Beggars Banquet (collection) Read online

  ‘Is your boss married?’ he asked.

  She smiled sourly. ‘I knew you weren’t a rep.’

  ‘Did I say I was? So what’s the answer? A simple yes or no.’

  ‘What business is it of yours?’

  He gave a fumey sigh. ‘I can find out. It’s not difficult.’

  ‘Off you go then and find out.’

  ‘Did you know he was having an affair?’

  ‘It’s only an affair if the person’s married.’

  ‘Oh? So Cooke’s a bachelor then?’

  ‘That’s not what I said.’

  ‘Mrs Webster’s married though.’ He was seeking a reaction, any reaction. ‘Her daughter’s single.’

  ‘Get out.’ Her voice was colder than the lager he’d just consumed.

  ‘Let me guess,’ he persisted. ‘You had the hots for him yourself, maybe he was stringing you along…’

  She picked up the receiver.

  ‘All right, I’m going.’ He put the photo back in his pocket. ‘But remember, you don’t owe him anything. It’s him that owes you. Just give me a yes or no: is he married?’

  She started punching telephone buttons, so he left. She was breathing hard, but didn’t let it show. She stared at the door, willing it to stay closed. Then she was connected. ‘Police?’ she said. ‘I want to speak to Chief Superintendent Lancaster…’

  Outside, he sat in his car, thinking about the man called Arthur, the secretary, and Stefan Duniec. Then he got out again and started looking for another car. Any car would do, so long as it had a car phone.

  Lancaster put down the receiver and looked towards the two people sitting across the desk from him.

  ‘That was your secretary, Mr Cooke.’ Bernard Cooke nodded: he’d gathered as much already. ‘Our man has just turned up again, asking if you’re married and implying you’ve been having an affair with Mrs Webster.’ He looked at the young woman next to Cooke. ‘Or even with you, Gillian.’

  Gillian Webster snorted. Lancaster was smiling.

  ‘Looks like it’s worked,’ he said. I hate puzzles. Those three words had set the whole game in motion. And the game was about to end: right result, right team. ‘He had a photo with him,’ he went on, turning back to Bernard Cooke. ‘You and Gillian’s mother on the veranda at her home.’

  ‘That Sunday drinks party,’ Cooke decided.

  ‘The Minute Man was watching.’

  ‘He thinks Cora and I are lovers?’

  ‘He’s putting two and two together and making five, luckily for us. If that photo had just shown the two of you talking, he might not have suspected anything.’

  ‘Whereas as it is…’

  ‘He thinks he knows why Gillian’s set you up. It couldn’t have worked out better.’

  Gillian Webster turned to Cooke. ‘Kissing my mother on the veranda?’

  Cooke tried a nervous smile. Lancaster shifted in his chair. He was nervous for all sorts of reasons. The Minute Man had to solve puzzles, even if that meant conjuring an answer out of the thinnest stuff. Lancaster had invented the conundrum, hoping his adversary would be irritated by it… and drawn towards it. Someone even suggested the Minute Man might pose as a reporter – a suitable disguise for showing interest in the case…

  There was a knock at the door, and a young man came in. Lancaster introduced him.

  ‘I don’t think either of you has met Detective Constable Duniec.’ Duniec nodded a greeting, but Gillian’s mind was on the idea of Cooke and her mother. ‘Well, Stefan?’ Lancaster asked.

  The look on Duniec’s face was bad news.

  ‘He paid his bill and left over an hour ago.’

  Lancaster nodded. ‘He’s been back to the Forester’s, a regular called Arthur just phoned to tell me. And he paid another visit to the factory.’

  ‘We know his car, sir, red Fiesta, there’s a call out for it.’

  ‘All exit roads are covered, aren’t they?’

  Duniec nodded.

  ‘Then all we can do is wait.’

  Lancaster tried to look relaxed. Bernard Cooke had been doubtful of the plan at first, but as a friend of Gillian’s he’d gone along with it. After all, partly it had been her idea. She was looking pale again. She’d been ordered to rest by the doctors, but had insisted on sticking around. The phone rang again. Lancaster snatched the call.

