Bog: A Thriller

By Phil Gerraud

Wilf Anthony Gaugain has little to be happy about in his life. He's a third-rate journalist with no job satisfaction. In the throes of middle age and a failed marriage, he struggles to kick his life back on track.

When Gaugain witnesses a brutal crime, he views it as a career opportunity and dives headlong into a reckless investigation. He soon ends up in the middle of a plot where nothing is safe.

In the gloomy, rainy streets of Capital City, Gaugain fights to dig his way out, while at the same time he strives to cope with the remnants of his devolving life.

 

[First published in 2015. Revised edition 2022]

• Language: English
• Publisher: Phil Gerraud
• Release date: Jan 10, 2022
• ISBN: 9781519952929

Phil Gerraud

Phil Gerraud was born in southern England. He lives on the Continent now, where he works as an English teacher. Visit www.philgerraud.com Twitter: twitter.com/philgerraud Facebook: www.facebook.com/PhilGerraudAuthor

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Prologue

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My name is Wilfred Anthony Gaugain—Wilf for all those people who love me. I’m seventy and a newspaperman. Well, I used to be ...

First of all, I’d like everybody to say my surname correctly. Please don’t make it rhyme with either chagrin or migraine. I think my father’s great-grandfather came from an unknown handful of thatched houses near Charleville-Mézières—at least that’s what my old man would say. Please imitate the way a Frenchman pronounces the French surname Gauguin. Just like Paul Gauguin, the famous artist. This is a paradox because I can’t draw a straight two-inch line from A to B, and if I drew a cow, you couldn’t tell it for sure from a chicken. Like it or not, that’s my family name—Gaugain. For better or for worse.

I’m a newspaperman, as I said, but being a journalist wasn’t what I intended to be when I stopped shitting my nappies. Like everybody, I had my plans for the future. I started off early. At the age of six, fascinated by some mysterious chalk signs on a tablecloth, I decided to be a tailor. But I ended up as a schoolteacher as it was the only job that could give me a decent salary and a peaceful bourgeois life.

Twenty years later I quit—or rather, I was sacked. Was it because I finally had the guts to tell my headmaster that he was a tosser? Or was it because I realized I paid too much attention to young girls’ legs, and I was scared a nymphet on heat could take advantage of that? One way or another, I had already decided to quit when I got the sack.

When you are jobless and what you can do best is write half a sentence without making any spelling mistakes, you consider becoming a writer. And I worked on my first novel for a month—over ten hours a day, all sweat and blood. Something serious about crime and politics. Unfortunately, I had to bin it because I’d messed up the dichotomy between good and evil.

So, I became a newspaperman. I wrote obituaries at first, then Chinese recipes. And soon after that, my problems sprang up like boils. I wished for more, and God was there to help me. God is always around when you’d rather he wasn’t.

I’m seventy, as I said, and I should be like all those normal granddads out there. I shouldn’t have any worries in the world apart from my kidney stones or my prostate. I should spend my afternoons in the park teaching my grandkids to ride their bikes, and cook roast beef for the Sunday family reunions. Do you know how long it is since I saw my daughter, Eve? She was seventeen when I vanished. She might be a wife now. She might have children. I’ll never know. I should have stood by her like a good father ...

Many years ago I stuck my nose into something fishy, and I’ve been running for it ever since. But sooner or later they’ll find me. They don’t like being talked about. They want us to swallow all the crap they say without reacting. Yes, I stuck my nose into their dirty business, and every word I’m writing here is the bloody truth. Believe it or not.

1

Ensalada de Pollo

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Everything began by chance. Mid-October, a lifetime ago. Samuel Loblanco, the Daily Watchman editor-in-chief, called me into his office, an austere room on the tenth floor of the paper’s headquarters, overlooking Battersea Gardens. Loblanco had thick grey hair, a Stalin moustache, and a smelly paunch despite expensive French colognes. He was always wearing a white shirt, sleeves rolled up, and a red tie. I couldn’t stand him because he mispronounced my surname with shameless tenacity—making it rhyme with migraine. So, he called me one mid-October morning, a year after Fabienne had dumped me.

