September Song (35 page)

‘Well,' I said, ‘Hoxton Films has an office in Wardour Street.'

‘And you went there yesterday at, say, twelve? And Mr Jackson of Hoxton Films will confirm that?'

‘Probably,' I said. ‘If he remembers.'

‘Fine,' he said. ‘I'll take your word for it, and I'll tell my colleague these unsavoury types are all either mistaken or it's some other Tony.'

I didn't know whether to believe him or not, but he was definitely marking my card and I'd better ring Les and fix a story with him.

We sat in silence for a few minutes, sipping tea.

‘You know,' he eventually said, ‘that the “jazz” musician confessed to murdering those boys.'

‘I heard,' I said.

‘Sergeant Radcliffe's cock-a-hoop. It's a very nice result all round. Very satisfactory.' He leaned forward and placed his cup and saucer on the desk. Then he retrieved his pipe and started playing with it. ‘For me, though, it doesn't add up. I'll live with it, of course, unless there's any evidence to the contrary – I wouldn't want to upset the sergeant – but it's not quite right. The lad can't remember how come they were stabbed in the back when he claims they were attacking him. It's curious that. And both of them had just the one knife wound. Slipped straight into the kidney. Ouch!'

‘I heard they were pretty cut up,' I said.

‘No,' he said. ‘Journalistic exaggeration. Just the one wound. Nicked a number of important organs, apparently. Lot of blood, of course.' He clenched the pipe between his brown-stained teeth. ‘You don't know anything about that either, I don't suppose. Only, I know you've been comforting the singer, his wife.'

‘Just seeing what I could do,' I said, wondering if he was suggesting something. ‘She must have told you what she's told me.'

He nodded. ‘Just thought I'd ask,' he said. ‘It'll take some pretty fancy footwork from a silk to keep him from swinging.' He stood up and stretched. ‘Always good to see you, Tony.' He looked at my desk and saw the letter from Ghislaine that had arrived that morning. I hadn't opened it yet. ‘How's that French friend of yours? The one you went to see in Paris.'

‘She's fine,' I said. ‘
En pleine forme
 . . .'

He chuckled. ‘Going back to see her soon?'

‘No,' I said.

‘Thanks for the tea. It's back to the grind for me. There are a lot of bad people out there, Tony, doing bad things. A policeman's work, like a woman's, is never done.' He walked to the door and then turned back. ‘If you do think of anything – on any of these matters – you know how to get hold of me.'

‘Yes,' I said and got up and walked down the stairs with him to the door.

We stood on the pavement, and he ostentatiously offered his hand. I pointed to my burnt skin and awkwardly took his right hand with my left.

‘You ought to get that seen to,' he said. ‘Nasty things, burns. In fact, I heard that a lad who shows up as a green blip on my radar screen every so often had a lucky escape from a fire the other day. He's in hospital recovering, but he probably won't be troubling me for a few weeks. He comes from around here, I think. But I don't suppose you know him.'

His driver had hopped smartly out and opened the rear door of the Wolseley for him. He waved his pipe at me and then slid on to the back seat.

I watched as the car pulled smoothly away and wondered why nothing was ever neat and tidy, why nothing was ever really resolved. Somehow things were never like they were on the silver screen or in books or on the wireless.

But I didn't have time to reflect on life and its vagaries for long because my second unexpected visitor of the morning turned up while I was standing there.

The red and white Consul slid to a halt by the bus stop opposite, and Dave Mountjoy and the redoubtable George both struggled out and lumbered across the road.

My right hand started to sting, and I tucked it behind my back. I hoped I wouldn't have to use it. And I hoped the new suit would survive this encounter intact. But I braced myself. Suits can be replaced. Hands usually heal.

A number fifty-eight bus turned off Lea Bridge Road into Church Road and roared past me, the gritty draught whisking my tie after it. I tucked the tie back in place and smoothed it down just as George and Dave scurried across the second half of the road in front of another number fifty-eight determined to catch the one ahead.

George stopped on the kerb and let Dave come on alone, which was encouraging. I could take Dave with one hand tied behind my back. Which was just as well since I did have one hand behind my back.

