‘Happen so.’
At the door Waites stopped to light a cigarette. ‘You know what really grates with me, Charlie? It used to be a working class game, football. Now they’ve took that from us as well.’
‘Some places,’ Resnick said, ‘it still is.’
‘Come on, Charlie. What’s happening, you don’t think it’s right no more’n I do.’
‘Maybe not. Though I wouldn’t mind some oil billionaire from Belarus taking a fancy to Notts County for a spell. Buy ’em a halfway decent striker, someone with a bit of nous for midfield.’
Waites laughed. ‘Now who’s whistling in the dark?’
For several months Customs and Excise and others did their best to unravel Sharminov’s financial affairs; his stock was seized, his shops closed down. A further six months down the line, Alexei Popov would buy them through a twice-removed subsidiary and begin trading in DVDs for what was euphemistically called the adult market. He also bought a flat in Knightsbridge for a cool five million, close to the one owned by Roman Abramovich, though there was no indication the two men knew one another. Abramovich’s Chelsea continued to prosper; no oil-fed angel came to Notts County’s rescue as they struggled against relegation.
Lynn began to wonder if a sideways move into the National Crime Squad might help to refocus her career.
Resnick saw Eileen one more time. Although most of the money belonging to the man she knew as Michael Sandler had been confiscated, she had inherited enough for new clothes and an expensive makeover, new suitcases which were waiting in the taxi parked outside.
‘I thought I’d travel, Charlie. See the world. Switzerland, maybe. Fly round some mountains.’ Her smile was near to perfect. ‘You know the only place I’ve been abroad? If you don’t count the Isle of Man. Alicante. Apart from the heat, it wasn’t like being abroad at all. Even the announcements in the supermarket were in English.’
‘Enjoy it,’ Resnick said. ‘Have a good time.’
Eileen laughed. ‘Come with me, why don’t you? Chuck it all in. About time you retired.’
‘Thanks a lot.’
For a moment her face went serious. ‘You think we could ever have got together, Charlie?’
‘In another life, maybe.’
‘Which life is that?’
Resnick smiled. ‘The one where I’m ten years younger and half a stone lighter; not already living with somebody else.’
‘And not a policeman?’
‘Maybe that too.’
Craning upwards, she kissed him quickly on the lips. ‘You’re a good man, Charlie, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.’
Long after she had gone, he could feel the pressure of her mouth on his and smell the scent of her skin beneath the new perfume.
For K.C. Constantine, with gratitude and admiration, in particular for his marvellous novel, Blood Mud, from which the salad finger episode was borrowed, with permission.
‘GOING ANYWHERE NICE?’
(A Mr Grubshaw and Woody Story)
Lindsey Davis
‘Goin’ anywhere nice for your ’oliday?’
Immediately, Renzo was summoned by his mobile phone. A computerised trill from La Forza del Destino left Mr Grubshaw thwarted. Renzo stepped outside to lean his paunch against the doorframe and engage in impenetrable Sardinian business chat.
According to Renzo, he was the best barber in Deptford. Certainly Mr Grubshaw went into the shop feeling untidy and came out different – though passers-by then peered at him as if he resembled a conman on Crimewatch who was being sought by three police forces for emptying old ladies’ bank accounts.
Renzo’s shop was owned by Halycon Properties, a front for two Lebanese brothers with big ideas and dodgy spelling. They had run a VAT racket on mobile phones until Customs and Excise tightened up the rules; now they were planning to rent out student bedsits. Until they put in place the finance for installing faulty gas water-heaters, Renzo hung on, alongside Cursing Khaleed, whose tiny café was filled with cigarette smoke and thin men of Balkan appearance who did nothing all day.
‘Grubby’ Grubshaw was sole proprietor of the XYZ Detective Agency, though Renzo, who was curiously uninterested in his customers, had never discovered this. The private eye had wandered into the barber’s once when the Department of Social Services, for whom he did occasional fraud enquiries, asked him to watch a Chinese man who seemed to be claiming for a non-existent wife. Mrs Cheung’s body then washed up on the bank of the Thames, so the DSS lost interest because she was perfectly entitled to benefits, had Mr Cheung not murdered her. The police hijacked Mr Grubshaw’s casenotes, complimenting him on their neatness and detail (he had written them up hastily, with his niece’s help, the night before). Then Cheung fled the country, so even the police lost interest. At least Grubby had acquired a barber.
