by Mike Ripley
Well I bleeding well hope so, I said.
‘But that’s just not right,’ she said, as if a door had slammed on her high-minded future.
‘It is when your client is actually covering for a bunch of hoods willing to beat the crap out of me,’ I said, pointing to my face, which I have to admit I hadn’t looked at in a mirror since Gerry’s Club, and which had stopped hurting about five drinks earlier.
‘Stella didn’t know about that when she called you,’ she said, which was a fair point.
‘But her instincts were right on the button,’ I said primly.
‘That comes with age, does it?’
I let that one go.
‘One last thing, then you can drive me home. Did this Haydn Rees at any time mention anyone called Turner? Len Turner? Ron Turner? Anyone called Barry or Huw?’
‘No, never.’
‘Did he give you any indication that he was representing somebody else?’
‘Not at all. If anything, he gave me the impression he was representing Keith Flowers. You mean he wasn’t?’
She gave me another of her limited range of facial expressions: the dumb one.
‘I would think that extremely unlikely. For a start, Flowers’ solicitor would have access to his pre-release details, so he would know where he’d lived and how often he’d checked in. Then there’s the awful coincidence of you sending your report, mentioning me, with photographs, featuring me, down to Rees in Cardiff – when?’
‘Yesterday lunchtime.’
‘And lo and behold, I get sorted by a Welsh gangster this afternoon – a Welsh gangster who has the pictures you took and, call it a coincidence if you like, who has a solicitor called Haydn Rees.’
‘The bastard! He used me.’
‘Of course he did. He hired you. Hello? Isn’t that what you’re in business for? Private dick for hire?’
I thought that funnier than it was, and realised my glass was empty.
‘So what did he want, this Len Turner?’
And there she was again, staring expressionless into my face. It wasn’t a come-on, it was a curious puppy, but without the endearing cuddly factor.
‘Oh, I couldn’t say what transpired between us. That would be breaching client confidentiality,’ I said, waving my empty glass under her nose. ‘Buy my me another pint and I might reconsider.’
It took her a good ten seconds to pull a purse out the back pocket of her jeans, and then she grabbed my glass and was at the bar in a flash. As she strained on steel-tipped toes to attract the barman, I noticed that the dolphin was breaching again. Though I wouldn’t swear to it, as my eyes were having trouble focusing (no doubt due to sinus trouble), the dolphin had a distinctly depressed look about him.
‘So what was this Turner after?’ she asked, all keen, almost panting. If she’d had a tail, she would have wagged it.
‘More or less the same thing your client Rees was after,’ I said, tucking into my pint.
‘So what did you tell him?’
‘Same as I’m telling you,’ I said, opening the pack of cigarettes. ‘Absolutely nothing. Smoke?’
She sat back on her stool, rocking it slightly.
‘When you’ve finished that, I’ll drive you home, but only because Stella said I had to.’
I toasted her with my glass.
‘You can drop me off and get back here for the rest of the party. It’s still early.’
And by God it was. It was still daylight outside, although only just. Or maybe the contrast control on my eyesight was going.
‘No thanks. Going clubbing with two dozen pissed-up girlies dressed like tarts isn’t my idea of fun on a Friday night,’ she said.
‘What’s it like to be a minority?’
But she wasn’t going to rise to the bait this time, and she sat in silence until I had strung out my beer as long as I could. Then I said I had to visit the toilet – for the purpose for which it was intended, this time – and that might take a while as it was down a steep flight of stairs and was known locally as the Eiger of toilets.
She didn’t even smile, and when I returned safe and very much more sound, she was standing by the door, arms folded, face blank.
Without a word, I followed her out into the street, where I noticed that it finally was starting to get dark. Quite a few other pedestrians noticed this, as they were stumbling along the pavements too, but most, like me, took it in good humour. In fact, Steffi was probably the only person in Soho without a big grin on their face.
I followed her without really looking where we were going, except that we’d cut through to Wardour Street and were walking in the road against the flow of traffic, which thankfully no longer included those idiot student types on bicycle rickshaws.
Steffi wasn’t making any attempt to talk to me, and I thought of one thing that would cheer her up.
I hadn’t noticed her tailing me – and I would have said that was impossible – so I would give her credit where credit was due and ask her how she’d managed it.
Before I got a chance to, she had turned into a small courtyard and was reaching into the pocket of her Wranglers for a set of keys.
Even in the fading light and in the condition I was, the full horror of what was lying in wait there struck home, and I knew instantly how she had managed to dog me around London without me spotting her.
The bitch owned a taxi.
It was only a TX1, but it still qualified as a black London cab.
