“I’m not that sort of mayor,” the man growled. “I think you’ve been watching too many pantomimes.”
“Oh no I haven’t!” Tim replied.
By now, two policemen had appeared and had pulled Tim away, helping the Mayor to his feet. Because it was the Mayor, of course. I’d recognized him instantly – his bald head, his brightly coloured cheeks and his entirely colourless moustache. Jake Hammill had seen what had happened. He hurried over and placed himself between the Mayor and Tim.
“I’m so sorry!” he said. “We’ve hired private security and I guess he was a little jumpy.”
“It’s an outrage,” the Mayor exclaimed. He had a whiny voice.
“Come and meet Minerva, Mr Mayor. She’s been longing to say hello.”
The thought of shaking Minerva’s hand – or indeed any part of her – must have cheered the Mayor up because he seemed to have forgotten that he had just been attacked by Tim. Hammill took him over to his client, who was still posing for the cameras. “Minerva … this is the Mayor!” he said.
“How lovely to meet you, Mr Mayor!” Minerva sounded so genuine, I almost believed her myself. She kissed him on the cheek and night became day again as the photographers captured the moment for the morning’s headlines. “Where do we go to turn on the lights?” she asked.
“This way…” The Mayor had gone red.
We made our way to a raised platform that had been constructed at the side of the road. There must have been four or five hundred people all around us, many of them waving autograph books and flashing cameras of their own. A Salvation Army band was playing carols. They finished “Away in a Manger” and began a version of “Silent Night” that was anything but.
Minerva climbed the stairs and I couldn’t stop myself thinking of gallows and public hangings. I remembered the warning inside the cracker. Was someone really about to have a crack at her? I tried to think where I would hide myself if I were a sniper. I looked up at the rooftops. It was hard to see anything in the darkness but there didn’t seem to be anyone there. How about an open window? All the windows in the street were closed. Then perhaps in the crowd…
By now Minerva had reached the top of the stairs. Was she being brave or stupid? Or was it just that she refused to take any of this seriously?
Jake Hammill was certainly looking nervous. So was Harold Chase. He was standing to one side, his hands in his pockets, pulling his black cashmere coat around him like he was trying to hide in it. His eyes were darting left and right. Even if nobody took a shot at his wife, I’d have said a major heart attack was a strong possibility. He didn’t look like he’d last the night.
So there we all were on the platform: Minerva and the Mayor at the front, the rest of us grouped behind. There was a single red button, mounted on a wooden block, and a microphone. Minerva stepped forward. The crowd fell silent. The Salvation Army players came to the end of a verse and stopped – unfortunately not all at the same time.
“Ladies and gentlemen!” It was the Mayor speaking. His voice whined the full length of Regent Street and it wasn’t just the fault of the microphone. “I’d like to welcome you all here and I hope you’ve all remembered to pay the congestion charge! We’ve had some great stars turn on the lights in Regent Street. But this year, if you ask me, we’ve got the biggest star of all. Please welcome … Minerva!”
Everyone clapped and cheered.
“Thank you. Thank you so very much!” Minerva’s voice echoed after the Mayor’s. “I’m so thrilled to be here, at Christmas. It’s such a wonderful time of the year – the birth of baby Jesus and of course my new CD is about to be released. So Happy Christmas to everyone, and here goes…”
She lifted her finger.
And that was when it happened.
There were two gunshots. They sounded incredibly close and there could be no doubt that Minerva was the target. At once the entire atmosphere changed. There was a single second of frozen silence and then screams as the crowd panicked and began to scatter, people pushing each other to get out of the way. The band was swept away in the stampede. I saw someone fall into the big drum. The cymbal player was knocked off her feet with a final crash. On the platform, the Mayor had been the first to dive for cover. Minerva hadn’t moved, as if unsure what to do. I couldn’t see if she had been hit or not. With that bright red dress, it was hard to tell.
