Hard Boiled Clegg, chapter five

Chapter Five
Scrambled Clegg

I pushed through the crowds of lunchtime ski mask workers and roadside balaclava vendors and headed towards Baker Street, so named because the first ski mask was baked there. Over a tailored ski mask shop on the corner was the office of an old contact of mine. Now legit, thanks to a forged birth certificate, Vince “Nickname” Burns had once been involved in the seedy ski mask underworld which, despite its unpleasant sounding name, was actually quite nice, and had cafés and a scenic railway.

I pressed the buzzer on the street and a crackly voice answered. “Nickname?” I said into the intercom, “It’s Nick Clegg.”

It was at that very moment I heard a loud bang through the speaker, and from upstairs at the same time. My detective training kicked in and after a few minutes I determined that the noise had been a gunshot, and had come from Vince “Nickname” Burns’s office.

My keen eye noticed that Vince “Nickname” Burns’s door had been open all along, and I ran through it and upstairs, bursting into his office dramatically to find him slumped over his desk. Vince “Nickname” Burns looked up at me. “Nick, call an ambulance,” he croaked.

But there was no point. He was quite dead and obviously had been for some time. He’d been shot in the chest, and his back had been poisoned with a knife.

“Nick,” Nickname gurgled, obviously from beyond the grave. “Nick, listen to me. Beware the lumbering man.”

With that, his eyes rolled back in his head and his body went limp as he died again. I patted him on the head comfortingly and set about ransacking his office.

As I turned around I noticed a man lumbering towards me. He was clutching a gun and a knife, and he had clumsy prison tattoos on his knuckles that read ‘EQUANIMITY’ and ‘DISILLUSIONMENT’.

My thoughts turned to Vince “Nickname” Burns’s last words: “Beware the lumbering man”.

“Excuse me,” I quickly asked the man with the tattoos. “Would you describe your gait as lumbering?”

“I suppose so,” the man replied in a deep, rasping voice.

“Okay, I just wanted to be clear on that point,” I replied, and hit him with the late Vince “Nickname” Burns’s office hole punch.

The guy went down like a sack containing an unconscious human being and I searched his pockets for identification and money to cover my frankly extortionate taxi fare. His name, according to his driving licence, was Mad Mickey Facepunch O’Jackson, and his occupation was listed as “Muscle”.

I lifted fifty pounds from O’Jackson’s wallet and taped the thug to a filing cabinet then, using a handkerchief, I made an anonymous call to the police. When that didn’t work, I used a telephone.

“There’s a dead body at 225 Baker Street,” I said.

“Who is this?” the voice at the other end of the line asked.

“That’s not important,” I answered.

“Is that Nick Clegg? It is, isn’t it! I’d know that voice anywhere!”

“No it isn’t, I said, and quickly hung up.

I lifted 80 pounds from Vince “Nickname” Burns’s wallet to cover expenses, then quietly left the building, slipping anonymously into the crowds of post-lunchtime balaclava tourists, with nothing more than a head full of questions and 130 quid for company.

Hard Boiled Clegg, chapter four

Chapter Four
Square Clegg In A Round Hole

I needed some air, so I followed the instructions in the breathing manual again, then hit the streets. This case was getting under my skin, and it wasn’t just the lustrous legs of Joss Stone that had clambered under my largest organ – I didn’t like being told to keep my nose out of other people’s business, and had supported several laws to that effect.

I called a cab and told him to take me across town to London’s notorious ski mask district. If Mitch “Shifty Guts” Hunter wouldn’t tell me what I needed to know, I’d have to go and find the information myself and hope to God I remembered it.

“Are you that Nick Clegg?” The taxi driver asked as we crossed the river.

“It seems likely,” I replied.

“I ‘ad you in the back of my cab once,” the driver said. “Today, in fact. Right this very second. Small world, innit?”

“Possibly,” I said. “My geography isn’t that strong.”

The journey continued in silence, apart from the engine noise of the cab and the peripheral noise of a large and busy city, the occasional aeroplane flying overhead, an insect buzzing and the sound of my phone ringing.

My phone was ringing. I lifted the receiver but there was no-one on the other end. Then I saw the problem – the wire to the wall had been cut, probably not long after I had left the office. But that didn’t answer the question of where the ringing was coming from.

A swift all-party investigation revealed that the telephonic noise was coming from my inside pocket, from a device approximately the size of a mobile phone. I handled the object carefully, wary it could be a bomb.

“You going to answer that, guv?” the taxi driver said chirpily. “‘Cos if you don’t I’m going to punch you in the face.”

I expertly rendered the device inert by pressing the red button on the front panel. The ringing stopped.

“Thank fuck,” said the driver.

I breathed a sigh of relief. Only an hour into this case and already someone had cut my phone line and tried to blow me up. I knew I must be on to something.

The cab pulled up on the edge of the ski mask district. “I ain’t going no further mate,” the cabbie said. “This place is fucking weird. That’ll be 70 notes please.”

“I haven’t got time to write 70 notes,” I said. “Will you accept cash?”

Thankfully the cab driver accepted money, and as he drove away I melted into the thick crowd of bustling ski mask entrepreneurs.

Ten years ago the ski mask industry had been on its knees, but a Liberal Democrat political initiative had saved the knitted headgear sector from extinction. Mitch “Shifty Guts” Hunter and countless other balaclava specialists’ livelihoods had been saved, and now it was time for me to call in some favours.

Hard Boiled Clegg, chapter three

Chapter Three
Cleggative Reaction

I told Miss Stone my rates and she tried to pay me with shiny discs that had her name written on them, but I knew counterfeit money when I saw it and demanded cash. There was something about her changeable accent, though, that made me trust her.

