by Mark Timlin
She grinned, opened it up on the fob and climbed inside. It started on the first try, and rumbled sweetly. ‘Don’t bend it,’ I said, and watched as she reversed out of the bay, then took off with just a small screech from its wide tyres.
I went back to the Ford and followed her, but she lost me at the first set of lights.
The Rover was neatly parked up outside my flat when I got home, and JB was inside with an open bottle of red wine and a skinny spliff. ‘Where you been slowcoach?’ she said when I got inside.
‘Obeying the speed limit. How was it?’
‘Lovely car. Runs like an angel.’
‘Great. I’ll get the paperwork and insurance sorted tomorrow.’
‘Blimey. Is that the real Nick Sharman speaking, or has some alien inhabited his body? Obeying the rules. Being a good citizen.’
‘Someone’s gotta be,’ I said. ‘Now don’t bogart that joint.’
‘You do say the loveliest things,’ she said, and poured me a glass of wine.
Monday morning dawned dank and drizzly. I sat in bed watching JB get her business face and suit on before heading to retail heaven, with a cup of coffee and a slice of toast prepared by her own fair hands. She rattled her car keys at the door and said, ‘When will I see you?’
‘I should look into Roy’s things, and do what I do best.’
‘Which is?’
‘Detect. Why don’t I call you tonight and we’ll make a date?’
‘Sounds fair. Don’t work too hard.’
‘Back at you.’ And with that she left, and I knew I had to do something positive.
I got up, did my usual ablutions, made more coffee, watched the breakfast news and hauled out Roy’s notebook and the photo of the young lad Ronnie Bennett. At ten I phoned the number he’d left me for his mother. The phone rang four times, then a female voice answered, ‘Hello.’
‘Can I speak to Mrs Estell Bennett?’ I asked.
‘Speaking.’
‘We haven’t met,’ I said. ‘My name is Sharman. Nick Sharman. I was a colleague of Roy Catons’
‘That poor man. I read about it in the paper. I’m so sorry.’
‘Yes. He was working for you.’
‘You don’t think…’
‘I don’t know. The thing is, he left me notes on the case. Has your son been found?’
Her tone changed. Saddened. ‘No.’
‘The police?’
‘Useless.’
‘Well I’d like to help.’
‘Really?’ Change of tone again. Suspicious. ‘I paid him, I suppose you want more money.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘No money. This is for Roy. And you. Pro bono. No charge.’ For the Queen, as we used to say on the job. ‘Can I come and see you?’
‘If you want to.’
I read out the address in the notebook.
‘That’s right,’ she said.
‘Tomorrow morning. Say about eleven.’
‘I’ll be here. I’m always here.’ This time her voice was distant and sad.
We made our farewells and hung up.
The rest of the day I put on my good citizen face. I put the Range Rover on my insurance. You never can have enough cars, and I added JB as a named driver. Then I found a housecleaning firm in east London and booked a clean up for Roy’s flat for Thursday morning. I told them I’d leave the keys with the concierge. After that I phoned Chestertons and told them I’d need a valuation on the place on Friday, same story with the keys. I figured to get them left after I saw Mrs Bennett.
That all done I phoned JB, told her what was happening and arranged to meet at the Chinese in Soho Tuesday after she finished work. She asked if I was sure, as it was the last place I’d seen Roy, and I said we’d eat and drink to his memory. I knew he’d have done the same if it had been me deceased.
Finally I microwaved a Waitrose dinner for one, opened a decent red, watched TV and hit the sack.
The next morning I put on a smart suit and tie, took the Range Rover for an outing and headed to Hackney. Once it had been a rough old corner, but now scaffolding was everywhere and skips lined the side streets like beached whales. It seemed everywhere in London was being gentrified. I found the address Roy had left me, parked the motor, grabbed my overcoat against the chill, and rang the doorbell. It was a handsome semi, but looked like it could use some TLC. So did Mrs Bennett when she answered the door. She was too skinny, her cardigan was wrongly buttoned, and the bags under her eyes were dark with fatigue.
