Fair’s fair. I overreacted. Still, you’d think that six months of incident-free performances would have counted for something.
‘To be honest, Lily,’ I told her, splashing vinegar on my chips, ‘I’ve been thinking of moving on. There’s other places than the Lord Nelson, you know. The Rat, for instance.’
That was the Ratcliff Arms, the roughest pub in Malbry. I’d played there once, years ago, fifty quid a night and all of it danger money.
Lily’s face fell. ‘He’s not sacked you?’
‘Course not.’ I gave her my ‘Jailhouse Rock’ look over my turned-up collar. ‘I just wanted something a bit nearer home.’ I lowered my voice. ‘For professional purposes.’
Her eyes widened. ‘You mean—?’
‘Uh-huh.’ Lily knows better than to mention it openly in the shop, with people coming in and out all the time, but she’s the only person (apart from my clients, of course) who knows my secret. By day (and on Wednesday evenings) all Huddersfield knows me as Jim Santana, Top Elvis Act (pubs, weddings and private parties considered); but by night I walk the city streets as Harry Stone, lone gumshoe and private investigator, scourge of the criminal classes and one-man crusader against vice in all its forms. If you have a problem – and if you can find me (try the Thomson local or that little noticeboard in Malbry Post Office) – then I will solve it. Remember the Raj Fruit & Vegetable grocery job? That was one of mine. Mr Raj thought he could get away with buying raisins at the wholesaler’s at fifty pence a pound, then soaking them, repackaging them and selling them at one-twenty for a small punnet under the label ‘Jumbo ready-to-eat Raisins’.
But he hadn’t counted on Harry Stone. I reported him to the Weights and Measures, who sent a strongly worded letter by return of post. Sorted. He won’t be trying that scam again in a hurry, I can tell you.
Then there was Darren Bray, of Bray’s lumber yard, with that van with the out-of-date tax disc parked on the road. And that John Whitehouse, claiming his dead Dad’s DSS benefits while his Mum built that extension to their garage without informing the Planning Department. And Mrs Rawlinson in the snack bar down by the Methodist Church, labelling her cheese and pickle sandwiches Suitable for Vegetarians when she knows full well that neither the cheese nor the margarine had been approved by the proper authorities. That was an Advertising Standards job, and it took me a week of sitting there with my digital mini-camera waiting for deliveries and drinking Mrs Rawlinson’s milky tea. But I got there in the end. I always do. For the community. For myself. And for Elvis.
Having said that, the pay isn’t always that good. Most of my income still comes from my act, but every good investigator needs a cover, and mine’s as good as they come. In my line of work, I get around; I get to know people, and, of course, I have my informants.
Lily, for example. Fishcake Lil to most (Lady Lilith on Thursday nights, and by appointment). She glanced quickly over her shoulder to check that no one could overhear, then whispered: ‘Who is it?’
‘Brendan Mackie. Football coach for Malbry Miners.’
Lil had a think. ‘Big bloke. Bit of a temper. Likes a drink. Always has haddock, chips, two scallops, battered sausage – always makes the same joke about the sausage (not as big as some, love, but then it’s got a lot to live up to); wife sometimes comes in with him. Gail. Stripy blonde; perma-tan; bit tarty; brother works at B&Q; Diet Coke; never wants batter on her fish.’
‘Perfect.’ I told you she was good. I looked around, but the shop was empty, and the only person I could see outside was Mr Menezies eating his chips by the bus stop with his hearing aid turned off to save the battery. ‘Between you and me, Lil, she’s the target.’
‘What, Gail?’
I nodded. ‘Had a word with Brendan the other night. After-the-match gig at the Golden Cock. We got talking, as you do. He thinks she might be playing away.’
‘He hired you?’ said Lily.
‘Uh-huh.’ Well, nearly. What he’d actually said was: I’d give a lot to know what she gets up to when I’m at footie, but an investigator has to read between the lines if he isn’t to blow his cover. I reckoned I could charge him a tenner a day, plus expenses, if I got a result. It wasn’t much, I know, and I was dying to get my teeth into a real crime and not just a marital, but I figured that if Brendan Mackie did find out that his wife was cheating on him, I’d be at the head of the queue to solve the murder.
