Part 22 (2/2)

'Mrs Tremayne, quick question then I'm out of here. Did you cook breakfast for Mr Waring the morning he left?'

She hesitated, obviously debating whether an answer or a slam of the door would get rid of Joe quickest.

Then she glanced up the stairs and said, 'What's he been saying?'

'Nothing,' said Joe. 'He's a good lad. I can see that.'

'He says you're a private detective.'

'That's right. And all I'm doing is asking a question that the police might want to ask.'

'The police?' she said, outraged and anxious at the same time.

'Nothing for you to worry about,' he a.s.sured her. 'Only, please, in your own interest, answer me the same as you'd answer them, so there's no contradiction.'

As an argument it didn't feel all that weighty to Joe, but it worked for Mrs Tremayne.

'Yes, I started cooking it, but no he didn't eat it, if that's what you're getting at. Two eggs, three rashers, half a pound of pork sausage, mushrooms, tomatoes and a slice of fried bread. No use to me when it's cooked, is it? So I didn't see why your friends shouldn't pay for it.'

'Ain't no friends of mine,' Joe a.s.sured her. 'So when Mr Waring didn't appear for his breakfast, what did you do?'

'I yelled up the stairs, then I went to his room and knocked, then I opened the door.'

'Did his bed look like it had been slept in?'

'It looked like it always looked,' she snapped. 'A tip! I told him, Mr Waring, I said, if you want your room cleaned and your bed made, you had better start leaving it halfway decent. Till you do that, I'm not going in there!'

'But you went in that morning and he wasn't there?'

'No.'

'And when Mr Waring's brother was settling his bill this morning, he didn't make any fuss about exactly when Mr Waring had left?'

'No. He was most accommodating. He said, ”Mrs Tremayne, no problem, I'm perfectly happy to accept that my brother was here till the morning of the Wednesday the twelfth and left after eating his usual hearty breakfast,” and he insisted on me putting that down on the receipt.'

'I bet he did,' said Joe. 'Thank you very much, Mrs Tremayne.'

'Is that all I get? What about some explanation?' demanded the woman switching back to aggrieved-party mode. 'I'm ent.i.tled to know what's going on in my house.'

Joe sniffed. The steam seemed to be darkening and the boiling smell was being overtaken by the odour of burning.

'Think what's going on is your veggies have boiled over,' he said.

With a scream of rage, she turned and rushed back into the kitchen.

Joe made his escape. As he headed up along Plunkett Avenue, he felt his sense of relief at escaping from Mrs Tremayne evaporate like the nourishment from her overcooked vegetables.

He was bearing news to rejoice and news to dismay the Young Fair G.o.d, and by now he felt he knew his man well enough to be sure which would prevail.

Pain.

The Young Fair G.o.d was pacing up and down the Hoo car park in a state which came close to mortal agitation. Even the capsule of coolth in which he moved seemed to have shrunk to a mere aureola.

Joe opened his pa.s.senger door and said, 'Get in.'

Human anxieties of course are no match for divine good breeding and, as he settled into his seat, Porphyry looked around with interest and said, 'What a nice car. And a lot more comfortable than my sardine tin.'

'Swap you,' said Joe.

'You bring me good news, Joe, and it's a deal,' said Porphyry fervently.

Anyone else, Joe might have asked for this on paper, but somehow with the YFG that would have been really offensive.

He said, 'Chris, I got news and some of it's good and some of it's bad, and a lot of it's guess work and, like the man said, sometimes my theories make them Harry Potter movies seem like doc.u.mentaries.'

The man in question being Willie Woodbine, but he saw no need to name names.

He took a breath and began.

'Don't know what order most of this stuff is in, but here's what I think happened. I'd guess it really started after you'd let Arthur Surtees take a look at the foundation doc.u.ment before the AGM in the spring. Having a drink later with his mates, Rowe and Latimer, talking about their favourite subject, money, he probably said something like, if you ever lost your members.h.i.+p, they should move quickly to buy up your shares as the Hoo site was worth a bundle. Now they knew that already, of course. What they probably hadn't realized till Surtees spotted it was that the rule about giving up shares applied just as much to you as any other member. Expect you knew that already?'

Porphyry shook his head.

'Never really thought about it,' he said, clearly struggling with the implications of what he was hearing.

'Why would you?' said Joe. 'The only difference is that your shares go to your successor on death whereas with everyone else the share merely returns to the pool. You still with me, Chris?'

Porphyry had got there and didn't much care for where he found himself.

'Joe, if you're suggesting that Arthur or either of the other two may be involved in this business, then really I think you're barking up the wrong tree,' he said almost indignantly. 'They've been members forever, and good members too. I mean, Tom's vice this year, he'll be captain next ...'

This had been a foreseeable problem. Joe had guessed that getting Porphyry to believe ill of anyone of his acquaintance was going to be hard.

He said, 'Chris, just listen, will you? You don't like my theory, that's fine. Should know pretty soon if there's any facts to support it, but, just in case, you gotta listen, OK?'

'Yes, of course. Sorry, Joe. Go on.'

'Right. Then Latimer probably mentioned this to Ratcliffe King you know Ratcliffe King?'

'Not personally, but I've heard of him. Little good, I'm afraid. He's not involved, I hope?'

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