12. THE MACABRE SMILE

THE CASE OF THE DIAMOND DENTURES 12

It took the sound of a television set (monochrome, 1970s) warming up with many an odd graunching sound and the wittering of white noise when the landlord couldn’t quite tune it in, to waken Royston and simultaneously restore Blinky’s 20/20 vision.

“If there’s one word for your company, it’s boredom,” Angelina told them when they were asking each other where they were and what in the name of goodness was going on. “Anyway,” she continued, “I had to make a corporate decision while the pair of you were out of it, so I made one. We’re staying the night.”

That piece of information came as a shock to both men whose minds had been as far from the present as they could be, Royston because he’d blacked out completely and Blinky because he rarely paid much attention to things he couldn’t see with his own eyes.

“Who says?” demanded Blinky in the sort of voice that made the rather larger group of drinkers that had gathered during his mental absence all threaten to jump out of their shoes.

“You left it to me, sir, so I did,” she told him, “it seems that we might miss something important if we leave, and if that were to happen there’s no doubt it’d be me who gets the blame.” She didn’t explain that the something important was a television broadcast of a man sitting in cold beer slops.

“Oh.” He frowned and realised that there was little he could do to a situation that he’d personally isolated himself from. “There are rooms, then?” he asked, vaguely, “decent and comfy?”

“I’ve been and checked them out and you’ll like yours. One for you and the sergeant and one for me,” confirmed Angelina. “That’s two rooms, and you’re paying. But they’re not expensive, so you’ll be able to cook the books and get the cost back in tax allowance or whatever fiddle you’re on this week.”

“I’m not on any fiddle!” protested Blinky, and then he eyed her sharply, “and anyway the books are your job.”

She smiled at him, a heart warming smile that stirred all sorts of emotions inside him as she said, “I know, sir.”

“Better show me the damn rooms if I’ve got to pay,” he boomed, and the three of them stood up to leave the bar.

The Ginger Nut was an ancient inn, the product of several stages of construction and had once been more than one building that need and ingenuity had turned into just the one. So there were many passages and several levels and the whole place was a confusion of turns that seemed to go nowhere, but eventually they found their rooms.

“This is yours,” Angelina told the men, “and this one is mine.”

“Hey! I’m not sleeping with a bloke!” protested Royston whose first thought when Angelina had mentioned staying in the Inn for the night had been actually sleeping with her.

“Well, there’s an en suite bathroom, so you could always curl up in the bath,” she told him, rather sharply.

“I thought you loved me,” he replied, sulkily.

“Oh, I do big boy, I do, but this is business, not pleasure and you know how easy it is to get distracted when we’re together.,” she smirked, “take ten minutes to wash away the grime of the day and we’ll go back to the bar in time for a wee dram and the telly.”

It took them longer than ten minutes what with getting lost and wrong turnings, but eventually they arrived back in the bar, which by then was packed with locals, all staring in rapt wonderment at the ancient television set (nineteen inch screen, monochrome, crackling sound, snowstorm and no discernible picture). There was an air of wonderment and expectation, and the three investigators could see why when the picture eventually emerged on the snowy screen

The landlord (for it was most certainly he) was slowly undressing and looking nervously about him. The barmaid, Janie, had her back to him and was demonstrating her totally lack of willingness to peep as he pulled his underpants down. He looked at the camera, scowling, and mouthing something that was lost in the background hiss of the geriatric television set, but it probably had something to do with his sudden unwillingness to get wet.

Then Nobby slowly and carefully lifted one leg and dipped the toes of its foot into the beer slops, which by then were showing signs of steaming.

“At least he’ll not freeze to death,” muttered Royston, “looks quite cosy down there.”

“I still wouldn’t like to be him,” frowned Angelina.

”Nothing to it,” added Blinky as though he spent every day dipping his feet into baths of steaming old ale.

They watched in anticipation as one leg disappeared into the bath, and then he lifted the other leg up to join it.

“Darned silly way of raising money for charity,” grunted Blinky, and one of the locals overheard him.

“He does something spectacular every year, and he always raises hundreds,” he snarled at the Inspector, “which I’m prepared to bet is more than you do!”

“Oh sod it, I’ve gone blind again,” shouted Blinky. “I’ll have to get my eyes fixed one way or other.”

“It’s your glasses. They’ve slipped down,” Angelina told him, and added “sir!” for good measure.

“Now the telly’s stopped working!” That comment in a variety of different forms was being repeated throughout the room when the ancient television screen went blanker than blank. “Anyone know anything about tellies?” asked a couple of voices.

“Bill the box ain’t here,” pointed out half a dozen voices. Bill the Box was obviously the local television repair man and he’d chosen this of all nights not to get drunk.

“Then he should be!” came a separate chorus.

“I’ll take a look if you like,” volunteered Royston, “I do a bit on the side,” he added to Blinky. “it might be the connection to the camera,” he added as though he knew more about connections to cameras than anything.

“My big, strong man,” whispered Angelina.

The local drinkers moved respectfully aside as Royston made his way to the cellar steps and carefully made his way into the darkness below.

The ancient camera with a red light glowing on its housing was pointing at a tin bath in the middle of an open space, and it was steaming as the little burner underneath it continued to heat the slops of stale beer, filling the room with what amounted to an unpleasant stench of old alcohol and, somehow, tobacco smoke.

Nobby was in the bath with a single spotlight illuminating him, but Nobby was absolutely motionless. Royston had been a police sergeant before he was invalided out of the police force, and whilst at work he’d seen one or two people as still as Nobby was. And, to a man (and one woman) he was certain that they’d all been dead.

To Royston’s mind that’s what was wrong with the landlord Nobby. He was deader than the famed extinct dodo, and to add a macabre twist he seemed to be smiling as his face looked directly at where Royston was standing, the bulbous plastic nose hideous in the shadowy cellar.

And his teeth. They glittered as if they were made of glass in the near-darkness.

Or maybe diamonds.

© Peter Rogerson