Keeping Bad Company (34 page)

‘Don’t be depressed, dear,’ Daphne said, returning from showing Ganesh out. ‘I think you’ve been a heroine.’

I thanked her, but said I felt a failure. ‘All I wanted to do was get justice for Albie. I also wanted to find the missing girl and I did find her. But justice for Albie seems as far away as ever. On top of all that, they’ve lost Merv.’

Daphne sighed and joined me at the table. ‘Things will work out, Fran. Give the police a chance. They’ve only just got the girl back. They’ll go into it all very thoroughly, I’m sure.’ With slightly less assurance she added, ‘They’ll find out the truth about your friend, Albie.’

‘Truth is no good without evidence,’ I told her. I hauled myself to my feet, because I was going to fall asleep where I sat if I didn’t make a move right there and then. I apologised for keeping her and thanked her for the soup.

‘Nonsense,’ she said. ‘I’m just so glad you’re safe. You’re sure you wouldn’t like to sleep here tonight? I can make up a bed in a jiff.’

‘Thanks, but I’ve only got to go down to the basement, after all,’ I told her.

She led me down the hall and opened the front door. A blast of cool air swept in, shaking me out of the mist of tiredness. The street was bathed in murky lamplight and empty – no!

It wasn’t empty. Coming towards us along the pavement was an extraordinary sight.

Two figures lurched along in a disorganised fashion as if arguing with one another. The taller one, who urged the other on, I recognised at once as Ganesh. The smaller one, who was protesting and grumbling as he scurried spider-fashion alongside, was invisible beneath a motley assortment of old clothes bound round with string. One of those old-fashioned Balaclava knitted hoods covered his head and in his arms he was clasping some sort of bundle. The pair of them reached the bottom of the steps to Daphne’s door.

‘Fran!’ Ganesh called up excitedly. ‘I’ve found him! I mean, he found me! He was waiting for me at the shop!’

The mobile pile of rags emerged from behind Ganesh into the light flooding down the steps from Daphne’s hall.

‘Good gracious!’ muttered Daphne as a powerful odour enveloped us.

Only one person smelled that bad.

‘Jonty!’ I cried. ‘I – we – thought you were dead!’

‘Dead?’ He snorted, coughed and wheezed, then spat to one side.

Ganesh leaped back. ‘Hey!’

‘If I ain’t dead,’ Jonty croaked, ‘it’s because I was bloody lucky. I got out, I did. I run like I never run before or since! They was busy nabbing poor old Albie and they hadn’t time to grab me. I got away and I’ve kept away till now.’

He moved up a step, closer to us, still clasping the sack with his assorted possessions. Daphne retreated hastily.

Jonty peered up at me. I hadn’t seen his face before. Framed in the filthy knitted hood, it resembled some sort of monkey’s, creased in deep lines and sprinkled with grey whiskers. His eyes were small and bloodshot and fixed me with a ferocious expression. Spittle dribbled from his mouth as he spoke and he appeared to have very few teeth.

‘Go on, tell her!’ urged Ganesh from behind him. ‘Tell her why you came back.’

Jonty cast him a look of mixed surprise and disapproval. ‘Course I come back, soon as it was safe. He was my mate, was Albie. I couldn’t have helped him. I couldn’t have done nothing to save him, but I want ter see right done by Albie. By his memory, like.’ He took one hand from the bundle and poked a yellowed forefinger at me. ‘You’re a do-gooder, you are. Well, do a bit of good, then. Go and tell the coppers what I told him!’ Jonty jerked his thumb over his shoulder at Ganesh.

‘Yes, I know you’ve told me!’ Ganesh said testily. ‘But I want you to tell Fran!’

