by Syd Moore
But he didn’t flinched or anything, though his mouth had gone kind of tight and narrow and he had begun tapping his fingers on the table. ‘Look,’ he said, craning his neck towards the back of the restaurant. ‘Is Mr Boundersby here? What’s happened? Are you going to tell us?’
‘The answers to those questions are mostly no,’ replied Edwards and closed his notebook. ‘Did Boundersby say why he wanted you to come down?’
Sam sighed and inclined his head to me.
‘Only that there had been some “incidents” in the restaurant,’ I told the detective, ‘that he wanted checked out.’
DS Edwards took a breath. His voice became serious. ‘Did he say what type of incidents, Miss Strange?’
The tone of his voice made me pause to think back. ‘He alluded to supernatural phenomena but said he’d explain more today.’
‘But you took those “incidents” to be what?’ The detective was at his most alert since we’d sat down.
I shrugged and batted it over to Sam, who said, ‘Presumably the usual suspects: demonic possession, poltergeist activity, aural/optical illusion, haunting – that sort of thing.’
DS Jason Edwards stopped writing and put his pen on the table. For a long moment he stared at Sam. ‘And that’s your regular fare, is it?’
Sam shook his head. ‘My day-to-day work is at the museum researching witchcraft. Mostly cases occurring in Essex. There were lots. Most people aren’t aware of it, but Essex had more deaths on a single day than the Pendle witch-hunts. Did you know that?’
The detective’s face was beginning to screw up. He was going to label us as nuts, have us taken down the station. I really didn’t fancy that so decided to distract him by slamming my hand on the table, a little more strongly than I meant to.
Sam jumped. DS Edwards wearily turned his head to me. ‘Yes?’
‘Now, listen here,’ I said, unaccountably wagging my finger. ‘We’re becoming very late for this appointment. I demand to see Mr Boundersby.’
‘Sorry, that won’t be possible,’ said Edwards. His charming grin had slipped off.
‘He’s not …’ said Sam and looked back at the kitchen hatch. ‘Nothing’s happened to him, has it?’
‘No.’ Edwards pushed his chair out. ‘But you can’t see him, I’m afraid. Right now he happens to be down the station helping us with our enquiries.’ He gripped the side of the table and pushed himself off and up. ‘Miss Strange, Mr Stone, thank you for your time. I’d be grateful if you could leave your contact details with the constable outside. We will be seeing you presently so don’t leave town, as they say.’
I thought he was going to go back into the kitchen but he didn’t. He took out his phone and headed for the front door.
It was all rather sudden.
‘Bloody hell,’ I said to Sam. ‘I can’t believe this.’
He had lifted his suitcase off the table and looked like he was readying to leave. ‘What does he mean – “don’t leave town”? Ridiculous showmanship.’
I checked the front door through which the sergeant had disappeared. ‘I suppose he needs to say that to everyone. You know in case they need more information.’
‘But why would they need to talk to us?’ Sam shook his head as the constable who’d escorted us in returned to take down our particulars. A joke was on the tip of my tongue but I squashed it. Everyone round here had a humour bypass.
Once the contact details box had been ticked we were quickly and efficiently ejected into the courtyard with assurances someone would be in touch.
As we reached the junction of Fleur de Lis Court and Fetter Lane, the stout policewoman lifted the tape while we scuttled back under, and inspected my boots again. They were rather lovely, it had to be said.
‘eBay,’ I told her helpfully. ‘Pricey though.’
She looked at me, flabby face full of contempt. ‘I know,’ she said. ‘You’ve got the label hanging off the back.’
She was bloody right too. How had I not seen it? How had Sam not seen it?
‘You could have told me,’ I raged down the street after him.
As usual he completely disregarded my sartorial faux pas. ‘I wonder if it’s got anything to do with Boundersby’s concerns,’ he mused.
I insisted we stopped while I removed the offending boot and bit through the plastic thread. Only once I was satisfied that they were free of any type of marketing paraphenalia did we continue down Fetter Lane.
‘Could this be related to the supernatural phenomenon he mentioned?’ Sam continued.
I was still grumping. ‘Hardly likely as it doesn’t exist.’
