by Jessie Keane
Oh God, please help me, she thought in desperation.
There came a ferocious kick at the door.
Clara flinched.
Then another.
Jesus, God, help, please help . . .
Then another kick. Door and chair flew inward, and Fulton Sears burst through into the room.
Sears didn’t speak. He just stood there, breathing heavily. Christ, he was ugly. And she could smell the pungency of his sweat, stale and reeking – disgusting.
Clara froze. That was what Toby had always told her to do, and now she heard his voice in her head, clear as a bell.
If they’re unarmed, let them come to you. They’ll grab you from the front. Let them.
But she hadn’t realized the amount of willpower it would take to do that. She stood still, rock-still, and this leering, stinking monster came at her like a bear, rushed at her – and grabbed the front of her clothes, sank his fists around the costly cloth, yanked her in toward him, yanked her right off her feet.
Clara saw blackheads all over his nose, his wet repulsive mouth, smelled his foul breath, she was enveloped in his stench. They were eye to eye for seconds. And then slowly an expression of puzzlement came over Sears’s face. His dark bloodshot eyes, which had been glaring into hers, dropped to look at his fists.
There was blood streaming from his hands, dripping down over Clara’s jacket.
‘Uh?’ It was a grunt almost, a sound of bewilderment, that came from his mouth.
On Sears’s right hand, his thumb detached itself and tumbled to the carpet as the razor in her lapel bit cleanly through it and cut it off. Booby traps, she thought. Thanks, Toby.
Sears unclenched his hands automatically and stared at the deep, heavily bleeding cuts. A finger peeled off one hand and dropped to the floor. Then Clara shoved her knee hard into his groin and he doubled forward with a shout.
Clara ran. She stumbled past Sears and flew out the office door, falling over the chair, righting herself, throwing herself full-pelt down the stairs. She raced across the main body of the club, where people were still fighting, still throwing punches and chairs and bottles, and then someone grabbed her arm and she was dragged to a halt.
‘Bastard! Let go, let go!’ she shrieked, crazy with fear, and then she looked, and saw that it was Henry, her brother.
Their eyes locked. Clara was panting as if she’d run a mile. So was Henry. His fists were red, bruised, bloody. His face was flushed with exertion. Would he let her go? She didn’t think so. He would hold her here until Sears recovered himself and came down and finished her off.
‘Henry—’ she started.
He let go of her arm.
Clara stared at his face for a second longer, then she turned and ran, out of the club, out into the night and away.
73
It turned out that Sears and his bully-boys had a busy Saturday night all round. As well as the Carmelo, they’d hit the Oak, the Paradise, and the CityBeat, taking in a gang of rockers to flatten the mods drinking in there with bike chains and knives. Half of the clubs had been decimated in one massive hit.
When she got back to the Heart of Oak early on Sunday morning, it was to find it in a similar state of devastation. Exhausted, wrung out with anxiety, she locked the doors (luckily the locks were still intact, they were about the only thing that was), then she crawled upstairs to the flat beside the office, which was untouched. She shoved one couch in front of the door and sprawled out on the other, and was asleep in minutes. If Sears’s lot came and burned the whole damned thing to the ground, she’d die in it. And she was getting to the point where she was past caring one way or the other.
Her gloom increased on Monday, when only one of the staff turned up for work – porky little Jan, who seemed to have adopted Clara as her best mate.
‘Where is everyone?’ Clara asked her. She was downstairs in the decimated body of the club, trying to sweep some of the mess up with a broom. It was like fighting the tide, it seemed to achieve nothing.
‘They won’t come back,’ said Jan. ‘Bloody great warning off Sears? They won’t come back after that.’
Clara looked at Jan in exasperation. She was telling her she had no staff. No muscle. No nothing. That she was truly alone, trying to clear up all this crap, without assistance.
‘Then why are you here?’ she asked.
‘Came in to see how you’re coping.’
‘Oh, bloody fucking marvellous. Three of my clubs down the Swannee, and no staff to get them back up.’
