The answer was staring me in the face. She was a very tasty young mum pushing a baby in a buggy into the post office I was parked in front of, on her way to claim her family allowance, no doubt. The baby was just old enough to have allowed Mum to get her figure back, and Mum’s tight wool skirt made sure everybody knew she had. She smiled in answer to my naturally inquisitive stare. Maybe Woolwich wasn’t such a bad place after all.
But I had no time for that sort of dalliance. I waited until she’d swung her hips down the road before I went in. Despite what I fancied, it was the post office I needed.
A jovial Indian lady struggling to stay inside her sari helped me find the Electoral Register covering Lee Metford Road and I ran a finger down the names to see if any rang a bell. You can find most people that way unless, like me, they don’t register to vote. Ah, isn’t democracy wonderful?
‘Can I help you at all, chuck?’ asked the Indian lady in a nasal Birmingham twang.
‘Er ... no thanks, love. I’m just looking for some old family …’
Scamp.
Ada Edna Scamp. 23 Lee Metford Road.
‘This is up to date, isn’t it?’
The postmistress waddled over to my shoulder.
‘Oh aye, chuck, at least I think so. There’s no much call for it round here, though.’ She fumbled a pair of glasses from the folds of her sari and looked down the register. ‘Oi think that’s up to date, as far as oi can see, that is, chuck.’
She glanced down the list to where my finger was. ‘‘Ere, you’re not looking for Mrs Scamp, are you?’
‘The name seems familiar. Do you know her?’
She put her hands to her cheeks and rocked her head from side to side.
‘That Mrs Scamp is an old witch, I tell you. I come here three weeks ago to look after this place for my brother Rajiv while he does his business accountancy course. Three weeks only, and already I know that Mrs Scamp. In she comes for her pension, takes it without a by-your-leave, then calls me a bloody wog and tells me to go home to where I come from.’
‘And what did you say to that?’ I asked, smiling sweetly.
‘I asked her if she knew how bloody much the train fare to Wolverhampton was.’
In Armstrong’s boot, along with the sleeping-bag and other occasional essentials, I keep what I call my cabby’s disguise. It’s fairly simple: a fawn flat cap and an old, red-and-black pullover with a hole at the elbow of the right sleeve. (That’s where a real musher always rests his arm on the cab window-frame during traffic jams.) For winter camouflage, I have an additional item; a sleeveless, quilted shooting jacket that slips on rather like a bullet-proof vest. I like to blend in when I can.
I checked the backstreets to see if the Sierra was still there. It wasn’t, so I did another U-turn and cut back into Lee Metford Road.
No 23 had a front garden the size of a Kleenex, which was either badly looked after or was one of the new butterfly sanctuaries Greenpeace were trying to establish. The door was a scuffed and peeling blue, which had probably been painted at least once since the house was built, maybe to celebrate the toilet coming indoors. It had a tarnished brass knocker showing a pixie cobbling shoes and declaring itself to be a present from Cornwall.
I fingered Jo’s credit cards, which I’d slipped into a trouser pocket. It was a flimsy pretext and might not get me anywhere, but it was the best I could do at such short notice.
I took a deep breath, pulled the cabby cap down over my eyes and knocked seven bells out of the Cornish pixie.
‘Yes? I ain’t buying anyfink.’
I’d half-expected the door to be on a chain or to be asked to push some ID through the letter-box before she opened up. You know, the stuff pensioners are supposed to do. This one just flung the door open, and she’d either been standing behind it when I knocked or, more likely, she’d seen me coming. I knew several wrinklies who took hours to find their glasses when it came to signing a cheque but who could see a net curtain twitch three streets away.
‘Mrs Scamp? You ought to be careful opening this door to strangers,’ I beamed, though I don’t know why I was worried. The last time I saw a face like that was in Macbeth, and she had sisters.
‘I am careful, sunshine,’ she said without smiling, then opened the door wider. Behind her in the hallway was a grey Rottweiler no bigger than a pony and no fiercer than a cobra with a hangover.
‘Go on,’ said Mrs Scamp. ‘Make his day.’
I took a step back. With lodgers like Fang there, who needs Neighbourhood Watch?
‘Hey, no problem, Mrs Scamp, I’m not selling.’
‘You buying? You totting?’
‘No.’ Did I look like a rag-and-bone man? I was supposed to look like a London cabby. Maybe she had a point. ‘‘Ere on a mission of mercy, lady. Returning lost property.’
She relaxed fractionally. The dog didn’t move, but I kept an eye on it, though she herself was formidable enough. Though she was no more than five feet tall in her carpet slippers, you just knew it would be best not to cross her. She was the sort of Granny who ate bayonets.
‘I ain’t lost nuffink. You a rozzer?’
Rozzer? Did people in ‘Sarf London’ still use words like that? Where was Henry Higgins when you needed him?
‘Do I look like Old Bill, lady?’ I put on the Cockney something rotten. I’d be doing rhyming slang if I didn’t watch out. I pulled Jo’s drastic plastic out. ‘I’ve found these.’
‘What are they?’ she asked, screwing up her eyes and reaching into the pocket of her flowery pinafore. ‘My specs are inside.’
‘They’re credit cards …’ I started, as planned.
‘I can see that,’ she snapped. ‘I’m not ready for the knacker’s just yet.’
‘Sorry, Mrs Scamp, but I found ‘em on the floor in the back of the cab.’ I turned one round. ‘There you are, Mrs J Scamp.’
‘That ain’t me. I’m not Jay anything, I’m Ay-Eee.’ She paused, and I could hear her brain cells creaking into action as she reached out a hand covered in enough costume jewellery to make a decent knuckle-duster. ‘You’d better come in. There’s no point letting the whole street know our business. Stay there, Nigger.’
I don’t know about short-sighted, but the old crone was colour blind. The dog was grey. I knew that, as I had no intention of taking my eyes off it.
‘In here,’ she said, leaving me to shut the front door, then follow her into the front room.
The dog curled a lip at me but made no sound, then took up position in the front room doorway.
‘Nigger won’t touch you,’ said Mrs Scamp cheerily, ‘unless you make a move towards me – sudden, like. I call him that so I can shout down the street after him and those bastards in the race relations office can’t touch me for it.’ She treated herself to a short cackle. ‘I enjoy that.’
Thank God we don’t have proportional representation in this country. She’d get elected.
The front room was full of everything front rooms were full of when they had the sale after the Festival of Britain. There was a fireplace, now housing an electric fake-log affair, with a mantelpiece. On it were a variety of jugs and china vases from the same school of design as the pixie doorknocker. Behind one souvenir from a day trip to Brighton was a crumpled 100-franc note. There was nothing wrong with my eyesight.
There was also a pair of blue-rimmed glasses that Dame Edna Everage wouldn’t have looked amiss in. Mrs Scamp levered them onto her face and I handed her the Access card.
‘No, this isn’t Jack’s ...’ she said to herself.
‘I’m sorry, missus?’ I played it thick.
‘It’s definitely Mrs Scamp, but it ain’t me. Anway, I’ve not been in a black cab in years. Them minicab jobs is miles cheaper than your lot. And they come when you call ‘em.’
I tried to look suitably aggrieved.
‘It must be ‘ers,’ she said suddenly.
‘You said “Jack”,’ I offered helpfully. ‘Could that be Jacqueline?’
‘Nah.’ The old lady dismissed my pathetic attempts at logic. ‘Jack’s my son. These’ll be ‘is missus, silly cow. Left ‘em in the back of a cab, did she? Was she with another bloke, eh?’
‘I’m sorry, lady, I don’t know what you’re getting at,’ I said, without a word of a lie.
‘Jack’s wife,’ she said with emphasis. ‘I told him she was trouser-happy as soon as I saw her, but he wouldn’t listen. Infatuated with her, he was; had to have her. She’d be out running up the bills, I suppose.’
‘Who … er …?’
The old woman dropped the Access card into her pinafore pocket and picked up a framed photograph from a small table near the window. She held it out for me to see.
‘That’s her, ain’t it?’
Through a fine layer of dust and a couple of smudged fingerprints, it was easy to pick out Jo, despite her hair being much longer and the unflattering white trouser suit. The guy with her I’d never seen before. He was shortish and wiry and had a straight, thin moustache, and I guessed he was anywhere between 40 and 45. If you couldn’t see that they were outside a Registry Office, you might have thought it was a man out shopping with his daughter.
‘Yeah, that’s the lady,’ I said.
‘And she with another feller, eh? When she was in the cab?’
I thought quickly. ‘She was with a bloke, but not this one ...’
‘Well, it wouldn’t be Jack,’ she said quickly, then stopped herself.
‘A much bigger bloke,’ I went on. ‘Really broad shoulders. Huge guy.’
She cracked her face for a while. Once seen, even the briefest description of Nevil seems to suffice, and she recognised it – and relaxed.
‘Well, give me the other one,’ she said, holding out the handful of rings again. ‘I’ll see she gets them.’
I made a show of hesitating. ‘Well, I really ought to give them to her personally, or send them back to the bank. That’s what we’re supposed to do.’
‘So you can tap her up for a few quid petrol money, eh? Is that the game?’
She made a sudden move towards me and, from the doorway, Nigger started to growl softly. I came round to her way of thinking and handed over the Visa card.
‘Didn’t consider that for a minute, lady,’ I said, playing the part. ‘But come to think of it, I have gone out of my ...’
She wasn’t listening.
‘Or maybe you fancied your chances with her, eh?’ She was getting shrill and moving closer. I had a feeling that so was Nigger. ‘Fancied my Jack’s wife, did yer?’
Then she put her hands on her hips and threw back her head. It took me a couple of seconds to realise she was laughing. I hoped Nigger had a sense of humour too.
‘Well, you’d be lucky, my lad! She’s too stuck up to look for it in the back of a cab just yet, but it’ll come to it one day when she gets a few more years on her; even the milkman won’t be safe, and she’ll be grateful. I warned our Jack, I did. Did he listen? Hah!’
It was a profound philosopher (or maybe The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy) who said bad things always happen on Thursdays. Here was the empirical proof: trapped in Woolwich with a geriatric nutter and the Hound of the Baskervilles.
‘Look, lady, I’ve done my bit and I’ll be off now.’ I edged towards the door.
‘You wait till I tell him she’s been spending up West. It was up West, wasn’t it?’
She moved after me. From the corner of my eye I saw Nigger retreat a couple of paw lengths, perhaps to get a better run at me.
‘Well, it might have been. I can’t honestly …’
‘Spending like there was no tomorrow, I’ll bet. Was it clothes? Did she have clothes with her?’
‘I think it was more like Sainsbury’s, actually …’ Christ, what a daft thing to say.
‘She always ‘ad more clothes than she could wear. Four or five outfits a day, the spoilt bitch. I told ‘im he spoiled her and no good would come of it …’
There was other stuff in similar vein, but by this time I had my hand on the Yale latch and was opening the door.
‘Fine … Well, cheerio, missus.’
It was then that Nigger decided to get in on the act, and launched himself the length of the hallway.
I was out of the house faster than a rat up a drainpipe, and I’d slammed the door shut before Nigger banged into the back of it. He was so miffed at missing me that he head-banged the door a couple of times, making the pixie doorknocker rattle on its hinge.
That dog had problems, but living there, I could see why.
I didn’t hang about getting to Armstrong and getting him started and headed back to Plumstead Road.
Thank God tomorrow was Friday, it couldn’t be worse.
Then I was arrested.
They did it very well, that I’ll grant them, but then they’ve had plenty of practice.
An unmarked Ford Escort pulled out from the kerb slow enough to give me plenty of time to ease up and reach for the horn. But the Escort didn’t stop, it came on until it blocked the road completely, and before I could react, my door had been pulled open and a warrant card thrust in my face.
One of them sat in the back – again – and made me follow the Escort, but at least this time they were plainclothes men, not uniformed, so my street cred didn’t suffer.
We headed back to the dockyards and onto the approach road for the Blackwall Tunnel. I asked the copper in the back if that was where we were heading but he said, ‘Just follow,’ so I did, and it was.
The old India and Millwall docks are situated on the one huge horseshoe bend in the river. It’s a sobering thought that in a million years or so, the Thames will break through somewhere around Poplar High Street and turn it into a proper island. No, it’s not a sobering thought, it’s a weird one. Why should I worry about such things? I mean, it’s not as if I owned property there.
I followed the Escort through the tunnel, when it hung a left down towards Cubitt Town but turned into Coldharbour and the cop shop there before then.
This time it was a room with three armchairs and a view over the river. There was a table near the window on which were three Carlsberg ashtrays (no wonder you can’t find one in a pub) and a pair of professional-looking binoculars. I could see a barge or something out there in the middle of the Thames, but I’ve never been much good with boats. My experience on Old Father Thames is limited to the Tattershall Castle just down the Houses of Parliament. That has the double advantages of being (a) stationary and (b) licensed.
‘Don’t do it, laddie,’ said a voice behind me. ‘The drop’s not enough to kill you and the water’s pig-filthy.’
‘I thought there were salmon in the Thames nowadays.’
‘Yeah, in tins, from Tesco’s.’
‘Another illusion shattered. And what have I done this time, Mr Malpass?’
‘You tell me, laddie, you tell me.’
He picked up one of the ashtrays and sat down in an armchair, crossing his legs and balancing it on his knee. He fished out a packet of cigarettes and kept them to himself.
‘You can start with old Edna. What didya make of her, then?’
‘Edna who?’
‘Oh tut-tut, laddie, my time’s valuable, you know. D’you know, it seems like only yesterday we were having one of these happy little talks.’
‘It was yesterday.’
‘My goodness me, was it really?’ he said, laying on the Scottish accent so that it sounded more like Scotch by absorption rather than birth. ‘So yesterday we had our chat and today you go social calling on Mrs Edna Scamp, well-known geriatric reprobate and old slag of the parish of Woolwich. That’s what I call interesting. Wouldn’t you say that was interesting, Mr Angel?’
