Angel Hunt by Mike Ripley Page A

leather jacket against the rain, which had started coming down in ominous big spits.
    I had a sudden pang of conscience about the hole in Sunil’s roof where the skylight had been. But it was only a brief pang.
    Prentice was ignoring my backchat.
    â€˜It’s a local community centre, Scout hut, adult education centre and crèche. In fact, it’s probably used more now than it was when it was a school.’
    He’d stopped in front of the side door, a flimsy hardboard affair with a Yale lock, distinguished by a fist-sized hole to the side of the metal keyhole.
    â€˜Now who do you think would want to do that?’
    Prentice put his left hand through the hole and flicked the lock from the inside.
    â€˜Someone who wanted to do what you’ve just done,’ I said as I followed him inside. ‘But they had a sledgehammer, not a key.’
    We were in a kitchen of sorts. I presumed it had once been the school’s dinner ladies’ empire, and there was still a stove and tea-making gear but not much else except a funny smell. It was musty and earthy and oaty all at once.
    Prentice was watching me. He didn’t say anything, just nodded towards the big enamel sink, which had a single cold water tap and a rickety hot water geyser above it. (These ‘butler’s pantry’ sinks are worth a few bob these days, either to the dockland Yuppies doing up houses Jack the Ripper wouldn’t have been seen dead in, or to amateur photographers who use them in their darkrooms. I’m not sure what for.)
    To the side of the sink, under the draining-board, were half-empty sacks and bags that contained cereals, wood shavings and what looked like the sort of seeds you feed to birds rather than the ones you roll with tobacco.
    â€˜Either school dinners have really gone downhill, or there’s one hell of a big parrot on the loose round here.’
    â€˜You’re getting warm,’ Prentice said. ‘Come here.’
    He opened a door into a corridor, and I followed him down it. The doors of the classrooms along it had handwritten cards drawing-pinned to them saying things like ‘Course 21B: Italian’ or ‘Over 60s Metalworking,’ and one that said ‘Blue Tit Patrol’ pinned high enough up to avoid any graffiti. At the end was a fire door with a push bar. Prentice opened it and wedged it open with a rusted chunk of iron left there for that purpose.
    We were in a small courtyard into which had been crammed half a dozen hutches and garden-shed-type constructions. There was also a ten-foot square pen of some sort like a small corral, made out of odd bits of timber, and in one corner, a pile of what was unmistakably manure.
    â€˜It’s a frigging zoo,’ I said.
    â€˜Got it in one,’ said Prentice smugly.
    â€˜Now hold it a minute,’ I said, holding my hands up. ‘Are you telling me Billy was here Sunday night, and it had something to do with animals. These –? There aren’t any fucking animals here!’
    â€˜The place is closed for the Christmas holidays, and the RSPCA takes care of the livestock until January. It started when it was a school. You know the score; give the urban kids a slice of country life. Some teacher must have found out that most of his class had never seen a duck before, so they started an urban zoo. There were quite a few of them back in the ‘70s. When the school closed, they kept the animals on for the toddlers in the local playgroups. They use the place most mornings. And the old caretaker lives next door, so he feeds them and mucks out. It was no big deal; just a few chickens, a couple of rabbits, hamsters, gerbils and a donkey.’
    â€˜A donkey?’
    â€˜Yes. Early retirement from Southend beach, I understand.’
    â€˜Strewth, they’re even laying the donkeys off now. Times must be hard.’
    â€˜It’s the cuts,’ he said, playing along.
    â€˜And you’re fingering Billy to