Kal released the pressure on her thumbs. She wouldn’t abandon Sophie. That frail girl had left an impression and, in some way, she’d made herself important. She mattered. And very likely that young girl didn’t matter to many people in this world. Kal recognised too, her own pattern of self-destruction – because her father had always pushed her to the edge, now she did it to herself. Only Marty was back and once she’d been able to check on Sophie and talk to her, Kal promised herself she’d stop spiralling down and get back to acting like a normal person. She unlocked the toilet door and made her way down the corridor.
Though the houses in Montgomery Road appeared separate, four of the properties had been merged together. This created a huge Pleasure Palace with a jacuzzi and sauna area, ground floor night club, stage and bar, and a suite of private rooms. The first floor was dedicated to the girls. Some of them lived there and some lived in adjoining properties. Plus the first floor was used by the show girls for changing before the nightly cabaret. The top floor was the domain of a woman called “Lady Penelope”. The girls spoke about Lady Penelope with warmth and it seemed she managed appointments for the girls, whilst Sugar G looked after them on the street.
Kal stood in front of one of the costume racks, scanning the feathers, the sequins and the inevitably scanty costumes. Around her, a gaggle of girls were getting dressed for the show, laughing and calling out gossipy exchanges.
A girl called Tamara came up to Kal’s shoulder. ‘For goodness sake, hurry up! You’re the first out and you’ve not even made a start. All the costumes on this rack are gonna fit, I already told you they’re all for girls your size.’ Tamara took hold under her own bra and bounced her breasts up and down.
‘Right,’ Kal said.
‘Okay I’m gonna help you out before Candice comes back and goes berserk. If there’s a problem you can always get sewn into the thing, it only takes a couple of stiches.’
Tamara ran her hand along the rail and pulled out what looked like a two-piece lingerie set. She held it up against Kal.
‘Try this one. Turquoise is a good colour for you and these strings of hanging beads are gonna look great against your legs.’ Tamara jiggled the costume so the beads made a sound like water. ‘They’ll look good when you shimmy.’
‘Yeah.’
Tamara laughed. ‘I can see you’re nervous. First time, right?’
‘I’m not nervous, I’m petrified.’
‘Well, focus on the cash. If you can land this it’s a good earner and if you want it, it’ll be your way in to the main house.’ With her head, Tamara indicated the direction of the stairs leading down to the private rooms.
‘I don’t think that’s my thing. I’m not sure.’
‘Get this on,’ Tamara said, ‘and then let’s get you some body art and shimmer and glimmer. Our resident body artist is back with us tonight.’
Once she’d put on the two-piece, Kal shimmied her shoulders in front of the mirror, then shimmied her hips. The dancing didn’t bother her, nor was she worried by the flimsy costume, which was no worse than being in a bikini. What got to her was whether she could pull it off with polish. According to the videos, the tease and the dancer’s expression said it all. She had the theory but what if she froze up? What if she tripped? What if the audience booed? What if there was somebody out there who knew her, like one of her fellow photographers or an off-duty journalist? As she did her make-up, Kal thought about how women have used sex and allure as a cover. For instance, the French resistance used this to great effect during the second world war. It enabled the Allies to hold out against the Nazis. If a woman could use her gender against the enemy to gather intelligence, then it seemed important to Kal that she push herself to get on that stage. In the intelligence game, it was vital to cover all the bases. She never wanted to be like the man searching for Sophie and walk away for fear of going one step further. She had to push herself. This was a way of claiming back her strength.
Tamara appeared at Kal’s shoulder. ‘Come on newbie, you’re on in thirty minutes and remember to do a proper warm-up before you go out so you’re fluid and supple. I’ll take you to get your glitter sorted, there’s not time for more.’
They hurried along the corridor to a door covered with a mural of a rainforest, with a beautifully painted toucan and a bright blue bird with a long tail.
‘Isn’t it lovely?’ Tamara said. ‘She’s a real artist, come and see for yourself.’
Inside, they found a blonde-haired girl on her knees, her eyes level with a woman’s navel. Kal knew it was Sophie before she saw the girl’s face. Sophie was putting the finishing touches onto a fire-effect sun spiralling out from the woman’s bellybutton. Kal kept her stance and expression casual, hoping Sophie wouldn’t say anything to drop her in it.
