Take the A-Train

by Mark Timlin

  ‘You can help me if you want.’

  ‘I’ll do what I can. What do you think will happen to Uncle?’

  ‘It could go very bad for him.’

  ‘He’s done nothing.’

  ‘It was a lot of dope to leave lying about.’

  ‘Sure was.’

  ‘Too much just to frame Em, that’s the trouble. It’s severe overkill. A couple of grand’s worth could have done that. It’ll look bad in court.’

  ‘He’s got an excellent lawyer.’

  ‘I’m sure, but I bet he doesn’t get bail.’

  ‘So what can you do?’

  ‘Make inquiries. That’s my job. I’ll start this afternoon. Will you drop me home?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘You’d better pay the bill then and we can go.’

  ‘Am I paying for yours?’

  ‘Sure. I’m doing Em a favour, but it doesn’t include feeding his family.’

  ‘Generous man.’

  ‘You’d better believe it.’

  He called over the barmaid and paid our bill and we pulled on our coats again and went back through the rain to the car. I directed Teddy to my place and he dropped me outside. I left him one of my cards and told him to call me later.

  7

  I went upstairs to my flat and cracked a beer, lit a cigarette and sat down by the phone. I called West End Central and spoke to the one copper who had come to see me in hospital when he didn’t have to.

  His name was Endesleigh, Detective Inspector Endesleigh. An amazingly senior rank for someone so young. He always looked as if he should have been at school studying for his GCSEs, but he was a good copper and for some reason we were friends. On my side, perhaps because he had once saved my life. On his side, I didn’t have a clue. I caught him at his desk.

  ‘Endesleigh,’ he said.

  ‘Good afternoon.’

  ‘Sharman, how’s life?’

  ‘All right, but I could do with your help.’

  ‘I don’t like the sound of that. Why, you got a parking ticket you want me to fix?’

  ‘I’m working.’

  ‘Are you serious?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘What the hell are you doing?’

  ‘I’m helping an old friend.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Samuel Watkins.’

  ‘I’m none the wiser.’

  ‘He’s also known as Emerald.’

  ‘Yeah, wait a minute, that rings a bell.’

  ‘He’s being done for intent to supply Class-A drugs, cocaine, a half a million pounds’ worth. Warrants were issued last night sometime.’

  ‘I think I heard about it. He’s some old superannuated South London face isn’t he?’

  ‘I don’t think he’d be too fond of the description, but yes I suppose you could say that.’

  ‘He’s on the run, isn’t he?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you’re helping him.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So you’ve seen him?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Sharman, you do put yourself on offer, don’t you?’

  ‘He’s going to give himself up. Might even have done it by now.’

  ‘Good plan.’

  ‘To Danny Fox.’

  ‘This gets better and better. Why him?’

  ‘Emerald’s not in love with the idea of the Met taking care of his accommodation needs for the foreseeable future.’

  ‘Was that your idea?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You won’t win any popularity contests.’

  ‘I’ll survive.’

  ‘Don’t be so sure.’

  ‘That’s not the point.’

  ‘What is?’

  ‘He’s innocent.’

  Endesleigh choked back a laugh. ‘Tell me about it! Someone else left half a million’s worth of coke on your friend’s premises? Careless, wouldn’t you say? Especially on the very night the drug squad had nothing better to do.’

  ‘That place was clean at ten last night. Christ, Endesleigh. Emerald had been tipped off. He had an anonymous call purporting to be from one of your own. He’d be pretty stupid not to send in a clean-up team. He had plenty of time.’

  ‘You’ve got my attention.’

  ‘Besides, he’s not into coke,’ I insisted.

  ‘Sez who?’

  ‘Him. And me, for that matter. He never has been in all the years I’ve known him.’

  ‘Tell that to the jury.’

  ‘Come on,’ I said. ‘Never heard of a stitch up?’

  ‘And if he’s a friend of yours it would be?’

  ‘In this case, yes.’

  ‘And who’s the stitcher?’

  ‘Bimpson Lupino, he thinks.’

