by Gill Paul
I didn’t feel qualified to answer that question. I had no babies, furry or otherwise, and had no idea if it was normal to fit them with spy satellites or not. It did, however, seem to be what we in the trade call ‘A Clue.’
‘You’re 100 per cent positive he’s not still here, trapped somewhere, or hiding? I mean, he does look … well, petite?’
In fact, Cupid looked like a rat that had dropped some poppers and run into a brick wall. But it seemed indelicate to phrase it like that, and one of Harley’s eyelashes was already dropping off.
‘Certain, Miss McCartney,’ replied Dorothy. ‘We’ve torn the place apart – all the staff have helped, even the customers. He’s not here – whoever took him must have somehow hidden the collar, or disabled it somehow. Cupid is gone! How can we go on without him – how can we throw a party when our lives have ended!’
I raised an eyebrow in question.
‘The Love Boat. Tomorrow night. We do it every year for Valentine’s Day,’ said Harley through his sniffles. ‘Hire a ferry and go out onto the river. It’s a big event, and Cupid is always the guest of honour!’
I jumped to my feet. Things were about to get messy here, I could tell from the voice doing a dramatic Mariah Carey-style full-octave wobble.
‘I’ll need to talk to Billy,’ I said, grabbing my notebook and pen and shoving them back into my bag. I couldn’t wait to tell my best friend Tish about this. She would quite possibly wee herself laughing. It was the kind of story that needed to be delivered along with a multi-pack of Lady Tena.
‘He’s in the main bar,’ replied Dorothy, before burying his head in Harley’s dip-dyed hair extensions.
Chapter Three
The main bar looked like a crashpad for Dracula Prince of Darkness and his BFF, Malibu Barbie. Lots of dark red velvet, black wood, crystal vases and flowers. Pink flowers. Everywhere. I felt my nostrils wrinkle in response and stifled a sneeze.
The bar itself was long, dark, and garlanded with even more flowers. Behind it was a very tall, very broad, very handsome man. He had thick dark hair tied back in a loose pony, and vivid green eyes that met mine as I perched myself on a high-backed stool. He was beautiful, in a Pirates of the Caribbean kind of way – I could imagine him in a blouson shirt with frilly sleeves. In fact he was wearing a grubby paint-stained sweatshirt that said ‘Billy the Builder’ on it in block capitals.
‘Are you the private investigator?’ he asked, washing his hands in a sink behind the bar and drying them on a tea towel.
‘I am,’ I replied, introducing myself. ‘And I need to ask you a few questions about the day Cupid went missing.’
He nodded, and came round to sit beside me. I noticed that his fingernails were cracked, embedded with dirt and grunge, and wondered if I’d heard right when Dorothy said he was also one of the performers. Always one with the sneaky investigative techniques, I asked: ‘Did I hear right when Dorothy said you’re one of the performers?’
The club was officially called Francesca’s Friends, but was referred to by those wanting a cheap gag (this included me) as Franny by Asslights. It had a small raised stage where the performers showed off their many talents, and the bar itself was also often decorated with six-foot plus size supermodels with penises doing their own take on Coyote Ugly. It was actually a great night out.
Billy the Builder gave me a smile that could melt hearts, and nodded. He pulled out his phone, and opened the photo screen. He did the thumb-scroll thing until he found one he liked – and I have to admit it was a cracker. Very classy, as these things go – head to toe in a black tube dress, hair in a Fenella Fielding bob, make-up perfectly highlighting those killer eyes and cut-your-finger cheekbones. He was crooning into one of those old-fashioned Thirties-style microphones.
‘I’m Wilhelmina Wanderlust by night,’ he said, with an element of pride.
‘So,’ I replied, ‘you’re a cellar-man-slash-drag-queen-singer-slash … builder?’
‘Yep. I’m a man of many layers. You can unpeel some of them if you ask nicely.’
He flashed me a flirtatious smile and I almost fell off my barstool. Okay. That was unexpected. I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirrored wall behind the bar – brown hair, nice enough face, good smile. Not, though, what I’d have thought of as Wilhelmina Wanderlust’s style. Showed what I knew.
