A Good Year for the Roses (1988) Page 7

  It contained a school prefect's badge and a few cheap silver rings, a champagne cork with a five-pence piece pushed into the bottom and some cocktail stirrers and the little plastic animals that come with them. At the bottom was some loose change. When I'd finished the search I looked up at the mirror in front of me.

  I knew that the real secrets, if there were any, would be hidden in the dressing table itself. That's why I'd left it until last. I felt like a voyeur. I'd never got my kicks from delving into people's intimate lives, not like some coppers did. Then I looked more closely at my reflection and the goatish gleam in my eyes, and wasn't so sure.

  I opened the drawer in front of me. The inside was packed with make-up. Boxes, tubes, bottles, all colours, all makes, glitter, matte, you name it, it was there.

  I lethargically pushed a few items about. I opened a giant box of face powder, and found just face powder. I pushed the drawer shut again. There were four drawers remaining. Two on my left and two on my right.

  The top drawer on the right held a hair dryer and a bag of thick plastic rollers. The drawer beneath contained a selection of gloves and belts, a woolly hat and some socks.

  In the top drawer on the left were Patsy's night clothes, neatly folded pyjamas and nightdresses. Nothing special, just what any average, middle class, affluent eighteen year old would wear as far as I knew.

  When I opened the last drawer, I found what average eighteen year olds don't normally use.

  The interior was packed tight with underwear. Not schoolgirl's knickers, but sexy, provocative gear.’ I pulled out G-strings made out of slippery silk, suspender belts that were no more than froths of lace. Bras with straps no thicker than string and at least a dozen pairs of stockings, all in different colours. Some still in their cellophane wrappings.

  And it was all quality stuff. I could tell from the labels attached to the flimsy garments. It was more Bond Street than East Street. I sat there with a hand full of silk and lace and could feel myself almost drooling. Quickly I dropped the underthings back into the drawer and slammed it shut.

  And George had told me that Patsy wasn't interested in boys.

  I sat for a while longer in that strange room, full of shadows that had nothing to do with the afternoon sun coming through the window. A room that belonged to someone who was half child and half sophisticated woman.

  The strangest and somehow worst thing was that there were no photographs, no letters, no diaries, no address book. It could have been an hotel room where the occupant had just taken a stroll down to fetch a newspaper.

  Had Patsy got rid of every scrap of paper that bore any importance to her life, or had George, or had none ever existed?

  I thought of Judith's room, which was crammed with notes to herself and exercise books full of childish scrawl and all the birthday cards she'd ever had pinned to the walls.

  I thought of my own room when I'd been eighteen where you couldn't move for the garbage strewn about.

  Patsy's room was like a morgue. Finally I couldn't stand it anymore and left.

  There was another door directly to my right. I guessed it was Patsy's bathroom. I entered. It was well appointed if rather small for the house. Just about the size of my whole flat. The room was decorated in pale blue with a navy bathroom suite. All very tasteful and colour co-ordinated.

  Dark blue towels hung across a rail. I felt them. They were bone dry, as was the interior of the bath and the sink. I found some blonde hairs stuck to the side of the bath. I held them between my fingers as if somehow I could capture the essence of the girl from the few strands. I touched them with my tongue, but could taste nothing except ancient shampoo.

  I opened the bathroom cabinet. It contained a fresh bar of soap, aspirin, Tampax, a dry tooth brush in a glass and a tube of toothpaste. I even opened the cistern and found nothing but dusty water.

  I turned off the light and left.

  Reluctantly, I walked back down the flight of stairs to the ground floor. I found George sitting in his library like a priest in a strange house waiting for a death to occur.

  I felt that he didn't belong in that huge mansion any more, maybe since Patsy had left, he didn't want to belong. In his hand he held a full glass of brandy.

  As I walked into the room, he poured me a drink unasked. I took it. I felt as though I deserved it.

  ‘George,’ I said, ‘didn't Patsy have an address book?’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ he replied.

  ‘Where is it?’

  ‘She always carried it in her handbag.’

