Book 1, page 5
Moorhouse took a larger gulp and seemed to struggle to get it down as Timir sat in the rickety chair on the edge of the desk. The legs had purposefully been sawed down so that whomever sat in it would be not only uncomfortable but also required to look upwards at Moorhouse, who sat in a high, leather-bound chair that loomed over everything else in the office.
“Alright, I’ve got fourteen minutes before my first meeting,” Moorhouse began, “and I plan on being seven minutes late, five of which I will use in the toilet. I’m jetlagged, drinking shite coffee, and was annoyed first thing this morning by a pointless phone call from one of our minor clients. You better have good news.” Moorhouse said as he began leafing through the newspapers Timir had set out.
Timir popped open his notebook. “Right. The eleventh-century vase is en route from Shanghai and is expected to get here in two days, assuming customs doesn’t hold it up. Roger said he is tracking it personally. Tim has a lead on the Vermeer for our client in Dubai and expects to hear back this afternoon. And we’ve been approached by the son of an aristocrat in Germany who is looking to sell off his collection of…”
“No, no, no,” Moorhouse said as he threw the newspapers from his desk. “Shut the door.”
Timir stood and shut the door to Moorhouse’s office.
“Tell me what I really want to know, Timmy,” Moorhouse said in a threatening tone.
“The teapot,” Timir squeaked.
“Yes. Did you get the photos?”
Timir pulled the envelope with Winston’s photos from his notebook and handed them over.
Moorhouse whipped them out and examined every inch with relish. “Yes, beautiful. Beautiful! I knew that bitch had it,” he mumbled. “Alright, now we can finally get cracking on this.”
Moorhouse picked up his mobile and a pen and pad. Without looking up he said “Timmy, you’re still in the room.”
“Right, sorry,” Timir said as he moved toward the door. All he had to do was walk outside, go back to his desk, and feign ignorance when the truth about the teapot being stolen was discovered. It would have been so easy.
But easy is not what Moorhouse Antiques Brokerage is all about, Timir thought. To be successful, one couldn’t take shortcuts, or hide behind excuses, or sleep. Timir knew he had what it took to be a winner. And now he was going to prove it.
Timir turned around. “Sir, there’s been a slight…wrinkle,” he croaked.
7
Winston woke up to the sound of someone pounding loudly on his office door. He ran through a list of all the people and organisations it could be, most of whom wanted money or blood. He found the list overwhelming for so early in the morning and considered jumping out the window.
“Lamb! Lamb! You’re not sleeping in there again, are you? For God’s sake man, get yourself presentable and open the door! It’s an emergency!”
The posh accent, clearly enunciated words, and commanding tone all blended together to form a picture in most people’s minds of a British general from nineteen-forever-ago about to order his troops into a hopeless battle while having tea in a tent somewhere far from the action. And in Winston’s mind, he usually also had a twirly moustache, a monocle, and possessed few moral qualms about killing Zulus.
It meant it could only be one person.
Winston rose and stretched, then put the kettle on.
The knocking returned.
“C’mon Lamb, I can hear you moving around in there. You’re not fooling anyone and…are you making tea?”
“I am indeed, Alistair. What do you want?” Winston said.
“I want you to start with opening the door so we can have a civilised conversation. Shouting through the door is just so…well, undignified,” came the response.
“Yeah, I was never big on dignity. What do you want?” Winston shouted again.
As Winston predicted, there was a fiddling with the lock and, moments later, Alistair Pitkin stepped into the room, dressed in a tailored cream blazer, matching, professionally-pressed and creased trousers, brown Italian leather shoes polished so they almost sparkled, and a white hat that few people outside of wealthy holidaymakers in Greece in the 1920’s would wear in public.
“Yes, alright, you’ve had your fun. Now let’s stop all this mucking about. I know we’re competitors and all, but I’ve found myself in a bit of a jam and I could really use your help.”
“No,” Winston said, knowing his answer would be ignored.
“Now look here, I’ve just taken delivery of some state-of-the-art computer equipment from Taiwan that I need for my HTIDGCC. You know, my High-Tech Intelligence Data Gathering Computer Centre. Some of this kit isn’t even on the market yet it’s so cutting edge and I don’t have to tell you–very expensive.”
“You’re right. You really don’t have to tell me,” Winston said as the kettle began to boil. He looked in his cupboard and found only the one empty box of PG Tips. Considering that box had been devoid of tea bags for the better part of a year, he wasn’t sure why he retained the habit of looking. Instead, he grabbed his only tea mug, the one that read ‘Dave’s A-1 Pest Control–Effectively Eradicates All Unwanted Pests’, and rinsed a couple of the dead cockroaches out in the sink.
“Mind you, the only reason I was able to afford this gear was because of the retainer I get from my government contract with MI6. I suppose it’s only fair, though, since my High-Tech Intelligence Data Gathering Computer Centre will mostly be used for the work they throw me anyway. You know, those lads in Whitehall really do keep one hopping! You wouldn’t believe how many private jobs I’ve had to turn down because of them.”
Winston considered pouring his mug full of piping hot water over Alistair’s head to see how effective Dave really was.
