by Mike Ripley
That slowed me for a second, because I was pretty sure he wasn’t making a joke.
‘Since yesterday, actually, Mr Block. I drove her here last night but they wouldn’t let her in to see you. She’s been very worried about you.’
‘Yeah, well, it’s about time somebody was. It’s taken four bloody phone calls to get my daughter – my own daughter – to come and get me, and then not until the day after tomorrow.’
I was beginning to realise why she’d moved to Exeter.
‘Er ... about Veronica ...’
‘What about her?’
‘She’ll be here soon to see you.’
‘Oh, great. As if I didn’t have enough on my plate.’
I wondered if some impromptu cardiac massage would do him any good. I didn’t know, I just felt like punching him in the chest.
‘I don’t think she should go back to Shepherd’s Bush; I don’t think she’ll be safe there.’
He strained to try and raise his head off the pillow, but even that was beyond him.
‘Between you and me,’ he said quietly, so I had to lean over him, ‘I’m not going back there. I’ve had enough. I’m going to get my daughter to put the bloody place on the market. Veronica can find somewhere else to live and someone else to latch onto. She’s a big girl now and has got to stand up for herself. This’ – he tapped his chest with a finger – ‘is a warning to me and I’m bleedin’ well taking note of it. What business is it of yours anyway?’
‘None at all, Mr Block.’ I held up my hands in surrender. ‘I just got caught up in things. You know she’s out at the moment working your case for you.’
‘What case?’
‘Following some girl or other.’
‘Silly cow. She couldn’t follow an elephant down Oxford Street.’
Given the new traffic-flow system, I wasn’t sure I could, but it wasn’t the time to make the point.
‘Anyway, that’s definitely none of your business, so I don’t see ... Oh, bugger.’
He was looking behind me and I turned automatically to see Veronica standing at the entrance to the ward. Even from that range I could see the rosy glow on her cheeks as if she’d been hurrying, and that her glasses were misted. She held a bunch of carnations that looked as if they’d been trapped in a revolving door.
‘I’ll leave you two to it,’ I said and walked away.
I was willing to forget he was an ex-policeman, but decided to dislike him anyway.
As Veronica came level with me she playfully hit me on the arm with the bunch of flowers.
‘She left work early and went straight home,’ she whispered. ‘I’ve found out where she lives!’
‘Oh good,’ I whispered back. ‘Albert will be pleased.’
She was with him for less than half an hour, and I spent the time discussing Albert with Oonagh, the Irish receptionist, proving yet again that when naturally talented gossips gather, there’s no such thing as client confidentiality.
‘Just like me da,’ she chatted between admissions and phone calls. ‘He was a blacksmith.’
‘Mr Block isn’t a blacksmith,’ I said carefully, in case I’d missed something.
‘Same difference. He was a strong man, my da. You know, physical. He had an attack just like Mr Block’s and it scared seven kinds of shit out of him. Fear, that’s all it is. He’s frightened, that’s all. Frightened ‘cos he can’t do the things he’s always taken for granted. He was a big man, yer Mr Block, used to getting his own way, I should say. He was a strong man, and now he’s got to come to terms with being a small, weak man. Maybe for the rest of his life. It’s a terrible condition, but I’ve seen it all before.’
‘The sort of condition that turns you crabby and mean so that you can only think about yourself and you can’t enjoy anything so you don’t see why anyone else should?’
‘That’s the one.’ She stacked a pile of medical cards and tapped them on her desk like she was about to deal at cards. ‘There’s a technical expression for it.’
‘There is?’
She smiled. ‘Sad fucker syndrome.’
Veronica was still clutching the bunch of flowers when she came out of the ward.
‘Thank you for waiting,’ she sniffed.
‘That’s okay. I’ve still got your case in the back.’
She looked confused; or just more confused.
‘But Albert – Mr Block – said I’d be all right for at least a month. He said I could mind the shop while he was at his daughter’s.’
I’ll bet he did.
‘Listen, I didn’t tell Albert, but the kids who turned over your place yesterday, they came back this afternoon. There’s something going on we don’t know about, and until it’s sorted, I don’t think it’s safe for you to be there on your own. Is there anywhere you can stay?’ .
She looked at her shoes and shook her head. It was just one damn thing after another, and just when she thought she’d cracked the case.
‘Parents?’ I tried. ‘Back up north?’
‘No,’ she said quickly.
Over her shoulder, Oonagh was looking at me from under one raised eyebrow.
‘Then I suppose you can come back to Stuart Street for tonight and get yourself organised in the morning.’
Her face lit up like a child who had just been told there was an extra Christmas present on the tree.
‘Actually, I was going to ask you how to get there anyway, because I wasn’t sure I could find it again. You see, Lisabeth’s asked me to dinner tonight.’ She saw my expression. ‘And you can come too.’
‘And when did she decide this?’
‘She asked me when I rang her this afternoon to tell her I’d found where Stella Rudgard lives.’
‘You rang Lisabeth?’ I was indignant.
‘Well, she seemed so interested in the case last night …’
‘And you never thought of ringing me while I was protecting your office from vandals and signing up a new client?’
