Angel Confidential (29 page)

‘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 mistakes 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 droplets 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 19
th
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.