Читать книгу The Third Pig Detective Agency: The Complete Casebook - Bob Burke - Страница 13

It was early evening when we got back into town. After dropping Jack at home with a promise I’d call him again if I needed him, I drove back to the office, parked the car and headed back towards the main street. After the previous night’s experience I kept a regular look over both shoulders and avoided any dark, or even not that brightly lit, alleyways. If there weren’t at least twenty people in the same street as me then it wasn’t going to be one I was going to walk down, across or through. Once bitten – or once punched, threatened and deposited in garbage – had made me very careful and I was also concerned about the impact that constantly being decorated with rotten vegetables was having on my laundry bill – not to mention my personal grooming.

After navigating the side streets of Grimmtown without attracting any undue attention, I turned onto Hans Christian Andersen Street. Dusk had made way for night and the city’s bright young things were all out in their vampire-look finery again. On every corner a girl from Little Matchgirls Inc. was hawking hot dogs, burgers and fried chicken – the company had diversified over the years, especially after smoking fell out of favour. The sound of people having a good time (at least, everyone except me) could be heard through the doors as I passed the multitude of bars and restaurants that proliferated both sides of the street. Much as I enjoyed a quiet drink and some intellectual conversation in my local, the bar I was heading to was one where I didn’t expect the conversation to be particularly stimulating. It was located about halfway up the street and had a particularly distinctive frontage – it was bright green. Outside the Blarney Tone, Grimmtown’s only Irish bar (‘Come for the Music, You’ll Stay for the Craic’), a very small man in a very shiny bright green and white costume was exhorting passers-by to come in and enjoy the fun inside. Benny was a gnome and Grimmtown’s worst leprechaun impersonator. I stopped behind him to listen to his patter. He had the worst Irish accent I’d ever heard; yes, even worse than Tom Cruise’s in Far and Away – and I should know, my grandfather was prime Irish bacon.

‘Ah sure now, will ye not come in and try a Guinness. ’Tis only the best in the town, brought in specially, direct from the brewery in Dublin. There’s a free plate of crubeens thrown in for good measure. You won’t see the like anywhere else.’ As he spoke he did a little jig that caused the rather large silver buckles on his black shoes to clang like a set of enormous bells.

The rest of his outfit was just as subtle as his shoes. Bright white socks stretched up to just below the knees, where they were met by bright green plus fours that were kept up by a large black belt. White frills that seemed to explode from a shirt so white it hurt to look at it fronted an equally lurid green jacket. An obviously fake ginger beard and curly wig covered most of his grey-skinned face like a bright orange fungus. On his head he wore a long black hat with yet another shiny buckle. It looked like someone had rammed a bucket upside-down on his head.

He was possibly the least convincing leprechaun in history but he was also just the man I needed to talk to. Despite the ludicrous outfit he was very sturdily built. In fact, he was the type of guy who could deliver a hefty punch to your midriff while, owing to his size, every attempt you made to hit him back just went over his head.

He still hadn’t noticed me as I approached him carefully and tapped him on the shoulder.

‘Evening Benny,’ I said cheerfully.

He spun around and for a split second his face dropped as he recognised me. Like the true pro he vainly aspired to be, he immediately recovered and began his Irish shtick again but his first reaction had given him away.

‘Begorrah Mr Pigg, is it yourself that’s in it. And out on a fine night like this too. Sure why not drop in and try a pint of the black stuff. ’Tis the best in town.’ As he spoke he made to move towards me. This time I was somewhat better prepared and, as I quickly stepped back, I nodded to two large shapes that had just as quickly, but a lot more silently, moved up behind him. As he tried to land a punch on me a large hand grabbed his neck from behind and suddenly jerked him backwards and upwards. He dangled in mid-air, legs kicking so fast he looked like he was pedalling an invisible bicycle. The hand held his head level with my eyes and squeezed ever so slightly. Benny’s face began to turn an interesting shade of bright red as his neck began to constrict under the pressure.

‘Now, Benny,’ I said cheerfully, ‘perhaps we can discuss your recent forays into robbery and GBH.’

‘I … don’t … know … what … you … mean,’ he managed to choke out. By now his face was turning from red to purple and I watched with fascination (and no small degree of pleasure I must shamefully admit).

‘Ah, but how remiss of me,’ I said. ‘I’m forgetting my manners. Before we start, allow me to introduce my colleagues, Mr Lewis and Mr Carroll. They’re ogres.’ Considering their size, strength and skin colour it was probably stating the obvious, but I wanted to see Benny sweat and show him that I meant business. My ‘colleagues’ were each over eight feet tall with skin that almost matched Benny’s jacket in hue. Their impressively muscular frames were barely contained by the immaculate evening suits they had squeezed into. They were definitely the type of guys (or creatures) that you needed when there was a possibility of any unpleasantness, as they tended to be a very effective deterrent – as they were now proving.

‘Now that the introductions are over, perhaps we can get down to business,’ I said to Benny. ‘Let me put some perspective on this for you, just in case you’re confused.’

As Benny wasn’t the sharpest tack in the box I figured I’d better spell it out for him. Before I could start, however, I noticed that his face was now bright blue. Perhaps the ogres were being a trifle too eager.

‘Mr Lewis, perhaps a little less pressure.’

Lewis grunted and relaxed his hand slightly. Benny’s face returned to its previous shade of purple.

‘OK, Benny,’ I said, ‘let’s begin. Once upon a time there was a gnome named Benny. Not too bright but always on the lookout for an opportunity, he made a living as a dodgy leprechaun impersonator trying to get gullible customers into the local Irish bar. And, by the way, you need to work on that accent. Are you with me so far?’

