The sun hadn’t been set long and I could feel the chill of the autumn evening slowly crawling under my coat. I was thankful to see the pedestrian traffic was starting to thin out in the area because it gave me a fighting chance of not being spotted entering the building. As I rounded the corner its Art Deco façade, although blackened with pollution and age, was still an impressive sight. Crowther’s Department Store was an institution in Kilchester, with staff and customers spanning four generations. It was the sort of anachronism of a place that no-one could quite understand how it remained open. And yet no-one could ever imagine it would ever close down.
I walked past the garish window displays touting the latest in gaudy couture and glanced around before trying to slip subtly down the alley that led to the back entrance of the store. Unlike the gorgeous architecture which characterised the front of the building the back was a horrendous carbuncle that appeared to have been shit out and stuck on in the sixties. At least it was quiet down here, the only company being some birds scavenging the bins.
The building itself took up three sides of what you might loosely call a courtyard. To my left the building was dotted with tiny windows which were so small I couldn’t imagine they let in any light at all. To my right the building’s only feature was a rusted fire escape that zig zagged from the roof down to street level and straight ahead the only points of note were a closed roller shutter door that would presumably let in delivery vehicles and a smaller, windowless, metal door.
Since it was the only person-sized door I thought it reasonable to assume it was the staff entrance. I walked closer and saw that it was replete with card-swipe and keypad. Wonderful. The plan was going smoothly. My hand went to my jacket pocket, fingers running along the edge of the card Agatha had given me. This was it, the beginning of… well, I didn’t know actually. But it was definitely the beginning of something.
I gritted my teeth, took out the card and swiped it. There was a beep and an orange light. I didn’t bother bringing the piece of paper with the accompanying number, having decided to live life on the edge instead.
I pushed ‘1’. The keypad beeped. That was a good start. No alarms, no security, no dogs.
I pushed ‘2’. Another beep. Thinking I could hear footsteps I looked around the courtyard again but no-one was there.
I pushed ‘3’. Beep. There really was no going back now.
I pushed ‘4’. Beep. I wondered why she had bothered to write the number down in retrospect. Not exactly a difficult one to remember.
The orange light flicked green then turned red and sounded an electronic raspberry. I exhaled and my breath hung in the air around me. Were they definitely the instructions? Agatha had said to swipe the card then type the number. Or was it type the number then swipe the card? I reached up and touched the tiny wound she’d inflicted on my forehead.
My eyes flicked around the courtyard and once more there was no-one watching. This time, however, I was sure I could make out a security camera on the wall high above me. Which was it? Swipe then type? Or type then swipe? No, I was definitely right the first time, I swiped the card and this time instead of the orange light a green one flashed happily. This was good.
Wasn’t it?
I typed 1, 2, 3 and then hesitated. It wasn’t beeping this time. There was a cancel button. Maybe I should press it. I pressed ‘4’ and waited for the click of the door opening.
The machine waited, flashed the green light at me some more and then abruptly changed red and blew another raspberry.
Right, this time I would reverse it. Type then swipe. It had to work. Unless I had the number wrong. What if I had been too hasty, what if it was 2134 or even 4321? No. Have confidence. This time it will work.
I glanced up at what I imagined to be the security camera and pressed ‘1’.
The door in front of me made a satisfying clunk noise and opened wide.
Inside stood a security guard.
“What the bloody hell do you
~*~
My eyes woke up first. Before my body. It happened sometimes.
I wasn’t in a police car, so that was something at least. I inhaled and there was a smell like musty furniture crossed with industrial cleaning agents. It was unmistakably the smell of Crowther’s Department Store although the area I was staring at wasn’t one I’d ever seen before, the smell here having a lower concentration of mustiness to it.
I seemed to be in some sort of chair at a shabby old wooden desk. Whoever had brought me here, presumably the security guard, had laid my head on the desk but my arms hung awkwardly under the desk. I could see papers, out of focus and too close to read, then a baked bean tin being used as a pen holder. On the wall in front of me was a calendar, one of those cheap and nasty ones that was just one picture with a tiny grid of numbers stuck to the bottom.
