The Mysterious Case of Cupid and the Drag Queen: A Love…Maybe Valentine eShort

Copyright

Avon

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins 2015

Copyright © Debbie Johnson 2015

Debbie Johnson asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Ebook Edition © February 2015 ISBN: 9780008135058

Version: 2015–01–23

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Keep Reading

About the Author

Also by the Author

About the Publisher

Chapter One

Now

My name’s Jayne McCartney. No relation, despite the accent. In case you were wondering. Which you might not have been, but most people do.

I’m a private investigator, and I work from an office on the fifth floor of a once-grand building on a once-grand-and-getting-there-again city’s waterfront. The windows are crusted with dust and grime from the small continents of traffic that flow past every day, and I can tell the time by the chimes of the Liver Building clock.

Right now, for example, I know it’s after 10 p.m. The big bass drum sound of the hour turning woke me up. Not that being unconscious qualifies as being asleep, I suppose. It might have looked the same, except on this occasion it came with a whacking great lump on the back of my head and a matting of blood in my hair. A good look for a chick in her thirties. I might go clubbing.

First, though, I have to master standing up. And finding my phone. And dialling the number of DCI Ken McGowan at Ball Street CID. Despite having a concussion and approximately seventeen fingers on one hand, I manage. Voicemail. Of course. It is after 10 p.m., after all. He’s probably out clubbing.

‘Call me,’ I say. ‘I know where the Chihuahua is.’

Chapter Two

One day earlier

‘His name’s Cupid,’ said Harley Golightly, as he handed me what I could only describe as a soft porn photo of a very small, very ugly dog. The lighting was soft focus; the background a bed of black satin, and the pooch was wearing a tiara and a diamond encrusted collar. Apart from that it was naked, the slut. Which was better than a pearl necklace, I suppose.

Harley Golightly was sitting with his partner, Dorothy Glamore. I don’t know why, but I had a sneaking suspicion that they may not have been using their real names. And they definitely weren’t using their real hair colours. They were both men, and both wearing uncomfortably tight leather trousers. At least they were uncomfortable for me – their boy bits were so obvious I didn’t know quite where to put my eyes.

‘He’s … lovely,’ I said, imagining for the tenth time that day that I’d won the Lottery and was on a Caribbean cruise with a flotilla of Calvin Klein underwear models.

Instead, I was in the admittedly fragrant back room of a bar in Liverpool’s pink district. Investigating the case of a missing Chihuahua. Such is life. I used to be a detective sergeant, a babe in blue, and I never got sent to check out Chihuahuas then.

I suspected the law had more important things on its collective mind these days. A copy of the Gazette lay open on the smoky glass-topped coffee table between us. The front page was a report on the abduction of Coco Doyle, the seven-year-old daughter of a local businessman. In this case, the business was drugs – but let’s face it, that wasn’t Coco’s fault. Neither was her name.

‘So, when was the last time you saw Cupid?’ I asked, dragging myself back into the here and now. No matter how surreal it was.

Harley tugged a pink tissue from a zebra print box by his side, and dabbed delicately at eyes that already bore the residue of soggy mascara. Dorothy tenderly tapped his hand, trying to reassure him.

‘One of the staff took him out for a run, down at the waterfront, yesterday. We were out looking for new chocolate fountains all day. If I’d know then that I wouldn’t see him again, well, I’d, I’d …’

The tears started to flow in earnest, and I tried to find the right face for the occasion. It wasn’t easy, so I ended up looking a bit constipated.

Dorothy pulled himself together and sat up straight.

‘Billy,’ he said. ‘He’s our cellar man, as well as one of our performers. He says he brought Cupid back here, and locked up behind him. We saw Cupid when we got back, and he was in here with customers later – they all love him! We’re not even quite sure when he went missing … We feel so guilty now, for not paying more attention. We let him down!’

He gulped in some air, fluttered his fingers in front of his face, and continued: ‘We stayed here, in the flat we keep upstairs on the fourth floor, and it was only this morning we really started to worry. We were exhausted – dead to the world all night, assuming he was safe in his little bed! But then he didn’t come and wake us up to take him outside for a tinkle! And now we can’t find him, anywhere. The tracker says he’s here, but he’s not – we’ve searched everywhere! That’s when we called you – one of our friends, Mystic Melissa, said you might be able to help.’

