by Mike Ripley
‘I don’t know what you mean at all, Doogie. And yes, they’re sort of duty-free. Fancy a case?’
‘This detective business, that’s what I mean. Yeah, put me down for two cases, so long as it works out no more than 14 pence a bottle.’
‘What do you mean, this detective business? What’s your problem?’
‘She’s obsessed wi’ it; canna talk of nothing else.’
I had noticed before that Doogie’s accent thickened like porridge whenever he was worked up about something or drunk. I had long since learned that the best way to deal with it was to give up trying to understand the words and try and judge the sense. It was the old stand-by: just keep smiling and don’t turn your back.
‘Obsessed with what, Doogie?’ I said to show him I was with him thus far.
‘With this Stella bint and how you and Ronnie and–’
‘Hang on, Doogie, who’s Ronnie?’
‘Veronica, or whatever you call her. The fat tart. Sorry, the kilogrammatically challenged, I should say.’
‘The what?’
‘They use kilos and grammes now at Weight Watchers, so I’m told. Anyway, her. Ma Miranda is spending an awful lot of time downstairs with her and her two soul mates.’ He used a finger as if pointing the way to hell to a curious Jesuit. ‘And they’re plotting, Angel, plotting how they should handle things, because they don’t think you can do it on your own.’
‘Do what?’ I handed him the bottle-opener as he helped himself to another beer.
‘Look after Ronnie – watch her back – while she rescues this Stella bird from the Addams Family or whoever it is who’s holding her against her will and twisting her mind.’
‘Steady on, Doogie. I don’t think things are that bad …’
‘Well, all I know for sure is that my wife is spending a lot of time down there with them two, and she’s never done that before. It’s not ... it’s not … natural.’
‘Oh no, Doogie, you’re not telling me you think Miranda’s on the turn?’
‘It’s been known before. In marriages, I mean. In happy marriages.’
‘Get real, Doogie, she’s just in it for the gossip. All girls together proving they can do better than a man. Novelty value, that’s all. They’ll get bored, just you wail and see. And don’t you worry about Miranda. You two are a couple. One of the most coupled couples I’ve ever come across. You two go together like … er ... like …’
‘A horse and carriage?’ he said with a sneer.
‘I was thinking more along the lines of Smith and Wesson,’ I said cheerfully.
Doogie took an armful of beer back to his flat with him, I took my emergency bottle of Tequila Gold out of the salad crisper compartment of the fridge (the only use I’d ever found for it) and rummaged around in my bedroom until I found a half-empty packet of Sweet Afton cigarettes and a disposable lighter that actually worked.
The tequila was because I knew I was going to need a drink. Nothing was more certain in my mind. The cigarettes were because I was almost certain I was going to need one, but more because it would give me an edge in a room full of non-smokers.
Thus armed, and ready as I ever would be, I strode down the stairs and knocked on Lisabeth’s door.
‘Ooooh, that’s good. Try it, Fenella, go on, take a pull.’
Miranda put an elbow on Veronica’s shoulder and they began to lean dangerously to starboard. They giggled.
‘Let me try, Binky,’ said Lisabeth, resorting to her pet name for Fenella Binkworthy, for that really was her surname. ‘And try not to cough so much.’
‘C’mon, Angel, tell us what’s in them,’ drawled Miranda.
‘I want another tequila smasher,’ announced Veronica.
‘It’s just tobacco,’ I said. ‘They’re just plain cigarettes. Irish, actually, but just cigarettes. I’ll show you the packet.’
‘Packet of three, by any chance? Not enough!’ Miranda cracked up at this one and made a strange throaty sound I’d never heard before. She was laughing.
‘Why’s that funny?’ Fenella asked Lisabeth, handing over the cigarette like it was a Roman candle and the blue touch paper was fizzing.
‘You’ve made the end all wet,’ moaned Lisabeth. ‘Find the lemonade and make Ronnie a smasher.’
‘Slammer,’ said Veronica, sitting upright. ‘Tequila slammer, that’s what I want.’
‘I bet you dip them in something,’ said Miranda. ‘What?’
