Threat Read online

  I let myself into the flat, look in on Georgie and see that she’s still asleep. I go into my bedroom, take my clothes off and get into bed. I reach for Pride and Prejudice from the bedside table and half a page later, I’m asleep.

  15

  The phone’s ringing. I turn over and pull the pillow over my head. It rings and rings and finally I get out of bed, go into the hall and answer it, but I’m too late. I go back in the bedroom and put on a dressing gown. My watch says it’s eleven o’clock.

  I go into the kitchen and put the kettle on. There’s a note from Georgie on the kitchen table saying she’s at the Science Museum and she’ll be back later. She’s probably at one of those lectures that she goes to there. I make myself a cup of Nescafé and a piece of toast and marmalade and sit at the kitchen table. I look out of the window at the breeze wafting the leaves of the trees and it makes me want to get out of town into the country. I’d like to go somewhere with Lizzie, like the time we went to Clacton and stayed in a hotel and lay on the beach all day in the sun. Once Georgie’s away at school I suppose I’ll be able to go on trips and that. I decide that maybe I’ll take Lizzie to Harvey Nichols, spend a few quid and then have a posh lunch. I finish my coffee, go into the bedroom and put on fresh underwear, stockings and a pale blue shift dress. I put on make-up at the dressing table, brush my hair and then I go and knock on Lizzie’s door.

  She opens up, puts a finger to her lips and beckons me inside. She points down the corridor, puts her mouth next to my ear and whispers, ‘Olga’s here.’

  I go to leave but she puts an arm round me. ‘If you’re going after her you might want to see something.’

  She takes me to her bedroom and opens the curtain that covers the two-way mirror. Olga is sitting on the bed fully clothed with her handbag on her knee as if she’s waiting for something or someone. She’s about as broad as she’s tall and her muscled arms and thighs bulge against the serge of the black suit she’s wearing. Her black hair is piled up on top of her pale pudding face, held captive by a grey hairnet and run through with hairpins. Lizzie takes her dress off, puts on a white coat, goes to the door and says, ‘Watch and learn.’

  I sit on the bed and through the mirror I see Lizzie enter the other bedroom. Olga stands up, opens her handbag and gives a small blue plastic box to Lizzie. Then she unbuttons her jacket, takes it off and lays it on the bed. She takes the rest of her clothes off and I can feel my toast and coffee rising from my stomach as she uncovers one lumpy great muscle after another and then the biggest arse I’ve ever seen with patches of matted black hair growing out of the crevice and spreading across the cheeks. Lizzie puts on a pair of rubber gloves, like doctors have, takes a plastic sheet out of the wardrobe and spreads it out on the carpet. She takes a silk scarf from the clothes rail, ties it round Olga’s eyes, leads her to the middle of the sheet and lays her down on her back. Lizzie opens the wardrobe again and takes a bag of Saxa salt off the shelf, opens it and walks round the sheet pouring the contents onto the edge of it until she’s made a circle of salt around Olga. She puts the empty bag down, picks up the blue plastic box, steps over the salt circle and kneels down beside Olga. She strokes a hand over her flat breasts and then across the ridges of muscle on her stomach and on along her massive thighs to her knees. On the return journey the hand lingers between her legs and I turn away as Olga gives out a moan. When I look again Lizzie’s opening the plastic box and putting something small and black on Olga’s stomach. When it moves I can see it’s a cockroach.

  Another one tips out of the box, and there are spiders and ants and insects I haven’t seen since I was a kid in the slums crawling all over her stomach and her tits and between her legs. She’s writhing and moaning and rubbing herself and Lizzie’s standing over her with a foot on her neck, half strangling her. The ants are biting her and there are trickles of blood and she’s moaning and groaning and roaring towards a climax and I’m thinking if she gets any louder they’ll hear her in Moscow. After some more heaving and wailing she gives an almighty bellow and flails her arms and legs about; then it’s all over and her legs thump down on the sheet and she’s done.

