Watching the Wheels Come Off (7 page)

The hand abruptly lifts off, and she continues: ‘There’s a chapter on “Survivalism: Dr Temple’s Unique Instant Self-defence System”.’

Mark is too aroused to realise the significance of this chapter. Instead, he foolishly attempts a full-frontal kiss. As he wraps her in his arms, he finds himself swiftly
unwrapped by an expertly executed throw. She swivels him over her hip and dumps him in a pile of books and photographs.

Then she towers over him.

‘Herman teaches us body language, Mark. Mine was saying
Don’t touch
!
Like in museums, right?’

Mark, stunned by his misreading of red for green, peers up at her from among the multiple images of Herman. His confusion is compounded when she lifts her skirt to reveal a broken suspender.

‘Just look what you made me do.’

Mark is only too happy to look. He feasts his eyes on her soft golden thigh, wondering exactly what kind of body language Herman taught.

Alice starts to rummage in the wardrobe, humming happily as she selects a fresh set of clothes.

Mark gets to his feet. ‘Gee, I’m sorry. The thermostat on my libido must have malfunctioned.’

‘Forget it.’

She goes into the bathroom, leaving the door ajar.

‘I seem to affect some men that way. I don’t know why.’

Mark creeps across to the small filing cabinet sitting on the desk. Keeping a sharp eye on the bathroom door, he keeps talking while he begins searching through the files.

‘Could be you’re sending out the wrong signals?’

‘You think so? I must talk to Herman about that. He reads me like a book.’

Mark runs a finger down lists of names while she prattles on; ‘Herman calls me Barbie ‘cos I change my
clothes such a lot.’ She laughs. ‘My record is twelve times in one day. Do you find that peculiar?’

Mark pauses to contemplate this revelation, finding it indeed very peculiar. ‘Peculiar? Not at all.’

His finger stops at the name with a star inscribed beside it, then runs sideways across the adjacent columns. This student came top of the class, and he was the only one awarded an onyx and marble mantel clock. His name is
Claudio Cross
and his address tallies with Snazell’s account:
Nirvana Nous
. Mark finds a ballpoint pen to copy it on to the back of his hand. That done, he treads softly to the door and lets himself out.

Alice comes out of the bathroom wearing a new costume. Immediately absorbed by her image in the
full-length
mirror, she doesn’t notice that Mark is no longer in the room.

‘Herman likes me to look fresh. He says
appearance
is everything. Say, aren’t you going to be late for that wedding?’

Even the ensuing silence cannot break the one-on-one she is enjoying with herself in the mirror. 

M
ark tilts his gleaming Yamaha into a bend: an apocalyptic apparition in his silver helmet and black leathers. The bloody knife embedded in his back flaps ominously as he zooms along the country roads. Bare hedgerows and trees, haystacks, gates, docile cows, farmyards fly by.

He slows at the entrance to a country estate. The name of the house is interwoven into the filigree wrought-iron arch spanning the open gates. Nirvana Nous is a gloomy gothic pile at the end of a long drive lined with yew trees. Tennis courts and stables are reflected in his visor as Mark approaches it. Croquet hoops circle the huge
lawn-covered
island facing the frontage. Fifty or more expensive cars, with nail-varnish veneers, are parked
higgledy-piggledy
, all about.

A liveried butler answers after Mark raps the heavily sculpted knocker against the iron-studded wooden door.
The man holds out a hand, assuming this is a delivery, and looks surprised when Mark says: ‘I’ve come to see Mrs Cross.’

The butler moves solemnly aside to let him enter, closing the door after him. Without a word he leads him across the marble hallway, pausing only to ring a bell. A uniformed maid materialises from behind a portable clothes rail laden with coats, many of them fur.

Mark pats his sweaty hair into place, after parting with his helmet. The girl gives him a cheeky look when he holds out his jacket. She can’t resist touching the bloody knife embossed on it before placing it on a hanger.

The butler speaks for the first time. ‘This way.’

Mark follows him past the colossal chimneypiece, through a Norman arch and along a half-timbered corridor until they reach a door. A Gaelic cross sits in an alcove beside it. Again the butler steps aside to let Mark enter.

Inside it’s as dark and silent as a mausoleum.

Mark freezes, petrified, as the door closes silently behind him. He panics, wants out. His clammy hands move around the door surface with all the delicacy of a safe-cracker, but can’t find a handle. Deep breaths help to slow his pumping heart before he turns to face the scene awaiting.

The only light comes from the flickering candles posted around a coffin. As his eyes adjust, he can see rows of faces sitting there, old faces like gargoyles staring at him.

He’s in a small private chapel.

Feeling his way like a blind man, he finds an empty pew, kneels, crosses himself and bows his head. No sooner has he settled there than a long bony finger reaches from behind to tap his shoulder. Mark is reluctant to face its owner.

When he finally turns, he’s confronted with the emaciated face of Emily Block. The same bony finger now beckons him back to the door. She, at least, has no trouble finding the handle. They step out into the corridor.

