The train burst into St James’ Park station, a few suits dotted amongst its stark, prison-toilet tile.
“We’re onto his ‘vating is that of the motor driven variety dear chap’,” Laura whispered. “We can choose to be lions or we can choose to be antelopes. Everyone makes that decision for them … shh, here we go. Christopher’s laying out the … A greedy collector called Grayson.”
We stopped, the train doors rumbling open. A few suits clambered on board, a harried-looking middle-manager among them, dropping into the seat opposite. He tugged a file from under a sweaty arm, flicking a look at the pair of us. I coughed a bit and sat up awkwardly, trying to look less peculiar.
The doors rumbled closed and we began to heave westward once again.
“Earl’s Court,” Laura hissed, jabbing me in the ribs. “He’s telling him about your fair…”
The man opposite looked at her. Then back at me.
I smiled a bit, attempting to suggest we weren’t a couple of schizophrenic weirdos, remembering only after he’d quickly looked away that people who smile on the tube are mostly schizophrenic weirdos.
“A staged robbery at one of the stalls … a scuffle … valuable comic gets nicked …” Laura muttered. “Andrew’s showing an interest …”
Around us, a couple more people sat up, deciding that the whispered play-by-play going on in the corner was considerably more interesting than the Evening Standard Quick Crossword and Nokia Snakes.
“Christopher will be in the Earl’s Court car park with Grayson … They’ll find the thief’s bag … argue over the split in the car-park …”
The train burst into Victoria station. A few commuters took their leave of us and began to get up. I hunkered down and leaned in to Laura.
“What’s going on?”
“Shhh … Pub … Decide on the split … Andrew’s getting it …”
The tube doors rumbled open, passengers filing off. The wide platform was busy, thick with travellers returning from all over the –
Wait.
Victoria?
Wait. I sat up a bit. A sick feeling began to abseil from the back of my head, lodging itself tight in my throat for a moment.
Wait. What was today? The tenth. Tuesday?
No. I checked my chunky Faux-lex timepiece.
The sick feeling worked its way loose from my throat and slid greasily down into my stomach.
And you’ve forgotten tomorrow I expect? Being so busy?
Tuesday.
Victoria.
The platform crowds thronged and jostled with suitcases, beginning to pile on board one by one.
Oh shit.
Ted’s back from the coast tomorrow of course and between you and me I think he was hoping we’d have sorted you out by then.
Oh shit no.
I’m going to speak to dad. Shall I tell him you’re still all right to pick him up from outside Victoria next week?
No. Shit, no.
– or shall we just presume you’re going to forget that as well?
Shit no shit no shit.
The carriage was filling up. Panicky, I half stood. Shit. Damn fuck and –
“Well well well!”
Bollocks.
“Edward,” I gaped and gasped. “God, what are … I-I mean, I’m so … I totally –”
Edward loomed over me, anger spilt across his puffy cheeks like red wine on a couch. Back from Brighton, sweating in a fitted tweed jacket, he hauled a bulky, expensive looking suitcase in his little pudgy fist, barking and barging the shins of everyone around him.
“Half an hour I’ve been standing out there! Half a bloody hour! Jane said eleven-thirty. Eleven-thirty, by the newsstand.”
“I’m sorry, really. I …” and I reached out for the suitcase. “Let me –”
“Get your hands off that,” Edward barked, barging through to tuts and scowls. The suited man opposite looked up and grabbed his briefcase, sliding over to make room. Edward puffed and whinnied, squeezing his fat frame onto the seat, suitcase blocking everyone’s passageway.
“Half a bloody hour,” he boomed, fishing out a spotted silk hanky and wiping great sheets of upper-class sweat from his face. “Had Jane on the phone. She’s been trying you at the shop. What are you playing at?”
I felt a sharp stab in the ribs. I turned.
“Andrew’s in,” Laura whispered, oblivious. “Christopher’s told him Henry’s dropped out and we need a –”
“Ahem!” I coughed loudly, sending a rib-stab back Laura’s way. She looked up, lost in her own world.
“And who’s this?” Edward harrumphed, shooting a sly look at me.
