Keeping Bad Company (11 page)

I called out tentatively, ‘Albie, is that you?’

Whoever it was moved, rustling about like a larger version of the rat we’d discovered earlier, recalling my fears.

‘It’s Fran,’ I called more loudly. ‘Fran, the private detective.’

‘Who?’ asked Ganesh incredulously.

‘And actress!’ I added, determined to jolt Albie’s memory. ‘We met at the railway station.’

‘Do I know this woman?’ Ganesh was asking rhetorically. ‘Private eye star of stage and screen? I know a Fran who’s usually out of work between spells waitressing or mail-order dispatch packaging.’

‘And you might remember my friend,’ I explained to the darkness. ‘He was at the station, too.’ To Ganesh, I added, ‘And the word “friend” is variable!’

A wheezing cough came from within the porch. ‘Go away . . .’ quavered an elderly voice. ‘I gotta dog, a big’un . . . wiv rabies.’

‘That doesn’t sound like Albie,’ I whispered.

‘He hasn’t got a dog,’ said Ganesh, the expert. ‘It would’ve had us by now.’

I ventured into the porch. My eyes were adjusting to the gloom and I could make out the occupant, huddled in the far corner by the church door.

‘I ain’t got nuffin’!’ His old voice was tremulous and terror made him smell even worse. ‘Why don’t you leave me alone? You ain’t gonna hurt me?’

‘Of course not, I swear. Don’t be scared, please. I just want a talk – ’ I began.

‘You ain’t goin’ to throw me out?’ he whined, less afraid and ready to defend his space. ‘It’s raining. I got me bronchitis again.’ He wheezed and spluttered and sounded pretty bronchial to me.

He oughtn’t to have been sleeping here. None of the people we’d seen should have been existing like they were. ‘If you’re ill,’ I said, ‘perhaps we can get you into a shelter somewhere.’

He spluttered. ’I ain’t goin’! You one of them do-gooders, ain’tcha? You Sally Army or what? Well, you can go and shake your bloody tambourine somewhere else . . .’ He began to cough, wheeze and hawk in a frenzy. I stepped back sharpish because there was a lot of saliva flying around. Eventually he subsided, like a dying volcano, and mumbled, ‘Used to make a living, good living. . .’

‘I’m looking,’ I said loudly, hoping to penetrate the haze that fogged his brain, ‘for Alkie Albie Smith. Do you know him?’

‘No . . .’ he croaked.

‘Oh, come on, he kips here sometimes. If you come here as well you must have run into him. I’m a friend. I’ve got a message for Albie. It’s important.’

Gan, edging into the porch behind me, pressed a couple of coins in my hand. ‘How much?’ I whispered.

‘Coupla quid. Go on, tell him. Then we can get out of here if he doesn’t know anything. I’ll throw up if we stay any longer and he’s probably got half a dozen notifiable diseases!’

‘Who’s that feller?’ quavered the old bloke, taking fright again at the sight of Ganesh. ‘Why ain’t he got his uniform on if he’s Sally Army?’

I pushed Ganesh back outside again. ‘I’ll pay for information about Albie, right? A quid or two quid if it’s special.’

The mound in the corner heaved and another waft of foul air engulfed me. I clapped my hand over my nose and retreated. ‘You can stay there and tell me,’ I said hurriedly.

From somewhere in the heap of rags and the gloom, a hand emerged, palm uppermost. It looked like something you’d find if you unwrapped a mummy’s bandages. ‘Give us the two quid!’

I put one pound coin in the withered palm. ‘Tell me and you can have the other.’

His claw closed on the coin and was drawn back into the darkness. ‘Sometimes,’ he grumbled, ‘they play jokes. Sometimes they chucks me them tokens what go in the slot machines.’

I waited for him to satisfy himself that the coin was real. ‘I ain’t seen him fer a week or more,’ he said suddenly. ‘I know ’im, yes. Known ’im for years. I come here tonight, thinking ’e’d be ’ere. But he wasn’t. So I settled meself down to wait for ’im. Cause he usually comes ’ere sooner or later, see? This is where he kips.’

