Angel on the Inside Read online

  Flat 3 at Number 9 Stuart Street also, I felt, kept me in touch with my people. Not ‘my people’ in any sort of religious or political sense; nor, for that matter, in any sense of class, intellectual, educational, occupational, sociological, sexual or genetic compatibility. In fact, thinking about it, I didn’t really know why I liked them, but I did. It was probably because they didn’t bother me.

  In the flat above mine were Inverness Doogie and his girlfriend Miranda. He was a budding chef who was destined to have his own restaurant and probably TV series one day if only he could find the right gimmick, preferably one that did not involve fighting on the terraces at football matches, the third real love of his life after cooking and Miranda. Actually, as the terraces in football stadia had gone all-seater, most of the fun of starting a ruck with visiting fans had gone too, so Doogie was in danger of calming down. Maybe it was Miranda who was softening his natural tendency to exuberant outbursts of violence. She was Welsh, which meant she knew that all silver linings had clouds, Rome wasn’t burned in a day and these days the Good Samaritan would get mugged for his mobile phone. She had a powerful dampening effect on any free spirit, even Doogie’s, and he had inherited his from a family tree that stretched back to the time when painted Pictish warriors headbutted Hadrian’s Wall just for the hell of it.

  In Flat 2 lived Fenella and Lisabeth, who were just about the longest-together couple I knew. But then, they didn’t get out much. I could always rely on Fenella to put food out for Springsteen (as long as it didn’t look too much like meat), make sure he could get in and out, pass on the rent money and take messages and deliveries for me. Lisabeth I could rely on to be Lisabeth, and even though she now referred to herself as a Woman of Size and couldn’t move as fast as she once could, she was still my first choice for the person I’d want to walk in front down a dark alley.

  On the ground floor was the unassuming Mr Goodson, whom we saw rarely and who was something in local government but no-one knew quite what, though he must surely be approaching retirement from it. Then again, he could be one of those men who were born at the age of 42 and spend their lives growing into the part. He kept himself to himself, put up with a lot and seemed happy to have the camouflage of the rest of the house around him, the house in its turn being camouflaged by the rest of Hackney – one of London’s best kept secrets.

  Despite its history of extremist politics, its reputation for lousy educational achievement, pockets of severe poverty and the fact that nobody ever admits to coming from there, it is not that bad a place to live. People are always willing to talk to you there, in any of 17 languages, even while stealing your car. In Hampstead, as I had found, hearing a neighbour’s car alarm going off felt like you were intruding on their privacy. In Hampstead no-one can be bothered to hear you scream. In Hackney they at least tell you to put a sock in it.

  ‘So you feel there is a part of Amy’s life to which she has denied you access?’

  ‘Well, yes, obviously,’ I said.

  ‘Yet you live in different worlds, so there must be areas you keep apart.’

  ‘I wouldn’t say that. We rub along quite nicely.’

  ‘Despite the fact that she earns so much more than you?’

  ‘Trust me, that’s not a problem,’ I said truthfully. ‘It’s not for her and it certainly isn’t for me.’

  ‘It must have come as a shock, though – finding out she’d been married before.’

  ‘Bit of a stunner, but fair play, I’d never asked.’

  ‘So you took her on trust, and now you’re thinking that trust’s been broken?’

  ‘That’s a bit sexist isn’t it?’ I argued. ‘I mean, it sounds as if I inspected the goods but didn’t find anything wrong until I got her home from the shop. What was I supposed to do? Demand a warranty? Relationships don’t come with warranties, in my experience.’

  ‘It doesn’t sound as if her ex-husband’s did. Didn’t she know what he was like?’

  ‘She must have. You can’t live with somebody, sleep with somebody, and not get to know them at least, you know, in passing.’

  ‘You seem to have managed it.’

  ‘Hey – that’s out of order. We’re talking an entirely different scenario here.’

  ‘Convince me.’

  I was determined not to lose my temper. I clasped my hands together behind my head and leaned back to stretch out on the black leather upholstery.

