by Sean Cameron
Rex wobbled forward. “Getting, not got. It’s a process.”
“You’re drunk.”
“It’s all part of the process.”
“How’s that?”
Rex pointed to Laing. “He’s drunk too.”
Eddie’s eyes flashed. “Wait, this could work. He’s at a disadvantage, he might let something slip.”
After introductions, where Rex christened Eddie with the undercover name Eddie, the three drank and talked.
“So, Rex says you wrote for TV.”
“He does. How does he know that?”
“You told me, a minute ago,” Rex said.
“I did.” Laing held the drink up to his face. “How much have I had to drink?” He shrugged and took another sip. Rex tipped Laing’s glass higher to pour more down the man’s throat.
Rex looked over his glasses. “You were talking about that Derek Lawrence man.”
“On no, I am drunk. I don’t like to talk about him. Whole thing left a nasty taste in my mouth.”
Rex nodded. “Made you mad, did it? Vengeful perhaps?”
Eddie kicked Rex in the shin.
“What do you do now?” Eddie said.
“I own a software company. I just collect the cheques, but the company makes accounting software.”
“That reminds me, Eddie, we’re gonna need to talk expenses later.” Rex pointed at the many empty glasses on the table.
“What accounting software?”
“Oh it’s too dull to talk about.”
“Dull, aye?” Rex said. “Where do you get your thrills from?”
Eddie kicked him again. “Sorry? He’s being weird. So, why’d you get out of TV?”
“Derek Lawrence,” Rex said. “Duh.”
“How’d you know that?” Laing said.
Eddie kicked a third time.
Laing winched. “Ouch.”
“Sorry.” Eddie tried again, this time he got Rex in the shin.
“Owww.”
Laing wagged a finger at Eddie. “What are you playing at?”
“Uh, I’ve got Tourette's of the foot. Every now and then my leg spasms out like that. I can’t control myself.”
Rex glanced under the table. “Is that how you lost a shoe?”
“I’ve never heard of it,” Laing said.
“Yes, well, that’s the way diseases are, aren’t they? You never really hear about one until a celebrity gets diagnosed.”
Rex nodded, satisfied with the answer. Laing raised an eyebrow with scepticism.
Eddie sipped his orange juice. “You were talking about Derek Lawrence.”
“Was I? That piece of work. He drove my show into the ground.”
“And that made you mad?” Eddie asked.
“Yeah, I care about original stories. He was a rip-off merchant.”
“You were producing partners though?”
“I didn’t tell you that.”
“Uh, you mentioned it earlier.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“He did, didn’t he, Rex?” Rex’s eyes darted between Eddie and Laing. His conflict induced fear-freezing kicked in once again. “Rex?”
“This is between you guys.”
“What is this?” Laing said.
“What’s what?”
“I see what’s going on here.”
“Uh, you do?”
“You’re from that bloody message board, aren’t you? As I told the last fan, I don’t like to talk about Derek Lawrence. I’ve moved on. I don’t care about the show. And I don’t know what the characters would be up to today, but if you must know, half of them would probably be dead by now.”
Eddie nudged Rex and smiled. “That’s what I said.”
Rex snapped out of his frozen state. “Now that Lawrence is dead, do you regret the way things turned out?”
“I only regret one thing, saying yes to working with the git. That man knew nothing about character. He was a journo who got lucky when the rights to his book were picked up. He wasn’t a fiction writer. That’s why he never worked again. Because he couldn’t come up with an original story. He just read the newspaper and stole from it.”
“You still seem pretty mad about it,” Eddie said.
“What are you getting at?”
“Did you kill Derek Lawrence?” Rex said.
“Rex!”
“Where were you on the night of October twenty-eighth?”
“Stop talking, Rex,” Eddie begged.
Laing stared at the pair. His face emotionless. He took a slow sip of his drink. He grinned and let out a chuckle. Rex chuckled with him. Laing’s reaction turned into a belly laugh. Rex joined in. Their laughter escalated until they both cried. They laughed for so long, Eddie squirmed at the idea they were laughing at him.
