Before I rejoined the A12 northwards for Suffolk (okay, so it lacks the ring of ‘North to Alaska!’), I called in at a Sainsbury’s to buy some essential items. These comprised a pork pie and some salami to stave off the munchies while I drove, a toothbrush and some toothpaste, and then a bottle each of tequila, lime juice and Asti Spumante for which I had plans.
I had forgotten how beautiful the Suffolk countryside could be, even from a dual carriageway full of juggernauts from Holland and Denmark and Ford Escorts full of reps all with their coats hung neatly in the back and their Barry Manilow tapes belting out.
Bentwaters is, or was, an RAF base that had long been occupied by the American Air Force, probably since the War, proving the theory that East Anglia is the biggest non-floating US aircraft carrier in the world. The main entry road was well sealed off with roadblocks and white-helmeted military cops, behind which a little bit of American Mid-West flourished. Chilled PX Budweiser was drunk in preference to the local Adnams bitter, best mince was called ‘ground beef’ and the East Anglian Daily Times was bought only to find out what time the Bears were playing the Steelers on Channel 4.
Not that I’ve anything against Americans; far from it. I feel quite sorry for some of the airbase families, in fact. Since the revival of CND, many of them have thought twice about ever setting foot outside their bases. Well, can you blame them? So the base kids went to base schools and the base moms shopped at base shops and the base officers toured the base cocktail-party circuit. Occasionally some of the other ranks could be seen driving old Chevvies (they brought their own cars with them rather than risk going to local garages) with number plates proclaiming their owner to be from the Potato or Sunshine States or, ironically, from the Land of the Free.
The Front Line peace camp was not difficult to find, mainly because of the hundred or so handwritten signs (most on the back of crisp boxes) saying ‘Front Line’ with a badly drawn arrow, which had been threaded into the wire perimeter fence. I bet the MPs wished they had invested in electrification. More ominously, there were dozens of signs saying ‘Ladies,’ which at one time had adorned public loos.
The camp was actually down a farm track to one side of the base. The security at the main gate must have been too tight to let them get established, but tucked away around the perimeter fence they were less of an eyesore and small nuisance. Similarly, I suppose, the peace camp was more or less left in peace round there.
By Greenham standards, which must be the yardstick for these things, the camp was minute. There were about 20 tents and makeshift lean-tos in a semicircle spanning about 40 yards of the fence. Through the wire was an overgrown, obviously unused concrete runway and, far in the distance, the outlying buildings of the base. As far as the military were concerned, this was a good site for the camp, out of sight and far enough away from anything important.
As I eased the Transit over some of the more violent ruts in the track, I noticed that one of the lean-tos was in fact an old, single-decker bus from which the wheels had been removed. It lay tilted to one side, its bodywork rusting into the ground. Its windows had been spray-painted in blues and reds, so that from a distance it looked as if the bus had curtains on the outside. Most the remaining paintwork was covered in CND symbols, as were most of the T-shirts, jeans, smock tops and even a couple of nappies that hung on a clothes line stretched between the bus and the fence. There seemed to be no sign of any transport that actually worked.
About 50 feet from the first tent, I turned the van around and pulled it slightly off the track. I could see in the wing mirror that my arrival had provoked some interest. About half a dozen women and children had appeared and were standing, holding hands, watching me. I felt like the cops arriving in the hippie camp in Electra Glide in Blue (the right-winger’s Easy Rider.)
They were all dressed in about three sets of clothing, each of which they probably slept in, and all had the ingrained-grimy faces of people living without running water. I was glad I hadn’t shaved that morning.
The eldest of the group who moved towards me as I jumped out of the van was no more than 30. She had thin, straggly, dirty-blonde rats-tail hair and wore wellingtons, faded pink jeans and a baggy knitted pullover with a row of pink pigs across the bosom. In her left hand she held the hand of a small child dressed in a raincoat at least eight sizes too big. In her right hand she weighed something that made a strange, metallic click-click sound.
It was a sound I hadn’t heard since Manchester United played West Ham at Upton Park: ball-bearings – totally vicious and very effective at close range. These girls had learned a lot from their peace camp.
Rats-Tail stopped the group ten feet away, and they fanned out in a semi-circle. I had the nasty feeling they’d done this before. The only other male in sight was about four years old and hadn’t been potty-trained.
‘It’s too late now,’ said Rats-Tail.
‘Surely, it never is.’ I turned on the smile. I have good teeth and they’ve been known to blind at five yards in strong sunlight. No response.
‘It’s too late,’ said Rats-Tail again, with more hostility than petulance. ‘So you might as well go.’
‘Too late for what?’ I took an involuntary step backwards nearer the van.
‘To sign on,’ said Rats-Tail, shaking her head in exasperation. ‘Bloody woman!’
The others said nothing. One woman drifted away with a couple of the children as if she’d heard it all before.
‘Bloody Carol!’ spat Rats-Tail.
‘Carol Flaxman?’
‘Yes.’ Suspicion now, but vitriol won out over loyalty. ‘That selfish cow can’t get anything right.’
‘What’s she done now?’ I asked in a you-don’t-have-to-tell-me-anything-about-Carol voice, with an I’m-on-your-side sort of sigh.
‘That dopey mare left about five hours ago to find us some transport so we could all go into Ipswich and sign on. It’s too late now, the DHSS will be shut and there’s naff-all to eat in the camp except lentils.’
No wonder they were upset, relying on Flaxperson for their next social security Giro when down to their last lentil.
‘I haven’t seen her,’ I said. ‘But I want to; that’s why I came. My name’s Dave.’
The ball-bearings stopped clicking.
‘I’m Melanie.’ She nodded to the child at her side. ‘This is Antiope.’
‘Hello, Antiope,’ I smiled. Poor kid. I thought I had trouble with names, but I wasn’t going to ask, because I knew Antiope was the mother of Achilles in Greek mythology. Such are the benefits of a public school education.
‘We can go look for her if you want,’ I offered, jerking a thumb at the Transit. ‘Do you know which way she would have gone?’
‘Into the village probably. Are the pubs shut?’
I looked at my watch. Nearly 5.00 pm. ‘Couple of hours ago.’
‘We could check the off-licence, I suppose, though I didn’t think she had any money.’
No, but she had some credit cards, I thought. ‘Is it far?’
‘Three miles.’ Melanie turned to one of the other women and handed over Antiope. She also slipped her ball-bearings into her jeans pocket. ‘Go and play, luvvie. Tricia, you come with me.’
Tricia turned out to be one of the plumper members of the bodyguard, and she kept hold of her ball-bearings. From the look in her eyes, I wasn’t going to make a smart remark about that either.
‘What’s this? A posse?’
Melanie looked me squarely in the face. ‘We never travel alone with men.’
‘Fair enough.’ I unlocked the passenger door of the Transit for them, but I thought it best not to open it for them or offer them a hand up and in.
Tricia sat between Melanie and me, which made me change gear ever so carefully in case I brushed against her ample thigh, and Melanie shouted instructions around her. We found the village easily enough, though anyone travelling in the area in a Porsche had better not blink.
It had a pub, which looked decent enough, a small village green flanked by a post office, a small supermarket and, incongruously, a hairdresser’s called Sylvia’s; and while this could be the hairdressing capital of east Suffolk for all I knew, I bet Sylvia didn’t get many takers from the peace camp.
There was also a bus shelter on the green, one of the old-style ones that have a bench seat. Lying across it like a stranded whale, if, that is, whales wear pink flying suits, was Carol. And she was singing. And she was drunk.
I parked the van alongside the bus stop, and Carol swayed to her feet, thinking I was a bus. As she stood up, an empty wine bottle clattered off the bench and rolled down the pavement. The Transit being left-hand drive, I was nearest to her, so I did the gentlemanly thing. I locked the door, wound up the window and told Melanie and Tricia to go and get her.
They didn’t need much encouragement. Almost instantaneously they were round the nearside and had the odious Carol backed up against the van trying to wave away their prodding, stabbing fingers. There was a lot of ‘You unreliable bitch’ and quite a few ‘selfish’ and ‘dopey’ cracks before Carol managed to fight back a bit and shout, ‘All right, I’ll get us some food.’ She seemed to be getting quite violent, as I could feel the van sway from her leaning against it.
Much more of this and some nosey neighbour was bound to call local Plod, though from the look of the place, Camberwick Green probably had tougher policing.
I wound down the window and butted in.
‘Hello, Carol, hop in. Door’s open.’
‘Who’s he?’ she asked Melanie, without looking at me.
‘He’s brought us some wheels, which is more than you did. Now get in the van.’
‘All right, sister, all right.’ With some difficulty, she slid open the side door and bundled herself in and spread herself across one of the triple seats. But only just.
Melanie closed the door and looked at me. ‘Back to camp?’
‘Why not? I’ve nothing better to do.’ I smiled and her eyes smiled back enough to make me think the ice could just possibly melt there under the right circumstances. Tricia noticed it too, for she put herself between us again on the front seat and I heard the giveaway click-clack from her pocket. I can take a hint. There was a gleeful whoop from the back seats. Carol had found my Sainsbury’s bag of booze faster than a sniffer dog could have.
‘And which party are we all going to tonight?’ she chanted, then burped loudly.
‘Put it down, Carol, it’s not yours,’ said Melanie in a voice that could have cheered a hockey team on the playing fields of Roedean.
‘Okay, okay. Naughty Carol. Carol’s been a bad girl, so Carol has to be put in her place in front of the man.’
I clocked her in the driving mirror. She had stretched out, lying on her back, and was speaking in a little girly voice.
‘Put a sock in it, you old cow, you’ve caused more than your usual quota of trouble today.’
I may be wrong, but I got the distinct impression that Melanie didn’t think too highly of Carol. I decided to keep quiet and drive. Carol began to sing a very rude version of’ ‘Pretty Flamingo’, which made me think that the stories of graffiti in Ladies loos were all true.
Suddenly she sat up and put her podgy arms around the shoulders of both girls.
‘Alrighty-tighty, Carol will make amends. Carol will do the shopping.’
‘I don’t think I want to know about this,’ said Melanie, trying in vain to shake off Carol’s arm.
‘Now don’t be such a straight, Miss Starchy Knickers. Carol will take care of everything. Lend me Melissa and the twins and we can still make the village shop before it shuts.’
Melanie looked over Tricia’s bosom at me. ‘Will that be okay?’
‘Sure,’ I said, wondering what I was agreeing to.
‘Who’s he? Pardon,’ Carol burped again.
‘I came to see you,’ I said, turning down the farm track to the camp.
‘What does he want?’ Carol was still addressing Melanie, ignoring me.
‘He came to see you. He said so. There’s no reason to talk as if he was dead.’
‘But Melanie, sweetums –’ the little-girl-lost voice again – ‘you’re always telling us never to talk to strange men.’
‘Nobody can ever tell you anything, Carol.’
‘But you try, Mother Hen, don’t you.’
Carol put her hands on either side of Melanie’s face and tried to twist it to receive a deep-throat kiss – her tongue was out and ready. We were nearing the camp, so I aimed for the ruts in the track and put my foot down.
It worked beautifully. Carol was bounced backwards into her seat and then sideways on the floor of the van, banging her head on the side in the process. There was a good deal of howling from her, and a few overripe adjectives, but she was better padded than the seats of the Transit. I hoped my tequila was intact.
We made the camp, and Melanie shot me a smile as she jumped out. Tricia backed her way out, never taking her eyes off me or letting her ball-bearings slip. Carol had more or less righted herself by the time I let her out of the side door.
Again Carol acted as if I wasn’t there, swaying past me into the middle of the camp, where she put her hands on her hips and yelled: ‘Melissa! Bring the kiddies, we’re going shopping!’
That whole shopping trip was something I’d rather draw a veil over, not because it was mildly larcenous (okay, illegal) but because my street cred would be severely dented if the saga got out. However, it got me well in with the sisters of the peace camp.
Melissa turned out to be a small, jolly woman, maybe a teacher or a social worker, and the only woman I saw in the camp who wore a wedding ring. The twins were pretty young – I never was much good with babies – and were called Anastasia and Lucifer – yes, Lucifer. Poor sod, just because it was a he. That proved to me what I had always thought, that there’s a very thin line between feminism and apartheid.
Still, Melissa was pleasant enough and said ‘Hello’ and asked if I minded driving them back to the village. Without waiting for an answer, she piled into the back – ‘Aren’t there any seat-belts for the twins?’ – and Carol, determined to believe I did not exist, joined her, after loading something that I didn’t see in through the rear doors.
It turned out to be a double pushchair for the twins, who were either two of the best behaved children in the world or had been drugged. Melissa unfolded it and strapped the twins in when we reached the village, and I parked in the pub car park, as instructed by Carol.
The village shop was a white weather-boarded building that had been badly converted into a supermarket. Badly, that is, if you were the owner, for I could see from the outside that the arrangement of the shelves provided loads of blind spots for shoplifters well out of sight of the cash till.
Not, of course, that such things were of interest to me. All I had to do was turn the van around and wait. Carol and Melissa pushed the twins across the road and then lifted the pushchair over the shop doorstep. I could see what went on through the two front windows, despite the ‘4p off Whiskas’ stickers, and I have to admit I was impressed.