Up until now Mark has thought he was dealing with an old man. The short, parted hair, white shirt and tweed tie, all he could see in the candlelight, have misled him. In the light of the corridor he realises his mistake, but not immediately. Her black suit has a masculine cut that causes him to hesitate. Only her soft purring voice settles the matter.

‘Can I help you?’

‘I’m sorry to intrude…eh… Mrs Cross?’

‘I’m not Mrs Cross.’

‘I do apologise. It’s just that I have a very delicate errand to…’

He stops when the mourners begin to emerge, having dutifully followed them. Emily Block, suddenly engulfed by commiserative embraces, abandons him before leading them all to a sumptuous drawing room. Giant potted palms reach up to a magnificent coffered ceiling. Ancestral portraits line the walls. Leather sofas and armchairs, tables crowded with silver-framed photographs, sideboards and numerous artefacts help fill the space. Among all these
treasures, uniformed waitresses circulate with fancy canapés and champagne.

Mark tags along, accepts a drink, helps himself to the elegant bites offered to him, studies the faces of the female mourners. Again the bony finger finds his shoulder.

‘You won’t find Mrs Cross here.’

‘It’s important I speak to her. Maybe I could wait somewhere?’

‘Try the cemetery. She’ll be there tomorrow.’

Mark’s smile dissolves into funereal obsequiousness. ‘Oh. Oh, I see.’

Block enjoys watching his discomfort. ‘Who are you anyway?’

Mark fumbles in a trouser pocket, nervously pulling out the card inscribed:
William Snazell. Private Investigator
.

She takes it. ‘I see you’re licensed. Licensed to do what? Gatecrash funerals, Mr Snazell?’

‘I’m not Mr Snazell. I’m his assistant…. Mark Miles.’

A waitress approaches with a tray of sushi. ‘Can I tempt you, Miss Block?’

Block, still intent on the card, waves her away. But that’s not before Mark has grabbed a couple of tuna mini-rolls and stuffed them in his mouth.

‘So what brings you here? Apart from the food.’

Mark’s can’t talk. He tries desperately to swallow both the rolls, while Block watches with obvious distaste. When he eventually speaks, a piece of tuna has attached itself to his upper front teeth.

‘Mrs Cross employed our agency to –’

Block interrupts with a fury that fans his face.

‘No, she didn’t! I was her personal assistant for fifteen years. She told me everything.’

‘As I said this is rather a delicate matter.’ He directs an equally
delicate
whisper into her ear: ‘Concerning her missing husband.’

‘Is that so?’

Her head swivels, like a gun turret on a battleship, until she has a group of mourners in her sights.

‘You see that obese fellow over there? The one with a toupee that looks like a dead Pekinese?’

There’s no mistaking him.

‘That’s Commander Jeremy Cross, Royal Navy retired. Her seventh and
last
husband.’

Mark can’t help but be impressed.

‘Seventh? I see. She never mentioned that to Mr Snazell.’

‘Far from going missing, the commander has never strayed far from his wife’s bank account and booze cupboard.’

Mark remains optimistic. ‘Maybe it was one of her
other
husbands?’

‘Maybe we should sort this out in my office.’

He follows her through a small door set in a lancet arch, then up some steps to a long, fan-vaulted chamber. Crates of tinned foods are stacked to the ceiling on both sides. Mark takes in the stencilled markings as he passes:
peas… asparagus… carrots… baked beans… sardines… salmon
. They draw alongside sacks of flour, sugar, dates, and pause by some huge bundles of toilet paper.

Block relishes his confusion.

‘Mrs Cross recently became a Mormon. A young American sold it to her on the doorstep, like it was a vacuum cleaner.’ She continues to another door and pauses: ‘Mormons believe that famines will sweep the world before Armageddon and the Second Coming. They stock up with enough canned food to keep the family going for a whole year.’

She opens the door and they resume walking.

‘In the basement there’s a swimming pool filled with Perrier water.’

‘Mrs Cross certainly did things in style. May I ask how she died?’

‘Blew her brains out with an elephant rifle.’

Mark stops in his tracks. ‘An elephant rifle? She must have been a very big woman.’

‘No. Just prone to overstatement.’

Not surprisingly for a blunt woman unconcerned with social graces, Emily Block’s office is a room dedicated to disorder and dust. Books, papers, trilby hats, dried flowers, spill over everything. She sweeps a pile of yellowing newspapers off a beaten-up sofa.

‘Sit.’

Mark does as he’s told.

‘So what’s your problem?’

‘With Commander Cross, her current husband,
not
on any list of missing persons, I am wondering…’ Mark takes
a deep breath and goes for it: ‘who Claudio Cross is?’

Block fires back without hesitation.

‘A gigolo.’

‘A gigolo?’

‘That’s what I said. You know what a gigolo is, don’t you?’

‘A gigolo using her surname?’

‘Draw your own conclusions.’

‘Have you any idea where he is?’

