A Proper Charlie (20 page)

Anthony placed a hand on Ben’s shoulder. ‘I’m sure she’ll turn up. She probably just had to get away for a while.’

‘
Tell me about it.’

Anthony checked his watch. ‘Come on, I’ll buy you a pint, I reckon you’ve earned it!’

It paid to have lawyer friends, Ben thought as he and Anthony parted company an hour later. The police hadn’t charged him with kerb crawling because they hadn’t caught him in the act. And fortunately, as Anthony had said, witnesses had provided information that Sally Readman had been alive long after Ben had left her.

Ben drove home in a thoughtful mood. His mind was on Sally; feeling sorry for her one moment, angry the next because she had unwittingly made Camilla vulnerable to the same dangers she had been in.

Ben climbed out of his car, banging shut the door as an idea burst into his head like a stadium light. A reward! As director of the Middleton Group, he could offer his readers a reward for information, leading to the arrest, of the Gentleman Abductor! That would somehow go towards making up for Readman’s disappearance and losing Camilla’s phone number.

Ben made his way in through the back kitchen door, feeling cheered. He was starving! He had declined the pub menu, feeling too upset about his arrest and now felt he could happily chomp his way through the fridge if Iris allowed him.

She was clearly pleased to see that he was all right, going by the way she jumped up from peeling potatoes and ran over to him. ‘Ben,’ she said. ‘What happened! Are you OK?’

‘
I’m fine. It was just a misunderstanding.’

‘
I wouldn’t call being arrested a misunderstanding,’ she said, waving the potato knife dangerously close to his nose.

Ben took it from her before she could inflict pain. ‘Relax,’ he said. ‘It really was nothing. I was investigating the abductions and someone reported me acting suspiciously, that’s all.’

‘
Oh, my,’ she said, patting her heart. ‘I’ve been so worried.’

‘
Everything’s fine. The police and I had a good old chuckle when I explained who I was and what I was doing in the red-light area.’ He remembered their cold faces and smirks and nothing remotely like a ‘chuckle’ between them.

‘
It seemed to take a long time.’

‘
Well, it took them a while to check out my credentials, I suppose. You see, because my car is termed ‘posh’, I was a suspect.’ He smiled at her, then turned back to the fridge and brought out some cheese and pickle, hoping to deflect more questions. ‘No harm was done, but I don’t want father to hear about it.’

‘
Hear about what?’

They both visibly jumped at the sound of Donald’s voice as it boomed into the kitchen.

Ben coloured automatically – he believed his cheeks were conditioned to reddening whether he was guilty or not at the sound of his father’s voice. He turned to face him. ‘Nothing important, dad.’

‘
Better not be,’ he said. ‘Nicole’s been round. She says you haven’t been returning her phone calls.’ Was that an accusation, or simply repeating the message? In the end Ben thought the latter.

‘
I haven’t. I’ve been too busy with the paper.’

‘
You aren’t messing it up, are you? Maybe I should ask Paul Kennedy to mind the place after all –’ he began, naming his manager.

‘
No, dad,’ Ben said quickly. ‘It’s busy because of the vanishing prostitutes. And as for Nicole, I’ve finished with her,’ he said, and waited for the fall out.

Donald grunted. ‘Good, stuck up bitch.’

Ben looked at him in surprise, wondering if his ears needed syringing.

‘
If you’re going to make a sandwich, I’ll have one,’ Donald said, nodding to the plate of cheese in Ben’s hands. ‘Got a cook who seems unable, or unwilling, to make me dinner.’

Iris bristled, but Donald left them alone and Ben, chuckling, made himself and his father a sandwich.

‘
I’m not the bloody cook, I’m the housekeeper,’ she said. ‘And I’ll cook as and when I bloody feel like it!’

Ben grinned at her, and spontaneously moved to give her a hug. ‘You’re more than all of that,’ he said.

She batted him away, laughing. ‘Oh you,’ she said. She sat back at the table and resumed peeling the potatoes. Ben smiled fondly down at her. Iris had never married, and had lived with her sister until she had passed away three years ago. Camilla had suspected she was in love with Donald, and that was the reason she had put up with his grumpy disposition all these years, and Ben now wondered if she had been right.

