by Louise Welsh
Eilidh raised her head, her interest sparked, and I caught another glimpse of the sharp lawyer who had sat with me in the police station.
'It’s hard to generalise, it’d depend what the evidence was, but technology’s moved on remarkably. There are cases that were thought long dead being dusted down, reexamined and solved through DNA and the like.' She smiled. 'A lot of worried crims who thought they’d got clean away are dreading the knock at the door. Why?'
The urge to share was strong, but I resisted.
'Just something I was reading.'
Eilidh gave me a look that said she wasn’t sure she believed me. But it wasn’t an unfriendly look.
'Please think about John’s benefit.' She held my red-rimmed eyes in her violet gaze. 'He admires you. It would mean a lot to him if you were involved.'
'I’ll think about it. No promises though.'
'No promises.'
She leant over and gave me a kiss goodbye. Apart from the day when I’d met my mother it was the first time in a long while that a woman had kissed me. It felt better than it should.
I was halfway down the close stairs before I realised that I hadn’t asked Johnny what his benefit was in aid of.
Berlin
SYLVIE AND I spent the rest of the afternoon and much of a long sober post-show night trying to light on the super-sexy twist we’d promised Ulla. It was morning by the time we’d sorted it out. We went through a private rehearsal then headed to our respective beds with the warm worn-out feeling that comes from a good evening’s work.
Of course the cutting the lady in half trick was only a small part of the new act, but separating the woman’s torso from her legs was a private nod to myself that I was moving on from the kind of second-rate penetration effect I’d performed at Bill’s club. There was a dramatic death-defying illusion destined for our finale, something I doubted the crowd at Schall und Rauch had seen before.
It was 9 a.m. and I was sitting on my hotel bed adding the last touch to a diagram and sipping a medicinal Grouse before finally getting my head down when the telephone rang.
The voice on the other end was as brash as a barker in a penny arcade.
'William, I was expecting your fucking answerphone.'
'Hi, Richard, I was up all night rehearsing.'
'Good boy, well you can spare me three minutes.'
I held the phone away from my ear while he coughed a phlegm-filled cough. 'How’s things in der Fatherland?'
'Better.'
'You wowing them yet?'
'About to.'
'Glad to hear it ’cos I’ve got some good news for you.'
'What?'
'There’s a scout travelling over on Saturday to take in your show.'
'Saturday?'
'Christ, don’t drop dead of enthusiasm.'
'No, that’s great news, Richard, it’s just Saturday’s the first night of the new act. I would’ve liked a chance to iron out any glitches that come up.'
'Don’t worry, the adrenalin’ll carry you through.'
Richard hacked out another round of coughs and I wondered where he’d heard of adrenalin.
'Who’s he scouting for?'
'TV, BBC3 to be exact, a late-night show. This could be what you’ve been waiting for.'
'So do you want me to meet him? Wine and dine him?'
'No, keep schtumm. He likes to go incognito. A lot of the big scouts are like that. But forewarned is forearmed. Save you screwing it up.'
'Thanks, Richard.'
'Don’t mention it, son. Just thank me by keeping sober and avoiding making a balls up.
This could be the big one. He was most insistent, no comics, no dancing girls, no singers, he only wants conjurers. This could have your name on it, Will.'
Glasgow
MY TRAWL THROUGH the Mitchell Library’s archives had revealed that one particular case was mentioned every time the murdered nightclub owner Bill Noon, or his father, Bill Noon senior, appeared in the newspapers. Bill had referred to it obliquely on the night we met and I’d read about it in the Telegraph’s report of Sam and Bill’s death, though its significance had been lost to me then.
On the morning of the Friday, 13th March, 1970, Mrs Gloria Noon had left her home at about 12.15 in the afternoon. She had never been seen or heard of again. There were no witnesses to her departure, but Gloria had spoken on the telephone to her sister, Sheila Bowen, at about midday. Gloria had asked Sheila for a recipe for pork and apple casserole.
When Sheila phoned back a quarter of an hour later after searching out the recipe book there was no reply, though Gloria had been expecting the call.
