returned mentally to her current life, which was, she reminded herself, a happily full one.  Following the race, Nolan was jubilant.  His horse had won and he had also got the third, which was just as well, since he had put significant money on.  As Billy had said, this is one time you can go for it.  Fill your boots, he had said, giving Nolan the go ahead for some wild extravagance.  There were other, more modest winners, so it was a happy enough party.  Resuming with celebratory drinks in the garden, they were scattered with cherry blossom petals already being carried off the trees, pale as rice paper butterflies in the light breeze.  Dee checked her phone but, so far, there was no reply.

They were all beginning to set themselves up with supplementary summer jobs and Dee had three nights on waitressing at a brasserie near her parents’ house (her experience at Dream being  her reference).  Finney was working in a bar near his own house weekend evenings, so they weren’t together quite so much just now.  Sophie had her to play with again and Wilbur got more walks with her in her leisure time.  But sometimes, she took the bus into town alone and walked out to look at the now quiet mill, which she missed, and take a coffee in Dream, to reminisce.  She wished she could talk to Frankie and Nathe and had often been wondering where they were.  She asked the staff in Dream about them but no further deliveries had been made by a resumed 'Carrot Top' market garden set up somewhere else.  She hoped, though, that one day, perhaps, there might be.

Andrew was visiting his parents for the Bank Holiday for the second time in May.  He and Nolan were not taking cases at the moment by agreement but Andrew was finding himself bored and at a loose end.  He missed Nolan, who was away on a touring break of the continent with Billy, some driving marathon through Italy he’d been told, and he missed Sarah, away herself on a holiday with friends booked before they were an item, presently somewhere in a Greek villa, also for a lengthy three weeks. His parents’ hillside cottage style garden, on the first weekend, had been an unusually tranquil windless haven, populated by Andrew and his father with a beer each and strange insects which looked like large brown honey bees but hovered territorially in the same spots all over the place, buzz free but somehow a bit threatening in their tenacity, because if swatted off, they simply came back to exactly the same place in the hot sunshine.  Andrew was struck by the way they mimicked other species of insect, no doubt a survival technique, rather as he had been finding people did in his detective line of work, as he idly observed.  His father put it down to the late Spring and all the creatures having to join the hurry up club in the breeding department, which was no doubt what it was all about, he said he thought, as they were watching the insects keep their particular sun spots.  It had been a quietly pottering family time for the three of them.

The second Bank Holiday meant a visit to the coast with his aunt and uncle, as it had often done down the years.  Coffee cream wave curds curled through his toes as they sank comfortably into foot-shaped wet sand settling around them.  Long seaweed ribbons cast up by last night’s windy seas sent their iodine tang into the softer airs of the day.   He picked up one long dried strand, sun blackened, and popped the bubbles on its once fleshy frond. Sand stirred in the rolls of the waves and light shimmered across the wet beach smoothed by their retreat into moulded ripples.  He looked back at one of the small huddles of deckchairs beyond the pebble shoal behind a windbreak, which was the one occupied by his family.  By now, somebody would be suggesting it was time for a cuppa with a snack and someone else would be saying it was too early, there always being different views about when was appropriate for what concerning such activities throughout the day amongst them.

“Penny for them?” asked his father predictably, as he always had done when Andrew, at varying ages, had been woolgathering a the sea’s edge, coming to join him.  “Your mother thinks it’s time for a tea and sarnie break but I think your Aunt Jenny wants to wait a bit. Uncle Tom and I are easy.”

Andrew smiled.

“I was thinking about just that, actually, right then.  Otherwise, only having a bit of a paddle.”

“You always did like that,” said his father in his comfortable way.  “Care to join us?”

“All right,” said Andrew.  “Why not?”

In the beachfront tearoom, one which Aunt Jenny rarely agreed to frequent anyway, as deemed lacking in the bistro tone she felt to be more 'her', they chose low life crab sandwiches.

“What, no langoustine or lobster?” said Andrew’s father, gently mocking of Aunt Jenny’s pretensions, as was habitual between the three of them when rebelliously pretending to slum it in some more ordinary establishment.

“No, but look, we’ve got proper craft bread,” said Andrew, pointing to the poster above a display.  “And from my neck of the woods, too."

 ‘Watson’s Wheatsheaf’ was emblazoned in Art Nouveau lettering above a painting of a delivery boy in knickerbockers, who was pushing a basket fronted old bicycle laden with flour dusted provender, which was slightly outsized in the picture, white rolls like giant puffballs.  

“Look at that,” he continued. “ Your traditional thatched cottage loaf.”

“Fancy them sending that all the way up here,” commented his mother.  “You’d think they’d have plenty of local bakers, wouldn’t you?”

“Special stuff that,” Andrew had laughed.  “City slicker craft bread.”

It was a passing conversation he was later to remember.  Back at home in his flat in the week, he woke from a dream fragment to find the seagulls in that translated into the early morning crying of a baby nearby in one of the many young family filled houses on the street. A sense of ennuie about the day ahead crept over him as he got up, showered and breakfasted.   He had some bookkeeping work on the go but he was restless for more, having, as he reckoned, got a bit of a taste for adventure.  So it was that, having called in under the veranda, he checked the agency emails (despite the “no new cases being taking on currently due to pressure of work,” notice autoreply set up), just in case, he thought to himself, any new messages might have come in and then replied to the only one that actually had, to set up a first meeting in one of the chain coffee shops in town.

The client, when he met him, was one of those people who seem to have a closed sign somewhere at the back of the eyes, blank looking by accident or design.  He was quite young looking and it was not easy to discern what he wanted, as he had come to a halt after the opening pleasantries, just drinking his cappuccino on the other side of the table in silence.  Andrew let him, waiting without prompting his potential client on. The pause seemed to help as shortly the other, absorbed for a while in rearranging the little tubes of sugar in a ramekin in the table centre, said,

“Do you do following?”

“Tailing people, do you mean?” asked Andrew.

“Yes.”

“The agency does that, yes,” confirmed Andrew.

“O.K.”  There was another silence.  “Well, what I want is. I want you to follow me, like.”

“Follow you?”

“Mmm”

Andrew waited again but there was no more for another short while, the sugar tubes, having been divided into white and brown lined up on the table, stirred together once more back in their container.

“And, er, on what basis?” asked Andrew.  “All the time? In the day? For how long?”

“Well, all the time, for - a few weeks, maybe longer.”

“And why do you want this?  What am I looking out for?”

“Well, for me, to follow me, like I said.”

“Yes but, what I’m getting at is, why?”

“I want to see if anybody notices me.”

“Notices you?” echoed Andrew, no clearer as to his brief.

“Yeah.”

“Right.  So, are you wanting to be noticed, then?  Standing out in the crowd?  Or, not to be noticed?”

The other thought for a few minutes, the sugar tubes in the pot once more getting his attention.

“Well.  Like I said.  I just want you to follow me and see if people notice me.  That’s all.”

“Right,” said Andrew, thinking that he had a right one here again, as usual.

He considered.  His prospective client just looked ordinary and was certainly, on the face of it, not especially noticeable.  There were no, as you might say, distinguishing features, only slightly chubby ones above a middle sized body.  It was the kind of face you might expect to smile a lot but didn’t, beneath the opaque gaze matched by mid blue shirt.  “Perhaps we should discuss terms?” suggested Andrew next. 

Ben Bradbury, as he had introduced himself,  declared himself happy with the rather testingly costly preliminary payment outline Andrew presented him with, to see if it would put him off if he wasn’t serious, so Andrew was given the address to watch outside from for when Ben emerged, to follow his progress to and from work and anywhere else he went.

“Right.  Cheers, then,” said Ben.  “I’ll get off now.”

“Nice meeting you, Ben,” offered Andrew.   “I’ll see you on Monday morning, then?”

“Not if I see you first,” answered Ben, the first almost humorous thing he had said so far.

“Oh, you won’t see me, “ Andrew had asserted cheerfully.  “I’m the invisible man as a tail. Not someone you’d notice.”

Ben, who didn’t pick up on the last remark or smile, simply nodded and left.  He had the kind of solemn expression in general which, if Andrew had been wearing it, would have had his mother saying,

“And why’ve you got your face on back to front this morning, then?” but in Ben’s case,  Andrew thought this was probably the norm rather than a passing mood, not exactly naturally self contained, more as if it took him a long time to warm up and tune into the right social frequency.  

He’d do it, he thought, despite the job description being brief to the point of cryptically enigmatic, rather like Ben Bradbury himself, innocuous seeming but, with the possible exception of Dee, like all their recent clients, slightly odd.

“What is he, some kind of stealth bomber in training?” he imagined Nolan asking.

Still, perhaps Ben was at some kind of personal crossroads in life, feeling invisible and wanting to know if he really was in the world.  Most people felt like that sometimes, didn’t they, Andrew reasoned?  He doubted, though, that it was quite that simple. But if nothing else, he could hone up his own incognito watching skills and it couldn’t bring him any harm, could it?  And he was at a loose end.  Ben hadn’t told him where he worked, only that it was a very early start and just to follow him to it, so he decided to take it from there when Monday came.

It was indeed a very early start.  Andrew was parked up, yawning, just after five a.m. as agreed, within easy view of a ground floor maisonette on the borders of an estate but not directly outside it.  Ben emerged, looked round without curiosity and got into a small fiat punto affair in a plastic looking milky orange colour, which, thought Andrew, even in traffic, of which there was hardly any as yet, would not be hard to follow.  He drove behind for about twenty minutes, when Ben turned in at the gates of a high walled premises outside which a big sign at the entrance read:

‘Watson’s Wheatsheaf.  Craft Bakers est. 1921’ alongside their eternally errand running poster boy who, giant sized and close to, had the kind of gurning grin and snub nose more associated with those slightly creepy ventriloquist dolls in evening suits than a youthfully cheeky smile.

