Maloney's Law (7 page)

‘You haven’t picked up a bloke this way before, have you?’ I said.

‘No. Does it matter? Anyway how did you work that out?’

In the darkness I smiled. ‘Kissing wasn’t what I meant by “mouth”, though I’m not saying I objected.’

There was a pause. ‘I know what you meant, but I wanted to do it. I’m not a fool.’

‘I didn’t think you were, but you are straight, aren’t you? At least on the whole?’

‘If you like to label people in that way, then yes. Perhaps. You see, in my business you learn two things, and you learn them quickly: The first is to be open to the possibility of change; and the second is to trust your instincts. When you strolled in with that unnecessary girl in tow, I knew I wanted you.’

‘Jade’s my friend, so leave her out of it. Okay?’

Another pause, then, ‘Yes. Okay. So what should we do now? You seem to want to take the role of expert here, and, doing what I do, I like to consult the experts. Though I might not always take their advice.’

This was the second time he’d mentioned work, and I laughed. ‘I see. So what is it you do then?’

‘That’s an interesting question,’ he said. ‘Here’s my card. When you’ve worked it out, call me.’

And then in a haze of nicotine and seductive menace he was gone, through a narrow, tree-lined exit I hadn’t seen before, and wrong-footing me for the first of many, many times.

It was only at home later on that I read his card and knew without a second of doubt that, unbelievable though it seemed, what it said was true.

Dominic Allen, owner of DG Allen Enterprises Inc, the biggest IT and software company in the UK, the Attila the Hun of the Western business world and stalwart family man, had propositioned me.

Three days after that I gave in and rang him. One hour and five minutes after the call, he was in my bed, and I was teaching him things he hadn’t experienced before. But in the end the only lesson learnt had been learnt by me.

Don’t fall in love with a mainly straight bloke. You’ll never win.

Nothing’s changed. I’m not winning now. When at last I leave the past and come back to the present, the four walls, the fireplace, the Staffordshire dogs are still with me, but The Macallan is mostly gone. As of course is Dominic. I’ve drained all of the whisky but a few drops at the bottom of the glass, and I haven’t tasted a thing. A shaming waste. I make the dregs of it last the length of another vital few seconds, the warmth of the malt firing my tongue.

Then I sit back and think.

Dominic wants to buy Delta Egypt. Or so he says. Blake Kenzie isn’t the type of man who looks as if he’s ready to be bought. Dominic hires me to check out Blake’s company, a commission that so far has gained me one near-miss escape with a knife, one amateur circus act, four gunshots, and one flesh wound. Not to mention a dead woman who might or might not be linked to anything and who might or might not be called Bluesky, and Blake’s indepth knowledge of my family life. All of it a barrel of trouble and all this so my ex-lover can find out whether Delta is clean or not. Or so he says, again. The CD hasn’t helped so far either. Maybe Jade will have more luck on Monday. At the moment none of the folders tell me anything useful, none of them give me so much as a hint of anything underhand. It’s all perfect, maybe too perfect. Thanks to Jade’s and my searches, I now know even more about the history, financial dealings, and planned future of Delta than I ever want to know. There’s no mention of DG Allen Enterprises elsewhere than in the name of the Allen folder, nothing to lay to rest the potential takeover concerns of Blake’s staff, so I estimate the talks Dominic mentioned, if any, must be at a very early stage.

The Allen folder itself is a mystery, something for Jade to solve. I hope she’s now happily asleep and looking forward to tomorrow. I hope she’s not sitting up trying to solve the case I’ve taken on against her better judgement, or even trying to get into the Allen file. Because it’s beaten me back each time. Easy enough to hack in to the password encryption it carries in the way Jade showed me, but less easy to work out the significance of what it might contain. It’s nonsense, files that appear to have half their contents missing and long lists of names, dates, and numbers mixed up like an unreadable crossword puzzle. Not only that but it carries with it some kind of internal virus that causes the whole folder to crash three minutes and forty seconds after I’ve opened it. Each time I reopen it, the lists are in a different order, and I can’t help wondering if Mr. Blake Kenzie, in his rich Cairo residence somewhere, being waited on by his oppressed servants, is laughing at me.

