Naturally, because even in a churchyard, Gods Law and Sods Law are only a letter apart, he was just in time to meet Mirabelle coming out of the main entrance arm in arm with Rev. Pot of Boyling Corner Chapel, and the Reverend Timothy Cannister of St Monicas.
Whereve you been, Joe? she cried, hurling aside the pastoral pair and seizing him with both hands. I said I wanted a word with you.
Not now, said Joe. Ive got to go.
Whats so urgent you cant talk to your old auntie? she demanded with the indignation of one who knows there is no possible answer.
Except one.
Death, said Joe. Excuse me, Vicar. You got a phone in the vicarage I could use?
2
It must have been a quiet night on the mean streets of Luton because by the time Joe finished his phoning and came out of the vicarage, a police car was already belling its way into the square.
Out of it leapt a fresh-faced young constable he didnt know followed by a fat-faced one he did.
His name was Dean Forton and he rated the Sixsmith Detective Agency lower than Wimbledon FC.
What the hell are you doing here? he said ungraciously as Joe approached.
I found the body.
Must have tripped over it then, said Forton. OK, lets take a look at it.
He seemed quite pleased at the prospect. First on the murder scene can get a chance to shine. But when he realized it was just a dosser, his enthusiasm faded.
More bother than theyre worth, he said to his younger colleague. Here, Sandy, seeing weve got him in a box in a boneyard, why dont you whip back to the car, get a shovel, and well save everyone a bit of time and trouble.
Youre a real riot, Dean, said the youngster, his Scottish roll of the rs exaggerated by a slight tremor as he looked down at what Joe guessed was his first corpse.
All right then, said Forton. At least keep the ghouls off till the girls get here.
The ghouls were a growing group of spectators led by Mirabelle. The girls, Joe guessed, were CID. Forton hung his emergency lantern on the outstretched arm of the weeping angel under which the real lady was no longer sitting. In fact, she was nowhere in sight. Joe wasnt too surprised. Not getting involved was a kneejerk reaction of the English upper classes, particularly when what you werent getting involved with was a dead dosser, a black PI and Lutons finest in a cold and gloomy churchyard.
The girls arrived led by DS Chivers, another old acquaintance and even less of a fan than Forton. Joe gave him a bare outline of his discovery of the body, not bothering at this juncture to complicate matters with reference to the woman. He was immediately punished for this economy by her reappearance.
Ah, she said, cutting across Chiverss questioning. You came back then.
Joe felt she was stealing his lines. Chivers felt she was undermining his authority.
Who the hell are you? he asked irritably.
She gave him a look which would have stopped an assegai in full flight. The image popped into Joes mind fully formed and he realized it came from a certainty that this was a good old-fashioned English colonial lady. Her dun-coloured skirt and shirt derived from the practical rather than the fashionable side of safari, but it was her complexion which was the real giveaway. That could only come from long exposure to the sun which used never to set.
She said to Chivers, Kindly dont interrupt. Mr Sixsmith, after you left, it struck me the quickest way to summon help would be to use my car phone, therefore I made my way round to the Cloisters and phoned Emergency.
This told Joe a lot.
First, it explained the speed of the police response.
Second, it confirmed the womans status. The Cloisters was a paved area at the back of the church. Folklore claimed it was all that remained of the original medieval abbey. Archaeology proved it was merely a pavement laid down by the Victorian contractors to stop their material and machines from sinking into the Lutonian bog. Now it provided space to park a few cars, a convenience in the gift of the Reverend Timothy Cannister and only doled out to top people. Joe didnt anticipate being invited to park his Morris Oxford there.
Third, he recognized the explanation as apology. Perhaps her houseboys hadnt been big on civic responsibility. Whatever, shed doubted if hed go near a phone and this was her way of saying sorry without admitting there was anything to be sorry about.
He said, That was good thinking. Sometimes they need a couple of calls to get them out of the canteen.
She rewarded him with a not unattractive smile, then overpaid him by turning to Chivers and saying, Now, Constable, why dont you trot off and fetch one of your superiors?
Chivers went red as a radish, but before he could explode into real trouble, a voice cried, Mrs Calverley, I thought it was you. I do hope you havent been inconvenienced.
