by John Harvey
‘A quick what?’
‘A quick … oh, forget it!’
‘I’m trying to,’ I said, ‘but it’s hard. There’s this image in my mind that’s most disturbing.’
‘The only thing I can suggest, Mr Mitchell, is that you take yourself in hand. There’s nothing else I can do in the circumstances.’
There was a pause during which I was conscious of the sound of her breathing, then she added, ‘Unfortunately.’
‘There is one thing you could do,’ I told her.
‘What’s that?’
‘You could tell me why you phoned. I’m sure it wasn’t only to brush up on your telephone technique.’
‘Are you telling me that my technique needs improving?’ She managed to sound almost hurt.
‘Not at all,’ I replied, ‘but I’ll withhold my written reference until I’ve experienced it in person.’
‘Now, Mr Mitchell, you’re bragging! Don’t tell me that you can write. I thought you were a big dumb private detective.’
‘I am. But I’m one of the newer kind. Got smart and went to evening classes: reading, writing and elocution.’
‘What happened to the elocution?’ she asked.
‘I dropped out of that one. The teacher would keep coming up behind me with a long, pointed stick. Something to do with my diphthongs.’
‘Your what?’
‘Forget it,’ I said, ‘I haven’t used them in a long time. And you still didn’t tell me why you called.’
‘You know a policeman called Gilmour,’ she said.
I didn’t know if it was a statement or a question, so I didn’t reply. Just waited.
Finally, she carried on. ‘He suggested that you might be the man to get in touch with. There’s a little difficulty and we need some help.’
‘We?’
‘Yes.’
‘Meaning you and your husband?’
‘Meaning my employer and myself, Mr Mitchell. I no longer have a husband.’
‘You make it sound as though you lost him in a waiting room at Victoria Station.’
‘Actually, it was room 101 of the Royal Hotel. Now can we get on with business?’
‘By all means. What kind of difficulty do you happen to be in?’
She hesitated, then said, ‘I don’t think I can discuss it on the phone, Mr Mitchell. Couldn’t we meet?’
‘I’m sure we could. But if you didn’t want to talk about it on the phone, why didn’t you go straight into my office?’
‘I don’t believe in trusting other people’s recommendations too fully. I wanted to make my own assessment before arranging any kind of meeting. This is a very delicate affair, Mr Mitchell.’
‘In that case,’ I said, ‘maybe you’d better try someone else. I’m about as delicate as King Kong.’
‘But look how gentle he was with Fay Wray,’ she replied.
I liked that. I liked a woman who’d seen a movie or two.
‘So what’s your assessment?’ I asked.
‘Where’s your office?’
I gave her the address in Covent Garden and told her I’d meet her there in an hour and a half. She said it sounded a long time, but I figured that didn’t matter.
Hard-to-get Mitchell, that’s me.
‘One last thing,’ I said.
‘It’s Stephanie,’ she said, ‘Stephanie Miller.’
‘How did you know that was what I wanted?’ I asked.
‘It wasn’t,’ she replied and hung up.
I poured myself some coffee and sat in the armchair. Yes, that’s right, the armchair. I had visitors like starving people had food.
The coffee was a little strong by now, but that didn’t matter. I sat there trying to picture what she might be like. Finally figured that she’d be above medium height, longish dark hair, strong face; good clothes over a better shape.
I considered calling Tom Gilmour at West End Central and asking him what it was all about. For no good reason, I decided against it. I could wait. I was the kind of guy who just thrived on surprises.
Why, I was already getting worked up about Christmas.
This year I might even get a present from someone other than myself.
After another cup of coffee, I got the car out of the garage and drove into town.
Since the vegetable traders had moved away from Covent Garden and the developers had threatened to move in, it was like walking around in some kind of ghost town. The painted iron work of the original market still survived and where properties had been demolished, kids had used the walls that surrounded the empty sites for a series of highly-coloured murals. Yet, despite all this, there was a deadness, a lack of reality about the place.
Maybe that was why I stayed there; why I still liked it. Or maybe that was because I couldn’t afford an office anywhere else.
I pushed open the side door next to what had been a jewelry showroom and was now an empty space and another plate glass window waiting to be broken.
The stairs that led up to the first floor were dirty and looked as if they’d hadn’t been swept in a long time. It was dark on the landing and I felt for the light switch. Nothing happened. I should have known.
The sign that had been painted on the frosted glass of the outer office door read, ‘Scott Mitchell—Private Investigator’. The capital letters had all begun to flake away slightly, as though they thought they were giving the place too good a name.
I pushed the key into the lock and let myself in. Three paces took me over to the inner door and I unlocked this as well. Both locks.
Nobody could say that I wasn’t a careful man. Sometimes. Usually when it didn’t matter.
I pulled up the shade at the window and looked down into the street below. No-one walked the pavements. No-one drove along the street. I turned away and sat down behind my desk, wondered if I could take yet another cup of coffee. Decided that I could. After all, I hadn’t had lunch.
