Angel Confidential (8 page)

They had tightened up on security since my last visit, with a new reception desk and two uniformed security guards who, for once, looked as if they might know what they were doing, so it called for the old delivery trick.

I exchanged my leather jacket for the ageing sweater in Armstrong's boot to put me in character. (Real cabbies never wear leather jackets; too sweaty.) Then I rummaged through the glove compartment to find an empty padded envelope, a roll of Sellotape and a felt-tipped pen. I also unearthed a pad of PoDs – Proof of Delivery slips – that I had hung onto from my last job with a dispatch company, knowing they'd come in handy one day.

Mrs Delacourt had given me a small plastic bag, the sort you use in freezers, with a vacuum snap seal, containing a white crystalline powder. I stuffed it inside the Jiffy bag and Sellotaped the end, using my new teeth to bite off bits of tape. On the envelope I wrote ‘Dr Zoe Morgan', and felt pleased with myself at remembering her married name. Then I added ‘Personal'.

Then I parked Armstrong right outside the office doors so they got a good look at me gelling out of a cab, stuck the pen behind my car and marched in.

‘Package for a Dr Morgan. Gotta be signed for.'

One of the security guards ignored me and stood up as if to write something on a wall calendar. In fact, he was looking over my shoulder at Armstrong. I didn't blame him. Bombs had arrived by taxi before now, but rarely did the delivery boy stand there tapping them impatiently on the counter.

The other guard remained seated and just looked up at me.

‘No Dr Morgan here. Does it say which department?'

I consulted the envelope.

‘Nope, they were a bit vague about that. Just Dr Zoe Morgan.'

‘Who were?'

‘Home Office, Queen Anne's Gate,' I said, thinking quickly. If he knew anything about cab drivers he would know that none of them ever took that address in vain, as it's where the Hackney Carriage licences used to be issued.

‘He means Zoe Butler,' said the standing guard. ‘Morgan's her married name.'

‘Okay,' said Sit-Down guard, ‘you can leave it.'

‘Sorry, got to be hand delivered.' I waved my PoD receipts. ‘She has to sign for it herself.'

Sit-Down guard sighed loudly to indicate that life was already too complicated, and reached for the internal phone.

After a couple of minutes, Zoe appeared through a door marked Staff Only.

‘I might have known,' she grinned. ‘I never get anything from the Home Office except nasty memos. What's this? A belated wedding present?'

‘I bought you a wedding present,' I said indignantly. ‘A bottle of vintage port, as I recall. Estate bottled. 1960? 1958? One of the good years, anyway.'

She gave me her killer look.

‘Was it? You drank it.'

Ouch. She remembered the reception.

‘I'll make it up to you, double or quits. But I need a favour first.'

She looked at Mr Stand-Up security guard, who was clocking me as if measuring throwing distance to the street.

‘It's okay, he's with me,' Zoe told him, then pressed four digits on the pressure-pad lock on the Staff Only door so that it clicked open. ‘Come through. There's a staff room with a kettle. You can be mother.'

For the second time in about three hours, I found myself trying to sort out the herbal infusions from the raspberry- and thyme-flavoured powders. Didn't anybody drink just
tea
any more? While I filled a jug kettle, Zoe opened the envelope I'd given her.

‘Jesus! And you wanted me to sign for this?' she said to my back. ‘Is it what I think it is?'

‘No, it isn't. At least, I don't think it's what I thought it was. At first, that is.'

‘If it is what I think it is, there's about 12 hundred quid's worth here.'

She had put the plastic bag on a low table, not wanting to touch it.

‘My initial thoughts exactly, Dr Butler. High-grade coke worth about £90 a gramme.'

‘Angel,' she said, her voice hardening, ‘What's the deal?'

‘It isn't what we think it is. I tried it.'

‘So it's been cut with nine-tenths sodium bicarbonate; why the bloody hell are you telling me? Take it round the Consumers Association. Or Drugs ‘R Us or somewhere. Just get it the fuck out of here.'

She began to stuff the plastic bag back into the envelope.

I concentrated on pouring tea.

‘When I said I tried it, I tasted it. I didn't do a line or anything. But it doesn't taste like any naughty substance I've ever tasted before. I don't think it's naughty at all, but some people think it might be.'

‘Some people like who?' she asked suspiciously.

‘Would you believe it if I said a nice black lady worried about her son falling in with a wrong crowd?'

‘And coming to you for help? Do I not believe that. Anyway, why bring it to me?'

‘Couldn't you run some tests on it or something?' I handed her a mug of tea. Even gave her the spoon.

‘I'm not the Public Analyst, Angel. Give me a break.'

‘As a favour. Go on, kid. I'll owe you.'

‘You always have.' She sipped the tea. ‘I could probably tell you what it isn't. But what if it
is
dodgy?'

‘The minute you suspect it's hooky, flush it down the toilet. I can't say fairer than that, can I?'

‘Yes, you could say “Goodbye, Zoe, have a nice life.”‘

‘How is married life?'

She shrugged. ‘Two incomes, no kids, great sex, skiing holidays, don't change the subject.'

‘Will you have a go for me?'

‘Give me one good reason why I should.'

‘Can't.'

‘It's a hell of it risk I'm running if it is it proscribed substance, you know.'

‘I know, you risk losing one of the incomes and the skiing holiday. How would it affect the great sex?'

She glared at me over the rim of her mug.

‘You have, as the Americans would say, a smart mouth.'

I showed her the new dental work. ‘Ah, so you do remember.'

‘Don't push it. I remember a lot of things, including telling you to grow up and get a job like about every other day.'

