Dead Flowers Read online

  ‘And you haven’t seen Sharon since she left him,’ I said.

  ‘No. One day she was there, the next she wasn’t. Ray came round but I couldn’t help him. He was in a hell of a state, but then who wouldn’t be? Skint and left with a kid to look after.’

  ‘Did you expect Sharon just to dump them?’

  ‘No, I didn’t. She loved Liam, but she wasn’t up to motherhood. Some women aren’t. Me, for instance.’ She pulled a face. ‘Maybe if the money hadn’t run out …’ She paused. ‘I remember once she said her mum was a better mum to Liam than she was. Maybe she just thought it was best for all concerned.’

  I left it at that for a bit. ‘So what do you do, Melanie?’ I asked.

  ‘I work for a foreign bank across the river in Blackfriars,’ she said. ‘Ludgate Circus. I number crunch on a computer. It’s boring, but it pays the rent.’ She looked down at herself. ‘I have to dress like this for work, but at weekends I do what I want to do. Be what I want to be.’

  ‘The dancing queen,’ I said.

  She grinned. ‘That’s right. But not as much as I used to. It’s all kids now.’ She must’ve been all of twenty-five. ‘Spice Girls. You know.’

  Having a daughter myself I did, and I nodded again.

  As she pushed her fork into a piece of lobster her charm bracelet clanged on the edge of the plate and I looked at it. I blinked and shook my head at what I hadn’t noticed before. She saw me looking. ‘I’ve had it since I was twelve,’ she explained. ‘Birthdays and Christmas I get charms from the family.’

  ‘Can I look?’ I asked.

  She shrugged and undid the clasp and passed it over. It was heavy, and amongst the pound note folded tight behind glass, and the tiny Routemaster bus, and the London cab, was a miniature coffin on the same link as a perfect little golden skull. The girl’s warning from the previous night came back to me and my stomach lurched. ‘Where did you get these two?’ I asked.

  ‘Sharon gave them to me. Years ago. On my twenty-first.’

  ‘I guessed as much,’ I said.

  ‘Is something wrong?’

  ‘No. How’s the food?’

  ‘Great.’

  ‘Good.’ But it wasn’t really, and as I watched the rain outside got heavier, lightning danced across the rooftops opposite and thunder rolled down the river. I shivered and wished that I was anywhere else but where I was.

  9

  It all got a bit flat after that and she noticed. ‘What’s wrong?’ she asked.

  ‘Nothing,’ I replied. ‘I had a hard night last night.’

  ‘I didn’t, but I wish I had.’ She smiled, and I knew we were getting into difficult territory.

  By then we were into coffee and brandy. ‘So you haven’t seen Sharon for a year or so,’ I continued.

  ‘Not a sign.’

  ‘And you haven’t tried to find her.’

  ‘I didn’t think she wanted to be found. She cut all her ties to her family and friends and went off with Grant.’

  ‘And you’re sure you can’t remember if he ever mentioned the name of the pub he’s supposed to run. Or her.’

  ‘We didn’t have a lot of long conversations. We were having a good time. And the music was too loud.’

  So that seemed to be that. ‘Well, thanks for all your help anyway.’ I gave her one of my cards. ‘If anything comes to mind, give me a ring.’

  ‘I’ll do that.’ She paused, and we might as well have been the only two people in the restaurant, and the rain spattered against the outside of the window. ‘So what about you, Nick Sharman?’ she asked.

  ‘What about me?’

  ‘Where do you fit into all this?’

  ‘I’m the hired help. Just trying to earn a crust.’

  ‘Is that right?’

  I nodded.

  ‘Where did Ray find you?’

  ‘Yellow Pages for all I know. He said he had friends who’d heard of me.’

  ‘And what does a girl have to do to hire you?’

  ‘Be in trouble of some kind usually.’

  ‘Say she’s not in trouble but wants to get into some.’

  I laughed, and almost blushed. ‘Do you watch a lot of old films on TV?’ I asked.

  ‘How did you know that?’

  ‘Just a hunch.’

  ‘I love it when private eyes say that in movies.’

