London Noir - [Anthology]

by Edited by Maxim Jakubowski

  * * * *

  Shaved and showered, smartly dressed, I was into work before eight next morning. The girl in the doorway was awake too, only her eyes showing between sleeping-bag and woolly hat. Thin, tight eyes, weary and distrustful.

  Wise girl.

  After a couple of hours’ intensive working, I glanced out of the window and saw a policeman. Saw him stop, question the girl for a minute or two, finally nod and move away.

  That didn’t impress me at all.

  So I phoned downstairs to the security guard. He’d been on duty since seven, he’d be getting bored by now, he’d be into a change of routine,

  ‘Tell her to move, Carl. The law can’t shift her, maybe, but we can. Tell her that.’

  And he did, he told her. I watched from my window, saw her gesture stiffly, saw her spit. No trouble guessing what she was saying down there, the message she was sending. They get vicious on the streets, these kids do. Not hard, not as hard as they like to think, but vicious for sure.

  Vicious isn’t always wise, though, it isn’t always protective. Carl came back, and we had another little chat on the phone while I sat in my chair and watched the street, thinking how cold it was out there. How cold she must be already, cold all the time, despite the sleeping-bag and so many layers of clothing . . .

  So I talked to Carl, and heard him laugh; and watched him carry a bucket over the road, watched him tip a gallon of cold, cold water over the girl.

  Even through the double glazing, I could hear her shriek.

  Hear her swear, too, see her come scrambling out of the sodden bag in a fighting fury; but Carl was already half-way back, strolling contemptuously across the street with a big grin on his face, not even looking. She snatched up a handful of frozen dog-shit, hurled it at him, missed. Cast around for a stone, a can, anything else; but the services are good around here, the streets are swept. She was all the trash there was.

  And she was wet and freezing cold, and he was twice her size. She didn’t come after him, just slumped back into her doorway. Rummaged desultorily in a carrier bag, pulled a few clothes out, dropped them again; wrapped her arms around her knees, rocked to and fro, head down and shoulders shaking.

  When I left the office an hour later, she was back in the bag. I wasn’t sure that was such a good idea, better to keep dry, I would have thought; but I didn’t stop to say so. She was curled up small, back to the street, no begging now. And Carl had his game-plan all worked out.

  From the look of her she wasn’t going anywhere; but if she didn’t move, twice more today she was going to get a wetting.

  It was going to be a hard cold day for the kid and a harder colder night to follow, with wet bedding and a sharp frost forecast even here, even in the heart of the city.

  It’s a tough life, when you’re not welcome in other people’s doorways.

  * * * *

  The tube was on again, so I took the Northern line out to a small hotel at a frugal distance, and asked at reception for Mr Kirk.

  The girl behind the counter nodded over my shoulder; I turned, saw him in a corner, watching me. Watching everyone that came in, I guessed, and probably praying, good Chapel background that he had. Probably praying even now, that I should prove an answer to his prayer.

  Maybe I was, at that.

  I asked the girl to bring us a pot of coffee, two cups. She said he drank tea. One of each, then, I said. No hurry, I said. When you’ve got the time.

  She nodded, promised. I made my way between chairs; he stood up as I reached him, met my extended hand with his, ready presumably to shake with any stranger in his need.

  ‘Mr Kirk, I’m glad to catch you. I saw you on the news last night, and I thought perhaps we ought to talk. Oh, I’m sorry, my name’s Jonathan, my friends call me Jonty . . .’ And some people called me Skip, but he didn’t need to know that, it wouldn’t mean a thing.

  ‘David,’ he said, reciprocating, politely not asking for a surname. More sussed than he seemed, perhaps; or else just learning fast. He’d have to be, if he’d been hunting for Alfie in any of the right places. ‘Please, sit down, I’ll order some tea . . .’

  ‘No need, I’ve done that.’

  ‘Well, then.’ He sat down himself, fidgeted his clothes into neatness, and got straight to the point. ‘How is it that you can help me, then, ah, Jonty?’

  ‘Only that I knew Alfie quite well, I know the people he mixed with, some of the places he hung out. These kids, they wouldn’t talk to the police, they might not talk to you - but they’ll talk to me. Specifically,’ laying plenty of cards on the table, honest as they come, ‘there are two boys we need to find, because they’re next on the hit-list, they’ve got to be. I don’t know if you’ve realized this, I don’t know if the police are aware, even; but Alfie was one of a team, five good friends,’ really working on that Chapel mentality here: all good buddies together, all looking out for each other and don’t mention what they did for cash. ‘Three of them are dead now, and it’s too much for coincidence. Whoever this madman is, he’s not killing at random . . .’

  And so I talked, and drank coffee, and painted what picture I liked of Alfie’s life, what picture I thought David ought to see. He sipped at his insipid milky tea, and nodded, and tried to understand.

  I was still talking when the girl interrupted me, beckoning David over to the desk to take a phone call.

  I sat back and watched him, trying to read lips at this distance and failing but feeling lucky regardless, guessing who the call was from as David scribbled frantically on a message-pad.

