Angel Hunt (4 page)

I winked at Mrs Patel, and to my surprise she winked back.

At the meat fridge, I picked up a pack of ground beef. ‘They used to call this mince until people started making their own hamburgers, you know. I always use garlic and a smear of tomato puree in mine.'

By now he was totally bemused.

‘Look,' I said, to put him out of his misery, ‘you know that big skylight Sunil had put in the bathroom when the house was done up?'

‘Of course I do. I paid for it. His damn wife said it was not natural to have a room without a window. Sunil would not buy the place until it had been done. Why? Why are you asking?'

‘Because you're going to need another.' I snapped my fingers as if I'd forgotten something. ‘Yoghurt. Plain sheep's, please. It's back there with the milk.'

It was only after he had reached for it that he realised he was carrying my groceries around. Huffily he pushed the basket at me.

‘So what happened? Drunken party, I expect. Throwing beer bottles through the window. That it?'

‘Not quite. Someone sort of ... dropped in.' I couldn't think of any other way of saying it. ‘A guy had been on the roof. Maybe he was doing a bit of breaking and entering.' Well, he certainly did that. ‘And he sort of came through and landed in the bath.'

‘In the bath?' Nassim's eyes were out like organ stops by this time. So were Mrs Patel's, who had cocked her head on one side to listen better.

‘I can see nobody is going to believe this story first time, are they?' I said resignedly. ‘Yes, he landed in the bath and the fall killed him.'

‘He's dead?'

‘Mostly.'

‘But it is nothing to do with me,' he squealed, turning to Mrs Patel for sympathy. She shook her head slowly and tut-tutted to herself. I hoped I never got her if she did jury duty.

‘No-one's saying it is, but I'm in the house because I'm doing you a favour. I don't know Sunil from Adam –' and I went on before he could ask ‘Adam who?' ‘– and naturally, the cops will want to check that out. They might ask if you know if Sunil had any dealings with Billy Tuckett ..'

‘Who is this Billy person?' Nassim's arms started whirling. Not a good sign.

‘The man who fell through your window.'

‘It is not my window, it is that good-for-nothing Sunil's window.'

‘And what does good-for-nothing Sunil do for a living?'

‘Nothing. He works for me.'

Fair enough.

‘So that's all you have to tell the police.' I put a hand on his shoulder. He looked at it suspiciously. ‘In fact, all they'll probably do is ask if you can get in touch with Sunil for them. They don't know that Billy Tuckett was actually making for Sunil's house. It could just have been bad luck.'

‘Who is this Billy Tuckett person?' He was getting close to foot-stamping time.

‘The man on the roof.'

‘What are these men doing on my cousin's roof? Just how many people are going on roofs? I don't have anybody on my roof.'

I nodded to where Mrs Patel had strung ‘MERRY CHRISTMAS' in large red letters across the drinks shelf, anchored by a bottle of Bailey's Cream at one end and a six-pack of headbanging lager at the other.

‘Well, if
you
don't have a visitor on your roof at this time of year, it probably means you've been naughty, not nice.' I handed my basket to Mrs Patel. Next to the till was a box of chocolate Christmas tree decorations. I picked out a chocolate Santa Claus and showed it to Nassim.

‘He checks twice, you know.'

 

I cooked and ate and even washed up; tried to get into some music; and resisted the temptation to open a bottle of wine.

Nothing worked. My sleep/wake clock had bust a spring, and I was worried about the fact that it had been Billy Tuckett who had dropped through the skylight. Why couldn't it have been a total stranger? Then I could have left it alone.

Instead I rang Bunny, which nine times out of eight is a dangerous thing to do. I didn't ring him to borrow money, because he never has any to lend. I didn't ring him because he plays a mean alto-sax, though he is one of the best reed men currently not working out of a studio in the Windward Isles (wherever). I didn't ring him to ask his advice on how to pick up women – and if I did, it would only be to find out where he buys his chloroform.

I rang Bunny because he too had been at university with me, though, funnily enough, I didn't really know him until later. As a student, he had very quickly shacked up with a second-year chemistry undergraduate who had very definite ideas that Degree Day was rapidly followed by Wedding Day. And once Bunny graduated, so it did. He got a job in insurance, and the marriage lasted about three years and three months, then Bunny found out that his quiet, dutiful wife had been having an affair with her boss at the food research place where she worked for roughly three years and two months. Bunny threatened to chainsaw the flat in Muswell Hill and torch the goldfish, although maybe it was the other way round. What in fact he did was give up his regular job, take his half of the Muswell Hill flat in cash and go out and buy an alto, followed by tenor and then soprano saxes. Then he dedicated his life to music and the pursuit of women, and we found we had something in common.

Music, that is.

A female voice answered Bunny's phone and told me he was out seeing a man about a second-hand tenor sax but I could leave a message after the beep. Then she yelled ‘Beep' so loudly I ended up a yard away from our communal house phone, which is nailed to the wall just inside the front door. I wondered where Bunny had found her.

I played along, saying I was acting on behalf of Boot-in Inc Recording Studios – an outfit Bunny and I had actually done some backtrack recording for when they wanted a sound they couldn't synthesise – and that it was vital that I contact Mr Warren immediately to consult on his availability for a major recording contract, and which pub was he in anyway?

‘Calthorpe Arms, Grays Inn Road,' she said, and I said thanks and hung up.

As I turned from the phone, I realised the stairs were blocked by Lisabeth, hands on hips, outside her flat door.

‘What are you doing here?' she said, as if reading from a Gestapo training manual.

‘I live here,' I said innocently.

‘You're supposed to be away for the week.'