The water boiled just as I heard a car draw up outside. When I looked out of the window, I was staring down on to the top of a neat little sports job in two-tone blue. After a few moments, I got a second mug from the cupboard and set it alongside the first.
Then I sat back behind the desk and tried to look the way I guessed she’d want me to look.
She didn’t look too surprised when she came round the door and saw me sitting there. But then, maybe her expectations hadn’t been too high.
My own had and she came up to them in every way. Not only that, but I’d managed to get the description right in most details—only the hair was fair rather than dark. She wore a mid-length dark purple skirt under a dark fur coat that certainly hadn’t come from any jumble sale. She smiled and came towards me holding out her hand.
I stood up and accepted it, being a gentleman underneath all the tough, wise-cracking exterior. Her fingers were cool, her grip firm and confident. Her eyes were a kind of greeny-blue and they never left mine until we had both sat down.
‘Coffee?’ I asked, nodding my head in the direction of the percolator in the corner.
She made a face, as though anticipating some kind of gritty brown mixture, but said yes anyway.
Then she said, ‘You live a long way from your office, Mr Mitchell.’
‘I like to leave work far behind me,’ I said, ‘the only thing is that it has ways of chasing after me.’ I tried my second-best smile. ‘Oh, and won’t you make that Scott. Mr Mitchell sounds too formal.’
‘If you don’t want your work to follow you home,’ she said, ‘why have your home number in the book as well as this one?’
‘I guess, Stephanie, that I can’t afford to turn down the possibility of being hired. If you see what I mean.’
‘I see what you mean,’ she replied. ‘Oh, and won’t you call me Miss Miller?’
I blinked a
nd got up to pour out the coffee. By the time I had brought it back to the desk, she had lit up a cigarette. I hesitated a moment, waiting for her to offer me one so that I could refuse, but she didn’t give me the opportunity.
I looked down at the way she had hitched the hem of her skirt above her knees and wondered what kind of opportunities she might give me. If any.
‘That’s not bad,’ she said after sipping from the edge of the cup as though it might turn the tables and bite her. ‘Not bad at all. Maybe you ought to be in the restaurant business?’
‘Sorry,’ I said, ‘I already have a good business.’
She looked around the office. ‘Where do you keep it?’ she asked. ‘This really is a good front.’
I laughed a little and drank some of the coffee. She was right. It was good and business wasn’t. I tried to picture myself in a white apron pouring morning coffee and calling out for some more slices of home-made apple pie at the same time. I didn’t like what I saw.
I said, ‘Maybe what you’ve brought will help things along a little. Do you think we can talk about it now … or are you frightened that the place is bugged?’
Ostentatiously, I looked under the desk for a hidden recording device. As I did so, she crossed her legs easily and pleasantly.
‘Are you really feeling for something under there?’ she asked. ‘Or is that just an excuse to look up my skirt?’
I grinned. ‘It could be both.’
She said, ‘Look, do you want me to tell you why I’m here or not?’
I shrugged my shoulders. ‘It’ll do. For now.’
She picked up her coffee cup and held it in both hands in front of her, not drinking from it, simply holding it. I wondered what it was about the things she had to say that made her need that kind of support, that kind of comfort.
‘For the last three years I’ve worked for a man called Crosby Blake. Have you heard of him?’
I shook my head from side to side. I was still watching the way in which her fingers curled around the cup, holding it tight.
‘Well, he’s a rich man, Mr Mitchell. He made a lot of money from chartered aircraft and invested that in a great many things. He also owns a large taxi fleet and several firms which hire out vans and lorries.’
I interrupted. ‘You mean he’s nationalised the transport industry all by himself.’
‘In a way. Except that he runs his business efficiently.’
‘And takes all the profit.’
She leaned forward in her chair and stubbed out her cigarette in the ash tray.
‘All that is merely background and largely beside the point.’
‘Which is what?’ I asked.
She looked up at him sharply and her voice was as cold as iced water. ‘For a man who obviously isn’t overburdened with work, you are very impatient. I can always take this somewhere else.’
I stood up and began to move around the desk.
‘I hope you’re going to get me some more coffee,’ she said quickly, ‘and not do anything petty and dramatic like opening the door and showing me the way out.’
I turned right and went for the percolator. As if I had been going to do any such thing as offer her the door. As if!
After I had sat down again, she continued.
‘Mr Blake has no immediate family of his own. He has never married. He lives with his sister and her daughter—her husband was killed in a road accident sixteen years ago. A year after the daughter was born.’
‘Which makes her seventeen,’ I offered. I’d forgotten to tell her that I did arithmetic at night school as well.
She looked directly at me again. ‘Which makes her seventeen and missing.’
I drank a little of the coffee. It had a sharp tang to it that tried to take my palate by surprise.
‘Lots of girls go missing at seventeen. Including some from the finest homes.’
‘I know that, Mr Mitchell,’ she said, ‘but Cathy isn’t simply missing. She’s been kidnapped.’
That took me by surprise as well. I looked at her and tried to see something in those green-blue eyes. But I didn’t know what I was looking for. So I asked a question instead.
