CHAPTER 7
FITTING IN
Rhian slept well that night; in fact, she overslept. Frankie was eating toast when she slid into the kitchen.
“I made you some tea,” Frankie said.
“Thank you.”
“But it went cold,” Frankie said with satisfaction.
“Ah,” Rhian said.
“There’s another brewing in the pot.”
“About last night . . .” Rhian said.
Frankie gazed at her toast reflectively.
“The marketing clowns claimed that falling sales of marmalade showed that the English had stopped eating toast for breakfast.”
She scooped a generous helping of marmalade out of a stoneware pot and spread it on her toast.
“About last night . . .” Rhian tried again.
“’Course, they failed to spot that people are buying Seville oranges and making their own.” Frankie said.
“About last night . . .” Rhian said, clenching her fists in frustration.
“I shouldn’t have yelled at you,” Frankie said. “I am not your keeper. You can come and go as you like.”
“No, you were understandably worried. I’d have rung but my phone was smashed and I did not realize how much time had passed because I was unconscious or asleep most of the time.” Rhian rushed it all out with one breath.
“What, you were unconscious?” Frankie asked.
She looked Rhian in the eye for the first time.
“I was mugged,” Rhian explained. “I must have hit my head when I fell.”
“You were attacked?” Frankie asked, mouth open.
“That was when my phone broke and my clothes were all ruined. Max bought me new clothes and a new phone,” Rhian said,
“Max?” Frankie lifted an eyebrow.
“My rescuer,” Rhian answered the unasked question. “He, ah, chased off the mugger and carried me back to his house to recover.”
“I see,” Frankie said, in a carefully neutral voice. “And he bought you the expensive wardrobe to replace your ruined clothes?”
“And a new phone,” Rhian replied, thinking she might as well get it all out in the open. She fished it out of her jeans pocket and passed it over.
“Very nice,” Frankie said, playing with the touch-sensitive interface. “It must have cost a bit. This Max is well off, then?”
Rhian shrugged.
“Will you be seeing him again?” Frankie asked.
“Shouldn’t think so,” Rhian replied. “He is older than me and we are hardly likely to meet socially.”
“Ah, it must be a complete accident that he’s put his number in your new phone’s memory.
A smile played on Frankie’s lips. She turned the phone around to show Rhian Max’s name in the Contacts List. Actually, it was the only name on the list.
The rotten cow thinks I gave Max a horizontal thank you, Rhian thought. She wanted to put Frankie right but held her tongue. Better to be thought a slut than a wolf.
Frankie lost the smile. “Seriously, Rhian, if you lost consciousness you should be checked out by a doctor.”
“All done,” Rhian said. “I’m fine.”
“Max again, I suppose.” Frankie said. “He thinks of everything.”
Rhian managed a weak smile.
Rhian steeled herself and went to work that night as if nothing had happened.
Gary greeted her with a smile. “Hi, Rhian, feeling better?”
“Ah, yes,” Rhian replied. “Sorry about missing my shifts.”
“That’s okay. You can’t help being ill. Frankie phoned in and said you wouldn’t be able to make it so, I got Sheila to cover for you.”
Sheila was a middle-aged Londoner who was the third member of their little team. Rhian rarely saw her as they inevitably worked on different days.
“Yes,” Rhian said uncertainly. So Frankie had covered for her. She was the first person willing to lie for Rhian since James. She was not sure how she felt about that.
Gary fussed about behind the bar, pushing glasses onto the spinning rubber head of the cleaning machine.
“Your landlady seems a nice person.” Gary said.
“Yes,” Rhian replied, noncommittedly, wondering where this was going.
“Does she have a significant other?”
“Not to my knowledge,” Rhian replied. “Why do you want to know?”
Gary kept his head down over the machine.
“Oh, no reason,” he replied casually. “Just making conversation. Would you do a sweep for dirty glasses, please?”
Rhian buried herself in the minutiae of work. She found the undemanding tasks soothing. There was a satisfaction to doing a simple job well.
Gary tapped her on the shoulder.
“Sorry, Gary, did you say something?”
“Yes, I just asked if you were okay on your own. This is my rest night, and I wanted to catch the documentary on the BBC.”
