The Detection Collection Read online

  Quickly he put it back in his jacket pocket – what if someone spots it, asks questions? – and as soon as he was at his desk he surreptitiously transferred it to his briefcase. Then, for the first time ever, he used its tinny little key.

  At a late stage of the afternoon he recognised that he had managed to scrabble together some sort of a report on the Bedford branch. Muddled though it was, he thought in a moment of inner truth, it would get much the same reception up above as the properly thorough ones he prided himself on submitting. Still, putting it in the internal post – H.J. Manifold’s disapproved of inter-office e-mailing – he felt a small surge of relief. And with that came an idea.

  Is there perhaps, here in the building, some disinterested outsider I could talk to about all this? At once then, with a sudden bad-taste gulp, he realised that all this meant, in the deepest recesses of his mind, the possibility that— That the alien toothbrush had somehow been there in the bathroom because of Alice. Because Alice really had the lover he had dismissed from his mind almost before the thought had entered his head? But, no, no, no. That was just not possible, not my Alice.

  So shall I, at five o’clock, look out for Peter Crossley-Smith from Major Branches – he’d be the one – and suggest a quick drink? I could still be home by about six. I’ve done it before. I did it when, deciding for once to go out with two or three of ‘the boys’, I met Peter. Old Five Wives, as they call him, sometimes to his face. When he invariably replies, with that neighing laugh of his, Probably be Old Six Wives before I’m done.

  For once, as it turned out, Old Five Wives was not surrounded by any noisy departing slaves from the H.J. Manifold’s mill. Henry was able to fall into step beside him and, after he had suggested the statutory ‘quick pint’, managed even to say there was something he particularly wanted to discuss, ‘a sort of, well, private matter, so perhaps we could go somewhere different for a change.’

  ‘Touch of the naughties, is it?’ Five Wives, propped at the unfamiliar bar, immediately asked.

  ‘Oh. No, no. No, nothing of that sort. I’m a happily married … Well, no, it’s something a bit odd actually.’

  ‘Say on, old chap, say on. I must admit I’ve never quite seen you as an entrant in the Naughty Stakes. Unlike, alas, yours very truly.’

  ‘No. No, I suppose not. But I do need— Well, I need sort of advice from someone. And you’re— Well, you’re what I think of as a man of the world.’

  ‘The worldly ear is at your disposal. Tell.’

  Henry, going down in the crowded lift at Manifold House, had fully rehearsed the story he would have to recount. So it was without too many apologies and back-trackings that he poured it all out.

  And was rewarded.

  ‘Yes. Odd. Pretty odd, I’ll grant you that.’

  Long swallow at the pint. Then a quick glance.

  ‘Little lady having a touch of the wandering-eye syndrome? It goes either way, you know. Had some either-way trouble once myself, with Number Three actually.’

  ‘No. I’m quite certain. Absolutely certain. Look, I’ve been married to Alice for three whole years, and—’

  ‘Take your word for it, take your word for it. But I say, old fellow, you haven’t been working a bit too hard lately?’

  ‘Well, I like to think I’m a decently hard worker, but I don’t believe—’ Abruptly he straightened up on his bar-stool. ‘You’re not saying …? Listen, if you’re thinking I may have gone bonkers and imagined it all, well, I can absolutely prove the whole business is absolutely, absolutely true. Look. Look.’

  He dived for the briefcase, carefully placed between his stretched-out toes at the foot of his bar-stool, hoisted it up, found in his right-hand trouser pocket its little shiny key and took out the alien toothbrush.

  Five Wives looked at it with almost as much disbelief as Henry had felt when he had found it plunged between the pink and the green brushes nestling in the familiar mug.

  ‘And this morning you saw it, this thing, in your bathroom? And it wasn’t there last night. That it?’

  ‘Well, you’ve got it a bit wrong. I didn’t, as it happens, go into the bathroom last night. I thought— Well, never mind, I didn’t happen to go in there.’

  ‘Not for a last pee?’

  Henry made an effort to be man to man.

  ‘No. We’ve got a toilet downstairs. Used that.’

  Five Wives considered for a second or two.

  ‘Well, old man,’ he said, ‘I must admit you’ve fairly got me stumped.’

