Just Another Angel

by Mike Ripley

‘Hey, no problem, Mrs Scamp, I’m not selling.’

  ‘You buying? You totting?’

  ‘No.’ Did I look like a rag-and-bone man? I was supposed to look like a London cabby. Maybe she had a point. ‘‘Ere on a mission of mercy, lady. Returning lost property.’

  She relaxed fractionally. The dog didn’t move, but I kept an eye on it, though she herself was formidable enough. Though she was no more than five feet tall in her carpet slippers, you just knew it would be best not to cross her. She was the sort of Granny who ate bayonets.

  ‘I ain’t lost nuffink. You a rozzer?’

  Rozzer? Did people in ‘Sarf London’ still use words like that? Where was Henry Higgins when you needed him?

  ‘Do I look like Old Bill, lady?’ I put on the Cockney something rotten. I’d be doing rhyming slang if I didn’t watch out. I pulled Jo’s drastic plastic out. ‘I’ve found these.’

  ‘What are they?’ she asked, screwing up her eyes and reaching into the pocket of her flowery pinafore. ‘My specs are inside.’

  ‘They’re credit cards …’ I started, as planned.

  ‘I can see that,’ she snapped. ‘I’m not ready for the knacker’s just yet.’

  ‘Sorry, Mrs Scamp, but I found ‘em on the floor in the back of the cab.’ I turned one round. ‘There you are, Mrs J Scamp.’

  ‘That ain’t me. I’m not Jay anything, I’m Ay-Eee.’ She paused, and I could hear her brain cells creaking into action as she reached out a hand covered in enough costume jewellery to make a decent knuckle-duster. ‘You’d better come in. There’s no point letting the whole street know our business. Stay there, Nigger.’

  I don’t know about short-sighted, but the old crone was colour blind. The dog was grey. I knew that, as I had no intention of taking my eyes off it.

  ‘In here,’ she said, leaving me to shut the front door, then follow her into the front room.

  The dog curled a lip at me but made no sound, then took up position in the front room doorway.

  ‘Nigger won’t touch you,’ said Mrs Scamp cheerily, ‘unless you make a move towards me – sudden, like. I call him that so I can shout down the street after him and those bastards in the race relations office can’t touch me for it.’ She treated herself to a short cackle. ‘I enjoy that.’

  Thank God we don’t have proportional representation in this country. She’d get elected.

  The front room was full of everything front rooms were full of when they had the sale after the Festival of Britain. There was a fireplace, now housing an electric fake-log affair, with a mantelpiece. On it were a variety of jugs and china vases from the same school of design as the pixie doorknocker. Behind one souvenir from a day trip to Brighton was a crumpled 100-franc note. There was nothing wrong with my eyesight.

  There was also a pair of blue-rimmed glasses that Dame Edna Everage wouldn’t have looked amiss in. Mrs Scamp levered them onto her face and I handed her the Access card.

  ‘No, this isn’t Jack’s ...’ she said to herself.

  ‘I’m sorry, missus?’ I played it thick.

  ‘It’s definitely Mrs Scamp, but it ain’t me. Anway, I’ve not been in a black cab in years. Them minicab jobs is miles cheaper than your lot. And they come when you call ‘em.’

  I tried to look suitably aggrieved.

  ‘It must be ‘ers,’ she said suddenly.

  ‘You said “Jack”,’ I offered helpfully. ‘Could that be Jacqueline?’

  ‘Nah.’ The old lady dismissed my pathetic attempts at logic. ‘Jack’s my son. These’ll be ‘is missus, silly cow. Left ‘em in the back of a cab, did she? Was she with another bloke, eh?’

  ‘I’m sorry, lady, I don’t know what you’re getting at,’ I said, without a word of a lie.

  ‘Jack’s wife,’ she said with emphasis. ‘I told him she was trouser-happy as soon as I saw her, but he wouldn’t listen. Infatuated with her, he was; had to have her. She’d be out running up the bills, I suppose.’

  ‘Who … er …?’

  The old woman dropped the Access card into her pinafore pocket and picked up a framed photograph from a small table near the window. She held it out for me to see.

  ‘That’s her, ain’t it?’

