"That's Mister and Mrs Stewart, then," the old lady said. Libra and Vestal looked at her, then at one another. "Newlyweds?"
They showed the old lady the rings on their fingers.
"Fair enough," the lady replied. "We have to make sure, these days, especially after that awful thing that happened the other day."
"What happened?"
"There was a couple, Room Eleven," the landlady said. "Lad was killed up there. She went potty. She must've found out her 'boyfriend' was ... well, unnatural."
Libra feigned surprise and shock. "God, no," he said. "When did she find out?"
"It was when she brought in a man to the room ... and so did he." The landlady's face was stern. "If I'd have been on duty that night, I'd have told them all where to go, told them to sling their hook. But as it was, young Jim was at the desk, and he didn't seem to notice. Dozy pillock wouldn't notice if the sky caught fire." She glanced up at the ceiling, as if imagining the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah being visited upon her precious Room Eleven. "Bloody perverts."
"Did they go out on the pull, then?" Vestal asked. "I just want to know which pub to avoid, if I don't want to be hit upon by someone."
"And I don't want to wander off into a gay bar by mistake," Libra added.
"Well, then, you'd best avoid the Lilly the Pink and the Green Dragon," the landlady said. "Don't go in either of those places. Green Dragon's where all the whores of Babylon and adulterers and fornicators gather, and the Lilly the Pink ... filthy place, awful, full of Godless animals. Unclean place."
The couple looked at one another again, then back at the landlady.
"Is this place quiet?" Libra asked.
"Normally," the landlady replied.
"Good. Then we'll book one night," Libra said. "We'll pay in cash." He opened his wallet. "In advance."
"In advance?"
"We may need to leave in a hurry," Libra replied.
"He might be on call," Vestal added. "Down the Walton. Where he works."
"The nick?"
"No, the hospital."
"I think we're getting nowhere," Libra said, on the street corner outside the Green Dragon pub.
"I think so, too," Vestal replied. "They've given us the slip by now."
"Liverpool's a big place," Libra said, looking at the row of squat brick houses on the opposite side of the road. "Huge."
"They could be anywhere," Vestal replied.
"Except," Libra said, "we haven't looked in the one place, have we?" He frowned. "Do I have to?"
"I think you do," Vestal replied, with a grin. "Don't worry. I'll back you up." She straightened out the collar of his Macintosh raincoat, his Derby hat. "There. You look quite the pervert."
"Oh, thank you very much," Libra said, as Vestal laughed.
There was a blue flashing light nearby. They turned, saw the police car approach them. The window wound down.
"Okay, you two, move on," he said.
"It's okay, officer," Libra said, flashing the ring. "We're married."
Vestal flashed her ring. The officer in the car looked sternly at them.
"You're in the wrong place here," the copper said. "There's all sorts of streetwalkers and perverts hanging around. You want to go somewhere else for that sort of thing, if you know what I mean." The window rolled up, and the car pulled away.
Libra looked at Vestal, whose face no longer registered mischievous humour. "Okay," Libra said. "If you can go out dressed like a lady of the night for the sake of the hunt, I can do this."
"Do you know what you are looking for?"
Libra nodded. "A missing local gay man."
The things I have to do for the hunt, Libra said to himself as he walked down the steps of the Lilly the Pink. If I hadn't been invalided out of the Army already, they'd kick me out for sure if they saw me in here now.
He entered the dim pink - lit bar, glanced at the diversity of leather and latex costumes and uniforms before him. Although, he said to himself, chances are I'm bound to bump into some of my old colleagues down here anyway.
Libra wandered up to the bar, waited patiently for the man at the bar to serve him. Young, healthy, muscular, the lad looked like an athlete.
"Hi, gorgeous," the bartender said.
Libra took out a fiver. "Not so bad looking yourself," he said. "Gimme a pint."
"Ooh, manly," pouted the lad, pouring him a glass of something.
Libra looked at it. Grolsch, he thought. Pretentious bloody Dutch beer. Just great. He took out another fiver and added it to the one on the bar. "Won't get much change, otherwise," he said.
"Listen, honey, you want cheap beer, you go and visit the Students' Union in the University," the bartender said. "Only not now, because they close to strangers after six."
"That, and it's ten miles down the road," Libra replied. "Keep the change." He took the beer, turned, leaned back on the counter, looked at the denizens of the bar.
Libra flicked on the sight, and called up his crystal eyes to look around him. The bar settled into crystalline reality around him, and he could see how, while everyone was breathing, some of the people here were still wrong, somehow. There was an air of energy around some of them; some mystical, dark core of swirling power that seemed to make the air crackle.
"Great," he murmured into his beer. "Witches, or warlocks or something."
