Chrysalis

Case One

Zac Tremble Investigates – Series One

By

Chambers Mars

Text Copyright© 2014

Chambers Mars

www.chambersmars.weebly.com

All Rights Reserved

Contents

Author’s Note

Contact Information

Chapter One – Alley Cat

Chapter Two – Justin Saville

Chapter Three – Matthew and Joe

Chapter Four – Lonely Hearts

Chapter Five – Sunday Best

Chapter Six – Upgraded

Epilogue

Author’s Note

‘Chrysalis’ is the first Zac Tremble Case File in the series Zac Tremble Investigates; the case files of the gay, Soho-based PI Zachary Tremble. ‘Chrysalis’ is available for download exclusively from The Carter Seagrove Book Boutique.

Marc Grainger has gone missing, wife, Felicity, employs Zac to find him. This case file introduces us to Zac: thirty, gay and labouring under some pretty heavy expectations. He's watched over by Elizabeth, the secretary he inherited, along with everything else. Mrs Chan does her best to keep home for him, Matt is burning a candle, but more often, burning his fingers, and Joe thinks Zac is Frank, Zac's dearly departed father.

The Zac Tremble Case Files are a barely plausible, sometimes farcical, occasionally operatic journey through Zac’s world; his highs and lows, successes and failures and the emergence of one of the most touching (and funny) love affairs in PI history (do PIs fall in love?).

A story about trying to work out who you really are.

This case file is followed by case file 2, 'Metamorphosis'. There are twelve case files in series 1 (all published and slowly making their way over from Amazon to The Carter Seagrove Book Boutique). Four case files have so been published from series 2.

Chambers Mars can be found at:

www.chambersmars.weebly.com

chambers.mars@gmail.com

www.carterseagrove.weebly.com

I hope that you thoroughly enjoy the story and feedback is always welcome. Please email me or visit the website to find out what I’m working on next and to find out more about The Carter Seagrove Project; my collaboration with author Alp Mortal.

Thank you!

Chambers Mars

August 2014

Contact Information

www.carterseagrove.weebly.com

carterseagrove@outlook.com

www.alpmortal.weebly.com

www.chambersmars.weebly.com

alpmortal@hotmail.com

chambers.mars@gmail.com

Chapter One – Alley Cat

Fuck! I look like shit!! What excuse can I use this time? They’re all as flaky as the gold leaf of the stencilled sign on the office door, ‘The Zachary Tremble Agency’.

This was my father’s business and his father’s before him. I inherited it, along with the case files and my father’s secretary, the formidable, ‘Elizabeth Beczka’. Polish by birth and the only woman I know who looks good in black crimplene with a white lace collar.

There’s no way out of this, so … best get the lecture over and done with. I put my hand on the door handle and feel the draught as she takes a deep breath.

“Good morning, Elizabeth!” I chirp.

It looks over its half-moon glasses and swallows twice; like it’s struggling with some gristle or a boiled sweet.

“Mr Tremble …” The tone is blunt, like the edges of a sledge hammer.

Jesus; she only calls me ‘Mr Tremble’ when … when we’ve got a client in the office.

‘Oh!’ I mouth.

She gets up from the chair my grandfather installed, along with everything else, in 1946, and waddles over to a cupboard in the corner. She reaches out with a chubby hand.

“Elizabeth! I’m thirty years old, not a little boy.”

I get the pursed lips and the fingers of the hand clench and unclench.

“This is so embarrassing,” I complain pointlessly, as I slip off the shirt I found under the dog basket. I hand her the soiled one and accept the clean one, having a sniff of the pits en route. She hands me the spray can and I frown and quirk my lips. Sprayed and shirted, I spy the pressed black slacks making an appearance.

“The slacks!”

“Zachary, the ones you have on … barely have on, are not … becoming.”

This is one of her favourite words.

“I can’t …”

“Honey, I saw you in diapers.”

She’s reverted to the American accent, like it makes it somehow better.

“I don’t have any underwear on,” I shamefully admit.

“I’ve seen it.”

“Yes, when I was in nappies!”

“Zachary!”

I take off the trousers I’d slipped out from under the mattress this morning and try to pull the shirt front down to hide my embarrassment.

“Just like your father!”

What in Hell’s name does she mean? Surely, she didn’t … no … oh my God!

I scramble into the clean trousers and suffer her to tuck me in and put the tie around my neck. Once it’s straight, she kisses me on the cheek, turns me round and propels me towards the inner office door with a slap on my arse.

“Mrs Felicity Grainger,” she says quietly, before returning to her desk.

I still call it ‘my father’s office’. I used to come in after school and listen to his analysis of the current case. Jesus, nothing has changed in sixty years. He didn’t change anything, so I suppose I shouldn’t either. I pause, touch my tie knot, cough gently and then push the door open.

“Mrs Grainger …”

Why do wives always want to find their husbands, whereas the husbands never want to find their wives?

“… and you last saw him a week ago?” I confirm.

“He’s always so precise. He’s an IT Consultant.”

“No response to telephone calls … did you call his office?”

“They say he’s left.”

“Left. Let’s just suppose that he has … why?”

“My mother and father have been pressuring us to, you know, have a baby.”

“Marc … Mr Grainger … isn’t keen?”

“Apparently not!”

I take copious notes and nod as Felicity tells me everything about Marc and their life together. It elicits some tears. Elizabeth brings in some herbal tea and offers the woman a tissue from the box on the desk. Why didn’t I think of doing that?

Felicity Grainger leaves and I swivel the chair to study the picture of my father which sits on the shelving unit; the one of him graduating from Hendon at nineteen. After an illustrious, twenty year career in the Met’, cut short by an accident, at least they said it was an accident, he took over the agency when my grandfather died.

My mother was the renowned photo-journalist, Tabitha Twitchclock. She met my father outside the Old Bailey, in the melee following the acquittal of the gangland boss, Yves Saint-Joseph.

My mother died giving birth to me and my father, who was then forty-three years’ old, brought me up himself, though apparently he had some help at nappy changing times! Elizabeth knew my mother in New York when they were girls. My father told me that my mother asked her to look out for me. She’s been doing it ever since. When my father died, I imagined we’d close up shop but at the funeral, Elizabeth turned to me and said, “Don’t be late on Monday.” That signalled that we were not closing up shop and my planned career, in doing as little as possible, was over too. That was three years ago now.

I get up from the desk and decide to go out. I pass through the outer office hoping to escape without …

“Take those off!”

“Shit, Elizabeth!” In a tone which is both resigned and genuinely pathetic.

I get the eyebrow and the mole twitches. I divest myself of the 'client togs' and get the others back … with a pair of boxer shorts.

“I’m going out, Elizabeth.”

It’s my way of signalling that I need some cash.

I get the pursed lips but she trundles over to the wall safe, to which I might add, I do not have the key. She pulls out a cash box, a black tin box, also locked. I avert my eyes whilst she plucks the key from between her ample bosom and extracts a twenty pound note with the same care as a surgeon might take out a patient’s heart.

“If you find Mr Grainger in the coffee shop on Old Compton Street, all well and good, if you don’t, look in the closet.”

I escape with my ‘pocket money’ and a reminder that the ‘Saville’ case needs to be finished up by the end of the week. Were it not for cases like the ‘Saville’ case, then I would be the down and out that I obviously resemble. The ‘Saville’ case, like so many others, involves tracking down people who have inherited some money but for whatever reason, haven’t come forward. I find them and collect a finder’s fee.