  ‘No old letters?’

  ‘She wasn't a great one for keeping things. If she got a postcard or something like that, she'd read it, then throw it away.’

  ‘How about her friends? Hasn't anyone called her up or come around to see her?’

  ‘She kept her friends separate from here. She knew I didn't approve of them.’

  Now we were getting somewhere.

  ‘Why?’ I asked. ‘What was wrong with them?’

  ‘Scum, most of them.’ He spat, his eyes narrowing. ‘I didn't want her to associate with that kind.’

  ‘Do you know any names or addresses?’ I asked.

  ‘No.’

  ‘George,’ I said slowly. ‘You don't know much, do you? You've given me very little to go on. How about her modelling contacts? You approved of them surely? You seem happy for her to do that kind of work. Surely you checked their credentials?

  He didn't seem too sure.

  ‘Well, did you?’ I asked again.

  ‘I'm a busy man,’ he replied lamely.

  ‘What you're saying,’ I interrupted before he could continue, ‘is that exactly two months ago on the ninth of June, your eighteen year old daughter took a hike. You know she dabbled with drugs. That is all you do know. You don't know where she went, or with whom. You don't know if she had a boyfriend. You don't know any of her other friends. You don't know what she did when she wasn't with you. You don't seem to know anything about her. It's an impossible task for one man to find her. Especially if the police have failed.’

  George made no reply to my outburst. He just sat and fiddled with his glass.

  ‘I'll go if you like,’ I said eventually.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘You're probably right. I've not been the perfect father.’

  Which of us can say we have, I thought.

  I hesitated before asking my next question.

  ‘Your daughter has an exotic taste in underwear, hasn't she?’

  George looked as though he could kill me. I didn't blame him.

  ‘You get everywhere,’ he said.

  ‘You didn't tell me not to. I was only looking for hints to Patsy's whereabouts.’

  ‘In her knickers?’ he asked sarcastically.

  It was my turn to be silent. After a moment, I said, ‘In fact her whole wardrobe is on the expensive side.’

  ‘I'm not a poor man,’ George retorted. ‘Patsy needed clothes. It's vital when you start out in a modelling career. If she wanted anything she had the plastic for the shops I'd opened accounts in. She didn't want for anything.’

  ‘Did she have a lot of cash on her when she left?’ I asked.

  ‘I'm not sure, not a great deal. About fifty pounds I expect.’

  ‘That's not bad for a girl of her age.’

  ‘I give her an allowance,’ George said stiffly. ‘It's hers to do with as she pleases.’

  ‘Does she have a bank account?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Has she used it since she left?’

  ‘I don't know.’

  The man was hopeless.

  ‘Did she have a job?’

  ‘She was fortunate enough not to have to. Sometimes she helped me in the office. I can never get a decent secretary. At the moment I'm relying on the answering machine. It's a damned nuisance. Patsy was good at the job.’

  ‘So tell me,’ I said. ‘What was she really like? As a person, as a daughter?’

  For the first
time I saw some light in George's eyes.

  ‘She's beautiful,’ he said. ‘Full of life and looking forward to the future. Here, look.’

  He went over to the cabinet upon which the colour TV sat and opened the double doors at the base.

  He pulled out a pile of photograph albums and brought them over to the bar. He dropped them in front of me onto the mahogany top. I opened the first book, and realised that George had collected Patsy's life together like an exhibit under glass.

  There were baby pictures, then pictures of her as a young child, in what I took to be the garden of the house where I was now sitting. She was pictured with a younger, longer haired version of George, and sometimes with a pretty woman who must have been his late wife.

  There were photographs of Patsy in the street, at the zoo, by the seaside, at the fair and at all the other places that children love. Once again, I was taken by her resemblance to my own daughter. I hadn't mentioned Judith to George, as I hadn't wanted to upset him further. Although she wasn't with me, at least I knew where she was. At that moment she was probably sitting, eating her supper in front of the same cartoons that were still being pumped out silently by George's TV. Soon she would be cosily tucked up in her own little bed.

