September Song (33 page)

It was nudging on for six o'clock in the evening, and I was so restored and full of beans that I fell fast asleep on Jerry's chaise longue.

TWENTY

‘
M
y, my,' James Fitzgerald said when I eventually tracked him down, which hadn't been all that difficult, ‘someone's been in the wars. And,' he added with a malign smile after looking me up and down for a few seconds, ‘been awarded a
costume civil
for his services.'

He was sitting behind a large, dark desk in a cluttered and gloomy little room at the back of a house in Romilly Street. The grimy window behind him looked out on to a singularly dispiriting and lifeless vista. The dismal back wall of the house behind, unrelieved, as far as I could see, by window or door, stood only a few feet away, like a large and impassive bouncer. With Harold standing behind me and the wall in front of me, I felt hemmed in. I stared at the wall, over Mr Fitz's head, for a few seconds. The mortar was crumbling away. It desperately needed repointing. Much as I felt, in fact.

I tore myself away from the riveting view and sighed. The irony of a man who looked a little like Alfred Hitchcock and who had the dress sense of Gabby Hayes commenting on my sartorial misfortunes was not lost on me.

‘Yes,' I said, ‘I had a little trouble yesterday.'

He tilted his head on one side and looked at me sympathetically. Well, it would have been a sympathetic gesture in almost anyone else. He could just have been laughing at me. ‘Do go on,' he said.

I raised the carrier bag that was dangling from my good hand and placed it on a pile of papers on his desk.

He raised his eyebrows inquisitively and smiled at me.

‘It's your “goods”,' I said. ‘I found them.'

‘You just found them?' he said.

‘Sort of,' I said. ‘I suddenly realized where they had to be.'

He reached out one pudgy hand and pulled the bag towards him. He peered into it. ‘Hmm,' he said, then he pushed the bag away. ‘Well, thank you, Tony, that's very decent of you.'

‘Well,' I said, ‘I'd like things to be straight between us.'

‘Oh, they are, Tony, they are. I know you're a decent sort, honest as the day is long and all that.' He drummed his fingers on the desk and hummed tunelessly. Suddenly, he looked up and smiled his vicious little smile. ‘I wonder if I might impose on you to do something for me?'

I shrugged. It hurt a bit. The shoulders and neck were still sore. ‘Sure,' I said.

‘I'd be awfully grateful if you'd be so kind as to take these goods to my dear friend Nelson Smith. As a peace offering.'

I said nothing and stared at the wall. It just stared blankly back.

‘You look puzzled, Tony,' he said.

‘Well, I thought you wanted this stuff back,' I said. ‘There was a certain amount of fuss about it.'

He waved his hand dismissively. ‘The goods themselves are a mere bagatelle, Tony. Of very little value. But the principle is of the utmost importance. And the principle is that no one takes anything from me.'

‘I see,' I said. And I did. I really did. I tried to keep any resentment at his cavalier approach to my life out of my voice. ‘Do you know where I'll find your very good friend?'

‘Oh, I don't imagine that he's left the leafy lanes of Ladbroke Grove yet, Tony, but, no doubt, he'll be out and about in an hour or two.' He looked at his watch. ‘In fact, I have it on good authority that he may well be in the Frighted Horse at opening time. He is hoping, I understand, to meet young Ricky Mountjoy there. I believe he will be disappointed.' He smiled at me knowingly. ‘Why don't you find a pastry and a cup of coffee somewhere? You look as if you could do with a sit-down.' He nodded at the looming presence behind me. ‘Harold, show the gentleman out.'

I reached out and grabbed hold of the bag, and then a heavy hand fell on my shoulder and guided me away from the desk and on to the narrow little landing outside the office. The door closed firmly behind me.

I sat away from the window, in the shadows at the back of the Moka, and sipped miserably at my rapidly cooling coffee. I felt very gloomy. It's just as well that no one had ever told me that life was going to be easy, or fair. I would have been forced to disagree strongly.