Then Tim leapt into action. I have to hand it to him – at least he was braver than the Mayor, who had curled into a ball in the corner of the platform with his head buried in his hands. Tim had been hired to protect Minerva and that was what he was going to do – even if the shots had already been fired. Even if she was already dead.
“Get down!” he shouted.
He lunged forward and I guessed that he meant to throw himself on top of Minerva – which, I had to admit, was quite an attractive idea. Unfortunately, Minerva had already stepped aside. Tim missed and landed, with his arms outstretched, on the red button.
At once, ten thousand light bulbs burst into multi-coloured life. This year the Regent Street lights had been sponsored by McDonald’s. They depicted stars and Christmas trees decorated with twinkling hamburgers and fries. At the same time, a specially arranged Christmas carol – “We Wish You a McMerry Christmas” – boomed out of the speakers.
The Mayor opened one eye. “You idiot!” he screamed. “You’ve turned on the Christmas lights instead of Minerva!”
I’m not sure what would have happened next. Perhaps Tim would have ended up being murdered himself. But then Harold Chase stepped forward and pointed. “There!” he yelled. “There he is!”
He was pointing at the rooftops and now, with all the extra bulbs burning below, the darkness had become a sea of red and blue and yellow and white. And sure enough, high above one of the department stores, I could make out a short, plump figure half hidden behind a chimney stack. He was staring down at us and, although I couldn’t see what it was from this distance, there was definitely something in his hand. A gun? He certainly would have had a clear shot at Minerva from where he was standing – but not any more. Half a dozen policemen had already reached the platform and they had all grabbed a piece of her. Jake and Harold were also grabbing at her. Tim had crawled off the red button and was trying to climb on top. The entire platform looked like a training session for the All Blacks with Minerva in the middle of the scrum.
The figure on the roof didn’t seem to be moving and that was when I decided to take action. I didn’t really know what I was doing. Part of me was asking questions. Why hadn’t I seen the sniper earlier? Why hadn’t he made a faster escape – or at least tried to fire off a few more shots? Was that a gun in his hand? And part of me knew that I wouldn’t find the answers hanging around on Regent Street. I had to go and look for them myself.
I leapt down from the platform, pushed my way through what was left of the crowd and plunged into the nearest shop. It was a huge place selling clothes that I couldn’t possibly afford and – one glance told me – that I wouldn’t want to buy if I could. Blue blazers and red cravats have never been my style. There was a lift opposite the front door and I was lucky. The doors were just closing as I arrived. I ran in and pressed the top button – the sixth floor. I was lucky again. The lift didn’t stop on the way up.
The sixth floor seemed to be devoted to Christmas presents for people you don’t like: really nasty golfing jumpers, oversized umbrellas and multicoloured shoes. There weren’t too many shoppers around as I burst out of the lift and made for the nearest fire door. Sure enough, a flight of concrete stairs led up to the roof. I took them two at a time and it only occurred to me now that I was unarmed and about to come face to face with a would-be assassin who probably wouldn’t be too pleased to see me. But it was too late to go back. And, I figured, he couldn’t be more deadly than those golfing jumpers.
I reached a door marked FIRE EXIT and slammed into it … which, incidentally, set off all the fire alarms and the sprinkler system on the seven f
loors below. But now I was on the roof: a strange landscape of chimneys, satellite dishes, water tanks and air-conditioning units. I stopped for a moment and let my eyes get used to the darkness. Not that it was exactly pitch black. The Regent Street lights were still glittering below me and, looking down, I could see the scattered crowds, the police, what was left of the Salvation Army band.
Something moved. And there he was, the man that Harold Chase had seen from below. He was only about fifteen metres away from me, cowering on the other side of the roof. He didn’t look like your typical assassin. He was short and very fat – almost spherical – with white, curly hair. I wondered if he was one of the overweight Albanians. It was Minerva’s absence at a concert in Albania that had started all this.
The man looked at me with something between horror and dismay. He raised a hand as if to prevent me moving forward.
“No!” he shouted. “I d-d-didn’t…”
Then he turned and ran.
