Fascinated Read online

  ‘Come and sit next to me,’ says Conrad, waving Frank into the room. He’s wearing a silk taffeta ballgown the colour of liver and diamond earrings as big as bull’s-eyes that dangle from his bristling ears and flash in the candlelight.

  Valentine, demure in a simple silk cardigan, is sitting at the far end of the table. She looks at Frank without a flicker of recognition. Her face is a perfectly painted mask. Webster sits down beside her and tucks a napkin under his chin.

  The room is large and draughty, decorated with a series of gloomy oil paintings depicting a slaughter of animals, birds and fishes, heaped into banquets for castle kitchens. Frank gazes around the walls at the wreckage of pigeons, woodcocks and pheasants, dead rabbits hanging in chains, a fat-bellied hog on a butcher’s block with a branch of oak leaves clenched in its jaws.

  ‘I hope you’re hungry,’ says Conrad. He shakes a tiny crystal bell and four young women enter the room. They are lean and as lovely as ballerinas, dressed like French maids in brief black skirts, white lace aprons and caps.

  These girls are employed by Conrad’s cook, an ancient Turk who is rarely seen but controls the house with a quiet and ruthless efficiency. He conducts the domestic affairs as if the days were battles in a war against the forces of anarchy. He orders fuel and food in quantities that would bring them, fat and victorious, through the cruellest winter siege. He launches attacks on the cleaning as if he were driving the enemy from battle lines in the furniture. Beating secrets from carpets, flushing snipers from cover in the giant laundry baskets. His days are long and bitter campaigns, fought with a courage born of endurance. At night he sleeps with the maids in a long basement dormitory. A pasha surrounded by concubines.

  The maids come to the table at the same hour every evening bearing silver trays of extravagant delights. Lobster tails ablaze with brandy. Camel’s hump with peppered snap beans. Smoked peacock stuffed with walnuts. They circle the table silently, deliberately, spoons clicking like castanets.

  ‘What’s this?’ scowls Conrad, poking at a morsel of meat adrift in a pool of mud. He turns his mad eyes on the serving girl who is standing meekly beside his chair, head bowed, trembling with fright.

  ‘Wild duck with truffles,’ she whispers.

  ‘It looks like a turd,’ grunts Conrad the epicurean. He flicks up the back of her skirt and runs his hand against her legs, searching for the warmth of her thighs.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ she whispers. She looks alarmed but she dares not retreat. She stands, quivering, bobbing her head, like a beautiful ventriloquist’s doll moved by her master’s sleight of hand.

  ‘It must be expensive,’ he concludes, closing one eye and trawling the steam that drifts from the plate with the tip of his marbled nose. ‘Is it expensive?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ she whispers.

  He looks reassured and absently slides his hand from her skirt. She blinks and seems to shrink, as if she’s been standing on tiptoe. ‘What’s your name?’ he demands, inspecting the pocket of her apron.

  ‘Josephine, sir.’

  ‘You’re a good girl, Josephine,’ says Conrad, very solemn, and he pulls a bull’s-eye from his ear and presses it into her fist.

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  ‘Compliments to the Turk.’

  ‘Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.’

  Conrad smiles and directs a friendly slap to her rump that seems to buckle her at the knees, sending her into a sprawling curtsey before she runs from the room followed by her startled companions.

  ‘What’s the news?’ he growls at Webster, wrenching a stubborn cork from a bottle and splashing his knuckles with wine. He sucks at his list like a toothless lion chewing a bone.

  ‘They’re at the Golden Goose,’ says Webster.

  ‘That’s Crazy Larry’s fun-house!’ shouts Conrad, banging the table with the flat of his hand.

  Frank misses his mouth with his fork and manages to spear his chin.

  ‘That’s right!’ says Webster with a crafty grin.

  ‘Remember the dog?’ says Valentine.

  Conrad throws back his head and explodes in great shouts of laughter. ‘A few years ago I tried to conduct some business with Crazy Larry,’ he says, turning to Frank. ‘But I found I couldn’t trust him. He was cheap. He was cunning. He had an unfortunate attitude. So I sent Webster out to have a few words with him.’

  ‘It must have been something I said to upset him,’ says Webster, as he shovels gravy with a spoon, ‘because the next day he went out and bought a killer dog.’

  ‘It was a Rottweiler,’ says Conrad.

