Colin Bateman Of Wee Sweetie Mice And Men (pdf)

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to dry.
at McClean.
He said it quietly. 'Mary McMaster has disappeared.'
I'd been too preoccupied with my own problems even to notice. She'd gone out shopping and hadn't come back.
The police were looking into it. The FBI had expressed an interest but hadn't done much about it. Geordie McClean,
millionaire, had expressed his concern and displayed his largesse by hiring an overfed ex-cop eking out a living as a
private eye on the mean streets of New York.
Smith continued his luxuriant pedalling. At the rate he was going it would take him forty-eight years to get down to
his fighting weight. He wore a trench coat, unbuttoned, a pair of wire-framed spectacles, fawn trousers and a pair of
brown brogues. He didn't look like much, but then nobody had me pegged as a Booker-Prize-winning novelist. I told
them I hadn't seen her. Told them I went to a few pubs to get the New York flavour for my book. They didn't seem too
concerned. I asked Smith how far he'd gotten with his investigation.
He raised an eyebrow. 'Last thing we have on her is a Visa card used in Macy's. She bought three shirts and a pair
of sunglasses. Hasn't been seen since. Nothing's been touched at the hotel.'
McClean mopped at his brow with the sleeve of his buttoned cashmere coat. 'I'm trying to keep the publicity on this
down to the absolute minimum, Starkey. In fact, we weren't going to tell you at all, but I decided honesty was the best
policy. As the journalist in the party we would appreciate your cooperation on this. We have to approach it as a team.'
'What're you worried about, Geordie, the fight going down the tubes or Mary turning up safe?'
'Both, Starkey.'
'Of course. I take it you think the two are connected.'
'We haven't heard anything. Certainly no ransom demands or anything like that. The police are treating it simply as
a missing person at the moment. And a missing person who hasn't been missing that long. That's why I hired Pete here.
To get things really moving.'
I thumbed back towards the ring. 'I see Bobby's taking it well.'
McClean scratched his neck and looked uncomfortable. 'I know ... almost makes you wish ... nah ... of course not.
It's just so bloody unfair! Everything was going so well. Then those bloody heathens.. .'
'Aha. The jigsaw thickens.'
'Starkey. Use your head. Of course it's the Sons of Muhammad. Who else could it be?'
Smith stopped his pedalling. He freewheeled. 'This is New York, Mr McClean. It could be anyone. Or anything.
You're thinking of the Sons of Muhammad because they've threatened your boxer. But there's a hundred different
groups out there could be involved. She might have been taken for a reason totally unconnected with the fight. She
might have been murdered for the sheer hell of it, raped, been knocked down by a car. She might have amnesia. It
happens, believe me. I wouldn't rule out the Teenage Ninja Mutant Turtles having her.'
'Are you trying to cheer me up?'
'Mr McClean, if she's out there, I'll find her.'
It was admirable confidence. I could see how McClean was approaching it. A black terror group had her. So he
thought by hiring a black detective he would immediately get an inside track on it. Sure. Like hiring PC Plod in
whitest Hampstead when you needed Sherlock Holmes.
Maybe I was prejudging him. Frank Cannon hadn't looked like much either, but had always come up withthe
goods. And then eaten them.
'So,' I said, 'now that I'm in on the secret, what can I do to help?'
'Keep your trap shut, for a start,' said McClean, a little too quickly. 'I'm sorry. Of course you will. But I'd like you
to stick with Bobby as much as you can. Stop him doing anything silly or saying anything dumb.'
'I thought Stanley was his bosom buddy.'
'Stanley can stop him getting shot, but he's hardly a member of the diplomatic corps. You'll need to handle the
press with kid gloves. Keep them away from Bobby until we get this sorted out, but keep them on our side. Can you do
that?'
I nodded.
Smith clambered off the bike. 'Of course,' he said slowly, even slightly breathlessly, 'she might just have run off
with someone else.'
McClean looked round sharply. 'She wouldn't do that. You haven't seen them together. They love each other.'
'Doesn't always keep people together, Geordie,' I said and turned for the door.
Someone who didn't know me might have taken it as the cynical observation of a bitter man.
17
'Did I ever tell you how I met her?'
I shook my head and looked at my steak. He hadn't, but it still felt like a lie. He wanted to talk.
I'd made little impression on my food. Bobby, on the other hand, hadn't let his obvious concern for his missing wife
interfere with his prodigious appetite; he had laid waste to a small cow.
'Like, I was only a wee lad, walking home. She was getting beaten up by these other girls and I chased them off. I
suppose she was grateful, and she went out with me.' He shook his head and grinned at me. 'I'd never had a girlfriend
before. We started seeing each other all the time, everything was going great, then for a couple of days she went all
quiet and I thought I was going to get dumped. I kept asking her what was wrong, and she kept saying nothing, but I
knew there was, and I'd more or less resigned myself to losing her. I mean, it wasn't a question of pregnancy or
anything, I knew that much. But she took so long telling me I lost my temper and stormed off and she came running
after me crying and finally blurted out what had been worrying her. She said she was embarrassed with me walking
about in a pair of flares. She said they never had and never would be in fashion and could I please get rid of them
because they were killing her. I know it seems a bit superficial now, but I've seen photographs of myself then and I did
look daft. Have you ever seen a hundredweight of spuds in a pair of flares? Sexy or what?' [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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