‘Have you been working today?’ I asked, nodding at the grimy nails. He glanced down at them, and rubbed them self-consciously against his sweatshirt.
‘Yeah. Been fitting some new storage units in the cellar. Needed a place to store all the feather boas and glass slippers. Anyway … Cupid. I took him for a run – well, more of a trot in his case really – about three in the afternoon. Down to the waterfront, Otterspool way. Then I brought him home, and last I saw he was snoring away in his basket. I swear he was fine. I feel bad, the girls are in pieces about it, but I honestly don’t know what happened.’
I nodded, pretending to make notes in my pad to make me look more intelligent.
‘Okay. Harley and Dorothy say the place has been searched. Is there anywhere you can think of he could be caught, or hiding? The cellar, maybe?’
‘No, we’ve emptied it out and filled it back up again looking for him. Loads of us helped out – no beer barrel left unturned, honest to God. The dog just isn’t here – you’re welcome to come and have a look round with me to check for yourself.’
I pondered for a moment. It was quite the locked door mystery, admittedly with a few twists and turns. Now, how would Hercule Poirot deal with it? I twirled my imaginary moustache, and asked: ‘What do you think, Billy? Could someone have taken him for a joke? Is he worth anything? Do Dorothy and Harley have any enemies that would do something like that to them?’
He thought about it, and tugged the sweatshirt over his head as he did. There was a tight T-shirt underneath that did little to hide a pretty impressive bod, and I was fairly sure he was deliberately flashing the flesh at me.
‘If I were you,’ he said, ‘I’d talk to the bloke who owns the pub over the road. Wade. He’s … what would you say? Attitude challenged?’
‘What, he doesn’t like the club?’
‘Or the clientele. He’s a bit too much in touch with his alpha male, if you know what I mean. Gets his boxers in a twist. He’s made complaints to the council about the hours we keep, deliberately blocks the delivery bay with his van. I think he’s taken photos of the customers, which never goes down well as you can imagine – some of them prefer their privacy. The lady doth protest too much in my opinion, but he’s definitely not a happy camper. I’m not saying he took Cupid. But I’m saying he doesn’t like us, and never tries to hide it.’
I jumped down off the bar stool and thanked him. It was as good a lead as any.
Chapter Four
The pub over the road was called the Napoleon. It was what my dad would have called a proper boozer. No red velvet, no zebra print, and definitely no pink flowers. It was just after midday when I walked in, and the activity of the day seemed to be scraping chewing gum from underneath the tables. The place smelled of spilled lager and the ghost of tobacco. My kind of joint.
‘Help you, love?’ said the man, presumably Wade, looking up from his scraping. I noticed a huge Rottweiler sitting by his feet, eyeing me cautiously, docked tail wriggling from side to side. It was massive. It was the anti-Cupid. I kept my distance, asked if he was the owner, and explained why I was there.
Wade straightened up and looked at me thoughtfully. He had a classic number one hairdo, a beer belly that showed he enjoyed his job, and a bulbous red nose that showed he enjoyed it a bit too much.
‘You’re fucking kidding me, right?’ he asked. ‘Do those glitterball twats think I stole their dog? Roger would eat that rat for breakfast and shit it straight out!’
I looked at Roger – the Rottie, I presumed – and decided he was probably right.
‘Nobody’s accusing you of that, Wade,’ I replied, not wanting to provoke a hate cr
ime with my blundering. ‘I’m only asking if you saw anything. You’re just over the road and all. Did you see or hear anything? Anything suspicious at all?’
‘What?’ he said, smirking and flashing me teeth that were strangers to the cosmetic enhancements I’d seen across the way. ‘Like someone running out of there with a big bag marked swag? Course I didn’t! I might hate that lot, but I love dogs. I’d happily punch their lights out, but I’d never stoop so low. Someone probably took the thing because of the poncey collar. Probably thought the diamonds were real or something equally stupid. Criminals aren’t the sharpest tools in the box, are they?’
I had to agree. They weren’t. And he could be exactly right. I wasn’t getting any kind of dognapping vibe from Wade, so I thanked him and left. I looked around for CCTV cameras, but that would have been too easy.
