The Mystery of Mercy Close (21 page)

What now? It was ten to three. Digby, the possible taxi driver – the last person who had rung Wayne on his landline – hadn’t called me back looking for his ‘reward’ and I had a strong instinct that he wasn’t going to. There had been something in his voice. He’d sounded clued-up and a bit world-weary.

All the same, I decided to ring him again and this time I had the bright idea of ringing from Wayne’s landline; maybe he’d think it was Wayne ringing and he’d pick up. But once again his phone went straight to voicemail and quickly I gathered every ounce of my energy to leave a breezy, friendly message. ‘Digby, hahahaha, Helen here, friend of Wayne’s. Listen, give us a shout. You have my number, but just in case you haven’t, here it is.’ I forced out a few more exhausting laughs, then hung up and turned my attention to Birdie Salaman –
another
person who hadn’t got back to me.

You wouldn’t want to be sensitive in this job. Like, you wouldn’t want to take things
pers
onally.

Birdie might be away on holiday, she might be sick, but I had the feeling she was avoiding me. I’d better go and see her. However, I was reluctant to drive all the way out to Skerries on the off-chance that she might be in. She could be one of the few people left in the country to still have a job.

So I Googled her. Her name generated pages and pages of stuff about bird sanctuaries and salamander lizards, but I kept going, kept clicking to the next page, and suddenly, there we were! Buried about a hundred articles in was a one-line mention of a Birdie Salaman in a little known periodical called
Paper Bags Today
.

It
had
to be the same person.

She was quoted as saying, ‘The tax on plastic bags has had a very positive impact on our industry.’ I read the piece with interest and not a little pleasure. Would you believe that paper bags are a growth area? A heartening story in these recessionary times. Tough on those who work in plastic bags, though.

According to the article, Birdie was senior sales manager for a company called Brown Bags Please, which were based – unexpectedly handily – up the road in Irishtown.

Before I jumped into my car to go and badger her I rang to see if she was in.

Some woman answered and she didn’t give me the usual receptionist spiel, she just said, ‘Brown Bags Please,’ and she didn’t even bother enunciating the ‘Please’ properly; the end of the word just sort of slid away, like she resented having to say it, which made me think BBP was a small, not-very-important set up.

‘Can I speak to Birdie?’

‘What’s it about?’

‘Paper bags.’

‘Putting you through.’

After some clicks and hissing, the woman was back. ‘I can’t find her, but she’s around. She might be gone out for some crisps; she was talking about them earlier. D’you want to leave a message? I’d have to find a pen.’

‘No, you’re grand. I’ll call back.’

Actually, I wouldn’t. I’d arrive in person and I was on my way now.

I was just getting into my car when my phone rang – Harry the criminal. Or rather, one of his ‘associates’.

‘He has a window in the next twenty minutes.’

Twenty minutes! ‘God, you couldn’t make it even half an hour, could you? Just with the Friday afternoon traffic and –’

‘Twenty minutes. He’s going out tonight to a charity cockfight –’

‘– and yeah, he has to get his spray tan done, I know.’

‘Now, hold
on
–’

‘Still in his usual office?’

‘Yep.’

Harry based his operations in Corky’s, a godforsaken pool hall near Gardiner Street. If you weren’t suicidal to begin with, five seconds under those toxic orange strip lights would sap you of any will to live. Like always, Harry was down the back, looking glum, his shoulders slumped and his elbows resting on the Formica table. Such an ordinary-looking man – small and nondescript, with a bristly gingery moustache balanced on his top lip – it was hard to believe he was such a lawbreaker.

We nodded our hellos and I slid into the booth, trying to find a spot that hadn’t had all the foam pulled out. Even now, several years later, the wound on my bum can play up if I get it at the wrong angle.

‘Will you take a drink, Helen?’

This wasn’t an invitation to get rip-roaring – Harry always drank milk. And, as part of my contrary personality, I always requested something I knew Corky’s barmen would never have heard of – Grasshoppers, Flaming Sambuccas, B52s.

‘Sure, I’ll have a screwdriver, Harry, thanks.’

He semaphored something to the barman, then turned his deceptively mild eyes on to me. ‘So what can I do for you?’

‘I’m trying to find someone. Wayne Diffney.’

Harry’s face stayed poker steady.

‘He was in Laddz? The boy band? He was the one with the hair?’

