Running Scared Page 2

  Now up to that moment, neither Gan nor I had doubted our friend had been mugged. So we were a tad surprised when out of the pocket came a wallet and out of that came a tenner. It wasn’t alone in the wallet. It had some company, as I could see – a couple of fivers and a twenty at least.

  I met Ganesh’s eye. He was thinking what I was thinking. This wasn’t a mugging. If muggers had had time to dish out that amount of facial decoration, they’d have got the guy’s wallet for sure. Come to that, he still had his wristwatch and a gold signet ring. I couldn’t make out the initials on the ring, which was a pity. They were sort of swirly and tangled up but one might have been C.

  Our visitor was looking anxiously from one to the other of us. He’d misunderstood our exchange of glances. ‘Not enough?’ he asked and made to add another note.

  ‘No, I mean yes, that’s fine!’ Ganesh took the tenner. We had shut up shop, after all.

  I took a more critical look at our guest, who’d suddenly become very interesting. He was in his thirties, a biggish chap, wearing a dark suit under that charcoal-coloured overcoat. His white shirt was blood-spattered and his tie askew. The damaged eye was swelling shut. He wasn’t looking his best, but even so, he wasn’t bad-looking. Still, there was something about him I couldn’t quite fit together. He was dressed like a business type but didn’t look like a man who spent his life in an office. There was a faint odour of nicotine about him which suggested he was a heavy smoker and offices tend to be smoke-free zones these days. You see the exiles, lurking unhappily in the doorways at street level, puffing furtively as they try to keep out of the rain.

  On the other hand, he wasn’t particularly an outdoor type, though he sported a recently acquired tan. Perhaps he’d been on holiday. It wasn’t fair to judge in the circumstances, but to my eye his suit and coat weren’t quite right. They were too well worn and unfashionable, the sort of clothes someone might keep in the wardrobe for the odd occasion when he needed to impress, but didn’t wear day to day. His trousers weren’t kept up with the snazzy braces they hand out to high-fliers with their business diplomas, but by a tooled leather belt with a fancy brass buckle which was definitely leisure-wear.

  You see why I consider myself to be quite a good detective. I notice these things. You know my methods, Watson. Here, I deduced, was a youngish, fit man who normally dressed casually but left home today tricked out to look prosperous and businesslike. Why? To impress someone. Not a woman. Not in that coat. No, a bloke, the sort who’d be wearing a snappy suit and wouldn’t be impressed by chinos and a leather jacket. He’d set off to do a bit of serious business, but whoever he’d met had duffed him up. It suggested more than one person, because our new friend here looked well able to handle one assailant. For my money, he had set up a meeting with someone dodgy, perhaps even someone who’d had a minder with him, and it hadn’t turned out as he’d wished. He shouldn’t have gone alone. Unless, of course, he had good reason for keeping his business private.

  Eat your heart out, my old violin-scraper.

  ‘I don’t want trouble,’ Ganesh was saying. ‘So, whoever’s after you, do you think they’re still out there, looking around? Will they come in here?’ Before the other could speak, he added, ‘Look, I’m not prying, but it wasn’t a mugging, was it?’

  I chimed in with, ‘One mugger would’ve thumped you while the other grabbed your jewellery and dosh. Ganesh and I mean, if you’ve got a private fight that’s your affair. But we don’t want the shop damaged.’

  ‘Don’t suppose the insurance would cover it,’ Ganesh added, ‘seeing as we didn’t call the police.’

  The stranger took his time thinking about his answer to all that and I didn’t blame him. ‘Take your point,’ he said at last. ‘Truth is, I don’t know who’s out there, if anyone. I’m pretty sure they don’t know I came in here. They might be still scouting around for me, I suppose.’

  He began to struggle up out of his chair. ‘Don’t worry about me,’ he said. ‘I’ll take my chances.’

