SLOOT

by Ian MacPherson

  I raced along Kincora Road like a man possessed. I was a man possessed. I’d become convinced that Professor Stern, in pursuit of the comic afflatus, had entered a parallel universe. Was I right? I was also convinced that this would be my last chance to find out. I turned up Castle Avenue.

  In the far distance, an eruption of white hair anointed by the sun. Grunt, grunt, grunt. The grunts were me, by the way. Stern, probably also grunting, mounted the pavement and turned left onto Howth Road. So did I but not, I hasten to add, on the pavement. No sign of the Professor up ahead. No beacon of white hair to light the way. No – but wait: a man in a bobble hat was pushing a bicycle through a house gate up ahead. Something about his movements alerted me. He looked like the Professor without the electrified hair; the hat would explain that. I raced on, got to the house, then – nothing. Not a sign. The front door opened. A different man came out, blinking into the sunlight. He looked around, puzzled. Scratched his head. Shook it. Went back in. Still puzzled. Inference? He thought he’d seen something, but his eyes had been deceiving him. Ah well. Back to daytime telly. Back, for me, to the Professor.

  His bobble hat was the perfect disguise. Without the trademark mane, he looked like any other eccentric male cyclist of advancing years. But what about the rest of it? Why had he ducked into this particular house? Did he spend the day in a stranger’s garage? Hardly. It was then that I noticed a narrow passage between the garage and the next-door-neighbour’s wall. I decided to check it out and walked briskly up the driveway and along the passage, which led to a small, neatly-tended garden. At the far end was a modest fence backing onto the garden opposite, which was, seemingly, a mirror image of this one. Garden with garage, passageway leading to – aha! Easy enough to lift your bike over the fence, through the mirror image in reverse, out the front gate of the house opposite at – where exactly?

  I raced back to Eddie’s bicycle. Still there. I hopped on and raced back the way I’d come. I thought about mounting the pavement. Very anti-social I know, but I was a driven man on an ancient bicycle in the grip of an obsession. Normal rules of civilised behaviour didn’t apply. Having said that, I didn’t mount the pavement. I did, however, cycle on the wrong side of the road. I pedalled frantically till I reached the turn off to Castle Avenue, careered downhill and took the first available right which was, presumably, the street of the house opposite. From here, it was guesswork. The Professor had long since gone.

  I had to make a snap decision with very little information to go on. Well, just one thing. Mirror image. That was my clue. I decided that the Professor, for reasons I couldn’t begin to fathom, had decided to retrace his steps by a circuitous route. I raced along Stiles Road, through the stiles to Castle Avenue, and was about to speed down to Kincora Road when I thought, no, he wouldn’t retrace his journey back along the same road. Think circuitous. Seafield Road. It had to be Seafield Road. Long shot, but it was the only shot I had.

  I sped along Seafield Road, examining the houses to left and right. Big driveways. Secluded gardens. Impressive habitations. Nice if you could afford one. But as for locating the Professor, a pretty impossible task without a huge dose of luck. I was about to reconsider my options when my eyes were drawn to a slightly crazed figure at an upstairs window pulling off a woolly hat, releasing a magnificent head of white hair. I braked violently. There was my dose of luck.

  A large sign, just inside the main gate:

  HARDY LAING

  ESTATE AGENTS

  AND DAY CENTRE FOR THE TERMINALLY INSANE

  I cycled up the long driveway, shaded by a grove of deciduous trees, parked Eddie’s bicycle, and went in. Nobody about. Not a sound. Then –

  ‘SILENCE!!!’

  A huge man with flaming red hair and wing commander eyebrows marched into the vestibule. ‘Sorry about that,’ he roared. ‘It’s Bedlam in here!’ He strode over to where I cowered at the entrance. ‘Hardy Laing, Doctor of Lunacy,’ he bellowed in a refined Scottish accent, Edinburgh South if I’m not mistaken. ‘I was lumbered with an estate agent’s name – it seemed churlish not to succumb to the lure of a quick semi-legal buck – but insanity is my passion! So, what brings you here?’ He glanced down at my socks, still tucked over my trousers. ‘Surprise me!’

