To Catch a Creeper (31 page)

I press the button to put it to silent and the message flashes up. Henrietta again

AND MRS BAKER’S BACK.

Oh my God.

But she’s only just left.

I look up from my phone, an astonished expression engulfing my face, to see two other astonished expressions peering under the tablecloth at me.

‘Oh hi,’ I stutter. ‘Right, don’t worry. I think I got it.’

I curl my index finger up, stick it in my left eye then blink rapidly a couple of times.

‘Contact lens. Little bugger. Would you have it?’ I say as I peel myself from the floor. ‘I’m going for glasses, next time, that’s for darn sure.’ And with that I zoom across the restaurant and out the door.

I think I see Turks’ head jerk round as if in surprise but then again I can’t be certain.

***

How do you get the word on the streets off the streets?

It’s eleven p.m. and I’m standing on Mrs Baker’s doorstep rapping furiously away at her brass door knocker.

‘I have my very own Nominated Neighbour you know.’ The letterbox opens and her voice bellows out.

‘Yes I know you have. I am her. Let me in, quick.’

‘Prove it.’

‘Prove it?’

‘Yes, prove it. You might be impersonating her voice.’

‘Look through your letterbox.’

‘You might poke something through at me.’

‘I won’t, I promise.’ I stoop down and let her view my eyes. ‘Green see,’ I point to my left iris, ‘With a little brown dot on this side.’

‘They look like Cathy’s eyes but then again I’m not so sure. Tell me something about her?’

‘OK…she…I mean I…have a husband called Declan and two kids, Josh and Sophie.’ There.

‘Everyone knows that.’

‘And…’ I lower my voice. ‘And I’ve got a twin sister who lives in Highgate.’

‘Entré,’ she says, unlocking her door of a thousand bolts. ‘Ah so it is you. How is she?’

‘Who?’

‘Your sister. Hold on a moment.’ She leaves me standing in the hall, beetles to the kitchen and is back in two seconds flat, plastic bag in hand with something rectangular inside. ‘It’s for you.’

‘Me?’ I peer into the bag.

‘Jaffa Cakes to give to your sister. Peace offering.’

‘Oh… Thanks. It’s…well it’s very nice of you, considering you’ve never even met her.’

‘I saw her, didn’t I? She looked sad, lonely, folding up her washing. I felt sorry for the poor waif.’

‘Jaffa? No, heck, don’t feel sorry for her, she’s fine. She has a full life. She visitscafés, goes on bus rides and…and she’s doing a part-time history degree. But thanks anyway. I’m sure she’ll appreciate it. Now what are you doing home?’

‘I escaped.’

‘When and how?’

‘Just walked out. Hitched a lift. Bob’s your uncle. Fanny’s your aunt.’

‘But Eleanor, your daughter, does she know?’

‘I rang her. She wasn’t happy but she can’t do diddly squat about it.’

‘Thing is…’

‘Yes?’

‘People think this is an empty house.’

‘What people?’

‘Locals. You know how gossip spreads. Crouch End might be in London, N8, but it’s a small place considering. People talk.’

‘Well they can talk until they’re bloomin’ blue in the face. I’ve nothing to hide.’

‘No, but…there was…a…mur…mugging. And what with the Creeper being on the prowl.’

‘Creeper Sneeper,’ she says sniffily. ‘He can go sling his hook. I’m home now. Home for good.’

‘But he might not know you are.’

‘I’ll switch the lights off and on a few times, then he will.’

‘Oh burglars don’t get put off by that these days. Loads of people have their lights attached to new-fangled timer systems when they go on holiday. No, the Neighbourhood Watch will need to get involved, take it in turns to sit with you.’

‘I’m not having a bunch of strangers sitting round my house.’

‘Then you’ll have to stay with your daughter for a little while.’

‘I’m not going there. I’m never going there,’ Mrs Baker says stubbornly.

‘Then back to the respite care centre?’

‘No fear.’

‘But you have to.’

‘Why do I have to?’

‘Just between you and me… Look there’s something very important I’ve got to say…’ I pause as I think how to put it. ‘I’m afraid I’ve lied to you. I…’

She puts a vertical finger to her lips again and beckons me outside to the garden. We sit down at her patio table and she immediately runs her fingers along the bottom, as if sweeping for bugs. No wait,
she is
sweeping for bugs.

‘All right then, what is it?’ she says finally when she’s finished. ‘Fess up.’

