Just Another Angel (22 page)

‘Where are you sleeping?' she asked as we made the front door.

‘On Trippy's floor, just for a few days.'

‘Is it comfortable?'

We stepped out on to the street and she walked alongside, eyes down, looking at the pavement.

‘Much as can be expected.'

‘Is Trippy a sound sleeper?' I felt her hand rooting for mine in the pocket of my jacket.

‘Like a log.'

‘That's useful.'

I'd been right; she wasn't the inquisitive type. But that phone call was going to cost me more than a Big Mac.

Thank God British Telecom didn't send bills like that.

 

I slept late that Friday. All the stresses of Thursday and then having to entertain Nicola had left me truly cream-crackered. I find that, though. When I have problems, they never keep me awake nights, I just sleep. It must be a sort of mental hibernation, a stress-induced torpor.

We hadn't been disturbed too much by Trippy. At about 2.00 am he had fallen downstairs and slumped in a heap by the front door. Nicola had made me go and see if he was okay and I'd said yes he was, because I'd seen his eye move, and I'd left him there.

Nicola had gone out about 9.00 am saying she had to go on an executive management training course on How to Piss People About in advance of her new job. Would she see me tonight? Maybe. I can be really decisive sometimes.

I frittered away the morning and then got Armstrong wound up and headed towards the West End. I stopped at a pub I used rarely near the BBC and had a ploughman's and a couple of orange juices, no alcohol, partly because I wanted to keep a clear head and partly to fit in with the cab-driver persona.

Then I went shopping down at Lillywhites and bought a pair of swimming shorts, a Speedo swimcap and a pair of swimmer's goggles. There had been no point in looking for a towel at the squat, but I knew Seymour Place baths hired them out. So I was all set.

I still had time to kill, so I thought I'd make a couple of phone calls, and that meant employing the Middleditch gambit.

It's quite simple, really. You pick a big office block that has a reception and preferably a switchboard near the front door. You draw up in your taxi (motorbikes work even better) and park right outside, making sure you are seen by the security man or the receptionist. Then you march in clutching a thick, sealed brown envelope on which is written ‘Mr Middleditch – By Hand'. (I carry one ready made in Armstrong's glove compartment.) You announce that you want Mr Middleditch, and when they say there's nobody there of that name, you ask if you can ‘ring the office' to find out what's going on. They always let you use a phone, and sometimes you get a private one in a booth or similar, and I've made many Stateside calls that way. I've even been brought cups of tea. One of these days, though, I'll find an office where there really is a Mr Middleditch, and I'll have to leave a well-wrapped paperback edition of
The Story of O.
It might almost be worth hanging around to see him open it.

Anyway, Mr Middleditch came through once more, and I got through to Lisabeth on Stuart Street. She calmly told me that the police had called round and that Nassim had been looking for me. Then she got more excited and told me that a Mrs Boatman had called from the National Insurance and was ever so attractive and charming. Oh yes, and Springsteen was okay but had been sick on the stairs. And no, I shouldn't worry about it as Fenella had cleared it up before Frank and Salome had got home.

I risked another Middleditch and luckily caught Bunny at home. Had he heard any more about the Mimosa Club? No, he hadn't, but as far as he knew there was no music on there still. He was going down to Soho later and he'd look in. Any messages for Nevil? Sod off, Bunny, but don't say that to Nevil.

I waved at the receptionist, who had obviously forgotten about me, as I left, saying: ‘Sorry, the despatcher's given me the wrong street.' I haven't paid for a phone call in years.

By 4.30 I was cruising round Seymour Place swimming pool, parking on the blind side as far as Sedgeley House was concerned. I had brought my bag with me, and I left it in Armstrong along with my wallet, spare cash and watch, just taking enough to pay for a ticket and a towel. In case anything went wrong, I was prepared to make a dash for Armstrong. I didn't want to have to hang about waiting for the attendant to open lockers.

With the swimming cap and goggles on, I could hardly recognise myself, certainly not from a distance, and I also intended to be underwater for most of the time. Just to make sure, however, I moved quickly through the showers to poolside and dived in.

I'd got Nicola to say five o'clock because I knew the pool would be busy, with businessmen and secretaries dipping before heading home and a fair smattering of kids getting in practice for the school team. (The synchro swimmers get me. How do they smile with those nose clips on and one leg in the air? Moreover, why don't they drown? I would.)

I did a length just to loosen up, and by the end of it I was desperate for a cigarette. I hadn't realised how out of shape I was getting. Then I slipped over and did a leisurely backstroke back up the pool. This gave me a chance to check out the spectator balconies that overhang the two long sides of the water.

There were no spectators at all, which was a relief, and no-one in the water of a size or shape that could be Nevil. A Great White would have been less out of place.

I was hanging on to the ledge at the deep end, arms out in the crucifix position, when I saw her come out of the ladies' changing rooms wearing a yellow-and-white-striped one-piece. Good choice, the yellow showing off her tan nicely.

She looked up and down the pool, then moved to the edge and trawled a toe to test the temperature to check that it really was the 82° the notice board on the way in had said. Then she turned and walked towards the deep end, turned again and did a perfect back flip, hardly denting the surface and coming up into a smooth breaststroke only a few feet away from me.

Three powerful strokes brought her to the rail, where she went straight into an underwater turn and headed down the pool. She'd been within a yard of me and not recognised me. So far, so good.

I followed her, using a slow breaststroke and keeping my face underwater as much as possible. She made the shallow end and stood up, plastering her hair back with her hands. She almost popped out of the swimsuit as I passed her and said, ‘Hello, Jo.'

