He looked momentarily confounded. Then he patted his pockets. My business card has my shop and home and mobile phone numbers on it. And my website address and e-mail. And the chalk outline of the body and the No Alibis logo and the Murder Is Our Business tag line.
'Why . . . yes, of course . . . but I don't under—'
He fished the card out of his wallet. I immediately ripped it from his damp, shaking hand and tore it in half. And then into quarters and threw them behind me, like salt. I quickly explained that I was having my numbers changed and if he kept it, it would only lead to confusion.
'Never mind that! What are we going to do about Manfredd?'
'We?'
He did look very frightened, and I felt sorry for his predicament, but Murder Is Our Business was never supposed to be taken literally. I reiterated to him that the fragile state of my health simply did not allow for my continued involvement. I was unwell. I couldn't travel. I didn't speak German. He would have to take it up with the police. I was finished with the case.
'You can't be!' he cried. 'Not now!'
'I'm afraid I've decided, and I never change my mind.'
'But I told Manfredd only last night that you were—'
'You told who what?'
'Manfredd! After I got your e-mail last night I called him immediately and confronted him with your suspicions . . .'
'Jesus Christ!'
'And now he's dead! Pushed in front of a train!'
Fucking dominoes!
If Manfredd Freetz had been murdered, then Rosemary Trevor probably had been as well, both of them to protect someone or something. And Daniel Trevor had implicated me! The selfish bastard! He had brought murder into my store, threatening me, my customers, my livelihood and my future. I was swamped by a sudden return of the black dread. All my old feelings of paranoia and xenophobia and claustrophobia came crowding back. The world closed in and then expanded and contracted. I wasn't born for excitement or thrills. My pacemaker could cope, but my brain couldn't. My legs were like jelly. I gripped the counter for support.
'What exactly did you tell him?'
'I told him about your theory that Anne's book might somehow reveal—'
'About me, not the fucking book!'
'I . . .'
'Did you mention my name or where I worked?'
He looked confused. 'I'm sorry, I don't see the relevance of—'
'The fucking relevance is what if he told his killer who—'
At this point the shop door opened suddenly and I immediately took a step back. A useless move if it was a hired killer, but instinctive.
But it wasn't. It was Alison. Beautiful lovely Alison.
Immediately I said: 'Perhaps we should just try and stay calm, Mr Trevor, then we can examine the facts again.'
Daniel said, 'What?'
Alison said: 'Sorry – don't mean to disturb. Wanted to apologise. Our misunderstanding.'
'I'll just be a minute,' I said.
I settled Daniel Trevor on the couch at the rear of the store then returned to Alison. I folded my arms and gave her a look, although not before sticking my head out of the door and checking both ways for vehicles with European registrations and Aryan-looking men with bulges in their jackets.
'Well?' I asked.
She was wearing a white shirt with a name tag and a black pencil skirt. 'You look so angry,' she said. 'Perhaps another time?'
'No. I'm fine.'
She sucked on her lower lip. 'The misunderstanding. With the frappuccino?'
'The frappuccino?'
'Please. I'm trying to apologise. Y'see, I thought you were just being pervy. I hardly know you, and you start talking about . . . that . . . and I thought . . . you read about people . . . and I just thought you were trying . . . I just thought it was a bit creepy.'
'Is that your apology? Because it's really shite.'
I wanted to yell. Not at her, particularly, but someone. Anyone. I wanted to shout and rave about how stupid people were.
But then she gave me a nervous smile, and that broke me.
I smiled back. I had to, because I was in love with her.