  ‘So do I,’ I said.

  ‘But do you know what my favourite line of all time is?’ I shook my head.

  She struck a pose. ‘Tell me, Harry – do you know how to whistle? It’s easy. You just pucker up your lips – and blow.’

  ‘I might’ve guessed,’ I said.

  ‘Do you know what film that comes from?’

  ‘Course I do.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘To Have and Have Not.’

  ‘Well done.’

  ‘Not very difficult. I’ve seen it on TV a hundred times.’

  ‘What year then?’ she demanded.

  ‘Forty-five.’

  ‘Right again. Bogart and Bacall.’ She went all misty eyed. ‘I love that film.’

  ‘Me too.’

  ‘So we’ve got something in common.’

  ‘Looks like it.’

  ‘Are you married?’ she asked.

  ‘You come right out with them, don’t you?’

  ‘It’s the only way. Are you?’

  ‘Not any more. I don’t have a lot of luck with women.’

  ‘Getting them, or keeping them?’

  ‘Both lately.’

  ‘Maybe your luck’s changed.’ She looked at her watch. ‘Damn,’ she said. ‘It’s getting late. I’d better get back. This has been great. Thank you.’

  ‘Thank Ray.’

  ‘I will.’

  I called for the bill. It was hefty, but I paid up without a murmur and left a decent tip.

  We got our coats and left. ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t have been more help,’ she said as we stood together under the restaurant’s awning looking at the rain. I thought of the coffin and the skull.

  ‘You’ve been more of a help than you’ll know,’ I replied.

  That seemed to cheer her up. ‘Good,’ she said. ‘If you’re ever in Walthamstow look me up.’

  ‘I’ll be sure to do that.’

  ‘Thanks again for lunch,’ she said, and she bobbed up and kissed me on the cheek. ‘And say hello to Ray for me. And don’t forget. Just pucker up your lips – and blow.’

  We parted then and she headed for Blackfriars Bridge and more number crunching. I watched her departing back and the nice way her backside moved under her mackintosh and wondered what legitimate reason could get me to Walthamstow soon, before I headed for Waterloo and a cab home to do some thinking.

  When I got to the flat I dumped my coat and poured myself a drink. I sat on the sofa and wondered about the girl who had spoken to me at the bar the previous evening.

  There was only one way to find out, and that was to meet her again. I sat there for hours watching the rain running down the windows until it was time to call yet another cab and head for the West End.

  That night I covered every bar in Soho searching for the girl in the floaty dress, but it was all for nothing.

  I haunted the rain that went from hard to soft, from warm to cold, until my Burberry was soaked, but there was no sign of her.

  Eventually, as midnight struck, I gave up my hopeless task and took a cab home to more dreams of floaty dresses and skulls and coffins that disturbed my restless sleep.

  10

  I woke up to a sunny morning that did little to brighten my mood. I’d had too much to drink again the previous day and felt like shit. I was beginning to prefer the rain. At least that suited my frame of mind.

  I did the usual things you do in the morning and wondered if I shouldn’t just call up Ray Miller and give the job the elbow. So far no harm had been done and all it would cost him was a couple of days’ wages and lunch on Gabriel’s Wharf.

  Perhaps then I
’d call up Melanie Wiltse and tell her she’d found the chum she was looking for.

  But instead I decided to have a look down the Old Kent Road and maybe find Sharon working behind the bar of Chris Grant’s pub and tell her she could leave those dishwashing blues behind and live a life of luxury on the proceeds of her old man’s lottery win.

  Oh, if only life could be that simple.

  When I was dressed I called up another cab and headed towards the Elephant and Castle.

  Now there are a lot of pubs on the Old Kent Road, and a lot more in the side streets off it, and I’m sure some of them are family-run establishments catering to a better class of customer. But most of them aren’t. Most of them are huge barns of places frequented by south-east London hooligans looking to get pissed up, score as many illegal drugs as they can and pull a bird as quickly as is humanly possible. Even on a Thursday lunchtime the whole area had an air of gloomy menace that the bright sunshine couldn’t dispel, and I wasn’t particularly looking forward to my task as I entered the first boozer I came to.

