by Greg Keen
‘You seem to have turned things around.’
Dervla smiled as though I’d made an elementary error. ‘When I wake up, the first thing I think about is getting wrecked,’ she said. ‘I just chose not to do it today, and I’ll try not to do it tomorrow.’
‘One step at a time?’
‘I know it’s a cliché, but that’s all you can do.’
‘Getting back to Harry,’ I said, ‘did the two of you ever visit fetish clubs?’
‘Why d’you ask?’
‘Rocco said that she used to enjoy that kind of thing. And she may have met this mystery man at La Cage.’
No reaction on Dervla’s face at the specific mention of the Mayfair club. Unless you counted a protracted yawn.
‘Harry suggested it a few times, but it wasn’t my thing.’
‘Could she have gone without you?’
‘Probably. Why are you interested in La Cage particularly?’
‘I’m pretty sure Harry went there the last night she was alive.’
‘Have you checked the place out?’
‘Not yet.’
Dervla rubbed her index finger over an orange stain on the cratered surface of the pine table. ‘How did you find out about the two of us?’ she asked.
‘Harry mentioned it to Rocco and he passed it on to me.’
She winced. ‘That means he’ll have told the police, then.’
‘Not necessarily. They’d be knocking on your door by now if he had. I’d be more worried about him giving the story to the papers. Rocco’s fairly money-orientated.’
‘That’s worse,’ Dervla said. ‘Mind you, the bastards usually ask for a comment before they print whatever bullshit they’ve invented.’
‘Fingers crossed he’s kept his mouth shut, then.’
It would be odd if it were true. Rocco had reason to keep quiet while Harry was alive, not after she’d died. Perhaps he had another motivation to keep her fling with Dervla to himself.
‘Remind me how you got the gig with Frank?’ Dervla asked.
‘We knew each other a long time ago. He saw my name in the paper and gave me a call. That was before he knew Harry was dead.’
‘He’s a friend of yours?’
‘Not really. Until last week we hadn’t spoken to each other in years.’
Dervla stifled a second yawn. ‘D’you mind if we call it a day, Kenny?’ she said. ‘The coffee’s wearing off. If I don’t get some sleep, I’ll keel over.’
‘Of course not.’
Dervla switched the lights off and we headed towards the studio door. ‘Where are you going now?’ she asked.
‘To see a man about my drinking problem.’
FIFTEEN
The cabbie spent the time between Shoreditch and King’s Cross banging on about the iniquities of Uber and how he was struggling to make ends meet. All I had to do was chip in with the occasional ‘Diabolical’ or ‘Shouldn’t be allowed’ and I could devote most of the journey to processing my conversation with Dervla.
That Harry had threatened her physically didn’t add up to a lot in my book. Lots of people promise all manner of recriminations when they’re dumped. Usually all they end up doing is getting shitfaced and changing their Facebook status. Of much greater interest had been the new man Harry had claimed to be involved with.
I wasn’t convinced that it had simply been to make Dervla jealous. Had that been the aim then Harry would surely have invented a fictitious woman. And if there was a mystery man in her life, why hadn’t she told Frank about him? If Harry was as desperate to please him as Dervla and Rocco had indicated, a suitable replacement for her estranged husband would have gone down a treat.
Unless he wasn’t suitable, of course.
My initial impulse had been to put the mystery man and the book inscription together and make the mystery man equal Callum Parsons. Following up a gormo like Rocco with a bloke who had publicly called his ex-business partner a fraud, an idiot and a bully was hardly going to get Harry a big tick and a V. good from her old man. Dervla hadn’t liked my theory, largely as it was predicated solely on the inscription. Added to which, Rocco and Callum weren’t the only candidates Frank would have considered beyond the pale. Most men hold their daughters in high regard, and he was no exception.
Were it not for Farrelly’s promise of dire consequences should the police make an arrest, I might have given Standish a call. But even if I had been prepared to give the DI a head start, what could I tell him? At the very least I owed it to myself to check out Callum Parsons before the constabulary started knocking on his door.
