SLOOT

by Ian MacPherson

  Sheer terror concentrated his mind as the voices approached. He dropped lightly to the ground and darted towards the giant oak, which may have been placed there by a benevolent and all-knowing God several centuries beforehand for precisely this purpose. Or maybe not. The important thing is that it was there, and that Hayden managed to conceal himself behind it just as a group of men loped around the side of the house like a troupe of silverback gorillas in the mating season, one prodding another in the chest and spitting vitriol. Hayden couldn’t make out what they were saying. He didn’t want to. He wanted to get out of that garden, now, and nothing else. Bit like a female gorilla.

  The men had just reached the garden table when one of them, about to sit, sensed something not quite right. He may have sniffed the air. Frightened female alert. Silence fell. Hayden was beyond alarmed. Frankie Pope was supposed to live alone. Was this a family visit? The notorious Pope brothers gathered to plan a job? There must have been at least a dozen of them. What if they loped across the lawn towards the tree? He peeked around the side of the mighty oak. Two of the men – squat, muscular, unnervingly alike – stared straight at him, impassive. Hayden thought for one stupefied moment. Then he braced himself, turned and raced frantically towards the wall. He scrambled up and glanced quickly behind him to see if they’d given chase, but they hadn’t. No movement whatsoever. One of them, very slowly and menacingly, raised a clenched fist, smiled enigmatically, opened the fist, finger-pistolled him, blew smoke off an imaginary gun. They laughed. A chilling we-know-where-you-live laugh. Then they turned away and got back to their vicious squabble.

  Hayden fell onto the lawn on Eddie’s side of the wall, quaking, and trembled his way back to the house. Frankie Pope had stolen Eddie’s painting. Why? He had no idea. And now it had drawn him into the Popes’ violent orbit.

  On the plus side, all thoughts of Marina had totally disappeared.

  * * *

  4 Prof. Larry Stern, Disquisition, Chapter IV – Titters and Tittering: The Unsubtle Art of Innuendo.

  13

  Hayden re-entered the house on the verge of a panic attack. He began talking to himself, discussing his own fear. ‘Nothing has actually happened, but something is about to. This I know. I also know that the something will contain a level of violence I haven’t experienced since my first day at secondary school.’5 How did he know this? He didn’t. It was the panic attack talking. But sometimes, just sometimes, a panic attack knows more than you do. The panic attack expected a visit from the Popes, and it expected that visit soon.

  In moments of stress, the tea-making ritual is known to bring an equilibrium of sorts. He’d read that somewhere or other. Possibly a Japanese novel. He put the kettle on, tipped used tea leaves out of the infuser and washed the teapot, Verschiebungly, with shaking hands. He’d just placed a cup and saucer on a tray, one tinkling rhythmically as it made contact with the other, when his mobile rang. Rich. He disliked his agent intensely, but on the plus side, the panic attack wasn’t Rich’s fault. And maybe, just maybe, it was time to go back to London, which at that moment seemed like a distant and much-loved memory, not to mention an unsullied haven of peace. Might be an idea to see what Rich had to offer. Panic attack temporarily over, he accepted the call.

  ‘Ay.’

  ‘Dickie.’

  ‘Rich, Ay. Rich.’ Hayden relaxed. For the first time, it felt good to hear the sound of his agent’s voice. ‘September tour, Ay.’ Hayden perked up. This felt better still. ‘You’ll be supporting –’

  Back to worse. Hayden had a position. He didn’t do support on out-of-town gigs. London was different. You went on early, you rushed off to another gig. No pecking order. Out of town was different. Rich knew that.

  ‘Whoa, Rich. I don’t do support.’

  ‘Spare me, Ay. Thing is, you’ve been usurped, mate. It’s your generational tectonic-plate-shift type thing. You with support? For ‘with’, read ‘as’. That’s the bad news.’

  ‘And the good news?’

  ‘Same line-up. You. Foetus O’Flaherty. In that order.’

  Hayden was about to tell Rich exactly what he thought of the tectonic-plate-shift theory of comedy when a loud rap on the front door took his mind off this latest blow to his manhood. He’d been expecting the visit, felt he knew who it was and decided, as a result, to pop out the back way. Pretend he was pruning the statue. That way he might live to make his own dinner.

  ‘Interesting offer, Rich,’ he said. ‘Got to go, though. I’m just off to stick a pin in your effigy.’

