Angel Touch

by Mike Ripley

  The one thing that had bothered me was having to borrow Lewis Luther’s helmet. I’d got the riding gear from Duncan, but he’d been unable to come up with a red helmet with black visor. So when Lewis turned up, I decided to show him the money straight away.

  Patterson had prepared an envelope addressed to the secretary of a small, but well-known, wine and spirits shipper that had offices in City Road. It was a draft of PKB’s analysis of their half-year results to be announced the next day. Not high-grade stuff, Patterson had said, but bloody useful to get the figures in advance if you held shares. I had to take him on trust on that. Maybe I should have consulted Lloyd. He probably had the company in his portfolio of holdings. Knowing Lloyd, he probably owned it.

  I told Patterson to follow normal procedure, and he got one of the girls in the postroom to ring Airborne and say there was a package for delivery ASAP and give them just the district, EC1, where it was going.

  Lewis Luther was there within five minutes, and I was waiting for him in the foyer by Purvis’s desk.

  Purvis had even stood up, maybe in the expectation of aggro, so I was glad to disappoint him by greeting Lewis like a soul brother and flashing 50 quid at him.

  ‘Mr Allen said you might want to do something wicked,’ he said.

  ‘I’ll need your helmet,’ I said.

  He balked slightly at that, then he tucked the tenners down his gauntlet and handed it over. I tried it on and it fitted well enough.

  ‘You’ll need this too,’ said Lewis, tapping his collar radio.

  ‘Good point, but you call it in first.’

  ‘Have to do that outside, man. Can’t get no reception inside.’

  ‘The lad’s got a point there,’ said Purvis, as if somebody had asked him.

  ‘Where’s Sorley likely to be with the van?’ I asked.

  ‘Never know till I call,’ Lewis shrugged. ‘But I’ve never known him closer than a mile to a pick-up. He’s careful that way.’

  I bet he was.

  ‘Okay, let’s risk it,’ I said and called the lift.

  Lewis stood by my side and eyed me up and down.

  ‘You think he ain’t gonna notice a difference?’

  ‘With this gear on, he wouldn’t know if I was yellow and green striped,’ I said.

  ‘No man, I didn’t mean that,’ said Lewis as the lift doors opened. ‘I meant one of us so handsome and cool and the other ...’

  There are some people you can go off real quick, aren’t there?

  In the foyer of the PKB building, Lewis got on the radio and called up ‘Airborne One.’

  ‘Airborne Two, what is your destination?’

  ‘City Road, Airborne One,’ said Lewis.

  There was pause, then some static crackle and then:

  ‘Rendezvous is Barbican Centre, Whitecross Street entrance. Confirm.’

  ‘Confirmed,’ said Lewis.

  He flipped a switch, then took the radio off and slung it round my neck.

  ‘He won’t call again unless something goes wrong, like he gets clamped or stuck in traffic or sumfink like that. If he does, you’re Airborne Two, and he likes you to say “Confirmed” instead of “Roger and out” or “Over” or “Piss off,” suchlike.’

  ‘Thanks. You stay here and keep out of sight. Is there any signal when I get to the van?’

  Lewis stuck out his bottom lip and shook his head. ‘Not really, I just kick the back door and he sticks his head out.’

  ‘You ever been inside?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Okay. I’ll do the business with Sorley and I’ll come straight back here so you can do the run proper. Go back upstairs and ask Sergeant Purvis to get you a coffee,’ I added maliciously.

  ‘I’ll squat here, man. Less aggro.’

  He unzipped his jacket and took out a scrunched-up copy of Motor Cycle News, opened it out, leaned against the wall of the lobby and began to read. People got in and out of the lifts and didn’t give him a second glance. He could have been put there by the interior decorators.

  I slid Lewis’s helmet on and cut myself off from the world.

  It was a bit unnerving at first, and the lining stank of old aftershave. I put the visor down before I got out on to Gresham Street and almost walked into the edge of a glass door, but by the time I got to the Kawasaki, my eyes had adjusted themselves. I fumbled Lewis’s key into the ignition, the gauntlets handicapping my fingers and adding to the impression that I felt like a spaceman dropped into molasses for gravity training.

