Angel Confidential by Mike Ripley Page B

lunchtime except meander over towards Shepherd’s Bush to dump Veronica’s case and check that Dod was on the job.
    Of course he wasn’t, but I had the padlock key he’d given me, and his temporary rehanging of the front door seemed to have held up. The postman, at least, had noticed nothing unusual, pushing the daily fistful of circulars and brown envelope bills through the letter box.
    I put down Veronica’s case in order to pick the mail up and noticed that one envelope obviously wasn’t a bill. It had a frank on it instead of a stamp, but the address was handwritten, and by holding it up to the daylight I could see what it contained. So there was some good news for Albert Block. The cheque really was in the post.
    I carried the post and Veronica’s suitcase up to the first floor, where Albert’s office was in exactly the same state of chaos as when I had last seen it.
    I straightened some furniture and sat in Albert’s swivel chair behind his desk. I put my feet on the desk and tipped the chair back until it almost fell over. I tried a few lines like, ‘So when did you last see your sister, Ms Quest?’, but decided I needed a hat.
    I opened the desk drawers looking for the office bottle but didn’t find one. If I had, it would probably have been Sanatogen. I did find a phone book and a London business Yellow Pages. There were no ‘Private Eyes’ listed, then I looked under ‘Detective Agencies’ and found 65, including: A Block, Enquiries. In fact, Albert’s was just about the most modest entry. The rest all promised peace of mind and security of investment through the wonders of electronic surveillance. Like there were no roadies anymore, there were no private eyes, just techs who could wire you up right.
    I heard the door downstairs crash open and feet on the stairs. I remembered thinking that even Dod, not the most delicately balanced of men, was making a bit of a meal of thundering upstairs, then I realised that Dod didn’t have four feet.
    The only weapon I could spot was Albert’s camera and tripod that I had picked up the night before. I bunched the legs together in two hands and put the desk between me and the door. If it turned out to be the police returning or the milkman or some very early carol singers, I could always pretend I was folding the damn things up.
    My first instinct, to use it as a weapon, turned out to be the correct one. After all, they’d brought weapons.
    They were no more than 15 or 16. One wore an LA Raiders blouson and the other an Arsenal football shirt. The Raider held a two-pound masonry hammer like he didn’t know how to use it but was willing to learn. The Arsenal fan clutched a retractable-blade Stanley knife as if he’d had work experience. They were black and their combined ages probably didn’t total mine. They didn’t seem half as scared as I was and they didn’t seem to want to say much.
    â€˜Sorry, guys, the Masons don’t meet here any more,’ I said for the sake of saying something. ‘Or was it a photograph you were after? I can normally do you a nice passport job with extra prints, three quid.’
    I hefted the camera tripod. It suddenly seemed a very light and flimsy sort of weapon, and in that space I could maybe get in one swing.
    The Raider pointed his hammer at me.
    â€˜What you doin’ here?’
    â€˜Oh no, you first. You tell me what you’re doing here and then I’ll tell you what I’m doing here. You show me yours and I’ll show you mine. Those are the rules.’ I hoped it came out tougher than it sounded to me.
    The Arsenal fan joined in.
    â€˜Don’t dis’ him, man, he can’t take that.’ Then, to his mate, as if I wasn’t there: ‘He pig?’
    â€˜Nah, no pig. He drove the fat white gash here last night,’ said Raider.
    â€˜That’s right, man.’ I tried being reasonable.