I put my hands in my pockets and rocked on my heels. I hadn’t sat down because he hadn’t asked me to. I notice things like that.
‘I find a lot of things interesting. The thought of a Labour Government, interstellar travel, Phil Collins writing a song with a comma in it, why there aren’t any walnuts inside a Walnut Whip any more. All that, and more, including why I seem to be this month’s centrefold in Police Gazette.’
‘You’re a popular laddie, laddie.’ Malpass beamed at that. I suspected that he didn’t laugh much, probably on religious grounds. Something to do with the Kirk, and I don’t mean Captain James T.
‘But let’s cut the crapola, shall we? What were you doing with our Edna, eh?’
‘How did you know I was there?’ It was worth asking. He wasn’t going to tell me anything, so I tried to trade info.
‘Like the Listening Bank, sonny, we have branches everywhere.’
‘That’s a relief, I thought you were going to say, “Ve ask ze questions,” and then whip the rubber truncheons out.’
Malpass put the fingers of his right hand on the chair arm and pressed them down one at a time until all four knuckles cracked loudly. When he’d done that, he took the cigarette out of his mouth, tapped some ash off and studied the glowing end. I think he’d been practising his pauses.
‘We don’t need the truncheons, Mr Angel, do we? Because you’re going to cooperate with me.’
‘I always like to help the Thin Blue Line,’ I smiled, not adding that in Brixton it was called the Thick, etc.
‘You’re bright, laddie, try and catch on. I said help me, ‘cos this is a bit personal.’
Oh God. A policeman with a problem I needed like a politician wants a lie-detector test.
‘And you’re going to help me.’ That wasn’t a question, and I was getting an awful bad feeling about this. Deep in my stomach the whirling pits started a few trial revolutions, and it wasn’t down to the meat pie I’d had.
‘Gonna tell me how?’
Malpass stubbed out his cigarette.
‘Let me tell you why. First off, you drive a cab but you’re not a licensed Hackney Carriage.’ Well, I park in Hackney, but it probably doesn’t count. ‘And we can make life very difficult for you. Give somebody a lift and take cash for it and we’ve got you, so you might have to be very careful who you travel with, if you get my drift.’
I did.
‘Then there’s a small matter of your presence at two locations within a week that have been under police surveillance. That’s going to take a bit of explaining. I’m sure. But best is last, as we’ve got you bang to rights handling stolen property.’
If he expected me to break into tears and confess, then he was a good judge of character, but I had Dod to think about, and Dod had a missus and kids and anyway was bigger than me and after all was a pretty good drummer. I should have known. Fire-damaged gin! What an airhead!
‘Bang to rights, eh?’ was all I could think of to say.
‘Yup,’ drawled the detective. ‘We have a signed statement from a Mr Nassim Somethingorother to say that –’
Nassim? What the hell had he got to do with it?
‘– he accepted the notes in good faith from you as payment for rent on –’
‘Pardon?’
I sat down on the edge of the table. Malpass didn’t seem to mind. Well, at least he didn’t hit me.
‘Your rent money, sonny. Two hundred sovs in marked notes. It was hot money – nicked from a sub post office in Southend three weeks ago. We wouldn’t have got onto it except it happened to be a post office where the little old lady is careful and takes a note of the numbers of anything over a fiver. All your twenties were on her little list, and when Mr Nassim put them in the bank yesterday, he got a nasty shock. Mind you, so did we when we went round your place last night and found you gone. So it was decent of you to show up today.’
‘I don’t know where the money came from,’ I said feebly.
‘No, of course you don’t. It just gets left on the doorstep with the milk, doesn’t it. Grow up, laddie, this is serious. We have good reason to believe that the Southend job was one of a string of maybe six post-office robberies. Total amount missing is close on 15 grand, and yours is the first to turn up.’
‘And if you thought you could pin it on me, you’d have had me cautioned and the bracelets on by now,’ I said bravely.
‘Quite right, laddie, but I think handling should be enough to hold you for a while. Shall I get one of the uniforms in and take a statement? Do you want to call a brief?’
So, stakes were raised. Well, there’s a time to call a bluff and a time to fold – fold up, roll over and beg for mercy, that is.
I told him that Jo had given me the cash, though I was suitably vague as to exactly how I recovered her lost property. I told him that I’d seen her in the company of a minder I didn’t like the look of and that I’d followed them to Woolwich. They’d visited the old Mrs Scamp and then so had I, and all I’d found out was that she was Jo’s mother-in-law and probably had a picture of Hitler on her bedside table.
‘How did they get in?’ was all Malpass asked.
‘In the back. There’s an alley running along the back of the gardens. They parked round the corner.’
‘Bugger,’ he said softly, to himself.
‘You didn’t have anybody watching the back, did you? Just on Lee Metford Road, and all you saw was me.’ Why was I so smug about that? After all, I was the one in trouble.
Malpass brought out his cigarettes again and this time offered me one. I broke the filter off and tapped it on my thumb before I took a light from him. Joe Cool hisself, I don’t think.
‘Manpower, you see. It all comes down to manpower. Not a big enough allocation for something like this, that’s the trouble.’
‘I’d think 15 grand was a good reason to call out the dogs, or doesn’t it work that way?’
‘Oh, the Essex lads are out in force, no problem, but I’m sure the hooligans who did the post offices were working from south of the river. That’s what the grapevine says, and I think I know why.’
‘But you don’t really think it was me?’
He smiled the way the German general von Moltke smiled when the Swedish ambassador told him Stockholm was impregnable.
‘No, I don’t think you knock over post offices. In fact, I don’t really care who actually did the jobs at all.’
‘Now there’s a novel approach to police work. I bet it keeps the filing easy.’
‘Don’t be lippy. I don’t like it, and it’ll annoy me now we’re working together.’
‘I don’t like the sound of that.’
‘That’s only ‘cos you don’t know what you’re into. You’re surprisingly innocent.’
‘I bet that’s not said much round here.’
He let that one go.
‘What you have wandered into, sonny, is a private feud. I’ll be honest with you, it’s very personal business, which is why I need you, but by Christ you need me.’
‘Go on,’ I said as if I meant it.
‘I know old Mother Scamp from way back, you see, and she’s a bad ‘un. Always was. Small-time South London villains have a habit of getting above themselves, and they usually come a cropper when they tangle with the East End families or the heavy mobs dealing in drugs. The Scamps have always been Third or Fourth Division, but they’ve spread the work in their time, and that’s why old Mrs S is now calling in the favours.’
‘You mean that white-haired old lady? Maybe she diddles the Meals on Wheels people, but masterminding a string of robberies?’
‘Oh yes, I’m quite convinced of it.’
‘What for? The Whist Drive not exciting enough?’
‘Oh, there’s method in it. She’s raising cash to finance the springing of her son Jack.’
‘Springing? As in “from prison”?’
‘You’re catching on.’
‘And when is this supposed to happen?’
‘It has. Either late last Saturday or early Sunday morning. Just about the time you’ve admitted taking two hundred stolen notes from Jack’s wife.’
That convinced me. I definitely hated Thursdays.
Malpass suggested we go for a drink. It was 5.30 and the pubs were opening, jovial landlords all over London withdrawing rusty bolts from front doors to greet the homeward throng. If Malpass had suggested a swim round to Mortlake, I’d probably have agreed.
He made me drive, so Armstrong had yet another policeman in the back, and directed me towards Mile End. Limehouse, he said, was full of politicians, and Bow was being yuppified. Only in Mile End, where there used to be a fair crop of breweries, could you find a good pub with a good pint of beer.
We found a pretty hideous street-corner boozer, and Malpass ordered two pints of Charrington bitter.
‘I’ll be straight with you, Angel, though I still can’t believe that’s your name.’
‘Suspend disbelief, Mr Malpass. I do, quite often.’
He sipped some ale and smacked his lips. ‘We’re well off the record now, so I’ll tell you something about Jack Scamp.’
‘This is why it’s personal. That it?’
‘Yes, but also there are things you should know, as we’ll be working together.’
Why did I just know I wasn’t going to like this?
‘Jack Scamp is a south-of-the-river villain who was never as tough or as important as he thought he was. Not that he’s not tough; oh no, it’d be a mistake to underestimate how vicious the little sod can be.’
‘You sound as if you’ve an axe to grind there, Mr Malpass.’
‘Not so much grind as bury in the back of the little bastard’s head if I get half a chance.’ He caught my look. ‘Yes, it’s that personal. He did something to a friend of mine, two years ago. A young DC just out of uniform, name of Leakey, was getting in close on one of Scamp’s sordid little protection rackets. I was supposed to be running the operation, but I got caught up with other business. Too busy to back him up, I was. And so one morning, he’s found on a plot of waste land in Dagenham, with both his knee-caps smashed to mush by a cricket bat. A fucking cricket bat!’
‘Scamp?’
‘Or one of his heavies. Scamp had an airtight alibi, naturally, but then again, young Leakey never said who exactly had done it. When he got out of hospital, he left the Force. Only walked properly about three months ago. They had to keep ripping the knee-caps apart and rebuilding them. Scamp broke his bones and his mind. His nerve went totally, and now his own shadow scares him shitless.’
‘So you feel guilty and you’ve made Scamp your personal crusade. Is that it?’
He put his face in his beer and finished the pint in one go. I wondered if I was expected to buy the next round as well.
‘Well, I don’t think of it as a crusade, more a cleansing operation. And, like I said, it is personal.’
‘You felt responsible for what happened to Leakey,’ I said soothingly. Maybe I’d put in a consultancy bill.
‘Oh, I got over that. It’s personal because when I heard what had happened to young Leakey, I lost my rag. You should never do that. I went round to Scamp’s lock-up warehouses – he had a couple down in Woolwich in those days – and he wasn’t there, so I torched ‘em. Helluva blaze. It turned out he was storing paint, among other things. Of course, Scamp gets to claim about 20 grand on some dubious insurance policy, and I resign myself to the fact that I’ll never get beyond Inspector. Oh yeah, I’ve been told as much. My career finished, just because I lose control and take it out on a piece of shit like Jack Scamp.’
He rattled his empty glass, and I half stood to go to the bar.
‘So I’m determined to get my own back,’ he continued. I sat down. I didn’t want another drink anyway. The sod would probably breathalyse me after he’d made me drive him home. ‘Some philosopher said revenge is the best way of getting your own back, didn’t he? Well, I feel like that. So I’ve been biding my time. I thought we had him last year when he lost his rag in a pub down in Kent and tried to push a glass through the landlord’s face.’
‘He sounds a real charmer,’ I offered. Malpass’s eyes had misted, and I was talking just to remind him I was there.
‘Oh he is, sonny, he is.’
‘So what happened about the publican?’
‘We nicked him, all right. Scamp got two years for assault, grievous bodily, so on, so forth. Pathetic, really, for someone with his record. He could have got away with 14 months with remission.’
‘Could have?’ I asked quietly, my stomach having suddenly acquired a large ice cube.
‘If he hadn’t escaped from Her Majesty’s Pleasure.’ Malpass looked at me, then at his empty glass. ‘Last Saturday night, just about the time you were with his wife at that party in Fulham. Didn’t you know? It’s your round.’
I told Malpass he could find me at Stuart Street and, for a couple of streets, I did head that way. Then I did a couple of dog-legs and turned towards Trippy’s squat.
I’d lost my appetite, I didn’t want a drink and I was playing Frankie Goes to Hollywood (am I the only one who bought their second LP?) very loudly on Armstrong’s in-cab sound system. My mind wasn’t on my driving, and for the first time I almost collided with another taxi. It was one of the new, five-seater Metro-cabs, though, so that doesn’t count. I realised why people confuse them with hearses.
Malpass had told me a few more bits of the story; not enough to know what was really going on, but just enough to make me feel uncomfortable. It’s a knack only policemen, solicitors and builders doing estimates have.
Jack Scamp had drawn a two-year plate of porridge for the assault on the Kent licensee and, as Malpass had said, would have been out with remission, if he’d kept his nose clean, in three months’ time. But our Jack hadn’t kept his nose clean, being the sort of bloke who was born with somebody else’s silver spoon in his fist if not his mouth.
No, our Jacko had thrown a wobbler and gone over the wall. Not a very high wall, at a low-security, semi-open prison in Buckinghamshire. You know, the sort where they do classes in ballistics and Open University degrees in SAS tactics.
The reason he’d gone over the wall was simple. He’d had some bad news brought to him in the nick by his mother, the Wicked Witch of Woolwich. She’d told him that his wife, young Jo, had been carrying on with other men, other women, nuns, rapists, ex-Nazi war criminals, you name it. Jack had, to use a medical expression, gone ape-shit.
Just as he had last year in the pub in Kent when he’d glassed the landlord – when the landlord had chatted up Jo while Jack was in the bog.
You see, Jack Scamp was absolutely stark-staring red-mist fucking paranoid jealous when it came to anyone messing about with his wife.
And he was out of prison.
And he broke bones like other people collect stamps.
And I was supposed to sleep nights?
My mission, should I decide to accept it, was to find Jack Scamp for Malpass before Nevil found me for Jack Scamp. This taxi will self-destruct in ten seconds. Mission-bleeding-Impossible.
The trouble was, it wasn’t impossible. I could stake myself out and let Nevil come for me, relying on Malpass and the boys in blue to arrive in the nick of time.
Alternatively, I could find Scamp myself, then stand back and let the cavalry come. Just as dangerous, probably, but at least it might get the whole affair over with and, to some extent, I would be in charge of my own destiny.
Wishful thinking, I thought. Still, the only other option was to disappear off the face of the Earth, and that could involve leaving London. I couldn’t do that; I mean, I had responsibilities, and if I had time I’d remember what they were.
