by Greg Keen
‘I knew him a long time ago. He heard I was in the business and gave me a call when he thought that Harry had just gone AWOL.’
‘Why not go to a major agency?’
‘Frank was concerned Harry’s disappearance might make it into the press.’
Callum sat back and tugged on an earlobe. It seemed to me that he wasn’t entirely convinced by this explanation. I was right: he wasn’t.
‘An outfit with a good reputation wouldn’t jeopardise it by leaking information about its clients. They’d be out of business in no time.’
‘Maybe Frank was just paranoid.’
‘Doesn’t sound like the man I used to know.’
Nor did it to me. At our initial interview this week I’d been surprised by Frank’s nervous body language. I’d put it down to paternal anxiety. Perhaps there was another reason.
‘Why else would he hire me?’ I asked.
‘I don’t know, Mr Gabriel. And right now I have work to get on with.’
Callum stood up, signalling the end of our meeting. We didn’t shake each other’s hands. I’d reached the bottom of the stairs when Kaz emerged from the waiting room.
‘All right, Kenny?’ she said. ‘How’d you get on?’
‘Very illuminating.’
Kaz’s grin made her look like a little girl. I felt an urge to hug her. The moment passed. ‘It’s always hard the first time,’ she said. ‘That’s the thing about Callum: he makes you ask yourself all kinds of questions.’
‘He certainly does.’
‘You’ll get there in the end, mate. Maybe I’ll see you in here again sometime.’
‘Who knows?’ I said, and she scampered up the stairs.
Kaz had seen more of life than most people twice her age. It had given her wisdom beyond her years. Certainly she was right about asking myself questions. One in particular resonated. Perhaps it had been lurking in my subconscious for a while. If so, then my interview with Callum had dragged it resolutely to the surface.
Last summer, Odeerie had been banging on about a book that included a quiz to see if you were a psychopath. According to its author, not all of them were rampaging around with chainsaws and severed heads. Many channelled their urges and became ultra-successful. Work and medication might continue to keep a lid on things for decades, but a couple of missed doses, combined with some very bad news, and the pot might suddenly boil over. Had this been the case with Frank Parr?
And, if so, had he murdered his daughter?
SIXTEEN
I intended to blow some expenses on a very late lunch or an early dinner at the Fitzrovia Townhouse Hotel as there might not be much on offer at La Cage. In addition to munching my way through Jean-Paul Braithwaite’s finest, I might also discover whether Harry Parr had been in the place since visiting with her brother.
The cab dropped me off outside a Victorian building that had JONAH WILSON’S HAT FACTORY picked out in fancy brickwork halfway up its stone fascia. Windows that mercury-crazed hatters had once peered out of now admitted light into rooms costing four hundred quid a night. The Fitzrovia Townhouse had opened in a blaze of publicity two years ago. Images on its website showed huge brass beds in oak-panelled rooms and freestanding baths deep enough to snorkel in.
At street level was Cube, the restaurant run by Jean-Paul Braithwaite. The Yorkshireman had risen to fame on the back of a TV show in which he treated a selection of tyro chefs to some ‘bluff northern honesty’. This usually meant telling a hapless contestant that his iced raspberry soufflé with a cinnamon straw was a ‘pile of shit with a cinnamon straw’, or a tearful wannabe celebrity chef that he ‘wouldn’t feed his dog her fucking veal carpaccio’.
Fancy food and ritual humiliation had turned Braithwaite into a household name, although to be fair the guy could cook a bit. He was a triple-starred Michelin chef, and Cube was one of the most exclusive places to eat in London. All of which probably accounted for the stunned look on the face of the maître d’ when I enquired if he had a table. ‘You haven’t made a reservation, sir?’ he asked.
‘Thought I might not have to at this time of day.’
‘We have nothing available, I’m afraid.’
‘How about if I waited at the bar?’
‘It would be a long wait, sir.’
‘How long?’
‘Four days.’
‘Maybe I could have a drink anyway,’ I suggested.
