Read Online Angel on the Inside by Mike Ripley - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Mike Ripley
Tags: Fiction, detective, Crime, Mystery, series, Humour, Gangster, funny, Novel, angel, Comedy, stalking, Welsh, mike ripley, comic crime, crime writers, fresh blood, lovejoy, critic, birmingham post, essex book festival, secretive, private, amusing
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for â a computer, so that put me at a disadvantage.
(The only other thing I know about computers is to put a fake address in your email address book, say [email protected]. You are never going to use it, but if some kind person sends you a virus developed by some smartarse in a California computer school, then youâll know youâve got it when your server flashes up the address as undeliverable.)
So if I couldnât get any joy out of one robotic, mechanical, soulless entity, then I would have to try another and ring her secretary.
Amazingly I had never actually met Debbie Diamond, even though she had worked for Amy for over two years. Then again, I rarely get into Amyâs office above a flash shopping piazza on Oxford Street. In fact, I had never been in it, come to think of it. I was usually restricted to the sitting-outside-in-Armstrong-with-the-engine-running role, waiting to ferry her home or to the City airport or to a fashion bash somewhere. I didnât mind that. Me and offices have never got on; for a start, theyâre open really weird hours, like all day â as if you didnât have other stuff to do.
I had spoken to the Dreaded Debbie many a time, on the phone or over the intercom from the security desk downstairs, which served both the shops in the piazza and the office suites above them, and all I had heard backed up the mental picture Amy had painted of her. Tough, bulldog stubborn, fiercely loyal, lived with her invalid mother in Plumstead and wore cardigans. Not only that, but she wore cardigans with tissues pushed up the sleeve. Amy had repeatedly said she was lucky to have found Debbie D as they didnât make them like her any more.
I knew the type, and I knew I wouldnât get anything out of her over the phone. I decided on a plan: I would call in and see her. A social call. Surprise her, maybe with some flowers. That would even get me past security, as no-one questions a taxi driver delivering flowers to a lady in an office.
Yes, that was a plan.
All I had to do now was remember where Iâd left my taxi.
Â
I tubed it via the Northern Line to the Angel and then hopped on a Number 48 bus into Hackney. It seemed to take nearly forever, but I wasnât going to pay for another mini-cab. Itâs not the quids, itâs the principle.
I lurked around the corner of Stuart Street debating with myself as to whether I should pop in to Number Nine and see how Springsteen was doing. If Fenella was there, sheâd have a go at me for not bringing him some smoked salmon or grapes or something. Miranda would have a go at me for leading Doogie astray the day before; Doogie would offer me the hair of the dog; Lisabeth would just have a go at me because that was what she did best. The voices in my head decided by a clear 5-2 majority to make a run for it.
By the time I had rescued Armstrong and got up to the West End, pausing only to buy an impressive bouquet of roses at wholesale price from a corner shop floristâs I knew near Kingâs Cross and a cheap one-trip snappy camera from the chemistâs next door, it was after 4.00 pm. I hardly knew where the day had gone.
On Oxford Street, I parked confidently on the double yellow lines outside the shopping piazza so the guys in the security booth could get a clear view of me. Since Oxford Street is supposedly a no-go area for civilian drivers â in theory only buses and taxis allowed during the day â I wasnât too worried about traffic wardens, but it was the summer and that meant zillions of tourists who didnât know the rules and it wasnât uncommon to see lost Belgian-registered cars or donât-care-anyway Italian ones chugging along behind the buses at an average speed of about seven miles per hour, which is slower than the Hansom cabs did it in Sherlock Holmesâs day.
Unless it was a really slow day, the wardens didnât bother with taxis, and I was confident I looked
(The only other thing I know about computers is to put a fake address in your email address book, say [email protected]. You are never going to use it, but if some kind person sends you a virus developed by some smartarse in a California computer school, then youâll know youâve got it when your server flashes up the address as undeliverable.)
So if I couldnât get any joy out of one robotic, mechanical, soulless entity, then I would have to try another and ring her secretary.
Amazingly I had never actually met Debbie Diamond, even though she had worked for Amy for over two years. Then again, I rarely get into Amyâs office above a flash shopping piazza on Oxford Street. In fact, I had never been in it, come to think of it. I was usually restricted to the sitting-outside-in-Armstrong-with-the-engine-running role, waiting to ferry her home or to the City airport or to a fashion bash somewhere. I didnât mind that. Me and offices have never got on; for a start, theyâre open really weird hours, like all day â as if you didnât have other stuff to do.
I had spoken to the Dreaded Debbie many a time, on the phone or over the intercom from the security desk downstairs, which served both the shops in the piazza and the office suites above them, and all I had heard backed up the mental picture Amy had painted of her. Tough, bulldog stubborn, fiercely loyal, lived with her invalid mother in Plumstead and wore cardigans. Not only that, but she wore cardigans with tissues pushed up the sleeve. Amy had repeatedly said she was lucky to have found Debbie D as they didnât make them like her any more.
I knew the type, and I knew I wouldnât get anything out of her over the phone. I decided on a plan: I would call in and see her. A social call. Surprise her, maybe with some flowers. That would even get me past security, as no-one questions a taxi driver delivering flowers to a lady in an office.
Yes, that was a plan.
All I had to do now was remember where Iâd left my taxi.
Â
I tubed it via the Northern Line to the Angel and then hopped on a Number 48 bus into Hackney. It seemed to take nearly forever, but I wasnât going to pay for another mini-cab. Itâs not the quids, itâs the principle.
I lurked around the corner of Stuart Street debating with myself as to whether I should pop in to Number Nine and see how Springsteen was doing. If Fenella was there, sheâd have a go at me for not bringing him some smoked salmon or grapes or something. Miranda would have a go at me for leading Doogie astray the day before; Doogie would offer me the hair of the dog; Lisabeth would just have a go at me because that was what she did best. The voices in my head decided by a clear 5-2 majority to make a run for it.
By the time I had rescued Armstrong and got up to the West End, pausing only to buy an impressive bouquet of roses at wholesale price from a corner shop floristâs I knew near Kingâs Cross and a cheap one-trip snappy camera from the chemistâs next door, it was after 4.00 pm. I hardly knew where the day had gone.
On Oxford Street, I parked confidently on the double yellow lines outside the shopping piazza so the guys in the security booth could get a clear view of me. Since Oxford Street is supposedly a no-go area for civilian drivers â in theory only buses and taxis allowed during the day â I wasnât too worried about traffic wardens, but it was the summer and that meant zillions of tourists who didnât know the rules and it wasnât uncommon to see lost Belgian-registered cars or donât-care-anyway Italian ones chugging along behind the buses at an average speed of about seven miles per hour, which is slower than the Hansom cabs did it in Sherlock Holmesâs day.
Unless it was a really slow day, the wardens didnât bother with taxis, and I was confident I looked
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