Death Of A Nobody

by Derek Farrell

  Turning, he repeated the manoeuvre on Caz, though this time, I swear, the hug was shorter, somehow more perfunctory.

  “I can think of one thing you could do to help,” Caz muttered, and, catching my eye, clarified, “you could tell all your mates that the food here is still amazing, the pub is still friendly, and that as only the staff ever seem to be murdered, it’s perfectly safe for them to come and have lunch here.”

  Green smiled. “I don’t think you need my review,” he said, gesturing towards the bar, “That place is rammed out there. Besides, I don’t actually have many friends in London. Yet. Do the police have any idea who murdered that guy?”

  I shook my head. “None. And to be honest, I’m not entirely sure that they’re looking too closely.”

  “Daniel,” Caz advised Mike, holding the gin bottle up in a silent invite, “Has a somewhat jaundiced view of her majesty’s constabulary at present. You sure we can’t tempt you?”

  Mike shook his head, “Too early for me, thanks.”

  At that point, Ali barrelled into the kitchen.

  “Not that I’m fussed or nothing,” she intoned in a baritone worthy of Lady Bracknell, but it’s lunchtime out there, and the place is rammed. Any chance one of you two could rustle up some of the food that you’ve been advertising?”

  “Rammed?” Caz raised an eyebrow.

  “Told you,” Mike said, nodding in agreement with Ali. “I suppose there really is no such thing as bad publicity.

  “Tell that to Dave Walker,” Ali snapped back. “I don’t think he’s ever had his name in the papers as much as he has today. Not exactly great publicity for him, mind…”

  She turned to me. “So, Danny, you got any more of that Gaz-Parch- Eo-O handy? Only it’s flying out like hot cakes, now I’ve twigged it’s supposed to be cold.”

  I shuddered at the recollection of Ali two days previously, returning bowl after bowl of the soup because it had “Gone cold while you were farting about with the garnish.”

  Mike gestured at the bar. “So is lunchtime usually this busy?” he asked.

  “A murder’ll do that,” Ali commented. “Danny? Gaz-Parch- Eo-O?”

  “On it,” I sighed rousing myself as Ali bustled back out to the bar.

  “Hey,” Caz commented, “Maybe we won’t need The Standard to come in. If enough people like what they see and eat – whatever it is that brings them in here – the papers’ll have to review us.”

  “Indeed,” Mike murmured. “Listen, Danny, I can see you’re busy, but if you need anything – anything – you know where I am.”

  “Thanks Mike,” I said, hoping for another consoling hug. But, instead, he tapped me on the shoulder, nodded politely at Caz and Ali, and took his leave.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  By three o’clock, the rush had died down, and, having filled the dishwasher for the umpteenth time, I headed out to the bar, where Ray, Dash and Elaine were restocking shelves for the evening session.

  Ali was watching them, while cashing up the till, and correcting, from time to time, their work.

  “How’d we do?” I asked her.

  She held a finger up, tapped a few more numbers into her calculator, checked the result against the screen on the till, and nodded in satisfaction.

  “Not bad.” She smiled, “We might eventually make a go of this place.”

  “Be a miracle if we do,” I said. “Pubs seem to be closing left right and centre these days.”

  “Ah,” she smiled, “But they aint got me as a landlady.”

  “Bar manager,” I corrected her.

  She shot me a look that said, regardless of what title I decided to bestow on her, we both knew that she was the landlady.

  I blanked her, nodding at the calculations before her. “So, what’s all this then?”

  “Stock control,” she replied proudly. “One of the biggest problems in most pubs is the pilfering what the staff do. You can lose a fortune, if you’re not on top of it.”

  I glanced over her shoulder. “But our staff, Ali – except for the odd big event – consists of my nephews and Choppers granddaughter. We’re hardly running Disney Land...”

  Ali shook her head at me in a more-in-sorrow-than-anger fashion. “Danny, Danny, Danny. I mostly trust the boys. They’re as crooked as the day is long, but they know better than to nick off me. That much, we’ve made clear. But the blonde is an entirely different little number. She’d have the eyes out of your head, the teeth out of your mouth, the crisps out of the back, and torch the fucking place on her way out.

