Death Of A Nobody

by Derek Farrell

  Olivia Wright shook her head. “Not at all. She seemed to have an infinite capacity for forgiveness. Every time Tony did something that placed him in jeopardy, she’d take him to her study, and give him a talking to, and he’d be back on the straight and narrow for a few more weeks.

  “Then, he branched out.”

  I waited. There was clearly more to come. I didn’t wait too long.

  “It was like Tony had built up scar tissue. Hurting himself, hurting Maggie didn’t give him a buzz any more. So he started hurting other people. Innocent people.”

  She shook her head, and I was suddenly aware of raised voices from the other side of the room.

  “And now he’s back, and the innocent are bound to suffer again.” Olivia – clearly already a little more than squiffy - went to swig from her glass, only to realise it was empty.

  “Here,” I took it gently from her hands, “Allow me.”

  She smiled sadly at me. “I like you, Mr Bird. You’re a good listener. And you seem… sensible.”

  I accepted the compliment and turned to look for a waiter. And it was at that point that the raised voices gelled into a man’s voice saying “Take that back, you bastard!”

  The voice that replied, audible only because everyone else seemed to have stopped talking to observe whatever was occurring on the opposite side of the bar, was Anthony Taylor’s, and it said, “If the cap fits, James…”

  At which point something happened which I couldn’t see, because of the throng. But suddenly, there were screams, a couple of shouts of consternation, a loud “Hey, watch it,” from someone, a tray of glasses flew up in the air, crashed to the ground, and the crowd parted to display two grown men wrestling on the floor.

  It wasn’t exactly Die Hard levels of fisticuffs. It looked, to be honest, like a slow motion cuddle with grunts, strains and occasional profanities. If they’d been unclothed, it probably would have been classed as a Sex Show, and I would either have had my licence revoked, or Chopper asking for a cut of the proceeds.

  Taylor, an odd look of almost triumphalism, was on top, attempting to pry the other man’s hands from his throat, when Ali, moving like a particularly bulky gazelle, and accompanied by Ray, came from behind the bar, linked her arms round Taylor’s chest and under his arms, and hoiked him as Ray yanked the other man by the shoulders so that he slid across the floor as Taylor shot upwards.

  Separated, the two, gasping for air, glared at each other.

  The other combatant, I could clearly see now, was the Colonel Saunders lookalike who had arrived with Monica Vale. Just what I needed: My chances of getting the Art set back into a pub where their dates were set upon by drunks was probably close to zero.

  Then I remembered that Taylor hadn’t been drinking, watched as the look of excitement on his face was visibly suppressed, and remembered his words about avenging angels, and a little voice in my head wondered what, exactly, was going on here.

  Ali looked at me, her unspoken do I throw them out crossing the bar, and, having glanced at Olivia Wright, I gestured to her to let them be.

  Dash came from behind the bar with a mop and bucket, and commenced clearing up the spillages, as the two men stalked to opposite ends of the bar and glared at each other.

  I turned to Olivia again, who smiled at me. “Thank you,” she said, “for that. I need to try to figure this out.”

  Dave Walker approached us, a tray of drinks held in one hand, and I snatched two glasses, handing one to Olivia, and swigging from the other. Olivia Wright thanked me again, and crossed the bar to where Anthony Taylor sported a look like a scientist who’s just watched some bacilli do the Macarena.

  “Mr Bird,” Walker dropped his voice, leaned in and down to me conspiratorially, and nodded at the bar. “I’ve been watching our friend.”

  Our friend? I followed his eyes to the bar, and slumped in exhaustion. Elaine.

  “Look, Dave,” I began, but he grabbed my arm with his free hand.

  “Watch her now,” he said, “she’s doing it again. Watch!”

  As I watched, Elaine smiled at a customer, turned, went to the bar behind her, lifted a tumbler, filled it full of ice, and pressed it against the Vodka optic. She paused and her shoulders twitched, before she turned, smiled, lifted a bottle of mixer from the shelf under the bar, and poured the contents in on top of the spirits.

  “Did you see it?” Dave asked me triumphantly.

