A Shorter History of Tractors in Ukrainian with Handcuffs Read online

  She grabbed her raincoat and keys, and raced down the stairs. Their bus was already pulling away, but the timetable at the bus stop told her it would be in Duckwith in about an hour. She went straight to the car park, and picked up her car. Although the rain had caused the traffic to build up, slowing her progress, she overtook the bus at the next stop. As she turned into Thorpe Road, she glanced in her mirror. There, a couple of cars behind, was the low-slung silver sports car. Furiously, she accelerated through an amber light, turned off the main road into a side street, and pulled over. A few moments later, she saw the sports car pass by on the main road.

  She rejoined the traffic and, sure enough, about half a kilometre along, she saw the car pulled up outside a tobacconist’s, as if waiting for her to pass. As she approached, she craned her neck to see the driver, who seemed to be wearing some kind of pale overall. Then, as she drew alongside, she saw that it wasn’t an overall – it was a powder-blue suit, and the driver was Justin.

  Looking straight ahead, she drove by without slowing, and watched the sports car pull out behind her. Then she slammed her brakes on hard. The car behind skidded on the wet road and smashed into her rear. She leapt out and ran round to his window.

  ‘What the hell are you doing, Justin? Why are you following me?’ she yelled.

  He wound down his window and yelled back, ‘I’ve seen some crazy women drivers, but you really take the biscuit, lady.’

  ‘Answer my question! What are you doing here?’

  ‘What do you think I’m doing? I’m driving. Or I was, until you nearly wrecked my car.’

  ‘Correction! You nearly wrecked my car!’ Her voice had risen to a shriek.

  ‘Calm down, lady,’ he said. ‘There’s no need for hysteria. It’s just a little dent.’

  ‘I am calm!’ she screamed. ‘I just want to know why you’re following me!’

  ‘What the hell makes you think I’m following you? After our little chat the other day, I decided to take a ride out to Duckwith and do a bit of sleuthing – see for myself those famous clues.’ He grinned. ‘The print left by the slightly-worn-at-the-edge trainer.’

  As if on cue, the Duckwith bus trundled past, and she caught a glimpse of the pink jacket through the window.

  ‘Stop lying to me, Jim . . . I mean, Justin! I’ve spotted you several times. You’re an utterly useless detective! You stand out a mile in your ridiculous outfit and your flashy car – I’d have to be blind not to notice you.’

  He looked crestfallen, and she at once regretted the unkindness of her words. A little crowd of onlookers had gathered on the pavement, and somebody must have called the police because a moment later a patrol car pulled up and a jowly-faced officer climbed out.

  ‘Is anybody hurt? What happened?’

  ‘It’s OK, Baz, just a little spat between friends.’

  Jim/Justin winked, and the officer nodded.

  ‘Go easy, Jim,’ he said. ‘No more cock-ups, right?’

  ‘Right, Baz. Nobody’s hurt. Everything’s insured. Isn’t that so, Laura?’

  ‘Mm.’ She noted the slight trepidation with which he’d addressed the policeman. She waited until the patrol car had driven off. ‘But I still want some answers. I thought we were supposed to be friends, and now I find you’ve been spying on me. Who asked you to follow me?’

  He pulled a packet of cigarettes out of his pocket, and she could see as he lit one that his hands were shaking.

  ‘Think about it. Use your powers of deduction, lady. Who do you know who might have been troubled by your erratic behaviour recently, your late nights, your drinking, your crazy stories about bow-legged footprints?’

  ‘You mean . . . Graham hired you to follow me?’

  ‘Ssh. I’m not saying a word. I signed a confidentiality clause.’

  ‘Oh, Jim . . . I mean, Justin . . . I mean, Jim, what I told you is all true. The old unresolved case. The mysterious couple. The empty house. I’m on my way there now. I know I’ve been a bit obsessed recently, but it’s not what you think.’

  ‘And the overnighter at the Heath Hotel?’

  ‘Oh, that . . .’

  She felt a sunrise blush creep from her cheeks to the roots of her hair. She remembered the four-poster bed in the Heath Hotel, the handcuffs, the blindfold, the terrifying ecstasy of pain and pleasure. She remembered looking out of the window, and wishing she was back at home. She remembered Graham’s cuddliness, his kindness, the pleasant pace of their home life together.

