Gold Digger Read online

  ‘It’s time I went, Thomas. Thank you for bringing me back to life. But I’d better go. It’s not fair on you. You can’t be seen to be harbouring jailbait like me. But, yeah, thanks.’

  He made up his mind. Bugger Raymond, bugger anyone else. He’d rather be an old fool than take the risk of ignoring his instinct. There was guilt in the equation, too. She had already honoured his secrets. She seemed to have forgotten what else she had seen on the night of the storm, forgotten the cellar through which she came, and she seemed to want nothing but to exist and learn.

  ‘You can stay as long as you like.’

  She shook her head. ‘You’d be branded a nutcase, Thomas. They’d reckon you’d gone mad.’

  ‘I’m branded already,’ Thomas said. ‘I’m the freak, not you.’

  ‘That makes two of us, then,’ she said.

  ‘We’ll make it a job,’ he said. ‘You can be housekeeper. You can be my eyes. And if you’re the housekeeper, maybe we can have the party. And if you’re here, maybe my daughters will bring the children … and, who knows?’

  She was laughing at his excitement, feeling the infection of it, knowing it was hopeless. He stopped, breathless, smiling the smile that made him look like a boy. The man had such a capacity for joy, it was infectious, made everything possible.

  ‘You’re a Collector,’ he said. ‘That’s what you are. A natural born collector. Look, stay for a few weeks. See how it goes.’

  She paused, trembling. He waited, holding his breath. Then she spun round.

  ‘Will you teach me, Thomas? Please, teach me.’ She banged her fist on his desk, making a startling sound. ‘I want to learn. I know what I love, but I don’t know WHY. I’ve gotta learn. But shit, if I could help make your children come back, that’d be something, wouldn’t it? Oh yeah. But I’ve gotta work, and you’ve gotta tell me stuff, ’cos I know nothing. And you know nothing about me.’

  ‘Yes, I do,’ he said. ‘You have eyes, you have a conscience, and you’re a Collector. You talk to paintings, as collectors do. I need help, and quite apart from anything else, I like you very much. That’s all I need to know.’

  She turned on her heel and addressed the painting at the far end of the room, pointing at it. It was another loose sketch of a courtly man in evening dress, raising a glass towards Madame de Belleroche.

  ‘Did you hear that?’ she demanded of him. ‘Like me? Do you know what, no one’s ever said that to me before. You know this man here? He really is a freak.’

  ‘Recognise you, then,’ he said. ‘Like a true colour. A lake colour, made of dye, lets the other colours shine through.’

  She stopped short. She wanted to cry, but Madame de Belleroche would not have approved of that.

  ‘Let’s go out,’ he said, understanding it. ‘Look at it from the outside in, again. Shall we go up to the bay?’

  Di looked at him with shining eyes.

  ‘The sanctuary? Oh, yes, yes, yes. I know the names of the birds, I do. I like the sticky little waders with the flat feet. Only you mustn’t scare them, you gotta be quiet. It’s their place, no one’s but theirs, you gotta have respect.’

  ‘I never did know their names,’ Thomas said.

  ‘Well, I do. I’ll tell you. Hey? Something you don’t know? Works two ways this teaching business, I can tell you.’ She was grabbing her coat, and then she remembered and her face fell.

  ‘Someone’ll see us, Thomas. Someone will see.’

  ‘Does that matter?’

  ‘It should, it should to you. I’m the slag and the thief, and my mum’s dead and my Dad’s bad and I’m not what you call popular in this town.’

  ‘And I’m the old freak,’ he said. ‘I’m the Pervert. The child abuser.’

  She laughed out loud.

  ‘Bollocks,’ she said. ‘Is that what people say? Oh screw it, then. We can go skinny dipping off the pier. And go bollock naked up the High Street. Go into Monica’s and get our hair done in the nude.’

  ‘A day of frivolity, then,’ he said. ‘And tomorrow, we learn.’

  It was on the tip of his tongue then, to tell her. To go back over the night of the storm and whatever else had happened in his house that night, but that would be later. Instead they spied upon the birds in the bay, and made pies in the sky, she said.

  From the pier, Jones watched them go.

