The Danger Next Door (Anne Lambert Mysteries)

by Kris Langman

  “Got ‘em at a flea market in Camden. Only two quid. Hard to believe, huh?”

  Anne could only nod in open-mouth acquiescence.

  The rest of the workday was filled with the usual code testing and debugging. Entertainment was provided by Nick, who decided to show Anne and Lindsey the finer points of a cut-back, using one of the reception area’s chairs as a surfboard. The demo was going well, until Nick overestimated his board’s stability and crashed head first onto reception’s glass-topped coffee table. The table was uninjured, but a potted cactus atop a stack of ComputerWorlds had a narrow escape. An inch to the left and it would have been an unwilling participant in intimate relations with Nick’s nose.

  Anne left the office as usual at 5:30 that evening. The smell of wet stone and soggy leaves rose up from the pavement. She walked briskly down London Wall, dodging her fellow pedestrians at every step, her umbrella tilting from side to side as it jostled for space. Even after three months she still wasn’t used to how crowded the London sidewalks were. She never managed to walk in a straight line for more than ten steps.

  After a long wait at the light on Moorgate Street she dashed under the painted wooden grapes hanging over the Kings Head pub and ran up a narrow metal stairway which lead to the St. Alphage highwalk. These highwalks criss-crossed the City like giant spiderwebs. St. Alphage’s walk connected to the Barbican complex, leading to a confusing series of pedestrian bridges and walkways winding through the gray concrete buildings. First-time visitors invariably got lost. Anne still took the occasional wrong turn. At the top of the stairs she turned onto the highwalk, passing The Plough, an ugly modern pub which Anne had christened the Anti-Pub. No leaded windows or cozy Victorian woodwork for The Plough. It seemed to delight in its concrete and metal ugliness. Anne had never gone in, afraid that the inside would be even worse than the outside.

  After a few more twists and turns she reached her apartment building, Andrewes House. It was blocky, concrete, and unremarkable except for the balconies belonging to each flat, which all overlooked the artificial lake in the center of the Barbican complex. As Anne opened the blue metal door of the Andrewes House stairwell a distinctly alcoholic aroma met her nose. She looked around, wondering if one of the area’s homeless had wandered in. The smell increased as she entered the hallway leading to her flat. A man was knocking on her neighbor’s door, and as she approached the source of the smell became apparent. The man reeked of gin, bourbon, whiskey, something in the alcohol family. Anne didn’t drink, and so couldn’t identify the culprit, but the man appeared to have bathed in it. With his clothes on.

  “Hey, do you know this son of a bitch?”

  Anne paused briefly, and then continued past him to her own front door. “Pardon?” she asked cautiously. She recognized his voice. He was the drunk from last night. The voice was the same, but his appearance didn’t match the image of him which had formed in her mind. His accent sounded vaguely lower class and East End Cockney, but Anne wondered if this was just an affectation. Some upper-class British men were into the Mockney thing, affecting a Cockney accent to seem tougher than they really were, and apart from his voice everything about this guy screamed public school. His tan overcoat and chocolate blazer both looked like cashmere, probably hand-stitched in some little shop off Jermyn Street, and, while Anne was no expert when it came to labels, she was pretty sure his loafers were Gucci. His clothes fit beautifully but didn’t suit him. The overall effect was that of a boy who had raided his father’s closet. Barely taller than she was, he had a pale complexion and a delicate frame which didn’t match his belligerent voice.

  “I need to talk to the doc. Do you know when he’ll be home?”

  “Sorry,” said Anne. “I don’t.” She fished her keys out of her purse.

  “But you know him pretty well, being next-door neighbors and everything,” the man persisted.

  “I don’t know him at all. We’ve only spoken twice,” Anne replied, turning away to unlock her door.

  “Hello, Jimmy,” said a voice behind her, startling Anne so much that she dropped her keys. Her hand shook as she picked them up.

  “Hey, doc. Got any more of that single malt? I need a top up.” Jimmy was swaying so much he looked ready to break into the Twist.

  Dr. Davidson glanced at Jimmy briefly and then focused on Anne.

  “Hello, Miss Lambert.”

  Anne started. She wasn’t aware that he knew her surname.