The maître d’ probably employed waiters younger than my scrofulous leather jacket, and I got the impression he wasn’t exactly thrilled by my polycotton non-iron shirt. Nevertheless there was a couple behind me who were clearly eager to get to the table they had probably reserved in March. No point causing a scene.
‘As you wish, sir,’ he sighed.
The walls in a room the size of a sports hall had been stripped down to the original brickwork; its floorboards were sanded to a smooth finish. Tables of varying sizes were covered in white tablecloths that reflected the light from a huge square chandelier suspended by a chain from the ceiling.
A polished zinc cocktail bar ran the entire length of the place. Four guys and two women were stationed behind it. Each wore a white shirt under a black waistcoat with the Cube logo embroidered on the left breast. I occupied a tall stool and waited for a guy in his twenties to finish pouring a snot-green drink from a nickel-plated shaker. He handed the glass to a waitress and then placed a doily in front of me.
‘My name’s Graham. What can I get you, sir?’
‘Whisky sour.’
‘Egg white?’
I nodded and Graham went into action. He squeezed the juice from a lemon before carefully separating the white from an egg. It all went into a Martini shaker along with two ounces of Woodford Reserve, after which Graham embarked on the dry shake.
The top came off the canister and he shovelled in some ice. His blonde hair banged against each cheek in time with the rhythm of the second shake. After a minute or so its contents were transferred into a chilled glass. Graham added two cherries on a stick and laid it reverentially on the doily before me.
‘Fantastic,’ I said after taking a sip.
He smiled and said, ‘Anything else?’
‘Don’t suppose you’ve got any dry roast?’
‘Smoked almonds?’
‘They’ll do.’ Seconds later a porcelain dish was placed next to my glass. ‘How long have you worked at Cube, Graham?’
‘Since it opened.’
‘You here every day?’
‘Apart from Sundays.’
‘Enjoy it?’
The barman shrugged. ‘It pays the bills.’
Graham had blue eyes, square shoulders and a dimple in his chin. Take a pair of clippers to his hair and he would have looked like a 1960s astronaut.
‘Will you be running a tab?’ he asked.
‘Don’t have the time,’ I said. ‘I’ll just pay for this one.’
While Graham located a card machine, I checked out Cube’s clientele. Some were dressed for the office; others had probably never seen the inside of one. Underneath the central chandelier a party of six were hanging on the every word of an Irish chat-show host. On a less prominent table an embattled Premier League manager was picking at his food while intermittently tapping his mobile phone. The hum of discreet chat came off the room like the purr from an idling Daimler.
Then the atmosphere changed. Standing in the doorway was a waiter dressed in regulation uniform. Next to him was a shorter man in his late forties wearing a chef’s jacket and holding a bottle of wine. We were in the presence of the maestro.
The waiter pointed to a table twenty feet from me. Three suited men were sitting at it. One was in his early fifties with a heavy belly and loose jowls. His companions were fifteen years younger. They hadn’t reached maximum paunch but were getting there.
Jean-Paul traversed the room like a middleweight on his way to the ring. Dirty blonde hair sprouted erratically from his scalp as though subject to a high wind. His ski
n was pockmarked, his eyes hooded. One of the younger guys elbowed his companion in the ribs and made a face that was part glee and part trepidation.
‘Are you the fucking clowns who ordered this?’ Jean-Paul demanded, slamming the bottle of red on to the table.
The older man examined the label. ‘That’s right, Château Rayas ’95,’ he said. ‘Something wrong with it, Jean-Paul?’
‘There’s something wrong with you morons. Two of you are having fish and some cunt’s having the lobster.’
‘That would be me,’ said one of the younger guys.
‘That would be me.’ Jean-Paul mimicked his RP accent. ‘Why didn’t you just go right ahead and order a can of fucking Tango?’
‘Er, I don’t believe it’s on the list.’
His contemporary barely suppressed a snort of laughter. It didn’t sweeten Jean-Paul’s mood any. He put his fists on the table and loomed over the trio.
‘I take it you disapprove of our choice,’ the older guy said.