I introduced myself and she invited me in. The house was chilly, and she apologised for the mess. As it happens it wasn’t too bad, and who was I to complain? She took my smother, sat me down on a plump sofa, and asked ‘Cup of tea?’
‘Love one.’
She left me alone and I heard her bustling about in the kitchen. While she was gone I stood and looked around the room. It must once have been cosy. Flat screen in the corner hooked up to DVD player, Sky and some kind of games console. Plenty of books in cases. Hard and soft cover novels, biographies of the famous and infamous, pictures on the walls, an open fireplace with cold ashes. But all a bit dusty, a bit neglected, a bit sad. Like the life had left it, and it obviously had.
She came back with two mugs, sugar, and biscuits in a tray. I felt a stab of pity, but regained my ear and smiled. ‘Thanks. It’s cold outside.’
‘In here too,’ she said. ‘I should have lit the fire.’
‘No. This’ll warm me up.’ I took a sip of the tea and put the mug on the coffee table in front of me.
‘I know this is going to be hard, but can you tell me what you told Roy. From the beginning.’
So she told me. Ronald, Ronnie Bennett, named after Ronnie Wood, because her husband had been a mad Rolling Stones fan, had been a lovely boy until he changed schools at eleven. I knew how tough that could be, from my own experience and my daughter’s. Then her husband had died. Didn’t smoke, didn’t drink, didn’t do drugs, didn’t play away. A loving husband and father, had a massive heart attack in Sainsbury’s doing the Saturday shop in front of mum and son. Dead before he hit the ground according to the doctors. Insurance paid the mortgage and left Estelle and Ronnie enough to live, if not happily, at least comfortably off. Then it all went pear shaped. Ronnie’s grades went south, he started playing up. Ended up staying out to all hours. First of all with expensive new kit. Then dirty and starved. When mum wanted to know what was going on he turned nasty. Hitting, spitting. The full nine yards. Then a few months before she went to Roy, he did a proper David Nixon and went right off the radar. Cops were informed, but didn’t do much.
End of song, beginning of story. By the time the tale was told Mrs B was crying into a tissue. I felt for her. Felt like crying myself if truth was told. My daughter had done a runner once. I knew the feeling.
Finally, she said, ‘Then last summer Roy rang me and said he might have some news for me. Good news. When I heard nothing I tried phoning, but only got his voice mail. Then I saw what happened to him on the news. I couldn’t believe it. It wasn’t my fault was it?’
I told her no, but I didn’t know. Not then. And anyway I wasn’t in the business of making her feel worse.
‘Did the police not ask you any questions.’
‘No. No police.’
Just like I’d thought. They didn’t give a monkeys for Roy or his ilk. In other words, the likes of me.
‘Well, I said. ‘If you want me to look further?’
‘Would you?’
‘Yes. I owe Roy. And like I said on the phone. No charge. I’m taking a sabbatical at the moment. It’ll give me something to do.’
‘But you mustn’t put yourself in danger.’
I didn’t say that danger was my middle name.
‘No. I’m very careful.’
After more tea and biscuits I left her.
I took Roy’s flat keys over to his block, told the concierge who was coming and crossed his palm with silver. Actually a crisp new fifty pound note. We parted the best of friends.
Then I did what I should have done weeks before. I went to the pub where Roy’s body had been found. The car park was afternoon empty, and the only trace an oblong of melted tarmac the shape of a car. I stood for a few moments then split. Did I feel a tear in my eye? Actually, yes.
I went back home, changed into jeans and leather jacket and treated myself to a cab to Soho. I was sitting in the restaurant drinking a long mojito when JB arrived looking as stunning as ever and making young men jealous and old men wish they were young again. Me included. She really was the kind of woman to make a bishop take a flying kick at his mitre.
I stood, she air kissed me and sat. I followed suit and she asked me what was cooking.
I told her all.
‘I worry about you,’ she said.’ I don’t want to have to identify a burnt body sans hands and head.’
‘I’ll never happen.’ Famous last words.
