The Least Interesting Case of Ernesto Klee

It had crossed his mind that being a security guard might be an easier life than being a murder detective.

But after a break-in on his first day, things aren’t going too well.

Someone has stolen something from Ernesto Klee - the trouble is, he’s not sure exactly what.

And he can’t call the police, because he’s fairly sure they are trying to kill him. His wife isn’t talking to him - mainly because of the whole police trying to kill him thing.

Worse still, his daughter is still talking to him, and she’s telling him things that no father wants to hear.

A novel written in May 2026, one chapter at a time, every weekday morning.

Chapter 1 — Prawns

You get to know someone very well on a stakeout. Sitting in a car with someone for twelve hours, sometimes, more. You get to know them well. Often better than you’d like. You get to know that their wife is taking Indonesian cooking classes. A fact that requires you to wind down the window to let in fresh icy air at three am for fear of actual suffocation.

You get to know who’s tidy.

You get to know who has exactly three stories and is willing to tell them again and again.

He’d thought it many times. Interrogation? It was one way of finding out someone’s character. Peering into their soul and deciding if they were capable of horrible things.

Another way might just be to sit in an icy car with for twelve hours and see what happened, when the conversation had run out and there wasn’t much left to do, but sit there, shiver and smell each other’s farts.

From freezing his balls off in cars all over London with Jackie Spanner, Ernesto Klee knew a few things about him.

He knew he was an untidy bastard. The number of half-eaten prawn sandwiches he’d peeled off his jacksie because Jackie had absent-mindedly left them on the passenger seat. The number of empty Lucozade bottles he smacked him over the head with, having found himself playing footsie with them in the footwell. The crisps he’d scraped off his seat. If Jackie was eating crisps and you were in a car with him, you were certainly part of that crisp eating experience. And you were probably at some point, trying not to be too obvious about it, wiping them off your face.

Because that was another thing about Jackie Spanner, he was enthusiastic. He was enthusiastic about the job. He wanted to catch villains. He got all emotional about it. He didn’t like it when they got away. He got emotionally involved. The more we found out about a bad guy, the more he’d take it personally. He’d start to hate them. He’d expound about how outrageous it was that they were still getting away with it. He’d explain at length — unnecessarily — Klee often thought, what with them both being policemen — that villains should be caught, and stopped.

If he was doing this while half-way through consuming a meal deal, Klee often found himself leaning back against the passenger window and watching as crumbs of half-eaten prawn-cocktail crisps rain like snow on the trousers of his of the peg suit.

Ernesto Klee knew that there was only one thing that Jackie Spanner hated more than villains who were getting away with it. And that was the cold.

The first time you went on a stakeout you made the mistake. You never made it again. In the middle of the night, even in summer, if you were sitting still in a car with the heating off and nothing but Indonesian curry guffs to keep you company, you could lose a few toes to frostbit. Klee himself had a wardrobe full of thermals and a recipe for how to add an extra layer whenever he started to feel it was necessary, or rather, whenever he started to lose feeling in his extremities.

Normally an extra pair of thermal socks did the trick.

Nothing ever seemed to do the trick for Jackie. He never seemed to be warm.

A tall bloke, with classic copper’s size twelves. The business of him putting on an extra pair of socks in a confined space was likely to cause enough commotion to wake the neighbours. Who, if they’d seen the boring coloured mid-range solution rocking in the middle of the night might have guessed something amorous was going on inside. Rather than the truth, that a man too big for a mid-range saloon was kicking crisp crumbs, sandwich packets and plastic bottles in the air trying to put on an extra pair of socks that this time. “Look Ernie — they say they use them on polar expeditions! These are the fancy ones. They’ve got like NASA technology in them. Do NASA go to the poles?”

They never worked. Ten minutes later, when the crisp crumbs and widely recycled PET bottles had settled. He’d be complaining again about his feet. And for the three hundred and fiftieth time, telling you the story of how Ranulph Fiennes had cut off his own toes with secateurs because he couldn’t stand the pain of frost bite.

Most of detection work wasn’t deduction. Some of was. Most of it wasn’t. Inductive reasoning. Analogical reasoning. The wonderfully named, abductive reasoning. And the awful, awful feeling hovering somewhere in your bowels that you’d missed something, or cocked something up. That was most of detective work.

But this? This was straight forward deduction.

Jackie Spanner was untidy. Jackie Spanner hated the cold. Jackie Spanner hated villains.

So the thing that Jackie Spanner absolutely did not do was walk out onto an icy patio barefoot in only a half-length satin dressing gown (it was his wife’s).

What Jackie Spanner did not do was sit himself down in a lawn chair at 2:40 in the morning. And shoot himself in the face with a shotgun.

And even if he did. And he didn’t, but even if he did. What Jackie Spanner definitely didn’t do was tidy up after himself. And put the shotgun gently and neatly down on a picnic table, six feet away from his now bloody and lifeless body.

What Jackie Spanner had done. Just a couple of hours before he was involved in this semi-naked charade on his frost-covered patio, was text Ernesto Klee.

“I had an idea. Made some enquiries and I think it checks out. We’re nearly there. Talk to you tomorrow.”

Jackie Spanner hated villains. And do you know the kind of villains he hated the most? The ones that were hiding among the ranks of his own police force.

Jackie had been told many times to stop investigating the death of Aimee Finch. Who had been beaten to death by someone, just out of camera shot, in the car park of the Greenhouse pub in Muswell Hill. Jackie hadn’t listened.

The idea that, on the night when he finally thought he’d got to the bottom of what happened, and who had killed her, he would waltz barefoot into the night in inappropriate nightwear was laughable. The idea that, after shooting himself, he’d tidy up, was about as likely as him doing it if he’d still been alive.

Chapter 2 — Mr Muscle

[Note about the previous chapter - it wasn’t the gun. It was the prawns.]

So what would you have seen if you were watching Ernesto Klee that April afternoon, walking down the street, walking down Archway road in fact? With the whole of London laid out in front of him. Well you would have seen a middle aged man in some kind of video conference on his phone. If you were close enough to hear, you might have heard him shout.

“No, I don’t want to see the body! I want to see the table? What? Of course it’s on a tray. Show me the tray.”

There’s probably a special name for this move, if you forked out for a mime class – and, to be fair, Ernesto Klee was in North London, and that was the kind of thing that people in North London seemed to do more frequently than anyone might expect.

You could imagine an instructor in a full body leotard.

“This move is called ‘le mur de verre.’ In French that means ‘the glass wall’ so we’re walking along, relaxed and comfortable and then BAM! It’s like our whole body has smacked into a wall.”

Ernesto Klee had never been near a mime class. If he’d ever had any temptation to inquire in that direction, the insistence that you do the class in a leotard would have probably been the deal breaker.

But right now, on the pavement, in front of the Happy Sausage Cafe and within sight of the drinkers in the Bent Horseshoe pub, he performed his own perfect “mur de verre.” It was, as if he’d walked straight into a glass wall. An unexpected, solid object that stopped him in his tracks.

Jackie Spanner had been murdered.

So that’s what you would have seen. A middle-aged man walking down the street and looking as if he’d walked smack into an invisible solid wall.

What you would have seen next was even more peculiar. You would have seen the slightly unkempt, slightly shabby man, throw the phone that he’d just been looking at on the pavement and start jumping up and down on it. Then you’d see him, apparently worry that he hadn’t punished this phone enough for what it had done. Pick it up again. Walk to a pedestrian crossing, where traffic was queuing for the lights to change.

