Dead Flowers Read online

  ‘I told you,’ I said. ‘You can’t get the staff.’

  He nodded in a companionable way, and it struck me that under different circumstances we could have been friends. Of a sort.

  We sat there together, looking at each other and comparing Rolexes. His was newer than mine, and shinier. But I bet mine cost more. I always say you can tell the measure of a man by the Roller he wears, but then I’m a shallow bastard, everyone says so.

  Eventually I said, ‘You’ve tried to have me killed.’

  ‘I don’t think so. If I had you’d be dead by now.’

  I grinned. ‘Someone pushed scaffolding down on me on Sunday and someone shot at me Monday afternoon.’

  ‘Maybe they meant to miss. A warning.’

  ‘You’d know that better than me. I had some verbal communication about that on Monday too. But then you’d know all about that.’

  ‘And you chose to ignore the good advice you got, by coming here and assaulting members of my staff.’

  ‘I think your staff can take care of themselves. Besides, I don’t like warnings.’

  ‘Who does?’

  ‘No one. But I’ll tell you one thing, and you can take it any way you like, I’m going to keep on looking for Sharon, and I don’t want any more warnings. Get me?’

  ‘You talk pretty tough.’

  I showed him the gun I was still holding. ‘And I know how to use this.’

  ‘But you’re all on your own.’

  ‘True. But so are you right now. No backup today.’

  ‘But I won’t always be on my own.’

  ‘By the state of the people you use, you might as well be.’

  ‘Despite their eccentric appearance the people I use are good at what they do.’

  ‘I was going to ask you about that,’ I said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I can understand Freeze or whatever his silly nickname is. He’s just your common or garden out-of-date rent-a-thug. Probably used to be a teddy boy with a flick knife outside the Roxy. He’s not the one that interests me. It’s the other one. Albert. What’s his story?’

  ‘We’re all out of date, Mr Sharman,’ said Grant. ‘Except maybe for those kids you’ve seen running round the pubs on your search for Sharon. Yes, my people have been watching you look. It’s a small community round here. Word soon gets about. But those kids will be out of date in ten years’ time too. Drinking the same drinks, listening to the same music, and some of them even with the same women. So Freeze may be a bit old-fashioned, but still effective. But as for Albert. Now he’s a very different animal.’

  ‘Animal is right,’ I agreed.

  ‘I’ll tell him you said that. He’d probably like to talk to you about it.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘I’ve heard all about Albert. From our mutual friend Wally. When things get dull I suppose you and Eugene and George see how fast you can change his Pampers pads.’

  ‘Things rarely get that dull round here.’

  ‘They’re going to get more exciting from now on, believe me.’

  ‘I’ll do that,’ he said coolly.

  ‘Do.’ I got up and went out of the office, and through the pub where both George and Eugene gave me looks that could microwave a steak, and out of the pub and back to the car.

  45

  I sat behind the wheel and considered my options. It was still early and I imagined that if Grant ran the place he was in for the evening. I didn’t fancy sitting in the cramped front seat of the jeep until midnight or later to wait for him, but I needed to know where he lived and if Sharon was with him. So what else could I do?

  Then I had a stroke of luck. The kind of stroke of luck that private investigators who are condemned to sit alone in little cars all evening with only a packet of cigarettes, Talk Radio and an aching bladder for company pray for. For who came strolling round the corner but Grant himself, all alone. I watched as he went to the driver’s side of a smart, bright red 7-Series BMW and operated the remote locking and alarm device. Now what were the chances of that happening? Especially as I was keeping an eye on a dark blue Mercedes.

  Sweet, I thought as he got in and started it up, and I did the same to the jeep. Not that it was the ideal vehicle to follow another one in, being all chrome and metallic paint with its white convertible top that stood out like a whore in a nunnery.

  But you gotta use what you got, as Joe Tex almost said, so I dropped in two cars behind the Beemer as it went into the one-way system at the Old Kent Road and headed north towards the Elephant, turned right under the flyover at the Bricklayer’s Arms and on towards Tower Bridge.

