Angel Confidential (4 page)

‘Are you sure nothing was taken, miss?' he asked politely.

‘Not that I can see,' sniffed Veronica. ‘It's just ... just ... damage.'

‘Kids,' he said, disappointedly, as if he'd been looking forward to a bit of grand larceny. ‘What sort of business was the old ... was Mr Block in?'

‘He was an enquiry agent and security consultant,' Veronica said primly.

I held up my hand to the copper so Veronica couldn't see, and gestured that, yes, we'd be doing all the jokes, he needn't bother.

‘Kids, you reckon?' I said for the sake of something to say.

‘Bound to be. Didn't expect to find the old man here. Maybe they threatened him then did a runner when he choked his rig.' He caught Veronica's silent sob and heaving frame and added: ‘Sorry.'

‘Kids with sledgehammers and a really bad attitude?' I pressed.

‘I've seen worse. This is getting to be a bad area.'

‘How about some more community policing on the beat, then?' I pushed it.

‘Get me a flak jacket and some CS gas and I'll think about it.'

His partner returned holding a sheet of paper. He offered it to me.

‘Here's a list of 24-hour builders, glaziers and general repair merchants who'll come and fix things so they'll hold for the night.'

The sheet of paper was a photocopied list of about 30 names and phone numbers, arranged by postal area.

‘Give many of these out?' I asked, scanning the list.

‘More than parking tickets these days,' the PC said wearily. ‘Saves time usually. People can't get it together enough to use the Yellow Pages at times like this.'

He looked at Veronica, who had her back to us, staring out of the grimy window.

‘Yeah, okay, I'll get something organised,' I submitted.

‘If you use one of them' – he pointed at the list – ‘then get a proper builder in tomorrow. Half of them are real cowboys.'

Good; in that case I might know some of them.

‘If there's nothing in Shepherd's Bush, there'll be somebody over in Kilburn. Bound to be.'

‘That's okay,' I said, spotting somebody I knew on the list. ‘I'll get it sorted.'

He looked at his mate, who reached for the radio at his collar. They were ready to sign this one off.

There was nothing more for them to do really. It was now down to Albert Block and Veronica and their insurance company and one more notch on the petty crime statistics. The shorter of the two coppers did try though.

‘Are you sure you're going to be all right, luv?' he said as if he meant it.

Now, most women I know would have made him eat his own truncheon for his patronising tone and the word ‘luv', but I thought for a moment Veronica was going to hug him.

‘It's kind of you to ask. I don't really know, I must go and see if Albert is all right.'

‘They won't let you see him tonight, dear. Wait ‘til tomorrow. Is there anywhere you can go, if you don't fancy staying here, that is?'

Veronica inhaled hugely. ‘Not really. I can't think of anywhere, so I suppose I'll have to make do and sort something out, but I really, really don't like the thought of staying here. Silly of me, isn't it? What a goose I am.'

Goose?
Where was this woman coming from?

Then I realised that all three of them were looking at me. Oh, shit, no.

 

 

 

 

 

Before they left, the cops offered Veronica the use of some ‘POLICE AWARE' stickers and some of their crime-scene tape, to put on and around the smashed-in front door. I turned them down on her behalf, explaining that she had been burglarised once already today and she no longer needed to advertise.

Once the uniforms had gone, I asked Veronica for the use of her phone. She said it was in Albert's office, and we found it on the floor behind a wastepaper bin. I didn't need the list the police had left as I knew Dod's number already. I knew Dod. We were old mates.

‘Who?'

‘It's Angel. Roy Angel.'

‘The horn player?'

‘Yeah.'

‘The one what drives a cab?'

‘Yeah.'

‘The one what still owes me 40 folding from that jazz night in Pub Week?'

‘Exactly the reason I'm belling you, Dod,' I said quickly, ‘plus the chance of a bit of added value in the shape of a call-out insurance job.'

‘Oh yeah? Your place?'

‘No. Shepherd's Bush. I was on my way to deliver your dosh. I've been a bit strapped of late, but I had the cash, so I thought of you. Then I hit on these old friends of mine having a spot of bother with a break-in.'

‘Shepherd's Bush? That's not on the way to Bethnal Green.'

‘Depends where you start from, Dod.' That baffled him. ‘Need an overnight front door; proper job tomorrow changing the locks.'

‘Any windows forced?'

I looked at Veronica. She just shrugged uselessly. ‘Don't think so.'

‘Good. I ‘ate fucking windows.'

‘So you'll come over?'

‘There's a £65 one-hour call-out charge, plus materials.'

‘Do I get a receipt for the taxman?'

‘All right, call it 50 plus the 40 you owe me.'

‘Fair enough.'

I gave him directions and hung up.

‘It'll cost £120,' I told Veronica, ‘but you'll probably get it back from the insurance company.'

If she had looked distraught up to now, she was suddenly on the final approach to Stress City.

‘I don't think I can raise that much. There's about £90 in the petty cash box,' she quivered. ‘Plus ten pounds for the milkman tomorrow.'

‘Take each day as it comes,' I soothed. ‘Forget about the milkman, he'll understand. And I've got a few quid on me. You can owe it me.'

 

Dod's arrival hardly instilled Veronica with confidence, no matter how many times I told her that Dod Dodwell was one of the best traditional jazz drummers in London. Well, Bethnal Green, anyway. And he had the great advantage that he ran an ancient Transit van (well over-insured in the hope it would be stolen) so he could transport not only his drum kit, but most of the rest of the band as well.