I turned without stopping and crawled back to the deep end, looking back as I breathed to make sure she was following. She was a good swimmer – better than me – and we touched the rail together.

‘I had a funny feeling you'd be around here somewhere,' she said.

‘You must be psychic.' I pushed up my goggles to get a better look at her.

‘No, I just remembered you mentioned the baths when we first met.'

She trod water slowly, her hands clasped behind her back. You can do that only if you are really relaxed and have a clean conscience.

‘Actually, it's your wonderful memory I wanted to talk to you about.'

‘I know, I still owe you 50 pounds.'

‘250, actually, now the police have it. It's they who are keen for you to remember where you got it.'

She stopped treading water and reached for the rail. She put her head back and looked up at the ceiling.

‘Where's Jack?' No reaction. ‘He's around somewhere, isn't he?'

Jo put her arms straight up and sank to the bottom, kicked off and came up shaking her head. Thinking time. She still wasn't talking, though.

‘Come on, Jo, loosen up. I've been primed with stolen cash from a post-office raid set up to finance your old man's own version of early day closing at the nick. I've been dragged in by the Old Bill twice, and your pet grizzly bear Nevil is making life very uncomfortable for people I know. You got me into this, lady. Help me get out.'

‘What can I say? You're over 21. Well over.'

‘You know you are being watched.'

‘Yes, but not all the time. They haven't got the manpower. Too many villains about.'

That was rich. I began to think she was enjoying this. ‘Well, they missed you at Lee Metford Road yesterday.'

That shook her.

‘How do you know?'

‘I saw you and then I saw Mrs Scamp. She doesn't think too highly of you, does she?'

‘I've taken her Jack away, that's why.'

‘I thought the High Court had done that.'

She shot me a look, then kicked off from the wall of the pool, and I followed as best I could. As soon as the water was waist high, she stood and walked to the side near to the female showers. I reached her just as she was about to hoist herself out. I put a hand on her arm.

‘Jo, all I want to know is: what have I got into and how do I get out? Life's too short to have to watch your back all the time.'

She put her hands on the side and straightened her arms and held herself there. It's a good trick. She was fit, I'll give her that.

‘Just stay away from me, will you? I'll try and get you some cash if that's what worrying you.'

‘It isn't. I want to know why Nevil is after me.'

‘No, you don't.' She was still hanging there, apparently without strain.

‘I'll keep asking.'

‘That wouldn't be clever.'

Then she was out of the water, her feet slapping towards the showers.

 

I got changed in double quick time, but she must have beaten me. There was no sign of her in the entrance foyer, nor in the street outside. I reckoned it would take her three or four minutes to get back to her flat, but maybe it wasn't a good idea to hang around the neighbourhood.

I hurried round the corner to where I'd parked Armstrong and climbed aboard.

I dug a comb out of my bag and adjusted the driving mirror so I could sort out my hair before it dried frizzy.

The mirror was full of a huge, white-shirted arm coming from somewhere in the back seat to encircle my throat.

Nevil had just found me.

 

 

 

 

 

Nevil choked me until I almost passed out, then he lifted me out of the driver's seat and bundled me into the back of Armstrong, hitting me on the back of the neck with what could have been an anvil but was probably his fist. And then, when I was really unconscious, he poked my eyes out.

Well, that's what I thought when I came round. I couldn't see anything, so it seemed a logical assumption. Then my sense of smell came into play, and I could smell motor oil, and if I concentrated, I could feel the cloth wrapped tightly around my head. Then I began to realise that my hands were tied behind my back and my legs were also secured to something. I thought it might be a chair, but there didn't seem to be a back to it, and it was smooth and cold.

There was no time to think of anything else. The pain in my head came then, and I felt sick. Then I heard somebody say, ‘He's come round, Jack,' and the blindfold was ripped away, along with a chunk of hair.

My eyes watered with pain, with chlorine from the swimming pool and with oil from the rag I'd been blindfolded with. Slowly, Nevil's chest came into focus. It seemed to go on forever. He had his shirtsleeves rolled up and his arms folded like piled-up hocks of ham. On top of a neck the diameter of a drainage pipe was a head with a totally expressionless, moonlike face. I looked into his eyes and they reminded me of the saying: ‘The lights were on but there was nobody home.'

Nevil did not look at me, even though his eyes were pointed roughly in my direction. His head was cocked to one side as if awaiting instructions.

I turned my head slowly, and now my throat started to hurt. I wasn't sure I could speak even if I had anything to say.

Jack Scamp was ignoring me, but I had a feeling my luck couldn't last.

He was zipping up a small, brown suitcase, which he placed under the table he was standing at, next to another one. There was not much else to look at in the room. There was one chair, a camp bed with one pillow and one blanket, and several cardboard boxes, some with groceries in, some full of rubbish; beer cans, Macdonald's cartons, and so on.

I tried to swallow and it hurt. I tried to move my hands and they hurt, but I established that they weren't tied, they were taped at the wrists. My feet were secured by a length of electric cable, which could have come from a table lamp. The cold, smooth thing I was sitting on was a beer keg, which explained why my bum hurt as well.

Jack Scamp had a cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth. He drew on it, then took it out of his mouth and nipped the end off before dropping it on the floor. Prison habits die hard.

I recognized him from the wedding photograph old Ma Scamp had flashed in front of me. If anything, he looked younger and fitter; he'd certainly kept himself in trim, although the hair was thinning and he seemed to be cultivating one long strand on the right side that could be plastered over the scalp. I've always thought that much more undignified than going bald.