by Mike Ripley
I frittered away the morning and then got Armstrong wound up and headed towards the West End. I stopped at a pub I used rarely near the BBC and had a ploughman’s and a couple of orange juices, no alcohol, partly because I wanted to keep a clear head and partly to fit in with the cab-driver persona.
Then I went shopping down at Lillywhites and bought a pair of swimming shorts, a Speedo swimcap and a pair of swimmer’s goggles. There had been no point in looking for a towel at the squat, but I knew Seymour Place baths hired them out. So I was all set.
I still had time to kill, so I thought I’d make a couple of phone calls, and that meant employing the Middleditch gambit.
It’s quite simple, really. You pick a big office block that has a reception and preferably a switchboard near the front door. You draw up in your taxi (motorbikes work even better) and park right outside, making sure you are seen by the security man or the receptionist. Then you march in clutching a thick, sealed brown envelope on which is written ‘Mr Middleditch – By Hand’. (I carry one ready made in Armstrong’s glove compartment.) You announce that you want Mr Middleditch, and when they say there’s nobody there of that name, you ask if you can ‘ring the office’ to find out what’s going on. They always let you use a phone, and sometimes you get a private one in a booth or similar, and I’ve made many Stateside calls that way. I’ve even been brought cups of tea. One of these days, though, I’ll find an office where there really is a Mr Middleditch, and I’ll have to leave a well-wrapped paperback edition of The Story of O. It might almost be worth hanging around to see him open it.
Anyway, Mr Middleditch came through once more, and I got through to Lisabeth on Stuart Street. She calmly told me that the police had called round and that Nassim had been looking for me. Then she got more excited and told me that a Mrs Boatman had called from the National Insurance and was ever so attractive and charming. Oh yes, and Springsteen was okay but had been sick on the stairs. And no, I shouldn’t worry about it as Fenella had cleared it up before Frank and Salome had got home.
I risked another Middleditch and luckily caught Bunny at home. Had he heard any more about the Mimosa Club? No, he hadn’t, but as far as he knew there was no music on there still. He was going down to Soho later and he’d look in. Any messages for Nevil? Sod off, Bunny, but don’t say that to Nevil.
I waved at the receptionist, who had obviously forgotten about me, as I left, saying: ‘Sorry, the despatcher’s given me the wrong street.’ I haven’t paid for a phone call in years.
By 4.30 I was cruising round Seymour Place swimming pool, parking on the blind side as far as Sedgeley House was concerned. I had brought my bag with me, and I left it in Armstrong along with my wallet, spare cash and watch, just taking enough to pay for a ticket and a towel. In case anything went wrong, I was prepared to make a dash for Armstrong. I didn’t want to have to hang about waiting for the attendant to open lockers.
With the swimming cap and goggles on, I could hardly recognise myself, certainly not from a distance, and I also intended to be underwater for most of the time. Just to make sure, however, I moved quickly through the showers to poolside and dived in.
I’d got Nicola to say five o’clock because I knew the pool would be busy, with businessmen and secretaries dipping before heading home and a fair smattering of kids getting in practice for the school team. (The synchro swimmers get me. How do they smile with those nose clips on and one leg in the air? Moreover, why don’t they drown? I would.)
I did a length just to loosen up, and by the end of it I was desperate for a cigarette. I hadn’t realised how out of shape I was getting. Then I slipped over and did a leisurely backstroke back up the pool. This gave me a chance to check out the spectator balconies that overhang the two long sides of the water.
There were no spectators at all, which was a relief, and no-one in the water of a size or shape that could be Nevil. A Great White would have been less out of place.
I was hanging on to the ledge at the deep end, arms out in the crucifix position, when I saw her come out of the ladies’ changing rooms wearing a yellow-and-white-striped one-piece. Good choice, the yellow showing off her tan nicely.