“ You need a makeover, matey, your look’s dated, ” Andrew observed to him as he got out to peer through the entrance discreetly from behind one of the tall  gate posts topped with a stone ball on which a weathered griffon perched shakily. “Well, well!” he continued to himself.  “That bakery again. This job was meant to be, then.”

Inside the grounds of what must have once been some Victorian mansion, no longer extant, were two long, low, single storey buildings in dark stone, one signed, “The Bakehouse”, the other, “Shop and Office”.  Behind these was a bigger, far more modern looking factory- like structure, which was at the back of a big yard he could see between the front buildings, where numerous delivery vehicles, painted up vintage style, as brightly as carnival vans, waited for their day to start.  Andrew got back in his car and waited among other parked cars on the road outside as others began to arrive for their various shifts in whatever area they worked at.  In due course, he saw Ben’s round head behind the wheel of the first bread van to head out, presumably now loaded up, and got in line behind to follow him on his way.  Other people, who must have been on a night shift, were beginning to leave, so he was able to hide amongst other vehicles en route.

Ben threaded through some of the better suburbs and delivered to various artsy craftsy style independent eateries and shops.  He didn’t seem to spend long anywhere and if anyone came back out to see Ben off, it was just with a casual wave or smile, everyday fashion.  Following this, it was back to the bakery itself, where the yard was now open to invite people into the on site shop or to view the promotional home baking going on in the next building, where mob capped women and jauntily chef hatted men kneaded, shaped or plaited loaves amid delicious scents of hot bread suggesting natural fayre, with that old fashioned feel like bullseye mints twinned with a nostalgically misleading sense of health and wellbeing, which hadn’t been present for either bakers or bread in the past.  Andrew mingled but couldn’t see Ben, presumably now  in the office or factory part at the back, as he hadn’t left again, and enjoyed a tea and spiced iced bun in the cafe which naturally adjoined the bakery.  It was clearly a popular spot with young mothers and the retired, of whom there were already several partaking too, probably prior to a visit to the large garden centre just down the road from here, he recalled, where there was a little play area as well as other attractions, the one where he had arranged for Dee and her mother to meet up again.  

Andrew had seen enough to know that the front entrance was the only entrance, both for staff and visitors, so he retreated to his car again to wait.  After what seemed a very long time, it was two in the afternoon.  Ben’s orange blob car bobbed out of the gates along with others and he zipped along now to the supermarket half a mile away, then came back having, as far as Andrew could see, shopped for one, to his own flat.  So, he was on the six, two shift this week, then, Andrew, by now starving again, deduced, as well as thinking that if Ben was driving everywhere, how was anyone supposed to be noticing him?  He began on an emergency pack of Monster Munch in glove compartment stock and then regretted it, because it made him thirsty and it was hot.  Still, he was in the line of duty, so he’d better wait on watch, he concluded, finding a half drunk bottle of flavoured water that had rolled under the passenger seat at some point and dusting it off.  It was warm and tasted a bit odd by now but he made do. 

By about half past four Andrew’s early start was beginning to tell, the vista beyond the windscreen swimming in and out as he began to nod, then wake wondering where he was.  A sharp report startled him into consciousness and a shaky feeling about where he was.  It turned out to be Ben slamming the door behind him as he set out for a jog.  Andrew started the engine, and followed at a short distance, idling behind in traffic as Ben toured the roadside pavement, then lost him as he turned off road somewhere and Andrew had to continue in a rush hour crawl, so he turned round in a driveway and went back to wait outside the maisonette, across the road and in view of the door.  Ben had turned off to run alongside the canal towpath bordering the main road, which, by Andrew’s reckoning, would be part of some local circuit he made, surely not for long after such an early shift.  About half an hour later Ben reappeared, pegging along as effortfully as he had when he started out, not, it had to be said, thought Andrew critically, watching him approach in the rearview mirror, looking a whole lot fitter for it. Beside the car, Ben paused to do some cooling down stretches, so Andrew lowered the window.

“You can go home now,” said Ben quietly, looking ahead.  “I’m not going out again.” A hint of amusement showed a small dimple in his full cheeked profile.  “So unless you’re driving something else tomorrow, I’ll see you when I see you.”

“Well, it was early!” objected Andrew, feeling caught out.  “You were bound to see me!  Who else would be following you at that time in the morning,” then added, realising that this was rather the point, “well, I can assure you, nobody else was.”

“Yeah,” returned Ben.  “It’s all right me knowing you’re there.  Same time tomorrow.”

“Oh, good,” said Andrew, without enthusiasm, causing the dimple to briefly deepen before Ben crossed the road and went into his flat without a backward glance.  

The following morning differed only in that Andrew arrived in time to catch the milk float teetering tentatively round the back of the properties, its stops and starts punctuated by rattling bottles, a comfortingly homely sort of sound, as milk was left on pathways.  Since Andrew had crashed out at an early nine o’clock, exhausted and out of practice for dawn chorus starts to his day, on day two this felt a bit easier and by Friday he had almost convinced himself that it felt good to be about in the world so early, to be really aware of everything, in tune with the circadian cycle, nature’s rhythms.

“I’ll be studying mindfulness next,” he told himself, or ‘mindlessness’, as Nolan termed it.

He had spent time observing the comings and goings and interactions of the workforce unobtrusively as he mingled with the visitors to the place, of which there were many, it being a bit of a local working history museum feature handy for a school party, or a place to pop in for bread and cakes and a teashop trip.

He saw Ben crossing in and out from the factory part to the office, or through to the delivery depot and some of the journeys Andrew accompanied him on were further afield to other towns.  Ben seemed to be on no particular terms with anyone, just part of a casual crowd working together, coming out for breaks.  The only thing Andrew had picked up on was Ben seeming to watch a couple of others once or twice.  As people emerged from the place for what he soon recognised as being the scheduled break times, there was a man and woman noticeable for being in that pointed courtship stance where the the man was very close to her personal space, within a hairsbreadth of touching distance, she not moving away.  There was nothing in particular about it, just that Ben seemed to be aware of them but they showed no sign of reciprocating his slight attention. It was rather the reverse of what Andrew was supposed to be looking out for, in as much as he knew what that was, that is, people noticing Ben.

Saturday was the final day of the first week’s watch, then on Sunday morning they were to have a catch up back in the coffee shop in town.  It was a later start, thankfully, beginning for Ben with a further trip to the supermarket and this time, a middle of the day jog, a change to the weekly routine.  Andrew, having guessed there would be one at some point,  prepared to follow in the car as far as the canal turn off if he went that way, in casual sportswear and trainers himself to follow on foot at that point, having driven alongside the route as much as he could previously, most of it just alongside.   What Andrew lacked in speed (being more of a walker than a runner), he thought his height would make up for in stride length to keep up with Ben’s stolid pace.  Maybe on a Saturday there would be more people to ‘notice’ Ben, as so far, it had clearly not been an especially popular runners’ route.  Today was no different, apart from the pub on the main road now having people at its outside tables in red faced glory, cheerfully half cut at lunchtime and shouting encouragement to Ben in passing to “Keep it up, lad!” or “Pack that in and have a pint, you look as if you need it!”  All remarks which he ignored.  

Andrew pulled in and prepared to follow down the canalside path.  The jog continued along the main roadside and then turned along the back of house gardens with the curve of the canal.  The yellow catkin flowers of laburnum cascaded over and down a back wall like inverted lupins, brushing first Ben’s, then Andrew’s heads, followed by lilac, and rhododendrons, then the smell of elderflower gone over, still sweet but tomcat pungent below. Crossing a bouncily modern bridge arch back to the other side, they went behind the beer garden of the pub on the main road, the canalside path visible to drinkers behind a low wall, then a short distance on, they were back up and onto the road again.  Ben continued to jog on to his flat and Andrew got back into his car to follow.  Feeling hot and sweaty by now, he decided to go home to shower and change, as Ben was surely going to do too, before he returned to his post.  He hardly thought that he was going to miss much, since absolutely nothing had happened so far.  When he came back and sneaked a look through the flat's living room window visible from outside, he could see sports on the television and reassured himself that he hadn’t fallen down on the job.

About four in the afternoon, Ben went on foot up the road in the other direction, to a smaller pub which seemed friendlier than the one they had run past earlier, where he had a couple of pints of lager in casual company with locals, exchanging the odd greeting in a relaxed kind of way standing at the bar with people and after an hour or so of that, went home.  He passed Andrew in an unobtrusive corner, nodded at him and said quietly,

“That’s it today.  See you in the coffee shop tomorrow,” (their arranged first week's feedback rendezvous).  Andrew lingered but nobody had taken any notice of them.  Certainly one or two said “See you,” to Ben as he left but after that he seemed to have passed from the general consciousness.   Nobody looked after him and nobody mentioned him as desultory conversation continued before others drifted home too for their tea.

Andrew looked over his meagre notes in the evening, dutifully preparing for their meeting on Sunday.  Each day had been a variation on the previous one in terms of Ben’s routine going to work and at work.  His workplace relationships seemed on as casual a footing as those in the pub, but then nobody seemed to have a lot of time for chatting at Watson's,  as they moved between activities, no doubt very thoroughly scheduled in such a going concern.  Other than that, Ben was a bit of a loner as a single man, as far as Andrew could make out.

