‘Don’t say I never do anything for you,’ he said meaningfully.
It took me a moment. ‘You bought an espresso machine! At long last!’
‘Anything for the Great Detective.’
‘Now my life is complete. I’m waiting for a client. In fact here he is and he wants. .’
‘A double gin and tonic, if he may,’ Haarbottle intoned, stiffly as ever, setting down an imitation leather briefcase as gently and precisely as though it contained the meaning of the universe written on bone china. Every inch of his tall figure was precise; greying hair plastered down in a side parting, miraculously uncreased raincoat which he now hung up carefully, blue M amp;S suit, blindingly white shirt sparking with static and the palest of pink ties. He waited until his G amp;T arrived, then gulped half of it down in one. Then he snapped open his briefcase and extracted a fat lemon-yellow file adorned with the Griffin logo.
‘It’s quite straightforward, as I explained on the telephone yesterday. .’ he began.
‘Yes, do you mind repeating what you told me then? I wasn’t really listening,’ I pleaded.
‘Wasn’t really. .?’
‘Well, my roof was flying away at the time.’
‘That can be quite distracting, or so our clients tell us. Remind me, did you insure your residence with us?’
‘No. What’s more I have the sinking feeling my house insurance lapsed.’
‘Lapsed?’ Haarbottle shuddered theatrically at the thought and dispatched the other half of his gin and tonic. ‘It’s not like Catholicism, you know. There’s no such thing as “lapsed”. You’re either insured or you’re not.’
‘I was afraid you might say that. So what have you got for me?’
He flipped open the file and withdrew a six by eight photograph. ‘James Lane. NWNF-ed our client — ’
‘N-what? Do speak English.’
‘No win, no fee, the latest craze imported from across the pond. Claimed he fell down the stairs due to a torn bit of carpet while visiting a friend who lived in rented accommodation. Hurt his back and head. Claims he’s permanently in pain, has problems balancing and now walks with a stick. A “nerve” thing. Utterly bogus.’
‘How d’you know?’
‘Five years ago he made a fraudulent insurance claim. Small stuff, pretended he had his camera nicked on holiday when actually he’d sold it.’
‘How did you get to know about that?’ I asked.
‘Insurance companies do talk to each other sometimes.
Anyway,’ he turned the picture round and slid it across, ‘that’s your man.’
The photo showed a round-faced bloke in his mid-thirties with straggly, untidy hair, wearing a suit. He was leaving a building which from much experience I recognized as the magistrates’ court. His smile was aimed at something outside the frame but definitely not the camera. Naturally, since the photo was a grainily enlarged black and white print, he looked guilty as hell, but then so would my Auntie Edith.
Haarbottle liberated a sheet of A4 from the file. ‘Thirty-four, divorced. . lives by himself in a two-up-two-down in Larkhall.’ He handed it over. ‘It’s all there. What we need is good, intelligent surveillance, not expensive round-the-clock surveillance, okay? I don’t want to know if he snores but I do want to know if he is faking it. Correction: I know the bastard’s faking it. You just get me the proof. It’s costing us a fortune to finance his life of leisure.’
‘Did he have a job?’
‘He used to work in a garage fitting exhausts to motor cars. And can we have video footage if at all possible? Judges do like a bit of video footage. So do the defendants. Show them a video of themselves doing naughty stuff and they change their plea to guilty very quickly. Saves a lot of time and money. Nail this little toerag for us, will you?’
What ever happened to ‘innocent until proven guilty’, I wondered. We haggled over my rates for a bit in a long-established way in which surprise, affront, regret and final acceptance were satirized rather than faked. Once we’d agreed and Haarbottle had fastidiously signed a crumpled copy of my standard contract, amended in the relevant places in biro, he folded away his stuff, climbed back into his coat and stalked out into the rain without paying for his drink. I’d stick it on my expenses somehow.
I sighed. Surveillance. Detective work rarely got more tedious than that. And since all my gear was at home and there was little chance of me starting work this instant I turned my full attention to the lunch menu. Detective work has its perks.
Chapter Two
What did I say about morons standing at street corners in bad weather? That’s exactly how I felt: stupid. What a stupid way to earn money. I was sitting in my car, in the Oriel Hall car park, from where I could just make out James Lane’s tiny terraced house in Brookleaze Buildings, where it skulked behind a riot of unchecked vegetation that, along with the National Collection of Broken Kitchen Gadgets, cluttered the tiny front garden. All the houses along the narrow street that faced the infant school and New Oriel Hall had back doors but since presumably he was unaware of being watched I hoped this wouldn’t be a problem. Surveillance of course was really Tim Bigwood’s speciality, Tim being the third member of Aqua Investigations, my small detective agency. I could only just afford to employ him at the best of times. His day job as an IT consultant for Bath University, mixed with his expertise as a retired (or so he says) safe-breaker, made him an excellent addition to the team. Tim’s winning ways with all things locked were very helpful in the detection business, especially if you didn’t mind bending the rules a little, and anything to do with pinhole cameras and sound bugging was a Bigwood job. But if I employed him at the going rate for watching Lane I’d never pay for my roof repairs.
It was cold in the car. I had to open the window to stop it steaming up, which didn’t improve the temperature. ‘Oh, please come out,’ I implored. ‘There’s nothing but crap on telly, I checked.’
First upstairs, then downstairs the lights snapped off and Lane’s front door opened. ‘Blimey! It worked!’ Mr Lane negotiated the cluttered few yards to the pavement with the awkward side-to-side movement of someone with a dud leg, using his stick. As he crossed the street and came towards me through the car park I let myself slither down in my seat and closed my eyes, pretending to be asleep in case he saw me. Through the open window I could hear him splish past on the wet tarmac. After a minute I slithered up again, got out and followed. He was wearing a hooded waterproof, faded jeans already darkening with wet at the bottom and black trainers. He looked thinner than he had in the picture taken last month outside the courts. His pace was slow, syncopated by a thin black walking stick in his right hand. I kept well back since he didn’t look like he was about to sprint off. He made his laborious way along quiet St Saviour’s Road and disappeared into the Rose and Crown. Things were looking up. I hung back a while and let several people go in before following inside.
It was only eight o’clock but the place was already busy. I’d always liked the Rosie. The decor looked like it had survived from the 1930s rather than been bought wholesale last year. The heating was on. Someone had had the excellent idea of putting the radiators on the outside of the bar and turning the pipework into footrests so that wet and grumpy detectives could warm themselves. The narrow tables along the walls were fully occupied and it took me a while to locate my quarry. He’d already been furnished with a pint of beer and he had found a wooden chair in a corner near the little fire. Ignoring the music and the loudly talking groups of people around him he pulled a hardback book from under his rainproof, opened it at a marked page and started reading. It was the kind of pub where nobody would dream of disturbing you. In fact there was another lonely book reader perched on a barstool, looking absorbed and oblivious to his surroundings.