“So she’s been talking to a lot of the same people we’ve been talking to,” said Tinkler.
“Correct.”
“Which is why she’s been suspiciously turning up wherever we go?”
I liked the way Tinkler saw himself as part of the investigation. I said, “Exactly. And asking people to keep quiet about having spoken to her.”
“That’s her story, anyway,” said Nevada. “I actually think she’s been following us—she must have followed us to Pennycook’s, at least.”
“And this dissertation,” said Tinkler, “it’s for, what—a university degree?”
“Yes,” I said. “A master’s, I think she said.”
“She must be really smart if she’s doing that when she’s only eighteen,” said Tinkler. “Wise beyond her years.”
Nevada snorted but said nothing. She was studying the menu. Our local gastro-pub was run by an affable egotist called Albert—not to be confused with his namesake, the ‘granny-shagging chauffeur’, as Tinkler had dubbed him. Albert the publican was a good and interesting cook, although far too lazy to do anything much in the kitchen himself. Consequently he hired a string of other people to do it all for him, and luckily had the happy knack of choosing people who were also good and interesting cooks.
So now Albert mostly sat around behind the bar and served drinks in a leisurely fashion. He ran a pleasant and convivial establishment, and we were lucky to have it just around the corner. Or across the main road and over the railway tracks, if you wanted to be exact about it.
We had spent many pleasant hours here. In fact, Albert’s only real flaw was his unaccountable enthusiasm for Stinky Stanmer, an old colleague of mine and personal nemesis. You never knew when a peaceful evening of food and drink at Albert’s pub might suddenly be interrupted by Stinky on the radio or, much worse, television, which Albert would insist on playing to his clientele.
He was always enraptured by Stinky’s taste in music, blissfully unaware that any good idea Stinky ever had was first stolen from me.
Anyway, the food at Albert’s was invariably good. Whenever he introduced a new menu Nevada and I made a point of coming out to dinner. Tonight had the added advantage of getting us away from our houseguest for a few hours. However, Tinkler inevitably got wind of these new menus, and always invited himself along, too.
So now he sat opposite us, beaming, and sabotaging any hope of a quiet evening with his barrage of questions about Opal—whom he now insisted on referring to, thankfully less immoderately, as the ‘teen temptress’.
Tinkler perused the menu. “That pork crackling sounds good.”
“I feel sorry for the poor piggies,” murmured Nevada.
“They’d eat us if they got the chance,” said Tinkler succinctly. “In fact, if they had the option of eating my delicious body fat cooked to crispy perfection with the judicious addition of sea salt and select herbs from Provence, I have no doubt they’d devour it in a trice.”
“A trice?” said Nevada sourly.
“Yes. With relish. A trice with relish.” He set the menu aside. “So the teen temptress is already writing her dissertation. She must be pretty bright to be at such an advanced stage of post-graduate education at her early age.”
Nevada snorted again and scrutinised her menu ever more closely.
“Oh, you know, it’s probably just one of those Mickey Mouse masters degrees,” said Tinkler in a conciliatory tone. “Not like when we were at university. When we were at uni we actually had to study something concrete.”
“Nevada helped someone study something concrete the other night,” I said.
Nevada chuckled. I could tell I’d cheered her up. She set the menu aside and looked at me. “We shouldn’t joke about it, really.”
“Yes, you should,” said Tinkler. “It’s not every day you get to address a neo-fascist with a breeze block. As a matter of fact, I think that entitles you to another large glass of red wine.” He got up and moved towards the bar.
“That’s very decent of you, Tinkler,” said Nevada. “Make sure he gives us the Chapoutier.”
“Yes, yes, the bottle with the Braille on the label. I know.”
* * *
We got back home quite late, having successfully loaded Tinkler into a taxi on the Upper Richmond Road. As we walked through the estate there was an abrupt flurry of activity behind us: Turk came racing out of the darkness with heart-stopping suddenness, falling in at our heels and joining us as we approached our gate. “Hello, girl,” said Nevada. Turk followed us in through the gate. When we opened the front door it wouldn’t open all the way. I peered down curiously as we squeezed inside.
