Soho Angel

by Greg Keen

  OTHER TITLES BY GREG KEEN

  The Soho Series

  Soho Dead

  Soho Ghosts

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2019 by Greg Keen

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Thomas & Mercer, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Thomas & Mercer are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781542004107

  ISBN-10: 1542004101

  Cover design by @blacksheep-uk.com

  For Mum

  CONTENTS

  PROLOGUE

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  TWENTY-ONE

  TWENTY-TWO

  TWENTY-THREE

  TWENTY-FOUR

  TWENTY-FIVE

  TWENTY-SIX

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  TWENTY-NINE

  THIRTY

  THIRTY-ONE

  THIRTY-TWO

  THIRTY-THREE

  THIRTY-FOUR

  THIRTY-FIVE

  THIRTY-SIX

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  THIRTY-NINE

  FORTY

  FORTY-ONE

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  PROLOGUE

  Kenny Gabriel wasn’t what you thought when you thought private detective. His corduroy jacket, once probably black, was now an indeterminate colour. The jeans couldn’t have cost much more than a tenner and his tousled grey hair needed a cut. During the time the man had been following him – getting on for two hours now – Kenny had smoked five cigarettes and eaten a slice of pizza bought from a kiosk by the station. It had been washed down with a can of Tango. He’d crossed the road and nearly been run down by a cab driver who hadn’t seen him until it was almost too late. The cabbie had verbally abused Kenny and Kenny had abused him back. It was an entertaining interlude in an otherwise dull afternoon.

  And yet maybe that was what made Kenny Gabriel good at his job, and it did seem from their research that he was good at his job. If no one noticed you, then you were already halfway to being successful. The man knew that from his own experience. He and Kenny had something in common – they blended into the crowd.

  There were two of them in the business. One was a fat guy who looked a lot like B.B. King and didn’t seem to get out much. The other was Kenny. The company was registered with the SIA, according to its website, and specialised in skip-tracing jobs. Usually that involved finding long-lost relatives, tenants who’d done a flit, or absent fathers who had reneged on child support orders. Not big-time exactly.

  Kenny had popped a couple of pills shortly after the near miss with the taxi. Was he suffering from a hangover? He looked like a drinker but surely it was too late in the day for that to be the case. He’d been sneezing a fair bit, so perhaps Kenny had a cold or the flu coming on. There was a lot of it about, apparently.

  Living on your own in middle age was sad. He’d read an article that claimed being single no longer carried the stigma it once had. Bullshit. If you were living on your own at Kenny’s age then something had gone wrong in life.

  The address was interesting. Kenny lived in Soho and living in Soho was expensive. Had been expensive for quite a while, in fact. Judging by the company’s annual return, there was no way Kenny could be getting paid enough to rent a flat in Brewer Street. Perhaps he had a supplementary source of income.

  He had decided that he quite liked Kenny. Maybe, if they were to meet under different circumstances, they would get on well together. His instructions were not to do anything today unless there was zero risk involved. Maybe a situation would arise and maybe it wouldn’t. He would have to see how the rest of the day panned out.

  And if it didn’t happen then there was more than enough money available to engineer something. There had been a discussion as to whether Kenny needed to be killed or whether something very scary could be arranged to make him give up the case. In the end it was decided there was simply too much at stake.

  Kenny Gabriel had to die.

  ONE

  OC Trace and Find was often approached to find a missing family member. Usually a couple of photographs and a description of the subject accompanied the briefing. In Emily Ridley’s case, neither photos nor description were necessary. Half the nation knew when and, more significantly, with whom she had disappeared.

  Emily’s mother was sitting on one of the office sofas. On its opposite number were perched Odeerie and myself. The proprietor of OC Trace and Find had discarded the tracksuit he habitually wore for a double-breasted grey suit. The wall clock read 8.15. I had a hell of a headache, made unusual by the fact that alcohol hadn’t passed my lips in six days. I sipped a lukewarm Nescafé and focused on the conversation.

  ‘What exactly were you hoping for as a result of the investigation, Mrs Ridley?’ Odeerie asked. ‘Several organisations have attempted to locate Emily over the years.’

  Pam Ridley had short iron-grey hair and a face latticed with lines and creases. She replied in an accent forged in one of the less fashionable London boroughs.

  ‘They’ve tried to locate Castor Greaves. He was famous; Em wasn’t. I want to know what happened to her, that’s all.’

  ‘You think that your daughter may still be alive?’

  Pam Ridley shook her head. ‘She’d have found a way to let me know if she was. Especially when her dad died. I want you to find out where she is.’

  Odeerie nodded. The fat man was usually up for taking any job that paid the daily rate. I could understand his reluctance over this one. The chances of finding Emily Ridley in any condition after twenty-two years were slim, and her mother didn’t look like a woman with the resources to fund a lengthy investigation.

  ‘I’ve got the cash, if that’s what you’re worried about,’ she said as though reading my mind. ‘Uncle Rory left me a packet in his will.’