  I wondered where Patsy would be sleeping that night. It struck me coldly that she might be sleeping the final sleep that we all go to.

  All of a sudden I couldn't look at any more happy snaps.

  I reached for my glass again. After I'd taken a long swallow I looked at George and asked, ‘What was she wearing when she left?’

  He thought for a moment and then replied, ‘Jeans and a leather jacket, with a yellow T-shirt. And she was carrying a big black handbag.’

  ‘Big enough for clothes?’ I asked.

  ‘No it was a bit of a joke between us. Her bag was always so full of junk that there was certainly no room for clothes.’

  ‘Is there anything missing from her room?’

  ‘No, not as far as I know.’

  But would he know anyway? I wondered. If she had charged everything to accounts, she might have had a suitcase hidden outside when she left.

  George's mood seemed to have taken a down turn again. We sat there, the pair of us, two men missing our golden daughters who had been snatched away.

  We sat looking for comfort in each other, that neither of us could provide. And for comfort in a bottle which is no comfort at all. We were trapped in misery, and as we sat together in silence, the TV set continued to spew out coloured images of happiness which we both ignored.

  The minutes stretched out. I could hear the tension in my inner ear, as if fingernails were being scratched along a blackboard inside my head until I felt like screaming.

  When the ‘phone rang, it shattered the silence like an axe striking a rotten log.

  George walked over to the telephone and answered it.

  There wasn't much conversation. George was doing more listening then talking. At last he said, ‘I can't talk now. Someone's here. Call me back.’ Then he put the receiver down.

  He came back over to the bar and said, ‘Sorry about that. Business.’

  I checked my watch. It was almost six thirty.

  ‘I'd better go,’ I said, finishing my drink. ‘I've got things to do. I'll get back to you on Monday.’

  I told George that I would see myself out, and left him with his possessions. Only his most precious possession was missing. Maybe that had been the problem. Maybe Patsy had got tired of being his little girl. From the contents of her underwear drawer, she was more woman than I'd seen in a good while, if that's how you judge women, and it was one way I suppose.

  I climbed wearily into the Jaguar and drove home.

  As I drove, I wondered what I'd let myself in for with this job. George Bright obviously wasn't telling the whole truth.

  One minute he was proud as Punch of his daughter. The next, by all accounts, he hardly knew her or what she did.

  I couldn't figure it out.

  I drank beer all evening with a photo of Patsy Bright in front of me. I toasted her with each new can.

  I toyed with the Telegraph crossword, but couldn't concentrate. I spun the dial of my radio and wished I owned a TV set.

  I went to bed about eleven and lay awake listening to the cars passing the house until the small hours when I finally fell asleep.

  Chapter Eleven

  Saturday night is the loneliest night of the week, they say. I don't know, every night and day was lonely then. But I think Sunday morning took the prize. The paper boy delivered four papers to me. The Sunday Times, The Observer, The Sunday Mirror and The News of the World.

  It was my time for a fix of news, and I took it all in: from Princess Diana's new shoes to President Reagan's cancer operation via tales of debauchery from the home counties that would and did make my hair curl.

  I figured I spent a very boring life. No threesie ups with the local swingers, no nightclubbing at String-fellows and no winning fifty grand on the bingo. Little did I know what was to come.

  After reading the papers I paced my room like a chimp in a cage. I felt trapped in boredom. I looked at the picture of Patsy Bright for the thousandth time. I wanted to see her in the flesh, to know if she was as beautiful as she looked. But at the same time, I sensed that doing so would only bring more trouble into my life. Something I could well do without.

  I showered and sat down with a cup of coffee. I reread all the interesting things that were happening in the world, and in the silence of my flat felt as insignificant as a grain of sand on a beach.

  I sat for hours staring at the newsprint, and all I got for my troubles were inky fingers and a slight headache.

  Time dragged by and I cooked some of the food that I'd bought on the previous day. I washed the meal down with cold beer and listened to back to back chart slop on the radio.