  Through a fine layer of dust and a couple of smudged fingerprints, it was easy to pick out Jo, despite her hair being much longer and the unflattering white trouser suit. The guy with her I’d never seen before. He was shortish and wiry and had a straight, thin moustache, and I guessed he was anywhere between 40 and 45. If you couldn’t see that they were outside a Registry Office, you might have thought it was a man out shopping with his daughter.

  ‘Yeah, that’s the lady,’ I said.

  ‘And she with another feller, eh? When she was in the cab?’

  I thought quickly. ‘She was with a bloke, but not this one ...’

  ‘Well, it wouldn’t be Jack,’ she said quickly, then stopped herself.

  ‘A much bigger bloke,’ I went on. ‘Really broad shoulders. Huge guy.’

  She cracked her face for a while. Once seen, even the briefest description of Nevil seems to suffice, and she recognised it – and relaxed.

  ‘Well, give me the other one,’ she said, holding out the handful of rings again. ‘I’ll see she gets them.’

  I made a show of hesitating. ‘Well, I really ought to give them to her personally, or send them back to the bank. That’s what we’re supposed to do.’

  ‘So you can tap her up for a few quid petrol money, eh? Is that the game?’

  She made a sudden move towards me and, from the doorway, Nigger started to growl softly. I came round to her way of thinking and handed over the Visa card.

  ‘Didn’t consider that for a minute, lady,’ I said, playing the part. ‘But come to think of it, I have gone out of my ...’

  She wasn’t listening.

  ‘Or maybe you fancied your chances with her, eh?’ She was getting shrill and moving closer. I had a feeling that so was Nigger. ‘Fancied my Jack’s wife, did yer?’

  Then she put her hands on her hips and threw back her head. It took me a couple of seconds to realise she was laughing. I hoped Nigger had a sense of humour too.

  ‘Well, you’d be lucky, my lad! She’s too stuck up to look for it in the back of a cab just yet, but it’ll come to it one day when she gets a few more years on her; even the milkman won’t be safe, and she’ll be grateful. I warned our Jack, I did. Did he listen? Hah!’

  It was a profound philosopher (or maybe The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy) who said bad things always happen on Thursdays. Here was the empirical proof: trapped in Woolwich with a geriatric nutter and the Hound of the Baskervilles.

  ‘Look, lady, I’ve done my bit and I’ll be off now.’ I edged towards the door.

  ‘You wait till I tell him she’s been spending up West. It was up West, wasn’t it?’

  She moved after me. From the corner of my eye I saw Nigger retreat a couple of paw lengths, perhaps to get a better run at me.

  ‘Well, it might have been. I can’t honestly …’

  ‘Spending like there was no tomorrow, I’ll bet. Was it clothes? Did she have clothes with her?’

  ‘I think it was more like Sainsbury’s, actually …’ Christ, what a daft thing to say.

  ‘She always ‘ad more clothes than she could wear. Four or five outfits a day, the spoilt bitch. I told ‘im he spoiled her and no good would come of it …’

  There was other stuff in similar vein, but by this time I had my hand on the Yale latch and was opening the door.

  ‘Fine … Well, cheerio, missus.’

  It was then that Nigger decided to get in on the act, and launched himself the length of the hallway.

  I was out of the house faster than a rat up a drainpipe, and I’d slammed the door shut before Nigger banged into the back of it. He was so miffe
d at missing me that he head-banged the door a couple of times, making the pixie doorknocker rattle on its hinge.

  That dog had problems, but living there, I could see why.

  I didn’t hang about getting to Armstrong and getting him started and headed back to Plumstead Road.

  Thank God tomorrow was Friday, it couldn’t be worse.

  Then I was arrested.

  They did it very well, that I’ll grant them, but then they’ve had plenty of practice.

  An unmarked Ford Escort pulled out from the kerb slow enough to give me plenty of time to ease up and reach for the horn. But the Escort didn’t stop, it came on until it blocked the road completely, and before I could react, my door had been pulled open and a warrant card thrust in my face.

  One of them sat in the back – again – and made me follow the Escort, but at least this time they were plainclothes men, not uniformed, so my street cred didn’t suffer.