You would see him bend down, as if to pick something up. But if you were watching carefully – and you might have guessed by now, that someone was – you would have seen him put his partially broken phone in the gutter, and deliberately kick it under the wheels of a large truck. You may have seen this man, inspect the remains after the truck had sailed on up the hill, along the A1 and North.

Then you may have seen the man turn around and, looking perhaps slightly surprised that the shop he needed to visit was right in front of him. Ok, the shop he really needed to visit was the Bent Horseshoe, but he knew he needed to be sober and awake, he realised for probably the next 24 hours.

So you would have seen this man go into the shop next to the bent Horse shoe – a shop with a sign that said “Baz’s Phone Bits” and showed an image of some kind of cartoon mammal – what was that? A marmot? A blue capybara? Zoologically it was confused. But it was talking into a mobile phone. And it looked very happy about it.

“Div”

“Ernie”

“I need a car”

“We’ve got some lovely ones on the forecourt.”

“Don’t fuck about. This is serious, they killed Jackie.”

“Fuck”

“Fuck. Fuck just about covers it.”

“Any special requests?”

“Nothing expensive. Nothing too noticeable. And it won’t be missed. And I’ll be round in about twenty minutes.”

“Not here, the car park of the pub.”

“You’re taking the piss right?”

“Why not? It’s the last place they’d look.”

“OK, twenty minutes.”

“It’s lime green. And are those flames down the side?”

“Nav said it was bright”

“It’s throbbing.”

“I’m colour blind, so I can’t tell.”

“And it sounds like what is it? Some kind of muscle car? Why is it growling?”

“You said something that won’t be missed. Trust me, he won’t miss it. He’s in the Whittington beeping – has been for six months.”

“Oddly intelligent idiots bring chickens…” He was doing it in his head. Seven? Seven was G. He realised it wasn’t much of a code if they were on to him.

Five minutes, and he was checking. Making sure he’d got it right. Maybe Jan didn’t check it any more. Come on. Even if he didn’t check it every minute. Every day. He’d be checking it now.

Shouldn’t be really doing this when he was driving. And this motor was a beast. Keeping it under seventy wasn’t easy. And you couldn’t exactly just tuck in behind a Nissan Micra and do fifty five.

Then his brand new burner phone rang. It was a number he didn’t recognise.

“It was the prawns right?”

“Of course it was the prawns.”

“Do you think it’s meant for us?”

“You’re out there in plain sight. And no one’s bothering you. It’s meant for me.”

“If they’re going to kill you, what’s the point in warning you? Maybe they’re just trying to scare you.”

“Well, they’ve succeeded.”

“Where are you?”

“Somewhere on the M4 doing ninety – pissing off a dude in a black BMW”

“Type this into your satnav – actually no – that’s probably – get to Birmingham and then ask.”

“Birmingham.”

“Yes, Birmingham.”

“Who the fuck goes to Birmingham?”

“Well, exactly.”

“Is it a long job?”

“Could take months. Maybe by then this whole thing will have blown over.”

“Eight years? How many investigations? How many millions? It doesn’t look like it’s blowing over. And this thing with Jackie – it’s going to make the papers again…”

“Let’s talk when you’re somewhere safe. I’ll text you the address and the keys are with the neighbour – a Mrs Ting.”

“Mrs Ting?”

Chapter 3 — Keys

Number 45a?

Klee looked up and down the street – it was the only new build on Pachelbel Road. All the other houses looked, to his eye, to be Victorian.

Unusually, there was a name on the bell. It said “Ting.”

He rang the bell.

“Go away! I haven’t left the gas on!” shouted somebody from behind the glass.

“Mrs Ting? Is that Mrs Ting?”

“It’s them foreigners at 45! It them German curries they make there always making them German curries. Stinks like gas!”

“Er, my name is Ernesto Klee.”

There was a slight pause.

“Are you a German?”

“Er no.”

“Where was you born then?”

“Pontefract. West Yorkshire.”

There was a longer pause.

“Well, I didn’t leave the gas on.”

“I’m sure you didn’t,” said Klee. He glanced next door at number 45 – where he’d nearly knocked until he noticed the “a” in the address. It shared a wall with Mrs Ting’s house. If she had left the gas on, a spark would have probably taken out 45 and 45a – and solved at least one problem for whoever it was who had to decide how to number the houses.

And having interrogated, or having been interrogated by Mrs Ting for about a minute, his instincts told him that Mrs Ting had left the gas on.

There was a new voice and a new shadow behind the obscured glass.

“Mother, come away love, I’ll deal with this.”

The door opened slightly.

Klee wasn’t expecting what he saw. It was a woman of about 35. With a lot of red hair. She’d obviously just got out of bed – possibly at the sound of her mother’s persistent denials about the gas. A lot of red hair and a lot of pale skin since she was only just about covering herself in a dressing gown. Noticing that Ernie was noticing, she tried to cover herself. It had the unhelpful effect of getting Klee to focus, definitely more than he should, on whether she was managing to cover up her cleavage.

Then she looked up. Then there was eye contact.

She laughed. Why did she laugh? To let him know that it was OK that he was looking? To recognise that he could hardly not because she was hardly wearing anything.

No, don’t be stupid. It wasn’t love at first sight. But it was. Well it was something.

Brrr. Right. Both at the same time, they came to their senses.

“You’re Mr Klee? I have a key for you.” She laughed again at the rhyme, he guessed. For Klee, it sounded absolutely glorious.

A hand, and an arm, again, barely clad in a dressing gown came out through the gap in the door.

Klee took the keys.

But didn’t move. He didn’t want to move because, really, he would like a bit more local knowledge about the house he was moving into, okay, that was one reason. The other one was that he didn’t really, straight away, want to end the conversation.

“Did you know Mr Boht?”

The red-haired woman seemed to be struggling terribly to keep her dressing gown together and also hold the door ajar.

“I did, I used to know him quite well when I was a little girl.” She laughed again.

“Listen. I’ve just finished a shift.” He didn’t feel she needed to explain why she was wearing no clothes in the middle of the afternoon. But she had. “Could maybe give me a chance to – to put on some clothes. And you can look round the chapel and then perhaps come back and have some tea.

“And don’t be cooking any curries!” shouted Mrs Ting.

“Mother!” The tone wasn’t exactly annoyed, but more “we’ve talked about this before.”

“That sounds like a great idea,” said Klee, “Erm?” That was of course the only polite way to ask her her name. To say “you know my name, so what’s yours?” would somehow seem slightly rude. To say “Madam! You have the advantage of me!” would be downright weird.

“Lillian.”

“Lillian Ting?”

Again the laugh! “I know! But not for years. Lilly Jones is my married name. About the only good thing I got from my husband was his name.”

Pause.

Awkward pause.

Slightly more awkward pause.

“Right!” said Klee in the way that would have involved smacking his hands on his knees if he’d been sitting down, and indicated to anybody English that the meeting was over.

“So, where is number 47?”

Another laugh.

“It’s just there!” her arm extending further beyond the door than it had so far. Freckles, Klee noticed.

Oh yeah, that giant fucking chapel. Blocking out the sky! How could he not have noticed that?

He turned round to give it a good look. And told himself that this might be one of those times that he’d heard Americans call a “teachable moment.” Wasn’t that what he was always telling his sergeants? Getting blinded by just one way of seeing things. That was how you got stuck. That was the main problem with being racist, or homophobic. Okay, of course it wasn’t the main problem.

But it was a self-defeating, possibly case-killing problem for a detective.

Even being a snob. Or an inverse snob. It stopped you seeing a different angle, the bigger picture. The big picture like a giant Unitarian Chapel.

