‘Oh, hell,’ she said. ‘What is it? I hope to see him later today and I’ll tell him –’
‘I can’t talk about it on the phone. I’ll come round. When will he be there?’
‘Oh, Gawd. I can’t say. He’s not exactly keeping office hours. Can’t you tell me?’
‘Phone’s risky,’ he said. ‘You never know these days who –’
‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘Squidgy. Well, I’ll take the chance and pass on something to you. The man Gus got the money from, remember?’
‘The fish-shop owner.’ The thin voice faded and crackled and then came back more strongly. ‘What about him?’
‘I’ve had a tip-off that he’s in Brighton, working there.’
‘Is he, by God! Where?’
‘If I knew I’d be off there now to find him,’ she said, suddenly irritated. ‘For crying out loud, Mike, isn’t it enough I got the place? With your contacts surely you can find him?’
‘If he’s using his own name, if he’s doing his old job, then you may be right,’ Mike said. Even through the bad reception she could hear the acid in his tone. ‘If the man’s gone to ground there, then it’ll no’ be that easy. But I’ll see what I can do. There’s a couple of ex-Met chaps on the patch, I seem to remember. Tell Gus I have to speak to him, will you?’
‘I will,’ she promised. ‘And Mike?’
‘Yes?’
‘Sorry if I was snappy, I didn’t mean to be.’
‘It’s all right. It’s a strain, all this. You’re doin’ a grand job, Dr B. Just hold on to your hat, now.’
‘I will,’ she said, and suddenly wished he was there. It would be a great comfort to have his bulk standing beside her, making her feel a little less alone and frightened. Because she had to admit she was very frightened. It all seemed to be more and more confusing. In spite of my careful chart-making I’m no further forward than I was when it all started, she told herself as she cradled the phone again and stood staring blearily at the window. Now what do I do?
What she decided to do in the end was to go to Watney Street Market. There was no reason to be certain Gregory St Clair would be there, of course; he’d been working at Connie’s factory this morning and perhaps by now he’d feel he’d done enough of a day’s work. But she couldn’t think of any other way to fill her time and there was still no sign of Gus. If he had, as he had said in his note, gone to Companies House again he would stay till they threw him out, which meant he wouldn’t be here at the flat till … She tried to work it out but she gave up. Late, anyway, and she couldn’t just sit here like the sort of woman Monty Ledbetter admired, just waiting for her fella to make sure he was warm and well fed when he got home. Bugger that for a game of soldiers, she thought, using one of Gus’s favourite phrases. I’ve got to be up and doing. Something.
The market was buzzing when she got there. The afternoon had settled to the rich sweating heat that Londoners were beginning to take for granted this summer, and the crowds around the stalls jostled and shouted at each other busily, filling their bags with fruit and vegetables and cut-down jeans and half-price trainers (probably fallen off the back of someone’s shop, thought George, seeing the brave display that filled one stall) and generally spending money few of them could afford. It was an invigorating and cheerful sight and George’s spirits rose. Whatever happened, they would sort this out, she and Gus, and life would go on as it had. She bought herself a half-pound of cherries from the first stall that had any and strolled through the market, wolfing them and spitting the stones into the gutter like everyone else.
Gregory was nowhere in sight when she reached the stall where she’d bought her mango and she felt a stab of disappointment; but then mentally shrugged. She hadn’t any right to expect he’d be here, after all, in spite of what he’d said at Connie’s place, which she had understood to be an invitation. She’d just have to kill the time till Gus got back. There was little else she could do; and she tried not to think of her Connections chart waiting at home on her desk. If she kept her mind clear now, maybe when she came back to it, fresh and alert, she’d see something she’d missed before. It often happened like that.
By the time she’d been round the market twice, the combination of the heat and the vigorous sweating she, like everyone else around her, was experiencing, together with the sweetness of the cherries that lingered in her mouth, had given her a raging thirst. She looked about for somewhere to quench it, and went purposefully across to a little café in the far corner. Its battered fascia no longer told passers-by anything about the place’s name, but its cheerful front window was full of advertisements for Coca-Cola and Fanta and the promise of Jamaica Patties, sizzling hot!