The disgruntled cabbie dropped me outside a terraced Victorian house on the west side of the Euston Road. Plan B’s sign hung at an angle from the wall. A broken window on the ground floor had been patched with cardboard. The front door was on the latch. I pushed it open and entered. At the end of a gloomy hallway stood a large desk. Behind it a blonde in her thirties was growing out a Mohawk while watching an ancient photocopier chug through multiple copies of something.
I coughed. She looked up. ‘Yes?’
‘Callum Parsons, please.’
‘Have you seen Callum before?’
‘Nope, but . . .’
The copier stopped and the woman sighed. Probably not the first time it had jammed that day. She walked to the desk and opened up an A4 book.
‘Name?’
‘Kenny Gabriel.’
‘Like the angel?’
‘Like the angel.’
She wrote this down. ‘First time?’ I nodded. ‘Callum’s got quite a few waiting, so it’ll probably be Janice.’
‘Callum came recommended.’
‘We can’t guarantee who sees you.’
‘Perhaps you could mention Harry Parr sent me.’
Now I had the woman’s complete attention. ‘Fill this out,’ she said, pushing a form under my nose.
The waiting room smelled of cigarettes and misery. In several places the woodchip paper was peeling from the wall. The original fireplace had been boarded up. In front of it was a convection heater that raised the temperature to stifling. The only furniture was a cheap bentwood table and a dozen chairs.
Four men and a woman in her twenties stared at the floor as though the threadbare carpet contained a code they couldn’t crack. Everyone bar the woman was contravening the NO SMOKING sign. I fished my Marlboros out.
‘Got one for me?’ the woman asked. I offered her the pack. She took one with a lightly trembling hand. I lit her fag before mine. ‘I’m Kaz,’ she said after expelling a jet of smoke.
‘Kenny,’ I responded.
Kaz was wearing red trackie bottoms and a grey hoodie that was too large for her depleted frame. Her hair was pulled back into a ponytail, and there was a bruise under her left eye. ‘You for Callum or Janice?’ she asked.
‘Callum.’
‘Me too. All right, isn’t he?’
‘I’ve never been before.’
She gave me an appraising look. ‘Booze?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Thought so. No offence, but you look a bit old for the other.’
Kids and drugs. Each generation thinks they invented them. No point in pissing Kaz off by pointing this out, though. ‘How about you?’ I asked instead.
‘You fuckin’ name it. I’ve got to come every week. Court order. I’m trying to clean up, though, so I would anyway.’
‘What’s Callum like?’
‘Sound. Doesn’t talk to you like you’re a twat. He’s been there.’
‘Has he?’
‘First thing he says. I know how hard it is, but if I can do it so can you. Not that he had to tell me – I knew just by lookin’ at him.’
‘How?’
She shrugged her emaciated shoulders and took another drag. ‘Dunno. It’s something in his eyes. Just ’cos you stop doing it, don’t mean it ain’t there no more. Know what I mean?’
I thought back to what Dervla had said about the nature of addiction, and was abou
t to tell Kaz I did, when the receptionist opened the door.
‘Callum will see you now,’ she said, clearly irritated that I’d been fast-tracked. I nodded, took my cigarettes out of my pocket and handed them to Kaz.
‘Good luck,’ I said, getting to my feet.
‘Cheers, Kenny,’ she said delightedly. ‘You an’ all, mate.’
Callum Parsons was a wiry six-footer. He wore a blue Oxford shirt tucked into cream chinos and stared at me through frameless glasses that accentuated his prominent cheekbones. He didn’t look so much like an older version of the pudgy wunderkind of twenty years earlier as like a genetically reconstituted one.
‘You must be Kenny,’ he said when I entered his office.
‘Thanks for seeing me so quickly,’ I replied. ‘I know how busy you are.’