Renzo was cheap. He was gloomy and introspective, but when he bothered he could cut hair well. He made a tasteless joke of ‘Don’ worry, I no cut your throat!’ to anyone who risked a wet shave – but Mr Grubshaw had seen too many films about the Chicago Mob to relax in a chair while lathered up. He only ever braved a trim. Normally, by the time Renzo asked if he had any holiday plans and he replied not really, it was all over. Today, Grubby experienced slight disappointment; the mobile phonecall prevented him announcing that for once he was taking his niece to the Bay of Naples. He had hoped a Mediterranean destination would impress Renzo.
‘Business colleagues; big people,’ the barber boasted, shoving away the phone and clicking his scissors alarmingly. He seemed put out by the call. He muttered in his home dialect, then flashed a brazen grin. ‘Big people who need Renzo! Very special job …’
That sounded far too much like Sweeney Todd. Mr Grubshaw avoided discussing his holiday and fled.
Back at his office, his niece was busy at his computer. The XYZ Detective Agency was another Halycon Properties rental, two upstairs rooms with rotten floors, over a bankrupt software firm. It made an unsuitable haven for a twelve-year-old girl, but both her parents worked, so Mr Grubshaw took her in after school. Perdita (‘call me Tracey’) kept his records in order for him.
‘I’ve booked everything online with Dad’s credit card,’ she sniggered. It made a change from her buying CDs with Mr Grubshaw’s own card. A pale thing with bunches in scrunchies, whose wardrobe was dominated by pink leggings and big black shoes, she vacuumed relatives’ PIN numbers from their minds by osmosis. ‘He’s sending us Business Class.’
‘Oh! … Does Clive know you use his card?’
‘He will!’
Mr Grubshaw’s youngest brother, a ‘respectable’ City broker, had caused the Naples trip. Finding his niece in tears a week earlier, Mr Grubshaw discovered that Clive had left home, to be with his young assistant. ‘Fiona – ugh! She’s having a baby.’ Something worse had caused the tears: ‘Dad forgot to pay for my school trip.’ Grubby stepped in to take Tracey and her mother Jean to see the archaeological sites.
They were not the only people heading towards Vesuvius: as they entered the airport boarding lounge, Mr Grubshaw was convinced he spotted Renzo, though the barber had his head in a phone booth. Grubby said nothing, a professional habit, and since Business Class was boarded last there was no awkward eye contact.
During the flight, Tracey kept her CD player welded to both ears, listening to Mortal Dread and the Troubled Minds, so her uncle could give her mother legal advice. Clive had money, but allocating any to Tracey’s upkeep might become tricky; there were signs that Fiona had spent her time as a finance assistant learning how to ensure her life would be a soft one.
‘Constant “late business meetings”, then he claims I lost interest!’ ranted Jean, who was still adapting to her loss of status as part of a yuppie couple. They had bought a four-storey Georgian house in Greenwich before the Docklands Light Railway was brought across the river, causing a knee-jerk in prices. ‘We were planning to upgrade to a five-storey, cashing in. Now he says I can buy him out – how, exactly, on teac
hing Comparative Literature four days a week? They maintain they are slumming in a flat – but it’s a flat with Philippe Starck washbasins! All I ever got was Villeroy and Boch, installed by plumbers who took eight months – and we never did get the right loo handle …’ After years of despising Grubby for his informal lifestyle, she now suspected she had married the wrong brother; it made for an intriguing family atmosphere. ‘I’ve been blind. Do you think there were others?’
‘There may have been, Jean.’
‘I suppose it’s the oldest deceit.’
‘It’s been known,’ Grubby agreed.
‘I could kill him!’
‘That’s been done,’ said Grubby sadly.
‘Would a private detective suggest a contract killer?’
‘My code requires me to advise against it, Jean.’
‘I don’t even need you to find evidence; he bloody told me everything himself … Well, I hope you haven’t brought that damned matchbox!’ Jean was denouncing the container where Grubby kept a woodlouse who allegedly helped solve cases. When he merely looked innocent, she exploded, ‘Oh no! What if we’re searched by Customs?’
‘Woody has a pet passport,’ grinned Tracey, holding an earplug aside.