  But at least it sold lager, and as my throat felt as if it had been dry-wall cladded overnight I ordered the first pint of the morning and sunk half with one swallow.

  My first interview pretty well set the pattern of the day. After I’d lit up a Silk Cut I called over the barman, a thick-set fellow in his mid-thirties who looked as if he’d rather be wielding a baseball bat against some recalcitrant punter than serving the dish of the day off the lunch menu chalked on the blackboard behind him. ‘Is the boss in?’ I asked.

  ‘I’m the boss.’

  ‘I’m looking for someone,’ I said.

  ‘Ain’t we all.’

  I grinned what I hoped was an honest-looking grin and said, ‘True. His name’s Chris Grant. I heard he ran a pub round this way.’

  ‘Don’t know him.’

  ‘Or maybe he drinks in here.’

  ‘Thousands of people do.’

  ‘And he knocks about with this girl. Her name’s Sharon.’ I produced one of the photos Ray had left me. The barman hardly gave it a glance.

  ‘Lots of birds named Sharon in here. Never seen her. Who are you?’

  ‘My name’s Sharman. I’m a private detective.’

  He didn’t look impressed. ‘What you want them for?’ he asked.

  ‘Her husband’s looking for her. Something to her advantage.’

  ‘No mate. Don’t know them. And I don’t want you bothering my customers.’

  At that hour his customers consisted of one man in a muffler and cloth cap and his dog, and a couple of suits with mobile phones who looked like they were slumming the lunchtime away from the city office.

  ‘Fair enough,’ I said. ‘Just asking.’

  ‘Well, ask somewhere else. We don’t like coppers round here. Not public or private. Why don’t you just drink up and piss off.’

  So much for cockney hospitality, I thought, as I did just that and went on to the next pub.

  I got variations on this conversation the entire length of the Old Kent Road, down one side and up the other, leaving a trail of my business cards to be kept, chucked or used as joint roaches from lunchtime through happy hour and on until almost midnight when I gave up, found a mini-cab office and headed home, my head still spinning from my hangover and my stomach sloshing with lager – and I wasn’t one iota closer to finding my quarries than I had been that morning.

  Or at least I didn’t think I was.

  11

  I woke up late again the next morning with the remains of yesterday’s hangover, or maybe the day before’s, or maybe a new one, fuddling my head, a tongue the colour of old newspaper and a liver that ached like a bitch. This was no way to spend my life. I lay in bed until my bladder forced me up, and on the way to the bathroom I stuck on the kettle for a much needed caffeine fix. And still I was thinking about the girl in the bar and what she’d said. My thoughts were like a bluebottle trapped under a glass. They wouldn’t stop buzzing around my head and banging on the edges of my consciousness. When I was dressed and on my third cup of coffee I sat on the sofa and planned my campaign.

  As I hadn’t been able to visit every boozer in the area on the previous day, I decided to go back to the Old Kent Road to continue my investigations. Now there’s a word.

  But this time I’d leave it until later and do an evening shift, it being Friday, which, as everybody knows, is the beginning of the week for the sort of south-London toe-rag I was looking for.

  So that left the rest of the day to fill, which I did by doing my laundry and catching up on the daytime soaps.

  In the middle of a rerun of The Bill on Sky the phone rang. I caught it on the third ring as the commercials began. ‘Hello,’ I said.

  ‘Nick.’ It was Charlie.

  ‘Hello, mate,’ I said. I heard an edge of insincerity in my voice and I hated myself for it.

  ‘What’s up?’

  ‘Got a gig. Looking for a missing wife.’

  ‘Same old same old then.’

  ‘More or less.’

  ‘Long time.’

  ‘Been busy. You know how it is.’

  ‘Yes. I know how it is.’

  ‘How’s business with you?’ I asked.

  ‘Same old same old. Shifting motors.’

  We both paused.

  ‘So what can I do for you?’ I asked in the end.

  ‘You know. Pay a bill. Be a friend.’

  ‘I try,’ I replied, but it sounded lame and we both knew it.

