It Takes One to Know One Read online

  PRAISE FOR ISLA DEWAR

  ‘A realist, observant and needle-sharp,

  Isla Dewar can be very funny’

  The Times

  ‘The best, the funniest, cleverest, the most enjoyable writer in Scotland today. I can guarantee that you too would enrich your life beyond all measure by discovering Isla Dewar’

  Robin Pilcher

  ‘Dewar has a very sharp sense of humour and writes with a great deal of wit’

  Newcastle Evening Chronicle

  ‘No one can tell a story quite like Isla Dewar’

  Lancashire Evening Post

  ‘A warm-hearted and gifted storyteller’

  Catherine Ryan Hyde

  IT TAKES ONE TO KNOW ONE

  Isla Dewar’s first book, Keeping Up with Magda, was published in 1995. Dewar found success with her second novel, Women Talking Dirty, the film of which starred Helena Bonham Carter. She contributed to the collection Scottish Girls about Town and has also written for children. Her most recent novel, A Winter Bride, was set in Edinburgh in the 1950s. Born in Edinburgh, Isla lives in the Fife countryside with her husband, cartoonist Bob Dewar, and a bunch of pheasants outside her kitchen window.

  It Takes One to

  Know One

  Isla Dewar

  First published in Great Britain in 2018 by Polygon, an imprint of Birlinn Ltd.

  Birlinn Ltd

  West Newington House

  10 Newington Road

  Edinburgh

  EH9 1QS

  www.polygonbooks.co.uk

  Copyright © Isla Dewar 2018

  The right of Isla Dewar to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Design and Patent Act 1988.

  All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  ISBN 978 1 84697 454 0

  eBook ISBN 978 1 78885 077 3

  British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

  A catalogue record for this book is available on request from the British Library.

  Typeset by 3btype.com

  For Sonny who wasn’t in the world

  when this book was started.

  1

  It Never Just Drizzles in Hollywood

  The man was not what Martha expected. She’d thought he might be middle-aged, complex and wise or perhaps a little alcohol-raddled and cynical. But Charlie Gavin was fidgety. He drummed his fingers – not an impatient tapping on his desktop, more a well-rehearsed thumb and finger drum solo. He arranged his pens into a perfect parallel row. He wiped a minuscule few specks of dust from the phone.

  ‘You’re married?’

  ‘Um . . .’

  He stopped arranging his pens and looked at her, eyebrows raised. ‘Um?’

  ‘Separated,’ she told him. This wasn’t actually true. But it was as near to the truth as she was prepared to go.

  He said, ‘Oh, man, that’s tough. Children?’

  ‘A daughter, Evie. She’s seven.’ Oh, man? Had he really said that? She thought people only spoke like that in the movies.

  ‘A difficult age, seven. It’s a time when you’re becoming aware of the world and innocence is drifting away.’

  ‘I suppose,’ said Martha. ‘But then I think every age is a difficult age. That’s life. We move from difficult age to difficult age. Just when we relax because one difficult time is over – wham – we get embroiled in the next one.’

  In fact she thought seven an excellent age. Her daughter was still a child and, right now, lived a life uncluttered by the hassle of getting on in life. She didn’t have a mortgage, didn’t have bills to pay and could go out to play when school was over. Meals she didn’t have to plan or cook were regularly provided. She got kissed and cuddled and tucked up in bed every night. She was loved, and she knew it. Life was a breeze when you were seven. Reviewing the innocence and comfort of her daughter’s existence, Martha felt proud and a tad envious. She wished she’d been smart enough to enjoy being seven when she’d been there. Still, she didn’t want to openly disagree with Charlie. It wasn’t the thing to do in a job interview.

  Charlie agreed on the matter of difficult ages. ‘I’m thirty-seven. Forty’s looming. It’s hard.’

