The Clueless Detective

By Alan Williams-Key

Marty Wiessman left school a no-hoper with no qualifications. He lucks out when an old school chum offers him a job in his successful private detective agency. But his life starts to disintegrate when he discovers his partner in the office, murdered. The police insist that he killed himself, but Marty knows different. He laboriously unearths clues to his partner’s murderer but struggles to make sense of them. His concentration is not helped when a very attractive woman walks into his office and asks him to find her missing brother. Before long, Marty and his client are conducting a torrid affair. Marty oscillates between believing that these two cases are linked and that they are unrelated. Soon, more dead bodies turn up and Marty fears he and his client have become Mafia targets. The plot twists and turns always one step ahead of Marty, who is always slow on the uptake and who is just as surprised as anyone when the truth is finally revealed.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Alan Williams-Key
• Release date: Dec 3, 2012
• ISBN: 9781301413270

Alan Williams-Key

I was born in 1947 and successfully studied theoretical physics at Cambridge University. I worked in the UK for over thirty years as a software engineer and consultant. Between 1997 and 2001 I had quite a lot of time on my hands due to a chronic illness and I became interested in writing fiction after buying a book at an airport which turned out to be so cliché that I said to myself, surely anyone could write better that that, even me. Even though I only said it to myself I felt I needed to find out. That was when I started writing The Clueless Detective, my first novel. Much to my surprise I discovered that writing was actually fun. Although I completed several drafts the book was not ready for publication when I recovered my health and went back to work. Now that I am retired, I had the time to finish off the book. I also submit many offerings to the Guardian Weekly and a Google search on my name will find many of those that have been published. I have now published my second novel, The Money Flight. I am part way through writing a third novel and I'm hoping I shall have time to complete it sometime in 2013. As well as writing fiction, I enjoy learning to play jazz on the saxophone and photography. I also have a keen interest in aviation having actively been a private pilot for ten years, though now lapsed, and I've written an ATC simulator for the PC.

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THE CLUELESS DETECTIVE

by

Alan Williams-Key

Published by Alan Williams-Key at smashwords.com

Copyright 2012 Alan Williams-Key.

This is a work of fiction. All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons living or dead in the USA or elsewhere is purely coincidental.

To my wife Vivien for her invaluable help, support and encouragement.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

1

THURSDAY APRIL 22

The woman sitting on the visitor’s chair on the other side of my desk was kinda on edge. I’m used to that. She was sitting slightly forward keeping her body from resting on the chair back and every now and then she would wipe the sweat from the palms of her hands onto her jeans. Her eyes, Mrs Harrison’s eyes, were dark brown, but I could still see her pupils had narrowed to pinpoints. She hadn’t touched the coffee I’d thoughtfully given her and which was still on her side of my desk.

For the last quarter hour I’d been taking her though my report. Some clients want a face to face meeting at the end of the assignment while others just want a written report delivered by mail. Mrs Harrison was in the first category. I started with the very routine description of what I’d been doing the last week, how I’d been spending her money. So she knew how many hours I’d spent watching her husband, how many miles I’d driven in my car following him through the city streets, how many coffees I’d had to buy in cafes while on surveillance. In fact she had a full inventory of my expenses - no more than any client would expect. I’d deliberately been going over the unexciting routine stuff because it ain’t right to just blurt out, ‘I saw your husband having sex with so and so,’ as soon as the cheated wife comes through the door. No sirree! You have to break it gentle like. So you have to skirt around the skirt for a bit. The sex usually don’t feature till the sixteenth minute. The next part was a simple list of all the people he’d met during that week, innocent or otherwise, so she gets a full picture of how much work I’d done for her. Tracking down the names and occupations, if any, of his contacts was a non-trivial task even with the power of the Internet. We were rapidly getting to the meat of our meet - the bit when I give her the conclusion of my investigation - the moment when she finds out that she’s been cheated on and who her husband’s lover is. I never enjoy this bit so I hesitated, like I always do, wondering whether it is possible to deliver the news gently - to break the blow. As always happens at this point my eyes wandered round my office as I searched for inspiration.

My office is smallish. There’s maybe ten feet between the front of my desk and the door. There’s an old tired beige carpet on the floor that is well qualified to be used for testing hair restorative. There’s two chairs for when clients visit: one parked against the left wall currently stacked with files I’m working on, the other being sat on by Mrs Harrison. To the right is my filing cabinet. The walls were probably once white but now have a hint of an uncertain color. The ceiling corners provide a safe haven for a few spiders that are left undisturbed during the fortnightly visits of our cleaner. Behind me are two windows, and, when alone, I sometimes swivel round on my seat to admire the view.

