The Spoilers

‘I’ll have a Scotch,’ said Warren. ‘And what the devil do you mean by that crack?’

‘No harm meant,’ said Abbot, raising his hands in mock fright. ‘Just one of my feebler non-laughter-making jokes. It’s just that I’ve seen you around inhaling quite a bit of the stuff. In a pub in Soho and a couple of nights later in the Howard Club.’

‘Have you been following me?’ demanded Warren.

‘Christ, no!’ said Abbot. ‘It was just coincidental.’ He ordered the drinks. ‘All the same, you seem to move in rum company. I ask myself – what is the connection between a doctor of medicine, a professional gambler and a mercenary soldier? And you know what? I get no answer at all.’

‘One of these days that long nose of yours will get chopped off at the roots.’ Warren diluted his whisky with Malvern water.

‘Not as bad as losing face,’ said Abbot. ‘I make my reputation by asking the right questions. For instance, why should the highly respected Dr Warren have a flaming row with Johnny Follet? It was pretty obvious, you know.’

‘You know how it is,’ said Warren tiredly. ‘Some of my patients had been cutting up ructions at the Howard Club. Johnny didn’t like it.’

‘And you had to take your own private army to back you up?’ queried Abbot. ‘Tell me another fairy tale.’ The barman was looking at him expectantly so Abbot paid him, and said, ‘We’ll have another round.’ He turned back to Warren, and said, ‘It’s all right, Doctor; it’s on the expense account – I’m working.’

‘So I see,’ said Warren drily. Even now he had not made up his mind about Hellier’s proposition. All the moves he had made so far had been tentative and merely to ensure that he could assemble a team if he had to. Mike Abbot was a putative member of the team – Warren’s choice – but it seemed that he was dealing himself in, anyway.

‘I know this is a damnfool question to ask a pressman,’ he said. ‘But how far can you keep a secret?’

Abbot cocked an eyebrow. ‘Not very far. Not so far as to allow someone to beat me to a story. You know how cutthroat Fleet Street is.’

Warren nodded. ‘But how independent are you? I mean, do you have to report on your investigations to anyone on your paper? Your editor, perhaps?’

‘Usually,’ said Abbot. ‘After all, that’s where my pay cheque comes from.’ Wise in the way of interviews, he waited for Warren to make the running.

Warren refused to play the game. ‘That’s a pity,’ he said, and fell silent.

‘Oh, come now,’ said Abbot. ‘You can’t just leave it at that. What’s on your mind?’

‘I’d like you to help me – but not if it’s going to be noised about the newspaper offices. You know what a rumour factory your crowd is. You’ll know what the score is, but no one else must – or we’ll come a cropper.’

‘I can’t see my editor buying that,’ observed Abbot. ‘It’s too much like that character in the South Sea Bubble who was selling shares in a company – “but nobody to know what it is.” I suppose it’s something to do with drugs?’

‘That’s right,’ said Warren. ‘It will involve a trip to the Middle East.’

Abbot brightened. ‘That sounds interesting.’ He drummed his fingers on the counter. ‘Is there a real story in it?’

‘There’s a story. It might be a very big one indeed,’

‘And I get an exclusive?’

‘It’ll be yours,’ said Warren. ‘Full right.’

‘How long will it take?’

‘That is something I don’t know.’ Warren looked him in the eye. ‘I don’t even know if it’s going to start. There’s a lot of uncertainty. Say, three months.’

‘A hell of a long time,’ commented Abbot, and brooded for a while. Eventually he said, ‘I’ve got a holiday coming up. Supposing I talk to my editor and tell him that I’m doing a bit of private enterprise in my own time. If I think it’s good enough I’ll stay on the job when my holiday is up. He might accept that.’

‘Keep my name out of it,’ warned Warren.

‘Sure.’ Abbot drained his glass. ‘Yes, I think he’ll fall for it. The shock of my wanting to work on my holiday ought to be enough.’ He put down the glass on the counter. ‘But I’ll need convincing first.’

Warren ordered two more drinks. ‘Let’s sit at a table, and I’ll tell you enough to whet your appetite.’

VI

The shop was in Dean Street and the neatly gold-lettered sign read: SOHO THERAPY CENTRE. Apart from that there was nothing to say what was done on the premises; it looked like any Dean Street shop with the difference that the windows were painted over in a pleasant shade of green so that it was impossible to see inside.

Warren opened the door, found no one in sight, and walked through into a back room which had been turned into an office. He found a dishevelled young man sitting at a desk and going through the drawers, pulling everything out and piling the papers into an untidy heap on top of the desk. As Warren walked in, he said, ‘Where have you been, Nick? I’ve been trying to get hold of you.’

Warren surveyed the desk. ‘What’s the trouble, Ben?’

‘You’d never believe it if I told you,’ said Ben Bryan. He scrabbled about in the papers, ‘I’ll have to show you. Where the devil is it?’

Warren dumped a pile of books off a chair and sat down. ‘Take it easy,’ he advised. ‘More haste, less speed.’

‘Take it easy? Just wait until you see this. You won’t be taking it as easy as you are now.’ Bryan rummaged some more and papers scattered.

‘Perhaps you’d better just tell me,’ suggested Warren.

‘All right … no, here it is. Just read that.’

Warren unfolded the single sheet of paper. What was written on it was short and brutally to the point. ‘He’s throwing you out?’ Warren felt a rage growing within him. ‘He’s throwing us out!’ He looked up. ‘Can he break the lease like that?’

‘He can – and he will,’ said Bryan. ‘There’s a line of fine print our solicitor didn’t catch, damn him.’

Warren was angrier than he had ever been in his life. In a choked voice he said, ‘There’s a telephone under all that junk – dig it out.’

‘It’s no good,’ said Bryan. ‘I’ve talked to him. He said he didn’t realize the place would be used by drug addicts; he says his other tenants are complaining – they say it lowers the tone of the neighbourhood.’

‘God Almighty!’ yelled Warren. ‘One’s a strip joint and the other sells pornography. What the hell have they to complain of? What stinking hypocrisy!’

‘We’re going to lose our boys, Nick. If they don’t have a place to come to, we’ll lose the lot.’

Ben Bryan was a psychologist working in the field of drug addiction. Together with Warren and a couple of medical students he had set up the Soho Therapy Centre as a means of getting at the addicts. Here the addicts could talk to people who understood the problem and many had been referred to Warren’s clinic. It was a place off the streets where they could relax, a hygienic place where they could take their shots using sterile water and aseptic syringes.

‘They’ll be out on the streets again,’ said Bryan. ‘They’ll be taking their shots in the Piccadilly lavatories, and the cops will chase them all over the West End.’

Warren nodded. ‘And the next thing will be another outbreak of hepatitis. Good God, that’s the last thing we want.’

‘I’ve been trying to find another place,’ said Bryan. ‘I was on the telephone all day yesterday. Nobody wants to know our troubles. The word’s got around, and I think we’re blacklisted. It must be in this area – you know that.’

Something exploded within Warren. ‘It will be,’ he said with decision. ‘Ben, how would you like a really good place here in Soho? Completely equipped, regardless of expense, down to hot and cold running footmen?’

‘I’d settle for what we have now,’ said Bryan.

Warren found an excitement rising within him. ‘And, Ben – that idea you had – the one about a group therapy unit as a self-governing community on the line of that Californian outfit. What about that?’