Bootlegged Angel (33 page)

‘Sometimes,’ she admitted.

‘Never mind, let’s get back and see what we can sort out. What made you run, by the way?

‘When we heard the truck’s hooter, Rufus got on his phone. I kicked the other one in the bollocks as hard as I could and legged it.’ She paused, then smiled. ‘Well,
wheeled it, really.’

‘Did they find the money?’

‘Four cases. Maybe there’s more. We could –’

‘No, we couldn’t. See if you can find your wheelchair.’

‘Why?’

‘Because it’s a long way back up this field and I’m knackered.’

The wheelchair still worked after a fashion, one wheel bent into an oval.

Beatrice and Lawrence were standing in the doorway of the shed as we approached. Beatrice screamed when she saw Mel walking, pushing the chair in a far from straight line. She propped the
shotgun up against the shed door then rushed towards her daughter, arms open.

Lawrence was calmly smoking a cigarette. I pulled a crumpled packet from my pocket and he flicked me a light.

‘That,’ he said as I blew smoke into his face, ‘was without doubt the most stupid thing I have ever seen in my life.’

‘Then you can’t be as old as you look,’ I said.

‘So what happens now?’

‘You going to turn yourself in?’ I asked.

I could see Yonk still hogtied on the floor by the remaining cases of beer at the back of the shed. I also saw Lawrence’s eyes flash towards the shotgun.

‘Doesn’t appeal much,’ he said, drawing on his cigarette.

‘I’d think about it if I were you,’ I said. ‘You’re already under surveillance. I saw them in Dover while you were talking to the Czechs.’

‘Had to happen, I suppose,’ he said, suddenly resigned to it all. ‘There’ll be lots of statements to make, coupla tons of paperwork and at the end of it, what? I took
some bunce but all I was doing was help the bad guys steal from the bad guys.’

He dropped his cigarette and ground out the butt with his foot.

‘And at least I haven’t killed anybody,’ he said calmly.

He had a point.

‘In that case, you’d better be the hero.’

I handed him Yonk’s mobile phone.

‘You’ll need this,’ I said. ‘Cut Yonk loose and give him and us half an hour, then ring the police or your own people. And you’ll need an ambulance and probably the
fire brigade. What the hell, ring everybody.’

Amazingly, it was still only ten thirty, and I had a pub to run.

I pushed the wheelchair and carried the shotgun round to Hop Cottage, Beatrice and Mel following, arm-in-arm, comforting each other. I told them not to hang about and made Beatrice back her car
out on to the road whilst Mel found a pair of crutches which Christian had provided as potential props for when the insurance assessors called.

I folded up the wheelchair as best I could and stashed it in a cupboard under the stairs inside the cottage, then threw the shotgun in after it. I told Mel to dump the chair as soon as she
could, and to either buy some shells for the gun or dump that as well. She said she couldn’t do that as her mother had sort of borrowed the gun from Murdo Seton after the annual brewery
pheasant shoot and she hadn’t actually got around to telling him yet.

There was no point in worrying about it, I just resolved never to be around if those two decided to work as a team.

Beatrice drove us to the Rising Sun and as we arrived I scanned the car-park. There were a goodly number of cars there, but none I recognised from Scooter’s operation. Even Axeman’s
Mondeo had gone. Somebody must have had a spare key or maybe it had just been stolen. Nothing was safe these days.

As we got out of her car, Beatrice fumbled between her feet then joined us, swinging a small handbag over her shoulder.

‘I bet I look a right mess,’ she said, helping Mel fit the crutches under her armpits.

‘Forget it. Just remember we’ve been here for two hours at least and hope nobody notices us.’

As I opened the door for her, the cry from the bar was: ‘Mel!’

But it was only Dan and the Major and the girls behind the bar. The rest of the customers were strangers or had been regulars only since Neemoy, Max and Sasha had arrived. There was no sign of
any of the ‘boffs’.

We joined Dan and the Major, pulling up a table and chairs to the end of the bar where they stood. Neemoy and Max seemed genuinely pleased to see Mel back and on her feet. I don’t think
Sasha had realised she’d gone anywhere.