I gulp. ‘I did this stupid thing. I told people you were out in the hope that we might catch the Creeper. I used your home as a decoy house.’

‘Oh.’

‘It was very irresponsible, I know, but…well the Neighbourhood Watch were all on high alert and you were away safe, we thought. We had numbers to hand, police, emergency services. We had walkie-talkies.’ I pull mine out of my pocket to show her. Janet borrowed them from her brother who uses them to climb mountains. ‘And we had the spycam. There was no way we were going to put your chattels in danger. I promise. And we never for a minute suspected the Creeper was violent. And now…I’m so sorry, Mrs Baker.’

‘Sorry. Why?’

‘Because this evening, someone wasn’t just mugged, they were murdered. The Creeper’s got blood on his hands and he’s…er…tasted blood…and he may come looking for…er…more.’ I try and bug my eyes like Isobel. ‘So you see you need to go to a safe place. And fast. Somewhere until it all blows over. The police will be bound to treat it more urgently now.’

‘But I want to help. Maybe I can do something?’

‘No, no, no.’ I waggle my finger. ‘You can’t. You really can’t. It’s far too dangerous. Possessions are one thing, lives are another.’

‘Look, girly, don’t ever tell me I can’t do something. I’m an old woman maybe but I’m a stubborn old woman, and if I say I want to help, I want to help. HEAR ME!’

‘Yes, yes of course I hear you.’ She shouted in my ear after all. I shake my lobe to rid myself of her voice that’s still resounding.

‘I’m staying here whether you like it or not. Now give me the full rundown.’

So over a cup of tea we go through everything and I tell her a little more about the vet. ‘I only found out tonight. I rang my friend Henrietta just now and apparently she was discovered at the foot of the stairs. There was a window broken and it looked like the house had been ransacked.’

‘What was she like?’

‘Nice, in a morose, bleak, kind of way. And she had this clasp.’ I remove my glove and show it to her. ‘I’m going to hand it to the police as soon as I can get it off. It’s stuck.’

‘Have you tried soap?’

‘And everything else.’

She puts on her spectacles and scrutinises it. ‘You know I think I’ve seen it before.’

‘You have? Where?’

‘Umm…’ She stares into space a moment. ‘Give me a little time and I’ll come back to you on it. Maybe in the morning. Pop round first thing. Sometimes these things come to me when I dream.’

***

Three-thirty a.m. and I’ve been trying to sleep for the past four hours. It’s impossible, too many things mulling round my brain. OK, the vet wasn’t the nicest, most fun-loving, generous person you could wish to meet but hey we all have faults, and she didn’t deserve to die because of them. She must have had a love for animals somewhere down the line to want to be a vet and you know being morose, miserable and mean, isn’t exactly a crime. As opposed to murder, which is very much so. As for her love of the men, maybe it was Hank or rather Henry that was lying like she said. Maybe he wasn’t from Belchertown, Massachusetts – in which case impersonating an American, well that’s a bit weird isn’t it? Perhaps, I shudder and turn over for the umpteenth time, it wasn’t the Creeper who killed the vet, perhaps it was Hank/Henry taking revenge. But then again, if it was her that was lying, maybe it was one of her multitude of lovers, and then Hank/Henry would be in the clear.

On the other hand, it could have been the Creeper as police thought. I mean they know things, don’t they. Things they keep from the public. But even so, why would he go back? Why change his modus operandi? Or was this a new modus operandi and was he now intending to revisit each of his burglar victims and murder the lot of them?

Have I made a terrible mistake?

Have I accidently thrown Mrs Baker in the path of someone who’s intent on becoming a serial killer?

***

Next morning, at Mrs Baker’s again, I tap in Henrietta’s number.

‘Sorry to call you at work,’ I apologise. ‘Can you talk?’

‘Yes, but be quick. What happened with Mrs Baker? Has she left yet?’

So I tell her about my late night visit and her refusing to move.

‘But she’s got to. She’s in grave danger. You put the word out.’

‘
I
put the word out? You mean
we all
put the word out. It wasn’t
just me
.’

You know sometimes, when I’m going through awkward stages with Rosa, I think Henrietta could almost stand in as first best friend. Not today.

‘Well, whatever. She can’t stay there, not with a murderer on the loose.’

‘I know but I can’t physically make her go. Can’t stick her under my arm and run off with her.’

‘Actually you probably could. Old dears always have a lot of bone loss. She’d more than likely only weigh the same as a small child.’

‘Ha, ha. Very funny.’

