Angel Hunt (18 page)

That couldn't have anything to do with the condoms in the bathroom, could it? No, of course not. My imagination was running away with me.

I heard the unmistakable sound of a bus in the road outside and checked my Seastar. Eleven minutes past three. Good. The watch was right.

I made myself comfortable with my mug of coffee and had a last check over my appearance. I was wearing entirely man-made materials or cotton, and I thought the Lynx ‘Roar of Disapproval' T-shirt was a masterstroke, given the dedication that required in December. I hoped that the ‘Stop the Bloody Whaling' Greenpeace sticker I'd put on the back bumper of Armstrong had been noticed too.

I had my story straight and was ready to go.

I hadn't expected there to be two of them.

And I hadn't expected one of them to be a luscious redhead. Especially not the one I'd last seen in Leytonstone, with me holding the door open so she could leave Billy Tuckett's inquest.

 

Plan A went out of the rectory window straight away, closely followed by Plans B to E. There was little to fall back on except the truth. Or some of it.

‘Hello there. My name's –'

‘Angel,' said the redhead.

Ah well, there went Plan F. It hadn't been much of a plan anyway.

‘Can we help you?' asked Geoffrey Bell tightly. He looked down at the coffee cup, and his expression said that there was a thin line between open house Christian hospitality and breaking and entering.

I stood up, turned on the smile and held out a hand.

‘Roy Angel. I hope you don't mind me making myself at home, but a charming young lady called Stephanie found me wandering in the village and brought me here. She said you wouldn't mind.' Then, to the redhead: ‘I'm sorry – I didn't realise we'd met …'

The rector shook my hand and didn't take his eyes off me for a second. He was taller than me, about my age, with jet black hair slicked back with hair gel. If you'd substituted the anorak, jeans, black shirt and dog collar for a Giorgio Armani imitation and red braces, he could have been an extra in
Wall Street.

He didn't say anything to me, but to the girl behind him, he said softly: ‘Lara …?'

The redhead had lost a couple of inches due to her trainers rather than the high heels I'd last seen her in. In fact, all the trappings of power-dressing had gone, her anorak and jeans matching Bell's almost as a uniform, and her hair plaited and secured over her right shoulder with a rubber band. She was still strikingly pretty.

‘Mr Angel was at the inquest on poor Billy Tuckett. You remember, Geoffrey, I was telling you about it. Mr Angel saw the accident when poor Billy died.' Her accent was as English as her complexion.

Bell was still holding my hand, and I felt his grip spasm.

I got a feel of what Prentice had called ‘muscular Christianity' in no uncertain terms.

‘I didn't actually see the accident,' I said quickly. ‘I just had the misfortune to find the body, and I had to identify it.'

‘You knew Billy?' asked Bell, finally dropping my hand.

‘Yes, that's the bizarre thing about it all. Billy and I go back to university days, but I hadn't actually seen him for ages until he suddenly drops in on a house I'm sitting for a friend of a friend. I'm sorry if that sounds crude, but it was a bit of a shock.'

‘You said you were sitting a house?' Bell pulled out a kitchen chair and straddled it. Maybe this was the modern Anglican version of the confessional.

‘Yes, house-sitting. Living in somebody's house while they're away.' I sat down and faced him across the table. ‘It's quite common in London nowadays. It's supposed to deter burglars.'

‘So you were there by chance?'

‘Totally. Though funnily enough, I'd been thinking about Billy lately.'

‘And why was that?'

The redhead Bell had called Lara pulled out a third chair and sat on the edge, resting her hands on the table. She curled her hands up when she saw me looking at them. She was a nail-biter and a self-conscious one at that.

‘I'd seen Billy a few weeks before. Not to talk to. He was riding his pushbike through the City and I was in a traffic jam,' I lied in answer to her. ‘That reminded me of some of the things we used to get up to as students.'

‘You drive, then?' asked Bell, and it seemed such an odd question it almost threw me.

‘Yes, sure. In fact I used to drive the Students' Union van when Billy and I took people on demos.'

I thought that was pretty good considering I was making this up as I went along.

‘Demonstrations?' quizzed the Rector.

‘Peaceful ones,' I said quickly. ‘We were protesting about the animal markets in the East End. They've been shut down now, thank God.' I pretended surprise. ‘Oh, sorry, Reverend, I didn't …'

Bell allowed himself a smile.

‘That's quite all right.' He glanced at the girl, then back to me. ‘Lara and I share the same views Billy had on animal welfare. I regard the humane and decent treatment of the animals we share this planet with as a prerequisite of Christian behaviour. And I've read of the street markets in animals in places like Club Row. People call them pets, but they are no more than slaves. Good riddance to them.'

‘But what brings you here?' Lara asked, cutting in as if she wanted to stop Bell before he got fully launched on his lecture.

‘Billy's mum actually. You must have seen her at the inquest.'

Lara showed worry at that. She was a good natural actress, but not that good.

‘Yes …' she said cautiously.

‘Were you called to the inquest?' I pushed innocently. ‘I don't remember you …'

‘No, I was there just to see what had happened to Billy.'

‘I asked Lara to go,' said Bell, ‘on my behalf. I was unable to go myself and had always felt ... an affection ... for Billy. I knew him from my previous parish.'

‘In Romford,' I said, and he nodded. ‘Yes, Mrs Tuckett said Billy thought very highly of you. And that's why she asked me to come and see you.'

‘Mrs Tuckett did?'

He was on guard now.

‘Yes, about a video camera Billy had.'

‘Camera?'