‘Of course I disapprove of it. You think I sweat my bollocks off in that kitchen so a bunch of fuckwits can ruin everything by ordering the wrong bastard wine?’ It was a rhetorical question but Jean-Paul allowed it to sink in. ‘Now, I’m sending the sommelier over,’ he said, ‘and this time you’re going to listen to what he suggests. Otherwise you can all piss off to Burger King.’
Jean-Paul snatched up the bottle of wine and headed back towards the kitchen. Conversations resumed around the room. The two younger guys high-fived each other and the older man smiled indulgently. Graham arrived with a payment machine.
‘If you just put your card in, sir,’ he said to me. ‘Then check the amount and press the green button.’
‘How often does that happen?’ I asked, keying an amount into the gratuity box that was three times the size of the actual bill.
‘JP having a go at someone? Twice a day, if he can fit it in.’
‘They didn’t seem to mind much.’
‘Course not, they ordered the wrong wine on purpose. Half the people in here want to see JP wig out. It’s like a bloody competition.’
‘He’s not like that really, then?’
‘Well, he’s not exactly sweetness and light, put it that way. But all the sweary stuff’s just a trademark, really.’ The machine chugged out my receipt. Graham checked the screen to make sure everything was in order and pursed his lips. ‘I think you’ve made a mistake here.’
‘No mistake, Graham. There was something I was hoping you could help me with.’
The barman’s eyes narrowed. ‘How d’you mean?’
After the fiasco with Callum, I decided to play it straight. ‘I’m working for a man called Frank Parr. His daughter was found dead yesterday. This was one of her favourite restaurants.’
‘You’re a private detective?’
‘In a manner of speaking.’ I got my phone out. ‘There are a couple of photographs of Harry I can show you . . .’
‘No need. I read about it in the paper.’
‘You remember her?’
‘Why should I tell you if I did?’
‘Because it may help find who killed her.’
‘Isn’t that the police’s job?’
‘I’m working in conjunction with them.’
This piece of truth-stretching didn’t remove the sceptical look from Graham’s face entirely. I had my wallet open and slid a business card across the bar. He examined it briefly before pushing it back.
‘Harry came in most weeks. Sometimes she’d just sit at the bar and have a few drinks. To be honest, I got the impression she was a bit lonely.’
‘When was the last time you saw her?’
Graham handed over my credit card along with the receipt from the machine. ‘Last week,’ he said. ‘She had a row with this bloke she came in with now and again.’
‘What did he look like?’ I asked.
‘Thirty-something. About six-two with side-parted blonde hair. He was wearing the same kind of suit as that bunch.’ Graham nodded at the miscreants who had incurred the wrath of Jean-Paul Braithwaite and were now in consultation with the wine waiter.
‘Was it a big argument?’ I asked.
‘Big enough. She was shouting about not being able to believe what he’d done and that he was a hypocritical piece of shit.’
‘What did he say?’
‘Tried to calm her down, mostly.’
‘He didn’t seem aggressive at all?’
A waiter came over and gave Graham a drinks order. He looked at the chit for a few seconds before considering my question. ‘More guilty than aggressive.’ His eyes widened. ‘Jesus, you don’t think he was the one who . . . ?’
‘Sounds like the guy you’re talking about is her brother,’ I said. ‘They used to work together, so it was probably connected to that. You didn’t hear anything else?’
‘Just what I told you.’
‘Did they stay much longer?’
‘Maybe another ten minutes.’
‘And that was the last time she was in here?’
‘Unless she came in on a Sunday.’ Graham glanced at the order the waitress had given him. ‘I should really be getting on with these.’
‘Just one more thing,’ I said. ‘Was there anyone else Harry showed up with regularly in the last few weeks?’
Graham shook his head. ‘She came in for lunch a couple of times but they just looked like business types.’
I drained my sour and said, ‘Thanks, Graham, you’ve been a big help.’
He didn’t seem too pleased to hear it. ‘Look, you won’t mention my name, will you? JP makes us sign a confidentiality document. It means we can’t give anything to the press but that probably includes private detectives.’
