House of Bones Read online

  His father had aged, too, although maybe John was just growing up and seeing him clearly for the first time. John was now three or four inches taller than he was, and he had an aerial view of the bald spot on the top of his father’s head, the size of a fifty-pence piece.

  “Well, then, how’s the property tycoon?” said his father.

  John bent over and gave his mother a kiss. She reached up and touched his cheek and smiled her slanting little smile. “What time’s Ruth coming back?” John asked.

  “Oh, late. She’s going out with that Peter Mills again. She can cook her own supper.”

  His father turned the chops over with a fork and put the broccoli on to boil. “But how was your day? Did you like it?”

  “Oh, it wasn’t bad. I didn’t do much. Bit of filing, that’s all.”

  “Didn’t sell any million-pound houses, then?”

  John thought about Mr Rogers, and the key that he shouldn’t have given him, and shook his head.

  “But you think you’re going to like it?”

  “I don’t know. I suppose so.”

  His father said, “That’s the trouble with you. You drift through life not knowing what you want. No ambition, that’s your problem. No targets. Your sister’s the same. She’s going to end up married to some stupid no-hoper like Peter Mills, with three kiddies hanging round her ankles before she’s twenty-one, and a two-bedroomed council flat in East Croydon.”

  “Come on, Reg,” chided his mother, out of the side of her mouth. “It’s only his first day.”

  They sat around the kitchen table and ate their supper. John’s father had to cut his mother’s supper up into small pieces, like a child’s meal, so that she could eat it all with a spoon. Afterwards, John washed up the dishes and put them away. His mother and father were sitting on the sofa watching Coronation Street. “I’m just going out for a bit,” he told them.

  “Not too late,” his father warned him. “Don’t forget you’ve got work tomorrow.”

  How could I possibly forget? he thought, as he stood in front of his bedroom mirror combing his hair. I’ve had just about the worst day in my entire life and it’s probably going to be even worse tomorrow. He opened his wardrobe door. Inside were dozens of pinups of girls and rock stars and Crystal Palace football team. He picked out a black Yves St Laurent sweatshirt which his father had bought for £12 from another cabbie. It was probably a fake but it was his favourite. He splashed himself with aftershave and left the house by the back door.

  Down by the parade of shops he met four or five of his friends. They were larking around outside the local corner shop, smoking and teasing some girls. He joined in, and for the next two hours he forgot all about Blight, Simpson & Vane, and Mr Rogers, and 66 Mountjoy Avenue.

  The next day he made himself some sandwiches before he left home, and he made sure that he arrived at work at five minutes to nine. Mr Cleat was already there, sorting through a heap of contracts. “Good morning,” he said, coldly, as if it were just as much of a sin to turn up five minutes early as it was to turn up five minutes late.

  “Oh. Good morning, Mr Cleat. Another hot one, eh?”

  “Another hot what?”

  “Well, you know. Day?”

  Mr Cleat sniffed. “Make me a cup of tea, would you. And I wouldn’t mind a touch more sugar than yesterday. I’m not a diabetic.”

  John went to put on the kettle. As he was waiting for it to boil, Liam arrived. John heard him say, “Good morning, Mr Cleat. Another hot one, eh?”

  Mr Cleat said nothing. Liam waited for a moment, and then said, “Please yourself.”

  It was an unexpectedly busy morning. Three couples came in to look at particulars for The Old School House in Tooting Bee, and then a fussy man wanted details on every house in the Valley Road area which could easily be converted into bed-sitting rooms. John had to go to the photography shop twice to pick up developed pictures of new properties, and to the delicatessen once to get Lucy a cream-cheese and cucumber sandwich and a bottle of Perrier water.

  The office was crowded when the door suddenly opened and – for a long, dramatic moment – stayed open. Everybody turned their head. Standing in the doorway, half-silhouetted against the bright sunshine outside, was a tall, almost skeletal man in a Panama hat and a grey double-breasted suit with a black silk handkerchief tucked in the pocket. As he stepped inside, he took off his hat, revealing a head of iron-coloured, slicked-back hair. He looked about fifty-five years old, with a thin, sharply-chiselled face and hooded, almost colourless eyes, like a hawk’s.