Laing stood up. “You boys ask some weird questions. I’m gonna take a potty break.” He wobbled to the men’s room as his laugh calmed down.
Eddie leaned in. “What’s funny?”
“I don’t know,” Rex said in a panic. “I was laughing because he was laughing.”
“This is a dead end. Laing’s got no motive for killing Lawrence. He’s moved on. What a waste of time.”
Rex finished his beer and let out a burp.
“And a waste of money,” Eddie said.
The bar bell rang. “Time gentleman, please,” called the landlord.
“You paid yet?”
“No, they said we could pay at the end. I love country folk.”
“Let’s go.”
“Leave? But John—”
Eddie grabbed Rex’s shoulder. “Can afford it.”
As Laing left the men’s room he saw Rex and Eddie pass by.
“Leg it,” Eddie shouted.
“Bye John,” Rex said as Eddie pulled him through the door.
***
In the morning, Eddie picked up Rex, and they drove to the office.
“I’ve been thinking about what Laing said.”
“Eddie, I really think the message board doesn’t want to know about the characters being dead.”
“Not that. He said Lawrence based his stories on what he read in the newspaper. If we get our hands on what he was writing when he died, we could find out what he was involved in, and possibly a motive.”
“You think someone killed him for writing about them?”
“Maybe. The only problem is, I don’t know how to get our hands on what he wrote.”
Rex’s eyes lit up. “The filing cabinet in our office.”
“We had his writing and you didn’t say anything?”
“I said, what do you want me to do with all this paper, and you said chuck it.”
Eddie tightened his grip on the steering wheel. “You threw it out?”
“No.”
“Thank God.”
“I got Harold the cleaner to do it.”
Eddie put his foot down, which gave the car just enough oomph to speed up a few extra miles per hour. They rushed into the office and pulled the filing cabinet’s top draw open. A lone pencil rolled to the front. All four draws were empty.
Eddie stared at Rex. “Guess someone’s gonna have to go through the wheelie bin.”
***
The wheelie bin was full of used packages, papers, Styrofoam cups, and rotten food. Rex jumped right in without hesitation and searched for Lawrence’s papers. Each time he swirled the contents around, he’d release new smells.
Eddie held out a black bin bag as Rex pulled stacks of papers from the mess and chucked them into the bag. Harold wandered out the office building and lit a cigarette. He noticed Eddie standing with the open bin bag.
“What the bleedin’ hell are you doing?”
Eddie forced a smile. “Uh, nothing.”
Rex popped out of the wheelie bin and dropped another load of papers. The weight of the documents blew the bag’s smelly air into Eddie’s face.
“That took me ages,” Harold said.
“I’m sorry. We made a mistake,” Eddie said.
/> “You’re gonna get me in trouble climbing around in that wheelie bin.”
“Again, I’m sorry. How’d you carry all the papers down?” Eddie said.
“I loaded up my wheelbarrow and rolled it down the stairs.”
“I couldn’t borrow your wheelbarrow could I?
“Nope. I left it at home, but you can have me last bin liner.”
“Uh, this is your last bin liner.”
“Bleedin’ cheek.”
“Sorry.”
After Rex filled the bag, Eddie carried it up to the office and poured the paper on the floor. Eddie dumped the third round of papers as the sound of a reversing lorry grew louder. Out the window, Eddie saw the bin men had come to empty the wheelie bin. As their lorry beeped towards the bin Eddie worried about Rex’s habit of freezing in troublesome situations. In a panic, he pulled on the window to shout out, but it was still stuck. He raced down the stairs. As he exited the back of the building the lorry’s hoist clung to the sides of the wheelie bin.
“Stop!”
They couldn’t hear Eddie as the lorry rumbled and beeped. He ran to the nearest bin man, but the man didn’t hear anything with his ear protectors on. Eddie jumped and waved. The bin man had seen his fair share of nutters and waddled away unfazed. Eddie grabbed the bin man’s collar; at that point Eddie realised just how tall the bin man was. He hadn’t planned any further than grabbing the collar. Before he came up with a decent idea, the bin man shoved him back. Eddie flew four-foot before he hit the concrete.
