Provender Gleed (37 page)

The newspaper crossword was done-and-dusted a long time ago, Moore winning his battle of wits with the setter in just six minutes. The newspaper itself, with its disturbing reports of potential armed conflict, had been perused from cover to cover. Moore was pleased to note that the review of last night's performance of
Hamlet
was more or less as he had predicted: the paper's theatre critic was ho-hum about the production itself but Arthur Gleed had 'essayed a unique Hamlet, inhabiting the role of arch-vacillator as though born to it'. The comment had more edges than an icosahedron.

As for the threat of war, Moore had seen little evidence that people were unduly concerned. Everybody seemed to be going about their business as normal. Shops were open and there was no panic-buying as one might have expected, nor was there any sign of an imminent exodus into the countryside. London was proceeding at its customary pace, hectic but no more so than usual. Doubtless things would change if war was declared. Then again,
Homo sapiens
was on the whole a phlegmatic species, and sometimes events were so momentous that they simply had to be ignored. Unless bombs were actually raining down on the capital, life would go on with the minimum of disruption. The taxi driver had touched on this, when flitting from one unrelated topic to the possible war to another unrelated topic. 'Not a sod I can do about it,' he had said. 'I just drive a cab. Unless it's stopping me driving my cab, I'll just carry on doing that.'

And Moore was an Anagrammatic Detective and it wasn't stopping him doing
his
job, so he was carrying on too.

Needing something to occupy his thoughts till Arthur returned, Moore set himself the task of devising a word game. It was what he often did during idle moments, a way of pressure-valving his philologically hyperactive brain. Initially he came up with the idea of forming words from the letter sequences on vehicle licence plates. He tried it out with the cars parked in the square and it was satisfactorily entertaining but not much of a challenge. Looking for something a bit more taxing, he hit on the notion of finding words in which you could substitute one vowel with any of the other four vowels and create a valid new word each time. This was altogether more intellectually demanding, and Moore put his brain to work on it, mindful not to get too wrapped up in case Arthur reappeared and he didn't notice. He thought Milner would be pleased by the game, and wondered what he might call it. A Latinate or Hellenic name was conventional. Varivocalis? Pentalogue?

Before the astonishing event occurred - before the resolution to the Provender Gleed case all but fell into his lap - Moore managed to identify two strings of words which fulfilled the game's criterion. One was pack, peck, pick, pock, puck. The other was mate, mete, mite, mote, mute. He was racking his brains to find a third, preferably something more than four letters long, when two people walked into the square via its eastern end, emerging from the street which led to the nearest Family tram stop. Moore registered them, thought them of no significance - a young man and a young woman, perhaps a couple but, if so, they were in the throes of a lovers' squabble, not getting along, because he was a few paces ahead of her and she had her arms folded across her stomach in a manner that reeked of discontent - and then Moore blinked, hard, then rubbed his eyes as if to wipe them clean and start afresh, because his eyes were faulty, surely, some defect was causing them to tell him he was looking at the kidnappee, the Gleed heir-apparent, the reason for his vigil outside Arthur's house, Provender, who was now striding round the square's perimeter, heading for that selfsame residence, and it must be a vision problem, brought on perhaps by lack of sleep, a hallucination, and further blinking and rubbing would get rid of it, but this didn't work, not even banging a hand on the side of his head would do the trick, Moore tried it, a few hefty knocks with an open palm, but what would usually fix a television set when the picture wasn't right did not have the same effect on the mechanism of the human cranium and the Provender apparition did not correct itself, there he still was, with his companion a few steps behind him, climbing the steps to his cousin's front door and prodding the doorbell button with a forthright forefinger...

Finally Moore galvanised himself to move. It was the faint ringing of the doorbell within the house that did it, that proved he wasn't imagining what he saw. Hallucinations, he reasoned, couldn't make doorbells ring, could they? Leaping to his feet, he hastened feverishly out of the park and arrowed towards Provender.

I was right, Merlin
, he thought.
I don't know why it's turned out the way it has, I didn't think this was how I would find him, but I have, I've done it, I've won our bet, dammit I was right!

