Just me.
My internet.
My determination.
I unpeeled a Twix.
I snapped a can of Diet Coke.
I sat down at my PC, determined not to shift until I had solved The Case of the Dancing Jews.
39
I have always known that if you stare at numbers or letters or a combination of them for long enough a pattern will emerge. In this case, The Case of the Dancing Jews, it took five days and nights. A tsunami might have drowned the rest of the British Isles, a bubonic plague might have destroyed civilisation, but neither would have moved me from my position. My panic room is watertight, and I have been inoculated against everything, including inoculations.
Jeff shone. Instead of his occasional shifts, he worked from nine in the morning until six at night every day with no prospect at all of additional wages. Even when one of his fellow travellers in Amnesty International beseeched him to attend a particularly emotive protest (I believe some Kenyan was being forcefully repatriated despite the fact he was good at basketball) he stuck to his lack-of-guns, insisting that my investigation, my plight, my stand against the forces of evil was much more vital. I salute him. He deflected customer enquiries, answered the phone, and all the time kept the meat cleaver and hurly stick close by. Before he left at night he repaired to Starbucks and purchased coffees in the right order and secured sandwiches from Subway before locking me in. When he came in the morning he insisted on leading me into the back yard for some fresh air. It would have been like giving a prisoner in solitary some much-needed exercise, except this prisoner had to be coaxed out and once there was immediately desperate to return to his cell. I knew the solving of The Case of the Dancing Jews was within my grasp.
Alison, being a femme fatale, did try to lure me away on several occasions, but I remained sure and steadfast. She pecked my cheek and sent erotic e-mails, at first, but in the last couple of days merely stood in the shop during her lunch break and watched me. I caught her conferring with Jeff several times. I knew they were worried about the intensity of my investigation, that such concentration could not be healthy, but I also knew it was the only way to do it. I think, perhaps, that she also felt a little bit left out. I did not share what I was or was not learning, I did not divide the research or assign her a task. I couldn't. It was all going on in my head. My head. That's where the circuits were.
On the third day, Alison said, 'Should I call on your mum?'
'No, she's fine.'
My eyes did not leave the screen. I was scruffy and stubbly and smelly and sweaty. The bags under my eyes were the size of used teabags. And I knew more about Auschwitz than any sane man should.
'I don't mind. She might appreciate the—'
'Leave her be.'
'I'm only trying to—'
'Please . . .'
When I happened to glance up twenty minutes later she was gone.
Jeff, looking sullen, said, 'She's pissed off with you. You keep treating her like that, she'll walk for good. You should send her some flowers.'
I returned my attention to the screen. Alison would walk anyway. It was inevitable. I did not subscribe to the treat 'em mean, keep 'em keen school of romance because I did not subscribe to romance, full stop. I found flowers depressing and I was allergic to most of them.
'Do you want me to send . . .?'
'No. Leave it.'
He left it. I worked on through the night. She did not come across at lunchtime. Jeff gave me a told you so look, but said nothing.
I focused to the exclusion of all else.
Apparently, later that day, my Botanic Avenue Irregulars came into the shop and demanded money. Jeff punched one and wrestled the other to the ground before throwing them both out and I did not even notice.
Five days, five nights.
And then, at about five o'clock on the morning of the sixth day, my Eureka moment.
Suddenly the pattern stood out like a 3D image on a 2D screen.
I punched the air and danced around and opened another Twix. I had a big wholesale box of them. It was the breakthrough I'd been searching for – perhaps not the final solution, but the beginning of the end. Now I could focus. The players were all still in the field, but there was a growing clarity. At that moment all I wanted to do was tell Alison, I wanted to see her little face lighting up when I showed her how I had worked it out, but it was still so early and I was dog tired. Jeff had made up a little cot for me in the kitchen, which I had barely used, but now I crawled into the sleeping bag and closed my eyes. I thought if I got a couple of hours' sleep, then when he arrived to open the shop I could pop home for a shower and a change of clothes. I could take Alison out for a special breakfast by way of apology for ignoring her and she would forgive me because she knew my work was important, and then when I told her how I had cracked the case she would collapse into the arms of the genius and kiss me passionately.
Except, of course, that when I finally opened my eyes and checked my watch, it was nearly closing time again. I stumbled into the shop, shouting at Jeff and scaring rare customers away.
'I thought it was better to let you sleep,' he said weakly.
He was a moron, but loyal.
'Has Ali . . .?'
He shook his head. Across the road the lights in the jeweller's winked off and a moment later Alison and her manager emerged, locking the doors behind them. The manager walked off; Alison lingered. She glanced once towards No Alibis, then quickly away.
She was hurting, and huffing.
But as soon as I told her, everything would change.
I yanked our door open and hurried across the footpath. I was crumpled and rancid, but it wouldn't matter. I waved, but she did not see. I called, but a rumbling Ulsterbus drowned it.
Then she moved to the side of the road, and I saw her smile, and knew everything was right again, but for all of a second, because the smile wasn't for me, it was for the man getting out of the red Ferrari with the personalised number plates.
It was for Max Mayerova.
