Angel City (21 page)

I made all the noises Jock was waiting to hear about how I'd think about it and get back to him, and I left him packing the phones back into their boxes.

He never noticed that one of them was now missing its handy, wallet-size plastic-coated card that told you how to ring in from a remote phone and collect the messages on your new, black Telecom answerphone.

 

I wasn't going to waste much time in Romford, because Armstrong was the wrong sort of vehicle for a long surveillance job. In the middle of town no-one notices a black cab, not even one parked for a suspiciously long period in the same place. But out in commuter land where the houses have gaps between them, taxis mean someone is coming and going. Taxis parked and not moving draw attention.

So I found a garage and filled up with diesel (apparently something beyond the powers of a Grand Vizier) and looked up Bassotti in the local phone book. I had been right; there was only one with the initial ‘U' and he lived on Peveral Road. The garageman behind his armoured screen took great delight in giving what appeared to be a London cabbie street directions, and I took it with suitable humility.

Out of sight of the garage I found a phone box and tried the number listed for the Peveral Road address. No answer; and no answerphone.

Peveral Road was semi-detached country with front gardens down to the road. I found Number 27 easily enough – it was the one house on the street in total darkness – and parked outside under a streetlight. Nothing suspicious in that. Any inquisitive neighbour could see that a black London cab had pulled up and there was a London cabbie going about his lawful business, walking up the garden path to ring the front doorbell.

And when there was no answer, what more natural than for the aforementioned cabbie to start knocking loudly, then pacing around the bay window, trying to look in. And then, his normally limitless patience fast expiring, he goes next door, where the net curtains have been twitching all along, and rings the bell there.

So that really is 27 Peveral Road, party name of Bassotti? Ordered a computer cab an hour ago for a trip up West? What? Nobody there since Monday? Well, bugger me if people don't take liberties, eh? And I'd come all the way from Great Portland Street for this? And naturally
I'm
sorry to disturb you, ‘cos you're not the sort to call cabs out on wild goose chases, but are you sure nobody's been there since Monday? Oh, did an early morning flit did they? Really? Suitcases and all? In a minicab? There, that proves it. Can you trust people who use minicabs instead of proper, licensed hackney carriages? Of course you can't. Bet the bloke was running out on his missus. Oh, so the wife was with him, was she? And the kids? And this was early Monday morning? 5.00 am, eh, as early as that? And not a word except a note to the milkman? Some people, eh?

Some people.

 

I had Bassotti's number at H B Builders from the business card he had given me, and I had the card that told me how to do a remote interrogation on his answerphone. Unless, of course, he had been clever enough to add in a security code to stop people like me doing what I was going to do. The trouble with programming in a code, though, was that you could only use it yourself via a touch tone keypad phone (the ones that play tunes when you dial). Unless you could always guarantee access to one, you were limited in how and when you could pick up your messages, so most people never bothered adding the security back-up.

Back home at Stuart Street, I made myself as comfortable as possible with the house phone tucked under my left cheek. I don't think I could have fitted it under my right. Then I dialled H B Builders and got the answerphone message telling me to speak after the tone.

From then on, I followed the instructions on the Telecom card.

After the beep, keep quiet for six seconds until a single beep.

Then speak for five seconds without pause (‘So there was this bloke called Harry who went into work one day and said, “No, this morning it's Lucky Harry”, and the doorman says, “Why?” And Harry answers …') until you hear two more beeps.

Then remain silent for four seconds until you hear three beeps.

Then speak for four seconds (‘ ... “I was running for the bus and I saw a ladder up against a wall and I said ‘
I'm
not going under that,' and the first person who did got a pot of paint right on the head, so I said ‘It's lucky …'”‘) until a single beep.

If there are no messages, the machine beeps rapidly. If there are, it rewinds the tape and plays them to you. Down the line, the tape whirred.

‘Bert? Listen, it's Hubbard. There was no need for you to go tearing off like that last night. You knew the little prick had it coming to him. Anyway, he won't try and shaft us again. Sammy had some stuff that kept him quiet, and you won't hear any more about it. Trust me. Just keep your cool, okay? I'll call you next week and get some more drops sorted.'

Click.

The next message was from a punter in Stepney who wasn't convinced the dampcourse H B Builders had put in was working and he wanted his money back. The other three were from Kelly, starting out rude and ending obscene.

It had been first time lucky for me, if not for Tigger.

 

 

 

 

 

Stop. Rewind. Pause. Frame advance.

My jaw and teeth were beginning to throb, so I took four co-proxamol painkillers and an anti-inflammatory pill at one go. The instructions on the box said do not mix with alcohol, but I had rescued the emergency vodka from Armstrong to help wash them down just to make sure they did their job. Within five minutes, I couldn't feel my face. My kinda painkillers.

I knew I had about ten minutes more before the old eyelids snapped shut like a barmaid's smile at closing time, so I lay on my bed and tried to think it through.

I had Tigger connected to Bassotti and Bassotti connected to someone called Hubbard, presumably the Hubbard of Hubbard's scrap yard where Tigger had insisted we dump the last loads of whatever it was we were being paid to dump. I also had another link, though I hadn't let on to anyone, and that was the weasel-faced individual I had recognised as one of the two who jumped Tigger and put me in need of cosmetic dentistry. Presumably the same ‘Sammy' referred to on the tape.

Then there was what Tigger had said; something about Lee. He hadn't told Lee anything because he knew he had a loose mouth. Told him about what? Not where he was, because Lee knew he went ‘monstering'; it was just that in his chemically challenged state he wasn't sure what that meant. No, I reasoned with myself, there was something else Tigger hadn't told Lee, but whether that was because he did not trust him or because he wanted to protect him, I couldn't know.

