The Widow(67)

She headed straight for Princess Street.

The sign for Internet Inc. was small and amateurish, the shop window painted black on the inside, and there was a CCTV camera positioned over the door. Looks like a sex shop, she thought.

The door was locked, and there were no opening times posted. She walked to the greengrocer’s at the top of the street and waited until one of the assistants in a Santa hat came out to serve her from the stall on the pavement.

“Hi. I want to use the Internet, but the place down the street is closed. Do you know when it opens?” she said, and the young man laughed.

“You don’t want to go in there, love. It’s for blokes.”

“How do you mean?”

“Porn place, innit? They don’t let the public in. It’s a sort of club thing for dirty old men.”

“Oh, right. Who runs it, then?”

“Dunno really. Manager is an Asian bloke called Lenny, but it’s open at night mainly, so we don’t see him much.”

“Thanks. I’ll have four of those apples.”

She’d come back later.

Internet Inc. looked even less savory in the dark. Kate had spent two and a half hours in a grimy pub, sipping a succession of warm fruit juices and listening to Perry Como work his magic on “Frosty the Snowman.” She was not in the mood for a brush-off.

When she tried the door it was still locked, but knocking on the blackened glass produced a voice from within.

“Hello. Who is it?”

“I need to speak to Lenny,” Kate said, looking up at the camera with her most winning smile.

Silence.

The door opened and a tall, muscular man in a vest and jeans appeared. “Do I know you?” he asked.

“Hi. You must be Lenny. I’m Kate. I wondered if I could have a quick word.”

“What about?”

“About a story I’m writing.”

“You’re a reporter?” Lenny slid backward into the shop. “We’ve got a license. It’s all legit. There’s no story here.”

“No, it’s not about you. It’s about Bella Elliott.”

The name was like a magic talisman. It transfixed people. Drew them in. “Bella Elliott? Little Bella?” he said. “Look, come on through to my office.”

She entered a narrow, darkened room, lit only by the LED glow of a dozen computer screens. Each was in a booth with a chair. There was no other furniture, but in a nod to the season, a piece of tinsel hung limply from the central light.

“No customers yet. They usually come a bit later,” Lenny explained as he led her to his cupboard of an office, the walls lined with stacks of DVDs and magazines. “Ignore those,” he advised as he caught her looking at the titles.

“Right,” she said, and sat.

“You’ve come about Glen Taylor, haven’t you?”

Kate couldn’t speak for a moment. He’d cut to the chase before she’d had a chance to ask her first question.

“Yes.”

“I wondered when someone would finally knock on my door. Thought it’d be the police. But it’s you.”

“Did he come here? Was Glen Taylor a member of your club?”

Lenny considered the questions. “Look, I never talk about members—no one would come if I did. But I’ve got kids . . .”

Kate nodded. “I understand, but I’m not interested in anyone else. Just him. Will you help me? Please.”

The manager’s struggle between the omertà of his sex shop and doing the right thing played out in the seconds of silence. He gnawed at a fingernail. Kate let him stew.

Finally he looked up and said: “Yes, he came here occasionally. Started a couple of years ago. I looked up his card when I saw his face in the paper. We don’t use real names here—members prefer it that way. But I knew the face. It was 2006 he started coming. Another member brought him.”

“Mike Doonan?”

“You said you wouldn’t ask about anyone else. Anyway, as I said, no real names, but I think they worked together.”

Kate smiled at him. “That’s so helpful, thanks. Can you remember the last time he came—are there any records?”

“Hang on,” Lenny said, and unlocked an ancient filing cabinet.

“He registered as 007. Very smooth. No visits registered after September 6, 2006, until August this year.”

“This year? He’s come back?”

“Yeah, just a few sessions, now and then.”

“What was he doing here? Do you know, Lenny?”

“That’s enough questions. It’s all confidential. But you don’t need to be a genius to guess. We don’t monitor sites visited—best not to, we decided. But basically, our members come to view adult sites.”

“Sorry to be blunt, but you mean porn?”

He nodded.

“Weren’t you tempted to look to see after you realized it was him?”

“It was months after he stopped coming in that I realized it was him, and he’d used different computers. It would’ve been a big job, and we’re busy.”

“Why didn’t you call the police about Glen Taylor?”

Lenny looked away for a moment. “I thought about it, but would you invite the police in here? People come because it’s private. It would’ve closed the business. Anyway, they arrested him, so I didn’t need to.”