She looked up and down the pool, then moved to the edge and trawled a toe to test the temperature to check that it really was the 82° the notice board on the way in had said. Then she turned and walked towards the deep end, turned again and did a perfect back flip, hardly denting the surface and coming up into a smooth breaststroke only a few feet away from me.
Three powerful strokes brought her to the rail, where she went straight into an underwater turn and headed down the pool. She’d been within a yard of me and not recognised me. So far, so good.
I followed her, using a slow breaststroke and keeping my face underwater as much as possible. She made the shallow end and stood up, plastering her hair back with her hands. She almost popped out of the swimsuit as I passed her and said, ‘Hello, Jo.’
I turned without stopping and crawled back to the deep end, looking back as I breathed to make sure she was following. She was a good swimmer – better than me – and we touched the rail together.
‘I had a funny feeling you’d be around here somewhere,’ she said.
‘You must be psychic.’ I pushed up my goggles to get a better look at her.
‘No, I just remembered you mentioned the baths when we first met.’
She trod water slowly, her hands clasped behind her back. You can do that only if you are really relaxed and have a clean conscience.
‘Actually, it’s your wonderful memory I wanted to talk to you about.’
‘I know, I still owe you 50 pounds.’
‘250, actually, now the police have it. It’s they who are keen for you to remember where you got it.’
She stopped treading water and reached for the rail. She put her head back and looked up at the ceiling.
‘Where’s Jack?’ No reaction. ‘He’s around somewhere, isn’t he?’
Jo put her arms straight up and sank to the bottom, kicked off and came up shaking her head. Thinking time. She still wasn’t talking, though.
‘Come on, Jo, loosen up. I’ve been primed with stolen cash from a post-office raid set up to finance your old man’s own version of early day closing at the nick. I’ve been dragged in by the Old Bill twice, and your pet grizzly bear Nevil is making life very uncomfortable for people I know. You got me into this, lady. Help me get out.’
‘What can I say? You’re over 21. Well over.’
‘You know you are being watched.’
‘Yes, but not all the time. They haven’t got the manpower. Too many villains about.’
That was rich. I began to think she was enjoying this. ‘Well, they missed you at Lee Metford Road yesterday.’
That shook her.
‘How do you know?’
‘I saw you and then I saw Mrs Scamp. She doesn’t think too highly of you, does she?’
‘I’ve taken her Jack away, that’s why.’
‘I thought the High Court had done that.’
She shot me a look, then kicked off from the wall of the pool, and I followed as best I could. As soon as the water was waist high, she stood and walked to the side near to the female showers. I reached her just as she was about to hoist herself out. I put a hand on her arm.
‘Jo, all I want to know is: what have I got into and how do I get out? Life’s too short to have to watch your back all the time.’
She put her hands on the side and straightened her arms and held herself there. It’s a good trick. She was fit, I’ll give her that.
‘Just stay away from me, will you? I’ll try and get you some cash if that’s what worrying you.’
‘It isn’t. I want to know why Nevil is after me.’
‘No, you don’t.’ She was still hanging there, apparently without strain.
‘I’ll keep
asking.’
‘That wouldn’t be clever.’
Then she was out of the water, her feet slapping towards the showers.
I got changed in double quick time, but she must have beaten me. There was no sign of her in the entrance foyer, nor in the street outside. I reckoned it would take her three or four minutes to get back to her flat, but maybe it wasn’t a good idea to hang around the neighbourhood.
I hurried round the corner to where I’d parked Armstrong and climbed aboard.
I dug a comb out of my bag and adjusted the driving mirror so I could sort out my hair before it dried frizzy.
The mirror was full of a huge, white-shirted arm coming from somewhere in the back seat to encircle my throat.
Nevil had just found me.
Chapter Thirteen
Nevil choked me until I almost passed out, then he lifted me out of the driver’s seat and bundled me into the back of Armstrong, hitting me on the back of the neck with what could have been an anvil but was probably his fist. And then, when I was really unconscious, he poked my eyes out.
