set, who paid him handsomely to look after their books. What made Oliver extremely hot property was that he was the most unlikely of accountants: convivial company, a popular spinner of unlikely yarns, an accomplished singer, lover of the high life and, most importantly, Oliver adored spending money. His own, that is. A generous big spender who was able to legally and legitimately protect his clients’ money from the taxman — the only surprise Oliver offered was that he wasn’t inundated with marriage proposals. I’d done some work for Oliver a couple of years earlier, tracking down his birth mother. It was an emotional time for him and by the end of it we weren’t exactly friends, but we were definitely more than acquaintances. He’d said at the time he’d be happy to help if I ever needed anything. I wasn’t counting on Oliver being Justin and Salena’s accountant but I was confident he’d know who was.
‘You want me to do what?’ he responded archly.
‘I’m just asking you to have a drink with their accountant and if something should happen to come up in conversation that you think might be of interest to me, you could let me know.’
‘And I would do this for you, why?’
‘Okay, never mind. Forget it.’ It hadn’t occurred to me it was a lot to ask until he hit me with the tone. ‘Sorry I asked,’ I added belatedly.
His voice softened. ‘What’s this all about anyway?’
I thought over how much I could tell him. Not much. ‘There’s a kid involved, a young girl. I want to check that she’s okay, that she’s in a safe place.’
I waited out the silence. ‘And you give me your word you’re not working for the IRD?’
‘What!’ I was truly insulted by the suggestion. ‘No. Of course not! What do you take me for?’
I heard him smiling at my outrage. ‘I may or may not be in touch,’ he said. Which was about as good as I was going to get.
Ned turned out to be one of the few men I’d met who could successfully pull off wearing an eye patch. Okay, he was the only man I’d met who had even tried it, but still … He admitted it was as much to avoid the double-takes from passers-by as it was for comfort. The Prego clientele and staff were way too cool to make anything of it. No doubt they thought it was a fashion statement. We were still studying the menu when Karen phoned. She apologised for failing to warn me that Ned might turn up but assured me he was harmless enough. Watching him flirt with the women at the table next to us, I wasn’t so sure about that. Karen admitted she had forgotten about the arrangement Ned had with her mother. She and Norma had been estranged for some years and Karen knew very little about her mother’s life.
‘Luckily, we made up before she died. It would have been terrible if she’d passed away feeling all that anger towards me.’
Feeling a God lecture imminent I changed the subject. ‘Will you move in to your mother’s place now, or are you planning to sell it?’
‘I can live with very little. That’s the only worthwhile thing prison taught me. Actually,’ she added coyly, ‘it wasn’t prison that taught me, it was God. God taught me that.’ I bit my tongue. ‘I’m selling up and leaving the country. But first I have to get things sorted with Sunny.’ Sorted. As if. ‘We’re going to a Christian commune in LA. We’ll live a very simple communal life, Manny and I. He has been so supportive.’
This was the first time I’d heard there was a boyfriend on the scene but it didn’t surprise me. I wondered how supportive Manny was in helping Karen dispose of her inheritance. Call me a cynic, but I reckoned there was good chance Manny was supporting that inheritance right into his own pockets. Not my business, I reminded myself. Karen had hired me to find Sunny and I’d done that. She’d instructed me to find out if Sunny was safe and the meeting tomorrow would answer that question for her. My job would be completed and the final invoice would follow in the mail with indecent haste. My credit card balance would breathe a sigh of relief.
‘It might not go too smoothly tomorrow, Karen. You should prepare yourself for that,’ I warned her.
‘Oh, I am.’ Her voice lifted. ‘Manny and I are having a prayer