When they had first appeared, about five years before, the TX1 had been hailed as the black cab for the Millennium. It was, to be fair, the first new design in black cabs since the Fairway (like Armstrong II) about 40 years earlier, but it just didn’t look right. It has a rounded shape to the point of snub-nose, which gives the illusion that it’s smaller than a Fairway although it is actually taller and a little bit longer. The 2.7 litre Nissan diesel engine is more than decent enough and was supposed to be top-notch on emission control and fuel consumption, especially on the automatic version, which was unusual, and it had been fairly priced at around £27,000 when new. Most real taxi drivers I knew couldn’t quite put their finger on why they didn’t like them. They would admit, begrudgingly, that the front cabin had more room for the driver and that seat adjustment, comfort and all-round visibility were excellent, but even so … One particular one, a musher of the old school, had come up with the theory that they would never catch on because the seats in the back were upholstered with fabric instead of black vinyl. ‘You try hosing that down after the Friday night drunks have thrown up in there,’ he’d confided. Whether he was right or it was just that his concern was shared by the rest of the brotherhood, the TX1 (sometimes referred to as the ‘Tixilix’) never caught on in big numbers, whereas the other new cab design of the 1990s, the Metrocab, did, and it’s those you see most of in London these days.
Steffi saw me gawping at the cab as she unlocked it, misreading my jaw-dropping expression for approval.
‘These delicensed cabs are really very good for getting around London, aren’t they? Nobody notices you in them. I bought it through LondonCabMart.co.uk.’
If I didn’t have enough reasons to hate her before, I did now.
I remembered that my idiot neighbour Ivan Dunmore had said she’d left in a cab; seemingly he had failed to notice she had been driving it! Surely the Neighbourhood Watch should have points deducted or something for missing that? Perhaps he was just being snotty about it. I’d get him too one day. He was on the list.
Steffi climbed into the driver’s seat and started the engine. She made no move to open the rear door for me, so I had to do it myself and climb in.
I knew she was watching me in the mirror, so I made a show of stroking the upholstery on the seat next to me, then pulling down the rumble seat in front of me and doing the same.
‘Nice material,�
� I said, slurring my words – something that came to me remarkably easily. ‘Bet its a bugger to get clean when somebody spews on it.’
She didn’t answer, just jammed the automatic stick into ‘DRIVE’.
Maybe because I didn’t criticise her driving (which I could have) or the route she picked (Tottenham Court Road at this time of night!) she seemed to become more relaxed on the journey home. Perhaps it was because she was at the wheel and I was a centrally-locked captive in the back behind a toughened plastic screen, which put her clearly in control.
I knocked on the dividing panel and she slid it open an inch or so with some difficulty. She wasn’t used to passengers.
I pressed my hands and face against the plexiglass, a bit like Hannibal Lecter on visiting days.
‘So what was this Haydn Rees like then?’ I asked, and in the mirror I saw her nose wrinkle. There must have been diesel fumes in the cab.
‘What do you mean, what was he like?’ she said. I noticed she drove with the tip of her tongue protruding from her lips, concentrating too hard. I bet she ground her teeth when she got stressed.
‘You’re the detective,’ I said reasonably. ‘Detectives are supposed to observe, aren’t they? So what did you observe about him?’
‘Early thirties, you know, younger than you –’
Cheeky cow. She was so going down for that.
‘– and smart but not flash. Good suit, but M & S, not Hugo Boss. Supposed to be top-flight provincial solicitor who didn’t seem out of his depth in London. Could be he’s happy being the big fish in the smaller pond.’
The trouble with big fish in small ponds is they always got caught by somebody outside the pond, using a rod or a net or a hand grenade.
‘Sort of local hero, then, down in the valleys?’
‘Not really. Valley boy made good, I suppose, but a bit squeaky clean. I mean, a grown man with all those toys.’
‘Toys? What toys?’
‘Didn’t I mention it? He’s won loads of prizes for making models.’
‘I didn’t know they gave prizes for ...’
‘Model aircraft, model boats, radio-controlled helicopters, even steam trains. Real ones. Well, not full size, but ones that go round on rails and you can sit on. Gives rides to kids at village fetes and charity events. He’s had his picture in just about every local rag in South Wales. Model engineer, that’s what he is. Writes a column in Model Engineering Monthly or whatever it’s called. He was even on Blue Peter once.’
‘Bloody hell.’
‘The only black mark on Mr Clean is this business with Amy May’s divorce. I mean, it’s odd the papers never got hold of that, as Amy May’s quite a well-known name in the fashion business, isn’t she?’
Given the way she dressed, I was amazed she’d even heard of Amy, and I didn’t like the way she was referring to her in the abstract.
‘How did your sources find out about the divorce?’
‘Public knowledge; well, public record. Keith Flowers was from Cardiff, and that’s where he filed. Just ring the right bit of the Magistrates’ Court and they tell you all the gory details.’
I sat back in the seat and fumbled for a cigarette.
‘I don’t like smoking in my car,’ she said.
Good. I flicked ash on to the floor and pretended I couldn’t work out how to open the window. By the time I had, I’d finished the cigarette and there were at least two burn holes in her upholstery.
I needed the nicotine as it had come as quite a shock to learn that Amy had been married to a Welshman. Still, it had all happened a long time ago in a small country far away.
‘Can your sources down in Taffy land come up with anything else on this Rees?’ I asked, smearing my face against the sliding panel again.
‘Such as?’
‘Where he lives, who is clients are and any connection with a family called Turner.’
‘Who are these Turner people you keep on about? He never mentioned them.’
‘Having met them, I don’t blame him, but he was the go-between. They were the ones you were really working for.’
