Death Of A Nobody

by Derek Farrell

  Death Of A Nobody

  This edition first published 2016 by Fahrenheit Press

  www.Fahrenheit-Press.com

  Copyright © Derek Farrell 2016

  The right of Derek Farrell to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  F 4 E

  Death Of A Nobody

  By

  Derek Farrell

  Fahrenheit Press

  This book is for;

  David Gray, my very own honourable man, who saw something I wouldn’t, and didn’t let it lie. I Love You, Mr G, and always will.

  And for Elizabeth Farrell (6th Sep 1943 to 26th Jun 2015) who gave me the strength to be a man, and the confidence to look in the face of bullshit and laugh; and who loved me unconditionally. Thanks, mam. Sleep well.

  And – as always – for my father, Paul Farrell.

  You’ve never doubted for a second, and you’ve always been proud of me even when I wasn’t. And, above all, you took me to books and stories dad, and I hope this one makes you smile.

  “Remember, it’s true:

  Dignity is valuable,

  But our lives are valuable too.”

  David Bowie ‘Fantastic Voyage’

  CHAPTER ONE

  The cider was opaque, flat, and a dirty yellow colour reminiscent of old man’s piss.

  I held it up to the light, turned to Caz, and frowned. My nephews, Ray and Dash stared hopefully at me, their fingers already, I was sure, itching for the cash that would come their way if I agreed to purchase the booze in bulk.

  “It’s a bit cloudy,” said Caz.

  “Well it’s unfiltered, innit,” Dash shrugged. “That’s sodomy.”

  “I think,” said Caz, “You mean sediment. It goes straight to the bottom.”

  “Whatevs,” Dash shrugged.

  “Forget cloudy, boys,” I said. “This looks like fucking soup.” I sipped it. It tasted of apples, hay, and acid. It was like sucking a dandelion soaked in caramel.

  I looked at Ali. Ali Carter was the Bar manager of the Marquess of Queensbury Public House, the crew-cut keeper of the bar and bottles, and, ultimately, it would be her choice whether we stocked this cider – which, in keeping with anything my nephews ever had a hand in – was of dubious provenance.

  “You’ve tried this already?” I asked, knowing that she had. Ali was the worlds dourest bar manager, but she was rigorous in her duties, and I suspected this tasting was a formality to allow me to think I still had some say in running the place.

  “Nah,” she smirked, “It looks rank, so I thought I’d let you get the shits first. Course I’ve tried it,” her smirk widened into a smile. “It’s good, innit?”

  I shrugged, sipped again from the glass, and held it out to Caz. “It’s spectacular. How many bottles can you get?”

  The tension in the air dissipated instantly as the twins exhaled, high fived each other, and smiled triumphantly at Ali, who – if I wasn’t mistaken – returned what could be considered a conspiratorial wink.

  “Wait: When you said West Country, you didn’t mean Fulham, did you?”

  “Geez!” Ray Mc Carthy, Dash’s identical twin, sighed in mock frustration. “What d’you take us for, Danny? This stuff is Kosher. It’s as West Country as anything.”

  “So where’s it come from, then?” I demanded, noticing as I did so that Caz had drained the recently proffered glass and was now refilling it up with what was left in the bottle.

  “Yog Stopidorous has a cousin right out in the fucking sticks,” Dash responded. “Proper yokel. Runs a Kebab shop in Glastonbury. So: d’you want it or not?”

  “Only, if not,” Ray noted, “That geezer what runs the Magpie ‘n’ Merkin on Commercial Road said he’d have twenty gallons.”

  “Twenty Gallons? Where’s this coming from? The local swimming pool?”

  “Tha’s a artisan cider,” Dash answered in mock umbrage. “Handmade in the West.”

  “By Romanian immigrants on their day off from working illegally in a Kebab shop,” I finished. “You sure this aint gonna get us in trouble with the Revenue?” I asked Ali.

