Dead Flowers Read online

‘Is it?’

  ‘Sure it is.’

  ‘What am I going to do, Nick?’ he asked. ‘Come out and fuck up my family or carry on like I’m doing and feeling as miserable as sin all the time.’

  ‘I can’t help you with that one, Charlie,’ I replied. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Not half as sorry as I am. I could always kill myself, I suppose.’

  ‘That’s bollocks and you know it,’ I said. ‘Don’t give me that crap or I’ll lose my patience.’

  ‘Always there with an understanding word, eh, Nick?’ he said, and I could see the misery in his face but to my detriment I ignored it.

  My lack of understanding would come back to haunt me.

  And that’s more or less where we left it. I couldn’t help Charlie, but I could help the next person who came looking for me. Or at least I thought I could, and if it hadn’t been for what Charlie had told me, and what happened later, maybe I never would have.

  4

  I’d just got back from Aberdeen and reopened the office when I met Ray Miller. I’d been visiting my daughter, Judith, who was living in Scotland with her solicitor’s family until she decided what to do with her life. She was a rich girl now, or she would be in a couple of years’ time when she reached her majority. Her deceased mother and stepfather had seen to that when they perished with her little half-brother on a freezing day just before the previous Christmas at O’Hare airport in Chicago. But right now she was getting ready to do her GCSEs. Then she’d decide if she wanted to do ‘A’ levels, or Highers as they call them up there, and maybe go on to university. Or maybe she wouldn’t. Or decide if maybe she’d move back down to London with me, or maybe she wouldn’t. She wasn’t too sure. Not about that, and not about a lot of other things. And after what she’d been through I couldn’t blame her. One thing was for sure. It was better that she stayed away from me for a while. I wasn’t even certain that she loved me any more, not after what she’d had to do to save my life. Kill a man. Not that he was much of a man, and for sure he’d’ve killed me if she’d let him live. And then her afterwards. After he’d had his fun with her. Because he was that kind of man. But she’d lost something that day, and if it included her love for me, so be it. I knew that I loved her, loved her more than life itself. But like so many other women I’d known and loved, and who’d loved me back, she was better off without me. When I’d left we’d held each other tightly at the airport, but I didn’t know when or, quite frankly, if I’d ever see her again.

  I stroked her blonde hair in the quiet of the airport terminal as geezers in kilts and other geezers in big white Stetson hats passed by us. ‘I’m going to miss you,’ I said.

  ‘I’m going to miss you too, Dad.’ At least she hadn’t started calling me Nick yet.

  ‘Are you sure you’re all right with the Condies?’ That was the name of her solicitor’s family.

  ‘Course I am.’ She said it with the kind of tone that made me feel stupid.

  ‘And you don’t need anything.’

  ‘Nothing at all.’

  Not even me, I thought. ‘You’ll call me,’ I said.

  ‘Don’t I always?’

  She did, as a matter of fact. Either on Saturday afternoon or Sunday night. But I knew that sometimes it was more of a duty than a pleasure, and sometimes she had little to say so the lines just hummed in my ear. ‘Sure you do,’ I said. I couldn’t think of anything else to say and they called my flight for the second time.

  ‘You’ll miss your plane.’

  ‘No I won’t.’

  ‘Dad, you’d better go.’

  I picked up my battered leather bag. ‘OK then.’

  ‘OK’

  ‘Good luck with your exams.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  I kissed her and she looked so much like her mother I almost broke up. ‘Come visit,’ I said.

  ‘I will.’

  ‘’Bye then,’ and I touched her hand, turned and walked away. At the gate I looked back, but she’d gone. Children. Who’d have ’em?

  5

  So I went back to work. Well, I wandered down and sat in my office and read the paper every day. I had a few quid in the bank so I wasn’t desperate to get out on the mean streets again. In fact, I could quite happily have stayed indoors for the rest of my life catching up on old comedy shows on satellite TV. But I knew how Judith felt about me wasting my time, so I reckoned I had to at least make an effort. I still cared about what she thought of me, and I knew I always would.

  Then on the afternoon of the second Tuesday I was back, after a liquid lunch in the pub opposite, I got a new client.

