by Black, Paula
The jostle of the locker room proved frostier than on my arrival, with a few of the other girls not even bothering to disguise their sneering contempt. Guess I’d forgotten the petty jealousies that plagued competitive women. And my public humiliation at the hands of Konstantyn Lazarenko hadn’t helped.
As I left the shower, towel-drying my dark curls, my cheeks still burned, and my heart rate hadn’t recovered from the encounter. The rejection might have stung less if he was ugly, I thought, despising my body for responding so readily to his touch. Warm hands, cold heart, my mother used to say. Then again, my mother was believed the world was full of demons. Vexed, I snapped the padlock open and retrieved my bundled-up street clothes from the dented locker. So much for getting in with Daniel’s crowd; I doubted any of these girls would give me the time of day after Lazarenko’s little show. At least nothing had been stolen, I thought, as I rifled through my gear for clean underwear. In this part of London you could nail your stuff to the walls and there’d still be some entrepreneur with a crowbar happy to prise it off. My birth control pills tumbled from my bag onto the floor. Funny, I was sure they’d been zipped in with my toiletries. Oh well, it wasn’t as though I’d seen any action in months. I bent to retrieve them, noticing the girl next to me on my way back up.
“You’d think a big act like Beastrider could afford a better place to hold their auditions,” I said, attempting conversation with the petite girl who had her back to a locker.
“Goes with the bad-ass muthafucka image,” she replied with a shrug, her soft voice at odds with her crude language. She snapped a lazy bubble with her gum and bent to lace her trainers.
God the girl was thin, her eyes wide with hunger in her sunken face. Her collar bones jutted through her skin, and her scraped-back ponytail emphasised her fragility. Experience had my eyes searching her skeletal arms for the tell-tale track marks of drug abuse. Did she know something?
“I’m Neva,” I offered. Smiling, I dragged the black yoga pants up my thighs before straightening up and sticking out my hand in greeting.
Ignoring me, she slung an oversized bag over her shoulder and stalked away.
So much for making contacts.
Watching her bony ass walk out the door, I had to wonder if I’d looked that haggard after Daniel’s murder. Grief and the gruelling routines I put myself through at the gym devoured what little body fat I had, and in those first few weeks, I’d joined the ranks of the walking dead. It was a protective mechanism, I supposed. If I shut down, mentally and physically, then the pain couldn’t get to me. Back then, I’d been in denial. Now, four months down the road, I was angry, and beyond frustrated at the lack of progress on Daniel’s case. Taking matters into my own hands had seemed the only option. Now though, I was less certain.
Gracie sauntered over, casually slapping the extended palm the skinny girl had rejected. “Haters gonna hate, and bitches gonna bitch,” she said, looking toward the swinging door.
“What did I do to her?”
She waved a dismissive hand. “Don’t take it personal, sweetheart. The claws always come out for the teacher’s pet, and when the teacher looks like sex on a disco stick... well... let’s just say if he’d singled me out for that lesson, I’d have been orgasming uncontrollably all over that dance floor.”
She demonstrated, complete with lip-biting and sound effects, and I couldn’t help it; a burst of laughter escaped my lips.
“You audition a lot?” I asked.
“I’m a regular audition junkie, sure.”
“Would you take a look at a picture for me?”
She looked wary as I dipped back into my locker and rummaged in my bag for the photograph of Daniel. It was a shirtless, provocative pose; not the official head-shot the police had used for the media and in their investigations. But I figured the performance crowd would remember him better with his clothes off. His tattoos alone were distinctive.
“Hit me,” she said, “But if it’s your lady bits or a selfie of your boyfriend’s cock, I warn you, I ain’t no gynaecologist, and I ain’t no sex-therapist neither.”
“People show you photos of their body parts?” I laughed.
“You think I’m kidding. You would not believe the shit my girlfriends text me.” She shuddered.
“Do you know this guy?” I asked, placing the photo in her manicured hands. “Danny Raines. You might have seen him at an audition?”