  “I see you’ve met Jimmy. The Honorable James Soames, I should say. Not much of a prize is he, despite the title.”

  Anne eyed him warily, the encounter in the lift still vivid. She expected him to make his excuses and disappear into his flat, with or without Jimmy, so the next thing he said came as a shock.

  “Why don’t you come in for a drink? You and Jimmy both. We’ll all get acquainted.”

  She was so surprised by this unexpected invitation that Anne found herself being shepherded through his front door before she could think up a reason to decline. Jimmy followed her in, clutching at the door frame for support. Dr. Davidson turned the deadbolt after he closed the door. Anne looked around warily. The theme of the decor was understated luxury. Her feet sunk into a plush gray carpet. Frosted glass sconces in Art Deco shapes provided just the right amount of illumination. The coffee table in the middle of the room, a solid block of Lucite, resembled a giant ice cube. The sofa and chairs grouped around it were sculpted out of chrome tubing and gray leather. The room was cold, as if the heat hadn’t been on for weeks.

  “Please sit down.” Dr. Davidson pointed at the sofa in a way that suggested arresting officer rather than host. Anne reluctantly crossed to it and perched on its edge. Jimmy fell into the armchair across from her.

  “Can I offer you something to drink?”

  “Whiskey,” came Jimmy’s immediate reply.

  Anne shook her head. The doctor poured Jimmy’s drink and one for himself. He carried them over and set them down on the Lucite table with a sharp clink. Jimmy grabbed his and gulped it down.

  “So, what were you two talking about?” asked Dr. Davidson as he took a seat on the sofa next to Anne. She leaned away from him, the fingers of her left hand curling inward.

  “Pardon?” she asked.

  “In the hallway just now. The two of you were chatting away like old friends.”

  Jimmy gave a short, bitter laugh. The look in his hazel eyes was surprisingly perceptive for someone so drunk. “The doc doesn’t like people talking about him. He’s afraid things will come out. Nasty things.”

  Dr. Davidson stared at him impassively, as if daring him to continue. Jimmy looked like he was considering it, but then decided on the safer option of fetching himself another drink. He lurched over to the bar and returned with a bottle of Drambuie.

  “We weren’t chatting away. We barely exchanged two sentences,” said Anne, annoyance overcoming her nervousness. How many times was she going to have to justify herself to this guy? He should look up the word ‘paranoia’.

  “So, you’re some kind of doctor?” she asked, just to break the silence which stretched like skin pulled too tight.

  “I’m a psychologist. I have a practice in the City, just off Old Broad Street.”

  “What, you treat suicidal stock brokers when the FTSE 100 drops a few too many percentage points?” Anne tried to paste an interested expression on her face, but could feel Sullen and Defensive battling for control of her features.

  “Sometimes.” The doctor carefully unclasped his Rolex and laid it on the transparent surface of the coffee table, where it glittered like a silver minnow in a frozen pond. “Mainly I treat people with addiction problems, like Jimmy here. Addiction is the thing to specialize in. You never run out of clients.”

  “That’s kind of a money-grubbing attitude, isn’t it?” asked Anne.

  Jimmy laughed, choking on his drink and spitting droplets of whiskey onto the plush gray carpet. “She’s got you pegged, doc.” He winked conspiratorially a
t Anne. “There’s nothing the doc likes better than lots of lovely, lovely cash. He’d bathe in it if he could.”

  Dr. Davidson stared at him until Jimmy again backed down. He teased a snowy handkerchief out of his breast pocket and made a show of mopping amber drops of whiskey off the coffee table.

  Another long silence filled the room. Her host showed no interest in breaking it, so Anne decided it was a good time to make her escape.

  She stood up. “I have to be going,” she said, politely but firmly. She headed for the door, Jimmy watching and Dr. Davidson following. The doctor didn’t say anything until her hand was on the doorknob.

  “Wait,” he said, leaning casually against the door, arms folded. “I apologize if I’ve offended you. I overreact sometimes. It’s just that in my line of work I need to protect my reputation. Gossip could cost me patients, or even my license. I’m sure you understand.”

  “Not really,” said Anne, stubbornly refusing to look at him. She stood holding the doorknob, staring down at her hand. They remained like that for what seemed to Anne a ridiculously long time. Finally, Dr. Davidson reached in front of her and opened the deadbolt.

