Grant returned from Cape Town to Mill Hill and found relations between himself and Brigit somewhat strained. On his arrival she had been frosty, almost indifferent, and there was a lack of engagement in her conversation. After he had unpacked, showered and changed, he started telling her his news, which she half-heartedly tried to take in. However, she seemed distracted, as if she had no interest in his discoveries. Despite this he carried on talking about incriminating DVDs, burglaries and Suzie’s failed relationship with Danny quite impervious to the atmosphere until Brigit finally yelled, ‘Enough!’
‘What?’ he asked, stunned.
‘Enough. I’ve had enough! This is your story, Grant – your world, your obsession – but please leave me out of it. I think you are embroiled in something I wish you would leave well alone. Don’t forget you were very ill in Cornwall, very likely poisoned, but what does my opinion count for? I know you need to find out what happened and then get closure. Then I’ll be here for you again.’
‘So what are you suggesting?’
‘I have had it with your Jessops, Charnleys, mermaids, messages in bottles, trips to Cornwall and South Africa, your obsession with all this. The fact is, Grant, I don’t care. I couldn’t care less about any of it, save for the rather unsettling fact that you are playing with fire and someone might actually harm you next. Why can’t you accept that this case went dead forty years ago? The police carried out their investigations, and the CPS closed the file. Nobody was tried, nobody has died because of those events – and nobody, apart from you, gives a damn.’
‘I am not going to drop it – and somebody did die …’ Grant tried to sound defiant.
‘I know,’ she said, controlling her crying. ‘I know you can’t drop it, and that is partly why I can’t go on like this. I need a break. I support you in what you’re doing, but I need a break from it. We need a break from each other.’
Grant was astounded and felt as if the air was being sucked out of the room. He had only just returned from time away from Brigit. He threw on a jacket and collected up his mobile, glasses case, wallet and keys and stormed out of the house, slamming the front door behind him. Once outside he called for a cab and phoned Justyn, choosing him mainly because he had demonstrated the most interest in his investigation.
‘What’s up, M’Lord?’ asked Justyn, in that jocular but slightly patronizing style he reserved for Grant.
‘Can we meet?’
‘Sure, as it happens I am at a loose end tonight. Let’s meet at my club in Mayfair. I’ll be there in twenty minutes. Just give my name and they’ll let you in.’
‘Brilliant!’ said Grant in an enthusiastic tone that surprised himself. Justyn’s carefree manner had lifted him off the floor – but now he wanted to fall back on to it. He felt like getting completely legless. He hadn’t felt so reckless in years. All the tension of recent weeks needed to burst, and he felt powerless to stop it.
He arrived at the club before his host and settled down in the bar with a whisky sour. He was already on his second when Justyn arrived. He immediately detected a deterioration in his old friend since their last meeting a few weeks earlier.
‘What gives?’ asked Justyn, more seriously than usual.
‘It’s Brigit. She … she’s asked for time out,’ Grant blurted.
‘Ah. I think it rhymes with “clucking bell”,’ Justyn observed, taking in Grant’s surprising news.
‘Yes – and all of that. It’s a huge shock, a bolt from the blue.’ Grant stared straight ahead.
Justyn consoled his friend as best he could, ordered a bottle of Dom Perignon and suggested that they share a dozen oysters. He outlined the agenda for the evening as it suddenly formed in his head. They would dine at his casino – ‘quails’ eggs, fresh lobster; they’ve got the lot’ – have a flutter at blackjack and then they would go on to a lap-dancing club. Despite his red, swollen eyes and scrambled mind Grant comprehended the normally forbidden path his friend was suggesting, but his usual caution had been anaesthetized.
‘How do you know all these places?’ he asked, warming to the prospect ahead.
‘It goes with the territory. Some Chinese clients love the gambling – it’s illegal in Hong Kong – and the Russians love pretty young girls. Communist thinking and doctrine are a pre-Stone-Age concept now. And, of course, they all have the wedge.’
‘The what?’
