Just Another Angel (26 page)

‘So does Scamp. I'd better get you some help.'

He cocked his head on one side. In the distance we heard a whoop-whoop siren.

‘It's on its way, but you could phone in for an ambulance.'

‘There's a phone in the club.' I looked across the road to the Mimosa. ‘What happened in there?'

‘The bastard was just leaving, I reckon. He was standing there with his bags packed. I think that horn tipped him off.'

The Peugeot that had come up behind me. ‘A signal? Like someone was coming to pick him up?'

‘Could be. You quite happy to let me bleed to death, then?'

‘Hey, Mr Malpass, don't forget, I'm not here.'

‘You might have trouble explaining that at the inquest, my lad.'

So that was the way the cookie was crumbling.

‘And what about you doing your Wyatt Earp act without calling any back-up? Is that standard operating procedure?'

He narrowed his eyes and grimaced. Maybe he was in pain after all, a tough guy like him.

‘Okay, we'll see what we can work out. But you'll have to get the gun for me. I dropped it somewhere near the door. Bloody Scamp had the sawn-off in a plastic dustbin. I thought it was his dirty washing.'

‘Did he say anything?'

‘Not a word. He saw me and started shooting.'

I could understand that.

‘His reactions were like lightning, I'll give him that, but there was a table or something in the way, thank Christ. I never got a shot off.'

‘Just as well, you'd only have annoyed him.'

The siren had gone. Why should we have assumed that a little thing like a gunfight in the street would attract attention?

‘Go phone it in,' Malpass ordered, ‘and stash the gun in the boot of my car. Then you piss off out of it and we'll say no more.'

‘How will you explain Scamp?'

‘Hit-and-run as he was chasing me. Nobody'll mourn him. I'll say I had an anonymous tip-off.'

‘Seems reasonable.'

‘Get a move on, then. Somebody's got to come along sometime.'

I agreed with that at least, and I was half-prepared to believe him when he said he could keep me out of it. I must have been in shock.

I shambled towards the Mimosa. What was hiding a bit of evidence compared to clubbing somebody to death with a black cab? No problem.

The only lighting in there came from a neon strip behind the bar. There was very little disruption; a couple of chairs were turned over and a table with most of its top scored off by shotgun pellets lay on its side. Bill Stubbly had got off lightly – so far.

I found Malpass's pistol and torch behind the table, and after a bit of contortion I managed to stuff them into my jacket pockets. On my way to the pay phone near the Gents, I noticed the door to the back room was open, and for some reason I decided to have a look.

I stepped over two zipper bags left in the middle of the small stage and reached around the door-jamb to fumble the light on.

There was the beer keg I'd been tied to, and the length of wire I'd probably been tied with lay on the floor. So did Nevil. He looked as if he'd taken both barrels into his chest at very close range. There was even a burn mark on his chin, but apart from that his expression was positively cherubic.

I didn't linger. Let Malpass figure it out. All I felt was relief that I could look over my shoulder now.

I went back into the club proper and headed for the phone. As I passed the Ladies, I noticed that the beer crates stashed in front of the fire exit had been moved aside. That gave me an idea.

One of the zipper bags on the stage was stuffed with French francs. I had no idea how much there was in there, but I reckoned it was probably what I was owed by the Scamp family plus a few expenses. I knew Malpass would have had no more than a fleeting glimpse of them, but just to be sure, I went behind the bar and found an empty crisp box.

I tipped about half the cash into the box and then took a couple of shirts from the second bag and laid them on top of the remaining cash. I was clumsy and had to pick up a couple of notes from the floor and wipe the bags where I'd touched them with a handkerchief. With only one hand, this seemed to take ages, and I hoped Malpass was a slow bleeder.

Folding the lid of the box together, I hoisted it under my left arm and carried it to the fire exit. I had to put it on the floor to work the door-bar, and once I had it open, I slid it out with my foot. It blended in beautifully with the rubbish bags and empty bottles waiting for the refuse men, but with my luck they'd probably arrive before I could collect it.

As I was closing the door, I saw a car turn into the end of the street, very slowly and very quietly, driving on sidelights only.

It got closer, and I saw it was a dark-coloured BMW. I knew before I could see for sure that Jo would be driving.

The end to a perfect day, I don't think.

 

 

 

 

 

I did eventually phone for an ambulance, and even remembered to ask them to send the cops too, but not before I'd remembered to go through Scamp's other bag. I recovered my building society book, which was something, but I had to assume that my watch and sterling cash were somewhere about Scamp's person. The only trouble with that was that Scamp's person was somewhere all over the road.

Malpass had hobbled up the street a bit closer to the huddled mess, which I had no intention of looking at. He was still clutching his leg and his temper hadn't improved any. ‘You took your bleeding time,' he snarled.

I thought I'd cheer him up.

‘Hold the front page of the
Police Gazette
– Nevil's turned up his toes.'

‘My God, but you're a dangerous bloke to be around. How?'

‘Seems like Scamp decided to pay him off permanently. He's back there in the club. I don't think it happened much before we arrived.'

He looked down at Scamp again.

‘Well, you're certainly helping the Met's clear-up rate. Did you get the gun?' I nodded and fumbled it out of my pocket.

‘Not here, you berk, go and stick it in the boot of my car.'

We both heard a burst of siren that could have been either ambulance or the standard issue police Rover. They wouldn't use them all the way through empty streets at this time of night unless they were showing off.

