Boiling Point

by Frank Lean

  It was getting on towards two and I was beginning to wonder if Celeste had finally jacked in the job or been kidnapped, when the door was flung open and a woman stormed in.

  ‘Janine!’

  ‘Dave,’ she said fiercely. ‘I couldn’t stand another minute in the office. You don’t mind me calling, do you?’

  ‘Of course not. You know you’re the light of my life.’

  ‘Oh, don’t start all that again. I had to get out of that place if I was going to stay sane.’

  ‘What’s it this time?’

  ‘That bloody editor thinks I’m going too far.’

  ‘Outrageous!’ I tutted. ‘What was it he objected to this time?’

  ‘Oh, you can laugh, but women are still treated abominably. How many women editors can you name?’

  ‘All right, Janine. I’m on your side. Calm down.’

  Janine White has been my next-door neighbour, on-off lover and constant source of frustration for over a year. She’s divorced and has two children and from my point of view would make an ideal partner. The trouble is she doesn’t see it that way. Since being deserted by her husband Henry Talbot, father of Jenny and Lloyd, she’s maintained a front of mistrustfulness towards the whole male sex.

  ‘Look, love, tell me what he’s done and I’ll go down there and smash his face in,’ I offered.

  It was the wrong thing to say.

  ‘Hmmph! Typical,’ she snorted.

  ‘Janine, you know what I mean. I’m tired of just being your accidental next-door neighbour and part-time mother’s helper. You can chuck up the job at the paper any time you like and come and work with me.’

  ‘Thanks a bunch! Exchange one dominant male for another. At least on the paper I have my readers to back me.’

  ‘I wouldn’t count on them.’

  ‘They’re more reliable than the whim of some testosterone-soaked man.’

  ‘You’d be a full and equal partner with me, biochemistry notwithstanding. No decision made without your consent.’

  For a moment I thought she was considering the idea but she tossed her head back and swept the hair off her forehead. She looked round the room, taking in Celeste’s empty desk. Not for the first time I admired my partner’s style. If you wrote down her description it would come out all wrong. Janine adds up to a lot more than the sum of a few ordinary characteristics. Fair enough, she’s of average height, with a rather full figure, mousy brown hair, and blue eyes. Marks & Spencer’s could probably use her as a template for a million outfits. But that’s not her, at least to me it’s not. Whatever the opposite of nondescript is, that’s Janine. You’d pick her out among ten thousand. She radiates a certain wavelength of energy that’s entirely her own. She moves quickly. She doesn’t accept situations. Patience on a monument, smiling at grief, she is not.

  ‘Where’s the coffee?’ she barked.

  I nodded towards the back room and she strode in.

  A second later she was back. Her eyes were glittering. They seemed to be generating enough electricity for a small lightning bolt.

  ‘What’s going on?’ she asked coldly.

  ‘Nothing’s going on.’

  ‘Where’s Celeste, and why is that woman asleep on your sofa?’

  ‘Celeste’s gone walkabout, and as for the woman your guess is as good as mine.’

  ‘Don’t play games with me, Dave. We all know what your favourite recreation is.’

  ‘Oh, what is it?’

  ‘Who is she?’ This was delivered in a rising tone.

  ‘I don’t know. It’s a long story . . . I found her at Tarn Golf Club. Some man was going to beat her up and they wouldn’t let her back into the club because she was drunk.’

  ‘So you just happened to bring her here,’ she said in a slightly softer voice. ‘God! Dave, I never know whether to fall for what you say or punch your lights out. You’re the most manipulative pig I’ve ever met. You’re just saying that about the man wanting to beat her up to get on the best side of me.’

  ‘I’m not, honest,’ I said, putting my hands up in surrender.

  ‘You’re not honest, that’s true.’

  ‘When have I ever lied?’

  ‘Just now when you said we were accidental neighbours. There was no accident involved.’

  ‘I had nothing to do with Bob Lane buying that lease and giving it to you.’

  ‘Yes, and male chauvinist pigs can fly.’