  Mr Cleat stood up immediately, as did Liam and Lucy. Courtney was visiting a house by Streatham Common. The man walked through the office, saying, “Good morning,” in a crackly, phlegmy voice like somebody slowly crumpling up a crisp packet. He went straight through to the office marked R. Vane and closed the door behind him.

  “I wasn’t expecting to see him in today,” said Liam. “He usually plays golf on Tuesdays. At least that’s what he says. I can’t really picture him in those checkered golfing trousers, can you?”

  Mr Cleat was obviously agitated. He approached Mr Vane’s door and then he went back to his desk again. Then at last he plucked up the courage to go up and knock. There was an agonizingly long pause and then the door opened just a fraction and Mr Vane beckoned Mr Cleat to come in.

  “They’ll be talking about the Mountjoy Avenue business,” warned Liam. “But don’t you worry. Cleaty may be a creep but he usually sticks up for his staff.”

  After five or ten minutes, Mr Vane’s door opened again and Mr Cleat came out. “John, Mr Vane wants a word.”

  John glanced worriedly at Liam. Liam gave him a grin and a thumbs-up, but he still couldn’t stop himself from swallowing and swallowing, and the palms of his hands tingled. He knocked on Mr Vane’s door and went inside.

  As before, the office was almost dark. Mr Vane was sitting at his desk, leaning back in his chair so that he was almost hidden behind the mountain of pamphlets and books and particulars.

  “I gather that you made a serious error yesterday,” said Mr Vane, making no attempt to introduce himself.

  John said, “I’m sorry, sir. It was my first day. I didn’t know,” in a voice that was very much higher than he had intended.

  “Well, it wasn’t entirely your fault. Mr Cleat should have made it clearer to you that on no account are you to have anything whatsoever to do with my properties, and certainly on no account are you to go rifling through my desk. No rifling” he repeated, as if it were some kind of disgusting, unspeakable sin.

  “However, considering that you are new here, and Mr Cleat says that you seem to be showing promise, I am prepared on this occasion to put the matter behind us.”

  “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”

  “Let me tell you, though, that you are not to concern yourself in any way with any of the properties on my special list. They are mine to deal with, and mine alone. Any further mistakes and I will immediately let you go.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Mr Vane stood up and pushed back his chair. He walked around his desk with his hands on his hips and came up very close to John and stared into his face. He was so close that John could see every wrinkle around his mouth, and how yellow his teeth were.

  He laid his hand on John’s shoulder and looked steadily into his eyes. “It’s a great thing to be young, isn’t it?”

  “Well, it depends.”

  “I was your age once. Just starting out in life. It seems like a very long time ago now. You mustn’t squander it, you know. It will never come to you again.”

  “Right,” said John. He wished the old so-and-so would stop clutching him so tight.

  “I’ll give you two words of advice,” said Mr Vane. “The first is, to keep your nose out of where it’s not wanted. The second is, never to make promises that you’ll live to regret.”

  John nodded furiously as if he understood what this was all about.

  “Do you understand me?” a
sked Mr Vane.

  “Yes, absolutely.”

  “Then you’d better go and get on with your work.”

  John left Mr Vane’s office and went back to his desk. Lucy prodded him with her pencil and said, “You’re looking white as a sheet. Are you all right?”

  “Yeah, yeah. I’m all right.”

  “Well, let me buy you some lunch. I know you didn’t eat anything yesterday.”

  “It’s all right. I’ve brought sandwiches today.” He patted the bag on his desk.

  Before he could stop her, Lucy had opened up the packet, peered inside, and peeled apart one of his sandwiches to see what was in it. “Raspberry jam?” she said, wrinkling her nose up. “You can’t work all day on raspberry jam. I’ll buy you fish and chips down at The Lighthouse.”

  John’s cheeks turned from ashen to burning red. But when he turned around he saw Liam winking at him and mouthing the words, “Go on,” and so he turned back to Lucy and said, “Yeah, thanks. That’d be great.”