  We ended up outside a sprauncy new development of luxury apartments with a riverside view that had been converted from another old warehouse at Shad Thames. Grant locked up the BMW and went inside without looking back once. I do like a man who has complete confidence in his actions.

  I stopped the jeep and sat and listened to the radio and wondered if I was wasting my time, until he came out about fifteen minutes later with a blonde on his arm, who I recognized from the photo I’d been carrying for the last few days.

  It was Sharon Miller, all tarted up like a dog’s dinner, but somehow, even from a distance, looking more than a little discombobulated, as if she’d been at the cooking sherry all afternoon. But I knew better.

  They ignored the car and walked the short way to some poncey restaurant that a fat cunt who’d been big in the sixties and was massive now, both financially and physically, had opened south of the river where the hounds hang out, and went inside.

  I gave them ten minutes to look at the menu, then quit the motor and followed. I pushed through the front door and a Sloaney girl sitting behind a desk marked RECEPTION looked at my faded jeans and battered leather and said breezily, ‘Can I help you, sir?’ When what she meant was: ‘If you haven’t got a reservation, you sad bastard, piss off. And maybe even if you have.’

  I gave her a big smile that I didn’t feel and said, I’m meeting some friends. They’ve already gone inside.’

  ‘Name?’

  ‘Grant.’

  As she looked down to check her reservation list I walked straight through the double doors inside to be met by a fey-looking geezer in a Paul Smith suit and a collarless shirt done up to the neck. I hate collarless shirts. ‘Sir,’ he said.

  ‘Party name of Grant,’ I said. ‘Over there,’ and I pointed to where Chris and Sharon were seated by a window looking over towards Tower Bridge.

  ‘That’s just a table for two,’ he protested.

  ‘I’m not eating,’ I said. ‘I just want a word,’ and I body-swerved past him ignoring his protests.

  I walked up to them, nabbed an empty chair from the next table and sat down.

  ‘Evening each,’ I said. Grant looked amazed, and Sharon hardly noticed. She was chasing a black olive round her plate, and had the look of a smackhead who’d just shot up, which is what I imagined she was.

  ‘What the hell?’ said Grant, as a waiter arrived.

  The waiter said to me. ‘Hello. My name is Sean and I’m your waiter for this evening. The specials are—’

  ‘Save it,’ I interrupted. ‘I’ve just lost my appetite.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said the waiter.

  ‘Piss off, Sean,’ I said. ‘I’ve got business here.’

  He stepped back, looking as happy as a hitchhiker in a hailstorm at being spoken to thus, and I said to Grant, ‘I thought she was off with the four winds, Chris.’

  ‘You’d better go, Sharman, or I’ll get the man to call the police,’ he said by way of reply.

  ‘And explain this whacked-out bitch. Do me a favour, Chris.’ The other punters were starting to take an interest in our conversation.

  Then the maître d’ arrived. ‘I really must protest, gentlemen,’ he said. ‘Please keep your voices down.’

  ‘Fuck off, you,’ I said. ‘I’m talking here.’

  ‘I beg your pardon.’

  ‘Don’t. Just fuck off. Go into th
e kitchen and think about preparing an onion marmalade or whatever you serve here.’

  He stepped back, looked round and beckoned, and I saw a couple more waiters, plus a couple of beefy chefs heading our way and I said, ‘Come on, Sharon. Walkies.’

  She looked at me as if she hadn’t heard, and Grant said, ‘I’m warning you.’

  ‘Save it, pal,’ I said. ‘Trouble with cunts like you is that you think you’re fireproof.’

  I stood up and pulled Sharon with me, and she came with no resistance. I expect by then she was used to being pulled around by strange blokes. Grant made to get to his feet too so I showed him my gun and he stopped half in and half out of his seat. I tugged Sharon across the floor to the amazement of the other diners, and the staff went for me. I fired once into the ceiling, a cloud of dust spilling across the sweet trolley.

  ‘Leave it boys,’ I said. ‘You ain’t paid enough to die for the strawberries.’ And I dragged Sharon through the doors out of the building and bundled her towards the car.

  But I didn’t know what the fuck I was going to do with her next.

