Gun Street Girl

by Mark Timlin

  ‘Foolish man,’ I said.

  ‘Thank you. And over there are a bunch of Pike editorial staff.’ She gestured towards a motley bunch of ageing boys and girls in their best suits and frocks. ‘By the way they’re dressed, we’re paying them too much.’

  ‘And by the way they’re knocking back the vol-au-vents and champagne, you’re not paying them enough.’

  ‘You could be right.’

  ‘I’m enjoying this,’ I said.

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Anyone else?’ I asked.

  ‘Him over there.’ She nodded her head at a ginger-headed seven-footer who was trying to rescue a cigarette end from his glass of Scotch. ‘Twenty-fifth in line for the throne.’

  From the state of him, I didn’t fancy our chances if the other twenty-four bought the farm in a plane crash. ‘Good solid stock,’ I said. ‘And who’s the tough guy who’s just come in?’

  A tall, good-looking man had appeared at the doorway and was looking around the room. He was about thirty with long hair and a tan. He wore a leather jacket that was so worn that most of the hide had been rubbed off leaving a texture like an old man’s face. He wore it over a black T-shirt, tight blue jeans and lace-up black boots. A pair of mirrored shades perched on his nose and a cigarette hung from his lips.

  ‘Curtis!’ she said. ‘Damn.’

  ‘You know him?’

  ‘He was the one of no importance. What the hell is he doing here, and who invited him?’

  ‘Not you?’

  ‘Obviously.’

  ‘Catherine?’

  ‘I very much doubt it.’

  ‘Cool geezer,’ I said.

  ‘He certainly thinks so. I imagine he’s been rehearsing his entrance in front of the mirror all afternoon.’

  ‘That doesn’t impress you?’

  ‘Not any more. It’s all right at first, but the novelty soon wears off.’

  ‘I can imagine.’

  ‘And he thinks he’s God’s gift.’

  ‘Is he?’

  ‘To a certain kind of woman.’

  ‘Not you.’

  ‘No, I decided I like my diamonds a trifle smoother.’

  ‘But not much.’

  ‘No, not much.’ And she smiled at me. It was one of those smiles that hits you low in the stomach and leaves you breathless. It can be addictive. I liked it.

  ‘You’re staring again, Mr Sharman.’

  ‘It’s a nice view.’

  She smiled again. ‘Catherine looks great tonight, don’t you think?’

  ‘So do you,’ I said, refusing to be sidetracked.

  ‘Thank you.’

  As if she realised we were talking about her, Catherine looked over from where she was talking to the very tall, minor member of the royal family who towered over her with the posture of a praying mantis. She waved, excused herself and came towards me. Curtis moved in and blocked her way. She looked at him in surprise. Elizabeth made as if to move towards them. ‘Leave this to me,’ I said. ‘It’s what you’re paying me for. Mingle, it’s your party. I’ll catch you later.’ I squeezed her arm and pushed through the crowd and went up to Curtis and Catherine.

  ‘, , , I want to see her. but she refuses to speak to me,’ he was saying as I got close.

  ‘Who can blame her?’ asked Catherine.

  ‘That’s why I came.’

  ‘But you weren’t invited,’ she said.

  ‘Simon called and told me you were entertaining. I jumped straight in the car and came over. I couldn’t miss one of your famous parties.’

  ‘He would,’ Catherine said bitterly. ‘I wish Simon would mind his own business.’

  ‘Trouble, Miss Pike?’ I asked.

  Curtis slowly turned and looked me up and down through his sunglasses. ‘Who’s the monkey in the funny suit?’ he asked. I liked him a lot for that.

  ‘This is Nick Sharman,’ said Catherine. ‘He’s looking after a few details about the estate for us.’ That story was getting lamer by the hour.

  ‘I just bet he fucking well is,’ said Curtis.

  ‘Did I hear you say that he wasn’t invited?’ I asked, ignoring Curtis and his mouth.

  ‘Simon asked him,’ said Catherine, with a catch in her voice. ‘It’s all right.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ I asked.

  ‘She said so, didn’t she?’ interrupted Curtis.

  For the first time I acknowledged him directly. ‘Are you talking to me?’ I said. ‘Or chewing a brick?’