The place was almost full and she had to push past people to get to the counter. She asked for a club soda, forgetting for a moment that she meant Perrier water. (However long she lived in London, traces of her American life still lingered.) When she was given the bottle and a straw by a cheerful woman with a vast bosom straining under a red T-shirt, which read in undulating lines You Don’t Get Many of These to the Pound!, she turned around to lean on the counter on one elbow. As she sucked up the water she looked about her.
Someone came up behind her and laughed softly into her ear. ‘Hey, doctor, we can’t go on meeting like this. Folks are goin’ to talk!’
She turned her head and blinked. ‘I came down here to look for you!’ she said delightedly. ‘It’s a hell of a coincidence to have found you just like that.’
‘Coincidence? Just like that? Nothin’ of the sort! I been watching you ever since you got down the market. Sweet cherries for a sweet lady, huh? I knew you was looking for me.’
‘Why didn’t you speak to me then?’ she said and he laughed.
‘You must think me so stupid! I don’t go talkin’ where folks can see what I’m doin’ and who I’m with! It don’t do. I’d ha’ followed you outa the market if you’d gone, but there, I guessed you’d come in here. It’s a hot and thirsty day, and there’s nowhere else you could go. So, how do you like Connie’s place?’
‘Why is it all right to talk to me in here, when it wasn’t outside?’ she said. He laughed again.
‘Look around you, pretty lady. Who’s here that’d make trouble for a good boy like me?’
She looked, puzzled. No one seemed to be aware of her scrutiny; pretty girls with their hair plaited into corn rows; men in the current uniform of tight spandex shorts and loose T-shirts sat with their heads together, busy about their own affairs. She had just realized what he was trying to tell her when he said softly, ‘Not a honky in sight, ’cepting for you, doctor! There ain’t no one here’ll take notice of who I talk to. Out there it’s different’ And he jerked his head towards the street beyond the poster-filled window. So poster-filled that no one could easily see in.
She caught her breath. ‘What is it you can tell me?’
‘What do you want to know?’ He was looking at her sideways, his eyes very watchful. He would not miss the least change of expression on her face, she realized. Whatever she felt it had to be true and honest, or he’d know it. And suddenly it mattered to her, mattered a great deal, that he should think well of her, and her truthfulness. So she would be as true and honest as she could.
‘My fella’s in trouble,’ she said. ‘Someone is trying to fit him up. And I think someone’s been killed and I think they used the machine – that chopping machine at your friend Connie’s place – to do it with.’
‘He’s no friend of mine,’ Gregory said softly after a long pause.
‘Well, the man you work for.’
‘I work for me, not him. He just pays off some debts for me.’
‘Oh, Gregory, stop playing games with me, will you?’ she snapped suddenly. ‘I’m hot and I’m tired and things aren’t going right for me, one bit. Just talk straight, for heaven’s sake!’
He looked at her for a long moment and then nodded. ‘I guess you are at that. Come and sit down, doctor. Another bottle, Melissa, for
the lady,’ he said over his shoulder as he led George to a corner table that only a moment before had had a couple of people sitting at it. It was almost as though he’d willed them away so that they could sit down.
The big woman appeared behind her with another bottle of Perrier, and added a plastic beaker this time for her to pour it into. George wanted to laugh. Clearly being with Gregory gave her high status.
‘All right,’ Gregory leaned closer to her. ‘You been good to me and mine, you and the hospital. All that work you do there for the babies with the sickle cell, you know? We’re glad of it. Very glad of it. There’s not enough who care for the pain we get or the misery of it. They send babies home from hospital screaming with it, sometimes; blame their mothers for being stupid. Not at your Old East though, and I’m glad of it, you hear me? So I’ll tell you – only I warn you, I tell you and no one else. I go into no honky courts, tell no honky cops what I know. I tell you. If you can get it sorted out, great. I’m not evidence for you, though, and that has to be clear. Is it clear?’
