Angel Hunt (3 page)

‘There was no identification on the body. Did you take it?' asked Hatchard, leaning forward.

‘No, I told you, I didn't touch him. But I could see who it was.'

‘And you knew him?' This from Mr Nasty.

‘I used to. We were at university together, but I haven't seen him in – what – ten years? He hadn't changed much.'

Except for being much deader than I remembered.

‘Why didn't you tell us who he was?' asked Hatchard. White just sat there looking flabbergasted.

‘You never asked,' I said.

Well, had they?

 

 

 

 

 

Why did I tell them it was Billy Tuckett? I've wondered since myself. But they would have found out; slow they might be, stupid they ain't.

Putting me and Billy together ten years back would probably never have occurred to them. Why should it? But I knew that somewhere down the line there would be some formal identification or an inquest where, with my luck, I'd run across Billy's mum and the cat would be out of the bag, to coin a very sick phrase. That would look bad, and even Plod would put two and two together and make five. It's much better to give them two and one and let them make four. It's called damage limitation.

I'd met Mrs Tuckett only twice; once when she drove Billy down to university at the start of a term and once when she turned up to see him get his degree. (A lucky third if I remember, but I couldn't recall in what, just the class. My, but we're snobs at that age, aren't we?) I had a nasty feeling she'd remember me, because she was the sort of woman who would remember somebody offering to drink Newcastle Brown Ale out of her shoe on Degree Day. And when she'd driven Billy, a pimply second-year, up to my hall of residence at the start of his fourth or fifth term, I'd been on hand to help them unload her Mercedes estate car. Actually, I'd been waiting for somebody else, but I just happened to be on hand and I couldn't just stand there and watch her struggle with all those boxes, suitcases, typewriters, bicycles, stereo systems and so on. I remember I looked at the pile of Billy's goods and chattels, which were supposed to fit inside a 12-by-six-foot room, and saying: ‘I came with a Sainsbury's carrier – and I had trouble filling that.' And Mrs Tuckett had shrieked with laughter, because she probably was the sort of woman who laughed loudly in pubs, but would never intentionally hurt anyone, and who would be cut to the marrow when she heard of her only son's death.

She could have changed, of course. Run off with the milkman, disowned Billy, got religion; but I didn't think so. ‘You'll look after him for me, won't you?' she'd said to me after we'd got him unpacked and she couldn't think of anything else that might prevent her from leaving. Billy had just shuffled from one foot to the other and blushed as all dutiful sons should do. I'd told her not to worry and that he was one of the lads, although I'd never seen him before, and we were just waiting for her to go before we started the party. She'd laughed at that and resisted the urge to cuddle him in front of one of ‘the lads' and had gone. I remember I said to Billy something like, ‘I thought she'd never go. Where's the corkscrew?' and he'd answered – dead straight – ‘What do you want a corkscrew for?' and so I'd made an excuse and left quickly.

I tried to think of when I'd seen him after that, apart from when we got our degrees – him proud and posing for the family album, me drunk and disorderly. I knew I had, on a couple of occasions, at student union meetings, but I couldn't think why, as he certainly wasn't a political animal. It would come to me eventually. I have that sort of brain. I can remember stuff they thought too petty for Trivial Pursuit and then some days I have to look up the instructions on my bootlaces.

But when I finally got to bed again it was well into Monday morning, and it was Monday afternoon when I surfaced and there was a policeman on the door and it hadn't been a nightmare after all.

 

The uniformed copper on the door told me he was only hanging about until he got the word on his ‘talking brooch' radio that the forensic boys hadn't forgotten anything and wouldn't need to come back. He personally couldn't give a monkey's whether I went out or not as long as the CID boys knew where they could get me. I said they did and offered to leave the door on the latch so he could sneak in for a bit of a warm.

Before I left, I tried to ring Nassim Nassim, my erstwhile landlord and Sunil's cousin and, I'd decided by now, the man who had got me into this mess. It was odds on that the cops had got to him by now, but in case they hadn't, it might pay me to square things with him.

Nassim was not available, a female voice told me. I knew it was unlikely to be Mrs Nassim as she refused to get involved in his business activities even to the point of answering the phone. Well, that's what Nassim had once told us. I think it was his flimsy excuse for employing a procession of nubile young secretaries. Just in case this was one of them, I left my name and number, pointing out that it was the Stuart Street property and part of Nassim's empire, which made us almost family, didn't it?

I just managed to get in the fact that it really was quite important before she hung up. You can't win ‘em all. One or two now and then would be nice, though.

I got Armstrong fired up and headed towards Hackney, using the back streets to avoid the worst of the rush hour. In effect, I'd lost a day, and I wondered if there had been something I'd planned to do that Monday, like work, for instance. I couldn't think of anything I'd promised anybody and I hadn't anything musical on for a few days, so that was all right. Being self-unemployed has its upside.

In Stuart Street I had a choice of parking spaces outside No 9. It wasn't so much fun nowadays, not since Frank and Salome Asmoyah, the black Yuppie couple who used to have the flat above me, moved to their much plusher Limehouse pad complete with mortgage repayments delivered in envelopes with black edges. My going-away present to them had been a pair of inflatable yellow wheel-clamps, which I'd attached front and aft to their VW Golf. Nothing could be more guaranteed to induce apoplexy in a London driver, though I never could get onside with that sort of paranoia. Have you ever seen a taxi wearing a Denver boot?

As I got out, I caught the enigmatic Mr Goodson sneaking in through the front door, but if he'd seen me pull up, he didn't wait to say hello. That wasn't unusual, though. I knew he'd be inside his ground-floor flat with the door locked before I could get into the hall, no matter how fast I was. He rarely spoke to the rest of us peasants in the house, though when he did, he was nothing but polite. He didn't play music loud, drink to excess, have phone calls, watch television or go out at all at weekends. I tell people he's an alien. If I told them he was a quiet, shy, unassuming minor civil servant who read a lot of books, they'd have the weirdo squad from Social Services round straight away. After all, this was Hackney, and there were probably by-laws about such things.