  Literature, she thought, has a lot to answer for.

  ‘. . . that was a terrible mistake. It won’t happen again.’

  Jim/Justin was looking sceptical.

  ‘I love Graham. That was just a roundabout way of finding out. Please, Jim . . . Justin,’ she appealed. ‘For friendship. For old times’ sake.’

  He took a notebook and a pencil out of the pocket of his powder-blue suit.

  ‘What was your cover story? What did you tell Graham?’

  ‘I told him it was a colleague’s birthday bash.’

  ‘Name? Address of premises?’

  ‘Why do you need to know that?’

  ‘So I can put it in my report. I’ll leave it to you to square it with said colleague, should Graham ever check. Though I don’t suppose he will.’

  ‘Thanks, Jim . . . Justin. Look, can’t I just call you Jim?’

  ‘Sure.’

  Though he didn’t look sure. She leaned in through the window and kissed his stubbly cheek.

  ‘C’mon, lady. Let’s get sleuthing,’ he said.

  9

  Jim absolutely refused to get into any car driven by a dame, so Laura had to park her car in a side street and get into the passenger seat of his, which fortunately had suffered only cosmetic damage. He put his foot down, and with a throaty roar they were off. They passed the bus in minutes, and soon they were out of Peterborough into the country lanes, where he took the opportunity to demonstrate the braking and acceleration capacities of his car, and his control on tight bends. Laura gripped the sides of her seat and closed her eyes.

  After what seemed like an eternity, but by the clock was less than ten minutes, he pulled up in that same sheltered woody place where she had first spotted his car.

  ‘We’ll take a stroll from here,’ he said. ‘Stake out the house.’

  The rain had stopped, but the leaves and pavements were still glistening, and the air was fresh and scented with autumn mould. The birds were out, hunting for grubs and worms among the wet vegetation, so Laura didn’t notice anything odd at first about the chirping sound that seemed to get louder as they approached the empty house. An ancient rust-patched Lada was sitting on the front drive. Then she heard voices, a man’s and a woman’s – mainly a woman’s – which seemed to have a familiar fierce timbre.

  What was she saying? ‘Dee! Dee!’ was all that Laura could make out.

  ‘Hush!’ said Jim sleuthily, though she hadn’t said anything.

  They peered through a gap in the hedge, but there was no one in the garden. The voices seemed to be coming from around the back of the house.

  ‘Deeg! Deeg! Queeker, eedyut!’

  The chirping sound had turned into a trill, but it was now more mechanical than birdlike. They crept round the side of the rampant pyracantha to the front garden, then made their way along the side path to a dense shrubby thicket that separated the front garden from the back. Here, from behind an overgrown laurel bush, they had a good view of the back garden – though what they saw took a few moments to sink in.

  It was the couple from the pub.

  The big bushy-bearded man, spade in hand, was mopping his brow with a scarlet kerchief, surrounded by a circle of what Laura had previously thought were molehills but could now clearly see were man-made mounds, while the stout fiery woman seemed to be sweeping the lawn with a small vacuum cleaner, which was the source of the chirping sound.

  ‘What on earth’s she doing with that Hoover?’ Laura whispered.

 
‘Metal detector,’ Jim whispered back.

  The chirping flattened out into a constant trill as the machine approached the edge of the lawn beside a blue many-headed hydrangea bush, only a couple of metres from where they were hiding.

  The woman stamped on the spot with her welly-booted foot and ordered, ‘Deeg ’ere! Deeg!’

  ‘I’ve just dug up half the lawn – there’s nothing here except a lot of rusty nails,’ said Alfred grumpily.

  ‘’Urry up, Elfrid, we must find it before boy is coming!’ ordered his wife, her crimson cheeks blazing, her red hair sticking up like a fiery flame on a diminutive dragon.

  Alfred sighed, picked up the spade and started to dig again, sweating profusely and stopping from time to time to mop his brow. The hole got deeper and deeper, and the metal detector was going mad.

  Just then, Laura heard more voices, this time at the front of the house, too low to make out what they were saying. A moment later, the young couple from Peterborough made their way round to the side. Laura recognized Stanislav quite clearly now. But who was the girl in the pink jacket?

  They spoke together in their incomprehensible language.

