Running Scared (19 page)

Told they weren’t expected, as far as we knew, he edged in and took a good look round the place to make sure, just in case Parry jumped out from behind the cold drinks cabinet. ‘Got the back door opened up? Marco’s bringing the tiles in. We can finish it all off by lunchtime. You all right today, sunshine? How’s the old napper?’

Ganesh said he was fine, thanks, and glad they could finish the job today. He went to open up the back door.

Left alone in the shop, I sold three newspapers, a tube of throat lozenges and a packet of disposable cigarette lighters, all to the same person, a brickie from a nearby construction site. If he cut back on the ciggies he mightn’t have needed the throat sweets but I was more intrigued by what he was going to do with three papers. I asked.

‘I buy ’em for me mates,’ he explained hoarsely.

I didn’t follow up the questioning although I was tempted. Two of the papers were downmarket tabloids but the third was the
Financial Times
.

After he left, trade, such as it was, fell off completely. From the rear of the premises came the muted roar of Hitch’s normal speaking voice.

The doorbell tinged and I looked up.

‘Hi,’ said Tig, edging in nervously. Like Hitch earlier, she took a good look round. ‘I thought I’d drop in and ask how you were getting on – you know, if you’d rung my parents.’

She looked worse than ever this morning. Her features had a nipped, chilled look and her lips had gained a blue tinge.

‘You want a cup of coffee, Tig?’ I offered. ‘Things are quiet and the kettle boiled only a few minutes ago.’

She accepted, nursing the warm mug in her skeletal fingers and pressing it against her cheeks. She wore a dirty dark-coloured donkey jacket and a red scarf wound round her neck. Her hair was lank and straggly. I’d have to clean her up before I sent her home. Provided, of course, that I managed to bring off that little project successfully.

I explained about the phone call to her mother and that I hoped to go to Dorridge on Sunday.

‘Not till then?’ She sounded disappointed.

‘Oy,’ I protested. ‘I’m doing my best. But I’ve got other commitments, you know. Ganesh – the manager here – got bashed on the head the other night.’

Tig didn’t ask how or why. Getting done over happened to everyone from time to time in her world. But she still looked restless and I guessed something had happened to worry her.

‘Is it Jo Jo?’ I asked, because that seemed the most likely explanation.

‘He’s getting really nosy,’ Tig said. ‘I’m afraid he’ll get one of his moods when he thinks someone’s plotting against him. He doesn’t really trust anyone, not even me. He freaked out over that chocolate you gave me and if he knew about this, he’d go completely ape. I don’t mean most of the time he isn’t OK. But he can be scary.’

Scary, as in being a headcase. ‘You’ve got to leave him, Tig,’ I said firmly. ‘Right away. I mean, as of now. Don’t go back.’

‘Where’m I going to go?’ she asked. ‘I gotta kip somewhere.’

That put me on the spot and I had to offer. ‘You can come to my place until you go home. It’ll be all right. I’m on my own there.’

And what if she didn’t go home? Was I to be landed with her indefinitely? I didn’t fancy the idea.

She wasn’t exactly leaping at the offer, either. ‘I dunno,’ she said. ‘What about my gear? Jo Jo’s minding all our stuff.’ Shrewd of him. Standing guard over Tig’s few belongings might be enough to keep her by his side. If so, time to show him he was mistaken.

‘Then ditch it. It’s not worth the risk going back for it. You couldn’t sneak it away without his noticing. Have you got anything you can’t leave behind?’

She was nodding. ‘Yes, sort of. There’s – there’s one thing I’ve got to go back for.’ She put down the empty mug. ‘Tell me where your place is. I’ll come over this evening, about nine. Jo Jo’s got something on tonight, got to go and see a mate on business. I don’t know what sort, he didn’t say.’

Something connected with drugs, I shouldn’t be surprised. Jo Jo didn’t look the type to have scruples. I still didn’t think it a good idea for her to return to him in the meantime but I could see she was adamant. I told her where I lived. As I finished speaking, there was the sound of Ganesh returning.

