Angel on the Inside (38 page)

She looked once at the Freelander and saw that I appeared to be waiting for her, so she jogged the last few yards and quickly got into the TX1, slamming the door behind her and reaching for the ignition.

My mirror view was a bit blurred after that, but I was sure the cab was rocking from side to side and it was due to internal motion, as she hadn't even got to start the engine.

‘Vengeance is mine, sayeth the cat,' I said to myself as I pulled away.

 

 

 

 

 

About two miles out of Tregaron, heading south on the back road, I saw the flashing lights of two more police cars heading north on the main road across the valley of the River Teifi. There was no sign of a black London cab behind me.

I began to take in the scenery, and it really was spectacular in a grey-green-brown sort of way. I passed through Nant Dderwen, Llandewi Brefi and Llanfair Clydogau, and then there were roadsigns to Llawrda, Llangadog and Llandeilo. With the Dandy Warhols
blasting out of the CD player, I began to think maybe I could get to like the place.

But then I thought no. I'd never be happy in a country that didn't use enough vowels.

 

Just before the start of the M4, I pulled off the road and looked at my road map. The M4 running due east would bring me out after about 190 miles at a familiar landmark – the Fullers' brewery in Chiswick.

Or I could make a detour after Bridgend and drop down into the Vale of Glamorgan to the village of St Nicholas, see if Len Turner fancied coming out for a drink. Well, maybe I wouldn't go that far, but I'd earned the right to tell him he was going to need a new solicitor, and if I could find out where he lived, I might suggest to Malcolm Fisher that if he had any spare creosote ...

Besides, I was sure I had Len Turner's money, and I didn't want him coming after me debt collecting.

I took the ammunition box out of the glove compartment, trying to ignore tape 17 that was in there as well. It probably wasn't clever keeping the .22 cartridge box, so I took the money out, climbed out of the Freelander and walked ten yards in to the surrounding trees. I set fire to the box with my Zippo and lit a cigarette off the burning lid. When it had burned, I trampled the ashes, partly to destroy them and partly to make sure I didn't start a forest fire. I didn't dislike Wales that much.

There was £7,600 in tightly-rolled £50 notes, and by the time I'd finished counting, I was beginning to feel I knew Sir John Houblon (1632-1712) personally. Top geezer, that Houblon, whoever he was.

Gareth Jones, former employer of Ion Jones (no relation) in Cardiff, had said he'd seen Ion with seven thousand quid to use as start-up capital. There was six hundred more than that, and he must have had living expenses, not to mention buying the old Oxford lathe and the soft steel bars, paying the rent on Bryngwyn and acquiring, if it was he who had, several hundred rounds of .22 bullets. Maybe Keith Flowers had slush-funded more than just the bulk purchase of Brococks. Maybe Ion had sold a few on the side to keep the wolf from the door. It didn't really matter now.

Then I had another flashback to Ion Jones lying on that hillside, and I wondered if they still had wolves in Wales.

 

It was early evening when I found the village of St Nicholas, halfway between Cowbridge and Cardiff. It reeked of money – big houses, lots of burglar alarms, no obvious peasant dwellings – but it had a pub and this was Wales. If you wanted to know who lived where, who was working on what, or who was doing what to whom, check the pub first. For a nation with a reputation for Methodism, short opening hours and temperance, you still had to drop in at the local to find out what was going on.

It was a pub of two halves: a bar and a restaurant that looked quite upmarket.

There were only a handful of customers, and nobody raised an eyebrow when I ordered a filter coffee from the bored barmaid in regulation white shirt and black skirt.

It took longer than if I'd asked a for a cocktail in a hollowed out coconut, but eventually the coffee came and she placed it gingerly on the bar, along with a plastic tub of UHT cream and two sachets of white sugar. I smiled as I handed over the money and pushed away the cream and sugar.

‘Is Len Turner in yet, love?' I tried as a conversational opener.

Home run. A fluke, but a home run.

‘He's always in at this time. He's in the other bar,' she said.

I almost blew it by staring like a loon at her, but I pulled myself together, said thanks, left my change (all of 40p) on the bar and carried my coffee next door.

I hadn't tried the restaurant bar because I had assumed it wasn't open yet. The lighting was subdued, the tables set for meals and no staff obviously around. There was a small bar with backlighting and three bar stools, on one of which sat Len Turner, dressed smart casual in a sweater and slacks and tasselled brown moccasins and pale grey socks – socks universally associated with men over 60, but I didn't know why.

He was reading the
Daily Mail
and nursing what looked like a large scotch and water. I tried to stop the coffee cup rattling in its saucer as I approached. Thank God there was no sign of his offspring Huey, Dewey and Louie.

He didn't look up from his newspaper, but said: ‘What the fuck are you doing here?'

‘When in Rome, visit the Emperor,' I said, and put the coffee cup and saucer on the bar so I could hear myself speak.

He continued to read his paper and didn't ask me to sit down. In fact, he made a point of putting his feet on the rungs of the bar stool next to him.

‘Sorry if I startled you,' I said.

Still reading, he said: ‘You couldn't begin to startle me.'

I believed him. It wasn't an idle boast. He wasn't startled, he wasn't disturbed and he certainly wasn't frightened. I pulled the third bar stool away from the bar and sat on it.

‘I've got something for you,' I said when the silence became too much.

‘Oh yes?' He turned to the TV listings page.

