Only late on, when he was very drunk, did he finally start talking about his lovely Arabella again. He grew tearful. He raged. He accused and pointed the finger of blame. I listened and nodded - that was all he wanted. He was in no mood to discuss the evidence, or lack of it, or for me to dissect his delusions, which is what they undoubtedly were.
'You need more Rice Krispies,' he said.
He didn't need to say. The box was on its side, the remaining dust spilled across the kitchen counter, only some of it drowned by the trail of milk he had left, leading from the counter across the floor to the table.
As I sat opposite him, having Lo-Lo'd a sliver of wholemeal, he crammed another overflowing spoonful into his mouth and spluttered out, 'He has testicles everywhere.'
'Excuse me? Who has testicles . . . ?'
He swallowed down. 'Tentacles, he has tentacles everywhere.'
'Oh. Right. Who? Mr Kellogg?'
'Dr Yes.'
I just went, 'Mmmmm,' and continued eating. I didn't want to go over the same old accusations again. I was already going to have to repeat them to Alison as soon as she arrived. She hadn't been able to join us last night because of a hair appointment.
A hair appointment.
A hairdo.
They are such contradictions.
It was the only time she could go, because of work.
I ask you.
She let slip that it cost £75.
I bloody ask you.
Like taking food out of Caspar's mouth.
Shit!
She was now brainwashing me. Her original suggestion of Rory was bad enough. No child of mine would ever be called Caspar.
If indeed he was a child of mine.
I didn't respond to Augustine's tentacles assertion until about an hour later, when he finally emerged from my shower, having used all of the hot water, and came downstairs, still wearing Mother's dressing gown, fruitlessly searching for something to eat while he got dressed. As he picked his way through the fridge, Alison arrived through the back door and greeted him enthusiastically. She had brought three Starbucks frappuccinos with her, which was a nice thought, and out of character.
As Augustine shuffled off clutching his, Alison raised an expectant eyebrow. Actually, all of her was expectant. When I didn't respond she said, 'Well?'
'Well what?'
'The hair?'
'Did you not get it done?'
'You're funny.'
'No, seriously. It doesn't look any different.'
'It's a different colour.'
'I think not.'
'It was blonde, and now it's honey blonde.'
'If you say so.'
'And it's half the length!'
'Are you sure?'
'Yes! I needed something more manageable.'
'Like me?'
'You're funny.'
'So's your face.'
'Just ... oh! I don't know why I bother.' She sat down at the kitchen table and opened her Starbucks. I joined her. I gave her a long look.
'Seventy-five quid? I don't think I've spent that much on a haircut in my entire life.'
'I rest my case.'
I could have told her the truth, that Mother had been cutting my hair for the past thirty years. It was a simple process, involving a cereal bowl and a flamethrower. Or I could have explained that my father used to take me to his barber, as fathers do, but at the age of twelve, when my interest in mystery fiction was just starting to take over my life, I stumbled across an ancient reprint of an old penny blood serial called The String of Pearls, featuring that urban legend Sweeney Todd, and I refused point blank to go to a barber's after that in case he cut my throat. I was a sensitive kid. Luckily, I grew out of it. Could have told the truth, chose not to.
Alison said, 'So, what's he been saying?'
'Tentacles.'
'As in . . . ?'
'Dr Yeschenkov, his tentacles reach everywhere, apparently, the police especially, which is why they tend to side with him over lovely Arabella. They think she's run off too. They say her credit card was used at a cashpoint in Dublin a week after she checked herself out of her hotel.'
'It could have been stolen.'
'That's what I said. Apparently the police brought Augustine in and showed him CCTV footage the Garda sent up, taken from the bank's camera above the cashpoint, of her taking the money out.'
'What'd he say to that?'
'He said it looked like her, but it wasn't her.'
'But he hadn't seen the new-look Arabella.'
'Exactly. But he's convinced.'
'So they told him to bugger off.'
'Yep. He went to the newspapers, weren't interested. He stormed the clinic, mad drunk, thinking that would get the press interested, but all it got him was a night in the clink. He took to standing outside shouting at anyone going in or out. They took out an injunction. Court told him he couldn't go within half a mile of it. So he stands half a mile away, with a megaphone. He's been bombarding them with phone calls and e-mails and ordering coal for them, and pizza, and wreaths and all sorts of shit, generally just being really annoying.'
'And all he wants Dr Yes to do is stand up and admit to killing his wife?'
'That's all.'
'And he has no hard physical evidence at all?'
'He's seen her medical records. The only thing he can say is that she was allergic to penicillin, but it doesn't show on her consent forms.'
'And they say to that?'
'They say it does on the original, and they sent over poor photocopies; they rectified it and sent better copies.'
'And he suspects conspiracy.'
'Obviously.'
Alison took a sip of her coffee. A little bit dribbled down and nestled in her extra chin. She saw me looking at it and wiped it away. I stared at her hand.
She rolled her eyes but lifted one of the napkins that came with the coffee and wiped the back of it. I nodded appreciatively. She balled the napkin and chucked it over her shoulder.
