'Well, no, not really. But you clearly do, and I'm just anxious to help. It's very exciting. Why do you think he might have been murdered?'
'I have an open mind. But I think it might be connected to your clinic.'
'Really? Why?'
'Because he was so convinced that Arabella died there, and he was kicking up such a fuss . ..'
'But she didn't die, she's alive and kicking.'
'You know that for sure?'
'I saw the same photograph you did.'
'But you didn't speak to her?'
'No, but Dr Yeschenkov did; they bumped into each other at that exhibition in Dublin. He was furious because the caption sort of encouraged you to read between the lines, and I know his wife wasn't happy. Normally she goes with him to all his social events, but she couldn't go to that one.'
'You talked to him about it?'
'Just in passing. He was saying guess who I saw in Dublin, and she was in great form, very pleased with the clinic, her treatment, the result. She was going to Brazil, all excited about it.'
'Definitely Brazil.'
'Definitely. I think so. It's what he said.'
'And she didn't say anything about dumping her husband?'
'If she did, he didn't say.'
'Do you think there's something going on between them?'
'No, definitely not.'
'Definitely?'
'She's much older. She looks fifty per cent better now than when she came to us, but she still isn't exactly ... well, she has an unusual look one would hesitate to call beautiful. Dr Yeschenkov goes for youth and beauty.'
'Has he ever gone for you?'
There was not even a hint of colour to her porcelain skin as she said, 'You're very blunt.'
'It's the nature of the business. Bookselling, I mean.'
'He's not my type,' she said, and her eyes held mine, and I didn't need a reader of eye language to tell me what she was implying. She broke it off and played with the crumbs of her bun. Her eyes flitted up again. 'So that's all I know. You must know something else to make you think what you think?'
Ninety-eight per cent of me wanted to tell her about the cigar cutter. It was a perfect illustration of how clever I was. But that minuscule two per cent was tougher than it had any right to be. It took a very strong grip on my throat and wouldn't let the words out. I had a name for that two per cent.
Alison.
I had a vision of her striking me across the nose with a hard-backed book and calling me a tit for even considering giving up the only fact we had. So despite this almost overwhelming inclination to reveal everything, I nevertheless gave a slight shake of my head.
Pearl said, 'We're partners, but you're playing your cards very close to your chest.'
'And you're playing your chest very close to your cards.'
And it was at this very moment that her spell over me was broken, because her natural reaction was to furrow her brow in bafflement, but she couldn't because it had been so heavily Botoxed. Her eyes moved up, but the corrugation that should have rippled across her forehead failed to materialise. There was no movement in it at all, and I suddenly knew that all of her was just as fake, that she was an actress and a bewitcher of men's souls, a landlocked siren who had employed flattery, innuendo and lipstick to try and suck me into her clutches, but I had resisted, and triumphed, as I always do.
* * *
Chapter 13
I had established that Pearl was attempting to play me, but beyond that her motives remained unclear. She could just be curious. She could be seeking to protect the reputation of her employer. She could be a femme fatale. She looked like a femme fatale, she got on like a femme fatale, she had the suggestive name of a femme fatale, although that might have been just as fake as her serene forehead and impressive chest. I myself had not noticed that she had a fake chest, but Alison had nailed it at once. 'Anyone whose waist is that skinny should not have tits that big,' she said. 'That girl,' she said, 'gets paid in kind.' It was a fair point. If you worked in a fruit shop, you would expect to get the occasional free pear.
