“So, you’m telling me, I can wear what I’m wearing?”
“Pretty much,” said Pattimore. Even Stevens could tell the detective constable seemed a little distracted.
“Am you saying I dress like a poof?” Stevens adopted a pugilistic stance, albeit an ironic one.
“Um? No, no! All I’m saying is you don’t have to dress up. We ‘poofs’ come in all colours - some of us, all at once. There’s no uniform. Unless you want one. Then there’s a few to choose from.”
“What, like?” Stevens tried to contribute. “Fireman, builder, Red Indian...”
“Oh, dear,” said Pattimore, “I won’t insult your intelligence, you fucking moron, by asking you to spell YMCA. You’re fine as you are. Even that ’tache.”
Stevens shielded his facial caterpillar with a protective hand.
“I’m sure there’s still some old-school queers who go in for that kind of Freddie Mercury does Tom of Finland kind of vibe.”
“Oi, I’m not trying to get picked up by anybody.”
“I shouldn’t think you’ll have any trouble,” Pattimore laughed. Stevens couldn’t decide if this was a positive or negative remark.
“And the jacket?”
“Hmm?”
“Should it stay or should it go?”
“Oh! Does it clash, you mean? No. It’s...fine... Tan leather... It’s retro, I suppose.”
“Will you stop staring at that fucking door for one second? You’m like a dog waiting for his owner to bring his dinner.”
Pattimore pulled his gaze away. Staring at it wasn’t going to make Brough come through it.
“Funny that,” he looked D I Stevens up and down, “The dog’s dinner is already here.”
***
Things were pretty dead at the cemetery. Time of the year, Jerry knew. People may have been dropping like flies but they were also piling up like flies on a windowsill - the ground was too hard to bury them. Although why people still buried their dead, Jerry couldn’t say. It was selfish. An indulgence. Just burn the bastards and chuck them in the wind, was his privately held view. He took care not to voice it in company in case he argued himself out of his gravedigger’s job.
There would be a backlog until Spring. Back-to-back burials. Hearses tailgating each other. Mourners getting confused about who was going in which hole and crying their eyes out for a perfect stranger by mistake. Every year the same: chaos!
But, for the festive season at least, Jerry could spend some time pottering around and doing a bit of tidying up. Making the place presentable before the post-Christmas rush. Honestly, it was like the January sales sometimes.
He wheeled his barrow along the paths, picking up twigs, litter, and spunk-filled johnnies - abandoned in the last remains of the slush like the souls of so many melted snowmen.
Dirty buggers! Who fucks in a cemetery? Never mind who eats cheese and onion crisps and drinks white cider by the huge plastic bottleful!
Teenagers, Jerry reckoned. He probably did something similar at that age. He remembered fingering Marlene O’Toole on the school playing field one booze-fuelled night.
Ah, Marlene...
Where was she now?
“Oh! Fuck!”
Jerry was startled from his nostalgic reverie by the sudden appearance of Detective Inspector Brough, standing before him with his hands in his raincoat pockets.
Not flashing the warrant card, then.
“Hello, Jerry,” said Brough. “Quick word. It’s about Miller.”
“Who? Mel?”
“Yes. Mel.”
“What’s happened to her?”
“What?”
“Has something happened to her?”
“That’s what I’ve come to ask you.”
“What?”
“Has something happened to her?”
“Who? Mel?”
“Yes! For fuck’s sake!”
“Oh!” Something seemed to dawn on the gravedigger’s face. “Why she’s been off work, you mean?”
“Yes!”
“She’s ill. Proper poorly. Up and down all night she was, like a newlywed’s nightie.”
“Um, quite. And has she seen a doctor?”
“Well, she said she would.”
“And did she?”
“She said she would.”
“But did she? See one?”
“I don’t know, do I?”
“She didn’t say?”
“Bloody hell, if this is how you interrogate your victims...”
“I don’t have victims; I have suspects. Has she seen a doctor or not?”
