EXCERPT Jayne Murray emerged from Westminster tube station only to be greeted by
rain driven by strong wind and she swore under her breath.
She hadn’t brought a brolly; it would have been turned inside out by the
wind in any case, and she never wore a hat.
She didn’t allow herself bad hair days.
Vanity was Jayne’s constant companion, her faithful secret friend.
They would both be drenched.
She pulled her blonde hair back from her cold, wet face and tied it with
a band to make a short pony tail.
Jayne had no choice but to be like everyone else, accept the rain and the
anonymity of the crowd.
People passed her with their heads down and collars turned up. She
joined the ones daring to dodge moving traffic. It was either that or hovering
on the pavement at the traffic lights and getting splashed from vehicles
ploughing through puddles.
Though thankfully she’d chosen to wear her boots.
Jayne had travelled to London First Class and had enjoyed her breakfast
of orange juice, toast, and coffee, while she solved the Telegraph’s two
crosswords: they were completed by the time the train reached Doncaster which
was a below par performance.
She turned to Marie Claire and between glances at the pages observed the
breakfast being served.
Felix said the full Monty English breakfast was the best thing about
travelling early morning to London from the Northeast but Jayne, watching it
being devoured by the overweight businessmen around her, resisted for the sake
of her figure.
The pay-off from such self-sacrifice was noticed by most of the men in
her compartment.
If men on the train, or indeed anywhere else, hadn’t looked at Jayne with
second and third glances she’d have wondered what was wrong. People enquired
if she was a model, prompted to ask by her height, her slim figure, her well
defined cheekbones and her blonde hair (dyed and expensively maintained). Her
eyebrows (minimally plucked because she hated the thin pencilled look) were her
natural dark brown colour, her lashes dark, and her eyes brown.
Jayne realised the combination of dyed blonde hair and dark lashes made
some girls look common and she probably did use too much eye make up but her
male travelling companions would have gone into the witness box to refute such a
charge.
Tart she was not.
Her greatest asset along with her prominent cheekbones was a generous
mouth, made for a pout, a sexy sulk, or to open up into a wide, full on smile
which displayed white, regular teeth. If the smile was sometimes forced it
never looked it and she knew it had the desired effect from the reactions of
people when she first met them.
If you can fake sincerity you’ve got it made.
Her PR style friendliness made some men think they had a chance when they
didn’t but Jayne was well practised in brushing them off without damaging their
little egos irreparably.
She judged the queue for security checks was long enough to make her
slightly late for her appointment at ten thirty, she’d made good progress since
arriving at King’s Cross just six minutes late.
Jayne had not had reason to visit Portcullis House before and was looking
forward to making a personal appraisal of furniture and fittings in the light of
the fuss made about the cost.
She was a tax payer after all.
‘I’m sure you understand why I’ve asked you to see me here,’ Dyson said
after shaking hands. ‘You’re a constituent of mine so there’s nothing to arouse
suspicion. How is your uncle?’
Jayne told him Uncle John was fine although it was difficult to know
because if his mood changed at all it went from bad to worse; he was always more
or less irascible.
If Uncle John had good days she’d never heard him mention them.
She didn’t tell Dyson that.
Although her policeman uncle was doing the job he wanted to be doing and
didn’t fret about further promotion, his features had not settled into a look of
self-satisfaction or contentment. His face didn’t often break into a smile
though Jayne knew he had a sense of humour albeit dry, pessimistic and northern
in character.
She supposed he had a lot to be serious about. He was thinking about
retirement after more than thirty years of rubbed up against the less edifying
aspects of human nature.
Man’s inhumanity to man was his daily bread.
When she asked him what had changed most he always cited the explosion in
drug use with all its implications for exploitation and wickedness. He’d told
her these days he believed in wickedness when as a young man he’d thought there
was a sociological or psychological explanation for just about everything.
Jayne took off her black Mac and hung it on the stand where Dyson
pointed. It was soaking wet but she didn’t like to flap it over his carpet.
She pulled out her hair band and shook her hair back into position.
The office looked well appointed but not palatial.
‘How was your journey? Service up to scratch?’
‘Six minutes late. I can live with that.’
Glancing up at the wall, Jayne saw a set of cartoon drawings in black
frames; they were of leading figures in the government and opposition including
some of Dyson. One showed him as a melting lump of lard with a face: she
couldn’t quite read the caption.
She knew politicians loved to be caricatured however grotesquely they
were represented, secretly delighted when a television impersonator or newspaper
cartoonist added them to the repertoire.
