The Day of the Jack Russell (Mystery Man) (24 page)

‘I’m . . . Cain . . . James Cain from the . . . Painters Guild . . . I mean . . . it used to be the . . . now it’s the Decorating . . . Council . . . We’re just . . . survey . . . customer relations . . . You had some work done . . .’

‘I trust you’re carrying some kind of accreditation?’

‘I . . . well, no, actually. Usually, but I left it in . . . the car . . .’

‘I didn’t see a car.’

‘Bottom of the hill. I walked . . . wasn’t sure which house . . . I think I’ve probably got everything I need . . .’

‘Just hold your horses. Claire, how many times have I told you not to let anyone into the house without making sure who they are?’

‘I know, I’m sorry, he was just upset.’

‘Upset?’

‘Our decorators . . .’

‘Those thieving . . .?’

‘We don’t know that, Wilson . . .’

‘You think they stole . . .?’ Jeff asked. ‘Mrs McCabe, you didn’t mention . . .’

‘I don’t like to get anyone in trouble . . . or speak ill of the dead . . . and we really don’t know . . .’

‘Who else could it have been? Honey, this place is like Fort Knox, except of course when you leave the front gates open or let any eejit who presents himself through the front door. Where’s your head office?’

‘Botanic Avenue.’

Christ.

‘Phone number?’

Jeff began to repeat my mobile number.

‘That’s a mobile.’

‘It’s a small organisation, it only has a part-time staff; that’s the boss’s number.’

‘Well let’s see . . .’

‘Wilson, there’s no need, the fella is only doing his job.’

‘Claire, there’s every need.’

I couldn’t tell if he was dialling. But the line suddenly went dead. I could only guess or hope that Jeff had reached into his pocket to cut it. Within two seconds my phone began to ring. I stared at the
Unknown Caller
message knowing exactly who it was.

It was time to step up to the plate.

However, I was then distracted by a cow on the opposite side of the road, in a field. There was a fence that would stop her from attacking me. But our eyes met. She knew, and I knew she knew I knew she knew, that I was lactose intolerant.

The phone continued to ring.

It would be a tactical mistake to engage in conversation with someone who could turn out to be my nemesis. I wasn’t prepared. I was in a car near a field with cows, far out of my comfort zone.

The phone rang on.

Until it stopped.

I stared at the screen until it faded to black.

Thirty seconds.

Sixty seconds.

Then I jumped as it sprang back into life.

He had left me a message.

No – a text.

But it wasn’t from Chief Constable Wilson McCabe, or even the hapless Jeff.

It was from Alison.

It said simply:

HELP.

I am not the type of man who jumps to conclusions. I do not get on like a bull in a china shop. There was no reason to presume that Alison was really in danger, save for the fact that we were up to our necks in a murder case and that Greg had recently given her a drive-by fingering. She could just as easily have been texting,
HELP, I shouldn’t be moving these heavy boxes in my condition
. There was a
reasonable
possibility. How much danger could she be in if she actually had time to text? If she
was
in trouble, it left me in something of a quandary. Jeff was
in there
, probably already exposed as a charlatan, but at least close at hand, whereas Alison was way back there, out of easy reach.

I could have answered the Chief Constable’s call, but had chosen not to. There was method in my, uhm, madness. I now had his mobile phone number and could call and confront him at a time of my choosing, when I was sufficiently armed with evidence or vague innuendo. On
my
terms. Yes, it left Jeff exposed, but I felt that the gains outweighed the loss. He worked in the shop, for sure, and he was cheap, but even Mother knew more about mystery fiction than he did, and he had proved himself to be flaky. Under questioning he would give us up, again, but that was inevitable. However, if me, myself or I had spoken to the Chief in my condition, under surveillance by a cow, I would also have let something slip, and
that
would have turned an unfortunate situation into a desperate one, causing
both
of us to be hauled in for impersonating decorators. As it was, with Jeff now surely compromised, it was time to leave the scene before he gave up my location.

Before I pulled out, however, I sent a text to Alison:
What seems to be the problem?

