Fear No Evil. Debbie Johnson
rotten, and I can’t tell you how disturbing that was.
He bustled over, sporting a ginger wig and wrapped in a sequinned fuchsia shawl. He was wearing more eyeliner than Twiggy in the sixties, and white shag-me stilettos that squeezed his feet so tight the fishnet stockinged flesh spilled over the edges. I tried to ignore him, but he made it hard for me by giving me a bear hug. Seriously, I’d rather have been hugged by a bear. With a flatulence problem.
‘Looking limber as ever, Jayne!’ he said, going for the lips and getting a slap, ‘and still feisty as fuck, I see!’
‘Clive, our Jayne’s got a bad case of the supernatural. Can you help her?’ said Mum, starting in on the chunkies, heaping them into ten-pound piles. I could happily have choked her.
‘Oooh!’ he said, raising his plucked-to-oblivion eyebrows. Shaped brows, mascara and five o’clock shadow. It just doesn’t work.
‘Depends what’s in it for me, doesn’t it?’ he said, giving me a coquettish wink and a nudge so hard I almost fell off my stool. I was about to tell him where to stick his sequins when Mum butted in.
‘That’s enough of that, mucky pup. You help Jayne, I’ll give you one of those sexy skeleton dresses for nothing. I saved one for you in case you came by. I must be a mind reader.’
He eyed up one of the frocks hanging on the rail, glowing in the fading light.
‘It’s a deal. I’ll be irresistible to man, woman and beast wearing that thing. So, Jaynie-Waynie, sit on Mystic Melissa’s lap and tell me all about it.’
He’d propped himself on the trestles, which groaned under his psychic power – that or the extra six stone he was carrying – and slapped his knees. I ignored the suggested seating arrangements, but did tell him about the case. I needed all the help I could get.
As I drew to a close, I noticed an expression I’d never seen on Mystic Melissa’s face before – concern. Jesus, I was being taken seriously by a clairvoyant trannie. I really needed to get a new line of work.
He pursed his big fat lips together. Like a pair of mating slugs, they were, with bright red gloss sluicing off into the tiny wrinkles around his smoker’s mouth. He blew out a breath and shook his head, ginger fringe waggling from side to side.
‘You need to talk to Dodgy Bobby,’ he said finally.
‘Who’s Dodgy Bobby? And why do I need to talk to him? And how dodgy is he?’
‘Nothing nasty, love – you wouldn’t have encountered him when you were working for Her Majesty, if that’s what you’re worried about. But he’s psychic, is Bobby. The real deal. So he’s used it the best way possible – dodging gainful employment for the whole of his life. At least the kind you pay taxes on. He does a bit of this, bit of that, all the time he’s on the sick. Claiming a fortune in benefits due to his bad back. It’s all a crock of shit, he’s fit as a whippet, but he never gets caught – always knows when those benefit types have their beady eyes on him. Always packs in whatever he’s doing, and starts wandering around with crutches and a neck brace. They know there’s something going on but they can’t catch him – nearly did once when he was doing some fork-lifting at the scrap yard, but he whipped on the collar just in time, made out he was visiting his uncle.’
‘Sounds like a very noble way to use his gift,’ I replied, narrowing my eyes at Clive. ‘And what do you mean, he’s psychic? What about you, Melissa?’
‘Don’t give me that face, love. I’m about as psychic as a horse’s arse and we both know it. My punters know it as well – they come for the drama, the giggle, the glamour. I camp it up and tell ’em they’ll meet a tall, dark stranger in the bogs at the Pan Am bar and they go off happy. Worth every penny, I am. But Bobby? He’s different.’
‘Okay, let’s say for argument’s sake I’m believing any of this – why should I go and talk to him?’
It was a valid question. When had my life turned into something where I was considering taking advice from a man called Mystic Melissa about another one called Dodgy Bobby?
‘He’ll give you the details, Jayne, but a few years ago he got taken on by Eugene Casey. Well, taken on is too kind a way to phrase it – he got told he was going to help out.’
Now he really had my attention. The Caseys were one of the biggest crime families in Liverpool. They’d been at it for generations – stolen goods, organised car theft, drugs, prostitution – and by now, they were getting really quite good at it. You were nothing on the Force if you hadn’t felt a Casey collar. But you were really something if you made it stick – witnesses had a strange way of becoming amnesiacs as trial dates drew closer, inevitably gaining a freshly sprayed motor to help them recover. If they were lucky. Some just ended up with a broken kneecap. The Caseys also had enough poke to employ one of the cleverest, nastiest lawyers around, a rat-faced little charmer called Simon Solitaire. Not his real name, we suspected.
‘What did Eugene want with him?’ I asked. Eugene was the Big Daddy of the lot – clan leader and self-appointed elder statesman of the city’s underworld. He wore sharp suits and ties, slicked his hair back like a 1950s wide boy, and talked a lot of pseudo-Krays crap about honour amongst thieves and the way the Caseys helped keep the streets clean. Yeah, absolutely spotless – if you ignored the crack whores and no-go zones and babies born addicted to methadone.
‘Did you know he had a granddaughter? Has two actually, but this was Sean’s girl. Eugene doted on her, decided she was going to be the exception to the rule and not go into the family business, like. So she was sent off to a posh private school, taught to speak proper and everything. Skiing holidays with her friends and their families, all dentists and doctors and barristers, not knowing where she came from. She ended up at the Institute, studying law – which is ironic isn’t it? Maybe she’d have ended up in the family business one way or another.’
Yeah. She’d have saved them a fortune in legal bills if she’d qualified. Somehow I suspected this wasn’t going to end with photos of a smiling girl in a cap and gown, though.
‘Anyway, long story short, she’s dead. Accident. Just after she’d done her finals, and was due to graduate. Tripped down the stairs and broke her neck. They say it was quick, but who gives a fuck really? Still dead. Sean went ga-ga. His missus did a runner. Eugene did what comes natural – set out to slice someone’s bollocks off. That’s where Dodgy Bobby comes in.’
‘What? He sliced his bollocks off? And him, just a poor old cripple?’
‘Nah, Bobby’s bollocks are safe and sound. Not that I’ve seen them up close, I hasten to add – despite appearances, my sweet, I’m 100 per cent red-blooded male.’ He cupped his groin and gave it a little heft up for me. Ugh. I moved my hands in a wind-it-on gesture. Mum was so engrossed she’d stopped counting, but I wanted to get to the crux of the matter.
‘Turns out the girl – Geneva, would you believe? – had confided in her cousin, Theresa, that she’d been having a few problems with unwanted attention. Music to Eugene’s ears – someone he could beat the crap out of and send to that butcher’s shop in Kenny to have ground up and fed to the pigs. But then things got a bit weird – ’cause Geneva had told Theresa that her stalker was a frigging ghost. Now, Eugene knew about Dodgy Bobby’s rep, so he got him brought in. Combination of a kick up the arse from the heavies and the promise of mucho casho if he could get to the bottom of it. And Bobby really will have to tell you the rest – because he’s never spoken about it ever again. In fact, he’s barely been seen again. He’s lying low, and Casey still has a bloody big itch to scratch.’
Quite a story. If any of it was true. And definitely something I was going to have to check out. At least dealing with the scum of the earth would be more familiar territory for me.
‘So how do I get to Bobby?’ I asked.
‘I’ll text you his details later, love.’
‘No you won’t, because you don’t have