Third Degree

by Claire Rayner

  ‘’Oo?’ He looked at her suspiciously, then said, ‘That’ll be two-ninety.’

  ‘Lenny,’ she said and began to rifle through her shoulder bag for her purse, deliberately not finding it. ‘Lenny Greeson. The owner.’

  ‘Oh. Not owner. My mamma’s the owner.’

  She looked at him with her brows creased. ‘I was told that it was Lenny Greeson?’

  ‘No such person ’ere,’ he announced. ‘Two-ninety, pliz. You got change? If not, I got change.’ He held out a large red hand and glared at her.

  She opened her mouth to speak and then turned sharply as a thin voice behind her said, ‘Can I help you?’

  The woman who stood there was as round as the man behind the counter, but looked considerably older. Her eyes were sharp and watchful and she had a filled tooth that glittered a little on the left-hand side of her mouth when she spoke. ‘You lookin’ for someone?’

  ‘Well …’ George set three pound coins down on the counter. The man snatched them with a sort of relief and rang up the till. ‘It’s not important. I mean, I just thought … A friend of mine told me about this place. Said it was the best fish and chips for miles around, and I was just passing. My friend said that the man who owned it was a friend of his. I should say hello.’

  ‘You’re an American,’ the little woman said accusingly.

  ‘Well, yes.’ George smiled disarmingly. ‘My friend isn’t though. He’s English.’

  ‘Me, I lived in America. Pittsburgh. Learned to speak English good there.’ And indeed the woman did have a tinge of a familiar accent. ‘Your friend is wrong. This place belongs to me and my son. Nick, my son. Me, I’m Agape. My family, they call me Eppy. Not Nicky. He calls me Mamma.’

  George blinked. It seemed unnecessary information to give to a passing customer, she thought somewhere at the back of her mind. I wonder why? Because she’s anxious, her mind answered her, and she felt stronger.

  ‘Oh? Well, very nice,’ she said and looked at the parcel of fish and chips. Suddenly she wasn’t so hungry any more. What had seemed an agreeable smell when she first noticed it had become thick and cloying.

  ‘So, you tell your friend, the owners here is us. We make it all very handsome, we do. We paint next week, we got new equipment coming, big fryers, not rubbish like this.’ She banged on the top of the hot display unit contemptuously. ‘Soon we really have the best fish in all the East End. Not some of your rubbish like the other stuff you see.’ She sniffed. ‘Big place, glass fronts, very fancy, lousy fish.’

  George, who knew at once the sort of shop to which the woman referred, felt a great wave of loyalty arise and almost swamp her. ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ she said shortly. ‘I’ve had fish from a place at Aldgate which is just fabulous, to die for.’

  The woman stared and then cackled. ‘To die for? Yeah, to die for. Belly-ache it gives you, to die for!’

  George opened her mouth to argue and then closed it. This wasn’t, after all, the purpose of her visit.

  ‘So, when did you take over from Lenny?’ she said casually, looking at Nick. She didn’t turn her back on Eppy, but was certainly smiling at Nick when she said it, and it seemed to affect him. He had been staring at her; she knew all too well the sort of glint he had in his eyes while he did so, and capitalised on it.

  ‘Two weeks,’ he said without thinking. ‘Two weeks. Is good, yeah? Next we make it good lookin’, make it smart.’

  ‘Nicky, shut up,’ the woman said. She glared at George. ‘What for you askin’ questions? You the police or what?’

  George looked at her and raised her brows. ‘Oh, have they already been here?’ she said with an air of innocence.

  ‘For why should they come here?’ the woman said. She seemed to expand the way George had seen angry frogs enlarge when she had disturbed them during childhood fishing trips. ‘Nothing wrong here, I told them, nothing here.’

  ‘Then tell me where Lenny’s gone,’ George said, choosing the direct approach. The pussyfooting was getting her nowhere but thoroughly irritated. ‘My friend asked me to give him a message if I was passing and I’m passing. Where do I find him?’

  ‘Dunno,’ said Nick, for she was looking at him again, at the same time as his mother said loudly, ‘He don’t want to be found!’

  ‘Oh?’ George turned back to her. ‘He told you that?’

