“You did manage to have a proper look around?”
He put so much emphasis on the word ‘proper’ I thought for a moment he’d got stuck.
“Yep. I’ve cased the place from top to bottom and not seen a single thing out of the ordinary. I don’t know what you’re particularly worried about, but as far as I can tell everything’s as it should be.”
“Excellent.”
He decided not to enlighten me and, in fact, didn’t say another word as we skirted potholes and suicidal bike riders. My thoughts returned to Angela, a woman who, it seemed, was about as different as it was possible to be to the one I was going to spend the next two or three days stuck to like a limpet.
*
The taxi dropped us right outside the entrance to the Churchill and we strolled inside, leaving one of the bellboys to enjoy himself wrestling with Alex Rudd’s suitcase, poor sod. The place was thronging with people. It was so busy you could hardly move and the noise so great it was difficult to hear yourself think. Luckily for us, it turned out that pretty much everyone blocking our way belonged to a wedding party that was waiting to go through into the main function room, on the other side of a set of double-doors at the back of the foyer.
We battled our way through to the reception desk. While Alex Rudd checked in, Scoular leaned in close and told me I was to take our client up to her room, make sure everything was in order, then come back down and report to him, so he could provide me with my final instructions before he left. Leaving already? Made me wonder why he’d bothered travelling down from London in the first place.
“Been to Brighton before, have you?” I asked Alex Rudd as we travelled up to floor three in the lift. I’d decided to have a stab at breaking the ice while she couldn’t get away from me.
She looked at me for all of one second, then back at the opposite wall. “No.”
“Well, you’re in luck, because I lived here for a while a few years back. I’ll be able to show you all the sights, the best places to get your grub and make sure you don’t wander into any of the worst pubs. There are a few of those. Nasty places, where they sell crap beer at ridiculous prices. They’re for the tourists.”
“We’ll stay here, in the hotel.”
“If you like. Bound to get boring pretty soon, though.”
I shrugged my shoulders. The lift stopped, a bell pinged and the doors opened. Quick as a flash, I pushed an arm out across her chest, then, doing my best Bond impression, poked my head out the door and looked right and left, poised for action. No one there.
“Coast’s clear,” I announced, stepping aside so she could exit the lift.
Quite what the bellboy thought of this, I’ve no idea because I didn’t ask and he was too professional to say. Instead, he gave the monster suitcase all his attention as we made our way along the corridor to room 319. In we went, me first, ready for armed combat. I paid off the bellboy with a couple of quid, then turned my attentions back to Alex Rudd.
“What do you think, then? Pretty decent, I’d say. Old Scoular hasn’t skimped on the choice of accommodation.”
She glanced here and there, her face a complete blank. I had no idea where else we’d be able to check into if she decided she’d been expecting something more upmarket because, as far as I was aware, the Churchill was pretty much right there at the top of Brighton’s list of swanky hotels.
Like me, she had a suite. A decent-sized sitting room with a small settee and single armchair, TV and wot-not. The bedroom had a proper double bed and there was a bathroom with bath and built-in shower. Everything was well looked after; no threadbare towels, taped down carpet corners or mould in the bathroom; the kind of things I was used to in hotels. There was even a sea view, which, I’d been told by one of the women on reception, cost ten quid per night extra.
“I’m next door, 321,” I added, helpfully. “You can probably shout through the wall if you need help in a hurry.”
I would have added a smile, but she was busy looking out the window at the stony beach and lapping waves. After a while she turned round and actually made eye contact, catching me off guard. Her eyes were blue and there was a strength and depth to them I hadn’t noticed when she blanked me at the railway station. Standing there in the light from the large window, her soft blonde hair had an extra glow to it.
You would have to think most fellas would find her a bit of a looker, but she failed to press my buttons, even though blondes usually have a head start with me. She was sure to attract her fair share of attention, which was something I’d have to bear in mind whenever we were out and about. I didn’t want my brief being complicated by the pesky and persistent advances of hopeful, lust-filled young geezers out on the pull.
“It will do,” she finally said, placing her black leather handbag on the end of the settee. “I’ll have my suitcase in the bedroom. I’m going to the bathroom.”
I tried to pin down her accent, but couldn’t; not beyond saying it was standard issue for the clutch of towns and fields that made up the Home Counties around London. I did, though, get the impression she had put some effort into trying to make herself sound a bit posher than she would have done in her early years. We’re all snobs at heart, or so my sister, Kim, reckons.
As she closed the bathroom door behind her, I kicked the bloody suitcase before dragging it across the floor into the bedroom, as per my lady’s instructions. I even hauled it up on to the bed for her, so she wouldn’t have to risk those polished nails of hers. I wasn’t, though, unpacking it. That was one thing she would be doing for herself. Even the thought of being able to inspect her undies couldn’t persuade me otherwise.
“Will we be eating here?”
She startled me. I was the one standing by the window now, watching a bunch of seagulls fighting over a scrap of grub some careless member of the public had dropped on the pavement outside the hotel. I hadn’t heard the bathroom door open and she’d sidled up to within a few feet of me. Her face was still a bored picture of general unhappiness. If she’d been wearing a neon sign telling people to stay well away things wouldn’t have been any clearer. She really ought to realise that going round like that can give people the impression you don’t care for their company.
