‘I think I do. You’re the only person I feel I can be honest with at the moment. Plus it seems only polite. You’re running around the highlands on my behalf and I’ve been so wrapped up in myself that I’ve never even asked how you’re doing.’
Parlabane said nothing for a moment. It had taken him aback that it even occurred to her to care.
‘That wasn’t a question, by the way, so don’t answer,’ she said, as though anticipating a response that he wasn’t actually about to give. ‘I’ll ask you later when there’s time to talk.’
They agreed a rendezvous, but before she hung up, Parlabane managed to tap her for some information pertaining to the one area he still needed to look into.
‘About Peter’s firm, MTE Ltd. I found the details through Companies House. What do the initials stand for?’
‘Micro Transaction Executables.’
‘That’s not very revealing. What was he actually working on?’
‘I can’t say.’
‘Can’t say as in you don’t know? Because I see you’re listed as company secretary.’
‘Can’t say as in bound by a non-disclosure agreement. It’s to protect the investors and what they have staked in the project: even with Peter gone, there’s still the possibility they can find someone to build on his work.’
‘I’d like to know more about how the project was going, even if we have to avoid specifics.’
‘That’s not me, I’m afraid. My involvement only went as far as finding the investors and helping get the company set up.’
‘There are three directors listed,’ Parlabane noted. ‘Apart from Peter, there is a Courtney Jean Lang and a Samuel Patrick Finnegan.’
‘Lang is the epitome of the silent partner. Lives abroad, seldom comes to the UK. We’ve never actually met. I got in touch via a friend of a friend. The ideal investor, you might say: gives you the money then isn’t looking over your shoulder and demanding progress updates all the time. You’d have a better chance of talking to Sam. He’s in Glasgow.’
As a journalist, Parlabane had heard ‘fuck off’ more times than most people in this life. He considered himself a connoisseur, able to detect the finest nuance that distinguished individual varieties of the sentiment, and he was able to recognise it even when it came encoded within words that were ostensibly benign and even purporting to be helpful. Sometimes ‘fuck off’ was screamed directly into his face from the spittle-flecked mouth of someone in the throes of vein-bulging fury. Yet the message could be equally unambiguous and implacable when delivered in the mellifluent tones of a fresh-faced and smiling young woman as she politely enquired of him: ‘Do you have an appointment?’
Lucy had given him the address of an art dealership Sam Finnegan owned just off Great Western Road. She had worked in the art business herself, which was how she knew him, but she cautioned Parlabane that their connection wasn’t a guarantee that Finnegan would speak to him. Thus her words ‘a better chance’ indicated how difficult it might be to get in touch with Lang. And thus Parlabane was able to interpret the true meaning of the receptionist asking whether he had an appointment.
What the receptionist didn’t realise was that she was also telling him her boss was around. When she went through the mummery of calling upstairs and telling Parlabane that Finnegan was ‘unavailable all day’, he reciprocated with his own pretence of giving up and leaving. Instead he sat in his car, parked with a view of the entrance, and did something all good reporters were trained in before the era of churnalism had taken hold.
He waited.
Within the hour he saw two figures emerge from the shop: two men he had definitely not seen enter, for he could hardly have missed them. The older one he took for Finnegan: a tall and chiselled-looking middle-aged bloke with a dandified and haughty air about him: a well-dressed and immaculately coiffured individual whose healthy conceit of himself was evident merely from his gait and posture. He was accompanied by a younger guy who looked a less natural match for his duds: taller, more muscular, easier to picture in a sleeveless vest and sweatpants than a good suit.
Parlabane strode into Finnegan’s path, card pinched between his fingers, offering a smile and a chirpy tone.
‘Mr Finnegan?’
Finnegan looked at him with mild surprise and calm composure. If there was annoyance there, he masked it well, and Parlabane was damn sure there was annoyance there. Image meant a lot to this guy: that was clear.