Brendan Mackie. Lily was right. I can just about make it to five-five, if you count the quiff and the cowboy boots, and he towered over me even though he was sitting down and I wasn’t. He was pleased with the act, though; told me he hadn’t laughed so much since Granny got her tit caught in the mangle, and bought me a drink.
‘So. D’you enjoy it then, this Elvis lark?’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘Z’it pay much?’
‘It’s all right.’ I sensed from the start that he wouldn’t understand the subtleties; the costumes; the lights; the exhilarating glamour and freedom and thrill of life on the road.
‘Is Jim Santana your real name, or is it, like, a noom-de-ploom?’
‘It’s my real name,’ I told him. ‘I changed it by deed poll in 1977.’
‘Crucial.’ He swigged his lager for a moment, while I did the same to my rum and Coke. ‘I suppose it’s all got to be genuine, like, for your act. Like them trannies you get in Amsterdam. Twenty-four-seven, eh? I mean, there’s no one going to take it seriously if you’re a regular bloke all day and at night you’re Elvis.’
‘Uh-huh-huh.’
‘That slays me, it really does.’
We talked awhile. I was halfway through the set, two costume changes in and two more to go. I do all the hits: ‘Love Me Tender’; ‘Jailhouse Rock’; ‘King of the Road’. People love it, specially the older ones; it reminds them of the time when they were rebels. Nowadays it’s hard to find anything worth rebelling against. It’s all been done. Nothing’s new; and however bright you burn – your Kurt Cobains and your Jim Morrisons – you’re all going to end up in the same old hotel room at the last, doped and desperate. Except for Elvis.
I’ve got a shrine to him in my living room, you know; with photographs and album covers and figurines. Lily calls it the 24-hour Church of Elvis. Not that I think he’s God, or anything like that; but he’s my inspiration. My idol. My muse.
I tried to say as much to Brendan Mackie, but I could tell it wasn’t getting through. Waste of time, really. The more he drank, the more he wanted to talk about his wife. And so I let him; and I watched the case unfold.
Consider the suspect. Gail Mackie. Thirty-two. Married nine years, no kids, no job. Bored witless – I would be, if I was married to Brendan – nothing to do all day but take baths and have my nails done and go to the Body in Question for Pilates and lunch. Was she cheating? It sounded likely. Everything fitted: the furtive manner, the unanswered mobile, the evenings out, the late-night showers as Brendan lay in bed. A doting husband, he’d never confronted her. Gail had a temper, so Lily said, and I guessed that Brendan would accept nothing less than photographic proof. Finally, I thought, a job worthy of Harry Stone.
‘When do we start?’ said Lily, her eyes brightening.
That we. Her and me. If only I could. But it’s a proud and lonely thing to be a professional gumshoe and Elvis impersonator, and if my enemies ever found out about Lily and me—
‘I can’t afford a partner, Lil,’ I said, not for the first time. ‘Work in the shadows. In and out—’ I demonstrated, using my chip-fork as a weapon. ‘You’d only slow me down if it came to a fight, and if ever anything happened to you—’
‘Oh, Jim,’ said Lil softly. ‘I wish you’d let me help.’
I gave her my ‘Love Me Tender’ look. ‘Sweetheart,’ I said. ‘You’ve done enough.’
Well, that was the first stage done and dealt with. Now to confirm the client’s suspicions, obtain photographic proof of his wife’s infidelity and, finally, cash in on a job well done. I reckoned it might
take me a week or so – say, ten days, plus expenses, we might be talking about a hundred and fifty quid or thereabouts: not bad at all, and a lot easier than the Lord Nelson on a Saturday night.
My first job was to locate the target. Easy enough, that, I thought; as it happened, there was a match that day, so I just turned up outside the house with my mini-camera and waited. It was cold for September; I wore my mac belted tightly with the collar turned up and walked around a bit to keep warm. Gail finally came out at three o’clock, ten minutes after Brendan left the house, carrying her gym bag and swinging her ponytail like a schoolgirl.