I looked down at the brown carrier-bag on the seat next to me and thought it would be just my luck for Inspector Rose, or his altogether less attractive sergeant, to turn up and ask to have a butcher's inside. Still, the bag itself wasn't as suspicious as the creased, greasy one the stuff had originally been in. This was a new one, acquired first thing that morning when I'd nipped around the corner to the Co-op in order to fill Jerry's larder with the staples he'd generously bestowed on me and my guests over the past few days. He'd been uncharacteristically moody. I'd tried to jolly him out of it by pointing out that at least I'd stopped maundering on about Paris. He'd smiled, but he'd said he actually preferred life to be a bit boring. I'd agreed with him and promised to be much more boring in the future.

I was startled out of my reflections by the sound of a cup and saucer being plonked down on the Formica opposite me. I looked up and saw Viv Laurence standing there.

‘This seat taken?' she said.

‘Be my guest,' I said, ‘but what are you doing here?'

She slid on to the seat, brushed her hair back and then leaned forward and sighed. ‘Got fed up,' she said. ‘This isn't much of a life, but it's the only one I've got. Tucked away in that suffocating little house, nothing to do but listen to the wireless all day  . . . “Woman's Hour”, “Workers' Playtime”, “Listen with Mother”, “Mrs Dale's bloody Diary”  . . . It's not me, Tony.' She picked up her cup and noisily sipped tea. ‘We all hate the life. Of course we do. We all want out. But I don't know  . . .' She trailed off and shook her head.

‘This could be your chance,' I said. ‘I think your mum's planning to leave everything to you. There won't be much, I don't suppose, but there's the house and a few bob probably. Why don't you come and see her before  . . . You know.'

She shook her head, fumbled in her bag and took out a pack of cigarettes and a box of matches.

‘I can't,' she said. ‘I can't forgive her for abandoning me and leaving me in that place with that horrible old man.' She actually shuddered at the thought of the old boy. She lit a cigarette and drew on it. Her hand was shaking slightly.

‘I think she wants to make it up to you, if she can. That's why she wanted me to find you. She was very young, and it wasn't her decision.'

She sat back and blew a thin plume of blue-grey smoke towards the ceiling. ‘I don't want her to make it up to me,' she said.

‘Come to see her. Tell her,' I said.

She shook her head firmly. Her hair fluttered about, and her impressive cleavage trembled. For the first time, I could see that she bore a resemblance to Daphne. She certainly had very little of the Mountjoy look.

She smoked for a while, staring past me, and then she suddenly seemed to notice me properly and leaned forward. ‘Here,' she said, ‘you look—'

‘Terrible. I know,' I said. ‘It's been a hard couple of days, and the suit is an old one and the shirt's borrowed.'

‘No,' she said, waving her cigarette about. ‘You look a bit like that Dirk Bogarde. Only older and a lot more lived-in.'

‘Thanks,' I said. ‘I think.'

I left Viv in the Moka. She was still smoking, still drinking tea and still refusing to have anything to do with Daphne. As I walked towards the Frighted Horse, the carrier bag clutched tightly in my left hand, I realized that there was a bit more of a spring in my step. Somehow, she'd cheered me up.

It was another dull old day, and the grubby streets of Soho and the dirty buildings, streaked by pigeon poo, desperately needed some sun, or a few of the louche, colourful characters of the night.

I suddenly had that strange prickly feeling on the back of my neck that made me think I was being followed. I sauntered on for a few seconds and then stopped to look into a shop window and cast a surreptitious look behind me. I didn't recognize anyone, and there was no one acting oddly. Well, no more oddly than was to be expected in Soho just before opening time. A thin, frail, threadbare alkie in a greasy gaberdine mac stopped next to me and peered vacantly into the window as well. There wasn't much there apart from half a dozen dead flies and a few paperback books with garish paintings of
femmes fatales
in various stages of undress on their curling covers.

‘Spare a couple of bob for an old soldier, sir?' the alkie suddenly said.

I reached into my pocket and found half a crown. I dropped it into his hand.

‘Thank you, sir, that's very kind,' he said and touched his right hand to his forehead in the sort of salute that would have had him on a charge in any unit I'd served in.

He drifted off, looking as if a gust of wind would catch him up and carry him gently across the road.

I felt slightly depressed again but still wary. That niggling feeling nagged at the back of the neck. It was probably nothing. Probably just residual anxiety.

