Neon Madman (12 page)

CHAPTER ELEVEN

I was sitting with nothing on but a pair of shorts. I was hot and tired. Very tired. The cops had kept me awake and talking for the best part of a night and a day. My stomach had a couple of bruises that looked like a Mark Rothko original and the split alongside my lower lip reopened every time I used my mouth.

The temperature had climbed into the nineties. London wasn't used to it. Everything happened in slow motion and what I'd bothered to watch of the Test on TV was the slowest of all.

I'd slept for a long time. The windows had been open and the covers had been on the floor. Anything that faintly resembled a clock had been turned around to face the wall. I just hadn't wanted to know.

Now I had nothing better to do than wait until the jug of coffee I'd made and put in the fridge was cold enough to be drunk as iced. I didn't care how long it took. From where I was sitting there didn't seem to be any place to go or anything to do.

I'd already made a couple of phone calls. Patrick said that the neighbours had started asking why there was a police car driving past every half an hour and what did he know about the young man in cavalry twill trousers and a blue open-neck shirt who kept taking slow walks round the block. Apparently, Frances had really got annoyed when she heard that they needed protection and had told him that if I came to the house again, she was leaving inside the same minute.

Okay, I could understand her annoyance but it was better to complain about being protected than not.

Sandy sounded wide awake and pretty. She said that Caroline Murdoch was looking much better and that she was wanting to drive down to the shops later in the day. I asked if there'd been any phone calls to speak of. She told me that she didn't see how that could be my business but anyway there hadn't been anything special as far as she knew.

She did tell me that there had been some police hanging around from time to time and that one of them had stopped Dr Laurence on his way in and asked him who he was and what he was going to the house for.

No, she didn't think they were there all the time. Just at fairly frequent intervals.

She asked me if I wanted to speak to Mrs Murdoch. Said that she thought she was strong enough. I told her that her patient might be feeling strong enough, but I certainly wasn't.

I got up and switched on the set. It wasn't cricket any longer but tennis. I waited long enough to be told that the temperature on the centre court was nearing the hundred. Then I turned it off. I didn't think I could look at all that energy being expended. Not even for the sake of a glimpse of Chris Evert's frilly knickers.

I walked out to the kitchen and checked the coffee. It would be a long wait yet. I contented myself with a glass of milk; lay down on the settee and shut my eyes. I thought that with a little effort I could get to sleep again.

I did: and it turned out not to be any effort at all.

When I woke up the heat had faded a little and I guessed that it was evening. I spent about quarter of an hour scraping my skin off the surface of the settee and made it out to the kitchen once more. By now the coffee was good and ready for me and I was good and ready for it.

That's what they call compatibility.

Don't knock it. There isn't much of it around.

I divided the remainder of the evening between not answering a batch of letters I'd been successfully not answering for quite a while now, not reading a book and not getting too drunk. When I was drunk just the right amount I went to bed.

And slept.

The telephone woke me. At first it seemed to be ringing in some far away country to which I was only an occasional visitor. Then it became clearer, louder: it was ringing in the next room.

I slid off the bed and pulled on a pair of briefs. You never knew who it was going to be.

I was glad I had. It was Caroline Murdoch. She still didn't sound the way she had the first time we had spoken, but a lot of the backbone had returned, a lot of the coolness along with it.

Her husband had phoned her and given her an address to take his passport and money to. Only she wanted me to take it. For one thing she was too frightened and for another the police were likely to follow her. I didn't say that they might be likely to follow me as well.

Apart from anything else, it probably wouldn't have been true. If they wanted to get to Murdoch I was the last person they were going to waste their time following. I was the guy who'd been paid to find him.

The meeting was arranged for that evening. He was going to phone again an hour before time and let her know the exact place, but it would probably be somewhere in central London.

I said that was okay and asked her if she wanted me to come over beforehand. She said that it was better if I didn't and while I was still trying to figure out how to take that, she hung up.

It was a long day. I made a trip in to the office and tore up a few circulars that some optimist had pushed through the letter box. I sat there and waited for someone to use the phone or walk through the door with a job that was going to send me for a month to Corfu. If you were going to have all that heat then you might as well have the scenery to go with it.

No one came. I might as well have had the first private investigator's office on the moon.

I shut the door in disgust and went down to the coffee shop. Tricia was back and she was serving iced coffee that managed to taste better than mine and didn't come with a three-hour wait. I stood there like an idiot and smiled at her until she asked me if I was all right.

She sounded as though she thought that the heat might have been getting at me, what with my advancing age and everything.

I told her I was fine and that it was just nice to see her back again after her day off. She still looked at me as if I wasn't quite right in the head, so I paid for the drink and took it over into the corner where I could sit and look at her in comparative safety.

What the hell! I didn't think they could lock you up for it. Not yet anyhow, though someone, somewhere was probably working on it.

Three iced coffees later I went back to the office, wasted some more time, then drove back home. The car radio filled me in on what wasn't happening in the Test. It sounded as though both sides had blown it. I thought to myself that didn't make it a blow job, it just made it a wank.

Christ! Tricia was right. The sun was affecting me.

I headed north as fast as I could.

The phone was ringing when I walked across the space between the car and the front door. It was still ringing when I got to it. I picked it up and heard Dr Laurence's voice.

‘I thought you might like to know that your patient has dispensed with our services.'

‘Since when?'

‘Since lunchtime today. She told Sandy, who phoned me. I drove out there and tried to reason with her, but she was firm. Polite, a trifle cold, but firm. There was nothing we could do but leave.'

‘Do you think she needs to be under care still?'

‘It's difficult to say. She should be. She was evidencing strong symptoms of shock three days ago. Today she seemed to be pretty well back in control.'

