Free Angel Touch by Mike Ripley Page B

night.’
    â€˜But how did he know?’ asked Alec quietly.
    â€˜Search me.’
    â€˜We do have a programme of body searches at random,’ said Patterson. ‘When people leave the building at odd times.’
    â€˜Oh, goody. I knew I should have worn my Strip Searches Can be Fun T-shirt.’ I beamed at him, and he thought I was kidding, but I’d had one once, picked up for a couple
of quid at a Notting Hill Carnival.
    â€˜No-one could possibly have seen my note last night,’ Salome said angrily, but mostly she was angry with herself.
    â€˜Why not?’ I tried to sound interested.
    â€˜The note would go to maybe a dozen people on our client list. The City investors, mostly the institutionals ...’
    I must have looked blank. She stopped her flow to explain.
    â€˜The big institutional investors – the insurance companies, the pension funds, the unions. Most of those are in the City, so their copies were not dispatched until this morning
at eight-thirty. The private clients – individual shareholders, that is ... I put theirs into envelopes myself and stuck their address labels on myself and the stamps and posted them myself last night at Liverpool Street Station before I went to the pub.’
    She obviously felt she had to explain. ‘Liverpool Street because they do half-hourly collections in the early evening and it’s the one place from which you can guarantee next
day delivery.’
    That at least was for sure. In West One district, for example, there were more troublemakers in the Post Office than there were in Dublin in 1916.
    â€˜I’ve been over all this with Salome,’ said Alec, but he was talking at Patterson, not to me. ‘And I saw her post the client list myself.’
    â€˜Well, somehow this friend of Roy’s knew enough to be blabbing to all and sundry in the four-ale bar last night.’ snapped Patterson again.
    Where did he get his dialogue? What did he talk like before translation?
    â€˜No, that’s not right,’ I pointed out. ‘The Chinless Wonder was explaining why he’d tipped somebody else off. He wasn’t broadcasting the news, more like covering up a mistake. The guy he was blagging – he called him Si, I’m pretty sure – seemed to know already, but was just pissed off ‘cos Chinless had grassed up some third party.’
    Patterson stared at me. I don’t think he followed. Maybe he didn’t speak English at all; or at least not as a first language. Maybe he was Swedish. They speak English backwards; I’m convinced of it.
    Alec pointed a finger at me in a thoughtful way. ‘You are pretty sure about that?’
    â€˜Yeah. Definite.’
    Well, almost. It was Thursday that day, wasn’t it?
    â€˜It’s Cawthorne,’ said Alec. ‘I’m sure of it, even if you’re not.’
    â€˜You could be right,’ said Patterson.
    â€˜Who’s Cawthorne?’ I asked, because I presumed I was supposed to.
    â€˜Simon Cawthorne,’ answered Salome. ‘He used to be something in the City before he retired. He was in the pub last night, but I didn’t invite him.’
    â€˜Retired? The guy Chinless Wonder called Si was no more than 28.’
    â€˜That’s him.’
    â€˜The point is,’ Patterson interrupted, ‘how did Cawthorne know?’
    He held up a hand to cut off Salome’s response.
    â€˜Coffee,’ he said, and pressed his bell-push again.
    â€˜Mrs Pilgrim’ appeared immediately, as if she’d been waiting outside the door, with another trolley. This one carried coffee-pots and cups and saucers. She began to collect up dirty plates.
    â€˜Great sorbet,’ I said as she leant over me. ‘But take my tip and use lime juice next time.’
    â€˜It’s tattooed on my heart,’ she said, through clenched teeth.
    â€˜Leave the coffee, Mrs P,’ pronounced Patterson. ‘We’ll serve