Just Another Angel

by Mike Ripley

  I didn’t linger. Let Malpass figure it out. All I felt was relief that I could look over my shoulder now.

  I went back into the club proper and headed for the phone. As I passed the Ladies, I noticed that the beer crates stashed in front of the fire exit had been moved aside. That gave me an idea.

  One of the zipper bags on the stage was stuffed with French francs. I had no idea how much there was in there, but I reckoned it was probably what I was owed by the Scamp family plus a few expenses. I knew Malpass would have had no more than a fleeting glimpse of them, but just to be sure, I went behind the bar and found an empty crisp box.

  I tipped about half the cash into the box and then took a couple of shirts from the second bag and laid them on top of the remaining cash. I was clumsy and had to pick up a couple of notes from the floor and wipe the bags where I’d touched them with a handkerchief. With only one hand, this seemed to take ages, and I hoped Malpass was a slow bleeder.

  Folding the lid of the box together, I hoisted it under my left arm and carried it to the fire exit. I had to put it on the floor to work the door-bar, and once I had it open, I slid it out with my foot. It blended in beautifully with the rubbish bags and empty bottles waiting for the refuse men, but with my luck they’d probably arrive before I could collect it.

  As I was closing the door, I saw a car turn into the end of the street, very slowly and very quietly, driving on sidelights only.

  It got closer, and I saw it was a dark-coloured BMW. I knew before I could see for sure that Jo would be driving.

  The end to a perfect day, I don’t think.

  Chapter Fifteen

  I did eventually phone for an ambulance, and even remembered to ask them to send the cops too, but not before I’d remembered to go through Scamp’s other bag. I recovered my building society book, which was something, but I had to assume that my watch and sterling cash were somewhere about Scamp’s person. The only trouble with that was that Scamp’s person was somewhere all over the road.

  Malpass had hobbled up the street a bit closer to the huddled mess, which I had no intention of looking at. He was still clutching his leg and his temper hadn’t improved any. ‘You took your bleeding time,’ he snarled.

  I thought I’d cheer him up.

  ‘Hold the front page of the Police Gazette – Nevil’s turned up his toes.’

  ‘My God, but you’re a dangerous bloke to be around. How?’

  ‘Seems like Scamp decided to pay him off permanently. He’s back there in the club. I don’t think it happened much before we arrived.’

  He looked down at Scamp again.

  ‘Well, you’re certainly helping the Met’s clear-up rate. Did you get the gun?’ I nodded and fumbled it out of my pocket.

  ‘Not here, you berk, go and stick it in the boot of my car.’

  We both heard a burst of siren that could have been either ambulance or the standard issue police Rover. They wouldn’t use them all the way through empty streets at this time of night unless they were showing off.

  Malpass took his right hand off his leg and fished out his car keys. I took them, and they were slippy with blood from his hand.

  ‘Are you sure you’re all right?’ I asked, trying to sound concerned.

  ‘I’ll live, sonny. And I’ll sleep better nights now. If you’re going to do a runner, you’d better get moving.’

  He was right. I handed over his torch so that he could flag down traffic or whatever policemen do at the scene of accidents and hurried round the corner to Bateman Street to sling the pistol into the boot of Malpass’s Vauxhall. I took the precaution of wiping it with my handkerchief first, just in case the bugger had second thoughts and tried to plant it on me. I must have a suspicious mind.

  Malpass was standing by Armstrong when I got back. We could hear engines now, coming down Oxford Street, but still no sign of any people, which was weird. I felt sure somebody must have seen us re-enacting the OK Corral, but in Soho after dark, a lot of people get suddenly short-sighted.

  I gave Malpass his keys back and climbed aboard my trusty black steed. My head throbbed, but my right hand hardly hurt at all now. Maybe it had gone to sleep. I felt like joining it.

  ‘You’ll have to get this heap off the road while it’s fixed, you know,’ said Malpass, professional to the end.

  ‘Yes, officer,’ I said meekly. ‘And I was never here.’

  ‘Fair enough, I don’t mind taking all the credit.’

