The meanest Flood

assistant said. ‘If it was British gold it’d cost an arm and a leg.’ Ruben turned his attention to the tooth. ‘Shark’s tooth?’
    ‘Yeah.’
    ‘From a shark?’
    ‘Yeah, the genuine article. We import them from California. They’re from dead sharks. The exporters guarantee that no animals have been hurt or damaged in any way.’
    Ruben laughed.
    ‘You think I’m kidding you?’ the assistant asked.
    ‘Hell, no,’ Ruben told him. ‘I knew it wasn’t from a live shark. I didn’t think there was squads of dentists going down there in frogmen’s suits looking for sharks to do a quick job on.’
    The assistant didn’t think it was funny. He must’ve got out the wrong side of the bed. ‘They’re supposed to bring you luck,’ he said. ‘Shark’s teeth.’
    Ruben looked at the price tag. ‘Thirty quid?’ he said.
    ‘Used to be twenty-nine pounds ninety-nine pence,’ the assistant said. ‘But the boss doesn’t like pennies.’
    ‘Put it in a bag,’ Ruben said, reaching for his wallet.
     
    He walked up the path of the High Willows Guesthouse, obviously though erroneously named after the two stunted willow trees in the garden. A double-bay-windowed house with a recently added wooden porch obscuring the original front door. He rang the bell and listened to the distant chimes emulating ‘It’s Now Or Never’ somewhere towards the rear of the house. Ruben hummed along with it and when the chimes died he carried on. Elvis Presley was already dying before Ruben heard him but the guy had left some great songs behind. He liked that soaring voice, the way it took hold of you. Should’ve been in the opera like Pavarotti. Probably would’ve been, too, if he’d been Italian instead of a truck driver.
    But if the world was divided into Elvis Presleys and Luciano Pavarottis the woman who came to the door would have been much closer to Tupelo, Mississippi than the little town of Modena in Italy.
    Must be a blonde wig, he thought, the kind of hair that Dolly Parton would choose for a Saturday night fling. Carefully powdered breasts like globular light shades, each wrapped in its own half of a cream-coloured frilly blouse with the top three buttons unused. A short frilly apron hid an even shorter skirt and stiletto heels forced the woman’s calf muscles to bulge, giving form and definition to her legs but contracting the Achilles tendons.
    Before he’d blinked twice Ruben had interpreted the message that the proprietress of the High Willows Guesthouse was sending out into the world, and the adrenalin pumping into his bloodstream reinforced the conviction that he’d be able to run faster than her.
    ‘Can you spare a moment?’ Ruben asked. He showed her the photograph of Sam Turner. ‘We’re trying to trace this man and have reason to believe he stayed in this area recently. Have you seen him before?’
    The proprietress didn’t look at the photograph. She licked her lips and blinked her false eyelashes to tip Ruben off she was intelligent. She smoothed her hands over her stomach and looking deeply into his eyes, she said: ‘You don’t want a room, then?’
    The voice was perfect for the blonde wig and false eyelashes. There was a million cigarettes behind it, a quantity of gin or vodka and a whole world of small disappointments.
    ‘No, sorry,’ Ruben explained. ‘I don’t want a room. I’m making enquiries about the man in the photograph.’ He waved it towards her but she still didn’t look.
    ‘You’re not the Old Bill, are you,’ she said. It wasn’t a question. ‘Come in, I’ve got the kettle on.’
    He followed her into the house. Wall lights with tartan shades. Pile carpets. Ornaments of dogs. Photographs of a beauty queen from long ago; Miss Cleethorpes, Miss Lincoln, Miss Barrow-in-Furness. Real blonde hair probably, tightly fitting swim-suits, looking quaintly old-fashioned, as she still did today.
    The kitchen was Formica and steel. A large modern clock on the wall with false eyelashes and a pink ribbon tied in a bow underneath its chin. Magnetic letters stuck on the fridge door spelling out the words Wil You Stil Love Me Tomoro. Not so much a sign of illiteracy as a dearth of magnetic consonants.
    ‘That’s how you can spot poverty,’ Kitty had told him once. ‘People who surround themselves with too much of everything.’ She didn’t mean lack of money, she was talking about poverty of imagination, poverty of spirit. ‘Coffee or tea, Mr...?’
    ‘Parkins,’ he