  A nurse led a patient out of a side door and along the corridor. Hardy Laing leaned in for a conspiratorial bellow. ‘Napoleon. Sad case. He’s convinced he’s Declan Mulholland of 42b, Dunseverick Road, D3. I mean, why? Think of all he could have achieved as himself!’ He leaned in closer. ‘Now,’ he enquired, producing a large syringe from his left trouser pocket, ‘what seems to be the problem? And if it’s aboot a hoose, I won’t accept a red cent under 12 million!’ He may have been about to leap on me with the syringe when he spotted something along the corridor. ‘Nurse!’ he roared. ‘Put that man down. There’s such a thing as a code of ethics.’ He squirted the syringe at the ceiling and winked. Lewdly? Probably not, but it looked pretty lewd close up. ‘I’ll be back, laddie,’ he confided at the top of his voice, waving his empty syringe like a broadsword. ‘I favour the left buttock,’ he concluded. ‘Also known as the back-entry manoeuvre.’

  With that, he charged off in search of a refill and left me to my own devices.

  I made my way to the first floor. Hardy-Laing-free, it was a comparative haven of peace. I didn’t have to look far, as Stern’s door was thankfully open. A huge room, bare except for the desk at which he sat, hunched over, manically tapping a keyboard. I coughed politely. No response. I went in and approached him tentatively, continuing to cough every few steps. Still no response, even when I stood right behind him. Awestruck, I glanced over his shoulder and read, ‘A Man Walks Into a Horse: Comedy and Subversion’.

  That’s all I managed. Great title, though. Must be his new book. I was about to read on when I heard the stamp of approaching footsteps.

  ‘I’m coming, laddie!’ The voice got louder. ‘My syringe is fully loaded.’ The voice got louder still. ‘No innuendo where none intended.’

  Stern typed frantically on. I hurried over to the window and yanked it up just as Hardy Laing appeared in the doorway with a hefty male companion.

  ‘Nurse Hector here will give you a quick swab,’ he bellowed. ‘Innuendo intended, I assure you!’

  He tested his syringe with a quick squirt.

  ‘Troosers doon the noo!’

  Difficult to describe my feelings as I hit the gravel below. Relief, mainly, and a sprained ankle. I pedalled furiously off with the proprietor’s final bellow reverberating in my ears.

  ‘Do you question my methods?!’

  I didn’t, but I do. On the positive side, I’d managed to escape a full course of treatment. I began to shake violently as I escaped along Seafield Road, but relaxed as soon as I reached Vernon Avenue. I stopped the bike, safe at last, and went for a coffee at that nice little café on the corner. I had a great deal to mull over as I broke the top off a blueberry muffin. Comfort food? Possibly. I’d ordered six.

  My main concern involved the allegedly learned Professor. He wasn’t, it would appear, attached to an accredited university, yet he’d been my comedy guru for some time. I’d read all his papers. His Learned Disquisition was my bible. But what if, as seemed to be the case, he wasn’t a real professor? Did this invalidate his theories? They’re the same theories, you might argue, but without the rubber stamp of academic approval. Had I simply fled the hell of Hardy Laing – I haven’t described Nurse Hector in all his nightmarish detail as I don’t want the present publication to be filed under horror – for the mental hell of having my most cherished belief that the universe is essentially a comic construct, and that the possibly fraudulent Professor Emeritus Larry Stern is our earthly guide, demolished? A pretty unwieldy sentence, but it was a pretty unwieldy thought.

  Then it struck me. A blinding flash of insight. I’d just reached the moist centre of my fifth muffin and swallowed it unchewed. Th
e blinding flash? Great comedy ferments, not in the hallowed groves of academe, but the madhouse. This, for me, was a hugely cathartic moment. The Professor was back on top. I’d never doubt his learned word again.18

  * * *

  18 See The Annotated Sloot for further reading. World as madhouse. Failed efforts of philosophy, religion, science to explain same. Suggestion that if we accept Hardy Laing’s dictum that ‘only the mad are truly insane’, and further accept the three aunts’ assertion that ‘the whole world has gone skitherum ditherum, Hayding’, then Stern’s theories make perfect sense.

  28

  Back to three days later. Eddie’s open-plan living room. Evening. Bottles of fizzy water sat on the kitchen worktop. The three aunts fussed around in their Bewley’s uniforms. Quick twirl as they came in. ‘Look, Hayding. No motballs.’ Trace sat on Eddie’s chair as if she owned it and cast what may have been lovelorn glances at Hayden. Or perhaps she was just making sure he steered clear of Eddie’s Sweet Ambrosia. The aunts didn’t seem to think so.

  ‘Oh now.’

  ‘Will you look at the two lovebirdies.’

  ‘Tweet tweet, Hayding.’

