10
Tuesday, 24 April 2012
Stella Darnell started her domestic and commercial cleaning business the day after she left school, aged seventeen, ignoring the application form to join the police her dad had given her. She did the cleaning herself, but when the jobs grew and she was threatened with turning away new clients she gave in to her mother’s advice and recruited other cleaners. She continued to clean and, bleary-eyed from late-night and early-morning shifts, clacked out quotes, invoices and receipts on a second-hand electric golfball typewriter into the early hours.
One night Suzanne Darnell appeared in the bedroom now serving as a makeshift office, in her silk dressing gown and blackout shades pushed up on her forehead, with two mugs of tea. Stella accepted the tea but, licking and stamping envelopes, had no time to chat.
Her mother pulled out carbon copies of letters and invoices stuffed in a bulging concertina file. ‘Spacing’s wrong and only put “yours sincerely” if you know the recipient’s name.’ She sat on Stella’s bed. ‘You haven’t given a payment due limit. Put “immediately” or you’ll waste time chasing payment and have cash-flow problems. You must look professional or customers will decide you won’t do a good job. You need a name – Stella Darnell won’t do. Clients will always ask for you.’
‘I’ve had no complaints.’ Hunting and pecking at the typewriter keys, Stella had tried to shut her ears to this advice.
‘You don’t know how many clients you have lost. Hop up.’
They swapped places. Suzie’s fingers flew over the keys, the juddering machine sounding like sustained gunfire. She churned out error-free letters, proposals and contracts until there was nothing to do and the vinyl record storage case serving as a filing tray was overflowing. The dawn chorus began and the indigo sky was streaked with pink as the last envelope was sealed.
Suzie grabbed the mugs. Pausing by the door, she said: ‘Clean Slate.’
‘What?’ Stella squared off the envelopes for posting.
‘That’s the name of your company.’
For the next year Suzanne Darnell handled the administration for Clean Slate. She visited second-hand shops for a filing cabinet, a waste bin. She brokered deals for cheap stationery. She set up a system – a tower of trays: ‘in’, ‘pending’ and ‘out’ – filed client accounts in folders and locked them in the cabinet.
Stella had to clean less, drum up new business. Suzie devised new packages and joined her in recruiting cleaners; they rarely disagreed about whom to employ. Suzie insisted they trial the cleaners in the Barons Court flat and that everyone wear Clean Slate polo shirts to reinforce the message that they meant business.
Jobs increased, in size and quantity. Banished to the ‘office’, Stella kept to herself that she enjoyed cleaning more than anything.
One blustery rainy night, soon after Clean Slate’s second anniversary, Stella arrived to clean the premises of her first commercial client, an employment agency over a Spar supermarket on Shepherd’s Bush Green. Months before, the manager, a Mrs Makepeace – late twenties, snappily clad in a suit with shoulder pads – had haggled a knock-down price for the Silver Interior package. Suzie objected, but was mollified when Mrs Makepeace secured Clean Slate contracts with three companies. Stella did the employment-agency shifts and modelled herself on the older woman. She bought a suit for meetings and was nicer to people. Despite Suzie’s warning to maintain a line between staff and clients, over tea and biscuits after sessions Stella confided to Jackie – they had quickly moved to first-name terms – her plans for Clean Slate. She switched to Jackie’s trusted suppliers and absorbed tips on client handling.
That stormy evening there was no tea or biscuits while, her voice raised above the lashing rain and wind buffeting the windows, Jackie Makepeace told Stella the agency had gone under. Her employer had emptied the bank account and disappeared. Clean Slate’s invoice would not be paid and nor would Jackie, although she made little of this. Surrounded by the trappings of an efficient office, she admitted she had completed the filing after hearing the news, although everything would be incinerated, the equipment sold for a song and the lease given up. Jackie was relentlessly optimistic; it was the one time Stella saw her close to crying.
Stella made the tea and, running down to the mini-mart, bought two packets of Rich Tea biscuits, Jackie’s favourite.
By the time she left, Stella had appointed Jackie her office manager and decided to take over the lease of the premises overlooking Shepherd’s Bush Green. Her mum fretted that Clean Slate was too big for Stella’s bedroom, so would applaud her professional response to a crisis; she need not consult her.
