by Mark Timlin
Actually I had read something about it, but I’d forgotten. ‘Course,’ I said. ‘Brain’s not working today.’
‘Never mind,’ he said. ‘I’ll get you something.’
I got two fifties out of my wallet. The clock was already up in the thirty quid region, and it was ticking steadily. Taxi fares had rocketed in my absence. I passed the cash through the divider, and he looked at the notes suspiciously. ‘Something wrong?’ I asked.
‘Lots of snides about,’ he replied, studying the money against the windscreen.
‘They’re OK, mate,’ I said. ‘Got them from my bank this morning.’ Another lie.
‘Fair enough,’ he said as he stuffed them in his pocket, saw a gap in the traffic and shot through.
Christ, I thought. Things have changed. Cabbies knocking back fifty pound notes – whatever next?
We swung through west London and eventually arrived at the old tailor’s in the Strand. ‘I’ll park round the next corner,’ he said, archly.
‘I might be a while.’
‘No problem,’ he replied, grinning. ‘Meter’s on.’
I hoped he wouldn’t just pocket the cash and piss off, so I took my bag, just in case. ‘What’s your name?’ I asked as I got out.
‘Stew,’ he said.
‘Jim,’ I replied. ‘See you later.’
‘I’ll be here. By the way, what’s your surname? For the hotel.’
‘Stark,’ I said.
‘No probs, I’ll getcha somewhere.’
‘Thanks.’
I went into the shop, which was pretty quiet, being a bit off the beaten track for Christmas shopping, and was immediately buttonholed by a lovely young thing in a three piece worsted, pink shirt and striped tie. ‘Help you sir,’ he said, giving my outfit a dirty look, one eyebrow raised.
‘I need a couple of suits, some shirts, ties, sweaters, gloves, shoes, overcoat and a scarf,’ I said.
Blimey, he almost bit my hand off.
‘Overcoat?’ he said, no doubt thinking of his commission.
‘Cashmere,’ I said back.
‘No problem.’
And that was us.
It took half an hour for me to be outfitted in two beautiful whistles, one single, one double breasted. Half a dozen button down cotton oxford shirts in white, blue, pink and violet. Two cashmere jumpers in dark blue, a black cashmere scarf, leather gloves, and a fabulous navy cashmere nanny with a velvet collar, finished off with a pair of soft, black leather slip-ons with thick rubber soles to save my aching feet. The total price was something in the region of three grand. At least Simon, my helpful assistant, chucked in half a dozen silk ties gratis. He parcelled up my kit and I left. There was a fat hole in Stark’s American Express but I was feeling as warm as toast.
Stew was waiting where he said, and he straight away informed me I had a room in the Park Lane Hotel, which was going to cost me plenty.
‘Ask for Pierre at the desk,’ he said. ‘He’s the major domo. And he’ll need a bung.’
At least some things didn’t change.
9
We shot round to Park Lane where Stew dropped me off in front of the hotel. The clock was up to ninety quid by then, so I let him keep the ton and added a twenty pound note for his troubles. ‘Receipt?’ he asked, as I collected my bags.
I was about to say no, when I remembered I was supposed to be on expenses, and answered in the affirmative.
He wrote me out a receipt and added a mobile number. ‘In case you need to get around,’ he said, and winked. ‘I’m working over Christmas. Anything to get out of the bloody house.’
‘Call anytime,’ he went on. ‘And if there’s anything you need...’ He didn’t say more. Just my luck to get a dodge cabbie. But then he might come in useful.
I got out of the cab and a gent in livery dived for my bags. ‘Pierre,’ I said. ‘He’s expecting me.’
The doorman nodded and led the way through revolving doors and up to the desk. I had nothing less than a fiver, so I handed one over and he saluted as a big bloke in black jacket and striped trousers hove into view. ‘Pierre,’ said the doorman and headed back outside.
‘Monsieur,’ said Pierre.
‘Stark. James Stark,’ I said. ‘You got a call about me.’