The Reverend Timothy Cannister had broken past the young Scots constable. Known to the compulsive punsters of Luton as Tin Can because of his fondness for rattling one in your face, his reaction to the woman confirmed she belonged to the cheque-in-the-post set rather than the coin-in-the-slot class.
Also the name meant something to Chivers whose indignant response withered on his lip.
No inconvenience, Tim, she said cheerfully. Im just helping this constable with his enquiries.
Its sergeant, maam, and at the moment Im senior officer present. So if you could just spare a moment ?
Why on earth didnt you say so? Let me tell you all I know about this dreadful business.
It took less than a minute of admirably terse narrative. Chivers didnt interrupt or ask any questions, and then Mrs Calverley accepted Tin Cans invitation to step into the vicarage for a warming potation, though she winced visibly at his preciosity.
All right for me to go and get one of them too? asked Joe.
Not before you answer a few questions, Sixsmith, snarled Chivers.
Nothing I can add to what the lady says.
Youre supposed to be a detective, arent you? How about trying to give me a description of the perpetrator?
What perpetrator? asked Joe. Perpetrator of what?
Dont get clever with me, sunshine. Theres a body in that box, remember?
I know. And I think youll find hes been dead an hour or so.
How do you know?
Because I felt for a pulse and he was cold enough not to have died just that minute, said Joe.
So what was this guy you spotted doing then?
Maybe the same as me, checking the kids pulse to see if he needed help.
Chivers snarled a laugh and said, Do you think Immigration knows about all these Good Samaritans flooding into the country? More likely he was one of those weirdos who get their kicks beating dossers up. So, a description.
Joe gave him what he could. Finally Chivers said, All right. Sod off. Well be in touch.
And thank you too, Sergeant, for your courtesy. Ill be sure to mention it to Mr Woodbine. I was real pleased to hear hes been made up to superintendent.
It was a low blow. Willie Woodbine disliked Chivers almost as much as Joe did, plus the new detective superintendent hadnt been hindered in his elevation by the help Joe had somewhat fortuitously supplied in solving a recent big murder case.
It was a low blow. Willie Woodbine disliked Chivers almost as much as Joe did, plus the new detective superintendent hadnt been hindered in his elevation by the help Joe had somewhat fortuitously supplied in solving a recent big murder case.
Chivers was a nifty counter puncher and now he said, Youll be going to the celebration party at his house next Sunday then?
He knows Ive as much chance of being invited there as I have of being invited to stand for the Cheltenham Tories, thought Joe.
Hope I can make it, he said. If I do, Ill see you there, shall I?
He saw the dart draw blood. Chivers and the CID girls might get a drink down the pub, but no way was Willie Woodbine going to take them home!
He took a last glance at the cardboard box before he walked away. No one should end up in a thing like that, especially not someone so young.
His musing on deaths indignities made him forget lifes perils.
There you are, Joseph Sixsmith. Now what you been up to?
It was Aunt Mirabelle, lurking in the portico. At least her eagerness to be brought up to date made her forget Galina. But she showed more pertinacity than Chivers by suddenly asking, What you doing sneaking out of that side door anyway?
Time to go. He glanced at his watch which had stopped and said, Auntie, well talk tomorrow, OK? I got an appointment. Business.
At this time of night.
Crime doesnt keep office hours, he tossed over his shoulder.
Hed seen that on the letterhead of a security firm hed failed to do business with. Hed thought at the time it was a pretty crappy slogan. Now he got Mirabelles vote.
Dont give me that clever dick crossword stuff, she yelled after him. You never went to no college. Joseph Sixsmith, you get yourself back here!
Joe had made it to the square. Freedom was at hand but old habits die hard and hed been obeying Aunt Mirabelles commands as long as he could remember. He hesitated on the edge of the pavement. He who hesitates is sometimes saved. A dusty blue Range Rover came shooting out of the narrow lane that led to the Cloisters car park and swept by him at a speed that would probably have exploded his vital organs if hed taken another step.
He glimpsed Mrs Calverleys angular profile above the wheel. She gave no sign that shed noticed him. Well, he supposed shed had a nasty shock. And so had he.
