by Mike Ripley
‘I am helping her. She’s not sleeping in a cardboard box, is she? She’s not had to queue for a night bus. She’s not gone hungry, has she? Although I could murder a steak sandwich myself.’
‘You know what I mean, smartarse – with her case, as she calls it, out there in the big bad world. Angel, she hasn’t got a clue.’
‘About the case?’
‘Don’t get chopsy with me, I live with an expert.’ I gave her that one; she did. ‘I mean about how to survive out there mixing with ... with ... the sort of people you mix with. Well, you know what I mean. She couldn’t refold a jumper in Benetton without help. The woman’s completely naive. For Christ’s sake, she can’t even handle being a woman.’
‘Oh come on, that’s genetic. I know, we’re working on the code.’
‘I’m not kidding. Look, do you know what she said tonight when you weren’t there? She said she found being a private eye the most exciting thing that had ever happened to her, but she was only going to do it until Mr Right came along. Do you believe that? What do you do with a woman her age who thinks like that?’
‘Tell her she should get out more?’ I offered.
Springsteen was waiting for her as she came up the stairs, giggling and whispering with Miranda. I heard her say, ‘This ought to work,’ and then she pushed open the door, which I’d left on the latch, and said loudly:
‘Is everybody decent in here? I’m coming in.’
For that, she deserved everything she got.
‘Ah-ha, there you are, Mr Springscat. I’m ready for you tonight, and you’re going to get a stroking from me whether you ...’
I couldn’t stop a smile.
‘Aaaaaaagh! Christmas! There’s blood! He’s gone right through Fenella’s gardening gloves!’
That’s my boy.
In the morning we made a plan, and Veronica listened to it and agreed totally.
At first, though, she had been in a sulk, because we were not up in time to make it to Wimpole Street for when Stella Rudgard arrived at work. I pointed out that we knew where she worked and we could easily check by phone that she was there.
Veronica wanted to know how we could possibly do that. I told her: (a) she could ring the consulting rooms and say she was a new supervisor from the agency and was just checking Stella’s first day had gone all right; or (b) I could call to make a phoney appointment and come on with a line about her not being Mr Linscott’s usual ‘gal’, and when was he free for golf?; or (c) I could call round with a delivery for him; or (d) I could ring the agency and say …
‘So basically tell a lot of lies?’
She was catching on.
What was important, I told her, was to get a firm fix on where this Stella Rudgard lived. That was what she was being paid for. And putting in a surveillance report saying she lived in some sort of communal hippy squat thing in Sloane Square wasn’t exactly the height of professionalism, was it?
Report? She would have to do a report? Another challenge and the pubs not yet open.
I told her to worry about that later. Our first stop was Sloane Square to check out the address she’d found yesterday. Ah. Yes. The address she’d forgotten to write down, but fortunately she could take me there, once she got her bearings from the underground station.
And once I’d driven her across town at my expense, I thought. But at least whilst doing that, she could fill me in on the bits of the case –- I estimated around 90 per cent – that she’d so far shared with Lisabeth, Fenella, Miranda and the milkman for all I knew, but not me.
‘Speaking of milk,’ she said, looking into her coffee mug, ‘is there any?’
‘Sorry. There wasn’t room for any in the fridge. Anyway, it’s time we hit the road.’
‘What about breakfast?’ she pouted.
‘When did Philip Marlowe ever eat breakfast?’ I snarled through a Bogart sneer.
‘Philip who?’
Of course, it turned out to be not Sloane Square itself, but a small, dead-end mews called John Brome Street, behind Sloane Square. Still, on a clear day you could probably smell when they were having a barbecue in the grounds of Buckingham Palace; and, of course, it gave them a Belgravia address. Not that that meant much these days. I know a former Household Cavalryman who lives in two Hotpoint washing machine boxes behind Victoria Coach Station who always gives his address as Belgravia.
It took me ages to get parked, which was unusual as most London traffic does the sensible thing and gets out of the way when a black cab puts its nose down and heads for the kerb. Around there, though, it was a question of finding the space between the seemingly endless stream of trucks delivering to the restaurants and wine bars, the gas company guys drilling the street where the electricity boys had drilled last week, and the total indifference to on-street parking laws by the local population. It was interesting to see so many Volkswagen Golfs still around after all the jokes about Sloane Rangers back in the ‘80s. The cars were still running – after all, they were VWs – but they now had beaded back comforters on the drivers’ seals and ‘Baby On Board’ stickers in the rear windows.
I eventually found enough space, with half a metre to spare, between some double yellow lines and a Residents Only parking spot in one of the other side streets. I had already told Veronica that I wanted to suss the house alone. Now I told her to get out of Armstrong and go shopping for an hour.
‘Why can’t I come with you and help with the observation?’ she asked, emphasising her point by polishing her glasses with a square centimetre of tissue.
‘Because you may have been seen last night, and if somebody spots you, it could jeopardise the whole surveillance operation.’
That seemed to satisfy her, and I was pleased that one of us knew what I was talking about.
