Scarborough Ball (Scarborough Fair Book 2)

by Margarita Morris

  “Why was he there?” she asked, picking up another slice of pizza.

  “He said someone wanted to know the outcome of the trial.”

  “You spoke to him?” she stared at Dan. “Was that wise?”

  “Yeah.” Dan looked pleased with himself. “I confronted him outside the court. But then Mum interrupted us before he told me who he was working for. But I bet it’s Max.”

  At the mention of Max’s name, a shiver ran down Rose’s spine. “But surely Max isn’t still around, is he?”

  “No body washed up, remember?”

  “I know, but...” The idea that Max was hiding somewhere in Scarborough and employing a guy on a motorbike to spy on Dan and his family made Rose feel sick to the stomach. Suddenly she didn’t want any more Pepperoni pizza. “Just be careful,” she said. She was starting to sound like Andrea, but for once she didn’t care. The last thing she wanted was for Dan to put himself in danger. Max didn’t employ men who were known for their soft side.

  “Sure,” said Dan, but she got the impression he was brushing aside her concerns. He picked up the remote control and started flicking through films on Netflix.

  They spent the rest of the evening watching an absurd action adventure movie with an improbable hero and even more unlikely story-line. At ten o’clock Dan offered to walk her home. The rain had ceased, thankfully, and they stopped outside Rose’s house in Tollergate. She didn’t invite him in, knowing that Andrea wouldn’t appreciate the interruption during an episode of Sherlock.

  They kissed goodnight, then he turned and walked back up the street. She watched him go, worrying that he was going to do something stupid regarding the motorcyclist. What he needed, she decided, was something to take his mind off his troubles.

  ~~~

  When Rose walked into the common room on Monday morning she could tell there was something going on. A large group was hanging around Scarlett, chattering excitedly. Rose slipped past them and joined Sophie in the kitchen area.

  “Hey, how’s it going?” asked Sophie, filling the kettle.

  “Yeah, good thanks. How about you?”

  Sophie shrugged. “Could have done with another week off, but never mind. I heard about Dan’s dad. How’s he taking it?” she asked, dropping her voice to a whisper.

  Rose grimaced. “Well the result wasn’t exactly a surprise, but he’s okay, I think.”

  “Can’t be easy for him and his mum.”

  Rose thought about the way Fiona had teetered out of the lounge, clutching her bottle of wine, but she didn’t say anything.

  “Dan needs something to take his mind off things,” she said.

  “Well, that should do it,” said Sophie, nodding towards Scarlett and the throng of people surrounding her.

  “What’s going on?”

  Sophie rolled her eyes. “Scarlett’s birthday party. It’s going to be a private bash in the new nightclub. Everyone’s invited apparently.” She threw a herbal tea-bag into a mug. “Peppermint tea?”

  “Yes please.” Sophie had converted her to a variety of herbal teas during the first half of term. “So when you say everyone’s invited...” She didn’t think Scarlett was likely to invite her.

  “That what she says,” said Sophie, reaching for a second mug and dropping a tea-bag into it. “She’ll want as many people there as possible to make her look popular. Want to go?”

  Rose thought about it for a moment. Before half-term she’d have said no way. But why shouldn’t she go to Scarlett’s party if everyone was invited? No better way to demonstrate that she wasn’t going to let Scarlett intimidate her. “Yes, all right then,” she said. “Let’s all go.”

  “That’s the spirit,” said Sophie, pouring the water.

  “So this new nightclub...” asked Rose, picking up the mug of fragrant green liquid.

  “It’s the old Futurist cinema. Do you know it? It’s on the sea-front. Scarlett’s dad is the manager at the Grand Hotel and he’s a big cheese in the town. He bought the Futurist and he’s turning it into a nightclub.”

  “Yes, I know it.” She remembered the builders’ signs she’d seen that evening when she and Dan had gone for a walk after watching the new Bond film. It was also where Lilian had worked in the box office. Funny how things connected up like that.

  When Rose saw Dan at lunch she casually dropped Scarlett’s party into the conversation and watched carefully to gauge his reaction. He almost choked on his sandwich. “We don’t have to go to that do we?”

  “Why not? It might be fun.”

  “Are you kidding?”

  “Oh, go on. Just this once. If it’s dreadful I promise we can leave early.”

  Dan scowled. “All right.” But he sounded as if he’d rather spend the evening eating his own toenails.