‘I could check them out. My dad ... I’ve got good contacts down there.’
‘Do it from a distance.’
‘Can do, but does this mean you’re hiring me? I mean the firm.’
‘Not in a financial way,’ I said in measured tones. ‘Let’s just say my credit with Stella is good for a while yet. So yes, go ahead, see what you can dig up. And I’d like a copy of the report you sent to Rees and a set of the photographs you took. And the negatives.’
‘That’s not possible.’ She shook her head as she said it and almost clipped a passing Mazda.
‘I think Stella will go along with it. You can ring her tomorrow morning, about 11.00, if you want to check.’
I could tell she was fuming. It felt good to make her fume. It was a start.
‘When Rees briefed you,’ I went on, ‘did he mention any names other than me and Amy?’
‘No.’
‘Not at all? He didn’t give you any other leads?’
‘No, he didn’t, and he was really apologetic that he couldn’t give me more to go on.’
‘Not even an address for Flowers?’
‘No. He didn’t have one. I was the one thing I couldn’t find out.’
I allowed myself a smile, because I knew that and she didn’t. But then I realised that if she’d still been on the case this morning she could have followed me out to St Chad’s in this damned Tixilix and I probably wouldn’t have noticed.
It also confirmed that Rees certainly wasn’t representing Keith Flowers now, even if he had in the past. A defending solicitor would have access to his prison files, not to mention access to the prisoner himself, even if he was in a padded cell and wearing a paper suit.
‘You’re sure he mentioned no other names?’
‘Yes, of course I’m sure.’ She sounded irritated.
Irritated was good as well, but still not enough.
So did that mean that Rees didn’t know – and therefore the Turners didn’t – about ‘Mr Creosote’, as Spider had called him? Then again, what the hell did I know about him?
The circle was coming round to Keith Flowers again, except there was a big gap where, somehow, Amy fitted in. But where was Amy? And why had I left my to-do list on the floor of Armstrong back in Soho?
Steffi was indicating right, and I realised I was back on home turf in Hampstead. Right outside the house, in fact.
The house that had a Freelander parked outside.
‘Looks like Amy’s home,’ said Steffi.
Chapter Eleven
I was quite prepared to shout ‘Honey, I’m home!’ but as the rest of the house was dead quiet, I could hear her in the upstairs shower.
At the foot of the stairs, just where I could have fallen over them even had I been sober and not wearing sunglasses indoors, were her laptop and a big black document case with a shoulder strap. There was white printing on the flap of the bag, which was the standard freebie you get at conferences these days, but when I tried to read it, I realised my eyesight had been irreparably damaged either by alcohol or by close contact with a capsule wall on the London Eye.
It just didn’t make any sense. It was probably upside down.
I took my glasses off and bent down to get a closer look, almost overbalancing in the process.
‘Wythnos Ffasiwn Cymru.’
What the hell was that? It wasn’t English, unless it was a gimmick and you had to hold it up to a mirror to read it. Or was that Swedish?
Then I noticed the circular sticky-backed badge that somebody had slapped on the fabric. That showed a smiling woolly sheep and had the legend: ‘Cool Cymru: The Welsh Aren’t Sheepish!’
That gave me a much-needed clue, and I so I read the second line of printi
ng.
‘Welsh Fashion Week.’
It looked like all roads, not just the M4, were leading to Wales.
I climbed the stairs, making as much noise as possible so as not to give Amy a Psycho moment in the shower. I needn’t have bothered, as she had locked the bathroom door, which was unusual.
‘Have you eaten?’ she yelled, turning the power shower down but not off when I announced my presence outside the door.
‘I grabbed a snack on the way home,’ I said slowly, framing each word carefully in advance.
‘Good, so did I. I’m knackered and I’m hitting the hay pronto. You okay?’
‘Yeah, fine,’ I said. ‘I could do with a shower myself.’
It was true. In fact I could do with a complete range of Stain Devils judging by my clothes. On my shirt alone I could identify beer, peanut sauce and blood, and I probably reeked of smoke, stale perfume and Stella. (Not that we’d managed anything really naughty; it was just that Amy would know I’d thought about it.)
She hadn’t answered me or rushed to open the door, so I shouted: ‘Tell you what, I’ll go and clean up downstairs. See you in a bit.’
‘Right. Good thinking,’ she said, and if she said anything else, it was lost in the blast of the shower.
I congratulated myself on a lucky escape. I had forgotten about my bruised and blackened face, which even Amy might have noticed, so the least I could do was try and reduce the swelling.
I dived into our bedroom to retrieve the towelling robe hanging behind the door, the one she was always reminding me I’d forgotten to put on, and kick off my trainers. Amy’s Gucci overnight bag was lying on the bed, the front panel unzipped. A few pieces of paper had fallen out on to the duvet cover. I didn’t touch them, but I did lean in close enough, almost falling over in the process, to see what they were. The bits of paper were till receipts from a bar in the St David’s Hotel, and one was a ticket stub from the Health Spa at St David’s. There was also a plastic-coated badge on a neck ribbon saying it was a ‘VIP Pass’ for Wythnos Ffasiwn Cymru, but there was no personalised name or photo ID on it.