by Mike Ripley
‘And you think that was me?’ I snapped. I was getting ratty, and the rain was going down the back of my neck.
‘Or Lucy Scarrott, or maybe somebody else. You knew Billy. You could find his friends, find out what he was into.’
‘A bit thin, isn’t it?’
‘You’re all I’ve got.’
‘And why should I?’
He exhaled slowly and rested a forearm on the top of the car door.
‘Billy dropping in on you was a big coincidence, and we don’t like coincidences, so further investigation may be necessary.’ He put his head on one side, but kept a straight face. ‘If I read you right, you’re not the kind who would welcome further investigation much.’
‘You mean really deep, persistent scrutiny and monitoring of my day to day existence? What a less law-abiding, trusting soul might well call harassment, if they were feeling uncharitable?’
He smiled and climbed into his car.
‘Remember, the Force is with you.’
I let him get clear before I turned Armstrong around and cruised down Dwyer Street.
Nassim’s battered Nissan (Nassim Nassim’s Nissan? Why couldn’t he have a Ford?) was outside No 16 and there was a builder’s flat-backed truck parked in front of it. They would be repairing the skylight, I guessed correctly, and were probably a firm Nassim had shares in, so he could fiddle the invoices for the insurance company.
I popped in to see what the form was, and to find out if I’d been fired as a house-sitter. That was all I had in mind, but I ended up, five minutes later, knowing something the police and the probation service didn’t know.
I found out where Lucy Scarrott was living.
And I should have kept it to myself.
Chapter Four
Of course, I didn’t realise at the time just how deep I’d get in, and I can’t be blamed for not seeing what would happen in the end. As far as I’m concerned, a Tarot card is of no use unless it fits one of those hole-in-the-wall banks, preferably on somebody else’s account. (The bank card I want to get hold of is the one issued by an Arab bank called Watani Express. No kidding, a credit card with a camel instead of a hologram!)
To be honest, I didn’t give it much thought. The morning was wasting away and I was on a promise to deliver women for Simon down in Southwark.
Simon the Stripping Vicar had also in his time been Simon the Sex Ton, the Curvy Curate and even the Randy Rabbi. You name it, he’s taken off the clothes for it. He used to work for an outfit in the City called Even Rudergrams, but about a year ago the market fell right out of the bottom of the stripping kissogram girl (or boy) business, and the company packed up and moved into something else. Probably private health insurance or personal pensions. Ever wondered where the old door-to-door encyclopaedia salesmen went?
Simon bought up the costume store and set himself up in premises in Southwark, under the name Snogogram International. It was basically the same old idea of stripping kissograms, but he had one or two speciality lines. The most popular was undoubtedly the stripping policewoman or traffic warden – always good for a laugh among London’s paranoia-ravaged motorists. Once, when very drunk, Simon had phoned me late one night to try out a new concept, the ‘Uzi-O-Gram,’ which had the catchline ‘Shoot up your girlfriend’s wedding, just for fun!’ I had explained that while this was probably in the best of taste and unlikely to be very illegal, it was already being done in California and he’d be pushed to get third party insurance cover. This latter piece of logic had been the clincher, and he’d dropped the idea as soon as he’d sobered up, the following week.
He had come up with one idea, though, that had turned out to be a blinder at Christmastime. He called it Boozebusters, and the idea was that wives (and, more rarely, husbands) who were fed up with their partner’s non-stop round of office parties would hire a Boozebuster squad to snatch the miscreant from the pub or wine-bar or restaurant, or even the office itself at a pre-arranged time. Needless to say, the ‘snatch squad’ (yes, I know, but that’s what they called themselves) were usually scantily-clad kissogram girls armed with water-pistols and cans of projectile shaving foam. The girls all had wodges of visiting cards in their stocking tops, which they threw as they grabbed their victim, and these had the Boozebusters logo – a picture of a drunk in a red circle, with a red slash – and Simon’s phone number on them. That Christmas, the Boozebuster girls were the sharpest thing in town.