“Sure, you go ahead. What’s on?” Rhian asked.
“A Horizon program on string theory.”
“String theory?” Rhian asked, wondering what on earth Gary was blathering about.
“You know, modern physics, string theory, multiple dimensions and universes. CERN are setting up an experiment to test string theory using the Large Hadron Collider. Apparently quarks disappear in the plasma ball.”
“Riiiight, hadrons, quarks, plasma balls,” Rhian said, smiling and giving a thumbs up.
“Or I might just watch the football.”
“Plasma balls versus leather balls. I can see that you’re torn for choice,” Rhian said.
Gary fled.
The pub’s clientèle consisted of Old Fred and Willie the Dog reading the Morning Star at the bar and a small group of male students sitting around a table. Neither party was exactly splashing out. Rhian went over to collect empty glasses from the students’ table in an effort to shame them into spending. They were deep in conversation.
“But Wittgenstein’s duck-rabbit model clearly supports philosophical scepticism in that we can be certain of nothing,” said an earnest-looking student.
“I am certain that I came to university to get laid, not to sit in a grotty pub listening to you lot going on about Ludwig bloody Wittgenstein,” a second student said, gloomily.
“Can I get you more drinks, gentlemen?” Rhian asked brightly.
There was an abrupt silence. None of the students met her eye except the one who wanted to be laid. He took one look at Rhian and blushed bright red.
“I’ll, uh, get a round in,” the sexually frustrated student said.
A third murmured, “Bloody hell, is it Christmas or something?”
Rhian took the cash and brought the ordered drinks over. You did not normally get waitress service in a pub, but Rhian was bored. The second student examined his change carefully when Rhian plonked it in his palm. He did not give her a tip, not that she expected one. She returned behind the bar and washed the dirty glasses.
Two men came in and bought double whiskeys. Rhian noticed them because they stood out from the Black Swan’s normal patrons. She guessed their age at forty or so. That was far too old to be students and far too young to be one of the old working-class codgers left behind by the deindustrialization of the East End, like flotsam abandoned by the retreating tide. The men sat at a corner table, leaning forward to converse in low murmurs. Over the next twenty minutes they were joined by two friends. The last one asked for something in a thick Glaswegian accent.
“Pardon?” Rhian said, looking at him blankly.
“A half of bitter and a large glass of Scotch,” the man said, exaggeratingly enunciating each word. “Can’t you speak English?”
“In the same glass?” Rhian asked, ignoring his rudeness.
“Of course not,” said the Scotsman.
Rhian poured the drinks, assuming correctly that “large” was Scottish for a double. The Scotsman looked at the glass of whisky with contempt. He tossed it down in one go and held the glass out.
“Another. You English serve ridiculously short measures of Scotch.”
“The measure might be English, but I’m Welsh,” Rhian said, refilling his glass from the optic of Bell’s behind the bar.
The Scotsman shrugged, “Same thing.”
He joined the other three before Rhian could think of a suitably crushing answer.
The pub door flew open and a tall, well-built man strode in. He walked with a swagger up to the bar. His dark hair was cut neatly and brushed forward to hide a receding hairline. His pale blue tie set off a cream shirt in a blue suit tailored a little too tightly around an impressive musculature. Rhian noticed that he wore diamond-studded gold cufflinks. Everything about the man was flashy and expensive.
He stopped at the bar and gave Rhian a charming, broad smile that never quite reached his eyes. A gold tooth flashed in the light from the mirror behind the bar.
Old Fred and Willie the Dog vacated their stools and slid out of the pub. Rhian was alarmed to see that Willie did not even pause to finish his drink.
“You’re new,” the man said to Rhian, looking her up and down, “and a definite improvement on the usual barmaid in here.”
“Do you want a drink?” Rhian asked, refusing to respond to the compliment.
She took an instant dislike to him. There was a black void behind his eyes. He was a man without a soul. Like Max, she realised, just like Max. He would be uncaring and greedy with a woman, taking his pleasure without regard to her desires or fears.
“Scotch,” he said.
She picked up a glass and moved to the optic. He let her push the glass against the optic bar to release a measure before speaking.
