Confessions of a Private Dick

CHAPTER THREE

‘Not much happening, is there?’ says Sid.

It is three days after my first visit to the building which now houses the N.I.B. (Noggett Investigation Bureau) and Sid and I are well and truly ensconced – as El Sid chooses to call it. This means that we have straightened out all the paper clips and folded them again, and watched Mr J. Bugstrode taken away by a couple of men in white coats. I have not said anything to Sid about Mr Bugstrode and Teresa Bradford. I don’t feel that it would help anybody, somehow.

Sid picks up the telephone and holds it to his ear. ‘It’s working,’ he says.

‘Don’t worry, Sid,’ I say. ‘The word’s got to get around, hasn’t it? We’re not in the book or anything like that. Those leaflets we dropped off in the Co-op are going to take a few days to get around. We’re competing against a special offer on dried figs.’

‘Funny about that bloke next door,’ muses Sid. ‘I wonder if there was more to it than the job. It might be blackmail, you know. He could have had a go at one of his patients.’

‘Unlikely, Sid,’ I say. ‘These geezers are very prone to mental disorders and nervous breakdowns.’

‘Exactly,’ says Sid. ‘He might have found that he was giving the helpful advice from inside some bloke’s old lady. The job getting on top of him in fact. Then, the door bursts open and—’

‘I don’t think it was like that,’ I say hurriedly. ‘Do you fancy a cup of cha?’

‘Not from that bleeding machine, I don’t,’ says Sid. ‘That’s not powder they have at the bottom of those cups – it’s rust.’ He glances at his watch and picks up his new raincoat – the one which has epaulettes, panels, brass rings, restraining straps at the sleeves and is three sizes too big for him. Alan Ladd wore something like it in ‘This Gun For Hire’. ‘I’ll leave you to look after the shop. Don’t do anything stupid. Take down any messages and try to get some of that pigeon shit off the windows.’

‘Where are you going?’ I ask.

‘I’m going round to the public library to look at the footprints.’

Before I can decide whether or not it would be wise to enquire further, Sid has gone. Opening time is not many seconds away and no doubt he has nipped off to get a bit Chopin before Lilley and Skinner. (Chopin and Liszt: pissed. Lilley and Skinner: dinner. Ed.) What can I do to while away the weary hours? I could write a few letters if I had anyone to write to, or try to unclog my biro. It has also been a long time since I pushed back the cuticles on my toenails. It hurts but at the same time you get a funny electric feeling which I quite fancy. You must know what I mean. I have not cleaned my belly button for a few months, either. My spirits rise as I see a whole programme of personal hygiene beginning to take shape. I will start on my toes and work upwards, skipping the most difficult bits until I get home.

I have just got my shoes and socks off and one of my feet on the desk when a shadow falls across the frosted glass. It does not do any damage but the shock makes me whip my tootsie off the desk and kick the telephone into the wastepaper basket. Before I can shout ‘goal!’, the door opens and a large, worried looking guy comes into the room. I would have preferred a beautiful blonde reeking of expensive perfume but you can’t have everything.

I advance round my desk to meet him and then shuffle back as I see him looking at my bare feet.

‘Hot, isn’t it?’ I say. ‘What can I do for you, Mr—?’ ‘Brown,’ says the bloke. ‘You handle divorce business, don’t you?’ His eyes follow me as I replace the receiver on the phone in the wastepaper basket.

‘We’re getting a new one,’ I explain. ‘Yes, Mr Brown. We handle divorce business. We handle anything. What’s your problem?’

The man looks round and lowers his voice confidentially. ‘It’s my wife,’ he says.

That’s a relief, I think to myself. Nothing too complicated to begin with. ‘Playing around, is she?’ I say.

Mr Brown looks impressed. ‘How did you know that? I only dropped her off at the golf club on my way here.’

I wave my hand airily. ‘Just call it instinct, Mr Brown. What do you want us to do for you?’

Mr Brown buries his face in his hands. ‘I can’t take any more. It’s too humiliating. The men – her lovers. She’s insatiable.’

‘In where?’ I say. ‘That’s the Indian Ocean, isn’t it? I had a mate who went there for his holidays.’