Not that I had actually played with Dod for a while. A combination of things had kept me off the Sunday lunchtime pub jazz circuit in recent months. For a start, it was getting so popular it just wasn't fun any more. At one time there had been a strange kudos from playing totally unfashionable music, but now it looked like authentic Dixieland was making a comeback. Some pubs were even into marching bands, with middle-aged East End housewives decorating their own umbrellas so they could swirl and twirl along. Some Sundays it was just like New Orleans down in Canning Town. Or it would have been if the weather had been different. And the food. And the drinks; especially the drinks. Somehow a strawberry hurricane served in a straight pint glass loses something.

And as it grew in popularity, so it grew in seriousness. When I did one gig in Limehouse, I had a pair of punters wearing ‘Ken Colyer Appreciation Society' T-shirts standing a yard away taking notes on my solos. That was enough to turn me towards small club gigs doing elementary backing for merengue
and salsa
bands while that craze lasted. But then my teeth and jaw made a sudden and very painful connection with a sackful of builder's rubble, swung by a lowlife whom one day I would run across again, or preferably run over.

Until the orthodontist's work was done, my old B-flat trumpet was in its case and the case was gathering dust. The great horn players of old could play standing, sitting, falling, smashed or drunk, but none of them could manage without a set of chops.

Music was the last thing on Dod's mind as he stood in the doorway, blotting out what was left of the evening light. He had a canvas toolbag in his left hand, and his right hand was extended in the ‘gimme' position. I said hello and introduced him to Veronica, making it clear that she would be paying the bills, but still he didn't speak or move.

So I pressed some notes into the gimme hand and he thumbed them before they disappeared into his shell suit. Then he dropped the toolbag on the hall floor with a satisfying clatter and looked around.

‘This the one you want fixing then?' he asked, staring at the front door hanging off its hinges.

I did a double take as if I had only just noticed it.

‘So that's where the draught is coming from,' I said, having nothing to lose now he had his money.

He squeaked the door to and fro with one of his giant paws, and I wouldn't have been surprised if he had pulled the door frame away from the wall.

‘Easiest thing to do is rehang this and put you a padlock on the front. I can give you a key so you can get in tomorrow before I get round. It'll be lunchtime, I ‘spect.'

That meant he would be moonlighting from another job, which was good. We might get the materials free.

‘Will it hold?' I asked.

‘Yes,' Veronica chipped in. ‘Will it be secure?'

Dod bit back a snarl at me – he always watched his language in front of women.

‘Lady, my locks always hold,' he said proudly.

‘That's very reassuring, Dod,' I quipped, determined to get my money's worth. ‘By the way, did they ever recover your video?'

 

While waiting for Dod, I'd told Veronica to get her kit together for a night in exciting Hackney, as it seemed I had been volunteered into the bed and breakfast industry.

She disappeared upstairs and I heard her clumping about in her room and, naturally, took the opportunity to snoop about a bit. Not that there was much of interest to snoop. The filing cabinets in A1bert's office were locked and there had been no obvious sign anyone had tried to force them. The few things that could have been pinched – a Dictaphone machine, an ancient golf-ball typewriter, a radio – were all still there. Maybe the cops had been right, it had been some kids out on a jolly who'd lost their bottle when Albert turned out to be in residence. Especially when he'd had his heart attack.

I was standing by the window in Albert's office, looking down into the alley at the back and thinking how much easier it would have been to break in that way, when my foot jabbed something metal and sharp. It was a tripod, its legs collapsed, which had fallen or been knocked down the side of a filing cabinet. I pulled it out and found a 35 mm camera with flash attachment on the end. I couldn't tell if the camera was damaged or not, but there was no film in it. Like most of the gear in the office, it was no great prize, and probably the tripod was worth more than the camera, but still you'd have thought it worth having away.

Could it have been the film somebody was after? The whole set up smelled of more than simple vandalism, and it could be that the film was the one thing missing. The one thing the cops had overlooked. I was really getting into the private eye lifestyle.

Veronica put me right when she returned carrying an ancient suitcase.

‘The only thing on the film was me,' she said, wide-eyed. ‘Albert was taking passport photographs of me in case we ever needed them for security badges, things like that.'

‘You're sure he had film in the camera?' I checked, as I've come across the funny camera/French model business before.

‘Of course he did. I took it to the chemist's myself yesterday.' Then she paused. ‘Why did you ask that?'

‘What?'

‘Why would anyone take pictures without a film in the camera?'

‘You're the detective,' I smiled.

 

I was just the driver, and it took ages to get Veronica back to Stuart Street as we had to go via Queen Charlotte's hospital to try to get in to see Albert. No chance of that before the next morning after the consultant's round, we were told by a harassed receptionist who needed us pestering her like she needed an outbreak of plague. She did take my number, though, as a contact point, in case there were any developments during the night. Was there something in the way she said that, and was she really admiring my smile? Or had I just had a long day? I made a mental note of her name badge – Oonagh, the Irish way. Well, you never knew.

Then we had to stop and get something to eat. That in itself wouldn't have taken long, but the argument about what to eat saw us across most of north London. Chinese was out (reason unspecified), pizza was boring, burgers fattening (an interesting, if belated, life choice there, I thought), Thai was unspeakable, Indian and Mexican too hot. And then she remembered Albert and wondered if that nice Irish receptionist was trying to ring us with some important developments. If only, I thought, then suggested fish and chips.