The pilot was mumbling on the muffly intercom. ‘Alter your watches,’ deciphered Mr Grubshaw alertly, winding his on an hour. ‘Get back to Mort, Trace, while I instruct your mother on how to fleece your father.’
They stayed at a shoreline hotel by the Castel d’Ovo, an old fortress with a harbourful of boats nodding their masts at the foot of the keep. They had splendid views across the bay, out to Capri, which was visible on clear nights as a scatter of pale lights. From their balconies, they could turn towards Mount Vesuvius and wonder whether that was a faint trace of smoke threading upwards from the crater …
Before dinner, Mr Grubshaw lay on one of the twin beds in his room, reading a free newspaper from the plane. Having assured Jean that all the Vespa-riding bag-snatchers had been cleared out of Naples in Millennium Year, he had concealed from her an article discussing problems with Mafia drug-sellers. There was uproar on some impoverished estates because the local Camorra was trying to impose a new business plan on pushers.
‘Must have been on a management course!’ Grubby glanced across to the second bed, where a matchbox reposed on the pillow just where chambermaids deposit a chocolate to remind guests to leave a tip. ‘Reminds me of that brochure I chucked in the bin: Participants will learn how to:
Formulate a stratetic market plan
Organise activities to bring in new business
Develop a marketing culture in their organisation
Motivate colleagues to achieve agreed commitments
Pretty straightforward, Woody. Some dealer annoys you with his feeble marketing culture, you shoot dead his young girlfriend.’ He read on. ‘Guns in the street – mainly at weekends. The Camorra must all hold down nice jobs … No-go tower blocks, where dealers have installed security cameras to show the police arriving; then they’ve put metal gates on stairwells to hold the officers up … Just like home, Woody. Let’s hope the Deptford pushers don’t take holidays to get ideas.’
Woody said nothing, being a reticent character.
The family set out on foot for dinner. Lights across the causeway to the fortress attracted them, but they decided to head further afield, turning past a row of elegant old hotels. Outside the grandest a limousine pulled up. A chauffeur in a classic blue blazer escorted an elderly couple across the pavement towards a flunkey in a maroon tailcoat. The couple looked like local VIPs on some regular night out at a hotel restaurant.
Tracey marched up, a self-assured child. The woman tolerantly paused to let her pass. Jean smiled their thanks and scuttled out of the way. Lagging in the rear, Mr Grubshaw noticed that Signor looked annoyed at being kept waiting. The man had a quiet manner, yet expected to be given precedence, even by strangers. His chauffeur’s attitude was tellingly different.
‘The Mayor of Naples?’ wondered Jean.
‘Gangland racketeer,’ her daughter suggested.
‘Successful accountant and wife,’ murmured Grubby. ‘Meeting friends for a bridge party.’
‘I don’t think so!’ scoffed Tracey.
Replete after their Business Class dinner earlier, the family settled for pizzas. As they tucked in, Tracey explained the terms on which this holiday was to be conducted: the group from her school were staying at a cheaper hotel along the bay and would pick her up every morning as their coach passed by. Tracey did not want to be embarrassed at archaeological sites by the presence of relatives, so Jean and Grubby had to visit other locations. Nobody wanted Trouble, so this was agreed.
Accordingly, when the schoolgirls visited Pompeii, Jean and Grubby went to Herculaneum using the Circumvesuvio railway. While the school party were at Herculaneum, the others crossed by ferry to Capri. The day the girls saw Poppaea’s Villa at Oplontis, Jean and Grubby managed a morning in Naples Museum; they went up there by taxi, then afterwards walked back down a long road towards their hotel, window-shopping. They made one quick foray uphill into narrower alleys, but did not linger. Mr Grubshaw was remembering the newspaper article’s description of a drug-dealer being shot in a salami shop, among hams and prosciutto salesmen. Dead meat.
‘That’s enough backstreet Neapolitan atmosphere! Let’s find an ice-cream.’
Returning to the main road, they came across an enormous glass-roofed gallery, its cross-shaped interior lined with banks, cafés, jewellers and incongruous electrical shops. Jean’s guide-book identified the Galleria Umberto I. While she admired the grey and pale gold marble floor of one gracious arcade, Mr Grubshaw noticed through the farthermost exit a faded building across the street. Tall rectangular windows were flanked by dark green louvred shutters. Outside one window, two men talked on a balcony, perhaps avoiding eavesdroppers. He realised that there, discreetly placed above a Solarium, was a business close to his heart: an International Detective Agency.