Well, that’s what I thought when I came round. I couldn’t see anything, so it seemed a logical assumption. Then my sense of smell came into play, and I could smell motor oil, and if I concentrated, I could feel the cloth wrapped tightly around my head. Then I began to realise that my hands were tied behind my back and my legs were also secured to something. I thought it might be a chair, but there didn’t seem to be a back to it, and it was smooth and cold.
There was no time to think of anything else. The pain in my head came then, and I felt sick. Then I heard somebody say, ‘He’s come round, Jack,’ and the blindfold was ripped away, along with a chunk of hair.
My eyes watered with pain, with chlorine from the swimming pool and with oil from the rag I’d been blindfolded with. Slowly, Nevil’s chest came into focus. It seemed to go on forever. He had his shirtsleeves rolled up and his arms folded like piled-up hocks of ham. On top of a neck the diameter of a drainage pipe was a head with a totally expressionless, moonlike face. I looked into his eyes and they reminded me of the saying: ‘The lights were on but there was nobody home.’
Nevil did not look at me, even though his eyes were pointed roughly in my direction. His head was cocked to one side as if awaiting instructions.
I turned my head slowly, and now my throat started to hurt. I wasn’t sure I could speak even if I had anything to say.
Jack Scamp was ignoring me, but I had a feeling my luck couldn’t last.
He was zipping up a small, brown suitcase, which he placed under the table he was standing at, next to another one. There was not much else to look at in the room. There was one chair, a camp bed with one pillow and one blanket, and several cardboard boxes, some with groceries in, some full of rubbish; beer cans, Macdonald’s cartons, and so on.
I tried to swallow and it hurt. I tried to move my hands and they hurt, but I established that they weren’t tied, they were taped at the wrists. My feet were secured by a length of electric cable, which could have come from a table lamp. The cold, smooth thing I was sitting on was a beer keg, which explained why my bum hurt as well.
Jack Scamp had a cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth. He drew on it, then took it out of his mouth and nipped the end off before dropping it on the floor. Prison habits die hard.
I recognized him from the wedding photograph old Ma Scamp had flashed in front of me. If anything, he looked younger and fitter; he’d certainly kept himself in trim, although the hair was thinning and he seemed to be cultivating one long strand on the right side that could be plastered over the scalp. I’ve always thought that much more undignified than going bald.
He was certainly no taller than me, and he stood in an instinctive boxer’s crouch. He was wearing a Levi’s sweatshirt and a pair of jeans without showing a belly-bulge between them; something few men over 45 can do.
‘I’ve been looking forward to seeing you,’ he said, coming up close so I could smell him. He gave off a mixture of sweat and sex. I’ve known it happen to people who get excited easily. He probably had trouble with his glands.
‘There’s been a mistake,’ I croaked. ‘I don’t know you.’
‘But I know you, sonny.’
Why do bullies always call people sonny? I’d noticed that with Malpass. And where was he when I needed him?
‘I’ve never seen you before in my life,’ I said, not believing for a minute that honesty was going to be the best policy.
‘But you’ve seen my wife, haven’t you, you turd.’ He yelled this in case I had trouble hearing him from six inches away.
I recoiled so much I thought I was going to topple backwards, but the cable round my legs kept me anchored to the beer keg.
‘Thought you could get your slimy little end away with my Josephine, didn’t you?’
For a moment I thought he’d flipped and reckoned he was Napoleon, when it clicked he was talking about Jo. I was right about him having flipped, though.
‘I don’t …’
‘Don’t what? Don’t lie? Don’t like women? That’s not what I’ve heard, and I’ve been asking around about you. You’re Jack-the-lad, not me. Nobody’s ever called me that. You’re the fancy music man, aren’t you? The smoothy who drives around in a cab. What sort of a man does that, eh? You’re not a kid, you should know better than to sniff round other men’s wives.’
Well, this was a turn-up, getting lectured on morality by a South London hood.
