The No. 2 Global Detective (26 page)

Wikipedia jumped to his feet to say something.

‘Not now, Aldous, really,' snapped the Dean. ‘Mma Ontoaste, you seem the most sensible. What on earth is going on here?'

But Mma Ontoaste was not listening to the Dean. She had left their party and approached one of the long tables, where she dragged a small man in a slightly shabby dinner jacket to his feet and was shaking his hand with such enthusiasm it was as if she meant to yank it off.

‘Clovis Andersen,' she was laughing. ‘How I love your book!'

Clovis Andersen was blinking nervously and his face was gripped in a glassy smile. He could not get away.

‘But, Dean,' continued Rhombus, ‘I discovered a piece of paper that described ritualistic killings of ptarmigan by men who wore tweed plus-fours and had all been at school with one another. On the back of it, in tiny letters, was the name of the Scotch Minister for Canadian Affairs, written in blue-black ink, the same sort of ink that they use on the release forms at HMP Barlinnie. I had DS Shortbread poke about a bit, because I couldn't do it myself, on account of being in the frame, and I discovered that a thriving rat run exists, involving Canadian giant squid ink, chip suppers and NAZI GOLD, but that's not all—'

Then it was Colander's turn to butt in.

‘Don't listen to the officer from Scotchland, Dean, or the pseudo-forensic scientist from Richmond, Virginia. Neither of them know what they are talking about. I am not sure I am taking this investigation the right way here either. It could be anything. Let's be honest, none of us really know anything. Perhaps we should call a meeting? Can I have a cup of coffee? In fact, I don't like the look of him. I bet he is a threat to our children. I am going to slip into my tracksuit now and shoot him in the head until he is quite dead.'

‘Hold me back someone, or I'll kill the Swedish bastard!' bellowed Rhombus. No one moved to restrain him.

Colander blinked.

‘Everyone knows you are secretly Welsh,' he said, and that was enough. Rhombus leapt at Colander, his arms outstretched, hoping, it seemed, to tear him apart. Even from where Tom was standing, this did not look like the sort of tactic that the SAS might teach anyone. There was some pushing and shoving. Both men were red-faced, flapping and slapping at each other and springing in the air like some modern dance routine. Rhombus took a kick at Colander, catching him on the knee. Colander squealed and ran at Rhombus, catching him off balance and crashing back into the table behind. The women screamed and scrambled aside, the men fending the writhing bodies off with stiff arms.

‘Tom! Stop them!' Alice cried. Tom didn't know where to begin. He pulled Rhombus's Tam-o'-Shanter off his head and slapped him with it, but the men were too intent on the fight. Meanwhile the Dean had caught Nak-ka-khoo's eye and the Eskimo was pushing his chair back, having finally understood the need to get away.

‘Now! Grip my grits, you two stop that wrestlin', you hear?' cried Carpaccia, swinging the machine gun round and pointing it at the ceiling. She let loose a quick burst of gunfire that had two immediate effects. The first was to stop the fight instantly, but the second was to snap a link in the chain that held the chandeliers in place. There was a staccato rattling above their heads as the chain flew through the eyes holding it in place and the chandelier dropped sharply to catch the fleeing Nak-ka-khoo a sharp and, as it later turned out, fatal, blow on the head. He staggered a step and then crumpled headlong across the table as the rest of the long chain came crashing down, covering him in heavy links of antique iron.

‘Nak-ka-khoo!' cried the Dean, enraged with pain. He ran and hauled the chain off the young man's body and was in time to feel Nak-ka-khoo's last breath before he died.

‘Now look at what you've done, you bloody fool,' he snapped at Carpaccia. ‘You've killed him! Killed off the best detective in the land, a man who learned the art of snake charming at the feet of the great Baba Gulabgir—'

‘Ah,' started Wikipedia. ‘Baba Gulabgir, or Gulabgarnath, became the Guru of snake charmers; legendarily teaching his disciples to revere snakes, not fear them as they—'

‘Aldous,' cried the Dean. ‘For the love of God, will you for once just SHUT UP?'

‘But, Rra,' intoned Mma Ontoaste. ‘A great detective does not need to do all those things. A great detective needs only intuition and a few very simple problems that anyone with any sense could sort out in seconds.'

‘Oh, Christ! I've just about had enough of your horseshit.'

It was not a wise thing to say. Mma Ontoaste caught him by the hair at the side of his head and lifted him so that he was dancing on tiptoes.

‘Call the police,' he yelped.

‘Surely not before we find out why he killed Claire, though?' asked Rhombus, wiping a bloody lip from the fight. ‘I mean,
I
know why he killed her, of course, but for dramatic effect and all these people will want to know.'

He pointed at the guests, managing to include in his gesture Colander, who looked like he might attack him again at any moment. The guests knew the form detective fiction is supposed to take and there were nods all round, and even the Dean agreed that some kind of explanation was necessary.

‘I'll tell you,' panted the Dean. ‘Just so long as you put me down and that fucker over there – Aldous fucking Wiki-fucking-pedia – doesn't interrupt.'

Aldous promised. Or pledged, rather.

‘It was foolproof,' began the Dean. ‘A simple plan to eliminate the opposition. Nothing illegal about that. I was going to get enough clues together so that Tom here would round up every detective working in the Genre today and have them working on the same silly case. By the end of it there would be a band of 30 or 40 of you travelling by bus all over the world. Meanwhile Nak-ka-khoo would clean up in the vacuum. All your crazy serial killers, compulsive bed-wetting murderers, lunatic flesh-eating mummy's boys, stalker vampires and werewolves would have been his to catch. I had a deal! A publishing deal!'