  ~~~

  After school Rose had to rush off for a dentist’s appointment, so Dan walked with her to the bus stop then went back to fetch his bicycle from the bike sheds. He wasn’t in the best of moods. Seeing his dad carted off to prison had affected him more than he liked to admit and he hadn’t slept well since the day of the trial, often dreaming about rat-infested dungeons or medieval forms of punishment and torture. He would wake in the early hours and find it difficult to get back to sleep. All day he’d had the impression that people were talking about him behind his back when they probably weren’t. He couldn’t leave the house these days without constantly looking out for a guy in black leathers riding a Harley-Davidson motorbike. He was becoming paranoid and needed to snap out of it, but he didn’t know how.

  And now to cap it all, he’d agreed to go to Scarlett’s birthday party. He really did need his head examining. He couldn’t for the life of him understand why Rose was so keen to go. It was obvious that Scarlett couldn’t stand her, viewing Rose as a threat. But that was just Scarlett not facing up to facts. Even if Rose wasn’t his girlfriend, Dan still wouldn’t want anything to do with Scarlett. Whatever had induced him to go out with her last year? His mate at the time, Adam, had bet a fiver that he couldn’t get off with Scarlett. Dan had stupidly agreed to the bet, wanting to prove Adam wrong. He’d been insecure about his ability to get a girlfriend but had he really been that desperate? He shuddered at the memory. He might have won the bet but he’d put himself through two months of hell during which Scarlett dominated the relationship with her selfish behaviour. She was manipulative and devious. In short, Scarlett was a bitch.

  Dan dropped his rucksack onto the ground and knelt down to unlock his bike chain. When he stood up, he nearly jumped out of his skin. Scarlett was standing there, watching him with her Kohl-rimmed eyes, a smirk on her lips. Talk of the devil, thought Dan. He wrapped the chain underneath the saddle and lifted the bike out of the rack.

  “Aren’t you going to say hello?” asked Scarlett.

  “Hi,” said Dan. He had his bike now, but Scarlett was standing in the path, her bag slung over her shoulder, clearly in no hurry to leave. “Excuse me,” he said. Scarlett didn’t move.

  “That’s not very friendly. Don’t you want to chat?”

  Dan gave her a hard stare. “Why would I?”

  Scarlett shifted her weight from one foot to the other and looked down at the ground. When she lifted her gaze there was something more vulnerable in her eyes. Dan was immediately on his guard. She could act well. “I just thought that you and me, well we had something didn’t we, before the summer holiday?”

  Dan sighed. “If you remember, Scarlett, we had a blazing row because we always had to do what you wanted to do and I’d got fed up of being at your beck and call.”

  Scarlett looked like he’d punched her in the stomach but she recovered herself quickly and asked, “Where’s your girlfriend this evening?”

  “At the dentist.” Dan would have quite liked to take a dentist’s drill to Scarlett. He manoeuvred his bicycle past her, forcing her to step out of the way. To his horror she started walking alongside him.

  “What do you want?” asked Dan. They were almost at
the exit now. Soon he’d be able to get on his bike and cycle away from her.

  “You are coming to my party, aren’t you?”

  Was that what this was all about? Did she think that if she got a couple of drinks down him he’d be foolish enough to say, Hey Scarlett, let’s give it another go? He turned to face her. “Why do you care whether I come to your stupid party or not?”

  “I’d like you to be there.”

  “If it was up to me I’d rather spend the evening shovelling horse shit, but Rose and her friends want to go so I suppose I’ll be dragged along too. Happy?”