Gloria’s six-year-old son Billy went uncollected from school; her car lay untouched in the driveway. Gloria’s makeup was spread out in front of her dressing-table mirror as if she had been interrupted in the act of applying it. Gloria had withdrawn no large sums of cash, nor did she pack any clothes, she had left her Valium and contraceptive pills in the bathroom cabinet. Her keys, purse and reading glasses were still in her handbag, which lay open on the bed she shared with her husband. Her passport lay undisturbed at the bottom of her underwear drawer. There was no sign of an accident or a struggle, no note; no woman was discovered wandering the local lanes with amnesia. Mrs Gloria Noon had simply disappeared.
Sheila told police that she and her sister had talked of more than recipes that morning.
Gloria had finally decided to leave her husband, taking her young son with her. According to Sheila the boy was the only reason Gloria had stayed in her marriage.
It was confirmed that Gloria had been seen two weeks earlier by the casualty department of her local hospital, claiming to have fallen down the stairs. The doctor who’d examined her had written in his notes that he considered her injuries more consistent with an assault than a fall. Her sister claimed that Gloria had been beaten by her husband and that this beating, the most recent in a long series, was the reason Gloria had finally decided to leave — that and the encouragement she’d received from her lover.
Gloria had never named the man she was leaving Bill senior for, fearing the danger he’d be in if her husband discovered his identity and knowing that divorce courts looked unsympathetically on women who indulged in extramarital affairs, even the wives of dubious businessmen who made easy with their fists.
'She wouldn’t have done anything that interfered with her chance of getting custody of Billy,' her sister had insisted. 'And she would never have left him.'
But of course the affair had jeopardised Gloria’s chance of custody. And she had most certainly left her son. The question was, had she left voluntarily?
If you could hang a man on hearsay, Bill Noon would have mounted the gallows in double-quick time. But he’d insisted that with the exception of his abandoned son he was the most confused and upset of anyone involved. He denied any knowledge of an affair and insisted that though they ‘had their ups and downs like any married couple,' he knew of no plan to leave him. Gloria liked a drop, they both did, and once or twice he’d raised his hand but he’d never have seriously hurt her. The gin and not his fists were to blame for her fall and her bruises. He disputed his sister-inlaw’s account, accusing her of being jealous of Gloria’s lifestyle and of actively wanting their marriage to fail. He poured scorn on the idea that his wife would confide anything in her sister. He even slandered the recipe for pork and apple casserole.
Though the newspapers recorded Bill Noon’s denials it was clear whose side they took, even after he had posted a substantial reward for news of his wife. Bill Noon stared out from their photos, photogenic as a Kray twin hard man, while Gloria’s sister, Sheila, sat dignified in full suburban bloom, or was pictured working honestly and industriously in her husband’s outfitting shop.
For a while Gloria was sighted almost as regularly as Lord Lucan. A holidaymaker thought he saw her walking along a beach in Majorca. She’d dyed her hair brown and was holding the hand of a thin aristocratic-looking man. She was seen on
a bus in Margate, wearing a headscarf of the kind favoured by the queen. A hiker had passed Gloria walking along a cliff-top in Wales. She’d looked troubled and they’d thought of asking if she was OK.
It was only later that it occurred to them who she was. What attraction coastlines had for the disappeared Gloria Noon was never explored in the press.
After a while the sightings of Gloria diminished, though over the years people continued to claim to have glimpsed her. Generally after the press had resurrected her story, something that happened whenever a respectable married woman went missing.
Though, unlike Gloria, these women always seemed to turn up, in some form.
Gloria Noon had become her disappearance, a bundle of newspaper clippings, a police file, a chapter in true crime books and an entire Pan paperback, The Friday the Thirteenth Vanishing. The police denied her case was closed, but admitted there was little they could do with no evidence, no witnesses and no body.
The most spectacular resurrection of the publicity surrounding the case had come with Bill Noon senior’s remarriage twelve years after his first wife’s disappearance. Several newspapers had run a copy of the wedding photo. Bill junior acted as best man. He stood at the front of the group photograph, handsome face stiff and unreadable. And if you looked closely, it was possible to spot a younger, thinner James Montgomery in the back row of the bravely smiling wedding party, grinning like a man who’d just come into a good thing.
