by Jessie Keane
Once buckled in, she sat there, her mind racing. Dolly was dead. It was so painful to think of her gone, it broke Annie in two. And it galled her that someone was walking about free when they should be punished for that. And Max . . . oh God, Max! What was going on with him?
What Gary had said chilled her. Nerves were crawling in her stomach as she thought of the one thing she had never told Max. The one thing she couldn’t.
If he knows . . .
No. He couldn’t.
But she couldn’t make herself believe that.
27
‘Ellie, I need a word. Seriously,’ said Annie.
They were in the kitchen of the flat over the Shalimar; Ellie’s domain, hers and Chris’s. They ran this club and so far they’d run it well. Annie had always believed that Ellie and Chris were her friends. That she could depend on them. But since she’d been back, she wasn’t so sure. She knew she wasn’t imagining it – there was a strange wariness in Ellie’s face, and Chris? So far, he hadn’t spoken a single word to her, and that bothered her. Particularly after what Gary had said today at the Blue Parrot.
So here she was, doing what she thought of as testing the water temperature. And so far, it was icy.
‘Can’t it wait? I’m up to my arse here, we’ll be opening soon,’ said Ellie, pausing at the cupboard.
‘No. It can’t. Spare me a minute.’
Annie could see the reluctance on Ellie’s face as she sat down opposite her at the kitchen table.
‘What is it?’ asked Ellie.
‘Gary said something odd to me,’ said Annie.
‘Oh? What?’
‘That I ought to behave myself.’
‘What?’
Annie nodded. ‘I don’t know what he meant by that, and he wouldn’t explain. Do you know what he meant, Ellie?’ She was gazing intently at her friend’s face.
Ellie’s eyes slipped down and she shrugged. ‘Gawd knows. Gary’s never liked you. You know that.’
Chris passed by the open kitchen doorway.
‘Chris!’ called Annie.
There was a moment’s delay, then Chris appeared. Sheepish, she thought. That’s how he looks. Like he don’t want to see me here. Like he don’t even want to know I’m breathing.
‘Can I have a word?’ she asked.
Chris looked at Ellie, not Annie. ‘I’m busy,’ he said, and walked on.
There was a tense mood in the kitchen now as the two women sat there. Ellie was staring down at the tabletop, Annie was staring at her friend.
‘Ellie,’ said Annie.
Ellie didn’t glance up.
‘Ellie, what the fuck’s going on?’
Ellie stood up suddenly. She pushed her chair in, her eyes everywhere but not once resting on Annie’s face. ‘I can’t,’ she said, and seemed about to bolt from the room.
‘Wait! All right. Forget about that. But look – Dolly. Do you know anything?’ Annie stood up too, and looked urgently into Ellie’s face. ‘Come on, Ellie. This is Dolly we’re talking about. The police want anything we can give them. We have to give them everything we can.’
Ellie paused. Her eyes flicked to Annie’s face and then away.
‘All right,’ she said with a sigh.
‘Her family – can you think of anything about them? Any little detail, no matter how small? If you do, tell me.’
Now Ellie did look at Annie. ‘Why? So far as I know, she wasn’t even in touch with them. Hadn’t been for years.’
‘Does she have brothers, sisters? What about her parents? Are they still alive?’
‘I don’t know. I’ll have to think. Now I really must . . .’ And she was gone, bolting for the door, leaving Annie sitting there alone.
Next morning, after a sleepless night, Annie got up and was out of the club before anyone else had stirred. She hailed a black cab and went to an address across town and mooched around the shops on the high street until she saw a BMW pull into a space. A man got out – squat, solid as a tank, dark-haired, and dressed neatly in a black suit, pale blue shirt and matching tie. Annie walked over as he stood at the door of a shopfront, over which the logo Carter Securities was emblazoned in gold on a black background.
‘Hi, Steve,’ she said, and Steve Taylor, Max Carter’s right-hand man, once his most dangerous attack dog, turned and looked at her with mud-brown eyes as he shoved the key into the lock.
‘Fucking hell,’ he said.
‘Nice to see you too,’ said Annie.
