Upon A Dark Night

drastic action, she was condemned to eke out her existence in places like this, or worse, dependent on welfare handouts.

She had no skills or qualifications that she knew of. The descent into self-neglect, apathy and despair would be hard to resist. That was how people ended living rough.

The sound of the stairs groaning under pressure blended in with her mood. Then her thoughts were blasted away by a spectacle almost psychedelic in effect. At nights Ada wore an orange-coloured T-shirt the size of a tent and Union Jack knickers. She seemed to relish prowling about the hostel dressed like that, startling the other inmates.

‘I’ve got Hildegarde started on the cooking. She would have overslept. I said you’d probably want mushrooms with yours, am I right? She can’t say mushrooms, but she knows what they are now.’

Rose started to say, ‘I don’t think I-’

‘Yes, you do. Get a good breakfast inside you. We’ve got things to do.’

‘Oh, yes – like another supermarket? No thanks, Ada.’

Ada made her feel mean by announcing that she’d been on the phone to a friend who had forgotten more about cars than she or Rose were ever likely to find out. If anyone in Bath knew about silver fish mascots, it was Percy. He had promised to see them in his used car mart on the Warminster Road at ten.

The overheads at Percy’s Car Bargains were minimal. He had about eighty used vehicles lined up on a patch of gravel beside the A36 and his office was a Land Rover. Two tattooed youths were employed with buckets and sponges. They probably got paid in used fivers, with no questions asked about tax and National Insurance.

‘My dear Miss Shaftsbury, my cup overflows,’ Percy said in an accent that would not have been out of place in the Leander Club marquee at Henley. ‘You and the young lady of mystery.’

‘How do you know that?’ said Ada.

‘Well, unless I’m mistaken,’ he said, pausing to scrutinise Rose as if she might be a respray job being passed off as new, ‘you’re the one who turned up at the Hinton Clinic the other night.’

Rose felt a sudden outbreak of goose-pimples.

Ada said, ‘Percy, I didn’t tell you that on the phone.’

‘I saw it in last night’s Chronicle, my dear. “Lost Memory Mystery” or some such. There was a photo of a stunningly attractive young lady, and I thought to myself that I wouldn’t mind being introduced.’ He turned to Rose. ‘You had some injuries from a car – is that right? We’re supposed to tell the plod if we can help.’

‘I’m in the paper?’ said Rose, appalled.

Ada clicked her tongue. ‘Didn’t I tell you it was a mistake to let them take pictures?’

‘But no one asked my permission.’ As Rose was speaking, she recalled the policewoman saying that her superiors would take the decisions.

Ada explained, ‘Rose didn’t want this. She wanted to deal with her own problem.’

Percy crowed his sympathy to the entire fleet of used cars. ‘Bloody shame, my dear. You can’t trust anyone these days, least of all the guardians of the peace, I’m sorry to say. I would have told you that myself, given the chance.’

Rose sighed deeply and looked away, across the rows of cars towards the trees, trying to compose herself.

‘Percy knows exactly how you feel,’ Ada said to Rose. ‘He’s a very understanding man. The world’s most perfect gent. I haven’t told you how we met. It was at Swindon Magistrates’ Court.’

‘So it was,’ said Percy.

Ada continued to discuss her gentleman friend as if he wasn’t present. ‘I was up for shoplifting and he refused to believe I was guilty.’

‘You’re a magistrate?’ said Rose.

‘No, my dear,’ said Percy, smiling. ‘Like Miss Shaftsbury, I was waiting for my case to come up. Falsifying documents, or instruments, or some such nonsense, the sort of horse manure that is regularly dumped on a person in my profession. Well, we had an instant rapport, Miss Shaftsbury and I.’

‘Percy, I do wish you’d call me Ada. He gave me his visiting card,’ she told Rose, ‘and he offered his services to my solicitor as a surprise witness. Petal, you should have been there. It was like one of those old Perry Mason films. Percy came into court and swore blind he was with me at a tea-dance at the time of the offence. A tea- dance, would you believe? He was brilliant. He said he partnered me in the square tango and it was etched on his memory for ever.’

Rose smiled, the image of Ada at a tea-dance temporarily pushing her other troubles into the background.

Percy frowned. ‘Did I say that?’

‘Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten,’ said Ada sharply. ‘It was the nicest compliment anyone ever paid me. You said dancing with me was bliss.’

‘She must be right,’ said the world’s most perfect gent. ‘I must have said it.’

‘Don’t spoil it now,’ Ada warned him. She turned back to Rose. ‘He said he was a hopeless dancer normally and this was bliss because he could tell the minute we linked arms that there was no risk of treading on my feet. He said he would remember me anywhere.’

‘Absolutely true,’ said Percy.

‘He offered to pick me out in an identity parade. He had the entire court speechless with laughter. Can you see me in a line-up? I don’t know if they believed a word of it, but they had a ball and my case was dismissed.’

‘And mine was deferred for two weeks,’ said Percy. ‘By which time I got myself better organised. Now, ladies, I’d like to invite you to sit down, but the best I can offer is the back of my Land Rover and I’m not sure if it’s such a good idea.’

‘That’s all right, love,’ said Ada. ‘If I could squeeze inside, which is doubtful, I’d be sure to bust the suspension. We’ll talk here.’

‘I can offer something very agreeable from a flask if you don’t object to paper cups.’

Ada insisted that they hadn’t come for hospitality. ‘This silver fish mascot I mentioned on the phone, Percy. Have you ever seen anything like it?’

‘On a modern car? No, I can’t say I have,’ he said. ‘Sorry to disappoint. Mascots of any sort are rare these days, with a few obvious exceptions. They were used to decorate the radiator cap originally. Like figureheads, which is what we call them in the trade. Common enough before the First World War and into the twenties and thirties. I’ve seen monkeys, dragonflies, dancers. They looked rather fetching on the front of a handsome vehicle. No offence, but the most popular by far were naked ladies. I have seen fish. But not mass-produced, if that’s what you’re asking.’

‘We’re not,’ said Ada. ‘All we want is to find this car.’

Percy’s face twisted into a look of pain as he plumbed the depths of his memory. ‘There was a leaping salmon designed by a firm in Birmingham. That was silver – well, chrome – but I haven’t seen one in the last thirty years. A silver fish on a modern car… As I say, I don’t believe any motor manufacturer uses a fish. All I can suggest is that it must be something the owner had fitted.’

‘Custom made?’ said Ada.

He nodded. ‘You come across them once in a while. The most bizarre I heard of was the late Marquess of Exeter, David Burghley. He had a Roller, you know, a Rolls Royce, being one of the elite. Poor chap had terrible arthritis of the hips in middle age, which was sad considering he’d been a marvellous athlete in his time. Won the Olympic hurdles – that’s how good he was. Remember Chariots of Fire, racing round the quad at Cambridge while Great Tom was chiming noon? That was based on one of his exploits. Anyway, he made light of his handicap. Had one of the early artificial hip replacement operations in the days when the things were metal, and when it was later removed, he had the stainless steel socket mounted on the front of his Roller in place of the Spirit of Ecstasy that you see on all of them. So, you see, it can happen. Some people go to exceptional lengths to personalise their cars.’

‘You think we could be looking for something unique,’ said Ada. ‘That’s got to be helpful.’

‘If we can rely on our information,’ said Rose, thinking how old Mrs Thornton was, and wishing her witness was more dependable.

‘It seems to me,’ Percy summed up, ‘that you’ve got to look for an owner in some way connected with fish. An