  ‘I know.’ Eppy smote herself hard on the breast in a way that made George want to wince, and looked even more puffed up. ‘He sold, he gone, is finished. You take your fish, you go, you’re finished,’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ George said. ‘I don’t think that fish looks very fresh.’ She began to improvise a little wildly. ‘I’m from the Council, actually, you see. That was why I was passing. I have to check on food hygiene. I don’t think this fish is very hygienic. I think maybe I should go back to the Council and see to it they send their inspector round. The one who charges the fines.’

  The woman was now almost goggle-eyed with rage. ‘Me, not hygienic? Me, what buys six bottles bleach and disinfectant every week? Me, what works my fingers to the bone like a dog? You say my fish not hygienic?’

  ‘We had a few complaints a while ago,’ George said. ‘Let me remember. Would it be … three weeks ago?’

  ‘Then not us,’ Eppy said. Her eyes lost some of their panic. ‘Not us. That was the one before.’

  ‘Ah? So it was Lenny then? He sold to you?’ George smiled benevolently at the woman, who stared back, somewhat nonplussed, and then seemed to lose interest in the whole conversation. She shrugged.

  ‘We come here two weeks ago. There was a debt owed us and it was paid two weeks ago. So, we come here, take over, and next week we –’

  ‘I know. Clean up. Decorate,’ George said. ‘So, where did the man you bought from go to?’

  ‘Oh, we don’t –’ Nicky began behind the counter but his mother bristled at him.

  ‘What do you know, idiot?’ she shrieked and then burst into a flood of Greek at which Nicky began to shout back equally incomprehensibly, but clearly in self-defence. George put her hands to her ears and then shouted herself into the hubbub. It worked. They turned to her.

  ‘So, we don’t know nothin’. Like Nicky said. We don’t know nothin’. The man isn’t here when we come. We get the key, come in, take over, the customers not even see any difference, except the food is better. And next week, when we –’

  ‘Decorate. Yes.’ George cut in. ‘So, you don’t have any information about anything? OK, OK, I believe you. Where did you get the key from? Who is the person who deals with the money and the lease and the rest of it?’

  Eppy shrugged, her eyes now hooded as she kept her eyelids down and her chin up, staring at George from beneath her lashes. ‘Me, I’m just a simple woman, a fish fryer, what do I know of such things? I got the key in the post. We do all that we have to do with letters, with faxes, with phone calls. And it’s none of your business. The police, it can be theirs, but I told them I didn’t know and they went away this morning happy. I didn’t know nothing. If they can believe me, why can’t the Council believe me?’

  ‘The police were here this morning, then? I thought so,’ George said and nodded in satisfaction. ‘And you told them the same things you’ve told me?’

  Eppy scowled. ‘I tell them how it is. I tell you how it is. Now go, huh? Enough. You go.’

  ‘In a moment,’ George said. She stood there thinking and the two of them watched her warily. After a while she said, ‘I think you’ll remember soon who it was you bought this place from. Or rented it from, or whatever. I think maybe you need to think about why you can’t tell me, hmm? I think maybe a little money will help you think. What do you say to that?’

  ‘Money?’ the old woman said. ‘How much money?’

  ‘Enough,’ George said and did some rough additions in her head. She had about fifty pounds in her purse, no more. Would it be regarded as bribing witnesses to give them money to get information? How could it? She wasn’t bribing th
em to tell her. Just helping them think, and remember a few facts.

  Fifty pounds was a lot to lose, but Gus would make sure it was all right. Gus didn’t have money problems. And then she thought, but I can’t let him pay for this investigation. It could criminalize him or something. Shit. It’s going to cost me, all on my own. And I haven’t paid the car costs this month yet. Oh, shit.

  ‘Enough to you ain’t the same enough for me,’ Eppy said after a while. ‘Show me.’

  George sighed and got out her purse. She pulled out the four ten-pound notes and the couple of creased fivers and set them neatly on the counter. ‘Fifty,’ she said. ‘Just for the name of the man you got this place from.’

  The woman looked at it and then at Nick and he looked back. It was as though they were talking to each other. George looked from one to the other, trying to get hold of some vestige of the conversation, but failed utterly. And then Eppy reached for the money and slid it off the counter in one smooth movement. George didn’t see where it was after that. It just seemed to disappear.