He took a closer look. A man, much like himself, though with a smarter jacket, emerged at street level, hands in pockets. He sauntered into the Galleria. It seemed the wrong place for a detective to spend his lunch break – at least until he stationed himself outside an electrical shop, studying cut-price vacuum cleaners.
Jean had found a pavement table for a cappuccino. She whispered excitedly, ‘There’s that racketeer from the other evening!’
‘Merely a toasted-pannini mogul.’ Grubby stuck to his theory that the man was mundane.
‘The couple looked too respectable to be respectable. I should know. Think of Clive! The bastard is smooching his trophy mistress – believe me.’
Mr Grubshaw mildly followed her gaze. The man they had seen entering the hotel restaurant on their first night was indeed enjoying an expresso with a much-younger woman, though he was not bothering to smooch her. They knew each other far better than that. This was their regular lunchtime rendezvous; Grubby conceded that no Italian boss would routinely take his secretary to lunch.
She wore a wide-shouldered tan leather coat loosely over her shoulders, its collar brushed by expensively streaked blonde hair. She had a confident personality and was speaking, not angrily but at length. A chunky gold bracelet pulled the cuff of her cashmere sweater as she gesticulated passionately. Grubby remarked that she looked like a woman who did most things passionately and Jean joked, ‘Except the dusting!’
As a bachelor in a solo business, Mr Grubshaw had chosen life on his own terms. To see another male under such pressure made him queasy.
The man remained calm, replying only briefly. Eventually reassured, his companion left half the coffee that had been bought for her, air-kissed her lover, then left. She walked briskly, calling greetings to a female friend outside a boutique. She looked open about her meeting and the man, too, was powerful enough not to be furtive. Well, not unless his wife strolled through the Galleria. She was unlikely to confront him; that couple ha
d plenty of secrets, Grubby thought, and they would keep their arguments private.
The private detective now acted the tourist, and took photographs. He had already snapped the lovers at their café, especially when they kissed farewell. He took a long view of the woman disappearing down the arcade, then sauntered nonchalantly to gaze at a display of slightly trashy art.
The businessman stayed at the café. Grubby encouraged Jean to indulge in a pastry.
‘The price is a rip-off.’
‘Relax. We’re on holiday.’
‘You sound like your brother sometimes.’
‘Good old Clive!’
Grubby was quietly watching his colleague, who was now chatting to an ice-cream vendor. The businessman grew bored, checked his watch with the waiter, and stood up. He dropped a large euro note on the table, though no bill had been presented.
The detective hung around.
Jean wanted to move, but Grubby had seen a familiar paunchy figure. Renzo, his barber, wandered through an arcade, was distracted by a camera shop, stared three times at the café the businessman had vacated, then chose that one for a snack. Casually, one-handed as he licked an ice-cream, the private eye photographed him.
Renzo drank two expressos and demolished a sandwich with the savagery he used on Cursing Khaleed’s vegetarian kebabs back in Deptford. Apparently waiting for someone, he glanced repeatedly at his watch, tried to call someone on his mobile, failed, paid up, and mooched off. The detective then went for a word with the waiter, who indicated his own wristwatch; they laughed.
‘Alter your watches … Renzo’s in the wrong time zone, Jean!’
Banned by Tracey from all archaeological sites that day, Jean and Grubby whiled away the afternoon locally. The Piazza del Plebiscito was an elliptical colonnaded public space, with a church modelled on the Pantheon in Rome and a resident group of lazy town dogs; dramatically sited with views of the bay, they found the Palazzo Reale. Since it was free, they took a relaxed circuit through its astonishingly restored rooms. It had all the glamour of Versailles without the crowds. They finally emerged, sated with enormous Sèvres urns and Gobelin tapestries. Desperate to rest their legs, they headed for Gambrinus, Naples’ oldest corner café where they could pretend to be genteel amid faded paintings of roses, as Oscar Wilde had done. There were tables outside, but they chose the interior, the better to torment themselves with the sight of delectable chocolate cakes.
The Detection Collection Page 7