September Song (30 page)

‘Must be difficult for her,' she said between wheezes.

I don't know what they were giving her for the pain, but she kept drifting off. Still, she was conscious enough to register what I said about Viv being in a little trouble and needing somewhere to hang out for a bit. I didn't even have to suggest it. She offered her little house.

‘She might as well get her feet under the table,' she said. ‘It'll be hers soon enough.'

Then she'd dozed off, and I left.

I told Viv about the house, and I directed Charlie there.

The curtains in the front rooms on the houses on either side started twitching as soon as the Roller swished to an elegant stop outside the quiet little terrace. And they continued to move discreetly as we all walked up to the front door.

The key was hanging from a piece of string behind the letter box, as Daff had said, and I fished it out and let us in, happy to be hidden away from the eyes of neighbours. I wondered if either of them would call the police. On balance, I thought not. Your average housebreaker doesn't turn up in an immaculate, if elderly, Rolls-Royce Phantom.

The cloying smell of dying flowers in the bright front room was overpowering, and so we went back to the neat, gloomy kitchen. Dishcloths, tea towels and a white tablecloth hung from the wooden rack suspended from the ceiling. Charlie turned on the light. Daff's sister had obviously cleaned it up before she left. Pity she hadn't thought to throw the flowers in the front room out. Maybe she couldn't bear to do it.

Viv looked around and then spoke for the first time since I'd told her about Daff.

‘Is she really my mother?' she said. ‘The woman who owns this.'

‘I think so,' I said. ‘It does say Eugenia Higgins on your birth certificate, doesn't it?'

‘How would I know?' she said. ‘I've never seen it. I was always Jean Mountjoy until I did a runner.'

‘All the same,' I said. ‘I think that's who you are.'

‘Well, I always knew I'd been adopted. They never stopped telling me how they'd taken me in out of the goodness of their hearts, after me mum abandoned me.' She paused. ‘Is she, you know, slipping away?' she said.

I nodded. ‘Anyway, you'll be safe here for the time being,' I said. ‘As long as you stay put.'

‘I haven't got any of me stuff,' she said. ‘I need me stuff.'

‘What do you need?'

‘Clothes, make-up, toothbrush. Bank book. I need me bank book. There was five quid in me purse as well. And some of the girls'll be worried. They'll need to know I'm safe. And me regulars.'

‘Best not to let anyone know where you are,' I said.

‘How can I? I don't know meself,' she said. ‘Anyway, who am I kidding? The girls will have forgotten about me by this time tomorrow. And most of the regulars are, not to put a fine point on it, sleazy old geezers who can find relief somewhere else without too much bother. No one's going to miss me.' She thought for a moment. ‘And I'm not going to miss them.'

‘Listen,' I said, ‘me and Charlie will pick up a bag of your clothes and stuff and Charlie will bring it back here. I'll look out some dosh for you, and anything we don't bring you can buy in Leytonstone High Road. It's only a hop, skip and a jump from here. All right?'

‘I suppose so,' she said.

‘Well, don't sound so enthusiastic,' I said. ‘If you prefer we can take you back to your gaff and leave you to it.'

She sighed. ‘I'm sorry,' she said. ‘I am grateful for you looking out for me.' She looked around and smiled. ‘And this is great. But me long-lost mum who abandoned me? That takes a bit of thinking about.'

I laughed.

‘What's so funny?' she said.

‘That's what she said,' I said. ‘More or less.' I looked at my watch. It was getting on for twelve. ‘I've got to go. Charlie'll be back later. All right?'

‘Yeah,' she said. ‘And thanks, Tony. I am grateful, really.'

Charlie and I walked out to the car. I could almost hear the neighbours' net curtains being pulled back for a better view.

‘What's all that about, Tone?' he said.

‘A dark secret in Daff's past,' I said. ‘I'm not supposed to tell anyone – especially Les – but I don't see how I can keep it quiet, what with everything that's going on. Anyway, I'm not even sure that Daff wants me to. Now.'

‘So, Daff had a daughter,' he said. ‘Fancy that.'

I clambered into the front passenger seat of the Rolls and leaned back against the worn, comfortable upholstery.

‘Right, James,' I said, ‘Old Compton Street. And don't spare the horses.'

