When I walked into the office, Shelley had a look on her face I’d never seen before. After a couple of minutes of awkward conversation, I worked out what it was. The shifty eyes, the nervous mouth. She was feeling guilty about something.
“Okay,” I said heavily, perching on the corner of her desk. “Give. What’s eating you? Is it having to lie to the police about where I am?”
“I don’t know what you mean,” she said sniffily. “Anyway, I’m black. Isn’t lying to the cops supposed to be congenital?”
“Something’s bothering you, Shell.”
“Nothing is bothering me. By the way, if you wart your coupe back, it’s on a meter round the corner. I wouldn’t mind having my Rover back.” She couldn’t meet my eyes.
“Has he been here?” Try as I might, I couldn’t keep my voice cool.
“No. He came round the house about eight o’clock this morning. I asked him to talk to you, but you’re too good a teacher. That man of yours has really learned how to ignore. I was going to phone you, but he was gone by then, so it wouldn’t have been a whole lot of use.”
“Did he say where he was going?” There was a pair in my stomach which was nothing to do with what I’d had for breakfast.
“I asked him, but he said he wasn’t sure what he was doing. He told me to tell you not to waste your time looking for him.”
I looked away, blinking back tears. “Fine,” I said unsteadily. “Though why he should think I can spare the time to chase him…”
Shelley reached out and gripped my hand. “He’s hurting in his pride, Kate. It’s going to take him a bit of time, that’s all.”
I cleared my throat. “Sure. I should give a shit.” I walked through to my office. “If anybody wants me, I’m not here, okay?”
I closed the door and sat down with the tape recorder. I’d recorded the number dialing on high speed, and now I played it back on the lower speed setting so I could more easily count the clicks. Given the way my luck had been running lately, the call I’d interrupted had probably been made to Gail, aid all I was going to end up with was the number of her dentist.
I wrote the numbers down on a sheet of paper. Unless Gail made a round-trip of eighty miles every time she wanted her teeth fixed, it looked like I’d struck gold. The number I’d recorded from her telephone was a Liverpool number. On an impulse, I marched through to Bill’s office, where the phone books live, and picked out a three-year-old Liverpool directory. I looked up Halloran. There it was. Desmond J. Halloran, an address in Childwall. The number didn’t match.
“It ain’t over till it’s over,” I said grimly, picking up the phone and calling Talking Pages. I asked for portrait photographers in Liverpool. The second number she gave me matched the number on the sheet of paper. D JH Portraits. I didn’t think Ladbrokes would be offering me odds on those initials not standing for Desmond J. Halloran.
I shut myself back in my office and rang Paul Kingsley, a commercial photographer who occasionally does jobs for us when Bill and I are overstretched or we need pictures taken in conditions that neither of us feels competent to handle. Paul’s always delighted to hear from us. I suspect he read too many Batman comics when he was a lad. I got him on his mobile. “I need your help,” I told him.
“Great,” he said enthusiastically. “What’s the job?”
“I want to check out a photographer in Liverpool. I need to know how his business is doing. Is he making money, is he on the skids, that kind of thing. Do you know anybody who could color in the picture?”
“That’s all you want?” He sounded disappointed. It was worrying. This is man whose assignments for us have included spending a Saturday night in an industrial rubbish bin, and standing for three days in the rain in the middle of a shrubbery. In his shoes, I’d have been delirious with joy at the news that his latest task for Mortensen and Brannigan involved nothing more hazardous to the health than picking up a phone.
“That’s all I want,” I confirmed. “Only I want it yesterday. DJH Portraits, that’s the firm.”
“Consider it done,” he said.
My next call was to Alexis. “All right?” she greeted me. “Has dickhead turned up?” I told her about Shelley’s encounter with Richard. “That doesn’t sound like good-bye to me,” she said. “You want my advice, give your insurance man a bell. Show Richard you’re not sitting round waiting for him to decide it’s time to come home.”
“Strangely enough, I’m seeing him for dinner,” I told her.
“Nice one. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”
“That doesn’t give me a lot of scope on a date with a fella, does it?”
“Exactly. Now, what was it you wanted?”
“You still got your contact in Telecom accounts?” I asked her.
“You bet. Like the song says, once you have found her, never let her go. What are you after?”
“I want the itemized bills for the last six months on three numbers,” I said. “One Manchester, two Liverpool. How much is that going to rush me?”
“It’s usually fifty quid a throw. I’ll ask her if she’ll give you the three for a hundred and twenty. You want to give me the numbers. I’ll pass them on?”
I read the three numbers over to her. “Soon as possible,” I said.
“If I catch her now, she’ll fax them to you when she gets home tonight. That do you?”
“It’ll have to.”
“Is this something I should know about, K.B.? I mean, I’m the woman you were pumping last night about mysterious deaths in Manchester and Liverpool.”
I chuckled. “If I said it was a completely unrelated matter, would you believe me?”
“Girl, if the Pope himself told me it was a completely unrelated matter, I wouldn’t believe him. You’ve got no chance. You want to share this with me?”
“Do your own investigations,” I told her.
“I’ll catch up with you later. Have fun with the insurance man. I’ll expect a Ml report tomorrow.”
“Only paying clients get full reports,” I laughed. I replaced the receiver and swung my feet up onto the desk. A vague shape was forming in my mind, but there were still too many questions that needed answering. Not least of them was the one Gail Morton herself had raised. If someone had been targeting Joey Morton specifically, how could they be sure he would be the person to open the fatal container?
I was still worrying at that point when Paul called back. “DJH Portraits,” he said. “Desmond Halloran. One-man band. He used to work with another guy, doing the usual weddings, babies and pets. But he fancied himself as a bit of an artist, so he set up on his own, doing specialist portrait work. I’m told his stuff is really good, but the problem is that using the kind of processes he does is very labor-intensive, as well as costing a fair bit on the chemicals. He was keeping his head above water to begin with, but the way the recession’s been biting, nobody’s got the cash to spare for fancy photographs that come in at five hundred quid a throw. My contact says he reckons he must be running at a loss these days. That what you wanted to hear?”
“Smack on the button,” I said.
“This wouldn’t have something to do with the fact that his wife has just popped her clogs, would it?” he asked eagerly, ever the boy detective.
“Now, Paul, you know I never divulge confidential client information.”
“I know. Only, my mate, he says Desmond only kept afloat because his wife’s business was a raging success and she subsidized him. He was wondering how Desmond’s going to go on now.”
Another piece of the jigsaw fell into place. “Thank you, Paul,” I said. “Send me an invoice.” It was a long shot, but if Desmond Halloran was having an affair with Gail Morton and they wanted to ditch their partners and run off together, they’d need something to live on. Quite a big something, if my impressions of Gail were accurate. But if Desmond divorced Mary, she’d doubtless hang on to the kids and to her business, leaving Desmond potless. And I suspected that Desmond pot-less was a lot less attractive to Gail than Desmond loaded.