‘All right, then.’ Jonty cleared his throat again and I waited apprehensively for him to spit. But after taking a brief look round, he seemed to decide this wasn’t the place, and just began, ‘When you come and found me that night in the porch, I told you, didn’t I, I was waiting for old Albie to turn up? Expected him, I did. Sure enough, a bit later he come along. He brought a bottle of whisky. Half-bottle of Bell’s it was. He said, he’d seen you two and you wanted to take him along to talk to the police the next day. You wanted him to tell ’em what he saw, about that girl being snatched. He said, he’d fixed to meet the young lady there at Marylebone Station. He said that he –’ Jonty’s blackened thumbnail hooked towards Ganesh again – ‘that feller there worked in that newsagent’s, up near the traffic lights, a bit down from that spud caff. So when I reckoned things might’ve quietened down a bit and those two fellers weren’t looking for me no more, that’s where I went.’

‘He was waiting for me,’ said Ganesh. ‘In a doorway near the shop. He jumped out as I went past. I couldn’t believe my eyes.’

‘Jonty,’ I whispered, all trace of tiredness gone, ‘are you saying you saw the two men take Albie away? That you can remember what they looked like and can identify them?’

‘That’s what I’m telling you, isn’t it?’ Jonty was getting irritated at my obtuseness. ‘I saw them two blokes. I was there when they grabbed old Albie. One was a big slab of a feller, all pale, pale hair, eyes, like a walkin’ stick of lard. The other was a little dark feller wearing one of them leather motorcyclist’s jackets. They drove up in an old Cortina. They hadn’t reckoned on finding me there too, and they’d have taken me along with Albie, I reckon, only Albie was putting up a good scrap and it took the two of ’em to drag him away. So that’s when I scarpered. Remember ’em? I’ll never forget ’em.’

I could’ve kissed him. I didn’t because of the smell. But I could’ve done.

We weren’t going to make the mistake with Jonty we’d made with Albie. Now we’d got him, we weren’t going to lose him. We marched him down to the police station right away.

They weren’t too pleased to see us. They complained about the smell. But when we got them to understand what it was all about, they changed their minds.

When I finally got home again, it was one in the morning. I fell on the sofa and slept through till noon the following day.

Chapter Eighteen

I was woken by the ringing of my doorbell. It gave me quite a start and for a moment I was disorientated, then I pushed my head out of the duvet, squinted at the alarm clock and saw it was one in the afternoon.

Someone was outside the window and tapping on the pane. I hoped it wasn’t Parry. I couldn’t face the police in any form just at the moment, even if they’d come to tell me they’d caught Merv. For a nasty moment I wondered whether it could be Merv, bent on revenge. But he was unlikely to tap politely at the window. Chuck a brick through it, more likely. I trailed over there and saw Ganesh gesturing at me.

I let him in. He was carrying a plastic bag filled with something that clinked as he set it down.

‘I just dashed round to see how you are today,’ he said. ‘In my lunch-break,’ he added sounding martyred.

I said I was fine. I had a slight headache and was also hungry.

Ganesh fished a large block of milk chocolate from inside his jacket. ‘Hari sends this and is glad you’re safe.’ He pushed the plastic carrier with his foot. ‘And I’ve brought these from the chilled cupboard. Half a dozen iced teas. Good for you. I’ll put ’em in your fridge.’

I could hear him rattling around in the fridge and in my kitchen generally. He came back to announce. ‘All you’ve got is a tin of tomato soup and some stale sliced bread. I can make toast and heat the soup, if you like.’

I told him to carry on while I went to shower. A little later, sharing the soup, accompanied by iced tea, with milk chocolate squares for dessert, I listened while he told me that word of my heroism had spread locally.

‘Hari’s telling everyone,’ he said. ‘You’re famous.’

‘That’ll please Parry,’ I said. ‘You haven’t heard whether they’ve picked up Merv, I suppose?’

‘No, but they’ll find him. He’s a local villain. He won’t go far. Off his home turf he’d be lost.’ He nodded confidently and broke off another square of chocolate. ‘They’ll pick him up in no time.’

I was glad Ganesh was so certain, but had I been in Merv’s boots, I’d be putting as much distance as I could between London and myself. Lost in the grey underworld of any large city, Merv could be at liberty indefinitely, not a pleasant thought.

