'Answer the frickin' thing!'
I stood behind the door and called, 'Not today, thank you!' before stepping smartly to the side in case they, he or she, shot right through it.
There was an audible sigh, and a familiar voice said, 'Just open it.'
So I opened it, and DI Robinson was standing there, shaking his head.
'Does your mother know you're out?' he asked.
I gave him my wiseacre smile and said, 'What is it?'
'Can I come in?'
'Do you have a . . . ?'
But he had already brushed past me and was moving down the hall into the kitchen. When I reached the kitchen he was filling the kettle.
'Make yourself at
'Tea or coffee?'
'No, I don't . . .'
'Is she in?'
'Is who in?'
'Don't play funny buggers. Get her up, I need to speak to the pair of you.'
'You talk as if we are a pair.'
'Just get her.'
I went and told her who was there, and that he wanted to see her, and she grumbled a bit but wouldn't get out of bed until I left the room. She was funny about me seeing her naked, despite the fact that I had just recently performed the procreative act with her, even though she was already seeded. I returned to the kitchen.
'How does she like her coffee?' Robinson asked.
'Black.'
'Like her men.'
'What do you mean?'
'I was only joking.'
'No, what do you mean?'
'Relax, Sherlock. Take a seat.'
I stood where I was. He leant against the sink while the kettle boiled. He was in early middle age. He had the wan, unshaven and lightly crumpled look of someone who had not been to bed. That he felt the need to visit Alison's home before he went home was not a good sign. Or proof that he was her lover, and had a habit of calling unannounced when the notion took him, that he was actually the father of her child but had refused to take responsibility, and that she hated him but loved him at the same time, and welcomed him into her bed for lusty sex while knowing that they would argue violently later, and perhaps that was part of the attraction. I looked at him and wondered if any of that had come out in the form of actual speech, and he looked back at me with a face so unreadable that I would probably never know. Alison appeared in the doorway, still buttoning a pink dressing gown with a bunny embroidered on it, but with a stain on his nose that might have been morning sickness or curry. She stood beside me with her arms folded.
'Need help with a case?' she asked.
'Yes, matter of fact. Look, I made you a coffee. Black.'
'Just like your men,' I said.
Her brow wrinkled.
'Show some respect,' said DI Robinson.
I looked at Alison. 'Do you feel disrespected?'
'Usually. If Jeff was alive, he'd insist on calling it an Afro-Caribbean coffee.'
'Lattes totally confuse him,' I added.
'Same old Punch and Judy,' said Robinson. 'And in case you're trying to get my knickers in a twist, I saw Jeff last night, down at a poetry launch, and he appeared to still be alive.'
'You're writing poetry now?' I asked. 'You should try writing about what you know.'
'Not writing poetry, no; there was a bit of a rumble had to be sorted out. Anyway, I'm sticking to crime.'
'You should try writing about what you know.'
He smiled without meaning it; we smiled meaning it for each other, but not for Robinson, though it was probably difficult to tell, although we could tell, because we knew each other so well.
Robinson put the two mugs on the table and pulled back a chair. 'Join me,' he said.
'Is that an order?' Alison asked. 'In my own house, at six in the morning?'
'I'm just saying, take the weight off your feet.'
'I'm not fat, I'm pregnant.'
The jury was out on that one. He held his hand out and indicated the chairs. We exchanged glances and shrugs, and sat.
'So,' he said, 'what have you kids been up to?'
'Nothing,' I said.
'Nothing much,' said Alison.
'Out last night? Say between nine and one?'
'I was here,' I said.
'So was I,' said Alison.
'Doing it,' I said. I looked at Alison and said: 'Your brow will stay like that if you keep frowning.'
Before she could respond, DI Robinson said: 'Know anyone by the name of Liam Benson?'
'Has he been murdered?' I asked.
I just blurted it out. Sometimes I can't help myself.
Robinson sat back and clasped his hands. 'Here we go again,' he said wearily.
Of course I tried to claw it back by saying it was a natural assumption, seeing as how he investigated murders all the time, and why else would he be here with us so early in the morning unless it was something as serious as murder.
I said, 'We're still on the Augustine Wogan case.'
'Still?'
'Yeah. Still.'
'Why?'
'We believe he was murdered.'
