She laughed. “It’s what they’re for, right?” then, before he could respond, continued, “Sorry I’m late. Dermot had Daphne done early so I had to collect her.”
“Who…?” he managed before she carried on.
“Dermot. Mechanic from Ireland. Daphne… my true love!” she said this sweeping her hand over the car, then held it out to him. “Sorry, Mr Severin.”
“Joe,” he mumbled, taking her hand, prepared this time for her grip. Pianist’s, she called it. She may not have changed her clothes but she’d showered, she smelled different, of vanilla. The coconut gone, the tobacco and leather interior still there, but fainter.
She kept his hand while she looked up at the building. “Lumme,” she said, but in her posh voice, “is this it?”
He disengaged, handed her the visitor parking pass. “Put this on your dash. There’s a traffic warden itching to clamp. I have the form for the council for a month pass. You take that down to the council offices with the rent agreement I give you, they’ll issue you one.” He gestured to the stone steps. “Shall we?”
“Let’s.”
He demonstrated the keys for the double locks. The elevator was small and she grinned up at him as they rose. There was a short, narrow hallway, then the door, and more keys. “After you,” he said, pushing the door open.
She got three foot in and halted, whistling. “Wow!” she said.
He’d thought the same when he came to see it two years before. Wondered what his life might have been like if he’d lived in a place like this, in an area like this, and not in a semi in Finchley.
The front door opened into a short corridor leading into a single huge room, with tall windows to the front, the middle one of which was a French door, opening onto the balcony that ran the length of the frontage. To the left was a brick fireplace with a marble mantel above it under a tall antique mirror. In front of a long, deep, Heals’ sofa stuffed with cushions was a white rug, a low glass table on that. To the right of the front door was a cherry wood dining table, six tall wicker-backed chairs around it. A rectangular opening, with wooden frames folded into its edges, gave onto the kitchen. “Want to see in there first,” he said, gesturing, “or the master bedroom?”
“Bedroom, please. I’m not much of a cook. Whereas,” she paused just long enough then added with a chuckle, “How I do love to sleep!”
He led the way. The bedroom was in keeping with the rest – minimalist, off-whites, richly furnished. Walk in closets in dark wood lined one wall. The king bed was pre-made with rich linens. She sat on it, bounced. “Nice,” she murmured.
The bathroom was opposite the cupboards – chocolate tiling, separate walk in shower with multiple heads, a high-sided tub, an old French sink like from a farmhouse with a vintage faucet.
They went to the kitchen. A smaller bathroom was opposite it, just a shower and loo in there, with a smaller bedroom beside, single bed, desk. “Office,” he said.
She glanced around the kitchen, dutifully admired the double oven, the stove built into the counter top, the twin sinks. But she didn’t want to linger, pushed past him in the doorway, back to the main room, dropped her coat over the back of a dining chair which she then sat on. Reaching into the fur’s pocket she pulled out a packet of rolling tobacco – Dowe Egbert’s, he noticed. “Do you mind?” she asked.
It wasn’t a hotel. And the flat was usually rented to Greeks or Arabs and they nearly all smoked. He shrugged, went into the kitchen, came back with an ashtray.
“Ta,” she said, when he put it down. He was going to tell her all the other stuff: how to work the heating – not that you’d need it right now - where the fuse box was. But he was interested in what she was doing, the precise way she was preparing to roll her cigarette – the paper extracted, smoothed, laid down, a filter set on its end. He sat, to watch. “So, Mr Severin,” she said, not looking up, pulling a pinch of brown strands from the bag, “what are we doing here?”
She said it softly, without weight. So rather than take what he thought she meant, he took her literally. “Oh yeah, the papers,” he said, flicked open his briefcase, brought out, the rental agreement, the inventory. When he looked up she was studying him but he couldn’t tell what was in her jade eyes. “So if you could just read this carefully through then sign?”
She laid the tobacco on the rolling paper, rubbed her fingers, picked up the top sheet. Her eyes shot wide. “Five thousand quid! You’re ‘aving a laugh.”
“That’s the price. What I can get. Usually. You’re not paying that, of course.”
