As Good as Dead Read online

  The breakfast in the Churchill had looked terrific, as you’d expect from such a posh place. Mind you, it wouldn’t have taken much to look better than the under-cooked sausages, burnt toast and rock hard baked beans that my bed and breakfast had served up with dishwater tea. All the same, I decided to save the delights of the Churchill’s restaurant for the following day and, instead, wandered off to find something in one of the many cafes that cluttered up the surrounding streets.

  That had been an hour earlier and now I was at a loose end, free to spend my time as I liked until 12.30 precisely, when I would be meeting the woman whose interests I was there to defend. And defend them I would! Sir Galahad himself wouldn’t do a better job. So long as things didn’t take too nasty a turn and involve anything that might cause me to give up a tooth or break any bones, I was confident I could handle it. Likewise, if I happened to find myself with a distressed damsel on my hands then I’d do my very best to take her mind off things, in whatever way she found most enjoyable.

  Resisting the limited temptations on offer on the beach, I decided to wander around the town centre for a while, in no small part to see if the place had changed much since I’d spent nine months living there a few years previous. At one point, I stopped outside an antiques shop (at least that’s what it was called, though a lot of the gear on offer didn’t look to me like it was more than a decade old) to cast an eye over one of those old Victorian cameras that stands on a wooden tripod and has a leather hood you pull over your head when you use it. I fancied the idea of having one on display in the office.

  I’d only been there a couple of minutes when I felt a tug on my shirt sleeve and looked round to see who was bothering me. Nothing. Then I looked down.

  “Here, matey. You got any spare change?”

  I was being accosted by a dwarf bloke wearing a dirty and tatty pink ballet dress and a pair of high heels. He must have been sixty, if he was a day, with the same gnarly, stubbly face all dossers have. He reeked of alcohol. If his unexpected attire caught me a little bit off balance then his squeaky, little-girl voice had me nearly falling over with surprise.

  “Do what?” I asked,

  “Spare some change for a cuppa, mate?” He might have smiled, but he didn’t, the cheeky git.

  “Sod off,” I replied, cheerily.

  He turned and started walking away along the pavement without another word. I looked at my watch again and thought about a little trip to the nearest newsagent to get myself a newspaper. But I hadn’t taken so much as a single step when I noticed my right trouser leg suddenly felt wet and if I wasn’t mistaken it was getting wetter. I looked behind me and standing there was the dwarf in the dress. He’d sneaked back up behind me, pulled up the front of his little pink taffeta number, whipped out his todger and was standing there pissing over my trousers. Even as I turned round he didn’t budge an inch, just kept the flow going and looked up at me with a blank expression.

  “You fucking git,” I said, before swinging a right hook in his direction.

  But he was quick as a greyhound, ducking my punch, then legging it down the road like greased lightning, a string of naughty words trailing along behind him. Steam rose from my soaking trouser leg, which stunk like an over-used toilet. The newspaper would have to wait; I needed a change of trousers.

  *

  After a trip to the hotel to change into my one spare pair of jeans, I popped into a gift shop, picked up a postcard for my mum, scrawled a few words on it, then posted it at the first Post Office I came to. She loves getting postcards from the seaside, does my old mum, and I’m a good son, so I send her one every time I visit the coast; which isn’t very often, to be fair.

  With just over an hour to go until I needed to be at the railway station, I continued my wander around the town centre. Not really being one for the old window shopping, I stayed out of the shops. Anyway, what the hell is the point of spending time in shops when you’ve no intention of buying anything? My sister, Kim, keeps telling me it’s perfectly normal, saying you never know when you might find something unexpected you like and, if you don’t make the effort, then you’ll never find these things. She says it’s fun and a nice way to spend time with a friend or two. Do what? If I want something, then I go shopping. If there’s nothing I want then, surprise, surprise, I don’t go shopping. I’ve got better things to do with my time than go shopping when there’s nothing I need.

  Anyway, Brighton isn’t all shops. That’s not to say it hasn’t got it’s fair share, and then some, but there’s other places aside from the shops. I took a turn down past the Prince Regent’s palace. I went in there once. It’s ridiculous, like it’s been picked up from foreign parts then dropped in the middle of Brighton. Still, the tourists love it and can’t wait to spend their money getting into the place then buying postcards and all sorts of souvenirs as reminders.

  There used to be a baker’s on Orange Row that did the best Battenberg cake I’ve ever tasted. Out of this world, it was. So I toddled off to take a look, thinking I might even pick up a slice or two for later. But when I got there I found it had been turned into a curry house. That put a temporary dampener on my morning. What with that and the pissing dwarf, my morning wasn’t shaping up any too impressively.

  My taste buds tingling with the imaginary, sugary taste of Battenburg, I decided I might as well head off towards the railway station, on the basis that I had nothing better to do and my mum always told me it was a good idea to make a sound impression by arriving in good time for a first appointment. Top rate advice, I’d always found.

  The railway station in Brighton was built in Victorian times (aren’t they always) and as usual British Rail had done their level best to make it as ugly as possible, slapping crappy grey paint on every wall, hiding away the original decoration. Progress is what some numpties call it; bad taste is what everyone else calls it.

