“I should think so, yes.”
“Yet you can’t remember which out of all these pubs you were in last night you saw this guy in?”
“It can only be one of forty-eight, guv,” Detective Sergeant Bone pointed out soothingly. “Unless they were doing the clubs and wine bars as well, in which case we’ll be back with you about next Tuesday.”
“You say James Flood of the Examiner was with you on this pub crawl?” said Detective Inspector Wills to Alex.
“Of the Evening Standard, now,” said Alex, not without vicarious pride.
“Son, I don’t care if he’s now on the Exchange and fucking Mart. Did he see this bloke with the Swiss Army knife?”
“I don’t think so. I think he was talking to the pub landlord.”
“Then let’s hope for your sake you can find this mysterious figure again,” said Detective Inspector Wills with an ominous smile. “Off you go, and don’t get pissed.”
As Alex and Detective Sergeant Bone made for the stairs, they were swamped by a human tide flowing down — a horde of over-excited, tin-tray-banging waiters, looking in their crisp ankle-length white aprons like extras in a lithograph by Toulouse-Lautrec. Borne shoulder high by his friends was the squint-eyed waiter, beaming at the wall and brandishing his first prize in the Waiters’ Race of a jeroboam of Moët et Chandon.
Alex could have done with a dropper that champagne, even though the muck tickled his nose and made his eyes water — it was thirsty work, answering questions and making statements. Still, he supposed he’d be allowed a drink on this reconstructed pub crawl Detective Sergeant Bone was taking him on, hence the inspector’s injunction not to get pissed. He wondered if the Clubs and Vice Squad got a booze allowance. Probably did: it was difficult to see how they could carry out their duties without dipping their hands in their pockets. Especially since, as Alex happened to know, the Old Bill weren’t allowed to accept free drinks when on duty.
Oh, weren’t they? At their first stop, the Coach and Horses, Detective Sergeant Bone firmly ordered a large Scotch, leaving Alex to pay for it, before taking himself off into a corner for a discreet chat with Norman, the guvnor.
At the French House, where Alex expected the detective to reciprocate, he did nothing of the sort. However, the two flymen were at the bar, and Detective Sergeant Bone very kindly allowed them to buy him his next Scotch. Thank Christ for that: at the rate they were going Alex would soon be broke again, and God only knew when he was going to get out of Detective Inspector Wills’s clutches and back on his way to Leeds.
If ever. What did making a statement mean? Once you’d signed it, were you free to go? More than likely not, all the things he’d had to confess to. Not that they were crimes exactly, but looking back over that statement, what he’d been made to put into it, he must have come out of it as if he’d been behaving in a definitely dodgy way. In the inspector’s shoes, he certainly wouldn’t give himself the green light, not just yet. He wondered if he was going to spend the night in a police cell. If it meant he could get some kip, he wouldn’t really mind, so long as it didn’t get into the Yorkshire Evening Post. No, James Flood would keep it out, they were best mates by now. But he was wishing he’d never set eyes on fookin So-oh. As for blurry Selby, he blamed her for this.
“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.