The Price of Butcher's Meat

17

Well, Mildred, here I am, back from my first official outing, squatting on the khazi, and definitely not feeling like singing I could have danced all night!

First thought when I saw there were nowt but fizzy wine on offer was, Mean bugger! Thought these Yanks always lashed out the hard liquor. My first guv’nor, old Wallie Tallentire, used to say, Bubbly’s good for nowt but getting a girl’s knickers round her ankles.

Certainly got my trousers round mine!

Talking of trousers, remember to thank Cap. When I pulled mine on for the first time since she brought them, I were surprised how well they fit. Then I checked and realized they were brand new and three sizes down from my old ones, which would have hung around me legs like a mains’l in a dead calm. Bright lass! Dalziel, my man, you certainly know how to pick ’em!

So while I’m sitting here like patience on a fucking monument, I might as well make a note of Festerwhanger’s little “do” while it’s still fresh. Always prided myself on not needing to be taking notes when I were running a case. If I can’t remember it, it’s not bloody worth remembering! Big boast. Let’s put it to the test.

Yon clinic’s a fancy place. Makes our old Central Hospital look like a heritage center. Bet most of your common bugs and viruses turn tail and head back for town soon as they get a glimpse of what’s waiting for them there. One look at the car park tells the story. There were enough high-emission gear out there to punch its own small hole in the atmosphere. If the treatment fees match, then I reckon the patients will feel like they’ve paid for full privacy.

Pet led me to this lounge where there was a handful of people with glasses in their hands. I only recognized two of them. One was the landlord from the pub. He were talking to Stompy Heywood’s lass that I’d sat next to when I broke out of the Avalon. I went up to them and said, “How do, lass? How’s thy dad?”

She looked puzzled for a moment, then said, “Oh, it’s Mr. Deal, isn’t it? Didn’t recognize you with your clothes on. You’ll have met Alan Hollis from the Hope and Anchor.”

“Aye,” I said, laughing. I like a lass with a bit of spirit. “Nice to see you again, Mr. Hollis.”

The landlord said, “You too, Mr. Dalziel. You’ve not been back in.”

“Doctor’s orders,” I said. “But he’s letting me off the hook today so I’ll be down there shortly, you can bet on it.”

Pet came with a glass of fizz which I drank right off.

“Best get me another, luv,” I said. “In fact, why not bring a bottle over here so’s to save you getting in a sweat running between me and the bar?”

She gave me a glower but she went off again.

I said to Hollis, “Left your missus looking after the pub then?”

He said, “I’m not married, Mr. Dalziel. But I’ve got good staff. Just as well with the hog roast on Sunday.”

I’ve noticed this before-folk out in the sticks always talk like everything happening locally’s so important, complete strangers should know about it!

I said, “What’s that?”

“Don’t you know?” he said, surprised. “Lady Denham’s big do at Sandytown Hall. Everyone will be there, everyone important, that is. Sort of thank you from the consortium to everyone who’s helped in putting the town on the map. I’ll be organizing the drinks, so the pub will have to look after itself.”

I thought, When buffalo woman snorts, every bugger jumps!

Pet came back with a bottle. I took it from her and filled all the glasses. Mine fullest ’cos I were catching up.

I said, “Lady Denham sounds real important. She’ll be in this meeting then?”

Pet and Hollis looked at each other, then Hollis said, “No, I don’t think so.”

I said, sort of poking around, “Oh? Didn’t strike me as the kind of lass you could keep away, her and Dr. Feldenhammer being such good mates.”

Pet gave a kind of snort, and Hollis looked at the ground, and even young Heywood grinned. But before I could probe harder, the door opened and the folk from the meeting poured in. I saw Franny Roote in his chair. He gave me a wave, I gave him a glower. Then I spotted Parker, so I excused myself, and went to pay my debts.

He were talking to a bearded guy in baggy pants and one of them fleecy jackets hikers wear. Either a tramp who’d strayed in off the road or an eccentric millionaire patient, I decided.

