receptionist looked cynical. ‘You have a room number?’
Jo glanced at me. I shook my head. ‘It’s Mrs Wilkins,’ she said. ‘Mrs Susan Wilkins.’
He hesitated but turned to the screen in front of him. He typed in a few letters, then turned back to Jo and smiled without warmth. ‘I’m afraid we don’t have anyone of that name staying at the hotel. Was there any—?’
‘You’re sure?’ I asked. ‘Late thirties or something, blonde.’
‘We have over two hundred guests—’
‘From Manchester? Staying the whole weekend.’ I leaned across the desk. He tilted the screen away from me. ‘Wears big, kind of round, earrings. Like pearls.’ I made weird hand signals in order to help him imagine what a woman wearing earrings might look like.
‘I’m afraid I can’t help you.’ He turned to indicate our opportunity to waste his time was now over. The telephone rang, and his hand shot out to pick up the receiver. ‘The Queens. How may I help?’
Jo grabbed my arm and moved me away from the desk.
‘Maybe she used a false name,’ I said. ‘She doesn’t want her husband to know what she’s up to.’
‘Maybe,’ said Jo. I had the sense she was humouring me. She led us through the foyer and back out the front doors.
‘She’s got to be his stepmother. Who else would be looking for him?’
Jo pulled a face at me while I realized that was possibly a silly question.
‘She wasn’t a drug dealer,’ I said. A middle-aged couple on their way out for the night frowned at me as they passed us on the steps. I lowered my voice. ‘She didn’t even smoke fags properly.’
Jo shrugged, grabbing my arm to pull me across the road, ducking between the cars.
‘Drug dealers aren’t going to hire private investigators.’
‘They might,’ said Jo.
‘If she is his stepmother, and she’s disappeared, she could be in trouble. Maybe the dealers have found her. Maybe they’re trying to get her to pay up to cover her son’s debts. She did say they’d helped Jack out financially in the past. She could be in trouble.’
We crossed the square. ‘There’s nothing we can do,’ Jo said. ‘We haven’t got a phone number.’
I bristled at that, couldn’t help feeling that Jo was blaming me for not correctly completing the form.
‘We have to hope she rings tomorrow like she said she would.’
‘I did ask,’ I said. ‘She said it was better if she rang us. Maybe she knows about the drugs. Maybe he’s been in this kind of trouble before.’
Jo shrugged, and we walked up through the city in silence, both lost in our own thoughts. It wasn’t until we reached the Town Hall, right in the centre of town, I realized I had no idea where we were headed.
‘Where we going?’ I asked Jo.
‘Brownie,’ she said, rolling a fag as she walked.
‘How do we find him?’
‘It’s quarter past ten, Friday night, he’s an anarcho-hippy, lives in Woodhouse. Where do you think?’
When you put it like that, it was obvious. ‘The Chemic,’ I said.
The Chemic is the local pub in Woodhouse, with a taproom full of anarchists and hippies. The lounge is a bit more upmarket, but not much. Everyone in the pub, including the bar staff, either is or was a student, once upon a time.
It was heaving, as always on a Friday night. I waited in the corridor outside the toilets until Jo came back from the bar with two pints of lager.
‘Soz,’ she said, when she saw the look on my face. ‘Force of habit. What do you want?’
‘Nothing. Actually, a bag of peanuts,’ I said, just because I wanted to have something to do with my hands.
She thrust the two pints into my hand and disappeared back into the lounge. I felt the coldness of the glass through my fingertips. My taste buds moistened, and I tried to swallow. Of course it’s tempting, but not really, not when you know where it ends.
I decided to go through to the taproom, see if I could find a spare five inches of space before someone knocked the drinks from my hands. I’d already had a guy with a rat’s-tail spill the best part of his pint of Landlord down my back.
Jo came back the second time. ‘Brownie is the guy in the black eyeliner.’ She shrugged a shoulder in the direction of the far corner. ‘According to the woman at the bar.’
I turned to observe a group of blokes, all in their twenties, sat round a table. I hazarded a guess that they’d graduated five or so years ago, were probably signing on while trying to avoid the onset of real life, life outside of The Chemic.
We squashed into a corner near the dartboard and waited. I tried not to stare at the guy with the eyeliner, but his collection of facial piercings didn’t help. He had spikes coming out of his top lip that made him look like a porcupine.
‘Wouldn’t want to get too close,’ I said. ‘How does he kiss?’
‘Careful,’ said Jo. ‘You’re in danger of sounding like Aunt Edie.’
Jo had drunk both pints by the time Brownie finally got up and made his way across the room towards the toilets. I elbowed her in the ribs, and she downed the last dregs as I followed him out of the taproom towards the gents.
‘Brownie?’
He turned and struggled to focus on me, wondering who I was, how I knew his name. Up close I counted four spikes through the skin under his nose, each one nestled in a bed of stubble that would classify as a moustache if he didn’t shave soon.
‘Yeah?’
‘Hi,’ I said. I smiled with the confidence that comes of being the only sober person within a hundred-yard radius. ‘I want to talk to you.’
‘I need a piss. Can you wait a sec?’
Jo bustled into the corridor behind me. ‘Just a few questions,’ she said. ‘About Jack.’
‘Jack? What about him?’
‘We’re private investigators,’ Jo said.
His expression changed. He glanced up and down the short corridor, like he was looking for the camera, or the police, or something. ‘Private investigators? Fuck off.’
‘Honest, we are.’ I nodded, still feeling a sense of pride and disbelief at the idea.