“Uhh, this is … a friend of mine,” I squeezed slowly, testing and tasting each word one by one. “Uhmm, Laura. Er, can I introduce my father-in-law.”
“Uhm, a-a pleasure,” she said awkwardly, popping the earphone from her ear.
The three of us went quiet as the train rattled west. Quiet, save the soft hum of Edward perusing this cosy, lunchtime tête-à-tête and scrabbling to his own suspicious conclusions.
“And who’s looking after the shop, hnn?” he said finally, hauling an eyebrow up towards the hang-straps. “While you are busy… entertaining?”
“It’s er … I’ve got uhmm, Ted. You remember Ted? From the other Sunday? He’s lending a hand while I … while Laura and I … view some … see some …”
“My collection,” Laura interrupted, rescuing me rather. “Neil has kindly offered to sell some items for me.”
The train rolled into Earl’s Court station with a clanking sigh. Around us, passengers stumbled to their feet.
“I see,” Edward juddered in the low-high, dum-daaah not-seeing-at-all manner. “And what of young Dufford? Sat down with him yet?”
“Last night sir, yes.”
“Hmn. About time too. I can’t say I’m altogether happy with you young man. Can’t say I’m happy at –”
“Shit!” Laura screamed, leaping to her feet and everyone else’s. Edward, the businessman and I all jumped, yelping in a tangle of shoes. “There they are!”
Outside on the platform, I watched as Christopher, dressed in a generous dark green tweed suit and cap like he were walking Labradors across his fields, led Andrew hurriedly past the window, hand on his shoulder towards the station exit.
“Move, move!” Laura yelled, bag flying, hands grabbing, earpiece dangling as she pulled her way through the crowds.
“Neil?!” Edward flustered. “What is the meaning of – ?”
“I-I …” I stammered, Laura grabbing my sleeve. “S-Sorry. It’s our stop. Nice – ow! Sorry – nice to see yoouuuahh –” and I fell stumbling to the platform, the doors thundering shut behind me with a bang.
I sat, puffing on the filthy platform floor, rubbing my knee as the train hissed, clanked and began to grind westward, Edward’s accusing face sliding away from mine.
Sliding towards Putney. Towards Jane.
“I’m screwed. I’m totally screwed.”
“Shhhh. And slow down, we’ve got to keep our –”
“Screwed.”
“Neil. For heaven’s sake,” and Laura grabbed my denim sleeve, dragging me to a halt halfway up the tired steel stairs. “Keep back.”
“Back? You know who that was?” I writhed, pulling free and spinning around. I gazed out across the grey light of Earl’s Court station. A cavernous, echoing hangar under a pigeon stained roof. “That was my father-in-law.”
“So you said. Look, calm –”
“And you know where he’s going?”
“Neil, just calm down,” Laura said, twisting her earpiece back in place, breathing fast and flushed. She tugged out the receiver and began to adjust the frequency. “Let me find out where Christopher and Andrew are before you go rushing …”
“He’s off to see his daughter and his grand-daughter. To tell them tales of his travels. Tales of how his useless working-class dick of a son-in-law failed to pick him up. And why? Because he was taking
the day off to ride around the District Line with a mysterious woman.”
“Yes, and haring off after Christopher and getting spotted and blowing the whole thing isn’t going to help. Slow down. Take a breath.”
“Letting him get away isn’t going to help much either. Come on!” I yelled. “In half an hour Edward’s going to try to break my wife’s heart just to spite me. Break Jane’s heart. Now move!”
We reached the large tiled foyer moments later, Laura leaning panting against a map and adjusting her earphone against the rumble of traffic. I paced up and down, clapping my hands, teeth tight.
“Andrew’s saying he has doubts … he doesn’t trust him fully …”
“Where are they? Are they far?”
“Shhhh.”
A few feet away, London buses coughed and whined, vans honked and bubbled, the world grumbling north up the Warwick Road to the West End.
“Thinks it’s dangerous. Lending him his comic book … how does he know Christopher’s on the level?” Laura shook her head. “It’s quietened down where they are. They must be somewhere fairly enclosed.”
