A Prospect of Vengeance

by Anthony Price

  ‘London—yes,’ said Ian.

  6

  IAN COULD NEVER penetrate the labyrinth of Islington without remembering the Monopoly game he had been given on his eighth birthday, and his father, whose present it had been: Dad had been nutty about place-names (among so many other things), and Islington had been his own very first purchase, where the dice had transported his little silver car—

  ‘”The Angel, Islington”—buy it, boy! Buy it! Although there aren’t many angels in Islington these days, I fear … No—the “tun” of the “Eslingas” once, it would have been … the people of some minor North Saxon chieftain, “Elsa” by name … Funny that: “Essex” for the East Saxons, “Sussex” for the South Saxons, and “Wessex” the biggest—the West Saxons. And even “Middlesex” for the Middle Saxons. But no “Nossex”, eh? Maybe they were Angles there—“Angels”, maybe—?’ (Dad had thought about that for a moment, then had got up from the game and gone to his study, to ‘look it up’ as was his disruptive custom; and Mum had cried out ‘Eddie! Come back! We’re playing a game—and it’s your throw!’ and looked at Ian despairingly; and Dad had shouted back, from far away and quite unrepentant, ‘Only be a minute, dear! Must look it all up. Because knowledge is power and power is knowledge—always set an example—only be a minute, dear!’; and then, after a full eternity of five minutes, had returned shaking his head at Ian, as he usually did.) ‘No angels in Islington, that I can find. But—lots of the opposite—bad men in Pentonville Gaol, and wicked women in Holloway, my lad … And, frankly, I wouldn’t rate the Polytechnic much higher—I expect the police patrol in pairs there too, at night … But you buy it, Ian—‘

  And a sad-sweet memory of Mum and Dad followed on from that: they had never seen his smart Hampstead flat, or his Vitesse (still parked in Lower Buckland). But, in any case, Dad would have enjoyed his reference library more, and Mum would have loved meeting Lady Fielding-ffulke and the Honourable Jennifer, however much they would also have terrified her.

  But now—now … he wished Dad had been right, and that there had been numerous pairs of large Metropolitan policemen flexing their knees on every street corner as Paul Mitchell nosed the silver Volvo into the lucky space outside Abdul the Damned’s tandoori restaurant.

  But now—now … he had to trust Combat Jacket—just as Combat Jacket was trusting him not to scuttle away into the rain-swept half-light when he had the chance, instead of guiding him into the space.

  ‘Am I all right—?’ Mitchell poked his head out of the driver’s window.

  ‘You’ve got another two feet—left hand down—right!’ There were people here, whom he could see—unlike those he hadn’t seen in Lower Buckland, even when they’d been there; but he had to trust Mitchell’s confidence in their safety, just as Mitchell was trusting him. ‘Steady!’

  ‘Phew!’ Mitchell locked the car, and then turned on its burglar-alarm. ‘Bloody great big tank!’ He grinned at Ian. ‘Not mine, you understand? But marvellously unobtrusive in the commuter belt—all the wives have got ‘em to take the kids to school: and the dogs, wherever they take the dogs.’ He looked round, up and down the street with deceptive casualness. ‘Ah! There’s a phone-box! If it’s unvandalized, then I’ll phone in from here. You go on in, Ian—be my John the Baptist with Her Ladyship—okay?’ The blue neon light advertising Abdul’s tandoori delights illuminated his face diabolically. Tell it the way you do in your books, straight from the shoulder—the way it was—okay?’

  He didn’t want to like Paul Mitchell, for all that they seemed to have Mrs Frances Fitzgibbon in common. But there was something in the man which called out to him, which he couldn’t add up, but which came to him across their conflicting interests. And it wasn’t just that Mitchell had saved his life—indeed, it wasn’t that at all; because that had been duty, so that counted for nothing. But … there was something else—

  ‘There’s a phone inside, Mr Mitchell.’ He indicated Abdul’s restaurant.

  ‘Uh-huh?’ The street received another up-and-down look. ‘You call me “Paul”, and I’ll call you “Ian”—remember?’ Mitchell came back to him. ‘If we’re on Christian name terms we can exchange home-truths without insulting each other, I always think: “Fuck-off, Paul” is so much more friendly than “No, Mr Mitchell”—eh?’ The dark-blue lips curled fiendishly. ‘Okay, Ian?’

  The curry-smell recalled the street outside Mrs Champeney-Smythe’s boarding-house too vividly for him to return the devilish grin. And Mitchell didn’t wait for his agreement, in any case.

