Verismo Bliss Chapter 9

9.

Ramona Noche wore red. A red ribbon in her hair tied the hair back from her face like a red streak against a stormy sky. She wore a red shirt, with high collar, and opened low across the contours of her heavy breasts, between which spun a pendant shaped like a children’s top. She wore a black skirt, with black stockings and red shoes.
Had she dressed herself for him, Harry wondered. When women dress up, is it to feel good, or is to attract partners? A bit of both, maybe. He couldn’t believe she had dressed up for him, maybe she was going somewhere later. Or maybe she had the hots for the Mediterranean looks of Raphael.
He was thinking way too much about Ramona Noche in a non-professional manner. She had lied to him. He knew that for a fact. There was a missing person that, by her own admission, Ramona didn’t like. She had motive. Shit, regardless of the fact Gloria was boning her dad, the will and testament was motive enough. But sometimes motives were afterthoughts. Most murders were committed in the heat of the moment, and justified with motive later. Yeah, he was thinking about Ramona Noche way too much in a non-professional way: but when she had a body that moved that way, and when her lips parted in just that way, it was so hard. In more ways than one.
The day of the dinner date he had done some leg work around the Garden, speaking to the skin-sellers and the disenfranchised, trying to find out if anybody could give him a lead on the Ripper or on Gwen. Spike said he’d seen Gwen and had even sold her a Big Issue; she’d been cool and seemed chirpy, so Spike said. He asked her if he could have her number, pretending that he was interested in taking her out on a date, you know, just so he could get some info for Harry, although he wouldn’t mind taking her out ‘cos she was a bit of a looker, but anyway she’d declined, but in such a nice way and with such a smile, that Spike had felt blessed rather than rejected. Harry bought two Big Issues off him and gave the money for four. Seems everybody was bumping into Gwendolyn Falsham except him. Every Rita Redhead he saw turned his head, but none were Gwen.
He had no better luck with his questions about the murders; everybody had a theory, theories were coming out of the pavements like roaches and ranged from aliens to Jack the Ripper reincarnated, and some of the winos even admitted to the killings themselves and asked to be locked up. The skin-sellers weren’t too concerned; after all, of the four dead only one was a woman. Any odd people hanging around? Shit, you fool, Covent Garden was full of weirdos, it was the straights that stood out round there.
Harry came across Frank. He didn’t know Frank from any other tramp, after all they all seemed to use the same fashion store and hairdresser, going for the trendy dishevelled look, but Frank recognised him, and after a bit of a slurred conversation about diamonds in pig sties, Harry realised that Frank knew Navaho. Frank was asking about her. He hadn’t seen her in a few nights. He was worried. She was a good ‘un. Harry said if he saw her he’d tell her to drop by. Third doorway along, corner of Neal Street and Long Acre. He was there most nights. Sure.
Harry was getting nowhere. He’d forgotten how to function without access to the Met Network. Without it he felt as though he was looking for one ordinary coin at the Royal Mint.
He went home and took a long bath. He shaved and put on cologne. He tried on a number of different clothes and then told himself not to be stupid and put on a plain white v-necked t-shirt and jeans. He wore his brown brogues.
Paolo lived in Whitechapel, where immigrants had been settling since Victorian times, but the slums of her Majesties most Majestic Empire had long gone, replaced with trendy shops and restaurants serving meals from every corner of the globe.
Harry met Ramona at Whitechapel Tube Station. On the journey there, with a black man staring at him and mumbling numbers as though trying to cast a spell on him with numeracy, he had tried to distract his thoughts of her body with thoughts of the cases he was working on. But as soon as he saw her in red, and smelt her perfume, and felt her lips on his cheek, well, he told himself he was just a man…it was all so easy for women, wasn’t it?
Paolo and Sylvia Rossi lived in an apartment on the top floor of the John Merrick Building on Whitechapel Road. They greeted their guests with kisses and wine. The music was by Charlie Mingus, the lighting subdued, the fondue bourguignon just as good as Paolo had promised, and the conversation relaxed and exaggerated, as all good talk should be.
