As one clot disappeared, another reappeared, reprising his pathetic attempt to entertain me with his invisible bike-riding routine. When he rested the invisible bike against the window and entered the shop, I made him go back out and move it so that the handlebars wouldn't make a mark on the glass. He did it too, which I thought was quite funny. Then he put another envelope on the desk and smiled. I took out Arabella's phone records and read down the list. She'd made many more calls, including half a dozen to a number I recognised as the Europa Hotel's, but others I would need to check out. As I studied them Jeff stood there, still smiling, and I said, 'What?' and he kept grinning and I gave an exasperated sigh and said, 'You did it again, didn't you?' He nodded. 'I'm about to tell you off for using your initiative again, yet you're standing there happy as a pig in shite, so obviously my telling-off is going to be completely pointless because you think you've discovered something relevant, so you may as well tell me now, though even if it turns out to be useful, it doesn't change my basic instruction not to try to use your initiative, because just because you've lucked upon something this time, it doesn't mean you will again, and generally you just waste everyone's time and complicate matters and get me or the shop or my investigations into trouble, so please don't do it again, understood?'
'I'm only trying to help.'
'Just tell me.'
'Well, I went into the hotel; it's a lovely big place, they've really done a—'
'Just the relevant bits, please.'
'Okay. All right. I spoke to the guy you spoke to, and he was just putting the phone records in the envelope when I asked him if Arabella had had many visitors, and he said yes she had, but that was normal, because she was with the clinic and they're always sending round nurses or doctors or fashion designers to check on or consult with their patients, or clients as they call them. And he was clearly in the mood for a natter, because he said you wouldn't believe some of the mess our people have to clean up in those rooms, and I said like what, and he said well they've all had their operations and the like, there's always blood-soaked bandages and syringes and medication left behind; the clinic people are supposed to take it all with them but they push them really hard so they're rushing from room to room or to a different hotel, and they end up forgetting to tidy, or sometimes it's the patients themselves, they've had their procedures and they're all bandaged up for a reason, but they can't resist taking a wee peek but it's too soon, so they bleed all over the sheets.'
'I'm waiting for the big reveal,' I said.
'It's coming. I asked him if there was anything like that in Arabella's room, excessive bleeding, some kind of an emergency, and he said no. I asked if anything had been left behind like medication or syringes and he said no, not that he was aware of, but he could check with the Museum.'
'The . . .'
'I know. The Museum. It's what they call a cupboard they have in their staff room; it's a display of all the unusual things that guests leave behind in their rooms. They either forget about them entirely or are too embarrassed to claim them back once they realise they've left them behind, or the hotel has no forwarding address for them. He said a lot of them were of a sexual nature - vibrators, dildos, even a blow-up doll. There was also jewellery, a complete wedding dress, intimate photographs, the complete works of William Shakespeare, a stuffed monkey, a map of Liberia, a lucky rabbi's foot ...'
'Rabbi?'
'I may have misheard ... a sizeable chunk of a coral reef, a signed photograph of Lou Reed ...'
'I get the picture. Christ, it's like The Generation Game.'
'... and finally there was what they discovered under a sofa in Arabella's room and which has only just made its debut on display in the Museum, but which they have passed on to me, to give to you, to give to her, because they had no forwarding address.' Jeff slipped his hand into the pocket of his combat jacket. 'Are you ready?'
'Yes.'
'Sure?'
'Yes.'
'Then without further delay, I present to you, straight from the room of Arabella Wogan, wife of the late Augustine Wogan
'Will you just show me the fucking thing?'
So he did. He set it on the counter. It was small and shiny. It was made of stainless steel and brushed chrome. It was a V-shaped cigar cutter.
* * *
Chapter 15
While I waited for Alison to arrive, having called her in a state of great excitement, I took a Valium, and then another, and then a third. It was important to be settled, because foaming at the mouth is not conducive to good teamwork.
I do, literally, foam. Once, memorably, when I tried to commit suicide by swallowing four Ariel washing machine tablets.
The source of my excitement sat glinting on the counter. I believe it was glinting because of the angelic, self-satisfied glow that was coming off Jeff.
'So you must be feeling pretty proud of yourself,' I said.
'I am. Using my initiative. The boy done good.'
'Yes, you did. I'm proud of you. But you know what they say.'
'What do they say?'
'Pride comes before a fall.'
'But you were the one expressing pride. You said you were proud of me.'
'That's not the point I'm trying to make.'
'Well then you should express yourself more clearly.'
He was hurt, I could tell. He was annoyed. He thought I was raining on his parade. He was incorrect. Or if I was, it was a mild sprinkle. In fact I withdraw that. Sprinkle is an American word for light rain, and I despise it. When we say it, we say it is spitting. I was spitting on his parade. Spitting is a much better word. It is less mild and fluffy. Spitting is God's way of teasing us. I might let it rain, I might not, it's entirely up to me because I am God. I'm sitting up here with my big white fluffy beard and I have the power to make it rain, or the power to make it sunny. Here's a little bit just to confuse you. You'll look out the window and say it's spitting outside, I wonder if I'll need an umbrella, or will it stop and the sun come out, and then I might need a parasol. A gamp, a brolly or a bumber-shoot. I enjoy playing with you, I revel in toying with your expectations; that is my role, my joy, my raison d'etre, and yes I invented French as well, just to confuse you further.