‘I believe you’re thinking of the Seychelles,’ says the bloke. ‘I was referring to my wife’s sexual appetites.’

‘Oh yes,’ I say, keeping the professional cool that is doing so well for me. ‘So your wife is in the Seychelles having it off – I mean, behaving indiscreetly, with whatever kind of person lives there, a fact that is inevitably causing you to feel dead choked?’

‘My wife has never been near the Seychelles,’ says the bloke beginning to turn red. ‘Not that it makes much difference where she’s been. She has relations everywhere.’

‘We’re a bit like that,’ I say chattily. ‘I’ve even got an aunty in New Zealand. Takapuna. It’s north of Auckland. She sends us a Christmas card every year. Same one usually. Maybe they don’t have a lot of Christmas cards down there or she bought a job lot.’

To my surprise, Mr Brown starts to quiver. ‘I am not in the slightest bit interested in your aunt in New Zealand!’ he hisses. ‘I have other things on my mind! My wife has become an unbearable burden and I wish to rid myself of her. I want a divorce!’

‘I see,’ I say. ‘You’re sure that’s really what you want? There’s a bloke next door – no, he’s not there any more.’

I feel sad when I think that Mr Bugstrode has taken a trip to the funny farm. We might have been able to do business together. He could have sent us the marriages he was unable to save.

‘I want you to procure the evidence with which I can divorce the slut! Take photographs of her in flagrante delicto!’

‘She gets abroad a lot, doesn’t she?’ I say. ‘Prefers foreigners and that kind of thing, I suppose. A lot of birds do. Personally, I think it’s all in the mind. I don’t believe they’re any—’

‘If I could get my hands on one of those swine,’ says Brown, thoughtfully gazing into space and picking up the wastepaper basket. ‘I’d crumple him up like a piece of paper. I’d rip him apart!’

I watch, fascinated, as Brown folds the waste-bin in half and then tears the metal as if it is a piece of tin foil. When that look comes into his eyes I would hate to be found practising press-ups on his old lady. ‘What does she look like?’ I say. ‘Where can I find her?’

Brown produces a much fingered photo and pushes it across the table to me. ‘By the cringe!’ I say ‘She’s a bit of—’ I pause when I see how Brown is staring at me. His eyes are harder than petrified cherry stones. ‘—very nice, very refined.’

When you look at Brown and you look at the photograph it is not easy to relate the two. The missus is definitely a looker and a bit flash with it. Brown seems like the sort of bloke who would turn down a job as a bank clerk because he thought the uniform was too daring.

‘She’s booked in to the Densford Hotel,’ says Brown. ‘I found this card in her handbag – quite by chance, of course.’

‘Of course,’ I say. The card is a postcard announcing that Room Number 367 has been booked for today’s date. I turn it over and see that it is addressed to a Mr Brown. ‘That’s not you?’ I say.

‘Of course it isn’t!’ snaps Brown. ‘Don’t you see? Her lover has given her that and used my name!’ He starts trembling again and suddenly picks up Sid’s paperknife and drives it through the desk. ‘I’d go there myself but I’m frightened that I wouldn’t be able to restrain myself. I only have to think of what they might be doing and—!’ He brings his fist down on top of the filing cabinet and all the drawers lock. I know because I try to open one of them.

‘Leave it to us,’ I say soothingly and start walking towards the door in the hopes that he will follow. At this rate there will be little of the office left when Sid gets back.

‘You’ll take a photograph, will you?’ says Brown.

‘That’s right,’ I say, grateful for the suggestion.

Brown shakes his head. ‘A dirty business. Still—’ he looks me up and down. ‘I suppose you’re the man for it. How soon will you have results? I want this matter dealt with speedily!’ He starts looking as if he is about to smash something else and I open the door like the cat has just started saying goodbye to a Richard III on a mat.

‘Tomorrow evening,’ I say. ‘How can I get in touch with you?’

‘I’ll come here,’ he says. ‘Six o’clock?’

‘Right,’ I breathe.

Mr Brown’s vengeful footsteps echo away down the corridor and I put my shoes and socks on. I will attack my cuticles another day. You need a bit of hot water to soften them up anyway. I could use something from the coffee machine but there is the danger that it might melt my toes off. Difficult to get your feet in the beakers, too.

