--
When the cab drops me off at Marble Arch I walk round the back of the Cumberland and up Seymour Place until I get to Crawford Street. In the daylight the pub is an even dirtier yellow and as I go up the steps in the passageway by its side the smell of urine is just as strong as it was the night before.
I reach the first landing and press the bell to flat number 4. At first I think she’s out because three or four minutes pass without anything happening and I’m just about to press the bell again when the door opens and she’s standing there looking at me with her mouth wide open. She’s wearing horn-rimmed glasses and a black polo-neck sweater and tight white trousers and her hair is pulled back from her face and tied in a bow at the nape of her neck. Then the initial shock passes away from her and she begins to go into the slamming-the-door-in-my-face routine but I’m expecting that and I’m through the door and past her before she can finish the trick.
“You bastard, you’ve got—” she begins but I cut her off by saying, “I know you probably feel like enjoying yourself and getting all the mileage you can out of the situation, but that pleasure will have to wait unless you want a couple round the earhole. All right?”
As I’m telling her this I walk through to where the drinks are and pour myself one and sit down on one of the Swedish chairs. She follows me through and stands by the screen and begins to open her mouth again.
“All right?” I say.
Her mouth closes.
I take a sip of my drink and pick up the phone that’s on the glass table and dial the Skinner’s Arms and Danny Hall the landlord picks up the receiver at the other end. “Danny, it’s Jack,” I tell him. “Now what I want you to do is to send one of the lads over to the club and fetch Gerald’s old lady over to yours and I want to ask her to wait by the phone because I’ll be calling her there in half an hour from now. That all right?”
Danny tells me that it is and I put the phone down and I have another sip of my drink and I look at Lesley who hasn’t taken her eyes off me all the time I’ve been on the phone.
“Why don’t you have a drink?” I ask her. “It’s pretty good stuff. Better than what you usually get in a place like this.”
She carries on looking at me and although there are many things she would like to say and do she manages to keep herself under control.
I finish my drink and get up and make myself another one and while I’m doing that she says, “I suppose I’m not going to get to know what’s going on.”
“Came back for my cuff link, didn’t I?”
She begins to go red and this time she won’t be able to stop herself.
I can’t be doing with any of that so I say, “About that phone call, incidentally. I said what I said for a reason. Without going into the ins and outs of it, I had to make it seem as if I didn’t want to talk to you. For business reasons. I couldn’t phone you back and explain because I didn’t know your number so I thought I’d come round instead.”
She goes over to the door that leads into the hall and throws it open and starts screaming and yelling at the top of her voice. “Clear out, you lying bastard, what do you bleeding well think I am?”
I down my drink and go over to her and give her one round the earhole that sends her glasses flying and I close the door. Then I haul her over to the chaise longue and sit her down and sit down next to her.
“All right,” I tell her, “I’ll stop fucking about. I’ve come to stay here for a couple of days. Not out of choice, out of necessity. And you’re going to like it, not because you like me, but because I say you’re going to like it. And nobody else is going to know anything about it, are they? Purely because you’re a clever little girl and you’ve got a vivid imagination and I don’t have to put it plainer than that, do I?”
She’s lost her colour now, except for the spot on the side of her face where I fetched her one. I look at her and she looks at me and then she shivers, just once, the whole length of her body. So now that’s sorted out I get off the chaise longue and go through into the dining part and pour another drink and sit down by the telephone and unbutton my jacket and light another cigarette. She stays out of sight on the chaise longue and there is a heavy silence which goes perfectly with the gloom of the wet afternoon light that is drifting in through the tall windows. The silence and the tone of the room begin to give me the creeps so I lean across and switch on the table lamp but all that does is to throw the room’s shadows into deeper, darker relief and after a minute or two I switch off the light. I look at my watch and there’s quarter of an hour to go before I said I’d contact Audrey. I get up and find an ashtray and take it back to the table and sit down again. There is still no sound or movement from behind the other side of the screen.
The next ten minutes pass even more slowly. Then it is time and I pick up the phone and dial the number of the Skinner’s Arms. Audrey answers almost immediately.
“What you said earlier,” I say. “About getting out of it. We might just have to do that.”
“Where are you?” she says.
“Never mind that. The Garage is finished. When I got back there there’d been visitors.”
“Police?”
“No.”
“Who, then?”
“I don’t know. All I know is we no longer have any
members of a certain gentleman’s family at our disposal. And it wasn’t the law who was dashing to the rescue.”
Audrey doesn’t say anything.
“So in the light of recent events,” I tell her, “I should start getting various arrangements underway. Make one or two withdrawals, know what I mean?”
“Yes. But where are you? I can’t get in touch.”
“That’s the best way. Be at the phone at seven o’clock tonight. What we’re going to do might depend on what happens during the next two or three hours.”
“Like what?”
“I’m going to have another go at Cross.”
“You’re out of your mind. You’ll never get to him, not after what’s happened.”
“It’s the only way we’ve got left. I’ve got to try it. What else can I do?”
“I don’t know. But I’ll start doing like you say.”
“Have you heard from Con?”
“No. But Peter’s been in and out of the club like a bloody yo-yo looking for you.”
“Oh yes?” I say. “And what would that be for?”
“He says he’s got something to tell you, but he won’t say what it is. He says he’s got to see you personally.”
I don’t say anything for a moment or two.
Eventually Audrey says, “Are you still there?”
“Yes, I’m still here,” I say.
“What’s the matter then?”
“Oh, nothing,” I tell her. “Nothing at all.”
Now it’s her turn to go quiet.
After a suitable length of silence has gone by I say, “Now do you see what I mean?”
“But—”
“Never mind the buts. I want you to fix a time and a place with Peter.”
“But—”
“What did I just tell you?”
There is another silence. Then I say, “Tell Peter I’ll be at the Fountain of Youth in an hour’s time. Tell him to take a booth and wait for me. But don’t tell him for at least half an hour. I want to be there well before him.”
“You’re barmy. You’re putting yourself right in it.”
“If I’m right I am, yes. But the only way to prove it is to test it out. If I’m proved right then at least we’ll have an extra direction to work on. Which is one more than we’ve got already.”
“What happens if you’re right and it doesn’t work out?”
“Then you go on your own, don’t you?”
She starts to say something else but before she can get it out I put the phone down. At the moment I can do without all the ifs and buts of what could possibly happen. If you think on those lines in my business then you shouldn’t be in the business in the first place. If you think on those lines you’ll never have the nous to fix on to the idea that a poof like Peter the Dutchman might be connected with all the ups and downs of the last twenty-four hours, and if you think on those lines you’ll never have the stupid face to go the lengths I’m about to go to check that idea out.
