Keeping Bad Company Page 4

  ‘Quite recently.’

  ‘When?’ he persisted.

  ‘Look, I don’t know! We’d have to ask him again!’

  So that’s why we ended up spending the afternoon looking for Alkie Albie Smith.

  Needless to say, we didn’t find him. We went back to the station and asked the railway staff, the taxi-drivers outside, anyone who looked as if he might have been there earlier in the day. Surprisingly, a few people knew who we meant. Albie, it seemed, was quite a local character. But no one had a clue where he went when he wasn’t hanging around Marylebone . . . or offering to punch passers-by outside Hari’s newsagent’s.

  ‘That’s it, then,’ said Ganesh, sounding relieved. ‘We tried. He’ll have got hold of some booze and be sleeping it off somewhere. If you see him again, you can ask him again. Otherwise there’s absolutely nothing we can do. I still think he dreamed it all up. You’d bought him coffee. You’d demonstrated you were a soft touch. He wanted a quid off you and was spinning an interesting tale. Look, I’ve got to get back to the shop or Hari will be worrying.’

  ‘When isn’t he? We should tell the police.’

  ‘Give over, Fran. They’d chuck you out of the copshop before you finished your story. You didn’t see anything. All you know is, Albie reckoned he saw something – and let’s face it, the old chap isn’t going to impress the police as a reliable witness!’

  I wasn’t going to argue with Ganesh. It’s almost impossible at the best of times. Ganesh always makes perfect sense. The more sense he makes, the more I disagree with him. So I let him go. But I wasn’t letting the matter go. I don’t give up that easily. I could at least try to report it. So that’s where I went, the nick.

  Contrary to what some people might think of me, I don’t have anything against our gallant constabulary. It does sometimes appear as if they’ve got something against me, but that’s their problem. It was worse when I hadn’t a regular address. But even now I’ve got a proper address, they treat me like I had a record as long as your arm, which I haven’t, I may add. Gan says, what can I expect if I go around with holes in my jeans and a haircut that looks as if someone ran a lawnmower over it. Probably it doesn’t help that my temper has rather a short fuse and the plods can be so frustratingly thick. We get into arguments and the Law doesn’t like that. Generally, I leave them alone and hope they’ll leave me alone.

  Walking voluntarily into the local police station that afternoon felt all wrong. I was a fish out of water and probably looked as if I’d come to confess to being the Camden chainsaw killer.

  It was a quiet period. A middle-aged desk sergeant was drinking tea from a mug with ‘George’ painted on it. A short distance away, down the counter, an intense woman in a red mac and black beret was making a formal complaint about a neighbour to an impatient woman officer who had probably heard it before.

  ‘He exposes himself to me!’ said the woman.‘Every evening at the bay window.’

  ‘We made enquiries,’ said the WPC. ‘No one else has been bothered by him and he denies it.’

  ‘Every evening!’ persisted the woman. ‘Wearing nothing but one of them baseball caps.’

  The desk sergeant, seeing I’d become distracted, put down his mug and enquired, ‘Yes?’

  I apologised for my inattention and said I’d come to make a report.

  ‘Sergeant Henderson,’ he said. ‘You wait over there, take a seat. And you’re late. Should have been here this morning, ten sharp.’

  ‘Why can’t I report it to you?’ All he was doing was drinking his tea and – I could now see – doing a crossword.

  ‘If you’re on bail and gotta report in daily,’ he said, ‘you see Sergeant Henderson. He deals with that.’

  I explained, very patiently considering the insult, that I hadn’t come to report myself but to make a report regarding an incident.

  ‘An incident?’ he asked suspiciously. ‘Mugging? Traffic offence?’

  ‘None of those. Much more serious.’ He brightened up so I added quickly, ‘Well, I didn’t actually witness it myself.’

  This didn’t go down well. He’d picked up a Biro and now he put it down again and a scowl puckered his receding hairline. The suspicion began to grow in my heart that Ganesh had been right.

  I started talking quickly before he could interrupt and managed to get out the gist of Albie’s tale.

  The woman with neighbour problem was interested at least. She’d left off telling her own tale and was watching me closely.

  The desk sergeant looked as if pension day couldn’t come soon enough as far as he was concerned. ‘Now, let’s get this straight,’ he said. ‘You were told by some old fellow who happened to sit down next to you on a public bench that he’d seen a snatch. Why didn’t he report it himself?’

  ‘He’s living rough,’ I said. ‘He doesn’t want trouble.’

  He rolled his eyes upwards theatrically. ‘Living rough? Oh well, yes, that makes it a whole lot easier! You wouldn’t know his name, I suppose? Because, let’s face it, dear, there’s not a lot we can do with what you’ve just told me now. Half those old dossers are doolally. Live in a world of their own, you know. It comes of drinking anything they can find which is alcohol-based. You wouldn’t credit what they’ll knock back without a blink. Stuff which would poison you and me. They lose all contact with reality. Even if there’s a grain of truth in it, the time scale’s out. They tell you something like it happened yesterday and it turns out it took place forty years ago. If you knew his name, of course, we could check it out – if we could find him.’