When they were inside, Annie asked him the same question she’d asked Ellie.
‘Going on? What do you mean, what’s going on?’ Then he changed the subject. ‘You heard about Dolly?’
‘Yeah. Tone phoned. Where is Tone, by the way?’
‘About.’ Steve shrugged. ‘Don’t see much of him these days.’
‘I can’t get my head around it. That happening to Dolly.’
‘Tragic,’ he said. ‘I thought you might come back, thing like that happening.’
Annie stared at him for a beat. ‘Well, at least you’re talking to me,’ she said.
‘Shouldn’t I be?’
‘Gary gave me the heave-ho from the Blue Parrot. Ellie’s acting weird. And Chris won’t say fuck-all.’
He shrugged again, remained silent.
‘Do you know what’s going on?’ Annie asked. This was Steve. He’d been her ally for years. Surely he hadn’t turned against her now? Why would he?
‘No,’ he said. ‘I don’t.’
He’s lying.
Still, he was talking. That was something.
‘Steve . . . is there anything you can tell me about what went on with Dolly? I mean, who would do that to her?’
‘Christ, how would I know?’ Steve looked exasperated. ‘I was as shocked as anyone. Thing like that happening, who wouldn’t be?’
‘Have you talked to Max recently?’
‘No. I think Gary does, more than me. The clubs get more problems – mouthy gits out on a Saturday night getting tanked up on champers, you know the sort of thing. I pretty much run the security side of things myself now.’ He looked at her. ‘Max trusts me to do that.’
Meaning what?
There was some barbed point being made here, and she was afraid that she knew what it was. Steve wasn’t talking to her as Steve always had. Before, there had been respect; now there was a veiled something going on.
Disapproval?
Mistrust?
‘You’ve done well for yourself out of the firm,’ said Annie, standing up and strolling around the office. Plush carpet. Expensive buttoned leather chairs. A big mahogany desk.
‘Meaning?’ asked Steve.
Annie turned and looked at him coolly. ‘Oh, I don’t know. We’re all speaking in fucking riddles these days. You keep in pretty close touch with Gary still, do you?’
‘Gary?’ Steve shrugged. ‘Not much. As I said – he runs the club, I run security.’
Annie thought. ‘What about Jackie Tulliver? Where’s he got to these days?’
‘Jackie?’ Steve let out a humph of disgust. ‘Jackie’s a pisshead. Don’t see him, not now. He’s probably already drunk his stupid self into the grave.’ He sat back in his chair. ‘Listen. I’m sorry as hell about your friend, but it’s nothing to do with me. I know sod-all.’
Annie leaned in over the desk and stared straight into his eyes.
‘I think you’re holding back on something,’ she said. Her eyes narrowed. ‘And if I find out that you are, you’d better fucking well watch out.’
‘You do?’ Steve stared up at her, and his eyes were distinctly unfriendly. ‘Prove it,’ he said, and picked up the phone, dismissing her like she was nothing.
28
When Annie got back to the Shalimar, the place was in uproar. Chris was out on the pavement, twitchily smoking and pacing around. A Samsonite suitcase and a couple of bags were on the pavement beside him, and one of the bags was split open. They were her bags, she realized. And that was her suitc
ase.
‘What’s up?’ asked Annie, paying off the taxi and approaching.
She glanced from Chris to the bags. They were Louis Vuitton, and one of them was wrecked, spilling a couple of lightweight dresses out on to the wet dirt. She bent, tucked the items back in, gathered up the bags. She had known Chris was unhappy having her here for some reason, and it was clear he was chucking her out of the club, but he didn’t have to go and break her damned bag.
‘What’s up?’ Chris turned to her with a snarl on his lips and his eyes spitting venom. ‘You’re up. You, coming back here. For fuck’s sake, I told her, I warned her, but did she listen?’
Annie stepped back, shocked by this onslaught. This was Chris. He’d always liked her. Now, he was staring at her as if he’d like to kick her straight up the crotch.
‘What are you doing, breaking up my bloody bags?’
