disagree.
‘But I had to talk to someone professionally,’ Andover went on. ‘I don’t mean a shrink. Someone who’d take what I said seriously, and maybe investigate, not just prescribe a lot of pills … but it had to be someone truly sympathetic …’
‘Like a primitive, you mean?’ said Joe, recalling their first exchange.
‘Look, I didn’t mean anything. I’m not racist. I married into an Italian family, for God’s sake! It’s just you once did some work for our Claims people and I remembered what they said about you …’
It had been a last-minute job. A negligence case against a private clinic by a man who’d ended up in a wheelchair after a simple cosmetic operation had left Falcon facing a million pound payout. Suspecting, or at least hoping for fraud, they had decided to keep a close watch on the patient. Then the claims investigator concerned had fallen off a ladder and, needing a replacement in a hurry, Falcon had hired Joe. He, however, between the briefing and his office, had contrived to lose the file.
Reluctant to admit his incompetence, he had managed to recall not the patient’s details, but the name and address of the doctor who’d performed the operation. Thinking to bluff the other essential details out of her, he’d called at her house in the Bedfordshire countryside. When there was no reply to his knock, he’d wandered round the back in case she was in the garden and found that indeed she was, being humped in a hammock by a large red-headed man, whose temper proved as fiery as his hair. Joe had fled to his car, literally falling in, and the first thing he saw from his worm’s eye view was the lost file under the seat. There was a photo of the suspect patient pinned to it. He was a large man with red hair.
It had been a nice scam. The lady doctor had made the right incisions, coached the guy in his responses, fixed him up with drugs to help fool the insurance experts, and told her sympathetic colleagues that it had all been too much for her and she was emigrating to Australia to start afresh.
‘So I came recommended,’ said Joe.
‘Sort of,’ said Andover. ‘Some people said you were just lucky. But one or two reckoned there had to be something else, something intuitive, a kind of natural instinct that made you head straight for the doctor. I mean, no one else would have dreamt of suspecting her, not in a million years. So when I got to wondering who I could talk to about investigating dreams, not any Freudian crap, but the sort of dreaming which was like a real world you could move in, maybe manipulate, all I could come up with was you.’
He spoke with a resigned bitterness which wasn’t very complimentary, but Joe was not about to be offended. In fact he was starting to feel rather sorry for the guy, which wasn’t all that clever, seeing that there was no honest way to make a client out of him, even if sight of Joe hadn’t put him off the idea.
‘Mr Andover, I’m sorry, I’m strictly a wideawake PI. Could be what you really need is a travel agent, take a nice holiday. Now if you don’t mind I’m closing shop, time to head home for my tea …’
‘Yes, of course. I’m sorry, I’ve been foolish. It was just that I nodded off after lunch today and I had the dream with such intensity, I had to do something … Where on earth is Carlo?’
‘Perhaps he’s having trouble parking?’ suggested Joe.
‘Not Carlo. He still drives and parks like he was in Rome. He’d be right out there in the street if he was coming. Mind if I call my office?’
He picked up the phone and dialled without waiting for an answer.
‘Debbie? Hello. It’s me. My brother-in-law been in yet? Thank you.’
‘Damn the man,’ he said putting the phone down. ‘I can’t afford to be late tonight. Gina and I are going to the theatre …’ He looked at Joe speculatively. ‘You wouldn’t happen to be going my way, Sixsmith?’
Joe sighed. He was, vaguely, in so far as the concrete blockhouses of the Rasselas Estate were within mortar-bombing distance of the mock-Tudor villas of Coningsby Rise.
‘Come on,’ he said.
The old Morris Oxford had a few rattles and squeaks, but none of them to do with the engine. An aptitude for crosswords Joe might not have, but when it came to machinery, he could make an engine purr like Whitey in anticipation of a fish supper.
Casa Mia was impressive, even in an area that reeked of Gold Cards and overdrafts. Maybe it was the bold decision to abandon the traditional black and white half-timbering and go for scarlet and gold that made it stand out. Must be money in the insurance game, thought Joe. Though not enough left over to spend on a decent tailor?
‘There’s room to turn at the top of the drive,’ said Andover.
Joe drove in. No sign of any other car, so presumably Carlo Rocca had set out to pick up his brother-in-law. Tough.
Andover got out by the classically porticoed porch which looked like it had been recently stuck on to the studded oak front door.
‘Like a drink?’ he said.
‘No, thanks,’ said Joe firmly.
‘OK. Thanks for the lift. ’Bye.’
Andover went inside. Joe carefully negotiated the ornamental cherry which marked the hub of the turning circle in the gravelled drive.
Ahead was the gateway. Behind, he hoped forever, was Mr Andover and his crazy dreams. He noticed that someone had recently done a racing start here, scattering gravel all over the elegant lawn.
‘Mr Sixsmith!’
He heard his name screamed. In the mirror he saw Andover rush out of the house, waving his arms and staggering like a closing time drunk.
It felt like it might be a good time to follow the example laid out before him and burn rubber.
Instead he stopped, said to Whitey who’d reclaimed the passenger seat reluctantly given up to Andover, ‘You stay still,’ and got out.
Andover was leaning against the cherry tree, his face so pale his freckles stood out like raisins in bread dough.
‘Inside,’ he gasped, then, as if in visual aid, he was violently sick.
Joe went towards the house, not hurrying. He had little doubt what he was going to find and it wasn’t something you hurried to. Also he felt his limbs were moving with the strange slow floating action of a man in a dream. Someone else’s dream.
The front door opened into a panelled vestibule, tailor made for sporting prints and an elephant-foot umbrella stand.
Instead, the walls were lined with photos of bright Mediterranean scenes framed in white plastic, and the only thing on the floor was a woman’s body. Her throat had been slit, more than slit, almost severed, and the handle of the fatal knife still protruded from the gaping wound.
There were open doors to the left and the right. The one on the left led into a kitchen. On the floor were strewn the shards of a china teapot in a broad pool of pale amber tea.
Gingerly Joe stepped over the body so he could see through the doorway on the right. It led into a lounge, and he was glad his sense of professional procedure gave him a reason for not crossing the threshold.
There were three more bodies here, an elderly couple and a youngish woman. The couple were slumped against each other on a garishly upholstered sofa. The woman lay on her side by a low table on which stood four cups and saucers, and a half-eaten Victoria sponge.
All three had had their throats cut.
Sixsmith turned back to the hallway. By the main door was a wall phone, with a fixed mouthpiece and separate earphone, like the ones reporters use in the old American movies. Carefully cloaking his fingers with his handkerchief (something else he’d seen in the movies), Joe dialled the police.
‘DS Chivers, please.’
‘Sorry, the Sergeant’s out on