Soho Angel

by Greg Keen

  ‘Alone,’ I said. ‘As agreed.’

  The bolt was slipped from its bracket and the door properly opened. Pauline was getting on for six feet in height. She had thick auburn hair that fell to her shoulders and a complexion that appeared make-up free but probably wasn’t. She was wearing black jeans tucked into knee-length brown boots and a cream sweater.

  A bed large enough to play five-aside on stood on a low wooden platform. The walls had been decorated in a blue silk, fleur-de-lis pattern. A circular glass table bore a closed MacBook and had several documents strewn across it. Velvet drapes had been drawn against the dusk.

  ‘You’ve got ten minutes,’ she said, hands on hips. ‘So say whatever Jake wants you to say and then piss off.’

  ‘Jake doesn’t know I’m here,’ I said.

  ‘Thought he was a mate of yours . . .’

  ‘More an acquaintance.’

  Pauline’s appraisal began with my piebald Hush Puppies and finished at my six-quid haircut. ‘You certainly don’t look like one of his inner circle,’ she said.

  ‘He’s marrying a friend of mine. I’d like to check a few things out about him.’

  ‘You’re a private investigator.’

  ‘How d’you know that?’

  ‘You’re all over the web for finding Emily Ridley. Jake didn’t kill her, did he?’

  ‘Not that I’m aware of.’

  Extortionists usually aren’t too fond of their victims. Pauline Oakley seemed to have an almost visceral dislike for Jake Villiers. She crossed the room and occupied one of the four seats surrounding the glass table. I wasn’t invited to join her.

  ‘Jake told you all about me, I’m guessing,’ she said.

  ‘He mentioned you were blackmailing him.’

  If this came as a surprise to Pauline, it didn’t register on her face. She unclipped a pair of opal earrings and laid them on the table. ‘Did he tell you why?’

  ‘You committed VAT fraud twenty years ago without his knowledge. Now you’re threatening to inform the authorities and he’ll take the fall. Unless he coughs up half a million quid, that is . . .’

  Pauline laughed as though I’d cracked the punchline to a sick joke.

  ‘Not true?’ I asked.

  ‘Let’s say he’s been very selective,’ she said.

  ‘What don’t I know?’

  ‘Why should I tell you that, Kenny?’

  ‘Because my friend’s one of the kindest people I’ve ever met. If she’s about to make a colossal mistake then she deserves to know about it.’

  ‘Jake’s really in love with her, is he?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘And if she broke it off then he’d be devastated?’

  ‘Presumably.’

  Pauline ran a hand through her hair and chewed her bottom lip. Then she used the heel of her left boot to slide out one of the chairs from the table.

  ‘Take a pew,’ she said.

  Pauline made me relate everything Jake had told me about their relationship. She shook her head a few times and actually snorted when I went into specifics about the tax fraud. After I’d finished, she leant forward and planted her elbows on the table.

  ‘I’d just turned thirty and I was working for a pub chain and Jake was looking for someone to oversee the financial side of his business. He offered to match my salary along with five per cent equity. His lawyer drew the agreement up and I went to work.

  ‘Within three years the company was thriving and Jake and I were living together. Around that time, we put in a bid for a disused Victorian textile mill in Birmingham. It was a huge project that would take the business to the next level. At least, it was going to until Arnie Atkinson entered the picture.’

  The name was a vaguely familiar. Pauline had continued with her story before I could work out why.

  ‘Arnie was a local property developer. He wanted to turn the mill into luxury flats and he put in several counter-bids. Jake should have walked away but he tabled a final offer, and, unexpectedly, Arnie threw the towel in.’

  ‘So Jake got the place?’

  Pauline nodded. ‘Although he’d paid over the odds, which meant that it needed to be open and bringing cash in within a year to pay back the interest on the loans he’d taken out. And that was when things started to go pear-shaped.

  ‘The contractors quit the job a week before they were due to start. Jake struggled to get a local firm to replace them. In the end, he had to bring in an outfit from down south. By the time they got going, we’d lost a couple of months. Even then Jake would probably have got away with it if things hadn’t gone wrong on-site.’

