Dr. Yes (14 page)

    As
one clot disappeared, another reappeared, reprising his pathetic attempt to
entertain me with his invisible bike-riding routine. When he rested the
invisible bike against the window and entered the shop, I made him go back out
and move it so that the handlebars wouldn't make a mark on the glass. He did it
too, which I thought
was
quite funny. Then he put another envelope on
the desk and smiled. I took out Arabella's phone records and read down the
list. She'd made many more calls, including half a dozen to a number I
recognised as the Europa Hotel's, but others I would need to check out. As I
studied them Jeff stood there, still smiling, and I said, 'What?' and he kept
grinning and I gave an exasperated sigh and said, 'You did it again, didn't
you?' He nodded. 'I'm about to tell you off for using your initiative again,
yet you're standing there happy as a pig in shite, so obviously my telling-off
is going to be completely pointless because you think you've discovered
something relevant, so you may as well tell me now, though even if it turns out
to be useful, it doesn't change my basic instruction not to try to use your
initiative, because just because you've lucked upon something this time, it
doesn't mean you will again, and generally you just waste everyone's time and
complicate matters and get me or the shop or my investigations into trouble, so
please don't do it again, understood?'

    'I'm
only trying to help.'

    'Just
tell me.'

    'Well,
I went into the hotel; it's a lovely big place, they've really done a—'

    'Just
the relevant bits, please.'

    'Okay.
All right. I spoke to the guy you spoke to, and he was just putting the phone
records in the envelope when I asked him if Arabella had had many visitors, and
he said yes she had, but that was normal, because she was with the clinic and
they're always sending round nurses or doctors or fashion designers to check on
or consult with their patients, or clients as they call them. And he was
clearly in the mood for a natter, because he said you wouldn't believe some of
the mess our people have to clean up in those rooms, and I said like what, and
he said well they've all had their operations and the like, there's always
blood-soaked bandages and syringes and medication left behind; the clinic
people are supposed to take it all with them but they push them really hard so
they're rushing from room to room or to a different hotel, and they end up
forgetting to tidy, or sometimes it's the patients themselves, they've had
their procedures and they're all bandaged up for a reason, but they can't
resist taking a wee peek but it's too soon, so they bleed all over the sheets.'

    'I'm
waiting for the big reveal,' I said.

    'It's
coming. I asked him if there was anything like that in Arabella's room,
excessive bleeding, some kind of an emergency, and he said no. I asked if
anything had been left behind like medication or syringes and he said no, not
that he was aware of, but he could check with the Museum.'

    'The
. . .'

    'I
know. The Museum. It's what they call a cupboard they have in their staff room;
it's a display of all the unusual things that guests leave behind in their
rooms. They either forget about them entirely or are too embarrassed to claim
them back once they realise they've left them behind, or the hotel has no
forwarding address for them. He said a lot of them were of a sexual nature -
vibrators, dildos, even a blow-up doll. There was also jewellery, a complete
wedding dress, intimate photographs, the complete works of William Shakespeare,
a stuffed monkey, a map of Liberia, a lucky rabbi's foot ...'

    'Rabbi?'

    'I
may have misheard ... a sizeable chunk of a coral reef, a signed photograph of
Lou Reed ...'

    'I
get the picture. Christ, it's like
The Generation Game.'

    '... and
finally there was what they discovered under a sofa in Arabella's room and
which has only just made its debut on display in the Museum, but which they
have passed on to me, to give to you, to give to her, because they had no
forwarding address.' Jeff slipped his hand into the pocket of his combat
jacket. 'Are you ready?'

    'Yes.'

    'Sure?'

    'Yes.'

    'Then
without further delay, I present to you, straight from the room of Arabella
Wogan, wife of the late Augustine Wogan

    'Will
you just show me the fucking thing?'

    So he
did. He set it on the counter. It was small and shiny. It was made of stainless
steel and brushed chrome. It was a V-shaped cigar cutter.

    While
I waited for Alison to arrive, having called her in a state of great excitement,
I took a Valium, and then another, and then a third. It was important to be
settled, because foaming at the mouth is not conducive to good teamwork.

    I do,
literally, foam. Once, memorably, when I tried to commit suicide by swallowing
four Ariel washing machine tablets.

    The
source of my excitement sat glinting on the counter. I believe it was glinting
because of the angelic, self-satisfied glow that was coming off Jeff.

    'So
you must be feeling pretty proud of yourself,' I said.

    'I
am. Using my initiative. The boy done good.'

    'Yes,
you did. I'm proud of you. But you know what they say.'

    'What
do they say?'

    'Pride
comes before a fall.'

    'But
you were the one expressing pride. You said you were proud of me.'

    'That's
not the point I'm trying to make.'

    'Well
then you should express yourself more clearly.'