I tried to figure out what to do next, and went on instinct. The smell in there was making me want a pint.
Chapter Five
I walked down to the business district, where the Gazette has its offices, and called Tish on the way. She’s a writer there, and she never knowingly turns down an opportunity to drink alcohol. We arranged to meet at the Swordsman, and she turned up minutes later, looking uber-glam and marginally flustered.
‘What’s up, Lois Lane?’ I asked, as we settled in at a table. She had a Diet Coke in front of her, and I had a pint of Guinness. I lived in the city centre and wouldn’t be driving, so no harm done. Anyway, it’s good for you, isn’t it?
The fact that she wasn’t having a proper bevvy told me she was busy. The fact that one of her shellacs was chipped and she hadn’t arranged an emergency appointment with a Vietnamese nail slave told me she was very, very busy.
‘Coco Doyle,’ she replied, leaving her phone on the table top and looking at it nervously, as though willing it to ring. Ah. The missing kid. I’d been following the story – everyone had. Poor thing had been taken from a school trip. The river had been searched, there’d been helicopters buzzing over it for days, and I could only guess at how many of my former colleagues were on the hunt. But so far, nothing – not even a ransom note.
‘Are they holding out any hope?’ I asked between sips of creamy black deliciousness. Odds were that she’d either been taken by the popular but rare Unknown Stranger, or in this case, by one of Doyle’s ‘business’ rivals. Though it was strange that no contact had been made – at least that the Doyles were admitting to. I’d seen the parents on TV the night before, the mum, Annemarie, overly made up and tiny and tearful, the dad trying to macho it out. He was rich now, Kevin Doyle, but you could still see his humbler roots in the way he held himself. Both of them had the word ‘Coco’ tattooed on their collarbones in some sort of fashionable Gothic script, which the cameras loved. Poignant ink.
‘That I don’t know,’ Tish replied. ‘I’m waiting for a call back from Ken McGowan – trying to set up an exclusive with the weeping woman that is Annemarie Doyle. Pictures from the family album, that kind of thing. You know, Coco as a baby. Coco taking her first steps. Coco with her first Louis Vuitton school bag.’
She was being harsh and brittle about it, but I could tell her heart wasn’t in it. Even allowing yourself to imagine for a moment what the poor kid could be going through was enough to crack the toughest of veneers, which in my experience definitely included both cops and reporters.
‘What brings you here, anyway, my lovely?’ she asked. ‘And why do you smell like a tart’s boudoir?’
I sniffed my own shoulder and realised she was right. The overly fragranced atmosphere of the club had managed to stay with me. It was a lot better than the one in the Napoleon, at least.
‘I’ve been to Franny’s,’ I replied. ‘Their dog is missing.’ I shrugged as I said it. I had bills to pay – there was no point being embarrassed. It might not be up there with the search for Coco Doyle, but this was my job.
‘The Chihuahua?’ she asked, sounding interested. Tish was a regular at Franny’s. I suspected she shared beauty secrets with the likes of Wilhelmina. ‘What’s happened to it?’
‘It’s gone. Either it’s run away, been dognapped, or fallen down a well. And I have no bloody idea how I’m going to find the thing.’
‘I’m sure you’ll find a way. You are, after all, Liverpool’s greatest private eye. You just need to think like a Chihuahua does – it shouldn’t be too much of a challenge.’
I was about to snap something vitriolic back, but her phone rang and she gestured at me to zip it. She jumped up, and strode off to the corner of the room for a hurried conversation. When she finished, she came back only to gulp down her Diet Coke and grab her bag.
‘Got to go,’ she said. ‘The interview’s on, for tomorrow evening. I need to prepare. Good luck with the Case of the Missing Chihuahua, and call me later.’
Chapter Six
I spent the rest of the afternoon questioning business owners in the vicinity of Franny’s. Several of them had CCTV, and a couple of them were even willing to check it for me – sadly those who did came up with nothing. Either their cameras were facing the wrong way, weren’t working, or simply showed nothing other than Billy the Builder doing exactly as he’d said.