  ‘What kind of things?’

  ‘Machinery was vandalised and a fire broke out. It didn’t damage the building’s superstructure but the contractors had to redo a lot of work.’

  ‘Which took more time?’

  Pauline nodded. ‘We increased security, but the final straw was when one of the builders fell off the rigging. The guy broke both legs and the council closed us down for a month while they conducted a safety assessment.’

  ‘That was unlucky.’

  ‘Not really. He was pushed.’

  ‘By whom?’

  ‘God knows. Anyone wearing a hi-vis jacket and a hard hat could have got on-site. By then we were hiring dozens of casuals to make up for lost time.’

  I began to sense the direction Pauline’s story might be travelling in.

  ‘Did Arnie Atkinson have a hand in this?’

  ‘Let’s say it turned out to be a convenient series of events as far as he was concerned. Arnie offered to take the mill off Jake’s hands. Not for the amount he’d paid for it, obviously, but something was better than nothing.’

  ‘Had that been his intention all along?’

  ‘Probably. Arnie had been around the block a few more times than Jake and saw an opportunity to work things to his advantage. It was a clever enough plan, and, to be fair, there was no way he could have foreseen how it would go wrong.’

  ‘How did it go wrong?’ I asked.

  Pauline stared at me levelly.

  ‘Jake said that if we were to avoid losing everything then we needed to generate some extra short-term cash in order to buy time to put things right.’

  ‘Which involved you cooking the books?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘And you agreed?’

  ‘Not initially. I said that if we sold off the other bars and restaurants then we could just about avoid bankruptcy. We had each other and that was enough.’

  ‘Jake disagreed?’ I asked.

  ‘That’s one way of putting it. We had a row, after which I ended up in A&E with a broken arm and a fractured skull. Hard to imagine, isn’t it?’ Pauline said, reacting to my expression. ‘Jake Villiers beating his girlfriend up to the point that she’s in hospital for a week. Not that there hadn’t been warning signs.’

  ‘Such as?’ I asked.

  ‘Jake slapped me once when I suggested he cut back on his gambling. Of course I forgave him in the same way I forgave him when he punched me in the stomach after I laughed too hard at some guy’s joke at a dinner party. He had an entire florist’s worth of flowers delivered and promised it would never happen again.’

  ‘And did it?’

  ‘Not until the business with Arnie Atkinson,’ Pauline said. ‘When I was discharged from hospital, I told Jake it was over. He threatened to put me in the morgue if I didn’t file a false return, or if I even thought about leaving him.’

  ‘How did you get away?’

  ‘It was quite simple in the end. I perpetrated the fraud and took copies of all the documents. I said that I’d left instructions with my solicitor that if anything untoward ever happened to me, then the papers should be forwarded to the police.’

  ‘Jake didn’t see that one coming?’

  Pauline leant back in her chair. ‘You know, I don’t think he did,’ she said. ‘Like most narcissists, Jake Villiers has his blind side. He can’t imagine any woman r
esisting his charms, no matter how badly he treats them. And, of course, Jake can be very charming when he chooses to be . . .’

  I was about to ask what happened with the mill when a couple of synapses teamed up with half a dozen neurons to haul a news item out of my memory swamp.

  ‘Arnie Atkinson went missing, didn’t he?’

  ‘That’s right,’ Pauline said. ‘Although I’m sure Jake had the perfect alibi and there were quite a few people Arnie had screwed over in his time, so there couldn’t have been any shortage of other suspects for the police to investigate.’

  ‘So there’s no actual proof Jake was behind his disappearance?’

  Pauline’s arched eyebrows provided her answer.

  ‘What did you do afterwards?’ I asked.

  ‘Led a fairly rackety life,’ she said. ‘It was almost as though being associated with Jake had cursed me in some way. I ran through my savings in a couple of years and ended up doing a series of jobs that were mundane at best and borderline illegal at worst. I went bust at forty-two and was jailed for fraud three years later, which I suppose would all be deeply ironic if it weren’t so fucking pathetic.’