Deep down I knew that I had been foolish. Because of Pearl's beauty I had allowed myself to believe that meeting her was vital to the case, whereas it was only vital to my ego. The actual solving of Augustine's murder would require a very different but much more obvious approach. I would examine the detritus of his life, the minutiae of his existence, and I would re-create his world, and in doing so I would uncover fresh evidence that would lead me to the man or woman who had killed him. I did not doubt it. I have a certain pedigree in this line of work, and when women don't get in my way, I am usually very quick and efficient at bringing a case to a satisfactory conclusion. I have been aided in this by my obsession with and addiction to crime fiction. Those tens of thousands of novels have been my education, in a way that my very short attendance at the nearby Queen's University was not. Being asked to leave that seat of learning might have held someone else back, but not I. Being accused of what I was accused of might have driven others into hiding, but not I. I hasten to add that nothing was ever proven, in a court of law. In a way it was a blessing in disguise - I might easily have followed a different career path, perhaps into academia, or joined the Royal Canadian Mounted Police or become a mercenary, but no, my immediate removal in handcuffs from halls of residence was fortuitous in that it caused me to focus on what I really wanted to do, and that was to open my own mystery bookshop, and the tenacity with which I pursued that dream has been the making of me. Not only do I now operate the finest mystery bookstore in Belfast, but my investigative talents are second to none. I am practically the fourth emergency service.
The depressing detail of Augustine's last days was here in the shop: the receipts, the business and credit cards, the invoices and ticket stubs. They were a story in themselves, and all I was looking for was the plot. I started with the bill from the Europa Hotel. He had stayed there for the two nights preceding his appearance outside No Alibis. The great thing about the phone or e-mails is that you don't have to appear in person. You can be as impressive as your word power allows, you can give yourself whatever fancy title you want and nobody questions you, whereas if I turned up at the front desk of the Europa and said I wanted to know what they had on Augustine Wogan they'd tell me to take a run and jump. On the phone my wonderful facility for creating believable characters and personas served me well. I became Donald West- lake, the executor of Augustine Wogan's estate. I had a bill the hotel had issued; I wanted to know if his account had been settled and if not whom I should send the cheque to, and incidentally, did he leave anything behind, because anything he left belonged to said estate. I had a notion that Augustine had fled from the hotel without settling, and I was entirely correct. He had indeed left items behind, but the hotel manager assured me that they were only articles of clothing, toiletries and the suitcase they had once fitted into. I then explained that we were having some difficulty tracking his movements prior to his unfortunate demise, and asked if an itemised record of his phone calls could be made available. The manager said yes, of course, and where should he send it, and I told him I wanted it in a hurry so if he didn't mind I would arrange to have it biked round. On hanging up, I immediately dispatched Jeff to retrieve it. He said, 'But I don't have a bike.'
This is the calibre of my staff.
While he was gone, I turned to my occasionally loyal database of customers. They had become more communicative in recent weeks, now that my annual bombardment of e-mails beseeching them to join the No Alibis Christmas Club had lessened somewhat - a breather, really, before the campaign started anew in July - and had been sharing with me their piss-poor insights and opinions on recent crime fiction and boring me rigid with the sad facts of their personal lives. I had been doing my best to act the genial host, but it is such a chore. Sometimes when I just can't handle their cheeriness any more I tell them all to f-off, and they laugh as if I'm having a joke, but I'm really not. However, at that moment my relati
ons with them were relatively good, so it was precisely the right time to ask for a favour, and as an added incentive I offered a signed copy of Eric Ambler's The Mask of Dimitrios - albeit signed by Jehovah's Vengeance Grisham - to anyone who either worked in the travel industry or knew someone they could lean on who did.
As I waited for that e-mail to circulate, I studied the blood-spotted newspaper featuring the photograph of
Dr Yeschenkov with the lovely Arabella taken at the Xianth art gallery in Dublin.
The paper was published on the day Augustine was murdered, but while there was an implicit suggestion that the picture had been taken the night before, it wasn't actually stated. I checked the gallery's website and discovered that the launch had actually been three days prior to its coverage in the paper. They were showcasing a further seven photographs taken at the opening. One of them featured Dr Yeschenkov, but there were no others of Arabella. Working on the theory that Dubliners couldn't tell one Belfast accent from another, I phoned the gallery and asked to speak to the owner. I introduced myself as Dan Starkey, the editor of Belfast Confidential, a local magazine that had started out as a champion of hard news but had recently re-imagined itself into a web-based scandal sheet, and explained that we were interested in running something on Dr Yeschenkov's visit to Xianth, and on the basis that I didn't name my source, and the understanding that he never talked about clients, he said ask away.
