Ten minutes later, Harry and Gina were waiting for the lift to take them back upstairs. Victor had told Lou he could go home, before disappearing back to his flat to help Barney wash the last of the oil off his angular frame. Nobody was manning the desk, but given the events of the past few days, who cared?
‘I’ll ask Irena to keep shtum,’ Gina said. ‘Mind you, Victor is so unpopular with the girls, he’ll have to make it worth Irena’s while.’
‘If he has any sense, he’ll start hunting through the Situations Vacant column. He won’t want to hang around if our landlord finds out what he’s been up to.’
‘The landlord is the bloke we met in the bar? He looked about as sympathetic as a claw hammer. It can’t be a picnic for your lady friend, being married to a man like that. No wonder she took a shine to you.’
‘Until this week, I hadn’t seen her for years.’ Harry hoped he wasn’t protesting too much.
‘Oh yeah?’
The lift doors opened, and Wayne Saxelby’s tanned face beamed out at them. There was no getting away from him. He gave Gina an interested glance and hailed Harry with his customary exuberance.
‘Good evening, Harry. Aren’t you going to introduce me?’
‘Gina, this is Wayne Saxelby.’ She gave him a mock-curtsey. ‘Wayne, meet Gina Paget. Gina works for Culture City Cleaners.’
‘I recognise the uniform.’ Wayne grinned as he shook her hand. ‘Good to see you liaising closely with the staff, Harry. You’ve anticipated one of the recommendations in my report.’
‘Report?’ Gina asked.
‘Wayne is a management consultant,’ Harry said. ‘He lives in the penthouse on the top floor, but he and I go back years. He’s helping us develop our business plan and marketing strategies.’
‘Lovely,’ she said in a baffled tone.
Wayne said, ‘Have you heard? It was on the radio half an hour ago, the police want to question Tom Gunter about the death of his girlfriend. They reckon he’s still in Merseyside, but they warned the public not to approach him. He’s described as dangerous.’
Gina said, ‘Who is Tom Gunter?’
‘Of course I do.’
‘Last Monday, he threatened Harry with a knife in the church gardens at the back here.’
She dug Harry in the ribs. ‘You never mentioned that! I didn’t realise solicitors lead such exciting lives.’
‘Believe me,’ Wayne chortled. ‘You don’t want to kid yourself that this fellow is your typical Liverpudlian lawyer. They broke the mould when they made Harry Devlin.’
‘Yeah, well, thanks for the testimonial.’ Bored with waiting for passengers, the lift doors had closed. Harry pressed the button again. ‘I’d better be getting on.’
‘Any more news about Midsummer’s Eve?’ Wayne asked.
Harry followed Gina into the lift carriage. ‘I decided it must be a hoax.’
Wayne tutted. ‘You don’t want to take it lightly. Someone is threatening you. It’s as if there’s some special significance to Midsummer’s Eve.’
Harry pressed for his floor. ‘If so, it’s escaped me so far.’
‘You need to work on it. Think harder. Are you sure Tom Gunter didn’t send the note?’
Harry cast his mind back to his last meeting with Tom. He’d been so sure that the man’s startled reaction was genuine. Might he have misread it? His calamitous experience with Ceri Hussain the other night was proof, if it were needed, of his flair for getting the wrong idea.
As the lift doors closed, he offered a helpless shrug and Wayne shook his head, like a teacher disappointed with a dunce.
‘He has the gift of the gab, your friend,’ Gina said. ‘I bet he thinks he can charm the birds off the trees.’
Harry said nothing. He was in no mood to heap praise on Wayne’s way with women. Not that he was jealous, of course. And not that he wanted Gina for himself, either. She was too young for him, and he wasn’t her type.
In the confines of the lift, the sour whiff of bleach on her overall was unmistakable, but when she treated him to a naughty-girl smile, he couldn’t help laughing with pleasure.
‘Honestly, I thought I was going to die when I walked into that dungeon. I mean, Lee and I once did a photo-shoot in a studio in Soho that was kitted out like that. But you don’t expect to come across S&M in a city office block.’