  ‘You are scraping the barrel, Catherine,’ said Curtis. ‘What gutter did you drag this vermin from?’

  I spoke to Catherine. ‘I’ll put him out if you like.’

  ‘Just try,’ said Curtis.

  ‘No, it’s all right, Mr Sharman. Let him stay.’

  ‘If you say so, Miss Pike.’

  ‘And get lost. I want to talk to the lady in private,’ said Curtis.

  I raised an eyebrow in Catherine’s direction.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ she said.

  Curtis grinned and stuck a Rothman into the grin.

  ‘I’ll be close,’ I said.

  ‘That’s reassuring,’ said Curtis. ‘Give me a light before you go, will you, Sharman?’

  I hesitated, then pulled out my lighter and burnt out the end of his cigarette. I noticed that I wasn’t shaking at all outside. I smiled and backed away like a good flunky.

  As I did so, I felt a tug on my sleeve and looked round. There, standing next to me, wearing an orange dress that was tight enough to display every bump and hollow of her figure was Fiona. ‘Hello, Nick Sharman.’

  ‘Hello yourself. What’s cooking?’

  ‘My feet in these bleeding shoes,’ she replied.

  I looked down at her legs which, believe me, was no chore. Her feet were jammed into a pair of orange high heels with platform soles that were so extreme as to be almost surgical. ‘That bastard swore they were fives,’ she said. ‘But I bet they’re fours with the size rubbed off.’

  ‘Very stylish,’ I said.

  ‘Don’t take the piss. They’re what I wear.’

  ‘So what are you doing here?’ I asked. ‘Something told me last night that you weren’t number one on the local chart.’

  ‘With a bullet, maybe,’ she said. ‘No, I’m here with some right honourable friend of Elizabeth Pike’s. He’s a drag. He can’t get it up. He’s always snorting shit. Too much stimulation can be bad for the bollocks. I only came to see you. You never phoned me.’

  ‘You only gave me the number the other night,’ I protested.

  ‘Most men I give my number to ring me the next day.’

  ‘I’m not most men.’

  ‘And I bet you ain’t a collator or whatever bullshit you said you were either. Are you sure you’re not Old Bill?’

  ‘I’m sure,’ I said.

  ‘You used to be?’

  I knew she wasn’t going to leave it alone. ‘All right, Fiona,’ I said, ‘I give in. I was a copper once.’

  ‘I knew it, see, I’m never wrong. So why are you really here?’

  ‘Security.’

  ‘For those two?’ I assumed she meant Elizabeth and Catherine.

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘What are they scared of, the fashion police?’

  ‘Don’t be bitchy, Fiona.’

  ‘All right, I won’t. Anyway, what were you doing with that creep?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Lover boy in the shades. You looked as if he’d stood right on your favourite corn.’

  ‘I was going to throw him out, but Catherine stopped me.’

  ‘Watch it, Nick, he’s a right nasty bastard.’

  ‘So am I. Do you want a drink?’

  She nodded. I led her over to the bar and I ordered us both a drink. I leant my elbow on the top and watched as Curtis and Catherine had an animated conversation. He grabbed her arm at one point. She shook him off, and her look told me to stay where I was. My stomach was burning the roast beef I’d eaten to ch
arcoal, but I did nothing.

  I scanned the crowd for Elizabeth and couldn’t see her, but I did notice another tall individual enter the room and peer around myopically.

  ‘Oh Christ, it’s the Right Hon,’ said Fiona. ‘I’d better go and change his incontinence pants for him.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘See you.’

  ‘Call me.’ She put down her glass on the bar top and kissed me on the cheek.

  ‘Count on it,’ I said, and she was gone.

  Eventually Catherine extricated herself from Curtis and came over to me. I could see the sneer on his face as he watched. I squeezed my glass until it almost shattered.

  ‘Don’t ever do that to me again,’ I said when she reached me.

  ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.’ She was obviously agitated. ‘It’s difficult. Curtis was such a swine to Elizabeth, but she kept going back for more. You never know where you are with those two. One minute she loves him, next minute she hates him.’

  ‘I get the picture,’ I said. ‘I think we’re in a hate mode at the moment.’

  ‘Good, he gives me the creeps.’

  ‘Where’s Leee?’ I asked.