Carol distracted the white-coated male assistant, exercising commendable control by not kneeing him in the nuts as she no doubt would have liked to. He was probably the poor mug who owned the shop, and his wife was probably out back somewhere reheating his fish fingers for dinner. While he was talking to her, Melissa took the twins out of the pushchair and began to carry them around the store, one balanced on each hip, until she found somewhere to sit down. As the average age of the village population was probably about 70, it would be the sort of shop that had chairs littered all over it.
The next bit of business was Carol’s, as she again distracted the old man in the white coat. By the time the witless victim had thought to go back to his cash desk, Melissa had juggled the twins sufficiently to pull her jumper up over her head and was offering a late lunch to Anastasia and Lucifer.
The shopkeeper, reasonably enough, went spare, and while I could easily imagine what he was saying to Melissa, I would have loved to have heard her side of the argument. She kept her cool and dished out more than her fair share of barefaced cheek, in more senses than one. He waved his arms about a fair bit and then disappeared to the back of the shop to be joined by, I presume, his wife for moral support.
While all this was going on, of course, Carol was flitting about the opposite side of the shop helping herself from the shelves and tossing things into the pushchair, which with the canopy zipped up was acting as an oversize shopping trolley.
To give her her due, she didn’t overdo it. She allowed herself about three minutes, and then joined in the argument over Melissa while working the pushchair towards the door. The poor shopkeeper was so bemused that he actually opened it for her, and the pushchair came out first. Carol followed carrying one of the twins, and then Melissa with the other. The shopkeeper slammed the door behind them and quickly pulled down a blind with the word ‘CLOSED’ on it.
Carol was giggling insanely and Melissa was still trying to pull her jumper down over her unruly, but perfectly formed, breasts as they ran across the road to the van.
‘No, like this. Hand over the glass, twice round, then slam.’
We had finished dinner and were sitting around the campfire. Dinner had consisted of tinned salmon, rye crispbreads and creamed cheese, Greek yoghurt with brown sugar and tinned mandarin oranges, but we weren’t singing campfire songs. I was teaching them the fine art of drinking Tequila Slammers, one of the fastest ways of getting spifflicated known to man. Or in this case, wimmin.
‘You’re trying to get us tipsy,’ Melissa observed. Clever girl.
‘Sole purpose of exercise,’ said I.
Melanie had joined us, having put Antiope to bed somewhere among the tents, and so had her minder, Tricia, though she wasn’t slamming with us, rather contenting herself with a small carton of yoghurt drink and a straw.
The Tequila Slammer, which you probably won’t find in the cocktail recipe books, was almost certainly invented by some loony Hooray in a flash cocktail bar somewhere as a means of using up cheap tequila. That sounds very snooty, as tequila isn’t cheap in this country, but there’s such a snob value on Tequila Gold these days that ordinary mescal juice simply won’t do.
Basically, you take a good slug of tequila (ice cold if poss) and add a splash of lime-juice, then top up a five-ounce glass with champagne – or Sainsbury’s Asti Spumante, whichever comes first to hand. Then you put your left hand over the glass, swirl it round two or three times in mid-air, slam the glass down as hard as you can on a hard surface and drink the lot in one. The theory is that the bubbles are evenly spread throughout the drink by the slam, but after one, who the hell cares?
We were drinking out of glass tumblers with British Rail logos on and generally chewing the fat and putting the world to rights.
‘Thisisgood … juice,’ slurred Carol, who was over halfway to Smashed City Arizona already. ‘Where did you say Dave was from?’
She was still talking about me rather than to me, so in a way I was glad I hadn’t used any of my real names.
‘Germany, wasn’t it?’ Melanie was warming to me. Or maybe it was the tequila.
‘I’ve been out there for a year or so.’ I set up another three Slammers, pouring the lime-juice and tequila together so that I could cut mine to about half the strength I was giving them. It’s a good trick if you can do it.
‘When did you get back?’ asked Melanie.
‘Yesterday. Came into Harwich on the ferry and called in the Uni on the off-chance.’
‘Off-chance of meeting Carol?’ The very thought made her pause in mid-slam.
‘No, looking up an old friend called Jo.’ I glanced at Carol, but she was staring vacantly at the fire. ‘And I ran into a guy called Alan who said Carol might know where she was.’
‘Alan sent you?’ Carol perked up. Obviously there still some solidarity among the ‘84 Four. It seemed a useful line to follow.
‘Seems a straight type. He told me you’d be here. We did a little business.’
‘Business?’ A flicker of interest there as she downed her Slammer and rocked back on her haunches, but only at about Mark 5 on the Richter Scale.
‘Just a little bit of trading.’ I offered her more tequila, leaning across Melanie to do so. Either Melanie pushed some part of her anatomy against my leg or I was too close to the campfire.
‘You dealing stuff for Alan? Pardon.’ Carol broke wind at the other end this time. Maybe I was putting too much Asti in the Slammers.
‘Just a little something from the groves of Lebanon, via downtown Dusseldorf, that is.’
‘Got any left?’
‘Some seed and grass. Wanna smoke?’ What a question. Do fish swim?
I stretched up and strolled over to the Transit. Around me the camp was settling down for the night, bricks securing groundsheets, tent flaps tied tight, kerosene lamps hissing away their shadows. Ironically it looked more like a scene from after the nuclear holocaust instead of a plea to prevent one. I mean, can you imagine surviving with all these wimmin going round saying ‘Told you so’?
I retrieved my stash from where I’d taped it under the steering column, and my cigarettes and green Rizla papers from the dashboard. It always seemed a waste to use up a couple of Gold Flake this way, but I always forget to buy cheaper cigarettes, and anyway, the corner tabs on the cardboard packets make excellent roaches.
I locked the Transit – you can take peace, harmony and sisterly love just so far – and threaded my way back through the tents to the fire Melanie had lit near the clapped-out bus without wheels. Tricia and Melissa had disappeared, probably in disgust.
Melanie had found some more wood, mostly bits of USAF fencing by the look of it. Carol hadn’t moved, though the level of the tequila had.
‘Who did you say you were looking for?’ she asked suspiciously as I pulled up a weather-beaten bus seat.
‘Jo. I heard she was a friend of yours.’
‘Jo who?’ She was clocking me from the corner of one bleary eye. I concentrated on rolling a very juicy joint.
‘I don’t think I ever knew her last name. She was at the Uni down the road, so I called in. Alan said you might know where she is.’
‘Can’t place her,’ said Carol, but the piggy eyes never left the joint.
‘Single strands?’ I suggested, and Carol snapped yes so quickly I almost dropped the thing into the fire. Melanie said no, she’d toke on mine. In some countries that’s virtually the same as going through a wedding service. In most countries it’s preferable. I licked and rolled, then lit the joint and handed it to Carol. It was a humdinger. I rolled a much leaner version for Melanie and me to share.
‘You do know a Jo, Carol,’ said Melanie. ‘You brought her up here once, or rather you got her to drive you here in that big flash Jaguar. Remember?’ Melanie edged nearer and lowered her voice. ‘Skinny, mousey blonde. Docile. Easy meat for the old bag.’
‘Vaguely …’ Carol drawled, then took a long draw, a good lung-and-a-half-full. ‘Got any of these to spare?’ she squeaked, trying to hold the smoke in.
‘You’re smoking my next six weeks’ dole money,’ I said, handing the second joint to Melanie.
‘I’ll buy some off you,’ Carol exhaled, and her head disappeared in the cloud.
‘With what, smart arse?’ sneered Melanie. ‘You were supposed to get us into town today to get our benefits, but you blew it.’
They argued some more while I poured out more Slammers, or rather Melanie argued and Carol grunted occasionally. She took the drink I offered without a word and downed it straight away, no longer even bothering to slam. After her fifth or sixth toke, she was down to the end of the joint, and a couple of the dried seeds exploded like miniature fireworks, making her jump and then starting her off giggling.
I placed the plastic bag of dope on top of the cigarette packet, in clear view, but made no move to roll her another joint. She was reluctant to let go of the roach at first, but then she hurled it into the fire and got unsteadily to her feet, saying, ‘I know what.’
Her pink flying suit had two dirty orbs where her backside had imprinted itself on the ground, and I noticed for the first time that her trainers were at least size 9 (men’s.) She seemed to be having trouble putting one in front of the other, but she did eventually make it to the steps of the disabled bus and fell inside. She was in there for a good five minutes, crashing around and swearing occasionally.
I made a facial question-mark at Melanie but she just shrugged and edged closer. Her rats-tail hair didn’t seem so bad suddenly, and in the firelight she was quite pretty. I was going to have to ease up on the Slammers.
‘Are you heading for London?’ she asked, handing me the dog-end of our joint.
‘Yeah, but maybe not tonight.’ I thought I’d better add a rider to that; it was easy to be male and misunderstood around here. ‘I’ll crash in the back of the van for a couple of hours before hitting the road; I’m too easy a target for the cops in that thing, and I’m over the limit.’
‘Is it big enough for two?’ she said, straight-faced.
‘What about the sisterhood?’ I said, indicating the surrounding tents.
‘It’s not that big, is it?’ she giggled. Melanie had a nice giggle. I was going to have to ease up on the grass as well.
‘I didn’t mean that. I just got the impression that sex with a member of the opposite sex was frowned on round here.’
‘Nah,’ she drawled. ‘We haven’t castrated a man here for weeks – and anyway, Tricia’s gone to bed.’ She gave me that up-from-under look that only women can do without appearing cretinous. ‘And it gets very cold around here at night.’
There was an extra loud crash from inside the bus, followed by a stream of invective calling into question the parentage of the Pope and his fondness for animals. Then Carol reappeared with what I first thought was cocaine down most of her right side.
She was clutching something in her right hand, something covered in white powder, as she weaved towards us and sat down heavily and out of breath. I poured her neat tequila, which she swilled greedily. ‘How about these?’ She held out her hand.
It was difficult to see what she was offering at first, but as I took them from her, I saw they were credit cards, an Access and a Visa, both made out in the name Mrs J A Scamp. I made sure I got some of the white powder on my fingertips and, not making a big deal of it, brought them up to my tongue. The powder was flour. Wholemeal. I handed them back, much to her surprise.
‘You’d steal from another woman?’ said Melanie indignantly. Men, it appeared, were fair game.
‘A rich bitch who won’t miss them,’ Carol said dreamily. The effort of searching the bus had accelerated the effect of the alcohol and dope.
‘I don’t take payment by drastic plastic, I’m afraid.’ I stuck two papers together and started to make another joint. Carol’s face fell and I thought she might burst into tears.
‘You can keep them ... in exchange,’ she said slowly, holding them out like a magician would.
Melanie tuned in to the same image and whispered: ‘Go on, pick a card, any card,’ in a Tommy Cooper voice.
‘Tell you what I’ll do.’ I finished the joint, lit it and handed it to Carol. It was another rich mixture. ‘I’ll see what value I can get on the street in town for these and I’ll leave you this bag on the basis that if I can’t dispose of them, I’ll be back for it.’
‘Sure, sure.’ She sucked on the joint and put her head back. Now she could relax, she thought, if she was still capable of thinking. She had no intention of handing the joint back, but I didn’t bother fixing another for Melanie and me. Instead, I just lit up a straight fag and shared it with her, Bogart style.
I moved the bag of grass over towards Carol, but kept hold of it.
‘So you don’t remember Jo, then?’
‘Jo? Jo? Josephine ...”
It was too late; she’d gone. Three minutes later, she was snoring gently. I palmed the credit cards into my jacket pocket so that Melanie didn’t see me and rescued the still-smoking joint from Carol’s fingers. I half-offered it, but Melanie shook her head, so I tossed it reluctantly onto the fire. I hate waste.
‘We’d better get her inside,’ I supposed.
‘If we really must. Her pit’s at the back of the bus.’
Melanie took her legs and I took the bows and we struggled up the steps, Carol’s bum hitting most of them, which I reckoned Melanie was doing deliberately.
The interior of the bus was lit only by a small torch made to look like an old lamp, the type you see in Westerns, and from what I could see I was glad there was no more light. The debris included empty wine bottles, food wrappers, part of a loaf of bread so hard the sparrows would bend their beaks, and a half-empty tin of baked beans with enough penicillin growing in it to supply most of Soho for a year.
Carol’s ‘pit’ was the back seat of the bus piled high with old coats and a couple of threadbare blankets.
‘We all had sleeping-bags when we came here,’ said Melanie. ‘The Christian CND sent them. Carol sold hers.’
‘Heave.’
We dumped Carol face down and I leaned over to try and turn her. Never leave anybody in that condition face down. Not even a Carol.
As I leaned further, I felt a hand sliding up the inside of my left thigh. Christ, she’s awake, I thought; then I realised it was coming from behind.
‘What about Antiope?’ I asked hopefully.
‘She’ll be asleep.’ Melanie’s voice had gone suddenly husky, as if the treble control on the stereo had failed.
‘You’d better check,’ I said without turning round. ‘I’ll make sure Carol’s okay.’
‘That cow will sleep through anything.’ The grip on my thigh tightened.
‘We don’t want her choking on her own vomit, though, do we?’
‘If you say so. See you in five minutes.’