Bugger. She was taking the car. A little Fiesta. That stumped me a bit – I don’t actually own a car at present (the last one got written off during problems associated with a previous case), and I had to do some quick thinking. Had to abandon the idea of leaping into a cab and driving after her – no cabs on Meadowbank Road – and although the number 10 bus was just coming round the bend at the time, I knew I couldn’t count on the driver to accept my authority to commandeer his vehicle. In the end I had to sprint back down to the Cape Cod and borrow Lily’s Micra, by which time Gail was long gone and the trail was growing cold.
I played a hunch, though, and followed her to the Body in Question, the local gym, where I managed to get in a couple of candid snaps just as Gail was coming out of the ladies’ changing rooms. After that I went into the sports shop alongside, invested in a pair of swimming shorts (six quid, plus the swimming cap), and parked myself in the spa pool next to the glass-fronted Pilates studio, where I was able to watch the target’s every move in comfort and security.
I’ll give her this: she’s an athletic girl. An hour’s Pilates, followed by half an hour on the rowing machine, half an hour’s swimming, half an hour’s Step class, a shower, and then – bingo! – a tall skinny decaff latte in the gymnasium juice bar, in the company of a young man in a muscle shirt and a pair of Lycra running shorts.
I was out of the pool in a flash, showered and dressed before she could order a refill. It took a little longer than I’d first expected (in my haste I’d forgotten to buy a towel), but even so, I managed to find a seat not far from the couple, where I could snap a few more incriminating shots and hopefully tape their conversation using the mini digital recorder in my pocket.
I ordered a Coke. The girl at the counter gave me a funny look – well, I don’t go swimming very often, my quiff gets wet – and charged me two quid. Lucky for me the case’s open and closed. Two quid for a glass of Coke! Perhaps I ought to make that the subject of my next investigation – besides which, the Coke tasted distinctly watery. I made it last, though, all the time straining to listen to what Gail and Lycra-Boy were whispering to each other, but I’d been in the pool for much too long, there was water in my ears, and I couldn’t hear a bloody word.
Perhaps that was what caused me to drop my guard. That, or someone had been stalking me – causing the hunter to become the hunted in a bizarre quirk of fate. In any case, Gail was getting suspicious; I caught her watching me a couple of times with an odd look on her face, and once Lycra-Boy turned round as well, and fixed me with a stare of such naked aggression that a lesser man might well have been intimidated.
Not me, though. Not Harry Stone. Instead I stared him out, lifted my glass and toasted him silently in watery Coke, so that Gail looked quite upset and got to her feet, and Lycra-Boy took a step towards me, then saw my steely gaze and thought better of it, turning tail and legging it through the swing doors towards the car park and Gail’s Fiesta, parked (illegally, I noticed, and with a wing-mirror misaligned) in an executive slot.
I tailed them back to the Mackie residence and parked the car at the bottom of the road, opposite the Cape Cod. Lily was just closing (she does bar work at the Rat on a Saturday night), and she smiled as she saw me coming. ‘All right, Jim?’
Jesus, my cover. ‘Harry,’ I hissed, handing her the keys.
‘Oh. Sorry, love. How’d it go?’
‘Elvis himself couldn’t have done a better job. Look at that now.’ I glanced down the road at the Mackie house, all lit up now with the curtains drawn, and the target and the suspect alone in the sitting room, doing God knows what. ‘Probable cause, they call it on TV. Means I can snoop around there as much as I like, though I do draw the line at breaking and entering.’
‘Be careful, Jim.’ Lily’s eyes were wide. ‘Don’t want to get caught, do you?’
I grinned. ‘You’d have to get up pretty early to catch Harry Stone with his pants down, Lil.’
For some reason, she blushed. ‘I’ll come with you. Keep watch, like.’
‘Sorry, Lil. This is strictly a one-man job.’
Down by the Mackie place, I had another piece of luck. They’d left the curtains open a crack, and I could see straight into the living room. I reached for my camera. The room was deserted – I reckoned Gail and her fella had gone into the kitchen to make coffee – but there was a nice comfy sofa in front of the window, all lined up for a piece of illicit action, and my instincts told me that it would soon be occupied.
