by Mike Ripley
And as it grew in popularity, so it grew in seriousness. When I did one gig in Limehouse, I had a pair of punters wearing ‘Ken Colyer Appreciation Society’ T-shirts standing a yard away taking notes on my solos. That was enough to turn me towards small club gigs doing elementary backing for merengue and salsa bands while that craze lasted. But then my teeth and jaw made a sudden and very painful connection with a sackful of builder’s rubble, swung by a lowlife whom one day I would run across again, or preferably run over.
Until the orthodontist’s work was done, my old B-flat trumpet was in its case and the case was gathering dust. The great horn players of old could play standing, sitting, falling, smashed or drunk, but none of them could manage without a set of chops.
Music was the last thing on Dod’s mind as he stood in the doorway, blotting out what was left of the evening light. He had a canvas toolbag in his left hand, and his right hand was extended in the ‘gimme’ position. I said hello and introduced him to Veronica, making it clear that she would be paying the bills, but still he didn’t speak or move.
So I pressed some notes into the gimme hand and he thumbed them before they disappeared into his shell suit. Then he dropped the toolbag on the hall floor with a satisfying clatter and looked around.
‘This the one you want fixing then?’ he asked, staring at the front door hanging off its hinges.
I did a double take as if I had only just noticed it.
‘So that’s where the draught is coming from,’ I said, having nothing to lose now he had his money.
He squeaked the door to and fro with one of his giant paws, and I wouldn’t have been surprised if he had pulled the door frame away from the wall.
‘Easiest thing to do is rehang this and put you a padlock on the front. I can give you a key so you can get in tomorrow before I get round. It’ll be lunchtime, I ‘spect.’
That meant he would be moonlighting from another job, which was good. We might get the materials free.
‘Will it hold?’ I asked.
‘Yes,’ Veronica chipped in. ‘Will it be secure?’
Dod bit back a snarl at me – he always watched his language in front of women.
‘Lady, my locks always hold,’ he said proudly.
‘That’s very reassuring, Dod,’ I quipped, determined to get my money’s worth. ‘By the way, did they ever recover your video?’
While waiting for Dod, I’d told Veronica to get her kit together for a night in exciting Hackney, as it seemed I had been volunteered into the bed and breakfast industry.
She disappeared upstairs and I heard her clumping about in her room and, naturally, took the opportunity to snoop about a bit. Not that there was much of interest to snoop. The filing cabinets in A1bert’s office were locked and there had been no obvious sign anyone had tried to force them. The few things that could have been pinched – a Dictaphone machine, an ancient golf-ball typewriter, a radio – were all still there. Maybe the cops had been right, it had been some kids out on a jolly who’d lost their bottle when Albert turned out to be in residence. Especially when he’d had his heart attack.
I was standing by the window in Albert’s office, looking down into the alley at the back and thinking how much easier it would have been to break in that way, when my foot jabbed something metal and sharp. It was a tripod, its legs collapsed, which had fallen or been knocked down the side of a filing cabinet. I pulled it out and found a 35 mm camera with flash attachment on the end. I couldn’t tell if the camera was damaged or not, but there was no film in it. Like most of the gear in the office, it was no great prize, and probably the tripod was worth more than the camera, but still you’d have thought it worth having away.
Could it have been the film somebody was after? The whole set up smelled of more than simple vandalism, and it could be that the film was the one thing missing. The one thing the cops had overlooked. I was really getting into the private eye lifestyle.
Veronica put me right when she returned carrying an ancient suitcase.
‘The only thing on the film was me,’ she said, wide-eyed. ‘Albert was taking passport photographs of me in case we ever needed them for security badges, things like that.’
‘You’re sure he had film in the camera?’ I checked, as I’ve come across the funny camera/French model business before.
‘Of course he did. I took it to the chemist’s myself yesterday.’ Then she paused. ‘Why did you ask that?’
‘What?’