“How do, Mr. Parker,” I said. “Here’s that twenty quid you were kind enough to loan me. Many thanks.”

He recognized me straight off, or mebbe Festerwhanger had warned him.

“Delighted I was able to help, Mr. Dalziel,” he said, beaming at me. “And how nice to meet you again.”

He sounded like he meant it too and not just because of the money.

“May I introduce you to Gordon Godley?” he said. “Gordon, this is Mr. Dalziel who’s convalescing here at Avalon. Mr. Godley’s a healer whom I have persuaded to bring his ministry to Sandytown.”

Wrong twice. Neither a tramp nor a patient but one of the weirdos Roote had been talking about!

I stuck my hand out. Godley didn’t seem mad keen on taking it, and when he did it were barely a touch before he let go. Mebbe he were scared I were convalescing from summat contagious.

“Healer, eh?” I said. “What’s that about then? Charming warts in a moonlit churchyard or sticking lepers’ noses back on?”

I were just being friendly, but I wished I’d not said it when he looked at me with his big gray eyes like a spaniel told he’s not going walkies today. I were just going to pour a bit of oil when a voice behind me said, “I’m sure Mr. Godley could help you with your warts if they’re bothering you, Mr. Dalziel. Which part of your anatomy are they affecting?”

It were the Heywood lass, giving me the kind of look her dad used to give before clattering your goolies in a line-out. Godley, who was looking more confused and unhappy than ever, mumbled something and moved off.

Heywood looked at me angrily and said, “Now see what you’ve done. Tell me, were you always a bully or did you do a course on it at Hendon?”

I had to laugh. These kids. Know everything, understand nowt. But I liked her style.

Parker didn’t seem to have noticed she were in a tizz.

Still smiling he said, “I’m so glad Gordon decided to come to the meeting, Charlotte. He’ll be such a valuable acquisition. All the other therapies are based on physical interactions. He provides a purely spiritual dimension. Charlotte, why don’t you introduce Mr. Dalziel to some of the others while I have a quiet word with Dr. Feldenhammer?”

“Meeting must have gone well,” I said as he moved off. “He seems happy.”

“Tom is always happy,” she said. “He believes everything is for the best in the best of possible worlds. Pretty well the opposite of your worldview, I’d guess, Mr. Dalziel. Now, who’d you like to be rude to next?”

I got myself another drink, or rather, another bottle as the first seemed to have emptied itself. Then Charley whipped me round some of the others-a chunky Chink lass who stuck needles into people; an herbalist you could have sprayed green and sold as a pixie in a garden center; and a woman who looked like she’d been invited to a Halloween party and got her dates mixed. Didn’t catch what she did, ’cos while we were shaking hands, I was hoping her black nails weren’t painted with owt toxic. I began to wonder how come old Fester had got mixed up with this bunch of oddballs. If I’d found them setting up camp on my patch, I’d have escorted ’em politely to the Lancs border and pushed them across. They’re more used to loonies over there.

When Charley finally introduced me to a woman she said was Parker’s sister, I thought, Thank Christ I’m back with the sane buggers. Some hope! Took all of ten seconds to realize she were dotty as a Frenchman’s jock strap. Woman with her seemed okay, but. Name of Sandy something. Gave me an odd stare when Charley introduced us-or mebbe that’s just how she always looks at big sexy men. I wish!

I’d got one thing right, though. Suddenly the door burst open and buffalo woman charged in.

“Lester,” she declaimed. “I’m so sorry I’m late.”

Parker and Festerwhanger were in close confab over by the drinks table. I saw them look at each other, just a glance lasting a split second, but I’d put money on it each on ’em were thinking, You didn’t tell me you’d invited her!

But Parker being a cockeyed optimist and Festerwhanger being a smarmy Yank, neither of ’em had any bother turning on the full beam and coming forward to greet her.

