They all wanted to go along, of course, even Miranda, though she looked as if she would prefer spending the morning sitting on a toilet with a damp towel around her head. But I put my foot down, arguing that even I wouldn’t be able to explain five women fighting in the back of a London cab in broad daylight. Four struggling women was positively my final offer. To my amazement, I won, and Fenella was volunteered to stay at Stuart Street and prepare her flat (because it had a ‘female-friendly aura’) as the deprogramming chamber for the unsuspecting Stella Rudgard. Veronica had to go, as it was her case. Miranda forced herself to come along, though I think she was beginning to have doubts, because she felt that Veronica needed a guardian angel. Lisabeth was an obvious first team choice because she probably had the best left hook of any of us if things got violent and, if all else failed, she could sit on Stella on the way back.
To stop Fenella sulking, we gave her another job. I suggested that she be the one to ring Stella’s agency – Office Cavalry – at 9.05 am, unless we called her off. She was to say that she was a friend of Stella’s and that Stella was ill, gone down with a really, really bad case of ‘flu, and wouldn’t be able to get into work. After Miranda had rehearsed her eight times, we were half-confident that she would do it right.
Shortly after seven, we embarked on Operation Rescue, as Veronica insisted on calling it. Deciding on a name for the exercise was just about the sum total of our planning. Over a ‘war cabinet’ breakfast, conducted mostly by shouting up and down the stairs between Lisabeth and Fenella’s flat and Doogie and Miranda’s, with me in the middle, ‘we’ decided to do the business in Wimpole Street rather than at Sloane Square tube station, which had been Veronica’s first choice.
I persuaded them to go for nearer her workplace because it would mean fewer people around for a start, easier access and escape for Armstrong, and she would be that much further away from her friends in the Shining Doorway. I also talked Lisabeth out of taking along a brown paper shopping bag to put over Stella’s head, as even the most sleepy-eyed resident of Wimpole Street might notice something out of the ordinary. The trick, if it had any chance of succeeding, would be to make it look to any witnesses as if Stella was simply getting into a black cab with some friends. And friends don’t normally ram a paper bag over your head. Well, not if it isn’t your birthday.
‘You listen to Angel,’ I heard Doogie say to Miranda. ‘He knows what he’s talking about when it comes to picking women up.’
‘Sexist,’ Miranda answered from somewhere in the flat.
‘What’re we calling this, Operation Street Snatch?’ Doogie taunted, but despite all our doors being open, I didn’t think Lisabeth, Fenella and Veronica could hear one flight down.
‘Sexist pig,’ Miranda hissed, and a heavy object hit the wall somewhere above me.
For the rest, I just let them get on with it while I put food down for Springsteen and made toast for myself. I did consider taking Springsteen along with me and, if things got out of hand, turning him loose in the back of Armstrong to sort them out. But then I didn’t fancy the idea of cleaning out the cab afterwards, and anyway, I could never get him into his travelling cat basket while he was sober.
Before we embarked, I had a flying visit from Miranda, who was putting a brave, if pale, face on her hangover. She told me that my special mission, whether I wanted to accept it or not, was to look after Veronica. Whatever happened, she added dramatically.
Then I had a sneak visit from Doogie, telling me to look after Miranda, whatever happened to ‘the three hairies downstairs’. They were expendable, Miranda wasn’t. I had two legs and I wanted to keep them attached to the rest of me, didn’t I? Too right, Doogie.
Finally, I had Fenella call by on the excuse of offering me a cup of rosemary-infused tea. What she really wanted was to ask me to take care of Lisabeth ‘out there’. I smiled and assured her I would. I didn’t mention that if we found ourselves in a position in which Lisabeth was either frightened or physically threatened, then me and Armstrong would be disappearing round the corner pronto.
‘Now who is Veronica going to ask me to look after?’ I said casually to Springsteen, and he paused in his wolfing of cat food as if he recognised her name. His ears twitched fractionally and he flicked his tail just the once, then he went hack to inhaling chicken and tuna chunks.
Maybe he really did have radar, as ten seconds later, Veronica crept up the stairs and knocked lightly on my open door.
I was tucking a Voodoo Lounge T-shirt into my jeans, but she would probably not have blushed more if she had caught me stepping out of the shower.
‘Oh, I’ll pop back …’
‘S’okay. I’m ready and raring to go.’ I flashed my newly brushed and flossed teeth. Still she didn’t register them.
‘I wanted to ask you something,’ she said hesitantly.
‘Ask away,’ I said, closing the kitchen door on Springsteen.
I estimated she had about two minutes before he got out of the window, round to the front door, persuaded someone to let him in and then came up the stairs behind her.
‘When we’re out there … on the street …’ I wondered where she’d got that one from, but said nothing. ‘… I want you to, well, keep an eye on me.’
‘An eye? Just the one?’
‘You know what I mean. Please don’t make this difficult for me.’
‘I honestly don’t know what you mean,’ I said, zipping my fly. Admittedly, that probably wasn’t the most tactful of gestures, but then I never claimed to be fluent in body language.
‘You’re more experienced at this sort of thing than I am …,’ she started, and I wanted to yell ‘No I’m not’ in her face, ‘and I want you to tell me if I go wrong or make any mistakes.’
‘No-one gives you marks for artistic interpretation on a daylight kidnapping, you know.’
That stopped her for a second. ‘Kidnap?’
‘That’s what you’re planning. It’s not too late to pull out.’
She thought about this, then made up her mind. I could almost hear it clank into gear.
‘Then that makes it more important. You’ve got to promise me that you’ll watch over me and make sure I don’t make any mistakes and tell me if I do. It’s important, Angel. I don’t want to get Lizzie and Randa into trouble.’
Randa? And she called Veronica Ronnie or Vonnie didn’t she? Had they invented code names, or was I being paranoid? No, it wasn’t paranoia; I really didn’t know what was going on here.
‘Promise me you’ll keep us out of trouble. Please.’
‘Sure, I promise.’
Me, keep them out of trouble? Now there was one for the bookmakers to set odds on.
By the time we were in the West End, I wouldn’t have bet good money on us pulling it off. The extent of our meticulous planning had got as far as rehearsing opening lines for when we confronted Stella.
‘Hello, we’re here to help.’
‘Hello, Stella, we’ve come to take you home.’
‘Stella Rudgard? Would you come with us, please?’
‘Ms Rudgard? Would you step in here, please?’
‘Stella? We have a message from your father.’
‘Are you coming quietly, Miss Rudgard?’
‘We’re all angels, and we’ve come to help.’
‘Just get in the fucking cab, sweetheart.’
All these were rejected, even my suggestions, and we decided to play it by ear, not mention her father, and if anything needed to be said, Veronica would do it as it was her case. That suited me, and when it was decided that I should stay inside Armstrong, that suited me fine.
I guessed that now she had been in the job a couple of days, Stella would have found the easiest route to work, via Oxford Circus, as it was one less change on the underground.
This piece of stunning logic was almost greeted with a Mexican Wave from the back of the cab, and one of them, I wasn’t sure who, whispered, ‘I told you he knew stuff like that.’
Consequently, I parked midway between Mr Linscott’s green-door consulting rooms and the south end of Wimpole Street with, I thought, plenty of time to kill – at least 20 minutes – before Stella would reasonably bother to turn up for work.
I was suggesting to the A-Team that one of them should stake out the other end of the street just in case I’d guessed wrong, and trying to work out which of them would be least conspicuous, when I saw Stella turning the corner from Wigmore Street and walking at a fair clip towards us.
‘Hell’s teeth, she’s keen,’ said Miranda in my ear.
She was too. What were temp agency stand-ins doing turning up for work early except on the first day? It was unknown in my experience.
I started Armstrong up again.
‘Stop arguing,’ I hissed at them, ‘and get ready. We’re going for a take here, no rehearsal. Make like you’ve just pulled up in a cab and are getting out, deciding which one is paying. Do it.’
I even flicked on the left indicator to make it look as if I had just stopped at the kerb. Stella was 40 yards away.
Veronica was the first out onto the pavement, then Lisabeth and then a shaky Miranda. Veronica stood by the passenger window as I pulled it down as if I was demanding the fare from her.
‘What now?’ she whispered, not quite able to keep the nerves out of her voice.
‘You keep looking at me as if you’re paying the fare. Miranda and Lisabeth, just mooch around a bit away so you’re spread out. Don’t shut the back door.’
Stella was 20 yards away now, smartly dressed in a light green mini-skirt and day-glo lime green blouson. She wasn’t looking at us as far as I could tell, but I concentrated on leaning over as if giving change to Veronica, thus keeping my profile fudged and indistinct, or at least not recognisable in a line-up.
‘When I say “Go” you turn round and confront her, just say her name if you can’t think of anything else. Then push her in the back and sit on her. Miranda, you cover the door this side or she’ll be out of there like a rat up a drainpipe. You and Lisabeth follow her in and be quick about it. It’s got to be fast. Don’t think, do it.’
Five yards. She was wearing Nike trainers again and carrying a Harrods bag, which would contain the office high heels. Damn. That meant she could run if they gave her the chance.
But the shoes thing played into our hands. She was looking in the bag now, probably thinking she should change her trainers, as she had that first day I had seen her reporting for work. So when I said ‘Go’ and Veronica turned and said, ‘Stella Rudgard?’, she had to look up to find Veronica too close to avoid and Lisabeth moving in on her right side like a shark.
I didn’t hear what else Veronica said to her, I just caught a glimpse of her holding out a hand as if to shake Stella’s. By then I was revving Armstrong to cover the sound of any shouts or screams and checking the rear and wing mirrors to see if the coast was still clear. Again, our luck held.
I saw a shape fall by my mirror and into the back of the cab, hitting the floor with a thud. Then Lisabeth’s bulk was blocking my view and Veronica’s face was there saying. ‘Let’s move’, and then Miranda was climbing in the offside door and saying. ‘Punch it, Angel’, which only went to show that she’d seen too many videos.
‘Door!’ yelled Lisabeth as I pulled away from the kerb.
‘What?’
‘I haven’t shut the door,’ gasped Veronica, trying to turn round in the cramped melee.
I took my foot off the accelerator for a second and she must have grabbed the door handle and pulled. As the door slammed, I was off again, jerking forward, and I heard rather than saw her bounce face first onto the back seat.
‘Bag!’ yelled a strange voice. ‘My bag!’
‘Oh God, she’s dropped her bag!’ shouted Miranda, joining in the hysteria, ‘Can we go back?’
In the nearside wing mirror I could see the Harrods carrier bag standing upright on the pavement where we had been. ‘Forget it,’ I growled and hung a left, heading east.
In my mirror all I could now see was the back of Lisabeth’s head. I realised she had taken my instructions literally and was sitting on Stella, who must have been lying on the floor, her head under the rumble seal Miranda was sitting on.
They were all talking, or so it sounded.
‘Let me up’
‘This is for your own good, Stella.’
‘We’re not going to hurt you, we promise.’
‘Who are you?’
‘Friends.’
‘Yes, think of us as friends.’
‘It’s not going to be easy.’
‘We’re taking you to a safe place, please believe me.’
‘I have no money on me.’
‘We don’t want money, Stella, we want to help.’
‘How do you know my name?’
‘Please don’t cry. You’re safe with us.’
‘I’m not crying, I’m in pain. She’s heavy.’
‘It’s for your own good, Stella. Believe us, we mean you no harm.’
And it went on all the way across London, but I switched off after a while and concentrated on keeping my foot down and running as many just-red lights as I dare. I didn’t want the journey to take a minute longer than necessary, but then I didn’t want to get pulled over either. Four women fighting in the back of a cab I could explain, but not until we were in Hackney, or at least Islington.
On the Pentonville Road I saw a 32-sheet poster outside a Methodist church hall. It read: ‘Feeling at the end or your tether? Thinking of ending it all? Let God help.’
I laughed to myself. The others in the back were too busy to appreciate it.
Fenella had been left in charge of turning her and Lisabeth’s living room into a deprogramming module, whatever that was, which she’d read about in an article somewhere. From the brief glimpse I got before the door was shut firmly in my face, it looked like the waiting room for an upmarket hippy tour of the Hindu Kush. I never knew Fenella and Lisabeth owned so many cushions.
I wasn’t devastated at not being invited to join in the actual deprogramming. That was best left to ‘us women’, wasn’t it? Sure. I had no intention of adding mental cruelty to the pending charge of kidnapping.
There was one thing I could usefully do, though, and that was ring Stella’s agency, as Fenella had forgotten to do so, what with all the worry about where to place the lamps, how to rearrange the cushions and whether or not to light incense sticks.
Veronica took the piece of paper with the number for the Office Cavalry on and handed it to me on the stairs.
‘We’ll all be fine,’ she said. ‘She’s calmed down.’
