September Song

by Colin Murray

  So, it was to the nearest and sleaziest place I went.

  The Frighted Horse is just a hop, step and a jump from Pete’s Place and is not a pub for the faint-hearted or weak-stomached. I’ve always assumed that there are only two reasons the landlord keeps his licence. The first is that half of the police in Soho are completely bent and money changes hands. The second is that the less corrupt members of the force are well advised to be complicit.

  The bar itself, though not exactly inviting, is not, if you ignore the sad, careworn whores, the stick-thin, seedy alcoholics and the cold-eyed, over-the-hill toughs all waiting for something to happen, that much worse than some other Soho hostelries. But it’s the two upstairs rooms where the action is.

  Nobody looked up when I went in. Eye contact is not encouraged in the Frighted Horse. The smell of unwashed bodies, old urine, sour beer, bad feet, stale cigarette smoke and harsh cleaning fluids caught at the back of my throat, but I fought back the desire to gag and marched swiftly to the counter.

  I risked a surreptitious look around. There wasn’t much of a crowd in. There were a couple of craggy-faced low-life villains, nursing pints of Guinness and pinching out roll-ups after five or six puffs, slumped over a table in one corner.

  Unusually, and sticking out like the proverbial sore thumb, there were three expensively dressed black guys tucked away behind the door, which was why I hadn’t seen them on my way in. They all seemed to be drinking white rum.

  Two elderly, fat white brasses were trying to strike up a conversation. The men politely and silently ignored their repeated suggestions that they be bought a drink.

  I turned back to the bar before it looked as though I was paying more attention to the other customers than was polite, or good for my health.

  I hadn’t seen the barman before. That wasn’t too surprising. I’d only been in the pub three or four times in my life and avoided it if I could. He wasn’t an old man, but he had the sunken cheeks of someone who’d long since lost his back teeth, and his thin, lined face suggested a very hard life. Or a few nasty habits. He sniffed and ran the back of his hand and the frayed cuff of his shirt across his mouth and nose before shuffling over to me. I decided not to ask for a drink.

  ‘I was just wondering,’ I said, ‘if you’ve seen a tall American in here.’

  The barman coughed and spat on the floor. ‘When?’ he said.

  ‘The last twenty-four hours.’

  ‘Nah,’ he said and spat again.

  ‘You sure?’ I said, reaching into my pocket for my wallet.

  He watched me slowly pull the wallet out of my inside pocket, running his tongue around his lips. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘there might have been a Yank in. He didn’t say much. But he might have been a Yank.’

  ‘When?’ I said, sliding the edge of a ten-bob note out of my wallet.

  ‘Well after hours,’ he said. ‘Late last night.’

  ‘And?’ I said.

  ‘And what?’ he said.

  ‘How long did he stay? Where is he now?’

  ‘Are you stupid? How am I s’posed to know that?’

  ‘Did you see him leave?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Was he with anyone?’

  ‘No.’

  I put my wallet away. ‘All right,’ I said. ‘Thanks.’ I put my hand in my pocket, took out a shilling and put it on the damp bar. ‘Here. Have a drink.’

  He looked at the shilling, and then he looked at me. His eyes were red rimmed. He tilted his head slightly, indicating the stairs.

  I nodded and pushed the shilling towards him. He snatched it and pocketed it.

  ‘Thanks,’ I said very quietly. ‘You get the ten bob when I come down.’

  His rheumy eyes lost what little interest had greedily and briefly flickered in them. He was a man who had long ago reached an accommodation with disappointment.

  I pushed through the door to the left of the bar that led to the stairs. As it banged behind me, I pulled my wallet out from the inside pocket of my jacket and slipped it into my front trouser pocket. I didn’t need to look behind me to know that one of the semi-retired toughs would have slid off his seat and be following me.

  The smell on the dark stairs was even worse than in the bar.

  I clumped carefully up, trying to avoid tripping on the worn and loose carpet, into the gloom of the first floor.

  I heard the door to the bar open and close and someone shuffle through just as I reached the landing. I reckoned whoever it was would probably wait for me to come down. At any rate I didn’t hear any stairs creak.

  There was a room directly opposite me, and I thought I might as well start there. The old wooden knob on the door was loose and turning it didn’t get me anywhere, but a gentle push did.

