Chapter One

 

 

What was your approximate speed when the accident happened?

That was easy enough: 15 mph.

Bulldozers don’t do more than 15 mph flat out.

Position of other vehicle(s) involved. Use sketch plan if necessary.

Bang in front of me, side-on, to begin with. Through 90 degrees and up on its side after I hit it.

Speed of other vehicle(s) involved.

Nil. After I’d hit it, though I nudged it sideways for a bit with the bulldozer.

Road conditions at the time of the accident.

Not on a road. In somebody’s front garden, actually.

Place and location of accident.

Lat 52’22’ N; Long 0’58’ W. (Approx.)

Were occupants of other vehicle injured?

Sole purpose of exercise.

Were the emergency services called to the scene?

You bet.

Which ones?

All of them.

 

‘You can’t send that in,’ said Amy. ‘They’ll think you’re a nutter.’

‘I was hoping they’d reserve judgement on that until they got to the bit where I told them that it was our car I trashed with the ‘dozer,’ I said reasonably.

‘My car,’ Amy pointed out.

‘So why am I the one filling out all the forms, then?’

God, she could be really childish at times.

‘Because you think you were put on Earth to make life hell for insurance claims assessors.’

‘It’s a calling. Of sorts.’

 

Of course I wasn’t doing any of this just to annoy the insurance company, though that was an added incentive, nor to prove a point about the vulnerability of BMW Series 7s when hit broadside by 17 tons of bulldozer just because it’s the one test they don’t do in the wind tunnels over in Munich. (Actually, knowing BMW, they probably do.)

It was, after all, a pretty straightforward case. The car had been stolen from our – Amy’s – house in Hampstead and later used, miles away up in Suffolk, in the commission of a crime, as they say. Crime in question: abduction of said Amy at gunpoint. All I had been doing was preventing a getaway by using whatever means were at hand and, I think the jury will agree with me on this, the minimum of force necessary. I put it to you: it is impossible to stop a BMW 7 when it gets up to speed with simply the use of harsh language.

You could, of course, if you wanted to be pedantic, mention the fact that I must have known full well that the driver could be injured during such action. Too bloody right, I say. After all, he had just tried to abduct Amy and he’d pinched the car in the first place – it was almost the first thing he’d done after getting out of prison, after buying a gun that is.

Oh yes, he was a villain. A right jailbird. He had form, a record. He was also totally psychotic. I knew all that.

What I hadn’t known was that he was Amy’s husband.

Well, her first one.

So all this fun I was having filling in whacky insurance claims was a way of getting Amy to talk about it, because everything else I had tried had failed. (Threats, anger, sulking, more threats, bribery, offers of counselling, romantic restaurants, a few more threats, the silent treatment, the going-on-and-on-about-it treatment, double sulking.)

‘I’m not signing the claim and it is my insurance, so why don’t you just let it lie,’ she said. ‘The warranty will cover it.’

‘I don’t think so. I think it becomes invalid if you deliberately remove mechanical parts from their factory mountings,’ I said, pretending to read the small print on the claim form.

‘What, you mean like a wiper blade or something?’

‘I was thinking of the engine.’

‘Oh fuck it, just get rid of it, sell it for scrap. I don’t want to know.’

‘Amy, dearest, that’s 35 grand’s worth of car you’re writing off.’

‘We can afford it.’

‘We can?’ I hadn’t meant to shout.

‘I can,’ she said icily.

‘Look, we’ve got to talk about it some time,’ I pleaded, all the time thinking about how many accounts she must have hidden away.

‘Why?’

‘Well, what if there’s a hearing or something? I mean, there could be.’

Even as I said it, I knew it sounded lame.

‘So there’s a hearing; so there’s a trial at the Old Bailey; so there’s a Royal-fucking-Commission. What? You stopped my car getting stolen. Rather violently, admitted, but that’s all you did. Why do you have to know anything about ... him? Let it go. Move on.’

It wasn’t me who couldn’t say his name. Why was I the one who needed to move on?

‘If there is a hearing or an enquiry or whatever,’ I tried gently, ‘won’t it sound strange that I didn’t know you’d been married before? I mean, I’d look a right div.’

She seemed to think this over.

‘Wouldn’t be a first,’ she said.

 

It had been a month since it had happened, but time just flies when you’re answering police enquiries.

I had been involved in an archaeological dig in Suffolk – well, not so much involved as supervising, actually – though I’m not really an archaeologist, I just know how to look like one. I drive a delicensed black Austin Fairway cab, but it doesn’t mean I’m a London taxi driver who has done the Knowledge, which just goes to prove that appearances are deceptive. At least I hope they are.

The weird thing was not me wielding a trowel in anger for the first time since I was a student – or the other off-the-wall things going on at the dig – but the fact that Amy had insisted on coming with me. What I hadn’t known at the time, though I should have suspected, was that Amy wanted to get out of London for a while. That alone should have set off car alarms in Dulwich. Amy never left London except to go to Paris or Milan or wherever the next fashion show was. Amy never left Zone 1 unless one of her customers was having a crisis and there was a need for a rapid-response fashion adviser. She was not the sort of woman – she was the last woman on Earth – you could imagine exchanging a designer frock for breathable Gortex combat trousers in Desert Storm camouflage and forsaking her Jimmy Choo shoes for steel-capped rigger boots. (Actually, she took the Jimmys along just in case.) But there she was, digging with the best of them, hardly noticing there wasn’t any room service.

Of course, as I discovered, she’d been hiding; and, to be honest, an archaeological dig in East Anglia is a pretty good place to hide. Martin Bormann could have been digging in the next ditch and nobody would have thought to ask.

She was hiding from a man who had been out of prison for just a month but had used the time wisely to track down his ex-wife at her Oxford Street office, find out where we lived, break into our (Amy’s) house, steal our (Amy’s) new BMW, buy a gun, discover we were in Suffolk and decide to abduct Amy.

The only thing Anthony Keith Flowers hadn’t bargained for was what happens when a bulldozer meets a BMW at right angles.

What I hadn’t bargained for was that there was an Anthony Keith Flowers at all.

Life’s just full of surprises.

I hate surprises.

 

Amy and I had been an item for about three years. No, at least three years, as I distinctly remember missing three anniversaries.

When we met, Amy was the leading player in a creative trio breaking into the High Street fashion market with a well designed, well researched and well affordable multipurpose blouse known as a TALtop after the triumvirate’s initials of Thalia, Amy and Lyn. Within a few weeks, Amy was the sole player in the partnership thanks to a combination of criminal proceedings and an unfortunate traffic accident down the Columbia Road Sunday flower market in Hackney. Within a year, she had franchised the TALtop and herself to a national chain of clothing shops, become seriously rich and moved her manufacturing base from a sweatshop off Brick Lane to the side streets off the Via Monte Napoleone in Milan. It seemed a good time to move into her house in Hampstead, as my one-bedroomed flat in Hackney wouldn’t have cut the mustard if OK! magazine came calling – as they did.

There was also the small matter that my flat at Number 9 Stuart Street wasn’t big enough for three of us, for I had a sitting tenant in the shape of an irritable black cat called Springsteen. I use the term ‘irritable’ in its broadest sense: homicidal, sociopathic and possessed have all been bandied about in the past, and Stuart Street was declared a no-go area by the RSPCA many years ago. It just wouldn’t have been fair to uproot a cat with an established territory and move him across London to upmarket Hampstead where the natural game reserves weren’t enough to support his lifestyle. And anyway, I valued my skin too much to be the one to break the news to him. So I compromised and kept the flat on. The rent was a peppercorn thanks to an understanding I had with the landlord of the house, I’d invested in a cat flap, and the other residents regarded him as better than a Neighbourhood Watch, burglar alarms and a minefield when it came to deterring intruders. So everybody was happy and, as an added bonus, I had a crash pad I could use in case of emergency. And let’s face it, there always are emergencies when it comes to relationships. So many, that I’m beginning to think the two things are mystically connected. Maybe I was just getting old.

Flat 3 at Number 9 Stuart Street also, I felt, kept me in touch with my people. Not ‘my people’ in any sort of religious or political sense; nor, for that matter, in any sense of class, intellectual, educational, occupational, sociological, sexual or genetic compatibility. In fact, thinking about it, I didn’t really know why I liked them, but I did. It was probably because they didn’t bother me.

In the flat above mine were Inverness Doogie and his girlfriend Miranda. He was a budding chef who was destined to have his own restaurant and probably TV series one day if only he could find the right gimmick, preferably one that did not involve fighting on the terraces at football matches, the third real love of his life after cooking and Miranda. Actually, as the terraces in football stadia had gone all-seater, most of the fun of starting a ruck with visiting fans had gone too, so Doogie was in danger of calming down. Maybe it was Miranda who was softening his natural tendency to exuberant outbursts of violence. She was Welsh, which meant she knew that all silver linings had clouds, Rome wasn’t burned in a day and these days the Good Samaritan would get mugged for his mobile phone. She had a powerful dampening effect on any free spirit, even Doogie’s, and he had inherited his from a family tree that stretched back to the time when painted Pictish warriors headbutted Hadrian’s Wall just for the hell of it.

In Flat 2 lived Fenella and Lisabeth, who were just about the longest-together couple I knew. But then, they didn’t get out much. I could always rely on Fenella to put food out for Springsteen (as long as it didn’t look too much like meat), make sure he could get in and out, pass on the rent money and take messages and deliveries for me. Lisabeth I could rely on to be Lisabeth, and even though she now referred to herself as a Woman of Size and couldn’t move as fast as she once could, she was still my first choice for the person I’d want to walk in front down a dark alley.

On the ground floor was the unassuming Mr Goodson, whom we saw rarely and who was something in local government but no-one knew quite what, though he must surely be approaching retirement from it. Then again, he could be one of those men who were born at the age of 42 and spend their lives growing into the part. He kept himself to himself, put up with a lot and seemed happy to have the camouflage of the rest of the house around him, the house in its turn being camouflaged by the rest of Hackney – one of London’s best kept secrets.

Despite its history of extremist politics, its reputation for lousy educational achievement, pockets of severe poverty and the fact that nobody ever admits to coming from there, it is not that bad a place to live. People are always willing to talk to you there, in any of 17 languages, even while stealing your car. In Hampstead, as I had found, hearing a neighbour’s car alarm going off felt like you were intruding on their privacy. In Hampstead no-one can be bothered to hear you scream. In Hackney they at least tell you to put a sock in it.

 

‘So you feel there is a part of Amy’s life to which she has denied you access?’

‘Well, yes, obviously,’ I said.

‘Yet you live in different worlds, so there must be areas you keep apart.’

‘I wouldn’t say that. We rub along quite nicely.’

‘Despite the fact that she earns so much more than you?’

‘Trust me, that’s not a problem,’ I said truthfully. ‘It’s not for her and it certainly isn’t for me.’

‘It must have come as a shock, though – finding out she’d been married before.’

‘Bit of a stunner, but fair play, I’d never asked.’

‘So you took her on trust, and now you’re thinking that trust’s been broken?’

‘That’s a bit sexist isn’t it?’ I argued. ‘I mean, it sounds as if I inspected the goods but didn’t find anything wrong until I got her home from the shop. What was I supposed to do? Demand a warranty? Relationships don’t come with warranties, in my experience.’

‘It doesn’t sound as if her ex-husband’s did. Didn’t she know what he was like?’

‘She must have. You can’t live with somebody, sleep with somebody, and not get to know them at least, you know, in passing.’

‘You seem to have managed it.’

‘Hey – that’s out of order. We’re talking an entirely different scenario here.’

‘Convince me.’

I was determined not to lose my temper. I clasped my hands together behind my head and leaned back to stretch out on the black leather upholstery.

‘Whether she knew he was a villain before he was arrested, I don’t know. Once he went inside, she divorced him. Far as she was concerned, end of story, new chapter, new life.’