  ‘Red Fiesta,’ he said afterwards. ‘Sighted heading for Lower Traherne.’ He fixed his eyes on Gillian. ‘Looks like he’s heading out to your home.’ Then he turned to Duniec. ‘Get on to it, Stefan.’ Duniec nodded and left the room.

  This eventuality, too, had been covered. The Websters were in a local hotel, under plainclothes protection. A driver and unmarked car were waiting outside to take Gillian back there. The Minute Man was driving into a trap.

  The phone rang yet again, and Lancaster picked it up, glad of something to do. He listened for a moment, a muscle going rigid in his jaw. When he spoke, it was in a dry voice. ‘Put him through, will you? And try to get a trace.’ He then pushed a button on the telephone and replaced the receiver. A small integral speaker crackled into life. A female voice said, ‘You’re through, caller.’ Lancaster swallowed and spoke.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Superintendent Lancaster?’

  ‘Speaking.’

  Lancaster watched Gillian. She was staring at the telephone. What little colour she had vanished from her face.

  ‘Don’t bother with a trace, Tom. I won’t be on long, you know that.’

  ‘We get a dozen cranks a day saying they’re the Minute Man.’

  ‘You know who I am, Tom.’

  ‘Why are you phoning?’

  ‘Because you’ve got the wrong man.’

  Lancaster looked to Gillian and Cooke. She looked ready to leap from her seat, while Cooke seemed pinned against the back of his as if by G-force.

  ‘Have we?’

  ‘Yes. She’s set him up.’

  ‘Who has?’

  ‘The girl.’

  ‘Why would she do that?’

  ‘He’s having an affair with her mother. She wants revenge.’

  Lancaster forced a laugh. ‘How can you possibly know that?’

  ‘I know. I know all of it now.’

  The line went dead.

  ‘Christ,’ Cooke said. Lancaster checked with the switchboard, but the Minute Man hadn’t been on long enough to give them a chance. In fact, he’d been on the line for scarcely a minute…

  Lancaster got to his feet. ‘I wonder if he still plans to visit Lower Traherne? One way to find out…’

  ‘I’m coming too,’ said Cooke, rising shakily to his feet. Gillian was still staring at the telephone. Neither man needed confirmation that she had recognised the voice. When Lancaster touched her shoulder she flinched.

  ‘Come on, Gillian,’ he said. ‘Let’s get you back to the hotel.’

  They opened the back door of the car for her and she got in. The engine was running and the car moved off at once, through the car park, past the usual ruck of reporters and cameras, and out of the iron gates of Castle Lane police station. She didn’t want to go to the hotel, not really. She wanted to go home, to Lower Traherne. But she doubted the police driver could be persuaded to take her there. She noticed a walkie talkie on the floor by his feet. Or maybe it was a portable phone. Whatever happened at the house, she’d hear of it. He was looking at her in the rearview mirror. When she looked back, he gave her a reassuring smile. Then she noticed they’d passed the regular turning.

  ‘We should have gone left there.’

  He was still smiling. The car was building up speed. Gillian felt a lump swell in her throat, the fear nearly choking her.

  ‘I know it all now,’ he said quietly. ‘The way Lancaster spoke, that confirmed it. Oh yes, that balanced both sides of the ledger quite nicely.’

  She swallowed, shifting the blockage. ‘Where’s the driver?’

  ‘ I’m the driver.’

  ‘The policeman.’
/>   ‘You think he’s in the boot?’ He shook his head. ‘I told him his chief wanted him in the press room.’

  She was relaxing a little. His voice was calm. It had been calm all the time she’d been his captive. ‘Where are we going?’ she asked.

  ‘Lower Traherne.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’m taking you home, Gillian.’

  ‘But why?’

  He shrugged. ‘Just to show them I can.’

  She thought for a moment. While she was thinking, he spoke again.

  ‘It was good, very good, nearly had me fooled. Except for one scared bloke in a pub…’

  She felt the words tumble from her mouth, like someone else was speaking. ‘They’ve got the exit roads covered, and there are police at the house, inside and outside. You’ll never-’

  ‘It’s all right, Gillian. You’ll see, both sides will balance.’

  ‘What do you mean, balance?’