I summoned up all my injured dignity. It didn't take long. ‘Bur this
is
my new job. I'm a private detective.'

She roared with laughter. ‘A
what?
Since when?'

I looked at my SeaStar.

‘About two hours ago.'

 

I had two pieces of luck at the hospital. First, I got a parking space. To be fair, there was a notice claiming it to be reserved for a consultant, but then it was after 4.00 pm and the rain had held off, so he would be on a golf course somewhere. Secondly, Oonagh – the Irish spelling – was on duty at reception.

It might have been my magnetic personality, it could have been the new pearly whites, or it could have been the fact that she was behind in her paperwork and hospitals don't really give a monkey's about strict visiting hours these days, but anyway, I got in to see Albert with no hassle.

She told me in passing that Albert was fine and had been trying to phone his married daughter in Exeter for two hours. They would probably keep him in for observation for a couple of days, then he'd be allowed out, on condition he took it easy.

He was in a small ward of six beds, all occupied by elderly men. Two were asleep, one had a broken leg up in plaster, two had cage arrangements to keep the blankets from the more private and no doubt painful bits of their anatomy. I reasoned that the remaining one, a large, balding man who just lay there glaring at the ceiling, was Albert. There was also a clipboard chart hanging on the end of the bed with ‘Mr A Block' in thick felt-tip pen on the title sheet. That clinched it. Dead easy, this detective lark.

He wasn't what I had expected, but then I wasn't sure what I was expecting. I hadn't seen anything at Shepherd's Bush to indicate any personal life, but then I hadn't been looking. I suppose I
had just gleaned the impression from Veronica that Albert was some sort of cherubic little old garden gnome. He certainly wasn't little; I reckoned six foot one at least, though it's difficult to tell when policemen – even ex- ones – are lying down. And he wasn't that old, his bed-end chart telling me he was 58. Cherubic didn't really come into it either, his face unshaven with a bluish pallor. His cheeks had shrunk into his jaw line and, as I saw him close up, my one thought was that this was a shell of a big man, who couldn't work out why he couldn't get up and walk around.

‘Mr Block?' I asked politely.

‘Who wants to know?'

There you go; once a policeman.

‘My name's Roy Angel. I'm a sort of friend of Veronica's.'

‘No, you're not,' he snapped, wincing with the effort. ‘She hasn't got any friends.'

That slowed me for a second, because I was pretty sure he wasn't making a joke.

‘Since yesterday, actually, Mr Block. I drove her here last night but they wouldn't let her in to see you. She's been very worried about you.'

‘Yeah, well, it's about time somebody was. It's taken four bloody phone calls to get my daughter – my own daughter – to come and get me, and then not until the day after tomorrow.'

I was beginning to realise why she'd moved to Exeter.

‘Er ... about Veronica ...'

‘What about her?'

‘She'll be here soon to see you.'

‘Oh, great. As if I didn't have enough on my plate.'

I wondered if some impromptu cardiac massage would do him any good. I didn't know, I just felt like punching him in the chest.

‘I don't think she should go back to Shepherd's Bush; I don't think she'll be safe there.'

He strained to try and raise his head off the pillow, but even that was beyond him.

‘Between you and me,' he said quietly, so I had to lean over him, ‘I'm not going back there. I've had enough. I'm going to get my daughter to put the bloody place on the market. Veronica can find somewhere else to live and someone else to latch onto. She's a big girl now and has got to stand up for herself. This' – he tapped his chest with a finger – ‘is a warning to me and I'm bleedin' well taking note of it. What business is it of yours anyway?'

‘None at all, Mr Block.' I held up my hands in surrender. ‘I just got caught up in things. You know she's out at the moment working your case for you.'

‘What case?'

‘Following some girl or other.'

‘Silly cow. She couldn't follow an elephant down Oxford Street.'

Given the new traffic-flow system, I wasn't sure I could, but it wasn't the time to make the point.

‘Anyway, that's definitely none of your business, so I don't see ... Oh, bugger.'

He was looking behind me and I turned automatically to see Veronica standing at the entrance to the ward. Even from that range I could see the rosy glow on her cheeks as if she'd been hurrying, and that her glasses were misted. She held a bunch of carnations that looked as if they'd been trapped in a revolving door.

‘I'll leave you two to it,' I said and walked away.

I was willing to forget he was an ex-policeman, but decided to dislike him anyway.

As Veronica came level with me she playfully hit me on the arm with the bunch of flowers.

‘She left work early and went straight home,' she whispered. ‘
I've
found out where she lives!
'

‘Oh good,' I whispered back. ‘Albert will be pleased.'

 

She was with him for less than half an hour, and I spent the time discussing Albert with Oonagh, the Irish receptionist, proving yet again that when naturally talented gossips gather, there's no such thing as client confidentiality.

‘Just like me da,' she chatted between admissions and phone calls. ‘He was a blacksmith.'

‘Mr Block isn't a blacksmith,' I said carefully, in case I'd missed something.

‘Same difference. He was a strong man, my da. You know, physical. He had an attack just like Mr Block's and it scared seven kinds of shit out of him. Fear, that's all it is. He's frightened, that's all. Frightened ‘cos he can't do the things he's always taken for granted. He was a big man, yer Mr Block, used to getting his own way, I should say. He was a strong man, and now he's got to come to terms with being a small, weak man. Maybe for the rest of his life. It's a terrible condition, but I've seen it all before.'

‘The sort of condition that turns you crabby and mean so that you can only think about yourself and you can't enjoy anything so you don't see why anyone else should?'