‘hi Soph, we’ve got a newbie doing a trial for the warm-up act. Think you can slap some glitter and shine on her double quick?’ Tamara said.
Sophie glanced up and her mouth fell open. Tamara didn’t notice because she’d stooped to stroke a ginger cat that was lying in a basket in the corner. This gave Sophie time to cover her surprise, though Kal noticed the suspicion that took its place.
‘Sure, take a seat. I’m just about done here.’ With a plink Sophie dropped her make-up brush into a jar and wiped her hands on a towel.
‘Thanks Soph, you’re a doll. It looks fantastic.’ The woman with the sun spiral blew Sophie a kiss and headed out the room.
Sophie tapped the clock on the dresser. ‘I’ll handle this is you want, Tamara. There isn’t much time, so if you need to get ready I can take her down to the stage afterwards.’
‘No, I’ll come back. Lady Penny doesn’t want you straying out of the girls’ quarters, remember?’
Sophie wrinkled her nose and Tamara pattered out in her high heels.
‘Come and sit,’ Sophie said, and she pushed the door shut. Once Kal was seated, Sophie leant forward and hissed in her face. ‘What the hell are doing here! If you’re following me, Sugar G will rip you to pieces. If Raymond set you up to this…’
‘No one set me up to anything. I came here because I wanted to make sure you weren’t getting into trouble.’
‘Are you crazy? I told you I’m fine. What? You talked yourself into a job in a strip club because you felt bad? That’s insane.’
‘I didn’t come because I felt guilty. I can’t explain it and if I did, it would sound stupid.’
Sophie crossed her arms. She seemed at home here, not exploited, not being sold for sex to some man twice her age. Supplies were strewn across a dresser – makeup sponges, brushes and pots of various colours, gold and silver paints. A poster of the earth seen from space hung on one wall. The ginger cat was tucked in with a fluffy, red blanket. This was Sophie’s space, maybe this was even her job.
‘If Raymond had any part in this, Lady Penny will turn Sugar G on you, so you’d better make a convincing argument or you’re in big trouble.’
‘Look, it was a whim, a stupid whim. Okay you’re right I felt guilty, hell I almost ran you over and I felt even worse dropping you here without checking it out. All kinds of horrible things can happen. This time last year I probably wouldn’t have thought anything of it – but some dreadful things have happened because of me – my mother was killed, my best friend almost lost her life and I’m different. I can’t have something else bad hanging on my conscience, and, believe me, I’ve no idea who the hell Raymond is.’
Of course, Kal was pretty sure Raymond would turn out to be the man in the expensive jacket.
Sophie stared at her. ‘Straight up?’
‘Straight up, and please don’t tell me Sugar G is your friend.’
‘Lady Penny’s my friend. Actually lots of the girls here are, because I kind of grew up coming in and out of this place. It’s my refuge when things get tough.’ Sophie reached for a pot of glitter. ‘You’ve got yourself in some serious shit coming here and now you’re planning to strut your stuff in front of a room full of punters
. What kind of weird kick are you on?’
‘I’ve done some crazy stuff in my time, but nothing matches this.’ Kal picked up a pot of gold paint. ‘Sophie, are you in trouble?’
Sophie toyed with her paintbrush. ‘A little bit, only soon I won’t be.’
‘Will you tell me about it?’
‘Yes, I will, and you don’t have to go through with going on stage for that. You can head home Kal, and I’ll cover for you.’
Kal knew Sophie was right. She was at the bottom of some crazy spiral because she’d gone way off course. After this she’d let herself float back up and she’d even let Marty kick her butt a few more times if necessary. If she’d have set eyes on Lady Penelope and been able to assess what type of woman she was, Kal might have taken the back door. But what about the man on Sophie’s tail? And why had Sophie run to safety in a brothel? No, this was only part of the picture. More than that, part of Kal demanded she complete the challenge, demanded that she push herself over the limit, right to the very end. Just to prove she could.