I get up and pour myself another drink and think a few thoughts and then I go round to the other side of the screen. Lesley is still sitting in the same position as when I left her, staring at the blank wall. When she sees me, she adopts the expression she always wears when she’s got anything to do with me.
“You got a car?” I ask her.
She doesn’t reply so I begin to walk towards her but before I can get to her she nods.
“Nearby?”
She nods again.
“Right,” I tell her. “Get your coat. We’re going out.”
“You mean you are,” she says.
I take hold of her arm and lift her off the settee and walk her through into the bedroom. Still holding her I open one of the fitted cupboards and pull a tie-belted camel coat off one of the hangers and give it to her.
“Now then,” I tell her, “let’s make this the last bit of business this afternoon, shall we? Because I haven’t the time, I really haven’t.”
“So I gather,” she says, giving me a nasty smile. I let her get away with that one and she puts the coat on and we walk back through the lounge and out of the flat and down the stairs. The rain has stopped and it’s much colder than before and the sky is a uniform still gray.
We round the corner of the pub into Crawford Street and a minute or two later she stops by an almost new Mini-Clubman.
“Will this do?” she says.
“Very nice,” I tell her. “Managing to keep up the H.P., are you?”
She gives me her look and takes the keys out of her pocket and unlocks the door on the driver’s side but as she opens the door I take the keys off her and indicate that she should get in the passenger seat by sliding across from the driving side. When she’s done that I get in and put the key in the ignition. The inside of the car smells clean and new and the polyethylene covers are still on the front seats. The gearbox is automatic so I put the stick in drive and pull away from the curb and set off in the direction of Upper Street.
After a while Lesley lights herself a cigarette and when she’s done that she says, “I don’t suppose there’s any point in asking what’s going on?”
“I thought you asked that earlier,” I say.
She frowns and sinks a bit lower into her seat. Then she says, “And what happens when I phone my friend Mr. Hume and tell him I’ve got Jack Carter as a non-paying non-bleeding-welcome guest?”
“Nothing. Because you’re not going to phone him, are you? Not unless you’ve got a telephone installed in this little motor.”
“So we’re going to be together always, are we?”
“Only for the next few hours, darling. Then you can phone who the bleeding hell you like.”
As I’m talking I’m taking the car round a left turning. On the other side of the road a bus is just pulling away from a bus stop. Suddenly Lesley throws herself across me and grabs hold of the steering wheel and although she can’t match me her action is so quick and unexpected that before I can do anything the motor is halfway across the other side of the road and making for the oncoming bus. She hangs on to the steering wheel and the only way I can get her off it is to grab hold of her hair and pull as hard as I can. She screams with pain and with my free hand I yank the steering wheel over as far as it will go but it’s too late to completely avoid the bus, although the driver has begun to take his own evasive action. There is a sound like chalk squeaking on a blackboard only ten times louder as the rear end of the Mini scrapes along the side of the bus. At the same time as that is happening Lesley has opened the passenger door of the Mini in readiness for its slowing down so that she can jump out. I put my foot down and the Mini gets to the end of the bus but I’m still not clear because a taxi has begun to pull out from behind the bus and unless one of us gives way we’re going to meet radiator to radiator. I boost the Mini by putting it in second which gives the taxi driver such a fright that he pulls hard over without taking his foot off the accelerator and there is a noise like a bomb going off as the taxi piles into the back of the bus. At the same time the open door of the Mini connects with a Cortina that’s going in our direction, moving up inside in the lane we should be traveling in. The driver of the Cortina jams his brakes on and the Mini door slams shut and there is another crash and the Cortina lurches forward as something goes up his arse but not far enough forward to occupy the space I need to let me back into the proper lane and give me a chance to get away. I throw the gear stick back into drive and take the first left turning which is only ten yards in front of me and I wind up the Mini as fast as I can. At this speed there’s no chance of Lesley opening the door and getting out so what she does instead is to press herself as close to the passenger door as she can get, but that’s not far enough away because after I’ve taken a few more lefts and rights and made sure there’s no sign of Old Bill I reach over and give her a couple.
“Jesus Christ,” I say. “I reckon you must like getting sorted. I really do. Jesus bleeding Christ.”
I shake my head and all she does is turn up the collar of her coat and sink down lower into her seat. I reach in my pocket and find my cigarettes but I can’t find my matches so I have to ask for a light. She pushes it again by ignoring me at first but she only pushes it so far and in the end she fishes out her lighter and hands it over. I shake my head again and light up and put the lighter back on the shelf.
Finally we get to the part of Upper Street where the turnoff for the Fountain of Youth is. I drive past the establishment and then down to the end of the street and then I back into an alley between the end house and the corner tobacconist. I switch off the engine and look at my watch.
Even with Lesley’s little incident it’s only taken us twenty minutes and Audrey won’t have told Peter where to meet me yet so I say to Lesley, “We’re going to get out of the car now and we’re going to cross the road and walk along the pavement for approximately thirty yards and then we’re going through a door and into a building. Do you understand that? That’s precisely what we’re going to do. We’re not going to throw ourselves under any buses or shin up any drainpipes or scream at any passing law or anything like that. We’re just going to do exactly what I said we’re going to do, aren’t we?”
Naturally she doesn’t answer. I sit there for a minute or two then decide not to tell her again so instead I get out of the car and walk round and open the door on her side and take hold of her hand and pull her out of the car. I keep hold of her hand and we look like urgent lovers as we cross the road and walk towards the Fountain of Youth.
The Fountain of Youth used to be a greengrocer’s shop but the premises have since been done up outside so that the place looks like a cheap Indian restaurant, even down to the bamboo-style neon lettering, but the words and letters form give the game away. Fountain of Youth, the sign says, and in smaller letters: Sauna and Massage. Members Only. The large plate-glass windows on either side of the door have been painted the kind of dark green you get on the windows of betting shops or dentists’ surgeries but in the centre of each window is a gaudy transfer of a Hawaiian scene of mountains and surf and hula-hula girls.
