The Angel Read online

But, wait. Another person was coming slowly down the steps of the ambulance, a big man with piercing eyes which missed nothing. He was shackled hand and foot and had an expression which brooked no argument. He also beckoned to Mrs Manciple, standing there hugging a phantom kitten to her chest.

  ‘I’ll get them, you know,’ he snarled. ‘Those bastards.’ Mrs Manciple blenched. ‘That Grand. That Batchelor. When I get out of here, it’s curtains for them. A drop of the angel.’ He winked at Mrs Manciple. ‘And Bob’s your uncle. Oh, yes.’

  Two more nurses came running down the steps and pinioned the big man’s arms to his side. ‘Come on now, Mr Field,’ one of them said, crooningly. ‘Let’s get you inside, shall we?’

  Mrs Manciple watched them go, her fingers deep in invisible fur. Grand. Batchelor. She wasn’t sure, but she thought she might once have had kittens called that. It certainly seemed very familiar. With a happy smile, Mrs Manciple wandered away, calling. ‘Here, kitty, kitty, kitty …’

  Chief Inspector Dolly Williamson was not a vain man. He knew that he was only ordinary to look at, that if he were special it was because of his extraordinary skill in being able to winkle out a bad ’un. Grand and Batchelor, he had long ago decided, were by far the best of a bad bunch and it would do no harm to keep in touch. They were nice lads, taken by and large. Dick Tanner had certainly had a soft spot for them, and Dick was known for his nose for a good character. He was smiling to himself as he strode off the final step and on to the pavement, but not really looking where he was going. He came to the moment with a jolt as he found himself suddenly enveloped in a tangle of silks, satins, parasols and furbelows as two extremely dressed young women crossed his path.

  ‘Oh, I say,’ trilled one. ‘Sir, please watch your step. I bruise particularly easily and Mama checks me over every night for contusions.’

  ‘Indeed, sir,’ the other joined in and fetched Williamson a sharp one on the wrist with her intricately chased parasol handle. ‘Please be careful, do.’

  Williamson was covered in confusion. He blushed to the roots of his hair and backed away, only to find that a button on his sleeve had become snarled in the auburn hair of the slighter of the two women.

  ‘Don’t pull at it, idiot,’ the larger growled, then coughed and trilled a laugh. ‘Excuse me,’ she said. ‘A case of laryngitis. Don’t pull, let me disentangle you.’

  To Williamson’s discomfiture, the street seemed suddenly full of cabs passing extremely slowly, policemen strolling past in pairs at the regulation speed and women out marketing, gossiping as they went. His lapel was dusted with powder, his hair was full of an exotic perfume which he knew he was going to have to explain to his wife. He stood stock still; it seemed to be the only way to get this embarrassing incident over and done. Finally, his arm was free and the auburn-haired beauty was patting her curls back into place.

  Her friend was solicitous. ‘Are you all right, dear?’ she cooed, tweaking a ringlet behind a shell-like ear. ‘Would you like to press charges?’ She looked around at the backs of the passing policemen. ‘Shall I call a copper?’

  Williamson looked up suddenly at the use of the vernacular and the woman laughed.

  ‘I think he’s clocked us, Stella,’ she said, in a light tenor.

  ‘I do believe he has, Fan,’ the redhead agreed. She leaned forward and patted Williamson’s cheek with a gloved hand. ‘Mind ’ow you go, Chief Inspector,’ and, arm in arm, they sashayed off down the Strand, laughing like starlings, parting briefly to let a portly gent with a large nose pass between them.

  ‘It’s a sailor,’ Mrs Rackstraw announced, flinging open the door of Batchelor’s bedroom. She dumped a plate of toast and dripping down on the nightstand, tutted at the undrunk broth and lemonade and flounced out.

  George Sala peered round the door. ‘A sailor?’ he asked, an eyebrow almost in his hair.

  ‘Take no notice of Mrs Rackstraw,’ Grand advised, his mouth already full of toast. ‘She has a rather unusual world view, but I think it’s fair to say she suits us. Wouldn’t you agree, James?’

  Batchelor nodded. His mouth was watering from the smell of the hot dripping, but toast was totally out of the question.

  ‘Sorry to hear you are unwell, Batchelor,’ Sala said, in full sickroom tones. ‘I trust you are on the mend.’ He proffered a bag to the man on the cushions. It contained grapes, only a trifle squashed.

  ‘Thank you,’ Batchelor said, putting them on the nightstand, which was becoming a little cluttered.

  ‘I just came,’ Sala said, ‘to settle my bill and also to make sure that none of what you have discovered goes any further.’

  ‘Discovered?’ Grand asked.

  ‘That Dickens didn’t write Dickens. That he had a mistress in … That Arthur Clinton was murdered before he could be … could be … well, before he could be. That Gabriel Verdon …’ Sala ground to a halt. There seemed hardly anything in this whole case that could be discussed, even in the company of Grand and Batchelor, let alone polite society.

  Grand gestured with his toast and said nothing.

  Batchelor was busy half choking on a grape.

  Sala looked at them with a sardonic eye. ‘Shall we say, gentlemen, that your lips are sealed?’

  The detectives nodded and Sala saw himself out.