England's Finest: Stories by Christopher Fowler

Author:Christopher Fowler [Fowler, Christopher]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2020-04-07T00:00:00+00:00

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Bimsley and Mangeshkar had changed from their black PCU uniforms into jeans, sweaters and dark jackets. Market Road had a wild, unkempt look. It was the kind of area where you kept your phone in your pocket. They stopped before the only remaining vehicle parked at the kerb. Colin cleaned a patch of glass with his fist and peered through the filthy windscreen.

‘VW Dormobile, 1971. It would have been blue and white originally, probably worth about twelve grand after a bit of panel work. It was found unlocked. Someone’s nicked the tyres.’ He opened the door and slid it back. ‘Blimey, it’s a bit fragrant inside.’

‘He was living in it,’ Meera replied. ‘I’m sure others have been since then.’

Once, the street that ran between Tufnell Park and Pentonville had been lined with gap-year camper vans up for resale, just as Warren Street had once been filled with used cars. Both markets had existed on the borderline of legality and had been closed down.

The interior of the vehicle was plastered with colourful pages from art books. Colin poked his fingertip into the corner of the dashboard and showed it to her. ‘Print powder. Looks like Mr Flint’s team has been over the interior. Their tech is probably better than Dan’s. We won’t find anything here.’

‘How can we determine a cause of death without the body? If his people have already conducted their own investigation, why use the PCU at all? And how are we expected to file a report when someone else has already trodden over the evidence?’

‘As I see it, the PCU has one advantage.’ Colin climbed out and dusted himself down. ‘We don’t work the same way. We take our cue from a couple of detectives who don’t just think outside the box, they tear off its hinges, smash it flat, stamp on it and start the investigation somewhere else. Sort of thing.’

‘Thank you, Colin, for that erudite explanation of the Unit’s philosophy,’ Meera said, pulling the van door shut. ‘Let’s try the Vinyl Café.’

It was a ten-minute walk to Tileyard Road, a dead end of new orange-brick boxes that existed on the fault line between Pentonville and Somers Town, an odd no-man’s-land created by a rough triangle of railway cuts, embankments and arterial roads. It was an area that had long been suited to grey skies and rain, but lately the factories and warehouses had been replaced by rows of cloned apartments.

‘My dad wouldn’t recognize this place now,’ Colin said. ‘The air’s almost clean.’

‘What did he do?’ asked Meera.

Colin smiled to himself. ‘He was a patterer. That’s what my great-granddad used to call it. A newspaper seller. They shouted out the headlines, and the gorier they made the stories sound the more papers they sold. He had the gift of the gab all right. That’s why my mum fell for him.’

‘It’s funny, you don’t have that at all, do you?’ said Meera.

‘Are you saying I’m inarticulate?’

‘No, I’m saying you’re honest.’

‘He had other jobs but they were all a bit sketchy.

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