My feelings of dread and terror and paranoia were already evaporating. Seeing her there in front of me was like the sun coming out. It made me realise how ridiculous I was being. Manfredd hadn't been murdered. He hadn't been stabbed or shot or garrotted, he'd been run over by a train. Daniel had already described him as a drunk, he'd probably just stumbled and fallen. It was an accident. It was only its timing that made it look suspicious. And as for Nazi conspiracies? I'd already concluded that if the Odessa still existed, it was comprised of old men with dodgy hips and cataracts and there was no real reason to change my mind. If it really had dispatched an assassin from Frankfurt after killing Manfredd, he was probably still on the bus to Switzerland to get his Ryanair flight. If he ever made it as far as Belfast, his hands would be so shaky and arthritic he wouldn't be able to hit a barn door with a bazooka. I had nothing to worry about. I had to remain grounded in reality. My psychiatrist has told me repeatedly that it's important not to drift. Rosemary was still just a bored wife on the run, Manfredd a coincidental traffic accident. Daniel was a stressed, cuckolded publisher trying to raise a young family by himself. I was just an armchair detective who happened to have a good-looking girl beaming up at him.
'I really am really, really sorry,' she said. 'When I went back to work yesterday I was upset and my boss wanted to know what was wrong. She was a bit wary of me meeting you anyway because she'd heard . . . it doesn't matter what she heard, she just advised me not to go, but if someone says that I'll invariably go the other way . . . so I met you, and you said what you said and I went back all in tears and I eventually told her what you'd said and she just burst out laughing and said haven't you ever seen Bogie and Bacall and I didn't know what she was talking about and she said that you were just quoting lines from a movie everyone in the world seems to know about but me. That you were only joking and didn't you work in a mystery bookshop and all that kind of smart dialogue and double talk is exactly the kind of thing you'd know all about. And I thought you were like deranged or something. So now I know you're not, I was wondering if by way of apology we could go back to Starbucks and I'll buy you whatever you want and even if it's one of those exotic ones I'll have one of them myself. And we'll both put our lips together and suck them out of straws and have a good laugh about how we got started. What do you say?'
I glanced back at Daniel Trevor, sitting on the sofa, staring into the void.
'Wait till I get rid of this clown,' I said.
16
'Are you sure it's okay to leave him? He looked quite upset.'
'He'll be fine. Honestly.' I'd done my best to usher him out of the shop, but he wasn't going anywhere. He was petrified. 'How's your cinnamon dolce frappuccino?'
'Cinnamon-ey. What was his problem? Is it a case you're working on? I was thinking if anyone ever comes to you with a case about stolen jewellery, you'd need to consult an expert.' She pointed at herself. 'I charge by the hour.'
'It's not about the money,' I said.
'Oh right. So you're like a public service?' I nodded. 'In my experience, most public services are crap. Are you crap?'
'Generally. Yes.'
'Tell me about him.'
'He's just a nut.'
'A nut you've locked in your shop, with the shutters down.'
'We're just closed for lunch.'
'You don't normally'
'I was meeting you, I've no cover today, I felt sorry for him.'
'Please tell me. I'm interested.'
'His wife did a runner and he wants me to find her.'
'And can you?'
'Can. Won't.'
'Why not?'
'It's complicated.'
'How complicated?' I looked at her. 'You want me to mind my own business?'
Well, I was in two minds. Now that I seemed to be back on good terms with her, and she had made it abundantly clea
r that she wanted to be my sidekick, I was wondering what harm there might be in allowing her to indulge her little fantasy. If I wrapped the case up as quickly and efficiently as I normally did then she was bound to be impressed, and that might even lead to kissing. On the other hand, I hadn't liked Daniel Trevor from the start, he was clearly unbalanced, and it seemed like he was becoming something of a sticking plaster precisely when I wanted as much free time as possible to spend with Alison.
'Complicated because he's a bit paranoid. He thinks Nazis killed his wife, and that they might be after him now, and, by association, me as well.'
'Nazis? German Nazis?'
'The best kind, yes.'
'But why does he think . . . ?'
'Because he's delusional. I think he's traumatised by the fact that his wife ran off on him and he's been left to look after the kids. Although, now that I think about it, I've seen no evidence that he actually has children.'
It wasn't exactly how it was, but I was in a difficult position. It was important that she didn't know what I was like. As I said, I'm quite self-aware. No sugar on my almonds. But there are times when one has to sprinkle a little.
'Oh, you have to tell me more!'
