‘Great place isn’t it?’
His eyes narrowed but he kept on eating as if there was a time limit and he was up against it. It was probably true.
‘You been here long?’ I beamed at him.
He put the spoon down and said, ‘Why you asking? I’ve done nothing wrong.’
‘Just being friendly.’
‘We were looking for the harp player,’ said Calamity.
‘The one in the stovepipe hat,’ I added. As if there were any other type.
The man narrowed his eyes and regarded us for a second; then, having decided it was safe to divulge this piece of information, said: ‘She doesn’t come on till the evening.’
We feigned disappointment.
‘Did you know she was seeing the Father Christmas who got whacked?’ said Calamity.
The man choked on his gruel. He picked up his bowl and spoon and scurried over to one of the Klowns. He spoke to him, turning and pointing to us as he did. The Klown took out a notebook, wrote something down, and then left the room. We decided to leave, too.
‘What are we going to say to the stovepipe hat girl when we find her,’ said Calamity.
‘Well, we could always try the subtle approach you just used there; that seemed to work quite well.’
‘Yes, I goofed. We need to be more oblique.’
‘You can say that again.’
‘The Pinkertons wouldn’t have done it like that.’
‘What would they have done?’
‘Psychology. That’s what they’d have used.’
‘I’m all for that.’
‘If we go straight in and ask the party about her relationship with the DOA, she’ll clam up, right? We have to find a way to make her drop her guard. We achieve that objective by enlisting her sympathy.’
‘How do we do that? Say our dog’s got a thorn in its paw?’
‘No, but you could pretend to be sick and we could knock on the door.’
‘I’ve got a better idea. You pretend to be sick and we knock on the door.’
‘Why me?’
‘Because they will feel more sorry for you, especially as you will look so sweet with those ribbons in your hair.’
‘What ribbons?’
‘The ones we will buy on the way.’
‘I’m not wearing ribbons.’
‘Think of it as going undercover.’
We were interrupted by the sound of an explosion somewhere towards the car park. Calamity and I exchanged glances and without needing to discuss it turned our steps in that direction.
A man wearing chef’s whites rushed out of the kitchen and came up to us. ‘Can I help you, sir?’
‘No, we’re just going over to the car.’
‘Your car?’
‘Yes, we heard something over there, sounded like a crash.’
‘Wouldn’t you prefer to go to the bus stop? There’s one due any minute.’
‘Bus stop?’
‘It’s a wonderful service, sir, truly wonderful. You really shouldn’t listen to those idiots who disparage it. Really you shouldn’t.’ He looked at me with a beseeching expression and watery eyes filled with imploring anguish. His voice was thin and had the whine that a regularly beaten dog gets. ‘Please, sir, it really is a wonderful bus.’ He grabbed my sleeve. ‘I wish I had time to take it myself.’
‘But we’ve got a car, we want to go to our car.’
His face fell and a look of utter hopelessness swept across it. ‘Your car, yes, of course you do. And why not? If I had a car, I’d want to go to it too. It would be crazy to expect anything else.’ He let go of my sleeve with the air of a man whose last hope of salvation has disappeared. ‘It was foolish of me. Absurdly foolish.’
‘I’m sorry but we really must be going.’
‘You can come, too, if you like,’ said Calamity.
The man struggled with himself in the grip of his anguish. He grabbed his wrist and twisted it. ‘But what are you going to do when you get to your car?’
‘Drive home, I suppose.’
‘But that’s a crazy plan . . .’
A man in a tuxedo and black bow tie appeared from around a corner and joined us. ‘Is there a problem?’
‘He wants to drive home,’ said the chef.
The man in the tuxedo grinned with joy. ‘My word, sir, my word! A sportsman, a true sportsman.’
‘We were going to drive to Talybont.’
‘I see, sir, you are an optimist. A man who, if I may be permitted the observation, sees always the doughnut and never the hole.’ He turned to the chef. ‘Don’t you agree, Johnny?’
‘Absolutely Mr Fortnightly. You have to admire it, you really do.’
The man who was Mr Fortnightly allowed a look of wan sadness to transform his face. It was acting, but it was good acting. ‘Ah, but alas, sir, I suspect even you would be rather less sanguine if you were to see the condition of your car now.’
‘Why? What’s happened?’
‘I fear a rock may have hit the fuel tank.’
‘Is someone throwing rocks?’
‘Rocks are a common feature of the sea shore.’
‘But our car isn’t on the sea shore . . . is it?’
‘Yes.’
‘But how did it get there?
‘Plummeted.’
How?’
‘I’m afraid there you have me, sir. You will have to take the matter up with Mr Newton.’
‘Where can I find him?’
‘He’s in Westminster Abbey. Unless you are a modernist, in which case you would probably have more sympathy for the view of Mr Einstein . . .’
‘You’re referring to Sir Isaac Newton, aren’t you?
‘Indeed, sir. Your car has been gripped by the mysterious force of gravity and fallen off the cliff. In doing so, it has sustained what both the aforementioned physicists would describe as a massive increase in entropy, to a degree that would severely prejudice your plan of driving it home.’
We reached the car park and found, to our relief, that our car was still there. But the one next to it was being winched up from the beach. The two men exchanged gleeful glances and then burst out laughing. The man in the tuxedo handed me a card on which was written, ‘Kongratulations! You’ve just had your leg pulled by Johnny Sarkastik and his assistant, Mr Fortnightly.’ He grabbed my hand and shook it, saying: ‘Well done, sir, what a sport!’ Then he lowered his voice and added, ‘You had a lucky fucking escape this time, didn’t you, snooper.’
We interpreted this as an invitation to leave and drove to Talybont. On the way we stopped a district nurse who pointed out the cottage where the harpist lived. It was set away from the road at the end of a small lane, built from slabs of grey stone under a mauve roof of slate gleaming in the watery air. Dank weeds and grasses grew up against the walls and gave off a strong vapour of rottenness; a horse stamped in a stable nearby.
We stood in the doorway and knocked, Calamity doing her best to look sick and woebegone.
The door was opened by a girl wearing a red flannel shawl over a white blouse and a black-and-white checked skirt; on her feet were shoes with shiny Tudor buckles. She looked younger than the photo in the newspaper – about nineteen, perhaps – and prettier. She smiled.
‘I’m so sorry,’ I said. ‘My daughter has had a nasty turn. Could we trouble you for an aspirin?’
‘Oh, you poor little mite,’ said the girl, automatically lowering herself a few inches as if Calamity were a five-