  ‘You’re welcome.’ I put Armstrong into reverse. ‘One thing,’ I said through the window.

  ‘What?’ There was another short burst of siren.

  ‘How long had Scamp employed Nevil as a minder?’

  ‘Not long. He recruited him while he was in the nick, we reckon. They shared a cell for a month or so in Wandsworth. Nevil got out around Christmas. Why?’

  ‘Just curious. Did he have a second name?’

  ‘Cooper. There’s no family, if you’re worried about somebody coming after you.’

  ‘No, it’s not that, just curious.’

  I nodded to him and he nodded back and I reversed until I could turn into Soho Square and then right into the parallel street to bring me to the Mimosa’s fire exit. I kept the lights off, and as I turned, I saw the familiar blue flashes in the mirror that meant the cavalry had arrived and Malpass would be a hero.

  I hadn’t told him about the money, nor about the other item I’d found in Scamp’s bag. But you can’t have everything, can you?

  If the ambulance had used its siren continuously, I’m sure it would have frightened Jo off. As it was, I was able to shove Armstrong’s nose at 45 degrees across the bows of the BMW, and I scraped off a fair chunk of paintwork as I opened my door on to her wing. But I just didn’t care any more.

  She gawped when she saw it was me and froze until I knocked on her window with my splint. I could hear vehicle doors slamming in the next street. There wouldn’t be much time before they searched the club.

  Jo fumbled her hands beneath the steering-wheel and her window slid half-way down electrically.

  ‘We can’t go on meeting like this. No, correction: we just can’t go on meeting.’

  It wasn’t one of my best, but not bad in the circumstances. The circumstances in particular included her pointing a small automatic pistol, business end first, at my chest. I’d seen so many guns that night I was beginning to think I was at a Belfast wedding.

  ‘Where’s Jack?’ she said, with a twitch in her voice.

  ‘There was a film called that, you know, about an 18th Century London highwayman. And then of course there was Jack Ketch, which is what they called the public hangman, after the real one who did the business for James II.’

  ‘Stop gabbering. Where is he?’

  ‘Okay, so I’m rambling, but it’s all true, actually. I always rabbit on when people point things at me.’

  She seemed to notice my splinted hand.

  ‘I see you met him anyway,’ she said coldly.

  ‘Yeah, but we won’t be going in for annual reunions. He’s dead.’

  I knew by then not to expect tears, but I did expect more than the flick of the head to take a strand of hair out of her eyes and a quick but loud sniff. Some people have no emotion.

  ‘Did you kill him?’

  ‘No,’ I said. Armstrong was going to have to take the rap for that. ‘The cops are here. At the front door. If you don’t believe me, drive round the block and say hello.’

  She stared straight ahead for a minute.

  ‘They may come out of the exit there any second,’ I said, praying they wouldn’t.

  Jo’s gun disappeared. She must have had a handbag on her knee.

  ‘He killed Nevil, you know.’

  ‘I thought he might.’ Short of hitting her with a brick, I didn’t think I was going to get a reaction out
of her.

  ‘Especially after you showed him this.’

  I held up the thing I’d taken from Scamp’s bag. It was a one-year British visitor’s passport. It had Jo’s photograph, but the name was Mrs Josephine Cooper.

  ‘What did you do? Just let it slip that Nevil was planning on a double-cross?’

  ‘Something like that.’ If I’d expected her to try and grab the passport or throw a wobbler, I was disappointed.

  ‘Was there anything between you two?’

  ‘Nothing much. He was keener than I was.’

  ‘How did he get you the passport?’

  ‘There’s a Civil Service strike on; don’t you read the papers? All you need to get one of them is fill in a form at the post office and show some phoney identification. It’s easy enough to get a provisional driving licence with a new name on it.’

  Really, the deceit of some people. I wondered how long the strike would last, and what time the post offices opened on Mondays.

  ‘So why get Jack out of nick?’

  ‘He wanted out. His mother had been poisoning him during visiting hours, telling him I was carrying on. Jack couldn’t stand it, but he never held it against me.’