‘But if someone thinks it does—’ Sam began but stopped and turned towards the building at our side. I followed his gaze and noticed a shadow had detached itself from the wall of the building to our left and silently slipped into step two or three paces after us.
‘You the ghostbusters?’ it hissed.
A sliver of a man about twenty years or so, with gelled cropped hair, a large English rose tattoo on his neck and a heavy gold chain slunk close behind. He was smoking a roll-up but removed it from his mouth long enough to whisper, ‘Fer fuck sake don’t look. Don’t let the rozzers see you be talkin’ to me.’
I played along snapping my eyes to the road ahead. ‘Why not?’ I hissed back.
‘Me first,’ said the shadow. ‘You the ghostbusters?’
‘No,’ said Sam. ‘We are most certainly not.’
‘Yes, we are,’ I called to our trailing shadow. ‘Ignore my colleague; he doesn’t want to blow our cover. We’ve got all our equipment in the suitcase. All the giga-meters and electrons, you know.’
My colleague let rip an exasperated sigh. I shouted out extra words that sounded professional to cover it up: ‘Phasers and OCD recorders. Scientific stuff.’
A squeak came out through Sam’s nose. I didn’t look at him. I didn’t want to start laughing too.
‘Fought you were,’ the shade rustled fast behind. ‘We need to talk.’
I resisted the urge to turn around and have a good look at the little bloke. ‘Who are you?’
‘Joel Rogers. Kitchen boy, assistant at La Fleur. For real, you’re the ghostbusters?’
‘We are,’ I said. ‘For real.’ Sam’s face was becoming incredulous. ‘Can you tell us what’s supposed to have happened at the restaurant? The police won’t.’
‘Not ’ere,’ Joel whistled somewhere around my shoulder blades. ‘There’s a pub down the road. Turn left, go for two hundred yards or so then turn left again. The Leicester. Meet you in there.’
I gave in to temptation and spun around catching a wisp of baggy grey sweatshirt and jeans that hung off a very bony behind and exposed a large band of underpants. Above it, as was the custom today, a little nick of bum crack was neatly displayed.
‘Why did you say that?’ Sam had obviously changed his tune for his voice was now tinged with a heavy dose of annoyance. ‘That we’re ghostbusters. It’s cheapening. And you don’t even believe it. It just makes me look like an idiot.’
‘The fact he knew what we were here for means he was privy to Ray Boundersby’s concerns. He’s got inside knowledge. He might be able to tell us what’s going on.’
We had reached Fleet Street. Our car was parked to the right, the Joel Rogers assignation was to the left. Sam looked in both directions then turned left.
I followed.
‘I’m surprised,’ he said as got into his stride. ‘You’re usually the one who wants rid of trouble.’
‘Usually,’ I agreed. ‘But I’ve got a feeling, this time, trouble’s already found us.’
CHAPTER FOUR
The Leicester was a poky subterranean bar that, despite current legislation, was full of smoke. Its TV, in the main salon, was showing sport and the place was half full of people in storeroom uniforms and tour-bus guides on their lunch hour, who all sat silently watching the screen, nursing pints and chasers.
There were a couple of snugs on each side of
the room. It was in one, right at the back of the bar on the way to the toilets and the slot machines, that I spied our wiry shadow friend. Instructing Sam to give me the suitcase and fetch us some stiff drinks, I bumped and squeezed my way through the tables to Joel Rogers.
‘Hello?’ On closer inspection, I wasn’t sure if it was him for a large black baseball hat was now perched on top of his head. It looked several sizes too large and had the effect of making him appear younger and slightly lost within the excess folds of fabric swamping his scrawny frame. He didn’t much look like a kitchen boy. More like someone who tried the handles on parked cars for a living. ‘Joel?’
Cradling a lit cigarette over a green china ashtray full of butts, he took his eye off the end long enough to register me. ‘A’right,’ he said, and squashed a match into the ceramic pot, leant back and stuck his gangly legs out underneath the table. The little bloke, like the big sergeant, was doing his best to look louche and completely unbothered by all the drama.
‘Do you want a drink?’ I asked. He looked like he needed one. His skin was pasty though there were blotches of red round his eyes that might have been eczema.