Gaugain, he said, your Chinese recipes are good, but you could do better, of course.

You bet!

I didn’t know Chinese chowder existed.

I didn’t know either.

How did you find it out?

I shrugged. Ninety-five per cent of my recipes were made-up rubbish, but nobody had ever complained, which meant that no Chinese had bothered to read them. Once a lady even wrote in to thank the Watchman for publishing them. She said those exotic concoctions had an aphrodisiac effect. Her husband’s dick had started working after a lifetime’s impotence.

Anyway, Loblanco continued, you should try your hand at something less, say, threadbare ... Latin American cuisine, for example. ‘Exploring Latin America: What You Have Never Tasted Before!’ It would be great for our Sunday pull-outs.

Yes. Great. That would put me out: I’d have to update all my culinary fakes, and I didn’t care about Latin America—not that I did about China.

Do you know that Latin American restaurant in Factory Street, West Docks? Loblanco didn’t wait for my reply. "Its name’s the Emerald Parakeet. My brother-in-law went there two weeks ago. He said he had a superb ensalada de pollo. And, believe me, he’s a picky guy, and when he says superb, we must take his word for it."

A superb ... what?

I had a better grasp of French: Ton derrière est un chef-d’oeuvre!

A chicken salad, Loblanco said. Strange, isn’t it? You’d expect something sophisticated. In fact, it was such a feast of flavours and nobody had any idea what it was made of!

That chicken salad had turned him on. What would he say if he was bragging about an extravagant quickie?

Go down to the Emerald Parakeet, he concluded. Talk to the owner, Mr. Pelago. Get some new ideas. I want to have ten top-class Latin American recipes ready for publication by the weekend.

Good. It was Wednesday, and I could only think about tequila and salt, which wasn’t enough for starters.

2

The Emerald Parakeet

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The Emerald Parakeet was in a building which once was a warehouse for imported coffee and spices in the West Docks. Rumour had it that Julius Pelago Luna had bought it for a song when the company that owned it had gone bankrupt, and he had turned it overnight into a shrine for all enthusiasts of Latin American cuisine.

At first sight it looked like a seafront hovel. When you went in, you were not disappointed: it was a seafront hovel, but with class. Pelago had made it resemble Long John Silver’s ship. A cage full of stuffed parakeets hanging from a beam over the counter accounted for the place’s name.

The room was large enough for some fifty tables, but only three had customers although it was well past midday. A young waitress met me. She must have been twenty, or at least a few years older than the students I used to teach. Lovely Asian features; not very tall, but with a sinuous body; long straight hair and well-shaped eyebrows. I told her who I was and that I’d like to talk to her boss. Without saying anything, she pointed him out to me. A short, thin, bald man behind the counter. His weird moustache made him a caricature of a busy raccoon.

Pelago shook my hand, smiling. His hand was moist and lifeless, and he smiled with the same efficiency as a constipated bugger during an unsuccessful sitting. I told him why I was there.

Pelago frowned. Is that all? I mention the Daily Watchman, a super-important paper nationwide, and this constipated little bloke only gives me a frown?

Oh, it’s an important paper, he added soon afterwards.

That’s what people say.

I feel honoured.

Who wouldn’t be?

Well, sir, I must admit ... I’m a reserved man, and journalists make me uncomfortable ...

I didn’t understand why he was telling me that, but I didn’t care. Despite his phony English accent, he looked harmless. I only wanted some bloody ideas and I would leave him alone for keeps.

You’re right, I said. Journalists are all tossers anyway.

Pelago didn’t get my humour, and his awkward smile faded a little. I didn’t like his high-pitched voice and his raccoon moustache. I didn’t like his fried-onion breath either. This place was his kingdom, and I was only an intruder who had tried to be funny, but he looked worried.

What would you like me to tell you? he asked.

I’m fine with everything.

You shouldn’t be, he said, shaking his right forefinger to tell me off. It was a joke, but a fart would have been more amusing. We weren’t in a restaurant along the Champs-Élysées, but that small bugger was trying to pose as a culinary-art philosopher.

It’s a matter of life and death, I said.

I see, he said, even though I knew he didn’t know what the hell I meant. What about something with avocado?