“Now look,” Alistair continued, “the problem is I don’t have any bloody place to put it at the moment. My own office is plum full-up and until I get the space to actually build my High-Tech Intelligence Data Gathering Computer Centre…well, I was hoping you’d be willing to help out a fellow colleague in distress.”
Winston sipped his hot water, trying to remember what real tea tasted like. “You want to use my office as a storage space? It won’t exactly look good to my clients, will it?”
Alistair gave one of his trademark smirks that signalled he was about to say something wildly offensive. “C’mon, man, be reasonable. You haven’t had a client in here in quite some time.”
There it is, Winston thought, sipping his hot water again.
“Besides, I only need it for a short while. I’ll pay a small service fee of course. In cash. And I would be out of your hair in no time. Unless, of course…” Alistair said.
“No,” Winston said. “And I’m tired of saying it, Alistair.”
“C’mon, Lamb, we both know you’re withering on the vine here. Sell your lease to me, let me knock the wall through and build my High-Tech Intelligence Data Gathering Computer Centre, and you could go home with a nice healthy cheque in your pocket. Then you could stop spending your days lying around here in your underpants waiting to go into administration.”
To control his desire to shove his filthy teacup down Alistair’ throat, Winston tried to distract himself with his next problem. He went over to the radiator and plucked his rented tux from off the grill, noting the generous oil stain it left behind. He took it to the sink and began running it under the water, trying to use a dirty rag to wash the motor oil out and trying not to think of the substantial cash deposit he was surely going to lose.
“I’m not lying around here waiting for anything,” Winston barked over his shoulder. “Any day now, someone will walk through that door, assuming it isn’t blocked by computer equipment, and give me the one job I need to get back on top. Then I will be offering to buy your office so I can knock the wall through. I’m thinking it’ll make a great gent’s toilet.”
“Alright, man, let’s stop batting the ball around and start playing, shall we?” Alistair said. “My family has been in the PI business for five generations. The Pitkin name is held in the highest regard in every corner of Her Majesty’s Emp…eh… Commonwealth, with business contacts in the highest levels of society that go back centuries. You can’t honestly say you can compete with that? You’re not properly equipped! You don’t even have your own High-Tech Intelligence Data Gathering Computer Centre.”
Winston was tempted to take the bait, but held off. He so easily could have told Alistair about his time in the sun. Those fifteen minutes of fame he’d enjoyed working for the then newly-formed police when Queen Victoria still sat on the throne. He was a star then. He had been instrumental in solving hundreds of impossible murder cases. He’d rubbed shoulders with aristocrats and even knew the Queen herself. He practically lived in a tux, was constantly in the papers, and his name was known all over London.
A century and a half on, and the world had changed. Over the years, as the police organisations became more sophisticated and formed their own in-house murder investigation units, their need to call on outside private contractors like Winston shrank until it was practically nothing. Winston soon found himself on the bottom again. That was the problem with the long life vampires enjoyed. The world changed so much over the centuries it was sometimes hard to change with it. That, and the fact that the music of the day, no matter how bad, always seemed to get perpetually worse.
But he was just as good a PI as he ever was. That much he knew. And what he also knew was that someday he would be back on top again. Government agencies were hiring private contractors again. He would someday have his own government contract. They just needed to see he was twice the PI Alistair was. It was just a question of how to prove it.
“I said no, Alistair. Emphatically, categorically, absolutely no,” Winston said.
“Alright,” Alistair said. “Let’s just stick a pin in that for now, shall we? Now about this storage business. I’m willing to offer you a crisp, clean twenty-pound note for a week of storage. You have to admit, it’s quite a deal. More than you’ll get from anyone else today.”
Alistair held up a twenty-pound note he’d extracted from his wallet. Winston wondered how Alistair was able to get through an entire day of talking to people without constantly getting hit in the face with socks full of pennies.
He also knew he needed the twenty quid.
Winston snatched the twenty-pound note. “One week,” he said. “Now get out of my office.”
Alistair smirked again. Winston braced himself, waiting for the offensive remark.
“There’s a good lad. I’ll bring everything by tonight. And I’m assuming you can be trusted not to…shall we say…molest it? I’ll have everything carefully inventoried, of course, as is procedure, but I will sleep well tonight if I know it’s in safe hands. Can I count on you?”
“I will do my best to fight the urge to steal your equipment. Can’t promise anything more,” Winston said.
“Now come on, Lamb, no need to be patronising. We’re colleagues, after all.”
Winston felt his fist ball involuntarily around the oily rag in the sink, squeezing all the oily water he’d just soaked up right back onto the suit.
Behind him, he heard Alistair finally leave the office.
Winston took a breath to calm down, then put the teacup in the sink. He felt the twenty-pound note in his pocket and wondered if it was too early to hit the pub.
There was another knock at the door.
“Forget it, Alistair,” Winston said as he walked over to his office door. “You already paid, you can’t take it back and…”
Winston popped the door open and instead found Maggie. Her eyes were wide and there was a look of terror on her face. It was not something Winston was used to seeing and it sent a cold shock down his spine.