‘But not for him.’

‘‘Course not. Bit of a bummer being slammed up in the first place, then to get the Dear John letter from her solicitor – could push anyone over the edge.’

‘So he sits and festers in prison and then when he gets out, he – he does what?’

‘He finds Amy – finds where she works, where she lives. He stalks her, in fact.’

‘And she knew about this?’

‘Er ... yes,’ I said slowly, knowing what was coming.

‘And still she didn’t mention him?’

Now that had worried me. I had discovered, almost by accident, that Amy had taken out a restraining order on Keith Flowers, supposedly to keep him away from where she worked and where we lived. It hadn’t been a success.

‘No, she didn’t.’

‘So she could have warned you but didn’t. Is that it?’

‘I wouldn’t put it like that.’

‘I would. So would most people. You feel – what? Betrayed?’

I said nothing to that.

‘Then he turns up at this archaeology dig thing you’re on and he pulls a gun. Did he say why?’

‘We didn’t exactly have time to chat,’ I snorted. I’d been too busy trying to run him over with a bulldozer.

‘But what was he going to do? Abduct Amy and drive off into the sunset?’

‘It was the middle of the night.’

‘Whatever. What was his plan?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Does Amy?’

‘I don’t know. If she does, she hasn’t said.’

‘No wonder you feel threatened.’

‘Who said I felt threatened?’

‘You must do. She’s obviously holding back, keeping you out of the loop. Well, isn’t she?’

‘I suppose so, yes.’

‘And that doesn’t worry you?’

‘Of course it bleedin’ worries me. That’s why I’m telling you all this.’

Something dawned on me.

I slid off the leather seat, put my feet on the garage floor and ducked out of the back of the BMW.

‘Duncan, you’re a fucking car mechanic. Why am I telling you all this?’

 

 

 

Chapter Two

 

 

Duncan the Drunken probably was the best car mechanic in the world, but as a psychiatrist he was pants. He had charged me £150 (cash) to go to a police pound in Suffolk with a flat-back and bring Amy’s BMW home to his lock-up garage and workshop in Hackney. He hadn’t charged me anything for psychiatric advice, but I knew it would cost me in the long run.

The car was encrusted with mud, had cracks in most of the windows, enough scratches down the near-side to make you think Freddy Krueger had been trying to break into it, a bulldozer-blade imprint on the off-side and two buckled frames where the paramedics had popped the doors in order to remove the unconscious Keith Flowers. I suspected that the petrol tank was ruptured and the engine had seized when the exhaust filled with dirt. (You had to be there.)

Duncan walked around it three or four times, hands in pockets, sucking in air over his teeth and shaking his head. After the fifth circuit, he puffed his cheeks and exhaled loudly.

‘Insurance job?’ he asked.

‘Probably not,’ I said carefully. ‘Amy doesn’t want it back. She thinks it’s going for scrap.’

His eyebrows shot up at that, so high he almost had a hairline again.

‘Bad associations, huh? So she just casts off the past and leaves you wondering ...’

‘Duncan, shut it. Can you fix it?’

‘Sure I can, but it’ll cost you lots of squids.’

‘Work out an estimate and let me know. A proper one as well, not the usual back-of-a-fag-packet job.’

He pretended to look hurt at that, but I headed for the garage doors.

‘I thought we might patch it up, flog it and split the take,’ I said over my shoulder.

‘Nice one, Angel,’ Duncan said to my back. ‘That’s more like the Angel I know. See, therapy does work.’

‘Just fix the fucking car, Duncan.’

 

As I was in the neighbourhood – though if you drive a black Austin Fairway cab, anywhere in London is in the neighbourhood – I decided to call round to Stuart Street and see if anyone was home who fancied a chat rather than psychotherapy. Not that I have anything against psychiatrists per se. I have always held to the maxim that a problem shared is two people losing sleep, which is good because you no longer feel alone, but there’s a time and a place for everything. I was in Hackney. That wasn’t the place. And as I had a full tank of diesel in Armstrong II, no job to go to, didn’t have to wear a tie and the pubs would be opening in five minutes, this wasn’t the time.

It was, however, the perfect time for me to arrive, if not in the nick of time, then right on cue to sort out the horror and chaos that had engulfed Number 9 Stuart Street that morning. Not that the place was a smoking ruin, or had fallen into a fissure in the Earth, or had been drowned in a giant chemical spill or anything. It was worse than that.

As soon as I turned Armstrong II into the road, I was transfixed – hypnotised – by the sight that greeted me. There on the pavement outside the open door of Number 9 was my downstairs neighbour Fenella, arms aloft, jumping frantically into the air as if trying to block an invisible and considerably taller attacking basketball player. The sight was arresting because she was wearing pyjamas – knee-length shorts and top patterned with large green frog designs – under a belted pink satin dressing gown which she was having trouble keeping closed. On her feet were furry slippers in the shape of panda heads and on her back was a small bag made out of a furry monkey toy with long arms to form the straps. A vampire monkey from the way the head was pressing into the back of her neck. To top it all, she wore a hat, a battered brown canvas hat with embroidered flowers; a hat that people wore at Glastonbury Festivals when they were making an ironic post-modernist comment about the proceedings (or maybe just taking the piss); a hat Paddington Bear would have shunned as uncool.

As all my attempts at lip-reading have ended in disappointment, or a slap in the face, I couldn’t tell what she was shouting over the throb of Armstrong’s engine. But shouting she was, and getting very agitated about something. Dressed the way she was, it was a sight that would have frightened the horses, had there been any around, and it seemed to have cleared the street of innocent civilians. It was a sight that would have made even someone as courageous as the late, great Queen Mum think twice about visiting the East End.

I drew up to the kerb in front of her and killed the engine. At last I could hear her, even without opening the windows.

‘Help! Help!’ she was yelling. Then, clocking Armstrong II: ‘Taxi!’

‘Fenella, it’s me!’ I shouted from inside the cab.

‘Well, it’s about time!’ she screamed as soon as she focused on me.

Whatever was wrong, nick of time wasn’t going to cut it for Fenella this morning. I hear she has the same problem with Superman as well.

‘What’s happening, dudette?’ I asked cheerfully, stepping out onto the pavement until Fenella slippered her way up to me and her panda feet were nose to toe with my trainers. I tried not to look down at them, but they were hypnotic.

‘Didn’t you get my message?’ she said in a voice that could have opened the prosecution at Nuremburg.

‘What message?’

‘The one I left on your mobile phone, the one you said was for emergencies only.’

Ah. The mobile phone that was switched off and locked in Armstrong’s glove compartment.

‘No I didn’t. You must’ve dialled the wrong number.’

‘Well when you didn’t call back,’ she said huffily, hands on hips, ‘I dialled 999, but they wouldn’t come either.’

‘Who wouldn’t?’

‘The ambulance people.’

‘Is somebody hurt?’

A frenetic split-screen of images fast-forwarded across my brain. Lisabeth slipping in the shower and unable to get up. Inverness Doogie drunk and running amok with a meat cleaver. Miranda, late for work, going arse over elbow down the stairs from Flat 4. Mr Goodson, his secret life as a bank robber finally revealed, gunshot and bloodied, holed up in his room waiting for the final assault from armed police. Lisabeth in the shower again.

‘Isn’t it obvious?’

‘No, Fenella, actually it isn’t. What happened?’

‘I phoned for an ambulance but they wouldn’t come. So I came out here to try and grab a taxi.’

‘I think I’m up to speed on that bit. Why wouldn’t they send an ambulance?’

‘They said they don’t send them for cats.’

I hit the front door with my shoulder and took the stairs three at a time.

 

‘He ... was ... eating ... something ... and ... it ... disagreed with him,’ panted Fenella as she caught up with me on the landing that lead to Flat 3 – my flat.

‘Food poisoning?’ I scoffed. ‘That’s not possible. That cat’s got a 5-Alarm Chilli stomach. His digestive juices could cut through metal. In fact, I think that’s where they got the idea for the Alien monster.’

‘No, I meant he was eating something. Something that was still alive. And I think it was fighting back. It hurt him.’

I pinned Fenella to the wall by her shoulders, but my hands slipped on the satin of her dressing gown and there was a moment there when it could have been embarrassing for me and probably a first for her. I clasped my hands as if in prayer, if only to keep them out of mischief.

‘Look, Fenella, sweetie, just please tell me what you think you saw,’ I pleaded.

‘He was howling; that’s what woke me the second time. It wasn’t his usual “Let me in” or “Let me out” howl. It wasn’t his usual “I’ve killed wildlife come and see” howl. I know those. This one was really sad, a piteous, tragic sort of a howl. And really, really loud. So I came out to see what was the matter and he was here.’

‘Where?’

‘Here on the landing, walking backwards in a funny way and howling, all the time howling.’

‘Yes, yes, I got the howling bit.’

‘And then I realised he was limping and he was dragging something in his teeth, shaking his head as if he was trying to kill it, and then he went through the cat flap. Backwards. I’ve never seen him do that before. It was horrible. The thing he was biting. It was long and brown ... I thought it might be a fox. Are there foxes in Hackney?’

That would be just typical of Hackney. With the Government trying to ban hunting with hounds they must have thought they were safe here. Nobody had said anything about cats. But it was a moot point. There probably were more foxes in London now than there were in the countryside, where they didn’t have to hunt – and be hunted – but just help themselves to the rubbish bins. And whilst I fancied Springsteen’s chances against most things, his motto being ‘Four legs – potential snack; two legs – open target’, even a soft townie fox wouldn’t go down without a fight.

‘I don’t think it was a fox, Fenella,’ I said reassuringly, having checked there was neither blood nor fur on the wall she was leaning against. ‘How did he get in this morning?’

‘I left your kitchen window open as usual,’ she insisted. ‘He must have used that, as he didn’t come in the front door.’

‘Well, he wouldn’t have come through there with a fox in his teeth,’ I said confidently.

‘I don’t know how he gets in and out of that window anyway,’ Fenella said, almost to herself. ‘It’s two floors straight down to the garden. At his age.’

‘What do you mean by that?’ I snapped, then immediately raised my hands in apology. ‘Sorry, I know you’re only trying to help. So where is he now?’

‘Under your bed,’ she said, drawing her dressing gown tighter. ‘Growling. He’s still got that thing in between his teeth and he won’t come out.’

‘Did you ring the vet, the one on Homerton High Street? I left you the number.’

Fenella flushed as pink as her satin dressing gown.

‘They’ve banned me from going round there any more.’

I wasn’t surprised. I knew they had warned her several times about taking dead, half-chewed birds and rodents round there in the hope that they could revive them after Springsteen had finished with them.

‘That’s why I rang for an ambulance,’ she said sheepishly. ‘I couldn’t think of anything else to do. He’s obviously in pain and the only thing I’ve got is aspirin and even if I could get one into him I remembered what you said.’

‘Well done. Never give a cat aspirin, they just can’t handle it. It kills them,’ I said, though I wasn’t too worried. Springsteen would have had her hand off before he’d take an aspirin from it. ‘I’ll go and see how he is. You go into the kitchen and get the bottle of brandy that’s on top of the fridge.’

She rankled a bit at that.

‘So aspirins can be fatal, but you don’t mind pouring bandy down his throat?’

‘Who said anything about his throat?’

 

Springsteen wasn’t going to come out so I had to push the bed away from over him. His growling dropped a half-tone to a sort of sinister hiss and his eyes burned into me like a chestnut vendor’s coals whilst his tail did that slow-time flick from side to side that tells you the clock’s ticking. It was nice to be recognised.

‘It’s not a fox,’ I said over my shoulder.

‘Well it looked like one,’ said Fenella from the kitchen. ‘Is this it? It says something ending in Romana. Is that brandy?’

‘It’ll do.’

