Soho Ghosts (The Soho Series Book 2)

by Greg Keen

  ‘Thanks for calling me back,’ she said.

  ‘Pleasure. How can I help?’

  ‘There’s something I’d like to show you.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Photographs. I’d prefer not to go into details on the phone. You never know who might be listening in.’

  ‘Presumably it’s something to do with George.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Look, Sally, if it’s the kind of thing they found in his bathroom then you really ought to go to the police.’

  ‘It isn’t.’

  ‘Can’t you give me a hint, at least?’

  ‘I’d rather not. Is there somewhere we can meet?’

  ‘Where are you now?’

  ‘Foyles.’

  ‘How about Bar Bernie in Wardour Street at one o’clock?’

  ‘See you there,’ she said.

  On my way back to Wapping Tube station, my phone rang, displaying Gary’s name. Hopefully it was good news from his visit to the Burbage Hotel.

  ‘Did you find anything?’ I asked.

  ‘Sod all’ was his disappointing answer.

  ‘Who did you talk to?’

  ‘Concierge, bar staff, waiters, porters, you name it.’

  ‘And you showed them McDonald’s photograph?’

  ‘Yeah, I told them it was my brother who’d gone missing, like you said. One of the bar staff started crying and said that her sister disappeared last year and they still haven’t found her. I felt like a right piece of shit.’

  ‘Welcome to my world, Gary.’

  ‘What d’you want me to do now?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m seeing someone in Bar Bernie at one. Why don’t we meet in the Vesuvius later and we can work something out. Assuming you want to carry on, that is . . .’

  ‘Will it involve me lying my arse off?’ he asked.

  ‘That depends on what Meg Dylan has to say,’ I replied.

  I’d hoped that the next time I spoke to Ma Dylan it would be to hand over Martin McDonald’s address and the name of the bank in which he had deposited her cash. Admitting that I was no further down the road wasn’t a happy prospect. Usually I’m hoping I don’t get someone’s voicemail. This time it was the other way round.

  She answered on the second ring.

  ‘Hello, Kenny. Have you got some news for me?’

  ‘Er, not exactly, Mrs Dylan.’

  ‘Do call me Meg.’

  ‘We checked out the Burbage, Meg.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘They have no record of the business seminar where Billy met Martin McDonald. In fact, they haven’t had that kind of event this year.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘We spoke to the conference organiser.’

  Silence.

  ‘So I was just wondering,’ I continued, ‘whether Billy might have got the name of the hotel wrong. There are quite a few in that area.’

  It must have sounded as unlikely to Meg Dylan as it did to me. ‘Let me have a word with him,’ she said. ‘How are your other leads coming along?’

  ‘Nothing concrete yet,’ I said. ‘But it’s early days.’

  ‘Not really, Kenny,’ she replied sweetly. ‘You’ve only got six days left on the job. After that, I’m afraid the penalty clause will have to be invoked.’

  My sphincter dilated and my scrotum tightened. ‘I’m sure we’ll have good news for you soon,’ I said in a voice distinctly higher than its usual register. ‘There are a couple of leads.’

  ‘That’s wonderful,’ Meg Dylan said. ‘Billy will return your call sometime this afternoon. Have a great day, Kenny.’

  ‘Drop dead, bitch,’ I said.

  To the dialling tone.

  Trinity Road was a five-minute walk from Hampstead Tube station. Most of its Georgian houses had three storeys, and I passed four English Heritage blue plaques on my way to number 38. Wooden shutters obscured most of the box windows. There were boot scrapers, lamp holders, fire plaques and even a couple of sundials.

  Five million would buy you something decent, although you’d have to fork out at least another three to go top of the market. Peter Timms’s house was yellow-brick and had black-painted iron railings outside, with a flight of steps running up to the front door. I pressed the bell and waited.

  The woman who answered looked to be in her late forties. She had bobbed blonde hair and she was wearing a black polo-neck sweater and jeans. On her feet was a pair of incongruous yellow trainers with green flashes. Delia Timms looked as though she had been crying for a long time and was only just keeping it under control now.

  ‘Can I help you?’ she asked.