  He turned up in a dark blue Aston Martin Vantage on that year’s plate that made every other car in the road, and probably the whole area, look like trash. He parked it up outside my office, helped a small boy out of the passenger seat, checked the number on the door, and came right inside. It was pouring with rain that afternoon and sheet lightning lit up the streets and thunder boomed so loudly I thought the roof might cave in. As they hustled across the pavement I noticed that the man limped. Join the club, I thought.

  He was small and tough-looking, wearing grey sweats and brand-new Reeboks that were dappled with wet spots from the weather. The boy was pretty and blond with big blue eyes. I assumed they were father and son, and the boy must’ve got his looks from the other side of the family. ‘Are you Nick Sharman?’ the man asked as he wiped rain from his face and closed my office door behind him. He had an estuary accent, close-cropped hair and a nasty rash across his nose. He looked a bit like Aldo Ray, if anyone in the world remembers what Aldo Ray looked like. I told you. I watch too much TV.

  ‘That’s me,’ I said, although I wished I could deny it, and almost did for a second. I sensed trouble, but I don’t always trust my senses. You’d think I’d’ve learned by now.

  ‘My name’s Ray. Ray Miller. I need your help,’ he said. Coincidence. The Ray bit.

  ‘Sit down, Mr Miller,’ I invited. I’m always polite to people who drive that much motor car. And, incidentally, look that tough.

  He did as I bade him, perching the boy on his knee where he wriggled like a monkey for a bit before he settled down and looked at me with those big blue eyes. ‘You’re the private detective,’ he said. The man, that is, not the boy.

  ‘That’s right,’ I replied. ‘What can I do for you?’

  ‘I’m looking for my wife. I want you to find her for me.’

  Another missing person, I thought. Another load of grief.

  I’m getting too old for that lark.

  ‘Have you been to the police?’ I asked.

  ‘Sure. I went there when she left. They told me she was a big girl and could do what she wanted. I made them take down her details but they never got back to me.’

  ‘Salvation Army?’

  ‘Do me a favour. She wasn’t off to live rough or in a hostel.’

  Right then I didn’t ask what she did leave for. That would come later. Right then I was still looking for reasons to make him go away and leave me alone.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I don’t know if I want to take on a complex case like yours.’

  ‘Why complex?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s a big town, Mr Miller,’ I replied. ‘What makes you think I can do it?’ I just wished he’d disappear so that I could get back to the newspaper and, if I wanted a challenge, do the quick crossword.

  ‘I dunno,’ he said. ‘I asked around. I’ve got a few mates local.’ I just bet he had. And I was willing to bet they weren’t nice ones.

  ‘Where do you come from then?’ I asked.

  ‘Essex. Romford. But I’m moving.’

  Not a bad idea, I thought, but I said nothing. Essex people are very proprietorial about their county. ‘So tell me,’ I said, ‘about your wife.’

  Though really, all I wanted him to do was get back into his expensive car, head east for Essex and never bother me again.

  The boy finally managed to slide off his father’s knee and we
nt and stood in the doorway, jiggling from foot to foot and clocking the real estate outside through the silver rain that kept falling as the lightning flashed and the thunder roared. But he didn’t flinch. Just kept looking. I liked that. ‘You stay in here, Liam,’ said Ray. ‘Don’t get wet.’ Then to me. ‘He’s nearly four. Terrible age.’

  ‘I’ve got a girl,’ I said. ‘Teenager. Believe me, it doesn’t get any better.’

  ‘So I’ve heard.’

  ‘Tell me about your wife,’ I went on, once we’d got that little bit of personal history sorted, and I knew he wasn’t going to go away.

  ‘She left me just over a year ago; came to south London I think.’

  ‘Why did she leave?’

  ‘Money problems. And the boy. She couldn’t cope.’

  ‘Money problems,’ I said. ‘What? Couldn’t you afford to valet the motor that week?’

  He looked over his shoulder, out of the rain-streaked window, at the Aston Martin that sat at the kerb like a beast waiting to be woken from a long sleep and kill a few peasants.

  ‘That was then,’ he said almost shyly. ‘This is now. I had a result. A good result.’