‘Nobody’s going to work these clubs, not after Sears made his feelings plain. Everyone’s shit-scared that he’s going to come back in and beat them senseless. Toby’s dead and everyone knows you can’t handle the situation. You’d best just pack up, get out.’
Clara stared at her. She thought of confronting Sears last night in her office, and shuddered at the memory. But she had done him damage. She was glad of that. She thought of Henry down in the club, catching her arm. For a moment, she had thought he was going to betray her totally; but he hadn’t.
‘You don’t understand,’ she told Jan. ‘I’ve lost my house. I’ve lost the income from three clubs. I can’t afford to get out.’
Jan gave a snort. ‘You can’t afford not to. He’ll see you off any way he can, you know. He’ll walk right over you. Well, he has already, hasn’t he.’ Jan gave a nod of affirmation. ‘Listen to me, Clara. Just listen. The sensible thing to do now? Go. While you still got legs.’
‘What does that mean?’ asked Clara.
Jan leaned in and said with ghoulish relish: ‘He chopped the foot off a bloke over in Greek Street when he refused to pay out. Right off, crunch! Just like that. Left the poor bloke with a stump. He’s on disability now, he’s fucked.’
Oh shit, thought Clara.
74
A few days later, a bleak cold windy day well suited to her mood, she did a tour of the three clubs that had been hit. There was no one there in any of them – only wreckage, only carnage. Bloodstains and smashed mirrors, wrecked chairs and upturned tables, all the optics drained and smashed, all the stock pinched, slivers of glass all over the place.
This was a fucking disaster.
She went on to the clubs that were still in operation. Or they should have been. Only there was no staff in any of them. No barmen, no bouncers, no hostesses, no singers or dancers, no bands. Not a bloody soul. clearly everyone had heard about what happened to the other cotton clubs and they were taking no chances.
She finished up outside the Juniper. She unlocked the shutters and pulled them up; unlocked the main doors. Then she walked in. The place was empty, echoing, devoid of life.
She stood there in the deserted club and thought of the horror she’d seen happening in the Carmelo, with the thwarted Sears standing gigantic and bald and powerful with his hands red with blood. Seeing Henry there, standing shoulder to shoulder with that horrible bastard, had chilled her right through to her soul. No one had died that night, but that had been more luck than anything.
If Toby’s and even Sal’s deaths were a warning to her to clear out, she was still too stubborn to take the hint. Then she thought of Jan, telling her about the man who’d been maimed for life. It had been so vicious an act that she felt sick just thinking about it. But along with the revulsion she could also feel fury like a fire deep in her belly, like those leaping flames that had enveloped her beautiful house and her dear, sweet husband.
All her life, men had caused her grief. Her father, abandoning her. Henry, cheating, stealing from her, appalling her with his mindless acts of cruelty, standing among Sears’s thugs trashing the Carmelo. Her own brother. Fucking men, thinking they could just plough through her like she was nothing. Then Sears with that fucking proposal. Marry me, or else. That cold, horrible chuckle on the other side of the door as Sears realized she was hiding from him, both of them knowing how easily, so easily, he could break down her flimsy defence and come in. But she’d marked him. Like a cornered cat, s
he’d lashed out and hit her mark, thanks to Toby and his tip on razored lapels. Anyone grabbed you by your coat, they cut themselves to ribbons. And it had worked.
Booby traps, he’d told her. And thank God he had.
As she stood there amid the wreckage, she heard a noise behind her. She whirled round, her heart in her mouth, expecting to see him there, massive and menacing, come to get her. There was no one there. Only the main door, banging shut in the wind and then opening again with a low creak.
Now she was jumping at shadows. Sears had terrified her, she was expecting him everywhere.
Had she really come through so much, suffered and tried and endured, just to have it all snatched away from her? She had scaled the heights but was now in danger of slipping right back down the ladder of bad luck and ending up in a situation that filled her with horror – poor again, destitute. All of it gone. And she had worked so hard to get here, so bloody hard.