‘Back in Italy.’

‘Is that what the PII told her?’

‘Correct. And that’s when she hit the roof. Literally. Brains all over the bedroom ceiling. The one thing she couldn’t take was rejection.’

‘What if the PII were lying? What if Claudio
didn’t
go back to Italy?’

‘What are you getting at?’

‘I think something went seriously wrong on that course. Something involving Claudio. The PII say he came top of the class, so was awarded an onyx and marble mantel clock. But I don’t believe them.’

‘So?’

‘So Mrs Cross offered us a reward to find him. You are obviously unaware of that.’

‘Did she really?’

‘Five thousand pounds!’

Block’s eyes blaze as she reaches for the phone.

‘I’ve seen too many young men like you in this house. Charlatans, snake-oil salesmen, blackmailers, grifters – and now a bounty hunter.’

She finishes dialling.

‘This call is to the police. So I suggest you get the hell out of here before they answer.’

S
nazell is back in the entrance of the shop opposite Mark’s office. He makes himself comfortable on bags of garbage carefully selected from the heap awaiting collection on the pavement. He is tempted to upturn his trilby on the step to test the charitable instincts of any passers-by, but decides against it.

Nobody passes by anyway.

It is Sunday and the church further up the road has long since closed. During the holiday season it’s used as a disco. ‘Hell’ is painted in red above the dripstone, and again on the church door. At least the operator has a sense of humour. He needs it. On summer nights the place lives up to its name.

The roar of Mark’s Yamaha heralds his return. It turns into the street, coming to rest outside Provenance House. Snazell watches as Mark unlocks the front door, and then waits for him to appear on the third floor.

Sometimes Mark removes his titanium flip-front helmet in front of the mirrored Victorian hat-stand immediately inside the door of his office. He likes to observe his image switch from hard metallic sheen to soft vulnerable flesh.

This morning the flesh looks close to death, and for a good reason. The reward he’s been banking on has turned out to be a dead end, literally. He now has only two days left to get the five grand. A vision of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart beckoning from among billowing clouds keeps emerging from some dark cell in his brain, taking him unawares and causing severe palpitations.

The phone cracks through this daydream, making him jump. He lets the ancient answering machine take the strain, although his numerous creditors are unlikely to be wringing their hands on a Sunday. It clunks loudly as the ‘greeting’ cassette stops and the one for ‘messages’ starts. Snazell’s nasal tones are now being recorded.

‘I know you’re there, Mr Miles.’

Mark angrily snatches up the receiver.

‘Piss off!’

‘Don’t be like that. I’ve some good news for you.’

‘Not again.’

‘Just take a look outside and you’ll see what I mean.’

Mark fights to resist this line but can’t help himself. He sidles furtively to the window. There’s Snazell on the pavement opposite, holding his mobile phone to his ear. He sees Mark immediately and waves the same fat wad of money as before.

‘Look! No strings attached, promise. Two hundred of these is not to be sneezed at.’ He crosses the road in anticipation of the door being released. ‘Let me in, there’s a good fellow.’

Mark wonders what his game is this time.

Snazell bustles into the office. As he talks, he noses compulsively into everywhere and everything, lifting, turning, examining.

‘Nice touch that, paying your last respects to my client.’ He hurriedly crosses himself. ‘May she rest in peace.’

Mark explodes. ‘Mrs Cross wasn’t your client. Nor was there any reward, you bastard.’

Snazell winces. ‘Language. Language. Remember I’m a practising Mormon. In every respect, except polygamy.’

‘Oh yeah? Got a year’s supply of canned food stacked away, have you? Is your bath full of Perrier water? Or is it Evian? And what about hay for the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse?’

‘Careful, Mr Miles.’ Snazell crosses himself again. ‘Just remember Revelations 6:8. “Behold, a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death.” For us believers, death is merely the departure lounge to eternal happiness.’

‘And life is the shit you go through to earn enough air miles for that exclusive flight to Heaven?’

‘In a nutshell.’

‘Full of canned food?’

‘We need to be plump and healthy, so we remain smiling while others weep and gnash their teeth.’

Snazell sits down at the desk, opens a drawer and sees a set of keys with a label. ‘Office (spare)’ is scrawled on it.

Mark has had enough. He storms across to the door and throws it open.

‘No more games, Snazell. Just piss off.’

‘This is no game, Mr Miles.’

Snazell slams the drawer shut: minus the keys, now in the pocket of his raincoat. This sleight of hand would have impressed the magicians now checking out of the Grand Atlantic Hotel. He pulls out the wad of money and starts to count ten crisp ones.

‘Collect two hundred pounds for entertaining expenses.’

‘What expenses?’

‘Cream teas in the English countryside.’ Leaving the money on the desk, he crosses to the open door. ‘Take Miss Honey out for the afternoon. I need to look around her room, okay?’

He closes the door behind him.

Mark goes to the desk, picks up the money and counts it.

‘That’s a lot of cream teas.’

He shrugs and opens his wallet.