I chased after him and that was when I discovered that I had miscalculated. I had run into the wrong store and there was a three-metre gap between his roof and mine. But I hadn’t come this far to let an impossible jump and a probable fall to my death seven floors below worry me. I picked up speed and threw myself off the edge.
For a moment I hung in the air and I could feel the ground a very long way beneath me. The cold night air was rushing into me and – for a nasty moment – so was the pavement. The other roof was too far away. I wasn’t going to make it. Suddenly I was angry with myself. Who did I think I was? Spider-Man? If so, I’d forgotten to pack a web.
But I didn’t fall. Somehow my outstretched hands caught hold of the edge of the other roof and I winced as my stomach and shoulders slammed into the brickwork. I could taste blood and dust in my mouth. I’d cut my lip and maybe loosened a couple of my teeth. Using what little strength I had left, I managed to pull myself up and roll to safety. Painfully, I got to my feet. I wasn’t surprised to see that the little fat man had gone.
He had left something behind. I saw them – three small silver objects on the asphalt. At first I thought they were bullets, but as I walked towards them, I realized they were too big. People down in the street were pointing up at me and shouting as I dropped to one knee and scooped them into my hand.
Three oak leaves. That was what the sniper had left behind. The acorn in the cracker and now this. He was definitely trying to tell me something and I’d got the message loud and clear.
DINNER FOR TWO
When I woke up the next morning, we were right back where we’d started. Which is to say, we were in Camden Town, in the office, and once again Tim was out of work. It turned out that nobody had been particularly impressed by my death-defying leap when all I’d got to show for it was grazed arms, bruises and a handful of silver oak leaves. I’d given the police a description of the man I’d seen on the roof – not that it added up to much. Small and fat. The curly hair could have been a wig. And although he had spoken, he hadn’t said enough for me to be sure whether he had an Albanian accent or not.
As I’d sat in the bath that night, I’d gone over his words a dozen times. No! I d-d-didn’t… Had he been scared or did he always stammer like that? And what had he meant? The police had decided that he was angry – that he was telling me he hadn’t shot Minerva in the sense that he had missed. To me it seemed simpler than that. “I didn’t do it. It wasn’t me.” That was what he had been trying to say. But then why had he left the oak leaves behind? Maybe they were the symbol of the society for Overweight Albanian Kids. And finally, where was the gun? I thought I’d seen something in his hand but he hadn’t had it when I reached the roof.
Anyway, the case was over as far as we were concerned. Now that the police knew Minerva was in real danger, they had taken over protection duties – and looking at some of those officers leering at her on Regent Street, I could see that plenty of them were going to be putting in for overtime. The good news was that we still had about seventy pounds of the two hundred Jake Hammill had given us. That would buy us a Christmas turkey, Brussels sprouts, roast potatoes and chestnut stuffing. It was just a shame that Tim had sold the oven.
I found him at breakfast with a bowl of cornflakes and the morning newspaper. He wasn’t looking too pleased and I soon saw why. He’d made the front page. There was a picture of him spread out on his stomach just after he had accidentally turned on the Christmas lights.
“Have you seen this?” he wailed as I sat down. “And look at this!”
He tapped the caption underneath the picture:
DIM DIAMOND ASSAULTS MAYOR AND TURNS ON THE LIGHTS
“It must be a misprint,” he said.
“Are you sure?” I asked.
Tim sighed – and suddenly he was looking sad. “You know, Nick,” he began. “Recently, I’ve been thinking.”
“Did it hurt?” I muttered.
He ignored me. “Maybe I should think about getting another job. I mean, look at me! I’m twenty-eight. I never have any money. I’m six months behind on the rent. I can’t remember the last time you and I had a square meal.”
“We had pizza the night before last,” I reminded him.
“That was circular. And whenever I do get a job – like this business with Miranda – it always seems to go wrong.” He sighed again. “She told me I was the most stupid person she’d ever met.”
“Maybe she was joking.”
“She spat at me and tried to strangle me!”
“Well … she’s Greek.”