‘I was wondering whether I could have a wee word with you about your involvement with the late Peter Elphinstone and his company, MTE.’
His expression remained relaxed. He looked like he was thinking about it, as though internally checking his schedule.
‘And you are?’
He proffered the card.
‘Jack Parlabane. I realise there’s an NDA preventing you discussing details of the project, but I’m interested in how it was progressing generally.’
Finnegan took the card and examined it like it was a delicate artefact, turning it over slowly between his leather-gloved fingers. He looked back at Parlabane and gave him a cold smile.
‘I don’t discuss my businesses with anybody not directly involved.’
Those words, also, said ‘fuck off’.
‘I was wondering when you last spoke to Mr Elphinstone, and how you felt things were between you at that time.’
Finnegan made the tiniest of gestures: a brief movement of his eyes that was intended to be perceptible only to the individual who was presumably paid to be looking for it. On this occasion, Parlabane was looking for it too.
The bigger guy took a step: not so much towards Parlabane as slightly to one side, thus shielding his boss and ushering him past. It was subtle and controlled: defensive rather than offensive, but unmistakably a demonstration of power.
It told Parlabane a great deal. Finnegan was a man who didn’t want to make a brash display of deploying muscle, but muscle he had, and presumably muscle he needed. He was wearing a very expensive winter coat, beneath which Parlabane could see fine tailoring and a flamboyantly colourful silk tie. He was dressing like a man of parts: businessman, art dealer, cognoscenti, but the other thing Parlabane identified beneath that coat was a Glasgow gangster.
Finnegan opened the door of an immaculately preserved vintage Bentley. Not for him the absurdly ostentatious modern sports version, ubiquitous vehicle of choice for the successful Scottish drug lord. No, Finnegan wanted something more classic, that spoke of taste and refinement rather than just power and money.
As he pulled away, Parlabane wondered whether he owned a classic Porsche 911 as well.
GLADIATORS
Liz Miller answered the phone after an excruciatingly long number of rings, though maybe it only seemed long to me in my desperation to have her location confirmed. Certainly it was time enough for me to consider hanging up, but I knew I would only end up calling again two minutes later, then over and over. I couldn’t afford that: if she was away overnight with Peter, I didn’t want her handset’s history to show a dozen missed calls from the same number: his home landline, where he lived with his wife.
‘Hello?’
Her tone was inquisitive when she finally responded. I wondered if she had been looking at an LED display and read this number before picking up.
‘Is that … Liz?’
‘Yes.’
So she was home in Dundee, not in Glasgow with Peter. But I had a lot more questions I’d like to ask her.
‘Em, sorry to disturb you. I’m calling because I need to talk to you about Peter Elphinstone.’
‘Oh.’
There was a long pause, which I was about to fill, but eventually she spoke again.
‘Has something happened?’
‘No, nothing like that. It’s just, I believe you were in a relationship with him a couple of years ago. Is that right?’
Her tone became more defensive.
‘Hang on, who is this?’
‘My name is Diana Jager.
You don’t know me.’
‘How do you know Peter?’
‘I’m married to him.’
‘Oh. Oh. I see.’
She sounded as curious about me as I was about her. I don’t think either of us was prepared to talk about it over the phone, however, so we agreed to meet the next day.
I was called in for a couple of hours shortly after midnight: an emergency splenectomy. I doubted I was missing sleep through it. My mind was too busy to shut down. Sometime during the evening it had occurred to me that I had no reason to trust this Liz woman, nor to assume that she was in the clear regarding Peter’s deceit. Her phone could have been set to relay calls from her landline to her mobile when she was not home, like the phone in Peter’s office. That might have been the reason for the delay in her answering, so it was possible he was sitting right there with her when she spoke to me. Perhaps the reason she agreed to meet me the next day was in order to ascertain precisely how much I knew.
I drove to Dundee first thing on the Sunday morning, getting there around lunchtime. It took me about three hours.
