Dr. Yes (24 page)

    Jeff
said, 'What's villanelle?'

    'Jeff,
I'd really rather not

    'Just
tell me.'

    'Okay.
But don't try to take it all in at once, all right? The villanelle has nineteen
lines, five triplets with a closing quatrain. Two refrains, used in the first
and third lines of the first stanza, and then alternately at the close of each
stanza until the final quatrain, which ends with the two refrains. There's also
an a-b alternating rhyme to think about in the closing lines.'

    Jeff
was silent for a long time. Then he blew air out of his cheeks and said,
'Fuck.'

    I
nodded sympathetically. 'I think the reason I chose string instead of rope was
that subconsciously I wanted to have another go at the villanelle. It's a real
mind- fucker, Jeff.'

    'I
didn't figure you for a poet.'

    'I'm
not. I wasn't. I just don't like being defeated by things.'

    Eventually
he said, 'Thanks, I appreciate the advice. They're not bad people.'

    'Most
of them are gay,' I said.

    He
nodded along, but it was as if he wasn't really listening, lost in his own
thoughts, at least until his head suddenly jerked towards me. 'Gay?'

    'Kind
of goes with the territory.'

    'Oh.
I hadn't really ...'

    'But
you're comfortable enough with . . . gay.'

    'Yes,
of course.'

    'You
mix quite freely with them.'

    'Them?'

    'I
don't mean it in a derogatory way. I mean as a social group.'

    'Yes,
of course.'

    'But
you're not yourself.'

    'I'm
not myself? I'm not myself gay? No, I'm not, although it shouldn't matter. It
doesn't matter.'

    'Absolutely
not. Where I grew up, Catholics were treated the way Jews were treated in Nazi
Germany. Times have changed. It's a good thing. But human nature doesn't
change, and the lower orders always need someone to blame and hate, and as we
don't hate Catholics any longer, gays are the new Jews, as Jews were the local
Catholics.'

    'You lost
me somewhere around Germany.'

    'Belfast
is not a forgiving place. We have tidied it up with bells and whistles, but
it's still as hard as nails. Gay men congregate on the Lagan towpath at night
for sexual congress.'

    'They
do?'

    'They
do. Now, there are two of us in the van, watching a building. It should,
technically speaking, only take one of us. So although I appreciate the
company, you're not helping in the slightest.'

    'Oh.
I thought I was. I went and got Starbursts.'

    'Opal
Fruits,' I said.

    'Starbursts.'

    'Opal
Fruits. They were created as Opal Fruits; just because some marketeer changes
their name, it doesn't mean that they aren't still Opal Fruits. Same with
Marathon and Snickers.'

    'I
went and queued in Starbucks, and that's about half a mile away. And I went
back for your muffin.'

    'You
forgot the muffin, that's why you went back.'

    'I
went back
is the point.'

    'And
it's appreciated. But do you want to know how you could really help? You could
really help by popping along the towpath and talking to some of the men you'll
find there.'

    'You
mean where Liam was found?'

    'Where
Liam was murdered. There are questions that need to be asked.'

    'You
want me to go along there in the dark, and start talking to complete strangers,
about a murder, when one of them could quite easily be the murderer, and I
myself might get murdered.'

    'Nobody
said crime-fighting was easy.'

    'It's
easy enough sitting in a van.'

    'Jeff,
we all have our jobs to do. I'm watching the building, I'm watching for Dr
Yeschenkov; you should be happy to be off pursuing other lines of enquiry,
fresh leads, part of the team again, but all you can do is complain about your
eye and try to hide your homophobia.'

    'What?'

    'It's
quite clear to me,
Jeff,
that despite all your protestations, despite
your claiming to be open-minded by working for Amnesty International and
hanging around with poets, you are actually rampantly homophobic

    'That's
just ridic—'

    'Soon
as I mentioned the towpath, you just bristled

    'Because
a murderer . . .'

    '. .
. with disgust, and now you're saying that they're all potential murderers

    'I
never...'

    '. .
. tarring them all with the same brush, just because the murder happened in a notorious
cruising spot. Where does Amnesty International stand on the persecution of
gays, Jeff? What would they think of you going around daubing
unclean,
unclean
on their houses, or deriding their life-style choice as corrupt and
dysfunctional and nauseating

    'I
didn't...'

    'I
need you to go down, Jeff, down along the river bank, and ask the questions
that need to be asked.'

    'I
didn't say I wouldn't go, I just said it's dark, and dangerous . . .'

    'It's
dark and dangerous for them too, Jeff. Yet they're there every night. Don't you
think it's hard for them? A murder has been committed, and yet they can't help
themselves, slaves to their abhorrent compulsions.'

    'Abhorrent?'

    'Isn't
that what you're thinking? You have to conquer this, Jeff. Get down there. They
are perfect witnesses; what they do, and where they choose to do it, means they
do it with their eyes open. They are watchful, fearful of discovery, their eyes
are accustomed to the dark; they are bats, Jeff, they have radar, they are
homosexual bats with radar. Gaydar.'

    'But
I don't even know what I'm asking them.'

    '
Them
?'

    'I
didn't mean . . .'