  Endesleigh stifled another laugh. ‘This gets better. All those old bastards are due the retirement home. It’ll be Ronnie and Reggie next. Give me a break! Give yourself a break. Claim industrial injuries and get lost. Take a holiday.’

  ‘I am giving you a break,’ I said. ‘You could do yourself a bit of good.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘If it was a copper who told Emerald, then one of your boys is bent, if it wasn’t …’

  ‘If it wasn’t I’m not interested.’

  ‘But it had to come from inside the squad whoever tipped him off.’

  ‘If anyone did. Perhaps he’s just blowing smoke in your face. Perhaps he’s telling porkies.’

  ‘Why should he?’

  ‘How the hell do I know? He’s in a bind. Wouldn’t you?’

  ‘But why me? I’m not the DPP.’

  ‘That’s for you to find out. Now listen, I like you, Sharman, I really do. But, sorry, not interested.’

  ‘And if I can get you some proof?’

  ‘That, of course, is a different matter. But it’ll have to be good, I’ll be treading on serious toes.’

  ‘I’ll come back to you.’

  ‘Be careful.’

  ‘Your concern is touching.’

  ‘I like you alive. You’re the original “There but for the grace of God” man.’

  ‘Sweet,’ I said. ‘Look, I’ve got to go. I’ll be talking to you.’

  ‘I wait with bated breath.’

  8

  I put down the phone, and picked it straight up again and called Fiona. We had a date for that evening and I wanted to tell her what had gone down. She was working on a session for the Star. I got through to the photographer’s studio and climbed rung by rung from the receptionist to the photographer’s assistant.

  I asked if Fiona was free and the sniffy boy who answered blew something nasal down the phone, dropped it on to a hard surface and abandoned me. I waited for two or three minutes, listening to a Pet Shop Boys tape interspersed with laughter and screaming, before the receiver was picked up again. I heard the sound of Fiona’s voice. ‘Hello,’ she shouted above the din.

  ‘Hello,’ I said.

  ‘Sharman, how are you?’

  ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘What sort of day have you had?’

  ‘Usual physiotherapy, then I was kidnapped and driven halfway across London in a limo full of crazy spades, met an old friend who’s looking at a double handful of porridge for drug dealing, had egg and bacon for lunch and I think it’s giving me indigestion. Apart from that, nothing special. How was yours?’

  ‘Terrific,’ said Fiona dryly. ‘I met a little green man from Alpha Centauri on the way to work and he asked me to elope in his flying saucer.’

  Typical, I thought. Some days you tell the truth and no one will believe a word. ‘Very funny,’ was all I said, and she just carried on as if she mixed every day with people who got kidnapped.

  ‘No, but I did meet this geezer I used to know. He lives in the flats at the back of my dad’s. His name’s Johnny, Johnny Smoke.’

  I never knew if she was taking the rise. ‘What does he do?’ I interrupted. ‘Work in a merchant bank?’

  ‘No, don’t piss
about, I’m serious. He’s a DJ, does some pubs and clubs. He’s having a Christmas do in a boozer I used to go to, The Pig in Tower Bridge. I said we’d pop in later for a drink. Is that all right?’

  A Thursday night in a pub in Tower Bridge, ten days before Christmas, I ask you. ‘Fine by me,’ I said. Well, you have to, don’t you?

  ‘Yeah, I thought it was about time you got out and about again. You’re growing roots in front of the TV. I’ll call round for you about eight, and we’ll get straight up there. It’ll get a bit crowded later on. They’ve got a two o’clock licence, see.’

  A two o’clock licence in the East End. Jesus, my cup runneth over. ‘Sure,’ I said. ‘Why don’t you come round about six and we’ll think about it?’

  ‘No chance. I don’t think this wally’s ever going to get my tits right. He’s been poncing about with them since twelve.’

  ‘I wish I could ponce around with your tits for a few hours,’ I said almost wistfully.

  ‘Later. We’ll hang around for an hour or so at the boozer, then get something to eat up West and back to mine, and you can do whatever you like with my tits.’

  ‘I can’t wait.’

  ‘Tell me about it. Listen, I’m being shouted at, I’d better go. I’ll see you at eight, all right?’

