by Mike Ripley
‘What? What is it?’
‘Go on,’ she taunted, her tongue between her lips, ‘sprinkle some in your beer. It won’t do you any harm.’
‘If it doesn’t do you any harm, what’s the point? It’s not drugs?’
‘Oh yes, it’s a drug,’ she giggled, ‘but it won’t affect you.’ She was enjoying this. ‘There are one or two men I could think of where it might have an effect. A beneficial effect, maybe. It would certainly make saying goodnight to them a lot easier.’
‘Zoe, darling,’ I said, gritting my new teeth, ‘what is it?’
She pulled herself together and leaned forward so that her face was six inches from mine.
‘I told you I wanted to see your face.’
‘Zoe, get on with it.’
‘It’s a fish anaesthetic.’
She collapsed in hysterics.
‘Crimson?’ I yelled, plugging one ear with a finger to try to cut out the noise from the bar.
‘He ain’t here. He’s out. As usual.’
‘Oh hello, Mrs Delacourt, it’s Angel here. Roy Angel. You asked me to …’
‘I know what I asked people to do. Have those people done it? That’s what I want to know.’
‘Actually, I think I have, Mrs D, and what’s more, I don’t think you’ve got anything to worry about. That – er – stuff you gave me, the stuff you found in Crimson’s garage …’
‘Yes, yes, I’m not senile yet, though I will be by the time you finish at this rate.’
‘Well, it’s harmless. Don’t worry about it. It’s not even illegal. Trust me.’
‘Then what is it?’
‘Look, let me talk to Crimson and then I’m sure he’ll tell you himself. But honestly, you don’t have to worry.’
‘Well, he’s out with his big pal Chase again. Seeing him for a drink after work, he said.’
‘Where does Crimson work, Mrs D?’
‘Out at Hendon; he’s got a regular job now, warehouse manager and stock keeper.’
‘But where, Mrs D? What’s the company?’
‘Hendon Pharmaceuticals – I thought I said. That’s why I was anxious. Anxious about them drugs.’
‘They’re not what you think, believe me.’ I looked over the bar from the phone to where Zoe was still wiping the tears away with a tissue. ‘You’ve no call to stress yourself. I’ll go and try and catch Crimson now. Do you know if it’ll be the same pub?’
‘I ‘spect so. My boy don’t drink that much even when he goes to meet that Chase friend of his after work. He’s usually home by …’
‘Mrs D? Hang on. Where does this Chase guy work? If you know?’
‘Sure. Tropical Times.’
‘Is that a club or something?’
‘Nah. It’s one of them places that sells tropical fish for your garden pond. Used to be called the Finchley Pet Shop before it got ideas above its station. Hello? You there, Angel? Why you laughing at me?’
I switched to orange juice to keep Zoe company for a last drink, partly to keep my head clear for the driving I had to do and partly because I didn’t know how Chase would react. Crimson, I was sure, wouldn’t harm me, but I didn’t know Chase.
Zoe didn’t mind catching a real cab home.
‘Maybe it’s for the best. My husband’s away at a conference.’
‘And you don’t trust me?’ I put on the innocence.
‘No, I don’t trust me,’ she said, and then burst out laughing again. ‘You should see your face,’ she wheezed as she buttoned her coat.
I pointed Armstrong towards St John’s Wood and decided I hated Crimson.
His bike was parked ten yards from the door of the Palmerston, and further down the street was Chase’s van. Inside, they were together at a table by themselves, and, with a look of surprise, Crimson saw me immediately.
I hadn’t got a game plan; I didn’t need one. I was working for his mother.
‘Hi there, Angel. Twice in one week. What have I done to deserve this?’
I put my right foot up on the chair next to Crimson’s and leaned forward, crossing my forearms on my knee.
‘Which of you two dry-gulching fish rustlers is gonna buy a whiteman a drink?’ I said.
Crimson protested his innocence until even I almost believed him.
