The Eagle’s beer garden was crowded, mostly with Italian tourists smoking heavily, and I again felt the urge to take up the filthy habit. I fought the craving and took a sip from the pint of Spitfire I’d been nursing in an attempt to grasp sobriety without it running through my fingers. Martin Michaels was halfway through a pint of Stella Artois, and his brittle, upper-class accent seemed to be retreating with every sip, a Birmingham slur creeping out from underneath the clipped vowels.
‘Pedro has always been a dodgy character,’ he said, shaking his head and clearly on a one way journey to drunken oblivion. ‘The amount of scrapes we’ve gotten into over the years. And he’s usually come out of it smelling of roses. If he fell in a river he’d come out with a pocket full of fish. Made of Teflon, that one.’
‘Known him long?’
‘Oh, yes. Donkey’s years. There’s was a mate a of mine, a Cockney bloke who set up this Music Festival with bands that were allegedly from the more impoverished parts of the globe. South America, India, the Soviet Bloc that sort of thing. This was to cash in on the world music craze that was big at the time. The thing is, there was a bigger demand than there were bands available Kelly hit on this great idea, he …’
‘Simon Kelly?’
‘Ah, you know him?’
I did indeed. I’d met Simon Kelly in Granada. He was fresh out of the slammer and had wanted me to turn an unpublished autobiography that he’d written while in prison into a crime novel, since he wasn’t able to profit from his crimes himself. It had seemed a great idea but a tad too risky for someone in my less than legal position so I had eventually passed on the job to Lena K. who had since found a great deal of success with the book, One Of Those Days In England.
‘Yeah, so Kelly had this great idea of forming fake bands, those Guardian readers were easy to sucker and fell for it hook, line and sinker. Anyway, I was the singer in one of the bands and Pedro passed himself off as a Peruvian drummer. He really got into the part, too. Was inches away from sticking one of those coasters down his bottom lip, I can tell you.’
‘What nationality were you supposed to be?’
‘Oh, I was supposed to be Polish. I’d crossed the Iron Curtain strapped underneath a truck delivering sausages to Harrods, apparently.’
‘Na zdrowia!’
We chinked glasses.
‘I’m just off for a slash,’ he said and headed towards the Gents.
I cast a rapid glance around the beer garden. I still wasn’t entirely comfortable being back in England. I’d left Blighty with a briefcase full of stolen money and had assumed a new identity as a journalist in Poland. I’d lived in Warsaw for a short time but was now based in Madrid and I really hadn’t planned to come back to England ever again, but I owed Pedro a favour and was about to pay him back. Big time.
Michaels came back with a couple more drinks. Behind him was a massive crop-haired man with a scar trailing down the side of his face. Cyprien.
He said something in French to Michaels, who laughed though from the look on Cyprien’s face it wasn’t supposed to be funny. They both sat down.
‘I thought you were following Stroud?’ I said.
‘I was,’ said Cyprien, in an accent as thick as treacle.
‘And?’
‘He’s at the hotel. In bed with a … transvestite.’
‘Ah, Stroud and his Ladyboys. He developed a taste for them when he lived in Bangkok?’ said Michaels, who had now reverted to his posh accent.
Cyprien said nothing.
‘So, when are you going to …’ I looked around the pub again. There was a noisy group of Japanese tourists at the table next to us. ‘… do the deed.’
Cyprien shrugged.
‘When are you meeting him?’ he said.
‘Tomorrow afternoon, hopefully,’ I said.
‘Then will be best.’
I must have grimaced because Cyprien had a sadistic smile on his face. I downed my drink and headed to the bar.
In The Flying Pig, a pedestrian pub rock band trotted out an all too familiar repertoire of dusty blues and plodding rock standards that had been shop soiled a couple of decades before. The beer-bellied guitarist, who was far too old to be singing about ‘little girls’ without sounding creepy, was clearly as drunk as a skunk. He’d also changed his guitar about five times during the set. As my old friend Be-Bop De Luca used to say, the more guitars, the less creative the guitarist. Then again, he was a snooty saxophone player who referred to drummers as navvies.
