by John Harvey
The phone rang, then stopped, then started again. A voice came through the set from one of the cabs: ‘Four. Four.’ Then another: ‘Nine.’
‘How do you shut them up?’ I asked, easing the metal across his cheek.
‘You … you press the button a couple of times. It makes a row in the cabs, shows I’m busy.’
The phone rang on; a light started flashing on the switchboard. Four and nine kept trying, one voice overlaying the other.
I reached across and pressed the red button half a dozen times, very rapidly. The voices stopped. The phone stopped. The light continued to show, together with a slight buzzing which I hadn’t noticed before.
‘James Burton. Come on! You must know more than numbers.’
He shook his head. ‘No, I don’t, honest. I never see them at all, they only call in. Besides, so many of the drivers are casual how, not like …’
I interrupted him, ‘Not like in the old days.’
I dropped the jack to the ground with a heavy clanking sound. That way it was easier to hit him in the stomach. At the same time I grabbed hold of his shirt so that he wouldn’t go flying across the office.
He should have bought better stuff. It came apart in my hand and he hit the table holding the switchboard with a hasty bang which sounded as though it had hurt his back a lot.
One of the phones fell to the floor; the receiver was jolted off the second one and it hung down close to his face, the constant live tone sounding in his ear.
‘You’d better tell, me, or I’m going to do more than that. A whole lot more.’
He looked up at me as though he was trying to decide whether or not I meant it. I thought he might be in need of a little more proof. I grabbed for him and brought him to his feet for long enough to knock him down again. This time I scored the second phone, too.
‘Burton,’ I reminded him.
‘He … he used to drive for us. Regular, like. Haven’t seen him for a long time. Nine months, maybe.’
‘Was he sacked?’
‘No. Just came in and asked for his cards one day, so I heard. Don’t know why. Didn’t seem to have another job, though. One of the fellers said he was trying to scrounge some cash off him on the rank a month or so back.’
‘Where does he live?’
The little guy shook his head. ‘Don’t know that, do I?’
I went as if to go for him again. His eyes blinked shut and his arms came up to cover his face.
‘There’s an address book in that drawer. His might still be in there, I don’t know.’
I found the book and then the address. I’d just copied it down into the little note book that all good private detectives carry around with them, when there was this jarring against the back of my head.
It was the car jack.
Some guys never gave up. You had to hand it to them. So I did.
I spun round and threw up my left arm, knocking the weapon from his grasp. While I was doing that, my right fist was closing in on his face with some speed. I hit him between the end of his nose and the top of the chin. He felt surprisingly solid: for a second.
His body bounced back from the wall and one eye was strangely open as he came back on to the same fist. I tried to shut it. I think I succeeded.
He folded to the floor and didn’t move: not as much as an eyelid.
I thought that would do. There didn’t seem to be anything else to keep me hanging around in that dump. Not until I opened the door, that is.
He was still wearing the same blue overcoat, though it was looking a trifle soiled. But then, you should have seen his face.
It was patched together with so much sticky tape that you got the impression that if anyone reached out and pulled it off, the whole face would crumble away into little pieces.
Not that I was about to try.
His right hand was out of his pocket and extended towards me. And in its grasp was what looked remarkably like a Walther P 38.
7
We stood there looking at each other for a long while. I was wondering whether I was going to make some kind of fool move and he was waiting for me to try it. I could tell from the way he held the gun so lovingly that he wasn’t just waiting for it; he was praying for it.
I decided that I wouldn’t give him that pleasure. At least, not yet.
So I eased my hands well away from my pockets and stood there waiting. I’d let him lead for a while and reckon on making my tricks from his mistakes.
I only hoped he didn’t wait too long before letting something slip. Establishing losers was all too easy.
‘I said you were the sort of dope who didn’t listen to good advice. Well, sucker, now you’re going to get yours!’
At least I knew what he’d been doing since last we met—aside from visiting his friendly neighbourhood out-patients department—he’d been down to the Biograph to see a few more old movies.
‘Look,’ I told him, ‘why waste your time here with me? With dialogue like that you should be in pictures.’
‘Wise guy!’ he snapped.
‘See what I mean?’ I said.
Perhaps we both should have been in pictures.
‘Where’s your pal?’ I asked him. ‘Still running?’
‘Never mind him.’
‘I don’t. I just thought that you might.’
‘Cut out the crap and turn around.’
I shrugged my shoulders. ‘It’s the best offer I’ve had today.’
‘It’s the only one you’re likely to get.’
Well, yes, I was right. He did get better when he got going. I thought I’d do as he said. He was still holding the gun and looking as if he’d like to use it.
I turned round to face the wall and waited for him to frisk me. But he didn’t bother with such niceties. He hit me with what I thought was probably the butt of his gun. I didn’t have time to dwell on it.
The dirt of the floor rose up to meet me with alarming speed and I nestled my cheek to it lovingly.