I took all the clippings I had managed to get copied about the disappearance of Bill’s mother and laid them across the floor of my room. Then I took out the map and the photograph that I’d filched from Montgomery and laid them side-by-side. I lifted the photograph and stared at the newspaper held in Montgomery’s hand. The print was small, but it was still possible to read the headline and the date, 13th March 1970, the day of Gloria’s disappearance. I looked again at the map and felt certain that this was the last resting place of Gloria Noon.
Bill had been nothing to me, Sam was a friend that I hadn’t seen for a year and Gloria a woman who vanished when I was still a child. I didn’t owe them any debt and nothing that I could do would bring them back. But maybe I held the solution to their deaths, and perhaps in helping to bring them justice I would find some peace of my own. Montgomery was out there somewhere, eager to get his hands on evidence that might damn him. Was I in mourning for what I’d done in Berlin? Or just a coward, hiding from a man who’d been playing dirty since before I was born? I’d been spending a long time on my decline. This could be my chance to redeem myself or go out Butch-Cassidy-and-theSundance-Kid-style, in a blaze of glory.
I left everything lying the way that it was, washed my face, locked the door, turned out the light and went to bed.
The cuttings were still splayed across the floor when I woke the following midmorning.
I stepped over them, mindful not to stand on any of the photographs of Gloria and Bill Noon, the laughing wedding guests or the carefully coiffured sister, then fumbled in the dressing table drawer until I found an unopened pack of playing cards and slid away the red scarf I’d used to cover the mirror. I leaned in close and looked at myself properly for the first time in months. My face was drink-bloated and unshaven, my eyes puffy behind their glasses. I rubbed a hand across my bristles, wondering if the old William was lost forever, then pulled up a chair, slit open the pack and threw the jokers to one side. I shuffled the deck and started to perform some basic sleights of hand. My fingers were clumsy, but after a while they began to remember the familiar tricks and I knew that with practice they would regain their old knack. I shaved, showered and then went out to ring Johnny.
Eilidh sounded distracted.
'Oh, William, John’s a bit busy, can he ring you back?'
'I’m calling from a phone booth.'
There was a smile in Eilidh’s voice.
'That’s novel these days.'
I looked out at the crowds of shoppers rushing along Argyle Street and realised it was a Saturday.
'I guess it is.' I paused, hoping she’d drag Johnny from whatever task he was caught up in. When she didn’t I said. 'It’s just to say I’ll do the gig.'
'That’s brilliant, William, he’ll be delighted.'
I felt myself go gruff.
'Aye, well, he’ll maybe not be so chuffed when he sees me; I’m a bit rusty.'
'Nonsense he’s always going on about how brilliant you were when you were both at uni.'
I stored this nugget of praise away amongst my depleted stock.
'Johnny didn’t tell me the kick-off time.'
'It’s a week today, 3.30 in the Old Panopticon.'
'A matinee?'
The voice on the other end of the line sounded concerned.
'Is that a problem?'
I hesitated and then realised that it would make no dif ference to my purpose what time the show was at.
'No, not really, it just threw me that’s all.'
'There’ll be a lot of kids there, families, it should be fun.'
'I’ll temper my act accordingly.'
Eilidh laughed.
'See that you do.'
Eilidh thanked me again and I realised she wanted to go. The pips sounded and I fired more change into the slot, holding her there.
'Johnny never said what the benefit was in aid of.'
'Did he not?' Eilidh’s voice was bright. 'We’re trying to raise funds for a charity catering for children like Grace.'
'Like what?'
It sounded flippant and inwardly I cringed.
'You really didn’t talk much did you? Grace has Down’s Syndrome.'
I felt a quick hit of pity, infused with embarrassment. The words were out before I knew I was going to say them.
'I’m sorry.'
'Don’t be,' Eilidh’s voice was serious. 'We consider ourselves blessed.'
