Attack and Decay, page 4
“Well, that makes a refreshing change,” she said.
“In fact, I have found a copy of the even more rare audiophile 180-gram version. I mean, this is seriously rare. A member of the band was having supper with me the other night. Patrik Nordenfalk.” He said this as if he was dropping an important name. “We had dinner together and he told me even he doesn’t have a copy.”
“But you do,” said Nevada succinctly.
“Yes,” said Owyn Wynter. He had a happy glow in his eye which, I have to admit, as a fellow fanatic, I could all too easily recognise.
“But if you’ve already got a copy…” I said.
“Well, I haven’t actually got it,” he conceded a trifle ruefully. “I have secured a copy for purchase but I have yet to physically acquire it. Which is where you come in.”
“You want us to collect the record for you?” I said.
“And effect payment?” said Nevada. “Make sure it’s secure?” Clearly, my honeypie’s mind, with its keen aptitude for mayhem, was racing ahead: already weighing up scenarios and potential opportunities for profit.
“All that, yes, please, thank you,” said Owyn Wynter. He looked me in the eye. The record-collecting fanatic’s gleam had gone and now he was all business. “But most of all, I want you to listen to the record and make sure it’s the real thing.”
I sighed inwardly because I knew Nevada was not going to be tickled at me looking a gift horse in the mouth, but somebody had to ask the obvious question.
“Why don’t you go and pick it up yourself?” I hadn’t underestimated my beloved’s reaction. Her blue eyes flashed hot with disbelief at this faux pas.
Owyn was unfazed. “Too busy at work. I simply don’t have the time. And someone needs to listen to it, listen to it properly, check it out.”
Given that this really wasn’t my kind of music, I had very few qualms about persisting with another obvious question. “Surely you need to check it out yourself?” Those hot blue eyes had switched to giving me a My office, now look. But I persisted. “Wouldn’t that be better?”
“Frankly, no,” said Owyn Wynter. He turned to Nevada. Her reaction to my obfuscation apparently hadn’t gone unnoticed. “I trust his ears better than I trust my own.” He said this simply and almost humbly.
“Well, so you should,” said Nevada, suddenly both gratified and mollified. She looked at me. I was instantly out of the doghouse, which was a relief because I’m fundamentally a cat person.
“He has very good ears,” she said. “He has the best ears.”
Owyn Wynter seemed gratifyingly disinclined to contradict her. Instead, he nodded and said, “The thing is, Magnus, the guy who is selling this record, says it’s in perfect condition. And he’s charging me a considerable premium for the privilege of acquiring it in such superb shape. So that’s one of the things I want you to do over there—”
“Over there?” said Nevada quickly.
“Over in Sweden.”
“Sweden?” said Nevada happily. No doubt the words foreign jaunt and all expenses paid were dancing in her lively mind.
“Sweden, yes.”
“Excellent,” said Nevada. “Just checking. When Saxon outlined this caper to us, he did say it might involve a subsidised excursion to beautiful, beautiful Sweden.”
“Saxon is absolutely right. I want you go over there, on a subsidised excursion, listen to this record on my behalf and determine if it is indeed the real thing, and indeed in perfect condition, before I pay this Magnus fellow what many might deem a considerable fortune for it.”
“Darling,” said Nevada, turning to me. “Isn’t that lovely? We really are going to get paid to go to Sweden.”
“Beautiful, beautiful Sweden.”
“Yes. Just so you can listen to a record.”
“It is demonic metal,” I said. “Don’t forget that. We’ll be earning every penny.”
Owyn chuckled. “Yes, don’t forget that. And in case you’re wondering, Magnus has very firmly said that he won’t ship it over, for us to listen to here,” he nodded at my beloved record player which currently had an equally beloved cat asleep in front of it, comfortably sprawled between the Quads. Fanny had apparently exhausted herself savaging our guest’s hand earlier. “So you have to go over there.”
“So we have to go to Sweden,” said Nevada. “That is such a shame.”
