Angel on the Inside by Mike Ripley Page A

that sort of thing.’
    â€˜Did he? Did they?’
    â€˜No, not to my knowledge. Amy came in one day and said there was a guy following her and she’d talked to her solicitor and he’d advised a restraining order. I had to screen all her calls of course, but if anyone rang I didn’t know, I’d ask for a name, and if they wouldn’t give one, they got snipped.’
    She made a scissors movement with two fingers as if cutting a phone cord. At least I hoped that’s what she meant.
    â€˜So he tried to get through?’
    â€˜I don’t know if he tried, I just know he didn’t get through me. I’m good at my job, and we get a lot of rogue journalists trying it on all the time, not to mention models who are getting career-desperate and agents who are just desperate. If he called, he didn’t get past me. But the bloody woman just kept on and on about him.’
    â€˜Did she say why?’
    â€˜Because Amy wasn’t around. I said she had better talk to Amy as she was the one with the complaint against the guy, but I couldn’t tell her where Amy was, could I? It made it sound as if we were covering something up.’
    â€˜No,’ I said gently. ‘Why was she asking about Keith Flowers?’
    â€˜It’s her job, I suppose. She said she had to put together a complete picture – case file she called it – of what he did from the day he left prison to the day he was rearrested. I guess it’s something to do with his trial.’
    â€˜Nobody’s asked me,’ I said sulkily. After all, it was me who put him back in prison. Well, hospital actually, then prison.
    â€˜Maybe you weren’t around when she called,’ said Debbie through gritted teeth.
    â€˜But you’d have thought the police would have given me a bell at least, even if this probation officer person hadn’t got round to it ... What did you say her name was?’
    â€˜I didn’t, but she left me a card. It was Alison George.’
    â€˜Let’s go,’ I said, snapping to my feet and waving a hand in the air for the bill.
    A white-coated waiter swung towards me like a homing pigeon. I’ve always found that in posh hotels. My bill is ready the minute I call for it, almost as if they were waiting for me to leave. Odd, really.
    â€˜Where are we going?’ squealed Debbie, between gulps of tea.
    â€˜Back to the office to check the security tapes on your CCTV for this afternoon.’
    â€˜Why?’ she asked, but she was not looking at me, she was hypnotised by a final slab of marble cake on the plate in front of her.
    I pointed to it as I slapped cash down on to the waiter’s tray and said: ‘To go.’ Debbie scooped it up like a croupier.
    â€˜I want to get a good look at this Alison George,’ I said.
    â€˜She’s not your type,’ she said automatically.
    â€˜How do you know that?’ I said, caught off guard.
    â€˜If Amy’s your type, she’s not. Anyway, she’s far too young for you.’
    Now it was my turn to glare at her through slitted eyes.
    â€˜I don’t want to ogle her,’ I said haughtily. ‘I just want to see if she limps.’
    Â 
    If Debbie Diamond thought I was suspect before, I had just gone off the scale of her weirdometer.
    Oxford Street was thick with buses, and I got honked by a Number 7, a Number 10 and a Number 159 – London buses being the only thing on Earth brave enough to honk a London taxi – for illegally parking outside the piazza again, though I couldn’t see what business it was of theirs. Perhaps it was something to do with the fact that I was near a bus stop, but that was just silly. During rush hour the punters stepped on and off the still-moving buses as if they were little more than a bright red horizontal escalator.
    At the security office I made Debbie get them to open up and demand the tapes for the time the mysterious Alison George –