The Ballroom on Magnolia Street (11 page)

‘Come on,’ she said again. ‘Look lively! I could eat the leg clean off a wild horse.’ Deliberately being crude and unladylike. She was determined to make sure the evening was a dismal failure.

They walked to the restaurant. Alex’s car was broken down again, he explained. That figures, thought Kate, sadly. He probably hasn’t even got a car, she suspected. Kevin McGovern would never have a broken-down car, she thought suddenly. Kevin was a mechanic with his own business. The thought of Kevin, driving along in his well-maintained car, cheered Kate up immensely. Alex saw her smiling and was pleased. They reached their destination in good spirits. Alex had chosen an Indian restaurant, which Kate thought was inconsiderate of him. He should have consulted her, first, before booking the table. Some people didn’t like spicy food. (Or busy wallpaper.) A candle-lit French or Italian place would have been much more romantic. There were no other diners in the room. It was too early in the evening, probably. Alex ordered the hottest curry on the menu, lots of side dishes, two glasses of milk and two bottles of lager for himself. Then he asked Kate what she wanted.

‘You can have anything you want,’ he said. ‘As long as it doesn’t come to more than a fiver! Only joking!’

Kate smiled weakly. She ordered a vodka and cola, and a mild chicken curry with boiled rice. Then she changed her order to fried rice. And chips.

When they were left alone with their meal, Kate expected an awkward silence to engulf them. But Alex told her a very long and complicated tale about a body-building competition that he had once taken part in. And how he didn’t win it because the whole thing was fixed. Kate had to cover her mouth with a slice of naan bread when she was unable to stifle a yawn. At one stage, he jabbed his fork into her plate and made off with seven fat chips that she had been saving for the end of the meal. In revenge, Kate called the waiter over, and asked for another drink. A double.

At no point did he ask her anything about herself, unless it was a question about her work. Did they get a bonus if they could think of a way to disallow a payment, for instance? (No.) Had anyone in the place ever been beaten up by a claimant? (No.) He laughed out loud when she told him that a clinically depressed gentleman had once arrived to sign on, in a drunken state and brandishing an antique sword. Was he arrested, Alex wanted to know. He was let off with a warning, Kate said. (Most likely, he had a few mates down the station.) And then, the narrow counter was swapped for one that was six foot wide, to give the staff some protection. Or at least, a head start.

‘Ha! The yellow sissies!’ he laughed, and drank a pint of milk in one go.

Alex burped right into her face as they stood at the cash desk to pay. He looked at Kate when the bill was presented to him on a little saucer full of mint imperials, but Kate kept her hands in her pockets and looked away. It was still only early in the evening. By right, she should have thanked him for the meal, and they should have parted as friends. After all, no formal announcement had been made that they were on a date. This meal was just to say thank you for the tip-off about the Fraud Squad. Right? Shirley would have been proud of her, if she had done that.

However, it was to Kate’s eternal shame that she went straight home with Alex Stone to his miserable little flat. For a drink. And a nose around, if she was honest. If there was one thing that Kate loved as much as her handbags, it was having a good snoop around other people’s houses. And she wanted to test herself; to see if she could be alone with a man and not start that awful trembling again. She might as well test the water with someone she didn’t care about any more. She gripped her umbrella tightly, and went bravely up the creaking stairs of the dingy house on the Cromwell Road. Alex showed her round the place. It didn’t take long. His bedroom was a terrible disappointment. A rather sad little bed, propped up on a brick at one corner, with only a very thin and faded quilt on the top of it. She began to feel a bit sorry for him. It was no picnic, living like this. Any available floor space was taken up with several large pieces of exercise equipment. Everything was covered in dust. There were sheets pinned over the windows with drawing pins, in place of curtains. Nothing nice anywhere. Somehow, Kate had pictured a Comfort-Zone boudoir of sheepskin rugs, zebra-print footstools and a well-stocked drinks trolley. Kitsch, but comfortable. Like Alex himself. Then she remembered, sadly, that he
was
actually unemployed. Any money he made in Hogan’s must have been spent on the exercise equipment. And red-hot curries.

‘It’s very nice,’ she lied, and they went into the living room.

Alex fetched a couple of cans of lager from the fridge and handed Kate one, without the benefit of a clean glass. He switched on the television, which was resting on a milk-bottle crate.

