Кейт Уотерхаус - Soho or Alex in Wonderland

“Yes you could,” returned Brendan Barton. “You could have positioned yourself five feet away. Or for preference, in the next parish.”

The stranger smiled weakly, uncertain whether to take offence or not. He ploughed on: “Only I recognise your voice. You’re him, aren’t you? That Brendan Barton?”

“Not necessarily,” said Brendan warily.

“Do you mind if I ask you a question, Brendan?” said the intruder with offensive familiarity. “Where did it all go wrong?”

Brendan shook his head regretfully. “You’re in the wrong joke, sir. That story goes better with George Best in it.”

The stranger turned to Alex and Bell and jerked his head towards Brendan Barton. “To say he’s a has-been, he’s a cocky bugger, your mate, isn’t he?”

Both Alex and Bell wisely elected to ignore the question, but Brendan said evenly: “Better a cocky bugger than a cunt.”

The stranger scowled, then knocked back his drink in an aggressively determined manner. “What was that you just called me?”

“Hearing bad too, is it? You are mortally afflicted.”

“Do you want to come outside and repeat it?”

“Why — are the acoustics better out there?”

Pleased with his rejoinder, Brendan Barton raised his glass high, signalling to Jenny behind the bar the need for a refill. His day was shaping up nicely. But then, reflected Alex enviously, every day must be an adventure for this bugger.

While the civilian, as Alex now thought of him, struggled for something cutting to say, Mabel had been helped down from her bar stool by James Flood. Taking possession of her commodious handbag, she now reached out and removed the stranger’s empty glass from his grasp.

“You’re barred. You’re so fucking barred you must’ve been born fucking barred. Go on. Out.”

“That wouldn’t be a subtle hint, would it, Mabel?” blustered the civilian. “I’ll just have the one and then I’ll be on my merry way.”

“You’ve already had the one, and that was one too many. And don’t be so fucking familiar. Piss off out of it, I shan’t tell you again.”

“Curiously enough, Mabel,” said Brendan, “this gentleman was only just now inviting me to join him outside for a little alfresco tête-à-tête. I should be only too happy to oblige, if that would help.”

“You stay where you are, Brendan, I’ll see the toerag off myself. Take care, one and all, and don’t set the fucking place on fire.”

Shepherding the civilian ahead of her, evidently prepared to frogmarch him out if necessary, Mabel made for the stairs to a chorus, instigated by Brendan Barton, of “For She’s A Jolly Good Fellow”.

As the singing died raggedly away, Mabel’s strident voice could be heard from the doorway above: “Yes, madam, what can I do you for?”

“Would you move out of my way, please?”

“No, I fucking will not. This is a private club, members only.”

“Yes, I know it’s a private club, and I’ve got enough on you to have it closed down tomorrow. Don’t you know who I am?”

Oh, fook. Her. Alex knew that voice, and more particularly so did James. He had gone white.

“If I were you, mate, I’d duck into the bog and stay there,” advised Alex.

“Can’t. Else is in there.”

In any case, it was too late. Jane Rich, the editor of the Examiner , was fast gaining ground.

“I have to speak urgently to James Flood of the Examiner . I’m his editor.”

“He’s not here.”

“I happen to know he is, and there must be about seventy witnesses to the fact down there. Since you’re only supposed to accommodate a maximum of forty, I suggest you stop fucking me about and let me pass.”

It was, Alex judged, Jane’s command of four-letter words that won the day for her. At any rate, she was soon bounding down the stairs, brandishing a copy of the Evening Standard first edition.

CROSS-DRESS KILLING IN SOHO. By James Flood. This was it, then. Alex Singer was very glad he was not James Flood.

Yet despite some trembling and nervous swallowing, James seemed comparatively unfazed as Jane Rich, cutting a swathe through the crowded room, bore down on him.

“I am going to sue you for breach of contract and the Evening Standard for breach of copyright,” she announced at the top of her voice. “The same goes for Metro . Also I hope you have some other string to your bow, James Flood, because I shall see to it personally that you never work in Fleet Street again. Now just what the fuck do you think you’re playing at?”

“Bit late for all that, Jane,” said James with controlled smugness. “I’ve joined the Evening Standard .”

“You’re in no position to join the Evening Standard . You haven’t worked out your notice.”

“I don’t have to give notice, Jane. I was on three months’ trial, remember?”

“You’re still on three months’ trial. And when it’s up, you’re fired.”

“I don’t think so, Jane, I looked up my letter of appointment. The three months expired,” said James with great satisfaction, “at midnight last night.”

It was a line he had obviously been rehearsing and re-rehearsing in his head, and he delivered it perfectly. Jane Rich gaped, opened and closed her mouth several times, goldfish fashion, and then turned on her heel.

As she clattered up the stairs, Detective Sergeant Bone made his way down them. He did not bother to push his way into the room. With jabbing motions he indicated Alex, James Flood and Barry Chilton. The jerk of his head said: “The guvnor wants all three of you. Now.”

Those with nothing better to do with their time — perhaps the majority of Soho dwellers on this bright morning — were beginning to line the streets in readiness for the annual Waiters’ Race. Detective Inspector Wills should have been standing by as one of the judges, but had had to cry off due to other duties.

Murder, explained Detective Sergeant Bone as his little party picked their way along Gerrard Street, now as thronged as any Hong Kong bazaar, was not usually on the guvnor’s beat. But the Division had two men off with stress and another suspended while awaiting the outcome of an inquiry into allegations of causing a trauma to a suspect under questioning, and so there was an undermanning problem. Besides, no one knew the area better than Detective Inspector Wills, so that was that. He had set up his Incident Room in the Waiters Club in Gerrard Street, which was unoccupied during the daytime.

Alex was apprehensive, James quite chirpy, as befitted a reporter who had got two scoops in two papers before noon, and landed himself a good job into the bargain. Barry Chilton’s only anxiety was that he had a gig in Swindon that night and wanted to get off.

“Is this going to take long, kid?” he asked Detective Sergeant Bone. “Only I mean tough luck and all that, but I hardly knew Christine.”

“Shouldn’t take more than a few minutes, unless you’ve been where you didn’t ought to have been,” said Detective Sergeant Bone genially. “Look on it as a three-man identity parade.”

Which was exactly what it was. For as Alex, James and Barry descended into the Waiters Club, where Detective Inspector Wills sat in the middle of the room poring over a stack of printouts spilling from a computer he had got set up down there, and a uniformed woman constable ploddingly manned a constantly ringing telephone — “Incident room. No, he’s tied up at present, I’m going to have to put you on hold” — the squint-eyed waiter, looking at his watch, or rather looking at a space in the air a foot away from his wrist, awaited their presence. He was wearing a snowy floor-length apron and carrying a tin tray, the badges of the Soho Waiters’ Race.