Opal’s bright pink backpack was leaning against the wall just inside the door. This was odd because she had previously taken it into the guest room and left it there. She was living out of it. It contained her clothes and most of her personal belongings.
I went into the living room and found Opal sitting on the sofa, hands neatly folded on her lap. Her jacket—a tattered bright red leather item with many zippers—was spread on a cushion beside her. As I came in she picked it up and began to put it on. “Hi there. I wasn’t sure when you were coming back.”
“I’m sorry we’re so late.”
“No, it’s fine. I was just waiting for you because I wanted to say goodbye before I left.”
“Before you left?” We hadn’t even had time to properly quiz her about what she’d found out during her researches.
She began to zip up the jacket. “I think it’s time.”
My heart leapt with relief. “Are you sure?” I said. “I mean, do you feel well enough?”
She continued zipping the jacket. It was a lengthy procedure. “Oh, sure. I’m fine. I just wanted to say thank you. You’ve been so kind to me.”
Nevada walked in. She was holding a pale grey silk scarf with little red flowers printed on it. She said, “Can I ask what this is?”
Opal stared at her. “Have you been looking through my backpack?”
Nevada turned the scarf over in her hand. “I was going to say, what a coincidence. I have one just like it.” She held up the scarf to show me a little price tag attached to one corner. “But, in fact, this is my scarf. With my price tag, in my handwriting, still attached to it.”
She threw the scarf so it landed neatly beside Opal on the sofa. The girl made no move to pick it up. She was staring at the floor. “If you want it so much, then take it,” said Nevada.
Opal raised her face, her eyes filled with tears. “Why don’t you go and look on your bed?” she said, then got up and surged from the room. I heard her in the hallway struggling into her boots. Nevada and I stared at each other. There was the sound of the door slamming. I went and looked. Opal and her backpack were gone.
Behind me Nevada said, “Go and look on our bed?” She went into the bedroom. A moment later she came back with several bank notes. She handed them to me. They came to exactly the price on the scarf. I looked at her.
“I feel terrible,” she said. “And yet I’m still relieved that she’s gone.”
“I know what you mean.”
“Which makes me feel even more terrible. I feel I should chase after her and apologise. And yet…” She hesitated.
“We’ve got her money and we’ve also got her scarf,” I pointed out.
“I’ll phone her,” said Nevada decisively.
“You’ve got her number?”
“Of course. Where’s my phone? I left it in the bedroom.” She turned and walked out. I sat there looking at the money and the scarf, and feeling bad even though I’d had nothing to do with the accusation of theft. I suppose I’d been so eager to get rid of her. That was what I was feeling guilty about.
There was a sudden explosive clattering of the cat flap and Fanny came streaking in from the back garden, the hair on her back standing up in spikes and her tail fat with panic, swollen to four times its normal thickness. She stared at me and gave the strangest yowl. Something had given her a hell of a frig
ht.
I stared out the window into the darkness of the garden. I could just make out the wall.
And, beyond it, the silhouette of Opal’s van.
I grabbed my shoes and went out the back door, pulling them on as I moved. I hurried across the gravel to the gate in the back garden wall. Opal’s van was parked immediately outside. I opened the gate, and there it was, with the sliding door open, truncating the message of the painting with the silver lunar crescent, so that it appeared to read: Ms Moon is sending us to Ealing. An even stranger slogan than before.
In the shadows within the van, two figures were engaged in a ferocious struggle.
Opal’s bright red jacket made it easy to distinguish her from her attacker. I climbed into the van. Neither of the figures writhing on the floor seemed to notice me as I stepped around them gingerly. This time I was following Nevada’s advice. I was looking for a suitable implement.
There was a pile of cookware in a cardboard box on the back seat. I selected a cast iron frying pan.