  Then the smell engulfed him, as he opened the door.

  And there was little Mr Malik himself, smiling with his own infectious humour and balanced on the balls of his feet like a boxer waiting for him.

  ‘Mister Robinson—you have damn-well been up to no good this time, I think!’ Mr Malik signalled towards a group of white-coated waiters, from which the two largest instantly detached themselves. ‘But you don’t worry. My little brother and my cousin will take a damn-good look outside—make damn-sure nobody is snooping around out there, see?’

  The two waiters were already peeling off their white coats, and Mr Malik’s gorgeous sister reached under her cash-till to produce two dark windcheaters: when Mr Malik had first launched his business in this tough area there had been several episodes of ‘damn trouble’, Ian recalled. But Mr Malik had dealt with his problems in a manner which the locals understood and appreciated, without recourse to the forces of law ajid order. So all was peaceful in Cody Street.

  ‘No, Mr Malik—!’ The thought of Paul Mitchell having a final snoop outside, and encountering the grinning six-foot ‘little brother’ in the process, hit him as the little brother slipped a cosh down his sleeve. ‘No!’

  ‘Oh yes, Mr Robinson!’ Mr Malik waved him down. ‘Miss Jenny says we take damn-good precaution—those are her orders, Mr Robinson.’ He carried the wave on to his Search-and-Destroy squad. ‘You go!’

  ‘No. I have a friend out there—in the phone-box across the road, Mr Malik—‘ In desperation, Ian skipped sideways to block the doorway. When Jenny issued orders, men always jumped. But these two looked like men who had had a boring day up to now.

  ‘A friend?’ Mr Malik seemed surprised that Ian had any friends. But he snapped his fingers, and the squad froze. ‘But … we have a telephone, Mr Robinson. And Miss Jenny says to look.’

  ‘Yes.’ Jenny really was running scared, to give such orders. But, then, she was damn-right to run scared! ‘My friend didn’t want to impose on you. Is the phone okay, out there—?’

  ‘Okay?’ Mr Malik drew himself up to his full five-foot-five. ‘Mr Robinson … we have no trouble in Cody Street—no damn trouble, sir.’ He nodded towards his little brother. ‘When Mr Robinson’s friend finish his call, you bring him in. And then you take a damn-good look, like I said—okay?’ He amended his cold-hard look of Absolute Monarchy to its original friendliness as he brought it back to Ian. ‘Now I take you to Miss Jenny, sir—please?’

  Ian followed the little man down the length of the Taj Mahal, between tables which were already crowded in mid-evening, and with people who acknowledged Mr Malik, and whom he in turn acknowledged with matching esteem, until they reached the curtained stairway at the end.

  Mr Malik held the curtain for him. But then touched his arm, arresting his progress.

  ‘All my regulars, this evening, Mr Robinson—all known to me, you understand?’ He looked up at Ian and tapped his nose. ‘Okay?’

  ‘Yes—?’ The trouble was, he understood all too well.

  ‘Yes. No strangers out there.’ Nod. ‘And … all the damn tables taken tonight—until Miss Jenny leaves.’ He grinned suddenly. ‘Except regulars, that my sister knows—they get served, only.’ The grin evaporatted. ‘You remember that night—when the damn-soup spilt—?’

  ‘Yes.’ That wasn’t a night easily forgotten: it had been the crowning event of the Taj Mahal’s first week—very nearly literally—when the obstreperous drunk had jostled
the waiter, and the soup had been spilt, and the drunk had moved to crown the waiter with a handy bottle of Malvern Water, and little Mr Malik (not yet aka Abdul the Damned) had squared up to the aggressor—and Jenny had decreed intervention—

  ‘Do something!’ (Jenny outraged, Ian, scared.)

  ‘What—me?’ (Ian, appalled, to her … the drunk being large, and their table loaded with untouched dinner.)

  ‘You want trouble—?’ (Drunk to Mr Malik, overjoyed.)

  ‘You make damn trouble!’ (Mr Malik, disconcertingly unafraid.)

  ‘Ian!’ (Jenny, outraged with him now.)

  I say—‘ (Ian terrified, but resigned.) ‘—steady on now, everyone!’

  ‘Who asked you?’ (Drunk to Ian; then, lifting the bottle, to all comers.) ‘Anyone else for trouble—?’

  ‘Yes.’ (Jenny, unflustered and lovely, taking everyone’s attention as she squeezed out from behind the table to take centre-stage.) ‘Me—if you think I’m small enough?’

