A Private Business (10 page)

“It's all right, Martin, you don't have to apologize,” Vi said as she followed the old man up to his room on the second floor of the property. Leonard Blatt's boarding house had always been a bit of a tip. Compared to the rest of the grand properties in the street it was a positive disgrace. As Vi followed Martin Gold to his room, she could smell more damp than curry and whenever she touched the walls on either side she was made aware that they were only cheap plasterboard. Len Blatt hadn't been a bad sort, but he hadn't been the best landlord in the world and it looked like his missus was continuing that tradition. That or she was too distracted by whatever Lee Arnold was investigating for her. Oh, she'd put him coming out of Len Blatt's old house together with Lee's appearance in Camden and come to a conclusion. Whatever was going on, Maria Peters had been anything but her old self since she'd come back to comedy.

The old man opened a door which led into a room jammed with art deco furniture. There was a sink in the corner where something that could have been a load of underpants languished in soak, and the big bay window that allowed a view out into the street was cracked and filthy. The place smelt of feet.

As soon as he'd closed the door behind them, Martin said, “I saw the story in the
Recorder
.”

“You understand I had to come and see you, Martin.”

There was a lovely old armchair she could have sat in but it was all piled up with books.

“That was 1975,” the old man said. “You can't keep on harking back to 1975.”

“I'm not harking, Martin, I'm checking,” Vi said.

He sat down on his bed and wrung his hands. “I never go anywhere near that Olympic site.”

“Neither do I unless I have to,” Vi said. “Where the construction's going on they keep changing the road layout and it drives me bonkers.”

Martin Gold said nothing. He looked no different from the last time Vi had seen him which had to have been at least five years ago. But then Martin had always looked old even when she first knew him in 1975.

Vi sighed. She had to say it and he had to give her some sort of answer. “Did you get your old bloke out and show it to a woman over the Olympic site?” she said.

“No!”

“I have to ask, Martin.” She looked around to see whether he had a pair of CAT boots somewhere on the floor. But he didn't appear to. Martin was more a brogue and dirty mac man.

“I don't … I never do that. Got no feelings for that now.” He didn't look at her, not once.

“Where were you, evening before last, round six?” Vi asked.

“Here.”

“Anybody verify that?”

He looked up and sneered. “What? The Asians? They wouldn't know whether I was alive or dead in here. It was freezing, like today, and I'm old. Why would I be out?”

Vi raised an eyebrow.

Martin shook his head. “I've not done a thing, like that, since '75,” he said. “And yet you people can't leave me alone! Blimey, it's not like I touched any of 'em, was it?”

“You wanked off in front of women.”

Martin looked pointedly down at the covers on his bed.

“Quite a lot of women,” Vi said. “Took us a while to get you, didn't it, Martin? No cameras or DNA back in those days.”

“So why're you bothering me now? That Olympic site must be bristling with cameras. Why would I go over there to do that,
if
I was going to do that? I'd have to be stupid, wouldn't I?”

“Nothing clever about being a wanker, Martin,” Vi said. “It was lucky for you old Len Blatt wasn't too fussy about who he put in his places.”

Martin's lips peeled back and he bared a set of brown and broken teeth. “I lost everything because of you people!” he said. “My job, my home, me kids!”

Vi knew Martin of old and had seen and heard it all
before. “So it's nothing to do with getting your old bloke out and tossing yourself off in front of people who didn't want to see it? All my fault? Martin, to be truthful, I couldn't give a flying fuck what has and has not happened to you. My only concern is that you're not wanking in public.”

“I'm not!”

“Good.”

Vi hadn't really believed deep down in her soul that Martin Gold was the same person as the flasher over on the Olympic site. Apart from anything else he was too old and, to be fair to the mystery man, all he was doing was getting his penis out. He wasn't actually doing anything with it. Martin Gold had masturbated, he'd come at women at night in and around the East London Cemetery and he'd taken delight in ejaculating near them. He'd worn a hood and he'd frightened them and Vi had had no sympathy with him then or now.

