David Trevellyan 03 -More Harm Than Good (20 page)

       
I nodded my head. It
made absolute sense. If she was innocent, I could understand how being cast out
of the nest would leave her disoriented. But if her hands were dirty, she was
laying the perfect foundations to excuse her
behaviour
,
however erratic or suspicious it might become later. I didn’t know whether to
sympathise
with her predicament, or applaud her foresight.

       
“Fancy another one?” I
said, nodding towards her empty glass. “Or would you like to grab a bite to eat
somewhere?”

       
“No,” she said. “Thank
you, though. I’m not really hungry, to tell the truth. Do you mind if we just
go… somewhere else?”

       
I didn’t have a reply
for that.

       
“Oh, no,” she said, when
the penny dropped. “Wait. I didn’t mean... what I did mean is, could we just
walk around for a while? Would that be OK?”

       
“Of course,” I said. “As
long as we don’t have to leave the city. I don’t want to be involved with
leaves or plants or animals of any kind.”

       
“Absolutely. I love the
city, too. It’s just - I don’t want to be around people right now. People I
don’t know.”

       
“I’m with you one
hundred percent. And I have an idea. Will you wait here a moment, while I make
a quick call?”

       
Melissa nodded.

       
Although
strictly, I should have said
two
calls.

When I returned to the table, Melissa had pushed the empty glasses to
one side and was sitting with her coat on, ready to go.

       
“May I?” I said, taking
her by the arm and leading the way to the door.

       
“Please do,” she said.
“But are you going to tell me where we’re going?”

       
“No. It’s a surprise.”

       
“How far away is it?”

       
“A mile?
Maybe a little over?
If we were going straight there.”

       
“We’re going somewhere
else first?”

       
“No. But we’re not
taking the most direct route.”

       
“Why not?”

       
“Because you said you
wanted to walk. And because the guy I spoke to needs forty-five minutes or so
to get things lined up for us.”

       
“What things?”

       
“You’ll see.”

       
“
Who
did you speak to?”

       
“A friend of mine.”

       
“Who?”

       
“He’s ex-Royal Corps of
Signals. We worked together on a job in Gibraltar, once. I did him a couple of
favours
. He told me to give him a call if there was ever anything
he could do for me.”

       
“Where does he work
now?”

       
“You’ll find out, soon
enough. Don’t be so impatient.”

We crossed Piccadilly against the lights, continued straight down St
James’s Street, and swung round to the left onto Pall Mall. The wind was
picking up a little so Melissa buttoned her coat as we walked. We kept going at
a relaxed pace, neither of us speaking, until we reached the outskirts of
Trafalgar Square. Then I saw Melissa stiffen, and wrap her arms across her
body.

       
“Is everything OK?” I
said.

       
“I’m fine,” she said.
“It’s just these pigeons. I hate them.”

       
“Oh. I didn’t know that.
Why?”

       
“It’s not just pigeons.
It’s all birds.”

       
“All of them?”

       
“Yes. Except one kind.”

       
“Dead ones?”

       
“No.
Because
then I’d still have to see the nasty, feathery bodies.
As far as I’m
concerned, the only good bird is an extinct bird.”

       
“I see.”

       
“Now you probably think
I’m weird.”

       
“Why would I think
that?”

       
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe
because I’m an adult with a concealed 9mm and I’m freaked out by small, harmless
creatures.”

       
“Well, I don’t think
it’s weird. I think it’s nice.”

       
Melissa didn’t respond
for a moment. Then she jabbed me with her elbow and nodded towards a couple of
teenagers. They were standing next to the vacant fourth plinth, staring at each
other, their faces about two inches apart.

       
“Those kids, over
there,” she said. “What will they do next? Kiss? Or fight?”

       
They were gazing
earnestly into each other’s eyes, mirroring each other’s posture, and the boy’s
head was moving very slowly towards hers, their lips closing inexorably
together.

       
“Kiss,” I said.

       
The girl took a step
back and slapped the boy across the face so hard we could hear it twenty feet
away.

       
“Really,” Melissa said.
“Shows what you know about nice.”

We made it past the front of the National Gallery without any pigeons
coming too close to us, crossed St Martin’s place and followed round to the
left towards
Charing
Cross Road. The pavement grew
noticeably busier the closer we got to Leicester Square tube station, and it
became more difficult to keep together as we elbowed our way through the unruly
crowds. We kept up our momentum, though, and when
we
were almost at Oxford Street
a guy stepped forward and handed
Melissa a flyer
.

       
“Look at this,” she
said, handing the paper to me.

       
It was an advert for an
Elvis impersonator who was appearing that night in a pub on
Wardour
Street.

       
“Do you want to go?” I
said.

       
“Not really,” she said.
“I just thought it would be funny if it was our guy. The one who saw our
fireman.
”

       
“You’re right,” I said.
“It would be hilarious. Although, if he is as good at singing as he is at
running from the police, it might not be too bad.”