  They played like the children they were.

  And then, they worked.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Picture: A shop window with condensation on the inside of the glass, light streaming out into a narrow street. Busy figures half visible inside. A barbershop sign. After Edward Hopper, Artist unknown. Part of a series of shops and streets painted in the 1930s.

  It was months before anyone other than Jones noticed that Di Quigly was back, although it would be fair to say that few of them had noticed she was gone. The Quiglys had always been on the edge and well nigh invisible: scarcely anyone knew them. It was only the shopkeepers who remembered Di and her nifty fingers, and even they were slow to make the connection, even Monica.

  On a grey October morning, Monica’s unisex hairstylist opened early.

  Delia was the oldest client at ninety-five, and spoke in a grumbling monotone. She still walked a dog, and it was she who had seen Di and Thomas Porteous coming out of the big house that she remembered as a school. Someone else had seen them at the station, getting on a train.

  ‘Well, well, well. Thomas Porteous,’ Delia said. ‘Well, it wasn’t a pretty story, but there aren’t many of those. It’s a story with holes in it, like a string bag, and where do you get a string bag, these days?’

  Monica was putting rollers in Delia’s hair. Tuesday was discount for the over sixties, including Delia, who thought she should get it for free.

  Monica discarded a yellow roller too old for further use and picked another.

  ‘That house,’ continued Delia. ‘It was a dame school, see? Primary school for the parish, started by some rich do-gooder. Got closed in the sixties. Old William Porteous and his missus ran it and lived over the shop if you see what I mean, and he was mad about education, education, education. After it shut, he got to own it, no one knows why. Maybe they gave it to him rather than knock it down, and people don’t like that. Why should he get a free house? Anyway, he kept opening it up for kids. Had those marvellous parties, until they got stopped.’

  Monica slowed down with the curlers.

  ‘So? Why? What’s wrong with having parties for kids?’

  ‘No licence, or some such. Might have been funny things going on, see what I mean?’ She tapped her nose. ‘Someone said so, reckon old William Porteous loved them kids a bit too much and not in the right way. Anyway, Young Thomas was a war baby, toddled off to London as soon as he could, like anyone with half a brain did. Came back to visit with that bitch of a wife and kids after he got married and then later, when he wasn’t. Settled here after his mum and dad died and left it to him, which was quite a surprise ’cos no one knew they actually owned it. And Thomas got rich, what with all his inventions. Not just a teacher by then. She must have been sick as a parrot, that wife, Christina, that was her. You don’t leave the man before he gets real money. That’s stupid. Should’ve waited.’

  Sorting out fact from fiction was always a problem. Monica was fifty to Delia’s nigh-on endless age and Monica had a vested interest in local knowledge, tending to believe in the senior memories. She tightened the last roller over the last strand of hair hard enough to make Delia screech and then loosened her grip, because Delia was a highly satisfactory customer, always ready to fill in historical gaps – whether the information was accurate or not hardly mattered. The hairdryer came down. Delia pushed it up and continued talking. It was a week since anyone listened and she was going to go on as long as she could.

  ‘They reckon he was a bit dodgy, old William Porteous. Parties for children at his age, I ask you. As for young Thomas, well maybe he was, too.’

  ‘It was only his wife sa
id so,’ Monica mumured.

  ‘That Christina? Thomas’s ex? Came in here, didn’t she? Snooty cow. Well, she would have known, wouldn’t she? Two daughters, she would have known. Come to think of it, she was the one who spread the rumours about old William too. Maybe she was wrong about that, but she must have been right about Thomas liking his daughters too much. I mean, look at it. He seems to like that Di Quigly and she’s no more than a kid. At his age … ’

  ‘She’s only the home help, Delia,’ Monica said.

  ‘My arse,’ Delia said.

  Monica smiled her sweetest smile and closed the lid on her, thanking the fates that Delia was halfway blind and would never notice when Jones came in. She would find something for Jones to mend in her house, Delia would, and he was too kind to refuse. He was due any minute for the monthly trim of his hair and he always came in when business was slack. Monica and he were old friends, with old histories. Delia dozed and Jones shuffled in, still shabbily manly after all these years, but never the same without his uniform. Monica smoothed her hair and checked in the mirror. All that stared back was a middle-aged face and a salon in desperate need of a makeover. It was all so tired but never mind because Jones had news, and news was gold.