We all laughed, but there was something nagging, small but ceaseless, at the back of my mind. “I kind of hate to bring this up, but Saxon said this job might be dangerous.”
“No, darling,” chuckled Nevada, taking my hand. “At most he implied that it might be dangerous.”
Owyn Wynter shrugged. “I don’t know why he said that.”
“Implied that,” corrected Nevada.
“Some of these bands are quite eccentric, admittedly…”
“You said this record had been suppressed by the Church.”
“Well, they bought up every copy they could find. And presumably destroyed them all, which is one reason it is so sought after.”
“And why did they do that?” I said. “Suppress it?”
“Oh, some nonsense about demonic influences corrupting young people. That sort of thing.”
“Sounds like a great record.”
“No, it is, seriously it is,” said Owyn. A happy little note came into his voice when he discussed this venerated piece of vinyl. “It’s a very early and very pure example of demonic metal. A great, great classic record. But I still don’t see why Saxon would think that you guys just going over there and evaluating and picking up a copy for me should represent any kind of danger to you.”
“Well, I guess we were all a little on edge,” I said, my mind going back to that evening when Saxon Ghost had come over to dinner, and indeed to a couple of subsequent occasions.
“Why?” said Owyn Wynter. “Was there a reason for you to be on edge? Good name for a band, by the way. On Edge. I wonder if anyone has used it?”
As he considered the possibility of looking this up on his phone, then dismissed it out of fear of being rude, Nevada and I looked at each other. And then, between the two of us, we proceeded to give Owyn a detailed description of the corpse-faced motherfucker and an account of his peregrinations.
Owyn listened patiently and with considerable attention.
Then, when we’d concluded, he immediately said, “Oh, that’s Jaunty.”
“Jaunty?”
“And he was in full makeup, was he?”
“You know this guy?”
Owyn Wynter nodded. “Why yes. He works for me.”
“So this corpse-faced creepy motherfucker who has been hanging around our house is working for you?” said Nevada.
“And his name is Jaunty?” I said.
“It’s short for Jonathan. He’s my accountant.”
“Your accountant.”
“Well, financial comptroller, actually. He is a big fan of the music, hence his appearance. And, you see, he knows about this transaction I’m planning, the purchase of this copy of Attack and Decay. And since I’m both paying for the record and paying you for your services—” he looked at me and Nevada, “—through the company, Jaunty has to sign off on any significant capital expenditure. So, he was just doing what he regarded as his due diligence.”
“Due diligence?”
“Yes.”
“By standing outside our house at strange hours and staring at us?”
“He’s eccentric, but he’s a superb accountant. And he’s harmless.”
“Harmless?”
“Well, mostly harmless.”
I repressed the urge to make a gag about the number 42, by way of riposte.
“Well, you scared the shit out of us with your corpse-faced motherfucker of an accountant,” said Nevada.
“I am sorry about that. I do hope it won’t mean you will refuse the job.”
“No, but it does mean we expect you to pay for our friends to come along with us.”
5: GOTHENBURG
“I hope they haven’t lost my trunk,” said Tinkler.
“Your trunk?” said Agatha.
“Or damaged it. Heaven forfend. My precious, precious trunk.”
“You have a trunk?” said Nevada.
“I checked it in before you guys got here.” We were all sitting in the departure lounge where we’d agreed to rendezvous, waiting for our flight. “Magnificent antique travel trunk with all the features. It’s not only brass banded, it’s bentwood bound.”
“You’re bentwood bound,” said Agatha. She was in the seat beside Tinkler; Nevada and I sat opposite them. Through a glass wall beside us we could see down into the concourse of the airport, boiling with activity.
“I’ll take that as a compliment. It’s pale blue with elegant black trim. Lined with silk. Leather handles. It evokes the golden age of travel when no gentleman of any consequence would go abroad without a full range of accoutrements in a big fuck-off fancy trunk. To hell with your suitcase on wheels or your over-the-shoulder carry-on bag.”
“This thing must be huge,” said Nevada. Then she winced and said, “No obvious wisecracks, please.”
