September Song (31 page)

‘Tony, Tony, is everything all right?'

Ricky poked me in the shoulder with the shotgun. I wanted to rip it out of his hands, but my left arm wasn't going to respond until I got some feeling back in it.

He leaned down, his face only inches from mine. ‘Tell her everything's fine and dandy,' he hissed at me.

Apart from a few blackheads nestling around his nose, his skin was surprisingly unblemished – thanks, no doubt, to the nightly use of Fuller's earth – and his hair was slick with Brylcreem, but he gave off a sharp, sour smell.

I was about to refuse to call her and was preparing myself for the blow that would follow when Miss Summers appeared at the side of the stage, the greasy carrier-bag in her hand.

‘I found the bag,' she said, holding it out in front of her. ‘Is this what you're looking for?'

Ricky reached out and snatched it from her.

‘There's nothing in it,' Miss Summers said flatly.

Ricky stared into the bag. Then he crushed it into a ball and hurled it against the wall at the back of the stage.

‘Where's the stuff?' he yelled at me. ‘What have you done with it?'

I sat up and, as best I could with a reluctant left arm, gave him my best French shrug. Then I told him the truth. ‘I haven't done anything with it.'

Instead of then asking me who had – which might have caused me more of a moral dilemma, though, admittedly, not much – he turned to George and the other blokes. ‘Get back there and look for it.'

George waved the other two forward, and they both stepped on to the stage.

‘That won't do you any good,' Miss Summers said. ‘We've already looked.'

The two heavies hesitated and turned to Ricky for instructions.

‘I'd be quick, if I were you,' I said. ‘The owner, Peter, and his staff will be back soon.'

Ricky looked undecided and started to pace about the stage angrily. I hoped he wouldn't do anything stupid, but I wasn't about to rush off to Nobby Clarke and ask him to give me odds. Nobby would have smiled suavely and quoted me something like a thousand to one. And Nobby would have been right.

Ricky smacked the barrel of the gun against the old upright piano, bruising the veneer and setting the strings thrumming sweetly.

‘George,' he said, ‘put these two in the car and take Brian with you. Me and Steve'll have a quick look out the back and we'll be right with you.' He waved the gun at me. ‘Any trouble from him and smack him one.'

I tried to look innocent of any thoughts of escape, but I must have failed because Brian, the guy who'd been with George earlier that morning, grabbed me by the arm rather more roughly than was warranted and hauled me off the stage and towards the door. George, rather more politely, took Miss Summers gently by the arm and helped her step down.

Ricky and the other one, Steve, nipped off the other way. I didn't know whether I hoped they'd find the stuff or not. Ricky didn't seem to be in a forgiving mood.

I blinked as we came out into the light and tried to slow Brian down by stumbling on the steps. He wasn't having it, though, and cuffed me on the back of the head. Once on the street, I searched for any potential sign of help, but although we did attract a few curt, interested looks, they were from bystanders who passed hurriedly on. No friendly face or strolling bobby appeared before I was bundled into the two-tone Consul parked right outside the Acropolis. I did cast one glance up at the restaurant, but the darkened window just reflected the sullen sky. In any case, I could hardly look for any help there. Malcolm Booth was probably peering out, cheering the bad guys on.

Miss Summers was ushered in next to me, and then came the big squeeze as George hemmed us in on one side and Brian on the other. We were packed as tight as sardines in a tin. Miss Summers leaned in to me, probably to avoid getting too intimate with George.

I was definitely getting feeling back in my left arm as I was only too aware of the soft weight of her breast as it pressed against me.

Brian lit a cigarette and breathed smoke all over me. I tried not to give him the satisfaction of coughing, but it was hard.

Within a matter of minutes Ricky and Steve jumped into the front of the car. They appeared to be empty-handed. Ricky looked very cheesed off and slammed the passenger door so hard that I assumed he hadn't found the heap of envelopes. I wondered what Jeannie Summers had done with them, and why, as the car roared off with a crash of grinding metal towards Shaftesbury Avenue.

NINETEEN

A
lthough it wasn't actually raining, the scrap-metal yard in Temple Mills Lane looked just as bleak and dreary as it had on Sunday.