  Lizzie smiles at me through the glass. She waits while Olga’s breathing’s slows down and then she sweeps the bugs off her body onto the sheet with her gloved hands and pulls some out from between her legs. She helps Olga up, dusts her down and moves her onto the carpet, then she rolls the plastic sheet up into a ball, trapping the creepy crawlies inside it and stamps on a couple that get away. Olga takes her blindfold off and starts putting her clothes on while Lizzie takes her white coat and gloves off. When Olga’s dressed she opens her handbag, gives Lizzie some folded notes and puts the empty plastic box in her bag. Lizzie picks up the bundled sheet, opens the door and follows Olga into the corridor. When I hear the front door close I go to the door and I can see Lizzie in the kitchen putting the sheet and her rubber gloves in a metal bin and closing the lid. She washes her hands at the sink then she sees me.

  ‘At least she didn’t bring snails this time.’

  ‘What does she do with them?’

  ‘Let’s just say you wouldn’t want to eat them after.’

  ‘I never want to eat again.’

  Lizzie puts her arm round me, rubs my stomach, and walks me towards her bedroom. ‘Let’s try and get your appetite back shall we?

  • • •

  An hour later we’re soaking in bubble bath and deciding whether it’s going to be Harvey Nichols or Harrods for a late lunch and a bit of shopping. We reckon we’ll drive down to Knightsbridge and see how we feel when we get there. As we’re drying each other with her big fluffy pink towels the phone rings. Lizzie pads down the hall and answers it. She listens, then she gives me a sad look as she says, ‘Ok Nick. I’ll be here.’

  She puts the phone down and says, ‘He’s bringing some kid round in half an hour.’

  ‘Another time then,’ I say.

  ‘I suppose I should keep him sweet.’

  ‘I reckon.’

  ‘Zoot Money’s at the Flamingo tonight if you fancy it.’

  ‘I’ll say.’

  ‘Pick you up about nine?’

  ‘Lovely.’

  I go back to my place and change into ski pants, a roll neck sweater and a light jacket. I’ve decided I’ll drive up to Hampstead Heath, have a good long walk and then buy something nice for me and Georgie to have for our tea.

  The sun’s shining in a clear sky as I walk to the car. I check under the wheel arch and there’s a piece of paper with: 54 Broadway SW1, 4pm written on it. My watch says it’s almost three so a walk on the Heath’s out. I decide to have a coffee at that new French café in Clifton Road while Nick’s getting his end away, and then go and meet him at the address he’s given me.

  I walk to the café, drink two cups of strong coffee and have a read of a Daily Mail that someone’s left behind. It’s full of a lot of blather about Britain applying to join the Common Market and hardly any interesting scandals or gossip. I pay the waitress, walk to the car, dig out my A-Z and find Broadway. It’s in St James’s, not far from the hotel that I met Nick and his boss in.

  I drive across the park towards Hyde Park Corner. There are people walking dogs in the spring sunshine and kids playing football and mothers and nannies pushing prams. I wonder if they’ll ever know about the knavery that Nick and his lot get up to in the name of keeping them safe. I go down Constitution Hill and turn left off Buckingham Gate. I’m a bit early so I park the car off the main drag and walk along to Broadway.

  Number fifty-four is a big tall grey building with a plaque by the front door that says it’s the Minimax Fire Extinguisher Company. Just as I’m thinking I must have got the wrong number the front door opens and two men in suits and bowler hats come out. As the door swings shut I catch a glimpse of Nick inside, sitting on a bench beside the porter’s desk reading a paper. I pull the door open and walk in. Nick sees me and stands up. He puts the paper on a table, says something to the bloke behind
the desk and walks towards the back of the building. I follow him and when he reaches a pair of double doors he holds one open for me and we go down a flight of stairs and along a dingy corridor with cream coloured walls that could do with a lick of paint. He stops at a brown door, opens it and shows me into an office with a desk, a couple of upright chairs, a filing cabinet and a hatstand. He waves me to one of the chairs, walks behind the desk, picks up a photograph and passes it to me.

  ‘Do you know this man?’

  It’s me in the donkey jacket and cap. It must have been taken last night in Catford which means that Nick’s lot were watching and Ginger’s one of them, but I’m relieved that he can’t have got a look at my face when we were fighting. The photo’s a yellowy green kind of colour and a bit blurred. It looks like it’s been taken with one of those new night vision cameras. They’ve caught me walking under a street lamp and the light’s catching the frame of my glasses but my face is just a smudge. While I’m looking at it Nick says, ‘An associate of yours?’

  ‘Why would he be?’ I say.

  ‘He tried to get our German friend arrested.’