  A poignant little love scene, perhaps, but Hayden was too nervous to notice. What if no-one else turned up? He needed the killer there, whoever the killer was, and he needed him or, in the event of him being Marina, her, to crack. He had his modus operandi. All he needed now were the dramatis personae.

  He did a bit of fussing around himself. Opened the cellar door, checked the light bulb worked, peered in. It looked suitably ghoulish when you knew what had taken place in its subterranean depths. Satisfied, he closed the door and turned his attention to the front window. Pascal O’Dea walked timidly up the drive. He hadn’t been invited but maybe, just maybe, he might come in useful. He knocked apologetically. Hayden opened the door. Behind Pascal, compounding their possible guilt as a double act, came Lou Brannigan and Marina. Cop and escort? Pimp and whore? There was something about them; a certain intimacy that didn’t quite add up, but Hayden didn’t know what that intimacy was, and he didn’t know what it didn’t add up to.

  They followed Pascal in and soon, thanks to a subdued Trace, everyone was drinking sparkling water and looking uneasy. Trace had removed the alcohol from the room, and Hayden hadn’t supplied any food. Well, apart from the nuts. He’d supplied nuts. Some bash.

  Lou Brannigan fingered his hat expectantly. Hayden had added a PS to Brannigan’s invitation: ‘Frankie Pope invited. Look forward to seeing you.’

  A knock on the door. Hayden went to answer. Enter Frankie.

  ‘Sorry I’m late,’ he said. ‘Bit of business I had to attend to.’

  Brannigan perked up. ‘I’m sure there was,’ he said. ‘Isn’t there always with you people? But how’s this for a leading question? What, precisely, brings you here?’

  A question to which Lou Brannigan already knew the answer. Typical cop. Frankie smiled enigmatically, which had the effect of making Hayden think, what if Brannigan was right? Frankie seemed to have forged a deep bond with Eddie. He didn’t seem the type for murder. But what exactly was the type? What if Frankie was just a very clever, manipulative, unreconstructed Pope? Hayden looked around the room. The three aunts by the window, Trace in Eddie’s chair, Frankie Pope now standing by the fireplace, Pascal smiling timidly near the worktop, Marina settled on the sofa and Lou Brannigan perched beside her on the arm.

  Hayden clinked his glass with a spoon – a spoon he’d secreted in his pocket earlier for that precise purpose – and coughed.

  ‘What brings you here? A good question, and one which applies to everyone in this room. Because I summoned you all, if that’s the right word, under false pretences.’

  Marina smiled mischievously. ‘Oh goody,’ she said. ‘Would you like us to gasp?’

  ‘That won’t be necessary,’ said Hayden.

  Marina was being playful, but Hayden was on edge. This was serious stuff. A man had been murdered. The killer was in this very room. Stick to the set script.

  He put his glass down, moved theatrically to stage centre, and waved the spoon for silence.

  ‘A man has been murdered,’ he declaimed. ‘And the killer,’ – he paused for dramatic effect – ‘is in this very room.’

  Lou Brannigan chortled genially and nodded at Hayden’s hand. ‘Would that be the murder weapon?’ he said.

  Hayden glowered at Dublin’s finest, who was probably more used to these things than he was. He pocketed the spoon. Bit of an oversight. On the plus side, he still had the moral high ground. The three aunts came to his rescue.

  ‘Oh, very good, Hayding.’

  ‘In this very room.’

  ‘Anyone fancy a nut?’

  Despite all evidence to the contrary, Hayden was very fond of his aunts – but this was no time for nuts.

  ‘In this very room,’ he declaimed again. ‘And no-one leaves till culpability is apportioned and the guilty party unmasked.’

  ‘Janey! Is he wearing a mask, is he Hayding?’

  Hayden withered them with a look. ‘The mask is metaphorical, ladies. The ‘he’ assumptive. He could, after all, be a she. Or,’ – and he made sure not to make eye contact with Frankie Pope – ‘a bit of both. First question. What do we know about the murderer?’ Hayden absently accepted a nut from the passing bowl – it discouraged further interruption – and fingered it meditatively as he spoke.

  ‘Let’s call him ‘she’. Language fluidity. Why not?’ He tossed the nut from one hand to the other as if to drive the point home. ‘Which leaves us where? Driven by motive or motives unknown, our murderer, also known as ‘she’, enters the house with malice aforethought –’

  ‘Malice aforetought. You’ve certingly got the gift, Hayding.’