Springsteen did indeed have something long and brown hanging from his jaw. Something long and limp, like a pelt – until you got close, that is. In my case, I was still a good six feet away from where he lay on his side, which was quite close enough, even though I could see that his right front leg was twisted at an unnatural angle.

The brown pelt was soaked with drool near his mouth and trailed off like a flattened snakeskin to his side, about four inches wide and some 15 inches long. I guessed it had stuck over his teeth and without the use of his right paw he couldn’t dislodge it.

I felt a gentle tap on my right temple. It was Fenella, knocking a bottle against my skull. I relieved her of it, took a swig and handed it back. Although Springsteen, concentrating his stare on me, wasn’t moving or looking likely to move suddenly, she had positioned herself strategically behind me. She was learning.

‘That’s gross,’ she said. ‘Whatever it is. Whatever it was. What is it?’

‘Well, from this distance, without forensic examination, I’d say Mist or maybe American Tan or possibly Chiffon and probably about 60 denier.’

She leaned forward to get a better look.

‘You mean that’s a nylon stocking?’ she said as she focused, oblivious to Springsteen’s malevolent stare swinging full-beam on to her.

‘Or one half of a pair of tights,’ I said reasonably.

Fenella straightened up as if she had a spring in her.

‘You mean he’s eaten a whole girl?’

‘That’s my boy,’ I said. It seemed to soothe him, as he stopped growling at me.

I put my head back so I could whisper into Fenella’s ear.

‘Go and get me a couple of towels out of the airing cupboard.’

‘You haven’t got an airing cupboard,’ she hissed back.

‘Your airing cupboard. Big fluffy ones. They don’t have to be new ones. In fact old ones that you wouldn’t mind not seeing again might be an idea. When you come back, hang them over your shoulder, like you were going to have a shower. You know, casual. Give them to me quick when I say.’

‘Right.’

She made to go, then leaned in so she could whisper in my ear.

‘Why my towels?’

‘Because Doogie and Miranda are at work and I can’t ask Mr Goodson, can I?’ I argued, putting some urgency into my whispering. Gibberish though it was, it was enough.

‘Oh, I see. Sure, fine. On my way.’

As she backed out of the room, I moved carefully closer to Springsteen, crouching down until I was on my knees an arm’s length away from him. The growls were coming in short bursts now as if his heart (if he had one) wasn’t quite in it. The tail lashing became more pronounced and I could feel the thump as each beat hit the floorboards. It sounded to be in 9/8 time. Dave Brubeck can play in that too. At least his ears weren’t flexed back. If you ever see that happen head-on, you’re too close to the cat, and with a cat like Springsteen, it could just be the last thing you ever see.

‘You been in the wars, old son?’ I said soothingly, tipping the bottle of Italian brandy so that the liquid soaked the finger tips of my left hand. Then I took a swig for myself before putting the bottle down on the floor.

I held my fingers out towards his nose and got them close enough so that his nose went into full wrinkle and his head went on one side and his mouth drooped open.

‘You really should pick on someone your own size, you know. I mean, it’s not that you’re getting too old for a bit of playful homicide, but you’ve got to learn to pace yourself a bit more. Ripping women’s tights off with your teeth is a young man’s game; take my word for it.’

The brandy and the inane chat distracted him enough for me to get my right hand on the length of material hanging from his mouth. Keeping well away from his right side and the injured leg, I worked the nylon up and over his back teeth until I felt it go slack and could gently pull it out, trying to be as delicate as a surgeon operating on a private patient.

‘That’s Chiffon,’ said Fenella behind me, making me flinch.

Springsteen, who hadn’t indicated in any way that she was padding up behind me – pretending to be befuddled by the brandy fumes – took the opportunity, now I was distracted, to lash out with his left paw and rake me across the back of my hand. It wasn’t a severe clawing; he couldn’t get the angle right from the way he was lying to protect his right leg. There were only two tracks of blood.

‘Oooh, did that hurt?’

I looked up at her and bit my tongue.

‘I’m going to hang a bell on you if you insist on wearing those slippers,’ I growled.

‘I was only saying you were right,’ she said, all innocence. ‘That shade of tights is called Chiffon. Lisabeth has some airing in the bathroom.’

Now there was an image I didn’t want to dwell upon.

With my back to Springsteen I zipped up my leather jacket to the collar then said: ‘Just throw me the towels.’

At least she’d remembered them and had at least three large fluffy beach-size ones draped around her neck. One was the official Star Wars – The Phantom Menace souvenir beach towel. I didn’t ask; life’s too short.

‘Now?’

‘Now.’

She bent her head and flipped the towels off her neck. I caught them and in one fluid movement, because I knew I wouldn’t get a second chance, turned and flung them over Springsteen, rolling him into them as if I was trying to smother a fire. I grabbed the bundle, hugged it to my chest and got to my feet.

‘Now what?’ Fenella asked, a look of absolute horror at what I had just done on her face, which had gone a whiter shade of grey.

‘Run!’

It was all that needed saying.

We thundered out of the flat and down the stairs, making so much noise I could hardly hear the Satanic growling coming from inside the bundle of towels I clutched to my chest.

‘Get the door!’ I panted, allowing Fenella to overtake me and jump the last few steps, her Panda slippers skidding on the fake wooden flooring.

Somewhat ungainly, she righted herself in time to whip the door open so I could barrel my way by her, yelling ‘Car keys!’ as I did.

‘Where are they?’

‘Trouser pocket,’ I said, halting at Armstrong’s side.

Her hand plunged into my trouser pocket and groped for the keys. There wasn’t time for this. My bundle of towels was shape-shifting alarmingly, the growling was definitely getting louder and I distinctly heard the ripping of material.

‘No Fenella,’ I said reluctantly. ‘They’re in the other pocket.’

 

I let Springsteen have the whole of the back of the cab to himself. It wouldn’t have been fair to let Fenella ride locked in there with him, so I told her to get the bus round to Homerton High Street and meet me at the vet’s surgery. I also suggested she might put some clothes on.

Getting him out of Armstrong actually went smoother than I could have hoped. I parked on double yellow lines outside the surgery’s front door and for a second considered writing a ‘Vet On Call’ note to stick in the windscreen – which never fails with policemen and parking wardens. Then I remembered I had a black London cab and thought, to hell with it, I can park anywhere.

In Armstrong’s boot I found an old pair of oil-stained black leather gloves and pulled them on. I could have done with the gauntlets they use to handle nuclear fuel rods, but these would have to do. Then I made a point of appearing in the offside passenger window before sinking down out of sight and crab-walking like a demented Cossack round the back of the cab to get to the nearside door as quietly as I could. At least a dozen good citizens of Hackney passed me on the pavement. Not one said anything or even gave me a second glance. That’s why I love the place.

Then it was take a deep breath, whip the door open and play the roll-the-cat-in the towel game again – although one of the towels I noticed was now in two pieces – keeping low and turning my face away just in case.

A rising howl of primeval pain split the air, but nobody came to my aid.

I think it was the howl that made Springsteen relax for a second, thinking he had scored a vital hit. That was all the time I needed to mummify him in towelling, for I was past caring about the blood. I was just grateful he’d missed my left eyeball.

Then I was kicking the door shut and running towards the surgery with my bundle clutched to my leather jacket, yelling: ‘Coming through! Gangway! Emergency! Clear a path! Trauma case!’

An elderly lady with an ancient Jack Russell was just leaving the surgery as I charged up to the door. Both of them looked as if they could have done with hip replacements, but both were nimble enough to get out of my way and she even held the door open for me, a startled expression on her face.

I shouted ‘Thanks’ over my shoulder and burst into the waiting room, where all eyes turned towards me. For a moment I thought they were going to dare me to jump the queue, but nobody said anything. There must have been 20 people in there and at least the same number of animals, which made about 39 eyes, allowing for the caged parrot with one eye bandaged up. The parrot looked pretty depressed, probably sick of pirate jokes from other parrots, but if he had any sense he would keep his beak shut, as I simply wasn’t in the mood.

I had to walk between two rows of chairs, knees and animals to get to the reception desk, where a buxom young blonde was making notes, a phone clamped to her right ear. She looked up and stared at me as well, disturbed by the fact that the surgery had gone totally silent. Well, silent apart from a constant one-bass-note growling that was coming from my chest area. I think that, plus the fact that I could feel blood running down the side of my face, gave the impression that perhaps I did deserve to jump the queue after all.

A middle-aged woman with long curly red hair, wearing a Barbour and green wellies (in Hackney?) gave me a limp smile and reigned in a long-haired Golden Labrador so I could squeeze by. A couple of cats in plastic carrying boxes with wire grilles for doors scuttered as far back into them as they could get. A ten-year-old girl with two small, gerbil-sized boxes with air holes and the words ‘Sparky’ and ‘Millie’ crayoned on them, bunched up her knees and covered them protectively with her arms. A shaven-headed man with tattoos on his neck and knuckles tightened his grip on the lead of a pit bull as the dog shrank backwards under his chair. ‘Steady, Laydee, steady,’ he said, a look of doubt on his face.

I reached the reception desk and rested my towel bundle, still keeping a firm grip.

‘I need a vet,’ I said, deadly serious.

The young blonde put down the phone and gave me a killer smile. The name tag on her starched white medical smock said ‘Amber’ and I didn’t need contact lenses to read it. I was close enough to feel the static.

‘I bet you do,’ she said with an Australian twang. ‘But animals come first here.’

Before I could come up with the obvious reply, which would probably have earned me a fist in the face, Springsteen took matters into his own paws. One of his back ones actually, which burst out of his towelling shroud and lashed at Amber, missing her arm but sending the white plastic phone crashing on to the floor.

Amber kept on smiling, not a tooth out of place, not an eyelid batted.

‘The vet will see you straight away. And the name is?’

‘Springsteen,’ I said, leaning on him in a vain attempt to muffle his growls.

‘Like the old rock star?’

‘I prefer legendary.’

‘My mum really liked him,’ she smiled.

‘Er … the vet. Can we see him?’

‘Oh sure. It’s a cat, right?’

‘Right.’

Just to prove it, Springsteen produced the sort of smell only nervous cats can. The towels were no substitute for a gas mask and personal oxygen supply.

‘Any idea of the problem?’ Amber said, her nose wrinkling but the smile still cemented in place.

‘A totally meat diet plus a metabolism designed in the seventh circle of Hell, if you mean the smell,’ I said helpfully. ‘In more general terms, a psychotic personality that has not mellowed with age. Specifically, a broken leg, which, if it’s not treated soon, will bring that metabolism and that personality into play full whack, in which case I would fear for everything you hold dear and every living thing in this room.’

In the waiting room behind me, you could have heard a pin drop. Then I heard the big bald guy whispering to his pit bull: ‘Come on, Laydee, we’ll come back later.’

Amber still held me in her gaze and I couldn’t help but stare at her smile. Under fluorescent lighting, I would have needed sunglasses.

‘Will you be paying cash, Mr Springsteen?’ she said.

‘Absolutely.’

‘Then let’s go through, shall we?’

 

When we finally emerged, the waiting room was empty apart from Fenella, sitting there good as gold, changed out of her pyjamas, knees together, reading a copy of Hello! magazine.

I wasn’t surprised she was alone. Once Amber had led me into the surgery, the vet’s shout of ‘Oh fuck, not that cat!’ must have disconcerted some of the waiting patients.

The following cries of ‘Amber, lock the door!’ and ‘Just bloody believe me, this one can do door handles, it’s happened before!’ and particularly ‘For the love of God, don’t let go’ were also probably upsetting if you heard them in isolation coming from somebody, obviously hysterical, to whom you were about to entrust the health and well-being of your pet.

Of course I kept calm throughout – I think blood loss does that to you – and I warned him that trying to inject the anaesthetic through the towels was at best a hit and miss affair. But he had it his way and it wasn’t my fault that Springsteen only pretended to be knocked out until the vet was in range.