I push open the door and a heavy smell of soap and perfume and dust hits me straight away. The door opens into a narrow partition passage with hardboard walls and at the end of the passage there is a desk which prevents the hardboard walls from carrying on down as far as the solid wall at the far end. This is where the clients wait for one of the girls to appear from behind the hardboard so that the membership can be checked out but there is a door in the right-hand partition wall and I push it open and we’re in a sort of reception area with a low formica-topped table in the middle and cheap wooden-armed armchairs ranged round the walls. There are two girls sitting in a couple of chairs. The girls are wearing matching nylon tunic-style coats, the kind of thing the shopgirls probably wore when the place was a greengrocer’s, although then the girls probably wore something more than what the present staff is wearing underneath. One of the girls is reading Woman’s Own and the other one is drinking a cup of coffee and smoking a cigarette and staring into space. They both look at me, then look at each other without a change of expression between them.
“Where’s Tony?”
“In the office,” says the girl with the coffee.
Keeping hold of Lesley’s hand I go through a doorway which instead of having a door in it is decorated with a curtain made of thin strips of plastic, then down another passage which leads to a door painted with one coat of white undercoat and with lots of finger marks near the door handle and the word Private printed in pencil about halfway up. I open the door.
The office is about the size of a small wardrobe. The walls are pegboarded and there is room for a desk and a filing cabinet and that’s about all. There’s certainly no room for a couple of people of less than average height to lie down on the floor and that is why Tony is sitting on the desk with his trousers round his ankles with his hands under the armpits of one of the girls bouncing her up and down on top of him. The girl is naked except for one of the nylon tunics which is pushed up under her armpits along with Tony’s fat stubby fingers. Her breasts are quite big and Tony is fighting a losing battle to keep his lips round one of her nipples as she bounces up and down. And of course my opening of the door doesn’t make it any easier for him because the girl shrieks as if she’s been stuck in a different place and tries to lift herself off Tony which doesn’t do him much good at all as the only way she can move is backwards and as far as Tony’s concerned that can only be painful, and he expresses as much by bellowing like a donkey and lifting the girl completely off him and dropping her on what little floor space there is, only even more unfortunately for her some of that floor space is occupied by a deep cardboard box full of Tony’s used paper cups from the coffee machine which is where she lands and her shrieks are augmented with the crackling of the cups that make a sound like several penny bangers going off all at once. Tony grabs his injured member and screws his face up as if he’s just sucked on a lemon and the girl tries to struggle up out of the cardboard box. She’s quite a nice-looking kid, especially from the angle I’m looking at her as she thrashes about among the paper cups, but I haven’t time for savouring all that so I grab hold of her wrist and pull until she’s standing up, her face inches away from mine and looking at me as if she’d like to fillet me and spit me out for the cat. She bends down and gives me another treat while she gets her shoes from down the side of the desk then she grabs her tights and pants from off the desk top and rather late in the day holds her tunic together and pushes past me and Lesley and sprints off down the passage. Tony slides off the desk and opens his eyes for a second and then when he sees I’m not alone he jackknifes down to pull his trousers up and does a sack-race jump round to the other side of his desk.
While he’s zipping himself up and tucking in his shirt flaps I say to him, “Sorry, Tony. I thought you only had a cup of tea this time of the afternoon. Didn’t realise you had something with it as well.”
“Bloody Jesus,” he says, easing himself down into his chair. “That’s ruined me for life.”
“No,” I tell him. “Have a massage. You’ll feel right as rain.”
I pull Lesley into the office and close the door behind us. There are two tiny crimson spots on her cheeks.
“Enjoy that one, did you?” I say, giving her the wink.
“Piss off,” she says, shaking her wrist free from my grip, but I notice that the spots go a deeper shade of crimson.
“What the fuck do you want, anyway?” Tony says, taking a swig of cold tea out of a plastic cup. “If you’ve brought a new bird we’ve got more than we need now. Except for the night visiting service, that is. Can’t get enough for that one.”
“Fancy doing a bit of night visiting?” I say, looking at Lesley. She doesn’t answer so I say, “No, she’d be no good for that. She likes it the other way round.”
“So what do you want?” Tony says.
“Without going all round the houses, there might be some law round here in about ten minutes’ time.”
“What?” Tony says, leaping out of his seat and knocking the dregs of his tea over. “Jesus Christ.” He runs round to our side of the desk and pulls open the door and shouts out, “Dawn,” at the top of his voice.
I pull him away from the door and say, “Listen, this is more serious than that. If any law turns up it’s looking for me. They won’t be interested in your ones off the wrist. So this is what I want you to do: Peter the Dutchman’s going to be here any minute and he’s going to be asking for me. Don’t tell him I’ve been here. Just put him in a booth and make sure he stays there, know what I mean? And don’t let him near a phone. Now then, if any law arrives don’t throw a blue fit. Just throw the switch on the neon lighting just in case they’ve got smarter recently. I’ll be driving by every ten minutes or so. If you haven’t switched it off inside half an hour then I’ll be in to see Peter. But make sure he doesn’t leave, right?”
“Yeah, right, right, but what’s going on? Jesus, we’re protected here. I mean, this place is protected.”
“Not any more. Anyway, they’re not bothered about you. But I should clear it as soon as you can.”
“Too bloody right,” he says and opens the door and rushes off down the passage calling for Dawn. I look at Lesley and Lesley looks at me.
“Good business this,” I tell her. “Flat rate’s fair and you get half what you make on top of that and, as they say, all you can eat, if you like to make even more on the side.”
Her hand comes up to give me one on the side of my face but I grab hold of her wrist before she makes contact and I don’t let go again because it’s time to leave. I hurry down the passage dragging her behind me. A client wrapped in a towel comes out of one of the cubicles followed by one of the girls, who’s trying to hand him his clothes.
“I should get dressed in there, sir.”
“But I was recommended to you,” he says. “I mean, I don’t care how much it costs.”
“I’m sorry, you must be mistaken, sir. This is a massage parlor. If you’re not satisfied your money will be refunded in reception.”
We brush past this tableau and through the now empty reception and down the hardboard passage and out. The cold wind cuts down the street and when we get to the car I unlock the passenger door and open it and give her the keys.
She looks at me and I say to her, “No, I’m not barmy. My hands’ll be free this time.”
I get in my side and she gets in her side and puts the key in the ignition.
“No, not yet,” I say to her. “I’ll tell you when.”
She leans back and folds her arms across her chest. From the passenger side I can just see beyond the wall of the corner house, enough for me to have a view of part of the frontage of the Fountain of Youth. I pick the lighter up off the dashboard and take my cigarettes out and offer one to Lesley.
“No, thanks,” she says.