‘You mentioned a business partner when we ... met ... in London.'

‘I haven't been up to London for 20 years,' he said, still reading.

‘Right,' I agreed. ‘I must have made a mistake. I'll be going, then.'

I made no move to go. He turned another page of the paper. How long did it take somebody to read the
Daily Mail
?

‘Don't make two mistakes,' he said.

I didn't answer. I took out the wodge of £50 notes and began counting them silently on to the bar on to a faded bar towel that advertised something called Hancock's Mild.

I was up to 250 before he cracked.

‘Put that away,' he said, folding the newspaper and climbing down from the stool. ‘Follow me.'

He lead me into the Gents toilet of the restaurant, and before the door had swung closed, he had turned on all four taps in the two sinks. Then he went to the two unoccupied cubicles and flushed both toilets in turn.

‘I'm not wearing a wire,' I said above the roar of running water.

‘What's a wire?' He moved to one of the urinals and unzipped. ‘I have a bit of a urinary problem.' He pronounced it ‘yewerenery'. ‘I need a little encouragement sometimes to make the waters flow.'

He should try the low-alcohol lager, but I didn't say it.

‘You've got something to tell me?' he said over his shoulder.

‘You had a business partner called Ion Jones.'

‘Ah, you're wrong there, for a start. He was Keith's business partner. I take it that partnership's dissolved.'

‘You could say that.'

‘No chance of a rescue operation?'

‘Not unless you know a medium.'

‘That bad, huh?'

He began to shake himself, and I thought he'd finished, but it was just ‘encouragement'.

‘Reckon so.'

‘Keep talking, don't mind me.'

I don't know if he had trouble concentrating. I did.

‘How much was your initial investment? If you don't mind me asking.'

‘Nine thousand pounds,' he said quickly. A bit too quickly.

‘I've recovered seven six for you. Best I could do.'

‘That's mighty kind of you. Put it on the wash basin.' He groaned with pleasure. ‘You can turn the taps off now.'

I did as he said.

‘You do realise that the deal is off now?'

‘What deal?' he said, looking down at the business in hand.

‘Have it your way.'

I pulled open the inner door.

‘Where you going?' he said without looking round. ‘You've left me 14 hundred quid short.'

I rested my forehead against the edge of the door and said nothing. Eventually he pulled away from the urinal and zipped himself up, then patted his crotch to make sure everything was in place. He moved to the sinks to wash his hands.

‘Will you take a cheque?' I asked.

‘No.'

‘Then I'll just have to get the money from Keith's real silent partner. Might take a while. I don't know if they have cash machines in Belmarsh.'

I saw his eyes in the mirror above the basin. They definitely flickered at that.

‘Belmarsh? Where's that?'

‘It's in London. They call it the creosote capital of the world, or so I'm told.'

He reached for a paper towel from the dispenser.

‘Did I say nine thousand? My mistake. Seven six is what it was.'

‘There's seven there on the sink.'

‘What happened to the six hundred?'

‘Legal fees,' I said.

As he dried his hands he said: ‘I already have a very expensive solicitor.'

‘No you don't.'

 

We went back into the bar. It was still empty, and it stayed that way until I left. He pointed to a table set for four, and we sat down opposite each other. He didn't offer me a drink, and my coffee was now stone cold on the bar.

‘Start talking, I've got people coming for dinner at eight,' he said, ‘and I daren't be late.'

I was relieved to see he was frightened of somebody.

‘This has to be a trade. You tell me want I want to know and I'll tell you what you really do need to know.'

He sniffed loudly.

‘We'll see. You go first.'

‘You were never going to get those ...'

He held up one finger and I caught on.

‘... that merchandise you ordered. It was going to be planted on a certain well-known solicitor who has won prizes for air pistol shooting. He probably has a few air pistols himself.'

‘Bloody hundreds,' said Len with a sigh.

‘Well, he's got even more now, and I suspect that right this minute he's answering some very tricky questions about them up in Tregaron.'

‘He's a good brief.'

‘He'll have to be. There's a dead body within two hundred yards of his house. Dead as in shot.'

‘He do it?' He said it throwaway as if he really wasn't interested.

‘No, it was ... an industrial accident, I suppose you'd call it. But it'll take some explaining.'

‘That it?'

‘Then there's the girls and the kinky prison he's got rigged up and heated like a hothouse. Got quite a collection of videos and CDs. Put some of them on to his computer, he has. Probably swapped some with other enthusiasts over the internet. You know how the police love that sort of thing these days.'

‘The stupid bastard,' Len said under his breath. ‘I told him to cut that out, but he said he wasn't even touching the girls and he paid them well.'

‘Paid them?'

‘Working girls from Butetown. I … er … recommended a few. They'd go up there for the weekend. I didn't hear any complaints.'

As if they'd complain to this management.

‘Didn't mind coming back without their underwear?'

‘Aw, Jesus, he hasn't been collecting panties again?'

It suddenly occurred to me that
Pant-y-hose
was quite likely the name of a real Welsh village, but now was not the time to share my thought or to giggle.

‘The place looked like he'd been buying wholesale.'

‘And the police have got all this?'

‘They couldn't miss it.'

They had better not have.

He sat in silence for a minute, tapping the placemat – which incongruously showed scenes of Constable Country in Suffolk – with the nails of both his forefingers. When he had made up his mind about something, he stopped.