  ‘My name’s Kenny Gabriel,’ I said. ‘My brother spoke to you earlier.’

  Delia took several seconds to recall the conversation. ‘Yes, Malcolm said you might come round. You’re some kind scaffolding expert. Is that right?’

  What I know about scaffolding could be written on the back of a beer mat, leaving room for the Old Testament and most of Paradise Lost. Malcolm hadn’t thought it appropriate to bother Delia Timms with stories of ghostly portents, though.

  ‘More an accident investigator,’ I said.

  ‘The police experts think it was a loose bolt.’

  ‘Almost certainly they’re right, but you know what insurance companies are like. Often they try to invalidate claims due to misadventure.’

  A frown came over Delia’s face. ‘You’re saying that Pete came back from a DTI function and decided to shin up thirty feet of scaffolding in his dinner suit?’

  ‘That’s what they might suggest. I assume he was carrying life cover . . .’

  This gave Delia pause for thought. Money usually does for most people. She ran a hand through her hair and said, ‘Well, I suppose there can’t be any harm, although it’s just a lot of poles and stacked planks now.’

  ‘Great,’ I said. ‘How do we get round there?’

  We entered a passage through a locked gate. To the right was the exterior of the house, to the left a high wall separating it from the property next door. The passage led on to a decent-sized garden. Mostly it was well-tended lawn, although there were two mature oak trees, in one of which was lodged a sturdy-looking tree house.

  ‘After we broke up, Pete preferred to use the granny flat,’ Delia Timms said. ‘This is the easiest way to access it.’

  We had stopped by a door that, judging by the different brickwork, had been built into the property in the last couple of decades. Lying on his back was a headless garden gnome. Apparently Peter Timms hadn’t been the only fatality last night. A few yards away, scaffolding poles, joints, pins and planks had been neatly arranged.

  ‘What time did your husband get back?’ I asked.

  ‘I think about ten o’clock,’ Delia said. ‘The man next door heard the taxi pull up. Five minutes later there was an almighty crash. The neighbour can see into the passage from up there.’ She pointed at a window under the eaves of the house next door. ‘One of Pete’s legs was stretched out from under the scaffolding, and he called the emergency services.’

  ‘Was the scaffolding arranged above the door?’

  ‘That’s right. The wall needed repointing.’

  ‘Did the police take anything away?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’ Delia consulted her watch. ‘Look, I don’t want to appear rude, Kenny, but as I’m sure you can imagine, arrangements need to be made . . .’

  ‘No problem,’ I said. ‘I’ll let myself out when I’m done.’

  ‘Will you tell Malcolm if you find anything amiss?’

  ‘Of course,’ I said, ‘although I wouldn’t concern yourself too much about that. And I’m sorry for your loss. Peter seemed a decent man.’

  Delia’s eyes brimmed. ‘The divorce had got really unpleasant,’ she said, ‘but that was only the bloody lawyers. I just hope Pete knew I didn’t . . .’

  ‘I’m sure he did,’ I replied.

  Delia Timms nodded, retraced her steps and closed the gate.
Not for the first time I felt less than splendid about lying for a living. I distracted myself by focusing on the accident site. If someone had collapsed the rig then I didn’t see how. Had they been on top of the structure, they’d have come down with it.

  Peter Timms had told me the door leading to the neighbour’s garden had been locked the night he saw Alexander Porteus. It still was. It would have taken a decent-sized key that I’d bet pounds to peanuts had been long since lost, even if the mechanism hadn’t rusted. The wall was twelve feet high. For anyone other than Spider-Man, it would have taken a ladder or a rope to scale.

  Unless Alexander Porteus had walked straight through it, of course. Had Peter Timms really seen the shade of a black magician ten days ago?

  After checking the door, I took a few shots of the garden and the granny-flat window on my phone. Then I walked back to the side of the house where the scaffolding was stacked. I noticed the gnome’s head lying under a rhododendron bush and fished it out. He was a cheerful-looking fella with a white beard and a red hat. I stood his body up and balanced the head on his shoulders. He looked grateful and I decided to pump him for information. ‘What happened last night, mate?’

  Nothing from the gnome.

  ‘Was it an accident, or did someone do him in?’