“So how you getting on with Len's widow?” Vi asked. She hadn't seen Martin since Len Blatt's death.

“She comes and picks up the rent. Sometimes, when it suits her, she gets some maintenance done.” Martin was still fuming. “One of the Asians said she might want to sell up, now she's back on the stage.”

“Must be worrying,” Vi said.

The teeth bared again and he said, “What do you care?”

Vi shrugged. “I don't.” Then just to be certain she said,
“Now, Martin, don't take this the wrong way, but I need to have a bit of a poke about for a minute.”

Martin Gold's face blanched. “What are you looking for?” he said. “What now?”

“Martin, mate,” Vi said, “we can do this the easy way or I can go and get a warrant. It's up to you.”

Once Pastor Grint and all the others at the blessing service had left Maria's house, the comedian and Betty made eggy toast together and then sat down at the kitchen table to eat it. There was a message on the answerphone from her mother, but Maria just deleted it. She had nothing to say to her. Every so often, when Maria caught a glimpse of Betty, when she wasn't looking, she found herself hardly able to reconcile the girl she'd once been with the woman she was now. Betty Muller had been very pretty. At school she'd had lots of boyfriends, but not, it was said, any sex. Her family had been Christians and she of course still was, although now with a different church from the one she'd gone to with her parents.

At seventeen Betty had married a boy from her church and everyone had said that soon she'd have a baby, but she hadn't. Betty had never had any children, and now divorced, alone, fifty and decidedly beige, she was never likely to have them. When, after reading their booklet, Maria had first gone to the Chapel of the Holy Pentecostal Fire, seeing Betty there had initially made her heart stop
and then dance. She thought she'd lost her years ago.

“I tell you, I felt like I was going crazy last night,” Maria said. She sprinkled some cinnamon over her toast and then took a bite. “I'm so grateful everyone came here to pray with me today.”

“The church cares. That's why Pastor Grint and the rest of us came to bless the house.”

“I know.”

Betty thought for a moment. “But if the cats are always there …”

“They are! You know how anal I am about this house.”

Betty chewed. Everything about her was small and that included her tiny mouth and little, bride-white teeth.

“But the private detective guys couldn't see anything on their tapes,” Maria said. She frowned. “Betty, do you think that there's really something in what Pastor Grint says?”

Betty's thin face colored. “You know I do.”

Maria put her knife and fork down on her plate. “Don't get me wrong, I feel the peace of Christ growing in me every day of my life, but when Pastor Grint talks about demons and spiritual attack …” She raised her arms in the air and then let them drop loosely by her sides. “I don't know what to think! Logic tells me that such things are just not possible.”

“But Marie, you know that evil exists, it's around us all the time. Only Jesus can deliver us from it. And until you
are truly born again, your soul will be fought over by the powers of good and evil.” Maria and Betty had been best friends at school. Betty had always called her “Marie.” It was terrible that they'd lost touch for so many years. It turned out that Betty had been living less than a mile away from Maria all the time. “But Pastor Grint has cleansed this house now, for the time being.”

“Mr. …” Lee had told her not to tell anyone his name. He'd told her not to tell anyone, apart from her mother, that she was being surveilled, but she'd told Betty almost immediately. “The private detective guy I told you about, he isn't comfortable with the spiritual.”

But Betty made no response.

Demons, exorcism and possession were things that Maria was still unsure about. Her lack of belief in such things was one of the reasons why she had not as yet testified and been born again. Maria had seen Pastor Grint perform exorcisms, she'd just watched him cleanse her house. However, decades of first Catholic terror and then skepticism had left her with a nagging feeling that the people involved had to be deluded in some way. She was certain that what the pastor and the church as a whole was doing was done with good intentions but sometimes she cringed at it nevertheless. In a way, and in spite of feeling quite oppressed by him at times, Maria could see why Lee Arnold was a skeptic; such things made no sense. Except that when she found the church and saw Betty
that first time and then Jesus came into her life she knew that His presence in her heart was real. His presence was changing her, making her into a better, more authentic person. He and His church were becoming part of her family—better than her family.