“Concerning your no doubt miniature-size penis,” added Agatha.
“Hey, I’m just glad we’re talking about my penis at all,” said Tinkler. “And I prefer to refer to it as ‘fun size’, by the way. But, concerning my magnificent antique travel trunk—bought for a snip, the bozo auctioning it must have been heartbroken—it is indeed huge. Why else do you think I arranged to have it dispatched to the airport separately?” His voice was not devoid of smugness on this last point. “Now,” he added, “what is this godforsaken Swedish place we’re going to? What’s it called again? Troll’s Diseased Appendage?”
“What are you raving about now, Tinkler?” said Agatha.
“This place we’re going, the name of the town, it translates as Troll’s Hideously Diseased Cock or something.”
“It does not,” said Nevada. “It translates as Troll’s Shoe.”
“Oh, well, that’s much more lovely. Troll’s Shoe.”
“Trollesko, in Swedish. It’s about a two-hour drive from Gothenburg.”
“And Gothenburg is…?”
“A thousand-year-old bastion of culture,” I said. “With a great university and a really great symphony orchestra.”
“And it also happens to be the place we’re flying into,” said Nevada. “Didn’t you even glance at your travel itinerary, Tinkler? At your tickets?”
“I like to be surprised,” he said. “By the way, what have you done about your cats while you’re gallivanting in Sweden? Have you just abandoned them to starve?”
“Fat chance of that,” said Nevada. “I suspect my mother will be overfeeding them even now.”
“That’s right,” said Tinkler. “Your mother. It’s all coming back to me now. And if I understand this correctly, she had to get someone to cat-sit her cats while she relocates to London to cat-sit your cats.”
Penny did indeed have two cats of her own. The rather mysterious Spirit and the highly gregarious Almodóvar, who as a kitten had been saved from a grisly fate.
“Yes.”
“That makes lots of sense.” Tinkler actually did have us here. For once. It was slightly ludicrous. But, instead of proceeding to rub our noses in it, Tinkler changed tack. “Do you know what I am going to be doing a lot of during our holiday in Sweden?”
“We don’t know and we don’t want to know.”
“Reading,” said Tinkler. “Starting with…” he named the latest Scandi noir sensation that had surmounted the bestseller lists.
“By a remarkable coincidence,” said Agatha, “that happens to be exactly the same book that I’m reading.”
“Is that so?” said Tinkler. “That really is a remarkable coincidence.”
“And I happened to mention as much on my blog.”
“Well, thanks to this remarkable coincidence we’ll be able to compare notes. About this fascinating book. In fact, I’ll get it out now.” Tinkler began digging in his carry-on bag. Gradually his face fell, and the digging became frantic.
“Forget to pack the book, Tinkler?”
“Oh shit. It’s in my trunk. With all the others.”
“All the others? The other what?”
“Books,” said Tinkler.
“Books?”
“No need to sound so surprised,” said Tinkler. “In fact, the contents of my trunk are mostly books.”
“Your trunk is full of books.”
“Crime books. Of the Scandinavian persuasion.”
“A trunk full of crime fiction.”
“Scandinavian crime fiction. Hold your horses. Does Iceland count? I think I have more than one brooding Icelandic detective in there.”
“How many books did you bring with you, Tinkler?”
“A lot.”
“How many?”
“Quite a lot. Like I say, a trunk full.”
“In god’s name, why?”
“To read, obviously.”
“Tinkler, we’re only going to be gone a week. Not even that.”
“You’ll be surprised how many I manage to read,” said Tinkler.
“Yes, I will be surprised,” said Nevada. She looked at me. “And before you ask why the sudden interest in Scandinavian crime fiction, it’s because this fine young lady—” she indicated Agatha, “—has been writing all about it on her stylish new blog.”
Nevada showed me the home page on her phone. Clean Head’s Crime Scene—personal musings about crime fiction in paperback. The recent posts had all been devoted to Scandinavian crime novels, which did indeed explain Tinkler’s sudden fascination with the genre.
