Neon Madman (2 page)

There was a long pause. I was conscious of the streams of sweat that were pouring down my face more strongly than ever. Across the room a dumb fly had managed to get itself trapped between the two panes of the open window and was buzzing and banging in an effort to get out.

Somehow I didn't think he was going to make it.

Somehow I thought I knew how he must be feeling.

The West Indian didn't have a crease in his shiny shirt and there wasn't a bead of perspiration on him. Perhaps he wasn't human. Perhaps he wasn't really there at all. I could simply walk around him and let myself out of the office and nothing would happen.

And maybe some magic or mysterious hand would move the window and the fly would slip out into the early evening air.

I stood there and looked up into the man's face, watching his expression change to a nasty sneer. Behind us, the fly buzzed on with increasing desperation.

I had to have one more go. ‘If we got our paths crossed, that was nothing but coincidence. There wasn't anything going on for you to get disturbed about. Not on my account. I'm sure not going back there. No reason to.'

He flexed his muscles in the right arm and I held myself tense in readiness, but all he did was say, ‘You being square about that divorce thing?'

‘Sure.'

‘You better be. 'Cos if I ever have to come back to you, man
…
'

He didn't need to finish his sentence. My imagination was working well enough to fill in the details.

He came right up to me and lifted one fist level with my face. He allowed the edges of the rings to graze my skin, finally pushing one hard into the flesh underneath my right cheekbone.

‘You got me, Mitchell?'

It was difficult answering with a faceful of fist, but I did the best I could. Finally he lowered his hand and stepped away. Which was when he saw the camera in its case on the floor. He stooped down and picked it up.

‘You have this with you today?'

‘Yes.'

‘You got the film still in it?'

‘Sure. There's a film there.'

He began to walk towards the door, camera in hand.

‘Only it's not the one you're looking for.'

He swung round and glared at me.

‘How come?'

‘I took that out—the film I used today—took it out and mailed it off to be developed. It should be back in four days.'

‘If you're lying
…
'

‘I'm not lying. My client wants those pictures of his wife walking around shopping all day. The film that's in there's brand new. Take a look for yourself.'

He hesitated, looked down at the camera, then swung back his arm and threw the Pentax at me as hard as he could. I held it on the third attempt. It had cost me a lot of money and I wasn't about to be able to afford another. Certainly not the way this case was going—whichever way that was.

He stood in the doorway and pointed a finger at me.

‘Pray you been telling me the truth, Whitey, or I might have to come back and get myself a little righteous with you.'

It didn't call for an answer.

He glared at me over the outstretched arm for a few moments longer, then turned and slammed the door so hard I thought the glass would break. It didn't.

The outer door was shut with the same force. I walked over to the window and watched him as he emerged from the front of the building and walked off in the direction of Leicester Square.

He didn't waste his energy looking back up at me. Why should he?

I eased down one half of the window and released the frustrated fly into the air. I felt pretty good about that. Kind-hearted Mitchell, they call me.

Amongst other things.

I went back over to the desk and set it to rights. I fetched the chair and sat on it with my arms resting on either side of the blotter. It was still hotter than hell and I still had that report to type out.

That and a few dozen questions to which I didn't have any answers.

CHAPTER TWO

I finally got the thing finished and decided there was nothing I could do to stop it looking like a script for a bad film. Like a friend of mine said to me once, most people write their own script then spend the rest of their lives playing the part.

The husband had come to me a few days before. He sat there in the client's chair and fidgeted around under the discomfort of the heat and what he had come to say.

But hot as it was, there was no way in which he was going to either loosen his tie or remove his jacket. That was the kind of script he was into. He shuffled his feet a lot and stalled for time while he told me about how something important had come up at the bank and he'd nearly phoned and cancelled the appointment. Unfortunately for him he hadn't and sooner or later he was going to have to come out with it.

And when he did it was the oldest story in the world: he thought his wife was playing around with other men behind his back.

I'd looked at him as evenly as I could and asked him if he was sure he wanted me to follow her around and check her out. Perhaps things were better left as they were. Or maybe he should confront her with it himself.

But no, his mind was made up. He took out his wallet and passed the inevitable photograph across the desk. You know, the one that was taken a few years back when they had that wonderful holiday together. It had been just like when they'd first met, both of them so happy. And then
…
and then what?

He was sitting here in the office of a private detective asking for his wife to be treated like a suspected criminal. I took the photo from him and passed him a card with my charges on it in exchange. I always felt a certain embarrassment talking about money. In those situations, anyway.

It wasn't only the coppery hair that made Marcia Pollard a good-looking woman. She had a figure that wasn't about to allow anyone not to notice it and a way of standing and holding herself that suggested a good deal of pride, even arrogance. When she wanted a thing, she looked as though she'd do her damndest to get it.

I looked quickly at the man with thinning fair hair and the definite beginnings of a paunch. I guessed he wasn't getting in quite as many games of squash as he used to. Marcia had wanted him once and she had got him. It looked as if she didn't want him any longer: not just him.