“Not that blended crap, cutie. Get me down a bottle of malt.”
He surveyed the bar.
“The Isle of Jura, I think.”
That bottle was on the very top shelf. Rhian was obliged to fetch the small steps on wheels that Gary kept for this eventuality. She climbed up and reached for the bottle, feeling his eyes on her bottom. He was not really like Max, she realised. They might share the same air of menace and the same arrogance, but Max had style and manners. This man was a braggart and a bully. It did not make Max any less dangerous, but it did make him better company.
“I’ll take the bottle,” he said. “We’ll settle up later.”
The students were watching in fascination. They looked away when he turned around. He chuckled and walked to their table.
“The pub’s closing for a private party,” the man said to the students. “Piss off.”
“I haven’t finished my drink,” a student looked at him defiantly.
The man picked up the student’s pint and emptied it into his lap.
“You have now,” the man said.
The four men in the corner stood up and the students fled. Rhian casually reached below the bar and pressed the silent alarm that alerted Gary in the flat above. He appeared within seconds and took in the situation with a glance.
“You knock off early, Rhian. I’ll take over here,” Gary said, quietly.
Rhian looked doubtful.
“Don’t worry; I will pay you for a whole shift.”
“It’s not the money,” Rhian said. “Will you be all right?”
“I’ll be fine. I know these people,” Gary said.
Rhian did not move, wondering why Gary was acting so strangely.
He sighed. “The one in the flash clothes is Charlie Parkes. He’s a blagger.”
“What?” Rhian asked.
“Major-time gangster,” Gary translated. “The elite of the underworld. Guys who carry out the big jobs while the small fry run around organising dope sales and prostitution.”
“Like the Brink’s Mat raid?” Rhian asked.
“Exactly like the Brink’s Mat raid,” Gary said. “London has the finest blaggers in the world. Makes you glad to be British, doesn’t it. Anyway, Charlie uses this pub for business meetings, so he doesn’t like witnesses.”
“But you must be losing money,” Rhian said.
Gary shrugged, “True, but I am not troubled by the local street gangs or protection racketeers since none of them fancy taking Charlie on. He is very well connected.”
“I see,” Rhian said. “But couldn’t you get police protection?”
Gary laughed, “This is the East End, Rhian. You clock that one in the check shirt? No, don’t look too obviously.”
“I see him,” Rhian said.
It was the Scotsman.
“That’s Detective Inspector Drudge of the Flying Squad. Charlie contributes significantly to the Metropolitan Police’s unofficial pension funds. He also has a bad reputation with women, which is why I want you to shove off now. I did not know he was coming in tonight or I’d have changed your shift.”
Rhian could take care of herself, but she did as Gary ordered. She was sliding into the weave of East End life, losing her anonymity as she became part of the community. The idea both pleased and disturbed her.
A few days later, Rhian sat in the kitchen drinking a cup of tea and reading one of Frankie’s wicca books when the woman shot in waving her mobile phone.
“A client, a big one,” Frankie said, dancing around the room. “A construction company, no less.”
“You’d better have a cup of tea to steady your nerves,” Rhian said, pouring one.
“Business is looking up. I shall soon be turning away commissions the way things are going,” Frankie said. “Goddess knows, I need the money.”
“Your fame must be spreading,” Rhian said.
“Possibly,” Frankie replied. Her smile slipped. “Or maybe there is just more business around.” Frankie shook her head, as if to clear it. “Whatever, I’ve a meeting at their corporate offices. I could use someone to act as my personal assistant. Someone who has the right sort of clothes. Is there a business suit in that trunk of goodies of yours?”
“Of course,” Rhian said.
“Then go and change. We have an appointment in an hour and a half,” Frankie said.
Rhian managed to don her finery in less than ten minutes. She was still dragging a brush through her hair when Frankie dragged her out of the flat. Frankie set a brisk walk through the maze of terraced streets.
“Huh, the tube station is over there,” Rhian said, wondering why they were going in the wrong direction.
“I know that,” Frankie replied. “The client has an office in Cyprus, no tube stations in Cyprus.”
“Cyprus?” Rhian yelped. “I don’t have a passport.”
