‘About April?’ He nodded. ‘Not in the filing cabinet but I couldn’t access her laptop. Although what would be newsworthy about a guy having a fling with one of his employees back in the Dark Ages?’
I delivered the question in a way that rendered it more leading than rhetorical. For a few seconds Frank continued to stare at the picture.
‘It weren’t quite as simple as that,’ he said.
THIRTY
‘D’you remember DI Dennis Cartwright?’
‘Vividly.’
‘Thought you might. Well, he arrived in the club one morning with a couple of uniforms. Said that he needed to search the premises because he’d had a report that we’d been receiving stolen fags. He didn’t have a warrant, but the place was as clean as a whistle, so there was no danger that he’d find anything.’
‘But he did?’
Frank nodded. ‘While the wooden tops were searching downstairs, Cartwright came out of the office with two hundred acid caps, giving it the old what have we got here? LSD was a big deal back then. There were stories in the press about kids getting fucked sideways and leaping out of windows. Dealers were being sent down for years.’
‘So Cartwright had you by the knackers?’
‘Yeah, but all he asked for was a free meal once in a while. Said that if he ever needed a special favour, he’d let me know. A year later he called it in.’
‘What was it?’
‘Were you in the club when April slapped him?’
‘Yeah.’
Frank ran a hand over his face repeatedly, as though he were trying to wipe away an unusually persistent cobweb. What was coming next seemed an effort to get out.
When it emerged, I understood why.
‘Cartwright wanted me to get April to sleep with him, otherwise he’d fuck me over again and this time he’d follow through. I tried everything to get him to change his mind. Money, other women, you name it. He wasn’t interested.’
‘Did he know you and April were together?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘What did she say?’
‘That if it got me off the hook, she’d do it.’
‘And you let her?’
‘Of course I fucking didn’t.’
‘So what happened?’
‘She got in touch with Cartwright behind my back. They arranged to meet in a hotel in Paddington. April didn’t show up for work for a couple of days. When I called, her landlady said she was in hospital.’
‘Cartwright?’
Frank exhaled heavily. ‘Broken jaw and a ruptured spleen.’
‘Did she go to the police?’
‘What do you think?’
‘He got away with it?’
‘Farrelly said Cartwright would be expecting some sort of retaliation and that he’d see to it when the time was right.’
‘You let Farrelly take care of it?’
‘Half the Met knew I was in Cartwright’s pocket. If anything linked me to his killing they’d have hauled me in. Trust me, if there’s one thing I could do differently in my life, that would be it. And if you really want to know . . .’ Frank leant back in his chair. Seconds ticked away before he looked at me again. ‘That’s why Eddie Jenkins had his teeth yanked. Farrelly knew if I didn’t get it out of my system, I’d probably go nuts. That’s why he didn’t stop me laying into him.’
‘Yeah, that and the fact that he’s almost as big a fucking sadist as Cartwright was. What really happened that night, Frank?’
‘How d’you mean?’
‘Did the two of you go all the way? Because I’ve had Odeerie try a few times and he can’t find hide nor hair of an Eddie Jenkins around his age. And if Anna Jennings knows you killed him then it won’t matter how many favours you’ve done the Under-Secretary for Cuntish Affairs. They’ll send you and Farrelly down for life.’
‘He walked out of the club twenty minutes after you did. Eddie Jenkins probably wasn’t his real name. And even if it was, we didn’t murder the guy.’
Frank was many things; a liar wasn’t one of them. There was every chance that Eddie had been going under an alias. The Galaxy’s waiting staff were paid cash in hand. Several probably had good reason to keep their identity secret.
‘What happened to April?’ I asked.
‘She discharged herself from hospital.’
‘And went where?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘It doesn’t make any sense. If she was so crazy about you, why would she vanish like that?’
The muscles in Frank’s jaw clenched and unclenched. He looked at the photograph like a man with vertigo compelled to stare over a precipice. If I’d wanted to do him a favour, I’d have taken the thing off the table.
It stayed where it was.
‘When I visited April, she asked me what I thought the future was for us. She told me that I had to be completely honest, and I was.’
‘Meaning you dumped her?’
‘I couldn’t leave my wife.’
‘You managed it easily enough ten years later.’
Frank’s shoulders tensed. For a moment I thought he was going to stick one on me. Then his body crumpled as though a fuse had blown in his emotional motherboard. ‘What’s done is done,’ he said. ‘You can’t make me feel any worse than I do already.’
‘Maybe not, but what if Anna Jennings has found April and got her story?’
‘Then I’ll deny it. There’s no proof we were seeing each other.’
‘You’re sure? No letters, nothing like that?’
‘Positive.’
‘Did April know anything about your plans for Cartwright?’
‘I might have said something about killing the bastard, but that was just in the heat of the moment. She didn’t know anything specific.’
‘Even so, if it comes out what Cartwright did to her, and what you said afterwards, then it’s enough for the file to be reopened.’
‘I was two hundred miles away the night he was killed. There’s nothing that could connect me to him. And if this journo does have something, don’t you think Kirkleys would have printed it by now?’
He had a point. Lord Kirkleys would leave himself open to one hell of a libel suit if he called Frank a cop-killer without rock-solid corroboration. And now that his rival had withdrawn from the Post bid, there was no need to do it anyway.
‘But you know what?’ Frank continued. ‘I almost wish he would.’
‘Why?’
‘Don’t they reckon what you do in this life affects what happens to you in the next?’
‘You mean karma?’
‘That’s it,’ said Frank. ‘Although maybe you don’t always have to wait. Maybe you get what you deserve before you go. What happened to Harry could be punishment for what happened to April.’
‘Apart from: wouldn’t that be punishing Harry?’
‘She’s dead. I’ve got live with it.’
Was he right? Does the wrong we do to others come back to bite us in the arse, as the Dalai Lama probably wouldn’t have put it? I didn’t think so.
‘Life’s random, Frank. The only reason people invent things like karma is they can’t face the fact that everything we do is completely meaningless.’
‘Then why bother doing anything at all?’
Before I could attempt an answer to Frank’s unanswerable question, the door opened and Farrelly walked into the Wise Owl. Our eyes locked and my stomach turned over. ‘I’m parked outside, Mr Parr,’ he said to his boss.