Кейт Уотерхаус - Soho or Alex in Wonderland

“Your guvnor was right about the fine at Marlborough Street,” the first flyman was saying to Detective Sergeant Bone.

“Twenty quid apiece for taking a dead body on the tube,” said the second flyman. “Diabolical liberty. If it’s really an offence by law, you’d think London Transport would have a fixed penalty.”

“He’s usually right about these things,” said Detective Sergeant Bone. “But if you’ve just had to fork out forty quid between the pair of you, why aren’t you down the New Kismet mopping up the free booze? Don’t say they’ve drunk the place dry already?”

“Nah.” The first flyman waxed philosophical. “We came out. It’s a funny thing about booze, mate. If you don’t have to pay for it, it never tastes as good as if you do.”

“Now I’ve never found that,” said Detective Sergeant Bone, knocking back his Scotch. “No one you recognise here, Alex? Come on, then, you can buy me one in the Sun and Thirteen Cantons.”

Alex was nearly sure, when they reached the Sun and Thirteen Cantons, that it had not been on James Flood’s itinerary last night, but Detective Sergeant Bone insisted that it was one of his regular ports of call, so Alex obediently trotted after him. There, they encountered a bad-tempered Kim Grizzard haranguing the barman: “But are you sure? It’s not good enough just to say you don’t think so. Go and ask your boss. This is a very valuable manuscript we’re talking about.”

“If it narrows down your search,” said Alex helpfully, “I think you’ll find the Sun and Thirteen Cantons isn’t on the list James gave you.”

“I wouldn’t know, I left the list in a pub.”

“Like the script of your book,” said Detective Sergeant Bone.

“I didn’t leave the bloody script behind, this dozy sod did,” said Grizzard, jabbing Alex in the chest. “And I’ll tell you what I’m doing, list or no list. There are forty-one pubs in Soho, so I’ve been told.”

“Forty-eight,” amended the detective sergeant.

“And on the principle of leaving no stone unturned, I’m going to try every one of them. And then if that book doesn’t surface, I’m going to kick the living shit out of this prat here. Have you seen what I did to that devious ratbag Ellis Hugo Bell?” he enquired of Alex with interest.

“Yeh yeh yeh, he’s in a bad way.”

“Compared with what’s in store for you, friend, he looks unblemished.”

“Threatening words or behaviour, two-thousand-pound fine and six months,” recited Detective Sergeant Bone. “You’ll find us in the Three Greyhounds, and after that the Blue Posts. Drink up, Alex.”

On the way across to the Three Greyhounds Detective Sergeant Bone’s mobile trilled. “Yes, guv? Dunno, I’ll ask him. Colour? Make? Size? I’ll get back to you.”

Pocketing the cell-phone, Bone, with a sphinx-like expression, made no reference to the conversation until they were in the pub, with Alex getting them in. War of nerves, Alex reckoned. Well, if the detective sergeant wasn’t going to tell him, he wasn’t going to ask. Sod him.

But at length Detective Sergeant Bone volunteered: “That was the guvnor.”

“Oh, yes?” stalled Alex.

“As you’ll have gathered.”

“Right.”

Tiring of the stonewalling, Detective Sergeant Bone moved on: “He wants to know if you came down to London wearing a coat.”

“No.”

“You’re sure about that?”

“Course I’m sure. I don’t even own a raincoat.”

“Who says we’re talking about a raincoat?”

Walked into that one, didn’t he? He reckoned they played these little games just to keep themselves on their toes; Ward off boredom. Either that, or they watched too much cops and robbers telly.

“Well, I wouldn’t be wearing a top coat at this timer year, would I?”

“So you didn’t have a raincoat when you got down here?”

“No, I’ve told you.”

“But it was pissing down cats and dogs last night, Alex. How did you keep dry if you didn’t have a raincoat? I mean that suit you’re wearing” — fingering a lapel — “it’s not been wet, now has it?”

“It’s all in my statement, how many more times? I was sheltering in the doorway of the Transylvania Club, which is how I came to meet Christine.”

This was how they got you. It was how they wore you down. They nagged away like a dog at a bone until you didn’t know what you were saying, or until you’d say anything for the sake of shutting them up. Although he thought he was on to all their tricks by now, Alex was beginning to feel as if he were being taken on a route march along a tightrope.

“What’s your blood group, Alex?”

“No idea — why?”

“I think you know why. What can you tell me about a bloodstained raincoat found under a park bench in Soho Square?”

Alex saw a straw to clutch at. “Neatly folded, was it?”

“Might’ve been, why?”

“Because he was carrying a neatly folded raincoat when he came out of Hog Court.”

“Well, let’s say somebody was carrying a neatly folded raincoat,” said Bone grudgingly. “What size d’you take, Alex? Medium?”

“No idea — I’ve told you, I don’t own a raincoat.”

As they progressed from pub to pub, Detective Sergeant Bone having greatly extended the rerun of last night’s tour with the seeming intention of covering every one of Soho’s forty-eight pubs, their path continued to cross and recross that of Kim Grizzard, who was growing ever more agitated, ever more belligerent and ever more drunk.

There had been no sign of anyone resembling the owner of the Swiss Army knife, no reported sightings in response to Bone’s oblique enquiries.

By the time they reached the Wellington Arms Alex, with more drinks inside him than was good for him on a near-empty stomach, had quite forgotten what the man they were seeking looked like, or indeed who they were seeking at all, and why. Of one thing he was tolerably sure, and that was that he had never set foot in this pub before. It was on the corner of Shaftesbury Avenue and Rupert Place, and he could remember, during the course of last night’s epic pub crawl, James Flood advising him that no true Sohoite ever set foot in Shaftesbury Avenue except to cross over into Chinatown. He had said it several times.

Then Kim Grizzard wasn’t a true Sohoite, for he was lolling at the marble and mahogany bar of this Shaftesbury Avenue gin palace, nursing a large Scotch and showing an easy familiarity with the place. “Tell Mr O’Reilly it’s Kim Grizzard,” he was instructing the barman in thick tones. “I’ll only keep him a moment.”

“But he’s upstairs having his lunch, Mr Grizzard.”

“He can drink that later. Tell him it’s urgent. Go on, be a good chap.”

As the barman reluctantly took himself up the stairs, Alex looked around for the gents’, and was at once struck with the sensation of deja vu . For if he had not been in this pub before he had certainly seen that heavy varnished door before, with the inscription “Gentlemen” in black Gothic lettering.

And as he passed through the door it all came back. The Post-it slip on the urinal wall. “Does anyone ever see Big John who used to come in here and Muriel’s? He liked a drink and a fight.” To which the PS “RIP” had been added. And now there was a further addendum: “Balls. He is on remand in Brixton for GBH.”

Alex came out of the gents’ and looked as casually as he could towards the corner table by the Shaftesbury Avenue entrance to the pub. Yes, he had a result. Dapper, middle-aged, clerkish, sipping half a Guinness and reading the latest edition of the Evening Standard , which had changed its headline: SOHO MURDER KNIFE FOUND.

He rejoined Detective Sergeant Bone at the bar and rather over-conspiratorially murmured: “Bloke in that corner near the bogs. Half a Guinness and the Evening Standard .”