look and as they say you are.’
‘Before you write it’, I said, ‘you have to ask yourself a few questions you might not like the answers to. Why’s he hanging around with Catchpole and company? What’s his trouble? If you hire me, that’s what you’re going to find out, maybe. The picture of him I get comes from you-he’s stubborn; you won’t just be able to say ‘stop’ to him. I won’t, if I find him. You might not like what happens. Your wife mightn’t like it either.’
He looked at me as if he was sifting the whole of his life inside his head-the good and the bad bits, and wondering how much of each there was still to come. He made a weighing-up gesture with his hands.
‘I accept that’, he said. He opened the cheque book, scribbled, tore out the slip and handed it across.
‘That’s more than I asked for.’
‘You don’t ask enough. You’re not the only one who can check up on a bloke. I checked on you. They say you stick at things and that’s what I want. I want your full attention. You’ve got my resources behind you-if you need a thousand suddenly or whatever, you’ve got it. Understand?’
I nodded and put the cheque away. He seemed to regard money as something to help him get what he wanted rather than as something good in itself or something that conferred a virtue on him. That’s healthy; that’s how I’d regard money-if I had any.
‘I’ve got some nosey questions up front. How much money did you give the boys?’
‘Just usual pocket money. I paid them for work they did on the boats in the school holidays. Bought them both a car- nothing flash. I give Chris an allowance to top up his scholarship, nothing much. Ray worked up here before he took off. I paid him well; overtime, the works.’
‘How big was the row you had? What was it about- money, politics, the future-what?’
He was stowing away the remains of the lunch and carefully brushing off crumbs into his hand. ‘To tell you the truth, I really can’t remember. It wasn’t important, nothing out of the ordinary. We rowed mostly about his attitude. I’d say, “Don’t look so bloody miserable, Ray. What’s your problem?” And that’d set him off.’
‘Would his mother remember the particular row? Was she there?’
He thought about it for longer than seemed necessary. He look off his sunglasses and when he looked at me his eyes seemed troubled.
‘I think that was it’, he said. ‘The row was sparked off by something he said to his mother. He was just down in North-bridge for the night, stayed up here mostly… no, I can’t get it back. But something like that. You’ll have to ask Pat.’
‘Would that upset her?’
‘She’s upset already. She’ll take some more if she must-to get somewhere.’
He’d done enough talking. He scattered the crumbs on the water and went back to work. The anchor came up and he headed back to the marina. We swayed a bit as we crossed a bigger boat’s wake, but the engines had a beautiful easy sound, and the Satisfaction cruised smoothly.
‘Good motors’, I said.
‘Serviced by Ray. Exclusively.’
‘What can you tell me about your wife’s first husband?’
Nothing happened; no sudden stiffening, no sweating, no knuckle-whitening. ‘Not much. Pat didn’t talk much about him at all. Divorced way back. He’s dead now, I think.’
‘Have they got his name or yours?’
‘Mine.’
He was concentrating now, moving between the fairly tightly packed boats towards his mooring. I looked ahead and saw a tall figure standing by the pylons; she had a rope in her hands and was tugging at it nervously. Guthrie followed my gaze.
‘This’ll give you another idea of what Ray’s like’, he said. ‘That’s his girl, Jess. You never met a nicer kid.’
She was the young woman who’d been sitting on the wall, smiling into the lens. But now she was standing stiffly, she looked older and she wasn’t smiling anymore.
4
The deft, unhurried movements she used to help Guthrie tie up the boat seemed to be second nature to her. She was tall and athletic; the short hair, shirt and jeans gave her a practical look and made no concessions to the usual ideas of femininity, but she was as female as you’d want-which is better. She had Paul Guthrie’s full approval, apparent in every movement he made. He nipped up the ladder, hugged her and made the introductions enthusiastically.
‘Cliff Hardy, Jess Polansky. He’s going to look for Ray, Jess.’
This news didn’t seem to fill her with delight. She brushed back her light-brown hair and looked at me as if I was the understudy, not the star. ‘I thought… oh hell, I saw you take the Satisfaction out, and I thought it might mean Ray was coming back. Or something…’
She burst into tears and Guthrie eased his shoulder over for her to huddle into. She had to bend to do it. As I looked at them I tried to interpret what I was seeing. Does a son want the girl his father so obviously wants for him? It struck me that I was getting out of my depth with fathers and sons, although I was old enough to have a son of Ray Guthrie’s age. As I’d told Cy Sackville, I didn’t even have a brother, and my own memories of my relationship with my father weren’t likely to be of much help. He was twenty-plus years dead, a quiet inner sort of man who didn’t seem to approve of anything much. I still occasionally had dreams in which I tried to win his approval, and failed.
Guthrie pulled back, put his hands up on the girl’s shoulders and held her out at arm’s length. ‘Talk to Cliff, Jess, give him all the help you can.’
Off the boat, facing the realities on dry land, Guthrie lost some of his bounce. He let go of Jess, swivelled and spoke to me with his head turned half-away. ‘Ray was last seen in the Noble Briton in the Cross. Friday of last week. He was drunk. That’s all I know. Stay in touch.’ He walked away with his hands in his pockets and his head down.
Jess Polansky wiped her eyes with her hand and looked at me suspiciously.
“What does he mean-you’re going to look for Ray?’
‘Just that. I’m a private investigator; I’ve found missing people before, quite a few.’
‘Ray’s not really missing though, is he? I mean, Mr Guthrie says someone saw him last week. That’s not missing.’
‘No. You’re half-right. There’s missing and missing. Look, can we talk now? Would you like a drink or something?’
She shrugged. ‘All right. I’m on my lunch break. I might as well have a drink.’
She pulled on one of the mooring lines that held the Satisfaction; muscle swelled and sinew tensed in her slim arm. She let the rope go and moved down the jetty.
‘Ray loves that boat’, she said.
‘Yeah. How old are you, Jess?’
‘Nineteen.’
‘What d’you do?’
‘I work part-time for Mr Guthrie at the marina, and I teach water-skiing.’
That explained the muscle and sinew. ‘You must be good- Ray any good at it?’
We climbed steps to the walkway that took us past the boatshed. I paused and looked back down at the boats gently pulling at their ropes, rising and falling in the placid water. Too dull for a spirited youth? I thought. Then I remember the order on the boat, the finely tuned engines and the anthology of sea verse. Jess Polansky moved ahead of me, exuding health and strength and I decided that Ray Guthrie couldn’t have been bored here. She didn’t answer my question until we were walking through the car park.
‘Ray’s good at everything.’ Her look challenged me to make something of it.
We went into the beer garden and I asked her what she wanted, expecting her to go for something soft in keeping with the athletic image.