  In a general sense he was probably right. But I didn’t believe that the drink had scuppered Alkie Albie, despite his nickname. I knew what had done for Albie. He’d dropped out of the regular world the day he’d had to part with Fifi, Mimi and Chou-Chou. The nice kind woman had taken them away to new good homes. But every day of his life since then he’d wondered what had really happened to those poodles (and one of them very likely a canine alcoholic, at that).

  ‘As a matter of fact I can tell you his name,’ I said proudly, confident of making an impression. ‘It’s Albert Antony Smith.’

  It made an impression all right. The sergeant dropped his Biro and gave a yell of laughter. ‘What? Old Alkie Albie? He’s been spinning you one of his tales? Gorblimey, I’ve been listening to all this and it turns out to be one of Alkie Albie’s nightmares?’ He leaned on the counter confidentially. ‘Listen, we know old Albie here. He’s never sober. He’s just what you might call one degree more or less drunk. He never saw nothing, darling, believe me.’

  ‘He wasn’t on a bender at the time he talked to me,’ I said. ‘He was drinking coffee.’

  ‘That’d be a bloomin’ first! Old Alkie Albie drinking something which wouldn’t go up in flames if you put a match near it?’

  ‘I bought the coffee for him,’ I insisted. ‘I know what he was drinking. I believe he saw it all.’

  He smiled at me in a kindly fashion as people do at the innocently deluded. ‘Listen, dear. He believes he saw it. You believe he saw it. Perhaps the old git honestly believes he did see it. But then, he sees all sorts, does Albie, when he’s had a skinful. Hallucinating, see? He mightn’t have been puggled when you spoke to him, but believe me, the night he saw this incident, he would’ve been plastered. Don’t you worry about it. Nothing happened.’

  ‘That what they always say!’ said the woman to me, in the tones of one who’d suffered long from the incredulity of the police force. ‘And I saw him as clear as I see you, and him without a stitch on.’

  The WPC said firmly, ‘I think you’re mistaken, Mrs Parrish, and this is the third time in a week you’ve been in here. We’re very busy, you know! I’ll have a word with the social worker.’

  ‘Happens all the time, see?’ the sergeant whispered hoarsely. ‘In here reporting things every other day, she is. Loneliness is what causes it.’

  Perhaps that did it, the notion that they classed me with a nutcase who saw naked m
en at every bay window. Or perhaps I had a sneaking feeling the sergeant might be right about Albie. I felt foolish and sought to rescue a shred of pride.

  ‘Look,’ I snapped. ‘I only know what he told me and I’m reporting it. Kidnapping’s a serious crime, right? You ought to check it out. At any rate, I’ve been a responsible citizen and told you and I want it logged into the daybook.’

  I knew that much about police stations. They keep a record of reported incidents, day by day in the Occurrence Book.

  His kindly smile vanished. ‘If you knew the amount of paperwork we have to do, you wouldn’t ask me to waste time writing up a report on one of Alkie Albie’s methsvisions!’

  I just stood there. He sighed. ‘All right. Make meself a laughing stock. And your name is?’

  I told him and also my address.

  ‘And at least consider it might have happened!’ I pleaded.

  ‘Certainly, madam!’ he said. ‘And I’ll ring round the press and tell ’em to hold the front page, and all.’

  As I left, the woman was recommencing but about a different man, this time at a bus stop.

  I was angry and frustrated – more than a little embarrassed, too – but most of all I was determined. I still believed Albie’s story and I wanted to prove it true more than anything. I’m ashamed to say, the desire to wipe the superior look off the sergeant’s face was a stronger motivation at that moment than rescuing the unfortunate kidnap victim. I’d almost forgotten about her. Not exactly, but she wasn’t in the front of my mind, if you understand me.

  But as I walked home, I calmed down more and remembered that behind all this was someone in real trouble and it seemed I was the only person who cared enough to try and do something about it. I might like to be free of commitments, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have a conscience. I had to find Albie and get him to tell his story again. He might dredge up some extra detail from his fuddled memory but the longer I let it go, the more likely it was he’d forget altogether.

  After that, I had somehow to help the girl. But at the moment I had no idea how to find my witness, much less how I could secure the victim’s freedom. But one problem at a time.

  It was late afternoon and the wind had dropped. It was the nicest it had been all day. Perhaps tomorrow would be halfway decent. I’d want good weather if I was to be foot-slogging round the streets. I let myself into my flat. Good detective work starts with a cup of tea.

  Chapter Three

  Ganesh came by at eight-thirty that evening, rapping on the basement window in the familiar pattern that was his code.

  ‘Hari was fidgeting about checking the till for ages but that’s it, until tomorrow.’ He slumped on the blue rep sofa, stretching out his legs towards the flickering little TV screen. He looked tired.

  Hari opened up the shop early in the morning because of the newspapers but closed at eight sharp, usually on the dot. There’s money to be made by staying open late, but there’s always an increased risk of trouble from kids roaming in gangs looking for mischief and, later, from lager louts spilling out of the pubs. A small shopkeeper is a natural target. Hari played it safe.