Ben found Donald in the crayoning room.
He placed a tray of sandwiches and a pot of tea on the coffee table. Donald didn’t look up from the newspaper he was reading.

‘
You’ve been going out every evening,’ he grunted. ‘If there’s something wrong with
Core
I want to know about it. I’m not dead yet, you know, and I still own it, boy.’

Good, he didn’t know about this morning. ‘Everything is fine,’ Ben answered smoothly. He sat down in a vacant chair, and picked up a sandwich.

Donald peered over his newspaper at Ben. ‘I want the Middleton Group to offer a reward for anyone with information on this tart kidnapper. That means our every publication,’ he said, and buried himself behind the paper again.

Ben’s good feeling sunk. ‘I’d already thought about that,’ he said, determined to regain the idea for himself.

‘
Then why haven’t you put it into action?’ He rattled the newspaper. ‘The first ideas are usually the best ones.’

Ben moodily bit into the sandwich. ‘I’ll arrange it straight away,’ he said. ‘I’ve thought of a figure we could offer –’

‘
Fifty grand.’

‘–
fifty grand,’ Ben said just as his father’s booming voice overrode his. He doubted his dad even heard him. ‘Consider it done,’ he said instead.

‘
Good. Pour me a cup of tea, boy.’

Ben dropped his sandwich back on his plate, and poured the tea, stirring in sugar and milk. ‘Father,’ he cleared his throat. ‘You don’t seem upset that Nicole and I are no longer together.’

With a heavy sigh as though he were tolerating an irritating child, Donald folded the newspaper and placed it on the table next to the tray. He glared at Ben and then snatched up a sandwich. ‘She had nothing in her head apart from pound signs. I never liked her.’

Ben almost laughed. ‘You practically made me go out with her!’

‘
Well, maybe I was wrong,’ he muttered. ‘I’ve been wrong about a few things lately.’

Ben had to stop chewing to hear him but even then thought he’d heard incorrectly.

‘
You need a woman with a bit of life,’ Donald continued. ‘You need someone to bring you out of yourself.’

‘
I’m fine as I am, thanks,’ he said. He was half amused. Donald was forever trying to better him.

‘
Take your mother,’ Donald said picking up his cup of tea. He leaned back and looked up to the ceiling as if seeking a memory. He rested the cup on the bulge of his stomach. ‘She was a dancer, you know.’

His mother a dancer? No, he never knew that. But it seemed there was a lot he didn’t know about his mother.

Donald looked at Ben and suddenly he grinned. ‘An exotic dancer!’ He took a long sip of tea.

Ben almost choked on a lump of cheddar; not only at his words, but at the unusual grin on his father’s face. ‘Pardon?’ he coughed, thinking he’d heard wrongly. But Donald just continued to grin.

‘
I knew that’d shock you. Your mother was an exotic dancer when I met her. She was beautiful and feisty and completely swept me off my feet.’ His face dropped. ‘Unfortunately, I knocked that out of her. She not only gave up dancing to become my wife, but her spirit as well.’ He placed the near empty cup back on its saucer. ‘No wonder that damned Goodway turned her head,’ he muttered the last sentence, and then in true Donald style, unfolded his newspaper and raised it to block his son’s image, and never said another word.

TWENTY SEVEN

‘
F
eeling better, doll?’ Melvin greeted her. He had telephoned her to make sure she had arrived home safely, and threatened her with sending Dean around to nurse her. Dean was lovely, but she hadn’t wanted to see anyone, and he accepted her plea to keep his boyfriend from playing Nurse Nightingale.

She couldn’t, however, stop Melvin from coming around to her flat the following morning before work equipped with paracetamol,
Andrews Salts
and a thermometer, and practically forced her back into bed against her protests that she was fit and well. Guilt prevented her from protesting too much.

‘
I’m OK,’ she said to him now. ‘Like I was OK Saturday and Sunday when you practically force-fed me tinned soup and bed rest for the entire weekend.’

