Headcase

by Peter Helton

  “Well, I’m not sure. I already told the police all I know. Which is nothing, really.”

  “Perhaps I’ll be asking different questions,” I suggested hopefully.

  “That may be, Mr…” she consulted the card, “Honeysett, but I’ll still know very little. Oh all right, five minutes,” she relented. “I thought the whole thing was dead and buried, if you’ll excuse the expression.” I decided I wouldn’t. She led me into a small reception room at the front, an off-the-peg Louis XIV reproduction nightmare. The dog still yapped incessantly but was never told to shut up. “That place should never have been allowed to open here in the first place. In a residential area right next to us. Without proper consultation. Well, they’ve seen the light now, haven’t they? But it took a murder before they came to their senses. We knew something dreadful would happen there. Eight years. For eight years we lived in fear. Who’ll compensate us for that?”

  I made a sympathetic noise which was misunderstood by yappy thing, who started growling at me. Did she remember anything unusual about the day, prior to the arrival of the police?

  Well, there was the power cut. Did I know about the power cut? “Incompetents. I rang the electricity board immediately and they were most unhelpful. They had no idea how long it would take to reconnect. My husband likes to fish,” she added enigmatically, her brow furrowed with anguish. “And bring his catch home. The hunter-gatherer instinct of the male, I suppose. There’s enough fish in the freezer for a year of Fridays. I was hoping the power would stay off long enough to spoil it, but it didn’t. It came on again exactly an hour later.”

  The stupid warning had paid off. The penny dropped as noisily as a fridge freezer into an empty skip. “Precisely when did it go off?”

  “At noon. I know because I had just turned on the telly to watch Bargain Hunt, the antiques show. That’s when it went. I forgot to turn the telly off and when the power came back it started up with the one o’clock news, gave me quite a start that. Not nearly enough to spoil the trout,” she added with a sad little shake of her head. She consulted her delicate wristwatch and rose, so did I. Yappy thing went into another barking frenzy. “I’m afraid that’s all the time I can give you. Would you care to take some home with you?”

  “You mean…”

  “Yes, fish. You’d be doing me a favour,” she said invitingly.

  “Actually, I’m not that keen on fish,” I lied easily. “Perhaps you could get a cat,” I suggested as I slipped out of the front door.

  I lost the tie and flung the jacket on the back seat of the car. My dropping penny and Roy’s Guinness had given me quite an appetite. If I hurried, Clive’s kitchen at the Bathtub might still be open for business.

  When I got there every table was taken and more people arrived at the same time as myself, looking for a late lunch. I hovered for a moment until I spotted two elderly ladies fussing over change for a tip. I practically slipped under them as they vacated their chairs in a cloud of flowery perfume. I rearranged the remains of their meal into a carriable pile and put on my hungry face.

  “You look marginally better than the last time I saw you.” Clive had come to collect the empty dishes himself.

  “Cheers, Clive,” I said, then realized he meant the scratch I’d got the first time I got clobbered by Eely. That seemed a lifetime ago now. I had no intention of telling him about my latest mishaps and thus delaying the arrival of my meal. “Thai fishcakes?”

  “Sold out.”

  “Lamb rissoles?”

  “Ditto.”

  “Venison sausages?”

  “Wrong season.”

  “Then whaddayagot?”

  “Everything else. Try the grilled sardines. Fresh from Cornwall.”

  “My favourite place. And a Stella.”

  Clive shook his head gravely. “We don’t keep it anymore.”

  “You what!?” My universe began to tilt. “What brought that on?”

  “It’s euro-piss, that’s what. You’ve been drinking it for so long you no longer notice it actually tastes of nothing. I’ll bring you a real beer. You won’t complain, I can practically guarantee it.” He vanished towards the kitchen.

  I lit my last Camel to bridge the gap. What exactly did Stella taste like? Strange, hard as I tried, I simply couldn’t remember. Had I been affected by too many bumps on the head? I searched my brain for the memory of other tastes. Sardines taste fishy and oily and of the sea. Venison? Darkly satisfying and foresty. Roast pork? Moist and crackly and crying for mustard. No problems there. But Stella…?