I was staggered. Stunned. Frozen to the kerb. Alison. My Alison. With Max Mayerova. One of the killers. Or the killer. My immediate and inevitable thought was that somehow they were in league together, that it had all been a massive plot to get me. The Second World War, the Holocaust and the dancing Jews were all created in order to manoeuvre me into a position where I could one day be annihilated by the forces of evil. I was the custodian of some unknown universal code. Everything revolved around me. For countless generations my enemies had been spiralling closer and closer and I had been aware of it all along without ever quite being able to put my finger on it. By my investigating The Case of the Dancing Jews, my galactic enemies had realised that they were about to be unmasked and had decided to call all of their agents to a secret meeting, but in the midst of their panic they hadn't been careful enough and now I had spotted two of them, supposed enemies, slipping off to plot my downfall.
Then I thought, no, that's bollocks.
Alison wasn't in league with them. She was hurt by my rejection and being the wilful, wonderful, stubborn pixie that she was had decided to show me exactly what she was capable of. She was meeting Max Mayerova in order to trap him into revealing himself as the killer or part of a killing team. She had made repeated efforts to get through to me, but I was so caught up in my own investigation that I hadn't realised how desperate she was to help. She was putting herself in the line of fire for me.
I could not allow it.
I had a sudden, God-like revelation, there and then, on the kerb, Botanic Avenue, Belfast, 5.15 p.m. of a sunny Wednesday, that she was the one for me, that all the barriers I had sought to put up, all the doubts and dismissals, all the anger and jealousy and paranoia, all those years of hate, were suddenly behind me. She was mine. She loved me. She may or may not already have been the mother of my child; but if she wasn't now she would be, and soon. All I had to do was stop this naive, lovely fawn from being carried away to her d
oom by a murderer. His Ferrari was already nosing out into the traffic.
I did the only thing I could.
I ran after it.
Despite my knees and arteries and heart and blood and ulcers and tumours, I charged along the footpath, pushing home-bound workers to one side, dodging prams and shouting, 'Alison! Alison! Alison!'
But to no avail.
Max was too quick, and the traffic too light.
A taxi pulled in at the far end of Botanic Avenue; a man in a monkey suit got out. Literally a monkey suit. Any other time it would have freaked me out, with his fake monkey hair and fake monkey features but human eyes, but he meant nothing. I jumped into the back seat of the taxi and snapped, 'Follow that car!'
The driver, a rotund man in a frayed shirt, glanced laconically back. 'Sorry, mate, I'm booked.'
'No!' I exploded. 'You have to follow that car!'
He looked ahead. 'Which car?'
'The red one. The Ferrari. Please.'
'I really am boo—'
'I'll pay double. Triple. Whatever it takes.'
He raised an eyebrow, and smiled. He put the car into gear and pulled out. 'That's what I hate about taxi drivers,' he said, 'they're so fucking unreliable.'
Despite the fact that it was a Ferrari, Max Mayerova was still inhibited by rush-hour traffic from showing what his car could do. Or perhaps he had no need to. He wasn't aware that he was being followed, and he had Alison exactly where he wanted her. He thought she had no idea who he was. He thought she was tangled in his web. I knew Alison was smart, but I didn't know if she was as smart as Max. Bodies were piling up and there was nothing to connect him to any of them.
Or there hadn't been.
The taxi driver's eyes occasionally flitted to me in the mirror, but he said nothing. He could, if instructed, have drawn level with them; he could have honked his horn and I could have gesticulated at Alison to get out of the bloody car.
Max Mayerova intended to kill her. I knew that absolutely.
But I did not tell him to draw level.
I told him to pursue, but at a distance.
There was still that part of me that wanted to watch, and see, the voyeur.
What was Alison planning? How would it pan out?
After about fifteen minutes, though it was just over a mile in the heavy traffic, the Ferrari pulled into a side street on the far side of the Victoria Centre, and from there made its way into the Cathedral Quarter. The city now has a lot of these quarters, certainly more than four. I hate planners who mess with numbers like this. How are you ever supposed to see patterns when they don't adhere to the basic laws of mathematics?
Get over yourself.
Focus.
Your loved one.
Up ahead.
In mortal danger.
The street was cobbled and bare of parked traffic, so we were immediately more obvious. But still, just a taxi, en route to somewhere. The Ferrari disappeared into an alley about two hundred yards along. We slowed as we passed. It was jutting out of a parking bay a little bit up, and Alison and Max were climbing out.
'Go on past, slow,' I said.
There was just enough time to see them move towards a doorway; it was the rear entrance to some kind of commercial premises.
We turned the corner and I counted along to where I supposed the front of the building was: a restaurant called Comanche. I instructed the taxi driver to pull up just a little short of it. I now had a perfect view of two tables sitting in the large bay window, to one of which Alison and Max Mayerova were being shown.
Menus were distributed.
Wine was ordered and delivered.
I could see Alison's face, but not Max's. She seemed to be smiling a lot.
The taxi driver said, 'Meter's running.'
'That's fine.'
Big glasses of wine. A toast.