  He sounded brave and doomed, like that chap who went with Scott to the Antarctic and walked out into the snow when the rations ran low. It seemed to call for some responding gesture on our part. Not for the first time I spoke up when I should’ve kept quiet.

  ‘I tell you what,’ I said, ‘I’ll slip out the back way, stroll round to the front as if I was coming here to buy something, and see if anyone’s hanging around.’

  ‘Take care,’ Ganesh said, worried.

  I had a question for the man. ‘Who should I be looking for?’ (Yes, I know it should be ‘whom’ – I went to a good school where they fussed about that kind of thing – but I was under pressure.)

  ‘They’re in a car,’ he said. ‘A silver-grey Mercedes. They stopped at the traffic lights down the block. I got the door open and rolled out into the road.’

  ‘They’, were careless, I thought, and they’d lost their man. Whoever was paying them wouldn’t be pleased. They’d be moving heaven and earth to get him back.

  ‘Nearly got run over by a bloody bus,’ said our visitor, aggrieved.

  ‘Is that when you smashed your nose?’ Ganesh asked sharply.

  ‘Do me a favour. Look, if you can see the car, two guys in it, one small, one big with a ponytail, that’ll be them. But I reckon they don’t know I came in here. My bet is, once they saw I’d got away, they burned rubber getting out of here.’ He was quite perking up. I had a suspicion this wasn’t the first tight corner he’d been in and squeezed out of. Curiouser and curiouser.

  I had to ask. ‘Why’d they do it?’

  ‘Misunderstanding,’ he said, and that was as much as I was going to get. I hadn’t really expected more.

  ‘You watch yourself,’ muttered Ganesh to me.

  ‘It’ll be all right,’ said our guest, not altogether gallantly. ‘They won’t be expecting a girl.’

  I hoped they weren’t as I let myself out of the back door. I pulled up the collar of my fleece-lined denim jacket to keep out the rain and hide my face, made my way along the alley at the back of the shop, into the side street and back to the main road again.

  There was a bus stop there, so I lingered by it, scrutinising the traffic as if waiting for my bus. The street was fairly busy – taxis, vans, cars, one or two motorcyclists. No Mercedes. Double yellow lines precluded legal parking for most of its length and the only stationary vehicle was a red Post Office van.

  I turned round and leaned nonchalantly on the metal post. The people passing along the pavement were the usual mob, mostly women at this time of day, some with kids. One or two of the men who passed looked scruffy but none of them like a minder. No ponytails. This was an open bus stop without a shelter and I was getting wet. I put up a hand to wipe water from my hair. A split second later, there was a growl of tyres behind me. Intent on the pavement, I’d failed to observe the arrival of a double-decker. A woman got off. The bus throbbed expectantly and I realised I was meant to board it.

  ‘You getting on or what?’ the driver shouted at me. I waved a negative at him. ‘You hailed me!’ he bellowed.

  ‘No, I didn’t!’ I shouted back.

  ‘You bloody did. You put your hand out.’

  ‘No, I didn’t. I was rubbing my head.’

  ‘I gotta schedule to keep, you know!’ he informed me.

  ‘Well, go on and keep it, then!’ I’d had enough of this.

  He gave me a dirty look as he accelerated away. There was a man who lacked the Christmas spirit.

  If anyone had been watching, that would have blown my cover, so I might as well go back and report all clear as far as I could see.

  I strolled up to the shop. Ganesh, framed in gold, was standing on the other side of the glass door, peering between a sticker advertising Mars bars and one advertising Rizla cigarette papers. At my nod, he flipped the closed sign to open, and unlocked the door.

  ‘Can’t see anyone,’ I said, wiping trickling raindrops from my face. ‘All I got was into a barney with a bu
s driver. Where’s our friend?’

  ‘Cleaning himself up in the washroom.’

  ‘Hope he doesn’t leave it smeared all over with blood. Just think, when Hitch has done it all up for you, you’ll be more fussy who you let go in there.’ (Yes, ‘whom’, same excuse.) ‘Did you warn him about the loose top on the cistern? It’d be a pity if he came out more injured than he went in. He might sue. He’d want his tenner back.’