“You’ll have to ask her, mate, not me.”
“I’ve been trying to. She’s not answering.”
“Well, she wouldn’t, would she? She’s sick. Or haven’t you been listening?”
Brough let out a cry of exasperation. “Why aren’t you looking after her?”
The question earned the detective a cold stare. “Not that it’s any of your business,” Jerry sniffed. He lifted the handles of his wheelbarrow. “But Mel’s resting. I made sure she was comfortable before I come to work. I’ve done my time, mate. Who was it was holding her hair while she’d got her head down the bog at all hours?”
“Who?”
“Me! So I think I’ve earned half a day in the fresh air. I’m taking this afternoon off so I can go back and see to her. Chicken soup and all that razzmatazz. You’ve no need to worry your pretty little head.”
Brough’s pretty little head flushed a pretty shade of red. “It - it - it was a work-related matter.”
“Was it now?”
The two men eyeballed each other in a tense silence.
“You’ll tell her I was asking about her?”
“Mel?”
“Yes.”
“If it’s work-related you can piss off. She needs her rest.”
“Then send her my regards.”
“If you think it’ll help.”
The detective and the gravedigger glared at each other. Jerry smirked and, whistling the theme from a popular television cop show, wheeled his barrow away. Detective Inspector Brough muttered a litany of swearwords in the gravedigger’s wake and then took his third taxi of the day back to Serious.
***
Dickon towelled his hair dry. He was pleased with his performance and soaking himself from head to toe had been the detail that had carried it off. Oh no, you can’t take the delivery to the cellar, Mr Draymen. It’s flooded, you see. Dangerous. Health and Safety. I fell over in it myself, you see.
He’d led them to the garages across the car park. Disused for many years, they were now filling up with things Dickon didn’t want in the cellar.
With the draymen safely diverted and the crates and barrels they’d brought with them securely stashed, Dickon supposed he had better open up for his lunchtime crew. Well, the odd solitary figure hunched over a newspaper - it was hardly a crew. The pub was a much quieter place by day. By night, it was as close to Party Central as Dedley gets.
He was surprised to find a tall man with a perfectly hideous moustache and an outfit that suggested he was a time traveller from the 1970s, or had come directly from an all-night fancy dress party. Dickon suspected the latter was more likely, although in this weird town, you’d be foolish to place a bet. Surely, no one would wear that get-up as their everyday clothes!
“All right, mate?” he greeted the customer. “Hair of the dog, is it?”
Detective Inspector Benny Stevens was aware that the slightly camp bar steward appeared to be staring at his prized moustache. “It’s all my own work,” he replied. He glanced over his shoulder in both directions - not, he told himself, because he didn’t want anyone he knew see him enter a gay pub but because he was hoping Harry Henry would heave into view.
Bloody Harry. Late as usual. Probably slacking off in a chicken shop somewhere, Stevens thought uncharitably.
He approached the counter and waited for the bar steward to get into position.
In the short distance from front door to the bar, something clicked in Dickon’s mind. He appraised the moustachioed throwback anew.
“It’s you, isn’t it?” he gaped with wondering eyes.
“Last time I checked,” Stevens felt the bar steward’s eyes all over him like a swarm of insects.
“Fabulous!” He patted the padded seat of a nearby barstool. “First off: what are you drinking? On me, lover.”
Stevens baulked. Was this little bar steward speaking in some kind of gay code?
“I must say,” Dickon bustled about behind the bar. Stevens pointed at a beer pump labelled ‘Butch Bitter’. “You’m not quite what I was expecting but I’m sure underneath all that corduroy, you’ve got the legs for it.”
“Um...” Stevens thought about it, and thought about his thighs and calves. “Yes, there is quite a bit of legwork in this game. Although, I will admit a lot of the time, it’s just sitting in a car and watching.”
He’s rumbled me as a copper already, Stevens was dismayed! What vibes must I be giving off?