  “So, I’m keeping an eye out. This,” she nodded at her calculations, “Starts off by telling me exactly how much of everything we have in stock. I can then match it against how much money we’ve taken, and confirm that what we’ve got left is what we should have left.”

  I still thought she was going slightly over the top, but figured it was her bar to run.

  “Any chance I can borrow the boys?” I asked, nodding at the matching peroxided heads of the twins.

  Ali glanced over at them, sniffed, “Yeah, I suppose so. Here, Elaine,” she called out, “Can you get up a crate of slimline tonics and refill the mixers shelf?”

  “Why can’t they do it?” Elaine whined, nodding at the twins.

  “’Cos I didn’t ask them to,” Ali growled. “I asked you. Shift it. You two,” she nodded at the boys, “Danny’s got a job for you.”

  The boys followed me down the hallway to the kitchen, where Caz had already taken a seat at the table, a huge jug of fruit-filled Pimms before her. She doled out four glasses of the drink, toasted us, then pointed to the chairs on the other side of the table.

  “Pull up a seat, boys,” she said.

  Ray and Dash glanced at each other. “What’s going on, Dan?” Ray queried.

  I sipped from the Pimms, and launched into a coughing fit. There appeared to be no lemonade in it. “Jesus, Caz. What have you put in this?”

  “Pimms Royale? It’s Pimms and Prosecco. Yes,” she held a hand up to stave off any comment, “I know I should have used champagne, but you’re not made of money, Daniel. Now, boys,” she turned her attention, and a beaming smile, on the twins, “Nothing to worry about. You’re not in trouble or anything. Although,” she squinted sourly at them, “Your initial assumption that you were leads me to believe that one – or both – of you has been up to something you shouldn’t have been. What’s been happening?”

  “Yes, thank you Jessica Fletcher,” I wiped my brow, took a second, more measured sip from the Pimms, and settled myself at the table, “we’ll call you.”

  “They look shifty,” she insisted.

  “They’re seventeen,” I snapped back. “Every boy looks shifty at seventeen. Especially when some posh bint starts plying them with fruit flavoured jet fuel. Sorry boys.”

  The twins shrugged, lifted their glasses in unison, and swigged from them. I noticed that neither of them coughed.

  “We’re eighteen,” Dash clarified, as though that made a difference.

  “Wonderful,” Caz snarled. “so you can be tried as adults. Just remember that, Daniel: whatever you’re about to ask these fine young men to do, they are no longer minors and thus the old youthful exuberance line won’t run.”

  “Caz,” I corrected her, “Youthful exuberance only runs for the sons of the aristocracy.”

  Caz shrugged accedence to my point, and drained half her glass of Pimms in one slug.

  “Right,” I turned to the boys. “I need you to do some digging.”

  “Bodies or copper piping?” Ray asked.

  “Only we don’t do bodies. Not any more,” his brother clarified.

  “Neither. Wait… what? When did you bury a body?”

  “Bury?” Dash looked aghast. “We aint never buried a body, Dan. What d’you think we are?”

  “Nah, we dug one up, innit,” Ray clarified. “That artist bloke, Jame Montessori, needed one for something he was working on.”

  “Well, I sighed, I’m
so glad you’re more Burke and Hare than Brady and Hindley, but what the fuck were you thinking?”

  “It was a dog, Dan,” Dash clarified. “A great Dane.”

  “Fucking reeked,” his brother noted, his face expressing his disgust at the memory. “An’ as we was getting’ him up, his head started falling off…”

  “Right!” that was the point at which Caroline slapped the table. “I suggest we get on with the business at hand. More Pimms anyone?” And, like the well-bred young aristo she was, she stirred the melange, and topped up our glasses.

  “OK.” I sipped from the glass. No coughing this time; I was clearly becoming used to the alcohol content, a fact which was confirmed by my inability to feel anything above my upper lip. “I want you to dig up some information.”

  The twins glanced again at each other. “Information?”

  “So no dead animals, then?” Dash asked, in a tone that seemed almost disappointed. “Only in this heat…”

  “…It’d cost you,” Ray finished.

