Free Angel on the Inside by Mike Ripley

the part. Not only did I have an authentic black London cab, but I had found an old leather waistcoat, smelling accurately of old diesel, in Armstrong’s boot and had slipped it over my crisp white T-shirt, the one with the legend: ‘My Other T-Shirt’s a Paul Smith.’
    Armed with the bunch of roses and the camera, I marched into the piazza straight up to the security office and rapped on the Enquiries window with my knuckles. An elderly white guy with tinted glasses and a fast-food belly hauled himself out of a swivel chair and wheezed his way over to pull the window up about six inches. The effort seemed to drain him.
    â€˜Yes?’
    â€˜Flowers for a Miss D Diamond, second floor,’ I said, trying to outdo him in sounding bored.
    â€˜Pass ‘em through.’
    â€˜Personal delivery.’
    â€˜Is she expecting them?’
    â€˜Do I look psychic?’
    â€˜Then give them over. I’ll see she gets them.’
    â€˜Got to take your picture, then,’ I said, holding up the snappy camera.
    â€˜You pullin’ my plonker?’
    â€˜You wish. Listen, mate, I get the flowers and the camera given to me by a punter with more money than sense. Take the flowers, take a picture of happy lady getting nice surprise. Take camera back to punter, get return fare. That plus the tip’ll do me for the last job of the day. I am well sick of fuckin’ tourists who ‘ave no idea where they’ve just been, let alone where they want to go, and then they bitch about the fare, though the fuckin’ meter’s right in front of them, then they try an’ pay in fuckin’ Euros like I look like a bank in Strasbourg ...’
    That was enough.
    â€˜Yeah, yeah, tell me about it. Like I’ve not had to get a fuckin’ interpreter in because some Japanese newspaper’s said Stella McCartney’s opening a boutique in ‘ere today. You should’ve seen the bleedin’ queues this lunchtime. Anyway, I don’t give a shit, I’m off in half-an-hour. Second floor, mate, lift at the top of the escalator then ask at reception.’
    Sometimes it was a shame to take the money, I thought, as I stood on the escalator. I really would have to have a word with Amy about how easy it was to get into her office building, even though I knew she’d say you just couldn’t get the staff these days.
    All I had to do now, I thought, as I got in the lift and pressed ‘2’, was worm my way into the confidence of the Dreaded Debbie: the only pit bull known to do T-line shorthand and audio-typing, according to Amy.
    As it turned out, that proved quite easy as well.
    The lift doors hissed open and I had taken no more than two steps out onto the carpeted floor when a female voice said:
    â€˜It is you Angel, isn’t it? Thank God you’re here.’
    I needn’t have wasted the money on the flowers.
    I drove Debbie Diamond round to the Portman Hotel for afternoon tea. I knew the hotel from the days when it did Sunday brunch with live jazz, and had even played there a couple of times. But that was a while back. Surely they wouldn’t still remember the incident with the vintage claret?
    I resolved to have a serious word with Amy – when I found out where she was – about her deliberately misleading me every which way about Debbie. She didn’t strike me in any way as a battleaxe, a Rotweiler, a frump, a career spinster (‘So afraid of marriage we call her the Ring Wraith’), someone for whom nightlife meant a long chat with a timeshare salesman from a call centre, or indeed a woman who had to wear a bra designed by Fisher-Price. She wasn’t even half-way to her mid-forties, and I call five-foot-one petite, not dwarfish. I quite liked the big round glasses and didn’t think they made her look like a constipated owl at all, and I saw no reason to call the fashion police over the stonewashed denim jacket she was wearing with the