  ‘A pit bull,’ says Valentine.

  ‘It was a bastard,’ says Webster.

  ‘He called it Castro,’ says Valentine.

  ‘Anyway, he kept this damn great dog running loose in his house,’ says Conrad, ‘squirting shit all over the carpets. And you couldn’t get near Crazy Larry for the noise of that animal grinding its teeth.’

  ‘So one night we stole it!’ laughs Webster, spluttering bread crumbs over the table. ‘We fed it raw steak seasoned with enough cocaine to knock down a buffalo and we brought it home and made it comfortable in the kitchen.’ He picks at the crumbs with his fingers, returns them carefully to his mouth.

  ‘It was no trouble,’ remembers Conrad.

  ‘It was no more trouble,’ says Webster, ‘because the Turk fed it cocaine cutlets. For three weeks it was curled in a blanket with its nose plugged into its arse.’

  ‘And then we felt sorry for Crazy Larry, who was grieving for that dog like a mother grieves for a missing child. He was advertising a big reward. So one morning we delivered it back to his doorstep with a ribbon around its neck,’ says Conrad.

  ‘He was so pleased to see Castro again that he fell to his knees and wept,’ says Valentine.

  ‘But the brute was a slobbering junkie and without the comfort of a cutlet its nerves were getting jangled. Larry bent down to give it a kiss and that dog took off the bugger’s nose, flipped it into the air and swallowed it down like a chipolata!’ roars Conrad with another trumpeting shout of laughter.

  ‘He was in hospital for months!’ shrieks Valentine. ‘Months! They had to make him a new nose.’

  ‘It’s clever,’ reflects Conrad. ‘You can’t tell the difference except in cold weather.’

  ‘But he’s never been the same since it happened!’ chortles Webster, wagging his head. ‘It gave him a dicky strawberry.’

  The company fall silent, breathless, exhausted by the sheer rapscallion fun of it. Conrad shakes the crystal bell and there is a brief interlude while the girls return to clear the plates and serve a selection of pastries and cheeses.

  Josephine smiles at Conrad, brushes against him, presses herself against his chair, but no matter how she flirts with him she can’t win another bull’s-eye.

  ‘When are you going?’ Conrad asks Webster, when the girls have left the room. Frank senses a sudden shift in the old man’s mood. Conrad leans across the table, pulls at the sleeves of his ballgown, lances a bowl of fruit with his elbow.

  ‘Tomorrow morning,’ says Webster, ‘while the Goose is asleep.’ He’s talking of murder but looks as dangerous as favourite uncle plotting to play Father Christmas.

  ‘Are you wearing armour?’

  ‘No. They won’t be expecting trouble.’

  ‘What do they pack when they are expecting trouble?’ asks Conrad.

  ‘The Beast packs a customised small-frame snubby,’ says Webster. ‘He carries it on a bellyband.’

  Frank abandons his pineapple tart as the pastry turns to straw in his mouth. He feels like a condemned man reaching the end of his last supper. He thinks of Jessica waiting for him, alone in the house, and Bassett waiting for him, alone at his empty desk in the office, and the meeting with the chairman of the Gooseberry Guild and the work waiting for him on the soft-fruit project and all the unfinished business of life.

  ‘And Lloyd?’

  ‘He wouldn’t trust a wheelie. He wears an automatic. Pro
bably a Glock with high-velocity combat rounds.’

  ‘I’d be happier if you wore a vest,’ complains Conrad, mauling a barrel of Stilton. ‘I want the Cockers cleared out. We can’t afford to lose respect by making another mistake. I won’t have Talbot leaning on me with a couple of rented pillock-brains with too much shine on their shoes.’

  ‘We’ll take care of it,’ says Webster.

  ‘I want to drive,’ announces Valentine, tossing an apple into the air. She catches it with a snap of her hand and rubs it against her sleeve.

  ‘I don’t know. You’ll have to ask Webster,’ says Conrad, stuffing his check with cheese.

  ‘But he always lets me drive,’ croons Valentine. She bends against Webster and nuzzles his neck, making a cockscomb of his hair by tweaking his scalp with her fingers.

  ‘You can be the driver,’ says Webster, flustered and grinning, stroking his skull.

  ‘What about Tonto?’ says Valentine suddenly, glancing across at Frank as she crunches on her apple.

  Frank starts to open his mouth to protest but Webster is already speaking for him.