But there was no inspiration this time, same as all the previous times I’d gotten to this point, so I told her. I told her I had bad news and that on the previous Wednesday he had met this woman in a car park outside a diner. I passed a photo across the desk which showed them greeting each other with a kiss that went well beyond the normal courtesies for the start of a business meeting. They’d then gotten into his car and driven to a motel on the outskirts of the city. I passed her some more photos showing them entering one of the motel rooms, his arm affectionately wrapped round her body. I then passed her a small Dictaphone tape. She looked at it puzzled. I explained what it was and put it into my Dictaphone. Then I left the room while she listened to it, to the sounds I’d captured as I stood outside that motel room. It was explicit. The woman had been very vocal and her moans and screams had easily carried thought the thin motel room walls. He’d been loud enough for his voice to be recognizable. When I heard her switch it off I went back in ready to offer her a tissue.

She didn’t need it. She had a smile on her face. Thank God, she said. I was afraid I was imagining it all and you’d find nothing. Then I’d have had to live with him for another twenty years. But now I’m going to be free of the jerk-off and I can sue him for every cent. I gave her a CD to keep with the Dictaphone recording on it. She took the photos and CD and put them in the envelope containing my written report. I mentioned the closing balance on her account and she settled it with a credit card. Then she shook my hand and left with a spring in her step. Her coffee was still on my desk.

Clients don’t always need a tissue.

So that ended the interesting part of my morning which was otherwise turning out to be just another boring day in the life of a private investigator. I had no reason to believe the afternoon would be any different. And that suited me just fine. I like to know where I stand. I like life to run its course predictably. I like to follow routines. Some people might even call me a creature of habit. Now you might think that an odd thing for a private detective to say since my job is always throwing me surprises. But they are surprises that fall within acceptable limits. When a lady asks me to follow her husband because he’s taken to coming home late and she suspects he’s got another woman, I don’t know what I’m going to discover till I find it. So whatever I find is going to be a surprise of sorts. Normally, of course, she’s right, and I catch him at it. Which is going to be a surprise for her because until now she only suspects, but she usually hopes she’s wrong. But should it turn out that he’s going to evening classes learning French so he can take her on a romantic trip of a lifetime to Paris, France, that would also be a surprise. Boy oh boy, what a surprise that would be! But it would still be within acceptable bounds. It would be an acceptable surprise.

I’d heard my partner go out early in the morning while I was just working on a report for another client and way before Mrs Harrison was due. His office is right next to mine. He hadn’t said where he was going. Time was when he’d’ve stuck his head round my door and let me know how long he’d be gone, but I’d noticed he’d been strangely pre-occupied of late. Gone kinda quiet on me. Anyhow, I thought no more about it and after the door had closed I’d returned to the report. I’d gotten stuck about halfway down page three; ran out of things to say but it was still too early in the report to get to the good part. I was still tired from the night’s surveillance, which didn’t help my thinking none. Six hours the guy had stayed in the dame’s house. Course, when two bodies get engrossed in each other’s flesh they lose track of time. I knew that. Seen it too often. All concerns about how to explain their late home-coming to spouses are as distant as NASA’s latest deep space probe. It makes for long working hours for yours truly. But the wait had been worth it. When he’d left in the small hours of the morning, she’d come to the door with him, wearing a thin negligée. They’d stood on the porch for a few moments reluctant to tear their bodies away from each other, indulging in one final passionate kiss, while I’d clicked away on the camera, all shots automatically time and date stamped. Then, unable to resist one last touch of forbidden flesh and, assuming there was nobody about, he’d put his hand inside her clothing and caressed her, someplace normally hidden even on a topless beach.

But I couldn’t write none of that yet. Had to think of some way to pad the report out for about another page. Then I’d had the meeting with Mrs Harrison. When she’d gone skipping out of my office I’d returned to the report and I was still working on that when I heard my partner return. I was still there in the middle of page three, thinking, looking for inspiration, so I looked at my watch – twenty after twelve. Virtually lunchtime. I was inspired. I decided to take my lunch break.

