Authors: Peter Lovesey
She came out of the hospital with an appointment card in her back pocket and a totally different diagnosis from the one she’d expected.
Something deeply upsetting..
.
Some emotional shock.
She took the bus back to the centre of Bath and stopped at a teashop called the Lilliput to collect herself before seeing Imogen again.
What could have caused a shock so momentous in her life? A break-up with a man? People were ending relationships all the time. They didn’t lose their memories because of it. No, it had to be more traumatic, some terrible thing she had discovered about herself. A life-threatening illness, perhaps. Would that be enough to make one deny one’s existence? She thought not. And she felt well in herself. Even the sore ribs had improved. Then was it a matter of conscience? Some deeply shaming act. Even a crime. Was that what she wanted to remove herself from?
Tea was brought to the table. She left the pot standing a long time. While people at other tables chatted blithely about their grandchildren and last night’s television, Rose constructed a theory, a bleak, demeaning scenario. Far from being the victim of an accident, she was responsible for it. She pictured herself driving too fast along a country road, running over and killing a pedestrian. A child, perhaps, or an old person. Unable to cope with the shock and the upsurge of guilt, she suppressed it. Injured, but not seriously, she climbed out of the car and wandered the lanes in a state of amnesia. Eventually she blacked out and was found by the couple with the fish mascot on their car. They drove her to the Hinton Clinic. Because they didn’t want questions asked about themselves (they were having an affair) they left her in the car park confident that she would soon be found and taken inside.
She poured some lukewarm tea and sipped it.
There were flaws. If there was an accident victim lying dead beside an abandoned car, why hadn’t the police been alerted? They knew about her. They’d visited the Hinton Clinic the night she was brought in. They would surely have suspected a connection with the accident.
The tea was now too cold to drink. She left it, paid, and walked the short distance to Imogen’s office.
The first person she saw was Ada. Ada was the first person you would see anywhere. She was in the general office wagging a finger at Imogen. She swung around.
‘There you are at last, petal. We’ve waited the best part of two hours. Imogen’s had it up to here with me.’
Imogen didn’t deny this.
Rose said she didn’t know she’d kept anyone waiting.
Imogen asked, ‘How did you get on?’
‘They want me to see a psychotherapist.’
‘A nut doctor?’ said Ada in alarm. ‘Don’t go, blossom. They’ll have you in the funny farm as soon as look at you.’
Imogen rebuked her with, ‘Ada, that isn’t helpful.’
‘You haven’t been on the receiving end, ducky,’ said Ada. ‘I have, more times than I care to remember. “Remanded for a further month, pending psychiatric reports.” I’ve seen them all. The ones with bow-ties are the worst. And the women. Grey hair in buns and half-glasses. They’re all alike. Stay clear.’
‘The cranial injuries unit can’t help me,’ said Rose. She did her best to explain the distinction between the two sorts of amnesia.
‘Any trouble a woman gets, if you’re not actually missing a limb, you can bet they’ll tell you it’s psychological,’ said Ada. ‘And if you cave in and see the shrink, he’ll send you barking mad anyway.’
Imogen disagreed. She urged Rose to keep the appointment.
‘It’s three weeks away,’ said Rose. ‘Three weeks - I hope I’m right before then.’
Ada remained unimpressed. ‘We can get you right ourselves. Speaking of which, I have hotshit news for you, buttercup. Percy has struck gold. Well, silver, to be accurate. There’s a bloke in Westbury with a silver fish on his car. I’ve got a name and address.’
‘That’s brilliant,’ said Rose, transformed. ‘Westbury -where’s that?’
‘No distance at all. We can get the train from here. There’s still time.’
‘I’m short of money.’
‘Get it off Imogen. This is going to save them a bomb.’
‘And I don’t have anywhere to sleep tonight.’
Imogen solved both problems. She handed over thirty pounds from the contingency fund and she phoned a bed and breakfast place on Wellsway that took some of Avon’s homeless. Ada said she would help Rose with the move.
Imogen told Ada firmly that she wasn’t to go prospecting for better lodgings.
‘What do you think I am, always out for the main chance?’
Ada protested.
‘And don’t you dare walk out with anything belonging to the house,’ Imogen warned her, unmoved.
Prospect Road, Westbury, was a long trek, they discovered, south of the town under the figure of the white horse once carved, now cemented, into Bratton Down. They spent some of Rose’s money taking a taxi from the railway station.
