Mystery Man

by Bateman, Colin

  'Why are they looking for me? Do they think I killed—'

  'You? Why would they think you—'

  'Jeff, what did they say?'

  'They wanted to check if it was okay to use your parking space.'

  'They what?'

  'They have pretty strict guidelines about where they can park, you know, on private property and—'

  'Jeff. What have they said about Malcolm Carlyle?'

  'Nothing. Why would they say anything to me? Where are you anyway? Why aren't you opening up? They want into the shop.'

  'My shop? Why?'

  'Well I asked them if they wanted a cup of tea – they can't make it in his place because of the forensics. But that was when I thought you'd be here in a minute and now I feel stupid because I can't get in. And they also think it's pretty strange about the toast.'

  'The what?'

  'When I arrived here this morning they were looking at our shutters. Someone has stuck four pieces of burned toast to them. I mean, you could understand chips or pizza or something some drunk's going to buy on the way home, but where do you get toast from unless you go home and make it and then take it out with you? What retard is going to do that?'

  'Do they think the toast is in some way connected to the murder next door?'

  'Why would they think that? I think it just made them hungry. Who said it was a murder anyway?'

  'Jeff . . .'

  'So are you coming in this morning at all? Because if you're not I don't want to hang around here like a suspect or something. Don't they say killers always come back to the scene of the crime? Don't they always offer to help out? Christ, I shouldn't have offered them tea, should I? What was I thinking?'

  'I'll be there shortly,' I said, and hung up.

  My hot chocolate arrived.

  It was not up to scratch. It wasn't Starbucks. There was no finesse. It was spoon, stir, deliver.

  Okay.

  Settle.

  The relevant point was that I had done nothing wrong, apart from a spot of burglary. I had not killed Malcolm Carlyle. The police did not think I had killed him either. They had no reason to. No reason to suspect anything.

  Not yet.

  But how did they know to even look for him? Why today of all days? Had somebody seen us enter Private Eye? Perhaps spotted the lights going on inside? Or, please God, no, what if Alison had tipped them off in revenge for the toast incident?

  No.

  No.

  Absolutely not.

  She was as confused and concerned as I was. She was surely at that very moment staring across the road from the jewellery store at the crime scene. She might even be wondering if the police could extract DNA from toast and then connect it to what they found inside? Was she thinking that if questioned I would choose to spread the blame and incriminate her?

  For the ten millionth time I cursed myself for not following my instincts. I knew The Case of the Dancing Jews was out of my league almost from the very start. I should have rejected it completely and concentrated on my bookselling; but oh no, a chance to impress a pretty girl, and now I was up to my oxters in trouble. Even last night, when we'd discovered Malcolm Carlyle's body, I'd gone against my own better judgement by not following through with my 999 call. There was a world of difference between immediately telling the police what we'd discovered and going to them after they'd already located the body. It was more than suspicious. It was damning.

  So what to do?

  Buy more time.

  Figure it out.

  Act dumb.

  Act normal.

  How hard could that be?

  23

  I pushed through the crowd of gawkers. Some fellow shopkeepers tried to engage me in gossip, but I said nothing. Jeff was relieved to see me. I unlocked the shutters and pushed them up, in the process removing the toast from scrutiny. I punched in the code and released the dead bolts. We entered the shop and switched on the lights.

  Thirty seconds later a man came in.

  Jeff gave him the thumbs-up and said, 'I'll put the tea on.'

  'Forget the tea,' said the man.

  He was of medium height, in a charcoal suit, with a black moustache and grey-flecked hair. He put out his hand and said, 'Detective Inspector Robinson, CID.'

  I tend not to shake hands because of the risk of plague, but on this occasion my hand was out and grasping his before I could stop it. 'How're you doing?' I enquired. 'I hear you have a stiffy.'

  Shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up . . .

  His brow furrowed. 'We have discovered a body next door. We believe he may be—'

  'Malcolm Carlyle,' I said. 'We were wondering where he'd gotten to. Six months he's been missing. Poor man. He was in here a few times but I didn't know him that well. I get his clients calling in from time to time looking for him. I help them out when I can. Are you sure you don't want a cup? We have coffee. There's Ribena in the fridge.'

