It turned out a lot better than I expected. On the way to the car park, I told Davy the lie Richard and I had prearranged. Dad was in Bosnia; he’d had to fly off suddenly because he’d had an exclusive tip that Bob Geldof was out there organizing some sort of Bosnia Aid concert. I almost believed it myself by the time I’d finished the explanation. Davy took it very calmly. I suppose after eight years, he’s grown accustomed to a dad who doesn’t behave quite like other kids’ fathers. At least he’s not shy; that’s one thing that being around Richard and his crazy buddies in rock and journalism has cured him of. ‘You remember Chris and Alexis?’ I asked him as we drove out of the airport towards the M56.
He nodded. ‘Alexis is funny. And Chris is good at drawing and painting and building things with Lego. I like them.’
‘Well, they’re going to help me look after you, because I’ve got some work to do over the weekend.’
‘Can’t I come with you to work, Kate?’ he wheedled. ‘I want to be a private detective like you. I saw this film and it was in black and white and it had an American detective in it, Mum said he was called Humpty something, and he had a gun. Have you got a gun, Kate?’
I shook my head. Depressingly, he looked disappointed. ‘I don’t need one, Davy.’
‘What about if you were fighting a bad man, and he had a gun? You’d need one then,’ he said triumphantly.
‘If I was fighting someone who had a gun, and he knew I had a gun, he’d have to shoot me to win the fight. But if he knows I haven’t got a gun, he only has to hit me. That way I stay alive. And, on balance, I think I prefer being alive.’
Chris was waiting when we got home. I’d rung ahead to give her ten minutes’ warning, so she was just assembling home-made cheeseburgers as we walked in. I could have kissed her. The three of us sat round the breakfast bar scoffing and telling the sort of jokes that eight-year-olds like. You know: why do bees hum? Because they’ve forgotten the words.
After we’d pigged out, I showed Davy the latest Commander Keen game I’d got for us both. I extracted a promise from him that he’d go to bed in half an hour when Chris told him to, and left him bouncing on his pixel pogo stick through Slug Village. Ten minutes split between the bathroom and the bedroom was enough to knock me into shape for the night. My lightweight walking boots; my ripped denim decorating jeans over multi-coloured leggings; a Bob Marley T-shirt I won at a rock charity dinner; and a baggy flannel shirt that belonged to my granddad that I keep for sentimental reasons. I tucked my auburn hair into a dayglo green baseball cap, and slapped on some make-up that made me look like an anaemic refugee from Transylvania. Grunge meets acid house. I found Chris in front of the television, watching the news. Bless her, she didn’t turn a hair at the apparition. ‘I really appreciate this. And believe me, Richard will need a bank loan to express his appreciation when all this is over. I take it Alexis filled you in?’ I said quietly, perching on the arm of the sofa.
‘She did, and it’s horrifying. What’s happening? Any progress?’ That’s probably the shortest contribution to any conversation I’ve ever heard Chris make.
‘Not really. That’s why I’m going out now. I’ve got one or two leads to follow up. Are you OK to hang on here?’
Chris patted my knee. ‘We’re staying till this is all sorted out. I brought a bag with me, and I’ve moved us into Richard’s room, I hope that’s all right, but it seemed the most sensible thing, because then Davy can sleep in his usual bed in Richard’s house so you can come and go as and when you please without worrying about waking any of us, and then we’re on hand to take over the child minding as and when you need us.’ I swear she’s the only person I know who can talk and breathe at the same time.
I gave Chris a swift hug and stood up. ‘Thanks. I’ll see you in the morning then.’ I walked out of the house, feeling a sense of purpose for the first time since I’d had Ruth’s phone call.
9
I started off at the Delta, known to Richard and his cronies, for obvious reasons, as the ‘Lousy Hand’. That’s where he’d been the night the car was stolen. The Lousy Hand occupies a handful of railway arches in a narrow cul-de-sac between the GMEX exhibition centre and the Hacienda Club. Since it was only half past nine, there was no queue, so I sailed straight in.
