Free September Song by Colin Murray Page A

nice suits, clean white shirts, neat blue ties and were recently shaved. The other one had close on two days’ worth of stubble, had clearly slept in his crumpled suit and wasn’t wearing a tie.
    At least my record on finding missing persons was looking a lot more impressive. Two found in one day wasn’t bad, especially as I hadn’t lifted a finger to find Philip Graham and had only sustained one bump on the head to locate Lee the piano player, who now did begin to slide gently down the wall.
    At this rate, I could expect Daff’s long-lost daughter to bring me my early morning cuppa along with the Daily Herald on Monday.
    Always assuming the two tough-looking gents were a lot friendlier than they looked and I survived until Monday.

SIX
    â€˜ H e all right?’ I said, waving a hand in Lee’s direction.
    Both of the tough guys turned to face me. They were silent for a few seconds, and Peter Baxter’s strident trumpet filled the little corridor with a shrill, and not altogether successful, attempt to reach something very high as the climax to ‘St James Infirmary’. The man nearest to me allowed a slightly pained and puzzled expression to soften his battered face. His nose had been broken a couple of times, and there was scar tissue around his eyes, suggesting mixed fortunes in a long career in the ring.
    When Peter finished and applause broke out like sporadic gunfire, the man flashed me an amiable smile and jerked a thumb at the almost recumbent piano player. ‘He yours?’ he said.
    â€˜Sort of,’ I said, with a dismissive shrug. ‘Is he all right?’
    He ran his tongue around his lips. ‘About as all right as a beaten-up junk fiend coming off a bender can be,’ he said.
    â€˜Beaten up?’ I said.
    â€˜Yeah, someone’s given him a bit of a seeing to. Quite professional. Left the face alone. Lots of body shots. He’ll probably find it a bit painful to pee for a few days.’ He paused to rub his damaged nose. ‘Anyway, we’ve delivered him. He’s all yours.’ He nodded at the other guy and they both moved towards me.
    â€˜You didn’t happen to find him upstairs in a pub?’ I said.
    â€˜Maybe,’ he said.
    â€˜The Frighted Horse?’ I said.
    They stopped.
    â€˜What makes you ask that?’ The second man spoke for the first time, and there was an edge of suspicion, and a touch of Yorkshire, in his voice.
    â€˜Oh,’ I said, ‘I was over there looking for him an hour or so back.’
    The first man looked at his companion and the amiable smile became a very wide grin. ‘You didn’t,’ he said, ‘by any chance meet up with a couple of young lads, did you?’ he said.
    â€˜Might have done,’ I said cautiously, taking a step back.
    â€˜Because I heard that someone did some very nice things to the Mountjoy boy,’ he said, ‘and, if that was you, I’d like to shake your hand.’
    To prove it, he held out one of his large, misshapen paws. The thick, blunt fingers looked as if they’d all been broken once or twice, and none of the knuckles appeared to be where they should be. What could I do? I took the hand and we shook.
    â€˜Malcolm Booth,’ he said.
    â€˜Tony Gérard,’ I said. ‘What’s your interest in Lee here?’
    â€˜None at all,’ he said. ‘But our employer has some businesses around here, and we were looking out for them when we came across him in the course of our duty, as it were. He gave the club’s address, and we thought it would be a neighbourly act to bring him back.’
    â€˜That’s good of you,’ I said. ‘Very. I appreciate it. And I know his wife will.’
    Malcolm raised his eyebrows. ‘Think nothing of it. And if you see young Mountjoy, or one of the other little oiks he hangs out with, tell him Malc would like a word.’
    â€˜I’ll do that,’ I said, ‘but,