have conveniently gone bankrupt and the MD is playing hide-and-seek with us. Anything else?’
‘No, Mr Priest. That’s it.’
‘Thanks. OK, Dave,’ I said, turning to Sparky. ‘You need keep us in suspenders no longer. What have you got for us?’
He pushed his chair back on two legs and launched straight into his disclosure. ‘The registration number of the BMW seen outside Goodrich’s house would now appear to have the letters M-A-W, not W-A-M as we were first led to believe. A BMW of that mark is registered in the name of a citizen of Heckley called Michael Angelo Watts, who has numerous motoring convictions, all fairly trivial, and two for possession of a class B substance.’
We couldn’t confirm that he was black, but knowing smiles broke out here and there in our little group. They’d fall flat on their prejudices if we discovered that Watts’ ancestors came over with William the Conqueror, or the Bastard of Normandy, as we prefer to call him in these parts. It wasn’t much, but at least we now had something to follow that had the right feel about it.
‘Good,’ I said. ‘We’d better have a closer look at Mr Watts. Anybody want to say anything else?’
There were a couple of questions before I asked Maud and Jeff if they knew what they were doing next.
‘Bacon sandwich first priority for me,’ Maud said. ‘I’m famished.’
Why is it that the words bacon sandwich are guaranteed to start the saliva flowing? Pavlov must have wasted years messing about with dogs — he could have arrived at his conclusions after five minutes with a policeman and a bacon sandwich. ‘Good idea,’ I declared. ‘Let’s all have a bacon sandwich in the canteen, then you won’t need to stop for lunch.’
As we skipped downstairs I caught up with Sparky and said, ‘It might be useful to have a word with Drugs about Michael Angelo. Perhaps they’ll have something on him.’
‘We’ll look pillocks if he’s white,’ he whispered in reply.
It was between-times in the canteen, so it was deserted and the staff were cleaning the place. My order of six bacon sandwiches and six mugs of tea earned me a look similar to the one God threw at Moses when he was asked to part the Red Sea. I placed my arm round the manageress’s shoulders. ‘And put them on a chitty for me please, Elsie,’ I said. ‘We’ve been working all night.’
She gave me a more-than-my-job’s-worth scowl and went behind the counter.
Nigel was already sitting at a table with Maud. I pushed another table up to theirs and sat opposite them. I insisted that a puzzled Jeff join them, which left two places at my side for Brian and Sparky.
‘Right,’ I said brightly. ‘It’s role-play time. Just what you’ve all been waiting for. You three, at that side of the table, are a heap-big drugs dealer, and us at this side are an extremely clever financial adviser. Let’s have a talk.’
Five blank faces turned to me.
‘Go on, then,’ I urged, flapping my hands.
‘Go on what?’
‘Talk. What would we have to say to each other?’
‘What about?’
‘That’s what I’m trying to find out. What would a drugs dealer and a financial adviser have to say to each other?’
‘Which are we again?’ Jeff asked.
‘The dealers.’
‘Right. OK.’ He licked his lips while gathering his thoughts. Eventually he said, ‘Hullooo,’ in a perfect impression of Eccles. I didn’t think he was old enough.
Sparky responded, a la Bluebottle. ‘Hello, my little curly nosed friend,’ he mimicked.
‘Hulloo, Bluebottle, what have you got there, my hairy-legged master of disguises and funny voices?’
‘Sweeties.’
‘Sweeties? What sort of sweeties?’
‘Oooh! Make you fly in the sky sweeties. Want to buy any?’
‘OK, OK,’ I interrupted. ‘Stop messing about. We’ll just imagine the Goon Show voices from now on. Jeff, you were asking Dave if he wanted to buy any sweeties.’
‘Right.’ He coughed to clear his throat, as if ridding himself of the funny character. In his normal voice he said, ‘Wanna buy any drugs, Dave?’
Sparky replied, ‘No,’ but couldn’t resist embellishing it with Neddy Seagoon’s famous, ‘I’m trying to give them up, sapristi yackle!’ before adding; ‘do you want to buy an insurance policy? Probably could use one in your line of work.’
‘We have our own insurance. Why would I want some more?’
Brian chipped in with, ‘To get rid of some of that cash you’re swimming around in.’
Maud wasn’t to be outdone. She said, ‘You mean, if I came to you with a few thou in grubby fivers you could, sort of, put it somewhere more convenient for me?’
‘Oh, I would think so, if the price was right.’
After a pause Maud said, ‘We wouldn’t want it anywhere with our label on it, and I think we’d prefer something more substantial than an endowment policy. It’d be out of our hands, easy to seize.’
The teas had appeared on the counter and Nigel jumped up to fetch them. Sparky leant forward, elbows on the Formica, saying, ‘We could do you a nice little line in diamonds.’
‘Diamonds?’ Jeff responded. ‘We don’t not know nuffink about no diamonds. Gold would be better.’
‘We ’aven’t got no gold, only diamonds.’
‘Diamonds is nice,’ Jeff told us, ‘but who can value them for us? Everybody knows the price of gold.’
Sparky thumped the table. ‘We ’aven’t got no effin’ gold!’ he yelled. ‘Just diamonds, cloth ears!’
Nigel appeared with the teas while we were having a giggle break. ‘What have I missed?’ he asked.
‘Just a Sparkington tantrum,’ I told him.
He went back for the sandwiches, and Maud rose to help him. When we all had a mouthful I said, ‘So far, Nigel, we have the situation where the financial adviser is wanting to convert some of the dealers’ cash into diamonds. Now does that sound likely?’
He nodded, chewing and swallowing. ‘Remember that fire in Leeds — Harehills — last year? The local force found nearly three-quarters of a million in a suitcase in the basement. Not bad for a back-to-back terrace in a rundown area.’
We all remembered it. The fire had been started deliberately in what was known as a safe house. Safe for the drugs dealers who lived there. It had steel grilles over the windows and a lions’ cage gate over the door to foil any sudden raid by the Drugs Squad. Before they could gain an entrance all the evidence would be down the loo. Somebody poured petrol through the letterbox and ignited it. The residents escaped via holes conveniently knocked through into the adjoining properties, and when the fire brigade arrived they were stoned by a rapidly organised mob of local youths. Some of them were as local as Manchester. The riot team was called in, and next morning the money was found.
Jeff said, ‘Tell us more about these diamonds, then.’
‘No problem,’ I replied. ‘You pay me what you can, in cash, and I create a client account, just for you. Then I invest that money in diamonds with International Gem Investments. You can either leave them in the vault on the Isle of Man, or keep them yourself. Diamonds haven’t gone down in value since Pontius was a pilate — I’ll show you the bumf.’
‘And presumably you receive a nice commission for every diamond sold,’ Maud said.
‘That’s right, plus a small percentage from you to pay the cleaning bill.’
‘Makes sense,’ she conceded, ‘but I’m still not convinced.’
Nigel stirred a spoonful of sugar into his tea. ‘In America,’ he told us, ‘the drugs barons have so much cash stashed away that the administration has seriously considered changing the colour of the dollar bills just to foil them.’
‘It can’t be easy, buying a new Mercedes with a suitcase full of grubby fivers,’ I suggested.
‘Wouldn’t mind giving it a try,’ Sparky replied, adding, ‘I can’t really see us changing the colour of the fiver to fool the drugs boys. This lot can’t agree on when to change their underwear.’
Nigel leant forward. ‘No,’ he asserted, ‘but in three or four years we might all be spending Ecus, or Euro dollars.’
