by Mike Ripley
Actually, I have learned that one beep when you switch on is good. Three rapid beeps means trouble ahead, something’s about to go wrong. When that has happened in the past, it hasn’t been unknown for a pint of Guinness to end up in the keyboard. But I hadn’t lost my temper just yet, so I stuck to my Rule of Life Number 106: Never let machinery know you’re in a hurry.
Up came the screensaver, a favourite download of Amy’s of the Mr Burns character from The Simpsons saying ‘Excellent’, and then the icon thingies started to appear to the theme from Mission Impossible.
And then it stopped burping and bleeping and just hummed at me, daring me to make the next move.
I stared back at it. I knew what some of the icons meant – the one for the internet, the one for e-mails and the most important one, for ‘GAMES’ – but what the hell was a WinZip? Who needed an acrobatic reader or a comet cursor? And why was there a picture of Harry Potter made out of Lego building bricks? Of the others, at least 20 in number, most were art or design programs, but I suspected the really interesting ones were the ones that looked like briefcases, and they would be password-protected, wouldn’t they? Even the one marked ‘DIARY’ in big flashing letters.
I clicked on it and it opened immediately.
This computer-hacking business was very overrated.
There was only one entry for that day, Wednesday, in Amy’s spreadsheet diary. In fact it was the only entry for the whole week, and it simply said: ‘WELFASH FINALS – CARD U.’
I was no wiser. It meant absolutely nothing to me. I couldn’t remember Amy having said anything that remotely resembled it, and no matter how long I stared at the screen, it wouldn’t tell me anything else.
There was something it could tell me, though.
I shrank the diary window and inserted a floppy disk. I know, I know, I was just working out how to use them as they became obsolete, but I firmly believe that they will make a comeback, like vinyl did, or eight-track car stereos or Betamax videos. Well, okay, not those last two.
On the disk, I opened up a new spreadsheet, called it ‘DIARY’ and typed in a couple of boxes of gobbledygook, then tried to transfer it to Amy’s version. The usual window came up asking if I wanted my ‘DIARY’ to replace the version last modified ...
The day before at 11:32:08, just about the time I was talking to Duncan the Drunken, give or take eight seconds, and I thought she was at her office.
Of course I couldn’t be sure that was when she’d put in the reference, though the computer would probably tell me if I asked it the right way. Approached in the right way, anyone will tell you anything, and it will usually be true. (Rule of Life Number 83.) But that applies only to people. You can’t make eye contact with – or buy a drink for – a computer, so that put me at a disadvantage.
(The only other thing I know about computers is to put a fake address in your email address book, say [email protected]. You are never going to use it, but if some kind person sends you a virus developed by some smartarse in a California computer school, then you’ll know you’ve got it when your server flashes up the address as undeliverable.)
So if I couldn’t get any joy out of one robotic, mechanical, soulless entity, then I would have to try another and ring her secretary.
Amazingly I had never actually met Debbie Diamond, even though she had worked for Amy for over two years. Then again, I rarely get into Amy’s office above a flash shopping piazza on Oxford Street. In fact, I had never been in it, come to think of it. I was usually restricted to the sitting-outside-in-Armstrong-with-the-engine-running role, waiting to ferry her home or to the City airport or to a fashion bash somewhere. I didn’t mind that. Me and offices have never got on; for a start, they’re open really weird hours, like all day – as if you didn’t have other stuff to do.
I had spoken to the Dreaded Debbie many a time, on the phone or over the intercom from the security desk downstairs, which served both the shops in the piazza and the office suites above them, and all I had heard backed up the mental picture Amy had painted of her. Tough, bulldog stubborn, fiercely loyal, lived with her invalid mother in Plumstead and wore cardigans. Not only that, but she wore cardigans with tissues pushed up the sleeve. Amy had repeatedly said she was lucky to have found Debbie D as they didn’t make them like her any more.
I knew the type, and I knew I wouldn’t get anything out of her over the phone. I decided on a plan: I would call in and see her. A social call. Surprise her, maybe with some flowers. That would even get me past security, as no-one questions a taxi driver delivering flowers to a lady in an office.
