By five the next afternoon, I’d almost got myself about seven. Dogs, that is. Traipsing round the shelters did little for my morale, and even less for the soles of my shoes, which I was going to need to disinfect at some point.
There were so many cute pooches out there looking for love that I’d almost relented, many times over. I had to remind myself that I could barely look after me, never mind a four-legged friend, and try and stay focused on the task in hand.
Cupid was nowhere to be found. The dog catchers hadn’t seen him, the RSPCA hadn’t seen him, nobody had seen him. One vet’s surgery had a Chihuahua in, but it was female and most definitely owned by someone else. I was drawing a blank, my feet hurt, and all of the imploring canine eyes had left me feeling sad and blue.
I decided to call it a day and go home to get ready. It’s very hard to decide what to wear to a Valentine’s Day drag queen ball held on a cold winter’s night on the River Mersey. There was no way I was ever going to rival the other guests on the glamour front, even if I was born with ovaries, so in the end I thought it best not to bother. I opted for jeans, a nice blouse, and a big fleece I could shove in my bag.
On the way into town, I called back in at the Napoleon. Something Wilhelmina/Billy had mentioned to me was playing on mind, and as my mind was pretty much empty otherwise, I thought I might as well act on it. At the very least, it would delay the inevitable moment when I found myself doing the Macarena with RuPaul’s Scouse cousin.
The pub was quiet when I arrived. A few regulars sat nursing pints, and a couple of office workers were playing a half-hearted game of darts. A grimy old boozer that considered dry roasted peanuts the height of its gastro-pub aspirations was obviously not a popular choice for the Valentine’s Day crowd.
Wade was behind the bar drying glasses, a younger man who may or may not have been his son lurking nearby, watching the darts players.
He nodded as I walked in, and Roger the Rottie did the miniature tail wag at me. I would have given him a pat but I quite wanted to keep my fingers.
‘Any news?’ he asked. ‘About the rat?’
‘Sadly not,’ I replied, sitting on a stool at the bar in front of him. ‘I see Franny’s is closed tonight.’
‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘thank fuck. They’re having that party thing down on the river. I’m praying for strong winds, wouldn’t mind if they all got blown halfway to sea.’
Nice. Billy was right. Wade definitely wasn’t a part of the rainbow nation. That might, however, be of some help to me. It was a desperate last-ditch effort to find a new lead, but it was all I had.
‘Wade,’ I said, trying to sound reasonable and polite and all the things I’m often not. ‘I was told that you take photos of the customers coming in and out of Franny’s, and the street between you.’
His faced screwed up into an angry grimace, and his bright red conk got even redder. I held up a hand to shut him up.
‘Let me finish! Listen, I don’t care why you do it, and I don’t care what grievances you’ve got with your lovely neighbours. All I care about is finding the bloody dog and getting paid. I didn’t see any cameras outside here, and nobody else has come up with anything. All I’m asking is that you let me see any photos you have – anything at all that could help. I won’t tell anyone, or grass you up to Harley and Dorothy, or use them. It could just really help if I could get a idea of what goes on in that back alley.’
‘Believe me, love, the stuff that goes in in that back alley would make your toes curl … and anyway, even if I did admit to taking photos, it would only have been on a couple of occasions. To back up my claims against them, like. And certainly not on the day the dog went missing.’
I nodded. I’d expected exactly that – life wouldn’t be so simple as to present me with a photo of a man wearing a Dognappers R Us T-shirt leaving the building. But one of the things I’d learned during my time with the police is to tug at all the loose ends – because you never knew what could come tumbling out at the end of the ball of string.
‘I understand,’ I said. ‘But right now, I have nothing, and anything you have could help me build up a clearer picture of what I’m dealing with.’
I glanced down at the rottie again, and went for the heart strings: ‘I mean, I know you don’t get on with them, but like you said – you love dogs. And poor Cupid is probably lost and scared and desperate to get home. You’d want someone to do the same for Roger, wouldn’t you?’
He stared me down, and finished wiping the glasses. I had him, I could tell.
‘Wait here,’ he said, and disappeared off into a back room. Roger raised himself off his giant haunches and followed. Wade came back within a few minutes, and handed me a plain brown A4 envelope.
‘I want these back. And I don’t want you talking to the fairies about them, either, understand? This is all about Cupid.’
It was the first time he’d referred to the ‘rat’ by his name. He was clearly an old softie beneath the homophobic drunken tough guy exterior.
I thanked him, and left with my prize. I had time to take them back to my office on the Strand before I had to get to the Love Boat, where a world of potential witnesses would currently be gathering to show off their fake tans, high heels and fright wigs. I was one lucky girl.
When I arrived, I switched on the lights, and emptied the pictures onto the desk. I’d go through them properly later, but for the time being just fanned them out and scanned them for anything obvious.
Most of them were simply of very glamorous men coming and going, some holding hands, some kissing, some embracing each other. Nothing that made my toes curl – but then again, I was pretty sure that my toes were made of sterner stuff than Wade’s. I had no idea what he was hoping to achieve with these, as I couldn’t see anything going on that would concern a licensing committee. Perhaps, as Billy had implied, the lady was protesting too much – and was simply a repressed soul looking for something to secretly perv over. None of my beeswax either way, thank you very much.
As I thought of Billy, I saw one photo with him in it. Done up to the nines as Wilhelmina, every inch the stunning six-foot screen queen. He was up against the wall, and his face was within smooching distance of another man’s. His pal wasn’t quite as tall, and was much more slightly built, but was definitely the one making the moves. He looked familiar, but I couldn’t quite place where I knew him from – possibly he looked entirely different without the Marilyn wig and the stick on lashes and the fake beauty spot. They looked pretty intimate, and I guessed that Billy was indeed a multi-layered man who didn’t like to rule out either sex when it came to love.
I left the photo on top, and let it percolate through my brain as I got ready to join the Love Boat. Getting ready mainly involved brushing my hair, applying some lippy, and wondering if I looked more like a man than most of the other guests would.