Gun Street Girl (6 page)

She ordered a large gin martini for herself and a vodka martini for me. I didn't argue, but if she was trying to keep me alert she wasn't making a very good job of it.

‘Are you hungry?'

‘I could be,' I replied.

‘Good, I love the food here and I always get far too much. Would you like to order?' she asked me as if I was her escort rather than an employee.

‘No,' I said. ‘Surprise me.'

‘I just might,' she told me with a grin that made her look like a teenager.

She went right through the card from first to last, sesame toast to toffee apples. I was glad I was hungry as dish after delicate dish started arriving, steaming and sizzling from the kitchens. Now I knew why we'd been given a table for four. We piled our bowls full of food and dived in, chopsticks rubbing together like crickets' legs. Catherine ordered a bottle of Meursault to chase the dumplings down and we dived into that too. And when that was gone, she ordered another. We ploughed through course after course of the finest Pekinese cuisine. My head was beginning to swim from too much rich food and booze and I knew that we were still in for a long night. I'd probably regret it by morning, but what the hell.

We finished up with coffee and liqueurs and by that time I was well loaded.

She wasn't doing too badly herself. As we ate and drank, we talked. And the more she sucked up the liquor, the more she told me, which suited me fine. I wanted to hear her side of the story. At first we talked about generalities and then specifics, and her situation in particular. ‘Did Liz tell you about me?' she asked, as she dipped into a dish of prawns in black bean sauce.

‘Some,' I said. ‘Some I knew.'

‘And what do you think you knew about me, Nick? Tell me, I'm interested.'

‘Only what I read in the papers.'

‘You shouldn't believe everything you read in them.'

‘Not even Pike papers?' I asked.

‘I'll leave you to work that out for yourself. So go on, tell me what you know about me.'

‘Very little really.'

‘Don't be embarrassed.'

‘I'm not.'

‘Well then?'

She'd asked for it, so I gave it to her. ‘You're Sir Robert Pike's illegitimate daughter,' I said. ‘Your mother was sent to Australia when she was pregnant, with instructions never to return. You lived together in hotels until she died. You vanished, then turned up in London where your father accepted you into the bosom of his family, where you've been ever since. End of story.'

‘A very short history of my life. You left out a lot. Would you like me to fill in some of the details?'

‘Not if it upsets you.'

‘It does. But I'll tell you anyway.'

‘Only if you want to.'

‘I do, then I'll tell you why I'm so glad you're here.'

‘Go ahead,' I said. ‘I'm listening.'

‘It was a very strange childhood. Hardly a childhood at all. Solitary, but always surrounded by people, grown-ups mostly. You were right about the hotel bit. From the time I was born until my mother died we never lived in a house, or even an apartment. Always hotels. Always moving. Eating room-service meals and having the beds made and towels changed for us. I don't think my mother ever saw the inside of a supermarket. She only shopped for clothes. I was always around grown-ups, so I grew up fast. The only other children I ever met were hotel brats themselves. They weren't the kind of hotels where normal children stayed. They were expensive, five star. My father looked after my mother very well financially. I've seen her bank statements. There was always an annual increase to take in inflation and the fact that I was getting older. But my mother was a good spender, I'll give her that. She drank, you see, and you can spend an awful lot in hotel bars.'

‘What about school?' I asked.

‘School.' She laughed. ‘I never went. My mother was too drunk to make me. I hardly even registered. I would go a few times, then quit. The other kids seemed so juvenile, babyish. If the school boards got interested, we moved. Australia is a big place.'

‘But you must have had some kind of education.'

‘I educated myself. My mother taught me to read before she got too bad. I read the papers, and you'd be amazed the number of books you can find in a first-class hotel. I read
Valley of the Dolls
when I was eight, Anais Nin when I was ten, and as for Stephen King, Christ, I know his stuff backwards.'

‘And you kept a scrapbook.'

