Maxim Jakubowski - The Mammoth Book of Best British Mysteries 6

“… my files cannot possibly take the strain of this increasingly worrying information,” realizes Q. “Soon I’ll be requiring an all-new filing system…”

… cryptic messages arriving – from disparate loners: infertile child psychologists, lunatic travel agents, broken down housewives, fairly lethal sounding Hispanic 52-year olds… the latest: Mrs A, a glamorous cripple in a dark suit, pale tie, gold shoes, legs splayed about a mile wide: “I must interject into your investigation in my customized wheelchair,” she states earnestly, like Kate Bush. “My husband is listed as missing in the places where they list such things – and that’s a distressing state for any husband to be in…”

“… regarding your husband-”

A: “I fear he’s gone, forever into the overbearing darkness, more overbearing darkness than I had personally bargained for. Having dreamed all my life of romantic trajectories, I now find myself in a full-length narrative of angry policemen, would-be assassins, pre-teen suicide bombers, nothing remotely romantic about it-”

Q: “The rediscovery of a missing husband rarely represents an enormous cause for celebration… but if you have any supplementary information that might shed light on your husband’s disappearance…”

A: “Well, there is one thing – probably not important…”

Q: “No, please tell me. Even the smallest grain might prove central…”

A: “Well, people do say he bears an unnatural resemblance to Kris Kristofferson…”

… into his Dictaphone: “- as events turn ever more torrid, I am proud that I have not betrayed myself, not once – well, maybe once – but never twice and, in a corrupt and immoral age where inconsequential dialogue has become the order of the day, that seems important…”

… Q waking, the smell of maple syrup thick in both nostrils. In a city of foetid fragrances, the mysteriously saccharine odour rapidly hits local radio. One listener describes the smell as “oddly flavoured coffee”, another: “rather like maple syrup”. A well-spoken spokesperson from the Office of Emergency Aromas asserts: “We are fairly confident that the odour is no way dangerous and that citizens of the city can continue with their usual patterns of early morning business and communication…”

Stepping outside, a gigantic billboard overhead reads: “… THERE ARE SOME PEOPLE WHO WILL NOT FULLY COOPERATE HERE…”

… an unexpected sight greeting Q along the angular carpeting scheme of Mrs A’s apartment: an arm reaching outwards, two fingers raised like a gesture, or sign – or salute; or symbol. Mrs A impaled on the far wall by several metal hooks. Dark scuffs on the linoleum resembling less of a struggle, more a dance of death, possibly the Foxtrot. Why were murdered women often tortured and mutilated horribly in this fashion? asks Q. As if simple murder wasn’t enough for them? Was the secret cousin of some rich and powerful people involved? Who else would be up to the task of nailing somebody’s wife to a wall with so much obvious enthusiasm? Recent events unusually frozen on the face of Mrs A in the form of a happy expression… but - given the circumstances - was there really anything to be quite so happy about? Q taking samples of her nightwear away – for special analysis – under his jacket…

“… even previously thick-skinned police sniffer dogs have taken to contemplating their own mortality,” Q notes, alone in his office with cheap bourbon, sour conclusions, false assumptions, vague deductions, a Dictaphone, some even cheaper bourbon… the telephone spluttering in the ever-dimming dimness. Q picking up, as is his custom. A voice answering like a deceased banker dredged hissing from a lake, some time last May. “When an unhappily married woman is unexpectedly crucified,” advises the voice, “her husband is generally called in for questioning…”

… on a hunch, Q tracing the husband of Mrs A to the Northern fringes of the Latino-Disco Crossover Quarter, where he is rumoured to be professionally dancing the paso doble under an assumed initial: “O”. A largely colourful room crowded with the contours of humans; in the centre about thirty middle-aged bisexuals thrashing out symbolic acts of dance. Dubious dress codes at work: purple sequinned shirts, casual khaki slacks, Manhattan sandals… an unusual man bearing a passing resemblance to Kris Kristofferson in a lime-green rental tuxedo… a slim white cane sweeping in front of him, left to right, right to left, like the feelers of an insect socialite.

Q doubts the veracity of this disability, almost immediately…

“… did you ever dance the paso doble with Mrs A?”

Silence.

“Did you ever dance the paso doble with Mrs A and then not contact Mrs A for some time afterwards?”

Silence.

“Do you still dance the paso doble nowadays… with other people?”

“O” smiles diffidently, the expression of idyllic contentment written across his face: “Sometimes,” “O” admits, “I feel like a dead man. But I’ve made my choice. I have a certain life and I like my new way of thinking. I’m happier where I am today. I remain fairly confident of that…”

… unperturbed, Q puts on his hat… only when he looks down the hat isn’t there anymore. Instead, in the place where the hat should be: no hat, a reduction in hat-based circumstance. Out in the street, noticing almost everybody seems to be wearing hats, wide-brimmed fedoras mostly, noting how hats are central to maintaining confidence during daytime detective work in the street.

As a consequence, Q feels hatless and alone…

… the corridor adjacent to his office: an incredibly angry looking young woman in a rhinestone kilt leaning heavily against an instant coke machine. Q wondering: what is the source of the young woman’s incredible anger? Were her parents incredibly angry throughout her formative youth? Does she have an incredibly angry young husband at home? Are her clothes incredibly angry clothes? What is the significance of the incredible anger of the incredibly angry looking young woman? What is the incredibly angry looking young woman reallyso incredibly angry about?

“You are investigating these crimes not from compassion but from intellectual avarice,” she tells him – incredibly angrily. “That may sound totally asinine – but that’s never stopped me before…”

The incredibly angry looking young woman then invites Q to supper at her brownstone townhouse. Having already slept with more than five hundred young women during his investigations, Q welcomes this latest development…

“… you can disappear in this city,” explains Q. “Its belly is death… you can become entangled in the everyday nuisances here, ensnaring you like a pop career you never even wanted.”

“That’s why this city needs you,” she snaps. “Some people don’t realize it yet. Others, however, are only too keenly aware…”

“… but” – Q flounders – “my masculinity appears to have become badly eroded, over time, to the point where I am starting to feel like I’m trapped inside a bad Phil Collins song…”

“How can you say that!?” she shrieks. “That implies there are good Phil Collins songs, which, as we both know, there are not…”

… down in the square, a travelling carnival in residence: a procession of bearded ladies, Siamese triplets, marching penguins, fire eating gypsies, alcoholic strong men belittled by self-doubt… under the shadow of the big wheel, two men appearing like plain-clothed policemen, lingering across the street like plain-clothed policemen, blending in with their environment like plain-clothed policemen, smartly dressed in homburgs like plain-clothed policemen – Q suddenly suspecting that these men… might… actually… be… plain-clothed… policemen. .. as if to confirm the hypothesis, grabbed from behind by thick-set arms – thrust into a wall, gun pushed into the nape of the back.