  At about four in the afternoon, the ‘phone rang.

  It was John Reid telling me that he would be paying me a visit that evening to discuss the Bright case. He was cool and distant on the line and I got the distinct feeling he was coming against his better judgement.

  John was as punctual as he'd always been.

  He turned up at precisely seven o'clock, leaning on the door bell. I buzzed him up and opened the flat door so as he would know where I was.

  ‘Christ,’ he said as he entered the room. ‘Those bloody stairs.’

  He looked the same as I remembered. Short, barely over the Met's minimum height requirement, but wide and thick in the body and neck. He was dark skinned with lots of five o'clock shadow, even in the morning. He'd lost a lot of hair since I'd last seen him, but he wasn't fighting it. What was left was cut very short, almost cropped. He was wearing a Burberry macintosh over a sharp dark suit. His white Oxford cloth shirt had a button down collar and he wore a discreet dark tie. On his feet were black polished loafers with a little gold chain across the front of each of them.

  ‘You look like the man from the Pru,’ I said.

  I didn't know how friendly to be. I didn't know if we were in for an old pals reunion or whether he was going to stick one on me.

  ‘Bollocks,’ he replied. ‘This is known as corporate image. I'm after a bit of promotion so I can get away from all this sleaze.’ He gestured through the window.

  He looked around the flat. ‘What do you call this?’ He sneered. ‘Bit small, isn't it? You couldn't swing a hampster in here.’

  I'd put the deposit on a flat. A recent conversion in an old family house in Tulse Hill. It was described as a studio apartment, which meant I got one attic room with a tiny kitchen and shower/toilet. It all came complete with carpet and curtains, a stove which I rarely used and a miniscule fridge. It was an ideal first time buy, or last time refuge.

  I'd added a double bed, an easy chair and a small table, upon which sat a lamp, a radio and a telephone. I kept my socks and underwear in a chest of drawers.

  ‘It's just as well I'm not into tiny furry animals,’ I
sneered back.

  ‘You always used to be,’ he retorted.

  I ignored the remark and said, ‘Relax, John. Hitch up your gun belt and sit down.’

  ‘Where?’ he asked, looking at the only chair.

  ‘That'll do you,’ I said. ‘I'll sit on the bed. I don't have many visitors.’

  ‘I'm not surprised. But you will. You've been seen, you know.’

  ‘Christ, I've only been back a few days,’ I said.

  ‘Come off it. What about that silly ad in the paper? And that bloody heap of yours isn't exactly anonymous, is it? You were clocked going past the nick on Friday lunch time. If you want a low profile, get a Ford Cortina.’

  ‘What, like that lollipop you used to have?’

  We both laughed at the memory.

  ‘I'll have you know, that yellow Cortina was local colour,’ he replied.

  ‘And now it's corporate image?’

  ‘Right, and a Rover Three-Five.’

  ‘Terrific, fancy a drink?’

  ‘Of course I do, what've you got?’

  ‘Beer,’ I replied.

  ‘That'll have to do then, I suppose. You're not much of a host.’

  I went to the fridge and fetched him a can of Heineken. He took off his coat and walked over to the wardrobe, which was, temporarily, a chrome garment rail. He tossed his coat over the top and then flicked through my clothes. I felt like asking to see his search warrant.

  ‘Nice threads,’ he said.

  ‘I had to buy new,’ I said. ‘Everything was out of date when I came out of hospital.’

  ‘You spoil yourself,’ he said, looking at me long and hard.

  ‘I try,’ I replied.

  He went back and sat in the easy chair, moving it so that he could peer through the window from time to time.

  ‘Paranoia?’ I asked.

  ‘No, good sense. This street'll be a fire zone one day,’ he said casually.

  ‘Don't say that,’ I retorted. ‘I'm nervous about falling property values.’

  ‘Take my word for it,’ he said.

  The way he looked, I almost believed him.

  We sat for a time and drank in silence.

  ‘Tell me about George and Patsy Bright,’ I said eventually.