Tig said quickly, ‘OK then, see you later, this evening sometime.’ She was gone in a second.

I debated whether to tell Ganesh of this latest development and decided not to. He’d say I was getting in deeper and it was a really bad move. And what on earth was Tig carrying around with her that was so valuable she had to risk Jo Jo’s violence to go back for it?

Ganesh said I could go at twelve if I liked. He was feeling better and Dilip had promised to come round for an hour around six when things tended to get busy.

I set off down the pavement and reached the chemist’s shop where I’d taken the negatives to be developed. It occurred to me that my houseguest would be unlikely to bring a range of bathroom toiletries with her; from the look of her, soap might be a novelty these days. Poor Tig, once the dedicated toothbrusher. Well, if she was going to stay with me, personal hygiene wouldn’t be an optional extra. It’d be a basic necessity.

I pushed open the door of the shop. Things were quiet. One of the two regular assistants had gone to lunch and the other, Joleen, was leaning on the counter, reading
Black Beauty and Hair.
Her ambition was to be a beauty consultant with her own salon but selling cough mixtures and contraceptives in our local chemist’s was as far as she’d got. I sympathised with her stalled ambitions, being in the same boat myself. I collected a bar of soap and a bottle of showergel from the open shelves and took them over to her.

‘Hi, Fran,’ she said. She held out her hands towards me, backs outward, so I could admire her purplish-red nails. ‘What do you think?’

‘Very nice,’ I said.

‘It’s a new range. This shade’s called Smouldering. Chip-proof. You ought to try it. I could do your nails for you. I’m a trained manicurist, you know.’

‘Believe me,’ I said, ‘given my lifestyle, I wouldn’t need chip-proof varnish, I’d need bomb-proof.’ I put my purchases on the counter.

‘Two ninety-five,’ said Joleen, stabbing at the till with her vampire talons. I paid. She put the items in a plastic bag and propped herself on the counter again for a chat.

‘Mike, he does the developing out back –’ she indicated the rear of the premises – ‘he hoped those holiday snaps he did for you the other day were all right. He had a lot of trouble with them. It was some kind of foreign film, wasn’t it?’

‘Probably,’ I said cautiously. ‘They weren’t mine. I got them done for a friend.’

‘He had a coupla goes at them, as you’ll have seen. The first lot came out really rubbish colours. The second lot were better, but he wasn’t really satisfied. He said to tell you he couldn’t do better – only it wasn’t me gave them back to you, was it?’

‘No, it was the other woman . . .’ I said slowly, my brain grinding into gear. ‘Joleen, what do you mean, as I’d have seen?’

She stared at me. ‘He put both lots in the envelope, so you could see he really tried.’

‘Hang on,’ I said carefully. ‘Are you telling me he took
two sets of prints from that film?’

‘Sure. He put them both in the envelope, like I said.’

‘No,’ I said, ‘he didn’t.’

‘Oh.’ Joleen thought about it and shrugged. ‘He meant to. Must’ve changed his mind. Well, like I said, the first lot were no good anyway, so you wouldn’t have wanted them.’

‘But I would!’ I said hastily. ‘The friend – the person who asked me to get the film developed – he’s lost the original negs now and can’t get any more pics printed off. He’d like some copies to send to the other guys in the pictures. So, if the first prints are still out back somewhere, yes, I’d, I mean he’d, like them – even if the colour is duff.’

Joleen looked doubtful. ‘They’ve probably been chucked out by now. I’ll go and ask.’

She sashayed into the back room on her platform soles, her beaded braids swinging, and giving the impression she wasn’t wearing an awful lot under that crisp white overall.

She came back a few minutes later carrying a metal waste-paper bin. ‘Mike says, sorry, he meant to give them to you with the others. If they’re still anywhere, they might be in this bin.’