The décor in the Lousy Hand has been scientifically designed to make you think you’ve dropped a tab of acid even when you’re straight. God knows what it does to the kids who are really out of their heads. Everywhere I looked there were psychedelic fractals mingling at random with trompe-l’æil Bridget Riley-style monochrome pop art extravaganzas. There were only a few dozen punters in that early, but most of them were already on the dance floor, mindlessly happy as only those high on Ecstasy can be. The dancing was something else, too. Scarcely co-ordinated, the dancers looked like a motley assortment of marionettes jerked around by a five-year-old puppet master with all the elegance and skill of Skippy the bush kangaroo. The music had the irritating insistence of a bluebottle at a window, the heavy bass beat so loud it seemed to thump inside my chest. I’d have sold my soul to be back home with a nice restful video like Terminator 2.
Feeling about a hundred and five, I crossed to the bar. As well as the usual designer beers, the optics of spirits and the Tracy-and-Sharon specials like Malibu and Byzance, the Lousy Hand boasted possibly the best range of soft drinks outside Harrods Food Hall. From carrot juice to an obscure Peruvian mineral water, they had it all, and most of it was carbonated. No, officer, of course we don’t have a drug problem here. None of our clients would dream of abusing illegal substances. And I am Marie of Rumania.
The bar staff looked like leftovers from the club’s previous existence as a bog-standard eighties yuppie nightclub. The women and the men were dressed identically in open-necked, wing-collar white dress shirts and tight-fitting black dress trousers. The principal differences were that the men probably had marginally more gel, wax and mousse on their hair, and their earrings were more stylish. I leaned my elbows on the bar and waited. There weren’t enough customers to occupy all the staff, but I still had to hang on for the obligatory thirty seconds. God forbid I should think they had nothing better to do than serve me.
The beautiful youth who halted opposite me raised his eyebrows. ‘Just a Diet Coke, please,’ I said. He looked disappointed to be asked for something so conventional. He swivelled on one toe, opened the door of a chill cabinet and lifted a can off the shelf, all in one graceful movement. I don’t know why he bothered. I couldn’t have looked less like a talent scout from MTV.
‘Wanna glass?’ he asked, dumping the can in front of me. I shook my head and paid him.
When he came back with my change, I said, ‘You know the street outside? Is it safe to park there? Only, I’m parked right up near the dead end and there’s no streetlights, and I wondered if a lot of cars get nicked from out there?’
He shrugged. ‘Cars get nicked. Outside here’s no worse than anywhere else in town. A thousand cars a week get stolen in Manchester, did you know that?’ I shook my head. ‘And two-thirds of them are never recovered. Bet you didn’t know that.’ Never mind the Mr Cool image, this guy had the soul of a train spotter in an anorak.
Ignoring him, I went on, ‘Only, it’s not really my car, it’s my boyfriend’s and he’d kill me if anything happened to it.’
‘What kind is it?’ he asked.
‘Peugeot 205. Nothing fancy, just the standard one.’
‘You’re probably all right, then.’ He leaned his elbows on the bar and elegantly crossed his legs. I prepared myself for a lecture. ‘Six months ago, you couldn’t park a hot hatch anywhere between Stockport and Bury and expect to find it there when you went back to it. But with these new insurance weightings, the bottom’s dropped out of the second-hand market for boy-racer cars. So the professionals gave up on the sports jobs and started nicking boring old family cars instead. Less risk as well. I mean, if you was the Old Bill, would you think the Nissan Sunny cruising past you was bein
g driven by any self-respecting car thief?’
I giggled. Not because he was funny, but because he clearly expected it. ‘Only,’ I persisted, ‘my boyfriend’s mate had his car nicked from outside here the other night, and he was really pissed off because he’d only bought it that day. And it was a beauty. A brand new Leo Gemini turbo super coupé.’
‘I heard about that,’ he said, pushing himself upright again. ‘That was the night they had the benefit, wasn’t it?’
‘I dunno.’
‘Yeah, that’s right. The gig was finished, because we’d shut up the bar and the lights were up. The guy came storming back in, ranting about his precious motor and demanding a phone.’ So much for not mentioning the car to a soul. ‘Mate of yours then, was he?’ the barman asked.
