The Pink and the Grey (26 page)

I thought maybe I should mosey on over to Simon’s computer and at least try to look for something. I’d just got as far as telling myself not to be such a cocking idiot when they bounced back into the room, laughing and joking, and entirely failed to kill me. I took this as a good sign.

Geoff can barely walk ten metres without stopping for a rest and a cake, so he drove us across town, creeping in a few minutes ahead of the usual lunchtime traffic. It felt like getting in a teacher’s car at school, with the other kids looking and pointing and you turning crimson and reassuring them that you’re not related and that no services were about to be rendered, for cash or grades or otherwise.

“So who runs this Humbug place?” he asked as we drove.

“A guy called Eddie,” I said. The fewer words I allowed myself to say, I thought, the better. I clamped my mouth shut. It’s like talking to royalty: only speak when spoken to. “He’s decent enough.”
Shut up
.

“Fancy him, do you? Or have you had him already?”

“No, and no,” I said, slowly.

“Not ticked him off your list?”

“I don’t have a list. Nobody has a list.”

He laughed. “Not so mouthy, are you, ginge, without Twiglet to flash your teeth at.”

“I see where you’re going with that, Geoff, and you’re wrong.”

“You’d be all over him given six pints and a head start. Go on, admit it.”

I couldn’t tell whether this was the usual office wind-up or something else, goading me into revealing more than I ought, something he could use against me.

“Sounds like your fantasy, Geoff, not mine.”

“Fuck off,” he said, with the extended syllables of denial, and let it go.

We turned left into a road slicing between some shops and a pub, and approached a bridge.

“How many gay guys do you actually know?” I asked. “I’m guessing, now correct me if I’m wrong, that you don’t have that many gay friends.”

“The wife knows one. Lifeguard where she goes swimming. She reckons he’d only save the men.”

“Yeah, that’s right, cos it’s a well-known fact that straight boy lifeguards only save women.”

I caught a quick glimpse to the left of some rowers out on the river, and another crew outside their boathouse with their boat over their heads.

“This chip you’ve got on your shoulder,” said Geoff. “You always had it?”

“Why, are you hungry? They do nuts at the bar.” I wasn’t in the mood to tell him my life story.

“Seriously. Lose the attitude.”

We drove through the trees past Midsummer Common. I remembered my chat with Seb beside the bridge I could just see in the distance, and his story, and what Geoff had done to his family.

“I think it’s a very healthy attitude,” I said. “You can’t be a journalist without a cynical soul and a thick skin.”

“And you can’t be a journalist without making a mistake every now and then.”

We turned right at a roundabout. Was this trip a pretext for a
chat
about looking into his past? Would we claim the last space on the car park roof before a tussle to the death? The story ending with a ginger smear on the ground, or a crushed marrow, or both?

“What do you think about the immigration story, ginge? Right or wrong?”

I took a deep breath. “It looks like a story,” I said. It certainly did: that was the plan. Baiting the race-baiters. Giving them a shovel and an X on the dirt and hinting at gold.

“You’d put your by-line on it?”

If I did you’d take it right off again
, I thought.

We slowed for some traffic lights. A coach came roaring past.

“More immigrants,” he said, laughing, and I did too.

I answered his question. “I— well, if it holds up I’d put my by-line on it. Might be—”
Don’t say made up, don’t say made up.
“Might be a misunderstanding. Might be all above board. Might have to spike it, go back to the story about the missing tenners or the car impaled on the traffic bollard.”

“Yeah. Easy, ain’t it, this newspaper business.” He laughed again, but I didn’t laugh this time.

We queued, and looped up inside the multi-storey to the roof, and we didn’t tussle, and neither of us ended up a little worse for wear on the pavement. We took the lift down and toddled at tourist pace towards Humbug.

I was glad that Geoff didn’t mention the Cambridge Union as we passed by. I hoped he’d forgotten all about the mysterious man with his mysterious tip and his mysterious non-pissing-over-the-balcony.

The surreality of being in a car and on foot with Geoff paled into nothing compared to his appearance in a gay bar. He stood just inside the entrance, arms crossed, piggy eyes narrowed towards doggy, sniffing in the place.