  ‘Estate agent,’ she muttered. ‘Docking Berths. In Millwall. Now I gotta go. Work to do.’ And she turned and scuttled away, much like one of the crabs on the poster above her head, to disappear behind a bead curtain at the back of the shop.

  ‘Me too,’ Nick said hurriedly as George turned to him, her mouth open to speak, and he vanished as quickly as his mother had, leaving just the swinging bead curtain behind to remind George he had ever been there.

  She sighed and turned to go, leaving the packet of fish and chips on the counter. That was the last thing she wanted after standing there smelling it for so long. It would be cold by now, anyway.

  ‘Chargeable Chippy?’ the young man behind the desk said. ‘Oh, yes. Freehold. Very nice to get a freehold these days. Even in Canning Town. Well, as near as makes no matter to Barking. Very nice.’

  ‘Worth much?’ George said casually.

  He looked judicious. ‘Not over the top. Good services, nice position if a bit, well, not top drawer, but for the purpose it’s used for, very suitable. Oh, around a hundred and fifty K.’

  ‘Hmm,’ George said, trying to look as judicious as though she really were looking for a shop with a flat over it. ‘But hardly the place for a shop that specializes in dried flower arrangements? My partner does them,’ she added swiftly as he showed interest and opened his mouth to ask questions. ‘I’m just the dogsbody, you know. Checking up on available premises and so forth.’

  ‘You ought to go further west,’ the young man said earnestly. ‘A lot further back west into the real Docklands. Near the newspaper offices. They’ll love a place that does dried flowers. All those fashion pages, you know. And presents for the missus when they’ve been working late, slaving all day over a hot secretary.’ He glanced up at her, saw the absence of admiration for his wit, and moved swiftly on. ‘I could do you a lovely little place in Tobacco Dock or down here – Look.’ He had a map out and was thudding it with a short nail-bitten finger. ‘Not enormous premises, but for very little more than a hundred K or so, you’ll get something worth having. Peppercorn rent for the leasehold, believe me, peppercorn, considering the money you’d make out of your business.’

  ‘I’ll think about it,’ George said, and smiled, thinking, lying bastard, as she did so. Do I look such a fool? Remember, though, you’re pretending to be one. Stop being so silly. ‘Tell me, how come this place’ – she pointed to the part of the map that took in Chargeable Lane – ‘is available freehold? You said that was rare.’

  He shook his head sadly. ‘It’s a leftover from the old days. People used to buy their premises and hand ’em on down a family. This place was a family business, fish and chips, you know? Very old East End that is. Not the new Docklands setup at all.’

  ‘Hmm. And they own it still? I wonder why they’re selling.’ She opened her eyes widely at him, looking innocent and enquiring and as American as she knew how. Estate agents, in her experience, were good at despising foreigners.

  He fell for it, and became expansive, leaning back in his chair and tucking his fingers into a garish copy of an Albert watch chain that was stretched across his meagre front. ‘I wish I knew,’ he said. ‘It’s a puzzle, this one. It’s been bought in for management by a company who got it from the people that used to own the freehold. We’re to let and administer it. They brought the first tenants with them.’

  ‘Wasn’t that an odd thing to do?’

  He shrugged, ‘Well, some owners are! I think we’d have got them better tenants, but maybe they thought they’d do better. If they’d come to us first, of course – but there you go. They didn’t. Never mind. We’ll collect the rent for them, watch over the place, and eventually they’ll see the error of their ways and let us deal with the property as it should be dealt with.’ He seemed to stretch with pride. ‘And then they’ll see some selling going on! Times have been hard for us but the recession’s bottoming out. Everyone says so, and we at Docking Berths’ll show everyone else the way to make the best of it.’

  ‘Well,’ she said. ‘All this is very interesting but I suppose I’d better be on my way.’

  ‘Don’t forget your details.’ He was all eagerness at once. ‘There’re some lovely properties there, really lovely. We’ll be ready and willing and more than able to negotiate for you when you’ve chosen. Just pop in any time or call me – here’s my card, mobile number on it too, of course – and I’ll be here waiting to jump at yours and your partner’s bidding!’