On the drive across country to Kings Norton, on the south side of Birmingham, he’d been imagining a terraced house, or possibly something grander and detached.

Yes, Pausing had said it was a house an old guy had used as a warehouse. But he hadn’t imagined it would actually be bigger than a lot of warehouses. He was completely lost thinking about this for a few seconds, before he realised that he still hadn’t quite finished the conversation with the redhead, he felt he could now call Lilly. He turned back quickly wondering if they might have shut the door while he’d been staring and revering – that can’t be the right word.

The door was still ajar. And Lilly was still smiling and looking out of it.

“Shut the door and come on in girl. Standing on the doorstep with no knickers on.” Any first meeting between two English people, who immediately found each other, well, quite attractive actually, was going to be awkward. But Mrs Ting’s intervention managed to make it extremely awkward.

Again the laugh. But perhaps a bit more strained now.

“Good luck, Mr Klee. Perhaps we’ll see you for tea a bit later!”

And now the door was shut.

Chapter 4 — Tent

He liked this moment. Let’s face it, he liked most things about this job that he’d been forced into.

“I need somewhere to stay.”

Awkward pause.

“Well, I suppose you could stay here for a few nights and sleep on the couch. But Maggie’s going to complain eventually.”

“Who’s Maggie? Have you found yourself another woman?”

“Maggie is the corgi the previous one left behind.”

“I can’t keep up.”

“To be frank, neither can I.”

“Anyway, it can’t be your house. Not safe for you, not safe for me, not safe for Maggie.”

“I know, but listen, I have an idea.” Another pause. “Ernie? Are you there?”

“I’m still listening.”

“Don’t be keeping quiet to see what I’m going to say on me. I’m not going to incriminate myself.” Again, another pause. “Yeah, yeah, I know. Don’t be so sure. Look, I’m doing a favour for a mate. And I’m taking over his live-in security guard business.”

“A favour for a mate? That sounds – legal.”

“It’s Kosher – in fact, he’s Kosher. Anyway, long story, his wife divorced him”

“There’s a lot of it about.”

“You’re telling me. But somehow Jewish Kevin.”

“Kevin? A Jewish bloke called Kevin?”

“He rediscovered his heritage when he – look, that’s not the point. The point is, he got divorced, then he came into some money. Wrong way round for the ex wife, but right way round for Kevin. And so Kevin went on holiday in the south of France, met someone.”

“This is very touching. What has it got to do with me? Or even you?”

“Kevin is planning on being away for a while. And he asked me to run his house sitting, live-in security guard business. And I was thinking, you need a place to stay, with no direct connection to anyone you know and…”

…and that’s why he was standing there in the chapel. A Unitarian Chapel. That had – from what he figured out from the internet, been working as exactly that until thirty years ago.

“The old boy died. And the place is full of stuff – according to his nephew.”

Yes, the place was full of stuff.

This was apparently a classic design for a chapel of the period. The downstairs bit – “The nave” with rows of pews. And then an upstairs balcony. All the benches on the balcony were filled with books. Except the ones that were filled with paintings. Landscapes mostly from what he could see, except the occasional “portrait of a lady” type. Klee didn’t know much about art – but he knew he didn’t like most of these.

“He lived in a converted Chapel and filled it with books and antiques. The nephew doesn’t want to send the house clearance people until he’s had a chance to have a look. But he’s a banker in New York and he’s working on some deal. So it might be months before he gets a chance to come over.”

On the floor between the benches, mostly in boxes, but sometimes just stacked in the open were sets of china. And in and amongst them figurines.

“I don’t know how he made his money, but his nephew seems to think he had enough of it. Enough anyway to spend on the roof which was the main thing he talked about. Apparently, whenever they talked.”

Cigarette cards. Framed and then the frames stacked, tightly, again tucked in between the benches. Football players from the thirties and forties. Cricketers. World War One biplanes.

“He’s converted the chapel into a house.”

No he hasn’t. Thought Klee.

Not really. There were two sets of stairs up to the balcony. And on the way up the stairs on one side was a tiny room – no bigger than a cupboard with a sink, a fridge, and a hotplate sitting on a microwave.

Off the same landing on the other side was a toilet. In some of the hastiest plumbing Klee had ever seen, someone had built a ledge just inside the toilet door – he’d discovered it by tripping over it. They’d gouged a hole in the floor to expose the drain. And plumbed in a shower head to create the least glamorous wet room you had ever seen. Not something that would ever make it onto the cover of house and gardens, but the mould creeping up the walls seemed to like it.

So, primitive kitchen, nearly primordial bathroom. But where did he sleep?

In the giant tent of course!

He’d seen this before, in fact he’d done this before in a giant hangar that he’d been asked to guard.

“Where the hell am I going to sleep? This thing is ten thousand square metres?”

“Put up a tent, that’s what the last guy did.”

“What happened to the last guy?”

“Well, he died of.”

“What?”

“Pneumonia. Apparently Kevin kept telling him to make sure he wrapped up well. But he didn’t.”

Three layers of socks, two of them thermals. He thought again about Jackie. Jackie should have stopped pulling on that thread. Then he’d have got to finish his prawns.

So Klee had got himself a tent, and a camp bed, and a mattress and two sets of thermals. And he’d been fine.

But this wasn’t that kind of tent. This tent was made of – carpets!

That was part of the wonder of the modern world. Oh yes, there were certainly some horrors. But there were also some wonders. And this was one particular wonder of the modern world. Ernesto Klee could point his burner smart phone at the carpet – tent - thing that took up most of the space in the centre of the chapel. The space called the nave (he’d looked that up on the internet too). Klee could point his smart phone at the tent thing, take a few pictures and then ask the all-important question:

“What the fuck is this?”

A tent. A Berber tent apparently.

Chapter 5 — Baltazar

It was strung right across the chapel. Tied to the columns. Making him worried about them again. Was it OK to fill the whole balcony with all that stuff?

“What happened to Klee? Did Banks and his boys finally catch up with him?” “No, he was hiding out in some derelict chapel in Birmingham and the balcony fell on him.” He’d cleared a space on a pew to look at the tent. It was really the first chance that he’d had to sit down, quietly, since he’d heard about Jackie’s death. Bayt al-sha’ar – “House of hair.” The traditional ones were woven from the hair of their enemies. No they weren’t! Racist. They were woven from goat hair. A super smart material, apparently. Warm if it’s cold, cool if it’s warm.

But he didn’t think this was an original one. From what he’d found online, from the pattern, he thought this was one that was commissioned for an international exhibition. And the carpets were British. Axminster in fact. Showing off British industry.

He knew why he was sitting down and having a pause. He didn’t want to go in the tent. Baltazar! That’s what he could call it. Was that a Hobson Jobson? He wasn’t quite sure and couldn’t be bothered to look it up just now. Hobson Jobson was a word that you took from another language, but didn’t get quite right. He thought about how the French seemed to have done this with English – “Le footing” instead of jogging. He couldn’t go around saying “bayt al-sha’ar” it didn’t fit in English, and he didn’t, despite his name, speak any other languages. But Baltazar! He could say that!

It took him only two circumnavigations before he found a way in. And realised that there was a draw rope – in fact an entire mechanism, with a wooden handle, and a peg, the only one, conspicuously attached to a column. As people often seem to say when talking about tents – and claim falsely when talking about bedsits they’re trying to sell – the tent was deceptively spacious.

There was room in there for a single bed. And an armchair. And a telly. He was very relieved to see the telly. Even with the light, spilling in from chapel – which was itself weak – it was almost completely black inside Baltazar – the tent. But shining around inside, with the torch from his phone he saw another rope with a wooden handle. For a moment, he wondered if there was some mechanism that meant he could close the “door” from inside, having opened it from outside. Even though he couldn’t imagine how such a mechanism could work.