So I stood there for a while, watching and waiting. It was cold; it had started to rain and I could feel water trickling down the collar of my mac and into my boots. Still, it’s a piss-poor PI who lets a bit of rain get him down, and besides, I was already wet from the spa pool. But I’d got a gig at seven that night – or rather, Jim Santana had – and I could tell my quiff would need some serious remedial work before I could call myself a top Elvis act again.
Still, line of duty, and all that. I must have been standing there for about fifteen minutes, getting colder and wetter. Then, bingo! The target and the suspect strolled into the living room, both carrying coffee cups, and sat down together. Not as close as I’d have liked them to, but close enough. I snapped them both through the gap in the curtains. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but Gail was laughing, and Lycra-Boy was looking down her cleavage like all his Christmases had come at once. I wondered what he’d say when Brendan Mackie caught up with him. Not a lot, most likely.
Come on, Gail. You haven’t got all night. I hoped not, anyhow; I’d have to be off at seven myself, or lose the gig, and it was coming up to a quarter to already. What I really wanted was incontrovertible proof of the suspect’s infidelities; something to confront Brendan with (and to earn that fee). Gail just sitting there wasn’t enough; and there was no telling whether the evidence I had already gleaned would convince Brendan Mackie. I moved closer to the window, shifting the angle of the camera – and then a hand roughly the size and weight of a York ham descended on my shoulder, and a face the colour of a York ham pushed into mine, and a familiar voice rumbled up from out of the face and said: ‘Bloody hell, it’s Elvis.’
‘Brendan!’ My trained voice jumped an octave. ‘Ah – how was the match?’
‘We were robbed. Two–nil. Bloody referee.’ He frowned a little, as if just beginning to take in the turned-up collar, the unfamiliar hairstyle, the digital mini-camera in my hand. ‘Ay up,’ he said, moving his hand to my throat. ‘What’s going on here?’
I began to explain. I’d hardly started, though, when Gail came running out of the house with a newspaper over her head and Lycra-Boy in tow. ‘It’s him!’ she said shrilly. ‘It’s that bloody perv from the gym!’
Now was the time for some rapid thinking. ‘Harry Stone,’ I said, waving my card. ‘Private investigator.’
‘Private what?’ said Brendan, Gail and Lycra-Boy in unison.
Gail was looking at my card.
‘Harry Stone,’ she read aloud, ‘Private Investigator, all cases considered, marital disputes a speciality. Bren?’ She turned to her husband with eyes like lasers. ‘What the bloody hell’s going on here?’
Brendan Mackie looked shifty. His hand left my throat, and my cowboy boots went back to ground level, where they belonged.
‘Anyroad, this isn’t even a proper card,’ continued Gail in a shrill voice. ‘It’s just a computer print, with the
stamp drawn on in Biro.’
‘He were watching us,’ added Lycra-Boy, surprising me (I’d have thought he’d have legged it fast, once he saw his number was up). ‘Taking pictures of our Gail and the lasses in the gym.’
‘You what?’ Ouch. This wasn’t going quite the way I’d planned it. Our Gail. Could it be that I had overlooked some detail? Too late I remembered Lily saying something about a brother who worked at B&Q. Too late I realized that B&Q was also the Body in Question. And now, glancing back at Lycra-Boy, with his stripy blond hair and suspiciously even tan, I could see – too late – the family resemblance.
Brendan grabbed my collar again. ‘You little pervert!’
Too late, I tried to pocket the camera. But Brendan was too fast for me; in a second he was going through the images on screen, his face looking more like raw ham than ever. I suppose I should have run for it. But it would have been ignoble and unworthy – of me, of Harry Stone, and, most of all, of Elvis.
So what would Elvis have done?
Burst into song, most likely, or sucker-punched Brendan in the mouth before he had time to react. For myself, I didn’t fancy either alternative, and anyway, I bet even the King of Rock ’n’ Roll might have had some difficulty getting out of that particular quandary, especially if he was dangling twelve inches off the ground at the end of Brendan Mackie’s arm.
‘It were an undercover job,’ I said in a strangled voice.
A Cat, a Hat, and a Piece of String Page 8