‘You’ve lost me,’ Jett said, but I at least found Kris. He and Bell were both in Kris’s flat eating Thai rice and sounding glum.
Their reaction to the suggestion of a little hospital visiting brought them rapidly round with a six-pack of Heineken, though inevitably vivid memories of George and Glenda hovered over the room, forbidding much in the way of laughter.
Bell had brought Glenda’s suitcase with her, as I’d asked, and it was Bell who opened it, but inside there were only rudimentary overnight clothes and no folder. A good idea, but no good fruit.
‘Funny you should ask about a folder,’ Bell said. ‘You know I talked to Dad this morning about Glenda and George — and I’m so sorry that I couldn’t stop crying — well, Dad phoned again and asked me if there was a folder in Glenda’s case and he positively begged me to go and look at once—’
‘And was the folder there?’ I interrupted.
‘You’re as bad as Dad. He was in a frightful tizzy. And, if you want to know, everything that’s in the case is more or less all she brought with her, which isn’t much, but then she’d just killed George... Oh dear...’ Tears welled in her eyes, unstoppable.
‘You didn’t even like him,’ Kris said crossly, handing her tissues.
Kris liked Robin Darcy.
‘Robin Darcy was in Newmarket, wasn’t he?’ I asked Bell.
‘Yes, he was,’ she said, ‘but he went back to Florida.’
‘Which day?’
‘Ask Kris.’
Kris said, ‘Tuesday,’ sounding bored. ‘Long before Glenda pinched the folder.’
‘Why do you all fuss so much over a folder?’ Bell asked, irritated. ‘You’d think it held the crown jewels. All it had in it was a bunch of shopping lists, but they were mostly in German, or some language like that.’ She seemed unaware of my own state of pole-axe and blithely continued. ‘Dad practically zoomed off to outer space, but he came down to earth again when I told him the folder had gone back to Newmarket and was quite safe.’
I took a steadying breath and asked more or less calmly who had taken it back to Newmarket?
‘One of those motor-bike delivery boys,’ she said. ‘A courier.’
‘And... er,’ I asked, ‘where was he going with it?’
‘It was a bit odd, really,’ Bell said, ‘considering Glenda was practically scratching his eyes out at Doncaster races.’
‘Oliver Quigley?’ I said it jerkily, enlightened but horrified.
Bell nodded. ‘That’s right. The courier came with a big envelope for it this morning, with everything paid for in advance, so of course Kris put the folder into the envelope and stuck it up, and we gave it to him. Actually I haven’t thought about it since. The courier came before we knew about George. Before we knew he was dead. When we heard, it put everything else out of our heads.’
‘Um...’ I cautiously asked, ‘did Glenda herself say anything about sending a folder to Oliver Quigley?’
‘It was about all she didn’t gabble on about, but yes, she did talk to Oliver, but not for long. Talk — it was more like a shouting match — but she told us to give the folder to the courier if he came for it, and then she went out for some air... and oh dear, poor Glenda... She didn’t come back...’
Kris raised his eyes heavenwards and passed tissues. He said, ‘The courier was waiting on my doorstep when we got back from your place. He’d been waiting for ages, he said. He wasn’t best pleased, but we gave him coffee and toast and stuff, and I gave him a big tip when he left because he’d recognised me, and he went off quite happy.’
‘Ridiculous really,’ Bell said, ‘but we were pleased to have done something for Glenda, even though she was dead.’ Bell meant it seriously but Kris hid a giggle.
‘Drink the beer,’ I told him, but he gave his second can to Bell.
He was perched on the window-sill, long-bodied, pale-skinned and incredibly sane. His own near-death at Luton and Glenda’s actual acting out of the chief threat of his suicidal nature had, in an extraordinary way, flattened out his wilder self, and it was he who gave me a thoughtful stare and said, ‘Let’s start at the beginning, kiddo, and we’ll find your bits of paper for you, and you’ll explain why you want them, and then I’ll give them to Bell’s father, to make him like me a bit as a son-in-law.’
‘So the wedding’s on?’ I asked.
‘At the moment,’ Bell agreed.
‘Folder,’ Kris said flatly, coming back to basics. ‘Glenda brought one with her in her suitcase, and I’d guess from the ruckus that she’d pinched it. How am I doing?’
‘Terrific,’ I said.
‘How about this, then? There were things in the folder that she knew Oliver Quigley wanted back...’ Kris stopped and scratched his head and then doubtfully went on. ‘They had a slanging match on the telephone which Glenda lost, and she agreed to courier the folder back to Oliver if he sent a pre-paid envelope for it, which he did, but it was just one thing too much for poor old Glenda.’
Both Bell and Jett were nodding and I wondered if Kris really believed his edition of things, or was deliberately trying to mislead us all... and I regretted how suspicious I had become after barely four hours as an unofficial snoop.
By nine o’clock all three of my visitors had voted for more lively entertainments than rash-watching, and by midnight I’d discovered the loneliness woven into problem-solving, when success meant that no one knew there was a problem to begin with.
On Saturday morning a spot-check persuaded me that perhaps there was an improvement there, though the rash now itched under a three-day beard. A week after Luton, I still had black rib bruises with accompanying painful reminders if I forgot to move slowly. Only in the vomit department had things unmistakably improved. All in all, apart from Jett’s cheerful visits, it hadn’t been the grandest seven days ever. More like a long lesson in my grandmother’s lifetime philosophy: if you can’t fix it, think about something else.
I spent most of Saturday morning running up a frightening hospital phone bill in a search for a motor cyclist who had, on Thursday, ferried a large envelope to Oliver Quigley in Newmarket, but learned, when I at last found a courier company who’d even heard of Oliver Quigley, that they were now being accused of non-delivery, even though the package had been duly delivered and signed for.
They were upset, and at times incoherent with anger. Would they please, I asked them, slow down and start again?
Yes, agreed the Zipalong Couriers. Yes, they had been engaged to collect and deliver the package I described, and yes, their man had unfortunately had to charge a good deal extra for waiting time. But Mr Ironside had made it worth his while. Yes, their man motorcycled to Newmarket and identified Mr Quigley’s house, and yes, a Mr Quigley had received the envelope, and signed for it, and it wasn’t their fault that Mr Quigley was now complaining that the Zipalong courier hadn’t arrived, and that at the time of delivery he, Quigley, had been at Cheltenham races.
‘What had been the delivery time,’ I asked.
‘Noon.’
By the time they thought of asking what my interest was in the affair, I’d learned enough courier etiquette to fill a ‘how to’ book for Ghost.
I disconnected from Zipalong with fulsome thanks, and phoned the mobile number of Oliver Quigley, anxious racehorse trainer, all now, it seemed, restored to his normal self of trembles and shakes.
When my phone caught up with his phone, he was again at Cheltenham races, outside the Golden Miller bar. He offered a stuttery greeting that ignored the stripped-down personality I’d seen at Doncaster.