‘Okay,’ Frank said. ‘I’ll be out in a couple of minutes.’
Farrelly walked to the door. He turned, pointed at me, and drew his finger slowly across his throat. Frank had his back to him but the waiter clocked it. Despite the fifty quid, he was probably regretting having opened up that day.
I had a few regrets myself.
‘I’m quitting, Frank,’ I said.
‘Why’s that?’
‘For one thing I’m out of my depth, and for another I’m moving to Manchester.’
Frank stood up. ‘Fair enough. I’ll make sure your invoice gets paid immediately.’ He offered me his hand. I didn’t accept it. He buttoned up his overcoat and smoothed its velvet collar. ‘You know, maybe all that karma business is cobblers. But I’ll tell you one thing that’s as true now as the first day I heard it.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Character is destiny.’ Frank patted me on the cheek. ‘Good luck up north, Kenny,’ he said. ‘I’ve a feeling you’re gonna need it.’
After he left, I stared at the picture for a while and thought about April. I’d been too chickenshit to tell her that Frank was bad news. If I had, then Cartwright might not have raped her and Eddie Jenkins might have dodged his session in the chair. I wouldn’t have walked out of the Galaxy and who knows what that would have led to?
You can’t change the past but you can atone for it. I slipped the picture into my wallet. The few days before leaving for Manchester would be spent tracing April Thomson. When I found out where she was, I’d apologise for failing her.
April was probably a granny by now; what had happened four decades ago just a terrible dream that surfaced now and then. My getting in touch would be doing her no favours at all, but of course atonement isn’t about other people.
And character really is destiny.
THIRTY-ONE
By the time I got back to the flat, it was getting on for ten thirty. There was a voicemail message from Stephie asking if I wanted to load any of my stuff into the removal van she was hiring. In addition to this, I would also have to inform Malcolm that I would be leaving the flat, not to mention making arrangements to travel to Manchester. It was nothing that couldn’t wait until the following day.
I ordered a Chinese and went online. Social media didn’t throw up anyone that could conceivably have been the right April Thomson. Not unless she’d remained single, put on five stone and become a nail technician in Montreal.
April had always spoken fondly about her hometown. According to Wikipedia, Saltrossan was a village on the west coast of Scotland. Its main sources of income were a small fishing fleet, the local distillery and the tourists who almost doubled the population of 8,000 during the summer months.
My last contact with April had been a card with a Glasgow postmark. The city was close enough to Saltrossan for her to visit fairly regularly. And if she had flown the coup entirely, someone might be able to point me in the right direction. In small communities, the pub is often the best source of information. Saltrossan’s largest was the Bannock Hotel. I jotted down its number shortly before my food arrived.
The crispy duck had either been laced with sedatives or my brain had decided that enough was enough. Five minutes after the last mouthful, it began to go into shutdown. I had just enough time to brush my teeth and undress before falling into bed. If I had any dreams during the subsequent ten hours, I couldn’t recall them.
Someone had dumped a cheap brolly into a dustbin. Its skin had given way under the onslaught and wire spokes poked at peculiar angles. Fortunately I was traversing Brewer Street with one of Malcolm’s company golf umbrellas. On the one hand I was dry; on the other I felt like Bubba Watson marching down the dogleg ninth.
In Meard Street a small group on the Soho Legends walk were traipsing in the wake of their sodden guide. Three hundred years ago, the guide was telling them, the connecting road to Dean Street had been home to Lizzie Flint, a prostitute who had been a favourite with Samuel Johnson. More recently the artist Sebastian Horsley had finally turned up his toes at number seven after a lifetime spent bingeing on hookers and smack.
It was unlikely that my employer would interest the walkers. Their guide probably hadn’t mustered them around the entrance to Albion Mansions and announced that the noted skip-tracer and agoraphobic Odeerie Charles lived there.
The fat man answered his buzzer quickly, under the misapprehension that I was an Ocado deliveryman. Judging by the disappointment in his voice, he wasn’t waiting on a consignment of brown rice and seasonal vegetables. I lowered the umbrella, entered the building, and rode the lift to the second floor. As usual, Odeerie had left his door ajar. He was wearing a tracksuit and trainers and he wasn’t pleased to see me.
‘Where the fuck have you been?’ was his opening sally.
‘Aren’t you going to offer me a coffee?’ I asked.
‘Do you want a coffee?’
‘That would be delightful.’
Five minutes later, Odeerie appeared in his office with two steaming mugs and a packet of Hobnobs. He laid the tray on a table and passed me a mug. The other accompanied him to one of the sofas, as did the biscuits. He dunked one into his coffee and lowered it into his mouth, as though it were a freshly shucked oyster.
‘There’s someone I need to find,’ I said.
Odeerie swallowed the biscuit and grunted. ‘Wouldn’t have anything to do with Harriet Parr, would it?’ he asked.
‘Not directly. I’m looking for someone I used to work with at Frank’s club.’
‘Male or female?’
‘Her name’s April Thomson.’
‘Presumably you’ve looked on the web.’
‘Most of social media. Thing is, she’s probably got married since the seventies.’
Odeerie filleted another biscuit from the packet using an ocherous thumbnail. He repeated the dunking/gulping procedure. It wasn’t a pretty sight at that time of the morning. Actually, it wasn’t a pretty sight full stop.
‘Know where she lived?’ he asked.
‘Scotland. It could have been a place on the west coast called Saltrossan, or she might have lived in Glasgow for a while.’
‘Why d’you want to find her?’
‘Does it matter?’
‘You know how it works, Kenny. The more background I have, the more chance there is of tracking her down.’
‘What I tell you doesn’t leave this room.’
Odeerie’s limpid brown eyes turned on me reproachfully. He laid the packet of Hobnobs aside, got up from the sofa and waddled to his desk. Rooting through its drawer, he found a notebook with a biro lodged in its spiral binding. ‘Go on, then,’ he said. ‘Tell me about it.’
Whatever his other faults, Odeerie was an expert listener. He only interrupted to ask a couple of clarification questions, and barely lost eye contact while taking notes.