  ‘I think Mr Charles was more thinking about the likelihood of a successful outcome,’ I said, making my first proper contribution to proceedings. ‘Emily was last seen in 1995, Mrs Ridley. If missing people don’t turn up within the first six months, they frequently don’t turn up at all.’

  Pam Ridley’s mouth tightened and she folded her arms.

  ‘If you don’t want my money then there’s those that do,’ she said, a comment that focused Odeerie’s mind immediately.

  ‘We’re not saying that we don’t want to help, Mrs Ridley,’ he said, giving me a sideways look. ‘Just that we’re trying to understand your specific goals.’

  ‘Well, you know now. Are you up for it or what?’

  ‘Of course. We’ll give you a new client form and take a retainer at the end of our meeting. As a matter of interest, what made you decide to approach OC Trace and Find?’

  Pam nodded in my direction. ‘Kenny found that girl who went missing a couple of years ago,’
she said. ‘And he sussed who killed Blimp Baxter.’

  Although they had brought a fair degree of press interest, the cases in question hadn’t been unqualified successes. This was a fact that Pam Ridley had overlooked, or was determined enough to ignore.

  ‘You haven’t had any contact with your daughter whatsoever since she was last seen at the Emporium club in Archer Street on the . . .’ Odeerie consulted his notes. ‘On the night of 19th July 1995?’

  ‘Nope. Nothing at all.’

  ‘What about the alleged sightings of Castor and Emily?’

  ‘They’re bogus.’

  ‘There have been several photographs. The one in Goa did bear a very strong—’

  ‘Have either of you got kids?’ Pam interrupted. Odeerie and I shook our heads in unison. ‘Well, the thing is that you’ve got a bond with them. When it’s gone . . . when they’ve gone . . . you feel it in your guts.’

  As if to emphasise the point, Pam Ridley patted her midriff.

  ‘I knew that night something had happened to Em, without being told,’ she said. ‘And that I weren’t going to see her again. Leastways not alive.’

  ‘Have you any idea what might have happened to Emily, Mrs Ridley?’ I asked.

  ‘Murdered,’ came the immediate reply.

  The word hung in the air.

  ‘Either that, or someone gave her drugs and she overdosed,’ she added. ‘Then they got rid of her body. It amounts to the same thing.’

  ‘Was your daughter a regular drug user?’ Odeerie asked.

  Pam Ridley lost eye contact and shifted position on the sofa. ‘She might have done a few things, but all the kids used to take stuff back then. That doesn’t make her a bad person. She just fell in with the wrong crowd, is all.’

  ‘Why d’you think Castor Greaves disappeared at the same time?’ I asked.

  ‘How should I know?’ Pam said. ‘All I wish is that my little girl never met him or his bloody rock band.’ She glanced at the clock. ‘Is that it? Only I’ve got to be at work by half nine . . .’

  ‘I think that’s sufficient information to be going on with,’ Odeerie said, and heaved himself out of the sofa. He waddled over to a brushed aluminium desk, selected a new client form from a rack and made the return trip. ‘Send this back to us with a bank transfer or a cheque for five hundred pounds and we’ll get on with the job immediately, Mrs Ridley. You’ll receive a weekly financial account along with a daily update.’

  Our new client took the form and tucked it into her handbag. From the same bag she withdrew a bundle of fifties held together with an elastic band.

  ‘Three thousand,’ she said. ‘When it’s gone I’ll send more.’

  Most clients take months to pay their invoice, and bitch about my entirely justifiable, if not necessarily well-documented, expenses. It was the first time I could recall one paying up front in cash with an assurance of more to follow.

  ‘Once we’ve reviewed the circumstances of your daughter’s disappearance then we’ll likely have more questions for you,’ Odeerie said. ‘And of course I’ll give you a receipt for this . . .’

  I helped Pam on with her coat. Uncle Rory may have left a packet, but his beneficiary hadn’t been spending it on clothes. Her ancient sweater had multiple snags and the jeans could have come from the same budget rail as my own. ‘What kind of work do you do, Mrs Ridley?’ I asked when the manoeuvre was complete.

  ‘Cleaner,’ she said, which explained the outfit. ‘I’m doing Professor Cranton this morning. The prof lives up in Belsize Park, so it’s a bit of a trek.’

  ‘Did Emily have any brothers and sisters?’

  ‘No. Geoff and me wanted more, but it didn’t turn out that way. Sometimes you’ve got to be grateful for what comes along in life, haven’t you?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I suppose you do.’

  Odeerie returned with a receipt. Pam shoved it into her pocket as though it were a Kleenex. ‘You’ll start on it straight away, then?’ she asked.

  ‘This morning,’ Odeerie confirmed. ‘Although you won’t be a client officially until you’ve returned the form, Mrs Ridley. Kenny can pick it up. He might have a few more questions.’

  ‘He’s only working on this?’

  Odeerie nodded. ‘I’ll pull Mr Gabriel off his current investigation and make him the lead operative on yours.’

  As I was Odeerie’s only ‘operative’ and my current ‘investigation’ involved counting the number of vehicles entering a car park in Hammersmith to work out whether the attendant was skimming the machine, this probably wouldn’t prove too difficult.

