Free Written in Dead Wax by Andrew Cartmel Page B

fetching.”
    She looked at me warily, as if to determine whether I was on the level. “It keeps the rain out.”
    We walked to the main road and started looking for a taxi. I said, “What’s happened to Clean Head?”
    “Who is Clean Head?”
    “Our taxi driver.”
    “Why do you call her Clean Head? Her name is Agatha.”
    “I rest my case.”
    “
Agatha
has taken the night off because she has a hot date.” We both spotted a taxi approaching—from the direction of the Abbey, naturally—and simultaneously began to flag it down. “And I could be on a hot date too, if I wasn’t stuck here in the rain with you.”
    “Don’t sulk,” I said. “You’ll be in a nice, warm, dry taxi soon.” The black cab pulled up beside us and I held the door open for her and we hopped in. Nevada had left her shoulder bag on the pavement and when I reached down to pick it up for her, she leaned back out of the cab and snatched it up.
    “Well, go on, get in,” she said, looking at me. I climbed in, gave the driver the address and sat down opposite her. The taxi pulled away into the night.
    “I can’t believe it,” she said, clutching her bag in her lap, staring out the window at the streetlights flashing past. “I’m going to spend the evening going to a jumble sale.”
    “You were moaning that we hadn’t been to one. Now you’re moaning because we’re
going
to one.”
    “I could be on a hot date,” she repeated.
    “And learning lots about serving coffee.” The taxi was speeding towards the gate to Richmond Park. She looked away from the window, at me, puzzled.
    “What do you mean?”
    “You said you were dating a barista.”
    “A
barrister
,” she snarled, then realised she had taken the bait. “Oh, very funny.” She glanced away, but not before I caught a gleam of amusement in those sardonic blue eyes.
    And for some reason, from something in her reaction, I got the sense that the dolt in question, be he shyster, java jockey or Cistercian monk, would not be in the privileged position of receiving Miss N. Warren’s favours for much longer.
    And I rejoiced in this.
    The traffic eased once we got through Putney and we made good time to our destination in Wandsworth. Nevada paid the driver and the cab sped away into the night. She turned to me. “Our driver was rather disappointing, wasn’t he? I mean, compared to old Clean Head. I rather miss her.”
    “So do I.”
    She stared at the complex of buildings in front of us. They were block shaped, with white stucco walls that had over the years acquired a grey porridge colour and texture, where the surface hadn’t scabbed away entirely. The green painted trim around the doors and windows looked like it had received some more recent attention. In the last twenty years or so, say.
    “So what is this place?”
    “A Scout hut.”
    “Like the Boy Scouts?”
    “Yes. Exactly like that.”
    Light shone through the opaque pebbled-glass lavatory-style windows and indistinct shadowed shapes could be seen moving around inside the building. “Why don’t we go in?”
    “It doesn’t open for almost an hour,” I said.
    “What? An hour? Why have you dragged us to this, this garden spot, an hour before we need to be here?”
    “We want to be the first in line.”
    “Do we? Why?”
    “How would you like it if some guy in front of us in the queue got to the records first and found a copy of
Easy Come, Easy Go
and bought it?”
    “How would I like it? I wouldn’t.” She looked at me. “I wouldn’t let it happen. And I hope you wouldn’t either.”
    “And what exactly would we do about it?”
    “Wrest it from his grasp. And, failing that, insist he sell it to us.”
    “Why would he agree to do that?”
    “He—this hypothetical interloper—wouldn’t know what it is. Or what it’s worth. He’d be bound to sell it for a reasonable price.”
    “Don’t count on it,” I said.
    “Then we’d just have to take it from him.”
    “Steal it from him, you