  He tapped his desk, gazed into the distance and looked to Martha to be considering his life so far and the difficulties that lay ahead. She took in the room. It was large, airy, painted a fading blue with a desk at either end. One wall was filled with framed prints – Monet, Degas, Cezanne and Matisse. Charlie had the desk by the window. Martha presumed she’d be behind the one near the kitchen door, if she got the job. A fire burbled in the grate. A black cocker spaniel stretched on an ancient Chesterfield sofa and yawned from time to time. He snored and farted as only dogs can without shame or apology for his lack of social graces.

  Martha was disappointed Charlie Gavin looked nothing like Sherlock Holmes or Sam Spade. He dressed carefully – grey trousers, grey shirt open at the neck and a black velvet jacket. His hair was too long and curled over the collar of his shirt. He frequently ran his fingers through it. He didn’t look thirty-seven. His face was unlined, almost as if it was waiting for life to happen, make its mark. Or maybe, Martha thought, his scars went deeper than the odd wrinkle. Perhaps he nursed a wounded heart.

  He was lucky. Well, his face was lucky. Running worried fingers over her own face this morning while looking in the mirror, Martha decided that every dire moment, doubt and downright tragedy was written there. At best she could say she looked like a woman of the world. But she wasn’t prone to self-flattery. She was sure she looked baggy-eyed, emotionally battered.

  ‘I mean,’ Charlie said, ‘I’m this old, almost middle-aged, and I still don’t know what I want to do when I grow up.’

  Martha knew what he meant. She ran her fingers through her hair and wondered if his habit was infectious. ‘I wanted to be a cowboy when I was little.’

  He perked up. ‘Did you? So did I. It seemed like the life to me. Wandering the range, sleeping under the stars – just moseying, me and my faithful horse. Moonlight, I was going to call him.’

  ‘Excellent name,’ said Martha. ‘Mine was to be Durango.’

  ‘Oh,’ he lit up. A glint of envy in his eyes. ‘That’s a good name.’

  Martha nodded ‘I thought so.’

  They sighed in unison.

  ‘Of course,’ he said, ‘there would be insects out there on the range what with the heat and all.’ He examined his sleeve and brushed off an imaginary horsefly. ‘And the diet wouldn’t agree with me. All the beans. Then there’s the weather.’

  ‘I know,’ said Martha. ‘It really rains out on the range. Sheeting downpours. That’s the movies for you. It never just drizzles in Hollywood.’

  ‘Exactly,’ he agreed. ‘After wanting to be a cowboy, I wanted to be a famous jazz trumpeter.’

  ‘Oh, do you like jazz?’

  He nodded. ‘Some of it. Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk. Mostly I like the hats. Jazz men wear cool hats.’

  ‘I suppose they do,’ said Martha. ‘I never did get along with hats. I don’t have the head for them. And I think you have to be tall.’

  ‘Exactly,’ said Charlie. ‘I feel self-conscious with a hat on. I love the names, though. Sonny Boy Williamson, Satchmo.’

  ‘Yes,’ Martha agreed. ‘Blues players too. Blind Lemon Jefferson, Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf. I’d love to have been a blues singer. Big Voice Bessie Green, or something. I’d have worn a low-cut slinky dress, belted out my woes, then I
’d have taken a seat at the bar, drunk bourbon and shot the breeze with the band.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Charlie. ‘That’s the life.’

  ‘Still, you play the trumpet?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘That could have been a bit of a drawback.’

  ‘Yes. It was just a dream. I was fourteen. A trumpet was not on the agenda. It was way out of reach.’

  Martha briefly felt inclined to tell him about her struggle to buy a guitar when she was fourteen. But something about him – a flicker of regret and, perhaps, anger that spoke of a damaged childhood – made her stop.

  She said, ‘Still, this seems fine to me. I’d be happy with this.’ She waved her hands to indicate the room, and then folded them on her lap. ‘What exactly is it you do, Mr Gavin? As a private investigator, that is.’

  ‘Call me Charlie, everybody does. I look for people. I’m a specialist. I don’t do any other kind of investigating.’

  ‘But how do you do that?’

  ‘We all leave trails behind us. I try to find them. Then follow them.’

  ‘And what does that entail?’

  ‘Oh, I talk to the people left behind. I follow the daily paths of those who have gone missing and gather information along the way. I look at old newspaper reports and electoral registers. I find out what was happening in the lives of the missing when they disappeared.’