“Look in the closet?” I say to myself, as I exit the building and step out onto Wardour Street, ‘look in the closet’. What the fuck does that mean? I head off to the coffee shop, for a fix and to think about Marc Grainger, the incredible disappearing, one-man act.

I love London and Soho. It’s the people. The area and the city are like a person’s body: veins, tissue and organs all connected. I like sipping coffee and gazing on this ‘unquiet patient’, a lot more than trudging around looking for clueless beneficiaries or husbands who’ve gone AWOL.

I have a call to make in relation to the ‘Saville’ case. The beneficiary, a man of my age, is a waiter at some busy eatery on Shaftesbury Avenue. I head there after a hit. Justin Saville is due to inherit two hundred thousand pounds, of which I will earn two thousand. I won’t see a penny of it as Elizabeth will put it in the cash box.

A thirty year old ‘boy’, looked after by his secretary. It’s fucking sad.

Justin is working and not off until 3pm.

“Meet me at 'The Green Fairy',” he suggests.

“Okay.”

The bar is a notorious cruising ground on the Tottenham Court Road. He seems pretty nonchalant about the inheritance but I didn’t mention the amount. I did once and the guy, a middle aged insurance salesman, dropped dead of a heart attack. Still, I got the job to find the next in line!

“Look in the closet,” I mumble as I wander through China Town, “the clue is in the closet …”

I continue to cogitate on the case of Marc Grainger. In my experience, albeit limited, men disappear when they have either met someone else or have got heavily into debt. Felicity tells me the bank account hasn’t been emptied. So he must have met someone else.

I have a few hours to kill, so I decide to call back home.

The flat is on Berwick Street, above the tattoo parlour. It was the flat that my mother and father bought when they got married. I guess they would have moved after I was born but when my mother died, I think my father just couldn’t bring himself to leave. It only has one bedroom which was always mine. My father slept on the sofa until his dying day.

I slip up the stairs hoping not to disturb Mrs Chan. With a bit of luck she’ll be asleep and I’ll be in and out before the bitch is any the wiser.

She’s snoring in her basket, like an old pair of bellows with a dodgy valve. I don’t know how old this dog is but she has to be at least twenty. She turned up one day and my father took her in and she stayed. In those days, she’d sit on his lap whilst he sat on the sofa, reading a report or something. I rarely sit on the sofa and read anything, so she keeps to her basket.

I make the mistake of flushing the loo which wakes her up. She eyes me suspiciously from the basket for a minute and then decides I need the treatment. She staggers over and at the last minute, jumps up to head butt me in the bollocks. Doubled over in agony, I have no choice but to get up close and personal with breath that could strip barnacles off a wreck and I have to suffer having it lick my face.

“I guess you need to go out,” I state plainly, struggling to remember when I last walked her.

She farts.

I grab a lead for some unknown reason and we head back out to go to the Square.

“Don’t molest Jenkins,” I say sternly … but it’s too late.

The silly old codger dives in his pocket for a treat which she gratefully accepts. Then she head butts him in the bollocks. He stumbles back and has to have a seat; well, he is over eighty! She walks back to me.

“What did I say?”

She takes a dump in the middle of the path.

“Oh God! You’re disgusting!”

Of course I don’t have a bag to pick it up. I find a used tissue in my trouser pocket. I’m fussing and trying to smooth out the tissue so that it’s big enough to cover the offending turd. Just before I have to actually pick it up, some old dear comes past with a dachshund, which is apparently called ‘Bublé’, and gives me one of her bags.

“Thank you!”

She just nods and wanders off.

I deal with the turd and suggest to Mrs Chan that we might go back. Apparently we’re having too much fun pulling the corner of someone’s blanket. It belongs to a young woman who is sat reading and eating an apple. The bright young thing is trying to ignore the dog and that just makes matters worse.

“Mrs Chan!”

After a few more seconds of fruitless haranguing on my part and a successful attempt to get the young woman to give her some attention, Mrs Chan decides she’d like to go but not before she squats and has a wee, sighing audibly, soaking the edge of the blanket and judging by the smell, speeding up global warming by at least thirty minutes.

“C’mon!”

Now she puts on the airs and graces of the fucking princess she thinks she is and prances home. There, she collapses. I make a tea and share my thoughts on Marc Grainger with her.

“It’s like he doesn’t exist anymore; slate wiped clean. Was his life that bad? An attractive wife, good job, plenty of money …”

I glance at the photograph intermittently. He’s a good looking bloke; a bit like Jude Law in the film Gattaca. Dressed in a very classy suit and tie, moisturised and tanned, not a chestnut hair out of place. I can literally smell the cologne and taste the mouthwash on his breath as it escapes between his perfect teeth.

“He’d obviously been planning it for some time. He’d given his employer notice and none of his friends had a clue, Felicity says.”

Clueless as to what he was trying to escape from, I doze for an hour and then decide I’ll go to the bar early to enjoy a drink and be waiting for Justin.

“I’ll be back later,” I tell Mrs Chan, who rolls over and exposes her underbelly and something else I’d rather not dwell on.

“Yeah, cute. Jenkins will have you one day.”

She gives me the look which suggests that the day is not anytime soon and he’ll have pegged it long before she has.

After I get back onto the street, I wonder if I shouldn’t have changed and maybe even showered. I’m sorry but I just forget to do things. I blame my mother for this. She spent her life traipsing around the world photographing starving babies and kids of ten wielding automatic weapons. It’s a gene thing. There are just more important things to do than getting wet and soapy, only to get dirty all over again. I sprayed the pits at the office and that’ll have to do. It’s not like I’m actually going to pull anyone, is it?

Chapter Two – Justin Saville

This should be easy. Check the guy’s identity and get a signature on a form. I find the bar and run the gauntlet of the guys loitering outside. Their eyes fail to pierce my indifference and I wander in to be accosted by the dulcet tones of Lady Gaga being played at 120db and the reek of poppers which makes my eyes water.

I order double vodka which is way too late to be considered the ‘hair of the dog’ and settle myself at a side table. Men displaying various degrees of sleaziness wander through and mingle. No one talks; it’s all in the look. A few disappear into the back for a few minutes and then scuttle off, satisfied that they pulled something, if only a hamstring, incurred whilst kneeling at a precarious age; somewhere between forty-eight and sixty-two.

I’m not remotely interested in catching anyone’s eye. I’m here to get the cash to pay the bills. I am actually quite conscientious, thanks to years of prodding by Elizabeth. I try to emulate my father but without the twenty years of training, I fail in almost all departments; particularly in the areas of: shoe polishing, perfect creases, starched collars and, quickly trying to forget my earlier mortification, remembering to put on underwear. I do have reasonable success in eye twinkling and naivety.

So; Justin Saville. He’s thirty and a waiter; half Cypriot and half English. The money comes by way of an uncle. It’s a pretty straightforward process. I verify his name and address and get him to sign a form. I submit the form to the solicitor and both Justin and I get our pay out. I’ve done this numerous times. My father had the relationship with the solicitor’s office. They continue to send the forms over; perhaps they don’t realise he’s dead and we do have the same name.

The flat is paid for, courtesy of the life assurance. Bills just get paid by Elizabeth and I get ‘pocket money’. I assume she pays her own salary and takes care of the office and things like tax and VAT. I don’t really know what I would do without her.

I don’t resent the control she exercises over me; she’s doing what my mother asked her to do. And she’s doing a better job than I would do if left to my own devices. My father was very indulgent in many ways but he did insist that I went to University. I took my degree in art, just like my mother; and won a first, just like she did.