She was waiting for me inside the café. I was hungry from the journey but I felt instinctively vulnerable at the notion of eating in front of her. Part of me didn’t want to look weak or awkward, though I couldn’t have told you why those things would have applied to having a fruit scone.
It felt important to look composed, to look dignified, and generally to look good. I didn’t acknowledge it to myself at the time, but I must have spent more time getting ready that morning than I ever did for a date with Peter.
She was wearing black jeans and a tight wool sweater with a white linen collar. I couldn’t decide whether it was sexy or frumpy: Japanese schoolgirl or ageing schoolmarm.
If she noticed me sizing her up as I introduced myself and took a seat, then she didn’t know the half of it. She was around my age, probably a little younger, with shoulder-length dyed blonde hair, but it was her build I was most interested in taking in. She was slim, I guessed an inch or two taller than me, and from the moment I laid eyes on her I began trying to imagine what she looked like naked as I considered whether she was the woman in the videos.
‘I looked up your phone number,’ she said, rolling a sachet of sugar between her fingers. ‘That area code is for Inverness. You’ve driven all the way down here on a Sunday morning.’
‘That’s right.’
‘To talk about Peter Elphinstone.’
‘Yes.’
‘Your husband.’
I nodded.
She was eyeing me with a look of intense scrutiny, as though sternly evaluating the honesty of my responses, a human polygraph. It was not quite as though she didn’t believe me; more like she was untrusting of my motives.
‘Of how long?’
‘About four months.’
She looked away briefly, the judge considering what she had been presented with so far.
‘And where is Peter today?’
I don’t know, I didn’t say. I was hoping you could tell me.
I knew I mustn’t show my hand at this stage, and that it might end the encounter right there if I came out and accused her.
‘He’s in Glasgow for the weekend.’
She nodded, evaluating this neutrally.
‘But he told me he was going to London.’
Our eyes locked across the table. If she was in on Peter’s deceit, then I knew I wasn’t divulging anything she couldn’t already assume simply from my being here, but by making it explicit I was changing the terms of engagement.
‘That’s a hell of a thing to admit to a stranger,’ she said.
She regarded me in silence for a long time, a very long time, her words hanging in the air all the while, demanding our mutual contemplation.
Then at last she spoke again.
‘Are you hungry? You must be hungry. All the way down from Inverness. Order something to eat. You can eat and I can talk. I’ll tell you about me and Peter.’
THE PREFERRED OUTCOME
In a parallel universe, only marginally askew from Parlabane’s present reality, this might be an evening to cherish. In both worlds it was Saturday night and he was meeting a woman for a drink: sitting in his favourite pub, nervousness gnawing away at him as he awaited her arrival; the sense of flattery that she had sought him out also feeding into an anxiety that he might fail to meet her expectations.
One of those realities was full of openings and possibilities. In one of those realities, the evening might end in laughter, in kisses.
He felt a low dread at the prospect of the encounter, recalling her crushed countenance when she doorstepped him only a few days ago. She had picked up since then, but the anticipation of what he might reveal could have been a factor: something positive for her to focus on, a distraction from her turmoil. He reflected that, under the circumstances, perhaps the only thing worse than disappointing her was giving her what she wanted.
He checked his watch: he was early. He distracted himself by trying Catherine McLeod on his mobile. He had called her earlier, hoping to get the Glaswegian Detective Superintendent’s take on Sam Finnegan. It had gone to voicemail and he hung up, intending to phone again later, but it had slipped his mind until now when he had a moment to kill.
It went to voicemail again. This time he left a short message, clicking off as Lucy strode into the Barony in a flowing black coat, her gaze searching the tables. To his surprise, he felt a rush of brightness, of pleasure, at the sight of her walking through the door. Maybe it was mere instinct: in any reality, there were worse ways to spend a Saturday night than meeting an attractive woman for a drink. And he did find her attractive, he realised. She smiled when she spotted him. That always helped. She wasn’t exactly beaming, but she was no longer looking post-tearful and exhausted by shock and hurt.