“Cyprus, the housing estate in Beckton,” Frankie said. “Not the Greek island. Do hurry up or we’ll be late.”
About half a mile further on, Frankie stopped in front of a row of garages and fumbled in her bag.
“The key, where’s the key to the lock-up? I know I had it when we left.” Frankie said, frantically searching.
Frankie’s handbag was a bit of a Tardis, or perhaps a black hole would be a better comparison. It slipped out of her hand, and various contents spewed all over the pavement.
“Is this it?” Rhian asked, bending down and pointing to a key that had a brown card tag attached by a bit of string.
“Yes,” Frankie said, pouncing on it. “And there’s the car keys.”
She shoveled the rest of the contents back into the bag. When she stood up, she pushed her glasses back up her nose from where they had slipped when she knelt down.
“You never told me you had a car,” Rhian said.
“Hmmm, you never asked.”
Frankie unlocked the garage door and pushed it up into the roof. Inside was the strangest motor Rhian had ever seen. It was van shaped, only with sliding windows and a rear seat. It had large wheel arches mounting round headlights. Rust-red spots marked where corrosion bubbled up through the dirty cream paint. The windscreen was small, flat, and vertical, quite unlike the molded glass on modern cars.
“How old is it? What is it? Was Postman Pat the previous owner?” Rhian asked.
“Cheeky mare, this fine example of English automotive history is a Morris Traveller. It was my mother’s until I inherited it so, I suppose it is older than you. I have a log book somewhere,” Frankie said, vaguely. “She’s called Mildred, the car, that is, not my mother.”
Rhian went to go in the lock-up, but something stopped her. Not something physical, but a sort of compulsion. She heard a howl in the distance, no doubt someone’s pet dog showing off its wolf ancestry. The compulsion faded and she walked into the garage.
Frankie frowned, “You should not have been able to go in without me inviting you. I put a negative compulsion on the building to keep out guests. The protection must have decayed.” She stuck her hand across the threshold. “Odd, the spell seems to be working fine.”
She looked at Rhian reflectively.
Rhian shrugged and examined the car.
“The panels are held on by shaped wood.”
“English craftsmanship at its best.”
“Wood with green stuff growing on it.”
“I haven’t had time recently to sand it down and treat it with preservative stain,” Frankie said, defensively. “Algae tends to get a hold on the varnish.”
Rhian was familiar with the idea that cars needed servicing, but not with anti-wood-rot and anti-algae preservatives. Somehow Frankie suited the car, like an owner grown to resemble their pet. It was quite small and noticeably narrow compared to modern cars, so left plenty of room in the lock-up for Frankie to store stuff.
And store stuff, she did. A vast array of bottles, wooden containers, and strange instruments were stacked high on the shelves that lined the walls. Carved elephants and daemons decorated a large wooden trunk stood against the wall. One of the daemons had six arms holding flaming knives. Rhian assumed it was a Hindu goddess, the elephants suggesting India.
“What’s this?” Rhian asked mischievously, picking up a little wooden statuette of a squatting figure supporting an enormous organ with one hand. Judging by the smile on his face, the figure was inordinately proud of said organ.
“That is a Priapus statuette, a Greek fertility god,” Frankie replied, deftly removing it from Rhian’s grip and returning it to a shelf.
“And what magic do you use that for?”
“I don’t. It was a Christmas present from my Aunty Lil, albeit one to which I refuse to give house room.”
Frankie fussed around collecting items and placing them in a cardboard box. Rhian considered sitting on the wing of the car but decided to stand when she considered the likely impact on her new clothes. In fact, after looking around the lock-up, she chose to wait outside. Frankie eventually unlocked the driver’s door, got in, and leaned across to open the passenger door for Rhian. The car had red leather seats that were small and upright. Everything about the car was upright.
“Does it work?” Rhian asked, struggling with the seat belt.
“Of course it works. Moggies are extremely reliable,” Frankie replied, sniffily.
She switched on the ignition and pressed a button on the dashboard. The engine turned over with a grinding noise, coughed, and died. Rhian said nothing.
“I don’t use the car much, so the battery gets a bit flat,” Frankie said, defensively. “Perhaps it needs some choke.”
