As for insurance companies, they already make more money than is good for them. Fatter profits would only make people take a closer look at their activities. So let them share the money out a bit. The government can’t seem to manage it, whatever its colour. But I can.
When I talk like that, I feel good. And when I count the money, I feel even better. There’s only one more thing that can make life perfect, and here it comes now.
“Hello. Who’s that?”
Lisa has a warm, sexy voice. Hearing her speak is like drinking your first cup of coffee in the morning and finding it spiced with rum. You’re already looking forward to it, then you realise it’s even better than you thought.
“It’s me,” I said, original as ever.
“Stones?”
“Yeah. How are you?”
“Fine. Are you busy?”
“Well, you know, so-so...”
“Got much on tomorrow?”
“Always things to do. Business.” I was beating about the bush here. Lisa has no idea what I actually do for a living, and I need to keep it that way.
“Oh. I thought you might have time to see me. I’m not working tomorrow afternoon.”
“Right. Where? What time?” I didn’t want to sound too eager. But, well, the sound of her voice was doing strange things to my hormones that kind of over-ruled anything my brain might be telling me.
“Can you pick me up at the hall? I should be out at twelve-thirty.”
“No problem. I’ve got something to do in the morning, then I’m free.”
I signed off feeling pleased with myself. Lisa had made the first move. That always makes a guy feel good.
When I think back, it was her who made the first move that day we met at Newstead Abbey. She may have been listening in to what the other bird was saying, but it was me she was talking to. That’s the way it felt, anyway. And that’s the way she hooked me. After I’d listened to her talking for a while, with my mouth hanging open like one of those roast pigs without the apple, it hadn’t seemed at all difficult to find out her name and where she worked.
When I’d finally walked out of Newstead Abbey that afternoon, the other bird had to run after me and remind me that she was there. I never saw her again after that.
4
Next morning, when I arrived with Slow Kid at the workshop on an old industrial estate outside Medensworth, there was another bit of solidity waiting to trip me up. Half a ton of fancy motor, in fact.
Metal Jacket had picked up an old Citroen BX. That’s one of those French jobs that crouches at the kerb like a whippet with the squitters. It always looks as though its suspension’s gone, until you turn on the ignition and the hydraulics kick in to lift its skirts off the road. Trust the French to be different. I’ve never got over sitting in a Citroen Dyane once and finding both the gear lever and the handbrake sticking out of the dashboard at me like a couple of bread sticks. The BX wasn’t quite as eccentric as that, but it was trying. They don’t make them any more — not since the EC decided that all cars had to look the same.
“What did you nick this for, Metal?”
He ran the back of a greasy hand across his nose, leaving a dark smear among several other dark smears on his face. Metal was well camouflaged for work in a garage, being mainly covered in engine oil and rust. He wore a baggy old grey sweater that matched the bags under his eyes, and the holes in his jeans were more likely to have been caused by spilt battery acid than any attempt at fashion. He was chewing gum, and he hadn’t shaved for a while. When he shouted at me above the racket from the radio, I could tell that he hadn’t used much breath freshener recently either.
Metal Jacket is a real hard worker. He has several kids at home, and a Mrs Jacket who thinks she has a licence to stack up store credit cards now her husband has a proper job for once. This gives him a sharp eye for any chance of turning a few extra quid.
“Slow told me to nick it. He says there’s a bloke wants one nicking, so I nicked it.”
“What bloke’s that, Slow? Local?”
“Nah. Whatsisname, Sharma, in Leicester. He’s got a customer for one. But he wants it cheap. So I put the word out for the lads to look out for one.”
“All right,” I said. Jotindar Sharma was a regular customer, canny and safe. In any case, there’d be no way of tracing the car back to where it had come from by the time it reached him. Metal could render a car unrecognisable in an hour or two.
The Citroen wasn’t what he’d called me about, though. He’d brought in an old Morris Traveller, one of those half-timbered little estate cars that make you think of 1950s comedy films and tea on the vicarage lawn. Did they used to call them shooting-brakes, or am I mistaken? Apparently I’d once mentioned them fondly to Metal as being part of our heritage, and the jerk had remembered it.
But this particular Morris had belonged to some old farmer out near Newark. It looked as though it had spent the last couple of decades being used as a hen house. There were white streaks on all the seats, and various bits of the car were fastened on with lengths of baler twine.
“And this one? Don’t tell me some rich eccentric German businessman or somebody is itching to get his hands on this, Slow.”
“Nowt to do with me, this.”
“So. Metal? What’s the excuse?”
Metal had to chew his gum a few times before he could translate the grinding of his mental gearbox into English.
“Well...” he said. “It’s difficult to explain, like.”
“Shit, Metal. How many times have I told you? You nick the rich gits’ cars — the Mercs, the BMWs, the Bentleys, that stuff. Or you nick the company motors. That don’t matter. But I don’t want you nicking stuff like this, from people who can’t afford it. You got me, Metal?”
“I know all that, Stones.”
“So why did you nick it then?”
“I didn’t.”
“What do you mean, you didn’t? Oh yeah, so you found it, then. Or maybe it took a fancy to you and followed you home?”
“I bought it,” said Metal.
“You what?”
Metal Jacket hung his head, looking shamefaced, and fiddled with the ratchet on his spanner. Behind me, I heard Slow Kid gasp in disbelief.
“Metal? What do you mean? Tell me you’re joking.”
“I paid a bloke for it. I bought it. He gave me the log book, look. I reckon it’s a real one too.”
“Holy shit.”
“Man, that’s really weird,” said Slow Kid, awed.
“It’s even got its MoT certificate and everything,” said Metal.
“Yeah? And I suppose the Mot’s genuine as well?”
Metal glanced at the nearside headlamp of the Morris, which would have been pointing at the floor if it hadn’t been jammed into place against the wing with a bent six-inch nail.
“Well... sort of. I had one lying about in a drawer.”
“And you’re really telling me that you bought this thing?”
“It needs a bit of work on it,” he admitted. “Restoration, that’s called. But it’ll be worth quite a bit when it’s done, I reckon.”
“Well, maybe.” I was seeing a new side of Metal Jacket. I’d never put him down as a bloke who needed a hobby. But people never cease to surprise me.
Then I looked again at the Citroen. Other than its odd posture, it was fairly anonymous. A bit of flashy French styling, true. But it was plain white with no distinguishing marks, as they say, apart from a small blue and red sticker in the back window with the initials ‘PF’ on it. I had a sudden nasty suspicion. It was like the feeling you get when you’re caught short and there isn’t a toilet for miles.