‘I don’t know, some drug or other.’
‘We’re out of tequila,’ wailed Veronica.
‘And there’s no beer left either,’ said Fenella, depressed. Then added: ‘Again.’
‘I am not going upstairs again,’ I said, ‘or if I do, it’s to stay there.’
‘Meany.’
‘Party-pooper.’
‘Come on, Angel. We’re all angels now, we’re a team.’
I might have been tempted to take Miranda more seriously if she had not reached out to put an arm around Veronica’s shoulders and missed by a good six inches. As we were all sitting on the floor, she didn’t have far to fall.
‘Let’s think things over again in the morning,’ I said, trying to salvage some sanity from the evening.
‘It already is the morning,’ slurred Fenella, waving from side to side as if caught in a thermal.
‘That’s not very helpful,’ I snarled.
‘Don’t you talk to her like that,’ growled Lisabeth softly. ‘I talk to her like that.’
‘Order, order!’ Veronica shouted. ‘I thought we agreed to stick together to help each other.’
‘Help you, actually,’ I pointed out.
‘And I need all the help I can get,’ she spluttered, and the other three burst out at that too.
I tried to calm the hilarity.
‘Listen up, you guys, what you’re suggesting is probably illegal, certainly impractical and possibly, just possibly, psychologically dangerous, not to mention physically dangerous.’
‘Oh pooh!’ scoffed Lisabeth. ‘There will be four of us.’
‘Five if you count Angel,’ Fenella chipped in.
‘Five angels on the case! How does that grab you, Ronnie?’ Miranda tried nudging Veronica in the ribs with an elbow. Despite the size of the target, she missed.
‘Hope you don’t all want paying,’ Veronica giggled, and they all laughed at that. Face it, by that stage they would have laughed at a Jerry Lewis film.
‘Well, I think it’s crazy and I’m against it,’ I said, knowing it was pointless to argue any more.
‘You’re outvoted.’
‘Majority rule!’
‘Women rule!’
‘We’ll see. In the morning.’
I uncrossed my legs and stood up.
‘I’m going up the little wooden hill to Bedfordshire.’ I looked down at Miranda. ‘Going your way?’
‘What a gentleman,’ she said, raising her eyebrows to the others and offering a hand so I could pull her up.
‘There’s no such thing as a gentle man,’ said Lisabeth, but it was lost on the assembled crew. ‘And Ronnie can stay the night here and help us clear up.’
She looked around at the debris of beer bottles and empty glasses and finally noticed that someone (not me) had burnt a hole through one of the leaves of her rubber plant.
‘F’nella and Lissy don’t mind bunking up together,’ slurred Veronica.
I was still holding Miranda’s hand and she squeezed it lightly, whispering: ‘Don’t you dare.’ I put on one of my ‘Who, me?’ expressions and guided her to the door.
‘If you insist, we’ll rendezvous at 6.30, and we’ll see how we feel then, okay?’
There were a lot of goodbyes and hugs, though none for me. Then I followed Miranda up the two flights to her flat, my right hand poised a centi
metre from the small of her back to catch her if she fell backwards.
At her door, she fumbled in the pockets of her jeans for a key. I decided it was better if I didn’t offer to join the search.
‘You didn’t have to come to the …’ she started softly, then I realised she wasn’t moving. She was standing there, both hands in pockets, her forehead against the door, the only thing holding her upright. She began to snore softly.
I put my arm around her waist and knocked quietly. The door opened two seconds later and I put a finger to my lips to quieten Doogie, tactfully refraining from mentioning the Flintstone boxer shorts – the only thing he was wearing.
‘Her last words,’ I whispered, were “Get Doogie to put me to bed and make sure I have a fried breakfast at six o’clock”. Got that?’
Doogie grinned, then held up the thumb and forefinger of his right hand in an O shape, followed by the thumbs-up sign.
I took my arm away and she fell into Doogie’s chest. He swung her off the floor and carried her inside, kicking the door shut with his heel.
Back in my flat, I found Springsteen waiting in ambush behind the bathroom door.