  Nothing from the gnome.

  ‘Did you see Alexander Porteus too?’ I asked.

  ‘Is your name Kenny?’ he replied.

  My surprised cry caused the man to jump a couple of inches. In his late forties, he was wearing a pair of Lycra shorts and a top made from the same material. His baseball cap bore the Adidas logo and a water bottle was clipped to a thin belt around his waist. A runner, unless I was very much mistaken.

  ‘Geoff Cracknel,’ he said. ‘I own the place next door. I was just checking on Delia and she said that you were taking a look around. Sorry to give you a start.’

  ‘No problem,’ I said. ‘I was just . . .’

  Having a chat with a decapitated garden gnome didn’t seem the ideal way to finish the sentence. Instead I rose from my crouch with the usual stifled moan. Geoff removed his cap to reveal a mass of sweat-drenched grey curls.

  ‘Delia says you’re an accident investigator.’

  ‘That’s right. My brother, Malcolm, was friends with Peter.’

  ‘The police have already been.’

  ‘Are you the person who called them last night?’ Geoff nodded. ‘Did they interview you this morning?’ He nodded again. ‘I don’t suppose they mentioned anything suspicious?’

  ‘Why d’you ask?’

  ‘Peter said he’d had an intruder a couple of weeks ago.’

  Geoff uncapped his bottle and took a swig. I suspected it was more to give him the chance to think than hydrate. ‘Are you suggesting foul play?’ he asked.

  I shrugged and said, ‘There must be a fair few burglary attempts in a neighbourhood like this.’

  ‘Not really. Security’s high, which means you’d have to be either very skilled or very stupid to attempt a break-in.’

  ‘But it does happen?’

  Geoff replaced the cap on his bottle and prodded the watch strapped to his wrist a couple of times. ‘Something occurred to me when I was running. Perhaps I ought to have mentioned it to the police.’

  ‘What was that?’ I asked.

  ‘Before the scaffolding gave way, I heard a shout.’

  The revelation was a disappointment. Most people have something to say when half a ton of scaffolding falls on their head. Assuming they get the chance to say anything at all, that is. I put this point to Geoff.

  ‘I don’t mean immediately before,’ he replied. ‘More like ten seconds.’

  Less disappointing.

  ‘Was it a sentence or a word?’ I asked.

  ‘Just a shout, as though he’d been surprised by something. But if it was the scaffolding working loose, surely he would have had time to jump away.’

  True enough. Even if he’d caned the hooch at his DTI do, ten seconds would have been more than sufficient for Peter to take evasive action.

  ‘You sure it was that long?’ I asked.

  Geoff nodded. ‘I was on a conference call to the States. Otherwise I’d have checked it out immediately.’

  ‘And you didn’t mention this to the police?’

  ‘I said there was a shout, but they didn’t seem to think it was relevant.’

  ‘Did you emphasise the time delay?’

  ‘Not really. D’you think I should call them?’

  ‘Might be an idea,’ I said.

  EIGHTEEN

  The older you get, the narrower life becomes. The opportunities of youth begin to slough away in your thirties. If you’re not doing what you want to do by forty, then hopefully you’ve got enough cash to anaesthetise yourself with hi-tech juicers, mid-range BMWs, wearable technology and heritage vinyl. One day in your fifties, you’ll look into the mirror and wonder why your old man is staring back at you.

  A decade later, the juicer’s been replaced by nasal-hair clippers and the BMW traded in for something half the size that knows how to parallel-park itself. You’re also taking a keen interest in Alzheimer’s research. From there on in, it’s just a matter of what’s going to kill you and when oblivion is scheduled to arrive.

  In the New Year, my doctor had suggested that I swap antidepressants for sessions with a cognitive behavioural therapist. Greta encouraged me to combat negative thinking. En route to Wardour Street, I gave it a shot. If I failed to find Martin McDonald, there would be no need to worry about a ripening prostate or a softening brain. Nor would I be routinely humiliated in a rest home by work-experience teenagers on Ritalin. By the time I entered Bar Bernie, I was at least two notches above suicidal.

