Angel Confidential (16 page)

‘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.'

 

 

 

 

 

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 messages, 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 Delacourt 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, multi-coloured-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 side-streets 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 Enterprise. From the smell of the carpet, and its tackiness underfoot, 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 having 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.