“Then let’s find them,” I said.
We scuttled out to the roar of the street, scanning the pavements for any sign. Traffic slid past slowly, drum ’n’ bass thudding from speakers, the air dusty and loud. Across the road, Earl’s Court Exhibition Centre sat, fat and imposing, mouth wide, a great tongue of red tarmac sprawling out front. Flags fluttered, vans drew up, the yellow gates lifting and dropping.
My heart gave an ache as I clocked the two building-high banners hung on the left and right of the entrance, advertising the coming weekend’s convention – Spider-Man, Frankenstein, Bogart and Darth Vader making unlikely banner-fellows as they spun, lurched, shrugged and wheezed in garish colour.
“Wait,” Laura said, grabbing my arm. Her mouth hung loose, listening attentively to the faint voices in her ear. “Wait … Christopher’s … He’s saying it’s quite safe … we’ll drop it here … loading bay … Loading Bay C … Where’s Loading Bay C?”
“Shit. They’re in the Centre,” I said. “Loading Bay C. It’s where the stall-holders unpack. C’mon. C’mon!”
“Hey!”
But I was off, weaving in and out of the honking traffic.
“Wait,” she hissed. “Wait!”
Through the wide blue gate and past the guard kiosks, she finally caught up with me as we neared the front steps.
“There’s not a lot of cover. It’s all wide doorways and parking zones,” I said, heart hammering and thinking back to previous years packing and unpacking with Maurice among the ramps and fire escapes. I scanned the wide front, the smoky glass doors, the twin ticket booths on the left and right, mind racing. “Here, quick,” and I led Laura up the steps to the doors, pushing our way in.
The huge lobby was echoey and quiet like an airport terminal on Christmas day. Cold and still with just a wide empty floor ringed with steel turnstiles and shuttered kiosks.
“We can watch from here. They’ll have to come back out this way,” I said and we huddled up to the smoky glass, peering out the front. Laura fished the receiver from her bag and adjusted the volume, head cocked to one side.
“Andrew’s … Good man, Andrew’s insisting on playing a role. My part … doesn’t want to let the comic out of his sight … Willing to wear a cacklebladder …”
“A what?”
“Cacklebladder. It’s a … wait … Christopher’s telling Andrew it’’ll mean taking a dive. Bursting the bladder, dropping to the floor, playing –”
“Christ …”
“But … That’s it, Andrew’s insisting … He’ll wear the bag and take a dive. It’s that or he walks …”
“Is that good?” I squirmed.
“The con only works if Andrew’s involved,” Laura nodded. “It’s how the double-cross – wait. Sounds like they’re moving.”
Shoulder to shoulder, we huddled by the door, fingertips squeaky on the glass. Breathing deep, nervous breaths, I could smell Laura’s familiar woozy warm perfume.
We watched as Christopher and Andrew appeared outside, moving away from the rear loading bays and back out down the wide red tarmac towards the station. Christopher had his pipe in his mouth and his arm over Andrew’s shoulder, all pally, and I could hear his voice hissing away in Laura’s ear.
“Where now?”
“They’re … Quick, he’s showing Andrew where they’ll do the split. C’mon.”
We followed Christopher and Andrew for a while, keeping a good distance back, over wet leaves and past the orange-bricked flats of Warwick Road. Around us, the traffic hissed and honked, the air at turns wet with rain and dry with fumes. Laura had her finger in her ear, muttering snatched staccato non-sequiturs of bugged conversation – Andrew wears chest-bag, Pete fires a blank, Andrew goes down, Grayson panics and runs – while I walked ahead a little, stomach churning, weaving in and out of school-boys and bob-haired Brompton Road mums.
“Where – whoopsie, sorry, where does Christopher think you are by the way?”
“What? Oh, right about now I’m meant to be with Pete. He’s driving the route between his place, Earl’s Court and the pub, making sure the timing’s – quick, down here,” Laura hissed and took a sudden left, scurrying ahead down a leafy terrace. I followed.
“Won’t you be missed?” I said. “Won’t Pete wonder where you are?”
