thinks it’s all wrapped up, thought Joe. And so it probably is. Witnesses, motive, and a suspect with an Italian accent and a Mafia moustache driving round in a car whose number will be plastered across the nation’s telly screens tonight.
Woodbine ordered the vehicles blocking his exit out of the way and personally waved him out. Joe almost blew a kiss at Chivers but didn’t quite have the nerve.
‘There you are, Whitey,’ he said as he drove home. ‘There’s no accounting for tastes. Even cops can love cats.’
But Whitey was unimpressed. A deepdown racist, he regarded Persians and all foreign breeds as illegal immigrants, sneaking over here to take English mice out of English mouths. So now he merely sneered and yelled even louder for his tea.
Whenever Joe Sixsmith felt the sharp elbows of Anglo-Saxon attitudes digging in his ribs, he reminded himself that these people had invented the fried breakfast.
He liked the fried breakfast. He liked it so much he often had it for tea too. And sometimes for his dinner.
He’d been warned that addiction to the fried breakfast could kill him.
‘There are worse things to die of,’ said Joe.
Whitey enjoyed the fried breakfast too, which was just as well.
‘No fads and fancies here, man,’ Joe had warned him on first acquaintance. ‘You’ve joined the only true democratic household in Luton. We eat the same, drink the same.’ Which principle was sorely tested the first time Whitey caught a mouse and pushed it invitingly towards him.
They shared half a pound of streaky bacon, three eggs, two tomatoes and a handful of button mushrooms when they got back from Casa Mia. Then they split a pint of hot sweet tea sixty-forty and Joe settled before his twenty-six-inch telly to let the early evening news scrape the last traces of the day’s horror from his personal plate into the public trough.
In fact there wasn’t all that much about it. The politician and pony scandal still got main billing, and a crash landing on the A 505 came second. It was only a light plane and there were no fatalities, but a woman trying out her new camcorder had caught the whole drama in wobbly close-up and the resultant images must have been irresistible to the picture-popping TV mind.
If there’d been a camera to record what Joe Sixsmith had seen, he didn’t doubt that the Casa Mia killings would have been top of the pops, but they had to make do with exteriors and a close-up of Willy Woodbine confidently anticipating an early arrest and inviting viewers to look out for, but steer clear of, Carlo Rocca, who could help the police with their inquiries.
There was a photo of Rocca which looked like a fuzzy enlargement from a wedding group. Joe doubted if it would be all that much use except to anyone with a grudge against some fellow with a prominent moustache.
‘Now, sport,’ said the presenter. ‘Luton have made a late change in the team for their key league match tonight …’
Sixsmith sighed and felt his season ticket burning in his wallet. Trust the Major to call a residents’ meeting on a night when Luton were playing at home. That’s what came of being brought up on rugger and polo. Thoughts of truancy drifted through his mind, then drifted out. The Major he could avoid, but not Auntie Mirabelle.
Still he had time for forty winks before he needed to think about going …
He relaxed in his chair, closed his eyes … and was back in Andover’s dream. At least he tried to make himself think of it as Andover’s dream (which meant he knew he was dreaming), only it had his own little variation of the corpses raising their hands to their mouths and screaming … no, not screaming … this time they were making an insistent bell-ringing noise … ah, now they were screaming …
He awoke to find Whitey bellowing in his ear that the phone was ringing and wasn’t he going to answer it?
He yawned and reached for the receiver.
‘Hello,’ he said.
‘Joe, that you?’ demanded the unmistakable voice of his Aunt Mirabelle.
‘No, Auntie, it’s a burglar,’ said Sixsmith.
‘It wouldn’t surprise me. You play with pitch, you going to get defiled, doesn’t the Good Book tell us so?’
‘Yes, Auntie. And you’ve rung to tell me not to forget I’m due at the Residents’ Action meeting, right?’
‘You so clever, how come you can’t get a proper job?’ she said briskly. ‘The Major says, make sure that nephew of yours shows up on parade. People are starting to think they can’t rely on you, Joe, and that’s bad.’
‘People?’
‘Yes, people. The Rev. Pot just the same. He says: Is that Joe singing in my choir or is he not? This is no public house singalong we’re trying to do, this is Haydn’s Creation. That took the Lord seven days, how many days you think it’s going to take you?’
‘I’ll come to choir practice tomorrow, I promise, Auntie. And I’ll be at the meeting tonight.’
‘See that you are. I got someone I want you to meet.’
Joe groaned inwardly, said, ‘Goodbye, Auntie,’ put the phone down, and groaned outwardly. He loved his aunt dearly but her efforts to direct his life were a trial, particularly since she’d decided that what he needed to get his head right and drop this detective nonsense was the responsibility of marriage. A steam of candidates had been channelled his way, most of them extremely homely and slightly middle-aged. Mirabelle would sing Joe’s praises to anyone, but even a loving aunt reckons a short, balding, unemployed nephew in his late thirties can’t be choosey. The odd ones who were comparatively young and attractive always turned out to have some hidden disadvantage, like a string of kids or convictions for violence.
‘Whitey, you look after the place. Anyone tries to get in, you bark like a dog.’
The cat looked suitably disgusted by the suggestion and snuggled into the cushion made warm by Joe’s behind.
Sixsmith envied him as he stepped out into the shadowy canyons of the estate, specially constructed so that where’er you walked, cool gales fanned your butt. With designs like this, who needed nuclear energy? The meeting was in the community room in one of the newer blocks about half a mile away. Normally he would have walked, but there was rain in the wind so he made for his car.
There were no purpose-built garages at this end of the estate. Back in the ’sixties you weren’t expected to own a car if you lived here. There were a dozen lock-ups available in Lykers Yard, a relict of the old nineteenth-century settlement, most of which had been demolished to make way for the high rises. But these were privately owned and let out at rates almost equalling what the council asked for its flats. Joe valued his old Morris, but not that much. It was not a model greatly in demand by joyriders, so, theorizing that crooks didn’t like a dead end, he usually left it parked on Lykers Lane facing into the exitless yard. So far it had survived unscathed.
On arrival at the community room, he hung around outside till he heard the Major’s unmistakable voice calling the meeting to order. Then he slipped in quietly, hoping thus to avoid the threat of Auntie Mirabelle’s latest introduction. But there was no escape. Seventy-five she might be, overweight and somewhat rheumatic, but she had an eye like a hawk, and she patted a vacant seat next to her with an authority that would have intimidated a cat.
On her other side was a woman Joe didn’t recognize, presumably Mirabelle’s latest candidate. He studied her out of the corner of his eye. She looked to be in her late twenties and had a strong, handsome face, which meant she was either a single parent or a psychopath. Suddenly, as if attracted by his appraisal, she glanced towards him and smiled. Flushing, he turned away and concentrated his attention on the Major