On the drive back into the city, I kept my eye on the mobile as often as I could without breaking any of the valuable and sensible instructions contained within the Highway Code. It was not in fact until I got stuck at the Boucher Road roundabout, and I was satisfied that the traffic around me was stationary and there was no immediate hope of progress, that I was able to check for the third time, and this time there was another, more specific message.

It said:
Meet me for coffee at the food court at Connswater Shopping Centre
.

That, my friends, was a very clearly a trap waiting to be walked into. The
very notion
that I would drink coffee in a
food court
, well, it beggared belief, and Alison knew it. She was sending me a warning. Don’t come. Someone had her. Someone was trying to lure me in.

And yet what could I do?

It was Alison.

The love of my life.

The mother of my child.

A fantastic comic-book artist.

Who had also, clearly,
sold me out
. Just like Jeff. Why did people keep doing that? What was wrong with them? I don’t have a backbone, but there’s a medical explanation for that. These so-called lovers or friends were giving out my name like they were timeshare reps at the annual Gullible Convention. They just wilted when people asked them to do things. I would, very soon, have to consider the whole nature of my private detection business and the wisdom of employing partners or assistants. I was much better working alone, although I would still have to consider hiring someone to help with any heavy lifting work.

The traffic finally began to move. I was driving, but I still had to think on my poor bunioned feet. Disappointing as she was, I had to help Alison, although in such a way that any danger to my own well-being was rendered negligible. But I had just abandoned my regular gormless idiot to the Chief Constable, and my usually dependable and exploitable customers were not within easy reach. I needed somebody equally pliable and just as expendable, someone willing to make the ultimate sacrifice, even if they weren’t quite aware of it.

‘Mother – just sit there, and shut up, and listen.’

I had caught her at an ideal time. Not drunk enough to be paralytic and not so medicated as to be comatose. She had obviously screamed and sworn at me as I wheeled her into the back of the Mystery Machine and bolted her into place, but it was water off a duck’s back. As I drove, she continued to vent her spleen, which was in better condition than mine, but I was experienced enough and patient enough to know that she would soon give me an opening.

‘Are you listening?’

I met her eyes in the mirror. Her brain was half shut down and her motor functions ludicrously impaired, but the burning hate in her eyes continued to defy age and nature.

‘Okay, you miserable old cow. I have looked after you my whole life. You have been a royal pain in the hole. You have been nasty, and vindictive, and evil for as long as I can remember, and I have asked nothing of you. But now Alison is in danger and you are going to help her. Do you understand?’

She glared back.

‘We’re going to have a baby.’

I kept looking for a reaction.

‘Which technically makes you a grandmother.’

I waited, and waited.

Eventually she said, in her slugger’s voice, ‘Are you sure it’s yours?’

But there was, I SWEAR TO GOD, a tear on her cheek.

We parked at Connswater. As I rolled her out of the side of the MM, I went over the technical details. She swore a bit and called me an imbecile, but essentially went along with it. I had a baseball cap that I pulled down low over my face.

‘Lower,’ said Mother, though with her twisted mouth it sounded like, ‘Lover.’

It was only a slight variation of the move I’d pulled with Jeff. Mother would have an open line on her mobile phone so I could listen to what was being said, and an earpiece through which I could give her instructions and tell her what to say.

Once inside the centre, it was with some relief that I spotted a Shopmobility stand offering little electric vehicles to help the disabled manoeuvre themselves around. This meant that I wouldn’t have to put myself in danger of being recognised by pushing Mother right up to the food court. She made a scene about transferring over and I snapped at her. The woman in charge took me to one side and said, ‘Did you ever hear that song “No Charge”?’, to which the obvious response was, ‘Yes I did, Melba Montgomery sang it; she was born in 1938 and raised in Florence, Alabama; it was her only Billboard Pop Chart top forty hit. Now fuck off and mind your own business,’ which I would have said if I hadn’t been intent on my mission or afraid of her eyebrows.