So I told her all about what I was already thinking of as The Case of the Dancing Jews.
When I was done she said, 'Oh, you've the patience of a saint! I would have thrown him out ages ago! If he loved her at all he would go off to Germany himself and look for her. He doesn't like leaving Northern Ireland? He doesn't like talking to foreigners? He doesn't like wide-open spaces? He has a bad back? Oh, he's such a pathetic little wimp.'
I shrugged helplessly.
'Although,' she added after another suck of her cinnamon dolce frappuccino, 'the German publisher guy . . .'
'Manfredd . . . yeah, it is a bit of a coincidence.'
'And the story about Anna . . . what's her name?'
'Anne Mayerova . . .'
'May-er-ova . . . it is remarkable.'
'Yes it is. If it's true. He could be raving.'
'Well, I suppose you could always find out? She's still around, isn't she?'
'I believe she's been unwell, but yes.'
'Well perhaps you could solve The Case of the Dancing Jews by actually talking to the Dancing Jew herself. At least you could decide if it has any relevance at all.'
'I'm not sure if that would be appropriate.'
'Why not?'
I had absolutely no idea. Apart from the fact that I don't particularly like talking to strangers. And I especially don't like talking to old people. I don't like having to shout to be heard. I don't like their turned milk and soft biscuits. I don't like their fishy cats and Youth Dew perfume that smells of mothballs. I don't like that they groan every time they sit down or stand up, or how loud they have the television and how much they complain about what's on the television or how they boast about having their own teeth or why I should be interested in the fact that they can still spell when they're eighty-nine years old. I'm with the Eskimos putting their useless grandparents on ice floes and waving goodbye. This may be a monstrous slander on Eskimos. It could just as easily be some other tribe with access to large bodies of ice, or just plain water, with crocodiles.
But I couldn't tell Alison any of this, obviously.
'It might be a mistake to indulge his fantasies.'
'But what if they're not? I mean, even paranoids have enemies.'
A fair point. I had hundreds of them.
'Besides, I'd like to meet her.'
'Why?'
'Because she sounds inspirational. And maybe I could write a graphic novel about her life.'
'I thought you didn't call them graphic—'
'Oh, I was only winding that wanker up. Did you ever read Maus?'
'Mouse? Is it like a murder mystery? That's my field of expertise . . .'
'Six million murders, no mystery. Maus, it's a graphic novel by Art Spiegelman. It's incredible. It's all about Auschwitz. Except instead of human beings he draws the Jews as mice and the Nazis as cats.'
'Really? Are there any dancing mice?'
She smiled. 'It's better than it sounds. Really moving. I'll lend it to you.'
I liked the sound of that.
I liked the thought of us.
It was like sewing one piece of material to another. They're quite separate, but gradually you build the connection until eventually they're inseparable.
Of course it was by no means a foregone conclusion that we would end up together. I would have to tread a careful path through the realities of my life; as long as I kept Alison on that path she wouldn't need to know about the perilous swamps that lay on either side of it.
I paid for the coffee. She looked impressed, although slightly less so when I insisted on waiting eight minutes while they worked out how to fit a new roll of receipts to the till.
17
On the walk back down towards No Alibis Alison said: 'What if, while we were sucking cinnamon dolce frappuccinos, a Nazi hit man broke into the shop and assassinated Daniel Trevor? What if his brains are sprayed all over your painting of Columbo?'
I smiled indulgently. I was just pleased she'd noticed the painting of Columbo. It really hadn't been there for that long. The artist is quite well known and it would have cost me in the region of £4,000 if I'd actually been foolish enough to commission it, but he'd done it for free (albeit after some serious hinting) in gratitude for me solving The Case of the Vanishing Easel.
We were almost at the shop door when Alison stopped and looked thoughtfully at the former premises of Malcolm Carlyle, Private Eye. The big yellow letters were smattered with grime; the pull-down metal shutters were plastered with fly posters. There is nothing as sad as an abandoned business. If you write a poem and it doesn't work, nobody knows. If you design a hat and it doesn't fit, nobody cares. If you open a business and it fails, it just sits there shouting, I'm no good, I'm useless, I hadn't a clue, sometimes for months and years. It's part of the reason I keep battling away with No Alibis. I refuse to fail.