Yes, that was a plan.
All I had to do now was remember where I’d left my taxi.
I tubed it via the Northern Line to the Angel and then hopped on a Number 48 bus into Hackney. It seemed to take nearly forever, but I wasn’t going to pay for another mini-cab. It’s not the quids, it’s the principle.
I lurked around the corner of Stuart Street debating with myself as to whether I should pop in to Number Nine and see how Springsteen was doing. If Fenella was there, she’d have a go at me for not bringing him some smoked salmon or grapes or something. Miranda would have a go at me for leading Doogie astray the day before; Doogie would offer me the hair of the dog; Lisabeth would just have a go at me because that was what she did best. The voices in my head decided by a clear 5-2 majority to make a run for it.
By the time I had rescued Armstrong and got up to the West End, pausing only to buy an impressive bouquet of roses at wholesale price from a corner shop florist’s I knew near King’s Cross and a cheap one-trip snappy camera from the chemist’s next door, it was after 4.00 pm. I hardly knew where the day had gone.
On Oxford Street, I parked confidently on the double yellow lines outside the shopping piazza so the guys in the security booth could get a clear view of me. Since Oxford Street is supposedly a no-go area for civilian drivers – in theory only buses and taxis allowed during the day – I wasn’t too worried about traffic wardens, but it was the summer and that meant zillions of tourists who didn’t know the rules and it wasn’t uncommon to see lost Belgian-registered cars or don’t-care-anyway Italian ones chugging along behind the buses at an average speed of about seven miles per hour, which is slower than the Hansom cabs did it in Sherlock Holmes’s day.
Unless it was a really slow day, the wardens didn’t bother with taxis, and I was confident I looked the part. Not only did I have an authentic black London cab, but I had found an old leather waistcoat, smelling accurately of old diesel, in Armstrong’s boot and had slipped it over my crisp white T-shirt, the one with the legend: ‘My Other T-Shirt’s a Paul Smith.’
Armed with the bunch of roses and the camera, I marched into the piazza straight up to the security office and rapped on the Enquiries window with my knuckles. An elderly white guy with tinted glasses and a fast-food belly hauled himself out of a swivel chair and wheezed his way over to pull the window up about six inches. The effort seemed to drain him.
‘Yes?’
‘Flowers for a Miss D Diamond, second floor,’ I said, trying to outdo him in sounding bored.
‘Pass ‘em through.’
‘Personal delivery.’
‘Is she expecting them?’
‘Do I look psychic?’
‘Then give them over. I’ll see she gets them.’
‘Got to take your picture, then,’ I said, holding up the snappy camera.
‘You pullin’ my plonker?’
‘You wish. Listen, mate, I get the flowers and the camera given to me by a punter with more money than sense. Take the flowers, take a picture of happy lady getting nice surprise. Take camera back to punter, get return fare. That plus the tip’ll do me for the last job of the day. I am well sick of fuckin’ tourists who ‘ave no idea where they’ve just been, let alone where they want to go, and then they bitch about the fare, though the fuckin’ meter’s right in fron
t of them, then they try an’ pay in fuckin’ Euros like I look like a bank in Strasbourg ...’
That was enough.
‘Yeah, yeah, tell me about it. Like I’ve not had to get a fuckin’ interpreter in because some Japanese newspaper’s said Stella McCartney’s opening a boutique in ‘ere today. You should’ve seen the bleedin’ queues this lunchtime. Anyway, I don’t give a shit, I’m off in half-an-hour. Second floor, mate, lift at the top of the escalator then ask at reception.’
Sometimes it was a shame to take the money, I thought, as I stood on the escalator. I really would have to have a word with Amy about how easy it was to get into her office building, even though I knew she’d say you just couldn’t get the staff these days.
All I had to do now, I thought, as I got in the lift and pressed ‘2’, was worm my way into the confidence of the Dreaded Debbie: the only pit bull known to do T-line shorthand and audio-typing, according to Amy.