  I cocked my head in a listening pose.

  ‘Lottery,’ he explained. ‘All six numbers on a double rollover week.’

  ‘How much?’ I asked.

  ‘Me and someone else split twenty-four million.’

  ‘Twelve million,’ I breathed as if he couldn’t do the sum.

  He nodded. ‘So you see, my money problems are over now, and I want Sharon back. Me and Liam. We both want her back. So’s that we can be a family again.’

  I thought about families, and my lack of one, and I couldn’t fault him on that.

  ‘Please help me,’ he said. ‘Us.’

  6

  ‘Your wife’s name is Sharon,’ I said. More for something to say than anything else. I was thinking that maybe I should start doing the lottery. I imagined what I could do with twelve million quid. Open a branch of my office in Mayfair maybe.

  ‘That’s right,’ he replied.

  ‘So tell me about her.’

  ‘She’s a lot younger than me. Only eighteen when we met. A party girl. We started going out, then I asked her to marry me. I was surprised when she said yes. Then she got pregnant with Liam. That’s it really.’

  ‘Except she left you.’

  He nodded.

  ‘So how old is she now?’

  ‘Twenty-six, but she doesn’t look it. Or she didn’t. I’ve got some photos of her.’ He went into the pocket of his sweats and brought out a Kodak folder that he put on the table.

  I picked it up and squinted inside. There were a dozen prints taken at different times. She was good-looking, blonde, a bit tarty, but looked like a laugh, if that was what you wanted. And she did appear young. And Liam had got his features from her. Right down to the big blue eyes. ‘She’s a real looker,’ he said.

  ‘I see what you mean,’ I replied. ‘When were these taken?’

  ‘About fifteen months ago.’

  ‘So what happened?’

  ‘I’m a builder. Contractor. Or I was. I started my business when I got out of the army. That’s where this happened.’ He slapped his leg. ‘Falklands. I was in the paras. NCO. First into Goose Green. I collected a few ounces of shrapnel in my leg and was medivacced out. Just as well I was wearing a flak jacket, otherwise I wouldn’t have made it out at all. As it was, my war lasted precisely twenty-nine minutes.’ He laughed at that, but there wasn’t much humour in it. ‘I kept the jacket as a souvenir, along with my limp. And a few medals, of course. Young and stupid, Mr Sharman. Young and stupid. I got a medical discharge and a few bob. Not much, but enough to get started in the trade. Conversions mainly. Things were all right at the beginning. More than all right, as it goes, so I expanded. Took on more men and bought some development land and started putting up new houses. The eighties. Remember them?’ I remembered them, but not with fondness. ‘But the recession hit and I went broke,’ he went on. ‘Had to lay the boys off. That was the worst bit. Me and Sharon had a flat in Romford. Only a small one. I’ve just sold it. Made a bloody profit too. Talk about money going to money.’ He gave another mirthless laugh. ‘But it suited us at the time. You see I ploughed all the capital back into the business. Then one day it was gone. The lot. So I was on the dole. I didn’t like that. I prefer getting my hands dirty, but there was no work. She was OK when she was pregnant. It pulled us together really.’ He looked round at Liam and lowered his voice in deference to him, but I don’t think the kid was listening. He was more interested in studying a half-drowned pigeon with one leg hopping across a puddle in the pavement. ‘But he can be a bit of a handful. She couldn’t cope. I got a few foreigners away, doing the work myself. For cash, you know.’

  I knew.

  ‘She started leaving Liam with her mum and ...’ He paused and looked a bit sick.

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘She started going down the clubs again. That’s where I met her. The Hollywood.’

  ‘Other blokes?’ I asked.

  He looked round at the boy again, then looked back at me and nodded. ‘It wasn’t her fault,’ he said sadly. ‘She’s not a bad girl. Just easily led. She likes a good time and I couldn’t give it to her. Couldn’t afford to. Not then.’

  I wondered how many times I’d heard that or something similar before?

  ‘And then one day she didn’t come back,’ he continued.

  ‘Rough,’ I said.

