The Perspex lenses had yellowed with age. They lent the room a jaundiced wash that reminded me of the patina on a Victorian photograph. Each time I inhaled and exhaled, the sound rasped in my ears like a wave sweeping a shingle beach.
My restricted view was focused on Bella, who was looking, if not vibrant exactly, then certainly perkier than she had half an hour ago. Not even the mask’s opaque lenses could cancel the shine in her eyes.
‘Can you hear me, Kenny?’ she asked. I nodded. ‘Just to recap, then, last the full minute and you get to see the footage. If you don’t, then you don’t.’
‘Harry Parr’s definitely on the recording?’
‘If Michael says so, then you can take his word.’
That good old Mike had admitted me to La Cage for a fistful of fifties wasn’t a character endorsement. Although he had assured his boss that Harry Parr was on the drive, and presumably he wouldn’t risk pissing her off twice in quick succession.
The mask was to prevent any cheating. Once the clip was closed, I’d be left with however much air was in the tube plus whatever was in my lungs. Whether that constituted a minute’s worth remained to be seen.
‘Do we really have to bother with all this?’ I said. ‘Frank Parr would pay a fortune for the stick.’
‘No pockets in a shroud,’ Bella replied. ‘And besides, this will be such fun.’
Perverted septuagenarians with stage-four cancer and several million in the bank are bastards to negotiate with. Try it yourself, if you don’t believe me. Bella placed Michael’s watch on the table. When the second hand reached twelve, I was to close the tap and cut off my oxygen supply. If I opened it before the second hand returned, then I blew my chances of seeing the footage.
My chair had been borrowed from the desk. It allowed me to sit in an upright position, which Bella had said would constrict my diaphragm less.
What a sport.
The Seiko ticked away the final seconds. I filled my lungs and closed the tap. At the half-minute mark the pressure in my chest graduated to my skull. Emergency circuits lit up all over my brain. My autonomous nervous system would eventually go into overdrive; all I had to do was fend it off for a little while longer.
Bella maintained fascinated eye contact. I wasn’t sure if she was willing me to succeed or hoping I’d fail. At forty-five seconds I could stand it no more. Whatever was on the stick, I wasn’t going to see it.
Two huge arms folded around me from behind.
The fingers on Michael’s hands locked. If I’d been operating at full strength, I’d have struggled to break his grip. With zero oxygen in my system, I stood no chance. My arms were pinned to my torso but my legs started shaking uncontrollably. Bella’s receding gums and singular teeth were bared in a rictus of delight.
It was the last thing I saw before blacking out.
Someone was slapping me around the face. Irritating at the best of times; particularly irritating when all you want to do is remain asleep. But it appeared that the only way I was going to put a stop to it was by opening my eyes. When I did it was to see a very large man staring down at me.
‘D you know where you are?’ a posh lady asked.
‘No.’
‘What’s your name?’
I turned to face her. She didn’t look too hot.
‘It’s Kenneth,’ I said. ‘Kenneth Gabriel.’
‘And where do you live, Kenneth?’
‘With the fairy folk.’
The woman exchanged a sideways look with the man. ‘What’s your address?’
‘Toadstool Lane,’ I told her. ‘In a castle made out of cigarettes and gingerbread.’
‘He’s fucking brain-damaged,’ the man said.
‘Language, Michael,’ the old woman said. Then she asked me in a softer voice, ‘How old are you, Kenneth?’
‘Seven.’
‘Do you know who I am?’
‘Yes.’ I said. ‘You’re my mummy.’
‘I’ll drive him across town and dump him,’ the man said. ‘They’ll think he’s had a stroke or something.’
The old lady ignored him. ‘No, I’m not your mummy,’ she said. ‘Have another guess, Kenneth. Who else might I be?’
‘Are you . . . ?’
‘Yes . . .’ she said encouragingly.
‘Are you the old bitch who just tried to kill me?’
The comment earned me an ear-stinging slap from Michael. ‘Watch your mouth,’ he said.
‘Leave him be,’ Bella said. ‘He deserves to be a little disgruntled.’
‘I’m a bit more than fucking disgruntled.’
‘The deal was that, if you could manage sixty seconds, you got to look at the video. And with a little help from Michael, you went the distance.’
‘You loved it, didn’t you?’
‘It was rather thrilling.’
‘Show me what’s on the stick.’
Bella yawned. ‘Put the video on,’ she said to Michael.
‘Or I could just take it with me,’ I said hopefully.
‘Absolutely not,’ she said.
Michael booted up the smart TV, inserted the drive and pressed the remote. The screen filled with a shot of La Cage’s entrance hall. For a few seconds nothing moved apart from the digit counters in the bottom right-hand corner. It had just turned 11.32 when Harry came into shot, accompanied by Michael.
The quality wasn’t great but I had no difficulty recognising the dress that I’d seen at Bombaste and in the murder house in Matcham. Harry signed the ledger, after which Michael took a coat out of the closet and helped her into it. The pair laughed at something while Harry did the buttons up. Then Michael walked out of shot. So Harry had left the club alone. I felt a tidal wave of disappointment that the tape had turned out to be a dud, particularly after everything I’d been through to see it.
And then the Stetson made an appearance.
I couldn’t see its owner and I didn’t need to. It was the same one I’d dropped a small fortune into in Rocco’s flat. The information he’d given me about Dervla being Harry’s girlfriend had been correct. But he’d lied through his teeth about not having seen her for weeks. The pair left the building and Michael paused the video.
‘Do you remember the guy in the hat?’ I asked him.
‘Rocky?’
‘Rocco.’
‘That’s it. Harry used to turn up with him now and again.’
‘How were they getting on together that night?’
‘She seemed excited to be leaving,’ he said. ‘Usually it’s the other way round.’
‘And him?’
‘Cheesed off they were going so early.’
‘Why were they?’
‘Dunno, but she could hardly wait to get out of the door. D’you reckon he’s the one who killed her?’
Being cheesed off seemed a slim motive for murder. Also I couldn’t imagine Rocco as a killer. But some of history’s most notorious have been jaw-droppingly mundane, and he’d lied to me about when he’d last met Harry.
‘Because I can’t see it myself,’ Michael continued. ‘All he does is bang on about what a shit-hot card player he is. Always trying to persuade me to go to some poker club with him.’
‘The Snake Pit?’
‘That’s the one.’
‘What about that night?’
Michael stared at the screen. ‘I don’t think so,’ he said.
‘Do you intend going to the police about this?’ Bella asked.
‘Depends on what Rocco has to say.’
‘I won’t allow them to trawl through the tapes. My guests deserve their privacy.’