by Mike Ripley
I knew that Miranda’s north London local paper had nothing more interesting in its cuttings morgue than the results of school prize days, hardly an MI5 database. But I let it go.
‘Constantine Smith. It really is, I’ve seen his passport, and he’s an American, though he knows his way around London.’
‘How did Carrick get his job with your father?’ I asked. And they all looked at me.
‘What?’
I repeated my question for her.
‘He was recommended by Simon Buck, Daddy’s solicitor,’ she said slowly, her face a question mark.
‘The man who paid Veronica £800’ – there were two sharp intakes of breath at that – ‘to hear that you were tied up with a crazy cult called Shining Doorway, but who never pressed for an address. It’s been niggling me. It’s the solicitor who didn’t bark in the night. No solicitor pays out money for half a story. He didn’t push for the address because he knew it.’
‘There’s a connection?’
I had Stella’s full attention. I was getting vibes that perhaps she liked solicitors almost as much as I did.
‘You just didn’t like him,’ Veronica chimed in.
‘Come on, he’s bent. You could tell a mile off.’
‘Male intuition again?’ Miranda smiled a smile that would have made yoghurt.
‘There was something else,’ I said, trying to remember. ‘Yes. Think back, Veronica. When we told them about Albert, it was Buck who was concerned, not Stella’s father. It was as if he knew him.’
They all turned to Veronica, who took off her glasses and made an elaborate play of finding a tissue to wipe them with.
‘Well, now you mention it,’ she said in a hoarse croak, ‘when Sir Drummond came to see Albert that first time, he did perhaps say his solicitor had recommended him.’
‘And?’
‘And, yes, I think Albert knew of a Mr Buck. In fact’ – she brightened – ‘I think he’s got a file on Mr Buck back at the office. I could go and get it if you think it’ll help.’
‘I’ll go,’ I said wearily.
‘Who’s Albert?’ chirped Fenella.
Sometimes I feel so alone.
I dropped Stella at Oxford Circus. She had opted for a tube journey back to Sloane Square just in case Connie had put his disciples on duty at the station.
She didn’t talk much on the journey. She’d talked enough today. But she did ask the usual questions about was this a real cab and why was if called Armstrong and what did I do for a living? The last one was quaint, I thought.
‘Apprentice detective,’ I said.
She laughed at that. She had a nice laugh.
‘And you’ve taken your first day as a kidnap victim very well, if I may make so bold.’
‘Please do. I go a bundle on bold.’
I looked in the mirror and her eyes were there, waiting for me to do so.
‘Will you really keep in touch with them?’
‘I said I would, didn’t I? I’ll ring from the office. Lisabeth – it was Lisabeth, wasn’t it? You know, the bull dyke with the military bearing. She gave me your number.’
I corrected my steering after almost getting on board a No 13 bus.
‘Oh yeah, I know the one you mean.’
‘Can I ask you something?’ She leaned forward from the back seat, but looked out of the window rather than into the mirror.
‘Ask anyone anything,’ I said. ‘It’s in the Apprentice Detective’s Charter.’
‘Have you got a thing going with any of them? Back there at the house, I mean.’
‘No, not a thing.’
‘Good.’ She sat back on the seat. ‘I didn’t think so. By a process of elimination, it could only have been one of them, and she was spoken for anyway.’
‘Miran ... ?’ I started, but she wasn’t listening.
‘Fenella certainly has the hots for you,’ she said casually.
‘Maybe you should be a detective,’ I said when I had recovered from the shock.
Well, why not? She was just as bad at it as we were.
Chapter Thirteen
I decided I had just enough time to get out to Albert Block’s office and then back to the Fitzroy to meet Zoe, if the traffic went for me and if I didn’t hang about once there. I had no intention of doing so; in fact, I wasn’t too keen on going at all, not without an armed escort. But I reasoned it was best to do it before dark and alone rather than with Veronica in tow.
I did a drive-by to check that the coast was clear of marauding bands of bad-attitude black kids and parked Armstrong round the corner from Albert’s place, trying not to draw attention to my visit. I still had a key to the new lock Dod had fitted, and I walked to the door and got it open without actually breaking into a run.
As my cash-flow situation had actually flowed recently, instead of the usual slow ebb, I had treated myself to a new torch, a long, powerful four-battery rubber-cased job, which I normally kept in Armstrong’s boot. As I eased the door open, I let it slip from inside my jacket and weighed it in my right hand. On other occasions, I would probably have complained about the weight and bulk of the damn thing, but now it seemed light and insubstantial.
The place seemed just the same as the last time I’d seen it, the staircase to Albert’s office stretching gloomily upward in front of me, the only natural light coming from the doorway. There was a light switch to my right, but when I hit it nothing happened.
I stepped back and checked the street again, then I swallowed hard, stepped inside and closed the door.
He was behind the door, waiting to jump me. Of course he was. Where else would he be? He’d probably seen the same private eye movies I had, where the hero gets slugged on the back of the head and the cameraman goes into a vomit-inducing tailspin.
It didn’t work out that way. Partly it was because I instinctively pointed the torch at him and turned it on, blinding him, and partly because he had no intention of clocking me in the first place.
