Death is the New Black

by Dominic Piper

  The shopping trolley woman looks at her watch and turns back the way she came. Red Hair loses interest in his snack bar window and keeps on ambling.

  It’s him. I just know it.

  In thirty seconds I’ve got Centrepoint looming up on my left and Bainbridge Street on my right. I’m not familiar with Bainbridge Street; it looks like one of those nowhere roads, rather like Exeter Street, that is home to the back entrances of buildings on adjacent thoroughfares.

  I take my wallet out, open it up like it’s a book, look up at the street sign and turn into Nowhere Road, London WC1, hoping that Red Hair will follow.

  After fifteen feet, there’s a sharp right turn. This is a narrow road with double yellow lines on both sides and a lot of stuff going on. Two sets of minor road works and a couple of guys noisily removing a black metal bollard from the pavement.

  I can see about two hundred yards ahead of me and there are roughly a dozen vans or cars parked all the way along. No shops, no big entrances, nowhere to hide. I walk along and don’t look behind me. I don’t know what I’m looking for, but I’ll know it when I see it.

  There is a fair amount of people about. This makes it a little difficult to sense Red Hair’s presence, but not impossible. I cross over to the right-hand side of the road to get a better view of a doorway I spotted on the other side. It’s actually two doorways.

  One goes straight into the ground floor, but the other goes down into what I assume to be the basement. I can’t tell what sort of building this is, but I can smell cooking, so it may be the back entrance to a restaurant or snack bar.

  I walk for another few yards then cross the road again. I surreptitiously look over my shoulder, as if I don’t want to be observed entering this building, but don’t make any visual contact with Red Hair, who I can see down the far end of the road, sticking close to the buildings on the opposite side to me. If I was him, I’d dye my hair a different colour or wear a hat.

  I quickly descend eleven steep steps. My guess was right; the food smell is stronger here and I can hear people shouting at each other in Austrian accents. This corridor is long. There are toilets to my left and a large kitchen to my right.

  I walk into the kitchen, ready with my excuses, but there’s nobody in here. I can’t work out where the voices are coming from, but that hardly matters now.

  I hear someone else coming down the steps. Almost certainly Red Hair. I count the steps off. Whoever it is stops when they get to the bottom. Like me, they’re having a look around and listening. If I was Red Hair, my next move would be to check in this kitchen, it’s unlikely that he’s going to take a look at the toilets, but you never know.

  I take a quick look around for weapons. I don’t know what sort of person I’m dealing with here, but they’re going to have to be on the receiving end of a bit of Shock and Awe, so I can get them out of here as fast as possible and find somewhere for the two of us to have an intimate tête-à-tête.

  Hanging on the wall just behind me is a heavy-looking, thick-based copper frying pan with a twelve-inch diameter. That will have to do. I take it down and grip the silver handle in my right hand. There’s a paper towel dispenser on a shelf near my shoulder. I pull out a handful and stuff them in my back pocket.

  He’s very quiet and is walking on soft-soled shoes. He’s about four or five feet away from the kitchen door. As he gets closer, I can hear that he’s a tiny bit out of breath and I assume he ran down the street to catch up when he saw me disappear into this place.

  I stand on the right side of the door with my back pressed against the wall. This has to be done before he walks in and gets a visual on me, so I close my eyes and focus on the very slight sounds he’s making; his breathing, the rustle of his clothing, his almost soundless footsteps.

  The moment I sense he’s about to turn and enter the kitchen, I swing the frying pan back and with a whiplash action of my wrist, slam it into his face as hard as I can.

  He starts to cry out, but I clamp my hand across his mouth. His eyes bulge with surprise and fear. Using the hand that’s still on his mouth, I quickly push him out of the kitchen and across the corridor until he makes contact with the wall on the other side with a dull thud.

  From a distance of about a foot, I punch him, just the once, in the solar plexus. I take my hand off his mouth and place a finger to my lips. He gets the message.