I gave Mother her final instructions and a chilling warning about the home I would put her into if she didn’t co-operate, then sent her on her way. I had my camera over my shoulder and an adrenalin buzz shooting through my system. I get that way when I put other people in danger. It’s like reading a book – thrilling, but ultimately no personal sacrifice involved. I skirted the edge of the food court, which boasted a Burger King, a Streat café, a Subway and a Yangtze Chinese carryout in a semicircle around a large and busy seated area. But very quickly my eyes were drawn to a table right in the middle; it was Alison’s white zip-up jacket, and her hair, and her ears, all from behind, but definitely her. And the two spides on either side of her, not much into their twenties for sure, with their skinned heads and white socks, and opposite, the big, big guy I immediately recognised as Girth Biggs, aka Smally Biggs, aka Samson Biggs, aka Willy Biggs, aka Aka because he had so many aka’s. Whatever name you cared to call him by, Biggs was big in stature, and big into drugs and protection. He was also sometimes known as the Market Stall Don because he was like a defective Teflon Don, with charges only occasionally sticking. He had once sent two of his hoods into No Alibis demanding protection money – not just No Alibis, I might add, but every shop along Botanic – but I had befuddled them by pretending to be deaf and they had ended up feeling so sorry for my pathetic state that they made a donation to the charity box I keep by the till and which I dutifully empty into my own pockets every Christmas because the deaf are pampered enough. The fact that Smally was sitting there with Alison, with a huge tray of Burger King fare before him, was both a relief and extremely worrying. On the plus side, he didn’t know me from Adam Adamant, so at least I would be able to observe them unobserved, but equally, he wasn’t Greg, or DI Robinson, or Billy Randall; he was a new player in our game and therefore an unknown quantity, and one with a history of violence to boot, literally.

I took a seat at a table on the other side of the food court, which gave me a good view of their position, but which also partially shielded me from them, so that I could duck in and out of their eyeline when required. I directed Mother to the table next to theirs. There were people just finishing their meal, but I instructed Mother to stare at them until they left. She didn’t need much encouragement or to vary her usual look. They were up and away in seconds. Mother manoeuvred her electric car into a position facing Alison’s table. It took my girl a second glance to recognise her. They had only met once previously. Although it was an experience neither of them would ever forget, Mother now looked significantly different, what with her lopsided face, thickly rouged cheeks and hair colouring, blue like bread going off.

It was the eyes that did it.

Every time.

Like the pits of hell.

Or Newtownards.

‘Repeat after me, Mother.’

‘Repeat after me, Mother.’

Smally Bigs looked up at her for a moment, then away.

‘Don’t mess with me, Mother. I swear to God.’

‘Keep your hair on.’

Smally Biggs, whose hair was at the comb-over stage, glanced up again. Mother continued to study him. He lifted a burger.

‘Okay, say this: Excuse me, young man.’

There was a long pause.

Then: ‘Hey, fat chops.’

‘Mother, for God’s—’

‘Give us a chip.’

‘Mother!’

Smally looked incredulous. He nodded at one of his skinheads. ‘Park the old bag somewhere else.’ He said it with no more vigour than he might lend to saying, ‘Pass the salt.’

One of the skinheads dutifully approached Mother.

She stared at him.

He hesitated.

Then she said, without prompting, but with more clarity in her voice than I’d heard at any time since the stroke, ‘Don’t even think about it.’

The skinhead stopped, and his mouth really did drop open.

‘Mother . . .’

‘Now sit your arse down, and let me talk to the fat man.’

The skinhead looked back to his boss, who was himself lowering his burger.

‘Who the hell
are
you?’ he asked, at the same time indicating for the skin to retake his seat.

‘Never you mind who I am, lard boy, you let yon little girl go, then we’ll talk.’

Smally’s eyes narrowed. ‘So that’s it. Where’s the bookshop guy?’

‘He’s around.’

‘Mother! For fuck—’

‘He might be anyone. Him over there. Him by the bins. Him with the red face.’

‘Mother! That
is
me!’

‘They don’t know that.’

‘Who don’t know what?’ Smally asked.

‘You mind your own business, podgy pig boy.’

‘Mother!’

‘You negotiate through me, or we don’t negotiate at all.’

‘Negotiate? Why would I want to negotiate. I got the girl.’