I suppose, if the truth was known, I was narked at being pushed around. And you should never do things just because you’re angry.
The first move was to set up a meet with Jo.
I wanted her to fill me in on the blank spots, and wanted to hear it from her, not anybody else. There was also the small matter of 250 smackeroos outstanding. And I was looking for real ones this time.
So, into action.
Firstly, I needed a woman. More specifically, I needed a woman’s voice, and Trippy’s place would have to do.
Plan A almost fell at the first fence, as Trippy and the rest of the squat seemed to have been having an end-of-season sale in Trippy’s medicine chest.
They were all sat on the floor of one of the sparsely-furnished bedrooms, the curtains drawn, watching EastEnders on a black-and-white telly, and they were eating Greek yoghurt out of a communal, family-sized Sainsbury’s tub. That combination would have softened my mind without recourse to proscribed substances.
There were five of them, I think; it was difficult to be precise in the gloom. I found Trippy by stepping on him.
‘Hey, man … easy. Tread soft.’
I knelt beside him and put my mouth as close to his ear as my nostrils would allow.
‘This is Earth calling Starship Trippy,’ I said. ‘Please respond.’
‘Hey, Angel. What’s your prob? Wanna snort? Oh, I forgot, you don’t, do you?’
‘Trippy, I need a woman.’ And I wished I’d bit my tongue off.
‘Hey – I remember them. They’re the curved ones …’
‘To make a phone call for me.’
‘Well, all right,’ he laughed. What could he have suspected?
‘Is anyone in the house straight?’ I used the term loosely, but Trippy knew what I meant.
‘Nicola is,’ Trippy slurred. ‘Well, fairly. That’s why we’re having a party; she’s got a job.’
I felt a hand on my knee. An attractive young blonde I hadn’t seen before was offering me a joint. I smiled and shook my head. I hadn’t noticed, but the room stank like a Lebanese spice rack.
‘That’s Nicola,’ said Trippy, so I smiled again. ‘She’s worried about keeping her works clean, and we don’t have any spare, so she’s staying low.’
Well, that was fairly straightforward. Nicola had no clean works – i.e. a fresh hypodermic (the Aids scare has a lot to answer for) – and so was staying on the dope: ‘stay low’ coming from one of the Government’s laughably ineffective drink/driving campaigns.
‘Hi, Nicola.’
‘Hi.’ Nicola sat down on the floor and slowly rolled over onto her back. With more hair, she could pass for Springsteen being playful in the dark.
‘So you’re the odd one out, eh? The one with the job.’
‘Yeah.’ Nicola exhaled with her eyes closed. ‘Start Monday.’
‘Doing what?’
‘Social worker.’
I should have guessed.
‘You wouldn’t like to do a bit of social work for me, would you?’
‘What did you have in mind, big boy?’
‘Make a phone call for me.’
A tall, thin guy I had seen in the house before crawled on all fours in front of the television to get at Nicola’s joint. One of the other zombies threw a shoe at him.
‘What’s it worth?’ said Nicola, ignoring the guy, who was creeping back across the room with her joint in his mouth. Well, I think it was his mouth. It was dark.
‘A tenner?’
‘I’d settle for a Big Mac.’
‘One call and I’ll make it a quarter-pounder with fries.’
‘Sold – to the man in the Biggles jacket.’
I took stock of my fur-lined leather jacket, which I had prized for years, and I didn’t see any problem. George Michael could have got away with it, but then he can get away without shaving. I decided not to rise to the bait.
‘Where’s the phone, Trip?’
Trippy took an age to sit upright.
‘Problemmmmm,’ he sighed. ‘It’s in the basement flat, and our friendly local councillor is out for the night. Flat’s closed and locked, man.’
‘Yale lock?’
Trippy nodded, then smiled.
‘Well, that’s never stopped us before, has it?’
I’ve never trusted Yale locks unless you remember to hit the dead switch, which few people do. You can’t blame the manufacturers. Likewise, I’ve never trusted anyone who says he can turn one over with a piece of plastic or a credit card. In the old days, before machine-made doors and draught-excluders, maybe, but not these days.
I use an old and trusted nail file, one of those ones with the curled end for digging deep into the cuticle. It’s well-worn now, mainly due to being pushed in and out of locks, but you can’t be arrested for carrying it. And if you have the knack and a light enough touch, you can just about ease back the spring enough to release the tongue. But why am I telling you all this? Just take my word for it.
It took us about two minutes to get into the basement flat, about five minutes for Nicola to shake off the giggles, and about another five for me to brief her as to what to say.
‘Now remember, if a man answers, say you want to speak to Jo. If he says she isn’t there, say you’ll come round and wait. Just bluff him out.’
‘But if this Jo answers, I’m to stick to the script, right?’
‘Right.’
And give her her due, she did.
‘Hello, is that Jo? ... Good, listen, I’ve got a message from Carol … Yes, Carol Flaxman. She wants to see you tomorrow … No, it has to be tomorrow … Seymour Place baths … Swimming baths … Swimming baths, tomorrow at 5.00 … She says she knows it’s difficult to get away, but this is really important and if you don’t come, then I think she’ll gatecrash your place ... I know, I know, but you know what she’s like … No, I’m just a friend ... No … Just be there, five o’clock … No, in the pool, she’ll be waiting … Okay, goodbye.’
Nicola hung up the local councillor’s phone and ran a hand through her hair.
‘How was that?’
‘Oscar-winning. What did she say?’
‘Well, she didn’t like the idea much, but she said she’d try.’
‘Great. I owe you a hamburger.’
Trippy began to sniff and hop from foot to foot. He was anxious to get out of the basement and back upstairs. Whether it was because he was a lousy burglar or because he was wasting valuable brain-damaging time, I couldn’t tell.
‘Let’s go, kids,’ I chirped.
‘Er … I’d better get back upstairs ...’ Trippy began.
‘Sure, sure,’ I said, waving him away. ‘Thanks for everything, it was a great help.’
‘Oh, yeah, right, good.’ He nodded to himself as he climbed the stairs, wondering what he’d helped with.
I didn’t have the heart to tell him or Nicola that I was worried that Jo’s phone would be tapped. He wouldn’t remember, and I hoped she wouldn’t ask nasty questions.
‘I’ll get my coat,’ she said.
I must have looked blank.
‘So we can go for a Big Mac,’ she said as if talking to an infant.
‘Right. Great. Let’s go.’
She took a couple of minutes to get her coat, wash her face and comb her hair. It really was a pleasant shade of blonde now I looked at it.
‘Where are you sleeping?’ she asked as we made the front door.
‘On Trippy’s floor, just for a few days.’
‘Is it comfortable?’
We stepped out on to the street and she walked alongside, eyes down, looking at the pavement.
‘Much as can be expected.’
‘Is Trippy a sound sleeper?’ I felt her hand rooting for mine in the pocket of my jacket.
‘Like a log.’
‘That’s useful.’
I’d been right; she wasn’t the inquisitive type. But that phone call was going to cost me more than a Big Mac.
Thank God British Telecom didn’t send bills like that.
I slept late that Friday. All the stresses of Thursday and then having to entertain Nicola had left me truly cream-crackered. I find that, though. When I have problems, they never keep me awake nights, I just sleep. It must be a sort of mental hibernation, a stress-induced torpor.
We hadn’t been disturbed too much by Trippy. At about 2.00 am he had fallen downstairs and slumped in a heap by the front door. Nicola had made me go and see if he was okay and I’d said yes he was, because I’d seen his eye move, and I’d left him there.
Nicola had gone out about 9.00 am saying she had to go on an executive management training course on How to Piss People About in advance of her new job. Would she see me tonight? Maybe. I can be really decisive sometimes.
I frittered away the morning and then got Armstrong wound up and headed towards the West End. I stopped at a pub I used rarely near the BBC and had a ploughman’s and a couple of orange juices, no alcohol, partly because I wanted to keep a clear head and partly to fit in with the cab-driver persona.
Then I went shopping down at Lillywhites and bought a pair of swimming shorts, a Speedo swimcap and a pair of swimmer’s goggles. There had been no point in looking for a towel at the squat, but I knew Seymour Place baths hired them out. So I was all set.
I still had time to kill, so I thought I’d make a couple of phone calls, and that meant employing the Middleditch gambit.
It’s quite simple, really. You pick a big office block that has a reception and preferably a switchboard near the front door. You draw up in your taxi (motorbikes work even better) and park right outside, making sure you are seen by the security man or the receptionist. Then you march in clutching a thick, sealed brown envelope on which is written ‘Mr Middleditch – By Hand’. (I carry one ready made in Armstrong’s glove compartment.) You announce that you want Mr Middleditch, and when they say there’s nobody there of that name, you ask if you can ‘ring the office’ to find out what’s going on. They always let you use a phone, and sometimes you get a private one in a booth or similar, and I’ve made many Stateside calls that way. I’ve even been brought cups of tea. One of these days, though, I’ll find an office where there really is a Mr Middleditch, and I’ll have to leave a well-wrapped paperback edition of The Story of O. It might almost be worth hanging around to see him open it.
Anyway, Mr Middleditch came through once more, and I got through to Lisabeth on Stuart Street. She calmly told me that the police had called round and that Nassim had been looking for me. Then she got more excited and told me that a Mrs Boatman had called from the National Insurance and was ever so attractive and charming. Oh yes, and Springsteen was okay but had been sick on the stairs. And no, I shouldn’t worry about it as Fenella had cleared it up before Frank and Salome had got home.
I risked another Middleditch and luckily caught Bunny at home. Had he heard any more about the Mimosa Club? No, he hadn’t, but as far as he knew there was no music on there still. He was going down to Soho later and he’d look in. Any messages for Nevil? Sod off, Bunny, but don’t say that to Nevil.
I waved at the receptionist, who had obviously forgotten about me, as I left, saying: ‘Sorry, the despatcher’s given me the wrong street.’ I haven’t paid for a phone call in years.
By 4.30 I was cruising round Seymour Place swimming pool, parking on the blind side as far as Sedgeley House was concerned. I had brought my bag with me, and I left it in Armstrong along with my wallet, spare cash and watch, just taking enough to pay for a ticket and a towel. In case anything went wrong, I was prepared to make a dash for Armstrong. I didn’t want to have to hang about waiting for the attendant to open lockers.
With the swimming cap and goggles on, I could hardly recognise myself, certainly not from a distance, and I also intended to be underwater for most of the time. Just to make sure, however, I moved quickly through the showers to poolside and dived in.
I’d got Nicola to say five o’clock because I knew the pool would be busy, with businessmen and secretaries dipping before heading home and a fair smattering of kids getting in practice for the school team. (The synchro swimmers get me. How do they smile with those nose clips on and one leg in the air? Moreover, why don’t they drown? I would.)
I did a length just to loosen up, and by the end of it I was desperate for a cigarette. I hadn’t realised how out of shape I was getting. Then I slipped over and did a leisurely backstroke back up the pool. This gave me a chance to check out the spectator balconies that overhang the two long sides of the water.
There were no spectators at all, which was a relief, and no-one in the water of a size or shape that could be Nevil. A Great White would have been less out of place.
I was hanging on to the ledge at the deep end, arms out in the crucifix position, when I saw her come out of the ladies’ changing rooms wearing a yellow-and-white-striped one-piece. Good choice, the yellow showing off her tan nicely.
She looked up and down the pool, then moved to the edge and trawled a toe to test the temperature to check that it really was the 82° the notice board on the way in had said. Then she turned and walked towards the deep end, turned again and did a perfect back flip, hardly denting the surface and coming up into a smooth breaststroke only a few feet away from me.
Three powerful strokes brought her to the rail, where she went straight into an underwater turn and headed down the pool. She’d been within a yard of me and not recognised me. So far, so good.
I followed her, using a slow breaststroke and keeping my face underwater as much as possible. She made the shallow end and stood up, plastering her hair back with her hands. She almost popped out of the swimsuit as I passed her and said, ‘Hello, Jo.’
I turned without stopping and crawled back to the deep end, looking back as I breathed to make sure she was following. She was a good swimmer – better than me – and we touched the rail together.
‘I had a funny feeling you’d be around here somewhere,’ she said.
‘You must be psychic.’ I pushed up my goggles to get a better look at her.
‘No, I just remembered you mentioned the baths when we first met.’
She trod water slowly, her hands clasped behind her back. You can do that only if you are really relaxed and have a clean conscience.
‘Actually, it’s your wonderful memory I wanted to talk to you about.’
‘I know, I still owe you 50 pounds.’
‘250, actually, now the police have it. It’s they who are keen for you to remember where you got it.’
She stopped treading water and reached for the rail. She put her head back and looked up at the ceiling.
‘Where’s Jack?’ No reaction. ‘He’s around somewhere, isn’t he?’
Jo put her arms straight up and sank to the bottom, kicked off and came up shaking her head. Thinking time. She still wasn’t talking, though.
‘Come on, Jo, loosen up. I’ve been primed with stolen cash from a post-office raid set up to finance your old man’s own version of early day closing at the nick. I’ve been dragged in by the Old Bill twice, and your pet grizzly bear Nevil is making life very uncomfortable for people I know. You got me into this, lady. Help me get out.’
‘What can I say? You’re over 21. Well over.’
‘You know you are being watched.’
‘Yes, but not all the time. They haven’t got the manpower. Too many villains about.’
That was rich. I began to think she was enjoying this. ‘Well, they missed you at Lee Metford Road yesterday.’
That shook her.
‘How do you know?’
‘I saw you and then I saw Mrs Scamp. She doesn’t think too highly of you, does she?’
‘I’ve taken her Jack away, that’s why.’
‘I thought the High Court had done that.’