Naturally, Armstrong was the perfect vehicle for transporting a hit team, especially if they were dressed as policewomen. At Christmastime in the City these days, there were more fancy dress police than real ones.
I checked in with Simon just after 12.00.
‘Got a good one for you, Roy,’ he said. ‘A four-hander at the Princess Louise in Holborn. Know it?’
‘Do fish swim? There’s no parking around there.’ I like to think Simon paid me for my expertise.
‘That’s why I wanted Armstrong,’ he said.
Okay, so he paid me for my taxi. I didn’t mind; I was happy that he still talked to me at all. I’d once had to miss a rendezvous with him after he’d done his own stripping vicar act for some giggling secretary’s twenty-first birthday, and he’d shot out of the pub stark bollock naked to find me somewhere else. Ever-resourceful, he’d stolen a copy of the Evening Standard to hide his blushes and gone home by Underground.
The Snogogram building wasn’t really a building, it was a converted railway arch. There was just one room, rather like a small warehouse. Simon had a desk and three telephones near the door, and the rest of the place was taken up with racks of costumes and boxes of party stuff such as balloons and streamers. There was even a cardboard birthday cake about ten feet across, which a couple of girls could leap out of if somebody paid for their time and the hire of a van.
I sat on the edge of Simon’s desk, as there were no chairs. Behind it were several sets of screens at different angles, behind which the stripogrammers or Boozebusters got changed.
‘What time?’ I asked him.
‘About two-ish. It’s some guy called Harding, and it’s his last work day before he goes on holiday. His secretary–’
He broke off as a natural brunette called Kim came from behind one of the screens. She was wearing a red basque and matching knickers, with four suspender straps hanging loose around her white thighs. It was a nice piece of lingerie, but I’d never worked out why they named it after Spanish terrorists.
‘Will you do this bleedin’ thing up for me?’ She offered Simon the drawstrings round the top of the basque. ‘Oh, hi, Angel. Christ, but it’s as cold as a witch’s tit back there. Ever thought of investing in any heating, Simon?’
Simon didn’t answer, just turned in his swivel chair and began lacing up the front of Kim’s basque while still giving me my instructions.
‘– his secretary has ordered a full four-hander policewomen buster to make sure he’s back in the office by two-thirty so he can sign all the staff’s petty cash vouchers. He is a bit of a late lunch merchant, by all accounts.’
He finished tying a big bow dead on Kim’s cleavage and, as she turned to go, she winked at me.
‘Here’s his office address.’ Simon had swivelled back to me and handed me a piece of paper with an address in Theobalds Road.
I was watching Kim walk back to the screens. She was holding a suspender in each hand like she had a skipping rope. I had a bizarre thought. Maybe they named the Spanish terrorists after …
‘No problem,’ I drawled, checking the address. ‘Who else is coming?’
A full four-hander meant that two girls dressed as policewomen would go into the pub, locate the victim and intimidate him in front of his office cronies, then start taking their clothes off. Two others, wearing raincoats over their underwear, would be waiting at the bar or similar, ready to join the fray shouting ‘Boozebusters’ and things like ‘Y
our wife/secretary/boss is taking you out of here now!’ And then they would spray foam, throw cards, pop party-poppers and so on and drag the victim out to a waiting fast car. Or in this case, Armstrong. Suitable scenes of red-faced hilarity would occur back at the office, as someone always tipped off the entire staff to be ready at the front door. It was not unusual for the orderer of the Boozebuster to specify a long route back to the office, to give the victim’s fellow revellers time to get back ahead of him.
‘Kim and Jacqui will be the cops, Frances and Eddie will shadow them with the shaving foam and stuff,’ said Simon, like it was Normandy beach 1944.
‘And my mission, should I decide to accept it?’
He looked at me blankly. Surely he wasn’t too young to remember Mission Impossible? Oh God, he couldn’t be, could he?
‘Make sure they don’t leave their coats – or their underwear – hanging over the beer pumps.’ He looked up at me sharply. ‘This time.’