Some light moved behind Harry’s eyes. ‘The hair. I’m with you now. I know who Wayne is. Poor sap.’

There was a clatter and somebody placed something
metallic on the table in front of me. For a moment I was afraid to look – I thought it might be an instrument of torture – but when I eyeballed it I saw it was a screwdriver. An actual screwdriver.

‘Drink up,’ Harry said, with a glint.

‘Grand, thanks, cheers.’ I’d had enough of this game. The next time I came I was just going to ask for a Diet Coke.

There was something different about Harry. When I’d worked with him before I’d never been afraid of him. Mostly because I’d never been afraid of anything. I didn’t believe in fear; I thought it was simply a thing invented by men so that they’d get all the money and the good jobs. But Harry seemed altered in some way. Harder. Maybe because his wife had left him and run off to Marbella with a younger man to run a U2-themed bar. Or maybe it wasn’t Harry who’d changed. Maybe it was me.

‘So Wayne the hair …?’ Harry prompted.

‘He disappeared, probably yesterday morning. Just wondering if you or your … colleagues might know anything about it. This is sort of what he looks like at the moment.’ I slid the Photoshopped picture of baldy-Wayne across the table.

Harry looked at it for a good long while but if he’d seen Wayne recently, I hadn’t a clue.

‘What was he mixed up in?’ Harry asked.

‘Nothing as far as I can see. But you never know.’

‘I’ll ask around. But the game has changed. A lot of freelancers. Foreign.’

I knew what he was talking about. Ex-Soviet, ex-military. A few of them had turned up in the PI world and they were worse than useless, even worse than ex-coppers and that was saying something. These lads spend one night in a drunk tank in Moscow and suddenly they think they’re Vin Diesel, the toughest of the tough. They live in a fantasy world. They’re the kind of gobshites whose Facebook photo has
them brandishing a toy machine gun and standing beside a badly Photoshopped helicopter.

‘And I’m interested in a woman called Gloria,’ I said.

‘Gloria what?’

‘I only know her as Gloria. But I’ve a feeling that if I find her, I’ll find Wayne.’

‘Who brought you in on this?’ Harry asked.

‘Laddz’s manager, Jay Parker.’

‘Say again.’

‘Jay Parker.’

He tapped his nail against his glass of milk in a way that made me blurt out, ‘What do you know about Jay Parker?’

‘Me, Helen? What would I know?’ he said mildly. ‘Leave this matter with me. I have your numbers.’

‘Thanks.’

‘And then we’re square? I won’t have to see you again?’

‘Well, I don’t know, Harry. Maybe you might need my help sometime?’

He stared at me, hard and cold.

‘Ah … yeah …’ I admitted. ‘And maybe not.’

‘I’m here to see Birdie Salaman.’

The woman sitting behind the reception desk at Brown Bags Please was exactly as I’d envisioned her: a Disgruntled Mum, who clearly resented every second she had to spend there. I sympathized. I’d be the same.

‘Your name is …?’

‘Helen Walsh.’

‘Do you have an appointment?’

‘Yes.’

‘Go on in so.’ She pointed at a door.

I was delighted to be told that Birdie was still here. I’d driven fast and recklessly across the city, getting from Corky’s to Irishtown in illegal time, but, what with it being after four o’clock on a Friday afternoon, I was afraid that she might have knocked off for the weekend.

I knocked and entered. Birdie Salaman was very pretty, even prettier in the flesh. Her hair was gathered into a smooth bun at the nape of her neck and she was wearing a pencil skirt and a cute lemon-coloured chiffony blouse. Under her desk I saw that she’d kicked off her shoes – yellow and black polka-dotted slingbacks.

‘Ms Salaman, my name is Helen Walsh.’ I handed her my card. ‘I’m a private investigator. Can I talk to you about paper bags?’

‘Certainly.’

‘Good! Right!’ Then I realized I had nowhere to go with this approach. ‘Sorry,’ I said awkwardly, ‘I meant, can I talk to you about Wayne Diffney?’

Her face hardened. ‘Who let you in here?’

‘Your woman on the desk out there.’

‘I’m not talking to you about Wayne.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because. I’m. Not. Could you leave, please?’

‘I’m asking for your help.’ I paused. I shouldn’t be telling her confidential stuff but how else could I get her to talk to me? ‘Wayne is missing.’

‘I don’t care.’

‘Why not? Wayne is nice.’