  ‘No,’ I said firmly. ‘How many times have I got to tell you that was Bob’s clumsy attempt at matchmaking? I had nothing to do with it. He’s like you. He thinks I’ve only to look at a woman and she goes weak at the knees.’

  The very faintest, wraith-like shadow of a smile crossed her face at this. Her expression was unreadable. Did she believe me? Only time would tell.

  She shook her head and then looked at her watch. ‘My break’s almost over. I’ll have to return to the fray,’ she muttered. ‘I’d thought I’d call in for a cup of coffee and a few words of comfort from the only man in Manchester who’s even been halfway to treating me like a human being since I got here, but what do I find when I arrive? He’s entertaining some floozy in the back room.’ She started for the door.

  ‘Whoa, lady!’ I said. ‘You’re stretching things a bit there. More than a spot of the old hyperbole. Is that what’s frayed your editor’s nerves?’

  ‘Stay out of my face, Dave.’

  ‘Tell me why you’ve suddenly developed an aversion for the whole male citizenry of Greater Manchester.’

  ‘Greater Macho-chester, you mean.’

  ‘Rubbish! We’re all kind and gentle and touchy-feely up here. It’s you metropolitan types who’re hard as nails.’

  ‘Just remind me. How many people who have got in your way have ended up dead?’

  ‘How many times have I told you? It was pure self-defence in those cases.’

  ‘But they’re just as dead, aren’t they?’

  ‘I didn’t murder anyone.’

  ‘So you said. Listen, Dave, I’m thinking of making a move. There’ve been feelers from a paper in London.’

  ‘A national?’ I had a sinking feeling as I said the words. I’d always dreaded that Janine was bound for higher things.

  ‘I don’t really want to go into it now, Dave. I’m thinking things over.’

  ‘At least let me walk back to the office with you, if you don’t think it will ruin your image to be seen with a man.’

  ‘Come on then, killer,’ she said in a more reasonable way. ‘You can tell me just who that woman is. She’s worth a quid or two by the look of the rags on her back.’

  ‘If you know that, you know as much about her as I do,’ I muttered, following her out into the street.

  3

  AFTER I’D DROPPED Janine at her office on Deansgate my mind reverted to its customary fallow state. For want of anything better to do I decided to find out what I could about the mystery woman. I patted my pockets: no mobile. I was too impatient to wait until I returned to the office, and anyway it might be difficult to make enquiries if the woman was still snoring noisily on my sofa, so I dialled Clyde Harrow from a public phone box near the John Rylands library.

  This turned out to be a bad plan. I hadn’t reckoned on the amount of time it would take me to persuade one of the TV big shot’s assistants to put me through to the famous little man.

  ‘We can’t just connect anyone,’ she whined in a nasal South London accent.

  ‘Dave Cunane, tell him it’s Dave Cunane. He’ll speak to me,’ I said more confidently than I felt. I was one of the people that Harrow needed protection from, though his assistant wasn’t likely to know that. Good old Clyde, the bright-as-a-button TV newshound, had crossed my path more than once. He found it hard to understand the meaning of the word ‘private’ in connection with the word ‘detective’. Clyde thought that whatever I uncovered should belong to him and the whole wide world. Still, we maintained an arm’s length friendship on the basis that I occasionally passed
him useful tips while in return he kept my name out of the news.

  After an interminable wait the rumbling, fruity tones of the TV journalist filled my ear. ‘Clyde, Dave Cunane here,’ I said.

  ‘Dave Cunane, do I know anyone of that name?’ he boomed crustily. ‘This had better be good. I’m preparing an interview with unmarried mother-of-octuplets Mandy Mawson and her brood.’ I could hear the squalling of infants in the background as the latest products of fertility technology aired their lungs.

  ‘That’s a bit old hat, isn’t it, Clyde?’

  ‘Perhaps you can come up with something better, what’s your name?’

  ‘Oh, come on, Clyde.’

