Free Down Among the Dead Men by Peter Lovesey Page B

D’you know it?”
    Georgina blinked, thrown by the reference.
    â€œLil’Ampton, right?”
    â€œOh.”
    â€œLA is what the locals call it. I call it run down. Like most of these seaside towns, it’s seen better days. You’ve still got the funfair and the beach, but you’ve also got poverty and loads of names ending in the letter Z. The time I’m talking about I was unemployed, on the social, like half the town. Okay, I get a little extra where I can, and it isn’t declared. I’m a tealeaf, a good one, specialising in cars. I’m telling you this cos you’ll have looked at my record. Doesn’t mean I’m crap because I’ve done a few stretches in places like this, just a tad unlucky with alarms and cameras. Most times I get in, drive off and no one would guess. Never any violence. Until this stretch, my times inside amounted to less than three years, total. Do you understand me?”
    â€œGet to the point,” Georgina said.
    â€œRight. Well, my strike rate was suffering a bit on account of all the microchip stuff in modern cars. They have these smart keys and alarms. You need to be a computer nerd to nick one.”
    â€œWe know all this. What happened?”
    â€œI took delivery of a box of tricks that would hack me into one of these new cars. Didn’t get much luck at first. Then one evening I’m sitting on the terrace of my local, the old Steam Packet at the top of River Road, when a BMW three series draws up outside. Perfect for me to half-inch with my brand-new jammer and key programmer. A young guy gets out and walks off across the bridge and I do the business. In under five minutes I’m driving it away to get some new plates fitted.”
    â€œWhere?”
    â€œChichester. Geezer I happened to know, who did up cars for people like me. I get well clear of LA and stop to give Stew a call, tell him I’m on the way like. That’s all fixed and before moving off I open the glove compartment and—would you believe?—a load of money falls out. Used banknotes all over the floor. My lucky day, I’m thinking. I fill my pockets and drive on and almost get to Chichester when I hear this police car coming up behind me. Next thing I’m out of the car and being searched. They told me the Bimmer was stolen, which I knew, but they had no business to know.”
    â€œWhat do you mean by that?”
    â€œThe timing. It was far too quick, barely half an hour since I drove off. The kid who just parked it couldn’t have known it was gone. Anyway, these cops found the money on me, two grand, I heard later. I was bricking it by then and I told them a porky, said I’d sold a boat in Littlehampton and was on my way to Chichester for a night out. It wasn’t true, okay? I admit it. I had to think of something to tell them. And then comes the bombshell. They open the boot and there’s this body inside in a garden sack with a hole through his head. I swear I knew nothing about it. How could I, when I’d nicked the car half an hour before? Next thing I’m a murder suspect, handcuffed and bundled off to spend the night in a cell. I’ve been banged up ever since.”
    â€œYour story wasn’t believed,” Georgina said, more as a statement than a question.
    â€œIt didn’t look good, me with all that money in my pockets. They said either I’d killed and robbed the dead man or I was paid the two grand to get rid of the body and was on my way to dump it somewhere when I was stopped. Nobody would listen. They found the tools I’d used, the jammer and the programmer, and said it was proof I’d nicked the car. Fair enough, but they were saying I’d nicked it the day before from a car park in Arundel. I swear I hadn’t been near Arundel.”
    â€œCouldn’t anyone give you an alibi? The staff at the Steam Packet?”
    â€œThere was only the one barmaid on duty that night