Jack in the Box, page 4
Lomond snapped back to it, slid his paperwork into a folder and tucked it under his arm.
‘I won’t take up much more of your time,’ he said, as he stepped away from the lectern. ‘What I didn’t share with the rest of the squad is the jobs we’re going after right now, based on a couple of tips we got from Edward Symes.’
All three visibly straightened up. Slater wanted to yawn; instead he bit his lip. Already they were tired. This would become the norm.
‘First, he mentioned someone he had a dispute with, east side of the estate, a Mr Vincent Finch. There was some problem with a planning application, and I think it went as far as the court. Mr Finch wanted to build an extension; the rest of the street didn’t like the idea. He lost, and we gather he’s not happy about it.’
‘Spoken to him already, sir?’ Smythe asked.
Lomond nodded. ‘Couple of officers in uniform asked where he was. Apparently home alone at the time of the killing. His wife and daughter were out at . . . Rainbows. Is that like the Guides?’
‘Aye – sort of feeder club for the Guides,’ Slater said. Noting the expressions of the other three, he added, ‘My niece goes. Has her wee uniform and a badge.’ He shrugged, colouring.
‘Aye, so, he was on his own,’ Lomond continued. ‘There was one line in the notes I was curious about. Didn’t like him.’
‘Who was the uniform? Who wrote that, I mean?’
‘Moira Duncan. Don’t know her but it struck me as an odd thing to write. She said it wasn’t for any good reason, nothing openly dodgy. Just a hunch. And a hunch is good. Plus we don’t know exactly where he was. So I’d like him to talk us through it. The other tip I got was what Mr Symes called “that bastard comedian”.’
‘Not Benny Kettles, was it?’ Slater snorted.
‘Aye.’ Lomond frowned. ‘How did you know that?’
‘It has to be Benny Kettles, with that description,’ Slater said. He grinned at the confusion. ‘None of you seen him?’
‘I’ve read something on social media. Usually slagging him off,’ Tait offered. ‘Haven’t had time to check him out yet.’
‘He’s’ – Slater struggled for the right expression – ‘sort of funny.’
‘Ringing endorsement,’ Tait muttered.
‘He’s nasty with it, though. Makes Frankie Boyle and Jerry Sadowitz look like those comics you remember your granny liking.’
‘I thought the shock jock thing was dying out a bit,’ Tait mused. ‘People have gone back the way – gentler comedy. Less swearing. Less filth. So you quite like him, then?’
Slater shrugged. ‘An acquired taste.’
‘I think I remember something,’ Smythe said. ‘Was there not footage of him getting punched? Some girl about half his size letting him have it onstage.’
‘That’s right!’ Slater was delighted. ‘One of many times he’s been panelled on a stage. He has a “Greatest Hits” playlist on YouTube. Badge of honour.’
‘What’s the link?’ Smythe asked.
‘Well, it’s difficult to say. Mr Symes didn’t get along with him – had words not long ago – but apparently Benny Kettles and Mrs Symes were friends.’
‘Friends,’ Tait said, lip curling. ‘Friends how exactly?’
‘All he said was “friends”, but let’s find out a wee bit more,’ Lomond said. ‘We’re looking at the emails and social media to see if there’s anything in it, without bothering Mr Symes. It looks like they were pals at university, possibly boyfriend and girlfriend, but there’s no way of knowing for sure yet.’
‘Is it possible they are just friends?’ Smythe asked, destressing the word, the opposite of Tait’s meaning.
‘That’s what I’m hoping you’ll find out for us,’ Lomond said. ‘Now, the interesting bit is, we can’t actually locate Benny Kettles at the moment. No contact on the phone, and his agent was cagey. She said he was in Glasgow, but wasn’t sure where. Doesn’t seem that switched on for a showbiz agent.’
‘Which is a bit suspicious,’ Slater remarked.
Lomond ignored this. ‘So first of all I need Kettles traced, then spoken to. Might be nothing. Might just be ticking him off the sheet.’
‘But you’ve got a hunch, all the same, gaffer,’ Slater said, grinning. ‘Kettles is my bag. I’ll find him. He plays gigs all the time. Open mics all over Glasgow. Famous for it. Tests out new material everywhere. I saw him at the Stand years ago. I’d be happy to talk to him.’
