Mystery Man (7 page)

Alison opened her mouth.

'Faster!' Brendan cried.

'I see . . .'

'Faster!' Brendan cried again.

'Man in the leather jacket . . . there's tattoos under there . . . he's going to his mum's . . . woman with the tartan trolley, it's full of cat food . . . skinhead kid off shoplifting . . .'

'Clichés! Flex the muscle!'

'Teenager in love for the first time, he's gay . . . man with a cap, you never see caps these days, he yearns for times gone . . .'

'Yearn! Good word!

'. . . man with a briefcase, what's he doing with it on a Saturday? He's told his wife he has to work but he's having an affair, he's going to meet her in the . . . boy on a bicycle, but he's forgotten his lock, trying to decide whether it's safe to . . . masked gunmen going into my jewellery shop . . .'

Everyone's head jerked to the right of the window.

'Gotcha!' said Alison.

Nobody dared smile.

'This isn't a game!' Brendan thundered.

'I thought it
was
a
—
'

'Three strikes and you're out, go again!'

It was getting busier outside.

'Man . . . woman . . . knew each other as kids but he's lost his hair and she can't help looking at it . . . cool dude, male model material, knows it . . . get out of my way, get out of my way, I'm king of the sidewalk . . .'

'American slang, twice, lazy, second strike!'

'Lottery ticket, but hole in trousers, this is his last chance, he'll commit suicide if he doesn't . . . old friends meet, she's afraid to ask if she's pregnant in case she's just fat . . . that's a poor excuse for a dog . . . don't see many black faces in Belfast . . . don't drop litter, you wouldn't do it at home . . . yes he would . . . sunglasses, cloudy day, she has a migraine but has to deliver . . . hat box, daughter getting married . . . cripple trying to cross the . . .'

'Three strikes and you're out!' Brendan turned from her and addressed the rest of the class. 'As we have learned in previous weeks, the secret is not allowing yourself to—'

'Excuse me?' It was Alison cutting in, her body still facing the window but turning her head back. 'Why am I out?'

Brendan smiled indulgently. 'Where do you want me to start? Undisciplined language, alliteration, propagation of social stereotypes . . .'

'Stereo what?'

'Cripple. You can't call someone a cripple.'

'Why not?'

'It is politically incorrect and it's socially unacceptable.'

'To call someone a crip?'

'
Yes
. And
that's
even worse. Please vacate the Writer's Stool. Perhaps someone else would care to . . . ?'

Every single hand shot up. I had watched them all at it in the preceding weeks, and none of them were in Alison's league. At least she'd made a stab at humour. And now she wasn't moving. She sat where she was, staring out of the window.

'Alison. Vacate the stool.'

She shook her head. 'That's not fair. You asked me to describe what I saw. I saw a cripple. I
am
demonstrating a rich use of language.'

Brendan raised an eyebrow. 'What would you know about . . . a mere comic . . .' He stopped himself. 'You've had your turn, now vacate the stool. Perhaps after class we can grab a coffee and I can explain to you the rights and wrongs of calling someone a—'

'Cripple,' Alison snapped. 'He's in a wheelchair. He
can't walk
.' She manoeuvred the bar stool round until she was facing Brendan and the rest of the class. 'He is
crippled
by injury. He worked in the Harland and Wolff shipyard for thirty-five years, labouring in the shadow of the mighty twin cranes of Samson and Goliath. On the very day the shipyard closed for good, leaving behind only inherited memories of the
Titanic,
they were shifting abandoned girders and one fell on him, fracturing his spine. He spent eight months in hospital, determined to walk again, but ultimately could not. He has
battled
to reconcile himself to his fate. He never refers to himself as disabled, or wheelchair-bound; he calls himself a cripple because it is a crippling injury, not only to his body, but to his mind. His brain is
crippled
by the realisation that he will not ever walk again, his emotions are
crippled
because he cannot adequately explain how he feels to his wife, because he does not have the vocabulary for it, and she does not have the patience to allow him to develop it. She has worked hard all of her life, always with the prospect of one day being able to retire and enjoy her few remaining years with her husband, but now he is exactly what she says he is, to herself, to her friends when she's been drinking, he's a
fucking cripple
and he can't get it up any more and she'll be damned if she's going to settle for that, she'll—'

'Enough.'

