"Okay," agreed Gilbert, 'do what you think is best. How are you getting on with your dad's Jaguar? Is it nearly ready?"
"It's going well. The wheels have just been done up and now they're back at Jimmy Hoyle's for new tyres and balancing. All we need then is an MOT and we're away."
I stood up to leave. "Don't forget the Procurator Fiscal," I reminded him. His reply tripped off the tongue with similar ease.
Nigel Newley was back with us. He'd shown a definite aptitude for detective work and started to fit in when he realised that we weren't complete barbarians north of Hemel Hempstead. We just like to pretend we are. He'd even acquired a taste for the beer, and no longer diluted it with brown ale. I'd had him in, together with another DC, Jeff Caton, to give them a grilling in preparation for their promotion panels. When we'd finished I asked Jeff to find the names of the Traffic boys who had escorted the Art Aid convoy, and to check which security company was involved.
"A fart to a Ferrari it was Housecarl, but check anyway," I told him.
Nigel had a report to type. He'd caught a pickpocket in the New Mall.
She was a sixty-seven-year-old alcoholic. We both agreed that this burst of success was unlikely to get the Super off our necks, but we'd go through the motions by giving her a caution and alerting the Social Services. Tony Willis was busy at the typewriter keys, too, preparing some court reports. Tony's typing has all the intermittency of some dastardly Chinese water torture. After a longer than average pause he asked: "Does buggery have a g-g in it?"
"A gee-gee, a moo cow, usually something like that," I told him.
"Thanks, boss. We'd be lost without you."
"Any time, Anthony."
Nigel was gazing at us both with a vacant expression when Gilbert Wood burst in. "Haven't you got anything to do?" he demanded of Nigel.
Without waiting for a reply he hurled a screwed-up ball of paper at me and sat down. I smoothed out the sheet and saw it was the Procurator Fiscal's name and number that I had given him. He took a few deep breaths before he spoke. "I just rang your friend Jock McPillock. Made me feel like a bloody schoolboy. How dare I have the temerity to ring him on the electric telephone? Any second I expected him to call me wee laddie."
I waited until Gilbert had calmed down. "Do I get the impression he's not willing to co-operate?" I asked, stifling a laugh.
"Him and me also. Not without hard evidence. A crime would be a good starting point. My advice is drop it, Charlie, we've enough on our plates chasing real villains without inventing them."
"Okay, boss, but thanks for ringing him. I'll cross it off my list of Jobs I Must Do. Kettle's just boiled if you want a coffee."
"No thanks. Wife's got me on decaffeinated. Tastes just the same to me." He stumped off back to his office.
Nigel recovered his voice. "Could be the perfect crime," he said. "The one nobody believes has been committed. Are you going to drop it, boss?"
"Is he chuff," said DS Willis.
Next morning Jeff Caton presented me with a list of the Traffic officers that I'd asked for, with their current shifts. "The security company situation is a bit odd," he told me. "Housecarl had the main contract to transport the Art Aid paintings, but apparently a firm called ABC Security have a contract with West Pennine County Council to do all their security work. They insisted it was their job and threatened to sue for breach of contract. Eventually a compromise was agreed to by the insurers, whereby Housecarl subcontracted this one journey to ABC "ABC Security, well done." I'd seen their vans occasionally. They seemed to have sprung up in the last couple of years. I didn't attach any significance to the name: every category in the Yellow Pages has somebody called ABC listed. A part of me was also beginning to think that perhaps Gilbert Wood was right. I could do without all this. I'd have one last throw, though.
"Get some background on ABC," I told him. "Find out what sort of company it is and who the registered owners are. But don't let them know we are asking. And if the Super asks what you're doing, tell him you're looking for a lost gerbil."
It was decision time. What to have for lunch. I didn't fancy the canteen and I could use some fresh air, so I decided to wander down to the New Mall and eat there. The opening of the New Mall had been a bit of a renaissance for the centre of Heckley. We'd gone through the black-hole-in-the-middle period and, hopefully, were now entering a new, more prosperous phase for the town's traders. It was a rather grand place, and had been well accepted after many early misgivings. It had a posher name, but all and sundry referred to it as the New Mall.
Unfortunately it had become a happy hunting ground for petty thieves.
Today the local radio station was holding some sort of fund-raising event there that would provide riveting listening for its countless dozens of fans. For some strange reason this was expected to attract people to the mall, not drive them away, so it could be a good day for picking a pocket or two. We'd got everybody available mingling with the throng of happy teenyboppers.
Normally, I wouldn't become involved at this level, but the council elections were imminent, and one of the candidates was floating his campaign on the crime wave in there. My plan was simple I'd eat, look at the girls, nab a couple of villains, then come back to the office.
When the others returned empty-handed I'd give them hell and go home with a nice self-satisfied feeling.
The multi-choice, serve-yourself restaurant is on the third floor of the mall. The disc jockey was strutting his stuff on the ground floor, but it was still too close. I was tucking into my pizza when Sparky joined me. One-up to him: he'd found me before I found him.
"Any action?" I asked.
"A definite possible," he told me. "Mad Maggie has her eye on three girls who are acting a bit strange. At least three of the women who lost handbags were sitting over in that far left-hand corner when they realised their bags had gone. It's a bit more secluded there, lots of plastic palm trees. These girls keep returning to the spot, looking for a vacant table. Done it about six times so far. Why are you eating pizza? You always say you don't like it when we send out for some."
"Good for Maggie," I said. "Set a woman to catch a woman. We've too many old-fashioned ideas about villains; we'd have been watching the blokes. I don't like pizza the girl behind the counter looks like Steffi Graf."
"Speak for yourself, I'm younger than you. How long have you been a Steffi Graf fan?"
"About half an hour."
"You should try the roast beef stall, I always go there."
"What's the waitress like?"
"Henry Cooper, but the beefs good."
Sparky took me to where DC Margaret Madison was looking at a closed-circuit television monitor, focused down on to the corner of the restaurant where the action was.
"Hi, boss," she whispered, somewhat unnecessarily, and gestured with an inclination of her head. "They're back, and they're sitting behind that woman who's put her handbag on the floor."
The three girls were at a table in the corner, facing outwards. They had a commanding view of the immediate vicinity, but could not be observed themselves. Except by us.
"Can you record this?" I asked Maggie.
"It's in the can, sweetie. Sorry, boss film producers' jargon."
A middle-aged woman was at the next table to the girls, with her back to them. Maggie juggled with the camera's remote control and showed me the woman's handbag on the floor. As we watched, the bent end of an umbrella came into view and slowly hooked itself through the strap of the bag. Maggie pulled the camera back into wide angle. The girl on the left gently drew the bag towards her. When it was within reach she picked it up and put it over her shoulder and all three of them stood up and calmly walked away.
"Dave, you go up and collar the woman, and radio the others to join us at the ground-floor exits." I was speaking as we dashed out of the monitor room. We were already on the ground floor. A couple of the mall's own security people were with us. I told them to get to the Ladies' toilets in case the girls went there with their spoils. Maggie and I stood at the foot of the staircase, from where we could also watch the escalator. We tried to look natural.