  Guessing right, because he came back to me wide-eyed, almost trembling with excitement.

  ‘That was, that was this Tony you were just telling me about,’ he said, stammering over it. ‘Alfie’s friend Tony, he said he was. And they’ve been hiding out, see, him and the other boy Dex, because they know someone’s after them. They wouldn’t go to the police, well, obvious reasons, really; but he says he’ll talk to me. He says he’d like to meet me, he’s given me an address, meet him there this evening, he says . . .’

  That was Tony, all right. That was more or less what I’d expected, why I was here. Tony was a TV freak, and you couldn’t tell him, he wouldn’t listen. Anything he saw on TV had to be right. If he’d seen the news last night, I knew, he’d have to be in touch.

  ‘Do you know where this is, then, do you?’ David asked, thrusting the address at me, already assuming a partnership signed and sealed. ‘I’ve got an A-Z, I could find it, but I don’t know London, see, I don’t know how to get about. . .’

  ‘Sure,’ I said easily, one glance at the street name and a big smile for David. ‘I can get you there, no trouble.’

  ‘Oh, that’s good. That’s wonderful. Only, he did say I was to come alone, see, I don’t know what’s best to do about that, he might think you were police, and not come out . . .’

  Well, no. That much I could guarantee: Tony wouldn’t think I was the police.

  He might not come out if he saw me, that much was true, but he’d have very different reasons.

  ‘No problem,’ I said, still easy, still utterly laid back. ‘I’ll wait outside, you can go in alone. Don’t want to scare the boy. What is it, anyway, what sort of place, did he say? Not a house, I guess, not down there.’

  ‘No, it’s a car-park,’ David said. ‘A multi-storey car-park.’

  Of course, a car-park. What else? And he’d be waiting at the very top, no doubt, and only wishing he had a car to wait in. If he hadn’t pinched one, just for the occasion. Too, too television . . .

  * * * *

  So I collected David that evening, and we caught a bus. He wasn’t happy on the tube, he said, so far underground, so tight and dark in the tunnels. A farming family, he said, not mining.

  Rural Wales, where sheep are sheep and men are careful.

  Alfie hadn’t been like that. Alfie didn’t know careful from common sense, and had no truck with either. He’d learned to love the night and the crowds and
the rush of London - but then, he’d had good teachers. Mickey and me and the Crew - between us, we’d made Alfie what he was.

  What he was now, of course, was dead. Tony might know who or he might know why, might even have answers to both; and Tony was coming out of hiding, to talk to David.

  I was curious, I was very curious to know what he wanted to say.

  * * * *

  Eight o’clock and long since dark, the car-park long since emptied. This was dead ground any time after six, the gates locked and the workers gone, only the guard dogs restless behind wire.

  David went in alone, as instructed. He walked slowly up and out of my sight, preferring the broad ramps and the open decks to the stinking and constricted stairway. He’d brought a torch, cautious man that he was: ‘It’ll be lit, I know that, but it’ll not be lit well, now, will it?’

  And he was right, it wasn’t lit well. He shone the beam into every shadowed corner before he walked inside, sent it ahead of him up the ramp like a herald of his coming, almost like a weapon. Staying obediently on the pavement, pacing to keep myself warm this savage night, I saw sudden flashes and occasional fingers of light thrust out above me to mark how far he’d climbed.

  After he’d reached the top deck, the light died; or else David was simply looking the other way now, his back turned to the street. Had found what he was looking for, perhaps was looking at Tony.

  I waited, patient as the night to see what the night would bring. A train rattled on its tracks, somewhere between me and the invisible river; a fox barked, high and sharp and sudden, setting off the dogs. No one passed me, on foot or in a car.

  And then there was David running down, the torch not shining now: uncareful David, careering down the ramp, running almost full-tilt into a concrete pillar, caroming off with a gasp and stumbling towards me.

  ‘Easy, man,’ I said, catching him. Holding him still, feeling how he trembled. ‘What, then, what is it, what’s up?’

  He shook his head, far past talking; for a minute there he could only breathe, and shake. But then he straightened slowly, slowly took control. At last he pulled away, lifted his head to meet me eye to eye, and said, ‘Come. You come and see . . .

  He didn’t take me very far, only into the carpark and straight past the ramp, over to the other side. A low wall ran between the massive pillars supporting the decks above; beyond was rough ground, crumbled tarmac and weeds.

  And a body, a boy, face down and too obviously broken.

  David played his torch up and down the lad’s length, held the beam still on bleached-blond hair and the glint of gold in his ear.

  ‘Will that be Tony, then, will it?’

  Unquestionably, that would be Tony; and so I told him.

  ‘No mistake, you don’t need to see his face?’

  ‘No.’ Didn’t need to, certainly didn’t want to. I looked up instead, counted six separate decks. From the top, it would have been a long way to fall. Time enough to know that you were falling; maybe even time enough to think about it, briefly.

  ‘There’s no one here,’ David said needlessly, ‘no one else. He’s gone, that did this. What should we do, should we call the police, would you think?’

