Dead Unlucky

by Andrew Derham

  Hart did something which surprised even himself. Although he was chatting with a good friend, his best friend, it was still out of character to display even a little of what buried itself under the surface of his emotions.

  ‘Arthur, I’ve been invited round to someone’s house for Christmas.’

  ‘Good for you, Harry. You’re going, of course?’

  ‘I don’t think so. I don’t know them too well. Not at all, actually.’

  As they supped at their pints, Hart related the story of meeting Kanjaria and her mother in the butcher’s shop. When he had finished, Arthur Rhodes, ever the pragmatic man of scientific disposition, laid his thick fingers on Hart’s forearm and laid out the available options on Hart’s mind.

  ‘You can go round and visit Redpath and his latest conquest, if he invites you,’ began Rhodes with a lame joke. ‘You’re welcome to come to my place for Christmas dinner, you know that. Carol’s always pleased to see you.’

  ‘Thanks, Arthur. You know I appreciate that.’

  ‘You can sit on your backside and pretend to have a good time by seeing whether your right hand or your left hand wins the plastic toy that falls out of the cracker. Or you can make an effort, and genuinely enjoy yourself in the company of people who wouldn’t have invited you unless they’d really wanted you to go. I don’t rate that as one of the more tricky decisions you’re going to have to make in your life.’

  They spent another hour in The Pickled Firkin, but Harry didn’t enjoy the chat as much as he should have done. His mind kept wandering away to visit unhappy lands: the realms of murder, cocaine, and Christmas Day.

  12

  ‘How many nightclubs have you been to lately?’ asked Redpath mischievously as they settled into the car.

  ‘My first time for ages, Darren,’ replied Hart, too weary to take the sergeant’s words at anything other than face value. ‘Is this place another one of your snares where you trap unfortunate young women before carting them off to your nest?’

  ‘The Temple? No, Sir, I steer clear of it.’

  ‘Why’s that then?’

  ‘It’s just got a bit of a dodgy reputation, that’s all. Nothing too iffy, not as far as clubs go anyway, but not the sort of place a copper with a fine standing in the community wants to be seen in. It’s a bit far from home as well, to tell the truth,’ finished Redpath, finally providing a plausible answer.

  They had spent a second day at Highdean School, interviewing another raft of teachers and pupils, but they were getting more distant from Sebastian Emmer now. The main players had already been seen and they wouldn’t go in tomorrow, the last day of term, they would leave a few junior officers to tidy things up. They had found out nothing new by the end of a tedious afternoon, just a confirmation that some of the girls believed the boy to have been a sort of deity, while the kids who had nothing to do with him found him vain although, of course, they did not want to speak ill of the dead. So tonight they were following the only lead they had, and were heading to The Temple nightclub, the place where Timothy Grove had told them that Sebastian had snorted his coke.

  ‘I interviewed Hiba Massaoud today, Sir.’

  ‘Hiba Massaoud? Oh, yes, Nicola Brown’s roommate.’

  That annoyed Redpath, the momentary pretence that Hart had forgotten who she was, but he let it go.

  ‘And I didn’t mention Nicola Brown at all. She touched on the poor lass, but I manoeuvred her away from the subject, just like you said.’

  ‘Good lad, Darren. The issue of her suicide’s closed now, and I don’t want it distracting us anymore.’

  ‘Us? What do you mean, us? It was only one of us got sidetracked in the first place. And that one of us wasn’t me.’

  ‘Fair point, I can’t argue with you there.’

  ‘Why are we getting here so late, it’s gone eleven? We could have come when they were getting ready to open. Then we could have had a quiet chat, without being interrupted.’

  ‘Let’s see the place as Sebastian Emmer saw it. And we’ll probably have to get up their noses a bit to get anywhere. You can’t do that when there’re no customers around.’

  Hart parked his Mondeo in a side street a hundred yards away and the pair of them walked towards The Temple. It was a big building, boasting the dimensions and charm of an aircraft hangar, and there were no windows along the side they approached. This blind wall ran alongside a street populated on the opposite side with terraced houses and a small newsagent’s. I bet the residents were chuffed when the carpet warehouse metamorphosed into this cultural heritage site, thought Hart.

