Killing the Lawyers

‘You like it?’ he said.

‘I love it!’

Perhaps Ram Ray had been right, he thought. Perhaps it’s just us old Philistines who miss the beauty of clapped-out cars and piss-printed cat trays!

‘Bit different from your limo,’ he said as they watched Starbright struggle into the back seat.

‘What limo’s that?’ she said, surprised. ‘Mary drove us here in her Metro and Dad sometimes lets me borrow his Cavalier.’

A bothersome girl. Just when you had her pinned down as spoilt princess she turned back to Luton lass.

He got in the car and drove her home.

Home turned out to be a pleasant detached house on a seventies development in Grandison, one of the smarter suburbs on the far side of town from Rasselas where Joe lived.

‘Nice,’ said Joe as they pulled into the short driveway.

‘Dad worked hard,’ she said a touch defensively.

‘Hey, no one thinks the worse of you because you weren’t deprived as well as being beautiful and talented,’ he said.

He got out of the car and looked up at the house. A bright yellow box under the eaves proclaimed it was alarmed and there was a heat-sensitive floodlight which had lit up as they arrived. He checked the front door as they went in. Solid with deadlocks. A quick glance as he entered the living room told him the windows here and presumably all over the house were double glazed with individual locks.

Zak’s mother was smaller than Zak but with the same graceful carriage and fine bones. Joe, who was introduced as Joe who’s helping us out, she greeted with a grave courtesy. Starbright she ignored.

The room was warm and friendly with big chunky armchairs, bright paintings (the brightest signed Zak) on the pale emulsioned walls, and a spangled Christmas tree in the deep bay.

‘Lovely house you’ve got, Mrs Oto,’ said Joe. He meant it, but Zak took it as a hint that he was keen to do his tour of inspection and said, ‘Let me show you around, Joe,’ and led him out.

‘Nice lady, your ma,’ he said as they went into the kitchen. ‘You give her the poor-relative-of-an-old-friend story?’

‘Sure. Why not? You do the disguise so good, I don’t think she’s going to see through it,’ she said, giving him a smile which took any sting out of the remark.

But the thought stayed in his mind that if Mrs Oto in any way resembled his Auntie Mirabelle, who had a herald’s knowledge of all his old friends and their family trees, it wasn’t a story that would hold for long.

The door from the kitchen into the back garden was the same sturdy design as at the front. Window likewise. He stepped outside into the gloom and a security light lit up immediately showing him a stone-flagged patio, a square of level lawn bordered by neatly raked flowerbeds enclosed by a six-foot pine-slat fence. Joe walked slowly round the lawn. No sign that any of the flowerbeds had been trodden on recently.

Shoot, he thought. Why is it whenever I do all the proper detective things, I get nowhere. Maybe the secret lay in the later chapters of Not So Private Eye.

He went back into the kitchen and said, ‘Upstairs.’ That came out real LA laconic, he thought, pleased.

There were four bedrooms. Zak’s, like an archaeological dig, showed a record of her history through all its layers. Nothing had been discarded. Dolls, teddy bears, children’s books, games, puzzles, ornaments, all were crowded in here. On the walls you could trace both the progress of her taste in pop-group posters and her own artistic development, through junior-school finger paintings to the sketches, watercolours and acrylics of her teens. Every inch of space was covered, not excluding the ceiling which looked like a patchwork quilt. But nowhere was there any sign of her link with top-class athletics.

‘You sleep with your window open?’ asked Joe.

‘Couple of inches, but I always screw the handle down.’

Joe checked. Supple burglar might get his hand in and turn the screw. He opened the window wide and looked out. No handy drainpipe. They’d have needed a ladder up from the patio.

‘Father got a ladder?’ he asked.

‘Sure. But it’s in the garage, which is kept locked.’

Mary’s room was at the other end of the scale, completely tidy with the bed made up with hospital corners, and hardly a thing there to tell you this wasn’t a hotel.

He checked the window.

Zak said, ‘Mary always closes it before she gets into bed. She reckons the night air is bad for her.’

The master bedroom looked out on the front. As Joe stood there a car pulled into the drive and a man got out and looked up at him.

‘It’s Dad,’ said Zak, waving. ‘Best go down and say hello.’

‘Hang on. We’re not done,’ said Joe sternly. ‘This one?’

‘That’s Eddie’s. My kid brother. Shouldn’t bother about him, he’s more or less retired from direct human contact. If it’s not on the Internet, it’s not worth messing with.’

Joe opened the door. A boy of about eleven or twelve was sitting in front of a computer which had a screen so packed with data that even at this distance it made Joe’s head whirl.

‘Hi, Eddie, this is Joe,’ said Zak.

The boy didn’t look round but ran his fingers over the keyboard. The screen blanked then filled with the word HELLO!

‘That’s the most you’ll get,’ said Zak, pulling Joe away. ‘Unless he decides you’re electronically interesting. He hardly acknowledged me when I got back, then Christmas morning among my prezzies I found a print-out with details of my last drug test plus those of every other top-flight woman I was likely to come up against.’

‘Is that useful?’ said Joe.

‘No, but it’s amazing,’ said Zak.

As they came down the stairs, Joe heard a man’s voice saying, ‘So what’s he doing in my bedroom?’

Zak ran lightly into the lounge and said, ‘Hi, Dad. My fault. I was showing Joe the house and we were just admiring the view.’

‘Of the houses opposite, you mean? Strange tastes you’ve got, girl.’

Henry Oto was a tall athletically built man with a square determined face. Zak had got his height and her mother’s looks. Her sister had got her mother’s size and her father’s looks. You never know how the genes are going to come at you, thought Joe.

He knew from the papers that Oto was a senior prison officer at the Stocks, Luton’s main jail. Remember, no escape jokes.

He said, ‘Hi, Mr Oto. I’m helping Zak out, fetching and carrying, you know.’

Oto said, ‘Fetching and carrying what?’

Joe shrugged and looked to Zak for help. Clearly her father lacked her mother’s courteous acceptance of the vagaries of her daughter’s new lifestyle. That’s what came of associating with criminals.

Zak said, ‘You don’t want your finely tuned daughter straining her back picking up her holdall, do you?’

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