As soon as she’d gone, I finished rolling Carol on to her side and threw a coat over her. Then I picked up the lamp-torch and held it above my head. I knew roughly what I was looking for, and I found it on the floor under a seat-frame from which the seat had been removed.
It was a brown paper bag of Jordan’s Wholemeal Flour, about half full. Quite a bit had spilled over the floor already, so nobody would notice any more. Carol must have just dropped the bag when she fetched the credit cards.
I lowered the torch to floor level, just in case anyone was watching, and squeezed the bag gently. Yes, there was something in there, and I bet myself it would be Jo’s emerald pendant. Wasn’t it Chandler’s The Lady in The Lake where Philip Marlowe finds the jewellery clue in a box of sugar? I put my hand in and found it. Well, I supposed it was an emerald under all that flour – either that or the millers were giving away some expensive free gifts these days.
I slipped it into my pocket and dusted off my hands and clothes. Carol hadn’t stirred. Mission accomplished. Almost.
Melanie was waiting by the Transit holding two sleeping-bags, the sort that you can unzip and lay flat. I picked up my fags and the bag of grass from near the campfire and motioned her around to the driver’s door. I wanted to keep the back door locked, and you couldn’t do that from inside.
It turned out to be a wise precaution. During the night, the handle was tried at least twice.
I was back on the A12 heading south for the Smoke by 7.00 the next morning, well before the Front Line had stirred – all but Melanie, that is, who had been grumpily evicted from the Transit at 6.30. I was whistling a medley of Ellingtonia, keeping an eye out for a transport café for breakfast and feeling fairly pleased with myself. Not cocky enough not to watch my speed, though, nor to keep looking in the rear-view mirror. The Suffolk traffic cops were well-known to be a lot keener than their Essex brethren, and a van like this one coming away from a military establishment was a natural target at that time in the morning.
I found one of those plastic and formica Little Chefs that were replacing the old greasy spoon eateries and went straight into the Gents. There I dampened some paper towels and wiped the flour off the goodies I’d removed from Flaxperson. So that was an emerald.
It was smaller than I’d thought it would be for two-and-a-half grand’s worth, but then what do I know? The pendant itself was heart-shaped, the emerald in the centre, and no bigger than my thumbnail. I presumed the metal was silver and the chain too. On the back of the heart was engraved ‘JJ’ in flowing script. A bit twee, I thought, for a prototype yuppie like Jo. Still, mine not to reason why.
I tucked into bacon and eggs and fried bread and pondered on the great philosophical issues of life such as why you never got fried black pudding for breakfast any more. (It’s now called boudin and is served with apple sauce and puréed carrots in nouvelle cuisine restaurants.) I had located the dreaded Carol easily enough, and reclaiming the pendant had been a piece of cake; well, a piece of more than cake, actually. I’d even found the missing credit cards.
All I had to do now was give them back.
Should have been easy. Shouldn’t it?
I drove via Barking to call in on Duncan the Drunken before the traffic built up, but his garage was locked and that meant calling at the house. Unfortunately, Doreen was in.
‘Hello, Fitzroy, chuck, how yer doin’?’
‘Hi, Doreen. Where’s Dunc?’ I’d long since given up trying to get her not to call me that.
‘Out – but on a job. When he’s earning, I’m not complaining. Come in for a cuppa?’
I declined quickly. She might have offered me something to eat, as most Northern women believe they have a mission in life to feed up any male who can still see his feet.
‘I just called to return Duncan’s van and pick up Armstrong – my cab.’
‘You’ll have to see the old man when he gets back. I told you, he’s out earning. Be back about 5.00.’
‘Oh no, not another wedding?’
Doreen smiled. It was all right for her, she didn’t have to clean up the sodding confetti.
So I was stuck with the Transit for the rest of the day. If I parked that outside Stuart Street, it would really annoy Frank and Salome if they had friends round. So that’s what I did.
Disappointingly, they were out when I got home, and so, it seemed, were Fenella and Lisabeth, but that Saturday was Lisabeth’s jumble sale day. And of course there was no sign of Mr Goodson from the ground-floor flat; there never was at the weekend.
I checked behind the wall phone to see if any mail had been stuffed there for me but, as usual, there was nothing. Somebody had left me a note, though, through the cat flap in my flat door.
Springsteen circled my legs and howled a bad-tempered welcome as I opened the purple – yes, purple – envelope. On matching paper with a cartoon of Snoopy wearing a Harvard T-shirt, was written:
Dear Mr Angel
A nice lady called Mrs Boatman rang this afternoon (Friday) and said she was anxious to speak to you. Please ring her on Monday at Walthamstow DHSS office. Sorry, I forgot the number. Some secretary, eh?!!!
Love, Fenella.
I screwed the note into a ball and threw it for Springsteen to play with. He took a tentative bite and then started howling again, so I had to open a tin of Whiskas – turkey flavour, full price. (If I ever get any on special offer, I have to remove the price tags before he sees them.) Then it was a shower and a shave for me before planning Saturday Night Out.
As the house seemed empty, I got in four or five unlogged phone calls around the circuit of friends and acquaintances to see what was cooking. The menu was pretty basic as it turned out. Trippy was meeting somebody at a club down at Camden Lock, but he couldn’t remember who or exactly where. I could guess why though. Bunny had got himself invited to a party down in Fulham at a house rented by four air hostesses who worked for Cathay Pacific. I didn’t know whether that was good or not, and even Bunny admitted it was a leap in the dark, as his experience had not got above Sealink Duty Free Shop assistants in the past. There was no point in ringing Dod. In his book, Saturdays were for racing, betting and boozing – nothing else – and he rarely strayed beyond the local corner pub. I tried the Mimosa Club to see if anyone interesting was playing that evening, but got no reply. No surprises there, as Stubbly never bothered with the floating drinking trade on Saturday afternoons. After all, some of them might be football supporters.
I didn’t call any female friends, for the idea was to take Jo out. Yet the options seemed limited. Maybe I should socialise more. I settled for the party in Fulham on Bunny’s recommendation, arranging to meet him in a trendy pub in Covent Garden beforehand. Then I rang Jo, prepared to hang up if a man answered.
‘Hello, Celia,’ she said when she heard my voice. ‘How did you make out?’
‘Just fine. Mission accomplished. How would you like to reclaim your property? I take it I can’t call round.’
‘Quite right, Celia.’
‘So you’ll have to come to me. Can you sneak out tonight?’
‘Maybe later.’
I told her I’d be in the Maple Leaf in Covent Garden until about 9.00, then down in Fulham, and I gave her the address of the party and told her to ask for Louise.
‘Who’s Louise?’ she asked.
‘Damned if I know,’ I said truthfully, and she said Okay and See Ya and hung up.
I thought it a bit off that she’d never asked how I’d got her pendant back. I mean, I might have had to shove the split match heads under Carol’s fingernails, or tie her to a tree and subject her to psychological warfare by, say, reading Hemingway aloud to her.
Knowing Carol, of course, it would have made more sense to ask if I’d come out of things in one piece – the piece in question being in the genitalia region. But Jo had done neither. There’s gratitude for you.
Duncan had not returned Armstrong by 6.00, so I presumed it would be the next morning. I had no intention of taking the Transit up West – I’d had enough trouble round the launderette, which doubles as a common room for the junior branch of the Hackney National Front – so I left it parked outside the front door in exactly the spot where Frank and Salome usually plug in the nightlight for their VW Golf. (One day they’ll knit it a pullover.)
Anyway, that meant I could have a decent drink and trust to luck not to have to need a lift back.
Whenever possible, I try and make a point of taking something special to a party. Now I know what you’re thinking, but I mean to drink; something more appealing to women than the Carlsberg Special Brew brigade, something more interesting than Piesporter Michelsberg.
Stan at the local off-licence is my guide on this, though I think it’s really his way of getting rid of old stock. That night, it was Kummel, a fresh packet of Gold Flake and about 40 quid (30 drinking money, ten in another pocket for emergency taxi home or suchlike), and, dressed in my Who Bears Wins sweatshirt and long brown leather jacket, I was ready to roll. I wrapped Jo’s pendant in some soft toilet paper and lodged it in the jacket’s inside pocket. And I picked up a pack of contraceptives. I mean, it’s not that I’m scared by the Government’s advertising campaign on safe sex, I’m just very socially responsible.
I hopped on a bus to King’s Cross and then took a tube round to Leicester Square, missing out Covent Garden station as the lifts were out of action again. (There are prizes for anyone who can remember them working.)
The streets were full of theatregoers, tourists and buskers and ticket touts looking for the tourist theatregoer. I dropped some change to a lone mandolin player doing a slow-tempo ‘Sweet Georgia Brown’, partly because he was good and partly because he might do the same for me someday. Then I called in at the Vecchio Reccione near Stringfellows for a glass of Valpolicella and a bread stick. ‘The Vetch’ is a really good restaurant; so good, I can’t afford to eat there, but I have played there on occasions and most of the staff know me well enough to stop for a drink and a chat. Their trademark is anarchy. The waiters don’t have menus, they come and shout at you, and if you’re sitting ‘upstairs’ on the ground floor, as opposed to the much more plebby basement, then they turn the lights off every 20 minutes or so and all the diners have to dance by candlelight for two minutes whether they want to or not.
It was about 8.30 when I got to the Maple Leaf, London’s only Canadian pub. Thank God. When it first opened, it sold Molson Ale on draught, which is not a bad drink at all. Not an ale, but not bad. Nowadays it sells bottled lager, which the trendies drink from the bottle because it’s what they think Canadians do, and Watneys bitter at a leg-and-an-arm a pint. You can tell it’s a Canadian pub, because it has a lot of pine. Otherwise its only distinguishing feature is that the staff chalk up the latest Canadian baseball and ice hockey scores on a blackboard, genuinely believing that people are interested.
Bunny was already there, sitting with a couple of young girls straight out of what the advertising men call the Sharon and Mandy market, and a tall, thin, angular guy with close-cropped blond hair.
‘Just in time,’ said Bunny. ‘Two Pils and two halves of Snakebite. This is Dosh and Freddie.’ He pointed to the girls. ‘And this is Chase. Meet Angel.’
‘Angel? I wouldn’t mind him sitting on top of my Christmas tree,’ said either Dosh or Freddie. I made a note to find out which. If they were on Snakebite, I’d better do it quickly.
I got the drinks in and discovered that Dosh and Freddie were flat-sharing in Willesden and were both typists up from darkest Bedfordshire a mere three months before in search of bright lights, word-processor experience and more than six grand a year. God knows where Bunny had found them.
Chase turned out to be a tuba player, of all things, though I would have put him down as backing vocals for the Communards on appearances alone. While it’s always good to know the odd tuba player (and let’s face it, most of them are), Chase unfortunately was a fanatic, believing that there had been no good jazz since the King Oliver band. Because I said I liked the immortal Bix Biederbecke, he obviously thought I was avant garde and beyond redemption. Then I mentioned that I had a Lawson Buford tuba solo from 1927 somewhere in my record collection and I was back in favour. Which was a bad move, as I hate jazz bores and usually much prefer the company of bored typists from Willesden.
By 9.30 there was no sign of Jo, so I suggested we headed off to Fulham. Dosh and Freddie didn’t take much persuading, but Chase thankfully declined, saying that parties didn’t like him.
Bunny drove an old Vauxhall, probably older than himself, because it had a bench front seat and column change and gear levers got in the way. He made sure that Dosh – or Freddie – sat next to him, so I ended up with Freddie – or Dosh – in the back seat, and she was getting very friendly by the time we got to Knightsbridge.
The party was in a big house on Fulham Palace Road, and in full swing when we got there. In other words, the lights were off in the living-room except for the strobes around the disco where a lonely DJ was pumping out Frankie Goes to Hollywood, and all the guests at the party were in the kitchen cluttering up the fake-oak work-surfaces and obscuring the Neff oven.
Over by the spice rack, a George Michael lookalike was arguing with a Jimmy Sommerville doppelganger. They’d probably end up the best of friends. By the coffee machine, a real Medallion Man was boring two women with the ‘Lucky Harry’ joke. It wasn’t that they were prudish; I could tell they’d heard it before. A pair of nattily suited yuppie executives, complete with red-and-black braces, were sharing a bottle of lime-flavoured Perrier by the sink and discussing futures in the zinc market in between swapping Porsche stories. All in all, standard fare.
Bunny introduced me to a big redhead (the Fergie look) wearing a flimsy black party frock slit up both sides to reveal large expanses of lace-patterned black tights. You know, the sort that make thick calves look even thicker and are worn only by women with thick calves. Her name was Louise, she said, as she grabbed me and planted a long kiss, tongue first.
‘They told me trumpet-players could kiss,’ she said, breaking free.
‘Oh, and you thought they meant on the mouth?’ I said innocently.
Louise turned on her three-inch heels and clicked away. So much for our hostess.
‘I can see why you don’t get invited to many parties,’ said Bunny.
‘But I’ll survive as long as I can sponge off urbane socialites like you, Bunny.’
He ripped a couple of ring-pulls and offered me a lukewarm Fosters.
‘But I always voted Conservative.’
‘Let’s find Dosh and Freddie. I fancy some intellectual stimulation.’
Bunny raised no more than an eyebrow, and we shouldered our way through to the hall where Dosh and Freddie were discovering that they could really get to like Kummel.
