'Something wrong with them, Joe?' she said suspiciously. 'Come on, I'm a country girl, I can smell bullshit two fields away.'
'Well, not really, just a bit of bother with the spelling,' he said.
'You mean Dorrie? You mean Merv didn't double check? I told him to make sure she'd got it absolutely clear in her mind! It's not her fault but she sometimes gets things jumbled, especially names. What did she put?'
Joe told her. She kept her face sympathetic long enough to check that he wasn't particularly put out, then she burst out laughing.
'Joe Sexwith! Mebbe you should have let it run, Joe, see what it brought you in! I'm sorry, but it is funny. But it's also a nuisance. I'll be talking to that Merv, never you fear! Some favour.'
'Well, it didn't do him much good either,' said Joe defensively.
'No? How was that?'
Oh shoot, thought Joe. Me and my big mouth.
But now he had to tell her about the telephone number.
She seemed to think it was poetic justice and Joe tried to extend the light-hearted moment by adding, 'Yeah, and the really funny thing was, the number that did get printed turned out to be the ex-directory number of a lawyer who's probably going to be getting calls asking for a taxi for evermore!'
He saw at once he'd hit stoney ground.
'A lawyer?' said Molly, all smiles fled. 'You sure of that, Joe? How do you know that?'
'I rang the number,' said Joe. 'By coincidence it was a guy I happened to know. Or know about, anyway.'
No reason to go into the complicated and messy details. But Molly wasn't satisfied.
'What's his name?' she demanded.
'Look,' he said. 'Don't think I can tell you that. Not without knowing why you're so interested.'
'His first name is all I need,' she insisted. 'That can't harm anything, can it?'
Joe couldn't see how it could, so he said, 'It's Felix,' and even before her gaze moved from him to the little girl playing on the hall floor, he had made the connection. Feelie, short for Felicia. Naysmith, the legal Lothario; Mrs. Mattison's reaction when he'd asked if she remembered Dorrie McShane from Freeman's; the irritated message on Naysmith's answer machine Your stationery order is ready for collection in a week when Freeman's was closed down for the holiday. That was what had been niggling at the back of his mind when he met the McShanes in Daph's Diner. Funny how inside a head which couldn't by any stretch be called big, the distance from the back of his mind to the front could sometimes be a trans-Siberian trek!
Inside the flat a phone rang.
Molly said, 'Excuse me. Keep an eye on Feelie, would you?'
He squatted on the floor and took the leaflets the little girl handed him.
Felicia. Named by Dorrie after her lover. Who next time he got someone pregnant had married her. That must've been a slap in the face.
Up till then, Dorrie had probably convinced herself she was a modern liberated woman, able to take care of her own kid, though seeing no reason why her lover shouldn't shoulder his share of responsibility by paying for a nice flat and using his influence at Freeman's to get her a promotion. She might even have got her head round things if Naysmith had been married when first they met. But for him to get married after the event... The guy must have done some real sweet talking to keep her quiet. But left alone at Christmas, thinking of him and his wife, that had been too much, provoking the irritated message with its implied threat. See me, or else.
And the telephone number ... genuine error because Merv's happened to be close to Naysmith's? Or spotting the closeness, had she deliberately put Naysmith's as a small act of revenge for real and imagined slights?
None of his business either way. Keep out of domestics, unless very well paid.
Molly was talking in the background. She sounded agitated. The phone went down and she came back into the hallway.
That was Dorrie,' she said. 'Telling me not to worry, she might be a bit late to collect little Feelie.'
'Yeah, well, youngsters
But her face told him this was more than just the usual lack of consideration.
'She's down at the nick, Joe,' she burst out. 'She was picked up trespassing in someone's garden, I can guess who's. Joe, why the hell should they be hanging on to her just for trespassing? I think there's more to this than she's saying.'
Oh shoot, thought Joe, remembering his wise advice to the lad Sandy to patrol round the back of Naysmith's house. Why didn't he keep his big mouth shut? On second thoughts, it was probably better this way. If she'd made it to the house,
who knows what would have happened. Lucy Naysmith might have brained her!
Wise thing now was to play dumb, make sympathetic noises, walk away from it, none of his business, keep out of domestics.
Molly McShane wasn't even asking for help. But her warm confident face was suddenly careworn with uncertainty.
He said, 'No, it's OK. She's just walked into something that doesn't have anything to do with her, but the police will be hoping to squeeze something out of it.'
He gave a brief expurgated outline and Molly said, 'Oh Jeez. That's my Dorrie, if there's a complication she'll get tangled in it. I'd better get on down there.'