‘Look, man, ever since I got this job at the pharmaceutical company everyone, and I mean everyone, has been raggin’ me. “What’s the drug today, Crimson?”, “What’s the special offer this week?”, “Can you get crack wholesale?” No matter how many times I tell ‘em we don’t make that kind of drug, they just keep on. And anyway, you know I don’t do drugs myself, Angel.’
I didn’t, but I didn’t know that he did.
‘And then we were in here or somewhere and someone starts on again and I say: “Hey, man, the only drugs we do is for fish, and the fish don’t even get a buzz out of it. They just go to sleep.” And it gets a laugh because everyone thinks I’m pulling their puds, but at least they change the subject and give my ears some peace. But, fact is, it’s true. Every word. A drug for fish.’
‘First developed about 20 years ago. It slows the fish down so they can be transported in the minimum of water. Zoos use it to ship sharks by air freight in foam-lined crates. Just sprinkle a bucket of seawater on them and nail the lid down. Hope you land before the shark wakes up and starts shouting for the drinks trolley.’
Crimson was amazed.
‘How do you know all that?’
‘We can’t reveal our sources, sir,’ I said pompously. ‘Who else knew stuff like that?’
‘Just Chase. He said he could save on tank space in his damn pet shop.’ Chase glared at him for that, but Crimson wasn’t daunted. ‘Said he could get it through the business, but it was expensive and usually you don’t need it ‘cos he don’t sell nothing you couldn’t win at a fun fair and take home in a sandwich bag. Reckoned his boss wouldn’t let him spend that sort of dough, but if he had access to some, he could make some savings and get to look good.’
‘And be willing to pay?’
‘For my trouble, man. That seemed fair.’
‘And was it any trouble stealing the stuff?’
‘Nah,’ Crimson said confidently. ‘I’m in charge of stock-taking. They never missed a few packs.’
He put his hands palm upwards on the table.
I licked my lips and turned to Chase. I swear his biceps had a life of their own.
‘And what did you do with the stuff, Chase?’
He thought carefully before answering.
‘Fuck you, man.’
I appealed to Crimson.
‘Aren’t you curious, Crimson?’
‘Yeah, I am. Hey, Chase, what you been doin’, man?’
‘Fuck you too.’ He drank his beer unperturbed.
‘Hey, Chase, you been screwin’ me?’ Crimson tried, but Chase just carried on drinking. Exasperated, Crimson turned on me: ‘What you want to ask all this stuff for anyway, Angel?’
‘I was hired to find out what you were up to,’ I said, as tough as I could. I didn’t feel tough. If they wouldn’t tell me voluntarily, the only option I had was to throw my forehead against Chase’s knuckles.
‘Hired? Like a … a …’
‘Private detective.’
‘Who hired you?’ Crimson glared at Chase. ‘It was your shop. Your boss, he guessed you were up to no good.’
“You ain’t got nuthin’ on me, brother,’ said Chase menacingly. ‘And he ain’t neither.’
‘I can’t disclose the name of my client, I’m afraid. That’s confidential information,’ I said. I knew that. All detectives in books said that. They got beaten up by the bad guys and by the cops and still they wouldn’t tell.
Chase put down his empty glass with a thump.
‘It w
as your mum, Crimson,’ I said. ‘She was worried about you when she found some of the chemicals you were thieving.’
‘Sheeit,’ they both said together, then they looked at each other.
‘It was for the Koi carp,’ said Chase in a rush. ‘We sell them in the shop and they go for £90 up to £150 for a big one. Crazy rich people buy them in twos, threes or fours for their garden ponds. Then they never look at them again after the first day.’
‘And you remember who buys them – get an address – from a credit card company, something like that?’
He nodded, looking sheepish now. Crimson’s jaw dropped slowly.
‘And then you pop round when they’re out, dope the garden pond, and when they go belly up, you hook out the big Koi, and rustle them in your cool box?’
He narrowed his eyes at that, but it passed.