  ‘Am I speaking to the Dave Cunane? The crapulous curber of the criminal classes? The cape-less crusader of amateur crime prevention? The gentleman, and I use the term figuratively, who, when last we met, cruelly sped my egress from his premises with a kick from his size-ten detective’s pampooties? I’m not sure that I want to speak to that person.’

  ‘Now Clyde, don’t get carried away,’ I warned. Failed actor, former sports reporter and now successful TV ‘feature’ presenter, Clyde was frequently swept to giddy heights by his own grandiloquence. ‘You’ve had your fun, but I have a serious question for you. Do you know anyone called Charles Carlyle?’

  What they call a significant pause ensued. I could hear Harrow’s adenoidal breathing in my earpiece. A very quick brain was making some rapid calculations.

  ‘“Carlyle”, the youth says. How could I fail to be familiar with the name Carlyle? How could you, unless deep in your usual mire of clotted ignorance? The infernal family have a not inconsiderable interest in the company that employs me.’

  ‘Oh, those Carlyles,’ I muttered.

  ‘Am I to take it that Charles Carlyle has come to your attention in some less than creditable context? He could hardly be one of your social acquaintances.’

  ‘You could put it that way,’ I murmured.

  ‘Speak on, worthy Cunane, or forever hold your peace. All is forgiven ’twixt thee and me.’

  ‘I was out at Tarn Golf Club . . .’

  ‘And what, pray, could have lured a benighted denizen of the inner city such as yourself to such exalted quarters?’

  ‘I was on a job . . .’

  ‘Ah, a job? A job involving the Carlyle family? The capitalist cabal who’ve closed a thousand companies?’

  ‘Don’t exaggerate, Clyde.’

  ‘Exaggerate! Tell that to any of the thousands they’ve done out of a job.’

  ‘My job needn’t concern you . . .’

  ‘Indeed? We shall see . . .’

  ‘Yes, m’lud, I was in the car park going about my lawful occasions when I saw this big lubber setting up to knock nine bells out of a good-looking redhead.’

  ‘And being Dave Cunane, you intervened, presumably on the side of the good looker?’

  ‘Not quite, but I suppose that’s approximately what happened.’ I briefly filled him in on the events that took place in the car park, and the car chase that followed.

  ‘Tell me, good Dave, where is this unfortunate Titianesque wench now?’

  ‘It wasn’t her I was asking about.’

  ‘Where is she, Dave?’

  ‘She’s in my office, sleeping off a drinking bout.’

  ‘Hah! Inimitable! I take it that the aforementioned “big lubber” identified himself as Charles Carlyle?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Describe him and the fallen female – worse for drink, you say?’

  I described the pair.

  ‘Charlie Carlyle and his missus to the life! Is she still at your office?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Any visible bruises?’

  ‘Not that I’ve seen.’

  ‘Come, come, Dave. Surely, by now, you’ve managed to persuade Mrs Carlyle to reveal herself like Venus rising from the Cypriot foam?’

  ‘I told you, the woman’s drunk!’

  ‘I wouldn’t expect that to stop you, but a scruple’s a scruple! They’ll be the downfall of you yet, those scruples. Hold her at your office. Detain her, ply her with more ardent liquors, use whatever feeble stratagems nature has equipped you for, but keep her there until I arrive.’

  Harrow hung up. Pulsating with horror about what I’d done, I hurried towards my office.

  4

  TO MY IMMENSE relief my unwelcome visitor was gone when I returned and Celeste was back at her post. She wasn’t on the phone to her friends for once but was buffing her fingernails instead, boredom oozing from every pore.

  ‘Where is she?’ I snapped.

  ‘Who, ba-aass?’ Celeste drawled, extracting a wad of gum from her mouth and positioning it beside her word processor. Celeste, a pretty black girl from Old Trafford, knows to within a millimetre just how far she can test my patience.

  I searched her opaque but perfect features for the hundredth time, looking for a clue as to whether she was sending me up. For the hundredth time I decided that with Celeste, what you see is what you get.