  ‘So have you been up there, then? Have you? Have you seen her?’ she asked him, trying to sound as if she did not care either way.

  ‘Yup. Got a nice cup of tea in the best room, best china, too. Heart-to-heart talk with Mr P. No sign of her, at first, keeping out the way, but I tell you, the place was as clean as a pin, so I reckon someone’s been hard at work. Then Di came, and then she went out. She’s a bit wary of me.’

  ‘Why’s that, I wonder? You her mother’s cousin, and all. You’ve always looked out for her.’

  ‘Come off it, Monica. Her dead mother’s cousin and the one who arrested her? She don’t want to fucking know me now.’

  She combed his hair, looked at his pink face in the mirror. He was always halfway to boiling point, Jones; every second word a ‘fuck’ and he no longer noticed he did it.

  ‘Must have been one of the last jobs you did before you were sacked. Arrest little Di, you big man, you.’

  ‘Only sacked in a manner of speaking, Monica. Prema -turely retired.’

  ‘Bet you miss it still, don’t you? All that power.’

  ‘Like a hole in the fucking head, I do. What power? I got more time for fishing.’

  Delia turned under the dryer, fixed Jones with an empty glare and dozed on.

  ‘Fancy Thomas Porteous giving Di a job,’ Monica said. ‘After what she did.’

  She could feel his temper rising under her fingers. He was always so protective, and yet so critical at the same time.

  ‘I reckon he owes her something. Her mum used to clean up there. And what Di did was all she was forced to do. Her fucking dad may as well have sold her to a pimp. Fucking Quig.’

  She put down the comb and stuck her hands on her hips.

  ‘Di knifed him once, Jones. She knifed her own dad. I’m not having you talk about Quig like that.’

  ‘She was ten years old and he wouldn’t let them take her mother to hospital. Besides, it was him who taught her how to use the fucking knife.’

  ‘So she says,’ Monica scoffed. ‘There’s always another story.’

  ‘Like the one he told you?’ Jones shouted. ‘Di never told a tale against anybody, never did, won’t now. Couldn’t ever get herself off the hook. Fuckit, I’m out of here.’

  ‘Without your haircut? Come back!’

  The door clanged behind him and Monica cursed. Delia stirred. Then the door opened again. Jones was there with a scowl.

  ‘Fancy a drink later?’

  Monica nodded.

  She was a silly woman and a good one, even if she didn’t know it, Jones thought, and anyway not half as much a fool as himself. Shouldn’t have got riled so easy at the mere mention of Quig and the way he knew Monica thought about him. Jones walked faster, scratching his head, wondering if it was really his hair that irritated, or if it was Di, or the word ‘sacked’. Monica thought she knew everything, and she fucking didn’t. They competed for information like a couple of spies.

  Sacked, my eye: it was only halfway true and yet it rankled. He may have been disgraced for the many infringements that led to his suspension and early retirement, but Jones alone knew that he was still regarded by his police peers as an invaluable source of information. So what if his loyalty to the town and its inhabitants had conflicted with his loyalty to his masters; so what if he tipped off local suspects before others had the chance to arrest them? So what if he enabled his favourite pubs to flout licensing laws? So what if he spiked the odd dawn raid, failed to report the whereabouts of certain persons who came from the same streets as himself? Jones could turn a blinder eye than Nelson and sometimes a sharper one, but he was crooked in the right way and still trusted. Jones had never taken money for favours and the place needed a dedicated fisherman to watch over it and turn out to help if things got busy. There were difficulties enough in controlling this subversive, under-policed town from afar without relying on Jones. News was a phone call away and information was two-way traffic. Jones knew where the reputations were bogus on both sides of the fence and was the unofficial outpost of law and order, and long would it last. The chip on his shoulder was a mile high, but he loved the place and fretted about it – particularly about the people he liked and with a special soft spot for the kids; the ones who never had a chance, like Di Quigly. Also the old ones, including Thomas Porteous, for his quiet courtesy and his love of the sea and the fact that he walked on the pier, drawn to it on a daily basis. Jones thought of Di’s father by way of contrast. Di’s fucking Dad, aka Quig. One of the few Jones had actually wanted to put away and never managed it. He was rehearsing in his mind a memo he had once written about Quig for his superiors, trying to make light of it.