‘Why would anyone take pictures without a film in the camera?’
‘You’re the detective,’ I smiled.
I was just the driver, and it took ages to get Veronica back to Stuart Street as we had to go via Queen Charlotte’s hospital to try to get in to see Albert. No chance of that before the next morning after the consultant’s round, we were told by a harassed receptionist who needed us pestering her like she needed an outbreak of plague. She did take my number, though, as a contact point, in case there were any developments during the night. Was there something in the way she said that, and was she really admiring my smile? Or had I just had a long day? I made a mental note of her name badge – Oonagh, the Irish way. Well, you never knew.
Then we had to stop and get something to eat. That in itself wouldn’t have taken long, but the argument about what to eat saw us across most of north London. Chinese was out (reason unspecified), pizza was boring, burgers fattening (an interesting, if belated, life choice there, I thought), Thai was unspeakable, Indian and Mexican too hot. And then she remembered Albert and wondered if that nice Irish receptionist was trying to ring us with some important developments. If only, I thought, then suggested fish and chips.
‘Won’t they be cold by the time we get to your house?’ she asked.
‘Sure, but we can zap them through the microwave.’
‘Fish and chips in a microwave?’
‘Yeah. What did you use yours for?’
I could tell she was impressed.
And so we arrived at Stuart Street, she lugging her suitcase up the steps to the front door of No. 9, me balancing a paper parcel of halibut and chips while fumbling for the key, all the time hoping that the neighbours were in bed or away or watching a really gripping documentary about DNA on television. It wasn’t that there were any rules about bringing women home after dark, or that anyone would frown on it. It was just that Large Orphan Annie and a reheated fish supper didn’t actually fit the image my fellow residents had of me, and I always hated to disappoint them.
Veronica, however, was not going to come quietly.
‘This is nice, do you own all this?’
‘No,’ I said, closing the front door behind her. ‘It’s almost certainly a front for a Pakistani drug baron and I only rent one of the flats. Upstairs, No. 3.’
I set off upstairs and she followed, banging he case on every step. I would have given her a hand but I was carrying the fish and chips and I’d just remembered Springsteen hadn’t been fed all day and he was partial to halibut.
‘So who else lives here, then?’ she panted.
I turned to look at her but couldn’t quite bring myself to tell her to mind her own business.
‘Down there,’ I pointed, ‘in flat 1 is Mr Goodson. Now, I’m not one for spreading gossip, but we’ve never seen him in a room with mirrors and he never eats garlic. Upstairs, in flat 4, there’s Inverness Doogie – he’s Scottish – and his wife Miranda – and she’s Welsh. No prizes for guessing where the Hackney branch of the Celtic Volunteer Defence Force has its headquarters, then, eh?’
She had pursed her lips now and was starting to narrow her eyes. They had a long way to go.
‘And just here’ – I lowered my voice still further and nodded towards the door of flat 2 – ‘though we’re not supposed to know, is where Fenella Fagin lives. You must have read about her. You know, the egg whisk murderess. Except they
never proved it, so she’s out on parole and has to live here with her parole officer, Lisabeth. If you meet them, they’ll deny everything, of course.’
‘There’s no call to be sarcastic. I only asked to be polite.’
‘We prefer instant rudeness around here. We find it saves time in the long run.’
She grunted up the stairs after me until we got to my door and she noticed the cat flap I had installed.
‘So you do have a cat, really. I thought you might just have been saying you had.’
Why would anyone lie about a thing like that? I thought as, right on cue, Springsteen emerged through the flap at warp speed. heading for the fish supper parcel.
‘I just love …’ Veronica started.
I had time to say ‘Don’t …’ before she screamed and put her left hand to her mouth.
‘Come in,’ I said, unlocking the door. ‘I’ve got bandages inside.’
I should have set my watch then, and had a bet with myself. Whatever; it was seconds rather than minutes before Fenella turned up.
