Chameleon

Chapter 5

'Did you know, there's a religious sect in India that never wears any clothes to show their disdain for material wealth?'

'Cobblers!' Carl Stevens rammed the heel of his hand down onto the horn. The resulting blare of noise scared three years' growth out of a dawdling pedestrian.

'The only reason they don't wear any clothes,' Stevens continued, 'is so they can get their leg over more often. Dirty little buggers. No wonder there's so many of them.'

Paul March leaned back in his seat and grinned. 'That wasn't a racist remark by and chance, was it?' he asked with as much innocence as he could muster.

Stevens glared at him. 'Cobblers!' he muttered.

It was a well known fact that Stevens had been "let go" by the Met because of his racist attitude. The final straw had been an incident with a suspected West Indian dope dealer, a rubber hose and a mysteriously locked room. The dealer had been as guilty as sin, but the resultant bruises on his face had persuaded Stevens' superiors to insist that he hand in his papers.

It was Paul March's personal opinion that Stevens was no more a racist than the next man. Stevens, he considered, hated everyone equally. Black, yellow, brown, men, women, children, gays, foreigners, football supporters, and people who had fluffy dice hanging from their rear view mirror. The list was endless.

It was precisely because of this anti-social attitude that he had been recruited. Stevens was the bluntest of blunt instruments, a stocky, shaven headed individual with close set, piggy eyes and permanent stubble. March was smaller, with dark, wavy hair curling up at his collar, his plump cheeks giving him a misleading baby face. He was softly spoken and smiled a lot, and it was only when you looked into his eyes that you realised the gentle exterior masked a core of solid ice. Of the two, he was by far the most dangerous, a mercenary soldier who had had enough of war, but had never lost the killer instinct.

Stevens pushed the reliable but rusty Escort through an amber light and turned sharp left.

'What bloody street are we looking for again?' he asked.

'That one,' March replied. 'The one you've just passed.'

Stevens swore and slammed on the brakes amid a chorus of car horns and shouted oaths. He executed a quick, illegal, U-turn, ignoring oncoming traffic and obscene gestures alike. With a flourish, he swerved into the street they were looking for and pulled into the kerb. March grinned.

'Did you enjoy that?' he asked.

Stevens grinned back. 'Yeah,' he replied, and got out of the car.

The address they wanted was midway down the street. It was a basement flat, the area outside littered with empty milk bottles and bags of rubbish. Stevens banged on the door. No answer. He knocked again, harder.

'Come on,' he muttered. 'Where the hell are you?'

March leant against the wall, hands stuffed into the pockets of his jeans. 'Maybe he's not in,' he offered.

'He'd better bloody well be in,' snapped Stevens. 'After we've traipsed all the way over here. Why he can't be on the sodding phone like normal people is beyond me.'

'As so many things are, I'm sure.' The voice came from behind and above them. They both jumped, March reaching instinctively inside his jacket.