most holiday camps they had a strictly enforced ‘No Dicks and Sleuths’ policy. They were good at spotting disguises, too.
‘We’ll take a ride out there,’ I said.
‘We also need to get some knitting needles.’
‘What for?’
‘Ballistics.’
‘Oh, of course.’
‘Been reading about it in the Pinkerton book. What you do is you stick the needle in the bullet holes in the wall and shine a flashlight along the line of the needle. That way you find out the trajectory, and you can work out where the firing came from.’
‘Is that so?’
Calamity assumed a nonchalant air. ‘Fairly standard scene-of-crime m.o.’
‘I’ve never come across it before.’
‘If Jack Ruby’s lawyer had tried it he probably wouldn’t have fried.’
‘Jack Ruby didn’t go to the chair. He died in hospital while awaiting a retrial. Embolism, I think.’
‘Same difference.’
‘And he shot Lee Harvey Oswald from three feet away. You wouldn’t need to stick a knitting needle into Lee Harvey Oswald to find out where the firing came from.’
‘It was just a . . . a . . .’ She consulted the Pinkerton book. ‘An illustrative example.’
‘That’s all right, then.’
‘I thought we could check the alley, see if the scene-of-crime boys missed anything.’
‘Is that likely?’
‘Of course it is. They only see what they’re expecting to see, because they arrive loaded with preconceptions. You have to empty your mind of the obvious and just see what turns up.’
‘And I bet that’s in the book, too.’
‘It’s all in the book, Louie.’
Outside the Chungking Express a police car with out-of-town plates was parked. We pushed through the door into the main parlour. It was the usual cuckoo’s nest of oriental bric-a-brac: lanterns, vases, model junks, silk dragons, a lacquered cabinet, Buddha and Confucius . . . objects side by side that would have occupied separate wings in a museum.
It was still early and the dining room empty except for a man eating an early lunch. A white napkin was stuffed a touch flamboyantly into his shirt collar. He wore a crumpled and stained suit that might once have been well cut and had an air that suggested the tailors of Swansea or Llanelli. Even without seeing the car outside I could smell cop. He looked up as we walked in, cast a glance and returned to the task of spooning the last drops of sauce from his plate into his mouth. We sat at an adjacent table. After deciding that no more could be scraped off the dish he threw it down with a rough clatter and dabbed his chin with the napkin. He shouted in the direction of the kitchen. ‘Hey, chop chop!’
I grimaced and he noted it from the corner of his eye. And I noted that he noted.
A waitress appeared in the doorway leading to the kitchen and at the same time the door to the Gents opened and a police constable walked out drying his hands on the thighs of his trousers. He looked at me and made a strangled scoffing sound that implied he knew who I was. I didn’t recognise him. He walked over and joined the cop, who turned to the girl and said, ‘Hey, stop staring and clear away this shit.’
She was in her early twenties, slender in a scarlet cheongsam embroidered with golden flowers; her face was as smooth and expressionless as alabaster. She began to clear. The slit in her cheongsam opened over the thigh and the two cops stared with no attempt to conceal their lust.
‘No thanks, we haven’t got time for dessert,’ said the big cop. The deputy guffawed dutifully. Or maybe he genuinely thought it was funny.
The girl flinched and moved her leg to let the parted fabric fall back. I winced again.
This time the cop looked over. ‘Something wrong with your eye?’
I said nothing.
‘Every time I look round, I find you looking at me like you got soap in your eye.’
‘It’s conjunctivitis.’
‘My auntie had that, too – purgatory it was. She never looked like she had soap in her eye, though. I reckon it’s something else. Maybe you can see something on our table we got that you haven’t?’
‘You mean apart from that inimitable Swansea sophistication?’
‘Ah!’ The cop nodded as if all had become clear. ‘Now I get it. I get it. It appears that quite by chance this fine Aberystwyth morning I have stumbled on someone purveying an item I greatly disdain. Namely the wisecrack.’
‘The wisecrack?’
‘I disdain it. Always have, always will.’
‘I’ll bear that in mind.’
‘I would recommend that you do. Because to crack wise in my presence is not wise at all. It’s stupid. I call it cracking stupid.’
He picked up the corners of the napkin and wiped his mouth again, unnecessarily.
The deputy chuckled with a sycophantic air. ‘Oh, he just loves to crack wise, this one does, he’s famous for it.’
‘You know this man?’
‘He’s a peeper. He’s working the Santa case,’ said the deputy. ‘He’s got an ad in the paper.’
The cop put on that smile you get to recognise after a while, the one they wear just before they hit you. ‘Must be getting slow in my old age. Normally I can spot a shamus two blocks away.’ He furrowed his brow as he contemplated the seemingly paradoxical nature of what he was witnessing. ‘A shamus working a murder case. That’s kind of hard to believe.’ He leaned towards me. ‘Didn’t they tell you peepers are not allowed to poke their snouts into murder investigations? I’m sure they must have told you that.’
‘I thought maybe we could work together as a team.’
The deputy chuckled again. The cop’s smile deepened. It was clear I was asking for trouble and that was his favourite request. But also it was clear he was a connoisseur of situations like this, and preferred to savour them rather than rush things.
‘Oh yes, a purveyor of the dumbcrack.’
He stood up, threw the napkin down, and walked to the door. The deputy followed.
The sour cop continued to talk to himself, shaking his head in mock incredulity. ‘A peeper who likes to crack stupid, and he’s working a murder case. It must be Christmas.’
The girl began clearing the table.
I said, ‘I guess he must be the new community policeman.’
The girl looked at me, but said nothing. Carried on clearing.
‘Know his name?’
She paused. ‘Erw Watcyns. He’s from Swansea. He likes the food and hates the people. Our favourite type of customer.’
‘Were you working the night the guy got killed in your alley?’
It was as if she hadn’t heard.
‘Yes, I know. No one saw or heard anything. Could have happened in your kitchen and no one would have seen anything.’
‘Why should we care? The affairs of the round-eye are no concern of ours. You’ll be wasting your time asking round here. Even with your Kierkegaard.’
‘I know. I can understand why you don’t want to talk to the cops. I wouldn’t, either.’
She said nothing.
I took out a business card and put it on the table. ‘An old man killed in an alley at Christmas, that’s a terrible thing. All we’re doing is trying to find out why. It’s not a lot to ask. You can find us at this address if you hear anything that might help.’
‘We won’t say anything to the police,’ added Calamity.