She shot me a look, then kicked off from the wall of the pool, and I followed as best I could. As soon as the water was waist high, she stood and walked to the side near to the female showers. I reached her just as she was about to hoist herself out. I put a hand on her arm.
‘Jo, all I want to know is: what have I got into and how do I get out? Life’s too short to have to watch your back all the time.’
She put her hands on the side and straightened her arms and held herself there. It’s a good trick. She was fit, I’ll give her that.
‘Just stay away from me, will you? I’ll try and get you some cash if that’s what worrying you.’
‘It isn’t. I want to know why Nevil is after me.’
‘No, you don’t.’ She was still hanging there, apparently without strain.
‘I’ll keep asking.’
‘That wouldn’t be clever.’
Then she was out of the water, her feet slapping towards the showers.
I got changed in double quick time, but she must have beaten me. There was no sign of her in the entrance foyer, nor in the street outside. I reckoned it would take her three or four minutes to get back to her flat, but maybe it wasn’t a good idea to hang around the neighbourhood.
I hurried round the corner to where I’d parked Armstrong and climbed aboard.
I dug a comb out of my bag and adjusted the driving mirror so I could sort out my hair before it dried frizzy.
The mirror was full of a huge, white-shirted arm coming from somewhere in the back seat to encircle my throat.
Nevil had just found me.
Nevil choked me until I almost passed out, then he lifted me out of the driver’s seat and bundled me into the back of Armstrong, hitting me on the back of the neck with what could have been an anvil but was probably his fist. And then, when I was really unconscious, he poked my eyes out.
Well, that’s what I thought when I came round. I couldn’t see anything, so it seemed a logical assumption. Then my sense of smell came into play, and I could smell motor oil, and if I concentrated, I could feel the cloth wrapped tightly around my head. Then I began to realise that my hands were tied behind my back and my legs were also secured to something. I thought it might be a chair, but there didn’t seem to be a back to it, and it was smooth and cold.
There was no time to think of anything else. The pain in my head came then, and I felt sick. Then I heard somebody say, ‘He’s come round, Jack,’ and the blindfold was ripped away, along with a chunk of hair.
My eyes watered with pain, with chlorine from the swimming pool and with oil from the rag I’d been blindfolded with. Slowly, Nevil’s chest came into focus. It seemed to go on forever. He had his shirtsleeves rolled up and his arms folded like piled-up hocks of ham. On top of a neck the diameter of a drainage pipe was a head with a totally expressionless, moonlike face. I looked into his eyes and they reminded me of the saying: ‘The lights were on but there was nobody home.’
Nevil did not look at me, even though his eyes were pointed roughly in my direction. His head was cocked to one side as if awaiting instructions.
I turned my head slowly, and now my throat started to hurt. I wasn’t sure I could speak even if I had anything to say.
Jack Scamp was ignoring me, but I had a feeling my luck couldn’t last.
He was zipping up a small, brown suitcase, which he placed under the table he was standing at, next to another one. There was not much else to look at in the room. There was one chair, a camp bed with one pillow and one blanket, and several cardboard boxes, some with groceries in, some full of rubbish; beer cans, Macdonald’s cartons, and so on.
I tried to swallow and it hurt. I tried to move my hands and they hurt, but I established that they weren’t tied, they were taped at the wrists. My feet were secured by a length of electric cable, which could have come from a table lamp. The cold, smooth thing I was sitting on was a beer keg, which explained why my bum hurt as well.
Jack Scamp had a cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth. He drew on it, then took it out of his mouth and nipped the end off before dropping it on the floor. Prison habits die hard.
I recognized him from the wedding photograph old Ma Scamp had flashed in front of me. If anything, he looked younger and fitter; he’d certainly kept himself in trim, although the hair was thinning and he seemed to be cultivating one long strand on the right side that could be plastered over the scalp. I’ve always thought that much more undignified than going bald.
He was certainly no taller than me, and he stood in an instinctive boxer’s crouch. He was wearing a Levi’s sweatshirt and a pair of jeans without showing a belly-bulge between them; something few men over 45 can do.
‘I’ve been looking forward to seeing you,’ he said, coming up close so I could smell him. He gave off a mixture of sweat and sex. I’ve known it happen to people who get excited easily. He probably had trouble with his glands.
‘There’s been a mistake,’ I croaked. ‘I don’t know you.’
‘But I know you, sonny.’
Why do bullies always call people sonny? I’d noticed that with Malpass. And where was he when I needed him?
‘I’ve never seen you before in my life,’ I said, not believing for a minute that honesty was going to be the best policy.
‘But you’ve seen my wife, haven’t you, you turd.’ He yelled this in case I had trouble hearing him from six inches away.
I recoiled so much I thought I was going to topple backwards, but the cable round my legs kept me anchored to the beer keg.
‘Thought you could get your slimy little end away with my Josephine, didn’t you?’
For a moment I thought he’d flipped and reckoned he was Napoleon, when it clicked he was talking about Jo. I was right about him having flipped, though.
‘I don’t …’
‘Don’t what? Don’t lie? Don’t like women? That’s not what I’ve heard, and I’ve been asking around about you. You’re Jack-the-lad, not me. Nobody’s ever called me that. You’re the fancy music man, aren’t you? The smoothy who drives around in a cab. What sort of a man does that, eh? You’re not a kid, you should know better than to sniff round other men’s wives.’
Well, this was a turn-up, getting lectured on morality by a South London hood.
‘There’s one thing I can’t stand, and that’s messing around with other men’s wives. I never did it. I’d never do that to anybody, and I don’t like it happening to me.’
He was so close now I could count his teeth. I was seeing his pock-marked face through a red film of chlorine irritation. I could still smell it, and his breath and his sweat. I retched down the front of my T-shirt and Scamp stepped back, but it didn’t stop his flow.
‘I think about these things all the time, see.’ He put a forefinger to his temple to illustrate thinking, just in case I wasn’t following.
‘I know I have to watch Josephine, because men are always after her.’ He began to step from one foot to the other, more like a boxer than ever. ‘She can’t help it, that’s why I have to look after her. That’s what I do.’ He paused and nodded his head. ‘Yeah, that’s what I do in life, I look after my own.’
Then he suddenly went up on his toes, and both hands flashed out and clipped me on both cheeks. The blows were not that hard, he hadn’t even made proper fists, but by God they were fast.
‘Looking after my own, that’s what I do,’ Scamp continued as if nothing had happened. ‘And I do it so that people know I’ve been around and I’ve kept my eyes open.’
‘You’ve got the wrong bloke,’ I said, tasting blood. My lip, I think.
‘Oh no I haven’t. Your name is Angel, you’re the one with the cab, the one who plays in a band. I know you’ve been seeing my Josephine and I’ve heard you brag about it, you cocky little bastard. Now nobody, but nobody, does that to Jack Scamp and gets away with it.
He was back in front of me, prodding me with a forefinger.
‘I have a position to keep up, sonny, and I do it by leaving little messages so that people know I’m on top of the situation. Your friend Kenny was one of my messages, except that Nevil here did that one. He wanted to do you too, on account of what one of your girlfriends did to him.’ I heard Nevil breathe loudly. ‘But I said no, I had to do this one personally. Bring him.’
Scamp turned to reach down into one of the boxes of groceries that were scattered over the floor, but I didn’t see what he was after as Nevil was lifting me up by the shoulders.
He picked me up and clear of the beer keg so that the flex holding my legs came off clear but it stayed on my ankles, acting as a hobble. Nevil just walked with me about a foot off the floor until I hit the table with my stomach.
That seemed to have been what he had in mind, as he put a paw on the back of my neck and bent me forward until my face was squished into the table top.
I felt him rip the tape off my hands, but he kept my left arm in a hammer-lock. My right arm, he forced around in front of me and pressed it hard onto the table, so that the fingers splayed out just in front of my face.
Scamp came around and stood in my line of vision. The hammer-lock kept my head down, but I could see he was carrying a bottle of whisky by the neck.
‘I’m going to enjoy making you one of my messages,’ said Scamp. ‘As soon as I heard about you, I promised myself I’d make sure you retired early from the orchestra pit.’
He didn’t smile, or laugh like maniacs are supposed to. He just smashed the bottle down across my hand. He did it twice before the bottle broke.
I would have laughed, because the fucking loony thought I was a pianist. I would have, if I hadn’t fainted.
‘No, it is him. I know him, he’s a mate, probably just had a few and he’s sleeping it off. He won’t mind, honest. Come on, he won’t ...’
I knew the voice from somewhere. It seemed important to remember from where.
Bunny. It was Bunny, my old mate, me auld mucker, my pal, the man I would trust with … with … well, he’d have to do.
‘He’s crook, I tell yer.’
This was another voice, one I didn’t know, and there was something odd about it. It was female, but that was okay, I could remember them. It was also Australian; that was it. Maybe a Qantas jet had landed and the hosties were on the rampage. If they were, Bunny would have found them.
I hauled myself up from whatever I was lying on. It was the floor of the back of Armstrong. Door-handle; that was my next big objective. Now I was really in control.
Tap-tap.
What the hell? Bunny was rapping on the window. ‘Hey, Angel, you’ve got a fare. Let’s roll and hit the spots.’
‘I’m telling you, he’s crook, sick, ill. Strewth, can’t you see?’
Good for you, lady. I’ll never be sarky about Young Doctors again.
‘He’s had a drink or three, that’s all.’ Thanks, Bunny, I owe you. ‘Come on, Angel-face, open up.’
I grabbed for the door-handle, as much to steady myself as anything else. I didn’t seem to be able to move my legs properly. My hand didn’t seem to be working either.
Just as I flicked off the lock, Bunny must have pulled from the outside. My hand seemed to explode, and I think I must have screamed.
Anyway, there I was lying on the pavement on my back, looking up the skirt of a very tall Qantas air hostess, who was looking down at me in equal amazement.
Of all the opportunities I’d had for a good chat-up line, simply croaking ‘Hospital’ wasn’t one of my best.
Still, you can’t win ‘em all.
One or two now and then would be nice, though.
Bunny drove. I sat in the back with Rayleen (couldn’t you have guessed?), and she made me put my right hand in her lap while she ran her fingertips over most of the rest of my body looking for other injuries. If my right hand hadn’t felt as if somebody had grafted a bunch of bananas onto it and then dipped it in acid, it would have been a pleasant experience. Rayleen didn’t find anything else broken, though she seemed convinced I’d been run over by a steamroller.
Bunny kept talking as he drove, but I had no idea what he was saying. I didn’t really have much idea of what was going on at all. I remember seeing lots of traffic lights, mostly red ones, zip by, and then the lights of Goodge Street underground station, some of which were still working.
Then we were staggering into a hospital casualty department, and I was grateful Bunny was there – they can be dangerous places on a Friday night. Rayleen helped too, or rather her uniform did, giving us a pseudo-official status that meant we could jump the queue. The fact that she could swear like a trooper and at one point told a nurse that I was a security guard escaping from a hijack attempt, also helped.
I was lucky, of course. They always say that if they think you’ve been in a fight, although it was still short of chucking-out time.
A harassed young intern assisted by a cool, pretty nurse (called Ruth, from Stanmore) told me that I was bucking the statistical trend by having three fingers smashed between the knuckle and the phalangeal joint. He told me that the central finger always goes first, followed by the ring finger and then, if you’re lucky, the index. The little finger usually escapes, as mine had. And there had been no damage to any arteries; the small amount of blood there was had come from minor cuts from the broken bottle.
The intern cleaned me up, then made me lie on a trolley in a curtained cubicle. The nurse (just 22 and looking forward to her holiday in Greece) checked my hand for bits of glass and then applied an impression splint. That would come off in two days, she told me, and be replaced by a spatula splint, and yes, she would be on duty on Sunday.
She’d given me a shot to kill the pain, and it was making me drowsy. I asked if I could see the people who’d brought me in, and after a few minutes, Bunny and Rayleen appeared at the bedside.
‘What time is it?’ I asked. ‘Oh, and thanks for the lift.’
‘Going on 11.00, and don’t mention it, it was your diesel,’ said Bunny cheerfully.
‘I had a bag in the cab,’ I said, thinking it was important.
‘I know, I was driving the both of you,’ quipped Bunny, doing a quick Groucho Marx walk around the bed. Rayleen looked at him as if he’d dropped from behind peeling wallpaper.
Bunny straightened up and took my wallet out of his back pocket. He flipped it on my chest.
‘There’s no cash left, you’ve been caned. No watch either, if you were wondering.’
That was nice of Nevil. He’d provided me with a cover story – I was supposed to look as if I’d been mugged. Then again, I had. Two hundred travelling money plus two hundred in bad rent money, a watch, my building society account book, three hours of my life and a few digital bones. Well and truly mugged.
‘They left the tapes in Armstrong, that’s one thing,’ said Bunny. ‘Oh – and they didn’t take your swimming trunks either.’
‘Who’s Armstrong?’ asked Rayleen, reasonably enough.
‘The taxi we came in,’ answered Bunny honestly.
‘Why was he wearing swimming trunks?’
‘The sunroof leaks, you wombat. How should I know?’
‘I thought you said he was a friend.’
‘He is. I drove him here, didn’t I?’
Rayleen raised her eyebrows to the heavens and reached into her clutch bag for a pack of cigarettes.
‘Not in here, I’m afraid.’ It was the intern again, this time holding a clipboard and looking official. ‘I’ve got some questions for you, if you’re up to them.’
‘I’d really like a smoke first,’ I croaked, laying it on with a trowel.
‘Entrance hall, if you really must. I’ll be back.’
I swung my legs off the trolley and sat up. My hand throbbed, and with the quickly-drying plaster, it looked like an Indian club sticking out from my shirt sleeve.
With my left hand I fumbled inside my wallet. My driving licences were still there and the odd bits of paper you always accumulate. The card with Malpass’s phone number was still there.