  46

  Like I said, now I had her I didn’t know where to take her.

  I could hardly return her to her loving husband, mother and baby in their brand-new house in the state she was in. There’d be a lot of explaining to do if I did. And Grant knew where my office was, so it stood to reason he knew where I lived, so that was no good either.

  There was only one place I could think of, and one pair who might take us in. The Sisters of Mercy in Notting Hill Gate.

  I pushed Sharon into the passenger seat of the jeep and strapped her in tightly. She didn’t say a word. And, wouldn’t you know, it had started raining again. I ran round, jumped behind the wheel and took off with a screech of rubber and a fishtail from the back wheels on the wet surface, even though the car was in four-wheel drive.

  When I turned over Tower Bridge, I heard the scream of a siren and a police car skidded into the road I’d just come out of. I wondered how Chris Grant was going to talk himself out of that one.

  And then, on the other side of the bridge, when another cop car with its blues and twos full on dropped in behind me, I wondered how I was going to talk myself out of this one.

  So once again I decided that discretion was the better part of valour and I slammed my foot hard down on the gas and the jeep took off.

  I headed down Tower Hill into Byward Street, jumping lights as they came, faked a left turn into Eastcheap but powered down Lower Thames Street instead, under the tunnels there, along Upper Thames Street, thundered through the underpass under Blackfriars and back into the rain on the Embankment, still heading west.

  I rocketed along on the far right of the road overtaking cabs and cars with my headlights on full beam and my hand hard down on the horn, much to the chagrin of every other road user going my way. The copper was still behind me and I was armed and that wouldn’t look good on a charge sheet. I shot under Waterloo and Charing Cross Bridges and, without indicating, pulled on to the right side of the bollards at Northumberland Place, where the lights were against me, and went into a broadside heading for Trafalgar Square, the four-wheel drive keeping the motor on course, praying that the traffic wasn’t too heavy ahead.

  It was. Bollocks! With the police Rover as close to my back bumper as if it was on a tow bar I jumped more lights and headed up against the traffic again, and across the square making pedestrians puddle jump to avoid death or permanent injury.

  Then it was down Pall Mall, past the soldiers on guard and up into St James’s Street, across Piccadilly into Albermarle Street, where fuck me if a police van didn’t join in the chase.

  The three vehicles splashed through the thickening downpour into the back streets of Mayfair, round Grosvenor Square, and I for one was beginning to get sick and tired of the whole thing. Sharon, on the other hand, just sat with her eyes staring vacantly through the windscreen and didn’t say a word.

  As I went across Oxford Street into Duke Street and skidded into the service road at the side of Selfridges, the van driver lost control, spun out, whacked into a bollard and almost turned over. In front of us I saw a cab turning left into Baker Street. I smashed into the back of it, sending it sliding into the traffic to a cacophony of horns and a tinkle of glass on tarmac, cut across Baker Street, and against the traffic again into Portman Mews, bombed all the way to the end, turned left, the wrong way, into Portman Street and round into Oxford Street on the wrong side of the road, making cars and buses slip and slide in the wet all the way down to Marble Arch and into Bayswater road still on the right of the roundabout there.

  When I dared to look in the mirror I realized that somewhere in that craziness I’d shaken off my other pursuer. Maybe I hadn’t lost it after all, I thought with a grin, and wished that it was Melanie next to me and not the semicomatose Sharon Miller.

  I took the first right I could off the Baze and lost myself round Sussex Gardens until eventually I hit Westbourne Grove and knew where I was again.

  I pulled up outside the warehouse, left Sharon staring into eternity and beyond and rang the bell on the front door. It was answered in a few seconds. I didn’t know if it was Matty or Maddie, they sounded so alike, especially through the distortion of the entryphone speaker. ‘It’s Nick,’ I said. ‘I need some help.’

  ‘Come on up.’

  ‘I’ve got somebody with me.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The person, I was looking for. She’s in a bad way. She needs help more than I do.’

  ‘Bring her up too.’

