All Things Undying

NINETEEN

‘The American military police were called Dewdrops because their helmets were white.’Pat Kemp, Ministry of Food: Women’s Land Army: Index to Service Records of the Second World War 1939-1948, Series: MAF421, National Archives, Kew, Richmond, Surrey

While Paul was soaking in the tub, I kicked off my shoes, climbed on to the bed and reached for my iPhone. Olivia hadn’t given me her phone number, but when she called me earlier in the week, the number had been captured in my ‘Recents’ folder. I scrolled through the list of incoming calls, tapped her number, adjusted a pillow behind my back, and waited while it rang.

No answer.

I left a brief message asking Olivia to call me back, then joined Paul in the bathroom, a place, Paul always claimed, where he did some of his finest work. The toilet lid was up, so I put it down and sat on it.

Paul glanced up from the paperback he was reading to ask, ‘So, how was your day, sweetheart?’

Paul had bugged out on me at tea time, leaving me alone in front of the television screen with Cathy and the dirty dishes, so I hadn’t had the chance to tell him about an unnamed person from Totnes who was presently, according to a police spokesman on BBC1, helping police with their enquiries in the Parker case.

‘There are a lot of people living in Totnes,’ Paul reasoned after I’d finished. ‘Why are you so eager to pin the hit-and-run on poor old Alf?’

‘He gives me the creeps?’

‘Hah! Take that to the police and they’ll act on it right away.’

‘I’d sure like to know where he got all that money.’ I smiled, remembering Olivia’s reaction when she opened the bag. ‘Olivia calls it wonga. I looked it up, by the way. It comes from “wanger”, a Gypsy word for coal which was apparently used as currency at some time in the past.’

‘Dough, moolah, cabbage, bread, bacon… whatever. Maybe he doesn’t trust banks to take proper care of his wonga.’

I giggled. ‘When you put it that way, it sounds mildly off-color.’

Paul feigned wide-eyed innocence. ‘Moi? Hannah Ives, you have a dirty mind.’

I plucked a wet face cloth off the rim of the sink and tossed it at his head.

After a few more seconds, I said, ‘Olivia claims she makes regular deposits to Lloyds of the charitable contributions they receive, so Alf trusts banks to that extent.’ I leaned my head back against the wall and closed my eyes, suddenly feeling very tired. ‘The only reason I can think of for not putting my money into, say, the Navy Federal Credit Union, is if I didn’t want anybody, especially the IRS, to know that I had it.’

‘Well, duh.’ Paul folded down a corner of a page to mark his place, closed the paperback and dropped it on to the bathmat. ‘There must be a million ways to launder money when you collect donations on the street.’

‘True, but Paul, you didn’t see it. To quote Olivia, it was a whacking great wodge of wonga. If Alf spent a century standing on a folding chair in Speakers’ Corner at Hyde Park, he couldn’t collect that much money. It’s ill-gotten gains. I’m sure of it. And so is Olivia. Alf pretends that he’s only a fiver away from going on the dole, yet he hasn’t given her a raise in over a year. She’s really fuming.’

‘Well,’ Paul drawled, ‘I could spend the rest of the evening lolling in the tub, discussing Alf and his finances, but if I’m taking you to dinner, I’d better get a move on. What’s your pleasure?’

I whipped a towel off the warming rack and handed it to him, watching appreciatively as he stepped out of the tub, tall and trim, water droplets glistening on his slightly graying chest hairs and trickling down his recently acquired tan. ‘I’m thinking we should skip dinner.’

Paul wrapped the towel twice around his waist, tucked it in. He padded over to where I was sitting, took my hand and pulled me to him. ‘How about we just postpone dinner,’ he whispered into my hair. ‘We have reservations at Spice Bazaar at eight.’

I wrapped my arms around his waist, hardly noticing as the bathwater soaked through my sleeves. ‘Sounds like a plan,’ I mumbled as his lips found mine.

Twenty minutes later, I lolled in his arms, gazing out the window and across the Dart where the last rays of the sun were turning Kingswear into a photo opportunity – if I had a camera handy and even the remotest inclination to get out of bed. ‘Do you think Olivia turned him in?’ Paul breathed into my ear.

I rolled over to face my husband. ‘Could be. When I put her on the bus, she was fit to be tied.’

Five minutes later, I would find out how pissed off Olivia Sandman could be.

I had just started dressing when Olivia returned my call.

‘Hannah. Guess you heard.’

‘Someone from Totnes is helping police with their inquiries?’

‘It’s Alf. Serves the bastard right.’