‘To think I handed the whole gang to them on a plate,’ I said bitterly, ‘and still the coppers managed to lose one of them.’

‘They ought to give you a reward,’ Ganesh insisted indistinctly through the chocolate. ‘They owe everything to you.’

I put down my spoon. ‘Listen, I just want to forget it for a few hours, right? It’s going to be bad enough reliving it when the case gets to court. I only ever wanted to achieve two things and I managed both. I wanted to find Lauren and I found her. I wanted to see justice done by Albie. With luck we’ll get that now Jonty’s turned up again.’

Ganesh looked as if he’d just remembered something. ‘That Scotsman’s been into the shop,’ he said. ‘The artist. He left this for you.’ He delved into his pocket again and produced a grubby envelope.

It contained twenty quid and a note promising to pay me the remaining ten pounds when Angus should have it.

‘That’s legal,’ said Ganesh, who had read the note upside-down. ‘That’s an IOU. Make him pay you. You earned it.’

‘He’ll pay me,’ I said. ‘He’s the honest type.’

‘And you’re too trusting,’ he said sententiously.

‘Me? I’ll never trust anyone again. Not after all I’ve been through. But Angus will pay me. I’ll keep nagging Reekie Jimmie if he doesn’t and Jimmie will make him pay.’

‘You know,’ Ganesh said, ‘I really don’t think you ought to do anything like that again. That modelling business, it wasn’t decent.’

I told him it had been more than decent. But I wouldn’t be offering my services to Angus again. Not because I was suddenly prudish or was having to wait for the balance of my money – I was sure Angus would pay me – but because I didn’t dare think what Angus’s next project might be.

It was all very well talking airily to Ganesh of my resolve to keep well away from the aftermath of the whole business. I knew I’d have to give evidence at some future point when Stratton and her henchmen came to trial. I also knew in my bones that I hadn’t seen the last of Vinnie Szabo. I’d come across him eventually in court, but he wouldn’t wait that long. By the time it got to court, it’d be too late. He’d be round before that. Even so, I didn’t expect him to turn up quite so soon as he did.

He came that very day. Ganesh hadn’t been gone long. It was about two thirty and I was in the kitchenette, washing up the soup bowls. The doorbell rang again. When I looked out of the window, fearing this time it would be Parry, I saw Szabo, standing in the basement well. I think I’d have preferred Parry.

I couldn’t see the chauffeur. I supposed he was waiting with the car nearby. I opened the door.

Szabo bustled in, rubbing his hands together, his fringe of hair standing up like a halo round his bald crown.

‘My dear,’ he said with patently false solicitude, ‘are you all right?’

I told him I was fine.

He shifted about from foot to foot and looked uneasily around the room. ‘You’re alone? I was hoping to have a confidential word . . .’

I said I was alone and asked him if he wanted to sit down. He was making me nervous fidgeting about like that.

He sat on the edge of my blue rep sofa and it was a bad choice because being a little fellow, the big old sofa dwarfed him. His feet, I noticed for the first time, were as tiny as a woman’s and neatly shod in highly polished black shoes with pointed toes and built-up heels. Handmade at a guess and very expensive. He looked so ill at ease that I had to start the conversation off.

‘How’s Lauren?’ I asked, trying to sound neutral.

‘Oh, recovering. It was a terrible ordeal. . .’ He blinked. ‘About the circumstances in which she was held – in which you found her. I am, of course, more than grateful that you did! I can’t express my thanks enough. But there, er, there does seem to have been some misunderstanding, about the exact circumstances, I mean . . .’

‘Oh?’ I asked coolly, and waited for what I knew was coming.

‘It’s quite understandable,’ he said quickly, ‘that you were unable to think clearly by the time the police arrived last night at that dreadful warehouse. You may be misremembering some things as a result.’

‘Me not thinking clearly?’ I interrupted indignantly. ‘I got your precious Lauren out of there!’