Angel Confidential

Contents Title Page 3 Publisher Information 4 Dedication 5 Author’s Introduction 6 Chapter One 10 Chapter Two 22 Chapter Three 33 Chapter Four 45 Chapter Five 59 Chapter Six 72 Chapter Seven 85 Chapter Eight 99 Chapter Nine 111 Chapter Ten 123 Chapter Eleven 137 Chapter Twelve 149 Chapter Thirteen 162 Chapter Fourteen 176 Chapter Fifteen 189 Chapter Sixteen 202 Chapter Seventeen 215 Chapter Eighteen 228 Chapter Nineteen 241 Chapter Twenty 253 About The Author 265 Also Available 266

Title Page

      ANGEL CONFIDENTIAL    

Mike Ripley

     

Publisher Information

 

Telos Publishing Ltd 17 Pendre Avenue, Prestatyn, Denbighshire LL19 9SH www.telos.co.uk

  Digital edition converted and published by Andrews UK Limited 2010 www.andrewsuk.com

  Angel Confidential © 1995, 2011 Mike Ripley Author’s introduction © 2011 Mike Ripley   Cover by Gwyn Jeffers, David J Howe   The moral rights of the author have been asserted.   British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior written consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

     

Dedication

   

This one is for Guy.   And for all on the collective behind ‘A Shot in the Dark’, because it probably serves them right.   Note: I have taken numerous geographical liberties in this one. Basically just to annoy people.   MR

     

Author’s Introduction

   

Angel Confidential followed hot on the heels of Angel City as the second half of a two-book deal for HarperCollins in their Collins Crime imprint, which had, in a rather casual way, replaced the legendary Collins Crime Club – a brand first established in 1930. Angel City had been the most noir-ish Angel tale to date, so I wanted to get back to comedy if not downright farce. Several of the plot strands were ideas that had been bubbling around for a while. I had planned to feature a dodgy religious cult ever since I had met a fellow crime writer whose husband had walked out one day and signed all their possessions (and house) over to one. The fish anaesthetic featured in the sub-plot does exist and was invented by a firm in Norfolk; its launch being one of the first news stories I covered as a trainee journalist. The idea of a gypsy camp in the social services’ No-Man’s Land where four counties meet and no-one is sure who has responsibility was suggested to me by a Cambridgeshire traffic policeman with several hundred unserved warrants for traffic violations. I also thought it the sort of idea that would have appealed to that other (and far greater) East Anglian crime writer, Margery Allingham, with her sense of the picaresque. The bull-in-a-chinashop image of Angel’s black cab Armstrong charging around inside a classic car museum was something I had wanted to shoehorn into a plot for quite a while, because it just seemed the sort of thing Angel – and Armstrong – would do. So I had the basic framework of comic ‘set pieces’ but I still needed some sort of narrative engine to progress the plot. I remembered a chance remark by another writer (it was either Reginald Hill or Robert Barnard) who asked me: What sort of a detective is Angel? What they meant (I think) was that as my series’ hero wasn’t a policeman or an investigative official of any sort, how did he come to be involved in all those shady goings on? Just luck, good or bad, I

suppose was probably what I answered, though it got me thinking. I had always followed the philosophy that Angel could do this ‘crime fighting’ business basically by being in the wrong place at the wrong time and by falling over clues rather than detecting them. After all, it was funnier that way, wasn’t it? I was convinced that Angel, with his high quotient of streetwise experience (‘More street-cred than wheel-clamps’, as someone kindly said) was the ideal detective in his particular world; a world free of responsibilities, paperwork and the need to provide – or even bother to look for – evidence that would stand up in court. Yet as it began to coalesce, the plot of the as-yet untitled Angel #6 seemed to demand a detective who actually detected things. Now the last thing Angel could be was a police detective, so how about a private eye? Even better; why not team Angel – reluctantly – with an inept private eye, a female private eye? The running gag would be that he could do the detecting business standing on his head, but the last thing he wanted was a job with all the attendant responsibilities. She desperately wanted to be the responsible, professional, private detective but was actual pretty rubbish at it. So the character of Veronica Daphne Blugden was born, and she was to team up with the book’s femme fatale (or one of them) to form the all-female Rudgard & Blugden Confidential Enquiries agency: R & B Investigations. With Angel acting as unpaid consultant, foil and straight-man to these two would-be private eyes, the title Angel Eyes seemed to me to be totally appropriate. At the last minute, though, HarperCollins discovered they had reservations, as the company had already signed up an Angel Eyes, by the well-known American thriller writer Eric van Lustbader. Someone had to give way and inevitably it was me, so I suggested Angel Confidential for no other reason than I had greatly enjoyed James Ellroy’s LA Confidential. (I did get to use the title Angel Eyes for a short story in the 1999 anthology Fresh Blood 3, a story that was narrated by Veronica Blugden and that, for the first and only time, gave a physical description of Roy Angel, the lad himself.)

My Confidential came out in hardback in 1995 and was greeted with over-generous reviews, especially from the right-wing Sunday Telegraph and the left-wing Tribune. It was just the sort of review coverage I had come to expect, which is a very dangerous state of affairs. As one of my thriller-writing icons, Len Deighton, was later to tell me: Two things destroy writers – alcohol and praise. At the time, however, things seemed to be going swimmingly. Even before the book came out, I was asked by HarperCollins to consider another two-book deal with another, improved advance. Naturally I assumed that paperback sales of Angel City were proving healthy – if fact they weren’t – and of course I was very flattered, but the truth was I’d had an idea for a book that would fill in the backstory of Angel’s life, and the prospect of writing that consumed me to the extent that I could not see the next one until I had that one off my chest. There were other considerations too. The television rights to Angel were due to revert to me in 1996 from the production company that had held them for six years and done nothing with them. I knew – or I thought I knew – that Yorkshire TV were interested in buying an option, and HarperCollins were convinced there would be other offers once ‘we’ had the rights back. I also still had a day job in London, as Director of Public Relations for the Brewers & Licensed Retailers Association, as the Brewers’ Society was now called, which had started to involve frequent trips to Milan (to sell British beer and pubs to the Italians) and to Brussels (to protect British beer and pubs from everyone else in Europe). Back in East Anglia, my family had grown to include a son as well as two daughters and we had moved into a bigger house in a smaller village. Consequently, rightly or wrongly, I turned down the two-book deal but signed a contract to write one more novel, Family of Angels, which was published in 1996 alongside the paperback edition of Confidential. I had no idea that it would be my last book for HarperCollins, as not long after publication, the decision was taken, without warning or any chance at negotiation, to drop the series. And I assumed that that would be that, until other, smaller,

publishers began to show an interest in keeping the old rogue in print. But it was my old friend and former Collins Crime Club stablemate Walter Satterthwait who provided the key piece of inspiration when he said: ‘Those two girls in Angel Confidential, they were really good characters, you should use them again.’ Walter’s advice was sound (for once!) and, as Evelyn Waugh once said: writers should never kill off good characters, as they are so difficult to create. So R & B Investigations began to play a major part in the rather bonkers career path of Fitzroy Maclean Angel, and fairly soon the inevitable happened and he went to work for them. I had once tried to end the Angel saga by marrying him off in That Angel Look in 1997, but that hadn’t worked. Perhaps doing the unthinkable and giving him a regular job would do the trick …   Mike Ripley Colchester, 2010

     

Chapter One

   

Some people would dine out for years on the experience, some might even pay for it, but no self-respecting London taxi driver would do anything but run a mile if somebody jumped in the back of their black Austin FX4S and yelled ‘Follow that cab!’ in their auricular orifice. To be honest, they wouldn’t run a mile. They’d just sit there and turn their head and say ‘Get real’, or ‘But the traffic’s solid, mate’, or ‘No fuckin’ way’, or even possibly something impolite. But let’s face it, most wouldn’t say auricular orifice in the first place. I’m not a genuine, licensed, London black cabbie. Sure, I drive a genuine black cab, and if you didn’t notice at first that the TAXI sign on the roof was never lit, or that the fare clock had been replaced by the tape-deck of the ICE (In-Cab Entertainment System), then you could be forgiven for making an honest mistake. Especially if you were in an area where cabs are taken for granted as part of the scenery and no-one looks for the lit sign or claims the nearest corner as their territory, arm raised hopefully. Some areas are so over-cabbed that the punter simply dives in, just assuming it’s going to be empty. I was in just such an area, Wimpole Street, and minding my own business. I had just signed off from my private orthoÂ�dontist, who had finished rebuilding five of my teeth back to smiles-onstun perfection. As the damage to the molars in question had been sustained in somewhat suspicious circumÂ�stances, I had decided to go to a private specialist rather than rely on the National Health Service. Sure enough, the only questions I got asked were about whether I wanted to pay cash or by credit card. It had cost me a packet, but rather than be a burden on the state, I had also fancied the idea of eating steak again while still in my thirties, and for once, I had the money. (Don’t ask.)

I had just started up Armstrong’s diesel engine and was sitting there listening to it go thrup, thrup as it warmed up. I was parked, legally, at the kerb and doing nothing more suspicious than admiring my new teeth in the rear-view mirror. They looked good. Very good. From all angles. ‘If you got ‘em, bare ‘em,’ I said out loud, and being able to hear each word pronounced clearly for the first time in months just added to the pleasure. Trying to drink pints of cold lager had been agony for a while, and then an intricate set of braces containing more wire than Steve McQueen could have jumped a motorbike over had made me slur any word with a ‘ch’ or a ‘sh’ sound. Directing someone to Chichester had been a bitch. So there I was, practising my smile and coming close to charming my own pants off when suddenly my personal allocation of daylight was halved by a large female form at the passenger-side window. Naturally I ignored the shape, hoping it would go away. It didn’t. It smacked the back of one hand against the window and brought what sounded like a sledgehammer, but was probably a handbag, down on Armstrong’s roof. ‘Watch the paint job,’ I snarled, reaching over to pull the window down and put my new smile into action for the first time. ‘Follow that cab!’ bellowed the figure, trying the rear-door handle with one hand and waving vaguely down Wimpole Street with the other. I got the window down and leaned over. I looked up and let the smile rip. ‘No.’ ‘But you’re not allowed to refuse a fare,’ she blustered. ‘Oh yes I am,’ I smiled. ‘This is urgent.’ ‘Sorry,’ I grinned. ‘This’ – she fumbled in her handbag – ‘is official.’

She held out a small leather credit card holder towards me and opened it with trembling fingers. ‘And that,’ I said, still smiling, ‘is a National Trust membership card.’ The small black wallet withdrew. ‘Sorry,’ she said, then thrust it at me again. It was a business card this time, one of the sort you can get whileyou-wait at a railway station that cost about three quid for 25. This one read:  VERONICA BLUGDEN Private and Confidential Enquiries   There was a phone number, but I wasn’t given time to read it, let alone memorise it. I didn’t feel my life was the poorer. ‘Now will you follow that cab, please?’ she persisted, really agitated by this time and bobbing up and down so I still didn’t have clear sight of her. She was also showing not the slightest interest in my new dental work. ‘Look, love,’ I tried, letting the smile slide into neutral, ‘I’m not a real taxi.’ She put her head into the window frame and I got my first good look at her. She had a moon of a face (one of Saturn’s, I think) and a haircut like a World War II German helmet. The hair was unevenly hennaed auburn and her glasses were large ovals with thick brown frames. From her ears hung plastic earrings in the shape of a pair of balances, the astrological Libra sign. From the neck upwards she had still to register on the fashion scoreboard. ‘Oh yes you are,’ she pouted. So there was nothing wrong with the glasses prescription-wise. The problem seemed to be her brain. ‘No, I’m not. Armstrong may be a taxi …’ ‘Armstrong who?’ This was going to be difficult. I took a deep breath.

‘This vehicle was at one time a licensed Hackney Carriage, what lesser mortals would indeed call a taxi. But he is now de-licensed, to, whit: a private car. Do you see a sign saying “For Hire”? Do you see a meter? Do you …?’ She wasn’t listening, she was staring down Wimpole Street. ‘Oh fish-hooks! She’s gone, and it’s all your fault for not taking my fare.’ Her face reappeared in the window. ‘I’ll have your number for this.’ She snarled the threat, which meant I got to see her teeth. Because I was into teeth, I noticed she had smeared lipstick across the front two. ‘Be my guest.’ I flipped the central locking off and made to get out. The central locking is one of the other improvements I’ve made to Armstrong’s original sturdy design. Until relatively recently, black cabs in London had not been allowed by law to lock their doors. It must have stemmed from some equal opporÂ�tunities charter for drunks and muggers. Cabbies, real ones or ‘mushers’, used to have to secure their cab doors with chains and padlocks when they parked them overnight; the only time they were allowed to lock them. If they didn’t, odds were the back seat had been occupied by a vagrant or a pair of young lovers who still had parents at home. The back seat and one of the jump seats held down by diagonally stretched legs is just about adequately comfortable if you’re passionate enough, and young enough. (So I’m told.) I walked around the offside of the cab until I was by the boot and pointed down at the paintwork. Armstrong had suffered several paint jobs in his time to cover up the odd scratch, dent, shotgun blast and in one case graffiti, so it was impossible now to tell that he had ever had a Hackney CarÂ�riage plate screwed there. ‘If I had a number,’ I said cheerfully, ‘that’s where it would be.’ She looked at me as if I had just beamed down in front of her. She was taller than me, but then she was standing on the pavement and she was wearing high heels, the sort that gave her hell at the back of the ankle so she had to wear elastoplasts where they rubbed. The rest

of her was envelÂ�oped in a white trench coat, the belt knotted and straining over her left hip. ‘I’m on a very important case,’ she hissed, ‘and now you’ve messed it up and I won’t get another chance.’ I thought for a moment she was going to hit me, but she did something far more unexpected. She stamped her right foot hard on the pavement and began to howl. It wasn’t crying. I know what crying is; I’ve seen Casablanca 16 times, once in an Aberdeen oil-riggers’ pub at three in the morning. That’s crying. This was howling with tears. The first thing I did was to take a step back from her so that the passers-by on the other side of Wimpole Street, who were already turning to look, could see that we were not in physical contact. Why was I worried? It was me being assaulted. ‘Now, calm down, lady, will you?’ I tried. I even reÂ�membered some of the lessons from the Safety Body Language for Men correspondence course I’d taken once (during a postal strike) and leaned back, showing her the palms of my hands. The howling turned into a staccato braying, a fair impersonation of a donkey with its tail trapped in an elevator door. ‘All I’m saying,’ I said, trying not to shout, ‘is that I’m not a cabbie. This is a private car. You can’t hire me, it would be illegal. Probably.’ She stopped braying and sobbed twice, catching her breath. Then she said, clear as a bell, ‘You could give me a lift, though.’ ‘Well. I suppose I could, hypothetically …’ I said slowly. Too slowly. ‘That’s a fab idea. Shepherd’s Bush Green, please.’ Two stars for cuteness, definitely. But ‘fab’? ‘Now wait a minute. I only said could, not would. Shepherd’s Bush Green is west and I’m going east, plus at this time of the day I’m going to get stuck in traffic and consequently be late for a very important social engagement this evening.’

Quite what, I hadn’t decided yet, but it seemed a reasonable sort of alibi. The sort of argument any reasonable person would accept without too much strife. First mistake; thinking I was dealing with a reasonable person. ‘You did say you would, you did, you did,’ she snapped, increasing the volume with each beat and, believe it or not, stamping her foot again. This was ridiculous. What she needed was another five-year-old to run up and pull her pigtails. I scanned the street in vain. There’s never one around when you want one. ‘Okay, okay,’ I soothed. ‘Calm down, foot off the pedal. Let’s sit inside and we’ll negotiate.’ I know I should have just driven off and left her there. But I was in a strangely generous mood. I had time on my hands, some cash in the bank for once and all my teeth back in my mouth, so I was moved to take pity on her. The mood I was in turned out to have a medical name: barking mad. ‘Get inside?’ she said suspiciously. ‘Were you thinking of riding on the roof?’ Two minutes ago she was baying at the moon because I said she couldn’t get in. I think she said ‘Hmmm’, while weighing up her options, but after no more than half a minute’s thought she reached for the door handle and got in. She slid across the back seat as far as she could go, pulling the trench coat around her legs and making sure she was in grabbing distance of the offside door handle. Little did she know that one of the few lessons in the Safety Body Language for Men course that had got through had been the one about riding in taxis. I had never known before then that the act of getting into the back of a black London cab was such a sexual minefield, and happy hunting ground for men with the subtlety of approach of a Panzer attack and hands supple enough to count mating snakes. But then again, I don’t wear short skirts. Or at least, not in the back of cabs. I pulled down the jump seat diagonally opposite her and put my hands on my knees where she could see them. I even left the door open a tad, not so much to reassure her but to allow me a quick exit

if needed. ‘Now, Ms Blugden ... was it?’ I don’t have a good memory for names and I’d only seen her card for a second or two, but there are some that register quickly. ‘It’s Miss, not Ms. I hate Ms.’ Oh, great. ‘Whatever. Now, why the scene, the big production number?’ She took a breath deep enough to make her bosom wobble, and I promised myself that if she took out a lace handkerchief to dab away a tear, I’d drive her to the nearest museum and enter her in the Feminist Time-Warp section. ‘I’m on assignment,’ she said quietly, ‘a confidential assignÂ�ment that involves ... surveillance.’ She said ‘surveillance’ with the same awe other people reserve for ‘Good ganga’, or ‘Hey, it’s unlocked’, but I remained unimpressed. ‘The girl I was following went into one of these ... these … houses.’ She waved a limp hand at Wimpole Street as if it was to blame. ‘I’d been following her all day, making notes, and then she came out and she jumped into a taxi. I hadn’t expected that. I mean, she came by tube, so I thought she’d go back by tube.’ ‘To Shepherd’s Bush Green?’ I offered helpfully. ‘No, that’s where I live. I don’t know where she lives. That’s what I was trying to find out.’ ‘But you said you followed her all day. Where did you start?’ ‘At a – ah – that’s confidential, I’m afraid. But it wasn’t where she was living, just somewhere I was told she’d be this morning.’ ‘So why not start again tomorrow morning? Same place, same time?’ I was full of helpful suggestions. ‘Because she was only going to the ... to where she was this morning ... this morning. If you see what I mean. This morning was my one chance and I got blown.’ ‘I think you mean you blew it.’ ‘Pardon?’

‘Never mind. So why not head back to Shepherd’s Bush? Call it a day. Grab a real cab or a bus. Why the emotional blackmail? Why me?’ ‘I haven’t any money,’ she sniffed. ‘I only look a few pounds from petty cash and it’s all gone. Bus fares, the tube, cups of coffee, lunch, it all mounts up. And a spare pair of tights just in case. I would have given you a cheque at the other end if you’d been a real cab.’ I bit my lip and breathed deeply, but be honest, Mother Teresa would have resorted to harsh language at this one. ‘So what were you trying to find out, anyway?’ Why did I ask? What possessed me to waste vital oxygen that way? ‘Where she lives, what she does. Why she was here, for example.’ ‘Well, that last bit’s easy.’ She blinked at me through glasses that, if they were any thicker, would come with wipers. ‘It is? What do you mean?’ ‘Do you know who she went to see?’ ‘That’s what I’m trying to find out.’ ‘I know, but look, all these houses are practices.’ ‘What?’ She looked blank. ‘All the houses are sub-divided into medical or dental pracÂ�tices. Oh, never mind. Just tell me which house she went into.’ ‘That one.’ She pointed across the street. ‘The one with the green door and all those brass plates.’ ‘And what’s her name?’ She hesitated at that, then went for broke. ‘Rudgard. Stella Rudgard.’ ‘Okay, hop out and wait here. I’ll show you how it’s done.’ There I went again. Typical man.   The big houses in Wimpole Street tend to be divided into consulting rooms run by either one large medical consulting practice or several smaller ones, or maybe just a group of medics with nothing more in

common than a shared secreÂ�tary/receptionist/nurse, who is always the key person in the set-up as she’s the one who sends out the bills. My orthodontist had a part share in a receptionist/nurse who also worked for the physiotherapists operating on the next floor. She was blonde, probably Austrian and fiftyish – around the biceps. I had no idea how old she was, but she hadn’t lost her accent. The first thing she’d said after checking my credit rating and writing my name on a file cover was: ‘Rrrright, Meester Angel, strrriiip down to your underpants, pliz.’ I had started to comply, but when I happened to mention that this was a trifle informal for a dental examination, she slapped her forehead and muttered something about force of habit. The other gopher invariably shared among the practices is a concierge figure, usually an elderly, middle-class widow fallen on hard times and only really doing the job because it gets her out of the house. Their main task is to open the front door, check your name and show you into a waiting room with floor-to-ceiling sash windows, yellowing net curtains, uncomfortable armchairs and fake walnut tables groaning under last year’s Country Life. They then retreat to the back of the hall and into a glass and wood conservatory-like structure housing a switchboard at least ten years technologically redundant; but they still haven’t quite got the hang of it. There they guard the Appointments Diary – a book treated more reverently than a Guttenberg Bible – their knitting and yesterday’s milk, which surely someone should have collected by now. The bottle-green door Veronica Blugden had pointed out had enough brass plate on it to be worth stealing for scrap. There were 12 names listed, each with a Scrabble triple word score of letters after them. I didn’t bother reading, I just rang the bell. The concierge lady answered it, taking her own dignified time. She was dressed as I could have guessed: dark blue turtleneck top and long tartan skirt. I liked the Nikes she wore, but I supposed they were for comfort rather than a fashion statement. Around her neck, a long string of fake pearls competed with a gold spectacles chain to

see which would strangle her first. ‘Yes? Can I help?’ There was a trace of an accent there. Maybe Mittel-European dispossessed aristocracy rather than Guildford middle-class with a head cold. Then again, maybe not. ‘Taxi for Miss Rudgard,’ I said, snapping into character and showing her my new teeth. I had Armstrong parked at the kerb, engine running. There you are, now I am a cab. And I had pulled on the old sweater I always kept in the boot (one leather elbow-patch, the other elbow-holed), so I looked the part. To a civilian I looked the part. A London black cab driver getting out of his cab? When did you last see that? ‘I’m sorry?’ She opened the door fully to check me out. No worries about me being a mugger or burglar. Total confidence. After all, this was Wimpole Street. ‘Taxi for Miss Rudgard,’ I repeated, then looked at my watch. ‘Ordered for 4.30.’ Did I let a hint of impatience creep into my voice, perhaps? Well, what can you expect from the lower orders? ‘Is she a patient?’ The concierge looked genuinely perÂ�plexed. ‘You tell me, luv, I ain’t got a clue.’ She fumbled her glasses onto her face and turned back into the hall, leaving the door wide open. I think the ‘luv’ had got to her, but she really ought to have been more careful. I could have had the painting off the wall and been away on my toes before she turned round. Come to think of it, being Wimpole Street, the painting might have been worth having. I decided to file the address away for a rainy day. Actually, she did turn round before she reached her cubby-hole, as if suddenly remembering something. ‘Rudgard, did you say?’ ‘That’s what I was told, luv.’ ‘She’s just left.’ ‘She can’t have, luv, I’m her taxi.’

‘But she has. I remember it quite clearly. She was the four o’clock appointment for Mr Linscott.’ I shrugged my shoulders and showed her my palms in the universal ‘not my fault’ gesture that London cabbies have perfected from the sitting position. ‘I can assure you, she’s gone.’ She reached for her AppointÂ�ments Diary to prove it. No-one could dispute a holy entry. But then the phone rang, and of course she had to answer it. ‘Good afternoon,’ she said into the receiver while stabbing the desk diary with a finger. I leaned into her cubbyhole to get a better look. ‘Miss Sanderson? Ah yes. No. No. I’m sorry, but no …’ I dropped my eye down the day’s entries. Each doctor or consultant had a colour code. Mr Linscott. whatever he did, had been seeing females all afternoon at half-hour intervals. I was in the wrong business. ‘It’s just not possible, Miss Sanderson. Dr Cutts is away this week …’ There at ‘1600 hours’ (I liked that) was ‘Miss E Rudgard’. ‘E’ for Estelle, I guessed. They wouldn’t allow Stellas in here. ‘I’m sure it isn’t opening up. Go back to the poultice. And thank you. Goodbye.’ She came back to me, only slightly flushed. ‘You see. Rudgard at four. She’s been and gone.’ ‘Well,’ I started huffily, ‘you’d better tell this Doc Linscott that his patients are causing honest blokes like me to lose trade. Downright irresponsible, I call it …’ ‘Oh, that Miss Rudgard isn’t a patient,’ she said earnestly. I gave her the full smile. ‘Isn’t she?’ And I didn’t have to call her ‘luv’.   Back on the street, I drove all of ten yards before Veronica Blugden flagged me down.

‘Don’t worry,’ I said as she got in the back, ‘I wasn’t trying to do a runner on you.’ The excitement had left her breathless. ‘So? Do you know where she lives?’ ‘No, but I know where she’ll be at nine o’clock tomorrow when she starts her new job.’ There was a silence from the rear of the cab, and I relished it. ‘How did you do that?’ ‘Easy, really.’

     

Chapter Two

   

‘It’s my Rule of Life No. 83. Approached in the right way, anyone will tell you anything, and it will usually be true.’ ‘I don’t follow.’ ‘Obviously not. Or at least, not very well.’ ‘And just what is that supposed to mean?’ ‘You didn’t follow that Stella Rudgard very well, did you? You lost her.’ . ‘That’s a horrid thing to say.’ ‘Just stating the facts, ma’am.’ ‘Are you saying I’m no good at my job?’ ‘You’re the private eye, or whatever it says on your card.’ ‘Well, really. I’ve never been so insulted in all my life.’ ‘Then you can’t be as old as you look,’ I said quietly.   Of course, after that little exchange, I ended up driving her to Shepherd’s Bush. It was either that or another scene by the kerbside accompanied by tears and histrionics; some of them hers. Along the way, I told her what I had found out. Estelle Rudgard, whoever she was, had been for an interÂ�view with a Mr Linscott, consultant surgeon of this parish, whose regular full-time receptionist had been called away to look after a sick mother (90, if she was a day, but still managing on her own down in Broadstairs: marvellous, really). Estelle had come highly recommended from an agency, and a girl like that, with such obvious good breeding, well, she just strolled into the job, didn’t she, starting tomorrow. ‘They just told you all that?’ asked Veronica Blugden. ‘Not me, really,’ I said modestly. ‘It was gossip with a cab driver. Who remembers cab drivers? Where’s the harm in telling them anything?’

Heaven knows the real ones got told lots more interesting stuff, whether they wanted to hear it or not. ‘Oh, and one other thing,’ I offered at no extra charge. ‘Her name was on a fax from a company called the Office Cavalry. It was in the Appointments Diary.’ ‘Yes, that fits, she’s registered with them. It’s a temping agency in Holborn. I’ve been watching it for two days.’ I cut up a chauffeur-driven Mercedes just for the hell of it, then readjusted the rear-view mirror so I could get a better look at her in the back. ‘You knew she was registered as a temp secretary, recepÂ�tionist, whatever?’ ‘Yeah, and I knew she’d get offered a job and have to come … have to turn up at the office. They always like to check you for appearance and deportment and stuff like that before they send you out for an interview.’ Deportment? I wondered if they’d placed anyone since wordprocessing, but Veronica had read my mind. ‘They test you on skills as well,’ she added defensively. ‘Check your shorthand, though nobody uses that much these days, and which programs you’re familiar with, whether you can mail-merge. That sort of thing.’ She’d been there, but I didn’t say it. ‘And you’ve had the place staked out for two days?’ She looked puzzled, then rather pleased with the thought of ‘stake out’. ‘I’ve had it under observation. Yes.’ ‘And all you wanted to do is find out where this Stella person lives?’ ‘Yes. So?’ ‘So why didn’t you ring for the Office Cavalry and say you had a job going for a bright young girl, preferably one called Stella?’ She thought about this and made to answer at least twice, but the words wouldn’t come. The brain just wouldn’t let them. ‘Do you think that is what I should have done?’ she burbled.

‘Well, it’s one way. You could have rung the agency and said it was a temporary job, a stand-in, just like the job she’s got in Wimpole Street. Agencies always send out new girls on jobs like that just to try them out at the client’s expense. And the girls think it’s good; they get some work straight off. I take it she is new to the agency?’ ‘Yes.’ She chewed something over in her mind before askÂ�ing: ‘So if I’d said I had work, they would have sent me her home address ... I mean the place she’s living?’ ‘Probably not straight off. They like to keep an edge in case you hire the girls direct and bypass their commission. But you could have offered her an interview and asked about how far she had to travel, did she share a flat, was she marÂ�ried, so forth, so fifth.’ There was a long pause. I was almost through Notting Hill and down into Ladbroke Grove before she said: ‘But that would be using deception wouldn’t it?’ I gripped Armstrong’s wheel tighter. ‘How long have you been a private detective, Veronica?’ ‘What do you mean by that?’ ‘How long? And no deception, now.’ ‘Two days.’ ‘Thought so.’   Somewhere through a black hole, probably far, far away, in a parallel galaxy, there is the obverse of Rule of Life No. 83. The one that runs along the lines that if you say the wrong thing, people will tell you the absolute lot about themselves, none of which you are interested in and nothing of which could be of any possible use to you. And the clincher is there is no way of shutting them up short of homicide, or finding another pub, or getting off the train even when it’s not your station, and none of these options is viable because it simply isn’t worth the hassle. As Veronica Blugden talked at me from the back of ArmÂ�strong, I had only my innate ability as a driver and the fact that other road users tend to get out of the way of black London cabs, to get her to where she wanted to go before I got her life story.

She had moved to London three months ago from one of those East Midlands towns that left you with no discernible accent and fewer fond memories. She had been a nurse, well, not quite a nurse, never having properly qualified, but she had a lot of experience as a first aid officer in a big shoe company. Then she got made redundant, but heard there was an opening for a medical officer of sorts in an engineerÂ�ing works out in north London between Edgware and Barnet. And would you credit it? The place closed down before she’d drawn eight weeks’ pay. However, every silver lining has a cloud, and she decided to stay in the big city because she’d become really, really good friends with her landlord. Now she lived above the shop, so to speak. Not that she’d ever thought too seriously about having an ‘enquiry agent’ on the floor below. She just knew him as Mr Block, paid the rent on time, borrowed cups of sugar and got him in to change an electric plug when one needed changing. It was rather nice having a man about the place, but don’t get her wrong. This was a nice man, an ex-policeman, ex-Â�river policeman actually, who was really, really friendly, who had daughters her age except they all lived way away now they were married and he was widowed. And we have to suppose he felt sorry for her, as you would, and offered her a bit of work tidying up the files in his office and even doing the odd bit of typing of reports, because she was good at presentation. That’s what Mr Block said right from the word go. Well, one thing just seemed to lead to another. As it does. No, honest, it was nothing like that. Like she said, he was old enough to be her father. But, anyway, Mr Block had this really, really important client coming to see him about a very confidential matter, and Albert – Mr Block – had thought it a good idea if she sat in on the meeting, not that she actually did shorthand, but she could look as if she did. And what did you know, but the client himself suggested that she might be helpful to the enquiry as well. I would understand that she couldn’t tell me too much more because of Client Confidentiality. (And the way she said it made it sound like a medical condition.) And that was how she got her first job as a private eye, or

Confidential Enquiry Agent as she was learning to call them. Of course, she was a long way off it ever becoming Block & Blugden Investigations (which was just as well as Block & Blugden sounded like rhyming slang for some unspeakable sexual practice). And her first job hadn’t exactly gone off without a hitch, had it? Ha ha. But thanks to me, she had a lead to take to Mr Block and she could follow it up in the morning. Life, after all, was sweet.   ‘So Stella Rudgard’s dad thought you’d be good for the job because you and she are about the same age?’ I asked, more out of devilment than interest. ‘Who said anything about her father?’ she spluttered. ‘A guess. Men don’t hire anyone to follow young women unless their motives are pure, which usually means paternal.’ If it’s for fun, they do it themselves, up and down Oxford Street, every day. ‘And runaways are one of London’s growth industries. But not many go to the expense of a private eye. That smacks of worried parents.’ She leaned forward, closer to the glass partition at the back of my head. ‘Hey, you won’t tell anyone I told you this, will you? I mean, it’s supposed to be client confidential, and that’s a number one rule in our business.’ She paused. ‘Just a minute. I didn’t tell you any of that. You just guessed.’ ‘Deduced. Simple deduction, my dear Watson,’ I said smugly. ‘Who’s Watson?’ ‘Oh … nothing. It’s just something I say to my cat.’ ‘I like cats,’ she said instinctively. ‘Not mine,’ I said under my breath. ‘And cats really, really like me.’ ‘Not mine.’ ‘I’ve been on at Albert – Mr Block – to get an office cat. I’m sure I saw a rat in the back yard last week. Here we are, by the way.’ She pushed a hand through the partition to wag a finger at a side road, and I had to cut across traffic to make the turn. In anything other than a black Austin taxi, I would have drawn hoots of anger

from the rush-hour traffic. ‘Down here, then right. It’s number 13.’ It was hardly the sort of address to inspire confidence in the bona fides of a burglar, let alone a confidential enquiry agent. I wondered how the estate agent had sold it. ConÂ�veniently placed, between Shepherd’s Bush and Wood Lane, an area honeycombed by BBC production facilities and all the intrigue that implies. Well, no shortage of scandal and clients there. Or he could have hyped the mean streets angle. Just the place for a private eye, sir. One of the fastest rising rates of urban crime without the expense of a Los Angeles zip code. And the drive-bys aren’t actually that violent beÂ�cause the gangs don’t own guns yet. (No, they rent them from the villains in south London.) Or maybe just the purely aesthetic: offering sublime views, especially at sunset, over the old Central Line railway depot and repair yard. Veronica was still talking, though I’d stopped listening, ‘I really do owe you a big thank you, you know.’ I knew, and I also knew that having her out of Armstrong and earshot would settle the bill. ‘I suppose you could say you saved my bacon today. It’s just here, on the right. Now that’s what I call service; right to the door.’ ‘Does the door usually hang off its hinges like that?’ I asked.   ‘So you’re not actually a relative of Mr Block, then, miss?’ the policeman asked for the third time. ‘No, I’m his partner – sort of,’ Veronica sobbed, burying her face in a handkerchief. I was staggered. I thought all decent mascara was waterÂ�proof these days. ‘So you lived with Mr Block? Is that it?’ The copper tried to hide the surprise in his voice. I was sure he’d heard and seen much worse in his career, but I thought I’d put him out of his misery. ‘Er ... I don’t think she means partner as ... er ... other people do.’ ‘And you are who, sir?’ Typical fuzz; turn an offer of help into an interrogation. If I’d told

him the time, I’d probably have got stitched up for perverting the course of justice. ‘He’s my …’ ‘Friend,’ I said quickly. ‘Just giving her a lift. That’s all.’ Veronica looked up at me from the bottom stair where she had plonked herself down at the horror of it all. I thought she was upset because I had cut her off, but I didn’t want to give any of our wonderful policemen the idea that I was impersonating a real cab driver. That bit, of course, she hadn’t noticed. ‘What do you mean, partner like other people?’ Quick as a brick, this one. ‘Just tell the officer where you live,’ I hissed. ‘I live upstairs,’ she said innocently. ‘The flat above Al – Â�Mr Block’s. I –’ Somewhere in her brain a ratchet released a cog. ‘Oh, no. I’m his business partner, well, training to be. I don’t live with him. Well, not live. I live in his house, but in a different flat. I just work with him and I really only started that ... I mean. he’s old enough to be my father …’ The uniformed constable gave me a look; 50-50 disÂ�belief and pity. I screwed my face into a wince, much the same as a cat puts its ears back. ‘I’m done up here,’ came a voice from above us. ‘Not worth the overtime, mate.’ A civilian in a khaki anorak and carrying a large metal briefcase, rather like a photographer’s case, was coming down the stairs. Veronica turned her head around almost enough for me to call an exorcist, to get a look at him, then said to me: ‘Who’s he?’ ‘He’ll be the SOCO,’ I said. Too quickly. ‘That’s right, sir,’ said the constable suspiciously. Then to Veronica: ‘Scene of Crimes Officer, miss. You can get into your flat now and tell us what’s missing.’ He gave me a funny look as I made to follow her upstairs. I smiled at him but it cut no ice. Damn these teeth. If things didn’t improve, I was going to ask for my money back.  

There had been two policemen inside the house, one in what I presumed was Albert Block’s office on the ground floor, who broke the news to us, and one upstairs in his flat. The news, once he had established that we, or at least one of us, had a legitimate excuse to be there, was that Mr Block had disturbed some intruders about an hour before. (‘Late afternoon, miss, prime time for break-ins. Bound to be kids, probably on their way home from school. Nothing on the telly, mum probably out working till six or so. Quick jolly with the mates, pick up some loose change and maybe a video or so. More common than you’d think.’) What hadn’t been so common was that whoever had done Mr Block’s place hadn’t worried too much about being seen (it was not yet dark) or heard, as they had used what must have been a sledgehammer on the front door. And on the internal doors, even the ones without locks. And on the television in Albert’s flat. And on the toilet bowl in the bathÂ�room. And on the microwave oven in Veronica’s flat. (‘I don’t need a cooker just to cook for one, so that did me perfectly. Some of the microwave meals are really very good, but the portions are a bit small. It says for two, but …’ ‘ShutÂ�up and find your insurance policy.’) Just to make sure that this was the most ham-fisted burÂ�glary not actually caught on video, the intruders had picked a time when Mr Block had been there. And, wouldn’t you just know it, he must have tried to stop them or scare them off, and instead they had scared him into what had appeared to be a heart attack. Or at least that was what the ambulance driver had said before they carried him off to Queen Charlotte’s hospital down the Goldhawk Road. Not that it was a bad heart attack. (What’s a good one?) Well, it couldn’t have been, as it had been Mr Block who had rung for his own ambulance and then the police, though the medics had got their hands on him first so he hadn’t been able to tell them much. Still, he’d be sedated for a while and somebody from the morning shift would go and get a statement. Meantime, I’d better do something about that front door, hadn’t I?

