Angel Touch by Mike Ripley

her.
    â€˜Angel, this is Alec Reynolds. He’s in the City.’
    I nodded to him and poured myself another glass. I realised I was well down the bottle and I still hadn’t got to Beeby yet. I wondered if anybody fancied an exhibition of orange-juggling.
    â€˜Did I ever tell you my plan for making my fortune in the City?’ I asked Fenella, ignoring Alec.
    â€˜Which one?’
    â€˜The Fish and Chips empire.’ She frowned and Alec leaned forward, so I pressed on. ‘It’s easy, really. You just work on the basis that everybody in the City has more money than sense, novelty commands a premium price, and they all get hungry. So, what I plan to do is start up a fish and chip shop – or better still, a mobile one in a van – that serves cod and chips wrapped in the Financial Times. You could do a deal with the paper and get over-run copies cheap in the morning after the main deliveries have gone, and you could even specialise. Say, rock salmon comes in the commodities page, plaice is wrapped in the oil section.’
    â€˜You could do afternoon fry-ups in the Racing Post ,’ said Alec, catching on. ‘And take-home suppers in the TV pages of the last edition of the Standard .’
    â€˜Exactly, and you could charge ten pounds a go in the City and get away with it. And you’d get tons of publicity, and within six months some restaurant or pub would offer to buy you out.’
    â€˜And would you sell?’ asked Alec.
    â€˜Of course, just before the novelty wore off. Remember, there are 13 million mugs in London and they all need to come just the once to make my fortune.’
    Alec laughed, and Fenella smiled uncertainly, not sure if I was serious. Lisabeth snorted again. Obviously Alec was getting too friendly.
    â€˜What would you do with your millions then, eh? I’m sure my firm could put together an attractive portfolio for you,’ Alec offered.
    I waved him away magnanimously and poured myself another drink. The bottle seemed empty.
    â€˜I have my own sources, old boy. I’d do some short term trading, keep my ear to the ground for good buys. Maybe I’ll dabble in something like – ooh, say, Capricorn Travel. You know, buy when it’s cheap and then ...’
    I had been showing off, and honestly didn’t expect the reaction I got.
    It wasn’t so much that Alec’s expression changed from amusement to one akin to chronic indigestion, or that his fingers whitened around his glass so that I felt sure he would snap it in half. What really threw me was Salome’s scream.
    She had been standing right behind me and obviously listening in.
    â€˜What did you say?’ she’d yelled.
    â€˜Eh? What ...?’
    She’d almost given me a heart attack, but she was the one clutching her hands to her mouth.
    â€˜How did you know?’ she shouted. ‘How?’
    Then she ran from the room into the kitchen, and the door slammed behind her. Frank charged after her, looking daggers at me as he passed.
    â€˜What have I said?’ I asked nobody in particular, and nobody answered.
    Me and my big mouth. I should have kept it well zippered.
    It would have avoided a lot of aggro for Salome and Alec and several others, notably me.
    It also meant I never got to find out why Beeby was called Beeby.
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Chapter Three
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    I surfaced next morning with a really Gothic hangover. All the classic symptoms were there: the overflowing ashtray mouth, the dreaded Whirling Pits where the sense of balance ought to be and the steam-hammer thumping behind the eyes as if somebody was pounding my head against the wall.
    I opened an eye and saw that Lisabeth had me by the hair and was pounding my head against the wall.
    â€˜Oi! Florence Nightingale! Take it easy will you!’
    â€˜Wake up, Angel!’
    â€˜Leave it out. Just go easy on the violence, okay? Christ, I think you’ve loosened my brain.’
    â€˜So