Plender (2 page)

“Still,” I said, “the by-election should run smoothly enough now. Thanks to us there’s still flesh on the skeleton in Gorton’s cupboard.”

“Yes. By the way, what do you propose should Nboro try and contact the girl? If he doesn’t accept her departure as it stands?”

“Luckily for us she was more interested in him than he was in her. Basically, he was just screwing Whitey. In any case, we have some more letters prepared.”

Froy didn’t say anything to that.

“I’ll be in touch,” said Froy.

The line went dead.

I put the receiver back and stared at it. I wondered what Froy’s silence had meant. Probably nothing. Just his usual gamesmanship to keep his minions toeing the line. But I wasn’t a minion. I was his Number One and he knew it. But he didn’t like it. I was almost too good. I hadn’t slipped up yet. I hadn’t made even the smallest error. That was the kind of performance the Movement wanted, therefore so did Froy. But it irritated him to think that someone else could provide it besides himself. But it would irritate him even more to know that I’d got recordings of every conversation he’d made over the last twelve months; that I had a complete history of his fifty-one-year-old life; that I knew every movement he was going to make during the next twenty-four hours, and the twenty-four hours after that and so on and so on; that I knew his brother was in deep trouble with a certain finance company; that the dog Froy’s neighbour had been looking for all over their neighbourhood during the last four days had a bullet in its forehead and was buried behind Norman Froy’s tomato plants; that Froy had a frogman’s rubber suit hung up in his wardrobe—in fact everything. Which gave me a great deal of pleasure. Especially as Froy didn’t suspect a dicky bird.

But you had to give the old sod his due. He was bloody careful, whether he suspected anything or not. He kept himself well-covered. His superior had no worries on that score. He’d not been an easy man to tag. He never went direct from A to B. He never used names on the phone. He never sent or received mail to do with the Movement. He never met with any of the superiors, only with people at his own level, or beneath it. All of which meant that my efforts to find out the real power behind the Movement had so far come to nothing. But I would find out and when I did I’d have them over a barrel. The lot of them. They wouldn’t know which arse to disappear up first and I’d have a nice little organisation all of my own, instead of just maintaining the set-up for their benefit.

Not that the set-up wasn’t sweet. It was. I was provided with this office, half a dozen full- time men in this city alone (plus the funds to call on as much muscle as I needed), all the latest equipment to run the business, agents under my direct control in every major city in England, plus permanent offices in Manchester and Birmingham, besides the one in London and the one here. No, it was fine and I’d access to a small private army. A lot to thank the Movement for.

The day Froy had first turned up at my London office pretending he wanted to hire my services to recover a missing wife had been a very lucky day indeed. But that had been two years ago and I didn’t have to be grateful anymore. I had been given the power and I wanted to know where it came from. And when I had that knowledge I would be able to use it. To bargain. Their secrecy was their strength and their weakness. They’d have no choice when I presented them with what I was going to find out. They’d have to give me what I wanted—a seat on the executive. Whatever and wherever the executive was. With Froy working for me. A bigger army. More power. More independence. More political involvement. But in the meantime what I had would do. It really was very nice. The Movement had supplied me with the facilities to expand my previous operation in a way which wouldn’t have been possible before. As a Private Investigator I’d managed to build up extensive files on individuals who could afford to pay for discretion. But with the Movement employing me, among other things, to dig up the muck my little bit of private enterprise had expanded into big business. I could afford to be clever. Whereas most blackmailers were greedy and demanded too much too often, I had so many clients that individually their payments must have seemed to them to be quite reasonable, like, say, additional H.P. commitments. Of course if Froy ever found out about it I’d be finished. But he wasn’t likely to find out. Not in the near future, at any rate. And later, when I’d found out who I was working for, then it would be difficult for Froy to say anything at all without finding himself out on his ear.

Wind buffeted the window and slapped rain against the glass. I looked at my watch. Quarter to six. Mrs. Fourness was expecting me back for supper. I’d give her a ring; there was hardly time to get there and back into town again. Besides, it was too nice here, where I was, cozy and snug behind the double-glazing.

KNOTT

The car jerked to a halt. Rain raced across the car park and rattled on the roof.

“We’ll have to make a dash for it,” I said.

“Can I borrow your scarf?” said Eileen. “I don’t want me hair getting all ruined.”

“Yes, sure,” I said.

I handed her the scarf.