  I grab the four fingers of his left hand as tightly as I can, twist up the pain dial to ten and march him down the corridor and up the stairs to the street.

  ‘Be discreet, please. We’re going to have a quick chat.’

  He nods his head. The expression on his face tells me he’s wondering what the hell just happened and what the hell’s going to happen next.

  I hand him the paper tissues so he can mop the blood off his bleeding nose. We walk to the junction with Streatham Street. I’m sure it must look like we’re holding hands, but there’s nothing between us, honest.

  There’s a small café on the corner with a couple of rickety metal tables outside. I point to one of them. He sits down. I release his hand. He looks pained and massages each of his fingers in turn, his eyes darting from left to right, like he’s looking for someone to come and rescue him. He’s a big guy, but he looks so anguished and crestfallen that I almost feel sorry for him. Almost.

  A smartly dressed waitress appears, hovering while she waits for our order. I ask for two black coffees. She smiles and disappears. I don’t say anything while we wait for our coffees to arrive; I just look at him. He can’t meet my gaze.

  My hunch was right about him not being connected to Blond Hair. He just doesn’t have the demeanour or bad vibes, for one thing, and he hasn’t got any cocky talk, considering his circumstances. Also, he buckled too easily and doesn’t look like he’ll be attempting a getaway.

  The coffees are placed in front of us. I don’t touch mine. This guy still doesn’t know where to look. I haven’t got the time to waste with him, so I’m going to be direct and mildly sinister. I make him look me straight in the eye. There’s something about his demeanour that reminds me of a scolded Cocker Spaniel.

  ‘These are the rules. You’re in deep trouble. Bullshit me and you’ll regret it for the rest of your life. Got it?’

  He nods and mops at his nose, which is still bleeding.

  ‘Now. Who are you?’

  ‘My name’s Peter Dixon. I’m a private detective.’

  Well, that’s all I need.

  ‘Show me your SIA licence.’

  A Security Industry Authority licence is a recent thing, thought up by the government to regulate private investigators and others in the security business. Most straight-down-the-line investigators now have them. Some don’t. I fall into the latter category.

  Peter Dixon takes his wallet out of his jacket and hands me the licence. As he pulls it out, a key ring falls to the floor. The chain is attached to a real wine cork. Good idea. I notice it has four keys and a couple of slim burglar’s tools on it. I take a look at the licence. It looks genuine. I hand it back.

  ‘Business card.’

  He hands me a light blue card. It reads ‘London Surveillance Associates. Peter Dixon. Matrimonial Cases. Corporate Fraud. Technical Counter Measures’. There’s a mobile number, a landline, two email addresses and an actual address in Chancery Lane. I put it in my wallet.

  ‘I’m keeping this in case I have to find you. Who are the associates, or is that just drivel?’

  ‘It’s just drivel. There’s only me.’

  ‘Manchester Square, St Martin’s Lane and Wimpole Street. That was you?’

  He purses his lips and reluctantly confesses. ‘Yeah.’

  ‘I didn’t see you.’

  ‘You knew I was there, though. I could tell. Most people aren’t that switched on.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah. Who are you working for?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Remember what I said. Bullshit me and…’

  ‘Really,’ he says quick
ly. ‘I really don’t know who I’m working for. You’ve got to believe me.’

  I believe him, but I’m not going to let him know that. I want him to be in a state of stress.

  ‘Explain.’

  He lifts his coffee cup up and takes a sip. He takes a deep breath and for the first time looks me straight in the eye. He has a slight Edinburgh accent, which I only notice after he’s been speaking for a while.

  ‘I do marital stuff. Divorce cases, infidelities, cheating, workplace affairs; you know the score. Sometimes I do child custody cases but not that often. It’s all straightforward stuff, vehicle tracking, electronic eavesdropping, email tracing, Internet activity, asset searches; whatever it takes to do the job.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘This guy rang me up about a week ago. Said his name was Leo Hudson. Very well spoken, though it was hard to tell where he was from. I think he’d had elocution lessons. I’ve heard that type of voice before, y’know?