‘You!’ we both said together.
‘Jesus, but you scared the shit out of me,’ he gasped. ‘I thought it was those black kids come to get me.’
So did I, I said to myself. I lowered the torch slightly and remembered to start breathing again.
‘So who’s looking after the car parking at Sandpit Lodge today?’ I asked him.
His name was Bobby Lee. He was Carrick Lee’s younger brother. He was looking for him too. He seemed pleased that I remembered him.
‘You made an impression,’ I conceded coolly. ‘You were obviously interested in us. How did you find this place? Did you chat up the headmistress on the front desk?’
He was impressed.
‘Miss Rocket was dead chuffed. She’d never met a private eye before.’
‘We gave her a card.’
He reached into the pocket of his denim jacket and produced Veronica’s card.
‘If she’s Blugden, are you Albert Block?’
I shook my head. Do I look like an Albert?
‘I’m a consultant on the case,’ I decided grandly. ‘How did you know about Albert?’ The card only had Veronica’s name.
‘Everything upstairs is addressed to Albert Block and, anyway, apart from ones you see on TV, he’s the only detective I’ve ever heard of.’
‘How did you hear of him?’
‘From Carrick.’
‘How did Carrick come across him?’
‘While he was working for Simon Buck.’
‘The solicitor.’
Bobby nodded. ‘It seems Albert was Buck’s enquiry agent, if he ever needed one.’
‘What did Carrick do for Buck?’
‘I don’t know. That’s what I was hoping to find out by coming here. I couldn’t get a sniff out at Antique Alley and Buck’s place is like a fortress. You two tu
rning up gave me my only lead.’
I considered how much to tell him. We were, after all, a confidential enquiry service. But what the hell.
‘There’s supposed to be a file on Buck upstairs.’
‘There is. It’s under “B”,’ he said sheepishly.
‘That’s a relief,’ I said.
The file didn’t tell us much. It contained mostly badly-typed carbon copies of invoices to Buck’s practice, Kay, Morgan and Williams, and all of them seemed to be for the ‘delivery of petition and writ’ type of process-serving. They referred to individuals, sometimes named but usually ‘the tenant’ or ‘the occupier’, at addresses all over north London, but with a particular concentration in the Essex Road area of Islington. The dates stretched back nearly two years, but the latest one was no more recent than three months ago.
There was one carbon that had been amended in pencil. It referred to a writ served on somebody called Davies at an address on the Balls Pond Road, only the address had been struck through with a single line. The words ‘check with C’ were scrawled at the side.
‘What is it?’ asked Bobby when I pulled it out of the file and held it for him to see. I thought for a moment that he was saying he couldn’t read.
‘It’s a carbon of an invoice …’
‘Carbon paper? I’ve never seen that before.’
I realised he was genuinely curious. Photocopiers and then word-processors had made his generation about as aware of carbon copies as they were of quill pens.
‘“Check with C.” You think that means Carrick?’
‘Why not?’
‘Look at the date,’ he said. ‘That was a year ago, before Carrick ever went to work for Buck or Sir Drummond. I thought you were the detective.’
‘If you want the job, its open.’
I glared at him and put the file down on top of the cabinet, then started to flick through the suspended file pockets until I reached the letter ‘L’.
‘There’s nothing under Lee,’ said Bobby cheekily. ‘First thing I looked for. Well, not the right Lee. There is a file on a bloke called Lee from Dartford who had his wife followed, but it’s no relation.’
I narrowed my eyes at him and kept flicking the files until I got to ‘S’.
Bobby put his head over the drawer to read off the files, as if he was worried about the strain on my eyes.
‘Shepherd, Sherwood, Sickert, Smee, Strong, Symonds,’ he read. ‘Who are you looking for?’
‘Smith,’ I said, but there was no such file.
‘Funny that. I would have bet on a Smith or two.’
‘Maybe only people being followed by private detectives ….’ Then I stopped, because my fingers had found something that was not a file, and I pulled it out. It was an A5-size leaflet, amateurishly produced by photocopying onto coloured paper. On the front cover was a crude drawing of a door, doorstep and surround. On the door itself was a cross done in two broad strokes. In grainy type blown up by the photocopier, the title read: ‘You Have the Key to the Church of the Shining Doorway in Your Heart.’
‘Is that a clue?’ Bobby asked.
‘It’s a connection,’ I said, ‘and they seem to be mounting up.’
He took the pamphlet from me and scanned it.
‘This is crap. Listen to this: “A sin shared is a sin uncommitted.” My da would call this gobshitey tripe.’
‘What does your father do, Bobby, apart from being an archbishop, that is?’
Bobby grinned.
‘He’s Romany, man, he doesn’t do anything. Well, nothing I’d tell you about. What’s this got to do with Carrick?’ He waved the Shining Doorway leaflet in front of my face. ‘And why are you after him anyway?’
‘I’m not. We were looking for Estelle Rudgard. She was looking for your brother.’
‘The old git’s daughter? Was Carrick humping her?’
‘I believe they had some sort of ongoing relationship of mutual respect and affection. And yes, it probably involved humping.’