  DI Robinson nodded slowly. His eyes ranged around the interior of the shop before settling back on me. 'You would appear to specialise in murder.'

  Jeff laughed.

  I aped him. But louder. 'Well you know what they say, those who can, do, those who can't, teach, and those who can't teach, teach PE.' His eyes were stuck to me. 'So Jeff tells me you're concerned about my parking space. Park away. I haven't the van with me today anyway. You'll probably be here a couple of days, but that's fine. The traffic wardens can be a bit—'

  'So, I understand you called the emergency services last night.'

  I cleared my throat. My pacemaker whirred.

  'No, I . . .'

  'Call was logged at seven thirty p.m. from this location.'

  'No, I . . .'

  'Were you on these premises at seven thirty, last night?'

  'No. And yes. I wasn't exactly aware of the time . . .'

  'Did you phone the emergency services at seven thirty last night?'

  His eyes bored into mine. I have a terrifically inbred Presbyterian tendency to deny everything, even in the face of perfect evidence to the contrary.

  'No,' I said.

  'It was me.' It was Alison, standing in the open doorway. 'I phoned.'

  I pointed at her. 'Yes, it was her.'

  If she was prepared to shoulder the blame, if she'd already made the decision that she was going to be the martyr, then it was my duty to do everything in my power to support that decision.

  DI Robinson studied her. 'And who might you be?'

  'I work in the jeweller's across the way. I was over having a drink with my boyfriend . . .' She nodded down at the trestle tables, still set up for a party, while I concentrated on trying to stop my head rolling off my shoulders. Had I heard her right? Yes – I'd heard her right. But I was careful not to get carried away with it, or to clap my hands and jump on the table and propose marriage. I knew, or suspected I knew, that she was just saying I was her boyfriend as a means of adding more weight, more credibility, more heft, to the pathetic explanation that was bound to follow. It meant that we were no longer blaming each other, that we were a team, partners in crime. We would go down together. Bonnie and Clyde. '. . .and I persuaded him to take a look next door – we were worried about the smell.'

  'The smell?'

  'Pine,' she said. 'An overwhelming smell of pine.'

  DI Robinson looked from her to me. 'Pine,' I agreed.

  'Why on earth would that worry you?'

  'Because it was so unusual,' said Alison. 'If we'd smelled something rotting . . . we would have thought it was just the drains . . .'

  'Or the bins out the back,' I said. 'They never pick them up on time . . .'

  'But we're in the middle of the city,' said Alison. 'You shouldn't be smelling pine that intensely.'

  'So his plan actually backfired,' I said.

  The detective's head literally jerked towards me. 'Whose plan?'

  'Whoever killed him and hung pine trees on his body.'

  'Am I understanding you correctly?'
he asked incredulously. 'You were next door? You saw it? You've actually been in there?'

  I looked at Alison. She rolled her eyes. 'Yes,' she said, 'we went in. There's a hole in the roof space. We thought the place was empty, and if we could pin down the smell we'd at least know what to complain about . . .'

  The DI shook his head. 'Well this is a turn-up for the books. I thought you dialled 999 and then decided not to waste police time, so you hung up. But you actually entered the building next door? Both of you? You broke in.'

  I studied the carpet. Most shops have carpet tiles so that they can be easily replaced when dumb customers walk in shit and stuff. I had insisted on one single piece of fitted carpet in plain beige. If there had been lines or patterns or both I would never have gotten any work done.

  When I chanced a look up, DI Robinson was staring at me. He raised an eyebrow.

  'Yes, we were in there,' I said.

  'To find the source of the pine,' said Alison.

  'I want you to tell me exactly what you saw.'

  'Do you want me to draw you a picture?' Alison said.

  The detective's demeanour visibly darkened. 'Watch your attitude,' he snapped, waving a warning finger at her. 'A murder has been committed and—'

  Alison held up her hands. 'No, I mean literally draw you one . . . I'm an artist . . . I could . . .'

