‘I’m going to see if I can’t get into his slipstream,’ says Mel, ‘see if Ranjiit can do us another bottle.’ And she slips through the crowd in his wake.
‘Which one’s Biccie, anyway?’ asks Max.
I point across the floor. ‘The brunette with the brown velvet skin.’
‘Well, that narrows it down a bit.’ He laughs. And then he does something very odd. He cups his hands about his mouth and shouts a single word:
‘Caroline!’
For a moment, the room falls quiet. It’s as though a mobile phone has gone off in a bar full of bankers. Everyone looks around to see who’s calling them, then, like a herd of startled sheep, they begin to talk again, odd bleats joining up to become cacophony once more.
‘That’s brilliant.’ Lindsey giggles. ‘Can I try?’
‘Be my guest.’ He gestures expansively towards the room.
Linds cups her mouth, yells, ‘Chaaaarlie!’ out over the throng. The hoots and brays die away once more, heads crane like compys in Jurassic Park. ‘What a lovely game,’ she says. ‘Lovely.’
‘The trick,’ he explains, ‘is to not do it too often. Every ten minutes or so is about right, or they begin to learn, like Pavlov’s dogs.’
‘A little-known fact about Pavlov’s dogs,’ Harriet butts in, ‘is that, about twenty times after they’d rung the bell and salivated, they realised that there wasn’t going to be any more food and started attacking their trainers.’
Everyone falls silent to contemplate this for a moment. Then the Jurassic crowd parts once more and Bob Pruitt bears down upon us with a tray of canapés held high above his head. ‘No biccies, I’m afraid,’ he announces. ‘But I managed to get these.’
We all fall upon them as though we haven’t eaten in weeks. ‘You saviour,’ cries Harriet, ‘you little star!’
Bob beams round a handful of bruschetta.
Mel pops out from behind him. She has a bottle of red in one hand and a bottle of white in the other. ‘I’m getting quite good at this for a librarian,’ she says. ‘Ranjiit’s a sweetie, isn’t he?’
‘Where do I recognise him from?’ asks Max.
‘He used to work at the Bean Bag Bar with us,’ I tell him. ‘And before that he was the barman at Polka!’
‘Polka! Of course!’ cries Max. ‘He used to make a blinding schnapps martini! With little sausages on the side!’
‘They were Kabanos, I think,’ Bob corrects him.
‘No, no they were definitely sausages,’ says Mel. ‘By the way, I just played a blinder.’
‘Oh, yeah, what was that?’ asks Linds.
‘Some toad with bloody wraparound sunspecs on was leaning over me telling her stories about his bloody skiing holiday. Adam something-or-other. Never been so bored. You know me. I wouldn’t know a schuss from a scheiss. And he’s leaning further and further forward to look down my dress and it’s getting more and more obvious. So I said, “Oooh, look, there are my food-critic friends over there. I must go and talk to them.” And he said, “Ooh, must you go so soon? I was just getting to know you. I’m going to an orgy in Fulham later. Want to come?”’
Harriet opens her mouth and mimes putting her finger down her throat.
‘If it were up to me,’ says Max, ‘I’d horsewhip the lot of ’em. If ever there was a justification for bringing back hanging …’
‘So,’ finishes Mel, ‘I said, “Ooh, but I wouldn’t want to monopolise you. There must be other breasts you want to talk to.”’
Max sighs. ‘Ghastly, these things. Ghastly. Don’t know why I bother coming. Hate every minute of them.’
‘Me, too,’ says Harriet in her most blasé voice, though I know for a fact that she’s spent the entire day getting excited about getting to go for a night out without having to serve anyone. She had three baths. Count ’em. Three.
‘I swear, this is it,’ says Max. ‘Complete waste of time.’
‘Dreadful,’ agrees Harriet. ‘Absolutely pointless.’
‘Sick of bloody canapés,’ he says.
‘I know,’ she says, ducking under Bob’s arm to help herself to a miniature duck pancake with hoisin sauce dripping from the ends. ‘Never want to see another one.’ She pops it in her mouth, chews, closes her eyes slowly in ecstasy.