  ‘Whether she knew he was a villain before he was arrested, I don’t know. Once he went inside, she divorced him. Far as she was concerned, end of story, new chapter, new life.’

  ‘But not for him.’

  ‘‘Course not. Bit of a bummer being slammed up in the first place, then to get the Dear John letter from her solicitor – could push anyone over the edge.’

  ‘So he sits and festers in prison and then when he gets out, he – he does what?’

  ‘He finds Amy – finds where she works, where she lives. He stalks her, in fact.’

  ‘And she knew about this?’

  ‘Er ... yes,’ I said slowly, knowing what was coming.

  ‘And still she didn’t mention him?’

  Now that had worried me. I had discovered, almost by accident, that Amy had taken out a restraining order on Keith Flowers, supposedly to keep him away from where she worked and where we lived. It hadn’t been a success.

  ‘No, she didn’t.’

  ‘So she could have warned you but didn’t. Is that it?’

  ‘I wouldn’t put it like that.’

  ‘I would. So would most people. You feel – what? Betrayed?’

  I said nothing to that.

  ‘Then he turns up at this archaeology dig thing you’re on and he pulls a gun. Did he say why?’

  ‘We didn’t exactly have time to chat,’ I snorted. I’d been too busy trying to run him over with a bulldozer.

  ‘But what was he going to do? Abduct Amy and drive off into the sunset?’

  ‘It was the middle of the night.’

  ‘Whatever. What was his plan?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Does Amy?’

  ‘I don’t know. If she does, she hasn’t said.’

  ‘No wonder you feel threatened.’

  ‘Who said I felt threatened?’

  ‘You must do. She’s obviously holding back, keeping you out of the loop. Well, isn’t she?’

  ‘I suppose so, yes.’

  ‘And that doesn’t worry you?’

  ‘Of course it bleedin’ worries me. That’s why I’m telling you all this.’

  Something dawned on me.

  I slid off the leather seat, put my feet on the garage floor and ducked out of the back of the BMW.

  ‘Duncan, you’re a fucking car mechanic. Why am I telling you all this?’

  Chapter Two

  Duncan the Drunken probably was the best car mechanic in the world, but as a psychiatrist he was pants. He had charged me £150 (cash) to go to a police pound in Suffolk with a flat-back and bring Amy’s BMW home to his lock-up garage and workshop in Hackney. He hadn’t charged me anything for psychiatric advice, but I knew it would cost me in the long run.

  The car was encrusted with mud, had cracks in most of the windows, enough scratches down the near-side to make you think Freddy Krueger had been trying to break into it, a bulldozer-blade imprint on the off-side and two buckled frames where the paramedics had popped the doors in order to remove the unconscious Keith Flowers. I suspected that the petrol tank was ruptured and the engine had seized when the exhaust filled with dirt. (You had to be there.)

  Duncan walked around it three or four times, hands in pockets, sucking in air over his teeth and shaking his head. After the fifth circuit, he puffed his cheeks and exhaled loudly.

  ‘Insurance job?’ he asked.

  ‘Probably not,’ I said
carefully. ‘Amy doesn’t want it back. She thinks it’s going for scrap.’

  His eyebrows shot up at that, so high he almost had a hairline again.

  ‘Bad associations, huh? So she just casts off the past and leaves you wondering ...’

  ‘Duncan, shut it. Can you fix it?’

  ‘Sure I can, but it’ll cost you lots of squids.’

  ‘Work out an estimate and let me know. A proper one as well, not the usual back-of-a-fag-packet job.’

  He pretended to look hurt at that, but I headed for the garage doors.

  ‘I thought we might patch it up, flog it and split the take,’ I said over my shoulder.

  ‘Nice one, Angel,’ Duncan said to my back. ‘That’s more like the Angel I know. See, therapy does work.’

  ‘Just fix the fucking car, Duncan.’