  Quigly.B. Ex army, traumatised and altered by combat somewhere. Country boy, shit for brains, but plenty of cunning. Devoted to and abusive of wife and daughter. Addicted to violence; dirty fighter, found release by specialising in pest control. Cleared gardens of pigeons and squirrels, barns of rats, attics of bats and farms of vermin, before moving on to larger specimens. (Cheaper to get Quig to shoot and bury the old dog or cow than it was to call the vet.) Beloved by farmers for solving problems caused by inconvenient corpses. Moved on to the more lucrative business of disposal of humans, of which breed he never killed, but he always knew how to get rid of bodies afterwards: dead baby, granny or gangster, made no difference. Out to sea or into landfill; Quig could find a way, wherever he was. Quig’s in the business of concealing human carrion, worldwide: also blackmail. He can’t come home now, can he?

  And yet he does, sometimes. You’re making that up, right? No one had believed him. Quig had been gone for years. Bequeathed his only daughter to a gang of thieves, stood by and watched. Quig, who would always be homesick and afraid of his daughter for what she knew about him. Sounded like a good story. If only Quig really never came back, but he did; Jones knew he did. He snuck back when he could; he was there on the night of the storm, and he would be back again and Monica just might give him shelter. If only Di was not his daughter with such a genetic inheritance, and if only she was not working for gentle Thomas Porteous, that enigmatic man, rumoured to be a pervert. The man whose wife, Christina, had kept coming back to haunt him until she fell off a cross-channel ferry and drowned, according to records Jones had assisted in compiling. A man whose daughters hated him for that and everything else.

  The pier hove into sight and Jones felt his spirits lift like a seagull in flight. He felt it was his duty to warn Thomas against Di Quigly, because she was her father’s daughter with bad blood in the veins and a scavenger parent, and at the same time, he thought that he also ought to warn her off whatever she had in mind, whatever that was: couldn’t be good. Jones had a penchant for thieves, especially those who refused to inform on each other, but they were still thiev
es. My intentions are entirely honourable, Thomas had said to him earlier, anxious to reassure as if Jones was a real uncle. No telling what Di’s intentions were towards him; Jones couldn’t guess those.

  Fuckit: no one would listen. They were both damaged goods. Thomas would be all right; Thomas was rich and the rich lived in another territory where they took care of themselves. As long as it didn’t go any further: as long as Di and Thomas didn’t get basic, like have sex. Naa, surely not. The man was an old gent, and little Di had no tits. But, did Thomas know about Quig? And what did Di know about Thomas with his penchant for little girls?

  Surely not, Saul Blythe thought. Surely not. Thomas has been effortlessly celibate for as long as I’ve known him: the passion goes into the collection, and so it should. And he shouldn’t need another protégé; he has Me.

  Saul never made an orthodox entry, loathed being announced and sidled in whichever way he could. Why knock on the door when you could manoeuvre the lock and gain the advantage of an unobtrusive entrance even when expected? He was standing on the stairs leading up to the gallery room, admiring the way the assembled paintings had been rearranged and listening to the merry sound of talk, drifting down. The sound was almost unearthly for its un -familiarity. For all the glory of the contents, some of which Saul had enabled Thomas to acquire, and despite the sheer amount of vibrant life in the paintings on the walls, the house had become a sombre place in the last three years.

  Someone had brought it alive.

  ‘Writing something every day doesn’t have to mean an essay. You excel yourself, Miss Shakespeare, but could you do it in rhyme next time?’

  ‘No time, Teacher – I’ve got another job, remember, but I got another bit here, and that rhymes, alright? Twixt Beatrice, Gayle and Edward/ There’s more love than you think/ But never a bloody word of it/ Is ever distilled in ink. Please write or phone, or email, do/ Because the sea is missing you. Shit poetry, but.’