  Clive presented me with a tall, thin stemmed glass and a bottle of beer as though he was serving a hundred-year-old brandy.

  The bottle was green and huge and beaded with condensation. “Pilsner Urquell.” He poured me a frothy glass of the stuff with a practised flourish, then crossed his arms in front of him and waited. I sniffed it. Clive sighed and rolled his eyes. I took a brave gulp. It was cool, sharp and mellow at the same time. It had a clean taste of hops and reminded me of hot afternoons in the mountains.

  Clive didn’t even wait for my verdict. “Told ya. Food’s on its way.”

  The sardines weren’t half bad either.

  Afternoon was slipping into early evening as I cruised aimlessly along the inane one-way systems of the city, round and round the Guildhall, Orange Grove, up narrow Broad Street, reputedly the most polluted stretch of road in the West. The Western World, that is. I let the traffic flow carry me along while I kept an eye on the pavements, alleys and doorways. My patience had finally run out with Matt, who was supposed to be looking for Gavin and Lisa for me. If I was to have a decent showdown with Gordon Hines on Tuesday then I needed all the ammunition I could get. I’d already checked on Matt’s flat in Phoenix House and had found nothing but a kicked-in door and a girl with dreadlocks and other encrustations, who’d never even heard of him. So it stood to reason that he was still on the street, or at his fabulous hideaway: shelter, food, water but no toilet, he’d said. No one was going to find him there…I just couldn’t work it out. No stupid warning either. I was racking my brains about the curious combination but got thrown by the lack of a toilet in the arrangement every time. A food warehouse? Surely they’d have to have a bog? The cellar of a restaurant? A secret chamber in the covered market? My speculations became more fantastic by the minute.

  I cruised through the park, down Royal Avenue, past the public tennis courts and was filtering back into the flow of traffic around Queen Square when I decided that it was a pointless exercise. The chances of spotting him like this had to be minimal. I took a perfunctory trip down Milsom Street. I would have to talk to a lot of street people, Big Issue sellers, street traders, in other words, foot slog. But not today, thank you. I swung left and right again, into Walcot Street, where I joined the slow procession of drivers trying to leave the city behind. I was crawling along at 3 mph, something the DS doesn’t enjoy, when I drew up to another thorn in my side: Austin Antiques.

  I hadn’t decided what to do about Mr Austin yet. It was tricky. He was obviously right at the heart of the art racket Leonard Dufossee had got involved in and should be taken down a peg or two, yet at the same time I wanted to keep Alison out of trouble. Then the matter decided itself. As I drew level with Austin’s shop I spotted Fishers, his silent partner, outside discussing some item in the window with a youngish couple who nodded and shook their heads in unison. The man who didn’t know anything about antiques. Must be a fast learner. It was an opportunity too good to miss, since we didn’t have an address for Fishers and the phone book had been less than useless. I caused even more road chaos by forcing my way across into Walcot Gate and abandoning the car in front of the chapel. By the time I hurried back down the road the couple had finished their business and were walking towards me. I nearly ignored them, then changed my mind and stopped.

  “I just saw you at the antiques shop, having a chat with Mr Fishers…” I started.

  “Fishers? That was Mr Austin, the owner.
I don’t know any Mr Fishers,” he said. The young woman on his arm made to pull him away. Mum probably told her never to talk to strangers. I quickly explained that I had some antiques to be valued. Could they recommend their expertise? They thought they could, having bought several pieces of small furniture from Austin. And they were sure the man they’d just talked to was Mr Austin? They gave me another suspicious look, said they were, and pushed off, convinced they had escaped the clutches of a prize flutter. I called Mill House on my mobile. After an age and a half Annis answered.

  “Is Alison around?” I asked.

  “She’s in the kitchen, hang on.”

  “Just ask her what Austin looks like.”

  “Hey Ali,” Annis shouted, “Chris wants to know what Austin looks like.” A pause. “Tall, skinny, naff little beard, ear glued to a mobile. That do you?”

