“Time to go, I think,” she said, when she came back. “My feet ache after all that walking yesterday. Do you mind if we go back to the hotel, so I can soak them in the bath for a while?”
“Fine with me. Anyway, I’ve got something I need to sort out this afternoon. Favour for a new friend. Shouldn’t take more than an hour or so. I take it I can trust you to stay in the hotel while I’m gone? Scoular will be demanding your Uncle Robert’s money back if he gets the impression I keep letting you wander off alone all over town.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll read a book. I’ll even watch daytime television, if I get desperate enough.”
*
I saw Alex back up to her room at the Churchill, then toddled off to reception, to see if they had a copy of the Yellow Pages they could lend me. They did. I flicked it open and ran through the list of pawnbrokers, scribbling down names and addresses on a sheet of paper. There were seven. A pretty fair haul for a town the size of Brighton. One was way out on the northern outskirts, so I’d be leaving that ’til last. The rest I could probably walk round in about an-hour-and-a half. It might turn out to be a complete waste of time, but it seemed a fair place to start as I set about tracking down the thief who was helping themselves to all sorts of choice items from the hotel’s clientele. Nicking the gear was one thing, selling it was another and a pawnbroker who doesn’t ask too many questions would make that process a lot easier than it might otherwise be.
With my list in my back pocket, I stepped out on to the street to find the wind hadn’t eased off at all. There were even a few clouds hurtling across the sky, although rain looked a long way off, which was good. The first pawnbrokers I planned on visiting was Brighton Gold Dealers, which was so close it was almost round the corner from the hotel. Nice and convenient for the crook I was after.
Chapter Six
My afternoon jaunt took a bit longer than I’d expected, mostly on account of my getting sidetracked by an old fella with knackered knees and a walking stick. He was inching towards me as I strode along Eastern Road when he stubbed his toe on the edge of a paving slab, stumbled, lost his grip on his walking stick and fell flat on his face.
I ran up to him and bent down to see how he was doing. The poor sod’s nose was bleeding and the left side of his thin, wrinkled face was scratched, thin lines of blood already showing in several places. Worse still, I could see from the look in his watery eyes that he was dazed, probably concussed. He mumbled something about his supper, but couldn’t seem to put his words together properly.
We were a few yards short of a hairdressers, so I popped my head in there and asked the owner to rustle up an ambulance, while I went back and kept an eye on the old bloke. I’d heard somewhere that you’re not supposed to let someone in a situation like that fall asleep, so I started telling him about my unusual sexual encounters with Angela, thinking that if anything was going to keep him awake it would be that.
It didn’t work. By the time the ambulance showed up twenty minutes later, in a blaze of lights and noise, he’d already been fast asleep for at least fifteen minutes. Seemed my sex life wasn’t half as peculiar or exciting as I had reckoned. Anyway, the old fella was still breathing as they loaded him into the back of the ambulance and the crew reckoned it was nothing more than concussion. As they drove off, I wondered if he would remember anything of what I’d told him when he came to at the hospital. If he could, then at least he’d have a pretty decent story to tell his fellow patients.
The upshot of all that was it took me a bit over two hours to complete my rounds of the town’s pawnbrokers. Happily, it seemed not to have been a wasted trip. In two of the pawnbrokers I found items that were a possible match for some of those on the lengthy list Angela had given me, including a bloke’s gold watch and a pair of small, triangle-shaped earrings, each with an emerald set in the middle.
I didn’t say anything to the owners of the establishments. Even if they had no idea the items were stolen, I still didn’t want them either warning off the thief or, worse still, calling in the cops. Angela had made it very clear she didn’t want the law involved, on account of that sort of thing not being good for business. No, she’d take care of things herself if I could finger the thief. Given what I’d seen of her bedtime antics, I didn’t have any reason to doubt she was perfectly capable of taking care of things for herself.
No, now that it seemed I’d worked out where at least some of the nicked goods were being offloaded, what I needed to do next was find out who was involved and, it seemed to me, there were two possibilities. Either it was a member of hotel staff lifting the gear themselves, as Angela suspected, or they were tipping off someone else and helping with access to rooms. But that was for later; I’d already left Alex on her own for longer than I’d planned and I needed to get back to the Churchill pronto.
*
By the time I’d got as far as the promenade that ran parallel to the beach, the temperature had dropped a good few degrees and the cloud cover had thickened. It was starting to look like we were in for some rain later. Best have a night in, if that was the case, I told myself.
I was about a hundred yards short of the Churchill when, coming out of the hotel entrance, I saw a now familiar face. Andrew Longmeadow practically skipped down the steps and on to the pavement. On its own, it was a surprise to see him again so soon, but the fact he was on his way out of the Churchill and wearing such a happy go lucky demeanour, had me wondering all sorts of things. Like, just what had he and Alex been getting up to while I was away? Game of Cluedo, maybe. Or perhaps they’d popped out together to the nearest bingo hall.