“Hardly,” Laura whispered. “Pete’s at the bookies. Asked me to cover for him. Here,” and she jinked right.
“Can you still hear them? Where are we going?”
But Laura didn’t answer, just hurried, head down, along a quieter, narrower road, the traffic now just a distant sigh. Past large, expensive cars parked in even larger, even more expensive residents’ parking bays until we finally turned into a narrow, cobbled mews. Past a couple of BMWs slung casually about, at the far end there was a black ironwork gate buried in a thick hedge.
Laura slowed to almost a creep as we approached.
“What is this?” I whispered.
“Shhh,” she said. “They’re ordering.”
“Ordering?”
“Sounds like they’re staying inside. C’mon,” and she heaved open the heavy gate.
Inside, surrounded on three sides by thick, high hedges, sat a quiet pub garden. Smallish, with room for but two Fosters umbrellas, two wet benches and a humming aluminium garden-heater, it was understandably deserted on this, a chilly November afternoon. The pub itself, a crumbling red brick affair, mumbled and clinked behind wobbly glass.
We took a seat, sliding into a clammy bench, huddling under the blue brolly.
“They’re going over Andrew’s part one more time,” Laura whispered, pulling down her hood, finger pressed to her ear. “Agreeing to the split, following Grayson onto the street, how to burst the bag. Dropping dead for beginners.”
I gazed about the garden. Secluded, the hedges working well at deadening the noise, it was eerily quiet.
“You’ve been here before I take it?”
“We use it all the time,” Laura said. “Out of the way. We can get away with murder.”
She looked up at me.
“Theatrically speaking of course.”
“Of course,” I said.
Laura adjusted her earpiece, head cocked to one side. A small smile drifted past her lips.
“What?” I asked.
“He does it every time but it never fails to impress …”
“Who? Who does what?”
Laura waited a beat, checking the voices in her ear had settled in for their drinks before lifting out the receiver and rolling down the volume with her thumb.
“Do you remember the first three things Christopher said to you? The very first things? At Claridge’s this would have been?”
“God,” I shrugged. It seemed an awfully long time ago. “Well he gave me all that Marmelade stuff. And called the wine list the pop list if I recall. Why that didn’t have me getting my c
oat and walking out immediately, to this day I couldn’t –”
“Immediately after that,” Laura smiled. “He would have asked you three questions. Probably something like, as you say, is that the pop list? Then neato li’l diner they got here, huh?”
“Right, right,” I nodded.
“And then asked if it was the first time you’d eaten there. Three questions, right off the bat.”
“He did.”
Laura smirked, rolling up the volume control on her receiver, gazing off for a moment, and then rolling it down once more.
“Notice anything unusual about those questions? Or rather something repetitive about your responses?”
“I would have said yes. Every time. Three yeses”
“Three yeses. You don’t know the man, you have no idea what the meeting’s about but there you are, nodding, agreeing, nodding some more, complying, yes yes yes, sending little positive yes vibes, little affirmative signals. Three short positive responses in a row, in quick succession like that at the top of a conversation, your brain’s already pretty much given up making negative choices. You’re going to agree to virtually everything you’re asked. You can’t help it.”
”Dale Carnegie,” I was about to say, it all sounding all too familiar, when we were suddenly interrupted by the chirp of Laura’s mobile. I held my breath as she thumbed it open.
“Yes it’s me, go ahead … Did the mark buy it? … You certain, where are you … ?”
On the other side of the hedge, the sound of the pub faded up suddenly as a door swung open. Footsteps on the pavement. Christopher’s voice. Close.
“Leaving now,” he said. “Drooling dopelet was practically begging to play your part. This could be the simplest one yet. How were the timings in old Bedford? You and Pete all set?”
“Fine,” Laura whispered, hunching over the phone, pulling up her hood. “He’s just parking.”
“I’ll see you back at the flat animato! Cheerie-pip!”
We made out Christopher hollering for a cab as we huddled under our umbrella. A cab engine bubbled, a door clunked and they wheeled off, fading into the hum of traffic.
“So far so good,” Laura said. “C’mon. Let’s go see how your man’s holding up, shall we?”
Conman Page 34