'You're presupposing the existence of God,' said Jeff, 'but either way, I accept your apology.'
I blinked at him for a little bit.
'All right, Columbo, you lucked into something. For the moment it's just a thing, it contributes nothing. So take your best shot. What's the significance of this V-shaped cigar cutter, what does it tell us about our case?'
I fixed him with my look.
'It tells us that whoever murdered Augustine also murdered Arabella.'
'Does it?'
'Yes.'
'Explain.'
'You said Augustine couldn't have cut his cigar with the cutter he had, so there had to be someone else in the room with him, which shifted the case from suicide to murder. Finding a V-shape cutter in Arabella's room, and presuming that she herself does not smoke cigars, suggests that the killer also paid her a visit.'
'But surely we have been arguing all along that Arabella died either on the operating table or postoperative, and that is why there's a cover-up, and they felt the need to dispatch Augustine because he was trying to expose them. Why then would the killer need to be in Arabella's room prior to Augustine being killed, or at all?'
'Perhaps maybe . . .'
'Never start a sentence with perhaps maybe.'
'Perhaps Dr Yes was present in her hotel room when she died, and was so distraught that he had to light a cigar to calm himself down. He inadvertently dropped it and—'
'Ha-ha!'
'Excuse me?'
'Excuse moi!'
'You what?'
'The flaw in your logic is . . . ?'
'That . . . Dr Yes, being a surgeon, probably doesn't smoke?'
'That if he dropped it in Arabella's hotel room, how then could he cut Augustine's cigar at a later date?'
'He had a second one. A back-up. A reserve. God knows he's rich enough. Or there was a second killer who also smoked cigars, and who also favoured the V-cut.'
I took a deep breath. I drummed my fingers on the counter. I studied the V-cut.
It was time to take a step back.
I had learned to my cost in the Case of the Cock- Headed Man that sometimes the McGuffin is more than a McGuffin; that an ingenious plot device is occasionally more than just a device, but the entire plot. I was also, crucially, aware of the weight of ten thousand volumes of crime fiction upon my shoulders, aware that it was at points in the plot exactly like this that less talented authors completely lost their way by piling improbability upon improbability, by making ludicrous and nonsensical connections between events designed only to reinforce the perception that their leading character, their detective or PI, has astonishing insights that lesser mortals couldn't hope to match. It was important to remain grounded in reality.
There is no greater barometer of reality than Agatha. She may be old-fashioned, she may no longer sell in vast quantities, she may indeed be dead, but she is or was indisputably the doyenne of crime fiction authors, and it is laughable to suggest that any member of the present generation, many of whom write as if they're having a knees-up in an abattoir, is even fit to suck the mud off the hem of her voluminous skirts. Crime fiction is largely created according to a series of templates, which, like the tectonic plates that make up the surface of the earth, do not always sit evenly together, and occasionally clash, causing earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, but there is no disputing that despite their sometimes huge differences in style and subject matter, crime writers generally live and die according to the template that Agatha laid down. She is the source of the Nile.
Agatha understood that it was important to stop a book mid-course and go, hold up, I'm in danger of confusing not only the reader, but myself; here, let's pull the old emergency cord and bring this hurtling express to a halt, let's review the evidence as it stands so that everyone is absolutely clear as to what is going on, who the characters are, and what they are all up to at any particular time. Chandler and Hammett might have cornered the market in fruity phrases, but they rarely thought to pull that cord themselves, leaving generations of fans capable of quoting individual lines but absolutely lost when asked to explain who did what to who and when or how the fuck it could all possibly work.
Jeff was looking at me. 'You say all that,' he said, 'but I think there's a simpler way of looking at it. Basically what we're doing is playing Cluedo. Think of all the man hours you'd have saved if you just studied Cluedo rather than wasting time on those ten . . . thousand . . . books.'
He had to finish what he was saying, but he could tell by the way what little colour I had was draining from my face that he had crossed the line. He had disrespected me, the shop and the genre. He had dished me.
'Jeff, you don't know what the bloody hell you're talking about. Cluedo? Cluedo! I should stick your fricking Cluedo up your arse, sideways.'
'I was only—'
'And follow it with a dagger, a candlestick, a revolver, a lead pipe, a spanner and a . . . and a . . .'
'Rope,' said Jeff. 'I'm sorry, I didn't mean to
'Cluedo was devised by a man named Pratt in 1944.'
'I only meant
'Do you know what he did for a living?'
'I don't . . .'
'He was a solicitor's clerk and a part-time clown.'
'I didn't know
'Which funnily enough is exactly what you are.'