‘Jacket?’ I asked vaguely.
‘We left it in the car,’ said Rayleen.
‘Armstrong’s keys were in the pocket,’ said Bunny.
‘Good. Let’s go have a smoke.’
It’s still the easiest way to get thrown out of hospital. In fact, the three of us, all with duty-free Marlboros well alight, were shown the door in no uncertain terms. Once outside, I threw my cigarette away.
‘Where’s Armstrong?’
‘Round the corner in the space marked Consultant Gynaecologist.’
‘Thanks. Want a lift somewhere?’
‘Nah, that’s okay.’ Bunny put an arm round Rayleen’s waist. ‘We’ll get a minicab. They’re cheaper.’
‘And more reliable,’ I said.
‘You can’t let him go off like that,’ hissed Rayleen loudly. Then she made a fist under Bunny’s chin. ‘And don’t give me any crap about a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do. The only thing a man’s got to do in this world is stand up when he pees.’
Bunny had found a philosopher. They were in for an interesting night.
‘You’re right, Rayleen,’ I said. ‘He can’t let me go – until he gives me my keys.’
‘Oh, sure,’ said Bunny, fumbling in his pocket.
‘And a couple of quid; I’ve got the munchies.’
Bunny handed over a fiver, and as I walked away I heard him whisper to Rayleen.
‘He’s hungry. That’s a bad sign.’
It took me ages to work out how to get Armstrong’s door open, but thank God the ignition is on the left. It then took the rest of the century to get my leather jacket on over the plaster. I was shivering and sweating at the same time. I wasn’t fit to drive. ‘I’m not fit to drive,’ I told myself. I was repeating myself as well.
By using my right knee to steady the wheel when I changed gear, I managed to get Armstrong out of the hospital car park. I was tempted to call it a day there and then, pull over and have a kip, but my stomach reminded me that I hadn’t thrown it a bone since the ploughman’s at lunchtime, and it had been quite an eventful day.
There was a fried chicken place open on Baker Street; about the only thing that was. It wasn’t a Kentucky Fried, more a Bayswater Sauté, but it had seats, and the two black guys on duty in the bright red uniforms were so bored they took no notice of me. I ordered a double portion of chicken and a 7-Up and went to a table while they went back to the late movie on Channel 4 on a portable television.
The chicken came in a box, and the plastic cutlery, salt, pepper and freshen-up tissue all came in sealed envelopes designed for people with two hands. I opened them with my teeth and found that most had more flavour than the chicken.
It wasn’t a good place to sit and sort out your future. I sat and looked at my reflection and that of the formica table in the window. Outside, Baker Street was closed down for the weekend except for the Barracuda Club, which had taken over from the original School Dinners restaurant after it moved across the road to usurp the No 34 Wine Bar. It was good to think that life’s rich pageantry continued even on Baker Street, a much neglected London thoroughfare remembered only by devotees of Sherlock Holmes (now the Abbey National) and Gerry Rafferty (who probably banks there).
I made a decision, or rather I hedged my bets.
I would ring Malpass. If he was there, I’d tell him about Nevil and what had happened. And where Jack Scamp was hiding out. That ought to be enough to bargain myself clear of the whole mess.
Oh yes, I knew where he was, even though I’d been unconscious going in and coming out, because I’d been there before. In fact, I’d suspected before tonight. Dead wise after the event, that’s me.
If he wasn’t home, I’d go back to the squat and keep my head down for a few days. Well, at least until Sunday, when I was on a promise at the hospital with Ruth and some new bandages. By that time, I guessed, Scamp would have got clear. After all, he wasn’t packing suitcases for fun.
Suitcases. Abroad. French francs. I’d seen a 100-franc note on the mantelpiece at old Ma Scamp’s place. Scamp was planning a bunk to France. My, but I was sharp. I wondered if Malpass had any vacancies.
I found a phone box and dialled his number. That was my first mistake.
He answered, and I said who I was. That was my second.
How many are you allowed?
Malpass told me to meet him in Bateman Street. I wasn’t too keen – there would still be plenty of punters wandering about even at one o’clock in the morning. (‘Do you know what the fucking time is?’ – ‘No, Jack Scamp’s stolen my watch.’ That had got his attention.)
Was I sure he was hiding in the back room of the Mimosa?’
Are frogs waterproof? Of course I was. I knew an empty beer keg when I was tied to one, and the last time I’d seen that particular one there had been a young punk called Emma sitting on it nostrilling certain noxious and probably illegal substances.
Was I sure it was Scamp? No, it was Lord Lucan in drag. Could I describe him? Yes. He’s the only person I know who looks like his passport photograph, and he breaks people’s hands. Oh yeah, that’s him.
I said I had no intention of being within a couple of light years of the Mimosa when Plod and the SWAT team burst in. Malpass said I had a pretty clear-cut choice. I could either meet him near there or he’d have me picked up as a material witness and see how I enjoyed sharing a cell with Jack Scamp. That seemed to me to be a fairly convincing argument, and I was too tired to put up much of a fight.
Soho was quieter than I’d thought it would be. A light rain shower had hurried the last of the rubber-neck tourists off the streets, and the restaurants and sex shows (mostly on video these days) were switching off their come-hither lights. There would still be a bit of clublife here and there through the alleyways, and the all-night gambling schools in Chinatown, though those were usually reserved for the Oriental abacus-for-brains fanatic. But on the whole, Soho was quiet enough for choir practice these days.
I parked Armstrong half on the pavement on Bateman Street, a cut-through little road running west-east, whereas most of Soho is north-south, with a pub on each corner and new shiny offices where once there were honest porn merchants and working girls plying their trade.
I felt oddly naked without my watch; I always do. It’s an affectation I have. Another one is getting myself into situations and then wondering what the hell I was doing there. I decided to give Malpass another five minutes and then I’d disappear. When I thought five minutes were up, I decided to give him another five. I had nothing else planned for the evening.
Oddly enough, I didn’t feel nervous. Not then, anyway. I had moved the rubber-handled wrench from the right side of the driver’s seat to the left, but I knew its reassurance was mostly psychological. I could never get a decent swing with my left hand, but at best I would use it only to repel boarders. I had no intention of leaving Armstrong, and had kept the engine ticking over, as there was no way I could start him up in a hurry.
I had killed the lights, and my night vision was well adjusted when he arrived. He almost ruined it by parking right up behind me and flashing his headlights once. He made sure I knew it was him by flicking on his interior light and waving me towards him. There was no sign of any other cars or tanks or armoured personnel carriers and no indication that the police Stukas were waiting to come in and bomb the last pockets of resistance.
Malpass’s car was a five-year-old Vauxhall that had seen better days, but then haven’t we all. The interior was still waiting for its first clean, and the upholstery felt as if it had been textured in buff nicotine.
I sat in the passenger seat and nursed my plaster cast. Malpass looked at it and offered me a cigarette and then a light.
‘You look like you’ve had a right trousering,’ he said succinctly.
‘Nicely put,’ I said, and drew on the cigarette until it made me light-headed.
‘How did you find him?’
‘He found me.’ And I told him what had happened.
‘You were lucky, considering you were set up,’ he said philosophically.
‘You reckon?’
‘Don’t you? You’re not thick. Do you really think Nevil was just out for a stroll when he saw your cab? The wife must have guessed it was you and tipped him off. She’s used you before, to get her stuff back, to establish an alibi for when Jack was going over the wall. Why not again?’
‘But why? Just to get me off her back?’
‘No, to keep Jack happy. He’s been out for nearly a week. Why do you think he’s still around? He’s been waiting to get even with you, that’s all. She probably decided it was best to get it over and done with, and then Jack could finally skip town.’
I was speechless, but my brain must have been ticking loudly.
‘Didn’t think she could do a thing like that? Not to you?’ He shook his head slowly. ‘You should spend less time contemplating your navel and more time studying human nature, sonny. Like me.’
Sonny again.
‘Well, you have more spare time on your hands, Mr Malpass.’ It was a cheap shot but the only one I could come up with.
‘Where do you think he’s headed?’ I asked.
‘Boulogne, almost certainly.’
‘Why Boulogne?’ But it explained the 100-franc note I’d seen at Ma Scamp’s and, come to think of it, the wad of francs I’d spotted in Bill Stubbly’s wallet when I met him in the bank. Was it only yesterday? Well, it was the day before yesterday by now.
‘It’s the only place he’s ever been outside this country. In fact, it’s one of the few places he’s ever been outside London. He used to go regular with his ma when he was a nipper. His dad’s buried there, you see.’
‘What was wrong with Woolwich Crematorium?’
‘It probably wasn’t working in May 1940. Jack Scamp senior was killed just before Dunkirk. Young Jack was born in early ‘41 and never knew him. Brought up by his ma right from the start.’
‘That maybe explains a lot,’ I said, reaching for another cigarette.
‘Explains perhaps, but knowing why he turned out a wrong ‘un doesn’t make it easier to forgive and forget.’
‘You really hate him, don’t you?’
Malpass looked away.
‘Like nothing else on earth, young Angel, but I don’t expect you to understand. Unless the likes of Jack Scamp are put away for good, law and order will never have any credibility. He laughs at us, the courts, the judges. He just doesn’t care what he does or who he hurts. You should know that. No remorse, not a shred of guilty feeling. If he hasn’t already killed somebody, then it’s only a matter of time. He’s known as Mad Jack inside, you know.’
‘I can see why,’ I said sourly. ‘So, where’s the big manhunt, then? Why haven’t we seen wanted posters up for this dangerous loony now he’s on the run?’
‘Priorities.’
‘Yeah, Jo said that.’
‘What?’
‘She said you didn’t have the manpower to watch them round the clock.’
Malpass made a snorting sound.
‘She’s laughing at us too, but she’s right. Scamp had done 13 months of a two-year stretch and he could’ve got out in a coupla months more if he’d kept his nose clean. So we get him back and he gets maybe an extra six months for going over the wall. Small stuff. He’ll be out again this time next year.’
‘If you get him back, that is.’
‘Oh, I’ll get him. If you’re sure he’s in the Mimosa, that is.’
‘He is, or at least he was a few hours ago. He must have been hiding in the back room behind the stage all the time. That’s why there’s been no music on for a week.’ It was also how he’d overheard me and Kenny the barman talking and drawn his own paranoid conclusions, which had led to both me and Kenny wishing we’d taken out medical insurance.
‘You reckon that this Stubbly guy is in with the Scamp mob?’
‘I doubt it; probably just scared.’
I didn’t tell Malpass about Stubbly’s trip to the bank getting French currency, and I bet myself there had been more than the one I’d seen. But it did explain a lot, especially how Stubbly had managed to keep the Mimosa trouble-free over the years. He had influential friends.
‘Well, we’ll see about that,’ Malpass threatened.
‘What’s the plan, then? Remember, I’m here under duress.’
‘My bet is that Nevil has taken the girl already – maybe Dover to Folkestone. Or they could’ve got a plane to Paris; nobody would have stopped them. Jack’ll go a different way. If they use a ferry, he’ll go hovercraft. There’ll probably be a car round here somewhere, waiting for him to pick up. He’ll drive himself and leave just before dawn. Quietest time, you see. Won’t get picked up as a suspected drunk-driver; he’ll look like a rep getting an early start.’
‘On a Saturday?’ It took me a while to work out that it was now Saturday.
‘Even better, go as a tourist, what the hell. You know as well as I do, everybody watches what comes into ports these days, not what goes out.’
Malpass put another cigarette in his mouth but didn’t light it. He was looking ahead again, not focusing on anything particular.
My hand was throbbing, and light-headedness was giving way to a headache that made my left eyebrow twitch.
‘Nobody’s been past here for a good 15 minutes,’ said Malpass suddenly. ‘It seems quiet enough.’
‘So what’s the plan, Mr Malpass? Your plan, that is, not theirs.’
‘You show me exactly where this place is and we wait for him to show. If he doesn’t, we kick the door down.’
He reached into the back seat and picked up a briefcase, one of the old upright ones schoolmasters used to favour. He opened the clip, resting the case on his knees.
‘Where do we meet the others?’ I asked, feeling suddenly bilious.
‘What others?’
Malpass removed a rubberised torch from the case, tested it once, then put it on the dashboard. Then he took out a black leather hip holster, and from that, a metallic-dull revolver with a barrel about three inches long. He broke the chamber, which opened sideways, and counted the bullets.
‘I told you this was personal,’ was all he said.
I could have screamed and kicked and refused to go. I could have threatened to hold my breath until I went blue. I could have called a policeman. I did the fourth most stupid thing; I went along with it.
‘We’ll take the cab,’ ordered Malpass. ‘Drive up and down a couple of times, check the area.’
Yes, sir.
I not only drove, I pointed out the darkened entrance to the Mimosa. I’d be a Special Constable before you could say ‘fuzz.’ Then I quartered the block and pointed out the fire exit, which was a battered red door in between a Greek restaurant and a graphic art studio.
‘Is it ever used?’
‘Never been known. The exit is by the Ladies and usually blocked with beer crates.’
‘That’s illegal,’ said Malpass, but as he was in the back of Armstrong, I couldn’t see if he was serious or not.
‘Then slap the back of somebody else’s legs,’ I said. ‘Not mine.’
I did two more lefts and then stopped about 30 yards down the street from the club. There were cars parked down both sides even if I’d wanted to get closer, which I didn’t.
Armstrong ticked over. There was no other traffic, there were no other sounds. For a minute, I thought my luck had changed and something good had happened, like Malpass had had a heart attack and I had a corpse in the back.
‘All right, this’ll do.’
Bugger. The sod still breathed.
‘Do for what, Mr Malpass?’ What I’d really meant to say was: can I go home now?