‘Vandals? What vandals? What new client? Anyway, I didn’t think you’d be there.’
Actually, I had been seeing Zoe, but that wasn’t the point.
‘I hope you like vegetarian, that’s all I can say. Come on, I’ll fill you in on the way. And you can tell me all about your day.’
I thought she was about to start there and then, but she checked herself and held up the bunch of flowers as if she had just discovered them in her hand.
‘Would you like to give these to Lisabeth, for inviting us to dinner?’
‘No, I would not. Why don’t you, though? Nice gesture.’
‘I thought flowers were always supposed to come from the man. Won’t Lisabeth think it a bit peculiar getting them from another woman?’
I shook my head.
‘Nah. Trust me on this one.’
I got the full story in my left ear through Armstrong’s glass partition, all the way to Hackney.
Dear Albert, bless him, was facing a triple-bypass operation if he was to last out the century. Naturally, he would have to give up the agency and the house in Shepherd’s Bush and was very sorry if this upset Veronica’s life in any way, but he didn’t fancy trying to sell with a sitting tenant, but as she didn’t actually have a rent book, she wouldn’t qualify as one really and she didn’t want to cause any more grief to a sick old man, did she?
But she was welcome to stay while the estate agents showed people round and – least she could do, really – she could tidy up a bit and pack up Albert’s clothes for when his daughter came to get him. And, although there was no chance of a place in the business now, she could do one last thing and write to the two or three clients on the books explaining that the agency was being wound up due to ill health. Oh, and deal with the police and the insurance people over the break-in. And inform the tax office of Albert’s
change of address. And stop the standing orders paying the rates and the electricity. And cancel the milk.
‘Does this include the case with the Rudgard girl?’ I asked through gritted teeth, though Veronica seemed to be accepting it all.
‘That doesn’t count. The client hadn’t paid a deposit so we were never officially hired, even though I’ve more or less done the job.’
For the first time there was a hint of resentment in her voice.
‘Story of my life, really,’ she said quietly.
‘And the story of mine is people saying that the cheque is in the post.’ I reached into my jacket and pulled out the envelope I had taken from Albert’s office. ‘But in your case, I think it really is. If that isn’t money in some shape or form, then I’m putting my sense of smell in for a full service.’
I passed it back to her and watched in the mirror as she stared at it like a snake in a mirror.
‘It’s addressed to Albert,’ she said in a monotone.
‘I forgot to give it to him,’ I said honestly. ‘And anyway, you seem to have been put in charge of winding things up, so you’d better open it.’
‘How do you know it has anything to do with the Rudgard case?’
‘For Christ’s sake, woman, I don’t know anything except that there’s a cheque in there, so open it and find out.’
I was annoyed now that I hadn’t steamed the damn thing open earlier. I did remember that it had been machine franked rather than having a stamp on, and the franking had carried an advert that said ‘Classic Car Centre’, whatever that meant.
‘You were right,’ she said. ‘It is the cheque for the Rudgard case.’
‘So you haven’t wasted the last two days, then?’
‘I suppose not. If you look at it like that. Half of it is mine by rights.’
‘Half of how much? If you don’t mind me asking, that is.’
She was riding in my cab, sleeping in my flat; why should she mind?
‘£800. It was to cover the first four days’ enquiries.’
‘Two hundred a day, eh? Plus expenses, I’ll bet. Nice work, if you have to.’
I decided it was not the time to tell her that Mrs Delacourt had hired her for a one-off special price of £100 in cash plus two days’ office cleaning a week for a month if she got results.
‘It’s made out to Albert,’ she said sulkily.
‘That can be fixed.’
‘Can it?’ She sounded keen; perhaps a little bit of turn on the worm? ‘But he’ll insist on playing it by the book.’
‘Hang on a minute, if you’ve found the Rudgard girl, you’ve done the job. That’s playing by the book, isn’t it?’
There was a silence, then I heard her inhale. Over the throb of Armstrong’s engine I reckoned her lungs were operating at 50 watts per channel.
‘I never got to tell him. He never asked about the case. All he could do was talk about his operation and his heart and give me instructions. I might as well not have been there. A Dictaphone would have done. He wasn’t interested in me.
‘You know, I tried to ask him about the break-in, and he just wouldn’t give me a straight answer. It’s like he’s blanked it out. I think he’s blanked me out as well.’
I looked in the mirror to see if she was crying. She had sat herself back in the seat and was staring out of the left window but not seeing anything.
‘Forget what Albert said, or didn’t say. You’ve done good work today, haven’t you? You’ve found Stella’s hideout, haven’t you? That’s one up to you. Sod Albert.’
She sniffed loudly.
‘It was dead boring most of the day, but I had a surprise at lunchtime when she left the office.’
‘To have lunch?’ I said gently, not wanting to sound sarcastic.
‘Yes, to buy a sandwich at a little takeaway place, but she also made a phone call from a phone box.’
She waited, as if for applause.
‘And?’
‘And then she went back to work and I think she worked through her lunch hour, because she got off at 4.00 pm.’ Her voice dropped half a tone. ‘And then I followed her home.’