I’m fine with everything, I repeated.

In a corner on a high shelf an old TV was on. The twelve o’clock news was well underway. The usual heap of crap: the assassination of an MP in a banana republic somewhere, a bank hold-up in Cornhill (Capital City’s business district), a World Youth Gathering in Rome from October 30 to November 1 ... Christ! It’s a fortnight away. Why bother right now?

One more thing, Pelago said, after fifteen minutes and five or six of his culinary jewels.

I could imagine what he was about to say: Please remember to publish my name and my restaurant’s in bold capitals and golden ink.

Don’t worry, I said before he could add anything. Your authorship will be stated correctly.

Quite the contrary. I’m a reserved man.

Don’t you need publicity? Everybody needs it.

I’m a frugal man, he said.

I shrugged. For all I cared, I could have attributed that heap of rubbish to an alien from Andromeda.

You know best, I said.

Pelago nodded and smiled. Oh Jesus! His smile was so disgustingly professional, but we were not along the Champs-Élysées, and there was nothing to be smiling at.

What’s on the menu today? I asked.

3

The Midget and the Man-Mountain

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I don’t know why I asked that. I did it before thinking. I didn’t like the place and I didn’t like Pelago, and for Chrissake I wanted to leave. Now, after so many years, I think it was a sign from hell. I don’t believe in hell or heaven, but there must have been some supernatural power behind my decision. I’ll never forget that lunch as long as I live.

I’ll give you my best table, Pelago said.

He gave me a window table overlooking Pier 18. The sea was purple outside, now and then flashing green and amaranth in the pale midday sun. I sat down and relaxed, watching the young Asian waitress flying around.

When she walked up to my table, I ordered a steak and mixed vegetables. I wasn’t keen on trying one of Pelago’s top-class dishes. I didn’t trust his imagination at all.

The waitress came back in ten minutes, bringing my lunch. She smiled and walked away.

The news was now dealing with the Cornhill robbery. A blue-eyed blonde was interviewing the witnesses. A man with a Marilyn Monroe mask on had broken into a WestNat Bank branch at nine o’clock that morning. After shooting a security guard in the head, he had grabbed as much as he could and vanished on a motorbike into the rush-hour traffic.

It was a nice piece of news crap to deal with. That blue-eyed bitch on the screen—how old could she be? Twenty-five? Twenty-six? Definitely over twenty years younger than me, and with already something tough to handle in her career. Look at me instead. Sitting in that shitty restaurant, trying to make up some credible culinary rubbish. Life is so unfair.

By the time I had finished my steak and veg, there were more customers. At a table across the room, two weird guys were eating some revolting yellowish stuff. Technically speaking, they were guys; in fact, they were two fairy-tale freaks. One of them was an Asian midget, while the other a mountain of a man, bald-headed, seven foot tall at least. They were eating away with brutal determination, no words exchanged. They must have had loads of disturbing things on their minds.

Out of the blue they started bickering. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but I saw the midget pull a piece of paper out of his pocket, shake it in front of the other’s face, and then slam it on the table. The man-mountain sprang to his feet. The midget’s forefinger flew into the air to threaten the end of the world. The man-mountain turned away, and, head down, stomped out. A silly tiff, I thought and ordered some rum.

Meanwhile, the TV was showing pictures of Rome and St. Peter’s Square. Two million people, a silky voice said, were expected to attend the three-day youth convention. Two million people? Bullshit! Journalists always make mountains out of molehills. People must know is their motto, and so they make up things to help them know better and faster.

When the waitress arrived with my rum, everything happened. It was sudden and unexpected. The moment she was about to put the bottle on the table, the man-mountain stormed back into the restaurant, a gun in his hand. Without hesitation, he headed for the midget’s table, shot him in the chest, and dashed off again.

4

Professional Chance

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In a second, the Emerald Parakeet was mayhem, but I stayed glued to my chair, unable to grasp the implications of what was happening.

Shit! I muttered and gawked at the rum spilled on the table when the waitress had dropped the bottle, at the people scurrying out, at the slithering snake of blood on the floor. The rum, the people’s faces, and the blood had the same unearthly colour. Cheap rum, unknown people, useless death.

