Cover-Up Story (10 page)

During the course of the evening, nothing succeeding like success – or the appearance of it – I was sounded out by a couple of colleagues on accounts they didn't feel able to handle. ‘Show biz, old boy, rather out of my line, but you –' Even with the spectre of Black Bart at my elbow, I didn't quail. Just signified enough interest to be approachable at a future time, but not enough to seem anxious for the work. Nor did I enquire too closely as to why they were being so generous with promising accounts. It was a lovely evening, I was off duty for the moment, and it was no time to go counting the teeth of gift horses.

I relaxed and enjoyed it. Which was just as well. It was the last peaceful evening I had.

THE TELEPHONE woke me in the morning. I stumbled out into the office and snatched up the receiver, trying to sound bright and alert, just in case it wasn't as early as my numb brain insisted it was. ‘Perkins & Tate. Good morning.'

‘This you, Jean?' a voice twanged in my ear.

‘Sorry, wrong number. There's no Jean here.' On second thought, perhaps there was. But I had no intention of barging into Gerry's bedroom to find out. In any case, presumably she wouldn't want to be receiving calls from a male voice.

“No – wait, don't hang up. I said this is Eugene. Eugene Hatfield.' It didn't leave me any more enlightened.

‘I beg your pardon?'

There was a deep, depressed sigh. ‘Uncle No'ccount, I guess I'd better say.'

‘I'm sorry.' I was. I don't know why it hadn't occurred to me that he must have had a real name. People aren't born and christened Uncle No'ccount. Something in that sigh had spoken of a long erosion of identity, and I felt a little more had slipped away through my carelessness. ‘I just got up – I'm not fully awake yet.'

‘That's all right,' he said glumly. ‘I'm sorry I woke you, but I guess you'd better get over here right away. There's all hell breaking loose. That's what I called to tell you. Sam can't come to the phone. He's too busy.'

‘Why? What's happened '

‘Seems like Maw Cooney never came home last night. Lou-Ann is worried out of her mind.'

‘But that's silly. The woman is over twenty-one. Perhaps she just –' But it would be a brave man who dared. I began to see why Lou-Ann was so worried.

‘Believe me, she ain't the type. Even if she was, she'd have called and made some excuse so's Lou-Ann didn't worry. It might upset her performance. Maw'd never want that.'

And that was true enough. I didn't like it. True, there wasn't much I
did
like about the Troupe. But this I liked even less.

‘I'll get dressed,' I said, ‘and be over there as soon as I can.'

‘We're all at Bart's place,' Uncle No'ccount said. Tryin' to think of something encouraging to say. Lou-Ann's cutting up pretty bad.' With that cheery bulletin, he rang off.

I
did
check to see if Gerry was in his bedroom then, but there was no sign of his having been there recently. Off nesting with one of his birds, I presumed. Which was no help to me, as usual. I went back to my own room and dressed quickly.

The Cousins were leaving as I arrived. They sidled past me with the eager escaping faces of males who had been subjected to an overdose of female hysterics.

Lou-Ann was sitting in a chair in the centre of the room, a heap of tattered, soggy paper handkerchiefs at her feet. She wasn't actively crying at the moment, just snuffling occasionally, her hands shredding a Kleenex restlessly. Crystal perched on the arm of her chair, an expression of concern on her face, and a full box of Kleenex on her lap. As Lou-Ann let the shredded one fall to the floor, she pulled out a fresh one and handed it to her automatically. It should have been a funny routine but, looking at Lou-Ann's red blotchy face, it wasn't.

Uncle No'ccount leaned against the farther wall, watching them unhappily. His fingers caressed the harmonica, probably he itched to play it. Equally probably, he felt it wouldn't show proper respect for Lou-Ann's anxiety. He nodded to me and sketched a brief salute with the harmonica.

Bart stood by the window, looking intently down into the street. He seemed to have dissociated himself from everyone present, although it was his suite. He didn't even turn round when I spoke.

‘Is there anything I can do?'

Lou-Ann raised her head and looked at me pleadingly. ‘Find her, Douglas. She's lost – she's lost and gone –' She broke off, her head cocked, as though to catch an echo of something she could not quite place.
(‘You are lost and gone for ever, Oh, my darling, Clementine'.)
Fortunately for her peace of mind, the fragment of lyric drifted away.

