‘We’re just going to let him watch it?’ he asked.
‘If you hadn’t been so damn greedy, we wouldn’t be in this situation in the first place. Come over here . . .’
Michael approached the chair and bent down. Bella whispered something in his ear. He nodded, stood up and treated me to a smile that would have frozen paraffin. He left the room and Bella reached for her cigarettes.
‘Is that wise?’ I asked.
‘Do I look like I’m going to get better?’
I tapped my nose. ‘I was thinking more of this.’
‘Oh, yes. Wouldn’t do to go out in a ball of flame.’ She unclipped the tube with one hand and offered the fag packet with the other.
‘Not for me, thanks,’ I said. She wasn’t an advert for the habit.
Bella wedged the cigarette between her desiccated lips and stared at me expectantly. I noticed the Dunhill lighter on the table, sparked it up and applied the flame. She inhaled deeply. ‘My oncologist wouldn’t approve.’
‘No shit.’
‘It’s vulgar to swear.’
‘Sorry.’
‘He only allowed me home on the understanding that I would look after myself.’ Bella chuckled. ‘Damn fool told me I’d be pushing up daisies two months ago. Shouldn’t think I’ll be round much longer, though.’
‘You never know,’ I said.
‘Yes, I do. How old d’you think I am?’
‘Sixty-five?’
‘Don’t be absurd.’
‘Sixty-eight?’
‘I’m seventy-two.’ She took a drag on her cigarette and coughed a couple of times. ‘Aren’t you going to tell me I don’t look it?’
‘You don’t look it.’
‘Liar.’
Bella was about to take another hit on her Sobranie but thought better of it. She stubbed it out and reattached the oxygen clip.
‘For whom are you working?’
‘Harry’s father.’
‘The famous Frank.’
‘You know him?’
‘I know of him. He’s a working-class boy made good; I’m a posh girl who went in the opposite direction. We’re opposite sides of the same coin.’
‘You don’t seem to have done so badly.’
‘The club happened more by accident than design,’ she said. ‘And in a few weeks, that will be the end of it.’
‘You’re not leaving the place to anyone?’
‘Would you believe the RSPCA? Somehow I don’t think they’ll continue using it for its current purpose.’
‘No children?’
‘No family of any description. How about you, Kenny? Have you been blessed?’ I shook my head. ‘Then who will inherit your estate?’
‘I’ll probably divide it between several charities. What’s left will go to the National Gallery.’
‘Is it a significant amount?’
‘Almost two hundred quid.’
Bella’s laugh led directly to a coughing fit. She spat something gelatinous into a Kleenex, examined it briefly, and dropped it into a wicker wastepaper bin.
‘One of the many joys of old age is that your body gradually becomes a stranger to you,’ she said. ‘Eventually you scarcely recognise one another. Do sit down.’
I occupied a high-backed wing chair and made polite conversation. ‘How long has La Cage been going?’
‘Unofficially, since 1969.’
‘Always here?’
‘Sherrens have lived in Causal Street for over two hundred years. I was born in this house and I intend to die here. Sooner rather than later, unfortunately.’
‘The place must hold a lot of happy memories.’
‘What makes you say that?’
‘I’m assuming you could afford to leave.’
Bella looked around the room. ‘Not everything has been entirely marvellous,’ she said, pulling her gown more tightly around her shoulders.
I sensed there was more to come. Perhaps when the end is nigh you want to use all the words you have left before your mouth is stopped forever. Or maybe Bella just liked the sound of her own voice.
‘Mother died while giving birth to me,’ she said. ‘My father was with his regiment in North Africa at the time. He was a weak man and he went to pieces. The army gave him an honourable discharge, although he was at a bit of a loss in Civvy Street. I suppose these days he’d be diagnosed as suffering with depression.’
‘Must have been tough.’
‘He had a considerable fortune.’
‘Sometimes money makes things harder.’
‘That’s not been my experience,’ Bella said. ‘Although it does leave you with time on your hands, and that’s where dear Papa came unstuck.’
‘Drink?’
‘How did you guess?’
‘There are worse things.’
‘Indeed there are,’ Bella agreed. ‘And despite his problems, I was devastated when my father died, so much so that I saw a battalion of counsellors.’
‘To cope with the grief?’
‘That’s where we started, although all roads lead to the same destination in analysis. The general consensus was that I was forming inappropriate sexual relationships.’
‘Define inappropriate.’
‘How about being lashed until blood gullies down your back, having your nipples chastened with a cigarette lighter and then someone squatting over you and—’
‘Yeah, I get the picture,’ I said.
A tight smile played on Bella’s thin lips. ‘Even Harley Street’s finest couldn’t rid me of these and other less wholesome inclinations,’ she said.
I reflected on what said inclinations might be. Was the urge to kill for kicks among them? Access the Darknet and you’re only a couple of clicks and a credit card number away from a snuff movie. And if people want to watch it, then people want to do it. The big question was whether Harry Parr had met such a person in La Cage.
The bigger question was whether his face had been caught on camera.
‘So I sacked the shrinks and invited my friends to the house,’ Bella said.
‘And that was the start of the club?’
‘Indeed it was. Far more therapeutic to admit who you really are than try to change. Wouldn’t you agree, Kenny?’
Before I could answer, Bella’s eyes closed abruptly. For a moment I thought she might have checked out ahead of schedule. Then she took a long rattling breath and an amber light on the oxygen unit winked a couple of times. Michael returned. The noise woke his boss up.
‘Ah, you’re back,’ she said. ‘Kenny and I were just catching up on some family history. Did you find what you were looking for?’
‘It’s on here,’ he said, holding a memory stick up.
‘Seems you’re in luck, Kenny.’
I wondered if that was entirely true. Hanging from Michael’s left hand was a rubber gas mask. It had Perspex ovals to see through, and a snout to which was attached a three-foot tube. I was pretty sure Bella wasn’t going to strap it on, and there were only two other candidates in the room.
‘What’s the mask for?’ I asked.
‘It’s so that you can keep your side of the deal.’
‘There’s a deal?’
Bella readjusted the tap on her oxygen supply. ‘Isn’t there always?’ she said.
TWENTY