  There was chaos on the road outside the station. Some idiot had broken down and was poking around under the bonnet of his motor while the hordes of taxi drivers were helping by punching their horns and swearing at him as they inched their cars past his Vauxhall. Maybe he’d done it on purpose. Perhaps he showed up in the same spot every day and pretended he’d broken down; would be good to use up a bit of time if you were retired or unemployed and bored or lonely.

  As I walked into the station, I looked at my watch. Twelve-fourteen. I was early. A pat on the back for me. Although there were plenty of punters coming and going, I didn’t have any trouble finding myself a seat, clean and not broken, from where I could see the arrivals board. I gave the board a scan. There it was, just the three minutes late, so far. Pretty good going.

  I leaned back, folded my arms and stretched out my legs, then had another look at my watch. That’s a habit I’ve picked up on the job, is that, looking at my watch every few minutes. It’s essential sometimes. For instance, if you’re keeping tabs on someone and it involves writing up a proper report of their activity then you need to make a note of what the time is whenever they do anything, whether it’s interesting or mundane. Vague reports don’t go down too well in court.

  I could hardly believe how noisy the station was, considering it wasn’t anywhere near operating at full capacity, seeing how it was the middle of the day. It was like it had been designed to deliberately keep in every little sound, just to make sure you got the full effect. It was a bit on the chilly side too, which was something of a surprise considering it was warm outside.

  Ignoring the noise and the creeping boredom, I started thinking about the Churchill, wondering if there was something I might have missed earlier. You see, I’d checked in just before five the evening before, dumped my bag and jacket in my bedroom, then wasted no time giving the place the old once over, as ordered by Henry Scoular, of Scoular and Hart, Solicitors, don’t you know.

  The trouble was, like I’d told myself before, I had no real idea what I was supposed to be looking for. Scoular hadn’t been any help at all in that department. Was he wor
ried about his client getting food poisoning because hygiene standards in the kitchen were rubbish? Or was I supposed to be on the look out for an undercover assassin just biding their time to slit the woman’s throat? Who the hell knew? I certainly didn’t.

  Ordinarily, I would have been a bit more fussy about such things, but as I was being paid a small fortune for my little holiday, I’d decided not to push things and just make it up when I got to the hotel. Well, I hadn’t seen anyone walking around with a length of garotting wire in their mits or toting a rifle with a telescopic sight. Nor had I noticed any of the other guests staggering around holding their guts, so I supposed the food was alright, unless they were saving the dodgy stuff for later. I did get asked by one of the staff, when I hung around for too long in reception, if there was anything he could do to help. All I could do was ask him where the bar was. He was happy to point me in the right direction.

  However, it hadn’t been a complete waste of time wandering around the place looking for nothing in particular. You see, I always make a point at hotels of chatting to at least one of the nice women working on reception, since they usually know everything that’s going on there. Of course, you could opt for a pretty little thing and see if you can bag yourself a drink and a snog later on, but I usually find you get a lot more out of an older woman, on account, I reckon, they like a little bit of attention from a good looking bloke like yours truly, or any man, for that matter. Butter them up and it’s not too tricky getting whatever information you need out of them.

  Well, there I was chatting to Mavis Devon, a happily married woman, so she told me, with two grown up kids and a sister-in-law who’d won a hundred quid on the bingo the week before. Mavis had already told me the comedian Freddie Starr has stayed at the hotel only the previous month and was about to tell me some juicy gossip about him when she clammed up, all of a sudden.

  The cause of this about turn was the arrival behind the huge reception desk of a dark-haired woman in a smart dress suit. Late forties, I guessed, she’d stepped out of a doorway to what looked like some sort of office, off to my right, and started behaving in a boss-like way, inspecting things that didn’t look like they needed inspecting and asking every member of staff in sight questions they probably didn’t need to be asked.

  I watched her for a bit, as she made her way along to where I stood. Nice figure. But it was when she looked directly at me that I realised how intimidating her eyes were. I nearly ran away.

  “Can I help you, sir?”

  Business-like. Not too friendly, but not gruff or uninterested. Professional, that was it. That was the sort of thing I tried to be, every once in a while. There were little lines at the corners of her eyes and a couple more trying to hide on her neck. Bit too much make-up. Late forties? Maybe early fifties. Those grey eyes, though, they were something else.

  “Mavis here was just telling me I should get my fortune read by the old dear on the pier. I might hear some good news, she reckoned.

  The new arrival hesitated before she responded. I wondered for a moment if I’d cocked up and dropped Mavis in it. Perhaps she wasn’t supposed to go around making suggestions like that to the paying punters.

  “I see. Had you considered the possibility it might not be good news at all? There’s no guarantee it will be something you want to hear.”

  “No, they never tell you when it’s bad. Not good for business. They make up something else. Tell you a family member or close friend or someone you met once at a party ten years ago might, possibly, win a fiver on the pools some time in the next decade. Or how about, I’ve got a relative somewhere in a foreign country whose going to leave me a small fortune when they pop their clogs, just so long as I don’t die first? Or so said Gypsy Gertrude at the travelling fair on Peckham Rye two years ago.”