  So for the rest of the journey, the Minute Man tried to explain to her his own particular theories of the principles of accounts.

  The Only True Comedian

  I suppose, looking back, my schooldays were to blame. Or maybe it was my parents’ genes, which had left me the smallest boy in my year. The popular boys all seemed to be the tough ones, the sporty ones, the ones who weren’t shy, who were good-looking.

  I didn’t really fit the bill. So instead I became the comedian. Of course, they weren’t laughing with me – they were laughing at me. I knew it even then, as I told my jokes and made my silly faces and did my funny walks. They told me I was off my head, said I was potty. I didn’t mind: at least they were talking to me. At least they were noticing me.

  Which meant I was allowed to participate in their games, or at least watch from the periphery, which was my favoured spot anyway. Watching them, I was able to learn. I learned which kids and teachers I could make fun of. I’d go for the younger kids, even spottier and uglier than I was, or for one of the unlovely girls who stood by the playground railings, sad looks on their faces. Oh, I was ferocious with anyone who couldn’t bite back. It was how I stayed part of the gang.

  The other problem was, I wasn’t stupid, but when I became a member of Black Alec’s gang, I had to pretend to be less clever than I was. And this pretence could only be carried off if I started slipping in class, answering questions wrongly when I knew the right answers, my test marks dropping. The deputy head had a word with me. I think she could see there was a problem, she just couldn’t figure out what it was. My parents were summoned to the school for a discussion. They started to take notice of me too, helping with homework and revision. Still I refused to fulfil my potential. Sometimes I would slip up, and answer some question which had stumped everyone else. At these times, the teacher would peer at me, wondering what was going on.

  Eventually I was taken to hospital for tests on my brain. They glued all these electrodes to my head. Three washings later, my hair still felt sticky, and the results had failed to throw up any incongruities. When the final exams came, I was in a quandary. We’d all have left school by the time the results were posted. So if I wanted to, I could do as well as I liked. But something made me stay in character; maybe it was the thought that though I was leaving school, the gang would still be there, hanging around their favoured street corner, yelling abuse at cars and pedestrians, running down to the park with a carrier-bag of beer. It was a community I understood, and my chosen role made me unique within it. I was ‘Joker’ or ‘The Comedian’. I wasn’t expected to take part in the occasional massed battles with other gangs. I proved myself by telling jokes and stories, by deriding other gangs (especially with reference to their personal hygiene and sexual habits), and by improving my range of impressions.

  Soon after leaving school, however, I found that a lot of the gang had drifted away. Even Black Alec – our leader and mentor – had gained employment as a car mechanic. The merry band had dwindled to a few losers for whom the daily stint at the street corner had become an unwelcome chore. I thought about resitting my exams, going on to college or university. But Black Alec was my next-door neighbour: how could I tell him my plans? He wouldn’t have understood. He’d have asked me to do the walk again, and afterwards his laughter would have had me craving more. More laughter, more acceptance, more of his approval.

  Anyway, things didn’t work out for him as a mechanic. He became a bouncer instead, working at a discotheque in Kirkcaldy. He got into trouble, spent a couple of months in jail, and when he came out he told us he’d just paid a visit to the ‘University of Life’. From now on, he said, nothing would be beyond him. He’d only be satisfied with ‘number one’. At the time, I don’t think we really knew what he was talking about, but we found out soon enough.

  I went to work in a chicken factory. It wasn’t a bad job. The production line was mostly staffed by women, and I kept them smiling. I’d sing a song, do a little dance, whatever it took to please them. They were all married, kept asking me when I’d find a girlfriend. They wore white overalls and green wellies, their hair tucked into white caps. Sometimes, when I met them outside the factory, I wouldn’t recognise them. My first Christmas party was a revelation. They were wearing dresses and make-up, having a drink and a laugh. We’d taken over the back room of a pub in Glenrothes. No management, just workers. There was some entertainment. A couple of the women sang songs. One of the foremen got up and told some jokes.