I was leaving my office to fetch lunch and found myself in the small reception area that linked our two offices to the main door that led to the rest of the building. I noticed that my partner’s door was partly open – like he was expecting someone – and I could just make out, through the frosted glass panel, that he was at his desk. Didn’t mean he was expecting anyone though, since he often failed to close the door on the way to his desk. I could hear him busily tapping away at his computer terminal so I said nothing, I just closed the outer door firmly so he would hear that I had gone out. I left the office and walked across the street to Finkelstein’s Deli, on the corner of seventh and fifty-first. It ain’t no gourmet place but they do a real neat sandwich out for a price that was compatible with my wallet, and I always grab my lunch there when I’m in the office. Not that there aren’t other places around. But why experiment with another establishment and risk a disappointing sandwich when you know Finkelstein’s will supply something you like and that is completely satisfying? With no meetings planned for the afternoon and just this report to complete I was expecting that lunch would be the highlight of my day. Course, it didn’t turn out that way. No sirree, not at all. That lunchtime, well, that was what I call a real unexpected surprise, a humdinger of a shock. You could say it quite ruined my whole day.

As I left Finkelstein’s carrying my lunch, with no more than fifty yards to walk, I was already looking forward to sitting at my desk once more and eating my sandwich. I turned off the baked sidewalk and into the cooler office block. I climbed briskly up the single flight of stairs to our offices and, as is my habit, I paused briefly to look at the crisp black lettering on the frosted-glass of the outer door:

BROWN & WIESSMANN

PRIVATE INVESTIGATORS

Even now, seeing my name on the door gave me a thrill that I wouldn’t trade for Annie Bloxham’s hand in my pants pocket – and I know for a fact that Annie Bloxham hadn’t never been known to put her hand into a boy’s pocket just to fish for loose change! I say hadn’t since I ain’t seen nor heard of her in ten years, not since I left school.

I opened the door and walked once more into the small reception area. Our reception area sure ain’t big. It’s more like a corridor. To the right, about four paces away, is my door. To the left, again about four paces, is my partner’s door. Continue past his door and you get to the coffee machine. There’s a carpet that’s marginally better than the one in my office. That’s our reception – no receptionist, no waiting area. If a client turns up too early for an appointment, they have to stand. Usually, after the first appointment they turn up real prompt. So standing there midway between our office doors I didn’t immediately notice anything unusual. The noise of my partner tapping the keys of his terminal had stopped, and there was just the low anonymous hum of an office in standby. The door to my office was exactly how I’d left it – closed. The door to my partner’s office was still partly open. Seeing as he was obviously no longer busy with his computer, I made over to his doorway intending to pass the time of day, as I often would of a lunchtime, and when I looked in I saw his feet up on his desk. Now, trust me when I say that was not unusual. He often sat on his big executive chair with his feet up on the desk. Even in front of clients. But I also noticed a shotgun with its stock nestling comfortably in his lap. That was unusual. As my eyes followed the line of the gun I saw the barrel was sticking into his mouth and I could see the back of his chair where the top half of his head should have been. Now that – that was unusual. A partner with only half a head is way outside the boundary of what could be considered to be an acceptable surprise.

So there I was, standing in his doorway, holding a sliced turkey, cheese and mayo on rye in a brown paper bag, looking at an ex-partner who has chosen this moment to re decorate the venetian blinds in his office in his brand-new personal genre, so to speak. The bag dropped from my hand onto the floor. I suddenly felt weak and thought about sitting down but the floor was not attractive and the visitor chairs were not immediately to hand. I walked slowly towards his desk feeling with every stride that my legs were about to give way. I expected to see a note on his desk. Suicides always leave notes, don’t they? Sure enough, under his left foot I saw a piece of paper and, by reading upside down, I made out the words ‘Sorry Marty’ at the top. I thought it strange that he took the trouble to write his suicide note on his computer terminal and then print it out on headed office paper, but in any event I left it where it was for the moment, without bothering what else the note said, and I looked around his office.

Everything looked normal, if you could ever call an office freshly painted in blood with matching flecks of body tissue ‘normal’. The big fan in the corner was whirling away causing the venetian blinds to rustle gently so that bits of bone and brain slid silently off and onto the carpet beneath. The filing cabinet to the other side of his desk had one drawer open, as it often did, and a half dead potted palm on top, as it always did. Somehow my partner just never found the time to pour even his coffee dregs onto that plant, which consequently had to be rescued every fortnight by the cleaner. Not that that was of any importance right now. Two empty chairs for clients to sit on were parked out of the way against the wall. I moved to the end of the desk and looked down. There, where it always was, was his metal trash bin with a plastic trash bag lining for easy emptying. Then I saw something that told me clearly that my partner had not taken his own life.

