Catacombs of Terror! (4 page)

“You work in here most nights?” I asked the barman. He was a tall guy. Didn't shave too carefully. Pierced left eyebrow.

He made a sound that could have been affirmative, could've been negative. He didn't look at me. He was busy, too, I guess. He had some glasses to wash. Beer mats to straighten. A very busy barman. But not so busy he couldn't answer a few polite questions.

“I'm supposed to be meeting someone in here,” I pressed on. “Maybe you know—them?” It occurred to me that the girl who hadn't told me her name had also not told me whether I was supposed to meet a man or a woman. I decided to take another gamble. “Always wears this stupid T-shirt from Stonehenge. Ring any bells?”

The barman glanced up at me. He straightened a beer towel on the counter. Shook his head. Served someone else. Okay. I looked for somewhere to sit down. No dice. I drank my drink and pushed my way back to the bar.

“See you,” I said cheerily to the barman as I put my empty glass down. Yeah, well. I'm a civilised guy.

“Thanks. Hey, wait a sec. Did you meet your friend? I think I know who you mean.” I was taken by surprise. I was beginning to get used to the sensation.

“A no-show,” I answered. “I think I might have got the wrong night.” I knew damn well I had the wrong night. I was twenty-four hours early. “Why? Did you see, er, him?”

“Not tonight. He was in last night though. Maybe you did get the wrong night. Friend of yours, is he?” His question was asked with a hint of distaste. An undertone of disgust.

“Not strictly. A business acquaintance, perhaps.”

“Rather you than me. Bye.” He moved through to the other bar where a small pack of off-duty rugby players were getting restive. I took a look at my watch. I left. It wasn't warm outside, and it wasn't dry.

I needed to think. I walked the wet streets. And I realised that Friday night at closing time was not the kind of time to walk streets and think. The usual howling gangs of drunks weaved around, screaming like badly dressed baboons. I guess they were maybe on their way to refresh the puke slicks in the alleyway outside my office. Yeah, well. Someone had to do it, and I'd rather it didn't have to be me.

I pulled out my mobile and dialled a number. Colin Kafka was someone I knew from way back. We'd both become involved in some stuff, some stuff that wasn't strictly legit . . . fuck, it was out-and-out criminal. Kafka got unlucky. He was looking at spending the rest of his life staring at the sky through small windows with bars on them, watching his back, and waiting for appeals that would never have come. But I'd managed to get him—and myself—off the hook. Connections. That was when I still had them. In the past. In the old days. I could say the good old days, but I'd be lying. I hadn't seen or heard from Kafka for ten or fifteen years. Until recently.

He'd called me—out of the blue—and suggested that we meet up. Things had certainly changed, all right. I was an investigator and he was now a reporter on the local paper, both in the same city. Interesting coincidence, I'd thought. And Colin Kafka, of all people. A reporter now. A journalist. Anyway. We'd exchanged greetings. What a coincidence, small world—you know the kind of thing. I'd reluctantly taken his mobile number. Maybe we could meet up, go for a beer, act like regular old pals, pretend the past had never happened. Yeah, well. I made my excuses, said I was pretty busy. Tell the truth, I hadn't had much interest in seeing him. Or so I had thought. Now I thought differently.

“Colin? Colin Kafka? It's Martin Valpolicella. How about that drink?”

Kafka was out already, spending his salary at one of the all-night places on the east side of town. Okay. I was pretty much wet through, but the rain wasn't in any hurry to leave, so I hiked it back out of the city centre. My office was on the way, so I dropped by for something to warm me up. I flicked on the light, poured myself a whiskey, and sat behind my desk. I put my feet up. And I wondered, again, what the hell was going on. It seemed that someone—or some people—unknown wanted me to do a little dirt-digging for them. And for myself. I wondered why that woman had given me this ragbag of clues. They seemed like questions she already had the answers to. And if that was the case, why did I have to answer them all over again? Who was she? Had she sent the note and the e-mail? Or someone else? And what was the deal with the guy with the Stonehenge T-shirt? But the one thing that really bugged me was my fee. Or rather, the lack of it.

Rather you than me,
the barman in the Old Green Tree had said. With that I agreed. Yeah, well. Wouldn't you? If you were me? Questions whirled around my head like angry wasps. I drank my whiskey. And had another.

I found Kafka in a late night joint off the London Road. It was about 1:30
A.M
. by the time I got there. The place had a sign outside:
The Lud Club. Members only
. I mentioned Colin's name and I was in. Open sesame. He was obviously a regular. I walked over to the bar and ordered whiskey. While the barman was pouring, I took in the scene. Dingy, smoky, filled with huddled figures around tables. Talking deals, plans, violence to be meted out. What was it the girl in the Star had said about my job? Insalubrious. I'm good with words. A quick learner. This place was insalubrious. For sure. I had trouble spotting Colin. It was over a decade since I'd seen him last. The Kafka I knew, ten years ago, was a skinhead with his head in a book when it wasn't butting a cop. I scoped the joint and caught nothing answering that description. But then I saw him. Haircut that looked like it cost money. Clothes, ditto. Well, ten years. Everything is subject to change. He was nothing like the Kafka I remembered. He was practically unrecognisable. But I recognised him. Yeah, well. I've got a memory for a face, at least. If nothing else. If nothing else at all.

“Colin,” I said, sitting down next to him. The guys he was with looked at him, asking questions with their eyes.

“Martin's an old friend,” he said, perhaps a little too quickly. A little too nervously. “Haven't seen him for years.”

The guys got up.

“Well, have . . . fun,” one of them said, “reminiscing. Or whatever.” They went across the room, giving me a backward glance wrapped round a sneer.

“Nice folks,” I said to Kafka. “Friends?”