No, my money was on something a little bit more intimate. I reckoned that’s why he’d been so sheepish when I’d interrupted his breakfast with Alex. All the time, he’d probably been thinking how amazingly lucky he’d been bumping into a woman he’d always fancied and probably never imagined he’d see again. There she was, prattling away at him over a cup of coffee, while he was wondering how he could persuade her to jump into bed with him.
Well, what business was it of mine if she wanted to shag an old mate, just so long as he wasn’t a threat to her health and well-being. If it kept her from boredom for part of the day, so be it. I wasn’t big-headed enough to think I could keep her entertained every minute of the time we’d be knocking around together.
I stopped in the shadow of a pair of phone boxes and watched him walk up the street. I couldn’t see his face, but I would have put money on it being filled with a big, satisfied grin. It dawned on me, as I watched the man disappear into the distance, that if the fancy took me, I’d been served up a gilt-edged opportunity to engage in a bit of teasing where Alex was concerned. At the very least, it would be amusing to ask her why he’d called round.
I did check in with Alex, but decided not to tease her and contented myself with simply making sure everything was fine. She looked tired and said she was about to have a nap. Wonder why that would be, I asked myself? We agreed to have dinner in the hotel restaurant at six and maybe a drink afterwards, but then we’d call it a night. By the looks of things, she needed her rest.
The next item on my extensive to-do list was a call to Scoular, to provide him with my daily update. Conveniently forgetting about Andrew Longmeadow, I told Scoular that nothing much had happened, though our client had got pretty excited when we’d visited the Pavilion. He claimed to be jealous; said he’d never visited the place himself and that it was somewhere up towards the top of his list of must-see sights. He also asked, on three separate occasions, if I’d seen anything suspicious. Even little things, he insisted, could often turn out to be important. I decided there was no point in telling him about my suspicions we’d been followed the previous day. There was nothing he could do about it and, anyway, it was still possible I was wrong.
He did add that he reckoned one more day might be enough to get things sorted out, then I could put Miss Rudd, as he referred to her, on to the next train back to London and all would be right with
the world once again. This time I could tell for sure, from the tone of his voice, that he didn’t really believe that, but I wasn’t much fussed. Our mutual client wasn’t causing me any real bother, not even with this pesky friend of hers putting in an unscheduled appearance, and she had turned out to be pleasant enough company.
As far as I was concerned, it didn’t make any odds whether it was another day or three until an agreement had been reached. Anyway, more work meant more pay. It also meant more bedroom antics with Angela, which was its own reward, of sorts.
By the time I’d got rid of Scoular, I was ready for a coffee. I made myself one, using the kit in the room; strong with lots of milk. Then I pulled an armchair over by one of the windows, so I could watch the waves rolling up the beach. Bliss. In fact, it was so blissful, I was asleep before I’d even had a single mouthful of coffee.
*
Dinner for me was sausage and mash with a bucket-load of gravy, while it was salmon on a bed of rice for Alex. Hers looked posher, but it was a racing certainty mine tasted better. Neither of us fancied pudding, so we ambled through to the bar and ordered a couple of drinks before sitting down to weigh up our options for the following day. In the end, we decided to catch a bus along the coast to Seaford, just for a change of scenery. A bit before half-eight, Alex said she was going to call it a night, watch a bit of TV, then catch up on some more of her sleep. More sleep? Maybe I’d under-estimated Andrew Longmeadow’s abilities in the bedroom department.
It didn’t take long for one woman to be replaced by another at my table. Alex had been gone maybe twenty minutes when the seat opposite me was taken by the tired figure of Angela.
“Blimey, you look knackered,” I said, helpfully.
“Thanks. You know just what to say to a woman when she’s feeling run down and in need of a little pick-me-up.”
“Yep, that’s me, every time. Busy day, then?”
“Not especially,” she replied, as she opened a packet of cigarettes, lit one, then drew on it long and hard. “I’ve certainly had worse days, but I think sometimes it all builds up to a point where you feel exhausted. I don’t think it helps very much that I’ve not been getting a full night’s sleep recently.”
The corners of her mouth turned upwards just enough to make sure I knew that wasn’t a complaint, which was good because I’m the sensitive sort; the type who can have their self-esteem easily damaged.
“I thought exercise helped you get a better night’s sleep,” I suggested.
“That depends when you take the exercise.”
What looked to me like two couples walked into the bar together, chatting and laughing, and made their way to a table by a window. They seemed to be having a good time. A member of staff walked across and took an order for drinks.
“You see the one with the grey hair and blue shirt?” asked Angela.
“Yep. The loud one.”
“He’s David Carrick, a big wig in the local Conservative Party. That’s his wife, the brunette with the big hooped earrings.”
“Nice shoulders,” I said.
I got a look that told me my observation was not welcome.
“I don’t know the other couple, but I imagine they’ve got money and Carrick is working on them to make a donation to party funds. He often comes to the restaurant when he’s trying to impress a potential donor.”
“The business end of politics. I went to the House of Commons once to watch them all in action.”
“What was it like?”
