by Mike Ripley
‘I didn’t tell him. He just seemed to know already.’
Miranda was giving me a steely glare.
‘Look, I didn’t know what you were planning to ask her,’ I said defensively. ‘You didn’t ask my opinion on your Breakaway session.’
‘What’s this “Breakaway”?’ Miranda snapped.
‘It’s what they call deprogramming nowadays,’ said Stella. ‘I knew you weren’t professionals at that. I talked to some people in the Samaritans at university before I went undercover.’
‘Undercover,’ Fenella breathed in awe.
‘You might have told us that,’ bitched Miranda.
‘It wouldn’t have made any difference,’ I said, ‘and anyway, I wasn’t consulted, remember? You kept it all very confidential, all girls together. I was just the driver.’
‘Don’t sulk,’ said Lisabeth sharply, which I thought was rich coming from someone who could teach advanced sulking for beginners.
‘Anyway,’ I pressed on, ‘I’ve had this feeling from the start.’
‘Do tell,’ said Stella, smiling again. She was sitting cross-legged on a cushion on the floor, her skirt riding up again, but I was determined not to let it distract me. I was tough. You had to be. It was in the Detective’s Manual.
‘Well, putting your father’s name and address as a reference for the temping agency. That didn’t exactly indicate someone wanting to drop totally out of their previous life. And it didn’t indicate someone giving up all worldly possessions either. Getting a job, I mean.’ She raised an eyebrow at that. ‘And turning up for work early today as well. No, something hooky here.’
‘Is that it?’ gasped Miranda. ‘That’s not any sort of logical deduction.’
‘Hey, she’s the detective.’ I pointed at Veronica. ‘And what’s wrong with a bit of male intuition anyway?’
‘Sexist assumption’s more like it.’
‘Would you be willing to answer some serious questions?’ Veronica had to raise her voice to be heard.
‘That depends,’ said Stella, looking for somewhere to put out her cigarette, ‘on what they are and why you’re asking. And also if you’re offering lunch. The food in the Doorway is crap and I’m starving.’
We all stood up as if a dinner gong had sounded.
‘We’ve got some lentils cooked in a vegetable stock,’ Fenella enthused, ‘or there’s celery soup, not out of a tin but from one of those new packet, carton things to keep it fresh, and its very nice. Or, there’s some homemade mushroom soup I could warm up, or a quiche we could have hot or cold.’
‘What do you recommend?’ Stella asked me under her breath.
‘McDonald’s,’ I whispered.
‘You owe me a pair of shoes. Is your name really Angel?’
‘We’ll put them on expenses and, yes, it is, but you can call me Roy.’
‘It’s short for Fitzroy,’ Fenella chipped in.
‘Aren’t your lentils ready?’ I snarled at her.
‘And who is this cute fella?’
Stella knelt down to stroke Springsteen, who had appeared magically between her legs. She put a hand on each side of his face and smoothed back his whiskers, then ears, then the fur on his ribs.
‘Er ... I’d be careful if I were you,’ said Veronica. Everyone else, including me, had gone quiet.
‘But he’s such a sexy boy,’ cooed Stella, putting her face well in range. ‘And normally I can’t stand cats. Never had any time for them, mangy creatures.’
Her two hands continued to smooth Springsteen’s fur all the way to the tip of his tail. When she’d finished, he stretched out his front paws so that his claws clacked on my kitchen floor. Here it comes, I thought, but all he did was arch his back, then walk his gunfighter’s walk through Stella’s legs and into the living room.
There was a noise like a tyre deflating. It was Veronica, me and Fenella all exhaling at the same time.
We had moved upstairs while Lisabeth put her flat in order and cooked lunch for those who preferred the veggie alternative. I had sent Miranda out for burgers for the carnivores.
‘You think you’ll get expenses from my father?’ Stella said to me as she stood up. ‘Dream on.’
‘I got the impression he was a bit short of the readies. So far, our bills seem to be picked up by his solicitor.’
She got suddenly serious.
‘Simon Buck?’ I nodded. ‘Then we really have got to talk.’
