Robert Goddard - Borrowed Time

On Sunday morning, I drove up to London. It was a pluperfect autumn day, the sky a flawless blue, the fallen leaves gleaming in golden patches along the pavements and across the parks. But the beauties of nature couldn’t do much for Jamaica Road, Bermondsey. Or for the vomit-stained frontage of the Greyhound Inn, most of whose customers looked as if they’d have difficulty remembering how much they’d drunk the previous night, let alone when Vincent Cassidy last pulled a pint for them.

Not so the stern tattooed landlord, however. His memories of Cassidy were clear. But he had no intention of sharing them with me. “Vince Cassidy hasn’t worked here in over a year. But I make a point of respecting the privacy of my employees-past and present.”

“He has nothing to fear from me.”

“Maybe not. But how do I know that?”

“I’m only asking if you might know his present where-abouts.”

“Last I heard , he was working for Dave Gormley. He runs a tyre-and-exhaust place down Raymouth Road.”

With that, he moved off to serve another customer. Freeing a paunchy greasy-haired man on the bar-stool next to me to snigger at my expense. “Syd’s short-changing you,” he muttered. “Don’t take it personal. He does it to his regulars as well.”

“You mean Vince doesn’t work for Dave Gormley?”

“Not any more. Done a runner about a fortnight ago. Dropped out of sight like a rabbit down his burrow. Only in Vince’s case even his burrow’s empty. The Old Bill have been after him. Don’t know what for. Wouldn’t be the same reason you’re looking for him, would it?”

“I shouldn’t think so.”

“Makes no difference either way. Vince has turned into the Invisible Man.”

“Doesn’t anybody know where he is?”

“I didn’t say that, did I?” He winked, swallowed the last of his beer and frowned at the empty glass. Subtlety wasn’t his stock-in-trade. But a fresh pint and a double whisky chaser revealed that information was. Vince Cassidy had a sister. And my thirsty acquaintance knew her address.

Sharon Peters, née Cassidy, lived in one of the crumbling yellow-brick tenement blocks wedged between Jamaica Road and the main railway line out of Charing Cross. To the east, the Canary Wharf tower shimmered in the sunshine, a perpetual reminder to the residents of how worthwhile the economies were that deprived them of adequately lit stairways and an occasional dab of fresh paint. They were the slums of a future that was very nearly the present, as unnerving a place for somebody like me to visit as it was no doubt depressing for somebody like Sharon Peters to inhabit.

She was a busty bottle-blonde in her late twenties, dressed in grubby grey leggings and an orange T-shirt, cleaning away the remnants of a junk-food lunch left behind by her children. They might have been among the jeering group that had jostled past me on the stairs and I couldn’t help wondering if they were even now opening my car door with a bent coat-hanger prior to a Sunday afternoon joy-ride round the estate. Either way, there was no sign of them. Nor of their father, assuming he still lived with them. Sharon Peters was alone. And she looked as if she preferred it that way. The omnibus edition of East-Enders was playing on the television, though not loudly enough to blot out the beat of the reggae music from a neighbouring flat. The door had been ajar and she’d shouted for me to enter when I’d rung the bell, assuming I was somebody else, I suppose. Now she stared at me across her toy-strewn lounge as if I were an alien from another planet. Which in a sense I was.

“Christ! Who are you?”

“Robin Timariot, Mrs. Peters. I believe you’re Vince Cassidy’s sister.”

“So what?”

“I’m looking for him.”

“Oh yeh?”

“And I was hoping you might be able to-”

“Like I told the fuzz, I haven’t a clue where he is.”

“Naturally you’d say that to the police, Mrs. Peters. But I’m not the police.”

“No? Well, maybe there’s worse than them looking for our Vince. Even if I knew where he was-which I don’t-I wouldn’t tell the likes of you. What are you? Debt collector? Private detective? Bit of both?”

“Nothing of the kind. I was a witness at Shaun Naylor’s trial and this latest turn of events has put me in a difficult position. Just like Vince.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Come on, Mrs. Peters. Why has Vince gone to ground? If he was telling the truth at the trial, he has nothing to fear. And if the police put words into his mouth, he wouldn’t be running away from them, would he? So, somebody else must have put him up to it. I’d like to find out who that was.”

“I still don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I think you do. But never mind. Just tell Vince-”

“I can’t tell him anything. I don’t know where he is.”

“I might be able to help him.”

“Pull the other one.”

“All right. I might be able to reward him. If he turns out to have some valuable information. I gather he’s out of a job at the moment. Maybe he needs some spare cash.”

“Don’t we all?”

“Quite.” The hostility in her gaze had fractionally diminished, allowing the hint of a proposition to emerge. “Well, if a little… money… would help you remember where Vince said he was going…”

“You have a bloody nerve, you do.” Her face flushed red with rage. “If I was ready to sell my own brother down the river for a few quid, I’d be up Soho, wouldn’t I, waggling my tits at men like you, not stuck here, working my fingers to the bone just so-” She broke off and turned away, leaning against the kitchen doorway for support as she chewed at her thumbnail. She was angry at Vince as well as me, I sensed. Maybe she was even angry at her own loyalty. “Why don’t you just piss off?” she murmured.

“All right. I’ll go. But here’s my card.” I took one from my pocket, wrote my home telephone number on the back and slid it towards her across the table that stood between us. “Tell Vince what I said… if you see him.” She glanced down at the card, but made no move to pick it up. My impression was that when she did, it would only be to throw it in the bin. But at least I’d given her the option. In the circumstances, it was the most I could hope to achieve.

Sharon Peters’ flat was at the far end of a second-floor walkway. As I retraced my steps along it, I glanced down into the courtyard below, noting with some relief that my car was still where I’d left it, complete with four wheels.

A young woman emerged from the stairwell ahead of me as I looked up and strode swiftly towards me, high heels clacking. She was thin and slightly stooped, with dark curly hair framing a pale gaunt-featured face. Her clothes were market-stall haute couture : a black imitation leather coat several sizes too big for her over a striped sweater and red mini-skirt. Her eyes met mine for a fraction of a second as we passed. Something close to recognition flickered in her gaze and stirred in my mind. Then both of us seemed to dismiss the thought and hurry on.

But by the time I’d reached the head of the stairs, the faint impression of familiarity had revived. I stopped and looked back along the walkway. She was standing outside Sharon Peters’ door, staring at me over her shoulder as she rang the bell. She frowned. I could sense her thinking what I was thinking: who is that? Then the door opened and she stepped inside, smiling briskly. The door closed. And I was alone. With the answer slipping from my grasp.

I combined my visit to Cambridge with a long-overdue tour of willow suppliers in Suffolk and Essex. This kept me away from the office for most of the following week, which was something of a bonus, since Adrian was due back from Australia halfway through my absence and was sure to think I was deliberately avoiding him.