  ‘The woman . . . the woman in the back room. Where is she?’

  ‘No wo-man here when I came in, boss. No, but you left the outside door unlocked.’

  ‘Oh, hell! She must have let herself out.’

  Irritation mingled with relief. I could have done with an explanation, and a full-time secretary would have been nice too.

  ‘Where were you?’ I asked.

  When it comes to enigmatic smiles Celeste makes the Mona Lisa look like an amateur. The smile turned into a scornful grin.

  ‘You told me to take my lunch late . . . I was waiting for you to get back, but when you didn’t arrive I decided to go out. I’m entitled to my lunch, you know.’

  ‘Sorry,’ I muttered, ‘but didn’t you even catch a glimpse?’

  ‘No,’ she said and then turned to her desk. Considering the number of private phone calls she got through in a day, her desk top gave a good imitation of a scene of hard labour: bits of paper and files were scattered everywhere, and little notes were stuck to various surfaces. I was about to leave when Celeste swivelled round. ‘Oh, there is this.’

  She passed me a crumpled sheet of copier paper. There was a message scrawled on it in red biro:

  ‘Thanks for rescuing me but I decided I’d better not wait around. I heard what your partner said. Are you really a killer? It sounds interesting. I know one or two people I could use your services on. Anyway, thanks again, MK.’

  MK, not MC, not Mrs Carlyle.

  I allowed myself to breathe a sigh of relief. Harrow would find that he was barking up the wrong gum tree and I wouldn’t need my size tens to eject him this time.

  I went through to my office and read MK’s note again. One trouble was immediately replaced by another. God! My father and his retired police friends say I’m a stirrer, a troublemaker. It’s not true. I don’t need to look for trouble, it finds me without any assistance. Now this female had me down as a potential hit man, thanks to Janine and her big mouth. I could do without this. The business was at last showing signs of taking off. I’d even started subcontracting. I don’t know whether this was down to a better location for the office, just off South King Street, or that I’d become more widely known, but the work hadn’t stopped rolling in.

  Publicity from Clyde Harrow was bad enough but the last thing I needed was this ‘MK’ bragging to her boozing pals, and drunks always have pals, that she knew a bona-fide hit man. What a sickener! The truth was that there were one or two other little problems that had been souring my mood lately. Janine was one. I could see a future where Janine and I settled down together. All right, got ourselves a house and a mortgage in Cheadle or Handforth or any of the other southern dormitories, if you like. What’s so terrible about that? ‘Semi-detached, suburban Mr Jones’, there are tens of thousands of them. Why not me?

  Circumstance was twining us together like the bindweed holding up an old fence. I’d had fifteen years on my own since my wife died. No
w Janine was calmly announcing that she was thinking of moving back to London. Great!

  My other big problem was the old trouble – my parent Paddy Cunane, former pride of the Manchester CID. Recently he’d got a bee in his bonnet about the Lowry painting that I own. I was given the picture by Dee Elsworth, mother of twins that she assured me were mine. The Lowry had been hanging in Paddy’s living room for six years when he happened to read that a smaller Lowry than mine, owned by some private school, had been sold for a six-figure sum.

  He came over all funny after that. Where did I get it? Did the person who gave it me know its value? Shouldn’t I give it back? Should we sell it and put the money into a more secure business than private detection – a McDonald’s franchise, for instance? I couldn’t think of anything worse. I’d rather give the picture to an art gallery. It might have been better if Dee had never given me the Lowry in the first place, but she knew I’d admired it and as I’d agreed never to see the children I’d casually fathered she must have thought the sight of the painting would be some consolation. It was only now with Janine on the point of disappearing that I was discovering that a six-figure sum is no compensation for never seeing your own children, no compensation at all.

  Paddy was capable of picking away every trace of flesh from the Lowry issue until the bare bone of ‘fact’ was left. And what was that? That two killers, both professionals, had been in the process of raping Dee, prior to arranging my own permanent exit, when I terminated their tricks. They now lay deeply buried at the bottom of Dee’s garden.