Chapter 137: The Person Who Cannot Be Asked II

Calton Avenue at 5 to 6 was wet leaves and big dark houses with one light on in each, and a Transit with CLEARANCES on the side half up the kerb outside number 14.

A man sat on the tailgate with a flask. A younger one leaned on the gatepost with his phone.

"You the other one?" said the one with the flask.

"I was told 6."

"He said there’d be the lady from the auction house and one more, and you’re not the lady." He screwed the lid on the flask. "I’m Col. That’s Kyle. We’re the muscle."

"Danny."

Col did not say it back, and did not write it down.

"He’s been in there since 5 walking about," Kyle said, without looking up. "Keeps going and staring at the clock. Big grandfather thing in the hall."

"What’s wrong with it?"

"It’s stopped and he won’t let anybody touch it. Col went to wind it and got his head bit off."

"He asked me nicely to leave it," Col said. "There’s a difference."

The hall was big and cold and smelled of an old woman’s house, lavender polish and dry radiators and something like the inside of a handbag. The grandfather clock stood against the wall with its pendulum hanging dead behind the little glass.

His phone went once in his inside pocket. He took it out this time.

[ Clocked on. 06:00. ]

The man in the hall was about 55, in a waxed jacket, grey at the sides, his face gone slack round the jaw from not sleeping. He looked at Danny’s shoes, and then up.

"Right," he said. "Good."

And went into the front room.

At 20 past 6 his phone went in there. He took it standing by the piano with his back to the hall door, and he did not keep his voice down.

"Stephen. It’s 6 in the morning."

A gap.

"No. I’m not doing this with you now. You’ve had since March. You could have come any Sunday in the last 4 years, and you came to the funeral and left before the sandwiches."

A longer gap.

"Your solicitor can ring mine on Monday. Monday. And don’t you tell me what she wanted, you don’t get to tell me that."

He put the phone face down on the piano lid and stood there with his hand on it.

A brother called Stephen. A solicitor on Monday.

So whatever’s leaving this house has got to be gone by Monday.

At 6:40 the woman from the auction house came up the path fast, a leather folder under one arm and a tape measure on her belt. She was early 30s, with dark hair twisted up and speared with a pencil, reading glasses pushed up into it, and a black roll-neck under a camel coat too thin for the weather.

She stopped dead in the doorway.

"Oh. Morning. Hannah Pryce, Harrow and Lyle." A hand out. "You’re not family, he’s only got the one brother and I’ve seen his photo."

He shook it. Her hand was freezing.

"Not clearance either, before you ask."

"And not his solicitor, his solicitor’s 70 and calls me young lady." She kept hold a second longer than the handshake needed. "So what are you? Insurance? Because if you’re from the insurer I’ve got 3 questions about the piano."

Danny stood in the cold hall in rubber soles.

She’s asked me straight.

And I don’t have to lie to her. I’ve only got to not give her a name.

"I’m just here," he said.

Hannah looked at him over the top of glasses that were not on her nose.

"Right. Well, whoever you are, don’t lean on the piano, it’s lot 12 and the top’s French polish."

She went past him into the front room. The hall smelled of cold air and something she wore, pepper and something green, for about a minute after.

Things came out of the rooms and went past him to the van, glasses wrapped in newspaper 4 at a time, then the dining chairs, then a standard lamp with its shade on crooked. Kyle carried a hat stand past twice, the first time upside down.

"Is he paying you to stand there?" Kyle said, on the second trip.

"Something like that."

"Mint. I want that job."

"You don’t."

"How much, though?"

"Enough that I’m not telling you on a doorstep."

Kyle looked at the shoes, then at the suit, then at the hat stand in his own arms, and took it out to the van.

Through the front room door Danny could see Hannah on her knees looking under the piano, the roll-neck ridden up an inch at the back over the top of her jeans. She pushed the pencil back into her hair without looking and wrote a number in the folder, and Danny looked at the stairs.

At 7:50 she came out into the hall and stood in front of the clock, and the son came and stood next to her.

"Lot 3, Mr Hale. If it’s staying I need it in writing. If it’s coming I need it off that wall by 10, because the big van’s at quarter past and the driver won’t wait."