‘It’s common enough, but in a different way,’ he said as the lift stopped. ‘Meetings with auditors, taxmen and people from the Law Society. But there’s not much pleasure and an excess of pain.’
She put her hands on her hips. ‘I suppose I’d better finish vacuuming floors.’
‘Come out for a drink with me.’
He said it on the spur of the moment, but as soon as he spoke, he knew he craved company. Was there much difference between him and the likes of Aled Borth and Victor Creevey? They all wanted to keep loneliness at bay.
‘Give me fifteen minutes to tidy up. And tidy myself.’
‘See you later.’
‘Is it all right if I bring Irena along too?’
‘Perfect.’
‘She’s got a taste for double vodkas and a thirst like a docker. Better visit the cashpoint first.’
‘Your wish is my command.’
She gave him a sidelong glance. ‘Don’t tempt me, Harry.’
He phoned Carmel to find she was in high spirits. Although Jim was groggy, the doctors seemed hopeful that he would make a good recovery.
‘They say you can’t predict a case like this. So much depends on how the patient wakes up. You can have weird experiences when you’re unconscious for so long, it must be frightening. He’ll need to undergo tests, but he recognised me. We talked for ten minutes before he dozed off again.’
‘When can I see him?’
‘Tomorrow morning would be good. The poor man doesn’t remember anything about the assault. He didn’t see anyone, as far as he can recall. Sounds as though someone was hiding down there and hit him before he had a clue what was happening. The police are no nearer to finding who did it. They’ve checked out the usual suspects in mugging cases, but no joy. I wondered…’
‘What?’
‘Don’t take this the wrong way, but it occurred to me that whoever hit Jim might have been targeting you. Perhaps they realised their mistake, that’s why they didn’t finish him off.’
‘I never use the car park. Anyone who knew me would see they’d got the wrong man.’
‘What if someone was hired to attack you, someone you’d never met?’
‘With no means of identifying me? So they might have left for dead anyone who happened along? It doesn’t stack up.’ He paused. ‘And I’m not thrilled with the idea that someone was hired to smash my brain to a pulp.’
‘Sorry, I’m just flailing around for an explanation.’ She paused. ‘Have you heard the latest about Gunter?’
‘That the police have issued an appeal for sightings? Wayne Saxelby told me. He even made me wonder if I was mistaken, and Tom was responsible for that nonsense about Midsummer’s Eve.’
‘Suppose someone else paid him to frighten you?’
Harry frowned at the telephone. ‘You like this idea that I have an unseen enemy with a secret grudge and money to burn?’
‘Just thinking aloud.’
There was a knock at the door and Gina appeared. She’d changed out of her overall into a smock top with ruched sleeves and indigo skinny jeans. She looked set for a night on the town, with her thick gold belt, gold bangle, gold wedges and matching bag. A moment later, she was joined by another young woman with a high pony tail. Irena was dark and pretty, in a red halter neck top that left little to the imagination. No wonder Victor had been distracted when Irena showed up on his doorstep, even if he was immune to her sexual charms.
‘Harry, are you all right?’ Carmel asked.
Gina beckoned him with her forefinger.
‘Seldom better,’ he said.
The big screens in the Stapledon were alive with The Blob. A young Steve McQueen urged folk in his home town to beware of being gobbled up by an extra-terrestrial blancmange. Like all alien menaces, the pink gelatinous goo was impervious to bullets, but possessed a single, quirky weak spot. Steve was about to discover that he could melt it by judicious use of a fire extinguisher. If only Harry’s anonymous adversary were so easily tracked down and vaporised.
He bought the drinks and joined the two women at a corner table. Irena’s command of English might be erratic, but by gesture as well as word she was making clear beyond doubt her opinion of Victor Creevey.
‘I wanted to ask you about Lee Welch,’ he said. ‘She’d come into money unexpectedly.’
Gina nodded. ‘Found herself a rich bloke, I suppose. A sugar daddy.’
‘Might she have wanted you to think so?’
‘Of course. We were mates, but that didn’t stop her wanting to make me jealous. She liked to keep one step ahead of me.’
Not many people would stay one step ahead of Gina, he thought. ‘The money may not have come from an admirer. I’ve heard she’d found out someone’s guilty secret.’