“Your call,” I replied. “The hotel’s menu is decent enough and it’s the easy option, but we can go somewhere else if you prefer. How about giving the hotel a go tonight, then you can decide what you want to do for the rest of our stay.”
“OK.” She looked at her watch, a tiny silver thing that appeared to have numbers on it that were so small you’d need a pair of binoculars to read them. “You can go now. I’ll call you if I want anything.”
“Yes, me lady,” I said, tugging at my forelock. It got no response, not even a huffy one. If she carried on the same way, we were going to be in for a tough old few days.
I looked the room up and down one more time, thinking that was the sort of thing I was supposed to do or, at least, be seen doing, then headed for the door, pausing when I got there.
“Best keep the lock on,” I said, tapping a digit against the mechanism. “Just in case.”
She nodded, just the once, but didn’t waste her energy on words. Probably needed a rest, the poor thing.
I closed the door, then shook my head and puffed out my cheeks. A barrel of laughs, she was. Oh well, at least I had Angela to take my mind off things from time to time, even if that had its own challenges.
*
Somewhere around two-thirty, the phone rang. I say somewhere, because I had nodded off on the settee in my room, the newspaper resting on my chest and one arm hanging down to the floor. I came round with a start, the way you do when you’ve been rudely woken from a deep sleep. By the time I’d gathered my thoughts, the phone had stopped ringing. Lovely, wake me up and then hang up. I yawned and stretched out my arms, before getting to my feet in search of the kettle. A nice fresh cup of tea should get my brain in gear again, I told myself. But I’d only got as far as switching the kettle on whe
n the phone rang again. I was too quick for it this time and grabbed hold of the bloody thing before the third ring.
“David Good,” I growled, not because I meant to, but the sleep was still in my voice.
“Oh, you are there. I rang before and you didn’t answer.” It was Alex Rudd, sounding so happy I wasn’t sure I’d heard right. Surely it was an imposter.
“I was powdering my nose,” I lied, ironically.
“Oh. I’d like to go out,” she announced. “It’s too stuffy in here. I suppose that’s allowed?”
Was she asking me for permission rather than issuing an instruction? It seemed like the former but I was struggling to come to terms with this new version of of my charge. What, I wondered, had happened to the cold fish I’d left in her room an hour or so earlier?
“Of course. So long as you don’t go wandering off on your own. Scoular wouldn’t like that and I’d get an earful if he found out. What do you want to do?”
“Oh, I don’t really mind. Just get some fresh air.”
So, five minutes later we stepped out of the Churchill into a warm, sunny afternoon, the air filled with the screeching of seagulls and the beguiling whiff of the sea, overlaid with the tempting aroma of salt and vinegar soaked chips wafting up our nostrils. If you liked the seaside then things couldn’t get a whole lot better.
We dodged the traffic and made it across the road to the beach, pebbles as far as the eye could see. Small groups of people in their swimming trunks and bikinis were scattered here and there, hiding from the sun under umbrellas that wobbled alarmingly in the erratic breeze that tickled our faces. Another month or so, when the schools were out for the summer, and the place would be rammed solid. I was glad we were there before that chaos descended on the place.
“We can wander up to the pier, if you fancy it. It’s worth a look,” I suggested. “They reckon that on a clear day, from the far end, you can see Brighton beach.”
I got a smile with that one. Progress. Just call me Mr Irresistible.
“Do they sell ice creams on the pier?”
“Sell those everywhere, including the pier.”
Sticking to the path, we set off for the Palace Pier, about a five-minute walk away, she looking out at the sea and me looking at her, wondering what sort of a person she really was. I can’t help it, of course. Even if I’d tried telling myself not to take an interest in her, just get the job done and bank the money, I would still have wanted to know more. I can’t see how anyone lasts five minutes in my line of work without wanting to know more about the people they get involved with. I wanted to know more about Alex Rudd, for starters. Then there was her uncle. The bloke who seemed to be paying for all this. And I definitely wanted to know more, lots more, about the mess his niece had got herself into.
But you have to be smart about these things. Sometimes people are happy to tell you everything about themselves before you’ve got past the first handshake. Others, though, take a bit more work; a little cajoling. They want to get to know you before they reveal anything so much as their favourite breakfast cereal or TV programme. Even then, there’s often things they wouldn’t let you anywhere near. It looked to me like Alex Rudd was one of those that took their time, which was absolutely fine with me.
The pier is a Victorian pile, one of a pair, the other being the West Pier, which closed a few years before my unhappy stint living in the town. It’s like all the other piers up and down this wonderful land of ours, past its sell-by date and operating at the cheap end of the market. But it still gets its fair share of punters, for now. I don’t suppose there will be many of these old seaside landmarks left in a decade or two, not when the maintenance bills get too big, which make you feel like you ought to make the most of ’em while you still can. Mind you, say that sort of the thing to the locals and they’ll throw you in the sea. They like their pier, they do.
Most of the action is at the far end of the pier, so we wandered on down and ambled around the amusement arcades, where we lost a couple of quid in the slots, then watched excited kids on the fairground rides, screaming their heads off as they were thrown all over the shop.