  He opened the back door as the kettle entered the penultimate stage of the boiling process, the one where the noise shifts up a gear but the bubbling has yet to start. Two squat men stood blocking his way. He recognised them from the garden. Shaved heads. Tight-fitting suits. Bit like body doubles for each other. They smiled in unison.

  ‘Psychic or fucken wha?’

  The accent was hard. Guttural. Decidedly not Clontarf. Hayden fought the desire to soil himself.

  ‘The Pope Twins. Jus so ya know.’

  A second knock on the front door. The more identical of the twins brushed past Hayden and went to answer it. ‘You can’t be too careful these days,’ he said. ‘Could be annyone.’

  His brother in crime pointed at his retreating back. ‘JP,’ he said. He pointed at himself. ‘Benny. Mind if we come in? Good man.’

  Probably a rhetorical question, as they were already in. Hayden bowed to the inevitable and closed the back door. His mouth was dry. So were his trousers. He was doing well, all things considered.

  ‘Nice place, Clontarf,’ said Benny. ‘Wha’s the fucken word? Genteel. Me an JP, we like a bih a genteel. Wha’s this?’

  He pointed at the teapot. Hayden located some saliva.

  ‘It’s a teapot. I was making a pot of tea when you –’

  ‘Poh a tea. Nice. Haven’t seen one a those in – well, evah. Very – wha’s the word?’

  ‘Genteel?’ said Hayden.

  ‘Rhetorical question,’ said Benny. ‘I was abouh to answer it meself. But yeh. Very genteel. An there’s the kettle biled. Away you go, sonny.’

  Hayden bridled at the ‘sonny’ bit; he was old enough to be Benny’s uncle. But he said nothing. He scooped three heaped tea-spoonfuls of Assam into the infuser and poured boiling water over it and, because his hand was shaking, over the worktop. Closely watched by Benny.

  ‘Always a pleasure watchin an artist ah work,’ he said. ‘No need for the cup. I’ll explain when JP gehs back. Hold ih. Serendipiddy alert. Here comes the very man now.’

  JP ambled in. ‘Couple a Jehovah’s Wihnesses. Now thass whah I call timin. I told em there was a man here abouh to meeh his maykah. They were del-eerious. Asked me to pass this on.’ He held up a copy of the Holy Bible. ‘Wha’s wih the tea?’

  ‘He was makin ih,’ said Benny, ‘So I said on you go.’

  ‘Magic,’ said JP. ‘Any biccies?’

  ‘I thought we weren’ stoppin,’ said Benny. ‘Anyway, don’t ya have to leh the fuckah brew?’

  ‘Six minutes,’ lied Hayden.

  ‘Six fucken minutes? Live an learn, hoh? How long left?’

  ‘Five minutes fifty seconds,’ said Hayden. Another lie. It was more like four twenty.

  ‘Five fifty?’ said Benny. ‘We’ll be well gone by then. Thah righ, JP?’

  ‘Spor on. Okay. Grab a seah. Leh’s do this.’

  He gave Eddie’s writing seat a little twirl and motioned Hayden to sit. He sat. The Twins looked down on him almost, you’d be forgiven for thinking, benevolently. Benny’s eye shifted to the table. ‘Wha’s wih the nohebewke?’ he said.

  Hayden couldn’t help himself. ‘I’m writing a novel,’ he said.

  The twins looked impressed.

  ‘Brillo,’ said JP without irony. ‘Wha’s it abouh?’

  ‘Early days yet,’
said Hayden, relaxing slightly into his favourite subject. ‘It’s – it’s a crime novel, actually.’

  ‘Go on then. Show us a bih.’

  Hayden shifted uneasily. ‘It’s still fermenting.’

  ‘Like the tea, hoh?’

  ‘Sort of.’

  ‘So, like, how long to go?’

  Hayden looked at his watch. ‘Just over five minutes,’ he lied.

  ‘I think he meant the bewke,’ said Benny.

  ‘Oh, that,’ said Hayden. ‘It sort of all depends on the fermenting process.’

  JP coughed politely. ‘Can we be in ih, like?’

  Benny grabbed the chair excitedly. ‘On’y here’s the twist. We’re the good guys. Cos we’re noh in real life. Wish we were though.’

  JP smirked happily. ‘No we fucken don’t.’

  ‘On’y joshin,’ said Benny. ‘Anothah thing. You know scenes like this. Two baddies, one poor fuck in a chair. How comes the two baddies geh the best lines?’