Sylvia Rossi was ten years younger than her husband. A Frenchwoman who had grown more beautiful with age and who held herself with such calm self assurance that it was like watching an actor going through a well rehearsed role. She was elegant in the way that only Frenchwomen could be, in that effortless, almost arrogant way they had. Harry had never seen anybody fill a Chanel dress so wonderfully as though Coco had designed it for her especially. The way she looked at Paolo as he tripped off one of his anecdotes made Harry melancholic jealous. Mary had never looked like that at him, unless he was holding a bottle of whiskey. Ramona looked at him from time to time and smiled but she looked as though she was trying to figure something out, and a couple of times she crossed her legs and brushed her feet against him, but he was pretty sure that it was an accident.
It was a nice evening. The sort of evening that made you feel like a real no-fooling adult. You ate adult food with adult drink – wine, not cider or beer – and you talked about grown up things like politics, the economic rise of the Eastern Pacific Rim countries, the spread of Neo-Fascism after the Financial Meltdown, and, of course, the male infertility problem always reared its ugly head; or maybe rearing isn’t the right metaphor to use in this context. Harry, as usual, got embarrassed around fertility talk, but he couldn’t suss why. It was the same embarrassment a virgin felt when the talk turned to sexual conquests in the shower room.
By the time they left it was past midnight. Whitechapel Road was still alive. Some restaurants were closing up, but others would carry on serving most of the night. Little knots of young men stood outside pubs with plastic glasses in their hands, talking too loudly about women, drugs and football.
As they made their way to the Tube, Harry felt Ramona take his hand in hers. Was an adult evening out about to end in a very adult way?
‘I really enjoyed tonight. Paolo is very good company; that story he told about the chicken farm in Palermo is still making me smile.’
‘I’ve heard it a dozen times,’ Harry said, ‘and it still creases me up.’
‘And Sylvia can cook to perfection. Ah, I thought I could cook, but that was something else.’
Above the street and dulled lights, a waning gibbous moon appeared from behind steel clouds and glowed down upon them.
‘Can you name the stars,’ she asked.
He shook his head. ‘I don’t look up very often, I tend to fall over.’
The warm glow of the Underground Station with its empty McDonalds and Domino cartons, scattered like Hansel and Gretel breadcrumbs to guide weary travellers home, beckoned to them. There was a sole busker, playing Golden Brown on a guitar. Harry dropped some coins in. At the bottom of the escalator they followed the signs for the District Line. When it split into East and West bound, Harry said he’d see her home and she nodded, still holding his hand. On the East bound platform, with the heat from the tunnels like a dragon breath, only two other people waited. There was an odd silence, punctuated by the distant rumbling of the trains that reminded Harry of the beating of tribal drums that would have sent John Wayne reaching for his guns. Harry worried that the claustrophobic heat was going to make him sweat too much. Sweat was unattractive.
‘Any more leads on my father’s death?’
Harry looked at her. Her dark eyes had turned sad, or maybe it was just an effect of the Underground lighting. He wondered why it had taken her all night to ask.
‘Not that I know of. You know there was another murder? I don’t think the police have any real idea. The trouble with the police is that they are always under pressure to get a conviction; it’s why there are so many miscarriages.’
‘But aren’t private detectives like you under more pressure? You’re being paid privately; doesn’t that mean you have to deliver a better service?’
‘It means I deliver a correct service. I am paid for my time if I get an answer or not and I don’t have to justify myself before public opinion. If I take a case I like to get at the truth.’
‘Even if it’s just a wife cheating on her husband?’ she asked, letting go of his hand and rummaging in her handbag for a mirror.
‘Even that. Though I hate those jobs. They come in with their suspicions and their hopes that they are wrong. But they know. They always know. When I tell them the news the face drops, then they nod; they knew, knew all along. My office is littered with torn out hearts.’
Ramona dabbed at her eye and removed something that was non-existent to Harry.
‘You heard from Gloria Isles? I’d like to talk to her.’
‘Why?’
‘She might have some information that could help.’
She flipped the compact shut. ‘If I hear anything I’ll let you know.’
The train rumbled in with a rush of hot air that smelled of rooms locked up for too long. They sat down in an empty carriage.
Mind the gap.
The train hurtled into the darkness, rocking form side to side.
Ramona turned to face Harry. She took his hand. ‘I told you before, Gloria was just some money grabber who was using my father; now he’s dead we won’t see her.’
She kissed him, slowly, on the lips. Her tongue moved along his lower lip.
‘What about the other women he saw? The skin-sellers. Do you know any of their names?’
‘My father…I told you before that if my father was using them I didn’t know about it.’