'Why?'
'We have our reasons.'
'So how does Liam Benson come into it?'
'He works freelance for Dr Yeschenkov. We called by yesterday to ask him some questions. He wouldn't tell us anything. End of story.'
'Did you think he had something to tell you?'
'Yes. But he was more scared of Dr Yes than he was of us.'
'Go figure,' said DI Robinson.
'Is he really dead?' Alison asked. Robinson nodded. 'Murdered?'
'Don't know yet. We fished him out of the Lagan about midnight. Crack on the back of his head, but he may have collected that on the way in. They're checking out if he was dead before or after. I can't think of any sane reason why anyone would choose to dump a body on that particular stretch - too many people passing - so he was either attacked there or he went in of his own accord. He had this in his trouser pocket.'
DI Robinson produced an evidence bag from his jacket and pushed it across the table towards us, before turning it round so that we could read what it said on the damp-looking business card it contained. It had Alison's name, home address, work and home phone numbers, mobile number, plus her Facebook, Bebo, MySpace, Twitter and e-mail contacts. It described her as a comic-book artist. I pushed it closer to her.
'You have a lot of explaining to do,' I said.
She gave me an upper-lip sneer and pushed it back. 'It was the only card we had with us at the time,' she said to Robinson. 'What would he be doing by the Lagan anyway, if he wasn't intent on jumping in? I mean, there's a tourist path, but not at that time of night.'
'Unless you're gay,' I said.
'Gay?' said Alison.
'It's a well-known rendezvous spot. You didn't know that?'
'I didn't know that.' She was studying me. When I looked round, so was Robinson.
'You're both funny,' I said.
'You see anyone laughing?' said Robinson. 'And of course, we have this.'
He produced a second evidence bag. It contained a mobile phone.
'His clothes protected it pretty well from the water; a bit damp, dried out in half an hour sitting on a radiator. The boys lifted prints, but only his. We checked his texts; most recent was an hour before we think he went in, to and from a pay-as-you-go phone, so untraceable.' Robinson called up the messages, pushing the buttons through the plastic of the bag, even though, with the prints lifted, there was no need. He slanted it so we could read it and said, 'This was from Liam.'
We nd to tk, mt usual 9?
'And this was sent back.'
He called it up.
See u then buddy.
Robinson was fixing me with one of his fixing looks. He said, 'The question is, do you have a pay-as-you-go phone, buddy?'
* * *
Chapter 25
And the answer was no.
If Robinson expected his early-morning visit to spook us, he was sorely mistaken. We were old hands at th
is, veterans, battle-hardened by close hand-to- hand combat on the war-torn streets of Belfast. If it did anything, it renewed our resolve to find out exactly who had murdered Augustine and why. And possibly make some money from it while we were there.
We had been down some murky roads since we'd taken on this investigating lark, and DI Robinson was usually there or thereabouts. I didn't really think of him as a detective. He was more like a traffic cop, pointing us down one road, or closing off another, or giving us a severe warning for going too fast. He didn't seem very adept at anything apart from insinuation. In the beginning we were a little scared of him, but that faded with each case we solved and his role in their solution became smaller and more insignificant. He gave us titbits of information and prayed that we could make sense of them, because he couldn't. He knew that we paid no heed to paperwork or warrants or forensics, and that therefore we would never physically be required to give evidence at a trial, which meant that he could step in and try to make a provable case from what we had discovered, and in the process claim the glory for himself.
He left us with a warning not to get involved, not to interfere with the official police investigation, and to get a deadbolt for the front door because the current locking mechanism was useless; what he had actually done was present us with the little evidence he had and basically told us to see what we could do with it because he didn't have a clue.
When he had gone, Alison sat over her coffee, and I sat over my Coke and Twix. It was a balanced diet, in its own way.
She said, 'Liam Benson. A crack on the back of his head? If he smacked his head while throwing himself in, wouldn't it be to the front?'
I nodded, but I was thinking, not necessarily. I had tried to commit suicide during a swimming lesson in primary school by putting inflated armbands on my feet and throwing myself into the pool. There were many ways to do it.
I said, 'He meets with Buddy, Buddy whacks him.'
'If they wanted him whacked, shouldn't it have been the other way round? Buddy texts him and arranges a meet?'
