Ian St James Compendium - Volume 1

by Ian St. James

  "Oh Christ!" My notes lay scattered over the sitting room carpet and I still had to change for the evening. "Are you ready now!" Ready already?"

  "And have been for the last half hour," she said in a crisp, cool voice. "Where's this good time you promised?"

  It was half past seven! I had arranged to collect her from The Dog's Home at seven. The show at the Garrick started at eight! Damn and blast it!

  "Look, Lucia - I've been working on something - hadn't realised - look, I'm very sorry." It sounded so inadequate. I tried again. "It'll take me ten minutes to wash and change, but by the time I get there -"

  "I'll get a cab to your place," she said. Then she paused. The tone of her voice changed. "Unless you'd rather not bother -"

  "I've got the tickets. And booked a table at Oliver's." The latter wasn't quite true but it would be by the time she reached Rex Place. "And I'm looking forward to it."

  "Obviously," she said acidly. "Well then - if you're quite sure -"

  "Positive."

  "Then I'm on my way."

  "You've got the address?"

  "I was there last week, remember? Cleaning the place." She hung up. I felt a perfect fool but there was nothing I could do about it. Except get washed and changed in record time and try to make amends during the evening. So I phoned Oliver's, booked a table, and dashed upstairs.

  As it happened Lucia had trouble in getting a cab, so it was almost eight thirty when she arrived. Had there been more time perhaps memories of Kay might have inhibited me in welcoming another woman to Rex Place, but the rush to get ready put Kay out of my mind. Besides I was excited by the prospect of feminine company and the sight of Lucia settled any doubts I might have had. She had looked beautiful earlier but dressed to go out she was sensational. Her eyes conspired to look mischievous and wise, her hair shone, she was fragrant with stephanotis, and when she removed her evening cape she revealed a black sheath dress which hugged her figure right up to her throat.

  "Look, I've made a bit of a mess of things -" I began, but she interrupted. "I can see that," she said, looking at the scraps of paper littering the floor.

  I began to collect them up. "I booked for a show at the Garrick," I began, then we both said together - "but it's a bit late now." We said it together, word for word. We both laughed, and I relaxed. "Let's have a drink here and re-plan the evening."

  "Fine." She handed me a few sheets of paper which had found their way onto the chesterfield. "Is this what you were working on?"

  "Yes - sort of. I had an idea earlier and got a bit carried away with it."

  "Is it important?"

  "God knows. It's probably a waste of time but at least I feel I'm doing something."

  I mixed her a Bloody Mary, while telling her a bit about the magistrate's court and the kind of case I would have to present. When I finished she said, "Sam, that's terribly important. And urgent by the sound of it. May I read what you've written?"

  I hesitated. Not everything remembered had been set down but there was enough to indicate what I felt about Kay. It was too private, too revealing. I shrugged; "It's just so much scribble you'll never read it."

  "I can read this." She glanced at the last sheet in her hand. Then she smiled as she handed it to me: "I'm sorry, Sam - I didn't mean to pry."

  Prison robs you of the social graces. Not just by the denial of feminine company but with monosyllable conversation. You lose the art of nimble speech, the ability to turn an enquiry aside, the knack of re-arranging a person's question to suit your answer. But there was another reason for hesitating - the warmth in her eyes might be damaged by a snub - and no matter what the future I felt in urgent need of friends. So I mumbled clumsily, "Well, if you're really interested -"

  "Of course I'm really interested." Her voice conveyed that last bit of reassurance and her eyes told me to trust her. So I managed a wry sort of smile, handed her the rest of the notes, and went off to the kitchen in search of more tomato juice. When I returned I settled in the chair opposite and watched her decipher my scrawl. She frowned now and then, and turned back once to check something on a previous page. When she finished she looked up and smiled. "You sound very human - for a business tycoon."

  "Perhaps I never was one - a real tycoon, I mean."

  She tapped the notes. "When have these to be finished?"

  I shrugged. "Tomlinson is making an appointment with counsel as soon as possible. Which probably means next week or the week after."