The picture was a montage, cheesily done by some amateur designer with lions, tigers and other big cats all staring down presumably aghast at the fact that, in their world at least, it was still May.
Some movement began to trickle back into me and I managed to tilt my head a fraction of an inch to see another anachronism. A dusty frame with an ‘Employee of the Month’ certificate inside. The date on the certificate was from five years ago and from another company whose name the dust obscured. Something beginning with ‘Lav’.
“I know you’re awake,” said a voice. “I can see your eyes are open.”
“Mmmmmph,” I said, the narcolepsy had started to subside, begrudgingly giving me back control of myself.
“What the devil were you doing at the back door?” he said. He wasn’t angry, he sounded worried if anything.
I sat bolt upright, my subconscious handing back control and then panicked for a moment when, inexplicably, it had refused to allow me to move either of my arms. A brief internal check revealed that lying on a desk with your arms hanging beneath you is likely to cut off the blood supply. Not the end of the world. I smiled at him.
“Usually the first thing people ask is why I fall asleep like that,” I said. “Very tactful of you not to mention it.”
“My pleasure, that is, what…erm,” he was sitting at the other side of the room at another, smaller desk next to the door. He was a big man, in his early fifties but I would have bet that what filled his uniform was mostly muscle and not fat.
“Name’s Clint Barnum, I would shake your hand but both my arms went to sleep and now the blood’s returned I’m starting to get a chronic case of pins and needles.”
“Jacob. I’m the security guard.”
“Yes, I guessed that,” I said. “The uniform’s a dead giveaway. You often pick strange men out of the gutter and take them to… is this your office?”
“Yes. Well, sort of.”
“And you’re in charge around here are you?”
“Yes. What are you d-”
“Excellent. Great. Good man,” the pins and needles tingling in my arms had turned into a painful searing, creeping feeling under my flesh. I let out a scream partly because it really hurt but mostly to keep the guard off-guard, if you’ll pardon the pun.
“So what are you doing here?” he said, standing up and moving between me and the room’s exit. Clearly his concern was only going to stretch so far.
“Good question. And one I intend to address, don’t you worry about that. I walked over to the framed certificate and wiped the dust off it. “Is this yours?”
“No,” he said. “Now wait a-”
“Jacob, I’m a private investigator and I am here on a very important case,” it was the first time I’d gotten to say that and it felt really good. He immediately sat back down in his seat. I decided to counterpoint his downward motion with some upward movement of my own and stood up. “Do you know of a Ms Pingoveno?”
“No,” he replied.
“Heard of her, worked for her, any mention by anyone you’ve ever met?”
“No, I swear, sir,” he said.
“And how about Vince?”
“Ah, now there I can help you. There are two, no, three gentlemen by that name working here. One of them lives down the street from me. I get the bus in with him when we’re on the same shifts.”
“They work here?”
“Yes.”
I shook my head. “Lava Corp?”
Jacob shook his head.
I tried to look thoughtful by scratching my chin then turned around to survey the rest of the office. It was a cramped affair, the other walls I hadn’t been able to see housing newspaper clippings mostly of football teams I didn’t recognise and a small square board with hooks, the majority of which had keys hanging from them. There was a single, shared telephone, two desks and that was it. We weren’t going to make any more progress here.
“Right, Jacob,” I said, finally shaking his hand as the pins and needles subsided. “I need an assistant this evening. Do you think you are up to the task?”
“Yes, sir!” he said, practically saluting as he did so.
“What do you know of taxidermy, Jacob?”
“Not much, sir, but I think you’ll be wanting to speak to Miss Erin on that subject.”
“Do you now?” I said.
“Yes sir, if I was you I would ask her about Lucky. Her cat.”
“Would you now?” I said. At last, I was making some progress. “Well, then lead the way.”
“Right you are sir.”
And off we went.
~*~
