Devil Take The Hindmost

Chapter Seven

A week ticked by, and autumn settled into its role with assuredness. Mornings were crisp and evening sunsets increasingly abrupt. Twenty years ago, my mind would have been turning to conkers, but now it was problems with my swingers of another kind that were uppermost in my thoughts.

Sophie came and went from the farm without much of a mention.

I would regularly hear her playing the cello late into the night, the same mournful bars echoing out into the cool night air again and again. Perhaps, I thought, the increasing levels of emotion I could hear her pouring into the performance left precious little remaining for me.

I became more and more fixated on the notion that a big payday from Tish would turn things around. It would show Sophie I was a man of means, able to provide, and to give her at least some of the things a partner deserved.

A small but insistent part of my brain kept whispering It's over, the money won't change a thing, but the louder, stupider, and more hopeful lobes shouted that message down with the obvious question Well, why is she still here?

Ty too was pre-occupied. He split his time between measuring and sawing timber for his tree-top abode, and prowling the streets of Wolverhampton following up leads from Monty, with whom he was having regular meetings.

Every day he returned with familiar story of an ultimately fruitless sighting of the elusive Willy; sole witness to what might have happened to Darren Atkins prior to his murder. I imagined at least Edge and The Cardboard King were bonding over their mutual love of al fresco living.

For my part, I had spent a little time demonstrating my lack of proficiency with large tools. I had miss-sawn a handful of joists and helped to assemble a jury-rigged block and tackle, obtaining a couple of minor rope burns in the process. Ty had tolerated my presence with good grace, instead of castigating me for bodging-up another job, he would ask me how my efforts to track down the missing clock were going.

And truth to tell, there wasn't much to say on that front.

I had visited each of the six auctioneers on the list provided to me by Tish with precious little to show for the effort. None of them recognized the timepiece and all made half-hearted commitments to phone me if it showed up in their showrooms, not that I believed them.

A more untrustworthy seeming group of individuals I do not recall having the misfortune to meet. Number Three broke into a visible sweat when I mentioned the clock was thought to have been stolen and Number Five was eyeing me as if to estimate the value of my organs on the black market on the off-chance I should expire whilst on her premises.

It appeared the legwork Tish had so helpfully provided me was indeed too good to be true, and I realized I would actually need to pursue some of the Private Detection she had hired me for in the first place.

It had been a trivial matter to identify Malcolm Weatherby, the house clearance man put up as a possible suspect by Molly and the other women at the Wyntham estate. A cursory glance through the small adds in the Express and Star had located him, his phone number, and his trading address. I confess to being a little pissed-off the paper would carry that ad, and so many others relating to crapulent dog walking services and innumerable nail bars but refused our business on the basis of having provided a perfectly factual piece of reportage that was genuinely in the public interest.

Nevertheless, prior to interviewing Mr. Weatherby, I resolved to secure a little friendly assistance in the collection of intel about him.

So it was that I passed across the threshold and into the stultifying atmosphere of Sunset Retirement Village on the outskirts of Wednesfield.