“You thinking about Christmas yet?”
“God, no,” she said, laughing. “I still have finals and, frankly, your case files are still a living nightmare. Honestly, Thad. Your voice memos are terrible. So many run-on sentences. You like your own warbling or something?”
“Those don’t really have a deadline.”
“Until you get inspected, can’t produce them, and then you could lose your license,” she said, patiently.
“And what would you do then with yourself? Quit school and have to get a real job?”
“Har-har.” She sniffed. “I pay for school, you know.”
“Who else should pay for it?”
She laughed, politely.
Pause.
“Did you call her back yet?” she asked.
Of course I knew who she meant. “No.”
“She’ll just call again.”
“Past behaviour would suggest that’s right.”
“You’re the detective,” she said, not unkindly.
I stood and stretched. “I think in this particular example I have not always been the keenest observer. Nor been the most reliable student of human behaviour.”
“I didn’t realise you needed to be a shrink to be a PI.”
“No, just a husband.”
“If you’re getting maudlin, I know you’re working too hard.”
“Work prevents me from getting maudlin, I thought.” I finished twisting and wandered to the refrigerator.
“Take a break. Grab a bite. Do some push-ups.”
My fridge contents: a few take-away boxes, some condiments, about fifteen cans of aspartame-infused soda, and a leftover pasta salad from a couple of days ago. I sniffed it, tentatively. Still good.
“Why on earth would I do push-ups?” I said, forking a mouthful of tortellini into my mouth.
“You never know,” she said. “Different kind of case. Might get rough.”
I flashed back to Claymore’s soft chin and his softer chairs. “I think we will be OK.”
We said goodbye. I paced the flat for a bit, finishing my Tesco masterpiece. Not yet bored, I poked around the file some more. Andrew Claymore had also couriered over some more material to Charlie, including a recent pic of Lisa, her credit card and bank statements (not too much damage on the Visa and she had some serious cash socked away in her chequing account), plus a notebook that seemed to double as her dream journal and planner. I flipped through it, looking for patterns or anything out of place. Nothing, though. I studied her looping, expansive penmanship. She had the odd habit of making small hearts over the letter ‘i’ sometimes. Cute.
I put on some music, the Replacements, and opened another Diet Coke. I sat back down. When I closed my eyes, my brain ticking along, I could see Lisa Claymore’s face inside my eyelids. She was turning her head towards me, looking at me, again, over and over. I had other cases to write up, reports to dictate, bills to consider. I listened to the music. I felt the can against my lips. I sat very still for a while, until my phone buzzed with a text requesting I open the front door of my building.
7
“Do you have anything real to eat?” Nora asked, cocking her hip at the open fridge door. I watched my guest’s lean frame silhouetted against the aging Maytag’s interior light.
“Whatever’s there,” I said, rolling onto my back.
“So no, then,” she said, pulling a half-empty pint of Häagen-Dazs from the freezer. She bounded back towards the bed, offering me the spoon. I declined. She slid back under the covers and began happily eating.
“How’s work?” I asked.
“Always there.” Her tone let me know real-life topics were to be avoided. I, of course, should have known this. Like everything else in her life, Nora’s visits to me were scheduled to fit a very clear and structured routine. Every fourth Thursday, she was at mine from 7-9. She found it easier to be able to plan around things. I didn’t know him, but I assumed Nora’s husband appreciated her attention to detail.
“Well, if there’s anything I can do…” I offered, letting my voice trail. Nora was a lawyer and occasionally needed a little snooping done. It was how we met, although in her defence since our liaisons began a few months back she has not sought my professional services.
“I got a new guy,” she said, pushing the ice cream’s lid into place. “He’s OK. Bit older, bit gruffer. He has all the same databases, far as I can tell.”
“But none of my wit and charm, surely.” I was trying to be breezy and fun, but it was a bit too obvious I was trying too hard. This wasn’t fun, per se. It was perhaps more functional than that.
“Yeah, you’re all right,” she said, letting me off the hook. She propped herself up on her elbows and played with my hair a bit. “How’s your work, anyhow?”
“Not bad. I’m on a new case for this guy whose wife has gone missing.” I told her the bare bones, sparing names and easily-identifiable details. I did mention the delivered DVD and its content.
“Wow,” she said. “And no blackmail?”
“Not a thing. Unless he’s holding out on me, which I doubt. But for now I’m just trying to find her.”
“This must be a weird change of pace for you. After all, your housewives are usually found pretty easily, as long as it’s with their heads in strange men’s laps.”
“Well, personal improvement is a passion of mine.”
She smiled. “Mind if I put on some music?” she asked, snaking out of bed. She pulled a slightly tatty Mariners T-shirt over her head, where it fell just past the frilled edge of her knickers. Nora was tall. I shrugged.
She bypassed the shelf of CDs, happily ignoring what she called my ‘shouty boy music’—Fugazi, Bad Religion, Hüsker Dü—to go straight for the box of vinyl. “Honestly, Thad,” she said. “They’re called MP3s. They’re going to be big, trust me.”