Stella had indeed calmed down, but then so would anyone after being sat on by Lisabeth for half an hour. It was Veronica I was worried about, her face flushed and breathing rapid. And Miranda had shrunk into some sort of a mental shell, as if realising what she had just been a party to. Or maybe her hangover was back, the adrenaline buzz having worn off. And Lisabeth was no better, fuming in semi-annoyance at Fenella’s fussing and clearly not having a clue what to do next. And Fenella fussing over where Stella should sit and even saying what a nice, colourful jacket she was wearing. At that point, I thought Miranda’s pupils had disappeared forever into the top of her eyeball sockets.
All in all, phoning the Office Cavalry was the easy option, and so I used the communal phone near the front door, and when a woman answered I said I was leaving a message on behalf of Estelle Rudgard. I was put through to another female voice who announced herself as ‘Angie speaking’, and I resisted the temptation to say what an unusual surname that was and stuck to the script.
‘We like our girls to ring in before eight-thirty if possible,’ she said snottily.
‘Sorry, I’m just a friend passing on the message. I had to wait until I got to work myself,’ I said, noting from my SeaStar that it was only 9.15 am.
‘Yes, it is inconvenient, Estelle not having a telephone, isn’t it?’ She wasn’t making polite conversation, she was blaming me.
‘I’m sorry about that. She said she would ring you herself later.’
‘Make sure she does, please.’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘Office Cavalry have a reputation to keep up, I hope she knows that.’
‘I’m sure she does, ma’am. Goodbye.’
I hung up. With cavalry like that, Custer might have stood a chance.
I suddenly felt at a loose end. I mean, starting the day by kidnapping a young woman right off the street and driving her across London is all very well, but what do you do for an encore? This detective business was getting difficult to plan one’s day around.
It must have been the same for Doogie, because when I put the phone down and turned to go upstairs, there he was in his stockinged feet, right ear pressed up against Lisabeth’s door.
‘Doogie!’ I hissed and he jumped, startled.
‘I was just checking if everything went off okay,’ he whispered guiltily.
‘Of course it did. I was looking out for them. Can you hear anything?’
‘I think someone’s singing,’ he said enthusiastically.
‘Singing what?’ I asked carefully.
‘It sounds like “Onward Christian Soldiers” but I’m not sure. I’m no churchgoer, nivver was. Where are you going?’
‘Back to bed. I’m getting one of my headaches.’
I never actually made it back to bed. I brewed a pot of coffee and made a half-hearted attempt to clean the flat. Once the kettle boiled, I gave up the attempt and put the headphones on so I could listen to some pirate tapes of Echobelly that a sound engineer in a studio down Curtain Road had accidentally forgotten to destroy.
That killed an hour. Rearranging the books on my shelves without finding anything I fancied reading took care of another ten minutes or so. Sorting out some dirty clothes for a trip to the launderette look about five minutes. By then the only choice I had was either daytime TV or washing up my coffee cup. No contest. I went to the kitchen sink.
As I washed my mug, I thought about giving Zoe I ring to see if she had come up with anything on Mrs Delacourt’s white powder. That got me thinking about what I was supposed to do next about Crimson and his non-burglar friend Chase. I didn’t come up with any bright ideas, but standing there at the sink, vacant-brained and looking out of the window, I saw Springsteen sitting in the middle of our communal back yard.
He wasn’t doing anything suspicious, just sitting there. That made me suspicious. He tilted his head to one side and concentrated on something at the back of the house, but it wasn’t me he was gazing at, it was something lower down.
But there wasn’t anything lower down except, below and to the left of my kitchen, the window to Lisabeth and Fenella’s bathroom.
I put my knee on the edge of the sink and hauled myself up so I could raise the sash window enough for me to stick my head out. Below me, to my left, a pair of Nike trainers followed by a very impressive length of legs were emerging from the bathroom window. Then came thighs and buttocks, a green mini-skirt bunched around the waist. The trainers flapped like wounded seagulls as she scrabbled for a foothold that wasn’t there.
Of all the times I’ve wanted to avoid Lisabeth and Fenella, I’d never thought of that one. Building a glider in the attic, yes, but the bathroom window trick? It just went to prove, the old ones are the best.
By the time I got downstairs and out through the back door, which we seldom use, she was dangling from her fingertips, trying to gauge the distance to the ground.
Springsteen was still in the middle of the yard, either contemplating the clumsiness of the human form, which didn’t allow it to climb sheer brick walls like he could, or maybe sizing her up for an attack. When he saw me come out of the house, he lost interest in Stella. He stuck a back leg in the air and thought about licking some inaccessible part of his anatomy, then thought the better of that and got up and walked off, flicking just the top third of his tail at me in farewell. The cat equivalent of ‘You’re on your own, mate.’
I moved under the dangling legs, which were still two or three feet above my head. She had her head turned to the right, so she couldn’t have seen me. Her skirt was still high; she’d probably hitched it up on her hips to give her more mobility, I reckoned, marvelling at her ingenuity and not really enjoying the view at all.
‘If you let go, I’ll catch you,’ I said cheerfully.
She closed her eyes and gasped softly, her chest and arms relaxing so much I thought she might drop right then.
‘I suppose I look pretty silly,’ she said, resigned.
‘Not at all.’
‘Well, I feel pretty silly. How far down is it?’
‘Eight or nine feet,’ I said helpfully.
‘Is that about two metres?’ she asked. She was younger than she looked, or maybe I was getting old. Or maybe she just knew how to hurt a guy.
‘Nearer three,’ I said, idiotically smug that at least my maths was better than hers.
‘Okay,’ she said, taking a breath. ‘Coming down.’
She slithered down the front of my T-shirt, my hands catching her waist and slowing her descent and quite accidentally, because of the momentum, sliding up to the sides of her breasts. It was a sensation that in other circumstances would have been highly erotic. Let’s face it, in those circumstances it was a sensation you wouldn’t ring your mother about.
She turned around, loosening my grip and pulling down her skirt with a fluid movement of both hands. Then she rubbed them together to ease her cramp after hanging onto the window sill and looked me in the eyes, shaking her blonde pony tail in that getting-settled gesture that only women and cats can do without moving their feet.
‘Sorry,’ I said, for the sake of something to say.
She looked me square on.
‘Are you with this lot? You’re the taxi driver, aren’t you?’
‘Taking your questions in order: sort of, and yes.’ I was 90 per cent sure she wasn’t going to slug me and do a runner. ‘Their hearts are in the right place, you know. They want to be on your side.’
She tipped her head back slightly and the tip of her tongue snaked out to moisten her upper lip.
‘You’re not from Connie, are you.’ It wasn’t a question.
‘No way, Jose. My idea of a shining doorway is a night club with no dress code.’
She stared at me some more, then stretched her neck and exhaled through her nose.
‘Want to go back in and start all over again?’ I tried.
‘Will you tell me what this is all about?’ she asked.
She looked down, registering the distance between us; maybe the thickness of a newspaper. I took half a step back.
‘I was hoping you’d tell me.’
She was back with the eye contact again, and I’m pretty sure I had to blink before she did.
‘Okay. But only if I can talk to you. Those women make me nervous. And they couldn’t deprogram a video recorder.’
It appeared that I had missed an Oscar-winning performance from Stella during her ‘deprogramming’ session. The technique the Fab Four (her description) had used had been to each take a different line in questioning. Miranda had done the ‘Why are you running away?’ bit, Fenella had done the ‘Are you really happy?’ line. Veronica had tried to get her to talk about her family, and Lisabeth had been left with trying to discover if she had been used or abused by the men of the Shining Doorway.
‘I suspected early on that you weren’t for real,’ said Stella, exhaling from a cigarette I had found for her and managing to keep a straight face.
‘But you were so convincing,’ breathed Miranda, forgetting for a moment that the allocation of questions had been her idea. ‘She was, you know, Angel. She just kept on about how the Shining Doorway would lead her to heaven and how she just had to have faith in the family of believers.’
‘And you were acting? All the time?’ Fenella was open-mouthed in admiration, ‘Even when Lisabeth asked you those questions about … sex?’
Lisabeth glared at her, then glared at Stella, who had flicked ash onto her carpet.
‘Don’t worry about that,’ smiled Stella. ‘If you do it as much as I do, you should be able to talk about it. And I’ve been acting for 24 hours a day for weeks now.’
‘Why didn’t you tell us you weren’t really a committed member of the sect?’ This from Veronica, who had been thinking about it.
Stella drew hard on the Sweet Afton I had lit for her, and she hadn’t once complained about there being no filter tip.
‘Why should I? I didn’t know who the fuck you were. You could have been set up by Connie – that’s Constantine, our hallowed leader. I wouldn’t put it past him. He’s fond of coming up with little tests of loyalty for his disciples. I couldn’t be sure, so I toed the party line, saying just what he would want to hear or have reported back to him. After three cups of that horrible herbal tea – sorry, no offence – I thought you’d have to let me go to the toilet and that would give me a chance to scout out an exit. I saw one and tried to leg it back to Connie. Good little sheep returning to the fold. Where the hell are we, by the way?’
‘Hackney,’ said Lisabeth sullenly, looking around for an ashtray.
‘E8,’ said Fenella helpfully.
‘E8? Christ! I thought that was a food additive. I was told once that everything beyond the Barbican was Essex.’
‘You ain’t from around these parts, are you, stranger?’ I said in a B-Western drawl.
‘Nope,’ she said with a smile. A nice smile.
Veronica had to interrupt.
‘Can I ask why you told Angel, but not us? That you were not really involved with the Shining Doorway, I mean.’
Stella shrugged her shoulders.
‘I didn’t tell him. He just seemed to know already.’
Miranda was giving me a steely glare.
‘Look, I didn’t know what you were planning to ask her,’ I said defensively. ‘You didn’t ask my opinion on your Breakaway session.’
‘What’s this “Breakaway”?’ Miranda snapped.
‘It’s what they call deprogramming nowadays,’ said Stella. ‘I knew you weren’t professionals at that. I talked to some people in the Samaritans at university before I went undercover.’
‘Undercover,’ Fenella breathed in awe.
‘You might have told us that,’ bitched Miranda.
‘It wouldn’t have made any difference,’ I said, ‘and anyway, I wasn’t consulted, remember? You kept it all very confidential, all girls together. I was just the driver.’
‘Don’t sulk,’ said Lisabeth sharply, which I thought was rich coming from someone who could teach advanced sulking for beginners.
‘Anyway,’ I pressed on, ‘I’ve had this feeling from the start.’
‘Do tell,’ said Stella, smiling again. She was sitting cross-legged on a cushion on the floor, her skirt riding up again, but I was determined not to let it distract me. I was tough. You had to be. It was in the Detective’s Manual.
‘Well, putting your father’s name and address as a reference for the temping agency. That didn’t exactly indicate someone wanting to drop totally out of their previous life. And it didn’t indicate someone giving up all worldly possessions either. Getting a job, I mean.’ She raised an eyebrow at that. ‘And turning up for work early today as well. No, something hooky here.’
‘Is that it?’ gasped Miranda. ‘That’s not any sort of logical deduction.’
‘Hey, she’s the detective.’ I pointed at Veronica. ‘And what’s wrong with a bit of male intuition anyway?’
‘Sexist assumption’s more like it.’
‘Would you be willing to answer some serious questions?’ Veronica had to raise her voice to be heard.
‘That depends,’ said Stella, looking for somewhere to put out her cigarette, ‘on what they are and why you’re asking. And also if you’re offering lunch. The food in the Doorway is crap and I’m starving.’
We all stood up as if a dinner gong had sounded.
‘We’ve got some lentils cooked in a vegetable stock,’ Fenella enthused, ‘or there’s celery soup, not out of a tin but from one of those new packet, carton things to keep it fresh, and its very nice. Or, there’s some homemade mushroom soup I could warm up, or a quiche we could have hot or cold.’
‘What do you recommend?’ Stella asked me under her breath.
‘McDonald’s,’ I whispered.
‘You owe me a pair of shoes. Is your name really Angel?’
‘We’ll put them on expenses and, yes, it is, but you can call me Roy.’
‘It’s short for Fitzroy,’ Fenella chipped in.
‘Aren’t your lentils ready?’ I snarled at her.
‘And who is this cute fella?’
Stella knelt down to stroke Springsteen, who had appeared magically between her legs. She put a hand on each side of his face and smoothed back his whiskers, then ears, then the fur on his ribs.
‘Er ... I’d be careful if I were you,’ said Veronica. Everyone else, including me, had gone quiet.
‘But he’s such a sexy boy,’ cooed Stella, putting her face well in range. ‘And normally I can’t stand cats. Never had any time for them, mangy creatures.’
Her two hands continued to smooth Springsteen’s fur all the way to the tip of his tail. When she’d finished, he stretched out his front paws so that his claws clacked on my kitchen floor. Here it comes, I thought, but all he did was arch his back, then walk his gunfighter’s walk through Stella’s legs and into the living room.
There was a noise like a tyre deflating. It was Veronica, me and Fenella all exhaling at the same time.
We had moved upstairs while Lisabeth put her flat in order and cooked lunch for those who preferred the veggie alternative. I had sent Miranda out for burgers for the carnivores.
