As Cute as Lace Pants

The toast pops up at the same time as the 'phone rings. Which shall I choose? I decide on the toast. When I do get round to answering the 'phone it's a voice I don't want to hear. Until a couple of years ago I was head teacher of a medium-sized primary school. The kids, the flaked paint and the leaking roof, the bloody-minded parents and the even bloodier-minded staff were not much but they were mine! Then a whispering campaign took me to a very dark place. Ron, the dismembered voice on the telephone, had actively coveted my job. It took me months to take the knives out of my back and there are still a couple of his in there, festering. Now he's on the line begging me to come and have dinner with him.
"How's Wendy?" he asks over insipid fish and chips.
"She left me for a part-time warlock from Hartlepool."
"Oh!" he says. "What about the dog?"
"He left too."

Ron arrived late and tells me some tale about aggressive parents and loud-mouthed dinner-nannies. It's most probably an act for my benefit: feel sympathy for him, think how his machinations have saved me from all that.
"It's Helena, she's gone missing!" So, the personal matter that was so urgent is his daughter. The so called light-of-his-life has broken free, at last. If ever there was a girl destined to break free it's Helena. She's the sort who would seduce boys from the moment she could walk. She just has to sway into a room and men gasp. Blond and voluptuous and surprisingly angelic-looking she hides her predatory nature well enough until she sees something (or someone) she wants and then she's all curves and dangerous intentions.
"Elizabeth was wondering if you could help us look for her." Elizabeth, Ron's wife, is a lighter, thinner version of her daughter: an English rose with soft skin, a gentle voice and sexy in her own willowy, comfortable sort of way. She's also very intelligent and I've often wondered why she ever married such a cardboard arse-hole as Ron.
"What makes you think I can help?"
"Helena always liked you; you two got on so well with each other." Helena got on a little too well with any man who wasn't her father. "Besides, you've got time on your hands now and Elizabeth... and I... thought it might do you good... to get out and about... draw you out of yourself..."
"You don't want me; you want a Private Dick," I said. "I know they cost but then so does everything these days." Mention money and Ron sweats.
"You'd be a lot more discrete. You were always clever at discovering things." True, but that was when I was a head master and supposedly sane!

No one knows anything. I spend two days talking to all her so-called friends: insipid, adolescent boys with serious acne; self-centred girls, some with that archetypal chip on their shoulders and/or Croydon Facelifts... (I try to warn them about traction alopecia but will they listen...)
"Did she have a regular boyfriend?" No one would say. Blond-moment Sophie giggled when I asked her but that was just Sophie. Wendy smirked and looked coy but without the necessary adult "style" her act looked tawdry. Anita said there might be someone but she didn't know who and Paula mentioned a bit of rough on a Honda.
"How do you know it was a Honda?" I asked.
"I just know these things," she said and smiled enigmatically.
"And you know he was a bit of rough, how?"
"I just do!" Whatever happened to gymslips and copies of "Bunty"?
None of the boys knew anything. Roger felt peeved that he wasn't asked to look for her and Kevin only grunted. Darren thought there might be somebody but it wasn't anyone at Sixth Form College. He did say she liked to drink a lot. "Had a good head for vodka. Really wicked the way she knocked it back!"
Alcohol; that was as good a place to start as anywhere, but as far as Helena was concerned that would mean pubs, or clubs. Not for her the illicit six-pack of "Fosters" in the park or a bottle of "Lambrini" shared with friends in the back of a Peugeot. No, it would be strut her stuff on some bloke's arm and bugger the licensing laws. Even without a doctored identity card she'd probably pass for twenty-three... it was there in her eyes: a world-weary look that implied she knew it all... and more. What I couldn't understand was the "bit of rough". Helena, in my experience, favoured "posh".

