“By taxi,” I answered absent-mindedly as I also scanned the horizon for a cab.
“I was speaking metaphorically, you dolt. Never,” she gestured at the shopfronts, “do I feel so old as when I stand in the average high street. I mean, look at it. And meanwhile, that sweet woman back there,” she gestured behind her, in the direction of the housing estate we’d just left, “is carrying a taser around with her.”
I moved closer, putting my arm around her shoulder and pulling her closer to me. “You know what?” I said. “I think the world has always been fucked, in one way, shape or another. Always. But our generation got suckered into thinking we could make it perfect. Only we can’t, cos you can’t fix the fucked.
“But there’s always been brilliance and beauty.”
I gestured across the road at a tall, skinny youth, the pustules on his cheeks visible even from this distance as he lugged two heavy bags and chatted, unsmilingly, to an old lady, her hair a halo of white curls. “I mean, I’m not saying look at that hoodie over there, helping that old woman with her shopping.”
“He’s probably going to mug her when he gets her alone,” Caz muttered morosely.
“Either that, or she’s just lifted half the gear he’s carrying and he’ll be the one who goes down when the coppers catch up with them,” I joked, and realised she wasn’t smiling.
“Look,” I said, squeezing her shoulder again, “there is good. Tara’s living proof of that. She could have left Carlton to his fate, but she didn’t. We didn’t get here,” I said, gesturing broadly around, and squinting as a car parked a little further along the road caught my eye, “we’ve always been here. Our generation has just noticed it. Things have changed, they do. But people don’t. Oh,” I slumped in disbelief, “you have got to be fucking kidding me.”
Caz frowned at me. “Daniel, what on earth?”
The car – a long, glossy black limousine – pulled away from its parking space and slowly, and inexorably, made its way towards us, before pulling up.
The chauffeur, his grey uniform and peaked cap looking as out of place on this high street as a pair of Manolos on a street hooker, leapt out, ran around the car and stood, momentarily, to attention, before saying, “Mr Falzone sends his compliments, Mr Bird, and requests your company.”
He yanked the rear passenger door open and gestured for Caz to enter. She stood, open-mouthed, and looked a million questions at me.
My whole body slumped. “What does he want now?” I asked of the chauffeur, who smiled, gestured at Caz again in the manner of a pony and trap driver to a British tourist on the Corniche in Luxor in the 1930s – all obsequious determination, and I realised I was not going to get an answer beyond the slightly disturbing rictus grin.
“We might as well get in,” I said, gesturing to Caz, who raised an eyebrow, stared me straight in the eye and – in plain hearing of the driver – asked me if I was really suggesting that she – a member of the aristocracy, whose ancestors and progenitors fought at Hastings, Culloden, Normandy and Goose Green – should simply acquiesce to the instructions of what she termed – if I’m recalling this correctly – ‘An obvious thug in an ill-fitting, cheap suit and climb into the back seat of a hideous transport that looks equal parts Co-op hearse, Hen-night conveyance and Council bin lorry.’
“Listen, Caz,” I said, leaning in as the rictus grin on driver set like concrete, “we’ve all got rellies who fought at Hastings. Or would have, if there hadn’t been points failings at Tonbridge. Now, as you’ve just been pointing out, the world is not necessarily as we would like it, but here – in the middle of this total absence of cabs – is a nice man in, admittedly, a somewhat poorly fitting suit, who wants to drive us, at no cost, I assume,” I said, glancing at the driver, who nodded eagerly as though this would encourage us to enter the vehicle, “to somewhere at least closer to home.”
Again, the driver nodded, reaching a hand out in entreaty.
Caz harrumphed. “Tell him not to make eye contact with me,” she said, “and if I see so much as a hint of this in the Daily Mail gossip pages I shall know where it came from and have him dealt with severely.” And, without another word, she slid, effortlessly, into the car.
I stared at the chauffeur as he firmly closed the passenger door. The look we exchanged was, basically, the visual equivalent of ‘What the Fuck Just Happened?’
He walked around to the driver’s door, leaving me to scuttle around to the other passenger door, yank it open and let myself – already stressing about what Chopper wanted from me – into the back seat.