  Henry felt a tumbling-away of hope. He saw himself as an Antarctic explorer, ice-crusted glove slipping and slipping on the slithery rope holding him over a deathly deep crevasse.

  ‘You can’t— You can’t suggest anything I ought to do, then?’ he asked. ‘Anything?’

  ‘Well, frankly, no. Not unless you go to a private eye. Had to do that once meself. Over Number Three, matter of fact.’

  ‘And was he helpful, the chap you went to? I mean, well, private detectives are jolly expensive, aren’t they?’

  ‘Not this one, actually. Fellow in a small way, very small way. And was he helpful? Well, if you call being helpful finding out what I’d already pretty well guessed about Number Three, then, yes, he was a help. Though I had to divorce her, of course. Things usually other way round. But life’s full of surprises.’

  So it was that Henry Tailor found himself next Saturday in West London walking along tourist-crowded Queensway peering into narrow doorways between its bright and bouncy shops. He was looking for a small sign just inside one of them, distracted by a feeling that he had forgotten what reason he had given Alice for having to go up to work.

  But at last, when he had almost begun to think Five Wives’ private eye was every bit as imaginary as the alien toothbrush – only that wasn’t imaginary at all – he saw between a drop-in dry cleaner’s and an electrical goods shop the discreet notice he was looking for.

  TOP Investigations. Please ring and walk up.

  His finger on the bell-push was so tentative it might not have produced any buzz at all. But it did. The sound came down the narrow flight of stairs in front of him, unmistakably. So he felt he had to walk up.

  The door at the top, pale wood with a peep-hole in its centre, opened as he reached the little patch of landing. A pale girl, looking about sixteen, blonde hair caught up at the back with a rubber band, gave him an incurious look.

  ‘Mr Pepper’s free at the moment,’ she said. ‘You can go straight in.’

  But he paused for an instant before stepping forward.

  I’m visiting a private eye, he thought. Here I am, Henry Tailor, and I’m about to hire a private eye. Or I may be. If … If he can suggest there’s anything to do about— About the alien toothbrush.

  He swallowed, and advanced on the inner door, its reeded glass panel inscribed in black Mr Thomas Pepper. He put his hand – it was suddenly sweaty – on the knob, twisted, found he had no purchase, tightened his grip, twisted again and the door swung so wide that he almost stumbled inside.

  Behind a small desk – the room itself was small enough – a man rose to greet him, hand held out. He did not look at all like the private eye Henry had envisaged. Somehow it was impossible to think of that extended hand as holding a gun or that in the bottom drawer of that desk there would be a bottle of bourbon, or even of Scotch. Red-faced, Thomas Pepper was, if not actually fat, certainly a very solid shape. But, somehow again, not a shape adapted to sudden action. His shoulders were, plainly, stooped and his brown suit looked as if it was worn unchanged day after day.

  ‘Tom Pepper, at your service. Tom Pepper, TP, where I got TOP Investigations from. My little joke. Should have been TP Investigations, but couldn’t resist that extra O. Make it sound big. Ah, well …’

  ‘Oh, yes. Yes.’ Henry cleared his throat. ‘Look, there’s – there’s something …’

  ‘Here, take a pew. Take the pew, only one there is. And tell me all about it, beginning—’ He drew a virgin
-white pad towards himself— ‘with the name.’

  It was all, abruptly, cosy. A cosy atmosphere.

  Henry sat in the chair in front of the desk, a comfortably padded one, and having given his name and spelt out that always difficult T – A – I – L – O – R, not T – A – Y, once again produced the story of the alien toothbrush. In full detail.

  He saw, when he had come to the end, that Tom Pepper was as baffled as he had been himself, even turning to the computer at the corner of the desk and peering at it with a look of hopelessly hopeful expectation.

  ‘Yes,’ he said at last. ‘Wonderful things, computers. They never made enough use of ’em when I was in the Force, spent all their time feeding in information and not enough getting information out. No, this little feller’s what I call the real Policeman’s Friend, not the thing used to be in your trousers case you were taken short out on the beat.’

  He gave the keyboard at his elbow a little tap of gratitude.