‘The wedge, the wonga, the dosh,’ continued Justyn. ‘They have great big cruise liners of the stuff, aircraft-hanger quantities of it. The old order has gone, Grantie, the Empires of Europe and even the USA are being replaced by …’
At that moment Grant heard his phone ring and spotted that the missed call was from Brigit. He hesitated and ignored it. A few moments later he saw he had a voicemail message that he also ignored and within another few minutes a text message. ‘I know you are angry but can we talk tomorrow? By the way a package has turned up for you to sign.’ He shared this information with Justyn, who suggested it might be a good idea to call back, but Grant had no appetite for arbitration with Brigit there and then, and he decided to call in the morning. He knew he had rather overreacted by storming out, but he needed time to think things through.
Justyn set one rule for the evening: there would be no ranting about Brigit. Nevertheless he listened patiently to Grant’s tale of woe, but by the time they had left the club and were enjoying a lavish, expensive dinner at the casino the two men had begun to analyse Grant’s attempts at playing sleuth.
‘I told you Suzie was important,’ proclaimed Justyn, allowing himself some self-satisfaction.
‘Yes, but she wouldn’t open up about the Galvins. That was a complete no-go area.’
‘But you did hear about the film footage.’
‘That Henry took in 1972?’ replied Grant. ‘Did you know he was filming just about the whole of that last holiday?’
‘My brother was rather quiet back then. He had his problems with Dad, too. He just went into a shell when he was with the family. Nobody took much notice of his constant filming. He was a bit nerdy really, a bit of an anorak. He was also quite left wing, had been involved in student marches at Oxford – CND and all that malarkey. Whenever he mentioned politics at home there would be a fearful row, so he just sort of shut up shop around that time and stalked around after everyone instead, spending all his time filming on that final holiday. He had done the same thing during the previous years there, so no one took much notice. Of course, in hindsight, we should have done. Those events in 1972 were radically different from all the other years. Even I didn’t think to watch what he’d caught on camera, though.’
‘Great,’ said Grant. This was the best news he had heard all day. ‘I can’t wait to see the film.’
They finished their meal and went downstairs to the blackjack table. Grant had set himself a float of £200 and was not, even in his current reckless state, prepared to lose any more. Within twenty minutes and two ‘shoes’ he had lost it, not helped by the minimum stake being £25.
Justyn, meanwhile, appeared to be losing rather more heavily, but when Grant suggested leaving he said, ‘I know this game, Grantie. I’ll win it back in time. The odds are only twenty to twenty-one in favour of the dealer.’ He snapped his fingers to order more whisky sours. True enough, the cards started turning in his favour, and he turned a loss of some £400 into a gain of over £1,000 as picture after picture flowed for him. He even got a double blackjack by splitting aces. ‘Right. I’m out of here,’ he finally announced.
In the taxi on the way to their next destination, Grant asked Justyn how he had turned his luck at blackjack around so dramatically. ‘I count the cards,’ he revealed. ‘I know how many tens or pictures and other cards there are in a shoe, and I counted them carefully before placing my bets towards the end of each shoe. It’s something a Chinese client taught me many moons ago in Macau.’
‘I think you’re from Planet Zog,’ replied Grant, now beginning to feel much the worse for wear. ‘And where are we going?’
‘Stringfellows, Spearmint Rhino – who knows?’ announced Justyn triumphantly.
Suddenly Grant was engulfed by a rising panic. He had no idea how much alcohol he had consumed, but he was sure he had already exceeded the weekly recommended medical intake of units of alcohol for men. In his control-freakish, precise mind such considerations were never entirely ignored, no matter what his circumstances. He became more daunted about their next destination.
‘Look, I think I’d better turn in. Let’s head back to your pad, Justyn. I think where we’re heading is forbidden fruit in my world, .’
‘Chill out, Grantie. Nobody will attack you. In fact, you are not even allowed to touch; just look.’
Grant acquiesced and alighted from the taxi with Justyn hoping that no one would recognize him. The first person they encountered walking out of the nightclub was a vicar. Wearing a dog collar, the man looked somewhat out of place. Grant then did a double-take as a procession of lookalike clergy followed behind.
‘That’ll be a stag night,’ Justyn announced cheerfully.