Angel Hunt (23 page)

‘That's what they all say. Look, I'm no scientist and maybe I put it badly. It's not like selective breeding, it's creating entirely new genetic formations that don't exist as yet.'

‘And no doubt there will be failures along the way.'

‘It happens, but it's very tightly controlled. Professor Bamforth himself is up for the Advisory Committee for Genetic Manipulation.'

‘So he's a target?'

‘Absolutely, and this is prime time. Or do I mean open season?' He smiled thinly.

‘What, the season of peace on earth and goodwill to all transgenic cross-breeds?'

‘Christmas, Easter, the Bank Holidays, they're the favourite times for the activists. They have the spare time and their targets are low on security. Look at that school on Dwyer Street.'

‘That's hardly a military establishment,' I observed.

‘Okay then, the famous attack on the Royal College of Surgeons' research farm in Kent back in ‘84. That was turned over on a Bank Holiday.'

I'd had enough of this.

‘Come on, Sergeant, I know some of the animal libbers are two bricks short of a wall, but if they hurt
people
they'll alienate themselves from any public sympathy. And you can always get sympathy by showing how badly treated the fluffy bunny-wunnies in the laboratories are!'

‘I hear what you're saying, Roy –' (Rule of Life No 279: people who say, ‘I hear what you're saying,' really mean they didn't want you to raise the subject in the first place) – ‘but we're not dealing with sit-down demonstrators or protest marchers any more.

‘You've seen how well-organised the anti-hunting lot are now, and the anti-factory farming faction have organised Animal Investigation Units to carry out daytime inspections of farms. The fanatics, though, they've gone for the arson and sledgehammer technique. That's what we call it: A and S. But it looks as if some are going beyond that. Do you know what the guy on that video was talking about?'

‘Explosives.'

‘Semtex H. The best of the new generation of plastics.'

‘That's the stuff the dogs at the airport can't detect, isn't it?'

‘The very same. The Czechs manufacturer it, and the Government's been pressing them to add something in so it can be sniffed out.'

‘Any particular flavour?'

‘It's not funny.' He frowned at me.

‘Oh, come on. Where is a country vicar and – ‘ I almost said ‘and a legal secretary' but stopped myself – ‘a backwoods parson, where does he put his hands on Semtex H?'

‘Stranger things have happened. That's why I want you to keep your eyes open on Boxing Day.'

‘You think they're going to blow up a fox-hunt?'

‘Don't piss about; of course not. That hunt meet is a target for the hunt saboteurs, we know that. Oh, they'll cause trouble and so will the bloody huntsmen; they're just as bad as each other. There'll be a punch-up, no doubt, and pictures in the newspapers the next day. But think. It's perfect cover for the real loonies to get together.'

‘And you'll have your informers in there as well, won't you?'

He shrugged that one off.

‘Even better if we have you as well. Keep an eye on those not getting involved in the direct action. The real loonies are quite paranoid, you know. They're convinced we photograph everybody and have stacks of computer time to trace their movements. Most of them won't even learn to drive because they think we use the driving licence computer against them.'

Interesting. They should do what I do – don't rely on just one licence.

‘Anyone with a record of any sort,' Prentice went on, ‘even a parking ticket, is regarded as a liability. That's what makes it so difficult to track the bastards down. They're all clean.'

‘Until they blow someone up?'

‘No. Until they get nicked.'

I broke my fast for the second time in 24 hours and lit a cigarette.

‘If I do this for you – and it's a big “if,” mind you – then you've got to do something for me.'

‘That depends,' he said firmly. I reckoned it was the best I could hope for.

‘I want you to locate somebody for me,' I said, then added quickly: ‘Without knowing why. It's personal.'

‘And totally innocent?'

‘Not likely, not if I find her!' I gave him a real male chauvinist leer and a wink, hoping I wasn't overdoing it.

‘Who is she?' he sighed, reaching for his notebook.

On his way out, he stopped in the hall and looked at the Christmas tree.

‘It's crooked,' he said.

‘Naw, it's genetically engineered that way for houses with dodgy foundations.'

 

I made a list of things I had to do. High up on it were: find Zaria (with or without Prentice's help), avoid Sunil, buy more Christmas presents, organise some musicians for a New Year's Eve party (the rods I make for my own back …) and stock up with booze for it, and restock the larder, which was getting rather bare.

I put the domestic shopping to the top of the list. After all, this was the last Saturday before Christmas and British housewives are always convinced that the shops will never open again, so they rape the supermarket shelves as if stocking up for a siege.

I made a couple of phone calls about getting some booze in for the party, and ended up mostly leaving messages as most people were out and about. Then, not able to put it off any longer, I zipped round the corner to Mrs Patel's delicatessen and piled up some essential provisions. Cat food, cat snack biscuits, cat litter, and food for me. And all the time, peeping around corners watching for pointed (white) beards, cricket bats and BMWs with snowed-out windows.

I got back to No 9 and shut the door with such a sense of relief that I celebrated by opening a bottle of tequila I'd been saving as an emergency Christmas present in case I found I'd forgotten anyone. Truth was, just then, I couldn't think of a more deserving cause.

Springsteen wanted feeding, which is a bit like saying Springsteen was still breathing normally, so I opened a tin of something that was definitely not cruelty free as far as some other animal was concerned, and he buried his face in it. I left all my shopping on the kitchen work surface after cutting a slice of orange for my drink and wondering for the millionth time why we couldn't get decent fruit from politically acceptable regimes. Then I flicked on the CD for some music and tore up the rest of the list of things to do.