"It’s my brother’s. Mum always said."

"Did she say it anywhere I can read?"

"She said it at Christmas."

"Then it’s not in the will, and it’s on my valuation, and I’ve got to sell it or I’ve got to have a signature from both of you saying I don’t." She said it gently. "I’m sorry. I know that’s not what anybody wants to hear on a morning like this."

"He’ll want it." The son was looking at the dead pendulum. "He’ll want it and he’ll not come and get it. He’ll have his solicitor write a letter about it."

"Then I need it in writing by 10."

He walked away into the dining room without answering.

At 8:15 she came out of the kitchen with 2 cups of tea and put one in Danny’s hand.

"Col made it. I’ve told him you’re mine, it saves him asking. Don’t thank me, I want something."

"Go on."

"You’ve been stood in this hall 2 hours and you’ve watched everything come past you." She leaned on the wall beside him with the cup under her chin. "There’s a ring box in the sideboard in there. Top left drawer, brown leather, about this big." Finger and thumb. "His mother’s engagement ring. It’s lot 41, it’s on my valuation from September, and the brother’s solicitor’s had a copy since October."

"Why are you telling me?"

"Because Col’s got hands like shovels and those 2 are emptying drawers into bin bags. I’m leaving the ring box where it is till they’re out of that room, and I’d like one other person in this house to know where it’s meant to be." She drank some tea. "That’s all."

"You don’t know who I am."

"No. But you’re the only one here who’s not moved anything since 6."

At half 9 the house was half empty and colder for it. Every step on the bare stairs came back off the walls.

At 9:48 the son went into the dining room, where the sideboard was the last big thing, and opened the top drawer on the left.

The door was open. From the hall Danny could see the whole sideboard.

The son took out a small box, brown leather gone pale at the corners. He opened it and looked in with his back very straight, and shut it. Then he looked out across the hall, straight at Danny.

Hannah was upstairs on the landing with the wardrobe. Col was in the van. Kyle was on the path with his phone.

The son put the box inside his waxed jacket.

Danny did not move.

At 9:58 the son came down the hall, stopped next to him, took the box back out, put it in Danny’s hand, and folded Danny’s fingers over it with his own. His hand was warm and not steady.

"End of the road, turn left. There’s a car. Don’t open it."

Then he went to the foot of the stairs and called up.

"Hannah! Come and look at this clock. I’ve made my mind up."

Danny walked out into the grey morning. Down the path, out of the gate. Col on the tailgate lifted the flask at him, and he nodded.

The phone went at 10:00 on the dot.

[ Clocked off. 10:00. ] [ Shift complete. 4 hours. ]

[ Grade 4 wages: 900,000. Paid. ]

£2,116,412 and 87p.

Another 900 grand for Naomi’s insurer to look straight past on Monday.

And what was it for? Kyle could have stood in that hall. It’s for this. It’s for the gate. In 10 minutes Hannah opens that drawer, and the house can put a full name to everybody who was in it this morning except one.

At the end of Calton Avenue a dark grey estate sat on the left with its engine running. The driver’s window came down as he got level with it.

A woman of about 50, blonde, good coat, a face that had been crying in the car and had stopped.

"Have you got it?"

He had it in his fist.

"Who are you?" he said.

"I’m his wife. Could you pass it to me, please, before she comes downstairs?"

"His brother’s got a solicitor with a list that says it’s in that drawer."

The woman’s face did not change at all.

"Stephen brought a solicitor to the funeral." Her hand came out of the window, palm up. "It was hers. Martin sat with her every Sunday for 4 years while Stephen sent flowers from Guildford. She would have wanted Martin to have it. Please."

Danny looked at the hand.

A man walks out of a house with something that’s not only his, and gets in a car, and he’s gone, and the one left behind gets a card at Christmas.

You’ve got 2 of that man’s letters in your inside pocket, still shut.

"Sorry," he said.

He turned round and walked back up Calton Avenue.

"Forgot something, mate?" Col said from the tailgate, with the flask halfway to his mouth.

"Left the last bit of the job in there."

He went up the path and in through the open front door.

The son was stood in front of the grandfather clock with Hannah Pryce and her folder. Behind him, down the road, a car door slammed.

They both turned round.