  ‘All right,’ I said back, but she was gone. Lovely girl but a bit of an organiser. Mind you, I didn’t care. With a figure like hers she could organise the hell out of me.

  The rest of the afternoon I spent on the phone. I went through my book from A-Z. I spoke to anyone I could think of who might have any relevant information. Although Em being on the run was the talk of the manor, no one seemed to know what was going on, or if they did they weren’t talking. At least not to me, and not on the phone. I knew I was going to have to put on my travelling shoes and visit a few boozers and put the fear of God into a few faces. But I didn’t want to be out when Teddy rang with the full SP on his uncle.

  Teddy called me at seven. He told me that Em had surrendered to Danny Fox at Farnham with his brief in tow. I told him I was on the case and to call me next morning, hung up and took a shower.

  At eight the doorbell rang. I had dressed to get down. Blue silk suit with just a hint of shine in the material, pale blue shirt, a tie patterned with red roses and black, soft loafers which fitted over my sore foot without too much angst. I checked the weather, put on my trench coat with the button-in winter lining and limped down the stairs.

  Fiona was standing on the doorstep. She was all bundled up in a long navy overcoat that reached nearly to her ankles. She had a long muffler wrapped six or seven times around her neck and her hair was pushed up under a big black hat. She was wearing black, high-heeled shoes. I hated it when she drove in heels, but she looked so sexy I almost wept.

  ‘Cold, is it?’ I asked.

  ‘Not many. At least it’s stopped raining.’

  ‘Why don’t you get a top for that car?’

  ‘No, I’ll survive, I’m hard.’

  I raised my eyes to heaven, but she didn’t notice and I followed her over to the little yellow bug that sat at the kerbside. We clambered in and the engine started with a cough and a whine. She took off like a rocket, without looking or indicating, and cut up a geezer in a Capri who gave us a long blast on his horn. Fiona waved in a friendly way and I shrank down in my bucket seat.

  ‘What’s all this about being kidnapped?’ she asked over the rattle of the engine and the roar of the wind.

  I told her the whole story which took as far as the Elephant, and she digested the information whilst she chopped through the late evening traffic up to the river. She parked the car in a side street and we went arm in arm up to the main road.

  ‘And you agreed to help?’ she asked as we walked, or rather as she walked and I hobbled.

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘That’s what friends are for.’

  ‘I hope you know what you’re doing. Christ, Bim and Em,’ she said. ‘Sounds like a double act, or something out of the Beano.’ She cackled at the thought.

  ‘Don’t be fooled,’ I said. ‘Those two are serious, dead serious.’

  She shrugged and we passed under the street lamps to the corner. The Pig was a big old Victorian gin palace, set back on a sort of double pavement on a tree-lined boulevard that ran up to the river. Most of the old houses in the street had gone and been replaced by glass matchboxes laid on their sides. The Victorian pub stood out like a sore finger. It wasn’t exactly beautiful or particularly welcoming but it certainly had it over the sawn-off skyscrapers that dominated the rest of the street. From the outside the pub looked like any other local in the area, but by the look of the cars parked nearby it certainly wasn’t an ordinary local where the poor came to eke out their twilight years. There was a big green Rolls-Royce, three or four XR3is, Golfs, Jeeps, and a couple of battered old Yanks parked on and by the pavement.

  Fiona pushed the door of the pub open and we got a blast of Blue Monday and a faceful of warm air that smelt in equal parts of tobacco, perfume and beer. Well, maybe the perfume won by a short head. She held the door open and I hopped in. Some habits never change, whatever the clientele. As the door opened, like a crowd at the centre court, every head in the bar turned towards it. It happened every time, all evening. Sometimes an entrance would merit a yell of recognition, other times the cold shoulder. We got half and half. Guess who got recognised and who got ignored? My limp got more attention than I did. There was a free table in one corner and we grabbed the seats.

  ‘What do you want?’ I asked.

  ‘I’ll get them in, there’s a couple of people up at the bar I know.’ She pulled off her hat and scarf and coat and dumped them on her seat. Underneath she was wearing a black leather suit over what looked suspiciously like a lavender lace corset. On her legs she wore lavender nylons.

