by Mike Ripley
‘For peace of mind, Amy and I would like to know, and if you could see your way to helping us we’d certainly co-operate with any other enquiries you might have,’ I said slowly, thinking it through as I spoke, checking for loopholes.
‘Funnily enough, there is an enquiry you can help me with; a personal one.’ Here we go, I thought. ‘Your SOH, she’s the Amy May as in the TALtop thing, that blouse thing, isn’t she?’
When I worked out that SOH meant Significant Other Half, I said: ‘Yes, that’s her.’
‘Well the girlfriend tells me there’s this new design with, like, silver stitching or something, but can I find one in the shops? Like gold dust they are and, you see, there’s a birthday coming up ...’
‘What size?’ I asked with a smile.
‘Twelve.’
‘I’ll get her a ten. Don’t worry, it’ll fit and she’ll be flattered.’
‘Hey, that’d be really good of you.’
He opened his arms, palms out to me. Big mistake.
‘And what size is the wife?’
His face froze as he realised it was too late to hide his wedding ring again. Fair play to him, he brazened it out.
‘Fourteen.’
‘I’ll get her a 12. She’ll be chuffed, you get the double whammy.’
‘Decent of you,’ he said.
‘I know. Just let me get one thing straight, though. You went to see Amy yesterday in her office, right?’
‘Yes,’ he said carefully. He thought I was going to ask him why he hadn’t tapped her up for a free sample direct, but then he’d had another policeman with him and that wouldn’t have been kosher.
‘And that was to tell her about Keith Flowers going all depressive, right?’
‘No, wrong.’ He shook his head. ‘It had nothing to do with Keith Flowers.’
‘It didn’t?’
‘Well, only that Flowers came to our attention when Ms May – by the by, does she use the name Amy Angel?’
‘No, never. I think she’d rather have hot needles jammed into her eyes or be forced to wear Spandex. You were saying ...’
‘We first became aware of Flowers when he was reported as a stalker and Amy – Ms May – took out the restraining order. It was just a flagging-up operation as far as we were concerned, but the computer remembered it.’
‘Remembered what?’
The guy was driving me nuts. God knows what he would have been like if I hadn’t already agreed on a bribe.
‘The whole stalker scenario. When it happened again, the computer flagged it up again.’
‘What’s happened again?’
Hood took a deep breath.
‘She hasn’t told you, has she?’
‘I haven’t seen her since yesterday morning,’ I snapped, then added: ‘She’s away on business, ordering some more of those silver-thread TALtops.’
‘Oh, right, I get it. Look, Mr Angel, the reason we went to see her yesterday was because of the report we’d had from Ivan Dunmore.’
‘Who the fuck is Ivan Dunmore?’
‘Your neighbour.’
‘He is?’
‘From across the street, or so I’m told. He’s reported a suspicious person hanging around outside your house on two occasions now. Says he’s seen her every morning for about a week and she follows Amy when she leaves the house.’
‘She?’
‘Yeah. Don’t worry, it’s not an ex-husband this time, it’s a young blonde girl.’
As soon as I got home, I was on the phone and got an instant result. My pizza would be with me in 20 minutes. Good. I was starving.
I cracked open a bottle of Leffe Brun beer – supposedly brewed by Trappist monks in Belgium, and after a couple you could understand the vow of silence bit – while I waited.
Then I thought I had better check the house just to make sure Amy wasn’t back, but there was no sign of her and her shoes were still missing. I checked for e-mails on the computer but there were none for me (there never were as I never tell anyone my e-mail address) and the ones for Amy seemed standard business ones, all from names in her address book. There was one message on the answerphone in the bedroom, but it was from Duncan the Drunken telling me to call him regarding Amy’s BMW as he’d had some quotes for the bodywork.
While I was in the bedroom and in detective mode, I rifled through the drawer where Amy kept her stockings and tights, most pairs still in their packets as she regarded hosiery as mostly disposable, though there was a pair of neatly folded pure silk stockings with seams, which brought back fond memories at least for me.
I was actually looking to see if her passport was there, which it was. Or rather both of them were. She has two, which is not unusual; so do I. But Amy had got both hers legitimately as a businesswoman of some standing who might have to travel at short notice, so she has one with visas for America and Israel and one for countries that might take exception to that.
So wherever it was she’d travelled to at short notice this time, it wasn’t abroad, which was comforting, and I began to convince myself that I was worrying unnecessarily. If I could only think hard and straight, I was sure I could come up with a logical explanation.
The doorbell rang. It was my pizza, and when I had paid the spotty, moped-riding delivery boy (he’d taken 21 minutes and 15 seconds, so no tip) I opened another beer and flipped on the TV.
I never could think hard and straight on an empty stomach.
I heard the chirping of an electronic lock and then the sound of a key being cranked and finally not one but two deadbolts being drawn, and all the time I showed my best smile to the peep-hole as I stood there under the halogen security light. The door opened inwards but no more than 20 degrees.
‘Mr Dunmore? Good evening. I’m Roy Angel, your neighbour from across the street.’
‘I know you are.’
