Monday
"I woke suddenly. At first I thought someone must be creeping
about the flat, although I know I had checked that all doors and windows were
shut tight. I mused that it would take a very acrobatic intruder to get to my
loggia. My flat is on the third floor of a tall building. It includes part of a
covered balcony that runs almost all the way round on every floor. I can only
get onto it through my living-room, and the glass door is kept locked except
when I sit outside. To my knowledge, no one has ever swung himself upwards from
floor to floor on the outside. Spiderman would find 5 floors too little of a
challenge, and ordinary burglars would find places easier to get into.
***
"Somewhere out in the darkness someone is waiting for you. Watch out!" I repeated, echoing the words that had woken me.
“What the hell…? I
cursed, got out of bed and ran into the kitchen. In the neon light things
looked normal. I put water in the kettle and switched it on. A cup of tea and a
browse through the travel brochure I had brought home the previous afternoon
would let me forget the voice that had prophesied danger while I looked for
somewhere to go next time I had the money and time to go somewhere sunny.
“But all the next day
that dream intruded on my thoughts. I could hear the fortune-teller's croaky
voice and see her in front of me. Her grimy, scarlet painted fingers nails were
shaped like claws. She stroked the grubby crystal ball in front of her as if it
were a cat. She was a fake, I told myself. All fortune tellers are fakes. All
dreams are fakes.
“The fortune-teller
must have been about eighty, judging from the pigment on the backs of her
hands. At that age, my mother had had the same kind of worn-out, almost
translucent skin, still reflecting the sandy pinkness of a redhead, though ageing
had taken away the glowing auburn curls of her youth and replaced them with
dull salt and pepper strands. But my mother had worn her hair tidy, not un-brushed
and falling into her face, and she hadn't daubed herself with theatrical
makeup, either. The fortune-teller was from another world, with her
ankle-length jumble of clothing, layered without any due thought for colour. Her
red muslin bandanna with its gold metallic fringe was tucked gypsy fashion into
the nape of her neck.
“Last night I took
sleeping pills. I did not do that often, but I did not want to dream about that
woman again. It was still dark outside when I woke. The dream had caught up
with me. It was like an episode out of a demonic soap opera.
***
“Did you watch out?” the
fortune-teller asked.
“For what?” I screamed
at her, and this time my scream woke me. I was cold and shivering. I closed my
eyes and tried to get back to sleep by thinking of nice things. Despite the
cold, I must have dropped off.
***
"I'll tell you
some more, if you like," the fortune-teller offered, clasping and
unclasping her hands and then pushing her palms towards me until I dropped coins
into them. Quick as a flash, she put the coins into a pocket in her skirt and chanted
something into the crystal ball. Her breath came faster and its sour smell
assailed my nose.
“Struggling to get
away from that dream. I woke, but was unable to banish the fortune-teller from
my thoughts, I tried to get up, but I was unable to. I was in that stage of unconsciousness
between sleep and wakefulness when the body does not obey the mind. I was forced
to go on listening to the woman.
***
"You will get a
telephone call," she said between episodes of groaning and moaning. She
seemed to be in pain.
"It’s a matter of
life and death, Miss. Can you hear the ringing?"
“You’re a fake,” I
screamed. “I can’t hear a phone ringing.”
"That's all for
today, Lady,” the fortune-teller said, breathing normally. ”My powers are all
used up," she added and rose from her chair to the jingling of what must
have been a pocketful of gratuities.”
***
At that point there
were strange sounds on the recording and then silence.
***
“So what do you make
of it, Cleo?” said Dorothy after they had listened to the recording together at
Cleo’s cottage..
“Do you know who it is?”
said Cleo.
“No. I don’t think
I’ve ever heard the voice before.”
Cleo emptied the rest
of the coffee into their beakers. They were sitting in front of a hastily lit
log fire in the sitting-room. It was June, but not very warm. Dorothy had
arrived without warning. She did not usually do that. Cleo could see that her
friend was agitated. Plans to go shopping were ditched. The log fire would have
calming effect.
“That noise after she
had finished speaking sounded like she was not able to breathe properly, Cleo.”
