Mystery Man (6 page)

He looked truly perplexed. The standard of my clientèle does not often match the standard of the investigation.

To further clarify I said: 'Look, if you're a lawyer, and you're in court, one thing you always have to remember is this – never ask a question unless you already know the answer.'

'What?'

'That way you'll never be surprised or look foolish.'

'But I don't know the answer. That's why I'm asking you.'

'Indeed,' I said.

In truth my head was feeling a little bit fuzzy. I realised I was past medication time. They're not that strong, but if I miss one it does cloud things.

'Look,' he said, 'my wife has gone. I love her. I need you to find her. If it takes a blank cheque, I'll give you a blank cheque.'

I took that on board.

There were obviously a lot of questions that needed to be asked, but the interview had eaten into my lunchtime, and beyond the medication my stomach was rumbling. I asked him to call back later in the afternoon – 'It'll be quieter,' I told him.
(Hah!)
He suggested instead that I might care to visit him at the Beale Feirste artists' retreat outside Dundrum. I politely declined. It was out in the country. I don't like the smell of cows, or pigs, or goats, or sheep, or chickens, or grass, or wind. Most of my cases are routinely resolved on the phone, or over the internet, or very occasionally by leaving the shop, and then almost always within walking distance, or by a short drive on roads where a 30 m.p.h. speed limit is in place.

Despite my initial excitement about the possibility of international travel, I was already experiencing a rapidly expanding sinking feeling. Deep down I knew that if Mrs Trevor was still in Frankfurt, she would most probably remain there undiscovered, at least by me, because although I like the
idea
of travelling abroad, the reality is somewhat different. I don't like planes. Or ferries. Or trains. Or buses. I'm not comfortable talking to foreigners, even if their English is passable, or even people from the countryside. I don't like strangers or, often, relatives. However, it was all immaterial. I was completely convinced that if I was to find the lady in question, it would not be via the autobahns of Germany, but by speed-bumped minor roads much closer to home. There were children involved, and my intuition and experience told me that if she was still alive, wherever she was, she wouldn't be far from them.

Just as he was leaving, I asked Daniel if he had a recent photograph of his wife. He slipped one out of his pocket. He studied it for a moment before handing it over. As I stood examining it after he left, Jeff peered over my shoulder.

'Cor,' he said, 'she's a bit of a ride. What makes you think she's in Australia?'

It turned into a long, tedious afternoon, and by the end of it I decided I didn't much care whether Mrs Trevor was ever found, blank cheque or not. All the talk of international travel, and police, and Interpol – well, it was outside of my comfort zone. I thought Daniel Trevor's money might be better spent printing posters or splashing her face over a milk carton. Every time the shop door opened and a customer came in, he tutted, and that put me on edge. He was telling me about the books she had been selling in Frankfurt, and the artists she got on best with at the retreat, but I was drifting. I was thinking about the tube of fluorescent light on the ceiling above me, and how insects ever got inside it, and why, and if they realised what they'd done or even thought much about anything at all. I had new stock to check and old stock to shift. I wanted to ask how good his printer was because I'd been thinking about publishing a limited edition by a long-neglected local writer, but I didn't get the chance because he was wittering away about his poor motherless kids. The more I heard, the more I was convinced that Frankfurt had nothing to do with it, that his wife had made her position clear, that she had run off with a poet, she wasn't coming home and she didn't much like her kids, who sounded like whiny brats.

When I walked him to the door I assured him that I would get straight on to the case, but instead I opened a Twix and thought some more about interior lighting.