Callum nodded and scanned the form I’d completed. The address was John Rolfe’s. All my other details were factually correct. Awkward seconds passed, during which I wondered whether I should take a seat in one of the ancient armchairs facing each other.
‘You knew Harry Parr,’ he said, looking up from the clipboard.
‘We lived in the same building. What happened was terrible.’
No reaction. I might well have passed a comment as to how much it had been raining recently. Callum studied the form a while longer.
‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Sit down and I’ll be with you in a moment.’
I occupied an armchair and absorbed the room more completely. There were a couple of framed certificates on the wall and a corkboard with several documents pinned to it. The sash windows had been covered with Perspex frames to keep the heat in. An optimistic spider had constructed a web in the gap between.
The logo on Callum’s MacBook shone like a beacon of wealth through the murk of general penury. He tapped away on its keyboard for twenty seconds or so before lowering the lid. He came round from his desk and took the seat opposite mine.
‘Usually we start with a few questions. You’ve put down that you have issues with alcohol. How much do you drink on a weekly basis?’
‘A bottle of Scotch a day, sometimes more.’
‘How long have you been consuming to that degree?’
‘About five years.’
‘Any street drugs?’
‘I like a smoke now and again.’
‘Marijuana?’ I nodded. ‘What effect does all this have on your life?’
‘Physically I’m at a low ebb and it doesn’t do a hell of a lot for my self-esteem. Not to mention I’ve alienated most of the people who care about me.’
Callum’s eyes were intense and unblinking. If this was standard body language then it must unsettle a few of his nervier clients. Maybe it was deliberate. Made them understand that it was tough love from there on in.
‘And work?’ he asked.
‘I live on a private income,’ I said, adding, ‘It isn’t a huge amount’, in case he was wondering why I didn’t look like your average trustafarian.
‘Have you consulted a doctor?’
‘She prescribed Atriliac to help with my depression. I haven’t taken it yet.’
‘Why’s that?’
‘I want to confront my problems directly. Harry said you could help.’
Callum raised his hands and clapped slowly and deliberately. ‘Very impressive.’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘Your performance.’
‘Erm, I’m afraid you’ve lost me, Callum.’
‘The truth is that you’re a private detective working for Frank Parr. So why not do us both a favour and drop the act?’
A driver in the street blew a gear change. The synchromesh screamed before catching again. My lack of a response to Callum’s accusation was response enough.
‘If you want to keep your secrets, don’t give people your name, email address and date of birth,’ he said, holding the clipboard up. ‘It took five minutes online to find out what you do for a living. The rest wasn’t hard to guess.’
‘Sorry to have wasted your time,’ I said, getting up from my chair.
Callum waved me back down. ‘Presumably you’re aware of my and Frank’s history?’ he asked.
‘Most of it.’
‘Is that why you lied to me?’
‘I didn’t think you’d be keen to talk.’
‘Do you know the fable of the scorpion and the frog, Mr Gabriel?’
‘Don’t think I’ve heard that one.’
‘A frog and a scorpion meet on a riverbank. The scorpion asks the frog to carry him across on his back. Understandably the frog has misgivings and asks how he can be sure the scorpion won’t sting him. “Because that would mean I would drown,” the scorpion replies, and the frog is satisfied. However, when they are halfway across the river, the scorpion does indeed sting the frog. The pair of them begin to sink beneath the water. “Why?” the frog asks with his final breath. “Because it is in my nature,” the scorpion replies with his.’
‘I take it Frank’s the scorpion and you’re the frog in that example,’ I said.
‘To a point.’
‘Only neither of you died.’
‘The point of the story is that some people have no control over their actions. I can’t hold Frank Parr responsible for squeezing me out of the company any more than the frog could blame the scorpion for stinging him.’
‘To understand all is to forgive all?’ I asked.
Callum treated me to a wintry smile. ‘Perhaps not that, exactly,’ he said. ‘But a degree of understanding means that one can stop blaming other people and take responsibility for one’s own actions.’