Suzanne Darnell did not applaud any of it: she disliked Shepherd’s Bush and, without meeting her, disapproved of Jackie. Once a client always a client; besides, Mrs Makepeace must have had a hand in the collapse of the employment agency. Suzie had relished her role in Stella’s business; she was horrified by the abrupt redundancy, but could not say so.
Soon after this Stella rented a bedsit over the dry cleaner’s next door to the office and left the home she had shared with her mother since she was seven. Suzie showed no further interest in Clean Slate; or much else.
In 2011, on her accountant’s advice and responding to Jackie’s concern that she was living on the job, Stella bought the corner apartment of a gated development by the Thames in Brentford. Stella still held to the rule that clients and staff should not be friends; she forgot that it was Suzie’s rule.
When Stella reached the office the door was open. A man was balancing on his haunches fiddling with the lock.
‘What the hell do you think you’re doing? Stand back with your hands above your head. The police are on their way.’ Stella backed away from the door. She had frightened herself.
The man flung himself to the floor, his arms over his head, his hands over his ears. In the brief quiet Stella became aware of a mewing sound. It was the man.
‘What on earth is going on?’ Jackie appeared, holding a tray of tea things. Stella jumped. Jackie just kept her grasp of the tray.
‘I’ve caught a burglar.’ Even as she said the words Stella had a creeping suspicion this was nonsense.
‘Duggie has put in a new door. The lock broke. I couldn’t make my key turn. So I took the opportunity. The freeholders have agreed.’
Stella watched the man get to his feet. She guessed he was one of what she dubbed Jackie’s lame ducks. If Jackie had no problems of her own she solved other people’s. She and her husband Graham often had waifs and strays staying or popping in for supper – friends of their sons, a school friend of Jackie’s whose husband had died – and every Saturday Jackie shopped for three old people. Stella did not understand how she found the time.
The man pushed back thinning grey hair with both hands and began screwing a mechanism into the side of the new door. Stella muttered an apology as she stepped past. After David Barlow she had burglars on the brain.
As she dumped her briefcase on the floor by her office door and paused to leaf through today’s post, Stella considered that she herself might count as a lame duck or stray.
‘It does mean that if someone comes in off the street, they’ll keep going up the stairs.’ Jackie nodded at Stella. ‘Duggie will make this place a fortress.’
Stella had requested – in person, in emails and on laminated notices – that the insurance company above keep the street door locked to ward off casual callers. Her requests were ignored. A stream of deliveries came and went from Keyhole Securities and, not having an intercom, their staff did not want the bother of the two flights of stairs. Instead the leather-clad and helmeted couriers bothered Clean Slate. Lying awake at night, Stella worried over the likelihood of a burglary.
‘I’ll call off the police, shall I?’ Jackie indicated the phone, eyebrows raised.
‘That was just to frighten him.’ Stella looked out of the window. It was eight o’clock in the morning and Shepherd’s Bush Green was log-jammed. It was not helped by a slow-moving street-cleaning vehicle. Through the ill-fitting sash, she distinguished the hiss of the water spray, an unsettling sound that made her think of Doctor Who.
‘Speaking of police, did you ring Hammersmith Police Station?’
Slatted sunlight through the Venetian blinds warmed Stella’s face. She thought of David Barlow’s conservatory. She would rather be cleaning there than reading through the proposal for the new database.
‘That nice policeman rang again.’
Stella’s attention was caught by staff contact forms on Beverly’s desk awaiting scanning for the database. Jack Harmon’s was on the top. Jack had walked into the office early one morning when the downstairs door was open. He had typical left-hander’s writing, slanting backwards. Had Stella seen his application without meeting him it might have hit the reject pile. But in January last year, after Terry’s sudden death, she hadn’t been with it. Not that she regretted her decision: Jack was her best cleaner. He was more than that, she admitted. He had helped her solve the Rokesmith murder and refused credit for it. Stella had known Jack for over a year but actually didn’t know him at all. Yet she wanted him to work with her on another case. Somehow she trusted him.
‘Calling Stella?’
‘Sorry?’