She pulled a knob, which slid out of the dashboard on a ratchet, and pressed the starter again. This time the engine fired.
Driving with Frankie was an interesting experience—interesting in the sense of the old Chinese curse. The car was heavy and underpowered so it built up speed only gradually. After stopping. The traffic flow often stopped in London. They soon had an escort of sales reps in hatchbacks and men in white vans bunched behind them. Stopping was equally leisurely. The brakes emitted grinding noises while slowing Mildred with a stately lack of haste more suitable for an oil tanker than a London car.
Finally, there was Frankie at the wheel. It was not that she could not drive properly so much as she would not. She talked excitedly about nothing and everything, pointing out things of interest to the left and right. Less than half her attention was on the road at any one time. Frankie actually took both hands off the wheel to demonstrate the enormity of the challenge she had faced on an earlier job. Rhian gripped her seat belt and surreptitiously checked the tension by pulling on the strap. Fortunately it appeared to be bolted to a non-rusty part of the chassis.
Frankie drove down the right-hand overtaking lane of the dual carriage at some twenty miles an hour too slow, oblivious to the flashing headlights of the frustrated drivers behind. Cars in the slow lane overtook illegally on the inside. Rhian could not find it in her heart to condemn the drivers.
Rhian discovered a Guide to the Modern East End on her phone; Max really did think of everything. She looked up Cyprus to steady her nerves. It gave her mind something to dwell on other than wondering about the location of the nearest accident and emergency clinic.
The Cyprus Housing Estate, built in 1881 to house workers employed at the Royal Albert Docks. Named in honour of the capture of the Island of Cyprus from the Ottoman Empire in 1878.
Well, that explained one mystery. She downloaded another page.
Cyprus was extensively redeveloped in the 1980s as part of the move of the financial industry to the area. It is largely private housing, with shopping centers, some offices, and The Docklands Campus of Whitechapel University. It is served by the Docklands Light Railway.
They passed the campus. The buildings were the sort that win architectural awards but are hell to work in. Some were shaped like ships’ funnels and others had strange roofs like giant sun shades on poles. Rhian was more interested in the robot light railway cars running past on the overhead railway. Patriotically painted red, white, and blue, they looked more like coaches than trains. The large windows must give a good view out over Docklands.
Frankie parked—well—more abandoned—the Morris in a shopping center car park. She struggled to fit an anti-theft device to the steering wheel. Privately Rhian thought it highly unlikely that anyone would want to steal Mildred, although a motor museum might make an offer. Frankie finally gave up, and they went to find their client’s office.
Mister Ferguson, their client, turned out to be a portly man in a baggy suit. His ruddy complexion suggested a liking for alcoholic refreshment and the high possibility of an imminent stroke. His secretary was a bottle blonde of a certain age who chewed gum with total dedication.
“Your eleven o’clock is here,” she said to Ferguson.
“I don’t care if your bloody mother has thrown herself off the roof. I need that order now, got it?” Ferguson shouted into a mobile phone while waving Frankie and Rhian towards chairs in front of his desk.
“Sorry about that, ladies,” Ferguson said, switching on a plastic smile. “Salt of the Earth, East End traders, but you have to be firm with them.”
“Perhaps you could brief us on your problem?” Frankie asked, adopting a businesslike manner. Rhian crossed her legs and balanced a notebook on her knee.
“My problem is a load of superstitious bloody Poles,” Ferguson said, taking his gaze off Rhian’s legs with reluctance. “They’ve got it into their thick heads that one of our sites is haunted and have stopped working. I need you to go and pretend to exorcise the place with a bit of the old hocus pocus so that they will get on with the bloody job.”
His mobile phone rang. “What? Look, I’m working on it, right? I bloody know there are penalty clauses.”
He put his hand over the mobile’s mouthpiece, “June will tell give you directions and a contract.”
Correctly assuming that June was the secretary, Frankie and Rhian left the office, leaving Ferguson yelling into his phone. June was surprisingly efficient, if not exactly pleasant.
“Your contract, sign on the bottom,” June said.
Frankie took the pen but paused to look over the document. She blinked in surprise.
“The fee is non-negotiable, so don’t bother to ask,” June said, manipulating her gum from one side of her mouth to the other.