The Eagle had been so full of noisy Japanese tourists that we’d taken a taxi to The Flying Pig. A pub which was also usually full but had been cleared out by the awful band.
‘The thing with Julian,’ said a clearly inebriated Martin Michaels. ‘Is that he’s just about clever enough to know that he isn’t that clever. Or that talented.’
We were jammed into a small corner near the entrance, sharing a table with a long-haired German who must have been a friend of the band judging by the enthusiastic applause he was giving them.
‘Like this lot,’ said Michaels. ‘They think they’re better than the likes of No Direction or the Spice Girls or that lot on the X-Factor but they know deep down that they’re nothing special. And their resentment bubbles and brews and eventually …’
I was reminded of another of Be-Bop’s maxims: asking a musician about song-writing is like asking a bricklayer about architecture. I wondered if it was the same with agents and authors.
There was a loud crash followed by even louder swearing which dragged our attention toward the small stage. The fat guitarist has crashed into the drum kit. The bass player helped him to his feet and he grasped the microphone. It was impossible to understand most of what he was saying but the words that he repeated most were ‘X Factor,’ ‘sheep’ and ‘prostitutes.’
‘Like the last words of Dutch Shultz, eh?’ said Michaels. I grinned and nodded, though I didn’t have a clue what he was talking about.
Then the guitarist fell forward into our table.
‘You fucker,’ said Michaels, and he stood, ready to give the guitarist a good walloping.
‘Leave it,’ I said, pulling Michaels away and toward the pub’s front door. ‘We don’t want any police attention.’
I managed to get him out of the pub and onto the street and quickly walked him up Grove Road.
The cold air seemed to calm him or maybe the thought of what we were planning to do the next day. It had certainly sobered me up.
The favour that I was doing for Pedro was to help Michaels set up Julian Stroud so that Cyprien could kill him. I didn’t know why and thought that it was best not to ask.
Ignorance is bliss, after all.
***
‘So, it’s your belief that the concept of a crime fiction community is a fallacy,’ I said.
Stroud smirked for what seemed like the one thousandth time since we’d sat down in the pub. He already seemed drunk and it wasn’t much after noon. I assumed that he was probably topping himself up from the previous night’s session. Something I was avoiding by sticking to lager Shandy. Stroud was on his second double gin and tonic, though.
The pub I’d chosen for our meeting, The Granta, was half-empty despite being a very decent boozer. It overlooked the River Cam and rented out punts. Most people had probably been put off by the heavy storm that seemed to be brewing.
‘Oh, I’m just not a group person. When someone mentions communities I get a vision of shrieking villagers, flaming torches aloft, chasing after Frankenstein’s monster. Reminds me of my childhood too much.’
‘Do you ever go back to your home town?’ I said.
‘Hardly ever,’ said Stroud.
‘You don’t speak particularly well of the place?’
‘Oh, I loathed the town. Every second that I spent there was agony. Once I was out, I used to lay awake at night thinking of my childhood humiliations. How much I was ridiculed. Laughed at. And over the years I let my hatred marinade. And congeal. And …’<
br />
He gazed out of the window at the dark, cancerous clouds that spread across the sky.
‘And?’
‘And so I sought revenge.’
He finished his drink and crunched the ice cubes between his teeth.
‘Well, living well is the best revenge, or so they say, apparently,’ he continued. ‘And for most of my life, I have lived very well. Fame. Money. Drugs. Travel. Fast cars. Even faster women. All of the above. And more. And it felt good. Bloody good. Or, at least, it used to.’
Stroud seemed draped in a cloak of gloom. And I was starting to feel sorry for him. Not a good thing. I wondered if really I would be able to help Cyprien kill him after all. But there was no room for doubt. I stood up.
‘I’ll get a couple more drinks,’ I said.
I walked over to the bar. A yawning barman with looked up from a copy of the Daily Mail.
‘Same again?’ he said.
‘G & T? No, this time I’ll have something stronger,’ I said. ‘A large Glenfiddich.’
I could see that a heavy night was on the cards.