I sneaked up the stairs to Flat 3, tiptoeing by the door of No 2 so as not to disturb Lisabeth and Fenella, the two dragons who inhabited that particular dungeon. It wasn't that we didn't get on; we did – surprisingly well, in fact. But while I'd been house-sitting for Nassim, Fenella had been cat-sitting for me. Not that that required much; it's just that not even Springsteen has mastered the tin-opener yet, though he's working on it. Unfortunately, Fenella takes her duties terribly seriously, and would have a minute by minute report of what Springsteen had been up to while I'd been away. Lisabeth, on the other hand, regards anything male (about 48% of the population) and anything that moves faster than she does (the rest of the animal kingdom) with deep suspicion, and the combination of her moaning and Fenella enthusing was too much for me.

Springsteen was out, but there were tell-tale signs that he'd been ruling the roost and no evidence that he was pining for my return. There was a dish of cat food down for him, plus a dish of tuna fish chunks (in soya oil as he likes to preserve his kittenish figure) and a saucer of rapidly separating cream. He had a cat flap in the flat door if he wanted to get into the rest of the house, and Fenella had thoughtfully left my kitchen window wide open so he could come and go that way via the flat roof of the kitchen extension next door. She'd also left the heating on for him, which was doing nothing except heating the window-sill for the pigeons and running up my bills. It looked as if I would have to have a go at the electricity meter with an electromagnet again. It also seemed, from the feathers on the kitchen floor, that one of the pigeons had come down for a warm and had got too close. Ah well, one less tourist attraction.

I peeled off my clothes and took a long shower – it would be a long time before I took a bath again, and certainly not round at Sunil's – and treated myself to a proper shave with hot water and a razor. I had been using my travelling battery shaver while house-sitting and, despite what Victor Kiam says, nothing beats hot water and cold steel.

I had just time to pull on a clean shirt and a pair of chinos – Springsteen's favourites as they show up his black hairs to best effect – before the local news came on the TV. I flicked on the box and took a can of lager from the fridge. The news finished at the same time as the lager. It hadn't been a busy day in London town, but there was no mention of anybody falling through windows in Leytonstone.

I opened another can and wondered what to do next. About the only practical thing I came up with was that I probably ought to start smoking again. That was more than a tad retro, so I distracted myself and put some music on.

I fed a CD of Hugh Masekela into the machine and fought back the urge to get my trumpet out and play along, ruminating on the injustice of a world that had taken so long to discover him. No doubt somebody had held a torch for him. As a student, with everybody into punk in a big way, I'd regularly paid over the odds for Chuck Mangione imports. So much music; so little time. And always the social pressure to keep up to date and with the scene.

I remembered the larder was bare and took a snap decision (actually, ‘going snap' on a decision was the latest buzzword) to hit the local late-night deli. I picked up my wallet and a bright blue blouson with ‘Status Quo – 19th Farewell Concert' on the back in day-glo gold. You see what I mean about having to keep up with things.

I was almost at the corner of Stuart Street when a car slowed up into the corner of my eye. I was either being kerb-crawled or a bunch of Quo fans were after the jacket.

It was Nassim in a battered red Nissan, and if he was a Quo fan, he'd never admitted it. I had never had him down as a kerb-crawler either, but from the state of the car, it looked as if it had had a good kicking. He leaned over and opened the passenger door so he could yell at me.

‘Hey you, Angel. I'm coming to see and you are leaving. You said urgent so I am come straight away.' He narrowed his eyes. ‘The house is okay, isn't it? You haven't set fire to nothing, have you?'

I put on my best butter-wouldn't-melt expression and stuck my head inside the car.

‘Sometimes, Mr Nassim,' I said politely, ‘I think you have a very low opinion of me.'

He shuffled a bit at that, shrinking into his green trench-coat, which someone had told him was Yuppily fashionable.

‘And anyway,' I went on, ‘the insurance will cover it.'

‘Well, that at least is something,' he said. Then: ‘Cover what? Hey, Angel, wait …'

But I'd closed the car door by then and was heading for the deli.

I waved to him to follow me in, and he snuffed the Nissan's engine and climbed out. Then he got back in and came out holding a mobile phone, which he crammed into a coat pocket.

‘Is that a mobile phone or are you just pleased to see me?' I asked as I held the deli door open for him.

‘Eh?'

‘Skip it. How long have you been driving that piece of rust?' I nodded to his car.

‘You think I'm going to park the BMW in Brick Lane?' He had a point.

‘Now what's this about insurance? Why do I need insurance?'

I handed him a wire basket and put a box of eggs in it. ‘Not you, your cousin Sunil in Leytonstone.'

‘What have you done? You said you would look after things. That's why I give you three weeks' rent amnesty.'

You noted that. Other landlords would have said three weeks ‘rent free' or ‘credit' or something. Nassim called it amnesty. I added some goat's cheese to the basket.

‘I haven't done anything, except spend most of last night and all of this morning keeping the police off your back. Can you reach the milk?'

Without thinking, he added a carton of milk to his basket. From behind her check-out till, Mrs Patel looked at us curiously over the top of her blue-framed spectacles. ‘Police? What police?'

‘Tall guys in blue uniforms and cars with flashing lights on top. You must have seen ‘em. Butter, please.'

‘Why police? Were they looking for Sunil? I've never trusted that damned boy.'

‘No, it's nothing to do with him. Put that back, will you, and get the slightly salted type. I know it's bad for you, but what isn't these days?'