Now, although I am a private investigator and although that sometimes requires I think logically, the job does not require that I make lightning quick deductions. You do not need supersonic thought processes in order to sit in your car counting the hours that some poor schmuck spends alone with some broad who ain’t the same broad as the broad he walked down the aisle with. No sirree, that don’t need speed of thought. So it was a slow dawning process, like the rising of bread dough, that led me to realize that, if my partner had not shot himself, then somebody else must have done that for him, as it were. And, with that same slow but steady deducing, I realized that, whoever had helped my partner into the after-life must have been in his office to do it. And if that helper had been in his office a short while back – for my partner was surely still in this life when I had left to fetch my lunch – that helper may still be nearby. And I started to wonder whether there would be any point in rushing out to look for someone acting suspicious or maybe with traces of blood on their clothes, possibly somewhere in the rest of the building or maybe out on the street.

It was about then that I noticed the shadow moving across the carpet towards the trash bin. It occurred to me that it might be the killer and I started to spin round. I didn’t spin round as fast as I should, my legs still feeling like rubber and before I’d turned very far something thick and heavy crashed into the back of my skull and pushed itself all the way through my head until it popped out right in front of my eyes. I could see it clearly then. It was a dark, inky black whirlpool that was growing bigger and bigger. Before long, I could see nothing but the swirling darkness and the spinning made me quite dizzy. So I did the only thing possible. I dove right into the middle.

Now this might be a good time to introduce myself, lying, as I am, out cold on my partner’s carpet. Marty Wiessmann – pronounced ‘wise man’ – at your service. When my great grandfather and great grandmother originally arrived from Europe in the 1920’s, their surname was Weissmann and they originally spoke their name in the Germanic style, ‘vice man’. As their grasp of the American language improved they decided that weren’t so hot, so they changed it to ‘wise man’. Then when my grandfather married my grandmother in 1950, she was a fussy school teacher and complained that the surname wasn’t American enough. It offended her that it did not conform to the rule of ‘i’ before ‘e’ except after ‘c’. So my grandfather agreed to change the spelling of his surname but not the pronunciation. So like my father, I was born a Wiessmann. And that’s how I come to be wise man by name though, sadly, not by nature. Yep, I ain’t no great detective as I’m sure you’ve already figured out and I’ve been told my figures of speech are about as apposite as sliced ham in a Kosher snack bar, so I ain’t no William Shakespeare neither. But bear with me while I tell this story in my own way.

This city I work in ain’t real big like Phoenix but it suits me and I sure like Arizona. Here I’m a big fish … well a not too small fish … in a small pond. See, I didn’t get no formal qualifications when I left high school and for a while I just drifted from job to job – wiping down restaurant tables, putting cereal packets on supermarket shelves, delivering parcels, that kinda thing. Nothing too demanding, nothing that required education or training. Nothing that paid well. Then one day my luck takes a real neat turn. I run into Richie, an old school buddy, and he’s wearing a smart suit and he asks me how’m I doing, and I say nothing much, and I ask him how’s he getting such a good suit, and all, and he tells me he’s a private dick and he’s got more work than he can handle. He thinks for a moment and asks, wasn’t I the one at school always droning on about Philip Marlowe, and I confess that’s right. I’d read all his books by eighth grade; he was my hero, the best of all American hard-boiled detectives, created by that great writer Raymond Chandler. (Course, I shoulda been reading the books my teachers gave me, but they were boring, which probably accounts for my lack of qualifications.) So I would know all about investigating, he kinda insinuates, and I tentatively say, I guess so. Then he asks would I like to go into business with him. Well, I think about it for a bit – but not too long – and I say yes. So that’s how I got to become a private investigator some five years ago and three years later he made me his partner.

Now don’t get me wrong. I ain’t been living the life of Philip Marlowe these past five years no matter what I had hoped for when I’d accepted Richie’s offer. As I may already have let on, the work of a private investigator is not as interesting and intriguing as them detective novels would have you believe. No sirree. Most of it is sitting on your butt watching the infidelities of the maritally disappointed. Occasionally some real detective work is required to track down a runaway child or a spouse who has vanished. If you’re real lucky, you get some rich widow who pays way over the odds for you to find her lost cat. I understand some of those slick downtown outfits get to investigate business partners and employees who may be defrauding their company, or to recover stolen goods on behalf of insurance companies, but these cases did not seem to come our way. You do not – and I repeat this for those of you who may, like me, be a little slow on the uptake – you do not investigate murders or any other sort of foul play. Philip Marlowe may very well investigate such exotic cases but we have a wonderful bunch of under paid professionals to do that kinda thing. We call them the cops. So the thought that I might find myself investigating a murder would never have crossed my mind. It was as alien to me as the thought of a bricklayer in a tutu reading the evening news on TV.