In the flesh he was a little larger than life, overweight, balding, and
middle aged yet because he was a public figure, frequently on television, he
carried a little of the surface glamour of the celebrity.
His hands were podgy, handshake limp and sweaty. His round face also
bore slight sheen of sweat. Jayne imagined the application of tons of make-up
before television appearances. His lips were thick and might have been judged
as sensual on a more handsome face; unfortunately when he tried to smile, he
looked as if he might be sneering. Standing up, his head was cocked at a
slightly odd angle, as if he was standing on the deck of a ship that had lurched
suddenly to starboard.
Dyson’s appraisal of Jayne Murray amply confirmed the descriptions he’d
been given. He could never be sure whether blondes were natural or fake but he
would have sworn this girl was the genuine article. She had the ultra fair,
translucent skin that often goes with genuine blonde hair.
No make up so far as he could judge unless she’d applied some mascara.
Pendant earrings but no other jewellery visible. Tiny, expensive looking
watch.
Tall with long legs encased in black knee-length high-heeled boots, the
sort to spark his fantasies. Her dark suit jacket was unbuttoned and her full
breasts swelled her crisp white blouse very becomingly. He smiled to himself at
his old-fashioned turn of phrase, thinking how some of his coarser colleagues
would have described her.
He was used to meeting sophisticated women but Jayne Murray exuded style
in clouds. The image of her shaking her blonde hair free when she’d first
entered his room came back to him and he knew he’d remember the gesture long
after she’d left. She was the sort of woman who hangs around in a man’s mind at
least for an hour or two, perhaps longer. Dyson would save her up through the
day and think of her when he was alone in bed as a little reward to himself.
That way she might drift into his dreams.
Now she was crossing those long booted legs.
‘Your uncle speaks highly of you, Miss Murray,’ said Dyson, who was
seated again, elbows on his desk, hands together as if in prayer.
‘I expect the whole set up smacks of nepotism,’ Jayne said. ‘It’s rather
incestuous.’
She saw a flicker of reaction to the sexual reference in Dyson’s eyes and
wished she phrased it differently.
‘His Sergeant is my fiancé,’ she added, telling him more than she needed
to disclose. But then he probably knew all about her.
‘I’m so pleased that fiancés still exist. I thought engagements might be
entirely out of fashion.’
She waited for him to begin. His hands moved to stroke his jowls and for
a man used to making decisions he seemed hesitant.
‘I imagine much of your work is pretty routine, Miss Murray?
Investigating marital infidelity, that sort of thing?’
‘It’s certainly not excitement all the way,’ agreed Jayne. ‘I suppose
every job has its share of drudgery. The bread and butter stuff. And I haven’t
been doing it for long, not long enough to get blasé.’
He was clearly having difficulty cutting to the chase.
‘I have to be so careful,’ he said. ‘Can you guarantee absolute
confidentiality?’
‘Except you want me to keep Uncle John in the picture and take his
advice. I can’t say more until I know what you want from me. My first
consideration then will be do we take it on.’
‘We?’
‘The White Rose Detective Agency.’ She smiled just a little
self-consciously as she used the name.
‘Your uncle said you would be able to help. It seemed an ideal
arrangement, having the unofficial police connection.’
‘Uncle John will leave the final decision to me- as far as my personal
involvement is concerned that is.’
‘I don’t see how it could work without your involvement.’
‘Please tell me what’s on your mind, sir. If you told my uncle he hasn’t
informed me.’
I’m being blackmailed,’ said Dyson. ‘Someone is trying to get at me
through my son. I want your help to put a stop to it.’
‘I usually ask why a client doesn’t want to involve the police,’ said
Jayne. ‘And in your case the question is more than usually…’
He didn’t allow her to finish. ‘Can’t do that if my son’s breaking the
law, can I? I’m Secretary of State in the Home Office for God’s sake’
‘Can you tell me more about your son?’
‘Solomon’s seventeen. He’s in the sixth form at Bylands. I’m sorry I
can’t pretend he’s a model pupil. Someone is keeping a very close eye on him
and is threatening to let the press know about his… what shall I call them? His
adventures…his escapades.’
‘What sort of behaviour are we talking about, Mr. Dyson. I’ll need to
know everything.’
‘And if you decide you don’t want the case?’
‘It will be erased from my memory,’ said Jayne.
‘We’re talking about alleged drug abuse amongst other things.’
