Death Of A Nobody

by Derek Farrell

  “He’s not,” I said, “answering his phone.”

  “Dearest, I doubt he knows how to. Dopey Des is one of those boys for whom nannies were invented. And why does his inability to answer calls bother you?”

  “He called earlier,” I said, filling her in, quickly, on his call.

  “Ah, the drunken, rambling call from a posh boy. Have you met my family? It’s what one does when one has a trust fund and absolutely nothing to do on a warm afternoon: get wasted and call randomly. Well, that or invest in internet start-ups. So, he was upset by Rasputin’s death?”

  “Caz!”

  “What? Oh Danny,” she shook her head at me as though I were a charming but clearly incurable idiot, “the woman was an afghan hound. In miniature, hunched up, pot-bellied form, but still: there is absolutely no reason for anyone to have a plaitable beard. They sell stuff in Boots,” this last word pronounced as though it were one which had never, previously, passed her lips, “For God’s sake. No,” Caz shook her head definitively, “looking that – for the want of a better word – rough these days isn’t unfortunate; it’s deliberate.”

  “But she’s dead,” I protested.

  “So’s Evita Peron, but I bet she still looks better than Jumpy Jane at her liveliest. I swear, the woman twitched like a frog on a hotplate; I’ve seen Tourette’s sufferers with calmer body language. And stop giving me that look, Mother Theresa: You know as well as I do that the whole twitchy hairy mystic thing went out of style with the Maharishi. And he only got into style because he had the Beatles. Jane, meanwhile, had poor Olivia, whose confidence is so low she needed a friend with more facial hair than her grandfather to feel good about herself. So what are you going to do about that?” She nodded at my phone.

  “I dunno. He sounded genuinely upset.”

  “Lemme get this straight,” my dad announced from the front seat of the cab as traffic slowed to a complete standstill on the Cromwell road, “You’ve got a mate who called you a bit worse for wear, and clearly upset. And now you can’t get hold of him?”

  I nodded, as Caz rolled her eyes and said “If he’s anything like my brother, he’ll already be en route to Marrakesh for the weekend, or ensconced in Boujis with a blonde who manages to be simultaneously too cheap and too good for him.”

  “Yeah, well,” my Dad sighed, “he could be doin’ that.” He manoeuvred the cab into another lane, shot daggers at a car attempting – even at five miles an hour - to cut him up, and looked in the rear view mirror at us, “But you sound bothered by this, Dan.”

  “Well,” I searched for the words, “he just sounded,” I searched for the words, finally settling on “despairing.”

  “So?” My dad glanced back in the mirror, “What d’you want to do?”

  “I want to check up on him,” I finally said, “Only I don’t know where he lives.”

  Caz heaved a sigh so heavy I was convinced her lungs had deflated. “You boys. You’re so soft. We women don’t get all this touchy feely over drunk dialling, you know,” and she pulled her phone from her bag, shot me a warning look, dialled, and, as the phone was answered at the other end, smiled, licked lipstick from her teeth, and launched into “Hello big boy.”

  I doubted she was talking to Desmond Everett, as the last time he’d been referred to as a Big Boy had probably been by his Nanny, and had almost definitely been before puberty.

  “Yes,” she paused, her smile widening momentarily, and actually sighed. “I had a good time too. Very good.”

  And that’s when I realised she was calling Anthony Taylor.

  She giggled. “Yes, well, that’s very kind of you, but,” she caught my eye, straightened up, and attempted to run a hand nonchalantly through her hair. Which, as the hair was held in place with enough lacquer to finish off a pack of polar bears, merely resulted in her trying to turn a phone conversation to the point whilst attempting to extricate her perfectly manicured nails from her coiffe without ripping her own locks out. “I’m,” she grunted as her hand flew free, a long strand of blonde hair – with surprisingly dark roots – attached, “Trying to get hold of Dopey Des. I don’t suppose you have his address, do you? Oh, you do? Smashing. And its..? Really? Earls Court? Thank you lovely. Oh yes, I shall definitely thank you in person. Soon as…” She giggled, thanked him again and, ignoring my disapproving glare, chatted some more, before finally hanging up, and turning to my dad.

