Mystery City

by Alistair Lavers

  With ten years under his belt as a staffer for the London Evening Standard, Crawford had realised the value of having a second identity when covering important stories. Over the space of a few years, he had assembled a hospital porter-style uniform, a fake ID and a gatefold invoice clipboard to pass himself off as a cleaning supplies delivery driver, in order to infiltrate restricted areas without arousing suspicion and fit in “behind the lines”. It had worked like a dream, though he had had a few awkward encounters, changing his trousers around the rear doors of restaurants and hospitals, but his quick wit and persuasive patter had always saved him from what could have been an embarrassing trip to the police station.

  Crawford slipped behind the back wall of the Four Horsemen into a gap between a stack of empty cardboard boxes, crates and waste food bins and began to change. Making sure he kept the cantina’s rear doors in sight, whilst he swapped clothes, he checked the tiny cassette in his small dictating machine recorder, hiding his camera bag under a polystyrene fish tray lid.

  Then he caught the sound of voices and boots running between the utilities building and the Parkway toilet block, next to the restaurant, so he checked left and right before attempting to move off and began to tip-toe his way along the edge of the bank – towards the noise of running feet.

  Finding a convenient pile of stout delivery crates underneath one of the toilet blocks ventilation grilles, Crawford checked the vicinity again for any sign of a police presence and then clambered up the crate stack until he could hold his tiny cassette recorder against the rusted vent. There was certainly something interesting going on inside, as the volume of chatter had just taken a sharp upward turn, though Crawford still couldn’t quite make out what was being said. So he stretched his arm to move the dictation recorder higher up over the grille cover and stepped on the foil-covered corner of the crate which had accidentally been smeared in sunflower oil. Leg followed foot, faster than a Bruce Lee drop kick, his arms flailing uselessly into thin air as he began to fall to earth, brilliantly mimicking the leaping form of the principal male dancer in Swan Lake. However Crawford’s landing was much less graceful and certainly more gruesome, falling face down into the middle of the restaurant’s waste skip onto a damp cardboard sheet, studded with heavy duty industrial staples over a pile of cheesy minced beef.

  ‘Maria, you call doctor for men Lela serve. You see where they go, policemen who eat?’

  ‘I see four meyn run in toilet block Hector.’

  ‘Okay. You call Doctor – where you put kitchen rolls?’

  Callum Tate ran out of the Parkway toilets with Detective Constable McCoy and PC Fincher, banging into the side of the food bin from which the tainted journalist was dismounting, knocking his dictation machine flying.

  Crawford’s escape from the waste food skip, in his sunflower oil smeared shoes wasn’t going well. He had got into position for a dismount of sorts – on the inner lip – but as he tried to straighten his legs, the bin jerked sideways and he lost his balance for the second time in as many minutes. This time his luck ran out and he fell head first onto the hard asbestos soil pipe standing proud of the wall, behind the restaurant’s staff toilet, knocking himself out.

  Constable McCoy heard the crump and looked around the side of the bin, calling his colleague.

  ‘Finch! Come ovver ‘ere – quick.’

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘There’s some blue collar bloke, looks like he’s from a cleaning company unconscious behind the bins,’ griped McCoy, crossing his legs.

  ‘Any ID?’

  ‘He’s got some kind of badge on his lapel, but it’s covered in bloody lasagne and cheese or something; check his pockets will ya Finch?’said McCoy.

  The other policeman jerked the comatose journalist’s trousers straight and put his hand into his right pocket, closing his grip on something that felt like a small misshapen leather pocket book and another article which had an altogether different texture and feel.

  ‘There’s a writing pad of some sort, and a– eeuurgh!’

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘There’s a snotty tissue in there with it.’

  ‘Pass me the wallet mate– with your other hand…’

  ‘There you go – dirty bastard,’ groaned Fincher, wiping his hands on Crawford’s trouser leg. When he looked up again, McCoy gave him a filthy look.

  ‘HIM! I meant him – not you.’

