Читать книгу Mystery Lady - Paul Magrs - Страница 14

The bus is taking ages shunting from White City to whatever obscure little corner our vanished man lives in. We’re sitting on the top deck, right at the front, and Dodie is taking the opportunity to read the disappeared man’s story in order to glean any possible clues from it. She likes to be well-prepared.

I put my feet up and watch the mid-afternoon traffic crawling along, and all the festive bunting strewn along the high streets and in the shop windows. Somehow I can’t quite feel all that festive myself. There’s a heaviness about my mood and I’m not sure why. Being in the heart of the city usually gives me a lift. I adore being in the thick of things. The cheery conductor comes along and Dodie absent-mindedly pays her fare and gets her ticket clipped. And, once more, I get completely ignored.

‘Don’t knock it,’ Dodie smiles, looking up from the manuscript. ‘You’ll save pounds.’

‘But am I really so forgettable?’ I say, and feel a sob rising up in my throat. Yes, this is the thing that’s really been getting to me. People ignoring me. Lovely Timothy Bold taking not a blind bit of notice of me. All of that could give a girl a complex.

‘Of course you aren’t, dearest,’ says Dodie. ‘But do let me finish reading this before we get to our stop. I think I’ve reached the good bit. Such as it is.’

She goes back to the book and I know there’s no use trying to snag her attention when she’s lost in a story.

I stare at the snow falling outside and ponder these mysteries swirling around us. I felt such a connection with Helen Spedding last night. I had that extra vivid dream in which I saw her travelling north to Yorkshire. I felt very strongly that she was a good person, and one who is in danger. But now I’m not so sure. And what about Henry Duke? He seems nice enough, but he’s ensnared Dodie completely with his charming blandishments. It’s like she’d do anything for him, just because he’s dangled before her the vague promise of future publication. Maybe he’s up to no good? Maybe he’s putting us both in danger?

DING DING! Time to hurry downstairs and hop off the bus.

We’re somewhere in deepest, darkest Shepherd’s Bush and the snow is halfway to our knees.

Dodie’s wrestling with a pile of now-sopping wet pages and the London A to Z.

‘How was the story? Any clues?’

‘It was rather revolting,’ she says. ‘Vulgar, rather than horrible. It was somewhat graphic.’

I nod. ‘It’s the age we live in. Anything goes these days, it seems.’

Dodie chuckles at me. ‘Sometimes you sound like your own grandma, Cassie.’

It’s taken us the best part of an hour to get here from Television Centre. Now I’m worrying whether we’ll have time to get back for Timmy’s broadcast tonight. The poor boy will be so disappointed if we aren’t there. If Dodie’s not there, I correct myself.

‘This way,’ she says determinedly, leading us into a warren of side streets and alleyways. We plough through snow that is starting to drift.

‘It’s a bit rough-looking round here,’ I tell her. ‘Are you sure about this?’

‘We’re investigating,’ says Dodie. ‘A man’s life is at stake, apparently. We can’t give up the scent.’

It’s a dowdy little terrace where this fellow lives. All the lights are out. It looks like no one has lived here for years.

‘Be brave, Cassie,’ says Dodie, as we stand before the peeling green paint of Vaughan Fretwell’s front door. She gives a firm rap with the knocker.

‘Maybe it’s all something and nothing,’ I say. ‘Maybe he’s gone away for some weeks. A research trip or a holiday…’

She’s rooting about inside her handbag. ‘Henry said Fretwell hadn’t even returned his signed agreement to have his story appear in the book, and that’s very unlike him. He usually snatches any chance to get into print… Aha!’ From the depths of her bag she produces her handy bunch of skeleton keys.

We’re going inside.

‘If anyone stops us, we’ll just say we’re his nieces visiting from the north…’

Inside his house it’s no warmer than the arctic conditions outside. There’s been no heating of any kind in here for months. The front passage has the clingy, damp feeling of black mould and that nasty whiff of poverty.

‘Hmm,’ says Dodie, inching along through a hallway choked with heaps of old newspapers and magazines and cardboard boxes. ‘What a dump!’

‘I don’t like this,’ I tell her. ‘What are we going to find?’

Her face is grim. ‘We can’t back out now, dear heart.’

So we creep along the nasty carpet towards the open doorways at the end. The light is bad. Just a yellowish smear through the transom window from the street outside. I click the switches, but the electricity is off. Dodie fetches out her pen torch. She always comes prepared.

There’s a filthy midden of a kitchen at the end of the hall. Dishes are stacked deep in the Belfast sink and on every surface. Each is encrusted with rotting food.

‘Urgh, maggots…’ Dodie gasps, pulling back. We watch them squirming on the plates, in the mugs, on every mucky surface. Hideous, pale, grub-like creatures .

There’s something rather odd about them.

‘Look… that’s one’s twisting… looking up, almost… sniffing the air…’

Dodie snorts at this. ‘How can it? Is hasn’t any eyes or a nose…’

But nevertheless, the bloomin’ thing is aware that we are in the room. It’s caught our scent. It’s twisting around and looking for us… and others are doing the same… they are looking at us…!

I can feel a scream building up in my throat…

But Dodie stops me. ‘Look! Look at these pages!’

On the table there is a heap of scribbled foolscap pages. Terrible handwriting. In green crayon.

‘It looks like the ravings of a loony…’ I peer over her shoulder and try to make sense out of them.

‘No,’ she says. ‘It’s more than that. Look… can you make out that name? Fox Soames. And Magda. And what’s that say? Noggins. Lucrezia Noggins. And… yes! He’s writing about the book, Cassie. He’s clearly bonkers… but he’s struggling to sit here and write about the book…’

‘There’s your name!’ I give a little squeal as I see it.

‘Yes – and look on the next page. See? Do you see, Cassie? It’s a warning.’

I gasp. In green, jagged, crayoned letters, the man who lived in this pigsty has written: ‘We are all boomed.’

Dodie coughs. ‘I think he means ‘doomed.’