‘Yes, I forget his name. Italian. Had alopecia.’
His lack of hair seemed a side issue. ‘Was there a particular reason for the gift?’
She reached for her wine. ‘I probably sang for him at a party or something. It was the eighties – we did that sort of thing.’
‘Where was this party?’
She seemed to go into a daze. With any luck she was remembering a masked ball in a centuries-old castle in the Dolomites and an infatuated bald count in rapt attention.
‘A function room in a hotel in the Midlands.’
Oh.I tried not to show my disappointment.
She glazed over again. ‘Did Nicky send you?’
I went blank.Nicky?Who was she talking about? ‘Do you mean Nick Jones?’
She nodded. ‘He said he was sending someone.’
Was she having a memory lapse? I thought keeping her from the wine would be my biggest problem. ‘Yes, that’s right. Nick set this up. My name’s Zoë and I’m hoping to interview you forRe:Sound.’
‘Zoë?’
‘FromRe:Sound...’
‘There’s no need to talk to me like I’m an imbecile.’ She drank from her wine glass. ‘I might be fifty-eight, but I’m not an idiot.’ She smiled. ‘Well, fifty-three according to my Wikipedia page.’
‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to—’
She suddenly looked sad. ‘You knew Patrick.’
I flinched and tried to hide it by picking up my glass.
‘Dear, dear, Patrick,’ she whispered. ‘It was so sudden.’
I took several sips for Dutch courage because I had a question I’d always wanted to ask.
‘Why did you part ways?’
‘He was retiring.’
‘But you left years before that.’
She shook her head. ‘Could we talk about something else?’
Under other circumstances, I might have pushed her to dish on her ex-manager, but not when that manager was a dead friend of mine. It was a moot point, though; she clearly didn’t want to talk about him.
Unfortunately, she didn’t look like she wanted to talk about anything else. She’d leant her head back against the sofa and closed her eyes. Had she fallen asleep?
I coughed politely.
Nothing.
Then I noticed one of her fingers was tapping a rhythm against her thigh. I tried to think of something polite to say to wake her up.
The skirt of her dress was bunched up to her mid-calf; she had a little tattoo on her ankle that I’d never noticed before.
‘That’s an interesting tattoo. Have you had it long?’