Dave still didn't have any dentures in, and his collapsed face made him appear older than his father. He peered down at the cracked paving stone he was standing on and shook his head. ‘Look,' he mumbled, ‘I didn't like your dad, and I don't like you. And those black devils wouldn't have been anywhere near our place if you hadn't brought 'em, so I'm not saying this is over. But you didn't have to drag Ricky out of that fire. So –' he looked up at me with tired, bloodshot eyes – ‘thank you for that. You saved his life.'

‘Anyone would have done it,' I said.

‘No, they wouldn't,' he said. ‘I didn't.' He jerked a thumb at George. ‘He didn't. Nor did Steve or Bri.'

‘How is Ricky?' I said. ‘I heard he's still in hospital.'

‘He's not so bad,' Dave said. ‘Lost some of his hair, and he's going to have some scars, but he's not so bad, considering.' He hawked up some phlegm and spat. ‘Won't do him any harm to spend some time at home with the new missus. Might just have learnt a lesson about going up West as well.'

I nodded. ‘Might be best if he didn't. Not for a while.'

‘Now,' he said, ‘we do have a bone to pick with your black friends. So, give me some names.'

‘I don't know their names,' I said. ‘Ricky might. He's the one who stepped on their toes. But, in any case, they got nicked yesterday. So they're off the streets for a bit. No point in going after 'em at the moment.'

‘How do you know?'

‘I was just talking to a policeman from Scotland Yard,' I said.

He gave a phlegmy laugh. ‘Yeah,' he said, ‘of course you were. Seriously, how do you know?'

‘Seriously,' I said, ‘this inspector dropped by to ask me about it. But I couldn't help him because I don't know anything.'

‘Of course you don't,' he said.

My tongue worried at the chipped tooth for a few seconds. ‘It's worth bearing in mind,' I said, ‘that some of what I don't know anything about involves Ricky. I hope he's learned not to play with the big boys just yet.'

‘I doubt it,' Dave said, ‘but I'll try not to let him out without George to keep an eye on him. Worships the boy, George does. And it's worth you keeping
that
in mind.' He spat again. ‘Anyway, thanks for what you done.' And he held his hand out.

I risked the pain and took it in my right. To be fair to him, he saw the ugly red wound and his grip was loose and brief. It was a symbolic gesture for George's sake. The Mountjoys and the last remaining representative of the Gérards had negotiated an uneasy truce.

I sat at my desk and stared at Ghislaine's letter.

So, for the time being, I was safe from reprisals from the Mountjoys and from Nelson Smith and his boys. Well, for as long as Ricky remained sick, and for as long as Nelson and his crew stayed in custody. I was hoping for a decade or two, but I didn't suppose I'd be that lucky. James Fitzgerald didn't give a monkey's about me, and I seemed to amuse Inspector Rose. If I kept my head down for a while, I might get away with it. A two-year holiday in some inaccessible spot, like Timbuktu, might do the business.

I ran my thumbnail along the edge of the flimsy envelope and took out the letter.

As I'd suspected, she'd changed her mind about going back to Robert. He was, after all, an unfeeling pig. Did I think it was a good idea for her to visit London again?

I decided that it was difficult for me to hold a pen in my right hand for longer than it took to write a cheque, so a letter was out of the question for at least, oh, another week or so. She might not change her mind about Robert again, but giving her a little time to do so wouldn't hurt. And, anyway, there was Mrs Williams – Ann – to consider. For all my faults, I'd been scrupulously faithful to her for years, whatever Jerry and Inspector Rose thought had taken place during my holiday in Paris.

I went down to the shop and telephoned Les.

I asked after Daff, and he gloomily said she'd be back home that afternoon. Then I asked him where he'd been at twelve o'clock the day before.

‘Where would you like me to have been?' he said.

‘In the office,' I said, ‘with me, if anyone asks.'

‘That sounds right,' he said. ‘I think that's what it says in the diary. We probably discussed Philip Graham. I probably told you I was fed up to what remain of my back teeth with him, his unprofessionalism and his petulance and I was cancelling his contract. I probably also told you I'd send Charlie round with the car to pick you up to see Daff about four this afternoon. Is that what you remember?'