But no, he pulled the rope and the lights came on.

What had he been expecting to see? Not this. He’d been expecting to see a sad old man’s final retreat – that was what the kitchen and the damp cupboard that doubled as a bathroom had led him to expect.

But this was, well it was opulent. There were carpets on the floor – and carpets – actually, no they were of some lighter material – he guessed it was some kind of specific material for bedcovers. And he guessed he could look up the name and he guessed that he wouldn’t be able to remember it. And a vibrant green armchair – again upholstered in some kind of material.

Here’s the thing though. Outside in the chapel, everything looked old. Baltazar looked her age. The balcony was filled with antiques. There was an occasional table next to the armchair and a footstool in front of it. Klee sat down.

He tried to turn on the telly. And his first attempt worked.

Wasn’t that weird?

Well, it probably was. He was sitting in a fake Bedouin tent, in a deconsecrated protestant chapel – briefly, until he’d come to his senses, and turned it off, watching Countdown. Outside was a stolen lime green – limes aren’t that colour, it was more “cartoon alien ectoplasm” – car. That he’d used to escape the city he’d lived, loved and worked in all his adult life. Because maybe, the people who had killed his best friend and colleague – a policeman who had made the cardinal mistake of trying to actually catch bad guys, maybe those people, just maybe they were going to try to murder him as well. Oh, and the neighbour, well not actually the neighbour, the racist neighbour’s daughter, well, from what he could see of her through the three or four inches that she’d been willing to open the door, was hot.

No part of this wasn’t weird. It was far from an ordinary day.

And in all the kerfuffle. He hadn’t really given Mr Boht, Mr Julius Adolphus Boht, that much thought right up to that point. But now he was giving him a little bit more. Walking around in the chapel, he’d assumed that Boht was some kind of crazy hoarder. Looking at the kitchen, and then at the bathroom, he’d imagined someone in a string vest and porridge-coloured Y-fronts. Nobody wears string vests anymore, do they? Not that kind of string vests, anyway.

And now Ernesto Klee realised he hadn’t eaten anything, hadn’t drunk anything, since he’d left London.

He knew that there was the offer to go next door and get a cup of tea from Lilly – although he didn’t know what the mother would make of that.

But he also knew that a crucial part of moving into a new place and making yourself at home was making that first cup of tea. He realised he hadn’t bought any of the necessary ingredients. So he realised he’d be dependent on whatever had been left behind. When did Boht die? How many days ago?

Fifteen minutes later he was back in the armchair with a passable cup of tea. In the single cupboard in the kitchen he’d found a fairly recent-looking box of teabags. In the fridge, and in the freezer he’d found – nothing. That was very odd. But he had found little sachets of UHT milk. It was disgusting. But for some reason, not as disgusting as tea without milk. So now there he was sitting in another man’s armchair. Inside another man’s fake Victorian Bedouin tent, watching some TV show about antiques.

Did Boht deal in antiques? Were those things out there actually antiques? He’d heard that cigarette cards were collectibles. He knew nothing about paintings, maybe some of the paintings were valuable.

Why did they have to be valuable?

Chapter 6 — Dust

Dust!

He’d woken up at his favourite time in the middle of the night. 4.44am. His “favourite” time. The time when, no matter how well things were going he was convinced they were about to turn shit. 4.44am. The time of night, when if things were really going badly, he was convinced that they were going to get worse.

4.44. His wife was never coming back. What little money he had was going to be spent on fleeing, on evading these people who were supposedly chasing him. Or he was going mad. No one was chasing him. He was running around the country, crazy, running from nobody. He wasn’t that important. No one was chasing him. He was running from shadows and ghosts. Oh yeah? Was it a shadow or a ghost who interrupted Jackie Spanner in the middle of king prawn biriyani and made him walk out on the icy patio? Was it a ghost that shot him and then gently laid down the shotgun on the picnic table?

But talking of ghosts, what about the chapel he was in now? Who was cleaning it? Why wasn’t there any dust? He hadn’t found a hoover – although it wasn’t the first thing he looked for in a new house. It was about the fifteenth thing he looked for – when he’d been in a place about a week. Yes, that’s it – about a week.

This place was spotless. Someone was coming in and cleaning. They’d been in. In the last week. Who?

--------------—

“So what do I have to do, do I have to stay in the place the whole time.”

“No. In fact, coming and going is part of the idea. If people see there’s someone in the house, that they’re going out and coming back. Oh, you know this. Villains are cowards. They’re only going to burgle a place if they think there’s no one in there. Except for the psychos who get off on beating up little old ladies.”

“So just come and go, like I live there?”

“Exactly.”

“And is there a wage?”

There was a pause on the other end of the line. He knew former detective sergeant Lucas Pausing was pulling a face.

“Fucking tight wad Yorkshireman. I can pay you – but it’s not much. And I’d have to route it round the houses. And you know what we always say about following the money.”

“I’m yanking your chain, I don’t need paying. I’m just wondering. If I were really doing this job for real, what would I look like? It’s like a security guard job right? So I’d be broke, or on the verge of broke.”

“Yeah, you’re going to have to cut down on that lavish lifestyle, and leave the designer suits in the wardrobe. Maybe stick to the supermarket brand sausages and stay off the fancy export lager. You still got that blue suit with the mustard stains down both trouser legs? That would be OK.”

“Fuck off Pausing.”

Pausing laughed.

“Let me know if you need anything Ernie. And stay safe.”

---------------------------------------—

After his 4.44 panic, he awoke late – after nine and ravenous. And decided that before he shopped for groceries, he needed a proper breakfast. A brief look on his burner phone showed him that there was a breakfast place around the corner.

But as he locked the door, with the enormous key and wondered if it was going to fit in his trouser pocket, he caught sight of the bright green monstrosity that Dev had given him. Was it stolen? Technically, it was stolen.

Certainly, if the chap whose name was on the log book managed to ascend the Glasgow coma scale to double figures (Eye opening, spontaneous – 4, Verbal response 5 – oriented, physical response 6 – obeys commands). One of the questions that he might ask back, might be “Where’s my fucking car?” And his second questions might be “Oh my god! You didn’t leave it in the hospital car park!”

Then again this guy was plumbing the depths of the Glasgow coma scale. Eye opening? 1 - None. Verbal response? 1 - None. Physical response? 1 - None. And according to Dev, the reason was that he’d taken an unplanned journey through the windscreen of his lime green sex machine and been found – after quite a lengthy search – upside down in a hawthorn bush about 20 feet away from the verge of the North Circular.

Even so, maybe there were some other people a bit further up the Glasgow coma scale, although Klee thought bitterly in the Met, he hadn’t known that many, and they, or some of their mates in the West Midlands police, even if they didn’t open their eyes to sounds or commands, might open them and check the number plate of a retina-splitting lime green muscle car.

It was only now, he noticed, right next to the chapel there was a garage. But his heart sank. He was tired of trying to make sense of piles of junk that might not be junk. There was a lock on the garage. A conventional Yale lock. And next to the huge, mostly rusty key for the chapel side door, on the same ring was a Yale key. He tried it. And the door opened.

The garage was completely empty.

Completely empty!

But on the floor was sawdust. And a few oil stains. And the sawdust was reasonably fresh.

A car had been here. Until very recently. And now that car was not here. Where the hell was that car? Did whoever did the dusting take the car? Did the cleaner take the car?

