Cravendish
CHAPTER FOUR
There were many words to describe the Garla Estate, and picturesque wasn't one of them. It wasn't even part of a small list of choices. It was an art installation on the corruption of social change combined with the decaying effects of crime and drugs. Though truthfully if it had indeed been in some way an art installation, many of the residents of Garla Estate would now be in the midst of planning a way of nicking it and turning it into a profit.
Nobby Niblett was the kind of man who had seen it all - in fact, in quite a few cases, the one who had been the instigator of those mainly diabolical actions. He had connections so dirty, even industrial detergent couldn't clean those recalcitrants. He was one of those who taught the infamous everything they knew. And what Nobby knew, would keep the combined Police Forces of several large Nations happy like the proverbial pig in its own effluence for some time to come. But now in his caduCity, the man was no more than a legend, a guardian - a protector of the Garla Estate - which was out on the other side of the theoretical tracks that bordered Brayburn. In fact, a legend with a very big stick and not afraid to use it.
Cravendish had let himself into the man's twelfth floor flat and approached the squat figure on his balcony. Nobby never locked his door. Mainly because there was nothing of value inside, but predominantly because no one was stupid enough to try.
Nobby turned slowly to greet Cravendish, "Good to see you again, Cravendish, my lad! Come back for more, ain'tcha!" Nobby had a special and unique tone and vocabulary to him, which behooved the listener to damn-well learn his meaning quick or feel the nail-side of his stick.
Cravendish jumped involuntarily, as though the carpet had suddenly become electrocuted, "Certainly, Nobby. Keeping an eye on them all, are you?"
Nobby nodded, "From up here, I can see plain across the estate, lad. Right to the wassisname - seaside."
"A Lord surveying his land?" smiled Cravendish, as jovially as he could muster.
Nobby was no stranger to the jovial, not unless he owed it money, "You got it, boy! Still, the odd little cheeser gets one or two over on me, but it don't happen too often, lad. Not no more." Nobby tapped the side of his raspberry nose and followed the procedure with a wink. Either that or his glaucoma was playing up again.
"Oh?" Cravendish was never quite sure that, when Nobby did this dangerous gesture, whether the outcome of any question he would thus give would stand on legal grounds or fall into criminal greyness. He could do nothing about either, but it helped to know for deniability.
"I got me eyes everywhere, don't you know? The Grey Army ain't nothing to sniff at." Cravendish was quite sure Nobby had eyes in many places, just not his own and probably detached from their original owners.
"Doesn't hurt that most of them worked for you in the Good Old Days, eh, Nobby?"
Nobby flashed a wickedness behind his soppy eyes that spelt kneecaps for someone once, "Nah, never hurts, lad."
There was no better time like the present, and in Nobby's company the present usually didn't last that long, so Cravendish dove in like a cliff diver in the rain, at night and blindfolded, "Oh, while I'm here, I have a question for you. Someone has asked me to retrieve a diamond-studded collar, currently, or once, attached to a cat. Not only this, there is a young lady, one of those hikers we get in Brayburn, and she's gone missing too. Thing is she was last seen holding this cat, according to her boyfriend. He's a little overwrought, but he insists she isn't that type. Oh, and he mentioned something about a big black car? Not one of your old friends, is it?" It was the big black car Cravendish was most afraid of revealing. He was sure Nobby was out of that world now, but there remained the slither of rubbery doubt once it was addressed.
Nobby changed the subject, like a Butcher changed a carcass, "Sounds like a dozy old mare to me, lad."
Cravendish either missed the new direction, or no longer favoured his features in the same arrangement they had been only this morning, pushing his point on, deep into the flesh of the angry lion’s rump, "But it is the collar I seek, you see, Nobby? I need it. You know, what with Mom -"
Nobby virtually stood to attention at the mere mention of Cravendish's Mom, "Salt of the Earth, that woman!"
Cravendish realised he had the Old Master on the ropes, "I know, I know, but business is slow, Nobby. Could you contact any of your old Fences, see if someone's tried to sell them a diamond-studded collar? Or even a cat? Ask around?"
