Free Angel Confidential by Mike Ripley Page B

me?’
    â€˜Couldn’t you run some tests on it or something?’ I handed her a mug of tea. Even gave her the spoon.
    â€˜I’m not the Public Analyst, Angel. Give me a break.’
    â€˜As a favour. Go on, kid. I’ll owe you.’
    â€˜You always have.’ She sipped the tea. ‘I could probably tell you what it isn’t. But what if it is dodgy?’
    â€˜The minute you suspect it’s hooky, flush it down the toilet. I can’t say fairer than that, can I?’
    â€˜Yes, you could say “Goodbye, Zoe, have a nice life.”‘
    â€˜How is married life?’
    She shrugged. ‘Two incomes, no kids, great sex, skiing holidays, don’t change the subject.’
    â€˜Will you have a go for me?’
    â€˜Give me one good reason why I should.’
    â€˜Can’t.’
    â€˜It’s a hell of it risk I’m running if it is it proscribed substance, you know.’
    â€˜I know, you risk losing one of the incomes and the skiing holiday. How would it affect the great sex?’
    She glared at me over the rim of her mug.
    â€˜You have, as the Americans would say, a smart mouth.’
    I showed her the new dental work. ‘Ah, so you do remember.’
    â€˜Don’t push it. I remember a lot of things, including telling you to grow up and get a job like about every other day.’
    I summoned up all my injured dignity. It didn’t take long. ‘Bur this is my new job. I’m a private detective.’
    She roared with laughter. ‘A what? Since when?’
    I looked at my SeaStar.
    â€˜About two hours ago.’
    Â 
    I had two pieces of luck at the hospital. First, I got a parking space. To be fair, there was a notice claiming it to be reserved for a consultant, but then it was after 4.00 pm and the rain had held off, so he would be on a golf course somewhere. Secondly, Oonagh – the Irish spelling – was on duty at reception.
    It might have been my magnetic personality, it could have been the new pearly whites, or it could have been the fact that she was behind in her paperwork and hospitals don’t really give a monkey’s about strict visiting hours these days, but anyway, I got in to see Albert with no hassle.
    She told me in passing that Albert was fine and had been trying to phone his married daughter in Exeter for two hours. They would probably keep him in for observation for a couple of days, then he’d be allowed out, on condition he took it easy.
    He was in a small ward of six beds, all occupied by elderly men. Two were asleep, one had a broken leg up in plaster, two had cage arrangements to keep the blankets from the more private and no doubt painful bits of their anatomy. I reasoned that the remaining one, a large, balding man who just lay there glaring at the ceiling, was Albert. There was also a clipboard chart hanging on the end of the bed with ‘Mr A Block’ in thick felt-tip pen on the title sheet. That clinched it. Dead easy, this detective lark.
    He wasn’t what I had expected, but then I wasn’t sure what I was expecting. I hadn’t seen anything at Shepherd’s Bush to indicate any personal life, but then I hadn’t been looking. I suppose I had just gleaned the impression from Veronica that Albert was some sort of cherubic little old garden gnome. He certainly wasn’t little; I reckoned six foot one at least, though it’s difficult to tell when policemen – even ex- ones – are lying down. And he wasn’t that old, his bed-end chart telling me he was 58. Cherubic didn’t really come into it either, his face unshaven with a bluish pallor. His cheeks had shrunk into his jaw line and, as I saw him close up, my one thought was that this was a shell of a big man, who couldn’t work out why he couldn’t get up and walk around.
    â€˜Mr Block?’ I asked politely.
    â€˜Who wants to know?’
    There you go; once a policeman.
    â€˜My