Peter Lovesey - Cop to Corpse

‘They’ll find out,’ she told him.

He nodded. ‘They know me, anyway. Obstinate old bugger.’

‘I’ll second that. You should have gone for that X-ray.’

‘I went. Just didn’t stay.’

‘Is it still painful? You seemed to be limping on the way here.’

‘Trying for sympathy. I can’t get enough.’

‘Well, you look tired.’

‘Lady, that’s not sympathy. That’s a taunt. You don’t tell your date he looks tired.’

She smiled. ‘I wasn’t thinking of this as a date. If it’s sympathy you want, I’ll offer some, but forget the date bit. Men feeling sorry for themselves aren’t much of a turn-on.’

All in all, this hadn’t been his day. He regrouped rapidly. ‘Okay, here’s the deal. Leave out the sympathy, come home with me and we’ll crack open another bottle of wine. Does that sound more like a turn-on?’

Paloma laughed. ‘Kind of.’

Yes, it’s another blog from me. The call from Anita couldn’t have come at a worse time. Monday morning and I was driving to the undertaker’s to deliver a vanload of floral tributes for the funeral of an ex-mayor of the city, sprays, wreaths, basket arrangements, the works, including his name spelt out in two-foot high letters in white carnations. The name was Bartholomew, so you’ll understand the struggle I had getting a thing that size into my dinky little van. I was driving with the B resting on my shoulder, the flowers tickling my ear. Anita’s hushed, excited voice on the mobile was like, ‘Babe, it’s me. He’s just walked in, city break man. Can you get here really fast, like in the next five minutes?’

‘Sorry, sweetie,’ I told her. ‘I’m on a job the other side of town.’

‘Ten minutes, then?’

‘No chance. I’m making a delivery.’

‘A delivery? Oh my God! Tell me it’s only flowers.’

What did she think — that I did midwifery as a sideline?

‘You haven’t seen how many. This will take forty minutes, easily, and I have to be respectful. I can’t just dump them and run.’

So the chance went begging.

Later, when all was explained and forgiven, Anita was like, ‘I would have kept him talking if I could. The trouble is, most men aren’t talkers and he’s an extreme example.’

‘They keep it bottled up,’ Vicky added from the bottom of her heart. I knew, I just knew, she was speaking from experience.

The three of us had met for a late cuppa in our city department store. The restaurant on the first floor stays open until five-thirty and we get in there at five and sit in comfy leather armchairs at a low round table and order pots of tea. I don’t think we’re too popular with the waiters. By then they’re thinking about going home. We’re not much trouble. We don’t order cream teas, or anything. Once Anita was tempted to ask for a scone and the waiter goes, ‘Just the one scone?’ and Anita goes, ‘Lordy, yes, I’ve got a figure to think about.’ The waiter goes, ‘No cream? No jam?’ And we’re creased up laughing. But when the scone came it was so small you could have eaten it in one bite. You should have seen Anita’s face. I think they usually serve these mini-scones to the tourists in twos or threes with jam and cream. Ever since then we settle for the tea and nothing else, but we never tire of reminding Anita and asking if she wants a scone. Often we have the restaurant to ourselves. The town is dead between five and ten, when the clubs open.

Getting back to our usual topic of men and are they necessary, Anita is still on about city break man. ‘All blokes can talk about football, in my experience,’ she says. ‘They all have a theory why England will never win the World Cup again. I’ve heard it so often that I’m an expert myself. But I had the feeling city break man would have got suspicious if I’d started cold on do you favour a four four two formation.’

Vicky went, ‘He might have thought you were proposing group sex.’

‘On a Monday morning?’

‘You never know your luck.’ Then Vicky gave me a sly nudge under the table. She was quite skittish for once. ‘Maybe that’s the way we should be handling this, instead of trying to follow him home.’

‘Group sex?’

‘No, you daft ha’porth. One of us chatting him up.’

‘I’m not his type,’ Anita goes. ‘I’d get nowhere. Ishy might appeal to him.’

‘Hold on,’ I put a stop to this before it could take flight. ‘No way am I offering my hidden treasures to a perfect stranger who sounds like a weirdo. It’s your suggestion, Vicky. You’re the one with the looks. How about you making the first move?’

She turned beetroot red. ‘I couldn’t possibly. My situation is different.’

I’d forgotten about her guy Tim. Most of the time he’s best forgotten.

‘Summing up,’ she added swiftly, trying to cover her embarrassment, ‘we’re none of us willing to sacrifice ourselves for the cause.’

‘Come on, girls,’ Anita went. ‘One of you talks about sacrificing herself and the other’s on about her hidden treasures. This doesn’t have to end in bed. Surely we can charm a few truths out of a guy without lying back and thinking of England?’

Vicky turned pink again. ‘Don’t look at me.’

But that’s exactly what Anita continued to do. ‘Vicky, my petal, I don’t see what stops you being part of this. It’s only jaw-jaw and not paw-paw. We know you’re in a relationship, but your man can’t object to a bit of harmless chat.’

‘To be honest, I don’t do harmless chat.’

‘Really? Do you always end up in the sack?’

‘Per-lease.’

Anita gave a sigh like a punctured tyre. ‘I’m starting to have second thoughts about this adventure. Are we, or are we not, the three sleuths? Seems to me we’re turning out to be the three stooges. Are you two fully committed to finding the truth about city break man?’

‘It’s easy to say yes when we’re all in it together,’ Vicky goes. ‘Safety in numbers. The fun goes out of it when we think about being alone with him.’

I chipped in here with: ‘Let’s face it, Anita, you haven’t done a very good job of selling him to us.’

‘He’s not nice. That’s the whole point of finding out what grubby little game he’s playing. We know he’s a benefits cheat. What else is he up to? If we can find out where he lives, it’s a start.’

Trying to be positive, I’m like, ‘All right, let’s give it another try. Next time he’s in your shop give me a call and I’ll do my very best to get there.’

Vicky goes, ‘What did he want this morning? Did he book another city break?’

‘To Amsterdam.’

‘Then it’s got to be drugs or girls.’

‘Do you think so?’

‘He’s not going to Amsterdam to buy tulips. He can get them from Ishy’s shop.’

‘My guess is it’s boring old football,’ I threw in. ‘All these European cities have big teams. Instead of going to Chelsea or Arsenal every week he saves up some cash and goes to watch Real Madrid or some such. What’s the Dutch team called?’

‘Ajax.’

‘Are they playing this time of year?’

‘Football is all the year round, isn’t it? The back pages are always full of it.’

Anita pulled a long face. ‘Football. If that’s all it is I’m through with spying. I’m going to bake cupcakes instead.’ Then without warning she put both hands over her face and in a strangled voice announced, ‘There he is, there he is, there he is.’

‘Who?’

‘City break man. Don’t look. Stay normal. He just walked in. He mustn’t see us together.’

There’s a counter quite close to our favourite table where they have the cakes and things on display as well as wine to go with the lunches. Actually I think they call it a bar, but it’s neither one thing nor the other. I glanced across to where this guy was standing with his back to us talking to the waiter. He was in a grey top with the hood pulled down and scruffy black jeans (city break man, I mean, not the waiter). From what I’d heard, this was the downmarket look he favoured for his job centre visits.