Neon Madman

by John Harvey

  ‘Will you stop mothering around and come out with it?’

  He was getting exasperated, but I was enjoying it. It wasn’t too often that I was in the position of knowing more than he did.

  ‘One thing, Tom. The building the fire was in. What other people used it?’

  He thought for a few minutes, then shuffled round a few pieces of paper on his desk. I could hear the rustling down the line.

  ‘It’s a betting shop. Run by Mancor Amusements.’

  I nodded to myself and although I was pleased my hunch had been right, the wave of coldness had returned to my insides and was chilling me through and through.

  ‘What significance has that?’ Tom Gilmour asked.

  ‘If you check back through Botterill’s file you’ll see that one of the cases he worked on was a fraud investigation of Mancor Holdings.’

  There was a silence, which Gilmour hastily filled to overflowing with every familiar swear word in the language and several very rare ones.

  ‘Why the fuck didn’t we turn that up?’ he demanded angrily.

  ‘Because you were sold on the other angle, that of the woman. And because there are only so many hours in the day.’

  ‘What else have you got?’ He still didn’t sound any happier.

  ‘The Mancor group were certain to go down under the investigation and then they didn’t. Botterill and the detective sergeant working with him, a guy called Thomas, gave them a clean bill of health. My bet is that they were on the take and big.’

  ‘But you can’t prove it?’

  ‘No. But it’s interesting that Thomas is now working for a firm called Mancor Security.’

  Gilmour repeated a few of the words he’d used before but managed to find some new ones. Ever since the year he’d spent in New York his language—not to mention his ties—had been the most colourful in the London force. ‘So why treat Thomas one way and Botterill another?’

  ‘Could be a lot of reasons. The pressure Botterill was under from A.10. The fact that he was trying to up the ante for himself. Maybe someone else associated with Mancor was trying to do a deal with him.’

  ‘You know someone who might have been doing just that?’

  ‘Not really. It’s a guess like any other. For the moment they’re all guesses. But it does look as though Tabor or someone at the top is panicking. I ran across them quite by chance and they started leaning on me right away. They’re as jumpy as a pack of acrobats with St. Vitus dance.’

  ‘All right. I’ll have words in the right places, Scott. We’ll see if there’s anything going on that we can pull someone in for questioning about. And we’ll go over the fire reports again to see what we can turn up there.’

  ‘Okay, Tom. Look, thanks and I’ll let you know if anything comes up that I think you could use. Only you do the same for me. I don’t have too good a feeling about this one.’

  ‘Right.’

  I waited because I thought he was going to tell me to take care, but he wasn’t. I said goodbye and put down the phone. It had been a pretty long call but it had given me some useful information and had helped me to get a few things clear in my head. Talking to people did that sometimes. Maybe I should try it more often. There was always the speaking clock or Dial-a-Poem.

  I sat in the easy chair for a while and tried my ideas on myself. That way they didn’t sound so good, sort of hollow. There were things that I couldn’t hope to understand, such as why Tabor had let Murdoch go as easily as presumably he had. But I was warming to one thing.

  If Murdoch or, more likely, someone representing him, had tried to get to Botterill and had offered enough to blow the Mancor caper, including the bribing of the Fraud Squad, sky high, that might be enough to scare the shit out of Tabor and friends. But why would Murdoch, who wanted to keep his name out of everything six months before, try to get it all out in the open now? There was no way in which he could hope to stay out of the limelight.

  Unless …

  Unless …

  I counted to five slowly and silently under my breath, then I went back to the phone. Patrick was out in the garden, turning the earth over. It had stopped raining in his part of London and the ground was movable for the first time in a long while.

  He sounded rather short of breath.

  ‘Everyman Insurance. Are they sound?’

  ‘As a bell, as far as I know. Why?’

  ‘You’re sure of that?’ I asked, disappointed and ignoring his question.

  ‘Yes. Their motor division has lost some money lately, but that’s fairly normal. Their overseas business is flourishing apparently.’

  ‘Overseas, where?’

  ‘Central America. The Middle East. The Arab areas mostly. South Africa.’

  ‘Okay. What about Murdoch’s own position as chairman?’

  ‘That’s sound too—again as far as I know. I keep telling you, I do try not to be a gossip columnist.’

  ‘Sorry, Patrick. Only a few hare-brained ideas chasing each other round my head.’

  ‘I don’t imagine that I was any use then.’

  ‘Not really. But thanks anyway. If you hear anything …’

  ‘Of course. I’ll let you know right away. Is there anything else? I should get back to the garden before the kids drag me off to the park.’

  ‘No, Patrick. And thanks.’ I lifted the phone away from my ear and then pulled it back again fast. ‘Patrick.’

  ‘Hello.’

  ‘There hasn’t been anyone hanging around your place, has there?’

  ‘What on earth do you mean, hanging around?’

  ‘Anyone unusual, not local. Watching the place or anything?’

  ‘I haven’t noticed anyone. Why should I? Is this something to do with what you’re involved in?’ He didn’t exactly sound alarmed, but for a chess player he wasn’t exhibiting an awful lot of cool.

