Even a pawn can make a ‘double attack’.
Friday, October 11th
Damp leaves shone underfoot like a million newly struck pennies. Ferns had shrivelled to intricate bronze abstract sculptures and shiny leaves were suspended magically in space from invisible twigs.
The pub wasn’t yet in sight and we stood for a moment in the churchyard listening to the whining and rustling and looking at the gravestones which shone in the failing light. Samantha read the large curlicue lettering aloud.
Praises on stones are titles vainly lent.
A man’s good name is his best monument.
Thomas Merrick. Died August 15, 1849.
She moved through the soft light like a wraith. ‘Here’s a crazy one,’ she called.
Here lies the dust of Billy Paine.
Whole undisturbed may he remain.
On this date that he was slain.
Many a kind thought died in Paine.
From underfoot the sweet smell of damp grass rose like perfume. Birds were still singing in the trees that stood across the major surgery of sunset like massed artery forceps. Sam insisted upon looking into the tiny church. The door opened with a vibratory screech. A small hand-lettered notice pinned to the door read: ‘All brass rubbing suspended until further notice.’ Inside the semiprecious light of the stained glass softly dusted the smooth, worn pews, and a complex of brass candlesticks glinted like a medieval oil refinery. Sam held my hand very tightly.
‘You are the best thing that ever happened to me,’ she said as though she meant it.
The pub was crowded when we got there. Men in rough-knit cardigans were lying at attention in the best armchairs and making a big thing about being local residents.
‘I say, Mabel,’ one of them shouted to the barmaid, ‘how’s about another noggin of the usual all round?’ A man with a paisley scarf tucked inside an open-necked shirt was saying, ‘He’s the best damn photographer in the country but he’s a thousand guineas a shot.’
A man with suede chukka boots said, ‘Our deep-frozen fish-fingers nearly beat him. I said, “Make the beastly things out of plaster, old boy; we’ll get the piping-hot effect by burning incense.” We did too. Ha, ha! Put the sales up six and three-quarter per cent and he got some kind of Art Director’s award.’ He laughed a deep, manly laugh and sloshed down some beer.
Sam hadn’t let go of my hand. We walked across to the bar and sat on the high stools where girls with camel coats and cowboy boots and black tights were drinking Pimms Number 1 and exchanging West End hairdressers.
‘Two large bitters,’ I said. Through the window the moon was yellow like a low-power bulb in a blue velvet room.
‘Do you ever imagine what it would be like to be on the moon?’ Sam said.
‘Nearly all the time,’ I said.
‘Serious,’ she squeezed my hand, ‘serious, ghoul.’
‘What would it be like?’ I asked.
‘Spooky but wonderful,’ she said.
‘Like you,’ I said and meant it.
Sam picked up her bitter and pulled a face at me. Outside there was the brutal noise of a sports car starting. It scattered a little gravel against the window and broke wind into the damp night air.
Sam was right about the Schönberg ‘Variations for wind band’. I’d wanted to go on account of the Charles Ives ‘Three places in New England’, because I liked the crazy military band sequence, but the Schönberg was something else again. Everyone likes to convert people to something they like. Sam was no exception. She was being laughing and loving and little-girlish. I was a sucker for erudite little girls. We had dinner in Kensington in a poky little two-room place where the menu is as big as a newspaper and everything that can be flambé is flambé.
We moved through the powdered shoulders and borrowed evening suits and Sam felt out of place because she didn’t have elbow-length gloves with jewelled bangles over.
‘Don’t worry,’ I said. ‘You’ve got a great face.’
She poked her tongue out at me.
‘Don’t be sexy,’ I said and the waiter heard me and Sam blushed like a beetroot, which surprised me.
We both liked the same things. We both liked oysters without melon. ‘I like oysters without dressing,’ Sam said.
I raised my eyebrow at the waiter but Sam saw me and gave me a vicious kick in the ankle. The steak was OK and I was strong-willed enough not to hit the sweet-trolley too hard. We’d finished coffee by half past midnight and as we drove home I parked the car near the Serpentine in the Park. Sam said that if we were on the moon we could see which half of the world was sleeping.
‘And we’d be the only people who could still see the sun.’ I said.
‘I would love that.’ It began to rain as I restarted the car.
‘Come and explain why at my place,’ I suggested.
‘My place,’ she said. ‘I still haven’t got my eyebrows.’
‘Tomorrow I’ll buy a complete range of eyebrow pencils and keep them in my flat,’ I promised. She held my arm tight.
I rang the chimes at Sam’s front door. ‘Don’t do that,’ Sam said. ‘I have quiet neighbours.’ She opened the door with a flourish and flipped the light switch.