She took his hand and put it on her thigh, lifting her skirt. He felt the sheerness of her stockings and then she moved his hand higher. He felt her warm, tender skin and then the softness of her panties. She sat back and he kissed her neck. His fingers slid under her panties to the warm wetness.
The train stopped at Stepney Green, Mile End, and raced on to Bow Road; nobody got on.
Ramona breathed heavily. Harry nibbled at her neck as his fingers moved inside her. Ramona moved her hands down her legs.
Bromley by Bow, West Ham, Plaistow, Upton Pak came and sped by and still they remained alone in their carriage, save for the electronic voice announcing each station.
‘The next station is East Ham. East Ham. This train terminates at Upminster.’
The train came to a stop and the doors slid open. Ramona extricated herself from the seat. Harry went to stand, but she pushed him back in the seat. ‘I can see myself home. Besides, if you can stand, I’m losing my touch.’ She walked (though walked doesn’t really do justice to the effect watching the motion of her rear had on Harry) to the doors, then turned and blew him a kiss. ‘Catch you soon, Harry.’
As the train moved away and the tunnel moved across his vision like the transition in a slideshow, he was sure, just for a moment, that a man had moved towards her.
Harry sat through Barking and managed to stand at Upney. He put his fingers to his nose and sniffed. He got off at Upney and made his way to the westbound platform. It only occurred to him then that, besides kissing him, she hadn’t touched him at all. She had taken and not given. On the way back, as the train stopped at East Ham, he almost expected to see her dead body surrounded by gawkers. But no, it was deserted. If he had seen a man approach her, it hadn’t been the Ripper of his nightmares.
When he finally got home he ruined the adult evening by opening some cheap bottles of lager in a petulant mood and falling into self-disgust before falling into bed.

In the morning, the air moist with humidity, the heat rising off the corrugated roofed garages that lined the park, he didn’t feel so much hungover as antsy and annoyed with himself.
When he had switched on his smart he had found a message from Ramona: Thanks for yesterday. The Tube ride was a bit random, but definitely hot. xxx He didn’t reply. She was playing him. He knew it in his head. But his body wanted to fuck her. Bollocks, he wanted to fuck her so bad. What was it about some women that just really drove you physically crazy?
He needed to sort out the Gloria Isles’ situation. He needed to know why Ramona was lying. Maybe it was innocent lying. Or maybe she murdered her father and Gloria Isles when she found them in bed together and chopped up Gloria’s body into little pieces and flushed her down the bog.
He also had to find Gwendolyn Falsham. And he had no fucking idea where to begin. He was feeling frayed at the edges, like a Stan Laurel suit.
He went out for breakfast, stopping at the Newsagents for a Guardian, at Roaster’s Roost and sat outside, watching the park come to early morning life. The sun was already half way up towards its zenith, sending dazzling rays through the full leafed trees, and glinting on empty Carling cans.
Harry ordered two croissants and a coffee. People passed him on their way to work. He liked breakfast time. He liked eating breakfast out. He would have hated to have to eat breakfast at home and head out to a fixed time job.
He read the paper. Gary Kent had done a piece on the murders. He’d used a lot of what Harry had given him, just jazzing it up a bit. But than came the part that Harry was most pleased with. Kent argued that the murders were nothing to do with a moral decline in the country and absolutely nothing to do with the erosion of Englishness (whatever that was – ask fifty Anglos what being English meant and you’d get fifty answers) caused by mass immigration. No, just like Jesus had declared that the poor would always be with us, so, sadly, would murderers and psychopaths always be with us. There was an aggression in humanity that would never go away. Add some psychosis or mental illness to a violent nature and you had trouble. Jack the Ripper wasn’t the first and the Covent Garden Ripper wouldn’t be the last. He then attacked the proposed Day For England march that was being organised by The Sun. Kent called for people to boycott the march, saying it would only inflame an already volatile atmosphere in Covent Garden.
That was the only part Harry didn’t like about the article. Kent implied that Covent Garden was a keg of gunpowder just waiting for the touchpaper to be lit. Harry knew there were a lot of people eager to light the touchpaper. In reality of course, there was no combustible keg in the Garden, the people of the Garden just survived day to day - a murder was a murder was a murder. These murders were more gruesome than most, but they had made the news because the media had decided to make an issue of them. Harry wondered that if all the victims had only been tramps or skin-sellers it would have made such a splash.
Still, he’d have to send thanks to Kent for the story.