  She trailed off. He was shaking his head. He had heard enough. 'I'm not quite sure exactly what I'm dealing with here,' he said grimly. 'Either you two are up to your necks in this, or you're complete blithering idiots.'

  The truth, of course, lay somewhere in the middle.

  'We didn't expect to find a body,' Alison said weakly.

  'And we didn't murder him,' I added.

  24

  For the moment there was nothing much DI Robinson could do beyond chastising us for breaking and entering and possibly contaminating a murder scene. He directed a more junior officer to take statements from us. He warned us he'd be back to see us once the forensics evidence was analysed. 'In the meantime,' he said, 'if I were you I wouldn't be making any plans to leave the country.'

  As if. I hadn't been out of Belfast since 1985, and that was to Lourdes, which is no place at all for a Presbyterian; I was coachsick and seasick on the way there, and the same on the way back. If there was a miracle, I couldn't see it for all the boke.

  As DI Robinson didn't yet know how the cards were going to fall, he also demanded a statement from Jeff, who acted like he was furious, but seemed to rather enjoy being slightly to the left of the centre of attention. The prospect of running a campaign to free himself from prison excited him in a way that merely protesting on behalf of obscure lefties a continent away hadn't for a long time. The way he slowly tramped out of the store just before lunch would make you think the ball and chain was already attached to his ankles. As he stood at the door, having collected his £12 for standing behind the counter doing nothing all morning, he raised a fist and punched the air defiantly. I gave him a similar salute, but utilising just two fingers.

  As he left, I glanced across the road and saw Alison at her window. She pointed to her left and held up five spread fingers. I nodded. As soon as she'd given her statement she'd had to rush back to work; and as I'd still been busy giving mine we hadn't been able to speak openly either about the events of the previous evening, or the dramatic developments of the morning.

  I thought we might walk up together, but by the time I pulled the shutters down, peeled off the toast and deposited it in a street bin, she'd already left the jeweller's. I just caught a glimpse of her entering Starbucks. The police remained busy next door, and the pavement outside was still cordoned off. The hearse was gone.

  Starbucks was busy. Everyone was talking about the murder. I caught little fragments of it as I looked for Alison. I found her upstairs, at a window table for two; from her chair she could look back along Botanic Avenue to the shop, and the police activity. I sat with my back to it.

  'I bought you a skinny cinnamon dolce latte,' she said. They'll bring it up in a minute. Busy.'

  I smiled my thanks. It was a false smile. It was not the next beverage on the menu. She had skipped two. If I even touched it, it would negate three weeks' work.

  'I'm sorry about the toast,' I said. 'There was a family emergency.'

  'I'm sorry about the toast,' she responded. 'It was a childish act of revenge.'

  I nodded. She nodded.

  'Last night,' she said, 'what a story.'

  'Six million Jews,' I said, 'what a bummer.'

  'I would love to have seen her dance,' said Alison. 'It must have been . . . transcendent. What kind of family emergency?'

  'My mother. She takes funny turns.'

  Alison smiled. 'You make her sound like a comedian. Funny turns.' I nodded. She was far from a comedian. 'Is she okay?'

  'Yes. Of course. Thank you for asking. She never has a headache, it's always a stroke, do you know what I mean?'

  'And the one time you do ignore it, it will be a stroke.' She understood. I was off the hook. The skinny cinnamon dolce lattes arrived. 'So what are we going to do?'

  'About?'

  She rolled her eyes. She leaned forward. 'The case. The murder. The assassin.'

  'Not an assassin,' I corrected. 'An assassin murders important people.'

  'So what? What are we going to do about him? Why didn't we tell the police? Am I going to spend the rest of my life looking over my shoulder? Are you going to have to keep a gun underneath your counter? What's going to happen to Daniel Trevor? Is Rosemary really dead? Who killed Manfredd? Is Anne safe in Purdysburn?'

  'I'm allergic to cinnamon,' I said.

  'Since when?'

