“How often did you see her?”
“Once in a blue moon,” Madeline chipped in. “When she wanted money.”
Tarelton sighed. “Right. Turned out James thought she came over to stay with us regularly, every month. That’s what she told him and he believed it. You’d reckon he’d ring or make contact some way but he says he never did. He sounds like a silly prick to me.”
“Don’t be coarse Ted.”
“Well he does. What sort of man lets a girl go tripping off for a week a month and doesn’t check on her? Bloody idiot.”
I didn’t want to be coarse but I had to agree, it sounded odd. A lot of things could go on in a week a month over a couple of years.
“When did you speak to James?”
“A week ago – no, four days – and she’d been gone for a few days then.”
“Tried him again?”
“This morning. Nothing.”
“All right. What about the card?”
“She left a bundle of clothes here for some reason on her last fleeting visit,” said Madeline acidly. “Ted looked through them and found the card.”
“It’s rough country,” I said and reminded myself of just how rough by taking a long swallow of the drink. Not too much of that brand in Newtown. “Did James know anything about this connection?” I flicked a fingernail against the card.
“Yeah, strangely enough he did. He said she’d mentioned a boxer a couple of times, guy named Ricky. It was some sort of joke with them apparently. I don’t get it.”
“I think I do.” Madeline moved off her chair to stand in the middle of the room between her husband and me. She stood well and Tarelton seemed to get uncomfortable from just looking at her; he started fidgeting again and crossed and uncrossed his legs. I couldn’t blame him.
“I think Noni and James had an understanding,” she said, “- what’s called a sophisticated relationship, if you know what I mean.”
“I think so,” I agreed. “It’s going to make her hellish hard to find. Too many trails to follow.”
Ted decided to take offence; he had to do something. “That’s crap,” he barked. “Noni’s a bit wild but…”
“You wouldn’t know, Ted,” said Madeline. “Let Hardy here find it all out.”
The bookie sat back in his silk chair, picked up his Scotch and downed half of it. “Right, right,” he muttered. He was half a foot taller than her and twice her weight but she had him on toast. I finished my drink and stood up.
“Could I see this bundle of clothes?”
“Why?” Tarelton growled.
“Just to form an impression. I’ll need a photograph too.”
Mrs Tarelton set her barely touched drink down on a coaster on a darkwood table. “Come upstairs. She has a room, her things are there.”
I followed her up the stairs to the second storey. The shag pile was so deep I felt I needed snowshoes. Her jacket came down just below her waist and I had an almost irrepressible desire to slide my hand into the pocket stretched tight across her left buttock. I fought it down. We went into a room at the back of the house which looked down onto a leafy garden. There was a low narrow bed and a few bits of pricey furniture. Otherwise it was a rather bare room, not welcoming to anyone.
Madeline opened a couple of drawers to show me an array of female clothing. I ran an eye over it. Expensive stuff, not hippy – dressy. She opened a built-in cupboard and reached down a cardboard box. She flipped a few things inside it over and came up with a six by eight glossy photograph. It showed a girl in her early twenties standing in a street. The passers-by were washed out and the girl dominated the scene. She was shown full-length and looked to be tall with a high waist and long legs. It was hard to tell because she was wearing an enveloping cloak over a long dress.
“Some kind of publicity shot,” said Madeline. “Good likeness though.”
I looked closely into the picture. There was no sign of Ted’s fleshy features in the face. This was a tight, bony structure with high cheekbones and a Slavic look. A strand of what looked like blonde hair was draped across the face.
Madeline drummed her fingers impatiently on the chest of drawers as I examined the picture.
“You’ll know her if you see her,” she said tartly.
“You don’t like her?”
“She leeches on Ted. Doesn’t give a… damn for him. Still, you’d better find her. He’s in a state about it.”
We went downstairs. Tarelton had finished his drink and the cigar was dead in the tray beside him. He was reading the form guide again. I told him my fee and he brushed the matter aside. Then I told him I needed a retainer and he reached back to his hip pocket. He stopped the action and produced the wallet from the breast pocket of his jacket. It bulged and he detached four fifty dollar notes from it without a thought. He handed them to me.
“This do?”
“Yeah.”
“Get on it, eh? Newtown, I don’t get down there much these days.”
You wouldn’t, I thought. You’re a long way from the SP book in the lane beside the pub and the sly-grog joint at the weekend. You’re in the silk department but the price is high.
“I’ll be in touch,” I said.
Madeline walked me to the door and I smelt some kind of apple fragrance on her as she moved. She opened the door and was bathed in a beam of ruby light from the stained glass pane above it. She knew it too. She always stood just there when the light was like that. I said goodbye and headed for the torn leather and faded duco and the clutch that slipped.
2
I met Harry Tickener outside Trueman’s gym in Newtown. We crossed the street and had a beer in the bloodhouse opposite while we waited for Trueman to open the place up for the afternoon loungers. Tickener had put on a bit of weight since I’d first met him a year ago on the Gutteridge case, and I ribbed him about it. It didn’t worry him.
“I’ve been living better since I got off the errands and into the real stories. Even got an expense account of sorts.”
I put my money back in my pocket and let him pay for the drinks. We sipped the beer and he told me about the offer he’d had from another paper which he turned down. I told him about a few of the less dull jobs I’d had recently. Private detecting is mostly about missing people who may or may not turn up, guarding people and money and putting asunder those whom God hath joined together. I’d been doing a bit less of the latter lately which suited me fine although I never knew when I’d have to go back to it as my mainstay. The new divorce laws were cutting down on the old in flagrante delicto stuff somewhat, but there were always people around nasty enough to want it that way.
A clock above the bar, old enough to be the missing link with the sundial, struck two and we let the barman take our glasses away and mop up our puddles. Outside a fine rain was falling and we turned our collars up and dashed for the doorway across the street.
“Why did you bring me out in this?” I asked him. “I was drinking at home, you could have come over.”
“You said you were interested in fighters,” he sniffed. A drop of moisture that wasn’t rain hung off the end of his long, thin nose.
“You’re getting a cold Harry, you shouldn’t be out. Yeah, I was interested in fighters, when there were some.”
Tickener blotted his nose with a tissue. “There’s one here, I want to get your opinion on him.”
“Why? And why the hush-hush?”
“Might put some money on him next time he’s up, might do a story on him.”
“Well, your security’s lousy and I thought you were above all that now, the sports page?”
I told him about Tarleton’s grapevine but he shrugged it off.
“I like to keep my hand in. Come up and have a look at him.”
We went up three flights in a building which had probably served a dozen different purposes since it was built in the middle of the last century. There were signs that it had been a stables on the lower level with living quarters above and it had been a sweatshop factory and a rooming house at different times and probably a brothel. Now the ground floor was a dry-cleaning plant; the second floor accommodated a dental technician and a small instant printing joint that looked dodgy. The top floor was taken up by Sammy Trueman’s gym.