8. The Curious Incident of the Blag in the Daytime...

DATE: Tuesday 6th December 2005

TIME: 9.42 pm

PLACE: Mad Mack's ' Public Bar

CROWD: Usual (quiet)

MUSIC: Howlin' Wolf ' All My Life

MOOD: Swinging (up and down)

Me and Sherlock, perched at the bar like a pair of old crows, gacking about how it used to be before it all changed and got different. All the lady crows, all the nests, all the flitting about and the soaring and swooping, and having a good old peck and a caw.

Old Wolfie's refrain kept trying its hardest¦

¦all my life ¦I've had it hard¦

¦but it hadn' t all been bad, we agreed. Quite a bit of it had been good.

And now?

Sherlock downed the last of his pint and placed the glass on the bar. "Like they said when old Tone took the throne¦ 'Things can only get better'. Two more of the same please, Denise.

While Denise got our pints, Sherlock took out his baccy pouch and offered it over. I looked at it longingly.

"Go on, he said. "One won't hurt.

But I shook my head. "No, mate. I'm determined. One change, all change ' except for the beer, of course.

He chuckled, sticking a fag paper on his lip and digging in for some baccy. "Now, then I really would worry. Then I'd be calling the doctor. Or the undertaker.

He flicked the baccy into the paper.

"So¦ how's the first day of the rest of your life been, then?

I told him about the play. I told him how useful his matches had been. And I told him I needed a story.

"What kind of story? he said, firing up as our pints arrived.

"A story. The story. The one I've been trying to write all these years, and haven't come within pissing distance. The big story, you know? The one I was put here to tell.

Sherlock took his first sup and looked thoughtful.

"Hmm. So, what's it gonna be about, then?

I shrugged. "You know¦ The big things. Ordinary people and ordinary lives ' which is all bollocks, of course. There's no such thing as ordinary. No one lives an ordinary life. We only think they do. But there's all kinds of stuff going on underneath. You don't need me to tell you that. And it's that stuff where literature comes from.

I saw his eyebrows arch under the peak of his deerstalker.

"I mean, I said, "Look at your Dickens. All them books ' thousands of pages ' all about just ordinary people. And look at us and where we live and what we do, and all the punters we know. Ordinary enough stuff. But then there's things like¦ things like¦

He looked at me ' face as blank as a schoolkid's.

"Well¦ I lowered my voice. "Denise and her change-over. Or Craigie Woods over there ' built like a concrete knocking-shop, with a Pomeranian pooch called Shirley and a pair of fluffy slippers. The Beasley Boys with their whacky game no one understands. Suzie and Trina¦ (who were just then refilling their glasses under their table) "¦who knows what goes on? Even old Lemon back there in the corner¦

We both turned and sneaked a peep at Lemon Top ' by the telly as usual, volume down, yellow cardy, shabby raincoat, glass half-empty, nothing doing.

"What about him? said Sherlock.

"Well¦ I dunno, I conceded. "But that's just it, though. I don't know. It's what you don't know that does it. It's what you don't know that's important. He's got a past, like we all have. It might be littered with all sorts of stuff. Scandals. Dodges. A trail of affairs running right 'round the world.

We both looked at him again. The telly was flickering across his spectacles, making him look like Master Po on dope. His lips were moving slightly. Sherlock turned back to his pint.

"Well¦ sounds like you've got the imagination for it, Al. I'll give you that.

I stared at the bubbles rising in my glass.

"And a fat lot of good it'll do me if I ain't got a story to feed on it.

Sherlock chuckled. "You'd better get that down your neck sharp and get another one in, then, he said. "Sounds like a three-pint problem to me, as the great man almost put it.

We drank in silence for a few moments. Then Sherlock rolled his shoulders and sniffed. He lifted his deerstalker, turned it around, put it back on again ' tugging at the peaks like an admiral. Something was coming.

"I'll give you a story, Al, he said. He took a last, lung-stuffing drag on his fag and blew his smoke at the bar top, where it spread out in a layer like dry ice. "Did I tell you¦ I actually was a detective once.

I'd lifted my pint, but it stopped half-way. I glanced at him. I was trying to look neutral, but the incredulity must have snuck through.