He nodded, his head barely moving.

‘Good. Now, our friend Benny probably got an offer from someone to help him acquire a valuable antique from a local businessman. It certainly wasn’t Benny’s idea, what with him not being too bright and all, but the offer was impressive enough to encourage him. How am I doing so far?’

Benny gave another little nod.

‘This is called detecting, Benny. It’s what I do. I examine the clues and determine what’s going on. This then allows me to follow a specific line of inquiry. This specific line of inquiry has, most fortuitously, brought me to you.

‘In this instance, your mysterious client clearly needed someone with some subterranean delving skills and who would also do what he was told, no questions asked, as long as the price was right.

‘Unfortunately he picked you,’ I continued. ‘You may be a great digger, which of course pointed me in the right direction, but you were a trifle careless at the scene of the crime.’ I reached into my pocket and removed a small envelope. Inside was the green thread I’d found on the tree outside Aladdin’s. ‘You appear to have picked up a minor tear on your sleeve and, look, the thread I happen to have here matches almost perfectly. What a coincidence, eh?’

There was another gurgle that could have meant anything from ‘What great detective work. You’ve certainly rumbled me. I confess’ to ‘I’m slowly choking to death here, could you ask your moron to reduce the pressure on my neck somewhat.’

I chose to interpret it as the latter, although I certainly wouldn’t describe Lewis as a moron – at least not to his face. Another nod and Lewis eased his grip slightly more.

‘Now I know that you aren’t working alone, not only because you haven’t got the smarts to pull this off on your own, but even you couldn’t drive a car into the enchanted forest, crash it rather spectacularly and then get back here to play little green man with the tourists so quickly. Nice trick by the way, getting one of your idiot cronies to use the camera to see where he was going because he was too small to look over the wheel. I take it you didn’t come up with that idea either?’ The response was another faint shake of the head.

‘Now I know that, as a rule, when goblins get together, rather than the total being greater than the sum of the parts, the collective IQ tends drop to well below that of the dumbest member – a kind of anti-synergy. I suspect, therefore, that you were the mere executors of this cunning plan that, in all likelihood, was probably written out in very small words and very short sentences so you and your cronies could follow it without screwing up – which you failed miserably to do. So here’s what I’m going to do.’ I looked Benny straight in the eye to let him know that I still meant business. ‘I’m going to instruct Mr Lewis here to let you go. When he does so you will make no attempt to do anything other than answer whatever questions I may put to you. Should you attempt to assault either of the ogres (which would be rather foolish) or me or even try to make a break for it, the only break you will experience will be a random assortment of your limbs. Understood?’

Benny nodded ever so slightly. I looked at Lewis and he dropped the goblin with such force that he lay on the ground groaning pitifully. I nudged him with my shoe.

‘C’mon Benny, up you get. If you need some help you only have to ask. Either Mr Lewis or Mr Carroll will be only too delighted to assist you.’

This suggestion seemed to give Benny some incentive as he struggled to his feet slowly and, I have to add, with a lot less style than I had shown previously. Maybe he just didn’t have as much practice at getting up as me.

‘OK, Benny, your starter for ten: where’s the lamp?’

Benny looked up at me with an expression that would have made his mother clutch him to her chest and console him with lots of ‘there, theres’. Fortunately for both of us I wasn’t his mother so he didn’t get the sympathy vote from me. He also spared me the ‘what lamp?’ routine, presumably as even he could figure out exactly how much I already knew and that I wasn’t prepared to tolerate being messed around any more – or maybe it was just the large and very obvious presence of my two companions. Despite this, however, his reply was only marginally more helpful (which wasn’t saying a lot).

‘I don’t have it,’ he gasped.

‘Not a good answer, Benny,’ I said. ‘I’d have thought that by now you’d realise there is no point in playing dumb – or, in your case, even more dumb than usual – with us. We’re really not in the mood.’

‘No, really, I don’t have it. Honest.’ From the fearful look on his face I suspected that he was finally telling the truth. Now all I had to do was find out what he had done with the lamp, get it back to Aladdin, pocket a large pay packet and wallow in the satisfaction of a job well done. Smiling with anticipation, I asked the obvious question again and received a not-so-obvious answer that wiped the smirk off my face and plummeted me even deeper into the murk that was Grimmtown’s underworld.

‘One last time, where’s the lamp, Benny?’

‘Edna has it,’ he answered.

I looked at him, dumbfounded. ‘Edna?’ I repeated.

He nodded his head gingerly. ‘Edna,’ he said with more conviction.

‘Edna, as in Edna?’

He nodded again. ‘Yep, that’s her.’

‘Please tell me you’re joking and this is just another idiotic attempt to throw me off the track,’ I begged, but I knew Benny was telling the truth, I just didn’t want to believe it. I just wanted him to suddenly spring to his feet and yell, ‘Gotcha! I had it in me rucksack all the time.’ I knew this wouldn’t happen. Quite apart from the fact that he could barely stand anyway, his entire demeanour suggested he was being truthful – and without being coerced any further, either.

If Edna was involved, I needed to tread very carefully indeed. In actual fact I needed to run very quickly in the opposite direction if I wished to retain the use of all my limbs. This was more like a Harry Pigg case: lots of different people vying to be the next to hurt me in new and interesting ways while I manfully (or pigfully) tried to represent my client to the best of my ability (and he was one of those people threatening to hurt me). I figured I’d get whatever information Benny hadn’t yet imparted and then decide whether it would be more advisable to get the next bus out of town or stay and get beaten up at least one more time.

‘OK Benny, let’s take it from the top – and don’t leave anything out.’