  ‘I told him!’ said Ganesh testily.

  There was a clanking from distant plumbing and the stranger reappeared. He’d got rid of all the blood, brushed his coat, and, swelling apart, no one would have noticed at a casual glance that he’d been in very recent trouble. I told him I’d been unable to see any Mercedes or ponytailed heavy.

  ‘That’s all right, then,’ he said. ‘I thought they’d have cleared off. They wouldn’t have seen me come in here. I shouldn’t worry.’

  He’d now completely regained composure and was well up to dealing with his problems. I still wished I knew what they were.

  ‘Thank you very much,’ he said to me, nice and polite. ‘I appreciate everything.’

  With that, he opened the door and slipped out. He looked quickly in either direction and then set off rapidly.

  Another crepe paper chain fell down.

  ‘So much for that,’ said Ganesh. ‘Breaks up the morning, I suppose.’

  ‘I wish I knew what it was all about,’ I said wistfully. I gave Ganesh a quick rundown of my ideas about the visitor, adding, ‘It’s all very well deducing things, but you like to know if you got it right.’

  ‘You would. Leave me out of it. I’m sure it’s better we don’t know anything.’ Ganesh opened the till, extricated two fives, put in the tenner and closed the till. He handed one of the fives to me and tucked the other in his pocket.

  ‘We earned it,’ he said.

  We? As I recalled, I was the one who went outside in the rain and made myself a possible target for aggro. Ganesh stayed inside and made the tea. But never argue with the man who’s holding the money.

  ‘I don’t suppose we’ll ever know,’ I said, pocketing my fiver.

  But I was wrong and Ganesh, as usual, was right. I mean, we were to find out what it was all about – and it would have been better if we hadn’t.

  Chapter Two

  I walked out of the shop at just gone one o’clock. Things had stayed quiet after our visitor left, the rain either keeping people indoors or sending them scurrying past, anxious to reach dry destinations. As we pinned our now somewhat battered decorations back into place, Ganesh and I had rehashed the morning’s main event. It remained a riddle and we went on to talk about Hari, whose postcard seemed to watch us accusingly from behind the counter. We wrangled about the washroom and Hitch’s imminent arrival on the premises and half a dozen other things. Just as I was leaving for home, Ganesh presented me with a Mars bar. Perhaps he thought I was owed a bonus for going out in the rain to spy out the land, or possibly he felt guilty for letting me do it. I put the chocolate in my pocket.

  There was a supermarket on my way. I called in there and used some of my fiver to buy a packet of tea and some pasta and a jar of pesto. Memories of the morning’s events were beginning to fade. It had been just one of those spurts of activity which occur from time to time. Like a pebble thrown into a pond, they disturb the surface, create a few ripples, and then everything settles down again.

  ‘Have you got any change?’

  I heard the voice, though the question wasn’t addressed to me. The voice came from a doorway just ahead of me and the request was made of a prosperous-looking elderly gent.

  ‘Have you got any change, sir?’ She emphasised the last word. She sounded pathetic. The old guy wavered, wanting to stick to his principles and walk on. But he couldn’t do it, not with that childish desperate voice echoing in his ears, a young girl’s voice. If that had been a man begging, he’d have told him to go and get a job. What he did now, as I knew he was going to do, was give too much. A small blue note changed hands.

  The old gent huffed a bit and said, ‘You know, my dear, you really oughtn’t—’ But he couldn’t finish the sentence because he hadn’t a clue what to say. He hurried away, distressed and angry, already regretting parting with the five-pound note.

  I approached the doorway carefully. There had been something about that voice which rang a bell. I peered in.

  She looked wet, cold and miserable, and was stick-insect thin. No wonder the old fellow had coughed up. Talk about Little Nell. Rain had plastered her straight fair hair to her head. Her eyes were huge and tragic in a face which had the matt, pale complexion of the heroin user.