  She leaned forward. ‘Do you have a lot of success?’

  He shrugged. ‘A bit. I’ve found that some missing people want to stay missing.’

  ‘I see,’ said Martha.

  ‘Then again some missing people are desperate to come back. They just don’t know how.’

  Martha noted Charlie seemed a lot happier now she was asking the questions. She thought this was not a good thing in someone in his line of business. ‘I expect you’ll be out of the office a lot. Looking for people.’

  ‘Yes, a little,’ he said. ‘Though I prefer to be here. I like it here with the fire on and the dog sleeping. I sometimes get people to go places for me.’

  ‘You have more staff?’

  ‘Not exactly. The occasional helper.’

  His fingers moved up to his hair again. He drummed the top of his head. ‘Mrs Florey who had the job worked from ten till four every day. She liked to get away before the rush-hour traffic got too heavy. She cycled.’

  ‘I wouldn’t have to do that,’ said Martha. ‘I live five minutes’ walk away. Portobello is not that big, anyway. Why did Mrs Florey leave?’

  ‘She wanted to see the world – the foothills of Mount Everest, the Australian outback and such like. She thought if she didn’t do it now, she might die and never do it. She’s seventy-two.’

  ‘Oh. I don’t think you’d have that problem with me. I’m a home-loving sort.’

  ‘Me, too.’ He looked embarrassed. ‘I like to be at home beside the fire with Murphy and a good book.’

  ‘Murphy? Is that your wife?’

  ‘The dog.’ He pointed to the snorer and farter on the sofa. ‘He hasn’t got very good manners but he’s excellent company. I’m not married. Nobody would have me. I’m not a good catch.’

  He looked at the clock and checked its time by glancing at his watch. ‘Half-past ten. I get a bacon sandwich from the café across the road every morning at quarter to eleven. It would be part of your duties to pick it up.’

  Martha told him that would be fine. ‘I’m partial to a bacon sandwich myself.’

  He nodded, rearranged the pens on his desk and ran his hand over the phone. ‘You’d have to type up my reports and answer the phone. That sort of thing.’

  Martha smiled and said she could do that.

  ‘Well,’ Charlie said, ‘that’s wonderful.’ Slapping his palms on his desk, he stood up. ‘When can you start?’

  ‘A week on Monday? I have to hand in my notice at my present job.’

  ‘Jolly good. I’ll look forward to seeing you then.’

  He swept her from the office, along the corridor to the door that led onto the street, repeating, ‘Jolly good, jolly good,’ as they went. ‘Ah, I almost forgot. No pink.’

  ‘No pink?’

  ‘Don’t wear anything pink to work. It’s the rule. This office is a pink-free zone.’

  Martha shrugged. ‘OK.’ An odd request, she thought. But what was it to her? She didn’t have much pink in her wardrobe.

  It was raining. The air smelled of wet beach and ozone. The sea was a step away, round the corner. Charlie greeted the wetness from above with amazement, holding out his palm to gather some drops. He leaned over, tapped the brass nameplate on the wall – Charlie Gavin Be Kindly Missing Persons Bureau – bade Martha goodbye and went back inside. Seconds later he was back in the street again, tapping the nameplate again and shouting after Martha. ‘Mrs Walters.’

  She turned. ‘Yes?’

  ‘You can type, can’t you?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘And shorthand? Do you do that?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Ah, excellent.’

  They were standing yards apart talking with raised voices. Passers-by looked on with interest. And it was still raining, a fine drenching drizzle.

  ‘And previous experience,’ he shouted. ‘What about that?’

  ‘I work in an insurance office. Been there for two years and before that I briefly worked for a small publishing company. Both posts were secretarial.’

  ‘Excellent,’ he said. ‘Just the thing. Um, why do you want to leave your present job?’

  ‘I feel I’m not getting the chance to develop my full potential.’

  He gave her the thumbs up. ‘Good answer. See you Monday next.’ He went back inside, tapping the nameplate as he passed.