I looked suitably abashed. I honestly thought he would have forgotten the Marquis of Granby incident.
I looked at my watch.
‘Have I got time to do a quick errand? Just round the corner.’
He looked at his watch; a liquid crystal Roger Rabbit affair. Trendier than my Tissot Seastar, but not as expensive. It’s the little things that count, I always say.
‘I was hoping you could pick up Eddie from the Blackfriars at one sharp. She’s doing a birthday kissogram before she shadows the Holborn job.’
‘Can do. I only want to pick something up from Union Street, so it’s on the way.’
‘Don’t be late,’ Simon said seriously.
‘I won’t be,’ I answered, equally straight.
I’d worked with Eddie on a Boozebuster before. She was a large lady, happily married with three kids, without a chemical trace of inhibition in her body. If any Boozebuster victim decided he didn’t actually want to go back to the office or home to his wife, Eddie would gently, but very publicly, take hold of him by what she called his ‘wedding tackle’ and lead him out of the pub. I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it with my own, slightly watering eyes. No way would I keep Eddie waiting.
I yelled a ‘See yer’ to Kim, along with some friendly advice about not letting her thighs get too cold. Simon muttered something under his breath about ‘That would show up the teeth marks,’ which both of us hoped she didn’t hear.
I knew the Blackfriars well enough. It was a smartly restored pub that lovingly recreated the interior design of its psychopathic creator a hundred years ago. The main bar had an alcove with more marble than Lord Elgin could have handled, and, at the northern end of Blackfriars Bridge, it was over-popular with the lunch-time City crowd who thought it daring to venture across the river.
This close to Christmas, it would be packed solid, and I doubted if Eddie would be out on time, but I wasn’t going to risk it.
I stopped at the Duke of Wellington – a scruffy corner boozer off Union Street – just long enough to buy two cheese rolls and a can of low-al lager to go. There were few customers, and the landlady had been leaning over the bar reading the Daily Mirror.
‘Haven’t seen you for a while, Mac,’ she said, tight-lipped as she dropped the cheese rolls into a brown paper bag.
I suddenly realised she was talking to me. She thought my surname was Maclean.
‘I’ve been working up north,’ I smiled, convinced that for her the North began at Cannon Street.
‘That’s rare.’
I wasn’t sure whether she was referring to regional unemployment figures or the fact that I claimed to have actually worked for once.
‘Sound system okay?’ I nodded to the twin tape-deck behind the bar as she counted out my change. I’d rigged it for her a while back in part payment for temporary accommodation after the house I’d lived in in Southwark had accidentally been sort of totally damaged. I’d recorded some background music for her too, and it didn’t sound as if she’d added to her collection.
‘Not much call for it these days,’ she said sullenly.
I gave up trying to remember her husband’s name so I could ask after him. From the look of things, it was odds on he’d done a runner with either the till, a barmaid or the Christmas Club fund. Maybe all three.
‘There hasn’t been any post for me by any chance, has there, Iris?’
She shook her head. ‘Phone bill, electricity bill and a notice saying the rates are going up. And that was just the second post.’
‘I’m expecting something from an old friend, and I just remembered he only has this address for me.’
‘Nothing’s come here, luv. I’ll keep it for you if it does. It’d be quite exciting to get somebody else’s mail for once.’
She went back to her Daily Mirror.
‘Well … er …’ I couldn’t think of much else to say. ‘I’ll call in tomorrow, just in case.’
‘You do that, Mac,’ she said, without looking up. ‘Maybe we’ll be less busy. Maybe you’ll have a drink next time.’
No wonder the customers were staying away in droves.
I picked up Eddie just as it started to rain again, and we chatted all the way back to Simon’s office while she dressed herself in street clothes from a Sainsbury’s shopping-bag. (That’s how you know when you’re going to be kissogrammed. Watch for the woman with her hair up, dressed in a raincoat, who leaves a shopping-bag near the bar after a quick word with the barman. Of course, if you get it wrong, she’s a terrorist and you’ve got about ten seconds to finish your drink.)