He was positively rigid in his chair.

‘It's missing and she thought he might have left it with you. It's only that if he did, she's quite happy with that. If it has gone to a good cause, she'll be well pleased.'

Bell relaxed visibly. Lara's expression hadn't changed.

‘As a matter of fact, he did leave it here. And I suppose Mrs Tuckett must have it returned if she wants, but I think I can say it is being used in a very good cause. Don't you, Lara?'

‘Absolutely,' said the redhead, deadpan.

‘In fact,' said Bell, ‘we'll show you what Billy was working on with it. But first, how about a biscuit with your coffee?'

 

Yes, she said, it was like the Lara in
Doctor Zhivago
,
and if only she had a penny for every time anyone said that ... I knew how she felt.

The Reverend Bell busied himself finding biscuits and making a pot of tea. Did I want another coffee? No, thanks, one cup of instant a week was my limit.

‘It must be nice living here in the country,' I tried. ‘I envy you.'

She looked at me as if I'd just suggested something obscene – and doing it in public.

‘Finchley's quite near Hampstead Heath, but I'd hardly call it rural,' she said without any trace of humour.

‘Lara comes up here at weekends to help with the youth club and other activities,' said Bell.

I'll bet, my expression must have said, as he went on: ‘And stays over at The Five Bells so that the village gossips have one less thing to occupy their tiny minds, though most of them seem to be hooked up to the television most of the day. Do you know there are now four hours of Australian soap-operas on the box each day?'

‘Geoffrey's just written an editorial in the parish magazine on the subject,' said Lara, but I couldn't tell if she was being sarky or not.

‘Don't you find this a bit of a backwater after Romford?' I asked as he strained tea into china mugs emblazoned with adverts for the Guide Dogs for the Blind organisation.

‘A lot of people would say Romford was the backwater,' he said evenly. ‘It's different, certainly, and certain of the church authorities would say I was out of the way here, and therefore safer.'

He sat down at the table again and pushed a packet of chocolate biscuits towards me.

‘Safer?'

‘Less of a potential embarrassment, shall we say. Oh, I know I'm not long for the Church. My views on certain issues do not conform with how the Church defines pastoral care. But I intend to stick to them, and I have the support of some good friends –' he couldn't stop himself glancing at Lara, who remained stone-faced, watching me ‘– if not of my parishioners. It was quite a clever move by my Bishop, sending me here.'

I wasn't sure if this was some sort of test question or not. ‘I'm sorry, I don't follow.'

‘My support for a more humane philosophy towards animals is sometimes seen by others as taking precedence over concern for my flock.' He permitted himself a wry smile. ‘And they might have a point. So, what better way of making me restrain my campaigning instincts than to set me down here in a community where most of the population works in either the local abattoir, one of two battery farms, or even in the university's animal research laboratory. And for recreation, it's a toss-up between fox-hunting and poaching around here. My Bishop is convinced that within two years I will have alienated every section of the local community and be forced to resign. He's probably right.'

‘But, Geoffrey, you've done marvellous work with the young people,' said Lara right on cue. They worked well together.

‘But the youth club members won't have much say in the matter when the crunch comes. Still, life must go on – hopefully. And that reminds me, we have a disco tonight for the under-15s.' He said it in a tone that implied that the over-15s would all be down the pub. ‘And I'm not sure we have a disc jockey.'

‘Something wrong with Wayne?' asked Lara, ignoring me for a moment.

‘No, nothing wrong with Wayne, but Wayne's wife's expecting twins, and today is supposed to be the day. Excuse me while I phone up for a progress report.'

He stood up.

‘Poor Wayne. About to become a father again, and not yet 21,' he said, shaking his head.

‘And he's not even a good disc jockey,' said Lara seriously.

‘I know,' said Bell sadly, ‘but it's his one ambition to become good enough to go on the road with his mobile disco and pack in his job as a farm labourer. Back in a minute.'

He left the kitchen and got to work on the phone in the hallway.

‘Do you help with the discos?' I smiled at Lara now we were alone.

‘No. I help out with some of the other activities.'

She gathered up the mugs from the table and made to wash them in the sink.

‘So what do you do back in the wilds of Finchley?' I asked, reaching for a drying cloth and turning up the charm volume a notch or two.

‘I'm a secretary,' she said, looking straight ahead out of the kitchen window into the rapidly darkening night. ‘What did you expect?'

‘I didn't expect anything in particular. Don't you want to be a secretary?'

‘I'm actually a very good secretary,' she said, her voice hardening. ‘Good enough to have negotiated my own flexitime contract so I can have three-and-a-half-day weekends.'

She was proud of that, too. It hadn't occurred to me to wonder what she was doing in deepest Cambridgeshire on a Friday afternoon. I forget that most people have to work for a living.

The Reverend Bell reappeared.

‘Good news for Wayne, but bad news for us,' he announced. ‘He'll be spending the night in the maternity hospital while we try and run a disco without a disc jockey.'

He ran the fingers of both hands up and back through his hair, just like he'd seen Michael Douglas do it.

It was time to ingratiate myself.

‘Rector, I think I might be able to help.'

 

‘Good heavens, a London taxi!'

Which, if you think about it, was quite an appropriate I reaction from a man of the cloth, even for a beast like the black cab which is much maligned by everyone from archbishops downwards.

‘Are you a cabbie?' asked Bell, rubbing his hands together in enthusiasm.

‘No, I'm not a musher,' I said, using the technical term. ‘The cab is de-licensed, but I find it very useful in getting around London.'