After three or four numbers there was a break, during which Alex saw Jenny Wise and the young bloke from the soap sneaking out, jammy bugger that he was. He’d already had his arm up her skirt as far as his shoulder-blade, just about, while she’d been snogging him like a boa constrictor swallowing a rabbit, so it shouldn’t take them all that long to consummate what they had commenced. If you asked Alex, they wouldn’t get further than the nearest back alley.
The spectacle had not gone unnoticed by the pianist MC. Nor by the audience. “Lydies and gentlemen, now you know why they call this club the Blue Room. There is no extra charge for the bed show.” Ribald applause. Alex wondered how Jenny Wise felt about putting herself up for this sort of thing, or whether she even knew. Nonner his business, but it was a bit sad, like.
“… Meanwhile, we have the sixth member of the Birmingham Five, the one that got away, it’s dead easy to get away from Brum, lydies and gentlemen, you just stand at the side of the M1 with a sign that says ‘Anywhere’. Tonight he’s come all the way from the Coach and Horses to be with us, please welcome Mr Barry Chilton …”
Barry was already on his feet and bounding to the stage. All the musicians save the saxophone trooped off as he took the microphone and the saxophonist came forward and played a few random riffs.
His first short lyric was a skilfully extemporised and highly defamatory one about Jenny Wise and her young conquest, of which the only words Alex could remember later, to his regret, were “He’s got the class, she’s got the ass.” Nor, when he came to a haunting rap ballad about unrequited love, backed by a muted saxophone accompaniment as melancholy as the klaxon of one of those American freight trains crossing the prairie you saw in old westerns, could Alex remember any of that either, except the line, “She wouldn’t say and she wouldn’t stay.” Story of his life, that was.
It wasn’t what he would have called a pome, more of a story, if a simple one. But it was blurry good. It told how this chick, not a cock-teaser because they were on shagging terms, nevertheless kept her bloke at arm’s length, and whenever he tried to get near her mentally as well as physically was as elusive as a butterfly. At the end she left, she wouldn’t say where but he didn’t care, because she’d gone long before he’d found her. Something along those lines, anyway. Whether it was the poignant lyric or the poignant music that had the effect, Alex would have been hard put to say, but to his embarrassment a plump tear rolled down his cheek.
Maybe it was just the booze weeping. Maybe it was the hour — getting on for four by now, a notoriously suicidal time. But he had an urgent need to speak to Selby, hear her voice, even if she told him to piss off.
Would she have left her mobile on? Only one way to find out. It was a long shot, but there was just the possibility that she left it on in the small hours in case of emergency, like her dad having a blurry heart-attack or something. Worth a try, mood he found himself in.
He waited until Barry Chilton went into a huddle with the saxophonist about his next number, flashed his mobile at James to signal what he was doing, and darted up the stairs into the street.
He hadn’t particularly noticed where he was going after they’d left Gerry’s Club but he knew he was on one of those streets leading up from Shaftesbury Avenue — Dean, Frith, Greek; alphabetical order as James had taught him. It was very quiet now, the only sounds being distant, sporadic traffic, ambulance sirens and Barry Chilton’s recitative voice from down in the Blue Note, backed by the plaintive saxophone. Couldn’t make out the lyric but it was making them laugh; maybe he should have stayed down there and snapped out of his gloompot mood.
Greek Street, it seemed to be. A black guy stood on the corner under the street lamp, cigarette glowing — pusher most likely. Or not: if he were, he might as well wear a placard around his neck saying, “Arrest me”. On the other side stood a white guy in a mac, waiting for a hooker. Or a cab, you couldn’t tell which. He would get neither at this hour, if you asked Alex.
He stood in a wine shop doorway and punched out Selby’s mobile number. No result. Shit. Didn’t feel like returning to the Blue Note for a few minutes, he could do with a cup of black coffee if there was one going anywhere at coming up to four. McDonald’s, Leicester Square, someone had said. How far away was that?
Idly, he crossed the street. There was an unlit little alley opposite, no more than an extended gap between the buildings of Greek Street, housing what looked like a block of run-down flats, knocking-shops he would guess, and a porn shop and bed show, very likely the property of Stephan Dance. Hog Court. Bit like Compton’s Yard where he’d encountered Dance earlier. Narrow shave he must’ve had with that bugger. If Detective Inspector Wills had not been in attendance, a dark alley at four in the morning was not the place to meet a Soho pornographer who had undertaken to recover Brendan Barton’s fifty pounds.
Alex shuddered. Whether it was the shudder or the dark inviting proximity of Hog Court that suddenly brought it on he couldn’t say, but he had a pressing desire for a jimmy riddle. When had he last had one? Christ, it muster been hours ago, no wonder he was bursting for a leak. The Wellington Arms, was it? And there’d been wunner them Post-it slips stuck to the bog wall, with the message: “Does anyone ever see Big John who used to come in here and Muriel’s? He liked a drink and a fight.” Underneath, someone had scrawled: “RIP.” Said it all about So-oh, that did.
As he edged furtively towards the little alley, conscious as always on these occasions that he was probably committing an offence by peeing in public, Alex all but bumped into the squint-eyed waiter, now back in mufti and wearing an ankle-length white apron and carrying a tray laden with champagne bottle and glasses. A lone rehearsal runner for the Waiters’ Race, he zigzagged erratically backwards and forwards across Greek Street as he hurried towards Soho Square.
Out of the shadows of Hog Court there now emerged a figure who had clearly been engaged on a similar mission to Alex’s. Dapper, middle-aged, clerkly-looking character carrying a neatly-folded raincoat. Alex thought he vaguely recognised him as he bustled off down Greek Street. Yes, seen the bugger before, where was it now? Wellington Arms, jimmy riddle, Post-it slip for whoever it was, Big John, and he’d come out of the bog and this sad sack was sitting at a table nursing half a Guinness and toying with a Swiss Army knife. As you do. So what was he doing wandering the streets at this God-forsaken hour? Been shagging a hooker, probably. Or trying to, poor sod looked as if he couldn’t get it up. Anyway, nonner his business.
Slipping into Hog Court, Alex was unzipping himself when he heard a rustling sound from some feet away. Oh, shite, who was it this time? Could be Jenny Wise and the randy young telly bloke having it away, too impatient to go round to her place. No, it was the rustle of a plastic raincoat as the lamplight from Greek Street fell on the frightened face of that old bat he’d given the book to. What was she called again? Else.
Didn’t know him from Adam, of course. But she clutched his sleeve and whispered urgently: “Young man, you must come with me!”
Dotty or what? And this was someone else who was out at all hours. Didn’t she have a home to go to? Could be she didn’t. And where was the fookin thirty-quid book he’d bought her? Left it in some pub lav, he shouldn’t wonder.
He allowed Else to take his arm and steer him across the alley, chattering excitedly: “I’d just come down here for a little wee-wee, because I suffer from a weak bladder, you know, I expect when you reach my age you’ll have the same problem. And I was just doing what I had to do, when I noticed a man standing over that young lady there, lying on the ground. He saw me and hurried away and I came over as soon as I was able and looked at her. I thought at first she was drunk, because they do drink far too much nowadays, these gels, but now I’m not so sure, I think she may be dead.”