one-time fitter at Robco Engineering till the same collapse which sent Joe down the road had dumped him too. He’d put his redundancy money into a cab and he and Joe had a vague deal—‘Any of my customers need a PI, I’ll pass them on to you, any of yours need a cab, you pass them on to me.’ It didn’t occur to Joe that Golightly’s presence here tonight might have something to do with this so far unproductive arrangement.
‘Merv,’ he said. ‘How are you doing? This is some lousy weather.’
‘Joe Sixsmith,’ yelled Golightly, slapping his hand with so much force he almost knocked Joe back out into the wet. ‘Now this is fortunate. Lady, this is the man I was telling you about. Luton’s answer to Sam Spade and Miss Marple all in one. Joe, I’m dropping a punter at the airport when I spot this lady and her family standing all forlorn, so I ask her, what’s up, lady? And she tells me they won’t let her husband into this great free country of ours, did you ever hear such a thing? Her and the kids they let through, but her husband they hold on to. What’s she supposed to do? She says she needs a lawyer, but where do you get a lawyer in Luton this time of night? You can get laid, you can even get a plumber if you’re a millionaire, but a lawyer, no way. Then it hits me, if you can’t get a lawyer, next best thing is my friend Joe Sixsmith. So here she is. Name’s Bannerjee, do what you can, huh?’
‘Merv, I don’t see what—’
‘You’ll think of something. I’m out of here. Regular pick-up over in Hermsprong. Exotic dancer, if she’s not shaking her stuff in Genghis Khan’s in forty minutes, she’ll uncouple my tackle. Ciao, bambino!’
He gave the Indian family a smile like a neon sign, waved aside the woman’s attempt to open her purse, and folded himself dexterously into his cab.
‘Merv, wait!’ yelled Joe. ‘We need to talk!’
‘We’ll sort out my commission later, Joe,’ yelled Merv. ‘See you!’
He gunned his engine and shot away in a screech of spray.
It was time to be firm, decided Sixsmith. He felt sorry for this woman, transported from her Third World rural environment to this cold unwelcoming country, but she had to understand from the start that there was nothing he could do for her except point her to the right authorities.
He said, ‘Mrs Bannerjee, I’m sorry. My friend has made a mistake. I don’t do immigration work. I’m a private detective. What you want is the Immigrant Advice Centre …’
She was looking at him like he was raving mad.
‘What is all this about immigrants?’ she demanded angrily. ‘I have been living in Birmingham for fifteen years. My children are all born here. I have a National Insurance number, and a job as part-time receptionist at the Sheldon Airlodge Hotel.’
‘Oh shoot,’ said Joe. He’d made the same kind of bonehead assumption that so irritated him when people made it about him. This was clearly his night for guilt.
He said, ‘I’m sorry, I thought when Merv mentioned the airport …’
‘We are coming back from holiday, ten days in Marbella, three star hotel. We arrive at Luton, very good flight, only ninety minutes late, and as we go through Customs green light, a man says, will you come this way, please? And he takes us to a little room … please, is there somewhere we could sit down? This has been a very tiring day.’
Joe didn’t know if it was written somewhere, never let a woman with two kids and a suitcase into your home, but he guessed it was, probably in the Dead Sea Scrolls or on a pyramid. Maybe it went on to give advice on how to keep them out, but not having the benefit of a classical education he lacked the art. And the heart.
He picked up the suitcase. It was very heavy.
‘You’d better come on up,’ he said.
Whitey was still stretched out on the armchair. He kept his eyes closed but Joe knew he was watching. Mrs Bannerjee sank with a sigh of relief on to the sofa. The infant still slept in her arms and the little boy clung on to his bull with one hand and his mother’s sari with the other while his huge brown eyes took in the mysteries of this new place.
Joe didn’t disturb the cat. Standing was fine. He didn’t want this to get too cosy.
‘So what happened next, Mrs Bannerjee?’ he asked.
She said, ‘They took my husband away somewhere else, also our luggage. After a while a lady comes with a cup of tea and orange juice for the children. She asks a lot of questions about our holiday, where we have gone, who we have seen. I ask her, where is Soumitra, my husband? And she replies that he will be with me soon, and goes on asking questions. Then she leaves us alone. After a long time she comes back with my suitcase and tells me I can go with the children but Soumitra must stay. I ask why and she says to help with inquiries. I try to argue but she leads me outside. I do not know what to do. I think perhaps I will phone Mr Herringshaw, my husband’s employer in Birmingham, but I do not have his number and besides, it is very late to be disturbing such a man. Our car is in the car park but I have no key and I cannot drive. I think maybe I will take a taxi home but I do not have enough money for such a journey and in any case I do not want to go far in case they let Soumitra go. So I stand there undecided and though I try to be strong, I find that I am crying … Then your friend comes up to me …’
Good old Merv. He hated people being miserable. He’d been worth twice what he got paid at Robco just because of the job he did for shop floor morale.
‘Amal, be careful,’ said Mrs Bannerjee.
Her young son had gained sufficient confidence to detach himself from his mother’s side and kneel in front of the armchair to examine Whitey, who returned the compliment assessingly. The boy’s hand went out and touched the cat on the stomach. Joe held his breath. Whitey would claw Mother Teresa if he didn’t take to her. But now he stretched luxuriously, offering the whole range of his undercarriage to the child’s caress and began to purr like a hive of bees.
‘It’s OK,’ said Joe. ‘Look, Mrs Bannerjee. My friend Merv was right in one respect. What you need is help from the law, not my kind of law, but a real lawyer. I may be able to get someone. There’s this lady solicitor I know who works at the Bullpat Square Law Centre. If we can get her interested she’s very good. But it would help if we had some idea why they’re holding your husband …’
‘Why do you need to ask?’ she demanded scornfully. ‘Is it not obvious? They think he is smuggling something into the country.’
Sixsmith didn’t care for the scorn and in any case it wasn’t all that obvious. If they’d picked up Bannerjee on suspicion of smuggling, why on earth had they turned his wife loose without a much more thorough investigation of her possible complicity?
One reason suggested itself uncomfortably. They might have felt it worthwhile letting her loose and following her to see who she made contact with …
He went to the sliding window which opened on to a tiny balcony crowded with pot plants. Stepping carefully between them, he peered over the rail into the street below. Six storeys down he saw three police cars, sirens muted but with their roof lights still gently pulsating. A little further along was Mervyn Golightly’s taxi with Merv leaning against it, protesting loudly as a constable ran his hands up his legs.
‘Oh shoot!’ said Joe Sixsmith.
The doorbell rang.
He moved quick. He knew the Law’s way with a door when they wanted quick access. A short ring in lip service to legality, then …
Fortunately he hadn’t put the chain on. He seized the handle, turned it and pulled. The burly constable swinging the sledgehammer didn’t have time to change his mind. The weight of the hammer carried him into the flat and across the room and out of the open window on to