‘Harry didn’t go on holiday, Kenny. She’d been in a peculiar mood for a couple of weeks. It was as though she was worried about something.’
‘Yeah, you fucking the company over by buying the Post.’
‘You got that from Roger?’
‘He mentioned Harry had her concerns.’
‘Papers lose money but they buy influence. Harry’s great at making a balance sheet add up, although she doesn’t always understand the long game.’
‘Is that what you told her?’
Frank went to the drinks cabinet and flung its doors open. He grabbed a bottle of Grey Goose by the neck, as though intending to strangle it. ‘Want one?’
‘What about your ulcer?’
‘Fuck my ulcer.’ He poured a hefty shot into a tumbler and held the bottle up.
‘No, thanks,’ I said.
‘Scotch?’ I shook my head. ‘Please yourself.’ Frank took a hit on his drink. I could tell it had been a while. ‘Look, I tried to dress things up a bit because I thought you might not take the job if I didn’t,’ he said.
‘Why did you want me to take it at all? And I want the truth, Frank.’
He turned from the cabinet and looked at me directly.
‘You’re smart and you’ve got integrity, Kenny. What’s more, you know how to keep your mouth shut. Trust me, that’s almost unique in this day and age.’ Frank knocked back the rest of his vodka. For a second I thought he was going to pour another. Instead he placed the glass carefully on to a shelf and closed the cabinet. ‘Maybe this Post business is making me too twitchy. If Harry is holed up somewhere, that’s great. Find out which one it is and we can kiss and make up.’
‘And if she isn’t?’
‘Then I still think you’re the best man for the job.’
‘There’s nothing else you aren’t telling me?’
‘I swear to God.’
It used to be that if Frank gave you his word then you could take it to the bank. Admittedly, that was a long time ago, but my experience is that people don’t change. And, of course, he was offering me a boatload of cash.
‘I’ll stick with it until the end of the week,’ I said.
‘Cheers, Kenny. I appreciate it. Did you turn anything up in her flat?’
‘Apart from a credit card bill, nothing. I’ve got a contact sourcing the last five transactions. It might give us an idea where she is.’
‘Is that legal?’ Frank asked. I gave him a look. ‘No, of course it isn’t,’ he said.
‘And it’s not cheap, either. The guy wants four grand. That’s not the kind of money I can pull out of an ATM. Not even with your card.’
‘I’ll get five raised in cash before you leave.’
‘That’d be useful because I had to bung Rocco a couple of hundred too.’
Frank winced. It could have been the booze giving his ulcer a preliminary kicking, but I didn’t think so. Rocco’s name alone was enough to give him the yips.
‘What did that moron tell you?’ he asked.
‘Not much,’ I said, choosing to be a touch economical with the truth myself. ‘Apparently he and Harry used to live out in the ’burbs. Has the place been sold?’
‘Not as far as I know. D’you think she might be there?’
‘Rocco gave me the key. I’ll take a look tomorrow.’
‘Why not this afternoon? It’s less than half an hour from King’s Cross.’
The idea of spending the rest of the day on a fool’s errand wasn’t attractive. But I didn’t have anything else to do, and Frank was paying for my time.
‘All right, then,’ I said. ‘At least we’ll be able to take it off the list.’
Frank walked to his desk and instructed someone to raise five K pronto.
‘Got any kids, Kenny?’ he said, putting the phone down. I shook my head. ‘Married?’
‘As good as for a couple of years, but it didn’t take.’
‘That’s the problem with life.’ Frank seemed to be talking as much to himself as to me. ‘It never turns out the way you think it’s going to.’
‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Or even worse, it does.’
I was reading a back copy of Forbes magazine, waiting for my cash to be delivered, when my phone rang. The screen read Number unknown. My usual policy is to let anonymous calls slide through to voicemail. But I’d been kicking my heels for twenty minutes in the executive suite and needed something to relieve the boredom.
‘Kenny Gabriel.’
‘Mr Gabriel, it’s Sheridan Talbot-White. We spoke earlier.’
‘Hello, Sheridan,’ I said. ‘Thanks for calling me back.’
‘My pleasure,’ he said, although I suspected it wasn’t. ‘I’ve had a word with Dervla and she’s prepared to spare you a few minutes.’
‘When will she be available?’
‘There’s a launch party at Assassins tomorrow. Dervla’s auctioning a copy of her retrospective for charity. It starts at one. Arrive half an hour early, and the pair of you can talk then.’
‘I’ll be there,’ I said, and cut the call.
A short guy in a cheap suit had appeared before me. He was holding an A5 envelope with a significant bulge in it.
‘Mr Gabriel?’ he asked.
‘That’s right.’
‘This is for you.’ I thanked the guy and stuffed it into my jacket pocket. ‘Don’t you want to check it?’ he asked.
‘I trust you.’
I scrawled my name to acknowledge receipt of the money. What with people handing over wads of cash and inviting me to parties at private members’ clubs, it looked as though things might finally be looking up.
The Welwyn train departed King’s Cross at 4.35 p.m. and pulled into Matcham on the London–Hertfordshire border twenty minutes later. The station had been put up in the golden age of steam. A red-brick building had a crenellated wooden canopy supported by wrought-iron pillars. Remove the dot-matrix Departures sign and it could have served as the set for an Edwardian period drama.
Frank had said that Fairview Lodge was only a fifteen-minute walk. Google Maps confirmed this. Its directions led me down a high street in which shops that had probably once been butchers and greengrocers had been turned into Early Learning Centres and late-opening delis.
The turn-off into Church Lane came just after a gastropub called the Pheasant. Most of the houses I walked past came with gravel drives and, by the looks of them, at least eight bedrooms. None had been built after the Second World War, and quite a few predated the train station. Fairview Lodge was the last on the left. A two-storey Victorian house, it was smaller than the others, but surrounded by more land. I unlatched the gate and walked down a flagstone path that bisected a half-acre lawn so overgrown it was in danger of becoming a field.