Turning up his collar against the draught, he checked his answer machine. His own voice said, 'Hello, this is me talking to me. Hello.' He'd bought it off his taxi-driving friend Merv Golightly, who claimed to have accepted it in lieu of a fare. After a week of no messages Joe had got suspicious and rung himself. It made him feel both shamed and saddened that clearly the machine worked better than he did.
Now he turned to his mail. The single envelope had the title PENTHOUSE ASSURANCE printed across the flap and he tore it open with crossed fingers, which wasn't easy.
A cheque fell out.
Usually the sight of a cheque had Joe beaming like a toy-store Santa, but the figures on this one creased his good-natured face with disbelief. He turned to the accompanying letter.
Dear Mr. Sixsmith,
Thank you for your communication of December 14th, the contents of which have been noted. There being no material alteration to the facts of the case, however, I have great pleasure in enclosing our cheque for one hundred and twenty-five pounds ( 125.00) in full and final settlement of your motor claim.
Yours sincerely,
Imogen Airey (Mrs)
(Senior Inspector Claims Dept Penthouse Assurance)
'We'll see about that!' said Joe.
Thrusting the letter into his donkey-jacket pocket, he headed out of the office.
Halfway down the stairs he heard his phone ringing. It rang four times before the answer machine clicked in. He hesitated. 28th was the Fourth Day of Christmas. (Or was it the Third? He never knew where to start counting.) Anyway, his superstitious mind was telling him these could be the Four Golden Rings from the carol, heralding the case which was going to make him rich and famous. Or more likely it was Aunt Mirabelle telling him the table was set for tea, and where the shoot was he? Whoever, there was no time to go back. His business was urgent, it was coming up to five, and this time of year maybe even the Bullpat Square Law Centre kept conventional hours. As he resumed his descent he realized he was wheezing like a punctured steam organ. Even going downstairs knackers me, he thought. Sixsmith, you got to get yourself in shape! His car was parked out of sight round the corner. He tried to keep it out of sight as he approached but it wasn't easy. It yelled to be looked at and three months' possession hadn't dimmed the shock. It was a Magic Mini from the psychedelic sixties, still wearing its body paint of pink and purple poppies with weary pride. Clashing desperately with the floral colours was the legend in pillar-box red along both doors ANOTHER RAM RAY
LOAN CAR.
At least after many hours of Sixsmith tender loving care, the engine now burst into instant life and the clutch no longer whined like a heavy-metal guitar. It was already dark and the bright lights of downtown Luton struck sparks off the slushy sidewalks, while high in the sky the Clint Eastwood inflatable over Dirty Harry's bucked in the gusting wind, now aiming its fluorescent Magnum at the glassy heart of the civic tower, now drawing a bead on the swollen gut of a jumbo as it lumbered with its cargo of suntanned vacationists towards the line of festal light on Luton Airport. Even through his anger, Joe felt the familiar pang of affection and pride. This was his town. And he was going to leave it better than he found it. Just leaving it should do the trick, said a deflating voice. He glanced towards the passenger seat, but Whitey, who usually got blamed for such cynical telepathy, wasn't there.
OK, so I'm talking to myself now. And I know better than to take myself too seriously. But there's folk in this town got to learn to take me serious enough!
Armed with this thought, he parked his car on a double yellow in front of Bullpat Square Law Centre and strode into the building.
He saw at once he needn't have worried about the time. Christmas might jerk the daily bread out of the mouths of gumshoes and hitmen. It did nothing to remove the bitter cup from the lips of the deprived and the depressed.
For a moment his resolution wavered and he might have headed for the comfort of the Glit if Butcher's door hadn't opened that second to let out a black woman with two small children.
Ignoring both the young man at the reception desk and the people crowding the wall benches, he walked straight in.
From behind a pile of files and beneath a miasma of smoke a small woman in her thirties glared at him and said, 'Just when I thought things couldn't get worse.'
'Butcher, I need a lawyer. Read this.'
He handed her the letter. She read it, at the same time lighting another thin black cheroot from the butt end of the one she'd just finished.
'Don't you ever think of your unborn children?' he asked, wafting the smoke away.
'When would I have time for unborn children?' she asked. This looks fine to me. Generous almost. That heap of yours couldn't have been worth more.'
'That heap was a 1962 Morris Oxford which I had restored to a better than pristine condition. Also it was part of my livelihood. I need a car.'
'You've got a car. I've seen it.'
'Then you know what I mean. I'm a PI. I follow people. I sit outside their houses and keep watch. In that thing, I might as well be beating a drum and shouting, Hey there, folks, you're being tailed by Joe Sixsmith!'
'At least it's free,' she said. 'It's a Ram Ray loan car, isn't it?'
'Yeah, sure. The work I've done on it to make it fit to drive would have cost you four figures if one of Ram's ham-handed mechanics had done it. And besides, only reason he made the loan is he's anticipating I'm going to get enough money to pay him to repair the Oxford or replace it with one of them Indian jobs he's importing. Now what happened was...'
'OK, OK, Sixsmith,' she said, waving her cheroot impatiently. 'I don't want details. I just want to know why