I am really chuffed after my interview with Mr Brown. He seemed to accept me without question – mind you, I did handle myself well. I put him at his ease and got straight down to the nitty-gritty with the minimum of flannel. Sid will be pleased when I tell him. But why should I tell him? I have got this far by myself, why not finish the job? Close the file and tie a pink ribbon round it before throwing it on the D.A.’s desk. That’s what Clint Eastwood would do. Yes, I will show Sid what a smooth operator I can be when he is not around to foul me up.

In fact, Sid is so elephants (elephant’s trunk: drunk. Ed.) when he rolls back at a quarter past three that I doubt if he would understand if I did tell him. He starts reading a paperback entitled Blondes Like It Backwards and then falls asleep on it so that the centre spine forms a trough for his spittle. All very Homes and Gardens.

It occurs to me that I am going to need a flashlight camera for my assignment and that my Instamatic is not going to do, even if I run into the bedroom holding a freshly struck match above my head. Luckily I know a bag of coke who frightens American tourists into parting with a few bob by chasing them down Lower Regent Street with his camera and saying that the snaps will be waiting for them when they get back to the States – he even charges them postage. I don’t think he has ever taken an actual photograph in his life but the camera looks impressive.

I wait till Sid has slouched off saying that he has got an urgent appointment and start making arrangements. My mate says that I can have the camera if I pop round for it and let him have a couple of prints if they turn out to be a bit fruity. I suppose Mr Brown is right. It is a dirty business. I would not fancy it if some geezer rushed in and started snapping away while I was exercising the pocket python. I will have to move fast in case there is unpleasantness.

One thing that worries me is when the dastardly deed is going to take place. I should have asked Mr Brown if he had an inkling but it might have set him off on a rampage. The dirty duo could be on the job at this very moment. I hope they have a lot of stamina otherwise everything might be over before I have screwed in my flash bulb. To check out this unsavoury thought I ring up the hotel and ask to speak to Mr Brown – I can always pretend to be room service if he answers – but there is no one there. Diabolically clever, isn’t it? If I can keep up this form no criminal will be safe.

An hour later, I am sitting in the lounge of the Densford Hotel and wondering how I got lumbered with the disgusting thimbleful of brown liquid nestling between my thumbs. I asked for a beer and the bloke behind the bar gave me something out of a bottle with ‘Byrrh’ written on it. He seemed to think I was joking when I pointed out his mistake and I thought he was joking when he told me how much the muck cost: 45p! It is shocking, isn’t it? Still, I suppose if you are a private eye you have to get used to ritzing it up a bit. Which reminds me, I never talked to Brown about moola. Sid was very concerned that we did not take anything on without getting some cash in advance. Not that Brown can welsh on us because he will be coming round for his photographs. We can collect then.

I take another casual gander round the room and retire behind my copy of London Cries – at these bar prices it should be bleeding weeping. I have checked that the key to Room 367 is in reception, now all I have to do is wait for Mrs Brown and her lover to show up. From what I saw of the photograph I would not mind being around if she was looking for something to scratch her snatch with. I hope I will be able to recognize her. Birds can change very easily. Hang on a minute! That looks like her following the two knockers into the reception area. What a figure! She makes an hour glass seem like a test tube. And that arse! It looks as if it is hovering over a warm air duct. All this and V.P.L. (visible pant line). No wonder Mr Brown gets his knickers in a twist when he thinks of other geezers giving her pussy a protein injection. I could be up that like a rat up a drainpipe. But, restrain yourself, Lea! I must get my priorities straightened out – regular readers will not be surprised to hear that my number one priority started shaking out the kinks the moment I clapped eyes on Mrs Brown. I must keep a cool head, steady hands and a limp hampton and remember whose side I am on. To get mixed up with your clients must be fatal in this game.

The lovely Mrs Brown exchanges a smile for a room key and heads for the lift leaving a fine veil of steam rising from the desk clerk’s eyeballs. When she moves away from you it is like a couple of small medicine balls nuzzling each other. I am so mesmerized that I knock back my drink without thinking. Ugh! The stuff that Dad rubs on his chest must taste better than that.