Giving up, he spent the rest of the evening gaming  in a virtual world where decisions he made could lead to life or death for the characters his former choices had brought to life as companions and for himself, being the lead survivalist avatar.  His little band weren’t doing too well, as having obtained the necessary fuels for fire, he’d dithered about obliterating a nearby encampment in case they could be allies in the quest for food sources, so he’d had his chief defenders knocked out and was presently walking wounded at some distance from his group. He had to spend considerable time collecting enough points for life saving herbs to enable him to limp back to safety by avoiding further lurking dangers and assassins. Andrew’s presumed Viking ancestry, as his father always alleged they had as being what gave them their height and colouring, that and being born in a one time northern stronghold, suggested he might have been more of a settler than an aggressor by lineage, Andrew suspected, if this game were anything to go by.

Andrew duly met up with his client back at the cafe where they had first had coffee.  He reported back his findings, that he had followed Ben’s daily routines and seen nothing out of the way.  So, Ben wanted to know, had anyone noticed him.

“Well, it depends what you mean,” said a still baffled Andrew.  “The people you talked to were expecting to see you, weren’t they?”

“And, what about the people I didn’t talk to?” Ben wanted to know.

“Where?” asked Andrew

“Anywhere,” answered Ben.

“Not that I could tell, no,” said Andrew, wondering if he were to be any further enlightened, but it seemed not.

“Next week,” said Ben.  “I’m on long distance delivery.  One after that, nights in the factory.  All right?”

“All right,” agreed Andrew, hoping that there might be a bit more action in terms of surveillance, which so far in the detecting line, mainly turned out to be not all it was cracked up to be in his opinion.

The trouble was, you couldn’t pass the time with interesting things which distracted you, or you lost your quarry.  However, apart from some nice country drives up the A19 and bombing along on the A1 that next week, with Ben doing deliveries to Cumbria and Scotland, or in the other direction down to Wales, then the week after lengthy sojourns outside the night shift, with Andrew keeping an eye on ‘things’ and on Ben during it, nothing did happen.  Still, Andrew told himself, it was good money and good practice in keeping his hand in, although he was concluding that whatever outcome Ben was hoping for, he would be disappointed in, as not a soul seemed to pay him anything but mildly passing attention.

After this series of night duties, Nolan returned and invited Andrew to join him for ‘a few’ in the garden, as it was still good weather.  Andrew parked up at the back in the unadopted road and came in through the gate, left unlocked as Nolan had promised.

“Here he comes,” remarked Nolan as he hove into view through the foliage arch above the gateway, “like a harbinger of doom, as usual.”

“Thanks,” said Andrew.  “Not so bad yourself. Where’s Billy?”

“At the gym.  He’s decided that his body mass and weight ratio put him in the obese category.”

“And what did you say about that?” enquired Andrew.

“I told him it did.”

“Typical,” said Andrew.

“Here,” said Nolan, chucking him a tube of high factor sun cream.  “Put that on your belisha beacon.”

“Are you using this? “ asked Andrew, disbelievingly, as he had never known Nolan to bother with it.

“Certainly.  I’m heeding skin health warnings,” said Nolan, lighting up.

“What about smoking health warnings?”

“One thing at a time,” said Nolan, inhaling happily.  “Anyway, what have you been up to?' he asked, eyeing Andrew with suspicion.  "You look knackered!” he observed bluntly.  

“Oh, I got caught up at nights with that game you got me into.  I’ve been up till all hours,” said Andrew negligently.

“Bollocks, you have!” exclaimed Nolan, sensing deceit and examining him more closely.  “You’ve - you’ve been working on a case behind my back! You have, haven’t you?” he demanded, as Andrew failed to be quick enough to deny it.  “We had an agreement, you dirty rat.”

“It’s not much of a case.  Anyway, I was bored.”

“Diddums,” said Nolan.  “We had an agreement,” he repeated.

“You had one with Billy, mine was a far looser arrangement.”

“Oh, was it!” said Nolan.  “Well you can get your own beer then, and bring me one out.  We’ll need some brain juice, no doubt, if I’m to help you out.”

“I don’t need helping out!” said Andrew indignantly, but doing as he was told (because he wanted a beer anyway, he said to himself).  “You can tell me all about your holiday,” he suggested on his return.

By way of getting his own back, Nolan did so, at great length and with many pictures of his and Billy’s journeyings to be gone through on his phone, in still shots and video clips.  Eventually, a yawning Andrew said,

“Look, if I see one more picture of Billy on a bridge, I’ll want to chuck him off it, much as I love him.”

“I've frequently felt the same,”observed Nolan.  “Right, so tell me about what’s going down.”

Andrew gave a brief summary of the very little that had happened over quite a long time, with no discernable reason for the surveillance he’d been asked to undertake.  Nolan said he hoped the down payment was in the joint business account. Andrew assured him that it was.  They watched a fat wood pigeon bounce clumsily on to a branch that looked far too small to hold its portly pink breasted body, curved green beak pecking at fuschia bell berries.

“Doesn’t sound like I’ve missed much,” Nolan concluded after a moment or two.  “I’ll leave Mr Bun the Baker to you, then.  A couple more weeks, is it?”

“I think so.  It’s back to the five a.m. start on Monday.”

“It’s a funny one, though.  Is he afraid of something, or someone?” asked Nolan

“Not that I can tell.  I don’t think, in all honesty, he wants me to know why he’s asked for this to be done.”

“Good luck with being up with the lark, then,” observed Nolan, stretching languidly as Andrew prepared to depart.  “Think of me getting my beauty sleep, won’t you?”

“You need it,” returned Andrew, leaving the gate open behind him so that Nolan had to get up and come down the garden to close it, which he did with a two fingered farewell salute which Andrew returned as he got into his car, thinking, in his conscientious way, that it was probably all right to drive as the beer had been two hours ago by now.  

Andrew was finding his evening activity of being immersed in the world of the virtual game was taking more hold, as he opted in to a next interactive level, in the hope of changing his circumstances.  He had been left with protecting a band of elders, having lost his warriors and their families previously in skirmishes which his leadership decisions had cost him dearly in. Two other players now joined.  The first, ‘The Boy’ brought a small band of children and youngsters with him into the camp. The second ‘AZ’ (gender unknown beneath disguising garb) and a gathering of ‘Outcasts’, carried out sporadic raids on them bandit style, hidden in some hills that had appeared in the landscape as someone else’s decisions gained them literal ground.   Over time this seemed a combination of outside and inside job because the stockade was left fully guarded and locked up when Andrew took the older new arrivals out to hunt and gather (it was a bit of a post apocalyptic new world kind of set up) but they would arrive back to find it infiltrated, the elders no longer happily by their camp fires but a bit battered about, sacks of grain or meat garnered previously plundered again.  Andrew was starting to dislike the way this was going. Someone was going to end up dead again and he was meant to be looking after them. This was supposed to be a wind down for him after the days following Ben about on deliveries but frankly, it was becoming stressful. Still, Ben was on nights the next week, so he’d have to take a break from it then.

Their weekend rendezvous catch up meeting was this time, at Ben’s suggestion, on Saturday, in his own home.  Over time, he seemed to have become more relaxed as Andrew continued to report that he had not observed any ‘notice’ of Ben, not that Ben had ever displayed evident anxiety to him about it nor proffered any explanation for paying Andrew to watch him.  He had suggested they discuss this week’s report before they went for their run,

“Seeing,” as he said to Andrew on the phone, a sly smile in his laconic tones “that you like to come too.”

“All part of the job,” Andrew had cheerfully agreed, realising that this was now Ben’s in joke between them, that Andrew had been spotted whilst supposedly operating incognito.

Ben took him into the living room, where the news was raging across the television in war footage reports.  He turned it off and gestured Andrew to sit down, offering to make a drink. Andrew opted for tea and took in his surroundings as he waited, hoping for insights.  The walls were neutral creamy beige, with a knick knack wooden display unit above a central flat shelf where a mantelpiece would have been prior to central heating, holding what Andrew considered to be old lady ornaments in its little pyramid of square spaces.  It gave the room a fireplace focus where there was none, radiators round the walls. On the mantle like shelf was a bigger piece, a deeply red glass vase like a handkerchief bundle, its base holding silver trapped bubbles in the crimson, with a fluted top in cloth like folds.  The display unit held cutiepie ceramic figures of children and animals in doe eyed poses, a little brass bell and a souvenir thimble in it. There were no other decorations in the place, just basically furniture. The kitchen was through to the left, where Ben had gone and two other doors led off to the right, presumably bedroom and bathroom.  Andrew’s gaze returned to the heavy red vase and wandered over the ornaments.

Ben came back in with the drinks and Andrew gave his report, concentrating a bit more, since that was where Ben’s interest seemed to be, on the people in the bakery itself, and giving a list of the changing shifts he had observed and anything of interest.  

He had taken to livening up his narrative with gossipy accounts here and there, which Ben would smile quietly and nod appreciatively at, encouraging Andrew to play to his audience.  There was bickering about shift patterns, favouritism, dislike of certain managers or staff and different power games playing out, as there are in all organisations and people talked together indiscreetly, out of earshot, as they thought, of anyone who mattered.  He had begun to pick up people’s names and the couple he had noticed Ben watching once or twice, he now knew were Leah and Tyler. He thought he saw Ben frown slightly when he mentioned them but he didn’t say anything, so Andrew continued with his account of them being, as he had noted, a concerted fly in the ointment, sowing dissent amongst people where there had only been mild disgruntlement before and shifting loyalties airily around.