Just after 11.00, more people began to arrive as the pubs chucked out, and so Dosh (or maybe it was Freddie) and I moved upstairs, where we’d found another front room that had been stripped of furniture and somebody had run a pair of extra speakers off the disco in the lounge. Again, the light level was subterranean, but there were no curtains, so a fair amount of yellow light came in from the streetlamps outside.
Dosh – I was pretty sure it was Dosh – and I danced some, and she finished off the Kummel, which meant we then had to sit down for a while near the window, where some scatter cushions had been laid. She told me how much more exciting Willesden was than rural Bedfordshire, despite the once-a-year trips to Milton Keynes. I also got to hear how she intended to jack in her job at the insurance brokers just as soon as they’d taught her how to use the word-processor, and go and work somewhere interesting like in an ad agency or for a travel agent. She confirmed my suspicions that the majority of office computers in London contain nothing more vital than the personal CVs of thousands of job-hunting junior staff. Maybe Bunny could learn to moonlight on a mainframe somewhere and tap into a whole new reference work of nubile young ladies. I’ll put it to him one of these days.
I was standing up, offering to go downstairs to get more drinks, and glancing out of the window when I saw Jo.
She arrived in a big BMW of the type the East End villains drive now that all the old Jags have been bought up by the TV stations to make cops and robbers series. And she got out of the passenger side, which meant somebody else was driving. (That was good thinking, I thought. Obviously I hadn’t had enough to drink.)
Sure enough, Jo leaned over to the driver’s window and said something to someone before she ran up the steps to the house.
‘Lemme get us some drinks,’ I said to Dosh.
‘Okay,’ she smiled. ‘Make mine a white swine.’
I found Jo in the hall trying to get through the scrum of people to the kitchen. What is it about kitchens at parties that brings out the homing pigeon in everybody? She’d been waylaid within ten feet of the front door, which didn’t surprise me, by a chinless wonder in a baggy suit and powder blue trainers. (Nobody wears trainers with a suit any more.) He was saying, would you believe, ‘And where have you been all my life?’
‘She wasn’t born for most of it,’ I interrupted, putting an arm round her and drawing her away.
Jo slipped an arm around my waist as we stood at the foot of the stairs.
‘You’ve got it?’
I produced the emerald pendant wrapped in the toilet paper. She covered it with her hand immediately as if she was trying to hide it from prying eyes. Actually, nobody gave us a second look, as they must have presumed I was trying to get her upstairs to get inside her knickers.
She crammed it, tissue and all, into the left pocket of her fur coat, which I hoped was either fake or farmed, without looking at it. Then she delved into an inside pocket and produced a brown paper bag, the sort you get at off-licences.
‘This is for you. It’s as much as I could get so quickly. I thought it would take you longer.’ She looked me in the eyes, not smiling.
‘One quick raid into enemy territory was all it took. I’d like to say it was nothing, but I’d be lying.’
I peeked in the bag. There was a half-bottle of vodka – ‘For the party,’ Jo whispered – and a bundle of £20 notes wrapped with an elastic band.
‘There’s two hundred there. It was all I could get out of the hole-in-the-wall this evening. I owe you another 50, as we agreed.’
‘I owe you something too,’ I said, mentally kicking myself.
‘What?’ Her eyes opened just that little bit too wide.
‘Your credit cards. I retrieved them too, but I’ve left them in my flat.’
‘You’re not holding out deliberately, are you? Trying to up the price?’ She took a step backwards, which was about as far as she could go in that hallway. Some more guests arrived and pushed by me, pushing me on to her.
‘Hey, now look ...’ I started.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, looking over my shoulder at the open front door. ‘I didn’t mean it the way it sounded. I’ll get the money to you. Don’t worry about the cards, I’ll say I lost them or got mugged. Just get rid of them. I’ll send you the cash.’
She pulled the fur around her. ‘I must go.’
‘Hey, it’s no hassle. I can drop the cards round anytime.’
‘No.’ Emphatic. ‘Don’t do that. Don’t ring either. I’ll send you your money. Just stay clear.’ She touched me on the arm. ‘Please.’
Then she was gone, just like that, pulling the door closed.
I moved into the front room, where the disco had moved on to heavier metal (New Model Army, I think – a band to watch, despite their fans), but still nobody was dancing. From the front window, I saw Jo climb into the BMW and, as the interior light went on, I could make out the shape of the man driving. But only the shape. Still, what the hell business was it of mine?
I took the wad of twenties out of the bag and stuffed them into the back pocket of my jeans. I decided to take the vodka up to Dosh and tell her it was white wine.
I screwed up the brown bag and flipped it behind one of the disco’s speakers. Jo must have at least four bankers’ cards to get £200 out of the hole-in-the-wall bank machines, I figured, as £50 is usually the limit. Curious. And even more curious – they don’t usually dispense £20 notes.
Still, mine not to reason why. It would pay the rent and keep the nice Mr Nassim Nassim off my back for another month. I pushed by a couple of drunks who had just appeared bearing the same bottle of Hirondelle they’d been using to get into parties all year and made my way upstairs.
I took it all philosophically. Never let women get you down. Well, not mentally. And anyway, Willesden isn’t such a bad place to wake up in, even with a hangover.
I found Bunny in the girls’ kitchen the next morning trying to find something to eat that wasn’t raw carrot, muesli or Ryvita, and something to drink other than herbal tea.
‘Sleep well?’ he said, straight-faced.
‘Fine. I think.’ My mouth felt as if I’d swallowed a cheese-grater, and my scalp had suddenly acquired radioactive dandruff. ‘How’s Freddie?’
‘How do I know? You slept with her.’
Oh Christ. That’ll teach me to look in future. I decided to bluff it out.
‘No, I was with Dosh.’
‘Yeah, until we got in the car to come here.’ He sniffed at a half-empty carton of goat’s milk yoghurt. There appeared to be nothing else in the small fridge. ‘Where did you get that bottle of tequila?’
‘It was vodka, wasn’t it?’
‘No, the one after the vodka. You spent half an hour looking for lemons and salt.’
Oh no.
I went to the sink and turned the cold tap on for a long drink to combat the dehydration. With my head turned sideways, I could see out of the window and through the house to Willesden Sports Centre, where a Sunday league football team was working out. Just watching them made me feel ill.
‘Do you wanna get out of here?’ I asked, straightening up gently.
‘Might as well, there’s nothing to eat.’
‘They must be on the F-Plan diet.’
‘What’s that?’
‘You get fuck-all to eat.’
Bunny curled a lip. ‘Oh, very quick. Not funny, but very quick. Come on, the pubs’ll be open in five minutes.’
Oh, you bastard, Bunny.
Funnily enough, I felt better after a couple of pints at a pub in Maida Vale; you know, the trendy one among Guardian readers that has the really stupid long name and brews its own beer in the cellar. Not that the hair of the dog remedy actually works; it just makes you forget how bad you feel for a while.
I lunched on a cheese roll and a packet of crisps while Bunny – no day is wasted – chatted up the sulking wife or girlfriend of one of the lunchtime real ale bores who was drinking his way round the hand-pumps with a group of mates. At one point, I saw Bunny write something, probably her phone number, on a drip mat and slip it into the back pocket of his jeans. Like a flash, I thought to check my pockets.
All my cash was accounted for and Jo’s ten crispy twenties were in place. My, but they’re honest in Willesden, and the rent would get paid in Hackney.
I got Bunny out of the pub just before chucking-out time, and with a bit of persuasion he agreed to take me as far as Hackney, dropping me off at the end of Stuart Street. The first thing I noticed was that the Transit had gone and Armstrong was back in his place of honour outside No 9.
I did a quick walk-round check. Yes, there were still four wheels (well, you never know these days) and, just as I’d thought, the interior was littered with sodding confetti. I patted Armstrong’s stubbly radiator and promised him a good clean-out. A pensioner walking his dog on the other side of the street quickened his pace, obviously not wanting to be there when the men in white coats came for me. Silly old buffer. I’ll bet he talks to his dog.
Which made me think of Springsteen and the fact that he hadn’t been fed for nearly 24 hours. He’d have my leg off.
But wonders (Rule of Life No 3) never cease. Outside my flat, sitting on the stairs, legs curled and making soft purring noises, was Fenella.
Next to her, his face stuck into a plate of what looked like raw mince, was Springsteen. I could see from the four small puncture marks on Fenella’s wrist that she had tried to stroke him during lunch. Silly girl. He’s an ungrateful bastard at the best of times, but biting the hand that feeds you while it’s feeding you is a bit out of order.
‘Hello, Fenella,’ I said, because she wouldn’t have spoken if I hadn’t. ‘Has he conned you as well?’ She smiled a really nice smile. ‘Don’t tell me, let me guess: the scratching at the door, the piteous crying, the sucked-in, ever-so-thin ribs …’
She nodded and sighed.
‘Yeah. Taught him everything I know.’
That brought a spot of colour to her cheeks when she’d worked it out.
‘I couldn’t stand it any more – hearing him howl, I mean. But it was Lisabeth who got the mince for him. I had to feed him, though; she’s not a cat person.’
‘Hey, there’s nothing nasty in there, is there? I mean, you’re not missing a light bulb or anything, are you?’
‘Don’t be awful, Angel, she’s just trying to butter you up.’
‘Coming from anyone else, Fenella, that would be rude, but I know you’re a well-brought-up young …’ The penny dropped. ‘Your parents are coming, aren’t they, and she wants to move in with me.’
‘And you’d forgotten. She said you would.’
Fenella can be really prissy sometimes.
‘When are you expecting them?’
‘Tonight, about 6.00. I’m cooking vegetable curry for them.’
I was sure they could hardly wait; but then to be fair to Fenella, she was the only woman under 50 I knew in London who made her own damson jam. Most women in London work on the theory that if you can’t microwave it, only the ethnic minorities can cook it.
‘And when does Lisabeth want to move into the annexe? Not that I mean to make her sound like some latter-day Anne Frank, of course.’
‘She’s more or less packed.’
Springsteen finished the mince and inspected his whiskers for any he’d missed. Fenella retrieved her plate, keeping an eye out for the fastest claw in the East End.
‘Well, send her up,’ I said, putting my key in the flat door. Springsteen shot between my legs through the catflap without another look at Fenella. Typical male: eats and runs.
‘I’d better give her a hand or she’ll sulk. You wouldn’t have thought she had so much stuff.’ Fenella started down the stairs. ‘Who was Anne Frank, Angel?’
‘Before your time, luv. And don’t ask Lisabeth.’
She might know.
By the time the aged parents had arrived, Lisabeth was ensconced in my bedroom, the sleeping-bag (which has seen me through three continents, two sit-ins, an eviction and a New Year’s Eve in Trafalgar Square, and which I called Hemingway) in place on the sofa. Springsteen tested it for comfort, then hid under the low coffee table, partly because it’s the only table I have and partly because it’s the ideal place to ambush somebody coming out of the bedroom with no shoes on.
I went downstairs to help the Binkworthys in with their bags, and also to get a look at them as I was mildly curious, not to mention nosey.
Mr Binkworthy was a tall, dapperly-dressed bloke who had parked his redundancy-money Ford Sierra behind Armstrong. He looked at it suspiciously, and almost as if contemplating a sly kick at one of the wheels, as he unloaded the food parcels the diminutive and cheery Mrs Binkworthy thought Fenella needed. I said it was mine.
‘So you’re a musher, are you?’ he said, showing off.
‘Sort of. Yes, I own my own cab, but the real mushers would have me if I took a fare.’
He let me take a box of groceries (Sainsbury’s of course) while he unloaded a couple of suitcases from the boot. I told him to lock the car.
‘But we’re coming back. There’s more stuff on the back seat.’
‘Lock it or lose it.’ He took my advice, and I could see him thinking that maybe this wasn’t the best sort of area for his only daughter.
‘Don’t worry,’ I soothed. ‘It’s mostly kids after cassettes or petty cash in the glove compartment.’
He didn’t seem convinced, so I didn’t tell him that I wouldn’t give odds on his wheels being there in the morning.
‘So you’re a neighbour of Fenella’s?’ he huffed as he strained up the stairs.
‘Yup, next flat up. I’ve been here for nearly a year now.’
He paused outside Fenella’s open door. From inside, there came the clink of crockery and Mrs Binkworthy’s high-pitched voice feigning joviality.
‘I was very worried when Fenella came to live in London, I don’t mind telling you,’ he confided; so, as a totally unconcerned complete stranger, I tut-tutted sympathetically. ‘She’s very young for her age, you know.’ Well, so was I. ‘And her mother and I have always worried about her.’
My God, they suspected!
‘She’s been so sheltered from men, you know. All her life. Convent school, then secretarial college. We felt sure she’d be preyed on when she came to the big city.’ He smiled thinly and shrugged his shoulders. ‘Still, she appears to be looking after herself. Tell me honestly – you seem to be a friend – does she have any trouble with boyfriends?’
I looked him straight in the eye. ‘No, Mr Binkworthy, I can truthfully put your mind at ease on that score.’
The things I do for people.
Which reminded me, I had some credit cards to return. I wasn’t put off by the fact that Jo had told me not to call or see her. She’d obviously been confused and had things on her mind. Anyway, she owed me 50 quid.