It wasn’t until I was settled, the car had drifted out into traffic and the driver had, in a mad jabbing panic switched off the car radio just as The Archers (to which he’d clearly been listening) came to an end, that it dawned on me.
Caz, sitting next to me – picking non-existent lint from her lapels – had to be the only person in history who had refused to get into the back of one of Chopper’s limos, not through her fear of death or disfigurement, but for aesthetic reasons.
“So do we have any idea what Mr Falzone wants me for this time?” I asked the driver, who shook his head slightly.
“Just phoned me and told me to bring you in. Nicely,” he said.
“Wait,” I said, “have you been following me since the last time?”
“Mr Bird,” he said, slowing to a stop at a set of traffic lights, “I’ve been following you since Mr F found out you’d discovered a body in the basement of that pub. And I’ve had the same instructions since then – watch, report and protect.”
I looked at Caz, who rolled her eyes at me, whilst tapping her head in a universally recognised signal, and said, “Like a Saint Bernard. Only without even the brandy.”
“The bar’s fully stocked,” the driver said, as the lights changed and the car slowly slid forward.
“Bar?” Suddenly, Caz perked up. “You never said there was a bar,” she shot at me in the sort of accusatory tone I imagine the younger Fritzl kids might have said, ‘You mean there’s an outside world with trees we didn’t know about?’
I looked wildly around the interior, but Caz, using some sixth sense born either of her nobility or of her incipient alcoholism, had already discovered the button that activated an almost silent servo motor, opening a door to a backlit minibar stocked with a bottle of Stolichnaya, one of Tanqueray, a Lagavulin and a Remy Martin, along with a selection of glasses and a crystal ice bucket filled with cubed and chipped ice.
Caz reached for the Remy, her eyes lifting to the rear-view mirror and locking with those of the driver.
“Tell me,” she said, “do you have a name?”
“It’s Norman, miss,” he said.
“Well, Norman,” she said as she slopped a large measure of cognac into a glass, handed it to me and slopped an even bigger measure of the same into a glass for herself, “I must humbly apologise if I was rude to you. Anyone who drives around with such a well-stocked cellar can’t be all bad.”
“Very kind, I’m sure,” Norman – now reduced to a bit part in an Ealing comedy – replied and I swear, if his hands hadn’t been gripping the wheel, he would have doffed his cap.
THIRTY-THREE
A little over half an hour later, the limo pulled up outside a bakery on another dull street of bookies and British Heart Foundation shops.
Norman, by now a firm friend of Lady Caroline’s, rushed to open the door and assist her exit, even turning a blind eye as she deposited the hugely expensive bottle of cognac in her bag, “For later,” whilst studiously ignoring me.
“Oh, now,” Caz, pausing mid-flow on some anecdote about the time her maiden aunt had accidentally performed Giselle at the Bolshoi, dived back into her handbag and retrieved a card which she almost ceremonially relayed to the by now star-struck Norman. “I must, again, thank you so very much for your hospitality,” she said, as though he were a genial host at some alpine ski lodge and not a rent-a-thug who had, basically, kidnapped us off the street, “and apol
ogise, once more, for my unfortunate, not to say close to unforgiveable, remarks on our first meeting. I do so hope you’ll forget them, even if you can’t forgive.”
“I don’t even know what you’re talking about, Lady Caroline,” Norman responded, glancing down and moving his lips silently as he read the card she’d given him.
“That,” Caz said, nodding at the small ivory-coloured item in his large hand, “is the number of my brother’s tailor. Now I want you to pop in there tomorrow – or whenever you have a free few hours, Norman – and tell them I sent you.
“They’ll fix you up with a new suit. Something suitable for a man of your obvious taste and talents. And you can tell them that I said they should send the bill to my brother care of his wife. Don’t worry, I’ll call Lady Priscilla myself and make sure that she pays up promptly.” Caz glanced at me. “I think she owes me a couple of suits. Oh, and Norman,” she added, as she clapped him chummily on the arm, “get yourself a few shirts as well. Right, where are we off to?”
