Dr. Yes (11 page)

    'Uhuh.
How, exactly?'

    'I
found out she was interested in crime fiction, I lured her to Starbucks, I
plied her with coffee and found out all about Arabella, and the fact that she
was learning Portugese and was bound for Brazil or Portugal or Cape Verde.'

    'Uhuh.
The same Arabella who turns out to be Dr Yes's new girlfriend?'

    'We
don't know that ...'

    'They
looked pretty bloody chummy in that photo, and she isn't, you may have noted,
in
Brazil.'

    'She
may be by now.'

    'Uhuh.
Let's look at it another way.
Pearl
lured
you
to Starbucks.
Dazzled by her great beauty, you told her all about Augustine, particularly the
fact that he was living in your house.'

    'What're
you saying, that
Pearl
killed him?'

    'Possibly.'

    'That's
just ridiculous.
I
called
her,
remember?
I
brought up
Augustine, not Pearl.' Alison mimed playing a fiddle. 'You're not funny,' I
said, 'you're just jealous.'

    'That's
right. Or, wait a minute - yes, that's bollocks. Oh, think about it! You
brought Augustine into the shop, laughing at him behind his back because he
thought he was being shot at. Well what if he really was? What if they
were
trying to kill him because he keeps asking awkward questions about Arabella?
What if whoever it was saw him come in and put two and two together, because
you haven't been backward about getting publicity for your investigations, and
deserved or not, you're getting a reputation for solving crimes, and so he, she
or they thought they better find out what you were up to.'

    'But
I
called
them.'

    'Exactly.
They were expecting it; you merely confirmed that you were investigating them.
Augustine had gone to ground, but they knew you could lead them to him. You
told Pearl, and a few hours later he was dead.'

    'And
you're always complaining about Jeff and his lunatic conspiracy theories?
You're the one quoting Neil Armstrong and giant leaps for mankind.'

    Alison
raised her coffee cup and tapped it against mine. 'The thing is, Mystery Man,
Neil Armstrong
did
make a giant leap for mankind.'

    The
fundamental flaw in her analysis of Augustine's murder was the fact that
Arabella was still alive, and therefore there was no reason to kill him. Why
would they murder someone just because he was annoying? All businesses attract
paranoid weirdos from time to time, but those businesses rarely concoct
complicated plans to rub them out. If that was the case, I would have been dead
years ago.

    But
the fact remained that he
was
dead, and murdered, and someone had done
it, someone who had entered my house and splattered his brains all over my
walls.

    It
would have been too easy to say,
This time it's personal.
In truth it
was a wee bit personal, even if that doesn't have quite the same ring to it. I
wasn't intent on blazing a trail of violence across the city chasing the
killer, and the truth is that Mother's room had needed redecorating anyway. I
was, at best, mildly annoyed. Intrigued. Someone had not only tracked Augustine
down to my house, but had gone to the trouble of making it look like a suicide,
and done a sufficiently good job of it to throw the police off the scent. The
question was
why
? Yes, Pearl
could
have given his location away.
Yes, Dr Yeschenkov
might
have ordered the hit. But how likely was either
scenario? Since being dumped by Arabella, Augustine had been penniless and
drunk. Surely it was much more likely that he had other enemies? He had gotten
hold of a gun, and how else would you do that but by rubbing up against
lowlifes? Or, severed from Arabella's money, perhaps he'd taken truck with loan
sharks and couldn't pay it back. People who didn't accept IOUs but settled
debts the old-fashioned way. It could even have been a random murder. Or the
killer
hadn't been looking for him at all.
What if
I
was the
intended victim? In fact that was
much
more likely. I had made many
enemies through my investigations - not to mention the Christmas Club. I was
the scourge of the criminal underworld. Rubbing me made a lot more sense.

    'Did
anyone ever tell you you've a very high opinion of yourself?' Alison asked, and
by so asking I became aware that I had said at least some of that out loud. I
just gave her the kind of pitying look I reserve for my least favoured
customers, those who just come in to use the toilet or to fold back the covers
of the books while sheltering from the rain.

    She
shrugged it off and said, 'Look, I'm with you on this. He's been murdered; now
we have to work out who did it, and why.'

    'We?'

    She
sighed. 'Yes,
we.'

    'But
you're ...'

    'Yes,
I'm with child. I'm not
disabled.'

    'Well
I think the jury's still out on that one.'

    She fixed
me with a look, and I fixed her with one, even though I knew there could only
be one winner, what with my malfunctioning tear ducts.

    She
said, 'Look, we've dealt with murders before

    'Not
out of choice.'

    '... and
the way you're getting on it's almost like you're blasé about it. Augustine was
murdered in your mother's house; you should be fired up, you should be like a
bloodhound on the trail of whoever did it.'

    'I
am.'

    'Well,
forgive me, it's difficult to tell. But if you're in, then I'm in, and we can
crack this one. It could be your greatest case yet, and I want to be there with
you.'

    'Even
in your condition.'

    'I am
one hundred per cent committed to solving this. I feel like I owe it to him. He
trusted me.'

    'Okay.'

    'Okay?'

    'Okay,
we'll solve it then.'

    'Together?'

    'Together.'

    'Brilliant!
Okay! Gotta run.'

    'You
what?'

    'Hello?
I do have a job, unlike you.'

    She
was already halfway to the door.

    'I
thought you were one hundred per cent committed?'

    She
paused, and thought about that for the briefest moment. 'I may have
exaggerated,' she said.

