I parked in Jack’s driveway, behind eight luxury vehicles. Mine was quite luxurious too, but it was the only one with PEDOFIAL etched on the side. I took a copy of Love and Rockets from the glove compartment and slipped it into my jacket. I locked the car and walked up the gravelled drive to the front door. I rang the bell and Tracey answered. Short black hair and eyeliner, turbo tan, fag in one hand, cocktail in the other, and a crowned smile beneath enhanced lips. There was music of a sort in the background, some kind of jazz cack.
She said, ‘Dan Starkey! Long time no . . . Come on in and join the party . . .’ She came forward and kissed one cheek and then the other. ‘Do you wanna cocktail?’
‘No thanks, Tracey, I’m driving.’
‘Leave it, we’ll get you a taxi later.’
‘Okay,’ I said.
She sniggered. ‘Were you always this easy?’
‘Yes,’ I said.
I followed her down a well-lit hall into a large open-plan kitchen. There were about a dozen or more middle-aged well-offs sweating in the heat from a green Aga. I said hello-hello-hello-hello as Tracey led me through to where Jack was setting up the drinks.
‘Hey, Danny.’ He grinned corpulently, holding up a glass. He turned to gaze into a large, mostly empty green-tinged vessel. ‘We had a vat of it made up earlier, but they’ve drunk me outta house and home.’ He poured the remnants into the glass and held it out to me. ‘For you, the Last of the Mojitos.’ He giggled, and then repeated it louder, for everyone else to hear. He was greeted with sycophantic laughter and patronising groans. His producer Evelyn was there, grinning; an older man I half recognised had his arm protectively around her shoulders, his mouth set in what appeared to be a permanent grimace.
‘What’s the occasion?’ I asked. ‘Who needs an occasion? It’s Friday, buddy, Friday.’
I sipped my drink. We were thirty years of global warming short of a highball summer, but it wasn’t unpleasant.
Jack came out from behind the counter, put his arm round my shoulders and squeezed. ‘Danny and I,’ he announced, ‘started out in journalism. And now I am what I am and Danny boy here is a private eye!’
‘I’m not—’
‘Danny’s a private detective,’ Jack declared, ‘a PI, a bird dog, a bloodhound, a peeper, a sleuth . . . anyone else think of . . .?’
‘Nark,’ said one.
‘Shamus,’ said another.
Everyone laughed. I gave them my tight smile and said, ‘Very funny, heard them all before . . .’
Jack gave me another squeeze. ‘Loosen up, man! Friday night!’
He propelled me into the centre of the room, in amongst his fan club. I forced myself to make small talk and answer mindless questions about what it was like to be a private eye. I made shit up. They didn’t know any different. They weren’t particularly obnoxious, they were just from a different world. Maybe I had been like them when I’d had a bit of money, but I hoped not. They talked Swiss chalets and the après-ski, they talked school fees and who was a useless idiot on the board of the Lyric Theatre, who was going to Castleward for the opera and their hopes for Ireland in the Six Nations. Nobody mentioned Liverpool, nobody talked about The Clash, nobody seemed aware of exactly how many wonderful cans of Harp you could get right now for a fiver at Stewarts Wine Barrel.
After a while I pulled the sliding doors open and slipped out of the stultifying heat and conversation on to a sheltered patio. It was still raining, and dark now. I sipped my third bottle of imported Australian Crown lager and checked my watch. I was only really there to pass the poetry book on to Jack and kill time till Happy Hour. Ahead of me there was a long garden festooned with kids’ play things: a climbing frame, a slide, a set of swings, three pedal cars and balls in various sizes. The lawn beneath the swings and around the frame was immaculate. I hadn’t seen hide nor hair of little Jimmy since I’d arrived.
The doors behind me opened, giving me several bars of something that to my eternal shame I recognised as the Swingle Singers, and quickly shut again. Tracey joined me. She was on the vodka now, and her voice was thick. She said, ‘Who’re you hiding from out here?’
‘You,’ I said.
She snorted. ‘Dan, you’re still a geg, so you are. How’s that wife of yours?’
‘Absent without leave,’ I said.
‘Really? You mean like split up?’
‘Yes, like split up.’
‘So you’re available?’ she asked, and followed it with a throaty cackle and the flick of her lighter.
‘For the right price,’ I said.
Tracey grinned. ‘You okay, Dan?’
‘Yeah, I’m fine. Yer man seems in good form, considering.’
She inhaled, blew out and said, ‘Yeah, he’s okay. So what do you think of the auld castle? Smart, eh?’
‘It’s very nice, Tracey.’
‘Be a lot nicer if that monstrosity wasn’t there.’ She nodded towards the hedge that separated their garden from next door and the dark outline of the partially built house beyond. Blue plastic sheets on the roof flapped in the breeze. ‘Our garden used to be perfect, south-facing, sunlight till sunset, now half the light’s blocked and once they start building again I won’t even be able to get me tits out without them having a bird’s-eye view.’
‘Sure they’re half out anyway,’ I said.
She giggled. ‘You noticed.’