‘I think Cara and Myles will take this one,’ Lomond said. ‘I don’t want you doing a fanboy thing while we’re out on a job. Asking him to sign DVDs or something.’
‘DVDs?’ Slater scoffed. ‘What is this, the dark ages?’
‘Anyway,’ Tait said, ‘you look too much like a polis. I don’t know a comedian yet who liked the polis. Maybe Jim Davidson.’ Tait winked at Lomond. ‘Can you send us the numbers, sir?’
‘Already with you both,’ Lomond said. ‘Let me know if you trace him. If there’s nothing, get back to me straight away. Malcolm, you and me will take Mr Finch and his many grievances.’
Slater nodded. Then he called out to Tait: ‘Here hang on! What d’you mean by I “look like a polis”?’
10
The club reminded Smythe of a place she’d gone to when she was way, way too young to be going anywhere of the sort. Fresh as a daisy, tall as a sunflower, in what passed for the height of summer in Glasgow, and fuelled by Canadian Club, fifteen-year-old Cara had whooped, leapt, hopped and skipped. She had a clear memory of pressing her hand against the ceiling. It hadn’t just felt damp, it had felt pliant. A disturbingly sensuous experience, like diving into a full skip. The men hadn’t been too predatory, but predatory enough, and Smythe cringed to look back on it. Not at the nerve of the clothes she had worn, the brass neck of her friends, the drunken state they’d all been in by three a.m. when the place tipped out into chaotic taxi queues – not even the guy, maybe in his mid-twenties, maybe even older, who had come very close to breaking the law with her in the lane beside the pizza shop – but the risk. The ways it might have gone wrong. The ways Smythe had seen it go wrong, in stricken, bloated, battered, misshapen faces over the years, every one of them a keeper, every one of them with its own space in her head.
So: low ceilings, a pit space in a basement, decent fire escape fore and aft, a good long bar at the back. It became a club after the comedy show ended. Smythe and Tait perched themselves on stools at the back of the hall. The clientele was spread a good few years either side of Smythe and Tait’s well-kempt thirties bandwidth, with a few outliers into their fifties and beyond. Smythe’s attention was arrested by one jolly-looking fellow with an immense belly under a heavy metal T-shirt and a beer in each hand. He laughed louder than anyone and seemed to know many of the punchlines before they landed. His girlfriend was blonde, short and beautiful, and Smythe envied him and his life at that moment.
‘Reminds me of Fury’s,’ Tait said at her ear, as they waited for the compere to return. ‘You remember Fury’s? Probably a bit before your time.’
‘Well before my time. It reminds me of one near Finnieston.’
‘Fury Murray’s was further up. Great place to go when you’re young.’
‘That where you spent your salad days?’ Smythe grinned. ‘Sweaty basements don’t seem your style. I had you down as an Art School kind of boy.’
Tait snorted. ‘Arches, if you please. Sub Club if I’m on my best behaviour. But Fury Murray’s was for slumming it on a Sunday night. I had some fun in there.’ He stood up from the stool and touched the ceiling. ‘Bet it sweats in here.’
‘When was the last time you were in a nightclub?’
‘Not for a while. Passed out of that phase, really. Comes a point you get ID’d going into clubs for the opposite reason you got ID’d before. In fact, the last time, I think they asked me point blank if I was in the polis.’
‘Did you lie to get in?’
‘Showed them my warrant card. Should have seen their faces.’ He grinned at the memory. ‘How about you?’
‘What? When did I last get ID’d?’
‘No, when were you last in a nightclub?’
‘Put it this way, it was at Christmas, and I fell asleep for totally the wrong reasons.’
‘Meaning you were knackered.’ Tait nodded. ‘Job does that.’
‘It does.’
‘I don’t get out much, if I’m honest. Sophs likes to go out for a nice dinner. I’m in that zone now. Struggle to drink beer any more. Glass of wine, maybe a dessert, that’ll do.’
Sophs? This was new. Smythe had wondered, without prejudice, whether Tait was even into women. His private-school-winner veneer and arch manner could veer into camp at times. Not that it mattered. We all wear a mask, Smythe thought.
‘So is Sophs OK with you going out to a club with another woman?’
‘We’re working, DI Smythe,’ Tait said, mock-soberly. ‘Try to restrain yourself.’