    'You
know what to ask . . . did anyone there see anything unusual? Did they see or
know Liam Benson? Was he a regular? If he was, did they also know or see Buddy
Wailer? He's a harder call. All we know about him is that Manuel Gerardo Ramiro
Alfonzo Aurelio Enrique Zapata Quetzalcoatl says he's thin, real thin, and
tall, real tall. He smokes cigars.'

    'Tall,
thin, smokes cigars.'

    'Yep.'

    'Tall,
thin, smokes cigars.'

    '
Yes
.'

    'Tall,
thin, smokes cigars.'

    'Jeff,
for Jesus' . . .'

    'Tall
...' Jeff nodded forward. 'Thin.' He nodded again. 'Smokes cigars.' I was about
to snap at him again, but he snapped first. 'Will you fucking look over there?'

    I
looked, at the really tall, really thin man carrying a large circular box just
approaching the Yeschenkov Clinic. He hesitated by the door and took a final puff
on his cigar, before throwing it down and grinding it out with his foot.

    There
are a lot of very tall, very thin men about. Otherwise there probably wouldn't
be a need for a shop in downtown Belfast called Very Tall, Very Thin Men. The
market for very tall, very thin men who smoked cigars was somewhat smaller. The
market for very tall, very thin men who smoked cigars and carried boxes like
the one this very tall, very thin cigar- smoking man carried, round like a
hatbox with a ribbon on top, was probably minuscule.

    Buddy
Wailer, for it was almost certainly he, entered the Yeschenkov Clinic, and the
moment he was through the door I had Jeff scampering across the road to
retrieve the remains of his cigar. I would have done it myself, but my
scampering days are long gone.

    He
had it bagged and back to the van in less than a minute. I do not routinely
carry evidence bags with me. I had tried to order them over the internet, and
the internet had tried to overcharge me. Yes, proper bags come with tamper
seals, sequential numbering, security stitching and usage logs, but they are
£75 for two hundred,
plus
VAT, whereas freezer bags from Asda cost only
£1.65 for eighty plus 93p for a magic marker. And people wonder why the police
are always whining about being over budget.

    Jeff
closed the door, secured his seat belt as I prefer him to do, even when
stationary, and handed me the bag. I squinted around the bold Asda lettering to
examine the cigar, and more importantly the tip of it. Yes, indeed. Somewhat
squashed, but definitely a V- cut, and with the DNA of a killer attached. I
didn't need an expert to tell me it would be a match for that found on the
cigar rammed into Augustine Wogan's mouth
after
he had been murdered.

    Well,
yes, I did need an expert to tell me that, but really, he would just be
confirming what I already knew. He might have his degrees and his banks of
sophisticated scientific equipment, but I had my incredible powers of
deduction, all based on the knowledge gleaned from reading ten thousand volumes
of crime fiction. Agatha didn't need DNA to tell her who the killer was in
Ten Little Niggers.
I had a copy of the book under lock and key. A Collins
Crime Club first edition from 1939. She had been forced to change the title to
Ten Little Indians
because of political correctness. And then the next PC
wave had forced her to change
that
to
And Then There Were None.
It was and is a crazy, mixed-up world.

    I
hadn't told Jeff about the hatbox in my summation of the case to date, but now I
did, and the colour drained from his face.

    'A
head? A human head?'

    'No,
Jeff, a giraffe's head.
Yes.
Of course.'

    'But
why?'

    'Giraffes
are harder to come by. I
don't know.
But serial killers quite often take
souvenirs from their victims. Usually it's a piece of clothing, or maybe a lock
of hair. A whole head is a bit extreme, but not unheard of.'

    'Is
that what he is, a serial killer? I thought he was like a hit man?'

    'Well
what's a hit man but a serial killer with an agenda?'

    'But
what's he doing going in there with his hatbox thingy?'

    'Because
his killing spree isn't over.'

    'But
...'

    'There's
always a but with you, Jeff.'

    'Yes,
but ... he didn't take Augustine's head, or Liam's head.'

    'Perhaps
he didn't have the time or opportunity. Maybe he only takes heads he finds
aesthetically pleasing. Maybe the head thing is a red herring, or an urban
myth. It might just be a hatbox with a hat in it. Perhaps we should ask him.'

    'He
creeps me out.'

    'He's
just a man.'

    I was
only saying that to keep Jeff's spirits up. Fact was, Buddy Wailer scared the
Shinola out of me too.

    What
kind of a sick individual would carry his victim's head about in a hatbox? Was
he collecting, or delivering? And after ignoring the warning to keep our noses
out of Yeschenkov business, were we next on his hit list? Was he going to need
extra boxes, one of them slightly larger than average? Would he preserve our
heads in formaldehyde or pickle them in vinegar? Would he suck the brains out
of the nostrils or remove the crown and eat them? A shiver ran through me. And
at that exact moment there was a sudden hammering on my window.

    I
yelled.

    If
Jeff hadn't been restrained by his seat belt, he would have jumped clean
through the window in his attempt to escape.

    Behind
me the back door was flung open.

    I
yelled, 'NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO .. .!'

    And
Alison's face beamed in. 'Guess what! Passed my MOT!'

    Jeff
buried his head in his hands. 'Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fucking hell! Don't do
that!'