  Scarlett just stared at him, clearly shocked. Dan didn’t wait for a response. He jumped on his bike and cycled away as fast as he could.

  ~~~

  Scarlett stood rooted to the spot as Dan cycled down the road, becoming ever smaller and then disappearing round the corner. She hadn’t expected to be rebuffed so rudely and she felt the sting of it as if he’d slapped her. The thrill of excitement she’d felt on finding him on his own had kindled a desire to talk to him. He was the best-looking boy in the year and until the start of the school year she’d harboured the conviction that ultimately she would win him back.

  But she’d come back from Greece at the end of August to find Dan’s picture all over the front of the Scarborough News alongside a picture of someone called Rose. Her parents had saved the article thinking that the news of the yacht capsizing in a freak summer storm would interest her. But all she could think of was that Dan could have drowned, and who was the girl called Rose, and why had she been on the yacht with Dan in the first place? Scarlett had hoped Rose was just a holidaymaker, only in Scarborough for the summer, but then she’d turned up at school on the first day of term and Scarlett had recognised her instantly. Scarlett had sworn to herself that she wasn’t going to allow some girl from London to snatch Dan away from her but Rose had proved a trickier opponent than Scarlett had bargained for. And the way Dan had treated her just now made her seethe with anger. How dare he be so rude to her! Well he wasn’t going to get away with that. She’d find a way to get her own back.

  She hoisted her bag onto her shoulder and started to walk towards the centre of town. There was no point going straight home: her mother would be at work until late and she was tired of fending for herself. She made a snap decision to go and see her dad at the hotel instead. Having a dad who managed the biggest hotel in Scarborough had its advantages. She could eat in the restaurant and order whatever she liked from the menu. Her favourite was the seafood risotto, followed by a chocolate brownie with ice-cream.

  Half an hour later she was walking up the steps of the Grand Hotel and into the lobby. The Grand Hotel had once catered to the upper echelons of society, but nowadays seaside towns like Scarborough were out of fashion and the chain that owned the hotel had decided to target the mass market: coach parties from northern cities and families on special offer breaks. It was out with the cream teas and in with the Bingo and slot machines.

  Tonight was Bingo night and the place was already filling up with old people out for a night of fun. Scarlett couldn’t imagine anything worse than playing Bingo with a bunch of old fogeys but it was unbelievably popular with people over the age of sixty. A woman with bleached-blond hair and skin turned leathery from over-exposure to the sun sat at one of the slot machines, a can of lager in hand, shoving coins into the machine and pressing the buttons with red lacquered fingernails.

  Scarlett skirted round a pile of suitcases at the desk and made her way down the corridor to the door marked Manager. Her dad was usually in there and didn’t mind her turning up if he wasn’t busy. She knocked on the door and waited. No response. She tried the handle and pushed the door open a fraction. The room was empty. Bother. If she couldn’t find him then there was no chance of getting a free meal in the restaurant and she was starving. She didn’t fancy fish and chips on the sea-front.

  She was about to give up when she saw her dad hurrying down the corridor. He looked hassled, despite the appearance of professional smartness that he tried to maintain at all times. He’d once admitted that he detested Bingo night, but his face broke into a huge smile when he saw her standing there. She was definitely Daddy’s girl.

  “Hello sweetheart.” He planted a kiss on the top of her head. “Been here long?”

  “Just got here.”

  He pushed open the door to his office and she followed him inside. “Any chance of getting some food?”

  He put a hand to his forehead. “You know I’m happy for you to eat here,” he said, “but the restaurant’s absolutely chock-a-block this evening. Golden wedding celebration, and on Bingo Night of all nights. Some couple who’ve got five children and about twenty grandchildren from what I can see. They’ve invited half the ruddy town.”

  Scarlett pulled a face. Things were definitely not going well this evening.

  Her father brightened. “Don’t worry. There’s someone upstairs who’d love to see you and he’s eating in his room. I’ll tell the chef to send up double.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “Your godfather. He’s in room 703. You know where that is, don’t you?”

  “Sure.” Scarlett was immediately cheered by this news. Her godfather was one of the people she liked best in the world. She hadn’t seen him for ages and didn’t know what had become of him. He would turn up in Scarborough at random intervals and always brought her a gift: a piece of jewellery or a designer bag, once a leather jacket. Her wardrobe was stuffed with items from Gucci and Dolce & Gabbana. Last year, for her sixteenth birthday he had given her a silver necklace with a real diamond in the centre. Not a little stone, either, but a serious piece of bling. Not exactly the sort of thing you could wear every day, but it must have cost a bomb and one day when she needed some cash she would sell it. As her dad picked up the phone to speak to the chef, Scarlett made her way to the lifts.

  The Grand Hotel’s most distinguishing features were the four turret rooms, one in each corner of the building. From the outside, these circular appendages, like upside down tea cups, resembled something out of an early sci-fi movie. Room 703 was one of the turret rooms. As a child Scarlett had dreamed of living in one of those rooms, so high up and secret. A castle in the sky.

  Scarlett exited the lift on floor twelve and then took the steep, private staircase up to room 703. She tried to remember the last time she’d seen her godfather. Not this summer because she’d been in Greece and before that his business activities had kept him in Spain. She tapped on the door. Inside, someone lifted the flap on the peephole. Her godfather was clearly taking no chances with visitors. A moment later the door opened.

  “Hello, my pretty.” He held out his arms to her.

  “Hello, Uncle Max.”

