False Step (20 page)

Mr Frasier huffed. ‘Not today, Tom. There's so much running around I've got to do. Registering the death, seeing the solicitor, getting rid of the cat, all that sort of thing. That's if I can get the car started. The battery's flat.'

‘Hire one. We got money now, haven't we?' Tom had very light-blue eyes with a hard expression; just like his mother.

Bea said, ‘Which reminds me. Mrs Frasier asked the agency to take enquiries for Mr Kent's Jaguar, and we've been fielding telephone enquiries for it since yesterday afternoon. Only, she didn't give us the details or the keys, so we weren't able to take the matter any further. In fact we're not sure we should.'

‘We can't touch it yet,' said Mr Frasier, his tone warning his son to be careful what he let slip. ‘You know what Trixie said yesterday.' To Bea, ‘My sister, she works in a solicitor's office, knows the law, told me yesterday that we can't touch anything till it's cleared for probate.'

‘Aunt Trixie said we could get some money quickly by—' He realized what his father meant, shot a sideways look at Bea and mumbled, ‘But maybe I've got it wrong.'

‘Yes, you have,' said his father. Meaning, ‘Shut up, you fool!'

Bea hid a smile. Had they intended to sell the car for cash to cover their immediate needs? Also the costumes? The Frasier house could certainly do with an injection of funds. The carpet was threadbare, the three-piece suite had seen better days, and the room hadn't been decorated in years. The only new things in it were the television and Tom's electronic game.

Bea got down to business. ‘Your wife asked us to prepare an inventory for the contents of Mr Kent's house, to include the theatrical costumes. We have done this for her, with photographs. I hope this is satisfactory.' She handed over the package.

‘I'm sure it is,' said Mr Frasier, shuffling paper. ‘Any idea how much this stuff will fetch yet?'

Tom abandoned his sulk to look over his father's shoulder. ‘I thought we could move into the house. I mean, that would be a bit of all right. Better than living in this dump.'

‘Maybe so,' said his father. ‘It will take about six weeks to get probate, Trixie said.'

Bea held out her invoice. ‘Well, I'm sure your solicitor will be able to give you some definitive advice. Meanwhile, here is the invoice to settle our account.'

Father and son looked at Bea with open mouths and calculation in their eyes. It was clear to her that neither had a penny to bless themselves with. Damaris Frasier had had a job. Presumably it was she who had paid the mortgage and run the house. Without her, what did they have? He would have a disability pension, perhaps? And Tom? Child benefit, presumably? Why wasn't he at school today? He wasn't showing any sign of shock or sorrow at his mother's death.

Mr Frasier held the inventory and photos to his expansive stomach, gripping them as if he'd never let go. ‘You'll have to wait till probate, when everything's settled, right?'

Bea had been afraid this might happen. She was sorry for the Frasiers, sort of. ‘There are various grants you may be entitled to and back pay from Mrs Frasier's job. Have you any insurances? No? Well, I'm sure your solicitor will be able to help you. In the meantime, can you tell me anything about a Ms Cunningham? She contacted us last night claiming to be the new owner of the Kent house.'

‘What!' Father and son looked shocked. Mr Frasier said, ‘Cunningham? That … no, I can't believe it, not even of her!'

‘Dad! You know Mum promised I could have Uncle Matthew's recording equipment and—'

‘Shut up!' Mr Frasier snarled at his son.

Bea waited for clarification, which wasn't forthcoming. ‘You know the woman?'

‘She's …' Mr Frasier huffed and wheezed, reaching for an inhaler. Asthma? He puffed, got his breathing back under control. ‘She's an old friend of my wife's, a music peri … that is, she goes into schools to teach keyboard a couple of days a week. She gives piano lessons in their front room, too. She's no relation to Matthew. I can't think why she should say—'

‘Dad! That's my stuff that—'

Mr Frasier turned on his son. ‘Shut up!' He swung back to Bea to say, ‘The Cunningham woman's a poor sort of creature, always hanging on my wife's coat-tails, wanting a lift here or a favour there. It's preposterous for her to claim she's inherited the house. We have! Or rather, Damaris did, and of course she's left everything to me.'