  ‘Yor righ there, Benny,’ said JP. He looked at Hayden. ‘Thoughts?’

  Hayden thought. Quickly. As if his life depended on it. ‘Maybe,’ he said, ‘the victim has other things on his mind.’

  ‘Could be,’ said JP, thoughtfully. ‘Could be. Hadn’ thought a thah. See? Thass why you’re a wriher an we’re noh.’

  ‘Each to his own area of expertise,’ said Benny, a line which would have suited a more relaxed Hayden very well. But he felt, on balance, that he might be better advised to go down the good listener route, which gave JP the floor.

  ‘Speakin a which,’ he said, leaning in till his nose almost touched Hayden’s. ‘Frankie’s garden. You seen nuhhin, righ? Wha did ya see?’

  ‘I saw nothing.’

  Silence.

  ‘Leh’s try that again,’ said JP. ‘You seen nuhhin, righ? Wha did ya see?’

  Hayden was confused.

  ‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘I saw nothing.’

  ‘Yor noh listenin,’ said JP.

  ‘Oh, right,’ said Hayden. ‘I seen nuhhin.’

  ‘Good man,’ said Benny. ‘Thing is, we’re proud a the vanacular. The homogenisation a local dialectics: thorny subject. How’s thah tea comin on?’

  ‘Oh,’ said Hayden, ‘not long now. Maybe, what, five minutes?’

  ‘Care to reword thah? On’y when I first mentioned ih, the clock said six past. Ih now says twelve past. Higher Mahs not yor strong suhe?’

  ‘It’s – it’s about ready now,’ said Hayden.

  ‘Excellen-fucken-teeho,’ said Benny. ‘A Plus. Top a the class.’

  JP lifted the pot off the tray.

  ‘So where would you like ih? In the mouh or poured over yor bollix?’

  Hayden looked at him, unable or unwilling to formulate an answer. JP paused. A menacing pause. He held it for a long, meaningful moment. Then he put the pot back on the tray and turned to Benny.

  ‘He seen nuhhin,’ he said, sauntering towards the door.

  And Benny sauntered in his wake.

  As Hayden watched the Pope Twins leave from the window, strolling in the opposite direction came Detective Inspector Lou Brannigan. They exchanged barbed pleasantries as they passed, without easing the pace. Brannigan paused at Eddie’s gate, glanced up at the house, removed his trilby, and walked up the driveway. Hayden met him at the door.

  ‘Friends of yours?’ said Lou Brannigan.

  Hayden relaxed. There’s nothing like not having your penis doused with boiling Assam to give you a fresh take on the sheer pleasure of being alive. The quips that had been stifled while the Twins were visiting could now be given free rein. ‘Friends of yours?’ didn’t suggest an immediate riposte, but he was ready for repartee. And a nice cup of – aha!

  ‘They dropped by for a nice cup of tea,’ he quipped. Not bad for an opening gambit.

  ‘I see,’ said Brannigan. ‘Pot empty, is it?’

  ‘Au contraire,’ said Hayden. ‘It’s a four-minute brew. They couldn’t wait. Off to murder someone. Or rob a bank. They weren’t specific. Or’ – he was feeling positively skittish now that the pressure on his manhood was off – ‘they might have had designs on some local feline.’ He almost said pussy, but he was better than that. It’s one of the reasons he struggled in his work. Bit too cerebral for the common taste. Unlike Foetus O’Flaherty who, at this precise moment, was wowing a live audience on lunchtime TV6 with his roguish Irish charm and just-the-right-side-of-naughty quipettes.

  ‘You’ll be referring to the fine lady’s pussycat, maybe?’ said Lou Brannigan.

  ‘You could read it that way, I suppose,’ said Hayden.

  ‘Well fair dinkum o’dooleys,’ said Brannigan. ‘You brought the subject up before I did. Because that’s why I’m here. Your Uncle Eddie’s dog, d’ye see?’

  ‘What dog?’ said Hayden.

  ‘Don’t play the wide-eyed innocent with me, Mister,’ said Brannigan, wandering around the kitchen like a cop. ‘His bow-wow. Rusty. Will you lookit here. A doggy bowl. A shelf-full of what’s known in the grocery business as dog food. D’ye think the bould Eddie gets down on the floor there and ates the stuff himself?’

  ‘Eddie is dead.’