  ~~~

  Dan was nearly home when he remembered he needed a new phone charger. The encounter with Scarlett had put it right out of his mind. He couldn’t live without his mobile phone so he turned around and cycled into the centre of town. He dismounted at the pedestrian shopping street and chained his bike to a lamppost. The phone shop was sandwiched between a women’s high street fashion chain and a betting shop. They only had one phone charger left. Dan made his purchase and went back outside to fetch his bike. He pushed it to the road and was just about to jump on and cycle off when he heard the distinctive rumble of a motorbike engine. Dan scoured the approaching line of traffic. Sure enough, it was the Harley-Davidson rider in his black leathers. The one who had been watching the house and who had turned up at his dad’s trial. The motorcyclist wasn’t going fast because there was a twenty-mile-an-hour speed limit in the town centre. Dan waited for the motorbike to go past, then hopped on his bike and started to follow. Ten yards down the road the motorbike slowed for a set of lights that were turning from amber to red. On his bicycle Dan was able to weave around the stationary traffic. The advantages of pedal power, thought Dan.

  The lights changed from red to flashing amber and back to green. The traffic started to
move, but not quickly. A delivery van was parked on the side of the road and the drivers had to wait for a gap in the oncoming traffic before they could overtake it. Dan was able to keep pace with the cars.

  The motorcyclist rounded the delivery van, signalled left, then turned off towards the Grand Hotel. Dan made the same manoeuvre, cutting in front of a car whose driver blared his horn angrily. Dan didn’t care. He was too focused on trying to keep up with the motorcyclist. If the guy went down the hill towards the sea-front then Dan would have no chance of staying on his tail. But as Dan cycled onto St Nicholas’ Cliff he was surprised to see the motorcyclist parking his bike in front of the Grand Hotel. Then he removed his helmet and darted up the steps into the building.

  Dan chained his bike to some railings that encircled a garden in the middle of the square. Then he ran across the road. Too late. A coach had pulled up and a crowd of pensioners were disembarking and making their way into the hotel, moving with the speed of geriatric tortoises. A sign outside the hotel read, Over 60s Bingo All Evening, Mondays.

  Dan hopped from one foot to the other, waiting for the bottleneck to clear. It was like trying to squeeze a flock of sheep through a turnstile. He didn’t feel he could push his way in without appearing rude and incurring the tut-tuts that old people liked to reserve for the young. Dan followed the last old gentleman inside and found himself in the elaborate entrance lobby of the Grand Hotel. Gold leaf stuck on everything.

  He’d never been inside the Grand Hotel before, despite growing up in Scarborough. This evening it looked like a cross between a fancy hotel and an old folks’ home. Elderly women were knocking back glasses of gin like it was water.

  He walked past a row of slot machines and came to a large bar with chandeliers and windows overlooking the sea. More slot machines in here. The flashing lights jarred with the Victorian splendour, but that didn’t seem to bother the punters who were busy feeding coins into the slots and pressing the brightly-coloured buttons. No wonder his dad’s amusement arcade had been losing money. You didn’t even need to leave the hotel to get your fix of low-level gambling, you could do it right here with the added benefit of beer on tap.