Hot Stew by Fiona Mozley (most interesting books to read .TXT) 📕

They take him to a police station, show him into an interview room and bring him some water and a cup of tea.

“I hardly knew her, to be honest with you. I try to keep myself to myself at that place. I’m only there because I’ve got no choice. They’re all nutters and follow that Archbishop round like he’s some sort of cult leader. And that Paul Daniels is the worst of the lot. Anyway, when his bird went missing nobody reported it or nothing, so I thought I would, even though I don’t think I ever spoke to her. It’s not right though, is it? Just because she’s a smackhead doesn’t mean it doesn’t matter, does it? The poor girl’s had nobody to look out for her. Her fella’s gone mental since she’s been gone but hasn’t done nothing proper. He’s just gone round shouting blue murder. You got a cigarette?”

“I’m afraid you can’t smoke in here.”

“Are you serious?”

“Yes, Mr. Scarcroft, I’m sorry. Tell me, did you notice anything suspicious in the days or weeks leading up to her disappearance? Did you see her speaking to anyone new? Did she have any visitors?”

“Like I say, I didn’t know her. I honestly can’t recall ever speaking to her. But in terms of contact with weirdos, well, they don’t come much weirder than that magician bloke. He’s a proper fruit loop. And well, that’s who she spent all her time with, isn’t it? If something bad has happened to her, he’s your man. Perhaps he was short on change. Honestly, that geezer would sell his own grandmother, let alone his bird.”

“Sell her how?”

“You know what I mean. It’s Soho, for Christ’s sake.”

“You mean Paul Daniels, sorry, Kevin Metcalfe, was her pimp?”

“Probably. There was blokes coming round all the time.”

“Tell me, of these men who were coming round, were there any who were particularly regular? Or were there any who stood out for any reason?”

“Not really,” he says. “Although, hmm, let me think …”

He gulps the last of the brown liquid, allows that which spills at the sides of his mouth to drip down his chin and through his beard. “Got any more tea? And some biscuits?”

They bring more tea and a tin of biscuits. He selects a couple of jammy dodgers and a custard cream and places them on the table in a pile next to his mug.

“There was only one that would come regular enough, like. And I remember him because he seemed like a decent bloke—not totally barking anyway—and he clearly had a fixed address and everything so I remember him because I always thought it was weird that he was coming to see her, know what I mean? She was proper manky. Maybe some fellas are into that. Takes all sorts.”

“Do you remember his name?”

“Nope. Never knew it. Like I said, I share a cellar with that lot but I don’t stop to chat any more than I can help.”

“I understand. But do you remember what he looked like? Have you any idea where we might find him?”

“Try the pub around the corner. The Aphra Behn. Used to see him in there a lot. As for appearance: I don’t know. Mid-sixties. Big bloke, but strong, you know, not fat. He just looks like he could handle himself. No hair. And he had a weird scar on his forehead. Like Harry Potter. Only, nothing like Harry Potter.”

A short while later, two police officers turn up at the Aphra Behn. They find a man who fits the description sitting at the bar. It’s easy to convince him he needs to come to the police station. It’s as if part of him was expecting them to arrive. On the way out the door, he begins to confess.

“It’s my fault, it’s my fault,” he wails. Once inside the police station, his misery turns to anger. “It’s my fault, it’s my fault,” he yells, though what is his fault he won”t say. He overturns a table and is wrestled to the ground by three constables, then arrested, and put into a cell to sober up.

Jackie does background research into the man they’ve picked up. It’s easy enough to extract a name. Robert Kerr. Aggravated Assault. Grievous Bodily Harm. Robbery. Five years in Wormwood Scrubs. Nothing on his record since he’d been out of prison, and that was thirty years ago, but there’s enough to work with.

Paper Thin

Agatha doesn’t know why she agrees to meet her lawyer in the tepid dregs of British imperial power. Tobias has invited her to his club, which is an organization for men of his class. He chooses these locations to humiliate her; in all other respects he is required to be subservient to the point of obsequious.

Agatha considers Tobias Elton to be an idiot and often tells him so, but there’s nobody else who knows so much about her holdings, or who’s so personally invested in her interests. Except Roster.

Donald Howard’s fortune was placed in trust for Agatha until her twenty-first birthday. The trust was administered by his lawyer, Tobias Elton, and it was through the efforts of Tobias Elton that the fortune remained intact, despite the legal and sub-legal activities of three of Agatha’s sisters; those who were the product of his second, and lengthiest marriage, and who were already grown up by the time he died.

During these disputes, Elton defended Agatha’s interest, acting alongside Roster and her mother to make sure the trust was protected. He derived a large part of his income from this work and guessed correctly that if he ingratiated himself with the child and her mother, he could stand to gain much more.

The rhythms and routines of Agatha’s life are directed by that last will. The document is her blueprint, her star chart, her DNA. Its contents laid out for her a life radically removed from anything her ancestors knew. It informed her geography and her geology. Wealth does not simply determine the external: the life