'Do you think you've been ignoring the bigger picture?' Alison asked suddenly.
'How do you mean?'
'All these little bitty cases you've been solving . . . ?'
'They aren't bitty to me . . .'
'Don't get defensive. I just mean they're not earth-shatteringly important, are they? They're about trousers, and vandalism, and missing plants and that one about the rat . . .'
'I said cat.'
'You know what I mean. Haven't you asked yourself what these little cases have in common?'
I looked at her. 'No.'
'They're all connected to this guy Malcolm Carlyle, Private Eye.'
'Well I know that.'
'But is he not the real mystery here?'
'No. He went bust and then got offside so he wouldn't have to deal with the fallout. That's not a mystery, it's normal business practice.'
'That's what you think happened. Tell me this, how many of his customers have you had in asking about him?'
'Dozens by now.'
'Does that sound like a business in trouble?'
'Well, no. But what does it matter why he closed? Maybe he was fed up with itty-bitty crimes.'
'Because it was so sudden. Overnight. We arrived for work one day, and he didn't. His shutters never went up. I saw it, you saw it. He was in our shop the day before, just chatting, but not a peep out of him about closing down.'
'Maybe he didn't want to say my business is a flop and I'm going to leave all my customers in the lurch.'
'But nobody ever came and cleared it out, I never saw the furniture go or filing cabinets, and to this day there's been nobody looking round it wanting to open a different business, there's been no for-sale sign. And this is prime retail. Don't you think that's strange?'
I stared at her. Who did she think she was? She sold bangles, and by all accounts – Jeff's, in fact, although he may have had a chip on his shoulder – not very good ones.
>
But there was no stopping her.
'Maybe the big mystery, the mystery you were born to solve, is right next door to you. What really happened to Malcolm Carlyle? Why did he close so suddenly? Where did he go?'
'Yes,' I said, 'it's certainly a big mystery.'
I admired her passion, but passion can be misplaced. Maybe she was deciding that as well. I studied the footpath and its patterns. I liked her immensely, but I would not be railroaded into something that wasn't me.
'To tell you the truth,' I said, 'I kind of prefer the itty-bitty crimes. They're like little animated crossword puzzles. They take a couple of hours, they focus the mind, they make the day go a little quicker and there's like this nice feeling of satisfaction when you solve them. Then they're out of your mind and you look forward to the next one. Nobody gets hurt, what's right and what's wrong is pretty clear. These crimes are at my level. I don't like bigger pictures. I'm not interested in panoramas, I'm fascinated by small portraits. That's why I'm not interested in what Daniel Trevor thinks is happening in Germany, and why I can't get excited about what may or may not have caused Malcolm Carlyle to close up shop and disappear.'
'God,' Alison said, 'where did all that come from?'
I shrugged.
'Did anyone ever tell you you were very intense?'
'Yes. Sorry.'
'Don't apologise. I like a man who knows what he wants. Even if he's wrong.'
'What do you mean, even if he's wrong?'
'Stalin was wrong, but he was absolutely convinced he was right.'
'What? Are you comparing me to Stalin?'
'Absolutely not. He led hundreds of millions of people. You lead an idiot boy. He looked at the bigger picture and reshaped the world. You like small portraits and, well . . . You have nothing but the courage of your convictions in common.'
I studied her. 'Are you serious?'
She studied me.
Then she burst out laughing. 'No!' She gave me a friendly but nevertheless painful dig in the arm. 'I think the problem is that you're dying to take on a major case, but now that you've met me you just don't want to expose me to danger. And that is sweet. But I'm much tougher than I look. You have to be if you work in a women-only jeweller's, because there's hardly a month goes past without some pissed-up Spiderman staggering in and trying to grab a tray of earrings.' She held up her elfin hands. 'I could kill you with one blow.'
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