The thought of ever again landing up in an overcrowded slum filled her with sick dread. That couldn’t be allowed to happen. She flatly refused to contemplate such a future. She drew herself up, took a deep breath. No. She wouldn’t let it happen. Clara Dolan only ever played by her own rules, never by anyone else’s. Clara Dolan never stopped thinking, not for an instant, and she never let her heart rule her head. She told herself that, very firmly. It was the truth. She was cool and calculating, and she was going to stay that way.
The door banged open again, and she jumped.
Oh fuck this.
Sears thought he could just bulldoze over her, did he?
Well, she’d see about that. Clara left the empty club, closed it up again.
She had two things to do. And then they’d bloody well see, the whole sodding lot of them.
75
‘I want to report something,’ said Clara to the inspector, the same one who had come in asking about Sal’s murder, the fire, Toby’s death.
She’d gone to the police station and asked for him by name. Then she’d sat and waited with a drunk on one side and a prostitute bellowing about her innocence on the other, until he’d appeared and ushered her into a gloomy back office.
‘Report what?’ he’d asked, when they were both seated. He had a young fresh-faced PC with him, who produced a notebook and pencil and looked at her expectantly.
‘Fulton Sears ran the doors on my clubs. Since my husband Toby Cotton died, he’s taken it into his head that he’s going to marry me and take over. I wouldn’t play ball, so he wrecked three of them and I want you to charge him.’
The PC was writing in his notebook. The inspector looked at her sceptically.
‘You actually saw him . . . ?’ he asked.
‘I did. And I’d swear to it in court.’
‘You people don’t usually refer things like this to us,’ he said.
‘Look, I’m a private citizen being menaced by a thug, and I want protection.’
‘You have any evidence that Sears was involved in this?’
‘I told you. I saw him in the Carmelo club the night it happened. And he saw me.’
‘And what was he doing?’
‘Hitting my staff and my punters. With knuckledusters.’
‘You’d testify to this?’
‘I would.’
Now both men were staring at her. This was something unique – a Soho club owner talking to the police about anything was a shocker. But to say they’d give evidence? It was unheard of. Of course they’d heard nothing about this before Clara’s visit. The local plod had, as usual, turned a blind eye. And there were enough boys in blue on Soho’s streets on the take to make sure that happened; a sad fact of life.
‘Also, I think he could have been involved in the death of Sal Dryden.’ If Clara was going to hang Sears out to dry, she wanted to make a thorough job of it.
‘Why would you think that?’
‘He was terrorizing her,’ lied Clara.
‘What does that signify? Nothing, in my book.’
‘And what about the fire at my house? What about the death of my husband? Sears was trying to get to me – isn’t it possible he wanted to get Toby out of the way?’
‘All right. We’ll look into it,’ said the inspector, and dismissed her.
‘What you been up to?’ asked Jan when Clara got outside in the cold February fresh air again.
Clara clutched a hand to her heart. Jan had peeled away from the wall outside the cop shop, she hadn’t expected to see her there. ‘What the hell you doing?’ she demanded.
‘Following you.’
‘Well don’t, for God’s sake. You nearly gave me a bloody seizure.’ If Jan could follow her, so could anyone. That wasn’t a nice thought. And she had just done what no one else in the whole of Soho would dare to; she had dropped the snubbed, rejected Fulton Sears in the shit. Gone to the law. Turned grass.
‘What you been doin’ then, talkin’ to the Bill?’
‘Go home, Jan. It’s none of your business.’ Clara started walking away, very fast.
Jan half-ran to keep up with her. ‘You been tellin’ them about what happened in the clubs? I don’t believe it.’
Clara stopped walking and gave Jan a hard shove in the shoulder. ‘Look,’ she said hotly. ‘Mind your own, Jan. This has nothing to do with you.’
‘Well, pardon me,’ sniffed Jan, looking hurt.