  ‘When it came down to it, you figured you’d be better off with Jack, so you dropped Nevil in it.’

  She shrugged her shoulders. For her that was tantamount to visiting the Wailing Wall.

  ‘Jack’s the one with the money.’

  ‘In Boulogne?’ It was a shot in the dark.

  ‘Yes. How did you know?’ Surprise registered in her eyes. She was really running the whole gamut of her emotions now.

  ‘How were you going to get there?’

  ‘First hovercraft from Dover this morning. I have all my stuff in the back.’

  She wasn’t going to volunteer anything.

  ‘How did he get the shotgun?’ I was curious. Did she have the power to persuade Nevil to provide his own murder weapon?

  ‘It must have been Bill Stubbly. He’s been supplying Jack with bits and pieces since he got out.’

  ‘What hold did Jack have over Stubbly?’

  ‘He owned the club. Has done for a couple of years.’

  That explained a lot and confirmed that everyone had known what had been going on except me. There was nothing more to be gained from talking to her.

  ‘You can still make it,’ I said.

  ‘Make what?’ She frowned.

  ‘The ferry – the hovercraft – whatever. To France, as the song says. Go for it.’

  She gave me an up-from-under look, but only about quarter strength, so my legs didn’t melt and my heart hardly fluttered.

  Still cool as anything, she reached forward and started the engine.

  ‘I’d get rid of the gun if I were you,’ I advised, sensible as always.

  ‘I will,’ she said. Then she put her hands behind her neck and something came away in her fingers.

  She held out her left hand through the half-open window. I put mine under it and she unclasped her fist. When I looked, I was holding the emerald pendant with the ‘JJ’ inscription.

  ‘I don’t want you to be out of pocket,’ she said, ‘and I won’t be needing that any more.’

  I slipped it into my jacket and climbed back into Armstrong to ease him back out of her way.

  She didn’t look at me as she drove off, and I waited until her tail lights had gone before I nipped out to recover the crisp box from the fire exit of the Mimosa.

  I hate long goodbyes anyway.

  I suppose I should have got Duncan the Drunken out of bed by throwing pebbles at his bedroom window and whistling softly, but where the hell do you find pebbles in Barking at 4.30 am? So I did the next best thing. I found a phone-box where the phone worked and the box didn’t smell too badly of urine because the ventilation had been improved by somebody stealing the door. They’ve got a good sense of community in Barking. I rang Duncan’s number and let the receiver hang loose. By the time I got through the last couple of streets, he’d be standing in the hallway swearing into his phone and just getting an earful of pip-pip-pip-pip sounds.

  He was. I could hear the foul language from the doorstep, and when I rang the bell, he slammed the phone down with an audible crack.

  ‘Hello, Duncan,’ I said with a smile, ‘you’re up early.’

  The smile wasn’t difficult, despite what I’d been through. Duncan was wearing only tartan carpet slippers and a pair of Fred Flintstone boxer shorts. It would have made a Jehovah’s Witness smirk.

  ‘Angel.’ Duncan scratched his stomach. ‘What in buggery are you doing here at this time?’

  ‘Just passing, Duncan, and I saw your light on. I need some help.’

  ‘Oh aye? Well, it’s lucky I was up, wasn’t it? Bring yourself in and put the kettle on. I’ll go and tell Doreen not to fret.’

  ‘Who is it, Duncan?’ yelled Doreen from upstairs.

  ‘That daft pillock Angel, honeybun. You go back to sleep.’

  Honeybun? Well it seemed to reassure her; she was snoring loudly before the kettle whistled.

  Duncan pulled on a pair of overalls and straddled a kitchen chair while I served him his tea.

  ‘You’ve hurt yer hand,’ he said, like other people say it’s raining.

  ‘It’s a hard life out there, Dunc.’

  I sipped some tea and burnt my lips. I was more convinced than ever that Duncan had an asbestos mouth.

  ‘You in bother, then?’