I nodded. ‘Mate of my boyfriend’s. He reckoned somebody saw him parking it up and coming in here. He said he thought they must have been coming to the club too, or else why would they be down the cul-de-sac?’
The barman grinned, unselfconscious for the first time. ‘Well, he’d have plenty thieves to choose from that night. Half Moss Side was in here. Drug barons, car ringers, the lot. You name it, we had them.’
With a flick of his pony tail, he was gone to batter someone else’s brain with his statistics. I swigged the Coke and looked around me. While I’d been standing at the bar, there had been a steady stream of punters arriving behind me. Already, the place looked a lot fuller than it had when I entered. If I was going to have a word with the bouncers before they had more important things to think about, I’d better make a move.
There were two of them in the foyer, flanking the narrow doorway that had been cut in the huge wooden door that filled the end of one of the arches occupied by the club. They both wore the bouncer’s uniform: ill-fitting tux; ready-made velvet bow tie that had seen better days. As I approached, the older and bulkier one slipped through the door and into the street. Intrigued, I got my hand stamped with a pass-out and followed him. He walked about fifty yards up towards the dead end. I slipped into the shadows beyond the club and watched him. He looked around, then simply turned and walked back, carrying on past the club for another fifty yards or so before strolling back inside.
I stuck my head round the door and said, ‘Where’s the best place to park around here? Only, I don’t want to get the car nicked. It’s my boyfriend’s.’
The smaller bouncer flashed a ‘Right one we’ve got here’ look at his oppo. ‘Darling, you don’t look like the kind of girl who’d have a boyfriend with a car worth nicking,’ he said, smoothing back his hair with a smirk.
‘Mind you don’t wear out the rug,’ I snarled back, pointing to his head. Although he was only in his early twenties, his dark hair was already thinning so it was a fair bet that would be a tender spot.
Right on the button. He scowled. ‘Piss off,’ he quipped wittily.
‘Does the management know you’re this helpful to customers who only want to avoid giving the club a worse name than it’s already got?’ I asked sweetly.
‘Don’t push it,’ the bouncer with the wanderlust said coldly, glowering down at me. Now I could see him in the light, he seemed familiar, but I couldn’t place him, which surprised me. I don’t often forget guys that menacing. He was a couple of inches over six feet, thick dark hair cut in an almost military short back and sides. He wasn’t bad looking if you ignored the thread-thin white scar that ran from the end of his left eyebrow to just underneath his ear lobe. But his eyes wrecked any illusion of attractiveness. They were cold and blank. They showed as much connection to the rest of humanity as a pair of camera lenses.
‘Look, I just don’t want to get my car nicked, OK?’ I gabbled. ‘It seems to happen a lot around here, that’s all.’
The big bouncer nodded, satisfied I’d backed down. ‘You want to be safe, leave it on one of the main drags where there’s decent street-lighting.’
‘You want to be really safe, don’t bring the car into town. In fact, why don’t you do us all a favour and leave yourself at home as well?’ the balding Mr Charm sneered.
I winked and cocked one finger at him like a pistol. ‘I might just take your advice.’ I let the door bang shut behind me and walked back to my car. Even if anyone at the Lousy Hand knew anything about the coupé’s disappearance, I couldn’t see a way of getting them to talk to me. It had been a long shot anyway. Sighing, I climbed into the car and started cruising the city centre streets. There were plenty of clubs for the dedicated seeker of pleasure to choose from, and even more restaurants catering to the late-night trade, which gave me plenty of kerbs to crawl. I prayed the Vice Squad weren’t doing one of their occasional random trawls of the red-light zones. The last thing I needed was to have to explain to a copper why I was doing an impersonation of a dirty old man.
I drove systematically down the streets and back alleys for a good couple of hours without spotting a single red-and-white trade plate. If I’d been working for a client, I’d have given up right then. But this was different. This was personal, and the man lying in a cell worrying about the charges he was facing was the man I’d chosen to share my life with. I might not be getting anywhere out on the streets, but I could no more jack it in and go home to bed than I could set Richard free with one mighty bound.