  “Um…”

  “You didn’t see it?” His face fell. “She’s been doing it all afternoon. Customer orders a double vodka. She fills the glass with ice, pours a single, then mimes the second one. She’s just given him a single and charged for a double.”

  “But why would she do that?”

  He looked at me like I was the child who’d eaten too many lead pencils, and shook his head. “Money, Mister Bird. She’s pocketing the difference.”

  “But it’s an open bar, Dave. There’s no money changing hands. I’ve supplied all the booze and Olivia Wright will pay me for every bottle we open, whether it’s drained or not.”

  “What? But that’s insane!”

  “More money than sense, I reckon. But there’s no way for Elaine to be working a scam. There’s no money for her to pinch.”

  He deflated before my eyes. “But I saw her doing it.”

  “You were mistaken, Dave. Now, those drinks aren’t going to serve themselves, are they?”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  “Ah, Danny,” Kent clapped me on the shoulder, “D’you mind if we have a word?”

  Shit, I thought, he’s clocked the fag butts in the punch, but I smiled eagerly (I hoped, though my mum has noted that when I try to do my smile eagerly bit I look Less eager, and more backwards). Still, eager or simple, I followed Kent across the bar to where Olivia Wright was engaged in a hushed and somewhat tense-looking discussion with her newly returned cousin.

  The Prodigal Returns was not the atmosphere I was picking up. More, to be honest, why the fuck aren’t you dead?

  Still, Kent leaned in, whispered something in Olivia’s ear, and she straightened up, turning briefly to mutter something that didn’t look like How Lovely to see you again to Anthony, before stepping away and commencing a hushed discussion with her fiancé.

  I stood, feeling increasingly like staff (which, as they had paid for my time, I was, really) and awaited orders.

  At last, Olivia kissed Kent on the lips, smiled, and both turned to me.

  “We have a proposition to put to you,” Kent announced with a smile that had me, for a moment, concerned that they were going to put something more than a proposition to me.

  Cursing that eager smile, and wondering whether they’d misconstrued it as an Up for being a rich couples sex toy grin, I waited, the rictus wobbling only slightly.

  “Well,” Kent looked around the room filled with people, “is there somewhere we could go? Somewhere more private?”

  I’ve got fifty mini trifles to decorate, and you want to pop upstairs for an afternoon delight? I thought. What sort of boy d’you think I am?

  Aloud, I said “There’s the parlour,” and was relieved when both nodded happily, and Kent waved me ahead with an “After you, Mr. Bird.”

  We pushed through the crowd, squeezed behind the bar, down the hallway and turned into the dusty parlour, it’s décor a pristine example of the Backstreet abortionist style favoured by old biddies in the 1950s.

  Kent closed the door. “We need some privacy,” he murmured, turning back to me and my slightly simple, slash Up for being a rich couples sex toy grin dropped like a stone.

  “What’s this about?” I asked nervously, as the couple settled themselves at the table.

  Kent’s phone buzzed. He took it from his pocked, glanced at it, shook his head, hit redial, held up a finger to me, and, after a moment, spoke to someone on the other end of the line:

  “Tell them I’ll go. Five million for eight percent, but not a penny more… I’m done, Franco; Five for eight, or I’m o
ut. Ciao,” and hung up before turning back to me and the still gooey-eyed fiancée, who was doing a better impersonation of eager smile than I ever could have.

  “Sorry about that,” he said. “Where were we?”

  “Someone,” I said, “Was going to tell me what this is all about.”

  “It’s about you.” Olivia said. “We need you.”

  “Look,” I wrung my hands, realised I was about two beats away from I was only a bird in a gilded cage, stopped wringing them, put my hands on the table and looked hopefully at each of them, till I realised I looked like I was bracing for an impact from behind, and finally, exhausted at trying to make my body language say anything other than This is mortifyingly embarrassing, dropped like a stone into a chair on the opposite side of the table from them.

  “This is very flattering, but I’m not sure that I’m the right person for you.”