And if I wanted to find out, I had three options. The first was to ask Bassotti, which wasn't on as he'd done a runner. The second was to go see this Hubbard guy and risk ending up trying to drink the Thames dry like Tigger had. The third was to talk to Lee, but I didn't know where he was. Still, I'd found him once before, hadn't I? Where was the problem?

The problem was that someone had hung weights from my eyelids and had wired up an amplifier to my lungs so that each breath seemed to boom around my head. I went under and dreamt of nothing worth remembering.

 

I awoke after ten hours' solid. It would have been longer had not Springsteen been pacing up and down the bed plucking at the duvet with his claws, looking for an opening so he could get at bare flesh.

‘Okay, okay, I'm up. Breakfast is served,' I muttered, more to give my jaw exercise than to make conversation with him. He's such a grump in the mornings. ‘Who needs an alarm clock with you around?'

I was in the kitchen halfway through pulling the ring-pull on a can of cat food (a great innovation and once they make them paw and claw friendly, will negate the need for humans almost entirely) when I thought: Lee does.

When I had found Lee in Lincoln's Inn, he'd had an alarm clock inside his sleeping bag. I doubted if he had to get up to catch a train to the office each morning, and it had looked new come to think of it. What did Lee have to get up for?

Springsteen circled my feet and howled impatiently.

Doc. It must be Doc. Tigger had said she did an early morning round in Lincoln's Inn. Maybe Lee was on her list of regular patients now. God knows he ought to be somebody's.

Springsteen took a lump out of my calf and this time it was me howling.

 

I checked Lincoln's Inn just in case, but it was after 11.00 am when I got there and there was no sign of life. Sure, there were a few tents there and the more permanent bashas, but there was no sign of Lee or his new dome tent. There were signs of a more ominous nature in that a wire fence had been erected around the perimeter of the Fields, allowing access only to the gates. At intervals around the fence were printed notices in small, official print. I didn't need to get close enough to read them to know what they would say. The empire was striking back. It was hit the road time for the residents of Cardboard City.

I cruised the Gray's Inn Road until I was fairly sure I recognised the house where Doc and Tigger had taken Lee to fix his smashed-up hand. The bell push didn't help. It just listed the flats, six of them, with no names. The occupants valued their privacy. I could handle that.

I pressed all six buzzers with the flat of my hand and kept it there.

‘What the fuck ... hey? Who's that?' was the first response from a distorted, tinny but undoubtedly male voice.

It was impossible to tell which flat it had come from, but at least it was a response.

‘I'm looking for the Doc, man,' I said dreamily.

‘We're all fucking doctors here,' he snapped back. ‘And some of us have been on night shift.'

‘Hey, sorry, man,' I said, resisting the temptation to tell him to try tranquillisers. ‘I'm after the Doc, the lady doc. The one from the Fields, man.'

‘Oh shit, you want Sandy. Flat 2.'

‘Thanks, man. You ought to get more sleep, you know. Working nights takes it out of you.'

But he'd gone.

I pressed the button for Flat 2 and heard a voice asking: ‘Yeah? Whaddayawant?'

I leaned into the doorbell unit and said: ‘Doc? Is that Doc from Lincoln's Inn?'

‘Could be. Who's that?'

‘I'm a friend of Tigger's. We brought a kid here a coupla weeks ago. Kid with a smashed hand. You fixed him up.'

‘Can't say I know what you're talking about,' she said chattily. ‘And what's it to you anyway?'

I could detect a transatlantic twang in her voice that was coming over the intercom as clear as a bell.

‘Listen,' I pleaded, ‘I don't really want to talk about this out here. Can I come in?' No response. ‘Look, Tigger's in trouble.'

‘Yeah. We have a medical term for the kind of trouble Tigger's in.'

‘Really? What's that?' I had to ask.

‘Dead. It's quite common really and nothing to be ashamed of.'

I did a double-take at the bell box, not quite believing I was having this conversation. She took pity on me.

‘Look up,' she said, and I did, and there she was leaning out of a second-floor window looking down on me.

‘Okay, you can come up.' She nodded her head towards where Armstrong was parked. ‘I recognised the cab.'

She disappeared inside and the door buzzed off its lock and I tramped in and climbed the stairs to where she had the door to her flat already open.

She was wearing a long T-shirt that came down to her knees. The front of it was entirely given over to a reprint of the cover of an old, green Penguin paperback: Raymond Chandler's
The Long Goodbye
.
The penguin logo fell diplomatically just around her crotch.

‘What are you looking at?' she said, leaning back against a table, arms out to the side, giving me a good view.

‘I enjoy a good read,' I said truthfully.

‘I have another one that reads: “Go Beat Your Meat, I'm Married”.'

‘Have you? Are you?'

‘No, not really. Now what do you want? And what have you done to your face?'

At last. Either the medic or the mother in her was coming out. She came over to me and gently touched my cheek, and she was close enough for me to tell that the T-shirt was all she was wearing. I was going to miss the bruising when it went, in an odd sort of way.

‘I got hit with a sockful of sand,' I said, knowing she would have heard worse.

‘Don't give me that. You fell downstairs or walked into a door. That's what they usually say. Does it hurt?'

She touched me slightly, probably not hard enough to crease a cigarette paper, but I yelped and jumped backwards.

‘So it does. You ought to be wearing one of those plastic cheek guards, if you can stand all the morons saying you look like the Phantom of the Opera.'