'Well, did he buy anything?'
'He bought a Corcoran. Ex-prisoner, IRA I believe, but hot stuff.'
'How much?'
'That's private.'
'Ball-park?'
'You wouldn't get much change out of a ten-grand note.'
'Would you get any change out of a nine-thousand- pound note?'
'None.'
'What about out of a nine-thousand-nine-hundred- and-forty-pound note?'
'About a tenner.'
'What sort of a painting?'
'It's called Fields, Trees and Bushes outside Lisburn.'
'Uhuh.'
'It's really quite wonderful; it features a wildebeest . . .'
'What's he like, Dr Yeschenkov, regular client?'
'Occasional rather than regular. He has a good eye.'
'What's he like?'
'Charming, rich.'
'And the lady who was with him on the night?'
'Mrs Yeschenkov was unable to attend.'
'But there was a photograph of him in
'Yes. I saw that. He wasn't happy.'
'He looked happy.'
'He always does, it's the teeth.'
'He complained?'
'Yes. It gave the impression he was with that woman. I think his wife didn't like it or something.'
'Is that why it's not on your website?'
'No - we took the ones on our website. The one in the paper must have been taken by the Irish Times themselves.'
'This woman, Arabella Wogan, what did you make of her?'
'Can't say that I spoke to her. In fact, that picture in the paper is the first time I laid eyes on her. It said she was a socialite, but I've never heard of her.'
'You must have invited her to the opening?'
'Nope. I mean, she was probably someone's plus- one. We were chock-a-block so there were a lot of people I never got to meet. I just know I didn't speak to her and she certainly didn't buy anything.'
When I hung up, having promised to give the gallery a glowing mention, I took another look at the newspaper photo. Their smiles looked slightly forced, but only in the way that most posed photographs do. Their shoulders were touching. His left arm was hidden, giving the impression that it was around her, but it might only have been his way of holding a glass of wine out of shot. Perhaps he didn't believe it was a good idea for a surgeon to be seen drinking in public; all those droopy-faced potential clients wouldn't want to have to worry about a shaky hand. At the base of the picture, just above the caption, there was a single line of black type: Photo - Liam Benson.
Still working according to my thread theory, I pulled this one as well. I called the Irish Times and asked to be put through to their photographic department. I asked for Liam Benson, but was told there was no one of that name on staff. I used the Dan Starkey cover story again, but this time said I wanted a copy of the Xianth photo to use in our next issue. A hassled- sounding manager called Donny said that wouldn't be possible because Liam was a freelance photographer and the copyright belonged to him. I asked where I could contact Liam and he said, 'He's from your neck of the woods, not mine, but I'm not his fucking agent.'
He hung up. I was not unduly miffed. I had met Irish people before. Many of them spoke like this.
I typed Liam Benson's name into Google and was rewarded with a link to his website. He was Liam Benson, freelance photographer - news, corporate and public relations.
Under his list of satisfied public relations clients:
The Yeschenkov Clinic.
* * *
Chapter 14
I was mulling over the significance of this, and trying to decide if there was any, when Jeff cycled past the window. When I say he cycled, he was actually miming cycling, much in the manner of the Knights of the Round Table pretending to ride horses in Monty Python and the Holy Grail and using coconuts to replicate the sound of hooves. They were quite funny. Jeff just looked like a prick. He lacked coconuts. I was thinking about what he could have used to achieve the desired sound effect but the only satisfactory answer I could come up with was a bike.
Jeff came in and I said, 'Any problems?'
He grinned. 'None whatsoever.' He put an envelope on the counter and I took out Augustine's phone records. 'I asked them if he'd had any visitors they were aware of, anything suspicious.'
'Did I ask you to ask them that?'
'No. I was using my initiative.'
'I've warned you about that. You think of it as initiative; I think of it as you blundering into what is none of your business.' He looked at me, and I looked at him. After a while I said, 'Well?'
'Well what?'
'Did he have any visitors?'
'Not telling.'
I sighed. I studied the list of calls.
Jeff said, 'No.'