  We headed back to the dockyards and onto the approach road for the Blackwall Tunnel. I asked the copper in the back if that was where we were heading but he said, ‘Just follow,’ so I did, and it was.

  The old India and Millwall docks are situated on the one huge horseshoe bend in the river. It’s a sobering thought that in a million years or so, the Thames will break through somewhere around Poplar High Street and turn it into a proper island. No, it’s not a sobering thought, it’s a weird one. Why should I worry about such things? I mean, it’s not as if I owned property there.

  I followed the Escort through the tunnel, when it hung a left down towards Cubitt Town but turned into Coldharbour and the cop shop there before then.

  This time it was a room with three armchairs and a view over the river. There was a table near the window on which were three Carlsberg ashtrays (no wonder you can’t find one in a pub) and a pair of professional-looking binoculars. I could see a barge or something out there in the middle of the Thames, but I’ve never been much good with boats. My experience on Old Father Thames is limited to the Tattershall Castle just down the Houses of Parliament. That has the double advantages of being (a) stationary and (b) licensed.

  ‘Don’t do it, laddie,’ said a voice behind me. ‘The drop’s not enough to kill you and the water’s pig-filthy.’

  ‘I thought there were salmon in the Thames nowadays.’

  ‘Yeah, in tins, from Tesco’s.’

  ‘Another illusion shattered. And what have I done this time, Mr Malpass?’

  ‘You tell me, laddie, you tell me.’

  He picked up one of the ashtrays and sat down in an armchair, crossing his legs and balancing it on his knee. He fished out a packet of cigarettes and kept them to himself.

  ‘You can start with old Edna. What didya make of her, then?’

  ‘Edna who?’

  ‘Oh tut-tut, laddie, my time’s valuable, you know. D’you know, it seems like only yesterday we were having one of these happy little talks.’

  ‘It was yesterday.’

  ‘My goodness me, was it really?’ he said, laying on the Scottish accent so that it sounded more like Scotch by absorption rather than birth. ‘So yesterday we had our chat and today you go social calling on Mrs Edna Scamp, well-known geriatric reprobate and old slag of the parish of Woolwich. That’s what I call interesting. Wouldn’t you say that was interesting, Mr Angel?’

  I put my hands in my pockets and rocked on my heels. I hadn’t sat down because he hadn’t asked me to. I notice things like that.

  ‘I find a lot of things interesting. The thought of a Labour Government, interstellar travel, Phil Collins writing a song with a comma in it, why there aren’t any walnuts inside a Walnut Whip any more. All that, and more, including why I seem to be this month’s centrefold in Police Gazette.’

  ‘You’re a popular laddie, laddie.’ Malpass beamed at that. I suspected that he didn’t laugh much, probably on religious grounds. Something to do with the Kirk, and I don’t mean Captain James T.

  ‘But let’s cut the crapola, shall we? What were you doing with our Edna, eh?’

  ‘How did you know I was there?’ It was worth asking. He wasn’t going to tell me anything, so I tried to trade info.

  ‘Like the Listening Bank, sonny, we have branches everywhere.’

  ‘That’s a relief, I thought you were going to say, “Ve ask ze questions,” and then whip the rubber truncheons out.’

  Malpass put the fingers of his right hand on the chair arm and pressed them down one at a time until all four knuckles cracked loudly. When he’d done that, he took the cigarette out of his mouth, tapped some ash off and studied the glowing end. I think he’d been practising his pauses.

  ‘We don’t need the truncheons, Mr Angel, do we? Because you’re going to cooperate with me.’

  ‘I always like to help the Thin Blue Line,’ I smiled, not adding that in Brixton it was called the Thick, etc.

  ‘You’re bright, laddie, try and catch on. I said help me, ‘cos this is a bit personal.’

  Oh God. A policeman with a problem I needed like a politician wants a lie-detector test.

  ‘And you’re going to help me.’ That wasn’t a question, and I was getting an awful bad feeling about this. Deep in my stomach the whirling pits started a few trial revolutions, and it wasn’t down to the meat pie I’d had.

  ‘Gonna tell me how?’

  Malpass stubbed out his cigarette.