He was so proud but wondered, I’m sure, just how I was going to make my way through life. I didn’t inherit my mother’s passion for causes, nor his impeccable memory or that indefinable quality of his to ‘put a finger on it’, whatever ‘it’ was: the clue, the motive, the means, or where the body was buried. He called me ‘Zachary, lad’ and being that much older, was more like a grandfather than a father. He treated me with the utmost respect and I loved him dearly; the love for both father and mother, bestowed upon him. And I was going to say, ‘on him alone’, but that wouldn’t be right.

I love Elizabeth; especially when she recalls a tale of some antics in Manhattan with my mother. She must have been quite a ‘gal’ in her youth; and if my ‘math’ is right and she is my mother’s age, then she’s seventy-five this year. Jesus! I find tears in my eyes as I consider the possibility that within a few years, she’ll be buried in the ground next to them. Justin’s arrival dispels the maudlin.

“Zachary?” He asks to confirm.

“Yes, but please call me Zac. Can I get you drink?”

“Vodka, thanks!”

I head to the bar, berating myself for offering to get the drinks. He’s the one in line for two hundred thousand pounds! I carry the drinks back and I’m struck by the sheer beauty of the man, a fact he appears to be completely oblivious to; or maybe he’s in denial. I get down to business straightaway and he hands me his driving licence and I hand him the form to sign.

“Do you know how much I’m going to get?” He asks innocently.

“It’s a reasonable sum … around two hundred thousand pounds …”

“You’re fucking joking!”

“No. That’s the figure I've been told.”

He blows his cheeks out and leans back, stretching his arms up above his head. That would have been fine had he not managed to knock the drink out of some guy’s hand.

“Oh, shit!”

A kind of rugby scrum ensues as he jumps up and tries to apologise to the guy who is attempting to retrieve his glass. The guy stands up and briefly looks at me and I have the oddest feeling of ‘déjà vu’. Within a minute, he’s gone and Justin has sat back down.

“Sorry! Whoa; two hundred grand …”

“Sounds like it’ll set you up,” I offer, genuinely happy for him; as I am for all the people I unite with their inheritance.

“I want my own little café bar,” he ventures.

“It’ll put you on the map.”

“Thank you!”

“You’re welcome. So, I’ve got stuff to do and no doubt you want to get home after your shift.”

“I’m in no hurry. To be honest, I’m back on at six. It’s hardly worth going all the way over to the Quays just to come back.”

If a penny dropped, you’d be hard pressed to hear it over the music and I must have looked as dim as the lighting.

He looks expectantly, with eyebrows raised and a quirky little smile playing around his lips. Realisation finally dawns and I colour up and get an instant erection.

“I’m just around the corner …”

“If you want …” he offers.

“I do,” I reply; a little too eagerly perhaps.

We finish our drinks and get ready to leave. The guy comes back and glances at me quickly, guiltily and scurries out.

En route to the flat, I outline the score regarding Mrs Chan and advise caution, suggesting he places his hands over his ‘box’ and waits for me to lock her in the under-sink cupboard. He laughs in spite of the cruelty of the proposed action.

“If anyone is going to head butt you in the bollocks, it’s gonna be me,” I jibe, mildly surprised at my forwardness; usually I’m fumbling for the small talk long before I’m fumbling for anything else.

We arrive at the flat and Mrs Chan is nowhere to be found.

“Bitch! She’s probably waiting to pounce. Normally the odour gives her away so it’s always possible she’s crawled into a corner and died,” I suggest, raising my voice at the end. It’s the equivalent of taking the pin out of a live grenade. Nothing.

“Can I have a shower?” Justin asks.

“Sure. I’ll get you a towel.”

Having offered to get the guy a towel, I realise there probably aren’t any clean ones. I rummage in a drawer of the sideboard unit and find a tablecloth, handing it to him without any hint of embarrassment.

“Uhm, thanks!”

“No worries. Take a shower and I’ll hunt for the dog.”

“Are you having a shower?”

I guess it’s de rigueur and I can’t quite remember the day of the last; it’s been less than a week, of that I’m sure.

“After you,” I relent, hoping it means that we’re going to get up close and personal and despite all my handicaps, I enjoy a really good ‘seeing to’ and hastily estimate the chances of having enough hot water for a shower after him. There are some odours that even Elizabeth doesn’t tolerate!

Justin disappears into the bathroom and I go on the hunt for Mrs Chan. In my experience, which is vast when it comes to playing this game, it’s better to act as if she doesn’t exist and go about your business. Her innate curiosity or, more accurately, fear of missing out, will bring her forth. It doesn’t. “Have it your own way, sweetheart. You’ll get hungry soon enough.” I even rattle the treat tin in the hope of eliciting a groan. Obviously it’s biting down on a pair of socks; so, still nothing.

Justin emerges from the bathroom with the tablecloth wrapped around him. He might have got away with it had it been a plain one of any colour but it’s covered in roses and has a lace edge. I just burst out laughing. He, clearly in possession of a sense of humour, just saunters into the bedroom.

“Give me five minutes,” I holler, as I plunge into the shower and scrub everything with a scrap of carbolic and an old scouring pad. He has the clean tablecloth so I have to rummage for a damp and slightly whiffy hand towel. I fastidiously clean my teeth and drag my fingers through my hair which is mahogany brown and falls in cascades of curls which may be my best asset.

I saunter into the bedroom, completely starkers. Justin is lying on the bed, hands behind his head and sporting an erection like the NatWest Tower. I launch myself on him and take the lift to level fifty-two. Like a couple of sex-starved anacondas, we writhe and in the process, fuck each other’s brains out. I was lying across the bed and getting the ‘seeing to’ which clearly I looked like I needed when, at the crucial moment of body fluid exchange, the wardrobe door flies open and Mrs Chan hurls herself out. It startles me and I clench which coincides with the last, deep thrust and in the process I get the NatWest Tower up to the foundations and the window cleaner’s bucket of soapy water for my trouble. It elicits a cry of blood curdling quality from me which freaks Mrs Chan out and she darts out of the room like she’s got a missile up her arse. In your dreams, sweetheart, this one’s for me.

“Found the dog!”

Justin is struggling to breathe; the combination of stifling the laugh out of consideration for her feelings and the exit of so much fluid that has obviously left a vacuum behind and which is preventing the intake of breath. I help the poor fucker out and reach under and give his balls a good yank. I hear the sharp inhale and get the window cleaner’s sponge as a parting gesture.

Fucked? Yes; thank you very much!

We stumble into the kitchen to partake of vodka and Mrs Chan is quivering under her blanket.

“Let that be a lesson to you, Mrs,” I advise; smirking until I smell the unmistakeable aroma of wee mixed with fear.

“Fucking disgusting bitch!”

Justin is just chuckling away and looking like a burnt out sparkler.

“You’re a one off,” he ventures.

I twinkle.

So, I’ve been ‘seen to’, good and proper, got two thousand pounds and made a really nice guy the happiest he’s been for a pretty long time. I show him out.

“Any time you’re up for it, give me a call,” he offers.

“I’m going to the market to buy some new towels.”

“Don’t. It wouldn’t be the same without the tablecloth and if you could get the dog to do that again …”

“She’s an old dog; it was a new trick!”

I kiss and suck the vodka fumes out of his lungs and get a squeeze of my plums in return.

Why can’t all days turn out like this?