"A store detective, mate, he said. "You know¦ wandering around trying to look like I was shopping. Not so bad in Home Entertainment. Bit of a drag in Women's Wear¦ if you'll excuse the pun.

I tried to imagine this paunchy, dishevelled, deerstalker-toting, endearingly scatter-shot mate of mine loping around a Lingerie Department trying to look inconspicuous. But it was no good. Bizarrely, all I got was the image of him in white tights and a tutu, pirouetting lumpily across a stage ' ear-flaps akimbo, rollie dangling ' as the Sugar Plum Fairy. My imagination indeed!

"This is a few years ago, mind, he went on, as if sensing my association deficit. "When I looked more the part. When I still had a suit and an aura of respectability.

No¦ that was an image I couldn't conjure any way I tried.

"So, anyway, he said. "I'm this store detective, doing what I'm paid to do¦ and doing it only because I'm paid to do it, you understand. Not because I want to do it.

I nodded. I'd been in the same position several times myself. We all have. It's the old story.

Sherlock took another sup of beer and sniffed again ' priming himself up for the next bit.

"So anyhow. One day, this woman comes in. Chinchilla jacket, gold, diamonds. Real gear, too. Serious cash, you know? And she stuck out like a chav in a chapel, 'cos it wasn't that kind of store. Not like Harrods or nothing. So, for that reason ' as well as the fact that she was pretty tasty anyway ' I kept my eye on her. Well, she wanders about for a bit, looking at stuff without really looking at it, if you know what I mean. Picking things up, putting them down, moving on. No real sense of purpose. Killing time, like. Eventually she heads off into what I called the tat end of the store. End-of-line stuff, shop-soiled stock, bargain bins, plus all the other market-stall rubbish they only keep 'cos it draws in the punters. So¦ I'm standing behind this rack of paperbacks, keeping her in view. And you know what she does?

He glanced at me, then took another mouthful of beer ' just to keep the anticipation up.

"What she does is, she goes up to this display of cheap-crap jewellery ' you know, brass knuckle-duster rings, chrome-plated bracelets, earrings that look like they're made out of fishing hooks and bits of polystyrene. She goes up to it, glances 'round a couple of times, then grabs loads of this stuff and starts to shovel it into her pockets. Just like that. I was so bowled over I almost fell through the book rack. I mean, this stuff was the crappiest bollocks you could imagine. Even I wouldn't have bought it. And there she is, standing up in the sort of kit that was probably worth five times my yearly pay.

He paused to roll another fag. I'd almost finished my pint, but was holding out.

"What happened?

He lit up and coughed his smoke out.

"Well, naturally I stop her when she's leaving and ask her if she'd mind stepping into this little office I've got at the back of the store. About the size of a fitting room. The important thing is not to make a scene in public view. She doesn't look scared or ask questions or nothing. It's like she knows what it's all about. So she follows me into this office and I close the door. And then the wierdest thing happens. As soon as the door's shut, she drops to her knees, grabs me around the legs, buries her face in my thighs and starts bawling like a barrowload of kittens. It was proper hysterics, you know. And she's pulling at my trousers so hard that they're starting to come down. I tell you, if anyone else had come in then, it wouldn't have looked very good.

I put my hand over my mouth. He was deadly serious. I could see the memory of it playing behind his eyes like it was yesterday.

"I didn't have a bloody clue what to do, of course. I mean, I'd seen tears before, but this was something else altogether. But anyway, after a bit she starts to calm down ' fortunately, just before my belt gives out ' and she lets go. I put my hand under her arm and help her into a chair, and give her a box of tissues we always kept in there. She blows her nose and wipes her face ' and even though she's smudged all her make-up and her eyes look like bullet wounds, she still looks beautiful. In fact, if anything, she's more beautiful. And, I don't know¦ you know me and a pretty face. I can't help feeling sorry for her. Like you were saying just now, I know there's more to it than meets the eye. Anyway, when she's settled I get her a glass of water, and while she's drinking it she tells me the whole story. About how rich she is. Inheritance from her father, who was some big knob in shipping. Containers and that. She had newspaper cuttings in her handbag to prove it. She showed them to me. One of them had a photograph of her. It was all kosher. We're talking multi-multi-millions. Make the Beckhams' lot look like spare change for the phone. She had enough money to buy the whole store if she wanted to, and the rest of the shopping centre, and still have enough change left over for a couple of aircraft carriers.