Some things weren’t adding up. Klee tried to avoid them. He knew he had enough trouble in his own life, without bothering with any trouble that might have been in Boht’s life. He tried to tell himself that this was great news. The chapel was reasonably clean – apart from the mould in the bathroom. The garage was empty, he could drive the great green monstrosity in there, right now. And stroll out for breakfast. It was fine. It was fine. He kept trying to tell himself.

But a voice that was also him. A voice closely related to the 4.44 voice. A voice that he knew was the voice that had kept him alive this long. The voice that, even when he tried to ignore it, even though he could put it off until after breakfast, he would finally have to listen to. That voice. Said this.

This is not fine.

Chapter 7 — Spanner

Coffee. He needed coffee. Needed to go out and get supplies. And he needed to sit and have a coffee.

“Do I need to stay in the place all the time?”

“No. The whole point is to make it look occupied. Turn the lights on at night – obviously. And come and go during the day. Park a car out the front. Get deliveries. You know what burglars are like Ernie. They’re looking for empty places. They don’t like it if there’s someone in.”
“Mostly.”
“Mostly what?”

“Mostly they don’t like it if someone’s in.”

“Well, they weren’t burglars were they.”

“Probably not – but we’re still not sure who they were.”
“We’re pretty sure we…”
“Just can’t prove it.”

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Susannah Yo was found beaten to death in the car park of the Isambard Kingdom Brunel pub in Muswell Hill. The pub’s set up was a survival from the days, long gone, when people drove to the pub, drank all night, and then drove back, dinging a few cars and the odd pedestrian on their way.

Those days were long gone. But the pub still has the same set up today.

The car park is huge. Roughly sixty yards wide, and about 80 yards deep. The landlords have been trying for years to get planning permission to build on it. But the council and the surrounding residents are having none of it. As a result, it’s dark corners, furthest from the “conservatory” that occupied the whole of the back of the pub, became the place where all kinds of surreptitious meetings took place.

Now, these furthest corners were bleached with floodlights and CCTV, but thirty years ago, it had been an area that prostitutes worked, and – so romantically – so did lovers whose wives and husbands might object to them bringing back their new close friend. So, especially between the hours of about ten and midnight, it wasn’t uncommon for there to be two or three rocking cars, discreetly placed.

But before that, in the seventies and eighties, it had already been established as, not just a place to get illicit sex, but also – information.

Coppers met their sources there. Journalists met their sources there. Coppers met journalists. All in and among the hookers and the “romantic”, Jesus, “romantic” assignations.

Susannah Yo was four feet eleven inches tall. On her passport it said 150cm, but that was rounding up. She weighed seven stone – 44 kilos. Whenever Klee read that statistic, he shifted uncomfortably, thinking about his weight. She was tiny. But by all accounts, certainly all the accounts that Klee had either read, or heard first hand, she was exceptionally good at looking after herself, and avoiding situations where she might be in danger.

Until that night. When someone smashed her skull in. Smashed her skull in with a really unusual spanner.

“Don’t start on the spanner again Ernie.”

“It’s a special gauge.”

“I know”

“And bound with string and glue.”

“I know”

“So it’s hard to get fingerprints off.”
“But still, if we still had it, we could – I’m sure there’d be DNA in the glue.”

“Ernie. It’s over.”

The discovery of Susannah Yo’s body by the pub cleaner at 6:15 or so the following morning started the most expensive, most investigated, and still unsuccessful murder investigation in the history of the Metropolitan police, and so, in the history of English, and United Kingdom policing. He wasn’t sure about Europe. Maybe there was a case in Lichtenstein that had cost more and been covered up / fucked up even more badly. Maybe there was a case in Italy that was more obviously a corrupt cover up. He doubted it.

But that day, 17th July 1996, was special in another way for Ernesto Klee. It was his first day on the job.

-----------------------------

“The largest black coffee you can give me – with an extra shot.”
“That’s four shots,” warned the girl behind the counter.

“I know. That’s fine,” he smiled.
“Name?”

“Ernie.”

He’d given it before he could really think. Bah! This was why he’d never been even suggested to go undercover. He absolutely didn’t know how to be anyone but himself.

It was mid morning on a Monday. The commuters who were grabbing a coffee before they got on the train, or sticking it in a cup holder and sipping it as they drove, they were gone.

Right at the back was a man with a blonde shock of hair and a full ginger beard whose clothes didn’t look that clean. When Ernie looked in his direction he returned a slightly aggressive stare. But nobody else in the place seemed to be bothered by him. And the staff didn’t seem to be giving him a second thought.

He’s always in here, thought Ernie.

There were a couple of people, a beautiful thin young – what Indian? Asian – woman wearing a pink top, typing into a rose gold laptop. Protected from the world by a large set of pink, over-ear headphones. “Is your favourite colour pink?” thought Ernie.

And a huge young man. Sitting at the same sized table as all the others. But in front of him, it looked tiny. Similarly with the laptop. Looking from table to table, Ernie realised that it was, in fact an out-sized laptop. It was nearly twice the size of the “rose gold” girl’s laptop. But in front of him, it looked tiny.

He found a seat somewhere where he could see Rose Gold and Mr Enormous. The décor, was clean, bright and deliberately uncomfortable. To encourage you to avoid doing, exactly what he, and the other customers, who clearly didn’t intend to throw down their coffee go, were doing. Sitting for hours in a cafe.

“You didn’t manage to come back for that tea.”

Lilly Jones, nee Ting was standing in front of him. Clutching a large coffee cup.

“Er, no. Well, first day. You know. A lot to do.”

“Are you settling in?”

“Getting there. Actually I did have one question.”
“Yes? Is there – does someone come and clean? I understand Mr Boht has been dead more than two weeks – but the place seems to be spotless.”

“Oh, yes, I should have probably told you about that – and she’s due in today. The cleaner, well, the cleaner is my mother.”
“Mrs Ting?”

Chapter 8 — Books

“And that was the Bee Gees with ‘Tragedy’ its greatest hits of the seventies and eighties all morning long, here at Those Were The Days FM.”

Klee had tried the key in the lock, but the door was open. And music from the seventies and eighties was blaring out from a portable stereo that he hadn’t noticed before, but could see from its slot on the pew, surrounded by a pile of audio cassettes – audio cassettes! And CDs. CDs! He could see that that was its spot. Mrs Ting hadn’t brought it with her.

Mrs Ting was in the balcony. Singing along to a song that he remembered that for some reason had a French chorus “Chanson pour les petits enfants.” Singing at the top of her voice, over the sound of the hoover.

He didn’t know quite what to do with himself. It seemed too peculiar to go and sit in his tent. I mean just that phrase was pretty odd.

He didn’t want to go up into the balcony and startle her. So he tried to clear some space on a pew, lifting up a box full of crockery and placing it gently on the floor.

“Who’s there? Who is it?”

Mrs Ting was peering over the balcony. Klee looked at the portable stereo – he remembered when these were all the rage and figured out how to turn it down.

“It’s me Mrs Ting.”
“Oh Mr Klee! I wondered when you’d be back.” She was in a tabard. And her hair was in a scarf. Somehow she looked much younger. Or maybe now she looked her age. Which Klee realised, uncomfortably, was about his age. And she was much friendlier.

“Just a moment Mrs Ting.”

Klee found looking up at her a tad awkward. Like just about every conversation between two English people who didn’t know each other well, and, actually, like many conversations between English people who did know each other well. And of course, through his entire career, as soon as anyone knew you were a policeman, in their head, he realised, even the most innocent, law abiding citizens, they did this thing. They thought of the thing that they didn’t want a policeman to know.