‘When did this happen?’
‘Two days ago.’
I whistled softly. ‘You’ve told the police, of course.’
‘Of course.’
‘Then why … ?’
‘Why come to you?’
I nodded.
‘There’s been a ransom demand. Crosby wants to pay it.’
I noted the switch from Mr Blake to Crosby and nodded for her to carry on. Maybe it would be three years before she got to call me Scott.
‘The police are keeping well out of things. Maintaining a low profile, I think they called it. After one or two other cases recently, they’ve decided to handle things rather differently.’
‘Which is why there’s been nothing about this in the press,’ I suggested.
She had finally felt able to put down the cup. But only to reach for the security of another cigarette. There was something strangely interesting about a confident woman coping with a situation that she found in some way upsetting.
Yet she did it well. I wondered if she even knew what she found disturbing and why. Wondered whether she realised the way she had been making use of her cup and now her cigarette.
‘The police had some difficulty achieving it, apparently, but all of the media have agreed to give no coverage to the kidnapping whatsoever. For the time being. I don’t know how long they will wait.’
She blew a gentle wreath of smoke in my direction.
‘I hope it’s long enough,’ she said.
I asked, ‘Where exactly do I come in?’
‘Crosby was terribly uncertain about how to deal with the paying of the ransom, the whole business of making the arrangements. This thing has affected him really badly. I’ve never known him like it.’
The fingers that held the cigarette trembled very slightly.
‘He wanted someone who would help him with those kinds of things. Obviously, the police themselves were out of the question. He asked the officer in charge of the case and you were suggested.’
I made a mental note to buy Tom Gilmour a bottle of scotch for Christmas, then remembered that since his trip to the States he drank bourbon. It wasn’t the only habit he’d picked up over there; neither the worst nor the best. Just one of many.
And now someone had saddled him with a nice quiet case of kidnapping which he was having to handle as though wearing velvet gloves.
I wondered what he thought about that. Then I stopped wondering. I thought I knew.
‘Okay,’ I said, ‘do I get the details from you, or from Blake himself?
‘Mr Blake will see you this evening, if that’s satisfactory.’
‘This evening? What’s wrong with this afternoon? Or isn’t his niece a matter of urgency to him?’
She flashed me a look I didn’t understand and said, ‘Oh, yes, Mr Mitchell, I think I would say she was that.’
She was half-way to the door when I called her back.
‘There’s the little matter of my fee.’
She shrugged her shoulders. ‘I don’t suppose that it will worry Mr Blake, whatever it is.’
I stood up. I didn’t suppose it would worry him either. No more than a fly walking up an elephant’s back would worry the elephant. But I wasn’t the elephant—not in this or any other story. And being a fly was getting frustrating.
‘Seeing as Crosby Blake’s a friend of yours, my fee is twenty pounds a day, plus expenses. All right?’
‘You mean seeing that he’s rich you’ll put the screws on him and what you normally charge is fifteen. I thought I was going to like you, Mr Mitchell, but now I’m not so sure. I’m in danger of going off you before I got on.’
&nbs
p; She turned round and walked smartly out of the office, leaving me staring at the swivel of her behind under the hem of her fur coat. I knew what she meant though. It was the way I normally affected people: especially myself.
And usually I charged ten pounds a day.
My call to Tom Gilmour seemed to be transferred through several dozen switchboards and exchanges, but finally I got through to him, sounding harrassed and as usual hanging on to as much of his American accent as he could.
It was like wearing an especially garish tie.
‘What is it, Scott? I’m up to my mothering arse in work!’
I grinned down the phone at him. ‘I know. I’ve just had a visitor. I gather you sent her this way.’
‘You mean the Miller woman?’
‘That’s who. She’s some lady.’
Tom grunted at the other end of the line. ‘She’s okay.’
‘Look, Tom, the guy she works for, the one whose niece has been pinched. He wants me to go out there tonight and find out what’s happened from him. I’d rather find out from you first. I don’t want to meet him without an idea in my head.’
There was a silence and I could sense that Tom was weighing up the possibilities.
Finally he said, ‘Get here in half an hour and I’ll fill you in. But it will have to be quick. I’ve got so many bastards breathing down my neck, my collar’s curling up with the heat.’
I said I’d be there and hung up.
What would I do without the telephone, I wondered. I didn’t know. I took the cups over to the sink and ran the tap. Such a clean, methodical guy!
Tom Gilmour had been sitting in an office surrounded by maps, plans of a house which I took to be Blake’s, piles of typed reports and four telephones. He couldn’t do without them either but from the way they kept ringing when we were trying to talk, it was clear that he wished he could.
But I did get the basic facts, as far as they were known.
Three nights ago, Cathy Skelton had disappeared from Crosby Blake’s Finchley home. She had been out that evening, had gone to a friend’s house to play records and talk. She’d got home at around ten-thirty, made herself a hot drink, said goodnight to her mother and to Blake, then gone to bed.