I wouldn’t be surprised. That knife attack, not to mention the gun crazies, seemed serious enough. Although the guards worked for the owner of the building, not for Blake himself, I bet he’d been first in line for allowing guards to take pot-shots at passing burglars. It wouldn’t surprise me anyway. Perhaps it’s all just a game to someone like him. Maybe the threats and hints he made in his office were a game too, along with the knife thug and the CD. After all, if Blake’s that good then why would the knifeman fail? Nobody is that lucky. Especially not me.

But if it’s a game, then what are the rules? What are...?

A second or two of blankness and I jump, woken by the soft thud of the empty whisky glass onto the carpet. Leaning over, I rescue it. It’s decent quality, and I don’t want to buy another. It’s gone midnight, so not that late but, hell, I’ve had a tough few days, and I ought to get some sleep. I need to be bright for Jade and her parents tomorrow.

The morning starts with the knowledge that I’ve overslept, so when the phone rings I’m already in the shower and don’t hear the message. I just hear the ansaphone click on and off again, but there’s no time to respond. Only when I’m dragging on my jacket and grabbing my shades from the hall table do I realise it might have been Jade.

It’s not. Neither is it Dominic. Not that I ever thought it might be, of course.

When I pick Jade up in Stratford, she looks like a cool angel in cream linen trousers and a crisp cotton top, navy blue with a thin green stripe. Even her earrings are verging on discreet. Almost. It makes her look professional rather than arty, but by now I’m used to her concept of “parent chic” so I make no comment, pausing only to pat her tied-back hair.

‘Nice, very Miss Moneypenny.’

‘Oh yes, you do like to live dangerously, don’t you?’ She slaps my hand away, grins, and sashays into the passenger seat. Her flowery scent fills the car.

Jade’s parents live halfway between Colchester and Clacton, in a house built by her grandfather in a time when planning permission was less rigorous. Not that there’s anything wrong with it; I just think things must have been simpler then. It’s a higgledy-piggledy sort of a place, with rooms curling off from corridors in places you least expect them, and each time I visit, her father seems to have changed something, either in the house, the garden, or the attached allotment. It keeps him busy in his semi-retirement years, Jade once told me, but I think the itch must always have been there.

By the time we arrive, the A12 has gathered the car to its road-maintenance busy breast and regurgitated us after two hours twenty-seven minutes of queuing. Mrs. O’Donnell, primed from her en route conversation with her daughter, sweeps us into the living room where two large glasses of wine are waiting. As I’m the one driving, I’m forced to leave half of it.

‘Good journey, dears?’ Mrs. O’Donnell — whom I can never quite bring myself to call by her first name — says with a smile.

Jade launches into a brief and bitter monologue about the state of UK roads which, being the woman she is, soon segues into a bright and gossipy monologue about what she’s been up to in the social centre of Stratford. This includes salsa, her reading group currently preparing for discussions on the latest Anne Tyler novel, and whether the late summer sales will be worth investigation. As I know about most of it already, I phase out and sip my wine.

I’m sitting on a plush deep crimson sofa with Jade to one side and her mother in the chair opposite. The carpet is an old-fashioned ’70s patterned style, big and bold and bright, or would be if the O’Donnells were the house-proud types, and the walls are a plain sea-green. By all the laws of design, it shouldn’t work, but in a room this size it does. I love it, and I hope they never change it.

Leaning back, I close my eyes for a second or two, the background hum of the women’s voices acting like a cradle-song. The burgeoning smell of roasting lamb and potatoes rocks me into the sort of family comfort zone I never really had. The next thing I know Jade is leaning over me, shaking my shoulder.

‘Hey, Paul, Mum’s asked you the same question three times, and all you can do is snore.’

‘I’m not snoring, I wasn’t asleep.’

‘Leave the poor boy alone, darling,’ Mrs. O’Donnell says. ‘He’s tired; it’s a long journey and he’s driven all that way.’

‘No, really, Mrs. O’Donnell, it’s fine. I was just listening to you, that’s all...what was it you were asking?’

She opens her mouth to reply, but at the same time the back door clicks open and there’s the sound of a grunted hello. Jade’s father has returned from his morning viewing of the allotment, and this is the cue for her mother to leap up and head for the kitchen to check her husband is all right. There’s a lot to be said for rural values, and I’m almost sorry Jade doesn’t share them. Might be nice if she leapt up to greet me at the office once in a while. The thought makes me smile.