As it turned out, that proved quite easy as well.
The lift doors hissed open and I had taken no more than two steps out onto the carpeted floor when a female voice said:
‘It is you Angel, isn’t it? Thank God you’re here.’
I needn’t have wasted the money on the flowers.
I drove Debbie Diamond round to the Portman Hotel for afternoon tea. I knew the hotel from the days when it did Sunday brunch with live jazz, and had even played there a couple of times. But that was a while back. Surely they wouldn’t still remember the incident with the vintage claret?
I resolved to have a serious word with Amy – when I found out where she was – about her deliberately misleading me every which way about Debbie. She didn’t strike me in any way as a battleaxe, a Rotweiler, a frump, a career spinster (‘So afraid of marriage we call her the Ring Wraith’), someone for whom nightlife meant a long chat with a timeshare salesman from a call centre, or indeed a woman who had to wear a bra designed by Fisher-Price. She wasn’t even half-way to her mid-forties, and I call five-foot-one petite, not dwarfish. I quite liked the big round glasses and didn’t think they made her look like a constipated owl at all, and I saw no reason to call the fashion police over the stonewashed denim jacket she was wearing with the very short suede skirt that showed an awful lot (proportionately speaking) of very shapely, well-tanned bare leg that ended in multi-coloured high heeled Cacharel sandals with white flowers on the straps.
On reflection, maybe I wouldn’t go into so much detail for Amy.
‘Yesterday it was the police, first thing in the morning when I turned up for work, as if that wasn’t bad enough,’ she started after her first sip of tea.
I nodded sympathetically, hiding my smug expression behind a bone china teacup.
Well, I mean: a few roses, a free ride in a taxi, a comfy armchair in nice surroundings and a cup of orange pekoe and she was answering questions I hadn’t even asked yet. God knew what would happen when the Madeira cake arrived – she’d probably ‘fess up to one or all of the recent Heathrow robberies.
‘They were in with Amy for hours. Taking statements, they said.’
‘And this would, of course, be about ...’
I didn’t make it a question, just trailed off with a wave of the teacup and quite a bit of sage nodding.
‘Yes, you’re right,’ she said, nodding with me. ‘Keith Flowers – what an awful person to stalk Amy like that. And you had no idea, did you?’
She put down her cup and saucer and reached a hand out, placing it on my knee. I saw no reason to do anything but let it stay there, but out of the corner of my eye I saw a pair of waiters talking together out of the sides of their mouths whilst staring at Debbie. They were probably betting how long it would be before I asked if they rented rooms by the hour. I was going to disappoint them. I knew already that they didn’t.
‘It did come as something of a shock,’ I said, with just the right touch of pathos.
‘She was only trying to protect you, I think.’ She gave a shudder and her grip on my knee tightened. ‘God, what an odious human being. He kept after her even though she took out that restraining order. How on Earth did a creep like that ever get to meet Amy?’
Probably at their wedding, I thought, but I said nothing. It was clear to me that Debbie didn’t know that the odious Mr Flowers was in fact the first Mr Amy May. Debbie had to know about the restraining order because it covered the office, but Amy hadn’t told her everything. Still, she’d told her more than she’d told me.
A plate of cakes arrived and Debbie’s eyes lit up.
‘I shouldn’t,’ she said demurely as I offered.
‘Nut allergies?’ I suggested, straight-faced.
‘I was thinking of my figure,’ she said automatically, eyes on the plate.
‘So are half the males in this room,’ I said, gesturing grandly around the large open plan foyer. ‘You’ve nothing to worry about.’
‘Thank you, kind sir.’ She grinned and helped herself, but there were spots of blusher on her cheeks that hadn’t been put there with a brush.
‘The police. You were saying,’ I prompted.
‘Oh yes. They were only doing their job, I suppose, but it did seem to take ages, and afterwards Amy was on the phone for about an hour, even though she knew one of the buyers was waiting to see her and it was making her late for the 10.30.’
‘The 10.30 what?’ I tried.
