‘I’m fine,’ I said.
Heavy cloud cover had reduced the light in the room. Raindrops began battering the windows. I pulled my jacket tighter around my shoulders and moved the conversation forward. ‘Did you meet Harry through NA?’
‘No, she wasn’t into drink or drugs apart from a vodka now and again, and the occasional line at a party.’
‘You didn’t have a problem with that?’
‘Addicts are born, not made. Harry didn’t have that particular issue.’
‘But she had others?’
Dervla shifted position in her chair and folded her arms. ‘Whatever I tell you is in confidence?’
‘Absolutely. Get your phone out again if you don’t believe me.’
‘I’m not sure it’ll be of any use to you,’ Dervla said.
‘We’ll never know until you tell me,’ I replied.
My experience listening to people give accounts is that they either skip around from place to place, or begin at the beginning. Dervla opened with a question.
‘D’you know Cookie Jar?’
‘The lesbian club in Denmark Street?’
She nodded. ‘It’s where I met Harry for the first time.’
‘When was this?’
‘About a year ago on karaoke night. She was sitting in the corner with her nose in the air. I’ve always been a sucker for a challenge.’
‘Had you seen her in there before?’
‘It was her first time. Usually she met girls through a site, but this time she’d just gone in to the club on impulse. At least, that’s what she said.’
‘You approached her?’
‘Yeah. It was heavy going to start with, but a few shots thawed her out. By the end of the night we were up on stage together.’
‘The relationship got going quickly, then?’
‘Not really. I tried to get her to come back to my place, but she wasn’t having it. I gave her my number and three weeks later she picked the phone up.’
‘Did she know who you were?’
‘God, no. The nearest Harry got to culture was reading John Grisham on holiday.’
‘What did she say when you told her?’
‘It nearly blew the whole thing. If people had known we were together, it would have ended up in the press. Particularly when they found out she was Frank Parr’s daughter. That’s why she insisted on keeping everything secret.’
‘How did you feel about that?’
Dervla shrugged. ‘I think people should come out when they’re ready. And for Harry that would have been when her father died.’
‘Frank was the reason she hid her sexuality?’
‘Completely.’
‘Her brother thinks she married Rocco just to shut her old man up about settling down.’
Dervla wrinkled her nose.
‘You’re not convinced?’ I asked.
By now the clouds were so heavy it felt as though evening had arrived six hours early. Dervla pushed a button on a steel wall panel. Multiple spotlights dispelled the gloom.
‘There was a side to Harry that was quite flaky,’ she said. ‘In fact there were several aspects to her personality that weren’t immediately obvious.’
‘You think there was more to it between her and Rocco?’
‘Don’t they say everything exists in relationship to its opposite?’
‘Yin and yang?’
‘Something like that. Rocco asked Harry to marry him when they were stoned. It probably sounded like a giggle at the time, but it was always going to end badly.’
‘Because she was gay?’
‘That didn’t help, although mostly it was down to Rocco. He was like arsenic for Harry. Therapeutic in small doses; fatal if she took too much.’
‘Did the two of you ever meet?’
‘No.’
Personally I’d have thought that even the slightest exposure to Rocco would be enough to finish someone off. Maybe I just hadn’t seen his charming side yet.
‘How did it work out with you and Harry?’ I asked.
‘Fine, to begin with. She would stay with me one night during the week and we’d spend most weekends together.’ Dervla exhaled heavily. ‘And then it all began to change. Harry wanted more commitment. I said okay, but we’d have to go public. No way was that going to happen. In the end I called time on the relationship. That was when things started to get ugly.’
‘In what way?’
‘Harry wouldn’t accept it was over. She started leaving voicemail messages at all hours about getting back together. When I didn’t respond they became abusive and physically threatening.’
‘How bad did it get?’ I asked.
‘Pretty bad. And it would have got a lot worse if I hadn’t threatened to play the messages to her dad.’
‘That worked?’
‘Like a charm. She gave me one last earful about what a bitch I was and how I’d never hear from her again.’
‘This was about three months ago?’ Dervla nodded. ‘You said there was something else you’d remembered . . . ?’
‘Oh, yeah. She said that she’d met someone new.’
‘What was her name?’
‘His name. It was a guy but she wouldn’t tell me.’
‘Was Harry bisexual?’
‘One hundred per cent queer. That’s what made it so strange.’
‘I wonder why she didn’t tell Frank she had a boyfriend?’
‘Are you sure she didn’t?’
‘I think he would have mentioned it, don’t you?’
Dervla deposited her cup on the cement floor and considered the question. ‘No idea,’ she said. ‘Maybe Harry just wanted to make me jealous.’
‘Or she was scared of Frank’s reaction. Did Harry ever mention someone called Callum Parsons?’
‘Not to me, she didn’t. Who is he?’
I told Dervla about Callum’s book and the inscription it carried. Was that the kind of thing you wrote when you were having an affair? She thought not. ‘The guy probably put something like that every time he signed. All that self-help crap is such a racket. We are what we are. Nobody changes.’
‘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.’