Blue Genes - By Val McDermid Page 0,20

local clubs. Some of the venues I recognized from razzing with Richard; oth¬ers I knew nothing about. I hadn't realized quite how many live music venues there were in the city these days. I looked more closely at the posters, noticing one that had peeled away on the top right corner. Underneath, I could see, in large red letters, "... UFF." It looked like Dan and Lice hadn't been making it up as they went along.

The impatient horn of the suit in the company car behind me dragged my attention away from the posters and back to the road. After the lights, the traffic eased up, and I actually managed to get into fourth gear before I reached Gizmo's. This time, I reckoned it would be cheaper to take my chances with the traffic wardens than the locals, so I left the car illegally parked on the main drag. Judging by the other drivers doing the same thing, the wardens were about as fond of hanging out in Leven¬shulme as I was. I hit the ATM for some cash for Gizmo, then I crossed the road and rang his bell.

This time, Gizmo frowned when he saw me. "Didn't you get the e-mail?" he asked.

"I've not been back to the office," I said, holding a tightly rolled wad of notes toward him. "Do I take it you've had some joy?"

"Yeah. You better come in," he said reluctantly, deli¬cately removing the cash from my hand and slipping it into the watch pocket of a pair of gray flannels that looked as if they'd first drawn breath around the time of the Great War. "Somebody dressed as smart as you on the pavement around here looks well suspicious to the local plod. I mean, you're obviously not a native, are you?" he added as I followed him up the narrow stairs, the soles of my shoes sticking to the elderly cord carpet. It was the first time he'd let me past his front door, and frankly, I wasn't surprised.

I followed Gizmo into the front room of the flat. It was a dislocating experience. Instead of the dingy grime and chipped paint of the stairway, I was in a spotlessly clean room. New woodblock flooring, matte gray walls, no cur¬tains, double-glazed windows. A leather sofa. Two desks with computer monitors, one a Mac, one a PC. A long table with an assortment of old computers-an Atari, a Spectrum, an Amiga, an Amstrad PCW, and an ancient Pet. A couple of modems, a flatbed scanner, a handheld scanner, a couple of printers, and a shelf stacked with software boxes. There was no fabric anywhere in the room. Even the chair in front of the PC monitor was upholstered in leather. Gizmo might look like Pigpen, but the environment he'd created for his beloved com¬puters was as near to the perfect dust-free room as he could get.

"Nice one," I said.

He thrust his hands into the pockets of a woolen waist¬coat most bag ladies would be ashamed to own and said, "Got to look after them, haven't you? I've had that Pet since 1980, and it still runs like a dream."

"Strange dreams you have, Giz," I commented as he hit some keys on his PC and located the information I'd asked for. Within seconds, a sheet of paper was spitting out of one of the laser printers. I picked up the paper and read, "Sell Phones, i Beaumaris Road, Higher Crumpsail, Manchester." There was a phone number too. I raised an eyebrow. "That it?"

"All I could get," he said.

"No names?"

"No names. They're not listed at Companies House. They sound like they're into mobies. I suppose if you wanted to go to the trouble and expense," stressing the last word heavily, "I could do a trawl through the mobile phone service providers and see if this lot are among their customers. But..."

"Thanks, but no thanks," I said. Breaking the law too many times on any given job is tempting fate. "Once is sufficient," I added. "Anything more would be vulgar."

"I'll be seeing you then," Gizmo said pointedly, staring past my shoulder at the door. I took the hint. Find what you're good at and stick to it, that's what I say.

Beaumaris Road was a red-brick backstreet running parallel to the main drag of Cheetham Hill Road. Unsur¬prisingly, number one was on the corner. Sell Phones occupied what had obviously once been a corner shop, though it had been tarted up since it had last sold pints of milk