  Sally Thomas, the secretary I’d gifted George Dent’s watercolour to in Mermaid Court, was tucking into a mug of coffee and reading a volume of Tony Benn’s diaries. She looked smarter than at our last meeting. Her brown hair was in a ponytail and she’d put a bit of slap on. That and the trouser suit led me to wonder if she was going somewhere special. I slid on to the opposite bench in the booth.

  ‘Hey, Kenny,’ she said. ‘How’s it going?’

  ‘Oh, you know . . . How can I help you?’

  Sally closed the book and placed it in a small pink rucksack. From it she took an A4 envelope and placed it on the table.

  ‘I’m assuming these are the photographs,’ I said.

  ‘That’s right.’

  I reached for the envelope. Sally covered it with her hand. ‘You have to promise not to say where you got them.’

  ‘I promise.’

  ‘And that you won’t sell them to the press.’

  ‘Would they be interested?’

  She nodded. ‘They’re of George.’

  ‘Can I show them to anyone?’ I asked.

  ‘If it helps find out who framed him.’

  ‘You think the photographs might do that?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘So why not take them to the police?’

  ‘Because I don’t trust them.’

  ‘You could make copies.’

  ‘I already have.’

  Sally took her hand off the envelope and I looked inside. In two of the images, George Dent was hunched over a coffee table with a rolled twenty up his nose. It was poised over a line of white powder. In the third shot there was another guy on the sofa. This companion was staring directly into the lens of what was clearly a concealed camera. The light wasn’t great but it didn’t need to be. I recognised the face immediately.

  ‘Where did you find these, Sally?’

  ‘They were taped inside the lining paper at the back of the watercolour. I didn’t notice the envelope until I went to hang it up. Even then I almost missed it.’

  ‘Have you any idea why they were there?’

  ‘You can tell the camera’s hidden. Someone’s trying to blackmail him.’

  They were the kind of photographs you saw first in tabloids and then plaster
ed across celeb sites. Usually taken in sting operations by journos ‘acting in the public interest’. Only these didn’t seem to have made it on to the editor’s desk. I slipped the pictures back into the envelope.

  ‘What d’you want me to do with them?’

  ‘You said your client thought George was innocent.’

  ‘How do pictures of him taking drugs prove that?’

  She leant forward in her seat and said under her breath, ‘Because maybe it was the same person who planted the child abuse pictures in his flat.’

  ‘Maybe,’ I said. ‘And maybe not.’

  ‘Whoever’s in the picture with him has to be a suspect.’

  ‘D’you know who it is?’ Sally shook her head. I treated her to a protracted sigh. ‘Tough to track someone down from a photograph.’

  ‘You’re not interested, then?’

  ‘I’ll show them to my associate and see what he can come up with.’

  Sally’s extended bottom lip made her look like a disappointed eight-year-old whose dad had bought the wrong doll at Christmas. But there was no point in telling her the truth. She’d only want to know what I intended to do, and I hadn’t decided that yet. Unkind not to offer up something, though.

  ‘Odeerie might get lucky,’ I said. ‘How about I keep you in the loop?’

  ‘I expect to be kept in the fucking loop,’ she snapped. ‘I’m the one who gave you the photographs. And who the hell’s Odeerie?’

  ‘A guy I work with. He’s good with stuff like this.’

  Sally frowned and said, ‘Maybe I ought to take them to the police.’

  ‘Give me a couple of days,’ I replied. ‘If I haven’t been able to sort anything out then, by all means, go to the Met.’

  ‘I suppose so.’ Sally glanced at my watch. ‘Is that the right time?’

  ‘Actually, it’s five minutes slow.’

  ‘Shit!’ She grabbed her bag and coat.

  ‘Off to something important?’ I asked.

  ‘Job interview.’

  ‘Really? What are you going for?’ I asked.

  She was halfway to the door before I finished the sentence.

  I had almost an hour to kill before I needed to meet Gary. It was enough time to eat a burger and chips and check in with Odeerie. The fat man’s phone went straight to mail. I was halfway through a Quarter Pounder when my mobile began ringing with a withheld number. I answered expecting Odeerie. ‘You’re in big trouble, cunt’ wasn’t his usual opening.