  There was a short line of youths snaking slowly past one wall by the entrance, awaiting the nod that would get them out of the freezing cold and into this palace of dreams. The girls didn’t have to put up with that indignity, there was somehow plenty of room inside for them – a little smile and the doormen waved them in. These were a couple of big, big men; fifty-inch chests straining at monkey suits that looked like they would send their buttons flying at any moment.

  Hart insinuated himself into a troupe of giggly girls and walked straight past the bouncers like he owned the place, with Redpath trailing behind.

  ‘Oy, granddad!’ called one of the monkey suits after them. Hart just carried on walking until he felt a tug at his elbow, a fairly hefty tug. ‘This club is full. It will always be full for people like you, because we’ve got an image and you are most definitely not it. So if you’ve come to take your precious little daughter home before she gets pissed and shags her way into the pudding club, you’ll have to wait for her outside.’

  ‘You’re not quite right there,’ said Hart, as he produced his warrant card and stared up into a pair of dangerous eyes. But it was the smaller man’s which somehow radiated the greater menace. ‘My name’s Chief Inspector Hart and this is Sergeant Redpath, and if I want to enter your little discotheque, join your enchanting party in my role as the hunk of funk and bop the night away, then we will bop until we are thoroughly satiated with bopping. There’s no argument there, Son.’

  The huge man wasn’t used to having the rise taken out of him, especially here, on his territory, where he was loved by the women and feared by the men, and there was a lot of pride to swallow as the girls up ahead looked back. But he gulped it down because Hart was right – there was no argument.

  They walked past a desk where a couple more big guys were peeking into handbags and directed just cursory flashes of their cards to hostile stares, the word having already travelled downstream anyway that the filth were about. Then up a wide staircase with a security door at the top, the little peephole going dark before a click announced that the door was unlocked.

  They stood on a balcony overlooking the main dance floor, and Hart gazed down thinking that the devil in hell himself couldn’t have conjured a more ghastly vista into existence. Surely, this was the sort of place where only the most wicked souls would be sentenced to spend their eternal damnation, but nobody could possibly have done anything in this life so horrendous as to deserve such suffering. The raw lights were flashing, so that it was only possible to catch fleeting glimpses of the rabid gyrations every now and again, snapshots of a mindless hedonism. Between pulses there existed merely a gloom which contradicted the awful din. The drums were banging on like they were heralding the advance of some vast and terrible army. The bass shook the whole place down to its boots. And Hart couldn’t make out the words belting out from the CD, except for the effing-this and effing-that which peppered the racket. Redpath loved the place.

  Hart tapped his colleague’s arm and pointed to a bar up on a terrace above them. When they arrived they opened their IDs to the barman and Hart produced a photo of Sebastian Emmer.

  ‘Have you ever seen this young man?’ Hart shouted.

  The barman, who was used to communicating in sign language, just shook his head. They tried another. And then another. And they got the same disinterested brush-off each time.

  Hart became sick of all the cold s
houlders being shoved in his face. A small chamber made of metal and glass dangled from the ceiling, looking like the cab of a crane. He walked up a narrow trail of black metal stairs and into the cab. A man sat up there wearing a pair of huge earphones, his head rocking from side to side with his eyes closed and his hands dancing up and down on his lap, pretending to play the drums. He was surrounded by legions of little knobs and dials, levers and lights; flying a 747 would be a cinch compared to operating this lot. Hart knelt down at his side, pulled out a plug and the devilish din came to an immediate and blissful halt. The make-believe drummer was so gobsmacked he remained glued to his chair while he watched Hart exit his newly-silent little world.

  As Hart descended the metal stairs, the raucous effings of the CD were being replaced by the quieter, although not altogether friendly, mutterings of the clientele. Hart was greeted back at the bar by a man wearing a red and blue shirt as loud as the music and three gold pendants rattling on his chest, looking like he had recently returned from a highly successful trip to the Olympics.

