Angel Hunt by Mike Ripley Read Free Book Online

drive. It was against his principles. Cars pollute the atmosphere, all that shit.’
    â€˜Is that why I remember him? He was into the environment? A Green?’
    â€˜Sure, anything like that. He was in all the conservation groups when he was a student, but his big thing was animals.’
    â€˜Animals. You mean like “Save the Whale”?’
    â€˜And the rest.’ Bunny zipped up his jacket and made to go. ‘Save the Whale, rescue the rabbit, free the anaconda. Stop animal experiments, stop fox-hunting, abolish police horses, vote your gerbil into Parliament.’
    â€˜That’s been done. Many times.’
    â€˜Too bloody right,’ he grinned. ‘He couldn’t hold a conversation about anything else. That was Billy. Any chance of a lift?’
    I said okay and we wandered out. The barman didn’t say goodbye.
    On the street, as I unlocked Armstrong, Bunny said: ‘You never got conned into any of that, did you?’
    â€˜What, the rat-race or going to uni reunions?’
    â€˜Both.’
    â€˜No, that’s right,’ I agreed. ‘I never got into the rat-race – or the brat-race as it is now – because I never wanted to. And I only ever went to the first reunion after graduation.’
    â€˜Couldn’t hack it, eh?’ he asked, climbing in the back.
    â€˜No, I was barred after the first one.’
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Chapter Three
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    The heavy mob came round the next morning; all one of him.
    He said he was called Prentice and he was a detective-sergeant and he’d been well trained in the most vicious of police techniques: politeness and reasonableness. From the off, he had me convinced that by helping him I was doing no more than carving out a new life for myself as a better citizen, a better human being. Maybe this was my chance to make up for all those little oversights and lapses in the past, which we all have no matter how hard we try to forget or overlook them. If I could help him – and, after all, he was only doing the job we paid him to do, wasn’t he? – then it would be a personal shot at redemption on my part.
    He almost had me going, but my Rule of Life No 14 is that when somebody offers you the chance of a lifetime, they usually mean theirs, not yours.
    I was on the communal house phone, which is chained to the wall tighter than a medieval Bible, when the doorbell rang. Most everybody in the house had gone to work, or whatever it was they did during daylight, and as I was only two feet away, I reached over and slipped the lock, taking the phone receiver with me.
    â€˜With you in a tick,’ I said, signalling at the phone.
    He nodded politely and showed me the palm of a gloved hand. I went back to sorting out a schedule for the day with Simon, the proprietor of Snogogram International. But I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand up and decided that maybe I’d better not say too much in front of the stranger.
    â€˜Okay, Simon, 12 sharp down in Southwark. You can fill me in then,’ I said, and hung up.
    I took a closer look at our visitor. The soft, black leather bomber jacket, the steel-rimmed glasses, the light blue Ford Escort parked out in the street behind him. I should have known immediately. If he’d actually had a flashing blue light on top of his head, I might have rumbled him sooner.
    â€˜Mr Angel? Glad I caught you in. My name is Prentice. Detective-Sergeant.’
    â€˜I suppose it’s about …’
    â€˜Yes. Mind if I come in?’
    I couldn’t think of a good reason why not, so I ushered him towards the stairs and told him I lived in Flat 3. Half way up, Springsteen shot through his legs and passed me at about Mach 5, doing a handbrake turn at the bottom of the stairs and heading for the back door. With his eyes flashing, he looked like a black, furry guided missile.
    Prentice turned his head to see what had just missed him, making the finger-rubbing