and handed it to him.
‘Listen, Mr Dewar,’ I said, ‘I think we should grab a coffee. There’s a place around the corner.’
We got some odd looks as we walked into the cafe. The harsh neon ceiling lights threw up the oily smears on Dewar’s coat and the angry swelling on his temple where I’d bopped him. We took a table in the corner and a glum, meagre, middle-aged waitress took our order for two frothy coffees as if it had been a personal insult.
‘Okay, here’s why your wife had my card…’ I explained all about my work for Joe Connelly and the union and his concern for Frank Lang’s welfare. I gave him all the main points of what I’d discussed with his wife, but, given that he’d recently taken a swing at me for stealing some of his apples, I missed out the part where Sylvia had offered me the whole fruit bowl. I ran through what she had told me about Lang going away with the men in the fancy car.
‘She never said anything about that to me,’ he said. ‘And I’ve never seen any fancy cars outside. All I know is he’s not been back to the house for a week or more.’
‘Do you believe me?’ I asked. ‘I promise you that I haven’t seen your wife before or since and our meeting was strictly business.’
Dewar stared at me. He knew I was telling the truth, but there was desperation in his eyes, almost as if that believing it had been me, that being able to put a face to his wife’s secret lover, made it easier somehow.
Eventually, he shook his big, baby head glumly. ‘But there is somebody. I know it. I even thought it could have been Frank next door but he’s hardly ever there.’
‘Quite,’ I said, but thought about how his wife had known what Lang kept in his kitchen cupboards. I had recognized something in Sylvia Dewar, something I had seen in many of the women I had known. The type of women I had known. My guess was that Dewar was making a mistake in looking for one offender. Given the fact that I had nearly become one of them, there had probably been more than one notch on Sylvia Dewar’s bedpost. I looked at Dewar, slumped at the table, the spirit leaving him just as the fight had. Despite the fact that he had just tried to take my head off, I felt sorry for him.
‘Sylvia… you see, Sylvia isn’t the kind of woman that goes for someone like me,’ he said, desperation in his voice. ‘I couldn’t believe it when she went out with me and then said she would marry me. But I make a good wage and I give her a good life. I like to buy her things. She likes me buying things for her.’
‘Mr Dewar…’ I said as soothingly as I could manage. I was not good with other people’s unhappiness. ‘You don’t have to — ’
‘I’m sorry about today. But I’m going out of my mind with this. I suspect everybody and when I found your card…’
‘Forget it.’ I waved a dismissive hand. ‘I understand. You don’t need to explain. Let’s just forget about it.’
‘But your card…’ he was almost pleading. ‘It says you’re an Inquiry Agent. Is that like a private detective? Do you handle marriage cases?’
‘It is and I do,’ I said. ‘But before you ask, I can’t get involved. I’ve met your wife in another context and that rules me out of handling a divorce case involving her.’ I didn’t mention that the real reason I couldn’t get involved was because she had invited me to test out their marital bedsprings. Which could make things complicated.
‘I don’t want a divorce. I just want to find out who she’s messing about with. Will you take the case? I can pay…’ He was raising his voice in desperation, attracting more glances, including from the waitress who’d clearly gone to the same charm school as Mussolini.
‘I can’t, Mr Dewar.’ I sighed. ‘Listen, give yourself a few days to calm down, then call me.’ I handed him a business card. ‘You best put the other card back in your wife’s purse, just in case she looks for it. I asked her to get in touch if Frank Lang comes back home.’
We sat over our coffees for a while and I asked him what he knew about his missing neighbour.
‘Not a lot,’ he said. ‘Frank keeps himself to himself. Always friendly though.’
‘But?’ I said, reading something in his expression.
‘Nothing really. Just he seems a bit of a misfit. Not odd, exactly, but he’s… I don’t know… just a bit different.’
‘In what way different?’
‘Just not your typical union man, I suppose.’ There was frustration in Dewar’s shrug: we were not talking about what he wanted to talk about, all he wanted to talk about. His wife’s suspected infidelity was filling his mental universe.
‘I guess he’s never left a key with you, in case he was away like he is now?’
‘No. Like I said, he keeps his business to himself.’
‘I may have to ask you and your wife more questions,’ I said. ‘But, under the circumstances, it would probably be best if I did that when you were both at home.’
He nodded. ‘You will think about what I asked you? About maybe just keeping an eye on Sylvia to see what she’s playing at?’
‘I will,’ I said. ‘But at the moment it’s a definite no-can-do. Even without the complication of your wife knowing who I am, I’ve already got two cases running at the moment.’
After a while, we ran out of things to say and we left the cafe. As he took his leave of me, Dewar apologized again for trying to jump me in the alley.
‘We all make mistakes,’ I said. ‘God knows, I’ve made more than my share.’
‘You don’t know what it’s like,’ he said, the too-large eyes cast down. ‘You don’t know what it’s like to think you have something special, something good, with a woman, only to find out it’s all a sham.’
‘Don’t I?’ I asked. ‘I wouldn’t be too sure about that… ’
CHAPTER NINE
Fiona didn’t come up to my room that Thursday afternoon as we had arranged and when I knocked on her door there was no answer; no sounds from inside her flat. As I stood at her door, I became aware of the emptiness of the house. Its quiet. I could hear the traffic on Great Western Road, the playground sounds of children streets away, the shuddering clang of a mechanical digger against tarmac somewhere less distant, but these were all the wall- and window-muffled sounds from a remote universe. The house around me was still and empty, and there was something about that stillness that gave me a bad feeling that I couldn’t explain.
I didn’t wait. Somehow I knew she would not be back that afternoon. Instead I went back out to the car and headed back into the city centre.
Archie was out and the office was locked up, but I found Pamela Ellis waiting for me. Eagerly. It was an adverb I would never have attached to her, but it seemed to fit with her itchy impatience when we caught sight of each other as I climbed the stairs to my office.
‘Ah, Mr Lennox,’ she smiled. Eagerly. ‘I hoped I would catch you. I thought you maybe wouldn’t be back and I was about to leave you a note.’
‘Normally I wouldn’t be back on a Thursday afternoon, Mrs Ellis, you’re lucky you caught me. My appointment was… cancelled.’ It was one way of putting it, I suppose. ‘Please…’ I unlocked the office door and held it open for her.
She sat down in front of my desk while I hung up my coat. Her handbag sat flat on her lap, her gloved fingers interlaced on top of it. The shoulders beneath the raincoat were tense, the stare straight ahead; no relaxation in her pose. She had the demeanour of someone prepared to carry out a rehearsed task or deliver a prepared speech.
She delivered her speech.
‘This is all very awkward and more than a little embarrassing for me, Mr Lennox, but I’m here to tell you that I won’t be requiring your services from today. Everything has been sorted out. It was all a huge misunderstanding, just like you said it could be. I’m sorry to have wasted your time.’
‘No need to apologize, Mrs Ellis. My time is your money, I’m afraid, so that’s what has been wasted. I’m just happy that everything seems to have been resolved amicably.’
‘Thank you Mr Lennox. I really appreciate everything you’ve done. I wonder if I could settle my account with