Did they have marijuana plants in the attic – they looked up at the ceiling. Were they worried that the car’s tyres were bald - they actually went out of their way to look at it in the driveway. Had they killed their abusive partner and really struggled to know what to do with the body? They stared really hard at the uneven paving on their patio.

Maybe Mrs Ting didn’t know yet that he was a policeman. Because when he, slightly breathlessly, made it to where she was standing in the middle of the balcony. She was all smiles. If she had killed anyone, she clearly didn’t think Ernesto Klee had any chance of finding them.

“I’m glad you’re here,” she said, smiling again. I wanted to ask, Mr Boht, he had me do his laundry. Do you want me to do your laundry?

Laundry. Klee didn’t want to admit that he only had the clothes he stood up in. “I don’t have anything for you just now.”

“That’s fine,” said Mrs Ting. “Anything you do need washing – just leave it in the back in the basket next to the machine.”

“What machine?”
“The washing machine.”

“There’s a washing machine? Where is it? In the kitchen? I didn’t see it.”
“Ha kitchen! You mean where he has his hotplate?”

“No, it’s in the back?”
“In the back?”

“Behind the books.”

In their first meeting, it had crossed Klee’s mind that Mrs Ting had some kind of cognitive deficit. Now it crossed the mind of both Mrs Ting and Ernest Klee that maybe it was Ernesto Klee who had the cognitive deficit. Klee had another go – but he sensed he wasn’t on firm ground.

He gestured at the pews behind them.

“These are the books.”
“Yes,” said Mrs Ting, a little shortly. He could see that the temper he’d seen when he’d knocked to get the keys was never far from the surface. “But they’re only the picture book and the books that won’t fit on the shelves. Most of the books are in the back room.”

The back room.

He’d missed an entire room! And, in the nature of this building. It wasn’t just a normal sized room. It was the Sunday school room at the back of the building. And it was the same size as the chapel but without any of the fixture and fittings. No pulpit, no organ. No balcony. Just a rectangular box. A rectangular box, about the size of a tennis court. Filled with books.

And Klee, at one point, rumoured to be the best detective in the Met. Had missed it. But Klee excused himself a little bit when he saw that it essentially, from the chapel, anyway, it had a secret entrance. The door was part of a dark wall, panelled in dark wood which had been stained and varnished a dozen times. And it was made to look like the rest of the wall. The only clue that there might be something behind it was a lightened patch on what turned out to be the door. The place where hands had for years worn the stain and the varnish away. Although Klee realised it might have been a clue if he’d taken the time to walk around the outside of the building he would have discovered that he’d been placed in charge of a building that was twice the size that he’d originally thought.

Mrs Ting looked back at him. She was putting the key to the secret door back on its ledge.
“Sorry love, I thought you knew about the books. The washing machine is on the other side. First time you probably need to follow me. It’s a bit of a…”
“A maze?”

“Yes! that’s exactly right! That’s what it is! A maze.”

As he followed Mrs Ting, who set off at the pace of someone who had walked through a maze of bookshelves many times and no longer thought it that strange. He looked at the titles of the books.

There appeared to be everything!

Mass market paper backs. Hard back novels. Antiquarian. He wondered if there was any system to their order on the shelves.

Chapter 9 — Maze

For a moment Klee wondered if he knew anything about exploring mazes. He’d heard – what was it? – you keep a hand on one wall and just keep walking? But then he realised, all he had to do was follow Mrs Ting.

“I just follow the fire extinguishers,” she said.

“I’m sorry?”

“The fire extinguishers. I used to get lost – I mean it’s like a maze in here.”

“Er, yes.”

“So Mr Boht, he put fire extinguishers at all the junctions.”

“Was Mr Boht in the book trade?”

“Ooh, I don’t know, he never said.”

“When did he move here?”

“Must have been, well, it was just after our Lilly was born. And my Jimmy was still alive.”

“Jimmy?”

“My husband. He was an awful man, and I’m glad he’s dead.”

“Right.”

“1995 he died. So before that. A little before that.”

All the time they were talking they were walking. Mrs Ting was moving at a pace. She didn’t seem to be looking at the fire extinguishers. But he noticed that she was following their logic. Always taking a turn where one was placed.

They came out into what was clearly the middle of the maze. A large leather-topped desk and a chair. A sideboard. With a drinks tray and all the equipment to make tea and coffee, a kettle and the water container.

An enormous space, thought Klee. With just two chairs. Both of them for Boht. It didn’t look like he ever expected company.

He was following Mrs Ting at speed. But he was ready for a sit down. He was also interested to have more of a look around at the things on the shelves in front of the books that surrounded Boht’s desk – this was his office, wasn’t it?

But Mrs Ting didn’t seem to want to stop. She was sort of lightly jogging on the spot. “I was going to show you the back.”

“The back.”

“Yes, there’s a back door. He didn’t use it much. But if you’re staying here, you probably need to know where the back door is – you know, like, in case of” – she searched for a word and he realised that he didn’t have any good idea what that word might be – “emergency,” she said, eventually.

And off she went – past another fire extinguisher to her left. In the middle, he could see the roof. He realised that up to that point, he hadn’t seen it. The corridors of the bookshelves were covered in some kind of semi-translucent material – he guessed it was to protect the books. But it added to the murky experience of trying to find your way around the maze. Because there was no ceiling. There was just a roof. Mostly glass.

Now he was pretty comfortable that he’d got the fire extinguisher system for finding his way down. He didn’t feel the need to chase after Mrs Ting quite so closely, but he increased his speed when he heard her scream.

“Them bastards.”

“Mrs Ting.”

“I bet it’s them bastards next door. Them Germans!”

Of course he quickened his pace. The final corridor of books and bookshelves led him to an entrance hall. And to a set of double doors, which had clearly been jimmied or smashed open from the outside.

What was even weirder was that it looked like it had happened very recently. The splintered wood on the door jamb was bright and clean. Another clue was the two men clad in black who were running across the large lawn that the emergency exit doors led out to.

Ridiculously, they were in “Full burglar outfit.” Black tracksuit bottoms, black body warmers. Black balaclavas.

And climbing over the wall at the very end of the lawn.

Maybe Ernesto Klee hadn’t learned much from his time in the Met. But he had learned that if you were going to chase someone, it was a very bad idea to shout and let them know. They were gently trotting across the lawn – yes, the sound of Mrs Ting talking had probably spooked them. But it was only when Mrs Ting shouted “We’ll get you, you German bastards!” that they realised they’d actually been spotted and picked up their pace. Klee realised that his chances of catching them were now pretty slim. Especially because he realised, he knew the area hardly at all. He was also alarmed to see how quickly they were getting over the wall at the end of the garden. It was only when he reached it himself that he realised there were stone steps, like those in a stile, built into the wall. But – and he only really understood this when he reached the top – only on one side. Getting down the other side meant he was going to have to jump.

“I wondered what happened to you,” said Mrs Ting.

What had happened to him was that he’d taken the time to walk along the wall to a point where he thought he might have a chance at a soft-ish landing. He’d paused again. He’d realised immediately that he was wrong about the soft landing. Trying to console himself that he probably didn’t need both hips, he’d managed to limp into an upright position and looked both ways down the road that he’d found himself, covered in soil and leaf mould down one aching side, standing on. It was suburban semis in both directions. With no sign of any movement but in the middle distance the sound of the accelerator being floored in the kind of car that had deliberately not silenced exhausts.

Chapter 10 — Armour

“Somebody tried to break in.”
“Did they succeed?”

“No, but they tried to do it in the middle of the day.”