Kate took a sip and told herself she was a modern girl; that she did not like Alex enough to see him again, but that he did have fabulous hair and lovely muscles and surely she was entitled to one night of passion, to compensate for such a disappointing meal? She was on the pill, and not really getting the benefit of it. It was three months since her last romance. So! Alex was good-looking and available. Maybe she’d have a cuddle on the sofa, at least?

Soon, Kate was shivering to keep warm and glad she’d kept her coat on. It actually seemed to be colder inside the building than outside. There were no radiators in the flat. They finished their drinks, and then, with the empty can still in his hand, Alex leaned across to Kate and kissed her. It was an average kiss. No fireworks. A strong taste of vindaloo. Just as she was deciding whether to kiss him back or not, he asked her if she would like to see him in his competition briefs. Designer briefs from America, they were. Brand new. Kate was so shocked, she said yes.

Alex said he would just freshen up first. He went into the bathroom and switched on the shower. Kate began to think this night might not be so bad after all. She switched off the overhead lights in the flat as the sight of Alex’s many pieces of training equipment was a bit of a passion-killer. Not to mention all the posters of his body-building heroes, which were Blu-tacked to the grey-painted woodchip. Kate couldn’t bear the way all their veins bulged, as if they might pop at any moment.

She waited in the gloom for him to return. The minutes ticked by. Suddenly, he began to sing – ‘The Final Countdown’. Which band, she couldn’t say. They all sounded the same to her. Bon Jovi, was it? No. Europe, that was it. After a few more minutes, Kate knocked gently on the door.

‘Are you going to be long in there?’ she trilled, like some sort of girl-guide leader. She wanted to go to the loo herself.

‘No, you’re all right,’ he replied. ‘Be with you directly.’

‘It’s cold in the sitting room,’ she ventured.

‘What? There’s an electric fire. You can switch it on, if you like. One bar, mind.’

‘Gee, thanks, big spender!’

She stomped across the room to look for the switch. She approached the fire and bent over to turn it on, and froze when she saw six tiny black eyes peering at her from the grate. Mice. Three very cold little mice. They didn’t even move when she jumped with fright and then whimpered a little bit.

‘Alex! Alex! There’re mice in here, and they’re not even running away from me!’

‘Don’t worry about them!’ he called. ‘They’re tame! They’re only looking for a crumb.’ And he resumed his singing.

‘What the hell are you doing in there?’ she shouted. ‘You’ve been ages and ages. I’m bloody freezing, and there’re mice in the fireplace.’

‘For God’s sake, will you hold your horses! I’m going as fast as I can. This oil is hard to apply, when you’ve just had a shower.’

But Kate had given up. Her heart was not really in this, anyway. And now, the moment was gone for ever. If he thought she was going to wait for him, like some kind of slave, while he pampered himself in there… And they weren’t even on an official date. What must he think of her? A one-night stand? Suddenly, the thought of Alex Stone in his competition briefs scared the hell out of Kate Winters. She had to get out immediately. On her way, she left him a little gift.

‘Sod the inheritance,’ she said to the mice. ‘I’m getting out of here, and if you’d any sense, you’d do the same.’ She fled down the dingy stairs when she heard the bathroom door opening. She had left the little present under the quilt for Alex, when he did finally manage to drag himself away from the bathroom mirror.

Alex marched into the sitting room and struck up his best pose but Kate was not there to appreciate his biceps. She was not in the kitchen either. He realized she must be waiting for him in the bedroom. What a girl! He stood at the door of his darkened boudoir, wearing only several handfuls of body oil and a black satin posing pouch with fake diamonds on it. He twanged the elastic on his minuscule knickers, suggestively.

‘I hope you’ve had your blood pressure taken recently,’ he said, and he took a run at the bed, and leapt into the air. ‘Paradise, here we come!’

Unfortunately, the slender bundle beneath the quilt was not the eager warm body of Kate Winters, but a small pile of stainless-steel hand-weights. And they were very cold and very hard. Luckily, Alex’s handsome face landed on the pillow and was not marked in any way but he bruised his rhinestone pelvis quite badly.