‘What about the other angels?’ said Fenella before she could stop herself.
‘Who?’ Stella’s jaw dropped.
‘It’s just something we decided to call ourselves,’ Fenella said, squirming with embarrassment. ‘The Five Angels. Sorry.’
‘Don’t look at me,’ I said.
Veronica kicked off, telling Stella the story so far. How her father had hired Albert and how Albert had brought her into the business and then had his heart attack and more or less left her out in the cold. How she had followed Stella from the agency to Wimpole Street and then to John Brome Street and the Church of the Shining Doorway. How she (note, just ‘she’) had been to Sandpit Lodge and had been horrified at the lack of concern shown by Sir Drummond and how that had made her determined to find out more about Stella and to help in any way she, and her new friends (‘and chauffeur,’ I added), could.
‘But you were paid off the case,’ said Stella. ‘Didn’t you say that Daddy called you off?’
‘Buck actually signed the cheque,’ I said.
‘Then it shouldn’t bounce,’ she said. ‘Daddy’s would have.’
‘That’s what Angel said,’ Veronica murmured, almost to herself.
‘You don’t need to be a detective to work that one out,’ Stella laughed, then stopped when she saw Veronica’s expression. ‘What I mean is, you just have to look at the place to see how run down it is, both the house and that tatty second-hand car showroom.’
‘The kid on the car park said business was bad,’ I said casually.
‘What kid?’ Stella said sharply.
‘Just a kid. Sixteenish. Hired help locally, I guess.’
‘What did he look like?’ she pressed.
‘Small, curly black hair, bantam-weight or undernourished, whichever way you look at it. Streetwise, cheeky. Anything else, Veronica?’ I appealed for help.
‘Big, brown eyes,’ she said, then to Stella: ‘He’s not your Heathcliff, is he?’
‘No, I just ... for a moment …’
‘Hang on a minute,’ I said, ‘what are we talking about?’
‘Oh, you wouldn’t remember, but I did tell you,’ Veronica said harshly, then backed off, trying to think if she had in fact told me or just the coven downstairs. ‘Sir Drummond mentioned that Estelle–’
‘Stella.’
‘Sorry, Stella, may have come to London to look for, for … an old flame. A boy she called her Heathcliff.’
‘Carrick Lee,’ I said firmly and Veronica looked surprised. So did Stella.
‘Your father mentioned him by name. Veronica is a bit of a romantic,’ I said smugly.
‘Daddy called him Heathcliff, not me. Because he was a gypsy. He really was; a genuine Romany. And he wasn’t a boy.’ She flashed her eyes at Veronica, who was leaning forward drinking it all in. ‘He was a man. I’ve had boys and men, and he was a man.’
Veronica coloured slightly at this, Fenella, perched on my only kitchen seat, a bar stool pinched from a pub in Southwark, smiled inanely and then blushed scarlet about ten seconds later.
‘Did your father run him off?’ I asked,
‘No, Daddy wouldn’t do that. And he couldn’t afford to pay him off. He probably thought I’d grow out of it. Carrick was older than me, nearly 24.’
‘So–’ Veronica started, but stopped as the telephone down by the front door started to ring.
‘I’ll get it,’ I offered, knowing Lisabeth would not and, though Fenella would have volunteered, if it was for me I preferred my messages in English.
I got to the flat door on the third ring but then heard the front door open and Miranda yell ‘I’ll get it!’ up the stairs.
I relaxed and was about to ask Veronica to carry on when Miranda shouted: ‘Angel, it’s for you. Somebody called Zoe.’
Fenella raised a finger.
‘Ah. Someone called Zoe rang while you were out, early this morning. Sounded nice.’
‘Thanks, Fenella, I sighed. ‘I’ll be back in a tick, don’t start without me.’
Halfway down the stairs, I relieved Miranda of a brown bag of quarterpounders and fries.
‘Have I missed anything?’ she breathed.
‘The doughnuts?’
Then I had skipped by her and was swallowing fries by the time I got to the dangling phone.