He looked down at them. ‘I didn’t do it.’ He flicked his head up and let out an angry snort of smoke. ‘They chucked them out the top window. Go and have a fucking look, you cow,’ he said, and turned his back on her.
Annie flinched in surprise. Aggression from Chris was shocking. He was one of hers, one of her oldest and best allies. Now he was looking at her like he hated her guts. She went into the club, taking her bags and case – which was still intact – with her. She held her breath and looked around – but everything was OK. In fact, it all looked neater than neat in here. Chairs cleaned, carpets immaculate, bar lit up ready for trade. Not a soul about down here, though. No bar staff, no hostesses, no DJ warming up his decks, nothing.
Which was odd.
When she’d left the club, everything had been running like clockwork, getting ready for another busy evening. Now, the place looked dead. But she could hear noises coming from upstairs, angry voices, shouts, cries.
Annie went across the empty club space and turned left. A girl in tears hustled past her, shouting something over her shoulder. Annie left the case and bags at the bottom of the stairs and trudged on up, getting a bad feeling about this. When she got to the top she saw Ellie standing in the hallway, arms wrapped around herself, turning this way and that, her eyes frantic. They settled on Annie, and then Ellie let out an angry breath like a bull about to charge and vanished through the door to the right, the one that led into the kitchen.
Letting out a sigh, Annie followed, and it was then that she saw, and understood. All Ellie’s glassware, her precious crystals, were in bits on the floor. The dresser with all the crystals on it had been tipped over. The kitchen table was a pile of splinters, the chairs were matchwood. Food had been scooped out of the cupboards and now sauce and ketchup decorated the formerly pristine walls. Ellie, the neat freak, stood in the middle of it, tears pouring down her face.
‘Oh shit,’ said Annie, halting in the doorway.
‘Look at this! Just look. They done the office too – poor Miss Pargeter’s going spare in there. Her papers are all over the damned place. And the girls’ changing room, and some of the bedrooms . . . yours included. They tossed your stuff out the bleeding window, said if I let you stop here they’d come back and do it all over again, only worse.’
Annie gulped in a breath. ‘They? Ellie, who?’
Ellie shrugged. ‘I don’t know them. They had masks on.’
‘Didn’t Chris try to stop them?’ asked Annie.
Ellie turned to her in temper. ‘Don’t be fucking stupid! There were six of them, bloody great blokes in boiler suits with pick handles. He’d have only come off worst.’
‘This is because I’m here?’ said Annie numbly, staring around at the devastation that she had brought down on Ellie’s head.
‘Yeah,’ said Ellie tearfully, picking up a beautifully crafted glass swan with its wing missing. ‘I should never have let you stay. All this is my fault.’
‘I’ll go,’ said Annie.
Ellie turned brimming eyes on her. ‘Chris is hopping bloody mad at me over this.’ Ellie’s stare hardened. ‘Christ, it’s you, isn’t it – you attract trouble like flies on shit.’ Ellie gulped. ‘Where will you go?’
‘I don’t know. Over to Holland Park maybe. Or a hotel. Anything.’ And it’s best you don’t know where, with all this kicking off.
Ellie stared at her. ‘Whatever you’ve done, it must be something pretty bad.’
‘I haven’t done a thing.’
‘Maybe they shot Dolly because of you.’
‘What?’
‘Who knows?’
‘I’ll go,’ said Annie. Her brain was spinning. Then she had a thought. ‘Ellie, did you think any more about what I asked you? If there was anything you knew about Dolly’s family, or friends, or anything . . . ?’
Ellie rushed at her and for a moment Annie thought she was going to get a belt around the ear. But Ellie stopped inches away. Breathing hard, she stared into Annie’s eyes.
‘You come back here and all I get is trouble!’ she burst out. ‘Chris is mad at me, he thinks this is my fault because he said I wasn’t to let you stop here, but I insisted. I told him, whatever she’s done, she’s still my mate. And now look! It’s a fucking disaster!’
‘Ellie . . .’ It was a disaster. There was no arguing with that.
‘Fuck off out of it!’ shrieked Ellie. ‘Just. Fuck. Off. You hear me? Just go.’
Annie nodded. She went out of the wrecked kitchen and along the hall.