“Lady D! Now we’re complete!” declared Parker.

“Welcome, dear Daphne,” oozed Festerwhanger, offering one of them air kisses, but she moved her head at the last moment and caught him full on the lips so hard it probably bruised his gums.

The bodywork might be a bit rusty but the old internal combustion was still pounding away!

She weren’t slow at lapping up the fizz either, I noted, getting through a couple of glasses at a rate of knots that made me feel like a Methodist and hitting the nibbles like she’d not et since Shrove Tuesday.

“Bet the mean old cow’s brought a doggy bag,” muttered young Heywood.

I said, “Being rude’s okay behind people’s backs then?”

“Just stating the facts,” she said pertly. “Looks like maybe you’re on the menu too.”

Didn’t get her drift till I looked back to Lady D and there was the old bird wiggling her glass at me and giving me a turnip-lantern smile.

What the fuck had I done to turn me from loony patient to dear old chum?

Mebbe it were friendship hour here in Sandytown, for suddenly the young guy I recalled whistling “The Indian Maid” in the pub appeared and gave Heywood a smacking kiss. Opposite effect here. He was definitely aiming at the mouth but a nifty bit of head work diverted him to the cheekbone.

“Charley, here you are,” he said. “What a joy to see you again.”

He sounded like an old-fashioned actor doing sincere. Good-looking young bloke, and he knew it. No harm in that. If you’ve got it, flaunt it, that’s always been my motto.

Didn’t look like it cut much ice with Heywood, but. She said, very accusing, “You told your aunt about the meeting then?”

“Of course,” he said. “But only in the fervent hope that she’d insist on coming, thus giving me another chance of seeing you.”

The lass rolled her eyes a bit, but I could tell she were pleased too. This young cock had learned what all successful young cocks soon work out, that you don’t need to worry about laying on the lard too thick with most women. Seeing what you’re at makes them feel cleverer than you, which is what they all like to feel. But it takes a very clever one indeed not to let some of the lard stick!

She said, “Mr. Dalziel, this is Teddy Denham. Sir Edward, if you like titles.”

“Love ’em,” I said. “Detective Superintendent Andy Dalziel.”

That froze his smile a second as we shook hands.

There’d been two others in the grand lady’s train, a pair of lasses, one I didn’t recognize and t’other the willowy niece, Clara, I’d met in the pub. Didn’t surprise me to see Roote bearing down on her like the wolf on the fold. He came to a stop in front of her, reached out, grabbed a chair and pretty well forced her to sit down so’s she were at his level. Didn’t notice or mebbe didn’t care that he were blocking the passage of t’other lass, who looked like she’d lunched on a radish salad and wished she hadn’t. She could’ve walked round him but she didn’t. She just got hold of the back of the wheelchair and twisted it out of her way, then wandered off to the window at the far end of the room, leaving Roote looking at the wall. Clara looked a bit pissed with the sour-faced woman but I could see Roote grinning as he maneuvered himself back into position. Nowt I could teach that bugger about milking sympathy!

Alongside me, Teddy Denham was still laying it on with a trowel too, this time showing young Heywood how well read he were.

Looking round the room, he declared, “This is precisely the kind of gathering Austen would have described so brilliantly, don’t you think, Charley? Or perhaps you prefer the darker gaze of George Eliot?”

“I’m not sure,” she said.

“What about you, Mr. Dalziel? Aimez-vous George Eliot?”

It was put-down-the-fat-plod time.

I said, “Eh?”

“Do you like George Eliot?” he translated very slowly.

“Oh aye,” I said. “He were my gran’s favorite. Used to play ‘By the Silvery Moon’ all the time. Excuse me.”

I gave Heywood a grin afore I moved off and she grinned back and gave me a big wink. Interesting lass. Not daft, just young. And won’t be bad looking either when she lets herself grow into her body. Reminds me a bit of Cap.