“Maggie…what are you…” he mumbled.
“It’s Mr Haldermann,” Maggie stuttered. “My employer. For the teapot job. He’s dead, Winston. Somebody murdered him.”
8
Maggie sat on the broken couch in Winston’s office as Winston fetched her a dirty teacup of hot water to help calm her nerves. Maggie ignored it. She was shaking and her legs were twitching.
“What do you mean he’s dead?” Winston asked.
“I mean he’s dead. Dead dead. How else can I put it?” Maggie said.
“I meant how do you know he was killed?”
“Trust me. If you saw what I saw this morning, it’s pretty freaking obvious,” Maggie said, trying to shake the image out of her head. “Plus, I think my place got turned over yesterday. I can’t be sure though.”
“I’ve seen your place. Trust me, it hasn’t,” Winston said, smirking.
“How does that help?” Maggie asked him.
“Sorry. What happened then? When was the last time you saw this Haldermann alive?” Winston asked.
“When I delivered the teapot last week. He gave me a glass of champagne to celebrate, I went home, end of. Then last night he leaves me this really weird voicemail at like three-thirty this morning. They made me turn my phone off at the police station so I didn’t get it until I got up this morning.”
“Police station…?” Winston asked.
“There may have been an incident last night involving a breach of the indoor spell-casting ban at a powder shop. The police thought I fit the suspect’s description and long story short, it was easier to just pay the fine and go home. Which is exactly what I did.”
“I don’t get it,” Winston said, deep in thought. “Indoor spell-casting bans have been around now for like twenty years. How could you forget…”
“Not the point, Winston, focus. Listen to this.”
Maggie took out her mobile phone and called her voicemail.
It was an old man’s voice and sounded anxious. “Maggie! Maggie, please, you must come. She’s found me! I don’t know how but she has found me! I don’t have long now. You can’t let her get her hands on the teapot, no matter what. Otherwise the world is in danger. She wants to bring something back, something evil from another realm. I’ve tried to find Glooscap. But he’s been missing for so long. I think Pitaskog knows. He must! I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I’ve failed. I’ve failed….”
The message beeped and Maggie hung up.
“Who’s Glooscap?” Winston wondered aloud.
“No idea, but I’m guessing it’s Nigella he’s worried about. The problem is, by the time I went over there to ask him he was already dead. Laid out right there in the front room. The curtains are open so it won’t be long before someone sees him.”
“Not to sound crass, but why do you care?” Winston asked, smelling the motor oil that was still in her hair.
“Because half the reason I went over there this morning was to get my backpack. I gave it to him when I gave him the teapot but just this morning I remembered I left my old PI license in it. Now it’s just sitting there in Haldermann’s front room. They’ll think I’m a suspect!”
“Don’t you have an alibi for last night?” Winston asked.
“I told you, I went home after the police station. Alone. But that won’t matter as long as I can get in there and get my bag back. And that’s kind of why I’m here…”
“Ah…” Winston said as he stood and moved to the sink.
“Don’t ‘Ah’ me. This is a job. Plain and simple. I’ll pay standard rate. I just need you to help me get in. The house is locked up tight and the security system is still on. We can be in and out in five minutes. But we have to go now,” Maggie said.
Winston was quiet as he stared at his empty kitchen cupboard, going over the situation in his head from every conceivable angle.
“Just tell me one thing,” he finally said.
“What?” Maggie asked.
“This Haldermann fellow…is he a PG Tips man?”
9
A soft breeze blew through the elm trees that lined King’s Lane. It was late morning, just a few hours after the flurry of morning school runs sent herds of mopey, blue-blazered children wandering past on their way to the school at the top of the road. It was quiet now and would remain so, as it did every weekday, until the herd of blue-blazered children returned in the afternoon.
For just a moment that day, however, the silence was shattered by the appearance of a raggedy white Transit van clacking and clanging its way up the road towards number seventy-two. It pulled to the side, its struggling motor nearly shaking the rusty body panels clean off, and let off a puff of toxic engine smoke before finally going quiet and allowing peace to return to the neighbourhood.
Two mysterious strangers dressed in drab overalls and holding toolboxes exited the van and walked briskly across the road. They approached the front door to number seventy-two and checked they were not being watched. Satisfied the coast was clear, they ran round the side, through the gate, and up to the rear entrance.
Winston kneeled in front of the door and pulled out his lock picking kit as Maggie kept watch for peeping neighbours.
“I think that was a CCTV camera. I told you they’d have CCTV on this road,” Winston said.
“Oh relax. They’ll only check the footage around the time of the murder. Not the next morning. Come on, hurry,” Maggie shot back.
Winston peered in through the glass in the door and could see the security system keypad in the kitchen.
“I’d love to, but that’s a SecuraMaster 3000. Very tricky system that.”
“How long will it take?” Maggie asked.
“I don’t know. How long is a piece of string?” Winston said as he pulled out his toolkit and set to work.
“Very funny,” Maggie said.
Winston found the tiny metal strip that ran round the entire door and told the security system it was closed. As long as a steady electrical current ran through that strip, Winston knew, the alarm would not go off.