Why me? I thought. Then I realised that not only was the copper looking at me, so was Veronica. ‘Do you know any local builders?’ I asked forlornly. She shook her head. I tried to appeal to the policeman. ‘He was one of yours, you know.’ ‘Who was?’ The young PC was getting better at giving me the lazy eye. ‘Mr Block. He was in the River Police until he retired recently. Ex-Superintendent Block,’ I tried, not knowing anything about ranking among the Thames cops. He could have been a chief petty officer for all I knew. Veronica put me right. ‘Sergeant. He used to be a Sergeant.’ Thanks, Veronica. The constable drew himself up to his full height. Was it me, or were the policemen in the Met really getting smaller? ‘Mr Block will get treated just like anybody else, miss, but if you hang on, I’ve got something in the car that might help.’ He disappeared down the stairs, passing the other PC on the way, and they exchanged raised eyebrows. The second copper glanced over the wreckage of Veronica’s flat, which was actually just a bed/ sitting room, but anything bigger than an empty dishwasher carton gets called a flat in Shepherd’s Bush these days. ‘Are you sure nothing was taken, miss?’ he asked politely. ‘Not that I can see,’ sniffed Veronica. ‘It’s just ... just ... damage.’ ‘Kids,’ he said, disappointedly, as if he’d been looking forÂ�ward to a bit of grand larceny. ‘What sort of business was the old ... was Mr Block in?’ ‘He was an enquiry agent and security consultant,’ Veronica said primly. I held up my hand to the copper so Veronica couldn’t see, and gestured that, yes, we’d be doing all the jokes, he needn’t bother. ‘Kids, you reckon?’ I said for the sake of something to say. ‘Bound to be. Didn’t expect to find the old man here. Maybe they threatened him then did a runner when he choked his rig.’ He

caught Veronica’s silent sob and heaving frame and added: ‘Sorry.’ ‘Kids with sledgehammers and a really bad attitude?’ I pressed. ‘I’ve seen worse. This is getting to be a bad area.’ ‘How about some more community policing on the beat, then?’ I pushed it. ‘Get me a flak jacket and some CS gas and I’ll think about it.’ His partner returned holding a sheet of paper. He offered it to me. ‘Here’s a list of 24-hour builders, glaziers and general repair merchants who’ll come and fix things so they’ll hold for the night.’ The sheet of paper was a photocopied list of about 30 names and phone numbers, arranged by postal area. ‘Give many of these out?’ I asked, scanning the list. ‘More than parking tickets these days,’ the PC said wearily. ‘Saves time usually. People can’t get it together enough to use the Yellow Pages at times like this.’ He looked at Veronica, who had her back to us, staring out of the grimy window. ‘Yeah, okay, I’ll get something organised,’ I submitted. ‘If you use one of them’ – he pointed at the list – ‘then get a proper builder in tomorrow. Half of them are real cowboys.’ Good; in that case I might know some of them. ‘If there’s nothing in Shepherd’s Bush, there’ll be someÂ�body over in Kilburn. Bound to be.’ ‘That’s okay,’ I said, spotting somebody I knew on the list. ‘I’ll get it sorted.’ He looked at his mate, who reached for the radio at his collar. They were ready to sign this one off. There was nothing more for them to do really. It was now down to Albert Block and Veronica and their insurance company and one more notch on the petty crime statistics. The shorter of the two coppers did try though. ‘Are you sure you’re going to be all right, luv?’ he said as if he meant it. Now, most women I know would have made him eat his own

truncheon for his patronising tone and the word ‘luv’, but I thought for a moment Veronica was going to hug him. ‘It’s kind of you to ask. I don’t really know, I must go and see if Albert is all right.’ ‘They won’t let you see him tonight, dear. Wait ‘til toÂ�morrow. Is there anywhere you can go, if you don’t fancy staying here, that is?’ Veronica inhaled hugely. ‘Not really. I can’t think of anyÂ�where, so I suppose I’ll have to make do and sort something out, but I really, really don’t like the thought of staying here. Silly of me, isn’t it? What a goose I am.’ Goose? Where was this woman coming from? Then I realised that all three of them were looking at me. Oh, shit, no.

     

Chapter Three

   

Before they left, the cops offered Veronica the use of some ‘POLICE AWARE’ stickers and some of their crime-scene tape, to put on and around the smashed-in front door. I turned them down on her behalf, explaining that she had been burglarised once already today and she no longer needed to advertise. Once the uniforms had gone, I asked Veronica for the use of her phone. She said it was in Albert’s office, and we found it on the floor behind a wastepaper bin. I didn’t need the list the police had left as I knew Dod’s number already. I knew Dod. We were old mates. ‘Who?’ ‘It’s Angel. Roy Angel.’ ‘The horn player?’ ‘Yeah.’ ‘The one what drives a cab?’ ‘Yeah.’ ‘The one what still owes me 40 folding from that jazz night in Pub Week?’ ‘Exactly the reason I’m belling you, Dod,’ I said quickly, ‘plus the chance of a bit of added value in the shape of a call-out insurance job.’ ‘Oh yeah? Your place?’ ‘No. Shepherd’s Bush. I was on my way to deliver your dosh. I’ve been a bit strapped of late, but I had the cash, so I thought of you. Then I hit on these old friends of mine having a spot of bother with a break-in.’ ‘Shepherd’s Bush? That’s not on the way to Bethnal Green.’ ‘Depends where you start from, Dod.’ That baffled him. ‘Need an overnight front door; proper job tomorrow changÂ�ing the locks.’ ‘Any windows forced?’

I looked at Veronica. She just shrugged uselessly. ‘Don’t think so.’ ‘Good. I ‘ate fucking windows.’ ‘So you’ll come over?’ ‘There’s a £65 one-hour call-out charge, plus materials.’ ‘Do I get a receipt for the taxman?’ ‘All right, call it 50 plus the 40 you owe me.’ ‘Fair enough.’ I gave him directions and hung up. ‘It’ll cost £120,’ I told Veronica, ‘but you’ll probably get it back from the insurance company.’ If she had looked distraught up to now, she was suddenly on the final approach to Stress City. ‘I don’t think I can raise that much. There’s about £90 in the petty cash box,’ she quivered. ‘Plus ten pounds for the milkman tomorrow.’ ‘Take each day as it comes,’ I soothed. ‘Forget about the milkman, he’ll understand. And I’ve got a few quid on me. You can owe it me.’   Dod’s arrival hardly instilled Veronica with confidence, no matter how many times I told her that Dod Dodwell was one of the best traditional jazz drummers in London. Well, Bethnal Green, anyway. And he had the great advantage that he ran an ancient Transit van (well over-insured in the hope it would be stolen) so he could transport not only his drum kit, but most of the rest of the band as well. Not that I had actually played with Dod for a while. A combination of things had kept me off the Sunday lunchtime pub jazz circuit in recent months. For a start, it was getting so popular it just wasn’t fun any more. At one time there had been a strange kudos from playing totally unfashionable music, but now it looked like authentic Dixieland was making a comeback. Some pubs were even into marching bands, with middle-aged East End housewives decorating their own umbrellas so they could swirl and twirl along. Some Sundays it was just like New Orleans down in Canning Town. Or it would have been if the weather had been different. And the

food. And the drinks; especially the drinks. Somehow a strawberry hurricane served in a straight pint glass loses something. And as it grew in popularity, so it grew in seriousness. When I did one gig in Limehouse, I had a pair of punters wearing ‘Ken Colyer Appreciation Society’ T-shirts standing a yard away taking notes on my solos. That was enough to turn me towards small club gigs doing elementary backing for merengue and salsa bands while that craze lasted. But then my teeth and jaw made a sudden and very painful connecÂ�tion with a sackful of builder’s rubble, swung by a lowlife whom one day I would run across again, or preferably run over. Until the orthodontist’s work was done, my old B-flat trumpet was in its case and the case was gathering dust. The great horn players of old could play standing, sitting, falling, smashed or drunk, but none of them could manage without a set of chops. Music was the last thing on Dod’s mind as he stood in the doorway, blotting out what was left of the evening light. He had a canvas toolbag in his left hand, and his right hand was extended in the ‘gimme’ position. I said hello and introduced him to Veronica, making it clear that she would be paying the bills, but still he didn’t speak or move. So I pressed some notes into the gimme hand and he thumbed them before they disappeared into his shell suit. Then he dropped the toolbag on the hall floor with a satisfying clatter and looked around. ‘This the one you want fixing then?’ he asked, staring at the front door hanging off its hinges. I did a double take as if I had only just noticed it. ‘So that’s where the draught is coming from,’ I said, having nothing to lose now he had his money. He squeaked the door to and fro with one of his giant paws, and I wouldn’t have been surprised if he had pulled the door frame away from the wall. ‘Easiest thing to do is rehang this and put you a padlock on the front. I can give you a key so you can get in tomorrow before I get round. It’ll be lunchtime, I ‘spect.’

That meant he would be moonlighting from another job, which was good. We might get the materials free. ‘Will it hold?’ I asked. ‘Yes,’ Veronica chipped in. ‘Will it be secure?’ Dod bit back a snarl at me – he always watched his lanÂ�guage in front of women. ‘Lady, my locks always hold,’ he said proudly. ‘That’s very reassuring, Dod,’ I quipped, determined to get my money’s worth. ‘By the way, did they ever recover your video?’   While waiting for Dod, I’d told Veronica to get her kit together for a night in exciting Hackney, as it seemed I had been volunteered into the bed and breakfast industry. She disappeared upstairs and I heard her clumping about in her room and, naturally, took the opportunity to snoop about a bit. Not that there was much of interest to snoop. The filing cabinets in A1bert’s office were locked and there had been no obvious sign anyone had tried to force them. The few things that could have been pinched – a DictaÂ�phone machine, an ancient golf-ball typewriter, a radio – were all still there. Maybe the cops had been right, it had been some kids out on a jolly who’d lost their bottle when Albert turned out to be in residence. Especially when he’d had his heart attack. I was standing by the window in Albert’s office, looking down into the alley at the back and thinking how much easier it would have been to break in that way, when my foot jabbed something metal and sharp. It was a tripod, its legs collapsed, which had fallen or been knocked down the side of a filing cabinet. I pulled it out and found a 35 mm camera with flash attachment on the end. I couldn’t tell if the camera was damaged or not, but there was no film in it. Like most of the gear in the office, it was no great prize, and probably the tripod was worth more than the camera, but still you’d have thought it worth having away.

Could it have been the film somebody was after? The whole set up smelled of more than simple vandalism, and it could be that the film was the one thing missing. The one thing the cops had overlooked. I was really getting into the private eye lifestyle. Veronica put me right when she returned carrying an ancient suitcase. ‘The only thing on the film was me,’ she said, wide-eyed. ‘Albert was taking passport photographs of me in case we ever needed them for security badges, things like that.’ ‘You’re sure he had film in the camera?’ I checked, as I’ve come across the funny camera/French model business before. ‘Of course he did. I took it to the chemist’s myself yesterÂ�day.’ Then she paused. ‘Why did you ask that?’ ‘What?’ ‘Why would anyone take pictures without a film in the camera?’ ‘You’re the detective,’ I smiled.   I was just the driver, and it took ages to get Veronica back to Stuart Street as we had to go via Queen Charlotte’s hospital to try to get in to see Albert. No chance of that before the next morning after the consultant’s round, we were told by a harassed receptionist who needed us pestering her like she needed an outbreak of plague. She did take my number, though, as a contact point, in case there were any developÂ�ments during the night. Was there something in the way she said that, and was she really admiring my smile? Or had I just had a long day? I made a mental note of her name badge – Oonagh, the Irish way. Well, you never knew. Then we had to stop and get something to eat. That in itself wouldn’t have taken long, but the argument about what to eat saw us across most of north London. Chinese was out (reason unspecified), pizza was boring, burgers fattening (an interesting, if belated, life choice there, I thought), Thai was unspeakable, Indian and Mexican too hot. And then she remembered Albert and wondered if that nice Irish recepÂ�tionist was trying to ring us with some important developÂ�ments. If only, I thought, then suggested fish and chips.

‘Won’t they be cold by the time we get to your house?’ she asked. ‘Sure, but we can zap them through the microwave.’ ‘Fish and chips in a microwave?’ ‘Yeah. What did you use yours for?’ I could tell she was impressed.   And so we arrived at Stuart Street, she lugging her suitcase up the steps to the front door of No. 9, me balancing a paper parcel of halibut and chips while fumbling for the key, all the time hoping that the neighbours were in bed or away or watching a really gripping documentary about DNA on television. It wasn’t that there were any rules about bringÂ�ing women home after dark, or that anyone would frown on it. It was just that Large Orphan Annie and a reheated fish supper didn’t actually fit the image my fellow residents had of me, and I always hated to disappoint them. Veronica, however, was not going to come quietly. ‘This is nice, do you own all this?’ ‘No,’ I said, closing the front door behind her. ‘It’s almost certainly a front for a Pakistani drug baron and I only rent one of the flats. Upstairs, No. 3.’ I set off upstairs and she followed, banging he case on every step. I would have given her a hand but I was carrying the fish and chips and I’d just remembered Springsteen hadn’t been fed all day and he was partial to halibut. ‘So who else lives here, then?’ she panted. I turned to look at her but couldn’t quite bring myself to tell her to mind her own business. ‘Down there,’ I pointed, ‘in flat 1 is Mr Goodson. Now, I’m not one for spreading gossip, but we’ve never seen him in a room with mirrors and he never eats garlic. Upstairs, in flat 4, there’s Inverness Doogie – he’s Scottish – and his wife Miranda – and she’s Welsh. No prizes for guessing where the Hackney branch of the Celtic Volunteer Defence Force has its headquarters, then, eh?’

She had pursed her lips now and was starting to narrow her eyes. They had a long way to go. ‘And just here’ – I lowered my voice still further and nodded towards the door of flat 2 – ‘though we’re not supposed to know, is where Fenella Fagin lives. You must have read about her. You know, the egg whisk murderess. Except they never proved it, so she’s out on parole and has to live here with her parole officer, Lisabeth. If you meet them, they’ll deny everything, of course.’ ‘There’s no call to be sarcastic. I only asked to be polite.’ ‘We prefer instant rudeness around here. We find it saves time in the long run.’ She grunted up the stairs after me until we got to my door and she noticed the cat flap I had installed. ‘So you do have a cat, really. I thought you might just have been saying you had.’ Why would anyone lie about a thing like that? I thought as, right on cue, Springsteen emerged through the flap at warp speed. heading for the fish supper parcel. ‘I just love …’ Veronica started. I had time to say ‘Don’t …’ before she screamed and put her left hand to her mouth. ‘Come in,’ I said, unlocking the door. ‘I’ve got bandages inside.’ I should have set my watch then, and had a bet with myself. Whatever; it was seconds rather than minutes before Fenella turned up. Veronica had dumped her suitcase in the middle of my living room and was nursing her injured hand. I told her to hold it right there and rushed to get the TCP antiseptic from the bathroom, but only after putting the fish and chips in the microwave for safety, and ring-pulling a can of cat food for Springsteen and a Foster’s Export for myself. ‘Here, dab some of this on it,’ I said, and then was immediÂ�ately distracted by a knock on the door. ‘Is lager good for scratches?’ she asked, genuinely puzzled. ‘Sorry.’ I proffered my other hand, the one holding the TCP.

‘Come in, it’s open.’ I could have added ‘Fenella’, as I knew it had to be her. ‘Hello, Angel,’ she said sheepishly. ‘We heard a scream and Lisabeth told me to come and see if you were all right.’ ‘Did it sound like me screaming?’ ‘No.’ She thought about that one. ‘You usually laugh loudly just before you scream.’ I let that one pass. ‘Well, you might as well come in and do your first aid bit. This is Veronica. I’m afraid Springsteen caught her acciÂ�dentally with his claws.’ Ten of them, actually. Twice. ‘He is a very clumsy cat,’ Fenella said innocently. ‘I always wear gloves when Angel makes me feed him. Here, let me do that.’ She produced a paper tissue from her sleeve and began to dab TCP on to the cuts. ‘I’m Fenella, by the way. I live in the flat below. Not that he’ – she nodded in my direction – ‘bothers to introduce anyone.’ ‘He has mentioned you,’ Veronica said, giving me the killer look between winces. ‘And his name really is Angel?’ ‘Absolutely. Fitzroy Maclean Angel, would you believe, but all his men friends call him Roy.’ ‘Let’s leave names out of it, Miss Binkworthy,’ I tried, but I had already been relegated to the role of spectator. ‘Does that sting?’ ‘I’ll survive. Thank you, you’re so gentle.’ Veronica smiled at her. I was looking at innocence in stereo. ‘They’re not deep scratches,’ Fenella dabbed at them. ‘He didn’t have time to aim,’ I said, only to be ignored. ‘And you live with ... ?’ ‘Lisabeth, my friend. We’ve been his neighbours for a while now, so, you know’ – she rolled her eyes – ‘what we have to put up with.’ ‘And what does Lisabeth do?’ ‘Oh, bits of secretarial work. She’s actually studying alÂ�ternative medicine. She’s really into crystal therapy at the moment,’

‘Does it work on cat scratches?’ I might as well not have been there. ‘That’s really, really interesting. I read an article about that once.’ ‘Well, you must pop downstairs and meet her. I’m sure she’d love to meet you. Are you – er – planning on staying long?’ Even Fenella had noticed the suitcase on the floor. ‘No, just tonight. Your Mr Angel helped me out today. I had a bit of trouble at work, you see.’ ‘Ooh, nothing serious, I hope. What do you do?’ ‘She’s a private dick,’ I said loudly. Now I had their attention. ‘How exciting,’ squeaked Fenella. ‘You must come down and talk to Lisabeth, she’s never met one of them before.’ Top that. I couldn’t.   I put Springsteen out of the kitchen window so we could eat in peace. Veronica was horrified and pressed her nose to the window, saying it was a long way down but he’d landed safely on the roof of that shed. I told her I never knew there was a shed there, and she didn’t know whether to believe me or not. When we’d eaten and she’d washed up, she asked if I minded if she went to meet Lisabeth. I said not at all, popped another beer and promised to rescue her in an hour’s time. Then I put on a set of German CDs of Bix Beiderbecke’s entire output cleaned up and remixed so that not a hiss or crackle survived. Some of the soul seemed to have gone too. I was about to go and rescue Veronica when I heard voices raised on the stairs. Tentatively, I poked my head around my door to see Lisabeth standing in the doorway of her flat. ‘Now, Vonnie,’ she was saying, ‘do as Binky says. She knows what she’s talking about when it comes to those things.’ This I had to see. Lisabeth looked up and saw me, then she shrugged her massive shoulders and said, ‘It’ll be your fault’, before going back inside.

‘That’ll make a change,’ I said as I passed her doorway. Fenella was at the front door, holding it open. Veronica was in a crouch, her bum almost on her shoes, the material of her skirt going through more pressure tests than a Volvo. She was scanning the street at knee height, one hand extended, and other than a bizarre attempt to demonstrate a Cossack dance (and let’s face it, we’ve all been there), I couldn’t think what on earth she was doing in that position. Then she clicked the fingers of her outstretched hand and committed suicide. ‘Puss, puss. Here, puss ...’ I started to shout ‘No’, but it was too late. Although she seemed to fill the doorway with her bulk, Springsteen made it through like a bullet and up the stairs without a g1ance at me. He stopped near the door to flat 3 and disdainfully flicked something from a front paw. It looked like a length of nylon. ‘I did warn you,’ Fenella was saying, ‘but at least he doesn’t seem to have drawn blood this time.’ ‘They … they’re ruined,’ said a shell-shocked Veronica. She had picked herself up and was holding the hem of her skirt. The right leg of her tights had two strips about a foot long removed; not laddered, removed. I knew punks who spent hours getting that effect with a sharpened metal comb. ‘I warned you,’ I said smugly. ‘Well, actually, you didn’t,’ she said belligerently. ‘And anyway, I’m good with cats. They like me, normally. I think you’re just cruel to him. He was pawing at the window asking to come in.’ ‘Nonsense, he was trying to cut the glass.’ ‘That’s what I told her,’ Fenella said quickly, before realisÂ�ing what she’d agreed to. ‘Anyway, I’ve got a spare pair you can borrow to go to work in.’ Lisabeth appeared on the stairs behind and above me, a position I always feel nervous in. ‘Vonnie, Binky, the Horlicks is ready.’ Her tone told me there was no point in asking for sugar in mine.

‘Well, I’m going to hit the hay,’ I announced. ‘When you girls have finished, you can let yourself in.’ ‘Listen,’ Veronica said, ‘I’m grateful and all that, but please don’t go to any trouble for me. I’ll be perfectly comfortable on that sofa you’ve got. Don’t think you have to give up your bedroom for me or anything.’ ‘The thought hadn’t crossed my mind,’ I said honestly.   I was brushing my teeth in my minuscule bathroom when there was a gentle knock on my door, but it wasn’t Veronica, it was Fenella again. I motioned her in with my toothbrush, my mouth full of paste, and she talked over my shoulder as I turned back to the sink. ‘Now, don’t shoot the messenger, Angel. I’ve only sneaked up here because Lisabeth told me to. Veronica thinks I’m putting the milk bottles out.’ ‘Den ‘et on wi’ it,’ I said to the mirror, foaming at the mouth. ‘Lisabeth says you’ve simply got to help Vonnie find where this Stella Rudgard is living, because her father wants her back and she could be in danger. We don’t think her gypsy friend Heathcliff is to be trusted, and her father is very famous, even though I’d never heard of him, and he is spending a lot of money to get her back. And it is Vonnie’s first big case, you know, and she’s ever so worried about Mr Block. So you’ve got to do what you can to help. It’s only fair, isn’t it? I think that’s everything. Night-night.’ I spat toothpaste and said, ‘Where does it say it has to be fair?’ But she’d gone. At least I now knew how to get round client confidentiality. Forget the thumbscrews and the cigarette burns. Give her a cup of Horlicks and a new pair of tights and she’d tell you Anne Frank was in the attic. I went to bed and read for an hour until Springsteen’s growling warned me Veronica was creeping about trying to make herself comfortable on the sofa. I thought I’d do her a favour and keep him in my bedroom all night.

But in the morning, ten seconds after I had made it to the kitchen to put the kettle on, I heard: ‘Well good morning, Mr Cat. Are we in a better mood today?’ Wearily, I reached for the Band Aid.

     

Chapter Four

   

There was very little cross-town traffic that morning – lots of real cabs with their For Hire lights on giving me the dead eye because they thought I had a fare – and we made it to Wimpole Street with bags of time to spare. Time enough for a mobile scouting session. I showed Veronica the Angel pub on Thayer Street and said we could meet there at a prearranged time if she felt like it. It wasn’t that I thought the Angel a better boozer than the Black Horse just down the road (and that one has a Thai restaurant in the back), it was just I figured she might remember the name. ‘I don’t like going into pubs on my own,’ she said prissily. ‘I don’t like leaving them on my own,’ I said, but she wasn’t listening. She was keen to get on with her surveillance and wanted to be dropped across the road from Mr Linscott’s consulting rooms. I pointed out that the person she was looking for was there to do a job of work, so she might see her arrive, but then it would be quiet until lunchtime, if this Rudgard woman decided to go out for lunch. The thought of Veronica hanging around outside and remaining unnoticed was too much for me at this hour. ‘What if she tries to shake me?’ she blurted suddenly. ‘What if she gets on a tube.’ Right, that was something we could do to kill some time. I drove her round to Baker Street station and told her to dive in and buy herself a one-day travel card covering all zones, so she could be ready for anything. She liked that idea and I had been illegally parked for only about ten minutes when she reappeared and asked to borrow some money as she hadn’t enough cash. Once she’d got it, I pointed Armstrong to Wimpole Street and we slowly cruised it to see if we could spot Stella Rudgard heading in for her first day at the office.

I have to admit I was curious by now. Whether she knew it or not, Stella Rudgard had a lot to answer for. Introducing me to Veronica would do as a holding charge. ‘There she is!’ Veronica yelled in my ear. ‘Can’t you turn the music down? She might suspect.’ Suspect what? I was a black Austin London cab. There were thousands of us. We were anonymous; the perfect priÂ�vate eye’s vehicle. Okay, so they don’t all play INXS quite so loudly. I pulled over to the kerb and let the engine idle. ‘Well, I wouldn’t turn up for my first day at work looking like that,’ Veronica said through the partition. ‘Like what? She looks fine to me.’ And she did too. She was about my height with straight blonde hair that would have reached most of the way down her back if she hadn’t put it in a ponytail with a wide green hairband and hung it over her left shoulder. She was wearing a snug small black jacket with rounded edges over a short summer dress that rah-rah’d as she walked, about four inches above the knees of her bare, brown legs. ‘She’s not wearing any make-up,’ said Veronica. ‘Can’t say I’d noticed,’ I said. ‘And that skirt’s too short.’ I said nothing. ‘And she’s wearing trainers.’ She’d got me there. Still, two out of three wasn’t bad. But as she drew near to the house with the consulting rooms, Stella stopped and dug into the Harrods carrier bag she was holding. She produced a pair of patent white high heels, dropped them on the pavement and kicked off her trainers one at a time. I admired the way she did it, not giving a sod if anyone was watching. Then she bent down and picked up her Nikes and shoved them into the carrier and sauntered up to the green door of the Linscott practice. ‘I suppose she loses points for the white stilettos,’ I said into the driving mirror. ‘Why? They’re very smart and very fashionable these days.’

I turned my head slowly to look at her to see whether she was serious or not. ‘What? What have I said now?’ ‘Nothing. Skip it. You’re young. There’s time.’ ‘Look, she’s going in.’ ‘Good, you’ve got her trapped now for maybe seven or eight hours. Unless she gets fired before then, of course.’ Veronica pursed her lips. I almost heard her do it. ‘I don’t think anyone dressed like they’re going to a party really intends to make a career of the job.’ ‘Well, that says two things about you, Veronica,’ I smiled sweetly. ‘Firstly, you don’t go to the sort of parties I do. And secondly, if you were a man and her employer, assuming she can actually speak English, you’ll get her into the pension plan by lunchtime and she’ll probably have a company car by the time she makes the tea this afternoon.’ ‘Isn’t that sexist?’ ‘Very probably. You must be getting through to me.’ She gave me the sort of look a spaniel gives its owner just after they’ve thrown a stick into an icy pond, and of course you never really mind if the damned dog doesn’t go. It was only a stick, anyway. ‘So what are you gonna do now?’ ‘Find a place to wait and watch the door. When she comes out, I’ll follow her and find out where she lives.’ ‘There must be easier ways of earning a living.’ ‘Oh, I’m sure you could get her address out of her given five minutes in the back of this cab.’ ‘Now that’s sexist.’ I was pretty sure it was. Suddenly, her tone changed. ‘What about my case?’ I wondered when she’d think of that, even though it had been banging against her knees all through the journey. ‘I can’t do surveillance carrying that. I’d look like a door-todoor brush salesman.’ Maybe they still had them where she came from. I didn’t have the heart to tell her she was more likely to be picked up as a cocaine

mule on this patch; and I don’t mean by the police. ‘Now look,’ I said, just knowing I was going to regret this. ‘I’ve got a few errands to run this morning, but I’m quite happy to pop round to Shepherd’s Bush when Dod is there, if only to make sure he fixes the door for you. I can dump your case there.’ ‘What about keys? How do I get in?’ She had a point. ‘Is there anywhere Dod can leave them?’ ‘Not really. The only person I know in the neighbourhood is Mr Block and he’s …’ In the hospital where that nice Irish receptionist works. ‘What say I drop your new keys round there? You’ll be visiting him tonight anyway, won’t you?’ ‘That’s really, really kind of you, if it’s not too much trouble.’ ‘It’s not too far out of my way,’ I said generously. She stuck her hand through the open partition. It took me a moment to realise she wanted me to shake it. ‘You’ve been really, really kind, and I’ll tell Lisabeth that when I ring her.’ She must have felt me stiffen. ‘She gave me the number.’ I hadn’t. ‘Well, good luck.’ ‘Thank you.’ ‘You’ve got your tube ticket?’ She nodded. ‘It works on buses too, but if you’re on the underground, just remember to sit near the doors. Normally they open for ten seconds in a station, but with some main line interchanges it’s 15 seconds.’ ‘I’ll try and remember that. You know,’ she paused, the door half open, ‘I think you’d quite fancy my job. You’d be good at it. You know so much really useful stuff.’ Yeah. And you really ought to get out more.   And that, genuinely, is how I would have left it, driving off into the sunset (well, early-morning Soho) and never seeing her again. If it hadn’t been for what happened later that day.

I blame easy living, looking back. I had acquired a building society account earlier that year. It wasn’t mine, but my teeth had got smashed up acquiring it, so I felt I had a strong claim on it. No-one else did. No-one living, that was. So I didn’t really need a job just at the moment. I did the rounds of the clubs and the music agencies and one or two tour agents, like Turkish Dan, to see if there was any session stuff or even the odd driving job going, but my heart wasn’t in it. Turkish Dan did have a tour planned for some northern universities with a grunge band going unplugged for the first time, but I turned down the opening for a vehicle tech. (There are no ‘roadies’ any more, just ‘techs’ – vehicle tech, sound tech, light tech, etc.) It was partly because I’d heard the band plugged and didn’t rate them. Unplugged, their mistakes would be more obvious. Anyway, the tour started in Salford and, though I’d never been there, travel doesn’t broaden the mind that much. Consequently, I had nothing to do by lunchtime except meander over towards Shepherd’s Bush to dump Veronica’s case and check that Dod was on the job. Of course he wasn’t, but I had the padlock key he’d given me, and his temporary rehanging of the front door seemed to have held up. The postman, at least, had noticed nothing unusual, pushing the daily fistful of circulars and brown envelope bills through the letter box. I put down Veronica’s case in order to pick the mail up and noticed that one envelope obviously wasn’t a bill. It had a frank on it instead of a stamp, but the address was handwritten, and by holding it up to the daylight I could see what it contained. So there was some good news for Albert Block. The cheque really was in the post. I carried the post and Veronica’s suitcase up to the first floor, where Albert’s office was in exactly the same state of chaos as when I had last seen it. I straightened some furniture and sat in Albert’s swivel chair behind his desk. I put my feet on the desk and tipped the chair back until it almost fell over. I tried a few lines like, ‘So when did you last see your sister, Ms Quest?’, but decided I needed a hat.

I opened the desk drawers looking for the office bottle but didn’t find one. If I had, it would probably have been Sanatogen. I did find a phone book and a London business Yellow Pages. There were no ‘Private Eyes’ listed, then I looked under ‘Detective Agencies’ and found 65, including: A Block, Enquiries. In fact, Albert’s was just about the most modest entry. The rest all promised peace of mind and security of investment through the wonders of electronic surveillance. Like there were no roadies anymore, there were no private eyes, just techs who could wire you up right. I heard the door downstairs crash open and feet on the stairs. I remembered thinking that even Dod, not the most delicately balanced of men, was making a bit of a meal of thundering upstairs, then I realised that Dod didn’t have four feet. The only weapon I could spot was Albert’s camera and tripod that I had picked up the night before. I bunched the legs together in two hands and put the desk between me and the door. If it turned out to be the police returning or the milkÂ�man or some very early carol singers, I could always pretend I was folding the damn things up. My first instinct, to use it as a weapon, turned out to be the correct one. After all, they’d brought weapons. They were no more than 15 or 16. One wore an LA Raiders blouson and the other an Arsenal football shirt. The Raider held a two-pound masonry hammer like he didn’t know how to use it but was willing to learn. The Arsenal fan clutched a retractable-blade Stanley knife as if he’d had work experience. They were black and their combined ages probÂ�ably didn’t total mine. They didn’t seem half as scared as I was and they didn’t seem to want to say much. ‘Sorry, guys, the Masons don’t meet here any more,’ I said for the sake of saying something. ‘Or was it a photograph you were after? I can normally do you a nice passport job with extra prints, three quid.’ I hefted the camera tripod. It suddenly seemed a very light and flimsy sort of weapon, and in that space I could maybe get in one swing.

The Raider pointed his hammer at me. ‘What you doin’ here?’ ‘Oh no, you first. You tell me what you’re doing here and then I’ll tell you what I’m doing here. You show me yours and I’ll show you mine. Those are the rules.’ I hoped it came out tougher than it sounded to me. The Arsenal fan joined in. ‘Don’t dis’ him, man, he can’t take that.’ Then, to his mate, as if I wasn’t there: ‘He pig?’ ‘Nah, no pig. He drove the fat white gash here last night,’ said Raider. ‘That’s right, man.’ I tried being reasonable. ‘I’m just the cab driver. Whatever you’ve got going down here is nothing to do with me.’ ‘Then why this, fool?’ Raider grabbed at the camera with his free hand. I pulled the tripod out of his reach and jabbed half-heartedly at his stomach, missing by miles. It didn’t seem to deter him. The Arsenal fan took a step to the side, putting space between them. Just what I didn’t want. ‘I’m just looking at the merchandise, that’s all. They had a breakin here yesterday; maybe you noticed. They didn’t take the camera. Funny that, eh?’ I didn’t think it was funny either, and my mouth had sudÂ�denly gone very dry. ‘Maybe they wasn’t thieving, man,’ said Raider with a smile, making another feint towards the camera. The Arsenal fan moved another pace away from him and another pace nearer to me, though I still had the desk between me and them. ‘Not thieving? Then what? The old man behind on his rent?’ Or his protection money? Anything was possible. ‘Maybe the old pig just ain’t wanted round here.’ This from the Arsenal fan, the one I was going to have to watch. ‘And why’s that?’ Anything to keep them talking. As long as they were talking they weren’t hitting or cutting me.

‘Don’t like snoopers,’ snarled Raider. ‘No snoopy snoopers wanted here, man.’ ‘Ain’t the old pig got that clear in his mind yet?’ Arsenal fan began to circle the Stanley blade. ‘You got that message yet?’ Arsenal made a swipe at me, and though I knew he was still out of range, I reacted by trying to fend him off with the tripod. I had taken my eyes off Raider and he made his move, grabbing the camera and holding it down on the desk. He swung the hammer once and brought it down, smashing the camera casing and scrunching the lens. They both laughed at that, and they didn’t seem to mind that I was still holding the other end of the tripod. I pulled it away and held it in front of me again. They thought that was funny too. ‘No more snoopin’ now,’ laughed Raider. ‘The old pig and the white gash – think they got the mesÂ�sage?’ I wasn’t sure if Arsenal fan was asking me. He decided to be more direct. ‘You clear in your fucking head, man?’ Clearer than you are, sonny, but I didn’t say it. Whatever they had taken had started to kick in with the adrenaline rush of smashing the camera. There would be no pulling them round now until they came down off their high. I decided not to bother to try to reason with them any more. Face it, it hadn’t exactly paid dividends so far. I swung the tripod in an arc just to keep them at bay. I was almost backed up to the wall, with the desk and the two of them between me and the door. On the other hand, one of them would have to come over the desk to get me, so I might get a swing in at their legs. Raider feinted towards me and smashed his hammer down on the desk top. All noise, miles away from me, but heavy on the nerves. Arsenal fan sensed my fear and jabbed like a swordsman at my arm. Again, he missed by at least a foot, but it seemed much closer. Raider smashed the hammer into the desk again, laughing as I flinched at the sound. But maybe the only way to deal with them was to be as crazy as they were. I smashed the tripod into the desk two, three times, yelling: ‘That’s it, man! That’s enough!’

It stunned them for about a second and a half and then they started laughing again. And I joined in, because behind them I could see Dod’s immensely welcoming bulk filling the doorway. ‘Having trouble, Angel?’ he growled. ‘Not any more, Dod,’ I said cheerfully. Raider swung around, saw Dod, and didn’t give me a backÂ�ward glance, just headed for the doorway, which was really stupid as Dod was blocking it. I don’t know what he had in mind; probably not much. He raised his masonry hammer and yelled and just ran at Dod, expecting him to get out of the way, as most normal people would have done. Dod just stood there though and, at the last minute, raised his right arm. He was holding a blue metal toolbox and Raider just sort of ran his face into it, like a cartoon character getting whacked with a flat iron. His legs kept going while the rest of him stopped dead. He pitched backwards onto the carpet, leaving a splat of blood on the bottom of Dod’s toolbox. Dod said, ‘Shit,’ and then looked at me. ‘Angel, he’s only a kid …’ Arsenal fan was staring at his poleaxed mate. He hadn’t noticed me coming round the desk at him. ‘So call his social worker,’ I said as I swung the tripod. I only hit him the once. It was enough to make him drop the Stanley knife and clutch his arm and ribs, but there was nothing broken. I dropped the tripod with some difficulty. I had been clutching it so hard my hands hurt. Using a handkerchief, I picked up the knife and retracted the blade, then put it on the desk. On the floor, Raider groaned and began to feel for his nose with both hands, not understanding why they came away sticky and red. Dod, helpful as ever, bent over him, but only to wipe the bottom of his toolbox on Raider’s T-shirt. I bent over him to check his eyes. I reckoned the lift was working, just not getting to the top floor yet. ‘Whaddyawanna do with ‘em?’ asked Dod in a stage whisper.

I picked up Raider’s hammer by the iron head and put it on the desk next to the knife. ‘I’m keeping them, okay,’ I said to Arsenal fan. He glared at me. ‘Now, we could give you a good kicking, but we won’t. Just remember we could have.’ Arsenal fan giggled. He hadn’t meant to, and he bit his bottom lip to stop it spreading. At least he was trying. I put my face in his. ‘And you get something clear in your fucking head, man, okay? We’re just here minding the shop. There’s no snooping going on that concerns you and yours. Got that? There’s nothing here for you to worry about. No pressure. Absolutely no sweat. Got that clear, man?’ He stared me out, then nodded once. ‘Then get out of here and tell your brothers you’ve sorted it, okay? There’ll be no more snooping from the old man. You’ve done that, you’ve got a result.’ He didn’t take his eyes off me as he crossed the room to help Raider to his feet. He did look at Dod once as they reached the door, but it was like he was sizing him up. There was no fear there. As they clumped down the stairs, Dod moved to the window. ‘Do you want me to go and keep an eye on Armstrong?’ ‘What for? They know that if they turn over a black cab that’s the last black cab their granny’ll see in this neighbourÂ�hood for a month of Sundays.’ He nodded. ‘You got a point.’ He put his toolbox on the desk and pointed at the masonry hammer and the Stanley knife. ‘Want these?’ ‘Nah, help yourself. And, by the way, thanks for being here.’ ‘It’ll be on the bill. What was it all about anyway?’ I took a minute to summon up all my reserves of deductive logic. ‘Buggered if I know,’ I said.  