He'd made six calls. They were all to the same number. I called it. It was the Forum International Hotel on Bedford Street. It isn't far from No Alibis. Not much in central Belfast is. You could skim a stone to it. You could; I couldn't, what with my wasting muscles and arthritic wrists. The Forum is a converted linen mill. Five stars. Not cheap. The calls lasted for between seven and thirty-five minutes. I'd a fair idea whom he was calling. I asked for the manager and did my executor-of-the-will routine and confirmed that yes indeed, Mrs Arabella Wogan had been a guest for four weeks and that there was no need to worry about the bill as the hotel had an arrangement with Yeschenkov and all accounts were settled directly with the clinic. I explained that we were having trouble tracking the lovely Arabella down and asked if he or his staff had spoken to her about her future plans. He said he hadn't, but asked for a moment so that he could speak to his staff. He was very efficient. Five stars will sometimes get you that. He came back on and said that her departure was via their express check-out service, which was really just dropping the keys in a box, so nobody had actually seen her leave, but it was understood that she was catching an early flight and had travelled to Dublin in the late evening. He wasn't sure how it was understood. I said it would be helpful if I could get Arabella's itemised phone records and he said absolutely, where should I send them, and I said I needed them quite quickly, is it okay if I have them biked round? He was most accommodating. I told Jeff to get back on his imaginary bike and warned him about using his initiative.
I glanced across the road and saw Alison, in behind her counter, selling bangles, and slightly overweight, even at this distance. She was hard work, but probably just about worth the effort. I hoped when the baby came out it had none of my ailments and all of her looks, minus the chins. But it should hav
e my smarts. I would read him Emil and the Detectives in the crib. He could play with a pair of plastic handcuffs in a way that Alison had thus far refused to. He would inherit No Alibis, if there was still a No Alibis to inherit. This thought returned me to my work. It is amazing what you can get done when you apply yourself. I called Liam Benson and identified myself as Dan Starkey and said I was looking for a copy of the photo from the show at the Xianth gallery, and he said, 'You don't sound like Dan Starkey,' and I hung up. It was an abject lesson in the dangers of getting too cocky.
A few moments later the phone rang, but I was wise to that one. I allowed it to go to answer machine, and then regretted it immediately, for he would know who I was, and where I was. His message however was: 'Sorry, must have got a wrong . . .' And then he hung up. But maybe somewhere, further down the line, he would remember, or make a connection, or mention it to someone who would.
I sat and thought about what it meant, Liam Benson being employed by the Yeschenkov Clinic. It was too much of a coincidence that he should just happen to travel to Dublin and end up photographing Dr Yes at the gallery. He must surely have been there at the doctor's request; it was therefore unlikely that the photograph had been submitted to the Irish Times without the doctor's knowledge and approval. Why then had he complained to the gallery about the photo, if he had known they hadn't taken it and had himself actually paid someone to be there for that purpose? Was he laying down some kind of a smokescreen? Or had he miscalculated - what he thought of as handy PR had backfired when his wife had seen him with Arabella and he had been forced to act aggrieved to cover his tracks? More importantly, did it have anything to do with Augustine's murder?
Not obviously.
I checked my e-mails and found that one of my idiot customers had finally admitted to having a deadend job in a travel agent's. I asked him to see if he could find out if Arabella Wogan had booked and taken a flight out of Dublin, and gave him the day after the Xianth gallery event as the most likely, but to check further ahead as well. He came back to me in twenty minutes and confirmed that Arabella had been booked on a flight the next day to Rio de Janeiro via Paris. It was a one-way ticket. He had no means of checking if she had actually travelled. That wasn't particularly satisfactory, so I responded with something sarcastic and clicked off. A proper 3-D customer wasted another twenty minutes of my time asking for my advice on a book for his fifteen-year-old daughter; wasted only because my insights were roundly ignored. I knew exactly what he was doing: he was using my expertise to select the correct book, and then he would leave without buying it and make his way down to Waterstones where he would get it cheaper. I gave him the international sign for wanking as he passed the shop window, but he misinterpreted and waved cheerily back.
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