“Bloody right, I’m not.” She laughed, laid the paper down, studied him for a long moment. “But, uh, why am I not, again?”
He began to explain – about empty flat tax, waiting for the right rich renter, but she waved her hand. “Come on, Mr Severin. The truth now. I always like the truth.”
“It… is… partly true. You would be… helping me.” He thought of the Shadows, hiding their money, not anything he was going to share with her. “But also,” he shrugged, and looked her straight in the eyes. “I like you.”
She took her lower lip between her teeth, and dropped a veil of hair over her left eye. “Hmm,” she murmured, appraising him. “And how far do you hope to take this, uh, liking?”
“Oh, not far. I mean - ” he swallowed, “I am married. Happily married.”
“I wonder if I know what that means. I wonder if you do.” She studied him a moment longer, then flicked her hair back, and reached again into her tobacco bag. This time though she didn’t pull out more strands but a small brown lump. “Do you mind?” she said, slightly differently than she had before. A challenge in it.
It had been a while - but it wasn’t something you forgot. “Now look,” he began.
“You do? Oh.”
She held the hash above the bag, didn’t let it go. And suddenly he thought, fuck it, and said, “Fuck it. Look, do what you want. But smoke it on the balcony, eh? There’s an Indian family in the penthouse above.”
“Of course.”
Reaching into her coat pocket again, she pulled out a Zippo lighter, scorched the edge of the hash, crumbled it in, deftly rolled the joint. He smelled the acrid sweetness. “Join me?” she said, standing.
“On the balcony, not to - ” he gestured at the paper cone in her fingers.
She led the way. There were two chairs, but she lit the joint then leaned on the parapet, looked down at the street. There was an Indian grocer on the corner, a pub almost dead opposite. She dragged, let out a waft of smoke, inhaled the cloud through her nostrils. “You sure?” she said, raising it.
When he’d been on the kibbutz, and then all through India and Thailand, he’d smoked a lot. It had almost been his life. Now, how long had it been? His brother Tony’s bachelor party in Amsterdam, ten years before and that the first time since he’d married Vicky, four years previously. He hadn’t liked it. Had persuaded himself that he no longer liked it.
Fuck it.
He took the joint, inhaled deeply. Coughed hard. The nicotine hit him first, made him sway. Then he felt the other drug, underneath. Felt it in the throb at his temples. In the loosening at the back of his neck. He took another, more cautious hit, and his shoulders dropped.
“That’s better,” she said. “Isn’t it?”
“Much,” he replied. He looked down into the street. What a great street it was, so… alive. He suddenly and deeply fancied an afternoon in that pub, several lagers. See if his shoulders could loosen even more.
Then he noticed a familiar dark shape, ambling, peering into windshields. Into his windshield. “Look at her.” He pointed.
“Who?”
“The traffic warden. Desperate to nab me, to have me clamped or towed. Silly cow!”
Lottie leaned over the balcony. “Oy! You!” she yelled. “Silly cow! Silly old moo!”
“Don’t,” he said, giggling, putting his arms around her, pulling her away. He laughed, couldn’t stop, coughed again, couldn’t stop, l
aughed some more, let her go. They went back inside, and while she got him some water, he went to the fireplace, stared into the old mirror, fascinated at first by the patterns the corrosion made in it, until he noticed his face, and became more fascinated by that. This was not the man who looked back every morning when he shaved. This was… who he’d been. Who he was, perhaps. Under all the rest.
She came and stood beside him, handing him the glass. He looked at her now, really looked at her, but in her reflection. Remembered the letter. About what was real, and what was not. “There is something else, actually,” he said. “I am a married man…”
She supplied the missing word. “ ‘But’?”
He told her. Of the moment back in the flat in Tufnell Park. What he’d seen. Her eyebrows – thick, he noticed now, unruly - rose. “That’s it?” she said, changing from his reflected to his real eyes. “That’s all there is?”
“All there is.”
“Well.” She smiled, drank some more water, set her glass down on the mantel. “That’s a very small favour indeed in return for,” she looked around, “this.”
She turned away from him then, dropping to her knees on the white rug. Leaned down on one hand. Then, reaching behind her with the other, she slowly pulled up her blouse. The sun wasn’t hitting it as it had yesterday. But he could still see the faint filaments of hair, golden in the cleft of her back.