Alison stopped. Brendan stood before her. The class sat, mesmerised. I leant on the counter, in awe.

'You cannot say
cripple.
Now for the last time, get off the stool.'

Their eyes locked.

I had sweat on my brow.

'Cripple,' said Alison. 'Cripple, cripple, cripple.'

'That's it,' Brendan hissed and pointed to the door. 'Get out of my class!' he bellowed. 'I give my
time
for
nothing,
you know! I
give back.
I share and pass on my
knowledge.
All I ask in return is that I'm treated with some
modicum of respect
.'

Alison lifted her woollen flying cap from her lap and pulled it firmly down over her ears before slipping off the stool. She crossed to the door and opened it. She hesitated, looked across at me for too brief a moment, then fixed her attention on Brendan.

'If you ask me,' she said, raising her right hand, 'it's not the fucking writing muscle you need to be concentrating on.'

And then she made the universal sign for wanking, before smiling pleasantly and exiting, leaving No Alibis a wiser, richer place than before.

Brendan Coyle wasn't used to anything less than complete deference. He got over the initial shock of Alison's performance and miming exit, but he remained agitated for the rest of the class, and afterwards he was still something of a sweating, palpitating wreck, at least until I caved in and subdued him with a cheap bottle of white I'd been presented with as a thank-you gift from one of my cases, but which I hadn't yet dared open. Anything with the word
Tesco
and/or
WeightWatchers
on the label should be viewed with some suspicion. Wishing to steer the conversation away from Alison – I was still in a bit of a state myself, because I had at last met her, and spoken to her, and done her a favour, and she'd given me a look of gratitude, and the last thing she'd done before giving Brendan the internationally accepted hand signal for wanking was to match eyes with me and I knew that meant
something
and I wasn't about to stand there in my own shop and listen to the woman I loved being repeatedly denigrated by a man who knew nothing about crime fiction yet was still acclaimed as a master of it – I instead turned to the only thing we had in common, which was books, but even that was a dead end of disparate interests until I happened to mention that I'd had the owner of Belfast Books in the shop recently, pleading for help to find his missing wife.

'You mean Beale Feirste Books?' I nodded lethargically. 'As it happens,' he continued, 'I know Daniel quite well. They do an admirable job, encouraging
local
talent.' The emphasis on the local was very deliberate. It was Brendan saying that
he
wasn't local. He was
international.
'Terrible shame about Rosemary. Fine looking woman.'

'So what's the gossip about what happened?' I asked. 'Did he do her in with a shovel?'

He gave me a look heavy with disdain and pity, as if he expected nothing less from a man who specialised in what I specialise in. 'I should think not. They were deeply in love, you could tell that just by looking at them.'

'A crime of passion, perhaps.'

'Absolutely not. Not Daniel.'

'Everyone can be pushed to it. Perhaps she was having an affair with one of the poets at their little retreat; they're supposed to be a randy bunch, aren't they? And they've so much time on their hands. Poems, I mean, you can knock them out in an hour.'

Brendan shook his head. 'Poetry . . .' And then he thought better of it. He took another sip of his wine, savoured it – although given its origin, God knows what he was savouring – and seemed to get a faraway look in his eyes. 'You know,' he said after a minute of embarrassed silence, 'she wasn't like that at all. She was beautiful, friendly, even flirtatious. There was a spark about her. She was funny, and intelligent, and caring. Took a notion of her myself once. A lot of red wine involved, and I fooled myself into thinking she was interested, but she soon put me straight. I really was smitten. I even told Daniel how I felt. And he absolutely understood. He said, Brendan, don't you know,
everyone
loves Rosemary. She's just fantastic. He obviously had or has something very special with her, something where he doesn't have to be jealous, where he doesn't have to worry about her being tempted by any of their visiting artists, no matter how internationally renowned they may be.'

'Perhaps he has a tremendously large cock,' I said.

I actually shocked myself. Certainly Brendan looked stunned. On reflection, all I can say is that it may have been something of a defence mechanism. Here was a man I hardly knew talking about his personal relations and feelings, and I was mortified. I mean, I only asked if he thought Daniel had murdered his wife, I didn't need to know about his own pathetic attempts at seduction. There's a time and a place for such revelations. Like your death bed. Not in No Alibis on a Saturday morning with two genuine customers and a shoplifter listening in.