We pushed our way through a gaggle of people milling around outside
the Dominion Theatre, then continued down
Tottenham
Court Road until we were level with Goodge Street tube station.

       
“So where are you taking
me?” Melissa said.

       
“Somewhere I think
you’ll like,” I said, guiding her left into Howland Street.

       
“How much further is
it?”

       
“Not far. We’re nearly
there.”

       
“Is it a pub?”

       
“No.”

       
“A restaurant, then?

       
“No. Not even close.”

       
“Then, what?
she
said, scanning buildings on both sides of the street. “I
can’t see anything. Is it underground?”

       
“Absolutely not,” I
said, leading her across the road and into the narrow entrance to Cleveland
Mews. “In fact, quite the opposite.”

       
“Now I’m getting
intrigued. If we were in a car, this is the time I’d expect you to say we’d run
out of petrol…”

       
“It looks a little
strange, I’ll give you that. But we can’t go in the main entrance, so we’re
meeting my friend along here.”

We continued for another thirty yards and then stopped in front of an
unmarked, grey steel door set into a textured concrete wall. A keypad was
mounted on the frame, but I ignored that and knocked twice on the metal surface.
Immediately the door swung open and a man in dark blue overalls beckoned us
inside.

       
“Gerard, good to see
you,” I said, and introduced him to Melissa.

       
Gerard closed the door
behind us and led us across a narrow, grey-painted waiting area to a pair of
full height metal turnstiles in the
centre
of a glass
wall. He held a proximity card up to a reader to the side of the right-hand
turnstile and gestured for Melissa to go through.

       
“It’s OK,” he said.
“There are no metal detectors here. They’re only at the public entrance.”

       
“What is this place?”
Melissa said when I joined her on the other side.

       
“You’ll see, soon
enough,” I said.

       
Gerard emerged from the
turnstile and lead us to a pair of lifts. He hit the down button, the doors to
the right hand car slid open, and we followed him inside.

       
“These lifts only serve
the admin offices,” he said, pressing the button for the basement.

       
We descended one level
and followed Gerard out of the left and a long corridor to the left. After
twenty-five yards he stopped to open a door in the right-hand wall and hold it
for Melissa to go through. This led to another corridor, but this one was
curved. We followed round half of the circle and found the entrance to another
lift. Gerard hit the only button, but this time it took thirty seconds before
the door began to open.

       
The inside of this
elevator car was about three times as tall as a standard one. A rail ran round
the outside for passengers to hold on to, and above the door a panel displayed
not only the floor information but also the speed. Gerard hit the button for
the thirty-fourth floor and the lift started to climb. We picked up speed till
four of the seven bars in the triangular pictogram speedometer had turned
green.

       
“We could go faster,”
Gerard said, seeing me looking at the indicator. “But I don’t like to. It
messes with my ears.”

       
“That suits me,” Melissa
said. “I have no ambition to hurtle up in the air like I’m in a Saturn V.”

       
In less than a minute we
slowed, then came to a stop. The doors opened and Gerard stood back for us to
exit first. We stepped out into a tall, circular space, like we’d emerged from
the hub of a wheel.

       
“Oh, my goodness,”
Melissa said, striding across to the wall of curving windows. “This view. I can
see… everything.”

       
“Do you know where you
are now?” I said.

       
“This was a surprise?”
Gerard said.

       
“It was,” Melissa said.
“But I’ve figured it out now. I’d know this place anywhere, from the outside.
I’ve never set foot inside before, though. It’s the BT Tower. We’re at the top,
right?”

       
“We are,” I said. “Do
you like it?”

       
“I do,” Melissa said,
turning to look back towards the interior of the structure. “But why is it such
a mess?”

       
There was no furniture.
Some of the ceiling tiles were missing, and in places pieces of carpet had been
removed, too. Wallpaper was hanging off the curved walls, and the doors were
missing from a pair of doorways on either side of the lift.

       
“We’re in the
restaurant,” Gerard said. “The place is being refurbished. They’ve got a plan
to reopen it to the public. Doesn’t sound like a good idea to me. But it’s not
like they asked for my opinion.”

       
“Will it still be a
restaurant?” I said.

       
“Yes,” Gerard said.
“That’s the idea. They’re looking for a celebrity chef to take the place on,
apparently.”

       
“Where will the kitchens
be?” I said. The space seemed much smaller than you would have thought from
ground level.

       
“In there,” Gerard said,
nodding to the left-hand doorway.

       
I moved across and
looked inside. The room was tiny. It was about six feet by ten, allowing for
the rounded walls. And it was piled to the ceiling with junk. I could see
chairs.
Four different kinds.
Tables. Cardboard boxes.
Buckets.
Packets of paper towels.
Wine glasses.
About fifty.
Two mops. A broom. A stepladder. And thrown in
on the top, a fluorescent yellow coat.