Fortunately, I hadn’t totally let go of him, so we managed to isolate part of his rump and the vet got a needle into him. He did get off one parting shot before he went under, though, which meant that Amber refused to speak to me ever again. She would also need a new white smock and probably six or seven showers before she got her squeaky clean confidence back.

The vet, who seemed to have aged rapidly over half an hour, took my credit card and swiped it himself – probably twice, to pay for the cleaning bill. Then he gave me my instructions and, for the unconscious Springsteen, a cardboard carrying basket, which I lined with the few strips of unstained shredded towel I could find. Reluctantly, the vet agreed that I would have to come back to have the plaster cast removed.

‘Try an evening surgery,’ he said. ‘Tuesdays or Thursdays are nice and quiet.’

‘Your nights off?’ I suggested, and he blushed deeply.

Fenella wanted to know why I had asked her to come and meet us.

‘To sit with him in the back of Armstrong to reassure him if he comes round,’ I told her as we walked out of the surgery.

I didn’t like to point out that the carrying basket was made of cardboard and that wouldn’t hold him for ten seconds if he did wake up with a headache and a leg in plaster in the back of a cab. At least Fenella might buffer some of the initial impact.

As it was, he was still out when we got back to Stuart Street. Not even Fenella’s constant coo-ing and ‘poor boy’ lullaby woke him up, which was just as well.

I didn’t say much on the journey. I was too busy thinking about what the vet had said about the x-rays and how somebody had probably kicked him first and then stamped down on his leg.

I was going to find them, and find them I would. There couldn’t be that many women who wore heavy, probably steel-capped, boots and Chiffon coloured tights. Even in Hackney.

From what Springsteen had kept as a trophy, I could narrow it down even further to a woman wearing only half a pair of tights.

Who had a limp.

 

 

 

Chapter Three

 

 

‘So what woke you the first time?’ I asked.

‘What? Who? Why? Please, Angel, I’m trying to cook.’

We had set up our observation post in the doorway of Fenella’s flat, having decided that it was better to let Springsteen come round in his own good time and when he did, not have the distraction of human targets. I had opened the folding lid of the cat transporter and turned it on its side so he could simply roll out. There was food and fresh water for him and I had put anything breakable out of harm’s way, so he had Flat 3 all to himself.

I had borrowed one of Fenella’s chairs and parked myself in her doorway so I had an unrestricted view of the landing and the cat flap in my door. After five minutes I searched her flat for something to read that wouldn’t improve my spiritual being or teach me to be a better vegan and settled on the latest Harry Potter. Then I borrowed a large scallop shell from the kitchen (and how was I to know it wasn’t an ashtray?) while Fenella nipped round to Mrs Patel’s off-licence for a couple of bottles of Cahors, having ascertained that she had nothing in her flat worth drinking that didn’t contain elderflower.

At least she offered to make lunch: smoked tofu on toast. I had helpfully suggested that she add red pesto, sliced tomatoes dusted with white pepper, fresh basil and Worcestershire sauce, but she just looked at me like she was the only one who had worked up an appetite that morning and she was going to do it her way. Pah! Call that cheese on toast?

‘You said Springsteen’s howling had woken you up the second time,’ I explained. ‘When I arrived, that’s what you said. What woke you up the first time?’

She paused to think, one hand on the grill-pan handle, oblivious to the wisps of blue smoke curling around her lobster-shaped oven glove.

‘That would have been Mr Nassim,’ she said. Then she nodded to herself to confirm it.

‘Toast’s burning,’ I said.

I refilled my glass and resumed my seat in the doorway, reassuring myself that there was no way Springsteen could get out of the cat flap, across the landing and down the stairs before I could seal myself back in Fenella’s flat. Not on three legs he couldn’t. Surely not.

‘So what did Nassim want?’ I shouted kitchenwards.

Nassim Nassim is our esteemed landlord, and it’s not that he has a name so nice you have to say it twice, it’s just that no-one can pronounce his family name. When he first introduced himself, he knew it would be a problem and said ‘Just call me Nassim Nassim,’ so we did.

‘I’m not sure. Lisabeth talked to him just before she went to work, but I don’t think she got much sense out of him,’ Fenella called back over a clattering of plates. ‘You know what Nassim’s like.’

‘Indeed I do, and I won’t have a word said against him.’

I meant it. The old boy might be getting on nowadays and suffering from more than his fair share of ‘senior moments’ in-between power naps, but he’d always done right by me. After a small favour I had done for his great-niece years ago, he had pegged the rent on my flat and turned one blind eye on my incorporation of a cat flap and another on the No Pets rule. After all those years, I was paying maybe a fifth of the rent that he could realistically get these days and that the other tenants were undoubtedly paying. He was Top Man was Nassim Nassim.

‘He had somebody with him from the Council,’ Fenella was saying, ‘from the Rating Office. Is that right? A Rating Evaluation Officer or something. Does that sound right?’

‘The senile old fart!’ I shouted. ‘Doesn’t he know better than to let a Valuation Officer in here?’

‘I don’t know about that.’ Fenella handed me a plate boasting two blackened squares with white circles on them. They looked like sides of a dice. ‘Lisabeth said she was really, really nice.’

‘She?’

‘There’s no need to shout.’

In a fit of pique she made to take the plate back. I should have let her.

‘Did she go in my flat?’

‘I don’t know, I never saw her. Look, Angel just hear my lips: I never saw the person. I never saw Mr Nassim. I was in bed, trying to sleep.’

I kept a straight face at the ‘hear my lips’ – just as she had – and pretended I was enjoying the mildly flavoured rubber charcoal she had served up.

‘Working late nights again?’

She nodded.

‘Don’t those chat line phone calls wake Lisabeth?’

I knew that Fenella and her posh voice had progressed from cold caller to call centre sub-station to chat line hostess without actually realising what was going on. She just thought it faintly surprising that she got paid for talking to complete strangers about her school days and especially what she wore for PE lessons. She didn’t seem to have noticed anything odd about most of the calls coming late at night after the pubs had chucked out either. I had seen three mobiles on recharging stands in the living room. Business must be good.

‘Oh no, I set the phones to silent ringing,’ she said calmly, pleased that I was taking an interest in her career. ‘And anyway, it’s all text these days.’

‘Text?’ I said warily.

‘Text messages. I’m in three different TCRs – text chat rooms – a night now. My job is to keep the text flowing, though honestly, some of the spelling! And they use numbers for words, you know. Like four – the number four – stands for “for” – as in f-o-r. And the number two is “to”. It takes a bit of puzzling sometimes.’

‘Have six and nine come up in any combination?’

‘Several times, now you mention it, but this is just an experiment. If it proves popular, I could get a computer and go online as they say.’

‘Has anyone suggested using a webcam on you?’

‘What’s a webcam?’

‘Never mind. Great tofu by the way,’ I lied, not realising you could actually spoil tofu. ‘So you didn’t see this Valuation Officer, then?’

‘No, I told you. Lisabeth dealt with her. Why don’t you ask Mr Nassim? He was the one showing her around.’

‘Good idea. Well done that girl.’

‘You can stay here if you like and use one of the phones. I’ve got to do the shopping, but Lisabeth’ll be home soon. If you want to stay until Springsteen wakes up. I think it’s sort of sweet of you.’

It was, now I thought of it, but I couldn’t face explaining my presence to Lisabeth.

‘Thanks, but I’ll wait on the stairs so I can be nearer to him in case he needs me. Pass the rest of the wine would you?’

 

I was halfway through the second bottle of Cahors and had finally remembered how to sprawl comfortably on stairs (how quickly one forgets one’s youth), when Inverness Doogie showed up.

I heard him long before I saw him as he must have had eight or nine attempts at putting his key in the lock of the front door. Then the door swung inwards and he stood there swaying, trying to get the key out of the lock. I wasn’t sure this was a good idea, as it seemed to be the only thing holding him upright. He had a leather jacket over his white chef’s coat and chequerboard trousers and in his left hand he clutched a bottle of the Macallan by the neck. From his waist dangled a striped tea towel the way chefs wear them through their belt to wipe things with. Doogie’s was notable as it appeared to have caught fire quite recently.

He succeeded in yanking out his key, rocked back on his heels then weaved two steps into the house and leaned on the payphone on the wall for support, his eyes widening as he focussed on me lying on the stairs, wine glass in one hand, book in the other.

‘Honey, I’m home!’ he slurred loudly. ‘What the feck are you doing here? Amy come to her senses an’ thrown you out then?’

‘No, she hasn’t,’ I said snottily. ‘Though I haven’t seen her since breakfast, so she might have. How’s yourself, Doogie? Hard day at the office?’

He climbed the stairs carefully and sat down a couple of steps below me, proffering the bottle of Macallan.

‘I have curtailed my shift for the day,’ he said haughtily, ‘due to an industrial accident. This evening’s diners will simply have to get by on whatever scraps my understudies can gather together.’

‘Been cooking one of your specials again?’

‘Aye. American guy. Comes in with his missus, eyeballs the place and demands to meet the chef, so they wheel me out front of house. The Yank hears my accent and says “You’re Scotch”, like I’d be fookin’ surprised. Then he asks if I can do him a genuine Aberdeen Angus steak, a big, thick one just like him. An’ I says ‘course I can and I can leave the horns on but would he like it the real Scottish way?’

‘Let me guess – that involves buying a whole bottle of single malt, right?’

‘Ab-so-fucking-lutely, which puts it on the wee-bit pricey side. But money’s nay object to this chuckleheed, an’ he puts doon his Gold Amex card and says to bring it on.’

‘And this would be a steak flamed in malt whisky, something like that?’

He wagged the bottle at me like an admonishing finger.

‘A steak marinated in malt whisky, broiled in malt whisky then served at the table into, and this is the clever bit, a plate of burning malt whisky. I think I’ll call it Steak Sea of Fire when I get ma own restaurant.’

‘Check your insurance policy first,’ I advised. ‘And to drink with it ...?’

‘Malt whisky,’ we both said together.

‘But,’ said Doogie, smiling, ‘the really clever bit was keeping his missus happy while he was tucking in.’

‘You got her drunk as well?’

‘Nay, no. She was on the mineral water. I intoxicated her simply with the force of ma personality, a free run at the sweet trolley and a few tales of the Highland Clearances and life back in Bonnie Scotland. Naturally, she was “Scotch-Irish”, so she lapped it up. Did you know there were more Caledonian societies in North Carolina than there are in Caledonia?’

He raised the arm holding the bottle to make his point and lost his grip on the stair carpet, bumping down three steps on his elbow but managing to keep the bottle upright.

‘So how was your day?’ he asked from below, straining to crawl up until he was level with me, putting more effort into doing so than the average mountaineer topping out K2.

‘Been down the vet’s. Somebody kicked the shit out of Springsteen.’

What little natural colour there was under the alcohol glow drained from his face.

‘Shite-on-a-fookin’-stick. Yer kidding me?’

‘No way, Braveheart. He’s in the flat coming out from under the anaesthetic. I thought it safer to stay out here until he’s regained his sunny disposition.’

Doogie shook his head slowly at the awfulness of the world and began to open the bottle of malt as I emptied my glass of wine.

‘What did you do with the body?’

‘I just told you. He’s in the flat coming round.’

‘No,’ he said seriously, ‘I meant the other feller.’

 

We were on the last of the whisky.

‘Oh, there will be pain, Doogie. When I find whoever did this, I can assure you there will be pain. Not the nice spanking sort of pain but the sharp metal objects inserted and then twisted sort of pain ...’

‘Save me a piece of the scumbag, though, won’t you?’

‘I didn’t know you cared,’ I said, then added: ‘About Springsteen.’

‘Och, I dinna care aboot him personally.’

‘You just don’t like cruelty to animals as a whole. Is that it?’

I suspected my words were slurring now, but I wasn’t really listening.