Just before midnight, I realized I was ravenous. I’d been so hyped up on adrenaline all evening that I was suddenly right on the edge of a low blood sugar collapse. I phoned an order through, then drove back through Chinatown, double parked outside the Yang Sing and picked up some salt and pepper ribs, paper wrapped prawns and pork dumplings. I couldn’t help a pang of guilt, thinking about prison food and Richard’s conviction that if it didn’t come out of China or Burger King it can’t be edible.
I drove back to the Lousy Hand. If the car thief plied a regular patch, I might just catch him at it. It was as good a place to eat my takeaway as any. I drove slowly up the culde-sac, looking for a space. Nothing. I turned round in the dead end and drove back down. I got lucky. Someone was pulling out just as I passed. I tucked the car in against the kerb and opened the sun roof so the smell of the Chinese wouldn’t linger in the car for the next six months. I started on the prawns, wanting to polish them off before they became soggy.
I looked around as I ate. Nothing much was moving. There was a short queue outside the Lousy Hand, but it seemed to be static. The only car I could see worth stealing was a new Ford Escort Cosworth, but its ridiculous spoiler, like the tail of a blue whale, was so obvious that I couldn’t imagine many thieves having the bottle to go for it. Besides, it was bright red and you know what they say about red cars and male sexual problems…
In my wing mirror, I noticed the man mountain bouncer emerging from the Lousy Hand again. Clearly time for another walkabout. As he reconnoitred the street, I thought he still looked nigglingly familiar, but I couldn’t think where from, unless we’d had a brief encounter one night when I’d been on the town with Richard. After all, bouncers shift around the clubs about as fast as cocktail waitresses, and I wasn’t always one hundred per cent compos mentis when we crawled out of clubs in the small hours.
He headed in my direction. Instinctively, I slid down in my seat till I was below window level. I heard his footsteps on the pavement, then, when he was level with me, he stopped. I held my breath. I don’t know what I expected, but it wasn’t the familiar bleating of a mobile phone being dialled. I inched carefully up till I could just see him. He had his back to me and a slimline phone to his ear.
‘Hiya,’ he said, his voice low. ‘Ford Escort Cosworth. Foxtrot alarm system. Been in about ten minutes…No problem.’ The phone beeped once as he ended the call. I slid back down below eye level as he turned back towards the club. Valet parking I’d heard of. But valet stealing?
I watched in the wing mirror till he was safely back indoors, then I pulled off the dayglo cap and got out of the Peugeot, still clutching my Chinese. I melted into the shadows of one of the railway arches which had a de
ep door recess. I could hardly believe it wasn’t already occupied by one of the city’s cardboard-box kids. I didn’t have long to wait. I still had half my spare ribs left when a black hack coughed up the cul-de-sac. It stopped outside the Lousy Hand, and a man got out. In the lights of the club entrance, I got a quick look. Thirtyish, medium height, slim build. He walked into the club, fast, like a man with a purpose other than a dance, a drink and a legover.
He was out again in seconds, carrying a small holdall. He walked briskly towards the Cosworth. As he came closer, I clocked a heavy thatch of dark hair, high cheekbones, hollow cheeks, surprisingly full lips, a double-breasted suit that hung like it was made to measure. He stopped a few feet away from the Cosworth, flashed a quick, penetrating glance around him then crouched down. Through the gap between cars, I could just see him take something out of the holdall. It looked a bit like an old-fashioned TV remote, bulky, with buttons. I couldn’t see any details, but he seemed to be hitting buttons and moving a slider switch on the side. This routine lasted the best part of a minute. Then, three sharp electronic exclamations came from the Cosworth, the hazard lights flashed twice and I heard the door locks shift to ‘open’. He dropped the black box back into the holdall and took out a pair of trade plates.
The man stood up and gave that quick, frowning glance round again. Still clear, he thought. One plate went on the back of the car, hiding the existing number. He fastened the other over the front plate, then almost ran to the driver’s door. He was in the car in seconds. It took less than a minute for the engine to roar into life. The car shot out of the parking space. Rather than drive to the end of the cul-de-sac and do a time-wasting three-point turn, as I’d expected, he simply shot back down the street in reverse.