Wild Thing

An Eddie Dancer Mystery

By Mike Harrison, Michael Holmes

ECW PRESS

Copyright © 2006 Mike Harrison
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-55022-719-2
CHAPTER 1

WHEN THE PHONE ON my night table rang at 3:44 on Wednesday morning, I assumed that somebody had died. It wasn’t an unnatural assumption, given my line of work.

“Hello?” I tried to sound respectful of the newly bereaved.

A man’s voice came from a long way off.

“Edward?”

Nobody called me Edward. Except my parents, but they have been dead for ten years.

“Who’s this?”

“It’s Dr. Peter Maurice.”

I searched my memory but didn’t need to go back very far. Dr. Maurice headed up a team of specialists brought in to help me after a violent episode last summer. He was a psychologist of some renown, flown in from Vancouver to make sure my brain recovered the way brains should when they’ve been shaken, not stirred.

“How are you, Doctor?” It gave me a thrill to ask psychologists how they were. They never gave you a straight answer though.

“Fine,” he lied. “Just fine.”

“I’m glad to hear it.”

It was now 3:46 in the morning. I remembered he was a long-winded old soul.

“So, are you fit and well and back on the job, Edward?”

“Hundred percent,” I lied. “No longer a defective detective.”

“That’s very good to know.” He paused. “Maybe I could use your services.”

“My pleasure,” I assured him. “Where are you?”

“In England,” he said. “I’m under house arrest.”

I let that sink in for a moment.

“Why?”

“Why am I in England, or why am I under house arrest?”

“Why are you under house arrest in England?” I played him at his own game.

“I’m here on a book tour,” he said. “Promoting Eye Too Eye in the United Kingdom.”

I had an autographed copy of Eye Too Eye in my bookcase downstairs. It was his take on what was wrong with the world. Chapter One said our problems all began with too. We either had too much of something, such as stress or work or time on our hands, or too little of something else, such as money or time or life skills. The secret, according to Chapter Two, was to achieve total congruency between the conscious and subconscious minds.

His words, not mine.

Chapter Three began to use words such as sub-modalities, neurolinguistics and re-entrainment.

I never reached Chapter Four. But as bad as it was, I didn’t think it was grounds for house arrest.

“Are book tours illegal over there, then?” I asked.

“Well, no,” he answered, seriously. “But apparently, the British police believe I’m a mass murderer. Their number one serial killer, in fact.”

“Well, it’s nice to be number one at something,” I said. “And that would explain the house arrest,” I added, relieved that it wasn’t the quality of his book after all.

“Yes, indeed.”

He could be quite droll.

“How can I help?”

“Can you come over? We really do need your help.”

“Who’s we?”

“My wife is with me.”

“Coming over won’t be a problem,” I said, since I was, as we say in the profession, between jobs, “but how much help can I be, Peter? I don’t know the country. I don’t know their laws.”

“I’ll take that chance,” he said. “My wife can organize your flight, book you a hotel. How soon can you leave?”

“How long do you need me for?”

“I don’t know. Let me give you my phone number.”

I scrambled out of bed. What sort of defective private detective was I not to keep a pen and paper on the bedside table in case a notorious serial killer called in the middle of the night? I hurried downstairs to the kitchen. The hardwood floor was cold on my bare feet. I grabbed a pen and paper from the drawer.

“Okay.”

It was a long number that included the country code. I counted fifteen digits when I read them back to him.

“Can you let me know soon?” he asked.

“Why do they have you under house arrest? How come you’re not in jail?”

“It’s a temporary measure. They’ll transfer me to jail later this week.”

“Why do they think it’s you?”

“Circumstantial evidence,” he said. “But it’s very persuasive. On the face of it, Edward, even I believe I’m guilty.”

“But you’re not?”

I had to ask.

He paused a short moment. It was a classy pause, born of neither guilt nor suspicion.

“No,” he said, finally. “I’m most assuredly not.”