  ‘Oh yeah?’

  ‘And failed.’

  I hand the photograph back to him. ‘Never seen him before.’

  He gives me a long look then a tight smile. He opens a file on the desk, puts the photograph into it and places the file in a drawer. He takes out a bottle of whisky and two glasses.

  ‘Drink?’

  ‘Why not?’

  He pours two stiff ones and hands one to me.

  ‘I understand your sister is going to Leavenden tomorrow.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘So you’ll be free to travel to Berlin the next day.’

  ‘I thought you said Wednesday.’

  ‘We’ve had to make it Monday. The Berlin contact is being recalled to Moscow unexpectedly.’

  I take a drink and wonder where they get such good whisky.

  ‘You have no passport?’ Nick asks.

  ‘I’ve never been abroad.’

  ‘There’s very little record of you anywhere in fact, apart from an acquittal of a murder charge. No birth certificate, medical records, tax…’

  ‘That’s how I like it.’

  ‘So you won’t object to our giving you a passport in a false name to support your cover.’

  ‘No.’

  Nick picks up the phone, dials a number and says, ‘Lumley please.’

  Moments later there’s a knock at the door and a little whippety man with white hair and bushy eyebrows hurries in carrying a camera on a tripod. He puts it down, spreads the legs of the tripod, takes a bag off his shoulder, steps towards me and thrusts his hand out. I put my hand in his and he shakes it hard. ‘Good afternoon to you. No names, no pack drill, eh what?’

  He gives me a grin, nips back behind the tripod, puts his head under a cloth on the back of the camera.

  ‘Jolly good, yes. Take a step forward would you my dear?’

  I move forward and he comes out from under the cloth, rummages in his bag, takes out a flash thingy and plugs it into an electric socket above the skirting board behind him. He holds the flash up with one hand and puts his head under the cloth again. He reaches his other hand round to the front of the camera and turns a dial back and forth a couple of times.

  ‘Watch the birdy!’

  The flash goes off and he’s straight out from under his cloth and the flash is unplugged and back in the bag and the tripod’s legs are snapped together, the bag’s on his shoulder and he stands to attention. He turns to Nick.

  ‘Celia Bryant-Wilkinson, Buckinghamshire or Caroline Ward, Essex?’

  ‘Caroline Ward, I think,’ says Nick.

  ‘Very good. Sometime after tiffin?’

  ‘That’ll do nicely.’

  ‘Toodaloo.’

  He gives me a little bow, opens the door and skips out into the corridor.

  I can’t help laughing when he’s gone and I say, ‘He doesn’t muck about does he?’

  ‘He does tend to behave as if he’s pursued by a bear.’

  ‘I’ll say.’

  ‘He does fine work though. One of the best we’ve got.’

  Nick reaches into another drawer, takes out a book and some bank notes. ‘Deutschmarks and a German phrasebook that you may find useful, although Berlin is crawling with foreigners so don’t be concerned about not speaking the language.’

  He stands up, comes round the desk and gives them to me. I put them in my bag and he opens the door.

  ‘The Glendale at nine tomorrow night. You’ll receive a full briefing and meet your travelling companion.’

  I walk along the dimly lit corridor wondering what this full briefing will be all about. I don’t trust Nick and his posh friends and I’m hoping I’m not getting into something I can’t handle. As I’m nearly at the stairs a door opens and a tall, grey haired woman in a grey wool suit with glasses on a chain and a briefcase in her hand comes out, glances at me and heads for the stairs. As she puts her foot on the first step she stops, turns, looks at me again and smiles. She stands back from the stairs and motions me to go up ahead of her. I hesitate for a second then I go up the stairs. I can feel her eyes on me as she follows just a bit too close behind me. At the top of the stairs I go through the double doors and head for the exit. As I’m passing the desk she catches up with me. Her hand lightly brushes my arm.

  ‘Are you new here?’

  ‘Just visiting,’ I say,

  ‘Anyone I know?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  She opens the front door for me.

  ‘Would you care for a drink after a long day?’

  ‘Not now thanks,’ I say as I walk away, wondering at the cheek of the old bird.