The bell rang signalling a new customer. ‘Here,’ Joleen thrust the bin at me, ‘take a look for yourself.’

She moved off to dispense corn plasters and E45 cream to an elderly woman.

I set down the bin and riffled through its contents eagerly (which distracted the elderly customer who gave me a funny look). Please, please . . . I was whispering to myself. Bingo! Right at the bottom, only one of the snaps – the other three must be lost for good. But one was better than none. I fished it out. The colours were bad, all right; no wonder Mike hadn’t wanted to send these out. I’d have asked for my money back. The fair-haired man at the centre of the scene appeared to have had an orange rinse. But the images were clear enough.

‘OK? Got them, then?’ Joleen was back.

‘Got one. Thanks, Joleen. I—My friend will be really chuffed.’

‘’Sall right,’ she said cheerfully. ‘Do you want a lipstick, free? I’ve got a box full of tester samples here, discontinued lines. Most of them have got quite a bit left.’

‘Keep on smouldering, Joleen!’ I called as I left the shop, and she let out a great shriek of a giggle. In the plastic bag I now carried the soap, the showergel, a half-used burnt sienna lipstick, which Joleen reckoned was my colour – and best of all, a luridly hued picture of Mr Big. It might prove dangerous property – but on the other hand, it might come in useful.

I got back to the flat mid-afternoon and sat on my sofa looking round the place, thinking my newly won privacy and independence were about to be invaded by Tig. I’d lived in squats and was used to sharing space and been grateful, often enough, when I’d first found myself on my own, to be offered shelter by anyone. I knew I couldn’t have done anything else but invite Tig to stay, but it was harder to accept the reality than I’d imagined it would be. I’d got used to being on my own. This was my place. I lived here. I told myself not to be selfish but I’d got selfish. We all do the more we have. Anyone can be generous with nothing. Having Tig here to share would be good for me.

I did wonder if I ought to mention Tig to Daphne, because if she saw her going in and out, she might wonder. But I was perfectly entitled to have a friend to stay and anyway, I didn’t think Daphne would mind. Charlie and Bertie, if they found out, would object strongly and it’d give them a weapon against me. I’d be accused of filling the flat with undesirables. But Tig wasn’t going to stay long, or not if I had anything to do with it. It was, after all, up to me. I now had a perfect reason for fixing things up with the Quayles.

Tig didn’t come until almost ten that evening. I was beginning to wonder if she’d managed to get away from Jo Jo or if he’d discovered her plan. When the bell rang, I called through the door, ‘Who is it?’ Because I now had a list of people I didn’t want to see, including the Knowles twins, Inspector Harford, Wayne Parry and the killer of Gray Coverdale.

‘Tig!’ called back her voice and this was followed by a scrabbling sound and I heard her urge, ‘Stop it.’

Had she brought someone with her? I opened the door cautiously.

‘I’m here, then,’ said Tig. She glanced down. ‘I had to bring Bonnie. I hope you don’t mind.’

I looked down. At Tig’s feet sat a small brown and white rough-haired terrier, head on one side, ears pricked, gazing up at me expectantly.

‘This is what you had to go back for,’ I said. ‘Bonnie.’

‘That’s right. OK if we come in?’

I let them both pass. Tig lugged in a bulging haversack which she dropped in the middle of the carpet. She looked round critically. ‘Nice place, but why is the bathroom cabinet stuck up there where a window ought to be?’

‘I’ll tell you about that later,’ I said.

Bonnie had started on her own tour of inspection, trotting round the furniture, sniffing out everything.

‘She won’t pee on the carpet, will she?’ I asked nervously.

‘Course she won’t. She’s really good. She belonged to the girl who died, the one I told you about. You remember I told you I got talking to that girl about her dog? Well, this is the dog and someone had to take her on. I had to bring her with me here. I couldn’t leave her behind with Jo Jo, because he’d only sell her on to someone and I feel, you know, I’ve got to see she’s all right.’