September Song (24 page)

Charlie, Philip and I left that room at a trot, and we were down the stairs in a few seconds.

I took a detour to the cold, damp loo out the back where the only sound was the gurgle of running water. I broke the sawn-off and unloaded it, dropping the cartridges into the gutter of the
pissoir
. The steady trickle from the leaking pipes swept them quickly towards the drain. I then climbed up on the seat of the WC in the one cubicle and stuck the gun in the cistern there. Dirty-brown water slopped over the edge. Whoever risked sitting there in the near future would suffer a very damp bum.

‘Blimey, Tone,' Charlie said when I emerged into the dull, grey, very ordinary afternoon, ‘what was that all about? Who are those devils?'

‘I'll explain later, Charlie,' I said. ‘Let's get Mr Graham back to his hotel and cleaned up. Better let Mr Jackson know we've found him. Can you handle that?'

‘Course I can,' he said.

We started to walk briskly back to the car.

‘Mr Graham,' I said, ‘are you all right? Apart from the obvious  . . .' I waved my hand in the general direction of his facial injuries. ‘You don't need a doctor or anything?'

‘No,' he said. ‘I'm all right.'

We reached the car, and I opened the door for young Philip.

He stood still and looked at me. ‘Thanks,' he said.

I shrugged. ‘Just doing what Les Jackson pays me for,' I said. ‘No thanks necessary.'

‘No,' he said, ‘I understand that. But thanks, anyway. Especially for not giving me a lecture.'

‘Think nothing of it,' I said, helping him on to the back seat. ‘I imagine Les'll give you quite an earful when he sees you. You don't need me adding to your misery.'

He had the grace to hang his head sheepishly.

‘It was my own stupid fault,' he said. ‘Instead of going home last night, after  . . . you know, I went to that bloody club where they play that Caribbean music. Do you know it?'

‘Yeah,' I said. ‘Blokes in bright shirts and gold jewellery and girls in very tight dresses.'

‘That's where they found me. I didn't know  . . .'

‘It's all right, Mr Graham. It's all sorted,' I said, surprising myself with my confident tone. ‘And what isn't sorted, I'm about to deal with.'

I watched the car disappear and then looked around for any sign of pursuit.

There wasn't any, and I walked quickly along towards the Acropolis, hoping that the dodgy reassurance I'd offered Philip Graham could be turned into something approaching reality.

I tried to shake off any forebodings by the kind of positive thinking advocated by some American minister I'd read about somewhere – possibly in an advertisement in a copy of Enzo's
Daily Mirror
– and there was much to be positive about.

After all, I'd done my job: I'd found young Philip, as Les Jackson had requested, and rescued him from the bad guys. Young Philip was more or less intact, and I'd walked away from the rumble with nothing worse than a bruised forearm. The blood on my jacket wasn't mine.

Life was sweet.

FIFTEEN

N
othing much had changed in the restaurant. It still wasn't open, but James Fitzgerald now had a selection of small dishes in front of him.

He looked up when I came in, a piece of bread dipped in something white and squidgy held delicately an inch or two from his mouth.

‘Tony,' he said, ‘you're back rather earlier than I was anticipating. Surely an hour hasn't passed yet.'

‘No,' I said, ‘but I know who did your boys.'

Malcolm and Stanley, who were sitting either side of him, suddenly looked less bored.

‘So do I, Tony, so do I,' Mr Fitz said. ‘Do you mind?' He waved the piece of bread around, and something dripped off on to the tablecloth. Even in the poor light, I could see that the white dip was shot through with little green flecks.

I shook my head, and he popped the morsel into his mouth and munched contentedly. I was reminded of a big black and white cow I'd come face to face with in a field in Normandy, chewing away, more or less oblivious to me. I hoped that Mr Fitz wasn't going to completely replicate the memory by dropping a large brown cow pat. Happily, he didn't. He picked up his glass of wine and took a swallow.

‘I've always known, Tony,' he said. ‘Your lanky friend, the piano player.'

‘No,' I said, ‘it wasn't him.'

‘Yes, it was, Tony. Think about it. What do the police look for?' He looked at me slyly. ‘Motive and opportunity. He had both.'

