London Bridges

Clipper Audio

Excerpt

I

London is a town for fog, mist swirling up from the river, the
darkness between streetlights. But, although it is never summer in
the London of the imagination, the streets are as answerable to
sunlight and long evenings as those of any capital in Europe. There
are hot, still, August nights in Mayfair, and on such a night,
Jeanene Malone had just found out about the Greek optative.
On such nights, while visitors ebb and flow in vast human tides
through London"s centres of shopping, culture and entertainment, in
Mayfair, though it lies between the sun-baked yet inviting grass of
Hyde Park and the manifold entertainments of the West End, secret,
flower-adorned mansions of stock-brick and stucco maintain a
patrician silence; unguessed, unseen lives move in secret channels
beneath the surface, and the streets are as deserted as the mountains
of the moon.
As the Greek couple turned out of Park Lane and looked down the hot
and dusty length of Mount Street, they saw nothing moving at all
except a feral cat, white paws twinkling jauntily in the grey evening
light as it slipped at its leisure from beneath a BMW to a new
lookout-point behind the front wheel of a Jaguar. The woman"s sharp
heels set up flat, clacking echoes in the silent street. About
halfway down, the Queen Anne Dutch frontages were briefly punctuated
by a squashed-looking parade of shops built into the ground floor of
nos. 40–48. The third shop remained lit, a little yellow beacon in
the blue summer night.
"There it is," murmured the woman. As they approached, they saw that
the windows were bright with images of tanned and exquisite women,
while the shopsign, running the length of the frontage, showed a
mortar and pestle, and the words "Mount Street Chemist"s". As they
approached the shop, they found they were able to peer over the top
of the window display into the lighted depths of the pharmacy.
Within, a girl sat alone, resting her elbows on the counter, hands
pushed into her dark, curly hair, studying an open book with great
concentration. Her plain white blouse was obviously inexpensive, and
she looked very young and small. The woman smiled to herself without
humour. A student, she suspected, studying for exams. Ideal: with her
mind full of her own problems, she would hardly notice that they had
come in.
Taking a last look along the deserted street, the man stiffened, and
touched his companion"s hand warningly. A man had emerged from the
side door of the Riyadh Gallery, and was rapidly approaching. The
woman slipped her arm through the man"s, and they turned away
unhurriedly. Sebastian, as he came level with them, saw no more than
a pair of elegant shadows, their faces obscure as they stepped away
from the brightness of the lit window, and did not give them a second
thought. He went up to the pharmacy door, and pressed the night bell.
Inside the pharmacy, Jeanene Malone heard the buzz, hastily shut her
book and pressed a button under the counter to admit the late
customer, who turned out to be an expansive and zestful individual,
not unlike the late Oscar Wilde in appearance. He had longish dark
hair, bright blue eyes, and an unEnglish ability to address a shop
assistant as if she were a human being rather than a mechanical
answering device, and she looked at him with interest. The man bought
some Nurofen, and then suddenly decided to buy perfume as well, a
transaction which took some time and involved frequent changes of
mind. He thanked her courteously as he stuffed his purchases into
various pockets, and was just about to leave when his glance swept
across Jeanene"s book. He flicked his heavy fringe out of his eyes
with a practised toss of the head, put three fingers on it, and
swivelled it on the counter till he could see the spine.
"I thought I recognised it. What on earth is an Aussie pharmacist
doing with an ancient Greek Grammar?"
"I"m just about to start graduate work. At the Institute of Classical
Studies."
"Well, good for you. But that"s ancient grammar, not just ancient
Greek! Why Abbot and Mansfield? Everyone uses Reading Greek these
days, surely?"
"Do you know the Institute people?" asked Jeanene, her heart
lifting. "I"m getting a bit of preliminary reading done for the
Intensive Greek course. With Professor Beckinsale? It was what he
asked us to get."
Sebastian arched his eyebrows sardonically. "Oh, her. In her dreams,
dear. Actually, it"s not even Doctor Beckinsale. Mister, and chippy
about it. That explains it: our George is a bit of a museum piece in
himself, as you"ll find out in due course. The thing you"ve got to
remember about old George is that he"s rude to everybody, he doesn"t
mean it personally. Well, not usually. He can"t stand me, of course,
but I have to admit I wind up the poor old spook something shocking."
"Do you teach at the Institute?" she said hopefully.
"I do a bit of Byzantine stuff for them. We"ll probably bump into
each other sometime – my name"s Sebastian. "Bye for now." The door
whispered shut behind him, leaving her with the warm thought that she
had just met someone she might meet again: after only four weeks in
London, she knew practically nobody except her current employer, a
fat and surly individual called Patel. She looked at her watch again:
only thirteen minutes to lock-up. Was it really worth staying? Just
as she was about to get up and go into the back for her bag, the
doorbell rang once more. Two modish silhouettes, male and female,
were dimly visible through the glass, and she buzzed them in.
"Good evening. How may I help you?" she said in her best professional
manner. The man came forward, feeling in his breast pocket.
"Good evening. Can you fill this prescription, please?"
Jeanene took the piece of paper and studied it conscientiously,
nibbling her thumbnail.
"I"ll have to check on the computer," she said apologetically.
"This is a high dosage, and I"m not sure we keep it in that strength."
"It is very important," said the woman, abruptly.
"Too right. If the patient"s used to this amount, he"s got to keep on
with it."
She considered the prescription more carefully. There was something
else peculiar about it: the prescribing doctor"s address was in Fife;
and while Jeanene"s education had not been big on British geography,
Macbeth, she recalled, was the Thane of Fife. So, surely Fife was in
Scotland? The man, watching her narrowly, saw her frown in puzzlement.
"We came down from Scotland on the night train," he explained.
"Yes," the woman cut in, "and most unfortunately, we find our uncle
has forgotten his pills."
"So we rush out, and try to fill his new prescription this very
night," the man finished smoothly.
How did a pair of obvious foreigners end up with an uncle called
Campbell? she wondered momentarily, and immediately answered herself:
quite easily, no doubt, one of her own aunts had...