‘Have you known Miss Salazar long?’ she asked at last, in a very quiet voice that I found hard to catch over the noise of the engine.
‘Juliet? No,’ I admitted. ‘She . . . hasn’t been living around these parts very long. But she’s someone who makes a strong first impression.’
She nodded briskly, understandingly. ‘And you’re . . . sort of partners,’ she said, and then added quickly, ‘in the professional sense? You work together?’
‘Not really,’ I said, feeling as though I was falling in Susan’s estimation with every answer. ‘We did, briefly, but only while Juliet was learning the ropes. She worked alongside me for a while so she could see how the job pans out on a day-to-day basis. She’s in business for herself now, so tonight was . . . more in the nature of a consultation.’
‘Yes. I see,’ said Susan, nodding again. ‘That must be very reassuring. Being able to call in favours from one another, I mean. Knowing that someone’s . . .’ she tailed off, as though groping for the right words.
‘Got your back?’ I offered.
‘Yes. Exactly. Got your back.’
We were already at Royal Oak and I’d pulled off the Westway onto the bottom end of the Harrow Road, seemingly without her noticing.
‘Whereabouts do you live?’ I asked.
Susan started, and looked around her in mild surprise.
‘Bourne Terrace,’ she said, pointing. ‘That way. First left, and then first left again.’
I followed her directions, and we stopped in front of a tiny terraced house that was in darkness except for a single light upstairs. A garden the size of a bath mat separated it from the street: the gate was painted hospital green and had a NO HAWKERS notice on it.
‘I’d invite you in for tea,’ Susan said, so stiffly that she sounded almost terrified. ‘Or coffee. But I live with my mother and she’d think it wasn’t proper. She has very old-fashioned ideas about things like that. She wouldn’t even be happy that I’d accepted a lift from you.’
‘Then it’ll be our secret,’ I said, waiting for her to get out. She didn’t. She just sat there, staring straight ahead, her eyes wide. Then, very abruptly, she brought her hands up to her face and gave a ragged wail that held, held, and then shattered into inconsolable sobbing.
It was so completely unexpected that for a second or so all I could do was stare. Then I started in with some vague consoling noises, and even ventured a pat on the back: but she was lost in some private hinterland of misery where I didn’t exist. After a minute or so, I began to make out words, heaved out breathlessly in the midst of the tears.
‘I’m – I’m not – I’m not –’
‘Not what, Susan?’ I asked, as mildly as I could. I didn’t know her well enough even to risk a guess at what was eating at her, but whatever it was it seemed to have bitten deep.
‘Not a – not like that. I’m not, I’m not. I’m not a les – a lesb—’ The words melted again into the formless quagmire of her sobbing, but that brief flash of light had told me all I needed to know.
‘No,’ I said, ‘you’re not.’ I reached past her to hook the glove compartment open, found a pack of tissues in there and handed one to her. ‘It’s not like that. Juliet just . . . does that to people. You can’t help yourself. You just fall in love with her, whether you like it or not.’
Susan buried her face in the tissue, shaking her head violently from side to side. ‘Not love,’ she sobbed. ‘Not love. I’m having c-carnal . . . I’m imagining . . . Oh God, what’s happening? What’s happening to me?’
‘Whatever you want to call it,’ I said matter-of-factly, ‘looking at Juliet makes you catch it like people catch the flu. I feel it too. Most people who ever get close to her feel it. Whatever it is, it’s not a sin.’
I couldn’t think of anything to add to that. Maybe Susan Book was the kind of Christian who thought that gay love was always a sin, in which case she’d just have to work it through for herself. But straight, gay, or agnostic, what Juliet did to you came as a shock to anyone’s system. I could tell Susan what Miss Salazar really was – by way of a prophylactic – but it wasn’t my secret to tell and under the circumstances it might make things worse rather than better. Carnal thoughts about a same-sex demon? Susan probably wasn’t in any state to take the knock.
I did the best I could to talk her down, and eventually she got out of the car, leaving the soggy tissue on the passenger seat. She mumbled something by way of thanks for the lift, to which she added, ‘Don’t tell her! Please, please don’t tell her!’ Then she fled into the house.
There probably wasn’t anything I could have said to her that would have helped. Love is a drug, like the man said. But the harshest truth of all is in the gospel of Steppenwolf rather than in Roxy Music: the pusher doesn’t care whether you live or die.
I called the Torringtons from the car as I was driving back east across the city. Hands-free, of course: I wouldn’t want you to think I don’t put safety first. Steve picked up on the first ring, which made me wonder if he’d been sitting with his phone in his hands.
‘Mister Castor,’ he said, sounding just a touch breathless. ‘What news?’
‘Good news as far as it goes,’ I said. ‘You were right, and I was wrong.’
‘Meaning—?’
‘Abbie’s not in Heaven. She’s in London.’
He exhaled, long and loud. I waited for him to speak.
‘Can you please give me a moment?’
‘Of course.’
Maybe he covered the phone, or maybe the voices were too low to hear over the sound of the car’s engine. There was about half a minute’s silence. Then he came back on. The pitch of his voice was unsteady – like the voice of a man fighting back tears.
‘We can’t thank you enough, Mister Castor. Do you think you can find her?’
‘I’m prepared to try.’
He gave a relieved laugh, harsh and emphatic and broken off short by some kind of psychological wind-shear. ‘That’s excellent news! Excellent! We’ve got every confidence in you.’
‘Mister Torrington—’
‘Steve.’
‘Steve. I don’t want to raise your hopes. This still isn’t going to be easy, assuming I can do it at all. And I’m going to need to have some money to spread around. If you can front me two or three hundred quid to be going on with, then I can make a start on—’
He cut me off. ‘Mister Castor, my wife and I count as affluent by any standards. You’re over-finessing, if I can use a bridge metaphor. Whatever you need, we can afford it. Possibly you feel as though you’re taking advantage of our grief. From our point of view, it’s not like that at all. We’ve heard that you’re the best, and we’re grateful that you’re prepared to help us.’ There was a rustle, and then the scratch-scratch-scratch of a fountain-pen nib on paper. ‘I’m writing out a cheque,’ he said. ‘For a thousand pounds. I’ll put it in the post tonight. No, better – I’ll go over to your office and drop it off myself. I’ll add some cash, too, to tide you over until this clears. If it’s more than you were planning to charge, and if that makes you uncomfortable, then please just give the rest to the charity of your choice.’
Good enough. I should have more clients who are that respectful of my sensitivities. I asked him for Peace’s address, which turned out to be in East Sheen: not a part of the city I knew all that well, and a lot further south than I was expecting.
‘I’ll be in touch,’ I said, and hung up.
Driving on automatic pilot, I’d already rejoined the Westway and driven on through Marylebone past Madame Tussaud’s and the Planetarium – which now has commerce only with stars of the daytime-TV variety. I was just about to swing off north onto Albany Street. But I had another call to make, and it was in the east of the city rather than the north. So I kept on going – east all the way, heading for the distant fastnesses of Walthamstow.
I was tired, and I still had a headache from that psychic mind-blast, but there was nothing to gain by putting this off until tomorrow. Night was always the best time to see Nicky if you wanted to get any sense out of him.