Read Online Just Another Angel by Mike Ripley - Free Book Online

incredulous, but the thought of Fenella standing up to this Amazon was just that.
    â€˜Good God no!’ Lisabeth roared. ‘Nothing like that. It’s her parents, they’re coming up from Rye for a few days and they … they don’t know about me … us.’
    I looked down at the floor as if considering it heavily.
    â€˜Are you telling me that we are really going to have the Binkworthys of Rye in this house – this very house?’
    Lisabeth’s upper lip began to curl. She was not the best person to try and wind-up.
    â€˜I’m sure we can work something out,’ I said quickly. ‘But you’ll have to be nice to Springsteen.’
    â€˜It’s a deal.’ She smiled and turned on her heel. Without looking back she said: ‘Do you mind him peeing in your coffee?’
    Â 
    Lloyd shared an office with a small record-sleeve-design company called Boot-In Inc. On the top floor of what seemed to be an otherwise deserted four-storey building in Curtain Road on the other side of the railway tracks that feed Liverpool Street station. Having cruised the area to find it, I could understand why Boot-In Inc had invested in a triple lock on their office door and a padlock and hasp big enough to have been nicked from Windsor Castle on the street door. Somebody was opening up as I arrived just after 10.00 am; the sort of office hours that could tempt me back into the rat race.
    It was a white guy with long, black hair and a short, thick beard. He was taller and broader than me and running to the sort of fat that comes from too many hamburgers. He was carrying a parcel under one arm while struggling with the padlock. He was wearing white Kickers, white Levi’s and a green nylon bomber jacket with ‘Porsche’ embroidered over the left tit. There was a six-year-old Hillman Avenger parked at the kerb.
    We recognised each other. Maybe we’d gatecrashed the same party once.
    â€˜Angel, isn’t it?’ he said.
    â€˜Yeah. I’m looking for Lloyd. It’s Danny, isn’t it? Danny Boot.’
    â€˜If you’re a friend of Lloyd’s, it’s Mr Boot to you.’ He did not smile when he said it. I remembered that about him. He never smiled.
    â€˜Give me a hand and you can come on up. Lloyd checks in about 11.00.’ He gave me the parcel to hold while he worked on the padlock, and then added: ‘Sometimes.’
    The parcel was bulky but not heavy and about 18 inches square. It was wrapped in strong, brown paper and had a label with Boot’s name on it and underneath simply: ‘London Heathrow’. He got the front door open and led the way up a narrow flight of uncarpeted stairs, leaving me to carry the parcel.
    â€˜If this is prime-cut Colombian snow and the Drugs Squad are photographing us from that Avenger, I’ll never forgive you.’
    Boot snorted and stared up the second flight.
    â€˜They’re videos, if you really must know.’
    â€˜Oh, I must, I must,’ I smarmed.
    â€˜Okay. They’re tapes of this week’s MTV broadcasts from the States, flown in this morning. I’ve just collected them from Thiefrow. I get them sent by door-to-door courier.’ He looked at me as if I’d just come up from the country and the mud hadn’t dried on my wellies. ‘All the airlines do it, you know. It costs about 30 quid and the stuff comes as cabin baggage with one of the hostesses. It’s rarely checked by Customs, and if the plane gets here, so does your parcel. All dead straight, no naughties involved, perfectly legal. And anyway, the clapped-out old Avenger’s mine.’
    â€˜What about taping the shows?’
    â€˜I didn’t, did I? It was a guy over there did that. Of course, when I copy them and sell them up West in all the poseur café-bars, that’s illegal. Oh yes.’
    He would go far, would Boot. And his friends could always see him on visiting days.
    Boot-In Inc, up