‘You think you’ll get expenses from my father?’ Stella said to me as she stood up. ‘Dream on.’
‘I got the impression he was a bit short of the readies. So far, our bills seem to be picked up by his solicitor.’
She got suddenly serious.
‘Simon Buck?’ I nodded. ‘Then we really have got to talk.’
‘What about the other angels?’ said Fenella before she could stop herself.
‘Who?’ Stella’s jaw dropped.
‘It’s just something we decided to call ourselves,’ Fenella said, squirming with embarrassment. ‘The Five Angels. Sorry.’
‘Don’t look at me,’ I said.
Veronica kicked off, telling Stella the story so far. How her father had hired Albert and how Albert had brought her into the business and then had his heart attack and more or less left her out in the cold. How she had followed Stella from the agency to Wimpole Street and then to John Brome Street and the Church of the Shining Doorway. How she (note, just ‘she’) had been to Sandpit Lodge and had been horrified at the lack of concern shown by Sir Drummond and how that had made her determined to find out more about Stella and to help in any way she, and her new friends (‘and chauffeur,’ I added), could.
‘But you were paid off the case,’ said Stella. ‘Didn’t you say that Daddy called you off?’
‘Buck actually signed the cheque,’ I said.
‘Then it shouldn’t bounce,’ she said. ‘Daddy’s would have.’
‘That’s what Angel said,’ Veronica murmured, almost to herself.
‘You don’t need to be a detective to work that one out,’ Stella laughed, then stopped when she saw Veronica’s expression. ‘What I mean is, you just have to look at the place to see how run down it is, both the house and that tatty second-hand car showroom.’
‘The kid on the car park said business was bad,’ I said casually.
‘What kid?’ Stella said sharply.
‘Just a kid. Sixteenish. Hired help locally, I guess.’
‘What did he look like?’ she pressed.
‘Small, curly black hair, bantam-weight or undernourished, whichever way you look at it. Streetwise, cheeky. Anything else, Veronica?’ I appealed for help.
‘Big, brown eyes,’ she said, then to Stella: ‘He’s not your Heathcliff, is he?’
‘No, I just ... for a moment …’
‘Hang on a minute,’ I said, ‘what are we talking about?’
‘Oh, you wouldn’t remember, but I did tell you,’ Veronica said harshly, then backed off, trying to think if she had in fact told me or just the coven downstairs. ‘Sir Drummond mentioned that Estelle–’
‘Stella.’
‘Sorry, Stella, may have come to London to look for, for … an old flame. A boy she called her Heathcliff.’
‘Carrick Lee,’ I said firmly and Veronica looked surprised. So did Stella.
‘Your father mentioned him by name. Veronica is a bit of a romantic,’ I said smugly.
‘Daddy called him Heathcliff, not me. Because he was a gypsy. He really was; a genuine Romany. And he wasn’t a boy.’ She flashed her eyes at Veronica, who was leaning forward drinking it all in. ‘He was a man. I’ve had boys and men, and he was a man.’
Veronica coloured slightly at this, Fenella, perched on my only kitchen seat, a bar stool pinched from a pub in Southwark, smiled inanely and then blushed scarlet about ten seconds later.
‘Did your father run him off?’ I asked,
‘No, Daddy wouldn’t do that. And he couldn’t afford to pay him off. He probably thought I’d grow out of it. Carrick was older than me, nearly 24.’
‘So–’ Veronica started, but stopped as the telephone down by the front door started to ring.
‘I’ll get it,’ I offered, knowing Lisabeth would not and, though Fenella would have volunteered, if it was for me I preferred my messages in English.
I got to the flat door on the third ring but then heard the front door open and Miranda yell ‘I’ll get it!’ up the stairs.
I relaxed and was about to ask Veronica to carry on when Miranda shouted: ‘Angel, it’s for you. Somebody called Zoe.’
Fenella raised a finger.
‘Ah. Someone called Zoe rang while you were out, early this morning. Sounded nice.’
‘Thanks, Fenella, I sighed. ‘I’ll be back in a tick, don’t start without me.’
Halfway down the stairs, I relieved Miranda of a brown bag of quarterpounders and fries.
‘Have I missed anything?’ she breathed.
‘The doughnuts?’
Then I had skipped by her and was swallowing fries by the time I got to the dangling phone.
‘Talk to me, Doctor.’ I said.
‘You owe me several drinks,’ said Zoe with an odd lilt in her voice.
‘You’ve tested it?’
‘A friend of a friend has. You owe me for the drinks I owe him.’
‘So what is it?’
‘Meet me after work, about six. Do you know the Fitzroy Tavern?’ She giggled, ‘Sorry, no pun intended:
‘Of course I know it. Why can’t you tell me now?’
‘I’ve got to see your face when I do.’
‘My turn,’ said Stella, wiping her lips with a paper napkin.
She had a full-house audience now Lisabeth had joined us with a steaming pan of lentils and Miranda had helped out with the loan of some plates and cutlery.
‘Carrick came to work at Sandpit Lodge last year and, yes, we got it on together. It was good, dirty, irresponsible fun. I had no illusions, no plans to get married or anything divvy like that, and I don’t think Daddy thought it was serious. He was pretty sure I’d find other fish to fry at university, and he was right, but I still had a soft spot for Carrick and I saw him off and on and we phoned each other when we could.
‘And then suddenly he was gone, packed up and gone, about two months ago, and no-one knew where. I assumed Daddy had made him go away and we had a bit of a spat.’
‘Why?’ I asked.
‘What a stupid question,’ snapped Veronica.
‘No, it isn’t,’ I said petulantly, ‘it’s a very good one. Why, if Daddy didn’t mind her tumbling one of the hired help when she lived at home, should he get rid of him after she’s gone to university?’
‘Exactly,’ said Stella, ignoring Veronica’s crestfallen expression. ‘That’s what I thought was weird, and that’s why we had the spat and it all came out. Daddy was convinced that Carrick had found out that I am a TFB, but he couldn’t have. I never said a word about it to him, and of course Daddy hadn’t, so …’
‘What’s a TFB?’ asked Miranda, truly puzzled.
‘A Trust Fund Babe,’ I told her, and she recoiled slightly.
‘A what?’ slurped Fenella over the rim of a cup of lentil broth.
‘I have a Trust Fund that I inherit when I’m 25. It was set up when I was born, with some money from my mother’s family. Daddy got the idea that Carrick had found out about it and was gold-digging.’
‘Why Babe?’ asked Fenella. ‘Don’t you mean “Baby”?’
We ignored her.
‘I never said a word to Carrick and he never asked. He could see how run-down things were and he knew the family silver had long been pawned. Daddy made some pretty div business decisions after Mummy died and lost most of his capital. He’d been pretty sharp up to then. He got his knighthood for services to exports. But when Mummy went down with the cancer, he took early retirement and thought he could devote himself to her and me and the house and his crazy car collection. She died and the car thing never really took off.’
I thought I had better say something while there was still a dry eye in the house.
‘So you came looking for Carrick in London?’
Stella nodded.
‘How come you ended up in the Shining Doorway?’
‘Carrick had mentioned it. I thought he was winding me up, but he told me he was “getting religion” as that’s what it took to do the business in London these days.’
She pronounced it ‘bizyness’ as if quoting him.
‘And he specifically mentioned Shining Doorway?’
‘Yes. The Church of the Shining Doorway. I couldn’t make that up. It was in Islington, he said, but by the time I got to town, they’d moved down to Sloane Square.’
‘What sort of “bizyness”?’ I said it like she had.
‘He didn’t say specifically, but from what I’ve found out after living with them for three weeks, it’s bound to be dodgy.’
‘Dodgy?’ echoed Veronica.
‘You bet. I never said Carrick was white as driven snow, but Connie’s mob are into everything. You thought Fagin had a gang? Meet the master. He likes all his female disciples to work as temps, and not just so he can lift their pay packets.’
Miranda turned to me with a ‘don’t follow’ expression.
‘Temps get paid weekly rather than monthly,’ I explained, ‘and they move around a lot. So they could case an office for valuables but be working on the other side of town, probably forgotten, when the burglary takes place two weeks later. Plus, they have access to all sorts of information, and leaks are difficult to trace back to them.’
‘Tell me about it,’ said Stella, wearily.
‘Connie gets you to look through files?’ I guessed. ‘Stuff like that.’
‘Yep.’
‘And your present employer, this Mr Linscott, is a consultant, isn’t he? A consultant in what?’
‘STDs,’ said Stella, and three of the Fab Four turned towards me.
‘Sexually Transmitted Diseases,’ said Lisabeth suddenly.
And three pairs of eyes turned on her. Four, including mine.
‘Spot on, if you’ll pardon the expression, and his patient register makes interesting reading.’
‘That’s why you were getting into work early,’ I said, taking the faint smirk off Stella’s face.
‘Yeah, ‘fraid so. Connie asked me to snoop around, see what I could find and photocopy.’
There was a group silence.
‘I’m not proud of it,’ she said, ‘but I need to get in with them if I’m to find Carrick.’
‘Does Connie have a target in mind? Someone he knows is a patient?’
‘Nothing so elaborate. It’s a magpie operation, we’re all out there foraging for scraps, anything we can pick up that might be useful to him.’
‘And people do this for him?’ Veronica was aghast.
‘Women do this for him?’ Miranda demanded.
‘Especially the women,’ said Stella, and Lisabeth shook her head in dismay.
‘Have you found out what happened to Carrick?’ I tried to steer us back to business.
‘No. Not a thing. They don’t talk about past members. I daren’t approach the other girls; they’ll run straight to Connie. And the men all get favours from him if they behave themselves. There are two. Paul and Julian, who are sort of lieutenants, very close to Connie. They’ve been with him for some time and they’ve talked about being in the Islington house together. They’d know, but I can’t get close to them. Connie regards me as his personal property just at the moment, though I’m told by some of the others that it doesn’t last long. He gives all his disciples names, you know. I’m Helena, would you believe?’
‘So what are you going to do now?’ Veronica got in to stop me hogging the questions.
Stella shrugged her shoulders.
‘Hang in there for a while, see if I can find a chink in their armour. Maybe get something on Connie I can use against him. Get him to tell me what happened to Carrick.’
‘You’re sure something’s happened to him?’ Miranda said quietly.
‘Pretty sure. He would have been in touch by now. I know that for a fact, after what we did together. He wouldn’t just disappear off the face of the earth.
She had them eating out of the palm of her hand with that. No-one wanted to break the spell, but she did so herself.
“Now I really do have to use a toilet. For real this time.’
‘Through here,’ I said, leading the way.
Veronica grabbed her arm as she followed me.
‘Let’s see if we can help, Estelle. We all understand. The first love is the best.’
Stella smiled at her warmly, but once in the corridor to my bathroom she crossed her eyes and whispered: ‘Where did you find that one? She really should get out more.’
‘I keep telling her that,’ I said.
‘Thank you for your concern, but no, I must get back. It’ll be bad enough if Connie has tried to ring me at work, but if I’m late for our evening group meeting, then it’s contemplation for me.’
‘Is that bad?’ Fenella, all innocent.
‘It’s a room with no windows called the Contemplation Room. If you like sitting in the cold and dark with nothing to eat and no way to wash, then it’s not bad. Not for the first 12 hours or so.’
‘You let the men do that to you?’ Lisabeth growled.
‘They wouldn’t do it if the women didn’t agree with them. There are seven girls living at the squat in John Brome Street, and five men. They put one of the girls – Francesca – in there for 36 hours because she told the group meeting that she had strayed. She’d sneaked out on a Sunday morning and gone to Mass. She was a lapsed Catholic.’
‘But that’s awful,’ exclaimed Miranda.
‘Too right,’ Stella agreed, ‘the silly bitch should have kept her mouth shut. Nobody had noticed she was missing and if she hadn’t confessed at group meeting, they would have been none the wiser. Never confess to anything is what I say.’
‘Sounds like one of your Rules of Life,’ Fenella said to me, but I ignored her.
‘This Connie,’ Miranda started, ‘what’s his real name? There may be something on him somewhere. I’m a journalist, I could go through the cuttings files.’
I knew that Miranda’s north London local paper had nothing more interesting in its cuttings morgue than the results of school prize days, hardly an MI5 database. But I let it go.
‘Constantine Smith. It really is, I’ve seen his passport, and he’s an American, though he knows his way around London.’
‘How did Carrick get his job with your father?’ I asked. And they all looked at me.
‘What?’
I repeated my question for her.
‘He was recommended by Simon Buck, Daddy’s solicitor,’ she said slowly, her face a question mark.
‘The man who paid Veronica £800’ – there were two sharp intakes of breath at that – ‘to hear that you were tied up with a crazy cult called Shining Doorway, but who never pressed for an address. It’s been niggling me. It’s the solicitor who didn’t bark in the night. No solicitor pays out money for half a story. He didn’t push for the address because he knew it.’
‘There’s a connection?’
I had Stella’s full attention. I was getting vibes that perhaps she liked solicitors almost as much as I did.