Chapter Three – Matthew and Joe

The following day (Friday), signals a general sorting out of ‘stuff’; the ritual of money being handed over and some thoughts coming in to land on the case of Marc Grainger.

I drag myself out of the studio where I slept. I created the studio so that there is at least one space in the flat which isn’t infected by ‘dog’. I sectioned off one end of the lounge/diner and with copious amounts of duct tape and plastic sheeting, I have a clean space where the easel is set up. I’m working on a composition called Time’s Up, a kind of self-portrait in the style of Dali’s, The Persistence of Memory. I might even finish it one day.

Escaping into that space, absorbed in the ‘creation’ of this masterpiece, I forget everything: time, underwear, showering, dog and the pain of failing to live up to tacit expectations, except maybe my mother’s; she’d love the painting. Elizabeth is the best surrogate mother a boy could ask for but the lack of a mother’s love and tenderness really hurts at times. That isn’t meant to diminish the love I received from my father but he didn’t understand everything.

I stumble around trying to reconnect with the ‘here and now’ and Mrs Chan looks concerned.

“Don’t worry, sweetheart; it’s Friday which means a trip to the launderette and I’ll even hold Jenkins down for you as you maul his ‘nads’.”

Love’s a funny thing.

I have to see Matthew to hand over the form and get the banker’s draft for the two grand. I shower. The smell of dog piss pervading the flat is bad enough without the acrid, spent whiff of gay abandon. I fill the laundrette bags and pick up the dog blanket with a pair of salad tongs and place it very carefully in a separate bag.

“I’ll be back at lunchtime you silly old bitch,” I coo.

She sidles up and I make the mistake of picking her up because she belches in my face and then grins.

“Findus Surprise!” I snipe as I leave.

I feel like something needs to change and I don’t just mean the sheets. I drop the laundry off and sneak the dog blanket into a machine by itself without Mavis seeing. Picking up a coffee, I apply my inconsiderable intellect to the case as I amble to the office.

“Good morning, Elizabeth.”

“Good morning, Zac.”

“I have to see Matthew, with the form for the ‘Saville’ pay-out.”

“What about ‘Marc Grainger’?”

“To be honest, ‘clueless’. I’ll pop in and see Joe.”

“Don’t go drinking with him.”

“I didn’t plan to,” I lied.

“Get your hair cut; your neck is looking scruffy.”

“Yes, Elizabeth …”

“We have an appointment on Sunday,” she reminds me.

“We’ll have lunch at ‘The Boatman’.”

“Get the flowers.”

Every year, on the anniversary of my mother’s death and the occasion of my birthday, we visit her grave, place flowers and then have lunch at a nice little pub on the river in Putney. I’m thirty-one on Sunday and the future feels even scarier.

Matthew is the young solicitor who works for the firm which handles all of the ‘inheritance’ cases. If it were possible, he’s more scared and clueless than me. The office of ‘Chagrin & Chagrin’ is on Queensway, above the cobblers. I take the Tube. Halfway down Queensway, I espy the chap from the bar from whose hand Justin had knocked the glass. He’s walking down in the same direction as me but on the other side of the road.

I’m careful not to get in front of him, in case he sees me. For some reason, unfathomable at this stage, I’m drawn to him, like a moth to a flame. In that one glance in the bar, those eyes had echoed all the emotions I had ever felt.

He’s scurrying rather than striding and if I’m not mistaken, heading for the public baths and sauna at the end of Queensway, in the Porchester Centre. I have work to do and head in to see Matthew. I met Matthew at University. We both came out at Uni’ and had it not been for him, I wouldn’t have survived the baptism. He says the same, so I suppose that means we’re kindred spirits. In some of my dreams, we’re two lost orphans, clinging to a raft in the midst of a stormy sea.

I head in and I’m met by Barbara who must be Elizabeth’s twin sister.

“Mr Tremble …”

She says this without looking up from her typing and merely points in the direction of Matthew’s office with a podgy finger.

Matthew is on the phone and for all of his thirty years, seven years of which have been spent in this office, he still looks like the scrap who worked his summers with me, cleaning offices to earn a crust and save enough to go to Ibiza. We went once and got pubic lice but lost our virginity to the same Spanish waiter so it didn’t matter.

He smiles as I walk in and motions to the chair. Barbara brings in a coffee and a banker’s draft for two thousand pounds.

“Thank you, Mrs Dalton,” I offer.

“Happy Birthday for Sunday,” she says a little too loudly and I take it that it’s a reminder to Matthew who colours up for no apparent reason but then I don’t know who he is on the telephone to. Eventually he comes off the phone.

“Zac, good to see you. You found ‘Saville’ then?”

“Hi Matt; yes, no worries.”

“What are you doing for your birthday?” He asks, looking directly into my eyes, inviting my quip that he’d forgotten.

“Elizabeth and I are going to the cemetery and then having lunch at ‘The Boatman’. Do you want to join us?”

“Elizabeth …” he squirms, in a tone similar to the one you would use if you have to tell your best friend that they have BO or halitosis.

“It’s tradition.”

“Sure; I’ll meet you there. What time?”

“One o’clock.”

“Got a strange one for you, if you want it …”

“An inheritor?”

“Not exactly ...”

He hands me a file, an old file which may have been manila at one point but is now covered in coffee cup rings. I peer at the outside of the file and then at Matthew.

“Current case, is it?” I jibe.

“It’s as old as this place. Some dispute between rival businessmen over a patent or copyright; can’t remember which …”

“And?”

“Need to track down a relative; a grandson.”

“How much?”

“Ten grand …”

“Fuck!” I mouth so Barbara doesn’t hear.

“You’ll earn it, believe me. Take a look and let me know if you want it.”

“Anything else?”

“Uhm, ‘Porter’; inheritor. Could be a nice earner for you; big bequest … can’t divulge the sum but more than the last one.”

“I’ll take it.”

Our business concluded, I make to head back out.

“Zac …” The tone lacks in confidence; like everything else.

I look up and see the usual pain and suffering. Even though I’m the world’s worse Romeo, if this guy wants what’s on offer, then he’s gonna have to ask for it. We’ve come close to getting it together, seriously together, but like a clothes horse in the Derby, we never quite make it out of the gate, let alone to the finish line.

“Never mind. See you Sunday. What do you want for your birthday?”

I pause and think for a second. Turning, I suggest, “A bale of towels; good ones … from Marks and Spencer's …”

I leave with the confusion playing out on his brow.

Being in the vicinity of the Whiteley Centre, I pop in to get the flowers for Sunday and leg it up to the top floor to grab a freshly squeezed juice. I’m not remotely interested in the health benefits, just the cute Italian guy who is serving; hopefully. He is!

“I’ll have the guava, mango and kiwi vitamin bomb, please.” I order, not even looking at the menu card; just into his dark brown eyes. I’m brought to attention by the scuff of feet behind me which I assume belongs to another customer. They do; the same guy who I saw in the bar and walking down Queensway earlier. He looks flushed and clean, so my guess that he was heading to the sauna was right. I smile, and move away to a table, whilst my drink is made up.

Sitting as I am, askance from the counter, I get the side view of this guy for a minute, whilst he peruses the menu and orders.

Slim, bordering on emaciated, he’s dressed very casually in ‘Rough n’ Ready’ jog pants and a vest top under a hoodie. His feet are shod in up-to-the-minute trainers which squeak loudly on the tiled floor. I’m just about to write him off when he wanders over, having placed his order.