‘You stay here and keep the road blocked; nobody’ll get past you. I’ll go in and see if Jack’s still there. If he comes quietly, I’ll come out and signal.’
‘And if he doesn’t come quietly?’
‘I reckon he will.’
I gripped Armstrong’s wheel – not a totally impressive gesture with only one hand – and took a deep breath. Time to assert myself. Now or never; the situation was well out of control already.
‘I want it understood, Mr Malpass,’ I said as evenly as I could, ‘that I’m not here.’
‘That’s okay, sonny, I hear what you’re saying.’
(Rule of Life No 279: people who say, ‘I hear what you’re saying,’ really mean they didn’t want you to raise the subject in the first place.)
My mouth had gone very dry and my bladder suddenly seemed very full. None of these symptoms seemed to affect Malpass. He climbed out of Armstrong on my side and stood over me until I pushed down my window.
He had a black trench coat on and his right hand was deep inside the right pocket. In his left hand he held the torch.
‘Just stay here until I come out. You’ll keep the street blocked, and if you see any pedestrians wandering about, tell ‘em to piss off. Once I’m out, you can disappear and we’ll say no more about it.’
He wasn’t looking at me as he spoke; his eyes were fixed on the tatty door of the Mimosa. He was breathing deeply and exhaling loudly. I wondered if John Wayne ever had to.
‘What if Nevil shows up?’ I had a bad thought. Then I had a worse one. ‘What if he’s in there?’
‘No way.’ Malpass shook his head but still concentrated on the faded yellow door. ‘They wouldn’t risk travelling together.’
‘What if he’s already skipped?’ I was clutching at straws. ‘What’s to say he hasn’t skipped already? I don’t know he’s still there.’
‘He will be. He was always an early bird, was Jack. Did most of his naughties just before dawn. Early to bed, early to rise, early to steal, that’s Jack. Human nature, you see. Study human nature.’
And with that he stepped across Armstrong’s headlights and walked towards the Mimosa, right hand in his pocket.
I hadn’t asked him how he thought he was going to get in, and for one terrible minute I thought he was going to shoot the lock and kick the door in. No such dramatics. He produced what looked like a bunch of keys and very quickly had the door open, but he didn’t go in immediately. He paused, looked up the street past Armstrong and went into a crouch.
He had seen something I should have, which was a car turning in from Soho Square and coming up behind me.
My right foot hovered over the accelerator pedal and I balanced Armstrong on the clutch. I wasn’t as convinced as Malpass that Nevil was out of harm’s way. Seeing him lying in a coffin with a stake through his heart might have gone some way to convince me.
The car drew up slowly behind me and stopped. I don’t know what else I expected; after all, I was the one blocking the street.
From the shape of its lights, I guessed it was one of the small Peugeots. I relaxed a little. Surely Nevil couldn’t fit in one of those?
The driver pipped his horn, almost apologetically. I couldn’t blame him; nobody likes to pick an argument with a London cabbie. Then a posh voice came out of the window: ‘What’s going on?’
In my mirror I could see a woman in the car as well. It was late and maybe she wanted to get home, or to a hotel, or maybe a car park.
I pulled my window down and twisted round so I could stick my head out.
‘Geerrrahtoffit!’ I yelled. ‘Ain’t you got eyes? Can’t you see there’s been an accident?’
The driver didn’t need any prompting. He put the Peugeot into reverse and disappeared, one of the millions not wanting to get involved. Maybe Malpass had something about human nature after all.
When I looked back to the Mimosa there was no sign of him, but the door was open.
If I had any sense at all, I would have left then. Of course, if I’d really had any sense, I wouldn’t have been there in the first place. But what proved conclusively that too many of the little grey cells had finally dissolved to mush was the fact that I still stayed there after I heard the shooting.
I knew what it was immediately. I suppose I’d half-expected it; seeing Malpass’s pistol, the rest was almost auto-suggestion.
But even as I heard it, I knew it was not a revolver. Not that I’m any sort of expert, but I had misspent much of a happy youth in the ‘Feeling lucky, punk?’ school of cinema, and I could tell Clint Eastwood’s Magnum from, say, the Magnificent Seven’s Colt .45s, blindfolded. (There was never any blood when people got shot in The Magnificent Seven. Ever noticed that?)
This was much more of a cannon type of thump, almost like a distant firecracker, and it was quickly followed by a second.
I pulled the window down again and stuck my head out. I felt I ought to call out to Malpass or maybe go and see if he was okay. On reflection, I decided to let him come to me. And as it turned out, staying inside Armstrong was just about the cleverest thing I did that night.
When Malpass did emerge, only a few seconds after the shots, it was dramatic enough to make me forget my churning stomach.
The door of the Mimosa was flung back and Malpass stood there framed in it. I thought for a moment he was gathering his coat tails around him, like a woman would gather a long skirt, but it wasn’t that at all. He was clutching his right leg with both hands, and that was how he tried to run across the street, like some rubber-legged Vaudeville comedian.
He yelled something as he ran/hobbled towards a parked sports car, but I just sat there hypnotised.
Then Jack Scamp appeared from inside the Mimosa, nattily dressed in white shirt, dark tie and dark blazer. He could have been anyone or anything stepping out after a night’s wining and dining. Or course, the sawn-off shotgun he was reloading was a bit of a giveaway, though.
Malpass had made it across the street, about 80 feet or so in front of Armstrong. As he reached the parked sports car he went into a rolling dive, still clutching his leg, and bounced himself off the bonnet and over the other side. As he turned, the leg was straight up in the air, a position I’d only ever seen Springsteen get into voluntarily. Then he was gone from my field of vision, down behind the sports car.
He made it just in time, for Scamp had reloaded and fired again. Both barrels, I presumed, as there was only one crump, and the effect on the sports car was dramatic. Most of its soft top simply came away, but the whole car seemed to move sideways.
Scamp maybe said something to himself then, like ‘Damn’ or even ‘Blast’; the sort of thing you would say to yourself when you’d just missed blowing a policeman’s goolies off with an illegal weapon.
If Scamp did say something, I couldn’t hear it. He just went about the business of reloading again, breaking open the shotgun and reaching into the pocket of his jacket for more shells.
I didn’t know whether he’d killed Malpass, or whether he was taking it out on sports cars in general. I could relate to that; I mean, there’s so little leg room in most of them. All I did know was that Scamp took a few steps forward into the street while stuffing home fresh cartridges. As he did so, he was directly in line with Armstrong’s radiator.
At this point I did three things. First, and most importantly, I went out of my mind. Then I turned on Armstrong’s headlights. Then I found first gear and stomped on the accelerator.
The design of the FX4 taxicab is about 30 years old now, and it was never really planned to make them more aerodynamic than, say, a brick at the best of times. In first gear from a standing start, on the level, they can’t make more than about 15 miles an hour, and they scream a bit doing that. But they are heavy, and as fragile as a Centurion tank. Caught in the headlights, Scamp didn’t turn a hair. He calmly snapped the sawn-off closed and swivelled it from the hip towards me.
Some people I know would revel in being able to say they looked straight down the barrel of a loaded gun. I can’t, because I ducked down as low as I could, controlling Armstrong’s wheel with just my left hand, the injured right tucked between my legs.
Oh yes, and I suppose I’d better come clean. I had my eyes shut.
I think I was probably screaming as well, but if I was, I didn’t yell anything memorable. I heard the shotgun pellets hit the bonnet and the windscreen like hailstones on a tin roof, and for a second I wondered if I should punch a hole in the glass like they do in the movies. But then I decided I had broken enough hands that night.
And then there was another sound that I didn’t like to think about at all, but that I presumed was Jack Scamp hailing his last London cab.
I felt the nearside wheel go over something, and as there were no more shots, I opened my eyes. The street ahead was clear, so I slowed and risked a look in the mirror.
What was left of Jack Scamp was lying across the middle of the road, face down, about 50 feet behind me. I put my forehead on the steering-wheel and exhaled slowly. When I looked up into the mirror again, he was moving, crawling towards something behind him.
The bastard just didn’t know when to quit, did he? So there was nothing else for it but Rule of Life No 4: never hit a man when he’s down; run over him.
I put Armstrong into reverse and accelerated, driving just on the mirror. I have to admit that I felt a strange sense of elation as I hit him again; in fact I plumbed the depths of bad taste by yelling, ‘Never one around when you want one, is there, Jack?’ as Armstrong bounced for the second time.
After I turned the engine off and opened the door, I found my legs had turned to blancmange and moulded themselves into a sitting position. They had forgotten to tell the rest of my body about this, and as a result I slumped out of Armstrong, hitting the road with my right shoulder, having just remembered in time not to break my fall with my hand.
For a while, maybe a decade, I just hung there upside down.
Through the wheels of Armstrong, I could read the fly posters on a spare piece of wall on the other side of the street. I’d missed Meatloaf by over a year and Genesis’s Invisible Touch tour was booked out. Life’s like that sometimes; a real bitch.
Eventually I moved. I had to, as it’s very difficult to throw up decently when you’re upside down. In struggling upright, my face came level with the offside front wheel. Something wet and probably unspeakable was dripping from it.
I found my feet, staggered a couple of paces and spewed undigested fried chicken over a light-coloured VW Golf. I told you they get everywhere.
‘Angel!’
Christ, he was still alive! Then I realised it was Malpass. He had levered himself up so that he was leaning on the boot of the sports car Scamp had tried to demolish with his shotgun. The owner would not be well pleased. It had been an MG once.
Malpass was still clutching his leg, using his hands as a tourniquet. He was shaking, and his face was as white as a clown’s.
‘Did you do for the bastard?’ he asked as I approached.
‘You could say that. How about you?’
‘I’ll live.’
‘But you’ll never score at Wembley again,’ I said, nodding at his leg.
‘I’ve had worse. You look like death.’
‘So does Scamp. I’d better get you some help.’
He cocked his head on one side. In the distance we heard a whoop-whoop siren.
‘It’s on its way, but you could phone in for an ambulance.’
‘There’s a phone in the club.’ I looked across the road to the Mimosa. ‘What happened in there?’
‘The bastard was just leaving, I reckon. He was standing there with his bags packed. I think that horn tipped him off.’
The Peugeot that had come up behind me. ‘A signal? Like someone was coming to pick him up?’
‘Could be. You quite happy to let me bleed to death, then?’
‘Hey, Mr Malpass, don’t forget, I’m not here.’
‘You might have trouble explaining that at the inquest, my lad.’
So that was the way the cookie was crumbling.
‘And what about you doing your Wyatt Earp act without calling any back-up? Is that standard operating procedure?’
He narrowed his eyes and grimaced. Maybe he was in pain after all, a tough guy like him.
‘Okay, we’ll see what we can work out. But you’ll have to get the gun for me. I dropped it somewhere near the door. Bloody Scamp had the sawn-off in a plastic dustbin. I thought it was his dirty washing.’
‘Did he say anything?’
‘Not a word. He saw me and started shooting.’
I could understand that.
‘His reactions were like lightning, I’ll give him that, but there was a table or something in the way, thank Christ. I never got a shot off.’
‘Just as well, you’d only have annoyed him.’
The siren had gone. Why should we have assumed that a little thing like a gunfight in the street would attract attention?
‘Go phone it in,’ Malpass ordered, ‘and stash the gun in the boot of my car. Then you piss off out of it and we’ll say no more.’
‘How will you explain Scamp?’
‘Hit-and-run as he was chasing me. Nobody’ll mourn him. I’ll say I had an anonymous tip-off.’
‘Seems reasonable.’
‘Get a move on, then. Somebody’s got to come along sometime.’
I agreed with that at least, and I was half-prepared to believe him when he said he could keep me out of it. I must have been in shock.
I shambled towards the Mimosa. What was hiding a bit of evidence compared to clubbing somebody to death with a black cab? No problem.
The only lighting in there came from a neon strip behind the bar. There was very little disruption; a couple of chairs were turned over and a table with most of its top scored off by shotgun pellets lay on its side. Bill Stubbly had got off lightly – so far.
I found Malpass’s pistol and torch behind the table, and after a bit of contortion I managed to stuff them into my jacket pockets. On my way to the pay phone near the Gents, I noticed the door to the back room was open, and for some reason I decided to have a look.
I stepped over two zipper bags left in the middle of the small stage and reached around the door-jamb to fumble the light on.
There was the beer keg I’d been tied to, and the length of wire I’d probably been tied with lay on the floor. So did Nevil. He looked as if he’d taken both barrels into his chest at very close range. There was even a burn mark on his chin, but apart from that his expression was positively cherubic.
I didn’t linger. Let Malpass figure it out. All I felt was relief that I could look over my shoulder now.
I went back into the club proper and headed for the phone. As I passed the Ladies, I noticed that the beer crates stashed in front of the fire exit had been moved aside. That gave me an idea.
One of the zipper bags on the stage was stuffed with French francs. I had no idea how much there was in there, but I reckoned it was probably what I was owed by the Scamp family plus a few expenses. I knew Malpass would have had no more than a fleeting glimpse of them, but just to be sure, I went behind the bar and found an empty crisp box.
I tipped about half the cash into the box and then took a couple of shirts from the second bag and laid them on top of the remaining cash. I was clumsy and had to pick up a couple of notes from the floor and wipe the bags where I’d touched them with a handkerchief. With only one hand, this seemed to take ages, and I hoped Malpass was a slow bleeder.
Folding the lid of the box together, I hoisted it under my left arm and carried it to the fire exit. I had to put it on the floor to work the door-bar, and once I had it open, I slid it out with my foot. It blended in beautifully with the rubbish bags and empty bottles waiting for the refuse men, but with my luck they’d probably arrive before I could collect it.
As I was closing the door, I saw a car turn into the end of the street, very slowly and very quietly, driving on sidelights only.
It got closer, and I saw it was a dark-coloured BMW. I knew before I could see for sure that Jo would be driving.
