three other properties that fitted the bill. Looking at the dates on the previous sales that had turned into missing conservatories, the scammers seemed to work a production-line system. They were getting the loans through at the rate of about one a month, so, given that it can take up to three months for the money to come through from finance companies, they must have been working three properties at any given time, each at various stages of the operation. Dear God! They really were serious about this!
It was three weeks since the last one had gone down, so by my reckoning, we were due for another any day now. I had a good idea where, a rough idea when. And I had an excellent idea how to discover exactly what was going on. All it should take was a phone call.
14
I sat in the back of a bright yellow van, headphones clamped to my ears. My friend Dennis sat next to me, looking for inspiration in the pages of an Elmore Leonard. To anyone wandering along this Stockport cul-de-sac, it looked like a British Telecom van. The inside would have completely confounded them. Instead of racks of tools, spare parts and cable, there were a couple of leather car seats, the kind you get in top-of-the-range Volvos or Mercs, and a table, all bolted to the floor. There was a portable colour TV and a video fixed to the top of a fridge. There was also a hatch in the floor. The van belongs to Sammy, one of Dennis's mates. I don't want to know what he uses it for on a regular basis. I know for sure it isn't anything to do with telecommunications.
Dennis O'Brien and I have been friends now for years. I know he's a criminal, and he knows I put criminals out of business. But in spite of, or maybe because of, that we've each got a lot of respect for the other. I respect him because in his own way he's a highly skilled craftsman who sticks rigidly to his own rules and values. They might not be the same as mine, but who's to say mine are any better? After all, this society that puts burglars behind bars is the same society that helps the really big bandits like Robert Maxwell thrive.
I owe Dennis a lot. My martial arts skills, my knowledge of lock-picking, and the part of Mortensen and Brannigan's income that depends on being able to think like a burglar so you can construct a security system that will defeat the real thing. He likes having me around because he thinks I'm a good role model for his teenage daughter. There's no accounting for tastes.
After I got back from the Land Registry, I'd rung Dennis on his mobile phone. It's a fascinating thing, the mobile phone. In London, when one starts ringing in a pub, chances are it's someone in the City on the receiving end. In Manchester, it's a bob to a gold clock it's a villain. It's a mystery to me how they get past the credit- worthiness checks that the airtime companies run. Now I think about it, they've probably got their very own airtime company, Criminal Communications, or Funny Phones, just for bad lads. With absolutely no directory enquiries service.
Anyway, I caught Dennis at a good time, so I invited him to find Sammy and help me out. I didn't even have to mention money before he agreed. He's nice like that, is Dennis. Unlike me, he doesn't think a friend in need is a pain in the arse. Which is why I was sitting in a fake Telecom van while Sammy was planting Mortensen and Brannigan's bugs in the three-bedroomed semi that Brian and Mary Wright were renting through DKL Estates.
Normally, when we use surveillance equipment, we place it ourselves. It's seldom a problem, since more often than not we're being paid by the person who is in charge of the place we're bugging. It usually arises because a boss suspects one of their subordinates of a) flogging information to a competitor; b) embezzling money or goods from the firm; or c) just a bit of good, old-fashioned internecine warfare against the boss. In those cases, we just wander in after closing time and drape the place in all the electronic surveillance a body could want. Sometimes, however, we have to be a little more discreet. While Bill and I have an agreement that we won't do things that are outrageously illegal, we occasionally find ourselves technically a little bit on the wrong side of the law when acquiring information. In situations like that, one of us insinuates ourself into the building in question by some subterfuge or other. Personally, I always find the most effective one is to claim to be the woman who's come to refill the tampon dispensers. Not a lot of security guards want to look too closely inside your boxes.
