by Mike Ripley
Arsenal fan giggled. He hadn’t meant to, and he bit his bottom lip to stop it spreading.
At least he was trying.
I put my face in his.
‘And you get something clear in your fucking head, man, okay? We’re just here minding the shop. There’s no snooping going on that concerns you and yours. Got that? There’s nothing here for you to worry about. No pressure. Absolutely no sweat. Got that clear, man?’
He stared me out, then nodded once.
‘Then get out of here and tell your brothers you’ve sorted it, okay? There’ll be no more snooping from the old man. You’ve done that, you’ve got a result.’
He didn’t take his eyes off me as he crossed the room to help Raider to his feet. He did look at Dod once as they reached the door, but it was like he was sizing him up. There was no fear there.
As they clumped down the stairs, Dod moved to the window.
‘Do you want me to go and keep an eye on Armstrong?’
‘What for? They know that if they turn over a black cab that’s the last black cab their granny’ll see in this neighbourhood for a month of Sundays.’
He nodded. ‘You got a point.’ He put his toolbox on the desk and pointed at the masonry hammer and the Stanley knife. ‘Want these?’
‘Nah, help yourself. And, by the way, thanks for being here.’
‘It’ll be on the bill. What was it all about anyway?’
I took a minute to summon up all my reserves of deductive logic.
‘Buggered if I know,’ I said.
I helped Dod put a new lock on the front door and then rehang the door again when the lock turned out to be slightly out of true. I agreed with him that the door must have warped overnight. It seemed churlish to criticise his carpentry.
Most usefully, I popped out for a couple of burgers for lunch and then tried to rustle up a pot of tea. I was in Veronica’s kitchenette trying to find a tea bag not scented with anything other than tea when Dod yelled up the stairs.
‘Angel, you’ve got a customer.’
‘What?’ I yelled back, convinced I wasn’t hearing him right.
‘Lady here wants to know if you’re open for business.’
‘What sort of business?’
‘Detective business, she says. Says she knows ya as well.’
‘Get a life, Dod, I’m trying to make the tea.’
‘Get a secretary, then. She’s on her way up.’
I didn’t know what to expect. Knowing Dod, it could have been someone from the local council, a Jehovah’s Witness or a double-glazing salesman. It turned out to be a middle-aged black woman weighed down with a carrier bag of groceries in each hand.
She stopped on the top stair to get her breath, looked at me, then into Albert’s office, then back at me and the teapot I was holding in my right hand.
‘Jus’ what I need, mister. The cup that cheers but does not inebriate.’
I looked down at the teapot and realised why I didn’t like tea.
I motioned her into Albert’s office and returned her smile.
‘Sugar?’
I found her a chair and she parked her shopping and unbuttoned her raincoat.
‘Just two,’ she said. Then, to make sure, ‘Sugars. If you please.’
I was still holding the teapot.
‘Yeah, right. I’ll ... er ... get a cup,’ I said decisively.
I sloshed a mugful for Dod and sneaked by the office door to take it down the stairs to him.
‘Who the hell is that?’ I whispered.
‘A customer. That’s what she said,’ shrugged Dod.
‘What does she want?’
‘How should I know? You’re in charge here.’
‘No, I bleedin’ ain’t.’
‘Well you’re paying the bills.’
‘Yeah, well, we’ll talk about that later.’
I crept back upstairs and into Veronica’s kitchen. She only seemed to have two mugs, so I decided that family had better hold back.
‘Here you are, Mrs ...’ I said limply. ‘The cup that ... whatever.’
‘You could do with a cleaner here, you know,’ she said, clocking the office shambles.
‘We had a break-in yesterday,’ I offered lamely.
‘Know who did it?’ she came back like a whip.
‘No,’ I said, knowing I’d regret it.
‘Huh. Ain’t much of a detective then. In fact, I never knew you was a detective at all. When I asked around, I was told to come here and see a man called Albert. Not you.’