“May I join you?” He asks in a voice barely audible over the din of the machine that converts healthy fruit into something which resembles sludge.

“Uhm, sure,” I reply, quickly glancing around to ascertain that there are plenty of other tables vacant. My quizzical look must have registered.

“I’ve seen you around and I thought it would be nice to get to know each other; you know …”

“Sure, sit down … I’m Zac …”

“Rupert …”

Now we’re both lost for the moment and the arrival of our drinks saves us from the embarrassment of the silence. Seeing as he asked to sit with me, I wait for him to open the innings. He seems reluctant. I help him out by asking, “Did you go to the sauna?”

He colours up, and stammers a ‘yes’.

I know it’s a favoured cruising ground but nothing happens inside, save the checking out and maybe the swift exchange of numbers.

“Busy in there?”

“Not really …”

“Day off?”

“Yeah; you?”

“Had an appointment up the road.”

I give him the thumbnail sketch and he seems interested but he’s also backing away and drinking his juice way too fast.

“What do you do?” I ask innocently.

“Website design … freelance. Crikey, look at the time; I have to go.”

He gets up to leave and I wonder what the fuck is going on.

“Do you want to exchange numbers?” I ask.

“Uhm, sure,” and he searches in his bag for his mobile phone.

I rattle off the landline number for the flat.

“That’s a landline number,” he queries.

“I don’t have a mobile.”

“Oh … would seem essential in your game; no?”

“No. Least, I don’t think so. They transmit harmful waves into your brain.”

“That’s rubbish,” he counters.

“Same with microwaves and satellite dishes.”

He laughs, and I get the same feeling of 'déjà vu' that I had in the bar.

“Well, okay then. I’ll call you.”

He leaves and squeaks all the way down the stairs.

You know, he’s got all the accoutrements of the successful, thirty-something, gay London-dweller, but he’s like the flyer advertising this week’s special offers in the supermarket thrust between the pages of GQ or Gay Times.

An enigma.

I liked his hair; spikey and blond and the goatee really suited his face. I’m sure he was wearing contacts, the coloured sort, in dark blue.

My musings on this chicken dressed as a peacock takes me back to the flat via the launderette. Mrs Chan is again absent and I check the wardrobe but apart from the lingering odour; nothing.

I open the bread bin and find a stale crust. I marry that with some rancid butter and jam which has mould growing over half of the surface. I make a coffee and sit at the kitchen table to contemplate the case file that Matt handed me. The label says, ‘Metamorphosis’ and the first page inside is an engineering drawing of some kind. I’m just about to turn the page and sip the coffee when Mrs Chan crashes out from the cupboard under the sink. I spill the coffee onto the file as I leap up, upsetting the bread and jam which lands on the floor, jam side up.

“What the FUCK?!”

My question and the subsequent pathetic attempt at admonishing her go unheeded as she dives on the bread and jam.

“What is fucking wrong with you?”

It’s too busy gobbling up the morsel and flushed with the success of this escapade, it launches itself into the basket where, fifteen minutes later, it pukes up on the clean blanket.

“Serves you fucking right! And I ain’t washing that until next Friday, Mrs!”

I need to see Joe and head back out.

Joe was my father’s best friend, ‘comrade in arms’, when they both tramped the streets as young Bobbies and later, a kind of sounding board. He’s holed up in a retirement home in Islington, suffering from dementia. When I see him, which is as often as I can, he thinks I’m my father and calls me Frank.

“Hello, Joe.”

“Ah, Frank!”

“How’s life treating you?”

“Can’t complain. So; what you working on?” and the eyes are wide and shining. He reminds me of the drug addicts who stand outside the door to the flat on a Friday and Saturday night, as Carlos, the dealer, hands out their fixes.

I explain the case of the missing husband which, to be honest, I haven’t really done anything with. A nurse brings in tea and I leave him to cogitate over the Earl Grey and the Hobnobs.

“Seems to me, Frank, that this here Grainger chap was very unhappy and left rather than facing up to his problems.”

“The parents were pressuring the couple to have a child …”

“Young, handsome chap; loving, caring wife; with a good job and prospects, suddenly flees the nest. Been planning it for some time I’d say …”

“Elizabeth says, ‘look in the closet’ and the dog is behaving most strangely, jumping out of cupboards when it’s least expected.”

“Doesn’t want a family, works in IT … it’s obvious!”

I choke on the tea and biscuit. “What do you mean?”

“Queer as a nine bob note; finally plucked up the courage to ditch the ‘straight and narrow’ life and can’t face the music, so he disappears.”

“You think?” I ask agog; in awe of the cognitive powers.

It could just be the ravings of a lunatic of course. We finish up the tea and biscuits and I head back to the office. Elizabeth is typing something but what can she be typing? I give her nothing to type, yet she spends all day typing. How is this possible?

“Hi, Elizabeth.”

“Zac …”

I hand over the banker’s draft and get a kiss in return.

“Your suit is hanging up in your office. Did you get the flowers?”

“Yes. I won’t forget them. Oh! Matt is joining us for lunch.”

“I know.”

Fucking Barbara called. It’s like being in the jaws of a crocodile!

“I saw Joe. He says that Marc Grainger abandoned his façade of a ‘straight’ life and disappeared to avoid the pain of coming out to his friends, wife and family …”

“So?”

“Maybe; but if he doesn’t want to be found then perhaps I shouldn’t go looking for him.”

“Honesty is always the best policy, Zachary, even if it hurts. Better that Mrs Grainger knows the reason then they can both move on without the weight of all those undigested emotions and unfulfilled hopes.”

Jesus! Has she been sniffing the correction fluid?

“It’s one theory; Joe’s theory …”

“So, what now then?”

“I’ll stake out the bars and the saunas.”

“Perhaps he changed his appearance,” Elizabeth suggests, eyebrows dancing in that way which signals that she thinks she’s offered a gem.

“That’ll make it even harder to track him down. He might have moved out of London.”

“Check the ‘lonely hearts’ column in The Standard tonight.”

“There’ll be hundreds.”

“He’ll be easy enough to spot.”

I retire to the inner office and spend an hour doodling over the blotter. I turn to the photograph; the one of my father.

“Dad, I can’t do this anymore. It’s a joke. The dog, Elizabeth and mad Joe have more clue than I have. I’ll never be you and …”

“Zachary, lad; chin up. You’re doing just fine.”

“Really?”

“Yes! Don’t be too hard on yourself. Relax and play at it. I never had much more of a clue but I acted the part. You don’t have to worry about making me proud. I’m already proud of you.”

“Thanks, Dad.”

“Happy Birthday!”

“We’re off to see Mum and then have lunch; like always.”

“Good boy. When you’ve read the ‘Metamorphosis’ file, come and have a chat. I never cracked it but I’ll share my theories with you and we’ll do it together. What do you say?”

“Okay,” I sniff, grabbing a tissue from the strategically placed box and I have a good blow.

“What do caterpillars turn into?”

“Butterflies.”

“I imagine the process is a little strange and the butterfly might, just for a moment, feel uncomfortable in its new skin; until it learns to flutter.”

“So?”

“Look for the butterfly which is getting used to the wings that Nature has bestowed upon it.”

“Okay,” I blub.

“I love you, Zachary, lad.”

“I love you too, Dad.”

I head out, feeling better if red-rimmed and blotchy.

“I’m heading home, Elizabeth. I’ll see you on Sunday. I’ll be waiting by the gate.”