‘Can’t I stay here and wait for you?’
‘No, you can’t. A black cab parked illegally usually gets away with it. A black cab parked illegally with the driver in is totally anonymous; he’s obviously waiting for a fare. But a black cab parked illegally with no driver and a passenger in the back – hey, something wrong there, and people start asking questions. Maybe even tell the local Plod.’
She pushed her glasses back onto her face with one finger and then looked at me with her head cocked on one side.
‘They said you noticed things like that.’
‘Who did?’
‘Lisabeth and Fenella. And Miranda said that her Douglas–’
‘Doogie,’ I corrected her.
‘Well, her Doogie says you’ve got more road cred than Firestone tyres. That’s a compliment, isn’t it?’
‘Almost.’
Veronica had identified the door of 8 John Brome Street. That was where she had tailed Stella Rudgard to.
On the way there, I had made her tell me more about the pitch the father had made to Albert and her. According to Veronica, Mr Rudgard had been sick with worry over 19-year-old Estelle, and wasn’t it a crime to shorten such a lovely name to Stella? She had been the perfect daughter until the previous summer, her last summer before going to university (and Veronica confided that like she was talking about an AIDS victim). And guess what? She’d fallen in love with a young gypsy boy hired to help out with the horses on Mr Rudgard’s farm or estate or whatever, and wasn’t it just like a fairy story? Well, no, of course it wasn’t, because it was a totally unsuitable match. So Mr Rudgard had given the stable boy – Estelle called him ‘Heathcliff’ – some money to go away and work somewhere else.
Naturally, Estelle’s heart broke when she found out that her Heathcliff had been sent away, and she refused to stay at university. She heard from somebody, maybe a friend, that her Heathcliff was in London and had dedicated her life to finding him, even if it meant tramping the mean streets until she was old and haggard, or about 25. And it really was like a romantic novel, wasn’t it? (I told her it wa
sn’t like any I’d ever read; but admittedly most of those had ‘Swedish’ in the title somewhere.)
Worried sick, Mr Rudgard had suddenly had a piece of luck. Stella, as she now called herself, had registered for work with the temping agency Office Cavalry. Somebody from there had rung him just to check on Stella’s National Insurance number. They wouldn’t tell him where she was living or working, of course, but at least he had an address where she would be reporting for a job assignment sometime or other. So he had hired Block and Blugden to do the business and report back. He had left a photograph of Stella and instructions not to approach her or let her know she was being followed. That was all there was to it.
Except why Stella had given a real name, home address and phone number to the agency. That didn’t sound to me like somebody running away, and I know about these things.
I have road cred.
The door of number 8 looked just like any other front door. Just the sort you would find in any substantial terraced house. Nothing unusual, even a milk bottle on the doorstep.
And then you noticed that the door was painted light blue, and that the letter box had been nailed shut; and if you looked closely, you could see that still showing through the light blue paint was the shape of a crucifix about three feet high, as if it had been painted on and then painted over.
Even so, nothing terribly suspicious. I had seen much worse – I’d lived in places where any sort of door was a luxury.
I walked on without stopping, conscious that this was a cul-de-sac and I couldn’t loiter too long. There was a sign saying that a top-floor flat was for sale three doors away, so I pretended to be taking in the frontage and hoped I looked like a prospective buyer to the local nosy Neighbourhood Watch.
Actually, the Neighbourhood Watch were probably just the people I ought to be talking to about the inhabitants of number 8. But were they around when you needed them? Of course not. They come out only after dark, when you’re getting back from the pub late and the streetlights jump out and attack you as you’re trying to park the car. Can’t move for them then.
I tried to think who a real private eye would approach.
The local milkman? Forget it. If you have one in London these days, they’re up so early to beat the traffic they never see anything, and if you approach one, they assume you’re going to mug them for their low-fat yoghurts. The postman? They wouldn’t tell you anything; more than their job’s worth. And face it, what sort of person is it who gets up so early in the morning and whistles a happy tune while delivering the bills from the credit card companies or the income tax? Sick people. They need help.
But so did I at this rate, with no sign of a resident dog-walker to gossip with; not even a passing tourist seeking directions; not even a cat. I began to stroll back, at least planning on getting a second look at the door of number 8, and then Rule of Life No. 1 (It’s better to be lucky than good) kicked in and the door of the house opened and all I had to do was slow down a pace so I didn’t actually trip over them.
There were three of them, all male and all wearing Cotton Traders turtleneck shirts, though in different shades, and jeans. So what had I expected? Saffron robes and bells?
The tallest, a slim dude about six foot tall with a lion’s mane of red hair, was the head honcho, of that there was no doubt. All the body language pointed to him being the leader, the disciple or the teacher, or whatever title this particular cult adopted.
I had been in no doubt that it was some form of religious grouping right from when Veronica had tried to describe the place. I had dismissed the idea of squatters immediately. Not in this area, that would be asking for trouble, and anyway, most of the old-school semi-professional squatters were now running housing associations. Nobody squatted in a single flat anymore. You took over a high-rise office block and usually found some property company was glad that you did, because you were free and security guards cost money.