Veronica had dumped her suitcase in the middle of my living room and was nursing her injured hand. I told her to hold it right there and rushed to get the TCP antiseptic from the bathroom, but only after putting the fish and chips in the microwave for safety, and ring-pulling a can of cat food for Springsteen and a Foster’s Export for myself.
‘Here, dab some of this on it,’ I said, and then was immediately distracted by a knock on the door.
‘Is lager good for scratches?’ she asked, genuinely puzzled.
‘Sorry.’ I proffered my other hand, the one holding the TCP. ‘Come in, it’s open.’
I could have added ‘Fenella’, as I knew it had to be her.
‘Hello, Angel,’ she said sheepishly. ‘We heard a scream and Lisabeth told me to come and see if you were all right.’
‘Did it sound like me screaming?’
‘No.’ She thought about that one. ‘You usually laugh loudly just before you scream.’
I let that one pass.
‘Well, you might as well come in and do your first aid bit. This is Veronica. I’m afraid Springsteen caught her accidentally with his claws.’
Ten of them, actually. Twice.
‘He is a very clumsy cat,’ Fenella said innocently. ‘I always wear gloves when Angel makes me feed him. Here, let me do that.’
She produced a paper tissue from her sleeve and began to dab TCP on to the cuts.
‘I’m Fenella, by the way. I live in the flat below. Not that he’ – she nodded in my direction – ‘bothers to introduce anyone.’
‘He has mentioned you,’ Veronica said, giving me the killer look between winces. ‘And his name really is Angel?’
‘Absolutely. Fitzroy Maclean Angel, would you believe, but all his men friends call him Roy.’
‘Let’s leave names out of it, Miss Binkworthy,’ I tried, but I had already been relegated to the role of spectator.
‘Does that sting?’
‘I’ll survive. Thank you, you’re so gentle.’ Veronica smiled at her. I was looking at innocence in stereo.
‘They’re not deep scratches,’ Fenella dabbed at them.
‘He didn’t have time to aim,’ I said, only to be ignored.
‘And you live with ... ?’
‘Lisabeth, my friend. We’ve been his neighbours for a while now, so, you know’ – she rolled her eyes – ‘what we have to put up with.’
‘And what does Lisabeth do?’
‘Oh, bits of secretarial work. She’s actually studying alternative medicine. She’s really into crystal therapy at the moment,’
‘Does it work on cat scratches?’ I might as well not have been there.
‘That’s really, really interesting. I read an article about that once.’
‘Well, you must pop downstairs and meet her. I’m sure she’d love to meet you. Are you – er – planning on staying long?’
Even Fenella had noticed the suitcase on the floor.
‘No, just tonight. Your Mr Angel helped me out today. I had a bit of trouble at work, you see.’
‘Ooh, nothing serious, I hope. What do you do?’
‘She’s a private dick,’ I said loudly.
Now I had their attention.
‘How exciting,’ squeaked Fenella. ‘You must come down and talk to Lisabeth, she’s never met one of them before.’
Top that. I couldn’t.
I put Springsteen out of the kitchen window so we could eat in peace. Veronica was horrified and pressed her nose to the window, saying it was a long way down but he’d landed safely on the roof of that shed. I told her I never knew there was a shed there, and she didn’t know whether to believe me or not.
When we’d eaten and she’d washed up, she asked if I minded if she went to meet Lisabeth. I said not at all, popped another beer and promised to rescue her in an hour’s time. Then I put on a set of German CDs of Bix Beiderbecke’s entire output cleaned up and remixed so that not a hiss or crackle survived. Some of the soul seemed to have gone too.
I was about to go and rescue Veronica when I heard voices raised on the stairs.
Tentatively, I poked my head around my door to see Lisabeth standing in the doorway of her flat.
‘Now, Vonnie,’ she was saying, ‘do as Binky says. She knows what she’s talking about when it comes to those things.’
This I had to see.