I caught her elbow as she tottered slightly. “Rehab, my lady, if you don’t lay off the brandy.”
“Oh, Daniel,” she patted my cheek, “I’ll drink you under the table, my dear, and still have capability to put you to bed, clear the glasses into the dishwasher, read Jude the Obscure and decline proposals of marriage from two minor royals and an American arriviste before you even wake up. But it’s kind of you to be concerned.”
And, as much as it pained me to admit it, I knew that Caz was right.
We walked up to the door of a small patisserie and café, the name ‘Chez Healey’ etched into the glass door, which I pushed.
The door didn’t move.
By now, Norman had climbed back into the car, and the limousine had pulled away and was slowly driving down the street. I pushed the door again, and again it remained solidly – not to say definitively – unmoving.
A cold sweat broke out on the back of my neck. Chopper had ordered us to be collected. What if Norman had brought us to the wrong place? What if Chopper was sitting somewhere else entirely while I was here trying to break into a closed bakery? Would he realise it wasn’t my fault that I hadn’t shown? Would he blame me if the bakery door was damaged?
At the moment my brain began spiralling off on disaster scenarios, Caz reached across me and pulled the door, which instantly opened.
“If at first you don’t succeed,” she murmured, as we entered a long, darkened room, filled with the scent of vanilla, caramelised sugar and baking bread. On our left, a long counter stretched off to the distance. To our right, two rows of small tables, each with a tiny flickering tea light in a coloured glass holder and two chairs facing each other, were lined up in regimental fashion, fading into the almost stygian darkness.
“Danny,” a voice from the depths of that darkness called to me. “Down here. Shut the door – you’re letting a draft in.”
I glanced at Caz. Chopper in avuncular mood was a worrying concept, but one I’d have been ready to handle if I hadn’t been accompanied by my best friend in a drunken mood. “Play nice,” I whispered and, in the dim light filtering in from behind me, she gave me a look of deep sorrow and a little anger.
We made our way down the length of the room, until, right at the back, by a door which I assumed lead to the toilets, the diminutive shape of Martin ‘Chopper’ Falzone – his hair, a tightly-curled band of snow white around the glistening and deeply-tanned dome of his bald pate, shining almost luminescently in the light from the ‘Fire Exit’ sign above him – made itself known.
To his right, at a table pressed against the wall, sat a hulk of heavies, their silent, ominous bulk somewhat offset by the tiny espresso cups and half-demolished cinnamon rolls in front of them.
“Danny,” Chopper gestured at the seat opposite him, and reached across and pulled another one closer, “and you’ve brought a friend.” He smiled, nodding at Caz as he stood to his feet and reached a hand towards her.
“I’m Falzone,” he said, his hand staying held out and unshaken.
“And I’m Holloway,” Caz said, pointedly ignoring the proffered hand and dropping, not into the chair facing him, but into the chair to his left, “and I’d kill for an espresso.”
Chopper’s extended hand suddenly produced a finger-snap that echoed around the room and, from the other side of the bar, an espresso machine kicked in, the rich burnt caramel scents wafting across the room.
“You want a coffee, Danny?” he asked me, withdrawing his hand and pointing at the chair across from him.
I said I’d have a double espresso, eyeing the heavies and figuring, if this was going to be my last coffee, I should at least go out with a buzz on.
“You want a pastry? Have a pastry. Try the pastizzi,” he said, like some sort of demented gangland Mary Berry. “It’s a Maltese speciality.”
I glanced at Caz.
“A pastizzi would be lovely,” she purred, as she finished applying fresh lipstick and dropped the lippie and her compact back into her handbag, “if we’ve time.”
“Time?” Chopper, confused, frowned.
“Before this place burns to the ground,” she explained, smiling her thanks at the waitress as she placed the espressos and a plate of pastries on the table.
Chopper shot me a venomous look, as though I’d snitched on a big secret he’d deliberately told me to keep quiet about, and then smiled amiably at Caz. “Ah, this place is going nowhere, Miss Holloway.”
“Lady,” Caz corrected him immediately, lifting the espresso cup to her newly-refreshed lips and taking a sip. “Lady Caroline will suffice.”