I shrug and light up. A minute or two later she takes out her own cigarettes and when she’s lit up puts the lighter back in her coat pocket.
Five minutes pass by.
Then a two-tone Capri draws up outside the Fountain of Youth. Nothing happens for a minute or two. Then the offside door opens and out gets Peter the Dutchman with his leather maxi coat draped round his shoulders. He looks the building up and down and then strolls in. After the door has closed behind him I tell Lesley to start the car and turn left out of the alley and drive to the opposite end of the street to where the Fountain of Youth is. When we get as far as we can go I tell Lesley to turn right and then to pull in to the curb at the first clear space she sees. And just to make life interesting she does exactly as she’s told for a change.
As we sit there in the lowering dusk I remark on it by saying, “What’s the matter? Rather switch than fight?”
“You what?”
“Forget it. Just my way of saying you seem to be mellowing in your old age.”
“No, I’ve decided to sit back and enjoy it.”
“Enjoy what?”
“The moment when you drop right in it. If I’m lucky enough to be around when it happens.”
“You just might be,” I tell her. “But I don’t think you’ll enjoy it.”
While we’re sitting there, the streetlights flick on and almost coincidentally a few snowflakes begin to drift onto the bonnet of the car, then more and more and within a minute or so the street is full of softly falling snow as it drops on the windless air.
“A white Christmas after all,” I say.
Lesley doesn’t answer. Instead she rolls the window down and throws her cigarette out into the quiet street.
I look at my watch and then I say, “Let’s take a little look. Make a U-turn and drive back into the street where the place is and keep going until you come to the first left turn and take it. All right?”
She doesn’t answer but without any hesitation she switches on the ignition and pulls away from the curb. The only thing she does differently to what I told her to do is to make a three-point turn instead of a U.
We turn in to the street where the establishment is and the first thing I notice is that the neon lights are still on. Peter’s Capri is still parked outside the establishment. The only activity in the street is the falling of the snow.
“Remember what I told you about the left turn,” I tell her, but I’ve no need to remind her because she’s already slowing down to go into it. We drive round the block and she parks in exactly the same place we were parked before, the only difference being that we’re facing in the opposite direction.
We sit there in silence for a few minutes and then I say to her, “Going away for Christmas, are you?”
“No, but it sounds as if you are.”
I laugh. “Maybe,” I say. “But not where you think, my darling. If I go away it’ll be to a better crap-hole than this one, I can tell you. Sun, sea and warm sands is what I’ll be going to.”
“Is that all?”
“Yes. That’s all I need. ’Course, I expect you’re off to places like that all the time. When you’re between jobs. Resting’s what they call it, isn’t it?”
She doesn’t answer that. I laugh and take out my
cigarettes and hold out my hand. Eventually she puts her hand in her pocket and takes the lighter out but she doesn’t give it to me until she’s lit up a cigarette for herself.
“So you’re not going up north for Christmas, then?” I ask her, giving her back her lighter.
She doesn’t answer.
“Why not?” I say. “I’d have thought it’d make a nice change. All the family together for Christmas dinner. All your cousins and nieces and nephews. All your ex-boyfriends panting for a bit of what you’re not going to let them have. Breakfast in bed, funny-hats. Marvelous. Why not?”
“You’ve just answered your own question,” she says. I smile to myself and look at the snowflakes falling in the empty street and for a moment the street looks like Jackson Street and I can almost see Frank and myself as kids running through the snow to get home to help with the tree that was always put up and decorated the night before Christmas Eve. But that thought is with me for only a moment; the closest I’ll get to a Christmas tree tonight is keeping company with a fairy called Peter the Dutchman.
“So anyway,” Lesley says, “as you so charmingly put it, this place is a crap-hole, and you’ve made it plain how you feel about your origins, where do you go from here? Because from what little I can gather, there aren’t going to be too many places to go.”
Origins. The word has a coldness that matches the falling snow. To paraphrase Goering, the word makes me want to reach for my shooter. Origins are the only things in my life I don’t care to think about. The old lady fetching in the coal while the old man had his slippered feet up on the mantelpiece. Frank doing his homework on time, his exercise books neat on the kitchen table, his quiet thoughtful knowing surface, and all the stuff about why wasn’t I more like him, why didn’t I try harder so I could get off the street the way Frank was going to do, instead of hanging around in
Rowson’s doorway as a prelude to wasting the evenings in the Astoria or the Rex; and of course the beltings my old man enjoyed giving me if I stayed out beyond the specified time. But all that business had made me all the more determined to go my own way, achieve my own kind of success. Christ, I could have run rings round Frank as far as schoolwork was concerned, and he was two years ahead of me. It was just that if anybody had ever expected anything of me I’d had this compulsion to do the opposite. Like the English teacher, a writer himself, he always took me to one side at the slightest excuse to tell me how good I was, how there was no need for me to concentrate on my English; if I just pulled my socks up in some of the other subjects, I’d be six form material, and if I stuck it out in the six form, he’d see me through to university. I mean, he’d just never been able to see that my way of proving myself, of being a peer among my contemporaries, was to show my contempt of the system that expected certain standards of behaviour by behaving in the opposite way, and the irony of the situation being that it turns out that Frank finishes up working behind a bar and living with our old lady and I finish earning the kind of money I’m getting and living the way I do.
But at least he’s still living, and thinking that thought I say to Lesley, “I’ve been to most places already, so with my wide and varied experience, I’ll find somewhere. That is, if this business isn’t sorted by this time tomorrow.”
“And that business being?” she says.
I tap the bridge of my nose with my forefinger. “All you have to know is that you’re here with me,” I tell her.
“Yes, here I am,” she says, looking out at the slow-falling snow. “Here I am, sitting next to Jack Carter, the Fletchers’ organiser.”
“Well, at least you know that much,” I tell her. “Still, in Grimsby you get in practice early, so I’m told.”
“I even had a copper as a boyfriend in those days,” she says.
“Hardly worth leaving home for then, was it? I mean, it’s sort of full circle.”
“At least the rank’s slightly different.”
“Yes, the bigger the rank, the bigger the villain.”
“You should know,” she says.
I smile to myself.
“I mean,” she says, “you think you’re so bloody bright—you’re making a few bob, you’ve got the clothes and you’re well known, but how bright are you really? Whatever this is all about, it’s obviously the end of what you’ve got, and my guess is you won’t be piecing together the strands of your career for at least the next ten years.”
Funny you should say that, I think to myself.
“I mean,” she says, “how do you get to be what you are?”
I don’t answer.