‘Ahm a chef, yer bampot!’ Doogie roared as if it was the funniest thing he’d ever said. ‘I kill and cook anything that moves. It’s ma job.’

‘I’ve seen you deep-fry Mars bars in batter,’ I said, because it seemed like an important debating point. ‘And Maltesers too. What harm did they ever do you?’

‘The skill is in knowing when to pick ‘em ... That point of pure ripeness. Actually, now you mention it, I’m trying out a new dessert at the moment. It’s quick fried Mars bar ice-creams. That’ll get the food critics sitting up and taking notice.’

‘You’re not wrong there, Doogie. But I’ve had fried ice-cream ... in a Mexican restaurant.’

‘They’ve pinched ma idea already? Where was this?’

‘In Mexico.’

‘Oh.’

There was a lull in the conversation whilst I tried to remember what it was about.

‘So why are you so upset about Springsteen if you don’t really like him?’

Doogie took a deep breath.

‘It’s another legend broken on the wheel of bitter experience,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘Who’d have thought that wee furry ball of malevolence would get bested in a scrap? It’s the unthinkable, but it’s happened. Another wee spark of magic has gone out of the world.’

‘Doogie, that’s almost poetic.’

‘Aye, I think I’m getting to the poetic stage. Shall I get another bottle?’

‘I think you’d better, before I begin to believe that this new you really is you. If you see what I mean.’

‘Whisssht! Listen!’

He put a finger to his lips with a surprising degree of accuracy and we both bent our heads and stretched our necks to look along the landing towards the door of Flat 3. From inside, beyond the cat flap, came the sound of tearing cardboard. Then silence.

‘He’s out!’ I hissed, and instinctively we both lowered ourselves down the stairs in a reverse commando crawl until only our eyes were level with the landing.

It was at that point the front door opened and from below and behind us a voice growled: ‘Just what are you two playing at?’

‘Hello, Lisabeth,’ I said, turning my head so I could flash my best smile at her. ‘Had a good day at the ... wherever?’

She was wearing a green short-sleeved sweatshirt and green knee-length canvas shorts with turn-ups and huge cargo pockets bulging with unidentifiable stuff, giving her thighs a stereo effect that would have had most women screaming for a long frock or liposuction. She had lime green socks and khaki desert boots on the ends of her thick ankles.

‘How yer doin’ hen?’ Doogie grinned inanely.

‘Well?’

Lisabeth put her hands on her hips – they didn’t have far to travel – and stared us out. Obviously, those self-assertiveness classes were paying off.

‘We’re caring for sick animals,’ I said. ‘Ask Fenella if you don’t believe us.’

‘I don’t, but unfortunately Fenella always has,’ she said testily as she clumped her way up the stairs to her flat door. ‘Are you two just going to lie there and make the place untidy all evening?’

As she put her key in the lock she turned her shoulder towards us and we both craned our necks to see what was printed on the back of her sweatshirt. It was a slogan in white saying: ‘AROMATHERAPY – THE FINAL FRONTIER.’

Doogie and I looked at each other and choked back the giggles.

‘I hope Miranda doesn’t come home and catch you like that,’ Lisabeth was saying, turning back to us. ‘You know how ‘Randa’s always saying your behaviour has improved so much since Angel moved out ...’

‘She says what?’ I mouthed at Doogie, who had the good grace to blush.

‘... and you hardly ever play music after midnight any more, not to mention ...’

She trailed off suddenly, her gaze fixed on something above us and to the right of the stairs.

Springsteen was emerging from the cat flap, fluffed-up tail and rear-end first, scrabbling against the door with his back legs so he could haul his plastered front leg over the lip of the flap. Slowly the injured leg appeared and he took a tentative step backwards and arched his back as if he could shake off the offending tube of plaster. Of course he couldn’t, but he found he couldn’t turn either – or some sixth sense told him he would overbalance if he did – so he continued backwards along the landing, the plastered leg held up and in front of him at an angle of 45 degrees.

Doogie and I cowered below the top step as he approached, the tail three times its normal size, swishing silently from side to side. When he was level with us he swivelled around and sat down within inches of our foreheads. Then he howled at each of us in turn, so close we could smell his breath and I knew he had found the tin of salmon I had made Fenella open for him.

Then it seemed he caught sight of Lisabth for the first time, and he fixed her with a stare and let out a long, low growl of pure menace.

‘You’ve trained him to do that!’ squealed Lisabeth behind us, and then we heard her flat door slam.

Springsteen looked down imperiously, the plaster cast on his front leg still jutting up and out at 45 degrees.

‘What?’ I said helplessly, shrugging my shoulders at Doogie.

He just started giggling and tried to stand up.

‘Look at him,’ he spluttered, pointing at Springsteen. ‘He’s giving her a Sieg Heil!’

Doogie flung his arm up in a return salute, slipped off the edge of the stair he was on and stumbled down three more before he grabbed the banister, collapsing against it in hysterics.

Springsteen held my gaze for a few seconds more, then lifted himself up and began to walk backwards on his three good legs until his arse hit the cat flap and he pulled himself through it with as much dignity as he good muster, the plastered paw being the last thing to disappear.

Only when the cat flap flapped behind him did I dare laugh.

 

Doogie said it would be fine to go to his flat for a while. It would give Springsteen time to settle down to having only three working legs, we could have a bite to eat and a drink or two and I could call a cab from there as I certainly wasn’t driving mine home in my condition, was I? And no way would Miranda mind if she came home and found me there. Me casa, su casa ... old and distinguished friend ... matter of life and death ... sick animals in crisis ... anyway, who wore the troosers in this flat?

‘Oh my God, what’s he doing here?’

‘He’s not stopping, luv, just a flying visit.’

Thanks, Doogie.

‘My but you’re looking fit, Miranda. You’ve lost a bit of weight, haven’t you? Don’t you dare tell me you haven’t. I notice these things,’ I said, trying to rescue the situation.

‘You lookin’ at my bird?’ Doogie growled automatically.

‘You bet I am; every chance I get. She never gives me the time of day though.’

All this nonsense kept both of them happy, though in fact I was looking at Miranda as she smoothed her hands over her hips as if searching for the missing pounds I had implied she had lost. She was wearing what I suspected was her one and only two-piece suit, in a grey and charcoal check – which meant she had been somewhere official today – black patent low-heeled shoes and tan coloured tights. They weren’t ripped, and when she kicked off her shoes in Doogie’s general direction, I noticed she wasn’t limping either.

‘So why are you home in time to cook dinner, then?’ she asked Doogie as she collapsed into a creaking wicker armchair.

(Their taste in furniture was eclectic to say the least, and I suspected Doogie acquired a lot of their pieces from bankrupt restaurant sales.)

‘Actually, ma sweet, we’ve eaten, but I’ll gladly whip something up for you.’

Doogie said all this whilst holding his breath so that the words came out roughly in the right order and the whisky fumes didn’t strip the paint off the walls, and he exhaled slowly all the way to the kitchen. Miranda watched him go, her brown eyes no more than slits, then she turned to me with her head on one side.

‘And what are you doing here, Angel? Has Amy finally thrown you out?’

‘No she hasn’t! Why does everyone assume that?’

‘Do they? That’s interesting. Why do you suppose that is?’

‘Oh per-leese!’ I said in a tone which meant she wouldn’t argue as I helped myself to some more of Doogie’s whisky. ‘Do you want to hear my story of how we had to rush Springsteen to Cat Casualty or not?’

By the time I had told her, Doogie had presented her with a glass of white wine and a perfect smoked salmon soufflé. She put the wine on the floor and balanced her plate on her knee, waiting regally for Doogie to give her a fork (which he polished with a white cloth) and to crack black pepper for her through a large wooden mill.

‘I got beans on toast,’ I said.

‘You don’t have to sleep with him,’ said Miranda.

That seemed fair, and anyway, Doogie had said that beans on toast was what all professional chefs ate when they got home and put their feet up.

‘So you suspect this Valuation Officer who came round with Mr Nassim this morning?’ she said between mouthfuls.

‘Had to be somebody in the house,’ I said, ‘as he couldn’t have got back inside the flat with that injury, probably couldn’t have got up the stairs, so more than likely it happened in the flat. You haven’t been in the flat, the naked chef here hasn’t. Mr Goodson downstairs just wouldn’t. Fenella was the one who found him. Who else is there?’

‘Lisabeth?’

Doogie and I exchanged looks.

‘No way, pet,’ Doogie said. ‘She’d defenestrate Angel soon as look at him, but not a dumb animal.’

‘Easy enough mistake to make,’ she muttered under her breath. ‘But I think you’re right, Angel.’

‘I am?’

‘Right to be suspicious. I mean, where do you think I’ve been all day, dressed like this?’

I bit back the smart remark that it couldn’t have been hanging around Shepherd’s Market, even on a slow day.

‘Been for a job interview?’

Miranda worked for a local newspaper that was part of a larger group and was always on the look-out for promotion to the bigger-circulation titles.

‘No, guess again.’

‘You’ve been in court?’

The idea of Miranda as a court reporter was pretty scary. I would have ‘fessed up to anything if I’d seen her glaring into the dock at me from the press benches.

‘No such fun. Think really, really dull.’

‘Annual General Meeting of the Hackney and Islington Civil War Re-Enactment Society?’

‘Now you’re being silly. I was covering the Council.’

Doogie tried to look proud of her. I must have just looked blank.

‘And ...?’

‘I’m the local council specialist and a stringer for Greater London related matters,’ she said.

Doogie still tried to look smug, but I knew he couldn’t keep it up for long.

‘Which means ...?’ I offered.

‘Which means I know about rates and precepts and business rates and exemptions and all that shit,’ she snapped. ‘And I can tell you there’s no rating revaluation going on in Hackney at the moment. Too many votes at stake to tell people they have to pay more taxes. So your phantom Valuation Officer was ...’

‘Totally bogus,’ I completed.

Doogie waved his glass at me.

‘Och, yer wee dipstick. Has she not been trying to tell you that for the last five minutes?’

 

Miranda insisted that Doogie made me a pot of coffee, and I agreed to drink it only if she would go downstairs and ask Lisabeth about our suspicious visitor. As soon as she was gone, I laced my Golden Jubilee souvenir mug with more of Doogie’s Scotch. Doogie didn’t mind. He held the same view that I do: coffee doesn’t sober you up, it just makes you a more awake drunk.

When she returned, I asked her if she’d thought to look in on Springsteen on her way back upstairs. She gave me a killer look and said no, she hadn’t – but Fenella had.

‘And she’s okay?’ I asked, genuinely concerned.

‘She got out alive, if that’s what you mean,’ said Miranda, ‘and that unwholesome beast of yours is resting comfortably, so she says.’

I secretly thought Fenella was getting into this caring business and with a bit of training could be pinning daily bulletins to the front door.

‘And what did Lisabeth have to say?’

‘Not much. She said she only ran into the woman on the stairs as Mr Nassim was bringing her in. About my height, mousy blonde shoulder length hair pulled back off the face with a wide purple scrunchy band, very light blonde eyebrows, blue eyes, hardly any make-up but bright red fingernails. No rings. Wore a Burberry raincoat over a short skirt and a polo-neck ribbed sweater. As Lisabeth said, she only got a glimpse. Hardly noticed her at all.’

‘Did she get her dress size?’

‘Twelve,’ said Miranda without batting an eyelid.

Doogie let out a low, quiet whistle. He was impressed.

‘But did she get a name?’

‘Give the girl a break. We’re talking complete strangers here passing on the stairs for maybe a few seconds.’

Doogie and I stared at her all innocent, though I knew Doogie wouldn’t have the nerve to say it, so I had to.

‘And your point there is ... what?’

‘Isn’t it time we got you a cab?’ she said through gritted teeth.

‘He’s already got one!’ Doogie giggled.

