Confessions of a Private Dick. Timothy Lea

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      ‘Right,’ I breathe.

      Mr Brown’s vengeful footsteps echo away down the corridor and I put my shoes and socks on. I will attack my cuticles another day. You need a bit of hot water to soften them up anyway. I could use something from the coffee machine but there is the danger that it might melt my toes off. Difficult to get your feet in the beakers, too.

      I am really chuffed after my interview with Mr Brown. He seemed to accept me without question – mind you, I did handle myself well. I put him at his ease and got straight down to the nitty-gritty with the minimum of flannel. Sid will be pleased when I tell him. But why should I tell him? I have got this far by myself, why not finish the job? Close the file and tie a pink ribbon round it before throwing it on the D.A.’s desk. That’s what Clint Eastwood would do. Yes, I will show Sid what a smooth operator I can be when he is not around to foul me up.

      In fact, Sid is so elephants (elephant’s trunk: drunk. Ed.) when he rolls back at a quarter past three that I doubt if he would understand if I did tell him. He starts reading a paperback entitled Blondes Like It Backwards and then falls asleep on it so that the centre spine forms a trough for his spittle. All very Homes and Gardens.

      It occurs to me that I am going to need a flashlight camera for my assignment and that my Instamatic is not going to do, even if I run into the bedroom holding a freshly struck match above my head. Luckily I know a bag of coke who frightens American tourists into parting with a few bob by chasing them down Lower Regent Street with his camera and saying that the snaps will be waiting for them when they get back to the States – he even charges them postage. I don’t think he has ever taken an actual photograph in his life but the camera looks impressive.

      I wait till Sid has slouched off saying that he has got an urgent appointment and start making arrangements. My mate says that I can have the camera if I pop round for it and let him have a couple of prints if they turn out to be a bit fruity. I suppose Mr Brown is right. It is a dirty business. I would not fancy it if some geezer rushed in and started snapping away while I was exercising the pocket python. I will have to move fast in case there is unpleasantness.

      One thing that worries me is when the dastardly deed is going to take place. I should have asked Mr Brown if he had an inkling but it might have set him off on a rampage. The dirty duo could be on the job at this very moment. I hope they have a lot of stamina otherwise everything might be over before I have screwed in my flash bulb. To check out this unsavoury thought I ring up the hotel and ask to speak to Mr Brown – I can always pretend to be room service if he answers – but there is no one there. Diabolically clever, isn’t it? If I can keep up this form no criminal will be safe.

      An hour later, I am sitting in the lounge of the Densford Hotel and wondering how I got lumbered with the disgusting thimbleful of brown liquid nestling between my thumbs. I asked for a beer and the bloke behind the bar gave me something out of a bottle with ‘Byrrh’ written on it. He seemed to think I was joking when I pointed out his mistake and I thought he was joking when he told me how much the muck cost: 45p! It is shocking, isn’t it? Still, I suppose if you are a private eye you have to get used to ritzing it up a bit. Which reminds me, I never talked to Brown about moola. Sid was very concerned that we did not take anything on without getting some cash in advance. Not that Brown can welsh on us because he will be coming round for his photographs. We can collect then.

      I take another casual gander round the room and retire behind my copy of London Cries – at these bar prices it should be bleeding weeping. I have checked that the key to Room 367 is in reception, now all I have to do is wait for Mrs Brown and her lover to show up. From what I saw of the photograph I would not mind being around if she was looking for something to scratch her snatch with. I hope I will be able to recognize her. Birds can change very easily. Hang on a minute! That looks like her following the two knockers into the reception area. What a figure! She makes an hour glass seem like a test tube. And that arse! It looks as if it is hovering over a warm air duct. All this and V.P.L. (visible pant line). No wonder Mr Brown gets his knickers in a twist when he thinks of other geezers giving her pussy a protein injection. I could be up that like a rat up a drainpipe. But, restrain yourself, Lea! I must get my priorities straightened out – regular readers will not be surprised to hear that my number one priority started shaking out the kinks the moment I clapped eyes on Mrs Brown. I must keep a cool head, steady hands and a limp hampton and remember whose side I am on. To get mixed up with your clients must be fatal in this game.

      The lovely Mrs Brown exchanges a smile for a room key and heads for the lift leaving a fine veil of steam rising from the desk clerk’s eyeballs. When she moves away from you it is like a couple of small medicine balls nuzzling each other. I am so mesmerized that I knock back my drink without thinking. Ugh! The stuff that Dad rubs on his chest must taste better than that.

      No sooner have the lift doors closed than an ugly thought assails me: I don’t know what Mrs Brown’s fancy man looks like. He could be anybody. I had better get up to the room and keep an eye open. There is also the question of how I am going to get into the room. The key has gone and the desk clerk is not going to give me another one. Maybe they will leave it in the door. I can see less chance of that than of it raining potatoes on St Patrick’s Day. I step out of the lift, walk past the door of the room and hear what sounds like a bloke laughing and the chink of glasses. Gordon Bennett. Don’t say he was in there all the time? The swine! I hope the tassel of his silk dressing-gown dangles in the ice bucket and brushes against the tip of his hampton. At any second, he may come behind her and kiss the side bit where her neck joins her shoulders. I know the kind of devilish practices these blokes get up to. Unless I move fast he will be getting in before I do. Where am I going to find a pass key or a fire escape? You don’t have one on you, do you? I glance up the corridor and see a bird coming out of a room carrying an armful of bedding. Maybe she will be able to help.

      ‘Excuse me,’ I say, scampering to her side. ‘You – er, don’t happen to have a key to three six seven, do you? I seem to – er—’ I pat my chest and hope that she will reckon I have misplaced my key.

      ‘Not your room,’ she says reproachfully. Knickers! I would have to cop some central European bird with a strong sense of right and wrong.

      ‘I am private detective,’ I say. ‘Like policeman. Very good.’

      The bird leads the way into a small room full of laundry baskets and shelves of sheets, and dumps the bedclothes on a pile in the corner.

      ‘I do not know,’ she says.

      She is an appealing bird. Slim and with harassed wisps of hair fluffing out of her bamet. Though small she has big eyes and a wide mouth that turns up attractively at the coners.

      ‘I only want it for a few minutes,’ I say. ‘I’m not going to nick anything.’

      ‘Nick?’ she says.

      ‘Steal,’ I say. ‘I want to take a photograph of the inside of the room, that’s all.’

      The bird’s face brightens. ‘You can take photograph of three six five. Is same inside.’

      ‘It’s not just the room,’ I say. ‘It’s the people as well. It’s sort of – how can I explain it?’

      ‘Surprise?’ says the bird.

      ‘That’s it,’ I say. ‘You’ve got it. A surprise.’ I reach out my hand hopefully.

      Maybe I am going too fast because the bird does not make a move. ‘It would be best thing if you ask manager, I think,’ she says. Right at the back of her eyes where the dark blue is practically black, I think I can see a twinkle.

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