“No, come on,” she says. “This’ll be the first and last time I’ll be on intimate terms with a real villain. I’d like to know, I really would.”
“You’re joking.”
“What do you mean?”
“Your boyfriend’s the biggest villain going.”
“No, seriously, I’d really like to know.”
“You want the story of my life? So you can sell it to the papers as part of your memoirs: ‘My Life as a Call Girl and the People with Whom I Mingled.’ ”
“Piss off, then,” she says.
I shrug. “All right,” I say. “I’ll tell you. Doesn’t make any difference one way or the other: I like my work. I wanted the job and I had a good education. Like a ballet dancer, you have to start early in my business, and I went to some very good schools and I don’t mean Eton. And at one of these very good schools I met one of the Fletchers’ helpers and we got on and later I was introduced to the Terrible Twins and taken on as an apprentice. Since then I never looked back. I rose through the ranks to the exalted position I hold today.”
“Except you won’t be getting a gold clock on your retirement,” she says. “They don’t measure time on gold clocks where you’re going.”
I laugh, then there is silence in the car again.
I look at my watch.
“Time for another turn round the block,” I say to Lesley.
Again she does as she’s told and again we turn left into Ellam Street. The lights are still on. Except for Peter’s car, the street is still empty. We drive back to our little parking place. Twenty-five minutes have gone by since Peter got out of his Capri. And nothing’s happened. Perhaps Tony’s not managed to hold him and Peter’s got to a phone. Or maybe Peter’s just out to make a name for himself, by himself, bringing in Jack Carter on his own for whoever it is he’s working for. Or maybe, for once in my life, I’m totally wrong.
“Back again,” I say to Lesley.
“What?”
“Back again,” I tell her. “Only this time park just before the building where the parlor is.”
She swears under her breath and starts the car up again, and again we turn left into Ellam Street. The lights are still on. The car’s still there. The Mini swishes through the thin snow and Lesley guides it gently in to the curb and stops about twenty yards away from the establishment.
We get out of the car. This time I don’t bother to take a grip on Lesley. She just follows me down to the front door of the Fountain of Youth but just as I’m about to push open the door she says, “I’ll wait for you here.”
I give her a look and eventually she shrugs and walks towards me and I go through the door and she follows me inside.
The interior lights are on now and under the cold neon the place seems even quieter than it did before. I push open the door into the reception room. This time there are no girls sitting in the armchairs. We cross the reception room and go through the plastic strips. The corridor that leads to Tony’s office is empty. The only sound is dripping water in the plunge beyond the waterproof curtains on our left, and beyond the curtains of the massage booths on the right there is no sound at all. We start to walk towards Tony’s office and we’re halfway down the passage when behind us the curtain to one of the booths is ripped back with a clatter of wooden rings. I push Lesley out of the way and whirl round reaching for my shooter but all I find myself looking at is one of the girls carrying a pile of dirty sheets and towels. She nearly drops the lot when she sees the quickness of my movements. We stand there looking at each other for a second or two then I turn away and walk the remaining distance to the office door before the girl can say anything and tip the wink to anyone who might be sitting waiting in the office. I yank open the office door and the first thing I see is Peter the Dutchman sitting behind the desk in Tony’s seat. He still has his leather coat draped over his shoulders and in the fingers of one hand he is holding a freshly lit cigarette and the fingers of his other hand are curled round the triggers of a sawn-off shotgun. Tony is leaning against the wall in which the door is set, face to the wallpaper, arms above his head.
Tony says to me, “I’m sorry, Mr. Carter. He had it under his overcoat. I’d got no chance.”
Peter grins and says, “I don’t just wear it for show, you know.”
“The coat or the shotgun?” I say.
“You know better than to ask that,” Peter says.
I sigh and I say, “Yes, I know better than to ask that.” I turn to Lesley. “Come on. You may as well join the party. You said you’d like to be there.” Lesley comes into the office and closes the door behind her, making just about enough room for one person to each wall.
There’s no ventilation and I say to Peter, “It’s a good job you girls are wearing perfume else this could get like the Black Hole of Calcutta.”
Peter grins again. “No such luck,” he says.
“All right,” I say to him. “Let’s stop pissing about. Where are the heavies?”
“What heavies?” Peter says.
“Do me a favour,” I tell him. “I suppose you always carry that around under your coat.”
“When Jack Carter leaves strict instructions for me to meet him on my own, yes. I mean, we’re not exactly bosom pals, are we?”
I give him a long look. “All right,” I say to him, “so why wouldn’t you tell Audrey what you’re supposed to have to tell me?”
“You must be joking. Pass it on to that old boiler? I’ve talked to women before.” He looks at Lesley. “No offense, darling, but you understand, don’t you?”
“You’re lying,” I say to him. “All this trouble didn’t start until you went to work on Gerald and Les to stake you for that job.”
“All what trouble?” Peter says innocently.
I put my hands palms downwards on the table and lean over Peter. The shotgun doesn’t waver and the end of the barrel is touching my breastbone very gently.
“Listen, you fucking fairy,” I say to him, “don’t come all that with me. You know what fucking trouble because you’re part of it.”
The shotgun pushes ever so slightly against me. Peter’s face goes blank and his complexion loses what little colour it had.
“I must be out of my mind,” he says, “passing up a chance like this. I mean, I’ve dreamt of this kind of situation.”
“Yes, you and three thousand others, and I’m still standing upright.”
Peter stares into my face for a long time and then he relaxes and his face breaks into his usual smile and the shotgun is pulled back a couple of inches.
“That’s right,” he says. “I just hope you can keep standing upright for the next twenty years while you’re inside. Because from what I hear it’s on the cards. And that’ll be much worse for you than getting blasted all over the wall. I’ll be able to enjoy it every day each time I think of you, instead of for just the split second it would take to pull these triggers.”
He gets up out of his seat and begins to walk round to my side of the desk. I straighten up and catch sight of Lesley’s face and for the first time today she’s smiling, a smile of triumph; she’s almost wetting herself at the pleasure the scene is giving her.
But there’s no point in dwelling on that aspect of the scene so I say to Peter, “All right, supposing I’m wrong. Supposing I’m—”
Peter cuts me off in midsentence. “Fuck off,” he says. “Worm your own way out.”