I scrolled further down the page and was impressed when I saw the number of readers Agatha had, and I said as much. “Oh, they’re probably all bots,” said Tinkler.
“Not all of them,” said Agatha. “At least one of them isn’t a bot. And we’re meeting him there in…”
“Troll’s Cock,” said Tinkler.
“Troll’s Shoe,” said Nevada. “Trollesko.”
“Yes, he lives there,” said Agatha. “When I announced on the blog that I was going to Sweden, he got in touch and asked if he could do an interview with me for the local newspaper.”
“The Troll’s Cock Times?” said Tinkler.
Agatha ignored him. “Apparently he’s not only a fellow enthusiast and collector, he’s a crime novelist himself. Which is kind of cool.”
We all agreed it was kind of cool.
Something a lot less cool happened when I looked through the glass wall of the departure lounge, down on the surging activity of the main airport concourse, and suddenly thought I saw, striding through the crowds among the gaudy glitter of the shops, a familiar figure.
Then he was gone.
Nevada immediately knew something was wrong. “What is it?”
“Stinky. I think I saw Stinky Stanmer.”
* * *
It was irrational, but I half expected to see Stinky on our plane. Maybe in the next seat. However, this most loathsome of scenarios did not arise; as far as we could determine, our flight was entirely Stanmer-free. Nevertheless, we didn’t fully drop our guard until we reached Gothenburg airport and were waiting to collect our luggage from the slowly circulating carousel.
When there was still no sign of him there, we began to relax.
“He could have been heading anywhere,” said Agatha. “After all, it was Heathrow. It’s a big place. There are lots of flights to lots of destinations. He could have been going anywhere.”
“He’s probably never even heard of Troll’s Schlong,” agreed Tinkler.
“You’re going to have to dial down the troll penis jokes,” said Nevada. “We are soon going to be in the presence of people who actually live in Trollesko, who probably won’t be amused by your brand of humour being deployed at the expense of their beloved home town.”
“You said it was a two-hour drive to this place. That’s at least two more hours of troll appendage jokes, surely. We’ll need them to divert ourselves on the long, hard drive.”
“Our driver on that long, hard drive is himself from Trollesko.”
“You mean he lives in Troll’s Cock?”
“No more of those jokes, Tinkler. We’ll be seeing Magnus in a minute.”
“Hold on, I thought Magnus was the guy selling the record.”
“He is. He’s also picking us up and giving us a ride.”
“To Troll’s Priapic Adjunct?”
“Stop it.”
It was at that same baggage carousel in Gothenburg that we first realised the magnitude of Tinkler’s crime. When it finally appeared on the endlessly rotating black rubber surface, quite possibly having killed several baggage handlers along the way, his much-discussed trunk did indeed prove to be an elegant item suitable for an Edwardian dandy, its sky-blue colour contrasting agreeably with the gleaming lacquered black wooden trim.
But the thing was massive.
And it was a heavy bastard, as I learned when I helped Tinkler wrestle it off the carousel and onto a luggage trolley. Apparently he hadn’t been kidding when he said it was full of books.
“It’s as solid as a coffin,” said Nevada, inspecting the behemoth.
“A pale blue coffin full of books,” said Agatha.
“With natty black trim,” said Nevada
“Don’t forget the leather handles,” said Tinkler
Once we got it loaded on the trolley, he happily pushed it to the arrivals area. A rare sighting of Tinkler pitching in and doing his share, or indeed partaking of any form of physical activity.
Despite Gothenburg’s stature as an international city of culture, its airport was charmingly like that of a small town—an impression that was reinforced when we went outside into the cold bright afternoon to search for Magnus in the car park.
Sleet was coming down and there was a sharp chill in the air as we walked between buses and crossed over the pick-up and drop-off lanes, heading towards a modestly sized parking area.
A skinny, grinning figure in a bright orange puffer jacket approached us, waving. “Hello, I’m Magnus. Welcome, let me help you with that stuff.”
“We’ve got a lot of luggage,” I said.