“Cost me two pound ten this little lot did,” she said, weaving the rayon round the rinse. “Shocking, they are, these days.”

I nodded. Come on, come on.

“If they get any dearer I may as well start going to Madame Greta’s. It’d still cost more but not enough to make any difference. And at least there they don’t behave as if they were in a race.”

She tied the scarf in a bow beneath her chin. Her head looked like a wrapped cabbage.

She squeezed my leg and grinned up into my face.

“I expect your wife goes there, doesn’t she?”

I smiled a sort of smile and nodded.

“Funny if we were ever sitting next to each other under the driers.”

“Hilarious,” I said. “Look, I think the rain’s easing off a bit. Let’s go now.”

We got out of the Mercedes and rushed across the car park and into the alley that led into Jackson Street. I swore. The neon that said Peggy’s Bar was unlit. That meant that the alley entrance was locked. I tried it just in case.

“Aren’t they open yet?” said Eileen.

“They’re open,” I said. “But it means we’ll have to go in via the hotel lobby.”

“So?”

The silly cow. That was one of the reasons I’d chosen Peggy’s Bar because of where the entrance was.

“Come on then,” I said.

We walked through to Jackson Street and into the lobby of the Royal Hotel. I ushered Eileen quickly over to the winding staircase that led down to the basement and into the soft lights of Peggy’s Bar.

The bar was empty. Except for Peggy himself setting up his bar with his usual fussy, meticulous care.

I sat Eileen in one of the booths. The waiter service didn’t begin this early so I went over to the bar.

“So what’s all this then?” said Peggy, coming the arch bit. “Bringing Auntie Peggy some competition, are we?”

“Give over,” I said. “You know you love it. Gives you a chance to show off.”

“Well, I hope she’s broadminded, that’s all I can say.”

“So do I or else I’m on a wasted evening,” I said.

“You married men,” said Peggy. “You’re the worst of the lot.”

“Anyway,” I said, “I’ll have a gin and bitter lemon for the lady and a large Scotch for myself, and what are you going to have?”

“Well, if you don’t mind,” he said, “I’ll have the same as the lady’s having.”

“You won’t, you know,” I said. “You’ll have a gin and bitter lemon and like it.”

“Well,” he said coyly, “it was worth a try.”

Peggy turned away to make the drinks and I took out a cigarette and thought about the evening ahead. This was the best part, really. The thinking about it, the excitement generated by the expectation, the mind’s-eye two-way mirror, clear as crystal, the clarity of the mental images blurring the physical reality which could never be so good. But even knowing that whatever happened, knowing that the let-down would come, the excitement was still real, undeniable, unmanageable, whatever the rationalization before or after the fact. It didn’t make any difference. I always jumped in feet first and ended up hoping for better luck next time.

But this girl seemed the best better-luck-next-time for ages. The type. The looks told me. A real Top of the Popper. She should know. But would she want? Would she even if what I wanted didn’t turn her on? Some girls were insulted. A frontal attack on their pre-conditioned sexual patterns usually evoked the source; memories of mum beating out her great respectability riff squashing and squeezing the imagination of the kiddies’ games, preventing me from acting out my own stifled preadolescent frustrated fantasies. Not that they didn’t want to; they did. They’d probably seen the games, heard the hot-flushing little stories in the cloakrooms and even if they hadn’t they’d occurred in their minds, like it or not, admitted or otherwise. “But that wasn’t the same,” they’d say, “that was at school. You couldn’t behave like that now.” “Why not?” “Well, you couldn’t; if you did you’d feel . . .” “Guilty?” “Well, yes. Ashamed.” “Precisely. Couldn’t have put it better myself.” Shame. Guilt. The Protestant ethic. Hand in hand with hard work and self- restraint and self-respect and well-kept-up appearances goes the wrongness of semi-detached enjoyment, the antidote of repression.

But this girl might be the one. She’d got the right kind of potential.

I’d met her over at the agency. She’d been the switchboard girl but, as the switchboard was in reception, that made her the receptionist as well.

The minute I’d seen her I’d thought how right she was. I’d known what she was going to sound like before she opened her mouth, trying to disguise the Yorkshire in her voice by affecting the accent according to the new aristocracy; the classless aristocracy with not only the vowels but the emotions flattened, the way the telly told them. A face without a trace of make-up proved it. And there she’d been before me, no make-up, that was true, but her hair was dyed and the way it was dyed gave everything away. She had the right functional clothes, the right non-functional detached look but the dyed hair gleefully spoiled the lot—she didn’t come off. And the beauty of it was, she thought she did; and the whole set-up, the exciting I’m-a-receptionist-in-an-advertising-agency thing would help her to pretend. And so would I.