Max pauses, lights a Dunhill in a small bone cigarette holder. ‘Going to the launch of that new gastropub on the river next week? The Cox’s Head. Down by Putney, good views of the boat race.’
‘Probably,’ says Harriet. ‘Haven’t decided yet.’
‘Good,’ agrees Max. ‘Me, too.’
Chapter Forty-Four
Revolving Doors
Grace has won a Brit Award. No, really. We’re watching the highlights in stunned silence when the buzzer goes at half past five on Sunday, and, while I’m still going, ‘Good god. What if she’d turned up and collected it?’ I think: blimey, he’s keen. He’s not due till six thirty. I’ve not even had a chance to have a shave yet. I’m still drinking sugary tea, and Harriet, who has promised to go out, is still elbow-deep in the glue and cat litter from which she is constructing a faux-gravel path in a 3-D representation of Highgate Cemetery after, as far as I can see, a nuclear holocaust. Blasted trees of coathanger wire and unthinned oil paint hang over leery gravestones and scattered chicken bones. We’ve been arguing desultorily about whether she is ever going to clear up the popcorn on the stairs, which must be riddled with beetles by now.
We’re both so gobsmacked by the sight of the bald little man in a suit who has been sent by her record label to collect Grace’s Brit that neither of us hurries to answer the door. He only comes up to the shoulder of the fashion-model-in-platforms who announced the We’re Not Complete Philistines, You Know Award, and she is standing behind him as he mutters acknowledgement of the entire orchestra that were hired to back up my mother’s xylophone-playing. It’s lucky that she’s black, really, as otherwise, what with her décolletage and push-up bra and the fact that he is dipping his head towards the microphone in the manner of people unused to public speaking, one would think that she’d suddenly sprouted three tits.
Halfway through his speech, a gigantic photograph of Grace, looking particularly grim, is projected onto the backs-creen, and the assembled crowd of musos drop their don’t-care act to emit a unified gasp of fear. I know how they feel. The last time I saw my mother, I had my hands clamped over my mouth to stop myself from screaming.
The buzzer goes again as an Indie artist in a dress that looks like a pine cone comes forward to announce the Hammiest Overacting in a Promotional Video Award. Still reeling, I wander over and press the speak button on the intercom, go, ‘Hello?’
‘Hi, it’s Mike Gillespie,’ comes an unexpected voice.
Harriet looks up, raises an eyebrow. ‘Oh, hi.’ I press the buzzer. ‘Come up.’
Harriet goes over to the sink and begins to swarfega her hands. ‘Well. What does he want?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Hmm,’ says Harriet. Then she says, ‘You’re not going to sleep with him, are you?’
This gives me pause. ‘Gosh. I hadn’t thought about it,’ I half-lie. ‘D’you think I should?’
She rolls her eyes. ‘I wasn’t giving out orders, Anna. Keep control. Just because someone asks you a question doesn’t mean that the answer is yes.’
‘D’you think that’s why he’s here?’
‘Well, I don’t think he’s planning to walk in here and rip your gear off, no. Anyway, for heaven’s sake, you’ve got Niggle turning up in an hour. What’s wrong with him, all of a sudden?’
‘He’s going back down under after the weekend.’
‘I think,’ says Harriet, ‘he’ll be going down under before then.’
‘Eugh,’ I say. ‘Lurid and unnecessary detail.’
Harriet squirts a couple of pints of cream onto her hands, rubs it up to the elbows, puts her rings back on.
‘So, what? Our PC Gillespie is to be the next victim?’
‘Ch
rist, you make me sound like a black widow spider,’ I say.
‘Well …’ she says doubtfully.
‘What?’ I’m used to Harriet calling me a slag, but this is slightly unusual.
‘He’s a nice guy, that’s all,’ she says. ‘I’m not sure if he’s the quick-fling type.’
At which I laugh. ‘Harriet, every man in the world is a quick-fling type if you give him the opportunity.’
‘Cynic,’ she says.
‘Takes one to know one,’ I reply.
The buzzer at the bottom of the stairs sounds and I clunk him in.
‘Seriously, though,’ I say, ‘even you thought he was cute.’
Harriet nods. ‘Yes. He is. And nice.’
‘So what do you think?’
‘It’s not up to me. Why don’t we see what he wants?’