And there were no hippy communes anymore. Face it, most hippies were old enough to be my father. Come to think of it, one of them had been.
Sure, there were crackhouses and derelict sites for the drunks and assorted druggies too zonked (or just unwilling) to find a place in one of the night shelters. But those weren’t the sort of places from which a girl like Stella left for work every morning and returned every evening to be greeted with hugs and kisses by her house-mates.
From the way Veronica had described that – not to mention the cross painted on the door – I had guessed we were talking religion. It didn’t surprise me. Who else would a runaway, love-lost girl turn to in the big city? After drugs, religious sects offering all the safety valves of a family without the hassle of relatives, were London’s most successful growth industry.
The only question really was, what was their particular angle? What did they offer? What were their aims? How much did it cost to join, apart from a mail-order account with Cotton Traders?
That didn’t take much detective work either. The smallest and youngest of the three, wearing the ‘buttermilk’ shirt, handed me a printed sheet with a cheery greeting of: ‘Hello, neighbour.’
I wondered if he’d seen me looking at the For Sale sign, but then I realised that he probably said that to all complete strangers.
‘Thank you,’ I said, taking the sheet from him. I half expected a sermon, or at least a come-on scam for money. Maybe I wasn’t his type of likely cult material, as he smiled and turned to follow the other two shirts – one tangerine, the tall guy’s an eggshell shade – down the street.
They didn’t give me a second look, and I concentrated on the paper I had been given, so they could get ahead of me. And as I stood there outside number 8, I distinctly heard the sound of bolts being scraped home behind the door. At least four of them.
I glanced at the flyer I had been handed. It had been printed from a word-processor by someone trying to use all the available typefaces and then duplicated on bleached, unrecycled paper. Whoever these guys were, they were not eco-warriors. The key message came under the title:
The Church of the Shining Doorway
‘Give me your young people that I might
lead them to the shining doorway of
Jesus and all his understanding.’
Constantine
That was all it said, but below it was a hand-drawn logo of a door with a large cross as if painted on. I thought about the sound of the bolts being fastened behind the door of number 8, just a few feet away from me, and wondered why that particular doorway, shining or tarnished, needed so much security.
I folded the flyer carefully and put it in the inside pocket of my leather jacket. The three of them were at the end of the street now, the tall one half a pace in front of the other two, slipping on the linen jacket he had been carrying. Even from where I was, I could see it had all the creases in the right places.
I wondered whether to follow them or try my luck with whoever was in the house. I decided to keep to the street. I would need a good line in blag to get into the house, and for what? Stella should be at work, and I certainly didn’t want Veronica coming looking for me if I did manage to get in.
As they turned the corner of the street I opted to tail them. It went like a dream. Dead easy, this tailing stuff. They never suspected they were being followed, and I stuck to them like glue all the way to where they were going. About a hundred yards round the corner into Sloane Square.
They stood and conferred for a moment outside the entrance to the underground station. Then the tall one in the linen jacket flapped a hand in dismissal and walked off, but only as far as a brasserie ten feet away. He took a seat in the window, and a waiter in a striped apron the size of a beach towel offered him a menu. He ordered without consulting it and, while waiting, produced a small, flip-up mobile phone and began dialling.
His two foot soldiers took up position straddling the entrance to the tube station and beg
an to hand out flyers. I watched from across the square, noting that they targeted white Anglo-Saxons under the age of 20, occasionally getting a pull and a conversation developing. The one who had leafleted me made two contacts while I watched, in both cases taking out a pen and adding something – a phone number? – to the flyer.
Linen Jacket in the brasserie would check them with a glance every ten minutes, otherwise he concentrated on his phone calls and his coffee and what looked like a real brioche with apricot jam.
I remembered Veronica and wondered if she would be hanging around Armstrong waiting for me. Or maybe she had picked the wrong taxi in a different street. No such luck.
‘Did you find out anything?’ she steamed, all excited.
‘I think I met some of her house-mates. Or perhaps I should say fellow churchgoers.’ I produced the flyer and she read it like it contained the answers to the ‘How to pick up more men’ quiz in her favourite magazine.
‘I don’t get it,’ she said, looking at me dead straight.
I bit my tongue. ‘The house, back there, it’s the Church of the Shining Doorway. I admit it could do with another coat of gloss, but it’s the best they can do at the moment.’
‘But what sort of people go to a church like that?’
‘I dunno, but I’ll show you some.’
She followed me puppy-like back to the square, and she had to screw up her eyes and polish her glasses again to get a good look at the two disciples handing out flyers. I checked the window seat of the brasserie, but Linen Jacket had gone.
‘That one, on the left,’ Veronica said, ‘he was waiting for Stella last night when she came home. There was another one, too, seemed very friendly indeed.’
‘Tall, red-haired? Handsome?’
‘Why, yes,’ she said, open-mouthed.
‘You just missed him,’ I said smugly. ‘Hang on, something’s going down.’