55

'He's not home.'

Provender wheeled round.

The man who had spoken was a timid-looking individual, slight of stature and dressed in a cheap, rumpled suit. He stood on the pavement clutching the bottom of his jacket and rocking on his heels like a nervous schoolboy. Is was peering at him quizzically, and Provender couldn't help but do the same.

'And you are...?'

'Oh, yes, forgive me. Romeo Moore, Anagrammatic Detective.'

'Whatsis detective?' said Is.

'I have a card.' The man reached inside his jacket and rummaged. 'They're in here somewhere. I'm a private investigator. A special sort of private investigator. Oh dear, can't find them. I've been charged with the duty of -- A-ha!' He produced a sheaf of business cards and handed one to Is, then climbed the front steps and proffered another of the cards to Provender, who took it, glanced at it, saw that it said
Milner and Moore, Anagrammatic Detectives
together with an address and phone number, and tucked it away in a pocket.

'Charged with the duty of...?' Provender prompted.

'Uh, well, you, I suppose.'

'Me.'

'Yes,' said Moore, and added, 'Sir.'

'No need for "sir". What about me? What duty?'

'Finding you.'

'Right. Which you appear to have done.'

'I know.'

'Congratulations.'

'Thank you. Your Family, you see, hired my colleague and myself to locate you after you ... er, went missing. They had reason to believe you'd been taken against your will, but now ... umm.' Moore threw a look at Is. 'Perhaps they were mistaken and it wasn't involuntary after all.'

Provender saw what the Anagrammatic Detective was implying. 'Trust me, it was. Very much so. My Family hired you?'

'Along with my colleague, yes. Courtesy of the Clan Reav-- Of a certain Mr Carver. And so here I am.' Moore's mouth flirted with the idea of a smile. 'Case successfully solved. I can call Mr Carver and inform him that Provender Gleed is alive and well and no longer a captive. I can, can't I?'

Provender was frowning. 'But you're here. Outside Arthur's pad. Which means you think Arthur...'

'...kidnapped you? I did think that. Current evidence would appear to indicate otherwise.'

'Not necessarily. What reason do you have for thinking it was Arthur?'

'The anagrams.'

'The anagrams?'

'The anagrams.'

'What anagrams?'

'Of Arthur Gleed. There were all sorts. His name positively dripped guilt. My colleague had a different theory about your disappearance, but me, I had your cousin in the frame from the very start. Turns out I was wrong, but my roundabout route brought me to the right destination in the end. That's how it is with the anagrams sometimes. They move in mysterious ways, their wonders to perform.'

'Let me get this straight. You're a private investigator who uses
anagrams
to solve crimes?'

Moore beamed proudly. 'I am.'

Provender shook his head in mild disbelief. 'And my Family took you on to find me. Just you?'

'And my colleague, Merlin Milner.'

'Of course, your colleague. But no one else.'

'Not that I know of.'

Provender let out a hollow laugh. 'Thanks for trying, everyone. No disrespect to you, Mr Moore, but you're hardly the thorough search party I'd have hoped for. A small army of private investigators I could understand, but two people who use anagrams...?'

'We were told that discretion was paramount.' Moore was trying not to look as though his feelings were hurt. 'A low-key approach. Obviously not good enough for some people, but I would submit that the results speak for themselves.'

'Yes, yes, they do,' Provender said, mollifying. 'I really wasn't trying to cause offence.'

'Though you did,' Is chipped in.

'And,' Provender went on, 'it so happens, Mr Moore, that I believe you're on the right track. Arthur
is
involved. He arranged for me to be kidnapped. He's the brains behind the operation.'

'
Yes
,' said Moore under his breath. 'But you've escaped.'

'I have, and I'm here to confront the little creep and get him to 'fess up.'

'And he's not home, as I told you. He's elsewhere.'

'Where?'

'I wish I knew.'

'You don't have any idea? There isn't anywhere else he could be?'

'Well,' said Moore, cautiously, 'there is one place I've been staking out apart from here.'

'Which is?'

