Sudden Death. Phil Kurthausen
can tell you that when I’ve talked with Wayne all he wanted to do was talk about music, martial arts and well, you.’
Not strictly the truth but Erasmus’s dad had told him you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar, but he had a feeling that his dad had never met someone like Steph though.
She pursed her lips to one side as though chewing.
‘I tell you what, Erasmus – and what kind of a name is that anyway? – I think you’re full of shit but I want to believe you so I’m making a choice that I will, but let’s be clear, if I find out you are lying to me I’ll have your balls,’ she mimed the cutting action of a pair of scissors with her fingers, ‘in a bag and mounted above that fucking picture do you understand?’
Erasmus smiled.
‘Crystal clear. Any chance of a cup of tea?’
Steph laughed and the in-your-face, hard, Scouse façade dropped for a second and Erasmus could suddenly see the young girl, not yet twenty-one surely, who lived under the glitter.
‘Do I look like a scivvy to you?’
Her mouth remained open, her ruby red lips hanging there in a pout of mass destruction that she had no doubt employed effectively many times before.
Erasmus never got to answer the question. Steph raised an eyebrow.
‘I’m vibrating,’ she said. She slid a hand into her top and pulled out a tiny, gold-plated phone from between her cleavage. ‘Hi ya love?’ As she listened her face became stern again. ‘What? Are you fucking kidding me? With that twat! You promised you would be back here. And I’ve got your fucking gopher sitting her looking at my tits, as well. What do you want me do with him?’ Another pause. ‘Cunt!’ she said and threw the phone on the couch.
Erasmus worked on the basis that the ‘cunt’ was not meant for the gopher.
‘Was that Wayne?’
Steph leapt to her feet and nodded quick and angry.
‘Oh yeah, it was His Majesty. He’s decided to stay at the golf club with that tosser Gary Jones and Kristos and get pissed instead of coming home and having dinner with me!’
Steph was pacing now.
‘You’ve got to go. I need you to leave now.’
Erasmus stood up.
‘Which golf club is he at?’
For a moment he thought she was going to ignore him.
‘Formby Golf Club. He won’t be home for the night now.’
‘If I bring him home will you do something for me?’
For a moment he thought she was going to tell him to get lost. Instead, she narrowed her eyes and looked directly at him, challenging him, it seemed to Erasmus.
‘You’ll never get him home now. This happens. A lot.’
‘If I get him home will you talk to me about Wayne. About why he’s playing so badly? Anything might help?’
She stopped pacing and looked at Erasmus.
‘Read the back pages of the newspapers. They’ve all got a theory.’
‘I want to know what you think.’
She rolled her eyes.
‘I’ll tell you what, love. If you bring him home, I’ll think about it.’
Erasmus stuck out his right hand.
‘Is it a deal?’
She took hold of his paw with her doll-like hand. Long red nails with golden stars stroked the inside of his wrist. She held his gaze.
‘It’s a deal,’ she said.
‘I’ll see myself out.’ He turned and headed for the door. ‘And by the way, I wasn’t looking at your tits.’
She arched an eyebrow. He decided not to push the point.
As he drove away from the house he noticed a black saloon car parked in the street that hadn’t been there before. That wasn’t unusual of course, what was unusual was that he could have sworn he saw someone quickly slide down behind the steering wheel as he turned out of Wayne’s drive way. Erasmus looked back in his rear view mirror. There was no one visible in the car. Perhaps, he had imagined it, he wondered, knowing for certain that he had not.
Erasmus parked his car near the clubhouse and for the second time that day he couldn’t help but feel that his vehicle was actively lowering real estate values. The clubhouse looked new-old: recently built but with a false patina of age brought about my using recycled materials. Erasmus didn’t like the place. It gave off a manufactured air of superiority. He snorted as he realised an old combination of inverted snobbery and aggression had been activated. Did realising this make him less culpable of being a twat? He suspected not.
Golf, the third in a deadly triumvirate combining with football and nightclubs as things Erasmus despised, and had, in his opinion, no merit. Golf could be used as a useful social barometer of whether someone was an absolute tosser or not. Not that Erasmus was prejudiced too much, some of his best friends were golfers, a term that even thinking about caused Erasmus to feel slightly queasy. He reminded himself that even Hitler had liked dogs, so maybe golfers too had some redeeming features.
Erasmus breezed through the reception area. There was a guard on the desk and he looked up and started shaking his head.
‘No, no, no. Oh most certainly not. Sir, I say, sir. You can’t come in here dressed like that.’
Erasmus stopped in his tracks. He was wearing his weekend uniform of dark blue Paul Smith Jeans, an old and worn black wax jacket and black Chelsea boots.
‘I’d say I’d just raised the tone, wouldn’t you?’
He glanced up and down at the guard in his beige slacks and black and blue diamond patterned wool jumper.
‘The rules say collared shirts and trousers only in the bar, sir. I’m going to have to ask you to leave,, sir.’
Erasmus pretended to take out a pen from his jacket and began to write in the air. The guard looked confused.
‘Here’s a note. It explains my position clearly.’
He offered the invisible note to the guard.
‘Very funny, sir, but you’ll still have to leave. Rules.’
The man looked ex-military to Erasmus. His posture, his bearing and his doggedness sticking to the most inane rules in the face of unpleasantness. The sort of doggedness that saved and lost lives in the army.
For a second Erasmus weighed up his options. There was a palm punch in the face, always a favourite but the consequences in this environment were not conducive to the mission. He could ignore him but he could tell that this man wasn’t the type to let it go, or he could try the third way and appeal to the man’s better nature.
He stepped closer to the desk. The man looked at him with a mixture of hostility and concern.
‘You’re ex-military, aren’t you?’ asked Erasmus.
‘That’s right, sir. Cheshire Regiment. Duke of Westminster’s own infantry. Retired.’
‘Well listen, apologies for being a bit of a berk there it’s just that I need to get into the lounge. I’m an ex-military myself, you know, lawyer now that I’m on civvie street, and I need to speak with one of my clients urgently.’
Erasmus had pulled out his wallet and he slid up the top half of his old warrant card to show the guard. He hoped he didn’t ask him to show him the whole card as the expiry date was four years ago.
The