Angel Hunt (8 page)

I looked suitably abashed. I honestly thought he would have forgotten the Marquis of Granby incident.

I looked at my watch.

‘Have I got time to do a quick errand? Just round the corner.'

He looked at his watch; a liquid crystal Roger Rabbit affair. Trendier than my Tissot Seastar, but not as expensive. It's the little things that count, I always say.

‘I was hoping you could pick up Eddie from the Blackfriars at one sharp. She's doing a birthday kissogram before she shadows the Holborn job.'

‘Can do. I only want to pick something up from Union Street, so it's on the way.'

‘Don't be late,' Simon said seriously.

‘I won't be,' I answered, equally straight.

I'd worked with Eddie on a Boozebuster before. She was a large lady, happily married with three kids, without a chemical trace of inhibition in her body. If any Boozebuster victim decided he didn't actually want to go back to the office or home to his wife, Eddie would gently, but very publicly, take hold of him by what she called his ‘wedding tackle' and lead him out of the pub. I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it with my own, slightly watering eyes. No way would I keep Eddie waiting.

I yelled a ‘See yer' to Kim, along with some friendly advice about not letting her thighs get too cold. Simon muttered something under his breath about ‘That would show up the teeth marks,' which both of us hoped she didn't hear.

I knew the Blackfriars well enough. It was a smartly restored pub that lovingly recreated the interior design of its psychopathic creator a hundred years ago. The main bar had an alcove with more marble than Lord Elgin could have handled, and, at the northern end of Blackfriars Bridge, it was over-popular with the lunch-time City crowd who thought it daring to venture across the river.

This close to Christmas, it would be packed solid, and I doubted if Eddie would be out on time, but I wasn't going to risk it.

I stopped at the Duke of Wellington – a scruffy corner boozer off Union Street – just long enough to buy two cheese rolls and a can of low-al lager to go. There were few customers, and the landlady had been leaning over the bar reading the
Daily Mirror.

‘Haven't seen you for a while, Mac,' she said, tight-lipped as she dropped the cheese rolls into a brown paper bag.

I suddenly realised she was talking to me. She thought my surname was Maclean.

‘I've been working up north,' I smiled, convinced that for her the North began at Cannon Street.

‘That's rare.'

I wasn't sure whether she was referring to regional unemployment figures or the fact that I claimed to have actually worked for once.

‘Sound system okay?' I nodded to the twin tape-deck behind the bar as she counted out my change. I'd rigged it for her a while back in part payment for temporary accommodation after the house I'd lived in in Southwark had accidentally been sort of totally damaged. I'd recorded some background music for her too, and it didn't sound as if she'd added to her collection.

‘Not much call for it these days,' she said sullenly.

I gave up trying to remember her husband's name so I could ask after him. From the look of things, it was odds on he'd done a runner with either the till, a barmaid or the Christmas Club fund. Maybe all three.

‘There hasn't been any post for me by any chance, has there, Iris?'

She shook her head. ‘Phone bill, electricity bill and a notice saying the rates are going up. And that was just the second post.'

‘I'm expecting something from an old friend, and I just remembered he only has this address for me.'

‘Nothing's come here, luv. I'll keep it for you if it does. It'd be quite exciting to get somebody else's mail for once.'

She went back to her
Daily Mirror.

‘Well … er …' I couldn't think of much else to say. ‘I'll call in tomorrow, just in case.'

‘You do that, Mac,' she said, without looking up. ‘Maybe we'll be less busy. Maybe you'll have a drink next time.'

No wonder the customers were staying away in droves.

 

I picked up Eddie just as it started to rain again, and we chatted all the way back to Simon's office while she dressed herself in street clothes from a Sainsbury's shopping-bag. (That's how you know when you're going to be kissogrammed. Watch for the woman with her hair up, dressed in a raincoat, who leaves a shopping-bag near the bar after a quick word with the barman. Of course, if you get it wrong, she's a terrorist and you've got about ten seconds to finish your drink.)

After she got out, more or less decent now, I readjusted the rear-view mirror back to its driving position and followed her in.

Simon was on one phone at his desk, grunting a lot but not saying much. I motioned to the other phone, and he waved me go ahead, so I parked a buttock on the edge of the desk and fished out a scrap of paper – a cigarette paper – from my wallet. The number pencilled on it was Zaria's workplace. Or so Zaria had assured me.

‘Aurora Corona,' said a fruity voice.

‘What?'

‘Aurora Corona Rest Home. Who is this?'

Where did they get a name like that? I thought that was a Mexican beer.

‘Er ... I'd like to speak to …'

‘No telephone calls accepted for residents –' I wondered how long it had taken him to break the habit of saying ‘inmates' – ‘during luncheon.'

‘Actually, it was one of your staff I was –'

‘I'm sorry –' Oh no you weren't – ‘but we do not accept personal calls until after four pm'

‘But it's important.'

‘Who did you wish to speak to?' he mellowed.

‘Zaria.'

‘Hmmm. Is it an emergency?'

‘Yes.'

‘Are you a relative?'

‘Yes. It's family business.'

‘Zaria who?'

Oh shit.

‘Pardon?'

‘Which Zaria? We may have several on the staff.'

You bastard.

I hung up. That would teach me to pay more attention, to put names to phone numbers. Now they were unfashionable, maybe it would be okay to get a Filofax. No. Things weren't that bad.

 

The Boozebuster went off without a hitch. The unsuspecting and very sloshed Mr Harding was bundled out of the pub and into the back of Armstrong with the four girls in various stages of undress. It was a bit of a squash, but he didn't seem to mind, and I'd put on a tape of golden oldies (stuff from around 1985) for them to sing along to. Before we got to his office, he'd persuaded Kim and Eddie (with a fistful of notes) to come with him and start another party at his local wine-bar after he'd ‘cleared his desk.' I took Jacqui and Frances back to Southwark and collected my wages from Simon.