Humbug was in its daytime mode so the aroma was mostly martinis, coffees and nappies. There was a small collection of those off to our left. The long bar was freshly polished. Behind it, Eddie frowned at some mechanical part in his hand that by all accounts should still have been attached to the coffee machine. Quiff sat, as anticipated, in Quiff’s usual chair, wearing Quiff’s usual hat. To Quiff’s usual left, just one of the high tables in the bar was occupied: by Seb. My heart leapt out of my chest and ran screaming from the building.

It wasn’t Seb’s typical fashion selection. He’d normally wear something from the current decade, at least. This was older, greyer, half a size too small. Dark grey shoes. No socks. As we walked in he didn’t look up, and he didn’t look round. He simply stared out of the window and held a coffee cup by his mouth with both hands.

Normally of course I’d have rushed up, said hello, and offered him some witty banter and my body, not necessarily in that order. But with the fashion police about to arrest him for crimes against humanity and with Geoff at my side, not a chance. This was a St Paul’s operation, no doubt about that. At least one of the CCTV cameras was surely patched straight through to the Archivist, who right now was probably sitting in an enormous leather armchair stroking a fluffy white undergraduate.
Unless it was Quiff
.

“You’re buying,” I said to Geoff and walked to the bar. “Have you broken that machine, Eddie? I’ll need a strong one. This is my boss, Geoff.” I smirked as Eddie looked over. “He’s all yours.”

Eddie scanned Geoff up and down. “Should I go and order in all the pies?”

“I’ll have an expresso,” said Geoff.

“What was that, darling? An expresso? I think we might be all out of expressos. They went very very quickly.” He laughed. “I could do you an espresso though. An
esss-presss-o
.”

“Whatever,” said Geoff, not altogether feeling the humour. “And whatever ginge wants, and a gag for yourself.”

“A gag?” Eddie stage-whispered to me behind a hand: “Forward, your boss, isn’t he?”

I was beginning to enjoy this little adventure out of the office.

“Who’s this fella?” Geoff asked me, indicating Quiff. “Is he here all the time?”

“
He
can speak, you know,” said Quiff. “I don’t believe I’ve had the, uh…?”

I smiled to Quiff. “I think he’s asking you, do you come here often?”

Geoff stuck out a hand towards him. “The name’s Geoff Burnett. I’m the editor of the
Bugle
.”

Quiff shook daintily and then wiped his hand unconsciously on his purple chinos. He didn’t give his name, I noticed, and I wasn’t going to volunteer it.

“I’ve said before, I’m not talking about my operation again,” he said. “Not with you, and not with any newspaper.”

At that last word I heard a clatter behind me: Seb’s coffee cup rattled in its saucer. I looked round, as did Geoff. Seb sat studying the shop opposite carefully as if nothing had happened. I began to see what might be going on here.

Geoff turned back to Quiff. “I’m not interested in your bleedin’ operation, mate. Unless it went wrong. Did it go wrong?”

“They all say that, love, until they find out.”

“Listen. I want to know what’s going on.” The words had the menace of something that usually comes just after “This is the police” and just before the door flies off its hinges.

“You’ll have to enlighten me, dear.” Quiff straightened his furry hat. “I gave up the crystal ball several years ago. There was no future in it.”

“I’m talking about—”

“Espresso for sir,” said Eddie, pushing a small cup Geoff’s way. “Be careful, with your hands you’re like the Incredible Hulk. Except, you know,” that stage whisper again, “in retirement. And a black one for you, Conor dear, wasn’t it? Fussy much?” He stroked his right eyebrow with a little finger.

Geoff was getting impatient. “When you queers have
finished
playing fucking mother.”

“I think you’ll find the fucking mothers are over that side of the room, dear.” He pointed to the gaggle with babies in the corner. “And enough of the queers, if you don’t mind, or I’ll have you barred from every pub in town.” Said with a charming smile, as always.

“Enough,” said Geoff, as if these people worked for him.

I swear the smile on my face was about a mile wide.

He continued: “This is about St Paul’s, and that Flowers geezer.”

Seb’s coffee cup rattled again.

“Flowers geezer?” said Eddie. “You mean a florist? We do get a couple of florists in here. Strange boys. Two pansies short of an arrangement, you might say. I think it’s the pollen. Right up the nose.” He rubbed a finger across his nose and sniffed hard.

“Shut the fuck up, Doreen, or whatever your name is,” said Geoff. “St Paul’s College. Spencer Flowers. Illegal immigration. Tell me everything you know.”