‘How the hell do you know about that? You certainly didn't read about it in the newspapers. I suppose Elizabeth told you. Yes, my mother started it. She hated my father, and I think she collected scraps about him to feed the hatred. She soon forgot about it, though, and I kept it up. There was never a vast amount. He never went to Australia. Guess why? But the hotels generally had English and American papers. I got quite a lot in the end.'

‘Did you hate him too?' I asked.

‘No. He kept me in luxury. I wasn't crazy about him. I saw what he'd done to my mother but I didn't really understand. She never stopped though. What with that, and the drink, and the men, she ended up hating herself I think.'

‘Men?'

‘Oh, there were lots. She was an attractive woman until the end, and there are plenty of lonely men in hotels.'

She smoked continuously between courses as she spoke, stubbing out half-smoked cigarettes into the ashtray. When she wasn't smoking or eating or knocking back glasses of booze, she sat twisting her napkin in both hands. I sat opposite her, quietly, letting her tell her story in her own time.

‘It sounds bad.'

‘It was.'

‘You don't have to tell me any more.' I could see that poor little kid, all alone in a mausoleum of a hotel with only a drunk for company, cutting out articles about a man she'd never met.

‘It's all right,' she said. ‘There's not much more. Then my mother died, and I flipped out. I'd seen drugs around since I was so big. My mother smoked dope to mellow out the booze. I can't remember when I first stole a drink, but I had my first joint when I was eleven. First coke at fourteen. First smack at sixteen. I lost my virginity when I was twelve and by the time Mother died I was strung out like forty miles of bad road. I got worse, then I got better. I wanted to be an actress. I wanted to lose that bloody Australian accent I'd picked up from the lowlifes around, and speak like my mother. I wanted to work in England and meet my father as an equal. So I went to drama school.'

‘Just like that?'

‘No, not just like that. I'd had no formal education, no bits of paper. I had to suck some dick to get in, but get in I did. I'd vowed not to touch the money that my father had left in my mother's bank account for me, but I needed it for the exorbitant fees. After I graduated I came to London to meet him and pay the money back.'

‘And?'

‘And I took to the old sod,' she said and tears filled her eyes. ‘But I was never going to be a great actress, not like I wanted to be. And my father was so generous, in the end I found it easier to move into Curzon Street with the family when they were staying there, and the castle when they weren't.'

‘Castle?'

‘Yes, the castle in Hampshire. At Gun Street. The family spends part of the year there, or they used to before my father died. I don't know what will happen now.'

‘An honest to God castle?' I persisted.

‘Yes, twelfth century.'

I was definitely impressed. ‘And now something's wrong,' I said. ‘Apart from the obvious.'

‘Yes. Since my father died, someone's been calling me on the telephone.'

‘Who?'

‘I haven't the faintest idea.'

‘What kind of calls?'

‘Threatening, I suppose you'd say.'

‘Threatening what?'

‘That unless I paid whoever's calling a lot of money, he'd kill me.'

‘And you've no idea who's making these calls?'

‘No.'

‘Does the name Lorimar mean anything to you?'

She thought about it without a spark of recognition. ‘Apart from the production company that makes
Dallas
, no. Why?'

‘No reason,' I said.

‘So that's why I'm so glad you're here.'

‘You haven't told Elizabeth?'

‘No, but I know she's guessed something is wrong. She told me about you, and who you are, and how you'd met.'

‘You know about that?' I asked.

‘Yes, I'm afraid it was rather my fault. I taught her, you see. The girl was so straight when I met her. I started shoplifting a long time ago. Hotel shops are so easy to rob. I had plenty of practice. Is that awful?'

‘I'm not exactly Snow White myself.'

‘I know. I knew you'd understand. Anyway, when Liz told me about your meeting, and showed me your card, I sort of put in her head to go and see you. I hope I didn't do wrong.'

‘It would have been handy to know there were death threats involved,' I said.

‘That's why we're dining alone tonight, Nick. Normally Liz would have been here whether she had things to do or not. But I convinced her that it would be better tête-à-tête, as it were.'

‘I'm sure you can be very convincing,' I said.