At the top of the stairs, Ellie called: ‘Wait!’
Annie stopped walking. Turned.
Ellie stood there in the hall, clutching her head as tears washed her mascara down her face. She blinked at Annie, and then she blurted out: ‘Doll’s family. They used to live Limehouse way, I remember she told me that once. Quite a way from Celia’s place. And they were Catholics. You know . . . you heard about her dad interfering with her?’
Annie nodded. She remembered – vividly – her Auntie Celia once telling her about that, and that Doll had suffered through a nasty backstreet abortion because of it.
‘Well,’ said Ellie, ‘there’s more. Back in the sixties at the knocking shop, I . . . I heard Dolly telling Celia that she wanted a hit on her dad.’
‘You what?’ Annie’s mouth dropped open.
‘It’s the truth. I heard her say it. Well, I overheard her.’
Annie remembered Ellie as she had been then, insecure, always skulking in hallways, listening at doors.
‘What else did you hear?’
‘That she wanted the Delaney family to see to it. You know what? Once I asked Doll why she didn’t go to church, to Mass, like Catholics always do. You know what she said?’
Annie shook her head.
‘She said it was because the church told lies. It said there was beauty in the world, and there wasn’t. I never forgot her saying that.’
29
Outside, she found Chris gone and DCI Hunter getting out of a black car at the pavement.
‘You sure you want to go in there?’ she asked, dropping her bags into the dirt again. She took pride in her appearance, and that extended to her accessories too; but what the hell – the bags were fucked, anyway, one scuffed, the other torn. Only the suitcase had stood up to the scrum.
‘Why? What’s up?’ he asked.
‘The place has been bulldozed. Six men went through it like a bloody hurricane.’
He stared at her face. ‘And why’s that?’
‘What?’
‘People don’t do things like that for no reason.’
‘I don’t know the reason.’ She kicked one of the ruined bags irritably. ‘How’s your day going, Inspector? You got any news for me?’
‘Like what?’
Annie felt her hackles rise at his calm tone. ‘Oh, let me think. Like who killed my best friend, and why, and what the fuck’s going to happen about that?’
‘The investigation is ongoing,’ said Hunter.
‘You’re very bloody annoying, you know that?’
‘Heard it said.’
‘I nee
d to get to the bottom of this. I have to,’ said Annie fiercely.
Hunter leaned in. ‘No, Mrs Carter. What you have to do is assist the police in the course of this investigation, in any way that you can. Don’t give me any of your shit. Is that understood?’
Annie was silent, glaring.
‘Is it, Mrs Carter?’
‘Fuck off,’ she said, and turned and walked away.
30
The Grapes was busy at lunchtime. For many years, this pub had been the place where all the Carter boys went to meet up and get their jollies, a real old spit-and-sawdust alehouse in the heart of the city with a host of hard-eyed regulars keeping curious tourists at bay.
Annie stepped into the main bar and thought that it had hardly changed at all. The Southern Comfort and Bushmills mirrors hanging on the dingy nicotine-stained walls, the rows of small flasks of Wade pottery, with Gin, Sherry, Port and Whisky labelled on each one. There were bigger barrels too, in mint greens and iridescent pinks, and huge oak casks cut through and turned into seating for the patrons.
On one of these big cut-down barrels sat a small gnome of a man, plug-ugly and wearing a stained pale blue denim jacket. A cloud of cigar smoke enveloped him, and a tumbler of whisky sat in front of him on the table.
Despite all the hustle around him, and the happy chatter at the bar, he sat alone, drank alone. Annie stood there inside the door for a moment, looking at him while Amazulu cranked ‘Too Good to Be Forgotten’ out of the juke. Max had always said drinking a few pints was OK, but if you were down in the dumps you never wanted to get started on shorts. Jackie had obviously got started on the shorts a long time ago. As Annie watched, he threw back the amber liquid remaining in the glass and gestured to the barman, a big handlebar-moustached ex-RAF type, for a refill.
Annie walked over and slid into the seat on the other side of the table.
Jackie Tulliver looked at her like she’d landed from another planet.