He parked his van up at the back of the club, opened the doors, and Cupid bounced out. The dog looked excited and happy and ran around Billy’s ankles as he opened the back door, and let him in. I couldn’t tell whether he locked the door behind him, but had no reason not to believe him. We fast forwarded several hours, up until around midnight, but still nothing out of the ordinary. I gave up looking when the time stamp showed 3 a.m. and the streets started to empty.
The dog, it seemed, had disappeared into thin air. Lots of people in the area knew him, some clearly with more fondness than others, but none of them had any idea what had happened to him.
After that I’d popped back into the club, to take Billy up on his offer of looking round for myself. I’d spent two hours going over every nook and cranny with him, checking behind crates and under the stage and in the kitchen and down every toilet (just in case). He’d even taken me down to the cellar, still smelling of fresh paint from the work he’d been doing, and we’d gone through it again – moving the stock, opening the cupboards, rummaging through the feather boas he wasn’t kidding about. And just like he said, nothing. He seemed as depressed about it as I was.
Eventually, I gave up. I spent the night alone in my flat, communing with pepperoni pizza and catching up on paperwork. The next day, I planned to go round local animal shelters, rescue centres and vets. Harley and Dorothy had had him microchipped as well as GPS’d, but so far no calls had come in. I needed to follow up in person, just in case he’d somehow slipped through the net and was actually sitting there in a compound looking for a new home that was for life, not just for Christmas.
I’d done as much as I could, walked for miles, and was sick of my own inability to come up with anything at all.
I also needed to get my beauty sleep, as I’d been invited to join the happy trannie gang on the Love Boat, where I was told I’d be able to talk to even more people who were crying their eyeballs out over the loss of the bloody Chihuahua. I was happy enough to go – Valentine’s Day is a dead loss for us singletons, and it would keep my mind off the fact that my parents were still trying to set me up with every available man they came across. Even the ones who can’t leave home without their oxygen tanks.
Don’t get me wrong – I’m happy being single. Most of the time. It’s just the rest of the world that seems to think I’m missing something.
Maybe, I thought as I drifted off to sleep, I should get myself a dog.
Chapter Seven
By five the next afternoon, I’d almost got myself about seven. Dogs, that is. Traipsing round the shelters did little for my morale, and even less for the soles of my shoes, which I was going to need to disinfect at some point.
There were so many cute pooches out there looking for love that I’d almost relented, many times over
. I had to remind myself that I could barely look after me, never mind a four-legged friend, and try and stay focused on the task in hand.
Cupid was nowhere to be found. The dog catchers hadn’t seen him, the RSPCA hadn’t seen him, nobody had seen him. One vet’s surgery had a Chihuahua in, but it was female and most definitely owned by someone else. I was drawing a blank, my feet hurt, and all of the imploring canine eyes had left me feeling sad and blue.
I decided to call it a day and go home to get ready. It’s very hard to decide what to wear to a Valentine’s Day drag queen ball held on a cold winter’s night on the River Mersey. There was no way I was ever going to rival the other guests on the glamour front, even if I was born with ovaries, so in the end I thought it best not to bother. I opted for jeans, a nice blouse, and a big fleece I could shove in my bag.
On the way into town, I called back in at the Napoleon. Something Wilhelmina/Billy had mentioned to me was playing on mind, and as my mind was pretty much empty otherwise, I thought I might as well act on it. At the very least, it would delay the inevitable moment when I found myself doing the Macarena with RuPaul’s Scouse cousin.
The pub was quiet when I arrived. A few regulars sat nursing pints, and a couple of office workers were playing a half-hearted game of darts. A grimy old boozer that considered dry roasted peanuts the height of its gastro-pub aspirations was obviously not a popular choice for the Valentine’s Day crowd.
Wade was behind the bar drying glasses, a younger man who may or may not have been his son lurking nearby, watching the darts players.
He nodded as I walked in, and Roger the Rottie did the miniature tail wag at me. I would have given him a pat but I quite wanted to keep my fingers.
‘Any news?’ he asked. ‘About the rat?’
‘Sadly not,’ I replied, sitting on a stool at the bar in front of him. ‘I see Franny’s is closed tonight.’