  ‘He said he wanted a five-day surveillance on an individual calling himself Daniel Beckett. He wanted to know where Beckett lived, what he did, what places he went to, the whole lot. I have a PO box. He said he’d send me a stick with a photograph and some details. He also had a PO box number and that would be on the memory stick with the other stuff.’

  ‘And when you’d finished your five days, you’d write your report, put it on the same memory stick and send it to his PO box. How was he paying you and how much?’

  ‘Six thousand pounds. He asked for my bank account details. The whole job was for six thousand. Half the money was in my account an hour after the phone call. He said the other half would be put in after he’d received my report.’

  ‘What was on the stick?’

  ‘A photograph of you. It wasn’t very good. It was a bit blurry, but good enough to ID you if I saw you. I would have said it was taken from some distance away, probably with a telephoto lens.

  ‘It gave your name, eye colour, hair colour, height, build, age range thirty to thirty-five; all the relevant stuff. They suspected that you lived in WC2; Covent Garden or Leicester Square or thereabouts, but they didn’t have a precise address.

  ‘There was a warning about you. It said I was to be very careful as you were a dangerous individual. It said that you might be trained in counter-surveillance techniques, so I was to be extra cautious and give you a wide berth. Not to get caught. Words to that effect, anyway. I’ve been at this game for quite a few years now. I was pretty confident you wouldn’t spot me.’

  So far, so bad.

  ‘You said you were asked to do five days. What day is this?’

  ‘This is the fourth day.’

  I’m trying to think whether this could be connected to the Sara Holt case. It doesn’t seem like it is. It would be less of a headache if it was. The first time I noticed him was when Sara and I were heading towards the Wallace Collection for our initial meeting.

  I felt I was being watched as we turned into Manchester Square. But I hadn’t even taken the case at that point. And if today is Day Four, then he must have been on my tail the day before I met Sara and I somehow didn’t notice him.

  For him to have picked me up on my way to Sara’s, I must assume that he had followed me from Exeter Street, which is moderately worrying.

  ‘How did you track me to Manchester Square?’

  ‘I followed you from Exeter Street.’

  ‘How did you find that address?’

  He shrugs his shoulders and sighs. ‘I’d like to say it was a combination of my innate craftiness, skill and professionalism, but to be absolutely honest with you, it was dumb luck.’ He sniffs and dabs at his nose, which has started to bleed again.

  ‘Like I said, all they had as an area for you was WC2, possibly Covent Garden and the surround. Maybe Leicester Square. Big area to cover. I had an image of you in my head based on your photograph and description. I spent five days wandering around Covent Garden. I went into shops, pubs, restaurants and bars. I was getting ready to report back and say I couldn’t find you.’

  ‘So how did you get lucky?’

  ‘It was four days ago. I was feeling pretty low and exhausted, to be honest. I’d been doing a lot of walking around. I went in a bar for a drink. Place called Big Shots down by The Strand.’

  I know what’s coming. How could I be so stupid?

  ‘There was a woman in there that everyone was looking at. Hard to tell her age. Mature, I would say, but with an amazing body. Long, blonde hair, but you could see the dark roots, but it looked good, you know? It was intentional. Expensively done, I would have said. Bright red lipstick. She was wearing this short sleeveless red dress that showed all the curves. She had a long rope of white pearls around her neck. A very big woman. Big in all the right places, I mean. Tiny waist.’

  ‘OK. I get the idea.’

  He’s talking about Thea. I picked her up on the Jubilee Line during the rush hour about a month ago. She’s forty-nine, divorced, demanding, a Virgo and she manages an upmarket shoe shop in Knightsbridge.

  ‘Yeah. Well, anyway, you automatically looked to see who the lucky guy was. And it was you. I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe my luck. As soon as I clocked you, I moved to the other end of the bar. Found a table. Started talking to some people. I didn’t want you to see me. I remembered what they’d said about you.

