Junkyard Angel Page 3

  I stood up. One of them switched on the light. I looked at them: the faces, the trilby hats, the suits. I had seen them a hundred times before: I had never seen them in my life.

  A hand switched out the light. They came towards me. I moved out from behind my desk to meet them.

  I knew I couldn’t just stand there. Even this game had rules. I feinted towards the one on the right and threw a punch at his partner. It caught him on the jaw and sent him staggering back across the office carpet. At roughly the same time a fist landed hard against my ribs and another went in lower down at the centre of my stomach. My head folded forwards on to the bones of his knuckles.

  I shook my head and tried to step out of reach. All I did was step into the arms of the guy I had punched. And he wasn’t asking me to dance. Not this time.

  He grabbed both arms and held them fast, then brought me sharply backwards so that his upraised knee struck me in the small of the back. I shouted out something which was cut off by a fist full in the face.

  I think one of them said something at this point, but I couldn’t be too sure. One of them held me while the other one hit me, mostly about the body now. No longer hastily, but with a lot of deliberation.

  I had shut my eyes but when they opened involuntarily for a second I saw the figure of the third man standing in the middle of the outer office, watching through the open door. Not a face, an identity; merely a shape.

  The one who was holding me got tired of it and they changed round. Pretty soon, it didn’t matter which of them was hitting me. Just as long as they stopped.

  They did. Suddenly there was no one holding me and I was vaguely aware of the floor coming up to meet me for the second time that night. Then nothing …

  When I came to there was something lying close to me that seemed to be in pain. Something that hurt. A body. It was several minutes before I realised that it was my own. I didn’t want it. To hell with it!

  I lay there a while longer but it didn’t crawl away. It got so that I didn’t think it would. I picked it up carefully off the carpet. It tried to fall down again so I leant it against the side of the desk for a few minutes.

  My eyes blinked back the daylight from the window. My watch had stopped. My throat felt thick and my tongue tasted like yesterday’s news.

  They had gone through the filing cabinet, the cupboard, the drawers of the desk. Papers were strewn across the room; two empty Southern Comfort bottles stood side by side close to the door. I didn’t know what they had been looking for. Perhaps they hadn’t known either. Perhaps there hadn’t been anything to look for. Perhaps it was just the natural course of events: you knocked a guy about on his own premises and then you searched them.

  It was the way of the world.

  At last I thought my body and I could make it back together again, so we moved away from the desk and stood on our own two feet.

  It was a lonely thing to do.

  I reached over to the phone and dialled the time. It was seventeen minutes after ten precisely. At the third stroke.

  I started to pick up the papers from the floor, but each time I bent down if felt as though someone inside my head was trying to knock his way out with a heavy duty chisel. So I decided to leave the mess where it was and go out and buy myself a cup of coffee. Better, three cups of coffee. There was this coffee shop down the road where they made really good coffee.

  As I passed the mirror I’d put in the outer office so that my clients could tidy themselves up while they were queuing up to see me, I caught sight of someone who bore a passing resemblance to somebody I used to know.

  I looked again. If I went into the coffee shop looking like that they’d probably call the cops.

  I went back into the other room and cleaned myself up at the small sink in the corner. After several minutes I decided that it wasn’t going to make any difference but I needed the coffee enough to take the risk.

  The stairs took a long time to get down and by the time I was out on to the pavement, my ankle was aching again. The least of my troubles, I concentrated on it like mad until Tricia had poured me my coffee and I was sitting down staring at its dark brown surface.

  3

  The place was small and friendly enough without getting intrusive. Upstairs they sold health food and down where I was sitting they had things like chick peas and lentil soup. And cheesecake. And Brazilian Plantation coffee.

  The tables were scrubbed and varnished pine, with rush mats and dark wooden bowls of soft brown sugar. The first cup of coffee tasted good, the second even better. I was half-way through this when three young girls came in.

  They were smartly dressed and nicely made up and they couldn’t have been any older than fourteen. I wondered idly why they weren’t at school.

  They sat down at the table next to mine without noticing that I was there. One of them went up to the counter and ordered three portions of cheesecake and three coffees. When she got it back to the table they started to talk in low voices about how much it had cost and how much they had left. They began to push coins across the table from one to the other.

  I went and got my third coffee. On my way back I noticed the girl in the middle. Her hair was long and fair and she had a face that was perfect. I watched her again when I sat down. When she opened her mouth to speak she showed a flawless set of white teeth and tongue that was pink and pointed. She was eating blueberry cheesecake.

  She dropped a coin on to the floor and it rolled near my feet. I could have reached down and picked it up. I didn’t.

  Her friend got up and bent down for it. I sat a while longer, sipping my coffee and watching the girl as she put the cheesecake into her mouth with her fork.

  She still didn’t know I was there. None of them did. I put my empty cup back in my saucer and walked up the stairs. Half-way up I remembered that my ankle hurt.