For a moment her fake lashes flared and the whites of her eyes grew, but just as quick her expression shut down.
“Sorry,” she said, shaking her head and thrusting the photo back at me as though it was contaminated.
“Are you sure? I thought maybe…” Hope dwindled with the shade that dropped across her features.
“I’d remember a set of abs like that,” she said, schooling her frown into a half-smile.
“Yeah,” I nodded. She’d remember, and I’d never forget my brother’s beautiful dancer’s body: battered, abused and laid out in the city morgue.
CHAPTER THREE
The other dancers were heading down the road towards the Tube station when I caught up with them. I’d hung back in the corridors, hoping to catch another glimpse of Lazarenko, but all I’d seen were Raider and the anorexic girl locked in a heated conversation. Their arguing had ground to an awkward silence the moment they spotted me, so I just mumbled an apology and left.
Now, with darkness encroaching on the run-down neighbourhood, I was beginning to regret having lingered, and I hastened to catch up with the crowd. There were too many trees and abandoned building sites for my liking. Even if I just tagged on at the back, it’d be safer than walking to the Tube alone.
Gracie looked over her shoulder at my approach and her step faltered before she slowed and let me into step beside her. I smiled softly in thanks and slung my bag over the other shoulder so it wouldn’t hit her as we walked.
“Gracie, I just wanted to say thanks, you know, for your advice back there in the locker room.”
“Sure thing, doll. Not sure you needed no advice from me.” She laughed and two guys walking past double-checked her. Flashing them a dazzling performer’s smile, she watched them walk on before turning back.
“I’ve never done anything like this before,” I said.
She cocked a sassy brow in my direction.
“Dancing for a famous group, I mean.”
“You get lucky, you’ll get to go on the road with them. Beastrider’s tours are legendary.”
“Really, why so?” I asked, skipping to keep up with Gracie’s leggy stride.
She tapped a lethal looking fingernail to the side of her nose and gave me a sly grin. “What goes on tour stays on tour. Know what I mean?” She winked her fake lashes at me. “No blabbing to the paparazzi. If you get through the auditions, you’ll be made sign a confidentiality agreement.”
I nodded. It made sense, and explained why Daniel had been so cagey about the job, but it had me wondering what they’d be hiding. “That’s assuming I get through the auditions,” I said.
“Oh you’ll get through alright,” Gracie said. Her smile was almost a sneer and my brows furrowed at her. Clearly she wasn’t letting the misunderstanding with Lazarenko go. She seemed to know more than she let on though, and I wasn’t about to let go either.
“This isn’t your first time working with Beastrider then?”
She grinned, smug, stroking those tiger-print nails down her jaw. “I toured with them on their last album.”
So had Daniel.
I slipped the photo from my back pocket.
“Are you sure?” I asked, holding it out to her, “maybe you could take another look?”
She glared at me, her fake lashes channelling the irritation, and something else... fear? “I told you, I don’t know the guy.”
Nodding quickly, I pocketed the picture with a sigh and we carried on the rest of the way through the station in silence.
Just before she went through the south-bound ticket barri
er, Gracie stopped me, and her eyes held none of the glare they had before. She slipped me a card. “You didn’t get this from me,” she said, swiping her pass and stepping through the automatic gates. “Tell them Raider sent you.” Finger waving at me, she disappeared amongst the sea of bodies climbing onto the escalator.
I flipped the card over and the word ‘Infernal’ shone in pearl lettering on the black background. The address put it in a high-end neighbourhood in Chelsea. A private club maybe? Out of my league for sure. Slipping the card in beside my brother’s picture, I worked my way into the crowd streaming through the northbound barriers, and replayed the audition in my head.
Konstantyn Lazarenko was an ass, but man was he an ass who could dance. Being partnered with him, even for the few minutes it took for him to judge me, had been the scariest and most exhilarating performance of my life. Did that symbol on his arm mean anything, or was it pure coincidence? I needed to speak to him, without him chewing me out and shutting me down before I even had a chance to open my mouth. Maybe tomorrow, if he called me up again to partner him, I thought, refusing to dwell on the flutter of anticipation coiling low in my belly. Magnetic sexuality aside, the man was a still a murder suspect.