‘She’s not coming, old son,’ I said, grateful for some decent conversation. ‘They’ve had a pow-wow and do you know what half-baked, toss-pot idea they’ve come up with? Of course you don’t. You’re not a detective. But we are, it seems, me and the Mild Bunch downstairs. And tomorrow, we’re all going out in broad daylight and we’re going to kidnap this Stella Rudgard off the street and bring her back here for deprogramming. That’s a beauty, isn’t it? Get the Guinness Book of Fucking Daft Ideas on the phone, will you?’
Springsteen cocked his head and stared at me for nearly a minute, then stalked off into the kitchen.
For a split second there I had seen something in his eyes that I had never seen before. Pity.
Chapter Eleven
They all wanted to go along, of course, even Miranda, though she looked as if she would prefer spending the morning sitting on a toilet with a damp towel around her head. But I put my foot down, arguing that even I wouldn’t be able to explain five women fighting in the back of a London cab in broad daylight. Four struggling women was positively my final offer. To my amazement, I won, and Fenella was volunteered to stay at Stuart Street and prepare her flat (because it had a ‘female-friendly aura’) as the deprogramming chamber for the unsuspecting Stella Rudgard. Veronica had to go, as it was her case. Miranda forced herself to come along, though I think she was beginning to have doubts, because she felt that Veronica needed a guardian angel. Lisabeth was an obvious first team choice because she probably had the best left hook of any of us if things got violent and, if all else failed, she could sit on Stella on the way back.
To stop Fenella sulking, we gave her another job. I suggested that she be the one to ring Stella’s agency – Office Cavalry – at 9.05 am, unless we called her off. She was to say that she was a friend of Stella’s and that Stella was ill, gone down with a really, really bad case of ‘flu, and wouldn’t be able to get into work. After Miranda had rehearsed her eight times, we were half-confident that she would do it right.
Shortly after seven, we embarked on Operation Rescue, as Veronica insisted on calling it. Deciding on a name for the exercise was just about the sum total of our planning. Over a ‘war cabinet’ breakfast, conducted mostly by shouting up and down the stairs between Lisabeth and Fenella’s flat and Doogie and Miranda’s, with me in the middle, ‘we’ decided to do the business in Wimpole Street rather than at Sloane Square tube station, which had been Veronica’s first choice.
I persuaded them to go for nearer her workplace because it would mean fewer people around for a start, easier access and escape for Armstrong, and she would be that much further away from her friends in the Shining Doorway. I also talked Lisabeth out of taking along a brown paper shopping bag to put over Stella’s head, as even the most sleepy-eyed resident of Wimpole Street might notice something out of the ordinary. The trick, if it had any chance of succeeding, would be to make it look to any witnesses as if Stella was simply getting into a black cab with some friends. And friends don’t normally ram a paper bag over your head. Well, not if it isn’t your birthday.
‘You listen to Angel,’ I heard Doogie say to Miranda. ‘He knows what he’s talking about when it comes to picking women up.’
‘Sexist,’ Miranda answered from somewhere in the flat.
‘What’re we calling this, Operation Street Snatch?’ Doogie taunted, but despite all our doors being open, I didn’t think Lisabeth, Fenella and Veronica could hear one flight down.
‘Sexist pig,’ Miranda hissed, and a heavy object hit the wall somewhere above me.
For the rest, I just let them get on with it while I put food down for Springsteen and made toast for myself. I did consider taking Springsteen along with me and, if things got out of hand, turning him loose in the back of Armstrong to sort them out. But then I didn’t fancy the idea of cleaning out the cab afterwards, and anyway, I could never get him into his travelling cat basket while he was sober.
Before we embarked, I had a flying visit from Miranda, who was putting a brave, if pale, face on her hangover. She told me that my special mission, whether I wanted to accept it or not, was to look after Veronica. Whatever happened, she added dramatically.
Then I had a sneak visit from Doogie, telling me to look after Miranda, whatever happened to ‘the three hairies downstairs’. They were expendable, Miranda wasn’t. I had two legs and I wanted to keep them attached to the rest of me, didn’t I? Too right, Doogie.