  Back in the office I tried to raise Gilmour but the cop on duty said that he was out. I looked in the phone book for Hugh Blagden. There were thirteen Blagdens in the book, none of them with the initial letter H. I tried the numbers anyway.

  One was a fishmonger and poulterer, one a chemists’ merchants; another was a spinster lady of somewhat advancing years who thought I was the young man from the book department at Harrods. The rest were either out or so far away from being any use as to be impossible.

  I dropped the book to the floor and tried West End Central again. Tom had that minute got back into the building. After a couple more minutes he was at the other end of the line.

  ‘Hello, Scott, what’s up?’

  ‘Have you read the papers?’

  ‘Not yet. Should I?’

  I told him he should and waited while the rustling of pages sounded down the line from his desk.

  After a while he said, ‘You mean the dead girl in Earls Court?’

  ‘That’s the one.’

  ‘How are you mixed up in that?’

  ‘I found her.’

  ‘They haven’t given you a name check.’

  ‘You’re surprised?’

  He wasn’t. He asked me what had happened. I told him. It sounded even sillier this time.

  ‘Who did you have to pull that one on?’

  ‘A heavy guy with a face that’s getting flabby and a lot on his mind.’

  ‘Hankin?’

  ‘I guess so.’

  Tom whistled down the phone.

  ‘You know him?’ I asked.

  ‘By reputation. I’ve seen him a few times, passed the odd word. Nothing much.’

  ‘Would he be the kind of guy who would send a nice little visiting party out to tuck me in for the night?’

  ‘He might. That would depend if you gave him cause.’

  I let that one ride. I said, ‘He seemed very preoccupied. Any ideas about that?’

  A slight pause, then, ‘Could be he’s snow
ed under with work. Could be trouble at home. Anything. Perhaps he didn’t need another case dumped on him. Especially not a murder.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Does it matter?’

  ‘I don’t know. It might. Probably not, though.’

  ‘You’ve no idea where this character who hired you might be?’

  ‘None at all.’

  ‘Then you’d better find him. You might end up needing him.’

  ‘And just how do you suggest I go about doing that?’

  ‘Why ask me? You’re the detective.’

  ‘So are you.’

  ‘Sure. But I don’t want to find anybody called Blagden.’

  ‘Thanks, Tom. You’re a great help.’

  He laughed pleasantly down the line. ‘That’s okay, Scott. Anytime. Anytime at all.’

  And he hung up. Fast.

  I took a slow walk down to the Seven Dials and asked the barman some questions about the man in the brown suit I had met there several days before. He didn’t remember seeing him; he didn’t even remember seeing me. He told me I looked as though I could use a drink but not in such a way as I thought he was offering to buy me one. I left the pub and took a tube down to Earls Court.

  I got into the room opposite the flat I had been watching and picked up the few things I had left behind. From the window I could see a uniformed cop standing guard on the front steps and I didn’t need to walk round the back to know there would be another one round there.

  A few buildings further along there was an estate agent’s board advertising flats to let. Across it had been posted diagonally the words, ‘One Remaining.’ I made a note of the address and left clutching my thermos and transistor. I would pay them a visit but not until later, when I had been able to do something about my appearance.

  Some sticking plaster and a suit that was recently back from the cleaners made me look more presentable. After all if I was going to make enquiries about property then I had to create the right sort of impression. I would be getting close to life’s real nitty gritty: property was what it was mostly about … wasn’t it?

  I found a hat that was big enough to cover the bump on the back of my head and set off for Knightsbridge. I wasn’t going to waste my time with any old two bit estate agent. Not me. I was after the big time.

  From the minute I entered the place I could tell that I was going to get it. The carpet was several feet thick and when I stood in it my shoes disappeared from sight. Behind a glass desk, a brunette with tied-back hair and rimless glasses was talking into the telephone. She was dressed like something out of Vogue and she had all the warmth of cut-glass. If you liked cold things she was very beautiful. I didn’t think that I did, but I stood there staring at her anyway, up to my ankles in deepest acrilan. Wide-eyed and legless.

  To the right of her desk there were two doors with discreet little nameplates on them. I could see from where I was that neither name was Blagden. But what’s in a name?

  There were two canvas and chrome easy chairs and a round glass table with a handful of magazines on it. They didn’t look like the kind of thing I usually read. Possibly that was part of my trouble.

  She had put the phone down and was looking at me. Something about her expression suggested that she thought I had stepped into the wrong place by accident. I wondered where she thought I should have been.

  Eventually she accepted the fact that I wasn’t going to turn right around and walk out again. She asked, ‘What can I do for you?’ in a voice which sent a shiver along my spine and released several ice crystals into the atmosphere.

  I tried a smile. Just a little one. For one thing I didn’t want to overwhelm her—not all at once—and for another I didn’t want to risk the plasters on my face working loose.

  I said: ‘I’m looking for a flat.’

  I might as well have said I was looking for a rare edition of a book about early Eastern religions.

  ‘A flat?’ I prompted her.

  ‘Sorry, we don’t have any.’

  ‘You don’t have any flats?’