The end to a perfect day, I don’t think.
I did eventually phone for an ambulance, and even remembered to ask them to send the cops too, but not before I’d remembered to go through Scamp’s other bag. I recovered my building society book, which was something, but I had to assume that my watch and sterling cash were somewhere about Scamp’s person. The only trouble with that was that Scamp’s person was somewhere all over the road.
Malpass had hobbled up the street a bit closer to the huddled mess, which I had no intention of looking at. He was still clutching his leg and his temper hadn’t improved any. ‘You took your bleeding time,’ he snarled.
I thought I’d cheer him up.
‘Hold the front page of the Police Gazette – Nevil’s turned up his toes.’
‘My God, but you’re a dangerous bloke to be around. How?’
‘Seems like Scamp decided to pay him off permanently. He’s back there in the club. I don’t think it happened much before we arrived.’
He looked down at Scamp again.
‘Well, you’re certainly helping the Met’s clear-up rate. Did you get the gun?’ I nodded and fumbled it out of my pocket.
‘Not here, you berk, go and stick it in the boot of my car.’
We both heard a burst of siren that could have been either ambulance or the standard issue police Rover. They wouldn’t use them all the way through empty streets at this time of night unless they were showing off.
Malpass took his right hand off his leg and fished out his car keys. I took them, and they were slippy with blood from his hand.
‘Are you sure you’re all right?’ I asked, trying to sound concerned.
‘I’ll live, sonny. And I’ll sleep better nights now. If you’re going to do a runner, you’d better get moving.’
He was right. I handed over his torch so that he could flag down traffic or whatever policemen do at the scene of accidents and hurried round the corner to Bateman Street to sling the pistol into the boot of Malpass’s Vauxhall. I took the precaution of wiping it with my handkerchief first, just in case the bugger had second thoughts and tried to plant it on me. I must have a suspicious mind.
Malpass was standing by Armstrong when I got back. We could hear engines now, coming down Oxford Street, but still no sign of any people, which was weird. I felt sure somebody must have seen us re-enacting the OK Corral, but in Soho after dark, a lot of people get suddenly short-sighted.
I gave Malpass his keys back and climbed aboard my trusty black steed. My head throbbed, but my right hand hardly hurt at all now. Maybe it had gone to sleep. I felt like joining it.
‘You’ll have to get this heap off the road while it’s fixed, you know,’ said Malpass, professional to the end.
‘Yes, officer,’ I said meekly. ‘And I was never here.’
‘Fair enough, I don’t mind taking all the credit.’
‘You’re welcome.’ I put Armstrong into reverse. ‘One thing,’ I said through the window.
‘What?’ There was another short burst of siren.
‘How long had Scamp employed Nevil as a minder?’
‘Not long. He recruited him while he was in the nick, we reckon. They shared a cell for a month or so in Wandsworth. Nevil got out around Christmas. Why?’
‘Just curious. Did he have a second name?’
‘Cooper. There’s no family, if you’re worried about somebody coming after you.’
‘No, it’s not that, just curious.’
I nodded to him and he nodded back and I reversed until I could turn into Soho Square and then right into the parallel street to bring me to the Mimosa’s fire exit. I kept the lights off, and as I turned, I saw the familiar blue flashes in the mirror that meant the cavalry had arrived and Malpass would be a hero.
I hadn’t told him about the money, nor about the other item I’d found in Scamp’s bag. But you can’t have everything, can you?
If the ambulance had used its siren continuously, I’m sure it would have frightened Jo off. As it was, I was able to shove Armstrong’s nose at 45 degrees across the bows of the BMW, and I scraped off a fair chunk of paintwork as I opened my door on to her wing. But I just didn’t care any more.
She gawped when she saw it was me and froze until I knocked on her window with my splint. I could hear vehicle doors slamming in the next street. There wouldn’t be much time before they searched the club.
Jo fumbled her hands beneath the steering-wheel and her window slid half-way down electrically.
‘We can’t go on meeting like this. No, correction: we just can’t go on meeting.’
It wasn’t one of my best, but not bad in the circumstances. The circumstances in particular included her pointing a small automatic pistol, business end first, at my chest. I’d seen so many guns that night I was beginning to think I was at a Belfast wedding.
‘Where’s Jack?’ she said, with a twitch in her voice.
‘There was a film called that, you know, about an 18th Century London highwayman. And then of course there was Jack Ketch, which is what they called the public hangman, after the real one who did the business for James II.’
‘Stop gabbering. Where is he?’
‘Okay, so I’m rambling, but it’s all true, actually. I always rabbit on when people point things at me.’
She seemed to notice my splinted hand.
‘I see you met him anyway,’ she said coldly.
‘Yeah, but we won’t be going in for annual reunions. He’s dead.’
I knew by then not to expect tears, but I did expect more than the flick of the head to take a strand of hair out of her eyes and a quick but loud sniff. Some people have no emotion.
‘Did you kill him?’
‘No,’ I said. Armstrong was going to have to take the rap for that. ‘The cops are here. At the front door. If you don’t believe me, drive round the block and say hello.’
She stared straight ahead for a minute.
‘They may come out of the exit there any second,’ I said, praying they wouldn’t.
Jo’s gun disappeared. She must have had a handbag on her knee.
‘He killed Nevil, you know.’
‘I thought he might.’ Short of hitting her with a brick, I didn’t think I was going to get a reaction out of her.
‘Especially after you showed him this.’
I held up the thing I’d taken from Scamp’s bag. It was a one-year British visitor’s passport. It had Jo’s photograph, but the name was Mrs Josephine Cooper.
‘What did you do? Just let it slip that Nevil was planning on a double-cross?’
‘Something like that.’ If I’d expected her to try and grab the passport or throw a wobbler, I was disappointed.
‘Was there anything between you two?’
‘Nothing much. He was keener than I was.’
‘How did he get you the passport?’
‘There’s a Civil Service strike on; don’t you read the papers? All you need to get one of them is fill in a form at the post office and show some phoney identification. It’s easy enough to get a provisional driving licence with a new name on it.’
Really, the deceit of some people. I wondered how long the strike would last, and what time the post offices opened on Mondays.
‘So why get Jack out of nick?’
‘He wanted out. His mother had been poisoning him during visiting hours, telling him I was carrying on. Jack couldn’t stand it, but he never held it against me.’
‘When it came down to it, you figured you’d be better off with Jack, so you dropped Nevil in it.’
She shrugged her shoulders. For her that was tantamount to visiting the Wailing Wall.
‘Jack’s the one with the money.’
‘In Boulogne?’ It was a shot in the dark.
‘Yes. How did you know?’ Surprise registered in her eyes. She was really running the whole gamut of her emotions now.
‘How were you going to get there?’
‘First hovercraft from Dover this morning. I have all my stuff in the back.’
She wasn’t going to volunteer anything.
‘How did he get the shotgun?’ I was curious. Did she have the power to persuade Nevil to provide his own murder weapon?
‘It must have been Bill Stubbly. He’s been supplying Jack with bits and pieces since he got out.’
‘What hold did Jack have over Stubbly?’
‘He owned the club. Has done for a couple of years.’
That explained a lot and confirmed that everyone had known what had been going on except me. There was nothing more to be gained from talking to her.
‘You can still make it,’ I said.
‘Make what?’ She frowned.
‘The ferry – the hovercraft – whatever. To France, as the song says. Go for it.’
She gave me an up-from-under look, but only about quarter strength, so my legs didn’t melt and my heart hardly fluttered.
Still cool as anything, she reached forward and started the engine.
‘I’d get rid of the gun if I were you,’ I advised, sensible as always.
‘I will,’ she said. Then she put her hands behind her neck and something came away in her fingers.
She held out her left hand through the half-open window. I put mine under it and she unclasped her fist. When I looked, I was holding the emerald pendant with the ‘JJ’ inscription.
‘I don’t want you to be out of pocket,’ she said, ‘and I won’t be needing that any more.’
I slipped it into my jacket and climbed back into Armstrong to ease him back out of her way.
She didn’t look at me as she drove off, and I waited until her tail lights had gone before I nipped out to recover the crisp box from the fire exit of the Mimosa.
I hate long goodbyes anyway.
I suppose I should have got Duncan the Drunken out of bed by throwing pebbles at his bedroom window and whistling softly, but where the hell do you find pebbles in Barking at 4.30 am? So I did the next best thing. I found a phone-box where the phone worked and the box didn’t smell too badly of urine because the ventilation had been improved by somebody stealing the door. They’ve got a good sense of community in Barking. I rang Duncan’s number and let the receiver hang loose. By the time I got through the last couple of streets, he’d be standing in the hallway swearing into his phone and just getting an earful of pip-pip-pip-pip sounds.
He was. I could hear the foul language from the doorstep, and when I rang the bell, he slammed the phone down with an audible crack.
‘Hello, Duncan,’ I said with a smile, ‘you’re up early.’
The smile wasn’t difficult, despite what I’d been through. Duncan was wearing only tartan carpet slippers and a pair of Fred Flintstone boxer shorts. It would have made a Jehovah’s Witness smirk.
‘Angel.’ Duncan scratched his stomach. ‘What in buggery are you doing here at this time?’
‘Just passing, Duncan, and I saw your light on. I need some help.’
‘Oh aye? Well, it’s lucky I was up, wasn’t it? Bring yourself in and put the kettle on. I’ll go and tell Doreen not to fret.’
‘Who is it, Duncan?’ yelled Doreen from upstairs.
‘That daft pillock Angel, honeybun. You go back to sleep.’
Honeybun? Well it seemed to reassure her; she was snoring loudly before the kettle whistled.
Duncan pulled on a pair of overalls and straddled a kitchen chair while I served him his tea.
‘You’ve hurt yer hand,’ he said, like other people say it’s raining.
‘It’s a hard life out there, Dunc.’
I sipped some tea and burnt my lips. I was more convinced than ever that Duncan had an asbestos mouth.
‘You in bother, then?’
‘No,’ I said fairly truthfully, ‘I think I’ve just got out of it, but I need a bit of help covering my tracks.’
‘Oh aye?’ that was a bad sign; he was thinking about it.
‘I don’t want money,’ I said hastily, and he relaxed visibly. He was a Yorkshireman, after all. ‘I need a motor for a few days.’
‘What sort?’ Duncan the professional.
‘Anything with four wheels and a tax disc.’
‘For how long?’ Duncan the very professional.
‘Until you’ve repaired Armstrong.’
He considered this, then stood up and put his mug in the sink.
‘Better have a look, then.’
Outside, he ran a wise old hand over Armstrong’s radiator and bonnet. Then he put his hands on his hips and narrowed his eyes at me. There was the first gleam of a dirty dawn in the sky, but Duncan could size up a motor blindfold at night.
‘Been grouse-shooting, have we?’
‘I thought that was illegal before the twelfth of August.’
Duncan scratched his head.
‘Well, I don’t reckon there’s owt here that Doreen can’t put right.’
‘Doreen?’
‘Aye. Didn’t I tell you she was doing panel beating at night school?’
How on earth could that have slipped my mind?
‘Well, to be honest, Duncan, I hadn’t thought of Doreen using Armstrong as homework.’
‘It’ll be right, lad. I’ll guarantee all the work and respray him meself.’
Well, that was something, though Duncan’s famous three-hour parts and labour guarantees were not worth the bits of paper they were scribbled on. But I was too tired to argue.
‘What about a stand-in? And please, not that Kraut Transit again.’
Duncan smiled. ‘Got a good price for that the other day. No, I’ve just the thing for you, but I’ll have to charge you.’
‘How much?’
‘A ton, on condition you keep the mileage below five hundred a week.’
‘A ton a week? You franchising for Hertz these days?’
‘But wait till you see what I have in mind.’
I let Duncan drive Armstrong round to his lock-up and open the doors. Armstrong would be out of sight and out of mind of any curious policeman there, unless of course Duncan got raided, which wasn’t beyond the bounds of possibilities. But then it would take a pretty tough policeman to confront Doreen in full panel-beating swing.
Inside the lock-up was an ancient Morris Minor badly in need of repair, but worth its weight in rust to collectors these days.
Duncan saw my face as he got out of Armstrong.
‘No, not that – that.’
He pointed to his left, and I turned my aching head and then immediately cheered up at the sight of a bright red Mercedes 190; what some people call the ‘baby Merc’ but in Hampstead is known as ‘the second Merc.’
I clapped Duncan on the shoulder with my good hand.
‘Duncan, it’s perfect.’
What the hell, I could afford it. And it would make Frank and Salome furious.
Frank was furious all right, but more because I made him come down from the top floor in Stuart Street and open the front door. I thought that was a bit of a selfish attitude, as he would have been up at 6.30 anyway showing off his new jogging Nikes. Or was it the Reeboks this week? I lose track.
I’d driven the Merc very gingerly. After Armstrong, it was the difference between surgery with a laser and amputation with a chainsaw. But I made it somehow, parked right behind Frank’s and Salome’s Golf and staggered to the door clutching my bag and the crisp box. At that point, I’d more or less given up. The legs had gone rubbery and the brain was like chocolate fudge cake. I knew I had some keys somewhere, but couldn’t work out where, and I didn’t seem to have a spare hand.
I leant my forehead on the doorbell and heard it ring. I was sure it would be Frank who answered. Lisabeth would be deep in the Land of Nod, Fenella still had her parents with her and nobody ever saw Mr Goodson at the weekend.
‘Yes?’ Frank started. ‘What …? Good God, man, you’re as white as a sheet!’
‘You’re not, Frank,’ I beamed, then fell into his arms.
We wrestled for a while as he tried to pick me up. He had the strength to do it easily, but I was a bit bulky and uncooperative as I refused to let go of my bag and crisp box.
