I found a notebook with empty pages and put it in my pocket with a couple of fibre-tipped pens. “You just can’t get the staff,” I said standing up and sliding my chair under the desk.
Sparky had his cheeky grin on. “So, er, things are looking up, are they?” he asked.
“No, they’re not,” I snapped, adding: “If you want a job doing properly, do it yourself.”
“Why a hundred?” he asked. “With your luck a packet of three would last you until the use-before date.”
“You can be very hurtful,” I told him, opening the door and switching the light off.
“Yeah, it was a bit. Sorry.”
“That’s OK. How much are they, these days?”
“Johnnies? A pound for two from the machine in the Spinners’ bog.”
“Is that plain or flavoured?”
“Plain. The flavoured are two quid for three.”
“You seem to know all about them.”
“I read the machine while I’m having a pee. What do you do?”
“Try to drown a fly. That’d be fifty quid, and I’d have to go to the bank for coins. And then the machine would run out and I’d have to ask the barman for my money back. It’ll have to be a chemist’s.”
“Are you serious?” he demanded.
“Never more. Want to change your mind?”
“No.”
“Fair enough, but I’ll have to put it on your record. I’m off to HQ, to talk to young Mr Gelder. Try not to breach too many guidelines while I’m gone.”
I parked in town and went to Boots. The condoms were on the self-service shelves but there was a small queue at the pay counter, so I wandered around for a few minutes until it had gone. Fetherlites came in packs of a dozen, costing?8.85, so I’d have to buy…I did the mental arithmetic…six twelves are seventy-two, seven twelves are eighty-four, eight twelves are ninety-six…nine, I’d have to buy nine packs, which would leave eight condoms over. Ah well, they might come in handy, some day.
The queue had gone so I gathered up a handful of packets. Dammit! There were only eight on display. Ninety-six. That meant I needed two packets of three to make up the shortfall. I added them to my collection and headed towards the counter.
A woman got there before me, but that was OK. I fell in behind her, my purchases clutched to my body, as she handed over a brown bottle of tablets and a ten pound note. The grey-haired assistant looked at the bottle and turned towards the glassed-off enclave where the pharmacist was busy counting pills.
“Paracetamol!” she shouted, and he raised his head and nodded his consent to the sale.
A wave of panic swept through me. Was she about to yell “Condoms!” to all and sundry when she saw what I was buying? “You know that they contain paracetamol, don’t you?” she told the customer, who said that she did. Personally, I’d have thought that that was why she was buying them. And as it said Paracetamol in large letters across the label, it seemed not unreasonable to assume that she knew the chief ingredient.
“Can I, er, take those, please,” I mumbled, when it was my turn, half expecting her to warn me that I’d never make a baby if I wore one of these, on the off-chance that I was a lapsing Catholic. I passed the bundle two-handed across the glass-topped counter, followed by my credit card. She was counting them when the phone rang. “Excuse me,” she said, placing my goods in a neat pile and turning to answer it. Unfortunately Durex packs are shiny and rounded, and don’t stack up well. They slid over and spread-eagled themselves across the counter, fanning out like a hand of cards. I turned and smiled guiltily at the baby in the arms of the young girl who headed the queue that was forming behind me. The girl smiled back at me.
Seventy-six flippin’ quid they cost. And thirty pence. I grabbed the bag that the assistant handed over and turned to flee, only glancing at the five women and two men in the queue behind me enough to notice that the last man looked suspiciously like my window cleaner. As I passed him he touched my sleeve. I turned to say hello, but he just said “Receipt.”
“Pardon?”
“You forgot your receipt.”
“Oh, thanks.” I went back to the counter and the grey-haired assistant passed it to me. I felt as if I ought to make a witty remark, but she was already listening to her next customer.
Jason Lee Gelder wasn’t what I’d expected. I try not to be fooled by first impressions, but he took me for a ride. I shook hands with his brief, the duty solicitor, when he introduced himself, although we meet nearly as often as the swing doors down at the Job Centre, and sat down opposite them.
“Is it Jason or Lee?” I asked.
“Er, Jason,” he replied. He had the palest blue eyes I’d ever seen, short fair hair in a sensible style, a high forehead and a full mouth and jaw-line. When it came to looks, he was a heart-breaker, and I could imagine the girls falling for him like lemmings off a cliff. But nature gives with one hand and takes away with the other.
“Right, Jason,” I began. “Are they looking after you well?”
“Er, yeah.”
“I see they’ve given you your own clothes back.”
“Er, yeah.”
“We were allowed to collect some from his home,” the solicitor explained, “but most of his clothes are with your forensic people.”
“For tests,” I told Jason. “We do tests on them.” Before either of them could speak again I said: “This is an informal interview, to clear up a few things about this and another case. We are not recording or taking notes, but I have to tell you, Jason, that you are still under caution and anything you say may be taken down and used in evidence. Do you understand?”
“Yeah,” he said, which meant that he was probably the only one of us who did.
“Which newspapers do you read, Jason?” I asked.
He shuffled uncomfortably in his seat and stared down at somewhere near his navel.
“The Sun?” I suggested. “Or the Sunday Sport?”
He shook his head and curled up even more.
“If I may,” the solicitor interrupted. “Jason has reading difficulties. He doesn’t buy a newspaper.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” I said, taken aback for a moment. Then I remembered the magazines that were found in his room. “You like pictures, though, don’t you?” I asked. “Which paper has the best girls in it? Tell me that, Jason.”
“Dunno,” he mumbled.
“But you look at them?”
“I suppose so.”
“Which ones?”
“Dunno.”
“Where do you see them?”
“All over.”
“Such as?”
“Anywhere.”
“Tell me, Jason. I’m trying to help you.”
He shrugged his shoulders and looked towards his brief for help. The solicitor waved a palm towards me in a gesture that said: “For God’s sake tell the man.”
“In the pub,” he replied.
“What?” I began. “You mean, people leave them in the pub and you collect them?”
“I don’t collect them. I just ’ave a look.”
“Where else?”
“Mates’ ’ouses. All over.”
“Which papers do you like best?”
“I dunno. They’re all the same.”
“The Sport?”
“Sometimes.”
