‘Two days ago. . and not much then. . a cup of soup and some bread.’
‘Let’s get some hot food inside you. I think we’d better.’
‘Would you?’ she gasped her reply.
‘Yes, I would. You can leave your blanket here. If you fold it neatly no one will take it away.’
The woman, who seemed to Hennessey to be in her mid to late thirties, struggled awkwardly to her feet, out of the blanket. She was dressed in damp looking denim with a red corduroy shirt and inexpensive looking and well worn running shoes.
Hennessey took her to a nearby cafe and they sat at the window seat. The woman received a hostile look from the middle-aged waitress, which Hennessey noticed, and he replied to it with an angry glare which forced the waitress into a hasty retreat. She sent another waitress to take Hennessey’s order. ‘So,’ Hennessey said, ‘tell me about yourself.’
‘Where do I begin?’
‘Your name might be a good place.’
‘You sound like a cop.’
‘That’s probably because I am a cop.’
‘I thought you were.’
‘It’s written on my forehead, I know.’
The woman smiled softly. ‘I have nothing to hide.’
‘I didn’t think you had.’
‘So why the meal?’
‘You are helping yourself. I am impressed. I respect that.’
‘Thanks, but I am not very good. I needed to play “three identifiable tunes”, that’s the rule. . in order to get my street entertainer’s licence. I found the whistle in a charity shop for a few pence and learned to play ‘Edelweiss’, ‘Bobby Shaftoe’ and ‘Three Blind Mice’. . we had lessons on a recorder when I was at secondary school. It was good enough, just good enough to get my licence. . so I play the three tunes over and over again and bank on the assumption that no one will walk past me twice so no one will hear the same tune from me twice.’
‘But good for you. .’
The conversation paused as the waitress brought two platefuls of shepherd’s pie and chips with a pot of tea for two.
‘Well, I tried to sell the flesh but I wasn’t very good at it. . couldn’t go through with it.’
‘Good,’ Hennessey smiled, ‘I’m pleased you avoided that. . never leads a girl anywhere but trouble.’
‘Hardly a girl, I was thirty-six when I tried it.’
‘Even so. . anyway, you still haven’t told me your name.’
‘Tilly Pakenham.’
‘Tilly?’
‘Short for Matilda. Sounds posh but it’s not, not like the violinist, she’s posh. My dad is a bus driver. . we lived in a council house.’
‘You could have fooled me. You have a pleasant speaking voice.’
‘It’s true. . the speaking voice was acquired by listening to Radio Four, the old self-improvement number. . went well until I fell from grace.’
‘What happened?’ Hennessey glanced round the cafe. He had not been in it before, it was of new design and did not try to evoke ‘the old’. It had a large window fronting on to the street, metal tables with metal chairs, it was light, airy, spacious, the food was of a reasonable quality, he thought, and the portions were generous. The disapproving reaction of the first waitress to Matilda Pakenham’s presence had been, thus far, the only unpleasant aspect.
‘What do you think? Why do so many women fall from grace?’ She imitated shooting herself in the head. ‘Bad choice of husband, that is the sort of mistake that can carry a long way in any woman’s life. Are you married?’
‘Long time widower.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Well, as I said, a long time widower. All adjustments have been made. So, carry on. .’
‘He was just a no-good, my parents said so the instant they saw him. “Dangerous and no good” was my mother’s reaction. . and women’s intuition being what it is. . and boy was she right or was she right. .? He was a charming man but also a violent control freak.’
Hennessey nodded as he stirred his tea. ‘I know the type; the jails are full of them.’
‘I was his possession, not his wife. He’s a salesman. . film star looks. . the patter. . the eye contact, the charm. . he can make it work and he’s good at his job. . he makes sales. . but once I was present when he got sour with a customer who then said, “Well, you’ve changed your tune”, to which he replied, “I’m only nice if you buy something from me”.’
‘Blimey,’ Hennessey gasped.
‘Yes, that’s him; his surname is even Smiley. . how appropriate. Anyway things just happened once too often and so I walked out.’
‘Good for you.’
‘Went back to using my maiden name but I am too proud to return home.’
‘Which is where?’
‘Northampton. . sunny Northampton. It’s just one of those towns you pass through on your way to somewhere interesting but it’s where my roots are. It’s home and the one place I cannot go.’
‘You could visit. It’s not too far away. . ease yourself back in. .’
‘I could, it’s near enough and far enough, which is how I like it, but he’s looking for me. He didn’t like losing his possession like that, took it as a personal insult.’
‘He is?’
‘Yes.’ Matilda Pakenham sipped her tea. ‘Oh. . that’s nice,’ she sighed. ‘The English and their tea. . but it does have medicinal qualities, it does have more. . more. . uplift than coffee, I find anyway.’
‘Yes. .’
‘I went to Cambridge when I first left, because of the year-round tourist trade, and that’s where I found my tin whistle in a charity shop. Then he found me, slapped me around a bit and pushed me into his car and took me home to where we lived in Grantham and slapped me around a bit more and I escaped again and came to York with a blanket and me old tin whistle.’
‘More year-round tourists?’
‘That was the idea but he’s here looking for me.’
‘How does he know that you are here?’
‘He’ll work it out, he knows about me sitting in doorways playing on the tin tube. . knows I don’t like going too far from Northampton. . he’ll work it out. You know I really believe that I can feel his presence; I can feel him in the air. A few days ago I was walking home from my pitch and I stopped in my tracks and said, “He’s here”.’
‘Interesting. Do you have any children?’
‘No, thank heavens. I’d like a couple, what woman doesn’t? But not by him. So I dare say I am lucky in that respect. . just me and him. . things could be an awful lot more complicated.’
‘Well,’ Hennessey took a business card from his wallet and handed it to Matilda Pakenham, ‘we can’t do anything unless you press charges.’
‘I know, but he’s careful not to slap me in front of witnesses and keeps me locked up until all the bruises have faded.’
‘Yes, I know the score. . but we can offer protection.’
‘OK,’ she slipped the card into her shirt pocket. ‘Thank you, Mr Hennessey.’
‘George,’ Hennessey smiled. ‘Call me George.’
‘It’s the economic depression, you see.’ The man, Roger Blackwood by the nameplate on his desk and by his warm introduction, was a slightly built man, smartly, very smartly dressed and with, Thomson Ventnor found, a very serious attitude. So serious that he guessed it would take much to make the man smile. ‘Those units have been empty for about eighteen months. We haven’t recovered our money. We built them and let them out. All of them. Then the economy took a downturn and the tenants’ businesses folded and they vacated the premises as a consequence of that and we have not been able to re-let them. We will just have to wait for the upswing. Someone forced entry, you say?’
‘It appears so, to Unit Five.’
‘Business is bad. I don’t think the boss will pay for that to be repaired, not in a hurry anyway, but they are so out of the way that that might not be a problem and there is nothing to steal anyway. . nothing to burn and nothing to vandalize. I think the company will live with the damage until the upswing comes.’
‘I see, but we are more interested in the location than the damage.’
‘Why?’ Blackwood inclined his head. ‘What’s afoot?’
‘Because of the remoteness.’