It was late evening when we left The Granta. A thunderstorm had ripped the sky open and the small bridge that we used to cross the river was slippery. Stroud staggered and held on tightly to the handrail.
‘Bugger,’ he muttered. ‘Better watch my step.’
A laugh from the darkness and a shadowy figure stepped out from behind an oak tree. Stroud squinted as Cyprien stepped forward, a cosh in his hand.
‘Mr Stroud,’ he said. ‘I’ve been waiting for you.’
He was soaked through and looked angry.
‘What the hell do you want?’ said Stroud.
Suddenly, there was a flash of lightning and The Frenchman rushed toward Stroud, slipped and went head over heels, slamming down face first onto the bridge.
‘Fais chier!,’ he screamed.’ Merde ! Oh putain... Aaaaah putain de sa race!’
‘What … who the hell is that?’ said Stroud, as he looked down at the groaning Cyprien.
‘No idea,’ I said. I looked around to see if anyone was watching us. Luckily the coast was clear.
‘I recognise him,’ said Stroud. ‘Wasn’t he was with you in the bookshop yesterday? And I’m sure he was following me and my friend to the hotel last night.’
Stroud was suddenly very sober.
‘I think I’ll call the police,’ he said.
Cyprien looked up. Blood spurted from his face. He pushed a hand to his nose and tried to struggle to his feet but to no avail.
‘Aaaaah putain de sa race!’ he screamed.
Stroud was fumbling with his phone and my heart was doing a Keith Moon drum solo. I looked around. There was no one else about. I had to make a decision. And make it quickly.
I held my breath for moment and then I stepped forward and pushed Stroud into the water. His cries for help were smothered by the sound of thunder and heavy rain as I walked into the darkness, ignoring Cyprien’s stunned expression.
Detective Barry Toshack looked more like someone that the police would pull in for indecent exposure than a policeman. With his straggly hair, ragged Zapata moustache and waxy raincoat he looked every inch the flasher or peeping Tom. He also had a London accent which was so strong it almost sounded like a cockney send-up.
He yawned and then scratched an armpit with a stubby ballpoint pen that looked as if he’d stolen it from a betting shop. He was sat on the corner of the bed in my anonymous hotel room. I sat opposite him in an uncomfortable armchair.
‘Not from Cambridge yourself, then, detective?’
‘Nah, not my manor at all. I’m Brixton born and bred. Bit too la-di-dah around here for my liking.’
‘Same here,’ I said, hoping for a bit of ‘fish out of water’ camaraderie.
‘Yeah, well it would, what with you being a northerner.’
I forced a grin.
‘Okay,’ he said, holding up a writing pad with The Cambridge City Hotel’s letterhead on it. ‘I’ll read back your statement to you and if you can confirm it and sign I can bugger off for a fry-up.’
The statement was pretty much this. I’d left The Granta pub with Julian Stroud and taken a short-cut across the bridge to my hotel. Stroud had stopped to vomit over the side of a bridge and I’d continued on my journey. Stroud’s body had been found the next day. Since Stroud couldn’t swim and was seen to be particularly drunk by the pub bar staff, his death was assumed to be an accident.
‘That okay,’ said Toshack.
‘That’s it,’ I said.
As tense as a trapped rattlesnake, I signed the statement.
Anonymous hotels attract interesting people but only anonymous people stay in interesting hotels since they hope it will add a bit of colour to their dreary lives. Or so Julian Stroud had said when we were in The Granta. I was in the bar of The Cambridge City Hotel, a pretty impressive and pricey joint located in the centre of the city. I couldn’t exactly say if the guests were interesting or not since I was deep in thought, wondering what my next plan of action would be. Cyprian had checked out earlier that day and had presumably returned to France to lick his wounds and injured pride. Pedro was due in the morning with a special bonus for me. Part of the payment for killing Stroud was to be a completely new identity. A new life. Maybe I’d get it right this time.
I was trudging through the swamp of my memories when a woman sat beside me.
‘Can I buy you a drink?’ she said, with a sharp German accent.