  I said it did.

  “Of course under no circumstances tell me what you’re up to,” Annis warned.

  “I’m not sure myself. You remember Mr Fishers, Austin’s partner, asking us to check him out?”

  “Ages ago. Tim installed pinholes and all that?”

  “S’right. Only it looks like Fishers and Austin are the same person. In other words…”

  “Austin used Aqua to check how safe his set-up in Walcot Street really was and concocted a cover story to make it look quite harmless.”

  “No secret is safe in a town like Bath. He should have brought someone in from Bristol, the lazy sod.”

  “Are you going after him? I had wondered when you’d get around to that.”

  I hesitated for a moment, realizing that I didn’t have a plan at all. “I thought I might just hang around a bit.”

  “Spoken like a true professional,” she said and hung up.

  I’d never heard of an antiques dealer who went in for late night opening, or one who started work before ten thirty for that matter, so I didn’t expect to wait long for Austin to leave. And I was right. After just twenty minutes or so of loitering inside the front entrance of the Bell I saw Austin/ Fishers lock up shop. He glanced up and down the road still choked with traffic, and set off on foot towards the London Road roundabout, carrying a light grey jacket over his arm. He stopped briefly to key in a number on his mobile, then clamped it to his ear and walked on.

  It was one of those awkward decisions you always have to make when you do surveillance by yourself. Do you go for your car and risk losing the target or do you follow on foot until your target hops into a car, leaving you behind?

  Walking at some distance behind him I made the right decision for once: at Walcot Gate I just stood and followed him with my eyes. Only thirty-odd yards ahead he pointed a key at a massive silver Lexus, which sprang to life with a flash of its indicators and that annoying “euch”-sound car designers seem to love. I legged it down to my car, which didn’t say “euch” or anything else when I yanked the door open. A hectic three-point turn later I pointed the nose of the DS into the traffic. I was in luck. Austin’s car was facing downhill and as yet no one had let him do his intended U-turn. I bullied myself into the middle of the road, waved my arm out of the window and was rewarded with a slot in the procession. Then I personally flashed my lights at Austin to let him into the queue inching up towards the London Road. He acknowledged my supposed kindness without a flicker of recognition.

  I really have to get one of those boring, nondescript, forgettable cars, a Ford something or Vauxhall other, to follow people around in. Tim had been pestering me for a big van with spyholes for cameras, chemical toilet and fridge (naturally), where he can keep banks of electronic gizmos and pretend he’s working for MI5. I was warming to the idea.

  Meanwhile I tried to look bored or keep my head down, pretending to look for things in my glove box. Austin set his indicators left, which meant the Paragon. We both squeezed around the sharp turn. Traffic going east was practically stationary and stacked ten cars high up Guinea Lane. I hung back a bit, a bit too much as it turned out — Austin just caught the lights as he turned up into Lansdown and I had to run a very red light to a chorus of angry horns.

  So much for staying inconspicuous. But now I had somehow acquired a minibus in front of me, which was fine until it stopped and I had to make myself skinny and squeeze past in the middle of the road. I was not making friends here either.

  Along Julian Road I let his car slip ahead, then put the pedal down as he turned into St James Street. We were in Tim’s neighbourhood now. Austin exited St James Square at the top right as I entered it, and turned left again. He was parking his car outside a black-fronted garage on the left by the time I turned into Park Street Mews, so I drove past without looking and turned right on to the steep hill of Park Street itself. Two solid rows of cars parked on either side and a dead end to boot. I simply abandoned the car right there, blocking the entire road, and walked back down to peer around the corner. Austin had just shut the boot of the car, which closed with a luxurious clonk. Cradling a small cardboard box in the crook of his left arm he opened one half of the wooden garage door and disappeared inside. I watched a light click on, then off again. Austin reappeared minus the box, locked the garage, then got back in the car. He laboriously shunted back and forth until the Lexus was no more than five inches or so from the garage door, making it impossible to open. Lastly he fixed a bright yellow steering lock and got out. Another “euch” as he abandoned the car and walked up towards me. If he didn’t spot me now he had to be visually impaired — the DS in the middle of the road and nowhere to go for me. For a split second I considered pretending to wait to be let into the first door I came to but changed my mind and simply ducked behind a car. Across the street a bloke with shopping bags gave me a curious look but kindly decided it was none of his business.