When I started to come round it was already dark. I made the mistake of lifting my head too quickly and something at the back of it seemed to hit me like the kick of an angry mule.
Don’t worry, I told myself, hang on in there with your hands and knees on the ground and your head down and as time passes it will all get a little easier.
I knew I was right. Only I wasn’t certain if I had that much time. I wasn’t certain if I had any time at all. Maybe I’d used all of my time up. Maybe Cathy Skelton’s time was used up too.
I asked myself if there’d been another phone call to the Blake place and if so what it had said.
There was no way of knowing the answer. And no way of finding out while I was stuck in that stupid position down on the …
Where the hell was I, anyway?
Gradually I looked up and around. The big guy had been good enough to drop me down alongside a couple of tracks of disused railway line. I could see the outline of a bridge, with a street light at its corner.
Great! He’d probably taken me to the edge and rolled me over. All that it needed was for a train to shuffle its merry way along the line and then I’d be feeling even better.
But from the state of the track the line wasn’t used any more and as I looked more closely, I could see that the end of the tunnel under the bridge had been bricked up.
I shook my head to clear it but only succeeded in making it nearly fall off.
Apart from the phone call, there were two thoughts nagging away at me.
First, if the heavy mob weren’t keeping me out of Blake’s business because of anything to do with the kidnapping, then what were they frightened I’d turn up?
And second, if my friend with the overcoat and the patchwork face had found out from the cab controller what I’d been looking for, then had he paid Jimmy Burton a c
all himself?
Well, sure as hell I wasn’t about to get any answers where I was. I straightened myself upright and winced a few more times. I wanted to feel the back of my head, but didn’t think I’d enjoy what I found, so I resisted the temptation and began to clamber up the bank towards the road.
The sodium lighting didn’t help my eyes any, but from between the slits I could see where I was. He could have thrown me this far from the taxi office.
Which meant that I could probably make it as far as Burton’s place before I fell over again. The only thing was, my car didn’t seem to be where I thought I’d left it.
And I wasn’t about to call a cab.
I started to walk down the slight hill away from the bridge, trying not to notice the passers-by who glanced across at me open-mouthed, then hastily looked away again, trying to pretend that they hadn’t noticed anything out of the ordinary.
The traffic lights at the crossroads changed in time for me to keep walking. Past the station with the flower stall and paper stall outside.
I looked at the headlines, but there was nothing at all I wouldn’t have expected. They were all carrying the basic story of the kidnap, with pictures of Cathy and smaller ones of Crosby Blake. The stuff the police seemed to have released was minimal, with an attempt to give the impression that the whole thing was very much under control.
I carried on walking.
Anson Road was a turning off to the left that dipped down a hill, with blocks of council flats on one side and once superior Victorian mansions on the other.
The house I was looking for was down on the bottom corner, after the road had twisted round. It was on the right hand side of a crossroads, standing back from the pavement. À turret-like attic stuck out from the roof and the whole appearance was of some small-scale attempt at the baroque.
It was dark enough for there to have been plenty of lights on, but none were showing. I edged open the wrought iron gate and turned sharp left in front of the rock garden.
I preferred flowers myself.
The path took me round the side of the house, between a privet hedge and an area of dark soil with nothing apparently in it but worms. Though they weren’t apparent either. I simply assumed them to be there. Like I assumed I would eventually get round to the back door. After another two corners, I did.
It was locked. Of course. No point in making things easy for intruders.
I walked back to the front. There were two entrances. One up a flight of stone steps; the other down more steps and under the first set.
The door at the top of the stairs had panels of oddly coloured glass set into it. Alongside it there were four tarnished brass fixtures into which the residents could slip cards bearing their names.
None of them had availed themselves of this magnificent opportunity. I guessed that whoever did live there was shy.
If it was still James Burton, then maybe he had good reasons.
I pushed on a long white bell push. What else would you do with it?
There didn’t seem to be any sound from inside the house so I went back down the stairs and tried the door to the basement. No cards; no bell; no knocker. I tried the handle just in case.
And what do you know? It was locked.
Well, if I had to break in, then it was best done round the back where not so many people might notice.
I was half way along the back wall of the house when I heard a sound. I stopped and turned. The skin down my right thigh had instantly gone cold. A small pit hollowed out in my stomach.
In the darkness I could see that the garden seemed to rise up steeply in the far corner. There was a small tree there and a number of bushes.
And something else.
Someone?
It might be nobody important and there might be nothing to worry about. Then again, it might be pally with the Walther or it might be the mysterious missing taxi driver—the one with the same name as Presley’s guitarist—the one who had driven Cathy Skelton to and from school for a while and whom she had fancied. He might even have a gun himself.
It might be a cat. I liked cats. I listened for the noise again. If it was a cat then it was a big one. Still, I wouldn’t hold that against it. If it was a cat …
The first half of the garden I covered slowly, cautiously, ready to drop down or throw myself to one side if necessary. If I had sufficient warning.