  McCoy grunted and peered into Crawford’s wallet, then tipped it upside down and shook out the contents over the comatose journalist’s chest.

  ‘He’s alive is he?’

  ‘Oh yeah – the bastard’s still breathing.’

  ‘Can you smell booze on him?’

  ‘No. Nothing. He’s not been drinking, he’s been snooping I reckon. No one’s supposed to have been let through except the staff here. D’Ascoyne said we weren’t allowed to let any delivery people past the tape… hang on…’

  ‘There’s a lot of plastic…’

  ‘Colin Crawford – NUJ. National Union of Journalists.., the crafty bastard! Go and get Inspector Marshall…’

  ‘Can you cuff him to the pipe? I really need the bog.’

  ‘Go to Bol d’Or. You won’t get in the Little Chef. We’ve occupied it.’

  ‘They aren’t gonna let me use their bog.’

  ‘Flash your warrant card and say it’s an emergency… go on then. I’ll cuff this bugger then come back with Mr Marshall after I’ve been. The bastard’s got a Socialist Worker membership card too. A bloody commie!’spat McCoy as his sphincter began to go into its first minor spasm. Fixing Crawford’s wrist to a lug on the bin with his handcuffs as fast as he dared, DS McCoy stood up very gingerly and then ran towards the open garage workshop at Thunderbird Autos next door, whilst Fincher sprinted off to Bol d’Or Motorcycles.

  ‘Police – I need to see your toilet. Where is it?’ shouted McCoy, striding up to the first person he could find, waving his warrant card.‘Detective Constable McCoy.’

  ‘First door on the left – over there,’ replied Adrian Coulter, their other mechanic, thrusting out a filthy arm from underneath a Corvette.

  ‘Ta very much,’ yelled McCoy, breaking into a jog as an enormous rumble thundered down his large intestine.

  For the first time in his life, PC McCoy was delighted to find a filthy toilet with clean lavatory paper. There was certainly no danger that the throne of the swamp thing would be a greater threat to the health of the mechanics after his visit, than it had been before. Seizing the roll from the Swarfega-stained cistern cover, he began to tear off single sheets, overlapping them on the seat in a clockwise direction, then doubling back with more tissue, so he could have something, however thin, between the skin of his cheeks and the suspiciously stained black Bakelite. An old pattern hospital seat with a great gap at the front, so those unfortunates with a lot of overhang or bull-sized genitals could sit without having to squeeze their hoses inside the seat aperture. As soon as his tissue paper clock had covered the seat, he undid his trousers and bent down to the tainted porcelain. Nothing happened for the first few seconds and then a blast of methane burst forth from his quivering anus, causing ripples in the bacteria-infested water below. Then the churning torrent that had been building up behind erupted over the pan. Herb, the proprietor’s adopted cistern spider, lost his footing in his haste to escape from the back of the toilet seat and fell in the deadly bristles of the toilet brush holder. McCoy sat sweating for a few more minutes then decided it was safe to stand. Trying not to look into the pan, he patted clean his anal water pistol, washed his hands with the brick of green soap and ran back to the rear of the Four Horsemen to reclaim his prisoner.

  ‘Sir! Over here!’

  Marshall and Broadhead strode towards the young Constable Fincher, taking a few last drags on the remains of their Benson and Hed
ges.

  ‘Right! Where’s everyone gone Fincher?’ scowled Marshall. ‘Are they all still on the bloody throne?’

  ‘Callum and Norris from the car pound tried to get in the toilet block sir, but the Sergeant’s in there– with three of the others. McCoy had to use the mechanics’ lav at Thunderbird Autos. I don’t think they’re going to be too fond of me at Bol d’Or.’

  ‘Well you can buy them some bloody flowers if you’ve hurt their feelings can’t you? What have you got for me?’

