‘Was he upset with Mr Blaydon?’
‘Not specifically.’
‘So what was it about?’
‘I told you. I don’t know. I can tell you one thing, though.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Somebody had given him a thrashing.’
Annie had told Banks that Florence, the maître d’ at Le Coq d’Or, had mentioned the cut over Tommy Kerrigan’s eye and his bruised cheek. ‘Any idea how that happened?’ Banks asked.
‘No. It wasn’t mentioned. Least not while I was around. That’s what he was pissed off about, though. Silly wee bugger gets himself into a fight with that temper of his and blames Mr Blaydon.’
‘Is that what he was doing, blaming your boss?’
‘Well, he was certainly complaining to him.’
‘About whom?’
‘No idea. Whoever did it.’
Banks sighed. He wasn’t going to get much further with Frankie Wallace. ‘Is there anything else you can tell me?’ he asked.
‘I think I’ve already told you too much,’ said Wallace.
‘I shouldn’t worry about that if I were you. You haven’t really told me anything I’d need to follow up with Mr Blaydon.’
Wallace shrugged. ‘No skin off my nose. You done now?’
Banks stood up. ‘I think so.’ He paused at the door, Columbo-style. ‘Just one more thing, Frankie. You don’t happen to know anything about a bloke called Howard Stokes, do you?’
‘Stokes? No, I can’t say as I know the name. Why?’
‘Found dead on Hollyfield Lane a couple of days ago. Number twenty-six. Drug overdose.’
‘Happens a lot these days,’ said Wallace. ‘Nasty things, drugs. Never touch them, myself.’
‘Good for you,’ said Banks. ‘Only I understand the Kerrigans own the house he was found in, and your boss is heavily involved in the redevelopment plans for the area.’
‘Small world.’
‘Isn’t it just,’ said Banks, who had the distinct feeling that Wallace was lying about not knowing who Howard Stokes was as he closed the door and walked back to his car.
The Hotel Belgrade, where Faye Butler had said Keane stayed when he was in town, was easy to find. It occupied part of an elegant five-storey terrace near Fitzroy Square Garden, all white stucco facades behind black iron railings, ornate stonework, steps down to a basement level, heavy blue-panelled doors with frosted glass lunettes. The hotel had no kitchen or restaurant, only a small library bar in the basement, but just next door was a spacious bar and grill, very trendy judging by its popularity and the affluent and carefree demeanour of its clientele. The bar and grill had its own front entrance, as well as a door leading from the hotel’s cramped lobby.
Unlike larger hotel lobbies with their crowds and open spaces, The Belgrade wasn’t a place where Zelda felt she could hang around unnoticed, reading her book and keeping an eye out. Any unattached attractive woman with no reason for being there would probably be taken for a prostitute and asked to leave. But the bar and grill was perfect. Like the Italian restaurant it was spacious, dim and mostly crowded after work. It was casual enough that a person could sit and enjoy a couple of drinks without being pestered to order food, though their steak frites was excellent, she discovered, and the windows opened on the street outside.
Zelda sat in a corner mulling over the interview with Danvers and Deborah Fletcher again. Danvers had phoned that morning and told her abruptly that she was no longer needed, and she could go home if she wanted. But Raymond had told her he wouldn’t be back for perhaps another week, and she didn’t feel like being up in Lyndgarth all alone with her mind full of the Tadićs, Keane, Hawkins and bad memories, so she decided to stay on for a while longer and see what she could find out.
Worried that someone might be following her, Zelda had begun taking steps. She had seen enough films to know that stepping on or off a tube train at the last moment often worked, as did entering a shop by one set of doors and leaving by another, or if all else failed, simply jumping in a taxi. Evasive action tipped off your tail, of course, but she didn’t care. As she couldn’t see who, or how many, were following her — if any were — she didn’t know whether she had been successful or not in losing them. But it didn’t really matter. At least, not yet.
She always restricted herself to two glasses of wine. She didn’t mind getting tipsy in the right company, but if she was going to do what she set out to do, she needed to keep a clear head. There had been a period when she had taken to drink and drugs to help numb her pain. That had worked for a while, but she started to hate the way it made her feel, so she stopped. Doing so hadn’t given her much trouble, especially as it was after she had escaped the dark world of forced sex and was starting to carve out an existence as a London pavement artist, a few months before she met Raymond. By the time she met him, she was sober and drug-free, apart from the occasional joint they shared. She only wished cigarettes were as easy to give up, but she had tried and she couldn’t. It was especially annoying because she couldn’t smoke in her hotel room, or in bars and cafes, places she wanted to sit and relax — like now, in the bar and grill next door to Hotel Belgrade. How wonderful it would be to sip her wine along with the occasional inhalation of cigarette smoke. She had tried those silly vape things, but they had lasted about as long as nicotine gum.
She did her best to be unnoticeable that evening, dressing down in baggy clothes, tying her hair back, going without make-up — even wearing glasses — and it seemed to work. As far as most people were concerned, she was probably just another young office worker on her way home after a hard day’s filing or whatever, stopping for a drink or two to help smooth out the tensions of the day, or give her courage to face the husband and kids. The bar staff probably assumed she was a guest at the hotel. At least, nobody had pestered her so far, except a fairly large group asking if she would mind moving to a smaller table so that they could all sit together.
The people at the table next to hers were getting noisier as they reached the third or fourth drink mark. And there was loud music, or at least a thumping bass beat that passed itself off as music. Zelda was starting to feel the onset of a headache.
She had finished her second drink, paid the bill and was about to leave when, all of a sudden, she saw someone whose presence seemed to dampen the sound, charge the atmosphere and make everything feel as if it were at the wrong end of a telescope.
The tall, burly figure walked through the door from the hotel reception. Though he was wearing a crisp white linen suit, bright green shirt and purple tie, and had traded his lank and greasy black hair for closely-cropped salt-and-pepper, there was no doubt in Zelda’s mind that she was looking at Goran Tadić, one of the two men who had bundled her into a car when she left the orphanage in Chi¸sina˘u.
The little park was a real haven, Gerry thought as she passed by the children’s playground with its swings, roundabout, slide and monkey bars, and took a winding path down to the side of the narrow beck, where she sat on a bench under the weeping willows. The beck moved swiftly, but it was shallow enough and the water took on the light brown beer colour of its bed. A couple of small wooden bridges, one green and one white, led over to the other side, a swathe of mixed trees and shrubbery, beyond which lay Cardigan Drive and the Hollyfield Estate. A row of stepping stones poked out of the water about halfway between the bridges, and Gerry imagined the children had fun using them. At that time of evening, though, in school term time, there was hardly anyone around. One or two solitary dog-walkers passed her, nodding a hello as they went, but that was about it. It was odd to think that Lisa Bartlett was assaulted so nearby not too long ago. But even the most pleasant of spots can take on a whole new aspect after dark.