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.Dirk remembered visualising the journalist nodding politelyand writing this down.A vile knot had formed in Dirk’s stomachwhich he had eventually softened with gin.“Hot Potato… ” thought Dirk.It suddenly occurred to himlooking at the gold disc hanging in its red frame, that the recordon which the late Mr Anstey’s head had been perched wasobviously this one.Hot Potato.Don’t pick it up.What could that mean?Whatever people wanted it to mean, Dirk thought with bedgrace.The other thing that he remembered now about the interviewwas that Pain (the leader of Pugilism and the Third AutisticCuckoo was called Pain) claimed to have written the lyrics downmore or less verbatim from a conversation which he orsomebody had overheard in a cafe or a sauna or an aeroplane orsomething like that.Dirk wondered how the originators of theconversation would feel to hear their words being repeated in thecircumstances in which he had just heard them.He peered more closely at the label in the centre of the goldrecord.At the top of the label it said simply, “ARRGH!”, whileunderneath the actual title were the writers’ credits - “Paignton,Mulville, Anstey”.Mulville was presumably the member of Pugilism and theThird Autistic Cuckoo who wasn’t the leader.And GeoffAnstey’s inclusion on the writing credits of a major-sellingsingle was probably what had paid for this house.When Ansteyhad talked about the contract having something to do withPotato he had assumed that Dirk knew what he meant.And he,Dirk, had as easily assumed that Anstey was blithering.lt wasvery easy to assume that someone who was talking about green-eyed monsters with scythes was also blithering when he talkedabout potatoes.Dirk sighed to himself with deep uneasiness.He took adislike to the neat way the trophy was hanging on the wall andadjusted it a little so that it hung at a more humane and untidyangle.Doing this caused an envelope to fall out from behind theframe and flutter towards the floor.Dirk tried unsuccessfully tocatch it.With an unfit grunt he bent over and picked the thingup.It was a largish, cream envelope of rich, heavy paper, roughlyslit open at one end, and resealed with Sellotape.In fact itlooked as if it had been opened and resealed with fresh layers oftape many times, an impression which was borne out by thenumber of names to which the envelope had in its time beenaddressed - each successively crossed out and replaced byanother.The last name on it was that of Geoff Anstey.At least Dirkassumed it was the last name because it was the only one thathad not been crossed out, and crossed out heavily.Dirk peeredat some of the other names, trying to make them out.Some memory was stirred by a couple of the names which hecould just about discern, but he needed to examine the envelopemuch more closely.He had been meaning to buy himself amagnifying glass ever since he had become a detective, but hadnever got around to it.He also did not possess a penknife, soreluctantly he decided that the most prudent course was to tuckthe envelope away for the moment in one of the deeper recessesof his coat and examine it later in privacy.He glanced quickly behind the frame of the gold disc to see ifany other goodies might emerge but was disappointed, and so hequit the bathroom and resumed his exploration of the house.The other bedroom was neat and soulless.Unused.A pinebed, a duvet and an old battered chest of drawers that had beenrevived by being plunged into a vat of acid were its mainfeatures.Dirk pulled the door of it closed behind him, andstarted to ascend the small, wobbly, white-painted stairway thatled up to an attic from which the sounds of Bugs Bunny couldbe heard.At the top of the stairs was a minute landing which opened onone side into a bathroom so small that it would best be used bystanding outside and sticking into it whichever limb you wantedto wash.The door to it was kept ajar by a length of greenhosepipe which trailed from the cold tap of the wash-basin, outof the bathroom, across the landing and into the only other roomhere at the top of the house.It was an attic room with a severely pitched roof whichoffered only a few spots where a person of anything approachingaverage height could stand up.Dirk stood hunched in the doorway and surveyed its contents,nervous of what he might find amongst them.There was ageneral grunginess about the place.The curtains were closed andlittle light made it past them into the room, which was otherwiseilluminated only by the flickering glow of an animated rabbit.An unmade bed with dank, screwed-up sheets was pushed undera particularly low angle of the ceiling.Part of the walls and themore nearly vertical surfaces of the ceiling were covered withpictures crudely cut out of magazines.There didn’t seem to be any common theme or purposebehind the cuttings [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]