Angel Touch (18 page)

‘The other day,' I said quickly, ‘you mentioned a guy called Cawthorne. Simon Cawthorne.'

‘Uh-huh,' she said, busying herself with miners' lamps, old spectacle cases and various china oddments that had ‘A souvenir of Cromer' stamped on the bottom.

The Dutch couple stopped and began to inspect the merchandise.

Out of the corner of her mouth – and she did it with great flair – Sorrel said:

‘Sure I'll come along. You're going to need all the help you can get.'

 

 

 

 

 

By 2.30, I was having lunch at the wheel of Armstrong, parked on the edge of the pavement in Gresham Street about 60 feet from the Prior, Keen, Baldwin entrance. I had disguised myself with an old cardigan with faded leather elbow patches and a copy of the
Daily Express.
Lunch was an avocado and prawn sandwich and a carton of mango juice, which I admit were a bit out of character, but otherwise I looked for all the world like a real musher. I must have done, as not only did the Old Bill and the Ritas (as in meter maids) ignore me, but a real cabbie parked nearby came over to pass the time of day.

He told me how he'd been conned three times that week by people who took ten-quid rides, then said they hadn't any cash but offered to leave a watch with him while they went inside (usually a block of flats) to get some dosh. Of course they never came out, and he was left with three digital watches that, in the cold light of day, turned out to be worth approximately 99p each retail, 30p wholesale. I sympathised and threw in a few choice obscenities and ‘Hanging's too good for ‘ems,' but made a note to pick up a few watches next time I was down the Brick Lane midnight market.

He wandered back to his cab eventually. It was one of the newish, two-litre Metrocabs, and it was painted red. How gross. As a staunch supporter of the traditional FX4S design in any colour you like as long as it's black, I suppose I shouldn't have even talked to him, let alone been friendly.

At 2.40, a motorbike rider appeared on Gresham Street, parked outside the PKB building and disappeared inside. I couldn't tell much about him, as he was covered from head to toe in red crash helmet with black visor, red riding leathers and red boots. The bike, a medium sized Kawasaki, had rigid saddle-bags with ‘airborne' stencilled on them, so even if it wasn't Lewis Luther, it was the right company.

I started Armstrong up as he emerged from the building with a large jiffy bag under his arm. Like most of the City messengers these days, even the ones in the dinky shorts on BMX bikes, he was radio-controlled and, like a copper, he had his radio tacked on to his collar. Before he got on the Kawasaki, he spoke into it and then tilted his helmet to hear the response. Then he was mounted and off.

It's almost impossible to tail a bike in London unless you're on a bike yourself, and that's a definite if it's rush-hour. But the next best thing is a taxi, which can always bend the odd rule and rewrite bits of the Highway Code without attracting too much attention. And of course it helps if you know where your target is going.

Patterson had arranged for the hand delivery to a firm of corporate solicitors who had an office in Bloomsbury round the back of the British Museum. The contents of the jiffy bag weren't important, but they were genuine and the solicitors were well known for handling City problems. Even I'd read about them. The idea was that the package might be tempting enough to follow all the other leaks down whatever conduit somebody was using.

I'd picked the Bloomsbury address, from a handful of alternatives Patterson had offered for the set-up, as the easiest route, and also the time, early afternoon, though in town these days the traffic was a matter of pot luck with the odds stacked on it being bad. If it rained, I'd be in trouble. Despite the number of golfing umbrellas you see around, advertising everything from building societies to aftershave, nobody ever uses them; they jump into cabs when it rains. I'm convinced half of them don't actually open,
they're just designed as offensive weapons for use by psychopaths fed up with not getting a seat on the tube.

The Kawasaki cut through to St Paul's as I'd expected and accelerated up towards Holborn. So far, so good. I didn't bother with keeping a car or two between us like they do in the movies. If he looked behind him (he didn't have a mirror), all he'd see would be a black cab. So what? And how many despatch riders ever look over their shoulders?

Having said that, the bugger nearly threw me at Holborn Circus.

He turned left down an alley without indicating, and I had to carve up a Volvo with Swedish number plates in order to follow him. I felt a wee bit sorry for the driver – reindeer probably don't drive like that – but this was London, and if you can't stand the heat, leave the wheels at home.

The Kawasaki disappeared to the right up ahead of me and I followed slowly. He seemed to be working his way round the back of the
Daily Mirror
building, though I couldn't think why. There were loads of light vans in the
Mirror
livery parked on both sides of the street, and the pubs down one side were doing a roaring end-of-shift trade – or maybe pre-shift. It was difficult to tell, but since Fleet Street had more or less stopped producing newspapers, this area was now the journalism centre of town, which meant the pubs would be doing some sort of trade.

I slowed some more, and it was just as well or I would have missed him.

He'd pulled up behind one of the newspaper vans, except it wasn't a newspaper van. It was a red Transit, one of the new designs that look like they've been punched in the nose, but there were no markings on it and the rear windows had been painted out.

The rider parked the bike nose-in to the pavement and killed the engine. I swung Armstrong to the right and mounted the pavement on my side, not more than 20 feet from him. I took down the battered, broken-spined
A-Z
I keep taped to the driver's sun visor and pretended to be looking something up.

The Don/R spread his legs so he was holding the bike up, then he rapped on the back door of the Transit with a gauntleted hand. The door opened and he handed in the jiffy bag.

I timed the operation on my Seastar. Three minutes and ten seconds later, the door opened and the jiffy bag was handed out. Mr Luther, if it was he, stuffed it into one of his saddlebags and freewheeled the bike back on to the road, kick-started and was away.