My eyes went back to the photograph. She was in her early to middle thirties—the classic age for infidelity. The time when you needed reassurance so badly you would make all kinds of fool of yourself to get it. And never count the cost until it was too late.

‘Your fees are not cheap, Mr Mitchell,' Pollard had observed.

‘If you want to shop around, go ahead. You could get someone to do it for less. Only don't come squawking to me if they hold out on you or try to put the squeeze in for themselves.'

I knew that I wasn't sounding very sympathetic but I didn't care. Pollard wasn't the kind of man I found it easy to be nice to. He rubbed me up the wrong way without even trying.

‘No, no. Don't misunderstand me. I have no intention of going elsewhere. I am sure that your charges are—er—commensurate with your expertise.'

I wasn't impressed by the words or the vestiges of a public school accent that spoke them, but the sight of the man's cheque book coming out of his pocket did a lot to reassure me.

I handed him back the photograph of his wife.

‘Don't you want to keep it?' he asked, surprised.

I shook my head. ‘I don't think so. I'm not likely to forget her now that I've seen her.'

I was on the point of adding, maybe that's the trouble, but I decided against it. There didn't seem to be any fun in hitting anyone as down as he was.

And that had been four days ago. Bowed down by his job and the heat and the nagging weight of suspicion. Tomorrow I was going to deliver a little package of reports and photographs which were going to drive him right under. Possibly for good.

For an instant I wished he had taken my advice and left things as they were. With the kiss at morning and evening and a lot of doubts. That would have been better than
…

But then I realised I would only have been talking myself out of a job. And I had already banked the first cheque.

To hell with it!

I got up and went out of the office, locking both doors as I did so. It wouldn't stop anybody who was half-way serious, but it might discourage ten-year-old kids and little old ladies but to supplement their pension.

Once on the street, I turned left and headed for some coffee. I went down the stairs and smiled over the top of the coffee machine. The girl smiled back. We exchanged a few pleasantries and I bought an open ham and tomato sandwich and a piece of cheesecake to keep my stomach in check.

I gave her the money and she smiled again as she handed me the change. Her name was Tricia and she was nineteen or twenty and outside that coffee shop she didn't exist. Not for me anyway. For someone else I guessed that she did, but not for me.

Which was why we were still able to smile at each other after a couple of years.

I sat down in the corner and stirred the coffee for several minutes although I hadn't been taking sugar for around six months. I was thinking and it wasn't about what I was doing.

I was thinking about a big Spade heavy who had shown how easily he could take me apart. Trying to figure out how our lines had become crossed. It didn't sound as though he'd been at the hotel himself, so that meant someone else had seen me and either recognised me or followed me back to my office. Someone who was there for a little more than pleasure.

They could have been using the hotel as a meeting place or a pick-up point and got spooked at seeing a private investigator suddenly snooping about the place. Or they could have been watching it themselves
…
it or him. The guy who had taken Marcia Pollard there for a little after-lunch romp. Just to make sure that the avocado didn't go to waste. The guy who went there every Tuesday and Thursday. As regular as a work out in the gym—and probably a hell of a lot more enjoyable.

There hadn't been a name in the register, of course, and Pollard had told me he didn't want to know who was involved with his wife, just if anyone was. But I had a natural curiosity.

Murdoch, the grey-haired woman had told me. James P. Murdoch.

‘He's a very important man,' she had added in an awed whisper.

At the time I hadn't thought twice about it, but now it seemed as though she might have been telling the truth.

I realised that I had eaten all of the roll and half of the cheesecake without noticing what I was chewing. I got up and ordered another roll. I didn't want to get involved in a long argument with my stomach later about whether I'd fed it or not.

‘What's the matter, Mr Mitchell? You look worried.'

She stood there smiling, a flap of dark hair, falling down over her forehead and the light over the counter making the slight down of her arms shine whitely. She was a very pretty girl. I wondered what she'd be like when she was ten or twelve years older and starting to get the itch once her old man was off to work and the kids were in school I didn't want to know the answer.

‘It's nothing,' I said, ‘Only the heat.'

She smiled sympathetically and agreed. I took my bread roll back to the table and thought about eating it. It tasted good. Only by that time the coffee had started to get cold.

James P. Murdoch. I tried the name out inside my head a few times. It sounded convincing enough. The sort of name I felt I should have been able to place but couldn't.

I drained my coffee cup, ate the last mouthful of cheesecake, said goodbye to Tricia and went back to my office to play with the London telephone directory.

It was a game I was used to. I must have been one of the few people who could recite whole sections of it from a relatively early age. While other kids my age were marvelling at Roy of the Rovers or Jack Slade, I was sitting there with a volume of E–K open on my knees.

The plot was lousy but the list of characters was fascinating!

Later, when I was working as a young CID copper attached to Holmes Road police station, it was to come in more than useful. And since I had left the force and taken to working for myself, I used it even more.