I helped Dod put a new lock on the front door and then rehang the door again when the lock turned out to be slightly out of true. I agreed with him that the door must have warped overnight. It seemed churlish to criticise his carÂ�pentry. Most usefully, I popped out for a couple of burgers for lunch and then tried to rustle up a pot of tea. I was in Veronica’s kitchenette trying to find a tea bag not scented with anything other than tea when Dod yelled up the stairs. ‘Angel, you’ve got a customer.’ ‘What?’ I yelled back, convinced I wasn’t hearing him right. ‘Lady here wants to know if you’re open for business.’ ‘What sort of business?’ ‘Detective business, she says. Says she knows ya as well.’ ‘Get a life, Dod, I’m trying to make the tea.’ ‘Get a secretary, then. She’s on her way up.’ I didn’t know what to expect. Knowing Dod, it could have been someone from the local council, a Jehovah’s Witness or a doubleglazing salesman. It turned out to be a middle-Â�aged black woman weighed down with a carrier bag of groceries in each hand. She stopped on the top stair to get her breath, looked at me, then into Albert’s office, then back at me and the teapot I was holding in my right hand. ‘Jus’ what I need, mister. The cup that cheers but does not inebriate.’ I looked down at the teapot and realised why I didn’t like tea. I motioned her into Albert’s office and returned her smile. ‘Sugar?’ I found her a chair and she parked her shopping and unbuttoned her raincoat. ‘Just two,’ she said. Then, to make sure, ‘Sugars. If you please.’ I was still holding the teapot. ‘Yeah, right. I’ll ... er ... get a cup,’ I said decisively. I sloshed a mugful for Dod and sneaked by the office door to take it down the stairs to him.

‘Who the hell is that?’ I whispered. ‘A customer. That’s what she said,’ shrugged Dod. ‘What does she want?’ ‘How should I know? You’re in charge here.’ ‘No, I bleedin’ ain’t.’ ‘Well you’re paying the bills.’ ‘Yeah, well, we’ll talk about that later.’ I crept back upstairs and into Veronica’s kitchen. She only seemed to have two mugs, so I decided that family had better hold back. ‘Here you are, Mrs ...’ I said limply. ‘The cup that ... whatever.’ ‘You could do with a cleaner here, you know,’ she said, clocking the office shambles. ‘We had a break-in yesterday,’ I offered lamely. ‘Know who did it?’ she came back like a whip. ‘No,’ I said, knowing I’d regret it. ‘Huh. Ain’t much of a detective then. In fact, I never knew you was a detective at all. When I asked around, I was told to come here and see a man called Albert. Not you.’ In a room of two people, that made two of us. I sat down opposite her in Albert’s chair. There was nothÂ�ing on the desk except for some masonry hammer dents. I put my forearms on the desk top and linked my fingers, trying to hide the worst of them. ‘Do you know me, Mrs ... er ... ?’ ‘Delacourt. Mrs Delacourt. And I can’t rightly say we’re on sociable terms.’ . She looked down into her mug of tea as if I’d poisoned her. ‘But you know my son.’ I sat back rapidly to put more distance between me and the hand holding the steaming tea. ‘Er ... about 16, wears a Raiders bomber jacket ... ?’ Probably has a broken nose and eight brothers who do weights. ‘No, that’s not my Crimson.’ ‘Crimson?’ ‘Crimson Delacourt.’ Her expression said she was having doubts

about people like me being released into the comÂ�munity. ‘The bike rider?’ ‘That’s him. Worked for a motorcycle dispatch company, like you used to. We used your cab once to do my Christmas shopping, remember?’ ‘Sure,’ I sighed with relief. ‘Yeah, Crimson. Good guy. Nifty rider. One of the best. Just never knew his last name.’ I bit my tongue. What a thing to say to somebody’s mother. ‘Well, we got us a problem with Crimson. She nodded wisely. We? ‘I haven’t seen him for a few months, Mrs Delacourt, and I don’t work the dispatch any more.’ ‘I suppose that was just a cover, eh?’ ‘I’m sorry ... ?’ ‘Undercover, for the detective work. Were you working a case? Isn’t that what they call it?’ ‘Er, look. Mrs Delacourt, there’s been a misunderstanding. I’m only looking after the office until the real detective gets back.’ God, that sounded bad. ‘What you mean, real detective?’ Good question. The one in hospital or the one with three days’ on-the-job training? ‘Actually, it’s a Miss Blugden who is the senior partner now–’ ‘That nice white girl I saw you with last night, when the police were here?’ ‘I suppose so–’ ‘She’s no detective. She looks sweet and gentle like she couldn’t curdle milk. No, yo’ having me on. You’re the main man, don’t try and con me. What’s the matter, my money not good enough?’ ‘It’s not that at all. I’m sure Miss Blugden will be very happy to take your money – I mean, your case. But you’ll have to see her.’ Mrs Delacourt put down her mug and pointed a finger at me like a gun. ‘But she’s no good ‘cos she don’t know my Crimson and you do. You probably know his good-for-nothing partner Chase, too.’

‘Chase? No, I’m sorry, I don’t ... Chase who?’ ‘My Crimson’s new friend, Mr Chase, Mr Can’t-Do-No-Wrong Chase. That boy gonna get my boy in trouble, nothing surer, but Crimson won’t listen to me. That’s why I want you to find out what they’re up to of an evening and where they’re getting all this white powder from.’ ‘White powder? What white powder?’ I just had to ask, didn’t I?

     

Chapter Five

   

Tucked away in Bloomsbury, in a side road off Gower Street, is a little bit of London University you won’t find on any normal campus map. And since the animal liberationists turned actively violent ten years ago. it hasn’t appeared in a phone book either. It’s a combination of zoology and veterinÂ�ary research departments and I don’t know what its proper title is. All I know is Zoe works there. I had known Zoe for about five years. For two or three months, we had known each other very well, and we’d manÂ�aged to remain friends afterwards. So much so, I’d even been invited to her wedding a year or so back, but maybe she’d forgotten about the reception by now. She was doing some sort of research into animal psychology, having somehow managed to survive the cuts in funding at both the university and London Zoo. More than once I’d volunteered SpringÂ�steen for testing, but she’d always said there wasn’t enough anaesthetic. I was paying her a call not because I wanted her views on felix sociopathus but because she was the only person I knew who had access to a laboratory. A legal one, anyway. They had tightened up on security since my last visit, with a new reception desk and two uniformed security guards who, for once, looked as if they might know what they were doing, so it called for the old delivery trick. I exchanged my leather jacket for the ageing sweater in Armstrong’s boot to put me in character. (Real cabbies never wear leather jackets; too sweaty.) Then I rummaged through the glove compartment to find an empty padded envelope, a roll of Sellotape and a felt-tipped pen. I also unearthed a pad of PoDs – Proof of Delivery slips – that I had hung onto from my last job with a dispatch company, knowing they’d come in handy one day. Mrs Delacourt had given me a small plastic bag, the sort you use in freezers, with a vacuum snap seal, containing a white crystalline

powder. I stuffed it inside the Jiffy bag and Sellotaped the end, using my new teeth to bite off bits of tape. On the envelope I wrote ‘Dr Zoe Morgan’, and felt pleased with myself at remembering her married name. Then I added ‘Personal’. Then I parked Armstrong right outside the office doors so they got a good look at me gelling out of a cab, stuck the pen behind my car and marched in. ‘Package for a Dr Morgan. Gotta be signed for.’ One of the security guards ignored me and stood up as if to write something on a wall calendar. In fact, he was looking over my shoulder at Armstrong. I didn’t blame him. Bombs had arrived by taxi before now, but rarely did the delivery boy stand there tapping them impatiently on the counter. The other guard remained seated and just looked up at me. ‘No Dr Morgan here. Does it say which department?’ I consulted the envelope. ‘Nope, they were a bit vague about that. Just Dr Zoe Morgan.’ ‘Who were?’ ‘Home Office, Queen Anne’s Gate,’ I said, thinking quickly. If he knew anything about cab drivers he would know that none of them ever took that address in vain, as it’s where the Hackney Carriage licences used to be issued. ‘He means Zoe Butler,’ said the standing guard. ‘Morgan’s her married name.’ ‘Okay,’ said Sit-Down guard, ‘you can leave it.’ ‘Sorry, got to be hand delivered.’ I waved my PoD receipts. ‘She has to sign for it herself.’ Sit-Down guard sighed loudly to indicate that life was already too complicated, and reached for the internal phone. After a couple of minutes, Zoe appeared through a door marked Staff Only. ‘I might have known,’ she grinned. ‘I never get anything from the Home Office except nasty memos. What’s this? A belated wedding present?’

‘I bought you a wedding present,’ I said indignantly. ‘A bottle of vintage port, as I recall. Estate bottled. 1960? 1958? One of the good years, anyway.’ She gave me her killer look. ‘Was it? You drank it.’ Ouch. She remembered the reception. ‘I’ll make it up to you, double or quits. But I need a favour first.’ She looked at Mr Stand-Up security guard, who was clockÂ�ing me as if measuring throwing distance to the street. ‘It’s okay, he’s with me,’ Zoe told him, then pressed four digits on the pressure-pad lock on the Staff Only door so that it clicked open. ‘Come through. There’s a staff room with a kettle. You can be mother.’ For the second time in about three hours, I found myself trying to sort out the herbal infusions from the raspberryÂ�- and thymeflavoured powders. Didn’t anybody drink just tea any more? While I filled a jug kettle, Zoe opened the envelÂ�ope I’d given her. ‘Jesus! And you wanted me to sign for this?’ she said to my back. ‘Is it what I think it is?’ ‘No, it isn’t. At least, I don’t think it’s what I thought it was. At first, that is.’ ‘If it is what I think it is, there’s about 12 hundred quid’s worth here.’ She had put the plastic bag on a low table, not wanting to touch it. ‘My initial thoughts exactly, Dr Butler. High-grade coke worth about £90 a gramme.’ ‘Angel,’ she said, her voice hardening, ‘What’s the deal?’ ‘It isn’t what we think it is. I tried it.’ ‘So it’s been cut with nine-tenths sodium bicarbonate; why the bloody hell are you telling me? Take it round the ConÂ�sumers Association. Or Drugs ‘R Us or somewhere. Just get it the fuck out of here.’ She began to stuff the plastic bag back into the envelope.

I concentrated on pouring tea. ‘When I said I tried it, I tasted it. I didn’t do a line or anything. But it doesn’t taste like any naughty substance I’ve ever tasted before. I don’t think it’s naughty at all, but some people think it might be.’ ‘Some people like who?’ she asked suspiciously. ‘Would you believe it if I said a nice black lady worried about her son falling in with a wrong crowd?’ ‘And coming to you for help? Do I not believe that. AnyÂ�way, why bring it to me?’ ‘Couldn’t you run some tests on it or something?’ I handed her a mug of tea. Even gave her the spoon. ‘I’m not the Public Analyst, Angel. Give me a break.’ ‘As a favour. Go on, kid. I’ll owe you.’ ‘You always have.’ She sipped the tea. ‘I could probably tell you what it isn’t. But what if it is dodgy?’ ‘The minute you suspect it’s hooky, flush it down the toilet. I can’t say fairer than that, can I?’ ‘Yes, you could say “Goodbye, Zoe, have a nice life.”‘ ‘How is married life?’ She shrugged. ‘Two incomes, no kids, great sex, skiing holidays, don’t change the subject.’ ‘Will you have a go for me?’ ‘Give me one good reason why I should.’ ‘Can’t.’ ‘It’s a hell of it risk I’m running if it is it proscribed subÂ�stance, you know.’ ‘I know, you risk losing one of the incomes and the skiing holiday. How would it affect the great sex?’ She glared at me over the rim of her mug. ‘You have, as the Americans would say, a smart mouth.’ I showed her the new dental work. ‘Ah, so you do remember.’ ‘Don’t push it. I remember a lot of things, including telling you to grow up and get a job like about every other day.’ I summoned up all my injured dignity. It didn’t take long. ‘Bur this is my new job. I’m a private detective.’

She roared with laughter. ‘A what? Since when?’ I looked at my SeaStar. ‘About two hours ago.’   I had two pieces of luck at the hospital. First, I got a parking space. To be fair, there was a notice claiming it to be reserved for a consultant, but then it was after 4.00 pm and the rain had held off, so he would be on a golf course somewhere. Secondly, Oonagh – the Irish spelling – was on duty at reception. It might have been my magnetic personality, it could have been the new pearly whites, or it could have been the fact that she was behind in her paperwork and hospitals don’t really give a monkey’s about strict visiting hours these days, but anyway, I got in to see Albert with no hassle. She told me in passing that Albert was fine and had been trying to phone his married daughter in Exeter for two hours. They would probably keep him in for observation for a couple of days, then he’d be allowed out, on condition he took it easy. He was in a small ward of six beds, all occupied by elderly men. Two were asleep, one had a broken leg up in plaster, two had cage arrangements to keep the blankets from the more private and no doubt painful bits of their anatomy. I reasoned that the remaining one, a large, balding man who just lay there glaring at the ceiling, was Albert. There was also a clipboard chart hanging on the end of the bed with ‘Mr A Block’ in thick felt-tip pen on the title sheet. That clinched it. Dead easy, this detective lark. He wasn’t what I had expected, but then I wasn’t sure what I was expecting. I hadn’t seen anything at Shepherd’s Bush to indicate any personal life, but then I hadn’t been looking. I suppose I had just gleaned the impression from Veronica that Albert was some sort of cherubic little old garden gnome. He certainly wasn’t little; I reckoned six foot one at least, though it’s difficult to tell when policemen – even Â� ex- ones – are lying down. And he wasn’t that old, his bed-end chart telling me he was 58. Cherubic didn’t really come into it either, his face unshaven with a bluish pallor. His cheeks had

shrunk into his jaw line and, as I saw him close up, my one thought was that this was a shell of a big man, who couldn’t work out why he couldn’t get up and walk around. ‘Mr Block?’ I asked politely. ‘Who wants to know?’ There you go; once a policeman. ‘My name’s Roy Angel. I’m a sort of friend of Veronica’s.’ ‘No, you’re not,’ he snapped, wincing with the effort. ‘She hasn’t got any friends.’ That slowed me for a second, because I was pretty sure he wasn’t making a joke. ‘Since yesterday, actually, Mr Block. I drove her here last night but they wouldn’t let her in to see you. She’s been very worried about you.’ ‘Yeah, well, it’s about time somebody was. It’s taken four bloody phone calls to get my daughter – my own daughter – to come and get me, and then not until the day after tomorrow.’ I was beginning to realise why she’d moved to Exeter. ‘Er ... about Veronica ...’ ‘What about her?’ ‘She’ll be here soon to see you.’ ‘Oh, great. As if I didn’t have enough on my plate.’ I wondered if some impromptu cardiac massage would do him any good. I didn’t know, I just felt like punchÂ�ing him in the chest. ‘I don’t think she should go back to Shepherd’s Bush; I don’t think she’ll be safe there.’ He strained to try and raise his head off the pillow, but even that was beyond him. ‘Between you and me,’ he said quietly, so I had to lean over him, ‘I’m not going back there. I’ve had enough. I’m going to get my daughter to put the bloody place on the market. Veronica can find somewhere else to live and someone else to latch onto. She’s a big girl now and has got to stand up for herself. This’ – he tapped his chest with a finger – ‘is a warning to me and I’m bleedin’ well taking note of it. What business is it of yours anyway?’

‘None at all, Mr Block.’ I held up my hands in surrender. ‘I just got caught up in things. You know she’s out at the moment working your case for you.’ ‘What case?’ ‘Following some girl or other.’ ‘Silly cow. She couldn’t follow an elephant down Oxford Street.’ Given the new traffic-flow system, I wasn’t sure I could, but it wasn’t the time to make the point. ‘Anyway, that’s definitely none of your business, so I don’t see ... Oh, bugger.’ He was looking behind me and I turned automatically to see Veronica standing at the entrance to the ward. Even from that range I could see the rosy glow on her cheeks as if she’d been hurrying, and that her glasses were misted. She held a bunch of carnations that looked as if they’d been trapped in a revolving door. ‘I’ll leave you two to it,’ I said and walked away. I was willing to forget he was an ex-policeman, but decided to dislike him anyway. As Veronica came level with me she playfully hit me on the arm with the bunch of flowers. ‘She left work early and went straight home,’ she whisÂ�pered. ‘I’ve found out where she lives!’ ‘Oh good,’ I whispered back. ‘Albert will be pleased.’   She was with him for less than half an hour, and I spent the time discussing Albert with Oonagh, the Irish receptionist, proving yet again that when naturally talented gossips gather, there’s no such thing as client confidentiality. ‘Just like me da,’ she chatted between admissions and phone calls. ‘He was a blacksmith.’ ‘Mr Block isn’t a blacksmith,’ I said carefully, in case I’d missed something. ‘Same difference. He was a strong man, my da. You know, physical. He had an attack just like Mr Block’s and it scared seven kinds of shit out of him. Fear, that’s all it is. He’s frightened, that’s all.

Frightened ‘cos he can’t do the things he’s always taken for granted. He was a big man, yer Mr Block, used to getting his own way, I should say. He was a strong man, and now he’s got to come to terms with being a small, weak man. Maybe for the rest of his life. It’s a terrible condition, but I’ve seen it all before.’ ‘The sort of condition that turns you crabby and mean so that you can only think about yourself and you can’t enjoy anything so you don’t see why anyone else should?’ ‘That’s the one.’ She stacked a pile of medical cards and tapped them on her desk like she was about to deal at cards. ‘There’s a technical expression for it.’ ‘There is?’ She smiled. ‘Sad fucker syndrome.’   Veronica was still clutching the bunch of flowers when she came out of the ward. ‘Thank you for waiting,’ she sniffed. ‘That’s okay. I’ve still got your case in the back.’ She looked confused; or just more confused. ‘But Albert – Mr Block – said I’d be all right for at least a month. He said I could mind the shop while he was at his daughter’s.’ I’ll bet he did. ‘Listen, I didn’t tell Albert, but the kids who turned over your place yesterday, they came back this afternoon. There’s something going on we don’t know about, and until it’s sorted, I don’t think it’s safe for you to be there on your own. Is there anywhere you can stay?’ . She looked at her shoes and shook her head. It was just one damn thing after another, and just when she thought she’d cracked the case. ‘Parents?’ I tried. ‘Back up north?’ ‘No,’ she said quickly. Over her shoulder, Oonagh was looking at me from under one raised eyebrow.

‘Then I suppose you can come back to Stuart Street for tonight and get yourself organised in the morning.’ Her face lit up like a child who had just been told there was an extra Christmas present on the tree. ‘Actually, I was going to ask you how to get there anyway, because I wasn’t sure I could find it again. You see, Lisabeth’s asked me to dinner tonight.’ She saw my expression. ‘And you can come too.’ ‘And when did she decide this?’ ‘She asked me when I rang her this afternoon to tell her I’d found where Stella Rudgard lives.’ ‘You rang Lisabeth?’ I was indignant. ‘Well, she seemed so interested in the case last night …’ Â�‘And you never thought of ringing me while I was protecting your office from vandals and signing up a new client?’ ‘Vandals? What vandals? What new client? Anyway, I didn’t think you’d be there.’ Actually, I had been seeing Zoe, but that wasn’t the point. ‘I hope you like vegetarian, that’s all I can say. Come on, I’ll fill you in on the way. And you can tell me all about your day.’ I thought she was about to start there and then, but she checked herself and held up the bunch of flowers as if she had just discovered them in her hand. ‘Would you like to give these to Lisabeth, for inviting us to dinner?’ ‘No, I would not. Why don’t you, though? Nice gesture.’ ‘I thought flowers were always supposed to come from the man. Won’t Lisabeth think it a bit peculiar getting them from another woman?’ I shook my head. ‘Nah. Trust me on this one.’   I got the full story in my left ear through Armstrong’s glass partition, all the way to Hackney.

Dear Albert, bless him, was facing a triple-bypass operation if he was to last out the century. Naturally, he would have to give up the agency and the house in Shepherd’s Bush and was very sorry if this upset Veronica’s life in any way, but he didn’t fancy trying to sell with a sitting tenant, but as she didn’t actually have a rent book, she wouldn’t qualify as one really and she didn’t want to cause any more grief to a sick old man, did she? But she was welcome to stay while the estate agents showed people round and – least she could do, really – she could tidy up a bit and pack up Albert’s clothes for when his daughter came to get him. And, although there was no chance of a place in the business now, she could do one last thing and write to the two or three clients on the books explaining that the agency was being wound up due to ill health. Oh, and deal with the police and the insurance people over the break-in. And inform the tax office of Albert’s change of address. And stop the standing orders paying the rates and the electricity. And cancel the milk. ‘Does this include the case with the Rudgard girl?’ I asked through gritted teeth, though Veronica seemed to be accepting it all. ‘That doesn’t count. The client hadn’t paid a deposit so we were never officially hired, even though I’ve more or less done the job.’ For the first time there was a hint of resentment in her voice. ‘Story of my life, really,’ she said quietly. ‘And the story of mine is people saying that the cheque is in the post.’ I reached into my jacket and pulled out the envelope I had taken from Albert’s office. ‘But in your case, I think it really is. If that isn’t money in some shape or form, then I’m putting my sense of smell in for a full service.’ I passed it back to her and watched in the mirror as she stared at it like a snake in a mirror. ‘It’s addressed to Albert,’ she said in a monotone. ‘I forgot to give it to him,’ I said honestly. ‘And anyway, you seem to have been put in charge of winding things up, so you’d better open it.’

‘How do you know it has anything to do with the Rudgard case?’ ‘For Christ’s sake, woman, I don’t know anything except that there’s a cheque in there, so open it and find out.’ I was annoyed now that I hadn’t steamed the damn thing open earlier. I did remember that it had been machine franked rather than having a stamp on, and the franking had carried an advert that said ‘Classic Car Centre’, whatever that meant. ‘You were right,’ she said. ‘It is the cheque for the Rudgard case.’ ‘So you haven’t wasted the last two days, then?’ ‘I suppose not. If you look at it like that. Half of it is mine by rights.’ ‘Half of how much? If you don’t mind me asking, that is.’ She was riding in my cab, sleeping in my flat; why should she mind? ‘£800. It was to cover the first four days’ enquiries.’ ‘Two hundred a day, eh? Plus expenses, I’ll bet. Nice work, if you have to.’ I decided it was not the time to tell her that Mrs Delacourt had hired her for a one-off special price of £100 in cash plus two days’ office cleaning a week for a month if she got results. ‘It’s made out to Albert,’ she said sulkily. ‘That can be fixed.’ ‘Can it?’ She sounded keen; perhaps a little bit of turn on the worm? ‘But he’ll insist on playing it by the book.’ ‘Hang on a minute, if you’ve found the Rudgard girl, you’ve done the job. That’s playing by the book, isn’t it?’ There was a silence, then I heard her inhale. Over the throb of Armstrong’s engine I reckoned her lungs were operating at 50 watts per channel. ‘I never got to tell him. He never asked about the case. All he could do was talk about his operation and his heart and give me instructions. I might as well not have been there. A Dictaphone would have done. He wasn’t interested in me.

‘You know, I tried to ask him about the break-in, and he just wouldn’t give me a straight answer. It’s like he’s blanked it out. I think he’s blanked me out as well.’ I looked in the mirror to see if she was crying. She had sat herself back in the seat and was staring out of the left window but not seeing anything. ‘Forget what Albert said, or didn’t say. You’ve done good work today, haven’t you? You’ve found Stella’s hideout, haven’t you? That’s one up to you. Sod Albert.’ She sniffed loudly. ‘It was dead boring most of the day, but I had a surprise at lunchtime when she left the office.’ ‘To have lunch?’ I said gently, not wanting to sound sarÂ�castic. ‘Yes, to buy a sandwich at a little takeaway place, but she also made a phone call from a phone box.’ She waited, as if for applause. ‘And?’ ‘And then she went back to work and I think she worked through her lunch hour, because she got off at 4.00 pm.’ Her voice dropped half a tone. ‘And then I followed her home.’ I wasn’t sure I could stand the suspense. ‘To where she lived?’ ‘Yes, and she didn’t spot me tailing her, I’m sure. What do you mean, where she lived?’ ‘The place you followed her to. You’re sure it was where she lives? It wasn’t a friend’s place, or anything like that?’ ‘No, I’m pretty sure she lives there. They certainly seemed to make her very welcome when she got home.’ ‘Who did?’ ‘The people in Sloane Square.’ ‘What people in Sloane Square?’ I said sharpishly. I could feel a headache coming on. ‘The people in the squat she lives in.’ ‘A squat? In Sloane Square?’ ‘Not a squat. What’s the other thing? A commune, that’s it. She

lives in a commune.’ ‘In Sloane Square?’ ‘There’s no need to shout. Why do keep saying that?’ ‘Because I didn’t believe it the first time.’

     

Chapter Six

   

‘Do you all do that? Is it some kind of teenage male thing you never grow out of?’ Miranda, from the flat upstairs, was shouting at me and I was having a heart attack. I had done a runner on Lisabeth’s dinner party at least an hour before. You can take just so much lentil fondue and, anyway, it had all the signs of a girls’ night in with Miranda invited too and Veronica getting all excited because she was introduced as a journalist and everybody knows that private eyes always have a contact in the media with better sources of information than the Anti-Terrorist Squad. I never understood that, as in my experience, journos fell into two camps. The well-informed but highly secretive, who did it for the kick of knowing something no-one else did; or the breathtakingly ill-informed, lazy and ignorant brigade who were in it for the free drinks. All the ones I knew were in the latter category and, on the whole, were good company, but I’d never had a straight steer on anything from any of them. Veronica had been beside herself at meeting a journalist, and Miranda was, at least initially, intrigued to meet a female private eye, envisaging a women’s page feature maybe. At least it would make a change from covering aerobic marathons; and, give her credit, she has as much empathy with the stretch-and-retch crowd as I have. Miranda was free only because her husband, Inverness Doogie, was working nights as a chef (and a good one, I’m told) at one of the Hyde Park hotels. A month or so back they had been on the point of packing in life in the big city and moving to the Highlands of Doogie’s native Scotland, where he had the offer of a job in a castle or something with its own salmon fishing. She still harbours the suspicion that I talked her out of it, though I can’t think why. Fortunately, Doogie accepted her change of mind in the interest of

domestic harmony and doesn’t suspect me at all. At least, I hope not. His only interest in life after Miranda and cooking (and the order changes) is street fighting, and for physical recreation he’s a soccer hooligan. I had sneaked back upstairs on the pretext of taping a movie, part of the O J Simpson retrospective season, but none of them paid much attention when I left and I doubted they missed me much. I had plugged in a new set of headphones I had treated myself to and applied my ears to some classic Hendrix, much remixed and cleaned for CD release recently. Naturally, I’d helped myself to two or three of the French lagers I had in the fridge, just to get in the groove. (Actually, it was just as well we had eaten at Lisabeth’s as the fridge had over 90 French lagers in it, leaving precious little room for anything except cat food. A man across the street goes to Calais twice a day, where the tax is so low it’s embarrassing to collect, and sells it on at prices the local off-licence haven’t charged since the war. I’m not sure its legal, but he delivers to the door. A bit like room service, really.) So I was total1y engrossed in my beer and those historic riffs when Miranda came in. Maybe I had been trying to copy one or two of the old master’s lefty fingerings, and possibly I had been humming along as well. I still think it was uncalled for of her to suddenly materialise in front of me, scaring the hell out of me, and grabbing at the headphones. ‘What? What?’ I yelled over ‘Watchtower’, which was still pretty loud even though Miranda was holding the headÂ�phones. I rolled over from where I had been lying on the floor and snuffed the volume on the player. ‘You big kid,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘Lying there, playing the air guitar. At your age.’ ‘I’m a musician. I’m allowed.’ ‘You’re a man, that’s all, and they all do it. And just because you can’t hear yourself singing, it doesn’t mean other people can’t, you know.’ ‘You’ve been there, huh?’

‘Haven’t we all? I thought you were in pain when I was outside the door.’ ‘Funnily enough, I felt fine when you were outside the door,’ I snapped, but Miranda has a tough hide. She’s Welsh and it’s something to do with slate quarries and lots of rain. She fixed her dark, Celtic eyes on the bottle of beer in my hand. According to Doogie, she had a glare that could melt rune stones on a bad day. ‘Got another one of them?’ she asked, surprising me. ‘I think there may be one left in the fridge.’ I went to the kitchen and popped one for her. ‘You were in luck,’ I said, handing it over. She downed half of it in one go, by the neck. ‘Veronica would have asked for a glass,’ I said as an opener. ‘But only if it wasn’t too much trouble.’ Then she narrowed her eyes. ‘How did you know I wanted to talk about her?’ ‘You can’t bitch about her in front of her new soul mates downstairs, and Doogie’s never met her, so he wouldn’t believe it anyway.’ ‘You got that in one, that’s for sure.’ She drank more beer. ‘But you’ve gotta help her, Angel.’ ‘I am helping her. She’s not sleeping in a cardboard box, is she? She’s not had to queue for a night bus. She’s not gone hungry, has she? Although I could murder a steak sandwich myself.’ ‘You know what I mean, smartarse – with her case, as she calls it, out there in the big bad world. Angel, she hasn’t got a clue.’ ‘About the case?’ ‘Don’t get chopsy with me, I live with an expert.’ I gave her that one; she did. ‘I mean about how to survive out there mixing with ... with ... the sort of people you mix with. Well, you know what I mean. She couldn’t refold a jumper in Benetton without help. The woman’s completely naive. For Christ’s sake, she can’t even handle being a woman.’ ‘Oh come on, that’s genetic. I know, we’re working on the code.’ ‘I’m not kidding. Look, do you know what she said tonight when you weren’t there? She said she found being a private eye the most

exciting thing that had ever happened to her, but she was only going to do it until Mr Right came along. Do you believe that? What do you do with a woman her age who thinks like that?’ ‘Tell her she should get out more?’ I offered.   Springsteen was waiting for her as she came up the stairs, giggling and whispering with Miranda. I heard her say, ‘This ought to work,’ and then she pushed open the door, which I’d left on the latch, and said loudly: ‘Is everybody decent in here? I’m coming in.’ For that, she deserved everything she got. ‘Ah-ha, there you are, Mr Springscat. I’m ready for you tonight, and you’re going to get a stroking from me whether you ...’ I couldn’t stop a smile. ‘Aaaaaaagh! Christmas! There’s blood! He’s gone right through Fenella’s gardening gloves!’ That’s my boy.   In the morning we made a plan, and Veronica listened to it and agreed totally. At first, though, she had been in a sulk, because we were not up in time to make it to Wimpole Street for when Stella Rudgard arrived at work. I pointed out that we knew where she worked and we could easily check by phone that she was there. Veronica wanted to know how we could possibly do that. I told her: (a) she could ring the consulting rooms and say she was a new supervisor from the agency and was just checking Stella’s first day had gone all right; or (b) I could call to make a phoney appointment and come on with a line about her not being Mr Linscott’s usual ‘gal’, and when was he free for golf?; or (c) I could call round with a delivery for him; or (d) I could ring the agency and say … ‘So basically tell a lot of lies?’ She was catching on. What was important, I told her, was to get a firm fix on where this Stella Rudgard lived. That was what she was being paid for.

And putting in a surveillance report saying she lived in some sort of communal hippy squat thing in Sloane Square wasn’t exactly the height of professionalism, was it? Report? She would have to do a report? Another challenge and the pubs not yet open. I told her to worry about that later. Our first stop was Sloane Square to check out the address she’d found yesterÂ�day. Ah. Yes. The address she’d forgotten to write down, but fortunately she could take me there, once she got her bearÂ�ings from the underground station. And once I’d driven her across town at my expense, I thought. But at least whilst doing that, she could fill me in on the bits of the case –- I estimated around 90 per cent – that she’d so far shared with Lisabeth, Fenella, Miranda and the milkman for all I knew, but not me. ‘Speaking of milk,’ she said, looking into her coffee mug, ‘is there any?’ ‘Sorry. There wasn’t room for any in the fridge. Anyway, it’s time we hit the road.’ ‘What about breakfast?’ she pouted. ‘When did Philip Marlowe ever eat breakfast?’ I snarled through a Bogart sneer. ‘Philip who?’   Of course, it turned out to be not Sloane Square itself, but a small, dead-end mews called John Brome Street, behind Sloane Square. Still, on a clear day you could probably smell when they were having a barbecue in the grounds of Buckingham Palace; and, of course, it gave them a Belgravia address. Not that that meant much these days. I know a former Household Cavalryman who lives in two Hotpoint washing machine boxes behind Victoria Coach Station who always gives his address as Belgravia. It took me ages to get parked, which was unusual as most London traffic does the sensible thing and gets out of the way when a black cab puts its nose down and heads for the kerb. Around there, though, it was a question of finding the space between the seemingly endless

stream of trucks delivering to the restaurants and wine bars, the gas company guys drilling the street where the electricity boys had drilled last week, and the total indifference to on-street parking laws by the local population. It was interesting to see so many Volkswagen Golfs still around after all the jokes about Sloane Rangers back in the ‘80s. The cars were still running Â�– after all, they were VWs – but they now had beaded back comforters on the drivers’ seals and ‘Baby On Board’ stickers in the rear windows. I eventually found enough space, with half a metre to spare, between some double yellow lines and a Residents Only parking spot in one of the other side streets. I had already told Veronica that I wanted to suss the house alone. Now I told her to get out of Armstrong and go shopping for an hour. ‘Why can’t I come with you and help with the observation?’ she asked, emphasising her point by polishing her glasses with a square centimetre of tissue. ‘Because you may have been seen last night, and if someÂ�body spots you, it could jeopardise the whole surveillance operation.’ That seemed to satisfy her, and I was pleased that one of us knew what I was talking about. ‘Can’t I stay here and wait for you?’ ‘No, you can’t. A black cab parked illegally usually gets away with it. A black cab parked illegally with the driver in is totally anonymous; he’s obviously waiting for a fare. But a black cab parked illegally with no driver and a passenger in the back – hey, something wrong there, and people start asking questions. Maybe even tell the local Plod.’ She pushed her glasses back onto her face with one finger and then looked at me with her head cocked on one side. ‘They said you noticed things like that.’ ‘Who did?’ ‘Lisabeth and Fenella. And Miranda said that her Douglas–’ ‘Doogie,’ I corrected her. ‘Well, her Doogie says you’ve got more road cred than Firestone tyres. That’s a compliment, isn’t it?’

‘Almost.’   Veronica had identified the door of 8 John Brome Street. That was where she had tailed Stella Rudgard to. On the way there, I had made her tell me more about the pitch the father had made to Albert and her. According to Veronica, Mr Rudgard had been sick with worry over 19-year-old Estelle, and wasn’t it a crime to shorten such a lovely name to Stella? She had been the perfect daughter until the previous summer, her last summer before going to university (and Veronica confided that like she was talking about an AIDS victim). And guess what? She’d fallen in love with a young gypsy boy hired to help out with the horses on Mr Rudgard’s farm or estate or whatever, and wasn’t it just like a fairy story? Well, no, of course it wasn’t, because it was a totally unsuitable match. So Mr Rudgard had given the stable boy – Estelle called him ‘Heathcliff’ – some money to go away and work somewhere else. Naturally, Estelle’s heart broke when she found out that her Heathcliff had been sent away, and she refused to stay at university. She heard from somebody, maybe a friend, that her Heathcliff was in London and had dedicated her life to finding him, even if it meant tramping the mean streets until she was old and haggard, or about 25. And it really was like a romantic novel, wasn’t it? (I told her it wasn’t like any I’d ever read; but admittedly most of those had ‘Swedish’ in the title somewhere.) Worried sick, Mr Rudgard had suddenly had a piece of luck. Stella, as she now called herself, had registered for work with the temping agency Office Cavalry. Somebody from there had rung him just to check on Stella’s National Insurance number. They wouldn’t tell him where she was living or working, of course, but at least he had an address where she would be reporting for a job assignment sometime or other. So he had hired Block and Blugden to do the business and report back. He had left a photograph of Stella and instructions not to approach her or let her know she was being followed. That was all there was to it. Except why Stella had given a real name, home address and

phone number to the agency. That didn’t sound to me like somebody running away, and I know about these things. I have road cred.   The door of number 8 looked just like any other front door. Just the sort you would find in any substantial terraced house. Nothing unusual, even a milk bottle on the doorstep. And then you noticed that the door was painted light blue, and that the letter box had been nailed shut; and if you looked closely, you could see that still showing through the light blue paint was the shape of a crucifix about three feet high, as if it had been painted on and then painted over. Even so, nothing terribly suspicious. I had seen much worse – I’d lived in places where any sort of door was a luxury. I walked on without stopping, conscious that this was a cul-desac and I couldn’t loiter too long. There was a sign saying that a topfloor flat was for sale three doors away, so I pretended to be taking in the frontage and hoped I looked like a prospective buyer to the local nosy Neighbourhood Watch. Actually, the Neighbourhood Watch were probably just the people I ought to be talking to about the inhabitants of number 8. But were they around when you needed them? Of course not. They come out only after dark, when you’re getting back from the pub late and the streetlights jump out and attack you as you’re trying to park the car. Can’t move for them then. I tried to think who a real private eye would approach. The local milkman? Forget it. If you have one in London these days, they’re up so early to beat the traffic they never see anything, and if you approach one, they assume you’re going to mug them for their low-fat yoghurts. The postman? They wouldn’t tell you anything; more than their job’s worth. And face it, what sort of person is it who gets up so early in the morning and whistles a happy tune while delivering the bills from the credit card companies or the income tax? Sick people. They need help. But so did I at this rate, with no sign of a resident dog-walker to

gossip with; not even a passing tourist seeking directions; not even a cat. I began to stroll back, at least planning on getting a second look at the door of number 8, and then Rule of Life No. 1 (It’s better to be lucky than good) kicked in and the door of the house opened and all I had to do was slow down a pace so I didn’t actually trip over them. There were three of them, all male and all wearing Cotton Traders turtleneck shirts, though in different shades, and jeans. So what had I expected? Saffron robes and bells? The tallest, a slim dude about six foot tall with a lion’s mane of red hair, was the head honcho, of that there was no doubt. All the body language pointed to him being the leader, the disciple or the teacher, or whatever title this parÂ�ticular cult adopted. I had been in no doubt that it was some form of religious grouping right from when Veronica had tried to describe the place. I had dismissed the idea of squatters immediately. Not in this area, that would be asking for trouble, and anyway, most of the old-school semi-professional squatters were now running housing associations. Nobody squatted in a single flat anymore. You took over a high-rise office block and usually found some property company was glad that you did, because you were free and security guards cost money. And there were no hippy communes anymore. Face it, most hippies were old enough to be my father. Come to think of it, one of them had been. Sure, there were crackhouses and derelict sites for the drunks and assorted druggies too zonked (or just unwilling) to find a place in one of the night shelters. But those weren’t the sort of places from which a girl like Stella left for work every morning and returned every evening to be greeted with hugs and kisses by her house-mates. From the way Veronica had described that – not to menÂ�tion the cross painted on the door – I had guessed we were talking religion. It didn’t surprise me. Who else would a runaway, love-lost girl turn to in the big city? After drugs, religious sects offering all the safety valves of a family without the hassle of relatives, were London’s most successful growth industry.