FRIDAY APRIL 23, 9 a.m.

But it is time to return from that inkwell vortex into which I dove, as I feel myself rising to the surface. As I swam around in the black silent void, I first became aware of voices, sample … coma … concussion … it’s too … BP … electrolytes … hard to tell … if you want to … vital signs OK … seems to be getting lighter … The words began to join up and make sense and I opened my eyes. I promptly shut them again – the full glare of hospital lights presented a transition that I was not properly prepared for. Now I could clearly make out the voice; a female was passing the opinion that I was definitely coming round. I experimented with an open eye again and saw a nurse and one of our flat top friends. As soon as I had both eyes open he started asking me stupid questions.

Did Mr. Brown have money problems? Did Mr. Brown seem unusually depressed lately? Do you know if he had problems with women? Perhaps his girlfriend was being unfaithful?

You’re asking the wrong questions, I replied sluggishly. Richie didn’t kill himself. He was murdered.

He laughed. Well I think you’ll find he did kill himself.

No, I think I’ll find he was murdered.

Look, sir, we just want to establish a likely motive so we can close the file. We’re not trying to be unreasonable and we don’t wanna spoil nobody’s good name but you gotta face the facts. The shotgun was in his hands. He’d wrote a suicide note. Weren’t nobody else’s prints on the weapon. He killed hisself, plain and simple. Everything points to that.

No it doesn’t. Not everything points to that, I said groggily. I tried hard to clarify my thoughts. He definitely didn’t kill himself.

Oh yes? And just how do you, Mr. Hotshot Private Investigator, come to that startling conclusion?

Look, I said, he was diabetic. Everyday about noon he had to inject himself with insulin. I saw the needle he had used that day in his trash bin. Would he have bothered to inject himself just moments before he was going to blow his head off?

So he did it out of habit. Why, I bet even Mr. Hotshot Private Investigator does things out of habit.

Well dear reader, you know that’s true, and so did I, but I reckoned it weren’t none of his business. So I attempted some witticism about how the way the cop seemed to be conducting his investigation was out of habit, but I don’t think it pleased him none.

The hell you talking ’bout? he said, offended. You better take it easy buddy. You gotta nasty knock on your head when you fainted yesterday.

I didn’t faint, I said by way of clarification. I was zapped. Someone came up behind me and put my lights out with a blunt object.

Listen buddy. The doc says you prob’ly hit your head on Mr. Brown’s desk when you found his body and fainted. Ain’t nuttin’ to be shamed of. Most anybody would faint at that sight, not to mention the shock of it being your partner. Perhaps you noticed the suicide note he left was dressed to you. Prob’ly upset you, that. Now I know it didn’t say exactly why he had to end it all but, far as the police is concerned, he killed hisself. Can’t be no other way. Gotten too many unsolved murders already without adding any more just on the wild hunch of some amateur detective. At this point he paused for, maybe, ten seconds while the import of his last couple words made its slow but inexorable way to the part of his brain responsible for value judgments, where it obviously sounded alarm bells in his head. No offence intended, buddy, he then added to defuse any insult I may have suffered. You just take it easy, sir. Nasty bump you collected there. We appreciate your cooperation.

And with that he left looking slightly embarrassed, after a little encouragement from the nurse, who was muttering something about me needing my rest. For sure, I was in none too good physical shape. My head was throbbing worse than a virgin’s prick in a whorehouse. And it probably wasn’t made any better by the officer’s insistence that Richie had killed himself. It was completely obvious to me that Richie would not have dosed himself with insulin just before blowing his head away – as obvious as it was impossible for me to understand how anyone else could not see that. What’s more, I knew I’d been slugged, and just who did the cop think he was to dismiss my testimony? The longer I lay there the deeper the worm of unease ate its way into my guts until I could stand it no longer. Something had to be done. I owed everything to Richie. He’s my best friend and partner. Well, had been, I guess. He had been my best friend and partner. I couldn’t let him be wasted by some assassin and sit back while the cops wrote it off as suicide. No sirree. But if the cops weren’t going to investigate, who would?