Charlie left me outside Pete's Place before swishing off to take the suitcase we'd packed to Viv back at Daff's house and then to report in to Les in Wardour Street.

I stood on the pavement for a moment or two and looked up at the dark window of the Acropolis. There were no twitching curtains here, but I still had the feeling I was being watched. Mind you, I'd had that same prickling apprehension almost all the time I'd been in France with Robert and the others, and there had rarely been any German officers with their field glasses trained on me. I'd just been a bit scared.

I couldn't see any noses pressed against the glass so I shrugged off the feeling as best I could and trotted down the greasy steps to the club.

The corridor smelt even damper and ranker than usual. I suppose the place had been locked up most of Sunday and the walls sweated.

I pushed the door to the club open and walked in. It was just a dark, smelly, shabby room with a bar, a low stage and a few chairs and tables. There was something very sad and dreary about it. No wonder Peter Baxter was so morose. The place needed music, clinking glasses, smoke and laughter.

There was no sign of Bill or Peter, but then it was dinner time and they'd probably popped out for a pork pie, a pickled onion and a pint somewhere. I would have been thinking along similar lines myself, only without the pint, if I hadn't still been digesting Enzo's eggs, beans and bacon. A little burp burbled up as I thought about all that fried bread.

My footsteps sounded very loud as I walked across the stage and along the back corridor. The dressing room wasn't locked, and I just pushed the door open and entered another sad, musty space.

The brown-paper carrier bag was still where it had been on Saturday night, tucked away beneath the little dressing table.

I'd noticed it when I'd been collecting Jeannie Summers' things, and I'd mentioned it. She'd given the creased, greasy-looking thing a quick glance, and then she'd shaken her head.

‘No,' she'd said, ‘that's not mine. It must be Mr Baxter's.'

And we'd left it.

I hadn't thought about it at all until I'd suddenly remembered Ricky Mountjoy carrying something similar. I suppose I could be forgiven for not making the connection at the time – I'd had other things on my mind, and a recent lump or two on my body – but I'd been kicking myself ever since I had.

I knelt down and reached under the table to pull the bag out. As I grabbed hold of the string handles, I heard light footsteps resonating outside. I stood up, the bag in my hand, and turned to face the door. It didn't weigh very much, and I let it dangle from the end of my arm, the string barely cutting into my fingers. I peered inside. It was about a quarter full of small brown envelopes, like the ones people in gainful employment get their wages in at the end of the week.

The footsteps weren't heavy enough to be Bill's, and they lacked the slip-slap of Peter Baxter's old worn suede shoes. They stopped right outside the dressing room, and then I saw the doorknob slowly turn. The hinges groaned slightly as the big, red-brown door swung open.

I hadn't really known who to expect, so I suppose anyone, except Bill or Peter, would have been a surprise, but I certainly hadn't anticipated seeing Jeannie Summers come through the door, and I was a bit taken aback. I relaxed a little and was suddenly aware of just how tense I'd been. I rolled my shoulders.

‘Tony,' she said, looking at the carrier bag. ‘I suppose I should have known you'd be here.' She waved her hand at the bag. ‘When did you guess?'

‘Not long ago,' I said. ‘When did you know?'

‘Just now,' she said. ‘Mr Perkins, the solicitor your nice Mr Jackson asked to look after Lee, arranged for me to see him this morning. I came as soon as I could after Lee told me about it and I'd spoken to Mr Perkins.'

‘Where are they holding him?' I said.

‘Pentonville,' she said. ‘Horrible place. Smells of boiled greens, feet, sweat and lavatories. And something else.' She wrinkled her nose.

‘How is he?'

‘Not too bad. Considering.' She paused and waved her hand at the bag again. ‘He told me to get rid of that.'

She was looking a little drawn and pale, and there were shadows under her eyes that her make-up couldn't hide. But she was neat and tidy in a dark-grey jacket and skirt, and flat, black shoes. She had tied a navy-blue scarf around her hair, knotted under her chin.

‘Mr Perkins explained to him that there's no such thing as justifiable homicide in this country, and so he's planning to plead guilty to manslaughter, claiming self-defence,' she said. ‘That –' she pointed again – ‘could, he thinks, be used by the prosecution to suggest something else.'