‘Bud,’ he said, and yawned. Inside his mouth he had small sharp teeth.
‘Okay.’ I caught Sam’s eye over at the bar and mimed the drink to him.
‘You all right if I sit down?’ Always best to be polite.
Joel Rogers looked sideways, as if checking with invisible friends, then shrugged.
I sat down on one of two pew-like seats that faced each other. My boots squeaked against the sticky red vinyl coverings. This wasn’t a pub for city slickers unless they had a penchant for an altogether different kind of slick.
‘So,’ I said. ‘You all right?’
He nodded slowly, like a sage about to pronounce a long-deliberated verdict. ‘S’pose.’ There was a shake to his hands, which he was trying hard to conceal.
‘Good,’ I said. ‘Now how did you know that we were the ghostb—?’ I stopped myself. ‘The investigators?’ Must avoid the G-word. If it stuck, Sam would go nuts. I tried to picture what that might look like but all I could summon was an image of him frowning with a thundercloud over his head.
Joel slid lower down on the bench so that he was almost horizontal and clasped bony hands over a concave stomach. ‘You two look well weird. Suitcase. Tweed. And you with them mad blinging boots.’
‘Hey! These are quality, I’ll have you know.’ But I had to concede the curator and I were an unlikely fit. After all, we had not been drawn together organically. More like I had been thrust upon Sam.
Now there was an image.
Joel shrugged. ‘Just sayin’, you don’t look like police. Don’t look like forensics.’ His accent was loose and roving, cobbled together from different postcodes, and even countries; for I was sure there was a bit of the US in there probably mimicked from music videos and interviews with urban pop stars. ‘They wouldn’t let media behind the lines,’ he was saying. ‘You was out of place but theys let you through anyways. Got to think why – why would they let some fashion bird and a teacher type in? Maybe they experts? The bloke there, he could play it but you don’t look no expert in my book. So you must have been coming anyways. They must have wanted to talk to you. Not the other way round. So who do I know who is coming to the gaff? Ghostbusters, that’s who.’
‘Well deduced,’ I said, and he half closed his eyes and bobbed his head slowly in a modest show of self-congratulation. ‘Who did you hear that from, though? That we were to visit the restaurant?’
‘Heard MT gassing to Anita ’bout you.’ Joel was sitting up a bit more now but still managing to look untidy.
‘Uh-huh,’ I said, leaning forwards on my elbows. ‘And who is MT?’
He pushed back his cap and rubbed a palm into his eye. The boy would detach a cornea if he kept going like that. It was a temporary condition but one which if untreated could seriously impede your capacity to work. ‘Marta Thompson,’ he said with what appeared great effort.
I frowned.
‘MT is kinda what everyone calls her. She front of house, the hostess. Comes and takes you to yer table.’
The mention of this MT person seemed to inject him with enough energy to push up into a normal sitting position. He jiggled his legs and cleared his throat then stuck his chin out. ‘Mr Boundersby calls her the maître d’hôtel.’
‘Got it,’ I said. ‘So what did the maître d’ say to you?’
He leant forwards. ‘Can’t remember exactly. Just that she ’eard you was coming up, checking out what’s bin going on.’ He nodded to himself, again, like he was another person confirming the statement. ‘Yeah.’
Someone by the table coughed. We both looked up.
‘Yes, I’d like to know about more about that.’ Sam crouched over us. ‘Nobody’s told us a thing. It’s about time we learnt what all the fuss is about. What exactly has been going on at La Fleur restaurant?’ He deposited the drinks clumsily, slopping brown liquid everywhere. ‘Sorry,’ he added, not sounding it.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw Joel shrink. At first I thought it was something Sam had said, but then I saw he was gawping at the glasses with horror. I looked at them and saw what the problem was. ‘Oh, Sam,’ I whined.
Before I could articulate the rest of the sentence Joel had come in with, ‘Coke! Fuckin’ soft drinks.’ He was practically spitting. ‘What’s that all about?’
‘Well,’ Sam said, towering over our table. ‘You’re driving.’ He prodded the air over my head then turned his attention to Joel, who was back down the seat again, slouching moodily. ‘He looks underage and I, for one, intend to have my wits about me.’