  ‘Let me tell you why. First off, you drive a cab but you’re not a licensed Hackney Carriage.’ Well, I park in Hackney, but it probably doesn’t count. ‘And we can make life very difficult for you. Give somebody a lift and take cash for it and we’ve got you, so you might have to be very careful who you travel with, if you get my drift.’

  I did.

  ‘Then there’s a small matter of your presence at two locations within a week that have been under police surveillance. That’s going to take a bit of explaining. I’m sure. But best is last, as we’ve got you bang to rights handling stolen property.’

  If he expected me to break into tears and confess, then he was a good judge of character, but I had Dod to think about, and Dod had a missus and kids and anyway was bigger than me and after all was a pretty good drummer. I should have known. Fire-damaged gin! What an airhead!

  ‘Bang to rights, eh?’ was all I could think of to say.

  ‘Yup,’ drawled the detective. ‘We have a signed statement from a Mr Nassim Somethingorother to say that –’

  Nassim? What the hell had he got to do with it?

  ‘– he accepted the notes in good faith from you as payment for rent on –’

  ‘Pardon?’

  I sat down on the edge of the table. Malpass didn’t seem to mind. Well, at least he didn’t hit me.

  ‘Your rent money, sonny. Two hundred sovs in marked notes. It was hot money – nicked from a sub post office in Southend three weeks ago. We wouldn’t have got onto it except it happened to be a post office where the little old lady is careful and takes a note of the numbers of anything over a fiver. All your twenties were on her little list, and when Mr Nassim put them in the bank yesterday, he got a nasty shock. Mind you, so did we when we went round your place last night and found you gone. So it was decent of you to show up today.’

  ‘I don’t know where the money came from,’ I said feebly.

  ‘No, of course you don’t. It just gets left on the doorstep with the milk, doesn’t it. Grow up, laddie, this is serious. We have good reason to believe that the Southend job was one of a string of maybe six post-office robberies. Total amount missing is close on 15 grand, and yours is the first to turn up.’

  ‘And if you thought you could pin it on me, you’d have had me cautioned and the bracelets on by now,’ I said bravely.

  ‘Quite right, laddie, but I think handling should be enough to hold you for a while. Shall I get one of the uniforms in and take
a statement? Do you want to call a brief?’

  So, stakes were raised. Well, there’s a time to call a bluff and a time to fold – fold up, roll over and beg for mercy, that is.

  I told him that Jo had given me the cash, though I was suitably vague as to exactly how I recovered her lost property. I told him that I’d seen her in the company of a minder I didn’t like the look of and that I’d followed them to Woolwich. They’d visited the old Mrs Scamp and then so had I, and all I’d found out was that she was Jo’s mother-in-law and probably had a picture of Hitler on her bedside table.

  ‘How did they get in?’ was all Malpass asked.

  ‘In the back. There’s an alley running along the back of the gardens. They parked round the corner.’

  ‘Bugger,’ he said softly, to himself.

  ‘You didn’t have anybody watching the back, did you? Just on Lee Metford Road, and all you saw was me.’ Why was I so smug about that? After all, I was the one in trouble.

  Malpass brought out his cigarettes again and this time offered me one. I broke the filter off and tapped it on my thumb before I took a light from him. Joe Cool hisself, I don’t think.

  ‘Manpower, you see. It all comes down to manpower. Not a big enough allocation for something like this, that’s the trouble.’

  ‘I’d think 15 grand was a good reason to call out the dogs, or doesn’t it work that way?’

  ‘Oh, the Essex lads are out in force, no problem, but I’m sure the hooligans who did the post offices were working from south of the river. That’s what the grapevine says, and I think I know why.’

  ‘But you don’t really think it was me?’

  He smiled the way the German general von Moltke smiled when the Swedish ambassador told him Stockholm was impregnable.

  ‘No, I don’t think you knock over post offices. In fact, I don’t really care who actually did the jobs at all.’

  ‘Now there’s a novel approach to police work. I bet it keeps the filing easy.’

  ‘Don’t be lippy. I don’t like it, and it’ll annoy me now we’re working together.’

  ‘I don’t like the sound of that.’

  ‘That’s only ‘cos you don’t know what you’re into. You’re surprisingly innocent.’