In a room of two people, that made two of us.
I sat down opposite her in Albert’s chair. There was nothing on the desk except for some masonry hammer dents. I put my forearms on the desk top and linked my fingers, trying to hide the worst of them.
‘Do you know me, Mrs ... er ... ?’
‘Delacourt. Mrs Delacourt. And I can’t rightly say we’re on sociable terms.’ .
She looked down into her mug of tea as if I’d poisoned her.
‘But you know my son.’
I sat back rapidly to put more distance between me and the hand holding the steaming tea.
‘Er ... about 16, wears a Raiders bomber jacket ... ?’
Probably has a broken nose and eight brothers who do weights.
‘No, that’s not my Crimson.’
‘Crimson?’
‘Crimson Delacourt.’ Her expression said she was having doubts about people like me being released into the community.
‘The bike rider?’
‘That’s him. Worked for a motorcycle dispatch company, like you used to. We used your cab once to do my Christmas shopping, remember?’
‘Sure,’ I sighed with relief. ‘Yeah, Crimson. Good guy. Nifty rider. One of the best. Just never knew his last name.’
I bit my tongue. What a thing to say to somebody’s mother.
‘Well, we got us a problem with Crimson. She nodded wisely.
We?
‘I haven’t seen him for a few months, Mrs Delacourt, and I don’t work the dispatch any more.’
‘I suppose that was just a cover, eh?’
‘I’m sorry ... ?’
‘Undercover, for the detective work. Were you working a case? Isn’t that what they call it?’
‘Er, look. Mrs Delacourt, there’s been a misunderstanding. I’m only looking after the office until the real detective gets back.’
God, that sounded bad.
‘What you mean, real detective?’
Good question. The one in hospital or the one with three days’ on-the-job training?
‘Actually, it’s a Miss Blugden who is the senior partner now–’
‘That nice white girl I saw you with last night, when the police were here?’
‘I suppose so–’
‘She’s no detective. She looks sweet and gentle like she couldn’t curdle milk. No, yo’ having me on. You’re the main man, don’t try and con me. What’s the matter, my money not good enough?’
‘It’s not that at all. I’m sure Miss Blugden will be very happy to take your money – I mean, your case. But you’ll have to see her.’
Mrs Delacourt put down her mug and pointed a finger at me like a gun.
‘But she’s no good ‘cos she don’t know my Crimson and you do. You probably know his good-for-nothing partner Chase, too.’
‘Chase? No, I’m sorry, I don’t ... Chase who?’
‘My Crimson’s new friend, Mr Chase, Mr Can’t-Do-No-Wrong Chase. That boy gonna get my boy in trouble, nothing surer, but Crimson won’t listen to me. That’s why I want you to find out what they’re up to of an evening and where they’re getting all this white powder from.’
‘White powder? What white powder?’
I just had
to ask, didn’t I?
Chapter Five
Tucked away in Bloomsbury, in a side road off Gower Street, is a little bit of London University you won’t find on any normal campus map. And since the animal liberationists turned actively violent ten years ago. it hasn’t appeared in a phone book either. It’s a combination of zoology and veterinary research departments and I don’t know what its proper title is. All I know is Zoe works there.
I had known Zoe for about five years. For two or three months, we had known each other very well, and we’d managed to remain friends afterwards. So much so, I’d even been invited to her wedding a year or so back, but maybe she’d forgotten about the reception by now. She was doing some sort of research into animal psychology, having somehow managed to survive the cuts in funding at both the university and London Zoo. More than once I’d volunteered Springsteen for testing, but she’d always said there wasn’t enough anaesthetic. I was paying her a call not because I wanted her views on felix sociopathus but because she was the only person I knew who had access to a laboratory. A legal one, anyway.
They had tightened up on security since my last visit, with a new reception desk and two uniformed security guards who, for once, looked as if they might know what they were doing, so it called for the old delivery trick.