Malpass took his right hand off his leg and fished out his car keys. I took them, and they were slippy with blood from his hand.

‘Are you sure you're all right?' I asked, trying to sound concerned.

‘I'll live, sonny. And I'll sleep better nights now. If you're going to do a runner, you'd better get moving.'

He was right. I handed over his torch so that he could flag down traffic or whatever policemen do at the scene of accidents and hurried round the corner to Bateman Street to sling the pistol into the boot of Malpass's Vauxhall. I took the precaution of wiping it with my handkerchief first, just in case the bugger had second thoughts and tried to plant it on me. I must have a suspicious mind.

Malpass was standing by Armstrong when I got back. We could hear engines now, coming down Oxford Street, but still no sign of any people, which was weird. I felt sure somebody must have seen us re-enacting the OK Corral, but in Soho after dark, a lot of people get suddenly short-sighted.

I gave Malpass his keys back and climbed aboard my trusty black steed. My head throbbed, but my right hand hardly hurt at all now. Maybe it had gone to sleep. I felt like joining it.

‘You'll have to get this heap off the road while it's fixed, you know,' said Malpass, professional to the end.

‘Yes, officer,' I said meekly. ‘And I was never here.'

‘Fair enough, I don't mind taking all the credit.'

‘You're welcome.' I put Armstrong into reverse. ‘One thing,' I said through the window.

‘What?' There was another short burst of siren.

‘How long had Scamp employed Nevil as a minder?'

‘Not long. He recruited him while he was in the nick, we reckon. They shared a cell for a month or so in Wandsworth. Nevil got out around Christmas. Why?'

‘Just curious. Did he have a second name?'

‘Cooper. There's no family, if you're worried about somebody coming after you.'

‘No, it's not that, just curious.'

I nodded to him and he nodded back and I reversed until I could turn into Soho Square and then right into the parallel street to bring me to the Mimosa's fire exit. I kept the lights off, and as I turned, I saw the familiar blue flashes in the mirror that meant the cavalry had arrived and Malpass would be a hero.

I hadn't told him about the money, nor about the other item I'd found in Scamp's bag. But you can't have everything, can you?

 

If the ambulance had used its siren continuously, I'm sure it would have frightened Jo off. As it was, I was able to shove Armstrong's nose at 45 degrees across the bows of the BMW, and I scraped off a fair chunk of paintwork as I opened my door on to her wing. But I just didn't care any more.

She gawped when she saw it was me and froze until I knocked on her window with my splint. I could hear vehicle doors slamming in the next street. There wouldn't be much time before they searched the club.

Jo fumbled her hands beneath the steering-wheel and her window slid half-way down electrically.

‘We can't go on meeting like this. No, correction: we just can't go on meeting.'

It wasn't one of my best, but not bad in the circumstances. The circumstances in particular included her pointing a small automatic pistol, business end first, at my chest. I'd seen so many guns that night I was beginning to think I was at a Belfast wedding.

‘Where's Jack?' she said, with a twitch in her voice.

‘There was a film called that, you know, about an 18
th
Century London highwayman. And then of course there was Jack Ketch, which is what they called the public hangman, after the real one who did the business for James II.'

‘Stop gabbering. Where is he?'

‘Okay, so I'm rambling, but it's all true, actually. I always rabbit on when people point things at me.'

She seemed to notice my splinted hand.

‘I see you met him anyway,' she said coldly.

‘Yeah, but we won't be going in for annual reunions. He's dead.'

I knew by then not to expect tears, but I did expect more than the flick of the head to take a strand of hair out of her eyes and a quick but loud sniff. Some people have no emotion.

‘Did you kill him?'

‘No,' I said. Armstrong was going to have to take the rap for that. ‘The cops are here. At the front door. If you don't believe me, drive round the block and say hello.'

She stared straight ahead for a minute.

‘They may come out of the exit there any second,' I said, praying they wouldn't.

Jo's gun disappeared. She must have had a handbag on her knee.

‘He killed Nevil, you know.'

‘I thought he might.' Short of hitting her with a brick, I didn't think I was going to get a reaction out of her.

‘Especially after you showed him this.'

I held up the thing I'd taken from Scamp's bag. It was a one-year British visitor's passport. It had Jo's photograph, but the name was Mrs Josephine Cooper.

‘What did you do? Just let it slip that Nevil was planning on a double-cross?'

‘Something like that.' If I'd expected her to try and grab the passport or throw a wobbler, I was disappointed.

‘Was there anything between you two?'

‘Nothing much. He was keener than I was.'

‘How did he get you the passport?'

‘There's a Civil Service strike on; don't you read the papers? All you need to get one of them is fill in a form at the post office and show some phoney identification. It's easy enough to get a provisional driving licence with a new name on it.'

Really, the deceit of some people. I wondered how long the strike would last, and what time the post offices opened on Mondays.

‘So why get Jack out of nick?'

‘He wanted out. His mother had been poisoning him during visiting hours, telling him I was carrying on. Jack couldn't stand it, but he never held it against me.'

‘When it came down to it, you figured you'd be better off with Jack, so you dropped Nevil in it.'

She shrugged her shoulders. For her that was tantamount to visiting the Wailing Wall.

‘Jack's the one with the money.'

‘In Boulogne?' It was a shot in the dark.