After she got out, more or less decent now, I readjusted the rear-view mirror back to its driving position and followed her in.
Simon was on one phone at his desk, grunting a lot but not saying much. I motioned to the other phone, and he waved me go ahead, so I parked a buttock on the edge of the desk and fished out a scrap of paper – a cigarette paper – from my wallet. The number pencilled on it was Zaria’s workplace. Or so Zaria had assured me.
‘Aurora Corona,’ said a fruity voice.
‘What?’
‘Aurora Corona Rest Home. Who is this?’
Where did they get a name like that? I thought that was a Mexican beer.
‘Er ... I’d like to speak to …’
‘No telephone calls accepted for residents –’ I wondered how long it had taken him to break the habit of saying ‘inmates’ – ‘during luncheon.’
‘Actually, it was one of your staff I was –’
‘I’m sorry –’ Oh no you weren’t – ‘but we do not accept personal calls until after four pm’
‘But it’s important.’
‘Who did you wish to speak to?’ he mellowed.
‘Zaria.’
‘Hmmm. Is it an emergency?’
‘Yes.’
‘Are you a relative?’
‘Yes. It’s family business.’
‘Zaria who?’
Oh shit.
‘Pardon?’
‘Which Zaria? We may have several on the staff.’
You bastard.
I hung up. That would teach me to pay more attention, to put names to phone numbers. Now they were unfashionable, maybe it would be okay to get a Filofax. No. Things weren’t that bad.
The Boozebuster went off without a hitch. The unsuspecting and very sloshed Mr Harding was bundled out of the pub and into the back of Armstrong with the four girls in various stages of undress. It was a bit of a squash, but he didn’t seem to mind, and I’d put on a tape of golden oldies (stuff from around 1985) for them to sing along to. Before we got to his office, he’d persuaded Kim and Eddie (with a fistful of notes) to come with him and start another party at his local wine-bar after he’d ‘cleared his desk.’ I took Jacqui and Frances back to Southwark and collected my wages from Simon.
Then I headed north in t
he general direction of Redbridge to the Aurora Borealis Bide-A-Wee rest home, or whatever they called it, determined to get Zaria well sorted.
The clever devil who’d answered the phone had said private calls after 4.00 pm, which I guessed would be a shift change for the staff. I remembered something Zaria had said about clocking on at 8.00 in the morning, and 8.00-to-4.00 seemed a reasonable working day. Well, to some people. To me, it sounded depressing.
With the traffic thickening and the street lights coming on, it would be after 4.00 when I got there. London traffic now moves at an average speed of 11 miles per hour. Cabs carrying Sherlock Holmes did better than that, and you couldn’t grow roses using Armstrong’s exhaust.
I was thinking about life, the universe and how much I liked Kim Carnes’s voice (a voice that makes you regret moving to filter cigarettes) on the tape-deck when I began to conjure up a mental picture of Billy Tuckett. At first it was back in university days again, and then, suddenly, him lying all bloody in Sunil’s bathtub, and it wasn’t even funny bizarre any more.
It wasn’t a vision or a psychic experience or a message from above. (Falling over is God’s way of telling you the bar’s about to shut, in my book.) Maybe it was delayed shock. Maybe it was drugs. I made a note to get some.
I don’t know what it was. I just found Armstrong heading towards Lucy Scarrott.
On the speakers, Kim Carnes was feeling it in the air and praising the Universal Song. I just love the old romantic ones. So I’ll blame her.
When I’d called in at Sunil’s place after Prentice had driven off, Nassim was on the landing yelling orders to the builders, who were crashing around in the bathroom. It was as if he didn’t actually want to go near the scene of the crime, and I couldn’t blame him. The police had done a reasonable job of cleaning up and had put a plastic sheet over the hole in the window to keep the rain out. A couple of lads, who looked as if they were moonlighting from a Youth Training Scheme, were trying to re-glaze the window from the inside, underneath the plastic so their haircuts didn’t get damp.