  “Awfully sorry, Mr B, but if you boys are determined to check in on Dopey Des, you’ll need to turn around.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  “See, I told you: Marrakesh.” Caz looked pityingly at me as I banged once again on the door of Desmond Everett’s mews flat.

  “Desmond,” I squatted down, shouting through the letter box, “Are you in there? It’s Danny. I’d like to talk.”

  Behind me, on the opposite side of the courtyard, a door opened, and someone stepped out.

  “I’ve called the police,” a woman said in tones that would have made the Duchess of Devonshire sound like Eliza Doolittle, pre Prof Higgins, “And they’re on the way!”

  I stood and turned around. “I’m not sure there’s any need for that, Mrs-” I held my hand out, and the lady in question – ninety if she was a day, and wearing, even in this heat, a tweed skirt and a voluminous pink silk blouse that seemed to be formed from the jowls that hung pendulously from her jaw and neck like some sort of fleshy dinosaur – actually shrunk from me.

  “It’s miss,” she said, “and this is a quiet mews. We won't be having with scenes like this. Shouting. Squatting.”

  You wanna come round my neighbourhood, love, is what I wanted to say. Instead, I smiled in, I hoped, my little-lost-boy best, and tried again. “I’m so sorry for the noise, miss. My name is Danny – Daniel Bird. We’re just trying to get hold of my friend Dope – um, Mister Everett.”

  “Well he’s clearly not in, is he?” She snapped back, her jowls quivering like an angry turkey.

  Behind me, Caz sniggered. “Told you: Marrakesh.”

  The old dear’s hand suddenly plunged into the folds of her blouse, and pulled out a pair of spectacles attached to a thin gold chain. She put the specs on and squinted at me.

  “I know what you look like,” she announced in tones so cut glass they were positively Waterford, “and if I see you around here again, I’ll have the law on you!”

  “We’re wasting our time,” Caz said. “C’mon; let’s go.”

  Lady Bracknell’s scarier granny glanced over my shoulder, and stiffened. “Holloway!” She barked, and, behind me, Caz gasped. “What on earth are you wearing? A lady should never show so much flesh. Get over here this instant!”

  “Shit,” Caz muttered, pushing past me, a beaming but, I could tell, uncertain smile plastered on her mug. “Miss Hastings! How are you? It’s been… Ooh, how long has it been?”

  “Not long enough, Holloway. I said you’d end in the gutter, and,” at this she glanced pointedly over her glasses at me, “ I was, quite clearly, correct. Shouting. Squatting. Peering through people’s letter boxes. Your father will be informed. Oh yes, have no doubt of that, Holloway. I shall telephone him this instant.”

  “Oh, Jesus,” Caz sighed, turning her face towards me, and muttering out of the corner of her mouth, “I knew this was a stupid idea. It’s my governess. She’s barking mad, and deaf as a post. Dopey Des could have been singing Nessun Dorma all day and she’d know nothing.”

  “She, Lady Caroline, has had a hugely expensive and extremely efficacious hearing aid fitted. And insanity, if I recall, runs in your family, not mine. Now stand here,” Miss Hastings jabbed a finger so bony it was almost skeletal at a point well within what should have been her personal space, and scowled at a now clearly blushing Caz. “And explain yourself girl.”

  “Um,” Caz – all traces of sophistication vanished, shuffled over to the spot indicated, and, head hung, stood like a naughty schoolgirl.

  “Speak up, girl! She was always difficult,” Hastings, her view o
f me clearly in the ascendant now that she had Caz to pick on, addressed me, before turning her hectoring tones back to a cringing Caz. “What are you doing here, and what is your interest in Mister Everett?”

  Caz mumbled something.

  “I said I’ve a hearing aid, gel, not a bally radar. Speak up!” And I swear, if the old dear had had a ruler, she’d have rapped Caz over the knuckles with it.

  “Desmond – Mr Everett, that is – called my friend earlier, and seemed very – um – upset,” Caz stammered.