  Either because of the set’s age or because of the subterranean location, the screen displayed poor picture reception, each frame showing two newscasters, one a ghostly doppelgänger hovering at the other’s elbow. Ganesh didn’t seem to mind. Perhaps he was just watching the moving shapes, not taking in any of it.

  ‘I’ve just about had Hari,’ he said. ‘He’s driving me barmy. He had me counting rolls of Polo mints today. Not that they don’t pinch Polo mints or anything else. Those kids take anything on principle. Just a game to half of ’em. Hauling sacks of spuds around was better.’ That Ganesh had reached this conclusion was a measure of how depressed he was. ‘No one shoplifts a potato.’

  I told him I’d been to the police and the tone of my voice must have revealed with what success.

  Ganesh muttered, ‘I told you so.’

  This didn’t help and put me in aggressive mood. ‘I’m not giving up. I’m going out again tomorrow looking for Albie. He has to be somewhere.’

  Ganesh came awake. ‘You can’t wander round doorways, talking to winos and psychos, Fran!’

  I pointed out to him that not everyone kipping rough was a maniac. There’d been an occasion, when things had been really bad for me, when I’d slept rough.

  I’d been lucky because I’d only had to do it for one night. I’d been nothing but a kid at the time, not long after Grandma Varady went into a nursing home. She’d been my only relative since Dad’s death and I’d been living with her. But the place we’d lived in had been rented in her name, not mine, and the landlord had wanted me out. So out I went, into the street, with my belongings in a rucksack. Not that the landlord cared about that.

  It had been summer and I thought – being innocent or stupid, whichever word you prefer – that sleeping out under the stars might not be so bad if I did it in the local park. Before I left the house, I crept round the back without the landlord seeing me and filched a piece of tarpaulin from the garden shed, with the idea of making a tent. I probably saw myself like a character in a Famous Five story.

  I’d forgotten they locked the park gates at night and that was just the first problem. I had to climb over the wall. Then I found I wasn’t the only one to do that and every bench had a regular, settling himself down for the night. I hadn’t reckoned on company, either.

  Some of the company was distinctly unhealthy in more ways than one. Once the danger of it all was brought home to me, I gave up the idea of making a tent. Instead, I wrapped the tarpaulin round me like a sheet of armour, crawled into the centre of a large municipal rosebed, and spent a miserable, sleepless night among the floribundas. I kept telling myself that if anyone tried to come in there after me, he wouldn’t be able to approach quietly and I’d know about it.

  The next day I was lucky enough to meet up with someone I’d come across before, on the drama course, and he took me along to a squat where he was living and a place was found there for me. It was in a row of condemned terraced houses. The windows were broken and the floorboards rotted, but it was dry and safe. No one who hasn’t been out on the streets can appreciate those words ‘dry’ and ‘safe’ as an ex-homeless person can, believe me.

  That was the first of the many squats I’ve lived in. Sleeping rough was an experience I’m determined never to repeat. I look upon it as the lowest point of my career and from then on, no matter how bad things could get, they had to be better, and that meant I was on the way up.

  Gan and I argued about it and in the end, he said, ‘Look, the old fellow told you himself he spends most of the day down the tube if it’s cold, and it’s been cold. Unless you want to ride round London Underground all day, you’re not likely to find him.’

  ‘He might go back to the railway station. Or if not that one, another one. Maybe over at Paddington? That’s on the Bakerloo Line. If they throw him off Marylebone, he might just nip down the tube, ride two stops northbound and try again.’

  ‘Check the railway stations, the lot if you like, but if he’s not there, leave it until I can get here after work. I’ll come round the doorways with you then. That’s the best time to look for him. Fair enough?’

  We agreed on that one. Ganesh had cheered up by now and suggested we went down the baked potato café for some supper.

  The baked potato place was run by an exiled Scot called Reekie Jimmie. (The potatoes were from Cyprus.) If you wanted to know how Jimmie got his nickname you only had to look at his orange fingers and mahogany-coloured nails. But to his credit, Jimmie didn’t smoke in the café. He smoked in the corridor accessed from the eating area by a narrow door behind the service counter.

  The potatoes came with filling of your choice but the choice wasn’t great: usually cheese, chilli or baked beans, and there was a suspicious similarity between the last two. Despite much talk of prime Scottish beef, I guessed that Jimmie created the chilli filling by add
ing an Oxo cube and a pinch of curry powder to the baked bean one.

  This evening, when we got there, there was only one perplexed customer, crouched despondently over a corner table. He was dismembering the contents of his plate with painful intensity, setting it all out in small discoloured lumps of mash and baked beans. It was rather like watching a man who’s afraid of swallowing the lucky silver coin with his Christmas pudding. He had probably ordered the chilli and was looking for the meat. I wished him luck.

  Jimmie took our order and our money. Jimmie always wisely took your money first before you saw your baked potato. He gave us a numbered card despite the lack of competing custom and told us to sit where we liked.

  We made our choice of the greasy tables, I put my numbered card on display, wiped the seat of the chair and sat down. Gan leaned his arms on the table, dislodging the number, and said: ‘I’ve been thinking.’