‘You just didn’t like him,’ Veronica chimed in.
‘Come on, he’s bent. You could tell a mile off.’
‘Male intuition again?’ Miranda smiled a smile that would have made yoghurt.
‘There was something else,’ I said, trying to remember. ‘Yes. Think back, Veronica. When we told them about Albert, it was Buck who was concerned, not Stella’s father. It was as if he knew him.’
They all turned to Veronica, who took off her glasses and made an elaborate play of finding a tissue to wipe them with.
‘Well, now you mention it,’ she said in a hoarse croak, ‘when Sir Drummond came to see Albert that first time, he did perhaps say his solicitor had recommended him.’
‘And?’
‘And, yes, I think Albert knew of a Mr Buck. In fact’ – she brightened – ‘I think he’s got a file on Mr Buck back at the office. I could go and get it if you think it’ll help.’
‘I’ll go,’ I said wearily.
‘Who’s Albert?’ chirped Fenella.
Sometimes I feel so alone.
I dropped Stella at Oxford Circus. She had opted for a tube journey back to Sloane Square just in case Connie had put his disciples on duty at the station.
She didn’t talk much on the journey. She’d talked enough today. But she did ask the usual questions about was this a real cab and why was if called Armstrong and what did I do for a living? The last one was quaint, I thought.
‘Apprentice detective,’ I said.
She laughed at that. She had a nice laugh.
‘And you’ve taken your first day as a kidnap victim very well, if I may make so bold.’
‘Please do. I go a bundle on bold.’
I looked in the mirror and her eyes were there, waiting for me to do so.
‘Will you really keep in touch with them?’
‘I said I would, didn’t I? I’ll ring from the office. Lisabeth – it was Lisabeth, wasn’t it? You know, the bull dyke with the military bearing. She gave me your number.’
I corrected my steering after almost getting on board a No 13 bus.
‘Oh yeah, I know the one you mean.’
‘Can I ask you something?’ She leaned forward from the back seat, but looked out of the window rather than into the mirror.
‘Ask anyone anything,’ I said. ‘It’s in the Apprentice Detective’s Charter.’
‘Have you got a thing going with any of them? Back there at the house, I mean.’
‘No, not a thing.’
‘Good.’ She sat back on the seat. ‘I didn’t think so. By a process of elimination, it could only have been one of them, and she was spoken for anyway.’
‘Miran ... ?’ I started, but she wasn’t listening.
‘Fenella certainly has the hots for you,’ she said casually.
‘Maybe you should be a detective,’ I said when I had recovered from the shock.
Well, why not? She was just as bad at it as we were.
I decided I had just enough time to get out to Albert Block’s office and then back to the Fitzroy to meet Zoe, if the traffic went for me and if I didn’t hang about once there. I had no intention of doing so; in fact, I wasn’t too keen on going at all, not without an armed escort. But I reasoned it was best to do it before dark and alone rather than with Veronica in tow.
I did a drive-by to check that the coast was clear of marauding bands of bad-attitude black kids and parked Armstrong round the corner from Albert’s place, trying not to draw attention to my visit. I still had a key to the new lock Dod had fitted, and I walked to the door and got it open without actually breaking into a run.
As my cash-flow situation had actually flowed recently, instead of the usual slow ebb, I had treated myself to a new torch, a long, powerful four-battery rubber-cased job, which I normally kept in Armstrong’s boot. As I eased the door open, I let it slip from inside my jacket and weighed it in my right hand. On other occasions, I would probably have complained about the weight and bulk of the damn thing, but now it seemed light and insubstantial.
The place seemed just the same as the last time I’d seen it, the staircase to Albert’s office stretching gloomily upward in front of me, the only natural light coming from the doorway. There was a light switch to my right, but when I hit it nothing happened.
I stepped back and checked the street again, then I swallowed hard, stepped inside and closed the door.
He was behind the door, waiting to jump me. Of course he was. Where else would he be? He’d probably seen the same private eye movies I had, where the hero gets slugged on the back of the head and the cameraman goes into a vomit-inducing tailspin.
It didn’t work out that way. Partly it was because I instinctively pointed the torch at him and turned it on, blinding him, and partly because he had no intention of clocking me in the first place.
‘You!’ we both said together.
‘Jesus, but you scared the shit out of me,’ he gasped. ‘I thought it was those black kids come to get me.’
So did I, I said to myself. I lowered the torch slightly and remembered to start breathing again.
‘So who’s looking after the car parking at Sandpit Lodge today?’ I asked him.
His name was Bobby Lee. He was Carrick Lee’s younger brother. He was looking for him too. He seemed pleased that I remembered him.
‘You made an impression,’ I conceded coolly. ‘You were obviously interested in us. How did you find this place? Did you chat up the headmistress on the front desk?’
He was impressed.
‘Miss Rocket was dead chuffed. She’d never met a private eye before.’
‘We gave her a card.’
He reached into the pocket of his denim jacket and produced Veronica’s card.
‘If she’s Blugden, are you Albert Block?’
I shook my head. Do I look like an Albert?
‘I’m a consultant on the case,’ I decided grandly. ‘How did you know about Albert?’ The card only had Veronica’s name.
‘Everything upstairs is addressed to Albert Block and, anyway, apart from ones you see on TV, he’s the only detective I’ve ever heard of.’
‘How did you hear of him?’
‘From Carrick.’
‘How did Carrick come across him?’
‘While he was working for Simon Buck.’
‘The solicitor.’
Bobby nodded. ‘It seems Albert was Buck’s enquiry agent, if he ever needed one.’
‘What did Carrick do for Buck?’
‘I don’t know. That’s what I was hoping to find out by coming here. I couldn’t get a sniff out at Antique Alley and Buck’s place is like a fortress. You two turning up gave me my only lead.’
I considered how much to tell him. We were, after all, a confidential enquiry service. But what the hell.
‘There’s supposed to be a file on Buck upstairs.’
‘There is. It’s under “B”,’ he said sheepishly.
‘That’s a relief,’ I said.
The file didn’t tell us much. It contained mostly badly-typed carbon copies of invoices to Buck’s practice, Kay, Morgan and Williams, and all of them seemed to be for the ‘delivery of petition and writ’ type of process-serving. They referred to individuals, sometimes named but usually ‘the tenant’ or ‘the occupier’, at addresses all over north London, but with a particular concentration in the Essex Road area of Islington. The dates stretched back nearly two years, but the latest one was no more recent than three months ago.
There was one carbon that had been amended in pencil. It referred to a writ served on somebody called Davies at an address on the Balls Pond Road, only the address had been struck through with a single line. The words ‘check with C’ were scrawled at the side.
‘What is it?’ asked Bobby when I pulled it out of the file and held it for him to see. I thought for a moment that he was saying he couldn’t read.
‘It’s a carbon of an invoice …’
‘Carbon paper? I’ve never seen that before.’
I realised he was genuinely curious. Photocopiers and then word-processors had made his generation about as aware of carbon copies as they were of quill pens.
‘“Check with C.” You think that means Carrick?’
‘Why not?’
‘Look at the date,’ he said. ‘That was a year ago, before Carrick ever went to work for Buck or Sir Drummond. I thought you were the detective.’
‘If you want the job, its open.’
I glared at him and put the file down on top of the cabinet, then started to flick through the suspended file pockets until I reached the letter ‘L’.
‘There’s nothing under Lee,’ said Bobby cheekily. ‘First thing I looked for. Well, not the right Lee. There is a file on a bloke called Lee from Dartford who had his wife followed, but it’s no relation.’
I narrowed my eyes at him and kept flicking the files until I got to ‘S’.
Bobby put his head over the drawer to read off the files, as if he was worried about the strain on my eyes.
‘Shepherd, Sherwood, Sickert, Smee, Strong, Symonds,’ he read. ‘Who are you looking for?’
‘Smith,’ I said, but there was no such file.
‘Funny that. I would have bet on a Smith or two.’
‘Maybe only people being followed by private detectives ….’ Then I stopped, because my fingers had found something that was not a file, and I pulled it out. It was an A5-size leaflet, amateurishly produced by photocopying onto coloured paper. On the front cover was a crude drawing of a door, doorstep and surround. On the door itself was a cross done in two broad strokes. In grainy type blown up by the photocopier, the title read: ‘You Have the Key to the Church of the Shining Doorway in Your Heart.’
‘Is that a clue?’ Bobby asked.
‘It’s a connection,’ I said, ‘and they seem to be mounting up.’
He took the pamphlet from me and scanned it.
‘This is crap. Listen to this: “A sin shared is a sin uncommitted.” My da would call this gobshitey tripe.’
‘What does your father do, Bobby, apart from being an archbishop, that is?’
Bobby grinned.
‘He’s Romany, man, he doesn’t do anything. Well, nothing I’d tell you about. What’s this got to do with Carrick?’ He waved the Shining Doorway leaflet in front of my face. ‘And why are you after him anyway?’
‘I’m not. We were looking for Estelle Rudgard. She was looking for your brother.’
‘The old git’s daughter? Was Carrick humping her?’
‘I believe they had some sort of ongoing relationship of mutual respect and affection. And yes, it probably involved humping.’
‘He was good at that, was Carrick. Well, he always said he was.’
‘Was?’
He wrinkled his nose. ‘You know what I mean. We haven’t heard from him for nearly two months now, and that’s not like him at all just to disappear like that. What’s the connection with these loonies?’
He placed the leaflet on top of the Buck file and tapped it with a forefinger.
‘Carrick had mentioned them to Stella – Estelle. It was her only lead, so she joined them to see if she could find a trace to him.’
‘Did she?’
‘No, not as ... Wait a minute. You didn’t know about Estelle and Carrick?’
‘No. Well, we knew he had a bit of skirt down here, but no names. Certainly didn’t think it was the daughter of the lord of the manor. The way he talks about her, you wouldn’t think butter would melt in her … wherever. She’s at university somewhere, isn’t she?’
‘She was, until she decided to go looking for Carrick. Didn’t you know she’d gone runaway?’
He was genuinely bemused.
‘Nope, nobody said a dickie bird at Sandpit Lodge. When I found out that you and your partner–’
‘Associate. Loose associate. Passing acquaintance.’
‘Whatever. When I found out who you were, I just assumed you were asking the old codger about Carrick. You know, the old man accusing him of running off with the family silver. Not that there is any. Any worth nicking, that is. I checked. But I thought it might be something like that.’
I closed the filing cabinet drawers slowly and moved the Buck file and the pamphlet to Albert’s desk, then I perched on the edge.
‘You look like you could use a cigarette,’ Bobby said.
I patted my jacket pockets just to prove to myself that I had left my emergency pack of Sweet Afton in Armstrong.
‘Then how about one of these?’
He reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and produced a spliff no longer than a king size and as tightly rolled as a prison cigarette. He lit it with a cheap Bic disposable and inhaled. I watched him take two good draws, then he blew on the end and his fingers reversed it in his hand and he offered it to me like a duellist returning a sword.
I took a pull. My Rule of Life No 74 was that you could work most things out if you gave yourself enough thinking time.
‘That’s good kif,’ I said, going for seconds.
‘Best quality Kabul Bazaar,’ said Bobby.
‘Afghan Black, eh? I’m impressed. Don’t see too much of it these days.’
‘No, you’re right,’ he said, taking back the joint. ‘Most of the stuff in London is rubbishy Jamaican compress like those black kids retail. Most of that has been pulled out of the sea by the US Coast Guard, then stolen, then re-exported.’
‘Yeah. Save the Bales, man,’ I said, and he laughed. ‘I had a T-shirt with that on once ... Hold it. What black kids?’
‘The gang out back. There’s three or four of them. I saw them earlier when they were catching some kids coming home from school. Thought about doing a deal, but they’re strictly amateur.’
‘Out back?’ I said vaguely, reaching for the spliff.
‘You can see ‘em from the window.’
He was right. They weren’t there, or course, but you could see where they made their headquarters. Looking down from Albert’s office, the network of back yards and fences ended in a narrow walkway that probably ran the length of the street and was no doubt used by honest citizens, kids going to school and mothers pushing prams as a cut-through to Shepherd’s Bush Green. The pathway wasn’t parallel with the street; it doglegged through two right angles forming a lazy Z shape right outside Albert’s parched and sparse five-feet of back garden. It was an ideally private spot that could not be seen from either end of the path and only observed from above from Albert’s office. The lower angle of the Z shape was littered with cigarette butts, empty Coke cans and the odd empty bottle of strong cider. The ideal alfresco office, with very low overheads.
Three or four black kids dealing in cannabis and who knew what else. Most of their customers younger than themselves, but safe from prying eyes while still on a path they had every right to be on if anyone did find them there.
No worries, unless you think some dull ex-copper turned private eye is using a camera on you from an upstairs window. Then you have to take steps to protect your turf and your business interests. And you haven’t got time to ask why the old fool was taking passport photographs of his equally divvy and unobservant assistant and apprentice. Much easier just to bust the place up and persuade him to leave. As an added bonus, you frighten him into a heart attack.