In my experience buggers who want to be alone are either thinking of topping themselves or stealing the silver, so I joined the sour-faced woman by the window to find out which. She was staring across to the convalescent home. From this angle you couldn’t see how it had been extended. Looking out to sea, with its tall chimneys and all that green ivy clinging to mellow red brick, it would have made a grand cover for an English Heritage magazine.

“Must have been a lovely place to live when it were a private house,” I said.

“Yes, it was,” she said softly. “Very lovely. It used to belong to my family. A sort of dower house. My grandmother lived there. I always used to love staying with her…”

I could see her face in the pane and her expression were sort of dreamy. Nice-looking lass. Then she clocked my reflection and suddenly it were back to radish time.

She turned to face me.

I said, “Andy Dalziel,” and stuck out my hand.

Her handshake were like one of them air kisses. Made the healer’s feel like an arm-wrestling session.

“Esther Denham,” she said.

“Oh aye. You related to Lady Denham then?”

Her face screwed up like she’d bit on a lettuce leaf and found a slug.

“By marriage,” she said, making it sound like an operation without anesthetic.

Then Lady D’s voice boomed, “Esther, my dear, there you are. Come and keep me company. You too, Edward.”

It were like watching a kid who’s just been told she can’t have a sweetie realizing it’s because she’s being offered a tutti-frutti instead. As she turned from me, her face lit up like someone had triggered a security light.

“Coming!” she called gaily.

And she set off toward buffalo woman like a lost lamb to her ewe.

I saw Sir Teddy had abandoned young Heywood just as quick and I went back to join her.

“The way yon pair jump, the old lass must really know where the bodies are buried,” I said.

“I think it’s more where the money is banked,” she replied.

“Oh aye? Thought it ’ud be summat like that. They’re brother and sister, right? And set on getting their share of the family fortune when auntie dies?”

“She’s only an aunt by marriage, so I suppose it’s understandable they feel they’ve got to work at it,” she said.

“Sounds like you’re on their side,” I said. “Or is it just hunky Teddy’s side?”

“No. I am being objective and analytical. I’m a psychologist.”

I had to laugh. Seen nowt, done nowt, and she were a psychologist!

“What’s so funny?” she demanded, getting angry again.

I knew better than to tell her, so I said, “I were just thinking, I bet old Stompy were chuffed to buggery when he found out he’d sired one of them.”

She gave me an old-fashioned look, then grinned.

“I see you knew my father quite well, Mr. Dalziel,” she said.

“Well enough. How come Teddy’s so hard up he needs to suck up to auntie?” I asked. “His sister were saying the old house, and presumably all this land, used to belong to her family. Must have made a fortune when they sold it on to Avalon.”

“It did, but not for the Denhams, alas,” said a familiar voice.

I looked down to see Roote smiling up at me. The skinny lass had been sucked back into her aunt’s orbit, or mebbe the sight of the young Denhams dancing attendance had made her decide she’d better keep her end up.

“Oh aye? Who then?” I said to him.

He smiled and lowered his voice so that I had to lower my head to hear him. The lass too. I got the impression she didn’t want to miss owt.

“As I understand it,” he murmured, “the story is that one result of the unfortunate if appropriate demise of Hog Hollis was a rapprochement between his widow and Sir Harry Denham, who had not been on the best of terms for some years. He held her responsible for sending the sweet odor of pigs wafting through his drawing room window whenever he took afternoon tea.”

“This going to be a long tale?” I asked. “If it is, I thought mebbe I’d go off somewhere quiet to read War and Peace, then come back for the climax.”

“Forgive me,” he said. “I have fallen into rustic ways. Let me cut to the chase. Sir Harry, now close to insolvency, devised a cunning plan to solve both his financial and his olfactory problems at a stroke. He proposed to her. He was personable, reputedly virile-an important consideration for the dear lady-and of course he had what only money could buy, a title. This, I believe, was the clincher. She accepted.”