‘The tracker?’ I asked, even more confused. And trying not to dwell too much on the fact that I now owed Mystic Melissa – aka Clive, a stallholder who worked with my mum down at the market – a pint.

‘Yes. There’s a GPS chip in his collar. You have to understand that Cupid’s our baby. And you’d get your baby tracked, wouldn’t you?’

I didn’t feel qualified to answer that question. I had no babies, furry or otherwise, and had no idea if it was normal to fit them with spy satellites or not. It did, however, seem to be what we in the trade call ‘A Clue.’

‘You’re 100 per cent positive he’s not still here, trapped somewhere, or hiding? I mean, he does look … well, petite?’

In fact, Cupid looked like a rat that had dropped some poppers and run into a brick wall. But it seemed indelicate to phrase it like that, and one of Harley’s eyelashes was already dropping off.

‘Certain, Miss McCartney,’ replied Dorothy. ‘We’ve torn the place apart – all the staff have helped, even the customers. He’s not here – whoever took him must have somehow hidden the collar, or disabled it somehow. Cupid is gone! How can we go on without him – how can we throw a party when our lives have ended!’

I raised an eyebrow in question.

‘The Love Boat. Tomorrow night. We do it every year for Valentine’s Day,’ said Harley through his sniffles. ‘Hire a ferry and go out onto the river. It’s a big event, and Cupid is always the guest of honour!’

I jumped to my feet. Things were about to get messy here, I could tell from the voice doing a dramatic Mariah Carey-style full-octave wobble.

‘I’ll need to talk to Billy,’ I said, grabbing my notebook and pen and shoving them back into my bag. I couldn’t wait to tell my best friend Tish about this. She would quite possibly wee herself laughing. It was the kind of story that needed to be delivered along with a multi-pack of Lady Tena.

‘He’s in the main bar,’ replied Dorothy, before burying his head in Harley’s dip-dyed hair extensions.

Chapter Three

The main bar looked like a crashpad for Dracula Prince of Darkness and his BFF, Malibu Barbie. Lots of dark red velvet, black wood, crystal vases and flowers. Pink flowers. Everywhere. I felt my nostrils wrinkle in response and stifled a sneeze.

The bar itself was long, dark, and garlanded with even more flowers. Behind it was a very tall, very broad, very handsome man. He had thick dark hair tied back in a loose pony, and vivid green eyes that met mine as I perched myself on a high-backed stool. He was beautiful, in a Pirates of the Caribbean kind of way – I could imagine him in a blouson shirt with frilly sleeves. In fact he was wearing a grubby paint-stained sweatshirt that said ‘Billy the Builder’ on it in block capitals.

‘Are you the private investigator?’ he asked, washing his hands in a sink behind the bar and drying them on a tea towel.

‘I am,’ I replied, introducing myself. ‘And I need to ask you a few questions about the day Cupid went missing.’

He nodded, and came round to sit beside me. I noticed that his fingernails were cracked, embedded with dirt and grunge, and wondered if I’d heard right when Dorothy said he was also one of the performers. Always one with the sneaky investigative techniques, I asked: ‘Did I hear right when Dorothy said you’re one of the performers?’

The club was officially called Francesca’s Friends, but was referred to by those wanting a cheap gag (this included me) as Franny by Asslights. It had a small raised stage where the performers showed off their many talents, and the bar itself was also often decorated with six-foot plus size supermodels with penises doing their own take on Coyote Ugly. It was actually a great night out.

Billy the Builder gave me a smile that could melt hearts, and nodded. He pulled out his phone, and opened the photo screen. He did the thumb-scroll thing until he found one he liked – and I have to admit it was a cracker. Very classy, as these things go – head to toe in a black tube dress, hair in a Fenella Fielding bob, make-up perfectly highlighting those killer eyes and cut-your-finger cheekbones. He was crooning into one of those old-fashioned Thirties-style microphones.

‘I’m Wilhelmina Wanderlust by night,’ he said, with an element of pride.

‘So,’ I replied, ‘you’re a cellar-man-slash-drag-queen-singer-slash … builder?’

‘Yep. I’m a man of many layers. You can unpeel some of them if you ask nicely.’

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