‘You okay?’ asked Bobby.
I was still staring out of the window.
‘I think I’ve just solved my first case,’ I said, or I think I said. Yes, I felt my lips move.
‘What?’
‘Skip it.’ I turned to face him. ‘Anyway, how did you get in here?’
‘Through the front door,’ he said seriously. ‘That lock’s a piece of piss. Have you ever thought of putting on a new one?’
‘You’re late,’ said Zoe, putting down her copy of the British Medical Journal and pointing to her empty glass.
‘You waited,’ I said, trying out the teeth on her.
That didn’t work, so I fought my way to the bar of the Fitzroy and ordered a beer and, after sniffing her glass, a gin and tonic for her.
‘So, come on,’ I said, back at her table. ‘What’s the stuff?’
She reached under her seat into her shoulder bag and produced a new, sealed brown envelope, which she casually tossed onto the table in front of me.
I covered it quickly with my forearms, almost spilling my beer.
‘Hey, watch it,’ I hissed, looking round furtively, ‘they’ll all want some.’
She threw back her head and laughed. ‘I doubt it.’
‘What? What is it?’
‘Go on,’ she taunted, her tongue between her lips, ‘sprinkle some in your beer. It won’t do you any harm.’
‘If it doesn’t do you any harm, what’s the point? It’s not drugs?’
‘Oh yes, it’s a drug,’ she giggled, ‘but it won’t affect you.’ She was enjoying this. ‘There are one or two men I could think of where it might have an effect. A beneficial effect, maybe. It would certainly make saying goodnight to them a lot easier.’
‘Zoe, darling,’ I said, gritting my new teeth, ‘what is it?’
She pulled herself together and leaned forward so that her face was six inches from mine.
‘I told you I wanted to see your face.’
‘Zoe, get on with it.’
‘It’s a fish anaesthetic.’
She collapsed in hysterics.
‘Crimson?’ I yelled, plugging one ear with a finger to try to cut out the noise from the bar.
‘He ain’t here. He’s out. As usual.’
‘Oh hello, Mrs Delacourt, it’s Angel here. Roy Angel. You asked me to …’
‘I know what I asked people to do. Have those people done it? That’s what I want to know.’
‘Actually, I think I have, Mrs D, and what’s more, I don’t think you’ve got anything to worry about. That – er – stuff you gave me, the stuff you found in Crimson’s garage …’
‘Yes, yes, I’m not senile yet, though I will be by the time you finish at this rate.’
‘Well, it’s harmless. Don’t worry about it. It’s not even illegal. Trust me.’
‘Then what is it?’
‘Look, let me talk to Crimson and then I’m sure he’ll tell you himself. But honestly, you don’t have to worry.’
‘Well, he’s out with his big pal Chase again. Seeing him for a drink after work, he said.’
‘Where does Crimson work, Mrs D?’
‘Out at Hendon; he’s got a regular job now, warehouse manager and stock keeper.’
‘But where, Mrs D? What’s the company?’
‘Hendon Pharmaceuticals – I thought I said. That’s why I was anxious. Anxious about them drugs.’
‘They’re not what you think, believe me.’ I looked over the bar from the phone to where Zoe was still wiping the tears away with a tissue. ‘You’ve no call to stress yourself. I’ll go and try and catch Crimson now. Do you know if it’ll be the same pub?’
‘I ‘spect so. My boy don’t drink that much even when he goes to meet that Chase friend of his after work. He’s usually home by …’
‘Mrs D? Hang on. Where does this Chase guy work? If you know?’
‘Sure. Tropical Times.’
‘Is that a club or something?’
‘Nah. It’s one of them places that sells tropical fish for your garden pond. Used to be called the Finchley Pet Shop before it got ideas above its station. Hello? You there, Angel? Why you laughing at me?’
I switched to orange juice to keep Zoe company for a last drink, partly to keep my head clear for the driving I had to do and partly because I didn’t know how Chase would react. Crimson, I was sure, wouldn’t harm me, but I didn’t know Chase.
Zoe didn’t mind catching a real cab home.
‘Maybe it’s for the best. My husband’s away at a conference.’
‘And you don’t trust me?’ I put on the innocence.
‘No, I don’t trust me,’ she said, and then burst out laughing again. ‘You should see your face,’ she wheezed as she buttoned her coat.
I pointed Armstrong towards St John’s Wood and decided I hated Crimson.
His bike was parked ten yards from the door of the Palmerston, and further down the street was Chase’s van. Inside, they were together at a table by themselves, and, with a look of surprise, Crimson saw me immediately.
I hadn’t got a game plan; I didn’t need one. I was working for his mother.
‘Hi there, Angel. Twice in one week. What have I done to deserve this?’
I put my right foot up on the chair next to Crimson’s and leaned forward, crossing my forearms on my knee.
‘Which of you two dry-gulching fish rustlers is gonna buy a whiteman a drink?’ I said.
Crimson protested his innocence until even I almost believed him.
‘Look, man, ever since I got this job at the pharmaceutical company everyone, and I mean everyone, has been raggin’ me. “What’s the drug today, Crimson?”, “What’s the special offer this week?”, “Can you get crack wholesale?” No matter how many times I tell ‘em we don’t make that kind of drug, they just keep on. And anyway, you know I don’t do drugs myself, Angel.’
I didn’t, but I didn’t know that he did.
‘And then we were in here or somewhere and someone starts on again and I say: “Hey, man, the only drugs we do is for fish, and the fish don’t even get a buzz out of it. They just go to sleep.” And it gets a laugh because everyone thinks I’m pulling their puds, but at least they change the subject and give my ears some peace. But, fact is, it’s true. Every word. A drug for fish.’
‘First developed about 20 years ago. It slows the fish down so they can be transported in the minimum of water. Zoos use it to ship sharks by air freight in foam-lined crates. Just sprinkle a bucket of seawater on them and nail the lid down. Hope you land before the shark wakes up and starts shouting for the drinks trolley.’
Crimson was amazed.
‘How do you know all that?’
‘We can’t reveal our sources, sir,’ I said pompously. ‘Who else knew stuff like that?’
‘Just Chase. He said he could save on tank space in his damn pet shop.’ Chase glared at him for that, but Crimson wasn’t daunted. ‘Said he could get it through the business, but it was expensive and usually you don’t need it ‘cos he don’t sell nothing you couldn’t win at a fun fair and take home in a sandwich bag. Reckoned his boss wouldn’t let him spend that sort of dough, but if he had access to some, he could make some savings and get to look good.’
‘And be willing to pay?’
‘For my trouble, man. That seemed fair.’
‘And was it any trouble stealing the stuff?’
‘Nah,’ Crimson said confidently. ‘I’m in charge of stock-taking. They never missed a few packs.’
He put his hands palm upwards on the table.
I licked my lips and turned to Chase. I swear his biceps had a life of their own.
‘And what did you do with the stuff, Chase?’
He thought carefully before answering.
‘Fuck you, man.’
I appealed to Crimson.
‘Aren’t you curious, Crimson?’
‘Yeah, I am. Hey, Chase, what you been doin’, man?’
‘Fuck you too.’ He drank his beer unperturbed.
‘Hey, Chase, you been screwin’ me?’ Crimson tried, but Chase just carried on drinking. Exasperated, Crimson turned on me: ‘What you want to ask all this stuff for anyway, Angel?’
‘I was hired to find out what you were up to,’ I said, as tough as I could. I didn’t feel tough. If they wouldn’t tell me voluntarily, the only option I had was to throw my forehead against Chase’s knuckles.
‘Hired? Like a … a …’
‘Private detective.’
‘Who hired you?’ Crimson glared at Chase. ‘It was your shop. Your boss, he guessed you were up to no good.’
“You ain’t got nuthin’ on me, brother,’ said Chase menacingly. ‘And he ain’t neither.’
‘I can’t disclose the name of my client, I’m afraid. That’s confidential information,’ I said. I knew that. All detectives in books said that. They got beaten up by the bad guys and by the cops and still they wouldn’t tell.
Chase put down his empty glass with a thump.
‘It was your mum, Crimson,’ I said. ‘She was worried about you when she found some of the chemicals you were thieving.’
‘Sheeit,’ they both said together, then they looked at each other.
‘It was for the Koi carp,’ said Chase in a rush. ‘We sell them in the shop and they go for £90 up to £150 for a big one. Crazy rich people buy them in twos, threes or fours for their garden ponds. Then they never look at them again after the first day.’
‘And you remember who buys them – get an address – from a credit card company, something like that?’
He nodded, looking sheepish now. Crimson’s jaw dropped slowly.
‘And then you pop round when they’re out, dope the garden pond, and when they go belly up, you hook out the big Koi, and rustle them in your cool box?’
He narrowed his eyes at that, but it passed.
‘Yeah, yeah, yeah. It only takes a couple of spoonfuls of the dope for your average pond. The fishies get zonked in about three minutes and you just pick ‘em out. Do it late evening and by morning the rest of the fish have woken up and are swimming around like good ‘uns.’
‘Doesn’t anyone notice their prize carp’s gone swimabout?’ I asked, genuinely interested by this time.
‘You’d be amazed, but they don’t. Sometimes, weeks later, they’ll come by the shop again and ask what we think could’ve happened to their beautiful pets. Sometimes they give them names.’
Crimson was staring open-mouthed from Chase to me and then back again; a madman at a tennis match.
‘What do you tell them?’
‘Mos’ likely herons. They just swoop on down from the trees, scoop up them precious fishies and gobble them up.’
‘Herons? In Golders Green? They believe you?’
Having said that, I thought that I would believe Chase if he was insistent about anything. I’d believe that the herons were blue if he wanted me to. Blue, with pink spots.
‘Man, these people pay 20 or 30 pounds a pound for a fish that don’t speak English and they ain’t gonna eat. Sure they believe me.’
‘What’s your best recycle?’
‘Sold one big sucker of a ghost Koi four times in the same postcode.’
‘I’m impressed,’ I said.
‘Can I get you a drink?’ he smiled at me.
‘Orange juice, and please don’t put anything in it.’
He grinned at that. ‘Not even a tiny vodka in the OJ?’
‘No thanks. Got a long drive ahead of me tomorrow,’ I said. Well, I would have if Bobby Lee rang me later as he’d promised.
‘Anywhere good?’
‘Up north.’
‘Tottenham? Bad country.’
He shook his head, but I decided not to offer a correction. If he felt that way about north London, how did he feel about Lincolnshire?
‘Hey, you two.’ Crimson had found his brain again. ‘When you two good buddies have finished yapping, what’s happening? You been dissing me, Chase.’
‘No disrespect intended, I’m sure,’ I intervened.
‘Naw, man. It was business. Guess I find something else to do now, hey? Unless you want to go partners?’
‘In fish rustling? Hell, no. You ain’t getting no more stuff from me for that. Sweet Jesus, if you was pulled and up in court, man, I’d just die of shame.’
‘You could be right, brother. I’ll get the drinks.’
He levered himself up and ambled to the bar.
‘So now what?’ Crimson asked me.
‘I think it best if you tell your mum yourself. Stick to Chase’s story. Show her some of the stuff, like you’ve brought it home from work ‘cos it’s interesting. Tell her how it’s used in pet shops like the one Chase works in. Just make it natural. And stay home a coupla nights so she can see you.’
‘That’ll work?’
‘Yeah, pretty sure.’
‘And you won’t tell her?’
‘Not if you two do a little job for me, up in Shepherd’s Bush.’
He put his head back at that and his eyes were slits.
‘We got a choice?’
‘No, not as long as you can talk Chase into going along.’
‘That’ll be no problem. My mum knows his mum.’
This detective business: two cases solved in one day. Piece of cake really.
Bobby Lee did ring, and he was quite specific in his directions and insistent that it would be worth my while.
I didn’t go because of that, I convinced myself, but because by now I was intrigued. No. To be honest, I wouldn’t have lost sleep if I’d never heard the name Carrick Lee again, but if I could help wrap this thing up for Veronica, then I would. She couldn’t hack it by herself.
So I left them all at Stuart Street waiting for Stella to call them as she had promised to do once she got to work. At least a trip up the Great North Road would get me out of the house while they mooned about worrying and wondering what to do next.
I left Hackney before they were awake and filled up with diesel, bacon, eggs and coffee at South Mimms service station before pointing Armstrong up the A1 and heading north.
I made good time considering the traffic was heavy and every lorry driver on the road seemed to have a score to settle with a black London cab and constantly overtook me then pulled in in front of me again with inches to spare. I didn’t mind. They were just getting their own back for all the times they’d been chopped by taxis in town, and this was their turf, not mine.
After Huntingdon you know you are in the sticks. The land is flat to either side of a road almost as straight as when the Romans built it first time round. There appears to be no horizon; the sky just seems to land on the fields. Every signpost to the right said to such-and-such a Fen. To the left, an air force base; but most of the Americans had gone now, like the Romans. As personnel levels had been reduced, so second-hand dealerships in Chevrolets and Packards had sprung up in unlikely places such as Corby and Oundle. I’d heard you could still get bargains if your conscience didn’t quiver at leaded petrol and, more to the point, a guzzle rate of about ten miles to the gallon.