‘But he couldn't have done it,' I said. ‘There were two of them.'

He smiled at me benignly. ‘Ah,' he said, ‘who can tell what a human is capable of? You must have seen things in the war, Tony, that are difficult to account for.'

‘Of course,' I said, ‘but this is different.'

He shook his head. ‘No, I don't think so. And nor, I'm sure, do the police.' He indicated the chair opposite him. ‘Sit down and I'll explain something to you.'

I paused for a moment, but then I reluctantly sat.

Mr Fitz leaned back and steepled his fingers in front of him. For a moment I thought he was going to invoke the Almighty.

‘What you have to understand, Tony,' he said, ‘is that Soho is a little bit like a medieval country; it's a collection of fiefdoms. Or, if you like, it's tribal. For the most part, the various tribes all rub along, but, occasionally, someone does something silly and treads on a few toes. That person has to be reprimanded, and then the status quo is restored and everyone rubs along again. I'll admit that I made a mistake. I thought that young Ricky was a likely lad who deserved an opportunity. I had no idea that he would set up on his own account – how could I possibly know that he would have access to a supplier and be able to find adequate financing? Nelson Smith and I have an agreement. He supplies the black clubs and pubs around here with what he calls weed and what the Dangerous Drugs Act calls ganja. I leave that market to him.' He shook his head sadly. ‘Needless to say, he doesn't take kindly to his fiefdom being invaded. Or, if you prefer, to finding his prices undercut in his own market. If only young Ricky had spoken to me, all this unpleasantness could have been avoided. Of course, I would have had a stern word with him and instructed Malcolm or Stanley or Harold to keep an eye on him, but all would have been well.'

‘So, let me get this straight,' I said. ‘You know perfectly well that this Nelson Smith – I'm assuming he's the bloke with the gold tooth?'

Mr Fitz smiled his agreement.

‘You know perfectly well that this Nelson Smith “reprimanded” those two boys. And you're not going to do anything about it.'

‘I'm not going to do anything about it because I know nothing of the kind, Tony. In any case I much prefer a quiet life,' he said. ‘I'm happy with the status quo, and I can't see much to be gained by doing something barbaric by way of misguided revenge. Anyway, your piano player gives us all an easy out, and Nelson knows he owes me a favour.' He rubbed his hands together. ‘Anyway, lessons over for the day. If you'll excuse me, I'd like to get on with my lunch. Would you like to join me?'

I shook my head.

‘Of course not. I was forgetting. You've things to do. A motor car was seen outside Miss Laurence's apartment earlier today. It was quite distinctive, which is why it was noticed, I suppose. Most vehicles around here are on the drear side, apart, that is from the buses, of course, which are rather gay and quite brighten the place up, don't you think? But this particular car was red and white. And it could have been her who was seen being “escorted” to it. I don't know if that's helpful to you or not.'

His eyes narrowed as he turned his attention to the food in front of him. He ripped a piece from the pile of flat bread in a chichi little wicker basket and plunged it into the white goo.

Stanley and Malcolm were both studying the wall away to my right. I assumed that was because they didn't want me to ask them any pertinent questions, but it could just have been that they had as little liking for Mr Fitz's table manners as I did.

I didn't bother to say goodbye.

There was a little rain in the air, and the breeze had picked up. I shivered as I stood on the pavement outside the Acropolis, wondering what to do.

No motor, no Charlie. I could grab a cab and be back in Leyton in half an hour. But what then? In any case, there was a strong chance that Malcolm or Stanley would have been on the blower by the time I arrived. Forewarned is forearmed and all that. And, in this case, armed could well be the operative word.

Still, neither Malcolm nor Stanley would have reason to suspect what I suspected. They didn't know that I'd seen a two-tone car in red and white lately. So maybe the call had not been made.

Robert Rieux always maintained that I was more than a bit cracked. I didn't take it personally because I thought the same of him. We'd all been a little mad in the war. But, as I turned my collar up against the wind and allowed a plan of sorts to form, I wondered if he might not have been right.