  ‘Chief Inspector Hart, I believe. I’m the manager here. Shall we talk in my office?’

  ‘No. We’ll talk here. I’m sure I won’t need to detain you for long.’

  That was hardly the answer to his reasonable request that the manager wanted. ‘You had no right to do that. None.’

  ‘And you have no right to sell intoxicating liquor to persons under the age of eighteen years. And you have no right to allow your club to be used as a venue for imbibing narcotic substances.’ Hart’s voice was getting louder as Redpath uneasily shifted his weight from foot to foot. ‘Would you like me to get a little vacuum cleaner and sweep the floor of the bogs to see if we can find traces of white powder? Do you want me to shut this place down?’

  ‘You may find we have taken out some insurance to protect ourselves against little misfortunes like that occurring.’

  ‘And you may find that you haven’t paid a high enough premium. Or while we’re waiting for the lowdown on who’s right, the inconvenience of having your customers questioned and searched may just dampen the party spirit a little. And if it keeps happening night after night, they might decide this is not such a trendy place after all and choose to patronise another entertainment venue in the future.’

  ‘You don’t have the time for that and you don’t have the clout,’ countered the manager. ‘I’d never heard of you before tonight. You’re playing outside your territory.’

  ‘Look,’ said Hart in a spirit of conciliation, ‘all I want is for you to point me in the direction of some people who know Sebastian Emmer. Dead simple. Then I’m happy. And you’re happy as well because you can turn on that racket again and earn some money.’

  ‘Those three up in the corner.’ And he nodded in the direction of the gloom that was flashing silently in the furthest part of the terrace. And then he just walked off. With a swagger, of course, to make sure he looked cool.

  The DJ in the crane cab restarted his infernal machine as Hart made for the corner, a discomfited Redpath tagging on behind him.

  Nobody was much interested in them as they squeezed between the small tables of necking couples, and girls who had gone out as a twosome, and pockets of young people just having a good time. Sure, everyone knew they were police, but they didn’t have the numbers for a major shakedown. Whatever they were after, nobody cared. The music was great, the booze was flowing and the company was fizzing. Well, nobody cared except for the three people in the corner.

  As Hart and Redpath approached, it became clearer that these were familiar faces that kept jumping in and out of view with the pulsing strobes. And those faces had seen Hart come down the metal stairs from the cab in the sky and they knew that the policemen would be joining them at their table. It wasn’t a really big deal, but a little embarrassing considering the surroundings and not what you wanted on your last night out together before the Christmas holiday began.

  ‘Mr Chandler, Mr Outbridge. Good to see you again,’ said Hart through the reassembled noise as he sat himself down among the reluctant trio of teachers without being invited. He was almost jolly, as though he was looking forward to a social chat with friends he hadn’t seen for some time. ‘You won’t know Sergeant Redpath, he was conducting interviews in the classroom next door,’ he said by way of introducing his chum.

  ‘Hi, I’m Sophie. Sophie Rand,’ said the third member of the group, perking up as she thrust out her hand for Hart to shake. ‘I’ve already met Sergeant Redpath,’ she said through a smile.

  Ah, yes, ol’ nutcracker thighs, reflected Hart.

  ‘I shan’t keep you as I’m sure you don’t want the pair of us hanging around when you’re out for a drink.’ There was no argument with that sentiment, but Hart noted that nobody agreed with him either, just to show their mates how cheeky they could be to the police. ‘How did you all come to know Sebastian Emmer?’

  They lowered their eyebrows in unison, all determined to show they didn’t know what he was getting at. Paul Outbridge eventually replied and Hart was relieved he could hear him okay; a slightly quieter music track contrived with the corner location to make communication a little more comfortable.

  ‘Well, we did teach him, of course.’ He still appeared confused and there was no sarcasm in his tone.

  ‘Shut up, Paul,’ said Chandler. ‘I think the officers know that much about us.’ Chandler patted his friend on the head. ‘His heart’s in the right place, but sometimes he’s a little slow on the uptake.’