  ‘No,’ I said again. ‘We should get you back to your hotel, is what we should do. Forget about Tony, he’s gone too; no harm if he has to lie there till morning. We just get the hell out of here, nice and quiet and don’t get involved.’ I saw him back to the Prince Consort. Saw him settled with the aid of a couple of large brandies and an hour’s soft talking; and finally went home by tube and train, thinking that a farmer should be tougher than this, a farmer should be old friends with death.

  Perhaps it’s different when people die, perhaps it cuts more deeply.

  I wouldn’t know.

  * * * *

  Friday morning: and the girl not in her doorway, only the glaze of ice on the pavement to remember her by, where Carl’s water had flowed and frozen before it even reached the gutters.

  He’d be satisfied, he’d be pleased with that. I saw no need to tell him where she was, that I could find her from my window. She hadn’t moved far at all, only twenty yards into an alley; but she was out of sight of the street there, hidden behind piled bags of rubbish.

  Huddled in her bag, not even her head showing now, she moved as little as she had to; but sometimes she did, she had to. Sometimes her whole body jerked and spasmed under cover, sometimes for minutes on end. And sometimes afterwards her face would appear, and she’d spit a mouthful of phlegm as far as she had strength to send it.

  Not far, not far at all.

  * * * *

  The weekend I spent at home, watching telly mostly, only filling in time: sure that the phone would ring soon, that someone would have something to tell me. I didn’t try to second-guess what that would be, it was only the call I was sure of. Someone and something, useful information.

  It came at last on the Sunday evening, almost too late to count, I’d almost been wrong there.

  Almost.

  ‘Jonty, this is Alan Tadman . . .’

  Alan. Good to hear from you.’ My neighbour on the water, he had the mooring next to mine; and already I was way ahead of him, I knew what he was going to say, I could have written his script.

  ‘Well, I hope so,’ he said. ‘But there may be trouble, this may not be good news . . .’

  ‘Tell me anyway and let’s see, shall we?’ I thought it was good news. I thought it was the best.

  ‘It’s just, there’s been someone on your boat the last couple of days. At least that long. We came down on Friday, and I thought I saw a light; but it wasn’t much, and your car wasn’t there, I assumed I’d imagined it. Just a reflection on the window, something like that. But then I saw her shifting yesterday, as if someone was moving around inside. I knocked, but there wasn’t an answer. I would have phoned then, only I didn’t want to sound neurotic; so I watched her today, and I’m sure there’s someone aboard. Maybe they’re friends of yours; but they don’t answer my knocking, so I thought someone should tell you. Not the police, I didn’t want to tell the police without checking first. . .’

  ‘No,’ I said kindly, ‘you wouldn’t want to trouble the police. Thanks, Alan, I know who that’ll be. I’ll come down and have a chat with him.’

  ‘OK, fine.’ His voice huffed with relief; he’d done the right thing. ‘You don’t want me to stay around till you get here, do you? Only we’ve both got work in the morning, and the wife’s keen to get off. . .’

  ‘No, you go. Don’t worry about it. And thanks again, I’m very grateful.’

  Being the man he was, Alan would probably still hang around for another hour or so, expecting me to dash down, wanting to be there when I did.

  So I waited, I gave Linda an hour and a half to drag him away; and even then I didn’t go directly to the canal. I drove into the city first, to pick up David.

  ‘I’ve found Dex,’ I told him. ‘Come on, I’ll take you there.’

  * * * *

  You pay through the nose, for a permanent mooring in London; but it’s worth it, to me. I wouldn’t be without my boat.

  She’s a proper narrowboat, sixty-eight foot of steel hull and wooden upperworks. I bought her from a broke commodities broker, paying cash strictly under the counter, no comebacks. She wasn’t called the Screw Archimedes then, but she is now.

  Every couple of months I take off for a week or two, but I was only a fortnight back from the last trip. I wouldn’t normally have been near the Screw this weekend.

  Maybe I should have thought of checking it over, just in case; this wasn’t the first time Dex had lain low for a while on my boat. He’d always asked permission before, though. Presumably he’d had a spare set of keys cut on the quiet, and decided this was the time to use them.

  Not bad, for a kid in a panic. Not the world’s greatest idea, maybe, but not bad. He couldn’t have reckoned on a nosy neighbour watching how the boat rocked at her moorings.

  I parke
d behind the pub as always, then led David a hundred yards along the cinder towpath. Here was the Screw, tied bow and stern to mooring-rings; fifty yards further on were the black gates of the lock, with the river flowing darkly beyond.

  And yes, there was a light aboard my boat. Thin and flickering, a torch with its battery dying, perhaps, just bright enough to show around the curtain’s edge.

  ‘That’ll be him,’ I murmured. ‘You wait here, David, leave this with me.’

  ‘I want to see him,’ David said, unaccustomedly forceful.

  ‘You will. I promise. Just let me speak to him first, OK? He’ll be nervous enough as it is, he’s hiding here, you’ve got to remember that; it’ll be worse if two of us bust in on him at once. Especially with you being a stranger.