We wined and dined on the finest Chinese in London in my opinion, drunk too much expensive wine and brandy, fell out of the place at last knocking, then headed to Ronnies for some late jazz. Ironic, two Ronnies in one day. But life’s sometimes like that.
We left the club at three, and I splurged again on fifty nicker to an obliging cabbie who deigned to take us south of the drink, although, first he made me swear we didn’t live on a council estate. Bloody cheek.
Next day, both heads banging we parted lovers and I decided to get down to business.
First job, I phoned DI Jack Robber. ‘I wondered when you’d be back on my case,’ he said.
‘Good morning to you too, Jack,’ I said back. ‘Well that’s more than your colleagues have been on Roy.’
‘Meaning.’
‘Meaning they pulled me in, but haven’t even been to visit the lady he was working his last job for.’
‘What did you expect? No special treatment for bent ex-coppers. NHI.’
That fucking stung, NHI. No humans involved. ‘Christ, Jack. He was a fucking human. He was a pal of yours.’
‘But it’s not on my beat. And between you and him, being friends gets me a bad name.’
‘And a few quid in your bin.’ Like I may have said before, Jack Robber’s take on being bent was extremely elastic. He did favours for mates for a few shills, no questions asked.
No answer, came the reply.
‘Let’s meet,’ I said.
‘Usual time, usual place tonight,’ and the phone died in my hand.
Usual time, seven pm, usual place the Dog boozer in Loughborough junction.
Seven o’clock rolled round and the Dog was its usual warm and friendly self. Sticky carpets, dull brasses, mucky glasses, the same dead Wurlitzer juke box that hadn’t been switched on since Kojak was number one on the TV charts, and that feeling that tumbleweed was about to roll across the floor. I ordered a half of lager from our glamorous toothless barmaid and headed for a table. I didn’t wipe the chair off with my hanky, but I wanted to. Robber rolled up his usual ten minutes late and bought his usual mild and bitter in a dimpled jug. Old school through and through.
I handed him his usual two ton in old notes which he secreted away in his usual nicotine brown whistle. ‘I hear you’ve come into money,’ he said through a mouthful of foamy suds.
‘Blimey, the old jungle drums have been beating.’
‘Seems like you owe me a finder’s fee, seeing as I introduced the pair of you.’
‘Leave off, Jack, he’s hardly cold in his box.’
‘More like hot considering he was cremated.’
‘Funny.’
‘Not so’s you’d notice. Chestertons isn’t it. Good firm. A hundred and fifty grand I reckon. Ten per cent should do.’
‘My girlfriend reckons a hundred.’
‘She’s behind the times my son. Property in Docklands is shooting up. You’ve probably earned a grand since you inherited. Just let me know, I don’t want to go looking.’
I held up my hands. ‘So what DO you know?’ I asked.
‘Not much, and that’s a fact. He had a base, but I reckon he kept his office in his hat as they used to say. Computer threw nothing up, except he played a lot of Solitaire and PAC-Man whatever that is.’
For once I knew but I didn’t let on.
‘So that’s all I get for my money,’ I said.
‘Some you win, some you lose. Why don’t you just take the money and run. Take that lovely girlfriend of yours on a cruise. Somewhere warm.’
‘Because it looks like nobody cares. Not for Roy, and not for the boy he was looking for, and his mum.’
‘Your choice. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.’
Those words would come back and haunt me.
We separated then and I headed home to another go round at the microwave. I sat up late, the TV on, turned down low and watched tough guys beat seven kinds of shit out of each other.
The weekend came and went again, as it is wont to do. Roy’s flat got cleaned and the estate agent called and valued the place at close to two hundred grand, and reckoned he’d get a sale pronto. So both JB and Robber had been short in their prophecies. I told the bloke to take an offer. He said he would.