He spotted a group of men in the corner of the bar, sobbing into their beer. He turned to the bartender, nodded in the direction of the group.
"What's wrong with those guys?" he asked.
"Oh, they're worried about their friend Malcolm, where he's gone," the bartender replied. "Went off with a lad from out of town, hasn't been seen here since."
"What's he look like, this Malcolm?" asked Libra. "I heard there was some sort of ruckus in a hotel round here. The TV girl who went gaga. Is it connected?"
The bartender stopped cleaning his glass, looked suspiciously at Libra. "What are you saying?"
"I'm saying," Libra said, "there may be a connection between the disappearance of Malcolm, the incident in the bed and breakfast and something I'm following up."
"Thought you looked out of place here, copper," the bartender said.
Libra shook his head. "Not a copper. A mate of mine got killed. The people who did it came here. I'm trying to find out who, and track them down before they kill again."
"Well, you look like a copper," the bartender replied.
Libra looked at the young man who walked by him, dressed like something out of the old CHiPs TV show or the Village People. He glanced back at the bartender, opened his mouth to speak.
"Don't, say, a, word," the bartender replied, pointing one long, manicured finger at Libra.
"What did this Malcolm look like?" asked Libra. "Do you have a photo?"
"I wish," the man said. "The guy was a hunk."
Libra smiled into his beer. "Does he drive?"
"Yes. A pink VW Beetle. I've got the registration here," he said. "He came in a few nights back, and he'd left the lights on in the car park. Someone called in and told me, and I took down the number. Turned out it was his. So I kept the information."
"What for?"
"It'd give me something to talk about, if I made a move on him." The barkeep ducked under the counter, rummaged about a bit, took out a yellow Post-It note. "Here."
Libra looked at the registration number. "Got a biro?"
"Sure," the bartender replied. Libra took the pen, wrote down the number on the back of his hand. "Ta." He got up to leave.
"Hey, you forgot something," the man said. Libra turned, saw the missile coming at him -
Caught it in his hand. Looked at it. It was a matchbook, with a little pink elephant on the cover. He looked at the bartender.
"Compliments of the house," the lad said, turning to go back to the bar.
Libra tipped his hat to the lad, turned, walked up the steps to leave the bar. Outside, Vestal was waiting for him in the car.
"Got any leads?" she asked. Libra opened the matchbook, looked inside.
"Could be," he said, showing her the book.
The bartender had written his telephone number ... and a hunter sign.
"Great," Libra said, as they made their way back home along the M56 motorway. "All that money, and we didn't get the chance to use the facilities at the hotel after all."
"Don't worry," Vestal replied. "We've got a description of the car. We'll phone it in, an anonymous tip from a roadside cafe. Maybe the police can find it."
"How's your contact in the Force?"
"She's all right," Vestal replied. "She's a bystander. But she's good. Sticks to procedure, keeps her nose clean. Slips me a bit of data now and then, when she can."
"She has to keep her nose clean, where she works," Libra replied. "She's got no edges to back her up. Only her memory of the world as it really is. Other than that, she's just like us. A normal human being, who has to follow the law like us."
"And we're no different from the rest of humanity, either," Vestal said.
"Wonder what the bartender was doing in that bar with warlocks all around him?" Libra asked. "He was certainly in the wrong place, if he was a hunter. Wonder if he was with the Liverpool posse? If he mentioned the University, he might have been indicating that he was."
"Maybe he was after the same thing you were," Vestal said.
"And what was that?"
Vestal grinned. "Oh, a little company on those cold, lonely nights ..."
Libra awoke, looked up at the ceiling of his bedroom, listened to the incessant drumming of the rain against the bedroom window. He smelled something cooking. He put on his dressing gown, went downstairs.
Vestal was cooking for him in the kitchen, wearing the same clothes she had on the night before.
"Hi," he said.
"Hi," she replied.
"Did you stay the night, then?" Libra asked. Vestal nodded.
"Stayed up till three am," she said. "There were a couple of us patrolling outside. Newbies. One guy looked like someone out looking for a late night chemist. At least, he was seen carrying a bag with a prescription for antacids inside."
"Where did you sleep?"
"On your sofa," Vestal replied.
Libra gently put his hand on her shoulder. "You needn't have," he said.
"Oh, I'm shocked!" Vestal said, grinning. "And all this time ... I never thought ... you're straight, after all!"
Libra chuckled. "So much for gaydar," he said. There was a pause.
When they pulled away from the kiss, Libra and Vestal looked at one another for a long time.
"We have got to talk about this," she said.
"We have," Libra replied.
Vestal pushed the frying pan off the ring, turned off the cooker, looked at Libra.
"So let's talk," she said, and her voice was husky.
By: Fiat Knox
Copyright © Fiat Knox, 2001