    She
winked, pulled the door open and went out. As she passed across the front
window she gave me a little wave and blew a kiss. I ignored
that
and
pointed at myself. I cupped my hands and shouted, 'At least he can depend on
me.
I'm
one hundred per cent committed!'

    'You
should be!' she yelled back.

    She'd
barely disappeared from view before Jeff appeared at my elbow.

    '
I
offer one hundred and
ten
per cent commitment,' he said.

    'That's
good to know. There are boxes upstairs that need unpacking.'

    'That's
not what I meant,' he said.

    'I
know,' I replied. As he turned away I said, 'Jeff?'

    He
stopped and gave me a hopeful look. I take a particular delight in dashing such
hopes. He's a student, and worse, a member of Amnesty International, and worse
still, a budding poet, so he should get used to disappointment. 'Jeff, you
heard what we were talking about there?'

    'Kind
of.'

    'Kind
of all of?'

    He
nodded. 'I couldn't help it.'

    'Well,
you know the way we were debating who might have let slip that Augustine was
staying in my house, and Alison thinks it's Pearl only because she's
devastatingly attractive . . . ?'

    'Yes?'

    'It
wasn't you, was it? Because you've ratted us out before.'

    'No
it wasn't, and I didn't, and I wouldn't.'

    I
gave him the Death Stare. For some reason I can do it with him for considerably
longer than I can do it with Alison. Perhaps it is because she is a
reincarnation of the Gorgon.

    'I
swear to God,' said Jeff.

    His
cheeks had coloured somewhat, and he quickly turned and hurried back up the
stairs, ostensibly to finish unpacking the books. But he knew that I would be
watching him. And I knew that he knew that I would be watching him, and he knew
that I knew that he knew that I would be watching him. I didn't believe for one
moment that he had actually told anyone. He had merely flushed the flush of the
innocent man accused, but it is good to keep the staff on their toes.

    Let
me explain why I took Pearl for coffee again.

    What
had hurt me most was Alison's assertion that Pearl had somehow played me,
rather than the other way round. It hurt because, on reflection, I realised
that there was a remote chance that there could be some infinitesimal grain of
truth in what she had said. I didn't want to give Alison the satisfaction of
being right, but I did wish to address the previously unrealised possibility
that there was a microscopic flaw in my professional armour and/or personality.
If Pearl had played me, she had played a player, and now this player would play
her better than she had played me in the first leg. And this time I would play
her away from home, where away goals counted double. Playing her on unfamiliar
territory would take me out of my comfort zone, sharpen my Spider sense and,
most importantly, make it less likely that we would be interrupted by a jealous
girlfriend wielding coffee.

    I
phoned her at the Yeschenkov clinic and said, There's a brilliant new Bernie
Rhodenbarr I think you should read, and by the by, did you hear about Augustine
Wogan?'

    'Yes,
I did! My God, how terrible! I love Bernie Rhodenbarr's books!'

    And
just like that, I had exposed her as a fraud. Now it was important to press
home the advantage.

    'Listen,
I'm up your way shortly; can I buy you a coffee? I can tell you all the grisly
details.'

    'I'm
not sure I can . . .'

    'Did
you see your boss in the paper with Arabella?'

    'Yes
I
did
. Would you believe it?'

    'She's
not off to Brazil yet, then?'

    'I
think she is, I think that picture was from the night she went

    'That's
unfortunate.'

    'Why?'

    'The funeral,
of course. And when the police couldn't track her down, they gave me his
personal effects. I really wanted to hand them over to her; I feel a bit odd
having them around. His diary, a lot of e-mails Arabella sent him I'm sure
she'd like back even if she has dumped him.'

    I had
baited the trap anew.

    'You
know something, maybe I could sneak out for ten minutes. There's a cafe just
round the corner? Singing Kettle? And will you bring the Block?'

    'Yes,
of course.'

    I put
the phone down. She was smart, that was for sure. In the midst of our
conversation she must have Googled Bernie Rhodenbarr and realised her mistake:
that he was a character, not an author. Alternatively, her familiarity with
crime fiction was such that she had understood exactly what I had meant when I
mentioned Rhodenbarr instead of Block. You can read so much into so little, and
I generally do, but one thing
was
clear: once I had mentioned
Augustine's fictional diary and Arabella's makey-uppy e-mails, she had very
quickly changed her tune about going for coffee. Or, she had genuinely changed
her mind, because she fancied a bit of gossip or found me irresistible, just as
Alison did. You can read so much into so little, and I generally do,
repeatedly.

    The
Singing Kettle was just around the corner, at least to a normal person with
functional legs, but I made it there with time to spare and just a few stops
for my inhaler and an energy-giving lick of a Twix. It was an old-fashioned
cafe with a common name which appeared to be family-run. The most exotic thing
on the menu was a German biscuit. I have a lot of time for German biscuits, not
only because they are nice, but because they are living evidence that political
correctness does not always win out. Although not
actually
living, or
the public health inspectors would need to get involved. A German biscuit is,
ostensibly, two biscuits with jam in between them, and white water icing on
top, usually decorated with a glace cherry. It is derived from the Austrian
Linzer Torte or Linzer biscuit, which was more generally known in the UK as a
German biscuit until the First World War came along and the PC brigade insisted
on renaming it the Empire biscuit with the same flag-waving hysteria that later
saw sauerkraut renamed Liberty cabbage and French fries rechristened Freedom
fries. That is, except in Northern Ireland, where Empire biscuit had an even
greater political connotation, and so it remained, defiantly, a German biscuit
here, the locals even preferring that name while the Nazis were bombing the
hell out of them during the Second World War.