Which was good enough for me.

“When’s the next available flight?” I asked him.

“I’ll let you talk to Sylvia.”

The phone went dead for few long seconds and I listened to the sound of November snow melting from my roof and running through the eavestroughs. A chinook wind was blowing outside. I could hear it gusting hard against my little two-storey in Marda Loop, one of Calgary’s more trendy areas. Chinooks are warm, moist Pacific winds that blow in hard over the Rocky Mountains. A dense blanket of low grey cloud obscures the sky and forms an impressive sky-blue chinook arch directly above the mountains. The warm air becomes trapped beneath this blanket of cloud and can raise the ground temperature by as much as twenty to thirty degrees in a matter of hours. Chinooks play havoc with the barometric pressure, bestowing upon Calgary the dubious title of Migraine Capital of the World.

A woman’s voice interrupted my thoughts of warm winds and migraine headaches.

“Hello, Edward?” She sounded strained.

“Hello, Sylvia.”

“Peter is in trouble,” she said. “He really needs your help.”

“I’ll do whatever I can,” I promised. “Have you had time to check on any flights?”

“Yes. That’s why we called you so early. There is a flight out of Calgary at 7:45 a.m. Your time. Can you be on it?”

Four hours. I did a fast mental locate of my belongings. Passport. Underwear. Toothbrush.

“Sure.”

“Oh, thank you,” she said, her relief evident. “I have reserved a seat in your name. With Peter’s credit card. You’ll need to take a cab from the airport when you get here.”

“I land at Heathrow?”

“Yes.”

“And where are you?”

“In a place called Saint Albans.”

“What’s your address?”

She gave me the address and said she had booked me in at the Queens Hotel. I wrote it all down. The flight was due at Heathrow around midnight their time.

“Can you get me a late check-in at the Queens?”

“Yes, of course.”

“I’m on the way, then.”

“Just a minute. Here’s Peter.”

She handed the phone to her husband.

“Edward?”

“Yes, Peter?”

“I want you to know I really appreciate your help,” he said.

“You’re very welcome,” I told him. “Now get off the phone. I have underwear to pack.”

After we hung up, I made a pot of strong coffee. I thought about England. It had been more than ten years since I was last there. Maybe this time I’d get to try some of their famous figgy pudding.

I began packing for a cold British winter.

One without the benefit of warm chinooks.

CHAPTER 2

MY HAIR WAS STILL WET from the shower but I was packed and ready to leave by 4:37 a.m.

After I set the house alarm, turned down the thermostat ten degrees and phoned my answering service to let them know I’d be abroad until further notice, there was nothing left to do. I had no cats to cuddle, dogs to romp, fish to feed, birds to cage, nor elderly relatives over which to dote.

I live a singular and frugal existence.

I took a yellow cab to the airport and we used forty gallons of wiper fluid to keep the windshield clear.

The other downside of chinooks.

The international terminal was full of sleepy-looking travellers in need of a hearty breakfast. The ticket the Maurices bought me was first-class, so I avoided the crowds and was ushered aboard like Canadian royalty.

King Eddie.

They gave me a window seat, which was nice, but sat me next to an anti-social lady from the thirteenth century, laden with sufficient jewellery to seriously compromise our takeoff speed. She wore dozens of metal bracelets on both arms and it sounded like a serious engine malfunction every time she scratched.

Once we were in the air, I asked to borrow a map of Great Britain. The flight attendant lent me a hefty, battered old atlas. I hoped it wasn’t the pilot’s. Saint Albans was spelled St. Albans and was in the county of Hertfordshire, north of London. I measured the distance from the airport. Heathrow was west of London. It didn’t look too far but I knew the traffic would be heavy and forty-odd miles could easily take several hours.

Before boarding, I’d phoned the lovely Cindy Palmer at home. I used one of the airport’s pay phones. I had called her before I left Canada because I knew my cell phone wouldn’t work in the United Kingdom.