'I've never worked in a solic—'
'You're a prat and a clown! And do you know how I know Mr Pratt the part-time clown designed Cluedo in 1944?'
'Did you look it up on the—'
'I read it in a fucking book, you halfwit!'
I turned and swiped the first book that came to hand off the shelf behind me, the shelf I used for special orders. I don't have much strength in my
muscles, due to my wasting disease, but I summoned up enough to hurl it at him, and it caught him just above the eye, and he stumbled backwards into the Buy one and get one at exactly the same price table, scattering the books, upsetting the table and ending up lying amongst them on the floor. But only for a moment. He immediately jumped to his feet. There was blood streaming down the side of his face.
'Jeff, I . . .'
'Did anyone ever tell you you were fucking mental?'
He bolted for the door before I could give him a truthful answer. He yanked it open, and stormed out, with the theme from the Rockford Files failing to soothe his tortured and bleeding brow at all.
Immediately overcome with worry and concern, I hurried across to the overturned table and carefully righted it. The books, thank God, were not damaged, that is, apart for the one Jeff had assaulted with his forehead. The blood on the cover could easily be wiped off, but it had also soaked into the pages themselves, staining them for ever. I turned it over. It was a rare copy of Jim Thompson's Pop. 1280.
It was a sign.
* * *
Chapter 16
No, literally a sign. The population announcement and road sign design on the cover of my 1964 signed first edition of his noir classic. Albeit signed by I'm a Zebra Grisham.
It would be a mistake to say that there were any other parallels between Jim Thompson and Augustine Wogan beyond the fact that they were both dead. Although none of the American's books were in print when he exited this mortal coil in 1977 either, he had in fact experienced much success earlier in his career (the Steve McQueen movie The Getaway was based on his novel), before his eventual decline into alcoholism. In recent years his books have experienced quite a revival. The French in particular have embraced him, with the director Bertrand Tavernier turning Pop. 1280 into the acclaimed Coup de Torchon in 1981. There's nothing like a set of subtitles to improve one's cultural standing. Augustine, on the other hand, was never successful in the first place and thus couldn't qualify for a revival. Discovery, perhaps. But if he was ever to grace the shelves of any bookstore beyond my own it would probably only be because of the public interest aroused by my unmasking of his murderer.
I am like the sun. The planets align around me. Some are gas giants. Like the vision coming through the shop doorway.
'Was that Jeff I saw running away with blood on his face?' Alison asked.
'He had an accident,' I said. 'Paper cut.'
'To his head?'
'He was showing off.'
'He's a buck eejit. Is that it?' She was nodding down at the V-shape. 'It was a stroke of luck you asking if the hotel had a museum.'
'Luck, genius, it's a fine line.'
'So what are we thinking this means?'
'What are you thinking it means?'
She smiled. 'I'm not playing that game.'
'What game?'
'Where you ridicule my ideas, or steal them for your own. Why don't you tell me what you're thinking, Mystery Man?'
'I'm thinking you have a very poor opinion of me. But if you insist.'
It was like the sun being asked to prove why it is the dominant force in the solar system, despite it being so fricking obvious.
I moved the V-cutter to the centre of the counter and began to slowly rotate it. The best sunlight a spring day in Belfast could manage barely raised a glint from its shiny surface. As it turned I began to summarise what we knew of the circumstances surrounding the disappearance of Arabella Wogan and the death of her husband. How she had checked in to the Yeschenkov Clinic, and either died as a result of the procedures she underwent or blossomed because of them, having a brief affair with Dr Yes himself before skipping the country. Augustine was convinced she was dead, and that the clinic was covering it up to such an extent that they had taken legal action to warn him off, and then, finally, when he would not desist, he had been found murdered, by person or persons unknown, for reason or reasons unknown.
Alison put her hand on mine, stopping the revolution o
f the V-cut. She said, 'Stop turning that, it's annoying. And stop telling me stuff I already know. I'm not stupid, I have the capacity to retain information. Tell me what you actually think is going on.'
'No.'
In truth, I surprised myself.
'No?'
'Yes.'
'Yes?'
'Yes, no, I'm not going to say.'
'You have to say. We're partners.'
I let that one stand.
'What I mean is - we don't have enough information yet for me to form an opinion, and an uninformed one will just lead us down too many blind alleys. Let's find out more. Do you know something, Alison? I've read ten thousand crime novels
'This year alone. Are we going to get into the McGuffin thing again? Because it didn't work out too well last time.'
'No, not at all. In fact, I'm not talking specifics at all, I'm looking at the bigger picture, what we're doing here. What it all boils down to is nothing more than a big grown-up game of Cluedo. Who did what to who, where and what with. It's all guesswork. We need to get away from punts in the dark and establish the facts, then I, we, can sit down and work out the truth.'
She was smiling at me.
'What?'
'You know something, kiddo? I do believe you're getting older and wiser. You're going to make a wonderful dad, in spite of yourself. Once we get the visitation rights sorted out.'
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