‘No. Not going to happen. I actually, literally can’t go.’
‘Why not?’
‘No passport.’
That stumps her for about ten seconds, before she asserts: ‘We’ll think of something.’
Once Jonny and Elle have gone to bed, Em and I stay up.
‘It still doesn’t make sense, though,’ I say. ‘Not completely. Davy got out of this line of work three years ago – or that’swhen he stopped putting any work Wolfgang’s way. And his ledger dries up at the same time, doesn’t it?’
‘So Jonny says.’
‘So why’s it relevant now?’ I ask. ‘Why would Rob Wallace be so angry to find out that Davy had been doing something wrong when he stopped doing it years ago?’
‘I’m sure it would still crush the firm if the truth came out. People don’t like being associated with this stuff. Three years isn’t so long.’
‘Maybe. But would that really be enough for Wallace to murder him? And if Davy had wound up his operation and presumably got away with it, why’s he suddenly arranging to go to the police? It doesn’t make sense.’
‘Yeah,’ says Em. ‘We’re clearly missing something.’
She and I are next to each other on the sofa, and I can feel the same kind of tension I felt before she kissed me last night. Then again, that’s the thing about sexual tension. It is entirely possible for only one party to be feeling it, and for the other to be thinking of ways to dodge border control.
I lean a little closer. ‘So. I was thinking.’ She looks up at me.
‘Yes?’
‘Why don’t we …’ She glances down as her phone pings. ‘As I was saying, I think we should …’ Her phone pings twice more, in rapid succession, and she breaks off to unlock it.
‘Ooh, Al. This is good.’
‘What?’
‘Elle just texted from upstairs. Charli Harcourt’s been in touch. She says she has some information for us.’
This has swiftly dissipated the mood. ‘Oh yeah? What kind?’
‘She says we should come for breakfast.’
29
I swear, the reason these people are all so thin is that they have so many parties to attend that they just don’t physically have time to eat.
We’re at the Pentagon Gallery. It’s in that bit of London between Piccadilly and St James’s Park. The principal businesses here are art dealerships and antiquarian booksellers; on our way here I think we passed an actual yacht showroom. The street above us is Jermyn Street, where a certain kind of posho – or a man passing as one – will happily hand over three hundred quid for a velvet smoking jacket, mostly because it has a label on saying it used to cost six hundred.
The Pentagon is a six-sided building, sitting in the centre of a small eight-sided square. (I don’t know either.) Today’s exhibition is in the ultramodern style, which is so far over my headI can’t even see the contrails. I really try to like art. I enjoy new stuff, and obviously there is nothing less sexy than someone who only enjoys Dutch Old Masters, but there is literally a box here that claims to contain the vapour of a grape, to challenge our preconceptions about nineteenth-century Sicily. I didn’t know peoplehadpreconceptions about nineteenth-century Sicily.
Perhaps I’m feeling irritable about the grape box because Em and I had a tiff on the way here, on the quite important matter of whether we’re seriously going to try and fly to Nevis. Nevis! It sounds mad. Itismad. Here’s how it went:
I told Em I wouldn’t go, and she said I had to because she couldn’t do it all herself, and I pointed out that I had no passport, and she asked me if there wasn’t any way I could get my hands on one, and I paused long enough for her to realise therewasa way I could get hold of one, and she dragged the truth out of me, which was my own stupid fault, and now we have agreed that once this meeting with Charli is over, I’m going to leave London and head to a small town in the south of England I thought I would never see again, and I feel frankly sick at the thought, and I can’t believe it, but I’ve told her something absolutely true about myself, and it feels like I’ve lost an entire layer of skin.
So that’s where I’m at.
Anyway. The gallery is home to a lot of art-world types – a few veterans of the Red Trouser Brigade, but mostly it’s kaftans and eyeshadow. Charli Harcourt is here, chatting with a friend and holding a blini. She’s in a deep purple shirt, andleather trousers even tighter on her than they would have been on the original cow. She’s also wearing a pair of shoes Em assures me would have cost as much as a new Mini. When she sees us, she waves a languorous hand, excuses herself from her friend, and comes over.
‘Tiff.’
‘Hello, Charli. You remember Dom.’