I suppose that this could be a good plan. ‘Look,’ I say, ‘whatever, I don’t want to give the impression that there’s a revolving door to my bedroom. He’s pretty respectable …’
The door begins to creak open. Harriet nods hurriedly at me and we both turn to give him a welcoming smile as, panting slightly, he staggers the last couple of steps over the lintel.
‘I thought I was reasonably fit,’ he announces.
‘Good stairs, those,’ says Harriet. ‘Designed to wear burglars out before they get here.’
‘You must have had fun moving in.’
‘There’s a winch on the balcony. They carried everything downstairs.’
Harriet looks at her watch. ‘Well, the sun’s passed back under the yardarm. Would you like a beer, or does your duty to the public preclude the ingestion of an alcoholic beverage?’
‘I’m not on duty,’ he replies, and a small line that appears beside his left eye is the only indication that he’s taken in the jibe. ‘I’d love a beer, if you’ve got one.’
Slightly to my surprise, I find that there are half a dozen tins of Stella in the fridge. Neither of us really bothers with beer, on the grounds that it fills you up too much to really work, so it’s not often you find it in the house unless I remember to swipe a couple of cans from the restaurant. Harriet must have been thieving. I pop the top on one, cast around for something to pour it into. The sink is piled with glue pots.
‘Don’t worry,’ says Mike hastily, ‘I’ll have it from the tin.’
Relieved, I hand it over.
‘So to what do we owe the pleasure of this rare visitation from Her Majesty’s Constabulary?’ Harriet continues with her mick-removal, flopping down on the sofa in her paint-stained jeans. I’ll give her this: she’s certainly making an effort to be friendly. She usually grunts and carries on painting when a bloke comes into the room.
Mike sits in the armchair. He already looks comfortable in that chair, as though he’s been sitting in it for years. He looks good in his mufti, even if it does veer towards the well-pressed collarless grandad shirt and Hush Puppies style. But there’s something quite appealing about a man who’s so obviously in need of a bit of help. I’m hardly the first woman to think so.
‘I just thought I’d check up on you,’ he replies, once he’s settled. ‘See how Midge’s head is and find out if you’ve done anything at all.’
‘My name’s not Midge,’ I say, because you have to stamp on these things early or they get ingrained and the next thing you know you have a nickname. It took me five years to shed Fanny, and I’m not going to start again now, ‘and thanks, it’s much better.’
‘Still got a lump?’
I think: ah, a chance to get a bit of the old physical rapport going, say, ‘Huge one. Size of an ostrich egg. Want a feel?’ and present my scalp to him.
He feels around above my ear, eventually locates the remains of the lump and says, ‘More of a bad mosquito bite, I’d say. Hurt at all, does it?’ and takes his hand back to rest on his beer can.
Bums. Mike Gillespie’s hand felt extremely right, stroking around my earlobes. I would have preferred if he’d kept it there a bit longer. ‘Not much any more. It’s better now.’
‘She made the most of it while it lasted,’ says Harriet. ‘I was bringing her meals in bed for two days.’
Mike takes a slug of beer and says, ‘And have either of you thought about who’s been doing this, yet?’
We exchange glances. Rather embarrassed ones. Harriet says, ‘Well, nothing else has happened since …’ and dries up.
I light a cigarette.
Mike sighs. ‘Well, I’d not entirely expect something else to have happened in a week, but that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t be at least thinking about it.’
Harriet puts on her stubborn look.
‘Come on,’ says Mike. ‘Can’t we at least talk about it?’
‘So which days off do you get, then?’ Harriet effects about the most blatant change of subject I’ve ever seen. And he cooperates.
‘Hard to predict,’ he says. ‘I usually get Sundays off, but we all work on a rota that gets mapped out ahead of time. I get a reasonable amount of notice, unless someone’s ill or injured or something.’
‘Blimey,’ I say. ‘Must play havoc with your social life.’
‘You get used to it,’ he says non-committally. He’s got a touch of the Clint Eastwoods about him, a sort of yes-ma’am laid-backness that makes my skin contract. Pleasantly, you understand. ‘I don’t suppose it’s any worse than working in a restaurant.’