And as there was a serious possibility of being invited in for tea and vegetable curry, I thought it wise to make myself scarce. It wasn’t that I minded Fenella, and I could have had fun doing a wind-up on her parents. No, the reason I dare not go would be the prospect of facing Lisabeth’s jealousy for the rest of the week. As it was, she pumped me about every move the Binkworthys had made since their arrival, before settling down with a mug of Bovril and a packet of salt ‘n’ vinegar to watch American football on the box. I hadn’t realised she was a fan, but it explained how she walked the way she did.
While she was deciding whether to support the Denver Broncos or the Pittsburgh Pederasts (whatever), I sneaked into the bedroom and nearly had a heart attack to find a three-foot Paddington Bear propped up on the pillow. How had she got that in without me seeing? But I wasn’t going to ask.
I took down from the bookshelf above the bed a hardback edition of Hugh Brogan’s History of the United States. I usually keep it between the Tolkiens and the McDonalds (John or Philip, not Ross). It’s actually quite a good book, and I’d had a few qualms about turning it over to Lenny the Lathe, who specialises in converting books more than an inch thick into fireproof, combination-lock safes. But he’d owed me a favour for a little job I’d done him and I’d needed somewhere to stash my passport, emergency cash and one or two other goodies. After all, there are 11 million people in the Naked City and only some of them are honest.
I removed Jo’s credit cards from the book-safe and returned it carefully, just in case Lisabeth got nosey. I had few worries that she would suddenly take an interest in American history, but she might notice something out of place, and the combination lock looked much more sophisticated than it actually was.
Before leaving, I gave a spare key to Lisabeth and an envelope with Jo’s two hundred quid for her to give to Mr Nassim. (Being a Muslim, he didn’t mind collecting rent on a Sunday.)
‘Oh God, is it rent day again?’ Lisabeth moaned. ‘Okay, I’ll see the thief of Baghdad for you. In fact, it might be better if I head him off before he gets to our place. The Binkworthys will have a fit if they see old Gunga Din Rachman. Are you going to be late?’
I paused mid-way through zipping up my black, waterproof blouson, which advertised (discreetly) Coors Lite. Lousy beer, but a good jacket with more than a few memories of a young lady from Boulder, Colorado, attached to it.
‘Shouldn’t think so. Why?’
‘I was going to have an early night, but I won’t bother if you’re going to come in pissed and play your Little Feat LPs around midnight.’
‘Don’t worry, fair maiden, I shall return before the witching hour,’ I said, edging towards the door. ‘Oh, and don’t worry about the snoring.’
‘Snoring?’
‘Yes. I’ve got earplugs, so don’t worry about it.’
I was out of the flat before she could turn her head, and as I passed Springsteen on the stairs, I said: ‘You’re on your own, kid.’
Armstrong zipped through the City with more than usual aplomb, which made me think that Duncan the Drunken had given him a tuning. He could never see an engine without laying a spanner on it. Not that there was much traffic about on a Sunday evening, and I was able to park right outside Sedgeley House.
The street door was locked, so I pressed the button numbered 11 on the squawk box built into the porch. There was no name tag in the oblong strip next to the button, but that wasn’t unusual. The only people left in London who put their name on their doorbells these days were called Monica or Helga, and there was rarely a surname.
There was no answer. I could have saved some diesel and phoned. Then the old porter I’d seen on my first visit shambled across the hallway, teapot with no lid in one hand and a bottle of milk in the other.
I tapped on the armour-plated glass, but he couldn’t or wouldn’t hear me, so I pressed the button marked ‘Reception’ and the old buffer jumped vertically like a Harrier with wind.
He came to the door carefully, mouthing ‘Whaddya-want?’ I couldn’t blame him; only a few days before, an eminent surgeon had been badly mugged in the entrance to his Harley Street office in the middle of the afternoon. Not only were the streets no longer safe, the lobbies were becoming risky too.
The old man put a deadlock on the door before opening it.
‘Flat 11,’ I said. ‘The bell doesn’t seem to be working.’
‘Bell’s working, but there ain’t nobody in, and I don’t know when anybody’ll be back. Is there a message?’
‘No …’ Over his shoulder, I could see the light above the lift doors flick on No 4. Top floor. Flat 11? ‘Er … Has Mrs Scamp gone out?’
‘Yes, this afternoon. Any message?’
The light showed the lift coming down.
‘And Mr Scamp?’
‘Oh, he’s away a lot. Haven’t seen him for months.’
‘Okay, thanks.’
I turned away and took a step back into the twilight. The lift stopped in the lobby and the doors opened. I didn’t know the man who stepped out and looked straight at the door, which the old buffer porter had managed to close. I think they spoke to each other, but I didn’t get a good look until I was sitting in Armstrong with the engine running.
I could see them clearly in the light of the foyer, but they couldn’t see me cloaked in the anonymity of Armstrong – and what more anonymous than a black London cab?
No, I’d definitely not seen the man coming out of the lift before. But he was a big man, and for some reason I had an unhealthy picture of him being more than able to do something unspeakable to Tonka toys.
Sunday night was usually jam session night at the Mimosa Club for assorted trad jazzmen who weren’t in regular bands or who couldn’t get a gig in one of the big suburban pubs. It was still early, so I didn’t expect many customers, but I did expect more than one – me.
There was a Django Reinhardt tape playing – I know, because I recorded it and sold it to Stubbly – and Ken the barman was sitting on a bar stool reading the News of the World.
‘Business booming, I see,’ I said.
Ken didn’t look up until he’d finished the story he was reading, and only then when his lips had finally stopped moving.
‘It’s gonna be a wasted evening. I told him it would be. I suppose you want a drink?’ He moved his bum and made his way round the bar.
‘Half a lager.’
‘Him again,’ snorted Ken.
‘Eh?’
‘Arthur Lager, regular customer.’
‘And an old one.’
‘The old ones are the best.’
‘That’s what we toy boys always say.’
Ken curled a lip in a half-snarl and slopped the beer over to me. From the foam on it, I guessed it was the first out of the keg that evening.
‘Be a pound.’
‘No staff discount?’
‘No staff. Not tonight; the session’s cancelled.’
‘Cancelled? What about all those young talents who are drawn here every Sunday? Where will they go?’
‘There’s always the night shelter at Tottenham Court Road. I suppose I’d better put up the notice.’
Ken reached down under the bar and produced a homemade sign. It was a sheet of white paper stuck on to cardboard on which was typed: ‘LIVE MUSIC CANCELLED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE PENDING LICENCE RENEWAL APPLICATION – W. STUBBLY (PROP.)’
‘So no gig on Tuesday?’
‘Was there one booked? I never notice these days.’
‘Another new band, so I’d heard. Style leaders in electronic reggae called Warmharbour Coldharbour, with a lead singer called Effra.’ Ken looked totally underwhelmed.
‘After Effra Road, Brixton.’
Ken lost interest completely. For the moment, he contented himself with pinning the notice to the inner door of the club and taking great delight in reading it to two young black guys who had arrived carrying saxophone cases. They decided not to stay, which pleased Ken no end.
‘Stubbly could be missing out badly,’ I said. ‘One of those guys could have been the next Courtney Pine.’
‘Who’s he?’
‘Just about the best British sax player since Tubby Hayes.’
I knew what was coming.
‘Who? I thought your mate Rabbit was the bee’s knees. By the way, did he get off with that drummer Richard last week?’
Ken picks up street talk like Sunday newspaper diarists pick up gossip, late and usually third-hand. ‘Richard,’ for the female of the species, derives from Richard the Third rhyming with ‘bird,’ but was now well past its sell-by date. The current term was ‘Shaz,’ meaning any female over 18 who went to Spain on holiday with boyfriend ‘Chaz.’ It came from green windscreen visors with ‘Sharon & Charles’ printed on, the ‘Charles’ always on the driver’s side. And yes, it is sexist.
‘No, I don’t think he ever did score with that one. You reckon we should ring the day on the calendar?’
Ken snorted. It could have been a laugh, it could have been asthma.
‘How about you? Did the bouncing handbag find you?’
‘Eh?’ Ken is one of the few people who can stun me into being ungrammatical. And incoherent.
‘The two dykes who were in here that same night. One of ‘em came back to see Stubbly and asked after you.’
‘Which one?’
‘The one that didn’t look like Dumbo.’
‘So she saw Stubbly, did she?’ And got my address.
‘Yeah, and she’s been in a few times since. Didn’t think you were into dykes, though.’
‘She’s no dyke, Kenny, and don’t bother to ask how I know. And what do you mean – she’s been in since?’
‘Oh, just to chat with Stubbly. She was in last night, late on. I was just leaving. So she’s straight, is she?’
I finished my beer.
‘Just take my word for it, Kenny, and don’t lose sleep over it. Would that be around tennish?’ It was worth a try.
‘Naw, much later. Oneish. Most everybody had gone. Everybody had gone, come to think of it, ‘cos Stubbly shut the disco off at midnight.’
‘Was she alone?’
‘No, she came in with Nevil, the new bouncer. Sorry, doorman.’
‘A big feller?’
‘Brick shithouse proportions, squire. You don’t want to dabble with the blonde Richard while she walks in Nevil’s shade.’ He cracked his face into what would be a sneer if it was more human.
‘Or maybe you should mind your own business.’ I started to leave. ‘Oh, Kenny.’
‘Yeah, what?’
‘Why do you call them bouncing handbags?’
‘Cos they looked like a couple of lesbians.’
‘Yeah, I got that far. Why are their handbags supposed to bounce, though?’
‘Because of the big rubber dildos they carry with them.’
Oh yes, of course. How logical. And I had to ask, didn’t I.
For a couple of days, I got on with life’s rich pageant without thinking any more of Jo or her bloody credit cards. Why didn’t I just post them to her? I’ve asked myself since a hundred times.
Life with Lisabeth in the flat, which I had expected to be anything but a rich pageant, turned out to be not half bad. This was mainly due to the fact that when she was in residence, I contrived to be out. Still, she kept the place tidier than it had been for months, and she didn’t mistreat Springsteen, or if she did, he didn’t complain about it. And usually he is one of the biggest moaners around when I have guests.
Monday and Tuesday I had some regular work lined up, moving fire-damaged gin from a couple of pubs in Canning Town all the way across town to a warehouse in Hounslow.
Dod had got me the job and we were using his van, so everything was okay by me. If it had been anyone else, then, yes, even I would have said, ‘How can you have fire-damaged gin?’ But as it was Dod, I took my 50 quid and free ploughman’s lunches (not that Canning Town’s seen a ploughman since Shakespeare packed ‘em in over at the Globe in Southwark) and we humped boxes and sat in traffic jams and set the world to rights. Well, if not the world, we at least sorted out Tottenham’s back four.
Tuesday evening and there was rumour of a gig in a pub in Islington, with the added plus that – so the rumour went – good old loony left Islington Council were subsidising it. In other words, any immigrant, disabled, single-parent, unemployed, lesbian trombonist could get a grant for turning up. No, that’s not fair. I’m sure the Council do a lot of good work, and it shouldn’t fall to me to propagate the views of the monopolistic, right-wing press. There. Everybody happy now?
The pub seemed to be the only building left standing (a good motto for the local council?) on that side of Copenhagen Street. It had been bought by a Northern brewery who couldn’t believe that they could get over a pound a pint for their best bitter despite what they’d heard about Londoners. Still, they were making an effort, putting on cheap food and jazz bands, and so far the locals from the high rise flats across the road seemed to be accepting them. Well, at least the pub still had all its windows.
The band was a right dog’s breakfast, with no bass player, an over-enthusiastic banjoist and a jealous pianist who thought he was being diddled out of his fair share of solos. Needless to say, the band was run on cooperative lines, with no-one in particular leading. By the time I got a look-in, two other trumpeters had pitched for a spot on the makeshift stage, so four of us did a loud, but enthusiastic version of ‘Tiger Rag’, which pleased the punters. Thank God they weren’t jazz fans.
I’d seen Bunny arrive, take one look around the pub and decide against it. He stuffed his sax case under a table and ordered a pint at the bar, moving ever so casually towards two women sitting by themselves on high stools. They’d gone to the loo together by the time I joined Bunny. Maybe he was losing his touch.
‘Not your scene?’ I asked.
‘I’m a Keep Music Live man; you know that. This is dead zone material.’
‘I have to agree. Still, the ale’s not bad, and I thought there might be a chance of a blow.’
‘So did I,’ said Bunny, looking towards the Ladies and wondering if there could be another exit he couldn’t see. ‘What’s going down at the Mimosa?’
‘Not a lot, as far as I know. Why?’
‘Old Stubbly seems determined to put himself out of business. No music and the bar’s only open for the minimum time he can get away with. Even the afternoon dipsomaniacs are deserting him now Kenny’s gone.’
Behind me, the band, now augmented by two extra trombonists, broke into ‘Beale Street Blues’, and a tall, anorexic blonde who thought she knew the words volunteered to sing. It could have been that, I suppose, that made the hairs on the back of my neck feel like they were giving off static.
‘Ken the barman? But I saw him Sunday evening.’
Bunny buried his face in his beer and I only just caught what he said over the noise from the band.
