The walls in a room the size of a sports hall had been stripped down to the original brickwork; its floorboards were sanded to a smooth finish. Tables of varying sizes were covered in white tablecloths that reflected the light from a huge square chandelier suspended by a chain from the ceiling.
A polished zinc cocktail bar ran the entire length of the place. Four guys and two women were stationed behind it. Each wore a white shirt under a black waistcoat with the Cube logo embroidered on the left breast. I occupied a tall stool and waited for a guy in his twenties to finish pouring a snot-green drink from a nickel-plated shaker. He handed the glass to a waitress and then placed a doily in front of me.
‘My name’s Graham. What can I get you, sir?’
‘Whisky sour.’
‘Egg white?’
I nodded and Graham went into action. He squeezed the juice from a lemon before carefully separating the white from an egg. It all went into a Martini shaker along with two ounces of Woodford Reserve, after which Graham embarked on the dry shake.
The top came off the canister and he shovelled in some ice. His blonde hair banged against each cheek in time with the rhythm of the second shake. After a minute or so its contents were transferred into a chilled glass. Graham added two cherries on a stick and laid it reverentially on the doily before me.
‘Fantastic,’ I said after taking a sip.
He smiled and said, ‘Anything else?’
‘Don’t suppose you’ve got any dry roast?’
‘Smoked almonds?’
‘They’ll do.’ Seconds later a porcelain dish was placed next to my glass. ‘How long have you worked at Cube, Graham?’
‘Since it opened.’
‘You here every day?’
‘Apart from Sundays.’
‘Enjoy it?’
The barman shrugged. ‘It pays the bills.’
Graham had blue eyes, square shoulders and a dimple in his chin. Take a pair of clippers to his hair and he would have looked like a 1960s astronaut.
‘Will you be running a tab?’ he asked.
‘Don’t have the time,’ I said. ‘I’ll just pay for this one.’
While Graham located a card machine, I checked out Cube’s clientele. Some were dressed for the office; others had probably never seen the inside of one. Underneath the central chandelier a party of six were hanging on the every word of an Irish chat-show host. On a less prominent table an embattled Premier League manager was picking at his food while intermittently tapping his mobile phone. The hum of discreet chat came off the room like the purr from an idling Daimler.
Then the atmosphere changed. Standing in the doorway was a waiter dressed in regulation uniform. Next to him was a shorter man in his late forties wearing a chef’s jacket and holding a bottle of wine. We were in the presence of the maestro.
The waiter pointed to a table twenty feet from me. Three suited men were sitting at it. One was in his early fifties with a heavy belly and loose jowls. His companions were fifteen years younger. They hadn’t reached maximum paunch but were getting there.
Jean-Paul traversed the room like a middleweight on his way to the ring. Dirty blonde hair sprouted erratically from his scalp as though subject to a high wind. His skin was pockmarked, his eyes hooded. One of the younger guys elbowed his companion in the ribs and made a face that was part glee and part trepidation.
‘Are you the fucking clowns who ordered this?’ Jean-Paul demanded, slamming the bottle of red on to the table.
The older man examined the label. ‘That’s right, Chateau Rayas ’95,’ he said. ‘Something wrong with it, Jean-Paul?’
‘There’s something wrong with you morons. Two of you are having fish and some cunt’s having the lobster.’
‘That would be me,’ said one of the younger guys.
‘That would be me.’ Jean-Paul mimicked his RP accent. ‘Why didn’t you just go right ahead and order a can of fucking Tango?’
‘Er, I don’t believe it’s on the list.’
His contemporary barely suppressed a snort of laughter. It didn’t sweeten Jean-Paul’s mood any. He put his fists on the table and loomed over the trio.
‘I take it you disapprove of our choice,’ the older guy said.
‘Of course I disapprove of it. You think I sweat my bollocks off in that kitchen so a bunch of fuckwits can ruin everything by ordering the wrong bastard wine?’ It was a rhetorical question but Jean-Paul allowed it to sink in. ‘Now, I’m sending the sommelier over,’ he said, ‘and this time you’re going to listen to what he suggests. Otherwise you can all piss off to Burger King.’
Jean-Paul snatched up the bottle of wine and headed back towards the kitchen. Conversations resumed around the room. The two younger guys high-fived each other and the older man smiled indulgently. Graham arrived with a payment machine.
‘If you just put your card in, sir,’ he said to me. ‘Then check the amount and press the green button.’
‘How often does that happen?’ I asked, keying an amount into the gratuity box that was three times the size of the actual bill.
‘JP having a go at someone? Twice a day, if he can fit it in.’
‘They didn’t seem to mind much.’
‘Course not, they ordered the wrong wine on purpose. Half the people in here want to see JP wig out. It’s like a bloody competition.’
‘He’s not like that really, then?’
‘Well, he’s not exactly sweetness and light, put it that way. But all the sweary stuff’s just a trademark, really.’ The machine chugged out my receipt. Graham checked the screen to make sure everything was in order and pursed his lips. ‘I think you’ve made a mistake here.’
‘No mistake, Graham. There was something I was hoping you could help me with.’
The barman’s eyes narrowed. ‘How d’you mean?’
After the fiasco with Callum, I decided to play it straight. ‘I’m working for a man called Frank Parr. His daughter was found dead yesterday. This was one of her favourite restaurants.’
‘You’re a private detective?’
‘In a manner of speaking.’ I got my phone out. ‘There are a couple of photographs of Harry I can show you . . .’
‘No need. I read about it in the paper.’
‘You remember her?’
‘Why should I tell you if I did?’
‘Because it may help find who killed her.’
‘Isn’t that the police’s job?’
‘I’m working in conjunction with them.’
This piece of truth-stretching didn’t remove the sceptical look from Graham’s face entirely. I had my wallet open and slid a business card across the bar. He examined it briefly before pushing it back.
‘Harry came in most weeks. Sometimes she’d just sit at the bar and have a few drinks. To be honest, I got the impression she was a bit lonely.’
‘When was the last time you saw her?’
Graham handed over my credit card along with the receipt from the machine. ‘Last week,’ he said. ‘She had a row with this bloke she came in with now and again.’
‘What did he look like?’ I asked.
‘Thirty-something. About six-two with side-parted blonde hair. He was wearing the same kind of suit as that bunch.’ Graham nodded at the miscreants who had incurred the wrath of Jean-Paul Braithwaite and were now in consultation with the wine waiter.
‘Was it a big argument?’ I asked.
‘Big enough. She was shouting about not being able to believe what he’d done and that he was a hypocritical piece of shit.’
‘What did he say?’