I stand between him and the door and brace him but before I can start to persuade him to stay there is a commotion in the passage outside which consists of one of the girls screaming, which is brought to a sudden halt by the sound of a loud slap. I take my shooter out and kick the door open and the scene that presents itself is of the girl who’d had the dirty towels being held in an armlock by a heavy who, with his free arm, is pointing a sawn-off shotgun directly at my chest. My appearance leaves the heavy in no doubt as to what to do. I throw myself back into the room and to the right so I’m out of the frame of the doorway and I crash into Lesley, driving her against the wall and pushing all the breath out of her lungs. At the same time the shotgun blast tears into the tiny room and takes out the light and part of the doorjamb. Lesley covers her head with her arms and from the other side of the doorway Tony decides to make a break but I push him back into the corner, not because I care about his head coming off but so that he won’t be in the way of what I want to do next, which is to fire some shots at the heavy in the passage. I know that providing the girl isn’t in the way I can safely do that because by now he’ll be in the act of reloading. Which is precisely what is happening when I haul off my shots. The girl has been thrown to the floor and is screaming her head off and trying to curl up like a caterpillar and the pig-thick heavy is folded up in the curtains of one of the massage booths as if that would give him some kind of protection. His head is bent over the job in hand so I have time to place a couple of nice ones, one in his chest and the other in his neck. He chokes and the choke leaves his mouth as blood and he gargles his way across the narrow passage and staggers into the waterproof curtains and tears them down with him as he disappears into the plunge with a great splash. The girl on the passage floor starts to get up just as another heavy appears at the far end of the passage. This heavy too is sporting a sawn-off and again it would be pointing straight at me it if weren’t for the girl between, who is now running for the office. I step through the door and pull her to me, the idea being to throw her to the floor and out of the way, but as I take hold of her I feel an almighty thump in my back and I’m flung forwards and the girl and myself hit the floor in a tangled pile. Peter. I’ve forgotten about him in the short space of time it’s taken me to kill a man. I curse and blink and try to get up but the girl is lying across my face and I can’t see a thing and then Peter’s shotgun goes off and the girl screams and wriggles off me and I look up and the first thing I see is the second heavy on all fours trying to crawl to some mindless destination he’s never going to make anyway. The girl gets up and I get up and Peter is reloading his shotgun.
“Don’t bother saying thanks,” he says. “I might have got some of the stuff that was coming your way, that’s all.”
“That’s why I’m not going to. Saving your own skin doesn’t prove anything to me.”
“Fucking marvelous, isn’t it?” Peter says.
Tony sticks his head round the corner of the office. There is the sound of more activity out in reception, shouting of instructions and opening and closing of doors. Lesley is still in the office with her arms round her head and the other girl has buried her face in one of the booth curtains but it does nothing to smother the hysterics she’s having.
“Come on,” says Tony, feeling in his pocket. “Out the back.”
He runs down the dark passage that is adjacent to the one where the plunge and the booths are. At the end of this passage is all the filthy laundry and a couple of dustbins and a door out into the back yard, and the passage itself broadens out into a flagged square. I step into the office and it’s time for grabbing Lesley by the wrist again because it’s obvious all she intends doing is stopping there until she becomes part of the pattern on the wallpaper. I drag her out of the office. Peter and Tony are already legging it down the other passage. The other girl is still screaming into the curtain so I swear to myself and grab her wrist as well and try to make it down the very narrow passage with a screaming woman on each arm.
Tony is in front and I notice that he’s dragging a key ring out of his trouser pocket as he goes and when he gets to the door he crouches forward and has about half a dozen goes at trying to get the key in the lock and when he finally does manage it the key seems to jam and he fucks and blinds and eventually Peter pushes him out of the way and the key turns first time. Tony can’t wait after the key’s been turned and bundles between Peter and the door and shoots a bolt and knocks Peter sideways as he pulls the door open. Then from the yard there is a flash, another God-almighty boom and Tony is lifted two feet in the air and drops screaming onto the pile of dirty towels. Then it’s as if every nerve in his body is on fire as he goes into a paroxysm of pain and he presses one of the hand towels to what it left of his face and somehow he manages to get to his feet and begins staggering about, bouncing off the walls and screaming until another blast is thrown in from the back yard. His arms shoot up in the air and the towel he’d been holding against his face stays stuck to it. Then he falls forward as though someone’s given him a flying kick at the back of his neck.
By this time I’m frozen in the middle of the passage and if the girls were screaming before Christ knows how you’d describe what they’re doing now, but above it all I manage to hear footsteps dashing down the passage where the booths are. When Tony got his blast Peter took refuge behind the yard door and now he has the sense to kick it closed as I drag the girls to the relative safety of the square flagged bit at the end of the passage. I push the girls into the corner out of the range of any fire and Peter slides the bolt on the yard door and then we both take up positions at the corners of the passage as it opens into the flagged square. We’re just in time to see one heavy fly across the space where the two passages converge and position himself in the office and another take up a spot round the corner and opposite the office. They both have shotguns. Jesus, I think to myself, I’ve seen enough shotguns during the last eight hours to decorate a Christmas tree.
In the corner the girls are still screaming and I can’t stand it so while Peter gets ready to give the other end of the passage a blast from his piece of the collection I get up and give them one or two until they stop their noise. I take up my position again. Peter’s now all keyed up to poke his shotgun round the corner but before he can do that the sound of three shots from an ordinary shooter comes from somewhere at the other end, but the bullets aren’t flying in our direction so I chance a quick look and I can only see one of the heavies, the one who was round the corner, only now he’s sinking to the floor having taken a bullet in the back of the head. The only part that is visible of the heavy in the office is his foot sticking through the office doorway. Then a third figure appears at the end of the passage and although the light is behind the figure I can immediately recognise the shape as that of Con McCarty.
“Get back,” I yell at him as Peter squeezes the triggers.
Con leaps like trout and disappears from view as the blast booms down the passage and sets the girls off again.
“You stupid berk,” I shout at Peter.
Peter looks at me in amazement.
“It’s Con. It was bloody Con you were firing at.”
Con’s head edges round the corner.
“What the Christ’s going on?” he shouts.
“Well, I didn’t know who it was, did I?” Peter says, but I’ve already got hold of Lesley and am running down the
passage towards Con.
“Jesus,” he says, “I get you out of it and I nearly get halved.”
“You’ll get topped if you hang around here any longer.”
Con trots after us along the other corridor. The fallen heavy is still crawling towards his death.
“Is there a driver outside?” I ask Con.
“Not any more.”
We dash through reception and down through the hardboard and outside. Peter hasn’t caught up with us yet but then there’s a shot and I get the general idea which is reinforced by Peter appearing in the doorway, smiling and tucking his hand gun away.