  Chapter Two

  Anne was feeling chipper. She’d managed to avoid Dr. Davidson for over a week. On top of that it was Saturday and the sun was shining. She wrapped her bathrobe around her and took a poppy seed bagel out onto her terrace. She munched it while admiring the artificial lake in the courtyard below. Its algae-green water glowed with a weird phosphorescence where the sunlight touched it. On cloudy days the Barbican’s gray concrete buildings were unremittingly dreary, but on the rare days when the sun shone the complex looked, well, not exactly cheerful, but at least fresh and avant-garde. It had won a few architecture awards upon its completion in the 1980’s. In addition to its large blocks of flats a theatre complex sprawled across the north side of its central courtyard. Anne had been to see The Merchant of Venice in a small theatre in its basement called The Pit. She’d also attended a rather flashy version of Hamlet in the large main auditorium. She couldn’t honestly call herself a Shakespeare fan, but she felt obligated to get a bit of culture while in London. Obligated to who she wasn’t quite sure.

  Such a warm, sunny day in February was not to be wasted. A walk along the Thames was in order. She went back inside and stood surveying the living room. The beige carpet was speckled with dark spots of dirt like the chips in a chocolate chip cookie, and the coffee table was sprinkled with dust, but otherwise the flat looked respectable enough (if you didn’t go into the kitchen). Housekeeping chores could wait until next weekend. Of course, next weekend she would probably come to the same conclusion.

  A cheap reproduction of Van Gogh’s Sunflowers hung crookedly over the patched suede sofa. Anne straightened it. The housekeeping gods were now appeased.

  She threw on jeans, a black t-shirt, Nikes, and her favorite North Face parka. A deep forest green and waterproof, it had a large hood which came in handy when out in the English weather. She stuffed her keys and wallet in the pocket of her jeans and opened the front door.

  Idiot! Anne mentally smacked herself upside the head. She hadn’t been on Mrs. Watson alert, and sure enough, there she was – all paisley silk and bouffant blue hair. She had snagged poor harmless Mr. Carter from down the hall. He was edging away from her, but she kept edging right along with him. They looked like ill-matched dance partners having their first foxtrot lesson. His desperate sideways glances changed to joy when he spotted Anne. She knew exactly what he was thinking – shift the predator’s attention to other prey. Well, not this time buddy. She put her head down and high-tailed it toward the stairs.

  “Oh, Anne . . . Anne dear.”

  Damn! Just keep moving. Just a few more feet to freedom.

  “Anne dear, come here please. I must show you my new snaps of Georgie. They’ve turned out beautifully.”

  Anne stopped, shoulders sagging. She knew she was beaten. She turned and headed for the lion’s mouth. Maybe it would be quick and painless this time.

  Forty-five minutes later Anne was on her sixth ginger biscuit, third cup of over-sugared Earl Grey, and twenty-seventh snapshot of Georgie grinning maniacally from the depths of a yellow plastic wading pool.

  “Here’s one of my little sweetheart looking so clever. You can just tell he’s going to grow up to be an intellectual. A poet perhaps, or a painter. A real painter, of course. Darling little landscapes, with thatched cottages. None of this modern nonsense which looks the same no matter whether you hang it upside down or right side up. More tea, dear?”

  “No thank you, Mrs. Watson. I really must be go . . .”

  “Oh my goodness. I nearly forgot. Georgie did the most adorable finger painting. Mr. Amin from number 212 said it reminded him of an early Picasso. You simply must see it. It’s on the refrigerator. I’ll just fetch it and put the kettle on again.”

  She disappeared into the kitchen, leaving Anne to wonder which Mr. Amin was more adept at - lying or art criticism. She glanced speculatively at the front door. Did she dare? Yes. No. Maybe. Gaagh! At times good manners were a definite handicap. She sighed and slumped back into her chair, gazing listlessly at the chintz and figurines covering every available surface in Mrs. Watson’s overheated ‘parlour’. Possibly the mating of a Laura Ashley factory outlet and the gift shop at Buckingham Palace had produced other offspring, but this room was its prodigal.

  A copy of the Daily Mail lay on the end table next to her over-stuffed armchair. Anne picked it up and glanced at the headlines. The usual debates over government spending.