‘What’s up with you then?’

‘Nothing. I’m just amused by the lies you tell about me snoring.’

‘I have witnesses. Independent ones,’ she makes to carry on but it’s too late. The door has already opened and Mr. O’Donnell is standing on the threshold. He’s a big man, grey tufts of hair emphasising his baldness, and whenever I’ve seen him he’s always dressed as if he’s about to step into a tractor and go ploughing: baggy hard-wearing trousers, old striped shirt, and holey jumper, usually green. The opposite in style to his daughter, although their faces are similar, something about the mouth and nose making my friend a definite O’Donnell.

‘How’s my favourite daughter then?’

‘Dad, I’m your only daughter.’

The two of them exchange a quick but sincere hug, and Jade twangs her father’s black braces.

‘That hurts!’

‘Sorry.’

She isn’t though, and neither is he. It’s part of their ritual of greeting. The sight of it twists my stomach, and I wonder how things might have been if my father had ever been like that, though it’s only now I can admit it wasn’t all his fault. It took two of us to make my family as it is today, it took two.

Letting his daughter go, Mr. O’Donnell stretches out a gnarled hand, and I shake it with enthusiasm.

‘Good to see you again.’

‘And you, sir. How’s the allotment?’

‘Can’t complain, weather’s been kind. The journey?’

‘The usual.’

We then smile at each other for a second or two before drawing away. This will be the sum total of our direct conversation for the day, but it never feels odd. Mr. O’Donnell is a man of few words, and it makes me like him better. You can’t get hurt if you stay silent.

Jade’s mother calls time for lunch, and the four of us sit down in the small but double-aspected dining room. From where I am, I can see Mr. O’Donnell’s garden stretching up to the sheds, and beyond this lies his much-loved allotment. Jade is always proud of the fact that the family have never had to buy their own vegetables, as everything they need is grown on their own land. A world a million miles away from my childhood, where everything came from the most expensive shops possible, and my mother never needed to step into the kitchen if she chose not to. My father hired staff, and the day I finally walked away from it all was, in a sense, one of the best I’ve ever known. Though of course I could never really walk that far away, not then.

Now all four of us munch away on the acres of food prepared by Mrs. O’Donnell. Roast lamb and all the trimmings, and she’s added in Yorkshire puddings too because she knows I love them.

‘Now, Paul, you look like you need feeding up,’ she says, forking more broccoli onto my plate in spite of feeble objections. ‘You need to keep your energies going for that dreadful drive back to London, you know, dear. And I imagine that job of yours is quite exhausting, too. Is it going well at the moment? I understand you had to go to Egypt, on a case?’

‘Yes, Mrs. O’Donnell. It wasn’t for long though, just to ask a couple of people some questions. I was back before Jade had even realised I’d gone.’

‘That’s not true,’ Jade chipped in. ‘I knew you were gone, the office was tidy for one thing and—’

‘Okay, don’t give me a list of everything I do that ruins your day. I know my faults.’

‘Nonsense,’ Mrs. O’Donnell says. ‘Jade is always telling us how easy you are to work for.’

‘Mum! Don’t give away all my trade secrets. If Paul thinks I’m unhappy, he might give me a decent pay rise one day.’

I hold up my hands in pretend horror. ‘Pay rise? I pay you as well? Indeed I am truly wonderful, and you are lucky to work for me.’

‘Dream on, buster. You’re lucky to employ me.’

Her mother laughs and starts to clear the plates, while her father pours his daughter more wine.

During pudding — apple tart and cream — of which I have seconds, I catch up on what’s been happening in Jade’s parents’ village since the last time I visited. It’s like something from The Archers, all country walks, fetes, WI meetings, and lunches out by the river. And that’s just Mrs. O’Donnell. Outside his home interests, Mr. O’Donnell is kept busy, now he’s retired, by county shows and the odd bit of harvesting. I love hearing about it; another kind of a life is always attractive, though whether I could ever move to the country myself is something I’ve not considered. PI Rule Number Five: Stay where the crime is. And, on the whole, that means cities and people, not villages and fields.

And of course, in the O’Donnell’s case, church life. Or rather chapel life.

‘I don’t suppose, darling,’ Mrs. O’Donnell says as she starts to stack the pudding bowls, ‘you’ve had a chance yet to catch up with Steve and Naomi?’