  ‘Ukrainian,’ whispered Jim into Laura’s ear, as though it was a masterstroke of detective work, and Laura pretended to be impressed.

  The young couple stopped at the corner, partly screened by a bush, and watched the scene on the back lawn: the loamy earth piling up in a neat circle; the bushy-bearded man disappearing into the hole; the dragon-lady stamping her foot and shouting, ‘Deeg, Elfrid! Queek!’

  Stanislav whispered something, and the girl – who from close up looked hardly older than fifteen – shrieked with laughter.

  ‘Ssh!’ he held his fingers to his lips, but it was too late.

  The dragon-lady looked up and spotted them. ‘Deeg! Deeg, Elfie!’ she hissed at her husband, who was already up to his knees in the hole. Then she switched off the metal detector, strolled across to the couple, and extended her hand.

  ‘’Ello. I am Margarita Zadchuk. Big friend of Valentina.’ Her smile oozed insincerity. ‘She ask me to look after garden while she gone away. Who you are?’

  The young man shook her hand and said something in Ukrainian which Laura didn’t catch, but she recognised the names Stanislav, Valentina and Margarita.

  Then the stout woman howled, grabbed the girl, gripped her to her bosom, and let forth an emotional tirade accompanied by sighs, elegiac moans, tearful glances and hands extended up to heaven.

  ‘That’s some performance!’ whispered Jim in Laura’s ear. ‘I wonder what it’s in aid of.’

  ‘The girl – she must be Valentina’s daughter. I seem to remember the baby was named Margarita, after Valentina’s friend.’

  Just at that moment, there was a shout from Alfred.

  ‘I think I’ve got it!’

  The dragon-lady released the girl and ran to the edge of the hole, where her husband had got the blade of the spade stuck under something bulky, and was pushing down with all his strength. The young people were advancing carefully towards them across the lawn, picking their way round the mounds of earth.

  ‘I think this is it! The old lady’s buried treasure!’

  ‘Shurrup, Elfrid! No need you shout about it to everybody!’ snarled his wife.

  Then Stanislav leapt forward, yelling something which Laura couldn’t understand, but he sounded pretty angry. The dragon-lady yelled back, a long tirade ending in a gob of spit. Stanislav shouted and pushed Alfred aside, snatching the handle of the spade. Alfred let go. The dragon-lady let out a roar and head-butted Stanislav in the stomach. He staggered, skidded on the wet churned earth and slid bottom-first into the muddy hole, flailing around with his arms. The girl grabbed his sleeve and tried to pull him out. The dragon-lady shoved her in as well, got a grip on the spade, and thrust it back into her husband’s hands.

  ‘Deeg, Elfrid, you useless lyezee-bon cabbage-ead! Deeg!’

  Suddenly, from nearby in the laurel bush, Jim let out a terrible scream. Laura looked round, and saw that the great black cat that had tormented her last time had leapt on to his trousers and climbed up to his groin, where it was hanging on fiercely. She tried to pull it off, but it dug its claws in. Jim was moaning in agony. The group on the lawn stopped dead and looked around for the source of the noise. The girl crossed herself. The dragon-lady picked up the spade and advanced towards them.

  Jim clenched his teeth and grappled with the cat, which was hissing and snarling like a panther.

  ‘Aha! You!’ The dragon-lady pushed aside the branches of their laurel bush. ‘Nose-pocking solicitor! And fency men! Hahargh!’

  She lunged at Laura with the blade of the spade, but Jim, gritting his teeth, intervened with a nifty karate block that sent her hurtling to the ground. The cat disappeared in a bound. The others rushed to the scene. Everybody was shouting in English and Ukrainian, and everybody was covered in mud.

  ‘Pardon me if I light a cigarette,’ said Jim. ‘My nerves are frayed. And my pants.’

  He pulled a packet of Marlboro out of his jacket pocket, and lit one with unsteady hands.

  ‘Hello, Mr Redbourne.’

  Laura smiled at Alfred, and his face lit up with recognition.

  ‘’Ello, my love. What brings you to these parts?’

  ‘Actually, I was looking for him – for you.’ She turned towards Stanislav.

  ‘Elfrid, I eff told you! No talking wit strangers!’ his wife shouted, struggling to get up from the ground, but everybody ignored her.