  ‘– while Eddie, hereinafter referred to as “the murderee”. is otherwise engaged. Possibly painting in the shed. We may never know. The murderer also knows that Eddie is the only person likely to use the cellar. She opens the door –’

  ‘– wit malice aforetought –’

  ‘– like so.’

  Hayden opened the door dramatically with his free hand. Vermilion light lit up the doorframe like vaporous blood. The colour of guilt. He looked quickly from face to face. They all seemed vaguely red and slightly squinty-eyed. No clue there. Frankie Pope strolled over and peered in.

  ‘Impressive,’ he said. ‘Reminds me a bit of Tate Modern.’

  The three aunts followed him over and gave it their earnest consideration.

  ‘I tink we might lean more towards the more august Galleria Borghese and Caravaggio’s middle period, Hayding.’

  ‘Wonderful talent. Reputed to be gay.’

  ‘But we might beg to differ.’

  Hayden motioned Lou Brannigan and Marina over. Brannigan waved him away dismissively.

  ‘We’ve seen enough,’ he said.

  Interesting, thought Hayden. They’d seen enough, yet they hadn’t seen anything. Or had they? He felt he was on his way.

  ‘Our perp, killer, call her what you will, proceeds to grab hold of the ladder and saw through the upright –’

  ‘– wit a saw, Hayding.’

  ‘A metal saw. Precisely.’

  ‘Which she just happens to have secreted on her persing.’

  ‘Possibly up her sleeve, Hayding, the way those old schoolmasters used to hide their canes up their jackets and you’d get a bit sticking up at the top, like a big pointy lump on their shoulder.’

  ‘She found a saw in Eddie’s toolbox.’ Hayden glowered at his aunts. Silence. Back to Hayden. ‘To recapitulate, she proceeds to saw through the upright, shrewdly leaving enough of it uncut to require more than one visit to the cellar to cause the final snap, thus facilitating a time gap between the act and its desired outcome. Clever. Fiendishly clever. Which brings us to our first suspect.’ He sca
nned the room. Pascal. He’d start with Pascal. Keep it light. Introduce an element of comedy into the proceedings – he was a comedian, after all, it was what he did – and lull the killer into a false sense of security. ‘Now what do we know about Pascal O’Dea?’

  ‘She’s a he, Hayding.’

  ‘Difficult to know these days,’ quipped Hayden. ‘Dodgy ground. Pascal?’ Pascal tittered shrilly. ‘I’ll take that as a he.’ He gave Pascal a mock hard stare and absently fondled his nut. ‘I suspected I’d found my man when Pascal visited me at Eddie’s and said, “I killed your uncle”. He then proceeded to divulge all the facts of the case. Insider knowledge. Eddie out. Cellar steps. Saw. Not to mention the masterfully devious delaying tactic. Question: how could he possibly know all this if he wasn’t there? He must have done it. He even signed a detailed confession to that effect. Case closed –’

  ‘Oh, well done, Hayding.’

  ‘– you might be forgiven for thinking. Then I remembered. I’d met Bram at the Nautical Buoy. Bram. Old friend. Couldn’t be here. Late shift. Anyway, I laid out all the facts before Bram at a table by the window. Confidentially.’ He peered at Pascal over Áine Ní Cheannáin’s imaginary half-glasses. ‘For his ears only. However, and it’s a big however, in the middle of our deliberations a man asked if we were using the salt. High-pitched voice. Nervous titter.’ Pascal tittered nervously. ‘We weren’t using the salt. I told him so. I waved it away and returned to laying out the facts. Hush-hushly.’ Hayden removed the imaginary half-glasses, mentally, for dramatic effect. ‘But the man didn’t take it. How do I know this? I’ve replayed the scene several times in my head. The salt stayed where it was. Every time.’ He jabbed an accusing finger at Pascal. ‘I put it to you that it was you who asked for the salt. You who didn’t take it. That you subsequently confessed to the murders of Martin Luther King, Julius Caesar and your own father with the belt of a loy. That you couldn’t possibly have been in Memphis or Ancient Rome in 1968 and 44BC respectively; that the father you confessed to murdering was, in fact, a fictional character from The Playboy of the Western World, a highly overrated play by JM Synge which has given we Irish a worldwide reputation for loquacious blather ever since. That you are a congenital liar and that, as a consequence, you are innocent of any and all charges relating to the murder of Edward McGlynn and are, as a further consequence, free to leave this room without a stain on your character.’