  ‘We don’t have any flats.’

  ‘You are an estate agents?’

  Her lips formed a tight line across her face. Then she said, ‘Of course, we are. What did you think?’

  ‘I thought you might have changed over to the deep freeze business. They tell me it’s all the rage. Did you know you could buy boxes of five hundred fish fingers at the most alarming discount?’

  I couldn’t understand it. She didn’t seem interested. The phone on her desk rang and she picked it up on the first note.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘No, I can’t. No, I’m busy. There’s someone in the office. Yes, all right. I’ll call you back. Good-bye.’

  By the time she had replaced the receiver she was looking slightly flushed. Only a trace of reddening around the cheeks but I didn’t think it did her any harm at all.

  ‘He’ll understand,’ I said, quietly sympathetic.

  ‘What business is that of yours?’ she snapped.

  ‘It isn’t.’

  ‘Then what is?’

  ‘I told you, I’m looking for a flat.’

  ‘And I thought I told you that we don’t have any.’

  I took my notebook from my pocket and read her off the address I had seen advertised.

  ‘That’s already been taken.’

  ‘But the sign said one was left.’

  ‘Well, I’m sorry, but it’s gone. We should have changed the notice.’

  ‘As long as you’re sorry. But you must have some other things you could offer?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘You do handle a lot of property in that area?’

  She shook her head the other way.

  ‘I noticed a large place across the road from there. Wentworth Mansions. They all seemed to be empty. Is that one of your properties?’

  She flushed again. ‘Yes. That is, no. I … I’m not sure.’

  ‘You’re not sure?’

  ‘Not exactly. You would have to talk to Mr Cooper about that.’

  I tried a step towards one of the doors. ‘Mr Cooper. Is this his office?’

  She was half-way up out of her seat. ‘I’m afraid Mr Cooper is out at present.’

  ‘And Mr Barnard?’ I asked, reading the name off the other door.

  ‘He’s out as well.’

  I turned and faced her quickly. How about Mr Blagden?’

  She stared back at me, but if she was covering up she did it very well. ‘Sorry,’ she said, ‘we don’t have anyone of that name working here.’

  ‘My mistake.’

  ‘Yes, wasn’t it.’

  She was sitting down again and back in control. The area of carpet between us seemed just as wide.

  ‘I’m sorry to have troubled you,’ I said.

  She didn’t assure me that it was all right; she didn’t smile. She got up from her chair and walked all the way round the desk and over to the door.

  She stood by it looking at me and I thought for one moment she was going to turn the open sign to closed and pull down the blind. But she didn’t even take off her glasses. She opened the door and held it open while I walked through and out on to the pavement.

  Oh, well, I thought, she probably hadn’t even seen the movie and if she had she wouldn’t have liked the part.

  I was on my way back to the underground station, when I glanced up and there he was. Sitting in the downstairs front seat of a double-decker bus. The curly hair, the overcoat—I couldn’t miss them; even the nervous look on his face.

  I ran across the road, causing a taxi to swerve round me as I did so. The driver’s words of good fortune followed my erratic chase along the edge of the pavement, one foot, sometimes two, taking to the gutter as I attempted to keep out of people’s way without slowing down.


  Thirty yards in front of me there was a bus stop with a small queue; the bus was pulling in towards it. I tried to increase my speed but my chest was starting to tighten and burn and my ankle felt as though it was going to give out on me altogether.

  I finally made it with three large left-footed hops which took me on to the edge of the platform. Anxiously I looked along the bus; he was still there. Whatever else I did now, I couldn’t risk letting him see me.

  I paid the conductor and went upstairs, sitting at the back so that I could see the platform below through the circular mirror. I would have to get down quickly, that was all there was to it.

  I sat there and got as much of my breath back as I could, hoping that he wouldn’t move too soon. He didn’t. I paid two lots of extra fare before he stirred.

  I hovered on the stairs and watched him get off and look around in his usual worried manner. He finally went to cross the road behind the bus and I watched him go, then jumped off as it was gathering speed. It was okay; there was a large privet hedge to break my staggering fall and I had managed to land on my good leg. Things were starting to look up.

  I let him get a good way ahead of me, without risking losing him if he took a sudden turning. But he seemed content to walk easily now, confident of where he was going.

  As we went from side road to side road the houses got smaller, more cramped together. Some were painted in new, garish colours, purples and yellows; others had paintwork and plaster flaking off them like a disease. It was outside one of these that he eventually stopped.

  He did his, usual little look round but I was ready for it and had ducked back out of sight. He knocked a couple of times on the front door and after a few moments it opened. There was a brief conversation and he went inside.

  I waited a while, then crossed the road and walked by on the opposite side.

  What looked like an old blanket had been draped across the window of the downstairs room and the bottom pane of glass had been broken. Cardboard was propped uneasily behind it. There was net curtaining at one of the upstairs windows, nothing at the other.

  I walked on to the cross roads, then switched sides again. The garden at the back ran on to the garden of the house behind; there was no proper rear exit.