Read Online Angel Touch by Mike Ripley - Free Book Online

for a start, as I don’t possess one, or at least not at the moment. I’d had one once, but a lot of my possessions had formed a lengthy insurance claim after a previous residence of mine down in Southwark had sort of blown up one day. I’d learnt a lot from the experience: travel light and rent north of the river.
    I settled for a dark blue blazer that I hadn’t spilt much down, a baggy, grey-wool shirt with buttoned down collar and some black slacks that would have been pressed if I’d remembered to put them under the mattress.
    That was going to have to do. I didn’t really care what impression I made in the City; for Hackney I was sharp as a pistol.
    I took a bus, not Armstrong, into the dirty old heart of the City. For a start, I was probably still over the limit from the pub and the party, and it would really peeve me to get breathalysed for a piss-up where I’d made a conscious decision not to drink and drive. You see, I can be socially responsible. And anyway, my hands were still shaking and I had trouble focusing – hence the dark glasses – and I couldn’t remember where I’d left Armstrong’s keys.
    Salome’s office wasn’t actually in the Stock Exchange, but I didn’t think it was my place to complain. It was round on Gresham Street on the third floor of a building occupied by, among others, a Japanese bank, a Malaysian bank and an Australian investment trust. I didn’t have accounts with any of them, and I wondered if that meant I was deprived. Certainly, from the look he gave me, the doorman of the building thought I was.
    I don’t suppose they called him a doorman, mind you, even though he was wearing enough gold braid on the shoulders of his uniform to settle the balance of payments.
    I told him I was there on business with a luncheon (note that: luncheon) appointment with Prior, Keen, Baldwin, and eventually he had to believe me.
    In the lift, I allowed myself a significant thought. Why are there no ‘ands’ in the names of City firms? For example, Sal’s firm: Prior, Keen, Baldwin, not ‘and Baldwin.’ Maybe Baldwin objected. He probably would if he knew the firm was referred to as Pretty Keen Bastards among the financial press, although knowing a fair cross-section of City half-life, Baldwin was probably secretly pleased.
    If he’d done what most of the old brokers had done and sold out to the meganationals, he was probably in Switzerland teaching the gnomes to fish. In fact, Prior, Keen, Baldwin was almost certainly called something like Durban Kuwait Broken Hill Den Haag Prior Keen Baldwin Suisse nowadays. But as the switchboard operators could never get that out before the pips went, they stuck to their old name.
    At the third floor, the lift doors opened on to a sort of lobby area with a big oaken desk and another uniformed ex-SAS man in residence. I trudged across a carpet that really exercised the ankles to get to him.
    â€˜Yes, sir? Can we help you, sir?’
    There was nobody else around, so it must have been me he was growling at. He’d probably never seen anybody not in a suit before.
    â€˜I’m here for lunch with Ms Asmoyah and a Mr Reynolds. Which way’s the canteen?’
    â€˜One moment, sir.’
    He was impervious to my best charmer smile, but his eyes never left me as he picked up a phone and pressed a button or two. I couldn’t understand it. There was nothing nickable around except his desk.
    â€˜There’s a visitor for you, Mr Reynolds.’ Then to me, with a smirk: ‘Mr Angel, is it?’
    â€˜Yes,’ I said seriously, ‘of Fitzroy, Maclean, Angel, Dealer and Bonk.’
    â€˜Mr Reynolds will be out directly, sir. Have a seat.’
    I noticed one single, straight-backed chair near the lift doors, so I pulled it over to his desk, turned it round and straddled it, folding my arms on the back. I tried another smile on him and struck up a