Free Angel Hunt by Mike Ripley Page A

straight.
    I’d worked with Eddie on a Boozebuster before. She was a large lady, happily married with three kids, without a chemical trace of inhibition in her body. If any Boozebuster victim decided he didn’t actually want to go back to the office or home to his wife, Eddie would gently, but very publicly, take hold of him by what she called his ‘wedding tackle’ and lead him out of the pub. I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it with my own, slightly watering eyes. No way would I keep Eddie waiting.
    I yelled a ‘See yer’ to Kim, along with some friendly advice about not letting her thighs get too cold. Simon muttered something under his breath about ‘That would show up the teeth marks,’ which both of us hoped she didn’t hear.
    I knew the Blackfriars well enough. It was a smartly restored pub that lovingly recreated the interior design of its psychopathic creator a hundred years ago. The main bar had an alcove with more marble than Lord Elgin could have handled, and, at the northern end of Blackfriars Bridge, it was over-popular with the lunch-time City crowd who thought it daring to venture across the river.
    This close to Christmas, it would be packed solid, and I doubted if Eddie would be out on time, but I wasn’t going to risk it.
    I stopped at the Duke of Wellington – a scruffy corner boozer off Union Street – just long enough to buy two cheese rolls and a can of low-al lager to go. There were few customers, and the landlady had been leaning over the bar reading the Daily Mirror.
    â€˜Haven’t seen you for a while, Mac,’ she said, tight-lipped as she dropped the cheese rolls into a brown paper bag.
    I suddenly realised she was talking to me. She thought my surname was Maclean.
    â€˜I’ve been working up north,’ I smiled, convinced that for her the North began at Cannon Street.
    â€˜That’s rare.’
    I wasn’t sure whether she was referring to regional unemployment figures or the fact that I claimed to have actually worked for once.
    â€˜Sound system okay?’ I nodded to the twin tape-deck behind the bar as she counted out my change. I’d rigged it for her a while back in part payment for temporary accommodation after the house I’d lived in in Southwark had accidentally been sort of totally damaged. I’d recorded some background music for her too, and it didn’t sound as if she’d added to her collection.
    â€˜Not much call for it these days,’ she said sullenly.
    I gave up trying to remember her husband’s name so I could ask after him. From the look of things, it was odds on he’d done a runner with either the till, a barmaid or the Christmas Club fund. Maybe all three.
    â€˜There hasn’t been any post for me by any chance, has there, Iris?’
    She shook her head. ‘Phone bill, electricity bill and a notice saying the rates are going up. And that was just the second post.’
    â€˜I’m expecting something from an old friend, and I just remembered he only has this address for me.’
    â€˜Nothing’s come here, luv. I’ll keep it for you if it does. It’d be quite exciting to get somebody else’s mail for once.’
    She went back to her Daily Mirror.
    â€˜Well … er …’ I couldn’t think of much else to say. ‘I’ll call in tomorrow, just in case.’
    â€˜You do that, Mac,’ she said, without looking up. ‘Maybe we’ll be less busy. Maybe you’ll have a drink next time.’
    No wonder the customers were staying away in droves.
    Â 
    I picked up Eddie just as it started to rain again, and we chatted all the way back to Simon’s office while she dressed herself in street clothes from a Sainsbury’s shopping-bag. (That’s how you know when you’re going to be kissogrammed. Watch for the woman with her hair up, dressed in a raincoat, who leaves a shopping-bag near the