  • • •

  I stop at the baker’s in Edgware Road, just as he’s closing, and pick up a couple of pies and sausage rolls and a loaf of bread. I get tins of beans and carrots from a grocer’s a few doors away and a couple of Mars bars for pudding. I buy some different sweets and bars of chocolate to put in Georgie’s tuck box. I’m wishing I’d got a chicken or something for our dinner tomorrow before she goes off to school, but the butchers are all shut now, so it’ll have to be whatever I can find, or scrounge off Lizzie.

  When I get back to the flat Georgie’s in her room reading and she tells me the phone’s been ringing. I go into the kitchen and turn on the oven. I find potatoes in the kitchen cabinet, put them in the sink and start peeling them. Georgie comes in, yawns and says, ‘Are you taking me to the station tomorrow?’

  ‘Of course I am,’ I say.

  ‘What time?’

  ‘The train’s at four o’clock, so we should get going just after three.’

  She sits at the table and says, ‘Can I take some books?’

  ‘I’m sure you can.’

  She comes and leans on the cabinet beside me and I can tell she’s worried about going. ‘How was the Science Museum?’ I ask.

  ‘Ok.’

  ‘Was it one of those lectures?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘What about?’

  ‘Entomology?’

  ‘What’s that then?’

  ‘Insects.’

  My stomach turns over and I drop a potato as I think of Olga and her little friends on the floor at Lizzie’s.

  Georgie looks at me.

  ‘You all right?’

  I nod, pick up the potato and start peeling.

  ‘Fine thanks. Do you want to open that tin of carrots for us?’

  As she picks up the tin opener the phone rings. I dry my hands, go into the hall and pick up the receiver. Tony Farina says, ‘You have something to tell me?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘When I can.’

  ‘You call me.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  The line goes dead. I’m wondering how long I’ll be away in Berlin and if I can string Tony along until I can see a way to get rid of Heinz without
Nick catching on, and what he’ll do to me if he finds out I’m playing him. Behind the smooth manners and the sharp suits, the Farinas are brutal bastards and I don’t need them as enemies.

  I go back in the kitchen, finish the potatoes, put them on to boil and put the pies in the oven. Georgie’s put the carrots in a pan and she’s sitting at the table reading a book. I want to talk to her about school because I’m worried how she’ll get on with those posh girls and if they’ll give her a bad time because of where she’s from. I sit down opposite her but then I think that anything I say might only make her more frightened of going and I really want her to be well away from my doings and the people I work with. I reach for my copy of Pride and Prejudice off the sideboard and open it at the bookmark. I read for a couple of minutes.

  ‘What’s a propensity?’ I ask.

  Georgie looks up, sees my book and says, ‘Read the whole sentence.’

  ‘And your defect is a propensity to hate everybody.’

  ‘It’s Elizabeth talking to Darcy isn’t it?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘It means like a preference or a tendency to hate everybody.’

  ‘Ok.’

  I read on a bit.

  ‘She’s having a right go at him.’

  ‘She’s great isn’t she?’

  ‘I really like her but he’s a right plonker.’

  ‘You’d better read on,’ says Georgie.

  I light the gas under the carrots and read a bit more until they boil then I drain the potatoes and mash them with milk and butter. I take the pies out of the oven and put them on plates with the mash, drain the carrots and put them on the side. Georgie puts the HP sauce on the table and we tuck in.

  16

  Soho’s throbbing nicely as me and Lizzie walk down Wardour Street towards the Flamingo. The girls are standing at the doors of strip clubs inviting any likely looking punters inside to see the show, and their minders are hanging around nearby smoking fags and looking moody. We pass a group of Jamaicans standing outside the entrance to the St Moritz Club and catch the sound of soul music and the smell of grass. A group of mods come towards us in their Ben Sherman shirts and mohair suits, pilled up and nattering at one another. Lizzie bumps into a stripper she knows who’s on her way from one club to another. While they stop to talk I walk on a bit and have a look through the door of Le Macabre, a coffee bar on the corner of Meard Street. The walls and the tables and chairs are all black. The tables are long and shaped like coffins, with candles lighting the glum faces of the beatniks sitting round them with their long hair and beards. There’s a platform at one end and a bloke with blond hair down to his shoulders and wearing a black cape is reciting some poetry with a girl in black jeans and a polo neck sweater beside him playing a guitar. From what I can hear of the poem it seems to be about death and I’m quite relieved when Lizzie says goodbye to her friend and we move on.