  ‘Know what I found out on it the other day? Just who the original Tom Pepper was. Out of curiosity, tapped in me own name. Found that, back in the 1800s, Tom Pepper was a champion liar. He was a sailor, and he drowned and, natch, went to Hell. And, do you know, he told so many lies down there that in the end they had to kick him out. Out of Hell. My ancestor. But, don’t you worry, this Tom Pepper’s no liar. Well, only sometimes. Interests of truth.’

  Henry began to think his trip up to Queensway was going to be a waste of time. But Tom Pepper’s next remark gave him a little burst of hope.

  ‘Yes, but get down to it. What you’ve told me’s interesting. Very. Make a nice case. Beats standing in the rain, erring wife, wandering daughter, or, come to that, lying in the dust putting a bug under a bed. You got that toothbrush here?’

  ‘No. No, I haven’t. Actually, it’s locked in my briefcase, and I didn’t bring that with me.’

  ‘Doesn’t matter,’ Tom Pepper said comfortably. ‘See, way I work, it’s bit of a chat with the client first, ’specially with a matrimonial, and then ask ’em to come in again, with the photos or whatever. And, of course, initial fees. Gives ’em time to change their mind. Often do, the ladies. No skin off my nose. Client who doesn’t really want to be one, nothing but a pain in the whatsit. Neck.’

  But in Henry’s mind a more immediate anxiety had been set up.

  ‘Er – the fee?’ he said. ‘I mean … Well, how much will that be?’

  ‘Right. Down to business. Best way. So, initial’s two hundred and fifty.’

  He must have seen the look on Henry’s face. He was watching him keenly enough.

  ‘But that’s matrimonials. Or missing persons. Your case? Well, make it a straight two hundred. View of the interest.’

  ‘Yes, I see. But – But, well, how much will it be after that?’

  ‘Hard to say, hard to say. Depends how much work there turns out to be. I charge by the hour. So, might come a bit pricey. Other hand, if all I do is sit here poking about on the Net, could be a lot cheaper. Here’s my little printed note. Take it away. Have a ponder. Then give me a tinkle. Or not.’

  Henry had waited till the following Saturday – ‘Quite a rush on at Manifold House,’ he told Alice – but he arrived at the cramped little office in Queensway at exactly ten a.m., with in his wallet pocket the alien toothbrush and ten carefully folded twenty-pound notes.

  Sitting once more in front of Tom Pepper, he thrust them out.

  There. Done it.

  Tom slipped the bundle into the drawer in front of him.

  ‘So, we’re on,’ he said. ‘Mystery of the missing toothbrush. Or, come to think of it, mystery of the anything-but-missing toothbrush. You got it with you this time?’

  Henry handed it across.

  ‘Right. Your dabs all over of course, and no doubt your pal’s, Mr Crossley-Smith. Very nice sort of client, Mr Smith. So what’ve we got?’

  A long scrutiny.

  ‘Yes. Useful sort of name here. Gold letters. The Aristocrat. Tells us something.’

  Henry, who had taken little notice of the flowing golden letters, could not think what they could tell anybody.

  ‘America,’ Tom Pepper said. ‘Bet a shilling. You ever see anybody this country calling a toothbrush The Aristocrat? No, it’s only over there they fancy aristocracy. Haven’t got any of their own, that’s why.’

  Henry was impressed. A little progress. Straight away.

  Then he saw Tom Pepper looking at him.

  ‘You want to go on with this, son? Because you’re in trouble. You know that?’

  ‘But – But why? I mean, just because that funny-looking toothbrush somehow got into the mug in our bathroom, surely it can’t mean anything … Anything, well, serious?’

  ‘Oh, but it does. If you go on with this, let me tell you, something mucky’ll come your way. Can smell it. Still, if you don’t go on, something mucky’ll still turn up. You’d better believe that.’

  What mucky? Henry thought. How could anything mucky be happening to me?

  And then the idea of what might be mucky tickled again at a corner of his mind. But impossible. Impossible.

  He sat forward in Tom Pepper’s comfortable client’s chair.

  ‘Look,’ he said with a touch of real ferocity, ‘how do I know I can trust you, Mr Pepper?’

  Tom Pepper gave a hint of a smile.