'It doesn't mean he's wrong,' she said. 'We shouldn't underestimate the bond there is between a man and his wife and the instinctive knowledge that brings.'
'Or you could be talking bollocks.'
'All I'm saying is that short of speaking to Arabella herself, Augustine is probably the one other person in the world who knows her best. That last phone call was so full of love
'According to him.'
'. . . and there was no indication that she was unhappy or planning to take flight. She would have been on a high knowing the big reveal was coming; why would she suddenly disappear?'
'It doesn't matter why. There is no evidence of foul play, but there is evidence that she's alive and well and spending her money. She went to Dublin, she probably caught a flight somewhere. Augustine Wogan is an alcoholic, paranoid wastrel; she's had enough of him. All we need to do is get him to sign some books and then get him the hell out of here.'
'You're wrong. He's in love, and he knows something is badly wrong, but nobody will listen to him. His wife is dead and Dr Yes is pulling strings to cover his tracks and get away with murder.'
'God, you're turning into a conspiracy theorist as well! Have you by any chance swallowed Jeff?'
'Not recently.'
'You're funny.'
'So's your face. Look, you've been championing Augustine for years; don't let him down now. I have a feeling about this. And we're his last hope.'
We locked eyes across the table, each of us unaware that Augustine was standing in the doorway, arms folded, immaculately dressed in one of my father's long-mothballed suits, at least until he said, 'Of the two of you, I think I prefer you, princess.'
Alison glowed.
* * *
Chapter 5
Of course I backtracked. It is my default mechanism. I assured him I was merely playing devil's advocate, and of course we were going to look into his case. But I had no intention of it. The truth was that the trauma of having him at such close quarters, in my
mother's bed and dressing gown, in my father's suit and eating me out of house and home, had somewhat dulled my enthusiasm for persuading him to sign my stash of books. I could just forge it and nobody would be any the wiser. I had already taken pictures of him on my mobile phone while he dozed sherry-drunk in one of my armchairs, with me posing beside him like we were great mates; pinning those above the signed books would be authentication enough, at least for your average mug amateur or lower-level dealer.
I just wanted rid of him. But Alison, who knows a thing or two about eggs and how to exploit them, sat him down at the table and scrambled the only two left in the house. As he shovelled them in, I made faces at her across the table, but she ignored me. When he had finished scoffing them down, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Standards were slipping everywhere.
He said, 'Thank you, Alison, that was lovely.' She smiled demurely. 'Now, what are we going to do about my Arabella?'
'Do?' I said.
'We're going to find her, or find out what happened to her,' said Alison. I made a kind of choking sound. 'In our spare time we do investigate certain cases. We've had quite a lot of success. My partner here is a bit of a genius.'
I made another face. She would not win me over.
'Well that would be . . . fantastic . . . I've really nowhere else to turn .. . but I'm afraid I've nothing to pay you with.'
'That won't be necessary. We don't do it for the money.'
I grrrrrred.
'It would mean the world to me. And do you know something?' He was looking at me now. 'Even though I was rather flustered yesterday, I was looking at your shop, and it's really quite wonderful. You obviously have a great love of books and writing. I was wondering if you've ever thought of publishing your own books, you know, limited editions maybe?'
'Done that,' I said. 'There's bugger-all money in it.'
'Really? Because, as it happens, I have a little manuscript sitting around. Maybe we could work something out, you know, in lieu of payment; you could publish that?'
The first faint stirrings.
'Yeah, maybe.'
I didn't want to get too excited. Yes, he was critically acclaimed, but his only known works were more than twenty years old. If he had written it recently, it was probably as mad as he was.
'And you should know,' said Alison, at which point I realised that I'd said it out loud.
I laughed and said, 'Sure we're all a bit mad. What's the book?'
'Well, you know this Barbed-Wire Love trilogy you're so enamoured of?'
'Yes?'
'There were always actually four parts to it. Because it was self-published, and it didn't sell at all, I didn't have enough money to put the fourth one out. So it's been gathering dust all these years, which I've always thought was a great pity, because it throws a whole new light on the rest of it.'
He nodded thoughtfully.
Alison gazed at me across the table, probably wondering why I appeared to be suffering a stroke.
I wasn't convinced of the wisdom of leaving him in the house by himself, but it was either that or bring him with me to No Alibis, and I could do without that. He was just a stress to have around. And besides, I wanted to dive head first into solving what would become the Case of the Pearl Necklace, because in my head I was already formulating ambitious plans for the first publication of Fire in the Sky, the fourth book in what was now no longer a trilogy but a cycle of novels, and beyond that persuading Augustine to let me reprint the other books as well. I would be acclaimed throughout the mysterious world for not only discovering the unknown fourth book, but also rescuing the original trilogy from obscurity. And if I kept them to limited editions, I could charge an absolute fortune and secure No Alibis' future as well. I was on such a high, although part of that may have been down to my extensive list of medication, which I seemed to have taken twice that morning by mistake.