The voice was used to giving orders. It was middle-aged, still had a suit and tie on in the house at 9.30 in the evening and owned the new Mercedes parked in the drive. There was probably a second, smaller one in the garage.
‘You do?’
‘This is the third house you’ve tried, isn’t it? The Cohens and the Elringtons rang me. We’re all in the Neighbourhood Watch.’
He wasn’t wrong. It had been trial and error on my part; but it was their own fault. No-one who is anyone is in the phone book these days – just think of the population of London and then look at the size of the Residential directory. And in Hampstead, everyone thought they were somebody.
‘I believe you reported a suspicious character lurking around our house?’ I said, keeping it friendly, hoping he wouldn’t notice I wasn’t wearing a suit and hold it against me.
‘If you’d been a member of the Neighbourhood Watch, you’d have found out three days ago,’ he said snootily.
‘I wouldn’t join any Neighbourhood Watch that would have me as a member,’ I quipped before I could bite my tongue.
Ivan Dunmore looked as if he just had bitten his tongue.
‘But seriously, I came to say thank you for being so vigilant,’ I pressed on. ‘We’re trying to be careful. You know we were burgled about a month ago?’
‘The police did mention it,’ he said cautiously.
That was one up to the Neighbourhood Watch, wasn’t it?
‘So I was wondering if there was anything you could tell me about the person who was hanging around the other day?’
He shrugged his shoulders as if it didn’t matter. He’d done his bit, after all, telling the cops. Why should he have to give a repeat performance for me? Because I was standing at his front door making his driveway look untidy and giving the rest of the Neighbourhood Watch something to watch.
‘She was young, about 20 I’d guess. Blonde, quite long hair. I suppose you could say pretty if we’re still allowed to say that
without being a sexist pig.’
There was something in the way he said it that made me think a nerve had been struck and I really didn’t want to go there.
‘How was she dressed?’ I said, to change tack, but that only made him look down at me as if I was a pervert.
‘The same way all girls of that age dress – in things that look as if they come from Oxfam and they wear only once even though they actually cost a small fortune.’
Woops, I think he had a history here. I hoped he didn’t know what Amy did for a living.
‘Oh, the usual. White T-shirt with something written on it and those tight blue jeans with flares and the faded stripes up the legs and over the arse cheeks where there should be back pockets.’
On reflection, a Neighbourhood Watch this observant might just be worth joining.
‘Can you remember what was on the T-shirt?’
‘Yes I can, actually. It was “Fuck” but the letters were jumbled up.’
He meant ‘FCUK’, or I hoped he did. I knew several taxi drivers who had had T-shirts made up with ‘FUCK OFF’ printed backwards so that drivers who cut them up could read it in their mirror and be afraid.
‘She had a bag as well, a big shoulder bag thing that looked as if it could carry the kitchen sink.’
‘And you noticed her when?’
‘First thing in the morning three days ago. She was hanging around behind some parked cars watching your house as I was going to work. Then I saw her that evening as I came home. Miss May was unloading some things from her Land Rover and there was the girl again, just down the street, watching her. She was there the next morning according to Mrs Cohen two properties to the west.’
I liked the ‘two properties to the west’ bit. Normal people would have said ‘two doors down’, but this was Hampstead.
‘So you know Amy, do you?’ I said with a smile.
‘Not really, no. We did ask her to join the Watch when she first moved in here.’ Then he added: ‘When she was living alone.’
‘What did she say when you asked her to join the Watch?’
‘She laughed.’
That’s my girl.
‘Was this young woman acting at all suspiciously? I mean, did she do anything that would be a cause for concern?’
Other than just be on a piece of pavement that you claim by divine right, I thought, but didn’t say.
‘Mrs Cohen is quite firm about the fact that she saw the girl taking photographs of Miss May as she was leaving for work the other morning.’
He let the implication hang in the warm night air. Amy got up and went to work; I didn’t.
‘Did she follow Amy, when Amy went to work?’
‘I have no idea where she went, but she left the area shortly after, in a taxi.’
‘She could be a journalist,’ I said reasonably, and I could see that the prospect of that worried him more than a bus load of burglars or somebody organising a street party for the gay, black, disabled homeless.
‘That’s for the police – or you – to sort out. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some paperwork to finish.’
‘One last thing. Did you notice what sort of shoes she was wearing?’
He stared silently at me for a full minute before he closed the door in my face.
I scoped the street before I went back into the house, hoping to spot a trenchcoated figure under one of the streetlights, a cigarette cupped in a curled hand, trilby brim snapped down over the eyes. But there wasn’t a living soul in sight, not even a cat. They had probably all been rounded up by the Animal Branch of the Neighbourhood Watch. I had been right not to inflict a move here on Springsteen.
Which reminded me that I ought to check up on him.
Back indoors, I cracked another Leffe and phoned Stuart Street, knowing that Fenella would be the one sent to answer the house phone.