I two-stepped it down the plummeting escalator towards the Northern Line platform, where the air ran a few degrees warmer. Down in its deepest levels, the Underground seemed to have its own micro-climate: a hot-house of body-heat and electrified lines. A train trundled at speed through the tunnels below, shaking the tiled walls and pushing up a hot breeze that billowed through my shower-damp hair. The sensation brought a lost memory crashing home. It was of Daniel and me laughing, posing together for a selfie as we rode the escalator, pretending we were the stars in our very own hair commercial. God. The ghosts of our life together clung to the fabric of the city, ghosts that could never rest so long as his killers walked free.
At the sound of the door-closure warning, I made a dash for the south-bound train. A tall blond man in a suit blocked the sliding doors just as they were about to shut. They reopened in a flurry of beeps, and ignoring the judgmental looks of the other passengers, I leapt inside. I turned to thank my saviour, who’d stepped out onto the platform. Chivalry was a rare thing in the cutthroat underground of harried commuters.
I recognised him as the stranger who’d approached me at Daniel’s funeral. “Hey you’re the guy –”
The doors slammed together, cutting off my words.
The man smiled crookedly at me through the glass. Framed with neat blond curls, his face had an ageless quality, almost angelic, just as I remembered it.
He was still standing there, smiling at me, when the train pulled out, and I felt a deep sense of relief when the eye-contact was finally broken.
Freak, I thought. What was that all about? London attracted more than its fair share of eccentrics and religious fanatics, I just didn’t expect them to come with impeccable grooming and designer suits. He’d seemed normal at the funeral though, charming even. He gave me the impression he and Daniel had been close, perhaps even intimate. And he was the one who mentioned about Daniel working at the studio, and the upcoming auditions. I’d been hoping he could tell me more, but then my crazy mother intervened.
Christ, what a mess that had been.
Wherever she went, the woman never failed to make herself the focus of attention. Even her own son’s funeral proved no exception.
I stared out the windows of the train, watching the tunnels zip by, picturing that strange man standing there, smiling at me.
“Who are you?” I murmured aloud, drawing the curious glances of my fellow passengers.
Perhaps I’d bump into him again. Chances were he either lived or worked local to the studio. Then maybe I’d have a chance to ask the questions my mother had so rudely interrupted. I let the clickety-clack of the rails and the repetitive voice of the ‘Mind the gap’ announcer lull me into a semi-trance, getting so lost in my own thoughts I almost missed my stop.
CHAPTER FOUR
Outside Angel station, I wrapped my cardigan tighter against the night’s chill and braced myself for the short walk to my empty one-bedroom flat. Delicious smells escaped through the vents as I ran the gauntlet of Upper Street’s many ethnic restaurants, and my stomach growled at me, loud on the quiet street. I caved passing the Asian place on the corner, and a quarter or an hour later, with take-out noodles bundled against my chest, I pushed into the small apartment, plucked a fork from the kitchen drawer, and flopped onto the couch. My food rapidly lost its appeal though, when I pulled out what was jabbing me in the ass. Daniel’s photo and the small, secretive business card Gracie had given me. I set aside my dinner with a sigh, and with my brother’s face staring up at me, dragged my laptop over to Google the name and address. I chewed the corner of my nail as the browser spewed out endless results, obscurely referencing what I needed. But there was one.
The page loaded to a sleek site with a minimalist gallery, showing only a leather and pearl reception area and a sombre black door adorned with high-polished brass. To access anything else, the page popped up a log-in screen. Private indeed.
Glancing at the time and the empty loneliness of my apartment, it wasn’t a difficult decision to gather myself up and see if I had anything to wear that would help me blag my way inside. If the site would give me nothing, I’d have to go to the club and see what that yielded.
Staring at the contents of my small closet, I was pro-con-ing a simple black dress when a thought occurred to me. I shuffled my phone from my pocket and scrolled through my recent calls, looking for Detective Dalton, my liaison officer on Daniel’s case.