Maria looked out of the kitchen window into her rain-soaked garden and Betty's eyes followed her. “This house is beginning to feel like a prison.”

“You miss your husband. You loved him.”

Maria felt a tug of pain in her chest. When the word “heartache” was used in the context of loss it really did describe what happened. Her heart hurt for Len. He'd been years older than her, in no way physically attractive and he'd had terrible trouble with wind, but he'd been funny and generous, irreverent, clever, he'd loved her and he'd made her life work. He'd kept at bay the psychological demons that she knew for certain were real.

“The memory of your husband has to be everywhere in this house,” Betty said. “When you have a good marriage you do everything together; choosing the furnishings, the decoration. I can tell that you put this place together with great care, Marie. If you feel it's a prison then it's a very beautiful one. You've been very lucky because God has given you this place to enjoy and to use for good if you so wish.”

“Use for good?”

Betty smiled. “It's a big place, Marie, there are lots of
things you could do with it that would help you and others. If you wanted to.”

Maria looked from granite worktop to brushed steel fridge to star-like spotlights. Opulence. Betty lived in a rented one bedroom flat in Manor Park furnished out of second-hand shops. She had no husband, no money, no job. Betty was plain and quiet and yet her face glowed because Jesus had entered fully into her life and Maria was, if not envious, ambitious for that peace, that serenity.

“I've been very lucky,” Maria said. “I should be more generous.”

“You've worked very hard.” Betty put her knife and fork down and reached across the table to take one of Maria's hands. “You're over-strained, Marie. You need peace, a bit of time to reflect and be with Jesus and with the soul of your dear Len.”

Maria knew that she was right. And she knew that as well as Jesus, she needed Len to be there too. Betty was very perceptive about that. She understood why Maria went to Len's graveside as often as she did. She knew that, really, Maria wanted to be with him.

What Neil was saying wasn't anything that Lee hadn't come across before. In fact when they'd both been in the police they'd had problems with people they'd been ordered to watch for their own protection. Most people had this desire to be completely alone from time to time, and so what Maria Peters was doing now was not out of the ordinary. She'd given the agency a list of places she visited regularly and East Ham Jewish Cemetery had been on it. Neil West, however, would rather have gone in there with her.

“So you're parked outside?”

“Yeah.”

“Anyone else in there with her?” Lee asked.

“There's another woman.”

“Visiting a grave.”

“I guess. It's hard to know. Jews don't put flowers on graves, do they?”

“No.” Fred up at the bar, mouthed at Lee. Did he want
a drink? “Coke,” Lee said. “Diet.” Then back into his phone, “Clock anyone?”

“No. Blue Ford Ka, old style, followed into Sandford Road but then headed off up toward High Street South. Got a Fiesta in front of me here but a bloke got out and walked into the house opposite. Otherwise, quiet as the proverbial. But then it would be. It's cold, drizzling, dark. I thought these places shut up early in the winter.”

“Usually.” The barmaid with the thalidomide arm came over and cleaned his table with her one manicured hand. Lee briefly looked up and smiled. “What did Miss Peters say to you about it?”

“Said she needed some time alone at her husband's grave. I said I'd follow at a distance. She wasn't having it.”

Lee shrugged. “You can see inside though, can't you?”

“Yeah, course I can see her.” Neil knew better than to actually comply with a client's request for solitude. It was generally just whimsical. “She's walking down the central pathway. If she starts to disappear from view, I'll nip through the gates.”

“Let me know when she heads back and I'll take over when she gets home. Rung around a bit earlier and I've got a couple of other old faces interested in taking on some shifts.”

“What about your new girl?”

Old Fred put a diet Coke down in front of Lee and Lee winked at him. “I'm putting her on a new client,” Lee said
to Neil. “Lady wants her teenage daughter watched. Reckons she could be in to drugs.”