‘The 10.30 management meeting. She never did make it. I had to cover for her. When she came off the phone, she just grabbed her bag and shot off. The security desk said they saw her hailing a cab on Oxford Street.’
Which would give her enough time to get home and modify the diary on her computer at 11:38:08.
‘Has she said what spooked her? I presume she was upset by something that had been said.’
‘Well, as upset as Amy ever is. You know what she’s like. But didn’t she tell you about it?’
‘I didn’t actually see her last night, and this morning she was up and gone before I was – awake.’
I’d almost said ‘conscious’.
‘Gone where?’ asked Debbie, putting down her cake plate and staring at me from behind those round glasses, which actually did make her eyes look bigger.
‘Something called Welfash, according to her diary. I was hoping you knew what it meant,’ I said as casually as I could.
‘It means Welsh Fashion Week. It was a secret.’
‘Fashion – in Wales? That is a bloody well-kept secret.’
‘No, I meant Amy going there was a secret. She was headhunting one of the student designers who’s supposed to be the next big thing. But it was supposed to be a secret in case the competition got wind of it.’
‘What do you mean “was”?’ I asked.
‘Welsh Fashion Week was last week. Amy went down there on the train and back the same day. Last Wednesday, I think. She didn’t mention it?’
‘That she’d been to Wales? It’s not the sort of thing you brag about, is it?’
I realised that came out snappier than I had intended. ‘So where is she today?’ I said calmly.
‘I’ve no idea. She didn’t come into the office this morning and her mobile is switched off. I thought you were coming to tell me what was going on.’
Dream on, Debbie, dream on.
‘Look, I’ve probably just misread her computer diary,’ I said, trying to recover. ‘I’m useless with computers, I probably just got the wrong week.’
‘It doesn’t explain where she is today, though,’ Debbie said rather primly, and I noticed that the hand had gone from my knee.
‘No, it doesn’t, so we’ve got to try and work it out. You haven’t seen her since the police called at the office yesterday, right?’
‘Yes.’ She drawled it, rolling her eyes like I was being deliberately slow on the uptake. ‘I said, didn’t I?’
&nbs
p; ‘Okay, now can you remember the name of any of the policemen?’
‘Of course I can, I’m Amy’s PA.’
If there had been a high horse clopping by, she would have mounted it with a single leap.
‘And ...?’
‘Well, the main one was Detective Inspector Hood of ...’
‘West Hampstead nick,’ I completed. ‘He’s the CID man in charge of the burglary Keith Flowers did on Amy’s house.’
Not that Keith Flowers had stolen anything other than some information about my flat in Stuart Street and Amy’s BMW, which we got back quickly enough albeit after I’d wrecked it. But as Keith Flowers had been out of prison for only a month when he turned us over, he had no doubt moved up the prisoner category and the law was going to sling everything it could at him this time. They don’t like it when the system is shown to fail. They much prefer former prisoners to give it at least two months before booking a return stay at one of Her Majesty’s Windsor Hotels.
‘You know him?’ Debbie cheered up slightly, as if this was a straw within clutching range.
‘Not really,’ I said, though I had impersonated him once on the phone. ‘But I can ask him what he said to Amy to get her so spooked she took off like that. Did she have any appointments for today?’
‘Dozens, but none I couldn’t handle or bluff my way through.’ She considered this for a moment. ‘I don’t like lying, though. I don’t think I’m very good at it.’
‘Me neither,’ I lied. ‘When’s the next big thing she really, really can’t afford to miss or wouldn’t miss even if she had to crawl in from her sickbed?’
‘You think she’s ill somewhere?’
‘No, just surmising.’
People don’t not go home just because they’re feeling bad; unless they’ve been drinking with Inverness Doogie, that is.
‘Friday, I suppose. Big meeting with the chain stores in the City followed by lunch in one of the Guild Halls – Ironmongers, that’s it.’
That was typical of the City. No-one knew what an ironmonger was any more, or where to find one, yet they did slap-up catering functions with so much antique silverware on the table you had to wear polaroids.