“Brings a tear to your eye, doesn’t it?” said young Heywood.

I gave her a look. Don’t care for cynicism in the young. If they don’t have romantic delusions, what are old farts like me going to kick out of them?

Roote went rambling on. Cut to the chase, he’d said. More like verbal runs! Wieldy would have had it all spelt out, typed up, and on my desk half an hour back!

“As the wedding approached, he suggested that all that lacked to make them both happy was an odor-free threshold for him to carry her over. Now that Denham Park was to be her stately home too, perhaps the time had come to relocate the pig farm. She appeared to agree, only objecting that she would have to find a suitable site first. There was some spare capacity on the land belonging to Millstone Farm, the old Hollis farm, but she was reluctant to use that…”

“Knowing that if she snuffed it before her brother-in-law, the farm and everything on it would fall to Hen,” chipped in young Heywood.

Roote smiled appreciatively.

“Clearly psychology really is the listening profession,” he said. “Yes, dear Lady D did not care for the thought of Hen benefiting more than he had to in the event of her death. She is, I believe, a very good hater. The upshot was, she proposed to Sir Harry that this parcel of Denham land here on South Cliff would make an ideal site, well away from Denham Park, and too high above the town for any nuisance to be caused there. The old house could be adapted as an excellent administrative center for the business.”

“If this is quick, I’m Speedy Gonzales,” I said.

“I’ve heard the rumors,” said Roote. “Be patient, the end is near. Sir Harry was delighted, and even more so when she insisted on a proper business transaction, with Hollis’s Ham Limited formally purchasing the land. The deal was made, both deals, with the marriage given top billing in all the Yorkshire glossies. They went on a leisurely Caribbean cruise for their honeymoon, financed, local tradition says, by the money Hollis’s Ham had paid for the South Cliff property. That must have made Sir Harry smile. His wife’s money paying for their honeymoon, setting what he hoped would be the pattern for many years to come. Imagine his dismay when they returned some months later to discover the bulldozers had moved in here and with a true American swiftness the Avalon Clinic was already beginning to rise.”

“You mean she’d got all this sorted afore they went off on honeymoon?” I said.

“Clearly so,” said Roote admiringly. “Of course, after his initial shock, he must have consoled himself with the thought of the large profit made in the transaction. But I gather he was disappointed in this too. Victorian marital property laws had long since been repealed. The land had been signed over to Hollis’s Ham, his wife’s company, and all that he was going to get of her money was what she cared to allow him. He huffed and puffed but soon learned the lesson that huffing and puffing meant going to bed without any supper. No longer master in his own house, he was at least still master of the hunt until the government banned hunting with dogs. He is said to have roared, ‘Over my dead body!’ On the first day of the season, he went out with the hounds and when they started a fox, he set out after them at a mad gallop, clipped the top of a wall, and ended in a ditch with a broken neck. He was, if nothing else, a man of his word.”

“And she walked away from the funeral with a title on her letterhead and the Avalon money in her purse,” said Heywood.

“So all this land and the old house used to belong to the Denhams,” I said. “No wonder that poor lass Esther looks so pissed off.”

That got me a surprised glance from Heywood, who said, “Oh, she always looks like that, except when she’s sucking up to Lady D.”

I said, “Must be nice to have a smart understanding chap like Stompy for your dad so you don’t have to go sucking up to any bugger.”

Roote laughed and said, “Bravo, Andy. Your compassion does you credit.”

“It’s got limits,” I said. “So Lady Denham’s got the chinks, and Sir Teddy and sis are sticking close as shit to a blanket in the hope some of it rolls their way when she topples off the twig?”

“I think that sums it up,” said Roote.

“Could be a long wait,” I said. “The old bird looks good for another thirty years or more. And ain’t she got blood relatives of her own, like yon skinny lass Clara?”

