Angel Touch (30 page)

Nobody could have recognised me walking up Stuart Street. I don't think anybody could see me behind the bouquet, and I had trouble finding the keyhole.

I don't know who frightened who more. I almost dropped the flowers when I saw Lisabeth on the phone in the hallway as I kicked the door shut. She jumped back a pace and would have gone further, but the phone cable prevented it. I couldn't blame her; I must have looked like a platoon of Japanese snipers behind all that foliage. She clutched a hand to her ample bosom – actually not so much a bosom, more a shelf (a cheap shot) – and motioned that the phone was for me.

‘Just one moment, Mr Angel is free now,' she said into the mouthpiece in a voice I hadn't heard since Fenella's parents had paid us a visit once.

We pantomimed an exchange of flowers for phone, which resulted in her crushing about half a dozen carnations and me getting the phone cord wrapped around my neck. It was Innes McInnes.

‘Angel?'

‘Yo.'

‘How did it go today?'

‘We survived the Exhilarator, and I think we got some candid camera shots that may come in handy. You had any ideas?'

‘A few. What do you think Pegasus Farm is worth on the open market?'

That threw me for a minute. So now I was an estate agent. Well, I had the suit for it, but then, you see, I'm basically honest.

‘I dunno. Million and a half?'

‘Mmm. That's what I thought. Come and see me later, at the office, about six-thirty. Know where it is?'

‘Houndsditch, isn't it? Near the Clanger.'

‘The what?'

‘The pub, the Clanger. Best pint of draught Bass for – ooh, two hundred yards.'

‘Er ... yes, if you say so. Parking is impossible around here, I'm afraid.'

‘Not for me it isn't. See you.'

Lisabeth handed over the bouquet, her nose twitching a warning of hay fever sneezing on the Richter Scale.

‘So you've remembered Salome at last, have you?' There's appreciation for you. ‘Well, Frank was there all night, and then he went straight to the office, but they sent him home at lunchtime. He looks very ragged, so I made him go to bed and get some sleep.'

‘He'll get up for me,' I said, moving towards the stairs.

‘Don't you go disturbing him. He's had ...'

‘Salome recovered consciousness this morning.'

Lisabeth squealed and advanced on me, beaming.

I backed rapidly up the stairs, holding the bouquet between us like Peter Cushing used to hold a crucifix up to Dracula.

 

Frank sat in the back of Armstrong, occasionally kneeling up on the rumble seat so he could yell in my ear, but all the time talking. Before we reached the BUPA hospital in Paddington, I felt I knew every temperature change Salome had gone through in the past five days, what her grandmother – phoning twice daily from Jamaica – thought about life, the universe and young people driving around in fast cars, and how difficult Frank had found going to the launderette.

The one thing he didn't ask, for which I was grateful, was what Salome had been doing with Alec Reynolds at midnight on a Saturday down in darkest Kent. Then again, he'd no reason to think I knew.

A nurse in a pale blue designer trouser suit (how unlike the dear old National Health!) gave Frank a dirty look, as he had rushed out in T-shirt, jeans and trainers. I still had the suit on – and Fly's glasses if I needed any props – so I got a ‘That'll do nicely' sort of smile and the up-from-under look that tells you that there are advantages to private medicine. I made a mental note to ask for an application form on the way out.

She asked us to wait and indicated a nest of Bauhaus leather armchairs. I'd hardly got comfortable when another lady – older, but still born after the Beatles had their first Number One – wearing a pink trouser suit with waistcoat, announced herself as the hospital administrator and told us to follow her.

Frank saw me watching the sway of her buttocks as we trooped down a corridor.

‘That reminds me,' I said out of the corner of my mouth, ‘I must get my watch fixed.'

It was an old one – one of Groucho's actually – but he smiled and relaxed a bit, so it did the job.

The administrator took us one floor up in a lift big enough to ferry a helicopter to the roof. Maybe some of their patients arrived that way.

‘Mrs Asmoyah is in Primrose,' she said to Frank. I thought she was being sarky about my bouquet, but then I realised all the rooms were named after flowers. Primrose was second on the left after Violet if you hung a right after Tulip. I wondered if they had one called Hemlock for the really ill.

‘We moved her there just before lunch when she came to.'

‘Has a doctor seen her?' asked Frank anxiously.

‘Of course,' said the Obergruppenfuhrer administrator in her ‘What-do-you-think-we-are?' voice. ‘Two in fact; the duty doctor and a consultant – a very distinguished one, I might add.'

‘You see, Frank,' I said, slapping him on the back. ‘Nothing's too good for our Salome. I told them to spare no expense.'

The administrator smiled. I'd said the right thing, and she'd buttoned me as the one who signed the cheques. I was in there.

We discussed the administration of the hospital, especially the shift times of the nurses, to allow Frank a few minutes alone with Salome. I tell you, I'm always thinking of others. Then I asked the administrator, who was called Lucy (I was right about the Beatles), what the real form was on Sal's case.

‘Nothing unusual really, although of course it's not usual to get yourself smashed up in a car accident in the first place. But for people who do suffer head injuries like Mrs Asmoyah, it's not uncommon for them to suddenly come round a week or even ten days later and be perfectly okay. There may be problems: damage to the eyesight, loss of sense of smell, perhaps amnesia. That's why we'll keep her in for a week or so, for tests, but our consultant is very pleased with her – and very optimistic. She's very lucky, having a caring employer like you.'

I had to agree. I was the soul of philanthropy as I entered the Primrose room. Strike that. Make it Primrose Suite.

There was a flat-screen TV and video recorder on a two-tier trolley, both remote controlled, headphones for a radio and tape system, remote-controlled blinds and curtains and a small fridge with the words ‘Personal Bar' printed on the door. So this was how the other half got sick. I could handle it.