‘I’m nineteen!’ Joel bristled. I caught a whiff of Lynx sprayed on top of body odour. He jerked his head at Sam. ‘This your dad or somefink?’
‘Or something,’ I said, smiling fractionally. ‘But now you mention it,’ I sighed. ‘There are similarities.’ I’d said I wanted a stiff drink too. What was dear Mr Stone thinking of? Sam rolled his eyes. The wrinkles around them, born no doubt from constant squinting over historic documentation or doing his condescending face too many times, began to recede. He looked younger than his thirty-one years, briefly. ‘We’ll see. I might get another round in a bit.’ He had sat down heavily on the stool at the end of the table then pushed one of the glasses over to Joel who looked epically unimpressed but picked it up anyway and took a sip.
A group of men positioned underneath the TV suddenly started cheering. We all looked over – footballers on the screen were approaching the goal.
‘Actually,’ I said, bringing the boys back. ‘Before we go into what’s happened at the restaurant in the past, I’d really like to find out what’s going on there right now. What’s with all the police?’
Joel’s frail body seemed to cave in a bit. ‘My sources say it’s Seth,’ he said finally.
‘Who’s Seth?’ asked Sam and took a notebook out of his jacket.
Joel shook his head slowly from side to side and sucked his teeth. ‘Chef. He bin killed.’
I gasped. Blimey. I had no idea it was anything as serious. Joel looked up, his expression startled.
‘An accident?’ asked Sam.
The kitchen boy’s thumbnail crept between his lips. He put it between his teeth and began to bite it so that his features looked like he was snarling. ‘Jackson told me. His place backs on to our courtyard out back. Import-export. Fine teas. He’s looking after the place while his uncle’s away. Overheard the police talkin’. It was on their radios. Seth’s throat bin slit. In the old meat and wine cellar.’ His voice cracked on the final word.
For a moment I found myself at a loss. It wasn’t what I had been expecting. A burglary, perhaps. Maybe a gas leak. But murder?
No wonder the place was crawling with police.
Joel had dropped his eyes to the floor again. Without looking at the glass he reached out and picked it up.
Sam intercepted the young man’s arm and
patted it. ‘I’m going to get you a whisky,’ he said to Joel, his voice set just above a whisper but still brisk and businesslike. ‘That all right?’
The kitchen boy flinched at his touch. Yet when he looked into Sam’s face something there calmed him.
In an instant, I saw the young lad’s bravado for what it was – a camouflage for his distress. Good old Sam, I thought.
There had been episodes recently when my colleague had shown a surprising amount of kindness and sensitivity when I myself had been oblivious to any need for compassion. An occupational hazard, I suspected. After all when you were in my line of work you had to keep your wits about you. Give an inch and the real benefit fraudsters would take a blimmin’ light year. Which made it kind of weird that when I saw Sam do his stuff, it touched me. Somehow made him stronger. Don’t ask me why, I’m not a psychologist.
As Sam got to his feet I saw him smile at Joel; his eyes were in their ‘mellow nutmeg’ shade, the crinkles around them etched not by what I often perceived as patrician disapproval but right now, right at that moment, real concern.
He glanced over, nodded to me, then left for the bar.
Joel went back to trapping the crisp wrapper with the toe of his trainer. Without Sam the silence between us grew static.
I grimaced, then threw myself into ‘nice’ mode though it was difficult without a drink in me. ‘Are you all right?’
Keeping his eyes on the wrapper, he shrugged. ‘Whatever.’
‘Well,’ I said, determined to emanate Sam’s sensitivity. ‘I’m only asking because you knew Seth personally, I presume. I mean you’ve worked with someone, this chef, so you’ve spent days in the kitchen with him, cooked with him, exchanged banter with him, and now, well, he’s been murdered. Brutally too. I mean, his throat slit. Oh, just think of it. How horrible. What a way to go. He must have been surprised or if not he’d have probably fought back. So then he’d be overpowered. I wonder if he felt the knife. The pain of it slicing through the skin? He probably choked on the gushing blood … Not nice, I think you’ll agree?’