Sensing that Jayne was about to ask about the ‘other things,’ Dyson said,
‘It’s the drugs that would interest the papers. Politically, it’s a very hot
potato for me at present with an election not far off. It wouldn’t do a lot for
Byland’s reputation either. It’s my alma mater and I wouldn’t want to see it
getting bad publicity, though whether it’s as good a school as it once was…’
A possible anecdote was cut short by a knock on the door heralding coffee
and biscuits. Jayne expected House of Commons crockery but it didn’t look
special. She refused the offer of sugar made by a middle-aged secretary who
waved the bowl of brown sugar lumps in her direction accompanied by a
professional smile.
‘You said alleged drug taking, Mr. Dyson,’ said Jayne after the secretary
had closed the door. ‘Has your son admitted using drugs?’
‘He played it down, of course, said he’d snorted the odd line of coke at
parties, smoked a joint or two, that sort of thing.’
‘Do you believe him?’
‘I don’t know what to believe. I’ve told him he better stop or he’ll be
expelled and that could get into the papers.’
‘Have you paid any money to this blackmailer?’
‘So far I’ve handed over £6000. I know it was stupid of me.’
He had biscuit crumbs stuck in the folds near his fleshy mouth. Jayne
thought he would be a pretty disgusting dining companion though there was no
sign of breakfast egg on his tie.
‘How did you deliver the money?’
‘We had to leave it in a certain phone box in a pretty remote country
lane.’
‘Did you see anyone lurking about waiting for the pick up? A vehicle
perhaps?’
‘I haven’t been there myself naturally,’ he said. ‘But I can tell you no
one was spotted. They wouldn’t be foolhardy enough to reveal themselves
surely.’
‘Have you any idea who’s behind it? A hunch even?’
‘When you’re in politics there are always people who want to see you
damaged, toppled from power…’
Jayne knew Dyson was responsible for policing, security and community
safety which these days meant he was never off the television screens despite
not being the most photogenic member of the cabinet.
Certainly high profile. Already a favourite with the Prime Minister, he
was regarded as someone who might eventually occupy number ten but his Home
Office brief presented an endless line of potential banana skins.
The corpses of a host of recent Home Secretaries littered the political
battlefield.
‘And a few who want you to succeed,’ said Dyson as if his ego needed a
quick polish even if the shine was self-applied.
‘Of course,’ said Jayne. ‘But what about personal enemies, outside the
world of politics?’
‘To know Sol’s every move, it must be someone who lives in the area,
probably in Westfield itself.’
She noted he’d answered a slightly different question, a response not
unknown among politicians. ‘That would certainly be a sensible place to start,’
she agreed.
‘Will you help me? You can name your fee.’
It was a cliché but always a welcome one. Everyone likes blank
cheques.
‘I’d like to give it some thought and let you know. Forgive me, but as
Secretary of State you must have access to some pretty formidable resources.
Can’t you…’
Again, he didn’t allow her to complete the sentence.
‘Out of the question! This is strictly personal business.’
He looked cross but it was a sudden squall over quickly, probably part of
his repertoire for getting his own way.
There was an element of baby faced petulance about him.
‘I see,’ she said. ‘I assumed the people who work for you could make
discreet enquiries.’
‘No.’
‘Would it be so damaging to you if the news got out? Other politicians
have had kids who’ve kicked over the traces.’
‘Not politicians who’ve stuck their necks out on the drugs issue in the
way that I have. I’ve taken a particularly hard line.’
Jayne noticed the opportunity for a pun but didn’t take it.
‘One thing that may help you if you take the case. I happen to know
there’s a part-time vacancy on the administrative side at the school; they’re
advertising for a clerical assistant. It would get you into the place.’
How would he know about the vacancy unless someone in Westfield was
acting for him? She couldn’t imagine him poring over the situations vacant
columns himself. Perhaps his wife was keeping him posted.
‘I’ll need to type myself some pretty good references then,’ smiled
Jayne.
‘I’d rather not know your methods,’ said Dyson, appearing to take her
seriously. ‘I just want a result.’
‘Can I clarify something, Mr. Dyson? I don’t mean to be rude.’
‘Of course.’
‘What do you see as the purpose in my taking a job at the school?’
‘To find out who’s blackmailing me.’
‘Not to keep an eye on Solomon, to make sure he’s behaving, keeping off
the drugs?’ She didn’t want to be a highly paid nanny.
‘No, Solomon has to show some self-discipline now. I’ve tried to explain
what’s at stake.’
‘Solomon is likely to think you’ve put me there as a minder to make sure
he stays on the straight and narrow,’ Jayne pointed out.
‘I’d like you to meet him and explain all this to him yourself.’
‘I promise I’ll try,’ said Jayne, ‘if we decide to take this on.’
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Children`s Fiction
Non-Adult Fiction