‘My lips are sealed,’ I said.
‘Well, I hope you find out who killed her,’ he said. ‘She seemed like a nice person. You sure about her brother?’
‘Pretty sure,’ I replied.
SEVENTEEN
The walk from Cube to Lipman’s, where I intended to hire a dinner suit, afforded the opportunity to mull over Graham’s information about Harry Parr. That Roger hadn’t mentioned a stand-up row with his sister meant little in itself. By all accounts, Harry had been temperamental and it might not have been anything out of the ordinary. Calling Roger a hypocritical piece of shit could well have been inspired by his using an unauthorised accounting system for the quarterly report.
Even if it had been more serious, I wasn’t convinced that Roger was the murdering type. His demeanour had been relatively relaxed when I’d interviewed him at Griffin’s offices. Either he’d been convinced his sister was still alive, or he should consider a career on the stage. Nevertheless, I intended to ambush Rog with the information when the opportunity presented itself – just to see what his reaction was.
More pertinent was whether Harry intending to move from Griffin to Plan B put Frank in the frame for her murder. I couldn’t convince myself it did. Sure, he would have been livid his daughter was throwing in her lot with his ex-business partner but it was quite a feat to imagine him killing her for it, not to mention luring her to a deserted house to administer the coup de grâce.
If Frank had lost the plot to such a degree then he would have been far more likely to hit Harry over the head with whatever had been to hand at the time. And even if he had gone the roundabout route, why hire me to look for her killer? Not to mention insisting that I remain on the job after the body had been discovered.
No, whoever had murdered Harry Parr, it wasn’t a family member. For my money, her killer had been the stranger she had mentioned to Dervla Bishop, and my best chance of discovering his identity lay at La Cage.
The assistant in Lipman’s asked what kind of event I was attending. I told him that I was up for a Golden Mould at the Plastic Injection Awards. It seemed easier than saying that I was visiting a Mayfair sex club to track down a murderer. He had no further questions and focused on locating a 36 Regular jacket to go with
my thirty-inch-waist trousers and elasticated bow tie.
I tacked across south-east Soho, crossed Shaftesbury Avenue, and turned into Brewer Street. Neon signs advertising poppers, prix fixe meals and luxury apartments were flickering into life. A shift change was under way. Office and shop workers were being replaced by culture vultures en route to the latest production of Beckett and out-of-town reps trying to source a competitively priced blowjob.
I was feeling peckish and there was nothing in the flat. Fortunately Lina Stores was open, which meant I could get some fresh ravioli. I held the door for a woman exiting with several bags. ‘Cheers, Kenny,’ she said. ‘You’re a gent.’
‘Stephie.’
‘At least you remember my name.’
‘Look, I’ve been meaning to call, but . . .’
‘No need to explain,’ she said. ‘I got the message.’
‘That’s not it at all.’
‘Course it isn’t.’
‘Seriously, Stephie, I’ve been running around like a blue-arsed fly. You must have heard what happened to Harry Parr.’
‘Yeah, that was terrible,’ she said, voice softening. ‘But at least the police have found her now.’
‘They didn’t.’
‘What d’you mean?’
‘I found her.’
As soon as the words were out, my energy departed like the oil from a ruptured sump. Had Stephie not extended a steadying hand, I’d have dropped to the pavement.
‘Christ, Kenny, are you okay?’ she asked.
‘I’m fine,’ I said, although the evidence suggested otherwise.
‘D’you want me to call an ambulance?’
‘It’s a dizzy spell. Just give me a couple of minutes.’
‘Have you been drinking?’ I shook my head. ‘Well, you can’t stand here all night. Let’s get you home.’
What with me hardly able to walk, and Stephie laden with plastic bags, we must have looked like a couple of dipsos on a spree as we hobbled to the flat.
‘Hot sweet tea is what you need,’ she said, after settling me on the sofa.
‘Or a shot of whisky.’ Stephie frowned. ‘How about hot sweet tea with a dash of whisky?’ I suggested.