She thought for a moment, looking at him. His eyes were wide and the white areas had a bloodshot look; he hadn’t been getting much sleep lately, she thought. He probably worked all night at Connie’s. His skin shone ebony in the softened light of the café and the shading of green and purple tones gave it a gloss of such beauty that somewhere deep in her mind she thought, I wish I were a painter. But she shook that away and said, ‘How will I know you’re telling me the truth?’
He laughed. ‘You won’t. You just got to trust me or not. Anyway, what’d be in it for me to tell you lies? I told you, I get good vibes about Old East. So, it’s up to you. I’ll tell you what I pick up around the place – and we talk to each other, you know, us brothers – and you can do what you like with it. So, you say what you want. I ain’t evidence for no one, but I got the story. You want it or not?’
She took a deep breath. ‘I want it.’
‘OK, so here it is. There’s a guy down this part of the world that is doing very bad things around your hospital. He’s using it to get stuff to Connie, see? And then Connie sells it on. To India. I’ll bet he got very bothered when you wanted to see his machine, hmm? His baling machine down there? Because he puts the stuff inside the bales, and that’s how they get it out. No sweat. No one looks till it’s unpacked in Calcutta and who in Indian Customs wants to dig around in stinking rags without a nice bit of cash on the side for his trouble? No one. And there ain’t no one cares enough to pay the cash. So it gets through, no questions asked, and Connie and the man make a lot of money. A lot of money – and they intend to go on making it. I’ve heard them talk. I got good ears and a very long nose. I like to know what’s going on. And this has been going on for a long time, and’ll keep on for a long time yet.’
There was a long silence and then George, deeply puzzled and not ashamed to show it, said, ‘But smuggling what? Stuff stolen from the hospital? People are always taking stuff, but not enough to smuggle in bales that size. I mean, what are they sending out?’
‘Drugs,’ Gregory said.
‘Drugs?’ George shook her head. ‘But they grow opium and cannabis there, maybe even coca. Why should they –’
‘Not my sort of drugs,’ Gregory said almost contemptuously, and laughed softly. ‘Your sort. Steroids and antibiotics – the new kinds – and the special stuff for cancer. That’s the sort. Lots of it.’
28
Gus sat and stared out of the window as though there were something there worth looking at. His plate of pasta was ignored in front of him, but she said nothing. He’d eaten the melon and Parma ham and she was grateful he’d managed that much.
She hadn’t had to ask him how his day at Companies House had gone. It had been, he told her shortly without any prompting, a total frost.
‘I’ve got no more than I got last time I went. A circle of companies feeding back into each other, shell inside shell. It takes a greater expert in these things than I am to untangle it all.’ He’d thrown the sheaf of papers tucked inside a plastic envelope on to her sofa in disgust and left it lying there. She hadn’t picked it up to look for herself. There seemed little point, for she was no better at comprehending business structure than he was – a great deal less capable, in fact – and looking for herself would just have annoyed him. So she left it lying there, a forlorn limp thing among her cushions.
She had told him of the result of her own day; of the visit to Connie’s as well as to St Dymphna’s – though there hadn’t been much there that was of any use to him – and of her conversation with Gregory. But he’d shown little reaction. He’d just listened and nodded and said nothing, and she’d been too bitterly disappointed by his reaction even to mention her efforts to plot a chart that would show how the disparate events linked together and affected his situation. She had just swallowed her hurt to let it lie, undigested and hot and painful, somewhere between her lower ribs and her belly.
‘Mike has some information for you,’ she ventured when the silence had gone on so long it seemed unbearable to her. ‘He was on his mobile, didn’t want to say on that what it was.’
‘So I should bloody think,’ Gus grunted. ‘You might as well go to the BBC and read it out to the whole bleedin’ world as do that.’
‘I told him to come over later. That I hoped you’d be here.’ She was uncertain about talking about Mike to him; did he still have any lingering resentment? This was hardly the time to find out, she thought; but he seemed unmoved, just shrugging an acknowledgement.
‘Are you sure that what Monty told me –’ she began but he shook his head irritably.