‘He told you all this,' I said, ‘with a prison officer in the room with you?'

She nodded. ‘I don't think he heard anything,' she said. ‘To be honest, I don't think he was listening.'

‘I wouldn't bet on it,' I said. ‘So, Lee really did do it.'

‘Of course,' she said. ‘Why else would he confess?'

‘I don't know,' I said. ‘He might have fallen down a few flights of stairs.' She looked puzzled. ‘They might have knocked him about a bit,' I explained.

‘Oh, I see,' she said. ‘No, I don't think so.'

I shrugged. Or, I thought, he might be protecting someone close to him. And there weren't too many of those.

She inclined her head towards the bag in my hand. ‘Will you  . . .?' she said.

‘Of course,' I said. ‘I was planning to deal with it, anyway. The police won't get a sniff of it.'

‘Thank you,' she said.

We fell into an awkward silence. I don't know what she was thinking, but she raised her right forefinger to her mouth and worried away at a hangnail.

I was thinking just how grubby, meaningless and confusing my life had become. I tried to think of the decent things – Paris, Mrs Williams, good wine, Jerry and jazz, Ghislaine, even the old reprobate Les – but, somehow, they counted for less than the criminals, the drunks, the vicious thugs and sporadic violence I'd encountered over the past few days. Even the jazz had been tainted. Pete's Place could never be quite the same for me.

Jeannie Summers opened her dark-blue handbag with a snap and took out a small handkerchief with a flower embroidered in one corner. She dabbed at her nose, mouth and eyes.

Then we both heard the sounds of people arriving in the club.

I put down the bag. ‘Wait here,' I said. ‘I'll just go and tell Peter and Bill that you forgot something on Saturday night and we came in to pick it up.'

She nodded slightly and then put the handkerchief back in the handbag.

I left her standing there, lost in her own miserable thoughts, and went out into the corridor, closing the door quietly behind me.

As soon as the wonky board on the stage groaned and creaked when my much-repaired good black brogues landed on it, I knew I was in trouble, with a capital TR.

The club was every bit as gloomy as it had been before. It wasn't just people it needed to cheer it up. It was the right kind of people.

Ricky Mountjoy, George and the other two heavies they had with them definitely did not count as the right kind of people. Particularly as the boot was very much on the other foot this time. Or, to put it another way, Ricky and George had the sawn-off shotguns.

‘Oh, look,' Ricky said, ‘it's wossname, the frog. Like a bad penny, ain't he?' He pointed the gun at me.

I assumed it was loaded and someone had shown him more or less how to use it, so I stayed where I was. Anyway, I didn't want to lead them back to Miss Summers.

‘I didn't expect to see you here,' I said, although thoughts of bent screws, telephones and greasy fivers did flicker briefly across my mind. ‘I didn't take you for a jazz fan.'

‘Stop pratting about,' he said. ‘Where's my stuff?'

‘Sorry,' I said, ‘I don't know. It's gone.' I just didn't want him to have it. And, apart from the simple pleasure I got from cheesing him off, I didn't know what the vicious little sod would do once he placed his grubby little mitts on it.

He took a few steps forward, his sharp, Italian, mohair suit a shimmering shiny blue with flecks of purple in the gloom. ‘I won't ask you again,' he said.

I shrugged, and he jumped lightly on to the stage, which groaned again, and he thrust the gun hard against my stomach. He had a livid bruise on his left cheek that almost matched the colours of his suit, so I could see why he wouldn't be happy with me. Funny, though: they may have been similar colours, but the suit was pretty and the bruise was ugly.

I straightened up after the painful jab to the belly and shrugged again. I've always been good at dumb insolence, or so my old headmaster and one or two senior officers in the army had told me.

I saw the move early, so I managed to get my arm up as the barrel of the gun swung towards my head. Although I parried it a bit, I still took a nasty whack to the bonce and went down in a heap. My head hurt, but my arm didn't. It would, though, once the numbness wore off.

I lay there, pretending to be a bit groggier than I felt – though I felt quite groggy enough – waiting for Ricky to follow up by booting me, but he didn't. At first, I thought it was because he didn't want to scuff his new black suede shoes, but then I heard Jeannie Summers calling softly to me from the corridor off the stage.