  ‘So I reckoned the best thing to do was to stay for as long as possible. You didn’t seem to be going anywhere and the both of you were knocking the booze back. I thought that if you’d been drinking, I might have a better chance of following you without you noticing me. That and the fact that the woman had been drinking, too. All your attention was on her.’

  ‘So you followed us back to Exeter Street.’

  ‘I couldn’t see where it was you were going. I thought you were going into that restaurant, Joe Allen’s, but you disappeared before that. I had to keep well back, but as soon as I could, I did a walk-through and worked out where you must have gone.

  ‘I was pretty pleased with myself for that. I went home and got a couple of hours’ shuteye, then drove up at five-thirty the next morning to make sure I caught you coming out.

  ‘I parked about twenty yards away and kept an eye on your bit of the road through the rear view mirror. You came out with the woman at exactly eight-fifteen. I guess she had to go to work. After that it was relatively easy. You weren’t expecting to be tailed; you were hung over and probably didn’t get much sleep.

  ‘Obviously I’ve lost you a few times, but managed to catch you enough for a decent report, but I couldn’t work you out at all. I couldn’t see any logic in your day. Sometimes you seemed to be taking evasive action just for the hell of it. How do you do it?’

  ‘How do I do what?’

  ‘All the women. The blonde one, the pretty Manchester Square one, and particularly that one with the long black hair all down her back. Jesus Christ. Are you sick?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Well, I know you visited a psychiatrist yesterday.’

  I almost have to laugh.

  ‘Have you reported on me yet to whoever it is that hired you?’

  ‘Of course not. I’ve got tomorrow to go before I do that. Day Five.’

  ‘You do understand that you can’t make that report.’

  ‘I’m beginning to get the idea.’

  ‘Is all of this anything to do with Sara Holt?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Sara Holt. The fashion designer.’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  And I believe him. This is something else, but I don’t know what. There’s a link to his employer, whoever that may be, and it’s through his report. There are a number of ways that report could be fixed so I can find out who’s behind this and somehow apprehend them.

  I could, if I had the time, even dust the memory stick with a few crushed crystals of strychnine, so whoever the recipient was would get a fatal dose as soon as they took it out of the J
iffy Bag or whatever.

  It’s a bit of a wake-up call for me. I’ve been careless, and I’ve ended up with this idiot on my back. Whoever is interested in me for whatever reason has narrowed the field down to a small area of London where I might be found. Not good; not good at all. I’ll seriously have to look into this, but I can’t do it now.

  ‘What about my money?’ he says, like I’ve just taken his favourite toy away.

  ‘That’s your problem. You shouldn’t take cases like this. They’re always bad news. If you can’t meet someone face to face, forget it.’

  ‘But…’

  ‘I don’t want to see you again. If I even feel you hanging around, I’ll be coming for you. This investigation of yours stops right now. Forget this contact with me ever happened. Tell your employers you couldn’t find me. Return the money if you have to. Just put this down to experience.’

  He nods his head and looks sheepish. He doesn’t know what to do next. Maybe he expects me to buy him an almond croissant.

  ‘What are you waiting for? Fuck off.’

  He takes a final sip of his coffee, gets up and walks away. I take a deep breath, stretch and consider where the best place to get a cab to Hinde Street would be.

  17

  BAKER STREET EMBRACE

  I pass Isolda as I’m on my way into Sara’s office. She’s wearing a maroon wrap-around cardigan and a black/grey below-the-knee skirt. Smart, professional and conservative, but it can’t hope to conceal the curves and I can feel my insides turning to water and a contrasting dryness in my mouth.

  ‘Good morning, Mr Beckett. How are you today?’ she says, giving me an arch smile as we both pretend that we’re not sleeping together.

  ‘I’m fine, thanks. I’m sorry; I’ve forgotten your name.’

  ‘Isolda.’

  ‘Of course. Nice to see you again, Isolda.’

  She passes by me, and I can hear the swish of her stockings as she walks down the corridor. She’s wearing a different perfume today. Much darker than yesterday. Musk and patchouli, I think.