‘So if you want the job, it’s yours.’
‘It’s tempting,’ I said, ‘but I have only one question. And it is an important question.’
‘Ask away, my brother.’
‘Which one of us will wear the trench coat?’ I asked.
And so it came to be. My brother rented the rooms above Uncle Ted the greengrocer’s. These rooms had been empty for a very long time, due, we were told by Uncle Ted, to their evil reputation. They were cursed, some said, and haunted by a headless Druid policeman.
But Uncle Ted held to his own opinions. ‘So,’ said he, ‘a few folk have gone mad in these rooms. There has been a suicide or two. Murders have been committed and folk have gone missing. But what do you expect for three pounds a week and a share in the electricity bill with downstairs?’
‘We’ll take it,’ said my brother.
And Uncle Ted crossed himself.
We didn’t have much in the way of furniture. There was a desk included (‘It carries with it a terrible reputation,’ Uncle Ted told us) and a chair. One chair that it was rumoured had once belonged to Satan. But we were going to need a filing cabinet and a water cooler and another desk and another chair for the big-breasted blonde to sit at and on. And Andy was going to need a chair to sit in, because I intended to have the one that was there. For it swivelled. And how cool is a swivel chair?
And we were going to need a calendar. And a telephone and a business diary and have something etched on the glass of the door, if this was going to be a real private eye’s office. Something like-
PRIVATYLER
I suggested.
ANDY INVESTIGATIONS
Suggested my brother.
And so we reached a compromise:
LAZLO WOODBINE PRIVATE EYE
It was a blinding compromise.
‘We will do it by turns,’ I explained to my brother, for I, as I’ve said, was a natural at this. ‘One week you can play the part of Laz and wear the trench coat and the fedora. And the next week it will be my turn.’
‘And what if a case takes more than a week to solve?’ asked Andy.
And I raised my eyebrows at this. ‘Don’t you ever watch TV?’ I asked him. ‘TV cop shows? They always solve the case in a single episode. And that’s only an hour. No case could possibly take more than a week to solve.’
‘I like the cut of your jib,’ said my brother. ‘But I am now beginning to wonder whether putting the name of a fictional private eye upon the door might put off potential punters?’
‘No no no,’ I said. And I raised my ear-brows. ‘People still write to Sherlock Holmes, asking him to solve their cases.’
‘That is absurd,’ said my brother. ‘They don’t, do they?’
‘They do,’ I said. [12]
‘Then they must be mad,’ my brother said.
‘Misled, I think,’ said I.
‘Misled indeed, writing to Sherlock Holmes to ask him to solve cases.’ And my brother laughed. ‘When everybody knows that he retired to the Sussex Downs to keep bees.’
‘Right,’ I said. ‘The Sussex Downs and bees.’
And so that is how we set up. I hadn’t heard from either Toby or Neil for a while and we had not been doing any further rehearsing. Mr Ishmael hadn’t contacted me about anything either. So, until something did happen on the music front, there would be no harm in pursuing a career in private-eyeing. Everything was working out perfectly.
So I pushed away all those horrible thoughts about zombies and the Necrosphere and all the rest of it and concentrated on the job in hand.
And we got the door glass etched and everything:
LAZLO WOODBINE PRIVATE EYE
And we sat, me on the chair and my brother on the floor.
Because a toss of the coin had decided that I would be Laz for the first week, and we awaited the arrival of our first client. And also the arrival of the blonde lady with the big bosoms who would hopefully be answering the ad upon a postcard in the newsagent’s window.
And, in that bizarre and unexplained way that buses never arrive separately but always two or three at a time, it turned out that our first client and our secretary arrived at precisely the same time. And in the person of the same person. So to speak.
And we had the first of our Big Adventures.
And one Big Adventure it was.
22
Her name was Lola.
And she was a showgirl, she assured us. Although not until later.
Andy was the first to see her coming. A single iron staircase led up to our offices from beside Uncle Ted’s greengrocery, and light reflected from that staircase and onto the glass panel of our door. And Andy and I were playing hide and seek for want of something better to do, and I was hiding under the desk, which was the only place to hide in the room and made the game rather pointless in my opinion, so Andy, who was counting, saw her first.
Which showed, in my opinion, that he must have been cheating, because you are supposed to cover your eyes when you count.
‘A client,’ cried Andy.
‘We’re playing hide and seek,’ I told him, ‘not I-spy-with-my-little-eye. ’ And then I explained that you have to spy something that you can actually see with your little eye.
‘Someone’s coming up the steps,’ said Andy. ‘It must be a client.’
‘It might be a potential big-breasted secretary.’
‘I haven’t put the card in the newsagent’s window yet.’
‘A client!’ I rose from beneath the desk.
‘So that was where you were hiding,’ said Andy. ‘Very clever.’
I didn’t say ‘right’. I had been trying really really hard not to say ‘right’ unless it was absolutely necessary.
A knock came at our office door and we both beheld the silhouette of the knocker. It was curvaceous. It was an hourglass figure.
‘It’s crumpet,’ said Andy. ‘Now be on your best behaviour.’
‘Me?’ I said.
‘Well, don’t go all silly. You know how you are with girls.’
‘I’m suave with girls, me,’ I said. ‘I’m suave and debonair.’