  Hart explained a little more carefully, now taking the part of the friendly quizmaster. ‘What I mean is, you went out with him to a nightclub. That’s a bit peculiar isn’t it, you being teachers and him a student?’

  This time they all looked at each other as they frowned, looks which really did say that they had gone beyond mere puzzlement and were now jolly baffled indeed! Us? Go out with a student? To a nightclub? Goodness gracious, we don’t know what you mean! Genuinely flabbergasted or ham acting? It was impossible to say when their faces only appeared with the occasional permission of the flashing lights.

  ‘Let me help you,’ persisted Hart. ‘I have just been told by somebody in this club that you knew Sebastian Emmer. So how did you get to know him well enough to meet him in places like this?’

  ‘We never actually met him here,’ volunteered Sophie Rand, smiling again. ‘But we did spot him in here now and again. Bumped into him, so naturally we said hello.’

  Redpath helped out. ‘Of course. The manager just said that you knew Sebastian, not that you actually hung out with him here socially. I suppose he realised you were teachers at the same school as him, so you must have known each other.’

  ‘That’s probably right,’ confirmed Simon Chandler. ‘It’s a hazard of the job, I’m afraid, meeting kids in places where you’d rather not find them.’

  Hart was displeased. Fuming, in fact. He made his displeasure felt like a sudden thunderstorm drenching the garden party on a happy summer’s day.

  ‘I’ve not made myself clear enough and so I’ll move on a little quicker,’ he said. ‘One of your students has been murdered. I will catch his killer or killers. And I will do so with your help. You can offer that help willingly or you can have it forced from you. Either way, I will have it.’

  ‘I don’t know anything that can help,’ said Outbridge, pushing his thick spectacles along his nose. Hart ignored him.

  ‘Sebastian Emmer snorted coke in this place. If I ask enough people around here and tread on their toes hard enough, they will tell me that he also spoke to you here, at this club. I’d put my house on that and not fret a jot that I’d have to be kipping on the park bench. I can go into your school tomorrow, call all the teachers for a meeting, and tell them you used to meet Sebastian Emmer at The Temple. Have you sorted out alternative employment yet for next term?’

  ‘You can’t do that,’ said Chandler, his lip curling into a snarl. ‘Making threats and accusations through the back door. A lawyer
would see to it that it was you who lost your job, not us.’

  ‘But these are not threats and accusations, Sonny Jim,’ replied Hart. ‘These are facts. And they’re not coming through the back door. I’m carrying them straight up the front garden path in broad daylight and pushing them right into your face. Am I finally being clear now?’

  After the storm comes the peace, and after Hart’s fury came the calm. First show them you are mean, then show them you are kind. Not weak, but kind. And it’s the meanness that makes sure they know the difference.

  ‘Look, nobody’s out to put the wind up any of you three. But we need help to find who killed Sebastian, a kid at your own school after all, and the only things we know are that he took cocaine and that he took it here. Drugs and murder often sleep together and when you find one, you find the other. So, who dealt Sebastian his coke?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ said Sophie Rand, after giving some thought as to whether she was making the right move. He would find out anyway, so she decided to accumulate some brownie points. ‘But there’s a guy comes in here now and again who was friendly with Seb.’ And then, in case she was misunderstood, ‘I’m not saying he supplies, but they hung out together. He may be able to help out.’

  ‘And what’s his name?’

  She hesitated before answering. ‘Danny. Danny Moses.’

  ‘Is he in here now?’

  ‘No. He’s not a regular, but he shows his face now and again.’

  ‘Thanks, Ms Rand. That may be helpful.’

  ‘And, Mr Hart.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Danny’s a big hitter. I don’t think he’d be too pleased to hear his name mentioned, even though I’m not saying he’s dodgy. I’m not saying that at all, if you know what I mean.’

  Hart did know what she meant. ‘I know you’re not, but I’m sure he’ll understand that we have to speak to all of Sebastian’s friends and people who knew him. No need to worry, he won’t hear your name.’ Hart knew that, actually, there may be a need for the young woman to worry. That would depend upon the nature of Danny Moses and the degree of his inclination to demonstrate the understanding Hart had mentioned.