“Hey, I have an iPod,” I said, nodding towards my coffee table where my battered headphones were tangled with my keys, sitting atop months-old issues of Esquire and The Sporting News.
“And nothing worth listening to on that, I’m sure,” she muttered. She pulled out my copy of Count Basie at Newport. “Swing?” she asked.
“That’s a terrible oversimplification, but mostly, yeah.”
She gently placed it on the turntable.
“You can skip the first track,” I said as she hovered the needle over the smooth blackness. She dropped it and horns filled my flat. She did a little flapper girl shimmy, and I smiled.
“The girl I work with says vinyl’s not really hip anymore,” I said.
“You mean the girl who works for you?” Nora asked.
I shrugged again. “Apparently, the coolness of it is finally outweighed by the inconvenience. Too big to lug around, takes up too much space.”
“Yeah, why do you have all this, anyways?”
“I dunno.” But of course I did.
Nora, smart as she was, waited for me to get on with it.
“My dad’s. My mother kept it all, after he left. I used to listen to them over and over again. She told me the sound was supposed to be better. Richer.”
“Why’d she keep them?” Nora asked.
“She liked music more than she hated him, I guess. You still hungry? I can send out for something. Or we can run to the caf downstairs.”
“Maybe later.” She was still swaying a bit.
I debated getting up to join her, but the bed was very comforting.
“I’d ask if you have anything to drink besides Diet Coke and Dr. Pepper, but I know the answer to that, too,” she said.
“My life is easier with artificial sweetener as my primary vice.” As Nora bent over to continue investigating my record collection, her panties peeking out from under my shirt, I immediately realised how untrue that was.
“The girl who works for you has a name, you know,” she said.
“Charlie,” I said, patiently. “Her name is Charlie.”
“I know, she answers your phones. She seems
quite nice. Friendly, professional. And what is she… eighteen, nineteen?”
“She’s twenty-seven,” I said, a bit too quickly.
Nora laughed, and I realised she was looking for me to get defensive, and I had been so quick to oblige.
“If you like her, you can just say so. You and I, we’re just friends, you know.” But there was a little edge to her voice, one I wasn’t really expecting.
“Are you jealous?”
“Well, she is pretty. And you talk about her sometimes.”
“I talk about lots of things. So many things, really. Earlier we were talking about the congestion charge, and later my views on the state of modern pitching.”
“Did you? I have to be honest: as soon as you start talking about certain things I do tune out pretty quickly. Our time together does not guarantee undivided attention.”
“OK, so how about this: She’s nice, and she’s good at her job.”
“And she’s leaving.”
“Yes, she’s leaving. To finish her master’s.”
“How are those replacement interviews coming along?”
I sat up and swung my legs over the bed’s edge. “There’s a Domino’s flyer under those magazines,” I said, heading to the bathroom. “Order whatever you want, just no corn. Or ham. My credit card’s in my wallet.”
“I like you,” she called out as I walked by.
“Yes, yes,” I said, suppressing a smile and closing the bathroom door. “You’re all right, too.”
8
Ruddick met me the next night just after six in a café near my place. I was idly stirring my coffee, as he pushed his way across the opposite seat in the booth.
“So, what’s the good word?” I asked.
He raised a hand to get a waitress’s attention, politely calling for a takeaway Earl Grey. “Not much, I’m afraid,” he said. “I’ve got no angle on the DVD at all, and no-one knows a bloody thing about whatever Napalm Hearts is supposed to be.”
“Damnation,” I muttered. My coffee was sickly milky-brown; I forced a mouthful down and felt its bourbon-like burn in my throat.
“Well, there is this,” he said, sliding a photocopied sheet across the table. “And as you didn’t mention it, I don’t think you know it. Might be something, might be nothing.”
“What is it?” I asked, picking it up.
“It’s Claymore’s kid’s birth certificate. He had a son, young. He was still in school.”
“Hunh. So where’s the kid now?”
“Dead. Car accident. Child was only about a year old. Mother flipped the vehicle. She lived, but Rupert Claymore didn’t.”
“Who was the mom?”
“Angela Kendall, a girl he dated briefly at St. Andrew’s. They got married when she got pregnant. After the accident, Claymore divorced her.”
“Wait—Claymore was married before?”
“Yup,” Ruddick said. “And it’s all been very hush-hushed. It’s not in his Who’s Who, I can tell you that much.”
I didn’t like that. I didn’t like knowing Claymore had held back a bit. I drew my thumbnail across the hint of stubble on my cheek, hard enough to feel it scrape a bit.
“OK,” I said. “So, our guy gets a DVD of his wife in a very compromising situation. There’s no ransom, no blackmail attempt.”
“That we know of.”
“Right. Maybe there has been and he’s not telling us. He just wants the wife back, so maybe we’re the back-up plan.”
Ruddick shrugged.
“Could the first wife have anything to do with this?” I wondered. “There’s no obvious connection. But people do like to hang onto a good grudge.”
“Like I said, might be nothing. But then again, you could always go ask her.” He slid another piece of paper across the table. I opened it. It was an address.
“Nice work,” I said, slipping it into my pocket.