  ‘We found a seventh columnist, I mean a communist – a journalist… passed out behind the toilet block. He’s disguised himself as a cleaning company delivery driver sir…’

  ‘Fifth columnists, communists, journalists and Seventh-day Adventists aren’t hard to separate Fincher. You aren’t going to get any higher than Detective Constable if you can’t tell the bloody difference. Show me where the sod is…’

  ‘I handcuffed him to the soil pipe behind the cantina sir.’ I couldn’t wait any…’

  ‘Yes, yes. I bet you couldn’t. We’ve all had one of those trips to the lavatory.’

  A minute later, the three policemen were looming over the reporter’s limp body. ‘Here he is sir…’

  ‘Well, well, well – it’s Wolfie Smith Crawford, from the Yorkshire Evening Press,’ grinned Marshall, pleased as punch. Did you empty his wallet like that Fincher?’

  ‘No sir.’

  ‘Well don’t let me catch you leaving important evidence scattered over your next corpse like an upturned litter bin while you answer the call of nature again– you prat! RIGHT! Let’s have a look through this twerp’s card collection then.’Marshall bent down and picked up the Socialist Workers Party card, a communist party member’s donor’s chit and Crawford’s NUJ identification card.

  ‘Bag these up McCoy. And all his other bits,’ said the inspector, dropping the journalist’s other cards and receipts back onto his cheese-smeared shirt. Have you checked the surrounding area yet?

  ‘Didn’t have time sir.’

  ‘Bum before?’

  ‘Er… yes sir’.

  ‘Right – well if I know Crawford, he never forgets to take his camera and tape recorder to work, so have a root around until you find them. Fincher can help you when he’s finished skiving. This sneaky little git was probably trying to embarrass us so we’re going to pay him back– in kind. When you’ve got his camera and his tape recorder, you and Sergeant Broadhead can take him to the custody suite at the station and he can have the benefit of an interview with our “friends” from London, one lot, or the other. That’ll teach the bastard to trespass on our crime scene.’

  Chapter Five

  Anarchy Mary

  There was very little anarchy in Whitborough-on-Sea. Or indeed, any appetite or interest for anything resembling protest politics. The most important subject on most people’s minds, after their family and friends, was money. Whether it was earned, made, stolen, spent or coveted. Money was the one thing no one could do without. The third position imperative, was whatever people did to forget about what they had to do to earn it.

  Only a few lucky individuals of independent means were able to flourish outside the wage economy. Some had never had to join it. Mary Shipley Brown, the privileged daughter of a very astute stockbroker and private investor, was living comfortably in the second category, while carefully avoiding the first. Mary was young, driven and determined to make her mark in the world; even if Whitborough’s citizens seemed determined to avoid her at all costs.

  Mary’s strident oratory continually frustrated her best efforts to keep an audience; repelling those in danger of being sucked into the gravitational pull of one of her ill-informed soap box rants– preposterous, ill-informed monologues and hectoring declarations that nimbly circumvented fact and truth, but were nonetheless still horribly compelling in their brutality and ignorance.

  A finely indulged only child with a reasonable brain and good features, Mary had done what she could to make amends, adopting a lifestyle which made her look old at twenty. She smoked like Humphrey Bogart, drank like Richard Burton and trashed her hair so many times, she had been forced to give up bleaching and colouring for natural dreads. Allergic to real work and lacking any genuine charm or sense of humour, because of her all-consuming passion for protest politics, Mary had skilfully deferred her debut in the real world by becoming a perpetual student in the cosseted halls of Whitborough Technical College’s art and design studios; living comfortably off her local education authority grant and monthly trust fund income, biding her time while she plotted her escape from provincial obscurity.

  As the Whitborough town Labour Party and their unloved hangers-on in the Socialist Workers Party already had more than enough agitators of their own, Mary was compelled to force herself upon the only group of radicals left in the borough, that didn’t have a Marx, a Lenin, or a Mao – the unfortunate young men and women of the Whitborough Anarchists and Vegan Collective, who were neither practising anarchists nor actual vegans by any reasonable definition, but a naive gang of boys and girls who were only really attracted to the recreational aspects of an alternative lifestyle drenched in cider.

