Charlie got a call from Candice, one of the working girls on his manor, when he was at one of his London houses.
‘Your wife phoned me,’ she said.
‘What?’
‘Nula. Your frigging wife. She called and she’s asking about the kid. About Harlan. About what sort of background he had, before he was with the agency.’
Charlie stared at the phone. ‘What’d you say?’ he asked.
‘I said I’d get back to her, but I didn’t. I said I’d have to check the files.’
Charlie gazed across at Terry, sitting there looking a question at him. What in the fuck, he wondered, was Nula asking about that for? And where did she get ‘Mrs Bushell’s’ number, which was Candice’s number, the same one she had answered as ‘the agency’ all throughout the process of Harlan’s adoption? He thought he’d had that all locked safely away, out of sight.
‘Change your number with BT, OK?’ he said.
‘Christ, Charlie, do I have to? All my clients . . .’
‘Do it,’ said Charlie, and slammed down the phone.
‘What’s up?’ asked Terry.
‘Nothing,’ said Charlie, thinking of Harlan as they’d first seen him, crouching pale-eyed and filthy in the cupboard under the stairs in that shit-hole of a squat.
He thought of Harlan’s ‘background’ with his junkie mother. Of course, Charlie had told the kid he must never talk about that. Never. No way did he want Nula ever finding out about it. And the kid never had. Actually, Harlan never talked much about anything. Charlie had been worried that he might speak out, at first. Now, he didn’t worry any more. It wasn’t in the kid’s nature to make conversation, and that was a relief.