He finally got me in a sort of fireman’s lift and then proceeded up three flights of stairs. He was in shape, I had to give him that. And so, I was happy to notice, was Salome. Wonderful shape, in fact; or what was showing through the split-front shortie camisole, which was only just decent in three places.
I gave her one of my charmer smiles – I’ve got good teeth; so show ‘em, that’s what I say – but I think it came out more of a leer. Anyway, she took a step back as Frank propped me in a chair.
‘Angel, darling, you look like death,’ she said.
‘Don’t soft-soap me, Sal, give it to me straight.’ I waved my splint at her. The bandages were filthy. I must have resembled a mummy from a cheap horror flick. ‘Do me a favour, just let me kip for a bit.’
‘What’s wrong with your place?’ asked Frank, breathing deeply, his black, muscular chest heaving with the etc.
‘Lisabeth.’
‘Oh,’ they said together.
‘When she’s up, just roll me downstairs, okay? Don’t ask anything till about Tuesday, huh?’
Salome looked at Frank and shrugged in a ‘why not?’ sort of way.
‘One thing,’ said Frank, hitching up his pyjama trousers (the trendy traditional sort). ‘Is that your car outside?’
‘Sure,’ I said, looking at Salome. ‘I thought I should change my image to keep up with the DINKS.’
He looked puzzled.
‘Double-Income-No-Kids,’ Salome explained, then said to me: ‘I always preferred SWELL.’
‘So do I,’ I said. Then I fell asleep, leaving her to tell Frank about Single-Women-Earning-Lots-in-London.
Lisabeth and Fenella gave me a hero’s welcome back to my flat when I surfaced around one o’clock.
Fenella’s parents had been seen off back to Rye earlier that morning, so there was general cause for rejoicing, and Lisabeth was already moving back to the marital home.
‘We think it was awfully sweet of you not to wake Lisabeth this morning,’ said Fenella. ‘She needs her sleep.’
‘It looks like you had a good party,’ said Lisabeth sternly.
‘Party?’ I was only just awake and looking for somewhere to stash the crisp box before anyone asked me what was in it.
‘In Plymouth, wasn’t it?’
‘Oh yeah, great, great. But it got a bit out of hand.’ I showed her my splint. ‘Out of hand. Geddit?’
‘I won’t ask how you did that,’ she said reprovingly. ‘But I will make you lunch.’ She clapped her hands together. ‘How’s that? As a welcome home.’
‘Er … fine. Poached eggs on toast with Marmite.’ Not even Lisabeth could ruin that, could she?
‘Does Marmite have meat in it?’ she said suspiciously.
‘No, it’s yeast extract.’
‘Well, okay then.’ She sounded dubious. Maybe she had forgotten the recipe.
‘But first I need a complete MOT,’ I said, motioning for Fenella to help me off with my jacket.
‘What’s that?’ asked Fenella.
‘A complete MOT of the person – shit, shower and shave.’ She giggled and blushed from the neck up. ‘And I might need somebody to soap my back. I’m not sure I can manage with only one hand.’
‘Binky! Come and help crack these eggs this minute!’
Home sweet home.
I took the crisp box into the bathroom with me and turned the shower on. While it was warming up, I peeled off my clothes and then, stark naked, I riffled through the box.
I hadn’t read a Financial Times lately, but by my crude arithmetic I had close on eight thousand quid in francs. I could always go and ask Salome; she’d know the exchange rate. But then I decided I’d better have a shower and put some clothes on first. Frank wasn’t that broad-minded.
Despite some black looks from Lisabeth, I sat down to lunch wearing only a towel. Lisabeth’s poached eggs could have doubled as squash balls, but I was hungry enough not to mind, and it was fun having Fenella lean over me to cut them up for me and butter extra toast.
They shared the washing up and then left for their own pad, offering an invite to dinner that night. I declined, thinking they’d probably rather be alone.
I think Lisabeth felt that too.
At the door, Fenella turned and asked if ‘that rather natty red car’ outside was mine, and I said it was.
‘Where’s Armstrong?’ she quizzed.
‘On holiday.’
‘So what do you call this one?’
‘I was thinking of Bormann maybe, but I’m not sure yet. Fancy a spin in him?’
She opened her mouth in an excited Oooh, but before she could say anything, Lisabeth’s podgy hand gripped her shoulder and she was yanked out of the room.
As I dressed, I turned the radio on to BBC Radio London. It’s the best station for London news; a pity nobody listens to it. There was nothing about dead bodies or homicidal taxis in Soho. So far, so good.
I opened up Brogan’s History of the USA and replaced my building society book, driving licence and passport, which Nevil had left in the bottom of my bag. I couldn’t get all the francs in there; they’d have to stay in the crisp box for the time being. But some of them would have to go straight away, as I was right out of folding money. I even owed Bunny a fiver, although for picking me out of the gutter, so to speak, I owed him a lot more. Maybe I’d get him a present.
I stuffed about a thousand francs into my pocket and retrieved the JJ pendant from my leather jacket. My personal bureau de change and pawnbrokerage wouldn’t ask too many questions, and it was open all day Saturday.
Mr Cohen’s Exotic Pets was only just round the corner, so I decided to walk. Taking the Merc – and letting Mr Cohen see it – would also insure a lousy rate of exchange.
I thought at first that the Merc had got a parking ticket, but it wasn’t, it was a printed fly-sheet stuffed under the wiper blades. It read: THIS CAR IS A SYMBOL OF SOCIAL DIVISON – YUPPIES OUT! CLASS WAR LTD.
Bloody cheek. The amount they cost, they ought to be socially divisive. I didn’t know who Class War Ltd were, but it was a good name for a band. I replaced the leaflet under the rear windscreen wiper of Frank’s Golf.
There weren’t many exotic pets on show in Mr Cohen’s emporium: a macaw and a parrot and the usual collection of hamsters, rabbits and small unidentified furries. But then it wasn’t as if selling pets was Mr Cohen’s main source of income. He dabbled. In this and in that. Mostly that, if money was the bottom line.
I’d often meant to ask him why he bothered with the pet shop front, as most of the animals seemed to give him asthma. I’d also meant to pluck up the courage and one day ask him why he was called Rajiv Cohen, but not today, as there was business to be done.
Mr Cohen looked over the top of his half-rims at me when I asked him if he’d like to buy some francs.
‘Just come back from holiday, have we?’
‘You could say that, Mr Cohen.’
He produced one of the new currency calculators that all the whizzkids in the City have clipped to their identity bracelets, and began punching buttons.
‘The rate is 9.62 to the pound. I can give you 6.50.’
‘That’s some commission, Mr Cohen, but I’ll take a thousand’s worth, because I want your advice on something else.’
‘Oh yes? And what would that be?’ he asked as he counted out 65 quid in fivers in exchange for my wad of thin, brown French notes.
I dropped the pendant on the counter in front of him, and as if by magic a jeweller’s eyeglass appeared in his eye. I’ll swear his hands hadn’t moved.
‘Of course the inscription devalues it,’ he started, establishing the right bargaining atmosphere. ‘But it’s a nice stone, I’ll give you that.
‘I’m told it’s worth over three grand, Mr Cohen,’ I lied.
‘Well, I don’t know about that, son, but I can ask my brother in Brick Lane. He’s the gems man of the family.’
Over Mr Cohen’s shoulder, I could see into the back room of the shop, and through the window there I spotted Springsteen jumping up on to the fence. Once balanced there, he looked over his shoulder to check that the coast was clear. It must be a family trait.
In his mouth was a white, furry creature. Maybe it was a coming-home present for me.
I kept Mr Cohen arguing and haggling for a good five minutes before agreeing to leave the pendant with him until Monday. Well, I had to give Springsteen enough time to get clear. He’d do the same for me.
Stan at the off-licence looked pleased to see me, even though I interrupted him checking his pools coupon against the football results on the radio. I ordered a couple of packs of Red Stripe Crucial Brew and a bottle of Bull’s Blood, a real headbanger of a Hungarian red wine, and forty Gold Flake.
‘Another party tonight, Roy?’
‘No way, Stan. Feet up, telly on. That’s Plan A for tonight.’
He raised an eyebrow in surprise.
‘Anything good on the box?’
‘Probably not, but after this little lot, it won’t matter.’
He nodded wisely.
‘Still, it’s a pity you’re not going to a fancy dress do. You could’ve put a glove on and gone as Michael Jackson.’
He was still chuckling as I left. In another era, Stan would have been the one in the air raid shelter who tried to keep everybody’s spirits up during the Blitz. No wonder the Luftwaffe had a go at East London.
On the way back to Stuart Street, I worked out my menu for the evening. I had some steaks in the freezer compartment of my fridge and I could scrounge some garlic from Salome and some potatoes from Lisabeth. A hefty chunk of protein, a glass or three of wine, maybe a good book, and then ten hours’ solid kip. That should just about set me up for my return visit to the hospital, and I was trying to remember what time Ruth had said she went on duty on Sundays, so I hardly noticed the Renault 5 parked behind my new Merc.
I had another life and death struggle with the lock of No 9, but managed to get the door open without dropping anything or damaging my right hand.
‘Here he is,’ I heard Lisabeth say.
She was sitting on the stairs next to a very attractive, curly redhead who was showing long lengths of red, diamond-pattern stocking between a pair of red-and-black high heels and a short, red-leather mini. Across the mini-skirt lay Springsteen, on his back, allowing the redhead to tickle his chest. He opened one eye at me as if to say, ‘Now get out of this.’
‘Hello,’ said the redhead, ‘I’m Tracie Boatman.’
Oh knickers.
‘Tracie’s been after you for days, Angel,’ said Lisabeth primly. ‘So I’ll leave you two together.’
For once, I wished she wouldn’t go, but I put a brave face on it.
‘Yeah ... er ... sorry. I did get your messages but ... er ... I’ve been busy. You’d better come up to the office.’ I nodded towards my flat.
She stood up, and Springsteen, the rat, went limp with an audible sigh and allowed her to carry him up the stairs like an over-indulged Roman emperor. I wondered what he’d done with the hamster or whatever it was.
‘I didn’t know the National Insurance office worked Saturdays,’ I said resignedly.
‘Oh, we don’t.’ She smiled. ‘In fact, we try not to work Monday to Friday. Can I give you a hand? Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that. What on earth have you been doing to yourself?’
‘Road accident,’ I said bravely. ‘Pulling an old man out from under a bus.’
‘Really? What a hero.’ She looked as if she believed me about as much as Springsteen did.
‘Can you get the keys out of my pocket, please?’
I swivelled my right hip towards her and, without batting an eyelid, she dug deep into my trousers. If she was going to do me for non-payment of National Insurance, then I was going to get my money’s worth.
She let us into the flat, and Springsteen jumped out of her arms and scampered into the bedroom. If he’d left his present in the bed, he was dead meat.
I dropped my shopping in the kitchenette, she plonked herself on the sofa.
‘So, what can I do for you, Mrs Boatman?’
‘It’s Ms actually, I’m divorced.’
You know when you’re getting old; the divorcees look younger.
‘I understand you put bands together,’ she said, looking round the flat.
‘Yes,’ I said slowly. ‘Usually just for friends who want to play together.’
‘Can you get me a trad jazz band for next Thursday?’
Was this a trick question? ‘Where?’
‘A pub called the Chiswell Street Vaults. Do you know it?’
‘Yes.’ It was the sort of pub you left only when you needed a change of clothes. ‘What’s the event?’
‘A hen party for one of the Inspectors in our office. She gets married next Saturday and we want to give her a good send-off. We’ve hired the back bar for a party and we need some music and we know she’s a jazz fan.’
‘We?’
‘Oh, there are about 40 of us. It’s a big office.’
Forty women on a hen night in a pub I knew was good value. Mmm.
‘I’m sure I can do something, Ms Boatman.’
‘Call me Tracie. Do you mind if I smoke? So many people don’t these days.’
‘Not at all,’ I said, and remembered the cigarettes I’d bought. ‘Try one of these.’
‘Oh, I like them,’ she said greedily. ‘They’re good and strong.’
Mmmm.
‘What would a band cost?’
‘Well, I may be out of it,’ I said, holding up my hand. ‘But I can easily get a drummer, pianist – if there’s a piano there – bass man, and of course you’ll need a sax player.’
That was Bunny’s debt paid off.
‘Maybe 80 quid plus a few beers. How’s that sound?’
‘Fine. We might even have enough left in the kitty for a kissogram, you know, a Tarzanogram or similar. The girls like to let their hair down.’
I slipped a Eurythmics tape into the stereo.
‘I might be able to help you there as well,’ I said. And that would put me in Simon the Stripping Sexton’s good books. He never turned down work.
‘Fancy a drink? I was just going to have one.’
‘It’s a bit early,’ she said half-convincingly.
‘Well, the truth is, I might need some help with the corkscrew.’
‘Oh, of course, your poor hand. Where is it? Do let me help.’
This splint could come in useful, I thought.
I brought the wine and a pair of glasses through from the kitchen. She’d slipped off her jacket and had curled her legs under her. Her eyes widened when she saw the bottle.
‘Bull’s Blood! I haven’t had that since I was at university.’ She set to it with a will and the corkscrew.
I popped back into the kitchen and took two steaks out of the freezer, putting them in the oven out of Springsteen’s way.
‘You know something?’ I asked gaily. ‘I felt sure your visit was a professional one.’
She smiled and poured the wine.
‘You behind on your NI stamps, then? Don’t worry.’ She winked an eye. ‘Your cat didn’t grass on you. And anyway, this isn’t my area. You must be naturally lucky,’ she said, laying it on a bit.
‘Yeah, I think I am. I always say I am; it’s my Rule of Life Number One.’
She raised her glass in a toast, then slipped off her shoes and recurled her legs under her.
‘What is?’
‘It’s better to be lucky than good.’