‘Yeah, yeah, yeah. It only takes a couple of spoonfuls of the dope for your average pond. The fishies get zonked in about three minutes and you just pick ‘em out. Do it late evening and by morning the rest of the fish have woken up and are swimming around like good ‘uns.’
‘Doesn’t anyone notice their prize carp’s gone swimabout?’ I asked, genuinely interested by this time.
‘You’d be amazed, but they don’t. Sometimes, weeks later, they’ll come by the shop again and ask what we think could’ve happened to their beautiful pets. Sometimes they give them names.’
Crimson was staring open-mouthed from Chase to me and then back again; a madman at a tennis match.
‘What do you tell them?’
‘Mos’ likely herons. They just swoop on down from the trees, scoop up them precious fishies and gobble them up.’
‘Herons? In Golders Green? They believe you?’
Having said that, I thought that I would believe Chase if he was insistent about anything. I’d believe that the herons were blue if he wanted me to. Blue, with pink spots.
‘Man, these people pay 20 or 30 pounds a pound for a fish that don’t speak English and they ain’t gonna eat. Sure they believe me.’
‘What’s your best recycle?’
‘Sold one big sucker of a ghost Koi four times in the same postcode.’
‘I’m impressed,’ I said.
‘Can I get you a drink?’ he smiled at me.
‘Orange juice, and please don’t put anything in it.’
He grinned at that. ‘Not even a tiny vodka in the OJ?’
‘No thanks. Got a long drive ahead of me tomorrow,’ I said. Well, I would have if Bobby Lee rang me later as he’d promised.
‘Anywhere good?’
‘Up north.’
‘Tottenham? Bad country.’
He shook his head, but I decided not to offer a correction. If he felt that way about north London, how did he feel about Lincolnshire?
‘Hey, you two.’ Crimson had found his brain again. ‘When you two good buddies have finished yapping, what’s happening? You been dissing me, Chase.’
‘No disrespect intended, I’m sure,’ I intervened.
‘Naw, man. It was business. Guess I find something else to do now, hey? Unless you want to go partners?’
‘In fish rustling? Hell, no. You ain’t getting no more stuff from me for that. Sweet Jesus, if you was pulled and up in court, man, I’d just die of shame.’
‘You could be right, brother. I’ll get the drinks.’
He levered himself up and ambled to the bar.
‘So now what?’ Crimson asked me.
‘I think it best if you tell your mum yourself. Stick to Chase’s story. Show her some of the stuff, like you’ve brought it home from work ‘cos it’s interesting. Tell her how it’s used in pet shops like the one Chase works in. Just make it natural. And stay home a coupla nights so she can see you.’
‘That’ll work?’
‘Yeah, pretty sure.’
‘And you won’t tell her?’
‘Not if you two do a little job for me, up in Shepherd’s Bush.’
He put his head back at that and his eyes were slits.
‘We got a choice?’
‘No, not as long as you can talk Chase into going along.’
‘That’ll be no problem. My mum knows his mum.’
This detective business: two cases solved in one day. Piece of cake really.
Chapter Fourteen
Bobby Lee did ring, and he was quite specific in his directions and insistent that it would be worth my while.
I didn’t go because of that, I convinced myself, but because by now I was intrigued. No. To be honest, I wouldn’t have lost sleep if I’d never heard the name Carrick Lee again, but if I could help wrap this thing up for Veronica, then I would. She couldn’t hack it by herself.
So I left them all at Stuart Street waiting for Stella to call them as she had promised to do once she got to work. At least a trip up the Great North Road would get me out of the house while they mooned about worrying and wondering what to do next.
I left Hackney before they were awake and filled up with diesel, bacon, eggs and coffee at South Mimms service station before pointing Armstrong up the A1 and heading north.
I made good time considering the traffic was heavy and every lorry driver on the road seemed to have a score to settle with a black London cab and constantly overtook me then pulled in in front of me again with inches to spare. I didn’t mind. They were just getting their own back for all the times they’d been chopped by taxis in town, and this was their turf, not mine.