  “Upset?” She waved the word aside. “Man’s an idiot.” We were in agreement on one thing, then. “Always mooning about, lost in his own world. No backbone,” Hastings decided, “That’s what’s wrong with young people these days. No character. It’s all need and deserve, and no sense of duty. Don’t even make their own beds, half of them,” she finished, as though this were clear evidence of the collapse of society, and that hordes of bed making Visigoths were likely to sweep up The Kings Road any day now.

  “What was he upset about?” She addressed this to me, waving Caz, momentarily, to one side.

  “I’m not sure,” I said, adding, before she could accuse me of being obtuse, “I think he might have been drinking.”

  She tsked at this. “Yes, he was no stranger to the grape. Much,” she turned her attention back to Caz, “Like you, if I recall. Thirteen,” this addressed to me, “And squiffy as an actress. Disgraceful behaviour.” The watery blue eyes swivelled back to me “And so – on the basis of a drunken call – you’ve come round here, disturbing the peace and squatting in the mews.”

  This was the third time she’d referred to squatting as though I had been discovered attempting to take a shit in the street. I was unsure how else I was supposed to shout through Desmond’s letterbox without getting my lips level with it; but then, I supposed, Miss Hastings would have preferred me not to be shouting through anyones letterbox.

  “Well, you see, a friend,” I hesitated to refer to Jane Barton as a friend of Des’s. The two had mixed in the same circles. And yet, her death seemed to have hit him hard. Why, I wondered? “A friend of Mr Everett died recently.”

  “Hanged herself,” Caz offered, receiving, for her efforts, a witheringly dismissive glance.

  “Yes and Mister Everett seemed to have been hit rather badly by the event.”

  “Obviously,” Hastings murmured thoughtfully. “One doesn’t come into close proximity with tragedy without being touched by it.” Here, she glanced rather pointedly at Caz, and stiffened. “So you’ve come to check that your friend is well.”

  “Safe,” I said, realising, as I did, that that was what had been gnawing at me since receiving Des’s call: People were dying, and a sense of danger was building. I suspected Des was not entirely well in any sense of the word, but I was more concerned that he was in some sort of danger.

  “Safe.” Miss Hastings considered the word.

  “Have you seen him?” Caz interjected. “Mister Everett?”

  Hastings shook her head. “I’ve been away with Lady Carmichael – she sends her love, by the way. Wonders what ever became of you and Bunty. You seemed, she said, to have had so much in common.”

  Caz blushed, but said nothing.

  “I’ve just arrived back,” Miss Hastings continued, so I wouldn’t have seen him since,” she rolled her eyes as though counting backwards, “Thursday.”

  “What about the other residents?” I asked, gesturing at the other four front doors in the mews.

  Miss Hastings snorted, “Two Russians, a Singaporean, and a Banker who got divorced last year, and hasn’t been in the flat since then. I’m afraid, Mister Bird, that Mister Everett and I are the residents of this mews.”

  I sighed, defeated again, and Miss Hastings cast a steely glance over both Caz and me, before seeming to make a decision.

  “Wait here,” she said, and stepped back into her flat, reappearing a moment later with a small coin purse. She fiddled arthritically through it, and extracted a small key.

  “I will accompany you both, for the express purpose of confirming whether Mister Everett is in his flat or not. That,” she fixed us each with her stare, “shall be the limit of our incursion into the gentleman’s home. Are we understood?

  Caz and I nodded, and the three of us set off across the courtyard.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  We stepped into the flat, Miss Hastings leading the way, and calling “Mister Everett! It’s Miss Hastings, from number three! I have Lady Holloway and Mister Bird with me! Mister Everett? Are you there?”

  She paused, listening, and then turned to us. “I think that settles it, don’t you?”

  I glanced to my left where a small shelf served as a hall table. On it were a wireless router, and a bowl. In the bowl were a set of keys and an oyster card.

  “Can we take a look?” I pleaded. “Just to make sure he’s not unwell.”

  The last word received a raised eyebrow; enough for me to sense she understood exactly what I meant by Unwell.

  “Bedroom and ensuite,” she said, gesturing to the door on our left, “Guest room,” this to the door on our right, “And living / diner,” she nodded ahead.

  Caz knocked on the bedroom door, calling his name, and, getting no answer, opened the door and stepped inside, the two of us following her.