Still, I'm a law-abiding person, more or less, and I did my best to ignore the daft ‘plan' that bubbled away in the less rational part of my brain and headed off to a telephone box. A few were occupied and even had short queues, and so I found myself in the same one I'd used the night before.

After a few minutes of the usual ‘just what is it concerning, sir?', a nice policeman told me that he didn't think Inspector Rose had come in today – I had a vision of him sat sedately on a folding camp stool, in wellingtons, smoking his pipe, surveying the muddy vegetables he had just dug out of the allotment – and offered me Sergeant Radcliffe. I hesitated for a few seconds and then thought I'd better get it off my chest, and the beefy sergeant came to the phone.

He was surprisingly affable and thanked me for convincing Leroy Summers to turn himself in. I asked him where Lee was now, and he told me he was ‘safely banged up'. The ‘safe' part sounded fine, but the ‘banged up' bit bothered me.

So I told the sergeant what I suspected about Nelson Smith and his boys, and there was a longish silence. Then the sergeant coughed and adopted his more usual, and more hostile, manner.

‘I might as well tell you,' he said, and there was a ‘you're wasting my time, sunbeam' edge to his voice, ‘that said Leroy Summers is being held on suspicion of murder.' He paused. ‘There's too many of these Americans coming over here and killing people.' So poor old Lee was being held because one of his compatriots – a US airman – had gone potty the previous week and killed three residents of Broadstairs. Although there was, Sergeant Radcliffe informed me, the small matter of said Leroy Summers' signed confession to add to the ‘overpaid, oversexed and over here' sentiment that Andy Radcliffe was exuding.

I bit down hard and didn't ask how many stairs he'd fallen down or how much the confession of a hurting addict could be relied on. Instead, I counted to five and then told the good sergeant about Viv Laurence's disappearance. He took down a few details and said he'd get someone to look into it if she hadn't turned up in a day or so, which didn't fill my heart with gladness.

I put the big, black handset back on its cradle and sighed so hard I probably blew all the candles out in St Martin-in-the-Fields. If they had any alight.

Then I picked it up again, deposited more pennies in the slot and made another call to Les to tell him that Philip Graham was more or less all right but probably wouldn't be filming for a day or two. I asked about Daff but learned no more. And then I asked him if he could get a brief working on Lee Summers' case. He said he would see what he could do. Which, with Les, meant it was as good as done.

And then it was mad, hare-brained-scheme time.

I received a very odd look from the barman in the Frighted Horse when I marched straight through, but he was the least of my worries and I completely ignored him.

I stood on the seat of the WC and fished out the sawn-off shotgun, holding it as far away from me as possible. The water in that cistern really was rank. Then I patted the weapon down ineffectually with a couple of shiny, non-absorbent sheets from the meagre supply of San Izal. I gave up and let it drip for a couple of minutes.

A tubby, red-faced regular came in, but he took one look at what I was holding, dropped his fag and scuttled off to find a nice safe wall to pee against instead. And I hadn't so much as scowled at him.

When the gun was close to dry, I tucked it inside the waistband of my trousers, draped my jacket artfully over it and left the lavatory, which still smelled fiercely of Jeyes Fluid. There was no point in even thinking about retrieving the soggy cartridges, and, in truth, I really didn't want to be carrying a loaded weapon.

I stood outside for a moment, took a deep breath and then headed into the pub and up the stairs.

I'd been gone for close on three quarters of an hour so I wasn't sure they would still be there, but I hoped they would. I doubted that any of them was so badly hurt that they needed hospital treatment. They were just bruised and bloody. Well, the bloke I'd thumped in the mouth might have lost a tooth or two. But who hasn't? My tongue flicked to my chipped right canine.

They were still there, drinking now. To ease pain, rather than drown sorrows, I assumed.

Two of them were slumped on the battered old red velveteen sofa under the window, and Boss – Nelson, I supposed – stood looking out, a glass in his hand. They formed a very sorry little tableau, but my entrance snapped a little venomous life into them.

‘Please don't get up on account of me, gentlemen,' I said, producing the shotgun. They all tensed but remained where they were. ‘Listen,' I continued, ‘I'd like to apologize for earlier. But you didn't give me any real option, did you?'