“I wouldn’t want you to think you’re not getting your money’s worth.” He stood and buttoned his coat. “Thanks for the tea.” He let his hand fall quickly on my shoulder as he walked by.
9
At about eight o’clock I rang Angela Kendall’s buzzer, following a short walk from Knightsbridge Station where I had managed to snag a decent parking spot. I had sat outside on the bench across for over an hour, watching her building closely. There had been little in the way of action. I didn’t want to interrupt dinner but also didn’t feel like waiting until the morning or calling ahead. I had no intention of being politely refused an audience. She would have to be a bit brusque if it mattered that much to her.
“Yes?” a female voice asked.
“Good evening, Ms. Kendall,” I said. “Delivery for you. Need you to sign for this, I’m afraid.”
Pause. “Come on up.” The door lock slid open.
Knocking on her flat door, I brushed the light dusting of night mist from my lapels. She opened up, gave me the once-over. In less than a second, she didn’t look terribly surprised to see me package-less.
“Evening,” I said, smiling benevolently.
“Good evening. You seem to have misplaced something.”
“My social propriety, I’m afraid. Happens every now and then.” I handed her my card and held the smile for a moment.
She looked it over, and then me once more for good measure.
“I need to talk to you about a case I’m working,” I said. “I only need a few moments of your time.”
She gave her shoulders a slight lift. “You’ll be coming in, then.” She stepped aside and waved me through. I nodded my gratitude.
Angela Kendall was slender, and her movements were smooth and loose, languid even. She had chin-length raven hair and a sharp arc to her nose. She wore sleek yoga pants and a T-shirt, and her feet sported a pair of spotless Reeboks. She motioned to her couch and sat across from me. A mat was on the floor in front of a paused workout DVD.
“Mr. Grayle,” she said. “What can I do for you?”
“I’m investigating a missing person,” I said, unbuttoning my overcoat. “Your ex-husband’s current wife.”
“You can look in the closets and behind my doors, if you like.” I watched her lips closely for a smile, but it wasn’t forthcoming.
“If only it were that simple, ma’am,” I said.
“I assure you, I don’t know anything about that. Andrew and I… well, we aren’t exactly close.”
“I know how it ended. May I inquire as to the exact nature of your current relationship?” I pulled out a pad and pen.
“I’d rather you didn’t,” she said, finding my eyes with hers. They were dark, metallic, and maybe just a little cold.
“Well, seeing as how I’m already here and everything.”
We waited each other out for a second. Finally, she turned her face and gave the air a slight flick with her hand. “I suppose you could find this out yourself, since you found me. Andrew and I have very little contact. But a few years ago, I was in some trouble. I needed some money, and he gave it to me.”
“Why?”
“My next husband had a gambling problem and owed some men a sizeable sum of money. It seemed easier to humiliate myself to Andrew than make several hospital visits.”
“Was it?”
“Actually, yes. Andrew was gracious enough. The money was given without much question or resistance. And we haven’t spoken since.”
“So, basically, a perfect fix.” I looked the flat over. It was nice but not exactly lavish. Or big. “Where’s the next husband now?”
“He’s now my second ex.” She reached for a bottle of water on the table next to her, already opened.
“And I assume you don’t know anybody who would want to hurt your first ex-husband or the present Mrs. Claymore?”
“No. We’re hardly friends, but as I explained, he did do right by me when I needed him to.”
“Still, it has to sting a bit. Knowing he’s expunged you like this, from the records. His own private memory hole.”
&nb
sp; She looked me over from over the top of her bottle. “Every man has his pride, Mr. Grayle. And Andrew has his own ambitions that perhaps our time together will not fit into.”
“Who’d your ex owe the money to?”
“Does it matter?”
“It might.”
She considered me for a moment. “Mr. Grayle, is this a usual case for you?”
“They’re all unique in their own ways.” I hoped the hint of glibness would be enough to dodge her intent.
It was not. “You investigate a lot of missing housewives, then?”
“The current Mrs. Claymore is not exactly the housewife type.”
“No, I don’t suppose she would be. So, really more of the wayward wives, then?”
“Actually, most of my cases are still cheating husbands, but women are catching up fast.”
She smiled thinly. “No doubt.”
I smiled back. We were still on pretty even ground, the two of us, so I went for it once more. “Where’d your ex-husband make book?”
She sighed. “There’s a pub across the street from St. George’s Church, on Cannon Street Road. The governor there is a man named Shane Bowering. Ask for him. He’ll talk to you. He’s a bookie but he’s still a nice person.”
“So why pay him?”
“The people he hires aren’t so nice. A bit tawdry, I know, but we had to make it all go away.”
“How much were you in for?”
“My ex,” she corrected, “was in for about four thousand pounds.”
“You know gambling is legal, right? You can bet on football and the ponies just about anywhere.”
She stared at me, trying to decide how much more to say. Or whether or not I was stupid, I was struggling to tell. “Those weren’t the bets he was looking to make,” she said evenly.
I closed my notebook. “Thanks for your time,” I said, standing. “And apologies for my little prank earlier.”
“Not at all,” she said, standing and shaking my hand. “I imagine you have to lie a lot in your job to get the things you need.”
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