Berlin
THE THREE OF us stood in the wings, Sylvie on one side of me trembling in a silky robe, Ulla on the other dressed in a close-fitting vest and tight leggings that had been severed at the knees. Both girls were wearing the same bottle-green fishnets and high shiny red sandals just as Sylvie had promised. Out on stage the clowns started to fling their buzz-saws around. I turned to Ulla.
'Ready?'
She nodded and I could sense her nervousness. I moved to help her into the hollow top of the table, but suddenly Kolja was beside her. He lifted her gently into his arms and deposited her safely in the compartment like some fairytale prince laying his new-won princess into their honeymoon bower. Sylvie leaned over to check something and her robe fell open. Beneath it she was almost naked. The green stockings were held up by a red satin suspender belt, which matched her high-cut shorts and the scarlet tassels, secured by mysterious means over her nipples.
Ulla made a noise somewhere between a sigh and a spit and Kolja smiled. He winked at me as if to ask, what could you do when women were around? Then leaned over and kissed Ulla quickly on the lips, ruffling her hair. I’d never suspected him of a sense of humour and would have liked him better for it if I hadn’t noticed him meeting Sylvie’s eyes as he rose out of the kiss.
Whenever cinema cameras go behind stage they show chaos. Half-dressed gaggles of showgirls tripping into departing acts, harassed stage managers pointing the odds with one hand and messing their hair into Bedlam peaks with the other. The reality probably doesn’t look so different to the untrained eye. It’s like watching a motorway from a pedestrian overpass. You wonder how the cars can snake from lane to lane without colliding, and yet when you’re the driver the switch can be effortless.
The curtains dropped and the clowns ran off stage making lecherous faces at Sylvie as they passed. The propshifters swept away the debris, then moved the table behind the lowered curtain. Our music started up, Sylvie dropped her robe, I took her hand and we strode out in front of the curtains to greet the audience.
Something about the way the high heels made Sylvie’s bottom stick out as she walked acros
s the stage, spine straight, small breasts carried high, a diamanté tiara glinting from the top of her sleek head, made me think of a show pony. The crowd cheered. I turned her into a twirl and she stood sunning herself in their applause. I wondered if I was just a flesh bandit pimping a skin act, but there was no denying it was the best greeting I’d got in a long time.
Sylvie waited for the clapping to die down and our music to shift to a slower tempo, then handed me a deflated red balloon. I looked at her lithe body and held the balloon up to the audience displaying its limpness. They laughed and I raised it to my lips and started to blow.
The balloon expanded into a massive scarlet Bratwurst. I stopped, puffing theatrically, struggling to regain my breath, marvelling at the balloon’s Priapic fullness, raising my eyes and looking at Sylvie’s tits. The crowd belly laughed.
I raised the balloon back to my lips and kept on blowing. Sylvie covered her ears waiting for the explosion. Just when there was a danger of the crowd getting bored it burst, scattering red sparkles across the stage. I stepped back smartly, producing a bottle of champagne from its wreckage before the shreds of rubber had even hit the ground. The crowd applauded, two champagne flutes were flung from the wings and I caught them, slick as any juggler. I’d opened the bottle, passed Sylvie a drink and had downed one myself by the time the applause faded.
Sylvie nodded to the remnants of burst balloon lying dead on the stage and grinned,
'That reminds me of last night.' I looked outraged and the audience laughed. Sylvie winked and said in a conspiratorial whisper that echoed to the very back of the room. 'Not for much longer though, just you wait until you see the big athlete in act three.'
'That’s what you think.'
I pulled a wand from the inside pocket of my suit and pointed it towards the audience.
There was a quick flash of red at the front of the stage and the music switched to a graveyard moan. Sylvie’s hands flew to her mouth. The curtains behind us slid back to reveal the table where Ulla lay hidden. Before the audience had time to stare too closely, two of the ninjas jogged on, their features concealed by bandito scarves stretched black across their lower faces, each of them carrying one half of the sparkling blue cabinet. The first ninja handed me his half, I opened the lid and displayed its empty interior to the audience while he rolled the table centre-stage. I placed the box on top, exhibited the emptiness of its twin, then laid the two halves end to end. My ninja helpers slid out both boxes’ fronts, fixing the two parts together, turning them into one long coffin.