It was a proper, old-fashioned pan. It was so heavy I could barely lift it one-handed, but I did. It came out of the box, which was jammed with other pots and pans, with a clatter. This must have alerted Opal’s assailant, because he suddenly rose up from the floor, lifting his head.
He was a large and powerfully built young man in a black puffer jacket and combat trousers. He had a skinhead haircut, but he wasn’t either of the men we’d encountered the other night.
He was still holding Opal down as he turned towards me. She was lying on the floor with him sitting on her hips, pinning her legs down with his weight and holding both her hands with his. Her mouth had already been taped shut with silver gaffer tape. She was struggling like a wildcat but, given his position, there was nothing she could do.
However, by the same token, given his position, there was very little he could do.
So I hit him in the head with the frying pan.
I hit him good and hard, the sound of impact on his shaved skull echoing in the confined space of the van, and the shock of impact radiating back along my arm.
He shook his head, stared at me in slow-focusing surprise as I lifted the pan to give him another good one. Then he released Opal and lurched to his feet. Moving with commendable alacrity for a man who had just been hit in the head with a cast iron pan, he scrambled out of the van and fled.
I only managed to deliver him a glancing blow on the shoulder as he slithered past me, out into the night.
I quickly checked that Opal was all right—she was sitting up, delicately peeling the adhesive tape off her mouth—then I got out of the van and looked around.
He was gone.
The garden gate opened and Nevada stepped out, holding one of the large ornamental stones from our garden. No points for originality, but I suppose if you have a good trick, you might as well stick with it. She looked at the frying pan with approval. She said, “How many times did you hit him with it?”
“About one and a half.”
“Good on you.”
We helped Opal back into the house, replacing the stone in the garden along the way.
23. THE HOUSEGUEST
There are a number of single-vehicle garages on my estate, some concealed underground, others tucked in beside residential blocks. Luckily we knew a neighbour who owned one of these, which was moreover unoccupied at the moment. Our kind neighbour was willing to let us use it at short notice, late at night.
They charged us a bit extra for the late at night aspect, but it was worth it. We moved Opal’s VW van into the garage and shut the door on it. As soon as it was out of sight, we all felt better.
Now any interested parties might get the impression that she had driven off in it, destination unknown. Meanwhile, the safest thing seemed to be to keep the van in the garage and Opal in our guest room. This wasn’t an ideal setup, since even with the scarf situation resolved—Opal got it for a twenty per cent discount, an unusual concession from Nevada, who believed in preserving what she called the ‘price integrity’ of her stock—there was still a certain tension in the household.
Indeed, in private, Nevada had taken to referring to our guest as ‘Go Pal’, like the dog food but with the stress on the second syllable. Though she did also confide in me that she was impressed with her skills in a scrap—“The girl can take care of herself,” she grudgingly admitted. “She’s got lots of pluck, at least. Especially considering she’s been attacked twice by hulking thugs.”
“Twice that we know of,” I said.
But still, like I say, there was a certain tension…
So we fell into a routine of leaving the house as early as possible, and staying out until the evening. It reminded me, with twisted nostalgia, of the days when I hadn’t been able to afford central heating and had stayed out of my freezing crypt of a house as much as possible, roaming the streets of London in search of vinyl.
The difference now was that I had a beautifully heated home, occupied during daylight hours only by our two cats, who no doubt spent their every waking moment fraternising with, and being fawned over by, an unwanted eighteen-year-old neo-hippie houseguest. Of course, we could have just kicked Opal out. But neither of us had any intention of doing that when her life might be in danger. Plus we were still trying to find out if she’d discovered anything useful to us in her travels. Whenever we tried to draw her out on this, however, she’d change the subject.
So, since we were in waiting mode on all fronts of our investigation, Nevada and I spent our evenings in the pub and our days hunting through charity shops. It had been a while since we’d done this together, and it was actually quite a nice nostalgia trip. Nevada found various exciting items of clothing, and I found a Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band album, the double LP compilation with the booklet still attached.
So there was an upside to things.