There were a few odd splashes of colour in the mounds of bent, crushed and rusting steel, but nowhere near enough to brighten the scene.

There was some movement, too, as a couple of men sorted through some bits and pieces. Ricky soon put a stop to that. He left the car, closely followed by Steve, strolled over to the men and told them to hop it for a couple of hours. They didn't hang about. That did not fill me with confidence. I could see no reason to look forward to the next hour or so.

George and Brian had climbed out of the car as well and stood by the open rear doors, looking relaxed. Why not? They were on home turf now. Even if I could outrun them, they knew I wasn't going to leave Miss Summers to their tender mercies, and her neat, stylish and quite tight skirt wasn't made for running.

Ricky sauntered over. He jerked his thumb at me. ‘Out,' he said.

I slid across to the right, and Miss Summers manoeuvred her way to the left.

I hoped that I was the only one of us who noticed that she left her large, navy-blue handbag on the floor of the car. She very carefully shut the door behind her to stop George from seeing, and I did the same to keep the sight from Brian. Not that either of them were paying much attention.

Brian shoved me hard in the back, and I staggered towards the prefabricated grey office. I was beginning to resent the way that Brian was treating me, and I found myself itching to add to the kinks in his much-broken nose. The only thing stopping me was the thought that he'd barely notice and it would hardly ruin his chances with the ladies.

Well, that and the fact of the two sawn-off shotguns, both of which were pointed more or less in my direction.

I had a very nasty feeling as I went through the door into the untidy and dusty office.

Dave Mountjoy stood by a desk, drinking a large mug of tea, looking over the shoulder of a grey-haired middle-aged woman who was pecking away, painfully slowly, at a typewriter. Dave was looking very old and drawn. I suddenly realized his face had collapsed because he wasn't wearing his false teeth. Something must have cracked when the plates fell out of his mouth.

Ricky walked up to the desk and dismissed the woman with a peremptory wave of his hand. She looked up at Dave, who put his hand on her shoulder and nodded.

‘Off you go, Glad,' he said quietly. ‘Take the afternoon off.'

She, like the two men outside, didn't wait to be told twice. She just pulled her grey, shapeless cardigan from the back of the chair, collected her plastic mac from behind the door and scuttled off.

Dave Mountjoy waited until she had gone and then looked me up and down. ‘You found him then. He have your stuff?' he said.

‘No, he says he don't know where it is,' Ricky said.

There was a pale, yellow, unhealthy cast to Dave's face, and he was moving carefully. The bang on the head must have shaken him up. ‘That his bint?' he said, pointing at Miss Summers.

Ricky shrugged.

The little office was crowded. It wasn't built to house seven people, a desk, five chairs and four overflowing wooden filing cabinets. Brian and Steve were standing shoulder to shoulder by the door. George, with his shotgun, was a looming presence, just behind me.

Under the far window, the one I'd peered through the day before, a couple of piles of old papers were spilling over on to the floor. Judging by the thick layer of dust that covered them, they'd been there for quite some time. Who would have guessed the Mountjoys were such meticulous record-keepers? Not, I suspected, Her Majesty's Inspector of Taxes.

Ricky put his sawn-off down, on the desk, and turned towards me. Without any warning, he backhanded me across the face.

Jeannie Summers gasped, and I, surprised rather than hurt, fell against George, who pushed me back towards Ricky.

‘Now, where's my stuff?' Ricky said.

There was a little trickle of blood coming from the corner of my mouth where his ring had caught me, and I dabbed at it with my left hand. Still, no real harm done. Yet.

I sniffed. ‘As I told you before, I don't know,' I said.

He didn't give me an opportunity to elaborate. He backhanded me again. This time I was ready for it and swayed back. He barely made contact.

I did though.

I hit him full in the mouth with a short right jab hard enough to loosen teeth. He sat down with a startled look on his face just before George tapped me on the back of the head with the barrel of the gun.

I pitched forward and landed next to Ricky, but I didn't know much about it. I didn't come round for a couple of seconds.

When I did, George was standing over me, pointing the gun straight at me, with an ugly snarl on his face. ‘You say the word, Mr Mountjoy,' he said, ‘I'll do him now.'