  The fish and chips turned out to be the best fish and chips he had ever eaten in his life, and Lucy turned out to be quite different from the sour, stand-offish person she had seemed to be yesterday. She was funny, and incredibly sarcastic about everybody at Blight, Simpson & Vane; and although he hadn’t thought she was very pretty yesterday, he suddenly saw her in a completely new light. She had wide blue eyes and a pouty mouth and a very mischievous laugh.

  “I didn’t think you liked me yesterday,” he said, as he finished the last dregs of his Coke.

  Lucy took out her handbag mirror and admired himself. “Do you think I need a nose job? No, I make it a rule never to like anybody on their first day. They might turn out to be total nerds and then where would you be? Friendly with a nerd.”

  “But you don’t think I’m a nerd?”

  “Nerd-ish, at times. But you’ll grow out of it. Just have a bit more confidence.”

  As they walked back to the office John said, “That Mr Vane’s weird. He gave me the creeps this morning.”

  “Oh, there’s all kinds of rumours about Mr Vane. Liam thinks he’s a vampire. Courtney breaks out into a sweat just being in the same office with him. He’ll be dead glad he wasn’t there today.”

  “What do you think?”

  “I think that he’s got a terrible, terrible secret. It’s so awful that he doesn’t want anybody else to find out what it is. He’s got a different piece of the secret hidden in each of the houses on his special list, and that’s why he won’t let anybody else handle them, except him.”

  “And what’s the secret?”

  “How should I know? If I knew what it was, it wouldn’t be a secret, would it?”

  That night, after his mother had gone to bed and Ruth had shut herself in her bedroom to play records, John and his father sat together in the sitting-room, watching television. They didn’t say very much, but they were both tired, and they didn’t really have to.

  After the news, John’s father stood up and stretched. “Think I’ll turn in now. I’m starting at six tomorrow.”

  He was just about to switch off the local news round-up when a face suddenly flashed on the screen. John said, “Dad – don’t! I want to listen to this!”

  “What?” said his father.

  The newsreader was saying, “… missing from his home in Streatham. Police say that he was due to keep an important business appointment yesterday afternoon at two o’clock but failed to turn up. His car was found in a backstreet near Streatham Common station, containing his briefcase and other business papers. So far there are no clues as to where Mr Rogers might have gone.”

  “It’s Mr Rogers,” said John, excitedly. “Dad – Dad, it’s Mr Rogers!”

  “Who’s Mr Rogers when he’s at home? Not the chap who used to own the pet shop?”

  “No, this is another Mr Rogers. He came into the office yesterday and asked me to give him the key to 66 Mountjoy Avenue. He was the man I got into trouble for.”

  “You didn’t tell me you got into trouble. What – on your first day?”

  “No, look, listen! He wanted the key to 66 Mountjoy Avenue and I gave it to him when I shouldn’t have. But Mr Cleat went out and got it off him. But now he’s missing.”

  “Well, that’s not your fault, is it?”

  John said, “No. No, it isn’t. But he’s missing, isn’t he? He could have been kidnapped, couldn’t he? He could have been killed!”

  His father stood by the door and looked mystified. “If you say so,” he said.

  5

  As soon as Lucy arrived at the office the following morning John frantically beckoned her into the kitchen. She was wearing a black short-sleeved blouse and a short white linen skirt and she had pinned up her hair.

  John said, “Did you see the news last night?”

  “No, I went to a club.”

  “Mr Rogers was on it. The man I gave the key to 66 Mountjoy Avenue. He’s gone missing.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I gave him the key, right? Then Mr Cleat went after him, and brought the key back. But Mr Rogers was supposed to go to a business meeting at two o’clock, but he never showed up. They found his car by Streatham Common station, with his briefcase in it and everything. And I turned on the news this morning and he hasn’t been home, either.”

  “So what?”

  “So Mr Cleat was probably one of the last people to see him, wasn’t he?”

  Lucy frowned. “I suppose so. But what would Mr Cleat want to kidnap anybody for?”