  Martha stood staring at the doorway. Had that just happened? Had that man just conducted a job interview in the street, yelling questions through the rain? What kind of boss would he be? She dreaded to think. And what kind of private investigator suddenly thought of the questions he ought to ask when the interview was over? A seriously bad one, Martha decided. Charlie Gavin was a disappointment. She’d hoped he might be the one. But clearly he wasn’t.

  He reappeared. Tapped the nameplate for the umpteenth time and ran to the café across the road. Now he was wearing a raincoat that was slightly too big for him. Martha thought it a very Humphrey Bogart garment. Well, that was something – a Humphrey Bogart raincoat. He went up a notch in her estimation.

  Seconds later he emerged from the café carrying a brown paper bag. The bacon sandwich, Martha decided. They must have had it ready for him. He saw her and appeared delighted she was still there. Pointing up at the sky, he shouted, ‘Drizzle. Obviously this ain’t Hollywood.’

  He went back to his office, came out again, tapped the nameplate and disappeared inside.

  2

  A Life in a Shoebox

  Charlie’s heart had skipped a beat when Martha walked into his office. He’d first noticed her years ago. Back then she’d been Martha Campbell. Her married name was new to him. But once, though she didn’t know it, she’d been his hero.

  Six o’clock on a Friday evening, he’d been buying a newspaper and had spotted her standing at the bus stop across the road. She’d been wearing jeans turned up at the bottom to reveal pale thin ankles, a white T-shirt and a black leather jacket several sizes too big. She was carrying a guitar in a battered case and was scowling the sort of scowl only an adolescent could manage. This is me, you got a problem with that? the scowl said. It had made him smile. There had been a time when he’d been master of that scowl.

  ‘Who’s that?’ he’d asked Sheena, the woman behind the counter.

  ‘Our Martha,’ Sheena told him. ‘Lives in John Street. Her father died a while back. She’s been a worry to her mother ever since. A bit wild.’

  ‘She plays the guitar?’

  ‘Not very well, I hear. She’s in a band. Her mother’s praying she’ll grow out of it.’

  ‘A rock’n’roll band?�
��

  ‘That’s what I hear.’

  ‘I didn’t think girls did that sort of thing.’

  ‘Neither did I. It’s not right. But Martha’s heart is set on it. It’s a phase, her mother says. It’ll pass. That’s what you do when you have kids, spend your days waiting for phases to pass.’ Sheena had peered out the window at Martha. ‘That lass did no end of paper rounds to get the money for the guitar. I was right glad when she’d saved enough. She was the worst paper-girl I’ve ever had.’

  Charlie’s heart went out to Martha and her guitar. Who wouldn’t like someone who was a diabolical paper-girl?

  At the time Charlie had been trying to sort out his life. He was considering his future, and had been for some time. He was confused. Lonely. He didn’t know who he was.

  He wasn’t working. The only jobs he’d held had been casual labour on building sites. He’d been surprised he hadn’t been called up to do National Service like everyone he knew and had asked his Auntie Ella, who’d brought him up, why this was.

  ‘Oh,’ she’d said, ‘they probably knew all about you. They have records and they’d have seen that you have flat feet and had a touch of diphtheria when you were little. You wouldn’t be suitable.’

  He’d stared at his feet. They seemed perfectly normal to him and the diphtheria was news. ‘Was I ill?’

  ‘For a while. I was right worried, I can tell you. But you were a tough wee thing. You made it through. You’re fine now. Only maybe not for army life.’

  It occurred to him that if he was fit enough to work on a building site, he was fit enough for the army. But he didn’t complain. He was muscular, tanned, there were passing girls to whistle at and it brought in enough money to buy weekend booze, natty shirts and get him into jazz clubs which were more about sitting with a beer listening to music than drinking and dancing.

  Oh, he accepted he’d never learn to play the trumpet and bring audiences to their knees weeping at the beauty, pain and honesty of his music. But he felt there must be something he’d be good at, a hidden talent he might stumble upon. It would be satisfying. It might even make him rich. If only he could stumble on that talent soon.