‘Which is what you encourage people to do at Plan B?’
‘If and when they are capable of it.’ Callum examined the back of his hand for a few moments. ‘I’m curious to know how you connected me to Harry,’ he said.
‘There was a copy of your book in her flat. The inscription suggested you were more than just acquaintances. Was that the case?’
‘Are you asking if we were involved sexually?’
‘Not really. But now you mention it . . .’
Callum removed his glasses and laid them on the arm of the chair. ‘Harry was gay, as you probably know,’ he said. ‘She introduced herself at a book signing and asked if we could meet up at a later date for lunch. It transpired that she wanted to talk about my and Frank’s relationship.’
‘Why did that interest her?’
‘Anything to do with Frank fascinated Harry. Like most psychopaths, he’s difficult to get to know.’
I laughed. Callum didn’t.
‘Empathy comes in two types, the social and the cognitive,’ he continued. ‘Psychopaths have neither. Those with psychopathic tendencies recognise that people feel a certain way, but don’t understand why. They’re often ruthless, charismatic and wildly successful. Does that sound like Frank Parr to you?’
It did. Specifically what was occupying my mind, though, was the memory of Frank standing next to a blood-spattered Eddie Jenkins while clutching a pair of pliers.
‘Assuming that Frank is . . . in that category,’ I said. ‘Would there ever be any danger he could tip over the edge?’
Callum pursed his lips and looked at the ceiling. ‘Impulse control can be a problem. Although people with personality disorders usually evolve strategies to deal with their anger.’
‘And use pills?’
‘Frank may well have been taking medication. According to Harry, he displayed the classic symptoms of psychopathy.’
‘She said that over lunch?’
‘We met several times. Harry was a troubled young woman.’
‘Did you help her professionally?’
‘I suggested she see a specialist, which I believe she did.’
‘D’you know who?’
‘I’m afraid not.’
There came a knock at the door. The receptionist poked her head around it.
‘Sorry to interrupt, Cal, but it’s mad downstairs. D’you want me to start te
lling people to come back tomorrow?’
Callum consulted his watch. ‘What time does Janice leave, Truda?’ he asked.
‘Five. She’s got a PTA meeting. I’m happy to stay late, though, Cal . . .’
‘No need for that. Tell anyone coming in now that we’re open at eight tomorrow, and give them the out-of-hours number.’
She nodded and left.
‘Seems like a nice girl,’ I said.
‘Yes, Truda’s one of our success stories. She’s about to qualify as a nurse. God knows how we’ll manage without her.’
‘Tough to find a replacement?’
‘Actually, it was going to be Harry.’
Callum had been full of surprises. This was the biggest so far.
‘She was planning to work here?’
‘Volunteer,’ Callum said. ‘Other than Janice, I can’t afford to pay anyone.’
‘But wouldn’t that have meant leaving Griffin Media?’
‘Harry was disillusioned with her life. I invited her to visit the centre and she was impressed by our work.’
‘And applied for a job as a receptionist?’
‘Only in the short term. Moving forward, she planned to make her contribution as a fundraiser. The last time we met was to discuss how that might happen.’
‘When was that?’
‘I’d need to look at my diary to give you the exact date. Off the top of my head, I’d say about three weeks ago.’
‘Did you hear from Harry again?’
‘Nothing. I’d concluded that she’d changed her mind when I heard the news. Have your enquiries led anywhere?’
I shook my head. ‘Harry didn’t have any enemies that I can find. But then she doesn’t seem to have had many friends, either.’
‘Can’t say I’m surprised,’ Callum said. ‘Part of her wanted to be in a relationship; part of her didn’t. It was difficult to reconcile the two elements.’
‘Would anonymous sex be a way to bridge the gap?’
‘It might be. But then sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, as Freud famously remarked. I’m curious to know what made Frank choose you to investigate this.’