Joe gazed for a very long moment, taking in every small detail. Then he put down his glass, went to his briefcase, and pulled out a miniature of Tequila Reposada.
7
Sebastien kept the telephoto lens resting on his rolled down window and pointed at the balcony. But Severin and his tart had disappeared inside a few minutes earlier and he suspected, from the hugging, that they weren’t going to emerge anytime soon. Also, they’d smoked a blunt. Stoned sex, he thought. It had been a while; since Magdalen actually, what, eighteen years before? That Rhodes Scholar from Somerville, Canadian, couldn’t remember her name. Her wildness had freaked him out a bit, he remembered that. He thought he’d slapped her but he couldn’t be sure. Maybe she’d wanted him to? But the sex had been… consuming. So it seemed unlikely he’d be seeing the bookkeeper anytime soon.
He noticed a shadow approaching on the pavement and pulled the lens in. It was that fucking traffic warden again. Fat West Indian cow had been sniffing around him since he arrived. Peering in at him. Staring suspiciously at the ‘Disabled’ sign hanging on his rear view mirror. She peered again now, stared at him, he shrugged his shoulders at her. She sniffed, moved on. Bitch.
He went back over some of the shots he’d taken.
The tart was quite cute, in a slatternly way. Charlotte Henshaw was her name. He’d discovered that by having Miles, back at the Circus, run the plates on the MG. His assistant had sent the name and, soon after, a mini bio. Twenty six, a pianist in show bands, she was a registered tenant of Severin Properties; not here though, over in Tufnell Park. The property listing on 45 Clonmarle Gardens showed it as a two bedroom, furnished, and vacant. Had the bookkeeper brought her to Portobello for a quick shag? It didn’t fit at all with what Nate had said about his fellow yid, the quiet, family man and husband. The vetting brief Miles had also sent, that they’d run when the Shadows had been deciding whether to back Nate’s nomination for bookkeeper, was brief, certainly, mainly because there was nothing to find out – Joseph Severin was ordinary to the point of dullness. Following him from his home this morning on his rounds had only confirmed that. He’d visited two properties, he’d picked up his blimp of a wife and taken her to a catering company, he’d stopped for a bagel at a Hendon eatery.
The only vaguely interesting thing happened when Sebastien had dropped into the company office, on the pretence of seeking rental accommodation for a fictitious nephew. He’d dealt with a bovine lump called Oliver but only needed to give him less then half of his attention. He’d watched as Severin fielded calls, shoved paperwork around, could tell his heart wasn’t in it. Occasionally the man would swipe and grin, and he’d wondered if he was on Tinder – or perhaps, horrors, Grinder? But when Oliver went into the back room to photocopy some property specs Sebastien had faked interest in, Severin had got up to go to the loo, and Sebastien had been able to get to the phone just before it locked.
It wasn’t Tinder. But it was proof, if proof were needed, that the man was indeed dabbling in stocks, the very same stocks where Sadiq was hiding and increasing the Shadows’ money. He didn’t have much time, so he just checked messages after that. Trouvez la femme, he’d thought, as he saw the messages from one ‘L’ – full of emojis and txt on her part, more restrained on his. He’d memorized her number and laid down the phone, just as Oliver came back.
He knew where Severin was headed when he’d set out, from the messages, but he tailed him anyway. It was part of the job he’d enjoyed when he joined 6 straight out of his short service commission in the Blues. Field work, he’d always been quite good at it. Bernard, who was jealous because he’d gone into mundane data work at 5, had mocked him as a low rent James Bond. But it had certainly been different, and he’d learned his stuff in Zagreb, Beirut, Tokyo. They’d kicked him upstairs a few years back – but he seemed to have retained the essentials. Probably over-egged it, seeing as Severin was about as clued in as a nun at an orgy. Still it made a change from driving his desk and computer.