She said she had to be quick as she had three separate text chats going at the same time and she’d broken two nails already that evening. Springsteen was still growling and moving about in reverse, but he was eating well and drinking a lot of water. I said that was a good sign, though I had no idea if it was or not, and that she should try him with some lean minced beef or lamb. Fenella made the ‘eeeuuu’ sound only teenage girls can really make and said that handling meat was going a bit far. I told her not to worry, just buy a pack at the supermarket and throw it in the flat. Springsteen could easily unwrap it himself as long as it wasn’t frozen – which just took longer. She said okay, if she really had to and, by the way, that car mechanic friend of mine had called round on the off-chance I would go to a pub with him and his wife but I wasn’t to worry as he’d give me a ring.
I didn’t bother to ask if ‘Alison George’ had paid a return visit, assuming that to be highly unlikely. Nor did I ask if Amy had rung, as that would have sounded a bit weak and surely Fenella would have mentioned it.
Duncan the Drunken calling round to take me for a drink, now that could be serious. It probably meant the estimate for the BMW’s repairs was going to be horrendous.
I dialled his home number, not really expecting him to be in and, sure, enough, got the start of his recorded voice message.
‘This is Duncan. Me and the wife Doreen have gone down the pub and we’re probably shit-faced by now so you can either come and buy us a drink or ...’
There was a click as the receiver was picked up and Duncan’s Yorkshire accent cut across the message.
‘Talk to me.’
‘Duncan, it’s Angel. Why aren’t you down the pub?’
‘Bit of a cock up, there, mate. We thought we’d try the karaoke down The Whalebone in Barking, but it seems we’re barred from there.’
‘You forgot you’d been banned from the pub?’
‘Not me,’ he said haughtily. ‘Doreen.’
‘Oh. Fair enough. You have some bad news for me, then?’
‘Aye, about the chassis on that Beamer. Could be up to three grand to sort it out before we start on the systems checks, and then there’s the bodywork.’
‘All right, Duncan, don’t sweat it. Let’s cost the whole job like we said and see if it’s worth getting it back on the road and maybe selling it on.’
‘Just thought you’d like to know, now the insurance company’s got it on the agenda.’
What insurance company? I hadn’t even sent in the claim form.
‘What insurance company, Dunc?’
‘I don’t think she said the name of it.’
‘She?’
‘The blonde bint who came sniffing round here this afternoon. I wouldn’t mind having her on my case, I can tell you. Long as Doreen didn’t find out, of course.’
‘Would her name have been Alison George by any chance?’
‘Aye, that’s it. But she said I could call her Georgie if I wanted to.’
‘I’ve got a few other names for her,’ I said.
The next morning, I awoke with a plan. I knew exactly what I was going to do.
But first, I reached over and patted the other side of the bed. It was empty, which was a relief.
It would have been a shame to waste such a good plan and, anyway, Amy would have killed me if she’d been there, what with all those empty beer bottles scattered over the duvet.
Chapter Six
It wasn’t about me, or Amy, it was about Keith Flowers.
Whoever this Alison George character was, she was tracing Keith Flowers’ movements in the month he spent out of prison. Flowers had stalked Amy in and around the Oxford Street office, so Alison George had been there, only to give Debbie Diamond an earful when she found Amy had done a runner having being warned by the cops that someone had her under surveillance.
She had hung around the house in Hampstead, the house Keith Flowers burgled, and she’d even been to Duncan the Drunken’s garage t
o see the car he’d stolen. She would have known from the Suffolk cops where to go, as Duncan would have signed for the wrecked BMW when he picked it up and he would have used a kosher name and address if there was a chance of a legitimate insurance payout. The one thing I couldn’t figure out was why she had visited the flat in Stuart Street. Keith Flowers had never been there – he’d phoned there when he tracked me and Amy to Suffolk (thanks, Fenella blab-mouth). But how would Alison George have known that?
There was one other place I knew Keith Flowers had been during his one moon cycle of freedom and that was St Chad’s Hostel in Chadwell Heath, which I assumed was some sort of halfway house for ex-prisoners waiting to jump from the rock of confinement on to the hard place of life on the outside. I had no idea where it was or how it worked, but I had spoken to the warden on the phone a month back. I would go and see him and ask for ... well, anything he could tell me. That was my plan, carefully thought-out, immaculately researched.
About halfway round the North Circular Road I remembered the warden’s name – Roberts – and felt a lot more confident.
At the ridiculously named Charlie Brown’s Roundabout (Good grief!), I cut off under the M11 towards Gant’s Hill and Eastern Avenue, then pulled in to a post office near the old Goodmayes Hospital, leaving Armstrong right outside with the engine running. The postmaster, a Sikh, took great delight in meeting a London taxi driver who didn’t know everything and had to ask directions. After a couple of minutes of smirking, he told me that St Chad’s Hostel was in Sydney Gardens on the other side of St Chad’s Park.
Back in Armstrong I consulted a battered A-Z once I was out of sight of the postmaster and worked my way through the suburban back streets parallel to Eastern Avenue and round the northern end of the park until I hit an enclave of streets named after either Australian cities (Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney) or trees (Yew and Cedar) for no apparent reason. Who knew what had possessed the local town planners? And why did these Australian ‘Gardens’ all run in to Whalebone Lane, which crossed Eastern Avenue at the Moby Dick Roundabout? I swear you could make up any ridiculous street name you liked and Londoners would believe you. Don’t try it on a real black cab driver, though.