On his arse, Eddie screamed as the lorry’s hoist lifted the wheelie bin. It rained bin bags, soiled cardboard and empty paper cups so fast he thought he saw Rex fall, but couldn’t be sure.
Eddie jumped up, shoved past the bin man, and rushed to the compactor button. With a clank and thunk the Lorry’s compactor crushed down. He was too late. Eddie got to the end of the truck and watched in horror while the lorry squashed its insides.
“Eddie,” a happy voice called out. “They let me push the button.” Eddie turned his head and a delighted Rex waved from the compactor button. The rest of the papers were tucked under his arm.
Eddie turned read. “I’m gonna kill you, you stupid bastard.” The bin men gathered around Rex with their arms folded like he was part of their posse. Eddie backed away with his arms in the air.
Rex smiled. “It’s OK. We’re best friends.”
The bin men calmed down and shook Eddie’s hand as a sign of peace. When Eddie got back in the office, he washed his hands three times before the smell disappeared, and twice more before he was satisfied.
***
“This is it,” Rex said. “This is the story we’ve been looking for.”
After shuffling papers all day, they’d only read a third of Derek Lawrence’s stories. Eddie took the paper and scanned it.
“The young boy snatched the VHS tape and ran out the shop,” Eddie read. “A shoplifter? Not quite murder level revenge. It’s maybe enough to warrant a strongly worded letter.”
“Fine.” Rex chucked the story into what he’d dubbed "The Nope Pile.”
Eddie sprayed air freshener around the office. The papers had been in the wheelie bin long enough to ferment in the juices and filth of everything else thrown in there. Unable to open the window, they took hourly breaks from the smell to spray half a bottle of Lavender Meadow.
Eddie picked up a scruff of a letter. Dear Derek Lawrence, thank you for your most recent writing submission, The Chukka Boot Killer. We would be interested in representing you and your novel.
“This is promising. Rex, we’re searching for anything with the words Chukka Boot Killer. The story got him an agent nine months ago. If he was close to publishing a real case, then that could have earned him an enemy.”
Four more hours and a Chinese takeout later, the pair found pages to Lawrence’s Chukka Boot Killer manuscript.
Eddie read an excerpt aloud, “The Chukka Boot Killer wrapped his leather glove around the brass door handle. After a slow twist, he shoved the door wide open. In a second, he fired his bullet and the accountant died at his desk. Not a second to see his killer, not a moment for his life to flash by”
“What’s a chukka boot?” Rex said. He typed it into the search engine and pressed enter. “The chukka boot is a desert boot usually made of suede.”
Eddie stood over Rex’s shoulder. “Search Chukka Boot Killer.”
“It says here there is a gangster named Terry Palmer who made a name for himself in the late seventies. He was known for wearing his chukka boots.”
“Did he ever visit Cloisterham?”
“He’s from Cloisterham.” Rex read aloud, “He’s a brutally violent man who hammers nails into his victims because bullets killed them too quickly. Ah crap. That’s not how Derek Lawrence was killed.”
“No, but if he wanted to get away with it he’d kill in a different way.”
“Oh yeah. This is excellent.”
“I’ll stick with crap. This isn’t someone we want to get on the wrong side of.”
“Chill out, Eddie. This is the best news we’ve had all day.”
Eddie took over the mouse and scrolled through the information. “He has an autobiography, but I doubt he wrote a confession in it.”
The door knocked, putting Rex and Eddie on edge. Harold poked his head in.
“Come to empty your bins.”
He surveyed the wet and stained papers covering the floor. The only spot free of soggy paper was the empty waste paper basket.
Eddie lowered his head in shame. “We’re good thanks.” Harold flared his nostrils as he closed the door.
Rex hurried to the doorway. “Harold? Do you know anything about Terry Palmer?”