‘Yeah,' I said, ‘that's what I remember. Thanks for reminding me, Les.'

‘What are mates for?' he said. ‘Did I ever tell you the story that Diana Dors tells about the vicar's speech when she was opening a fête in Swindon, where she comes from?' He didn't wait for a reply, which would have been yes. ‘You probably know that her real name's Diana Fluck, and she told the vicar that over lunch. He got really worried about mispronouncing it, and when he got up he was so flustered that he introduced her as “the local girl we all knew as Diana Clunt”. Brilliant, eh?'

Les seemed to have recovered just a little of his usual
joie de vivre
.

He'd lost it again later that afternoon and was attempting to hide his dismay at the sight of Daff by being ridiculously solicitous, asking if she was comfortable every minute or so and if there was anything she needed every thirty seconds. All of which got right up her nose. She retaliated by asking him about the office and the progress of all the current films. After about twenty minutes she told him that he was needed back there to run things and that she wasn't planning on giving him the satisfaction of pegging out just yet. He left, promising to return later with anything she wanted. He said he'd send Charlie back for me and ‘the girl' in an hour or so.

Daff rolled her eyes. ‘I thought the old bugger would never go,' she said.

She was lying on a little bed in the front room I'd seen her in before. The old flowers had been cleared out, and there was only one vase of red roses – from Les, of course – on the mantelpiece. I guessed that Viv Laurence had thrown the dead ones away. She'd left the alabaster Alsatian with its loving master where it was, though. Pity.

Her skin had a yellowish hue, and she'd lost weight in the last few days. But her eyes still had a little sparkle and said there was life in the old dog yet.

She held out her hand, and her nightgown rolled up, showing how painfully thin her arm was. Jeannie Summers stepped towards the bed and took her hand.

I'd spent a fruitless half hour trying to persuade Viv Laurence to visit her mother, and I wasn't proud of resorting to a lie. I told myself it was a white one and told for the best of reasons, but I still felt guilty.

In fact, it turned out to be a lie only by implication. Daff didn't ask any questions at all, and Jeannie just stood by the bed holding her hand until Daff told her that she needed a private word with me. After she'd left the room, Daphne asked me to write down the name she went by and her address so she could change her will and her solicitor would be able to get in touch. I'd carefully printed out Viv's name and the Old Compton Street address on a sheet of paper from a red Woolworth's notebook, and I put it in her hand. She fell asleep clutching it.

Jeannie Summers and I waited with Daff's sister in the kitchen until Charlie returned in the Roller to pick us up.

We were all in sombre mood, and I wasn't sorry that he dropped me off first. Jeannie Summers kissed me on the cheek and said she'd telephone the shop.

I felt the soft touch of the kiss as I opened the door to the flat. I tried not to think what was likely to happen to her and Lee over the next months. And then, as I climbed the stairs, I felt my eyes prickle a little when I thought of what was going to happen to Daff.

Jerry had left a letter on my desk. It must have come in the four o'clock post.

It seemed that James Fitzgerald was not as indifferent to me as I'd thought. He wanted to see me. He had a proposal for me. Malcolm, apparently, spoke highly of me. He thought he could use someone of my background and initiative. It would, he said, be mutually beneficial.

I sat in the shadows of my room for a few quiet moments looking at his elegant, flowing script. Then I forced myself to move.

I raided my larder and found some Wall's pork sausages and a tin of Crosse & Blackwell beans. I took them down to Jerry.

While I fried the sausages, warmed the beans and listened to an Artie Shaw recording of ‘What Is This Thing Called Love?' Jerry reverently placed on his radiogram, I told him most – well, some – of what had happened in the last few days. He didn't say anything until we sat down to eat.

‘You know, my friend,' he said as he picked up what he always called his eating irons, ‘your life sometimes reminds me of something a great German poet called Goethe once said.'

I looked at him over the forkful of sausage I was about to put in my mouth.

‘He said, if I remember it aright, “Everything is both simpler than we can imagine and more entangled than we can conceive.”'

Jerry sometimes comes out with stuff like that. It's what he salvaged from a privileged education.