Angel on the Inside by Mike Ripley

lunch in one of the Guild Halls – Ironmongers, that’s it.’
    That was typical of the City. No-one knew what an ironmonger was any more, or where to find one, yet they did slap-up catering functions with so much antique silverware on the table you had to wear polaroids.
    â€˜So there’s a good chance she’ll turn up for that?’
    â€˜Oh yes, that’s a seriously large lunch.’
    I liked that expression, though I suspect my definition and Debbie Diamond’s definition were somewhat different.
    â€˜Has she ever gone missing before?’ I asked her.
    â€˜You mean you’ve never noticed?’ she gasped, pulling back well out of knee-clutching range.
    â€˜I mean missing from big business affairs, meetings, lunches, dinners, cocktail parties, that sort of thing. The sort of thing she never invites me to.’ I saw Debbie’s eyes narrowing, so I softened that. ‘Because she just knows how embarrassed I get being in the public eye. I think she tries to protect me from that side of things.’
    â€˜Hmmm,’ said Debbie, not convinced. ‘Short answer is, no way has she missed anything that important; in fact she doesn’t miss anything if she can help it. If she’s likely to be five minutes late for something, she’ll get me to phone ahead with her apologies. This really isn’t like her.’
    That wasn’t like the Amy I knew, but I didn’t want to go into that.
    â€˜So the stuff she missed today wasn’t important?’
    â€˜Nothing I couldn’t handle, and normally I probably would have dealt with, except for the mad woman who said she had an appointment, but I don’t believe she had for a minute.’
    â€˜And this would be ...?’
    â€˜This afternoon. She turned up about an hour before you did. In fact, I only got rid of her about ten minutes before you arrived.’
    â€˜Not when, who ?’
    â€˜She said she was from the Probation Office in Romford.’
    â€˜ Romford ?’
    As far as I knew, neither Amy or I had any connection with Romford. It’s a place you tend to go through – quickly, because of an unenviable reputation for the speed with which parked cars are stolen – not have dealings with.
    â€˜The Probation Office there covers Chadwell Heath, or so she said.’
    It took a full minute for the penny to drop, and I suspected that Debbie Diamond would have waited patiently for several more rather than help me out.
    â€˜Keith Flowers,’ I said, and she just nodded, almost approvingly.
    By sheer dumb luck I had discovered that Keith Flowers had spent his initial month out of prison at a halfway house in Chadwell Heath. I hadn’t been looking for him, he’d been looking for me and had rung the Stuart Street number and talked to Fenella, who had, naturally, grassed me up a treat and told him where I was. Thanks to the magic of 1471 last number recall (and why the cops on TV shows don’t use it more often beggars me) I had got through to something called St Chad’s hostel in Chadwell Heath and a very chatty warden there, whose name I couldn’t quite recall but who was a very helpful guy, and it wasn’t my fault that he somehow got the impression that I was Detective Inspector Hood of West Hampstead. Well, not entirely.
    â€˜She said she was the case officer for that Flowers person and that she had an appointment with Amy, but there was nothing in the diary and Amy had certainly never mentioned anything to me.’ Debbie took a deep breath. ‘When I told her Amy wasn’t here, she said then I would just have to do and started asking all those questions.’
    â€˜About what?’
    I was genuinely confused. I didn’t think Debbie had even seen Keith Flowers, unless he’d been picked up by one of the security firm’s CCTV cameras.
    â€˜About how many times Flowers had visited the office, had he met with Amy, where had they gone,