The snow is still falling. For the second time that day there is the sound of the law getting near to us. I tell Peter the address of Lesley’s flat and Con and I run towards Lesley’s Mini. Lesley runs too but it’s not of her own volition. The sound of the law gets closer. We get to the Mini and Con piles in the back and I push Lesley into the passenger seat and run round to the other side and jump in and reverse the Mini as fast as I can until I reach the left turning we’ve used so often before this evening. I take a blind chance and reverse right round the corner and I’m in luck so I throw the gear stick into drive and put my foot down and shoot across the intersection and then at least I’m out of sight of any arriving law. I drive the Mini like you’ve never seen until I’ve put a dozen lefts and rights between us and the Fountain of Youth. We’re fortunate enough not to see any of Old Bill’s motors coming in the opposite direction and at least for a while the Mini is less likely to be connected with the activities of the last ten minutes than would a motor like Peter’s Capri. Until they get the descriptions out, that is. I only hope whoever phoned the law didn’t connect the Mini with the performance and I also hope Peter’ll have the sense to get rid of the Capri as soon as he can. And that’ll make him sick. He’s only been out a fortnight and the motor’s no older than that.
For a while Con and I don’t say anything to each other and the only sound in the car is that of Lesley sobbing away into her hands. The snow seems to be falling even thicker now and because of the route I’m taking the near-empty streets have all the reality of a nightmare.
Eventually I say to Con, “What happened to you, then?”
“Got rid of the motor, didn’t I?”
“Where, the Outer Hebrides?”
“Bishop’s Stortford.”
“Bishop’s Stortford!”
“Got a little lockup there, haven’t I? Just outside. Came in handy after all, didn’t it? So I parked the motor and came back by train and went round the club just after Peter left for here. Audrey told me what you thought so I decided to grab a cab just in case you were right.”
“Well, I was wrong, wasn’t I?” I say. “I was dead fucking wrong.”
“Now there’s a novelty,” Con says.
I don’t answer him.
“So how’d the heavies get there if you were wrong?”
“They must have had the club staked out.”
“There was enough of them.”
“There needed to be, didn’t there?”
“So what in Christ’s name’s going on?”
“I don’t know. I’ve got some ideas but now it seems Peter might have something after all so let’s wait and see what he’s got to say.”
“If he gets there.”
I don’t answer that either but then I don’t have much chance because Lesley has wound herself up and she starts screaming at me. The words run into one another and together with the sobs it’s difficult to hear precisely what she’s saying but the general idea is that she’s trying to tell us she’s just seen five men killed.
“Yes,” I say to her, “and it could have been the other way round, three men and two women, one of which would have been you.”
But this doesn’t make any difference to her because she just carries on pouring out the same words over and over again and above her noise Con says, “Who’s this, anyway?”
“Hume’s girlfriend.”
I look in the mirror so I can take in Con’s expression but it remains the same, rigid with disbelief.
“You’re joking.”
“I met her last night. So I thought her place would be as safe as anywhere.”
“You’re at her flat?”
“Yes.”
“Jesus Christ. And that’s where we’re going now?”
“Don’t worry. Hume gave her the elbow last night.”
“And supposing he comes round to kiss and make up?”
“Then we all hide in the wardrobe, don’t we?”
Con shakes his head and says, “Jesus Christ.”
“He won’t be round,” I say to Con. “He’s too full of shit to apologise to anybody, even if he wanted to.”
I turn left at Great Portland Street and then right and then a few minutes later we’re crossing Baker Street. I find a mews in one of the other streets off Seymour Place and leave the Mini there. Then I have to go through the routine of getting Lesley out of the car but once she’s out she allows herself to be guided along until we get to her flat. We climb the stairs and she makes no attempt to take her keys out so I put my hand in her coat pocket and take them out for her and unlock the door and shepherd her in.
I switch on the lights and Con follows us in and while I’m making my way to where the drinks are Con looks round him and says, “Very nice. Very high class. I’ll enjoy having Old Bill pick me up in such a high-class place as this.”
Then he hears me pour a drink and comes round to my side of the screen.
“At least I won’t go dry,” he says.
He goes back to the screen and sticks his head round it and says, “Is it all right if I have a drink, young lady?”
There’s no reply from beyond the screen.
“Thanks very much,” Con says, and goes over to the dresser and pours himself a drink and then sits down on one of the big bean bag cushions and props himself up against the wall. I drink some of my drink and go round to the other side of the screen. Lesley is leaning against the wall by the door, her hands in her coat pockets. I walk over to her and she watches me all the way.
“Look,” I say to her, “I know how you feel, but try and forget what you saw. It’s the only way.”
The traces of a smile appear at the corners of her mouth.
“I mean, they came all set to have a go, didn’t they?” I say to her. “It wasn’t as if they were innocent bystanders.”
“What was Tony then?” she asks me.
I sigh and spread my hands. “I’m sorry about Tony. I really am. But it could have been me, or you, any of us.”
“Why couldn’t it have been you?”
I shake my head.
“He’d be alive if it wasn’t for you,” she says. “If you hadn’t been wrong about that other one.”
“I know. That’s why I’m looking forward to getting to the people who set all this off.”
Now it’s her turn to shake her head.
“I once went to the Natural History Museum,” she says. “They had the skeletons there of things like you. Only they’d been extinct for a million years.”
“Yes,” I say, “but unlike them I intend to survive.”
The smile comes fully into play now.
“You’re not going to survive,” she says. “You’ve got another day at the most.”
“Perhaps,” I say to her. “Anyway, I might last a bit longer if you’re somewhere I can see you, away from that door.”
She pushes herself away from the wall and walks to the other side of the screen without giving me an argument. I follow her through and she goes over to the dresser and pours herself a drink. Con is looking at his watch.
“Peter should be here by now,” he says.
“He hasn’t got a lockup in Bishop’s Stortford, has he?” I say.
Quarter of an hour passes by in which time Con and I have a couple more medium-sized drinks and Lesley has another three or four large ones.
At one point Lesley goes into the bedroom and closes the door behind her, then comes out five minutes later and says, “I mean, I can’t believe what I saw this afternoon. I really can’t. It’s like a nightmare.”
“That’s the best way,” I say to her. “Think of it as a nightmare.”
She goes back into the bedroom and slams the door behind her.
Con says, “You know, until today I’d never have believed I’d see you row yourself in this kind of situation.”