Her eyes widened. ‘You mean she was a blackmailer?’
‘She may not have thought of it quite like that. But if my source is reliable, the answer is yes.’
Gina winked at Irena. ‘Don’t you love the way lawyers talk? So, is your source reliable?’
He cast his mind back to Aled Borth, weeping on the floor of the Waterloo Alhambra. ‘Not usually. But it’s worth asking a few questions. Supposedly Lee obtained this information while she was at work. Did she drop a hint?’
‘No, she enjoyed being mysterious.’ Gina shivered with distaste. ‘I didn’t want to know anything about her clients, or what she got up to with them. I was disappointed in her. When we were in London, we could both have made a lot of money if we’d taken up the offers we were made. But we didn’t.’
‘Why did she change her mind when she got back home?’
Gina took a sip of Chablis. ‘If you ask me, she’d given up on making it as an actor. Not that Lee would ever admit it, but a lot of girls are out there, all with the same dream. We’d tried and failed in London. I think she’d decided that if she wanted a cushy life, she had to marry a rich man. Until he walked into her life, she was willing to grab any chance of making a few quid that came her way.’
‘Where did she work as a cleaner?’
‘Now you’re asking. Half the offices in the city, I guess. Lee wasn’t like me, she hated cleaning. Never took a pride in the work. And she liked variety. I doubt if she lasted in any one place more than a fortnight.’
Irena had finished her vodka and lime. She wiped her lips and said, ‘We work in same place some days.’
‘You and Lee?’ Harry asked. ‘Which places?’
Irena looked sorrowfully at her empty glass.
‘Another?’
Irena smiled. So did Gina.
As Harry waited to be served at the bar, the Blob oozed through a projectionist’s room, while hysterical cinemagoers fled for the exits. Almost as bizarre as his encounter with Aled Borth at the Alhambra.
He felt a tap on his shoulder.
‘We must stop meeting like this.’
Juliet. Once upon a time, the sound of her voice would have made his knees weak with lust for her. These days, desire was stifled by anxiety. She was playing a game, and he didn’t know the rules. But one good cliché deserved another.
‘Do you come here often?’
She threw a glance towards the door to the VIP lounge. Following her eyes, he saw Casper May and Malachy Needham, deep in conversation.
‘Malachy has a stake in this place. It’s a goldmine. He’s offered Casper a slice of the action.’
‘To go along with the cleaning company and Cultural Companions?’
A girl with flame-coloured hair and a dress even skimpier than Irena’s joined the two men. She draped a hand over Needham’s shoulder and offered him a drink from her glass of Pimm’s. As he sipped, she kept her eyes locked on Casper.
‘Between you and me,’ Juliet said, ‘business isn’t all those two share.’
‘Don’t tell me, she’s a Cultural Companion?’
Juliet snorted. ‘Don’t be fooled by the butter-wouldn’t-melt smile. She’s a tart from Toxteth, hand-picked by Malachy. But she makes eyes at Casper, like all the rest.’
‘So what? You and Casper aren’t married any longer. You’re both footloose and fancy-free. And you have Jude the Obscure Actor to keep you entertained.’
‘Jude and I have split.’
‘Sorry to hear that.’
‘Don’t be. Poor Jude, he has the brain of a rhino and he’s about as sensitive.’ She finished her gin and tonic and banged the glass down on the counter. It wasn’t her first drink of the evening, for sure. ‘Full marks for energy and physique, but that’s not enough. I like a man to have a little imagination.’
When the girl behind the counter tired of flirting with a beefy colleague and at last took Harry’s order, he found himself asking Juliet if she wanted a drink. It was only good manners.
‘Another gin, and go easy on the tonic.’ The barmaid turned to busy herself with the drinks and Juliet frowned at her pert twenty-year-old backside. ‘I lied to you about Jude because I wanted to see if you’d be jealous.’
Harry shifted from one foot to another. It wasn’t in Juliet’s nature to make herself vulnerable. The gin was talking and he wasn’t sure where this might lead. Nowhere safe, was his guess.
‘You don’t need me to be jealous.’