But I’d played it very carefully at first. I hadn’t given her too much of a rush. I’d just phoned her a few days later.

“Priestley and Squires. Good morning?” she’d said.

“Hello,” I’d said in my best nervous voice. “Am I speaking to the receptionist?”

“Priestley and Squires, Advertising Agents. Can I help you?”

“Look, I’m sorry, but are you the receptionist? The one with the blonde hair?”

Her manner had changed.

“That’s right. Why?”

“Oh, good. Well, it’s—”

“Who’s that calling?”

“ . . . it’s a bit difficult, actually . . .”

“Is that you, Eric?”

“ . . . but the thing is . . .”

“If that’s you Eric I shan’t half be mad. I’ve told you about . . .”

“ . . . I was wondering if I could use you.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“For my catalogue.”

“Who
is
that?”

I gave a laugh.

“Look, I’m sorry,” I said, “I seem to have made a complete hash-up of this. Let me start again.”

“Who
are
you?”

“I’m Peter Knott. I was in the agency the other day. I’m a photographer. If you remember at all, I was the chap with Mr. Farlcrest. I’m taking the pictures for the Premier Boilers’ Account.”

Her manner had changed again.

“Oh, yes,” she said. “I think I
do
remember you.”

Oh, good, I’d thought.

“Oh, good,” I’d said. “At least that proves I’m not some kind of telephone nut.”

“Well?” she’d said, in a voice that was meant to be charmingly coy.

“Well, the thing is, when I saw you the other day, it struck me how right you were for shots I have to do.”

“Shots? You mean photos?”

“Yes, that’s right. Do you know Saxby and Hassell’s?”

“Oh yes, you mean the mail order people.”

“That’s right. Well, I do their catalogue; I mean, I take all the pictures, the whole lot. So, the point is, as you know, they do an enormous fashion range, all ages, and when I saw you I thought you’d be just right for their teenage range, the Junior Miss.”

“Junior Miss?”

“Of course, I realise you’d have to make yourself look a bit younger, but I’d make the main adjustment photographically.”

I’d known she was only seventeen anyway but I’d had to use the flannel a little bit.

“What made you think
I’d
be right?” she said.

“Oh I don’t really know. You can’t really put your finger on it, it’s just something you sort of automatically know. I suppose it’s my job to know,” I’d said, wincing, “otherwise, I suppose, I wouldn’t be any good if I didn’t know just like that.”

There’d been a silence at her end so I’d gone on, “Anyway, the point is, would you be interested? I mean, you’d be paid obviously, the proper rates. And it wouldn’t interfere with your job—you could work evenings. A lot of girls do, the professionals, they have to if they’ve got other work on that involves daytime shooting.”

“Well, I don’t know whether I
could
. . .” she’d said, and that had been that. Except for one thing.

“There’s only one thing,” I’d said. “I do quite a bit of work for your agency, and the point is, I don’t think Mr. Farlcrest would like it if he knew I’d been offering what he’d consider to be another job to one of his staff, so I wonder if you’d mind not mentioning it to anyone at Priestley and Squires. Word could get back to him.”

Her name was Eileen Yarwood.

We’d arranged to meet at lunchtime the next day. She’d been all done up in gear appropriate to her new role as a famous model. She’d been full of excitement which she’d done her best to try and hide.

I discovered that she was from Leeds. She’d left school a year ago and home three months previously. Her father had died the day after she’d left school. Since then the dislike she and her mother had always felt for each other had come out into the open; her mother was only thirty-six and she’d liked the gay life but she hadn’t liked the looks the fellers she’d brought home had given Eileen. So Eileen had packed up and come here. Here because a girlfriend of hers from school had moved to the district a couple of years ago; but when Eileen’d turned up on the doorstep her friend’s parents hadn’t been too pleased to see her, so she’d spent the following day flat-hunting. She’d got what she’d called a nice place on Hebden Road where she’d lived on her own ever since. I’d asked her if she didn’t find it lonely. She’d given me a look and said that after living with her mother’s routine she’d never feel lonely again. And besides, the agency had a thriving social life. She’d implied she was never short of boyfriends.