Bye Bye Baby

23

As it happened, the coffee no sooner arrived than I had my uncle on the radio.

"Sounds like you had a wild night," he said.

I gave him a quick run-down of recent events.

"You on top of it, sunshine? Need any help?"

"Don't suppose Erica's changed her mind and come back?"

"She's gone. Forget about her."

"Then I'm fine," I said.

"Super. That's what I like to fucking hear."

"I'd planned on checking a few things out." I was flattered he trusted me to handle this on my own. "Don't want to leave the boyfriend alone with Mrs Wilson, though. Not when he could just walk off with the money."

"Think he will?"

"Actually, no. I don't think so."

"Then go check out the things you wanted to check out. If he fucks off with the money, we've got our man. I kind of hope he does. See how far he gets before we nail his hairy hole."

"But… " But my uncle was right. I could leave them for a few hours. The drop wasn't taking place till this evening. And if Les was behind all this, then I couldn't read people at all. "Any chance you could get some uniforms to ask around, see if any of the neighbours saw someone hanging about Mrs Wilson's last night?"

"Who would be hanging about?"

"The guy who put the finger through the letterbox."

"Surely he'd have dumped it and buggered off."

"Maybe, but it's worth checking, don't you think?" I said.

"Thought you already did, sunshine. Last night."

"Nah, just dropped by a couple of houses where the lights were still on."

"So you definitely think someone stuck this finger through Mrs Wilson's letterbox? You don't think she bought the finger herself and made all this shit up?"

"It's possible," I said. "We won't know that till we find out who picks up the money. If anybody."

"Tonight's going to be fun," my uncle said. "Want some company?"