  ‘Still time to turn things round,’ I said.

  ‘No, there isn’t. I’m in my fifties, I’ve got a criminal record and I haven’t held down a proper job in fifteen years. I’m booked in here on a maxed-out credit card. If Jake weren’t stumping up the cash, I’d have to do a runner.’

  The double-knock gave the pair of us a galvanic start. Pauline crossed the floor and said, ‘Who is it?’ through the closed door.

  ‘Ivan, miss. Your dry cleaning’s back.’

  A guy in hotel uniform was holding a dress swathed in polythene. Pauline produced a banknote from the pocket of her jeans. The guy grinned and left. Pauline laid the black gown on the bed. We continued our conversation.

  ‘D’you really think Jake’s going to hand over half a million quid and let you walk away with evidence that could put him away for years?’ I said. ‘If you carry on like this, you’ll eventually need more cash and you’ll know where to get it.’

  ‘That’s all behind me,’ Pauline said.

  ‘Maybe it is and maybe it isn’t. The point is that Jake’s not going to know for sure and he won’t take any risks.’

  ‘I need the money, Kenny.’

  ‘Not that much, you don’t.’

  A conversational hiatus gave me time to think. Two hours ago I’d been keen to stop Stephie marrying Jake. Now I was positively desperate.

  ‘Could you tell my friend all this?’ I said.

  ‘You seriously think that’s going to happen? You can tell her if you like, but there’s no way I’m doing it. And if you go to the police, I’ll deny all knowledge. They’ll think you’re off your head.’

  ‘My friend’s not going to believe me.’

  ‘That’s her problem.’

  ‘Think about it, Pauline. Even if Jake gives you the money then he can still come after you. That means you’ll never feel truly safe, no matter where you go.’

  It occurred to me that Pauline’s situation wasn’t a million miles away from Castor’s. Even if he were under the protection of the Golden Road, he’d always be looking over his shoulder to a degree.

  ‘I’ll take my chances,’ she said.

  Perhaps Castor had too.

  EIGHTEEN

  After my meeting with Pauline, I had a drink in Flummery’s bar to digest everything she’d told me and kill time before my appointment with Dr Arbuthnot. The walk to his surgery barely registered. In fact, my preoccupation with discouraging Stephie from marrying a stone-cold killer almost sent me under the wheels of a Harrods van on the corner of Queen Anne Street. The driver communicated his opinion visually and we went our separate ways.

  I was on the steps of Fleming House when my phone rang. ‘What are you doing tomorrow morning?’ Saskia asked before I’d had a chance to say hello.

  ‘Not sure yet,’ I said. ‘By the way, I called Shaheen and told him that someone—’

  ‘Don’t worry about Shaheen. There’s something I found in my files I need to show you.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘I’m not a hundred per cent sure, but if it’s what I think it might be then we can add another nought to the book advance.’

  ‘What is it?’ I repeated.

  ‘You need to see for yourself, Kenny.’

  ‘So take a photo and email it over.’

  ‘No way am I doing that,’ Saskia said, as though I’d suggested she run down Oxford Street naked. ‘What’s the earliest you can get here tomorrow?

  ‘Nine o’clock?’

  ‘Great. See you then.’

  Every measure in the good doctor’s waiting room had been taken to lend it a soothing ambience. A shoal of angelfish patrolled a large aquarium and the walls had been painted clover green. There were black-and-white photographs of sunrises and the branches of winter trees laden with snow. The coffee table was strewn with current editions of Country Life, Horse & Hound and the Financial Times.

  The only other occupant was a man in his sixties. He had a patch over one eye and was attempting to focus on an iPhone by holding it at arm’s length. I was distractedly reading an article on the merits of building a therapeutic swimming pool for thoroughbreds, and wondering what Saskia had found that had excited her so much, when Gaynor announced that Dr Arbuthnot was ready for me.

  Arbuthnot was wearing a charcoal-grey suit and a muted smile. He rose from his desk and we shook hands. ‘Thanks for coming in at short notice, Kenny,’ he said. ‘I’m on holiday in a couple of days and I wanted to see you personally.’