I hurry through, hoping she doesn’t see the tear stains.

“Zachary …“

“Yes, Elizabeth?”

“Goodnight; take care and I’ll see you on Sunday.”

I debate whether to have a drink first but decide on pizza and an early night. I pick up The Standard on the way home.

“Mrs Chan!”

Nothing.

“I’ve got pizza …”

Absolute silence.

“Fine! More for me.”

I ferret around the kitchen for a clean plate and a glass to have some wine. She’s asleep on the sofa, wrapped up in my father’s old cardigan, dreaming. Despite the risk of catching any one of a number of horrible infections, I kiss her and then head into the ‘studio’.

Chapter Four – Lonely Hearts

Dispelling the fog of another night in front of the canvas, I’m sitting in the kitchen, sipping coffee, looking through the ‘lonely hearts’ column in The Standard. Apparently, Marc’s ad will be easy to spot.

Mrs Chan wanders through from the lounge, looking like something she dragged in and chewed on.

“Morning, sweetheart.”

It sniffs around and looks up.

“I saved you some pizza.”

It grins.

“We’re off out today, for a proper walk … in Hyde Park.”

It flops into its basket, feigning death. I just look and quirk all the malleable parts of my face and refocus on the ads.

‘Recently out IT Consultant looking for ‘experienced’ to show him the ropes.’

“I don’t fucking believe it!”

I call the message box service and leave my name and a brief message.

Because showering and a shave before the trip out on Sunday are like commandments, I skip both and head out with Mrs Chan to get some exercise and fresh air.

It’s an attempt to circumnavigate the dating game. Guys love cute dogs and that gives the guy at the other end of the lead his chance. Okay, I don’t have a cute dog, so I’m working on the basis of charity and possible curiosity. Maybe they dare themselves to do it or have no sensory organs. Whatever; I usually elicit something. I’ll dunk her in the Serpentine before I make my circuit, half a packet of mints in one pocket and three poo bags in the other.

“We’re not going home until I’ve caught a live one,” I lay down the law to her; as if laws mean anything to Mrs Chan who pisses on the bus and craps on the steps of the tube station.

I amble, smiling sweetly and knowingly at all the obvious candidates, eliciting nothing more than charitable grimaces.

“Look sharp and act like a lady,” I tell the bitch, who’s more interested in dragging me into the bushes. “I’m not that desperate,” I protest, wondering how long it’ll be before I succumb.

Three joggers get chased and a small child has its lolly expertly plucked out of its fist and one very smartly dressed pensioner gets a shoe drenching. My apologies carry me around to the kiosk by the Edinburgh Gate. I get myself a tea and a muffin and find a bench to sit and enjoy the repose. Mrs Chan has decided to lick herself (you know where I mean) and a thorough job of it she is making too, when a guy, young and fresh, walks up to the kiosk to get a bottle of iced tea and an oaty thing. He looks and chuckles, getting a bird’s eye view of the procedure and my vain attempt to ignore it.

I can see that he’s debating whether to loiter, possibly even to sit down … or make a discrete run for it.

“I guess we all would if we could,” I venture, seeing as this was an attempt to engage someone in conversation.

“Isn’t getting someone else to do it half the fun?”

I smile, possibly the broadest smile of the whole week.

“If you want to, I’m sure she’d be only too happy,” I quip, and he bursts out laughing, spraying us all in iced tea.

“Shit, sorry …”

“I’m Zac,” I get in, before anything else.

“Peter …”

“Pleased to meet you.”

He sits down after shaking my hand very firmly.

“What’s her name?”

“Mrs Chan.”

“Why?”

“I’m a private investigator, as was my father who adopted the disgusting creature, though the truth is, she probably adopted us.”

“So she’s Mrs Chan to your Charlie Chan?”

“Yes, albeit Charlie Chan actually solved cases …”

“And you don’t have any success in that respect?”

“Little, and not often; like almost everything else.”

I’m playing the sympathy fuck card as you can see. He grins and asks, “What case are you working on right now?”

“Well, of course I can’t divulge anything, but, a missing husband and a dispute over a patent.”

“Wow, I mean, you really do this stuff?”

“I’m the Zac of ‘The Zachary Tremble Agency’ in Soho.”

“Cool!”

“I really do this stuff.”

“You looked like an artist and, to be honest, they’re always so far up their own arses there’s no room for anyone else.”

“I can assure you that there is plenty of room and it’s currently vacant.”

“I’m in Bayswater, just across the Park.”

“She has to come too but we can lock her in the cupboard under the sink.”

“I love dogs.”

“She loves a challenge.”

We saunter to the flat in Porchester Gardens and for the sake of the pristine furnishings, I put her on the balcony.

“Do you have a newspaper?” I ask.

“She reads the newspaper?”

“No. It’ll soak up the worst; but you may need to hose down.”

The balcony extends across both the lounge and bedroom windows. Whilst Peter is busy administering his wet and smooth tongue to my nether regions, she’s peering in and yelping encouragement. She gets bored and decides to knock over the ornamental tree in a pot and then make mud pies. Thankfully, I’m oblivious as Peter gives me a good seeing to and I to him. Once we’re done and showered … for the second or even third time this week … we sit in the kitchen and have a cuppa.

“Shouldn’t we let her back in?” He asks.

“No. Why ruin a perfect moment? When I leave, throw her over the balcony and I’ll catch her.”

“Have you always been an animal lover?”

“It’s out of respect …”

“To your father?”

“No. The Dogs’ Home and the volunteers.”

We evidently enjoy each other’s humour and judging by the yelps of earlier, each other. Where’s the catch, the trapdoor, the camera?

“Can I see you again?” Peter asks earnestly.

“I’d love to see you again.”

“Tomorrow?”

“Busy tomorrow …”

And I explain the purpose of the trip to Barnes.

“I’m so sorry.”

“Everyone thinks you don’t miss what you never had … but you do.”

“I have one of her books.”

He fetches it; it’s one I don’t know. On the inside back cover there’s a photograph of her and my father. In it, she’s dressed in combat gear … and is six months’ pregnant. I try manfully to stem the flow but fail.

“Hey; I’m sorry … shush.”

The comfort of another person’s arms is what I crave, not jealously or selfishly. I just want time to let the scars heal and for the scabs to drop off.

A tender kiss turns into an ardent embrace and we do it all over again. Mrs Chan is scraping the soil and ‘other material’ over the edge of the balcony onto the table below; pre-laid for high tea.

A dog is for life; not just for getting shags!

Chapter Five – Sunday Best

Showered (!), shaved and dressed in my Sunday finery, I head out to meet Elizabeth at the cemetery in Barnes. I take the Central Line to Shepherd’s Bush and then change for the 72 bus towards Roehampton, getting off at Ranelagh Avenue. It’s a short walk to the gates of the cemetery on Rock Lane.

Elizabeth is already there, swathed in a black tent, with a black collar, a black jacket over her ‘dress’ and a ‘bonnet’ of some description … also black … perched on the top of her head.

“Hello, Elizabeth.”

“Good morning, Zachary.”

I get the kiss but not the birthday kiss; we save that for after. We pay our respects to my mother, and lay flowers on her grave. I have a word with her and then Dad next door. It always strikes me as curious that hers is the only memorial, surmounted by an angel, which hasn’t had its head lopped off by some vandal. We stand and say our prayers and shed a few (more) tears and then catch her up on all the big news. Actually, I let Elizabeth do that whilst I speak to Dad. That’s not a long conversation, following the one in the office and pretty soon we’re ready to leave.