  “Oh, but I think you are, Danny. We think you are,” Kent smiled seductively at me, as he put an arm around Livy Wright. He was, I had to admit, somewhat dashing. But then, in my mind’s eye, I saw Nick Fisher, and knew that whatever kinkiness Kent and Olivia had in mind, I was not up for it.

  “No,” I shook my head, “I don't think I am.”

  “But you’re so good at it,” Olivia Wright simpered. “Everyone says so.”

  “You’ve been asking about me?” And – more worryingly – who’ve you been asking, and what have they been saying?

  “Well, it’s hard not to hear about it,” Kent said “I mean, it might have been a few months since you did it, but it’s still something to be proud of.”

  A couple of months, maybe, I thought, but we’ve both been busy. And Nick’s been a bit odd lately. Plus, y’know, with this big gig coming up, I’ve been stressed and – wait! What? Proud of? I mean, I know it was good – very good – but I hardly think Nick posted an Amazon review about it.

  “What” I asked, “Are you both actually talking about?”

  “Well, your special skills,” Olivia said, a puzzled look on her face, as though she were wondering what else we could possibly have been talking about.

  “Skills?” I thought, deciding we were definitely not discussing my sexual prowess, and trying to decide between my devilled eggs vol au vents, and my mini Yorkshires. “What skills?”

  “Detecting,” said Kent, in the same tone someone might have taken to Nancy Drew if she’d asked which of her clearly vast range of talents were being complimented.

  “Detecting?” I looked at each of them in turn, as they looked back at me eagerly.

  At that point, there was a knock, and Dave Walker popped his head round the doorframe. “Oops,” he said, backing out of the room, “Sorry to bother you.”

  “It’s alright, Dave,” I called after him. “D’you need anything?”

  His head popped back into the room, his eyes taking in the three of us hunched around the table as though negotiating something important, like, say the Treaty of Versailles, or whether to watch Strictly or X Factor, and a hint of a smirk crossed his lips. “Nothing important,” he said, and was gone.

  “The thing is,” Olivia Wright explained, “we’ve got a problem. One we’ve been trying to solve for some time. I wanted to go to the police, but Kent wouldn’t hear of it.”

  “Overkill,” he murmured, dismissing the problem – whatever it was – with a wave of his hand.

  “But the thing is, they’re not going away. And I’m sick of it. So we need someone who can figure out who’s doing it, and put a stop to them.”

  Jesus, they really did think I was Nancy Drew. “Well, like I say, flattering as all that is…” I would have killed it there, but for the next words out of Olivia Wright’s mouth:

  “He didn’t murder her, Danny. I know he didn’t.”

  The Thanks, but No Thanks died on my lips. “Murder? Who mentioned anything about murder?”

  Kent sighed. “I’ve been married before, Danny. My wife went missing. There was,” he searched for the word, “a scandal, suggestions that I’d killed her. I hadn’t. I didn’t.”

  “He didn’t,” Olivia confirmed emphatically. “I know him, and I know that Kent is one of the gentlest, sweetest men I’ve ever met. He’s perfect for me. But someone’s been sending these letters. Horrible, horrible things.”

  “Wait!” I held my hand up, stopping the torrent of words. “Take a step back. Start at the beginning. What happened?”

  I meant, of course, what happened with the wife that Kent didn’t murder, but I hadn’t counted on Olivia Wright’s ego. She took my words to mean tell me your romantic love story, and kicked into what sounded like a well rehearsed spiel:

  “It was Jane, really. She’d just ended a relationship. Poor girl – they never last long; she’s so unlucky with men, and has such low confidence. No idea why, cos she’s quite pretty really, when she makes the effort.”

  I mentally pictured the hunched hairy creature that I’d last seen at the bar, and wondered just how much effort would be required.

  “Well, Jane was really depressed, and needed to get away, so she suggested that we take a little girlie trip to Florence to recover. And that’s where I met Kent. He was at a conference.”

  “I’d skipped a session to take in the Uffizi,” Kent explained, also missing the point that whilst their How we met tale was lovely, they had actually mentioned murder – or implied murder – then just casually put it to one side. “And I was looking at The Birth of Venus when I literally bumped into Olivia.”

