Angel Confidential Read Free Page B

practices. Oh, never mind. Just tell me which house she went into.’
    â€˜That one.’ She pointed across the street. ‘The one with the green door and all those brass plates.’
    â€˜And what’s her name?’
    She hesitated at that, then went for broke.
    â€˜Rudgard. Stella Rudgard.’
    â€˜Okay, hop out and wait here. I’ll show you how it’s done.’
    There I went again. Typical man.
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    The big houses in Wimpole Street tend to be divided into consulting rooms run by either one large medical consulting practice or several smaller ones, or maybe just a group of medics with nothing more in common than a shared secretary/receptionist/nurse, who is always the key person in the set-up as she’s the one who sends out the bills.
    My orthodontist had a part share in a receptionist/nurse who also worked for the physiotherapists operating on the next floor. She was blonde, probably Austrian and fiftyish – around the biceps. I had no idea how old she was, but she hadn’t lost her accent. The first thing she’d said after checking my credit rating and writing my name on a file cover was: ‘Rrrright, Meester Angel, strrriiip down to your underpants, pliz.’
    I had started to comply, but when I happened to mention that this was a trifle informal for a dental examination, she slapped her forehead and muttered something about force of habit.
    The other gopher invariably shared among the practices is a concierge figure, usually an elderly, middle-class widow fallen on hard times and only really doing the job because it gets her out of the house. Their main task is to open the front door, check your name and show you into a waiting room with floor-to-ceiling sash windows, yellowing net curtains, uncomfortable armchairs and fake walnut tables groaning under last year’s Country Life .
    They then retreat to the back of the hall and into a glass and wood conservatory-like structure housing a switchboard at least ten years technologically redundant; but they still haven’t quite got the hang of it. There they guard the Appointments Diary – a book treated more reverently than a Guttenberg Bible – their knitting and yesterday’s milk, which surely someone should have collected by now.
    The bottle-green door Veronica Blugden had pointed out had enough brass plate on it to be worth stealing for scrap. There were 12 names listed, each with a Scrabble triple word score of letters after them. I didn’t bother reading, I just rang the bell.
    The concierge lady answered it, taking her own dignified time. She was dressed as I could have guessed: dark blue turtleneck top and long tartan skirt. I liked the Nikes she wore, but I supposed they were for comfort rather than a fashion statement. Around her neck, a long string of fake pearls competed with a gold spectacles chain to see which would strangle her first.
    â€˜Yes? Can I help?’
    There was a trace of an accent there. Maybe Mittel-European dispossessed aristocracy rather than Guildford middle-class with a head cold. Then again, maybe not.
    â€˜Taxi for Miss Rudgard,’ I said, snapping into character and showing her my new teeth.
    I had Armstrong parked at the kerb, engine running. There you are, now I am a cab. And I had pulled on the old sweater I always kept in the boot (one leather elbow-patch, the other elbow-holed), so I looked the part. To a civilian I looked the part. A London black cab driver getting out of his cab? When did you last see that?
    â€˜I’m sorry?’ She opened the door fully to check me out.
    No worries about me being a mugger or burglar. Total confidence. After all, this was Wimpole Street.
    â€˜Taxi for Miss Rudgard,’ I repeated, then looked at my watch. ‘Ordered for 4.30.’ Did I let a hint of impatience creep into my voice, perhaps? Well, what can you expect from the lower orders?
    â€˜Is she a patient?’ The concierge looked genuinely