“Most of the locks are feeble.”
“Well, you’re the security consultant.”
“Will it be OK with the nephew if I get something a bit more – well a bit more anything – fitted? Something with a bit more oomph.”

“I’m guessing so. But maybe you should talk to him yourself.”

-------

“Mr Pausing assured me that you’re the best man for the job. And that paying you to stay in my uncle’s house is the best way of keeping it, and all of it’s things safe Mr Klee”
“That’s very kind of him.”

“But now, I hear that on the first day, that my uncle’s house has been burglarised – in broad daylight.”

Clients. That was one thing at least about being a copper. You didn’t really have clients. Well, when you were on the murder squad. There was this idea I suppose that you were avenging the death of the victim. And so, you could, possible say that that person, the dead person, was the client. But as a client, they were great. Because they didn’t interfere. They didn’t tell you how to do your job.

And of course, every now and then, a member of the public would tell you that they were paying your wages – as if they were the first person who’d thought of it. And yes, of course, is some sense, technically, you did work for them. But not in a sense that meant that you couldn’t, mostly, tell them to hop it, or, possibly something stronger if they were getting on your nerves.

But Jonathan Terpsichore – what the hell kind of name was that? Pronounced “Turps – ick – o’ree!” was a client that he couldn’t tell to hop it.

“I understand Mr Terpsichore, it is very disappointing. I was talking with Mr Pausing. And he thought that it might be better if I talked to you personally.”

“What time did this break-in happen?”
“Around mid-day.”
There was a pause.
“So, that’s what? Seven a.m. New York Time?”

“Yes.” Why on earth did that matter?
There was another pause.
“Okay.” As if that made sense – why did that make sense.

He had to assume that Terpsichore was looking at his, just as he was looking at Terpsichore. He’d shown him – at his insistence – the door.

He knew what he wanted to do to make things a bit more secure. And he knew who he wanted to do it. And if it were his own house. Or if it were a place that they’d been trying to look after on the job, it would have been sorted by now.

“And you don’t think we should call the police?”

Terpsichore looked frail. Klee realised that he must be about the same age as him. Maybe ten years older at most. It was difficult to get the measure of anyone over a video link, and he’d turned on a fake background – so there was no context. He imagined that his skin, if you were to touch it would be papery. He had blue eyes and sandy hair. The resting place for his mouth didn’t seem to be in a straight, symmetrical, neutral expression. He was wearing a business suit and a tie. On his top half, anyway, who knew what anyone was wearing under the desk these days. Wet suit? Stockings and suspenders – suit – of armour? Klee’s thoughts were drifting, wondering if ordinary Chinos often caused him a rash, and he’d only ever tried leather trousers – once! What the hell would iron pants be like?

“Mr Pausing said that he’d leave that to your judgement, and of course, if there were insurance, involved, but my uncle – my uncle didn’t believe in that kind of insurance.”

“Sweet Jesus holy fuck no! We’re not calling the police! That’s the whole point of this gig, is to avoid the police!” Is what Klee wanted to say.

But what he did say was.

“I wish it were the case that the police would pursue a matter like this Mr Terpsichore, but having been a policeman myself, I’m afraid, that all we’d really get out of the process is a crime report number.”

“Yes, I understand, it’s rather the same. Here in New York. So what do you propose.”
“I have an associate. Who specialises in securing,” - a pause – “addresses” – he was going to say crime scenes, murder scenes.

“But of course” he continued. There’s a cost.

“Yes, of course. How much are we talking about?”

“It might be several thousand.”
Now there was no pause, “I think, give the circumstances, that would be very good idea. What kind of thing would this involve.”
“Well, decent locks – probably a bolt for this back door, and some surveillance cameras.”
“If we had that, why would we need you?”
“Well…” He had a point, why did they need him? What good had he been so far? There he was pointing his phone at a massive villain-shaped hole in a door that – some security guard he was – he’d only found out about half an hour before. Not the hole! The door!

“My apologies Mr Klee, it’s the nature of my business to have to deal with aggressive and confrontational people all day long. And the temptation is to become aggressive and confrontational and, sad to say, I seem to spend all of my days, and most of my nights engaged in my business. And this tends to spill over into, family matters. It’s become a serious source of grievance for my wife.”

“That’s quite all right.”
Klee was very glad that he hadn’t been asked to justify his presence. Because wasn’t sure that he would have been able to. But then he’d started to get worried that “Turps” was going to start sharing his domestic problems. And that was something he hardly ever wanted anyone to do – even when it was his job to listen to them.

“So it’s ok for me to bring in my – associate? And fit some locks and some surveillance cameras.”
“Yes, it’s quite alright. In fact, I think it’s the right thing to do.”
“Righto, I’ll get right on it.”
“Oh Mr Klee”
“Yes, Mr Turps” he realised that might not be a great idea just calling him that in his head “– ick – O’ree?” he finished.
“Would it be possible to send me the links to the feeds from the surveillance?”

Oh great. A boss watching him at all times. Having to make sure he didn’t walk any where in his pants, or in a wet suit. Or a suit of armour.
“Yes, of course. That will be fine.”

Chapter 11 — Pine

A bar lock on the back door – so it can could only be opened from the outside.

A bar lock on the front double doors of the chapel. It took a while picking and pulling through the pews to reach it. That was the door Klee thought, that you’d walk through if were walking down the aisle and getting married here – people must have done that.

A new lock and an and extra lock on the side door to the chapel. And cameras. Cameras on the balcony in the chapel.

And then cameras in the organ loft. There was an organ loft! A different set of stairs behind a different, what looked like just a panel. Cameras in the organ loft pointing across at the balconies and down at the pews.

But what about the school room? The book maze? That’s what it was wasn’t it? A maze of books. A labyrinth of books. Well, one pounting tight on the back door – the one that had just been pretty much barred with a giant locked bar. The jimmied hole patched.

“I’ve had a bit of a walk around. It’s going to be big job. I’ve rigged nightly clubs, I’ve rigged, football grounds. I’ve never rigged a maze before. To be honest with you.”

Like all tradesmen that Klee used. Preston Vanz, came recommended by the London criminal fraternity.

It just took one call.

“Big G”
“Mr K”
“You used to have clubs in Birmingham didn’t I hear.”
“I have many regrets, in a long life.”

“And that’s one of them.”
“It is. They should have a giant sign at the Watford Gap services ‘Turn round now mate, you’re making a mistake.’”

“How did it happen?”
Bernie Gersten let out a long, low sigh.

“It’s a long story. It involved a woman, a poker game. And a bloke who fell in a canal – twice.”
Klee knew he’d be sitting in his office. Possibly one of the darkest spaces he’d ever been in his life. Especially that time, when it had looked like Bernie was going to have to kill him. That was all a misunderstanding. They’d sorted it out. They’d laughed about it later. Well, Bernie had laughed.

He imagined that long out of Bernie, sitting in his office. Was Bernie still smoking actually cigarettes. Now it seemed as antiquated as well – wearing a suit of armour. Was it smoke he was blowing out on that sigh? Or was it a vape now? No longer tobacco scented.

“When you needed locks changing, or cameras fitting, who did you use?”

“Dalton Vanz – I’ll send you a number. But he’s long retired. It’s his boy now. A right techno whizz kid. Or God! What’s his name. Preston! Another place that should have a warning label on the outside.”

“Not a big fan of the North then Mr G.”Bernie Gersten let out a long, low sigh.

“In London, you know where you are.”
And so does everybody else, thought Klee.