“I think they get a kick out of it, that couple, don’t you?” Andrew said. “Stirring it.”

“I don’t know,” Ben shrugged.

Maybe Ben had a quiet thing for Leah, Andrew speculated.  If so, she didn’t seem to have spotted it. She and Tyler were a stand alone sort of pair, not gathering followers quite, but certainly exerting a kind of influence and not, Andrew thought, a necessarily benign one.

He changed the subject, thinking of tacking back from small talk to challenge Ben unexpectedly about what exactly he was after, and maybe surprise him into an answer.

“I hope you don’t mind me saying,” he continued, indicating the ornaments “but that’s an unusual collection you’ve got there?”  

Ben’s round blue eyes, with their opaque rather than candid look, followed his.  

“Keepsakes,” was all Ben said of them, so Andrew thought that he had guessed right, probably an elderly relative’s bits kept for their sentimental value,  “Come on then, if you’ve finished your tea,” said Ben, getting up. You can get changed in the bathroom if you like.”

“Thanks,” said Andrew, picking up his sports bag and welcoming a bit of snooping.  

Ben himself went into his bedroom, cutting off the present opportunity for Andrew to press him further about anything.  The bathroom offered nothing; white tiles, white sink, a shower cubicle, a small mirror fronted cabinet with shaving kit materials, aftershaves,  shower gel and that kind of thing in it.  It was about as impersonal, if less messy, as Andrew’s own flat was, just somewhere to live rather than home. After the jog, Ben went for his usual couple of drinks and Andrew sat in his now customary corner, apparently having a quiet pint and doing the local paper’s crossword to prevent anyone striking up conversation with him, though it wasn’t really that sort of pub.  If you wanted to talk, you stood at the bar, if you didn’t you sat at a table and were left alone. He had done his best to look out for anything or anyone unusual but as ever, there seemed to be nothing to pick up on, either on the jog or in the pub later and he said goodbye to Ben with the usual flat sense of let down and feeling that this was all a bit pointless.

The following day he called round to Nolan’s bearing gifts of his mother’s last season’s home made chutney, which she was still trying to offload and he left with, despite his protestations, every time he visited.  He had good heartedly carted back a number of jars this last time. (Sarah would be the next recipient the following weekend when he went to see her). Since these were vegetables in a pickling disguise, they were more welcome than they would have been in their raw state to his business partner.   Billy was at his own mother’s again, so they were alone and planning a take-away banquet for later. He found Nolan’s laptop on in the kitchen as they took the chutney through and said,

“Oh, are you working?” as Nolan urged a bumblebee the size of a field mouse back out of the French windows it had entered by.

“No.  I’m playing online poker.  Only for points, so you can take your nanny goat look off.”

“All right.  I’ll take your word for it,” said Andrew.

They settled themselves outside with a beer each in deckchairs.  Contrails spread their chiffon tatters across the sky like invitations to travel and Andrew idly tried to work out their flight paths from the directions they were taking.

“Spain, Sicily, America, Australia, Italy, Canada, New Zealand,” he speculated.  “They could be going anywhere.”

“Those are from when they’re coming back into land,” said Nolan, raining on his parade.  “The airport’s that direction. Look, see that one up there?” he added, pointing out a growing sized plane shape emerging against the blue, “ It’s circling down, not up.”

“Oh,” said a deflated Andrew.

“You’re a hopeless romantic,” said Nolan.  “You do know that, don’t you?”

“It’s been said,” responded Andrew drily.  “I’d like to go to Sicily, you know,” he added wistfully.

“Have you been watching Montalbano again?” asked Nolan.  “You know what that does to you.”

Andrew laughed.

“I haven’t been watching anything,” he declared.  “Every night I’m locked into that online game. I blame you.”

“Yeah?  How are you doing?”

“A bit shit if you really want to know.  I’m always under siege. Are you still playing it?”

“No, but maybe I’ll join you, help you out a bit.  I’ll start as a new character. You can show me where you’re up to later.”

“O.K.  Cool,” said Andrew contentedly.

“How’s it going with your very own private case?” asked Nolan, pointedly, to let him know that he hadn’t been entirely forgiven for going it alone.

“Nothing doing, as usual,” said Andrew.

“Boring is it?” asked Nolan, with some satisfaction.

“Boring as,” agreed Andrew, giving him that to keep the peace.

In the evening, Nolan fired the game up on the television, plugging in the gaming handsets to that so they could participate with ease. Andrew’s two other gamers, ‘ AZ’, and ‘The Boy’ soon joined his wake up call to action.  Nolan observed for a while.

“Dear, oh, dear, you’ve got old folks and kids.  What happened?”

“It was all going well, I’d got a band of fellow fighters together as I kept winning options, picked up people along the way and had me a whole little community for a while.  Then I lost the swordsmen and since that this ‘AZ’ bandit keeps on my tail and I’ve only got ‘The Boy’ and some older kids he brought, then some little ones I leave in the stockade homestead with the oldies.”

“I think you’ve made some bad choices along the way, then.  Bad karma in this game. ”

“Yup.  Who are you going to be?”

“You’ll see.”

Nolan put in a request to join which the others accepted and played as a woman warrior seeking sanctuary in the stockade having been a nomadic survivor travelling alone.  

“Why that?” asked Andrew

“AZ is an interesting name for this gender free bandit.  Could be a woman don’t you think? Amazon?

“Good thinking!” exclaimed Andrew.  “Double agent?”

“Yeah, I’ll try and get in with her maybe.  Your name’s crap by the way - Viking!”

“Well…..I couldn’t think of anything else.  What about you? Cindy!”

“It’s a doll. This is a kind of doll.”

“Lame.”

“I’ll show you who’s lame,” countered Nolan, getting into the swing of things with an initial hand to hand spear battle with the shadowy beings the game had thrown up which lurked beyond the stockade to take down newcomers if possible and gaining entrance by dispatching a target number of them.  ‘AZ’ had remained inactive, presumably taking this in. Within the stockade, ‘The Boy’ was tamely engaged in helping set up the evening meal board table. ‘Viking’ was on the ramparts watching the combat but by the penalties already incurred, prevented from coming to the aid of the one outside the gates.  The gate swung open to admit the victorious ‘Cindy’.

“Honey, I’m home!” exclaimed Nolan.  “Now come on, Viking. Aren’t you going to ravage me, just a little teensie weensie bit?”

“Tempting as it is,” said Andrew.  “It would cost me even more points for badass behaviour, so no.  Besides, I’m afraid of your cleavage. It looks like it holds hidden dangers.”

“Oh, what’s a little dagger between friends?  A girl needs to protect herself, don’t she, in this misbegotten world?”

“She sure do” agreed Andrew. “Me too.”

“That’s my line, I’m the woman here.”

“There are no bandwagons in this game.”

“Oh, yes there are, and I’m jumping on board.   Where is everybody?”

They realised that ‘AZ’ and ‘The Boy’ had left the game, the inhabitants of the stockade mildly left eating their supper.

“That’s that, then,” said Nolan.  “Might as well order from ‘Just Eat’ and get our own real food, don’t you think?”

Andrew agreed and they left the virtual world for the real one. 

On Monday, Andrew recommenced his duties and all went along as before on the night shift, with him on watch outside the gates.  By Wednesday morning, as the finished night shift workers started to head out, he realised he hadn’t seen Ben’s milk lolly orange car come out yet and it was well past the usual time.  He had admittedly slept in his own car most of the night after a surreptitious check on his game people on his phone (where everyone was asleep in their quarters as planned), for there was nothing to see going on once the factory baking started inside the big modern factory unit’s closed doors.  Andrew went inside the gates and towards that building at the back, noting Ben’s still parked car on the way, where he asked a man standing near the now shut factory entrance if anyone was still in there to come out from the night shift, as he’d arrived to give his friend a lift home but he hadn’t come out.  

“Dunno, mate,” shrugged the other, “I didn’t notice but come on through if you like.” He put out the cigarette he had stopped to enjoy and Andrew followed him through.  “Put these over your shoes,” he said, handing Andrew some bag like covers to prevent outside dirt being walked in. “Who is it?”

“Ben Bradbury?”

“Not sure I know him.  Ben!” he called out. There was nobody at ground level so they went up a metal ladder to the next level metal platform by the big vat for mixing, which was still doing slow turns of the dough inside it, finishing off before the day people came to break it up, shape it and set it to rise.   It was a huge cylindrical drum with rotating arms. “Wait here,” said the other man to Andrew, “ I’ll check through in the back store where the flour is. He might be stacking the trolleys with it to wheel through for later batches if he’s got that duty."

He went through some double doors and vanished.  Andrew looked into the depths of the vat, its metal lid raised open, where the world’s biggest loaf was being pulled and stretched as the mixer rotated its long levers. He wondered why the lid of it was up, surely it should be locked down to keep contaminants out? The soft mass inside rose and fell as the mechanism worked it.

“ What was that?” he exclaimed to himself as something poked briefly through it.  Shocked, he looked more closely as something else was brought up again with the next turn, something that looked very like a human hand, its widespread  fingers thick with mixture. He yelled an alarm for help and dashed round the equipment for any switch off mechanism. The other man reappeared, panicked by his cries and even more so by what Andrew pointed out in the bottom of the vat.  He raced into action down the metal staircase and turned the giant mixer drum off, while Andrew clambered down the ladder which led partway down the interior of the drum to a step behind a low barrier,  presumably for when it had to be fixed in any way. The hand and arm stuck up backwards from a face head down and the shoulders of a partially revealed body.  Andrew pulled up the head, smothered by the putty-like goo hanging onto it like a mask and cleared the nose and mouth, clogged full and suffocated, but there was no chance of resuscitation. This doughboy wasn’t going anywhere, and it was Ben.