  ‘My partner?’ George said blankly, forgetting her cover for a moment.

  ‘The girl with the dried flowers?’ He looked perplexed, but she laughed merrily.

  ‘Of course. My partner. That partner. I thought you meant my boyfriend.’ She simpered sickeningly and turned to go. At the door she stopped and smiled at him. ‘By the way, who are the company that own the Chargeable Chippy property?’

  He was already back at his desk, thinking of something else. ‘Mmm?’ he said vaguely. ‘Oh, that’s Copper’s. Copper’s Properties Limited.’ He frowned and looked at her sharply. ‘Why do you want to know?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ she said, still smiling sweetly at him. ‘I just wondered.’ And she went, closing the office door smartly behind her.

  19

  ‘So, how do I track down a company which isn’t listed in the phone books? I know it isn’t, because I’ve looked,’ she said, reaching over and putting some more mashed potatoes on his plate. He seemed not to notice. He was sitting staring at the opposite wall of his little kitchen with unfocused eyes. ‘Gus?’

  ‘Mmm?’

  ‘I said, I have to track down this company. The people who own Lenny’s property now. They might be able to give me a lead on where he is. But they’re not listed anywhere.’

  ‘I don’t understand it,’ Gus said with a childish fretfulness that made him seem very vulnerable. She put down her own fork and went round the table to stand behind him and rub the back of his neck. It was tightly knotted under her fingers and it took some effort to help him relax.

  ‘I know you don’t. Neither do I. Yet,’ she said. ‘Nor will we till we get the facts somehow, and then –’

  ‘I mean, Lenny. Of all people to shop me. Lenny! It’s not possible. I’m bloody scared for him, you know that?’ The muscles tightened again as he turned and looked up at her. ‘Do you hear what I’m saying, George? Lenny’s in such big trouble, I feel it in every bone of my body. He’d never do such a thing to me. Not to Alf Hathaway’s son! It’s just not possible.’

  ‘You think Mike got it wrong?’ she said quietly, and he shook his head miserably.

  ‘I don’t see how he could have. He’s a sensible fella, Mike Urquhart. Not the sort to make cock-ups from not checking his facts. If he says Lenny was the informant then he bloody was. Anyway, he got the right address, didn’t he?’

  ‘Yes,’ George said. ‘He did.’

  ‘And these Cypriot people you talked to had been there …�
��

  ‘Only a week or two.’

  ‘Yes. So … Oh, shit, it’s true all right. Someone’s pushed Lenny out of his business and his home and there’s no way he’d have gone of his own free will. He’s in some sort of trouble. He’s got to be.’

  ‘Gus, don’t get annoyed if I suggest something?’ She said it carefully, knowing how close he was to the edge. ‘Let me just make a few suggestions?’

  ‘Why should that annoy me? Isn’t it what we’re both trying to do? Make suggestions about how to climb out of this hellpit I’m in?’ He sounded savage and she ached to hold him, but knew he wouldn’t tolerate that.

  ‘OK. So, Lenny was desperately short of money for himself, for his debtors, for his brother –’

  ‘I’d got that sorted,’ Gus snapped. ‘I told you all that. Why the hell else am I in such a mess now?’

  ‘Perhaps it wasn’t sorted. Perhaps he was … Well, I saw the place. It’s not like yours, all inviting and glittering. It’s a real …’ She hesitated.

  ‘I know. Greasy spoon. But people in these parts have more sense than to just use their eyes. They know quality when they meet it, and Lenny was good. I’d offered him a job often enough as a manager and head fryer for me, but he was always bloody independent. Wanted to have his own place like his Dad before him. Wouldn’t work for other buggers, he always said.’

  ‘Well, all right. He had his regulars. But to make the sort of money he was paying back to you, surely he’d have needed more than a few regulars? A lot more? I went there at lunchtime and there was no sign of a crowd.’

  ‘Then the word had gone round that Lenny’s not there any more.’ Gus was stubborn. ‘They’ve started going someplace else.’

  She sighed. ‘Let me go on trying, Gus. Suppose you’re wrong and the shop wasn’t taking that much money. He had paid off his debts but now he was in hock to you –’