Angel on the Inside by Mike Ripley Page A

here. I hoped he didn’t know what Amy did for a living.
    â€˜Oh, the usual. White T-shirt with something written on it and those tight blue jeans with flares and the faded stripes up the legs and over the arse cheeks where there should be back pockets.’
    On reflection, a Neighbourhood Watch this observant might just be worth joining.
    â€˜Can you remember what was on the T-shirt?’
    â€˜Yes I can, actually. It was “Fuck” but the letters were jumbled up.’
    He meant ‘FCUK’, or I hoped he did. I knew several taxi drivers who had had T-shirts made up with ‘FUCK OFF’ printed backwards so that drivers who cut them up could read it in their mirror and be afraid.
    â€˜She had a bag as well, a big shoulder bag thing that looked as if it could carry the kitchen sink.’
    â€˜And you noticed her when?’
    â€˜First thing in the morning three days ago. She was hanging around behind some parked cars watching your house as I was going to work. Then I saw her that evening as I came home. Miss May was unloading some things from her Land Rover and there was the girl again, just down the street, watching her. She was there the next morning according to Mrs Cohen two properties to the west.’
    I liked the ‘two properties to the west’ bit. Normal people would have said ‘two doors down’, but this was Hampstead.
    â€˜So you know Amy, do you?’ I said with a smile.
    â€˜Not really, no. We did ask her to join the Watch when she first moved in here.’ Then he added: ‘When she was living alone.’
    â€˜What did she say when you asked her to join the Watch?’
    â€˜She laughed.’
    That’s my girl.
    â€˜Was this young woman acting at all suspiciously? I mean, did she do anything that would be a cause for concern?’
    Other than just be on a piece of pavement that you claim by divine right, I thought, but didn’t say.
    â€˜Mrs Cohen is quite firm about the fact that she saw the girl taking photographs of Miss May as she was leaving for work the other morning.’
    He let the implication hang in the warm night air. Amy got up and went to work; I didn’t.
    â€˜Did she follow Amy, when Amy went to work?’
    â€˜I have no idea where she went, but she left the area shortly after, in a taxi.’
    â€˜She could be a journalist,’ I said reasonably, and I could see that the prospect of that worried him more than a bus load of burglars or somebody organising a street party for the gay, black, disabled homeless.
    â€˜That’s for the police – or you – to sort out. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some paperwork to finish.’
    â€˜One last thing. Did you notice what sort of shoes she was wearing?’
    He stared silently at me for a full minute before he closed the door in my face.
    Â 
    I scoped the street before I went back into the house, hoping to spot a trenchcoated figure under one of the streetlights, a cigarette cupped in a curled hand, trilby brim snapped down over the eyes. But there wasn’t a living soul in sight, not even a cat. They had probably all been rounded up by the Animal Branch of the Neighbourhood Watch. I had been right not to inflict a move here on Springsteen.
    Which reminded me that I ought to check up on him.
    Back indoors, I cracked another Leffe and phoned Stuart Street, knowing that Fenella would be the one sent to answer the house phone.
    She said she had to be quick as she had three separate text chats going at the same time and she’d broken two nails already that evening. Springsteen was still growling and moving about in reverse, but he was eating well and drinking a lot of water. I said that was a good sign, though I had no idea if it was or not, and that she should try him with some lean minced beef or lamb. Fenella made the ‘eeeuuu’ sound only teenage girls can really make and said that handling meat was going a bit far. I told