This much I knew already. A week. I wondered how well the old man was able to keep track of time. ‘When you saw Albie last, did he mention anything special? Like he’d seen something unusual happen, outside here, at night?’

‘Nothing much round ’ere, ducks. Gotta a hostel fer wimmin down the road. Bit of trouble there sometimes.’

The battered women’s refuge. Somehow, it seemed to me, we kept coming back to that.

‘Did he tell you he’d seen some sort of dust-up relating to the refuge?’

‘No . . . he don’t take no notice. None of us does. What you don’t see don’t get you into no trouble.’

But Albie had seen something and I was afraid it was yet going to get him into trouble. There was no more to be learned from the old bloke. I gave him the remaining pound coin.

‘Thanks, ducks,’ he said, and wheezed again.

‘Satisfied?’ asked Ganesh when I rejoined him.

Angry, I snapped, ‘That’s hardly the word!’ Ganesh was silent. I added, ‘Sorry, you know what I mean.’

‘I know what you mean,’ he said. ‘But there’s nothing you can do about it, Fran.’

We set off back up the street. The air out here was crystal clear and clean compared to the fug in the porch. The remains of it lingered in my nostrils. I wondered why the church hadn’t put an outer door on the porch. Perhaps they were sick of it being broken open, and calculated that it was better to let wanderers sleep in the porch than to have them break into the church itself in search of shelter. It was fully night-time now but the rain, which had contributed to the freshness, had eased. The lamplight glittered on puddles and the wet road surfaces. Our feet echoed off the pavement flags. A solitary car splattered past, showering spray from the gutters. As the old chap had said, there was nothing much around there. It was a respectable area and at night people barred their doors and didn’t go out. Not on foot, at any rate.

But there was someone about. Ganesh touched my arm and pointed ahead.

A dishevelled figure had turned the corner up ahead and was padding down the pavement towards us, clad in an oversized greatcoat, which flapped like bats’ wings as he moved.

I drew in a sharp breath. ‘Albie?’

Then it happened.

A car rounded the same corner and screeched to a halt by the lone figure. Two men jumped out, one tall, one shorter, both wearing dark clothing and knitted hats pulled well down over their ears. They grabbed the pedestrian and began to hustle him efficiently into the car. Their victim set up a voluble protest, familiar enough to identify him for sure as Albie to me. He began to thresh about wildly in his captors’ grip, kicking out with his feet, but he was already half way through the open car door and in another few seconds would have disappeared inside completely.

Ganesh and I came to life at the same time and yelled out, ‘Hey!’

We set off up the pavement, waving our arms and screaming anything we could think of, just to make sufficient noise. Noise is a weapon. If you can’t do anything else, yell. It disorientates, frightens and above all, attracts outside attention.

The two thugs by the car paused and looked towards us. Despite the poor light and the little that could be seen of either of their faces, I felt sure the taller one was Merv. In reality, there was no way Gan and I would have been a match for them, whoever they were, but just at that moment, someone pulled back a curtain from an upper window overlooking the road and a beam spotlighted the scene below on the pavement.

The would-be snatchers released Albie, jumped back in their motor and roared off with a squeal of gears and smell of scorched rubber. I did manage to get a better look at the car as it swerved and rounded a corner to the right.

‘It’s Merv’s Cortina,’ I gasped.

‘I don’t know what sort of engine they’ve got in it,’ Ganesh retorted. ‘But it’s either been souped up out of recognition or replaced. It didn’t leave the production line with that one under the hood, that’s for sure!’

The beam was abruptly cut off as the person at the window above dragged the curtains together, not wanting to be a witness.

Ganesh and I turned our attention to Albie who was propped against the nearest lamppost, panting and wheezing.

‘Are you all right?’ Ganesh asked anxiously. An incoherent gurgle responded, followed by a feeble flailing of Albie’s hands meant to indicate, I supposed, that he couldn’t speak for the moment.