On Wednesday Nevada left the house even earlier than usual because she wanted to be present for the grand opening of a new charity shop in Sheen. It was intended to be an outlet that would sell only clothing—they call it ‘fashion’—with no books, DVDs or, most important, records. This was, from my point of view, a worrying new trend in the charity shop community. Didn’t they realise all anybody really wanted was vinyl? Preferably rare jazz? Particularly first pressings in mono on the Blue Note and Prestige labels?
Anyway, the upshot was, I was still tidying up after breakfast—a very tasty and simple Spanish omelette; I’d got the recipe from an Australian website, surreally enough—when Nevada set off. Having finished with the breakfast things I planned to get dressed and get out the door.
I would meet Nevada for coffee after she’d fully sated herself on fashion and continue our joint explorations, probably in Hammersmith and Shepherd’s Bush, through lunch and the rest of the afternoon.
First, though, I had to talk to our client.
I hadn’t spoken to Miss Honeyland for some days now, and I’d started to grow a little concerned. I sat down on the sofa and rang her on the landline. I got her voicemail again. I considered leaving another message, but decided that two was plenty, and just hung up. I wondered if I should go over to her little mews flat and see if everything was all right.
Or was that just giving in to rampant paranoia?
I went to get dressed. I could hear Opal in her room—I’d begun, worryingly, to think of the guest room as her room—talking to one of the cats. I was glad Nevada wasn’t around. This perhaps annoyed her more than anything else about our visitor. Opal talking to our cats. And, of course, Nevada had to know what was said.
If she had been here it was very unlikely I could have stopped her listening at the door, using a wine glass. “This actually works, you know,” she’d said, her ear pressed to the base of the glass, its bowl pressed to the door. “Pass me one of the Riedel’s, would you, darling? I might get better reception on it.”
She just had to know what the girl might be saying to our cats. When she’d used the wine glasses a few ti
mes, and decided that the Riedel, Eisch and other expensive brands actually did enable better eavesdropping, I asked her what Opal was saying to our pets.
Nevada had just shaken her head dismissively. “Oh, you know, just cutesy cat gushing. Darling this and Miss Soft Paws that. Puerile, vomit-worthy nonsense.”
This was pretty rich coming from a woman who did her own fair share of cutesy cat gushing, but I decided I wasn’t going to say as much. Despite this, though, Nevada remained obsessed with what our guest might be saying to Fanny and Turk.
“Do you suppose it’s possible she could turn them against us?”
“No,” I said firmly. “Unless, of course, she offers them food.”
Now, alone in the house with the cat whisperer, I resisted the urge to reach for a wine glass, and instead headed for the shower. I was wearing my bathrobe and nothing else. So when the doorbell rang, I felt a tiny bit reluctant to go and answer it. But my bathrobe was a natty vintage blue-and-white striped cotton item Nevada had recently bought for me on eBay. And the only other person in the house was far too busy trying to suborn our cats.
So I answered the door.
It was Stinky Stanmer.
Someone once said—actually I think it was me—that Stinky looked like a fish with lips. Certainly there was something odd and not entirely human about his face with its bulging eyes and doughy pale contours. Yet somehow the public, or at least a significant portion of it, had taken him to their hearts. It seemed beyond belief.
He was currently sporting hair that had been dyed an aggressive peroxide blond to conceal its mousy brown norm. It had been cut in a deliberately nerdy manner, as though he was a member of a 1960s pop band that had wrongly considered itself ironic.
Smiling and not quite looking me in the eye, he said, “Salutations, citizen.” With a sinking feeling I sensed the arrival of a new catchphrase. He made a move to enter the house and I made a move to block him.
“Who’s there?” said a small, frightened voice behind me. It was so unlike Opal that I looked around in surprise to confirm it actually was her. It was. She was wearing a silk dressing gown, also recently sourced from Nevada, though this time only at a ten per cent discount. My honey-pie’s contrition was wearing thin.
Victory Disc Page 22
