The meanest Flood

after all, one could purchase the company of several warmblooded partners.’ He smiled. ‘Good-time girls. Escorts. Ladies of the night.’
    ‘The woman in Plymouth and the young man in York, do you have their contact details?’
    He took a business card from a neat stack on the corner of his desk and scribbled on the back of it. ‘That’s the Plymouth address,’ he said, gliding the card across the polished surface of the desk. ‘I don’t have an address for the York chappie, but he’s probably in the book. Goes by the name of Nott. Couple of initials which I also can’t remember. But you being a private detective, Marie, I’m sure you’ll be able to track him down.’
    It had been muggy in Joshua’s office, not too easy to breathe, but when she closed the door on him the air cleared immediately.
     

32
     
    Ellen Eccles lit up a Benson & Hedges while standing on the corner of the street. She could see the bay windows of the magician’s house and was intent on walking over there and ringing the bell. All she needed was the courage. A couple of tots of the amber nectar would’ve done the trick, but it was too late for that. She should’ve thought of it earlier, cracked open a bottle before leaving the house.
    If she’d done this with the other men that Marilyn had set her sights on she might’ve saved herself and them and Marilyn a lot of pain and anguish. Jeremy Paxman would’ve been left alone to perfect his acerbic journalistic style, the footballer would have topped the goal-scoring table, and Ellen herself would’ve been able to spend more time in the wild places above Aberdeen. She didn’t want to be doing battle with the Sassenachs at this time of her life.
    She was still rooted to the spot, getting down towards the filter of the cigarette, when the car came around the corner. It was one of those inexplicable moments of certainty. She didn’t know what kind of car he drove, or the colour of it, and the vehicle was already past her before she could see the driver, but she knew it was him. She watched as he manoeuvred the tight left into his drive. Mr Mann left the car and went around to the Passenger door. He fiddled with the seatbelt for a long time. From where she was standing Ellen couldn’t see if it Was somebody or something in the passenger seat. What was obvious was that the magician was having a real job trying to extricate it from the seatbelt. There must be something faulty with the release mechanism. Not the kind of problem one usually associated with a magician.
    Eventually Mr Mann got it open and backed out of the car. He had a kitbag under his arm. Ellen couldn’t be sure but when he turned towards the house, pulling the garage door down with his free hand, she thought she saw a pair of feet poking out of the kitbag. By the time she’d blinked and taken another look he was already at his door and the bag was on her blind side.
    Magicians. What did Ellen know? Yes, it could be a body, ha, ha, ha. But it was obviously not. Perhaps it was a bag full of feet? Some aid to one of his tricks. She’d heard somewhere that you needed an extra pair of feet to do that sawing a woman in half trick. The woman was folded up at the top end of the container with her head sticking out of a hole and what you thought were her feet were actually a pair of model feet.
    It began raining again as she flicked the dog-end of her B&H into the gutter. The sky was grey overhead and away to the north it was black. The local news was all about the flooding and how much worse it was going to get. If the river broke its banks in the centre of town there could be another 20,000 people affected. It was already fourteen feet higher than normal. Visitors were being told they should only come to the city if their journey was essential. The police and emergency services didn’t want to waste time on traffic problems. The flood was the most important thing, they needed to concentrate all their manpower on that.
    Ellen pulled up her collar and moved along the street. She walked up his path to the red front door and punched the bell. She looked at the net curtains but could see nothing beyond them.
    Almost a minute passed before she heard him coming to the door. She had been wondering whether she should ring again, or perhaps try a knock, even though she had heard the bell ringing inside the house. Migraine had been hovering over her all day long. Not a pain so much as a dull ache behind her eyes, but always