  “Lovely,” I smiled, trying to pull them back to the pertinent point. “Now, about this murdered wife.”

  “It was love at first sight,” Olivia made puppy dog eyes at her fiancée. “We hit it off immediately – Kent loved the same paintings as me, the same food, laughed at the same jokes and read the same books. It was like he’d been made for me.” She smiled fondly, and reached a hand out to stroke his face. Kent caught the hand, and kissed it gently.

  “He’s perfect for me,” Olivia said, and Kent blushed.

  “You’re perfect for me,” he answered, and I resisted the urge to retch.

  “So,” Olivia carried on, “Kent followed me back to London, and eventually had to go back to L.A. It was horrible,” she said, misting up momentarily. “I missed him so much. Everyone said so. I was moody, and weepy, and I just knew I had to see him again.”

  “The murdered wife?” I tried, again, to no avail.

  “So she followed me out to L.A.” Kent filled in.

  “Which was Jane’s doing,” Olivia admitted sheepishly. “I thought he’d gone off me, but she was all Go after him. He could be the one for you, which – when you consider her heart had just been broken – was really pretty decent of her.”

  “Was all a bit of a shock, I’ve got to admit,” Kent took up the rambling, “But a very pleasant one. I’d never met anyone before who was so,” he searched for the word, “Vibrant. Olivia’s the most wonderful girl. But finally the time came closer for her to return to London,”

  “Well, a girl can only stay on holiday for so long.”

  Unless, I thought, you’re an heiress with shitloads of money in your future, then you can bunk off as long as you like.

  “I knew that I had to do something,” Kent continued. “she was going to come back here, and I was going to lose her. So, after two months in LA, we were suddenly back here in London, and engaged to be married.”

  “And then the letters started to arrive,” Olivia said.

  “Letters?”

  “Yes,” said Kent. “And that takes us to Sophie, which is something I told Olivia all about when we were in L.A.”

  “I knew, and I still wanted to marry him, Danny. Which is what makes these letters so hateful.”

  I waited, looking from one to the other. “Go on,” I said.

  “My wife,” Kent began at last, “Was a complicated woman. She had mood swings, and they had been getting worse. We had a business; one that had done quite well. But, as can happen, the
business was going through a difficult patch.

  “The lawyers were gathering, people with – what do you say here? – an eye for the main chance?” He sighed. “The whole thing just started to get to her. Which, of course, made her,” again, he paused, as if searching for the right word, “difficult to live with. But we loved each other, Danny; of that, I can assure you. I would no more have harmed Sophie than cut my own hand off.

  “Then, one day, I came home, and she wasn’t there. We had a boat, a little thing we used to take out to fish in, or just to escape all the shit that was going on in the business. And the boat was gone from its mooring. I assumed she’d gone out for the afternoon. She liked to do that, sometimes: Would take a book, and a bottle of wine, and anchor somewhere, and just drift till she was ready to come home.

  “Except she didn’t come home. Ever.”

  “I see.” I said, and the parlour – bakingly hot a moment ago – seemed a little chillier for a moment. “What happened?”

  Kent shrugged, sadly. “You can probably guess what happened. The police were eventually called, they did some sniffing around, realised that things hadn’t always been great, let it be known – as they so easily can – that I was a person of interest in the case.”

  “Trial by media,” Olivia muttered, her eyes blazing.

  “Indeed,” Kent shrugged. “It was like something by Kafka: They hadn’t charged me with anything, but everyone knew I’d killed her, because, well, why wouldn’t I? Except, of course, I hadn’t and I wouldn’t have. Because I loved her.”

  Olivia placed her hand over Kent’s, and sighed sympathetically.

  “Eventually, of course, the police made a move. They had Sophie declared dead, so that they could charge me with her murder.”

  He sighed heavily. “I spent several months in limbo before they finally had to admit that they had no real grounds for even suspecting foul play, let alone for suspecting me of murder. On top of which, I had a rock solid alibi for the whole day.

  “Sophie was declared missing, presumed dead, I was shunned by the people who continued to believe I’d killed her, and everything just sort of faded away. Then, a couple of years later, I went to Florence, and met Olivia.”