Meanwhile I’d taken a shufti around Ronnie Bennett’s school. Now, remember folks don’t like grown men eyeing up young boys and girls in the playground. It can lead to all sorts of trouble. Cops, or worse, vigilante justice and broken bones. The whole village turning out with flaming torches and pitchforks, so I kept a very low profile, but did notice that the naughty boys and girls gathered together outside a local chip shop at lunchtime to smoke and eat. And I also noticed a certain older lad who seemed to be their supplier of weed and pills.
So, that Monday, that dawned black cold and wet I ramped up to the chippie as the first cod was being battered, and our young vagabond dope dealer arrived for a coffee and bath bun. I joined him at his table with a smile.
‘What?’ He said with a sneer.
‘What you got?’
‘Nothing for you, old man.’
Christ, I wasn’t that old.
‘Sorted for e’s and whizz? Or is that before your time?’
‘A bloody old hipster,’ he laughed.
‘Used to be.’
‘So what can I get you?’ He took a bite of bun and a sip of tea. The place was warming up nicely as the first batch of chips went in.
‘Information.’
‘That’s in short supply round here. ’Specially to strangers. ’Specially to strangers who look like old Bill.’
‘Many of them been around lately?’
‘How lately?’
‘Summertime. Looking for a lad named Ronnie. Goes to the local comp.’
He grinned like a wolf. ‘Old bloke like you. Big, clever bastard. You never saw him coming.’
‘Sounds about right.’
‘Yeah. He was here a lot. Then not. Left owing.’
‘Owing what?’
‘A ton would cover it.’
My turn to grin. ‘You wouldn’t be mugging me off would you?’
‘What me guv?’
What the hell I thought. What was a ton when I’d just come into easy money?
I took out my wallet and pulled out a wad of twenties, counted off five and held them out to him. He reached, I pulled back. ‘So tell me.’
‘He’s gone in country,’ said the lad whose name I didn’t even know.
What the fuck, I thought. Vietnam? ‘What do you mean?’ I asked.
‘Gone where you wouldn’t want to go. With bad people you wouldn’t want to meet.’
‘I need more before you get this,’ I said.
‘Go to Euston or Paddington. An
y main line railway station or coach station late at night. You’ll see the country boys and girls if you look hard enough. Is that enough?’
I nodded and he took the money, abandoned the rest of his snack and left.
‘You ordering?’ asked the chip man.
I shook my head. ‘Maybe later,’ I said, and left too. Outside the street was streaked with frost, and I turned my collar to the cold and damp and went home to think.
I thought about the web, but it wasn’t a help. Type ‘In country’ and all you get is a film, a book and the usual military jargon explained. Nothing about kids and drugs.
JB arrived early evening with an Indian take out and I filled her in with the story so far. She chased her chicken jalfrezi round the plate, sipped at a beer and asked. ‘So!’
‘So I guess I’ll take a run around the main London termini and see what I can find.’
‘Can I come?’
‘Really?’
‘Really. If you were worried about a grown man hanging round the school gates, think about a grown man following runaways at London termini as you so beautifully put it.’
‘Never thought of that.’
‘Then you should have.’
‘You’re right. When?’
‘When I haven’t got work the next day.’
‘Friday?’
‘Sounds good to me.’
So that was that for a few days.
Meanwhile, on the property front things were looking up. My bloke from Chestertons phoned to say there’d been an offer of one hundred and eighty grand, but he said we could do better if we waited. ‘Take it,’ I said.
He sounded disappointed, and tried to make me change my mind. ‘Take it,’ I said again. ‘I’ll clear the place tomorrow.’
Which I did. I’d like to say I found some hidden documents to help me solve the case, but the only things hidden were ancient copies of Playboy magazine. Roy, old school to the end.
I thanked the concierge on my last trip to the car, told him I’d sold up, and to pass on the spare keys to the new owner, but if he expected another tip he was disappointed too.
At last Friday evening came round as it always does, and we set off on a search for any news of Ronnie. We scoured the train stations with not much luck and eventually ended up at Victoria coach station around midnight. That’s when we met Sheila. At least that’s what she called herself. She was sitting on a bench by the entrance wrapped up against the weather. She was small, dark haired and didn’t take to us much at first.