those names you said?” he said to Vardy, who did not answer. “I don’t know whether the bloke was weird or what,” Billy said to Baron. He shrugged. “Some people who come see the squid are a bit …”
“Seen more like that recently?” Baron said. “The, ah, oddballs?” Vardy leaned forward and muttered something in his ear. The policeman nodded. “Any people getting unusually excited?”
“Squid geeks?” Billy said. “I don’t know. Maybe. There’s been a couple in costumes or weird clothes.” The woman made a note of something. He watched her do so.
“Alright, now tell me this,” Baron said. “Has anything strange been going on outside the museum recently? Any interesting leaflets being handed out, any pickets? Any protests? Have you clocked any other interesting bits of jewellery on any other visitors? I know, I’m asking as if you’re a magpie, all googly-eyed at shinies. But you know.”
“I don’t,” Billy said. “I don’t know. It has happened that we get nutters outside. As for this bloke, ask Dane Parnell.” He shrugged. “Like I said yesterday, I think he recognised the guy.”
“We would of course indeed like to have words with Dane Parnell. What with him and Mystery Pin Man seeming like they know each other and so forth. But we can’t.” Vardy whispered something else to him and Baron continued. “Because a bit like the specimen he was paid to look after, and indeed like Pin Man, Dane Parnell’s disappeared.”
“Disappeared?”
Baron nodded. “Whereabouts unknown,” he said. “No one on the phone. Give the dog a bone. Not at home. Why might he disappear, you might ask. We are very keen to have him help us with the old enquiries.”
“You spoken to him?” said the WPC abruptly. Billy jumped in his chair and stared at her. She put her weight on one hip. She spoke quickly, with a London accent. “You talk a lot, don’t you? All sorts of chatting you shouldn’t be supposed to.”
“What …?” Billy said. “We haven’t said more than ten words to each other since he started working there.”
“What did he do before that?” Baron said.
“I’ve got no clue …”
“Listen to him squeak!” The woman sounded delighted.
Billy blinked. He tried to take it in good humour, smiled, tried to get her to smile back, failed. “To be honest,” he said, “I don’t even like the bloke. He’s chippy. Couldn’t be bothered to say hello, let alone anything else.”
Baron, Vardy and the woman looked at each other in speechless conclave. They communicated something with waggled eyebrows and pouted lips, repeated quick nods.
Baron said, slowly, “Well if you should think of anything, Mr. Harrow, do please let us know.”
“Yeah.” Billy shook his head. “Yeah, I will.” He put up surrender hands.
“Good man.” Baron stood. He gave Billy a card, shook his hand as if the gratitude were genuine, pointed him to the door. “Don’t go anywhere, will you? We might want to have another chat.”
“Yeah, I think we will,” the woman said.
“What did you mean ‘Pin Man’s disappeared’?” said Billy.
Baron shrugged. “Everything and everyone’s vanishing, isn’t it? Not that he ‘disappeared’ really; that would imply he was ever there. Your visitors have to book and leave a number. We’ve called everyone you were escorting yesterday. And the gentleman with the sparkle on his lapel …” Baron tap-tapped the design. “Ed, he told your desk his name was. Right, Ed. The number he gave’s unregistered, and no one’s answering.”
“Hie thee to your books, Billy,” Vardy said as Billy opened the door. “I’m disappointed in you.” He tapped the paper. “See what Kooby Derry and Morry can show you.” The words were weird but weirdly familiar.
“Wait, what?” said Billy from the doorway. “What was that?” Vardy waved him away.
BILLY TRIED AND FAILED TO PARSE THE ENCOUNTER ON HIS BEWILDERED way south. He had not been under arrest: he could have left at any time. He had his phone out, ready to do a tirade for Leon, but again for reasons he could not put into words, he did not make the call.
Nor did he go home. Instead, full of an unending sense of being under observation, Billy went to the centre of London. From café to bookshop café, mooching through paperbacks on his way through too much tea.
He did not have a phone with Internet connection, nor did he have his laptop with him, so could not test his intuition that his own reveal the previous night notwithstanding, there would be no information about the squid’s disappearance in the news. The London