  She noticed me clocking the outfit. ‘Do you like my teddy?’ she asked.

  ‘My daughter takes one to bed with her.’

  ‘Well, maybe you’ll get lucky and take one to bed with you tonight.’

  ‘Just don’t take your jacket off, you’ll start a riot,’ I said.

  She grinned wickedly and leant over and planted a kiss on my cheek. ‘I know,’ she said. ‘And you’ve got lipstick all over your face.’

  I gave her a big, false grin and swatted at my face with the back of my hand. ‘I’ll have a pint, and don’t be all night.’

  ‘You’re so masterful,’ she said, and vanished into the crowd.

  I shrugged out of my raincoat and hung it over the back of a red velour-covered chair, then sat down and wedged my bad foot on to the rung of a small stool opposite me. My leg was killing me and I massaged it with my hand. I looked round the bar. It was a young crowd, with just a few old codgers sprinkled about, looking lost and forlorn as their old boozer got taken over by the Snakebite and Pina Colada set.

  It was a big old Victorian gin palace on the outside and it was a big old Victorian gin palace on the inside. The ceilings were high and tobacco-stained, with red-shaded lamps hanging down. The walls were covered with flock wallpaper and dotted with sporting prints. There were tables with seating for fifty or sixty. The bar itself was U-shaped, long, solid and polished. Every surface in the place was hung with Christmas decorations. There must have been a grand’s worth of tinsel. A twenty-foot Christmas tree, dripping with lights, stood next to the juke-box. From half a dozen vantage points Sandra and Frank wished me the compliments of the season from under a photograph of a bullet-headed heavy and a tiny blonde dripping with gold. The real pair were dispensing drinks and cockney bonhomie from the opposite side of the bar.

  Right beside me was a raised podium, like a small stage. A bloke in blue jeans and a psychedelic shirt was setting up a twin turntable plugged through a bank of amplifiers, linked to some dangerous-looking speakers which made it obvious why the table we’d nicked had been vacant.

  Shit, I thought.

  Fiona had a h
ard time getting to the bar, she was so popular. She must have stopped and chewed the fat with about a dozen faces on the way to the counter. Most of the characters who buttonholed her gave me the once over. I nodded back a couple of times but soon gave it a rest. My leg still hurt and I wanted a drink.

  She was grabbed round the waist by a bloke sitting on a stool at the end of the bar, close to the public telephone. Their heads were about level and he whispered something into her ear and pulled a Harrods bag up from the floor and gave her a squint inside. She laughed and shook her head and gave him a cuddle. He was dark-skinned and balding. I didn’t know him, but I knew he was bent, not that I cared. If I’d ever been inside a villain’s pub, this was it.

  Finally she shucked off the old pals and connected with the barman. In less time than it takes to tell she came over to the table with a couple of glasses.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said.

  I shrugged. ‘Old home week?’

  ‘Sort of. I know a lot of people here.’

  ‘You don’t say.’

  ‘Here’s your drink.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  She pushed her hat and coat over and sat down opposite me.

  ‘Who was the affectionate one?’ I asked.

  ‘Who?’

  I pointed at him with a glance.

  ‘Oh, him. He’s harmless. Mickey Lipman. He fences for the hoisters. I thought you might know him.’

  ‘Do you think I know every lowlife in London?’

  ‘No, you just look like you do.’ And she stuck out her tongue.

  She looked around and then up at the geezer who was setting up the audio equipment on the stage. ‘Phil!’ she said by way of a greeting.

  He looked twice, then connected. ‘Fi,’ he said back, and hunkered down on to his boot heels. ‘How are you doing?’

  ‘All right,’ she replied, and sank a third of the contents of her glass in one gulp. ‘Meet Nick.’ She gestured to me.

  ‘Hello,’ I said.

  ‘Hello,’ he said back, extending his hand. I shook it.

  ‘Phil’s Johnny’s roadie,’ said Fiona by way of explanation. ‘Where is he?’ she asked.