  The bike started sweetly and proved easier to handle than I’d expected. It had been a few years since I’d ridden a bike, but it’s like sex: provided you don’t fall off, you soon get back into the swing of it.

  I cut round the Guildhall, almost taking out a couple of early-season French tourists who hadn’t got the hang of looking left first before they crossed the road, and through on to Moorgate.

  If I’d been doing a pukka delivery, I could just have carried straight on virtually due north and come to City Road. To give him his due, Sorley had picked a good place for his sneak preview of Patterson’s mail. Unlike the residences bit of the Barbican, where Sorrel had a flat, the entrance to the Arts Centre part is off Chiswell Street, which was an easy left turn for me just after Finsbury Circus.

  Chiswell Street is quiet and sedate nowadays, but two hundred years ago it was the powerhouse for the Whitbread brewery, which churned out Porter, the dark beer named after the London market porters who knocked it back at a fearsome rate early in the morning. Nowadays they get sales like that only if one of the Philharmonic Orchestras is in residence round the corner at the Barbican.

  Left again, after the brewery (where they still have the Porter Tun Rooms, a tun being a big barrel not a weight, though not many people know that) is Whitecross Street and the Barbican entrance, where many tourists go in and some actually find the theatre or gallery they’re supposed to be going to.

  I found the red Transit easily enough; it was the only one in the street and it had the same number plate as the day before. I parked snug in behind its rear doors, at an angle, straddling the bike like Lewis had done. I was about to knock when the door opened.

  The Chinless Wonder stuck his head out and said something which was probably ‘You’re late’ but I couldn’t hear because of the helmet and the idling bike engine.

  I took the envelope out of the left-hand saddle-bag and held it across my chest. This meant Sorley had to lean further out of the van to grab it, and as the door opened wider I got a good look inside.

  One side of the van’s interior had been kitted out with shelving. The higher shelves held plastic containers of the sort a do-it-yourself handyman would keep screws and nails in so the effect was of a dozen or so pigeonholes. Each hole was stuffed with envelopes; brown ones, manila, white and jiffy bags. The bottom shelf was wider and it held a square white machine that looked like a document shredder.

  Then Sorley’s arm, the envelope and the rest of him disappeared inside and the door closed.

  It couldn’t be a shredder; that was just plain daft. Yet it didn’t look like a photocopying machine. I decided to chance it and killed the bike’s engine and took off the helmet.

  If anyone had seen me bent over a motorbike with my ear pressed to the back of a Transit van outside the Barbican that morning, probably they wouldn’t have looked twice. They would have put it down to an alfresco commercial for one of the shows.

  I could hear Sorley thumping around inside and then a distinctive whine and a sort of humming stutter. It could be only one thing, a fax machine. The cheeky buggers were faxing the stuff to save time.

  I had the bike revved up and the helmet and visor back in place by the time Sorley opened the door and thrust the letter at me. It was a new envelope and address label, so he must have had a typewriter in there too, but unle
ss you were looking for it, you would hardly have spotted the swap.

  I turned around and pulled away. I was confident that Sorley hadn’t rumbled me, but I didn’t look back. I turned into Chiswell Street and then risked a look. There was no sign of the Transit, so I hung a right back the way I’d come.

  So now I knew how the Sorley/Cawthorne private intelligence line worked, and I was willing to bet that there was another fax machine at Pegasus Farm currently on ‘receive.’

  Doing that had been easy. Now came the difficult part: telling Patterson I was borrowing his car.

  Chapter Ten

  ‘A fax? A fucking fax machine?’

  ‘Deep breaths, Tel, keep calm.’

  ‘It’s not possible.’ He was beginning to look like a man who wished he smoked. ‘We don’t use fax to send stuff like that, because they’re not secure.’

  ‘What do you mean, secure?’

  Patterson waved away my stupid question.