  But Mr Malik was grinning at him. ‘No problem this evening, Mr Robinson—no damn-soup, eh?’ The grin almost split his face in two. ‘You go see Miss Jenny—second door left, Shah Jehan Room. And I bring up your friend pretty soon. And no damn strangers.’

  Ian did his best to return the grin, while trying not to imagine what might occur if Mitchell’s confidence was misplaced, and Abdul’s retainers encountered this afternoon’s hit squad.

  Thank you, Mr Malik.’ What unmanned him, as he kept the false grin in place over his shoulder, was that there was no limit to his imagination after this afternoon, this evening. But then there was a limit to how much he could worry about, he discovered.

  The Shah Jehan Room was to the left—one of the special private dining rooms, of course … next to the Mumtaz Mahal Room—Mumtaz, for whom all the wonder of the original Taj had been created … and now strangely celebrated in innumerable restaurants and take-aways long after the Mogul emperors and their British conquerors had receded into history.

  ‘Jenny!’ The room was dim, and disturbingly scented, after the relatively greater half-light of the corridor and the dominating curry-smell which had followed him up the stairs. ‘Jenny—?’

  ‘Well! You took your time, I must say!’

  ‘Yes—I’m sorry, Jen.’ Coming out from behind the silken hangings, she should have been dressed to match, with jewellery and a bare midriff; but, as she was, her voice went with her old sweater and the jeans. ‘I was held up.’

  ‘Held up? You said an hour, for God’s sake!’ She took an inexpert puff from her cigarette, and then stubbed it out; and then picked up the glass by the ashtray, and drained it; and Jenny drinking was nothing unusual but Jenny smoking was demoralizing. ‘What held you up, for God’s sake? I’ve been worrying myself stiff.’

  ‘Who—not What.’ There were times when he wanted to slap her, and if things hadn’t been so serious this might have been one of them. Besides which Mitchell had said he wouldn’t be long, so there was no time for recrimination. ‘What happened to Reg Buller?’

  ‘He’s dead—I told you.’ She took herself and her glass over to the well-stocked bar in the canopied alcove. ‘And we killed him.’ She filled the glass. ‘Or, to be strictly accurate, I killed him.’ She lifted the bottle. ‘Credit where credit is due. Have a drink, Ian. I said we’d got a winner here, and you can’t say I wasn’t right. We can even dedicate the damn thing to old Reg now—that’ll wow the critics: “Dulce et decorum est pro Jennifer Fielding mori”—how about that?’

  She wasn’t scared anymore—or, if she ever had been, she wasn’t now. But if this was Dutch courage as well as self-pity, they were in more trouble now, with Mitchell coming.

  ‘Don’t worry—it’s only Abdul’s most innocuous plonk, which is practically alcohol-free.’ She could hardly have read his expression in the subdued light, but she always read his silences. ‘And I’ve spiked it with soda water. So I’m not pissed, Ian darling—or … what was it old Reg used to say, when he’d been on a bender—? “Crapulated”, was it? No—“crapulous”—I’m not crapulous … see?’ She thrust the bottle towards him. ‘Hardly opened.’

  She was scared—of course she was scared. And he was scared too—but, less forgivably, he had been stupid—

  ‘It’s all right, Jenny.’ He took the bottle from her and put his arms around her, brotherly-sisterly, thinking brotherly-sisterly—and the first time since Beirut … but that had been different: that had been shared relief, not shared fear! ‘It’s all right, Jen.’

  She held him tighter. ‘Oh Ian—it isn’t all right—it’s all wrong! What have I done—for God’s sake, what have I done?’

  ‘You haven’t done anything.’ What mattered was what they were going to do. And with Jenny so completely out of character he realized how much he normally depended on her to answer that question. So he had to straighten her out first—and quickly. ‘Whatever’s happened, Reg was just as keen to work on this as you were—he was dead-keen—‘ he grimaced at the wall behind her as he heard his gaffe, and pushed on hurriedly ‘—and so was John Tully—‘ he unwrapped her gently: however much he wanted to know about Reg Buller, that would have to wait (and Tully was more important now, anyway!) ‘—where is John, Jenny? Have you been able to get through to him yet?’

  ‘No.’ She blinked at him. ‘No, I haven’t. And … and we can’t, I mean.’

  Stupid, again: she had said something about the police on the phone, and he had automatically assumed their progression from a dead Reg Duller to a live John Tully, and then had clean forgotten that in the press of events.