Finally, I had Fenella call by on the excuse of offering me a cup of rosemary-infused tea. What she really wanted was to ask me to take care of Lisabeth ‘out there’. I smiled and assured her I would. I didn’t mention that if we found ourselves in a position in which Lisabeth was either frightened or physically threatened, then me and Armstrong would be disappearing round the corner pronto.
‘Now who is Veronica going to ask me to look after?’ I said casually to Springsteen, and he paused in his wolfing of cat food as if he recognised her name. His ears twitched fractionally and he flicked his tail just the once, then he went hack to inhaling chicken and tuna chunks.
Maybe he really did have radar, as ten seconds later, Veronica crept up the stairs and knocked lightly on my open door.
I was tucking a Voodoo Lounge T-shirt into my jeans, but she would probably not have blushed more if she had caught me stepping out of the shower.
‘Oh, I’ll pop back …’
‘S’okay. I’m ready and raring to go.’ I flashed my newly brushed and flossed teeth. Still she didn’t register them.
‘I wanted to ask you something,’ she said hesitantly.
‘Ask away,’ I said, closing the kitchen door on Springsteen.
I estimated she had about two minutes before he got out of the window, round to the front door, persuaded someone to let him in and then came up the stairs behind her.
‘When we’re out there … on the street …’ I wondered where she’d got that one from, but said nothing. ‘… I want you to, well, keep an eye on me.’
‘An eye? Just the one?’
‘You know what I mean. Please don’t make this difficult for me.’
‘I honestly don’t know what you mean,’ I said, zipping my fly. Admittedly, that probably wasn’t the most tactful of gestures, but then I never claimed to be fluent in body language.
‘You’re more experienced at this sort of thing than I am …,’ she started, and I wanted to yell ‘No I’m not’ in her face, ‘and I want you to tell me if I go wrong or make any mistakes.’
‘No-one gives you marks for artistic interpretation on a daylight kidnapping, you know.’
That stopped her for a second. ‘Kidnap?’
‘That’s what you’re planning. It’s not too late to pull out.’
She thought about this, then made up her mind. I could almost hear it clank into gear.
‘Then that makes it more important. You’ve got to promise me that you’ll watch over me and make sure I don’t make any mistakes and tell me if I do. It’s important, Angel. I don’t want to get Lizzie and Randa into trouble.’
Randa? And she called Veronica Ronnie or Vonnie didn’t she? Had they invented code names, or was I being paranoid? No, it wasn’t paranoia; I really didn’t know what was going on here.
‘Promise me you’ll keep us out of trouble. Please.’
‘Sure, I promise.’
Me, keep them out of trouble? Now there was one for the bookmakers to set odds on.
By the time we were in the West End, I wouldn’t have bet good money on us pulling it off. The extent of our meticulous planning had got as far as rehearsing opening lines for when we confronted Stella.
‘Hello, we’re here to help.’
‘Hello, Stella, we’ve come to take you home.’
‘Stella Rudgard? Would you come with us, please?’
‘Ms Rudgard? Would you step in here, please?’
‘Stella? We have a message from your father.’
‘Are you coming quietly, Miss Rudgard?’
‘We’re all angels, and we’ve come to help.’
‘Just get in the fucking cab, sweetheart.’
All these were rejected, even my suggestions, and we decided to play it by ear, not mention her father, and if anything needed to be said, Veronica would do it as it was her case. That suited me, and when it was decided that I should stay inside Armstrong, that suited me fine.
I guessed that now she had been in the job a couple of days, Stella would have found the easiest route to work, via Oxford Circus, as it was one less change on the underground.
This piece of stunning logic was almost greeted with a Mexican Wave from the back of the cab, and one of them, I wasn’t sure who, whispered, ‘I told you he knew stuff like that.’
Consequently, I parked midway between Mr Linscott’s green-door consulting rooms and the south end of Wimpole Street with, I thought, plenty of time to kill – at least 20 minutes – before Stella would reasonably bother to turn up for work.