“I thought that, too. Can
you stay till Gary gets home?”
“Of course,” said Dorothy.
“That’s what comes of
advertising your new venture, Dorothy.”
“I only asked Bertie
Browne to put in a good word for us on Thursday.”
“And he obviously
did,” said Cleo. “But his Monday Gazette reaches everyone in the district so he
probably did not want to wait. That way he could catch a few readers who were
not looking for an automobile but might be tempted.”
”I thought it was
people wanting to buy and sell cars who liked the Monday issue. I asked him to
wait till Thursday.”
“Asking Bertie Browne
to keep anything to himself is pointless. Anyway, you were on the front page,
so you can’t complain.”
“Squeezed between an ancient
Ford and someone’s roof-rack, Cleo.”
“But it did the
trick.”
“I didn’t ask him to
tell people we were two spinsters looking for adventure.”
“He needs to distribute
his rag and at least one client has taken the notice seriously.”
“Even if we knew who
that is, how did he or she know where I live?” said Dorothy.
“Ask Bertie Browne, or
better still: ask Gary to ask him. I can hear the car. He’ll come in any minute.”
“It can’t have been a
cry for help, can it?. No one cried for help on the recording. All that
happened was that someone put the memory stick into my mailbox,” said Dorothy.
“Could that have been a cry for help?”
“The person who made
the recording may not have put it on your mailbox,” Cleo suggested. “It may
have been stolen or meant for someone else.”
“That’s true. It
sounds like an audition for amateur dramatics. Perhaps that’s what it is. We
don’t know when the recording was made.”
“We don’t actually
know anything exept that someone has been having bad dreams, do we?”
“No,” Dorothy agreed.
“So if it was a cry for help, we can’t do anything about it, can we?”
”I can’t think what at
this moment,” said Cleo.
“Could we find out who
bought it, do you think?”
“Who bought what,
Ladies?” said Gary, as he came round to the back of the sofa and patted
Dorothy’s head. He then moved to sit on the sofa arm next to Cleo and embraced
her so fervently that Dorothy tried not to look. She was embarrassed. Gary was
as openly demonstrative as she had ever seen and never experienced.
“What have you two
been up to, and where are the kids?”
“Nella and Bella are
fast asleep in our bedroom and the others are at your mother’s, Sweetheart. But
Charlie and Lottie are there too. I was about to go shopping when Dorothy
arrived.”
“You should have
said,” said Dorothy. “I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be!”
“It’s a bit much for
my mother, Cleo,” said Gary. “I’m glad Dorothy showed up.”
“She insisted and
Roger is somewhere near.”
“She would,” said
Gary. “To repeat my question, who bought what?”
“Listen to the
recording and then we’ll talk about it,” said Dorothy. “No one bought it.”
“OK. So whose is it?”
“We don’t know.
Dorothy got it by mail,” said Cleo.
“Cleo means it was
left in my letter box. Someone put it there anonymously.”
“I’d better listen to
it, hadn’t I?”
***
“Why did you get it,
Dorothy?” Gary wanted to know when he had finished listening to the recording
with visible irritation. “It sounds like a fake. Someone’s playing a joke on
the Price Bureau.”
“The Price Bureau
wasn’t mentioned,” said Dorothy. “Why would wanting to annoy the Bureau make
someone post me an anonymous recording?”
“Human nature,” said Gary. “You advertised,
didn’t you? I saw the blurb on Bertie’s first page.”
“So you think someone saw the ad and decided
to play a hoax, did you?” said Cleo.
“Impossible,” said
Dorothy. “The envelope containing the memory stick was in the letterbox before
the Gazette can have been read by anyone. I get up with the milkman in the
summer and it was already there.”
“You get up with the
milkman?” said Gary.
“Don’t tease,” said
Cleo, looking sternly at Gary.
“That’s all right,”
said Dorothy. “I asked for it!”
”Do you still have the
envelope, Dorothy?” said Gary. “Have you checked it for tabs yet?”
Gary enjoyed baiting
Dorothy, especially when she was agitated. She did not enjoy his kind of humour
though she claimed to. Or was it a reference to the fact that police work was
out of her depth? She rose to the bait.