  ‘Upstairs, still getting dressed. I’ll go and hurry him up.’

  ‘I’ll come too.’

  ‘No, it’s okay. I’m only going to my room. Anyway, Leee would be furious if anyone saw him before his grand entrance.’

  ‘If you’re sure.’

  ‘Of course I am. I’ll only be a moment. I want you to keep an eye on Curtis and Elizabeth. I don’t like them to be in the same room together.’

  ‘Sure,’ I said, but nothing more.

  I watched her as she left the room. She had a walk that could corrupt a Boy Scout. I turned back and watched Curtis and Elizabeth gravitate slowly towards each other until eventually they spoke. Or at least Curtis spoke and Elizabeth ignored him, standing with a disinterested look on her face and a champagne glass in her hand, staring past him as if he didn’t exist. I saw him get more and more excited until he grabbed Elizabeth’s shoulder and spun her round. Her glass flew out of her hand and hit the floor. I took off fast, pushing through the bodies that separated us. I grabbed Curtis from behind and put a neck lock on him. He tried to stamp on my foot but I shoved his legs together and pushed him against the wall. ‘Leave it,’ I said. ‘It’s not nice.’

  ‘Let me go.’ His voice was muffled by the wallpaper. ‘Get your dirty hands off me.’

  ‘If you’ll be friendly.’

  He struggled, but I had him and he knew it.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘All right,’ he spat and I let him go.

  As he turned, I sensed rather than heard a scream. As I looked for the source, the glass roof of the conservatory imploded in a shower of glass and blood. It was unbelievable, like a bomb had hit the place. I was frozen to the spot.

  There were shouts and screams and the crowd parted like the Red Sea under a sea of red. I recognised the golden dress and caught a cry in my throat. Catherine’s head and torso crashed through the glass and a shard as long and wide as a butcher’s cleaver was forced into a bloody wound in her stomach. She was caught by one of the wooden beams that supported the glass so that she hung down like a piece of meat. Her hair was stained red and covered her face like a curtain. The first gush of blood that had splattered the floor subsided to a stream, then a trickle that dripped from the edges of the material of her dress and ran down the one arm that dangled into the room.

  I walked across the empty space left by the crowd and squelched across the gore, feeling the soles of my shoes sticking to the wooden floor. Then slowly the blonde hair peeled from the scalp and flopped to the ground. Someone screamed, and was cut off abruptly as if they’d been slapped. I looked up and as blood dripped onto the shoulders of my jacket I stared into Leee’s eyes.

  11

  I looked for wnhat seemed like hours but was probably only a few seconds, then I snapped back to reality. ‘Somebody call an ambulance and the police,’ I shouted and turned and ran out of the room and towards the front of the house. The lift was stalled on the top floor. I hammered on the button but it didn’t engage the machinery. I swore and took the stairs two at a time. I was breathing hard when I got to the top floor and I bounced off the walls as I ran along the hall to Catherine’s room. I slammed open the door and saw Catherine standing on the balcony looking down. When she heard the door hit the wall she straightened up and turned towards me. One hand was coverig her mouth and her eyes were wide. ‘What happened?’ I shouted. ‘What did you do?’

  ‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘Nick, I’ve done nothing. He was on the roof. He went to pick us a flower each for our hair, from the roof garden, like I wore last night. He said he’d be right back. I was standing here and I heard a noise up there.’ She pointed to the ceiling. ‘He fell right past me. He was screaming.’ Her face crumpled and she launched herself at me and clung on tightly. I could feel her hands working on my upper arms. I held her for a second, then peeled her off and held her at arm’s length.

  ‘How do I get up there?’

  ‘There are stairs along the hall, a brown door.’

  I hopped and pulled the Baby Browning from its ankle holster, checked the load, slipped the safety and pumped a round into the chamber. I ran to the brown door and up the narrow flight of stairs to an exit set in a sort of hut built on the roof.