She batted away his offer to go to the bar and returned with drinks for both of them. She was taller than he remembered: she had seemed hunched before, shrinking from the world in her grief. No longer reeling, she carried herself with what he couldn’t exactly call grace – it was too straight-backed and formal for that – but certainly a confidence often instilled in the high-born.
She folded the coat and placed it on the chair opposite Parlabane, but sat down next to him on the bench against the wall. It felt unsettlingly intimate until he realised that she didn’t want anyone eavesdropping on this conversation.
She wore a patterned silk blouse with a high collar and frilly cuffs. It wouldn’t work on everyone, but somehow it did on her. She had her own style, consistent with his first impression: prim and yet fetishistic. Now that he was presented with her in this context, he realised he had seen her in the Barony over the years: someone he had taken notice of, occasionally wondered about, but never had occasion to speak to.
Such an occasion was here now, but it wasn’t the one he’d have chosen or envisaged.
She was hungry for details, eager and anxious for answers that he couldn’t give her. He told her everything he had learned over the past few days, after first appealing to her to stop addressing him as Mr Parlabane.
‘Please call me Jack. Whenever I get called Mr Parlabane it’s usually because I’m in trouble.’
‘Sorry. I didn’t realise I was doing it. I think because I’ve asked for your help, subconsciously I was trying to be respectful. But it sounds terribly formal, doesn’t it?’
‘I suppose it does keep a professional distance,’ he admitted.
‘It feels wrong, though. What you’ve done for me seems more like the kindness of a friend. Kinder than that, since you agreed to it without knowing me at all.’
‘I wouldn’t have done it if I didn’t think there might be a story in it. Believe me, Lucy, I’m nobody’s white knight.’
She looked at him with a wistful sincerity.
‘You’re the closest thing to that I’ve had in a long time.’
They held each other’s gaze for a moment longer than Parlabane was comfortable
with. He needed to get things back on surer footing, so he turned the conversation to the matter at hand.
He laid out the details soberly, keen that she should not infer anything dramatic in his findings.
‘You’re right that it wasn’t the perfect marriage as reported in the tabloids, but it wasn’t anything that surprising either, considering we’re talking about two people who perhaps married in haste. I get the impression it’s like you suggested: she was a bit obsessive about trying to knock Peter into shape, making him conform to the ideal she thought she was marrying. But I think that simply explains why she said Peter had changed and you said his problem was he never did.’
‘Did you speak to Diana personally?’
‘Only briefly. She was as forthcoming as I’d expect of someone in her circumstances.’
‘But did you find out anything about her from anyone else?’
‘Not much that wasn’t already public knowledge. One person I spoke to mentioned a personal tragedy in her past. Do you know anything about that?’
She nodded, a slightly strained look of frustration in her expression: of the question she never asked when she had the chance.
‘I remember Peter alluding to that once. He didn’t mention what it was about and at the time I wasn’t interested enough to ask. Something that happened when she was a student, I think. Did you speak to my father?’
‘I spoke to Cecily.’
Parlabane figured this reply would require no elaboration.
‘In that case I wouldn’t be on tenterhooks waiting for him to ring back.’
‘An iron fist inside a velvet glove if ever there was one.’
‘And soon to be my wicked stepmother.’
‘They’re engaged?’
‘Yes. And you don’t know the half of it. She’s my age.’
‘I see. That sounds … awkward.’
‘Creepier still, she used to visit with her family when we were kids. She was always a bit aloof, acting more grown-up than us. Peter had a real crush on her when we were teens. I think there might even have been something going on between them behind the scenes at one point. And now she’s marrying my father. They’ll be parents together within a year of the nuptials, mark my words. She’ll be shagging him every which way until she’s provided a fresh new heir, and she’ll see the sprog gets a sweeter deal than we did.’
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