“Acquaintances. I'm doing a story on—well, unsavoury local characters. Vice stuff, petty crime, protection . . . . They're keen not to be associated with that kind of thing, but they'd like a certain other individual to feature highly in my exposé. So, um, we're working out a . . . deal.” Colin looked flustered. I looked faintly disgusted, and let him register my expression.

“Nice. Very nice. I've always been a fan of the free press. Unbiased. Reliable. That sort of thing. But I'm not judgemental about people. I mean, I like criminals. They keep me in business. Well, anyway. You can get back to that sometime soon. I won't detain you unnecessarily. How are you? Long time now. A very long time.”

“It's . . . good to see you, Martin. You look, well, you look bad. You look . . . like shit. I suppose you want something?” His fluster was turning to anger.

“Be nice, Colin. This hostile attitude is very last week, and I think we should be friends. It's true I want something. I've been told that I may be arrested after the weekend, and I'm sure you remember how I helped that from happening to you once upon a time.”

I was sweetness itself. I was calm, cool, and collected.

“Martin. Okay. What do you want? How on earth can I stop you from getting arrested? I mean, what have you done?”

“I've done nothing. Well, nothing bad. Not recently. Nothing like murder. And that's what I'm apparently going to get fingered for. It's some kind of setup. I have a vague idea who may be behind it, but I think that I'm maybe wrong. Something is going on. Something very ugly. For some reason I'm involved. And I need to know what that something is and why I'm being picked to play patsy. Am I wrong to want to find these things out? Or am I right?”

Kafka looked at me carefully. His eyes glittered behind his glasses. Perhaps he was sensing a story. He was a hack now, after all. “Okay, Martin. Okay so far. It's true I owe you a favour. How would you like me to help you?”

“I want you to get me some information. It's simple. Do you have a pen? A notebook? A memory?”

Kafka gave me a glare that was now only five percent anger. I'd say it was eighty-five percent annoyance. The rest was boredom, or one of boredom's close relations. A mention of murder doesn't have much impact these days. Yeah, well.

“I have those, Martin. Particularly the last. What information do you want?”

“Well, there's an archaeological dig at Charlcombe, which is a country valley north of here. About a mile or two. If you could get me some details on that, I'd be happier than I am right now. I'm interested in that dig, for some reason. I'd like to know who's running it, and I'd like to find out what it is that they're looking for. For some reason. I'd like to know what they were looking for in the Circus in 1993. You know the Circus? It was the same group doing the dig there, as far as I know.”

Kafka was writing in his notebook. This was probably the most encouraging thing that had happened to me all day. I looked at my watch. 2
A.M
. Okay. I thought briefly about the wrap of coke back at the office. Yeah. I was going to be okay. No way was I getting arrested for a ritual murder in a premier tourist attraction. It would be problematic, to say the least. If it wasn't a crock of shit. And that was something that was still out with the jury. Kafka's next statement reminded me how far out the jury was.

“You come in here, in this club, acting like some extremely low-rent Philip Marlowe, and you want me to find out about archaeologists? Archaeologists. Why don't you just phone them? Shit, Valpolicella, how badly have you lost it?”

“I don't know. Possibly very badly. Possibly. But listen. I've been given a lot of questions and I'm suspicious of all of them. What I want now is a lot of answers that I can be suspicious of. Make sense?”

“Mmm, I suppose. In a very strange way. Anything else, while I can still be bothered to write it down?”

I stared at him, for a moment doubting myself. I tried to remember everything that the woman in the Star had said.

“Yeah, well. There's one other thing. If it isn't too much . . . trouble. Could you find out who's got the contract to run the city's CCTV network?”

Kafka threw his gaze from his notebook to me. “I just might. How urgent is this?”

“Like I said, it seems I'm due to be arrested on Monday. For murder. Apparently. But, you know, it happens that I don't want to take any unnecessary risks where my freedom's concerned. And it's Friday now. So it's very urgent. It's as soon as possible. Like, perhaps we go to my office now and log on to your employer's database?” I was calm but insistent.

“It's late, Martin. But if it's really that important . . . .”

We were out of there inside three minutes. Kafka had to placate his ‘acquaintances,' but I wasn't concerned with that. We went back through the rain. I unlocked my office and dug out my cocaine. I had been looking forward to it, but I passed it to Kafka without whimpering too much. While I started up the computer and got it connected I heard him hoovering it up. The computer did its thing and then we were up and running.

I told Kafka everything that I could remember about what the girl had told me in the Star. I told him about me and Karen. And about Barry. About the feeling I had that he was behind this. But how the hell could Barry frame me for murder?

Kafka sniffed deeply and sat down in front of the computer. He tapped at the keyboard.

“I'm in,” he muttered. He fished around in his pocket for his notebook. “Right, what have we got? Archaeological digs. CCTV. I'll see what there is on the archaeological society . . . and Martin?”

“Huh?”

“What happened to your furniture?”

I woke up a couple hours later and stiffly lifted my head from the arm of the couch, grimacing with pain. A dull throbbing in my head was trying to annoy me. It was still dark outside. The desk light still cast its yellow pall over the room. I waited for the office to swim into focus, and saw that Kafka was gone. There were a couple of A4 printouts in front of me. No synapses were firing in my brain, so I hobbled across and made myself an instant coffee.

I flicked a glance at the papers. Lots of writing. I slurped at my coffee. It was horrible. But I drank it. You'd have drunk it, too. This wasn't the time for worrying about it.

Weird? I didn't like the sound of that. I didn't like the word. I could think of a few words I'd have preferred. Like ‘okay.' Or ‘don't worry.' My watch said 4:30
A.M
. That didn't look too nice either. I'd been half hoping that this whole stupid business was going to have disappeared. That I'd been hallucinating or something. Having a nightmare. But no. I lit a cigarette and started reading.