Dave dropped the fare off and drove on round the elevated roadway to the front of the station, where stone giantesses mourn the death of its builders on Flanders Field. He ranked up and marched away past Delice de France, Upper Crust, Van Heusen, M&S Simply Food, The Reef, Burger King and Tie Rack, then down into the temple of hiss and piss, where he could wring the neck of his suicidal dick. What was it Big End used to say? 'I love myself so much when I hold my dick to piss I get a fucking hard-on.'
Back at the rank Dave's Fairway was holding things up. Two or three trains must have arrived simultaneously, because the fifty-odd cabs were divided among the hundred-odd punters within five minutes. 'North!' the new fare barked without looking at Dave, as if she were crying 'Mush!' to a husky. And when Dave ventured, 'Anywhere more specific, madam?' the fare barked: 'Belsize Park!' Then sat there, her exploratory face pressed to the window as Dave dragged the metal sleigh back through the West End, Euston and Camden Town.
Dried-up old stick, look at 'er … no one would want a crack at that … Dave kept casting glances in the mirror at the hated fare, and, as if responding to this, the woman got out her compact and began dabbing beige dust on a mole. Got 'er own mirror, eh … what's she got to look at innit, only the same fucking face day in, day out. Mindjoo, these old boilers — they've got their own Knowledge, that's true enough.
The fare wanted Heath Hospital, but was either too grand or too embarrassed to say so until they were roaring down Pond Street, then she ordered him: 'Here!' Dave pulled over outside the Roebuck. The fare tipped generously, then unfolded a gossamer umbrella and flew, like a fairy-fucking-grandmother, into the lobby. Dave found himself alone, at four thirty in the afternoon, on the shores of Hampstead. The other points at the end of this run came unbidden: Anthony Nolan Trust, Armoury Sports Hall, Hampstead Hill Gardens, Hampstead Magistrates Court, Holiday Inn, Keats Museum …
A nervous Japanese woman got into the cab at the Southend Green rank. No questions asked as to why the detour if we're going to Hendon Central … she might as well be in fucking Osaka … Osaka. . tourists. . flyers … A memory rose up and bumped against the underside of his consciousness … Just before Christmas … the nervous City getter on his way out to 'eathrow. 'You can't tell me, Beaky, that it's all off the back of Bluey — or whatever that stupid kids' show is called …' His card was still tucked under the clip on the dashboard — so was Sid Gold's. The fare gave a little yelp as Dave arm-wrestled the steering wheel while reading the business card CB & EFN INVESTMENT STRATEGIES, STEPHEN BRICE, CEO EUROPE. That's it… there's stuff there on Devenish … If they're going to do it to me — I'll do it to them first … Gold'll know someone. . An investigator … a private dick …
Dave dropped the Jap at a hotel he'd never noticed before, four semis knocked into one dull frontage. Palms in half-barrels sat on a tarmac apron. A sign flashed RALEIGH COURT in the gathering dusk. She picked up her carrier bags, shouldered her Hello Kitty rucksack and paid what was on the meter. Dave drove on up to Mill Hill, the National Institute for Medical Research calling to him, its copper roof shining over the tiled valley.
Once there Dave took up his position on top of Drivers Hill, and, finding card and mobile phone mysteriously in his hand, he made the call, not expecting anyone to be there at this late hour … least of all a bent fucker like Gold who's gotta be propping up the bar in China White, one hand on a Bellini, the other up a tart's skirt … The wind whooshed in Dave's ear but Gold's 100 %-sure-of-itself voice was closer still. He remembered Dave, saying in response to his muttered request, 'No trouble, Dave, I know a geezer, you gotta pen and paper?'
Cal Devenish drove south. The traffic was light enough — a steel spatter on the bluffs of Kingsway. On the south side of Waterloo Bridge, the National Theatre was lit up, a giant sugar cube soaked with cultural vaccine. Inside his fellow bourgeoisie sucked sweets and watched Imogen and Ralph play at queens and kings. While not far off, in Brixton, Cal's ex-wife, Saskia, was lying on her crapped-out sofabed, their preposterous granddaughter clamped in her arms. The baby slept, blowing milky bubbles against its grandmother's hammering heart.
'She's done a runner again, Cal,' Saskia had cried that afternoon, a cry Cal heard via the phone as he drove home to Hampstead. He'd frozen for a moment — caught between crushing bergs of work and family — before answering, 'I thought she was on a locked ward?'
'You thought! You … thought!' Saskia snorted. 'That's novel!' She was standing, he supposed, in her kitchen. Toast crusts, apple cores, damp clouts, canisters of decadent marjoram and a greasy oven glove lay on the worktop. On the windowsill a miniature mesa of cacti supported a greenfly colony. 'They didn't have her on a section — she's gone!'
'I'll … I'll go and find her … later …' He'd manoeuvred the Beamer on to Hampstead Road. Laurence Corner, the army-surplus shop, was still open. I ought to pick up a mattock and a water bottle, I'll be needing them … later.
'You do that,' Saskia snapped.
To be fair, Cal thought now, as he turned down York Road, whatever Saskia's lunacies — the shopworn socialism, the maintenance-funded 'creativity', the double-barrels (bi-polar, obsessive-compulsive, manic-depressive, personality disorder) through which she shot at their daughter's pathology — the facts were simple: she'd been a single mother for thirteen years, and now she was a single grandmother. Some fucker rubbed his legs on Daisy's petals, then buzzed off again. And she, either hammered by Largactil or ranting on garage forecourts, was in no fit state to care for a baby. Shit… they had to tie her down and knock her out for the delivery. Even if she'd been sane, she was only sixteen …
He talked to the duty psychiatrist at St Thomas's, a distant, pharaonic figure. 'Yes, Mr Devenish … your daughter, Daisy. I understand your concern.' But don't share it, obviously. 'Her GP hadn't been in touch, and the consultant here hadn't made any provision. We had no grounds for holding her against her will.' Except that she's a fucking loony. 'She was quite lucid when she left … said she was going back' — he consulted a tan transcript — 'to Driscoll House?'
Unwilling to abandon sickroom security, Cal stood for a while by the double doors, looking towards Westminster Bridge. On the lobby floor, in front of the shuttered coffee shop, a ham and tomato sandwich was reduced by scurrying feet to a smear of red, brown and pink.
Heading south down the old Kent Road, Cal felt mangling hands of anxiety on his neck. He remembered the girl found dead in the fountains at Marlborough Gate. Three days fouling up a tourist attraction — when they dragged her out in her sodden stonewashed jeans she was unidentifiable.
That morning he'd been roused by the whale song of marital farts, semiconscious leviathans calling to one another across a glutinous ocean of duck down. 5 a.m. and fully awake … Cal looked at Michelle's profile etched on the pillow beside him by the acid light of a London dawn. She's holding out on me, I know it. There's something she isn't telling me — it doesn't add up. Her secret is soft — she moulds it to evade detection. It's hidden inside her body — she's a mule …