  “Well, I don’t know. But you said yourself that Mr Vane has a terrible, terrible secret, and that every one of his houses contains a different part of it. Supposing Mr Rogers went to 66 Mountjoy Avenue and discovered part of the secret? Supposing that Mr Cleat was told to keep him quiet?”

  “You’ve been watching too much television,” said Lucy. “Now, how about a cup of coffee? That’s what you’re here for, isn’t it?”

  “If Mr Rogers isn’t at 66 Mounjoy Avenue, where is he then?”

  “What?” Lucy demanded, wrinkling up her nose. “You think he’s still there?”

  “Well, he could be, couldn’t he? I mean, tied up or something. Or dead.”

  “What? You don’t think that Cleaty could kill anybody, do you? He puts wasps out of the window in his handkerchief.”

  “But if this secret’s so terrible—”

  “I was making it up,” said Lucy. “Mr Vane is probably just as ordinary as you or me. Well, me, anyway.”

  “But supposing you’re right? Supposing it’s true? And supposing Mr Rogers went into the house and found out what it was?”

  “John, you’re letting your imagination run away with you.”

  “Well, yes, perhaps I am. But all I know is that I gave the key to Mr Rogers, and Mr Cleat went to the house to collect it from him. He must have met him at the house, because he didn’t know where Mr Rogers was going afterwards, did he? Mr Rogers didn’t turn up to his first afternoon appointment, which was two o’clock, and that was the last that anybody saw of him.”

  “But what about his car? That wasn’t outside the house, was it?”

  “Of course not. Mr Cleat drove it away and abandoned it and then he walked back to pick up his own car.”

  “Oh, come on, John. This is silly.”

  “No, it’s not. I think we ought to go up to the house and have a look around.”

  “I can’t. I’ve got a client at eleven.”

  “There’s plenty of time. It’s only half-past nine.”

  Lucy hesitated, but then she saw that John was deadly serious. He had stayed awake almost all night thinking about Mr Rogers and Mr Cleat, and the more he thought about it, the more convinced he was that Mr Cleat must have had something to do with Mr Rogers’ disappearance. It was the way that he had panicked, and the way that he had come back from 66 Mountjoy Avenue looking so grim-faced. It was the way that he had danced round Mr Vane, so nervy and obsequious.

  Lucy we
nt straight to Mr Cleat and said, “Is it all right if I take John to look round The Rookery?”

  Mr Cleat looked up and said, “Any particular reason?”

  “Well, yes. I think he ought to see how we evaluate blocks of flats. Leasehold, service charges, all that stuff.”

  “All right, then. Good idea. I don’t see why not.”

  “Thanks, Mr Cleat,” said John, with a wide, artificial smile, and he could tell by the look on Mr Cleat’s face that he didn’t know whether to be highly pleased or deeply suspicious.

  “I think this is totally mad,” said Lucy, as they drove past Streatham Common in her bright red Mini Metro. “And if I’m late for my appointment I’m going to kill you.”

  On the common, people were cycling and rollerblading and walking dogs and flying kites.

  John said, “But think about it. Nobody else could have known that Mr Rogers was visiting Mountjoy Avenue except us. Otherwise the police would have been round to see us already, wouldn’t they?”

  “I don’t know. I still think this is insane.”

  They turned at last into Mountjoy Avenue. It was a long tree-lined road with huge Edwardian redbrick houses on either side, most of them concealed behind high walls or laurel bushes. A few of them had been converted into nursing homes, and one of them was a doctors’ practice with a shiny brass nameplate outside, but most of them were still private. Lucy drove along to the far end of the road and stopped outside number 60.

  “66 is further up,” said John.

  “Yes, but real detectives don’t park their car right outside the suspect’s house, do they?”

  They climbed out and cautiously approached number 66. It had a wall topped with cast-iron spikes, and heavy black cast-iron gates, but the hinges had rusted long ago and the gates couldn’t be closed. Beyond the gates was a curved shingle driveway, and a chaotic front garden filled with weeds and overgrown shrubs. Five stone steps led up to the front door, which was guarded by two stone lions, one of which wore a poisonous green cape of dried-out moss.