‘I’ll deal with you later,’ Miranda said to him, and he cowered in his chair.

This, the man who listed ‘football hooliganism’ on his CV; the man whose favourite line at parties when someone was between him and the bar was ‘Pick a window, you’re leaving’, actually cowered.

Miranda suddenly had a mobile phone in her hand, as if she’d had it up her sleeve like a derringer on a spring clip.

‘Any preference in mini-cab companies?’ she asked, waving the phone at me so I knew what it was. I might have trouble focusing, but I knew a Nokia at six feet when it was pointed at me.

‘Wait a minute. You’ve got to ring Mr Nassim first,’ I said reasonably.

‘I have?’

‘To ask him if this Phantom Menace had a name or any credentials,’ I explained patiently.

‘Why me?’ she argued.

‘Because you’re holding the phone, you’re a valued tenant of his, you have the Power of the Press behind you, it’s your job to ask questions and you’d like to know if the Council is up to something you don’t know about, you’d like to know if he showed her into this flat while you were both out, and if you do it I’ll get out of your hair.’

‘The last one’s the clincher,’ she said.

It was the nearest I’d ever heard her get to a joke.

 

Of course I had to stand at her shoulder and listen in just to make sure she asked the right questions, though she deliberately turned her head away from me and preferred to repeat Nassim’s answers out loud.

‘So you didn’t show her into our flat, I see,’ she said loudly, giving a thumbs up to Doogie, who tried to look suitably relieved, though I don’t know what those two were worried about. They didn’t have a cat.

‘Just Flat 3? That was the only one she wanted to get into. I see.’

Well I don’t, I pantomimed, standing in front of her. Why?

‘Because you might be eligible for a reduced rate rebate on rented property not occupied throughout the year? Oh yes, of course.’

As she said this she put a finger to the side of her head and made a turning, crazy-man motion. I put a hand down below my waist and made the sort of gesture monkeys do whenever you take your parents to the zoo. Miranda looked away, pretending not to know what I meant. Then again, she was Welsh, so she might not know.

‘And she definitely did come from the Council? Oh, I see, she had a card. Yes, please.’

She covered the phone with her hand.

‘He’s gone to get her business card. A rate rebate? From this Council? Is Nassim dopey?’

‘I think the word is bhudu – it means “slow” – but don’t call him that to his face,’ I said, just to show that I could insult people in several languages.

Then she was back in listening mode.

‘Alison George, I see. And is there a phone number? Yes, that’s the number of the Council. No, I was just curious. We’ve been doing a series in the paper on fake gas meter readers and the like, conning their way into people’s houses ... No, of course nothing like that happened here ...’

Ask if he left her alone at any time, I mouthed, pointing at the phone.

‘And anyway,’ she went on fluently, ‘you were with her all the time, weren’t you? I bet you never let her out of your sight, did you? Not even for a few seconds ...’

Miranda made eye contact with me.

‘Except when the phone rang downstairs? I see. Yes, wrong numbers are a pain, aren’t they?’

I shook my head and drew a finger across my throat to end it.

‘Actually, I don’t think we really need that house phone any more. We all have mobiles these days, even Mr Goodson in Flat 1. It only gets used when somebody has to take a message for Angel, and he’s never here these days ... No, of course I will ... I’ll give him your love next time I see him ... Very well, then, not your love, just your best wishes ... Okay, I’ll just wave to him. ‘Bye.’

If I hadn’t know better, I would have said she had enjoyed that. And she had another surprise for me.

‘Alison George my arse,’ she said as she closed her phone.

‘What?’ I pleaded.

‘There is an Alison George works for the Council; I know her. She happens to be the Tourist Development Officer, and she’s on six months maternity leave just at the moment. You know what that means.’

I slumped into a chair and the blood must have drained from my face, such was Miranda’s look of near concern.

‘Angel? Are you all right?’

‘Yes, I suppose so,’ I said quietly, humbly holding out my glass towards Doogie’s Scotch. ‘It’s just a bit of a shock, that’s all.’

‘I know,’ she said soothingly. ‘It’s an invasion of your private space. An intrusion. It’s like finding out that ...’

‘No, no,’ I said, aiming the now-full-again glass to my lips. ‘It’s finding out that Hackney has a Tourist Development Officer. Bloody hell, what will they think of next?’

 

 

 

Chapter Four

 

 

‘Of course I’m not paranoid! I’ve every right to be suspicious!’

If it hadn’t been for the muscle-relaxant qualities of alcohol, I could have got quite worked up about the suggestion.

‘An unidentified, totally bogus female wangles her way into our house by conning the landlord – who must have been enjoying what they call “a senior moment” these days to fall for it – and once in, doesn’t nick anything, just makes sure she’s alone in my flat and then kicks seven kinds of crap out of my flat-mate. Cause for concern or what? I think at least a severe furrowing of the brow is called for here.’

‘Was he badly hurt, your flat mate?’

‘You should see the bill from the vet.’

‘The vet?’

‘Well he is a cat. But the point is, my personal space has been invaded and with malice aforethought. It was only my flat she looked at – wasn’t interested in any of the others. And she put a bit of thought into it. Once in, courtesy of our senile landlord, she waits for him to trek downstairs to answer the phone so she’ll be all alone in there ...’

‘How did she know the phone would ring right on cue?’

‘Easy-peezey. She’s got her mobile in her pocket with the number programmed in and she just presses the call button. Keeps it ringing until he gets to the phone, then hangs up as he answers. She’s left on her own.’

‘She wouldn’t have long, though, would she?’

‘Well, no,’ I admitted. ‘But long enough.’

‘Long enough to do what?’

Now that, unfortunately, was a good question.

‘To snoop, to pry, to invade my privacy. She’d gone to a fair bit of trouble to get into my flat, if only for a few minutes.’

‘How did she know the phone was downstairs?’

‘What?’

‘How did she know,’ he said patiently, ‘the phone was a flight of stairs away?’

‘Fucked if I know. Point is, she did.’

Damn. Another good question.

‘Sounds a bit thin.’

‘A bit thin? Is that all you’ve got to say?’

‘No, mate, I can say we’re ‘ere and that’ll be 14 pounds, please.’

‘Fourteen quid?’

‘Hackney to Hampstead, this time of night, guv .... A black cab would have cost you more.’

But the advice would have been better.

 

I hoped none of the neighbours saw me arrive home by mini-cab.

I couldn’t have cared less if they saw me weaving towards the house swaying, ever so slightly, in the breeze, which strangely did not seem to be affecting the trees or flowers in the local gardens. But a mini-cab: that was letting the side down. When I first started parking Armstrong in the driveway, some of the neighbours probably tried to get a rate rebate. Not that I gave a hoot. I didn’t know any of them and was happy to avoid the rota of Christmas parties we were no longer invited to. Well, not since that first one.

It was odds-on I hadn’t been seen anyway. It would take a bomb going off in the street to arouse any interest once they had settled down behind their burglar alarms and closed circuit TV cameras for the evening, even though all the latest surveys showed that good street lighting was more of a deterrent to people on the naughty than CCTV. In fact in some boroughs, street crime had gone up when CCTV was installed.

Which thankfully made me remember our burglar alarm, which had been repaired at vast expense after Anthony Keith Flowers – the ex-Mr Amy – had nobbled it with ridiculous ease when he broke into the house and garage and made off with Amy’s BMW. (I was having as much success with the house’s insurance company about that as I was about the car, my first claim form having been returned as ‘frivolous’. Bloody cheek.)

Whilst one part of my brain was trying to remember the combination as I struggled with the door, another part – the part that was prone to wandering to a land where the sun and women were warm but the beer and the music stayed cool and all were free – was thinking that Amy wouldn’t have set the alarm if she was home and I wasn’t. Especially not given my track record of setting the thing off by accident.

Therefore, I was home first, which meant I didn’t have to be quiet or creep into one of the spare bedrooms and maybe there was time for a nightcap or I could get into bed and pretend I’d had an early night after a pretty stressful day.

It never occurred to me that Amy had come home and gone out again.

Not until the next morning.

And it looked as if she’d gone for a while.

 

I didn’t twig that right away, of course. It was only when I checked the shoe racks at the bottom of Amy’s wardrobe and I realised that her Manolo Blahnik flat red sandals, her Sigerson Morrison green high heels and the lime green strappy sandals by Gina, along with her favourite Jimmy Choos, had all gone, that I knew something strange was going on.

Even later, I checked the garage to discover the Freelander had gone, which sort of confirmed things. I suppose I should have looked there first, but I’ve never been hot on garages. You don’t have to be if you drive a London cab; the kerb is your garage.

A month before, when Anthony Keith Flowers had burgled the house and also helped himself to Amy’s new BMW, I hadn’t thought to check the garage then, so I didn’t actually get to report it stolen until I had hit it with a bulldozer. Over such technicalities lawyers can argue for years.

Once I had the immediate priorities out of the way – orange juice, coffee, shower, breakfast and a couple of games of Free Cell on the computer with some downloaded Ry Cooder on the speakers – I began to wonder where Amy was.

I could have phoned her, of course, though that would have put me on the back foot immediately.

Where were you last night?

Where were you all day yesterday when I was trying to get hold of you to tell you I had to fly to Tierra del Fuego at really short notice?

I was ministering to an injured cat.

Yeah, right.

No. Too weak.

So I did what any caring, sharing partner would do: I hacked into her computer.

Or rather, took a deep breath and tried to.

I’ve seen computer buffs who carry cans of compressed air in specially made holsters on their belt, and when all else fails, they will do a quick draw and shoot a couple of blasts into the keyboard. In my opinion, that’s simply not punishment enough – in fact, I think the computers quite like it. My instinct, when I lose my temper, is to go for a fast southpaw combination of feint then slap to the monitor followed by the heel of the hand on the processor bit that goes beep when you turn it on.

Actually, I have learned that one beep when you switch on is good. Three rapid beeps means trouble ahead, something’s about to go wrong. When that has happened in the past, it hasn’t been unknown for a pint of Guinness to end up in the keyboard. But I hadn’t lost my temper just yet, so I stuck to my Rule of Life Number 106: Never let machinery know you’re in a hurry.

Up came the screensaver, a favourite download of Amy’s of the Mr Burns character from The Simpsons saying ‘Excellent’, and then the icon thingies started to appear to the theme from Mission Impossible.

And then it stopped burping and bleeping and just hummed at me, daring me to make the next move.

I stared back at it. I knew what some of the icons meant – the one for the internet, the one for e-mails and the most important one, for ‘GAMES’ – but what the hell was a WinZip? Who needed an acrobatic reader or a comet cursor? And why was there a picture of Harry Potter made out of Lego building bricks? Of the others, at least 20 in number, most were art or design programs, but I suspected the really interesting ones were the ones that looked like briefcases, and they would be password-protected, wouldn’t they? Even the one marked ‘DIARY’ in big flashing letters.

I clicked on it and it opened immediately.

This computer-hacking business was very overrated.

 

There was only one entry for that day, Wednesday, in Amy’s spreadsheet diary. In fact it was the only entry for the whole week, and it simply said: ‘WELFASH FINALS – CARD U.’

I was no wiser. It meant absolutely nothing to me. I couldn’t remember Amy having said anything that remotely resembled it, and no matter how long I stared at the screen, it wouldn’t tell me anything else.

There was something it could tell me, though.

I shrank the diary window and inserted a floppy disk. I know, I know, I was just working out how to use them as they became obsolete, but I firmly believe that they will make a comeback, like vinyl did, or eight-track car stereos or Betamax videos. Well, okay, not those last two.

On the disk, I opened up a new spreadsheet, called it ‘DIARY’ and typed in a couple of boxes of gobbledygook, then tried to transfer it to Amy’s version. The usual window came up asking if I wanted my ‘DIARY’ to replace the version last modified ...