After Huntingdon you know you are in the sticks. The land is flat to either side of a road almost as straight as when the Romans built it first time round. There appears to be no horizon; the sky just seems to land on the fields. Every signpost to the right said to such-and-such a Fen. To the left, an air force base; but most of the Americans had gone now, like the Romans. As personnel levels had been reduced, so second-hand dealerships in Chevrolets and Packards had sprung up in unlikely places such as Corby and Oundle. I’d heard you could still get bargains if your conscience didn’t quiver at leaded petrol and, more to the point, a guzzle rate of about ten miles to the gallon.
Nearer Peterborough, the villages and pubs splattered along the road change character, lathe-and-plaster and sloppy whitewash giving way to square, stone-solid construction.
Bobby Lee had been very specific with his instructions. After the village of Wansford, I was to pull into the third lay-by, and a third of the way along it – so slow down – there would be a gap in the hedge that even people stopped in the lay-by would miss if they weren’t looking for it. The gap led into a field.
As far as finding fields in the middle of nowhere went, his instructions were spot on. Bobby could give lectures on precision bombing.
The only trouble I had was there was nobody there.
I didn’t take Armstrong more than ten feet into the field. He was too old to play at being a 4 x 4, so I turned off the engine and waited. Bobby hadn’t specified a time other than just ‘morning’, but he had said I’d be met. By what, he hadn’t specified. After two minutes I would have welcomed a hare or a rabbit or the odd field mouse. Nothing. Just a field put to grass or set aside or whatever they call it when they get a grant from the bureaucrats in Europe for growing nothing.
Not a stoat, not a pheasant, not a fox, not even a scarecrow, just a white Land Rover Discovery coming straight at me. They say the reason they’re called Discoverys is that you only discover that they are four inches or so taller than the old design Land Rover when you enter a multi-storey car park. Whatever, my thoughts were: was this the local farmer come to shoot a trespasser, and where had he come from anyway?
I started up Armstrong’s engine just in case, but the Discovery slowed and parked alongside me so the driver could lean out of his window.
The driver was a man in his late forties, I guessed. He
had a thick head of curly black hair and he wore a white linen shirt, the sleeves rolled up. He put a forearm on the edge of his door as he leaned over to speak down to me. From his face and arm, I suspected his skin came from a sample patch in a World of Leather showroom.
‘Mr Lee?’ I said.
‘That’s right. Just follow me round the edge of the field. You’ll be all right; the suspension on even that thing should take it. The caravans manage.’ His accent was unplaceable.
‘My name’s Angel,’ I said as he put the Discovery in gear.
‘Guessed as much,’ he said. ‘We don’t get many taxis in this field. You could wait hours for one some days.’
I followed his exhaust.
Halfway round the edge of the field, I could see where he was heading. The field dipped away from the road and led into another, just low enough to be hidden from the main road. There was a five-bar gate on this one, and Lee stopped and got out to open it.
He was a small, wiry man, slightly bow-legged, almost as if one leg had been broken and not set properly at some time. He pushed the gate open, and as he walked back to the Discovery he pantomimed to me that I had to close it.
He drove through and stopped. I pulled up behind him and, as he climbed back behind his wheel, I got out. He waited until I had shut the gate and then slowly drove off. I was about to yell after him, but as he moved, I could see where he was heading. At the bottom corner of this second field was a clump of trees, and around them were parked three long white caravans. There was a new Land Rover to the side of one of them and a small box truck a few yards away. From the cables coming from the truck, I guessed it held a generator of some kind. All the caravans had TV aerials, and one of them a satellite dish.
I eased down the field towards the encampment. Lee parked the Discovery at the door of the central caravan and motioned me to pull in beside it. Maybe the family had a thing about car parking.
‘Come in and have some coffee,’ he said as I climbed out.
The van was nearly new and probably state of the art to people who knew about such things. Not so much a mobile home as a bungalow on wheels. A two-step arrangement had been folded down as a doorstep. At the side of the step were two empty, washed milk bottles.