‘You know your way around this city, Douglas,' she continued, after the brief pause. ‘Where could she be?'

‘Has anyone called the police?' I asked.

‘No – and nobody's going to.' Bart turned away from the window, his shoulders hunched menacingly. ‘We don't want no police nosing around here, boy.' He glanced sideways at Lou-Ann. ‘It wouldn't be good publicity for the Act. You know how Maw would hate that.'

‘That's right,' Lou-Ann agreed reluctantly. ‘Maw wouldn't want bad publicity. But –'

‘You jes' leave things be for a little while longer,' Bart said. ‘She'll maybe turn up by herself when she feels like it. You never know – she might just be out on a tear.'

‘Maw don't drink!' Crystal sounded genuinely shocked. ‘Leastwise, not that much.'

‘How do
you
know what she mighta decided to do last night? Was you with her?'

‘No – no, Bart.' Crystal lost colour.

‘She was with me, Bart,' Lou-Ann said mechanically. ‘We was playing gin rummy.'

‘Yeah?' Bart glanced at her suspiciously. ‘Going in quite a lot for card games these nights, ain't you? Maybe I should look in for a hand or two sometimes.'

‘Why don't you, Bart?' Lou-Ann turned to him eagerly. For the moment, her mother was forgotten in the place of her bigger, more enduring problem. ‘You ain't been by in quite a long spell. Maybe we could sit by ourselves and talk awhile.'

Bart ignored her, returning to his vigil at the window, staring intently down into the street. Was he more worried than he seemed? Lou-Ann sniffed unappealingly, and Crystal, still wary of Bart, passed her another Kleenex.

‘Where's Sam?' I spoke over their heads to Uncle No'ccount who, at least, seemed to be keeping calm, if not neutral, in the face of this situation.

‘Checking the hospitals,' Uncle No'ccount said. ‘Been gone a coupla hours now. Seems like there's an awful lot of hospitals in London.'

There were quite a few morgues, too, but it wasn't a thought to voice aloud. Uncle No'ccount nodded at me glumly, as though he had caught the vibrations of that thought. ‘Don't seem like good sense to go rushing around like a hen with its head cut off. We can't tell which ones he's been to until he gets back to tell us. Then maybe you can think of some others we might try. Not the police, though.' His voice was firm. ‘Not yet.'

It was the other half of Public Relations. There are things to be seized upon and publicized for more than they're worth. And there are things to be hushed up – usually the things that would get you the most publicity, but the wrong kind. A few police inquiries here and there, and the story of the Client's private predilections might be discovered. So, the police were out.

And if some frightened, bewildered lady were roaming around an unknown city with a case of amnesia, well, that was just too bad – for her. She'd just have to continue roaming around, until she either remembered at last or until one of us caught up with her and told her. The Client must be protected.

Meanwhile, the Client was glaring down into the street with a burning intensity. Willing Maw Cooney to come back to the bosom of her loving Troupe? Somehow, I doubted it. I moved up behind him and followed the direction of his eyes.

The attraction was instantly obvious. They stood waiting at the bus stop, twittering together, in the shortest mini-skirts I'd seen in months. Not birds, fledgelings definitely. Out of school uniform for the afternoon, probably. Not much older than thirteen.

The Client exhaled a deep breath. ‘Man,' he said softly, ‘ain't they something?'

That was when the policeman knocked on the door.

He was a very young constable. He moved into the room, looking very unhappy. Perhaps the Police School had warned him there'd be days like this. Someone ought to ask him for directions to put him at his ease, but I wasn't up to it. He saw Lou-Ann's red-rimmed eyes and the pile of soiled Kleenex at her feet, and retreated half a pace. He seemed to be wishing they'd handed him a simple assignment, like straightening out a three-mile traffic snarl-up at Hyde Park Corner.

Lou-Ann rose to her feet and advanced upon him. ‘Maw?' she said, her voice breaking. ‘You've come about Maw?' Crystal moved with her, and Uncle No'ccount came forward swiftly.