  ‘He’ll be fine. I’ve told him I want him to be my caddie.’

  ‘I won’t get involved with guns!’ says Frank, pulling away in his chair and scraping the legs against the floor. He looks quickly around at the paintings on the wall as if, for a moment, he might vault across the table, clamber into a picture frame and bury himself in a soft heap of feathers or seek sanctuary in the hog’s entrails.

  ‘Sit down!’ growls Conrad. He grabs Frank by the wrist and yanks him into the chair. ‘You won’t have the chance to get involved. We can’t have civilians running around, shooting the mirrors like Tex Ritter and scattering the horses!’

  He winks at Webster and grins. He glances at Valentine and sniggers. He clips Frank’s head with the flat of his hand and his laughter rolls through the room like thunder.

  The big green Bentley is launched through the security gates and into the shallow winter sunlight as a million men are rushing to work. They are swarming from stations, scrambling up holes in the steaming pavements, chasing each other along the streets. They are armed with newspapers rolled into cudgels. They are hauling briefcases stuffed with confetti made from order books, handbooks, rule books, diaries, ledgers, receipts and requests to feed the demented paper tigers that lie in wait beneath their desks.

  Frank is sitting in the back of the Bentley with Webster beside him. They’ve been fitted with charcoal business suits and immaculate pin-stripe shirts. Frank is guarding a Gladstone bag. They look like corporation generals on the way to a boardroom battle.

  ‘The Golden Goose is a fun house and massage parlour,’ says Valentine, as she nudges the car through the rush hour traffic. ‘Have you ever been to a fun house, Frank?’

  Frank shakes his head.

  ‘No imagination,’ snorts Valentine, scowling at him in the driving mirror.

  ‘Crazy Larry owns a string of them,’ says Webster, checking his pockets for peppermints. ‘They’re cheap and nasty. Pink mirrors and nylon sheets. He gives the racket a bad name.’ He frowns and slaps his jacket like a man about to burst into flames. When they’re out together on active service Valentine likes to place peppermints somewhere about his person.

  ‘The Goose is managed by a woman called Uncle Joe. But don’t let her bother you. She’s all meat and no potatoes,’ says Valentine.

  ‘She’s slow on her feet but she bites,’ adds Webster cheerfully. He’s found the roll of peppermints in the pocket of his pin-stripe shirt.

  ‘Are you going to tell me the plan?’ demands Frank. He presses his nose against the window, searching the streets for familiar landmarks. He calculates they’ve been holding him captive somewhere north of King’s Cross and Euston and now, bearing west on the Marylebone Road, they are turning south towards Marble Arch.

  ‘What plan?’ says Webster, peeling the paper roll and working a peppermint loose with his thumb.

  ‘Don’t tease him,’ says Valentine.

  Webster leans back in the seat, plucks at his sleeve and checks his watch. ‘The Goose is a two-storey house, narrow but deep, with a door to the street and a small backyard. They keep the front door guarded but the back of the house is unprotected. An alley runs down the side of the house and takes you to the kitchen yard. The yard is surrounded by a wall. We’ll go through the kitchen, check the stairs and then start searching the bedrooms. If we’re quick we’ll catch the Cockers asleep.’

  ‘What happens if something goes wrong?’ says Frank.

  ‘If anything goes wrong,’ says Valentine, ‘you get out fast and wait for me to pick you up again. Whatever happens, don’t panic and don’t try to make a run for it.’

  ‘There’s nothing to go wrong,’ says Webster peacefully, admiring the shine on his shoes.

  The Bentley is trapped at a set of lights. They gaze around at the sales clerks and scribblers pouring towards them from the pavements, swilling around the limousine. They are bent into ragged question marks, marching like refugees from the onslaught of some catastrophe on the distant edge of the city, and Frank the truant, knowing he should be marching with them, watches them pass with a thrill of excitement.

  ‘How long do you need?’ says Valentine, as the lights change and the Bentley pulls away.

  ‘Ten minutes,’ says Webster. ‘If we’re not out in fifteen, you’ll know we’ve got into trouble.’

  They turn towards Notting Hill and enter a maze of neglected backstreets, leaving the office workers behind them.

  ‘This is it,’ says Webster, as the Bentley whispers to the kerb on the corner of a decrepit square.