‘Do you think the shock reaction was a true one?'

‘Certainly. Even a professional actress couldn't fake that much for that long. Maybe she really is all right, but it seemed to me that there was something she wasn't going to talk about that was driving her on. I wouldn't be surprised if when that drive is satisfied, she has a bad relapse.'

‘Okay, doc. Thanks anyway. And say thank you to Sandy for me.'

He grunted and said goodbye.

I sat down and tried to think. I wasn't sure whether I should ring Caroline Murdoch now or whether I should wait for her to call me as arranged. I considered phoning the police. As far as they were concerned I was a loser who only needed to lose once more for them to cash in my licence for Green Shield stamps and put me out of business for a long time.

Then it would be either working for some security firm taking bank money around dressed up like a superannuated Hell's Angel or standing guard in gallery thirteen at the Tate.

I got as far as half-way through the number before one of the bruises on my stomach had a little word with me. I put the phone back down and decided to wait for Caroline.

She took her time. It was well into the evening and a slight breeze had come up and was moving the curtains away from the windows for seconds at a time. I was back in my shorts and trying to work out why South had replied three Spades. For the life of me, I couldn't see it. Even when the guy in the book told me why, I still couldn't see it. That was the trouble with those intellectual games. Maybe I should stick to the more basic sports like all-in wrestling.

I'd just thrown the book across the room in a vain attempt to knock some sense into it when the phone went again. It was her.

‘Scott?'

‘Yes.'

‘James phoned. I've got the address.'

‘Okay. What is it?'

‘You'll have to come to the house.'

‘Why?'

‘Scott, what's the matter? You've got to come here to collect the things you're to deliver, after all.'

‘And you won't tell me because you don't trust me to keep it to myself. Maybe you think I'd hand the information over to the cops or whoever else might be interested and leave it at that.'

Her voice was softer, as though she was coaxing a child. Or a husband. ‘Now, Scott, did I say that? Of course I trust you. Please come.'

‘All right. And listen, why did you get rid of the nurse?'

‘Because I'm feeling fine.'

‘So you say. Look, are there any police around watching the house?'

‘I don't think so. I haven't seen anyone for a long time.'

‘I'll be there as soon as I can.'

‘Good, Scott. I shall be waiting for you.'

She was waiting right enough. She was wearing the same outfit as she had on the first time I saw her. Her hair looked its beautiful self and her face was as flawless as before. There was nothing to show that she had recently been threatened to the point of her life or that her husband was hiding both from the police and from a one-eyed lunatic who wanted nothing more than to kill him.

Nothing except for the packet she handed to me with a passport and a large sum of money neatly tied up inside it. She told me where to take it. It was a flat in Frith Street, on the first floor above a restaurant.

I took the package from her and looked for something in her eyes. Whatever it was, I didn't find it. She kept hold of my hand and her fingers were as cold as ever, despite the heat. She murmured thank you and leaned up her head and kissed me quickly on the side of the face.

‘When it's over,' she said, ‘will you come back here?'

‘I'll see,' I said.

‘But you will let me know if it went off all right?'

‘I'll do that.'

I went to the front door and hesitated a moment. She wasn't going to wish me good luck or tell me to take care either. I went on out.

I had to park the car on the south side of Piccadilly and walk the rest of the way. I had the packet in my left hand and all the while I was conscious of the absence of weight in my right hand pocket. I hadn't seen my Smith and Wesson .38 since Charlie had been scratching himself with it back in my office. And that seemed a hell of a long time ago.

I walked along a fairly roundabout route, checking out whether I was being followed or not. I couldn't spot anyone so I made it into Frith Street.

The restaurant was the usual kind of Italian job; chianti bottles arranged in a cute pattern so that they hung from the ceiling at just the right height to sock you on the head at least half a dozen times before you found your table. On one wall there was a fishing net that they used to throw over customers who tried to get out without paying their bills.

The waiters tended to burst into song between tables and were experienced at avoiding your eye when you wanted an extra cup of coffee.

I checked it out from the other side of the street a couple of times, before going over to take a closer look. I made a big show of going through the menu, all the time running my eye over the customers. There weren't that many of them and none of them looked like hoods or plain-clothes cops.

I went back across the road and stood a while outside a dirty book shop looking at the first floor above the restaurant through reflections of things like ‘Flasher', ‘Mother and Daughter', and ‘Schoolgirl Frolics'.

There were two windows, small squared glass and tatty lace curtains pulled half-way across. The windows were shut and it had to be as hot as all hell in there. Especially with the trattoria downstairs. There was a doorway between the restaurant and the place next door, which was a strip club with a bright red sign above the door flashing ‘Sexy Show.'

The door itself was a scuffed and dirty green and was two-thirds open. Alongside were three bell-pushes; I bet none of them worked.

I kept looking at the doorway, the stairs. It was the way Caroline had said her husband had said I should go in.

I guessed there was another way up through the restaurant. I thought I'd try that.

I went in and sat for a few minutes at one of the tables, playing with the menu, conscious of the packet on the table beside me. Then I looked round and found what I was looking for—a sign that said ‘Toilets.' I got up slowly and headed towards the bead curtain towards the back. I grinned at the nearest waiter and pointed at the sign, then parted the curtains.

The toilets were side by side on the first landing. I gave them a quick glance and went on up. The dirty lino that had been on the first section of stairs disappeared and I was walking on bare boards. I went carefully, hoping they wouldn't creak too much, yet knowing that to be too slow was as little use.

What was I worried about anyway? All I was doing was delivering this nice rich guy a passport and some cash that would ensure that he could stay nice and rich.