  I said, ‘Hullo, Tig.’ Truth was, I’d hardly have known her if I hadn’t heard her voice first, she was so changed from our last meeting.

  She jumped and her eyes blazed in her waif’s features. I thought she was going to take a swing at me.

  ‘Take it easy,’ I said hastily. Those frail-looking ones can catch you a nasty swipe. ‘It’s Fran, remember me?’

  I hadn’t seen her for the best part of a year. She’d passed through the Jubilee Street squat when I’d been living there. I’d got to know her as well as you get to know anyone in that sort of setup, which is always as well as they’ll let you. She hadn’t stayed long, a week or two, and had been no trouble. A cheerful, plump, happy-go-lucky fifteen-year-old who hadn’t long been in London, she’d hailed from somewhere in the Midlands. She’d left home, she said, as a result of some family dispute, the old story. We’d rather missed her when she’d moved on, but I hadn’t expected her to stay long. The feeling I’d had then was that she was trying to give her parents a scare, get back at them for some real or imagined injustice. When she reckoned she’d done that, she’d go home. If asked, I’d have guessed she’d have returned there long before now, when cold, hunger and street violence ceased to sound adventurous and just got real and frightening.

  But I was clearly wrong. The change in her shocked me deeply, even though I’d seen kids like Tig before. They arrived from out of town, full of optimism, although I couldn’t think why. What did they think they were going to find in London? Other than a whole community of people like themselves with nowhere to go and a host of sharks ready to prey on them? They learned quickly if they were lucky. The unlucky ones came to grief before they’d time to learn.

  The thing that really stuck in my mind about her from Jubilee Street days was that she’d brushed her teeth after every meal, even if she didn’t have toothpaste. There are a lot of people who think that being homeless means being dirty. That isn’t true. Whatever the practical difficulties, homeless people try to keep themselves clean. Cleanliness means there’s still fight in you, circumstances haven’t ground you down. You still care about yourself, even if others appear to have written you off. When a cat ceases to groom itself, you know it’s sick. People are no different. With them it’s also a sign of a sickness, either in body or in spirit. The sickness in spirit is the more difficult to deal with. Looking at Tig now, I wondered which kind of sickness afflicted her.

  We’d had a no-drugs rule in the squat and if she’d had the habit then, she’d concealed it very cleverly. But I didn’t think that was the case. She couldn’t have been that smart. I guessed the habit was recent. Actually, she wasn’t that smart. Belatedly, I remembered that, too. Naïve, perhaps, but a bit dim also.

  ‘Yeah, Fran,’ she said eventually. Her eyes slid sideways, past me. I remembered her gaze as it had been, bright, full of good nature. Now it was dull and hard. ‘Got any spare change, madam?’ she wheedled of a motherly woman with a bulging plastic carrier. The woman looked concerned and parted with twenty pence. Tig put it in her pocket.

  ‘How are things?’ She seemed to be doing well begging, but there was a quiet desperation about her which made me wary because when they reach that stage, they can really freak out.

  ‘All right,’ she said. Her gaze shifted past me again, this time nervously.

&
nbsp; I still had two pounds left from my fiver and I gave her one of them. She looked surprised and then suspicious.

  ‘It’s OK,’ I said. ‘I had a bit of luck.’

  At those words, misery welled up in her face, and was immediately wiped away. Luck had been avoiding her. She no longer expected any. But on the streets you hide your feelings. They make you vulnerable and God knows, you’re vulnerable enough without the enemy within.

  ‘Good for you,’ she said bitchily and shoved the pound coin away in her pocket with the rest.

  I persevered nevertheless – the memory of the old Tig made me do it. ‘You heard what happened to the Jubilee Street house? They knocked it down.’

  ‘Yeah, I heard. It was going to fall down anyway.’

  That hurt. I’d been fond of that house and it had sheltered her, as well as me, for a time. She owed it better than that.