‘I don’t want to have to tell you again. Fuck off,’ said Clara, and walked on. This time, Jan didn’t follow. And Clara was glad. Jan was safest being a long way away from her. She was poison now, she’d gone beyond the pale, and soon everyone would know it.
One job down; one to go.
She went to the Blue Bird that night, paid on the door to get in just like every other normal punter, then asked the muscle in there to take her to their boss.
‘Who wants him?’ asked one of them, eyeing her suspiciously.
‘Tell him it’s Clara Cotton.’
The muscle disappeared upstairs, then reappeared within a few minutes.
‘Come on up,’ he said, and she followed him up a set of steep stairs and along a short gloomily lit corridor. He knocked on a black-painted door to the right, then opened it.
‘Clara Cotton, boss,’ he said, and ushered her inside, closing the door behind her.
‘Well, this is nice,’ said Clara, looking around the cramped office. Actually it wasn’t nice at all. It was a box, full of filing cabinets, a desk, three wheelback chairs and Marcus Redmayne, who was leaning back in a ruby-red leather captain’s chair behind the desk and staring at her like she’d appeared out of a puff of smoke.
Finally he said: ‘What do you want, Clara?’
‘That’s an easy one,’ she said, taking a chair and settling herself on it. ‘I want you to marry me.’
76
The silence in the office was total for a long time. Finally Marcus said: ‘Why would you want me to do that?’
Clara shrugged. ‘You said it yourself, didn’t you. You have money. I want money.’
‘Right. I heard your clubs got a going-over.’
‘They did. And frankly it looks like I’m going to have to cut my losses there and admit you’re right. Running clubs is a man’s game. And you know about the insurance, don’t you. They claim the fire was started deliberately. It probably was. But not by Toby. They mentioned accelerants. Which all leaves me a bit short, as you can imagine. And so I thought, why not? You mentioned it first, and I suppose now would be a good time to take you up on the offer. You want the clubs. You said so.’
‘And you’ve come here because you’re strapped for cash.’
‘That’s right.’
‘That’s the only reason.’
‘Of course.’
Marcus narrowed his eyes and stared at her face. ‘Why don’t I believe you?’ he pondered aloud.
‘I don’t know. Why don’t you?’
‘I bet you’re a great poker player.’
‘I never gamble.’
‘No, I
think chess would be more your game. You only go for certainties.’
‘That’s right.’
He was shaking his head now. ‘No, there’s got to be something else, some angle you’re not telling me about.’
‘No, there’s nothing.’
‘Clara, Clara,’ he sighed. ‘If only I could believe that. I’ve watched you work people over before, remember. Poor old Frank, and then Toby. You’re cold, you’re devious. Do you ever stop thinking, plotting your next move? I doubt it.’
‘So you don’t want to marry me then? You don’t want to have those clubs that were Toby’s?’ asked Clara.
Marcus sucked in a breath. ‘You know what? Actually, I think I still do. Even if half of them are in a damaged condition. Of course I could just buy them off you now, couldn’t I? With all this aggro and the state they’re in, it would be a knock-down price. Or I could take them off you. For nothing.’
‘Marcus. I need security. Your “muscle”, if you like. Of course I expect to live to a certain standard,’ said Clara. ‘When we’re married.’
He shrugged. His mother was the same. Give her gifts, give her the world, and she was happy. Nothing less would do. Fucking women. And marriage? When the hell had he ever mentioned that?
‘I’ve never mentioned marriage to you. Not once,’ he pointed out.
‘No, you haven’t. But that’s the only way you get the whole package, Marcus. The clubs. And me. The only way.’
He was silent, staring at her face. She meant it. ‘What the hell happened to you?’ he asked at last.
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ she said, but she did.
‘I mean, what made you like this?’
Too much pain, thought Clara. Too much shit.
‘I am what I am,’ she said. ‘So . . . ?’
Marriage! Fuck’s sake! Marcus stared at her. Yes, he wanted her. Wanted the clubs, too. But marriage . . . ‘I suppose the Registry Office would be acceptable? After all, you’ve already been married twice.’