The only question really was, what was their particular angle? What did they offer? What were their aims? How much did it cost to join, apart from a mail-order account with Cotton Traders? That didn’t take much detective work either. The smallest and youngest of the three, wearing the ‘buttermilk’ shirt, handed me a printed sheet with a cheery greeting of: ‘Hello, neighbour.’ I wondered if he’d seen me looking at the For Sale sign, but then I realised that he probably said that to all complete strangers. ‘Thank you,’ I said, taking the sheet from him. I half expected a sermon, or at least a come-on scam for money. Maybe I wasn’t his type of likely cult material, as he smiled and turned to follow the other two shirts – one tangerine, the tall guy’s an eggshell shade – down the street. They didn’t give me a second look, and I concentrated on the paper I had been given, so they could get ahead of me. And as I stood there outside number 8, I distinctly heard the sound of bolts being scraped home behind the door. At least four of them. I glanced at the flyer I had been handed. It had been printed from a word-processor by someone trying to use all the available typefaces and then duplicated on bleached, unrecycled paper. Whoever these guys were, they were not eco-warriors. The key message came under the title:   The Church of the Shining Doorway   ‘Give me your young people that I might lead them to the shining doorway of Jesus and all his understanding.’   Constantine   That was all it said, but below it was a hand-drawn logo of a door with a large cross as if painted on. I thought about the sound of the bolts being fastened behind the door of number 8, just a few feet away from me, and wondered why that particular doorway, shining

or tarnished, needed so much security. I folded the flyer carefully and put it in the inside pocket of my leather jacket. The three of them were at the end of the street now, the tall one half a pace in front of the other two, slipping on the linen jacket he had been carrying. Even from where I was, I could see it had all the creases in the right places. I wondered whether to follow them or try my luck with whoever was in the house. I decided to keep to the street. I would need a good line in blag to get into the house, and for what? Stella should be at work, and I certainly didn’t want Veronica coming looking for me if I did manage to get in. As they turned the corner of the street I opted to tail them. It went like a dream. Dead easy, this tailing stuff. They never suspected they were being followed, and I stuck to them like glue all the way to where they were going. About a hundred yards round the corner into Sloane Square. They stood and conferred for a moment outside the entrance to the underground station. Then the tall one in the linen jacket flapped a hand in dismissal and walked off, but only as far as a brasserie ten feet away. He took a seat in the window, and a waiter in a striped apron the size of a beach towel offered him a menu. He ordered without conÂ�sulting it and, while waiting, produced a small, flip-up mobile phone and began dialling. His two foot soldiers took up position straddling the entrance to the tube station and began to hand out flyers. I watched from across the square, noting that they targeted white Anglo-Saxons under the age of 20, occasionally getting a pull and a conversation developing. The one who had leafleted me made two contacts while I watched, in both cases taking out a pen and adding something – a phone number? – to the flyer. Linen Jacket in the brasserie would check them with a glance every ten minutes, otherwise he concentrated on his phone calls and his coffee and what looked like a real brioche with apricot jam. I remembered Veronica and wondered if she would be hanging around Armstrong waiting for me. Or maybe she had picked the

wrong taxi in a different street. No such luck. ‘Did you find out anything?’ she steamed, all excited. ‘I think I met some of her house-mates. Or perhaps I should say fellow churchgoers.’ I produced the flyer and she read it like it contained the answers to the ‘How to pick up more men’ quiz in her favourite magazine. ‘I don’t get it,’ she said, looking at me dead straight. I bit my tongue. ‘The house, back there, it’s the Church of the Shining Doorway. I admit it could do with another coat of gloss, but it’s the best they can do at the moment.’ ‘But what sort of people go to a church like that?’ ‘I dunno, but I’ll show you some.’ She followed me puppy-like back to the square, and she had to screw up her eyes and polish her glasses again to get a good look at the two disciples handing out flyers. I checked the window seat of the brasserie, but Linen Jacket had gone. ‘That one, on the left,’ Veronica said, ‘he was waiting for Stella last night when she came home. There was another one, too, seemed very friendly indeed.’ ‘Tall, red-haired? Handsome?’ ‘Why, yes,’ she said, open-mouthed. ‘You just missed him,’ I said smugly. ‘Hang on, something’s going down.’ ‘Going down where?’ she asked, but I ignored her. Of all things, a real live vicar, dog collar and all, had emerged from the underground station and taken what appeared to be an instant dislike to the two Shining Doorway salesmen. He started on the one in the tangerine turtleneck, and then the one who had given me the flyer stepped over and joined in. We couldn’t hear what was being said, but from the startled looks they were getting from innocent pasÂ�sers-by, they probably weren’t comparing notes on the latest Church of England Synod. The vicar character wasn’t letting them off easy, wagging a finger to begin with, shaking a fist within a minute. The two disciples kept their cool, and when the scene began to attract an audience, and as

if at a given signal between them, they backed off into the station, the vicar following them. By this time, I had Veronica’s arm and was leading her across the road. The vicar emerged into the square again, wiping the palms of his hands down his jacket as if to clean himself. ‘What are we doing?’ gasped Veronica. ‘You wanted to know what sort of people go to a church like the Shining Doorway. Well, he seems to know. Let’s ask him.’ I nodded towards the vicar we were on collision course with. ‘What makes you think he’ll talk to us?’ ‘I’ve made a Leap of Faith, dear, a Leap of Faith.’ ‘Is that from the Scriptures?’ ‘No, it’s a Springsteen track; and no, not that Springsteen. The one we call the Boss.’

     

Chapter Seven

   

His name was the Reverend Rickwell, his parish was in Catford and for the price of a cappuccino in a steamy sandwich bar just down the King’s Road, he was willing to talk. For a doughnut he would probably have run through next Sunday’s sermon for us. ‘I just can’t help myself,’ said the Rev (‘Call me Roger’) Rickwell. ‘It’s like a red rag to a bull with me as soon as I see them out on the street. They look as if they’re hunting, if you know what I mean. And, yes, that is a most unchristian thought, I know.’ He put two sachets of brown sugar in his cappuccino and stirred it until the froth had disappeared. What a waste, but I didn’t interrupt him. ‘Religious belief should be personal commitment not peer group pressure, and believe me, some of these cults – that’s what they are, cults – really do know how to exert pressure. It’s so easy in London. Young people living alone, away from home …’ ‘Running away from home, perhaps?’ Veronica chipped in. ‘That too. They are easy prey. They’re offered all the securÂ�ity of a new family with none of the responsibilities, not even the need to think for themselves. Some of these groups have codes of discipline that make the Gestapo look like weakÂ�-kneed liberals. I ... I don’t know. I just find it very hard to tolerate the intolerant. When I see them on the street, I just find myself arguing with them.’ ‘You’ve had a run-in with this lot before?’ I asked. ‘The Shining Doorway? Oh yes. And the Shining Fulcrum and the Furlong of Light and half a dozen others with equally meaningless names. But only when I find them out on the street acting like some moral press gang. And you saw this morning that it’s impossible to argue with them. They just turn and walk away.’ ‘Think they’ve been told to do that?’ ‘Trained to do that, I’d say. The leaders of these cults inspire

tremendous loyalty.’ ‘And how do they do that?’ Veronica was hypnotised by now. This was almost certainly better than her current library book. ‘Sometimes it’s sex or drugs – no, I’m sorry, but it’s true.’ I wasn’t sure whether he was reacting to Veronica’s look of horror or mine of cynicism. ‘But mostly it boils down to psychological dominance. You’ve got to remember that the majority of cult members fall into one of two groups. There are those who have had a bad experience with an organised or established religion. They feel that religion has failed them …’ This time he definitely caught the look on my face. ‘Yes, okay, sometimes we do fail people and badly. But it’s not just my lot, you know. There are disaffected Catholics, Jews, even Muslims attracted to these sects. ‘The other type are the young – average age 16 – and they’re looking for – who knows? Parents, family, security, rebellion, a moral framework? You name it. So lost, so young. Sixteen is no age to be giving your mind away.’ He stirred his coffee some more but made no attempt to drink it. ‘The law says you can do a lot of things at 16,’ said Veronica seriously, and I wondered what she had in mind. ‘You can get a job,’ said Rev Rickwell. ‘The cults don’t like scroungers, they like young people with jobs who are willing to give their earnings to the cause.’ ‘A sort of ten per cent tithe?’ I threw in. ‘More like 50 per cent. In some cases more. I had a parishioner once who woke up one morning to find her husband had left her for a spiritual retreat on the Isle of Skye, having signed the house and car over to the sect. No warning, no hints. She thought he’d been spending his evenings at a carpentry class.’ ‘The poor woman,’ gasped Veronica. ‘What did she do?’ ‘Took a hammer to his bookshelves,’ I said before I could stop myself. The Rev Rickwell let his jaw drop. I couldn’t tell whether he was being genuine or mugging it. ‘You know her?’

‘No. Just a good guess. It wasn’t the Shining Doorway, was it?’ He looked confused for a moment. ‘No, they’re relatively new on the scene, and they specialise in young runaways, mostly girls.’ ‘But if they’re 16, they’re perfectly entitled to leave an unhappy home, aren’t they?’ said Veronica quietly, and we both looked at her. ‘These sects aren’t selling happiness. At best, they could be classed as harmless, at worst, I’d say they were evil.’ He left his coffee alone for a minute and ran a finger round the inside of his dog collar as if he was sweating. I nodded at the gesture. ‘You would say that, though, wouldn’t you?’ I said. ‘Yes, I suppose I would, but I think I would even if I wasn’t wearing this,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘It seemed to frighten them off,’ said Veronica, not taking her eyes off his face. ‘It doesn’t frighten them at all,’ the vicar said despairingly. ‘They adopt a tactic of passive resistance. They just nod or smile – and it’s really hurtful when they smile – and back away; go and find another hunting ground. They move around; they don’t seem to be very territorial.’ ‘You’ve made a study of them, have you?’ I asked. It certainly sounded as if he had. He looked at me before answering. ‘What do you do, Mr ... ? I mean, what’s your job?’ ‘Musician,’ I said quickly, before Veronica could jump in. ‘Well, okay,’ said the vicar, slightly thrown, ‘musician. Don’t tell me you never listen to other musicians in the same field or other types of music.’ ‘You mean keeping up with the competition?’ ‘If you like. I’ve heard it called identifying our market share.’ ‘Are you winning?’ ‘I think we’re now officially a minority. More people in this country go through some form of weekly worship or witness outside the established Church of England than do inside it.’ He allowed himself a faint smile. ‘Maybe we should have started our market

research earlier. What’s the reason for your research? If you don’t mind me asking, that is.’ ‘We’re investigating …’ Veronica started. ‘… the possibility that one of our cousins has joined one of these cults,’ I interrupted. ‘She fits the picture you’ve painted; she’s young for her age, very easily led, could never come to terms with life in London. And, yes, if I’m being honest, her home life could have been happier.’ ‘She’s joined the Shining Doorway?’ ‘It’s possible; I can’t say more than that.’ ‘Can you give me her name, or a photograph? I can try and keep an eye out or an ear to the ground ... and I could tell some others that I know who …’ I held up my hand. ‘The family have asked us to see what we can discover before we go any further. I am sure you can understand why.’ ‘Of course I can.’ I was glad one of us could. ‘But you could help us by telling us everything you know about the Shining Doorway.’ Veronica was giving me what passed for a killer look from behind her glasses. Killer hungry puppy, that is. ‘I think I already have. They’re no different from dozens of other sects. Relatively new on the scene, like I said. I first heard of them up in Islington about a year ago. I didn’t know they were trawling their nets round here until I got off the tube this morning.’ ‘Do they have any distinguishing marks? Any secret codes or anything?’ For the first time he looked at me as if he didn’t believe my motives were other than pearly white. ‘You’re not even contemplating trying to infiltrate them, are you? I don’t think they’d give you house room. They rely on people they can dominate psychologically.’ His eyes flicked towards Veronica, but his ‘On the other hand …’ remained unsaid.

‘What’s their obsession with the Emperor Constantine?’ I asked quickly before Veronica caught on. ‘Their what?’ I produced the flyer I had been given and showed him the text. ‘The quote about leading young people to the shining doorÂ�way of Jesus, it says it’s from Constantine.’ Veronica looked at both of us in turn, as if spectating at Wimbledon. I tried to put her out of her misery. ‘The Roman Emperor Constantine, supposedly the first one to convert to Christianity. Start of the fourth century.’ The Rev Rickwell looked both surprised and impressed. Veronica, just surprised. ‘I suppose it’s an easy assumption to make,’ he said, and I saw Veronica brighten up at that. ‘But it has nothing to do with early Christianity. That will be from the Thoughts of Chairman Constantine, their self-appointed leader, or guru, or whatever you’d like to call him. Tall chap, long ginger hair. Very PC.’ ‘PC?’ I had to ask, just to avoid confusion. I mean, there are still some people about who think that the small ads advertising ‘CDs for hire’ for parties are referring to music and not Cross-Dressers. ‘Professionally Charismatic. If he wasn’t in the religion business, he’d be ... oh, I don’t know ... the president of a students’ union, or someone who did management training videos. I’ve heard it said he’s American originally, though he’s lived here for some time. He seems to be able to inspire tremendous loyalty among certain followers.’ ‘The female ones?’ ‘Yes. I’ve met one girl who did Breakaway and is …’ ‘Breakaway?’ ‘What used to be called de-programming. That got almost as bad a reputation as the cults themselves.’ He turned to Veronica, as if apologising. ‘It could so easily go so badly wrong, you see. And it did when left to the amateurs. It could cause more harm than good. Sometimes permanent damage. You … you’re not thinking of anything like that, are you ... Mr …?’ ‘No, no,’ I reassured him. ‘It won’t come to that. But you said you knew a girl who had done this Breakaway business. What is it? Some

sort of therapy?’ ‘I would not like to think so, as “therapy” means healing. But it is not a single course of action, just a way of re-establishing a person’s worth, their self-belief. Allow them time and space to discover that they can exist, do things – sometimes very basic things – without the support of the sect.’ ‘You mean put them back into their families?’ Veronica asked quietly. ‘Not necessarily. In fact, usually not, as the family seems to be the root cause of many of the problems. That’s why they seek security in the sect. It’s an alternative family, but a false one.’ I thought Veronica was going to argue, so I cut in. ‘This girl, though, the one who did the Breakaway ... ?’ ‘Oh yes, she came through all right. In the end, she regarded Connie – that’s what she called him – in the same way as I suppose you would look back on an old boyfriend.’ He looked at Veronica for inspiration and got none. ‘Sort of ... it was nice while it lasted, but why was I ever taken in to thinking it could have been more?’ ‘Yeah,’ I agreed. ‘Knowing that something is going to end in tears before bedtime before it happens is one of the great skills of life.’ ‘But rare,’ he said, and I nodded. ‘I wish you luck in your search. I must be going. He stood up and didn’t offer to shake hands. ‘Are you sure I can’t put the word out on my network for you? I come into contact with the Salvation Army, the Samaritans, the night shelter people. You never know.’ ‘Thanks, but we’ll give it a shot ourselves,’ I said, wondering how to let him down lightly. ‘But thank you for all your advice and your concern.’ He snorted slightly at that. ‘Concern? Of course I’m concerned. I’ve got a 16-year-old daughter.’ We watched him cross the road through the steamed-up café window, then Veronica said: ‘Nice man.’ ‘Yes.’ ‘You were very evasive about giving him our names,’ she said as if

she genuinely wanted to know why. ‘What? Tell a vicar he’s just been bought a cappuccino by an Angel? That would have made his day, wouldn’t it?’   ‘So, what now?’ she asked from the back of Armstrong. ‘You’re the detective.’ Pause. ‘I was always taught that sarcasm was the lowest form of wit.’ ‘And the learning curve goes up from here on.’ Pause. ‘Sometimes I don’t understand anything you say.’ ‘That’s a relief. I thought I might be losing my touch.’ ‘More sarcasm?’ ‘If you have to ask ...’ ‘Am I going to get an answer?’ ‘Why ask me? Like I said, you’re supposed to be the detective.’ ‘But you seem to have muscled your way in quite effecÂ�tively.’ ‘What?’ ‘You took over the last interview without so much as … a …’ ‘Whatever. All right, you do the next one then. On your own.’ ‘I will. You can bet money on that.’ There was a blessed silence for two minutes. ‘Where is our next interview, exactly?’ ‘I thought you wanted to go and see Stella’s father and report in. Plus, you need to get him to change that cheque he sent to Albert. That’s right, isn’t it?’ ‘Oh yes. Yes.’   But first we had to visit Veronica’s old office. She insisted on it. There might have been post waiting on the mat. Albert might have changed his mind and be back at his desk. Clients might have been forming a queue, clogging up the highway. And anyway, she needed a few ‘personal’ things from her bedroom. I didn’t ask about those, but I did ask if there was a file on the Rudgard girl, and she said probably, as Albert was very efficient at

opening files. So I agreed to the visit. After all, it was broad daylight and surely safe enough. On the way, I pointed out that Albert was still likely to be in hospital and, anyway, he couldn’t get in as the new door Dod had fitted had a new lock and I still had the keys. (I handed one over, keeping the spare in my pocket when she didn’t ask for it.) Veronica told me not to worry about Albert as he had keys to the back door into the alley at the rear. I tried not to register too much surprise. First, surprise at Veronica’s cavalier – for her – attitude to Albert, but thinking about it, she’d hardly mentioned him for about an hour. Secondly, it got me thinking about the break-in by the two trainee gangsters who had paid me a visit. If there was a back way in, why risk a full-frontal assault in daylight? It only made sense if it was a warning raid, an elaborate message for Albert, rather than a burglary. And Albert seemed to have got the message. But what on earth had he done to upset the local infant mafia? The place looked the same as when I had left it the previous day, and the street seemed clear of undesirables. Veronica was chattering about whether she should really let me see client confidential files and whether she shouldn’t really be on observation duty back in Wimpole Street, but I wasn’t listenÂ�ing. I kept my eyes peeled for anyone taking an interest in us and let her unlock the door and start up the stairs. I felt marginally better when I dropped the latch on the door behind us and when she reached Albert’s office without being jumped. ‘Oh, fish-hooks!’ she said loudly; so loudly, I jumped. ‘What now?’ I peered around the corner of the office door. She was holding the shell of the camera one of my tormentors had smashed with his hammer. ‘Put it on the insurance,’ I sighed, relieved. ‘But I’m supposed to have a camera when I go on surveilÂ�lance,’ she pouted, having just remembered the fact. ‘What if the client wants photographs?’ ‘I’ve got a camera you can … rent … for a few days. Put it on

expenses.’ ‘And the tripod looks bent as well,’ she sulked. ‘Done during the break-in,’ I said helpfully. ‘Why don’t you just show me where the files are and then get what you need. We’ve a lot to do today.’ She continued to stare at the camera, like a kid finding its first dead crab on the seashore. ‘I’ll have to get the film,’ she muttered. ‘Don’t worry about that. I’ve got film in my camera.’ Though I couldn’t for the life of me remember what was on the first hall-dozen shots. Probably things you shouldn’t ask a chemist to develop. ‘No, I mean the photographs.’ I looked blank. It wasn’t hard. ‘That Albert took of me the other night. I dropped the film off to be developed. It’ll be ready by now.’ ‘Er ... do I really need to know what sort of photographs these were?’ ‘Passport pictures, you know, I told you – for an identity card Albert was going to have made for me.’ ‘Oh,’ I said vaguely. As she collected her things from her bedroom, I sat in Albert’s office chair and read the slim file that had the single word RUDGARD in felt-tip pen on the cover. It contained three things: a head-andshoulders studio photograph of Estelle Rudgard taken about two years earlier, I guessed; a typed transcript of the meeting between her father and Albert, which told me nothing I had not now gleaned from Veronica; and two pages torn from a shorthand notebook. The notepaper contained a mixture of words, doodles and T-line shorthand outlines. I knew T-line, having once lived across the road from a secretarial college, or at least the basics like don’t bother to look for vowels, they’re the first thing to go. But Albert’s scrawl wasn’t an attempt to take dictation, just an aid to jog his memory later. There were no coherent sentences, just phrases. Albert’s thoughts as he listened to Estelle’s father. And it didn’t take a genius to work out the basic sense.  

Father – argument? Where mother? (Dead.) Never run before. School? Girlfriends? £150 p.d. Boy? Sir? Keep quiet. Buck??? £200 p.d. Office Cavalry. Reference? Not hiding? 4 days retnr.   Most of the rest of the pages contained doodles down their right hand side. A psychiatrist would have told you that Albert was either designing a landscaped garden or was a very sick man indeed. What I could read made sense. He questioned the father’s motive, asked, or meant to ask, about family and friends and suspected Estelle’s motives of giving her home address to the temp agency if she really wanted to stay hidden. I liked the way he had upped his perday fee along the way and settled on a four-day minimum retainer. One thing still foxed me: the reference to ‘Buck???’. That was in script, not shorthand, so I couldn’t be getting the wrong phonetic. In T-line, the same outline could have been ‘book’ or ‘back’. If it was rhyming slang, it could mean anything. The underlined ‘Sir?’ note would have fooled me had I not already guessed the identity of Estelle/Stella’s father. Albert had taken a full note of his address at the bottom of the second page, so he knew where to send the bill. As Veronica hadn’t mentioned this little titbit, I presumed it had been done while she was not present. He had even added a phone number. Veronica reappeared in the office doorway. She had changed into a hound’s-tooth suit far too heavy for the weather, and more sensible, black, low heels than the ones she had been wearing. She held an overnight bag that bulged at the sides. ‘Apart from the kitchen stuff, I seem to travelling with all my worldly possessions about me,’ she announced. ‘Let’s leave the kitchen sink for now, eh? You’ve got a phone call to make.’ ‘I have? To whom?’

‘To your client, Sir Drummond Rudgard. See if he’s home and ask if you can visit him this afternoon.’ I looked at my SeaStar. ‘Give us an hour and half to get there.’ ‘Get where? Did you find an address?’ ‘Didn’t you know?’ I said smugly. ‘I saw the franking mark on the envelope with the cheque in. Sir Drummond runs the famous Classic Car Centre from his ancestral pile.’ I consulted Albert’s note, then gave her the page with the phone number. ‘Sandpit Lodge, Great Pardoe, Hertfordshire. It’s classic car buff heaven there, so I’m told.’ She pushed her glasses back onto her face. ‘Did you say “Sir”?’ And when I nodded: ‘Well, he never said, though you could tell he was a gentleman.’ Then she looked me up and down. ‘You’re going dressed like that?’ I decided life was too short to argue, and anyway, my T-shirt was clean and, for once, discreet, and surely even the minor English aristocracy had heard of Coors Beer by now? Veronica dialled the number twice then said: ‘The line’s dead.’ ‘Give it here.’ I took the receiver from her. ‘I think Albert’s started to move out and had the phone cut off.’ Either that or the local vandals were getting inventive. But I dismissed that. They’d keep the phone on just to make obscene calls, and so many people have mobiles these days, it means nothing to cut a land-line. ‘There’s a phone box out on Shepherd’s Bush Green,’ she said cheerfully, masking the urge to swear at Albert. ‘I shan’t be a minute. Oh yes, I will, though. I can pick up those photos on the way back.’ ‘Missing you already,’ I muttered as I followed her downÂ�stairs. She dropped her bag on the floor as she opened the door. On the doorstep, she turned and asked me if I had change for the phone. I gave her two 50-pence pieces and a phoneÂ�card with about two quid’s worth of credit and told her not to stint herself as it would give a bad impression if the pips went in the middle of a business call. As I did this, I scanned the street and saw what I least wanted to

see coming towards us. ‘You hurry along,’ I said, pushing her gently on the arm. ‘And I’ll put your bag in the car.’ ‘Okay,’ she agreed, noticing nothing amiss, and strode off. I went back inside, but kept the door open about six inches. The black kid in the Raiders T-shirt had two other black kids with him today, though neither was the Arsenal fan I had clouted with the tripod. Maybe Raider had been so spaced out he couldn’t remember anything. Fat chance. The three of them drew level with Armstrong and, knowing I could see them, casually walked around him trying the door handles. When that got them nowhere, Raider hopped up and sat on the bonnet. One of the others, a tall skinny piece of work, stood on the rear bumper and bounced up and down to see if there was any suspension there. Unless they had a blowtorch or a sledgehammer between them, I didn’t think they would do much physical damage to Armstrong. Then again, these boys probably had access to ground-to-air missiles. I closed the door and slipped the latch, then charged upstairs and into Veronica’s kitchen. It took about 30 seconds to realise that short of arming myself with a tin-opener (and I didn’t think they’d stay still long enough), there was nothing there to help. Albert’s office was equally devoid of suitable weapons, and I kicked myself for letting Dod walk off with the knife and the hammer from Round One. Then I tried Albert’s kitchenette. Sure, there were knives, but carrying knives gets you into trouble, let alone using them. Rolling pins, on the other hand ... I made a menial note to thank Albert if I saw him again. It’s nice to see a man take an interest in pastry, especially at his age. And feeling the weight of the wooden pin in my hand and the comfort as I slipped it up the sleeve of my jacket so it could drop into my grip if needed, I wasn’t surprised that most violence in this country was domestic. I picked up Veronica’s bag and checked the street before moving

out. They were still leaning or sitting on Armstrong. I took a deep breath as I stepped out, and then another as I heard the door click shut behind me, ‘Yo here again,’ said Raider when I was five feet from the driver’s door. ‘Just passing through.’ I held up Veronica’s bag, which I was carrying in my left hand, my right arm stiff by my side. ‘Like I said, we’re moving out.’ ‘Yo taking yo time about it.’ He didn’t move from Armstrong’s bonnet, but the other two managed to put themÂ�selves between me and the door in the split second I had taken my eyes off them, Keep it calm. They don’t want a punch-up in the street in the middle of the day, not with people about. And there were people about. I could sense somebody walking down the street even as I tried to think the situation through. The trouble was, I didn’t know if they had thought it through. ‘We’ve taken the hint, we’re moving out, okay? I can’t say fairer than that.’ Raider looked aimlessly into the air, enjoying himself. ‘Oh, I don’t think yo is trying nearly hard enough.’ ‘I expect you hear that a lot,’ I said, determined to get one dig in somehow. ‘What you mean by that, eh?’ I started to relax my arm and felt the rolling pin slide down my sleeve. ‘Hey, what you doin’ in that man’s car?’ came a female voice from behind my back. ‘You shouldn’t be sitting up ... Hey, hey, hey. Don’t I know you? I know yo mother, don’t I ... ?’ That was all it took. The three of them, Raider in the lead, were off down the street without even a glance or a swivel-finger gesture in their wake. I turned and smiled. ‘Why, hello, Mrs Delacourt,’ I beamed. Her expression told me she was in no mood to be blagged, and that she was well aware of what she had just done for me.

‘Are you gonna play in the street all day?’ she snapped. ‘Or are you going to tear yourself away and get to work on my Crimson’s case?’ ‘I’m on the job, Mrs D, on the job.’

     

Chapter Eight

   

On the way through north London, somewhere around Hendon, I stopped at a newsagent’s shop and spent nearly ten quid buying the first four classic car magazines I could put my hands on. I could have spent much more; there were more car magazines on the second shelf down than there were girlie magazines on the top one. I gave them to Veronica to read and brief herself and while away the journey. And, hopefully, to shut her up for an hour or so. She said she couldn’t read as it made her car sick. So I told her to look at the pictures instead. That worked for a while, but nowhere near long enough, and then she was asking questions about what sort of person was it who went in for classic cars, and what was a classic car anyway? Both were interesting questions, mainly because I couldn’t answer either of them. What was a ‘classic car’ – one that was too young and too common (and too cheap) to be a vintage car? Or one that was of a ‘classic’ design? Now that I would accept if you were talking of something like a British Mini of the late 1950s, or a Volkswagen Beetle, or even a Fiat 500 or a Citroen 2CV. All classic design shapes. Not necessarily good design – though they all lasted well – Â�but certainly distinctive. But a 1957 Wolseley, which even the fanzines said was ‘better viewed from a distance’? Or a 35-year-old Rover 100, nicknamed ‘the Aunty’, designed especially for people not in a hurry? Or, believe it or not, just about any Ford Cortina ever made that didn’t end up being used for ram raids or for giving driving lessons to apprentice drug barons in Brixton? I didn’t hold with the theory that classic cars were bought, restored (lovingly) and admired for their design. All the feminist theories of penis envy or penis substitute simply wilt away when you look at the outline of a 1963 Riley Elf, and no-one in their right mind could

describe a Morris Marina as phallic. Anyone who drove some of the acclaimed ‘classic cars’ as a means of expressing their sexual prowess was in serious need of treatment, and I don’t mean in the service bay of your friendly Quick Fit fitter. But if there was a connection, and I drove an old, square, dynamic-as-a-brick black London cab, what did that say about me? Modern cars are so boring, the classic car nut would say. For effect, you need a car with outstanding looks, they would claim. Why? To pull the birds? I don’t think so. In my experience, women are far more sensible, and sensitive to their creature comforts. I’ve known none who actually got turned on by the cramped, bony seats and the overwhelming smell of faded leather, Brylcreem, wet dog and dust. No, that wasn’t the attraction. A better explanation could be found in the columns of the magazines Veronica was flipping through. The interviews with, and features on, the enthusiasts were full of statements such as: ‘Scraping off the underseal alone look the best part of a year ...’ Or, ‘It needed new kingpins so I reamed them out myself …’ And each statement would be made to glow with an almost erotic pride, if, that is, you found red oxide primer, semi-elliptic leaf springs, bushes or shackle pins, erotic. This wasn’t about appealing to women, this was escaping from them, an excuse for men to behave badly in the garage, restoring rusted piles of metal whilst up to their wrists in oil and grease. And the magazines even had the classic car equivalent of the softporn magazines’ ‘Readers’ Wives’ column. Almost invariably, these were letters, with grainy black-and-white photographs of wrecked or abandoned cars found by the fan whilst on holiday. Check out this little beauty, say the accompanying letters. What a fender; look at the hubcaps on her! And invariably the photograph shows a barely-recognisable piece of squashed metal. Fancy finding a Peugeot 304 after 20 years in a field in Kenya, gushes the text. Or the Standard Ensign in the drainage ditch in Cornwall, or the World War II Kubelwagen on Crete? (Personally, I’d be more impressed if they had found the

Ensign on Crete and the Kubelwagen in a lay-by on the Penzance ring road.) To judge from the holiday snaps sent in, virtually every British car of the 1950s and 1960s ended up somewhere in Greece, so why waste film on all those old ruins? I had never understood the fascination. Vehicles were there to get you from A to B or, preferably, back from B in one piece, with as few people as possible knowing where A was. The only useful thing I had ever learned from any of the car magazines was from a story about a newish Porsche 911 found in a million-gallon lagoon of pig slurry. It had floated to the top even though the windows had been opened and the petrol cap removed before it was pushed in. Lesson to be learned: next time you want to scam the insurance company, open the front boot as well. The damn things are so well made, the boot traps enough air to raise it. (Another tip: don’t push it in, drive it in so the engine is running when it goes under. That really buggers things up, and it’s a write-off even if it reappears.) ‘What’s the attraction?’ Veronica asked from the back, tossÂ�ing the last of the magazines on to the seat at her side. ‘For men, I mean?’ ‘What? The attraction of cars?’ ‘No, of collecting.’ ‘Eh?’ ‘You know, they’re always collecting something. Cars, stamps, beer bottle labels. Bird-watching and train-spotting, they’re like collecting as well.’ ‘And women don’t collect things?’ I asked. I knew one who had an unrivalled collection of worn-once boxer shorts from airline pilots, but I didn’t think that was what she meant. ‘Not like men. Not obsessively. That’s something peculiar to men.’ ‘Well, I always believe in travelling light.’ ‘Is that one of your Rules of Life?’ ‘Yes,’ I said, looking at her in Armstrong’s mirror, and thinking maybe I should listen to myself more.  

Sandpit Lodge was an impressive pile. Once. If only one architect had been responsible, then with the best will in the world, he must have been on drugs. More likely, the place had been built piecemeal over the decades and at the whim of whatever retrospective fashion was in vogue, with a series of architects each determined not so much to outdo the previous one, as settle a score with him. Consequently, there was a turret here, a square tower of the type found in 19th Century breweries there, the odd splash of mock-Tudor stud work, and a Victorian west wing that probably had mad spinster aunts on a waiting list for rooms. If it had had a sign saying ‘Not Used in the Filming Brideshead Revisited’ I wouldn’t have been surprised. Instead, it had one giving prices of admission for visitors, families, cars and coach parties. Then another, advertising cream teas available (summer only). And one advertising – for a modest extra charge – the availability of guided tours of the house. Having seen it from the outside, I had to admire their nerve. How much did they charge to let you out? Because the house was such a mish-mash of styles (and I suspected that few of them were actually authentic), I doubted if the owner had run into trouble getting planning permission for the huge aircraft hangar of a building that loomed up out of the lawns to the left. The planner must have thought that as the house itself was so ghastly, a few thousand square feet of glass and aluminium couldn’t make matters worse. Above the sliding doors of the hangar was a cut-out sign about ten feet high saying CLASSIC CAR CENTRE. The graphic designer had done each letter without using the same typeface twice. Whatever he’d been drinking at the time, I fancied a double. Between the hangar and the house was a gravel drive bulging into a semi-circle, bounded by a low, curved wall that I knew was called a ha-ha. I knew this because there was another sign saying: ‘Please Park ‘Em Pretty Against the Ha-Ha’. Someone had added, underneath in black fell-tip pen, ‘This is not a joke’, and nobody had bothered to clean it off.

There was a gap in the ha-ha dead centre (actually, slightly off dead centre, to the right) and by it stood a wooden sentry box construction. On top of it, pointing down, was a handÂ�painted sign in the shape of an arm and hand with extended forefinger, saying PAY HERE. It looked as if it had been stolen from a fun fair. I parked Armstrong as instructed, but unlike the other dozen or so cars there, I reversed up to the ha-ha so I was pointing towards the exit and the B road we had taken after leaving Hatfield. (Rule of Life No. 277: Always park facing the way you’d make a quick exit.) ‘Impressive, isn’t it?’ said Veronica, climbing regally from the back of the cab. ‘Distinctive,’ I conceded. Then I checked my watch. ‘We’re early. Fancy a look around the car museum?’ ‘Whatever for?’ ‘Would you go to Longleat and not see the lions?’ She shrugged and followed me towards the pay box. At least she didn’t ask if they had a lion museum at Longleat. A small, skinny youth with dark curly hair bobbed out of the wooden kiosk like a jack-in-the-box as we approached. He had two old-fashioned ticket machines slung across his chest, bandoleero style, the sort bus conductors used to use – or so I’ve seen in old movies. One dispensed orange tickets, the other, blue. His hands poised over them like a gunfighter. ‘Classic Car Centre, or the unguided tour of the Lodge, sir? Or can I do you for both?’ he chirped. ‘We’re here to see Sir Drummond Rudgard,’ I said. He smiled at me. ‘The owner,’ said Veronica unhelpfully. ‘On business.’ ‘You’ll save two pounds if you buy both tickets now,’ he said, still smiling. ‘We’re here to see Sir Drummond,’ Veronica started indigÂ�nantly. ‘And I don’t think …’ The kid still smiled. ‘You’ve heard all this before, haven’t you?’ I eyeballed him. ‘Twice a day, three times Saturday and Sunday. And I’ve only

worked here a month. You’d be amazed how many punters try and get in for free. They’re here on business or delivering something or are personal friends of the management. The worst are the National Trust members. They try it on, then when they have to pay, ask for discount by producing their membership card.’ ‘And I don’t suppose this place is in the National Trust?’ ‘Hey, come on. The Trust ain’t that desperate. So what’ll it be?’ ‘Two tickets for the museum,’ I conceded. ‘But we really do have business with Sir Drummond, in about half an hour.’ He cranked out two orange tickets, and I had to pay as Veronica made no move to. ‘Half an hour will just about do you, sir,’ he said as he counted out my change. ‘If you walk slowly.’ ‘How slowly?’ I asked. ‘Try limping.’ We had crunched halfway across the gravel before Veronica said: ‘What a rude youth. Do you think we should report him to Sir Drummond?’ ‘Only for a pay rise. He’s doing a good job. And I don’t get the impression that there’s a queue to take his place.’ As we approached the sliding doors of the museum hangar, it was obvious there was no-one to take our orange tickets. Nor were there any attendants or guides. The Classic Car Centre was very much a do-it-yourself operation. Even the notices describing the cars on show were home-made, typed and then enlarged on a photocopier and covered with what looked like plastic kitchen film. But to be fair, the cars themselves looked to be in immaculate condition and clean enough to cook pizza on, though even thinking such a thing would probably induce hysteria in the true classic car fan. Two-thirds of the way down the hangar was a sign saying ‘Commercial Vehicles’, with the larger exhibits – old trucks with company names and slogans on the side. But the main display was of saloon cars, mostly British, though with odd foreigners, in two lines, each car at a slight diagonal. I counted 32 different models

down one phalanx, and there were about the same down the other side of the hangar. Some crude guesswork and some shaky mental arithmetic gave me a net value of about £400,000-worth of cars under the one roof, and I had no idea what the commercial vehicles were worth. Sir Drummond may not believe in spending money on staff or graphic designers, but he certainly put his cash where his cars were. There was no logic – to me anyway – to the order of display. As we walked down the central aisle, to our left were: a metallic silver blue Alvis (1961), a white Austin HeaÂ�ley ‘Frogeye’ Sprite (1959), a Wolseley Hornet in racing green (1964), and a dark tan Vauxhall FD Victor, which the blurb on the sign in front of it told me had been voted Car of the 1967 Motor Show. To our right, the first car was a 1962 Ford Zephyr, the Mark II mind you, and the blurb told us to note the two-tone blue paint job, the alloy wheels and the external metal sun visor. It didn’t tell us why. Then came an American import, a 30-year-old Lincoln Continental with black and tan upholstery and a seven-litre engine. We learned it had been voted the seventh most luxurious car in the world in 1964, and so now we could sleep nights. Then came a bright red Triumph Herald 12/50 from 1965 and a black Austin A40 from 1963, the car that if invented 20 years later would have been marketed as a hot hatchback. Well, tepid hatchback anyway. Beyond that lot stretched a proud line-up of Rileys, Austins, Fords, the odd Fiat and Citroen, even a Bentley or two. Okay, so there were a couple of classic designs there, but the majority of cars were the sort that, if you were behind them in a traffic jam, you’d ask yourself how the thing managed to stay on the road, then you’d drop a gear and overtake and forget it before it had gone from your mirror. There were only two other visitors, a father and son way up the other end of the hangar. Their voices echoed in the spaces, and though I couldn’t hear the words, the kid was bored. So was Veronica. ‘Is that it, then? You just look at them? Cars.’