  “Well, then, you’d better be sure not to step out in front of any buses or walk under any ladders before you collect your inheritance.”

  There was a hint of a smile on the woman’s face. It suited her, losing some of that professional mask she was wearing.

  “I’m more worried about some of my relatives. I’d say there’s an even chance one or two of them would try to bump me off before I got my hands on the loot, if they thought they’d get it instead.”

  “Do you have a large family?”

  “Big enough. Means having to write out a lot of cards at Christmas. Would you happen to be the manager of this here establishment?”

  “I am. Angela Webster.”

  She offered me her hand; to shake, that is, not to kiss. Her fingers were long and slender and she had a firm grip.

  “David Good. Down from the smoke for a few days.”

  She was about to say something when her attention was caught by the sight of a young woman carrying a clipboard and a small pile of towels. Having asked the woman to wait a moment she turned and said she hoped I enjoyed my stay, before homing in on the towel carrier, to issue some instructions.

  As it happened, that wasn’t the only time that day I saw Angela Webster. Bored to tears stuck in my room with nothing much on the TV, I toddled downstairs and made my way to the bar. It wasn’t really my kind of place for having a drink; too sterile and filled with bored couples without much to say to each other. I was about to turn right round and head off in search of a pub when I spotted Angela at the far end of the bar, all alone, apart from a drink and a book. She had opportunity written all over her.

  “Is it any good?” I asked, pulling up a bar stool next to her.

  Angela had been so engrossed, she hadn’t noticed me right up to the moment I spoke. She looked up from her book with a start and then smiled.

  “It is and I was just getting to an exciting part.”

  “Ah. Want me to clear off?”

  She shook her head.

  “It can wait.”

  “What is it?”

  “Frankenstein.”

  I looked at a small group of people sitting at a table towards the middle of the room, then back at Angela.

  “Could be his next victim sitting right there,” I quipped.

  She smiled again, then closed the book and put it on the bar next to her drink.

  “David, isn’t it?”

  “That’s me. I bet you can remember most people’s names. Probably goes with the job.”

  “It does help people to feel they’re getting the personal touch if you can remember their name.”

  “Another drink?”

  She caught the barman’s eye and held up her nearly empty glass. As she did that I cast a quick eye over her, noticing she’d changed the dress suit I’d seen her in earlier for a loose fitting purple jumper and a pair of blue jeans. I reckoned it was safe to say she was as off duty as she ever was.

  “What brings you to the Churchill, David? I’m guessing you’re not here on holiday.”

  “International crime,” I replied, as casually as if it was the sort of thing I got involved in all the time.

  “And what sort of international crime would that be?”

  The sparkle in her grey eyes told me she was amused and happy to play along. How to maintain the pace, that was my problem now. It’s hard trying to sound interesting for more than a couple of minutes; or it is if you’re me.

  “Gun running. Brighton’s a hot bed for that sort of thing. Nasty blokes in sharp suits with hordes of bodyguards. They meet up here twice a year from all over the place. Nice hotel like this, I bet there’s plenty of ’em staying here right now.”

  “And what part would you happen to play in all this?”

  “I’m a specialist. Specialist in making up rubbish stories.”

  The barman slid Angela’s fresh gin and tonic into place, right next to the old one. Before he could escape I ordered myself a pint of lager.

  “It’s better than a lot of stories I’ve heard in this bar. I suppose you’re going to disappoint me by telling me you sell insurance or used cars.”

  I don’t always tell people what I really do for a l
iving because it gives them ideas; wrong ideas. Most people think I sneak around in back gardens trying to take photos of husbands and wives getting up to no good, which actually I do from time-to-time, or else they expect me to be tracking down brutal killers who the coppers haven’t been able to find. I’ve done that once or twice, but it’s hardly my bread and butter stuff.

  Instead, I said, “I’m babysitting.”

  “Your baby?”

  “Not so far as I know. No, this one’s grown up. She’s coming down from London on the train tomorrow afternoon, accompanied by her solicitor tomorrow and I’m looking after her for a few days.”

  “Not exactly a baby, then? And why are you looking after her?”

  I hesitated, thought what the heck, then took the plunge and owned up to being a private investigator. When she didn’t pick up her drink and walk straight off, I gave her a run-through of my latest assignment, thinking that at least it might give me a way of sussing out if there really was anything going on at the hotel I ought to be worried about. She soon put me right on that account, convinced as she was that if there was anything untoward happening in the hotel then she would know about it soon enough. I didn’t feel inclined to disagree with her.

  I did, though, get the impression Angela was disappointed Alexandra Rudd wasn’t already tucked away on the premises. Seemed to me, she was curious to meet this mystery woman and find out for herself what she was like. Not that I could tell Angela very much myself, seeing how I had yet to meet the woman I was being paid so handsomely to take care of for the following few days.

  Anyway, after she’d ordered us yet another round of drinks, despite the fact I’d not even got halfway through my latest pint, Angela made an enquiry of her own as to my availability for work. Apparently, it was the sort of thing someone with my undoubted talents should have no trouble adding to my to-do list. How she’d come to the conclusion so soon that I had talents of any sort was a bit of a mystery to me.