Paper Money

18

The beauty of being an earwig, Bertie Chieseman had found, was that you could do almost anything while you were listening to the police radio. And the tragedy of it, from his point of view, was that there was nothing much he wanted to do.

Already this morning he had swept the carpet-a process of raising dust only for it to fall again soon afterward-while the airwaves were filled with uninteresting messages about traffic in the Old Kent Road. He had also shaved at the sink in the corner, using a safety razor and hot water from the Ascot, and fried a single rasher of bacon on the cooker in the same room for his breakfast. He ate very little.

He had called the Evening Post only once since his first report at eight o'clock: to tip them off about an ambulance call to a block of flats in Westminster. The name of the patient had not been mentioned over the air, but Bertie had surmised from the address that it might, just possibly, be someone important. It was up to the news desk to phone ambulance headquarters and ask the name; and if headquarters had been told, they would pass the information on. Often the ambulance men did not make their report until the patient was in the hospital. Bertie occasionally talked to reporters, and he always asked them questions about how they used the information he gave them, and turned it into stories. He was quite well informed about the mechanics of journalism.

Apart from that and the traffic, there had been only shoplifting, petty vandalism, a couple of accidents, a small demonstration on Downing Street, and one mystery.

The mystery was in East London, but that was about all Bertie knew. He had heard an all-cars alert, but the subsequent message had been uninformative: the cars were asked to look out for a plain blue van with a certain registration number. It might simply have been hijacked with a cargo of cigarettes, or it might be driven by someone the police wanted to question, or it might have been in a robbery. The word "Obadiah" had been used; Bertie did not know why. Immediately after the alert, three cars had been detached from regular patrol to search for the van. That meant very little.

The fuss might be over nothing at all-perhaps even some Flying Squad inspector's runaway wife; Bertie had known it to happen. On the other hand, it could be big. He was waiting for more information.

The landlady came up while he was cleaning his frying pan with warm water and a rag. He dried his hands on his sweater and got out the rent book. Mrs. Keeney, in an apron and curlers, stared in awe at the radio equipment, although she saw it every week.

Bertie gave her the money and she signed the book. Then she handed him a letter.

"I don't know why you don't have some nice music on," she said.

He smiled. He had not told her what he used the radio for, as it was against the law to listen to police radio. "I'm not very musical," he said.

She shook her head resignedly, and went out. Bertie opened the letter. It was his monthly check from the Evening Post. He had had a good spell: the check was for five hundred pounds. Bertie paid no tax. He found it difficult to spend all his money. The job compelled him to live fairly simply. He spent every evening in pubs, and on Sundays he went out in the car, his one luxury, a bright new Ford Capri. He went to all sorts of places, like a tourist: he had been to Canterbury Cathedral, Windsor Castle, Beaulieu, St. Albans, Bath, Oxford; he visited safari parks, stately homes, ancient monuments, historic towns, race-tracks, and funfairs with equal enjoyment. He had never had so much money in his life. There was enough to buy everything he wanted, and a little left over to save.

He put the check in a drawer and finished cleaning the frying pan. As he was putting it away the radio crackled, and a sixth sense told him to listen carefully.

"That's right, blue Bedford six-wheeler. Alpha Charlie London two oh three Mother. Has it what? Distinguishing marks? Yes, if you look inside you'll notice it has a most unusual feature-six large boxes of used notes."

Bertie frowned. The radio operator at headquarters was being funny, obviously; but what he said implied that the missing van was carrying a large sum of money. That sort of van did not go missing accidentally. It must have been hijacked.

Bertie sat down at his table and picked up the phone.