    He
was hurt, I could tell. He was annoyed. He thought I was raining on his parade.
He was incorrect. Or if I was, it was a mild sprinkle. In fact I withdraw that.
Sprinkle
is an American word for light rain, and I despise it. When we
say it, we say it is
spitting
. I was spitting on his parade. Spitting is
a much better word. It is less mild and fluffy. Spitting is God's way of
teasing us.
I might let it rain, I might not, it's entirely up to me because
I am God. I'm sitting up here with my big white fluffy beard and I have the
power to make it rain, or the power to make it sunny. Here's a little bit just
to confuse you. You'll look out the window and say it's spitting outside, I
wonder if I'll need an umbrella, or will it stop and the sun come out, and then
I might need a parasol. A gamp, a brolly or a bumber-shoot. I enjoy playing
with you, I revel in toying with your expectations; that is my role, my joy, my
raison d'etre, and yes I invented French as well, just to confuse you further
.

    'You're
presupposing the existence of God,' said Jeff, 'but either way, I accept your
apology.'

    I
blinked at him for a little bit.

    'All
right, Columbo, you lucked into something. For the moment it's just a thing, it
contributes nothing. So take your best shot. What's the significance of this
V-shaped cigar cutter, what does it tell us about our case?'

    I
fixed him with my look.

    'It
tells us that whoever murdered Augustine also murdered Arabella.'

    'Does
it?'

    'Yes.'

    'Explain.'

    'You
said Augustine couldn't have cut his cigar with the cutter he had, so there had
to be someone else in the room with him, which shifted the case from suicide to
murder. Finding a V-shape cutter in Arabella's room, and presuming that she
herself does not smoke cigars, suggests that the killer also paid her a visit.'

    'But
surely we have been arguing all along that Arabella died either on the operating
table or postoperative, and that is why there's a cover-up, and they felt the
need to dispatch Augustine because he was trying to expose them. Why then would
the killer need to be in Arabella's room
prior
to Augustine being
killed, or at all?'

    'Perhaps
maybe . . .'

    'Never
start a sentence with perhaps maybe.'

    'Perhaps
Dr Yes was present in her hotel room when she died, and was so distraught that
he had to light a cigar to calm himself down. He inadvertently dropped it and—'

    'Ha-ha!'

    'Excuse
me?'

    'Excuse
moi
!'

    'You
what?'

    'The
flaw in your logic is . . . ?'

    'That
. . . Dr Yes, being a surgeon, probably doesn't smoke?'

    'That
if he dropped it in Arabella's hotel room, how then could he cut Augustine's
cigar at a
later
date?'

    'He
had a second one. A back-up. A reserve. God knows he's rich enough. Or there
was a second killer who also smoked cigars, and who also favoured the V-cut.'

    I
took a deep breath. I drummed my fingers on the counter. I studied the V-cut.

    It
was time to take a step back.

    I had
learned to my cost in the
Case of the Cock- Headed Man
that sometimes
the McGuffin is more than a McGuffin; that an ingenious plot device is
occasionally more than just a device, but the entire plot. I was also,
crucially, aware of the weight of ten thousand volumes of crime fiction upon my
shoulders, aware that it was at points in the plot
exactly like this
that
less talented authors completely lost their way by piling improbability upon
improbability, by making ludicrous and nonsensical connections between events
designed only to reinforce the perception that their leading character, their
detective or PI, has astonishing insights that lesser mortals couldn't hope to
match. It was important to remain grounded in reality.

    There
is no greater barometer of reality than Agatha. She may be old-fashioned, she
may no longer sell in vast quantities, she may indeed be dead, but she is or
was indisputably the doyenne of crime fiction authors, and it is laughable to suggest
that any member of the present generation, many of whom write as if they're
having a knees-up in an abattoir, is even fit to suck the mud off the hem of
her voluminous skirts. Crime fiction is largely created according to a series
of templates, which, like the tectonic plates that make up the surface of the
earth, do not always sit evenly together, and occasionally clash, causing
earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, but there is no disputing that despite
their sometimes huge differences in style and subject matter, crime writers
generally live and die according to the template that Agatha laid down. She is
the source of the Nile.

    Agatha
understood that it was important to stop a book mid-course and go, hold up, I'm
in danger of confusing not only the reader, but myself; here, let's pull the
old emergency cord and bring this hurtling express to a halt, let's review the
evidence as it stands so that everyone is absolutely clear as to what is going
on, who the characters are, and what they are all up to at any particular time.
Chandler and Hammett might have cornered the market in fruity phrases, but they
rarely thought to pull that cord themselves, leaving generations of fans
capable of quoting individual lines but absolutely lost when asked to explain
who did what to who and when or
how the fuck
it could all possibly work.

    Jeff
was looking at me. 'You say all that,' he said, 'but I think there's a simpler
way of looking at it. Basically what we're doing is playing Cluedo. Think of
all the man hours you'd have saved if you just studied Cluedo rather than
wasting time on those ten . . . thousand . . . books.'

    He
had to finish what he was saying, but he could tell by the way what little
colour I had was draining from my face that he had crossed the line. He had
disrespected me, the shop and the genre. He had dished me.

    'Jeff,
you don't know what the bloody hell you're talking about. Cluedo? Cluedo! I
should stick your fricking Cluedo up your arse, sideways.'

    'I
was only—'

    'And
follow it with a dagger, a candlestick, a revolver, a lead pipe, a spanner and
a . . . and a . . .'

    'Rope,'
said Jeff. 'I'm sorry, I didn't mean to

    'Cluedo
was devised by a man named Pratt in 1944.'

    'I
only meant

    'Do
you know what he did for a living?'