‘What bloody book?’
‘Wrote it down on the back of the paper.’
I turned the paper over. Written on the back was ‘Saraband Two by R. Duchêne’.
I sat up smartly and said, ‘Well, I’m damned!’
Miggs grinned even wider. ‘He said you would be pleased. What is it—some dirty piece of work, guaranteed to rouse the dullest appetite?’
‘Something like that,’ I said.
‘Any time between two and three of an afternoon, he said.’
‘Thanks.’
‘When you’ve finished with it I’ll borrow it.’
‘You won’t.’
He reached for my glass which, to my surprise, was already empty. I was getting Olafs complaint—but I made no struggle against it. A little Dutch courage was just what I needed at this moment.
CHAPTER 9
Blowing Hot and Cold
I was there at fifteen minutes past two—and left at fifteen minutes past three. In that time I had been given my instructions by Saraband Two, and also had been forced into buying an African parrot for the knock-down price of ten pounds. Its vocabulary’ was knockdown too; limited but forceful. I gave it to Miggs on my way home.
The pet shop had two dirty bow-fronted windows, and inside it was as dark as a cave and smelt like a kennel. The doorbell rang as I went in and closed the door behind me.
A raucous voice screamed, ‘Shut it! Bloody shut it!’
I said into the gloom, ‘If you use your eyes you’ll see I’ve shut it.’
‘Sad thing! Bloody sad thing!’ the voice screamed.
I saw then that the owner was a parrot in a large and tarnished cage hanging just inside the door. In a tall, wire-framed enclosure that ran down the middle of the shop five or six dozen small tropical birds huddled together in groups, swopping chirping, nostalgic memories of their homelands. Bags of hound meal, fish and bird food were stacked on the floor and dusty shelves. Dog leads and collars, rubber bones and poodle jackets hung from the ceiling. On either side of the door at the back of the shop were cages with long-haired rabbits and short-haired guinea pigs. In a long glass tank a shoal of goldfish moved slowly round and round in an endless gavotte.
The parrot yelled, ‘Get that hair cut! Get that bloody hair cut!’ For want of company, I said, ‘I like it this way.’
For answer it blew me a raspberry. At this moment a man about three foot six high, bald as an egg, with a badly coloured shell, shuffled out of the gloom to one corner of the far end of the shop, and blinked at me through steel-framed glasses. He might have been for sale himself. Genuine dwarf, hardly used, look lovely in any front garden. He wore a green baize apron of the kind that went out with butlers’ pantries, a wool cap, khaki-coloured, that went out with the First World War, and a collarless shirt that had once been white. He could have been any age from seventy up.
He squinted at me, and then at the parrot, and said, ‘Dirty-mouthed little sod, ain’t he?’
‘Company to have around, though.’
‘Come off an Esso oil tanker. Second cook ’ad ’im. Been all over the world, ’e ’as, and talks like it.’
The parrot, knowing he held the centre of the stage, said sadly, ‘Nellie . . . Bloody Nellie . . .’
‘Are you Mr Ankers?’ I asked the dwarf.
‘Unhappily, yes.’ He had a gulping kind of voice, as though he were holding back a sob all the time.
‘I’m Carver. You left a message with a friend of mine.’
‘Ah, yes. In that case you won’t want to be bothered with small stuff like Zebra finches or black-headed mannikins, will you. Not even a Spreo starling or a Shama. Right?’
‘Right.’
‘No. The one for you is Alfred there. Genuine African, five years Esso-cook trained, live to be a ’undred. Company for yer old age. Gentle in ’is ways, too. Only bites when ’ungry. Fifteen pounds knock-down price.’
‘I don’t want a parrot. You know what I want. I’m Carver.’
‘I know you don’t want a parrot, but you got to ’ave one or you don’t get through that back door. I ’as to ’ave my perks, don’t I?’
‘Do you? I’m here by invitation.’
‘Makes no odds.’ He switched from a sob to a sigh, shook his head, and went on, ‘It’s an understandin’ I ’ave with ’em. Got into trouble, I did, years ago with ’em. ’Ad a ’old over me since and used me. Used me cruel. But I said that’s all right—just so long as I get me cut off that kind of visitor. So don’t ask any that won’t act straight and upcoming about buying. Fifteen pounds. Last a lifetime. Give all your friends a good belly laugh.’
‘I should buy a parrot when I don’t want one? Just to get through a door to see someone I don’t want to see?’
‘That’s the long and short of it, mate. Anyway, what’s wrong? You taken against Alfred?’
I looked at Alfred. He pulled the skin down over one eye in the lewdest leer I’ve ever seen.
‘I think he’s charming. You take a cheque?’
‘Cash.’
‘You guarantee if he bites I don’t get psittacosis?’
‘If he bites it’ll be bleedin’ painful—that’s all I guarantee.’
I handed him two fivers.
‘Fifteen,’ he said.
‘Ten is what you get. You’ve led me enough of a dance.’
For a moment his eyes came up to me, the glance shrewd, calculating and a little unsettling—and at that moment it wasn’t taking much to unsettle me. Then he shrugged his shoulders.
‘All right. Bloody soft-hearted I am. Through the door, up the stairs, first door on the right.’ He put a hand on my arm. ‘Listen, you look a spunky kind. Cheeky, sort of. Don’t try miffin’. Saraband’s very high up, and they got ways. Nasty ways if you come the old acid. I know.’
‘Thanks.’
I made for the door.
From behind me Alfred shouted, ‘So long, old cock!’
‘Don’t worry,’ I called, ‘I’ll be back—I hope.’
I went up a stairway lit by one bulb. The wall on my left was covered with graffiti which