“Not with the milkman.
I mean when he brings the milk, Gary. It’s the best time to do some gardening
and I always look in my letterbox after I’ve collected the milk bottle. It has
to go in the fridge before the sun or the starlings have time to get at it.”
“Starlings?” Cleo
said.
“Cheeky birds that
open the milk tops and pinch the cream,” said Dorothy.
“You’ll have to train
the milkman to put a cover on the bottle,” said Cleo.
“First you’d have to
train the starlings not prise off anything you put on the bottle,” said
Dorothy.
“Is any of this
relevant to what we should be talking about?” said Gary.
“I was only pointing
out when the recording must have been planted,” said Dorothy, now sorry she had
come to the cottage with her find.
“You’re right,
Dorothy, assuming you always took everything out of your letterbox yesterday.
Pinning down when it was delivered, if you did not look in your letterbox for
24 hours might even help us to find out who the woman is and if she really is
in trouble.”
“Do you want to do
that, Dorothy?” Cleo asked.
“Why not? It could
turn into a nice mystery.”
“On the other hand, if
you think it is a cry for help, why don’t we just sum up what we know so far
and see if there’s any point in the Price Bureau or even the police following
it up?” said Cleo.
“I’ll jot it all down,
shall I?” said Dorothy, taking her notebook and biro out of her handbag.
Gary fetched fresh
coffee for them and then submitted to
the routine Cleo and Dorothy had developed during their Hartley Agency days:
Cleo thought out strategies and made decisions; Dorothy took notes and had
hunches; Gary dealt with the official business. The Hartley Agency had to stay
closed while Cleo cared for a houseful of children including the four month old
twins. Dorothy and her sister Vera had thought up the Price Bureau to take its
place. Cleo was amused, Gary was sceptical.
***
“Where’s Vera,” Gary
asked. “Shouldn’t your sister be here, too?”
“She’s in Wales,” said
Dorothy, without further explanation.
Gary wondered how the
Price Bureau was going to function if Vera wandered off to Wales instead of
working on it.
***
“OK. First the
recording artist,” said Cleo, who would have liked to know why Vera had gone
home to North Wales, but did not ask. “The speaker is nervous. maybe because
she’s afraid of burglars, though her apartment is secure. She’s a light sleeper
and is telling us the content of a recurring nightmare.”
“Very unnerving,” said
Gary. “I’ll get some more coffee, shall I? Back in a mo.”
“You’ve just made
fresh,” said Cleo.
“Hot milk, I mean,”
said Gary, making off to the kitchen to avoid further speculating about an
incident that seemed fairly senseless.
“What about that
fortune-teller?” Dorothy said. “Is she only a figment of the imagination? The
account was so real I think she must exist somewhere.”
“Typical dream
content,” said Cleo. “When we are asleep, we often work through images or
experiences we have had in some form. She may have changed some hated aunt into
the clairvoyant, for instance.”
“I hadn’t thought
about it like that,” said Dorothy, now wishing her sister Vera, with whom she was
going to run her Bureau, was at home. In her defence, Vera had gone to Wales to
wish her granddaughter Happy Birthday believing that the ad for the Bureau
would not appear till Thursday.
“Talking of dreams: I
used to dream every night about living with the woman I wanted in my life,”
said Gary, returning with the hot milk and not taking his eyes off Cleo.
“Are you comparing
those dreams with my nightmares?” Dorothy said.
“Your nightmares,
Dorothy?”
“Not mine, Gary. The woman’s.
That was a slip of the tongue.”
“Or a Freudian one,”
said Gary.
“I had a recurring
nightmare once,” said Cleo, looking straight ahead. “In my dream a guy who
looked just like Robert and a guy who looked just like Gary shared my bed with
me,”.
Dorothy was taken
aback, not knowing it was a teasing game Cleo and Gary liked to play.
“I just lay in the
middle and tried to decide whose turn it was,” said Cleo, miming the to-ing and
fro-ing.
“Did you… well… I’m
horrified!” said Dorothy, quite flustered.