I wasn’t sure I could stand the suspense.
‘To where she lived?’
‘Yes, and she didn’t spot me tailing her, I’m sure. What do you mean, where she lived?’
‘The place you followed her to. You’re sure it was where she lives? It wasn’t a friend’s place, or anything like that?’
‘No, I’m pretty sure she lives there. They certainly seemed to make her very welcome when she got home.’
‘Who did?’
‘The people in Sloane Square.’
‘What people in Sloane Square?’ I said sharpishly. I could feel a headache coming on.
‘The people in the squat she lives in.’
‘A squat? In Sloane Square?’
‘Not a squat. What’s the other thing? A commune, that’s it. She lives in a commune.’
‘In Sloane Square?’
‘There’s no need to shout. Why do keep saying that?’
‘Because I didn’t believe it the first time.’
Chapter Six
‘Do you all do that? Is it some kind of teenage male thing you never grow out of?’
Miranda, from the flat upstairs, was shouting at me and I was having a heart attack.
I had done a runner on Lisabeth’s dinner party at least an hour before. You can take just so much lentil fondue and, anyway, it had all the signs of a girls’ night in with Miranda invited too and Veronica getting all excited because she was introduced as a journalist and everybody knows that private eyes always have a contact in the media with better sources of information than the Anti-Terrorist Squad. I never understood that, as in my experience, journos fell into two camps. The well-informed but highly secretive, who did it for the kick of knowing something no-one else did; or the breathtakingly ill-informed, lazy and ignorant brigade who were in it for the free drinks. All the ones I knew were in the latter category and, on the whole, were good company, but I’d never had a straight steer on anything from any of them.
Veronica had been beside herself at meeting a journalist, and Miranda was, at least initially, intrigued to meet a female private eye, envisaging a women’s page feature maybe. At least it would make a change from covering aerobic marathons; and, give her credit, she has as much empathy with the stretch-and-retch crowd as I have.
Miranda was free only because her husband, Inverness Doogie, was working nights as a chef (and a good one, I’m told) at one of the Hyde Park hotels. A month or so back they had been on the point of packing in life in the big city and moving to the Highlands of Doogie’s native Scotland, where he had the offer of a job in a castle or something with its own salmon fishing. She still harbours the suspicion that I talked her out of it, though I can’t think why. Fortunately, Doogie accepted her change of mind in the interest of domestic harmony and doesn’t suspect me at all. At least, I hope not. His only interest in life after Miranda and cooking (and the order changes) is street fighting, and for physical recreation he’s a soccer hooligan.
I had sneaked back upstairs on the pretext of taping a movie, part of the O J Simpson retrospective season, but none of them paid much attention when I left and I doubted they missed me much. I had plugged in a new set of headphones I had treated myself to and applied my ears to some classic Hendrix, much remixed and cleaned for CD release recently. Naturally, I’d helped myself to two or three of the French lagers I had in the fridge, just to get in the groove. (Actually, it was just as well we had eaten at Lisabeth’s as the fridge had over 90 French lagers in it, leaving precious little room for anything except cat food. A man across the street goes to Calais twice a day, where the tax is so low it’s embarrassing to collect, and sells it on at prices the local off-licence haven’t charged since the
war. I’m not sure its legal, but he delivers to the door. A bit like room service, really.)
So I was total1y engrossed in my beer and those historic riffs when Miranda came in. Maybe I had been trying to copy one or two of the old master’s lefty fingerings, and possibly I had been humming along as well. I still think it was uncalled for of her to suddenly materialise in front of me, scaring the hell out of me, and grabbing at the headphones.
‘What? What?’ I yelled over ‘Watchtower’, which was still pretty loud even though Miranda was holding the headphones. I rolled over from where I had been lying on the floor and snuffed the volume on the player.
‘You big kid,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘Lying there, playing the air guitar. At your age.’
‘I’m a musician. I’m allowed.’
‘You’re a man, that’s all, and they all do it. And just because you can’t hear yourself singing, it doesn’t mean other people can’t, you know.’
‘You’ve been there, huh?’
‘Haven’t we all? I thought you were in pain when I was outside the door.’
‘Funnily enough, I felt fine when you were outside the door,’ I snapped, but Miranda has a tough hide. She’s Welsh and it’s something to do with slate quarries and lots of rain.
She fixed her dark, Celtic eyes on the bottle of beer in my hand. According to Doogie, she had a glare that could melt rune stones on a bad day.
‘Got another one of them?’ she asked, surprising me.
‘I think there may be one left in the fridge.’ I went to the kitchen and popped one for her. ‘You were in luck,’ I said, handing it over.
She downed half of it in one go, by the neck.
‘Veronica would have asked for a glass,’ I said as an opener.
‘But only if it wasn’t too much trouble.’ Then she narrowed her eyes. ‘How did you know I wanted to talk about her?’
‘You can’t bitch about her in front of her new soul mates downstairs, and Doogie’s never met her, so he wouldn’t believe it anyway.’
‘You got that in one, that’s for sure.’ She drank more beer. ‘But you’ve gotta help her, Angel.’