Nothing happened.
The rest of the way I went as fast as I could.
Bare branches scratched at my face and a piece of root tripped me as I tried to get up the steep little slope as quickly as I could. There was something crouching at the top, jammed into the corner between two walls of brick. I couldn’t see clearly what it was but I kicked out at it hard and it shifted and made a noise that made it sound like a man. I swung my foot back and tried again. It was a man all right.
I pulled him to his feet and he grabbed at me, but it may only have been in fright. Whatever the reason, it was enough to make me lose my balance and I went backwards, taking him with me.
We tumbled together down through the sides of the bushes and a branch or something like one hit the back of my head, making me wince as the sharpest of pains cut down through my head. Still, I didn’t let go. After all this, I wasn’t going to lose him easily: whoever he was.
We rolled on to the grass and he was up on one knee first, trying to free himself from my hands. He half-way succeeded. I jabbed the front of my head into his stomach, which was a pretty silly thing to do, though at the time there didn’t seem to be any alternative.
He fell forward on top of me and I made the effort and stood up, taking him with me. I shook him over the back and listened to the remaining breath bounce out of him.
Then I pinned his arms to the ground with my knees.
I couldn’t see his face too clearly in the dark but it didn’t look the kind of face a young girl would fall for.
But like I said before, you can never tell about that sort of thing.
I tried it anyway. I said, ‘Burton? James Burton?’
He nodded his head up and down.
‘Let’s go into the house. You and I have got things to talk about.’
He nodded again and I let him get up, slowly, then followed him towards the back door.
The door was sideways on to the house and led into a kitchen. I sort of wished that it hadn’t. Hygiene wasn’t a word my new friend was too familiar with. I snapped on the electric light and blinked a couple of times to get used to it.
A plastic bin over by the sink was trying hard to hold twice as much rubbish as it was designed for and wasn’t doing too bad a job. A mess of coffee grounds and potato peelings was plastered all over the swing top and a vivid splash of something red enlivened the front. I hoped that someone had spilled a bottle of ketchup.
The sink appeared to be trying for a world record for containing the most dirty crockery. A pile of old cardboard boxes was stacked alongside one wall and there were numerous bottles standing on end and lying on their sides.
But none of this mattered. What did was the stink.
It was strong enough to make my eyes smart and I had to swallow hard to stop from retching.
‘For Christ’s sake! Do you live in this?’
He stood there and nodded his head, eyes squinting as though it was the first time in a long while that he had been in such a bright light.
I pushed him towards the kitchen door. ‘Let’s get the hell out of here!’
The kitchen led into a hallway; stairs to the left, two doors to the right. He went automatically to the second door and I followed him through. This time when I reached for the light switch nothing happened.
‘You some kind of mole?’ I asked him.
He stood there and as far as I was aware he was looking at me, but maybe he couldn’t see any more than I could,
which was damn all.
Occasionally, the lights from a passing car slid round the room and I caught a quick glimpse of his face, of chairs and a table, an empty fireplace.
‘You got a bulb?’
He nodded again.
‘Get it.’
I watched him through the door and wondered if he’d try to run, though somehow I didn’t think that he would. Where the fuck would he run to?
He came back with a bulb all right, and pulled a chair into the centre of the floor to stand on. I walked over and started to close the curtains. No point in making this thing too public.
When I turned back into the room, the light was swinging still from the end of its flex, sending alternating pools of light and shadow over the threadbare carpet, the worn furniture, the dingy wallpaper.
He stood just on the other side of the light. He was wearing a soiled white tee shirt underneath a mulberry coloured cardigan that sported a hole in the left sleeve and a button sewed on with purple thread. He wore thin blue jeans with a pee stain above the crotch and frayed bottoms. They were a couple of inches too short above brown boots that hadn’t seen polish for so long they wouldn’t even have been able to greet it like a long-lost friend.
He had a darkish beard which was straggly and wild and a moustache which drooped hairs round his top lip. His head was almost completely bald on top, with a gathering of lank strands that hung greasily down the sides and stuck out over his ears. Off the centre of his forehead there was a red spot. His cheekbones were a mass of blackheads and small pimples. A vein at the side of his head stood out jaggedly, pulsing away while all the rest of him was still.
Jesus Christ! This was what a fifteen year old kid had found attractive?
‘Sit down!’ I told him.
He sat down. I sat down. That was great. Now we were ready for a cosy fireside chat. I hoped it wasn’t as empty as the fire, or as cold.
‘Okay, sunshine. Let’s start with an easy one. What were you doing up behind the bushes?’
He didn’t jump to answer so I gave him a little prompting.
‘Well, it was a bit late to be taking cuttings and I don’t think you were looking for owls because you didn’t have your glasses with you. So what was it?’