‘What did you expect? Practical displays of ram raiding? An interactive display of hotwiring skills?’ ‘Well, there’s nothing here for the kids, is there? I mean …’ She paused, then looked at me. ‘Did you just say hotwiring?’ I made a dance of looking around just to emphasise that there was no-one else within 50 yards. ‘Must have been me.’ ‘You know how to hotwire a car?’ Her eyes gleamed. Or it could have been the strip lights reflecting in her glasses. ‘Yes,’ I said, knowing I’d regret it. ‘And I can hotwire aeroplanes too.’ ‘Now you’re having me on.’ She all but wagged a finger at me. ‘No, seriously. They’re actually easier than cars. Light airÂ�craft, that is; you know, with a propeller at the front. Not a jumbo or anything.’ ‘Could you teach me? To do a car, I mean?’ It was time to change the subject. ‘I think it’s time to see Sir Drummond. You can tell him he’s got a fascinating collection.’ ‘But can you?’ ‘Why do you need to know stuff like that?’ I said as I turned to go. ‘Albert said he would teach me about the hardware.’ ‘What hardware?’ ‘Detective work these days is all hardware. Electronic listening devices, alarm systems, video surveillance, planting bugs, sweeping for bugs, all that stuff. I don’t even know about cars. Or picking locks,’ she added as an afterthought. ‘These are the tools of my trade and I need to learn about them.’ I bit back a retort about going equipped for burglary when I saw she was serious and also embarrassed about having to ask for help. ‘You don’t need those things,’ I said carefully. ‘Play to your strengths, don’t get hooked on gadgets. If you can’t drive, you don’t need to know how to hotwire. If you can’t talk your way through a door, why do you want to enter an empty room? And if nobody’s home, smash the frigging door in, find what you want and get out. You’d be no good at a secret search. And what do you need videos

and listening devices for when you’ve got eyes? People will always tell you things, if you ask them right.’ ‘Like that vicar this morning?’ ‘Exactly. And maybe sometimes its what they don’t tell you that’s important. But those are the only work skills you need that I can see. Keep Detection Simple. Campaign For Real Detectives. Talk to people and to hell with the electronic devices.’ ‘You mean forget all the hardware?’ ‘Absolutely. Detective Unplugged. There’s a title for you.’   If we had been expecting a liveried flunky or even a butler to greet us as we entered Sandpit Lodge, then we were about 20 years too late. Unlike in the Classic Car Centre, howÂ�ever, there was someone here to take our tickets and sell us a range of souvenir brochures that sat in a wooden stand, yellowing from the sunlight through the open door. She put down her knitting as we entered. She looked like a retired headmistress from the local village school. ‘Good afternoon,’ she said. ‘Would you like to wander round yourself or can I give you a tour? I don’t mind doing it in the slightest, but to be honest, I don’t know too much about the house. This isn’t my normal job. I used to be the headmistress at the village school and I just do this to help out.’ ‘Actually, we’re here on business, to see the owner,’ Veronica said, warming to the old dear instantly. She proÂ�duced one of her business cards and held it out like a wizard would point a wand. ‘Well … Miss ... Blugden ... I suppose I’d better find Sir Drummond. He didn’t tell me he was expecting visitors, well, apart from Mr Buck, who knows the way anyway. And I don’t like leaving the desk unattended for too long …’ Veronica took the initiative. ‘Please don’t worry about that. I’ll keep an eye on things. Â�I think you can see from my card that we have a reputation for trust and discretion, or Sir Drummond wouldn’t be employing me, would he?’ ‘Of course he wouldn’t, you’re quite right,’ said the sweet old thing as she peered at the card. ‘My, my, private and confidential.

Well, of course. I won’t be a minute.’ She tottered off into the gloomy recesses of the hallway and through a dark oak door marked ‘Private – Staff Only’. ‘How was that?’ Veronica beamed at me. ‘Exactly right,’ I said, just thankful she’d shown the right card. ‘Just remember what we rehearsed when we get to see the main man.’ ‘And I get to take the lead.’ ‘Sure.’ She turned on her heels to have a better look at the hall and the impressive oak staircase that did three right-angle turns up to the first floor. I leaned over the old lady’s desk to check out the contents of her cash drawer and deduced that business was not exactly booming. ‘Oh, I hate that,’ said Veronica suddenly. ‘What?’ I snapped. I hadn’t really been thinking about claiming our admission fee to the car museum back in cash. Well, maybe just thinking about it. ‘Signs like that.’ She pointed to one of three that said that photography was not allowed inside the house. ‘They really annoy me. They don’t let you lake photographs so you have to buy their rotten postcards. It’s the same in all the big country houses. It’s a swiz.’ Oh dear, she did have a lot to learn. ‘There were some in the car museum, but it’s nothing to do with postcards.’ ‘It isn’t?’ ‘‘Fraid not. It’s a favourite trick of robbers to come round as visitors and photograph the alarm systems so they can work out how to disable them. So, no photography, please. It’s probably written into the insurance policy.’ Though I hadn’t seen anything worth stealing in the house yet. ‘That’s useful to know,’ she said slowly, then looked at me with an awful sincerity. ‘Do you think I should start making notes?’ You should have started about ten years ago, I thought, but I didn’t say it as the headmistress was holding the door at the end of the hall open.

‘Sir Drummond will see you now,’ she announced, just like I could have guessed she would. ‘Thank you,’ said Veronica, nodding graciously. ‘He’s asked Mr Buck to stay for the meeting,’ the headÂ�mistress confided as we passed her and moved into a short corridor. ‘Who’s Mr Buck?’ hissed Veronica out of the corner of her mouth. ‘I’ve no idea,’ I hissed back. But he’d rated three question marks in Albert’s notebook. ‘Let’s keep an open mind. I’ve found it’s the best policy.’ ‘Open mind,’ she said to herself. ‘Open mind.’ The door at the other end of the corridor was half open, then fully open as a tweed-jacketed arm pushed it back. ‘Miss Blugden, come in. I’m glad you found the place.’ Then he saw me. He was about my height, which isn’t saying much, about 60, and he had the roundest face I’d ever seen. Almost a perfect circle, ruddy-complexioned and iced with a receding crop of white hair and a snowy white, clipped moustache. He held out a hand for Veronica to shake, which she did with a muffled and very respectful ‘Sir Drummond …’ under her breath. I could tell that the tweed jacket had seen better days, but it went with the scuffed brown shoes and the shirt with the slightly frayed collar that you hope nobody will notice. ‘And this is ... ?’ He looked at me like he had a master’s degree in eye contact. ‘Mr Maclean,’ said Veronica, as we’d rehearsed. ‘He’s an associate and also one of our regular drivers. Junior associÂ�ate,’ she added vindictively. I shook Sir Drummond’s hand, and I felt Veronica scowl at me because I didn’t bow. ‘Come in, come in,’ he said with mock bonhomie. ‘The library is usually the only place one can find sanctuary when the house is open to the public.’ I smiled as if I had these problems all the time and didn’t mention that I hadn’t noticed him having to beat off the visitors with a stick.

The library was a library in the sense that it had maybe as many books as the average Oxfam shop. No leather-bound editions here, just popular paperback fiction. There was a fireplace but no fire, and no more than half a dozen pieces of furniture, including a motheaten set of armchairs. From one of these arose a tall, angular man wearing a pinstripe suit and the sort of black-framed glasses Michael Caine hasn’t worn since 1966. He didn’t seem to be the type you could warm to instantly. But, as I’d said to Veronica, we should adopt an open mind. ‘This is Simon Buck,’ said Sir Drummond. ‘I’ve asked him to join us. He’s my solicitor.’ I decided to save time and hate him on sight.

     

Chapter Nine

   

‘I understand that you may have something positive to tell Sir Drummond,’ said Buck precisely. I hadn’t counted on anyone else being present, and certainly not some legal Doberman, so I could only hope that it didn’t throw Veronica. ‘Well, we have some news,’ she said, sticking to the script, ‘but first there is a small administrative matter to do with your cheque.’ She produced a purse from her shoulder bag. It was a brightlycoloured, velcro-fastened wallet with illustrations campaigning for the protection of endangered species, and pretty embarrassing. But if she had produced a gun or said, ‘The murderer is in this room …’ (after all, we were in the library), she could not have got their attention more fully. Sir Drummond went red – bright, circular red – in the face. ‘Is there a problem?’ ‘It’s made out to Mr Block.’ Veronica held the offending rectangle out towards him. Sir Drummond didn’t seem to want to touch it, and made no move towards her. Buck stepped closer and leaned over so he could point his glasses at it. ‘That seems to be correct. And the date is accurate, and you obviously haven’t tried to cash it.’ At that point, Sir Drummond exhaled. ‘So I don’t quite see ... ?’ ‘The problem is at our end, I’m afraid,’ she said confidently. I was impressed. ‘Albert – Mr Block – has been taken ill rather suddenly, and is unlikely to return to work.’ ‘Good heavens, nothing too serious, I hope?’ This from Buck, who seemed genuinely concerned, certainly more so than Sir Drummond, who just concentrated on breathing more easily. ‘A mild heart attack,’ I said. ‘He’ll survive, but he’s not up to

coming back into the team. He’s thinking of early retireÂ�ment, once he’s out of hospital.’ ‘So it would be very helpful if we could have another retainer, in my name.’ Very businesslike, I thought. Well done, Veronica. ‘If it’s not too much trouble,’ she added, and I despaired. ‘So you just want another cheque, made out to ... ?’ ‘V Blugden, please. Miss.’ She handed Buck a card, and he slipped it into the breast pocket of his jacket. ‘And this was paid against an invoice?’ Buck asked, taking the cheque from her. ‘Invoices are not normally issued on retainers but I am sure I could let you have a VAT receipt.’ Good girl. ‘That won’t be necessary.’ Buck turned to Sir Drummond. ‘Shall I take care of this, Drum? I have my cheque book here.’ Sir Drummond cleared his throat. ‘Thank you, Simon, that would be ... convenient.’ Buck sat down, produced a cheque book and balanced it on his knee. He wrote it out, consulting Veronica’s card once in a prissy sort of way, and then detached it from the book, scribbled something on the counterfoil and handed it over. He swapped it for Sir Drummond’s, and while Veronica checked the details, I noticed that he folded the cheque made out to Albert and put that in his breast pocket along with Veronica’s card. ‘And now may we have your report?’ asked Buck. ‘And please sit down,’ said Sir Drummond, relegated to the role of housekeeper. Veronica made herself comfortable in one of the armchairs, pulled the hem of her skirt down with both hands, then turned to me. ‘I think I will let my associate outline our findings to date,’ she said with a regal nod of her head. I realised she meant me, but tried not to show my surprise. ‘Your daughter started work this week as fill-in receptionist in a medical practice in Wimpole Street. She got the job through the agency you told Mr Block about.’

Buck shot a glance at Sir Drummond, who was leaning forward in his chair, his hands clasped between his knees. Buck produced a pen and a small black notebook or diary. ‘Name?’ ‘The senior consultant is called Linscott. Full details will be in our written report.’ ‘I see.’ He wrote something. ‘Proceed.’ ‘The job may last a week or perhaps two, or more. The important thing for your peace of mind, Sir Drummond, is that she seems fit and well and is actually working, earning a living, so she’s one up on most runaways.’ ‘Yes, yes,’ he burbled. ‘That’s something, isn’t it?’ ‘Have you spoken to her?’ asked Buck. ‘No, no verbal contact as yet. We have maintained covert longrange optical surveillance only,’ I said, as if I knew what it meant. ‘And you have found out where she is living?’ This, again, from Buck, not the father. ‘We have traced her to Belgravia, but we have not been able to narrow it down as yet,’ I lied. ‘Good God, she’s not camping out in Victoria Coach Station, is she?’ At last, a reaction from the desolate dad. ‘Oh no,’ said Veronica, ‘she’s staying with some friends.’ If she had been in range, I would have kicked her. ‘Who?’ asked Sir Drummond quickly. ‘And where?’ asked Buck, pen poised. ‘We are simply not sure,’ I said quickly. ‘There is a chance, however, that she has joined a religious group.’ I checked their faces for reaction to that, and got the distinct impression that they were not expecting us to hold the front page on this one. ‘Has Stella, sorry, Estelle, done anything like this before?’ I tried, when they failed to register shock, horror or disbelief. ‘Like what? Run away? No, never,’ said Sir Drummond, almost distractedly. ‘All teenage girls think about it, or so I’m told. And when her mother died four – no, five years ago, I was very worried

about her then. But she seems to have her head screwed on.’ ‘What about religion? Any interest before?’ ‘None whatsoever. Always got the impression she would rather slope off for a cigarette behind the bicycle sheds than go on church parade, or whatever it was they did at her boarding school.’ ‘Do you have a name for this religious group?’ Buck tapped the nib of his pen against his notebook. ‘The Shining Doorway,’ said Veronica before I could flash her a warning look, or alternatively heave half a brick at her. ‘But no address?’ He stared at her. ‘No, not as yet,’ I said before she cracked and came over all honest. The game plan had been to keep some aces in the hole. Now we were down to one. Buck began to fold his notebook away. ‘Sir Drummond, I believe you told Mr Block that Estelle was upset about a boyfriend?’ I fished. Buck started: ‘Drum, there’s no need to …’ but Sir DrumÂ�mond held up the palm of a hand to stop him. ‘Yes, she was sweet on a young fellow called Lee, Carrick Lee. As you might guess from a name like that, he was a bit of gypsy. A real one. A Romany, a Pikey. Wandered in here last summer after there’d been a fun fair in the village. Knew about cars, so I let him work in the museum. He came and went as it pleased him; it was far from what you’d call regular employment. About two months ago, he just disappeared; dropped totally out of sight. Not heard a word since. I thought it was rather bad form. Ungrateful. Estelle, on the other hand, thought I’d driven him out because I disapproved of their relationship.’ ‘Did you?’ asked Veronica, then blushed. ‘Damn right I did,’ blustered Sir Drummond, ‘and I would have got rid of him if I’d thought for one minute it was getting too serious. But Estelle is far too sensible to let it get out of hand. A quick tumble or two in the bushes, that’s natural. Isn’t it?’ We all realised from Veronica’s expression that it might be natural, but it wasn’t compulsory.

‘As your solicitor, Drum, I have to say this is not germane to anything we need to discuss here,’ pronounced Buck haughtily. ‘But that’s my point, Simon. I was just going to say to … I’m sorry, what was your name?’ ‘Maclean. I’m a junior associate.’ ‘Does that mean junior partner in the business?’ asked Buck, sharp as – well, sharp as a solicitor. ‘No, I’m a freelance. I help out on an ad hoc basis.’ I thought he might like the ‘ad hoc’, but he didn’t seem overly impressed. ‘You were saying, Sir Drummond?’ ‘Oh, yes. It was just that Estelle came home from university and we had an almighty row and she stormed out vowing to find this Lee chappy and live happily ever after.’ ‘And you think that’s what she has done in London?’ ‘Obviously not. She’s cooled off, got herself a job. Probably forgotten all about him. She’ll soon get bored with having a job.’ ‘So you’re happy with our report?’ I think Veronica had meant that to sound sarcastic, but she wasn’t very good at it. ‘Why should I not be? You have told me she is well, has a job, and presumably we can contact her there, can’t we, Simon?’ Buck nodded and almost smiled. ‘I believe the retainer was for four days?’ This to Veronica, who nodded. ‘Then I think the books are clear, so to speak.’ ‘There’ll be expenses,’ I said quickly. ‘And a written report,’ Veronica chipped in. ‘Send them both to my office.’ Buck reached into his wallet. ‘Let me give you one of my cards.’ Veronica took the card but looked at Sir Drummond. ‘So you don’t wish us to follow up the investigation?’ ‘But you’ve done a splendid job. And I am sorry to hear about Mr Block. He was so sympathetic.’ ‘But what about Estelle? Aren’t you worried about the people she’s living with?’ Sir Drummond looked as if she’d slipped into Hungarian, and Buck took the opportunity to answer for him.

‘But, Miss Bludgeon’ – I noted the old legal trick of getting people’s names wrong to rattle them, but Veronica missed it – ‘you haven’t told us anything about them. Should we be worried? Who are they? Can you say Estelle is in some sort of danger? I have known her since she was a child and she has always known her own mind. I, like Sir Drummond, am very relaxed about the situation now. If, on the other hand, you are holding something back from us, then your report is far from satisfactory. Or perhaps you are suggesting that we spin this investigation out unnecessarily?’ Veronica stood up in the fastest move I’d seen her make. ‘Not at all. I think that concludes our business then. We’ll be leaving you now.’ I almost cracked up at that one. She sounded like a hotel porter trawling for a tip. ‘Good,’ said Sir Drummond, too quickly for really good manners. ‘I hope you’ll have a chance to look round the Centre.’ ‘We had a quick look before we saw you,’ I said, noting that the invitation (maybe to buy a ticket) hadn’t been extended to Veronica. ‘See anything you fancy?’ he grinned. It looked like someone had drawn the Tropic of Capricorn across his globe of a face. ‘‘Fraid not. They’re either too expensive or too distinctive for me. I go for the purely practical and preferably unmemÂ�orable.’ ‘I take that as a compliment,’ he said, though it hadn’t been meant as one. ‘I have put a lot of thought into the collection and ... I say, yours isn’t the black Austin cab, is it?’ ‘Yes, it is.’ ‘I saw it out in the park. Is it a Fairway?’ ‘Please.’ I tried to look hurt, like he would expect. ‘It’s an FX4S.’ ‘I’m not too up on cabs, but there aren’t many of them left, are there?’ He all but put his arm round me. Veronica made for the door, ignored but dignified. ‘More than you’d think.’ ‘A classic design,’ he said dreamily. ‘I would love to have one in the collection.’

‘One day, Drum, perhaps,’ Buck butted in. ‘At the moment, I suspect it’s a working vehicle, isn’t it, Mr ... Maclean?’ ‘Quite right. He works hard for his diesel.’ ‘“He”, eh? All my cars are “she”s – quite definitely feminine.’ ‘Drive a taxi in London for a day and tell me you’d treat a woman like that,’ I smiled back. I’ve found a smile helps when you’re talking gibberish. ‘Quite, quite.’ He grinned some more and slapped me lightly on the shoulder. ‘Forgive me if I don’t show you out, but I need to chat some more with Simon here. Just follow the signs, the exits are clearly marked.’ And then louder, to Veronica’s retreating figure: ‘And thank you for everything, Miss Blugden. You’ve put my mind at ease.’ We were in the small corridor before the door to the hallÂ�way, and I caught up with her before she opened it. ‘Okay, so you had a job and now you don’t. Life’s like that, but at least you got paid,’ I said in a rush. ‘And maybe it was a good thing that Buck guy was there, because I don’t think his cheque will bounce.’ She turned her glasses on me. I may have been wrong, but they could have started to mist up. ‘It’s nothing to do with that. It’s that he didn’t care – care enough – about Estelle. He never asked if she had her health, did she seem happy, and nothing about those terrible people she’s living with.’ ‘He cared £800 worth,’ I argued. ‘He paid for one fact: where she worked. Didn’t it strike you as odd that he never once asked about how she was? He’s her father, but he wasn’t asking any of the right questions.’ She was right, and I was annoyed. I had missed it. ‘Come on, let’s talk about Plan B on the road.’ ‘What’s Plan B?’ I did a double-take. ‘Oh shit, you don’t know either?’ She sniffed. It was the best I was going to get. There was no doubt about it, the audiences were getting tougher these days.

Compared to when we arrived, the reception desk was doing a humming trade, in that it had one customer. Then I realised that it wasn’t a customer. The person talking to the schoolmistress was the kid from the sentry box in the car park. We smiled at the headmistress, who looked hopefully at her rack of souvenir brochures, knowing deep down she wasn’t going to make a sale today, and walked out into the afternoon sunlight. The car park kid followed at our heels. ‘Hey, I’m sorry, I didn’t know you really had business with the old man.’ He pronounced it ‘bizyness’. ‘Would you have let us in free?’ I asked as he drew level. ‘Nope. Times is hard, we need the cash.’ ‘You on commission then?’ Veronica was giving him what I classed as her ‘Are you talking to us?’ look. I suspected she had several versions. ‘No,’ said the kid. ‘I look a flat wage, index-linked to that of an Albanian road sweeper just to be on the safe side.’ ‘The place isn’t doing the biz then?’ ‘You’ve seen it. What do you think?’ We had reached his sentry box, but he seemed in no hurry to even pretend to go back to work. ‘Look on the bright side: no queues.’ ‘I suppose so. Not much of a marketing line, though, is it? I mean, No Queues Because It’s Crap isn’t going to pack ‘em in, is it?’ ‘Your problem, mate, not mine. Good luck.’ We walked across the grass to Armstrong and he shouted after us. ‘Hey, maybe I’ll see you in London if I save up enough to ride a cab.’ I raised an arm in farewell without looking back. ‘What was all that about?’ Veronica whispered. ‘I dunno. But he was fishing for something.’   I stopped in Hatfield and we found a branch of Veronica’s bank so she could deposit Buck’s cheque. I also suggested she withdrew some cash, but if she did, I didn’t get to see it.

While I was waiting for her – and keeping an eye out for traffic wardens, as I didn’t know if the natives were as friendly towards taxis as they were in town – I had an idea. As soon as Veronica was back in Armstrong, I asked her what the name of Buck’s firm was from his card. She read out: ‘Kay, Morgan and Williams.’ Before she could state the obvious, I said: ‘Funny how common it is these days to have a firm of solicitors where none of the partners are actually the names of the firm, isn’t it?’ ‘Oh yes,’ she agreed vaguely. ‘What are you after?’ ‘Just wondering. I bet you a pint that Buck is the senior bod, top dog, in the practice.’ ‘Is it important?’ ‘Probably not. It’s just that he seemed to have a powerful influence over Sir Drummond back there.’ She thought this through. ‘Yes, I see what you mean. Pint of what?’ ‘Never mind. Lend me ten pence.’ I pulled up at a phone box and took the coin and the card from her. The box had a residential phone directory intact and, once I had got over my surprise, just for the hell of it, I looked up Buck, S. There were four of them, but only one with an address in Great Pardoe. It was worth a shot. I rang the number for Kay, Morgan and Williams, and a female voice answered at the fifth ring. I have this theory with solicitors that it takes them four rings to set their meters running. ‘Kay, Morgan and Williams, good afternoon.’ ‘Oh, good afternoon. Could I speak to your senior partner, please.’ I made my voice sound like I was wearing a suit. ‘I’m sorry, to whom exactly did you wish to speak?’ She was good. Worth her salary. ‘Your senior partner. It is Simon Buck nowadays, isn’t it?’ ‘Mr Buck is not available this afternoon.’ Not an admission, but not a denial. Worth every penny. ‘Can I ring him out at Great Pardoe later?’ ‘Well, I …’

‘It’s okay, I have his home number. It’s just I was in the area and thought I’d look him up.’ ‘Well, he won’t be back in the office today and I do know that his wife is expecting him home this evening.’ Then one of those weird things happened. I wasn’t taking the conversation much further and, feeling I had established a bit of rapport, if not trust, I added a throwaway line: ‘Been checking up on him, has she?’ All innocent, I thought, just chit-chat. ‘As usual,’ said the woman down the line. ‘Five times today. So far.’ ‘Keeps him on a tight leash, does she?’ I answered, almost automatically. ‘You could say that, Mr …’ ‘Oh, don’t worry about me. I’ll catch him later,’ I hurried, and hung up. I didn’t realise until much later that I had just made the understatement of the year. So far.   Veronica contained herself until we were approaching the M25 orbital before she asked why I had been sniffing after Buck. ‘Just curious,’ I said over my shoulder. ‘If you’re going to continue with this case, you might come up against Mr Buck. He seems to be paying the bills, because I don’t think Sir Drummond can cut the mustard on that front. He looked as if he didn’t have two pennies to rub together.’ ‘But there is no case. Not now,’ she said slowly, willing me to disagree. ‘So you feel as if you’ve earned all that money?’ ‘You made me bank it. I was going to talk to Albert.’ ‘And you’re quite happy to leave Stella in the clutches of a weird religious cult, just because her father doesn’t give a damn?’ She came over all indignant. ‘You really thought I’d do that?’ ‘Sure seemed that way.’ ‘Then you don’t know me, Mr Angel.’

I wish. ‘So you’ll at least make contact with Stella?’ ‘I think it’s the least I should do. Somebody should give a damn.’ Then I saw her looking at her watch in the mirror. ‘Do you think we could catch her coming out of work tonight?’ ‘No,’ I said firmly. ‘Tomorrow will be soon enough. I’m going to drop you off in Hackney with the girls, then I’m going out. I have some stuff to do.’ We hit the M25 at the start of rush hour, and headed east to the junction that would drop me down into Tottenham and then Stoke Newington. I should have charged her extra for going the scenic route. ‘You didn’t like that Mr Buck, did you?’ she said after worrying about it. ‘Not a lot.’ ‘Neither did I. He couldn’t even get my name right.’ So she had noticed. ‘It’s just an old lawyer’s trick to throw you off balance,’ I said. ‘Don’t worry about it. Just remember, when you find yourself really needing a solicitor, it’s usually too late.’ ‘You mean you just dislike them all? On principle?’ ‘Sort of. Let me tell you my solicitor story.’ She moved her bulk onto the rumble seat behind me so she could hear better. She was getting really confident about being in Armstrong now; she’d tried nearly all the seats. ‘Okay, so picture this. You’re in heaven, well, actually looking at the edge of heaven, right on the boundary between heaven and hell. On the one side, clouds, blue sky, beauty and bliss unbound. On the other, red light from the darkest flames of hell, molten lava, bare rock, etc. The only sound, the howling of souls. ‘And right down the middle, on the boundary, is a white picket fence running off into eternity. Except for this one point, where about a 20-foot stretch of the fence has fallen over and is just lying on the ground on hell’s side.

‘So, one afternoon, God is out walking the boundary, as he does from time to time, and he sees this break in the fence and the fallen fence just lying there. ‘So he leans over the gap in the fence and shouts down: “Oi, Nick, get up here, sharpish.” And gradually, the Devil stirs himself and comes up to the fence and says: “Hey, God, how ya doing?”, or somesuch, trying to look cool. ‘“Look at this broken fence,” says God. “What are you going to do about it?” ‘“Hey,” says Nick. “I didn’t do it.” ‘“Well, aren’t you going to fix it?” says God. ‘“Why should I?” says the Devil. ‘“Because this fence is the only thing that keeps your demons of hell away from my innocent angels,” says God, getting annoyed now. ‘“So you fix it, if it bugs you,” says Old Nick, real cheeky. ‘“It fell down on your side, so it’s your responsibility to rebuild it,” says God. ‘“How you gonna make me?” asks the Devil. ‘“If you don’t,” says God, “I’ll get my solicitor on to you.” ‘And that’s when the Devil smiles and says: “Where are you going to find a solicitor?”‘ So I wasn’t expecting applause. All I got was: ‘That wasn’t a story, that was a joke.’ ‘Yes,’ I conceded. ‘It was. Once.’

     

Chapter Ten

   

By the lime I got Veronica back to Hackney, it was too late to ring Zoe at her lab at the university. She and the switchboard would have finished for the day by then, and she knew me too well to trust me with her home (married) phone number. I did check with Lisabeth to see if there had been any mesÂ�sages, but got the standard lecture in response. ‘Some of us have jobs, you know. I’ve only just got in and I’ve had to send Fenella out for muesli because she was supposed to do the shopping this week. And I haven’t time to run up and downstairs to answer that thing.’ Now she’d mentioned it, I tried to think of the last time I had seen Lisabeth using the communal phone by the door, and I couldn’t remember a single instance. Come to think of it, I’d never seen her in a room with mirrors either. ‘Well excuse me, but I only asked because Veronica’s expecting a rather important call concerning …’ ‘Oh, is Vonnie here again?’ she asked, brightening. She ran a hand through her short, cropped hair. For her that was the equivalent of a complete make-over. ‘Yes, and look,’ I said conspiratorially, ‘I’d really appreciate a favour. I have to go out tonight. Do you think you could keep her entertained?’ She almost smiled. ‘Why, of course. We can’t have her sitting up there all alone …’ There was a scream from my flat above. ‘Oh, shit. I thought Springsteen was out.’ By the time Lisabeth and I got there, he’d disappeared, leaving Veronica dabbing at her neck with a piece of kitchen roll. ‘I told you not to try and make friends,’ I said, once I had seen that there wasn’t that much blood really.

‘Make friends?’ she gasped. ‘I didn’t even see him. He must have been on top of the fridge. I wasn’t doing anything.’ ‘When he’s in one of his moods …’ ‘Moods? He attacked me.’ ‘And you didn’t expect him to. That’s where you’re going wrong.’ ‘Going wrong? I didn’t do anything.’ ‘Listen, Veronica, how can I put this? We have here a cat who chases cars. Anything less than four-wheel drive is counted as wounded prey. Got that?’ ‘He’s a man, that’s the trouble,’ said Lisabeth coldly. ‘Lisabeth, he’s a dumb animal.’ I said in his defence. ‘I rest my case,’ said Lisabeth smugly.   When Mrs Delacourt had appeared earlier and rescued me from the Lost Boys of Shepherd’s Bush, she had been quite explicit in her thoughts on how I should be conducting her investigation. Her son Crimson was meeting his dubious friend Chase that night, in a pub called The Palmerston over in Cricklewood, and, assuming I knew what was good for me, it might be an idea if I was there too. Quite what I was supposed to do was anybody’s guess. I had no idea what the mysterious white powder was, so I would just have to assume the worst until proven naïve. I didn’t know Crimson’s new friend Chase, or whether he was a friend or mentor, good influence or bad, though there was no doubt in Mrs D’s mind on that score. I didn’t know what they were up to, if they were up to anything. I didn’t know their motivation or their moral stance on whatever it was they were doing. I didn’t even know how big Chase was. Still, according to Veronica’s business card, I was now in the business of Private and Confidential Enquiries. Mrs DelaÂ�court had asked me, privately, to follow her son, and I was keeping it very confidential, at least as far as Veronica was concerned. Therefore, I reckoned, I was in line with the two key planks of the Detectives’ Charter, if there was such a thing.

So I hacked it back up west and out towards Hendon for the second time that day, turning off the Finchley Road where Crimson’s mum had indicated, just after the big Mercedes dealership. The garage itself was dead easy to find and famous for having a dance exercise school on the floor above it. The sight of the early-morning, multicoloured-leotard jazz tap class strutting their stuff to a Beiderbecke version of ‘Goose Pimples’, through those large picture windows, had calmed down many a fuming driver stuck in the rush-hour traffic jam between there and Swiss Cottage. I’d seen them, and I didn’t know what they did for the art of tap dancing, but by God they terrified me. The Palmerston had all the advantages of a late-Victorian urban pub. The problem was it had run out of late-Victorian customers who would have been impressed. If it wasn’t haunted, it deserved to be. As close as it was to a main road, it had no car park, but the sidestreets were quiet enough. If Crimson was here already, I couldn’t see his motorbike, but that didn’t mean much. There weren’t any lorries parked nearby with ‘Drugs ‘R Us’ on the side either. The pub was a one-long-bar affair, with beer dispensed from three multi-tap chrome fountains that would not have looked out of place on the bridge of the Starship EnterÂ�prise. From the smell of the carpet, and its tackiness underÂ�foot, most of the beer dispensed had missed. I played safe and ordered a bottle of Beck’s, getting a filthy look as well as change from the barman when I asked for a glass as well. As I poured, I scanned the bar, which was about half full. It was no different from a thousand backstreet London boozers that early in the evening. Two or three groups havÂ�ing a drink after work, several pairs of couples at various points on the chat-up graph, and a few solitary drinkers who could have been there since lunchtime or, in one case, February. I reasoned that this Chase character would be one of the solitary drinkers, hopefully one of the ones minding their own business and reading the Evening Standard, and not the one who had probably outstayed his welcome and who was the only

one willing to make misty-eyed conversation with a stranger. Fortunately, I didn’t need to test the theory. Crimson entered the pub, wearing his biker leathers and carrying a crash helmet, and raised a gauntlet towards one of the groups sitting at a table across the bar from me. He didn’t see me until he had walked over, nodded greetings all round and checked if anyone wanted a drink. The group moved around to make room for him and he put his helmet under a chair, checked who wanted what and approached the bar. Then he clocked me, and surprise registered on his face just before the smile. ‘Yo, Angel-man, what you doing here? This is way off your usual turf, ain’t it?’ ‘Tell me about it,’ I said with mock anger. ‘I’ve been stood up before and will be again, but not by someone who works at Brent Cross Shopping Centre.’ ‘O-oh. Babe trouble, huh?’ He pointed a long black finger at my glass, and I pushed it towards him with a nod. ‘How are the pearlies?’. I flashed him a smile, but he wasn’t impressed. He saw better every morning in the mirror. But the last time he’d seen me I’d been in a hospital and couldn’t talk properly. ‘They look expensive.’ ‘They were. You still dispatch riding?’ ‘Naw, got myself a regular job in a factory, out at Elstree.’ He concentrated on paying for his round of drinks for a moment. ‘It’s boring but it’s regular.’ ‘I thought that was marriage,’ I said, and he laughed. ‘You still drivin’ that pile of junk of a taxi?’ ‘Yeah, and unlike your flash and very phallic BMW two-wheeler, it’s paid for. Meeting somebody, or just thirsty?’ I gestured at the round of drinks. ‘Oh, yeah, just a few mates from work.’ ‘Need a hand?’ I reached for two of the pints of lager, but he beat me to them. ‘No, that’s okay. Hey, Chase, come here!’ he called out.

A short, stocky black guy, as square as a box of cornflakes, stood up from one of the groups at the table and started to come over towards us. I normally distrust anyone who wears a beard but no moustache – they’re either sociologists or religious fanatics – but I always make an exception if they are twice as wide as me and have hands that could juggle engine blocks. Chase smiled at me and two pint glasses disappeared into his hands. ‘See you around, Angel,’ said Crimson. ‘Yeah, sure,’ I said. So I wasn’t going to be asked to join the party. That meant I could either hang around the pub and force myself on Crimson’s party or hang around outside until the party broke up. I chose the latter, partly because Crimson was a sociable guy and if he’d wanted me in he would have said, and partly because the seats in Armstrong were more comfortable than those in the pub. In fact, they were so comfortable, I almost fell asleep. I’d been there the best part of an hour when they emerged. As cars had come and gone, I had manoeuvred Armstrong into a better position so I could see the door of the pub in the mirror. I had spotted Crimson’s big BMW bike and put as much distance as I could between it and me. I had tucked Armstrong into the kerb in front of a small Ford van. Unless he was looking for me, he ought not to notice me at the other end of the street. When they did show, it went like a scene from a movie. A movie directed by Buster Keaton, that is. Crimson and Chase appeared on the street together, and in best film noir tradition, I caught their act through Armstrong’s nearside wing mirror. They stood there for a moment, back-lit with yellow light from the pub’s window, both hunched into their jackets, both scanning the street to make sure it was empty, whispering to each other out of the corners of their mouths. If it had been raining, or a cat had disturbed them, or Orson Welles had stepped out of the shadows asking if the pub sold sherry, then the picture would have been complete.