  ‘Scott, if you’ve put my family in any kind of difficult position, I shall …’

  ‘No, Patrick. I’m sure it won’t come to that. I was simply asking. Only …’

  ‘Only what?’

  ‘If you did notice anyone suspicious, would you promise to phone the police?’

  ‘Scott, I’d do that anyway.’

  ‘Yes, sure. I’ll be seeing you Patrick. Give my best to Frances.’

  I put down the phone and went over to the kitchen and poured myself a glass of cold beer. There had been other people who had trusted me and who had asked questions on my account and they had ended up on the receiving end of some very nasty business indeed. I didn’t want anything to happen to Patrick, any more than I had wanted anything to happen to anyone else. Yet there were times when I needed information, and unlike the police, who generally used professional stoolies, I asked the people I knew. Which usually meant that to some degree they were my friends.

  I got them to step out on the line for me without thinking twice about it and usually when I did think it was too late. A face had been disfigured with acid or a beautiful body slashed with a razor. And all because I leaned on them for some information and they gave it. Or tried to.

  It didn’t make me feel any better, but I wasn’t about to chuck up my job so there wasn’t anything I could do. And I had warned him to be wary.

  Christ! I thought as I put down the empty beer can, the ease with which we salve our consciences!

  I broke some eggs into a basin and started to whisk them up with a fork. For a few minutes I forgot about Patrick and Mancor and where Murdoch might be hiding out and concentrated on filling my stomach. I hoped that when this omelette was ready there wouldn’t be a phone call to interrupt the eating of it.

  For a change I got my wish. The call came before I had poured the mixture into the pan. I swore and headed for the phone. As soon as I picked it up I started listening and listened good. It was a short call and as soon a
s it was over I went back to the kitchen and turned out the flame under the pan. I put the basin with the omelette mixture in the fridge and went out of the flat.

  Fast.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The house was darker than I remembered it. It could have been the change in the weather. Or it could have been something more than that. I looked up at the windows. Although it was still the middle of the day, the curtains were mostly pulled to. As though whoever was inside wanted to cut out the rest of the world altogether. To hide from it.

  I locked the car door and flipped the keys down and into my pocket. Then I walked towards the front door. I rang the bell. It sounded distant and hollow, as though it was ringing a hundred miles away.

  As I stood there the rain began to fall again: a slow, low drizzle that touched my face like damp, rotting lace.

  I leaned on the bell harder; it didn’t make any difference to the tone, but it did bring the Chinese houseboy to the door. He opened it as though he was opening Pandora’s Box and seemed disappointed to find that it was only me out there on the step …

  Set yourself up to find the world’s troubles and all you get is Mitchell. Some might say it was a more than fair swap.

  He edged the door open far enough for me to slide in and proceeded to lock and bolt it behind me. It was more gloomy in the house than it should have been. The little feller looked up at me and for a moment I thought he was going to speak. But no, it was just a trial run. He was working up to it. Later.

  He closed his tight little mouth again and nodded in the direction of the stairs. Then he padded off in his cotton shoes; down to the cellar to dream dreams of the Yangtse.

  I watched him go, then moved towards the foot of the stairs. There were going to be a lot of rooms.

  As it was I made it on first go. With instincts like mine how could I fail? I could sniff out fear at fifty feet. Finding it was never the problem: dispelling it didn’t come so easy.

  She was lying on the bed with a cover of white satin pulled over her. Her hair was splayed wide across the pillow and her head was facing away from the door. I saw her body convulse underneath the satin when I entered the room. After that she didn’t move; didn’t turn her head to see who had come in. It might have been because she knew it was me. More likely she was too frightened to find out.

  I walked over to the bed and lowered myself down so that I was sitting close to her. Not too close. I didn’t think she’d be able to handle that right now. Still she refused to turn her face round and look at me.

  I stayed where I was for a while, waiting until her breathing had eased. I leaned over her and saw that her eyes were closed, but not naturally: they were clenched tight shut, the lids wrinkled with the pressure.

  I sat back and waited some more. All the time the room seemed to be getting lighter, warmer. It wasn’t good heat. It was heavy, sticky, clinging like fear or guilt. I wanted to wipe away the lines of sweat that were starting to run down my face but I didn’t. I remained quite still.

  Outside the slight sound of rain still falling. Downstairs nothing. In the room two people breathing. Through it all I imagined that I could hear my pulse beat as it ebbed and flowed against her.

  When I looked at her face again, the lids of her eyes had relaxed and her skin seemed smoother. I spoke her name inside my head. It sounded okay. I tried it out loud and it came out all wrong: harsh, loud, jarring.

  She didn’t react. I eased my fingers along the pillow as far as her hair. It was damp and tacky with sweat. I didn’t like it against my fingers. I moved them away and let it fall back on to the pillow.

  Then I leaned over her and saw that her eyes were open: staring at the far wall: making pictures on it with her mind; I wondered what they were images of. I thought I knew and understood why she was unable to stop herself recreating them, like an old movie that you keep rerunning inside your head.

  I tried again: ‘Caroline.’