  Frank peers out at the Lazy Launderette and the Red Hot Pepper Chicken Parlour. The launderette has been gutted by fire and boarded against intruders. The chicken parlour, scorched to its brickwork, sulks behind galvanised iron shutters. A crust of rain-blown rubbish has set like a scab against the blistered and padlocked door.

  ‘Ten minutes,’ says Valentine.

  They clamber from the safety of the car and start walking towards the far side of the square. Here, under canopies of crumbling stucco, are Chinese grocers, wreathed in incense, squatting on piles of wrinkled fruit; Arab butchers crouched in kiosks, hawking skewers of peppered meats; Indian tailors, Turkish traders, herbalists, and hypnotists. The streets are filled with a fractious rabble of touts and thieves, babblers, junkies and fighting dogs.

  Webster steps out in long, easy strides, as confident as a slum landlord bearing eviction orders. Frank chases after him, clutching the Gladstone bag. He glances back at the Bentley as it disappears from view. This is the moment to make an escape but there’s nowhere to run and nowhere to hide.

  The Golden Goose is a shabby bed-and-breakfast hotel with a No Vacancy sign in the window. The sign is faded and rimy with rust. Webster turns abruptly and disappears down the alley that leads to the hotel kitchen.

  In the shadow of the yard, sheltered from the eyes of the street, he takes the bag from Frank’s hand and sets it down on the cobbles.

  ‘We want to make a good impression,’ he says, snapping it open, unscrambling boiler suits, masks and gloves.

  And now Frank follows Webster’s instructions like a clumsy automaton, pulling the boiler suit over his shoes, fumbling with the rubber buttons.

  The masks are knobbly, knitted hoods, tight as balaclavas, with holes cut out for the eyes and nose. These soft hairy skulls have been knitted from hideous stripes of colour: taupe and tangerine, turquoise, puce and acid green. They look like the scarecrow heads of men pickled and painted by cannibals.

  ‘I can’t breathe,’ mumbles Frank, searching for his nose with a glove. He claws at the mask, wrenching the wool, stretching the holes to fit his eyes.

  ‘You get used to it,’ snuffles Webster, hiding the empty Gladstone bag in the rubbish along the wall. He looks like a tribal demon, a flea-pit phantom, the tap-dancing clown of death.

  ‘Are you ready?’

 
; Frank is confused. He is waiting to be armed with a stick or a stone, a rubber club or a tin whistle. They can’t confront the Cockers without something to protect themselves. But there’s no time to argue because Webster is already leading him to a small window set high in the brickwork beside the kitchen window.

  When he presses his face against the glass and peers through the gloom he can see the figure of a young woman standing, motionless, in the darkness of the scullery, lit by a solitary beam of light. The woman is wearing camiknickers and a pair of rhinestone cowboy boots. A cigarette, clenched in her teeth, sends a twist of smoke floating through her tangled hair. The sunlight pours from a tall refrigerator, a veteran Sno-Queen, the door hanging open, the shelves trapped in dirty pack-ice. The light stains her skin with a saffron glow, turns the camiknickers to gold, catches the front of the cowboy boots, firing the rhinestones into diamonds.

  While Frank gawps, the woman seems to come to life, spurts smoke through her teeth, plunges an arm into the shaft of freezing sunlight and pulls out a carton of orange juice. She tweaks open the spout and holds the carton under her nose, scowling, chewing the cigarette, kicking the fridge door shut with her boot.

  ‘What’s happening?’ whispers Webster.

  ‘There’s a woman!’ marvels Frank and he sounds astonished like a mariner in some tropical sea who catches sight of a mermaid.

  ‘What’s she doing?’ Webster demands impatiently, trying to pull Frank away and take command of the spy glass.

  ‘She’s coming out!’ hisses Frank, jerking back his head and colliding with Webster. He turns to take flight but Webster has caught him by the arm and presses him against the wall.

  ‘Don’t move!’ he whispers through his woollen bandage as the door chains rattle and a key scratches the lock.

  They flatten themselves against the wall, imitating invisible men, as the door creaks open and a large ginger cat is pitched abruptly into the yard. The cat is an ugly, venomous brute with tattered ears and a broken tail. It bristles and spits and twists around but the door is quickly slammed in its face. For a few moments, screaming with indignation, it bangs its head against the door and then, gradually losing interest, forgetting the cause of its grievances, slinks away to explore the drains.