Smythe snorted into her soda water and lime and gestured towards the stage. ‘Maybe you should be up there instead.’
‘Maybe I should. Maybe this’ll be the night it changes. My career. My life. I reckon I could do it–’
Whatever sarcasm Smythe was about to unleash was drowned out by the lights dimming and the compere bounding onto the stage. He was a muscle-bound fellow, tight polo shirt, veins threading up his neck and arms. ‘All right then, how’s it going? We’re on to the main event now, so if any of you fancy a pee, you’re too late. Because you absolutely dare not fucking move when this next man takes the stage. Let’s have a warm hand – two warm hands, in fact, smashed together at high speed . . . that’s it . . . c’mon, folks, that’s it! Applause! You get it! C’mon! And, yes, even the two off-duty polis at the back of the room! Yes, I can see you! Hands together!’
Tait and Smythe grinned like a pair of waxworks. But their hands worked well enough.
‘Ha ha,’ said Smythe.
‘Ha ha,’ said Tait.
‘And now, the one you’ve all been waiting for . . . the man who makes you glad to be alive the minute you flee this place, screaming and crying for your maw . . . It’s the one and only . . . Benny Kettles!’
11
Benny Kettles, in a suit the colour of mustard gas, was already sweating by the time he bounced on stage. His butterbean face was oddly cherubic, and he might have been at one point, and perhaps might still be, a good-looking man. His oatmeal-coloured hair was styled into an absurd kiss curl, not unlike Superman’s, and it bobbed around in front of his face like a lure with a hook hidden inside.
‘Evening then!’ he said, his accent strangely high-pitched. ‘By God, I thought I’d seen some ugly audiences, but you people take the urinal cake, let me tell you! Yes, that’s right, whoop, clap, cheer, laugh, the torture will never stop.’ He froze in the spotlight, glaring at some undefined point at the end of the room. ‘Never, ever stop. Yes, I’m Benny Kettles, hello, good evening and go fuck yourselves.’
It went on like this for five or six minutes, and Smythe was snagged in the hysteria that rippled through the audience. She turned to check out Tait. His expression was unreadable. He took tiny sips of his pint of fresh orange and lemonade and kept his gaze fixed on Kettles.
He had been filthy but amusing, and his patter was propulsive, but that changed in an instant when one hardy soul got out of his seat in the middle of a huge laugh about a member of the royal family and a colostomy bag. The man – Smythe never did see his face properly – was seated dead centre of the audience and as he moved between the tables he created a huge silhouette.
Freeze frame: Kettles glowering at the retreating figure blocking out the light, hand shielding his face from the glare, wide blue eyes tracking the man’s progress. ‘Where are you going?’ The high-pitched tone became a growl, so loud that it obliterated the question mark.
‘Just the toilet,’ was the tragic response.
‘Get back,’ Kettles commanded, stabbing a finger at the empty seat. ‘Get out of my light, prick, and get back over there.’
A tense exhalation among the crowd. Smythe sat up in her chair. The hapless man said something inaudible and waved a hand at Kettles. But that was not the end of the exchange. Kettles spluttered, as if a bucket of water had been emptied over his head, then collapsed to the floor, arms and legs splayed. The wave of unease turned into gasps of shock. One or two people even stood up at the sudden drop, and one of them was Smythe.
Tait took her by the elbow, gently, and shook his head. ‘Wait.’
Kettles then spun with a breakdancer’s rubber-jointed sinuousness that completely belied his frame, not to mention his clothing. Soon he was literally bent over backwards – both hands planted on the stage, upside down, his sweat dripping to the floor, shoulders quivering with the effort, and his legs bent back at the knees. In a contortionist, this pose would have been credible, but in someone of Kettles’ girth it was more like a special effect or a video game.
The upside-down crab began to walk – fast. ‘Come back here!’ Kettles said. He scuttled sideways. His shirt popped open, displaying an expanse of pink flesh with a hairy dimple in the middle that might have contained a belly button. ‘You’ve spoiled my concentration! I’ll have to do the whole show like this now! Back, I say, back!’
There was a smattering of applause. Kettles, who had regained his footing with the same deceptive twirl of the hips, smiled and waved as if he’d been given a standing ovation. He unbuckled his belt, tongue protruding from the side of his mouth, and Smythe feared even more of an outrage. But he was simply tucking his shirt back in before fastening the buckle with a flourish.
