Accompanying the shots of Harry had been a telephone number for her estranged husband. The following morning, I went online to see what I could dig up about the pair. Celebrity magazine archives featured the wedding of Frank Parr’s only daughter, Harriet, to Mr Rocco Aloysius Holtby, described variously as a leisure-industry consultant, an entrepreneur and a currency speculator.
Rocco had a thick head of brown hair and a moustache that greyed slightly at the edges. The swell above his collar might have been due to a tight shirt stud or a burgeoning double chin. I’d have said he was around forty. A scroll through the blurb beneath the photo of the happy couple revealed that I’d undershot by two years.
Rocco wasn’t on LinkedIn or Twitter. Nor could I find anything else on social media. It appeared that he was digitally prominent for having married the daughter of the seventy-ninth-richest person in Britain. There were no reports of a relationship rift, which meant it had either been kept quiet, or no one gave a toss.
My call was answered on the seventh ring. ‘Mr Holtby?’ I asked, and received an affirming grunt. ‘My name’s Kenny Gabriel.’
‘Congratulations.’
‘I’m a friend of your wife’s father.’
‘Is he dead?’
‘Er, no.’
‘Shame.’
‘Frank’s a little concerned about Harry. She hasn’t been in touch for a few days.’
‘Dunno where she is.’
‘I’d still like to ask a few questions.’
‘Go on, then.’
‘In person.’
‘I’m a busy man.’
‘I’d recompense you for your time,’ I said.
‘How soon can you get here?’ he asked.
Seven Dials is the hinterland between Soho and Covent Garden. In the nineteenth century it was the cholera-riddled hangout of thieves and prostitutes. More recently it’s been given a double-coat of trendy with the money brush. Streets that, in the seventies, you’d have thought twice about walking down after dark now feature bespoke jewellery shops by women called Suki, and three-hundred-quid-a-night boutique hotels.
Rocco lived in a building sandwiched between a shop called Esoterica, which sold new-age bullshit to the terminally credulous, and a designer-fashion outlet that did much the same thing. I pressed the entrance buzzer and was instructed to come to the first floor. The apartment door was ajar. I knocked and was told to enter.
The flat’s interior smelled of stale sweat and monosodium glutamate. Strewn over the carpet were discarded clothes and empty fast-food cartons. Keeping them company were ageing utility bills and discarded lager cans. If a couple of cleaners armed to the teeth had gone to work, it would have been a nice apartment. Eventually.
Rocco was sitting on a leather sofa wearing black jockey shorts and a Stetson. He looked like a guy whose gym membership had lapsed the previous year. His pecs needed a training bra and his gut seeped like jelly from a dodgy mould. He had a Zippo in one hand and a spliff in the other.
‘Jesus,’ he said. ‘You look rough.’
‘I had a late night.’
‘Likewise,’ Rocco said, brandishing the spliff. ‘This’ll do us both a favour.’
I removed a week-old copy of Metro from a chair and sat down. The coffee table had a film of white dust that I guessed wasn’t Pledge residue. Rocco sparked the spliff up and inhaled deeply before extending it to me.
‘Bit early,’ I said.
‘Got vodka, if you fancy it.’
‘No, thanks.’
‘Suit yourself.’ He settled back on the sofa, contemplated the ceiling for a bit, and said, ‘I dropped six hundred quid last night.’
‘Nightmare.’
‘Wrong way to look at it.’ Rocco took another draw and held the smoke inside his chest. ‘Know much about poker?’ he asked, exhaling.
‘Not really.’
‘Rule one: don’t get emotional. Not about money or anything else.’
‘What’s rule two?’
‘Play the man, not the cards.’
‘Think I’ve heard that one.’
Rocco smiled. ‘Easy to say; hard to do.’
The weed was clearly weaving its magic, and while it may not have been doing much for my pleasure centres, it made the room smell marginally better.
‘Where d’you play?’ I asked.
‘Snake Pit on City Road.’
‘Are you a pro?’
‘Always.’
I was about to ask how it was going, and then thought better of it. I may have known fuck-all about poker, but was pretty sure Amarillo Slim didn’t dry his pants on the radiator.
‘What’s happened to H, then?’ Rocco said, slurring his words slightly.
‘Probably nothing. You know what fathers are like.’
‘Frank never liked me much.’ Rocco changed position on the sofa. A testicle peeped out from the side of his pants.
‘Can’t imagine why,’ I said.
‘Because no one’s good enough for his precious daughter,’ Rocco said, adding, ‘And because he’s a tosser’, in case I hadn’t fully got the picture.
‘How long were you married?’
‘We still are.’
‘But you’re separated?’ He nodded. ‘Why d’you split up?’
‘What the fuck’s that got to do with anything?’
‘Just trying to get some background.’
‘You don’t look much like a private eye.’
‘That’s because I’m a skip-tracer.’
Zero interest from Rocco as to the difference. ‘D’you really want to know why me and H broke up?’ he asked. I nodded. ‘Promise not to tell Frank?’
‘Scout’s honour.’
‘I’m not really her type.’
‘I don’t think that would bother him much.’
‘It might if he knew why. H doesn’t like men.’
‘She’s gay?’
‘Got it in one, Sherlock. Frank kept asking why she never had any boyfriends. H produced me to put him off the scent.’
‘Getting married was a bit drastic, wasn’t it?’
‘It was an impulse thing. And it wasn’t as though we didn’t get on well.’
‘You just didn’t have sex?’
Rocco adjusted the roach on his spliff. ‘Yes and no,’ he said.
‘Meaning?’
‘We met at a fetish club.’
‘Harry was into that?’
‘Does Popeye like spinach?’
‘Which club did she use?’
‘Most of ’em.’
‘Didn’t she prefer to go with a woman?’
‘Guys were cool too. It was more a dominance thing.’
‘What was Harry’s relationship like with her father?’
‘Depends which way the wind was blowing. Some days great, other days they’d have fucking huge barneys.’
‘About what?’
‘Work, usually. Harry had a lot of ideas about how the company should be run, but Frank wasn’t having any of it. He’s very conservative about business.’
‘Who usually backed down?’ I asked.
‘H. She couldn’t bear to piss him off for too long.’
‘She married you, didn’t she?’
‘Frank was all for that at the time. It was only afterwards he got the hump.’
‘When was the last time you saw Harry?’
‘Few weeks ago.’
‘How did she seem?’
‘Happy.’
‘Any reason why?’
‘Didn’t you mention something about payment?’ Rocco asked. I produced a fifty and handed it over. ‘That all?’
‘Unless there’s something else you’ve got to tell me . . .’