Durham on a Friday night does loose some of its charms. Gone are the tourists and the two over-dressed foreign women selling "The Big Issue", gone are most of the carefree students with their rosy cheeks and plum-in-the-mouth voices. Town and gown don't always mix well, especially when the local lads creep out of the woodwork.
I'd done the pubs and restaurants down Claypath and in the Market Square. I'd walked up Saddler Street as far as the Cathedral and then down Silver Street, over Framwelgate Bridge to the "Coach and Horses". I'd flashed Helena's picture around the bars, amongst he customers and staff, but no one knew anything. I'd received the odd look of sympathy from those who thought I was her father and the occasional hard stare from those who thought I was a pervert. It was all just one big zero.
I left the sad revellers in their pursuit of a lost weekend and faced the cold wind that swept down the Wear valley. There was another pub round the corner and more on the way up to the station but my feet ached and I wanted a sit down. It had taken a lot out of me: to go and meet strangers and ask them questions.
"Hey, you!" The voice was aggressively local and sounded like brown sauce poured over hot coals. "You! The poncy one with the picture... what you want?"
There were three of them; hooded training tops, denim jeans and bald heads. "Any of you own a Honda?" I asked. Mistake! Big mistake!
"Who wants to know?" He put his face close to mine and spat the question at me. An overpowering smell of farmyard manure mingled with engine oil caught in the back of my throat. I coughed.
"I'm just trying ti help this girl's parents...help them look for their daughter, that's all." Considering it had taken me all my courage and a couple of haloperidol tablets to even set foot in a pub this confrontation was edging me very near to a panic attack.
"Raelly, being a goody-goody are we, a nosy bleeder who'll find it don't pay to ask questions. Dean..." he turned to one of the others..."Dean, give it me, now!"
In the soft, amber glow of the street lights I saw what "it" was: a Stanley knife!
"What you know eh... eh?" The point of the blade was designing a new road system on my throat.
"For God's sake Shaun, man, do the fuckin' business and let's be off."
"Shut up you stupid fucker!" For a moment we were suspended there; aggressor and victim caught in a slaughter-house moment. "You stop looking for the lady, you hear me, or these fine gents 'ere will finish off what I start tonight and I won't leave 'em much... see! And just to remind you I'll carve my initials on your big, fat arse!" There was a sudden pain as his knee shot into my groin. I find pain ion the bollocks is always a humbling experience. I toppled to the floor. The other two pinned me down while Shaun kicked me almost senseless. Thoughtful of passers-by, they'd dragged me into a small alley so I was guaranteed not to upset anyone with my blood or any other bodily fluids. Close to my face was someone's regurgitated take-away... funny what you notice when foetal and being kicked to death.
The pummelling suddenly stopped. A few expletives penetrated my cocoon of pain. There were running feet and I fought to keep myself from being sick but the battle was lost before it even started...I didn't care. I passed out.

A strong light shone into my eyes. There were people moving around me and I could make out voices. There was a tiny sting in my arm and then darkness returned.

The room was clean and neutral, and smelled of vomit. Someone was being sick and it wasn't me this time.
"MR. PHIPPS! We're not being a good boy are we!" The voice was loud and the question rhetorical. The owner of the voice was blond and pink. The pink lady came towards me and asked how I was. I didn't know.
"That's alright then," said the pink lady. "Doctor'll be along in a little while." There was the sound of an eruption from the other trolley. "Mr Phipps! How could you!" The vomit went all over the floor.

I had several cracked ribs and a detached retina in my left eye. It's marvellous what a pair of steel-toed work boots can do the frail human flesh, The ribs were left alone apart from a crepe bandage and a large pot of painkillers for whenever the pain was unbearable, which was just about every time I moved...or breathed... but the retina would need laser treatment, later. I was free to go.
"Your friends are still waiting for you," said the pink blancmange. Friends? What friends? I asked. "They brought you here." Pink lady swept out of the room and out of my life... I mourned our parting. A porter wheeled me out to the waiting room but I was finding it hard to focus... there was a bandage over my left eye and my glasses had been broken.

My "friends" were waiting for me Reception: a mountain of a man with dainty feet and a mass of unruly blond hair; and an angel. The angel spoke first. "Are you fit and fine?" she asked. The voice was molasses and dark chocolate ice cream all in one and came from somewhere deep within a mass of dark hair that fell over her face and cloaked her shoulders. The mountain smiled and guided the wheelchair. Later, I discovered they were Ukranian athletes come to Gateshead for some international even and were in Durham for the night...Lucky me! "We were worried about you," said Victoria, the angel. They'd saved my life and I was very, very grateful

We sat in the "Cafe Rouge" next to Framwelgate Bridge. It was the following afternoon and they'd accompanied me to the scene of my assault. I was curious to see it in daylight. There was little to see apart from the regurgitated take-away and my blood. Victoria had adopted me and she was very definite about that. She fussed while man-mountain Valeriy became my self-appointed bodyguard. Treating them to a "Thank you" luncheon was the least I could do.
"Why did they attack you?" Victoria asked, her mouth delicately full of bread. I told her about looking for Helena. Valeriy laughed when she translated and I could have sworn he said "Philip Marlow". Victoria also laughed and her joy lit up the room. "Valeriy asks is this Helena as cute as lace pants?" Perhaps, but then so was she.

From then on they went everywhere with me, even home. It was late in the afternoon and I was tired but they insisted on being there: "...to keep you safe."

I awoke in the dark to the smell of food: something called Varenyky... a Ukrainian dish akin to ravioli. Victoria was competing the following day and they wanted me to go and watch. I'd have gone to Timbuktu to see her compete but I didn't tell her that. Gateshead International Stadium was packed; the crowds partisan and I took a perverse pleasure in cheering for Victoria. She came a very close third and sought me out in the crowd and smiled and waved.
Back at my house I prepared them dinner. "I've made pasta for you. I hope that's okay?"
"It is perfection; we eat much pasta... for the energy... but never before with salmon and a cream sauce." Three clean plates later and we were eating cheese and drinking coffee when Valeriy wanted to know if he could help find Helena.
"He reads the Philip Marlow stories," explained Victoria.
"Hmm... and he even looks like Moose Malloy," I said.