Patterson had arranged for the solicitors in Bloomsbury to ring him immediately the jiffy bag arrived, so that end was covered, and I was pretty sure that's where the Airborne messenger was heading without further interruptions. I decided to stay where I was and watch the van. I even took the number just to prove how professional I was, not that I had any idea how it could help.

I kept one eagle eye out for wardens and policemen with nothing better to do than harass taxi-drivers, but I didn't have to wait long.

After about five minutes, the rear doors of the Transit opened and a guy hopped down. He scanned the street as he looked up, but true to form, he didn't pay Armstrong the compliment of a second glance.

He pulled on a pair of folding sunglasses (the sort you pay an extra load for to have ‘Porsche' stamped across your field of vision) as he made for the driver's door, but even with them and the soft brown leather blouson jacket, which made him look a bit like an off-duty copper (they get them cheap down Brick Lane), I still recognised him.

He was the one who had asked Werewolf if he played in a band, and the one I'd seen being ticked off by Cawthorne.

Werewolf had called him Robin Redbreast because of the striped shirt and red tie. I'd called him Chinless Wonder on the same basis that regular enlisted men in the Army call Sandhurst graduates ‘Ruperts.' Maybe we'd both misjudged him. Maybe he was the sort of guy who pushes VW Golfs off hills in the middle of the night. Just for fun, of course.

 

I followed the van for an hour, and dead boring it was too. I was certain he didn't know I was following him, but he led me a pretty dance almost as if he was trying to lose me. As the traffic thickened towards the rush hour it got easier, but more boring, to stay fairly close behind him. Only once did he stop, having looped back towards the City, in Finsbury Circus. He had to double park there – doesn't everyone? – so he put the warning indicators on as climbed in the back of the red Transit.

Sure enough, Lewis Luther, or whoever, turned up in full Airborne rig – I was pretty sure it was the same bike and made a note of its number this time – and they did business as they had at Holborn. This time, it was an ordinary letter by the looks of things, and it took, again, just over three minutes.

This time, though, Chinless Wonder stuck his head out of the van and said something to the rider before he went. The rider nodded and pushed off on the Kawasaki. Chinless looked up again and got back to the driver's seat and headed east.

I followed him out of the City until I was convinced he was packing up for the day. My guess was he would head for the Dartford Tunnel and then Kent. There was no way I could hope to keep up with him through the tunnel (a route I highly recommend if you want to lose a tail) as there were just too many imponderable lane changes and toll booth stops, so I turned where I shouldn't and headed back. Turning around brought a couple of angry hoots from the odd civilian driver – taxis and buses never blow their horns at taxis or buses – but I was now going away from the traffic flow, and I was back outside PKB by 5.00. I even found a legal parking space. Things were looking up.

Patterson listened to me in silence, then said, ‘I just don't believe it,' a couple of times to himself.

‘My guess is they've got a photocopier in the back of the van, and a typewriter and a selection of envelopes. They photocopy what you send out and then repackage it pronto. Takes a coupla minutes, and the people getting it at the other end don't notice anything wrong. Still sealed up, addressed to them. You ring up and say, “Did you get a jiffy bag five minutes ago?” and they say, “Sure, one jiffy bag, containing one letter, just arrived.” So maybe it took one minute more than it should as the crow flies. We ain't talking crows. We can allow for traffic, bike breakdown, rider can't find the right doorway, whatever. All the things you take for granted that are going to screw you up in London. It's pretty ingenious.'

‘It's diabolical,' said Patterson with feeling. ‘But we could put them out of business if we, say, used sealing wax, or special security envelopes ...'

I shook my head slowly in disappointment with him. ‘I was thinking of something more permanent.'

 

‘Not in that,' I said emphatically. ‘No way, not ever. Not even in daylight.'

‘What's the matter with you now?' Patterson yelled at me.

I don't think he meant to yell, it was just that his voice echoed a lot in the underground car park. I hadn't known before that there was an underground car park to the building, but as the building was shared, only about eight spaces were reserved for Prior, Keen, Baldwin bigwigs. Therefore, Patterson was a bigger wig than I'd had him down as. I still thought he was a dickhead.

‘You are a right dickhead –' I broke it to him gently – ‘if you think we are driving down to Brixton in that.'

‘What in Christ's wrong with it?' Patterson screamed. I have to admit that on a good day I find little at all wrong with the prospect of a ride in a new BMW, and Patterson was obviously well-pleased with his material rewards of Yuppiedom.

‘Look, Tel, here in the City, it's a very nice status symbol, and a fine example of German craftsmanship, but in Brixton it's a Bob and therefore a legitimate target for any kid big enough to keep a tyre wrench in his nappy.'

‘A Bob? What are you talking about?'

‘Bob Marley and the Wailers. BMW.' I could see it sinking in. ‘Shall we take mine?'

He was somewhat mollified to find that Armstrong was a cab and he could ride in the back and scowl at me, but he knew I thought it was a lousy idea going down to Brixton to track down Lewis Luther.

‘Do you know where Marlowe Street is?'

‘I'll find it,' I yelled back at him, then slipped an old Simply Red tape into the cassette just to annoy him, although it had the added advantage that I couldn't hear him any more.

I'd told him in his office it would do no good, but he'd insisted. So I'd used his phone to ring Sorrel's number and got an answerphone. I'd told it to come to the Vecchio Reccione in Leicester Square at 9.30, then I'd rung the restaurant and made a booking, using my PKB Amex card to confirm it. That'd also annoyed Patterson, as he'd forgotten about the card.

Round about the Elephant and Castle, I decided to call a truce and talk to him. I told him I reckoned Marlowe Road to be one of the ‘poets' run' of streets off Railton Road, all named after Shakespeare, Milton, Spenser with an ‘s' and so on.

‘What's the plan, then?' I asked. ‘Go up to the front door and ask if Lewis is coming out to play?'