  The buzzer sounded and I opened the door then went back for Sharon. ‘Come on, sweetheart,’ I said and helped her unprotesting body from the car and half walked, half carried her to the lift. As it slowly ground its way up I wondered what the hell I’d got myself into this time.

  Maddie and Matty were waiting when the lift arrived, both dressed in jeans and T-shirts. ‘Hello, girls,’ I said when the door opened. ‘Sorry about all this.’

  ‘Is she strung out?’ asked Maddie when she saw Sharon.

  ‘On Mars,’ I replied. ‘Do you have a spare room?’

  ‘At the back.’

  ‘Is it lockable?’

  A nod from Matty.

  ‘Listen, I’ve got nowhere else to go. Can we stay for a few days until she straightens out?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘It won’t be pleasant,’ I said.

  ‘We’ve seen people go cold turkey before,’ said Maddie.

  ‘And there’s some nasty fuckers after us. Including Old Bill I’m afraid. And your jeep is on the PNC.’

  ‘PNC?’said Matty.

  ‘Police National Computer. Is the car registered to this address?’

  Matty shook her head. ‘It’s not registered to any address, as far as I know.’

  I didn’t press her for more information. I knew I’d be wasting my time.

  ‘Nobody will find you here,’ said Maddie, with such confidence I believed her.

  ‘You’re marvellous,’ I said.

  ‘Come on,’ said Matty, ‘let’s get her to bed. She’ll sleep for a bit, then it’ll get bad.’

  But how bad I wasn’t to know yet.

  47

  The girls took Sharon into the bedroom and put her to bed. She didn’t seem to mind. She didn’t seem to mind much. I figured that if I’d brought in half a dozen donkey-dicked psychopaths and set them on her, she’d just accept it. I didn’t like that. It took away some of her natural dignity, and Chris Grant was the culprit.

  I remembered the little boy who’d given me his Action Man. Would you want to see your mother like that?

  And that led me to wonder what to do about Miller. Should I tell him now that I’d found Sharon, or should I leave it until she was more presentable?

  The girls came back and Maddie said, ‘She’s sleeping for now. We’ll make her some tea for when she wakes up. She’ll be climbing the walls soon and it’ll help.’

&nbs
p; ‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘Listen. I’d better get the jeep stashed away before some keen young copper spots it. And by the way I owe you a bit for bodywork repairs.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it,’ said Maddie.

  ‘Who did this to her?’ asked Matty.

  ‘A nice man from over the river.’

  ‘He should be shot. Why?’

  ‘I think she earns him money.’

  ‘Not a pleasant way to make a living.’

  ‘It takes all sorts. How long will she sleep?’ I asked.

  ‘Till she wakes up,’ said Matty, which was a big help.

  ‘And then?’ It occurred to me that in all my time on the planet I hadn’t had a lot of experience of people going cold turkey. It made me feel kind of inadequate.

  ‘And then she’ll make a lot of noise and probably mess her pants,’ said Maddie. Maybe there was more of it in Notting Hill Gate. ‘And then she’ll want to fix up. She’ll do anything for skag. She’ll lie, cheat, fight. Anything. But eventually, if we keep her here, she’ll be clean.’

  ‘How long?’ I asked.

  ‘A week. Ten days. It varies.’

  ‘How come you know so much?’ I asked.

  ‘Just lucky, I guess,’ said Matty.

  I went downstairs, pulled the jeep into the courtyard and locked the gates. Action Man was still sitting on the dash and I grabbed him and took him upstairs with me.

  ‘What’s that?’ asked Maddie.

  ‘Just a souvenir,’ I replied. ‘Is Sharon OK?’

  ‘Only time will tell.’

  So we sat down to wait.

  I woke up alone in the living room with my feet up on the sofa and a blanket thrown over me, and what sounded like a banshee throwing a house-warming party down the hall.

  It was Sharon. By the time I got to the bedroom Maddie and Matty were already there.

  Sharon didn’t look too cool. Her previous calm had gone. She was pale and sweaty, wearing a T-shirt with the duvet pulled up tight to her neck, but she was still shivering and the room smelled of faeces and disinfectant.

  ‘She messed the bed,’ said Matty.