‘
Too many late nights,’ Melvin said and she heard the cynicism in his voice.

‘
You’ll make a good mother.’

‘
Here you are Charl.’ Faye came over with a coffee from the new vending machine. ‘How’re you feeling? You missed a good time Saturday night at Sarah’s.’

Charlie took the plastic cup trying not to feel shocked at Faye’s attempt at friendliness for the second time running within two weeks. ‘I’m fine, thanks,’ she said. She sipped the drink. ‘Did you go to Cargo’s?’

Faye nodded. ‘We had a great time! Sarah got absolutely leathered.’

Charlie was glad she missed it. Against the harsh reality that Jan, and others like her, encountered, it now felt shallow and superficial. She guessed she was growing up. ‘There’ll be other times,’ she said instead.

Faye nodded. ‘Well, you take it easy today, like you usually do,’ she added.

Charlie chuckled at the barb, and Faye went back to her desk.

Charlie turned to Melvin. ‘Maybe the late nights did have something to do with it,’ she admitted. ‘But that’s all they were – late nights, Mel.’

‘
Whoa! I’m not throwing accusations, here.’

She smiled. ‘No, of course not.’ She looked over towards Mr Middleton’s office. John
Fanton was in there with the telephone clamped to his ear. ‘What’s he doing there?’ she asked Melvin. She took off her denim jacket and hung it over the back of her chair.

‘
Dunno,’ Melvin said. ‘Sir hasn’t been around all weekend. I hope he isn’t going to be the kind of boss to swan in and out when he feels like it and let us wage slaves do all the work.’ He pouted, and with one hand on his hip, he spun around towards the coffee machine. ‘It’s OK Faye,’ he called, ‘I’ll get my own drink.’

‘
I’m busy,’ she replied without looking up from her desk. ‘Can I ignore you some other time?’ She made as if to make some other cutting remark, but her phone rang, and she snatched it up.

‘
That’s better,’ Melvin said over his shoulder to Charlie. ‘I was getting worried about her for a moment.’

Charlie watched him punch in his order on the vending machine. She badly wanted to tell him about witnessing Sally Readman climbing into the red Audi, and had to physically bite her lip to prevent herself from blurting it out. Sally’s pinched, snarling face flickered in her mind, and her last words, ‘Didn’t I tell you to piss off, bitch?’ had become to feel almost affectionate now.

Charlie sighed heavily.

‘
That was a big sigh,’ Melvin said, coming back. He took a sip of coffee before putting it on his place mat on his desk. He took off his jacket and, like Charlie, hung it over the back of his chair. Charlie was immediately drawn to the slogan:
Do I look as if I want to buy a Big Issue?
on his T-shirt. ‘What’s up, doll? Still feeling poorly?’

Faye scurried over looking like a four-year old on Christmas morning, and saved Charlie from answering Melvin.

‘
Hey, you two, you’ll never guess?’

‘
Guess what?’ asked Melvin.

‘
You’re going to love this.’

‘
If you’d tell us…’ said Charlie.

‘
OK.’ She rubbed her hands together, mimicking Fagin. ‘Like I said you’re going to love this –’

‘
Mr M. has spent the entire night in a police cell,’ said Sarah on passing towards the vending machine.

‘
Oi!’

Charlie and Melvin looked at one another. ‘What’s that?’ asked Melvin, grabbing Faye’s shoulder before she could lynch Sarah for stealing her headline.

Realising she was back on the stage, Faye turned back. ‘Apparently he was hauled from his bed in the early hours of Saturday and frog-marched to a squad car.’

‘
Were you there, then?’ said Charlie, rolling her eyes.

Faye huffed, and pointedly turned her back on her then directed the rest of her information at Melvin only. ‘Armed police burst in and arrested Mr M. They had him on the floor, arms up his back, you know, like they do on The Bill, and marched him off to a squad car. Oh, very Gene Hunt, I bet. Wish I’d been there!’

‘
Gene Hunt isn’t in The Bill,’ said Charlie.

‘
She isn’t?’