The day before at 11:32:08, just about the time I was talking to Duncan the Drunken, give or take eight seconds, and I thought she was at her office.

Of course I couldn’t be sure that was when she’d put in the reference, though the computer would probably tell me if I asked it the right way. Approached in the right way, anyone will tell you anything, and it will usually be true. (Rule of Life Number 83.) But that applies only to people. You can’t make eye contact with – or buy a drink for – a computer, so that put me at a disadvantage.

(The only other thing I know about computers is to put a fake address in your email address book, say a.aardvark@storyofo.com. You are never going to use it, but if some kind person sends you a virus developed by some smartarse in a California computer school, then you’ll know you’ve got it when your server flashes up the address as undeliverable.)

So if I couldn’t get any joy out of one robotic, mechanical, soulless entity, then I would have to try another and ring her secretary.

Amazingly I had never actually met Debbie Diamond, even though she had worked for Amy for over two years. Then again, I rarely get into Amy’s office above a flash shopping piazza on Oxford Street. In fact, I had never been in it, come to think of it. I was usually restricted to the sitting-outside-in-Armstrong-with-the-engine-running role, waiting to ferry her home or to the City airport or to a fashion bash somewhere. I didn’t mind that. Me and offices have never got on; for a start, they’re open really weird hours, like all day – as if you didn’t have other stuff to do.

I had spoken to the Dreaded Debbie many a time, on the phone or over the intercom from the security desk downstairs, which served both the shops in the piazza and the office suites above them, and all I had heard backed up the mental picture Amy had painted of her. Tough, bulldog stubborn, fiercely loyal, lived with her invalid mother in Plumstead and wore cardigans. Not only that, but she wore cardigans with tissues pushed up the sleeve. Amy had repeatedly said she was lucky to have found Debbie D as they didn’t make them like her any more.

I knew the type, and I knew I wouldn’t get anything out of her over the phone. I decided on a plan: I would call in and see her. A social call. Surprise her, maybe with some flowers. That would even get me past security, as no-one questions a taxi driver delivering flowers to a lady in an office.

Yes, that was a plan.

All I had to do now was remember where I’d left my taxi.

 

I tubed it via the Northern Line to the Angel and then hopped on a Number 48 bus into Hackney. It seemed to take nearly forever, but I wasn’t going to pay for another mini-cab. It’s not the quids, it’s the principle.

I lurked around the corner of Stuart Street debating with myself as to whether I should pop in to Number Nine and see how Springsteen was doing. If Fenella was there, she’d have a go at me for not bringing him some smoked salmon or grapes or something. Miranda would have a go at me for leading Doogie astray the day before; Doogie would offer me the hair of the dog; Lisabeth would just have a go at me because that was what she did best. The voices in my head decided by a clear 5-2 majority to make a run for it.

By the time I had rescued Armstrong and got up to the West End, pausing only to buy an impressive bouquet of roses at wholesale price from a corner shop florist’s I knew near King’s Cross and a cheap one-trip snappy camera from the chemist’s next door, it was after 4.00 pm. I hardly knew where the day had gone.

On Oxford Street, I parked confidently on the double yellow lines outside the shopping piazza so the guys in the security booth could get a clear view of me. Since Oxford Street is supposedly a no-go area for civilian drivers – in theory only buses and taxis allowed during the day – I wasn’t too worried about traffic wardens, but it was the summer and that meant zillions of tourists who didn’t know the rules and it wasn’t uncommon to see lost Belgian-registered cars or don’t-care-anyway Italian ones chugging along behind the buses at an average speed of about seven miles per hour, which is slower than the Hansom cabs did it in Sherlock Holmes’s day.

Unless it was a really slow day, the wardens didn’t bother with taxis, and I was confident I looked the part. Not only did I have an authentic black London cab, but I had found an old leather waistcoat, smelling accurately of old diesel, in Armstrong’s boot and had slipped it over my crisp white T-shirt, the one with the legend: ‘My Other T-Shirt’s a Paul Smith.’

Armed with the bunch of roses and the camera, I marched into the piazza straight up to the security office and rapped on the Enquiries window with my knuckles. An elderly white guy with tinted glasses and a fast-food belly hauled himself out of a swivel chair and wheezed his way over to pull the window up about six inches. The effort seemed to drain him.

‘Yes?’

‘Flowers for a Miss D Diamond, second floor,’ I said, trying to outdo him in sounding bored.

‘Pass ‘em through.’

‘Personal delivery.’

‘Is she expecting them?’

‘Do I look psychic?’

‘Then give them over. I’ll see she gets them.’

‘Got to take your picture, then,’ I said, holding up the snappy camera.

‘You pullin’ my plonker?’

‘You wish. Listen, mate, I get the flowers and the camera given to me by a punter with more money than sense. Take the flowers, take a picture of happy lady getting nice surprise. Take camera back to punter, get return fare. That plus the tip’ll do me for the last job of the day. I am well sick of fuckin’ tourists who ‘ave no idea where they’ve just been, let alone where they want to go, and then they bitch about the fare, though the fuckin’ meter’s right in front of them, then they try an’ pay in fuckin’ Euros like I look like a bank in Strasbourg ...’

That was enough.

‘Yeah, yeah, tell me about it. Like I’ve not had to get a fuckin’ interpreter in because some Japanese newspaper’s said Stella McCartney’s opening a boutique in ‘ere today. You should’ve seen the bleedin’ queues this lunchtime. Anyway, I don’t give a shit, I’m off in half-an-hour. Second floor, mate, lift at the top of the escalator then ask at reception.’

Sometimes it was a shame to take the money, I thought, as I stood on the escalator. I really would have to have a word with Amy about how easy it was to get into her office building, even though I knew she’d say you just couldn’t get the staff these days.

All I had to do now, I thought, as I got in the lift and pressed ‘2’, was worm my way into the confidence of the Dreaded Debbie: the only pit bull known to do T-line shorthand and audio-typing, according to Amy.

As it turned out, that proved quite easy as well.

The lift doors hissed open and I had taken no more than two steps out onto the carpeted floor when a female voice said:

‘It is you Angel, isn’t it? Thank God you’re here.’

I needn’t have wasted the money on the flowers.

I drove Debbie Diamond round to the Portman Hotel for afternoon tea. I knew the hotel from the days when it did Sunday brunch with live jazz, and had even played there a couple of times. But that was a while back. Surely they wouldn’t still remember the incident with the vintage claret?

I resolved to have a serious word with Amy – when I found out where she was – about her deliberately misleading me every which way about Debbie. She didn’t strike me in any way as a battleaxe, a Rotweiler, a frump, a career spinster (‘So afraid of marriage we call her the Ring Wraith’), someone for whom nightlife meant a long chat with a timeshare salesman from a call centre, or indeed a woman who had to wear a bra designed by Fisher-Price. She wasn’t even half-way to her mid-forties, and I call five-foot-one petite, not dwarfish. I quite liked the big round glasses and didn’t think they made her look like a constipated owl at all, and I saw no reason to call the fashion police over the stonewashed denim jacket she was wearing with the very short suede skirt that showed an awful lot (proportionately speaking) of very shapely, well-tanned bare leg that ended in multi-coloured high heeled Cacharel sandals with white flowers on the straps.

On reflection, maybe I wouldn’t go into so much detail for Amy.

‘Yesterday it was the police, first thing in the morning when I turned up for work, as if that wasn’t bad enough,’ she started after her first sip of tea.

I nodded sympathetically, hiding my smug expression behind a bone china teacup.

Well, I mean: a few roses, a free ride in a taxi, a comfy armchair in nice surroundings and a cup of orange pekoe and she was answering questions I hadn’t even asked yet. God knew what would happen when the Madeira cake arrived – she’d probably ‘fess up to one or all of the recent Heathrow robberies.

‘They were in with Amy for hours. Taking statements, they said.’

‘And this would, of course, be about ...’

I didn’t make it a question, just trailed off with a wave of the teacup and quite a bit of sage nodding.

‘Yes, you’re right,’ she said, nodding with me. ‘Keith Flowers – what an awful person to stalk Amy like that. And you had no idea, did you?’

She put down her cup and saucer and reached a hand out, placing it on my knee. I saw no reason to do anything but let it stay there, but out of the corner of my eye I saw a pair of waiters talking together out of the sides of their mouths whilst staring at Debbie. They were probably betting how long it would be before I asked if they rented rooms by the hour. I was going to disappoint them. I knew already that they didn’t.

‘It did come as something of a shock,’ I said, with just the right touch of pathos.

‘She was only trying to protect you, I think.’ She gave a shudder and her grip on my knee tightened. ‘God, what an odious human being. He kept after her even though she took out that restraining order. How on Earth did a creep like that ever get to meet Amy?’

Probably at their wedding, I thought, but I said nothing. It was clear to me that Debbie didn’t know that the odious Mr Flowers was in fact the first Mr Amy May. Debbie had to know about the restraining order because it covered the office, but Amy hadn’t told her everything. Still, she’d told her more than she’d told me.

A plate of cakes arrived and Debbie’s eyes lit up.

‘I shouldn’t,’ she said demurely as I offered.

‘Nut allergies?’ I suggested, straight-faced.

‘I was thinking of my figure,’ she said automatically, eyes on the plate.

‘So are half the males in this room,’ I said, gesturing grandly around the large open plan foyer. ‘You’ve nothing to worry about.’

‘Thank you, kind sir.’ She grinned and helped herself, but there were spots of blusher on her cheeks that hadn’t been put there with a brush.

‘The police. You were saying,’ I prompted.

‘Oh yes. They were only doing their job, I suppose, but it did seem to take ages, and afterwards Amy was on the phone for about an hour, even though she knew one of the buyers was waiting to see her and it was making her late for the 10.30.’

‘The 10.30 what?’ I tried.

‘The 10.30 management meeting. She never did make it. I had to cover for her. When she came off the phone, she just grabbed her bag and shot off. The security desk said they saw her hailing a cab on Oxford Street.’

Which would give her enough time to get home and modify the diary on her computer at 11:38:08.

‘Has she said what spooked her? I presume she was upset by something that had been said.’

‘Well, as upset as Amy ever is. You know what she’s like. But didn’t she tell you about it?’

‘I didn’t actually see her last night, and this morning she was up and gone before I was – awake.’

I’d almost said ‘conscious’.

‘Gone where?’ asked Debbie, putting down her cake plate and staring at me from behind those round glasses, which actually did make her eyes look bigger.

‘Something called Welfash, according to her diary. I was hoping you knew what it meant,’ I said as casually as I could.

‘It means Welsh Fashion Week. It was a secret.’

‘Fashion – in Wales? That is a bloody well-kept secret.’

‘No, I meant Amy going there was a secret. She was headhunting one of the student designers who’s supposed to be the next big thing. But it was supposed to be a secret in case the competition got wind of it.’

‘What do you mean “was”?’ I asked.

‘Welsh Fashion Week was last week. Amy went down there on the train and back the same day. Last Wednesday, I think. She didn’t mention it?’

‘That she’d been to Wales? It’s not the sort of thing you brag about, is it?’

I realised that came out snappier than I had intended. ‘So where is she today?’ I said calmly.

‘I’ve no idea. She didn’t come into the office this morning and her mobile is switched off. I thought you were coming to tell me what was going on.’

Dream on, Debbie, dream on.

‘Look, I’ve probably just misread her computer diary,’ I said, trying to recover. ‘I’m useless with computers, I probably just got the wrong week.’

‘It doesn’t explain where she is today, though,’ Debbie said rather primly, and I noticed that the hand had gone from my knee.

‘No, it doesn’t, so we’ve got to try and work it out. You haven’t seen her since the police called at the office yesterday, right?’

‘Yes.’ She drawled it, rolling her eyes like I was being deliberately slow on the uptake. ‘I said, didn’t I?’

‘Okay, now can you remember the name of any of the policemen?’

‘Of course I can, I’m Amy’s PA.’