He paused for a lubricating sup.

"Anyway¦ as it turns out, that was the root of the problem. The bunce. Because it meant nothing to her, and she could buy anything she wanted and never spend out, it had had a funny effect on her. Loosened up a few tiles or something. She said she was getting help for it, seeing a top psychiatrist, taking tablets by the lorryload. She showed me inside her bag and it was like a reject bin at the M&M factory. Valium, Prozac, uppers, downers, sidewaysers. And one of the effects of all this ' the money, the illness, the drugs, the therapy ' was that she'd developed this uncontrollable urge to steal crap. She said she had a room full of it at home. CD covers, bubble gum, post cards, spare Christmas light bulbs, boxes of drawing pins, match books, beer mats, dog biscuits, newspapers, batteries. Stuff she was never going to use. Stuff she could easily afford to buy. But that wasn't the trip. She had to take it. She said it was the only pleasure she had left in life.

He tipped back the last of his pint.

"Now, what do you reckon on that?

I chuckled, shaking my head. "You do know how to tell 'em, mate.

I took out a fiver and Denise came and did our refills.

"So, what did you do then?  I said, after we'd taken the first mouthful.

Sherlock put his glass down on the bar and stared into it.

"What did I do? I'll tell you. I let her go.

I chuckled again. I was starting to wonder if this was a wind-up after all ' but he was there ahead of me.

"Straight up, mate¦ I let her go. I mean, this woman was nothing to me. I didn't know her from Adam and I didn't owe her the time of day. She might have strolled right past me if I'd been sitting in the gutter and not given me a second look. What difference would it have made if I'd shopped her, anyway? She was sitting on a wall of money a mile high and ten miles long. She could have hired the best lawyers and gotten off with a fine or a discharge on the grounds of diminished responsibility or whatever it is. But it was the whole thing of it. The thing deep down in this sad woman's heart that drove her to do something like that¦ just to make herself feel better about her life.

Some ash dropped on his jacket and he flicked it off.

"So, I let her go. After I'd emptied her pockets, of course.

I took a reflective sup of my beer, wondering what I'd have done in the same position. Maybe the same. I don't know.

"Sterling, mate, was all I could think of to say.

He sat up on his stool again, like someone had just pumped some air into him.

"You ain't heard the best bit, though. You know what happens? Get this. He took a final drag of his rollie and stubbed it out. "She's so grateful for my merciful treatment of her¦ that she writes in a letter of thanks to the management of the store, telling them what had happened, and recommending me for an award.

Once again, he caught me with my glass half-way to my mouth. I put it down again quickly before I dropped it.

After I'd quietened down and wiped my eyes, I had to ask.

"Did you get one?

He picked up his glass.

"Bloody right, mate. The D.C.M.

He took a long drink and belched with deep gratification.

"'Don't Come Monday'.

We both creased up, then ' so much so that Denise had to ask if we were alright. I put my thumb up. So did Sherlock.

"I didn't mind, he said. "I was pissed off with it anyway. I was looking for a way out. She did me a favour, really.

Sterling.

*

We sat in silence for few moments afterwards, smirks on our faces, thinking our thoughts on it all.

"So there you go, Al, said Sherlock. "There's a story for you. You're welcome to use it. No copyright attached.

"Thanks, mate, I said. "I'll keep it in mind. It's the sort of thing I mean. But. You ain't got a slightly¦ longer one, have you?

He thought for a moment.

"You could always spin it out a bit. She looks me up later, we get together, I go to live with her in the Castle, we travel the world on a crime spree, sampling some substances on the way, pulling our biggest coup in America where we flog the White House to the Russians in a deal that gives us a major shareholding in a vodka conglomerate which owns all the coffee shops and brothels in Amsterdam. There's probably some mileage in that.

I swallowed some beer.

"I mean, you're the writer, mate, he said. "You're the one with the imagination. Make it up as you go along. It shouldn't be hard.

Right, I thought. No, it shouldn't.

So why the fuck was it?