‘I told you I’m not sure of anything, but I’m bloody extra unsure that he’s right this time. He can be a great help, knows everyone and everyone knows him, but this time he’s come a cropper. If Lenny had been in Brighton we’d know by now. There’s a good relationship between the Met and the local force. They’d have seen to it we were tipped off there was a local villain of ours turned up on their patch.’
She frowned. ‘Is Lenny a villain?’ she said. ‘You’ve never said so before.’
He made a little grimace. ‘No more’n most round here. Been done for a bit of receiving now and again. Fish from the market, some vegetable oil fell off the back of a Soho restaurant – nothing all that terrible. But enough to have him listed at the nick. Enough for one of the Bill in Brighton to have let us know if he’d suddenly fetched up there and settled in. So I don’t think Monty’s got it right this time.’
‘But suppose he’s using another name?’ George persisted. Somehow she had believed Monty. There had been a certainty about him that would have been hard to simulate. ‘Suppose he’s hiding from you and –’
‘Oh, George, do stop and think, woman,’ he snapped. ‘Lenny’s got no need to hide from me! Yeah, sure, I’m pissed off with him. I’d give him a hell of a tongue lashing. But I wouldn’t hurt him, whatever he’s done to me! He knows that perfectly well. He’d paid off his bloody debt. Even if he hadn’t he’d have no call to run away, not from me. And however daft he can be, he’s surely not daft enough not to know that. There’d be no reason for Lenny to play any such stupid tricks as using a cover name. I just can’t believe it. He doesn’t have the – the –’ He stopped.
‘According to Monty, he’s a nerd.’
‘Monty said that?’
‘Well, not the word exactly. Just that he wasn’t much of a fella.’
‘He’s right there. He wouldn’t have the wit to use a cover, take it from me. If he had, he’d never have got his form. Whenever he’s been caught taking a bit of stolen gear, he’s done it in such a stupid fashion he’s bloody nearly called us out to witness it happening.’
‘You don’t believe the bribe story either? That he was made an offer he couldn’t refuse?’
‘Mafia stuff? I know they’re trying to organize themselves along those lines but it’s not established here or anything like it. Sure, Lenny might be a bit worried about who set him u
p for this, but all this stuff from Monty! I don’t believe a word of it!’
‘But –’
It was a relief when the phone rang. Gus was sunk deeper than ever in despair and arguing with him seemed to be making him worse; yet surely she couldn’t let it go so easily? Monty had come up with information that she believed. Why couldn’t Gus? Because it might help him? It was almost, she thought as she reached for the phone, as though he wants to be found guilty. I’ve never seen him so miserable.
It was Mike, checking Gus was there, and promising to push himself as fast as he could from the other side of Canning Town to come to see him. She hung up and quietly took away Gus’s plate and fetched coffee instead. He drank it absentmindedly and she pushed a plate of amaretti biscuits closer to him in the hope he would equally absentmindedly eat them too. He didn’t.
It was beginning to get dark at nine-thirty as Mike’s ring at the bell made them both jump. She let him in with a bounce in her step and an eagerness to see him that she didn’t bother to hide, but regretted when she returned with him to the living room and saw Gus’s scowl.
‘News,’ she said briefly, leaving Mike to stand in the middle of the room as she went and sat on the sofa. Whatever she said or did, she thought sourly, Gus would find fault tonight.
‘Hello, Guv,’ Mike said.
Gus grunted.
‘It’s not good, I’m afraid.’ Mike sounded gruff. ‘Can I sit down?’
‘Of course, you fool!’ Gus snapped. Mike seemed to wince at the harshness in his voice, and suddenly it was all too much for George. She’d bottled it all up, the fear and the anger and the frustration, and now it was not possible to contain it any longer.
‘Gus, shut up!’ she snapped. She jumped to her feet and came round the sofa to stand with her elbows sharp at her sides and her fists on her hips. ‘I’ve had just about enough!’
‘Eh?’ Gus blinked and stared up at her, clearly startled.
Third Degree Page 28