However, in this case, none of the usual ploys would work. And I didn't really want either Brian or Mary Wright to see me, since I'd be the person hanging round the street checking out the surveillance tapes. Hence Sammy's van. I'd given him a quick crash course in how to take apart the phone sockets and install the simple bug I'd decided to use. It consisted of a phone tap and a tiny voice-activated mike that would pick up the conversation in the room itself. The bug had a range of about one hundred and fifty metres, though reception in the metal-walled van wasn't as good as it would be once I'd transferred my receiver into the unobtrusive rented Fiesta where I could leave it sitting on the parcel shelf.
Sammy had marched up the path in his Telecom overalls ten minutes ago, and the woman who answered the door had let him in without even asking to see the carefully forged ID card he always carries. Perhaps she'd tried to dial out in the five minutes since I'd fiddled with her phone at the junction box round the corner. The reason I know about all these exotic things is that I once had a fling with a Telecom engineer. He came to install a second line in my bungalow for my computer modem and fax machine and stayed for a month. He had wonderfully dexterous fingers, and, as a bonus, he taught me everything I'd ever need to know about the British telephone system. Unfortunately, he felt the need to tell me it five times over. When he started telling me for the sixth time about new developments in fibre optic technology, I knew he'd have to go or I'd be risking a murder charge.
What I was waiting for now was the sound of Sammy's voice over my headphones. As soon as I was receiving him loud and clear, I'd nip back to the junction box, restore the telephone to full working order, and leave the receiver in my car wired up to a very clever tape recorder that a sound engineer friend of Richard's built for me. It links the mechanisms of six Walkmans to a signal-activated mike/receiver. When the bug's signal comes in, the first tape starts running. When the counter mechanism hits a certain number, it sets tape two running and switches off tape one. And so on. So, it gives a minimum of six hours recording time when you're not actually there listening in.
Five minutes later, I heard, 'Two sugars, love,” booming in my ears. Thanks to Sammy, I was all wired up and ready to roll. Half an hour later, I was back in the office, ready to debrief Bill. He was, of course, horrified about my brush with death on Barton Bridge. Together we went through Paul's photos and the report from his surveillance of PharmAce, Bill muttering into his thick blond beard about the temerity of anyone who would mess with his partner.
'Paul's done a good job there. You did absolutely the right thing, laying him on like that,' he rumbled, shuffling the pics together into a neat pile. 'I'll go and see them this afternoon.' He got to his feet, shouting, 'Shelley? Get Brian Chalmers at PharmAce and tell him I'm on my way to see him.'
'Wait a minute,' I protested, angry at what felt like Bill pulling rank. 'I'd planned to take those pictures over myself.'
'I'm sure you did,' he said. 'And I don't have a problem with the way you've handled things. But I want someone with Chalmers when he fronts up the lab technician. And I'd rather it was me if only to show this creep that he's up against more than a one-woman show. If it was him that ran you off the road, he's got to be made to realize that there's no point in trying to write you off because it's not just you who knows what he's up to. Besides, we need a lot more information about this stolen van, and you've got enough on your plate right now with your missing conservatories.'
I couldn't find any good reason for arguing with Bill. Personally, if I had his six foot plus towering over me, I'd admit to just about anything to get him to back off. So I left him to it. On my way out the door, I picked up the hand-held computer scanner which had been his monthly contribution to the office gadget mountain back in June. At last, I had found a use for it. As I crossed the outer office, Shelley said, 'Ted Barlow's been on. That's the second time today. He's really starting to get desperate. He says he can pay his staff this week's wages, but he's not sure about next week. He wants to know if he should warn them or whether you think you'll have sorted it out by then.'
I sighed. 'I'm doing my best, Shelley,' I said.
'Can't you do it a bit faster, Kate? Ted's scared he's going to lose his business.'
'Shelley, I'm dancing as fast as I can, OK,' I snapped, and stomped into my office. I'm ashamed to admit that I slammed the door. Unfortunately, I used the muscles that were still solid as a rock from the accident, so I lost out on comfort as well as dignity. Just to put the tin lid on it, the vibration of the door caused the last three leaves on