  The bed was unmade, supporting Miss Hastings’s assertion, a discarded pile of clothes – jeans, a shirt a pair of Calvin’s and a single black sock visible – lay in the corner, in front of a small walnut wardrobe.

  The bedside tables housed, on the right, a radio alarm clock, the time glowing in the half-light let in by the closed shutters on the window, and, on the left, a single walnut photo frame with a picture of a crowd of teenagers, including a young Des, all dolled up in tuxedos and cocktail frocks.

  On the wall opposite the bed, a widescreen TV sat, a red light indicating that it was on standby.

  I dropped to my knees, and peered under the bed. A suitcase, surrounded by dust balls, and the other black sock. Nothing else.

  The bathroom was tidy, only a can of shaving foam – the lid lying beside it – and a Gillette razor sitting beside the sink. Miss Holloway, unable to help herself, picked up the lid and clicked it back into place on the can.

  “This seems intrusive,” she murmured. “Perhaps we should go.”

  “Please,” I said once more, “Let’s just check the rest of the rooms. I’m really not comfortable with this.”

  “The gentleman is clearly out at work,” Miss Hastings announced, though her voice held somewhat less conviction than it had earlier in our conversation.

  “Miss Hastings,” Caz said, “Desmond doesn’t have a job. He has a trust fund. And, whilst I’m also not entirely sure that there is anything wrong here, Mister Bird has, let’s say, a talent for knowing when things aren’t quite right. Please, let’s just check the rest of the flat.”

  Hastings sighed, and stepped aside. “As you wish,” she said, gesturing at us to lead on.

  The living room bore all the traces of someone having simply popped into the next room. The TV here was also on standby, but the Sky box was still flashing, indicating that something was playing on it, and had simply been put on Pause. A magazine was open on the coffee table, the TV and DVD remotes next to it, and the Sky remote was sitting on the arm of a large green upholstered sofa.

  In the kitchen/diner, Miss Hastings Tsked again as she inspected the sink, where several dirty dishes and a small pot still crusted with the leftovers of a tin of beans sat, spattered by the dregs of what looked like tea.

  I leaned forward, peering into the sink.

  “What on earth,” Miss Hastings demanded “Are you doing?”

  “What,” I gestured at the sink, as I picked up a tea towel and began opening cupboards with it, “Would you say that is?”

  “Unwashed dishes,” she responded definitively. “as I said: No pride. No character.”

  “No Fairy Liquid,” Caz added.

/>   “And no teacups,” I finished.

  “I beg your pardon?” Miss Hastings demanded, as they both looked at me as though I had suddenly started speaking gibberish.

  “In the sink,” I said, as I opened a cupboard and found what I’d been looking for, “Someone has thrown the remains of a cup of tea. Or two. You can clearly see it – that beige milky liquid in the plate. There’s even some of it in the pot.”

  They both peered into the sink. “Indeed,” Miss Hastings said. “And this is of interest how, exactly?”

  “Because there’s no teacups,” I said. “Why would someone make a cup of tea, drink half of it, throw the rest down the drain, and then rinse up their teacup?”

  Miss Hastings glared at me. “Because that, Mister Bird, is the correct order of things. One doesn’t simply leave dirty cups and – Oh!” She paused, eyeing the detritus in the sink, “I see what you mean.”

  “Look,” I gestured at the cupboard, “Cups and mugs, all standing on their bases. Except,” I added, indicating a pair of white, silver rimmed coffee mugs, “For these two, which have been dried and replaced in here upside down.”

  Caz glanced back into the sink, observed the two mugs, and bit her lower lip. “This doesn’t seem right, does it?”

  I shook my head. “Desmond was clearly of the school of ‘fill the sink till you’ve run out of plates or cups.’ My guess is he had a visitor. One who didn’t want their presence registered. One who pitched the remains of the tea Des had made for them both into the sink, rinsed and replaced the cups, and let themselves out.”

  “But if they did that themselves,” Miss Hastings replied, “It would suggest that Mister Everett was,” she searched for the word, “incapacitated when they left.”

  It was my turn to nod, and say, “Indeed.”

  “Well, where is he, then?” Caz asked, turning around the kitchen.

  We trekked back across the living room, and entered the guest room.