‘You reckon?’ She smiled. ‘And if you accuse me of fishing for compliments, you’ll be dead right.’
‘You’ve got everything you could want. Looks, money, personality.’
She leant against him and murmured, ‘What I have is never enough.’
He handed his money to the barmaid. ‘You don’t need me, Juliet.’
‘You let yourself into my penthouse and left the key there. What was all that about?’
‘Your mention of the photograph puzzled me. I thought I’d check it out. But you’d made a mistake. Casper came back sooner than expected. So I let myself out on to the balcony.’
‘For fuck’s sake, Harry. It’s a wonder you’re still in one piece.’
‘It’s OK, I’m not scared of heights. Only of falling.’
‘How did you get down?’
‘I talked my way into the penthouse at the back. Lucky that Tamara’s boyfriend was in.’
‘Really?’ She raised her eyebrows.
‘What I really wanted to know is the story behind the photograph.’
She put a finger to her lips. ‘Ah, that would be telling.’
‘You can tell me.’
‘It’s a long story, and not very edifying. Let’s forget it, shall we?’
‘Sorry, Juliet, no can do. The woman is Denise Onuoha, isn’t that right?’
Her gaze hardened. She might have had too much to drink, but she hadn’t lost all control.
‘Let it go, Harry. It’s nothing to do with you.’
‘Who is the man in the photograph?’
‘Doesn’t matter. It was months ago.’
‘I want to know his name, and what the photograph means.’
‘You should know better than to interfere with Casper’s business. You got away with interfering with me. Time to quit while you’re ahead.’
‘I’m not into quitting.’
She rolled her eyes. ‘There’s something almost admirable about your stupidity, Harry.’
‘Thanks for those kind words.’
‘Don’t think I underestimate you. People do it all the time. But you never give up, do you?’
He shook his head.
‘I have to go. Thanks for the drink.’
For a moment he was tempted to seize her arm and demand again the truth about the photograph. But there was nothing to be gained from causing a scene. As he threaded through the crowd, three glasses balanced between his hands, he felt Juliet’s gaze burn into his back. He looked straight ahead towards the two young women, sitting beneath a mural from Forbidden Planet. It depicted the spooky laboratory of the long-dead Krell, store of even more accumulated wisdom than the Liverpool Legal Group members’ library.
‘So you worked with Lee Welch?’ he prompted, as Irena tilted her glass.
‘Sometimes,’ she said, smacking her lips.
‘And Denise Onuoha?’
‘I met her once, at our…what to say, HQ? Not a nice girl. Lee knew her better than me.’
‘Where did you work with her?’
‘Stalagmite Insurance. Quality Accountants Limited.’ She scratched her nose as she thought back. ‘And Culture Cleaners Company. The HQ.’
‘In Tithebarn Street?’
‘Yes.’ Irena wiggled her index finger and made a face, a parody of wiping a shelf and finding it caked with dust. ‘Not good, huh? The main place of a cleaning firm and it is covered in dirt?’
Harry nodded towards the VIP lounge. Juliet had joined Casper, Malachy and the young redhead outside the door. The men were still talking, the women exchanged hostile glances but didn’t speak.
‘See the men over there?’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘You work for them. Casper May and Malachy Needham, they are in charge of Culture City Cleaners.’
‘Yes, yes, I recognise.’
A shrug. ‘I don’t know for sure, mister. I guess so.’
‘They also own Cultural Companions, the agency which hired Lee as an escort.’
Irena nodded. ‘Lee asked if I wanted to make easy money that way.’
‘And?’
She gave a thumbs-down sign, ‘Not for me, mister.’
Gina dug her elbow into Harry’s ribs and whispered, ‘Look who’s coming over here.’
Juliet had tired of being ignored by her ex-husband and glared at by a girl half her age and was weaving through the throng, unsteady yet determined in her progress. Harry swore under his breath. His shoulders tautened with tension. He’d never imagined the day would come when all he wanted of Juliet was for her to leave him alone.
No chance of that. She arrived at their table and subjected the two women to a searching gaze. Harry felt himself reddening. But Gina and Irena weren’t fazed.