Only this time the name wasn't there.

There were quite a few J. Murdochs, but I figured that if he was as definite about using the full Christian name and initial as he seemed to be, then he would have filled in the entry that way. Which meant he was either out of London or ex-directory. It never occurred to me that he wouldn't have a phone at all.

I pushed the book down on to the floor and called a girl called Pat whom I knew and who worked on the local exchange. If my memory was right she would be working late and she was. A very regular girl, Pat, which was just as well in itself.

We worked our way through the I haven't seen you for a long time, I've been busy I'll give you a call as soon as I'm free stuff and then she asked me what I wanted.

I told her.

I heard her swear at me half under her breath and thought for a moment she wasn't going to play. But a couple of minutes later she read the number out to me.

‘Where's that?' I asked.

‘Richmond somewhere.'

‘Okay, thanks a lot, Pat. I'll
…
'

‘You listen to me, Scott,' she interrupted. ‘I'm fed up with conducting our relationship strictly in terms of what information I can feed you with over the telephone. I'm beginning to feel like the speaking clock. I think it's your turn to feed me.'

There was a slight pause during which I could hear her breathing. ‘What with?' I asked.

‘To start off with a nice juicy steak and a bottle of wine. And then you can take me dancing. It's a long time since I went dancing.'

‘All right, Pat,' I promised. ‘The next time I call it will be to fix a date.'

‘It had better be,' she said and broke the connection.

I dialled the number she had given me and it rang a lot of times before anyone came to answer it. It was a woman's voice: smooth, assured, cultured. The sort who always gets to stand in the royal enclosure at Ascot and picks the winner as well.

‘Mrs Murdoch? Mrs James P. Murdoch?'

A few seconds of hesitation, then the answer came with thoroughbred assurance. ‘This is Mrs Murdoch. Who is that calling?'

‘My name's Mitchell. Scott Mitchell.'

‘The name means nothing to me Mr Mitchell. With whom did you wish to speak?'

I liked the with whom. I said, ‘Is Mr Murdoch there?'

‘Does that mean you want to speak with him?'

‘Could be,' I said. ‘Or it could be I want to make sure he's out of the way before I start chatting you up over the phone.'

‘I presume you're joking.'

‘Why presume? With a voice like yours it must happen all the time.'

I waited for the line to go dead, but it didn't. After a while she said, ‘How did you get this number, Mr Mitchell? It is ex-directory, you know.'

‘Yes, I know.'

‘Well, are you going to tell me how you came by it?'

‘Perhaps I saw it written on a wall somewhere. Who knows? Are you going to tell me whether your husband is in or not?'

‘My husband is out.'

‘When will he be back?'

‘I have no idea.'

‘Well, is he anywhere I can get in touch with him?'

‘I have no idea of his precise whereabouts either.'

‘He is your husband?'

‘Mr Mitchell, I don't know why I persist in talking to you in this inane and undignified manner instead of putting down the receiver.'

‘That's right,' I agreed. ‘Nor do I. It's interesting; isn't it? Maybe you get fed up with talking broken English to the au-pair and reading last month's “Homes and Gardens”.'

She might have laughed. Then again, it could have been interference on the line. She said, ‘Actually, it was “Harper's and Queen”.'

‘Would it be worth my trying again later? To talk to your husband, I mean?'

‘It might and it might not.'

‘You mean sometimes he doesn't come home nights?'

‘He's a grown man, Mr Mitchell, and he does as he pleases.'

‘If I were him I reckon it would please me to get home to you pretty quick.'

‘I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, Mr Mitchell, and take that remark as being gallant.'

‘As opposed to what?'

‘Merely suggestive.'

I waited a little, then asked where I could get in touch with her husband the next day.

‘He should be at his office by ten o'clock.'

‘Which is?'

‘The Everyman Insurance Group. My husband happens to be the chairman, you know.'

I didn't but I thanked her anyway.

‘That's quite all right, Mr Mitchell. I hope I don't have occasion to speak to you again.'

And she hung up with a shade more speed than natural elegance required. Just when I had been thinking we had been getting on so well.

I checked my watch again and dialled another number. Patrick was at home and he'd be pleased to see me in an hour. I got up and walked over to the filing cabinet. It was time for a whisky.

Frances let me in, giving me one of those half-smiles that were a mixture of shy beauty and distrust. She showed me into the study where her husband was waiting. He got up quickly and shook my hand. Behind me I heard the door close. We were going to be left alone.

I looked at Patrick as he poured me a strong shot of one of his precious malt whiskies. Heavy spectacles, unfashionably short hair that was dark and thick. He was a couple of years younger than myself but he didn't look much older than he had when I'd first met him, which was over fifteen years ago.

I had been learning the ropes in my job and he had been doing the same in his. When you're learning, you make mistakes. Patrick's bad been more serious than most. I had been able to help him cover it up. It was never mentioned between us again but always after that I knew that I could turn to him for help if I needed it.