  ‘Oh, not the machines themselves; they’re bloody useful. It’s just that most offices put them in the open near the coffee machine or the Ladies loo and anybody can see what’s coming over. So you send only non-confidential stuff that way. Eyes Only material goes by hand.’

  ‘By Airborne,’ I said smugly, crossing my feet on the edge of his desk.

  He gave me a look that made me wonder if the leather riding gear was knife-proof, then he sprang at the internal phone and pressed two buttons.

  ‘Ask Howard to get in here,’ he said into the mouthpiece. Then he stared at the phone rather than me for about a minute until the door opened.

  ‘This is Howard Golding,’ he said to me, but made no effort to tell Howard who I was. ‘He’s our analyst for electronics and the communications sector.’

  Howard was wearing regulation red-striped shirt and braces but his glasses were the trend-setting steel octagon design rather than the circular, coloured owl frames that were on their way out. He leaned against the wall of Tel’s office as there wasn’t another chair, and folded his arms. ‘How can I help?’ he asked with a faint American or Canadian twang.

  ‘Fax machines,’ said Patterson. ‘What do you know about them?’

  Howard raised an eyebrow and took a deep breath.

  ‘Facsimile transmission of hard copy documentation began in this country just after World War II but was not really exploited until the late ‘60s, and even then very limited in numbers and versatility. Breakthrough came in the ‘80s with digital technology and speeds of sub-one-minute per page transmission and greatly enhanced copy quality. I reckon there are now more faxes around than telex machines, say 100K in this country. Something like two dozen brand names, biggest player probably NEC Business Systems with their Nefax machines. On the horizon, laser printing and faster transmission times as telephones improve. Growth market, good potential. I’d flag the whole area as a “buy” without a worry.’

  I blinked at Patterson, but he seemed to have understood most of it.

  ‘What about a mobile unit?’ he asked.

  ‘You mean in a car or something?’ Howard considered for about a micro second. ‘Sure. If you can have a car phone, in theory you can have a fax machine to go with it. There’s certainly one mobile unit on the market at the moment, though not many people realise it. All you need is an interface from the car phone and an inverter from the battery to supply the power. No problem. Want me to check it out?’

  ‘No, never mind,’ said Tel, looking at me.

  ‘Can you have an ex-directory fax number?’ I asked Howard. ‘They have their own phone lines, don’t they?’

  ‘Sure,’ Howard said. ‘I don’t see why you can’t have a private line, though it defeats the object of getting people to send you things you need in a hurry.’ He looked at Patterson and said, ‘Anything else, boss?’

  Tel shook his head and Howard closed the door on his way out.

  ‘So where are we?’ He looked at his watch. ‘Apart from late for a lunch meeting.’

  I’d taken my feet off his desk while Howard had been in. It wouldn’t have been good for staff morale. I replaced them.

  ‘We know how your leaks happened and we have a good idea where the information ends up. Salome and Alec weren’t doing the Exhilarator for their health, were they?’

  He looked uncomfortable at that. I wondered if it had been his bright idea that had sent them there.

  ‘My guess is that one of them found the other end of the conduit, maybe the fax machine at Pegasus or evidence of Cawthorne acting on information he shouldn’t have had. Whatever it was, he felt he had to get rid of them.’

  ‘Are you sure about that?’ He was definitely uncomfortable now. ‘I mean, you are talking serious crime here.’

  ‘Yes, Tel, it’s called murder, and the last I heard it was certainly against the law. I believe the expression round here is “downside of legal.”‘

  ‘You can’t prove a thing.’

  ‘Get me a camera, and if we repeat this morning’s little exercise, we’ll be able to prove the leak end of things. But I want to look round Pegasus Farm and see if we can dig up anything there. If we blow Sorley, he’ll just sell the van and do a runner.’

  ‘The Exhilarator only does night exercises – don’t look at me like that, that’s what they call them – on Friday and Saturday. That’s why Alec and Salome went then, so they could look around. They knew what they were looking for. Think you can do better?’

  ‘I can’t do worse, can I?’

  He thought about this.

  ‘When?’