***
Kal didn’t blank out. She coped by using her martial arts discipline honed from years on the kung fu practice mats, and she minimised the stress of the performance by thinking of it as a workout. ‘Confront your own fears and limits,’ said the voice inside her, ‘then no one can control you’.
Kal blended burlesque moves she’d studied on the videos, with bits of her mother’s belly dance routine, and she added in a little bit of martial arts too. She thought it couldn’t have looked too bad. In the middle, she moved to fluid, figure-of-eight hip movements and let them ripple up her body and along her arms. To Kal’s surprise, she didn’t feel liberated, she felt exposed, as dirty pairs of eyes drank her in. She could hear little from the audience because of the music, but it was like she could hear panting. Though she knew it was ridiculous, she even imagined the sound of ejaculating and it made her feel a bit sick. Kal turned her back on the audience and shimmied her backside, the beads jangling and bouncing. It was somewhere in that moment she realised how much she craved being at the edge, though she would only recall it later. She slipped her hand inside the waist band of her panties, ready for a tease. Only Kal didn’t get that far. Right at that moment a woman screamed. It was high and shrill and the terror in it turned Kal’s blood cold. An image sprang to Kal’s mind of Sophie, her mouth red and wide screaming and screaming. Some of the punters heard it too and there was a kerfuffle in the front row but the sound had come from backstage. Kal dropped all decorum and pretence at artistry, and ran full pelt into the wings, just as she’d been trained to do, straight towards danger.
Chapter Ten
The trail of panic led from backstage to the bottom of the stairs. Kal barged the dancers and show assistants aside and took the steps two at a time. On the first floor landing, she found Candice with eyes as wide as saucers. Candice slumped at the bottom of the stairs and looked like she’d fallen down them, maybe twisted her ankle in her panic to get away. Kal clocked that the trouble wasn’t in the rainforest room, it was on the next floor up. She stepped over Candice and carried on up towards Lady Penelope’s floor.
A woman Kal didn’t know was vomiting on the top landing. Another girl abandoned the vomiting one, brushing past Kal and not even seeing her, running for her life. No point in asking what had happened. Don’t stop, Kal told herself, go to the source. From down below, she heard a shout of ‘Fire! Fire!’ and the alarm started ringing. Kal knew this wasn’t a fire scene. She ran the length of the top corridor where two of the doors were closed, and the next two were ajar, and Kal kept going, following her instincts until she came to a door that had been flung wide open. All she saw was a mass of pink and red furnishings. The alarm masked any sounds coming from the room, and Kal knew it would mask her entry too, and that’s why she didn’t hesitate. Keeping low, crouching to the plush carpeted floor, she ran inside.
A jolt of horror ran from Kal’s heels all the way to the top of her head. A body lay on the bed. A body which was grotesquely mutilated. Kal felt certain the woman was dead. She spun in a circle and scanned the room, ready for any attack. Nothing. No one else was there. As fast as she could, Kal checked the adjoining bathroom for any signs of danger or threat. Nothing.
Approaching the bedside, she felt a buzz of light-headedness and made herself breathe. Kal forced herself to look, clenching her abdominals. She had to press her mouth closed to stop herself vomiting. The woman’s eyelids had been cut off and she stared white eyed towards the ceiling. The victim’s brown hair streamed across the sheets as if it had been carefully arranged before her death. A huge band of skin had been removed from the woman’s abdomen, exposing her intestines and internal organs, and the woman’s blood had streamed from her abdomen, soaking the bedding and forming a dark pool of red on the carpet. Still, Kal searched for a pulse.
With her finger tips on the dead woman’s neck, Kal hesitated. Should she walk away? Leave it to the police and not look back? Pretend she couldn’t do anything to help? No – ever since tracking her mother’s killers, she’d had a drive for outwitting evil murderers. A taste for it. Because protecting the innocent wasn’t always enough. She’d learned that the hard way.
Check the scene while you have the chance, get all the information you can, said the voice in her head. So Kal pushed herself through the shock and went into calculating mode. If she was to be any use in finding out what had happened, and more importantly, in tracking down whoever had committed this grotesque murder, she must concentrate.