‘Martin Cashman has left two messages. Beverly did say. Wasn’t he the bloke who was kind when Terry died?’
Stella must phone Jack. ‘I’ll call him.’ She picked up the form looking for Jack’s number. Jackie gently took it from her.
‘It’s ringing.’ She handed her the phone.
Stella had not spoken to Detective Superintendent Martin Cashman since Terry’s funeral. It would be about Terry; she wasn’t sure she wanted to know. ‘
‘Cashman.’ The voice was businesslike and not for the first time Martin Cashman, who was about the same age as Stella, reminded her of her father. Recently everyone was reminding her of Terry; he was haunting her. Again she thought of David Barlow, although he was actually nothing like her father. Younger, for a start.
‘Stella Darnell. You called me?’ Stella caught Jackie frowning. ‘How are you?’ She tried for more warmth.
‘Hey! Stella, great stuff. How are you?’
Detective Inspector Cashman had been promoted to Terry Darnell’s post of Detective Chief Superintendent at Hammersmith Police Station after Terry retired. Obliquely and without logic, Stella viewed him as having usurped her dad.
‘You left a message.’ She caught Jackie’s eye. ‘Fine, how are you?’
‘Ageing by the minute. Crock of the Walk, that’s me!’ The microphone picked up Cashman’s breathing. Like Terry he sounded fresh from jogging, which would not be the case. ‘I want your company.’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘I’ve terminated our contract with the cowboys we were using. They went through every office leaving the dust intact.’ He laughed uproariously, then was conspiratorial. ‘I’ve had the go-ahead from the powers that be to commission direct. Clean Slate ticks all the boxes. No one else in the frame. We want you to clean the station.’
When she was fifteen Stella decided to give the police a wide berth. Her dad, overtaken by the Rokesmith murder, saw little of his teenaged daughter and she blamed the police. If Jackie had not been monitoring her call, Stella might have refused the job. But Jackie was right, Cashman had been kind after her dad’s death and it was not in Stella’s nature to turn down work.
A Mrs Marian Williams, Cashman’s civilian administrator, would email Jackie the details. Stella agreed to start the next morning at six with three shifts a week.
Jackie poured hot water from the kettle next to the photocopier into four ‘Clean Slate’ mugs. ‘You’ll need at least three operatives.’
‘I’ll do it.’ Stella was unwrapping the Rich Tea biscuits.
‘Ask Jack.’ Jackie fished out the tea bags, squeezed them and dropped them into a plastic takeaway tub. She added milk to each mug – more in Stella’s.
Clean Slate always had a staffing crisis – the work exceeded those available to do it and Jackie always found a solution. Since last year, her solution had been Jack Harmon.
‘He’s driving a late-night train.’ Stella congratulated herself on her prompt and plausible objection. Then she wondered why she had objected. She didn’t want to clean the station; there, more even than in his house, Terry would be hovering, highlighting her mistakes. Yet she had an objection. What little she did know about Jack warned her to think twice about letting him loose in a police station.
Beverly, the admin assistant, arrived and, ignoring the pile of work on her desk, settled down with her mug of tea. The day got under way.
Stella was still at her desk at six-thirty that evening when her mobile phone rang. She snatched it up, thinking of Jack; she had not phoned him.
‘I want a cleaner.’ Her mum had rung Clean Slate forgetting it was Stella’s company.
‘Mum, it’s me. Stella. Don’t worry. You’re confused.’
‘I’m not worried or confused. I want a cleaner. That’s what you do, isn’t it? Clean?’
‘Yes, but—’
‘When can he start?’
‘Who?’
‘Jack.’ Recently Suzie had been forgetful; it astounded Stella that she had total recall about a man she had met once.
‘I don’t think that’s a good idea.’
‘He did a super job last time. He got everywhere.’
There was no point in Stella saying that it had been she who had cleaned that evening because if it had been Jack he would have done a better job. She couldn’t remember why she hadn’t wanted him to go there and now, distracted by an email, this time she agreed.
As she was driving past Marks and Spencer’s on King Street Stella saw the witness appeal notice again and thought of the boy who had died there the day before. Joel Evans; she even remembered his name. It had rained heavily since then and the sandy stain on the camber had washed away.