  ‘Get off!’ the women yelled at him. ‘Our comedian’s ten times better than you!’ They meant me. I was cajoled, persuaded. I found myself up on the stage, microphone in hand. I cleared my throat, cleared it some more, the sound filling the room. Someone called out for me to get on with it, and then somebody else twigged that I was pretending to be the production supervisor: he was always clearing his throat before he gave you bad news. There was scattered applause and laughter.

  ‘I’m sorry to have to inform you all’, I said, ‘that Christmas has been cancelled this year. You lot might not be happy, but I’ve two thousand capons in the back who’re over the moon.’

  Now everyone understood; they’d all clicked into my act. And it felt wonderful. The hair on my arms was standing up. It seemed I’d been up there a couple of minutes, but I was told afterwards I’d done a twenty-minute set. Women were kissing me, telling me I was the best.

  ‘You should turn professional,’ one of them said.

  And eventually, plucking up courage, that’s just what I did.

  I started out at pub talent nights, winning a couple of contests. The publican might then invite me back for a three- or four-week run. I kept up the factory job, but now I had a girlfriend, Emily, who’d sung ‘The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down’ at one of the talent shows. I’d asked her about the song. She’d no idea what it was all about.

  ‘Just got it from one of my mum’s Joan Baez albums.’ We had a laugh together. Emily had a day job, too, in a shoe shop. She came up with the idea of me going full-time pro. She said she’d support me till I got rich and famous. She said it wouldn’t take long. Her argument was that with my job, I’d no time to write new material. She was right: I really needed new material. So she became my manager, finding me bookings, and I lay in bed writing jokes and stories.

  It all went well for a while. Then we realised I was just treading water. It was still pubs and clubs.

  ‘You need a portfolio,’ Emily said. ‘Something you can show to agents and the TV companies.’

  ‘What I need are some decent gags,’ I replied.

  The writing wasn’t working. It was never how I’d worked. I was spontaneous, my material came from life. Now that I spent all day mooching around the house, there was nothing for me to write about. If the act was going to go anywhere, I needed to take a few risks. And that was what I did. I invested in a tape machine and other electronic stuff, so I could use funny noises and sound effects in my act. Then I got measured for a sharp suit – blue and sparkly, with shirt to match. I looked ridiculous in it,
but then that was the point, wasn’t it?

  I now looked the part. Problem was, none of it came cheap. Emily asked where I’d got the money.

  ‘Savings,’ I told her, lying through my teeth. Soon enough, I knew as I said it, I might not have any teeth left to lie through. Because I’d borrowed the money from Black Alec.

  Black Alec had almost fulfilled his ambition of becoming ‘number one’. He was now one of the most feared men on the east coast. He ran a string of clubs in Fife, owned two pubs in Edinburgh, and had so many fingers in so many other pies, it was a wonder he could pick his nose. He also ran protection, prostitutes and pornography – or so the rumours said. I’d never worked in any of his clubs – he said they were ‘upmarket’, ‘mostly music-oriented’. He said I was low-class.

  But still he loaned me the money. And now, with the act flagging, it was time to start paying it off, beginning with the interest. I knew Emily was broke: the shoe shop had gone bust, and she was on Jobseekers. I knew I didn’t have any money. And I knew it wouldn’t matter to Black Alec that I’d once been his next-door neighbour and personal jester. Nothing mattered to him but repayment and violence against the person. There were those who said he preferred it when people couldn’t pay up. That way, Black Alec got to play.

  Eventually, I broke down and told Emily. I’d been fobbing Alec’s men off as best I could. They’d repossessed the electronics, and soon it would be time for them to start taking possession of my limbs, lungs and lights. So we did what we had to do: went on the run. Thing is, to keep running we needed money, and I only knew one way to make money – keep on with the act, which made it hard for us to stay ahead of the GBH brigade. We’d turn up in a town, and while I tried to hustle a gig, Emily would be checking departure times of buses and trains. I’d do my stint, grab the cash, and we’d make for the station. Up and down the east coast we ran, as far north as Montrose, and south to Eyemouth, finding that the travelling was using up most of the money I made. At this rate, there was no way I was going to be able to pay back Black Alec.

  ‘We’ll go to London,’ Emily said. ‘That’s where the agents and TV people are. One spot on Des O’Connor and you could pay Black Alec ten times over.’