By now other people were racing in, coming to help haul out the accident victim and try to save him.  An ambulance had been called. Andrew knew there was no medical help possible and having climbed out, he stepped back out of the way, then decided, as the police were bound to be called too, that he had better make himself scarce before he was caught up in their enquiries again.  Watson’s Wheatsheaf was clearly not going to open today, so he had better get out before the front gates were closed. He did his best to pick up on what people were saying as he moved into the outer circles of arms folded staff standing by in horrified audience outside the factory building saying things like,

“Bloody disgrace!”,  “Accident waiting to happen”,  “Should have been sorted out years back,” and “Never enough staff on for safety standards, this is what comes of cutting corners when company times are tight” and “Who is it?”

Everyone looked concerned, alarmed, completely thrown into confusion.  Managers were worrying already about the news getting out and damaging the product’s reputation, asking people not to send messages or contact friends and family about it till it was clear what had happened and the right people had been informed.  As he began to hear sirens in the distance, Andrew, deeply distressed and overtaken by events, took off home in his own car, wondering all the way back whether he should have risked staying or was doing the right thing for now. His client was dead and he had no idea why.  Accident or no accident, he had to find out what had happened. Ben had had his reasons for wanting Andrew to watch him and he still did not know why.  Ben had worked there at Watson’s Wheatsheaf for at least five years, from what he had told Andrew, and surely was completely skilled in using any equipment involved and fully aware of safety issues.  It was such a bizarre and unlooked for end to Ben's life that for the present, Andrew was far too stunned by its grotesque nature to think beyond it.

Halfway back home, Andrew made a quick decision.  Before anyone else (police most likely, or someone from his workplace) came to Ben’s flat, he could try to get in himself, couldn’t he?  It was only just past seven.  If he was quiet, he was unlikely to be observed.  None of Ben’s neighbours had ever been about so early and he knew, because he had noticed and asked Ben previously, that the upstairs flat was currently unoccupied pending renovation and a new rental, following the death of its elderly resident.  Parking a short way off,  dusting  some dried on dough remains from his person, he took part of his constantly carried private detective kit out of the boot, donning a yellow high vis jacket and working gloves with a peaked black baseball cap, an outfit people never questioned as a being the uniform of a person being about valid business.  Andrew had always found it a very effective way of being seen without being seen.  Carrying a plastic tool kit box to complete the look, he walked unhurriedly, in his workman’s disguise, round the back first, and did a bit of looking over the property’s windows, exterior pointing and the roof, as if with a professional tradesman’s eye, but mainly to make sure nobody was about.  Milk bottles on some doorsteps testified that the milkman had already been, so it was possible he would be noticed out of a kitchen window.  He paid a bit of attention to the outdoor meter boxes and nodded to himself, as if noting electrical requirements.

Ben’s entrance was at the front, so he’d have to get in from there, another reason, as it was facing the main road, to be disguised.  Going to it and standing beneath the short white porch roof which served to decorate it as a front door, he took his mechanical snap gun out of the toolkit box and used it to quickly pick the lock, its pressure bar keeping it to where it would open when the other pick tools in it succeeded in pushing back the spring pins of the levers within the lock barrel to the moment when it would open.  There was no damage and he would be able to relock it the same way on exit, leaving no trace of his visit.  It was quick and effective,  He was in but he knew he couldn’t risk being there for long.

Inside the neutral rooms, he made a hasty investigation of the bedroom first.  It was about as homely as a hotel room, if dustier. There were clothes hung up in the single fitted wardrobe and put away in the small chest of drawers there.  The bed was made but of course, it would have been, since Ben hadn’t gone back into it after his night shift. There was a bedside table, but nothing much in the drawers, bits of clutter like spare batteries, a light bulb, no papers or things like wallet or bank cards but then, he’d have had them with him, along with the mobile phone which, like most people these days, Ben would doubtless use for pretty much everything else business or personal communication wise.  There was a photograph in a frame, stuck on the windowsill, which looked to be of Ben himself as a youngster of perhaps seven or eight, for Andrew recognised the round blue eyes in what must have been a school photograph.  The child wore a polo shirt with a primary school logo on it, although here, the hair was white blond, not the darker adult colour Ben had had when he had met him. There were no books about but Ben didn’t strike him as having been much of reader, or indeed, much of anything.  His personal hinterland, whatever it was, remained obscure and Andrew had no sense of knowing him. He didn’t, he also realised, know anything about Ben’s background either.

The living room was as he remembered it, but there was a laptop by the television.  He turned it on while he went on to reconnoitre the kitchen. This too held only food items in its cupboards and fridge.  There was a small pile of post but it was only junk mail, obviously stashed briefly before disposal.  As previously, the place struck him as being like his own, just somewhere you were living right now, rather than home.  He didn’t even know, he realised, how long Ben had been there.  

Back in the living room he tried the laptop but it was password protected, so he turned it off, unplugged its cables and stuck it and them in a carrier bag he’d found in the kitchen, so he could ask Nolan to get into it later.  As far as he had seen, Ben never had friends visiting, or family, so nobody was likely to notice its loss.  He was struck again by the ornaments.  For a place so sparsely tenanted as this was, they seemed oddly fussy.  They must certainly have meant something personal, for in themselves, Andrew considered, studying a baby rabbit with cartoon blue eyes emerging from a ceramic boot, they were pretty ghastly whimsies.  The red handkerchief bundle vase was too big somehow, garishly clumsy looking.   ‘Keepsakes’, Ben had called them.

He took pictures of them on his phone as being the only items of individual note.  He went back into the bedroom, took another shot of the framed photograph of Ben as a little boy and had a quick search through hung up jacket and trouser pockets, through the the jeans, t-shirt, sweatshirt and underwear layers in the chest of drawers but there was nothing in particular. The bathroom, he already knew, was empty of interest, although he checked again just in case.  Looking at the time, he had been there about forty minutes.  Time to get out. Grabbing the bag with the laptop and his toolkit case, he relocked the front door and went back along the road to his car.  Some traffic was passing now, so the day was starting.  Andrew took off the high vis jacket and peaked cap and chucked them in the boot with the laptop and tool case and went back to his own flat.  He felt trashed by the draining adrenalin rush from shock and the fatigue of being up most of the night apart from slumbering awkwardly in the car. He brought the laptop in, made a cup of tea, took a long and symbolically cleansing shower despite the hot weather request to do so for no more than four minutes, and went to lie down on the bed, not sure if he’d sleep or not, but thinking he should rest before doing anything else at all, so that he could think straight later about what that ought to be.  

Finney was in Barcelona and kept sending Dee Gaudi related video clips of the fantastical, organic curved buildings, ornamental chimneys and mosaics as he discovered them.  He had been there for several days and they were talking on facetime on Saturday afternoon before he headed out again and she went to her bistro shift. Finney was sporting pastel streaks of pink, blue, green and violet running through his long hair right now, Dee noticed, courtesy of someone but not her.

“You’ve got mermaid hair,” she told him, as they concluded their greetings.

“Like it?” he asked, giving it a mock swish.

On Finney, even girly things didn’t look girly, so the effect was somewhat unusual but then, that was what he aimed for in general, Dee supposed.

“Yeah.  It’s cute,” she said.

“Cute?” he queried, of a description rarely applied to him.  “I was aiming for cool.”

“It’s definitely not cool,” Dee informed him.

Finney, not at all put out, just laughed.

“Whatever,” he said.  “So what do you think of the Gaudi?”

“Beautiful,” said Dee.  “It’s all very you, your sort of architecture, all the curves.”

“I love it!” he agreed.  “The buildings are like living bones aren’t they?  Fairytale stuff. And the mosaics are like the scales of  sleeping dragons.”

“Weird and wonderful,” agreed Dee.  “How’s the crew?”

“All right!” said Finney brightly, who had clubbed together with some of the former Skills Guild group to go, which was why he had somebody’s portable tablet to use for Facetime talk with her.  “I wish you could have come, Dee.”

“Me too.  No passport to float my boat, though,” Dee regretted.

Dee had not got around to organising her first adult passport yet and when this trip was suddenly mooted due to special short term offers, she was unable to take advantage of it, as it would take weeks to get the passport through.

“Aww.  I know,” commiserated Finney.  “Next time.”

“Next time,” Dee agreed.  “I’ll get it sorted.”

“It’s amazing here,” continued Finney.  “There are flocks of little green parrots everywhere and at home time after work, fleets of little scooter thingies are zooming round instead.  I could fancy one of those to get around here on.”

“Well,” Dee said, “It sounds like you’re having fun.”

“I am,” agreed Finney happily.  “Hope you are too.”

“I’m good,” Dee confirmed.

They signed off for the present.  While she liked the fact that they didn’t live in each other’s pockets, Dee wondered if being contentedly apart for periods of time was a good sign or not, since it hadn’t been how she had felt before.  Finney said it was sound because it meant they were friends as well as lovers and independence was important.  Dee thought, though, that she ought to miss him more than she did, perhaps.  But then, given that Finney, affectionate as he was towards her, was very much his own person, maybe, she concluded, this was all to the good.