‘He was good at that, was Carrick. Well, he always said he was.’
‘Was?’
He wrinkled his nose. ‘You know what I mean. We haven’t heard from him for nearly two months now, and that’s not like him at all just to disappear like that. What’s the connection with these loonies?’
He placed the leaflet on top of the Buck file and tapped it with a forefinger.
‘Carrick had mentioned them to Stella – Estelle. It was her only lead, so she joined them to see if she could find a trace to him.’
‘Did she?’
‘No, not as ... Wait a minute. You didn’t know about Estelle and Carrick?’
‘No. Well, we knew he had a bit of skirt down here, but no names. Certainly didn’t think it was the daughter of the lord of the manor. The way he talks about her, you wouldn’t think butter would melt in her … wherever. She’s at university somewhere, isn’t she?’
‘She was, until she decided to go looking for Carrick. Didn’t you know she’d gone runaway?’
He was genuinely bemused.
‘Nope, nobody said a dickie bird at Sandpit Lodge. When I found out that you and your partner–’
‘Associate. Loose associate. Passing acquaintance.’
‘Whatever. When I found out who you were, I just assumed you were asking the old codger about Carrick. You know, the old man accusing him of running off with the family silver. Not that there is any. Any worth nicking, that is. I checked. But I thought it might be something like that.’
I closed the filing cabinet drawers slowly and moved the Buck file and the pamphlet to Albert’s desk, then I perched on the edge.
‘You look like you could use a cigarette,’ Bobby said.
I patted my jacket pockets just to prove to myself that I had left my emergency pack of Sweet Afton in Armstrong.
‘Then how about one of these?’
He reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and produced a spliff no longer than a king size and as tightly rolled as a prison cigarette. He lit it with a cheap Bic disposable and inhaled. I watched him take two good draws, then he blew on the end and his fingers reversed it in his hand and he offered it to me like a duellist returning a sword.
I took a pull. My Rule of Life No 74 was that you could work most things out if you gave yourself enough thinking time.
‘That’s good kif,’ I said, going for seconds.
‘Best quality Kabul Bazaar,’ said Bobby.
‘Afghan Black, eh? I’m impressed. Don’t see too much of it these days.’
‘No, you’re right,’ he said, taking back the joint. ‘Most of the stuff in London is rubbishy Jamaican compress like those black kids retail. Most of that has been pulled out of the sea by the US Coast Guard, then stolen, then re-exported.’
‘Yeah. Save the Bales, man,’ I said, and he laughed. ‘I had a T-shirt with that on once ... Hold it. What black kids?’
‘The gang out back. There’s three or four of them. I saw them earlier when they were catching some kids coming home from school. Thought about doing a deal, but they’re strictly amateur.’
‘Out back?’ I said vaguely, reaching for the spliff.
‘You can see ‘em from the window.’
He was right. They weren’t there, or course, but you could see where they made their headquarters. Looking down from Albert’s office, the network of back yards and fences ended in a narrow walkway that probably ran the length of the street and was no doubt used by honest citizens, kids going to school and mothers pushing prams as a cut-through to Shepherd’s Bush Green. The pathway wasn’t parallel with the street; it doglegged through two right angles forming a lazy Z shape right outside Albert’s parched and sparse five-feet of back garden. It was an ideally private spot that could not be seen from either end of the path and only observed from above
from Albert’s office. The lower angle of the Z shape was littered with cigarette butts, empty Coke cans and the odd empty bottle of strong cider. The ideal alfresco office, with very low overheads.
Three or four black kids dealing in cannabis and who knew what else. Most of their customers younger than themselves, but safe from prying eyes while still on a path they had every right to be on if anyone did find them there.
No worries, unless you think some dull ex-copper turned private eye is using a camera on you from an upstairs window. Then you have to take steps to protect your turf and your business interests. And you haven’t got time to ask why the old fool was taking passport photographs of his equally divvy and unobservant assistant and apprentice. Much easier just to bust the place up and persuade him to leave. As an added bonus, you frighten him into a heart attack.
‘You okay?’ asked Bobby.
I was still staring out of the window.
‘I think I’ve just solved my first case,’ I said, or I think I said. Yes, I felt my lips move.
‘What?’
‘Skip it.’ I turned to face him. ‘Anyway, how did you get in here?’
‘Through the front door,’ he said seriously. ‘That lock’s a piece of piss. Have you ever thought of putting on a new one?’
‘You’re late,’ said Zoe, putting down her copy of the British Medical Journal and pointing to her empty glass.
‘You waited,’ I said, trying out the teeth on her.
That didn’t work, so I fought my way to the bar of the Fitzroy and ordered a beer and, after sniffing her glass, a gin and tonic for her.
‘So, come on,’ I said, back at her table. ‘What’s the stuff?’
She reached under her seat into her shoulder bag and produced a new, sealed brown envelope, which she casually tossed onto the table in front of me.
I covered it quickly with my forearms, almost spilling my beer.
‘Hey, watch it,’ I hissed, looking round furtively, ‘they’ll all want some.’
She threw back her head and laughed. ‘I doubt it.’