‘No, not just yet, George,' Dave said, putting a restraining hand on his forearm. ‘Later, perhaps.'

Steve and Brian, the other two thugs, had crowded into the room and were helping Ricky to his feet. Ricky shrugged them off and spat blood on to the floor.

I sat up and shook my head. It hurt. A lot. I squeezed my eyes shut, but it didn't do any good. When I opened them, George was still glaring at me, blood was still dribbling from Ricky Mountjoy's mouth, Dave Mountjoy wasn't looking any prettier and my head still hurt.

‘Get him up,' Dave Mountjoy said, and Brian and Steve each grabbed a handful of bunched-up lapel and shirt and hauled me to my feet.

To be honest, I was almost grateful to them. I'm not sure that I'd've managed the manoeuvre on my own.

‘Now then,' Dave said. He was mumbling a bit, and little drops of spittle came out as he spoke. Without his teeth, he looked as if he had sucked his cheeks in. ‘I'm fed up with all this. Tell the boy what he needs to know, and we can stop all this unpleasantness, and no one has to get badly hurt.'

He started quietly and slowly, almost reasonably, but by the time he was approaching the end of this little statement he was speaking quickly and loudly, his hands were trembling and I was under no illusions that someone – specifically, me – was going to end up hurt, no matter what.

I sighed deeply. ‘Mr Mountjoy,' I said, slowly and deliberately, ‘I can't tell him what I don't know.'

He took a step towards me and raised clenched fists. He held them either side of my face. I wasn't sure if he was daring me to respond or just trying to be threatening.

Either way, it didn't work. I couldn't be bothered to hit him – I'd just get another bonk on the bonce – and I didn't feel any more threatened than I already was.

After a few seconds of staring at me, his jaw as clenched as his fists, he relaxed and stepped back.

Then he did exactly what I'd hoped he wouldn't.

He turned towards Jeannie Summers and smiled.

She had backed up towards the far wall when the violence had started. The little bruise on her left cheek where Ricky had smacked her the other night stood out against her pale cheek. Her lips were a thin, red line, and she looked grim and scared.

Dave had an evil leer on his face when he turned back towards the rest of us. ‘Hold him tight,' he said. ‘He's a tough guy, a war hero. Let's see how tough he is when his girl starts screaming.'

‘No,' I said, moving towards him. ‘Leave her out of this.' But George and Brian grabbed me before I could get any closer. As they did, Jeannie Summers looked straight at me and gave a brief shake of her head.

George and Brian dragged me back a few feet, and Brian punched me a couple of times in my right kidney. But they were both half-hearted taps, and I didn't think I'd find any Burgundy in my pee in the morning.

But I was confused. I didn't know what Jeannie Summers was up to. She seemed to be telling me to do nothing, but that wasn't going to be possible if they started roughing her up.

‘Leave her,' I said again. ‘She doesn't know anything.'

‘Maybe not,' Dave Mountjoy said, ‘but a pound to a penny says that, if you do, you'll tell us within a minute of Ricky getting his razor out.'

This was no time for the red mist to descend. I needed a clear head. I took several deep breaths and tried to relax, but it wasn't easy.

Ricky spat out another mouthful of blood – that grubby floor would need the attention of a sturdy mop, buckets of clean water and a lot of elbow grease – and then he reached into his pocket and pulled out his razor. He opened it with a flourish and flashed me an ugly grin. His front teeth were outlined in blood.

I thought that George winced at the sight of the open blade, but, even if he didn't approve, I wouldn't bet on him intervening. He'd worked for the Mountjoys too long. And he'd probably seen too many nasty things to be overly bothered by one more. Scrap-metal merchants are not known for having bleeding hearts.

Steve moved away from the door and came alongside the rest of us to have a butcher's at the floor show. He, at least, didn't seem to have any qualms about what was going on.

I felt hemmed in but tried to relax again, reasoning that if I didn't struggle they wouldn't hold me as tightly and so when it came to the ‘with one bound he was free' time I just might break their grips and do some real damage to Ricky before he could hurt Miss Summers. But I wouldn't be putting any of the folding stuff on me to manage that either.