Harry skimmed through the rest of the paper as he drank his third cup of coffee. Schoolkids jostled along the pavement and into the tables, oblivious to adult supervision. Theirs was the world and anything in it.
Harry came across a story about falling applications to enter Universities, even though grades were still rising at schools and colleges. It seemed the youth of the day would rather start earning money now than spend a fortune (or their parent’s savings) putting themselves through university in the hope of getting a better job, which would only serve to pay off the debts they had amassed. Could anybody blame them? The Financial Meltdown had wiped out savings and jobs from the well off to the poor; only the bankers (with a silent w) and the fuckers on the stock exchange who caused the shit in the first place, were bailed out with golden parachutes. Better to work now and put your savings under the mattress, for who knew what Neo-Thatcherite might rip you off tomorrow.
There was an example from Bristol University where the enrolment figure was a whopping 25% down on the previous year. That was where Gwendolyn Falsham was going to go. Looks like they might be missing another student.
Bristol University? Harry put down his cup and frowned. Shit, yes, Bristol University. That was it! He dropped coins on the table and hurried back to his apartment.
He dug out the Raf-Med brochures and found the bright young thing who had offered to help him with any media questions. Yes, her name was Alison Graham.
Harry found Gary Kent’s name in his smart and hit the call button. ‘Gary? It’s Harry. Hey, I like the article. Good work, and thanks. Listen. I need another favour. Yeah, yeah, sure, anything I get on the murders I’ll put your way. Can you flash some journalistic creds to my ID? Sure, just for a few days. Ok. Good. Talk to you soon.’
Harry then punched in the number printed next to Alison Graham’s name. ‘Hello, my name is Harry Reed. I work freelance and The Guardian have commissioned me to write a piece on the pharmaceutical industry, and, being as Raf-Med is the biggest in the country, I wonder if I could arrange a meeting with you, just for some background material…’

A day later he travelled up to Leeds on the train. Harry always felt a relief leaving the capital; it was like a breath of fresh air. Not that the air was any better in Leeds, but a change of air was as good as a rest. From Leeds train station he took a taxi to the business park that was home to five large buildings of glass and steel. It was a Business Park that was home to only one: Raf-Med owned all five buildings.
Harry found reception and was ushered to the comfiest chair he had ever been asked to wait in. He was rather disappointed to only have five minutes to enjoy the comfort before Alison Graham appeared, looking just like her photograph, all smiles and businesslike handshake. She wore a grey pencil skirt and white blouse that did nothing to hide a figure that would have stopped Hitler at the borders of Poland. She exuded youthfulness. Harry wondered what he could have achieved with his life if he’d put his mind to it; by the time this woman was his age she’d probably be the Prime Minister. Just as long as she wasn’t as evil as the first and only one.
She led him into an office that was big enough for a game of squash and had tea brought in for him. They had a general chat: she asking about the sort of angle he was looking for in his story; he asked her how long she had worked there and why she had decided to work for Raf-Med. Then they got down to some of the basics: Raf-Med’s current interests and what they had planned for the future. Were they going to expand any of their operations? How did they balance running a successful business with the desire to cure people?
‘It isn’t mutually exclusive,’ she said, pouring herself tea into a cup that held the slightest trace of her lipstick. ‘If we put money into finding a cure for cancer then it can be seen as a business risk as well as contributing to the welfare of humanity. If we found a cure, then from a business standpoint, we would stand to make billions, even if, as we would, make the drug available at a cheap rate.’
‘And what of the infertility cure? Are you actively engaged in that?’
‘Of course. The male infertility problem is of major concern – even if the Greens have a point that it wouldn’t harm the planet to see a reduction in birth rates – but it’s interesting because nobody has actually pinpointed what is causing it. Is it just a fertility problem, or will we see other problems in the years to come? Did you know that there are some researches who believe it is all a psychological problem? They think that man has found his age-old place in society so eroded that the only thing he has left is his seed, and maybe, sub-consciously, he was withdrawing that seed, like a petulant child. Whatever the reason, here at Raf-Med, we believe in choice; surely an individual should have the choice to have children?’
Harry was disappointed in her responses; he had hoped to soften her up a bit with his charm before moving on to the subjects he was really interested in. But, though she smiled and was polite, everything was businesslike and rehearsed. He must be losing his touch. Shit, who was he kidding, he’d only managed to have any charm over an alcoholic.