  As I was in the neighbourhood – though if you drive a black Austin Fairway cab, anywhere in London is in the neighbourhood – I decided to call round to Stuart Street and see if anyone was home who fancied a chat rather than psychotherapy. Not that I have anything against psychiatrists per se. I have always held to the maxim that a problem shared is two people losing sleep, which is good because you no longer feel alone, but there’s a time and a place for everything. I was in Hackney. That wasn’t the place. And as I had a full tank of diesel in Armstrong II, no job to go to, didn’t have to wear a tie and the pubs would be opening in five minutes, this wasn’t the time.

  It was, however, the perfect time for me to arrive, if not in the nick of time, then right on cue to sort out the horror and chaos that had engulfed Number 9 Stuart Street that morning. Not that the place was a smoking ruin, or had fallen into a fissure in the Earth, or had been drowned in a giant chemical spill or anything. It was worse than that.

  As soon as I turned Armstrong II into the road, I was transfixed – hypnotised – by the sight that greeted me. There on the pavement outside the open door of Number 9 was my downstairs neighbour Fenella, arms aloft, jumping frantically into the air as if trying to block an invisible and considerably taller attacking basketball player. The sight was arresting because she was wearing pyjamas – knee-length shorts and top patterned with large green frog designs – under a belted pink satin dressing gown which she was having trouble keeping closed. On her feet were furry slippers in the shape of panda heads and on her back was a small bag made out of a furry monkey toy with long arms to form the straps. A vampire monkey from the way the head was pressing into the back of her neck. To top it all, she wore a hat, a battered brown canvas hat with embroidered flowers; a hat that people wore at Glastonbury Festivals when they were making an ironic post-modernist comment about the proceedings (or maybe just taking the piss); a hat Paddington Bear would have shunned as uncool.

  As all my attempts at lip-reading have ended in disappointment, or a slap in the face, I couldn’t tell what she was shouting over the throb of Armstrong’s engine. But shouting she was, and getting very agitated about something. Dressed the way she was, it was a sight that would have frightened the horses, had there been any around, and it seemed to have cleared the street of innocent civilians. It was a sight that would have made even someone as courageous as the late, great Queen Mum think twice about visiting the East End.

  I drew up to the kerb in front of her and killed the engine. At last I could hear her, even without opening the windows.

  ‘Help! Help!’ she was yelling. Then, clocking Armstrong II: ‘Taxi!’

  ‘Fenella, it’s me!’ I shouted from inside the cab.

  ‘Well, it’s about time!’ she screamed as soon as she focused on me.

  Whatever was wrong, nick of time wasn’t going to cut it for Fenella this morning. I hear she has the same problem with Superman as well.

  ‘What’s happening, dudette?’ I asked cheerfully, stepping out onto the pavement until Fenella slippered her way up to me and her panda feet were nose to toe with my trainers. I tried not to look down at them, but they were hypnotic.

  ‘Didn’t you get my message?’ she said in a voice that could have opened the prosecution at Nuremburg.

  ‘What message?’

  ‘The one I left on your mobile phone, the one you said was for emergencies only.’

  Ah. The mobile phone that was switched off and locked in Armstrong’s glove compartment.

  ‘No I didn’t. You must’ve dialled the wrong number.’

  ‘Well when you didn’t call back,’ she said huffily, hands on hips, ‘I dialled 999, but they wouldn’t come either.’

  ‘Who wouldn’t?’

  ‘The ambulance people.’

  ‘Is somebody hurt?’

  A frenetic split-screen of images fast-forwarded across my brain. Lisabeth slipping in the shower and unable to get up. Inverness Doogie drunk and running amok with a meat cleaver. Miranda, late for work, going arse over elbow down the stairs from Flat 4. Mr Goodson, his secret life as a bank robber finally revealed, gunshot and bloodied, holed up in his room waiting for the final assault from armed police. Lisabeth in the shower again.

  ‘Isn’t it obvious?’

  ‘No, Fenella, actually it isn’t. What happened?’

  ‘I phoned for an ambulance but they wouldn’t come. So I came out here to try and grab a taxi.’