  'Childhood, but I have good days.'

  She studied me for a long time. She shook her head, but it did not seem unduly negative. 'There's just something about you, isn't there?'

  'Is there?'

  'Sometimes you are absolutely manic and there's no talking to you. Now you have this kind of Zen calmness and there's still no talking to you.' I shrugged. 'It's just washing over you. It's like someone throws a stone in a pond and there are all these waves, and the people who own the toy yachts get panic-stricken, yet you know that very soon everything will settle down again. I wish I could be like that. I hardly slept last night. But seriously, what are we going to do?'

  I shrugged again.

  'Of course being all Zen can be really annoying when you're trying to have a serious conversation. What are we going to do? What do you think of that detective? Do you think we should trust him? Because we can't go on like this, can we?'

  'Well,' I said, 'maybe we can. Maybe we can afford to be a little bit more relaxed. Look – now that the police have discovered Malcolm's body, well they'll be investigating a murder, won't they? If they're any good at all that will lead them to Rosemary, and that will also then become a murder inquiry. So I'm thinking that the killer must be lying low. Most probably he's back in Germany. And anyway – we were worried that we were next on his death list, but really, who's to say we're even on it? The reason he killed Rosemary was because she was planning to publish a book that might have revealed some secret about him. Perhaps for safety he killed Malcolm and Manfredd as well. But maybe that's where it ends – it's pretty clear that Anne Mayerova isn't going to ever write the rest of her book; and even if she did, Daniel has had too big a fright to even contemplate publishing it. The secret is safe, maybe he doesn't need to kill anyone else.'

  'But what if he thinks you're still investigating . . .?'

  'We don't know for sure if he's even aware of me. Daniel told Manfredd that I was involved, but we don't know that Manfredd told his killer, or if he did, how much. Why would he?'

  'So what are you suggesting?'

  'That we let the police do their job. If they don't uncover the whole thing about Rosemary well, we can make an anonymous call. We keep a reasonable eye out for trouble, but I really think we should just try and forget about the whole
thing. One of these days another case, a much easier one, is just going to walk into the shop, and maybe we can tackle that together. It'll be fun. What do you say?'

  She thought about that. She took a sip of her latte. After a while she said, 'So you're just going to let The Case of the Dancing Jews remain unsolved?'

  'Absolutely,' I said.

  25

  Over the next few days things began to return to abnormal in No Alibis. Our summer sale was not a huge success, even with the 5% off stickers I had Jeff attach to our least popular books. I wasn't particularly worried. I see the need to attract customers into the store, I just don't often feel the want. Yes, I could go crazy and push it up to 7 or 8 per cent, but what then to do with the riff-raff it was sure to attract? Those who poke their heads through the door and say, 'Oh I'm just looking for something a bit rubbish to read on the beach.' Or even worse, 'something light'.

  Fuck off!

  Of course, I don't turn sales away, but more than once I've slipped a Henning Mankell into their bag of books, telling them he makes the master, John D. MacDonald, 'look like a shit', in the full knowledge that it won't be disturbed until they're lying in the sand. Only then do they discover I've sold them the original Swedish version. Sometimes I just laugh and laugh.

  We actually closed for the Twelfth of July holiday. Really closed, the first time since No Alibis opened. Usually I would just have the shutters pulled down three-quarter-length so that the bully boys in band uniforms wouldn't accuse me of treason, but those in the know were in the know. You cannot just cut off an addict's supply, there must always be an outlet. So four or five times during the day a customer would saunter past the store, keeping an eagle eye out for military-looking Protestants and then when absolutely sure that the coast was clear, dip under the shutters and inside for their fix of hit lit, like dress-down Sherlocks slipping into a Parker Knoll version of an opium den.

  But not this year.

  This year Alison took me on a picnic.

  I warned her beforehand that I didn't want to go out of Belfast, having in mind the flies and the cows, and she laughed and said, 'What're you frightened of, Dutch elm disease?' It was seventh on my list, but there was no point in mentioning it. I don't like being made fun of. That was also on the list.