Nearer Peterborough, the villages and pubs splattered along the road change character, lathe-and-plaster and sloppy whitewash giving way to square, stone-solid construction.
Bobby Lee had been very specific with his instructions. After the village of Wansford, I was to pull into the third lay-by, and a third of the way along it – so slow down – there would be a gap in the hedge that even people stopped in the lay-by would miss if they weren’t looking for it. The gap led into a field.
As far as finding fields in the middle of nowhere went, his instructions were spot on. Bobby could give lectures on precision bombing.
The only trouble I had was there was nobody there.
I didn’t take Armstrong more than ten feet into the field. He was too old to play at being a 4 x 4, so I turned off the engine and waited. Bobby hadn’t specified a time other than just ‘morning’, but he had said I’d be met. By what, he hadn’t specified. After two minutes I would have welcomed a hare or a rabbit or the odd field mouse. Nothing. Just a field put to grass or set aside or whatever they call it when they get a grant from the bureaucrats in Europe for growing nothing.
Not a stoat, not a pheasant, not a fox, not even a scarecrow, just a white Land Rover Discovery coming straight at me. They say the reason they’re called Discoverys is that you only discover that they are four inches or so taller than the old design Land Rover when you enter a multi-storey car park. Whatever, my thoughts were: was this the local farmer come to shoot a trespasser, and where had he come from anyway?
I started up Armstrong’s engine just in case, but the Discovery slowed and parked alongside me so the driver could lean out of his window.
The driver was a man in his late forties, I guessed. He had a thick head of curly black hair and he wore a white linen shirt, the sleeves rolled up. He put a forearm on the edge of his door as he leaned over to speak down to me. From his face and arm, I suspected his skin came from a sample patch in a World of Leather showroom.
‘Mr Lee?’ I said.
‘That’s right. Just follow me round the edge of the field. You’ll be all right; the suspension on even that thing should take it. The caravans manage.’ His accent was unplaceable.
‘My name’s Angel,’ I said as he put the Discovery in gear.
‘Guessed as much,’ he said. ‘We don’t get many taxis in this field. You could wait hours for one some days.’
I followed his exhaust.
Halfway round the edge of the field, I could see where he was heading. The field dipped away from the road and led into another, just low enough to be hidden from the main road. There was a five-bar gate on this one, and Lee stopped and got out to open it.
He was a small, wiry man, slightly bow-legged, almost as if one leg had been broken and not set properly at some time. He pushed the gate open, and as he walked back to the Discovery he pantomimed to me that I had to close it.
He drove through and stopped. I pulled up behind him and, as he climbed back behind his wheel, I got out. He waited until I had shut the gate and then slowly drove off. I was about to yell after him, but as he moved, I could see where he was heading. At the bottom corner of this second field was a clump of trees, and around them were parked three long white caravans. There was a new Land Rover to the side of one of them and a small box truck a few yards away. From the cables coming from the truck, I guessed it held a generator of some kind. All the caravans had TV aerials, and one of them a satellite dish.
I eased down the field towards the encampment. Lee parked the Discovery at the door of the central caravan and motioned me to pull in beside it. Maybe the family had a thing about car parking.
‘Come in and have some coffee,’ he said as I climbed out.
The van was nearly new and probably state of the art to people who knew about such things. Not so much a mobile home as a bungalow on wheels. A two-step arrangement had been folded down as a doorstep. At the side of the step were two empty, washed milk bottles.
‘You get deliveries here?’ I said, looking round at an endless vista of green.
‘Just my wife’s little joke. First one up in the morning goes over to the local farm for fresh. He looks after all our deliveries. ‘
‘Nice farmers you have round here.’
He opened the van door but turned to me to speak. ‘They don’t all hate us. This one is fine, he works for me. See them?’
I strained my eyes to where he was pointing. Two fields away there were what looked like horses.
‘The horses?’ I said almost confidently.
‘Ponies, actually. The local man is my trainer.’
‘Ponies? What do you train ponies for?’
“Racing, of course.’ He looked at me as if he was considering regretting the offer to invite me in.
‘Pony racing? In Lincolnshire?’ Had I missed something after wasting all those Saturday afternoons down the bookmakers?
‘No, of course not. In Ireland, Dublin. I’m a big exporter of stock to the Irish. They like quality.’
I had certainly heard of the unofficial and probably illegal (as much as anything involving a bet is illegal in Ireland) street races in Dublin, but I had no idea they were importing professional bloodlines. It didn’t really surprise me.
‘And you’re not in Lincolnshire,’ he added. ‘I reckon you’re actually in Cambridgeshire, but over there is Northamptonshire and over there is Leicestershire, or what used to be Rutland. Lincolnshire is probably two fields north. We call this place Four Counties. It’s handy because that means you have four different sets of social services all passing the buck about what to do about us. By the time they’ve sorted out which local council site we should be on, the season’s over and we’re travelling.’
I was impressed. Here was a man who was really fieldwise.
Inside, the van sparkled with bright chrome fillings. The kitchen section, opposite the door, had a work surface no more than 18 inches square. On it were coffee pot and filter, a small electric coffee grinder and an electric kettle gently puffing steam. It had switched itself off, but who had switched it on? There was no sign of anyone else in the van or around the other two vans either.
Mr Lee was a mind reader as well.
‘My wife’s with the kids and my mother in her van. I thought it best if we spoke alone. Have a seat.’
I squeezed by him and headed for the leather bench seat around the bay window at the back – or was it the front? – of the van. I trod carefully, as either side of me were fitted glass-fronted cabinets containing Spode, Royal Worcester, Waterford glass and odd bits of lead crystal ware. Where there were no cabinets, there were shelves at eye level, and they were tightly packed with small, portable antiques such as carriage clocks, small bronze statues, even a boxed hydrometer/thermometer set from a 19th Century brewery.
‘Very homely,’ I said, cringing at how patronising I sounded.
He wizzed the coffee grinder into life.
‘What did you expect? Gypsy Rose Lee, fortunes told and lucky white heather?’
‘Sorry.’
‘You’ve come a long way. What did Bobby tell you?’ He poured hot water into the filter cone.
‘Just that you wanted to see me; that you might fill in some gaps. He sad it would be worth my while.’
‘You think there’s some gypsy gold lying around, perhaps? Lot of people do.’
‘Is there?’ I asked keenly, as if expecting him to tell me more. ‘I’d be glad to relieve you of some. I know what a drag it is having to take it out and count it by moonlight then trudge out into the field and bury it on the spot marked X, ten paces to the left of hangman’s oak.’
He poured coffee into cups.
‘Bobby said you were a bit strange, but I thought that was just him. He’s very young and a bit out of his depth in the big city.’
I tried to keep my face straight at that.
‘Why were you looking for Carrick Junior?’
‘You’re Carrick as well?’ He nodded, and then so did I as if it was significant. ‘Actually, I wasn’t, and I told Bobby that. I was helping somebody find Stella Rudgard, Sir Drummond’s daughter. She and Carrick had a bit of a fling together and she was looking for him. She says it wasn’t like him just to up sticks and move on.’
I looked around me at the caravan.
‘Not that I’m saying anything about people who just up sticks and move on. Anyway, she had a ding-dong with her father about whether or not he’d got rid of Carrick while she was away.’
‘What do you mean got rid of?’
‘Sacked him, kicked him out of whatever job he was doing.’
‘He couldn’t. Carrick worked for Buck, the solicitor. He just used to help out at that car museum place when things were slack. Buck was the one who paid his wages.’
‘For doing what?’
He sipped coffee to delay his answer, and then decided not to give me one.
‘What made the girl think he’d gone to London?’ he asked instead.
‘He’d mentioned doing business with the Church of the Shining Doorway in Islington. She didn’t know what he meant, but she found the church, only it had moved, and no-one there is talking about Carrick. We found her hanging out with the Doorway and went to tell Sir Drummond. Your Bobby picked us up there. He thought we were tracking Carrick too.’
‘But no trace?’
‘Not a word.’
‘And you’ve found the girl you were looking for.’ It wasn’t a question.
‘We know where she is, and she’s promised to keep in touch.’
‘So what’s your interest in this now?’
‘Good question,’ I said. It was. ‘Stella has been sort of adopted by some friends of mine, and I guess I feel slightly responsible for looking after them when things turn bad.’
‘You think things are going to turn bad?’
‘In my experience, when you mess in other people’s business, they usually do.’
He drained his coffee cup and I watched him, or rather I watched the van next to us over his shoulder where a net curtain had twitched twice.
‘I want to hire you to find my son,’ he said. ‘I can pay.’
I put my cup and saucer down on a shelf, wincing as it rattled in my shaking hand.
‘Mr Lee, do I look like a detective?’
‘Not like the ones I’ve met,’ he admitted, ‘but they’ve always been in police stations.’
‘You’ve already got Bobby looking,’ I said.
‘And plenty of others you don’t know about, all over the country. There’s been no sign, no sign at all. And no word. That’s not like our Carrick. He missed his grandmother’s birthday. He would never do that. Never.’
He was glassy-eyed, staring not at me but at a point somewhere behind my head.
‘You don’t hold with Carrick joining this Church of the Shining Doorway? It’s a strange outfit by all accounts, sort of religious squatters, a cult. They can put a hold on the most unlikely people sometimes.’
‘Absolutely no way, not Carrick. Did you say squatters?’
‘Sort of. They seem to set up shop in empty houses, or places for sale. At least, that’s what they’ve done recently. They used to be in Islington; that’s where Carrick said he was going. Said it was to do with “bizyness”.’
His face twitched as I pronounced it the way Bobby did and Stella had told us that Carrick did as well.
‘What sort of business was Carrick in, Mr Lee?’ I asked when he remained silent.
‘The same business we’ve all been in at one time or another, but of course he had to think up a fancy name for it. ADP, he called it. Advancing Property Depreciation. Got some property you want to buy but can’t afford the asking price? Put a family of Romanys on the site, then make them an offer. Or if you’ve got property you can’t develop – can’t get planning permission – let us set up a camp there and run the place down for you.’
‘Advancing the depreciation,’ I said. ‘Sorry, no offence.’
‘None taken. Sometimes we do it for a fee, sometimes for what’s on site. We did an old brewery once for the lead and the copper. The place flooded and the local council couldn’t move us on fast enough. The place is now a complex of executive flats.’
‘Haven’t the planners rumbled you?’
‘Not if you keep moving. The more liberal councils get all upset because they haven’t provided permanent sites for us. The right-wing ones just want to see the back of us. There’s rarely any trouble, it’s almost as if everybody accepts it as part of the game. Where there’s property and money involved, the rules can be bent.’
‘All you need is a bent property developer,’ I said.
‘Or a bent solicitor.’
He was walking with me over to Armstrong when his telephone trilled.
‘Bloody thing,’ he muttered as he pulled a small mobile phone from his trouser pocket and flipped it open. ‘Yes?’
I moved away to give him some privacy but he held out a hand in a ‘Stop’ gesture.
‘Yeah, he’s here now,’ he said into the mouthpiece. ‘Yes, we’ve talked.’
To me, he mouthed: ‘It’s Bobby.’
He said ‘yeah, yeah’ and ‘a-huh’ a couple of times and then ‘Hang on’, and turned to me.
‘Bobby’s been watching Buck this morning. He thinks something is going down. Buck went to the office as per usual then left about 9.30 and went home, where he sounds as if he’s having a bit of a bust-up with his old lady. He wants to know what he should do.’
How the hell would I know?
‘Tell him not to get involved in a domestic; stay clear.’
That was safe enough, it was standard police instruction. ‘But try and see where Buck goes if he leaves.’ And that sounded as if I knew what I was doing.
Lee relayed this, then said to me: ‘You could call in at Great Pardoe on your way back to London.’
‘Tell Bobby I’ll call in and see him on my way back to London,’ I said decisively.
He did so and snapped the phone shut.
‘I’d better give you Bobby’s number,’ he said, handing over a white visiting card.
The card was blank except for three 0831 mobile phone numbers running in sequence.
‘The top one’s me, the bottom one is Bobby. We got the three phones job lot.’
‘Is the middle number Carrick Junior’s?’
‘Yes, and before you ask, I’ve tried it every day for two weeks.’
I looked at my feet and wished I were somewhere else, anywhere else, but preferably somewhere with concrete and buildings and people and lots of distractions. Anything except fields and sky, sky and fields.
‘Mr Lee, do you really think I can find Carrick Junior?’
He put his hands in his pockets and stared at where the main road was, the road we could hear but not see.
‘Not alive,’ he said quietly. ‘His grandmother knows. She’s eighty now, but since her seventy-seventh birthday she’s known when someone close has died days before we’ve been told. She knows this time it’s Carrick.’
