Lost Angel by Mandasue Heller Page B

of plastic covers somewhere. Find them and cover all the front seats, then make a list of all the plates, and detail what damage each one’s got: dents, bald tyres, knackered wiper blades, ripped seats and carpets – that kind of shit. Give it to Big Pat when you’re done.’ He paused now and gave Johnny a questioning look. ‘Got all that?’
    ‘Yeah.’ Johnny nodded.
    Frankie glanced at his watch. ‘Right, I’ve got some calls to make, so find yourself some overalls and get started. You can take a fifteen-minute break at half-ten, and an hour for lunch at one. There’s a butty shop across the road. I’ll be in the office if you need me.’
    When he’d gone, Johnny gazed around and scratched his head. It would take hours to sort this mess out, and then he had the cars to deal with. It was going to be a mammoth task, and he just hoped that Frankie wasn’t expecting him to get it all done today.
    Already knackered just thinking about what lay ahead, Johnny chose the least dirty, least smelly pair of overalls off the hook on the back of the door and pulled them on over his jeans.
    There were numerous bottles of shampoo, tins of polish, sponges, and various other stuff that he didn’t recognise crammed together on the shelves and heaps of unmarked boxes all over the floor. Starting on the shelves, he took every item off one by one and put them into groups on the ledge.
    He’d cleared one shelf and was halfway through putting it all back when one of the lads he’d seen in the garage suddenly emerged from the shadows in the far corner of the room.
    ‘Jeezus!’ he gasped, jumping at the sight of him. ‘Have you been there the whole time?’
    ‘Nah, there’s a connecting door,’ the lad told him, jerking his head back towards it. ‘What you doing?’
    Johnny used the back of his hand to push his sweaty hair out of his eyes.
    ‘Frankie told me to sort this lot out, but it’s a fucking nightmare. I don’t even know what half of it is.’
    ‘Me neither,’ the lad snorted. He leaned against a ledge and took a pack of rolling tobacco out of his pocket. ‘Want one?’
    ‘God, yeah,’ Johnny said gratefully. He’d been dying for a fag, but he’d run out last night and had no money to buy any more.
    The lad rolled two and passed one over. Lighting his own, he squinted at Johnny through the smoke.
    ‘So, you’re the new son-in-law, are you? How’s that going?’
    ‘All right.’ Johnny leaned forward to get a light. ‘Johnny.’ He held out his hand.
    ‘Del.’ The lad shook it.
    ‘Is your mate all right?’ Johnny asked. ‘He didn’t look too good back there.’
    Del shrugged. ‘Our Robbie’s a tough bastard, he can take it.’
    ‘Oh, you’re related?’
    ‘Brothers,’ Del told him. ‘We do the pickups,’ he added – as if he thought that Johnny would know what that meant.
    Johnny didn’t have a clue, but he was curious to know who was supposed to do what around here. As far as he could tell nobody had touched the cars before he’d arrived, and that made him wonder how Frankie could possibly be making any money out of them. He sure as hell couldn’t see anyone being mug enough to pay for them in the state they were in now.
    ‘Del . . . ?’ Big Pat shouted just then. ‘Where are you?’
    ‘Shit, best go,’ Del muttered, dropping his rollie and grinding it into the floor with his heel. ‘See you later.’
    ‘Yeah, see you.’ Waving as the lad rushed back out the way he’d come in, Johnny finished his smoke and got back to work.
    Once he got into the swing of it, it went pretty smoothly, and he finished the storeroom well before he’d expected to. He was dying for a brew by then, so he wandered round to the prefab to ask if there was a kettle.
    Frankie was inside. About to knock, Johnny decided against it when he heard him yell, ‘Quit fucking me about, Phil. I told you I’d get it, and I have, so you’d best get your arse round here with the dosh. And don’t make me come