Page 2 of Blow Down (The Plumber's Mate)
Look, I’ve just got a bit of a knack for finding things, that’s all. Hidden things, that is, and I have to be fairly close to them to start with, although Phil’s constantly on the lookout for ways of extending my reach. All the better to help him make a killing in his chosen profession and retire early on the profits. I used to think he was onto a loser, but ever since the fire at the Dyke, I’ve been starting to wonder. Something about that night amped the vibes up way beyond anything I’d ever felt before—and no, I’m not talking euphemisms here, ’cos by the time we’d made it home, we were too bloody knackered for anything like that.
Phil, of course, had various theories as to what exactly might have sharpened the old spidey-senses: the danger to yours truly; the way a couple of people I cared about were also at imminent risk of getting toasted; even the heat counteracting moisture in the air (water messes with the vibes, which is handy when you’re trying to locate a leak underground but not so much the rest of the time). Fortunately, Phil’s caseload had been busy enough over the summer to take his mind off too much experimentation with my dubious talents.
Well, that sort of experimentation. We’d managed to find time for a few experiments of a different sort. But yeah. Not your all-purpose psychic. My so-called gift doesn’t hold with multitasking. “It’s like they think it’s some kind of one-size-fits-all thing,” I muttered down the line.
There was a weird sort of breathy sound down the phone. “I suppose that’d be medium, then. The size.”
“I literally can’t believe you said that,” I told her after a healthy pause to let her know just how much I meant it.
Sisters.
“So what’s the job?” I asked before she could come up with any more comedic gems.
“She didn’t say. I gave her one of your cards and suggested she call you direct, but she seems to have this bee in her bonnet that you’d be more likely to accept the job if it came through me.”
“Right, gimme her number and I’ll give her a bell.”
There was a pause. “They’re ex-directory, and she doesn’t give out her number. You’ll have to go round.”
“You’re kidding, right? Seriously?”
“Look, she’s very persistent,” Sis said, which was an admission of defeat if ever I heard one. “Please just go round? You can come over to Gregory’s for tea afterwards. We’ve got some very nice cakes.” Translation: the cathedral ladies had been baking again. Come to think of it, I wasn’t sure they ever stopped. Maybe they took a short break every now and then for knitting bedsocks and crocheting jam-jar covers, that sort of thing.
“Are you actually living there now?” I asked, because Sis had her own house in Pluck’s End, a village not far from St. Leonards, but every time she invited me and/or Phil anywhere lately, it’d been to the Old Deanery, currently occupied by the Youngish Canon.
(I nearly said the Middle-Aged Canon, seeing as how Greg had to be in his midforties, but since reaching this side of thirty, I’d gained a whole new perspective on the subject. Funny, that.)
“No, of course not,” Cherry said as if the very idea was ridiculous. “That wouldn’t be at all proper.”
“Course not. What was I thinking of? Fine, I’ll go and see this pushy old biddy of yours. Tell her I’ll be round Friday afternoon—I’ve got a couple of hours free then.”
There was another of those breathy sounds.
“What?” I asked.
“Nothing,” Cherry said brightly, and reeled off the address.
Just as I finished writing it down, Phil walked in followed by his adoring public, otherwise known as Merlin and Arthur, my two cats. “Emergency call-out?” he asked after I’d hung up.
“Nah, just an extra job for tomorrow,” I told him, expertly dodging the cats so I could give him a welcome snog and a grope of that magnificent arse, which he returned with interest. “Nothing serious,” I muttered into his shoulder.
Like I said, Nostradamus I am not. If anyone was daft enough to hand me a crystal ball, I’d see bugger all. And then drop it on my foot.
Mrs. F-M.’s gaff on the outskirts of St. Leonards turned out, when I got there the following afternoon, to be your actual Grade II listed farmhouse, and she had plenty of acreage to go with it. I felt like a right pleb parking the van on a posh, red-brick driveway only slightly less extensive than the M25 and going up to knock on a front door built to withstand siege, battering ram, and revolting peasants.
It didn’t help there was a choice of two doors with nothing much to distinguish between ’em. I went for the slightly larger one, in the end, on the basis I was doing the old girl a favour, so I was buggered if I was going cap in hand to the tradesman’s entrance.
Hey, I might actually be a tradesman, but I doff my cap to no man. Or woman, as it might be. Metaphorically speaking, obviously. Hats and me have never really got on. You’d think putting something on your head would make you look taller, but I just end up looking like the sort of stable lad who wants to be a jockey when he grows up.
The door was opened by a young woman who could have been a model, if that hadn’t been something only common people did. Well, she was a bit on the short side—her sharp green eyes were on a level with mine—but otherwise, she’d have made a pretty good showing on the cover of Vogue. She even had the expression down pat—that one where they glare at the photographer like he or she’s something they just scraped off their shoe. God knows how fashion photographers cope with all that negativity shoved in their faces day in day out. Give me happy-smiley wedding pics any day, or those ones you see mums queuing up for in Boots, with the baby poking its head up out of a flowerpot.
“Tom Paretski?” she said, sizing me up with one unhurried glance and not bothering to crack a smile in welcome. “I’m Mrs. Fenchurch-Majors. Do come in.”
I blinked. She was Mrs. F-M.? I’d taken her for some kind of PA, hired by the lady of the house to deal with tedious and/or unpleasant matters like correspondence and talking to members of the working classes.
No wonder Cherry had laughed when I’d called her an old biddy.
“Cheers, love,” I said, mostly to annoy her.