  ‘But, Ian—‘

  ‘No.’ Even Tully wasn’t the most important thing now. ‘Listen, Jen: there’s someone coming to see us—here—‘ He tried to keep one ear cocked for the sound of Mitchell on the stair as he spoke, against the sound of his own voice and the faint restaurant hubbub from below ‘—any second now.’

  ‘Someone?’ Her eyes widened momentarily, and then narrowed. ‘Who—‘

  ‘Just listen. I went to Rickmansworth today, to check up on the girl—the one who was killed up north, just before Masson disappeared—‘

  ‘Yes, I know. John told me you and Reg were off on some wild goose chase somewhere.’ She nodded. ‘Marilyn-something—?’

  ‘It wasn’t a wild goose chase.’

  ‘Francis—Marilyn Francis.’ The nod became contemptuous. ‘A typist.’

  ‘Audley was there when she was killed.’ She was irritated with him for acting on his own initiative, but he was also angry with her now: angry because she had closed her mind prematurely (which was unlike her) … but also angry at her dismissive contempt for Frances Fitzgibbon. ‘I thought it was Audley we were after—isn’t it?’

  ‘It is.’ From below him she somehow managed to look down on him. ‘But, according to John yesterday—and John hasn’t been wild-goose-chasing—Audley only got back from the States the day they shot that IRA man. And it’s Audley and Philip Masson we’re interested in, not Audley and Marilyn Thingummy-jig, or Marilyn Monroe, or any other Marilyn. You can put her in as a footnote, if you like—one of Audley’s field-work casualties … But Philly Masson was top-brass, and nothing to do with field-work: Philly was going to be Audley’s new boss, if he’d lived—If he’d lived.’ She achieved another amazing contradiction, to match the physical looking-down one: her anger made her almost plain. ‘But not for long. Because he’d probably have given Audley the push pretty soon, Philly would have done … Maybe a bit of ribbon, and a full fellowship in some Cambridge college, to go with it … But maybe not even that.’ The ugliness vanished. ‘But Philly died, of course.’

  Was that a creak on the stair—?

  ‘And so has Reg Buller, Jenny.’ Almost, she had weakened his confidence with her Tully-Fielding heart-of-the-matter intelligence safely garnered while he’d been skirmishing so dangerously in Rickmansworth and Lower Buckland. But the ghost of Reg Buller shook his head at him—and there was blood on Reg’s face … and tha
t had been a sound on the stair. ‘And I think I came damn close to following him, just this afternoon, what’s more—‘

  ‘What—?’ Without any matching distraction, she had taken in every word after he had hit her below the belt with Reg Buller.

  He strained his ear into a sudden unnatural silence: even the pots and pans in the busy kitchen below them seemed to have stopped clattering, and the whole of Dad’s ancient Eslingastun seemed momentarily still.

  ‘Two men came after me, Jen. At least, I think they did—‘

  Tap-tap—the soft double knock on the door cut him off decisively. And then, as though the silence had been released by it, the pans started clattering again, and a car driver changed gears inexpertly and revved his engine outside. But Jenny was already turning towards the first sound.

  Damn! thought Ian. ‘And this man probably saved my life then—Come in, Mr Mitchell!’

  In the stretched seconds during which the door opened, Jenny came back from it to him, with an angry expression he was glad he couldn’t see clearly.

  ‘Hullo there! Ian—?’ Mitchell saw Ian first, and smiled hesitantly at him; then took in Jenny, holding the smile in place; and then swung round, away from them both. ‘Thank you, gentlemen—for your help … ’ The smile began to droop as he got it back to Ian. ‘I’d be obliged if you’d tell the Indian Army out here that I’m friendly. Because they’re beginning to frighten me.’ He opened the door wider, to reveal Mr Malik’s fearsome brother at his shoulder and the equally terrifying cousin at his other side.

  Ian nodded at them. ‘Thank you, gentlemen.’

  Mr Malik’s brother stood to attention. ‘You want anything, sir—you just ring.’

  ‘Phew!’ Mitchell closed the door with evident relief. ‘They were waiting for me outside the phone-box. I thought they were going to mug me. Then one of them mentioned your name … But he still looked as though he’d rather thump me—even after I’d told him I was a friend of yours.’

  ‘And are you a friend of ours?’ Jenny had recovered her glass but not her temper, from the cold hostility in her voice. ‘Mr Mitchell, is it—?’