Bea said, ‘The problem is that Ms Cunningham now has a set of keys to the house. Your wife phoned and left me a message to say Ms Cunningham would be there early yesterday to check over one or two things, and that we should hand over our own bunch of keys when we'd finished taking the inventory. Ms Cunningham arrived rather later than we expected, and let herself in with her own keys.'

‘She's got keys? But … how could she …? You think my wife gave her some keys?'

‘That's stupid,' said the boy, scrabbling around under the settee, and producing a once-expensive but now slightly scuffed leather bag. ‘This is Mum's handbag. They gave it back to us last night. The keys to Uncle Matthew's house must be here.' He pulled out a wallet, a coin purse, tissues, make-up bag. He emptied the lot out on to the carpet. ‘These are her house keys.' He held up a bunch with a small teddy bear hanging from it. ‘And her shop keys.' These had a twinkly star attached. There were no other keys at all.

The Frasiers looked at one another in consternation. ‘Why would Mum give Uncle Matthew's keys to that old bat?'

Derek Frasier rounded on Bea. ‘Well, if you had a set to do the inventory, then you don't need them any longer, do you? You'd better let me have them, right?'

Bea wasn't so sure about handing them over to this precious pair. They might use the opportunity to clean the house out, and if they weren't going to inherit … no, she couldn't let them have the keys. Then she remembered where she'd left them, upstairs in her dressing-table drawer. ‘I have a set back at the office. I'll be happy to hand them over to you when you've paid my bill and I'm clear in my mind as to who now owns the house.'

‘What? Hand them over, now!' Tom was getting aggressive.

Bea spread her hands. ‘I'm sorry. They're at the office.'

‘But if we don't have the keys …'

If they didn't have the keys, they couldn't lay their hands on anything to bring in some much-needed cash. Consternation!

Bea gathered her things together and stood up. ‘You know where to find me, when you've taken advice from your solicitor.'

Neither man moved to show her out, so she stepped ahead of them to the door. She felt, rather than saw something swish past her shoulder, and turned in shock to see the older man helping his son to his feet. Mr Frasier was wheezing again.

‘Sorry,' he huffed. ‘My son slipped. Can you see yourself out?'

Tom had slipped all right. He'd aimed a blow at Bea, but had been pushed aside by his father. The look Tom sent Bea was enough to convince her that she'd better wear chain mail next time she was in his vicinity.

She walked with unsteady steps to the front door, and let herself out. The fresh air revived her a little. She leaned against the front door, recovering. The cat sat up and blinked – or winked? – enormous yellow eyes at her. A tiny slip of pink tongue appeared and disappeared. The cat said, ‘Yow?'

In other words, Are you going to feed me now she's gone?

Bea said, ‘You'd better find someone else to look after you, or you're for the chop.'

Still shaken, she found her car keys, used the remote to unlock the doors and started the engine. There was a chill wind blowing, so she put the heater on. Two black ears and two large eyes appeared over the window. The cat was taking her at her word.

‘Get in, then,' said Bea, opening the door. The cat obliged, curling up in the foot well on the passenger side.

I suppose, if we never get any money for the work we've done, we can console ourselves with the cat.

The engine was playing up. Bother. More expense. When she stopped at the traffic lights, the noise of the engine grew louder. Whatever was wrong with it?

She laughed. It wasn't the engine. It was the cat, purring.

As she stepped over the carpet into the hall proper, Bea wondered why she'd always thought of hell as freezing cold and quiet. Hell wasn't like that, she thought. Hell was people shouting, drills grinding, hammers banging and a tranny blasting out the latest rap. Hell was dust and disaster.

She very nearly backed out of the house, got into her car, and drove away. Only, she couldn't do that for the cat had swayed over the carpet and disappeared into the kitchen. How did he know where the kitchen was?

Ah, Maggie had been cooking. Apart from the delicious smell of bacon, Bea could tell that Maggie was in because the radio was on in the kitchen, and the sound was at odds with the music – to call it by a polite name – which was coming up from the basement.

‘Hey, there, missus!' The foreman that she'd spoken to yesterday hove into sight, red in the face from anger or exertion. ‘Can I have a word?'