‘You can walk! I’ll have what she’s drinking!’

‘Hey, I remember those legs!’

‘Lost your licence for the wheelchair? Speeding again?’

There was a lot of banter like that, plus the Major saying:

‘Beatrice, my dear, so nice to see you and you are looking quite lovely.’

Beatrice smoothed down her shell suit and ignored him. Then she opened her handbag and took out a fold of £20 notes, which somehow looked terribly familiar.

Automatically my hand went to the back pocket of my jeans, but that comforting bulge was still there.

‘Anyone want a drink?’ asked Beatrice. ‘It must be my round.’

Anyone called Gibson who named her daughter Mel should be made to buy the first round by law, was my opinion. But we were well into the second round and thinking about a third when we heard the
first sirens and blue lights flashed by the pub’s windows.

The pub phone woke me the next morning at some unearthly hour just after nine. It was a woman, but not Beatrice, from the brewery telling me that a relief management couple, Mr
and Mrs Coldstream, would be arriving to take over the pub at lunchtime. And that was fine by me.

I had just put my head back down on the bench seat by the dart board when my mobile went off. It was Amy telling me she’d sent a car for the girls and I could get a lift back to town with
it if I wanted to. She left a big ‘or not’ hanging in the air.

My eyes had been closed for no more than ten seconds when somebody started hammering on the front door. I felt sure it must be someone in a uniform but it was a motor-cyle messenger with a
cardboard envelope for me. I signed a chit, grunted thanks and shut the door in his face.

The envelope was from Tony the photographer and it contained three blow-up prints of a middle-aged couple talking to Neemoy. I stashed them behind the bar.

After that, I decided to get up and get dressed, turning the jukebox up loud to wake up the girls.

Just after noon, I was pulling a pint for money for the first time. There were about a dozen customers, including Dan, but no diners. I had decided to cancel the lunch menu as a treat for the
girls on their last day.

Through the window I saw them park a Scorpio hire car and walk across the car-park hand in hand, although the man was carrying a Selfridges plastic bag. They were both in their mid-forties,
smartly but loudly dressed as only Americans on holiday can be.

‘’Morning,’ I greeted them as they ducked, as Americans always do in old buildings, on entering the bar.

‘Good morning to you,’ said the man. The woman smiled sweetly at me, eyes wide, head on one side. She was really rather attractive.

‘And what can I get you? We’ve no food on today, I’m afraid.’

‘That’s okay,’ he said, placing the bag on the bar. ‘We’re here to see the landlord if we could.’

‘Sorry, he’s not here at the moment,’ I said, smiling back at his wife. ‘Is there anything I can do?’

‘Well . . . ?’ He hesitated and looked at the woman.

‘Go on, darling,’ she told him, patting his hand. ‘You know we should and our schedule means we won’t be back this way.’

‘Okay, I will.’

He opened the bag and produced a silver tankard which he placed on the bar in front of him.

‘My name’s Maron, Josiah P. Maron, and this is my wife Anna Lee. We called in here yesterday and purchased this tankard from one of your bar staff.’

‘Josiah collects silver beverage vessels,’ said Anna Lee and I tried to remain interested.

‘There’s a problem, though,’ said Josiah.

‘Is there? Like what? It’s not genuine?’

‘Oh no, quite the opposite. It’s
too
genuine. Look down here at these silver hallmarks. See that? It’s a “g”.’

I screwed up my eyes.

‘Yeah, I think so.’

‘Now that letter indicates the year the silversmith made it, but they’ve been making silverware for like . . . ever . . . so they have to use the letters over and over again, but
like different typefaces and sometimes with other marks.’

‘Okay, with you so far.’

‘Good. Now on this tankard I bought here, the “g” looks like the one they used in 1902, in which case, this is worth about £250. But when Anna Lee and I got back to our
hotel I had a look under the eye glass and I see I made a mistake. It’s also got a King’s Head mark on it, really small – see it? Now there wasn’t a King’s Head used
on British silver after 1838, when your Queen Victoria – you know, Mrs Brown – took the throne. And anyway, they stopped putting head marks on altogether after 1890. So this tankard
couldn’t be 1902, it had to be before then, and my guess is that “g” there refers to 1822, which makes this worth more like two thousand five hundred of your pounds, not
two-fifty.’