  As it turned out, ducking behind the car had been a good decision: the front door I’d so nearly pretended to wait in front of turned out to be the one Austin unlocked and disappeared into.

  I groaned. This wasn’t surveillance, it was Cowboys and Indians. There was no telling whether I’d got away with it until later. And what was I finding out here? That he had expensive-looking, olive green wallpaper and a small chandelier in his front room and a lot of period furniture, as you’d expect from an antiques dealer, even a crooked one. I ducked down deeper as Austin came to the curtain-less windows to start fiddling with the wooden shutters. Just then a young bloke in a tracksuit walked up to the car I was hiding behind and coughed. I looked up. He jangled his car keys at me. “Do you mind?” Austin was still by the window. Feeling like a complete prat I waddled on my haunches like an elderly duck until I’d gained the shelter of the next car along. The bloke never took his eyes off me while he got in, started his engine and reversed down the hill. I made some quacking noises and flapped my elbows at him but it failed to cheer me up. Until I realized what I had learned about Mr Austin-Fishers, which was: he liked to park his seriously expensive, executive hearse on the street, in front of his garage. Which made me hope that perhaps whatever was inside it was worth more than his spanking new Lexus.

  “He parks his car so as to block access to his garage at night. We stake him out and wait until he goes out at night in his car. Then we raid the place.”

  It was lunchtime the next day and Tim and I were popping moules mariniere into our mouths in a lazy rhythm, at the window table in the Bathtub. We were on our second round of Urquells.

  “Bollocks to that, mate.” Tim threatened to tweak my nose with a pair of empty mussel shells. “He’ll pick up a Chinese takeaway and be back in five minutes, and then what? No, we’ll make him go out.”

  “What, throw a brick through his shop window and call the police? He’d have to come out then.”

  “Show some finesse, will you? We’ll send him a couple of complimentary tickets to some hideously expensive do, where turning up in a Lexus is de rigueur, with a Bath City Council letter accompanying it, saying stuff about valued members of the local business community blah blah, opportunit
y for exchange of ideas with like-minded upstanding etc. etc. I’ll run it up on my computer, no sweat. He’ll go. I’ve done it loads of times. If they leave in evening dress you know you can clean them out at their leisure. Leave it to me. But it’ll cost ya.”

  Tim was right, on both counts. It cost Aqua a small fortune but on Saturday night, from Tim’s TT, parked earlier near the Approach Golf Course in Park Place, we could just see Austin gently guide a familiar-looking blonde, in a sparkly blue dress and delicate heels, to his car. It was Gill, my very own BBC location finder. I was only mildly surprised. Perhaps it was inevitable they’d eventually join forces so they didn’t have to fight each other over which houses to rip off.

  Austin, in full evening dress himself, pulled the car into the middle of the road, then did the gentlemanly kerfuffle with the doors before driving off to their literary dinner at Stour Head, courtesy of Aqua.

  “Wait five minutes, in case he’s forgotten his handkerchief.” Tim was supremely calm about the whole thing while I chain smoked out of the window. I suppose the fact that he’s never been caught makes him feel invulnerable. I myself wasn’t so sure. If the police did turn up we could (perhaps, eventually) explain that we were on the side of the angels, but only just. And only after an awfully uncomfortable wait in the bowels of Manvers Street station. “Right, let’s do it,” he said after a few more minutes. “I’ll walk up, you get the Land Rover.” I had filched Annis’s wreck for the occasion, so we could simply load up and drive off.

  By the time I had manoeuvred the brute in front of the garage Tim had the lock open. We slipped in and closed the door behind us. “Lights or torches?” I asked in the darkness.