  For some reason I felt as though I was in the headmaster’s office. Probably it was down to Arbuthnot’s air of natural authority and my abiding sense of juvenile guilt.

  He removed a few papers from a cardboard slip file.

  ‘The blood tests have arrived, as have the MRI results.’

  ‘What’s the verdict?’

  ‘I’m sorry to say that it’s not what we were hoping for. You have a tumour in the left hemisphere that requires immediate attention.’

  The room became two-dimensional. Almost as though I could scrunch it up into a ball and throw it away. ‘The positive news is that it’s probably benign,’ Arbuthnot continued, ‘although I’m afraid the mass is significant, which is why the consultant feels the need to act as soon as possible.’

  ‘Surgery?’ I asked.

  He nodded. ‘Usually the first step would be to take a biopsy and then decide on a course of treatment, although the headaches you’ve been experiencing and the fainting episode are due to the increased pressure in your skull.’

  ‘I’ve been feeling better recently.’

  ‘Sometimes the brain compensates in the short term. I’m afraid that probably won’t be the case for much longer. If things are allowed to proceed untreated, then those symptoms will reappear along with a range of others.’

  ‘Including my vision being affected?’

  ‘Has that happened?’ Arbuthnot asked.

  I wondered whether I should reveal the full extent of my issues in that department and decided against it. He might call an ambulance on the spot.

  ‘Things were a bit hazy in my left eye when I woke up this morning. It went away after half an hour and I didn’t think anything of it.’

  ‘Probably a result of pressure on the optic nerve. The longer we leave it, the more difficult the procedure could turn out to be.’

  ‘But it’s going to be tricky anyway?’

  ‘The consultant will be able to give you a steer on that. You can arrange a telephone consultation with Mrs McDonald. I have her details here . . .’ Arbuthnot wrote something on a pad, tore off the sheet and passed it to me.

  ‘Do you know the risks?’ I asked.

  ‘Not in your specific case. It really would be a lot more advisable if you spoke to Mrs McDonald in person . . .’

  ‘And I’ll do that,’ I said. ‘But what are t
he possible outcomes?’

  Arbuthnot interlaced his fingers. ‘There’s a fifty per cent chance you’ll come out of the surgery with relatively minor effects, and forty per cent that there will be some form of cognitive or physical impairment.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘It could affect your speech, your eyesight or general mobility. It’s very hard to say, which is why I strongly recommend that you speak to—’

  ‘That’s only ninety per cent,’ I said.

  ‘There is a small chance the procedure could prove fatal,’ Arbuthnot admitted, ‘although I have to emphasise those are the global statistics. Your operation will be conducted in one of the finest hospitals in the world and you’ll be in the hands of an incredibly skilled surgical team. There’s every reason to be optimistic.’

  ‘But there’s still a fifty per cent chance of brain damage or death?’

  ‘Those are the figures,’ Arbuthnot said. ‘Assuming you want to go ahead with the operation, Kenny, it would be good to decide as soon as possible . . .’

  ‘When can they get me in?’ I asked.

  ‘Ten days’ time,’ Arbuthnot replied. ‘Earlier if possible. I’m going to prescribe you something that should limit the possibility of a stroke.’

  ‘There’s a chance of that?’

  ‘Your risk is elevated by the tumour, although your blood pressure is surprisingly okay, so it’s a precautionary measure. However, you do need to start taking it immediately.’

  I nodded and Arbuthnot began typing.

  ‘Along with something else I’ll prescribe, this should decrease the headaches and vision issues – always assuming you get lots of sleep and avoid exertion, that is.’ Arbuthnot looked up from the keyboard. ‘That’s not a problem, is it?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘No problem at all.’

  I walked out of Arbuthnot’s surgery into a world of beauty and magic. A pigeon flashed through the air and alighted perfectly on a stone balustrade. A kid carrying a balloon looked as though he had stepped straight out of a Botticelli painting. Traffic lights shone like emeralds and rubies. Idling engines formed an urban symphony. The world is never more precious than when you may be scheduled to leave it.