I know I dozed off before the football results came on the TV because I normally tune in. Not that I'm a fan of football, but it sometimes helps to know what everybody else in the pub is talking about.

And when I was rudely awakened by Fenella hammering on the door, it was about half past 6.00.

‘Why was your door bolted?' she asked as I scratched my head and tried to shake the sleep from my eyes, thinking that she had a point as she normally charges straight in these days.

‘Pass.'

‘What?'

‘Too difficult. Next question.'

‘You went out.'

She said it like I should be on the steps of the guillotine already. ‘Yes, I did.' I stepped back into the kitchen and waved a hand at my shopping.

‘Ugh! All that
meat
!'

I took a deep breath.

‘Look, what's up, Binky?' Then I had a bad thought. ‘It's not Lisabeth, is it? Is she okay?'

‘She's fine. I did what you suggested.'

What I suggested? I had another bad thought.

‘I gave her one of her prezzies,' Fenella explained, and looked puzzled as I exhaled loudly in relief.

‘So what's happening?'

‘I didn't hear you come back.' And she'd been worried about me. I almost put my arms round her until I remembered Lisabeth and the aerosol and the scissors. And then she went on: ‘And I took a phone call for you.'

I was awake.

‘A girl? A woman? Female?'

‘Yes. She's coming over here at seven. She'd got your number but she said she'd forgotten your address. So I told her.' She put her head on one side. ‘Was that all right?'

‘Brill, Binky darling. I could kiss you. Absolutely ace.'

‘Oh good,' she said in what for her was a sarcastic tone. ‘I'm glad I've done something right. She sounded ever so nice.'

I smiled, but to myself at that, knowing both Fenella's ultra-middle-class upbringing and sexual preferences.

‘Oh, I doubt if you and Zaria would have much in common,' I said gently.

‘Zaria? No. This one was called Lara. I'm sure of that.' Oh shit.

 

I turned the shower on and let it warm up while I stashed the shopping and tidied the flat. Everything that was meat or could have contained meat went straight into the freezer. Surely she wouldn't look in there. Did I know the sort of woman who checked out refrigerators? Yes. I wondered how she felt about butter, and played safe and threw that in the freezer too. Milk? The hell with it, I'd risk that.

What else?

Within five minutes, the fridge contained an ancient tub of margarine, some mushrooms, a clove of garlic, some celery, some politically dubious grapes and some right-wing Chardonnay (Australian – no sweat), about a gallon of bottled or canned beer and a bottle of tequila.

I checked my bookcases and, apart from the cookbooks, which I took and hid under the bed, I felt there was nothing that actually screamed out that I was a carnivorous crypto-fascist. Aside from the fact that the freezer door bulged at the seams and was in danger of pinging open, it was the best I could do. I dropped clothes as I ran to the bathroom.

When the doorbell rang, I was almost dressed and I had almost zipped up my jeans when I remembered the leather jacket I'd left draped over the Habitat sofa-bed. The doorbell had gone again before I'd thrown that under the bed as well, and if I didn't move it, Fenella would get there first.

She already had and was saying ‘Ah yes, I spoke to you on the telephone earlier' as I appeared on the landing.

‘Lara! What a surprise,' I said loudly, hoping she hadn't noticed I'd forgotten shoes and socks. ‘I didn't know you knew where to find me.'

Fenella glared at me, so I turned up the volume on my smile.

‘You were out when I called,' said Lara, looking at Fenella, which I thought was pretty tactless, ‘so I just thought I'd drop round.'

‘Why not? Come on up.'

No matter how badly dressed or off-guard, you always have the advantage if you are higher than somebody else, and I could see it rankled with Lara to the extent that she forgot about Fenella, who disappeared, unwanted and unthanked, into her lair after giving me the sort of look that could come in useful if we ever decided to strip the paint off the staircase.

‘You'll have to take me as you find me,' I said, which, in normal circumstances, is not a bad line.

‘That's fine,' she said, walking by me.

She was wearing a blue denim trouser suit, with medium-heel sandals that made her taller than me, and a stretchy white polo-necked shirt, with a single string of huge wooden beads around her neck. I bet myself that every stitch was man-made and that her underwear was all from Marks and Spencer, though no-one would offer odds on that if she was British and female.

‘Come in, make yourself at home.' I waved her to a chair and I killed the CD set. ‘It seems like only yesterday –'

‘It was yesterday,' she said deadpan.

‘I know. It was just something to say. You've rather taken me by surprise, I'm not … it's just … I'm not used to women coming calling on me.'

I hoped I wasn't overdoing it.

‘I can't believe that,' she said. But I think she wanted to.

‘Well, what I mean is calling here,' I said, not really sure where all this was going.

She looked around, her lush red hair swishing like a curtain so that she had to flick strands out of her eyes.

‘Do you have a relationship with someone here?' she asked, businesslike.

‘You might say I'm escaping from one.'

That was a pretty safe thing to say at any time.

‘Then you won't mind if I ask you out, will you?' She forced a smile when she said it, and then screwed up her nose.

‘Tonight?' I asked innocently, wondering why she looked as if she'd just found a bad smell.

‘Why not? There's a new restaurant I've been meaning to …'

She screwed up her whole face this time and fumbled in her jacket pocket for a balled-up Kleenex. She didn't sneeze, she just dabbed her nose.

‘I'm sorry. There's a new restaurant and I wondered if I could buy you dinner and talk you into giving me a lift to ... to ...'