After months without a single lead, all the manpower had been pulled off the hunt. Not that I believed the police had ever given my brother’s murder the priority it deserved. With the drugs they found in his system and our mother’s history, everybody just assumed he’d fallen foul of some pimp or dealer. Dalton had sworn to me that he’d never stop seeking answers, but his cold grey eyes had told a different story. The eyes could tell you all you needed to know about a person, provided you looked beyond what you wanted to see. Unbidden, an image of Konstantyn Lazarenko’s brutal, green-flecked stare came to mind, and heat crawled up my throat at the memory of his choke-hold.
Dismissing the undeniable frisson of fear-soaked arousal that thought evoked, I pressed dial. While the phone rang, I checked the time and pulled the dress off its hanger, grabbing up a pair of studded flats and a black jersey jacket. It was late to be calling, but Dalton was used to my pestering.
“Neva,” he answered in that clipped British tone that branded him the product of an expensive, public school education.
Guess he had me on caller ID.
“What can I do for you?”
He hid his exasperation well, just not well enough.
“Detective Dalton, sorry to bug you.” I fidgeted with the flats in my hand, stuffing my apology in with the pressing need to talk to him.
“That’s quite alright, Neva. I did say any time.”
Ha, but I knew from his stilted tone he was regretting those words now.
“I am having dinner with my wife presently. Can this wait? If this is about the reduced manpower on your brother’s case, you know I’m doing all I can —”
“No, it’s not that. I–” I took a breath and squeezed my eyes shut, as though it would make my blurted confession go easier. “I auditioned today, at Vinyl Scratch studios. The place where Daniel –”
“I know where that is, Neva, but do you really think that was wise?”
“You said yourself: none of the dancers would speak with the police. Maybe they’ll talk to me.”
“I see.” I could almost hear his brow arch, such was the curiosity in his voice. He paused for a long moment before clearing his throat and asking what he was clearly dying to know. “And have any of them spoken to you?”
“Not exactly, no, but–” I ran my thumb over the glossy business card. “Did a Chelsea club ca
lled Infernal ever feature in your investigations? Was there any record of Daniel having worked there?”
There was another long pause on the other end, like Dalton was thinking it over. “Infernal? No. I can’t say I’ve heard of it. Why?”
It’d been a long shot, I supposed.
“Oh, never mind. I’m sure it’s nothing. You enjoy your dinner, Detective. And say hi to Susanna for me.” Susanna was his plump, homey wife. He’d shown me a picture from his wallet once, of her and their two goofy kids, and it’d felt awkward. The happy families set-up was way out of my comfort zone.
“You’re not thinking of doing anything foolish are you? I can’t stop you auditioning. It’s a free country, after all, but I won’t condone you taking the law into your own hands. Tell me who mentioned this club to you, and I’ll have my men look into it first thing in the –”
I’d already hung-up. Perhaps I should have waited and let the police check it out. But he’d only talk me out of it, and so far, every lead I’d given Dalton on what I knew of Daniel’s life had run headlong into a brick wall. Every potential witness clammed-up under questioning. It was as though my brother had been wiped from their collective memories. That, or something – someone? – had made them too frightened to talk to the police. I was done with waiting. I’d sat on Daniel’s note when he went missing, and it cost him his life. That was something I could never forgive myself for, and damned if I was going to make that same mistake twice.
Between the angelic blond man tipping me off about the auditions, and now Gracie giving me the card, I couldn’t shake the feeling that fate – or some other spirit – was guiding me. God, that man. For one stupid moment, I wondered if he could be Daniel’s guardian angel, sending me a message from beyond the grave, to help me catch his killers. Sometimes things happened that made you wonder whether there wasn’t some higher force pulling the strings of your life.
I reached into my back pocket and looked at the card again. Gracie knew something. She’d acted so weird when I showed her the photograph, and I had to believe she’d given me the card for a reason. It was too late to stop now.