Seb’s coffee cup rattled for a third time and he climbed down noisily from the stool. He called out “I— I must—” in a strong Chinese accent, pointing outside, and moved hurriedly towards the door.

This got Geoff’s attention. “Hey! Wait!” he cried. “Do you know anything about St Paul’s? Stop for a couple of seconds.”

Seb attempted to hide his face: and Geoff was sold.

“Come back! Conor — after him.”

Seb was outside and running. I followed, knowing that I mustn’t catch him, at least not anywhere Geoff could see. Seb did the right thing, skidding off to the side at the end of the alley and up towards the market. Even on a Tuesday lunchtime it’d be full of stalls and full of people, easy to hide in. Before I lost sight of Humbug I checked back: Geoff was puffing along in pursuit. I could hardly call it
hot
pursuit. More like a hot pursuit you’ve forgotten about and only come back to five minutes later. The kind of pursuit that’s not even hot enough to dunk a biscuit in.

Seb was way too fast for me, crashing along between a couple of bikes and a couple of baby buggies, looking like he’d taken a wrong turn in the Communist Party hundred metre sprint. Decent pair of legs on the guy. Not that I’d noticed before, mind. I saw him stop by the market and spin round and wave to make sure I could see him, and then dip into the stalls somewhere between the forty-nine varieties of soap and the Cambridge-branded tea towels that were almost identical to the Oxford-branded tea towels and the London-branded tea towels.
 

When I finally caught up with him he was standing by a pile of sculptures made out of scrap metal, testing a finger against a buffed edge.

“Fancy dress is it?” I panted, hands on knees. “Almost got a glimpse of ankle there. Careful, you might set me off.”

“I found that quite invigorating,” he said, not out of breath in the slightest, the git. “It should pique Burnett’s interest, at least.”

“What happens now? Do I wrestle you to the ground and accidentally kiss you?” I stood up straight and blew hard. “Jeez, I need the gym.”

“Now you go back and tell him you lost me.”

“Right. I should’ve guessed it’d be my fault.”

Seb smiled. “I shall speak to you later.”

He skipped off, zig-zagging between the rows of stalls and dodging tourists fanning out banknotes in funny colours in exchange for shapeless wooden items.

I walked back towards Geoff shaking my head. He’d barely reached half-way to the market. “Lost him in the stalls, boss,” I said. “Great deals on seventies vinyl, though. Something tells me you’re a man with a needle.”

We returned to Humbug but Quiff had gone, spooked by Geoff, and Eddie was distraught that his most reliable income stream had suddenly dried up. If Quiff had any sense, I thought, he’d do his liver a favour and stay away for the rest of the week.

We returned to the office with Geoff firing on however many battered cylinders he still had remaining. “Developments, boys, developments. Round the table, please.”

He recounted the tale of Eddie and Quiff and the enigmatic Chinese man. Mysteriously, it turned out that my memory was mistaken and in fact
we both
gave chase. We were apparently two New York cops crossing busy streets and hurdling cars, and avoiding old ladies with shopping baskets on wheels and tiny yapping dogs. Naturally it was still
ginge
who
lost the chinky
, as he so delicately put it.

“Right, Twiglet,” said Geoff. “How’s your Flowers piece? Anything juicier than you had this morning?”

Manish shook his head.

“OK. Spiked. We need to focus on hunting down this Chinese fella. Get on to that. Bound to be reports. Stood out like a bollock in a bikini, didn’t he ginge?”

“You want me to investigate Chinese people in Cambridge?” Manish asked. “It’s Cambridge! The place is full of tourists! Chinese people, Japanese people, Korean people. Every day there’s a new tour.”

“They don’t run off when you mention St Paul’s.”

“I bet some of them do. I bet some of them run towards it, too.”

“I don’t care,” said Geoff, showing Manish the hand. “Can’t you get Faceplace or whatever it’s called to list everyone in Cambridge? I thought it could do that sort of shit. Or some
app
or something? Knobsquare? If not, go out on the streets. Find him. He’s key to this.”

“What do you want me to do?” I asked. “After all, I know what he looks like. You want me to doorstep the college? He’s bound to go in or out at some point.”

I was thinking how I could pop by Spencer’s and see what kind of a state he was in, and maybe have a relaxed couple of hours with the illegal immigrant and a plate of illegal digestives.