‘Ungrateful witch!’ he yelled, as he rubbed his tender skin, and felt for the light switch. ‘Ungrateful, bloody witch! Of all the mad, stupid, mad, crazy…’ But he couldn’t think of anything to say as the pain went right through him like a spear. Two of the diamonds had fallen off, as well. Fifty pounds down the drain: his best competition briefs were ruined.

12. Old Battleaxe Strikes Again

Kate was very subdued for a few days after that. She didn’t go to Hogan’s the following Saturday night. She didn’t even go shopping for handbags on the Sunday, which led her parents to speculate that she might be catching a cold. It was the beginning of September, after all. Kate was normally a big devotee of the recently introduced Sunday shopping.

Mrs Winters made a big pot of chicken soup, and turned up the central heating. Her father bought some vitamin C tablets for the whole family, and left them on the kitchen window sill, so that nobody would forget to take one each morning. Shirley noticed that Kate’s hands were a little bit unsteady, on Sunday evening, when she was buttering a slice of toast. She was filled with horror that Kate might be developing a drink problem. Shirley didn’t say anything at the time, but she decided to try and reduce Kate’s drinking opportunities. And that meant not going to Hogan’s for a while, even if Declan Greenwood might be there. If Kate fancied a night out, Shirley would suggest they go to the cinema instead.

Monday morning arrived, and brought with it the Back-to-Work blues. Kate and Shirley sat on the bus in silence, each lost in her own thoughts. Shirley was daydreaming about Declan and wondering whether or not she should splash out on a new winter coat with fake-fur trim. There was a gorgeous one in Top Shop. Kate herself was also in a deep reverie. She was feeling very strange these days, as if she had lost her way somehow. The incident in Alex’s flat had pulled the carpet out from underneath her, emotionally. She’d felt suffocated in that cold little sitting room with the mice and the dust and the body-building posters. Even the thought of Alex’s beautiful body could not make her relax enough to spend another minute in the place.

There was a note on her desk, telling her to come right away to Miss Bingham’s office. For the first time in ten years, she would not be opening the daily post from the dear old dole-ites. She made her way down the corridor, knocked nervously on Miss Bingham’s door and went in. The supervisor was sitting behind her pristine desk, with her arms tightly folded. Kate noticed again that Miss Bingham had not personalized her office in any way. There were no family photographs or plants in the little room. Just one pot of very sharp pencils.

‘Take a seat,’ Miss Bingham said, and she slipped a red folder out of her top drawer. She shuffled through a few papers, stretching out the moments of tension. Then, she looked at Kate for a few further seconds before she spoke.

‘I’m sure you know why you have been summoned here today.’

‘Have I been promoted?’ Kate asked, with a broad smile. ‘Oh, goody!’

‘You have
not
been promoted. Certainly not.’ The older woman snorted a blast of air down her nose, like a racehorse on a cold day at Ascot.

‘Well, then I’m afraid I’m at a loss.’

‘There’s no point trying to deny it, Miss Winters.’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘You alerted Mr Alex Stone to the fact that he was under observation by this department. A serious breach of –’

‘Was he alerted? It wasn’t me, honestly. I don’t know where you got this information. Sure, he knew we were on to him, when he got the letter asking if he was working in Hogan’s.’

‘You were seen talking to him.’

‘Where was I seen?’

‘You know where. In Hogan’s ballroom. You spoke to him for ten minutes. You were photographed.’

‘Hell’s bells! Is nothing sacred, any more?’

‘Please don’t use language like that in my office.’ Miss Bingham was enjoying this interview immensely, and she wanted to make it last as long as possible. Before she told Miss Winters that her position here was at an end.

‘Okay, I’m sorry. Look, I was talking to him, that’s all. I didn’t tell him anything about the investigation. It was just a casual, social chat.’

‘We were already observing him, as it happens. He’s done this kind of thing before, you see. We’ve been watching him for some time.’ She puffed up with civic pride.

‘I see, Miss Bingham. Listen, I’ll contact him and make arrangements for him to pay back the amount he owes.’

‘It’s too late for that. He’ll be summoned to appear in court.’

‘Oh.’ Kate felt sorry for Alex, now. But not too sorry, remembering his antics on the night she went back to his flat. ‘I’m sure he was pretty desperate for money, to do what he did. And he doesn’t have many qualifications. And he is a very good doorman.’