  ‘Tomorrow maybe. From the brochures, you can book the day before. I’ll need some cash. Expenses.’

  He automatically reached for the cheque-book. ‘I’ll make it for cash. I don’t want any comebacks on the company.’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Are you any good at these war game things?’

  ‘Never been on one. But I have to look the part. You know, bored City whiz-kid. I’ll have to borrow your BMW.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Well, I can’t turn up on the bus, can I?’

  ‘Haven’t you got a car?’

  ‘Sort of, but it wouldn’t create the right impression.’

  ‘Are you insured?’

  ‘Up to the hilt, Tel. Don’t worry.’

  He scratched his head, then tweaked his nose before fishing in a pocket for the BMW’s keys.

  ‘I’m taking one hell of a chance on you.’

  ‘What are the options?’ I picked up the keys before he could change his mind. ‘Go to the police? With what? Maybe we’ve got enough to get them interested, but the word’ll be out that Prior, Keen, Baldwin leaks like a sieve. Want that?’

  ‘Of course not.’ He narrowed his eyes and tried to look tough. ‘But what are you getting out of it? Are you doing this because you think he hurt Salome?’

  ‘I’m sure he did, Tel. I think he waited on Blackberry Hill in the dark until Sal and Alec came round the corner and then he bumped their car off the road and into space. I didn’t know Alec, but Salome’s virtually family, so I’m after Cawthorne for that, yeah. But also –’ I flipped the keys a couple of times as I stood up – ‘because I think he enjoyed doing it.’

  I rang Sorrel’s flat from Sergeant Purvis’s desk, and as he was out to lunch, I sat on it and rearranged his pencils in a petty and thoroughly satisfying bit of vandalism.

  Werewolf answered and said he was in the middle of cooking lunch as Sorrel was out. I hoped she knew to expect that her kitchen would look like a nuclear test site when she returned.

  I told him I had planned to take him to lunch. He said he couldn’t wait, as he had some business to attend to, but he’d be in a pub called the Banker if I could pick him up about 3.00.

  I asked him if he’d misheard the name of the pub, and he said gosh how original, he bet nobody h
ad thought of that before and he’d be sure to tell the landlord.

  After he’d hung up, I phoned an OADF(F) – old and distinguished friend (female) – called Fly. I’m sure her mother called her something else, Eunice I think, but most people called her Fly, though I’ve no idea why. I can be terribly innocent in some things.

  Fly ran the Hackney branch of a chainstore optician’s, and we went back quite a long way together, as OADFs go. She told me she didn’t eat lunch any more as it had become a bourgeois meal, but I could call in for a cup of decaf and con her into whatever it was I wanted. Fly knew me well. It’s frightening sometimes.

  Never having been one to look an unguarded telephone in the mouth, I made another call, to the number on the Exhilarator brochure I’d taken from Salome’s case.

  A woman answered with: ‘The Exhilarator. How can I help?’

  ‘Good afternoon. A friend and I have come across your brochure and we’d like to give your course a try. Would there be a chance, say, tomorrow?’

  ‘We have a shoot scheduled for ten am, sir. We do not call them assault courses.’

  ‘I’m so sorry.’ I can crawl when I have to. ‘Could I book?’

  ‘Certainly, sir. Briefing is ten am sharp. How will you be paying?’

  ‘Cash.’

  ‘Could I have the names, please.’

  ‘Maclean and ... er ...’ Come on, think fast. ‘... Chaney.’

  Well, Lon Chaney had played the Wolfman, hadn’t he? And I didn’t think that was bad at such short notice.

  ‘Fine, sir. Booking confirmed. We’ll see you on parade. Everything is provided, but you might wish to bring your own action footwear.’

  Action footwear? Christ.

  That little bridge would have to be crossed later. For the moment, I had two vehicles in PKB’s underground car park: Armstrong and Tel’s BMW.

  Much as I was itching to play with the Bob Marley, I knew I would have more chance of parking Armstrong illegally when I collected Werewolf. And I had a change of clothing in Armstrong’s boot, so the faithful old retainer won out over the flash German status symbol.