‘Talk to me, Doctor.’ I said.
‘You owe me several drinks,’ said Zoe with an odd lilt in her voice.
‘You’ve tested it?’
‘A friend of a friend has. You owe me for the drinks I owe him.’
‘So what is it?’
‘Meet me after work, about six. Do you know the Fitzroy Tavern?’ She giggled, ‘Sorry, no pun intended:
‘Of course I know it. Why can’t you tell me now?’
‘I’ve got to see your face when I do.’
‘My turn,’ said Stella, wiping her lips with a paper napkin.
She had a full-house audience now Lisabeth had joined us with a steaming pan of lentils and Miranda had helped out with the loan of some plates and cutlery.
‘Carrick came to work at Sandpit Lodge last year and, yes, we got it on together. It was good, dirty, irresponsible fun. I had no illusions, no plans to get married or anything divvy like that, and I don’t think Daddy thought it was serious. He was pretty sure I’d find other fish to fry at university, and he was right, but I still had a soft spot for Carrick and I saw him off and on and we phoned each other when we could.
‘And then suddenly he was gone, packed up and gone, about two months ago, and no-one knew where. I assumed Daddy had made him go away and we had a bit of a spat.’
‘Why?’ I asked.
‘What a stupid question,’ snapped Veronica.
‘No, it isn’t,’ I said petulantly, ‘it’s a very good one. Why, if Daddy didn’t mind her tumbling one of the hired help when she lived at home, should he get rid of him after she’s gone to university?’
‘Exactly,’ said Stella, ignoring Veronica’s crestfallen expression. ‘That’s what I thought was weird, and that’s why we had the spat and it all came out. Daddy was convinced that Carrick had found out that I am a TFB, but he couldn’t have. I never said a word about it to him, and of course Daddy hadn’t, so …’
‘What’s a TFB?’ asked Miranda, truly puzzled.
‘A Trust Fund Babe,’ I told her, and she recoiled slightly.
‘A what?’ slurped Fenella over the rim of a cup of lentil broth.
‘I have a Trust Fund that I inherit when I’m 25. It was set up when I was born, with some money from my mother’s family. Daddy got the idea that Carrick had found out about it and was gold-digging.’
‘Why Babe?’ asked Fenella. ‘Don’t you mean “Baby”?’
We ignored her.
‘I never said a word to Carrick and he never asked. He could see how run-down things were and he knew the family silver had long been pawned. Daddy made some pretty div business decisions after Mummy died and lost most of his capital. He’d been pretty sharp up to then. He got his knighthood for services to exports. But when Mummy went down with the cancer, he took early retirement and thought he could devote himself to her and me and the house and his crazy car collection. She died and the car thing never really took off.’
I thought I had better say something while there was still a dry eye in the house.
‘So you came looking for Carrick in London?’
Stella nodded.
‘How come you ended up in the Shining Doorway?’
‘Carrick had mentioned it. I thought he was winding me up, but he told me he was “getting religion” as that’s what it took to do the business in London these days.’
She pronounced it ‘bizyness’ as if quoting him.
‘And he specifically mentioned Shining Doorway?’
‘Yes. The Church of the Shining Doorway. I couldn’t make that up. It was in Islington, he said, but by the time I got to town, they’d moved down to Sloane Square.’
‘What sort of “bizyness”?’ I said it like she had.
‘He didn’t say specifically, but from what I’ve found out after living with them for three weeks, it’s bound to be dodgy.’
‘Dodgy?’ echoed Veronica.
‘You bet. I never said Carrick was white as driven snow, but Connie’s mob are into everything. You thought Fagin had a gang? Meet the master. He likes all his female disciples to work as temps, and not just so he can lift their pay packets.’
Miranda turned to me with a ‘don’t follow’ expression.
‘Temps get paid weekly rather than monthly,’ I explained, ‘and they move around a lot. So they could case an office for valuables but be working on the other side of town, probably forgotten, when the burglary takes place two weeks later. Plus, they have access to all sorts of information, and leaks are difficult to trace back to them.’