‘Ah, Stewart,’ said Pierre. ‘Oui. Your room is ready. How long do you envision staying?’
‘No idea,’ I said. ‘A few days.’
‘Excellent. This room is yours tonight and tomorrow. If you wish to stay longer we will have to move you.’ He told me the price for bed without breakfast per night. It would have kept me alive on the island for a month, but what the hell.
‘No problem,’ I said. ‘I haven’t got much with me. Just had to do some shopping in fact.’
Pierre didn’t seem fazed by my lack of luggage, and called a bellboy to take what I had. He handed me a key card and asked for my credit card details in return. As all that was happening I slipped him a fifty pound note, which at least he had the good grace not to check.
The boy took me and my stuff to one of the lifts and up to my room, and very decent it was too. King size bed, flat screen TV, DVD/CD player and a view of the park from a tiny balcony. And thank Christ, it was warm. The boy got another fiver from my depleted stash, and at last I was alone.
The bed looked inviting, but I needed to get in touch with Judith, and for that I needed a mobile. I wasn’t going to use the hotel phone. I was leaving a trail as wide as a motorway, and I didn’t need to make it any bigger. So, in coat, scarf, gloves, and my new shoes I headed up Park Lane to Oxford Street.
Stew had been right. If I thought the terminal at Heathrow was packed, the stony hearted stepmother as the street was sometimes known, took the biscuit. The wide pavements were full, with coppers with loud hailers herding the stressed shoppers and tourists, and the road itself was jammed with more buses than I’d ever seen in my life.
Eventually, I found a phone shop and purchased a pay-as-you-go mobile that did everything but make the tea. Music, video, still photos, not that I thought I’d need half of it. The works. It came with a tenner of credit, and the little Asian geezer who sold it to me got it up and running in a few minutes. Another lump on the card, and it was mine.
I found a side street that was a little less crowded, stood inside someone’s doorway and phoned the number Judith had given me. She answered quickly. ‘Judith,’ I said.
‘Dad. Where are you?’
‘Oxford Street.’
‘London?’
‘Of course.’
‘That was quick. Thank you, I’m so glad you’re here.’
‘Where are you?’
‘Camden. At home. Don’t come here.’
‘No worries. I don’t even know where you live.’
‘Course not. Sorry. Listen. Walk up towards Tottenham Court Road. Just past HMV there’s a turning on the left. There’s a funny pub down there. It’s dark inside – full of Goths. No one will look for us there. I’ll be half an hour.’
‘Fine,’ I said. But she’d gone.
10
I couldn’t face battling the crowds all the way down Oxford Street, so I cut through the back doubles and found the boozer, with a load of people outside smoking in the cold. I bodyswerved past them and entered the warmth of the pub. I reckoned Judith had been right. No one would look for us in here. My cashmere overcoat seemed well out of place as the sartorial order of the day was leather and lace, denim and velvet. Mostly black of course, including the nail polish and lipstick, but with a sprinkling of red just for contrast. And that was just the geezers. And the music. I didn’t recognise any of it. But it wasn’t Hank Williams, that’s for sure.
I ordered a pint of lager from the girl behind the bar, and was so used to dropping bungs that day that I almost gave her a fiver as a tip. I gave her a smil
e instead, which when she returned it showed a mouthful of enough metal to be recycled into a small car. I found an empty table at the back, but there was no ashtray, so I went back to the bar. ‘Got an ashtray darling?’ I asked.
‘No smoking in here’ she said, without a smile this time, and pointed at a notice on the door with an inch long fingernail. ‘Where you been?’
‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘I forgot.’ Course there was a smoking ban everywhere in England. I’d read about it, laughed on my little island and sparked another cigarette at Clive’s bar. I wasn’t laughing now. That’s why all those people were outside. Rebels or what? I wasn’t about to join them, so I just went back to the table and just sat and waited for my daughter.