  The room didn’t smell any worse than the landing. But it didn’t smell any better either. Apart from two beaten-up and heavily stained sofas and a small table with a lamp on it, the place was empty. The lamp gave off a dim, yellow light, and most of the room was in soft shadow. The old, rotting red carpet was worn away by the door and looked as if some medieval edict against the use of brooms had never been revoked. I was reluctant to step further in for fear of what I might tread in, but there was a splash of colour on one of the sofas that looked familiar. I tripped across to it as daintily as Jerry’s big, ugly cat negotiating the narrow fence in our backyard and managed to avoid most of the debris sticking to my shoes.

  The bright, pink tie was twisted and tied into a ligature, but it definitely looked like the one the piano player had been wearing. The Brooks Bros, New York label offered more than a little confirmation. He’d probably been here then.

  I slipped the tie into my jacket pocket and wondered where to look for him next. Where would an American jazz musician addict go after getting his junk or his fix, or whatever it was he’d picked up here, if not back to the woman who loved him? Fortnum & Mason and Harrod’s would both have been closed. So would the British Museum. Trafalgar Square? Buck House? Another jazz club, perhaps.

  As I stood there, my thumb pressed against my lips, I heard a noise behind me.

  ‘Well, well, look who it isn’t,’ said a thin, reedy voice, just as something hard and blunt hit me on the back of the head and I fell into the black, treacly, spinning vortex of semi-consciousness.

  FIVE

  There’s an old saying about what goes around, comes around. Unfortunately, after my head stopped whirling, I came around on that disgusting carpet, with grit pressed into my face and the whiff of damp and rot deep in my lungs. I coughed – well, spluttered – into consciousness.

  Oddly, there was no one else in the room. The owner of the thin, reedy voice had gone. And so, too, I thought, had my wallet. Then I remembered I’d moved it to my trouser pocket. I tried sitting up and felt slightly sick. I touched the swelling on the back of my head. It hurt. But at least the skin wasn’t broken, and there was no blood. A sock full of sand will raise an impressive lump and give you as nasty a headache as a proper, lovingly hand-stitched, lead-weighted life-preserver, so I could have been hit by an amateur.

  I risked rising to my feet, but that didn’t make me feel any better, and I stumbled over to one of the rat-nibbled, lumpy sofas, fell back on to it and closed my eyes for a few seconds.

  When I opened them, there were two other men in the room.

  I recognized Ricky Mountjoy immediately. It took me a moment or two to recall the other one as the lightweight from the altercation in Pete’s Place the previous night. I remembered him whining at Peter Baxter about the loss of his membership. It must have been him who’d socked me.

  ‘We really must stop meeting like this,’ Ricky Mountjoy said, putting down the brown-paper carrier bag he was holding. He affected a slight lisp, but the narrow-eyed look he gave me undercut any humour.

  ‘That’s fine by me,’ I said. ‘I’ve got a bit of a headache, anyway, and I thought I might head off home.’

  I stood up, swayed a bit more theatrically than necess
ary and blinked away some pain that was just a little more imaginary than real.

  ‘Not tonight, Josephine,’ he said. ‘Or, at least, not yet.’

  He was still giving me that wary, hostile look, so I hadn’t completely fooled him into thinking I was in a worse state than I really was.

  When I thought about it, I couldn’t blame him. I hadn’t exactly convinced myself that I was feeling better than I really was.

  ‘We need to talk,’ he said.

  ‘What about?’ I said. ‘I have no business with you.’

  ‘Then what are you doing here?’ he said.

  ‘Looking for someone,’ I said. ‘As a favour to a friend.’

  ‘Who?’ he said.

  ‘No one you know,’ I said. ‘This doesn’t concern you.’

  He took a step towards me. ‘But it does,’ he said. ‘You’re on my turf.’

  ‘Really?’ I said, looking around at the seedy room. ‘Moving up in the world, are you? I’d’ve thought this was a bit too far West for you. A bit out of your territory, a bit too classy.’

  ‘Don’t try to be funny. Just tell me who you’re looking for.’

  ‘I’m not trying to be funny, Ricky,’ I said. ‘Just making an honest observation. And, like I said, I don’t think it’s anyone you’re likely to know.’