The Dean dropped next to the dead body of Nak-ka-khoo and hammered his fists on the ground, his body wracked by sobs. Sobs for what might once have been, but now would never be.

The next day was to be their last together and they celebrated it not, as one might expect, with a visit to the pub, but over breakfasts of miniature foodstuffs at the IKEA in Milton Keynes. Mma Ontoaste needed to do some proper shopping. They were sitting shoulder to shoulder in the cafeteria and wearing, with the exception of Carpaccia – who was trim in a navy-blue trouser suit with three wavy gold lines around the sleeve – slightly soiled Highland dress.

Tom was sunk in gloom and could hardly eat a thing. Mma Ontoaste forked the tiny egg from his plate and popped it in her own mouth. Carpaccia raised her beaker of orange-juice-style drink.

‘Let's drink to all those we have left behind,' she suggested. They thought for a few seconds of Rambouillet, still lying slumped on the floor of the Richmond mansion; of Lemm Lemmingsson, just at that moment queuing at the video store on Hamngatan, waiting to take out a DVD of
Fanny and Alexander
; of Mma Pollosopresso, who was so badly treated and still unsure whether Mma Ontoaste blamed her for blowing up the tiny white van; and of Mary Shortbread, who never really came alive in any reader's imagination.

Tom raised his glass again.

‘To us!' he said. ‘Or rather, you!'

He gestured at the four detectives. A valedictorian atmosphere had settled on the quintet. The cafeteria was emptying now, shoppers getting ready to face the task of queuing to pay for their goods, and the four detectives were aware that they were in at the end of something. Their joint adventures had led them to this point and it was now over. Later they would be on their way, back to their own countries and their own particular problems. But this had been an adventure, an escape.

‘Rra,' began Mma Ontoaste. ‘I have enjoyed myself. It has been a road trip, class reunion and detective investigation all rolled into one.'

‘But so many loose ends, Tom. Is there any way to sew them up? We could go through some now?'

Tom was staring into space. Eventually he spoke.

‘No. There's no need. Let's just forget about them, shall we? After all, what do they really matter? What does anything really matter? It was fun. It is done. And now let's not try to read anything else into it.'

‘That's a wee bit dark, Tom, what'll you call it?'

Tom waved a hand. What did he care?

‘
Defective Detective
?'

‘Hmm, nice. A wee bit modest for my taste, though. I'm toying with
Kernmantle
.'

‘Kernmantle? What is Kernmantle?'

Sometimes it was good to have someone like Wikipedia around.

‘It's a type of rope, but it mebbe sounds a wee bit Celtic, no?'

‘What about McKernmantle?' Carpaccia suggested

‘Aye, that's an idea.'

‘Or you could put an exclamation mark on the end,' mumbled Colander. ‘And emboss the front of your book.'

‘Oh aye, what about you, then? What are you going to call yours, Mr Swedish Detective?'

‘I am going to call mine
The Hour of the Wolf
. It sounds apocalyptic.'

‘Apocalyptically boring is what I'm thinking.
The Hours and Hours and Hours of the Wolf
, more like. What about you, Faye?'

‘I was going to call it
Unnatural Presumption
, to be a bit more like my other books, but now I think I'll use
The Music Man
. Zippier. And it taps into that whole nursery thing.'

There were nods of agreement.

‘And what do you think you will entitle your book, Mma Ontoaste?'

‘Oh, I don't know.
The Urine Trail of the Bull
or something like that.'

That made them sit back.

‘That's kinda gross, Delicious, if you don't mind me saying so.'

‘Well, Mma, it is easy and it sounds a bit sub-Saharan and so, why not?'

There was a brief discussion of deadlines. When they heard how fast Mma Ontoaste could write, the other three detectives drank their coffee.

‘Well, I'll be away then,' said Rhombus.

He embraced Faye and then Mma Ontoaste and the tears welled in all their eyes. His brief handshake with Colander changed to a bear hug, with much pounding on the back. Meanwhile the girls were locked in a hug, promising to exchange gossip in the future. One by one they left the store – Colander and Ontoaste taking advantage of the taxi service to have themselves delivered to Heathrow to catch their planes, Rhombus to hitch north and Carpaccia to her submarine – leaving Tom alone. Alone in IKEA. Would that make a good title he wondered?
Alone in IKEA
by Tom Hurst.

No. It was rubbish. He knew he would never be a detective writer. He just didn't care enough and he could never get used to the fact that none of it was true and none of it mattered, or cast any light on anything, despite their claims of topicality.

He crushed the plastic cup in his hand and was about to stand up and follow when he saw a familiar figure. It was Alice Appleton.

‘What are you doing here?' he asked.

‘Looking for you,' she said. ‘You have to come quick. Professor Wikipedia's been throttled.'

Who cared? It was bound to happen.

‘Where's the Dean?' he asked.

‘No one knows,' Alice replied.

There was a long silence. Tom saw the gleam of expectation in Alice Appleton's shining eyes.

‘All right, then,' he said, collecting his pack of 50 Glimma tea lights, his jar of Lyngonsylt and the Smycka decoration stalks that his mother had asked him to get. ‘Show me the body.'