I was in Leeds before ten, navigating my way through the subterranean tunnels of the inner ring road, emerging into daylight somewhere near the white monolith of the university. The roads were quiet out through Headingley, but every now and again, a beam of light split the night from on high as the police helicopter quartered the skies, trying to protect the homes of the more prosperous residents from the attentions of the burglars. Burglary has reached epidemic proportions in Leeds these days; I know someone whose house was turned over seven times in six months. Every time they came home with a new stereo, so did the burglars. Now their house is more secure than Armley jail and their insurance premiums are nearly as much as the mortgage.
I slowed as I approached the Weetwood roundabout, scanning houses for their numbers. Six seventy-nine A looked like it might be one of an arcade of shops, so I parked and stretched my legs. I can’t say I was surprised to find there was no 679A. There was a 679, though, a small newsagent’s squeezed between a bakery and a hairdresser. I walked round the back of the shops, checking to see if the flats above had entrances at the rear. A couple did, but 679 wasn’t one of them. I walked back to the car, with plenty to think about. Whoever Dennis’s fence was, he was determined to cover his tracks. Using an accommodation address for his phone bills was about as careful as you could get without actually being sectioned for paranoia.
I decided to check out the directors’ addresses while I was in the city, but I held out little hope of finding any of them at home. James Connery’s alleged residence was nearest, back in Headingley proper. It was number thirty-nine in a street of ten houses. On to Chapel Allerton, where Sean Bond apparently lived in a hostel for the visually handicapped. Penny Cash was even worse off. According to Companies House, she was living on a piece of waste ground in Burmantofts. I doubled back through the city center, passing the new Health Ministry building up on Quarry Hill, spotlit to look like a set from Fritz Lang’s Metropolis. Apparently, the place contains a full-sized swimming pool, Jacuzzi and multigym. Nice to know our hard-earned taxes are being spent on the health of the nation, isn’t it?
It was nearly midnight when I got home. Richard’s car was parked outside, though I didn’t need that clue to know he was home as soon as I touched the front door. It was vibrating with the pulse of the bass coming through the bricks from next door. As I shoved my key in the lock, I could feel exhaustion flow through me, settling in a painful knot at the base of my skull.
I walked through the house to the conservatory. Richard’s patio doors were open, revealing half a dozen bodies in varying states of consciousness draped over the furniture. Techno dance music drilled through my head like a tribe of termites who have just discovered a log cabin. The man himself was nowhere to be seen. I picked a path to the kitchen, where I found him taking a tray of spring rolls out of the oven. “Hi,” he said. His eyes were as stoned as the woman taken in adultery.
“Any chance of the volume coming down? I need some sleep,” I said.
“That’s cool,” he said, a lazy smile spreading across his face. “Want some company?”
“You’ve already got some.”
“They can be out of here in ten minutes,” he said. “Then I’m all yours.”
He was as good as his word. Eleven minutes later, he crawled into my blissfully silent bed. Unfortunately, I’m not into necrophilia.
12
THE BUCKLE GOT TO THE OFFICE BEFORE I DID, WHICH GAVE Shelley something to puzzle over. I arrived to find her using it as a paperweight. “Okay,” she said. “I give in.”
I don’t often find myself one up on Shelley, so I decided to drag it out a bit. “If you can guess, I’ll buy lunch,” I said.
“What makes you think you’re going to have time for lunch?” she asked sweetly. “Besides, I told you yesterday, I don’t do imagination. You want me to learn how, you’re going to have to pay me a lot more.”
I should know better. The woman is the mother of two teenagers. What chance do I have? “It’s a replica of an Anglo-Saxon ceremonial belt buckle,” I said. “Also known as a honey pot.” Mustering what was left of my dignity, I scooped up the buckle and marched through to my office.
This time Dennis’s mobile was switched on. “I want you to set up a meet for me with your man,” I said. “Tell him you’ll vouch for me, and that I’ve got something really special for him.”
“I’m not sure if he’ll go for it,” Dennis tried. “Like I told you, we have to wait for a yes or a no before we lift stuff. He’s very picky, and he likes to be in control.”
“Tell him there’s only two in the world. I’ve got one and the British Museum’s got the other one. Tell him it’s from the collection at High Hammer-ton Hall. And it’s gold. He should be able to work it out himself from that. Believe me, Dennis, he’ll want this.”
“All right,” he said grudgingly. “But I’m coming with you on the meet.”
“No you’re not,” I told him firmly. “You’re in enough trouble as it is. This is not going to be heavy, Dennis. I can handle one man in a car park. You should know, you train me.”
“I still think you’re crazy, chasing this,” he said. “Your client’s going to be better off with the insurance company’s readies in his bank account than he is with a poxy picture on the wall.”
“Call it professional pride.”
“Call it pigheadedness,” he said. “I’ll get back to you.”
I went through to Bill’s office and opened the cupboard where we keep our stock of technological wizardry. I found what I was looking for in a cardboard box at the back of the top shelf. It’s not something we use very often, reeking as it does of The Man from U.N.C.L.E., but given that Dennis’s fence seemed to be an aficionado of James Bond, it seemed entirely appropriate to use a directional bug. If that conjures up images of chunky metal boxes stuck to the bottom of cars, forget it. Thanks to modern miniaturization technology, the bugs we’ve got are about the size of an indigestion tablet. The transmission batteries last about a week, and allow the bug to send a signal to a base unit. The range is about fifteen kilometers, provided large mountains don’t get in the way, and the screen gives a readout of direction and distance. Perfect for tracking the buckle back to source, so long as that the fence was going to get rid of it sharpish.
Next stop Clive Abercrombie, with a brief detour via the terraced streets of Whalley Range to stuff Gizmo’s used tenners through his letter box. When I got to the shop, Clive was hovering behind a counter, ostentatiously leaving the waiting on to the lesser mortals he employs to be polite to the rich. When I walked in, he shot forward and had me through the door to the back of the shop so fast my feet didn’t even leave tracks in the shag pile. Obviously, he doesn’t want proles like me hanging around making the place look like Ratners. “In a hurry, Clive?” I asked innocently.
“I thought you would be. You usually are,” he replied acidly. “Now, what was it you wanted?”
I took the buckle out of my handbag. In spite of himself, Clive drew his breath in sharply. “Where did you get that?” he demanded, extending one finger to point dramatically at the twinkling gold lump.
“Don’t worry, my life of crime runs to solving it, not committing it,” I soothed. “It’s not the real thing. It’s a copy.”
If anything, he looked even more disturbed. “Why are you walking around with it in your handbagl” he demanded, giving Lady Bracknell a run for her money.