Кейт Уотерхаус - Soho or Alex in Wonderland

“Good of you to come down, chaps,” said Detective Inspector Wills, as if they had done so voluntarily. Alex supposed that technically they had, but there was no disguising the menace behind Detective Sergeant Bone’s affability: he would have the three of them in handcuffs as soon as look at them. “It’s just a question of establishing which of you our friend here saw in the Transylvania Club last night, seeing as how he was signed in under a false name. Whoever it was, was seen later in Hog Court. He knows it was one of you but he couldn’t be sure which one of you it was. Never mind, we’ll get it sorted out soon enough.”

Shite.

“Now, Piedro, can you positively identify the man who came into the Transylvania with Christine last night?”

“Yes, sair, Meester Inspector Wills, sair.”

“Point him out.”

Unerringly, the squint-eyed waiter jabbed a lungeing index finger towards James Flood.

“Are you sure it was him, Piedro?”

“No, sair, Meester Inspector Wills, sair, not heem. Heem!” The squint-eyed waiter pointed again, this time at Barry Chilton.

“Bollox. I’ve never set foot in the Transylvania in my life,” protested Barry.

“Quiet! Piedro. Would you go over and touch the shoulder of the man you say you saw in the Transylvania?”

The squint-eyed waiter walked crabwise forward and grabbed the arm of Detective Sergeant Bone.

“You’re getting warmer, lad,” said Detective Inspector Wills encouragingly. “One more try.” Another lunge, and Alex was finally identified.

“Just a last question, Piedro, then you can get off to your Waiters’ Race. Who was it you saw lurking around Hog Court last night? Was it one of these three?”

“I wasn’t lurking, I was waiting,” protested Alex.

“So you admit you were there?”

“You know I was there.”

“I know what old Else has told me, but so far I haven’t heard it from you, son. What were you doing in Hog Court at approximately seven minutes to four this morning?”

Oh, so it was getting official, was it? Approximately seven minutes to four. Watch out, Ali.

“You know — the usual reason.” He tried to sound cocky but it came out shifty.

“There’s a lot of usual reasons for going into Hog Court at that hour, from my observation, Alex. For a pee. For a quick shag. For a quiet wank. For a flash. To commit a burglary. To mug somebody. To rape somebody. To commit a murder.”

“For a pee,” answered Alex sullenly.

“And did you ever have this pee?”

Come to think of it, no, he never did.

“No, I was sick instead.”

“They’re not alternatives, you know,” said Detective Inspector Wills mildly. To the squint-eyed waiter, who was looking agitated and trying to bring his watch within his flawed line of vision: “All right, Piedro, off you go. Come back after the race and you can sign your statement. Good luck, and don’t run into any lamp-posts.” Then to James Flood and Barry Chilton as the squint-eyed waiter zigzagged to the stairs: “You two can piss off as well.”

“Any news of the murder weapon, Benny?” asked the new Evening Standard reporter.

“A Swiss Army knife has been located on a builders’ skip in Greek Street,” said the detective inspector woodenly. “It has yet to be established as the murder weapon.”

Swiss Army knife. Swiss Army knife. Swiss Army knife.

“Can I use that, Benny?”

“You can if you don’t claim the murder was done with the gadget that takes stones out of horses’ hooves.”

Swiss Army knife. Where had he seen a Swiss Army knife? Trouble was, last night had become a blur. He had been well pissed for one thing, and for another, lack of sleep was now catching up with him. Swiss Army knife. It would come. It had better do.

With James Flood and Barry Chilton dismissed, Alex felt isolated, the more so because without any prompting Detective Inspector Wills, Detective Sergeant Bone and the woman constable, all of them with notebooks at the ready and, Alex noticed out of the corner of his eye, not one but two tape-recorders surreptitiously going, had drawn up chairs and silently arranged themselves into a semi-circle around him.

“This could be as good a time as any to have that pee you never got round to,” said Detective Inspector Wills encouragingly. “We might be some time.”

He was right. Alex went out and evacuated his bladder, and had done so, or tried to do so in dribbles, another twice before the interview was at long last over.

“Now the first thing is, Alex, you seem to have got yourself signed in at the Transylvania Club as one Mr D. Singleton, and the waiter who’s just identified you says you were addressed by the dead person as David. Why would that be, Alex?”

Shite. How did you explain the inexplicable? Well, before I knew Christine was a bloke, I was entertaining hopes of shagging her, so it was just a natural precaution not to give her my real name. Sort of nominal Durex. That do?

“Well?”

“I don’t know. It just looked like the kind of place where it would be a good idea to give a false name. After all, that waiter who’s just gone out was calling himself Petra, and if it comes to that, Christine’s name wasn’t really Christine, was it?”

“That’s true, but the pair of them were known all over Soho as Petra and Christine. I’ve not heard anyone addressing you as David. Except, so we’re informed, the dead person.”

“Yes, I introduced myself as David.”

“Why should you want to do that?”

So it went on, for what seemed like hours. Some of Detective Inspector Wills’s questions were pointless, some seemingly guileless, some obviously intended to catch him out. The inspector, patiently and ploddingly, was taking him round and round in circles; but Alex could not help noticing that each otherwise repetitive circuit yielded some fresh and, for all he knew, possibly incriminating fragment of information. He had begun to feel very tired, exhausted in fact. Perhaps that was the idea.

Eventually, after he had been encouraged to drink a glass of water as if some physical ordeal were ahead of him, he and Detective Inspector Wills between them cobbled together a statement which was typed up by the constable on an old-fashioned manual portable. It was given to Alex to read through, which he did with blurred and gritty eyes.

His name was Alexander Bernard Singer of 14 Quarry Lane, South Higginshaw, West Yorkshire, LS15 2QR. He also rented a bed-sitter at 5B Station Place in central Leeds. He was a student of media studies at Leeds Metropolitan University.

He had a girl-friend, Sheilagh Lyons, known to her friends as Selby, a probationer nurse at Leeds General Infirmary. They were not engaged. Selby was a town in East Yorkshire. He did not know why she had named herself after an obscure town, and had counselled her against it. After a series of minor quarrels, Selby had decided to come down to London to think things out, as she had put it. He had reason to believe she was in Soho. After two weeks, when he had not heard from her and she was refusing to accept calls on her mobile, he had determined to track her down in London and have it out with her. By have it out he meant establish how he stood with her. He had hitched a lift to London, intending to remain only twenty-four hours, since he had university business in Leeds.

Once in Soho, he had made no serious enquiries about the possibility of Selby’s whereabouts, as there did not seem to be any point. He knew that a friend of hers would have told her of his movements, and he felt that if she wished to make herself known to him, she would do so.

He had become acquainted with several interesting people during the day, among them Mr James Flood, a newspaper reporter, who had become something of a drinking companion. Whilst in Mr Flood’s company he had thought he had spotted Selby leaving a public house and had run after her. The person had resembled her from the rear but proved not to be her. They had a brief conversation.