  The eyes flickered. Her shoulder moved beneath the cover.

  ‘Caroline.’

  She turned her head and saw me. She didn’t see me. She looked right through me. There was a glass on the little table beside the bed. I sniffed at it. Brandy. I moved a hand towards her and she flinched as if I had struck her across the mouth.

  I stood up with the glass in my hand.

  ‘I’ll be back.’

  I went out of the room, leaving the door wide open, and went down stairs. I checked my little red book and dialled a number.

  ‘Hello, who is this?’

  ‘Dr Laurence. This is Scott Mitchell.’

  ‘Okay. What is it now?’

  I hadn’t called the man for several months and the last time had been for him to come and take a slug out of the arm of a feller who’d come into my office with the express purpose of shooting me and had shot himself instead. It wasn’t as if I was over-using his services. Occasionally I even paid for them. Mostly we’d just meet a few times a year and listen to some old Mulligan and Parker records and get falling-down drunk. He was a good guy. Anyone who chose to fall down drunk with me was a good guy in my book.

  ‘There’s a woman …’

  ‘There usually is,’ he interrupted.

  ‘That’s your life, doc. Right now, this is mine.’

  ‘Come off it, Scott, you have women like most of my patients have boils.’

  It was a pretty thought.

  ‘She’s had a nasty scare and appears to be in a bad state of shock. I’m not sure what caused it exactly, but I’ve got a pretty good idea. D’you think you can get over here and take a look at her? It’s probably best if it’s kept pretty quiet for the time being.’

  ‘That’s what you always say and for the time being usually means forever. Where are you anyway?’

  I gave him the address and he said he’d be there as soon as he could.

  ‘Should I bring someone to stay with her or are you going after that role?’

  ‘I guess not. Only make sure …’

  ‘I know,’ he interrupted me again, ‘make sure she’s discreet. And if she’s under twenty-five and pretty that would be nice as well.’

  Okay. So we’d done business together before. Only they were usually twice that age and had faces like the kind that used to get carved on church pews. They were discreet, though. Discreet as an old maiden aunt who starts her first affair when her nieces are into having babies.

  I gave him my thanks in advance and went in search of the rest of the brandy. When I’d found it I put the bottle in the opposite hand to the still empty glass and went back up the stairs.

  Caroline Murdoch hadn’t moved. Her eyes focused on me when I appeared in the doorway and held me as I walked across the room. I sat back down on the bed and poured her a good shot of brandy.

  ‘Here,’ I said, ‘drink this.’

  At first she just lay there, but then she pushed herself up on one arm. I noticed for the first time that underneath the white cover she was still dressed.

  She took the glass from me and her hand shook so much that I thought she was going to spill it. I reached out my own hand and steadied her grip, putting my fingers around her wrist.

  Her eyes flashed on to mine and the look of fear showed clearly in them once again.

  ‘Caroline?’

  The eyes softened, then looked questioningly.

  ‘Drink some of the brandy.’

  She did as she was told. When I thought she’d had enough I lifted the glass away from her and put it to one side. I got up off the bed and went over to the window. I pulled back the curtains half-way.

  When I sat back next to her, she pushed herself up further, until she, too, was sitting. Her hand was alongside my arm on top of the satin cover. I moved it very slowly so that it rested against her fingers. I watched as the fingers moved gradually on to my arm, circled it, holding it tight, tight, ti
ghter.

  I thought the doctor would put her under sedation as soon as he arrived. And there were things I wanted to know.

  ‘Caroline. Do you want some more brandy?’

  The head moved from side to side slowly, carefully. She was looking right through me again.

  I put a hand on top of the one of hers that was still gripping my arm.

  ‘What time did they come?’ I asked.

  For a moment it was as if she didn’t know what I was talking about, but then the fear rose in her face again and the fingers dug into the skin of my arm with a force that made me wince.

  ‘When did they come?’

  She spoke so softly I could barely hear the words. ‘Early. This morning early. I didn’t know they were in the house and then, suddenly, they were standing in front of me.’

  ‘Two of them?’

  The head nodded as slowly as before, but in a different direction.

  ‘A large black guy and a little thin one with a white stripe through his h …’

  She wrenched her hand away from my grip and hurled herself down on to the pillow. She clung to it as though it was her own life she was hanging on to. I could see how wet her hair was now; in places it was starting to get stuck to her scalp in matted clumps. I went back over to the window and opened it as wide as I could. I didn’t seem to matter if the rain came in.

  Once again she hadn’t moved; once again she went tight when I touched her; once again I managed to get her sitting up and went through the routine with the brandy.

  Dr Laurence would arrive soon. I held her by the shoulders and got her to look at me.

  ‘What did they want to know?’

  She still wasn’t going to say anything. Her eyes were becoming glazed over. I put the remains of the brandy that was in the glass to her lips and tried to get it down her. Most of it ran down her chin on to her neck and then her blouse. I put down the glass and sighed. Then I slapped her twice across the face. Once in each direction. Not hard, but hard enough.

  ‘What did they want to know?’

  ‘Where … where James was.’

  ‘And did you tell them?’