‘Hey, come on, you’re …’
‘Being irrational?’
I was going to say ‘scaring me’ but it hardly went with the gumshoe image.
‘Exactly. You’re not thinking of doing anything irrational, are you?’
‘What, a blood feud? Get the old lady to put a curse on whoever did it? Come on, we’re almost in the 21st Century.’
Yes, I thought, and you’re living in a field and breeding ponies for illegal street races. What’s your point?
‘Look, Mr Lee, I’m in this only until Stella Rudgard is sorted out one way or another. If that involves finding out what happened to your son, I’ll pass it on. I can’t say any fairer than that, okay?’
‘Do you need a sub – cash upfront?’ His hands remained in his pockets.
‘No. I’m not sure I can deliver, Mr Lee. If I do, we’ll settle up afterwards.’
‘Gentleman’s agreement, is it?’
‘Please – no-one’s ever accused me of being a gentleman.’
‘Me neither. I won’t shake hands. Grandmother’ll be watching, and if she sees a handshake, that means a bargain, and if you can’t cover your end of the bargain, she’ll curse you.’
I wasn’t worried. He didn’t know the women I knew. I’ve been cursed by professionals.
Halfway to London, I pulled off the A1 and found a pub that served me a jumbo sausage in French bread and a pint of Adnams bitter in excellent condition. And I got change from a fiver. Maybe the country does have some advantages.
If the theory was that I would think better on a full stomach, then it didn’t work. I rang Stuart Street from the pub’s pay phone and got no answer, so no ideas there. I rang Bobby Lee’s mobile number, remembering to put extra coins in the pay phone. (It costs about twice as much as normal to call a mobile from a land line, but they don’t tell you until you’ve tried.)
‘Hello?’ he answered after two or three rings.
‘Bobby? It’s Angel. Where are you?’
‘At Buck’s place. Hey, man, this is better than soap opera. You wouldn’t believe what’s been going on here today. Where are you?’
‘On my way. Be with you in about an hour. Is Buck there?’
‘He was, he is. He’s coming and going, in and out in the car, then back. Man, these two have had a fight and a half this morning.’
‘Fight? With his wife?’
‘Yeah, the Bitch Queen. She’s really pissed off about something. You can hear her in the street.’
‘Where exactly are you?’
‘Just hanging about, man. Waiting for a bus, out for a walk. You can get right up to their windows if you sneak through the back garden.’
‘Don’t get caught. How do I find you?’
‘It’s called Old Mill Cottage. White place, thatched roof, on the left about one mile down the road from Sandpit Lodge, set back in a field. Access is easy.’
‘I thought you told me it was a fortress?’
‘Oh yeah, the house is. Alarms everywhere, double locks, chains. But you can approach it easy enough. No cameras, no dogs.’
And his father was worried about him being out of his depth?
‘Stay down, I’ll be with you after I’ve called in at the Lodge.’
‘What’re you going to see the old man for?’
‘I’m not sure, Bobby. Stay lucky.’
I pressed the Follow On button and dialled my own number again. Still no answer from Stuart Street. Typical. Here I was doing all the work and they were out enjoying themselves.
There were six or seven cars in the car park at Sandpit Lodge. The retired schoolmistress, Miss Rocket, as Bobby had called her, was taking the money.
‘Oh, hello again,’ she said from her sentry box. ‘I didn’t know Sir Drummond was expecting anyone else this afternoon.’
‘Is he around?’ I smiled at her.
‘He’s in the museum doing a guided tour for the local Tourist Board. Is there something wrong with your mouth, young man?’
‘No, it’s fine, but thanks for asking. So many don’t these days, you know.’
‘I don’t think he can …’ she started, but she was saying it to my back.
Sir Drummond was halfway down the right-hand side of exhibits, extolling the virtues of a 30-year-old Austin A40, his ball of a head nodding enthusiastically. There were two women and three men in a group listening to him. One of the men looked vaguely interested, the two women were, I think, awake.
I stood in the doorway of the hangar until he caught sight of me. It didn’t seem to interrupt his flow, but after a minute he waved his arms as if to say carry on without me and then strode towards me saying ‘Won’t be a tick. Don’t be frightened to touch the paintwork while I’m gone,’ over his shoulder.
As he got near to me, his expression changed. The genial host disappeared and was replaced by not an angry face, but a blank.
‘Are you trying to see me?’ he growled. ‘Because I don’t believe we had an appointment. I don’t actually know that we have anything to discuss, do we?’
‘I’m glad you remembered me, Sir Drummond.’
‘Of course I did. Maclean, isn’t it? Came with that detective woman.’
I was grateful that one of us had remembered which name I’d used.
‘That’s right.’
‘Well?’
He was impatient but not that keen to get back to his guests.
‘I’ve seen Estelle, talked to her. Yesterday in London,’ I said.
‘And?’ he said, his face a wall.
‘And I thought you might be interested, that’s all.’
The first twinge of red appeared in his cheeks.
‘Interested enough to pay you money? Is that it? I was warned you might show up. Well, forewarned is forearmed. I won’t pay you a penny. My daughter is perfectly all right and will be coming home. Just how many times do you have to be told that your services are no longer required?’
‘Have you spoken to Estelle?’
‘No and ... Look here, whether I have or I haven’t, it is simply no business of yours. I would be grateful if you would leave now. Leave my property.’
I was tempted to say ‘Or what?’ but there’s no point going looking for trouble. It’s usually around when you need it.
I found Old Mill Cottage easily enough, at the other end of the village, but I was damned if I could find Bobby Lee. I was on my third drive-by and feeling highly conspicuous, when he just materialised out of the hedge surrounding Buck’s house and held up a hand in the universal ‘Taxi’ gesture.
It always used to irritate me when people who knew me and Armstrong thought it was funny to hail me instead of just getting in and being grateful for the ride. I once had a job for a week driving a certain professional lady to appointments in some of the better parts of Knightsbridge, and on the first night, she hailed me just like you would a real cab. After a couple of times, it wasn’t amusing, and I told her so. She told me that one of her clients – female clients – was into serious masochism. (The professional lady in question didn’t normally do fem/dom but she was filling in for a friend on maternity leave.) The client – they call them Janets – asked for the full works, no holds barred, but had, as is the custom, a ‘mercy’ word for when the pleasure turned to pain. Her Janet’s mercy word was, very loudly, ‘Taxi!’ After she told me that, I never really bothered about being hailed anymore.
Bobby stuck his head in my window. His breath smelled of chocolate.
‘You’re missing the floor show, man. Come see.’
‘What floor show, Bobby? Where’s Buck?’
‘He’s out. Got a phone call five minutes ago, jumped in his BMW and shot off down the road. You must’ve passed him. But it’s the wife you’ve got to watch. Man, this you have to see!’
I parked Armstrong 400 yards away outside the village church. It was the best place I could think of where he would be least noticed, though with Sir Drummond’s crazy car collection down the road, maybe the locals were used to unusual vehicles. Perhaps no-one would give him a second look. I hoped so.
By the time I had walked back to Buck’s house, Bobby Lee had disappeared again, but I found the gap in the hedge he had used and, after checking the road both ways, I squeezed through. On the other side, the garden was laid to lawn with islands of rose bushes and dwarf conifers. I was at the side of the house, which had once been a brick and tile cottage but had now been expanded to three times its original size into an executive residence. Bobby Lee was crouched behind a rose bush ten feet away, staring intently at the French windows.
I joined him in a crouch.
‘So what’s this movie premiere you wanted me to see?’ I whispered.
Bobby’s eyes shone. ‘Well, I’ve never seen anything like this before. This has got to be better than dirty movies.’
Sadly, Bobby was right.
I would have guessed she was mid-thirties. I didn’t have to guess that she kept herself in shape. Even from that distance, I could see that her muscle tone was fine and her skin was polished light brown by an all-over tan. And I mean all over. She was wearing some sort of black choker around her neck and a pair of shiny black leather over-the-knee boots, the sort you only normally saw in Yves St Laurent adverts and that cost about 200 quid per leg.
And worth it too, from the leg she was showing. She moved around the living room as if there was music playing, swaying and stretching in time. Using the arm of a chair, she would stretch out first one leg then the other behind her like a ballet dancer limbering up. Then she tried to pirouette, but the boots weren’t made for that and she stumbled slightly.
Regaining her balance, she stomped across the room and out of our line of sight. Then she stomped back, this time with a large cut-glass tumbler held to her face. She drained it, put it down on a surface I couldn’t see, and bent over, reaching out a hand. It must have been the stereo controls as we could suddenly hear the thump and hiss or distorted music out in the garden.
She didn’t stop to listen, but strode out of the room.
‘To the left,’ hissed Bobby. ‘Watch.’
I was ahead of him. A large sash window to the left of the French windows showed on to the open-plan staircase, giving us an excellent view of her buttocks swaying upstairs. Naturally, I scanned the upstairs windows, but all had Venetian blinds in pastel shades.
‘Wait,’ said Bobby in a croaky sort of voice.
‘For what?’
‘She’s getting changed.
‘Changed?’ I noticed my throat was dry too. Must be a bug going round.
‘That’s the fifth outfit so far. I liked the one with the dog lead best.’ He read my expression. ‘No, honestly. Could I make this up?’
‘Probably not.’
‘She’s an exhibitionist, isn’t she?’
I looked around the garden and the gravel driveway over to our right.
‘No,’ I said, ‘it’s not that. You can’t see in the French windows except from here. She’s pulled the blinds upstairs, so no-one in the street is getting an eyeful. This isn’t a public show. I think it’s for her benefit alone.’
‘But–? Hang on, cop this one.’
She was coming back downstairs now, and carefully, in black high heels. She wore bright red tights and an outline of a black uplift bra, the sort that simply positioned the breasts, not concealed them. As she descended the stairs, she rubbed her breasts with the palms of her hands.
She disappeared, then emerged into the living room, picking up her glass as she crossed the room. Again, she went out of our line of vision for a minute, re-emerging with a full glass of clear liquid and a long cigarette dangling from her lips.
With either the cigarette or the glass in front of her face, she half weaved, half danced back and forth in front of the windows. Occasionally she would pause as if looking at herself in a mirror or her reflection from the glass in the French windows. Then she would stop and sit astride the arm of a chair as if posing for a girlie calendar. Once she disappeared into a seat and all we could see were her shoes, her legs spread and in the air. But most of the time she prowled back and forth like a caged animal, occasionally bumping into furniture, caressing it lewdly with her body in time to the music, which could have been playing or was perhaps just inside her head.
‘It’s like watching a video with the sound turned down,’ Bobby hissed.
‘Yeah, the constant complaint of the Peeping Tom; no volume control. Have you got your mobile on you?’
He looked at me suspiciously, then nodded. ‘Yeah.’
He pulled it from his jacket pocket, extended the plastic aerial and switched it on for me while I rooted in my wallet until found the card Buck had given Veronica. When I had used it to ring his office, I had made a note of his home number, and I remembered his secretary’s off-the-wall comment about his wife keeping him on a tight rein or something.
‘What are you doing?’ asked Bobby as I punched the numbers.
‘Trying to break the spell,’ I said.
We couldn’t hear the phone ring in the house, but we saw her react to it. Sitting up with a start, then shaking her head as if to clear it. It rang five times before she moved, and then she hesitated as if reassuring herself that it was a telephone and she knew how to answer one. When she did pick up, it was on ring 11 and she had moved out of our sight line.
‘What’s her name?’ I snapped at Bobby.
‘Caroline,’ he said, just as she answered.
‘Yes?’
‘Mrs Buck? Mrs Caroline Buck?’
‘Yes?’ Wary now, as if expecting a cold-call double-glazing salesman.
‘My name is Maclean, Mrs Buck. I work for the Albert Block Enquiry Agency.’
‘My husband’s not here at the moment, but he’ll be back soon.’ She was keeping her voice level, but dressed as she was, she was probably grateful that videophones hadn’t caught on yet.
‘It was you I wanted to see, Mrs Buck, not your husband. It’s about your husband.’
That got a pause, then: ‘What about my husband?’
‘I’d rather not discuss this over the phone, Mrs Buck. As you can probably tell, I’m on a mobile, and you never know who’s listening in, do you? I’m in the area, though. I could be with you in ten minutes if it’s convenient.’
‘About Simon, did you say?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you’re from Block, the detective agency?’
‘Yes, that’s right.’
‘Very well, then. Do you know the house?’
‘I can find it,’ I said. ‘I’ll be with you in ten minutes.’
She hung up and we watched her run through the living room and up the stairs, pausing after the first one to remove her spiky heels. Then she disappeared into the bedroom.
‘A gentleman would have given her 15 minutes,’ said Bobby.
She seemed more concerned about Armstrong parked outside the front door than she did about my turning up out of the blue.
‘Did you come by ... ?’
‘We use it for undercover work,’ I said, because it seemed easier.
She looked as if she was wondering where the driver was.