“I’ll have that ice cream now,” announced Alex after an hour or so.
“There’s someone selling ’em over there,” I said, pointing towards a small wooden hut about twenty yards away.
Hers was a double scoop with a chocolate flake. I was thinking of all those calories and toyed with the idea of having just the one scoop, but then chose the same as her after all. We sat down on a bench looking out over the east side of the pier and set about our ice creams before they got too runny in the sun.
“I used to live here once upon a time,” I said, in between mouthfuls of ice cream. “Just for nine months, mind.”
“Nine months. Why didn’t you stay any longer? Was it too exciting for you?”
Christ, the woman was conversing with me. There again, I wasn’t sure why I’d started on the subject of my short and unhappy stint living in the town. Perhaps I was desperately fishing for some way of getting Alex to start talking to me. If I was, it had started to look like I’d picked a topic she couldn’t resist.
“Woke up one morning to hear my girlfriend say she didn’t love me any more. Seeing how it was her idea to move down here from London in the first place, and I’d not been exactly keen, there didn’t seem much point in hanging around.”
“Oh, that’s a shame.” She sounded as though she meant it. “Had she found someone else?”
“Yep. Told me I was too London, whatever the hell that meant. She’d started seeing a car mechanic a few weeks before and decided she wanted to move in with him. He was a big bloke, which was lucky for him, because otherwise I might have clocked him one.”
“When did this happen?”
“Bit over five years ago. It was a stupid idea in the first place, moving down here. I should have known better. My ex was right. I’m a London boy through and through.”
“Oh, I don’t know. People change. We all do. I imagine that’s what happened with your girlfriend. Aren’t you worried you might bump into her while you’re here keeping an eye on me?”
Having raised the distinctly unwelcome prospect of my bumping into my ex, Alex casually set about the last little bit of her cone, into which she’d carefully pushed some of the ice cream. She looked as though it was the most fun she’d had in weeks.
“No, not bothered about that,” I lied. “Anyway, it’s a sizeable old place, so there’s not much chance of that happening.”
I don’t much like the taste of ice cream cones. It’s like chewing on cardboard. So, once all the ice cream was gone from mine, I dropped the cone in the bin and licked my fingers clean. Wind whipped around us, making a bit of a mess of Alex’s hair, so she had to keep pushing it back into place so she could see properly. The wind also brought us the slightly sickly smell of burgers and hot dogs from a nearby food kiosk.
“I’ve only been here once before, as a little girl. I was so young I can’t remember much about it. My parents used to take us to Cornwall and Devon most years, for our family holiday. My mother liked it down there. She said it was so peaceful and beautiful, once you got away from the crowds, that she wouldn’t want to go anywhere else. She wanted her and my father to retire there.”
I looked at her, half-expecting her to say more and, when she didn’t, I couldn’t help giving her a nudge. It felt like her little story needed an ending. “Did her dream come true?”
“Unfortunately not. She died before that could happen.”
“That’s a shame.”
I was still coming to terms with the new model Alex Rudd. She’d become a right chatter box. I wasn’t sure what I’d done to bring about such a change, beyond buying her the ice cream, but it was more than welcome.
“Your dad still alive?”
“He is. I told him he shouldn’t feel bound to moving down to the West Country just because my mother wanted them to do that, but he bought a little cottage near Dorche
ster four years ago and the following year found himself a new wife. She’s a nice woman and exactly what my father needed.”
For a while we sat there without speaking and watched a small boy chasing starlings; something he found hysterically funny. That would have been me, once upon a time. Then some old geezer walked by whistling the old Cliff Richard’s hit Summer Holiday. Alex laughed.
“What’s up?” I asked.
“Don’t think I should say.” she teased.
“I do. I’m all intrigued now. Won’t be able to sleep tonight if you don’t tell me.”
“OK. But no taking the Mickey. When I was in my early teens, I had a thing for Cliff Richard.” I gave her a look. “I know, seems sad now, but back then he was sexy, or, at least, I thought so. I liked his bum and his eyes, they made me go all mushy inside. Funny how things change as you get older. Now I wouldn’t give him a second look. At least, I don’t think I would.”
“You would, wouldn’t you?” There was no fooling me.
“Yes.”
Laughter burst out of her. A little girl walking past looked up, frowned, then turned away. I got the impression she wasn’t impressed by what she’d seen.
“It was the bird in that Bond film for me. The one who got all covered in gold paint and left to die on Bond’s hotel bed. I had a poster of her from a magazine that I kept on my bedroom wall for ages. I even asked my first proper girlfriend if I could cover her with gold paint, but she got the right hump when she found out why and wouldn’t talk to me for a week.”
“That was Goldfinger and wasn’t the woman Shirley Eaton?”
“That’s her. Gorgeous, she was. Wonder what happened to her?”
“I think she became a nun.”
I looked at Alex, who kept a straight face for all of two seconds.
“Not sure I could picture her in one of those nun’s outfits. Wouldn’t seem right,” I replied, wondering what kind of outfit she might look good in.
As Good as Dead Page 4