LITMIR.BIZ

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grainy grunt,’ said the woman who appeared in the doorway. ‘For once your timing’s perfect. Step inside. Someone I want you to meet.’

      ‘Oh yes. Who’s that?’

      ‘Your consideration,’ said Butcher with a wicked grin.

      Joe didn’t like the sound of this. He’d been hoping Piers would have drawn a blank, which would have been good news for Gallie and also kept him out of Butcher’s debt. Nevertheless he rose, trying to look like a man without a care in the world. One good thing (one of many good things) about Butcher was she was small enough for even a short man to loom over, a rare pleasure in a country which free antenatal care seemed to have peopled with giantesses. Perhaps this was the secret agenda of the Tories’ anti-health service policies – no woman allowed to be taller than Queen Victoria. It would certainly get the short PI vote!

      In the office, piled high with the files which resulted from working a twenty-hour day and brumous from the strong cheroots Butcher used as a substitute for sleep, sat a girl, fourteen or fifteen, shoulder-length dark brown hair, tall (another giantess in the making!) with a sallow complexion and dark suspicious eyes. She was wearing the combination of grey skirt and blue blouse which was as close as they got to uniform at Grandison Comp, and a book-stuffed sports bag at her feet suggested she was on her way there now. Or rather out of her way, as Grandison lay on the far side of town.

      ‘Mavis, this is Joe Sixsmith I was telling you about,’ said Butcher.

      ‘Hello,’ said Joe.

      The girl didn’t reply but looked him up and down dubiously.

      ‘Doesn’t look much like a private detective to me,’ she said.

      ‘Would he be much good if he did?’ wondered Butcher.

      The girl considered Butcher’s logic then said, ‘Sorry. I’m dead stupid till morning break.’

      ‘So what do you reckon?’

      ‘What?’

      ‘Do you think he’ll do?’

      ‘Well, if you recommend him and there’s nothing else on offer …’

      Joe said, ‘Hey, wasn’t there some guy you told me about called Wilberforce or something got slavery off the statutes a few years back?’

      ‘Sorry, Joe, but you put yourself in the marketplace, you’ve got to expect punters want to handle the goods. OK, Mavis, why don’t you tell Mr Sixsmith your problem?’

      Joe looked expectantly at the girl who said, ‘Well, it’s not really my problem, it’s this friend of mine, well, she was a friend, Sally Eaglesfield … look, this is really embarrassing.’

      ‘I’m not embarrassed,’ said Butcher kindly. ‘You embarrassed, Joe?’

      ‘Not yet,’ he said.

      ‘Well, I am,’ said the girl spiritedly. ‘Can’t you tell him? He’ll probably pay more attention to you. Besides, I’ve got to scoot else I’ll miss assembly. See you.’

      She was gone, moving with the awkward grace of a young deer.

      ‘So what is her problem?’ asked Joe.

      ‘You heard her. Not her’s. Her best friend’s.’

      ‘In my experience, when folk come to me weighed down with their friends’ problems, it’s usually just a way of telling me their own.’

      ‘That’s quite sharp for you, Sixsmith,’ said Butcher. ‘But in this case, you’re wrong. Only problem Mavis has got is she’s fallen out with her best friend.’

      ‘Happens all the time, tell her to get a new best friend.’

      ‘Suddenly you’re an expert on adolescence too,’ mocked Butcher.

      ‘When I was a kid, we were too poor to have adolescence,’ retorted Joe who found Butcher’s company provoked him to PI wise-crackery. ‘So who’s she blaming?’

      ‘Sharp,’ complimented Butcher. ‘There’s a teacher at Grandison, invites kids home to little soirees, you know, listen to a few discs, drink coffee, talk about the world. An elite little group.’

      ‘To which the friend got invited, Mavis didn’t, so she’s crying foul?’ guessed Joe.

      ‘Mavis, despite her name, is not musical. Sally plays the clarinet. She’s good enough to play in the South Beds Sinfonia, as does the teacher. Another bond.’

      Joe tried to conjure up a picture of the Sinfonia’s clarinettists without luck. Choristers didn’t pay much heed to instrumentalists so long as they didn’t get above themselves and drown the singing. Not much chance of that with the Boyling Corner Choir. Even the famous Glitterband would have found it hard to compete.

      ‘So what’s Mavis saying?’

      ‘She reckons there’s something going on at these soirees.’

      ‘Sex, you mean?’

      ‘Je-sus! The man with the tumescent mind. Yes, possibly, but not uniquely. Not even necessarily physically, though we should never discount that possibility. There’s all kinds of corruption, Sixsmith …’

      ‘No, hold on!’ said Joe. ‘These are allegations from one teenage girl about something that may be happening to another …’

      ‘I’m no teenage girl,’ said Butcher sharply. ‘And I think there may be cause for concern here.’

      ‘Yes, OK,’ said Joe, unhappily acknowledging that if Butcher was worried, there might be something in it. ‘How come you got in the act anyway? Who is this kid?’

      ‘Glad to see you show some curiosity about your client at last,’ said Butcher. ‘Mavis Dalgety, younger child of Maude and Andrew Dalgety of 25 Sumpter Row, Luton. Her brother Chris is doing law in London. During the vac he helps out sometimes in the Centre, and Mavis would tag along, so we got acquainted. She was hanging around here this morning when I arrived. Said it was an accident, just passing, but I could see there was something wrong. Besides, you don’t just pass Bullpat Square on your way to Grandison.’

      ‘Still don’t sound the kind of thing you go running to a lawyer with,’ said Joe.

      ‘I think all she wanted was a sympathetic female ear,’ said Butcher. ‘Look at the alternatives. Parents? Teenage kids do not confide in their parents. The school? They’d close ranks faster than the Brigade of Guards. So what does that leave?’

      ‘The police?’ suggested Joe.

      Butcher gave a savage laugh.

      ‘Oh no. Definitely not the police. No way!’

      Even for Butcher, who thought of the police as funnel-web spiders to keep down the flies, this was a bit vehement.

      ‘So where do I come in?’ he asked.

      ‘Through that door with perfect timing. I can’t help this kid, Sixsmith. I can give her advice, but the practical side of investigating this thing I don’t have the training for and I don’t have the time for. I tell her this. And I’m also telling her that I do happen to know this PI who owes me a big favour. And at that very moment I heard your dulcet tones on the morning air. Bit like St Joan hearing the bells.’

      ‘She the one got barbecued?’ said Joe hopefully. ‘Listen, Butcher, before we go any further, let’s just establish how big this favour is. Do I gather you got something from good old Piers? I mean something more than a very good time. Looks to me like you’ve come straight from the station.’

      His detective sensors might not be state-of-the-art, but he’d registered that instead of her normal working uniform of jeans and T-shirt, Butcher was wearing a nifty green and orange dress which clung above, and stopped not much short of Gallie Hacker’s plimsoll line below. Just the job for a cosy supper with a wet Wykehamist.

      She

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