Anansi Boys

“You taking the mickey or something?” asked the cab driver. “That’s just around the corner.”

“Will you take me there? I’ll give you an extra fiver. Honest.”

The c

abbie breathed in loudly through his clenched teeth: it was the noise a car mechanic makes before asking you whether you’re particularly attached to that engine for sentimental reasons. “It’s your funeral,” said the cabbie. “Hop in.”

Fat Charlie hopped. The cabbie pulled out, waited for the lights to change, went around the corner.

“Where did you say you wanted to go?” asked the cabbie.

“Maxwell Gardens,” said Fat Charlie. “Number 34. It’s just past the off-license.”

He was wearing yesterday’s clothes, and he wished he wasn’t. His mother had always told him to wear clean underwear, in case he was hit by a car, and to brush his teeth, in case they needed to identify him by his dental records.

“I know where it is,” said the cabbie. “It’s just before you get to Park Crescent.”

“That’s right,” said Fat Charlie. He was falling asleep in the backseat.

“I must have taken a wrong turning,” said the cabbie. He sounded irritated. “I’ll turn off the meter, all right? Call it a fiver.”

“Sure,” said Fat Charlie, and he snuggled down in the backseat of the taxi, and he slept. The taxi drove on through the night, trying to get just around the corner.

DETECTIVE CONSTABLE DAY, CURRENTLY ON A TWELVE-month secondment to the Fraud Squad, arrived at the offices of the Grahame Coats Agency at 9:30 A.M. Grahame Coats was waiting for her in reception, and he walked her back into his office.

“Would you care for a coffee, tea?”

“No, thank you. I’m fine.” She pulled out a notebook and sat looking at him expectantly.

“Now, I cannot stress enough that discretion must needs be the essence of your investigations. The Grahame Coats Agency has a reputation for probity and fair dealing. At the Grahame Coats Agency, a client’s money is a sacrosanct trust. I must tell you, that when I first began to entertain suspicions about Charles Nancy, I dismissed them as unworthy of a decent man and a hard worker. Had you asked me a week ago what I thought about Charles Nancy, I would have told you that he was the very salt of the earth.”

“I’m sure you would. So when did you become aware that money might have been diverted from clients’ accounts?”

“Well, I’m still not certain. I hesitate to cast aspersions. Or first stones, for that matter. Judge not, lest ye be judged.”

On television, thought Daisy, they say “just give me the facts.” She wished she could say it, but she didn’t.

She did not like this man.

“I’ve printed out all the anomalous transactions here,” he said. “As you’ll see, they were all made from Nancy’s computer. I must again stress that discretion is of the essence here: clients of the Grahame Coats Agency include a number of prominent public figures, and, as I said to your superior, I would count it as a personal favor if this matter could be dealt with as quietly as possible. Discretion must be your watchword. If, perchance, we can persuade our Master Nancy simply to return his ill-gotten gains, I would be perfectly satisfied to let the matter rest there. I have no desire to prosecute.”

“I can do my best, but at the end of the day, we gather information and turn it over to the Crown Prosecution Service.” She wondered how much pull he really had with the chief super. “So what attracted your suspicions?”

“Ah yes. Frankly and in all honesty, it was certain peculiarities of behavior. The dog that failed to bark in the nighttime. The depth the parsley had sunk into the butter. We detectives find significance in the smallest things, do we not, Detective Day?”

“Er, it’s Detective Constable Day, really. So, if you can give me the printouts,” she said, “along with any other documentation, bank records all that. We may actually need to pick up his computer, to look at the hard disk.”

“Absatively,” he said. His desk phone rang, and—“If you’ll excuse me?”—he answered it. “He is? Good Lord. Well, tell him to just wait for me in reception. I’ll come out and see him in a moment.” He put down the phone. “That,” he said to Daisy, “is what I believe you would call, in police circles, a right turn-up for the books.”

She raised an eyebrow.

“That is the aforementioned Charles Nancy himself, here to see me. Shall we show him in? If you need to, you may use my offices as an interview room. I’m sure I even have a tape recorder you might borrow.”

Daisy said, “That won’t be necessary. And the first thing I’ll need to do is go through all the paperwork.”

“Right-ho,” he said. “Silly of me. Um, would you…would you like to look at him?”

“I don’t see that that would accomplish anything,” said Daisy.