‘Okay, if you won’t leave, I will.’ She was pawing with her feet under her desk, looking for her shoes to put on.

‘Please tell me what happened. You and Wayne seemed so happy.’

‘
What?
How do
you
know?’

‘I saw a photo. The pair of you looked all cashmere-y and Abercrombie and Fitch-y.’

‘You were looking at private photos?’

‘In his house.’ I spoke quickly. I’d gone too far. ‘I’m not spying on you!’ Well, I was, but not in a bad way.

She was at the door now. Her hand was on the handle.

‘You have my number,’ I said. ‘Call me if you think of –’

She darted back across the tiny room, tore my card into four pieces, and chucked them in the bin. Then she was at the door again.

I had to go for broke, but it was a risk: she might belt me one. ‘Birdie, where can I find Gloria? Wayne’s friend Gloria?’

She didn’t even reply. She stomped past the reception desk and nearly pulled the entrance door off its hinges. Proceeding at great speed, she was, despite the height of her heels.

‘Where are you going?’ the Disgruntled Mum called after her.

‘Out.’

‘Bring me back a Cornetto!’

That had gone well.

Somewhat demoralized, I went back outside and leaned against the side of my car, waiting for the shame and sense of failure to pass.

After a while I reached for my phone. If there wasn’t a text or an email or a missed call waiting for me now, one would come eventually. If I waited long enough my phone would always provide comfort. I would die without it.

Nothing was waiting for me, so I rang Artie, but it went straight to message. Out of desperation, needing some sort of friendly voice, I rang Mum.

She greeted me with warmth, which meant she hadn’t found the nudie pictures of Artie. ‘Claire never came back, but Margaret and myself are unpacking like billy-o,’ she said. ‘Making it all lovely for you. How’s the mysterious work with Jay Parker going?’

‘Ah, you know … okay. Listen, just on the off-chance, do you know anything about Docker?’

‘Docker?’ She sounded delighted. ‘I know plenty. What would you like to know?’

‘Oh, anything at all. Where does he live?’

‘He’s what you might call a citizen of the world,’ she said, warming to her subject. ‘Homes “dotted around the globe”. An eight-thousand-square-foot apartment in an old button factory in Williamsburg. Desperate-looking place.
People
did a feature on it and they had to pretend they thought it was gorge; but, Mother of divine, it was, what’s that word you say? Rank. That’s what it was. All these bare brick walls, like a refugee centre, and floorboards on
their last legs and no different rooms, if you know what I mean; screens dividing the different “spaces”, and it’s so big he needs a skateboard to get from the sleeping “space” to the toilet “space”, which would give you
mares
to look at. A chain flush! Even thinking about it makes me want to wash my hands. You’d think with all his money …’ She sighed heavily. ‘Also in New York, there’s his room in the Chelsea Hotel in Manhattan, which he rents on a permanent basis, and you’d get
lice
just from the pictures. Would you believe I’ve started scratching myself, only from talking about it! There’s something he calls a “bothy” halfway up the side of some mountain in the Cairngorms. One room, no electricity, no running water. Says he goes there to “get headspace”.’

‘And you know all this stuff from reading the magazines?’

‘I study them avidly and I have a photographic memory.’

‘You haven’t.’

After a short pause, she said, ‘You’re right, I haven’t. I don’t know why I said it. It just felt nice. Will I carry on? There’s his two-roomed corrugated-iron hut in Soweto – his favourite home, he says; my eye, says I. There’s his forty-nine-roomed residence in LA, which even has its own farmers’ market, in case the humour takes him to hop out and buy a lopsided apple …’

Jesus Christ, Wayne could be secreted in
any
of these places. I hadn’t a hope of finding him.

‘… and his house in County Leitrim.’

‘Hold on! What? He has a house in County Leitrim?’

‘Oh yes!’ She sounded surprised that I didn’t know. ‘Beside Lough Conn. He bought it about six or seven years ago. Mind you, he’s never actually been there. Can you believe it? Flash article. Some of the rest of us, and I’m speaking to one who knows, don’t even have a roof over our heads – well, of course you have a roof over your head, you have
my
roof over your head, but it’s not your
own
roof over your head – and
Docker’s got so many roofs, he hasn’t even been under them all.’ She finished, sounding quite bitter.

‘I thought you liked him.’ I was speaking fast. I needed to get off the phone and log on to the land registry
right now
.