Кейт Уотерхаус - Soho or Alex in Wonderland

“Bit late to get it in the Examiner this morning, isn’t it, Jas?” asked Alex, anxious to be friendly. “So what’s the hurry?”

“Who said anything about the Examiner ? This is going to the Evening Standard , first edition.”

Alex whistled. “Christ on crutches, she’ll have your balls for breakfast!”

“How d’you spell transvestite?” asked James Flood, formerly of the Examiner , smugly.

“Cross-dresser,” said Barry Chilton.

While the two supernumaries to the reporter’s work exchanged aimless chitchat, Alex allowed his mind to drift back to the cock-up they had made between them of the interview with Detective Inspector Wills, and from that to the subject of the interview herself. Himself, he should say. Poor cow. Or poor sod as it would translate a few hours hence, when London read James’s story. Alex had the greatest difficulty in thinking of Christine as a man — which, he told himself, was how Christine would have wanted it.

Who would have wanted, wished, needed to murder her, and in such a vicious way? There was that little runt he’d seen scuttering out of Hog Court, but he hadn’t looked as if he had anything to do with Christine’s crowd. Christine’s crowd, though — what was that? Lotter cross-dressers like herself, few gays, maybe some young guy wet behind the ears who’d taken a shine to her, like Alex himself. Could be wunner them crimes passionel you used to read about. Or it could be that she’d been up to a bit of cock-teasing and it’d got out of hand. How would Alex know? It was as much not his world as it wasn’t that little bloke’s. None of it was his world. He wanted to go home. He hoped the police weren’t about to give him a hard time, for after all he’d done nothing, only left old Else to carry whatever can there was to be carried.

These ruminations were brought to a halt by the abrupt cessation of the Chinese domino game. “It’s all gone quiet over there,” murmured James, looking up from his notes. No one had come down yet — it must have been instinct. Then Alex noticed the barman adjusting an overhead angled mirror that clearly gave him a view of the stairs and landing. He would have given the Chinese gamblers the nod. As betting counters were scooped into pockets, Detective Inspector Wills and the other plain-clothes man who had been making notes earlier slowly came down the stairs, taking them one at a time as they solicitously helped old Else to descend. Oh, fook. Alex was in for it now.

“So which one of them was it, Else?” asked Detective Inspector Wills as he and his sidekick took the adjoining table.

Else, remaining standing, peered myopically at the three and then pointed a grimy finger at Alex. “This young gentleman here. I’m very sorry, young man, but you shouldn’t have run away like that, it was very naughty of you. Now if you’ll all excuse me, I really must go and have a widdle.”

“Now then, James,” said Detective Inspector Wills heavily, lighting a cigarette. “I’m going to allow you to bribe Sergeant Bone and I with a cold Tiger beer apiece, then we’ll get down to the nitty-gritty.”

Oh, shite. So this was it, then. What was the offence? Withholding vital evidence or what?

He would soon know. The beers arrived. The detective inspector raised a can to his lips. “Cheers. Now I could have the three of you nailed to the cross, you realise that, don’t you? Wasting police time. Making false statements.” He glared at Barry. “And in your case, Barry Chilton, trying to fuck up my case — a very serious charge indeed.” In a vicious mockery of the poet’s Birmingham accent, he mimicked: “’Ow, sumone cyme into the Blue Nowt and said there’d been a murder, but Oi down’t know who it was.’ I could have had four men tied up all night on that wild-goose chase, do you know that?”

“Sorry, Benny,” mumbled Barry.

“So what the fuck were you playing at?”

“He was shielding me,” Alex thought he’d better say.

“Shielding you from what, son?”

“Well, he knew I wanted to get back up to Leeds today, so he was trying to keep me out of it.”

“The nearest you’re going to get to Leeds today, my young friend, is Vine Street police station. Now this Christopher or Christine Yardley, as we’ll go on calling her. How well did you know her?”

“I didn’t know her at all.” Well, it was true. Just because he’d bought her a drink, it didn’t mean to say he knew her.

“Never seen her before?”

“No, never,” said Alex recklessly. He saw James Flood frown, and remembered how he must have seen him rushing after Christine from the pub in the belief it was Selby.

“So you didn’t see her in any of these pubs and clubs you’ve been gallivanting around all night?”

“Not that I can remember.” And oh, shite, this Detective Sergeant Bone was writing it all down.

“Oh, you’d remember all right. Everyone remembered our Christine. Now what about old Else? How well do you know her?”

“I don’t know her either. I’ve only been here a day, remember.”

“But she seems to know you.”

“We exchanged a few words at a book-launch do, that’s all.”

Detective Inspector Wills nodded to Detective Sergeant Bone, who withdrew from the voluminous valise he had lugged down the stairs — what was that, then, the famous murder bag you read about? — a copy of The Light and the Shade: The Chiaroscuro Life of Augustus John . Oh, shite upon shite.

“This was found near the body. Else says she put it down on the ground while she had a pee. She also says you bought it for her. Is that true?”

“I did buy it for her as it happens, yes.” His good deed. Would it earn him Brownie points?

Would it bollox. “Twenty-nine pounds ninety-five pee, call it thirty quid. Do you make a habit of giving thirty-quid books to women you don’t know?”

“No, I suppose I just took a shine to her.”

“You took a shine to her. That incontinent old bag has got to be a hundred and ten years old, son. Have you taken a shine to many women since you got down here, Alex?”

“Not really, no.”

“And you find it easy to spare a sum like thirty pounds, do you? Did you pay in cash or credit card?”

“Cash. I don’t have any credit cards, I’m a student.”

“A student who gives away thirty-pound books. Are you sure you didn’t nick it?”

“No, course I didn’t nick it, Else must have the receipt.”

“So how much cash did you bring down with you from Leeds, Alex?”

“Fifty pounds, why?” Oh, Christ, trap.

“And how much have you got left? Let’s have a look in your pockets.”

Alex fished in his pockets with no idea, by this time, what he’d find there. A crumpled twenty-pound note, a ten, a five, and some loose silver.

“So after a day and a night on the piss in Soho, and buying a complete stranger a thirty-quid book, you finish up with nearly as much money as you set off with. How does that come about, then, apart from ducking your round?”

“I don’t know.”

“Have a guess.”

“Somebody gave me some dosh.”

“Who?”

“Brendan Barton,” said Alex, scarlet-faced. He felt, rather than saw, for his eyes were upon the floor, James Flood and Barry Chilton giving him what were called in his part of the world long looks.

“You seem to have met some highly interesting people today, Alex. You should have quite a Christmas-card list this year.”

Mercifully the interrogation was interrupted by the emergence of Else from the ladies’, shrilly haranguing the barman: “Do you know there’s no toilet paper in that loo? What a disgrace! I’ve had to dab myself with some private correspondence.”