She arrived about ten minutes later wearing a camel hair coat with a black wool beret pulled over her hair. She saw me and came to the table. I stood and embraced her and she took off her hat to let her blonde hair loose. She looked fabulous. The hair had skipped a generation, but just looking at her face I knew she was my child, all grown up. ‘Drink?’ I asked.
‘Jack Daniels and water,’ she replied as she sat. My daughter all right.
I bought her drink and another pint for me and sat opposite her. ‘It’s wonderful to see you,’ I said.
‘Is it, Dad?’ she asked, looking worried.
‘Course it is love. I missed you.’
‘You might not say that when I tell you what’s up.’
‘Whatever it is, you can tell your old Dad.’
‘I’m on suspension. Full pay.’
‘What’s the charges?’
‘Corruption, theft. Oh, and murder,’ she laughed bitterly.
‘Do what? Who got killed?’
‘One of my covert human intelligence sources.’
‘Do what?’ It sounded like gibberish to me.
‘An informant. What you’d have called a snout.’
‘Oh, right. Was he any good?’
‘The best. He got me my last promotion.’
‘Nonsense then. You don’t kill the golden goose.’
‘Some people think I did.’
‘And what theft?’ I asked.
‘He’d withdrawn money from his bank. Five grand. Gone.’
‘You don’t need money.’
‘Course I don’t. But my guv’nors don’t know that. The money you left me was hardly legally obtained was it? I couldn’t exactly declare it.’
‘Good point,’ I said. ‘Then why haven’t you been nicked?’
‘Bad for the reputation of the service.’
‘Service my arse. It was always a force. No wonder it’s gone down the pan.’
‘How do you know?’
‘We get papers on the island.’
‘You’re not still reading the bloody Telegraph? Always bitching about us.’
‘Good crossword though.’
She just sighed.
‘So Judith, what can I do?’
‘Help me.’
‘You know I will. But why me?’
‘Because you do things other people won’t. And besides, I’ve always had to live with your reputation.’
‘Like father like daughter eh?’
She nodded that time.
‘I bet you had to put up with some shit.’
‘You could say that.’
‘Then I’m all yours.’
‘Thanks. Aren’t you going to ask me?’
‘Ask you what?’
‘If I did it.’
‘Don’t be daft love. I couldn’t care less anyway. I’d help you if you came in here dripping with his blood.’
‘Same old Dad.’
‘Less of the old.’
Finally, I got a smile out of her.
We decided, or rather Judith did, that it wasn’t wise to be together in town, but before she left she gave me her mobile phone number, plus her address. A flat in a street off Camden High Road. She told me it was part of a recent conversion in a terraced street. A garden flat, which was her pride and joy. I gave her my mobile number, and where I was staying. We arranged to meet on Monday morning in Oxford, well out of the Met area. She’d drive, I’d go by train. She said she’d give me all the grisly details then. I claimed exhaustion, and the need for sleep for the delay. But in fact I needed to think about what Judith had told me. My girl was a different person from the one I’d left behind all those years ago. She left first and I had another pint. Then I went back to the hotel and a warm bed. As I lay in a strange room, in what was turning out to be a strange city that I hardly recognised, I felt a terrible homesickness for my house on the island. Also, I decided I needed a weapon. I felt undressed without one. But that could wait until tomorrow. Eventually I fell into a troubled sleep, where a sense of nameless dread haunted my dreams.
11
The places I knew where guns were for sale were Brixton, Clapham and Hackney. Or at least that used to be the case. My face was too well known for south London, even with the beard. Even after all this time. Anyway, I was conceited enough to think so. So, I thought a trip up the Wick was on the cards. But not in cashmere. Which was why, after a good night’s sleep and a breakfast in the hotel that was fit for a king – and cost me a king’s ransom – I dived up Notting Hill on Sunday morning and bought a secondhand leather jacket so distressed it almost wept, some heavy steel-capped boots and a couple of sweatshirts, one hooded, that appeared to be the style du jour.