‘It’s difficult not to.’
‘Absolutely not. I’m all for—’
The doors opened behind us again and we turned to see Jack coming out. ‘Here’s youse are,’ he said, and handed me another bottle.
‘Never worry about me,’ said Tracey, holding up her now empty glass.
‘I don’t.’ He winked at me and kissed her cheek. He slipped an arm around her waist. ‘Get you in a mo, honey, soon as you tell me what you two are jabbering about.’
‘I was just saying,’ I said, ‘about what good form you were in. Life and soul and all that.’
‘And why not? Listening figures up, advertising up. Did you see yer man with Evelyn?’ I glanced through the glass at the unhappy-looking bloke still standing with his arm around Jack’s blonde producer. ‘Face like a fucking Lurgan spade. Do you know him?’
‘He looks vaguely . . .’
‘John D. Lehane. Anyone who introduces themselves with their fucking initial in their name deserves a rocket in their arse. He owns the station.’
‘Ah – right. He’s your boss.’
‘So he thinks. Whenever I joined it was going down the pisser, so I was able to cut this fucking cracker deal. I get such a whack off the advertising, you wouldn’t believe it. He resents every bloody farthing he has to give me. He should be happy we’re doing well, but oh no, all he can think about is how much he’s paying me. I hate glass-half-empty people.’
‘My glass is completely empty,’ said Tracey.
He kissed her again. ‘Don’t worry, sweetheart, I’ll get you one now . . .’
He began to turn, but she stopped him with a hand on his chest and said, ‘No, you talk to your mate. I’ve some entertaining to do. I think it’s time the karaoke machine came out.’
She gave us a mischievous grin and disappeared. Jack smiled after her.
‘Some woman, heh?’
‘Yep, you pulled a cracker there,’ I said.
He lurched suddenly to one side, but just managed to steady himself against one of the wooden support pillars for the patio cover before he landed on his ear. He looked accusingly down at the patchwork flags, as if they had somehow conspired to unbalance him.
‘How’s the wee man?’ I asked.
His brow furrowed. ‘Wee . . .?’
‘Jimmy.’
‘Ah – gotcha!’ He cackled. ‘Never worry about Jimmy, he’s at his granny’s.’
‘I do worry. At least until I get—’
‘I hate kids at parties, they’re always whining for attention. I’ll pick him up in the morning.’ He tapped his head. ‘Or the afternoon, depending on the auld noggin.’
‘I meant, from the security point of—’
‘Dan, I know what you mean.’ He straightened against the pillar. He cleared his throat. He nodded at me. His mouth worked as he fished for the right words. He was leading up to something. It’s always fun watching a drunk trying to be taken seriously. And God knows I’m an expert. ‘Dan, yes, good, listen. While we’re here, alone, like, I’ve been wanting to have a word.’
‘Have several,’ I said.
He contemplated that for a while, then said, ‘Never mind that, I’ve been thinking about us . . . what we’re doing. I mean, about you looking into this, Jimmy, the whole . . . kidnapping thing, and, anyway, I think maybe we overreacted, a wee bit. I’ve talked it through with Trace, and people at work, and, I know people too, if you know what I mean, and they’re all inclined to agree that it was most likely local kids just fuckin’ with us, you know what I mean? That or maybe some listener on day release, a bit mental, but no real harm done, and lesson learnt.’
‘Jack, your boy was snatched. He was gone for an hour. You were very lucky.’
‘We don’t know that. He’s four!’
‘He’s still three, Jack.’
‘Oh pish and sticks, Dan, I know this job means a lot to you, but there’s no point in turning it into something it isn’t. If there was a woman in some mythical silver car, most likely she found him wandering and brought him home, y’know? Nothing happened to him. It’s not that kind of a neighbourhood.’
‘And the note?’
‘Well maybe she wrote it as a warning to be more careful. Or he coulda just as easily found it lying in the street; you know what they’re like, pick everything up. Anyway, Dan, I’m sorry, we panicked. It’s over.’
‘Over?’
‘Over.’ He patted his left trouser pocket, then his right. He looked momentarily confused before remembering his back pocket. He produced a folded envelope. He unfolded it and handed it over, not a hint of the sheepish about him. ‘This is for your trouble.’
So that was it.
I took it. I opened it. Two hundred quid.
‘That okay? I presumed you’d want it in cash.’
So, that was how it was. I slipped the envelope into my jacket and drained the rest of the bottle.
‘Whatever you think, Jack. I just hope you’re right. I should hit the road anyway.’
‘Hey – don’t be like that. Dan. Stay, buddy, we’re hardly getting started.’
‘Nah, gotta see a man about a horse anyway.’
‘Dan, c’mon.’ He punched me lightly on the shoulder. ‘We go back.’
‘I know we do, and it’s not a problem. But seriously, I’m late already. No hard feelings, your decision.’
‘You’re a good man, Dan. I appreciate the help.’
I nodded, turned, and then stopped, and pulled out Love and Rockets.
‘Would you do me a favour, though?’ I asked.
‘Anything,’ said Jack.