The prosecution rests, m'lud. Case closed. Pass the black cap.

‘I'm back for a couple of nights,' I said weakly. Why did I feel intimidated? Maybe it was because she had the advantage of the high ground and was looking down on me.

No. It was because she was Lisabeth.

‘Fenella's out at her French lessons,' she said, dead straight.

I bit my tongue and simply said: ‘So?'

She brought her hands away from her hips, which had hidden them quite well, and let a tin-opener and a tin of Whiskas drop onto the stairs.

‘So feed your own damned livestock.'

And off she flounced.

I trudged upstairs and picked up the tin and the opener. Outside Lisabeth's door, I said in a loud voice, as if talking to someone: ‘That's the trouble, you just can't get the staff these days …'

Then I ran the rest of the way just in case she'd heard.

 

The Calthorpe Arms at that time on a Monday evening was so busy and bustling that you could hear a beermat drop. There were about a dozen customers, mostly middle-aged men sitting alone reading
Evening Standard
s, who troubled the barman only to the extent that occasionally he had to turn down the corner of a page of his Stephen King paperback. It must really be business that had brought Bunny here, as it wasn't his sort of pub. There were no women. Come to think of it, I wasn't that keen on it either, though it did serve a cracking pint of Young's bitter.

So good, I ordered a low-al lager so as not to get locked into a session.

Bunny saw me and gave me a brief nod, then went back to talking to a young black dude wearing a blue trenchcoat and nursing a colour-coordinated Filofax. Only the die-hards used them now; that was the first one I'd seen in captivity for some months. Maybe only the really bad cases, those who were hooked, had to keep their habit going.

After five minutes or so, they did their deal and the black guy left in a jangle of car keys, a big bunch on an ostentatious metal Mercedes key-ring. I bet myself he had a Skoda parked round the corner.

Bunny joined me at the bar and bought us both another drink. ‘This isn't your turf, is it?' he asked, checking his change carefully and obviously in front of the barman. Bunny knows lots of little irritating bits of behaviour.

‘No, I was looking for you, and I wouldn't have figured you for this particular humming and vibrant example of the capital's nightscene.'

‘Business.' He shrugged. ‘Had to see Elmore there about some instruments. Also got a job if you're interested, on Wednesday.'

I hesitated just that millisecond too long. Bunny works on the principle that if he asks every woman he meets to sleep with him, a certain percentage are going to say yes. If they say no straight away, he moves on. If they hesitate, he reckons he's in with a chance. He gets a lot of noes that way, but a remarkable number of yesses, and when he didn't register an instant negative from me, I was as good as signed up.

‘It's a peach of an earner,' he went on quickly. ‘And it'll be a giggle, guaranteed.'

‘All that means is it's cash-in-hand and there are women involved somewhere. Where, when and, lest we forget, how much?'

He looked at me disapprovingly. Well, he tried to.

‘You can be really mercenary at times, Mr Angel. Don't you ever think of anything but dosh?'

‘Of course. I've got a lot on my mind: the state of the economy, interest rates, disarmament in the Warsaw Pact, lead in petrol, why nobody lets England win at cricket any more, does the Aids scare mean we'll never have another vampire movie, are 48 satellite TV channels enough …'

‘Okay, okay, lay off the ear-bashing. Do you know St Christopher's Place up West?'

‘The precinct, off Oxford Street?'

‘That's it. All the shopkeepers there have chipped in and hired a promo agency to drum up Christmas trade. One of their ideas is to put a band on a lorry and drive round the block at lunchtime belting out the old traddies – the stuff you play. If nothing else, it'll annoy the hell out of Selfridges.'

‘And on the lorry will be a clutch of nubile young ladies in red Santa Claus miniskirts and fishnet tights handing out leaflets saying “Come and shop in St Christopher's Place.”‘

He looked staggered.

‘Somebody's asked you already?'

‘No, Bunny, I just know the way your mind works.'

‘There's 50 in it for you. An hour's work. Two, tops.'

‘Who else is playing?'

‘I've got Trippy on piano ...'

‘Does it have a full set of keys?'

‘The piano does. I don't know about Trippy.' I nodded I agreement. ‘He's got his mate Dod bringing a snare drum and high hat – I didn't think there was much point in a full drum kit.'

Again I agreed. I didn't personally think having a piano I on the back of a truck was much use either, but it looked good and gave the band somewhere to balance their beer cans.

‘There's me on clarinet, you on horn, and I've a tuba player called Chase. Know him?'

‘He's a miserable git, isn't he?'

‘That's him. I'm still short of a trombone, though.'

I took a felt-tipped pen out of his jacket pocket and wrote a number on a beer mat.

‘Ring this first thing in the morning. It's a direct line into the BBC. Ask for Martin. He's very good and he'll probably do it for nothing if he can get a couple of hours off.'

‘Cheers,' said Bunny, pocketing the mat as he had done a million others, though the phone numbers on them were not usually trombonists'. ‘What
are
you doing here, anyway?'

‘Came to see you. Your answering service said you'd be here.'

He looked down into his glass.

‘Ah yes ... Edwina.'

‘Edwina? Where did you find her?'

‘She found me, and I'm having trouble getting rid of her.'

‘I never thought that was your problem.'

Bunny pursed his lips and whispered: ‘Bitch.'

‘I wanted to pick your brains,' I said.

‘Find ‘em first.'

‘Think back to your carefree youth before the cares of the world descended on your manly shoulders.'

‘Last week, you mean?'

‘Ha-chortle-ha. A bit further back, to uni days. Remember a kid called Billy Tuckett?'