  She turned to the last page. "You're only as far as the end of the sixties. You've a long way to go. Perhaps you should stay in tonight and write some more?"

  "You sound like a schoolmistress. Besides I'm taking you out to dinner - and looking forward to it."

  She looked serious, as if considering it, or thinking about something else. Then she surprised me by asking, "Do you have a typewriter?"

  "There's a portable in the desk. I'm not sure -"

  "Well, let's do both," she smiled eagerly. "Go out to dinner and come back here afterwards. I'll take everything down in shorthand and type it up later."

  Of course I protested, but she was determined to do things her way, and after a while I gave in. It was flattering to have a good looking woman take such an interest, and prolonging the evening was fine by me. And she was so obviously relaxed that the initial awkwardness was forgotten. Some of my old confidence returned and we chatted away happily for another half hour before leaving for Oliver's.

  I was in two minds about taking Jack's car. Parking is a problem in the West End, even in the evenings. But the air was wet with a fine drizzle which might have spoiled Lucia's hair, so we took the Rolls - and just as I edged out into Mount Street another car pulled out behind us. Cars come and go at all hours in Rex Place so I had no reason to pay particular attention, and what with Lucia chattering happily beside me I forgot about it. Or at least, I did until later.

  Oliver's is in Dover Street, on the corner. The ground floor entrance leads into the bar and beyond that to the restaurant, with a tiny dance floor in the middle. Above is an open gallery, which turns the dance floor into a central courtyard. It's quieter up in the gallery. Our table overlooked the dance floor on one side and Dover Street on the other. Through a chink in the velvet curtains I could see Jack's car where I had parked it on the other side of the road. Of course I had used the restaurant before but not often, so I felt there was a good chance of the evening passing without me being recognised. The food was good, the wine excellent, the music soft and tender, and Lucia looked ravishing. Brixton Prison seemed a lifetime away.

  During the meal I tried to get to know her. After all she knew a lot about me, whereas I knew next to nothing about her - only that she was Maria's cousin. She told me some things quite easily. For example she had been educated in Geneva and New York, as well as Milan, which explained why she had no discernible Italian accent. She had travelled extensively - Europe, the States, one trip to Canada: "I've never been so cold!" She shivered at the memory. But she was more reticent about others. She was expensively dressed but she gave no hint as to where the money came from, and she casually mentioned a man's name when talking about Geneva, and another when talking about New York - but the impression given was they were just friends, nothing more. I was glad about that, despite my determination not to become involved.

  "You're another beautiful mystery," I said at one stage. "Just like Maria."

  "Is Maria a mystery?"

  "In a way. At least I've never understood everything about her, so it amounts to the same thing."

  She smiled faintly but her expression was encouraging enough for me to tell her the story, even though she must have heard at least part of it before. But I was trying to draw her out and felt that talking about Maria might be a way of opening doors.

  Jack met Maria a month or so before I opened The Point of View. He says he picked her up in the slums of Naples, but that's just to tease her. He's never been to Naples - not even now. Anyway I know the truth - or
at least in part.

  They met in some auctioneer's shop. Even in those days Jack was fascinated by antiques and most of his free time was spent browsing around sale rooms. Not that he had spare cash to buy anything but I suppose he was soaking up knowledge for the day when he could. On this particular day he was in a place in Sloane Street: I've forgotten the name but I know they specialise in silver. Jack was just looking around when this girl came in. She wore a charcoal grey suit and from the way she walked Jack felt sure she was a model. A brown paper parcel was tucked under one arm and she barely hesitated on her way to the counter.

  "I'd like your professional valuation on a piece of silver," she said to the clerk. "Is that possible?"

  "Certainly," said the clerk and waited patiently while she untied the string.

  Quite by chance Jack was standing a few feet away, so he edged a bit closer to see what was in the parcel - and to take another look at the girl. Finally the string was unfastened to reveal a silver candlestick. Jack could hardly take his eyes off the girl but when he did the clerk was examining the candlestick with considerable interest. "It's a very fine piece. Very fine. Early eighteenth century I'd say - magnificent workmanship."