Tim shook his head. “As soon as the New Year begins, I’m going to find myself a proper job,” he said. “It shouldn’t be too difficult. I’ve got qualifications.”
I fell silent. I didn’t have the heart to remind him that he only had two A levels – and one of them was in embroidery.
It looked as if we were going to have a pretty glum Christmas. But as you’ll probably know by now, nothing in our lives ever turns out quite how we expect. A second later there was a knock at the door and before either of us could react, Minerva walked in. I was so surprised, I almost fell off my chair. Tim was so surprised he actually did fall off his.
She was on her own and she was trying to look inconspicuous dressed in jeans and a black jersey with a one-thousand-dollar pair of sunglasses hiding her eyes. But Minerva was Minerva. She couldn’t look inconspicuous if she covered herself in mud and sat in a swamp.
“Minerva!” Tim gasped as he picked himself up.
“I didn’t want to see you,” Minerva said, taking off her sunglasses so she could see him better. “I didn’t want to come here,” she went on. “But I had to. Last night I behaved like a cow.”
“You ate grass?” Tim asked.
“No. I behaved disgracefully towards you. I spat at you. I tried to strangle you. But this morning, when I woke up, I realized I’d got it all wrong.” She sat down. “Harold brought in the newspapers and I saw that we got every single front page. And part of that was thanks to you. The Times called you a maniac. The Mail said you were idiotic. The Guardian thought you were a banker.”
“That was a misprint,” I said.
Minerva ignored me. “If I’d just turned on those ridiculous lights, the most I would have got would have been the front page of the evening paper. But the way things turned out, I got more publicity than I could have dreamed of. Harold is certain my new CD is going to go straight to number one.”
“How is Harold?” I asked.
“He had a very lucky escape last night,” Minerva said. “One of those bullets missed him by a centimetre. It even burnt a hole in the side of his coat.”
“You mean … it could have hit his pacemaker?” I exclaimed.
“It was a near miss. But I’m not here to talk about Harold.” She turned to Tim. “I want to make it up to you, Timothy,” she said. “I want to invite you to dinner. I’ve already reserved a table for two.”
“Isn’t two a little early for dinner?” Tim asked.
“
For just the two of us, I mean!” Minerva smiled but I wasn’t entirely convinced. I’d met sharks with friendlier teeth. “At eight o’clock this evening,” she went on. “There’s a restaurant I go to. It’s called The Gravy.” She giggled mischievously. “I thought we might have a little tête-à-tête.”
“I’m not that crazy about French food,” Tim muttered.
“You’ll like this,” Minerva simpered. “Make sure you dress up smart. You should put on that suit of yours with seven buttons and seventeen buttonholes.”
And with that she was gone.
I went over to the window and looked out as she left the building. There was a police car waiting for her. It was true, then. The men in blue had now taken over Tim’s job.
“They’re giving her round-the-clock protection,” I said.
“They think someone’s going to kill her near a clock?”
Tim looked slightly dazed. I could see that he was already imagining himself in some swanky restaurant, drinking champagne with the rich and famous. It was time to bring him down to earth.
“You’re not going,” I said.
“Why not?” Tim replied.
“She’s not interested in you, Tim. If she’s invited you out, it’s only for the publicity. That’s all she cares about.”
“Maybe she’s got a soft spot for me.”
“I don’t think she’s got a soft spot for anyone except herself. Anyway, she’s a married woman.”
“Listen, kid.” Tim leant back in his chair. “You don’t understand the female mind. Maybe she’s looking for something rough and a little bit dangerous.”
“Then she can buy herself a yak.”
“She likes me!”
“She’s using you, Tim.”
“She’s invited me to dinner!”
“Well, if you’re going, I’m going too.”
Tim stared at me as if I’d just slapped him in the face – and I can’t say I wasn’t tempted. “Forget it, Nick,” he said. “You heard what she said. This is a dinner for two. I don’t need you there. I’m going on my own. And this time, my decision is final!”
The Greek Who Stole Christmas Page 3