She stood there with her head tipped to one side, listening intently. “It’s stopped now,” she said. “Hmm. You want to know the strangest thing?”
“Uh-huh,” he said, his lips now nuzzling her neck. “Sure, tell me the strangest thing. But I’ve made it go away now. It won’t bother you again.”
“The strangest thing,” said Rosie, “is that it sounded like you.”
FAT CHARLIE WALKED THE STREETS, TRYING TO CLEAR HIS HEAD. The obvious course of action was to bang on his own front door until Spider came down and let him in, then to give Spider and Rosie a piece of his mind. That was obvious. Perfectly, utterly obvious.
He just needed to go back to his flat and explain the whole thing to Rosie, and shame Spider into leaving him alone. That was all he had to do. How hard could that be?
Harder than it ought to be, that was for certain. He was not quite sure why he had walked away from his flat. He was even less certain how to find his way back. Streets he knew, or thought he knew, seemed to have reconfigured themselves. He found himself walking down dead ends, exploring endless cul-de-sacs, stumbling through the tangles of late-night London residential streets.
Sometimes he saw the main road. There were traffic lights on it, and the lights of fast-food places. He knew that once he got onto the main road he would be able to find his way back to his house, but whenever he walked to the main road he would wind up somewhere else.
Fat Charlie’s feet were starting to hurt. His stomach rumbled, violently. He was angry, and as he walked he became angrier and angrier.
The anger cleared his head. The cobwebs surrounding his thoughts began to evaporate; the web of streets he was walking began to simplify. He turned a corner and found himself on the main road, next to the all-night “New Jersey Fried Chicken” outlet. He ordered a family pack of chicken, and sat and finished it off without any help from anyone else in his family. When that was done he stood on the pavement until the friendly orange light of a For Hire sign, attached to a large black cab, came into view, and he hailed the cab. It pulled up next to him, and the window rolled down.
“Where to?”
“Maxwell Gardens,” said Fat Charlie.
“You taking the mickey or something?” asked the cab driver. “That’s just around the corner.”
“Will you take me there? I’ll give you an extra fiver. Honest.”
The cabbie breathed in loudly through his clenched teeth: it was the noise a car mechanic makes before asking you whether you’re particularly attached to that engine for sentimental reasons. “It’s your funeral,” said the cabbie. “Hop in.”
Fat Charlie hopped. The cabbie pulled out, waited for the lights to change, went around the corner.
“Where did you say you wanted to go?” asked the cabbie.
“Maxwell Gardens,” said Fat Charlie. “Number 34. It’s just past the off-license.”
He was wearing yesterday’s clothes, and he wished he wasn’t. His mother had always told him to wear clean underwear, in case he was hit by a car, and to brush his teeth, in case they needed to identify him by his dental records.
“I know where it is,” said the cabbie. “It’s just before you get to Park Crescent.”
“That’s right,” said Fat Charlie. He was falling asleep in the backseat.
“I must have taken a wrong turning,” said the cabbie. He sounded irritated. “I’ll turn off the meter, all right? Call it a fiver.”
“Sure,” said Fat Charlie, and he snuggled down in the backseat of the taxi, and he slept. The taxi drove on through the night, trying to get just around the corner.
DETECTIVE CONSTABLE DAY, CURRENTLY ON A TWELVE-month secondment to the Fraud Squad, arrived at the offices of the Grahame Coats Agency at 9:30 A.M. Grahame Coats was waiting for her in reception, and he walked her back into his office.
“Would you care for a coffee, tea?”
“No, thank you. I’m fine.” She pulled out a notebook and sat looking at him expectantly.
“Now, I cannot stress enough that discretion must needs be the essence of your investigations. The Grahame Coats Agency has a reputation for probity and fair dealing. At the Grahame Coats Agency, a client’s money is a sacrosanct trust. I must tell you, that when I first began to entertain suspicions about Charles Nancy, I dismissed them as unworthy of a decent man and a hard worker. Had you asked me a week ago what I thought about Charles Nancy, I would have told you that he was the very salt of the earth.”
“I’m sure you would. So when did you become aware that money might have been diverted from clients’ accounts?”
“Well, I’m still not certain. I hesitate to cast aspersions. Or first stones, for that matter. Judge not, lest ye be judged.”
On television, thought Daisy, they say “just give me the facts.” She wished she could say it, but she didn’t.