But Big Luc had once told me that one should always follow one's instincts and that if you thought you were being followed, act as if you were. Better to feel a little foolish afterwards because there had been no one, than to be dead. An image of the big man sitting quietly with his back to an apple tree, sipping Calvados from his battered tin flask, his prized Luger next to him on the damp grass, flittered into my mind. I wondered if he was still alive.

My alcoholic ex-soldier had disappeared around the corner into Old Compton Street. I hoped he spent my half crown sensibly. Somehow, I couldn't see him wasting it on fish and chips.

There was a little light rain in the air, and a few shapeless, dowdy women of a certain age in cardigans and headscarves took pakamacs out of shopping baskets and wrestled their way into them before rolling off to the baker or the butcher or the greengrocer.

I sauntered casually along and, following the old soldier, turned into Old Compton Street, then I moved as quickly as I could until I came to the entrance to a drinking club I knew and stepped inside. The club itself was on the first floor, and I didn't venture up the stairs. I stood in the little corridor, pressed up against the clammy wall, and waited, smelling the musty, damp odour of a sick and crumbling building, listening to the creaks and groans. Occasionally, the pleasing smell of warm, fresh, yeasty bread wafted in from the baker who had the shop on the ground floor.

A couple of roly-poly women bowled past the narrow doorway, and then I heard the heavy footsteps of a large man hurrying.

He lumbered past, half running and half limping, and I stepped out of the dark, dank corridor and into the street.

I was in no condition for any kind of physical confrontation, but I had no intention of spending even a small part of my life in hiding. It could so easily become a habit.

‘Are you looking for me?' I called. As he stopped and turned, I held the carrier bag in front of me. ‘And this?'

Malcolm Booth bent over, his hands on his thighs, sucking in air in quick little gulps. I was happy to see that he was in no state to offer violence. After a few seconds he straightened up and coughed. ‘You, yeah. That, no,' he wheezed out. ‘I wanted a word.'

‘I'm all ears,' I said.

An old woman came out of the baker's, a loaf of bread poking out of her shopping basket. She looked at us warily with rheumy eyes and then put her head down and trudged stoically past.

‘Let's walk and talk,' Malcolm said.

I nodded and turned back along Old Compton Street. He fell into step beside me, and we ambled along, the light rain drifting into our faces, tiny little drops sliding from his slick, Brylcreemed hair.

‘The other night,' he said. ‘A couple of things ain't right. I don't think that joanna player did for those boys. And I know you think I had something to do with it, but I didn't.'

He gave me a quick little look, but I said nothing.

‘The thing is, Mr Fitz set it up to warn that Ricky off. He told the black boys what was what, time of the rounds and that. But Mr Fitz didn't want things to get out of hand, so he asked me and a couple of the boys to walk past, like, make sure they was just warned.' He cleared his throat. ‘Anyway, we ran a few minutes late and it was all over by the time we got there. The boys was stabbed. In the back, both of them. The knife was still sticking out of Billy. But that Yank wasn't up for that. He was huddled up at the other end of the alley, hugging his knees, just rocking backwards and forwards.'

‘So,' I said, ‘what do you think happened?'

‘Well, at first we thought it must have been the black boys, you know. And we didn't think that Mr Fitz would want them done for it, so Stan, he pulls the blade out of young Billy and he gives it to the joanna player. And we shove off.'

We walked in silence for a little while.

‘I didn't think about it at the time,' he said, ‘but there was a woman we ran into just before we got there.'

‘Yeah,' I said, ‘she saw you too.'

‘Oh,' he said, ‘you know about her then?'

I nodded.

‘Right then,' he said and stopped. ‘I'll leave you to it.' As he turned to go, he added, ‘Watch your step with the boys in the Frighted Horse. Give them the stuff and get out. I wouldn't hang about.'

‘Thanks,' I said. ‘I won't.' I cleared my throat. ‘About the ankle. I'm sorry, but you know  . . .'

‘It's all right,' he said. He looked down at it and moved his foot a little gingerly. ‘S'not busted. Painful, though. I wouldn't have fancied facing you at Highbury in me playing days.' He raised a hand in farewell and then, exaggerating his limp, he walked away.