Chase, the short one, took something from his back pocket and handed it to Crimson. Crimson took a white envelope from his jacket and handed it to Chase. Chase put a finger to a point between his eyes and flicked a salute. Crimson put his crash helmet on and walked away, out of view of my mirror. If I’d been a real detective, I thought to myself, I would have had a camera with really fast film that would have caught all that. And then I could casually drop some glossy ten-by-eights on the desk in front of Mrs Delacourt. But what would she do with them? Frame them? Then again, one of today’s super-discreet surveillance experts would probably be a quarter of a mile away with a laser microphone or similar, taping their conversation. And, of course, a really smart private eye wouldn’t have parked six inches in front of Chase’s small Ford van.   I flipped the dashboard mirror down in an attempt to see something, then I squeezed down as far as I could go in Armstrong’s driving seat. Unless he actually walked up and looked in, Chase wouldn’t see me, but then again, I hadn’t left his van much room for an exit, and if he was worried about clipping a corner as he pulled out, he might just come and take a closer look. He didn’t give it a second thought. As his lights came on full beam, flooding Armstrong’s interior, I breathed a sigh of relief. It probably was a company van and he was not responsible for minor cuts and bruises to it. Thank heavens for the code of irresponsibility that all company van drivers have to sign before they’re given the keys. He reversed about a foot then swung out into the street. From my position I couldn’t tell, but I was willing to bet you couldn’t have got a cigarette paper between the nearside wing of his van and Armstrong’s rear offside wheel arch. No respect for paintwork, some people. I let him get to the end of the street before I started my engine, and he had turned right into Finchley Road before I put my lights on. That was something else they did in the movies, though God

knew why I bothered, as the streetlights were more than adequate if he was going to spot me. I was banking on the fact that he wasn’t expecting to be followed, and that seemed to me to be a good enough reason to follow him. I didn’t have many other reasons. It is almost impossible to follow a motorbike rider, especially one as good as CrimÂ�son, in London unless you are on a bike yourself, added to which, Crimson had seen me in the pub and knew about Armstrong, so that ruled him out. And although the detecÂ�tive’s credo was always to ‘follow the money’, I had a good idea where the money was going – straight back to Crimson’s gaff. What I didn’t know was where the white envelope, which I guessed contained more of the white powder CrimÂ�son’s mother had given me, was going. So that was my logic: follow the white powder. The van turned off into Golders Green Road and picked up speed along one of the longest residential streets without a pub in London. (That’s not strictly true, it just feels like it.) Then it suddenly turned left without indicating and I slowed as I drove by the side street, deciding to risk it and swinging in after him. There was no other traffic here, so I let him get eight or nine car lengths ahead. He did a left then a right, finally slowing and parking in among the Volvos and small Peugeots that seemed to be obligatory for the area. All the houses had front gardens, with walls, hedges and sooty trees forming the first line of defence in keeping the street out. Such considerations didn’t seem to worry Chase with the house he chose; he just got out of the van and walked in through the gateway of a short gravel drive. I had parked on the opposite side of the street, way down from him, and killed Armstrong’s engine and lights. I wasn’t going to see much from where I was, so I climbed out, easing the door shut as quietly as I could. Maybe this wasn’t what I thought it was, but then, with the best will in the world, Chase didn’t look like your average resident of this part of Golders Green.

Come to think of it, a house on a street like this in an area like this, didn’t exactly strike me as Drug Central, west London, but these days you never knew. Maybe somebody’s parents were away and the kids were having a party and had decided to send out for something more interesting than pizza. I was crouching behind one of the new Volvo 850s when I heard a doorbell ring across the street. Funny, though, there was no sound of a party in progress. I eased round the bonnet to get a look up the driveway and saw Chase walking towards me. I registered that there were no lights on in the house before ducking down and, crablike, scuttling back behind the bulk of the car. My big worry was someone emerging on my side of the street to walk the dog or something. There are some parts of town where if you saw someone almost on their knees in the gutter, you would quietly walk around them. There are other parts where you would get down and join them. This parish was neither of those. I sneaked a look around the rear of the Volvo, not wanting to touch it in case it was alarmed, as some alarms go off in a stiff breeze. Chase had gone to the rear doors of his van. He looked up and down the street once, then at his watch. Then he opened the doors and reached in to pick up what I at first thought was a large toolbox. It was light from the way even he hefted it, and it was blue with a white lid. He put it down to close the van doors quietly, and when he reached for it again, he snapped the carrying handle secure with a plastic click. Only then did I realise it was a cool box, the sort you take on picnics that are supposed to keep your beer chilled. He picked it up and entered the driveway again. I switched positions, running across the road in a crouch and hiding behind a Renault Espace parked 50 feet behind Chase’s van. I was convinced that if anyone had seen me, they would have called the cops by now. I was acting far more furtively than Chase was. He emerged from the driveway again, opened the van doors and carefully placed the cool box inside. Then he got in and drove away. I walked down to the house and took a clear look. It was a detached, 1920s suburban house, in total darkness. It had a garden

mostly laid to lawn, with a fish pond and, down the side, a little summerhouse. No sign of a rave party, no suspicious characters hanging around except me. No sign of a break-in, no burglar alarms going off – and I could see they had one. I did what any self-respecting detective would do. I said sod it and went home.   At home, I found the self-respecting detectives had been holding a seminar – or maybe that should be coven – to decide what to do next. I found this out from Inverness Doogie from upstairs, who came banging on my flat door before I’d managed to prise the top from my first beer. I let him in and thrust the beer into his hand, going back to the fridge to get myself another, even as he spoke. ‘Angel, just what the fookin’ hell are yer doing wi’ ma wife?’ I looked around, astonished, then opened the fridge and pretended to look in there. Doogie caught sight of the massed ranks of bottled beer. ‘Miranda!’ I yelled into the fridge. ‘It’s all over between us. He’s found out. You might as well take your anorak off and come out. It was never meant to be.’ ‘Stop pissing about, Angel, you know what I mean.’ He took a swig of his beer. ‘Are these duty-frees?’ ‘I don’t know what you mean at all, Doogie. And yes, they’re sort of duty-free. Fancy a case?’ ‘This detective business, that’s what I mean. Yeah, put me down for two cases, so long as it works out no more than 14 pence a bottle.’ ‘What do you mean, this detective business? What’s your problem?’ ‘She’s obsessed wi’ it; canna talk of nothing else.’ I had noticed before that Doogie’s accent thickened like porridge whenever he was worked up about something or drunk. I had long since learned that the best way to deal with it was to give up trying to understand the words and try and judge the sense. It was the old

stand-by: just keep smiling and don’t turn your back. ‘Obsessed with what, Doogie?’ I said to show him I was with him thus far. ‘With this Stella bint and how you and Ronnie and–’ ‘Hang on, Doogie, who’s Ronnie?’ ‘Veronica, or whatever you call her. The fat tart. Sorry, the kilogrammatically challenged, I should say.’ ‘The what?’ ‘They use kilos and grammes now at Weight Watchers, so I’m told. Anyway, her. Ma Miranda is spending an awful lot of time downstairs with her and her two soul mates.’ He used a finger as if pointing the way to hell to a curious Jesuit. ‘And they’re plotting, Angel, plotting how they should handle things, because they don’t think you can do it on your own.’ ‘Do what?’ I handed him the bottle-opener as he helped himself to another beer. ‘Look after Ronnie – watch her back – while she rescues this Stella bird from the Addams Family or whoever it is who’s holding her against her will and twisting her mind.’ ‘Steady on, Doogie. I don’t think things are that bad …’ ‘Well, all I know for sure is that my wife is spending a lot of time down there with them two, and she’s never done that before. It’s not ... it’s not … natural.’ ‘Oh no, Doogie, you’re not telling me you think Miranda’s on the turn?’ ‘It’s been known before. In marriages, I mean. In happy marriages.’ ‘Get real, Doogie, she’s just in it for the gossip. All girls together proving they can do better than a man. Novelty value, that’s all. They’ll get bored, just you wail and see. And don’t you worry about Miranda. You two are a couple. One of the most coupled couples I’ve ever come across. You two go together like … er ... like …’ ‘A horse and carriage?’ he said with a sneer. ‘I was thinking more along the lines of Smith and Wesson,’ I said cheerfully.  

Doogie took an armful of beer back to his flat with him, I took my emergency bottle of Tequila Gold out of the salad crisper compartment of the fridge (the only use I’d ever found for it) and rummaged around in my bedroom until I found a half-empty packet of Sweet Afton cigarettes and a disposable lighter that actually worked. The tequila was because I knew I was going to need a drink. Nothing was more certain in my mind. The cigarettes were because I was almost certain I was going to need one, but more because it would give me an edge in a room full of non-smokers. Thus armed, and ready as I ever would be, I strode down the stairs and knocked on Lisabeth’s door.   ‘Ooooh, that’s good. Try it, Fenella, go on, take a pull.’ Miranda put an elbow on Veronica’s shoulder and they began to lean dangerously to starboard. They giggled. ‘Let me try, Binky,’ said Lisabeth, resorting to her pet name for Fenella Binkworthy, for that really was her surname. ‘And try not to cough so much.’ ‘C’mon, Angel, tell us what’s in them,’ drawled Miranda. ‘I want another tequila smasher,’ announced Veronica. ‘It’s just tobacco,’ I said. ‘They’re just plain cigarettes. Irish, actually, but just cigarettes. I’ll show you the packet.’ ‘Packet of three, by any chance? Not enough!’ Miranda cracked up at this one and made a strange throaty sound I’d never heard before. She was laughing. ‘Why’s that funny?’ Fenella asked Lisabeth, handing over the cigarette like it was a Roman candle and the blue touch paper was fizzing. ‘You’ve made the end all wet,’ moaned Lisabeth. ‘Find the lemonade and make Ronnie a smasher.’ ‘Slammer,’ said Veronica, sitting upright. ‘Tequila slammer, that’s what I want.’ ‘I bet you dip them in something,’ said Miranda. ‘What?’ ‘I don’t know, some drug or other.’

‘We’re out of tequila,’ wailed Veronica. ‘And there’s no beer left either,’ said Fenella, depressed. Then added: ‘Again.’ ‘I am not going upstairs again,’ I said, ‘or if I do, it’s to stay there.’ ‘Meany.’ ‘Party-pooper.’ ‘Come on, Angel. We’re all angels now, we’re a team.’ I might have been tempted to take Miranda more seriously if she had not reached out to put an arm around Veronica’s shoulders and missed by a good six inches. As we were all sitting on the floor, she didn’t have far to fall. ‘Let’s think things over again in the morning,’ I said, trying to salvage some sanity from the evening. ‘It already is the morning,’ slurred Fenella, waving from side to side as if caught in a thermal. ‘That’s not very helpful,’ I snarled. ‘Don’t you talk to her like that,’ growled Lisabeth softly. ‘I talk to her like that.’ ‘Order, order!’ Veronica shouted. ‘I thought we agreed to stick together to help each other.’ ‘Help you, actually,’ I pointed out. ‘And I need all the help I can get,’ she spluttered, and the other three burst out at that too. I tried to calm the hilarity. ‘Listen up, you guys, what you’re suggesting is probably illegal, certainly impractical and possibly, just possibly, psychologically dangerous, not to mention physically dangerous.’ ‘Oh pooh!’ scoffed Lisabeth. ‘There will be four of us.’ ‘Five if you count Angel,’ Fenella chipped in. ‘Five angels on the case! How does that grab you, Ronnie?’ Miranda tried nudging Veronica in the ribs with an elbow. Despite the size of the target, she missed. ‘Hope you don’t all want paying,’ Veronica giggled, and they all laughed at that. Face it, by that stage they would have laughed at a Jerry Lewis film.

‘Well, I think it’s crazy and I’m against it,’ I said, knowing it was pointless to argue any more. ‘You’re outvoted.’ ‘Majority rule!’ ‘Women rule!’ ‘We’ll see. In the morning.’ I uncrossed my legs and stood up. ‘I’m going up the little wooden hill to Bedfordshire.’ I looked down at Miranda. ‘Going your way?’ ‘What a gentleman,’ she said, raising her eyebrows to the others and offering a hand so I could pull her up. ‘There’s no such thing as a gentle man,’ said Lisabeth, but it was lost on the assembled crew. ‘And Ronnie can stay the night here and help us clear up.’ She looked around at the debris of beer bottles and empty glasses and finally noticed that someone (not me) had burnt a hole through one of the leaves of her rubber plant. ‘F’nella and Lissy don’t mind bunking up together,’ slurred Veronica. I was still holding Miranda’s hand and she squeezed it lightly, whispering: ‘Don’t you dare.’ I put on one of my ‘Who, me?’ expressions and guided her to the door. ‘If you insist, we’ll rendezvous at 6.30, and we’ll see how we feel then, okay?’ There were a lot of goodbyes and hugs, though none for me. Then I followed Miranda up the two flights to her flat, my right hand poised a centimetre from the small of her back to catch her if she fell backwards. At her door, she fumbled in the pockets of her jeans for a key. I decided it was better if I didn’t offer to join the search. ‘You didn’t have to come to the …’ she started softly, then I realised she wasn’t moving. She was standing there, both hands in pockets, her forehead against the door, the only thing holding her upright. She began to snore softly.

I put my arm around her waist and knocked quietly. The door opened two seconds later and I put a finger to my lips to quieten Doogie, tactfully refraining from mentioning the Flintstone boxer shorts – the only thing he was wearing. ‘Her last words,’ I whispered, were “Get Doogie to put me to bed and make sure I have a fried breakfast at six o’clock”. Got that?’ Doogie grinned, then held up the thumb and forefinger of his right hand in an O shape, followed by the thumbs-up sign. I took my arm away and she fell into Doogie’s chest. He swung her off the floor and carried her inside, kicking the door shut with his heel. Back in my flat, I found Springsteen waiting in ambush behind the bathroom door. ‘She’s not coming, old son,’ I said, grateful for some decent conversation. ‘They’ve had a pow-wow and do you know what halfbaked, toss-pot idea they’ve come up with? Of course you don’t. You’re not a detective. But we are, it seems, me and the Mild Bunch downstairs. And tomorrow, we’re all going out in broad daylight and we’re going to kidnap this Stella Rudgard off the street and bring her back here for deprogramming. That’s a beauty, isn’t it? Get the Guinness Book of Fucking Daft Ideas on the phone, will you?’ Springsteen cocked his head and stared at me for nearly a minute, then stalked off into the kitchen. For a split second there I had seen something in his eyes that I had never seen before. Pity.

     

Chapter Eleven

   

They all wanted to go along, of course, even Miranda, though she looked as if she would prefer spending the morning sitÂ�ting 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 volunÂ�teered 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. LisaÂ�beth 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 sugÂ�gested 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 ourÂ�selves 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 greendoor 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 turnÂ�ing 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 carryÂ�ing 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 whisÂ�pered 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 accidenÂ�tally 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 acciÂ�dentally, 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 circumÂ�stances 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 gettingsettled 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.’

Chapter Twelve

   

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, forgetÂ�ting 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-Â�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 BreakÂ�away 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 anyÂ�way, 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 referÂ�ence 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 posÂ�sessions 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 underÂ� nourished, 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 SouthÂ�wark, 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 exÂ�pression. ‘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 knightÂ�hood 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 consultÂ�ant, 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. Noone 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 contemÂ�plation 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 mornÂ�ing 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 journalÂ�ist, I could go through the cuttings files.’ I knew that Miranda’s north London local paper had nothÂ�ing 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.

Chapter Thirteen   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, anyÂ�way, 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 wordprocessors 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 uncomÂ�mitted.” 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 univerÂ�sity 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 proÂ�duced 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 Â�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 menacÂ�ingly. ‘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 – Â�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.

     

Chapter Fourteen

   

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 wonderÂ�ing 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 signÂ�post 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 DisÂ�covery 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 fivebar 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 endÂ�less 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 considerÂ�ing regretting the offer to invite me in. ‘Pony racing? In Lincolnshire?’ Had I missed something after wasting all those Saturday afternoons down the bookÂ�makers? ‘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 NorthÂ�amptonshire 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 someÂ�where 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 …’ Â�‘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 someÂ�thing. 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.

     

Chapter Fifteen

   

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 appointÂ�ments 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 disÂ�tance, 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 overthe-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. NaturÂ�ally, 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, pickÂ�ing 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 herÂ�self 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 volÂ�ume 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 outÂ�side 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 disÂ�appeared. 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 noninfectious 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 gutterprone 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.’

     

Chapter Sixteen

   

I dropped Bobby off in the village. He said he had lodgings with a local family, and so far they hadn’t pressed him for the rent because he was young and poor. Turning up on the doorstep in a black cab might not be good for his image. ‘What do I tell Da when he calls?’ he asked me. ‘Tell him we’ll not get anything out of Buck. He’s slippery, that one. I think we could push Mrs Buck to the edge, but I don’t think she knows anything. Same with the old boy, Sir Drummond. He’s guilty of something, but I’m not sure it’s connected to Carrick.’ ‘So what do we do now?’ ‘You stay here and keep an ear open and an eye to the ground.’ ‘Shouldn’t that be the other way round?’ ‘Whatever. I’m going back to town to see if the other piece of the puzzle can be shaped to fit. To fit anything.’ ‘You mean this religious sect guy, Smith?’ ‘Yeah, him. Connie. I think it’s time someone had a word with friend Connie.’ But I was already too late. They’d started without me.   ‘So Veronica went looking for Stella?’ I asked Lisabeth. ‘We hadn’t heard from her all morning and she’d promised to ring, so we rang her office and they said she’d called in sick.’ ‘You sure they weren’t thinking of yesterday when we did that?’ It was ridiculous, I know, but stranger things have happened. Mostly to me. ‘No. The lady said she was sick again. She’d phoned in herself.’ Lisabeth was uncomfortable with this. There was sweat on her pudgy upper lip. ‘And so you sent Fenella along to look after Veronica?’ I put plenty of sarcastic spin on my voice. I could make her squirm so

rarely I didn’t want to waste a minute. ‘Somebody had to help her. You said yourself, Ronnie is very innocent in the ways of the big city.’ ‘So when did Fenella join the Rolling Stones?’ ‘Well, at least she’s lived in a city,’ Lisabeth clutched at straws. ‘So did Mother Teresa. Come to think of it, she’d be more use in a fist fight.’ ‘It’s not going to come to that,’ said Miranda, throwing in her two pence worth. ‘Is it?’ ‘And what were you doing, letting her go? I thought you had more sense. No, correction; some sense.’ ‘Don’t get all high and mighty with me, Angel. I was at work. Some of us have jobs to go to, you know,’ she said haughtily. ‘Hey, don’t come looking for sympathy on that one. Did you find anything out?’ She looked puzzled for a moment. ‘Oh, you mean about the cult? Yeah, I did look them up in our cuttings files, but there wasn’t much.’ ‘You surprise me,’ I said drily. ‘Now don’t start. Two seconds ago you were on at me because I hadn’t stayed at home and stopped Vonnie and Fenella joining them. Now you don’t even …’ ‘What?’ Neither of them would look at me . ‘Just fly that last bit by me again, Miranda? The bit about joining something, I think you said.’ ‘They thought if they hung around the tube station at Sloane Square they might run into one of the members of Shining Doorway and they could get themselves recruited,’ Miranda said sheepishly. ‘They had bags with them, as if they’d just arrived in London,’ said Lisabeth desperately. ‘Those two needed props? They’re one of the reasons white slavery disappeared; it was getting too easy.’ ‘Well, it seemed like a good idea,’ snapped Lisabeth, recovering ground. ‘And anyway, you weren’t here.’

‘Oh, great. I just knew it would be my fault.’ ‘Look,’ mediated Miranda, ‘neither was I, but what’s done is done. What if they didn’t make contact and weren’t recruited?’ I looked at my watch. It was just after 7.00 pm. ‘Yeah, they probably hung around for a bit then got bored and went to a pub or the cinema or something.’ I paused. ‘No, I don’t believe that either. I’ll bet that if they were not approached by one of the disciples or whatever they are, then one of them – the one with the biggest mouth and least brains, but I admit that doesn’t narrow it down – would have done something really priceless. Like going up to where they hang out and knocking on the Shining Doorway demanding to be let in. Am I right, or am I sucking lemons on this one, ladies?’ Lisabeth looked at her shoes and muttered: ‘They were going to ask for Carrick Lee.’ ‘Oh, brilliant.’ ‘They thought it might provoke a response. Stella couldn’t get anything out of them, so two strangers might. And they would pretend not to know Stella, to protect her,’ she ended lamely. ‘I need a drink,’ I said to myself. ‘It might work, Angel,’ said Miranda. ‘Or they may never have got in. They might be on their way back or stuck in the underground or waiting for a bus …’ ‘I need a cigarette,’ I added to myself. ‘They said to wait until midnight before we did anything,’ said Lisabeth, ‘to give their plan time to work.’ ‘Plan? That’s a plan? Are there any controlled substances in the house?’ Besides fish anaesthetic, that was. ‘Now that’s enough, Angel.’ Miranda was moving into headmistress mode. ‘I’ve had enough of this. If its not your plan, it’s like it doesn’t exist. Just because we women thought it up doesn’t mean it’s not going to work.’ ‘Yes, that’s right. Absolutely right,’ said Lisabeth, and as she did, an image of guillotines and knitting needles flashed across my eyes.

‘Okay, okay, ease down.’ I needed time to think. ‘Why don’t we wait and see? Just leave me alone for a while and we’ll see what happens. How about that?’ ‘This is my flat,’ said Lisabeth pedantically. ‘All right, so you got me there. I wondered why I didn’t have a drink.’ They didn’t laugh. Not even a smile. Here I was, home from a hard day’s detecting, and I wasn’t even given a chance to get my coat off before I was hauled into Lisabeth’s flat to be told first the bad, then the even worse, news. ‘Let’s call a time out here. See what develops. They said midnight?’ ‘Uh-huh.’ The two of them nodded together. ‘Then why don’t we reconvene this meeting of the amaÂ�teur detectives’ collective in the morning?’ ‘What if Binky … Fenella ... rings?’ asked Lisabeth, coming close to blushing for a microsecond. ‘That’s why you are in charge of telephones,’ I said forcefully, and she sighed with relief and responsibility. ‘I’ve got to go to work tomorrow,’ said Miranda, almost shamefaced. ‘And Doogie’s not keen on me taking extra days off …’ ‘That’s okay,’ I said, getting confident at this decision-making business. ‘We know where we can reach you, don’t we?’ ‘Oh yes,’ she said enthusiastically, which was good, because I hadn’t the faintest idea. ‘Then let’s all relax. There’s nothing we can do until tomorrow now, so let’s get some rest and think about it again. Take each day as it comes. That’s my motto.’ ‘Do you need to know what I found out at the paper?’ Miranda asked lightly, as if taking orders for cocoa. ‘I’m sorry, I was probably out of order earlier. What did you find out today?’ I felt as if I was asking her for her homework. ‘Nothing much, really, except that the Shining Doorway’s last known address was 23 Lennard Street, Islington. It’s just off …’ ‘The Balls Pond Road,’ I completed.

‘Does that mean anything? Is it important?’ ‘No, I don’t think so. Well, I can’t think why it should be.’ ‘It’s not far from here, is it?’ Now I was avoiding her eyes. ‘Oh, it’s over in Islington somewhere,’ I said airily, like you needed visas. ‘So it’s not worth checking out?’ ‘What for? They’ve moved. We know that.’ She looked at Lisabeth then at me. ‘Okay. It was just a thought. I suppose you know best.’ I looked at her in surprise. ‘Thank you,’ I said. Lisabeth glared at her. ‘What a thing to say. Especially to a man,’ she snarled. ‘Exactly,’ I agreed. ‘You know what men are like, give them an inch and ...’ ‘They’ll claim it’s eight,’ Miranda said before she could stop herself, then giggled furiously. ‘Enough of this. I’m going to get something to eat and then hit the sack. I need my beauty sleep. There’s nothing more we can do tonight.’ I was lying on three out of four counts.   There still wasn’t any food in the fridge, so I had a bottle of French beer and promised myself I would do some shopping sometime. Somebody once said that forgetting to eat was the first sign of a drink problem. I forget who. At least I could remember that I kept my metal toolbox under the sink in the kitchen. I chose two long screwdrivers, both with large bulbous plastic handles, and a claw hammer. Holding them inside my jacket, I sneaked downstairs, tiptoeing by Lisabeth’s door, which she had left open so she could hear the phone. Out on the street like this, I could be arrested and charged with going equipped for burglary. On the staircase, I could get nobbled by Lisabeth demanding to know where I was going. I knew which

option I preferred and, out on the street, it would be a fair cop. After all, I was going housebreaking.   Number 23 Lennard Street was boarded up and deserted. So were number 21 and number 25. Apart from the fact that there was no obvious access to the back of the property, it was a burglar’s dream. If, that is, you knew a burglar whose dream target was an empty slum terrace in Islington. I parked Armstrong at the end of the street and did a walk-by. It was dark now and I had my torch with me, hanging down from my right hand, my left clutching my jacket to hold the hammer and screwdrivers in place against my chest. You didn’t normally need any more sophisticated gear for a smash job, as long as you didn’t mind anyone knowing you’d done the house. I knew one housebreaker, from Woolwich, who had his most productive spell after he’d broken his arm in a car crash. He used the arm and his plaster cast to crack windows. It was perfect, he said, because he could carry it around without causing suspicion and it was always handy for opportunist jobs. I suppose he got his comeuppance when he got blood poisoning after cutting his arse on the glass of a window he’d just smashed. I look a long look at number 23 as I walked by slowly. The front door and downstairs window both had sheets of plywood nailed over them. The front garden, a small rectangle of scrubland, was littered with food cartons, plastic bottles, empty paint cans and unidentifiable pieces of rusted metal. There was even an old estate agent’s For Sale board; so old it advertised an 01 telephone number. At the end of the street, I scoped the other side with the evennumbered houses. There were cars outside some of them, all old and probably second-hand. All had steering-wheel locks and small windscreen stickers saying they were alarmed. I didn’t believe any of them. You could buy the stickers separately these days, and most of the cars were worth less than a decent alarm or ignition-lock system. Still, it showed the street was not exactly crime unaware, and I doubted if I would spark off a vigilante patrol if I was spotted.

If I did, I had a cover story ready. What was there worth nicking at number 23? I was just looking for a place to kip, mate. Yeah, sure, some other squatters told me about the place. I had left all forms of identification behind, and I wasn’t even carrying a key to Armstrong, having used the one I keep stuck on the magnetic pad behind the rear nearside wheel. So maybe I could be charged with going equipped for squatting? By the time I had walked back to outside number 23, I had convinced myself I was fireproof. There was nobody on the street. Why should there be? It was a grotty residential street with no pub, store or eatery of ethnic origin. Its few residents would be settling in behind their curtained windows to watch primetime television. There was no gate on the short path up to the house, so I just swung off the pavement and quickened my pace. Now was the time to work fast and ignore everything else. Make a way in; get in; get out. I used the torch as I approached the door, flashing its beam around the edges of the plywood sheet nailed over the door frame. It had not been cut to size, so there was a lip down the right side where I could get the screwdrivers in. As soon as I had seen it, I had known the door was the best bet. Sure, I had to get the plywood off and then the door open, making two operations, but the sound of a screwdriver being tapped into place and then levering out the nails would sound just like a distant thumping. With windows, the sound of breaking glass is, unfortunately, just like the sound of breaking glass, and is one of those noises that seem irresistible to the curious human ear. Either the nails were too thin or the plywood was cheap and weather-rotted, because the thing came off much easier than I ever expected. I put one screwdriver in at about head height, tapping it home with the hammer, then the other about knee height. The strain from those two loosened the board enough for me to use the claw of the hammer as a third lever about midway between the screwdrivers. All I had to do was push on the three of them twice each and the wood sheet plopped away from the door frame.

I took a pair of screwed-up leather gloves from the pockets of my jacket and put them on, not to hide fingerprints but just to get a grip and no splinters. Holding the right-hand edges of the board, I just bent it towards me until it pinged off the remaining nails one at a time. I wouldn’t have thought anyone ten feet away in the street would have heard that, even if they had been watching. I picked up the torch from where I had placed it, lens down, on the doorstep and flashed it up to suss out the door’s lock. The thing I noticed first, though, was the paint job. It was the same light blue as the house used by the Shining Doorway in John Brome Street over in Sloane country. And it had the same, almost deliberately amateur and slapdash, three-foot high cross showing through the blue paint job; and now I could see why. I had seen the John Brome Street house only in daylight. In the dark, under torchlight, or presumÂ�ably even streetlight, the cross shape glowed luminously. It was spookily effective. At least I had the right house, although anyone in the street would see the cross as long as I was shining the torch. But there was nobody there. Don’t worry, just get on; get in. There was a hole where a Yale lock had been knocked out, and no other sign of a lock, but the door was firmly shut. I reckoned it had a bolt or a wooden batten nailed somewhere down the door jamb from the inside. Putting the torch right up against the hole where the lock had been, I shone its light inside, then pushed down the right-hand side of the door. It gave under pressure, so I could see a faint line of light – Â�everywhere except about nine inches from the top. Whatever was holding it was there. I turned off the torch and selected the screwdriver with the widest head, pushing it between the door and the frame where the resistance was the greatest. The wood gave easily, and one tap was enough to push it home. Using the claw of the hammer over the stem of the screwdriver, I levered on the pressure until there was a satisfying crack from the other side and the door swung open. Still working in darkness, I stepped in and pulled the plywood board back over the doorway so that little would appear different if

anyone did walk by. Only then did I click on the torch and beam it around the dank hallway. Now I was in, my priority was getting out, so the first thing I did was check out the back of the house for an escape route. The hallway led straight into a kitchen, or what had been a kitchen before someone had ripped out everything not nailed down, and no doubt stuff that had been too. There was a back door with an old mortice lock but no key. It took me no more than ten seconds to unscrew the metal plate that held the tongue of the lock, and I caught it before it could hit the floor. There was another sheet of plywood over this door frame, but from the inside it was an easy enough job to push it over the nails that held it in place. I risked a quick scan with the torch and saw a rubble-filled, rubbish-strewn back garden with little sign of plant life. No more than 15 feet away was a crumbling wall that seemed to lead to the back garden of another house, which also seemed unlit and deserted. At a pinch, it would have to do. I had been inside the house for less than two minutes. As there were about 170,000 reported burglaries in London each year, and good�ness knew how many unreported ones, that made about one every three minutes. So I was on schedule. There was nothing of interest in the kitchen or the hallway, although the hallway wallpaper had been painted over with white emulsion and then some artistic soul had scratched the flaking paint away in the shape of a crucifix in several places. I put the beam of the torch on the staircase, which seemed sound enough and even had a threadbare carpet. There was a small landing at the top and three doors leading off it. I creaked my way upwards, trying to identify the various smells of mustiness, damp, dust and finally of toilets. The bathroom had been trashed good and proper. If there had been a bath, it had gone, as had the lavatory, seemingly sledgehammered judging by the pieces still on the floor around the open stench pipe that lead to the drainpipe on the wall.

The two bedrooms were just empty. Both had luminous crosses painted on the walls that picked up the light from my torch. In one, there was the impression on one wall where a bookshelf arrangement had been ripped away, brackets and all. Apart from that, nothing. I hadn’t known what I would find. Finding nothing was both a disappointment and a relief. Time to go. I was nervous enough. I always knew I never had the bottle to be a burglar. But then I wasn’t really burÂ�glarising anyone, was I? I rationalised it as I started down the stairs. I was detecting, I told myself. Looking for clues. It wasn’t my fault that there weren’t any. Halfway down the stairs, I flashed the torch along the hall, and the beam picked up another luminous cross. This wasn’t on the wall, though. Those were scratched in the paint on the wall. This one was on wood and had been covered with blue paint, just as on the front door. At the bottom of the stairs, I shone the torch around it and realised it was a small door leading off under the staircase. I had missed it on my way into the kitchen and it had been behind me when I had gone upstairs. It was obviously the door to a cellar, and I didn’t like cellars. They usually didn’t have other exits, and I had once been sorely hurt in one. But I had to look. This was the only room marked with a luminous cross. Was this what Stella had said they called the Contemplation Room? If so, I had every intention of contemplating it rather than going down into it. There were two bolts on the door but neither was slotted home. I held one to pull the door open and shone the torch in. The first thing I saw were the treads of the underside of the staircase, guaranteed to clout the unwary on the forehead. I turned the beam downwards, following the short flight of stone steps. The cellar was ten feet square at the most, and the floor area was at least two feet deep in rubbish. I could identify the fittings from the bathroom, including the smashed lavatory, and the metal-framed bookshelves from the bedroom wall. The rest seemed to be old carpets, empty paint cans, builders’ rubble, a set of curtains complete with curtain

rail, a kitchen cabinet, sacking and old, stained matÂ�tresses. The smells coming out of there were: damp, paint and animal. Definitely animal, which almost certainly meant rats. I didn’t like rats much either. What was it the environment people said about London these days: you were never more than five feet away from a rat? Tell me about it. There seemed to be nothing of interest down there. It was just junk, the sort of pile of detritus you would find thrown out front of a house being demolished, just waiting for the wrecker gang to cart it away to the local dump or landfill site. So why was it inside the house? Why rip out the fittings and then carefully pile them in the cellar? They would only have to be hauled up the steps and out again if the place was sold, and it wasn’t the sort of sight to appeal to potential buyers, however buoyant the market. Unless it was advancing the depreciation, as Carrick Lee Senior had called it; running the place down before demoÂ�lition or conversion. No, that didn’t make sense either. To lower the value, just wreck the joint. Don’t wreck the joint then sweep everything neatly into the cellar. That’s just hidÂ�ing the wreckage away. But hide something under the pile of junk and then demolÂ�ish the house on top of it, and what have you got? A very good hiding place indeed.   I was grateful I had brought gloves, but I still used one of the long screwdrivers to move things aside, kicking them first to see if they moved. I did most of it one-handed, as I didn’t want to let go of the torch, and I tried to keep one foot on the bottom step all the time, though I almost overbalanced more than once. I was also straining to listen, just in case somebody had found the door tampered with. It was unlikely, but I was conscious of having outstayed my welcome, and I was running on pure luck now. Under what looked like the remains of an old bean bag, the fabric holed as if bitten in several places with the polymer ball filling spewing out, I discovered a pile of damp and shredded paper sacks.

They too looked as if they had been gnawed. I speared one with my screwdriver and pulled. A paint can rolled over with a clatter, and I swear something scurried up the wall of the far side of the cellar, but my torchlight didn’t catch it, thankfully. I had to put the screwdriver down to move the formica door from a kitchen cupboard and then a length of heavy, wet and stagnant carpet. I had now cleared about a quarter of the floor area, the rubbish piled in the far end of the cellar where I had slung it. Still nothing, just plain, concrete floor. I went up two steps and sat down, shining the torch beam around the cellar. I was hot and dirty and jumpy, and all I had done was rearrange the crap. Nothing, just house builders’ rubbish. It was obvious that the builders had been in at some point. The wet paper sacks I had moved were marked with a blue circle and carried the legend ‘Sand and Cement Mix’. And suddenly that plain old concrete floor didn’t look so plain any more. In fact, bits of it looked quite new. I stepped off the steps and onto the patch I had cleared, testing it as if it would tell me something through the soles of my old Travel Fox trainers. I crouched down and looked at it closely. The cement had been mixed badly, or in a hurry, and was already powdering in places. In other parts, where there had been more sand than cement, there were deep scratch marks and small holes the size of a coin where the rats had tried to eat their way through while it was still wet.   I keep a half bottle of vodka in Armstrong’s glove compartÂ�ment for emergencies. When I got home to Stuart Street, I took it with me. Lisabeth was waiting for me on the stairs. ‘They haven’t rung,’ she said. Then: ‘Where’ve you been?’ ‘Shopping,’ I said, showing her the vodka. ‘Humph.’ I looked at my watch. It was still not yet 9.00 pm.

‘Try and get some sleep,’ I said, passing her on the stairs without stopping. ‘If they don’t ring, we’ll need an early start in the morning.’ ‘Where are we going?’ she asked the back of my head. ‘To the rescue.’   I peeled off my clothes and ran the shower until it was hot. Springsteen appeared just to howl at me, then he began to sniff at the pile of clothes on the floor, especially the jeans and my trainers, and he did it with his mouth open as if panting. Then he turned up his nose and left the bathroom without me having to hustle him out. I twisted the top off the vodka and drank from the bottle as the hot spray opened up the pores the alcohol couldn’t reach. I stayed in there for some time, thinking about how, from the dimensions of the patch of new concrete in that cellar, Carrick Lee had probably been just about exactly my height.