The constable winced, but stood firm as they approached. He'd be worth his weight in riot duty some day. Trying to by-pass the women, he spoke across them to Uncle No'ccount.

‘I'm terribly sorry. Perhaps I could speak to you in private, sir.'

‘She's my mother,' Lou-Ann challenged him. ‘Tell
me.
‘Where is she? Is she all right? Does she have amnesia –'

It was obviously worse than the constable had thought it was going to be. Too much showed in his face. Lou-Ann didn't miss any of it.

‘She's hurt!' she shrieked. ‘What happened? Where is she? Let me go to her!'

‘Take it easy, honey.' Crystal put an arm around her. Uncle No'ccount glanced, with some pity, at the young constable. Bart still looked out of the window, indifferent to the scene in the room. Yet he was listening.

‘She's in Charing Cross Hospital.' Perhaps they have a formula for these things. If so, the young constable had forgotten it. He blurted out the information. ‘It was a traffic accident. On the Embankment. Yesterday afternoon.'

‘Yesterday afternoon! But –'

‘There was no identification,' he defended. ‘We weren't able to trace her immediately. We just knew, from her clothes, that she was an American.'

‘No identification! ' Unable to bear anything else, Lou-Ann pounced on a detail. ‘But she had her passport, and her wallet with lots of membership cards, and there must have been plenty of letters in her purse, too.'

‘There was no purse – no handbag,' he said. ‘Nothing at the scene. We think it possible that someone picked it up and took it away. People do that sometimes,' he said sadly. ‘You may get it back later – with the money missing.'

‘Anyhow, you've found us,' Uncle No'ccount said. ‘That must mean she's been able to talk and tell you.'

Bart swung away from the window and faced into the room. His eyes were narrowed against the change of light. He waited for the answer.

‘Er, yes,' the constable said unconvincingly. ‘That is,' he qualified, ‘she hadn't regained consciousness fully. But she said a few things – wandering a bit – and we were able to interpret them. Actually, we took rather a chance. I came to see if you knew anything about her, and then, of course, from your reactions –'

‘Then she ain't “actually” –' Bart mimicked the accent – ‘awake and in her right mind. Maybe you better tell us just how bad she is.'

‘I couldn't say.' The constable had had enough. He wasn't a diagnostician, and he didn't intend to be. His own duties were bad enough. ‘Perhaps you might come along to the hospital and identify her,' he suggested. ‘We presume the lady is one of your party, but we'd like to be sure. Although she must be, there
can't
be two middle-aged American ladies missing on the same day.'

But there could, and a sudden loss of colour in his face showed that he had just realized this. The young constable was having a rough initiation into the seamier side of his job. It was all very well to join the Force with happy visions of disarming bank robbers in unarmed combat and rescuing children from burning buildings, but he was beginning to realize that a large part of his time might be spent in trying to cope with intractable people who got themselves into unhealthy predicaments – and their relatives, who would somehow assume that it was all his fault because he hadn't had the foresight to prevent it. He looked as though he were having second thoughts about remaining one of our Brave Boys in Blue. But he pulled himself together.

‘I think we should go to the hospital,' he said firmly. ‘After you've made the formal identification, it will be a lot simpler. Perhaps,' he added craftily, ‘you might like to have her moved to a private room, or engage special nurses.'

‘You mean she isn't being taken care of?' All the American bugaboos about the National Health Service, fostered by years of propaganda from the American Medical Association, rose to terrify Lou-Ann. And, more practically, to give her a jolt of adrenalin to get her moving. She bolted for the door. The rest of us followed.

The constable was right. It could only have been Maw Cooney, and it was. But he'd glossed over how badly she'd been hurt. Screens were around the bed when we approached and, meeting Uncle No'ccount's eyes, I could see that I wasn't the only one who knew there wasn't going to be time to carry out all the orders Lou-Ann was shouting. There would be no private room, no specialist from Harley Street, no round-the-clock nurses.

We stood around the bed, more for Lou-Ann's sake than for Maw's. The pale face on the pillow grew paler, the breathing more stertorous. After about half an hour, she opened her eyes, but she didn't see any of us.

‘That bastard pushed me!' she said loudly, and died.