I stayed in my room all day after that, eating from room service, reading the Sunday papers and checking out the hundreds of channels on the TV.
I set off when it was dark, wearing boots, jeans, my new jacket, both sweatshirts, a scarf and gloves. I thought I looked the part, whatever the part was, and besides, it was still bloody cold.
Of course there was still no tube in Hackney. I considered calling Stew and his cab, but thought better of it. Instead I found a lobster on Park Lane and asked to get dropped off at Liverpool Street station. It’s a bit of a hike, but I needed to get reacclimatised to London, and shanksies is still the best way.
Blimey, but I was in for a shock. What used to be deserted back streets around Spitalfields were buzzing. There were new bars and restaurants everywhere and the streets were packed with art students in outlandish clothing and tourists doing Jack the Ripper tours. This wasn’t how I remembered it. Times had changed for sure and left me washed up on the beach.
I wandered up past Victoria Park, and into Hackney proper. I was looking for just the right kind of pub. Somewhere the villains hung out.
The first couple were all wrong. Kids getting into the spirit of Christmas with Slade on the jukebox. Then, when I got deeper into the back streets, I found just the place. The Christmas decorations were dusty, and some of the fairy lights were blown, the music was old soul, and the drinkers looked like they were glued to their seats. Except for one corner, where there were three young black blokes, dripping with gold.
Stereotyping? Sure. Don’t blame me. It’s the way I was brought up.
I bought a pint of Stella and sort of drifted in their direction. They clocked me right away. Did I still look like a copper?
They were all young but they were big men, shaven heads, sweats and jeans or combat pants. I drew up a stool, and there we were. Four little hoodies, all in a row.
I knew they were talking about me, looking suspicious and throwing hard glances in my direction. But I’d come here to get what I needed, and I had to at least try to get it.
When the one closest gave me a glare, I nodded in a friendly way, but he just turned, said something I couldn’t hear and they all laughed. Not a pleasant sound. There was no way I could take these three boys if anything kicked off. It would be the London hospital for me and how would that help Judith? The geezer I’d nodded at stood up to call for more drinks and bumped me hard with his elbow. ‘Wat
ch it man,’ he said with a growl.
‘Sorry mate,’ I said. Mistake.
‘You’re not my mate.’
‘No,’ I said ‘Sorry.’
‘You gay man?’
‘No,’ I replied.
‘You look gay, man. Batty bwoy.’
‘No,’ I said.
‘He not gay,’ he said loudly to his friends. Loud enough to turn heads from other drinkers.
Jesus, I thought. This could get nasty. ‘Sir,’ I said. ‘I meant no offence. I just came in for a quiet drink. No trouble.’
‘You got trouble man,’ said the bloke.
‘Look,’ I said, holding my palms up in an attempt to placate him. ‘I’ve been away. I’m back for Christmas. Just looking round places I used to know.’
‘You know this place?’
‘I used to, years ago.’
‘So where you been. Jail?’
‘Not with this tan,’ I smiled, trying to disarm him.
‘Where then?’
I told him the name of the island.
The bloke furthest from me fixed me with a look that made the other one appear like an old pal. ‘You taking the piss?’ he said.
Christ, what now, I thought. ‘No,’ I said.
‘I come from there.’
The middle one said. ‘No way man. You come from the Arethusa estate on Morning Lane.’
‘My family man. You better not be lying.’ That was to me.
‘No,’ I said. ‘I was there Friday.’
‘Who you know?’
‘Clive and Cyril from my local bar. Gloria and her family. Loads of people.’
‘Gloria?’
‘Yeah. Gloria and Rita.’
‘Auntie Rita, Granny Gloria. You pulling my plonker?’
‘No. Me and Rita, we had a bit of a thing.’
‘You and Rita. He ain’t gay man. Rita’s... ’ He didn’t know what to say.
‘What’s your name?’ I asked.
‘Arnold.’
‘Christ. Gloria’s got a photo of you on her sideboard. I was at her seventieth birthday.’