‘I’m surprised you lingered at the bar,’ Juliet said. ‘When you have such lovely companions to look after. This young lady, I’ve met before, but her pretty friend I don’t know. Won’t you introduce me?’
After they had said hello, Gina whispered in Irena’s ear and the Lithuanian girl smiled.
‘So, you are wife of the man we work for?’
‘You’re with Culture City Cleaners?’ Gina nodded. ‘So was Lee Welch, my friend. The girl who died.’
‘Died?’
‘Murdered.’ Gina’s voice sharpened. ‘You must have seen it in the papers. They found her body on the beach at Waterloo. She worked for Cultural Companions, as well’
Juliet pursed her lips. ‘Oh yes?’
‘She heard something she wasn’t meant to hear. Poor Lee, she was nosey. Loved to eavesdrop. Someone was willing to pay to keep her quiet.’ Harry kicked her leg under the table, but there was no stopping her in full flow. ‘Perhaps it was cheaper to shut her up permanently.’
‘Meaning what, exactly?’
‘I guess it was someone she worked for,’ Gina said softly. ‘Someone who could afford to buy her silence. Someone ruthless, someone violent.’
‘I’ve had enough of this.’ Juliet made a dismissive gesture with her hand. She still wore her wedding ring, Harry noticed. ‘I’m going home.’
‘Goodnight,’ Harry said.
Her eyes rested on him and for an instant he wondered if she was going to ask him to come back with her. But she didn’t say another word, just gave him a curt nod and stumbled off towards the exit.
Gina and her friend exchanged amused glances. They’d probably written her off as some old lush. But it was a mistake to underestimate Juliet May.
He finished his drink. Something Juliet had said nagged at the back of his mind, but the harder he racked his brains, the further away the memory skipped. It would come back running if he managed a decent night’s sleep. Chances were, it didn’t matter anyway.
His eye caught the sinister shades of black and blue in the mural and he remembered the story of the Krell. For all their knowledge and sophistication, their whole race had been wiped out in a single night of frenzy and terror. Destroyed when they unleashed the power of their dark, subconscious desires.
Darkness was falling as Harry made his way through the car park to his flat in Empire Dock. Gina had failed to talk him into a night on the town. He was flattered when she asked him to tag along, but it wasn’t a good idea. They were too young. Suppose he got lucky? He’d had a few drinks, but not enough to deceive himself. If he finished up in bed with one of the girls, it wouldn’t make them happier in the long run. He was weary and his head throbbed and he needed to be on his own.
Hard to believe only twenty-four hours had passed since he’d strolled along this same path with Ceri. What was she up to tonight – combing through post-mortem reports? Work was a displacement activity, it took her mind off the loss of her husband. He needed to give her time and space to sort herself out. Trouble was, once she’d sorted herself out, would she give him a second glance?
Lights danced on the blackness of the Mersey, but Empire Dock was full of shadows. Was Tom Gunter lurking somewhere, ready to strike with fist or knife? Harry asked himself if Tom might have attacked Jim Crusoe, but it didn’t add up. Nothing did.
Including Ceri’s take on Tom. She was a shrewd judge, but when he’d appeared in her court, Tom Gunter had made an impression on her that Harry didn’t fully comprehend. When she talked about him, disdain was tinged with something else. Was it awe?
He remembered her saying, ‘He kept himself under perfect control.’ He hadn’t noticed it at the time, but there was a hint of admiration in her voice. She was so controlled herself. Controlled and, perhaps, controlling. She was a coroner, accustomed to being in charge. To exercising her power to making sure justice was done. Justice as she saw it, that is.
It was raining again, and he quickened his pace towards the apartment block. While he waited for the lift, he decided he could use a hot shower. Wash the day away. Tomorrow morning, he’d visit the hospital and talk to Jim. Something to look forward to.
As he walked down the corridor, he spotted something that had been pushed halfway under his front door. He bent down to pick it up.
A single sheet of paper. It bore two words in a crude and childish hand.
Midsummer’s Eve.
He ripped the paper into tiny shreds and fumbled with his key in the lock. His hand was shaking, and the door wouldn’t open. He closed his eyes, and uttered a few quiet words of prayer.