Don’t call the police, Pelago said.

But it must have been too late. Somebody already had their mobile at their ear.

Please don’t call the police, Pelago repeated.

Words from a deformed dimension. Yet words that switched me on and made me see my professional chance. I sprang into action. That impetuosity of mine still keeps surprising me whenever I think about it—even now, after so many years. I can be described as a lazy, predictable, and chicken-hearted bloke. Fabienne, my ex-wife, used to point it out. Just that stuff a wife usually says to the man she’s so fond of ...

Anyway, I jumped to the spot where the midget was lying lifeless, with a tiny hole in his faux-silk shirt. In a jiffy, I slipped into my pocket the piece of paper he’d been shaking in the air a few moments earlier—it was an envelope. I searched him. He had a fat wallet and a small diary in his inside pocket. I ignored the wallet, but the diary looked inviting and I took it too.

Dead? Pelago asked behind me.

Dead.

I’m ruined.

I thought he was joking. That picturesque crime event would add to the place’s fame. Most people want that. But Pelago looked sincere in his despair, and I couldn’t stand it.

Are you out of your mind? I said. This place will be crawling with customers in no time. Everybody will want to see where the body fell. They’ll come here like flies to a dunghill. They’ll even want to eat that yellowish stuff those two freaks were eating.

Pelago stared at me, bewildered, biting his lower lip. A rat caught in a rainstorm.

Please bring me another bottle of rum, I said. No Bacardi this time.

And I sat down back at my table and waited for the police to roll up.

5

Eyewitness

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From the Emerald Parakeet I phoned Loblanco.

A Gargantua has gunned down a dwarf here, I said. I want this case.

What’s that? A joke? I don’t pay for jokes, Loblanco said.

Come down here and ask this undersized chap why his white shirt has magically turned dark red.

Loblanco mumbled something I didn’t catch, then added, But you’re a recipe man. I don’t think—

Latin American food makes me sick. I want this case. I’m an eyewitness. Don’t let McLea stick his nose in.

A few seconds’ silence. Loblanco was pondering.

Okay. But if you fail, you’re fucked, he said, and rang off.

Leslie McLea popped in all the same. A pale yellow shirt, a camel-hair blazer, and perfectly ironed maroon trousers. Ever so spruce, clean-shaven, sweet-smelling, and with a supercilious smile carved on his face. McLea must have had a telepathic helmet or something, for he always knew everything about anything right away. But he was gay and another twat who mispronounced my surname without remorse. For Chrissake, I don’t ask much. It’s important people say your name correctly. It’s a sign of respect.

Leslie, beat it! This is my territory, I told him.

I thought— he said.

Don’t think. Leave me alone.

I didn’t like him, and I wanted him to know. He despised me in return, but he didn’t do it because I was snatching that murder case from him, the Watchman senior crime reporter, but because he knew I needed that case. I was desperate.

McLea smoothed his long wavy hair and walked away, looking down on me. I felt no bigger than an earthworm.

Where’s Leslie? Lieutenant Jude Tawbasky asked when the police got there and I introduced myself.

Day off. His poodle’s got the runs.

Tawbasky glared at me.

I was here when it happened, I added. This case is mine.

McLea is a smart arse, but he’s good. You don’t even dare, he said, and turned to the minute body in its mire of blood.

Lieutenant Jude Tawbasky was another massive bloke who liked to sweat buckets even if it was freezing cold. But unlike Loblanco, he didn’t appreciate expensive colognes. However, Tawbasky must have had a good heart hidden somewhere in that flabby mass of lipids, because he helped me somehow. The dead Asian midget, he told me, was Tommy Wong, nicknamed Tick, the owner of a cheap hotel in South New Macau, and a pimp. I had already heard of him and his place, a rendezvous for penniless weirdos. His murderer, that king-size freak, was Oleg Ivashenko, his Russian associate and bodyguard all in one.

He did a great job, Tawbasky said, inspecting Tick’s chest. One bullet right in his heart. Clean and effective.

So you think— I said.

No, I don’t.

Sorry?

"Now do as Leslie McLea would do: go back to your headquarters and write your fucking piece. I’ve got some