  A picture at the bottom of the page caught her eye. A head shot of a man in his twenties or thirties, possibly a formal portrait. He looked familiar. She skimmed the short paragraph below the picture. ‘Drowning victim pulled out of the Thames, near Greenwich. The Honorable James Soames, beloved son of Sir Jack Soames and Lady Belinda Soames.’ Jimmy! Anne shivered. She had talked to the guy only a week ago, and now he was dead. She hadn’t liked him much, but still. An acquaintance of Jimmy’s – a man by the name of Rick ‘Razor’ Billingsley -– was ‘helping the police with their inquiries’.

  Anne absentmindedly re-folded the paper and put it back on the end table. ‘Helping the police with their inquiries.’ She had read enough Agatha Christie to know that this meant the police considered ‘Razor’ a suspect in Jimmy’s death. She wondered why. Jimmy had obviously chosen drink as his calling. He could easily have fallen into the river while drunk. Leaned too far over a railing, stumbled off the end of a dock.

  “Here we are. This is one of Georgie’s best. It just screams talent, don’t you think?” Mrs. Watson approached, holding a large sheet of paper aloft like a ceremonial banner. She laid the heirloom reverently in Anne’s lap and then stepped back, her liver-spotted hands clasped at her chin.

  Anne looked down at the pink and red splodges squirming across the paper. It looked like open-heart surgery courtesy of Bride of Chucky.

  “It’s lovely Mrs. Watson. Really. Now, I’m afraid I must be going. I have some errands to run.” Anne stood and began the perilous journey to the front door. Mrs. Watson was infamous for throwing herself into the path of departing guests like an over-zealous Secret Service agent. Today, however, Anne got off easy. She was out the door after only ten more minutes of urgent Georgie updates. Anne breathed a deep sigh of relief as she crossed the threshold and headed off for her walk, only an hour later than planned.

  Anne strolled down London Wall and turned right onto Old Broad Street, dodging around a muddy pit smack in the middle of the sidewalk, just one small piece of London’s unending jigsaw puzzle of scaffolding, construction sites, and pedestrian-hostile obstacles. She followed Old Broad Street it until it merged with Threadneedle, passing the imposing columns of the Royal Exchange and the massive bulk of the Bank of England. The streets of the City were blessedly deserted. Everything in London’s Square Mile shut down on the weekends – shops, offices, tube stations. It was a pleasure to walk unimpe
ded down the empty sidewalks. She passed the One Poultry building, which sat at the corner of Poultry Street and Cheapside. The building grinned cheekily at the Bank of England across the way. One Poultry was a fantastical, Dr. Seuss-like confection of red and tan stripes flowing around odd angles. The building seemed to thumb its nose at the cluster of dignified stone buildings in front of it. The Bank of England, Mansion House, and the Royal Exchange in their turn undoubtedly felt that One Poultry was not quite ‘their sort’.

  As she approached the ornate steel arches of Blackfriars bridge Anne passed the figure of a dragon, about two feet high, painted gray and perched atop a pedestal, its wings spread wide, its snarling mouth painted red. One of the guardians of the City. At each entrance into the Square Mile these fierce little sentinels kept watch. In times past if the King or Queen wanted to enter the City they had to obtain permission from the Lord Mayor to cross its borders. A quote popped into Anne’s mind as she passed the statue: ‘Beyond this point there be dragons.’ The ancient saying referred to unknown terrors lurking at the edge of the seas, but the modern world had its own share of dragons. Dr. Davidson could surely spout a flame or two. Even Mrs. Watson could emit a few puffs of smoke.

  An hour later Anne hummed her favorite bit from Tchaikovsky’s Slavonic March as she opened her mailbox and pulled out two envelopes. The walk along the river in the sun had cheered her up. After living in the LA sunshine all her life the perpetually gray skies of London tended to leave her feeling a bit draggy. She glanced at the mail while climbing the stairs. One envelope was her British Telecom phone bill. The other was a mystery. She frowned at it and turned it over. Nothing. It was completely blank, both back and front. She unlocked the door to her flat and leaned against it while opening the blank envelope. On a single sheet of plain white typing paper a few handwritten lines zigzagged wildly across the page.