If there had been a high horse clopping by, she would have mounted it with a single leap.

‘And ...?’

‘Well, the main one was Detective Inspector Hood of ...’

‘West Hampstead nick,’ I completed. ‘He’s the CID man in charge of the burglary Keith Flowers did on Amy’s house.’

Not that Keith Flowers had stolen anything other than some information about my flat in Stuart Street and Amy’s BMW, which we got back quickly enough albeit after I’d wrecked it. But as Keith Flowers had been out of prison for only a month when he turned us over, he had no doubt moved up the prisoner category and the law was going to sling everything it could at him this time. They don’t like it when the system is shown to fail. They much prefer former prisoners to give it at least two months before booking a return stay at one of Her Majesty’s Windsor Hotels.

‘You know him?’ Debbie cheered up slightly, as if this was a straw within clutching range.

‘Not really,’ I said, though I had impersonated him once on the phone. ‘But I can ask him what he said to Amy to get her so spooked she took off like that. Did she have any appointments for today?’

‘Dozens, but none I couldn’t handle or bluff my way through.’ She considered this for a moment. ‘I don’t like lying, though. I don’t think I’m very good at it.’

‘Me neither,’ I lied. ‘When’s the next big thing she really, really can’t afford to miss or wouldn’t miss even if she had to crawl in from her sickbed?’

‘You think she’s ill somewhere?’

‘No, just surmising.’

People don’t not go home just because they’re feeling bad; unless they’ve been drinking with Inverness Doogie, that is.

‘Friday, I suppose. Big meeting with the chain stores in the City followed by lunch in one of the Guild Halls – Ironmongers, that’s it.’

That was typical of the City. No-one knew what an ironmonger was any more, or where to find one, yet they did slap-up catering functions with so much antique silverware on the table you had to wear polaroids.

‘So there’s a good chance she’ll turn up for that?’

‘Oh yes, that’s a seriously large lunch.’

I liked that expression, though I suspect my definition and Debbie Diamond’s definition were somewhat different.

‘Has she ever gone missing before?’ I asked her.

‘You mean you’ve never noticed?’ she gasped, pulling back well out of knee-clutching range.

‘I mean missing from big business affairs, meetings, lunches, dinners, cocktail parties, that sort of thing. The sort of thing she never invites me to.’ I saw Debbie’s eyes narrowing, so I softened that. ‘Because she just knows how embarrassed I get being in the public eye. I think she tries to protect me from that side of things.’

‘Hmmm,’ said Debbie, not convinced. ‘Short answer is, no way has she missed anything that important; in fact she doesn’t miss anything if she can help it. If she’s likely to be five minutes late for something, she’ll get me to phone ahead with her apologies. This really isn’t like her.’

That wasn’t like the Amy I knew, but I didn’t want to go into that.

‘So the stuff she missed today wasn’t important?’

‘Nothing I couldn’t handle, and normally I probably would have dealt with, except for the mad woman who said she had an appointment, but I don’t believe she had for a minute.’

‘And this would be ...?’

‘This afternoon. She turned up about an hour before you did. In fact, I only got rid of her about ten minutes before you arrived.’

‘Not when, who?’

‘She said she was from the Probation Office in Romford.’

‘Romford?’

As far as I knew, neither Amy or I had any connection with Romford. It’s a place you tend to go through – quickly, because of an unenviable reputation for the speed with which parked cars are stolen – not have dealings with.

‘The Probation Office there covers Chadwell Heath, or so she said.’

It took a full minute for the penny to drop, and I suspected that Debbie Diamond would have waited patiently for several more rather than help me out.

‘Keith Flowers,’ I said, and she just nodded, almost approvingly.

By sheer dumb luck I had discovered that Keith Flowers had spent his initial month out of prison at a halfway house in Chadwell Heath. I hadn’t been looking for him, he’d been looking for me and had rung the Stuart Street number and talked to Fenella, who had, naturally, grassed me up a treat and told him where I was. Thanks to the magic of 1471 last number recall (and why the cops on TV shows don’t use it more often beggars me) I had got through to something called St Chad’s hostel in Chadwell Heath and a very chatty warden there, whose name I couldn’t quite recall but who was a very helpful guy, and it wasn’t my fault that he somehow got the impression that I was Detective Inspector Hood of West Hampstead. Well, not entirely.

‘She said she was the case officer for that Flowers person and that she had an appointment with Amy, but there was nothing in the diary and Amy had certainly never mentioned anything to me.’ Debbie took a deep breath. ‘When I told her Amy wasn’t here, she said then I would just have to do and started asking all those questions.’

‘About what?’

I was genuinely confused. I didn’t think Debbie had even seen Keith Flowers, unless he’d been picked up by one of the security firm’s CCTV cameras.

‘About how many times Flowers had visited the office, had he met with Amy, where had they gone, that sort of thing.’

‘Did he? Did they?’

‘No, not to my knowledge. Amy came in one day and said there was a guy following her and she’d talked to her solicitor and he’d advised a restraining order. I had to screen all her calls of course, but if anyone rang I didn’t know, I’d ask for a name, and if they wouldn’t give one, they got snipped.’

She made a scissors movement with two fingers as if cutting a phone cord. At least I hoped that’s what she meant.

‘So he tried to get through?’

‘I don’t know if he tried, I just know he didn’t get through me. I’m good at my job, and we get a lot of rogue journalists trying it on all the time, not to mention models who are getting career-desperate and agents who are just desperate. If he called, he didn’t get past me. But the bloody woman just kept on and on about him.’

‘Did she say why?’

‘Because Amy wasn’t around. I said she had better talk to Amy as she was the one with the complaint against the guy, but I couldn’t tell her where Amy was, could I? It made it sound as if we were covering something up.’

‘No,’ I said gently. ‘Why was she asking about Keith Flowers?’

‘It’s her job, I suppose. She said she had to put together a complete picture – case file she called it – of what he did from the day he left prison to the day he was rearrested. I guess it’s something to do with his trial.’

‘Nobody’s asked me,’ I said sulkily. After all, it was me who put him back in prison. Well, hospital actually, then prison.

‘Maybe you weren’t around when she called,’ said Debbie through gritted teeth.

‘But you’d have thought the police would have given me a bell at least, even if this probation officer person hadn’t got round to it ... What did you say her name was?’

‘I didn’t, but she left me a card. It was Alison George.’

‘Let’s go,’ I said, snapping to my feet and waving a hand in the air for the bill.

A white-coated waiter swung towards me like a homing pigeon. I’ve always found that in posh hotels. My bill is ready the minute I call for it, almost as if they were waiting for me to leave. Odd, really.

‘Where are we going?’ squealed Debbie, between gulps of tea.

‘Back to the office to check the security tapes on your CCTV for this afternoon.’

‘Why?’ she asked, but she was not looking at me, she was hypnotised by a final slab of marble cake on the plate in front of her.

I pointed to it as I slapped cash down on to the waiter’s tray and said: ‘To go.’ Debbie scooped it up like a croupier.

‘I want to get a good look at this Alison George,’ I said.

‘She’s not your type,’ she said automatically.

‘How do you know that?’ I said, caught off guard.

‘If Amy’s your type, she’s not. Anyway, she’s far too young for you.’

Now it was my turn to glare at her through slitted eyes.

‘I don’t want to ogle her,’ I said haughtily. ‘I just want to see if she limps.’

 

If Debbie Diamond thought I was suspect before, I had just gone off the scale of her weirdometer.

Oxford Street was thick with buses, and I got honked by a Number 7, a Number 10 and a Number 159 – London buses being the only thing on Earth brave enough to honk a London taxi – for illegally parking outside the piazza again, though I couldn’t see what business it was of theirs. Perhaps it was something to do with the fact that I was near a bus stop, but that was just silly. During rush hour the punters stepped on and off the still-moving buses as if they were little more than a bright red horizontal escalator.

At the security office I made Debbie get them to open up and demand the tapes for the time the mysterious Alison George – part-time probation officer, part-time rating revaluer and occasional cat-kicker – entered and left the piazza. Debbie was quite specific about her arrival and departure times, and one of the guards reckoned her appearances would be on one tape but of course we couldn’t see it there and then as his VCRs were recording and he didn’t have one for playback.

‘Hasn’t Amy got one in her office?’ I asked casually, not knowing whether or not she had a desk or a chair in her office.

‘Good thinking,’ said Debbie.

Amy’s office had not one but two VCRs, a DVD player, a widescreen digital TV, a hi-fi with twin turntables and shiny steel speakers shaped like bullets and a glass fronted fridge stocked with Rolling Rock beer and fancy mineral waters. No wonder I’d never been allowed in there before.

‘You could do some serious mixing with this gear,’ I said as Debbie turned things on and inserted the security tape.

‘Some of the designers do,’ she said casually. ‘They find it difficult to create without the right ambiance. Fashion is a mood, you know.’

‘Absolutely,’ I agreed, opening the fridge.

She stopped fiddling with the tape and looked at me over the top of her big round glasses. My hand moved away from the beer section and chose a bottle of mineral water. The bottle was moulded plastic twisted to look like a corkscrew and quite stylish. The water was Ty Nant, a natural spring water from Wales of all places. Just my luck, but I opened it and took a swig as if I was really looking forward to it. I suppose it tasted better than London tap water, but then, how would I know?

The security tape was even less help than I’d feared. The quality was, as always, uniformly grey, grainy and crap. Why firms go to the expense of installing CCTV and then don’t spend the extra penny providing enough tapes to stop constant over-taping or, even cheaper, a head-cleaner tape, never ceased to amaze me. Also, as I pointed out to Debbie, and she actually made a note of it, the piazza’s cameras were so geared towards spotting shoplifters legging it from the boutiques that they didn’t actually have a camera covering the security office itself. Therefore the best view we would get of the mysterious Alison George would be walking away from the office towards the lifts.

Debbie zapped the tape fast forward using one of half a dozen remotes, one eye on the time clock counter in the corner of the screen. Then she stopped the tape and rewound.

‘I’m sure this is the right area,’ she said, pressing ‘Play’ again. ‘In fact I know it is, because I’d just had to cancel a conference call with New York and I’d waited until ... There she is, the cow! Look at that.’

‘Look at what?’

I could see a grainy figure, or rather the back of one, hurrying towards the lift. Until I got my eye in and noticed the hips, I wasn’t even sure I could tell which sex it was, but in the few seconds she was on screen, I took in some sort of plastic showerproof jacket (though it hadn’t rained for days), a baseball cap and the fact that she was carrying a large square bag of the sort that have wooden handles and look as if they’ve been made out of Inca rugs.

The figure got into the lift and studiously kept her head down whilst pressing the buttons. No sooner had the lift doors closed then Debbie was fast-forwarding the tape, muttering ‘Bitch, bitch, bitch’ under her breath.

‘Hey, chill out there, Debs. What’s your problem?’

‘Don’t you see?’ she hissed, her eyes fixed to the flickering screen. ‘She deliberately deceived me. When she got out of the lift there was no see-through rain coat and no baseball hat. She had her hair bunched underneath it for the cameras and I bet they went in that bag she was lugging.’

‘Maybe she just wanted to look smart for her meeting with Amy – with you,’ I tried.

Debbie stopped the tape. Eagle-eyed, she had freeze-framed on the lift doors opening as ‘Alison George’ emerged, complete with rain coat and baseball hat pulled down over her eyes. She kept looking at the floor as she walked quickly out into the piazza and out of shot.

‘Now tell me that’s not suspicious behaviour,’ said Debbie. ‘That’s an act for the cameras.’

‘You could be jumping to conclusions,’ I said, screwing up my eyes but still not able to be sure. ‘Did you notice what shoes she was wearing?’

After half a minute of silence I turned to find Debbie staring at me, her eyes large behind the round glasses.

‘Just what the fuck are you jumping to?’