Michael Quinn won’t meet me on the weekend. He doesn’t say so, but it becomes obvious when he doesn’t return my call until Monday morning, just as I’m logging on at work.
I spent the weekend with Jam. She stayed over, we drank wine, looked up rinsing online, psychoanalyzed Fred, combed through my bank accounts noting all the blank spaces I’d failed to spot, trying to work out whether to let the house go or cling to it in compensation. For the second time in my life.
By Sunday night, I felt like I’d been vacuum-packed, compressed, everything so tight I was struggling to breathe.
I still feel like that. I’m listening to Michael’s voice and it’s taking a while to reach me. “…The King’s Arms again, six o’clock?”
We’re meeting tonight.
When I hang up, Claire touches my shoulder and I jump in my seat, clutching my heart. “Oh, you scared me! Sorry, Claire, I’m a bundle of nerves today.”
She looks apologetic. “I just wanted to ask if you’d like a coffee?”
“Oh, yes, please. Thank you. You’re a star.” I smile, my mouth twitching with the effort. Rows of faces look up, evaluating me. I know I look dark under the eyes, edgy, wired. Shaun would be enjoying this, if he were in yet. I make a written note to start logging his hours, and a mental one to look for better concealer makeup at lunchtime and to check out herbal remedies, something to get me through the day without my skin leaving my bones.
* * *
At six o’clock I enter the King’s Arms, having checked all around me first, scrutinizing the immediate area with an efficiency that would impress a hit squad. I’m not taking any chances anymore. I bought a personal alarm and self-defense spray at lunchtime; Claire told me, after my discreet inquiries, that they sell them in a tourist shop of all places and she was right.
Michael is already inside the pub, doing paperwork in the corner near the empty fireplace. There’s no one else around, the barman laying out cutlery, folding napkins.
“Gabby,” he says, extending his hand. He seems on edge, less poised than before, and I immediately wonder why, stomach churning. Nerves are infectious, especially with a private investigator, because if he doesn’t like what he’s found, then I’m sure as hell not going to.
I force a smile as I set my bag down. “So…what have you got for me?”
He glances past me to the bar. “Would you like a drink?”
“No, thanks.” No need for schmoozing or placebos tonight. When I get home, I’ll decompress, the way risotto rice does when I snip the packet, air escaping. But for now I’m as rock steady as the table he’s leaning on. At least, I hope I am.
Clearing his throat, he pulls a piece of paper from his file, handing it to me. “That’s your invoice, Gabby. I’m really sorry.”
“Because it’s low?” It’s nothing—a pittance. I paid more to have the boiler serviced.
He shuffles his feet, sets his pen on the table, aligning it with his file. “I couldn’t justify charging more. It’s the minimum fee.”
“But why?” I fold the paper, concealing it inside my bag.
“Well, because…” His blond eyelashes flutter rapidly and then he looks all around the room, leaning in to speak quietly. “I can’t go any further with this case.”
I don’t understand. “Because you couldn’t find anything about her? ’Cos I told you I don’t think that’s her real name and—”
He holds up his hand. “It’s not that. It’s because…” Again, he glances around, lowering his voice even more so that I have to strain to hear him. “…I can’t get involved with this.”
“What do you mean? Why not?”
“Because it’s too dodgy. I’d lose my job.” He folds his arms. “I don’t know what you think private investigators do, but it’s not this. At least, not our company. It’s not worth it. And…” He stabs the table with his finger. “…If my boss were to find out about this?” His voice is a whisper. “I’d be sacked on the spot.”
I stare at him, swallowing slowly, wishing now that I’d taken that offer of wine. “What did you find out? Tell me. Please.”
He deliberates this, twisting his pen round and round on the table top like a compass, telling him which way to go. “I’ll just tell you this and then I can’t speak to you again about it. Okay?”
I nod, my stomach shriveling. What can be so bad that he had to drop the case?
“Like you thought—Ellis has adopted an alias and she’s good at what she does. She’s a shadow, doesn’t leave a trail. But I managed to find her, follow her…and that’s when I had to shut everything down.”
“Why?” I ask, shifting to the edge of the seat, certain I’m about to fall off.
“Because she’s involved with the warehouse lot in Seaport.”
That means nothing to me. Seaport is two towns away along the coastline, a ratty place I’ve only been to once and got out again fast. I wait for more information.
“They occupy the derelict warehouses by the harbor. And I don’t mean kids vaping. I mean proper criminals. Drugs, illegal arms. At least, that’s what the rumors are. They’re set up as small businesses, gyms, coffee bars. But they’re slippery as hell. The police can’t pin anything on them—have tried for years allegedly.” He throws his pen down, closes his notepad. “And that’s all I’m saying.”
I shift uncomfortably. “But if they’re pretending to be aboveboard, then why are you scared to go down there? Couldn’t you be a customer?”
He looks angry for the first time, his jawline hardening. “No, Gabby, I’m not scared. But some unknown guy, sniffing around down there? They’d kill me in my sleep. And like I said: my boss would sack me if he knew I was handling this case. We don’t touch serious organized crime and I’m pretty sure that’s what we have here.”
The pub is completely silent, the barman gazing at us.
“This isn’t for me,” Michael says, picking up his laptop bag, swinging it onto the table. “To be perfectly honest, you should be going to the police.”
I watch as he assembles his paperwork methodically, placing it neatly inside the bag. If I was looking for a maverick, someone to bend the rules a little, I chose the wrong guy. “I’m afraid I have to go. But there’s no rush for payment under the circumstances.”
I stare at the colorful lit bottles behind the bar, thinking that this could not have been worse news. Because not only am I more at risk than I realized, but the person I was hoping would dig me out of the hole is bailing on me.
“It was nice meeting you, Gabby. I’m sorry I couldn’t help.”
“Not as sorry as I am.”
His face clouds with regret. Stooping down to speak, his eyes are so serious they’re scary. “Get out of this while you can. I mean it. Either go to the police or pack up and go. One or the other. Because whatever this is? It’s not safe.” Giving me a lingering look of warning, he leaves, the door swinging behind him.
I stay awhile, too stunned to move. I’m not going to be decompressing anytime soon, after all.
When I finally get myself together, the barman wishes me a great evening and I smile as though that’s exactly what I’ve got lined up.
In the lobby, I notice a flyer for a local taxi service. Be safe, not sorry, it says. Dialing the number, I’m told it’ll be half an hour. I return to the bar, ordering a glass of wine while I wait. “Did your willpower break in the end, eh?” the barman says cheerily.
“Something like that,” I reply, too distracted to think of anything else. Sitting back down where I was with Michael, I gaze at the blank space where he was seated.
Drugs. Illegal arms. Get out while you can.
I’m fairly certain that Fred doesn’t know who Ellis is—what he’s getting into. What the hell am I going to do?
My wine is so chilled I shiver, nestling into my scarf, thinking about what Jam found online over the weekend. We were looking up rinsing and somehow she moved on to memory loss, certain that I should have remembered exactly what happened that night at Rumors by now.
She zoomed in, highlighting a sentence that went round and round in my mind, like a panicking bird trapped in a room.
With selective memory, we conveniently forget our mistakes, allowing us not to take responsibility for our actions.
Is that me? Is that what I’ve been doing?
I gaze at Michael’s empty place again. When he was talking about the warehouse in Seaport, I had a horrible feeling that I was guilty in some way and he could sense it. He didn’t trust me and I don’t blame him.
The truth is hard to admit, especially when it’s appalling. But I think that all along I’ve been protecting myself from recalling something terrible, something which Ellis—potential psychopath, criminal—knows.