  “Says the man who keeps two sets of books,” she snorted humourlessly. “Look, we’ve tested it, it’s not poisonous, it looks, tastes, and smells the business, and you can get it for less than twenty pence a pint. Why are we still talking?”

  I glanced at Caz. Caroline Holloway – or, to give her her full name, Lady Caroline Victoria Genevieve Jane De Montfort, only daughter of the thirteenth Earl of Holloway – drained the second glass, smiled glassily back at me, and belched genteelly.

  My best friend existed, like me, in a permanent state of near penury, but unlike me, she had had the best education that money could buy. Private education to a certain age, then three years in a Swiss finishing school where, even if they had failed to teach her how to balance a cheque book or purchase a tube ticket (useless skills for the children of the gentry), they had taught her how to expel gas with discretion and style.

  “Go for it,” she responded, managing to slur an entirely guttural sentence. “And put me down for a case.”

  The deal sealed, Ray and Dash scarpered back to the bar, one to continue stocking up, the other to make some phone calls to my new suppliers, and Ali, glancing around the vast kitchen of the pub shook her head.

  “You gonna be OK here?” she asked, “Only, it’s like a bloody oven. I don’t want you getting’ heatstroke or nothing.”

  Oh, Ali, I almost replied, any sort of stroke would be appreciated right now. But I didn’t: I might not always manage it, but I always strive for professionalism.

  Instead, I wiped my arm across my forehead. “It is hot,” I admitted.

  “An’ it’s gonna get hotter once them ovens get going,” Ali reminded me. “’Less, of course, you’re doin’ a cold buffet.”

  “If only,” I sighed. “They’re getting the full works.”

  “Right then, Fanny,” She smirked, shrugging her t shirt onto her shoulder, “I’ll let you and Johnny,” here she nodded at Caz, “Get on with it. Don’t expire or nothing, cos I don’t think I could do them much more than a plate of ham an’ cheese sarnies.”

  London had been lying under the oppression of a heatwave of record – almost biblical – proportions for the past two months. This was unheard of; usually, a London summer was a week – two at most – of warm-to-hot weather, bookended by rain and, in some years, arctic temperatures. But since mid-May, no rain had fallen, the temperatures had been slowly rising, and for the past two weeks, the mercury had rarely dropped below twenty five degrees.

  Not exactly Death Valley, but the inhabitants of this oldest, most ill-prepared city had spent most of the past ten days crawling around like Bedouins who’d lost their camels. The usual hustle and bustle had been replaced by a slow almost agonised approach to movement. Work – where it had to take place away from air conditioning – had almost entirely ceased as the number of casualties had slowly risen and the TV news had fixated on the story of a plumber in Greenford who, in the midst of installing a new water tank in someone’s attic, had suffered a heart attack and died.

  The Marq was as far away from air conditioning as it was possible to be. The building had been erected in the mid 1800s, and – with the exception of electric light – most of the cons were original rather than mod.

  I’d have liked to revamp the place. I’d already put what little money I could afford into turning the ups
tairs rooms into a flat that I could live in, thus making it, I’d reasoned at the time, easier to save money in rent.

  The savings, I’d reasoned, could be ploughed back into the business, and in no time at all, we’d be refurbishing the entire place.

  That plan had been borne in the early days of February, during which I’d been in receipt of a small financial windfall, in the throes of a new love affair, and in the press every day for my part in unmasking the killer of a certain Disco Diva who’d been discovered dead in my very own pub.

  Now, it was July, and the windfall was gone, the media attention had passed, and I wasn’t even sure if the romance was a going concern.

  Lately, my boyfriend – Nick Fisher, he of the almond shaped hazel-green eyes and the smile that made my knees go weak – had become a little more distant. Nothing dramatic, just small things like long silences broken by “There’s something I need to tell you,” only for that something to turn out to be a detailed breakdown of his shift patterns.