“My, you really are a detective, Mr. Dalziel,” said Heywood, recovering from my little put-down. “That’s right. Quite a lot, I gather. And, though most of them are very long shots indeed, there’s a whole bunch of her first husband’s relatives on the card.”

“Looks like I’m not the only detective,” I said. “Only here two minutes and you’ve got all the local crack noted and analyzed! So, rich old lady, lots of hopeful relations. Hope she locks her windows at night and doesn’t go out in the dark.”

She said, “Your line of work has clearly clouded your view of human nature.”

I said, “You reckon? You did the Pollyanna psychology course, did you?”

She said a bit defiantly, “I know it’s a cliché, but I do think there’s good in everybody if you look hard enough.”

“Me too,” I said. “That’s why I became a cop-so’s I could spend my life turning up stones looking for it.”

I glanced down at Roote as I said this, but he just grinned back up at me like I’d offered him a compliment and said, “Charley, dear, I wonder if I could trouble you to get me a glass of fruit juice. Pomegranate if there is any, but the ubiquitous orange will do. And I see Andy’s glass is empty…”

“Sure,” she said. “Would you like it in an earthenware jug?”

“What’s that about a jug?” I asked as she walked away.

“Ah, the sweet enigma of a woman’s words,” he said. “It is not for us to seek meaning. Andy, now we’re alone, there’s something I want to ask you.”

“Ask away,” I said. “But tek note-just because I won’t hit a man in a wheelchair doesn’t make us first-name friends.”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “Would you prefer the official title then? Lady D was certainly very impressed when I told her you were head of Mid-Yorkshire CID.”

Now the change in buffalo woman’s attitude was explained. She clearly enjoyed power, and anyone that smelt of it probably turned her on.

“Mr. Dalziel will do,” I said.

“Oh, thank you kindly,” he simpered. I found myself liking the sourpuss lass who’d shoved him aside more and more.

“So what’s it you want to ask?” I demanded.

He turned very serious and said, “The thing is, I’m asking for a review of my case in the hope of getting the verdict overturned. I hoped you might support my appeal.”

Not many folk can gobsmack me, but somehow Roote’s learned the trick.

“Eh?” I said.

“It’s a question of getting into America for the publication of my Beddoes biography. The dean of St. Poll University called in some favors to get me a special dispensation a couple of years back-but since nine-eleven, if you’ve got three penalty points on your driver’s license, they’re reluctant to let you in. I need to be there, for interviews and signings. Keeping me out is a violation of my basic human right to make a living!”

Just then Heywood came back with a drinks tray. Just as well else I might have forgot me scruples and picked Roote up, wheelchair and all, and hoyed him through the window! Instead I downed my bubbles in one, then grabbed another glass, hers I suppose, and drank that too. I drew the line at Roote’s juice. I weren’t that far gone. Heywood didn’t say owt, just buggered off back to the drinks table.

At last I could speak.

“You want me to support your appeal against a conviction which my evidence helped to get? A conviction that’s only ever bothered me because I reckon the sentence should have been twice as long!”

“Exactly,” he said. “You can see your support would really impress the court.”

I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

I said, “I need another drink.”

And I’d have gone after the lass only my legs didn’t seem to want to work.

Roote reached up and got a hold of my arm.

“Really, you mustn’t try so hard,” he said seriously.

“What the fuck are you on about?” I demanded.

He pulled me down so he was talking in a low voice right into my face.

“When you’ve been as close to death as we have,” he said, “you don’t just take a single step back to where you were; it’s a long, long journey.”

“Thank you, Dr. Roote,” I said. “I were wondering what I were doing in a conva-fucking-lescent home, and now you’ve spelt it out. I’m conva-fucking-lescing!”

“I’m not just talking physical here,” he said. “It’s a long way back to yourself. Mostly we do it by acting ourselves. We remember the way we were and we devote all our energy to trying to get back into the part, even if it involves drinking fifteen pints before breakfast. But it is just a part, Andy. Now’s the time, while you’re still relearning it, to pause and consider just who this being is that’s doing the learning.”