I exchanged my leather jacket for the ageing sweater in Armstrong’s boot to put me in character. (Real cabbies never wear leather jackets; too sweaty.) Then I rummaged through the glove compartment to find an empty padded envelope, a roll of Sellotape and a felt-tipped pen. I also unearthed a pad of PoDs – Proof of Delivery slips – that I had hung onto from my last job with a dispatch company, knowing they’d come in handy one day.
Mrs Delacourt had given me a small plastic bag, the sort you use in freezers, with a vacuum snap seal, containing a white crystalline powder. I stuffed it inside the Jiffy bag and Sellotaped the end, using my new teeth to bite off bits of tape. On the envelope I wrote ‘Dr Zoe Morgan’, and felt pleased with myself at remembering her married name. Then I added ‘Personal’.
Then I parked Armstrong right outside the office doors so they got a good look at me gelling out of a cab, stuck the pen behind my car and marched in.
‘Package for a Dr Morgan. Gotta be signed for.’
One of the security guards ignored me and stood up as if to write something on a wall calendar. In fact, he was looking over my shoulder at Armstrong. I didn’t blame him. Bombs had arrived by taxi before now, but rarely did the delivery boy stand there tapping them impatiently on the counter.
The other guard remained seated and just looked up at me.
‘No Dr Morgan here. Does it say which department?’
I consulted the envelope.
‘Nope, they were a bit vague about that. Just Dr Zoe Morgan.’
‘Who were?’
‘Home Office, Queen Anne’s Gate,’ I said, thinking quickly. If he knew anything about cab drivers he would know that none of them ever took that address in vain, as it’s where the Hackney Carriage licences used to be issued.
‘He means Zoe Butler,’ said the standing guard. ‘Morgan’s her married name.’
‘Okay,’ said Sit-Down guard, ‘you can leave it.’
‘Sorry, got to be hand delivered.’ I waved my PoD receipts. ‘She has to sign for it herself.’
Sit-Down guard sighed loudly to indicate that life was already too complicated, and reached for the internal phone.
After a couple of minutes, Zoe appeared through a door marked Staff Only.
‘I might have known,’ she grinned. ‘I never get anything from the Home Office except nasty memos. What’s this? A belated wedding present?’
‘I bought you a wedding present,’ I said indignantly. ‘A bottle of vintage port, as I recall. Estate bottled. 1960? 1958? One of the good years, anyway.’
She gave me her killer look.
‘Was it? You drank it.’
Ouch. She remembered the reception.
‘I’ll make it up to you, double or quits. But I need a favour first.’
She looked at Mr Stand-Up security guard, who was clocking me as if measuring throwing distance to the street.
‘It’s okay, he’s with me,’ Zoe told him, then pressed four digits on the pressure-pad lock on the Staff Only door so that it clicked open. ‘Come through. There’s a staff room with a kettle. You can be mother.’
For the second time in about three hours, I found myself trying to sort out the herbal infusions from the raspberry- and thyme-flavoured powders. Didn’t anybody drink just tea any more? While I filled a jug kettle, Zoe opened the envelope I’d given her.
‘Jesus! And you wanted me to sign for this?’ she said to my back. ‘Is it what I think it is?’
‘No, it isn’t. At least, I don’t think it’s what I thought it was. At first, that is.’
‘If it is what I think it is, there’s about 12 hundred quid’s worth here.’
She had put the plastic bag on a low table, not wanting to touch it.
‘My initial thoughts exactly, Dr Butler. High-grade coke worth about £90 a gramme.’
‘Angel,’ she said, her voice hardening, ‘What’s the deal?’
‘It isn’t what we think it is. I tried it.’
‘So it’s been cut with nine-tenths sodium bicarbonate; why the bloody hell are you telling me? Take it round the Consumers Association. Or Drugs ‘R Us or somewhere. Just get it the fuck out of here.’
She began to stuff the plastic bag back into the envelope.
I concentrated on pouring tea.