The driver said, 'Do you want to tell me what this is about?'
'No,' I said.
'Only if you're some sort of nutter and you're intent on murder or you're stalking someone, it could rebound on me.'
'I'm not a nutter,' I said.
'And if you don't mind me saying, you look like you've been sleeping outdoors and you're a bit ripe and I wouldn't be surprised if you didn't have a penny to your name.'
'I have money,' I said.
He nodded. He rolled the window down. He lit a cigarette. 'So is it your wife and this slick wanker in a Ferrari?'
'Something like that,' I said.
'Happened to me, except it wasn't a Ferrari, it was a Volvo. She was easily impressed. You just going to watch, or are you going to go after him with a wheel brace?'
'It's more complicated than that.'
'Because I have a wheel brace.'
'No, it's fine, honestly.'
'One whack, he'd be down. But then you'd have to do her as well. Chuck it into the river, they'd never find it, it'd be their word against ours, and they'd be brain-damaged.'
'No, really.'
He looked at me in the mirror again. 'That's good. See, I used to be in law enforcement.' He took a draw of his cigarette. 'Well, to be absolutely accurate, it was just enforcement. Debts and kneecaps, back in the good old bad old days, you know what I mean? Back then the cops never caught anyone, but these days they'd be all over you like a rash. I don't need that. Meter's still running.'
'It's fine,' I said.
An hour passed. Food was served. More wine was drunk. One bottle. Two. My driver grew fidgety. He told me about the last wise guy who'd stiffed him on a fare, and how he wasn't out of hospital yet. In fact, in my rush to leave No Alibis I had neglected to lift my wallet, and my keys, and my mobile, or any form of identification. Growing up, I had been aware of the local tradition of doing a runner, but under these circumstances it would have been laughable. My charge up Botanic Avenue had been my equivalent of an Olympic marathon; even someone as round as my taxi driver would appear as nimble as a gazelle up against me. He would squash me like a bug.
'Well, would you fucking look at that?' he snapped suddenly.
'What?' I leaned forward. Worries about my long-term health had shifted my focus away from the restaurant window. I could see Max sipping his wine; but the seat opposite him was empty. 'What . . . ? Where'd she . . .?'
'Did you not see it? She got up, probably away to the ladies'. Soon as she was gone, he picked up her glass, turned to the window so the other diners couldn't see, put something in her bloody drink.'
'Seriously?'
'Swear to God. Like a powder. Swished it around. The fucking scumbag.'
I nodded enthusiastically. 'The fucking scumbag.'
'What do you want to do? You want me to call the peelers?'
I shook my head.
'You fucking wise?'
'We have to see what happens.'
I was being inclusive. He seemed to thrive on it.
'The fucking, fucking scumbag.' I could see the pulse beating rapidly on the side of his head. He looked back at me. 'I know what you're thinking, she's made her bed, now she can lie in it.'
Alison returned, all smiles. She drank. Dessert was served. She drank some more.
She was giggling an awful lot. Then she was resting her head in her hands, still nodding at him across the table, but definitely affected.
'She's certainly a looker,' the driver said. 'So was my wife. From a distance. Up close, not so hot. Up close, she looked like someone had punched her, though I never did. But fucking drugging someone, that takes the biscuit.'
Alison reached for her glass again, and knocked it over. She was all apologies. She was in tears. He reached across and held her hand.
I seethed.
Wheel brace, wheel brace, wheel brace, wheel brace . . .
'He's one fucking smooth cookie,' said my driver.
Max paid the bill. They got up. Max helped Alison on with her coat. She staggered. They disappeared from the window. My driver, without waiting to be told, reversed the car back to the alley en
trance and turned in. He sped along past the parking bay where Max's Ferrari was still sitting, with a black Laguna now alongside. He pulled into an open and empty double garage, expertly turned the car and sped back down the alley, stopping just short of the bay, so that we were idling like any other taxi for hire by the time Max and Alison emerged from the rear exit.
Alison could hardly stand.
She clung on to Max. Then she threw up.
The taxi man looked back at me. 'What are you waiting for? You're not going to actually let him go through with it?'
I shook my head. My hand was on the door handle. I could be upon them in seconds. I loved her. I loved her deeply. But I still didn't quite move. What if Max had a gun? If he was exposed now, in the midst of carrying out his latest murder, and particularly by me, then surely he would take his opportunity to finish us both off? Was there any point in us both dying? I was defenceless.
The taxi man gave me an exasperated look. 'If you're not going to, I'll bloody—'
'Wait. Look.'
The driver's door of the black Laguna had opened, and a huge man in a too-tight leather jacket and black jeans emerged. I thought that maybe he wanted to help, and that it might be instructive to see how Max reacted to him. They exchanged words while Alison threw up again. But then the new guy suddenly took a firm grip of Alison's arm with one hand and opened the back door of his own car with the other. He quickly bundled her into the vehicle, slamming the door behind her, before nodding across at Max and jumping back into the driver's seat.
'What the fuck?' said my taxi driver.
'What the . . . ?' I said.
Mystery Man Page 22