“Crap. Can’t remember being so bored in all my life. The place was nearly empty, just a handful of MPs on either side, talking about some new Bill. I can’t even remember what it was about. A mate of mine went along one time when it turned out to be Prime Minister’s Questions and he said it was bedlam. Never seen or heard anything like it. All they do is shout and scream insults at each other. Made a Saturday night down the boozer look tame.”
“I suppose it’s their way of letting off steam. We’ve all got our own ways of doing that,” she added, looking at me over the top of her almost empty glass.
“You want another?” I asked.
“It’s OK. I’ll get them. You having the same again?”
“Yes, thanks.”
Angela caught the eye of the barman and pointed at our two glasses.
“I had a look around the town’s pawnbrokers today,” I said, thinking I ought to give Angela an update on developments, even if there wasn’t a great deal to report. “Whoever’s nicking stuff from this place will have to sell it on somewhere. If he’s professional, he might have contacts elsewhere, outside of town, which will make it much harder for me to track down. On the other hand, if he’s staying local then we’ve a much better chance of finding out where he’s moving the stuff on and pawnbrokers are always worth a shout.”
“Are there many pawnbrokers in Brighton? I’ve never paid them any attention.”
“Half-a-dozen. There’s one on the outskirts, which would make it the sensible choice, then all the rest are in the town proper. Took me a couple of hours this afternoon to get round them.”
“Did you find anything?”
“As a matter of fact, I reckon I did. I couldn’t be certain without photos to check against, but I found a couple of things in two of the shops that looked to me like a solid match for items on the list you gave me.”
“I’m impressed. It never occurred to me that you’d go about things like that. I assumed you would linger in dark corners in corridors or hide in wardrobes waiting to jump out when you saw someone getting up to no good.”
“I’ve done plenty of that in my time and, take it from me, hiding in wardrobes is terrible for your back.”
“Did the people at the pawnbrokers say where they got these things from?”
“Didn’t ask them. No point. They’re not going to say anything if they know the stuff is nicked and, in any case, I’m guessing our thief isn’t likely to be using his real name when he does business at these places. On the other hand, if the pawnbrokers are honest and doesn’t know the gears nicked, they’ll be keen to get the police involved, which I know you said you don’t want.”
“So what will you do next?”
“Your staff all work to shift patterns, so I’m thinking I should be able to spend a bit of time staking out these two pawnbrokers for an hour or so after the end of each shift. The problem I’ve got is the number of people you have working here. There’s no way I’m going to recognise all of them when I’ve only been here a few days, but it’s worth giving it a go.”
“Mm, I think there’ll need to be a special reward for you later, seeing how you’ve made such impressive progress already.”
That sounded worrying, but I didn’t get the chance to ask what sort of thing she had in mind because the barman arrived with our drinks. Meanwhile, the fundraiser by the window must have been doing his job well, because the four of them at his table were laughing almost constantly.
“He doesn’t offer a wife-swap, does he, if the going gets tough?” I asked.
“Not as far as I know.”
“Shame.”
Pain shot up my left shin as Angela’s kicked it. I winced.
“Naughty boys get punished for bad behaviour. If they’re lucky,” came the husky response, close to my ear.
“You’re not kidding,” I replied, reaching down to rub my sore shin.
The magic of the moment, if you could call it that, was broken by the blare of a car horn from outside. Angela, though, had clearly decided she wanted to move on to something stronger than alcohol. She stubbed out what was left of her cigarette, picked up her glass, then told me she expected to see me in her flat in twenty minutes and I had better not be late, unless I really wanted to take that risk. The look on her face dared me not to show up on time.
As she walked out of the bar, I leaned back in my chair, pulled down my sock and inspected the damage to my shin, seriously considering the possibility of a broken bone, but decided it was unl
ikely to be anything worse than a bruise.
The barman was busy drying glasses, while the foursome by the window were getting louder and louder. So far, my return trip to Brighton had gone alright. You could even go so far as to say that I was enjoying it. Still, the job wasn’t over yet and I’ve never been one for counting my chickens.
*
Alex was waiting for me in the corridor when I stepped out of my room the following morning. I was washed, dressed, spic and span and feeling hungry. I’d burnt a lot of calories the night before. Alex, on the other hand, was looking sleepy, as if she’d been dragged out of her bed long before the cock crowed. I wondered if she’d be able to keep her eyes open long enough to finish breakfast.
“Didn’t you get much sleep?” I asked, sounding chipper, as we started to walk towards the lifts.
“Ironic isn’t it?” she answered, stifling another yawn. “You go to bed early because you’re tired and then wake up ridiculously early the next morning and can’t get back to sleep.”
“How early was early?”
“Ten past five.”
“Ouch. Didn’t get back to sleep at all?”
“No. I tried, but the harder I tried, the more difficult it got. Gave up in the end and started reading a book.”
The lift pinged and the door opened. We got in, squeezed up against an elderly couple, both seriously overweight, with two big suitcases each. American, I decided. She reeked of perfume, something loaded with spice, and looked to be in a foul mood, judging by her scowl.”
As Good as Dead Page 7