‘When I said I tried it, I tasted it. I didn’t do a line or anything. But it doesn’t taste like any naughty substance I’ve ever tasted before. I don’t think it’s naughty at all, but some people think it might be.’
‘Some people like who?’ she asked suspiciously.
‘Would you believe it if I said a nice black lady worried about her son falling in with a wrong crowd?’
‘And coming to you for help? Do I not believe that. Anyway, why bring it to me?’
‘Couldn’t you run some tests on it or something?’ I handed her a mug of tea. Even gave her the spoon.
‘I’m not the Public Analyst, Angel. Give me a break.’
‘As a favour. Go on, kid. I’ll owe you.’
‘You always have.’ She sipped the tea. ‘I could probably tell you what it isn’t. But what if it is dodgy?’
‘The minute you suspect it’s hooky, flush it down the toilet. I can’t say fairer than that, can I?’
‘Yes, you could say “Goodbye, Zoe, have a nice life.”‘
‘How is married life?’
She shrugged. ‘Two incomes, no kids, great sex, skiing holidays, don’t change the subject.’
‘Will you have a go for me?’
‘Give me one good reason why I should.’
‘Can’t.’
‘It’s a hell of it risk I’m running if it is it proscribed substance, you know.’
‘I know, you risk losing one of the incomes and the skiing holiday. How would it affect the great sex?’
She glared at me over the rim of her mug.
‘You have, as the Americans would say, a smart mouth.’
I showed her the new dental work. ‘Ah, so you do remember.’
‘Don’t push it. I remember a lot of things, including telling you to grow up and get a job like about every other day.’
I summoned up all my injured dignity. It didn’t take long. ‘Bur this is my new job. I’m a private detective.’
She roared with laughter. ‘A what? Since when?’
I looked at my SeaStar.
‘About two hours ago.’
I had two pieces of luck at the hospital. First, I got a parking space. To be fair, there was a notice claiming it to be reserved for a consultant, but th
en it was after 4.00 pm and the rain had held off, so he would be on a golf course somewhere. Secondly, Oonagh – the Irish spelling – was on duty at reception.
It might have been my magnetic personality, it could have been the new pearly whites, or it could have been the fact that she was behind in her paperwork and hospitals don’t really give a monkey’s about strict visiting hours these days, but anyway, I got in to see Albert with no hassle.
She told me in passing that Albert was fine and had been trying to phone his married daughter in Exeter for two hours. They would probably keep him in for observation for a couple of days, then he’d be allowed out, on condition he took it easy.
He was in a small ward of six beds, all occupied by elderly men. Two were asleep, one had a broken leg up in plaster, two had cage arrangements to keep the blankets from the more private and no doubt painful bits of their anatomy. I reasoned that the remaining one, a large, balding man who just lay there glaring at the ceiling, was Albert. There was also a clipboard chart hanging on the end of the bed with ‘Mr A Block’ in thick felt-tip pen on the title sheet. That clinched it. Dead easy, this detective lark.
He wasn’t what I had expected, but then I wasn’t sure what I was expecting. I hadn’t seen anything at Shepherd’s Bush to indicate any personal life, but then I hadn’t been looking. I suppose I had just gleaned the impression from Veronica that Albert was some sort of cherubic little old garden gnome. He certainly wasn’t little; I reckoned six foot one at least, though it’s difficult to tell when policemen – even ex- ones – are lying down. And he wasn’t that old, his bed-end chart telling me he was 58. Cherubic didn’t really come into it either, his face unshaven with a bluish pallor. His cheeks had shrunk into his jaw line and, as I saw him close up, my one thought was that this was a shell of a big man, who couldn’t work out why he couldn’t get up and walk around.
‘Mr Block?’ I asked politely.
‘Who wants to know?’
There you go; once a policeman.
‘My name’s Roy Angel. I’m a sort of friend of Veronica’s.’
‘No, you’re not,’ he snapped, wincing with the effort. ‘She hasn’t got any friends.’