‘Ah, but our friends can come and hang out at our place of work. I don’t suppose yours can do that.’
‘Not much,’ he agrees. ‘Though I seem to get people from the Chamber of Commerce in the back of my Panda at least once a fortnight.’
‘What for?’
‘Meant to be a community spirit-building thing but everyone knows it’s just to give them a thrill. They love it when we put the siren on, especially if we go through traffic lights.’
‘Can I ask you a question?’ says Harriet. Mike nods over his beer can. ‘Do you ever put your siren on when you don’t strictly need to?’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Well, you know, when you’re bored, or when it’s time for your tea break, or when you’ve, like, bought a curry or something and don’t want it to get cold?’
The humour line comes back by his eye. Then he smiles, a lazy, naughty, calculating smile. ‘That would be an abuse of my judicial powers,’ he replies. And despite the fact that I’m going to get plenty of naughties tonight, a little voice inside me goes: you can abuse your judicial powers with me any time, sonny. And then I notice that Harriet is holding his gaze, and I think: blimey. If I didn’t know her better, I would think they were exchanging meaningful glances.
‘Well, doh,’ says Harriet. ‘Why do you think I’m asking?’
He laughs. ‘I don’t feel myself at liberty to divulge that information under the current circumstances,’ he says. The cheeky minx, I think, she’s flirting with him. Harriet never flirts. She saw so much of her mother flirting to get her own way that she rejected the practice as unsound in her early teens.
‘Anyway,’ continues Mike, ‘you’re changing the subject. Have you had any further ideas about who might be sending these emails?’
‘Probably dozens of people,’ says Harriet. ‘It’s hardly a challenge to work out what my address is.’
‘Have you thought about changing your address to something more anonymous?’
‘Bollocks to that,’ says Harriet. ‘I’m already ex-directory and anonymous on the council-tax list. I’ve got to have some way that people can get in touch with me. What would happen if some gallery owner wanted to buy something and they couldn’t find out where I was?’
Yer, right. That’s happened so often.
‘Well, look, there’s nothing I can do to force you to ask for help,’ he says, ‘but at least will you take my phone number and my badge number in case you need it?’
Now, there’s a novel way of getting a chick to take your number. ‘Thanks,’ I say, ‘that’s really sweet of
you.’
‘No problem. It’s just that I feel sort of responsible now I’ve got involved. You know how it is.’
‘Oh, yes,’ says Harriet. ‘We know.’
It’s five past six. I’m definitely going to have to get this guy out of here in the next ten minutes. I still can’t work out what’s going on, whether he’s interested or not, but law four of promiscuity states that facing a potential lover with the evidence of the one before is the most effective way of failing to get anywhere after asking someone to marry you and have your babies. Unless he’s the sort of man who’s kinky for other men’s women, in which case you should steer well clear, as rule five states that if you get any inkling that you’re about to become a trophy shag you should cut and run.
I give Harriet a look.
She gazes vaguely back, showing not a sign that she’s taken in my meaning. The bitch is going to torture me.
‘Would you like another beer, Constable Gillespie?’ she offers.
‘Yes,’ he says, ‘thanks. That would be nice.’
Damn you, you cow. You’re doing this on purpose.
Harriet slowly unglues herself from her seat, meanders over to the fridge. Opens it and stares for several seconds at the five cans of Stella inside. Closes the door, stands up and says, ‘Damn. I thought there was more. I’m very sorry, but we seem to have run out.’
Good girl. My mate.
‘Never mind.’ He settles back.
‘There’s only one thing for it,’ she says. ‘I’ll have to take you out and buy you one.’
‘Good God,’ he says. ‘There’s no need for that.’
‘No,’ says Harriet, ‘I insist. It would be a travesty if you were to come round here on your night off and go away on a single beer. I won’t hear of it.’
‘It’s fine,’ he says. ‘I’m perfectly all right. Really.’
‘Well, look, you can do me a favour, then.’ She comes back towards him, bends forward so that a small flash of cleavage peeks out from under her work shirt. Harriet learned this one from Godiva. Done right, the flash so small that the victim barely takes in that he’s seen it, it works brilliantly, like subliminal advertising. Mike Gillespie is like a large dog on a small chain.
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