Before she left, Joss Stone told me more about the mysterious folding sword piano businessman but I forgot it almost instantly, so she wrote it all down for me and stapled it to my lapel for safekeeping. There were a lot of words to read.

Once I was alone I quickly blew through some parliamentary business and then studied the information my client had left me. The man Joss Stone had gone into business with was known only as ‘Mr. C’ and he had worn a ski mask whenever he had met her, which made identifying him difficult.

I was all out of ideas. Ski masks were a common part of political life and I had a few contacts in the ski mask industry who might be able to help me out, for a price. I called for my secretary to get in touch with someone I knew, anyone, because I’d forgotten my name, then I had her call Mitch “Shifty Guts” Hunter, balaclava manufacturer to the Queen.

“Nick!” Mitch cried cheerfully.

“Nick! That’s it!” I exclaimed. “Nick – I mean Mitch – how’s things?”

“Not bad, my offspring, not bad – just taken an order from a certain dodgy royal – you know the one I mean – for a hundred K of corgi ski masks and fifty thousand hand-knitted butt plug cosies. I’ll be spending Christmas in Honolulu this year, my dear old china non-specific piece of crockery. Now, what can I do for my sixth best customer?”

“Nick – I mean Mitch – I need a line on a real high-end ski mask – hand stitched, virgin-massaged wool, tailored eye holes, mobile phone pocket. You know anyone who makes that kind of thing?”

Mitch went quiet. “I don’t know anything about that, Nick me old didgeridoo, and I advise you to leave well alone. That’s real top-end stuff, out of my league. If someone even heard me talking to you about this I’d be knitted into a body bag and put on a hot wash, if you know what I mean.”

I didn’t.

“Nick – Mitch,” I said. “I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important. Anything you can tell me, or send to me in a fax in case I forget it, would really help me out. Come on, chap, who introduced you to Prince Edward when you were on the skids, huh?”

“You single-handedly saved the ski mask industry from total obliteration, Nicky, and I’m forever grateful, but this is big. This goes all the way to the top, then over the top, down the other side, stands in the queue and then goes all the way to the top again. This is BIG, Nicky boy, and if you know what’s good for you – vitamins and exercise – you’ll drop this like a hot chocolate.”

With that, Mitch rang off, leaving me holding the receiver like a monkey with a bone. It was clear that Joss Stone was in a high risk group and it was down to me to lobby with danger and resuscitate her life bacon.

Hard Boiled Clegg, chapter two

Chapter Two
Ain’t too proud to Clegg

Joss Stone led me into my office and instructed me to sit down. I did as I was told, only falling out of the window once before eventually gaining my seat.

“Mister Clegg, a few months ago I was contacted by a stranger who said he had a proposition for me. A lucrative proposition. Sadly, I thought he said a lubricant proposition and before I knew it I was intrigued.”

“Go on,” I said, lighting a biro.

“I met him in a smoky bar downtown, but once the firemen had been it was quite nice, and we talked.”

“Go on,” I said, shuffling a deck of wafer thin ham.

“He said he was a businessman, and he wanted me to endorse his latest invention – a piano that folded up into a sword. I got further intrigued more and agreed to endorse the shit out of him.”

“Go on,” I said, in French.

“As time went by I realised that this man had his finger in all sorts of pies, and those pies were filled not just with fingers, but with illegality.”

“Go on,” I said, preparing some toast.

“Well,” Joss Stone continued, “I said I wanted out of the piano sword endorsement deal but he threatened to ‘tune me up’, if you know what I mean.”

“No idea,” I responded cheerfully. “Would you care for some ham on French toast? I’ve written on it with a melted biro for you.”

“Mister Clegg!” exclaimed Joss Stone. “How can I eat at a time like this? I entered into what seemed like a legitimate business deal with a man I barely knew without the aid of a solicitor and now the piano sword of Damocles is hanging over my head like a folding safe!”

I sat down heavily and puffed out my cheeks. “That’s quite a story, Miss Stone. I wish I could say I understood even a part of it, but the whole thing just passed me by.”

Joss Stone looked at me pleadingly.

“I’ll tell you what. Your problems are very important to me, so I hereby pledge to do everything in my power to launch a committee to understand and then solve your case, even if it involves a bit of overtime.”

Joss Stone let out a cry of relief. “Oh thank you, Mister Clegg. How can I ever repay you?”

I thought for a moment. “You don’t know anything about NHS reforms, do you? Because I had a go at them recently and completely ballsed them up.”

Hard Boiled Clegg, chapter one

Chapter One
Cold opening

It was a cold, wet, dry, sunny day as I entered the House of Commons and unlocked the office of my down-at-heel detective agency to find a woman in full possession of two legs sitting in my waiting room.

“How did you get in here, lady?” I asked tersely.

“The door was unlocked” the leggy woman replied. “Are you Nick Clegg?”

The dame stood up and I launched a review of her figure. She was undoubtedly a woman, with all the accessories necessary to accentuate her forward facing electorate friendly assets.

I nodded.

“Mister Clegg, my name is Joss Stone,” she said. She sounded happy. “Mister Clegg, I’m scared. I’ve been associating with the wrong people and, well, now I’m in a jam.”

“That sounds nice,” I said.

“No, Mister Clegg,” the dame replied. “It’s the opposite of nice. I’m in danger, Mister Clegg. Danger. Terrible, terrible danger.”

“I want to save the NHS,” I beamed. I picked up the phone and dialled a number. “Hello? It’s Nick. Close the NHS.”

The broad shifted uncomfortably on her alabaster legs as I hung up the receiver. “Mister Clegg, you’re my last hope,” she said through trembling lips. “Can you help me?”

“Probably not,” I said.

“Oh, thank you, Mister Clegg!”