  “Boys!” Caz slapped the table again. “Focus, please!”

  “OK,” Ray turned to me, “What sort of information?”

  So I told them about Kent, the dead wife, the engagement to Olivia Wright, and about the poison pen letters.

  “Ray, get on the internet. I want to know about the dead wife: Who was she, where did she come from, any family or friends who might want to cause trouble? Dash, Olivia’s couriering over the letters. Take a look. Anything pops out to you about them – post marks, grammar, whatever – let’s hear it.”

  The boys exchanged worried glances.

  “Problem?” I asked.

  “Well, it’s just,” Ray began.

  “Grammar is hard,” Dash said, his brows already knitting together at the thought of having to spot a split infitive.

  “Jesus.” I rolled my eyes. “But digging up deceased pets is easy? Just do your best.”

  “Danny,” Caz put her glass down,, “Do we need to do this? I mean: you’ve got a lot on your plate already.”

  “I promised them,” I answered. “And besides, Olivia Wright already paid me a sizeable retainer, with another amount when we find out who’s sending the letters. She really wants them stopped. So, if we can get to the bottom of it, there’s a nice little bonus for all of us.”

  Caz’s phone beeped. She glanced at, slid it from the table into her bag, and refocused on me. “So what are you and I doing while the boys are digging into Kent’s unofficial biographer?”

  “We’re going to visit the lovely people at Mastercaters.”

  “Wait a minute.” Caz put her glass down. “What have they got to do with the poison pen letters?”

  “Nothing,” I admitted. “They employed Dave Walker. I’m hoping they’ll have some idea why he’s dead.”

  “Danny.” Caz hefted the jug, stirred it again, and topped the four glasses up. She gestured at my glass, an instruction to me to swig it because what she was about to say would not be welcomed, and, having slugged hers, fixed me with her most severe glare.

  “You run a pub. You’re good at it – and getting better. You make food that appears to be quite good.”

  “Quite?” Only quite? I was insulted.

  “Sweetheart, you are a competent cook; you’re not Michelin level. Yet. But, with the right publicity, and the right approach to the whole thing, you might actually make a decent living from it. People like you. You’re getting a good reputation, and you’re no longer hovering over bankruptcy. You got lucky – alright, unlucky – last time. Lyra being killed right on your doorstep was horrible, but you managed to find the killer and get the police off your back. But you don’t need to do this. Not this time.”

  “I do,” I answered simply.

  “Oh sweetheart,” she reached a hand across mine. “You don’t. You really don’t. It’s not your job; it’s with Reid. He’ll snout away at it till he figures it out.”

  “He was just a waiter, Caz. Reid said so. There’ll be something else tomorrow, something that demands more attention, and this will slowly slide down the priorities list. They don’t even know where to begin.”

  “They’ll begin where you propose,” she shot back. “with the employers, the friends, the family.”

  “But they won’t get anywhere,” I answered.

  She shook her head sadly at me. “Oh you of little faith.”

  I sighed. “I don’t mean they’re not smart enough to figure it out. Just that they won’t have time to. They’ll be distracted. He wasn’t a celebrity or a politician or even someone photogenic that the papers’ll keep on the front page. He was a middle aged nobody, who nobody cares about. And the police will be distracted.”

  “And you won’t?”

  I didn’t respond, and she finally sighed. “I see: Nick.”

  “Nick,” I confirmed simply, and she sighed, before lifting her glass of Pimms in toast.

  “Well, she said, I guess the old firm’s back in business. Here’s to us. God help us.”

  I toasted her, and slugged.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  “So, is this a thing now?” My dad asked, as he pulled his taxi up outside a suburban detached house next morning.

  “A thing?” I paused before opening the door, enjoying the last moments of the air conditioned chill.

  “You. Going all Columbo every time someone in the neighbourhood gets bumped off. Only, your mum’s worried that, you know, you’ll get into trouble.”

  I bristled. “I am not going all Columbo.”

  Caz snorted, sounding, as always, like a pedigree pony whose funny bone had been tickled. “No,” she observed, “you’re more Poirot on Poppers.” To my Father, she added, “Don’t worry, Mr B; I’m keeping an eye on him. He gets close to trouble, and I’ll have him out of trouble spit spot.”