‘No, but it’s not. Have you been listening to the radio reports? The vet fell all the way down her uncarpeted stairs, top to bottom and cracked her head open. There was blood everywhere.’

‘They don’t say for certain there’s a link with the Creeper, do they?’

‘Legal reasons probably, but I wish they did because it’d prove that Neil couldn’t have done it. Murderers always leave DNA evidence. Always.’

‘And Neil, he’s got an alibi for last night, right?’ I say hopefully.

‘Actually not for the night she died. He’s still going on walkabouts. Poor woman, though, eh. She was your vet, wasn’t she?’

‘Yeah, I only saw her the other day.’

‘Really? Tic-Tac been ill again?’

‘No…er, yes…’ I cringe.

‘You must know if your cat was ill or not?’ She sounds sceptical.

‘He was a bit ill.’ I can’t tell her I was checking out if it was Neil’s clasp, it would imply I thought it might be Neil’s, which would in turn imply that I thought he could possibly be a burglar…or even a murderer. ‘He swallowed something and it got stuck in his throat.’

‘Again? But didn’t that happen just a little while ago? Coincidence, eh?’

‘No, it’s his throat, it’s shrinking, because of his age. He’s nineteen, you know.’

Chapter 30

Thursday, just after noon, and I’ve been staking out Mrs Baker’s place for three days now waiting for the burglar – or should I say now murderer – to show his evil face. Funny thing, but the more I spend time alone with Mrs Baker, the less I think she could possibly have Alzheimer’s or any disease of the brain like Eleanor’s always making out. Her longterm memory seems perfectly fine and I’ve tested her on her short-term faculties by asking questions, such as,‘How many cups of tea did we drink yesterday?’ and ‘What sort of biscuits did we just eat for our elevenses’ and every time she’s spot on.

Over these long hours together I’ve heard all about her youthful exploits working for a group called the SOE, how she was parachuted into France during the Second World War and had to drive around on a rickety old bicycle, how she’d disguise herself as a young village boy in order to avoid the Gestapo and in turn I’ve told her about my grandfather, the major, who travelled halfway round the world during the war years and a short while after – India, Tokyo, Singapore. Then she spoke some French, she’s apparently fluent, although I can’t be a hundred percent certain of that either as I’m not too au fait with the language, but it sounded OK, monsieurs and mesdames thrown in, followed by plenty of guttural sounds and a couple of spits over her left shoulder when she feels especially strong about a subject.

I’ve been keeping to the hours I did before I was suspended. I leave the house eight-thirty in the morning dressed up, full make-up. Head down our front path as usual, turn left as usual, check I’m not being watched, then swiftly turn left again down Mrs Baker’s front path, nip to her back door where there’s a hidden key under the flowerpot and let myself in. There I stay until about five-thirty p.m. when I reverse everything and go home.

‘I’ve put your tea on the mantelpiece, dearie,’ Mrs Baker calls out from the kitchen. ‘And a piece of fruit cake.’

‘Oh, thanks.’ I glance out of her porch window. ‘Just stick it in the lounge. I’ll be inin a minute.’

All these endless hours of waiting and we’ve not heard one dicky bird from the Creeper. Maybe he’s given up. Did his murder, decided he’d gone too far and turned over a new leaf. Maybe he knows this is all a ruse. Maybe he keeps seeing me twitching the curtains. I let go of them and make my way down the hallway. Or maybe he’s been jailed for another crime like Brian the Broom. Maybe…The bell rings. I check first through the viewfinder that it’s not Declan and my face fills with dismay. Not that it’s not Declan, but that it’s Eleanor.

‘Oh, hello there.’ I greet her with a friendly smile.

She returns a stony look.

‘Who is it, Cathy?’ Mrs Baker calls from the living room.

‘Me, Mother.’ Eleanor storms in leaving me standing. I quickly follow her and am almost at the living room door when it crashes closed. I guess she’s trying to tell me she wants a private word.

I wait outside. The sound of raised voices permeate through the house. Eleanor’s are sharp, her mother’s defiant.

‘I am not going back to that dump!’ I hear Mrs Baker senior yell at one point. ‘And you can’t
make
me!’

Ten minutes later, Eleanor emerges and catches me sitting on the stairs. ‘Stubborn, stubborn, stubborn!’ she spits. ‘Oh you might have so much in common with your grandfather and my mother’s war efforts, but you’re not getting her money.’

And with that she marches out, leaving me rather perplexed and a lot puzzled, but I don’t quite know why.