Her answering machine kicked in right away, so I knew she was asleep. She’s an E.R. nurse and works funny hours. Not as funny as mine, of course. I left her a cryptic message about Queen and country and told her machine I’d call it back tomorrow.

Then I covered the mouthpiece and whispered something sweet and syrupy and unambiguously sexual.

Which is what you do when the love-bug bites.

I left a more mundane message on Danny Many-Guns’ answering machine. Danny’s my sometime partner, my pick-up guy, my backup singer when things get a little too hot. One never knows where Danny might be, but I left him a message anyway.

“I’m on my way to Merrie England,” I said. “Peter Maurice needs some help. Dr. Peter Maurice,” I added, in case he’d forgotten who Peter Maurice was, which was superfluous since Danny never forgets anything.

Somewhere over the Arctic, I tried to sleep, my head cradled in a pillow wedged against the window. But the best I could manage was a series of catnaps, interrupted by the Queen of Bling who’d developed a rash loud enough to wake the dead.

I thought about what Dr. Maurice had told me. Or hadn’t told me. I wondered how something as civilized as a book tour could turn into a serial killer slugfest. Then I fretted about not being able to bring my gun with me. But a 9mm SIG Sauer isn’t the kind of walk-on luggage Air Canada encourages. Besides, the Brits are funny about people walking around their island with a gun strapped to their thigh. I keep my gun padlocked inside a steel cabinet, behind a locked door in my basement, three locks between it and the outside world, as required by law, for I am nothing if not a law-abiding private detective.

Yeah, right.

I keep it in my night table where it will come in very handy should I need to shoot somebody in the head if they break into my house.

When I left Calgary, the temperature was hovering around plus six. Balmy by Calgary standards. When I arrived at Heathrow, the temperature, after a hasty conversion, was about minus two.

But it seemed like minus forty-two.

How the hell do these people survive? The air was damp and extremely chilly. Unless the cabbies kept their engines running, their windshields, pardon me, their windscreens, would ice up in minutes.

Clearing customs was the usual joy. Three customs agents, whose job was to slow the line flow, gave me the third degree.

I decided to lie when they asked about the purpose of my visit.

“Vacation,” I told them, since, “I’m gonna spring a mass murderer from de clink,” might have slowed the line down considerably more.

“You have no return ticket,” they said, accusatorily.

“No, I don’t,” I agreed with them. “Why is that a problem?”

They huddled for a discussion, but when I pointed out the longer I stayed, the more money I’d spend, they grudgingly allowed me to set foot on their tiny, rain-drenched island.

Actually, Britain only pretends to be tiny.

But there’s no pretense about it being rain-drenched.

I had a debate with a cabbie about how much he was going to charge to drive me to St. Albans. It was strange hearing a Cockney accent from a man in a turban. I have Cockney friends back in Calgary, so I was familiar with the dialect. I haggled the price from outrageous down to merely reprehensible and stowed my bags in the trunk.

Pardon me.

The boot.

Like I said, this wasn’t my first visit to England. I’d spent time touring the U.K. more than a decade ago, the year before my parents died.

And the Brits still drove on the wrong side of the road.

My cabbie’s name was Cecil and he was sulking because I told him I would shoot him if he lit the cigarette he’d just put in his mouth.

He didn’t know my gun was in my bedside table.

The drive to St. Albans took just over two hours, most of it in moody but smoke-free silence. Cecil dropped me off outside the Queens Hotel just off St. Peter’s Street, the main drag, and grumbled when I offered my Visa card. I hadn’t had time to change dollars to Euros. He popped the boot lid from inside the cab and lit up, leaving me to wrestle my suitcase alone in the rain.

After I’d tipped him, of course.

The fifteen-second slog to the hotel’s front entrance felt like a trip across the Arctic Circle. The hotel lobby was small but warm and comfortable, with matching flowery chesterfields and a coffee table stacked with magazines about horses. The reception desk was an ancient slab of polished mahogany reflecting a noisy ceiling fan that turned in cranky circles high above my head. Across from reception, a small fire spluttered in a large grate.