***
Harold leaned back into their office chair. Rex and Eddie sat on the floor with their legs crossed.
“Bootsy, they call him. He’s a horrible bastard. You’ll never see him without those boots. I was told he even wore them at his wedding. Top hat, coat tails and chukka boots. The only time Palmer was caught without his boots was when he was caught with not much else.”
Rex’s eyebrows lifted. “He was naked?”
“The police found him walking down East Cloisterham High Street in nothing but his boxer briefs. They wanted a word with him because his brother Danny was murdered that night. Shot in the back of the head while working through his accounts.”
“He was his accountant?” Rex asked.
“Business partner. Terry did the crimes, and Danny funnelled the dirty money into legitimate businesses. So the rumours go.”
“Sorry,” Eddie said. “Why was he in just his underwear?”
“It was such a mess the killer would have been covered in Danny Palmer’s blood. They had footprints in the blood too. Just needed to find the boots."
“Like Cinderella?” Rex said.
“Bootsy walked away from it all. Since they found him without clothes or boots they had nothing on him.”
Rex nudged Eddie. “Literally.”
“Why would he kill his brother? He’d lose his ability to move his money?”
“They went legit. Danny invested in an African diamond mine for them, and they were set. With Danny gone, Terry became the sole owner.”
“What a bastard,” Rex said.
“I told you, didn’t I?”
“Not one witness saw Palmer covered in blood?” Eddie said.
“His wife was his alibi. Said they’d got in an argument in bed, and he was kicked out before he could put his trousers on. Police asked him where he was going, and he told them he was off to the pub.”
“What did you know about Derek Lawrence?”
“Quiet man. He was divorced, I think. He was here every day seven a.m. to seven p.m. Twenty years.”
“Every day?” Eddie said.
“Every day.”
“Even Christmas?” Rex said.
“Every bleedin’ day. I’d empty his bin on Christmas Eve, and it would be full of paper Box
ing Day morning.”
“Did his daughter ever come by?”
“I never met her. This was his Shangri-La.”
Eddie gave the damp stained walls a once-over. “Some Shangri-La.”
“You boys detectives then?”
“Kind of.”
“Yes,” Rex cut Eddie off. “We are.”
“You’re not police though?”
Rex grinned. “We’re private detectives.”
“You going to solve the Danny Palmer murder are you?”
“I guess so,” Rex said.
“No, we’re just collecting some information on Derek Lawrence’s death.”
“Come on Eddie, it'll be good for business. Two murders are better than one.”
“You reckon Terry Palmer offed Lawrence, do yah?” Harold let out a raspy laugh. “They didn’t exactly hang out in the same circles.”
“Lawrence must have had something on him. We found one page of a manuscript about a killer with boots.”
“You boys’d be better off dumping these papers and getting another case. A lost bicycle, something like that seems more like your cup of tea.”
“We’ve got one more question,” Rex said.
Eddie knew Rex’s question and shook his head. “No, we don’t.”
“Where were you on the night of October twenty-eighth?”
Harold shook his head and walked himself out. “What a bleedin’ sorry pair you are.”
Eddie stood up. “We need to gather every page on Palmer. Lawrence knew something that spooked him. We just need to find it. You start going through the papers for anything supporting our theory. I’ll order a pizza.”
“Pizza and Chinese food? On the same day?” Rex smiled wide enough to flash his teeth.
“Yeah, let’s treat ourselves. At this rate, we’ll have our five grand tomorrow.”
***
Eddie awoke rejuvenated. He gave the Morris Minor a full tank of petrol and headed to The Octagon’s shoe shop. He peered through the shop glass to check Melinda was there and strutted inside.
Melinda gave a forced smile. “Eddie. How are you?”
“I’m looking for new shoes.”
“Please, you can’t check up on me like this.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m here for shoes.”
“It’s just, I heard you got fired and I don’t want you to blow your money on buying shoes to see me.”
“This is strictly professional Melinda. If you can’t keep your feelings for me separate, I guess I’ll get my footwear from somewhere else.”