“No, I didn’t,
Dorothy. Shame on you for having such thoughts!”
Gary was amused not
least because the joke had misfired. Dorothy could be just as poker-faced as he
was, so one could never be quite sure what she was thinking. Robert Jones was
Cleo’s ex and the last person Gary would want to share a bed with. After a
mind-blowing affair with a woman who used to be a paragon of virtue, Robert
Jones, once married to Cleo and still far too often in her thoughts, preferred
not to share his bed with anyone.
Dorothy had taken a
long time to understand what had gone on in Cleo’s marriage to Robert. She had
even defended him and judged Gary to be a philanderer, in those very words.
“What a dilemma,” Dorothy
said archly. “Two such nice men and they had to take turns.”
“No they didn’t!” shoiuted
Cleo and Gary simultaneously.
“Got you!” said
Dorothy.
***
“And now, we should
get back to the matter in hand. An anonymous recording with crime potential is
a serious matter.”
“Sorry,” said Gary,
artificially contrite. “So you got the recording before the Gazette arrived,
did you?”
“Yes,” said Dorothy. “But
not necessarily today. It could have been posted yesterday.”
“That makes it hared
to trace,” dsaid Cleo, “And was almostly surely the reason it was anonymous.”
Anyway, such a
recording would have to be made first and then delivered,” said Dorothy. “That
all takes time.”
“But whoever made that
recording knew about your detective agency if that’s where it landed,” said
Gary.
“It isn’t a detective
agency. We just want to advise people.”
“A rose by any other
name, Dorothy,” said Gary, deciding that rose was prickly. “Who could know
about you if you haven’t launched your enterprise yet?”
“If we can help
someone, I suppose we’ve open the shop, haven’t we?”said Dorothy,
“Do you have your
trading licence?” said Gary, officiously.
Cleo frowned. Gary was
taunting Dorothy again.
“Vera’s getting it on
Wednesday, Gary. That’s why we haven’t started business yet, and Bertie Browne
was supposed to advertise for us on Thursday so that we could start next week.”
“Who could already
know about your enterprise then?” said Gary in a calming-down sort of voice,
mainly to calm himself down. Dorothy was getting on his nerves.
“Only Bertie Browne, Cleo
and you,” said Dorothy.
“What about the people
who manage the office and see to the printing?” said Gary.
“Oh,” said Dorothy.
“But you talked to the
receptionists, didn’t you?” said Cleo.
“I only talked to one,
and it was not her voice on the recording. The girl I talked to was called Daphne.
She was a pale girl with a profile like a moon.”
“Like what?” said
Gary.
“You know those
drawings of the man in the moon,” said Dorothy. ”She looked a bit like one of
them.”
“You mean a sickle
moon, Dorothy,” said Gary.
“I didn’t know you were
into astrology,” said Dorothy.
“If anything,
astronomy,” said Gary. “When did you talk to the woman named Daphne?”
“Over a week ago.”
“Then we’ll locate her
and ask her if she told anyone about the Price Bureau,” said Gary. ”I’ll get
Nigel to go along there tomorrow for a little chat with Daphne.”
The brainstorming
broke up on that note,. Sensing that her visit was also over, Dorothy declared
that she would go home in case there were new developments.
Gary and Cleo hugged
Dorothy goodbye and then went through the passageway to the other cottage,
where all the children were tucking into pancakes and too busy to bother with
parents. Gary took photos of the activity instead. When the little ones finally
had time to attend to their Daddy, Cleo got busy clearing up and Grit declared
that it had all been such fun, but it wasn’t a challenge she’d want every day.
Gary gave the Price
Bureau hardly a thought and was not surprised when Cleo announced that closing
down the Hartley Agency was now off the table.
“Although there’s
always the Price Bureau waiting to take over,” he replied, not without
schadenfreude.
“Poor Dorothy” said
Cleo. “I think Vera must have thought better of the idea.”
“I can’t say I’d be
sorry,” said Gary. “Can you imagine what sort of messes they would get into?
Dorothy is a leap before you look type of person and I don’t think Vera could
restrain her for long. I love her hunches, but would prefer not to witness the
reenactments of most of them.”
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