“Until today I’ve always had a choice, haven’t I?”
I look at my watch while I’m talking.
“Think he’s been picked up?”
“How the fuck should I know?” I say and as I’m saying it the doorbell rings.
I open the bedroom door. Lesley is sitting on the edge of the bed with her knees together holding her drink with both hands.
“I want you to answer the door,” I say to her.
She looks at me as though she’s never seen me before so I take the glass from her hand and ease her up off the bed and guide her to the front door and while we’re on our way I say to her, “All I want you to do is ask who it is. Then if it’s who it should be I’ll open the door, all right?”
We get to the hall. The doorbell rings again.
“Go on,” I say softly. “Ask who it is.”
“Who’s there?” she says in a flat slurry voice.
“Peter,” comes the voice from the other side of the door.
I twist the handle of the lock and pull the door open and Peter comes in. I’m about to ask Peter what took him so long when Lesley throws a fit, as if seeing Peter has brought everything back to her. She throws herself at him, kicking and scratching and screaming for him to get out and Peter being Peter doesn’t like being touched by a woman at the best of times so he calls her a fucking bitch and gives her one right on the point of jaw which sends her sliding down him to the floor.
“Bleeding cow,” Peter says, all affronted. “What’s she in it for anyway?”
I lift Lesley off the floor and carry her through into the bedroom and lay her down on the bed and then go back into the other room and close the door behind me.
“Nice setup,” Peter says. “But what would Audrey say?”
Con looks at me and I say to Peter, “What you talking about?”
“Do me a favour,” he says and goes to pour himself a drink. Before he can get there I get a grip on him and have him up against the wall.
“Listen, you’ve got something to tell me,” I say. “Make sure you’re able to say the words.”
“Come on,” Peter says. “I’m joking. Just got the idea Audrey fancied you, that’s all.”
“In that case have a drink and think of something else that’s funny.”
I let go of him and he shrugs his coat back on his shoulders and pours himself a drink.
“All right,” I say to him. “What’s this very important information you couldn’t tell anyone but me?”
Peter takes a sip of his drink and sits down.
“After I saw you, I went to Maurice’s this lunch time . . . ”
“Go on,” Con says.
Peter ignores him and carries on.
“I mean, it’s been a long time and I’ve got a lot of acquaintances to renew, you know how it is. So I’m sitting there with me Campari talking to the morning staff on account of there being nothing in the place of any consequence, anything below fifty-first hand, and it comes up about the Colemans and those two bitches having a bit of fun with the night staff. Of course I’d seen them come in but I’d left before the fun started so it was all news to me. So she tells me the whole story and just as she’s finishing who should come in but the ex-barmaid who we’ve just been talking about. She asks the morning staff if Maurice is about and the morning staff tells her Maurice never gets in till one and the ex-barmaid tut-tuts and tells us she’s come for her cards because she thinks she’s got herself fixed up with something else that very day. Anyway, she says, I may as well have a drink while I’m here and asks for a lager and starts rooting through her shoulder bag for her change. Well, of course she’s not in drag this morning and the daylight from the skylight isn’t doing much for her frizzy old hair so I take pity on her, there but for the God of Grace sort of thing, and she almost falls over herself. Not my scene you understand, just sorry for her. So we get talking and she tells about how she’s been wronged all her life, particularly last night and gives me her version. And while she’s doing that she suddenly says, ‘Here, weren’t you in here last night,’ and I say, ‘What about it,’ and she says, ‘With that big butch fellow who’s all over the papers with the Fletchers?’ And she takes the paper from under her arm and shows me the photo I’ve already seen. ‘Here, are you in with them?’ she says. And I say, ‘What if I am?’ ‘Because,’ she said, ‘I’m certain those bleeding Colemans knew that picture was going to be in today’s papers.’ Then she explains that after what happened with her and the Coleman women she went and locked herself in one of the lavs and had a private little cry and while she was in there the Coleman women came in to tart themselves up and she can hear everything they say. Your name comes up, about how one of them fancies you and what she wouldn’t get up to if she had the chance, and the other one says, ‘Yes, but what I’d like to see is his face when he picks up tomorrow’s paper, not to mention the Fletchers and Finbow.’ And that’s what the old queen heard in the lav at Maurice’s. Of course, she didn’t think anything about it until she saw the picture this morning.”
Peter finishes his story by smiling at me. Then he takes out his cigarettes and lights up and says, “So what do you make of that?”
I go over to the dresser and pour myself another drink.
Con says, “Those fucking chancers.”
I walk over to one of the steel chairs and sit down. The Colemans. Those bastards are the ones that fixed the picture. And they could only have got hold of it through Mallory. Mallory’s in hiding, and Mallory’s representing Jimmy Swann. And last night . . .
“So what are we going to do?” Con says.
“What do you think we’re going to do?” I say to him.
“Where will they be?”
“I don’t know.” I look at my watch. “It’s five o’clock. They could be anywhere. But wherever they are they won’t be expecting us. They know there’s a chance we’ll suss them, but they’re hoping we’ll either be picked up or blasted out of it before that happens.”
“Yeah, but we’ve got to be dead careful,” Con says. “If we go piling into one of their places and they’re not there, then the word’ll be out, no trouble, and then we’d never find them.”
“I know. We’ve got to do it right but we can’t give ourselves the right amount of time.” I take a sip of my drink. “Also, if they’re not together and we take one of them out of it the word’d be out that way, too.”
“So, what?”
I think about it for a minute or two.
“Seeing as they’re both family men, we’ll see if they’re at home first,” I say. “Then if they’re not we start looking in their places. That’s all we can do.”
“Right,” Con says, getting up.
“Only you’re staying here,” I say to him.
“Hang about . . . ”
“Somebody’s got to keep an eye on her,” I say, indicating the bedroom door. “She could drop us all in it.”
“Yes, but why me?” Con says. “What’s wrong with him?”
“I thought you’d never ask,” Peter says.
“Out of the two of you,” I say, “there’s not much to choose. But I’d rather have him where I can see him.”
“Charming,” Peter says.
I put my glass down and I say to Con, “Phone Audrey at Danny’s at seven o’clock. Tell her what’s going on. If anything comes up I’ll phone you here. All right?”
Con nods but he’s not happy.
“What did you do with your motor?” I ask Peter.
“Left it with a friend at Warren Street,” he says. “It’ll be on the market with a different colour in the morning.”
“Has he got any motors for sale right now?”
“All the time.”
“Let’s go and see him, then.”