'The theatre where his play's on. On New Aldwych. The Shortborn.'

'Could he be there now?'

'I doubt it.' Moore consulted his watch. 'Curtain doesn't go up for another four hours. I don't think makeup and costuming takes that long.'

'What do you say, Is? You think we should try there?'

'Don't ask my opinion. My opinion apparently doesn't count for anything.'

'Well, I think we should. Back to the trams. Mr Moore, thanks for your help. It will be remembered.'

'Very kind. Might I just say, though, that I have a taxi waiting. It might be quicker, more convenient.'

'A taxi?' Provender pondered. 'Yeah, good idea. A taxi. Why not?'

56

The television room stank of sweat, of body odour, of manly musk, of maleness. Prosper had infused it with himself over the course of the day. Just by being there he had scent-marked it as his, a section of Dashlands House that was now Prosper Gleed's exclusive territory.

Or so Cynthia felt as she cracked the door open and tentatively entered. The smell might have been in her imagination, her senses confirming what she wanted to believe. She wanted the television room to have an offensive aroma, thus it did.

Prosper was on the sofa, fixated as ever on the projected TV image on the wall. The Phone was in the corner, dozing where he stood, poor fellow. Prosper ought at least to have instructed the man to sit - it wasn't against the rules - but no, he was too preoccupied, too absorbed in his own fermenting megalomania, too drunk with amazement at the turmoil he had instigated, to think of anyone but himself.

The glint in Prosper's eyes, as he watched a report being transmitted from a forward command post somewhere in the Sudetenland, was all but indistinguishable from the one that appeared when he was making a move on some nubile young creature. There was the same avarice in it, the same thrill in exerting his influence. Girls fell at Prosper's feet because he was handsome, certainly, but also because of who he was, his surname, his status. Cynthia understood this all too well, since she herself had been one of those girls, a long time ago. He had been utterly captivating back then, youth giving his charm a freshness, an innocence almost. Although Cynthia had been Family too, and therefore in theory his equal, looks coupled with the aura that hung around the word
Gleed
had made Prosper an irresistible package. Naïve as she had been, she had found him endlessly, fascinatingly sophisticated, and when it became clear that he was courting her, wooing her, she could scarcely believe her luck. Nor could her parents. For the Lamases, a union with the Gleeds was several steps up. Their Family status would be immensely enhanced by the association. It was a match made in heaven. How could she not have been happy about it?

After almost thirty years - and countless infidelities - the question now was, how could she be happy about it any more? And the answer was, she had adapted. She had adjusted. Incrementally, as time went by, she had hardened herself to the disappointment and the betrayal. She hardly felt his indifference to her.

And then this. On top of her son being gone, her only boy, his absence like one of her own organs having been torn out of her, she was confronted with a husband who was no longer content with fucking his way through the women of the world and was now trying to fuck the world itself. Cynthia despised coarseness but there it was. Fucking. That was what Prosper was doing, there was no other word for it. Fucking like some maddened rapist, not caring who got hurt so long as he exerted his power.

Well, no more. Enough. It was time she put a stop to it. After hours of soul-searching, Cynthia knew what she must do. As her nephew had said:
Anything and everything must be done to bring about the right conclusion
. God help her but she had no choice.

The Phone's eyelids flickered, then snapped open. He came to attention and nodded to her. 'Ma'am,' he said briskly, hoping to sound like someone who had not just been half-asleep.

Cynthia smiled at him and kept the smile in place as she turned to her husband.

'Prosper. Dear. You've been sitting there for ages. You've barely touched your lunch. Might I get you something to eat?'

'Hmm? Oh, no. I'm fine.'

'Drink, then?'

'Again, fine. Don't need to fuss over me.'

'I take it the Kuczinskis haven't called yet.'

'Only a matter of time. Only a matter of time. The Pan-Slavic Federation's demanded that America step in and play peace-broker. That's a definite sign. They're cracking. Can't take the pressure.'

'If you say so. You're sure about that drink? How about some coffee? Strong coffee? You look worn out. You need something to help keep you going.'