She got ready for her shift at the local eatery she served at tables for on Friday and Saturday evenings.  It was companionable, because she worked there with another friend from their art course who lived not far away.  Imogen had not been party to Crash Start Art as such but was one of their circle who knew all about it.  She was on the fashion design side and although invited to come and join them, had preferred to continue ploughing her own furrow because she already did some bespoke designing for a small clientele she had built up online.  What Dee hadn’t yet told Finney was that Imogen had only just told her that she was seeing Baz Jackson and had been a bit evasive when Dee, having tried not to sound aghast at the news, had asked how long she had been seeing him for.  Dee liked Imogen and was disappointed to think that she might have been the mole, although it did perhaps explain why she had stayed so cosied up to the Skills Guild student group and had been so interested in all their plans.  Dee was intending to find out more from her and also what she saw in Baz Jackson to attract her, this being something of a mystery to Dee, who just felt antagonism from and towards him.

Dee was laying the tables in the window spot facing the road when, as was not infrequent, there was a vehicle racing incident.  A sporty, low slung black car with tinted windows, speeding recklessly and swerving by cars on the inside and out, hit two others, spinning one round to the other side and mashing in the wing and driver’s door of another.  It didn’t seem as simple as that, though, since a tactical aid unit belted up moments later, officers leaping out to grab the offending driver and contain the situation. The day, as previous ones had been, was very hot, at least in the high twenties but the driver had on a puffer jacket with his baseball cap and shades.

“I reckon they were in pursuit, don’t you?”  Imogen said, as they all went outside to see what had happened.  “Maybe he was trying to get away from them.”

“Looks dodgy.  Look what he’s wearing, in this heat?” commented one of the two chefs.

“Maybe that’s to show off how cold his car air con is,” remarked another of the staff.

Dee, looking across too and knowing cars very like that one, found her heart had unaccountably begun to race.  The cuffed man, being heavily chastised and surrounded, had raised his head. Despite a sculpted, barbered beard where he had previously been clean shaven, she felt the shock of recognition.  It was not Al, not Faisal, but it was one of them.  It was Zulf.  She was sure of it.  Or was she?  No, this could be anybody.  She had surely conjured up a likeness by power of association.

Broken glass littered the road from the crash but being shatterproof, it was like scattered crunchy diamonds.  The attacker car, sleekly flat as a cockroach, seemed to have a similarly indestructible carapace, whereas the other two cars were stricken.  One driver walked out but the other was waiting in his car as instructed, one of the officers outside, till he could be checked over but he was talking.  Another police car arrived.

Well, this is going to be great for business, isn’t it?” declared the bistro owner, appearing now and put out.  “I hope they clear the road before we open. I mean,” he added, aware of censuring eyes from his staff, “nobody’s injured, are they?”

What about him?” exclaimed the other of the two chefs, pointing out the man in his car.  “Bloody hell, Gus!”

“Oh,” said the owner, belatedly shamed into action and going across to ask the officers if they could be of any help.

Belligerent rap music still boomed from the black sports car, creating an auditory pool of violence round it’s pounding beat.

“Speeding on coke and weed, no doubt,” commented Dee, well versed in such matters these days.

They were all within earshot and the arrested driver looked over at them, while being told by the officer holding his arm that if he’d killed anyone, all the years he was going to spend in gaol wouldn’t bring them back, would it?   He nodded in token acquiescence but was clearly indifferent about that, which, if it had been Zulf, Dee thought, would have fitted right in with his evident disdain towards all those he considered to be lesser mortals.  She still wasn’t sure but, even if it was him, unlikely as it was, it had nothing to do with her any more, did it?

The manager called them all back inside to get on with setting up and said their assistance wasn’t required to help with the accident.  The arrested driver was taken off by the police, the one kept in his car taken by ambulance for hospital checks, the other waiting to be picked up having phoned a friend.  An hour or so later, the cars had been removed. This was much to the restaurateur's satisfaction.  Gus, actually Auguste but de Gallicised by name after years of local living (although he still kept his native accent polished up for his customers' benefit) urged his staff to get on with it.

“What do I need in my restaurant?” he demanded.

“Elbow grease, Gus,” they chorused dutifully back.

“That’s right.  No ‘Greasy Spoon’ here.”  Gus was proud of his grasp of English idiom and trotted these two examples of it out regularly to them.  “Chop chop,” he added, clapping his hands at them.

Outside, the sun shone off the polished surface of the ‘Pomme d’Or’ s metal sign of apple and leaves, highlighting the glass sparkles on the road.  Dee, folding red napkins into glasses on the check clothed tables, still wondered and doubted about the driver’s identity.

When Andrew got up after a few hours of fitful dozing, it had reached a reasonable time to contact Nolan and tell him he had a laptop he’d like him to check out for him but that he’d explain when he got there, if that was all right.  Nolan said it was, he and Billy, it being weekend, just being at home that day.

“So,” said Billy, who hadn’t seen Andrew for some time.  “Aren’t we going to ask what Andrew’s been up to?”

“You can,” said Nolan darkly.  “I’ve got trust issues.”

Andrew felt himself blushing at this reference to his secret case because he certainly didn’t want to tell Billy about it.  He made some hasty small talk about having seen all their holiday photos last time he had popped in and how great they were and updated Billy on how his parents and Sarah were and that he was going to see her next weekend, if all went to plan. After this, he persuaded Nolan to go into his home office with him to have a look at ‘my laptop’ as he described it, saying for Billy’s benefit that he’d managed to get some stupid virus on it and it was all messed up.

“Shit happens,” sympathised Billy, leaving them to it.

When Andrew told Nolan what had happened to Ben that morning, breaking into his flat and that this was his laptop Andrew had brought with him, Nolan said in disbelief,

“Have you been on the wacky backy?”

“No,” said Andrew, “but I could do with some.”

Nolan obliged and they repaired to the garden to have it.  Billy, in retreat from the heat, was listening to music on his headphones in the living room, so they were able to exit by the breakfast room French windows unobserved.  Andrew gave Nolan the full run down of the day’s events and said that he would have to wait a while before he tried going back to Watson’s Wheatsheaf.

“So, you’re going to look into it?” Nolan asked, sounding as if it wasn’t the best of ideas.

“I am.”

“Surely, people have seen you round there.  How will you be able to investigate?”

“Seen, yes, maybe.   Taken me in as a presence, I doubt it.”

“Well,  I suppose they can only refuse to talk to you.”

“They will talk to me.  I’m going to try to get taken on there.”

“What?”

“It’s the only real way to get in.”

“But - what about the guy on the door, when you found Ben dead together?”

“He won’t remember me in all that confusion.  Most people aren’t that good at recognition. I’ll just say it wasn’t me, if he does ask.  Play dumb.”

“You should find that bit easy.”

“Arf, arf,” said Andrew but half heartedly, not really in the spirit of things due to his experience earlier.  “Of course, I’ll have to wait till there’s an inquest and a verdict, then the funeral.  I’ll want to go to that, find out who his relatives and friends are.  Were.”

“I think you’re rushing ahead,” said Nolan, looking him over.  “Are you sure you’re alright? It must have been one hell of a shock, finding him like that.”

After a moment Andrew said that yes, it certainly had been.

“But...I didn’t know him, you see,” he added reflectively

“No.  Does that make a difference, then?” asked Nolan, sounding doubtful.

“I don’t really know yet, “ said Andrew.  “I’m hoping that it will.  I’m not going to do anything right away.  I don’t want to mess it all up.  Let the dust settle, see if anything comes out about the accident but I’m sure, whatever did happen, it wasn’t a real accident and the reason for it is smack in the middle of Watson’s Wheatsheaf and why Ben hired me.”

“To see if anyone ‘noticed him’.”

“That’s right.”

“A pity he didn’t tell you more.”

“I know, but somehow, I think that’s a part of it.”

“ Well,” offered Nolan.  “I can make a start by interrogating the laptop to help you map out his thoughts, what he was doing, depending on how he used it.”

“Thanks,” said Andrew.

“You’re going to Sarah’s aren’t you?”

“Yes, next weekend.”

“Make it a long one”, advised Nolan.  “I reckon you need a seriously long break.”

Andrew nodded agreement and they went back into the house, where Billy was still obliviously tuned into his light opera as they passed the door.  They went back into the study to have a try at the laptop but it remained obstinately closed to all Nolan’s initial blandishments to bypass the security lock on it, which in itself, as Nolan said, was interesting in the circumstances.  

“Leave it with me,” he said.

At Billy’s later invitation, Andrew stayed for tea, not wishing to be on his own right then.

“If it’s no trouble,” he only slightly demurred.

“Since when,” demanded Nolan, “has that put you off taking up an offer?"

“Rude!” admonished Billy and so the usual order was restored, Billy having no idea still what had happened and Andrew knowing that Nolan would, in fact, keep it private too, because now he was involved as well.  

Later in the evening, Billy being an early bird having gone to bed, Nolan was eating chutney straight from the jar by way of a munchies snack.   He and Andrew were about to rejoin the game to take Andrew’s mind off of things, because now that they were alone, despite a second calming smoke, he kept returning to the moment of his ghastly find.

“Life,”observed Nolan of Ben’s untimely demise, “is not a bowl of cherries.”

“No,” said Andrew.  “Thanks for that insight.  Helps a lot.”

“Welcome,” returned Nolan sagely, foraging further into the chutney jar.  “Have some?” he offered. “It’s quite, piquant.”

“Mother will be pleased,” said Andrew sarcastically.  “Frankly, I don’t think it’s going to do much for me right now.”