  The roof was flat with a thigh-high brick-built wall round the edge. The wall had an additional safety fence of wire mesh supported by metal brackets sunk into the brick. Dead chimneys broke the smoothness of the metalled roof and someone had made a roof garden with a pair of rose-covered archways, ceramic pots, hanging baskets full of beautiful gardenias on the hut and the sides of the chimneys, and boxes full of flowers on trestle tables. There was even a postage stamp of a lawn. The roof was a mixture of light and shadow and I trod lightly as I went over to the back of the house where the mesh was broken and hung down like a veil. There were several spilled plant pots and, in case of footprints, I avoided disturbing the earth and looked carefully over the parapet. I swallowed as I saw Leee’s body still half in and half out of the conservatory roof and I wondered why the hell no one had got it down.

  I heard sirens from the street and walked back and peered over the ledge at the front of the house just in time to see the tops of an ambulance, a squad car and a panda arrive together with blue lights flashing. They sprawled over the blacktop beneath me like toys and the traffic in Curzon Street started to jam up behind them in both directions. Doors opened and slammed and boots clattered on the pavement as the foreshortened uniformed figures pounded towards the front door. I holstered the gun and went back to the door at the top of the stairs.

  Catherine was standing at the bottom of the flight. She was shaking and her right hand was fisted and rubbing into the palm of her left as if she was trying to wear off the skin. I had no time to be pleasant. ‘What the fuck is going on, Catherine? Why was Leee in your dress?’ I looked at her and corrected myself. ‘A dress like yours. What were you up to?’

  ‘It was a joke, a bit of fun. We used to do it when we went out sometimes. Leee loved dressing in women’s clothes. He’s my size. He used to borrow clothes from me. Tonight we thought we’d make an entrance. Just for a joke.’

  And then she cracked, like a nutshell. Tears filled her eyes and she sobbed and began to hit herself with her right hand, still doubled into a fist. She got a couple of good whacks in before I caught her wrist and grabbed her into my arms. I held her so tightly she couldn’t move. She struggled, then went as stiff as an ironing board. Finally she let herself go and I had to hold her upright.

  I heard footsteps along the corridor and a uniformed police sergeant and constable came round the corner at a brisk gallop. They skidded to a halt and looked at me over Catherine’s shoulder. ‘Good evening, sir,’ said the sergeant. ‘Anything I can do to help?’

  ‘You can stand by this door and not let anyone go up who shouldn�
�t. I think someone was pushed off the top a few minutes ago.’

  Catherine sobbed again.

  ‘This is Miss Catherine Pike,’ I went on. ‘Her late father owned this house. My name is Sharman, I’m her bodyguard. I’m going to take her to her room. Your superior officers will need to talk to her and I’d like her to have a few minutes to calm down. The man who fell was a friend of hers.’

  ‘Man?’ said the sergeant. ‘It looked like a woman.’

  ‘Look closely, Sergeant.’ I began to lead Catherine away.

  ‘Just a minute, sir.’

  I turned. ‘Yes?’

  ‘The constable will accompany you. Just to be on the safe side.’

  ‘Of course,’ I said.

  ‘Go with them, Webb, and be polite,’ said the sergeant.

  ‘Yes, Sarge,’ said the uniformed constable.

  We took Catherine to her room and when she was sitting down quietly, I said to the uniform, ‘I won’t be a minute.’

  ‘Now, sir, you’ll have to stay here … ’

  I turned and walked out. I heard the copper call me back but I kept going to the top of the main stairs. The lift was gone. I looked down and it was sitting on the ground floor.

  12

  Within ten minutes the police were all over the place like a big blue security blanket.

  I was put into a room in the basement next to the kitchen with only a PC for company for forty minutes, while the scene of crime officers checked the body and the roof. Then I was taken into the dining room for a little chat.

  There were two coppers in the room. One very young, one much older. I didn’t know them. They knew me, or at least about me. I could tell by the way they examined me like an exhibit under glass.

  ‘Sit down, Mr Sharman,’ said the older of the two, who was sitting at the head of the dining table. He was between fifty and fifty-five, a typical career detective. Hard as nails, and twice as prickly. He had a sharp, lined face with deep-set blue eyes that had seen everything rotten the world had to show, several times over. His hair was grey and thin and needed a cut badly. He wore a zippered, many-pocketed jacket that looked as if it came from House of Nylon, and slacks and shoes from Burton’s. On the polished table in front of him was an ashtray with a cold pipe lying in it, a packet of Dutch rolling tobacco, a lined shorthand pad and a pencil with a chewed end. He indicated a chair next to him.