The Price of Butcher's Meat (8 page)

Mind you, beggars can’t always be choosers and I’ve known a lot of bowstrings that had plenty of twang in them, but on the whole I’ve always
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steered clear of the lean and hungry ones. Not that this lass weren’t bad
looking in a hollow- cheek modelly sort of way, with wavy brown hair, a
good full mouth, a determined little chin, and soft blue eyes that fastened on Roote.

She said, “Franny, hi.”

“Clara,” said Roote. “Hi! Come and meet my old friend, Andrew
Dalziel. Mr. Dalziel, this is Clara Brereton.”

She came toward us. She were a lovely mover even with the bags.

Fair do’s, probably being skinny helps here, though my Cap doesn’t get
many complaints on the dance floor.

She said, “Nice to meet you, Mr. Dalziel,” like she knew how to spell
it. And she was another who didn’t blink when she spotted how I were
dressed.

I said, “Likewise, lass.”

“Why don’t you join us?” said Roote, giving her the full smarmy-charmy treatment.

She sat down, saying, “Just till Auntie comes. Teddy’s taking us to
lunch at Moby’s. He’s supposed to be meeting us here.”

She looked relieved to set the bags down.

I said, “They don’t deliver round here then?” just to make conversation.

Roote chipped in, “Indeed they do, but there’s a small charge, and
why pay that when you’ve got your own personal service?”

They smiled at each other. Something going on here? I wondered.

With Roote, owt’s possible. A gent would likely have made an excuse
and left them to get on with it, but gents don’t find themselves sitting in
public bars in their dressing gowns. Any road, I wanted to see how Roote
would play it. But there weren’t time to make his play.

The door opened again and another woman entered, this one a bit
more to my taste. The way her gaze fixed on Clara and Roote, I guessed
straight off this were the aunt. She were knocking on, sixties bumping
seventy, but well preserved, and built like a buffalo, with an eye to
match. If there weren’t enough meat on young Clara to make a Christmas
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starter, there were plenty here for a main course with something left over
for Boxing Day. Not bad looking for an old ’un, but in a very different
way from her niece. No smooth pallor here, but weathered oak. Only
thing in common were the determined chin that age had carved on her
face into a bit of an icebreaker. This was a woman used to getting her
own way.

She said, “There you are, Clara. You’ve got the shopping? Good. No
sign of Teddy? No matter, so long as he turns up in time to pay the bill.

Time for a quick one here I think. Alan!”

The landlord was ahead of the game again. There was already a G

and T on the bar and an orange juice. No prizes for working out whose
was which.

“Good day, Lady D,” said Roote. “I hope you are keeping well.”

“I am always well, Franny. I firmly believe most ailments are the invention of the medical profession to extort money from fools.”

She brayed a laugh like it never struck her some poor sod in a wheelchair might not find this all that funny. Roote just grinned and said, “If
Tom Parker wants a living testimony to the health- giving properties of
Sandytown, he need look no further than you.”

She preened herself and said, “Kind of you to say so, Franny. It’s true
I have been blessed with a strong and lasting constitution. In fact, I do
believe I never saw the face of a doctor in all my life on my own account, but only on the two unhappy occasions when I was told of the
death of a husband.”

Roote looked solemn for a moment, then said slyly, “But surely, Lady
D, you have seen the face of Dr. Feldenhammer, very much on your
own account, and on occasions not so unhappy?”

She laughed archly, like a cracked hurdy- gurdy playing “The Rustle
of Spring,” and I reckon if she’d had a fan, she’d have rapped his knuck-les with it as she said, “You naughty boy, that tongue of yours will get
you into trouble one day.”

“Then I shall call on you for a character reference,” said Roote. “Can
I introduce my old friend Andrew Dalziel?”

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I’d seen those buffalo eyes taking me in during all this byplay and I
don’t think she much liked the look of me or mebbe it was just my outfi t.

I said, “How do, missus?” and in return she gave me a nod that
would likely have broken my nose if she’d been close up, then turned to
hoist herself onto a bar stool, showing off a pair of haunches a man
would be proud to have the tattooing of. The landlord put her drink
before her and she leaned forward to engage him in a low-voiced conversation.

The lass gave Roote’s hand a quick sympathetic squeeze, then went
to the bar to join her aunt.

I took a drink of me ale. Didn’t taste as good as before. Nowt wrong
with the beer, but. It were me. Should have stopped with the first and
certainly skipped the scotch. I definitely weren’t feeling up to snuff.

Mebbe that was what made me say, all surly, “You’ll not get anywhere
there, lad. Rich aunts look after dependent nieces.”

One thing for Roote, he may play games but he doesn’t play silly
games, like pretending not to understand.

“Dependent nieces have wills of their own,” he said, giving me a
stage wink.

“Aye, and so have rich aunts, and they make bloody sure anyone gets
cut out of them who doesn’t toe the line,” I said. “Any road, it could be
a long wait if she’s as fit as she looks.”

“Oh yes. Dear Lady Denham is nothing if not healthy. And wealthy,
of course,” he murmured.

“And wise?” I said.

“In making and keeping hold of money, very wise indeed,” he said.

“Why am I not surprised?” I said. “And I bet you know how much
she’s kept hold of, to the last decimal place.”

He grinned and said, “You are forgetting, I suspect, that thanks to
dear Peter Pascoe’s aid and acumen, I am now a man of moderately independent means, even without the income I generate by my writing. If
such a one as I could have any interest in the fair Clara, it would only
be centered on her pilgrim soul.”

