Keeping Bad Company by Ann Granger Page A

standard if you leave your car unattended.
     
    Despite the fact that the vehicle was in the old banger category and appeared to have been done over already, a little sticker in the window announced that it was protected by an alarm system. They didn’t depend on Garfield alone.
     
    Not all such stickers were genuine, I knew that. I wondered, if I rattled the door handle . . . I reached out my hand tentatively.
     
    ‘Fran!’ Ganesh called. ‘What do you think you’re doing hanging round that heap of scrap?’
     
    I beckoned him over. Without speaking I indicated the car. When he’d had time to absorb the make and the scratch, I said, ‘And it’s the right colour.’
     
    Gan was looking sceptical. ‘It could belong to someone who lives up there.’ He pointed at the upper windows of nearby buildings. ‘And has it occurred to you that if it’s parked here regularly, Albie could have seen it? When he needed to describe a car for the story he spun you, this is the one he chose. It doesn’t mean it was used in a snatch.’
     
    But I had that certain feeling. Certain, that is, this was the car. ‘This is it, Gan. The one we’re looking for.’
     
    ‘No,’ Ganesh said firmly. ‘ We are not looking for it. You, possibly. Myself, absolutely not.’
     
    ‘Your mate Dilip,’ I said, ‘does he work this pitch regularly? If so, and the car’s a regular, he’ll have seen it, too. Go and ask him.’
     
    Ganesh walked back to the van, hands in pockets. Dilip had clambered back inside and was getting his stock ready for the rush. There was an exchange of words and Ganesh came back.
     
    ‘Dilip doesn’t remember it.’
     
    ‘Then he’s in the pub, the driver. That means we can find out who he is.’
     
    The wind was getting stronger. It tugged at Ganesh’s long black hair and knocked over Dilip’s placard, which landed face down on the pavement.
     
    Gan went back to reposition it, wedging it between van wheel and kerb. He came back. ‘So, what’s your plan? We hang about here until chucking-out hour? We could be wasting our time and it’s getting colder.’
     
    I indicated the warning notice. ‘If that’s genuine, there’s a quicker way of bringing him out here.’
     
    ‘Are you crazy?’ He was horrified. ‘What do we say when he charges out with a couple of his mates and accuses us of trying to break into his motor?’
     
    ‘We say we saw kids running off down the street. We were just standing by the hot dog van, chatting to Dilip. We didn’t notice until we heard the noise, then we saw the kids.’
     
    ‘No!’ said Ganesh adamantly.
     
     
    Do you know, that little warning notice wasn’t fake? The old heap actually had an alarm and it went off. What I hadn’t reckoned on was that with the noise going on in the pub, no one could hear it in there. Result, no one came out to switch the thing off.
     
    What did happen was that lights began to appear in the windows of the flats above the shops. Soon irate tenants were hanging out in varying stages of dress or undress and yelling for someone to do something about that effing noise.
     
    ‘You started it,’ said Gan. ‘Now what do we do?’
     
    Dilip, behind his counter, opined, ‘Run like hell, I should. I’ll tell ’em it was kids.’
     
    But we weren’t likely to get another chance. I told Ganesh to wait and pushed open the door into The Rose.
     
    The place was a pall of smoke, totally airless. You couldn’t see across the bar. The stench of beer, cigs, cheap aftershave and sweat was awful. I stood there, gasping for breath and eyes smarting as blue clouds enveloped me.
     
    Dimly, through the mist, I made out a raised stage at the far end of the room. The band was up there and had, thank goodness, finished their act. They were starting to dismantle their gear. The walls were yellowed with nicotine deposit and the net curtains (yes, net, no one could say The Rose didn’t know what was nice) were greyish-brown. The carpet was