‘Well, it must have been after that he had his accident.’
‘Accident?’ Why did I have to ask?
‘Walking into his car door like that; really strange. Broke his nose, split his lip and blacked his eye. Couldn’t go to work looking like that, could he?’
‘Ken hasn’t got a car.’
‘I know. That’s the really strange thing about it. But I wouldn’t go there asking after him if I were you.’
I definitely wasn’t going to ask this one. The anorexic blonde was on her fifth chorus. I never knew there were so many E-flats in it.
‘Rod Stewart could have a voice like that if he smoked more,’ I said, for the sake of something to say.
Bunny had finished his beer and the two ladies were still in the Ladies, or had escaped without him seeing how. Either way, he was getting itchy feet.
‘Okay, Bunny, do tell me why I shouldn’t ask after Ken.’
‘Because somebody was asking Kenny about you when he had his accident.’
‘Asking what about me?’
‘Who you is, where you’re at.’
‘Cut the street crap. Who and why?’
‘Well, the why’s not known. Or at least Kenny had no idea why anyone should think he was an oppo of yours, and he could tell them virtually zilch. He doesn’t know your gaff or anything, does he?’
‘So who was asking?’
‘Stubbly’s new doorman, it seems. A big guy called Nevil. Wears suits a lot, doesn’t use words when he talks.’
Bunny grinned impishly. I hate him sometimes.
‘So this Nevil asks Ken about me and then Ken runs into a car door, eh? Is that it?’
‘More or less; but I’ve a feeling Nevil was holding the car door at the time.’
I refused to let this worry me. And, anyway, I only cruised up and down outside the house twice just to make sure there was no-one lying in wait.
Wednesday was an Even Rudergrams day for me, and that was usually good for a laugh.
Even Rudergrams was a new small company set up with the help of various Government enterprise grants (God Bless Our Lady of Downing Street), which specialised in an over-the-top kissogram service. All in the worst possible taste. Rudergrams went where even regular kissogram companies failed to boldly go. They had hit on the idea of advertising (discreetly) in things like the Financial Times and the Economist. This brought them a very high class of customer who didn’t mind paying over the odds for something that little bit naughtier.
I was, of course, simply their innocent driver; well, most Wednesdays anyway. I had been trying to negotiate the Friday lunch-time run, which was the most lucrative, office-party wise, as ER was always on the lookout for reliable drivers who could not only deliver their people but hang around and pick them up. Inevitably they would be in an arrestable state of undress.
Today I had three of them in the back of Armstrong, the ideal vehicle for such a job, as a cab was unlikely to get moved along or clamped at a delicate, or indelicate, moment.
Clara and Rebecca had previously worked as a team, but today they were on different jobs. Clara was the more traditional Nubile Nun, who would doubtless strip down to her wimple for the amusement of some City whizzkid. Rebecca, more unusually, was an LBT – a Loud Blowsy Tart, normally an evening job guaranteed to embarrass you in front of your wife and friends at a night out at the theatre or similar.
But the star of the show, or at least the back seat of Armstrong, was Simon the Stripping Sexton. In his time, he had been billed as the Sex Ton (geddit?), Simon Smith and His Amazing Dancing Bare and, until his credentials were exposed, even the Randy Rabbi. He had also been a talented professional wrestler (i.e. a good actor) in his youth, and still gave the impression that he could look after himself if pushed around. Or pulled around, or fondled, or goosed.
Rebecca’s Loud Blowsy Tart was the longest ‘act,’ so we dropped her off first at a wine bar near St Paul’s. Before she got out, she took a small bottle of Gordon’s gin from her huge, red-plastic handbag and sprinkled most of it over her neckline and cleavage. Then she carefully nicked another hole in her red fishnet stockings and, once on the pavement, readjusted the seams so they were nicely crooked. Then she tottered off on her four-inch heels. Ah, I love a professional.
I had to drop Simon at Bill Bentley’s, the wine and fish bar near the Stock Exchange, and then Clara at a pub in St Mary Axe. The order of pick-up was Simon, Clara and lastly Rebecca. Or to put it another way: a nude (bar the dog-collar) clergyman, a semi-undressed nun and a loud, blowsy tart fighting a losing battle to stay inside a Marks & Spencer blouse at least two sizes too small. And as part of the deal, I had some petty cash with which to buy them all sandwiches and coffee, so they could get changed or dressed while they ate and I took them to the next job, if they had one, or wherever they wanted to go.
I’d got an assortment of sarnies and some cans of Diet Coke and bottles of Perrier at a café behind Liverpool Street and was allowing plenty of time for the traffic to get back into the City. It was just as well. I was idling Armstrong outside the National Westminster Tower – you know, the building that King Kong would have climbed if he’d been British – when the cops pulled me in. Five minutes later, I would have had to explain a naked vicar as well.
It was an ordinary bobby on foot patrol, who strolled out in front of Armstrong and put a hand on the roof after indicating to me to lower my window.
‘Are you the owner of this vehicle, sir?’
I wish I had a pound for every time I’d been asked that.
‘Yes, he’s mine. AJW 440Y.’ Before you ask.
‘Very good, sir. Now would you mind calling round at Love Lane police station. You do know the way, do you?’
‘I could always ask a policeman,’ I said before I could stop myself.
‘And I’d always ask a cabbie,’ he said, climbing into the back seat.
Behind us, an impatient motorist tooted a horn. The copper glared out of the back window at him.
‘I was thinking along the lines of getting there today, sir, if you don’t mind.’ You can always tell you’re getting old: the policemen get more sarcastic. ‘You weren’t by any chance waiting for a fare, were you, sir?’
‘A fare? This is a private vehicle, officer, unless you’re commandeering it.’
‘Nothing like that, sir. It’s you that’s wanted down at the station, and it was kind of you to give me a lift. Anyway, we couldn’t leave this – vehicle – here, could we? That’d be a traffic violation.’
Love Lane (what a place for a cop shop!) wasn’t actually the nearest nick to where we were, but I didn’t think about that. I just concentrated on driving very, very carefully.
‘My name is Malpass. I can’t believe yours is Fitzroy Maclean Angel.’
‘I’m afraid it is.’ God knows what had possessed me to put my proper name on my real driving licence, but once it goes into the DVLC computer, it stays.
‘What do normal people call you?’
‘Mr Angel –’ no, don’t be cheeky, ‘– or You There or Buggerlugs – but mostly Roy.’
‘Well then, Roy, let’s try and keep this friendly.’
He was a good six inches taller than me, which isn’t saying that much, but a lot heavier, twice as wide and maybe ten years older. He was also, so he said, a detective-inspector in the CID. If he wasn’t, he was a bloody good con man and had rented out an office in Love Lane nick under false pretences.
It was a standard interview room, and the only non-regulation items to break the monotony of tube-legged table and chairs were the cigarettes, lighter and an ashtray advertising Tuborg lager, which Malpass had placed in front of himself. Even policemen pinched ashtrays, it seemed.
‘Is that your cab outside, laddie?’ He lit up a cigarette and moved his mouth around as he inhaled, as if chewing the flavour of the smoke. There was a hint of Scottish accent in the voice. And maybe just a hint of Scotch on the breath? Be careful, old son.
‘Yes. What’s the problem?’
‘But it’s not a cab, is it?’
‘It’s a de-licensed cab, run as a private vehicle. Is there any problem here, Inspector? I mean, nobody’s said anything to me.’
‘No, it’s not the cab, Mr Fitzroy, so much as where it’s been.’
I almost rose to the bait. It’s an old lawyer’s trick to get people rattled by getting their name wrong, if ever so slightly. No, keep cool, baby. It couldn’t be about the fire-damaged gin. We’d used Dod’s van for that, not Armstrong.
‘I don’t understand, I’m afraid.’
‘And I don’t understand how the registration papers, which we so carefully prised out of the Department of Transport’s computer in Swansea or some other Godforsaken place, and your driving licence, both have an address in Southwark. I don’t understand, because the address does not exist any more.’ He inhaled smoke deeply and looked me in the eyes. ‘The house in question appears to have blown up over a year ago.’
‘Faulty gas main,’ I said, but it sounded weak.
‘So I’m told, but it still means you’ve got iffy papers on this cab of yours, doesn’t it?’
‘I suppose so.’ He blew smoke at me. Tough guy. ‘But I wouldn’t have thought that was any call for the serious crimes squad. Do you want me to say that it’s a fair cop or something? I forgot. I’ll get it done. Okay?’
He leaned way back so that only two legs of his chair touched the floor. It was a trick I’d learned never to do without a crash helmet.
‘If you’d done your legal duty, my lad, we wouldn’t have had to go through the bother of pulling you off the street,’ said Malpass with a sickly smile. ‘We could have come round and had a chat instead of having every foot patrol and panda car in the bloody Met wandering around checking the numbers on every pigging black cab in town. In a way, you were lucky young Mason spotted you. He’s keen, that lad. Just what were you doing in Threadneedle Street anyway? Meeting your broker?’
‘Look, Inspector, just what’s going on? I was waiting for a friend, and I would like to get out of here some time this week.’
Malpass thudded the chair forward and leaned over the table. He put his arms out in front, and the hands formed fists.
‘All right, Mr Angel. What were you doing outside Sedgeley House on Sunday night?’
I had to admit to myself that that threw me for the minute. Of all the things I’d got up to in my time, I never thought I’d be stitched for trying to return someone’s stolen property.
‘Called to see a friend,’ I said with a dry mouth.
‘Got a lot of friends, haven’t we? Any friend in particular?’
He beamed innocently, and as his eyebrows went up, I noticed his hairline. He would be bald before he was 50; but I didn’t think now was the time to tell him.
‘A girl. A girl I met at a party on Saturday night.’
Always tell the truth; not necessarily all of it, though, nor all at once. (Rule of Life No 5.)
‘Would that be Josephine Scamp? Mrs Josephine Scamp?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why?’
‘See her, take her out for a drink.’
‘Did you?’
‘She wasn’t in.’
‘Been there before?’
Careful. He’s probably talked to the old night porter.
‘Yeah, once before – last year some time.’
‘Know her well?’ Now what does that mean?
‘Met her two or three times. Socially.’
‘Know her husband?’
Here it comes. Don’t tell me her old man’s a copper and this is one of his mates warning me off.
‘No.’
‘Know who he is?’
‘No idea. You going to tell me?’
‘Did you get the feeling at any time that Mrs Scamp was frightened of her husband?’
Oh my God, he’s done her in.
‘No. It was not something we talked about. Not that we talked much about her … private life.’
‘So you wouldn’t know what she’s been doing this week.’ This was not a question.
‘I haven’t seen her since Saturday, and then only briefly.’
‘And exactly where and when was that?’
He produced a notebook and took down the address of the party in Fulham (as best as I could remember it) and the time, which I guessed at around 11.15 pm.
‘Can you be more specific?’
‘11.16 pm?’
He ignored that and put the notebook away.
‘And how long was she there?’ he continued, unperturbed.
‘Ten minutes, no more.’
‘And you’ve not seen her since?’
‘No.’
‘Phoned her?’
‘No.’
‘Romantic sod, aren’t you. If she gets in touch with you, tell her to ring this number.’
He took a square of white card from his pocket and flicked it across the table. There was a London phone number printed on it, nothing else.
‘The officer at the desk will see you on your way out.’ I must have looked puzzled. ‘To help you fill out the forms for your cab, so we have your current address. Problems?’ He stood up.
‘You wouldn’t consider giving me a clue as to what this is all about?’
He thought for a moment.
‘No.’
He picked up his cigarettes and lighter and left the room. I was dismissed.
I borrowed a ballpoint from the uniform at the front desk and did the honest thing with my address, consigning myself to the bowels of the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Centre’s billion-shilling brain down in Wild West Wales.
I had more or less finished when the copper who had pulled me appeared from the back office and lifted the flap in the desk to get by me. I nodded recognition.
‘No chance of a lift again, eh?’ he said jovially.
‘No chance. I’ll be getting a reputation as a Black Maria if I’m not careful.’
He shrugged and adjusted the chinstrap of his helmet.
‘I’m back on, Trevor,’ he said to the policeman at the desk.
‘Okay, Geoff. Go down to Bank tube station, will you, and have a butcher’s.’
‘What’s up?’
‘Probably nothing. Probably some little pillock stockbroker on the pop. You know, one of the Fizz Kids liquored up and pissing around.’
‘Disturbance?’ asked Geoff, opening the station door and speaking over the back of my head.
‘A streaker. Woman just phoned in, said she saw a nude vicar, would you believe it, wearing a dog-collar and an early edition of the Standard. Heading for the Central Line …’
Oh God, Simon. I’m sorry.
I managed to get to the wine bar the other side of St Paul’s in time to pick up Rebecca, and the bar staff did not seem sad to see her go. I told her what had happened, and she took it all in her stride. Once she’d stopped laughing about Simon, she told me to head for the pub where I’d dropped Clara. I said that she must have done her act by now, but Rebecca said not to worry and that she and Clara always followed Plan B – to hide in the Ladies – if anything went wrong.
Sure enough, Clara was sitting at the bar sipping orange juice, her nun’s habit wrapped around her, poncho style, just covering her black, lacy basque and suspender belt. If she didn’t move suddenly, nobody could spot anything unusual. I mean, nuns have to drink somewhere.