I was wondering what she was wearing under the red wool dress she had thrown on. Why was I wondering? I knew. She had changed her shoes, though, to some sensible, black patent square-toes.
‘You’d better come in,’ she said, leading the way into the living room, swaying more than a little.
She’d done a good job of tidying round. I spotted only one fresh cigarette burn in the white carpet, and though there were no glasses in evidence, the door to a small mahogany cocktail cabinet was half open and I could see where a bottle of Smirnoff had fallen over. Next to the cabinet was a similar cupboard housing a midi hi-fi system with its red Power On button still lit. There were two or three CD covers on top of it and I tried to guess to what music she had been performing her own kinky fashion show. I couldn’t decide, but for sentimental reasons I favoured Jukebox Dury, figuring she would be about the right age.
‘You said you wanted to tell me something about Simon,’ she said, sitting down just that telltale bit too heavily in one of the armchairs.
She waved an arm listlessly for me to sit, and I noticed that two of the fingernails on her right hand had snapped.
I took a seat away from the French windows.
‘I wanted to ask you about your husband, Mrs Buck,’ I said slowly.
‘What? I don’t get it.’
I bit back the obvious, and easy, retort.
‘I wanted to ask you a few questions,’ I said carefully, ‘if you wouldn’t mind, that is. I haven’t come here to tell you anything specific.’
‘Hah!’
She slapped her hand on the arm of the chair and looked around the room as if for a weapon.
‘I’m sorry?’
‘Oh, don’t you be sorry,’ she said vehemently. ‘I’m the one who’s always sorry. When you said you were a detective and it was about my husband I thought that – finally – someone was going to tell me what he’s been up to. Or should I say who he’s been up? Damnation!’
Now I know you can’t actually jump to your feet from a deep armchair, but I’ll swear that’s what she did. She walked by me, then back again, heading for the drinks cabinet.
‘You think I don’t know?’ she muttered under her breath. ‘You think I didn’t guess a long time ago? All I want to know is who she is. Not too much to ask, is it? Not after eight years of behaving myself?’
She bent over and pulled out the vodka bottle.
‘Mrs Buck,’ I started, more to remind her I was there than anything.
‘And don’t tell me I can’t have a drink in my own house,’ she snapped, the pitch of her voice rising sharply.
She plonked the bottle on top of the cabinet and looked up and into the mirror on the wall above her head. I was sure she couldn’t see herself. I wasn’t sure she could see me. Emotionally, she was running on empty.
It was more than a tad scary. She was a very attractive woman, even with her clothes on, but something had obviously snapped in her head somewhere. Her eyes said the lights were on, but there was nobody home. I knew enough to know that you had to deal with such people carefully and considerately.
‘Can I get you some ice?’ I asked.
She placed her hands flat on the top of the drinks cabinet and dropped her head. She couldn’t see me in the mirror and I couldn’t see her face. I noticed that her short brown hair had been cut to a perfect point in the nape of her neck. She had a nice neck.
‘Ice in fridge, through there,’ she said without turning, ‘and tonic and glasses in cupboard. You’ll see.’
I stood up and found the kitchen easily enough through an alcove dining room. I wondered how much Bobby had seen and what he’d made of it so far. Probably as much as I had.
I found the glasses, big fat tumbler ones, and the ice. I knew to look in the freezer for that. Well, I was supposed to be the detective. But there was no sign of tonic water. There wasn’t much of anything in the fridge, food wise, but there was an unopened carton of cranberry and raspberry juice. I knew that had lots of Vitamin C in it, one of the highest concentrations, in fact. And I reckoned she needed a dose if anybody did.
‘What’s that?’ she said, scaring me half to death.
‘Try it. Trust me.’
I ripped the corner off the carton and poured juice over the ice I had put into two glasses.
She was standing in the kitchen doorway, leaning against the door frame, her arms folded. The bottle of vodka dangled from one hand. She had another cigarette in the corner of her mouth. Her legs were crossed at the ankle and her hips rubbing against the doorway had hiked her skirt up more above the knee than the designer, if not God, had intended.
I wondered if she’d been here before. I felt as if I had, but I wasn’t fooling myself. I’d just seen an awful lot of black and white movies. She was no Veronica Lake and I had no intention of being Alan Ladd.
She handed over the vodka and took the cigarette from her lips. Squinting from the smoke, she flicked an inch of ash into the sink with deadeye skill.
I put vodka in the glasses and handed her one.
‘So, what did you want to know?’ she said, then without pause: ‘Do I frighten you? I do most men.’
‘I wanted to ask you about somebody called Carrick Lee, a young guy who used to work for your husband. He’s disappeared. And, yes, I think you could frighten me if you put your mind to it.’
‘My, my,’ she drawled, like she was trying sarcasm for the first time. ‘A man who comes to the point and is honest as well.’
‘I’m working on both,’ I said.
‘Sorry I can’t help you. Never heard of him. Who did you say?’
‘Carrick Lee. Worked for your husband, and at Sandpit Lodge perhaps, for Sir Drummond. Sir Drummond Rudgard.’
She screwed up her face as if in concentration, then took a massive gulp of her drink. In a straight race, the vodka was miles ahead of the Vitamin C.
‘Lee, did you say?’
‘Yes. Carrick Lee.’
‘No ... means nothing ... wait, just a minute .. yes, I do ... Shall we sit down?’
She turned on her heels, making a decent fist of it all things considered, and led me into the living room. This time I sat in full view of the French windows, just in case I needed a witness.
She took the chair opposite, but no sooner had she settled in it than she reached over the side to pick up an ashtray from the floor, the whole exercise resulting in her dress riding up again against the fabric of the chair. It was as if it had a mind of its own. I just knew that if I said anything in the next ten seconds, I’d get ‘legs’ in there somehow.
‘You’re really a disappointment,’ she said to my relief. ‘I was sure you were here to tell me who my husband’s been bonking. Is that the right word these days? I lose track.’
‘“Fucking” is the most widely understood, and “shagging” always gets a laugh at the coarser end of the market, but “bonking”, though more than a tad retro these days, will do.’
I think I finally had her attention.
‘You’re not a real detective. What do you want?’
‘I want to find Carrick Lee.’
‘Why?’
‘I’ve been paid to.’
‘I can’t help you. My husband doesn’t talk to me about his work. Huh – he doesn’t talk to me about anything. There was somebody … months ago but … I know he doesn’t like boys. That I do know, so it’s not as if I worry about things like that. Am I shocking you, Mr Whateveryournameis?’
‘Not yet, but I’m young, I’ve got time.’
She stared at me then, making eye contact for the first time since she had let me into the house half a year ago or so.
‘What are you doing here?’
‘Trying to ask you questions about your husband.’
‘He didn’t send you here? Are you sure? I know you said you came from … Block, that’s it. Albert Block. Simon used to use him to serve all his writs. So now he sent you, is that it?’
‘Why should your husband send me, Mrs …?’
‘As a test …’
‘Well, he didn’t, okay? He doesn’t know I’m here. You said your husband used Albert Block to serve writs. What sort of writs?’
‘Oh, property stuff, eviction orders, notices to pay, small claims for back rent, that sort ... Wait. He used somebody ... a ... gypsy ... was that …?’
For a moment there, she had tried, but I knew she had lost it before I said:
‘Yes, that was Carrick. Have you seen him recently? Have you any idea where he might be? Working for your husband, perhaps?’
Her eyes glazed over. She put her glass to her face and finished her drink like an end-of-the-pier automaton.
‘I need another drink,’ she announced, shuffling her buttocks and raising her dress even more as she writhed her way out of her chair.
She didn’t ask me if I wanted one, not that I had touched the first. I let her get to the kitchen before I stood up and moved to the French windows so I was in full view. I had some vague idea about trying to signal Bobby in semaphore, but what would I say? ‘Help, I’m trapped with a sex-starved woman with shares in a distillery and an inability to keep her clothes on’? What would he do, send reinforcements?
I didn’t have to signal him. He was signalling me.
He was standing up behind the bush we had hidden behind, so I got a clear view of him. He pantomimed ‘over there’ with both arms, index fingers outstretched, pointing towards the main drive of the house. Then he pointed the index finger of his right hand to the third linger of his left. Then he used both hands in the steering wheel position as if driving a car. Then he gave a Heil Hitler salute and mimed a goose step, following that by drawing a finger across his neck in a slow, bloodcurdling gesture.
I think he was trying to tell me that her husband had just driven up in his BMW.
‘Just what the fucking hell are you doing here?’ Buck demanded.
It was a good question.
‘I am making enquiries into the whereabouts of Carrick Lee, Mr Buck,’ I said pompously, as I always did when I was telling the truth. ‘You were not here. Your wife invited me in for ... a drink.’
I laid on the pause thickly to see if it would bait him. It did. Sometimes it’s a shame to take the money.
‘How dare you? This is my property.’
I let him bluster, noting that he said this was his property and not ‘this is my house’ as most people would have done. He didn’t frighten me. After ten minutes with his wife, I think I could have taken on a Great White over a hundred yards freestyle.
‘Your wife invited me in,’ I repeated, speaking slowly and calmly. And, funnily enough, I did feel calm now he was here. ‘But she wasn’t able to help, I’m afraid. Since you’re here …’
‘What?’ he spluttered. ‘What have you been asking her? Caroline? What has he been asking you?’
He looked around, a classic double-take.
‘Where is my wife?’
‘In the kitchen,’ I said reasonably. ‘It’s over there.’
I pointed with my drink and smiled at him. It didn’t calm him down. I considered trying to get a refund on the new teeth.
‘Hello, Simon,’ she said as if on cue, staggering into the room. She had another drink, and I was willing to swear that her glass had got bigger. ‘This is a detective. I thought he’d come about you.’
She burst into laughter, a dry sort of laugh, the absolutely non-infectious kind of laugh.
Buck swung on her. I might as well have not been in the room. It was a feeling I could get used to in this house. ‘He’s not a detective. Don’t be a fool. What’s he been asking?’
Her mouth fell open, slack with surprise.
‘Nothing. Something. Something about somebody ... oh, I don’t care, I mean, I don’t know … He said he worked for Block,’ she finished, a straw being grasped.
‘Albert’s never heard of him. Whatever he’s up to, it’s no good.’
‘Excuse me,’ I put in, ‘but I’m still here, you know. Why don’t you ask me why I came?’
‘Honestly, Simon …’
Buck moved towards her faster than I guessed he could. I had known before he did that he would.
‘You, just shut the fuck up!’ he yelled at her.
He put out his hand, not to punch, but rather to cup the side of her face, and then he pushed and sent her skittering across the room, losing a shoe on the way, to fall in a heap by the doorway that led to the staircase.
I suppose, if I’d stuck to the script, I should have stepped in then and punched the lights out of him. I didn’t, partly because my Rule of Life No 34 is: never hit a solicitor when anyone is looking (especially not the solicitor in question), but mainly because of the way she reacted before I had time to.
In my experience, drunk women who fall over usually hit the floor with an air of finality you don’t ever get from male drunks. It’s not a sexist thing, just an observation. Perhaps men are just gutter-prone by nature. Women tend to hit the deck like puppets that have had their strings cut.
But not Mrs Buck. Not that she was up on her feet waiting for the compulsory count or anything, but suddenly, she was alert, and how. A microsecond after falling, she was on her hands and knees, shaking the hair and booze out of her face.
‘Oh, Simon,’ she said throatily.
‘Caroline ... leave the room,’ he said, and there was a tremor in his voice. Then he turned on me. ‘And you – leave this house now.’
I looked at him and then at his wife, who was leaving the room on all fours. When she reached the staircase I finally looked at him again.
‘Okay,’ I said. It was the cruellest thing I could think of. He followed me to the front door so closely I could hear his breathing. I put my hand on the Yale lock and turned it, saying, over my shoulder: ‘Where’s Carrick Lee, Mr Buck? I think you know.’
He pushed my hand aside and grabbed the door lock, pulling the door open. ‘Just get out. Go.’
‘Mr Buck, you’ve got to …’
‘Just get out of my house. I have nothing to say to you, and you have nothing to say that would interest me.’
‘So you’re not interested in where Carrick is?’ I tried.
‘Go, damn you!’ He put a hand on my shoulder and pushed, but I’d been expecting it and had braced myself. He was going to have to get more physical than that, and I didn’t think he had the bottle.
‘You’ve got nothing on me. Nothing.’
I held his stare, but he wasn’t going to give.
From upstairs, Mrs Buck yelled in a voice that caught us both on the raw.
‘Simon – darling. The gates of hell are open for you.’
I watched his face. He hadn’t shaved well that morning. A nervous tic twitched above his jawbone. We were close enough to identify each other’s mouthwash.
‘I think you’re wanted,’ I said as I stepped into the driveway.
I drove Armstrong out of the drive and down the road, then doubled back to pick up Bobby, emerging from the hedge.
‘You should have seen what she did when she got to the top of the stairs,’ he shouted from the back. ‘You missed a treat.’
‘That’s okay,’ I said. ‘I have a very vivid imagination.’