‘This man Dunkley-Brown is well known in the area, Percy told me,’ Ada started to explain, whereupon the taxi-driver joined in.
‘If it’s Ned Dunkley-Brown you mean, he were mayor of Bradford some years back. Powerful speaker in his time.’
‘He doesn’t mean that Bradford,’ Ada said for Rose’s benefit. ‘Bradford on Avon is a dinky little town not far from here.’ She asked the driver, ‘Politician, is he?’
‘Was. Don’t get much time for politics no more. Too busy testing the ale.’
‘Enjoys his bevvy, does he?’
‘You could say that. Him and his missus. If we catch them at home at this time of day, I’ll be surprised.’
He had no need to be surprised. No one came to the door of the large, detached house. Inside, a dog was barking. Ada said she would go exploring. She marched around the side as if she owned it. Presently, she called out from somewhere, ‘Come and look at this.’
Rose found her in the garage, jammed into a space between the wall and a large white car, her hand resting on the silver fish figurehead. she said with pride, ‘I knew we could bank on Percy.’
Rose’s heart-rate stepped up. ‘This
must
be the one.’
‘Funny-looking fish,’ Ada commented.
‘What do you mean?’
‘For a car, I mean. The fins stick up high. Not very streamlined.’
True, it was spikier than a trout, say, or a salmon. ‘It’s still a fish.’
‘Definitely.’
‘We’d better go,’ said Rose, suspicious that Ada might be planning some housebreaking. ‘We don’t want to get caught here.’
They had asked their driver to wait, and he offered to take them to the pub the Dunkley-Browns frequented. It wouldn’t have taken long to walk there, but Ada preferred travelling on wheels whenever possible. This had a useful result, because the driver once more picked up a point from their conversation.
‘That fish on D-B’s car? That’s a gudgeon.’
‘A what?’ said Ada.
‘Gudgeon. A freshwater fish. They’re small. Good for bait. Not much of a bite for supper, though. You know why he has it on his car, don’t you?’
Ada said, ‘That was my next question.’
‘Maybe,’ he said slyly, ‘but I asked it first.’
‘He’s a fisherman?’ Ada hazarded.
‘No.’
‘He drinks like a fish?’
He chuckled. ‘I like it, and it’s true, but that ain’t the reason. I told you he were mayor of Bradford once. Proper proud of that, he is. That fish is the official fish of Bradford. Gudgeon.’
‘Like a symbol of the town?’
‘Correct. You’ve heard the saying, haven’t you, “You be under the fish and over the water”?’
‘Can’t say I have,’ said Ada. ‘Like a riddle, is it?
Rose asked what it meant.
‘Local people know it. You know the Bradford town bridge, anywhiles?’
‘Yes.’
Even Rose knew that, just as she knew the names of the Rolling Stones. The medieval nine-arched bridge over the Avon is one of the more famous landmarks in the West Country. Generations of artists and photographers have captured the quaint profile with the domed lock-up (once a chapel) projecting above the structure.
‘On top of the lock-up, there’s a weathervane in the form of a gudgeon. So if you had some cause to spend the night in there …’
‘We get the point,’ said Ada. ‘Mr Dunkley-Brown is proud of his time as mayor, and that’s all we need to know, except where to find him.’
‘No problem there,’ said the driver.
He turned up Alfred Street and stopped in the Market Place opposite the Westbury Hotel, a Georgian red-brick building that looked well up to catering for an ex-mayor. Obviously it had an identity problem, because the gilt and wrought-iron lettering over the door still proclaimed it as the Lopes Arms and there was a board with a coat of arms to affirm it. Another board claimed a history dating back to the fourteenth century and yet another gave it four stars from the English Tourist Board. Mindful of a possible tip, the driver took the trouble to get out and look inside the bar. ‘What did I tell you, ladies? Table on the left, party of six. He’s the little bald bloke and his missus next to him.’
Ada heaved herself out of the back seat and thanked the driver. ‘Do you happen to have a card? We might need to call you again.’ She explained later to Rose that asking a driver for his card was the ploy she used when unable to afford a tip. It saved embarrassment because there was just the suggestion that the tip was being saved for the second run, which never happened.
The interior bore out the promise of gentility: a leather-clad bar, thick, patterned carpet, dark wood panelling and framed Victorian cartoons by Spy. The Dunkley-Browns looked well set for a long session, seated with four others in a partitioned section a step up from the main bar, their table already stacked with empties. Although their conversation didn’t quite carry, the bursts of laughter did.