Even Jeff noticed, and he's an idiot. When he brought me the wrong coffee from Starbucks, I did not even shout at him, merely sent him back for the right one. When he returned I told him to man the till, and trusted him with its key, and he smiled as if he was in seventh heaven; when he enquired if he might advise any customers on their choice of book, I said not if he valued his life. But he seemed content with two out of three.
With Jeff busy - well, not busy, but removed - I consulted the internet. It was not so much a case of know your enemy, because I was far from convinced that Dr Yes was my enemy, or anyone's, apart from Mother Nature's, but by finding out as much as I could it would at least enable me to talk knowledgeably about him to anyone else I came across in the course of the investigation.
This information was not difficult to find. His whole business was built around his good looks and personality - the perfectly coiffured hair, the permanent tan, the gleaming teeth, the wrinkle-free brow, the buff frame, the suggestion of a six-pack through a thin T-shirt; he was fifty-five years old and looked twenty younger, and you might have said he was a great advert for his youth-giving procedures, save for the fact that apart from diet and exercise, it would have been impossible for him to operate upon himself. Someone else had fixed his teeth or debagged his eyes or pinned back his lugholes. Buying into his image was buying into someone else's handiwork. He was born and bred in Chicago, Illinois, of Ukrainian extraction. I found a Google image of him that appeared to be lifted from his high-school yearbook. He hadn't changed much. Maybe he hadn't needed any of the work done to start with, he just had good genes. He had flown through Brown University and Washington University, and was a board-certified plastic surgeon and celebrated fellow of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons. In the mid-nineties he had married one of his patients, an Irish girl who'd gone to the States for some relatively minor plastic surgery that nevertheless hadn't been available at home; they'd fallen in love, and he'd also spotted a gap in the market. Within six months he'd set up his first clinic in Belfast, bringing a healthy dose of American chutzpah to the advertising of his services, and before very long he was the go-to man for women, and some men, throughout the island who wanted something tucked, trimmed or drained. He'd gone from strength to strength, particularly during the boom years of the Celtic Tiger, when his ultra-expensive but very quick multi-part makeovers had proved such a boon to those who felt themselves too fat, too droopy or too old to compete in the hectic Dublin social scene and didn't have time to hang around. Very soon there were competing services in the southern capital, but at least by coming to Belfast you were out of the country and less likely to bump into your social rivals while swathed in weeping bandages that kept your new ears on or screaming blue murder every time you went upstairs because your fresh tits were killing you while they bedded in.
'Why are you looking at pictures of boobies?' Jeff asked, peering over my shoulder.
'It's work,' I said.
I was trying to put myself in Augustine's shoes, even while he was probably trying to put himself in my father's. He loved his wife and she had disappeared. She had undergone a number of relatively minor procedures at a clinic owned and run by Dr Yeschenkov and nobody had seen her since, apart from disputed CCTV footage from a bank cashpoint in Dublin. He had jumped to the conclusion that she had died in the clinic because to him it was the only one that made sense; he could not conceive of her running off to start a new life. He clearly did not know women as well as I did, and I hardly knew them at all. He was too emotionally involved to make a rational judgement on the likelihood of some grand conspiracy swinging into place to cover up his wife's death.
I found a photo of the lovely Arabella on the web.
She wasn't that lovely.
* * *
Chapter 6
Contrary to what I might say or do, I was, somewhere in the back of my mind, trying to be a better man for the coming trauma that constituted childbirth. It was okay for Alison; she only had to bear some extra weight and undergo a little straining that would mostly be covered by painkilling injections. She was designed for it. Bu
t I certainly wasn't. I was about to go through the kind of upheaval that rid the earth of dinosaurs. I did want to contribute something to the whole process, and part of that was showing her that I was capable of using my initiative without being prompted. She was always in favour of me dealing with a problem by physically confronting it, not seeking a solution through a third party. She knew that I believed that if I looked pathetic enough for long enough, somebody else would do it for me. Now I was going to prove that I could do things off my own bat. I'd gotten
on perfectly well before Alison, and I'd continue to get along well after her. It was just this sticky bit in the middle I had to get through.
I lifted the phone. I looked down at the number I'd written on the notepad before me. I punched it in. Although, obviously, what with my brittle bones, I didn't really. I pressed gently. After a few moments a bright, upmarket voice, but with a hint of Eastern Europe, said, 'Good morning, the Yeschenkov Clinic.'
I needed to satisfy myself that Dr Yes wasn't hiding anything. The medical records that had been released to Augustine were still with his last solicitor, who wouldn't release them until he paid his bill. Obviously I wasn't going to pay it for him, and the clinic wasn't going to release them to me, a bookshop owner, or issue fresh ones to Augustine, whom they had a restraining order against, so I would have to find out what there was to find out by doing what I did best - I was a criminal proctologist, shining a light into dark places where nobody really likes to look.
'Yes, I'd like to enquire about the possibility of having one of your makeovers.'
'Absolutely, sir. Could I have your name, please?'
'George.'
'George? And your surname?'
'Pelecanos.'
His new novel had just come in, and I had a business and its reputation to protect.
'Like the writer?' she asked, unexpectedly.
Dr. Yes Page 3
