Sitting in the ‘sauna’ (a locker room with sundry showers in need of regrouting), a towel round his hips, Markham exhaled in satisfaction, Chris Carstairs having succumbed to his onslaught in record time.
‘Christ, Markham. I dunno what you’re on, but please can I have some?’ Carstairs clapped him on the shoulder. ‘Or was Sidney worse than usual today?’ He grinned, well aware that the gym was his colleague’s safety valve after confrontations with the DCI.
‘It’s the community centre case, Chris.’ No point beating around the bush. ‘Sidney wants to pin the murders on a local perv PDQ.’
‘Ah, I’m with you.’ The other DI’s grin broadened. ‘I take it you’d like some intel to get him off your back.’
‘That’s about the size of it.’ Markham had the pleasurable sense of muscles and tendons unsnarling . . . unknotting. His headache seemed to have vanished.
‘My pleasure, mate. I haven’t forgotten your help with Councillor Taylor and his merry men. Good to put an end to that racket.’
‘Even if your methods owed more to The Sweeney than Critical Incident Procedure — eh, Chris?’
‘Pre-cise-ly, Markham.’ Carstairs towelled himself off vigorously, buoyant even after his pummelling in the ring. ‘Reckon George Noakes approved.’
‘Indeed. Though I’m not sure that’s necessarily a point in your favour.’
‘How’s the old villain doing? I see Sidney hasn’t managed to put him out to grass.’
‘Not for want of trying,’ was the grim reply. ‘Noakesy’s fine. Just a bit kerflummoxed by the — how shall I put it? — “gamey” way our second victim presented . . .’
‘Oh yeah . . . I heard about that.’ Hardly surprising, since CID leaked like a sieve. ‘But the autoerotic stuff — it was a set-up, right?’
‘Looks like it.’ An unwelcome image of Peter Elford’s pathetic corpse, crumpled like a marionette across his dining table, flashed across Markham’s consciousness.
‘You reckon your second vic was blackmailing the killer, then?’
‘It’s the most likely scenario . . . Could have had personal reasons for staying shtum — some kind of sexual angle, though whether gay or heterosexual, who can say.’
The other whistled. ‘No wonder Noakesy’s hot under the collar. Who’d have thought that boring old medical centre would turn out to be a hotbed of seething passions. Talking of seething passions, who’re you gonna give me to work up the Vice angle? Some luscious lovely, I trust.’
‘Down, Rover!’ It was Markham’s turn to grin. ‘Kate Burton’s a whiz when it comes to cooking the books for Sidney.’
Carstairs’ face fell. ‘Oh God, no. Not that extraordinarily earnest DS with eyes like lollipops.’
‘The very same.’
‘Oh God,’ Carstairs said again. ‘No chance of a leg over there.’
‘None whatsoever. She’s engaged to Colin Pugh in Fraud and the personification of virtue.’
‘I got the impression she only had eyes for you, Gil.’ Carstairs’ gaze was curious, his tone slyly mischievous.
‘Get out of it, Chris. Married to the job and — one day — Colin. That’s Kate Burton.’
‘If you say so.’
At that moment, the eponymous Doggie appeared, horsehair wig askew and nicotine-stained teeth bared in the nearest approximation he knew to a welcoming smile.
‘’Lo, Doggie. That’s an interesting outfit,’ Carstairs greeted him.
And indeed it was, Fagin’s doppelganger being swathed in some kind of voluminous kaftan patterned with cabbalistic emblems instead of his customary shabby dishabille.
Doggie beamed at his two ‘fav’rite coppers’.
‘I’m goin’ new age, gents.’
‘What’s brought this on, mate?’ Carstairs boggled at the spectacle.
A coy snaggle-toothed simper was the response.
‘Ah, I scent a lady in the case,’ Markham observed in a deep tone of comprehension.
‘’S right. Marlene from The Pavilion.’
‘Didn’t know you were a bingo player.’
‘Oh, I’m not, Mr Carstairs. It was . . . well . . . a blind date kind of thing.’
More boggling before Markham’s colleague betook himself to a shower cubicle with a cheery, ‘Attaboy, Dogs!’
‘A full makeover is it then, Doggie?’ Markham felt it only polite to show an interest. ‘You going vegan on us — yoga, tai chi and all that jazz?’
The other looked appalled. ‘Oh no, nuffink like that, Mr Markham. More like studying the stars and figuring out me chakras.’ A bashful pause. ‘Mar’s into astrology an’ tarot cards.’
With the amount of Jack Daniel’s Doggie sank of an evening, the idea of him getting high on signs of the Zodiac really didn’t bear thinking about.
‘What d’you know about self-strangulation, Doggie?’
The other’s rheumy eyes blinked but otherwise showed no indication of shock or surprise that Markham would be asking. ‘There was an MP that did it,’ he said finally. ‘Your lot found him in stockings and suspenders with a length of flex round his neck.’ An impressive pause then, ‘He had a bin liner over his head and an orange in his mouth.’ More cogitation. ‘Course he was a Tory . . . so no one was surprised.’
Markham maintained an impregnable composure.
‘Got something like that on the books then, ’ave you, Mr Markham?’ He was clearly pleased to have been consulted.
‘Kind of, Doggie. I don’t really know what to make of it, though.’
‘They thought the MP bloke might’ve been MI5 an’ then the Russkies finished ’im off.’
‘The KGB?’
‘Yeah, that mob.’ Doggie cudgelled his brows. ‘But it didn’t come to anything . . . I reckon the poor sod was just miserable an’ lonely.’ He bridled proudly. Not like me was the subtext.
* * *
Olivia shrieked with laughter later that evening when Markham described Doggie’s Zoroastrian makeover. ‘I’d pay good money to see that, Gil.’
‘Hmm. Well, I’m not too sure what the regulars made of it.’ He grinned. ‘Though I gather most of the local bad boys are familiar with Doggie’s bingo caller — a formidable lady by all accounts —