‘Tell me about it,’ said Stella, wearily.
‘Connie gets you to look through files?’ I guessed. ‘Stuff like that.’
‘Yep.’
‘And your present employer, this Mr Linscott, is a consultant, isn’t he? A consultant in what?’
‘STDs,’ said Stella, and three of the Fab Four turned towards me.
‘Sexually Transmitted Diseases,’ said Lisabeth suddenly.
And three pairs of eyes turned on her. Four, including mine.
‘Spot on, if you’ll pardon the expression, and his patient register makes interesting reading.’
‘That’s why you were getting into work early,’ I said, taking the faint smirk off Stella’s face.
‘Yeah, ‘fraid so. Connie asked me to snoop around, see what I could find and photocopy.’
There was a group silence.
‘I’m not proud of it,’ she said, ‘but I need to get in with them if I’m to find Carrick.’
‘Does Connie have a target in mind? Someone he knows is a patient?’
‘Nothing so elaborate. It’s a magpie operation, we’re all out there foraging for scraps, anything we can pick up that might be useful to him.’
‘And people do this for him?’ Veronica was aghast.
‘Women do this for him?’ Miranda demanded.
‘Especially the women,’ said Stella, and Lisabeth shook her head in dismay.
‘Have you found out what happened to Carrick?’ I tried to steer us back to business.
‘No. Not a thing. They don’t talk about past members. I daren’t approach the other girls; they’ll run straight to Connie. And the men all get favours from him if they behave themselves. There are two. Paul and Julian, who are sort of lieutenants, very close to Connie. They’ve been with him for some time and they’ve talked about being in the Islington house together. They’d know, but I can’t get close to them. Connie regards me as his personal property just at the moment, though I’m told by some of the others that it doesn’t last long. He gives all his disciples names, you know. I’m Helena, would you believe?’
‘So what are you going to do now?’ Veronica got in to stop me hogging the questions.
Stella shrugged her shoulders.
‘Hang in there for a while, see if I can find a chink in their armour. Maybe get something on Connie I
can use against him. Get him to tell me what happened to Carrick.’
‘You’re sure something’s happened to him?’ Miranda said quietly.
‘Pretty sure. He would have been in touch by now. I know that for a fact, after what we did together. He wouldn’t just disappear off the face of the earth.
She had them eating out of the palm of her hand with that. No-one wanted to break the spell, but she did so herself.
“Now I really do have to use a toilet. For real this time.’
‘Through here,’ I said, leading the way.
Veronica grabbed her arm as she followed me.
‘Let’s see if we can help, Estelle. We all understand. The first love is the best.’
Stella smiled at her warmly, but once in the corridor to my bathroom she crossed her eyes and whispered: ‘Where did you find that one? She really should get out more.’
‘I keep telling her that,’ I said.
‘Thank you for your concern, but no, I must get back. It’ll be bad enough if Connie has tried to ring me at work, but if I’m late for our evening group meeting, then it’s contemplation for me.’
‘Is that bad?’ Fenella, all innocent.
‘It’s a room with no windows called the Contemplation Room. If you like sitting in the cold and dark with nothing to eat and no way to wash, then it’s not bad. Not for the first 12 hours or so.’
‘You let the men do that to you?’ Lisabeth growled.
‘They wouldn’t do it if the women didn’t agree with them. There are seven girls living at the squat in John Brome Street, and five men. They put one of the girls – Francesca – in there for 36 hours because she told the group meeting that she had strayed. She’d sneaked out on a Sunday morning and gone to Mass. She was a lapsed Catholic.’
‘But that’s awful,’ exclaimed Miranda.
‘Too right,’ Stella agreed, ‘the silly bitch should have kept her mouth shut. Nobody had noticed she was missing and if she hadn’t confessed at group meeting, they would have been none the wiser. Never confess to anything is what I say.’
‘Sounds like one of your Rules of Life,’ Fenella said to me, but I ignored her.
‘This Connie,’ Miranda started, ‘what’s his real name? There may be something on him somewhere. I’m a journalist, I could go through the cuttings files.’