  He took another step towards me and so, slightly hesitantly, did the lightweight with the cosh.

  ‘Ricky,’ I said, ‘I don’t want any trouble with you, and I’m sure you don’t want blood splashed all over that sharp suit or those nice shoes. It can be a devil to get out, it really can.’ I paused and looked hard at the lightweight. ‘And you’ve already had your free hit. You’re not getting another one.’

  Gratifyingly, he stopped and looked questioningly at young Mountjoy. Unfortunately, young Mountjoy was made of sterner stuff and kept on coming. He reached into his jacket pocket, and I knew what he was going to pull out and didn’t hang about.

  One stride took me right up to him, and I slammed my forearm into his throat. It might not have been in the spirit of the Marquess of Queensbury rules, but it would have warmed the cockles of my old commando trainer’s heart, and it certainly had the desired effect on young Ricky, who collapsed in a gurgling heap, the razor still in his pocket.

  I turned to face the lightweight, just in case he needed a salutary clip around the ear, but he was already on his knees, shuffling to the aid of his stricken colleague. I grabbed him by the collar of his jacket and hauled him to his feet.

  ‘He’ll be all right,’ I said. ‘In an hour or so, he’ll be swallowing beer with the best of them.’

  I marched the kid – he wasn’t much more than that – over to the nearest wall and leaned him up against it, not too gently, holding him by the lapels, shirt front, tie and, probably, some skin.

  ‘Now,’ I said, ‘tell me what you know about the piano player you had the rumble with last night.’

  He looked like he was going to pee his pants. ‘I don’t know,’ he stammered out.

  ‘Yes, you do,’ I said. ‘You followed him here, didn’t you?’

  He said nothing, just stared over my shoulder.

  I tapped my finger against his nose to get his attention. ‘Didn’t you?’ I said.

  He nodded.

  ‘And what happened?’ I said.

  ‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘Honest. He bought his stuff, he shot up and just sort of slumped. Over there.’ He waved his arm at the sofa I’d been sitting on, the one where I’d found the pink tie.

  ‘And what did you do?’

  ‘Went downstairs and had a pint.’

  ‘With?’

  ‘Del, Phil and Ricky.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘I went home.’

  ‘The others?’

  ‘Stayed in the bar. It was a shut-in. After hours.’

  That would explain why Philip Graham hadn’t been cavorting with the lark that morning.

  I let go of the lad, and he smoothed down his lapels, straightened his shirt and tie and brushed at his chest.

  ‘Who sold him the stuff?’ I said.

  He looked uneasy, but he glanced over at Ricky Mountjoy and said nothing.

  ‘Where’s Del now?’ I said.

  ‘Haven’t seen him tonight,’ he said, shaking his head vigorously. ‘Nor Phil neither.’

  Ricky Mountjoy was coughing harshly, and I turned towards him, just in case. He was sitting up but in no shape yet to try to stripe me. I’d expected the lad to try and make it to the door, but he hadn’t. He was still standing against the wall. Maybe he was waiting for my permission to leave.

  ‘What’s your name?’ I said.

  ‘Billy,’ he said. ‘Billy Watson.’

  ‘Well, Billy Watson,’ I said, ‘I don’t want to know what you do for a living that means you can afford that fancy Italian suit, but I’m willing to bet it isn’t working as a hod-carrier on a building site. And I bet it isn’t legal. I just hope it isn’t quite as illegal and ugly as I suspect it is.’

  He looked down at the floor and flushed an angry red. ‘You can’t talk to me like that,’ he said.

  ‘Listen, son,’ I said in my best avuncular manner, ‘a word of advice. Forget the tough-guy stuff. You’re not cut out for it.’ I shook my head. ‘You’re not hard just because you’ve got a sock full of sand in your pocket and you’re happy to hit someone with it from behind. That’s just sneaky. So, as long as you’re just sneaky, I reckon I can talk to you like that.’ I shrugged. ‘I hope that you don’t grow up to be vicious with it. That’ll get you into all kinds of trouble.’