It wasn’t hard to recognize the signs. Burglars open chests beginning with the bottom drawer, so that they don’t have to waste time shutting each to get at the next. Sam stood looking at the mess – clothes everywhere and wine spilled across the rug. She trapped her lower lip under her teeth and flung it forward in a heartfelt monosyllabic obscenity.
‘Shall I phone the police?’ I asked.
‘The police,’ said Sam scornfully. ‘You mean that your police in England won’t trample around the place like idiots, ask a million questions and end up doing sweet FA?’
‘They will,’ I said. ‘But they are very nicely spoken.’
Sam said she would like to be alone.
‘Whatever you wish,’ I said, for I knew how she felt.
When I got back to my flat I phoned Sam. She didn’t seem nervous or too distressed.
‘She seems OK,’ I said to Austin Butterworth, after replacing the receiver.
‘Good,’ he said. Austin was sitting well back in my most comfortable armchair supping my favourite whisky and being as modest as hell. ‘Run of the mill job,’ he was saying, ‘French windows with slide bolts – child’s play. People are so silly. You should see my place, that’s really well protected against burglars.’
‘Is it?’ I said.
‘Of course,’ said Ossie, ‘you have to pay to have the best protection but it beats me why people are so mean. After – that’s when they get properly equipped, after they’ve been done.’
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘I made a lot of mess,’ said Ossie.
‘I noticed,’ I said.
‘Modus operandi,’ said Ossie mysteriously. ‘Sometimes I’m neat, sometimes I’m messy. It keeps the Yard puzzled.’
‘I’ll bet it does.’
‘Mind you,’ said Ossie, ‘thanks for the old one-two on the door bell. I’d quite forgotten how the time was. I had to scarper when I heard you at the door.’ He tugged at his nose and gave a little smile.
‘What did you make of it?’
‘Well,’ said Ossie cautiously. ‘Unmarried girl living alone. Lots of men friends. Gets three hundred dollars per week from Chase Manhattan Bank, New York.’
I nodded.
‘United Nations Plaza Branch,’ said Ossie. He was proud of being thorough.
‘US passport in name of Samantha Steel. Israeli passport in name of Hanna Stahl showing same girl but with blonde hair. Quite a lot of jewellery – expensive stuff, no rubbish. Real mink coat. Real. I could get a thousand quid for it. So legit, it would be worth three or four.’
‘Would it?’ I said. I poured more refreshment and Ossie removed his boots and a pair of scarlet socks which he arranged in the fireplace.
‘I don’t say she’s a whore,’ said Ossie, ‘but she’s got a good standard of living.’ His socks were steaming in the heat of the fire. ‘Educated,’ said Ossie.
‘Yes?’ I said.
‘All kinds of books – psychology, poetry, all sorts of stuff.’
I went and made coffee while Ossie dried his feet. Outside the weather was terrible; the rain trickled constantly against the windows and there was a hollow drumming sound as torrents of it roared along the guttering and spilled over in great sheets that crashed on to the concrete of the back garden. By the time I returned with the coffee, Ossie had unpacked his little Gladstone bag. There were a couple of tiny jemmies and a Stilson wrench and a lot of lock-picking devices that Ossie had made himself. There were two yellow dusters, a pair of carpet slippers and a Polaroid Automatic 100 camera.
‘Like this,’ said Ossie. He held the set of Polaroid photos for me. Only one of them was of interest: a view of a box-room showing a bench with a monocular microscope – a professional-looking job with revolving objectives and some chemical gear – mounted specimens and test tubes. It was the titles of the books on the bench that I wanted to see.
‘It’s no good,’ I said. ‘I can’t read the titles even with a glass. Don’t you remember any of them?’
‘I told you,’ said Ossie. ‘I was going to write some of the titles down when I heard you bash the door bell. I can go back – it’s easy.’
‘No, don’t do that. Just try and remember one title.’
We sat there, with me looking at Ossie’s funny bulbous old face and Ossie’s bright little eyes gazing in the fire and trying to recollect the brief glimpse of the books.
‘For instance,’ I prompted, ‘did any one of them say “enzyme”?’
‘Luvaduck,’ said Ossie, his face glowing with a huge smile of content. ‘That’s it, you’ve said it, “enzymes”, they nearly all were about enzymes.’
He couldn’t remember the full titles but I knew he wouldn’t make them up. He was one of the best B & E1 men we had and one of our most reliable retainers.
‘How did you know?’ said Ossie.
‘I just guessed,’ I said. ‘She just seemed the sort of girl who would be interested in enzymes.’
1 B & E: Breaking and entering.