  "Seventeen forty," the girl said.

  The clerk was surprised. "Oh? You know its history, Madam?"

  "Yes," she said. Then for some unaccountable reason she blushed. Jack said she looked lovelier than ever.

  The clerk was still absorbed with the candlestick. "French I'd say. Yes, definitely French - look at that mark there."

  "It is French," the girl confirmed. "It was made in 1740 by the French court silversmith, Thomas Germain."

  "Germain!" The clerk was enthralled. He hesitated for a second. "May I ask you to take a seat, Madam? The Senior Partner is in today and I'd like the benefit of his opinion." He smiled appealingly. "Germain by Jove! It really is an excellent piece - quite excellent." He curbed his enthusiasm long enough to say, "Of course its value would be enhanced if it were accompanied by the rest of the set."

  "They are all available," said the girl. "There are twelve altogether."

  "Twelve!" The clerk fairly quivered. "That is interesting." He waved the girl into a chair and left for a back room, carrying the candlestick like an Olympic torch.

  "Now's the time to run for it - if it's stolen," Jack murmured. "That's what he's doing you know - checking the police wanted list."

  She would have stamped her foot had she been standing. As it was her nostrils flared like a startled racehorse. She aimed a ferocious glare at Jack. "Do you think you are looking at a thief?"

  "I'm looking at the most beautiful girl in the world," Jack said. "And I was only joking."

  That mollified her a bit but only a fraction. Jack said she was throwing off body heat like a frigidaire with the door open. But he can be a determined devil when he sets his mind to it and what he was looking at then excited him more than a free pass to the stockrooms at Sotheby's. So he said, "My name's Jack Green. And I'd very much like to buy you dinner tonight."

  "That's quite impossible."

  "Purely business," Jack lowered his voice and whispered. "If you really do have twelve of those candlesticks I'll double the price they offer you here."

  The girl's eyes rounded with surprise. She looked him up and down, then said, "Those candlesticks are very valuable, I'm expecting a considerable sum for them."

  "And I'm expecting to pay it," Jack said confidently, though at the time he would have been hard pressed to find the price of one, let alone a dozen.

  Just then the clerk came back, accompanied by his boss, a big florid-complexioned man in a check suit, who beamed and told her his name. He hinted for her to respond with hers but she ignored it and prompted him to talk about the candlesticks. Jack was standing a yard away while this was going on and the boss kept throwing sideways looks, trying to decide if Jack and the girl were together.

  "Were you wanting to auction these pieces?" the boss asked, "Or would you prefer us to make an offer on our own behalf?"

  The girl frowned, and in the pause which followed Jack made his move. Very politely he explained how dealers worked, careful to praise the boss's establishment in the process, so that when he finished all four of them were standing in a cosy little group.

  The girl looked worried. "The matter is very urgent. Does auctioning take more time?"

  "Oh, considerably," the boss said, sensing a bargain. "There's the catalogue to prepare and circulate, advertisements in the press, all that sort of thing. Couldn't do a proper job inside six weeks two months preferably."

  "Perhaps we should discuss it over dinner?" Jack suggested to the girl helpfully. Which is what happened. The girl was no fool though. She asked the boss to keep the candlestick overnight - she said while she made her mind up, but the real reason was she wouldn't risk walking out with Jack on one arm and the candlestick under the other. The boss agreed and the clerk made out a receipt.

  "What name shall I put?" he asked, looking up at the girl.

  She hesitated. She had evaded the issue earlier but there was no escaping it now. Then, in a firm clear voice, she said, "My name is Maria Serracino-Torregianni."

  Which is how Jack met Maria. Jack sold the candlesticks for her, to a private collector who in fact did pay twice the price offered by the dealer. After which Maria returned to Italy. But she turned up in London again a month later - this time with some very fine pieces of jewellery. She telephoned Jack when she arrived and again he helped find a buyer - and this procedure was repeated four or five times during the course of that year. The sums of money were quite sizeable, I think, but where Maria fitted into the scheme of things - whether the items were hers, or whether she was an agent, where the money went -I never found out. Jack never told me so I never asked. After all it was none of my business. All that concerned me was that my best pal was marrying a beautiful Italian girl - who went on to make him very happy.