  Never, my grandmother used to say, trust a man who gives you too much detail. They’re trying to cover something up. I would have said she got that from a fortune cookie, only I know she wouldn’t be seen dead eating Chinese food. “Nah, love; give me a nice sausage and mash. I can’t be doing wiv all that foreign stuff. I mean, I’m sure it’s perfectly lovely – them Chinese do well on it, I’m sure. But I think food should be brown or beige. Or green, maybe. But if the sauce on yer plate is brighter than the paint on yer walls, it’s not for me…”

  So there we were: Nick was (by my gran’s standards) hiding something, and avoiding me to boot. He’d shared his shift patterns with me some weeks previously, so I knew that he was supposed to be off today, and working tonight.

  Last week, we’d agreed that he’d come over to help Caz and I out. We had a function today – a big function. A possibly very lucrative function, if some of the wealthy people booked in today liked what they saw and tasted. But Caz and I, with the three ovens in the Marq’s ancient kitchens were going to be hard pressed to get everything out on time, so I’d asked Nick to come round and help with prep, plating and garnishing – all stuff I could direct, but which would leave me free to actually cook.

  And he’d happily agreed. He’d be here at eight thirty, he’d said.

  Then, this morning, at seven thirty, he’d emailed. SORRY. SOMETHINGS COME UP. YOU FREE TOMORROW?”

  Tomorrow? I’d thought as I slammed the phone down on the kitchen table.

  I had a small army of customers due this afternoon for a private function.

  OK, so it was a wake, and I’d much rather have been hosting a party for the launch of some celebrity bedlinen, scent or ghost-written memoir, but beggars – and I wasn’t far off that point – can not be choosers.

  Besides, this wasn’t some local post-internment knees up – a half of lager and a scotch egg per head. Oh no, the deceased, in this case, was a local girl made good.

  Very good.

  And the terms of her will had demanded that her wake be held back in the old neighbourhood, which, nowadays, featured a handful of grim chain pubs, a couple of burger joints, and The Marq, which had been gaining a bit of a reputation for decent pub food, so we’d been pretty much a shoo-in for the job of hosting Lady Margaret Wright’s Wake.

  Oh, the neighbourhood was on the way up – there were rumours of a certain TV chef looking to put another one of his ubiquitous chain Italians into the opposite end of the high street. But if we pulled this off, the word of mouth from the people attending might just give us the security we needed to see off any incomers.

  So I’d scoured my cook books, put together a menu that was doable but impressive, rounded Caz up to help with, if not prep at least keeping my panic under control, and hired – at not inconsiderable expense – a troupe of professional cater waiters.

  Then, the dead woman’s granddaughter, one Olivia Wright, had been in touch to discuss the menu and it had somewhat spiralled.

  “No nuts, no carbs, I’m basically a raw vegan fruitarian with an aversion to Kale,” she’d said, giving herself the worst Tindr profile I had ever heard.

  Caz, when I’d stopped sobbing and related the conversation, had pulled my discarded plans from the bin, reinstated the home made sausage rolls, pork pies and chicken Caesar canapes, and stood shaking her head – more in sorrow than anger – at me.

  “Livvy Wright,” she’d announced, “Is a loon, with the social skills of a slug. She’ll be drunk within ten minutes and demanding pasties and chips twenty minutes later. Besides, she’s not the only attendee whose tastes you need to impress.”

  “But she is,” I said, “Footing the bill.”

  “Stop whining,” Caz replied. “It’s horribly middle class like Livvy Bloody Wright. Do her your Babaghanoush, make her Quinoa with a lemon dressing,” she said, visibly resisting the urge to gag on the word Quinoa, “And – if she asks – tell her you haven’t had nuts near you since 1975. You can do this.”

  Today, looking around the room at the Herculean task, and with sweat beads gathering on her brow, even my unflappable friend seemed a little uncertain.

  “Maybe we should open the back door,” she suggested. “It’ll let a bit of air in…”

  “It’ll also get every riff raff in the neighbourhood walking in and pilfering the stock,” Ali sniffed.

  “I’m in here,” I said, “And the waiters are in and out all the time. Anyone not supposed to be here’ll soon get kicked out. Don’t worry.”