Andrew waited for the game to load.  The logos for the fetchingly titled, “Heaven or Hell,” (angels’ wings and roaring flames) appeared on screen.  It was so called because your choices could land you and your fellows in either scenario at the finale of each game played out to the end.  He hadn’t been on to look at it for several days but he found things seemed to have changed, and not for the better when he called for the other players to join in.  He must have left some opening by mistake because the stockade had been breached again and this time more damagingly. Viking and Cindy found themselves in a desolate scene.  The stockade was empty of living inhabitants. Four of the minor characters Viking had collected along the way with The Boy, harmless but fairly ineffectual peasants, were lying dead.  The rest, together with The Boy and the other children had vanished. The hill from which AZ had carried out raids had now become an erupting volcano and when Andrew had reanimated the action, he and Cindy were facing lethally flowing lava pouring towards their sanctuary.  Fast action would be needed to survive.

“What the fuck, man?” exclaimed Nolan.  “Did we leave the back door unlocked last time?”

“No but this game twists things.  Besides, I was starting to think maybe The Boy and AZ were in cahoots because the raids were always one step ahead of me.  They could have set this up together.”

“Maybe, or The Boy has been done in previously in a different round.  Right, get your sword. I’ll deal with this lot.”

Vulture like predators were swooping down on them now from the skies as the blazing lava rolled on towards them.  Cindy let fly a quiver of arrows at them while Viking’s avatar ran for the armoury and then broadsword fought off chimera beasts; multi-headed, taloned creatures which sprang up all around him.  Andrew remembered The Boy’s talismans that had warded off trouble before, a treasure sack containing a jewelled flask of the water of life and netsuke-like figures which guarded it and its keepers with charmed powers to defend them but when he fought through to its hiding place, like The Boy, it had gone.

“You know,” said Nolan resignedly, as their characters fought back to back.   “I think we’ve had it.”

Indeed, as the lava flowed through the gates and surrounded them, ‘Game Over,’ flashed on the screen and flames sprang up to devour their avatars.  Hell had won this time.  Andrew, in the circumstances, found himself appalled.  More people, if only in a game, he had been responsible for, who had perished.

“I’m sorry,” he apologised.  “If the amulets had still been there, I might have been able to save us.”

“Amulets?”

“Yes, The Boy had them, powerful protection.  But they’d gone.”

“Andrew,” soothed Nolan, “it’s just make believe, pal.”

“I know.”

“It was meant to cheer you up.  Not a good idea maybe.”

“Maybe not.”

“Pokemon next time?”

Andrew managed to laugh.

“Perhaps.  Anyway. Time I went.”

It was later in the week when Nolan got in touch to say that he had broached Ben’s laptop. He’d meet Andrew in the office under the veranda to discuss it.  It was violently hot and for once, the sunless chill of their office was welcome and also for once, not damp.  Nolan plugged in the laptop and said Andrew might be surprised by Ben’s last activity on it.

“Why?”

“He was playing ‘Heaven and Hell’.  With you.”

“Really? He was…?”

“Both The Boy and AZ.”

“How can you tell?”

Nolan made a self congratulatory thumbs up gesture towards his chest with both hands.

“No secrets from this baby once I’m in,” he asserted.  “How did he cop on to you playing that, though?”

Andrew thought briefly.

“I think,” he said slowly, “I might have mentioned I was playing it.  In fact, I’m sure I did, come to think of it.”

“Why?”

“I was trying to make conversation. ”

“What did he say about it?”

“Nothing that I remember.  Just did his little silent half smile number.  Mostly that’s all I got whatever I said.”

“Do you think he was messing with your head?”

“Not really, no.  I don’t see why he would, do you?  Perhaps he was just doing something to try to connect with me.  I don’t think he was especially good at doing that with people.  So, he was definitely both players?”

“Looks like it, yes.”

“What else did you find?”

“Not a huge amount to be honest.  Nothing to suggest why Ben became an unexpected item in the bagging area.”

“Don’t!” shuddered Andrew.  “Maybe his endgame (I mean, in the game),” he added hastily, “was to show me he was boss.”

“Perhaps when I came in it spoilt the dynamic for him?” suggested Nolan.  “Because in the game, he was playing you, wasn’t he, by secretly being both the other gamers?”

“I don’t know.  Let’s leave that.  No point in over analyzing an online game, is there?”

“No but at the same time, he’d set it up to finish the game off and make you lose the next time you activated it.”

“But, you know,” Andrew recalled, “ I did go in to look at it earlier on the night Ben died.  It was all right, then. Everyone was asleep.”

“Did you do anything?”

“No.  I just viewed where it was last at.”

“That’s why, then.  He’d set that scene up for when you activated it and asked the other gamers to join.  He’d preset his choices. I think he’s quite a sophisticated player.  Or was.  He had quite a few of these interactive games on the go.  Maybe he was a bit of a geek on the quiet.”

“He was never more than quiet.  And he certainly was on his own a lot.  He had set routines. That daily jog of his round the back of the estate and the canal, for one.  I wonder if he would have told me about the game afterwards, if he’d had chance to?  Maybe he wouldn’t have, just a private joke for himself.  I don’t know. What about personal stuff on the laptop?”

“Zilch.  He didn’t do any social media, either.  I’ve searched all the obvious for profiles.  I think he only used that laptop for gaming. No emails or bank stuff.”

“Photos?”

“Nope.  Nada.”

“I guess he used his smartphone for all that, then.  He had one. But of course I can’t get to that.  He’d have had it with him at work, wouldn’t he?  I wonder if the police have it?”

“You can hardly ask, can you?”

“No.  Tell you what, let’s look on Watson’s Wheatsheaf’s website.”

They did so and amidst its deliberate cosiness of tone and image, found some staff pictures of people posing happily or larking about in various bakery related scenarios.  Ben, though didn’t really feature, unless they were right about him being one of the people loading up a van with trays from a stacker trolley in a long distance shot of the carnival-like vintage delivery lorries parked up in the factory yard.  They both agreed that the lack of mention of the death of a faithful member of staff belied the so called family image the company liked to promote. Speaking of that, Andrew said, after they’d searched the ‘do you want to work for us section’ he’d start to try to come up with a CV to meet the character and skills criteria they were looking for and polish it up for a while before submitting it for consideration if any vacancies came up.

“I can do that,” he observed.  “I’ve got a pretty good take on the feel of the outfit.”

“If you do get in there,” cautioned Nolan, “and if you’re right, be very careful how you go about things, or you could end up - .”

“If you so much as mention brown bread,” interrupted Andrew, “I’ll swing for you.  There’s nothing funny about this.”

“- in serious trouble, I was going to say", Nolan objected innocently.  “I wouldn’t be so tasteless.”

“I suppose,” Andrew said, “there’s a first time for everything.”

“I mean it, Andrew.    If Ben was shoved into that vat, somehow, that’s some seriously dysfunctional family set up in there and you’ll be right in the middle of it.”

“His neck was broken, you know,” Andrew told him.  “I could tell when I pulled up his head.  I just hope it was quick.  Those huge rotor arms could have done it when he hit them, I guess. They were powerful things.”

“Or someone could have,” suggested Nolan.  “Before he went in.”

Andrew nodded thoughtfully.

“Can you try to hack the police computers again, Nolan?  Get at any post mortem results, that kind of thing?”

“I can try.  I usually get by their firewall and encryption systems.  I’ll let you know.  Now.  You get yourself off down to Sarah’s tomorrow and stay down there.  I don’t want to hear a word from you for a good few days. Right?”

“Right,” agreed Andrew, who felt rather the same himself about not dwelling on all this for a short time at least, to get some perspective on it.

Dee and Imogen, about seven p.m., went across to the park for their break.  Over the road from the restaurant, it was a pleasant spot to chat and chill for half an hour before they took on the main evening shift following the early bird menu spot.  In the middle of the Summer heatwave, it was still full of other people sprawled about sunbathing or napping like cats.  It was a popular busking spot and, true to form, in the renovated and repainted bandstand area (shading them and offering good acoustics for their efforts), one of the regulars was snarling out some unseasonably gloomy lyrics in a gratingly nasal range of about five notes and at the same tempo, whatever the song, peaking occasionally into a stentorian vibrato for moments of deep feeling.  Dee and Imogen talked, under the cover of that noise, more freely, finding themselves chatting together quite openly as they sipped from their bottles of mineral water.

“So…” began Dee after a few minutes.  “You and Baz Jackson, Imogen?  How long have you been with him, then?”

“With Baz?  Er, about six months.  Bit like you and Finney.”  Not for the first time, Dee wondered if Imogen were one of Finney’s ex girlfriends, which was unexpectedly confirmed when Imogen continued, “We weren’t that long over and, I don’t know, I just sort of, fell in with Baz because he started being around when all the ‘Crash Start Art’ thing got going.”  Imogen gave a mischievous smile. “I quite enjoyed all that, playing Finney up.”

“Why?” enquired Dee.

“Because he deserved it.  He gets far too much of his own way, Finney.  Always has done. I’ve known him for ages but not as a girlfriend till last year.”

Dee considered this, kicking her legs in and out under the park bench.

“But, he works for it and waits for it, though, doesn’t he?” she reflected after a moment or two.

“Oh.  You still think he’s all Mr Nice Guy, Dee,” said Imogen pleasantly.

“Isn’t he?”

“Is anyone?  I’m not trying to put you off him, you know.  Maybe Baz was just such a contrast I couldn’t resist.”