  “Thank you, Mary Popout,” I murmured, casting a judgemental eye over Caz’s ensemble. There were bags around her eyes – expertly hidden, of course, but still visible to my trained eye – and her hair seemed a little too tousled even for her. But more alarming was the peasant smock she was wearing, which managed to flare alarmingly at the hem yet be tight enough to show off the sort of cleavage you could drown a mouse, a sack of kittens and a selection of unwanted shopping trollies in.

  My eyes travelled lower.

  “Why,” I asked, “Are you wearing jeans?”

  Caz raised an eyebrow. “Because my leopard skin leggings were in the wash. Is there a dress code I’m unaware of for suburban visits?”

  “You never wear jeans. Or, come to think of it, peasant smocks.”

  “Well you can’t get the peasants these days. Shall we go?” She asked, swinging the door open and wincing as the superheated air immediately cancelled out the air con. “Mr B, it’s been a pleasure as always. And thank you for the rhubarb.”

  “Rhubarb?” I thanked my dad, waved him goodbye, and turned to Caz.

  “Yes, your dad’s sending some around from his allotment. I’m making a pie.”

  “Right,” I grabbed her by the wrist and stared into her eyes, “Bring back my friend, or there’ll be trouble .”

  Caz tried to pull her wrist from my grip. “Daniel, what on earth has gotten in to you?”

  “Firstly, you haven’t cooked at home since – well, since ever. You’re the only person I know whose oven still has the guarantee sticker on it, and the instruction guide in it. And secondly – jeans and peasant smocks? Caz: what’s going on?”

  “It’s Stella,” she said gesturing at the top, “And these are Dolce. I just fancied a change. Have you brought me all the way to,” she shuddered, “Woodford to play Fashion Police?”

  I released her wrist. “You’re up to something.”

  Was it my imagination, or did she blush. “Shall we?” She gestured at number 43 Bradley Drive, and, deciding that I’d gotten as much from her as I was likely to get, I led the way to the door, and pressed the doorbell.

  Almost instantly, the door opened. A youn
g man, somewhere, I’d guess, in his early twenties, his head still turned as though talking to someone in the house stood in the doorway, an iPhone held in his left hand, a backpack slung over his right shoulder.

  He pressed an earphone into this ear, snapped “I’ll do it when I get home, mum,” turned his head, spotted us, and stopped, pulling the earbud from his ear and flicking his black fringe out of his eyes. “Hello,” he smiled.

  “Jonas,” said a female voice if that’s the bloody Jehovas again, tell ‘em if we find Jesus we’ll give ‘em a bell.”

  He smiled at me. “You don’t look like the Jehovah’s witnesses.”

  “We’re not,” I smiled back. “Is Mrs Cambell in?”

  He shrugged down the hallway, “Just,” smiled again, nodded at Caz, squeezed past us, murmuring “good luck,” and, shoving the earphone back in his ear, made his way up the road.

  The door stood open before us. From the other end of the hallway, the female voice continued to berate the now absent Jonas, “Make sure you do get it done, Jonas; jobs don’t just come knocking on the door, and if you’re not working by next week, I’ll ‘ave your guts for garters.”

  I looked at Caz, who looked at me. “Shall we?” I mimicked her, gestured her forward, and we stepped into the house, closing the door behind us.

  “Even better,” Jonas’ mum’s voice added, “I’ll put you to work with my lot. They can always use some help in the kitchens.”

  “Hello,” I called, stepping around two of the largest, most fluorescent pink suitcases I had ever seen.

  “I’m in here,” the voice called, “Though if you’re selling, I aint buying.”

  We walked down the hall and into the kitchen. Mrs Cambell was bent down at the moment, stuffing clothing into a washing machine in the corner of the kitchen.

  “Won’t be a mo,” she said, slamming the door shut and standing up.

  She was huge – at least six foot five in height, and quite possibly five foot six at the shoulders. She had the sort of chest that an American college line backer can only dream of achieving, and she was a shade of tan that can really only be called creosote.