All things considered, I reckoned two out of three wasn’t bad. Not that the senior management of Even Rudergrams saw it that way, of course, and it took nearly an hour’s arguing before I got about 60 percent of my agreed fee. I was about to leave when the office got a reverse-charges call from Simon, a very angry Simon, in a call-box outside Leytonstone tube station. For the other 40 percent, I offered to go and collect him, and as there were no other takers, I got the job. Actually, Simon took it all rather well and saw the funny side of things. After all, he’d run twice around the Stock Exchange and travelled over six stops on the underground stark naked with no aggro. I’d got arrested (well, virtually) just sitting in a traffic jam.
By the time I got him home to Walthamstow, it was nearly 5.00 and the rush hour was warming up, so it was nearer 6.00 when I got to Stuart Street.
I had intended to try and ring Jo as soon as I got in, to find out what the hell was going on, but I never made it, for the house was in turmoil.
Or to be more accurate, Fenella was in a Turmoil because Lisabeth was in one of her States.
Fenella was half way down the stairs to meet me before I had my key out of the front door.
‘Angel, you’ve got to talk to her – you’ve got to tell her you forgive her. She’s being impossible, absolutely unbearable, and only you can make her come out.’
‘Come out of where, Fenella dearest?’ I said, putting an arm around her shoulders.
‘Your toilet – bathroom, I mean – she’s locked herself in. Two hours ago. And it’s all because of me.’
Why me? Pulled in by the cops, having to rescue a naked vicar, and now it looked as if I was going to have to talk down a paranoid lesbian.
‘What’s she on?’ I asked Fenella, guiding her upstairs. ‘Has she been taking pills or sniffing any …’
‘Oh, it’s nothing like that, you galoof.’ She punched me lightly on the chest. Now I was galoof as well. ‘She’s just dying of embarrassment.’
‘She’s done something to Springsteen?’
‘No.’ Fenella looked genuinely shocked. ‘She wouldn’t dare!’
I wouldn’t have put anything past her, personally.
‘Your parents, then?’
‘No, thank heavens. They’re out. They’ve gone to a matinée of Starlight Express. I’ve seen it.’
Oh well, that was a relief.
‘So where’s the problem?’
‘It was this friend of yours who turned up this afternoon. He was ever so rude, I must say, and he tried to push his way into the flat.’
‘Your flat?’
‘No, yours. I don’t know how he got in the house, but suddenly he was knocking on your door. I was visiting Lisabeth, you see, while my parents were out.’
We were outside the door by now. It was open and I could see inside, and the closed loo door took on the semblance of the Berlin Wall.
‘You said a friend of mine called. Did he say who?’
‘No, he just kept asking for you and swearing a lot. He was ever so big and he wore a dinner jacket. That’s why Lisabeth thought he might be a musician or maybe somebody giving you work or something. That’s why she’s so upset about what she did.’
‘And just what did she do that was so terrible?’
Fenella took a deep breath, and I noticed for the first time just how impressively she could breathe.
‘Well, you see, it was partly my fault, because I just kept saying you weren’t in and he got very abusive because he didn’t believe me. And then Lisabeth came to see what the noise was and he must have thought she was you for a minute – we had the curtains drawn, you see. Well, the blinds, actually, ‘cos you don’t have curtains.’
‘Yes, yes, get on with it.’ What had they been doing?
‘Well, this big chap sort of pushed me out of the way a bit. It didn’t hurt, honestly, but it looked worse than it was and Lisabeth sort of saw red.’
‘What did she do to him, Fenella?’ I put on my stern voice so I wouldn’t giggle.
‘She kicked him – in the place which is most sensitive.’ She’d obviously thought carefully about that.
‘And?’
‘Well, he doubled up and went quite green. I’ve never seen that happen before. I thought it was just something people said, but he actually went green, and I thought he was going to be sick. Then he sort of pirouetted, still ... er ... holding himself, and then he fell over and rolled down the stairs. All the way to the bottom.’
Jesus, that was 24 steps. I knew, because I’d climbed them drunk before now.
‘He was all right, though,’ Fenella said seriously. ‘I mean, he got up and walked away. Well, limped, actually.’
I had to laugh. ‘Oh dear, poor Nevil.’
It had to be Nevil, from what Bunny said yesterday and Fenella’s description.
Nevil had my address.
Why the fuck was I laughing?
That settled it. There was no way now that Fenella was going to get my body, no matter how much she begged, not as long as Lisabeth was on same continent. Maybe, when Lisabeth had been forcibly retired to some maximum security retirement home in Frinton (as the sign said: ‘Harwich for the Continent; Frinton for the Incontinent’), then I’d consider it. Even then, she’d probably manage to mug me with her walking frame.
It took me nearly 20 minutes to talk her out of the loo, finally having to promise that Nevil was not a friend, that he wouldn’t call the police, and that there would be no need for Mr and Mrs Binkworthy to know anything untoward had happened that afternoon.
Fenella offered to make her some hot, sweet tea and fetch some chocolate biscuits from downstairs to comfort her. Lisabeth was really into chocolate rushes, and while she fed her face, nuclear war could break out and she wouldn’t pause between nibbles, so this gave me a chance to plan my campaign.
That took about three seconds. On the one hand, I’d been pulled by the cops for reasons that were not yet clear but had something to do with enigmatic Jo Scamp and her gaff in Sedgeley House. And on the other hand, a gorilla in a Top Shop suit called Nevil was looking for me, though he hadn’t bargained for Lisabeth’s own version of the Neighbourhood Watch Scheme.
Connections: I’d seen Nevil at Sedgeley House; I’d seen Jo at the Mimosa Club, where Nevil was supposed to work, or at least beat up barmen. The Old Bill was interested in Jo; Nevil was interested in me. They both knew where I lived.
The whole thing was like watching snooker on a black-and-white telly. You know it’s all a load of balls, but you can’t work out who’s doing what to whom. And so, having carefully assessed the pros and cons (mostly cons), the solution was clear: do a runner.
While Lisabeth was mainlining Cadbury’s Bournville, I rummaged around for a sports bag (one that advertised Marlboro fags, naturally) and began to pack a spare everything. (Rule of Life No 6: be prepared to survive on one extra pair of socks and knickers and a spare shirt. There are always launderettes and it could lead to a career in pop music.)
From the bathroom I took a battery-operated razor, the toothpaste and a new toothbrush from my emergency supply still in their Sainsbury wrappers. I always keep a few in stock (Rule 17A); they’re cheap enough and ever so impressive in the morning-afters.
Then I sneaked my special edition of Brogan’s History of the USA into the loo and spun the combination. The emergency stash stood at £200 in fivers, and that went into a back pocket. I also removed a building society book in the name of Francis Maclean, which I reckoned had about £450 in the account, and an Access card in the same name that I rarely used and certainly had nearly a grand’s worth of credit on it. Along with cash in hand, and the rent being paid up for a month, that should be travelling money enough.
Just in case real travel was in order, I took my passport (real name) and spare driving licence. I also packed Jo’s credit cards in the zip pocket at the end of the bag.
By the time I reappeared, Lisabeth had cheered up enough to smile weakly, having adopted the invalid-on-the-sickbed routine. Some invalid. Nevil was probably in traction.
‘Binky’s just popped downstairs,’ she said bravely. ‘Her parents are back. Are you going somewhere?’
‘What?’ I stared stupidly at the bag in my hand as if it had just been dropped there from a helicopter. ‘Oh, yeah. I’ve been invited down to Plymouth for a party at the weekend.’
‘It’s Wednesday,’ she said suspiciously.
‘It’s going to be a good party.’ I picked up my fur-lined leather jacket from the back of the chair and zipped myself into it. ‘You don’t mind looking after the place for a few days, do you?’
‘Well, no …’ she said thoughtfully. ‘But what about ...’
‘The bloke who came visiting? Don’t worry. I’ll call in and see what he wanted before I go,’ I lied. ‘Be careful of him, though, he’s a bit of a loony. Definitely two bricks short of a wall.’
‘You’re sure he’s not a friend, or anything? I mean I’d hate to have ...’
I’d never seen Lisabeth so sentimental before. She needed some iron in her soul.
I sat down on the sofa next to her and patted her hand. ‘He’s a nasty piece of work, and if he comes back, you treat him just the same as this afternoon. He has a nasty track record, you know. He follows young girls home from school, and one of these days ...’
Lisabeth’s eyes clouded and I knew I’d done enough. If Nevil did come back, even if he was giving away religious tracts, she’d castrate him before the doorbell had stopped ringing.
I stood up and patted my pockets to make sure I had keys, wallet, and so on.
‘What about your lady-friend?’ Lisabeth asked.
‘Which one?’ I said before stopping myself. One had to be careful with female chauvinist sows like her.
‘Mrs Boatman or Brightman. She rang again this morning. Didn’t Binky tell you?’
‘No.’ Oh dear, Fenella was going to have the back of her legs slapped again. ‘She must have forgotten in all the excitement.’
‘Well, anyway,’ Lisabeth went on grumpily, ‘she did ring and she wants you to get in touch with her at the local National Insurance office. At least I think that’s what she said.’
‘No problem, I’ll bell her tomorrow.’
I said I’d see her after the weekend and shouldered my bag.
Springsteen was sitting on top of the stereo stack, looking out of the window into the darkening sky. I have this theory that at such times he’s communing with the mother ship that gave him his mission on this planet, but then I could be wrong.
I playfully tickled him behind an ear and he lazily turned his head and sank a canine into my thumb. It was nice to know I’d be missed while I did a Roland.
Roland? A Roland Rat. I was going underground.
There was nobody out in the street looking suspicious. Well, there were the usual inhabitants, of course, but nobody with the collar turned up reading a newspaper under a streetlamp, say.
I threw my bag into Armstrong’s boot and checked the sleeping-bag I always kept there in a polythene bag. While I felt to see if the damp had got to it, my hand strayed over Armstrong’s tool kit. A little bit of insurance, perhaps? Better to be safe, and all that. So I removed a rubber-handled wrench from the tool kit – a souvenir of a summer working on rich people’s yachts in southern Ireland – and weighed it up and down a couple of times. As I couldn’t take Lisabeth with me, it was the nearest thing I had to a lethal weapon.
I pushed the wrench down the side of Armstrong’s driving seat and wound up the engine. There was little traffic down through Shoreditch, and I was pretty sure I wasn’t being followed, though following a black cab in London must be a pretty thankless task. Having said that, in some of the bits of Shoreditch I passed through, I stuck out like a sore thumb. I mean, Armstrong was the only vehicle with all its wheels left on. At Old Street, I passed the Gym ‘n’ Tonic health club – I’d been a member there until an embarrassing incident one evening in the female Jacuzzi – then turned up towards Islington proper.
The house where Trippy was squatting was a two-up, two-down terrace cottage with a basement. It was actually a cellar, but London’s estate agents removed that word from the dictionary long ago. The squatters had made four bedrooms out of it, keeping the kitchen at the back, and a pretty basic bathroom tacked on to that, as communal areas. Trippy occupied the front ground-floor room, and a local Islington councillor lived in the basement. Who stayed upstairs I never did find out, but the house is now well and truly yuppified and owned by a couple of actresses from good families. (I’m quite fond of them, which is why I’m not giving the address. Actually, it was me who put them on to the place.)
Trippy was in and not at all surprised to see me; but then, very little can surprise Trippy any more. Anyone who once thought a 73B bus was a giant blue salamander following him down Baker Street is living proof that you shouldn’t mess around in the medicine chest. (The 73B doesn’t even go down Baker Street.)
‘Hi ... er ... Angel,’ he said fuzzily. ‘Is there a gig on?’
‘No, it’s not work, old son, I’ve come to crash on your floor for a couple of nights.’
‘Fair enough. Come in.’
He led me down the hallway and into the communal kitchen.
‘Just having a cook-up,’ he sniffed, reaching for a pot bubbling on the gas stove. Trippy constantly snuffled; a bad case of druggie pneumonia, as it’s known on the street. Judging by what he was cooking, his sense of smell had gone as well. ‘Are you in for a bite?’
I hadn’t eaten and was quite peckish.
‘No, thanks, I was going to suggest we zip out for a curry.’
‘This is curry,’ he said, hurt. ‘Tricky fella, Johnny Curry.’
He sipped some from a wooden spoon and stained part of his wispy beard a bright orange. Then he turned the gas off and poured the contents of the pan into the big metal bin that seems to be compulsory in vegetarian kitchens and that always contains enough mushy peas to drown a Rugby League team.
‘Taj Mahal or Jewel in the Crown?’
‘Is there a difference?’
‘The Jewel does Kingfisher lager.’
‘Say no more.’
Trippy didn’t ask any nasty questions. He didn’t ask any questions, full stop. That’s why I find Trippy refreshing, as long as I’m upwind. But after the cauliflower curry, a couple of pounds of onion rings and six bottles of Kingfisher, I told him that I needed a place to stay out of sight for a few days.
That was fine by him as long as I didn’t mind sleeping on the floor. I said I didn’t, and also, no, I was not short of cash – or at least not short enough to get involved in Trippy’s own line of import/export.
