Like A Charm

He was on his way back into the flat, juggling the paper, a pint of milk, a loaf of bread, fidgeting for the keys, when the phone started to ring.

Too late, he pressed recall and held his breath.

'Hello?' The voice at the other end was suave as cheap margarine.

' Adrian?'

'You couldn't meet me in town, I suppose? Later this morning. Coffee.'

Kiley thought that he could.

When he turned the corner of Old Compton Street into Frith Street, Costain was already sitting outside Bar Italia, expensively suited legs lazily crossed, Times folded open, cappuccino as yet untouched before him.

Kiley squeezed past a pair of media types earnestly discussing first draft scripts and European funding, and took a seat at Costain's side.

'Jack,' Costain said. 'It's been too long.' However diligently he practised his urbane, upper-class drawl there was always that tell-tale tinge of Ilford, like a hair ball at the back of his throat.

Kiley signalled to the waitress and leaned back against the painted metal framework of the chair. Across the street, Ro

'I didn't know she was still around,' Kiley said.

'You know her?'

'Not really.'

What Kiley knew were old rumours of walkouts and no-shows, a version of 'Stormy Weather' that had been used a few years back in a television commercial, an album of Gershwin songs he'd once owned but not seen in, oh, a decade or more. Not since Dia

'She's spent a lot of time in Europe since she left the States,' Costain was saying. ' Denmark. Holland. Still plays all the big festivals. Antibes, North Sea.'

Kiley was begi

'In the UK, yes.'

Kiley glanced back across the street. 'How long's she at Ro

'Two weeks.'

When Kiley had been a kid and little more, those early cappuccino days, a girl he'd been seeing had questioned the etiquette of eating the chocolate off the top with a spoon. He did it now, two spoonfuls before stirring in the rest, wondering, as he did so, where she might be now, if she still wore her hair in a ponytail, of the hazy green in her eyes.

'You could clear a couple of weeks, Jack, I imagine. Nights, of course, afternoons.' Costain smiled and showed some teeth, not his but sparkling just the same. 'You know the life.'

'Not really.'

'Didn't you have a pal? Played trumpet, I believe?'

'Saxophone.'

'Ah, yes.' As if they were interchangeable, a matter of fashion, an easy either-or.

Derek Becker had played Ro

'Adams,' Costain said, 'it would just be a matter of baby sitting, making sure she gets to the club on time, the occasional interview. You know the drill.'

'Hardly seems necessary.'

'She's not been in London in a good while. She'll feel more comfortable with a hand to hold, a shoulder to lean on.' Costain smiled his professional smile. 'That's metaphorically, of course.'

They both knew he needed the money; there was little more, really, to discuss.

'She'll be staying at Le Meridien,' Costain said. 'On Piccadilly. From Friday. You can hook up with her there.'

The meeting was over, Costain was already glancing at his watch, checking for messages on his mobile phone.

'All those years in Europe,' Kiley said, getting to his feet, 'no special reason she's not been back till now?'

Costain shook his head. 'Representation, probably. Timings not quite right.' He flapped a hand vaguely at the air. 'Sometimes it's just the way these things are.'

'A little start-up fund would be good,' Kiley said.

Costain reached into his suit jacket for his wallet and slid out two hundred and fifty in freshly minted twenties and tens. 'Are you still seeing Kate these days?' he asked.

Kiley wasn't sure.

Kate Keenan was a freelance journalist with a free-ranging and often fierce column in the Independent. Kiley had met her by chance a little over a year ago and they'd been sparring with one another ever since. She'd been sparring with him. Sometimes, Kiley thought, she took him the way some women took paracetamol.

'Only I was thinking,' Costain said, 'she and Dia

'Ask her,' Kiley said.

'I've tried,' Costain said. 'She doesn't seem to be answering my calls.'

There had been an episode, Kiley knew, before he and Kate had met, when she had briefly fallen for Costain's slippery charm. It had been, as she liked to say, like slipping into cow shit on a rainy day.

'Is this part of what you're paying me for?' Kiley asked.

'Merely a favour,' Costain said, smiling. 'A small favour between friends.'

Kiley thought he wouldn't mind an excuse to call Kate himself. 'OK,' he said, 'I'll do what I can. But I've got a favour to ask you in return.'

The night before Dia

Derek Becker was there with a quartet, playing music for schmoozing. Only it was better than that.

Becker was a hard-faced romantic who loved the fifties recordings of Stan Getz, especially the live sessions from The Shrine with Bob Brookmeyer on valve trombone; he still sent cards, birthday, Christmas and Valentine, to the woman who'd had the good sense not to marry him some twenty years before. And he liked to drink.

A Bass man from way back, he could tolerate most beer, though he preferred it hand-pumped from the wood; in the right mood, he could appreciate a good wine; whisky, he preferred Islay single malts, Lagavulin, say, or Laphroaig. At a pinch, anything would do.

Kiley had come across him once, sprawled along a bench on the southbound platform of the Northern Line at Leicester Square. Vomit still drying on his shirt front, face bruised, a cut splintering the bridge of his nose. Kiley had pulled him straight and used a tissue to wipe what he could from round his mouth and eyes, pushed a te

That had been a good few years back, around the time Kiley had been forced to accept his brief foray into professional soccer was over: the writing on the wall, the stud marks on his shins; the ache in his muscles that never quite went away, one game to the next.

Becker was still playing jazz whenever he could, but instead of Ro

And tonight Becker was looking sharp, sharper than Kiley had seen him in years and sounding good. Adams clearly thought so. Calling for silence, she sang a couple of tunes with the band. 'Stormy Weather', of course, and an up-tempo 'Just One of Those Things'. Stepping aside to let Becker solo, she smiled at him broadly. Made a point of praising his playing. After that his eyes followed her everywhere she went.

'She's still got it, hasn't she?' Kate said, appearing at Kiley's shoulder.