‘Gets the blood going, that does. Do not try this at home, though. Unless I don’t like you, in which case, wire in.’
‘Looked painful, that,’ Tait said. ‘Joke or no joke.’
‘Looked bloody fatal is what it looked like,’ Smythe replied.
‘Nimble for a big lad.’
‘Ah, I’m just messing with you, pal,’ Kettles said, his voice back into its high-pitched register, as he waved towards the interrupter retreating to the toilets. ‘Pee away, mate, pee away. Oh, hey, darling, how’s it going?’ Kettles sprang off the stage, mic in hand, and made his way through the crowd to the chair the man had vacated. He sat down and batted his eyes at the man’s companion date as she giggled and covered her face. ‘Mind if I move in here? Not for you, girl. I mean your boyfriend’s wallet. Is it in there? Here we go . . . it is, inside pocket, blue ball, first shot! Let’s see what he’s packing . . . You haven’t been going out long, have you? Nah, didn’t think so. I can tell, you see. It’s a gift. Some people read palms, some people speak to the dead. I work out virgins. No, not you, darling.’ Of course I don’t mean you.’
Tait turned to Smythe. ‘How long till the intermission?’
‘Why? Have you got to go?’
‘And who have we here?’ Kettles’ voice and face changed again. He stood up, dropping the absent man’s wallet onto the table, where his girlfriend stretched to stop it careering onto the floor. ‘Jim, can we . . . Yeah, those two at the back. Stick the spotlight on Mr and Mrs, will you? Bit to the left. Oh, there we are. Ladies and gentlemen, let’s have a big hand for Presbyterian Scotland!’
Smythe and Tait flinched as the spotlight washed over them, bright and brutal as sunburn.
12
Tait and Smythe were unaware of it, but their smiles were identical – taut, and seemingly painted on by a toddler trying very hard to stay within the lines.
‘Now then,’ Kettles said, making his way to the back of the room. ‘Let’s get a good look at these two. I will try to link minds with them . . . round about now.’ He gripped his large, sweaty forehead underneath the kiss curl, eyes drawn tight in concentration. ‘OK. I think I’ve got them, ladies and gentlemen. I’m going to go for . . . out on a date. Right? By some horrible mistake, you’re out on a date.’
‘Don’t say anything,’ Smythe said – too late to stop Tait from declaring in his loud policeman’s voice: ‘No, we are not.’
Kettles clapped his hands together, almost dropping the mic. A shriek of feedback accompanied the impact. ‘No, we are not.’ Kettles mimicked, in a bloodcurdling growl. ‘Well, you are one hundred per cent not shagging, that’s for sure – but does one of you want to? That’s the question.’
Smythe smiled on. Tait rolled his eyes.
‘I think we’ve got a performer here, ladies and gentlemen. That’s right, Mr Midnight Blue Suit. Good god, you’re smartly dressed for this dive. Did you come here by accident? That’s a serious question.’
‘Sadly not,’ Tait replied. If Smythe could have cringed any further, she’d have absorbed herself. Arse first.
‘Sadly not!’ Kettles repeated, in a pompous Kelvinside accent. ‘The young master here has found himself in this cradle of iniquity! Here he was, putting a move on this deputy headmistress . . . No, don’t laugh! That’s a good job, that is! Great holidays! And you know as well as I do that anyone who signs up to be a teacher and isn’t doing it for the holidays is fucking lying, right?’ Kettles waggled his eyebrows. ‘So what’s the script? First date? C’mon, you clearly don’t know anybody here.’
‘Here on business,’ Smythe said, coughing nervously.
‘Oh, I see,’ Kettles said, allowing the laughter to build at the implication of his tone of voice. ‘Well, I’d better move on here, folks. But, hey . . . remember that painting? The old American couple? Dungarees and a pitch fork? I’m just saying, if there was a way of making that image even more miserable, aside from painting it in Glasgow . . .’ Kettles aimed two fingers at Smythe and Tait. ‘Either that or you’re a pair of off-duty polis. Right, where were we? That’s the torture over and done with. Time I told you jokes or something . . .’ He hurried back to the stage.
