cetera. That unthinking failure to make the obvious connection when Dame had mentioned the name of Liz’s lover was wormwood and gall to him. He understood now why his wife had suggested that they meet at the club on that dreadful Thursday night. Not, after all, in order to see Rourke. She had planned an assignation with the man in charge that night and had meant to accompany him back to the Ferry, so as not to miss the chance of a minute in his company before they split up for the night.
So it was Gallimore of whom she entertained such high hopes. Moneyed and handsome, the man she hoped to marry. What had gone wrong and why had he not come forward in response to the news of her death? And was it mere coincidence that Rourke, the man who kept her picture, who followed her around the city, also frequented the Ferry? Slowly, the fog within Harry’s mind was beginning to clear. At last he could identify the shadowy outlines of the truth.
He turned down the alleyway where forty-eight hours earlier he had lain in wait for Froggy Evison. It was deserted. Lined up against the wall were half a dozen black bin liners from which old ring-pull lager cans and torn crisp packets spilled. The side door was shut. He tested it. Locked.
For half a minute he beat on the metal panel until his knuckles were raw. Nothing. Impossible to make anyone hear inside. He had taken a step back towards the front of the building when he heard a key turn in the lock. The door swung open and the fair-haired keyboard player whom he had encountered on his previous visit stepped out into the night.
Glancing back over his shoulder, the man was saying, “Maybe the agent will come up with someone. The kid from Wrexham might be free. The one who sings like Randy Crawford.”
The reply was too low for Harry to hear. As the door began to close, Harry moved swiftly. Grabbing the door’s edge, he held it fast for a moment and stepped inside. He was looking straight at a tall black-haired man in a slim- fitting designer suit, the man whom on previous visits Harry had assumed was the manager, without appreciating that he must actually own the place. In the intervening week the tan seemed to have faded and his moustache to have drooped. Wrinkles had crept around dark eyes that no longer smiled with complacent authority. At the sight of Harry he stared as if coming face-to-face with a poltergeist.
He knows who I am, thought Harry. He’s been afraid that I would turn up.
“Tony. Tony Gallimore.” The words came out harshly; for Harry, it was like listening to someone else talk. During the past few days he had spoken to more than one man who had slept with his wife. But this was the one whom she had thought she loved.
“You’re Devlin.” A statement rather than a question, spoken in smoothed-down mid-Atlantic tones which bore not a trace of the Scouser’s catarrhal whine.
The keyboard player joined them in the doorway. “Problems, boss?”
“Nothing I can’t handle, Neil. I’ll see you later.”
“If you’re sure…”
“Yes, Neil. No sweat. There’s no need for you to stay.”
With a last dubious look at Harry, the keyboard player zipped his white blouson and was gone. Gallimore said, “What do you want here? We have nothing to say to each other.” That charming smile reserved for the punters and his ladyfriends was nowhere to be seen.
“Wrong.” Harry jerked his thumb. “Let’s talk indoors.”
Gallimore hesitated, but another glance at Harry’s face helped to make up his mind. “As you wish.”
He led Harry to a room at the far end of the passageway. Its door was marked manager — strictly private. The office was palatial in comparison to the cubby-holes which Harry had seen on his previous visit. Comfortable chairs, a paper-laden desk, swish cordless phone and a year planner festooned with coloured oblongs and triangles. Two walls were covered with photographs of club acts. Perhaps half of them showed Gallimore with his arm round skimpily clad singers and dancers. Most of the pictures were adorned with trite messages and autographs: All the best from the Stimson Sisters, Luv to Tony from Cara xxx. Gallimore sat behind the desk and waved Harry into the other chair.
“You didn’t answer me, Mr. Devlin. What do you want?”
“To talk.”
“Talking won’t help any of us. Elizabeth is dead.”
Elizabeth. Harry would never associate the full name with the woman he had married. To him, she had always been Liz. Perhaps that had been her problem: she was a Liz who yearned to become an Elizabeth. He said, “It’s about her death that I wanted to see you.”
“I can’t tell you anything.”
“I think you can,” said Harry.
Tony Gallimore laughed sourly. “Elizabeth used to talk about you. She said you were sharp enough on the surface, but that crazy obsessions would take hold of you, then you became unreasonable. I hope I’m not going to be one of those obsessions.”
“She seems to have spent most of her time discussing me with her fancy men,” said Harry wearily.
Gallimore started to rise from his chair. “I don’t mean anything to you, Mr. Devlin. The one link between us has gone. Now why don’t you go home and start putting your life back together again? That’s something we all need to do.”
“Sit down.”
Harry took the gun from his jacket. It was a 9mm Mauser automatic, short-barrelled but, Peanuts confirmed, effective enough at short range. Harry had pressured the pimp first to admit that he still kept an unlicensed firearm as a souvenir of his days as a hard man who handled tricky jobs for the proprietor of a Caribbean night spot, then to lend it to him for the night.
Peanuts had been reluctant. “Man, you don’t know the damage this thing can do. Okay, people call it a ladies’ gun, but you can bet it’ll still cut a big man down. And if you open up some guy’s stomach, I sure as hell ain’t gonna help you beat the rap.” But Harry had persisted, calling in all his owed favours, and at length his client had given in and handed over the gun. “You going to use this, man?” Peanuts asked after showing how to cock the pistol. Harry had said simply, “I need to be prepared.”
So now he was prepared and Tony Gallimore sat down again, mesmerised by the Mauser. Slivers of sweat shone on his forehead.
“Okay, let’s hear it. When did you first meet Liz?”
Gallimore kept the Mauser under an unwavering gaze. He was breath|ng rapidly. “Three months ago. She was here one night alone. Coghlan had disappeared somewhere, up to no good as usual. Some men were bothering her. I sorted the problem out, the lads on the door made sure their feet never touched the ground. We got talking. That’s how it began.”
“And you became lovers “ Harry squeezed every last trace of emotion out of his voice. He might have been a newscaster on Radio 4.
That night. I simply couldn’t get enough of her. She was beautiful, warm, vivacious. Not like some of the plastic dolls we get here. She was a real woman.”
“And Coghlan?”
“He terrified her,” said Gallimore, still watching the gun. “I told her not to worry — I had some connections. You don’t survive in this business without knowing one or two rough people. But it wasn’t a straightforward situation. There was my wife, too. She’s a jealous woman. I told Elizabeth we had to be careful, for both our sakes. It was our secret. Elizabeth liked that, it seemed to add to the excitement for her. She took a job at the shop where she used to work in town, it was handy for lunchtimes and gave her an excuse to be out if Coghlan ever got nosey. We moved round the hotel circuit.”
“When did you decide to make it permanent?”
“There were difficulties,” said Gallimore. He twisted a little in his chair, as if to illustrate what he was saying. “I needed her, of course I did. But I didn’t want to leave my wife, nor the club. I’m not a rich man, and Elizabeth had no money of her own. Coghlan had a tight grip on the purse-strings. She had found out that he was short of ready cash. The money that went on his gambling was criminal, she used to say.”
He mustered a wry grin, his first attempt to try on Harry the charm-the-pants-off-you style that Trisha had said was his stock-in-trade. Harry tapped the Mauser impatiently on the surface of the desk. Running the tip of his tongue over his lips, Gallimore continued, “I asked her about divorcing you, but she said you couldn’t afford heavy alimony. Besides,” — again a hint of a winning smile“ whoever made money out of suing a solicitor? She said you
