The Third Pig Detective Agency: The Complete Casebook. Bob Burke

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СКАЧАТЬ garbage as I had. When I pointed this out to the driver – and waved a twenty under his nose – he not-so-graciously consented to take me back to the office. As I was getting into the cab I reached into my pocket, drew out a ten-dollar note and handed it to the kid.

      ‘Here kid,’ I said. ‘Thanks for your help. By the way, what’s your name?’

      ‘Jack,’ he replied, examining the note for authenticity. ‘Jack Horner.’

      ‘Well, Jack Horner, maybe I’ll see you around.’

      ‘Count on it Mister.’ He turned and walked back down the alleyway.

      The cab pulled away and made its way back to my office. I wasn’t in the mood for chat so after the cab driver had covered the usual in-taxi topics (weather, sport, vacations, weather again and traffic) without a hint of a response from me, he wisely chose to drive the rest of the journey in silence. At least I gave him a tip when we got to the office: I told him where he could find a good car cleaning service. He didn’t seem too impressed as he drove off.

      As I entered my office, Gloria tried (none too successfully) not to laugh.

      ‘I shouldn’t ask,’ she giggled, ‘but what happened to you? You look like you slept in garbage.’

      I was about to point out how accurate she was and then decided not to give her the satisfaction. I have my pride, you know. With what was left of my dignity I slimed my way into my office. Within a matter of minutes I was clean, well, cleaner at any rate, sartorially more elegant and, more importantly, smelling a lot less like rotten vegetables. That kind of thing can have a negative effect on clients and this was a client I didn’t want to affect negatively, especially on my first day. I opened the top drawer of my desk and took out a spare phone. I had a running supply of spares; cell phones tended to have a limited life expectancy in my pockets. In fact, I suspected that the phone company had a special factory just making phones for me, such was the rate I went through them.

      Gloria was still smirking when I came back out.

      ‘That’s a bit better, but not much,’ she said. If anything, her smirk had gotten wider.

      ‘Thanks for the beauty tips,’ I replied. ‘Maybe you should take it up professionally. You’re obviously wasted in this job.’

      ‘Now, now, I’m only trying to help.’

      ‘Well, try harder.’ I headed for the door and walked down to where my car was parked. Sliding into the driver’s seat I gave myself a last once-over in the mirror.

      ‘Presentable,’ I murmured. ‘Not at my best, but I should pass muster. At least they won’t know that I spent the night sleeping in an alleyway.’

      I started the car and drove uptown to see how the other half lived. Nestling in the foothills on the north side of town, Frog Prince Heights – possibly Grimmtown’s most exclusive residential area – was home to the richest, most famous and probably most downright crooked of our citizens. Most of the very large and tasteless mansions had their own security service and enough electronic surveillance to make even the most paranoid of residents comfortable in their beds at night. As was the case with all residential areas of this type, the higher up the hills you went, the bigger the estates got. To my total lack of surprise, my client’s home (if a word like home could do justice to the palace I drove up to) was right at the top of the hill overlooking the entire town.

      ‘Master of all he surveys, no doubt,’ I said, as I pulled up at the very large, very imposing and very closed gates that were embedded in even larger and more imposing walls. Just to the left of the gates was a small speaker underneath which was a bright red button. Pressing the button, I waited for a response. As I sat there, I imagined that very hidden, very small, very expensive and very-high-resolution cameras were even now trained on me, watching my every move. I didn’t have to wait too long.

      ‘Yes,’ crackled a voice from the speaker.

      ‘Harry Pigg. I have an appointment.’

      ‘Just one moment.’

      A please would have been nice, but I imagined detectives were as high in the food chain of visitors to the mansion as the mailman and the garbage collector so I figured manners weren’t part of standard operating procedure.

      The gates swung open very quietly and very quickly. I was a bit disappointed; I had imagined they’d be more imposing and ominous with lots of creaking and rattling.

      The intercom crackled again. ‘Drive through,’ said the voice. ‘Follow the road around to the side. You’ll be met there.’

      I followed the driveway up to the house, past lawns that looked as though they were manicured with nail scissors rather than mown. The house itself was a monument to bad taste or blind architects. Someone had clearly tried to incorporate my client’s eastern origins into a gothic pile. It was as if a giant (and we have plenty in the locality) had dropped the Taj Mahal on Dracula’s Castle and then cemented bits of Barad-dûr on afterwards for effect. Minarets jostled for space with pagodas, battlements and some downright ugly and bored-looking gargoyles. It hurt my eyes just to look at it, and I was wearing shades.

      I drove around the side of this tasteless monstrosity to be greeted by another one. Waiting for me at what I presumed was the tradesman’s entrance was an ogre, proudly displaying his ‘Ogre Security – Not On Our Watch’ badge. He was an imposing figure – all muscle and boils. Slowly he checked my ID before letting me out of the car. I could see his lips move as he read the details. The fact that he could actually read impressed me no end – most ogres I knew preferred to eat books rather than read them. Good roughage, apparently.

      ‘So you weren’t watching the other night, then?’ I asked.

      ‘Huh?’ he replied.

      I pointed to his badge.

      ‘The other night?’ I repeated. ‘On your watch? Did you guys take the night off when the lamp was stolen?’

      ‘What lamp?’

      ‘Your boss’s lamp. The one that …’ Seeing the blank look on his face it was obvious that Ogre Security provided the muscle to keep the grounds free of intruders but didn’t have too much input to the more sophisticated security inside the house. ‘Never mind. Can I go in now?’

      He even held the door open for me as I entered the house. A polite security guard, whatever next?

      Inside, my good friend Gruff was waiting for me and, by the look on his face, wasn’t relishing the job.

      ‘Ah Mr Gruff, so good of you to meet me. I recognised your foul stench as soon as I came aboard. Showers broken, eh?’

      He looked at me and I could tell he was struggling to come back with a witty reply, or indeed any reply. I smiled at his discomfort.

      ‘Never mind,’ I said. ‘If you practise hard in front of a mirror maybe you’ll learn to string more than two words together for the next time we meet. Wouldn’t that be nice?’

      He glowered as he led me through the house. It was just as tasteless on the inside as on the out. Furniture of various styles, shapes and sizes jostled for position with figurines, sculptures, assorted suits of exotic armour and a variety of plants. It looked like a storage depot for an antiques store run by a florist rather СКАЧАТЬ