  “Worry?” Ali snorted, as she bustled back to the bar, “I’m the most laid back person in this place.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  “Daniel, I think you’re meant to flatten, not pulverise it.”

  I paused in my exertions, the hammer held above my head. “Paillards,” I said.

  “Yes, dear; same to you. But really: You’re hammering that chicken with a degree of passion that suggests Lizzie Borden at that time of the month.”

  “He’s blown me out,” I said, recommencing hammering the chicken breasts with the heavy, spiked meat mallet.

  “Literally or euphemistically?” Caz was poking around in the kitchen cupboards, clearly only half listening to me, and dragging out every bottle of booze she could find.

  “You expecting a drought?” I asked, pausing once again in my exertions.

  “Punch,” Caz explained. “For that hideous bowl.”

  That was another of the requirements of Maggie Wright’s Will: At the wake, punch was to be served in the punchbowl that she had personally served guests from during her wedding (in, judging by the state of the cut glass monstrosity, 1875).

  I doubted that the punch in question had contained the half a bottle of Ouzo, third of a bottle of Jose Cuervo and splash of Angostura bitters that Caz was now dumping into the Baccarat nightmare.

  “So this,” Caz said, pausing in her own exertions just long enough to pry the top off the bottle of bitters with her teeth and dump the remaining contents into the bowl, “Was a wedding present from her new in-laws, apparently.”

  “It’s not so much a wedding present.” I opined, slopping the now wafer thin chicken breast through some beaten eggs and dousing it in flour, “More a hate crime. I mean: apart from serving delicious fruity beverages from it, what do you reckon Mrs Wright used it for?”

  “Drowning kittens, from what I’ve heard of her.”

  Caz is landed gentry. This means she knows everyone (or has at least heard bad things about them). I’m not, which means I know my immediate social group (who all know the bad things about me).

  “She was one of those ones who likes to appear all charitable and caring, but I heard a couple of stories that’d straighten your perm,” she said, opening another bottle with her teeth, and making to dump its contents into the bowl.

  “Caz, I’m not sure Balsamic vinegar goes in a punch,” I called, stopping her just in time.

  She paused, raised an eyebrow, sniffed at the bottle, shrugged, said “Daniel, nobod
y has actually drunk punch in this country since Queen Mary popped it. It’s. basically, the alcoholic equivalent of a garnish. You look at it, smile, then hit the hard stuff. We invented binge drinking to avoid having to drink anything in a teacup served out of a bloody basin.”

  And, so saying, she sploshed a glug of the black liquid into the bowl.

  “Oi, Robert Carrier,” Ali called from the hallway outside, “Yer waiters are here.”

  A moment later, what I can only describe as a Greek Chorus Line shuffled into the room.

  The first one to enter was a tall, thin man in his 40s. His face was gaunt, pockmarked, and bore the sort of jowls that would have allowed him to go to a fancy dress party as droopy dawg with minimal expenditure on costuming.

  “David Walker. Dave,” he said, shrugging his cuffs and holding his hand out formally. I reached for it, then realised I still had the meat mallet in my hand. Putting down the implement and wiping my hands on my apron, I shook hands, and half expected him to click his heels.

  “Nice to meet you,” I muttered, my eyes already roving over his shoulder to where far more attractive – if diminutive - propositions were waiting.

  “These,” he gestured behind him in a way that suggested that ‘these’ were of little relevance or use, “Are the rest of the team: Filip.”

  “With an “F” said a short, heavily tanned himbo, his eyes raking me up and down, and his bitter little smile dismissing me instantly.

  “With an F,” Walker repeated, in the same tone he might have used for, say, the phrase With Genital Warts.

  Filip (‘with an F’) held out a hand to me, and – having exchanged the pleasantry with Dave Walker – I now felt obliged to shake his hand. I needn’t have bothered; it was limp, softer than kid gloves, and it almost immediately dropped from my grip.