'Not necessarily. Liam is worried, thinks for whatever reason that he can trust Bud. Bud lets his handlers know Liam wants the meet; he's told to find out what Liam's worried about, and if he needs to whack him, whack him.'
'Liam gay?'
'Maybe. He had a ponytail.'
'Buddy gay?'
'Maybe, they'd obviously met there before. Cigars are quite phallic. The cigar cutter could represent circumcision and be a code for a preference for cut penises.'
Alison studied me. 'I'm not even going to ask.'
'I just know stuff. I know ten million things about murder, but I've never killed anyone.'
'You're killing me.' I smiled. She said: 'Do you think we need to penetrate the gay community, or that section of it that would hang out along the Lagan on a dark night on the off chance of a quickie; see if they know anything about Liam or Buddy?'
'Maybe. Although I can't. I'm allergic.'
'To gays?'
'To towpaths. Moss, mostly'
'Well not me. Not in my condition, and anyway, a man would have more chance, surely?'
'It's another one for you-know-who, isn't it? I'll call him as soon as I get into work. We should be getting ready, unless, of course, you have a craving?'
Alison shook her head. 'Someone has just been murdered, we're trying to track down a killer and expose a conspiracy, and you're still interested in getting your end away. Man dear, before I met you, you wouldn't go within twenty paces of a woman, and now you're rampant.'
'Is that a no?'
'Yes, that's a no. But if you're that desperate, why don't you pop down to Boots?'
'Boots.'
'Boots. Ask them if they have something for a moss allergy.'
She winked. She left. I stewed. She was so stupid. There was nothing for a moss allergy. I was destined never to tread a towpath in search of illicit homosexual sex.
We drove. I stopped off at home to pick up my medication.
Alison said again, 'One day I'm going to get you off all that shit.'
Inside I checked my messages. There was a succession of increasingly frantic ones from the Sunny D. The final one said, 'There's only so much shit we can take,' which could be interpreted in several ways.
Alison went into work, and I opened up the shop. She was already sitting looking out of the window with a fresh coffee in her hand by the time I opened the shutters and undid all the locks. I waved back. I'd barely taken up my position when the door opened and Jeff came in. He had an ugly swelling on the side of his face, right about where I'd struck him with Jim Thompson's Pop. 1280.
I said, 'I knew you'd come crawling back.'
He said, 'I'm not crawling anywhere. I came for my nunchucks.'
I took them from under the counter and held them out. 'Take them. Frankly I'm embarrassed to even have them in the shop. Bruce Lee is so 1970s.'
'Who's Bruce Lee?'
'You're serious? How old are you?'
'Twenty-three.'
'And you've never heard of Bruce Lee? I presumed that's why you had them. You were emulating Bruce in Fist of Fury.'
'No, I'm emulating Michelangelo in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.'
'Ah. Right. That makes more sense.'
I nodded. He nodded.
I said, 'That eye looks sore.'
He said, 'What happened to your nose?'
'A couple of heavies did me over. Usually you'd be here to protect me.'
'Yes, I would. But you attacked me for no reason.'
'I didn't attack you for no reason. I attacked you because you were being an idiot.'
'Violence is the last resort of the scoundrel.'
'That's blatantly bollocks,' I said. 'If you're here to apologise, you're going the wrong way about it.'
'I'm not here to apologise. I'm here for my nunchucks.'
'Well you appear to have them.'
'Yes, I do.'
'Okay then.'
'Okay then. See you around.'
'See you.'
He went to the door. It was still open.
I said, 'I suppose we could both apologise.'
He hesitated. 'I suppose.'
'Okay.'
'Okay.'
'Okay. You go first.'
He sighed. 'Okay. I'm sorry for being an idiot.'
'All right. Apology accepted.'
'And?'
'And?'
'Your apology?'
'What have I got to apologise for? You've just admitted to being an idiot.'
'Fucking hell! You're impossible!'
'Do you want your job back or not?'
'Yes!'
'Okay, then come in and shut your face. There's books need shifting.'
He came in.
I'm good.
I'm damn good.