‘I’ve heard some rumours about Zehigh.’
‘Rumours?’
‘That it’s addictive.’
She laughed. ‘Really, Mr Reed, those rumours have been around a long time. I believe they were started by somebody at a rival company (I won’t name them for slander reasons) and are completely without foundation. You see, Mr Reed, the problem is that Zehigh makes people happy, and happiness can be addictive. But it isn’t the drug that is addictive. Besides, what could be wrong about being addicted to happiness?’
‘What about Bliss? Harry asked.
‘The female orgasm enhancement drug?’
‘Yes, I understand you are doing trials on it? How is that coming along?’
‘Yes, we have received some funding from the government to look into it. As I’m sure you know, at the moment, Bliss is an unregulated drug and we are carrying out trials to make sure it is safe for the public.’
‘I imagine there would be money in that.’
‘Sure. As the company that test it we would have first priority in marketing it. However, the main problem with Bliss is that it has a bad rep; it is seen as a drug used by the self-employed, not by more…successful women? If it is to be successfully marketed then that is the hurdle to overcome. But really, it isn’t that hard. You just get the most popular and respected celebrity to advertise it, then suddenly it’s trendy.’
She laughed then and Harry smiled, finally she had opened up a little.
‘And what of Martin Falsham himself? Do you see much of him or does he live in an ivory tower?’
‘Oh, Mr Falsham is very hands on. He is always at one of the offices in the UK or abroad.’
‘What’s he like?’
‘Very businesslike. Very interested in everything that is going on. He says he isn’t a creative man, but he is very keen to give creative people the lead. He believes that it’s the mavericks that will push the business on.’
‘That’s very commendable. He is married, with…’ Harry made a play of looking at his notes, ‘…a daughter and a son?’
‘Yes, his second marriage; his first wife sadly died giving birth to Oliver. Gwen is from the second marriage, to Sarah.’
‘You’ve met them?’
‘I’ve met Sarah at work functions. She seems very devoted to Mr Falsham.’
‘The children?’
‘Well, Oliver works here at Leeds. It may surprise you to learn that he is starting at the bottom; he’s nothing more than a post boy really. Martin…Mr Falsham believes in the work ethic and certainly doesn’t go in for nepotism.’
‘And what of Gwen?’
‘Gwen?’
‘Will she be joining the company, or has she other plans?’
‘I’m really not sure about…’
‘She’d be, what, 18? I’m sure I read somewhere that she was off to university to study history. Do you know which university she is going to? It’s all good background stuff.’
‘I think it was Bristol she was going to.’
‘Was? Isn’t she going anymore?’
Alison pushed a pencil across her desk, it rolled aggressively into her cup of tea. Harry got the feeling she wanted to snap it and imagine it was his neck. ‘Mr Reed. Mr Falsham really does not keep me up to speed with his family affairs.’
‘Bristol University has a pretty good reputation; have you been there?’
‘No.’
‘Have you met Gwendolyn Falsham?’
Alison squeezed the area at the top of her nose. ‘I don’t believe so. Now, why don’t I get somebody to give you the guided tour. If you need any more information, please don’t hesitate to contact me.’
She held out her hand and the interview was over. The somebody she found to give the tour was a smarmy little geek who had an Edinburgh accent and a manner that implied showing Harry around was keeping him from curing haemorrhoids. Harry figured that the way the guy walked he really needed to find a cure fast.
‘Are you a medical man, yourself, or a chemist? Because, if not, much of what I will show you will go over your head,’ he asked, his bleak moustache splattered with spittle.
‘Does being ill count? I’ve been ill quite a few times.’
The guide ignored this remark and moved swiftly around the complex, pointing at offices and laboratories with a hand as limp as his interest. Everybody bustled about with purpose in their eyes and memos in their hands or weird medical contraptions. Harry was beginning to think the trip had been a blow out when they turned a corridor, which the guide was saying led to the ‘medical wing’, and bumped into a woman wearing a hospital gown and wrist tag and little else.
‘Here, I think I’ve got a little lost,’ she said, her voice a harsh Cockney. ‘Do you know the way back to the maternity ward?’
Harry looked at the enormous bump which preceded the woman by a foot.
‘Please,’ the man said, gripping her arm, ‘you know you shouldn’t be wandering around on your own. You need to go down here, turn right and then second left.’
‘Right, then left,’ muttered the woman.