  ‘Nice to meet you, Kenny.’ Pam Ridley and I shook hands. ‘My swami said I’d encounter a man who would reveal a path that had been dark for many years.’

  ‘Your what?’

  ‘Swami Hari. He gives readings in Porteus Books. At least he used to, until it closed down. He does them over the phone these days.’

  ‘And the swami thinks that man is me, Mrs Ridley?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ she said. ‘He’s sure it is.’

  As Odeerie hadn’t been able to leave his flat/office for the best part of a decade, it fell to me to escort Pam Ridley to the front door of Albion Mansions. On my return, I pondered what she had said about being grateful for what comes along in life.

  In a month I would turn fifty-nine. It was a time when most guys were putting their names down for the allotment or golf club where they could while away their retirement years. My pension plan wasn’t likely to stretch to either, largely as I didn’t have a pension plan. What I did have was a job doing the legwork for an agoraphobic skip-tracer with an eating disorder, a flat on Brewer Street courtesy of an overachieving brother, and the worst headache I’d had since Wimbledon won the FA Cup.

  When I re-entered the office, Odeerie was munching a chocolate digestive. The banknotes had been subdivided into piles. ‘D’you think we should be taking Pam’s money?’ I asked. ‘Because I get the feeling she doesn’t have that much of it.’

  ‘You heard what she said about Uncle Rory.’

  ‘All the same . . .’

  ‘If she wants to spend her cash, it might as well be with us.’

  Odeerie had a point. OC Trace and Find was going through one of its periodic lulls in business. My brother had waived the rent but didn’t cover my utility bills.

  ‘Aren’t you meant to be on a diet?’ I asked as he crunched into another biscuit. ‘You know what the doctor said about your blood pressure.’

  Odeerie sighed and put the biscuits into his drawer. He regrouped the notes and fastened the elastic around them before transferring the wad into an ancient cast-iron safe.

  ‘We should start by reviewing the case,’ he said after spinning the dial. ‘Did you do your research?’

  ‘I checked out Wikipedia, if that’s what you mean.’

  Odeerie looked at me expectantly.

  ‘Castor Greaves went missing after Mean’s last gig in ’95. The band was about to release its third album but there had been a lot of tension amongst the members as to its musical direction. Castor was lead singer and had reportedly been heavily into drugs. Against expectations the gig turned out to be a total stormer with many critics rating it in their top ten of all time.’

  ‘And which half of London seems to have seen.’

  Odeerie had a point. If everyone who reckoned they were at Mean’s last gig actually had been at Mean’s last gig, then it would have needed to take place at Wembley Stadium as opposed to a modest venue in Soho.

  ‘After the show,’ I continued, ‘Castor and the rest of the band and the crew have a small party to celebrate. At around one a.m., Castor’s girlfriend, aspiring model Emily Ridley, says that she has to get up early for work and leaves. Five minutes later, Castor says that he’s going to take a leak. When he doesn’t return after twenty minutes, someone goes to find out where he is.’

  ‘Someone?’ Odeerie asked.

  ‘Okay – Chop Montague, the bass player, goes to f
ind out where he is. He’s not in the toilets so the building is searched in case Castor has passed out, but he’s nowhere to be found. Everyone assumes he’s gone home. The party folds and the club’s locked up for the night.’

  ‘And neither Castor nor Emily are seen again.’

  ‘Depending on who you believe. In the years that follow there are various alleged sightings of the couple as far apart as India and Iceland. People start wearing T-shirts with I’m with Cas and Em above their picture. Various theories appear in the press as to where they are and a couple of books are written about it.’

  ‘What’s your theory, Kenny?’

  ‘Christ, I don’t know. It’s an urban legend, not someone using a dodgy key to rob a parking meter. Where do we start?’

  ‘At the beginning,’ Odeerie said. ‘Like we always do.’

  TWO

  The journey from Albion Mansions on Meard Street to the Vesuvius club on Greek Street took ten minutes. April may be the cruellest month, but March can be a bastard too. The chill wind whistling down Bateman Street brought tears to my eyes.

  It used to be that Soho at 8.45 a.m. was a fairly empty place, what with the clip joints and porno cinemas not opening up until noon. As most of these had become marketing agencies, or TV production companies, the place was crawling with execs clutching double-shot macchiatos on their way to the first meeting of the day.

  The Vesuvius was a reminder of finer times. An expat Italian called Jack Rigatelli had opened the place in the late ’60s. Jack’s creative manifesto had been a simple one – a basement club in which ‘members’ could get pissed and/or play cards from when the pubs closed until dawn the following day.

  Jack was no longer with us but the Vesuvius was. Its former manager had returned from Manchester to put the place back on its feet. Stephie hadn’t made any dramatic changes, apart from opening up at lunchtime. This meant her second in command arrived early to sort the place out. I opened the door to find Whispering Nick pushing a vacuum cleaner around with the enthusiasm of a man sweeping for landmines.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ he asked after switching it off.

  ‘And a very good morning to you too, Nick.’