Chapter 19 #2
‘Jesus, why did I ever agree to this?’ I paused, folding my arms. ‘I want the house number on Queen’s Gardens. I’m going to go and pick her up myself.’
‘One of those houses without a number. House had a name but can’t for the life of me remember what it was…
’ Dean closed one eye, obviously trying to think.
‘Willow something maybe? Anyway, it’s a big modern box behind high gates.
Next to a red phone box. On Queen’s Gardens.
You can’t miss it.’ Dean sniffed, a job obviously well done, and then grinned in my direction.
‘Thought you had the rozzers coming for a chat about parking on those double yellows?’ He started to laugh.
‘In all the years I’ve lived here, I’ve never brought the police to our doorstep.
If you end up in the clink, I’ll bring you one of your cakes with a file in it. ’
‘How original you are, Dean.’ I shook my head in his direction. While I hadn’t forgotten their imminent visit, I’d sort of pushed the police coming to the back of my mind. They’d said sometime after five.
‘And isn’t that kid, Joel – you know, the drug pusher – moving in today? Again, I never brought this place into ill repute by inviting druggies in.’ He laughed at his perceived wit.
‘I’m impressed you understand the meaning of ill repute.’
‘A man of many talents, I am.’ Dean preened, reaching for more of the experimental pudding.
‘Look I can do without all this.’ I threw Mum’s key in Dean’s direction. ‘Instructions for the washing machine, lawnmower, oven and hob etcetera, etcetera are in the kitchen. Make sure you read them.’
‘You mean you’re not going to be feeding me?’ Dean appeared genuinely put out.
‘Dean, if I have anything to do with it, I won’t even be conversing with you unless it’s concerning Lola.’
‘OK, OK, don’t get your knickers in a twist…’
Oh, for God’s sake. Could the tosser not come up with anything better than that? Presumably not.
‘I thought you were going up to The White House with the trailer for Fabian’s car?’
‘Already been.’
‘Oh, right.’
‘I tell you now, Jessie, someone’s got it in for him.’
‘For whom?’ I stared.
‘For whom? For Carrington!’
Dean was obviously enjoying being the one to relate what had happened to Fabian’s car. ‘So, me and Mick got up there before Carrington arrived…’
‘Can you not call him Fabian?’
‘Bloody poncy name. Anyway, not a nail or piece of glass to be seen anywhere. The ground, where he’d parked right up to the site, clean as a whistle.’
‘Right?’
‘All four tyres flat as a pancake.’ Had the man always spoken in clichés, I wondered irritably? I thought he probably had.
‘And?’
‘Slashed!’ Dean ended his tale with some triumph. ‘All four tyres slashed.’
‘Slashed?’ I stared. ‘So Fabian realised that yesterday, when he finally arrived for lunch?’
‘Well, if he didn’t, he must be a bloody moron,’ Dean went on cheerfully.
‘He never said.’
‘Well, he wouldn’t, would he?’
‘Wouldn’t he?’
‘No, you keep something like that quiet. Wouldn’t want to upset your sister, would he?’
‘I thought Robyn was dropping him off up there?’
‘She did, but once she saw me and Mick waiting with the van, she headed straight off.’ When I pointed out that the tyres had been intentionally slashed, Carrington – Fabian – nodded and said to keep it to ourselves. He didn’t want Robyn to know.
‘And yet you’ve just told me.’
‘Well, you’re different.’
‘And am I supposed to keep this little nugget of information to myself? Not tell Robyn?’
‘Up to you.’ Dean was heading for the door. ‘It’s probably some ex-con that’s got it in for him. You know, for not getting him off whatever he’d been up in court for, after paying Carrington a shedload of dosh or something.’
‘In London? Why would they come up here?’ I frowned.
‘Dunno, not my problem. Four new tyres for that machine of his is going to cost him a packet. I can make a good percentage on those. Mind you, he’s not without, is he? Right, I’ll be over for my tea then?’ Dean said hopefully.
‘In your dreams,’ I shouted after him.
* * *
‘Queen’s Gardens, Queen’s Gardens,’ I muttered, driving slowly down the main road out of Beddingfield village and into Rich Man’s Land.
I’d done a private party here almost immediately after I’d started Jessica Dining in the year before Covid and, being one of my first jobs, as well as for a couple’s silver wedding in the poshest part of the village, I’d pulled out all the stops.
Spotting Queen’s Gardens on my left, I indicated and drove slowly down the avenue of beautiful houses – they must be worth at least a million apiece – until I saw one of the old red telephone boxes ahead and pulled in behind it.
‘Willow, Willow something,’ I muttered as I cut the engine and peered through my windscreen, looking for a willow tree that would indicate I’d arrived.
Vera van, all that was left from Jessica Dining, was certainly out of place amongst the upmarket machines parked on each side of the avenue as well as in every driveway and behind each forbidding gate.
I quickly added a layer of lipstick, fluffed up my hair and got out of the van. ‘Willow? Willow?’ I continued to murmur, trying to catch sight of a house name, any name that might give a clue to which door Lola might be behind.
‘Will-O’-The-Wisp? Ah, that must be it. Willow my backside,’ I continued to murmur to myself.
‘Silly bloody middle-class name for a house.’ The large neo-Georgian box sat, as Dean had said, behind enormous black gates.
Locked gates, I found as, shaking at them, I tried to find a way to get them to open.
I hunted for a bell, a buzzer, anything, then realised there was a keypad in the stone gatepost with some sort of intercom.
I pressed at the pad and a disembodied woman’s voice crackled into life.
‘Yes?’
‘Oh, I think you might have my daughter here? Lola? Lola Butterworth? She…’ I stopped speaking as the gates inched slowly open, allowing access.
Which way to go? I walked up the rather grand pathway towards a huge black front door set behind a heavily corniced stepped entrance.
Blimey, this place wasn’t unlike the Acropolis in Athens.
Not that I’d ever been to the Acropolis.
Or to Athens. But both were on my bucket list if I was ever able to overcome my homesickness phobia. One day…
I climbed the steps, but there appeared to be no knocker or bell.
What the hell was the matter with these people that they didn’t have a knocker on their front door?
I reckoned I’d better make my way round to the back and, walking back down the steps, carried on round the gravel path that led to another gate.
A cacophony of ferocious barking brought me to a standstill.
‘Woah, down, get down. Hang on a minute.’ A man’s voice came through the gate, followed by yelps and scuffles and a volley of swearing.
Who was yelping and who was swearing, I couldn’t quite make out, but presumably the human was gaining control over however many animals were also there.
I did hope Lola hadn’t been subjected to these rabid creatures I imagined were now muzzled and leashed into submission.
‘Who is it?’ The man’s voice came again.
‘Erm, Jess Butterworth. I think my daughter, Lola, is with you…’
‘You think she is? Don’t you know?’
‘Well, no, I don’t actually. My husband – my ex-husband – left my daughter somewhere without my permission…’ Even to my ears this sounded bloody ridiculous.
‘Hang on,’ the voice said once more. ‘Down, Tiger, Bruno…’
Oh, please not Tyson! Hadn’t I had enough of clichés with Dean earlier?
‘…Tyson.’
The gate opened just enough for me to ease my way through. Waiting for the first hot breath of ravaging dog at my throat, I closed my eyes.