“You’re not setting up outside the M25 are you Mr K?”
“Don’t be daft.” Something happened in Klee’s chest, as if he’d just swallowed something icy and vinegary at the same time. Don’t worry, Bernie wasn’t going to tell anyone.

“It’s my old auntie, she still lives in a bungalow in Stirchley. Some junkies just tried to do over her place. In the middle of the night. She fought them off with with the Hoover – actually a Henry – but she doesn’t want to have to sleep with it next to her bed.”

What was the point of lying to Bernie G? One of the smartest villains he’d ever met.

“Well.” He said, obviously, now more curious, because he’d been lied to. Achieving, Klee realised the opposite of what Klee had intended. “You can’t be too careful.”

So Preston Vanz had essentially tripled te security of the place. And links to the new system had been sent to Mr Turps. But what to do about the maze?

“Tomorrow I can bring you a camera for every corner,” he said tucking into a piece of cake
nearly the size of his dread locked head. Mrs Ting had taken an instant shine to Preston. Which made Klee question his original idea that she was a racist. Maybe it was that she just didn’t like Germans? Or people she suspected of being Germans.

As Preston had worked, she’d pestered him with unrequested cups of tea. Getting the milk and sugar combination so exactly right on the third go that Preston had exclaimed on the third sip!

“Oh, that’s a good cup of tea Mrs Ting!” Ensuring the appearance of further cups and also cake.

What a day! Klee could see from the way that the sun was streaming in through the chapel windows that it was starting to set.

“I was thinking just for tonight Mr Klee, we could put just one three sixty camera above.” Preston pointed up through the mesh. He was sitting on the arm of the armchair at the centre of the maze, eating his cake.

“And then tomorrow I can put cameras, I don’t know – at every junction?”

“That sounds great,” said Klee. “But I don’t know you’re going to get up there”
“Well can’t he take the stairs?” Mrs Ting was taking away Preston’s plate and mug.

Klee was getting sick of saying “What stairs?” But he said it again.

In yet another cupboard was as spiral staircase which lead up to a walkway. Here’s where the lights were that lit the maze. And from up here, he could see the pattern of the maze. And the mesh that covered it.

It occurred to him that he could draw himself a map of the maze. Which somehow, made him feel more comfortable than relying on the fire extinguishers. The mesh was kept in place, along the top of every bookcase by a line of bricks. They weren’t house bricks. They seemed to be covered in rubber. They reminded Klee of something that he hadn’t seen in maybe forty or so years. The rubber covered bricks that they used to dive down to the bottom of pool and retrieve as part of their personal survival medals at the swimming baths.

Chapter 12 — Burger

A good night.

Maybe because he felt he could sleep a little more soundly after installing the locks and the cameras. Maybe because he’d got used to living in a tent, in a chapel, next to a maze. Maybe because the day preceding that night of uninterrupted unconsciousness had been absolutely exhausting. When was the last time he’d actually chased villains like that?

When was the last time he’d chased villains and jumped off a wall? One of the advantages of being in the Met was that there was always someone in uniform who you could send off to do the chasing.

No four forty-four wake-up call from his deepest, darkest fears. And there was even more good news. He’d found the shower! Not the dank mouldy cupboard on the stairs up to the balcony. No, beyond the library, there was a wonderful new bathroom and also a kitchen.

So, this morning, he’d walked through his maze – his maze! And showered, and then, making himself a coffee, he’d walked back as far as the centre, took a seat and took a minute to take stock.

You’re on the run from the Met. Or at least you think you are. There’s only one way to know for sure, and that would be to give them a chance to catch you.

You’ve been put in charge of a chapel full of STUFF! Paintings, cigarette cards, French art deco glass. And you’ve also been put in charge of a maze of books.

He had to spend most of the morning waiting in. For deliveries. One of the aspects of fleeing for your life in a, slightly, stolen lime green car in fear for your life from Europe’s, apparently largest and most efficient police force, is that you don’t have any time to pack.

So Ernesto Klee, in the quiet evening after all the kerfuffle the day before had ordered himself some pants and some socks and some t-shirts.

He didn’t trust on-line to deliver a pair of trousers that fitted. So he looked up the nearest Luke and Fletcher. Luke and Fletcher was the store where he always bought his trousers. When he’d been on the force, it was the place where he’d always bought his suits.

There was an out of town store on an industrial estate, not far from the chapel. But for some reason, that didn’t interest Klee.

There was a store in the centre of town. And he knew why he wanted to go there.

He wanted a bus ride, and he wanted a burger.

Sherlock Holmes had his pipe and his violin and therefore, it is to be deduced, my dear Watson, his despairing neighbours. Morse had his opera. Poirot had his tisanes, that didn’t even sound inviting in the books.

Klee had buses and burgers. He’d seen an interview once with a professor, some Nobel prize winner. And it was on some kind of youth show. Maybe what they call now an “Ask me anything” and, of course, somebody had asked this guy “Where do you get your ideas from?”

And, because obviously the kind of person who wins a Nobel prize, well, there’s a chance that he’s a bit of a nerd. He was very serious about the answer. “Well for me, it’s the three B’s” and he held up three fingers “Bus, bath and…” and Klee wondered if the third would be burger. But no, in this particular genius’s case, the third magic B was “Bed.”

Klee wasn’t sure he had any good ideas in bed. Yes, he knew how that sounded. And it was probably right. Terrors. Oh yeah. He had those. Frequently at four forty-four. Bad ideas? Like sleeping with Elaine Sketchley, definitely. Humiliating moments, well, he’d had a few. Where was this meandering thought going?

Bus. The bloke had nailed it with the bus. Upstairs and the very front if possible. It was hard not to slip into some kind of trance. It was hard not to be fascinated by what you could suddenly see over people’s fences that you couldn’t see at street level.

Bath? Maybe. Things had to be going really badly for Klee to run a bath. Klee was more of a shower man. But he’d had good ideas in the shower, certainly. Something about that moment when the water hit his feet. That was another quirk maybe about Klee. Maybe it was a good question to ask someone if you were getting to know them – when you get into the shower? Which bit of you do you get wet first? Klee hated showers with fixed heads, you sometimes got them in cheap hotels. Because he wanted to get his feet wet first. Always.

But he was disappointed when the famous Nobel prize-winning guy didn’t say burger. He’d seen some documentary about how the whole experience of walking into a burger restaurant – and it had been his favourite, Billy’s Burgers – was engineered to be easy, smooth and reassuring. And maybe that was it. Maybe it was that the food was the same every time. Klee never went for the new, tantalizing option.

He ordered the same thing every time. They’d changed the cheese in ‘93 and it had taken him a few years to get over that.

The bus ride had done its trick. He’d slipped into a reverie. He’d found himself in the centre of Birmingham. A shopping centre on top of a railway station connected to another shopping centre. Another maze. And he’d banged around it until he’d found Luke and Fletcher’s. He didn’t need to try them on. He knew their trousers fitted.

And so he’d rewarded himself with a burger in Billy’s Burgers. The whole morning he’d been in a bit of a turn yourself around, sort yourself out kind of haze. Occasionally he’d check his phone. Check the app that showed him the cameras. But then he’d sink down into, what he suspected might be a new routine.

Get the bus into town, do your bits and then order a Billy’s double bubble burger. But as Ernesto Klee took that first bite. He came out of his trance, as if he’d bitten into the burger and broken a tooth.

This single thought brought him to his senses, and made him finish his burger, that he normally liked to savour and eat slowly. This single thought made him pick up his bags with his new clothing, jump into a cab at the rank and shout out the address of the chapel that had been his home for the last 48 hours.

He thought he knew why the garage was empty.