  The group ‘occupied’ a former Scout hut beside some abandoned allotments in Burniston, a short bus ride from the Technical College and fifty minutes’ walk from town, the Scouts having moved to a brand new prefab within the Sea Cadets parade ground in Whitborough months before. Within two months of her arrival, Mary had declared herself General Secretary and Head of Propaganda, appointed a Treasurer and Under Secretary and commissioned a banner and sign. Though her power grab ushered in a new chapter of seriousness that went against the spirit of the collective, they acquiesced, mostly, without a murmur, hoping she would tire of their indifference to her politicking, by making such a fool of herself that she would have to move on to the Bowls Club.

  Disappointingly for Mary, one of the commune had arrived in Burniston late on Saturday afternoon with his new girlfriend, their new guest, a young lady who was about to show the rest of the group exactly how to put their Lagerfuhrer in her place.

  The hut was winding down after a good-natured first encounter with the new girl, when Mary marched into view at the back of the facing sofa, directly in front of Mike and Aisha– his guest – remaining aloof and apart while she waited for one of Mike’s friends to announce her.

  ‘Oh sorry – this is Mary, Aisha, she’s… Secretary…’explained Stig, cocking his head in the direction of their leader before he turned his eyes towards his feet, muttering something which wasn’t very polite. There was a palpable air of tension when Mary leaned forwards and threw out her hand. Aisha pushed herself halfway off the leather settee and reached out to grasp her fingers, though it felt as though she had just shaken hands with a mannequin.

  Aisha tried to dispel the awkwardness, by smiling, but Mary had not come to exchange pleasantries. She was more concerned with discovering if their visitor was an infiltrator or a rival. A shy, modest and naive young guest would have warmed Mary’s heart. But the person sitting opposite her was a very different kind of animal.

  ‘Hi Mary, I’m Aisha – Mike’s girlfriend. Allie says everyone here’s veggie.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Veggie.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So… I’m like you. I’m a vegetarian.’

  ‘You don’t know nuthin’‘bout us or anyone. We ain’t a club like that…’ she harped, using obfuscation and rudeness in an effort to unbalance her guest. ‘So… you’re Mike’s newest then,’ smirked Mary, playing with her beads, ‘most can’t gel with us. We’re too rad for most straights an’ spare-time rebs. Not that you’re a straight – I can see that. Has he told you the deal with us then, yeah? You wanna follow the band? You live like us.We gotta make up our own minds about newbies though. Groupthink, see. You squat?’

  �
��Squat?… Sorry… I’m not sure I quite got your…’

  ‘SQUAT? YOU SQUAT?’

  ‘Mary, you can’t interrogate someone you’ve only just met – cut it out!’ groaned Gary who was slouched in a collapsed armchair beside the settees, picking his nose.

  ‘No… I don’t– squat. What’s that got to do with anything?’ replied Aisha, refusing to back down.

  Mike covered his brow with his hand and groaned. Then Stig and Ian stood up and walked off, whispering amongst themselves. Aisha did her best to remain composed as she tried to defend herself without making a scene– so soon after her arrival. But she wasn’t going to bite her lip for very much longer.

  ‘You live with your mum and dad then?’ asked Mary, more loudly than was necessary. Probing. Teasing.

  ‘No. Actually, I share a flat with my sister.’

  ‘Mary! Ease up yeah? The lass has only just got here,’said Digger irritably, jabbing the tip of his roll-up repetitively into the side of the old ashtray on their table top, but Mary ignored the intervention and pressed on without mercy.

  ‘So you give money to a capitalist? A landlord?’

  ‘That’s usually how it works – when you rent,’ Aisha replied, with carefully accented sarcasm.

  Mary suddenly realised she had over-asserted herself and underestimated the quality of her opponent. But she couldn’t back down and risk losing face in such an important duel, so she continued her attack in the hope she could quash the new girl’s spirit before she got into her stride, though her luck was about to run out in the most dramatic fashion.