  ‘I think I’m up to speed on that bit. Why wouldn’t they send an ambulance?’

  ‘They said they don’t send them for cats.’

  I hit the front door with my shoulder and took the stairs three at a time.

  ‘He ... was ... eating ... something ... and ... it ... disagreed with him,’ panted Fenella as she caught up with me on the landing that lead to Flat 3 – my flat.

  ‘Food poisoning?’ I scoffed. ‘That’s not possible. That cat’s got a 5-Alarm Chilli stomach. His digestive juices could cut through metal. In fact, I think that’s where they got the idea for the Alien monster.’

  ‘No, I meant he was eating something. Something that was still alive. And I think it was fighting back. It hurt him.’

  I pinned Fenella to the wall by her shoulders, but my hands slipped on the satin of her dressing gown and there was a moment there when it could have been embarrassing for me and probably a first for her. I clasped my hands as if in prayer, if only to keep them out of mischief.

  ‘Look, Fenella, sweetie, just please tell me what you think you saw,’ I pleaded.

  ‘He was howling; that’s what woke me the second time. It wasn’t his usual “Let me in” or “Let me out” howl. It wasn’t his usual “I’ve killed wildlife come and see” howl. I know those. This one was really sad, a piteous, tragic sort of a howl. And really, really loud. So I came out to see what was the matter and he was here.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Here on the landing, walking backwards in a funny way and howling, all the time howling.’

  ‘Yes, yes, I got the howling bit.’

  ‘And then I realised he was limping and he was dragging something in his teeth, shaking his head as if he was trying to kill it, and then he went through the cat flap. Backwards. I’ve never seen him do that before. It was horrible. The thing he was biting. It was long and brown ... I thought it might be a fox. Are there foxes in Hackney?’

  That would be just typical of Hackney. With the Government trying to ban hunting with hounds they must have thought they were safe here. Nobody had said anything about cats. But it was a moot point. There probably were more foxes in London now than there were in the countryside, where they didn’t have to hunt – and be hunted – but just help themselves to the rubbish bins. And whilst I fancied Springsteen’s chances against most things, his motto being ‘Four legs – potential snack; two legs – open target’, even a soft townie fox wouldn’t go down without a fight.

  ‘I don’t think it was a fox, Fenella,’ I said reassuringly, having checked there was neither blood nor fur on the wall she was lea
ning against. ‘How did he get in this morning?’

  ‘I left your kitchen window open as usual,’ she insisted. ‘He must have used that, as he didn’t come in the front door.’

  ‘Well, he wouldn’t have come through there with a fox in his teeth,’ I said confidently.

  ‘I don’t know how he gets in and out of that window anyway,’ Fenella said, almost to herself. ‘It’s two floors straight down to the garden. At his age.’

  ‘What do you mean by that?’ I snapped, then immediately raised my hands in apology. ‘Sorry, I know you’re only trying to help. So where is he now?’

  ‘Under your bed,’ she said, drawing her dressing gown tighter. ‘Growling. He’s still got that thing in between his teeth and he won’t come out.’

  ‘Did you ring the vet, the one on Homerton High Street? I left you the number.’

  Fenella flushed as pink as her satin dressing gown.

  ‘They’ve banned me from going round there any more.’

  I wasn’t surprised. I knew they had warned her several times about taking dead, half-chewed birds and rodents round there in the hope that they could revive them after Springsteen had finished with them.

  ‘That’s why I rang for an ambulance,’ she said sheepishly. ‘I couldn’t think of anything else to do. He’s obviously in pain and the only thing I’ve got is aspirin and even if I could get one into him I remembered what you said.’

  ‘Well done. Never give a cat aspirin, they just can’t handle it. It kills them,’ I said, though I wasn’t too worried. Springsteen would have had her hand off before he’d take an aspirin from it. ‘I’ll go and see how he is. You go into the kitchen and get the bottle of brandy that’s on top of the fridge.’