I had two names now: Shaun and Dean. I also had a description, of sorts. Back at the "Coach and Horses" I had more success as Valeriy stood behind me looking intimidating. People now seemed eager to tell me what I wanted to know... Shaun might live on a farm (or might not) and possibly own a motorbike, which could be red or might be blue. But Shaun is into "things" most people didn't want to talk about.
"Go and have a talk with Little Malki," said one of the old gadgies with Guinness froth on his upper lip. "He'll know."

Little Malki was to be found at the local "Gala Bingo" trying to seduce an elderly widow. He was a bit wall-eyes and bow-legged ("..from me racin' days") and his tombstone teeth were few and far between. "She'll be eatin' out of me 'and by midnight and I'll be eatin' me breakfast out on hers come mornin'"
The gist of Little Maliki's information was that Shaun wasn't a nice person but we knew that already. He did, however, provide a couple of possible addresses. "You'll need that big marra on yorn," he added as way of a parting gift. "Our Shaun's a real rough un once he's crossed."

"Valeriy will be your bodyguard." Victoria had explained everything to her gargantuan companion even after I'd tried to make it clear it sound as dangerous as I could. There was no putting him off. He just smiled and nodded and patted me on thye shoulder. "Cute as lace pants," he said. "You seen my Velma?"
No matter what I said or how stern I tried to be Victoria insisted on coming too. "How will you talk with Valeriy?" she asked, which was a valid point.

Little Malki had mentioned a couple of farms out towards Lanchester... "Worth a look," he'd said. The first one proved to be fruitless but the second, a ramshackle collection of buildings in various stages of decay, was more promising. It lay at the end of a long and winding track, hidden amongst trees and sheltered from the wind-driven, salt-smelling rain that came in from the North Sea.
About a dozen cars and four-by-fours were parked in the yard and lent against a wall was the Honda. The old farmhouse was dark and eyeless and as welcoming as a winter's graveyard. It was only when we'd turned a corner that we could hear the sound of men shouting and laughing. From close by a dog barked; not the usual collie-sound of a working farm but a deep-throated threat... something primeval.

A chink of light escaped from a sacked-up window. Close-to the noise was from another, darker age: men baying for blood; a squeal of extreme pain drowned out by a loud roar of delight.

Peeping under the sacking I saw a Hogarth print come to life: "The Rakes Progress" in all its horror. Illuminated by hurricane and Tilly lanterns the hollow-faced men and rotund bookies
did their business. Rough and ready country lads jostled with oily, city types placing bets and calling the odds. Others stood trying to prepare their dogs: ear-chewed and scarred terriers for the most part; stockily-built killers. The air stank of blood and sweat, tobacco and fusty straw.
"We need the police," I whispered to Victoria as I cleaned the dust off my spare pair of glasses.
"You go and get them while we wait here."
"No!" I said but she wasn't listening.
"Yes... you go now!"

I had to make my way through bramble bushes and gorse to reach a sufficient height for my mobile to work. A police team would arrive soon, I was assured.
Outside the barn there was no sign of Valeriy or Victoria. Inside the barn the noise had ceased. Risking a peep under the sacking I saw them both... surrounded by angry and agitated men.
"Well, if it ain't Sir bloody, fuckin' Galahad and the fairy princess." Shaun had progressed from the Stanley knife to a razor-sharp bayonet. "Now lads," he said to the assembled crown. "I fink we can offer you a bit of a special tonight... hows about it Roman style as we've got Russell Crowe here, eh?" There was laughter from some and mutterings from others.
"Don't be bloody stupid man!" said on of the crowd but Shaun merely pointed his blade for his audience to be silenced.
Victoria was tied to a post at one end of the pit while Shaun organized some of the dogs at the other end. All eyes were on Victoria and I took the opportunity to creep in an make my way to the front of the crowd.

Without warning Valeriy pushed his captors aside and jumped into the pit shouting about his Velma and I barged into Shaun who tumbled over the pit wall and became entangled with two irate pit-bull terriers.Valeriy kicked a third into the crowd where the dog, no doubt in pain and in confusion lashed out at the nearest human he could find. There were screams when a fourth dog joined in. The spectators panicked and ran for the only two exits and into the waiting arms of the police. Even so, a few escapes.

Did we find Helena? No! She'd left the day before for London on the arm of a wealthy City trader's son. That was something I would leave to Ron. Me? I retired home hurt. Victoria insisted on becoming my live-in nurse, which was nice. One can become rather fat on a diet of Varenyky... but very content, especially with someone as affectionate as Victoria. As for Valeriy, he smiled at a little Irish nuse whilst receiving treatment for a dog bite and the two were never seen again!