  ‘Do you remember me, Stanislav? I was Mr Mayevskyj’s solicitor. We last met in the courtroom during your mother’s divorce, when you stood up and made an appeal on her behalf.’

  The young man blushed. ‘Yeah, that was well embarrassing. Mum was mad when I told her what happened. But why are you here?’

  ‘I followed you. I saw you in town, and I wondered why you’d come back.’

  ‘Ssh!’ Jim hissed into her ear, wreathing her in a lungful of smoke. ‘Don’t give away too much. Let him incriminate himself.’

  ‘Oh,’ Stanislav laughed. ‘That’s easy. I’m a student at Leicester University, where my dad was an exchange scholar. Computer science. This is my half-sister, Margarita, from Ukraine. She wanted me to help her find her English dad.’

  ‘Do you mean Eric Pike, the man with the Rolls Royce?’ asked Laura.

  ‘No. My father’s name is Edward the Bold. Master of Imperial Hotel.’ The girl flashed a proud dazzling smile. ‘But he is gone away I know not where.’

  ‘I know where he is,’ said Alfred, tying his red kerchief back around his neck. ‘He’s gone to Ukraine.’ He smiled at the girl. ‘He’s gone back to look for you, my love. Reckon he still misses you.’

  ‘Oh, really?’ A sunburst of delight lit up her pretty face. ‘I would very much like to meet him. Do you know to which town he went?’

  ‘No, I don’t, but the wife does. She sent him to her sister. Reckon she were looking for an English husband. Margaret?’ He called her name.

  They all looked around, but the dragon-lady had disappeared. Then Laura glimpsed a fiery flash of red hair, and a short stout bowed figure disappearing round the side of the pyracantha bush, carrying something very heavy in both hands.

  A large black cat was following her.

  ‘Stop! Come back!’ Laura called.

  ‘She won’t get far with that, my love,’ said Alfred.

  ‘Why, what is it?’

  ‘It’s a cast-aluminium engine casing. Looks like from a vintage motorbike.’

  ‘But why would somebody bury –?’

  ‘Old gardener’s trick.’ Alfred grinned under his beard. ‘Aluminium in the soil turns hydrangeas blue. They reckon the old lady was quite a gardener.’ He picked up the spade and the discarded metal detector. ‘Well, I’d better be off. I’ll have to give Margaret a lift home,’ he sighed. ‘Else I shall never hear the end of it.’

  The rust-patched Lada pulled away with a terrible ju
ddering sound that reminded Laura of – never mind – and the four of them stood in the garden and looked at each other, not sure whether they were enemies or allies.

  Laura turned to the girl and said in a soft voice, ‘You must be Margarita, Valentina’s daughter?’

  The girl nodded, and twizzled her plait around her fingers shyly.

  ‘So you’ve come all this way to find your father?’

  ‘Now I will heff to look at him at home.’

  ‘Look for him,’ whispered Stanislav.

  She sighed. ‘English prepositions are so disreputable –’

  ‘Hold on there,’ interrupted Jim, who still looked pale after his cat-on-groin trauma. ‘What’s with all this digging? Didn’t somebody mention treasure?’

  Stanislav smiled embarrassedly and shuffled from foot to foot. ‘My mum always believed the old lady had thousands of pounds and jewellery stashed away in a biscuit tin. Apparently, one of the neighbours told her. I guess Mum told Mrs Zadchuk about it.’ He smirked. ‘Somebody’s taken up the floorboards in the house, too.’

  ‘You – you went inside the house?’

  Laura looked down at his feet. He was wearing trainers. She caught Jim’s eye, and grinned. Stanislav was indeed very slightly bow-legged.

  ‘I wanted to show my sister the house where we lived.’

  ‘And what about your mother? Did she come over with you?’ Jim asked.

  ‘Nah,’ he shook his head. ‘She’s in Argentina.’

  ‘Good heavens! What’s she doing there?’ asked Laura.

  ‘She found another millionaire to marry.’ He lowered his face so she couldn’t see whether he was blushing or smiling. ‘A real one this time.’

  ‘And your father?’

  ‘He was a bit upset. Now he just works all the time. He’s writing a revised History of Tractors in Ukrainian, based on Mr Mayevskyj’s original. He says it’s a work of genius.’