Fell Purpose by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles

Author:Cynthia Harrod-Eagles
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Severn House Publishers Ltd
Published: 0100-12-31T22:00:00+00:00

TWELVE

What a Difference a Dray Makes

Slider would have liked to round things off by talking to Oliver Paulson – whose flat was only a hop, skip and jump from Bravington Road – but of course Paulson would be at work in the City, and would have to be an evening call. Instead, he decided to look in on his obbo team.

At present on duty outside Carmichael’s flat were Hart and McLaren, and as Slider came along he was pleased to see that they blended in with the background nicely. He only knew them because he knew them. McLaren was leaning against the wall between the two shops opposite, eating a drippy meatball sub, and given that everyone on London’s streets under the age of fifty seemed to be eating all the time these days, it made him inconspicuous. Hart had abandoned her smart work suits for a cropped top and a pair of hot pants, and if men walking past were looking at her it was not because they thought she might be a cop. She was wearing an iPod and earphones, an inspired piece of costume because it gave her an excuse to jiggle about a bit and disguised the fact that she was staying in the same place.

Slider didn’t want to go up to her and blow her cover, but he saw her spot him, so he went into the tobacconist’s next to the tarot shop under Carmichael’s flat, and bought a pack of cigarettes and a box of matches. When he came out, he found Hart there, having sloped inconspicuously across.

She saw the cigarettes in his hand, as he had intended, and said, ‘Got a fag, mister? Go on, give us one. Be a sport.’

‘You’re too young to smoke,’ he said, and took his time unwrapping the pack to give her time to make her report to him.

It didn’t take long, however. ‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘Nothing in and nothing out. I wonder if he’s on to us?’

‘Surely not. You blend in so well,’ Slider said.

‘Not us,’ Hart said with superb self-confidence. ‘That pillock Fathom we took over from. Just one look at his shoes’d tell you.’

And then suddenly she wasn’t there. There was a little whisk of air, and she was running like a hare down the KPR. Across the road McLaren had also sprung into action, hurling the remains of the sub into a waste bin as he passed – it was that serious, then. Slider went after them, only then seeing their quarry, who must have come out of the flat door while Slider was concentrating on the cigarette pack. Evidently he had seen Hart clock him and, with admirable perspicacity, put two and two together and taken off.

Hart was fleet and nimble, but Carmichael was young and fit and a good runner, and she was only keeping up with him, until he started across the road towards Westbourne Grove, presumably hoping to cut through to the Portobello Road and lose them among the stalls.

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