I buttoned the last button on my shirt, one-handed, and sat down on the edge of the bed. ‘Did he do it, do you think? Did he run Susan Parker down?’

‘I don’t know and I don’t care. Hope they lock him up forever.’

‘How did the police get on to him, Olivia?’

‘Somebody might have called Crimestoppers?’

‘Was that somebody, you, Olivia?’

‘Not saying I did, not saying I didn’t. But do you remember how I told you Alf pays me a salary? What I shoulda said is I get an allowance. When my mum died, she left a bundle, but it’s in trust, like, with my mum’s brother, Uncle Alf, as trustee. I get the lot when I’m thirty.’

I had figured that Olivia was about the same age as my daughter, born in the same decade anyway, but I had never asked her. ‘When’s the magic birthday, then?’

‘November fifth. It’s Guy Fawkes Day. I was planning to splash out on a party for my mates. Had the restaurant laid on and everything. So I go to the bank where they got my trust, and you know what I find out? The money’s gone. Most of it, anyway. One hundred pounds and some pence is all that’s left. My bleeding uncle spent it, the son of a bitch.’ Olivia took a deep, shuddering breath, and I could tell that she was crying.

‘Olivia, that’s terrible! You need to see a lawyer. What your uncle did is illegal.’

‘What I need is to knock his bloody block off, and take that bleeding bag of money. Should have done it when I first saw it,’ she snuffled. ‘Now the police got it, I s’pose, cos they got the car.’

Paul made a production of checking his watch, tapping the crystal, putting it to his ear to see if it was still running. If I didn’t hurry, we were going to be late for our reservation.

But, there was something puzzling me. ‘Olivia, when we looked at your uncle’s car the other day, it didn’t appear to be damaged.’

‘It wasn’t.’ She paused, and I could hear her breathing. ‘Not then.’

‘What the hell are you talking about, Olivia?’

‘You think I just go along like a daft dog? When he had my money, I had to dance to his fooking tune. Yes, Uncle Alf, no, Uncle Alf. But that was going to be all over once I got what was mine by rights. So, me and Kayleigh, we drive to Alf’s and I’m going to tell him I know what’s going on, and where’s my money, you bastard. But Alf, he’s not home, and I see the Beemer’s in the garage.’ She paused to take a breath. ‘Not sure I should say anymore.’

Paul was making circular, hurry-up motions with his hand. I countered with my hand up, palm out: hold-your-horses, bucko. ‘So, what happened next, Olivia?’

‘It was Kayleigh’s idea.’

‘What was?’

‘She had a screwdriver in her car. She unscrewed the hinges t’one side of the lock, and we got in, easy like. I was gonna get my money, see, but damn that Alf, he had the car locked tight.

‘So I picked up a big stone, and I wrapped it in my cardigan, and I was going to smash one of his fooking windows so I could open up the boot…’ She started to giggle. ‘Then I had a brilliant idea. I told Kayleigh what I was about and we fell about laughing!’

While Olivia was busily confessing to a B and E, Paul had given up on me. He brushed aside my hair, kissed the nape of my neck and walked over to the window where I could hear him speaking into his cell phone, telling the Spice Bazaar that we’d be a few minutes late.

‘If I busted the windows,’ Olivia continued, ‘Alf’d just get them fixed. But what if he got a bit of aggro from the police? So I wound up and gave his left front wing a good whack. Pranged it good, I did. Oooh, it was brilliant! Then Kayleigh and me, we put the garage door back together and scarpered.’

I pressed my hand to my mouth, stifling a laugh. It was brilliant. Wicked, completely illegal, of course, but brilliant. ‘And then you called Crimestoppers?’ I asked again.

‘It’s anonymous, right?’

‘Right.’

‘No way they can find out who called?’

‘None.’

‘Well, OK then.’

‘Olivia, you didn’t answer my question.’

I could practically hear her smile coming down the line. ‘What question?’

Paul had started to pace, so I changed course. ‘So what’s happening with Alf, do you know?’

‘I guess he’s screwed. Alf called me on my mobile and asked me to get the name of a good lawyer.’

‘Do you think he was responsible for Susan’s hit-and-run, had the car repaired, and then you, well, un-repaired it?’

‘Dunno. But they musta stitched Alf up good and proper. He says he’s not coming home for a while, and I should “carry on”.’ She snorted. ‘As if. WTL can go fook itself.’

I laughed out loud. ‘I figured you didn’t totally buy into Alf’s theology.’

‘Too right,’ she said. ‘So you know what I did? I got that lawyer’s name and number, all right, but Alf? He can whistle for it. I’m hiring the bloke myself. He says he’s gonna help me get my mum’s money back.’