My head were really spinning now. Didn’t know whether it were from Festerwhanger’s bubbles or Roote’s babbles. Didn’t care either. I pulled my arm free and came close to keeling over, except someone got a hold of my other arm and I heard Pet Sheldon say, “Time to be on our way, I think, Andy.”

Places I normally drink, no bugger calls closing time on me. I forced the world back into focus. Distantly I saw buffalo woman beckoning me like I was a headwaiter. I gave her a smile and a wave and said to Pet, “You’re right, luv. Take me to bed.”

The fresh sea air hit me like a flying fish and I leaned heavily on Pet as we tacked toward the old house. There were a din like the clatter of the weaving room in an old wool mill as an ancient motorbike and sidecar went rattling by. The rider had his helmet and visor on, but I recognized Mr. Godley’s beard. Funny, it were likely the fresh air, but just the sight of him made me feel better.

“There goes the healer,” I said, managing to straighten up a bit. “Old Festerwhanger takes him on, you could all be out of work.”

“I shan’t hold my breath,” she said. “It’s nursing gets sick people better, not dosing them with herbs, or sticking them with skewers.”

“Nay, lass, you shouldn’t rush to mock what it says in the Bible,” I said.

“Laying on of hands and that stuff?” she said. “We’ve moved on a bit since then, I hope. Just because that chap looks like Jesus doesn’t mean he’s going to raise you from the dead. So let’s get you to your bed, shall we?”

“That’s what I’m talking about, luv,” I said. “Old Testament therapy. Like King David and Abishag the Shummanite. Any chance of fixing that for me?”

She knew her Bible ’cos that made her laugh.

“My old gran always used to say the devil could quote scripture,” she said. “Now shut up or I’ll drop you here on the drive and let Lady Denham run you over with that rust bucket of hers. She’s a menace, that woman.”

She spoke so vehemently, I thought, There’s a bit more than road rage here! What’s she done to rattle your cage?

It took me another half dozen paces to work it out. Back afore the big bang, I’d have seen it half an hour ago.

It’s old Festerwhanger! Pet’s got the hots for him too! It must really get up her nose, seeing the way he fawns on Lady D and she treats him like her personal property.

I said, slurring it a bit to encourage indiscretion, “Time for her to marry again then. Tried it twice, so she must have a taste for it.”

“Woman of her age should know better,” said Pet, very pursed-lips proper. “Do you need to lean on me quite so much? A couple of glasses of wine and you’re wobbling like a blancmange. I thought you detectives all had hollow legs.”

I straightened up a bit, but it were hard. Must be all that rubbish the quacks have been pumping into me. That’s twice a couple of glasses have reached parts that it used to take fifteen pints to get close to.

Pet got me back in my room, laid me in my bed, laughed when I invited her to join me for a bit of Platonic dialogue, and buggered off. Soon as she’d gone I got up and checked my sunken treasure in the cistern. Half a bottle of malt and Mildred. Checked no bugger had been interfering with either and took a slug of the Caledonian cream.

Always reckoned that Dr. Scotch was a cure for everything, but this time I’m having me doubts. That’s why I’m sitting here on the bog, talking to Mildred. Good spot for meditation. Don’t need one of them fancy computers if you’ve got a comfy bog-soon have this case sorted out.

What the fuck am I talking about!? What fucking case? Am I going doolally? Mebbe being off the job’s giving me withdrawal symptoms, so everything starts looking like a case waiting to happen…victim set up…suspects in place…motives well established…great detective on the spot…all waiting for a writer to give them the nod…

For fuck’s sake, you daft bugger, you’ve let yon scrote Roote get inside your mind! All that crap about relearning your part. And it’s this place too. The Avalon. Sandytown. The sooner you get off this bog and into your bed, the better.

But I’ve definitely got this feeling something bad is coming…something very real…

Oh Jesus Christ! and here it is…!