‘Wow!’ I let out a whistle. ‘Some mistake, eh? Thank you for bringing it back. I’d better refund you your money, hadn’t I?’

‘That would be mighty kind,’ said Maron, beaming.

‘Or would you just like your fake traveller’s cheque back?’

I beamed at Anna Lee but she wasn’t smiling back.

‘I don’t know –’ he started.

‘No, of course you don’t, because they were always out when you called.’

Six of my customers had formed themselves in a semi-circle around the Marons.

‘This is Ted Lewis, of the Old House At Home in Rye. That’s Frank Jennings of the Cricketers in Deal. That’s Tim – or is it Tom? – Hampson of the Horse and Groom in
Folkestone. This is – oh, well, they’ll introduce themselves . . .’

The couple who called themselves Nigel and Bronwen Coldstream looked very young and fresh-faced. I hoped they were up to the responsibilities they were taking on. Running a pub
was no game for amateurs.

‘Was that a fight in the car-park as we arrived?’ Nigel asked me after introducing himself as the relief manager.

‘No, it was a local Licensed Victuallers’ meeting. You’ll like them, they’re a friendly bunch.’

We had bundled the Marons into various licensees’ cars, the plan being to take them into Folkestone police station.

In the boot of the Marons’ hire car we had found another thirty tankards each labelled with the name of the pub they had ‘bought’ it from, covering an area from Brighton to
Canterbury. We had also found books of American Express traveller’s cheques, some with the ink still wet. And I had turned up a small hammer and a metal punch, about six inches long and well
worn. It was a bigger version of the sort of punch you use to drive nails in flush, but it had the faded image of a royal head – George IV? – at the business end.

Ted Lewis volunteered to drive the Marons’ car into Folkestone but he stopped off in the bar to welcome the Coldstreams.

‘Good pub, this,’ he said, shaking their hands. ‘You’ll be happy here until Ivy comes back. Well, you know what I mean.’

They nodded uncertainly.

‘Thanks for the tip-off, Roy. How did you know about the dodgy cheques?’

‘It had to be that. It was like the guy leaving the building site each day with a wheelbarrow and the foreman is sure he’s nicking something so he keeps stopping him and searching
the wheelbarrows which are always empty. In the end he takes him to one side and says look, I know you’re thieving, but
what
are you thieving? And the guy says –’

‘Wheelbarrows. Got ya. Thanks again and any time you’re passing, there’s a drink for you.’

‘Don’t say things like that, Ted, because I won’t forget even if you do. Here, you’ll need these.’

I handed him the phoney cheque Maron had left and Tony’s photographs of them.

The Coldstreams watched him go in silence and if they hadn’t been wondering what they had let themselves in for before, they certainly were when Neemoy, Max and Sasha came down into the
bar, fully made-up, dressed to kill and carrying their bags.

‘Car’s here,’ said Max, helping herself to a last vodka.

Neemoy smiled down at the Coldstreams, then said to me:

‘Ready to go, Angel?’

‘Yep, just put this in my bag.’

‘What is it?’ she asked.

‘It’s a nineteenth-century silver punch, probably Italian. They’re quite rare, I’m told.’

Reuben Sloman had also said they were quite valuable.

Veronica Blugden did get a report – of sorts – and she passed it on to Murdo Seton and he seemed quite pleased as I was one of the first people in the country to
receive a case of Seagrave’s Millennium Ale. I still have it.

A month or so later, via Veronica, I got a cutting from the
Licensee and Morning Advertiser
, the publicans’ newspaper:

A month or so after that, I was driving Amy through Hammersmith in Armstrong when she leaned in through the glass partition and hit me on the shoulder.

‘We’re going the wrong way,’ she said.

‘Are we? You’re not in a hurry, are you?’

‘Not really,’ she said reasonably. ‘But you looked as if you were day-dreaming. You were miles away.’