* * *
Chapter 26
Every ten minutes or so, Jeff would pull down the passenger-side mirror and examine his reflection. 'I'm scarred for life,' he'd say, then repeat it over, and over, and over. He was such a moaner, particularly when it was obvious that I was the one with the much more serious injury. My nose was swollen, it was split, I had difficulty breathing, if I had ever been able to sleep it would have affected my sleeping, my looks were ruined, I couldn't wash what was left of my hair for fear of the chemicals in the shampoo infecting my injury, my sense of smell was compromised and when I sneezed, due to my allergy to unleaded petrol, blood corpuscles peppered the windscreen because it was too sore to use a handkerchief.
'It's not a competition, you know,' Jeff said, and I became aware that I had said all of it out loud. 'But now that you mention it, my eye is throbbing, it's full of pus, I think I have blood poisoning. If I die from this it will all be your fault.'
'Yeah,' I said.
We were in the No Alibis van, parked down a bit from the Yeschenkov Clinic. We weren't exactly inconspicuous, but it was the only vehicle we had access to. Alison's Volkswagen Beetle was in for i
ts MOT and she felt the need to babysit it despite her favourite mechanic volunteering to take it through for her. Anyone would think she didn't want to sit in a car alone with me. It was dark and the engine was off and neither Jeff nor I smoked, so there were no lights. I had filled him in on much of what had happened since his bizarre flight from my shop, and then we had moved on to discussing current trends in crime fiction.
'Stop lecturing me,' said Jeff, after forty-three minutes. 'Can we not turn the radio on or something?'
'It's stuff you need to know, Jeff. I'm educating you, free of charge.'
'I know enough.'
'You don't know shite from Shinola.'
He nodded in the darkness. Then said: 'I've no idea what that means.'
'Shite from Shinola?'
'From what?'
'Shinola. It's an old American brand of shoe polish. People would say it when—'
'I get it,' he snapped, and gingerly touched his swollen eye.
'Okay. Never mind. I'm only trying to help. It's always good to know about the books, Jeff. Prose.'
'Yeah.'
'I hear you've been hanging out with poets again.'
'Who told you that?'
'Little birdie.'
'What of it?'
'I warned you about that. You'll be led astray.'
'I'm old enough to look after myself.'
'You think you are, but you've a lot to learn. You hang around with them, you'll be sucked into stuff you can't handle.'
'I can handle it.'
'You think that. They suck you in with easy rhymes, but pretty soon that's not enough, you're into it harder and harder; you'll hear talk of villanelle, you'll want to try it, and then you'll be able to think about nothing else. Take my word for it, once you go down the v-road, you'll be hanging from the rafters. I know I was.'
'Hanging from the rafters?'
'Yup. And do you know what I learned from it, Jeff?'
'No. What did you learn from it?'
'Use rope, not string.'
I drummed my fingers on the wheel. Up ahead, the coming and goings at the Yeschenkov Clinic had slowed and a number of lights had winked off, although it was still, very obviously, a twenty-four- hour facility. Time doesn't stand still. Although it can bend, in certain dimensions. Alison and I had taken up position in the early afternoon and had been rewarded with our first glimpse of Dr Yes himself at around three p.m., rolling up in a black Porsche convertible, top down and teeth bright. It had personalised number plates. DOC 1. It was now nine fifteen and his car was still in position in the small private car park for which the front garden had clearly been sacrificed. The plan, insofar as we had one, was to follow him. We were trying to establish his habits and his haunts, and from there decide on the best place to isolate and confront him, that is when we had something to confront him with. Evidence of any wrongdoing remained very thin on the ground. I had invested a lot of faith in Rolo, but I'd heard nothing; in retrospect I realised it was a mistake to give him the Parker; he was probably so engrossed in it that he had forgotten his mission. My e-mail appeal to my database of customers had yielded nothing at all. I had contacted a fellow collector who ran a mystery bookstore in Denver, Colorado, and asked him to check what his FBI contacts had on Buddy Wailer. He got back to me pretty quick and said that they'd never heard of Buddy Wailer, or any Wailer for that matter. I wasn't unduly surprised. If Buddy was as good as people seemed to think he was, then he would have a whole string of identities and multiple bank accounts. He could only operate efficiently if he remained below the radar. He was an international assassin, anonymous, faceless, free to travel without fear of being hauled in at passport control. That or my contact in Denver was a bullshit artist who wouldn't know an FBI agent from a plumber.
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