‘There’s one thing I can’t stand, and that’s messing around with other men’s wives. I never did it. I’d never do that to anybody, and I don’t like it happening to me.’
He was so close now I could count his teeth. I was seeing his pock-marked face through a red film of chlorine irritation. I could still smell it, and his breath and his sweat. I retched down the front of my T-shirt and Scamp stepped back, but it didn’t stop his flow.
‘I think about these things all the time, see.’ He put a forefinger to his temple to illustrate thinking, just in case I wasn’t following.
‘I know I have to watch Josephine, because men are always after her.’ He began to step from one foot to the other, more like a boxer than ever. ‘She can’t help it, that’s why I have to look after her. That’s what I do.’ He paused and nodded his head. ‘Yeah, that’s what I do in life, I look after my own.’
Then he suddenly went up on his toes, and both hands flashed out and clipped me on both cheeks. The blows were not that hard, he hadn’t even made proper fists, but by God they were fast.
‘Looking after my own, that’s what I do,’ Scamp continued as if nothing had happened. ‘And I do it so that people know I’ve been around and I’ve kept my eyes open.’
‘You’ve got the wrong bloke,’ I said, tasting blood. My lip, I think.
‘Oh no I haven’t. Your name is Angel, you’re the one with the cab, the one who plays in a band. I know you’ve been seeing my Josephine and I’ve heard you brag about it, you cocky little bastard. Now nobody, but nobody, does that to Jack Scamp and gets away with it.
He was back in front of me, prodding me with a forefinger.
‘I have a position to keep up, sonny, and I do it by leaving little messages so that people know I’m on top of the situation. Your friend Kenny was one of my messages, except that Nevil here did that one. He wanted to do you too, on account of what one of your girlfriends did to him.’ I heard Nevil breathe loudly. ‘But I said no, I had to do this one personally. Bring him.’
Scamp turned to reach down into one of the boxes of groceries that were scattered over the floor, but I didn’t see what he was after as Nevil was lifting me up by the shoulders.
He picked me up and clear of the beer keg so that the flex holding my legs came off clear but it stayed on my ankles, acting as a hobble. Nevil just walked with me about a foot off the floor until I
hit the table with my stomach.
That seemed to have been what he had in mind, as he put a paw on the back of my neck and bent me forward until my face was squished into the table top.
I felt him rip the tape off my hands, but he kept my left arm in a hammer-lock. My right arm, he forced around in front of me and pressed it hard onto the table, so that the fingers splayed out just in front of my face.
Scamp came around and stood in my line of vision. The hammer-lock kept my head down, but I could see he was carrying a bottle of whisky by the neck.
‘I’m going to enjoy making you one of my messages,’ said Scamp. ‘As soon as I heard about you, I promised myself I’d make sure you retired early from the orchestra pit.’
He didn’t smile, or laugh like maniacs are supposed to. He just smashed the bottle down across my hand. He did it twice before the bottle broke.
I would have laughed, because the fucking loony thought I was a pianist. I would have, if I hadn’t fainted.
‘No, it is him. I know him, he’s a mate, probably just had a few and he’s sleeping it off. He won’t mind, honest. Come on, he won’t ...’
I knew the voice from somewhere. It seemed important to remember from where.
Bunny. It was Bunny, my old mate, me auld mucker, my pal, the man I would trust with … with … well, he’d have to do.
‘He’s crook, I tell yer.’
This was another voice, one I didn’t know, and there was something odd about it. It was female, but that was okay, I could remember them. It was also Australian; that was it. Maybe a Qantas jet had landed and the hosties were on the rampage. If they were, Bunny would have found them.
I hauled myself up from whatever I was lying on. It was the floor of the back of Armstrong. Door-handle; that was my next big objective. Now I was really in control.
Tap-tap.
What the hell? Bunny was rapping on the window. ‘Hey, Angel, you’ve got a fare. Let’s roll and hit the spots.’
