He said, ‘All?’
He could be really subtle when he wanted.
‘Yes. My parents-in-law too. Mr and Mrs Tomassetti.’
‘Could you spell that?’ said Joe, feeling a need to justify the pen.
‘Two s’s, two t’s. My sister-in-law is Maria Rocca. Two c’s. Is all this necessary?’
‘Bear with me,’ said Joe, scribbling. The pen wasn’t working so all he got were indentations, but at least it was activity which gave him space to think of something intelligent to say.
He said, ‘Is that it? I mean, are there any more? Dead, I mean?’
‘Are you trying to be funny.’
‘No, not at all. Hey, man, I’m just doing my job. I need the details, Mr …?’
The man slid his hand inside his jacket. Joe pushed his chair back till it hit the wall. The hand emerged with a card which he dropped on to the desk. Joe picked it up, then put it down again as it was easier to read out of his trembling fingers. It told him he was talking to Stephen Andover, Southern Area sales manager of Falcon Assurance with offices on Dartle Street.
Suddenly Joe’s mental darkness was lit by suspicion.
He said, ‘Mr Andover, you’re not by any chance trying to sell me insurance?’
The light went out immediately as the man’s freckles vanished in a flush of anger and he thundered. ‘You’re not taking me seriously, are you?’
‘Oh yes, I surely am, believe me,’ reassured Joe. ‘I just had to be sure … Listen, Mr Andover, you’ve been straight with me, so the least I can do … The thing is, I’m in the business of solving crimes, not hearing confessions. You see there’s no profit in it, not unless you’re a priest, or a cop maybe, and I’ve got to make a living, you can see that …’
But Andover wasn’t listening.
‘This was a stupid idea,’ he said bitterly. ‘I picked you specially, I thought being a primitive you might understand, but I’ll know better next time. God, you people make me sick!’
He left the room as precipitately as he’d entered it.
Emboldened by the sound of his steps clattering down the stairs, Sixsmith called, ‘Hey, “us people” ain’t no primitive, friend. “Us people” was born in Luton. And you can shut up too!’
This last injunction was to a black cat with a white eyepatch which had raised its head from a desk drawer to howl in sleepy protest at all this din. He clearly didn’t care to be spoken to in this way, but as a huffy exit would take him away from his nice warm refuge, he decided not to take offence, washed his paws as if nothing had happened and went back to sleep.
It seemed a good example to follow but Joe Sixsmith suffered from a civil conscience and in the remote contingency that Andover really had chainsawed his family, someone ought to be told.
He picked up the phone and dialled.
He asked for Detective-Sergeant Chivers, but as usual they put him through to Sergeant Brightman. Brightman was the Community Relations Officer and Joe got on well enough with him, except that he didn’t take his detective ambitions seriously. Worse, he’d met Joe’s Auntie Mirabelle at a Rasselas Estate Residents’ meeting and they’d formed an alliance to persuade Joe back into honest unemployment. Sixsmith suspected Mirabelle had persuaded Brightman to put an intercept on his phone.
‘Joe, how’re you doing? What can we do for you?’
‘You can put me through to Chivers.’
‘You sure? You’re not the flavour of the month there, I gather.’
More like smell of the decade. Whenever their paths crossed, Chivers usually stubbed his toe on a boulder. But at least this meant he took Sixsmith seriously.
‘Please,’ said Joe.
‘It’s your funeral. See you at the meeting tonight?’
Joe’s heart sank.
‘You going to be there?’
‘That’s right. The Major asked me along to report on the latest statistics. Good news, Joe. You seem to be getting it right on Rasselas. Wish we could say the same for Hermsprong. But I think we’d need to torch it and start again. See you later. Hang on.’
A few moments later Joe heard the unenthusiastic grunt with which DS Chivers greeted criminals, his wife, and private eyes.
At least the story Sixsmith had to tell provoked a more positive response.
‘You what?’ said Chivers incredulously.
‘That’s what the man said,’ replied Joe defensively. ‘Look, OK, so it’s probably fantasy island, but I’ve got to tell someone, right?’
‘Haven’t you got a pen pal you could write to?’ said Chivers. ‘All right, what’s the address? You did get an address?’
‘Of course,’ said Joe with professional indignation and crossed fingers as he searched for Andover’s card. He found it and saw with relief that it did give a private address in small print.
‘Casa Mia,’ he read carefully. ‘21 Coningsby Rise.’
‘Coningsby Rise? Very posh. I got a feeling you’re wasting my time, Sixsmith. As usual.’
‘Hey, posh people commit crimes too,’ protested Sixsmith.
But the phone was dead and with a sign of relief, Sixsmith returned his attention to the pressing problem he’d been dealing with when Andover arrived.
It was The Times Crossword.
He’d started doing it recently to impress the better class of customer, but he’d rapidly realized he had no talent for the task. Other people’s clues baffled him. Reluctant to abandon what seemed like a clever ploy, he’d started filling in words of his own choice, then working out clues to fit them. This way he always looked close to completion, though actually finishing one had so far proved beyond his scope. The trouble was that in reverse of the normal process, his method meant the more you filled in the harder it got. He invariably ended up with at least one non-word. Today’s was sbhahk. It could mean something to an Eskimo, he supposed, but to an underemployed PI it was just another small failure.
He glanced at his watch. Four o’clock. Too early to go home. There could be a late rush, though he doubted it. Things were very slow. In the last recession it had been the kind of people who hired lathe-operators who got hit. This time, it was the kind of people who hired private eyes.
Time for a cup of tea, he decided. He went into the small washroom which allowed the estate agent to charge him for ‘a suite’ and filled his electric kettle.
As he re-entered the office he saw the briefcase.
It was black leather with brass locks and it was leaning against the chair Andover had sat on.
‘Oh shoot,’ said Joe Sixsmith.
He stooped to pick it up, then hesitated.
Suppose it was a terrorist bomb?
‘Why would anyone want to bomb me?’ he asked the air. ‘I don’t tell Irish jokes and I try not to be rude about other folks’s religions.’
Whitey raised his head cautiously from his drawer, twitched his ears, then subsided.
Sixsmith got the message. Nuts left bombs without motives, and whichsoever way you looked at it, Andover was undoubtedly a nut.
So what to do? His mind ran through the possibilities.
Ring the police, who would clear the building and the block while they waited for the Bomb Squad. He imagined the scene. Dr Who type robots clanking across the floor. Stern-faced