‘Second left,’ the man said, almost pushing her down the corridor.
‘When are you due?’ Harry asked, suddenly stepping in front of the woman.
She smiled and put her hands on her bump with pride. ‘They say if the little bugger doesn’t come out today they’re gonna induce him in the morning.’
‘Please…’ the man said, trying to usher the woman away, but Harry kept blocking her.
‘And what are Raf-Med doing for you?’
She smiled and showed a mouth that was missing a couple of teeth. The woman was barely out of her teens, but her eyes had looked too long and hard at the darkness to have any freshness in them.
‘Oh Raf-Med are looking after me alright. Well, they will do until Billy-Boy here pops out, and then it’ll be back to the smoke…’
‘It’s all part of our fertility research,’ the guide said. ‘Please, miss, you really shouldn’t be up and about.’
‘I hope they pay you good,’ Harry said.
‘Don’t mind about that. They pay me good. When I get back to London I should have enough to pay for a bond on a little apartment.’
‘Judging by the size of that,’ Harry said, ‘you’re gonna need a bigger apartment.’
She laughed. ‘Oh no, no need to worry…’
‘I must insist,’ the guide said. ‘Orderly, please see this woman back to her bed. Ward 81.’
He grabbed a passing orderly, who was more nightclub bouncer than hospital porter, who took the woman by the arm and brushed past Harry as though he was an annoying ant.
‘Good luck.’ Harry waved cheerily at the waddling behind of the woman, who turned and smiled, in a puzzled way.
The guide looked at his watch. ‘We should leave it there for the day. You’ve seen the main parts of the building.’
‘Really? And it was just getting interesting.’
Harry was taken back to reception where a taxi was called for him. Whilst he waited he took advantage of the comfiest chairs in Britain and closed his eyes, thinking.
Harry became aware of somebody sitting down next to him, but he kept his eyes closed.
‘You really could have just asked me, you know?’
The voice was cut straight from the stained glass that adorned the private chapels of the public schools. Added with the expensive, and subtle, aftershave that wafted across Harry’s nose, conjuring a long hot summer’s day at the Aegean coast, and he was damn sure he knew who had sat down next to him.
‘Adam Cannon,’ he said, without opening his eyes, ‘how nice to hear from you again.’
‘Alison Graham.’
‘Lovely girl.’
‘Why didn’t you ask me about her?’
Harry opened his eyes and lowered his head to the vertical. Adam was wearing an immaculate grey jacket over a superbly pressed white v-necked t-shirt that his dark, firm skin showed subtly through.
‘You look good, Adam. And I really didn’t want to bother you with such trifles. Besides I like to get out of London from time to time.’
‘There isn’t anything sinister in it.’
‘How is the master getting on in Devon? Killing many things?’
‘Falsham is back. It was successful, but no amount of dead stags can make up for his daughter still being missing. It concerns me that you are wasting time up here when all indications, by your own admission, are that Gwendolyn is in London.’
‘I needed to check something out.’
‘And no doubt we are paying your expenses to be here. As I said, you could have asked. Falsham loves his daughter very much; sometimes that love can seem a little…over-protective. All he wanted to do was keep an eye on her. Alison had applied for a grant from us to take a year out to further her studies, so Falsham decided he could kill two birds with one stone. Alison could do her studies at Bristol and keep an eye on Gwendolyn at the same time.’
‘By being her room mate and best new buddy?’
‘You make it sound so underhand.’
‘Lying to your daughter? Paying an employee to spy on her and to make friends with her?’
‘You don’t have children, do you?’
‘Everybody seems to ask me that.’
‘Maybe if you did you would understand Falsham’s actions.’
‘And yet, still she runs away.’
‘And yet,’ Cannon said, standing up, ‘you still can’t find her. Enjoy your trip back to London and please, don’t waste any more of Mr Falsham’s money.’
Harry’s taxi arrived. Before taking it he asked the receptionist if Oliver Falsham was in work.
‘Ollie’s got a few days off,’ beamed the make-up covered face of the plastic enhanced body of the receptionist. ‘He has a lot of days off,’ she whispered, leaning forward so that Harry got an eyeful of Silicon Valley. ‘I guess that’s one of the perks of having your dad as the boss.’
Harry got into the taxi.
‘Train station?’ the driver said.
‘No. Can you take me to a hotel? Nothing fancy, but clean.’