Trippy was not really interested in my financial situation; he was just checking that I was paying for dinner. I did so, and I was the one who bought the half-bottle of brandy at the off-licence on the way back.
Well, Trippy said he slept better after a nightcap. I could see why. During the night, three people came into his room from various parts of the squat – or maybe off the street – looking to score. Only two of them fell over me in the sleeping-bag.
The next day started better than it should have.
My aching back woke me around 7.30, but that gave me plenty of time to use the communal bathroom and kitchen. I needn’t have worried. I think the next person in the house to leave their pit made it just in time for Play School.
There was a local Patels open and doing good business at the end of the street, and I stocked up on orange juice, a couple of meat pies and a packet of chocolate biscuits. These would be my iron rations for a hard day’s cruising the streets in Armstrong.
I didn’t know where Bill Stubbly lived, but I did know his routine, and he seemed a far better bet than approaching Nevil direct. I mean, he was about 20 years older, two feet shorter and ten stone lighter than Nevil. That made him just about my size.
However odd Stubbly’s behaviour had been just lately, I was relying on his basic Northern canniness to keep to some vestige of normalcy when it came to money. Thursdays had always been bank day for Bill. It had been a topic of some concern, in the days when I worked fairly regularly at the Mimosa, that Stubbly always preferred to walk through Chinatown to the Piccadilly Circus Barclays, as even on a Thursday morning he could have got mugged. Not that we worried about that per se, but he could have been carrying our wages.
I parked Armstrong in Golden Square, which is known as On Golden Pond to those who work in the posh offices there, and cut through Brewer Street. There were some early tourists about, and they were easy to spot. They hit Laura Ashley’s first thing and then see the signs pointing to Carnaby Street (yes, folks, the ‘60s, like head lice, are coming back) as if it was an ancient monument. I suppose it is, from what I’ve read about it.
Stubbly was more or less on cue. I was window-shopping across the road at Tower Records (good selection, but top price) when I saw him in the reflection. When I was sure he was alone, I followed him into the bank, and while he queued, I read a leaflet to see if I qualified for a home mortgage. (I didn’t.)
By the time he took to do his business, the bank’s video cameras must have had me down as a fairly suspicious character, and I was happy to stop fidgeting when he finally turned away from the cashier and headed for the door. He was stuffing a thick wad of notes into his inside jacket pocket as he did so, and I wondered briefly why Stubbly wanted all those French francs; but then, that wasn’t any of my business, was it?
‘Hello, William, old son,’ I said cheerily.
‘Bloody Nora,’ he spluttered, slapping a hand to his wallet. ‘Don’t creep up on people like that, specially not in a bank, for Christ’s sake.’
I held the door for him on to the street.
‘You’re getting too set in your ways, you know. That could be dangerous at your age.’
‘From what I hear, it could be dangerous being your age,’ he said shiftily, avoiding my eye.
‘And just what do you mean by that?’ I asked, stepping sideways to avoid a brace of female traffic wardens and smiling my best smile as a talisman in case they should visit Golden Square. It never does any good, but what the hell else works with them?
Stubbly paused for a moment, then rocked forward on his heels and prodded me gently in the chest with a forefinger.
‘Just for once, for p’raps the only time in your life, take a bit of advice from your elders and betters.’ I waited with bated breath. ‘Get lost.’
‘Get lost? You mean piss off, don’t you? I’ve told you about reading the Sun. You really must improve your vocabulary.’
Stubbly shook his head and started walking towards Brewer Street.
‘Can you not take just one single thing seriously?’
‘Bill, I’ll try,’ I pleaded, ‘but I have to know what the fuck is going on.’
He stopped again, and we had to flatten ourselves against a wall as a Post Office van mounted the pavement to avoid an illegally parked British Telecom van.
‘Just what do you think is going on?’
‘I honestly don’t know, Bill. I’m being hassled by a gorilla called Nevil – somebody I’ve never even met. And all I know is he’s getting literally close to home and he works for you, if you include disabling your barmen in the conditions of employment, that is.’
He looked at me and chewed his bottom lip as if searching for a remnant of breakfast.
‘Just go and lose yerself for a week, son. Honestly, it’ll be the best for all concerned in the long run. Especially you, young Angel. Just go away for a week – two at the most.’
And then he started to walk away, leaving me staring at a bare wall. I did a hop, skip and a bit of a jump to get in front of him and put a hand against his chest. Stubbly isn’t a big man, and he’s unfit and much older than me, but violence isn’t my scene. Unless the odds are really in my favour – and I mean hugely so. (An attack from behind in an unlit alley with no witnesses and an Uzi is my idea of a fair fight.)
‘Hey, hey, not so fast, Bill. We’re talking serious grievous bodily here, maybe loss of life and limb. Maybe mine. I’m interested; you might even say morbidly fascinated. What have I done to deserve it, I ask?’
He made a half-hearted attempt to brush away my hand. ‘I don’t know what you’re on about. I don’t want to know. I don’t want to see you and, for your sake, don’t be seen with me.’ He licked his lips and swallowed hard.
‘William … William … Come on, loosen up. Why shouldn’t I be seen talking to an old mate, eh?’
‘Because I’m not frightened of you, my lad, but I’m scared shitless of Nevil. And if he asks me if I’ve seen you, I’ll tell him as fast as I can. You can be sure of that.’
It was nice in an uncertain world to be able to rely on one thing. Stubbly would never need 30 pieces of silver; he’d take a cheque.
‘Just tell me why he’s after me, Bill, that’s all.’ I think I managed to keep the shakes out of my voice.
‘I dunno,’ he said quickly, ‘and that’s straight. I really don’t.’
‘What about Kenny, then? What had he done?’
‘Kenny didn’t do nothing. He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, like I am now, so just piss off out of it, will you? Leave me be.’
I didn’t.
‘No way, José.’ I put both hands up this time. ‘There’s a lot of bad vibes about – both you and at the club.’
‘Whaddayoumean? Nothing wrong with the club.’
‘Oh, come on, William, you’re not exactly doing gangbusters business, are you?’
‘I’ve got problems with the licence,’ he said, like he’d rehearsed it. ‘So I thought it best to lie low for a while; keep the nose clean by cutting out the rowdies. That’s all.’
I didn’t like being called a rowdie, but then I didn’t exactly have the time or resources to sue for defamation, if that’s the legal terminology for someone who slags you off in public.
‘That’s bullshit and you know it. The Mimosa is going down the pan faster than Dynorod could. You’ve lost your customers and you’ve lost Kenny and suddenly you’re employing a goon on a free transfer from Masters of the Universe. What’s the crack, eh?’
‘Nevil doesn’t work for me,’ he snapped, truly indignant.
‘So what’s he doing at the club, then?’
‘He has –’ Stubbly began to look shifty; that didn’t help; he always did look shifty – ‘business interests in the club, that’s all. Keep away from him, Angel, and keep away from the Mimosa. It’s only for a week or so …’
He stopped himself. He’d said too much – and I hadn’t even begun to cotton on.
‘What’s happening next week, then, Bill? Come on, I’m a big boy now, I can hack it.’
Bill made a determined effort to push me aside, and I had to let him. Over his shoulder, I’d seen a pair of beat coppers walking by. The last thing I needed was being branded a mugger.
‘Just disappear, will yer,’ Stubbly was saying. ‘Go away and stay away from me.’
Then, over his shoulder, he added: ‘And stay away from the club. And that bloody woman. She’s trouble, I tell you.’
Women – trouble? Gee, if only I’d known that earlier in life.
As it was, I almost missed them.
I’d parked Armstrong around the side of Sedgeley House in one of the diagonal streets that run off to the Edgware Road. It was a quiet little street with the obligatory Charrington’s pub at the end, one that, like most of the pubs around there, had a Gents down a near-vertical flight of stairs. A damned dangerous architectural feature if you ask me, which added weight to my theory that the pub must have been designed by a feminist with a grudge.
I was munching a meat pie and reading an early edition of the Standard when I saw them, and then only because I happened to glance in the mirror.
Nevil was leading Jo by the arm towards a white Ford Sierra. There was no mistaking his bulk, but I could have been fooled by Jo if I hadn’t known her. She was doing a reasonable Madonna impression: black leather mini-skirt, black fishnets and ankle socks, black-and-silver high heels. To top things off, she wore the sort of sunglasses most people thought were old-fashioned in 1958 but now cost about 50 quid a go, and nearly a furlong of white chiffon wrapped around her head, snood-like.
They must have come out of a back entrance to the flats, and they were intent on avoiding somebody, although I’d seen nothing suspicious when I’d cruised down Seymour Place. But then that funny copper, Malpass, had known I’d been out front on Sunday. How?
I didn’t worry about it; I had some driving to do. Despite the virtual anonymity of the FX4 cab anywhere in London, I kept a safe distance behind the Sierra as Nevil headed south and then east, crossing the river in Chelsea, then turning east again, running behind Battersea power station.
The cabs were thinner on the ground now, so I kept a couple of cars between us. Once past the Oval, they got even scarcer, and following became more difficult, basically because I didn’t know where I was. I’d never really explored the bandit country north of Peckham; but at least there were plenty of vehicles around to cover me. In fact, every second one seemed to be a jobbing builder’s pick-up, either a Mazda or a Toyota, loaded with bits of scaffolding and bags of sand. I knew the type: five years of self-employed brickying, then sell up and buy into a pub near Clacton or Southend and spend the summer serving light-and-bitter to self-employed brickies on a day out with the kids from Peckham or Deptford. So forth, so fifth.
At one point, I almost lost them, until I realised that the Sierra had pulled into a garage for gas. I stopped a hundred yards down the road and checked my bearings in the paperback A-Z I keep taped behind the sun visor. It didn’t help. I still had no idea where we were going, but I kept the A-Z up against my face as the Sierra overtook me.
Back in pursuit, I was relieved to see the Sierra turn north-east towards Greenwich and the river again, running by the old dockyards and into Woolwich. Automatically I checked that I had plenty of fuel myself. I mean, this was still virgin territory, there were no tube lines running to this part of the frontier. God – I was sounding more and more like a real North Londoner all the time.
I almost ran up their exhaust pipe as they turned right off Plumstead Road down the side of a school and into the backstreets.
Fortunately, Nevil wasn’t looking in his mirror; he had his head out of the driver’s window as if looking for a street name. I gave them as long as I dared before cutting up a newsprint lorry and following them. I was just in time to see the Sierra hang a left once over the railway.
I was right to be cautious. The Sierra had parked about a third of the way down the street, so I went on past the junction and ran Armstrong up onto the pavement.
Leaving his engine running, I nipped back to the junction, hugging the side of a terraced house before peering round the corner.
Nevil was holding the passenger door open for Jo, but they seemed to be arguing. He was wearing a grubby trench coat with the collar turned up, so I still could not get a good look at him, but there was no mistaking his dimensions. I reckoned that his neck and my waist measurements just about matched.
He leaned inwards and seemed to lift Jo out of the car with one hand. If he’d wanted to lift the whole car, I think he could have.
On the pavement, Jo shook herself free and smoothed down the front of her leather mini-skirt. Nevil locked the door and slammed it and then indicated to her to lead on. They disappeared into the front garden of one of the houses.
I checked to see if Armstrong was still there and then risked a crouching run as far as the Sierra’s tail-lights. If anybody had seen me, they must have thought the SAS was on exercise in the area.
They hadn’t gone into a house as I’d thought. They’d gone down a narrow alleyway – up North they’re called ‘ginnels,’ but don’t ask me why; I just observe, I don’t translate – which led to another alley at right-angles. Running along that were the back gardens of a terrace of houses we must have driven by.
I had left Armstrong too long, and I hurried back, resisting the temptation to damage the Sierra in some small way (just for peace of mind).
Three small black kids had gathered around Armstrong’s bonnet and were gazing in wonder at the gently vibrating engine.
‘Piss orf,’ I hissed at them, and they calmly turned away and continued down the street, convinced I really was a genuine cabby.
The A-Z told me that the gardens off the alley belonged to the houses on Lee Metford Road, and there seemed no good reason why Nevil had not just driven straight there. Unless, of course, he did not want to be seen. It was fairly obvious that Jo did not want to be recognised, but then who would, with Nevil in tow?
I turned Armstrong round on his axis and backtracked until I found Lee Metford Road. The house I was after was on the south side, that much I knew, but it seemed a pretty standard sort of street with terraced houses down both sides, distinguished only by the colours of the front doors where the residents had actually bothered to renew the paintwork. There were a few cars parked, but none with anyone in it as far as I could see.
Still, I didn’t risk a second run, and instead I turned left at the end and found myself back on Plumstead Road. I pointed Armstrong westwards, but pulled over near a post office and a couple of shops to have a think.
Two minutes later, I was sure nobody had ever mentioned Woolwich in connection with Jo. She hadn’t, Stubbly hadn’t and neither had that laid-back copper Malpass. Maybe Nevil lived here, but if he did, why didn’t he use the front door?
All I could think of was that I knew that a Lee Metford was the forerunner of the Lee Enfield .303 rifle and almost became standard issue to the British army before WW1. This close to Woolwich Arsenal, it was logical that they should name a street after it.
You see, I know stuff like that. That’s why I always win at Trivial Pursuit.
Sometimes I worry me.