OK, so I was stupid. Ain’t I just explained to you that the likes of me don’t go around investigating no murders? Perhaps it was the knock on the head had affected my judgment. I forgot I was a second-rate private dick who worked in a second-rate agency. I was briefly overcome by delusions of adequacy and imagined I could go out and find some evidence to convince the cops it was murder. I thought that at last I had an opportunity to do all those things Philip Marlowe did. His exploits still shone brightly in my imagination, inspiring me even after five years’ worth of mind-numbing boredom. How difficult could it be to solve a murder when I had such a compelling reason for succeeding? I was devastated at the loss of my partner. I began to feel the loneliness of never seeing Richie again, of knowing I would have to conduct this case entirely on my own. As I closed my eyes to think what to do next, a small tear escaped from my left eye and slowly ran down my face. I was determined that Richie’s death would be properly investigated and his murderer brought to justice. And sadly I was the only person who could do that since the cops wouldn’t listen. One thing was for sure, I couldn’t do anything in a hospital bed. I wiped the tear from my cheek and swung my legs over the side of the bed with the intention of standing up but, instead, what happened was that the momentum I’d generated in my legs caused the rest of me to roll off the bed and crumple into a heap on the floor with all the grace of a suitcase arriving on the luggage carousel at an airport. Shit! I was obviously in a worse state than I thought, but I just had to get out of there. As I lay on the floor in a heap I discovered I was dressed in nothing more than a hospital gown. Clearly my first task was to locate my clothes. It wasn’t a big room but it took some time. I like to think that that was on account of my concussed state. I eventually found them in the locker – I’m a detective ain’t I? – and then within five minutes I had discharged myself and I was sitting in the back of a cab and on my way home.

I paid off the cab driver and detected my way into my apartment. There I found a bottle of painkillers and swallowed two with some water, just like it said in the instructions. Then I considered how my head felt and I thought, let’s get real, so I took two more. I ended up taking six and chasing them down with some cheap brandy that should really have been used for brass cleaning. I sat down on the sofa and started to make a plan of action in my mind. I closed my eyes to help my concentration.

I was lying in a hot bath when I saw through the steamy mists that Richie had walked in to help me. I could always rely on Richie for inspiration when I needed some. Whenever I was stuck for an idea, he would always help out by offering me some lines of investigation. He suggested I start by looking up all the varieties of Finkelstein sandwich in the Encyclopedia Britannica. This struck me as an excellent idea. So I got out of the bath which, I now noticed, was conveniently located in the reference section of the city library. I walked to the far wall between stacked shelves of books and picked out volume ‘S’ of the Britannica. I quickly discovered there are two types of filled sandwich that always commit suicide if they are dropped before being eaten, sliced turkey, cheese and mayo being one of them. I turned to warn Richie not to eat the sandwich that I had dropped on the floor, because it would probably be dead and rotten by now, but he had turned into a nurse in a cop’s uniform. She told me that as far as she was concerned Richie had killed himself with a computer printer after scribbling a suicide note addressed to me, Marty Wiessmann, in volume ‘W’ of the Britannica. I knew immediately that this was wrong and that the note must be a fake because Richie would never have filed ‘note’ under ‘W’, but no matter how hard I tried to explain this, the nurse/cop wasn’t buying it. She insisted Richie must have been depressed on account of his sandwich letting itself get eaten by another man. Besides, she said, they already had far too many sandwiches being treated in the hospital without adding another one just because I thought it couldn’t file properly. I thought this was all getting absurdly out of hand, so I simply said I would prove I was right. But then I noticed with consternation that I had no clothes on and suddenly the library was full of women, all of them looking at me. I had to pick up the bath to cover myself while I went in search of my clothes.

I couldn’t remember the other dreams – perhaps they had no resemblance to reality.

FRIDAY APRIL 23, 2 p.m.

I woke on the sofa to find that my brain had swollen to twice it’s normal size and was exerting tremendous pressure on my skull but fortunately there was a small team of trolls trying to help it escape by means of miniature pickaxes and chisels. It felt like a bad hangover but I don’t doubt it was helped along by the bashing I’d received the day before. It felt like my head was about to explode and my instinct was to hold it together. I very slowly placed my hands to each side of my head and pressed firmly. I felt safer that way, but it didn’t make the pain go away.

I