The heart-shaped bed stood grandly in the middle of the room, decked in red sheets made redder by the woman’s blood. Shimmering voile curtains hung from the ceiling around the bed to create a cocoon effect.
Kal saw how the removal of the woman’s eyelids had been done with precision. The cuts were neat and smooth – not done in haste, nor with the woman struggling. Was it Kal’s imagination, or did something in the woman’s eyes tell her the lids had been removed before she died? Kal shuddered. She recalled that in the olden days, they believed the image of the killer would be imprinted on the victim’s eyes as the last thing they’d see. Kal stared deep at the brown irises before she snapped herself out of it. To lie still for a procedure like that, likely the woman had been drugged, though there were no obvious syringe marks and Kal didn’t want to disturb the body to investigate further. The silk, kimono-style gown had been slit open, exposing the woman. The smell and staining meaning she’d voided her bowels, as if she’d anticipated her own death. It wasn’t possible to know for sure if the skin over the stomach had been cut off before or after death. The amount of blood suggested before, though Kal hoped that wasn’t the case. She noted the ligature marks around the woman’s neck. The precision of the cuts, the lack of struggle and the fact this had taken place in a busy venue, these facts pointed to several chilling conclusions. First, that the victim knew her killer. Second, that the killer planned this in advance. And third, that whoever did this was calculating, sadistic and, most likely, highly experienced.
From the amount of space in the room and its luxurious decoration, Kal assumed this was Lady Penelope’s space. Likely it was Lady Penelope on the bed. The victim hadn’t fought for her life and why the hell not? The pillows were in place, the sheets weren’t torn off the bed. Had she been with a client? How had someone taken her by surprise? Surely the top cat didn’t still see punters? Had she been with a lover?
A detail caught Kal’s attention and she leant to examine the woman’s shoulder. On the outside was a tiny streak of gold paint. Kal glanced at the silver sheen on her own body – all the girls were covered in glitter and sheen. The gold trace could have been left by someone lifting up Penelope to check if she were dead, or shaking her to check it she would awaken. Or it could have been left by the killer. A terrible thought occurred to Kal and she was about to cross to the dresser when someone ran into the room. It was Sugar G. He stopped, staring at the body and Kal observed him, noting his lack of repulsion.
She heard a small sound in his throat, perhaps of surprise or shock. Then there came a flash of violence in his eyes, the same as she’d seen in him earlier, only this time he didn’t bury it. As Sugar G turned his attention to Kal, she felt his barely controlled rage targetted straight at her.
‘What the hell! If you’re a fucking cop, I’ll kill you,’ he snarled.
That was a strange thing for him to say. Why didn’t he see her as the potential killer?
‘I’m not a cop, I’m not anything. She’s dead.’
‘I can see she’s fucking dead. Get the hell out of here. Leave her alone.’
Sugar G looked like he wanted to kill. She felt the violence rolling off him in waves and she stood her ground as he advanced towards her. Kal was careful to keep any direct challenge from her eyes. She kept her shoulders and her muscles soft. Those factors, and probably because she was wearing practically nothing, had their effect. At the last moment, Sugar G turned aside and he went to the bed, leaning over the woman. Kal noticed how careful he was not to touch anything.
‘Is she?’
‘Yes, she’s dead, I checked,’ Kal said. ‘It’s Lady Penelope isn’t it?’
Kal took the lack of response as a ‘yes’.
The smell of blood and death was getting stronger. If she didn’t get out of here soon, Kal felt she might faint. And her thoughts were already turning to Sophie. Penny was Sophie’s friend. Sophie mustn’t see her like this.
‘Oh no, the police are gonna be all over this place,’ Sugar G said.
Sugar G wasn’t displaying any horror, nor any disbelief at the death. Then again, he wasn’t trying to play act those emotions, but his reactions didn’t seem completely in sync for someone who’d run into a room and found a woman brutalised. How had Sugar G arrived so soon? Surely he’d been occupied supervising the girls on the street? Or had he been watching the show? Meanwhile, Sugar G had fallen to his knees by the bed, seemingly paralysed by the sight in front of him.
London Noir: A gripping crime suspense thriller (Kal Medi Book 2) Page 4