  He sat back then and pulled open the drawer in front of him. From it he took the little wad of twenties Henry had so carefully folded together and slapped it down on the desk.

  ‘That’s why,’ he said.

  And then, somehow, Henry found he had taken his decision.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes, Mr Pepper, I do want to go on with it. And I’ll pay anything more there is. I’ll pay, whatever it takes.’

  For the third Saturday running Henry told Alice that there was a rush on at Manifold House. Luckily, she always left matters concerning his work altogether to him, and simply said she could manage to do the big shop quite nicely on her own this week. So for a third time he made his way along the crowded Queensway pavement, thinking vaguely what a good thing it was that Alice liked nothing better than being at home – no gallivanting, no going out at nights – until he came to that discreet sign, TOP Investigations. In the cramped little office Tom Pepper, in the same old brown suit, was sitting there, computer glowing beside him, with the toothbrush lying on the battered green-leather surface of the desk. Smooth, long and brightly white, its thick bristles projecting arrogantly upwards. More alien than ever.

  ‘Sit down, Mr Tailor. Or shall I say Henry? Better be first names, news I’ve got for you.’

  Murmuring polite agreement to Henry, he found in his head an insistent question. What sort of news? What sort? What?

  But, when he was told, he found himself as much puzzled as ever.

  ‘You ever heard of a pop group called The Sixth?’

  ‘A pop group? I – I’m afraid we don’t ever listen to that sort of music at home. I don’t really know anything about it. I mean, I’ve heard of the Beatles, of course. But …’

  ‘You not on the Internet?’

  ‘Well, no. I can get it at the office. Well, I could, if I wanted to, I suppose. But, no, I’m not – er – connected at home.’

  ‘Pity. As I was saying the other day – correct me if I’m wrong – there’s a lot can be found out on the Net. Fr’instance, you can get to know the whole history of The Sixth, press enough keys.’

  ‘But – But why should you want to know anything like that? I don’t understand.’

  ‘Well, let me tell you a bit, then perhaps you’ll begin to see what I’m getting at. Right, there was this little lot of schoolboys up in Aylesbury—’

  ‘Aylesbury?’ Henry could not stop himself breaking in. ‘That’s where my Alice was born and brought up.’

  ‘So she was, so she was. Found that on the old Net. Births, marriages and deaths. Poked around some more. And bingo.’

  Henry sat without making any comme
nt. Dim thoughts were rolling now in the deepest recesses of his mind. Dim, dark thoughts.

  ‘Right, The Sixth,’ Tom Pepper went on. ‘Name those school kids gave themselves – all in the sixth form, Aylesbury Grammar – when they began with their guitars and that. Then they got themselves a manager and the act took off. Suppose the boys looked nice and cuddly, and in no time they’d got fans galore and pots of money. Till all of a sudden the manager quit, and they folded.’

  ‘But how …?’ Henry ventured, as much as anything to fight down those dim, dark, whirling fog masses. ‘Why does all this have anything to do with that toothbrush there?’

  ‘Ask the Net. And what d’you find? The Sixth Make Their Come-back. Harrow Town Hall. Three Tuesdays back.’

  The dark rolling clouds seemed suddenly to solidify in Henry’s head.

  ‘But that was when I went up to Bedford,’ he said.

  ‘So it was. Funny thing that, ain’t it? Think you told me when you spoke to your little Alice at breakfast next morning, trying to see if she knew anything about this toothbrush here, she let you believe she’d done nothing out of the ordinary that day. But you know what my old friend the Net said? Ticket was bought for that concert in the name of Alice Tailor.’

  Henry heard in his head, clearly as clearly, Old Five Wives’ voice saying, Touch of the wandering-eye syndrome. It goes either way, you know.

  Tom Pepper broke in. ‘Now what did I tell you? Just exactly what? Only one ticket for that concert, not two. So, don’t you get to thinking more than the evidence warrants.’

  ‘But if— If she isn’t— Wasn’t— If … No, you’re trying to make me believe she— No, right, I’m calling all this off. I no longer require your services. How— How much do I owe you?’

  ‘Oh, forget that. What’s an hour or two on the Internet?’

  ‘Then give me back that toothbrush, and— And— And—’