‘I heard you!’
The sheet detailed five transactions. The first three were for Waitrose, an iTunes download and theatre tickets. The following day Harry had spent a hundred and forty quid at Cube, presumably for her lunch with Roger, and then seven hundred and fifty at Bombaste. The latter had been timed at 4.14 p.m.
‘You’re sure these are the last five?’ I asked.
‘They were as of yesterday morning. And she’s not likely to have spent anything since then. I take it you’re available for work now?’
‘Not just yet. Frank wants me to stay on it a bit longer.’
‘Stay on what? His daughter’s dead.’
‘I know. I’m the one who found her.’
Odeerie did a double take. ‘You’re kidding me?’ I shook my head and put the paper into my jacket pocket. ‘Was she . . . ?’
I nodded. ‘Unless she strangled herself.’
‘Tell me about it.’
‘I thought you wanted as little to do with this as possible?’
‘Don’t be an arsehole all your life, Kenny.’
For the second time in half an hour, I described how I’d discovered Harry’s body followed by my tête-à-tête with DI Standish. It took me fifteen minutes, during which time Odeerie polished off three Krispy Kreme donuts. Food was his way of coping with anxiety. Actually, food was his way of coping with everything.
‘That’s terrible,’ he said when I’d finished.
‘Tragic,’ I agreed. ‘She was only thirty-four.’
‘I meant the police interviewing you. Tell me you didn’t mention my name.’
‘Why would I?’
‘Thank God for that.’ Odeerie bit into his fourth donut. ‘If they connect me with you then the shit could really hit the fan.’
‘You didn’t murder her, did you?’
‘I’m glad you find this funny, Kenny,’ Odeerie said through a mouthful of dough. ‘Because if my guy coughs, we’re both fucked.’
‘Only if you say I paid you.’
‘I might just do that.’ He crammed the rest of the donut into his mouth, chewed it resentfully and swallowed. ‘And now Frank Parr expects you to track down the killer?’
‘He’s asked me to follow up on a few leads.’
Odeerie rolled his huge brown eyes. ‘My advice is say thanks but no thanks. The police don’t take kindly to amateurs pissing them around.’
‘They aren’t the only ones on my case.’
‘Meaning?’
I filled Odeerie in on my encounter with Mr Screwdriver. If there had been any doubt I had his complete attention, there wasn’t now.
‘And you’re carrying on?’ he said. ‘What if he’s the guy who killed her?’
‘He didn’t know she was dead.’
‘Even so, he still sounds like a nutter.’
‘I’ll bear that in mind.’
‘Kenny, this isn’t just sussing out if a bloke’s having an affair with his secretary. Someone’s been killed and you could be next.’
Odeerie seemed amazed that I wasn’t quaking in my Hush Puppies. Maybe I ought to have been. The truth was that whatever torpor I had fallen into had disappeared – at least temporarily. Atriliac may give your brain a kick up the arse; so does finding a decomposing body and having a stranger hold a screwdriver to your eye.
‘I’ll bear it in mind,’ I said.
‘Well, if you aren’t available by next Monday, that’s it, as far as we’re concerned. You either work for me or you work for Frank Parr.’
‘Duly noted.’
Odeerie wiped his lips clean and dropped the tissue into a waste bin. I couldn’t be certain he was going to finish off the last two donuts in the pack, but then I couldn’t be certain that the sun would rise the following day either.
‘I’d better crack on,’ I said, looking at my watch.
‘Where you going?’ Odeerie asked.
‘Charity auction at Assassins.’
‘Don’t take the piss.’
I shrugged and said, ‘Or maybe I’ll have a full English and a few pints. Then I’ll probably go back to the flat and sleep it off.’
Sometimes it’s just easier to lie.
TWELVE
I’d hoped that Harry’s card purchases would be more revealing. At least I knew she had been to Bombaste recently. It might be worth dropping in to see if anyone could recall her last visit and whether she had been accompanied. It would have to wait, though. Dervla Bishop’s auction was starting at 1.00 p.m.
Sheridan had said that if I got there half an hour before it began then I could have fifteen minutes to interview his client. It remained to be seen whether she would still be in the mood to talk about Harry now that her death had been announced.
The launch was being held at Assassins, a private members’ club on the corner of Old Compton Street and Greek Street. That meant I had just enough time to get back to the flat and make myself presentable.
While shaving, my mind focused on Eddie Jenkins. I’d tried several times to trace him since the night in the Galaxy, always without success. Even Odeerie had drawn a blank. There were a lot of Edward Jenkinses knocking about the world, and I didn’t have any information about mine other than that he was about five foot nine and would be in his sixties by now. Always assuming there was a ‘now’ for Eddie.
Private members’ clubs had sprouted up in the parish like knotweed. Places like the Arts and Gerry’s had been around for decades, but they were pretty much the same as the Vesuvius, i.e. low-rent bars that stayed open late and levied a nominal fee to stay on the right side of the law. The new places charged a grand a year and were infested by media execs and D-list celebrities.
Assassins had a better rep than most. It encouraged applications from those in the creative arts, as opposed to anyone with a pulse and a bank account. On arrival, I pressed the brass button set into a wall panel. A couple of seconds later a woman’s voice came through the grille.
‘May I help you?’
‘I’m here for the Dervla Bishop event.’
‘Come to the first floor.’
On the stairs hung a mirror with corroded silvering and a series of prints featuring Montgolfier balloons. They led to a landing where a pair of formidable blondes perched behind a desk. The taller girl couldn’t find my name on the first sheet of the guest list, and seemed amazed to find it on the second.
‘The launch is in the library,’ she said. ‘Next floor up.’
The room’s perimeter was lined with distressed sofas, corralled to form a central space in which Dervla’s guests could mingle. A dozen or so had already arrived. They were chatting in twos and threes while tucking into vol-au-vents and champagne. I took a glass and an assortment of nibbles from an aproned waiter, and set to examining a paving-slab-sized book displayed on an oak lectern.