Cuts Both Ways

by Solomon Carter

  “Toxic Wows Crowd at Maison Sol.”

  “Maison Sol?” said Dan.

  Eva read on. Some of the article had been clipped away at the bottom – clearly Poulter only valued the top half where the venue, date and the image had been placed on the page. But the essential details of the publication were missing – details which would have helped them no end.

  “I think I’ve heard of it,” said Eva. “But I couldn’t tell you where it is.”

  “I don’t know either,” said Poulter. “Nobody I spoke to had heard of it. But then I don’t know who to ask, do I? I did try to find her. I even got speaking to someone who said they knew Alma. It sounded true enough. The girl described Alma perfectly, described her clothes, her tattoos, even her belongings. But when it came to getting her address, the girl gave me a bum steer. The address she gave me didn’t exist.”

  “And did you pay for that information?”

  Poulter nodded. “Yes, I paid her. The cheating little cow who gave it to me was called Rhiannon.”

  “You should go and see her and get your money back,” said Dan. “That’s what I would have done.”

  “I tried that,” said Poulter. “But I couldn’t find her anywhere, and believe me, I looked. Now she’s disappeared too. In the end I decided I’d better stop wasting my time and get some help.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” said Dan. Poulter nodded down at the photograph.

  “Surely you’d be able to track her down from this.”

  “Possibly. But why are you so sure she’s in Southend? There could be other venues called Maison Sol dotted around the place. What makes you think that it’s here?”

  “Easy,” said Poulter. “That clipping comes from your local newspaper. In the events section. The Record – that’s your local rag, isn’t it?”

  Eva and Dan glanced at one another.

  “Yes, it is,” said Dan, “Rag being the operative word.”

  “Well, that’s where this comes from. Google it. You can see for yourself.”

  Eva frowned and turned in her seat to face her laptop. She slid the screen around so they could all see. The machine blinked into life and Eva opened the web browser. She typed her search inquiry direct into the address bar, copying most of the newspaper quote and adding in the words ‘The Record’. Then she hit return. Her heartrate started to spike as the search results were returned. There – there it was at the top. A link to a news article from early summer, just a couple of months back. The crucial details were evident on the search page just beneath the listing. The date, the publication, even the name of the journalist involved. And reading the name, Eva frowned as she clicked through to the article.

  “That can’t be right,” she said..

  “What’s the matter?” said Poulter.

  “Nothing you need to worry about. It just doesn’t make sense, that’s all,” said Eva.

  “What doesn’t?” said Dan.

  “This article was written up by Alice Perry. But this is just an event review. Alice Perry is The Record’s lead journalist these days, isn’t she? Why would they have had her writing up a two-column review of a dance gig in a venue we’ve barely heard of?”

  “But you do know where it is?” said Poulter.

  “I’m not certain, but I think so. Either way, I’ll need to check it out. But why would Alice Perry have covered that?”

  Dan shook his head. “Does it matter? At least now we can find the venue. And now we might even have a witness – someone who was there that night who can tell us if Mr Poulter’s sister was there that night.”

  “She was there alright. That’s her, I’m telling you.”

  Eva frowned at the news article on screen, her eyes fixing on Alice Perry’s name beneath the article and the avatar image of her grinning face.

  “And this DJ Toxic is a pretty big deal, so I hear,” said Poulter. “Maybe that’s why your local newspaper sent the big-name journalist. Toxic is a rising star.”

  “You seem to know a lot about the dance music scene for a printer, Mr Poulter,” said Dan.

  “With a motormouth fan like Alma around, it’s surprising that I know so little, believe me. She never stopped talking about it. Now, what do you reckon? I’ve supplied a good lead. You’ll be able to find her now, surely? She’s in trouble, I know she is.”

  Eva’s gaze stayed fixed on the screen.

  “And… money isn’t going to be a problem, I assure you,” said Poulter. “I’ll pay the fee, whatever it costs. I’ll even pay some up front. I just want to know that my little sister is safe.”

  Eva’s eyes flicked up to meet Poulter’s. “But what if she doesn’t want to see you, Mr Poulter. What happens then?”

  “What? She’ll want to see me. Why would she not?”

  “I don’t know,” said Eva. “But it’s always possible.”

  “Just find her and let me know she’s safe. Regardless of what she says, I’ll pay you as agreed. We can take the rest from there, eh?”