  ‘Fancy a drink?’ he asked.

  ‘Sure. When?’

  ‘Tonight?’

  ‘Can’t make it,’ I lied. ‘Got to see a man about a dog.’

  ‘Fair enough. Another time then.’

  ‘Yeah. Just give us a bit of notice.’ I’d never said anything like that to Charlie before.

  ‘I’ll be sure to book.’

  I felt like a shit. ‘Sorry, mate,’ I said.

  ‘Yeah. Sure you are. I’ll be in touch.’ And he hung up.

  I sat holding the receiver, looking at the pretty pictures on the screen, and justified my actions by thinking I couldn’t do anything for Charlie’s particular problems, but I knew I was lying as I gently put it back on its cradle.

  As soon as I did the phone rang again and I picked up and said, ‘Forget it. I’ll cancel.’

  ‘Sorry.’ It was woman’s voice. A young woman.

  ‘Sorry,’ I repeated. ‘I thought you were someone else.’

  ‘Obviously. Did you see her?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The woman with the coffin and the skull.’

  I sat bolt upright, all thoughts of Sun Hill nick, on the box, and Charlie forgotten. ‘Who is this?’ I asked.

  ‘Don’t you remember me?’

  ‘Melanie. Is that you?’ Although I knew it wasn’t. It was a different accent.

  ‘Was that her name?’

  ‘You seem to know everything else. You tell me.’

  ‘I don’t know everything. Only some things. I told you that. Did you find the coffin and the skull?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I thought you would.’

  ‘Who are you?’ But I knew. It was the spooky girl from the club. It had to be.

  ‘You’ll find out soon I think.’

  It was her. ‘I came looking for you the other night,’ I said.

  ‘I know. It wasn’t the right time.’

  ‘When is the right time?’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe sooner, maybe later.’

  ‘Are you taking the mickey?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘I phoned to tell you to be careful. What you’re doing is dangerous. But I know you won’t listen. That’s why I know we’ll meet again, sometime soon.’

  ‘Let’s meet now. I can come to you.’

  ‘No.’ She was emphatic. ‘Not today. Another time. When you need us most.’

  ‘Us?’

  She laughed. It was a good
sound. ‘You’ll find out. I promise. Now there is something else.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Dead flowers.’

  ‘What?’ I said again.

  ‘Dead flowers. If you see dead flowers the time for us to meet will be soon. But that is the time of greatest danger. When you see the dead flowers.’

  She was beginning to freak me out. ‘What do you mean?’ I demanded.

  ‘It will all be revealed.’

  Jesus, it was like something from Lord of the Rings. Soon they’d be calling me Bilbo Baggins. Then I had a thought. ‘How did you know where to find me?’ I said.

  ‘Haven’t you been leaving your cards?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘There you are then. Please be careful. And your friend needs you.’ She hung up on me.

  I tried the recently installed 1471 to get the number she’d been calling from, but the call had been masked. I’d suspected it would.

  I sat and mulled over what she’d said and I didn’t like it. Not one little bit. Maybe it was my almost permanent hangover, or maybe it was something else, but I was feeling as jittery as hell.

  And the thing she’d said about my friend. What the hell did that mean. I tried Charlie’s office number but the answerphone was on. His mobile was switched off and there was no answer from his home.

  And to make it worse I realized that my ex-directory home number hadn’t been on any of the cards I’d left the previous day.

  12

  I wasn’t feeling much better, when, round about eight, I pulled my old leather jacket over the polo shirt and Levis I’d been wearing all day and called a cab again. It dropped me off in the same spot as the previous lunchtime.

  There was a big difference in the atmosphere of the Old Kent Road that evening. It reminded me of a low-rent version of the main drag in Las Vegas, all neon lights and cars swishing along the tarmac. And the local faces were just starting to come out to play.

  And some ugly faces they were too.

  I lit a cigarette and started my search.

  Miraculously it was still dry with a clear sky and as I went into the first boozer on my list I noticed the moon was coming up over the tower blocks that looked down on the main road to Kent.

  A bloated yellow moon.