I pinged the brass bell on the desk, and a rosy-cheeked girl in her late teens appeared moments later.

“‘Ello,” she said brightly. “You must be Mr. Dancer.”

“And you must be the Queen,” I replied, though I didn’t quite curtsy.

“No, silly,” she said as if it were a common mistake, “she’s up at Buckingham Palace. Now, if you could just fill in the ‘otel registration.” She produced a beige card. “No need to fill in the credit information. The room’s already paid for.” She turned away to get my key. “And there’s a message for you,” she said and slid a small, white envelope across the countertop.

I pocketed the envelope, filled in the registration card and handed it back to her.

She read it.

“Ooh. Canada. I’ve always wanted to go there.”

“It’s a lot warmer than St. Albans,” I told her, but she looked like she didn’t believe me. I think I now know why they have such rosy cheeks, though. It’s all of that rubbing to keep them warm.

“Do you need a hand up with your luggage, sir?”

I looked at my one small suitcase.

“I think I might manage,” I said.

“Oh, good,” she said, “only ‘Enry’s having a kip out back and it’s the dickens to wake him.”

I know that’s what she’d said but I had no idea what she meant. Since it didn’t seem to require an answer, I picked up my suitcase and followed her outstretched finger to the stairs.

“No elevator?” I asked.

“No,” she said. “Do you have lifts in Canada?”

Lifts?

“No, I don’t believe we do,” I said. “Not much call for them in the igloos.”

I carried my luggage up four flights of stairs and found my room at the far end of the hall. They really liked flowery wallpaper at the Queens Hotel. Flowery carpets, too. My room resembled an overgrown greenhouse, the bedspread a riot of flowers. Or maybe they were English weeds. I left my suitcase at the foot of the bed and used the bathroom, which felt cold and damp. I sure hoped I could wrap this thing up quickly.

The note inside the envelope, in big, scrawly handwriting, incongruous on pale pink notepaper, said, “Edward. Please call me no matter how late you arrive.” Beneath that was the phone number Peter had given me when they called me in Calgary. It was signed, “Dr. Peter Maurice,” so I wouldn’t confuse him with that other British serial killer, Dr. Harold Shipman.

The room phone was one of those big, black monstrosities you see in old movies. I think we should bring them back. It’s so satisfying to hang up on telephone canvassers. You can really slam that thing into the cradle. It took me a moment to remember how to use the dial but I managed.

“Hello?” A man’s voice.

“I’ve arrived,” I said.

“Thank God.” It was Peter. “Things have taken a turn for the worse. I’m being taken into custody in a few hours.”

“They give you notice?”

“They are nothing if not polite.”

“Maybe I should come over right now.” I hoped he would register my lack of enthusiasm. I needed bed rest.

And lots of it.

“That would be best,” he said. “You have the address?”

“I do.”

“There’s a policeman guarding the front door. Tell him you are here under my jurisprudence.”

“They really talk like that?”

“Yes,” he said. “They really do.”

I hung up and went to the lobby, rehearsing my lines.

“‘Ello again.” The rosy-cheeked receptionist smiled brightly. “Can’t sleep?”

“‘Fraid not,” I said. “Can you call me a cab?”

“A cab?”

“A taxi?”

“Oh.” She giggled. “A cab. That’s so American.” She stretched forward over the desk and peered through the main door. I tried not to be impressed by her British cleavage. “You’re in luck,” she said. “There’s one right outside.”

I thanked her and hurried into the cold and the rain to hail the cab.

I hoped the cabbie wasn’t moody Cecil.

(Continues…)Excerpted from Wild Thing by Mike Harrison, Michael Holmes. Copyright © 2006 Mike Harrison. Excerpted by permission of ECW PRESS.
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