“Lady Caroline,” he smiled, nodding, and picked up his own coffee.
“Lovely weather we’re having,” I said apropos of nothing as his hand crossed over, lifted a small pastry from the pile on the plate and shoved it, whole, into his mouth.
Chopper’s eyes – two darkly malicious beads – squinted at me.
“Winter is coming,” he intoned through a mouthful of pastry, in the manner of a short septuagenarian Maltese Ned Stark, “which means I’ll be off to Malta for a few weeks. Which’ll be nice. You got any holiday plans, Danny?”
“Holiday plans?” I choked, wondering if the brandy in the car had been spiked and whether this conversation could get any more surreal. “Not really.”
“Good,” he smiled, picking up another pastizzi and nibbling at a corner. “Then you’ll be around for a bit. Wonder if you could do me a favour?”
“Why are you following Danny around?” Caz interrupted and Chopper frowned, turning his big cow-like brown eyes on her.
“Following Danny around,” he mimicked her, “makes it sound like something it’s not.”
“So what is it, exactly?”
I picked up my cup and sipped my espresso.
Chopper glanced at me, tilting his head in a way that seemed to say, ‘Women, eh?’ “I’d call it looking after someone I’ve grown quite fond of.”
The espresso went down the wrong hole and I began to cough and splutter, while gasping like a beached whale.
“You okay, Danny?” Chopper glanced at me briefly before returning his attention to Caz.
“Fine. Fine,” I gasped, but he’d already moved on.
“I’m not sure how much you know about the situation that Danny here finds himself in,” Chopper began.
“Oh, I know about it,” Caz answered, “we have no secrets from each other.”
“Really?” Chopper raised an eyebrow, his eyes darting towards me before going back to Caz, as the eyebrow was righted and the benevolent old-man smile returned. “Well, then, you’ll know that there appear to be some very dodgy geezers interested in recent events around Mr Bird here and The Marquess of Queensbury pub.”
Caz nodded. “Dodgy geezers, indeed,” she said pointedly, gesturing at the barista for another round of espressos.
The barista glanced at Chopper who, almost imperceptibly, nodded his head, and the familiar grinding hiss of the machine ki
cked off.
“I want to make sure that if anything were to kick off, Danny’d have some help at hand.” Chopper finished off.
“So it’s got nothing to do with wanting to make sure you’re the first one to know when he finds out who got away with those missing diamonds?” Caz demanded.
Chopper chuckled, shrugging his palms up in a gesture that seemed to suggest he was either about to come totally clean or perform a card trick. “Be nice to know who had them all this time,” he admitted. “I was… intrigued when that job went off all those years ago. Had my suspicions about who’d been involved.
“And yes, I had some wounded pride too. If anyone from my manor was going to work a job like that, I’d have expected them, at the very least, to let me know in case I wanted in.
“But I assumed that it had all been done by some gang from elsewhere in town. The robbery was on the other side of the river, miles from here. What was there to suggest it had been done by blokes from my neck of the woods, or that the cheeky bastards had used my pub to hide out in?”
“And then Billy the Brick went missing,” Caz surmised, as our espressos arrived at the table. Chopper nodded.
“First I heard of it – any of it – was when suddenly the zookeeper wasn’t around no more and the fucking chimps went mental. Literally. They were trashing this area trying to find him, threatening people, menacing my friends.”
“And menacing was your area of responsibility, I assume.” Caz idly selected a pastizzi from a fresh plate that had accompanied the coffees.
Chopper bridled. “I don’t menace people, love. Not unless I need to. This lot were like monkeys flinging shit around with no fucking idea why, or where, they needed to fling it.”
“So you stepped in?” she asked.
He selected a pastizzi for himself. “Don’t tell the missus how many of these I’ve had,” he said, smiling conspiratorially at me, as though Mrs Chopper and I regularly met up for manicures and gossip. “Let’s just say,” he said, smiling at Caz, “that I got the chimps together and reminded them of how unpleasant I could make it for them if they didn’t turn their little disagreement down to an,” he waved a hand in the air as though seeking the right phrase, “acceptable level of noise.”
Death Of A Devil Page 22