     

Chapter Seventeen

   

The stake out of the Church of the Shining Doorway began at 0652 hours, but Lisabeth wasn’t making notes. She was in the back of Armstrong, peering out of the rear window. From a distance she could have passed for one of those hideous nodding dogs that you used to see everywhere but have now been replaced by air fresheners in the shape of a fir tree. She looked as if she had slept in her clothes, but I secretly believed she hadn’t slept at all. When she’d thumped on my flat door at 5.30 to tell me it would soon be dawn, I hadn’t argued. It was a relief to be able to stop dreaming about rats. I had parked Armstrong so we could see the blue door of the house in John Brome Street. I could see it in the wing mirror, and by squirming her bulk around and kneeling on the back seat, Lisabeth could see it through the window. So far, the rescue plan was working perfectly. The only trouble was, that was all there was of the rescue plan. ‘Why don’t we just go and smash the door down?’ she asked after managing to keep quiet for all of five minutes. ‘What with?’ I asked, turning to look at her. ‘There’s a hammer and some tools on the floor here,’ she said deadpan. ‘Oh yeah, well ... let’s just wait, shall we? See if some of them come out. After all, we don’t even know how many people are in there. Stella said Connie likes them to go to work. Let some of them go.’ An hour went by and, to be fair, she hardly breathed a word. She just knelt there, clutching a hessian shoulder bag. I hadn’t asked what was in it. Suggesting she had brought along some lentil sandwiches or similar seemed frivolous, and she hadn’t moaned once that she was hungry. Perhaps it was clean underwear for Fenella, in which

case she wouldn’t talk about it anyway. ‘There’s two of them,’ she said suddenly. ‘Girls.’ She was right. Two teenage girls, and they were hurrying as if late for the bus. ‘Shall I go and talk to them?’ Lisabeth said, without taking her eyes off them. ‘Ask them if they’ve seen Binky?’ ‘No, leave it. We don’t want them running back into church, do we?’ I advised, and she accepted it, for now, but I wondered what length of fuse she was on. I stared some more at the blue door with the cross I knew was there but couldn’t see at this distance. I felt like the Mexicans outside the Alamo, wondering just how many defenders there were in there. Stella had mentioned two males by name, Paul and Julian, and said there were up to seven women. I didn’t quite believe the last bit. The house here was bigger than the Islington one, but not big enough for those numbers. Maybe they took it in shifts. At 8.15, two more girls and one of the young guys – the one who had given me a pamphlet – emerged. As they walked down towards Sloane Square, without giving us a second glance, they said something among themselves and started laughing. I could almost hear Lisabeth bristling from the back. ‘Are they laughing about Fenella?’ she hissed. ‘We’re not even sure she’s in there. Relax, will you?’ I was beginning to wish I’d brought Springsteen along. Then at 8.35 she just said: ‘It’s him. It’s him, isn’t it?’ Stella must have described him to her, as it was Connie. Tall, rangy, long, swept-back red hair, linen jacket, jeans and cowboy boots. He was holding a mobile phone and he was alone. He was just a tad too old to pass for a student but he could have been mistaken for a graphic designer down on his luck. ‘Now what?’ Lisabeth whispered loudly in my ear. She had moved on to the rumble seat behind me to follow Connie’s walk down the road. She was still clutching the hessian shoulder bag to her chest. ‘We follow him,’ I said decisively. ‘I think he’s going for breakfast. Americans eat out a lot, you know. If he is, it’ll be just around the

comer. If he’s not, at least he’s out of the way and we can come back and tackle the house.’ ‘You want to have breakfast with him? I don’t believe it.’ But she followed me out of Armstrong and into the brasserie on Sloane Square like a faithful Labrador.   Connie was sitting at the table in the window. There was no-one else in the restaurant and only one waiter on duty. He had just placed a basket of croissants and a bowl of white butter in front of Connie when he saw us. ‘Just two cappuccinos,’ I said politely. He nodded and waved a hand, saying ‘Sit anywhere’, and went behind the bar counter to nurse a steaming Gaggia machine. Connie never looked up. He put his mobile phone on the table and picked out a croissant and began to nibble the end. I took hold of Lisabeth’s arm and guided her towards his table. She was still clutching her bag. He looked at us just as we got to the table. He had blonde eyebrows, as many natural redheads do, and big, light blue eyes so bright I suspected coloured contact lenses. I felt Lisabeth stiffen under my grip. ‘Mind if we join you, Mr Smith?’ I asked. He flicked his head so that his hair seemed to ripple back. I knew women who did that to great effect. ‘It is Connie Smith, isn’t it? We’ve heard so much about you.’ He bit into his croissant, crumbs falling on to the white paper tablecloth. I pulled out a chair for Lisabeth and then the other for myself. Lisabeth was opposite him, but he seemed more intent on me. ‘So what have you heard? And from whom?’ The voice was deep and slow, maybe Midwest, and softer than I had expected. Maybe I had been expecting a Deep South evangelist. Maybe someone who passed around snakes in a bag. What was a Messiah supposed to sound like in the 1990s?

‘Lots of people,’ I said. ‘Carrick Lee for one.’ He didn’t move a muscle except the ones he was chewing with. ‘Don’t know anyone by that name,’ he said. ‘Hope they said kind things about me.’ ‘It was more about your work,’ I tried. ‘My work is helping people. I hope I was of help.’ He flicked a crumb from the lapel of his linen jacket. Underneath it he was wearing a plain white T-shirt. He had long, tapering fingers and the nails were long and shaped at the ends. A guitar player when he wasn’t converting followers, I guessed. ‘Carrick Lee came to you via Simon Buck, about two months ago,’ I said, then broke off as the waiter placed a large, steaming cappuccino in front of me, then one in front of Lisabeth. She hadn’t twitched since we’d sat down. ‘Go on,’ Connie said after the waiter had disappeared. ‘Does this get to a point?’ ‘Buck sent Carrick to work with you on one of his little property scams. How’s that for a guess?’ ‘It’s a guess, that’s all.’ I put my hands on the table and reached for my coffee. The cup was so hot it burned my fingertips and I left it where it was rather than let him see my hands shake. ‘Carrick came looking for you when you were at the house in Islington. He hasn’t been seen since.’ ‘Sorry, means nothing to me.’ He stuffed the last of the croissant into his mouth and chewed. ‘I’ve been to the house in Lennard Street,’ I said, looking hard for a reaction. ‘I haven’t,’ he said, swallowing. ‘At least, not for a while.’ He switched his stare to Lisabeth as he reached for another croissant from the basket. I didn’t know what else to say. If I mentioned Stella, it might make life difficult for her, depending on what had happened in the house. And we still didn’t know if Veronica and Fenella had actually got inside. And Lisabeth was being no help, just sitting there nursing

her coffee but not drinking it. ‘This has not been as interesting as I thought it would be,’ Connie said coolly. ‘You’re Angel, aren’t you.’ It wasn’t a question and he wasn’t looking at me. He and Lisabeth were eyeballing each other. He selected a croissant and delicately held it over Lisabeth’s cup. ‘I’m on a caffeine-free day today,’ he said conversationally, then dipped the end of the pastry into her coffee. ‘But just a taste, huh?’ He held it up above his face, his eyes on Lisabeth all the time, then he stuck out his tongue and let a drop of coffee fall from the sodden end. Then he brought it closer and licked it twice, using his tongue like the lead singer of a Heavy Metal band performing to an audience of pimply youths. ‘You must be Angel from all I’ve heard,’ he said in my direction rather than to me. ‘Your two dykey girlfriends told me all about you, after a little persuasion, that is.’ He looked at me when he said that, and smiled. Two misÂ�takes in one, stranger. Lisabeth moved like a blur. She scooped up cup and saucer and flung them at his chest. He howled and flapped with his hands, either from the sting of the hot coffee or over the mess it made of his T-shirt and jacket. I didn’t get a chance to ask which it was, because Lisabeth was on her feet, reaching for the lapels of his linen jacket. She pulled him up and off his seat and bent forward herself, smashing her forehead into the bridge of his nose. He sank back, almost as stunned as I was, and emitted a low moan of pain, his hands over his face. I stared at Lisabeth as she sat down again and placed her hands on the table, linking her fingers. ‘Did that hurt?’ I asked. ‘I think I’ve broken his nose,’ she said, not even breathing hard. ‘Not him, you pudding. You.’ She just shrugged her shoulders. I took some paper napkins from the metal dispenser on the table and laid them in front of Connie.

‘There was one other thing, Connie,’ I said confidently. ‘We did rather want to see our friends this morning. Just to make sure they’re all right.’ He looked at me over a noseful of paper napkins. The blood was starting to show through them. ‘Dey ... dey’re in de house,’ he stammered, then shook his head as if to clear it, but he stopped doing that when he realised it hurt too much. ‘Are they all right?’ Lisabeth growled. Connie reacted like she’d hit him again, his chair scraping the floor as he tried to back off. ‘Is everything okay?’ came a voice. The waiter, from behind the coffee machine. I didn’t know whether he’d seen anything or not. Outside, in the square, two young girls in school uniform were looking through the window in open-mouthed amazement. I decided to get Lisabeth out of there before they formed a fan club. ‘Slight accident. Our friend here was told to avoid caffeine and now he’s gone and got a nose bleed. How much do we owe you?’ ‘One continental breakfast, two cappuccinos, that’ll be ten quid,’ he said, but he stayed behind his bar. ‘That’s outrageous,’ whispered Lisabeth. ‘Leave the money on the table, Connie,’ I told him. ‘Then get up slowly. You’re taking us to church, okay? And we’d better find our friends in one piece. Do I make myself clear?’ He nodded, then grabbed for some more napkins as dropÂ�lets of blood splashed on his T-shirt. He reached into his jeans pocket and produced a £10 note, throwing it onto the table. Lisabeth picked up her shoulder bag. ‘Let’s go,’ she said to me. ‘But I haven’t finished my coffee,’ I said, aggrieved. Her expression told me not to push it. ‘Okay, okay. Grab his phone.’ She snapped it up and plopped it into her bag, where it clanked against something heavy. ‘Now let’s walk out of here slowly and together.’

I went through the door first, blocking it so that Connie had to stay real close. If I had been him, that was where I would have done a runner, so I worked on the principle that while Lisabeth probably frightened him more, I stood a better chance of catching him. But he didn’t even try to run. We walked him into John Brome Street, me on his right, Lisabeth on his left. To the passers-by, we were two good friends helping another after an accident. That was the scenario had anyone said anything to us. But this was London. No-one said anything to us. ‘Hey, I was bullshitting back there,’ Connie said to me through a wad of bloody paper. It came out as ‘dullshitting’. ‘Your girls, they’re all right really. It was just some of the women, they roughed them up a little. Nothing serious.’ ‘Sure,’ I said, not trusting him as far as Lisabeth could throw him. ‘Let them tell it. How do we get in?’ We were almost at the blue door. ‘There’s a knock. I have to do it.’ He tried to ease in front of us, but gently, like he was trying to help. ‘Watch him,’ I said to Lisabeth. ‘Who’s in there with them?’ ‘Just Julian,’ he said. I looked the door over. It was solid enough but there was no lock, something I should have noticed before. ‘Keys? What do you do for keys?’ ‘No keys, man,’ he sniffed, looking at a handful of red napkins. His nose looked awful. ‘Bolts. Only opens from inside. Got to have someone here all the time. Only opens on the secret knock.’ I moved in close to him, so he was almost up against the door, and motioned Lisabeth to stand next to me. ‘Go ahead.’ He put the napkins to his nose with his left hand and rapped with his right; three long, four short, two long knocks. I heard a bolt draw back, then another and then the door swung open. The other disciple I had seen handing out tracts at the tube station was standing there. He was wearing a vest top and jogging

pants. ‘Julian’ – Connie gasped, swaying to one side into the doorway – ‘I need protecting. Beat the crap out of him.’ Julian reacted before I could. He stepped forward, nudging Connie inside with his right elbow, while making fists of his hands. I grabbed Lisabeth and took a pace backwards. I had it in mind to take more than one, for Julian looked like he knew what he was about. He put up his fists, but not like an amateur would, apeing a 19th Century prize-fighter pose. His fists were close and at an angle in front of his jaw. He flexed his shoulders and I saw more muscles than I wanted to. He was positioned as if about to perform a demonstration left-right-left combination on a punch bag. As none of us had a punch bag, the next thing in reach – exactly his reach – was me. ‘What have they done to you, Connie?’ he said out of the corner of his mouth, not taking his eyes off me and moving his feet for better balance. ‘They’ve hurt me, Julian. Now you hurt them. Do it.’ For a second, his expression to me said ‘Sorry, nothing personal’, but it didn’t distract him from the business in hand. I took another step back, tugging Lisabeth with me. She was fumbling in her shoulder bag. Going for the phone to call the cops, I thought. By the time she’d worked out how to use it, she might as well make it an ambulance. And, if I was lucky enough to live, an orthodontist. Again. ‘Now, hold on, Julian,’ I said. I didn’t put my hands up. Most professionally-trained boxers don’t go for undefended targets. It tends to throw them. Obviously Julian had been to the wrong sort of boxing gym. He just took another step and tensed himself. It was all happening very fast, but then fights do. Suddenly, Lisabeth seemed to be leaning into me, and as I still had a good grip on her with my left hand, I pulled so she was in between me and Julian. Surely, he wouldn’t hit a woman? He didn’t get the option.

Lisabeth finally stopped fumbling in her bag and produced something that she swung at Julian’s head. I saw it glint in the morning light, which was more than he did. Whatever it was thwacked into the side of his head and his eyes glazed and his knees buckled and he just sort of deflated in front of us. Lisabeth’s arm was still extended as he fell, and I could see it was some sort of bottle she was holding. Julian didn’t stop on his knees. He kept going, face-first on to the pavement. I reacted just as Connie did. I was pushing Lisabeth out of the way and stepping on and then over Julian to get to him as he tried to swing the door shut. I put my shoulder down and jumped the last three feet, cannoning into the door and smashing it and him back into the house. I stayed on my feet and pushed hard to keep the door fully open. Connie was howling again. I had trapped his right hand between the door and the hallway wall. I eased off and he fell away, still yelling, his right hand tucked in his left armpit, his left hand to his still-bloody nose. I reckoned he’d had a bad enough start to his day to remove any further resistance. ‘What about this one?’ Lisabeth said from the doorstep. She was still holding her weapon, and though I looked hard, she still hadn’t broken sweat. ‘Is he out cold?’ ‘Yes, I think so.’ ‘Then I’ll take care of him. You keep an eye on the live one. You’re much better at this than me.’ She came into the house and I eased by her, then grabbed Julian by his ankles and dragged him, face-down, back into the house. As I did so, I wondered who was going to tell him that he’d been laid out by a half-litre bottle of Virgin Olive Oil. Extra Fine quality, of course.   The Contemplation Room where the girls had been imprisoned was a windowless pantry smaller than a Victorian jail cell, off the kitchen. There was no cellar in this house.

To make it lightproof, somebody had fitted black foam rubber around the inside of the door, masking even the door frame just to increase the sense of isolation. Bastards. Connie stood against the wall in the kitchen where we’d pushed him and just motioned with his head. Lisabeth drew the bolts and opened the door which, like the cellar door in Lennard Street, had a cross crudely painted on it. ‘Binky?’ she said, and for the first time, there was a tremor in her voice. Three female voices responded, all frightened. ‘You can come out of there,’ she said. ‘It’s safe now. You’ve been rescued.’ And who were they to argue? Veronica came out first, blinking, then taking her glasses off and rubbing her eyes. Stella followed, her hair matted, one shoe missing, and dirtier than Veronica. Finally, Fenella, rumpled and falling into Lisabeth’s arms. Veronica came over to me where I was standing guarding Connie, though Connie was going nowhere. ‘I think I’m glad to see you for once,’ she said, pulling at her clothes as if to straighten her dignity. ‘If you did this to him.’ She pointed a grimy finger towards Connie’s face. ‘Not me, I’m afraid,’ I said, not wanting to take the credit in case charges were laid at a later date. ‘It was Lisabeth.’ ‘Right on, sister,’ said Stella, turning on the taps in the kitchen sink and splashing water on her face. Lisabeth pulled her head from Fenella’s shoulder and smiled sheepishly. ‘Are you all right, Ronnie?’ ‘I’m fine,’ said Veronica, glaring at Connie. ‘It was Fenella who put up the fight.’ Lisabeth’s brow creased. Then she put her hands to the sides of Fenella’s face and tilted it gently. Fenella was sporting a three-tone black eye. Lisabeth began to move her carefully to one side.

‘No, Lisabeth,’ Veronica said forcefully. ‘You’ve done enough.’ Veronica was still looking straight at Connie, but he wasn’t meeting her eyes, he was trying to nurse his nose and his hand at the same time. Veronica shook her head slightly, then took off her glasses again and held them out so I could hold them. Then she stomped as hard as she could on Connie’s left foot. He screamed and doubled up, and as he did so. Veronica ducked in under him and brought the top of her head up into his face. His head jerked back and hit the wall, and there was a spray of blood from his nose this time. Then he yelled again and, in mid-yell, fainted, slumping to the floor. ‘Way to go,’ breathed Stella softly. ‘Thank you. Ronnie,’ said Lisabeth and Fenella together. ‘How about I make a nice pot of tea?’ I volunteered.   We dragged Julian into the Contemplation Room and bolted the door. ‘Is he all right?’ Fenella asked, ever the worrier. ‘He’s breathing,’ said Lisabeth in a voice designed to close the subject. Connie we manhandled into the downstairs room Stella described as ‘The Chapel’. It had no furniture, just scatter cushions covering the floor. Connie, who had been out for only about a minute, seemed grateful for the lie down. ‘Time to talk,’ I said, and he groaned. ‘Or shall I leave you to the ladies?’ ‘It was Buck, man, it was Buck.’ He spoke through a broken nose, and a split lip from where Veronica had butted him. His face was a mess, but he seemed keen to chat. ‘Buck set you up in properties, didn’t he? So you could – what? – bring down the value, frighten tenants off? Which was it?’ ‘Either/or, man. Sometimes both. He’s done it before using what he called gyppos, even hobos; you known, man, winos, drunks off the street. That man is into property in a big way and that’s not

clever, man, not these days.’ He was right. The property market had slumped. People had paid big prices two years earlier and now found themselves owing the bank more than the bricks and mortar were worth. ‘And Carrick Lee? What was he?’ ‘Nothing, man, nothing to me.’ Connie waved a hand weakly. ‘You gotta believe me on this one. He worked for Buck, just delivered orders, money … Shit, I only met the guy twice. Whatever there was between those two was between those two, not me, man.’ ‘What do you mean, between those two?’ ‘Buck and this guy Lee. There was something there, but I don’t know what. Hey, look, it had something to do with her old man, that’s all I know.’ ‘My father?’ shouted Stella. ‘I knew it.’ ‘What did it have to do with Stella’s father?’ I had seen the way he had flinched at Stella’s voice. ‘It was something ... I don’t know …’ He shook his head. It still hurt. ‘… But it wasn’t the property thing, man. Believe me. He knew all about that.’ ‘What?’ from Stella, louder. ‘Shit, your old man owns this place and the fucking house next door, and that’s got sitting tenants. He knows, I tell you. But this thing with Lee was something else. Buck wanted him out of the way.’ ‘So, what happened at the house in Islington, Connie?’ I asked quietly. ‘And remember, I’ve been there.’ ‘What ...?’ Veronica started, but I signalled quiet. Connie tried to lick a swollen lip and failed. ‘Buck told us we were moving again, quick, like that night. To this place here. He told us he was having trouble with Lee and we had to get him into the Contemplation Room, and leave him there. Hey, look, I don’t know what happened. We packed up and moved here.’ ‘But you can guess, can’t you?’ I said softly.

‘There’s nothing to connect me, man. No physical eviÂ�dence, whatever happened.’ He lowered his voice so the women would have trouble hearing. ‘I travel light, man. You won’t find anything.’ I was almost willing to agree with him. ‘You’re right, Connie. You do travel light. Just your mobile phone. I’ve seen you with that twice now. What’s the number?’ He said nothing. He didn’t have to. His eyes gave him away. ‘You don’t know, do you? But you don’t have to, because you never receive calls on it, just make them. Right?’ He nodded. I turned to Lisabeth. ‘Give me his phone. They reckon you can get away with making calls on a stolen phone for about three months, don’t they, Connie?’ I took the phone from Lisabeth and flipped it open and punched it on. From the card in my wallet, I dialled Bobby Lee’s number. He answered after two rings. ‘Bobby? It’s Angel. Do me a favour. Ring Carrick’s mobile and let it ring four times, then hang up. Don’t ask. Just do it, and don’t try and ring again. I’ll be in touch.’ I closed the phone and held it out so everyone could see it. ‘Did you steal it from Carrick?’ I asked him, ‘No, swear to God. It was in Buck’s car, on the back seat of his Beamer. I thought it was his. Honest to Christ.’ The phone began to ring. Connie began to cry. I switched the phone off without answering it. ‘You got a passport?’ I asked him, and he nodded. ‘Use it.’ I said.

Chapter Eighteen

   

‘So, how long was it before they rumbled you?’ I asked no-one in particular as they twittered and chattered and conÂ�gratulated each other in the back of Armstrong on the way back to Hackney. Piecing it together from what they said, the answer ranged from ten seconds to ten minutes, with my vote going to the ten seconds. Veronica and Fenella had failed to find a disciple to recruit them, so they had indeed marched up to the ShinÂ�ing Doorway itself and demanded to be let in. Once in, and probably before she’d got her coat off, Veronica started dropÂ�ping the name Carrick Lee, but got no response at all. What did get them noticed – and thrown into the Contemplation Room where they found Stella – was when Fenella used Veronica’s name. ‘Connie knew about Veronica,’ Stella said, ‘and he knew her name and that she was a detective. He’d been warned to look out for the two of you. That’s why I got the ContemÂ�plation Room. He wanted to know why Veronica was looking for me.’ ‘Who told him my name? The only people who could have tipped him off were Buck or your father, and I didn’t tell them my real name.’ I was sure I hadn’t. ‘That was me, I’m afraid,’ said Fenella. ‘Still, no harm done in the end.’ In the mirror, I saw Lisabeth giving her a hug. ‘Thanks, Binky,’ I said wearily. ‘What was Connie up to?’ ‘I think he was just holding us until someone decided what to do with us,’ said Veronica. ‘Trying to figure out an angle,’ said Stella. She leaned forward so that her head was almost on my shoulder. ‘You know what happened to Carrick, don’t you? When you were talking to him, you both knew.’

‘He suspected. I guessed.’ The others had gone quiet now. ‘He’s dead, isn’t he?’ Stella asked, her voice as flat as ink. I really didn’t want to tell her; not here, not like this, preferably not ever. ‘I don’t think he ever left the house in Islington,’ I said carefully. ‘But I don’t think Connie knew any more than he told us.’ ‘Is that why you let him go?’ ‘No. If Connie was ever pulled, he wouldn’t think twice about implicating everyone he can think of, starting with Simon Buck and your father. Do you want to know if your father was involved? It’s up to you. You’re the only one who could get it out of him.’ ‘I doubt that. You’d have to tie him down and torture him before he’d admit to anything.’ ‘That can be arranged,’ I said.   Arriving back at Stuart Street, Fenella offered to cook us all a victory lunch, but only after she’d got over her initial disappointment that they hadn’t exactly put flags out or organised a street party for us. Veronica egged her on with bluff cheerfulness, saying she could eat a horse, before realising she was talking to two card-carrying members of the Vegetarian Action Front. She backtracked rapidly and succeeded in breaking the atmosÂ�phere and getting the subject off Carrick Lee’s concreted corpse. Though at one point she almost said she was ‘dying’ for a bath, changing it just in time to ‘desperate’. Fenella offered her the use of her bathroom, not to menÂ�tion some new nettle-and-oatmeal soap she had acquired. I could almost feel a vibration of disapproval from Lisabeth. Not only was she ultraprotective about her bathroom, I think she had given Fenella the soap. Stella leaned forward. ‘You got a shower I could use, Angel? I’m stagnant.’ ‘Sure,’ I said, glad to see she was taking things so well and trying to remember where my one and only bar of soap had landed after I had flung it at Springsteen.

I did find it and even a clean towel, and I started to make coffee while she got on with it. And what with the kettle boiling and me trying to cue music on the CD player with Springsteen twining himself around my arms and knees, I didn’t hear the water shut off. I was on my knees in from of the CD, fumbling with the graphic equaliser, when she said: ‘There’s an empty bottle of vodka in there. Why do you drink in the shower?’ ‘I spill a lot,’ I said without looking round. ‘That’s nice,’ she said, nearer. ‘Who is it?’ ‘The Dirty Dozen Brass Band,’ I answered, leaning back on my haunches. ‘They’re good,’ she said, so close I could smell soap. Springsteen mewed, then lay down on his side as if to roll over. Danger signal. Be afraid. I turned my head slowly. She was using my towel to dry her hair. That was as far as she had got in dressing. ‘Forgotten anything?’ I asked casually. ‘He doesn’t think so,’ she said, and she was right. The black furry traitor was on his back now, purring and looking up at her in admiration. I hadn’t the heart to hold it against him. On the CD, the Dirty Dozen swung into the second chorus of ‘Milenberg Joys’. ‘Don’t you fancy a shag, then?’ She towelled furiously behind her left ear. I looked at my watch. It was 11.30 am. ‘Well, we could have a long day in from of us,’ I reasoned. ‘That’s what I figured,’ she said. ‘Got any condoms?’ Before I had a chance to reply, she said: ‘Hey, I might be easy, but I’m not fucking stupid.’ I stood up. ‘Let’s see about that, shall we?’   ‘Whatever we do, we ought to leave Stella out of it,’ whisÂ�pered Veronica. ‘She’s been through a lot.’ ‘I think she’s handling it well,’ I whispered back. ‘And, anyway,

it’s up to her. It depends how much she wants to find out, and only she can do it. She’s the key.’ ‘More garlic bread?’ chirped Fenella. ‘What a pity Randa had to go to work. We could have been the Magnificent Six.’ ‘I thought we were supposed to be the Six Angels?’ Stella said, levering the tops off a pair of beers. ‘Whatever it’s called, you seem to have your own private army,’ I said, taking one from her. ‘And I’m grateful for the help,’ she said, ‘though I didn’t come looking for it. Still, God knows what Connie would have done if you hadn’t burst in.’ ‘And what wouldn’t he have done to us if Lisabeth hadn’t burst in and rescued us?’ added Fenella. It was nice to know I had been forgotten and the Five Angels were now down to Four. ‘Oh, once you and Ronnie were in there with me, I was sure I was safe. In fact, I think Connie was secretly relieved that there were witnesses, so he couldn’t do anything really awful.’ ‘He was a truly awful man,’ said Veronica, balancing a plate of pulse salad on her knee. ‘Even in the short time we were there, we saw him ... use ... those girls who live there.’ ‘Some of them are lucky if they get their coats off,’ Stella sniped. ‘He found shock tactics worked more times than not. Most of them were on the rebound from something. Or someone. And Connie always preached that you couldn’t be saved until you’d sinned. Preferably with him.’ ‘So did Rasputin,’ I chipped in, and Fenella mouthed ‘Who?’ to Lisabeth, who just looked blank. ‘Did he force you?’ Veronica asked Stella. I couldn’t have imagined her asking that, even so quaintly, a few days ago. ‘Not exactly force,’ she said after a pause, ‘but I’m a pretty good actress. He soon lost interest.’ She looked at me and smirked. ‘And it could have been much worse.’ ‘God! How?’ breathed Lisabeth gruffly.

‘Think how many real cultists have ended up cutting their own throats recently, or setting fire to each other. Some of these people are seriously sad. Connie was just a conman. A crook. He loved the Shining Doorway front because it gave him power over his disciples, especially the women, but mainly because they stole for him. But it was all fairly small-scale stuff.’ ‘Until it came to Carrick,’ said Veronica softly, but firmly claiming the moral high ground she obviously thought Stella had abandoned. ‘Ah yes, poor Carrick,’ Stella said in a matter-of-fact way that silenced everyone more effectively than if she’d done a tap dance about it. ‘So, what are you looking at me like that for? He’s gone, hasn’t he, Angel? You think so. Connie thought so.’ ‘Your Heathcliff …’ breathed Veronica. ‘His father thinks so,’ I said. ‘His father? You’ve met his father? What’s he like?’ She seemed genuinely interested. ‘Nice enough guy. Head screwed on. Taking it all very calmly.’ If she thought I was getting at her with that, she let it pass. ‘He’s not likely to do anything rash, is he?’ she asked me. ‘Such as what?’ interrupted Veronica. ‘Such as paying a visit to Sir Drummond or to Simon Buck,’ I told her, ‘before Stella can.’ ‘But, why–?’ When I answered her I was looking at Stella. ‘Because he’ll know by now, because Bobby will have told him, that we’ve found Carrick’s phone.’ We all, except Stella, looked at the mobile that lay on the window sill. None of us had felt like touching it since we got back. ‘You knew as soon as you saw Connie with the phone, didn’t you?’ I asked Stella. Stella nodded. ‘How terrible for you,’ said Veronica, missing the point. She reached out and patted Stella on the knee. ‘What can we do to help?’

‘Nothing, really,’ said Stella, as if thinking it through. ‘I must go and see Daddy and make him tell me what was going on with Simon and Carrick. Whatever it was, I can’t believe Daddy would have hurt anyone.’ ‘What about Buck?’ I asked. She wrinkled her nose. ‘I’ve never trusted him, never liked him, but I can’t see him as a murderer.’ It was the first time any of us had said it. Fenella’s sharp intake of breath was audible through the room. Stella herself broke the spell. ‘His wife, Caroline, on the other hand, I wouldn’t let anyÂ�where near the cutlery drawer. She’s a total psycho, the most insanely jealous woman on the face of the Earth. He keeps her more or less locked up, but she should be locked up permanently.’ Veronica patted her knee some more. ‘I’ll come with you. For support.’ ‘So will I,’ squeaked Fenella. Lisabeth glared at her. ‘No, you won’t,’ I told her. ‘You’ve done your bit, you two. This is a job for the Three Angels, no more.’ Lisabeth flashed me a grateful look. If she’d known how to, she might have winked at me. ‘Three?’ Stella was smiling. ‘Why you?’ ‘You need a driver,’ I said lamely.   Veronica just had to go via Shepherd’s Bush to pick up some clean clothes. Even as she said it, she noticed that Stella was wearing a T-shirt advertising Samuel Adams’ Boston Lager, the best beer in America. (It must be true; that was their trademark.) Stella had just looked sheepish, and Veronica had probably suspected, but said nothing. I cut through the City to go up west. At that time in the afternoon the traffic flow would be with me and, as a cab, Armstrong had no problem negotiating the ‘ring of steel’ the cops had thrown up to stop terrorists getting near enough to bomb the City financial houses. It wasn’t a ring and it wasn’t steel, just an annoying series of

chicanes of plastic traffic cones that slowed traffic down enough so the bored City Police (they’re taller than the uniformed officers of the Metropolitan Police) could stop and search you. Naturally, they never searched taxis. All you had to do was slow down so they could see your passenger in the back. I’d never seen a taxi pulled over. I had another reason for going that way. ‘Is your father going to tell us anything?’ I asked Stella. ‘Not unless you tie him down and torture him, like I said. He’s way past guilt and he never had any shame. It’s not going to be easy.’ ‘Okay, then I’ve got an idea, but I’ve got to stop to buy something.’ Near Centre Point I doubled round into Tottenham Court Road and parked illegally on double yellow lines near the shop I wanted. ‘Back in a minute,’ I said to them and climbed out, taking the keys with me. The shop had its windows painted out, but was open for business. I made two purchases, paid cash and left, saying no, I didn’t want to browse. Back inside Armstrong, I pushed my purchases and their white plastic bag under my seat. ‘What on earth were you buying in an Ann Summers shop?’ Stella asked me, giggling, as I started the engine. ‘I’ll show you later,’ I answered. ‘That’s what they all say,’ she laughed. ‘What does an Ann Summers shop sell?’ Veronica asked her. ‘You really should get out more,’ Stella answered.   I felt more confident visiting Albert’s office than I had before. Veronica showed Stella in, using her key to the new door for the first time, and when she commented on this, I pointed out that she still owed me money for it. Stella reminded me I owed her for a pair of shoes left on Wimpole Street. As we clumped up the stairs, I noticed Veronica was clutchÂ�ing the files Bobby Lee and I had taken from Albert’s office. I offered to put them back, and Stella followed me while Veronica went to change.

The first thing I did was go to the window and look down into the alley. It was deserted, so I breathed a sigh of relief and then began to slot the files back into the cabinet. ‘What were you looking for?’ Stella asked me. ‘Nothing, just checking the coast was clear. There was some trouble here with Albert, Veronica’s boss.’ ‘She told me. Do you find trouble naturally or did you have to stay on at school?’ I gave her my killer look, but she didn’t flinch. ‘I’m just an acting, apprentice detective trying to do what real detectives do.’ ‘And what’s that?’ ‘Be a catalyst, I suppose. Private detectives don’t actually do any detecting, they just stir things – and people – up. Then if they’ve any sense, they stand back and let things sort themselves out.’ ‘Whatever the consequences?’ ‘Oh, especially if there are consequences.’ ‘I bet you’re good at it,’ she said, laying a hand on my arm. ‘Almost as good as you,’ I said, and the hand withdrew as if stung. ‘What do you mean?’ There was a touch of steel in her voice, behind the coyness. ‘You knew Carrick was dead when you saw Connie had his phone.’ ‘Yes, I’ve told you that.’ She put on a fair imitation of a puzzled expression. ‘When was that?’ I asked. She turned her back on me and walked over to the window as I had done. I closed the filing cabinet drawer, and the noise made her shoulders jump. ‘First day I was at the Shining Doorway,’ she said. ‘So, it never really was about Carrick, was it? You would have split there and then if it had been.’ She put the palm of her right hand on the window pane and gently tapped the glass with the nail of her index finger.

‘I needed to find out what my father was up to. Oh, Carrick was sweet, but he was just a summer fling. There was nothing there that would last.’ ‘And your father would just love the thought of his daughter running off with some gypsy, wouldn’t he?’ I said to needle her, but it didn’t work. ‘Not at first. No, I didn’t think that at first, but then, later, yes, I knew it would bug him. I needed Carrick as a weapon against him. I used him. There, I’ve said it. Happy now?’ ‘Like you’re using us? Me and Veronica. We’re your edge, aren’t we? The outsiders who know things, and we can’t be closed down by family ties. You want us there as witnesses until you get what you want. Thing is, I don’t think you know what you want, Stella.’ ‘You knew what I wanted a couple of hours ago,’ she said, not sure whether to step closer or not. ‘That was exercise.’ That got a reaction, but not much more than a brief flare of colour in her cheeks. ‘Then thanks for the work-out, if that’s all it was. But you’re still here, driving us. Why? What’s in it for you?’ ‘Estelle? Ready to go?’ Veronica yelled from her room. ‘Someone’s got to watch over her,’ I said. ‘She doesn’t get out much.’ ‘That’s a crap reason,’ Stella hissed as Veronica apÂ�proached. ‘It’s the best you’re gonna get,’ I hissed back. I didn’t want to tell her that the phone call I hadn’t made might just result in even more trouble for us.   Veronica had changed into jeans, a padded anorak and sensible flat shoes. A week ago she probably wouldn’t have dressed down so much to go gardening. Outside the office, Stella and I climbed into Armstrong while Veronica locked up. She had trouble getting the key out of the new lock, and by the time she started towards Armstrong, I had the engine running, so I only faintly heard someone shouting: ‘Hey,

Miss!’ In the wing mirror, I saw Veronica stop as if to talk to someone, and I turned my head to see that she had been hailed by Crimson’s mum, Mrs Delacourt. I decided to leave them to it, and they chatted for a minute or so, then Mrs Delacourt pointed at Armstrong, saw me looking at her and waved. I waved back. Then she dug in her handbag and brought something out, which she gave to Veronica. ‘What’s going on?’ Stella asked, turning to look herself and blocking my view. ‘A satisfied customer, I hope,’ I said. Veronica waved a cheery goodbye to Mrs Delacourt and climbed into Armstrong, holding out a while envelope for me. ‘That Mrs Crimson is a really nice lady,’ she said chattily. ‘I didn’t know you knew anyone round here. She said to give you this and to say she could start cleaning on Monday. I told her I didn’t know what she meant and that I wouldn’t be here long, but she said she’d fixed it all up with you. Were you planning a bit of a surprise, Angel? Was that it?’ ‘Something like that,’ I said, pocketing the envelope. ‘She told me I should be careful, as well.’ ‘That’s always good advice,’ I said. ‘She said it was a really, really rough area and I had to watch out for myself. She said three young black kids were beaten up last night, just in the next street somewhere. One of them got a broken arm and had to go into hospital. But her son told her they were up to no good and were selling drugs to the local school kids. So I suppose we shouldn’t feel sorry for them, but isn’t that just a terrible state of affairs?’ ‘Terrible,’ I agreed. Thanks, Crimson. Thanks, Chase.   The traffic heading out of London up the motorway was weekend heavy and it took longer than I had expected to reach the intersection that would lead to Great Pardoe. At least that gave me some thinking

time, and about four miles short of the village, I pulled over and took Carrick Lee’s mobile phone from under my seat, flipping it open and punching the power button. ‘What are you doing?’ they asked together. ‘Checking the lie of the land,’ I said, hitting numbers. Bobby Lee answered on the second ring. ‘Angel? Jesus Christ, I’ve been ringing you every 20 minutes since this morning. Where are you? What’s happening? Did you switch the phone off?’ ‘Yes, I did, and I’m sorry I haven’t been in touch, it’s been one of those days.’ And it wasn’t over yet. ‘Where are you?’ ‘At the Lodge, on car park duty at the antiques roadkill show here.’ ‘Is Sir Drummond around?’ As I asked that, Stella moved onto the rumble seat behind me, close enough for me to smell my shampoo on her hair. ‘He’s in the Lodge. Buck was here earlier. He left burning rubber, but he didn’t go home. I thought I’d better stay here.’ ‘You did right.’ Stella was screwing up her face, trying to hear what Bobby was saying. That’s why people hate mobile phones. It’s not because they disturb you in restaurants or on the train; it’s because you can hear only one side of a conversation and you’re dying to hear the other half. If someone was in a phone box and you couldn’t hear anything, you wouldn’t mind. ‘What time do you close up?’ I asked him. ‘Seven o’clock, but we haven’t had a punter for over two hours.’ ‘Can you keep it that way? Not let anyone else in?’ ‘Sure, won’t be a problem. What are you up to? How did you get Carrick’s phone?’ ‘We’re on our way to see Sir Drummond. We need a word with him, but don’t jump to any conclusions, Bobby. Okay?’ ‘I won’t,’ he said curtly. ‘You’ve told him, haven’t you?’ ‘Just that you had Carrick’s phone,’ he said, and when I said

nothing, he added: ‘He’s coming down. On his way. I had to.’ ‘Yeah, that’s okay, Bobby. ‘Course you had to. See you soon.’ I closed the phone, then opened it again and dialled the same number but changing the last digit to 0 from 2. The card Carrick Senior had given me had three consecutive numbers on it. Job lot, he’d said. The phone bleeped four times then connected, and a voice said ‘Hello?’ then, ‘Bobby?’ through an awful lot of static and the distinct throb of the sound of heavy traffic. I closed the phone on him without a word. ‘I think we ought to hurry,’ I said.   Armstrong complained almost as much as the two women in the back as I drove across the lawn to the Classic Car Centre, keeping its aircraft-hangar proportions between us and Sandpit Lodge itself. I didn’t know if it would give us much of an advantage, but every little helped. As I parked alongside the Centre, Bobby Lee saw us from his sentry box in the car park near the house and began to walk towards us. There was no sign of Carrick Senior, nor a Land Rover Discovery in sight. In fact, the car park was deserted. ‘Come on.’ I led them into the car museum, clutching my Ann Summers carrier bag and Carrick’s phone. Bobby caught up with us inside the sliding doors and nodded to Veronica. I introduced him to Stella. ‘You’re the daughter …’ he said. ‘And you’re the brother,’ she answered. I looked, but there was nothing in her eyes. ‘We may not have much time.’ I took command. ‘Will your father come here?’ ‘Or straight to Buck’s place,’ said Bobby, not taking his eyes off Stella. ‘Right then, you take Veronica and stake the place out like we did. Do nothing, just keep your eyes open and keep in touch on the phone.’