Then I headed north in the general direction of Redbridge to the Aurora Borealis Bide-A-Wee rest home, or whatever they called it, determined to get Zaria well sorted.

The clever devil who'd answered the phone had said private calls after 4.00 pm, which I guessed would be a shift change for the staff. I remembered something Zaria had said about clocking on at 8.00 in the morning, and 8.00-to-4.00 seemed a reasonable working day. Well, to some people. To me, it sounded depressing.

With the traffic thickening and the street lights coming on, it would be after 4.00 when I got there. London traffic now moves at an average speed of 11 miles per hour. Cabs carrying Sherlock Holmes did better than that, and you couldn't grow roses using Armstrong's exhaust.

I was thinking about life, the universe and how much I liked Kim Carnes's voice (a voice that makes you regret moving to filter cigarettes) on the tape-deck when I began to conjure up a mental picture of Billy Tuckett. At first it was back in university days again, and then, suddenly, him lying all bloody in Sunil's bathtub, and it wasn't even funny bizarre any more.

It wasn't a vision or a psychic experience or a message from above. (Falling over is God's way of telling you the bar's about to shut, in my book.) Maybe it was delayed shock. Maybe it was drugs. I made a note to get some.

I don't know what it was. I just found Armstrong heading towards Lucy Scarrott.

On the speakers, Kim Carnes was feeling it in the air and praising the Universal Song. I just love the old romantic ones. So I'll blame her.

 

When I'd called in at Sunil's place after Prentice had driven off, Nassim was on the landing yelling orders to the builders, who were crashing around in the bathroom. It was as if he didn't actually want to go near the scene of the crime, and I couldn't blame him. The police had done a reasonable job of cleaning up and had put a plastic sheet over the hole in the window to keep the rain out. A couple of lads, who looked as if they were moonlighting from a Youth Training Scheme, were trying to re-glaze the window from the inside, underneath the plastic so their haircuts didn't get damp.

I hoped Nassim was making enough on the insurance claim to have the job done properly in the not-too-distant future.

‘Everything okay?' I asked cheerily.

‘No more dead men, if that's what you mean,' snarled Nassim. ‘You be careful of those tiles!' he yelled towards the boys in the bathroom, who were setting up a step-ladder in the bath. ‘You'll make good any damages.'

‘He wasn't a burglar,' I said, joining Nassim at the top of the stairs.

‘Who is a burglar?'

‘Nobody is. The man who fell through the roof wasn't after any of the family jewels. He didn't have a striped jersey or a bag marked “Swag,” as far as the Old Bill are concerned.'

Nassim winced at the sound of breaking glass from the bathroom, but it was only the remaining splinters of the old stuff coming down. I got interested as well. I love to watch people work when they obviously have no idea what they're doing.

‘What are you talking about? Can't you see I'm busy?'

‘The dead man wasn't a burglar is what I'm saying. You can relax on that score.'

‘Not my house,' he said, not looking at me but straining to see round the bathroom door. ‘Just my bloody money!'

At last, emotion. I was getting to him.

‘Okay then, Sunil can relax.'

‘He's coming home. Mind that paintwork, you!'

‘What?'

‘I rang him last night, and he's flying back today or tomorrow. I think it a good excuse to get away from his family. I don't blame him. I don't like them either.'

‘I thought you were related.'

He looked at me as if I'd crawled out from under the Axminster. ‘We are. Hey! That toilet seat just will not take your weight!'

I shook my head and wondered if there was any room spare on the next space shuttle.

‘Well, you won't be needing me here then, will you?'

‘Correct.'

‘I'll get my gear together, then.' That wouldn't take long. I
was wearing most of it. ‘I suppose the rent amnesty's off as well?'

‘Double correct.'

Merry Christmas.

‘Anyway, tell Sunil it wasn't my fault.' He looked daggers at me, so I pressed on before they drew blood. ‘The guy wasn't a burglar, he was coming here because he used to know someone who lived here before.'

‘Oh, the Cat Woman,' Nassim said casually, then yelled: ‘Care-ful!' as part of the window-frame dropped onto the bathroom carpet.

‘I know I'm going to regret this,' I said, but still said it. ‘This ... er ... Cat Woman, she wouldn't be called Scarrott, would she?'

Nassim still kept his eyes on the lads in the bathroom, one of whom had produced a seven-pound hammer from his tool-bag, but reached for his wallet pocket and produced a broken-spined red leather diary. He wet a finger and flicked through some of the loose pages at the back.

‘Here we are. Lucy Scarrott, 28 Geneva Street, Highbury.' That was up near the Arsenal football ground. I knew that from when I'd gone to watch them play in the past; but I'd been cured of insomnia for some time now.

‘How do you know that?'

‘Know what?'

‘Where she lives?'

He looked at me pityingly.

‘When we bought this place from her, she had nowhere to go. She did not tell Sunil this until the exchange of contracts. She was one totally disorganised lady. So I – I –' he jabbed himself in the chest with a finger ‘– had to find her alternative accommodations.'

‘One of your bedsits?'

‘For a couple of months, yes. Her and her smelly cats. I do not approve of animal pets in my properties.'

‘And why should you?' I asked, looking down at my feet.

‘And I also had to take her furniture into store until she found this house in Highbury. Then she telephones one day and says she wants her stuff delivered bloody quick. Not one word of thanks do I get from her or from Sunil or his wife … Hey!'