There were two ways of taking this near miss. One was that God had used Aunt Mirabelles voice to save his life. The other was, a man whos just been so close to death needs a drink.
He weighed the alternatives judiciously. On the whole, he reckoned that after all the eighteenth-century praise and thanksgiving God had been getting tonight, He wouldnt be averse to a bit of modern secular music for a change.
Deafening his ears to Mirabelles unceasing commands, he set off for the Glit.
3
From time to time, Dick Hull, who runs the Gary Glitter public house in Luton, gets an acute attack of conscience. It seems to him that despite all he has done by way of decor, music and memorabilia, he is failing in his priestlike task of celebrating the one and only supernova of the British pop firmament.
Whenever this black mood comes upon him, he seeks solace in The Tape.
This is a recording he made at one of Garys legendary Gangshows by hurling a cassette recorder on to the stage and reclaiming it later under a savage assault by three stewards. Miraculously, the tape had kept on recording. The resulting sound in Hulls ears was more than hi-fidelity. It was the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Played full belt on the Glits PA system, it took him back to that glorious night in Glasgow, and all his self-doubt faded away.
It was playing tonight. Joe heard it several streets away. Legend had it that when fog blanketed Britain so bad that most airports were packing up and going home, at Luton planes still landed, homing in on the Glit.
Joe didnt altogether believe this. But he did wonder how a God accustomed to the gentle murmurings of Hallelujah choruses might feel about this level of decibels.
Happily, he was able from long experience to detect that it was approaching its climax. This was not, great though it was, Garys valedictory rendition of Im the Leader of the Gang (I am) but the voice of a steward shouting Awafokyerselyerweedickheed! and Hulls respondent scream as a size eleven army surplus boot came down on his hand.
The scream peaked as Joe entered. No one was talking. Even the new generation of kids brought up in a sound environment which made the machine room Joe had worked in most of his adult life seem like a forest glade, couldnt compete with this combination of frantic fans, stroppy stewards, and personal pain.
Then it was over. For a second there was a fragment of that rarest of things at the Glit, perfect silence.
In that moment Joes gaze met Galina Hackers across the crowded bar, and his heart sank. Shed been at the Oxfam shop again. At least the seventies flared trousersuit she wore covered those provocative legs (how could anything so skinny be so sexy?) but shed given the tunic a bit of pazazz by cutting off the sleeves, and even from this distance Joe could see she was wearing nothing beneath it. The flesh missing off her legs had been redistributed up there with equally disturbing results.
First things first. He gestured to the bar and shouldered his way through, giving and returning greetings. Next best thing to anonymity for a PI was a place where everyone knew you, especially when it meant your pint of Guinness was already waiting, neat and welcoming as a vicar at a wedding.
Thanks, Eric, he said.
Eric, a young man whose habitually worried expression clashed strangely with the brash assertiveness of his diamanté-studded waistcoat, watched in respectful silence as Joe downed five inches, then said, No Whitey?
No. Ive been rehearsing. He doesnt care for Haydn.
Whitey was his cat. No way you could get him into the chapel. Rev. Pot reckoned hed got enough on his plate dealing with human crap. But St Monkeys larger spaces had tempted Joe to bed Whitey down on a hassock in a remote pew at the first united rehearsal. Hed been all right through the introductory Chaos and the piano entry of the choir. But when they reached let there be light, and there was LIGHT, and the voices and instruments exploded in that most glorious of musical exultations, Whitey had shot upright and started a howling which had persisted long after the music had died away.
Most people had been amused. Aunt Mirabelle was not most people. According to her, Joe had let down himself, his family, Boyling Corner Chapel, and every decent Christian soul whod ever had the misfortune to come in contact with him.
Memory of Mirabelle was so strong that when a hand grasped his arm he jumped guiltily and almost spilt some stout.
Thought you wasnt coming, said Galina accusingly.
He turned and looked at her. Despite apparently being assaulted by a mad sheep-shearer and a myopic action painter, she was still a beautiful girl. But why not? Blacked out teeth and a raggedy suit hadnt stopped Judy Garland of immortal memory from being the loveliest swell walking down the avenue.
Hello, Gal, he said. Got a drink?