Rose would have started by going to the liveried barmaid and ordering something. Ada was more direct. She stepped up to the table where the Dunkley-Browns were and said, ‘Pardon me for butting in, but you
are
the former Mayor and Mayoress of Bradford, aren’t you?’
Ned Dunkley-Brown seemed to grow a couple of inches. Bright-eyed, short and with clownish clumps of hair on either side of his bald patch, he appeared friendly enough. ‘As a matter of fact we are. Should we know you?’
Mrs Dunkley-Brown, beside him, cast a sharp eye over the newcomers. She was probably twenty years younger than her husband, with black, shoulder-length hair. She must have enlivened civic receptions in Bradford on Avon.
‘No, we’re visitors here,’ said Ada. ‘Ada Shaftsbury and - what do you call yourself, petal?’
‘Rose.’
‘She’s Rose. Our driver pointed you out.’
‘So you drove here?’ said Dunkley-Brown, simply being civil with these people who may have appeared odd, but who had earned his approval for reminding his drinking companions that he had once been the top dog in Bradford on Avon.
‘Not all the way,’ said Ada. ‘We took the train from Bath. We don’t own a handsome car like yours.’
‘You’ve seen my Bentley, have you?’
Someone in the party made some aside and the women - Mrs Dunkley-Brown excepted - giggled behind their hands.
‘It’s a motor you’d notice anywhere, a gorgeous runabout like that,’ Ada said, unfazed. ‘Specially with the figurehead.’
‘The fish. You know about the fish?’
‘The gudgeon of Bradford.’
‘You are well-informed. Look, why don’t you ladies join us? We’re just having a few drinks with our friends here. What will you have?’
‘A few private words will do. We didn’t come to crash your party.’
‘
Private
words?’ said Dunkley-Brown.
‘It’s important,’ said Ada.
He became defensive. ‘But I’ve never met you before.’
Mrs Dunkley-Brown said, ‘Just who are you?’
‘I said - Ada Shaftsbury. We’d also like a word with you in a moment.’
Rose decided to soften the approach. Ada’s tone was becoming abrasive. ‘It’s for my sake, actually. It’s true you haven’t met Ada before, but you may recognise me.’
The Dunkley-Browns looked at her fully and she was certain there was a moment of recognition. To her astonishment the husband said immediately in a hard, clipped tone, 77
‘No, my dear. Never once clapped eyes on you. Obviously you’re mistaken.’
Ada, braced for battle, said, ‘Mistaken about your motor, are we?’
‘Anyone could have told you about my car …’ Dunkley-Brown started to say. Then he interrupted himself and said, ‘All right, you’re obviously mistaken, but for the sake of some peace, I’ll talk to you outside. Fair enough?’
‘Do you want me to come, Ned?’ his wife asked.
Ada spoke up as if the offer were addressed to her. ‘Thanks, but we’d rather talk to you later.’
She said, ‘You sound like the police. What are we supposed to have done? Robbed a bank?’
‘Gordon Bennett, we’re nothing to do with the police,’ said Ada, speaking from the heart.
Dunkley-Brown stood up. ‘Let’s sort this out, whatever it is. I’ll step outside with you, but I’m not having my wife’s evening disturbed.’
Ada led the way and they stood in the sparse evening light in the Market Place while Rose explained the connection. She set out the facts without guile, admitting that she had her information second-hand from an elderly woman, fully expecting her frankness to be matched by Dunkley-Brown’s. He heard it all in silence, his eyes giving no hint of involvement.
Finally Rose asked him, ‘Well, was it your car she saw? Did you bring me to the Hinton Clinic that evening?’
Dunkley-Brown overrode the last word. ‘Absolutely not. You’re mistaken. I was nowhere near Bath last Monday night and neither was my car. We spent the evening in Westbury. I can’t help you.’
Ada couldn’t contain herself. ‘But the car was seen, a big white car with a fish on the bonnet. How many cars like that are there in these parts? Have you ever seen another one?’
He would not yield. ‘There’s no reason why someone else shouldn’t have one.’
‘The driver was a bald bloke.’
Ada spoke this as a statement of fact without regard to any sensitivity Dunkley-Brown may have had about his appearance. He didn’t care for it at all. ‘I’ve heard more than enough of this. I’ve made myself clear. I can’t help you. Now allow me to get back to my friends.’