‘Wait a minute,’ Veronica blustered, ‘what are we supposed to be doing?’ ‘Keeping his father away from her father’s solicitor.’ ‘And what will you be doing?’ She was bracing her feet to make a stand of it. ‘Stella and I will be asking her father some questions.’ ‘And just how do we get him to answer them?’ Stella drawled. ‘You told me how,’ I said, holding up the carrier bag. ‘We’re going to tie him up and torture him.’

     

Chapter Nineteen

   

Stella really was a natural actress. I did a run-through, explaining what I had in mind, and she just went ahead and did it. Using Carrick’s phone, she rang the house. She was perfect. ‘Daddy, it’s Estelle. Yes, it is me. I’m here. I’m coming home, Daddy. I’m in your museum. Your sanctum. RememÂ�ber when you used to call it that and I had to go away and look it up? No. No, come and get me, Daddy. I don’t want to come up to the house by myself. No, not until I’ve had a chance to explain. Come down here, Daddy. I’m all alone. The visitors have gone. The gawpers, we used to call them – no, it was grockles, wasn’t it. Hurry, Daddy. I’ve missed you.’ She snapped the phone shut and handed it to me. ‘Two minutes. Tops.’ ‘That was very good. Now stand over here.’ I made her stand leaning against the driver’s door of the first of the classic car exhibits on the left, a metallic-blue Alvis tourer. Then I took two pairs of handcuffs out of my carrier bag and slipped one pair into my jacket pocket. The others I opened with the key, then pocketed that. I slipped one cuff through the door handle of the Alvis and snapped it shut, leaving the other cuff dangling at the end of a six-inch steel chain. Stella moved so that her buttocks and legs covered them from sight, reaching behind her to make sure she could grab the open bracelet. ‘Okay? Think you can handle it?’ ‘Sure. Hey, these things are suede-lined!’ she exclaimed, feeling the inside of the cuff. ‘So as not to leave bruises,’ I said. ‘Some people think of everything.’  

I was crouched down behind the Alvis in case she needed help, but she didn’t. Sir Drummond came puffing into the hangar, his circular face bright red, his lips and cheeks pushing out his white moustache as if he was trying to blow it away from under his nose. ‘Estelle!’ ‘Daddy!’ She held out her arms for him as I had seen her do for me only that morning, and as he embraced and tried to kiss her, she turned into him and I heard the handcuff ratchet shut. It seemed a fitting sort of sound. ‘What the–? Estelle, what the devil ...?’ By that time, she had spun away from him and skipped out of his reach. She stopped, kissed the end of her right index finger and leaned forward to touch it to his cheek. Now that, I thought, was unnecessary. ‘We have to talk, Daddy,’ she said, smiling. He yanked at the handcuffs, bemused. Then he tried the Alvis’s door handle and it opened, but it didn’t do him much good. Stella took two steps further backwards. ‘Is this some sick joke, Estelle? I really ... You?’ He saw me as I walked around the front of the Alvis. ‘What do you want? What’s going on? You work for Block, don’t you?’ ‘Strictly freelance, Sir Drummond. At the moment, if I’m working for anyone, it’s for Carrick Lee.’ ‘Remember him, Daddy?’ taunted Stella. ‘I’ve been through all this with him.’ He pointed with his right hand, his left gave the cuffs a tug. All they did was rattle. ‘I don’t know where your gypsy vagrant boyfriend is.’ ‘I do,’ I said, watching his face. ‘He’s in the cellar of 23 Lennard Street, Islington.’ The colour began to fade from his checks. ‘That means nothing to me,’ he snapped, but he wouldn’t meet Stella’s gaze.

‘Don’t you own it, Daddy? Connie – Constantine Smith, ring a bell? – well, Connie seemed to think you owned lots of places in London.’ He jerked the cuffs, causing the door of the Alvis to creak on its hinges. ‘Dammit, Estelle, release me. I refuse point blank to discuss family business in front of him’ – he pointed an accusing finger at me again – ‘and with you when you’re in this mood. Have you been taking something again? Is it like last time?’ ‘No, it’s not like last time,’ she said, and she twisted her upper body at him like a child would, as she said it. ‘Last time was when Mummy died. I had an excuse.’ ‘There’s no excuse for this!’ he bellowed. He was wearing a clean white shirt and black trousers, as if he had been changing when she’d phoned. The shirt was already beginning to show sweat stains around the armpits. ‘Estelle!’ he yelled at her. ‘I demand you stop this at once!’ She looked at me. ‘Told you we wouldn’t get anything out of him.’ ‘Okay, Phase Two,’ I said as I walked by her. ‘Stand clear.’ ‘Where’s he going, Estelle? Estelle!’ I didn’t turn around. I went out through the hangar doors and round to the side of the museum where I had parked Armstrong. I started him up and took a look around the grounds to make sure there were no late tourists. Over the fields, the light was beginning to fade. I dropped into first gear and swung out in a semi-circle and into the hangar, heading straight at the straining figure of Sir Drummond. Of course, I stopped long before I got to him. Well, a couple of feet anyway. Then I got out and walked behind Armstrong and slid the hangar doors closed. As I did so, he yelled: ‘What are you doing? Estelle, what’s going on?’ ‘That’s for you to tell us, Daddy.’

She walked towards me, and I thought she was going to help pull the doors closed, but she let me do that, then leaned her back against them and crossed her legs at the ankle. She put her arms behind her back, and her breasts swelled out to fill my T-shirt. Her tongue flicked out and she moistened her lips. ‘Go to it,’ she said to me, staring at her father. I made to get back into Armstrong, the throb of his diesel louder than usual in the confined, echoing metal hall. ‘We want to know what happened to Carrick Lee,’ I said to him. ‘We want to know how he fitted in whatever you and Simon Buck were doing.’ He ignored me, straining at the cuff chain, holding out his free hand as if begging, and looking over my shoulder. ‘Estelle …’ I climbed into Armstrong and strapped on the safety belt. The first car on show in the column to my right was a two-tone 1962 Zephyr Mark II. I hit its offside corner dead square with the middle of Armstrong’s radiator. The Zephyr’s headlight smashed and the wing began to crumple. I put Armstrong into reverse and took a run at it. The second impact jarred my good new teeth, but the Zephyr moved this time, sideways and into the next exhibit, a black Lincoln Continental. I reversed again, dropped into first and hit the gas. This time, I swung to the left, missing Sir Drummond and the Alvis, but clouting the Austin Healey ‘Frogeye’ next to it a beauty, head on. With Armstrong’s extra height and weight, it didn’t stand a chance. In my mirror was the Lincoln, with the Zephyr piled into its side. I didn’t fancy even Armstrong’s chances against a big old born-inthe-USA gas guzzler, but next to it, third in line, was a red Triumph Herald. I’d always disliked them. I put Armstrong into reverse and floored it. The Triumph was the most satisfying crunch so far, and my teeth hardly felt a tremor. Then Stella was in my windscreen, waving frantically, and behind her I saw Sir Drummond was leaning on the door of the Alvis like a drunk whose legs had gone.

I eased forward a yard and turned off my engine. Typical. Just when I was really getting into it. As I stepped out, glass from the Triumph continued to tinkle onto the stone floor. ‘Stop, stop …’ Sir Drummond was saying, and when he saw that I had, he began to stand up straight and recover his composure. I walked in front of Armstrong and checked for damage. There were two or three dents that would have to be hamÂ�mered out, but that was all. To my right, one of the Austin Healey’s doors suddenly fell off with a satisfying crash. I let Sir Drummond see me smile, and for the hell of it I made like I was measuring the distance between Armstrong and the next car in line, a Wolseley Hornet. ‘Are you going to tell us what we want to know, Daddy?’ Stella was back, temptingly just out of range for him. He shook his head slightly. His ears were probably ringing from the collision noises. He nursed his cuffed wrist with his free hand and looked up at the steel girder rafters. ‘Estelle …’ he started, then took a resigned, deep breath. ‘I took some bad advice some time ago and bought a lot of property that is now not worth what I paid for it. There were ways, people said, whereby I could get some of my money back if ... circumstances changed. Planning perÂ�missions, changes of use, that sort of thing.’ ‘But there were people in the way sometimes,’ I said. ‘Sitting tenants, people like that.’ I think he was relieved that I knew most of it. ‘Yes, and sometimes building restrictions to get round. It wasn’t just throwing people out onto the street.’ ‘That makes me feel so much better, Daddy. Go on.’ ‘Simon said he knew ways of doing things, getting things moving. He knew people he could use to change the value of things, to level the playing field in our favour.’ ‘People like Connie and his churchgoers?’ I asked. ‘And people like her sweetheart, Lee. He was involved, Estelle. He knew what was going on. He worked for Simon, arranging things, getting families of gypsies to move into an area …’

‘And lowering the whole tone of the neighbourhood,’ I said, and for the first time I think he was frightened of me. I looked again at the Wolseley Hornet, sizing up the distance. ‘Look, I’m not proud of what was done,’ he said hurriedly, ‘but I was in debt, deep debt. Simon offered a way out, but it didn’t work. This place is a drain, a sinkhole.’ He swung his free hand in the air. It was the most expansive gesture he could make under the circumstances. ‘I was at my wits’ end.’ He was trying to appeal to me now. I could see where Stella got the acting talent from. ‘Simon must have got careless, because Carrick found out, and we knew he had been close to you, Estelle. It could have ruined everything. Simon said he would pay him off, make him go away. I don’t know what exactly happened. I …’ His voice faltered. ‘… I never asked. I didn’t want to know.’ ‘He killed him, Daddy, didn’t he? Simon killed him.’ ‘And buried him in the cellar of one of your houses,’ I added. He seemed to crumple then, right in front of us. It wasn’t as if he was going to fall or anything, he just shrank within his skin. ‘It could have been an accident, or something. I don’t believe Simon meant to harm him, but he was desperate too. He was in dire straits, just as I was, and when Carrick found out about us, that could have tipped him over the edge.’ ‘When Carrick found out what?’ I asked, later than I should have. ‘I don’t know how he did,’ the old man said reasonably. ‘Perhaps Simon was careless …’ ‘What?’ I shouted. ‘About Estelle’s trust fund. We’d had to use it to finance the original property deals. Simon said we could replace the money after we had sold …’ ‘How much of it?’ I said loudly. ‘How much of it did you use?’ ‘All of it,’ he said, puzzled. ‘I thought that was what this was all about.’

Estelle and I eyeballed each other. ‘I think you’re right,’ I said.   ‘You didn’t have to come, you know,’ she said in my ear as I bounced Armstrong over the grass. ‘But I’m glad you did. He wouldn’t have told me – admitted it – if you hadn’t threatened to destroy his toys back there. I’ll pay for any damage.’ ‘What with?’ I asked nastily. ‘Oh, I’ll get it out of him, don’t worry.’ We hit the driveway and I swung towards the road. It was getting dark and I put the lights on more to check them than because I needed them. Everything seemed to be in working order. Montgomery could have done with a few like ArmÂ�strong at Alamein. She had demanded to come with me as soon as I had turned on my heel towards Armstrong. I had flipped her the key to the handcuffs and she had released the old boy, who had opened his arms to her. She had told him to go to the Lodge and wait for her. She would be back soon; to stay and look after him. He took it like a sentence. ‘Will he be all right?’ ‘He’s tough as old boots,’ she said. ‘In fact, he’s probably on to the insurance company right now.’ She paused. ‘Seriously, he’s probably phoning Simon Buck right now.’ ‘I’m banking on it,’ I said. ‘You are?’ ‘Yes, so the bastard can run before the gypsies move into his neighbourhood.’   We raced through the village until I saw the hedge surrounding Old Mill Cottage and I killed the lights and drifted to a stop. I found the mobile phone and dialled Bobby, hoping he had the volume control turned down if he was anywhere near the house. There was no connection; he had turned his off. ‘Damn! What’s he playing at?’ I said aloud.

‘What’s the problem?’ asked Stella. ‘Let’s just go up to the front door and confront the bastard.’ ‘There are other people involved,’ I said, gritting my teeth to keep my temper. ‘Buck is a lawyer. You think he’ll go down for this one alone? He’ll drag your father into it for sure. Think you’ll see any of your trust fund after that?’ ‘I hadn’t thought of that,’ she said quietly. ‘Well, neither had I until just now. But I’m more worried about Carrick’s father, who might just be on his way here to do something stupid. And Buck isn’t worth it.’ ‘So what? So you want us to warn Buck? Then what happens?’ ‘I don’t know,’ I snapped. ‘I haven’t thought that far ahead yet.’ In fact, I was way behind, because Carrick Lee was already there.   Stella followed me through the gap in the hedge and held my hand as we stumbled across the garden, me hoping that Bobby was where we had been to see Mrs Buck’s command performance. I was aware that lights were on all over the house, but I was concentrating on making my eyes accept the gloom of the shrubbery until I was sure I could see the rose bushes Bobby and I had hidden behind. There was no sign of Bobby, but Veronica was there, faceÂ�down on the ground. Kneeling next to her, with one knee in the small of her back, was Carrick’s father. His left hand pressed down on the back of Veronica’s head. His right hand held a sawn-off shotgun. ‘Shit,’ breathed Stella a half-second before I could. He took his hand away from Veronica’s head and used it to wave us closer, indicating that we should keep low. Veronica looked up at us. Her glasses were at an angle across her face, but I think she recognised us. ‘Do as he says,’ I whispered, pulling Stella along with me. ‘Mr Lee, it’s okay,’ I said softly. ‘She’s with me.’ He eased off Veronica, and pointed the gun at the ground. ‘I’ve sent Bobby to the car,’ he said to me, but his eyes wandered to Stella, who had knelt to help Veronica up. ‘You’d best go yourselves.’

‘He’s going to shoot him,’ Veronica said breathlessly. ‘He’s just waiting for him to come out.’ ‘Mr Lee,’ I pleaded, ‘you don’t know for sure …’ ‘You tell me he didn’t do it.’ ‘Whether he did or not, don’t you do this. You want to go to prison?’ ‘Last thing I want. No Romany …’ ‘Look.’ Veronica had straightened her glasses and was staring at the house. It was the same view Bobby and I had had, through the French windows, only this time, with the room lights spilling out, it had an even more bizarre theatrical quality. Buck was on one side of the room yelling. His wife was on the other. You didn’t need a volume control to know they were yelling at each other, and for punctuation, Caroline Buck was throwing anything that came to hand. A cushion, an ashtray, a CD. Not at Buck, just throwing at random. ‘What’s happened?’ I sank to my knees between Lee and the women. His shotgun had no butt, just a home-carved pistol grip. I wished I didn’t notice things like that. ‘Buck came home about ten minutes ago,’ Veronica said, almost enthusiastically now she had an audience. ‘They started to fight then but he got a phone call, and then things really hotted up. He’s trying to pack his bags, and I think she’s trying to stop him.’ As if to demonstrate her point, Buck suddenly charged across the room. pushing his wife out of the way. He was almost at the top of the stairs before his wife had completed a somersault over an armchair and landed on the floor. We couldn’t see her for a minute, then she appeared from behind a chair, crawling on all fours, round and round, aimless. ‘Watch, he’s coming back,’ Veronica said. I took my eyes away from the giant TV screen that was the Buck house and glanced down at Lee and the gun.

‘Don’t even think it,’ he whispered, and I flashed my eyes back to the house. Buck came down the stairs two at a time. He was carrying a big leather shoulder bag, and as his wife stopped her crawling and reached up for him, he swung it at her. She jerked backwards and fell out of our sight again. Buck didn’t break his stride but continued out of the room. Buck’s wife clawed herself upright using the back of a chair. She was screaming, but we couldn’t hear her. But Buck did. He ran into the room, the bag over his shoulder this time. As he did so, he undid the belt of his trousers and pulled it loose. He hit her two, maybe three times, almost without stopping. Then he was through the room and pounding upstairs again. I felt Veronica stiffen next to me on the damp grass. ‘Why don’t we leave now?’ she said. ‘Me, you and Stella, that is.’ Not for the first time, but for new reasons, I was lost for words at her. ‘I’ve got a better idea,’ said Stella. ‘Give me that phone.’ I stared at her then, but before Carrick Lee could think of a reason to shoot me, I handed it over. ‘They don’t have a phone upstairs,’ Stella was saying as she worked the mobile. ‘They never had. He kept them downstairs ... It’s ringing.’ We all looked towards the house. ‘Pick up, Caroline, come on, pick up.’ We saw Mrs Buck stand up from behind the furniture line. She was a sad, battered puppet framed in the theatre of those windows. We saw Buck appear at the top of the stairs, shouting. Caroline Buck picked up the phone in the living room. ‘Hello?’ said Stella nervously. ‘Can I speak to Simon, please?’ We could see only her shoulder; the phone must have been behind the hallway door, and she had her back to us, so we couldn’t see her face. ‘It’s Estelle, Caroline, Estelle Rudgard. I expect Simon’s told you by now ... That we’re going away together ... I’m sorry, Caroline, but I’m also glad it’s out in the open now … The deceit was bad for us

too ... Now we have my trust fund, we can go away and we won’t be a bother to you, Caroline … Caroline? … Can I …?’ She closed the phone and I wished there was more light so I could see her face. But then again I didn’t. ‘She hung up,’ said Stella. We knew. We could see. Simon Buck had gone back into a bedroom. His wife had put the phone down and walked like an automaton across the room and out towards the kitchen or another room we couldn’t see. Then Buck had emerged, coming down the stairs, zipping up a long windcheater. He was shouting again, questions, as if expecting an answer. ‘You were brilliant,’ Veronica squeaked, grabbing Stella’s arm. ‘She’s left him.’ But she was back. As Buck entered the living room from the hallway, his wife came in from the other side. He didn’t look up, just concentrated on the zip of his jacket, his bag over his shoulder. ‘You won’t need that,’ I said to Carrick Lee, pointing at his gun. Caroline Buck had one of her own. That was a shotgun too, full size. When Buck was halfway across the room, and still hadn’t seen her, she fired a single shot. Even through the windows and out in the garden, we heard it quite clearly.   We ran for the gap in the hedge. Veronica stumbled once and almost lost her glasses. CarÂ�rick Lee unloaded his sawn-off and hid it inside his jacket as he ran. I found the gap and pushed Veronica through. Then, as Stella brushed by me, I grabbed her by the shoulder. ‘Tell me you didn’t know that was going to happen,’ I hissed in her face.

‘I didn’t. Honest. I knew she’d get mad, but I didn’t even know they had a gun.’ I had to believe her. There wasn’t time to argue. I certainly believed that she hadn’t expected the second shot that came across the lawn from the house. I don’t think any of us had expected that.

     

Chapter Twenty

  ‘Walk, don’t run,’ said Carrick Lee, and then proceeded to walk off up the road, fumbling with a mobile phone, the twin of the one Stella was still clutching. I hustled the women in the opposite direction, to where I had left Armstrong, and we piled in, none of us wanting to be the first to speak. By the time I had Armstrong turned full circle, the headÂ�lights of Lee’s Discovery were coming down the road. He slowed behind me and flashed his lights but made no effort to pass me. I pulled away and he followed us back through the village. We saw two or three cars, mostly people coming home from work, turning into driveways. No pedestrians. No sirens. I turned into the driveway of Sandpit Lodge and stopped, and the Discovery pulled up behind me. ‘Give me the phone,’ I said to Stella, and she handed it over without a word. ‘And stay here. Both of you.’ ‘Why? It is man’s talk or something?’ Veronica snapped chopsily. ‘What you don’t know, the police can’t extract forcibly,’ I said as I climbed out. Carrick Lee got out of the Discovery’s passenger side. Bobby Lee waved to me from behind the steering wheel. ‘I didn’t think he was old enough to drive,’ I said to his father. He had buttoned up his poacher’s jacket. I couldn’t tell if the sawn-off was still in there. ‘If he can reach the pedals, he can drive,’ said Lee. ‘Yeah, ‘course.’ I shuffled my feet. ‘Best not hang about,’ he said, his hands in his pockets. ‘I need to know where he is.’ ‘In the cellar of 23 Lennard Street, Islington. You’ll need drills and digging gear and a coroner. Sorry, there was no easy way to put it.’

He nodded his head sadly. ‘Do you know what happened?’ ‘No, not for sure. Carrick somehow found out that Buck had been helping Stella’s old man to fiddle her trust fund. He got him alone in the house and ... who knows? Fight or accident? There’s no way of knowing now. There were no witnesses. Buck trashed the house, and I guess he had plans to have it demolished. I don’t know if he’d have got away with it.’ ‘Oh, he wouldn’t have done that.’ ‘Would you really have done him?’ I had to ask. ‘Not in front of his wife.’ He snorted slightly. ‘Funny that, as it turned out. She’s a hard bitch, that one.’ But he was looking at Stella in the back of the cab, not thinking about Mrs Buck. ‘That other one, the plump one …’ ‘Veronica.’ ‘Yes, well, she’s got guts, that one. She went for me like a tiger.’ ‘She would. Not a brain in her head. Look, Mr Lee, I don’t know what you want to do now, but we’re out of it if we can be.’ ‘That’s fair,’ he said reasonably. ‘You’ve done your bit.’ ‘I’ve done very little. I can’t tell you what happened. I don’t know the how or the when or …’ ‘Oh, I’m pretty sure of the “when”,’ he said. ‘On his grandmothers birthday?’ I guessed. ‘Yeah. She knew. She could probably tell you to the exact minute.’ ‘I believe you,’ I said, and I did. ‘She said I could trust you.’ ‘But I never met her, never even saw her.’ ‘She saw you.’ I didn’t know whether that was supposed to spook me or not. ‘Then I wouldn’t want to upset her by saying anything she might disapprove of,’ I said carefully, ‘would I? Assuming I had ever met her, or indeed knew who we were talking about in the first place.’ ‘I’m glad we understand each other,’ he said, to my great relief. ‘If anything has to be done, I’ll do the right thing.’

‘That’s fine by me.’ ‘And them?’ He gestured towards Armstrong. ‘They’ll see reason. Trust me.’ ‘I don’t,’ he said, and reached inside his coat. I was half a second from hitting the ground when I saw what he was holding in his hand. It was a cheque. And he was offering it to me. I was shaking as I took it and read it. The payee line was blank but it was dated and signed and drawn on an account called ‘Lee & Sons Business A/C No 2’ from a bank in Leicester. The cheque was made out for £500. ‘There’ll be another in six months if you keep everyone quiet and happy. What’s the matter?’ ‘I didn’t expect this,’ I said without a word of a lie. ‘What did you expect? Gold sovereigns? Gypsy silver?’ ‘No, nothing like that. I just didn’t ... I don’t think I’ve earned it.’ ‘You haven’t. Yet.’ I held out my hand and he shook it. ‘You’ve got a deal, Mr Lee.’ I kept on shaking his hand. As long as I was holding it he couldn’t reach for his gun. ‘But you’ve got to tell me that you’ve finished with this business. And tell me now.’ ‘I’m done, as long as you tell me that her father had nothing to do with the death of my son.’ I squared up to him. ‘And if I said he had, what could you do to him that’s worse than what she’s going to do now she’s back home?’ He gave my hand an extra shake.   I drove Armstrong up to the Lodge. There were lights on everywhere but no cars, no police. The doors to the Classic Car Museum were closed. ‘I’d better go in alone,’ said Stella. ‘Are you sure you’ll be all right?’ asked Veronica when I didn’t. ‘I can handle him. Now. Don’t worry, he loves me really.’ ‘He’s waiting for you,’ I said.

‘I know,’ she said without looking. I had been watching the door. It had opened, and silhouetÂ�ted there was Sir Drummond, the light from the hallway playing around his domed head like a halo. ‘You’ll ring? Keep in touch?’ Veronica pleading. ‘Tomorrow. Bet on it. Thanks for everything.’ Stella grabbed her and kissed her on the cheek. I couldn’t see, but I felt Veronica blushing. Stella put a hand on the door handle. ‘Estelle?’ We all heard him; a lonely cry in the dark. ‘I’m coming, Daddy!’ she yelled. She was out of Armstrong and closing the door when she froze and then pushed her head back inside. ‘Why did you need two pairs of handcuffs?’ she asked me. I just looked at her. ‘See you around, kid.’   We had done only about three miles on the motorway back to town when Veronica asked me to pull over so she could throw up. I breathed a sigh of relief, as anyone who had ever driven a cab would, that at least she asked first. I gave her a few minutes of privacy to stagger around the hard shoulder, bent double. Even with the traffic thundering by, I could hear her retching. Then I turned off Armstrong’s engine and went to find her. She was sitting on the grass, halfway up the embankment, her face in her hands, elbows on her knees. I sat down next to her, and for a while we watched the cars hiss by Armstrong on their way to London. ‘I’ve never seen anything like that before,’ she said, taking off her glasses and trying to drag a tissue from the pocket of her jeans so she could wipe her mouth. ‘I never dreamed I would see anything like that. Ever.’

‘You’ve got to try and forget it,’ I said, thinking, as she was, of the way Simon Buck had been thrown backwards across the room by the blast from his wife’s shotgun. The way the blood had spattered the inside of the French windows as if some mad artist was flicking paint from a brush. ‘You will, in time.’ ‘And his poor wife … What …? Do you think …?’ I was tempted to put an arm around her, but the thought didn’t linger, and the consequences might have. ‘We don’t know for sure; we were too busy running away. But sometimes it’s safer to assume the worst.’ At least Veronica hadn’t seen, and neither had Carrick Lee, though he’d known instantly. And Stella couldn’t have seen, because I had been holding her by the shoulders and shaking her, so she had her back to the house. So all that was left was for me to convince myself that I hadn’t really seen, just out of the corner of one eye over Stella’s shoulder, Mrs Buck place the shotgun butt on the floor and then lean forward, her mouth open. ‘Couldn’t we have done anything?’ Veronica asked, though I was far from sure she wanted an answer. ‘There was nothing we could have done,’ I lied. ‘The woman was totally unstable. We couldn’t have known how she would react.’ Veronica reached down and pulled a handful of grass, then threw it towards the motorway. Most of it fluttered over my legs. ‘It’s so unfair, you know. I started this to help somebody and to get some answers. I can’t see that I’ve helped anyone and there are lots of questions unanswered.’ ‘That’s life, kid. You really should … just accept it and make the best job of it if you can.’ ‘Job?’ she snorted, concentrating on the traffic. ‘I haven’t got a job now you’ve more or less solved the case.’ ‘I knew it would be my fault,’ I said, trying to lift her spirits. ‘What are you going to do? What do you want to do?’ She slapped the palms of her hands on her knees.

‘I’m going home, well, back to Shepherd’s Bush, anyway. Then I’m going to sleep all day tomorrow, then I’m going to pack up everything I own and find a new flat.’ She paused, then looked at me. ‘And then, I’m going to set myself up in business.’ ‘As a detective?’ I said carefully. ‘Yes. I might even make Albert an offer for the business. You never know, he might feel guilty about just going off like he did. Maybe I can use that to my advantage.’ ‘You’re learning, kid. And that’s a good idea about Albert. He might just feel guilty. Have you got a number for him?’ ‘Back at the office, yeah. He’s staying with his daughter in Exeter.’ ‘Give it to me, let me ring him. I’ll tell him what a great job you did. It’s always better coming from a third party.’ ‘You think so?’ ‘Positive. And one other thing, a word of advice, if you’ll take one.’ ‘You’re the one with the wheels; you’re driving. Go ahead.’ She was learning. ‘Think of a new name – if you stay in the detecting business. I’m sorry, but “Block and Blugden” just doesn’t cut it. Think of something neutral and conservative, or someÂ�thing catchy.’ ‘You mean like “Veronica’s Angels”?’ ‘No, definitely not. What about your name? Do something with that.’ ‘Like what?’ ‘Well, like the Americans do. Use your middle initial or – Â�I’ve got it – do like that female private eye in the books, she just uses initials. You know, V I Warshawski.’ ‘Who?’ ‘Never mind. Have you got a middle name?’ ‘Yes, Daphne.’ ‘Forget it.’   She gave me Albert’s number when I dropped her off, and I rang him the next day. His daughter eventually got him to the phone, and

it took two or three goes before he finally remembered me visiting him in hospital. ‘So what’s it to me?’ he said tetchily. ‘I’ve got some news for you,’ I said, trying to keep calm. ‘Simon Buck is dead. His wife killed him.’ He was silent, but I could hear his breath rasp down the line. ‘There’s been nothing on the news,’ he said eventually, in a dull monotone. ‘If you’re lucky, Albert, there won’t be.’ ‘What do you mean by that?’ he came back quickly. ‘I reckon there’s enough circumstantial evidence in your filing cabinets to link you with Buck’s little property scams, maybe even to a house on Lennard Street in Islington. Serve papers on anyone there, Albert?’ ‘Hey, that’s all I did. Just doing my job. There were lots of places. I can’t be expected to remember every one.’ ‘You might have to remember this one.’ ‘Why’s that?’ ‘Because it’s where they’ll find Carrick Lee if they look.’ ‘I didn’t know anything about that,’ he whispered nervously. ‘I never saw the kid. It was nothing to do with me.’ I actually believed him, in part. If he had known how deep Buck had got himself into things, he would never have let Veronica near the case. He was an ex-copper, he knew how dangerous amateurs were. ‘Mud sticks, Albert.’ He was an ex-copper. He knew how to do deals. ‘Unless what?’ I told him what he had to do.   The deaths of Simon and Caroline Buck only made a paraÂ�graph in two of the quality Sunday papers. The bodies had been discovered by the postman the following morning, and the local police had been quick to issue a ‘no suspicious circumstances’ statement. But then, what did they know?

In the following weeks, however, most of the tabloids ran picture stories about the vandalism at the Classic Car Museum. Sir Drummond was pictured holding a steering wheel, standing in what was made to look like the middle of a scrapyard. Vandals had broken into the museum, it seemed, and wrecked 11 classic cars, including a rare Lincoln ContiÂ�nental. What was the country coming to? This was the Yob Society in all its horror, and hanging was too good for them. Never mind the arithmetic, think of the publicity. And sure enough, about two months later, when he auctioned off his entire collection including the wrecks, Sir Drummond did very well out of it. He made far more that way than the insurance company would have given him.   Of course, it took me days to explain everything to Lisabeth and Fenella, and even then I didn’t tell them everything. In fact, I told them as little as possible. All they really wanted was reassuring that Veronica was safe and Stella was happy. No matter how many times I said they were, it took a phone call from Veronica promising to come and visit before they were satisfied. I was actually in their flat when she rang. Fenella had gone to answer the communal phone and had yelled excitedly up the stairs for Lisabeth, who had gone lumbering to join her. Fenella insisted on giving me the gist of the conversation as it happened, repeating or paraphrasing everything and shouting up the stairs. ‘It’s Veronica, Angel. She says the phone’s been reconÂ�nected.’ I let that one go as a lesson in the blindingly obvious. ‘Angel! She says she’s going to stay on as a detective. Isn’t that exciting?’ ‘Brilliant!’ I shouted back. ‘Tell her that is absolutely brill.’ Out of boredom, I wandered into their kitchen.

‘She says Albert has offered to sell her the business and the lease on the office,’ shouted Fenella. ‘That’s nice of him, isn’t it?’ ‘A most pleasant surprise,’ I said drily, though not so she could hear. ‘He’ll be giving her his files next.’ ‘And he’s handed over all his case files.’ ‘My, my. Good old Albert.’ I was playing with the wall-mounted scales they had fixed near their cooker. A half-litre, square glass bottle of Virgin Olive Oil weighed in at just over two pounds. I hefted it like Lisabeth had hefted it against Connie’s boxing disciple Julian, and made a mental note never to be left alone in a kitchen with her.   Then I had to go over everything again for Miranda’s benefit, but at least she and Doogie had the good grace to invite me to dinner to do it. I took along a couple of bottles of New Zealand ChardonÂ�nay to break the ice, which turned out to be a good choice as Doogie had liberated half a salmon from the hotel where he worked and had poached it with a lemon and dill sauce. ‘So what happens now?’ Miranda asked after I had sung for my supper. ‘Nothing,’ I said, pouring the last of the wine. ‘Nothing? What about Carrick’s body?’ ‘That’s up to his father.’ ‘It’s for the best that he decides,’ said Doogie. ‘It’s up to him what he can live with.’ ‘And what about Stella’s father? He ripped her off.’ ‘And I suppose he’s paying for it,’ I said, looking to Doogie for support. ‘Aye, that one can look after herself,’ nodded Doogie. ‘I just knew you’d say that.’ She slammed plates together in a pile. ‘I’ll get the dessert. Do you like white chocolate mousse, Angel?’ ‘Love it.’

‘I thought it was supposed to be a bit naff these days.’ She flounced out without looking at Doogie. ‘Sorry about that,’ I hissed at him. ‘Ach, man, never mind her. Listen, I want to ask you something. That stuff you got from Crimson’s mum ... The fish drug.’ ‘The anaesthetic?’ ‘That’s the substance. Still got it?’ ‘Yeah, as a matter of fact I have.’ I narrowed my eyes. ‘Why?’ ‘Well, you see, I’ve got this cousin back home in Scotland who lives right next door to this salmon farm and ...’   About two months later I found myself up west near Shepherd’s Bush Green. In fact, I had just been for a lunchÂ�time drink with Crimson, who had unfortunately left behind a packet of white powder in the pub. All I had done was put it into a large envelope and post it to just west of Inverness. ‘I don’t want to know,’ Crimson had said. Which was fine by me. Keep it confidential, that was the way. I didn’t even tell him that Springsteen really appreciated the end product. Just for the hell of it, I drove round by Albert’s office. The door Dod had put in was still there, but there was a sign on it, a printed sign, about a foot square. I pulled over and parked, then strolled back to take a look. It read:   RUDGARD and BLUGDEN Confidential Enquiries   R & B Investigations, eh? Not bad, I thought, not bad. There was a push button intercom on the door frame. I pressed and held, and when a disembodied voice said ‘Hello?’, I said: ‘It’s Angel. Just a social call.’ The door lock buzzed and I pushed it and looked up the stairs. The stairwell had been painted bright white. It looked bare, but at

least it was light and clean. ‘Estelle is out at a meeting and our new operative is out on a job. Will I do?’ It was Veronica’s voice, but I wasn’t sure that the figure at the top of the stairs was Veronica. She had lost about 15 or 16 pounds and looked well on it. She had had her hair cut short and back off her face and had new glasses, with round, black Armani frames. She was wearing a black suit, the skirt knee-length, with a silky black scoop-neck top, black stockings and black patent shoes with an inch heel. She wore a single piece of jewellery, a sliver brooch in the shape of a sprig of flowers, on the lapel of her jacket. ‘I was just passing,’ I said. ‘Saw the sign on the door and rang the bell. Throw me out if you’re busy.’ She made a play of looking at her watch. ‘No, that’s okay. Come into the office.’ I followed her in and she walked around a new, black tubular steel desk and sat down. The office had been painted white too, and the furniture and chairs were black. ‘You seem to be doing well,’ I said chattily. ‘Business good?’ ‘We can’t complain. Did you want to see Estelle?’ ‘No, no, really,’ I protested, ‘I was just passing your door, that’s all. Thought I’d drop in.’ ‘Ah yes, the door,’ she said businesslike. ‘We still owe you for that.’ ‘That wasn’t …’ ‘It’s not a problem,’ she said, reaching into the top drawer of the desk. She produced a cheque drawn on a joint account and signed by both of them. There was no payee name and no date on it. The sum payable was £40. ‘We didn’t know what name you used for the bank. Do you have a bank?’ she asked calmly. ‘The door cost £120, I seem to remember,’ I said. ‘Yes, but you lost a pair of Estelle’s shoes, remember? They were very expensive to replace.’

‘I’ll bet they were.’ I decided not to argue and folded the cheque into the breast pocket of my shirt. ‘So things are working out?’ I tried. ‘We are on course for our first six-month business plan, yes. We’re small but we can grow.’ ‘And you have a new operative, did you say?’ ‘That’s right. A Mrs Delacourt. She knows you.’ ‘What? Crimson’s mum? A detective? Get out of here.’ She gave me a glassy stare. ‘And why not? We’ve placed her in an office, in charge of the cleaning staff. She’s uncovered two petty-cash fiddles and a software theft in the first week. She’s perfect in that situation.’ ‘But she’s so ... so ... she’s not, with the best will in the world, she’s not …’ ‘What? Streetwise? Like you? That’s your trouble, Angel,’ she said, gazing out of the window. ‘You can’t envisage people in jobs, in offices, on buses, stealing stamps, embezzling their employers, lying and cheating on a daily basis. That’s the world we’re going to get our business from. That’s where crime is; that’s where we’re needed.’ She finished her pitch. For a moment, I thought she was going to ask me to invest in the business. ‘But you don’t know that world, Angel. That’s your trouble. You really should get out less.’

     

About The Author

   

Mike Ripley is the author of 16 novels, including the Angel series which have twice won the Crime Writers’ Association Last Laugh Award for comedy.  He was the co-editor of the legendary Fresh Blood anthologies, a scriptwriter for BBC TVs Lovejoy and served as the Daily Telegraph’s crime fiction critic for ten years. He currently writes a regular column for the popular  Shots crime and thriller e-zine (www.shotsmag.co.uk) and regularly talks on crime fiction at libraries and festivals. After 20 years of working in London, he decamped to East Anglia and became an archaeologist. He was thus one of the few crime writers who regularly turned up real bodies. In 2003, at the age of 50, he suffered a stroke and regained the use of his left hand and arm by bashing out a book on an old portable typewriter on the kitchen table. He now works part-time for the charity Different Strokes and is the author of Surviving A  Stroke (White Ladder Press, 2006).  

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