  ‘No,’ I said fairly truthfully, ‘I think I’ve just got out of it, but I need a bit of help covering my tracks.’

  ‘Oh aye?’ that was a bad sign; he was thinking about it.

  ‘I don’t want money,’ I said hastily, and he relaxed visibly. He was a Yorkshireman, after all. ‘I need a motor for a few days.’

  ‘What sort?’ Duncan the professional.

  ‘Anything with four wheels and a tax disc.’

  ‘For how long?’ Duncan the very professional.

  ‘Until you’ve repaired Armstrong.’

  He considered this, then stood up and put his mug in the sink.

  ‘Better have a look, then.’

  Outside, he ran a wise old hand over Armstrong’s radiator and bonnet. Then he put his hands on his hips and narrowed his eyes at me. There was the first gleam of a dirty dawn in the sky, but Duncan could size up a motor blindfold at night.

  ‘Been grouse-shooting, have we?’

  ‘I thought that was illegal before the twelfth of August.’

  Duncan scratched his head.

  ‘Well, I don’t reckon there’s owt here that Doreen can’t put right.’

  ‘Doreen?’

  ‘Aye. Didn’t I tell you she was doing panel beating at night school?’

  How on earth could that have slipped my mind?

  ‘Well, to be honest, Duncan, I hadn’t thought of Doreen using Armstrong as homework.’

  ‘It’ll be right, lad. I’ll guarantee all the work and respray him meself.’

  Well, that was something, though Duncan’s famous three-hour parts and labour guarantees were not worth the bits of paper they were scribbled on. But I was too tired to argue.

  ‘What about a stand-in? And please, not that Kraut Transit again.’

  Duncan smiled. ‘Got a good price for that the other day. No, I’ve just the thing for you, but I’ll have to charge you.’

  ‘How much?’

  ‘A ton, on condition you keep the mileage below five hundred a week.’

  ‘A ton a week? You franchising for Hertz these days?’

  ‘But wait till you see what I have in mind.’

  I let Duncan drive Armstrong round to his lock-up and open the doors. Armstrong would be out of sight and out of mind of any curious policeman there, unless of course D
uncan got raided, which wasn’t beyond the bounds of possibilities. But then it would take a pretty tough policeman to confront Doreen in full panel-beating swing.

  Inside the lock-up was an ancient Morris Minor badly in need of repair, but worth its weight in rust to collectors these days.

  Duncan saw my face as he got out of Armstrong.

  ‘No, not that – that.’

  He pointed to his left, and I turned my aching head and then immediately cheered up at the sight of a bright red Mercedes 190; what some people call the ‘baby Merc’ but in Hampstead is known as ‘the second Merc.’

  I clapped Duncan on the shoulder with my good hand.

  ‘Duncan, it’s perfect.’

  What the hell, I could afford it. And it would make Frank and Salome furious.

  Frank was furious all right, but more because I made him come down from the top floor in Stuart Street and open the front door. I thought that was a bit of a selfish attitude, as he would have been up at 6.30 anyway showing off his new jogging Nikes. Or was it the Reeboks this week? I lose track.

  I’d driven the Merc very gingerly. After Armstrong, it was the difference between surgery with a laser and amputation with a chainsaw. But I made it somehow, parked right behind Frank’s and Salome’s Golf and staggered to the door clutching my bag and the crisp box. At that point, I’d more or less given up. The legs had gone rubbery and the brain was like chocolate fudge cake. I knew I had some keys somewhere, but couldn’t work out where, and I didn’t seem to have a spare hand.

  I leant my forehead on the doorbell and heard it ring. I was sure it would be Frank who answered. Lisabeth would be deep in the Land of Nod, Fenella still had her parents with her and nobody ever saw Mr Goodson at the weekend.

  ‘Yes?’ Frank started. ‘What …? Good God, man, you’re as white as a sheet!’

  ‘You’re not, Frank,’ I beamed, then fell into his arms.

  We wrestled for a while as he tried to pick me up. He had the strength to do it easily, but I was a bit bulky and uncooperative as I refused to let go of my bag and crisp box.