“Oh, really?” said Dickon. “I hadn’t thought. Now, usually, I like to try the new ones out, get you up there and get you to give me a few minutes, but, tempus fuck it, as they say. You’ll have to go on untested.”
“Um...”
“Not a problem, is it? Can’t afford to have you shy of performing in front of a baying mob. Bit of a specialist interest, I should say, with the -” He gestured at Stevens’s upper lip.
“Ah...”
“You can come round the back.”
“Can I?”
“To get yourself sorted. Outfit in the car, is it?”
“Outfit...”
“Fuck me, what’s your stage name? Dolly Fucking Daydream? Your cozzie, love.”
“Oh, yes.” Stevens was still unclear but it was dawning on him that he wasn’t being called upon to perform a sexual act but a cabaret one. His instincts told him to go with the flow and try not to blow his cover- or anything else for that matter.
“I have to...um, fetch it,” he pointed at the exit. “It’s at the dry cleaner’s.”
“Sweaty bitch, are you?”
“Well, it’s the bright lights and shit, you know...” Stevens edged towards the door, smiled wanly and tore out of the pub.
Fragile creatures, your performers, Dickon mused. Always uncomfortable off-stage.
He unrolled a gaudy poster and stuck it to the wall.
Limited engagement, it proclaimed. One night only! The diva of drag!
TASHA THE FLASHA!
***
Keith opened his eyes. It made no difference: everything was still pitch black. He blinked to see if that would help his eyes adjust but the movement of his eyelids only made him aware of how difficult it was to perform so simple a task. His entire body was a dull ache, a low-level throb somewhere in the dark. He tried to focus on his other senses in order to learn what he could about his surroundings.
It was dark; yes, well done. We’ve established that, Keith old son. What else?
It was cold. No - not cold. Cool. And not in a down-with-the-kids kind of way. It was also musty and damp. There was an odour that reminded him of walking through the park just after a shower of rain. Where the hell am I, he wondered? Why don’t I know? How did I come to be here? Why don’t I know that either?
His hands and feet were bound. In fact, his legs were taped together from ankle to crotch. He could barely shift them. Like a crippled mermaid - the thought amused some part of him but the rest of him told him to keep his thoughts focussed. You’re not here to enjoy yourself - that was clear.
The tape around his legs was doing him one favour at least. Its waterproof properties were keeping the damp of the brick floor beneath him from seeping through his trousers. Apart from his backside which was already cold and numb.
Where am I?
He tried to remember, to cast his mind back as far as he could. He’d gone to work - No, he hadn’t gone to work. He’d taken a day’s leave. Why had he taken a day’s leave? An appointment? The doc’s? The dentist’s? No... A meeting. Not a business meeting. A - a - rendezvous...
He had arranged to meet someone. Not a business client. A - a - social contact. An image flashed in Keith’s mind: drinks on a table, a table in a pub, a face across that table, a man, all smiles and simpering...
Dickon!
A torrent of memories overwhelmed him. Pictures and words flooded in. He had to force himself to slow down to make sense of this resurgence of information. He had arranged to meet this man - Dickon. They’d made contact through an online dating service. They had hit it off. Drinks and conversation had flowed in and out of his mouth respectively.
What had happened next?
Keith couldn’t fathom it. He remembered his words slurring and Dickon splitting into two blurred versions of himself. But that was just the booze, wasn’t it?
A couple of feet away an unearthly scream ripped the air, accompanied by the rumble of a motorised pump. Keith let out a yelp but it was smothered by the strip of tape across his lopsided mouth.
Panting, he waited for his heart to stop galloping. He clung to rational thought.
I’m not in a dungeon with some kind of creature, he reasoned. I’m in a cellar, a pub cellar and someone above me has just pulled a pint.
Fucking Dickon!
Keith struggled against his bonds, spurred by rising anger.
What a fucking idiot I am! I should never have dabbled with dating online.