Nobby stared into the near distance, either searching the Rolodex of his memory, or just a bit gassy, "Yeah, I'll see what I can do, for you, lad."
"Thank you Nobby! You are such a friend!"
Nobby Niblett plucked at the air with the pincers of remembrance, "Wait, you said a girl? A foreign sort?" And the turned-on tap kept giving, trickling into the puddle of the investigation cup Cravendish had put down for a minute or two on the draining board of contemplation.
"I believe so, yes?" he answered in the affirmative.
Nobby raised a finger, once used to poke out the eye of a man he didn't like, probably, "Ah, then I might actually have a lead for you, lad! Go see Celeste Peabody when you've got a minute. Mentioned to a friend of a friend that she had her Sister, Primrose, over for the week, showing this young foreign girl a brooch. Then they went and got distracted by some noise, and the girl runned off, nicked the brooch - so Celeste says. 'Course she ain't calling the popo - not yet. Sounds like this could be your sort!"
The case was now racing at an upturned pace. The jigsaw pieces were beginning to slot into place, without the aid of scissors and a small hammer, "Wow, thank you, Nobby! Now, to these little jobs you want doing -"
Cravendish took the opportunity to roll the case over in his mind as he completed the little jobs for Nobby Niblett, the last of which being the delivery of a suspicious packet to this man, a letter to this woman and giving a jiffy bag to another man who looked like he was the cross between a woman and a pitbull - all part of the pay-day parts of his work, used to keep him in the lifestyle he was forced to become accustomed to - those jobs that didn't really stretch his investigative skills or push the slightly grubby envelope of Private Detecting any further on. But when this case was done, and he had all the parts solved, he would get the girl, get the plaudits and get the jobs his business so richly deserved. That was the dream, obviously, but at some point he had to wake up and see it had all come true. Surely.
#
The house smelled of disinfectant and cabbage, which was odd, as neither Cravendish nor his Mother actually ate or liked cabbage. The coats in the hall gave the unmistakable impression that a small army of mainly dark clothed people lived in the property, but the shoes underneath told an entirely different story. They suggested that if indeed there was an army present, they tended to go into battle in mainly their socks. The wallpaper had seen better days, and those days were some time back in the Sixties. Paint had given way to varnish on the woodwork, and the furniture was tired and old, just like the house that contained it. The hypnotically heavy use of photograph frames was only dispelled by the randomness of them; some dark, some thick, some silver and some wood, but all contained the extended Cravendish family in their tiny pockets of time, capturing better days in better places of presumably self-promotingly better people. The open-fronted cabinet that contained the hundreds of glasses no one used was hugging the wall, while on the mantelpiece of the four-bar gas fire were the trinkets that often accompanied the people in those pictures, trapped in their frames. Most were dead now, of course, but a ghost of them remained to invoke the memory, sometimes enough to project them upon the living world in illusionary form.
The stairs however were carpeted some time in the Eighties, when sickly green and bright pastel colours were all the rage. The landing led to three doors; one was the bathroom and toilet combination - the design feature incomparable to common sense, only surpassed by the waste pipes near the kitchens of later homes, another door led to Cravendish's room which contained a bed and nothing more, and then the closed door of his Mom's room, where a voice came from.
Cravendish spoke, which remained muffled, travelling through the door, "Mom! He is not trying to eat you! No, that's a stuffed dog - Mom, be reasonable! If you don't like the look of him, then don't watch the program - Yes, I know he gets around, but - what? No, I can't! Not - not right now - not right now, Mom! He is, I know. I know! Mom, I know. Yes, they do say that about him, but I'm not sure it's true - well if Rachel said it, it must be true - because she's a busybody, Mom, that's why - who is? Just because she sends you a card, doesn't mean she's some kind of coding genius who puts hidden messages and meanings into them - I know, Mom, I've read it - I said I've read it! Anyway, I've got things to do. I only dropped in to see if you were alright! I've got a case, see - yes Mom, a case. Of course it's a paid one! Anyway I've got - I know, Mom! I know! I love you too!"
Then Cravendish exited, and moved on.
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