“Well,” said Dee cautiously.  “There doesn’t seem to be anything nice about him.”

“He has his moments.”

“Sorry.”

There was a pause.

“It’s alright.  Not many people get him,” said Imogen.

“And you do?”

“I think so.  If he thinks you’ve got enough about you, he’s interesting to be with.”

Dee pulled a face.

“Bit arrogant?” she queried.

“Only honest.”

“Mmm,” said Dee, unconvinced.  “Is that what he says about himself, then?”  she asked next.

Imogen shrugged.

“Not really.  He doesn’t say much about himself.  I think he’s just amused by how pretentious most people are.”

Dee laughed.

“Being cynical’s just as much of a pose as anything else!” she retorted.

“He’s not cynical, I don’t think.  He’s more….just someone who’s got his own standards and doesn’t set much store by other people’s.”

“Very convenient,” observed Dee.  “Why doesn’t he get on with Finney, then?”

“You’d have to ask him that.”

“Haven’t you?”

“No.”

“Why do you think it is, then?” pursued Dee, trying to get at what Imogen had meant herself about Finney.

“I’d say, because Finney’s a top show people pleaser but really does whatever he likes.  If you go with it, fine. If you don’t, bye bye.”  Dee didn’t think this accorded with her experience of Finney or how popular he was and put this resume down to a degree of post relationship sour grapes. “Don’t get me wrong,” Imogen continued.  “I like Finney but sometimes, what he wants can be rather too much of a good thing. You get me?”

Dee did but felt it would be disloyal to agree.  She still missed Al’s bad boy credentials, for all that he had let her down.  Imogen’s words implied that she and not Finney had ended their relationship perhaps but it was time for them to go back in now, so they had to postpone any further discussions about their respective boyfriends in favour of serving chicken en cocotte.  This, today’s dish of the day, would be talked up by Gus to his evening customers, some of whom were regulars, who would be solicitously favoured with a taster ‘bonne bouche’ starter which always appeared to be for the select few, although really, everybody was offered it in turn as they settled in for their meal.  It went down very well and they rarely had much left over from Gus’s menu choices at the end of the night. If there were, they didn’t come the staff’s way immediately. A street check for the needy might find them a bit of supper and there was an elderly, housebound neighbour of Gus’s whose appetite he liked to tempt by taking the odd aluminium foil carton her way if he thought she would enjoy it.  After that the staff, who were quite generously paid by going rate standards, could take things home if they wished, starting with the lowest paid casual workers like those waiting on the tables.

“We northerners,” Gus would announce in his normal, more tinged with the local accent through his native French voice than his professional one, “look after our own, don’t we?”

Gus combined his thrifty business sense with a generous pinch of kindness, which made it a good workplace to be in.  He would refer, if asked, with a melancholy but resigned shake of the head, to having grown up in the ‘banlieues’ the ‘mean streets’ of Paris and to knowing what being a poor outsider meant.  He never elaborated on this, so whatever colourful history did or did not lie behind this story, they never found out. If pressed, with a sweep of his hand, he would say,

“And so, we leave the past behind us. Onwards and upwards, my friends.”

Dee thought that his love of English sayings, whilst quite genuine, also gave him good cover for elusive vagueness about his back story, a quality which, after her time with Al, she was well attuned to picking up on.  She had chatted about him to her parents, who, from her physical description of Gus, speculated that he might be Algerian in origin and if so that ‘les pieds noirs’ had suffered from exactly such prejudice and ghetto living as the poor suburbs of Paris might have offered him if he had grown up there in the sixties or seventies, as his present age suggested he might have done.

Intrigued, they came once to dine there and were made a great fuss of by Gus, which they thoroughly enjoyed, along with a post dinner cognac and chat with him about France, which, it transpired, they had visited far more often than he had done recently.  Dee, serving on, was amused to see how well he drew them out in conversation, having said little but about generalities in return. He expressed himself as having been delighted at the opportunity for ‘having a catch up’ about the place, which he said, with a regretful smile, having no family there now, he no longer had occasion to visit.  Dee's parents themselves, discussing him with her later, suggested that, as a respectable resteraunteur, Gus perhaps just preferred to gloss over humble beginnings where marginal living might have led to marginal honesty in his youth, or things he preferred to forget about.  

A few days after that dining experience, Dee was on the bus going into town for a short shopping trip, feeling the need for some time to herself, which she found she was missing between work and home life.  On the seat in front of her, a small child turned to kneel, locked eyes with her and stared intently.  It's toddler nose was running unappealingly above a constantly sucked dummy.  She tried smiling but the scrutiny continued, so she took refuge in the local free paper, distributed on the bus and a copy of which a previous passenger had read and stuck down the side of the seat.  One of the features, a regular item, was a naming and shaming section, with photographs of them, of recent offenders, one of whom was the face of the man who had caused the crash outside Gus’s place.  It seemed from the caption that the police had indeed been in pursuit of him for violence and drug related offences and he was pictured with others from his circle they had also caught up with after getting hold of him.  She looked closely but none of them were related to Al in any way that she could see. The likeness which she had imagined at the time did not strike her now.

“Come on,” she told herself inwardly, “Finney will be home soon,” but the thought did not excite her enough to take her mind off Al and what he might be doing now, reminded so sharply as she had been of him at the time of that road traffic accident.  Not for the first time, it crossed her mind that she might have been more sensible to choose a different place to go to University, if she did really want to go there, than to be following in Finney’s footsteps. Maybe what she really needed, she found herself pondering, was just to be on her own.  Too late now, though, she’d made her choice and if she changed her mind everyone would be all upset with her again, wouldn’t they, she supposed?  She checked her phone but there were no messages and no double tick, when she looked again, against the photo of her own painting that she had sent to suggest that Al had seen it.

“Get a grip,” she instructed herself, getting off the bus and being freed from the dribbly child’s relentless stare, which had been fixed on her for the duration of the journey.  “Grow up,” she added as she stepped down on to the pavement but now, instead of valuing this time to herself, she suddenly felt a bit lonely instead.

“Pull yourself together,” she told herself aloud but nonetheless, she found her steps taking her, not to the shops but to Dream and going by there, beyond to the mill, which now represented to her, misleading as she knew the construct to be, a kind of lost vision of freedom and one time happiness.  For once, the mill’s gates were open and there was a building turmoil within of plant machinery, scaffolding up walls and men in hard hats busily at work. A concrete mixer churned and a crane’s arm lowered menacingly over the penthouse roof from somewhere, dangling long pipes in chains. The name on the vehicles was ‘Duffy’ and she could see nobody among the turmoil whom she recognised. She slipped through the clamour towards the office unobserved but the door was closed and, when she tried it, locked.

“Can I help you, love?” a voice behind her asked and she turned to find a burly man, red faced from the heat and sweating heavily in his overalls, holding a clipboard, some kind of official of proceedings, it seemed.

“Um, I used to live on the top floor up there,” she said, pointing to the penthouse flat.  “What’s happening?  Are the Saleem brothers having the flats made now?”

“Who?” asked the man.  Dee recalled that they used a company name for the business and asked about that instead but he continued to shake his head.  “No, love. Never heard of it or them.  We work for ‘Next Century Build’, they’ve bought this up for development.  They’ll keep some of it for the frontage and that but quite a lot of it’s coming down to make way for a high rise with connecting atrium roof behind.”

“Oh,” said Dee, defeated.  “Thanks, anyway,” and she went away again.

‘Next Century Build’ was a consortium who were doing most of the recent housing expansion building work.  She’d come across them with Finney.

“If only we’d known,” she thought. “We could have done Crash Start Art in there to stop it,” although, of course, Hamid and company would never have permitted that, she knew.  On impulse she phoned Faisal (whose number she still had in her phone) to ask what was going on but he didn’t answer which, she reflected afterwards, was probably just as well. They wouldn’t have wanted to keep it, she thought, after Rashid’s death there and all its consequences for the family alliances and hadn’t Andrew told her that the property proposals were all a scam anyway?  Probably, it had always been intended that they could get it sold on somehow through the disguised conglomerate companies they dealt in, thanks to Hamid’s wife’s conveyancing skills.

Disconsolate, she made her way to Dream, hoping that somebody she still knew might be in working there.  She ordered a coffee and found herself hailed by one of the hipster managers,

“Hey, Dee, long time!” he said, coming over.  “How’s tricks?”

“Not bad,” she answered.  

“Are you working?”

“Yeah, at the ‘Pomme D’Or’ near where I live.  It’s a bistro.”

“Like it?”

“Yes, it’s not like here, though,” she assured him.

“Nowhere is!” he asserted cheerfully.  “I’ve got some news for you.”

“You have?” asked Dee, perking up.  

“Yep.  Someone you’ve been asking after popped in asking about you.   Here.”

He handed her a familiar hand-drawn graphic business card.

“Frankie and Nathe are back?”

“Looks like it.  They’ve started Carrot Top up again.  Frankie’s been in with a couple of deliveries.”

As ever, it was a web address only along with the smiling carrot with stick arms and legs and a wild bundle of greenery for hair,  a rasta style  topknot.

“When does she come in?” asked Dee, who was eager to reconnect with them.  

“Different days, so far.”

“Never mind,” said Dee, cheered up.  “I’ll email them. Will you tell her I came in?  Can I leave you my new number?”

“Sure and if you ever need a few shifts, we’ll try to fit you in, Dee.”

“Thanks, Leo,” she smiled and went back, finally, to her intended shopping trip in better spirits.

   (Continued in Part 6)

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