She was a tall redhead and with a wicked look in her eyes. Her hair was pulled in a tight ponytail. She was dressed in a black business suit as sharp as her accent.
‘I’ve never said no to a free drink,’ I said.
She held out a perfectly manicured hand.
‘Natascha,’ she said.
‘Luke,’ I said, knowing that in less than twenty-four hours I’d be using another name. It was a good feeling. Liberating.
‘Maybe we’ll get room service,’ she said. ‘The people here are a bunch of damp squibs.’
A beat and then I took the plunge.
‘My room or yours?’ I said.
‘Well, I have a King-Size bed,’ she said.
‘Yours it is, then.’
And we head toward the lift.
The morning light was stretching into the luxurious room. Natascha was in the bathroom and I was sipping bottled water and flicking through the television channels. I stopped when I came to a local news report about the death of Julian Stroud. Behind the newsreader was a photograph of Stroud celebrating his first Conan Doyle Award along with his wife.
‘I never thought being a blonde suited me,’ said Natascha as she lay down on the bed.
‘You certainly don’t have a blonde personality,’ I said.
And she certainly didn’t seem particularly cut up about the death of her husband either.
She got up and went over to the wardrobe. Took out her black suit and a black hat with a veil.
‘Better look the part,’ she said.
She bent down and rummaged in the mini bar. Took out a gin. Knocked it back and threw one over to me.
‘A little eye opener,’ she said. ‘I’ll need it. I’m off to identify Julian’s corpse. Can’t imagine he’ll look that much different to when I last saw him. And you’d better get a move on. Pedro will be here soon.’
‘Yes, Natascha inherits everything and more …’ said Pedro. He looked ill. He’d just bitten into his first Cornish Pasty and wasn’t enjoying it. ‘God, this is almost as bad as Marmite,’ he said.
He threw it into a rubbish bin and we walked across the square as the market was being set up.
‘What do you mean by ‘and more’?’ I said.
‘Well, the truth of the matter is that she’s been writing Julian Stroud’s books for years. He was a one-trick pony and she was happy to keep milking the cash cow.’
I cringed at the mixed metaphor.
‘Ah, so she probably has one or two ‘unpublished’ wo
rks by Julian Stroud stuffed away in a desk drawer.’
‘That’s almost certain’
We kept on walking until we got to The Mitre. Pedro found table in the corner and perused the menu while I ordered the drinks from a tall Australian who — according to her name tag — seemed to be called Sheila.
I took the drinks over to the table.
‘Here’s that new passport and ID I promised you,’ said Pedro, as I sat down. He quickly gulped his drink, wanting to wash away the taste of the Cornish Pasty, presumably.
I opened up the envelope he’d given me. Took out the passport.
‘Looks real,’ I said.
‘It is.’
I sipped my lager Shandy.
‘The names a bit weird, isn’t it? I not too happy about being named after a South American country. There are sure to be jokes about coffee and nuts.’
Pedro shrugged.
‘Take it or leave it.’
‘Oh, I’ll take it. What’s my occupation supposed to be.’
‘An English teacher. EFL. Like your old friend Sean Bradley.’
‘Ha! EFL teaching. The underachiever’s paradise. Suits me. Where is my first job?’
‘Here.’
He handed me a job contract which I’d apparently already signed.
‘Poland? Well, at least it’s not Warsaw,’ I said. 'The city’s name sounds like a winning round at Scrabble.’
He shrugged again and I was beginning to find it annoying.
‘Like I said, take it or leave it.’
‘What the hell’ I thought. I had a new name, a new life and a brown envelope full of money. What could possibly go wrong? I sipped my drink and at last let a warm sea of expectation enfold me entirely.
Paul D. Brazill
Paul D. Brazill was born in England and lives in Poland. He is the author of Guns Of Brixton and Roman Dalton- Werewolf PI
His writing has been translated into Italian, Polish and Slovene. He had had stories published in various magazines and anthologies, including The Mammoth Book Of Best British Crime 8, 10 and 11 – alongside the likes of Lee Child, Ian Rankin and Neil Gaiman.
A Case of Noir (Atlantis) Page 8