  ‘My apologies,’ said Brannigan. ‘Mea culpa. Sorry for your loss. I forgot. Murdered, wasn’t it? Or have you copped on to yourself yet?’

  ‘If you mean do I think he fell to his death through natural causes then no, I haven’t.’

  Brannigan, suddenly animated, jerked Hayden back onto Eddie’s chair.

  ‘You’re getting to be a bit of an irritant round these here parts, honey boy,’ he hissed. ‘So here’s the deal. We have reason to believe Eddie’s old pal Rusty has gone native. You rein that mongrel in pronto, or next time’ – he picked the pot of tea up and poured it over Hayden’s crotch – ‘we’ll maybe settle for the ten-second brew.’ Pot half-drained, he clattered it down on the hob and adjusted his trilby. ‘I’ll see myself out.’

  * * *

  5 School motto: ‘Give me a boy till he’s seventeen, I will give you the fruitcake.’

  6 The BBC’s Seaside Roadshow, live from sunny Cleethorpes.

  14

  Hayden’s trousers sat drying on Eddie’s chair. He was extremely upset – and no wonder. The criminal fraternity and the custodians of law and order were wreaking havoc with Eddie’s teapot. Plus, Steve the barman had mentioned spare underpants; no mention of spare trousers. As if that wasn’t enough, Lou Brannigan seemed to think Eddie’s non-existent dog was a cat killer. To be fair, the stuff about the dog food was incontrovertible. Having said that, Brannigan seemed to know a lot more about Eddie’s supposed mutt than Hayden did. If Brannigan wasn’t above getting involved in the sex trade, perhaps he’d planted the dog food as evidence. The whole thing was ridiculous but maybe, just maybe, this was Brannigan’s version of Verschiebung. He was trying to divert attention from his failure to spot a heinous crime in his jurisdiction, not to mention the fact that he was a pimp. Double Verschiebung.

  ‘You planted the dog food,’ barked Hayden in an authoritative voice, slightly undercut by the fact that he wasn’t wearing trousers. ‘You also planted the bowl. Your one oversight, my dear inspector? You forgot to plant the dog.’

  Hayden’s trousers continued drying slowly on the chair. Outside, the sun moved slowly across the sky. At precisely 16.32, Eddie’s statue resembled, for exactly twelve seconds, a modernist Sheela-na-gig. One of Eddie’s little jeux d’esprit, but as Hayden was inside at the time it’s hardly relevant to the plot.

  The sun moved ever on. Eddie’s statue settled down. Hayden didn’t. His life had become incredibly complicated and potentially pretty frightening in the space of a few hours. For instance, what if the Pope clan was lying in wait, following his every move? Beautiful evening for a walk, though, so Clontarf had its compensations. He managed to su
blimate his terror as he took a right turn out of Eddie’s, down towards Castle Avenue. Professor Emeritus Stern cycled past him in the opposite direction, presumably on his way back from a lecture, but Hayden didn’t notice. I did, but this is Hayden’s story. He was too busy trying to unravel the complexities of his life. Particularly the bit coming up. Here is his thinking in distilled form: if the Popes killed Eddie, and Hayden shops them to the guards, he’s in big trouble. If Brannigan killed Eddie, and he shops Brannigan to himself, he’s still in big trouble.

  Hayden was just passing the ancient graveyard in the grounds of Clontarf Castle, mulling this over, when his mobile rang. Caller unknown. He walked absently into the graveyard, pressed answer, and put the phone to his ear.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Oh, hi. I went to the gig in Camden. Where were you?’

  Shit. AA Trace.

  Shit Two. He’d missed a gig in Camden.

  She seemed to know more about him than he did.

  ‘I was elsewhere,’ said Hayden, curtly.

  ‘But you were booked,’ said Trace, a hint of petulance in her voice. ‘Oh, and they’re showing repeats of your TV thing. You know. Whatsit.’

  ‘Sorry,’ said Hayden, ‘but what’s whatsit?’

  ‘You know,’ said Trace. ‘It’s on E114.’ She put on her best comedy voice; Geordie for some reason. ‘“E114. It’s Toxic!”’ Back to Trace-speak. ‘The paedophile priest thingy.’

  Hayden squirmed. Father Brown’s Boys. Hayden had played Father ‘Gormless’ O’Gorman. The basic premise: two priests on an island running a home for young boys. Luckily for him, his minor character was moved to a safe parish after the pilot episode. Still. It was part of a past he was desperate to forget and, until that moment, had.