“Bus or cab?” I ask.

“Bus. Save the money. You need a holiday.”

Bemused at the statement, we wander off to catch the 265 bus to Putney Bridge. I admonish myself for wondering where my birthday present is. Elizabeth is carrying a standard sized handbag so, if she has got me something, it’s quite small. No words on that score are said until we meet with Matt and birthday wishes are exchanged.

We head to the pub restaurant on the river. Matt is struggling with a huge bundle of towels from Marks and Spencer’s. We’re seated and having a pre-lunch drink when Elizabeth hands me her gift, plucked from the handbag. It’s small and looks suspiciously like a pen case but seeing as I inherited all of my father’s watches and pens, that wouldn’t figure.

“What is it?”

“Open it!” they both chime and I detect a hint of conspiracy; and it must have been a fucking huge one if I got a whiff of it!

“It’s a … mobile phone.”

I look quizzical as they are both well aware of my views on the dangers of this and other devices which emit rays of some sort.

"It’s new; shielded so it doesn’t penetrate your brain with harmful rays," Matt assures me.

“Oh, excellent! Thank you, Elizabeth.”

“It’s part of the upgrade package … as you will see.”

“I don’t …”

“Monday is soon enough.”

We enjoy a very pleasant lunch but then we always do. Elizabeth is the closest thing I have to family and Matt is my best friend. Matt agrees to drive Elizabeth home which is really going beyond the call of duty but the towels were, apparently, half price in the sale.

I’m left to wander back on my own with the towels and the phone. Having merely the change left out of the twenty pound note I was given days ago, I have to get the bus. It’s Sunday, so not too busy and I don’t mind as we head to Victoria up the New and Old, Kings Road. I change in Victoria for one that takes me to Piccadilly and get off opposite Simpson’s that was. I walk the rest of the way through Soho, feeling the happiest I’ve felt for a long time.

I pick up Mrs Chan and after a scoot around the Square, we decamp to Maison Bertaux, and have a cup of tea and an éclair. She’s behaving impeccably, sitting by my seat, staring up with adoring eyes.

“In your dreams, lady, do you get the éclair,” I state categorically.

A woman of uncertain years and possibly in need of a stronger prescription slips her a piece of scone. Trouble can only result from this and I’m right as Mrs Chan leaps onto the woman’s lap, snatches the rest of the scone from her plate and then runs off.

“Your dog just stole my scone.”

“I don’t have a dog.”

Chapter Six – Upgraded

She, Mrs Chan, is of course, waiting outside the street door of the flat. I approach and she looks ready to launch for ‘the run and head butt manoeuvre’. I take her by surprise and catch her in my arms and hug her close to my face.

“Don’t you ever do that again, you naughty girl,” I trill.

I put her down and she looks totally confused. Good! It’s part of the ‘Grand Plan’ to weaken her defences.

In the flat, I check for messages and have a reply from the ‘Lonely Heart’. I also have a message from Justin and one from Peter. Clearly it is my birthday!

‘Lonely Heart’ wants to meet for a drink on Tuesday, suggests a quite pub on the Bayswater Road and specifies that we should both be wearing something called a ‘newsboy’. I know this to be an item of headwear, having read this and seen pictures in an article in The Standard, in which his ad appeared. Maybe he saw it too.

I don’t have a ‘newsboy’ and will work on the basis that he will, so I’ll know who he is and if it’s Marc then I already know what he looks like from Felicity’s photograph.

I clean the bathroom if only to make space for the new towels and clean the kitchen to remove the odour of piss and sick; in case Justin and/or Peter follow through on their promises. I dally in the studio but don’t feel strong enough, play with the phone for five minutes and then crash with ‘Lady Muck’ on the sofa and listen to Adele until it’s time to go to bed.

My last thought is the comment by Elizabeth … it’s part of the upgrade package …

On Monday, I decide not to have a shower on the basis that I’ve had four in the last five days and the bathroom is clean. I head into the office. The flaky paint of the window sign welcomes me as usual. Clearly, that is not part of the upgrade package!

“Good morning, Elizabeth.”

“Good morning, Zac.”

I still see nothing which accounts for the comment. My father’s office is just as I left it, except next to the ‘Metamorphosis’ file is a black rectangular appliance which looks suspiciously like a laptop. It is a laptop.

“Elizabeth; would you come in here for a moment please?” I call out.

She appears at the door.

“Yes, Zac …?”

“There’s a laptop on my desk.”

“It’s not a laptop, Zachary; it’s the future!”

I turn … but she’s already waddled back. Bemused and slightly apprehensive, I flip open the lid and the ruddy thing springs into life.

“Fuck!”

Displayed on the screen is the homepage of 'The Zachary Tremble Agency’. I’ve seen the internet, of course I have. I did go to University but it was hard to see the screen in those days, standing fifteen feet from it as I was. I walk back to the outer office and see the familiar picture of Elizabeth typing away, except the old Hermes has gone and she’s got a laptop with a printer attached to it.

“Elizabeth …”

“We have to upgrade, Zachary.”

“But I’m ‘microwaveaphobic’ and you’re seve-“

“We’re going to evening classes every Tuesday to learn how to use it.”

“Right … I need to look at the new case and start tracking down ‘Porter’.”

“Which will be a lot easier, now that you have the internet at your fingertips.”

“Oh … cool!”

I trip back in to my father’s office, and grab the case file for the inheritor, ‘Porter’. Within seventeen minutes, I’ve tracked down thirty-two candidates and saved myself three days of fruitless searches in the Records' Office. Elizabeth comes in with tea. I’m writing something on my Facebook ‘wall’, ‘tweeting’ and reading an email from Matt.

“No porn!”

“You can get porn on this?”

“It’s a work tool …“

“What is ‘Gaydar’?”

The lid is slammed shut and I narrowly avoid having all my fingers broken.

“Go and have a coffee!”

I don’t even have to ask for the money.

I guess this signals that we’re in this caper for the long term. Perhaps my father gave me a tacit three years to sink or swim. If this is swimming then I guess I’ll only do better from now on. I’d already made a pact with myself that I’d close the agency once Elizabeth was no longer with us. But even if that is in ten years, I’ll still only be forty-one. If my father did leave some kind of request or instructions then I really do have to believe that he is still looking out for me; his "Zachary, lad".

I’m reliably informed by Elizabeth that I can access the internet at home via the BT socket with the insertion of a splitter and router, Wi-Fi box and eighty-three metres of cable which would just about stretch back to the office; so why bother? All of this is in a box and the laptop has a smart bag (so gay!). I’m let out early to set this all up but not before I’ve been reminded that we have our first class the following evening.

“I have a date … with Marc Grainger. I found his ad.” And I show her the paper from the Friday.

“In the interest of solving the case, I’ll excuse you. I’m sure it’s just the basics which you seem to have mastered incredibly quickly.”

“I have used it before; at Uni’ … though it was always difficult trying to type with two snooker cues. Are you sure this is shielded; like the phone?”

“It’s perfectly safe.”

“Right; I’m off to set up all of this at home. Do you have it set up at home?”

“Of course. I’m learning macramé via YouTube.”

Bewildered, I go home, dump Jodrell Bank and take Mrs Chan round the Square.

“There’s Jenkins; go and maul his nads,” I urge.