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When an ex- con starts talking about pilgrim souls, I know he’s talking crap, but I knew Roote weren’t lying about the money. Pete had felt
so grateful and guilty, he’d moved heaven and earth to make sure Roote
got top compensation from Criminal Injuries, plus the leisure complex
where he got shot had had a personal injury clause in their insurance
which a smart brief persuaded a judge covered Roote’s case. Best of all,
Roote had just got back from the States on the day he got shot and when
Pete were sorting out his stuff, he realized his travel insurance didn’t
expire till midnight. The buggers wriggled and wiggled like they always
do, but in the end the same brief who’d done the leisure complex got
them to cough up for total disability. When eventually it turned out
Roote was going to be able to manage a wheelchair, this got considerably
pared down, but it still amounted to a hefty chunk of money.

I said, “Independent means ain’t the same as independence.”

I were just talking about money but soon as I said it, I saw it could
be taken as a crack about his legs. Me and buffalo woman had a lot in
common. But I knew better than to say sorry and get the piss taken out
of me, so I went on quick, “So what’s this writing that’s making your
fortune? You’re not Lord Archer in disguise, are you?”

“Happily not,” he said. “Nor did I mention a fortune. It’s academic
stuff mainly, so it pays peanuts when it pays at all. I managed to fi nish
my PhD thesis during my convalescence. Yes, strictly speaking it’s Dr.

Roote now, but no need to be embarrassed—I don’t use the title. Strangers
find it confusing and keep telling me about their back pain. Now I am
completing Sam Johnson’s critical biography of Thomas Lovell Beddoes.

You recall dear Sam, my old supervisor, who was so foully murdered before he could finish his masterwork?”

“Aye, I remember the case,” I said. “So you’re getting paid in advance
for writing this Bed-loving fellow’s life?”

“I fear not,” he said. “Though my publishers in California, the Santa
Apollonia University Press, have made a substantial research grant available to me. There are, however, profitable spin-offs in the form of articles and interviews and seminars. In addition, I have a small retainer
fee for my work as a consul tant for Third Thought.”

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Why was he so keen to impress me with his ability to earn an honest
living, if you can call all this airy-fairy arty-farty stuff honest?

“Third Thought?” I said. “You mean that dotty cult thing the lentil
and sandals brigade are into?”

“How well you grasp the essence of things, Mr. Dalziel! What more is
necessary to say? Though the movement’s founder, Frère Jacques, has
written a couple of hefty tomes to bring out the fi ne detail.”

Always a sarky bugger!

He rattled on about how this Jakes fellow had nearly died and realized he weren’t ready for it, so he’d started his movement to help folk
get used to the idea afore it were staring them in the face, so to speak.

“A Hospice of the Mind, he calls it,” said Roote. “My own initial
connection with Third Thought was, I freely confess, based purely on
self-interest. Then I had my own close encounter, and as I struggled to
come to terms with my lot, my mind turned more and more frequently
to Frère Jacques’s teachings, and I renewed my connection, but this
time with genuine fervor. Eventually Jacques invited me to become a
paid acolyte.”

He glanced at me sort of assessingly, then leaned forward and said in
a low voice, “It occurs to me, Mr. Dalziel, that after your own recent
trauma, you yourself might be seeking a new philosophy of being . . .”

The bugger were trying to convert me!

I said, “If tha’s thinking of sending me a bill for this chat, lad, I’d
advise thee to have third thoughts about it.”

He laughed so loud the two women at the bar glanced our way, the
old bird with a disapproving glower. Probably thought I’d just told a
mucky joke.

Roote settled down after a bit, supped his parrot piss, then said, “So
how are you getting back up to the home?”

“On my own two feet if I have to,” I answered. “If you’re thinking of
offering me a lift, I warn you, I’m not sitting on thy knee!”

He grinned and said, “I’ll be delighted to take you back in my car,
though I suspect it may not be necessary.”

“Why’s that?”

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He glanced at his watch. It looked expensive.

“I suspect that within a few more minutes someone from the Avalon
staff is going to arrive. They’ll order a drink, glance round, look surprised to see you, have a quick chat, finish their drink, head for the door,
then as an afterthought say, ‘Would you care for a lift, Mr. Dalziel, or
are you sorted?’ ”

“What makes you think that?”

“Because not long after you arrived, Alan will have made a call to
the Avalon in case they haven’t noticed one of their convies has gone
missing. And he’s probably just been reassuring Lady Denham that she
needn’t worry about you frightening off the more sensitive customers all
afternoon as you’ll be out of here in ten minutes tops.”

“Why’d she be worried about that?” I asked.

“Because she owns the Hope and Anchor,” he said. “In fact, dear
Lady Denham owns a great deal of real estate in and around Sandytown. I told you she was wealthy as well as healthy. Moby’s, however,
where they are going to lunch, belongs to her dear friend Mr. Parker.

She enjoys the food there but never goes unless someone else is paying,
in this case her nephew, Teddy Denham, who can ill afford it.”

“For someone not interested in money, you’ve got a sharp eye for how
other folk spend it,” I said.

He said, “Only because as a disciple of Third Thought, I have a deep
interest in the human condition. Doesn’t Paul tells us that the love of
money is the root of all evil?”

“Paul?” I said. “Thought that were one of Ringo’s. No, sorry, bit further back. Adam Faith, right?”

Not often you can shut Roote up, but that did it.

The women fi nished their drinks and slipped off their stools, the lass
like a snowflake, the old lady like an avalanche.

Clara gave a shy little wave as her aunt said, “Alan, perhaps my scat-terbrained nephew has gone straight to Moby’s. If he does turn up here,
tell him that’s where we will be. And don’t forget to get payment for our
drinks. A gentleman does not invite guests and expect them to pay for
themselves. Talking of money, these ideas you have about modernizing
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