Did he need to stay any longer? He had the evidence in his camera, enough to convince Nate of his choice’s frailties – not that evidence was really required, seeing how the sugar vote had gone. Absurd the rituals they went through, rather than a show of hands! But he, Bernard and Perry had done sugar lumps since Bedales, the reason now lost to the mists. Something to do with Perry’s brief obsession with Dungeons and Dragons, he thought. Still, Nate was a key member of the Shadows, his contacts in the Middle East unsurpassed. Best to keep him onside.
Five fifty nine. He’d stay till half six, in case anything else came up. He turned on his radio, to listen to Radio Four news. Sat there, shaking his head at all the fatuous nonsense people were spouting about Brexit. Just fucking get on with it, he thought. Sadiq had done a study for them – with their connections, Brexit was a goldmine. All those EU regulations gone, the Eastern Europeans scrambling to cut new deals, British nouse – English nouse really, because the Jocks would probably soon be gone, and the Micks tearing each other apart again – set to dominate and exploit. He was seriously thinking of getting into the private sector. His cousin Gervase had been keeping a seat warm for him at the family’s merchant bank. He grinned. All the more reason to enjoy this field work while I can, he thought.
At six thirty, he got out of his Volkswagen Passat – taken from the 6 pool, non-descript but with a souped-up engine – and started to stroll down the street, on the opposite pavement to the house. Out of the air conditioning, the heat hit him straight away. He was in the third of his disguises, which meant the reversible jacket, which guaranteed more sweat. His shirt was short-sleeved and silk though, and he was wearing shorts, sneakers, the blue LA Dodgers baseball cap. Bernard called it his American tourist outfit, and Sebastien had profited from his time in Washington to pick up an acceptable accent. And even though this street with its pub and shops was not the Palace of Westminster or the Tower, you never knew what Yanks were into. Several of the houses sported plaques so he hefted his camera and snapped them. Some Rastafarian poet, who had lived three doors down from Severin at Number 36, was honoured with a blue one. In pink, at Number 30, was a feminist, Elizabeth Dingwell, Suffragette.
He’d never taken his eyes off Number 42 for more than a few moments. Now he turned, crossed the street to its side, and walked slowly back towards it.
He was about twenty yards away, when Severin came out the door. Without hesitating, Sebastien lifted his camera and snapped. It could have been a mistake, a breaking of cover, but his target was too set on his car to notice, hurrying into it, driving off fast. For a moment, Sebastien thought about following hi
m, then thought better of it. Truly, he’d got all the evidence he needed on Severin. He thought he should spend a little more time on this Lottie Henshaw before calling it a night. If Severin had only just rented the property to her – or more likely, given the state of her, set her up in his love nest – she’d probably have to rise from her ‘enseamed bed’ – what was that, Hamlet? – sometime soon to get some groceries. He’d ask her directions in his fake American. He’d like to hear what she sounded like.
He was thirsty though. And there was a gastro pub almost opposite the house with a window that gave onto the street.
He went in, ordered a pint of some strong European lager, sat on a stool at a shelf that ran the window’s length. Street life passed by – including that fucking traffic warden, who stopped and peered at his windscreen, actually made a note of something, walked on. Really? What had this country come to? No pity for the disabled?
Nothing moved in the building opposite. He took the odd shot of the balcony as he sipped his beer, made sure he’d compensated for the pub window. Then, as he drained his pint and was just about to leave – it seemed the lady was not for stirring – he saw a young black dude approach and stop before Number 42, staring up. Sebastien hefted his camera, set it to multiple frames, as the man turned. Caught his face – and instantly knew he’d seen it before. As the man ran up the stairs, pressed the third buzzer – hers – then went in, he stopped shooting and flicked back through the shots till he had one of the man’s face.
I know you, he thought, studying. Criminality came first to mind, and why not? People yelped about racial profiling but it was a simple fact that there was a far higher chance of a black man being a dealer, or carrying a knife, than a white one. Had he seen this man in a mug shot briefing he’d had recently? Drug smuggler? Terrorist? But then, when he realized where he knew him from, he laughed. Then immediately frowned. “Another of these,” he said, turning, and lifting his glass, “and the Lamb Tagine,” he added. He’d settle in for a bit, watch. The newcomer was a complication they didn’t need. Like an STD Severin was spreading around, people were getting infected. People who could attract attention.
One London Day Page 6