  Some more gagging and hoarse coughing and a little shuffling suggested that Ricky Mountjoy was stirring behind me. Now, he was already vicious and I was in no doubt about how cheesed off with me he’d be. Not only had I hurt him but I’d also humiliated him in front of a subordinate – Billy Watson was just a runner, and Ricky was something more than that – and he’d be after revenge. Ah well, it couldn’t be helped.

  I turned around and made my way over to him. ‘Ricky,’ I said, ‘I’m sorry that I had to hit you, but you didn’t give me any alternative.’

  He looked up at me with real malice. ‘You’ve made a bad enemy,’ he said. ‘I’ll get you for that.’

  I shrugged. ‘I’m sure you’ll try, Ricky,’ I said.

  ‘You bastards,’ he said. ‘You’re all the same. Just because you’ve got a few medals, you think you’re heroes. Better than the rest of us.’

  ‘No one I know thinks that,’ I said. I shook my head and stared down at him. ‘I’m trying to find someone,’ I said. ‘There was an American in here last night, looking to be . . . accommodated. He’s gone missing. I assume you arrange for people to be accommodated here, so I wondered what you know.’

  ‘I wasn’t in here last night,’ he said. ‘I don’t know nothing.’

  Mrs Wilson, my white-haired old teacher at Church Road School, would have tutted over his grammar there, but I let it go. I was more bothered by the fact that he was lying, but I decided to let that go too.

  ‘Fair enough,’ I said. ‘If you hear anything, let me know.’ I started to walk out and then turned back. ‘You don’t know where I might find Del, do you? I fancy a chat with him.’

  He ignored me, and, after a few seconds of uneasy silence, I walked out of the room and down the stairs.

  I hoped that Lee had stumbled back into Pete’s Place during my absence, but one glance at Peter Baxter’s gloomy face as I was waved back in by Bill was enough to confirm that he was still resolutely AWOL. There were a lot more people standing around now than there had been before, and the other three members of Peter’s quartet were shuffling around on stage as if preparing to play.

  I joined Baxter and Jerry, who was cheerily slurping a pint, by the bar and admitted that all I had to show for my efforts was a lump on the head, the lasting enmity of a member of one of the nastiest families in my neck of the woods and the knowledge that Lee had been in the Frighted Horse the
night before. Actually, I left out the stuff about the bash on the bonce and the sworn enmity of Ricky Mountjoy as being of no interest to him, but I told him everything else.

  Peter Baxter looked even gloomier. ‘I’d better go tell Jeannie and then explain to this lot – again – that she’s going to be a no-show tonight,’ he said, heaving himself away from the bar.

  Jerry looked up from his pint and beamed at me. ‘Can’t someone else play the joanna for her?’ he said.

  ‘With no rehearsal?’ Peter said.

  ‘Why not?’ Jerry said. ‘Or maybe she can sing a cappella . . .’

  ‘Do what?’ said Peter.

  ‘Unaccompanied,’ Jerry said.

  ‘Don’t be daft,’ Peter said.

  ‘Just trying to be helpful,’ Jerry said.

  ‘Well don’t,’ Peter said.

  Jerry shrugged and sipped a little of his beer. ‘If you like,’ he said, looking up again, ‘I could have a look at some of her arrangements while you and the band play a set.’

  ‘You?’ Peter and I said more or less together.

  ‘I had a lot of piano lessons when I was a kid,’ he said. ‘I take it you’ve got a piano back there. We might be able to cobble a few songs together. You never know. I’m not saying I’m any good, but I can play a few chords, get her in the mood . . .’

  ‘Nah,’ Peter said. ‘She’s a pro. She won’t sing with a rank amateur.’

  Jerry shrugged. ‘If she’s a real pro, she might give it a whirl,’ he said. ‘It’s worth asking. Isn’t it?’

  ‘Not really,’ Peter said, ‘but I’m desperate enough to try anything. Come on.’

  Peter was right, of course. And, of course, he communicated his unease brilliantly.

  Jeannie Summers sat and listened politely as he stuttered and stammered his way through Jerry’s suggestion, then she frowned as though considering it. After maybe thirty seconds she spoke.

  ‘It’s very sweet of you to suggest it, love,’ she said, looking at Jerry, ‘but it won’t fly. Lee and me, we have a musical . . . understanding. It’s not a simple thing. It’s taken years.’ She looked away as her eyes filled with tears.