Gordon Brown - 59 Minutes

Outside Rachel hit the remote on the car key ring and we leapt in. She fired up the car and we were history.

‘Now where?’ she said.

‘ London.’

‘What?’

‘ London. I need to sort this and the only place I can do that is London.’

‘I can’t go to London. I’ve got a job.’

‘And it won’t be much use if you’re a new addition to Linn Crematorium. London it has to be.’

‘Fuck.’

It’s hard to think that you could spend six hours in a car with someone and say so little but Rachel was the type of girl that could do that and some.

We hit the outskirts of London just after rush hour and I directed her to Fulham. I had someone I needed to see and I could only hope they were still in their old house.

As we passed by the Albert Hall I had a change of mind and told Rachel we should check into a hotel for the night. I needed to do a little leg work before I took the next step.

We booked into one of the myriad of hotels that circle the Albert Hall. It took me back to that first night in London. This time I wasn’t sharing. Separate rooms of course.

Another day another dollar.

Wednesday August 13 th 2008

I’ve made a shed load of phone calls and I’m certain my name is now around town. But I had no choice. If there was one person that might know where Dupree was it was Giles — and the last time I had talked to Giles he had screamed at me down the phone for my little jaunt into Silvertown. Stepping on his toes had got him fired. But I knew he hadn’t vanished.

While in prison I met a small time con called Casper Turner. Casper was a toe rag and had been caught robbing an old folks home. Normally I would have ignored his type but I recognised the name from London and I knew he had been tied up with Giles in some way. I caught up with him in the exercise yard and he told me that Giles had retired back to his house in Fulham.

When Giles got the bullet he was in his late fifties and I knew he had more than enough cash to get by. I thought he might be dead by now but the phone calls had revealed that he was very much alive, and still living in Fulham. I had an address and it was time to pay a visit.

Rachel was still in silent mode and when I asked to borrow her car it was like asking a kidney patient to lend their dialysis machine. But she agreed.

London was the usual — busy and a pain in the arse. I wound my way towards Giles’s address. Harrods slipped by and then Stamford Bridge. There was a football game on tonight and the police cones were already going out to limit parking.

I turned into the North End Rd. The daily market was running, the stalls lining the full length of the road on my right. I had no sat nav and no A to Z but I knew Fulham well enough to get to Giles’s street.

Parking was a different game and even mid morning it took me twenty minutes to find a space. Rachel’s car was two inches longer than the gap but a bit of bumper to bumper action and I was in. I’d explain the scratches if she noticed them.

Giles lives in a row of terraced houses. In the mid eighties they had provided a surprisingly cheap accommodation option given their proximity to the city centre. Chelsea, just up the road, was already awash with million pound plus homes while you could still get a two bed flat for thirty five grand not half a mile away.

I walked past Giles’s house and glanced at the building. The curtains were open but it was hard to tell if there was anyone home. I reached the bottom of the street and did a u-turn and gave one more fly by. I u-turned again and this time walked up to the door.

It was a jet black affair with a large brass knocker in the shape of a horse’s head. I tried to remember if Giles had been a horse person, but there were no bells ringing. I pulled back the knocker and let it drop. I repeated the exercise and waited.

I was about to knock again when I heard a noise from behind the door. There was a spy-hole just above the horse’s head and I saw it darken as someone looked out. Bolts were thrown and the door cracked open. A head appeared.

‘Fuck.’

I seemed to have this effect on people at the moment.

‘You can piss off.’

I smiled.

‘What the hell do you want?’ said Giles.

‘To chat.’

‘What the fuck do we have to chat about?’

‘Amongst other things, the price of bread would seem a good topic.’

The door closed, a bolt was thrown and the door re-opened. Giles was dressed in a pair of battered chinos topped off by the granddaddy of oversized cardigans. The sort that has no buttons and relies on a cloth belt to keep it closed. He stepped back and gestured for me to come in. I took a quick look up and down the street but it was clear. I wasn’t expecting anyone but then again I had thought Rachel’s a safe bet.

‘Expecting company?’ said Giles.

I shook my head. ‘Not unless you are?’

He closed the door, led me through a short hall and into the room on the right.

It was like stepping back in time. The furniture was Victoriana, as were the carpet and fittings. Two walls were floor to ceiling with books and the third wall had a stunning landscape of a ship in the midst of a hell of a storm.

‘Take a seat. Tea?’ he asked.

‘Thanks,’ I replied.

With that he left me and I wondered why there was no butler. I didn’t sit down, choosing to browse the book-shelves instead.

I was no great reader but then again this was not Waterstone’s top ten land. Most of the books sounded like medical texts from an era long since gone.

‘The Establishment of the Causes and Effects of Excessive Bile and other Digestive Juices on the Well Being of the Elder Man’, ‘Vibratory and Motion Maladies’, ‘Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners.’ and so on. Rivetting. I moved to the second wall and it was more of the same. As I waited on Giles to return I hunted for a non-medical book but, if it there was one, I didn’t find it before tea and biscuits appeared.

Giles placed a silver tray on the walnut coffee table that sat in front of two over stuffed armchairs. The tea was in a silver pot, the sugar in a silver bowl, the milk in a silver jug and the spoons were silver. The tea cups were delicate bone china. It could have all been cheap tack but, to my untrained eye, it all looked genuine antique.

Giles sat down and looked at me. I took the chair next to him but he made no attempt to pour the tea.

‘Good tea needs to infuse for a full five minutes. My apologies for my brusque language at the door. I was caught a little unawares.’

The change of attitude was a bit too Jekyll and Hyde for my liking.

‘So what can I do for you?’

‘No small chat?’

‘Do you want to?’

‘No.’

‘Then what can I do for you?’

‘Do you know a French man called Carl Dupree.’

‘Dupree. Wasn’t he the one responsible for your little residency in prison?’

‘That’s him.’

‘I can’t say I know much. When you so kindly replaced me I decided to put all that behind me. I’ve heard of the man. A player as I recall. Big time down here. Other than that not a lot. Why?’

‘I’m trying to find him?’

‘For a social call?’

‘You could say that.’

‘And what makes you think I can help?’

‘You were always well connected. Far better than me.’

‘It didn’t do me much good.’

‘I mean well connected across the board. I never mixed in some of the circles you did. I was hoping that some of your old connections might be able to put me in touch.’

Giles leaned forward and gave the tea a stir. Clearly the five minutes were not yet up.

‘Surely he can’t be that hard to find? I mean he is hardly a low profile type of person.’