We waited and eventually the poor old devil got his breath back, or most of it. ‘You see that?’ he croaked indignantly. ‘You see what them geezers tried to do?’

‘Yes, we did. You remember me, Albie?’ I peered into his face, which glowed eerily in the light from the lamp overhead.

Recognition dawned. ‘I do, indeed, my dear! You’re the actress.’

‘And private detective,’ said Ganesh, a trifle maliciously, I thought.

‘That’s it, I remember!’ Albie nodded. ‘Thanks, dear, for giving a hand and frightening them two off!’ He nodded at Ganesh, ‘You, too, son.’

I moved away a little and whispered to Gan, ‘What are we going to do with him?’

‘You’re asking me? Nothing.’ said Ganesh.

‘We can’t just leave him out here on the street! You saw what happened. They’ll come back, try to snatch him again.’

Albie was searching in one pocket of the greatcoat, his face anxious. ‘I bet them buggers have broke it.’

‘What’s that?’ I asked.

‘A bottle. I gotta bottle. The good stuff.’ He pulled out a half-bottle of Bell’s and examined it. ‘No, it’s all right.’ He gave it a tender pat as to a baby.

‘You’ve got more to worry about than a bottle of booze, Albie!’ I told him sharply. ‘I – we’ve – been looking everywhere for you. I’ve just been down to the church. There’s a friend of yours down there, dossing. He’s been looking for you as well.’

Albie nodded. ‘That’ll be Jonty. Thought he might turn up tonight. I was just on me way to share this with him. Either of you care for a nip?’ he added hospitably.

‘No!’ we exclaimed in joint frustration.

‘Please yourselves, then.’ He returned the bottle to his pocket.

‘Albie,’ I said, ‘you remember the story you told me? About seeing the young girl snatched by two fellows, perhaps those two?’ I pointed down the road in the direction of the would-be kidnappers’ car.

Albie looked shifty. ‘I may’ve said something. Don’t recall.’

‘Yes, you do!’ I wasn’t going to let him get away with that, not after all the trouble we’d had finding him. ‘Albie, I think you saw a kidnapping. I think the police are looking for the girl. You’ve got to come with me and tell – ’

‘I’m not going near no coppers!’ interrupted Albie.

‘I’ll come with you, I promise. You’re a very important witness, and after what happened tonight you could be in danger. Those two obviously know about you. The police will put you somewhere safe – ’

‘Not in the cells.’ Albie shook his head. ‘These snotty young coppers they got nowadays don’t let you sleep it off in the cells the way the old-timers used to. Was a time when the cells were always a good bet on a cold night. All you had to do was shout a bit of colourful language at a few old ladies and chuck a bottle or two in the gutter. After that, you just had to sit on the kerb waiting for ’em to collect you. Then it was off to a nice warm cell and a proper breakfast in the morning. Like a bloomin’ taxi service it was. Now they just tells you to bugger off and you’re lucky if they don’t kick your head in.’

‘Not a cell, in a hostel.’

‘I don’t like hostels!’ he retorted immediately. ‘On account of the baths. They’re fixed on baths.’ He patted my arm. ‘You’re a good girl, like I said. Fact is, you’re a very nice young woman, and bright. It’s a pity I don’t still have the act because you’d have fitted in there very well. You ever work with animals? You’d have picked it up in no time. We could’ve fixed you up with a costume – nothing gaudy, just to catch the eye. Audience would’ve liked you.’ His voice grew sad. ‘The dogs would’ve liked you. They’re good judges of character, are poodles.’

He took out the bottle, unscrewed the top and put it to his lips.

‘Look, Ganesh,’ I hissed, ‘he’s at risk! We can’t just leave him here! Besides, if we let him go, we’ll be ages finding him again, if we ever do. I want Parry to hear his story.’

‘Take him to your flat then,’ Ganesh suggested drily, ‘if you’re so keen. Then you can go over to see Parry with him in the morning.’