Rhian sneaked a brief glance at the contract. The fee was much higher than Frankie would have requested. She glared at Frankie, hoping the silly mare was not going to blurt that out. Frankie could be so naive.
June caught the nonverbal exchange and raised her eyebrows.
“My PA is trying to get me to reject the commission,” Frankie said. “She is right, of course, the fee is derisory.”
June looked down at the contract. Frankie took the opportunity to stick her tongue out at Rhian, who smiled and gave a thumbs-up.
“Well, maybe I could add some expenses, for travel and lunch,” June finally said. “In cash.”
Cash meant that it never had to appear on the books, so no taxes had to be paid. Technically illegal, but cash was untraceable.
“That’s acceptable,” Frankie said, signing. “Now we are here, we may as well get on with it, Rhian.”
“There’s a map to the site,” June said, her manner conveying that their business was concluded.
Frankie made no move to leave. “I need more information about the nature of the haunting. Mr. Ferguson was short on detail.”
“Does it matter?” June asked. “You just have to put on a good show to impress the Poles.”
“Humor me,” Frankie said.
“It started with stuff being moved around at night when the site was closed down.”
“What sort of stuff?” Frankie asked.
“Oh, tools, and pegs marking out trenches were moved into weird patterns. That sort of thing. You often get kids or drunken students messing around on building sites. The boss put some guard dogs in at night to keep out intruders.”
“But that did not work?” Frankie asked.
“For a while,” June replied. “But the Poles had been spooked by then, so they soon found something else to worry about.”
“Such as?” Frankie asked.
June shrugged. “They claimed spirits were throwing things around. The foreman was whacked across the back of the head with a shovel. The Poles claimed it just lifted up and hit him. I reckon one of them with a grudge decked the foreman and the others covered it up with ghost stories.”
“Okay,” Frankie said, picking up her copy of the contact and the dosh. “We’ll show ourselves out.”
They walked to the door.
“And then there was the accident,” June said.
Frankie turned and walked back.
“What accident?”
“A Pole fell off some scaffolding,” June replied. “He died.”
The map was only moderately inaccurate, so they only went wrong a few times before finding the building site. Blocks of yuppie maisonettes lay half-completed on a fenced-off wilderness. Two guard dogs paced forwards and backwards along the high wire fence.
Frankie retrieved a large cardboard box from the back of Mildred. Rhian was amused to see that the car had two cupboard-like rear doors instead of a vertically opening hatch. They walked along the fence until they found a gate by a grey prefab builder’s hut resting on bricks to lift it clear of the ground. The dogs flanked them silently on the other side of the fence. Somehow that was more sinister than if they barked.
Rhian could hear a radio on in the hut tuned to a local talk station. A deep debate raged about new traffic lights. The argument had just reached the Godwin moment where the local council traffic subcommittee were likened to Nazi Stormtroopers when Frankie knocked on the hut door.
“What?” The door opened abruptly, and an elderly man with very bad breath stuck his head out. The women took one step back.
“I presume you’re the watchman. We’re here to exorcise the site,” Frankie said. “Mr. Ferguson’s secretary should have rung about us.”
“The gates are unlocked,” the man said, disappearing back inside and shutting the door.
Frankie knocked again.
“What?” Another wave of halitosis passed over like the wind off a marsh in high summer.
“Aren’t you going to chain up the dogs?” Frankie asked.
“Not on your life,” the man said. “I’m not stupid enough to go near them.”
He retreated back inside his hut. Frankie banged insistently on the door, but he responded by turning up the radio.
A small group of workmen gathered in the middle distance, materializing from tatty caravans parked beyond the hut. They stood watching, arms folded.
“This is hopeless,” Frankie said in exasperation. “I’ll have to go home and get something to knock the animals out.”
“No need,” Rhian said. “I’m good with dogs. I’ll deal with them.”
Frankie pointedly looked at one of the dogs trying to gnaw through the wire to get at them, then back at Rhian in exaggerated astonishment.
“I’m Welsh,” Rhian said. “You know Wales, lots of sheep, lots of sheepdogs. You stay there.”
She pulled open the bolt on the gate and slipped inside the compound.