‘I'd do anything to convince you to protect me from whoever's making these threats.'

‘Anything?' I asked.

‘Anything in the world you can think of.' And her hand fluttered on my arm and her eyelashes fluttered over her beautiful blue eyes.

‘Catherine, I think you've got a deal,' I said.

‘Will you promise?' she asked.

I smiled. I felt a bit like a yo-yo on the end of a piece of string. ‘Of course,' I said, and changed the subject. ‘Hadn't we better go soon? You're supposed to be at the reception early.'

She looked at her watch. ‘Yes, you're right. Will you get the bill, please?'

I attracted the attention of the greeter and he conjured up the waiter who conjured up the bill which was about as long as the invoice for the Great Wall of China. Catherine paid with a gold Amex and no trace of embarrassment. A new woman if ever I saw one. I let her pay with no trace of embarrassment either. I was more than eager to be a new man.

She left a tip that would have paid for a decent meal at my favourite local Chinese and the waiter brought her card and her coat. I let him help her put it on, told her to wait for a minute and went looking for Vincent. He was parked on a bus stop opposite the restaurant. I waved him over with a rather more imperious gesture than was really necessary, and I saw his lips move through the open window as he drove across through a gap in the traffic. When he pulled up I told him to stay where he was and went back for Catherine. I led her from the chill of the restaurant through the thick atmosphere of the late evening and into the passenger compartment of the freezing car. Flu was a certainty, and a spot of indigestion from too many noodles a distinct possibility. I hurried her to the car like I imagined heavy-duty bodyguards treat their charges. I didn't really expect anything to happen, but I was being paid for my time and Catherine had paid for the dinner so I thought I'd better do something in exchange for the meal.

I climbed aboard and sat on the fold-down seat facing her. We drove with the park on our left, through the underpass at Hyde Park Corner, down Piccadilly, swung left into Shaftesbury Avenue, left again into Wardour Street, then right at Compton Street and into Dean Street. It was just before ten when we slid to a halt opposite the Crypt and nearly full dark, although the air had that luminous look that it sometimes gets in London in summer as the day's heat rises from the pavements.

I checked the street through the tinted glass, opened the door, stepped out into the night and soaked my shirt again. I swear it was getting hotter as the night got older.

I helped Catherine out of the car, feeling her breast touch my arm briefly, and walked her across the pavement towards the entrance to the club. There were cars parked down both sides of the street and suddenly a dark, male figure sprang up from behind one, right into our path. Catherine screamed and turned towards me in terror. I saw that the man was holding something in his hand with a pistol grip. It was all confusion for a moment. The street was crowded and people were stopping and bumping into each other to see what all the excitement was about. I grabbed Catherine and pushed her out of my way. I saw her almost fall in those ridiculous shoes. I straight-armed the geezer and I heard him gasp as I hit him. I tugged whatever he was carrying out of his hand and threw it across the pavement, then I spun him round and ran him hard up against the closest wall with a satisfying crunch. I put an arm lock on him and forced him down to his knees. I heard the skin peeling from his face as it ran down the brickwork. It all took less than five seconds. I heard the door of the Rolls slam and Vincent's boots pound on the road as he ran across to see what was going on. I held my man down, then Vincent said, ‘I think you'd better let him go.'

I eased off and whoever I was holding moaned in pain. I looked round and Vincent was standing, holding a camera in his hand. He pressed a button and a repeater flash went off like a strobe light. I felt like a complete berk and Vincent knew it. ‘Fancied a snap, did you?' he asked softly.

And that was that. I helped the paparazzi to his feet and tried my best to dust him down. His face was a mess, it was bloody and starting to bruise and his dignity was in about the same shape. I stood there sweating in a mixture of heat and embarrassment in front of the gawping crowd.

Catherine pushed through and I turned to explain.

‘Nick, are you all right?' she gasped. ‘Oh, you were wonderful. I was so frightened. I thought that man had a gun.' She turned on the photographer. ‘For whom do you work?' she demanded. Thank God for elocution classes, I thought.