Worthless Remains Read Free Page A

next door. He liked to leave his mess elsewhere, like at my place.
    â€˜So how are we going to go about it? If I don’t know where he lives then the job’s a non-starter and at the moment I need all the work I can get.’
    Annis gave the kebabs a last quarter turn on the barbecue. ‘What else do you know about him?’
    â€˜Hang on, the file’s still in the kitchen.’ I fetched it and flipped it open. ‘He used to live in a third-floor flat behind the Circus somewhere, which he can’t now because of his legs, but where he eventually moved to it doesn’t say.’
    â€˜How come Griffins don’t know?’ Tim asked.
    â€˜Because he doesn’t want them to know?’
    Annis doused the kebabs with lemon juice and handed them around. ‘It does look a bit suspicious. On the other hand he could simply have moved away.’
    â€˜The anonymous tip-off came in a letter that was posted in Bath. If they had seen him in Majorca they probably would have said so.’
    â€˜Is that him there?’ Tim pointed with the end of his kebab and dribbled meat juice over the photograph.
    I held the pics up in turn. ‘Yup, that’s him in a wheelchair; that’s him supposedly walking on his own two feet; and that’s him taking possession of his car, a Honda modified for wheelchair use.’
    â€˜Can you read the number plate on it?’
    I squinted. ‘I can, just. Oh good, we’re sorted, then.’
    â€˜We’ll ask PC Whatsisname to find out for us.’
    â€˜That means wine labels,’ I reminded Tim.
    â€˜No probs. I’ll print some out on your computer later, if you’ve got the bottles.’
    We call him PC Whatsisname because Watt’s his name, Police Constable Nick Watt. Doubts about the precise wattage of Nick’s brain have long been dogging his career. We got quite friendly a few years back and he can sometimes be bribed to find out things for us. It saves Tim trying to hack into police computers and risk a lengthy jail term, but then bribing a police officer isn’t popular with the courts either. Five years earlier Nick had won a competition in the Police Gazette. His prize: a week in France. The
happiest
time of his life. While there he fell in love with an unapproachable waitress and discovered French wine; he had even brought an empty bottle of his favourite tipple back as a souvenir but had been unable to lay his hands on any more of the plonk, for the simple reason that it was rubbish and didn’t travel. It was simply called JM Blanchard, probably after the chap who made it in his garage. We scanned the label, stuck them on a half-decent Merlot and Nick, suffering badly from nostalgia for his untouchable French waitress, swore it was the very vintage he had been drinking on holiday while adoring her from afar. Naturally these bottles were
fiendishly difficult
to get hold of and Nick appreciated all my efforts on his behalf.
    â€˜The DVLA will have a record of the registered keeper,’ Tim said, spraying feta crumbs over his jeans. ‘They’ll even have the name of his last MOT garage. By this time tomorrow we’ll have Mr Dealey pinned down.’
    It was to this end that at noon the next day I was sitting in the Café Retro drinking cappuccino opposite Constable Watt. Unlike most of his colleagues he shunned the current fashion for extreme crew cuts and looked uncommonly cuddly for an officer of the law. He was out of uniform, on his way to clock on at Manvers Street nick around the corner, but looked shiftily around him as though fearful of spies. Nick loved a bit of conspiracy. I saw he had brought an optimistically large bag with him to carry off the plonk.
    â€˜I could only get hold of four bottles this time,’ I told him. ‘It’s getting very hard to find.’ I simply didn’t have any more of the Merlot at the house and while he had convinced himself that it tasted