She eyes me with deep suspicion, tinged with real fear and stays close. Upon our return, she takes up a defensive position in the basket. I’m oblivious and it takes four hours to set everything up and only three and half of those were spent on the phone to the support line. Just before bed, I finally manage to get on to Gaydar and know, as a fact, that my life will never be the same.

I insist on walking Mrs Chan before I go to work, knowing that I’ll be late home on the basis that Marc shows up for the date. I have to use the lead because she won’t leave the flat willingly.

“C’mon, sweetheart; we need our exercise and fresh air!”

Deep suspicion, fear and a weak bladder, all add up to a puddle on the doormat outside the flat.

“Oh, Mrs Chan, look what you’ve done. There, there; don’t get upset.”

She’s finally spooked, turns tail and throws herself under the sofa.

“I’ll be back!”

I know this victory will be short-lived which is why I’ll enjoy it all the more.

Having the potential number of candidates for the ‘Porter’ inheritance narrowed down to thirty-two, I have time to look at the ‘Metamorphosis’ case in more detail. A case - and surely it was the only one - which my father didn’t crack. It is a dispute over a patent, for a kind of ‘engine’, or more accurately, a ‘generator’; a perpetual motion device that will, purportedly, run forever using the power stored in simple magnets. The internet saves me days of scouring reference material at the library, though I have to admit, I might lose the use of my legs at this rate.

The grandson, ‘Neville Theodore Briscoe’, is the key. He apparently designed the device, or so asserts the protagonist, ‘Anthony Briscoe’. The counter-claim, made by one, ‘John Pendleton’, is pretty compelling. It’s his drawings which appear in the file. However, he has never, to the Court’s satisfaction, explained exactly how the device works. Nor could he present the working prototype he asserted he had built, citing a household fire had destroyed the machine and precious documents which would have otherwise proved when he first had the idea. Anthony and John are now both in their late eighties and Neville is in his forties.

Neville disappeared years ago, something like thirty years ago and no one, not even my father or Joe, has ever found him. A quick search of the internet merely brings up references to Neville which I have already found in Court transcripts and newspapers reports.

At four o’clock, possibly worried that I’ve died, Elizabeth wanders in to remind me that I have the date with Marc and she needs to go to get to the course which is being held in Waterloo.

“Okay, Elizabeth, goodnight.”

“If it is Mr Grainger, please urge him to speak to his wife. If he wants to move on, that’s fine; but he needs to give her the same chance. Goodnight, Zachary.”

I contemplate the words and I’m about to log off when she pops back.

“And don’t invite him back to the flat until the invoice is paid!”

“I wouldn’t dream of it. In any case, I have other ‘prospects’,” I admit, with some satisfaction.

“Don’t forget to lock the door,” she reminds me as she rolls out, like the Queen Mary being launched.

Finding the pub was easy. Finding my ‘mystery man’ somewhat more difficult. Seemingly, everyone has seen the same article and everyone is wearing a ‘newsboy’. Still, I have the photograph of Marc and it is just a question of scanning the crowd for the face. No Marc … but I do spy Rupert, standing at the bar.

“Hello!” I pipe up.

“Oh, hi …”

“Buy you a drink?”

“Uhm, sure …”

“I have a mobile phone now,” I state proudly.

“Great! Make sure you give me the number.”

An unconvincing attempt at small talk and I actually get the impression that he’d rather I move off.

“Nice to see you,” I say, adding, “Got a blind date.”

“Good for you!”

I move off and it’s pretty obvious that Marc isn’t in the pub, so I take a seat and do what everyone else is doing; get out the phone and play ‘Quaddrapop’. Two vodkas later, I decide he isn’t going to show and head for the bar to return my glass and say ‘goodbye’ to Rupert who is still stood there, looking quite dejected.

“He’s a ‘no-show’…”

“Yeah, tell me about it.”

“Oh, were you waiting too?”

“Yes.”

“Their loss,” I say, in an effort to prevent a suicide attempt, because he looks dreadful; edgy and pale.

“Give me your number then.”

I retrieve the piece of paper that I have written it down on from my pocket but pull out by mistake the advert (circled) which I tore out from the paper, thinking I might need it to prove I was the respondent. I pop it on the bar whilst I dig deeper for the slip of paper with the number. He glances at the ad.

“That’s my ad!”

“Is it? Fuck! Then that means you …”

“… have been waiting for you!”

“You have no idea,” I say to myself. Aloud, I say, “Everyone was wearing a ‘newsboy’ and when I saw you I didn’t think … but I left my name in the message.”

“I heard ‘Jack’; the recording was very bad.”

“Shall we get a drink?”

“My shout; grab a table.”

How the fuck do I play this? He comes over with the drinks and plonks himself down, chuckling at the absurdity of it all.

“Cheers!”

“Cheers!”

I hand him the slip of paper with the number written on it.

“Thanks!”

He calls it and stores my number and shows me how to store his. At a loss as to how to begin the conversation that Elizabeth wants me to have, I recall the weekend’s events and the details of the upgrade.

“Sounds pretty exciting,” he ventures.

“It is; scary and exciting. I’d prefer to be painting but I can still do that and see how things go. Once Elizabeth isn’t there, it’ll be different and I don’t even know that I’d want to carry on.”

“So; what are you working on at the moment?”

“Oh, a missing person and a patent dispute; pretty regular stuff.”

“A missing person …”

“Of course I can’t tell you anything …. but a wife, clearly upset and worried about her husband, would like to know that he is still alive and okay. I think she realises the relationship is over but would like to know, for sure, that there is no future for them; so she can move on.”

“That sounds pretty reasonable; actually, more than reasonable …”

“I think so.”

“Perhaps he doesn’t know how to tell her.”

“Apparently she’s very understanding and sympathetic, perhaps more than her husband realises. There are no children so it would be a pretty clean split. Of course, there might be some fallout but that’s what friends and family are for.”

“Perhaps he doesn’t think his friends and family would understand.”

“Maybe he just needs to give them the chance.”

“Perhaps … perhaps he’s realised he’s gay and just can’t face the thought of telling her; or them.”

“If that is the reason then he must feel pretty dreadful right now; lonely and scared. There are support groups who can help. Perhaps he’ll look one up and work out how to face up to the truth and start to rebuild his life.”

“Sounds like it would be a good idea.”

A companionable silence descends at the table and we both finish our drinks.

“I have to go,” I signal, “Can’t leave the dog too long. Call me.”

“I will. Thanks.”

“Goodnight, Rupert.”

“Goodnight, Zac.”

I realise how lucky I am in having Elizabeth and Matt. My father never showed me anything other than love and perhaps more importantly, respect, knowing being gay wasn’t a choice and it made life difficult for me at times. I have to admit that the ‘advice’ to Rupert/Marc, if that is what it was, were my father’s words more than they were mine.

“Thanks, Dad.”

“Goodnight Zachary, lad.”

Epilogue

A few weeks pass and nothing much happens out of the ordinary until, one morning, the postman delivers a letter. Elizabeth opens the post as usual.

“Zachary …”

I peel myself away from the laptop screen and wander into the outer office. She’s holding up a cheque.

“Who’s that from?”

“Felicity Grainger.”

“Oh … oh!”

“She says that Marc made contact and explained everything.”

“So why did she send a cheque? We didn’t find him.”

“Didn’t we?”

Table of Contents

Author’s Note

Contact Information

Chapter One – Alley Cat

Chapter Two – Justin Saville

Chapter Three – Matthew and Joe

Chapter Four – Lonely Hearts

Chapter Five – Sunday Best

Chapter Six – Upgraded

Epilogue