Mystery writers toil away in an ill-rewarded and critically ignored genre that only very rarely throws up someone worthy of the bestseller list or literary acclaim, and even more infrequently, both. Ian 'Rebus' Rankin famously wrote a dozen novels before becoming an overnight sensation. So, given that they often have to scrape by on a pittance, it is particularly galling to them when someone like Brendan Coyle comes along and chalks up the kind of sales they would kill for. And yet might. Galling because Brendan was already a much-garlanded author of literary fiction when he decided to write crime under a pseudonym before being 'accidentally' unmasked. He gives the impression that it is just something he dashes off while waiting for divine inspiration to strike his real work. In reality he contributes nothing new to the genre and instead merely rehashes some of its worst clichés. Yet he sells and sells and the critics adore him. He is a vain, boorish snob, and sometimes I wonder why I ever bothered inviting him to teach a monthly creative writing class in No Alibis.

Then I remember that it's because he does it for nothing and that I also sell a lot of books off the back of his visits. The only reason he does it for free is that I convinced him that he should be giving something back to 'his' people, and he was sucker enough to fall for it. I like to think that every minute he spends talking twaddle in No Alibis is one minute fewer spent trying to write crime, which is a blessing for us all.

His creative writing classes are artfully constructed exercises in the massaging of his own ego. When he chooses examples of fine writing with which to illustrate his thoughts, he chooses his own. When his students hesitantly read from their work, he yawns and fidgets. When he does deign to offer advice, it is usually either irrelevant or impenetrable, or both. It is therefore rather surprising to observe how much his students love him, and staggering to have to admit that his class is oversubscribed. One day I will certainly stab him with a letter-opener. But in the meantime I must acknowledge a debt of gratitude – his name was enough to finally entice my jewellery girl into the store.

It happened on the Saturday morning after the lunchtime when I agreed to take on what would become known as
The Case of the Dancing Jews
and the interminable afternoon when I decided that what would become known as
The Case of the Dancing Jews
would actually be too much trouble. Of course I would give it a few weeks before I let him know. I might even cash a very small blank cheque to cover the stress of deciding not to investigate what would become known as
The Case of the Dancing Jews
; one must put one's mental health first. Leather trousers and graffiti, yes. Damaged pottery and wayward dogs, yes. Missing persons and Interpol, no.

During Brendan Coyle's creative writing class I sit on a stool behind the cash desk. When he mentions a book, I pick it up and show it around to try to encourage a sale. I feel a little like a game-show hostess. I was doing this before some fifteen eager students when the door opened and an elfin figure entered. I did not recognise her at first because she was wearing the woollen equivalent of a leather flying cap, pulled down low on her brow and with the equivalent of its leather side straps shadowing most of her face. But then when she pulled it off, and smiled apologetically at Brendan, I realised with a sudden flush to my cheeks, and chest, and arms, and feet, that it was her, my love from the jewellery store.

'Sorry I'm late,' she said. 'Watch stopped.'

Not an awfully good advertisement for the jewellery store, but a splendid opportunity for me, because Brendan shook his head and told her he was sorry too, because the class was already full and perhaps she could put her name down on the waiting list; even before the disappointment could register on her face I was able to saddle up and ride over the brow of the hill.

'No, no, no, not at all,' I said. 'As it happens, we have one place left.'

'No we don't,' said Brendan.

'Yes we do,' I said.

'You told me we were oversubscribed,' said Brendan.

'I lied.'

He gave me a quizzical look. 'Well, that's refreshing honesty.' I looked at the girl. She smiled at me. Brendan looked at me, smiling at the girl, smiling back at me. I looked at him. He nodded. The quizzical look changed to one of understanding. Without knowing any of the background – the countless hours spent watching the jewellery store for some sign of her, following her – Brendan
knew.
And in that moment I also knew that he would do his utmost to ruin my chances with her. He would seek to charm her himself. And if he could not have her, then he would destroy her. That was the way of him.

He immediately ordered her to the Writer's Stool.

I was helpless to intervene.