She followed him down the stairs, noting that the dust sheet was once again hitched up and not doing its job. Piers was nowhere to be seen, but he'd apparently been in earlier and upset the whole workforce, who were now determined to go on strike or botch it or something, because … at this point the plumber and the carpenter joined in, all speaking at once.

Apparently the foreman objected to Piers saying that something or other had been done with the wrong gauge of pipe. And the electrician said … and the plumber disagreed, and they were both going to walk off the job and not return till they'd been paid something on account. And, and, and.

Bea closed her eyes, mentally, to the mess around her, and calmed them all down, one by one. She knew little enough about gauges of piping and where the electrics ought to run, but she knew someone who did. She promised to send Maggie down to sort it all out, and went upstairs to look for her assistant.

The cat was ahead of her, sitting on the kitchen table between two large workmen … a different set from the ones she'd just dealt with down below, and different again from the ones she'd seen the previous day. The cat was turning his head from one man to the other, blinking enormous yellow eyes. Maggie was pouring out mugs of tea for the men, while talking on her mobile phone.

‘Maggie, you're needed downstairs,' said Bea.

‘One minute.' Maggie said, ‘Ta-ra,' to whoever she was on the phone to, and switched it off. ‘Who's the little stranger, then, and how did it get in? Take it off the table, someone. Food preparation and cats don't mix.'

The cat raised one paw in tentative fashion, and the larger of the two workmen teased out a piece of bacon from his butty, and handed it over. The cat took it, delicately, and it disappeared. He lifted his paw, indicating he would like some more. He was charm incarnate. Bea's heart sank. Did she really want to take on a cat? No, and no. What's more, she agreed with Maggie that animals should never be allowed on work surfaces.

The larger of the two men turned a moon face to Bea. ‘Is he yours, missus? What's his name?'

‘I don't know. He's been thrown out of house and home, so I'll have to find someone to take him in.'

The large man picked the cat up and ran capable hands through the long fur till he located a name tag on a tatty, chewed up collar. ‘Winston. Neutered. He's a bit of all right, isn't he? Hey, Winston? How're you doing? Like it here, do you?'

The cat licked the man's fingers. He laughed, set the animal down on the table, and said, ‘Well, back to work. We got the tiles, missus. Did you see them? All right by you?' Maggie picked the cat up and put it down on the floor, clearing the work surface with one efficient movement. ‘I'll be down in a sec, right?'

The two men disappeared, well fed and watered. Maggie wrung out her cloth. ‘I don't mind cats, but not on the table. Oh, the tiles are not the ones you picked but they're OK, I think you'll like them. I'm going to have to make the plumber replace that bit of piping, Mr Piers was quite right, it's the wrong gauge, and the electrician's mate cut his hand quite badly this morning and has had to go to hospital, but I don't think there's much else. Mr Piers said he'd be back later if he could, but not to count on it.'

‘The job you're doing down the road …?'

‘I popped in there this morning, checked it out, no problems today, and I don't have to go back till tomorrow afternoon. Just as well; this lot need someone to hold their hands even to go to the lavvy.' Maggie had been crying recently, and even now was turning away so that Bea shouldn't see her face properly.

‘Maggie, if something's bothering you—'

‘Nothing's bothering me.' She was lying, but what could Bea do about it?

Maggie whisked herself away, and Bea heard her arguing with the foreman downstairs. Bea switched off the radio. It reduced the noise level, somewhat.

Where could she go for a bit of a think? The sitting room was under another film of dust, but luckily the sheets seemed to be keeping the furniture reasonably clean. No Max. Goodie.

Miss Brook was working in Bea's bedroom, of course. She was on the phone, dealing with a query in her usual efficient manner. Bea ascertained in sign language that Miss Brook did not need her to sort out any queries for the time being.

Oliver was beavering away in the guest room. There was no sign of Max, and his things had been neatly put in piles on the bed. Presumably Maggie had been in there, too, since Oliver – despite chivvying from Maggie – still didn't understand the principle of putting once-worn clothes away.

‘All right?' Bea enquired of the back of Oliver's head. He nodded, without turning his eyes from his screen.