  Lucia had tears in her eyes when I finished. I was astonished. I had told the story in a jokey kind of way, indulging my curiosity perhaps, but mainly trying to amuse her and get her to talk about herself. Instead she looked sad enough to cry. "Poor Maria," she said, her voice huskier than ever.

  "They lived happily ever after," I pointed out.

  "Yes," she brightened but her smile was a shadow of the radiant look she had given me earlier. "It's nice when a story has a happy ending."

  I wondered why she was so upset, and I was trying to think of a way to change the subject when she said, "So you know our family name?"

  "Serracino-Torregianni? Did I mispronounce it?"

  "A little," she nodded.

  "It's not an easy name to say."

  "Or to live with," she said, almost under her breath.

  Suddenly - astonishingly - someone banged into my shoulder so hard that I was almost knocked out of my chair. I grabbed the table to steady myself but the tablecloth gave way under my weight, jerking the wine bottle into a glass and then onto the floor with an enormous clatter. My chair tilted alarmingly until I got a hand to the floor to push myself upright.

  "What the hell?"

  A man staggered drunkenly, lurching into the table as he pointed at me. "Harris, isn't it?" He shouted, slurring the words, "Winner Harris."

  "What the devil do you think you're doing?" I snapped, conscious of Lucia's startled expression.

  "It is Harris!" The man roared: "Don't bloody pretend it isn't! So they've let you loose again, have they?"

  He was well built, in his mid-forties, smartly dressed but for the loosened tie and unbuttoned shirt collar. A red-faced, angry man, who was quite obviously the worse for drink. I had never seen him before in my life.

  "Get up, damn you," he shouted.

  Two waiters rushed over and tried to restrain him, but he shook them off contemptuously. "You owe me fifty thousand quid, Harris. That's what I lost when Apex went up the shoot. Fifty thousand - and I want paying!"

  One of the waiters grabbed the m
an's arm and tried to pull him away from the wreckage of our table, but the man knocked him away and shouted, "You're a swindler, Harris. A bloody swindler! A crook. A filthy damn crook and a murderer! MURDERER!" He sent the other waiter spinning and came at me with fists flying.

  Whoever he was, he was no fighter. His left arm looped wide and I stepped inside and hit him twice, once below the heart and again on the point of his jaw as his knees buckled. It was done instinctively, to protect myself. A woman screamed at a nearby table and a moment later others joined in. The head waiter arrived and the whole place erupted into pandemonium. The man at my feet never moved. Flash bulbs popped like champagne corks and the gloom of the restaurant cracked open with the flashes of light. Lucia watched with terrified eyes.

  "Come on, let's get out of here." I reached across to her with one hand. She tried to squeeze between the bodies separating us. A man got in the way, I shoved him aside, the head waiter tried to stop me, I shouted: "Dammit man - it wasn't my fault — ask your staff." I saw the waiters nodding from the corner of my eye, then I pushed through the crush of bodies, drawing Lucia along behind me. I shouted: "I'll settle my bill downstairs." I could feel Lucia trembling but it would have been madness to comfort her there. I just wanted to get out, the sooner the better. People came up from the dance floor and we fought our way through the mob at the top of the stairs.

  Down in the bar someone went to fetch Lucia's wrap while I settled my bill. Restaurant staff crowded round in a swarm, some apologising, others chattering with excitement. A woman 'tut-tutted' while the man with her muttered 'disgraceful exhibition'. The head waiter was in doubt about letting me leave, until the look on my face convinced him. Lucia's wrap arrived and we made our way to the lobby, trailing people, some making half-hearted attempts to catch my arm as if to delay my departure. Then suddenly - there was the most colossal explosion. For a split second the ground seemed to shake. The walls did shake. Then there was a 'whump' and a rush of wind - and the front of the restaurant blew in.