Still, I have to admit, it was serving to reignite my interest in the case. Daniel had been rather modest about describing the obvious attractions of his wife. She was clearly, as Jeff had indelicately put it, and as evidenced by her photograph, something of 'a ride', and according to what Brendan had now told me, she also had men falling left, right and centre for her. Two words immediately sprang to mind: femme fatale, and they immediately opened up an entire vista of possibilities. Despite both Brendan and Daniel's assertion that she was incorruptible, I naturally suspected otherwise. She had rejected Brendan because he was a dick, and was betraying Daniel because he was too naïve to believe that she would. That's how they operate. Femmes fatales find marriage to be confining, loveless and sexless, they use their cunning and sexuality to gain their independence. Flickering black-and-white images crowded through my mind. Phyllis Dietrichson like a caged animal in
Double Indemnity,
Rip Murdoch wishing aloud in
Dead Reckoning
that women could be reduced to pocket size, to be put away when not desired and returned to normal size when needed. I saw Rita Hayworth pouring it on in
Gilda
and
The Lady from Shanghai;
the cut of her clothes, her words, her actions, her ability to hold the camera; Velma's legs in
Murder, My Sweet,
Cora's in
The Postman Always
Rings Twice.
Rosemary was erotic, she was alluring, she was trouble. She was bigger than Banbridge, bigger than Belfast, she did not do
local,
she was international. If it turned out that she was sharing a caravan in Bally castle with a drunken poet, my clinical depression would undoubtedly deepen.

By the time I shook myself back to the present, Brendan was helping himself to what remained of the bottle without so much as offering a share. Still, it was no bad thing – mixing alcohol with medication is not recommended and if not checked can lead to embarrassing situations.

I deal in consequences.

'So what do you think has happened?' I asked. 'She's run off with someone in Germany?'

He looked thoughtful for a moment, his body swaying ever so slightly. 'Mmmmm,' he said, 'Germany. Always puzzled me, that. You're aware of what they publish?' Only what Daniel had told me, but I nodded anyway. 'Beats me why they would need to go to Frankfurt. With my own books you can understand – I'm translated into thirty-two languages. But is there really much of a demand in Spain for a book about the geology of the Sperrin Mountains? Or in Brazil for a treatise on the Lambeg drum? I would expect that the market abroad for short fiction set in Newtownards is rather similar to the clamour there is here for sonnets composed by Peruvian shepherds. What exactly was she hoping to achieve out there?'

'Well, I got the impression it was something of a busman's holiday type thing. He said it was like seeing family.'

'Well, maybe there's your answer,' said Brendan, raising an eyebrow. 'All families squabble.'

Custom was slow even for a Saturday afternoon. If I'd closed up shop in order to drive down to speak to Daniel Trevor face to face, I'm not sure that more than half a dozen people would have noticed, and three of them only because they wanted to use the toilet. But driving was, of course, out of the question; I wasn't even sure if the dirt tracks that exist outside of Belfast would be wide enough to accommodate the No Alibis van. The alternative was to phone him for the information I was after – but he was the type to endlessly yitter around a point, and frankly I couldn't be bothered with that. So I e-mailed.

It was clearly important to Rosemary Trevor, an acknowledged (if only by me) femme fatale, that she still went to Frankfurt even though her husband wasn't going. But was it for business or pleasure? According to Daniel, she hadn't been socialising in Frankfurt at all, but taking early nights. Well, possibly. She might easily have made her reassuring calls home, and then immediately gone out partying. She might have had a string of lovers. I was quite sure there were several thousand men there who could easily have fallen for her. But giving her the benefit of the doubt, what about the books she was trying to sell? Brendan, being as self-centred as he was, couldn't imagine that a publisher from another country might be interested in anything produced in Northern Ireland, but that would surely depend very much on exactly what she had on offer. It could be a variation of the provincial journalist's eternal search for a local angle to an international story: an international angle to a local story. Perhaps she had something that originated here but
also
appealed to a global market. But even if she had, what bearing could it possibly have on her ultimate disappearance?