Lisabeth looked up and saw me, then she shrugged her massive shoulders and said, ‘It’ll be your fault’, before going back inside.
‘That’ll make a change,’ I said as I passed her doorway.
Fenella was at the front door, holding it open. Veronica was in a crouch, her bum almost on her shoes, the material of her skirt going through more pressure tests than a Volvo.
She was scanning the street at knee height, one hand extended, and other than a bizarre attempt to demonstrate a Cossack dance (and let’s face it, we’ve all been there), I couldn’t think what on earth she was doing in that position. Then she clicked the fingers of her outstretched hand and committed suicide.
‘Puss, puss. Here, puss ...’
I started to shout ‘No’, but it was too late. Although she seemed to fill the doorway with her bulk, Springsteen made it through like a bullet and up the stairs without a g1ance at me. He stopped near the door to flat 3 and disdainfully flicked something from a front paw. It looked like a length of nylon.
‘I did warn you,’ Fenella was saying, ‘but at least he doesn’t seem to have drawn blood this time.’
‘They … they’re ruined,’ said a shell-shocked Veronica.
She had picked herself up and was holding the hem of her skirt. The right leg of her tights had two strips about a foot long removed; not laddered, removed. I knew punks who spent hours getting that effect with a sharpened metal comb.
‘I warned you,’ I said smugly.
‘Well, actually, you didn’t,’ she said belligerently. ‘And anyway, I’m good with cats. They like me, normally. I think you’re just cruel to him. He was pawing at the window asking to come in.’
‘Nonsense, he was trying to cut the glass.’
‘That’s what I told her,’ Fenella said quickly, before realising what she’d agreed to. ‘Anyway, I’ve got a spare pair you can borrow to go to work in.’
Lisabeth appeared on the stairs behind and above me, a position I always feel nervous in.
‘Vonnie, Binky, the Horlicks is ready.’ Her tone told me there was no point in asking for sugar in mine.
‘Well, I’m going to hit the hay,’ I announced. ‘When you girls have finished, you can let yourself in.’
‘Listen,’ Veronica said, ‘I’m grateful and all that, but please don’t go to any trouble for me. I’ll be perfectly comfortable on that sofa you’ve got. Don’t think
you have to give up your bedroom for me or anything.’
‘The thought hadn’t crossed my mind,’ I said honestly.
I was brushing my teeth in my minuscule bathroom when there was a gentle knock on my door, but it wasn’t Veronica, it was Fenella again. I motioned her in with my toothbrush, my mouth full of paste, and she talked over my shoulder as I turned back to the sink.
‘Now, don’t shoot the messenger, Angel. I’ve only sneaked up here because Lisabeth told me to. Veronica thinks I’m putting the milk bottles out.’
‘Den ‘et on wi’ it,’ I said to the mirror, foaming at the mouth.
‘Lisabeth says you’ve simply got to help Vonnie find where this Stella Rudgard is living, because her father wants her back and she could be in danger. We don’t think her gypsy friend Heathcliff is to be trusted, and her father is very famous, even though I’d never heard of him, and he is spending a lot of money to get her back. And it is Vonnie’s first big case, you know, and she’s ever so worried about Mr Block. So you’ve got to do what you can to help. It’s only fair, isn’t it? I think that’s everything. Night-night.’
I spat toothpaste and said, ‘Where does it say it has to be fair?’ But she’d gone.
At least I now knew how to get round client confidentiality. Forget the thumbscrews and the cigarette burns. Give her a cup of Horlicks and a new pair of tights and she’d tell you Anne Frank was in the attic.
I went to bed and read for an hour until Springsteen’s growling warned me Veronica was creeping about trying to make herself comfortable on the sofa. I thought I’d do her a favour and keep him in my bedroom all night.
But in the morning, ten seconds after I had made it to the kitchen to put the kettle on, I heard: ‘Well good morning, Mr Cat. Are we in a better mood today?’