‘Angel!' croaked Salome from the bed, which seemed to have Frank draped across it like a spare duvet.

There was a lot of hand-clasping, cuddling and a few tears, some of them from Salome. Then she asked what had happened to Alec, because nobody had told her, and I just looked at a spot about a foot above her head and let Frank do the dirty work.

When Sal stopped sobbing, I asked her how much she remembered about the accident. It wasn't much.

‘We'd done the Exhilarator course in the evening, but we hadn't found anything – except that Cawthorne doesn't like women much, and blacks not at all.'

Frank tensed, but I lifted a finger slightly to shut him up.

‘We were staying in a hotel in Maidstone and we went back for a meal, then later, about tennish, we sneaked back to see if there was anything going down. Cawthorne seemed to be having a private party. There were a lot of cars at the farm but nobody around. They were all off in the woods somewhere.

‘We got as close as we dared, and we could see torches and they were using ... Alec called them thunderflashes ...' I nodded to show I understood. ‘And then we heard guns. Real guns. Alec said we'd better get out of there, so we did. I'm sure we weren't seen, but I was pretty scared.' Her brow creased in puzzlement. ‘I remember getting in the car and driving through the village back to the main road ... but ... nothing else.'

She reached for Frank's arm and grabbed it with both her hands.

‘Frank! I just can't remember anything else! I just don't recall the accident.'

‘Good,' I said, patting her arm. ‘Let's keep it that way.'

 

 

 

 

 

McInnes's office was a suite on the second floor of a four-storey block sandwiched between other late-'60s developments, all now owned by Japanese or Canadian banks for some reason. Most of them had bistros or wine bars on the ground floor or in the basement, but they came and went. Above them, business went on.

A big, black security guard practised his mean look on me through a plate glass door, but eventually released the electronic lock after I'd asked for McInnes through a squawk box. He pointed to a door at the end of a short corridor. I smiled at him, but he didn't look a better person for it.

There were three or four offices, all with doors open but lights off. I got the impression that McInnes had let the staff go early. His door simply had ‘Chairman' embossed on it. I knocked and there was another electric buzz before the door clicked open. Another careful man.

His jacket hung on an old oak hat-stand, probably the only thing in the room not electronic or plastic, apart from the chunky gold cufflinks on his blue-striped shirt and a digital watch that looked as if it not only gave you the exchange rate for yen but ran the traffic lights in Tokyo as well. His desk was modern pine and no bigger than a baseball diamond. Most of it was occupied by a word processor and printer, leaving just enough room for two small televisions and a multi-purpose phone console. There were no personal knick-knacks or executive toys, but with that little lot, he didn't need them.

‘Angel! Hello. Good man.' He wasn't looking at me, but at the VDU screen on the WP. ‘Come and look at this.'

I sauntered round the desk to get a view of the screen. The only chair in the room was his swivel one, though there were two sofas near the window. Good psychology. Your visitors were either friends you could relax with or minions you made stand. I stood, but put my hands in my bomber jacket pockets just to show I was chill.

The screen showed a balance sheet for a company headed LTN, but it might as well have been in Chinese for the sense it made to me.

‘Linton's,' said McInnes. ‘You must have heard of them. Surely?'

I looked as if I was thinking. He wasn't fooled.

‘Holiday camps, man. Linton's-by-the-Sea. Oh I Do Like to Linton by the Seaside ...'

‘Does that thing play the organ as well?'

‘Oh, come on ...'

‘Yes, okay. Linton's holiday camps. I've heard of them.' Then I added quickly: ‘But I've never been to one.'

‘Och, I have,' he said, laying on the Highland Mist accent. ‘When I was a wee boy.'

‘I know, you could have a week's holiday, ice-cream and fish ‘n' chips every day and still have change from 25 pence.'

‘It was called five shillings in those days, but I don't suppose you remember the old money.'

‘I wouldn't own up to it if I did.'

He smiled.

‘Sir Frederick Linton started his holiday camps just after the war ...'

‘Well, there were plenty of guards looking for work.'

‘There isn't one we haven't heard, Angel.'

‘Sorry.'

‘He was never as big as Butlin or Pontin, with far fewer sites, but they generated a good cashflow and he was able to move upmarket. Farmhouse holidays in Dorset, salmon fishing in Scotland, even grouse-shooting.'

‘But?'

He looked at me.

‘There has to be a but ...' I said.

‘You're right. The problem was Sir Frederick himself. He got his knighthood for services to the Countryside Commission, not for being a good businessman. He disliked credit, so any expansion was paid for by generated cash and consequently he got left behind the operators who didn't mind borrowing. Sir Frederick also has a profound distrust of marketing and advertising, so – surprise, surprise – very few people ever heard of his expansion into holidays abroad.'

‘He doesn't sound to be the Club 18-30 type.'

‘He isn't. He still thinks there is a sedate lower middle class out there wanting communal family holidays. Over the past six years, he's bought eight derelict farmhouses in northern France and attempted to turn them into blocks of self-catering flats with pretty basic amenities. He's been taken for a ride by every French builder south of Dieppe. The units are not up to standard, late, and in the wrong place. Britanny Ferries showed what you could do if you marketed them right. Sir Frederick just bumbled along.'

‘And now he's in trouble?'

‘Going downhill, shall we say. Profits have been lousy for the last couple of years and he can no longer generate cash to reinvest in his property.'

‘Can't he borrow?'

‘He could, but he doesn't want to. He's 68 now and looking to retire. The French venture was meant to add value to the company so he could sell up and settle the proceeds on his three daughters.'