  ‘But now I’m buying a new place. Out past the M25. In the country. It’ll be good for the boy. Her mum’s moving in to look after him. Christ, I’ll get a nanny if Sharon wants one. A cook.’

  ‘A butler,’ I said.

  He checked to see if I was taking the piss. ‘If she wants one. I’m rich, and I want you to find her.’

  ‘What exactly makes you think she’s round here?’

  ‘She was knocking about with one particular fella.’

  ‘That makes it complicated. If it’s love.’

  ‘She can’t love him. She loves me.’

  Sure, I thought, they always do. And how many times had I heard that one before too? ‘Who’s the bloke?’ I asked.

  ‘His name’s Chris Grant,’ he said. ‘She used to go clubbing with a bird called Melanie. She told me about him. He’s something in the pub trade down the Old Kent Road.’

  My heart sank at that bit of information. The Old Kent Road is a bit like south London’s answer to Dodge City before Wyatt Earp and his brothers moved in to clear it up. And the pubs there are a bit like the Last Chance Saloon, only with CD jukeboxes.

  ‘What kind of something?’ I asked.

  He shrugged. ‘Dunno. She was a bit vague. Runs one, owns one, works in one. Whatever. But then that’s your job, innit? Finding out.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I’m getting a bit old for trolling around the Old Kent Road boozers. The average age of the punters has dropped to about fifteen down there.’

  ‘But they still say you’re the best.’

  I’d love to meet this mythical ‘they’. Perhaps they’d write me a reference so’s I could get a nice, quiet, steady job with no stress and that fitted my personality. Like cleaning cars, maybe. ‘I don’t know,’ I said again. ‘I’m just looking for a quiet life.’

  He changed tack then, and appealed to my better nature. ‘If not for me, Mr Sharman, at least for Liam. He misses his mum something strong. Every night he asks for her, and I can hear him crying himself to sleep.’

  At that I gave in. Next he’d be telling me about Liam’s kitty-kat who had been off his milk since Sharon left. ‘All right, Mr Miller, I’ll try,’ I said, putting up my hands in surrender. ‘But I ain’t cheap.’

  He laughed, shook his head and reached into his pocket again. This time for a brown paper envelope. ‘There’s five grand there,’ he said.

  ‘That’s a lot of dough,’ I said back. I was feeling better already.

  ‘Do
you know how much interest I make on twelve million every week?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘Enough to pay for you for as long as it takes. Longer. If you need any more, let me know.’

  ‘I will, but I can’t guarantee anything,’ I replied. ‘A year’s a long time. Even if I find her, she might not want to come back.’

  ‘Tell her about the money. She was always fond of money, was Sharon.’ Now we were getting down to the gritty bits.

  ‘I’ll do the best I can,’ I said.

  ‘Go for it then. My phone numbers are in there too. Home and mobile. Just call me when you find her.’

  ‘All right, Mr Miller,’ I said. ‘Can I keep the photos?’

  ‘Sure. I’ve got the originals.’

  I gave him one of my cards. My office number was on the front and I scribbled my home number on the back. For five grand I thought he should be able to get in touch, even though I knew I’d probably regret it later. ‘And I might want to speak to this Melanie,’ I said. ‘How do I get in touch with her?’

  ‘Her number’s in there too. All written down.’

  ‘I’ll get started then. I’ll ring you if anything turns up,’ I said.

  ‘You will. And make it soon, please.’

  After that there wasn’t much more to say, so he got up and collected Liam and took him back through the rain to the car, which he neatly manoeuvred out of the space he’d found, made a three-point turn and headed back to Essex, leaving me with five thousand pounds, a bunch of photographs and the remains of his marriage.

  It wasn’t much, but I guess it would do for now.

  There had been times when I’d been left with a lot less.

  7

  When he was out of sight I opened the envelope. Inside were five packets of brand-new fifty pound notes each containing a grand, plus a single sheet of paper with Ray Miller’s two phone numbers. One a landline, the other a mobile. Under that was the name Melanie Wiltse, and a single telephone number. I folded the paper and put it in my pocket.

  I just had time to catch the bank, so keeping a monkey back I locked up the office, walked down through the rain and deposited my new-found wealth and went home.