Angel Confidential (27 page)

For a moment there, she had tried, but I knew she had lost it before I said:

‘Yes, that was Carrick. Have you seen him recently? Have you any idea where he might be? Working for your husband, perhaps?'

Her eyes glazed over. She put her glass to her face and finished her drink like an end-of-the-pier automaton.

‘I
need another drink,' she announced, shuffling her buttocks and raising her dress even more as she writhed her way out of her chair.

She didn't ask me if I wanted one, not that I had touched the first. I let her get to the kitchen before I stood up and moved
to the French windows so I
was in full view. I
had some vague idea about trying to signal Bobby in semaphore, but what would I say? ‘Help, I'm trapped with a sex-starved woman with shares in a distillery and an inability to keep her clothes on'? What would he do, send reinforcements?

I didn't have to signal him. He was signalling me.

He was standing up behind the bush we had hidden behind, so I got a clear view of him. He pantomimed ‘over there' with both arms, index fingers outstretched, pointing towards the main drive of the house. Then he pointed the index finger of his right hand to the third linger of his left. Then he used both hands in the steering wheel position as if driving a car. Then he gave a Heil Hitler salute and mimed a goose step, following that by drawing a finger across his neck in a slow, bloodcurdling gesture.

I think he was trying to tell me that her husband had just driven up in his BMW.

 

‘Just what the fucking hell are you doing here?' Buck demanded.

It was a good question.

‘I am making enquiries into the whereabouts of Carrick Lee, Mr Buck,' I
said pompously, as I always did when I was telling the truth. ‘You were not here. Your wife invited me in for ... a drink.'

I laid on the pause thickly to see if it would bait him. It did. Sometimes it's a shame to take the money.

‘How dare you? This is my property.'

I let him bluster, noting that he said this was his property and not ‘this is my house' as most people would have done. He didn't frighten me. After ten minutes with his wife, I think I could have taken on a Great White over a hundred yards freestyle.

‘Your wife invited me in,' I repeated, speaking slowly and calmly. And, funnily enough, I did feel calm now he was here. ‘But she wasn't able to help, I'm afraid. Since you're here …'

‘What?' he spluttered. ‘What have you been asking her? Caroline? What has he been asking you?'

He looked around, a classic double-take.

‘Where is my wife?'

‘In the kitchen,' I said reasonably. ‘It's over there.'

I pointed with my drink and smiled at him. It didn't calm him down. I considered trying to get a refund on the new teeth.

‘Hello, Simon,' she said as if on cue, staggering into the room. She had another drink, and I was willing to swear that her glass had got bigger. ‘This is a detective. I thought he'd come about you.'

She burst into laughter, a dry sort of laugh, the absolutely non-infectious kind of laugh.

Buck swung on her. I might as well have not been in the room. It was a feeling I could get used to in this house. ‘He's not a detective. Don't be a fool. What's he been asking?'

Her mouth fell open, slack with surprise.

‘Nothing. Something. Something about somebody ... oh, I don't care, I mean, I don't know … He said he worked for Block,' she finished, a straw being grasped.

‘Albert's never heard of him. Whatever he's up to, it's no good.'

‘Excuse me,' I put in, ‘but I'm still here, you know. Why don't you ask me why I came?'

‘Honestly, Simon …'

Buck moved towards her faster than I guessed he could. I had known before he did that he would.

‘You, just shut the fuck up!' he yelled at her.

He put out his hand, not to punch, but rather to cup the side of her face, and then he pushed and sent her skittering across the room, losing a shoe on the way, to fall in a heap by the doorway that led to the staircase.

I suppose, if I'd stuck to the script, I should have stepped in then and punched the lights out of him. I didn't, partly because my Rule of Life No 34 is: never hit a solicitor when anyone is looking (especially not the solicitor in question), but mainly because of the way she reacted before I had time to.

In my experience, drunk women who fall over usually hit the floor with an air of finality you don't ever get from male drunks. It's not a sexist thing, just an observation. Perhaps men are just gutter-prone by nature. Women tend to hit the deck like puppets that have had their strings cut.

But not Mrs Buck. Not that she was up on her feet waiting for the compulsory count or anything, but suddenly, she was alert, and how. A microsecond after falling, she was on her hands and knees, shaking the hair and booze out of her face.

‘Oh, Simon,' she said throatily.

‘Caroline ... leave the room,' he said, and there was a tremor in his voice. Then he turned on me. ‘And you – leave this house now.'

I looked at him and then at his wife, who was leaving the room on all fours. When she reached the staircase I finally looked at him again.

‘Okay,' I said. It was the cruellest thing I could think of. He followed me to the front door so closely I could hear his breathing. I put my hand on the Yale lock and turned it, saying, over my shoulder: ‘Where's Carrick Lee, Mr Buck? I think you know.'

He pushed my hand aside and grabbed the door lock, pulling the door open. ‘Just get out. Go.'

‘Mr Buck, you've got to …'

‘Just get out of my house. I have nothing to say to you, and you have nothing to say that would interest me.'

‘So you're not interested in where Carrick is?' I tried.

‘Go, damn you!' He put a hand on my shoulder and pushed, but I'd been expecting it and had braced myself. He was going to have to get more physical than that, and I didn't think he had the bottle.

‘You've got nothing on me. Nothing.'

I held his stare, but he wasn't going to give.

From upstairs, Mrs Buck yelled in a voice that caught us both on the raw.

‘Simon – darling. The gates of hell are open for you.'

I watched his face. He hadn't shaved well that morning. A nervous tic twitched above his jawbone. We were close enough to identify each other's mouthwash.

‘I think you're wanted,' I said as I stepped into the driveway.

 

I drove Armstrong out of the drive and down the road, then doubled back to pick up Bobby, emerging from the hedge.

‘You should have seen what she did when she got to the top of the stairs,' he shouted from the back. ‘You missed a treat.'

‘That's okay,' I said. ‘I have a very vivid imagination.'

 

 

 

 

 

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 amateur 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 even-numbered 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.