Brendan teaches that while not everyone can become a great writer, you can train yourself to
think
like one. Or more importantly,
he
can teach you. To this end he encourages his students to take turns sitting in 'the Writer's Stool' – a bar stool in any other world – which he sets in the window of the shop. He then briefly interviews its occupant, usually seeking to embarrass him or her in some way, before turning the stool to face the street outside for what he likes to call 'the Writer's Challenge'. I have allowed him to get away with this in the past because neither the class nor his students mean anything to me, they are but a means to a paperback sale. But this was different. I was in love.
He
was approaching this new challenge with relish, swaggering with the guile of a bestselling author; she was an innocent aspirant, caught in the tractor beam of his celebrity. But what if she fell for his charm and intelligence and he swept her away from me? Or worse, what if he used her, abused her, then dashed her on the rocks of his rampant ego, hooking her like a fish and then throwing her back, still a fish, but a fish with a big hook through her cheek?

It started innocuously enough.

'Name?'

'Alison,' she said.

'Tell us a little about yourself, Alison.'

'I work in the jewellery shop across the road.'

'And how tedious is that?'

'Not at all, I love it.'

'And yet you seek fulfilment here.'

'No, just looking for some writing tips.'

'
Tips?
'

Brendan raised his eyebrows. The rest of the class grinned like idiots. None of them would become writers. Some of them were barely readers.

'So what do you like to write, Alison?
I
believe that fledgling writers should write about what they know. Do you write about jewellery, Alison? Perhaps, given our surroundings, the
theft
of jewellery, or the
jealousy
it so often inspires, or perhaps the
turmoil
of the master jeweller losing his sight? Note the keywords.'

There were nods from the class. Those were definite story possibilities.

'No,' said Alison. 'I don't even like writing that much.'

This drew
ooohs
and
aaahs.
Brendan adopted a look of fake bewilderment. He was enjoying this.

'You
don't even
. . .'

'I draw comics. The drawing isn't a problem, but my scripts are no great shakes, that's why I'm looking for—'

'
Comics?
' Brendan nodded to himself, as if giving her predicament due consideration, but when he looked at the other students I could see that his mouth was ever so slightly curled up into a sly smirk, and they returned it to him in spades. They worshipped him. I was in her corner, of course. I understood exactly where she was coming from. Comics, along with mystery fiction, exist in a literary ghetto, and in a much worse part of it at that. Unheralded. Unrewarded. But the great thing is, most of their creators don't care. Still, I felt for her. Brendan and his acolytes were awash with condescension, yet they were sitting in
my
mystery store, taking advantage of
my
largesse, belittling
my
invited guest and future bride. I
seethed.
I would have intervened, I would have led him from the shop by his ear and hurled him on to the pavement outside and turfed his gang of no-hopers out after him, but that would have affected sales, and you can't afford to be overly sensitive in this business. Besides, as it turned out, Alison was well capable of taking care of herself.

Brendan returned his attention to the pretty girl on the bar stool. He gave an overdramatic sigh. 'I suppose we must change with the times, and there is certainly a growing critical acceptance of the graphic novel as a legitimate—'

'Comics,' said Alison.

'Excuse me?'

'Not graphic novels. Comics. I draw comics. And write them. Badly.'

'Well,
comics,
then. And you write them
badly.
So let's see if we can fix you.' He abruptly clapped his hands together. 'Turn the Writer's Stool to face the street,' he instructed. 'This is an exercise I put all of my students through; some pass with flying colours, some fail miserably.' He surveyed his class. Several heads were bowed in shame. 'Alison,' he continued, 'you, we, have something in our heads called a writer's muscle, and if you don't use it, it gets loose and flabby. This exercise is designed to pump it back up into shape. Are you with me? Are you ready to pump your writer's muscle?'

Alison nodded warily, and then turned her chair to face a Botanic Avenue busy with Saturday morning shoppers.

'Okay – these are the rules. As soon as I say go, you must describe every man, woman, child or dog who passes this window. You must tell me what they look like, where they might be going, what they might be thinking. The key to this is speed, you cannot miss anyone out. They might come one at a time, they might come in groups. You must not even think about what you're saying, you let the muscle do the work. Do you understand?'

'Yes, of course.'

'Okay, then . . . go!' He clapped his hands again. I leaned forward. Everyone leaned forward.