  Eva looked at Dan and saw his cynicism fading with the promise of hard cash.

  “Yeah, I think that’ll work,” said Dan.

  But Eva only offered a wafer-thin smile. The name of Alice Perry had gatecrashed the party once again. Eva couldn’t fathom why, but she knew one thing already. It was only a matter of time before they would have to meet again. Small towns… Eva found Poulter watching her, waiting keenly for her answer.

  “Yes, we’ll do it, Mr Poulter,” Eva found herself saying. “Rest assured. We’ll be able to find your sister.”

  And right there, the deal was done. Poulter seemed relieved. He smiled and gave each of them a nod of thanks. And once the deal was done, and the much-needed cash advance handed over, Poulter was on his way. They put the cash in the safe and Eva retreated to her desk to tackle the Lauren case once again. But even with deep concerns about Lauren hanging over her, Eva couldn’t push the face of Alice Perry very far from her mind. It was one more problem she didn’t need.

  Four

  They sat in the first-floor café at Wat Tyler Park, Pitsea, sited at the edge of a flat wide field on the very edge of Basildon.

  A strange place to meet, Eva had said. But when Lauren had explained, the rest soon became obvious. The road to Wat Tyler was a narrow single lane affair which cut along past the front of Pitsea train station. Only ten miles away from Southend, Pitsea wasn’t their patch. It felt foreign and unknown. But at least the park made up for Pitsea’s rough exterior. It was an oasis of green in a rough concrete land of council housing and scrubland. And it turned out Lauren had even given Jamie Blane an excuse for going there. A work excuse. Lauren told him she was to meet a former client who needed career advice, someone who remembered her from the old days at the recruitment agency and wouldn’t be palmed off with anyone else. By Eva’s reckoning, it was a contrived excuse, but Lauren said she was reasonably sure Jamie had believed her. And the drive into the park told Eva why else Lauren felt comfortable meeting at Wat Tyler Park. If Jamie Blane had followed her, they would have seen him in a heartbeat. Wat Tyler Park was a wide open out-of-the-way place with one road in, one road out. There was nowhere to hide from anyone. And the isolated first floor café gave them a decent vantage point over the whole park.

  “I see why you chose the place,” said Eva, sipping a rare café latte as she took a moment to enjoy the view. “Maybe you’d make a decent PI yourself. Or a sniper, maybe.”

  But Lauren looked pale, tired and in no mood for jokes. The little make-up she wore hadn’t been applied with much care. Her mascara looked a little too thick on the lashes, her blusher a little too strong. And there was simply no hiding the stress in her eyes. Lauren looked at her, and Eva forced herself to stop the appraisal before she noticed. But even with all that, Lauren still looked very good for her age. Eva wondered if she could say the same.

  “Don’t even joke, Eva. I can’t say I haven’t wished him dead. I’ve been so tempted to react. You don’t know what he’s like.”

/>   Eva sipped her coffee and nodded once.

  “The wanting to strike out,” said Eva, “that’s only natural in your situation.”

  Lauren looked at Eva, half lost in thought. “Yes. I suppose it is. I’m glad you can see it that way.”

  “It must have taken enormous strength to go back, Lauren. To go back into that apartment after what you found in his car. To deal with him and pretend it was all okay.”

  Lauren’s mouth twitched. “The truth is I’m getting less and less good at that part. Do you know, he still insists we still make love? Can you believe it? By which I mean have sex, nothing more. And the sex is only ever for him, you understand. It’s a release valve. That’s all. But we’re both going through the motions. He isn’t into it, and it’s the last thing I want to do with him.”

  Eva couldn’t help raising an eyebrow. They used to talk about boys once, but they had never been so candid in their youth.

  “I’m sorry if I’m embarrassing you, Eva, but what you’ve got with Dan… that’s a whole other thing. Jamie uses the bedroom as another theatre of torture. It’s all psychological, isn’t it? I have to act like I’m enjoying it, and when I don’t seem keen enough, or make the right sounds, he turns all intimidating again, and then I know there’ll be trouble afterwards. Everything we do together is part and parcel of the same gruesome show. The same torture. But when you actually find the knife this man intends to kill you with… when you finally see that this violent, awful monster you once loved now fully intends to carry out his threats, it changes everything. It’s not just words Eva. He hates my guts. I could barely look him in the eye this morning. I even found it hard to lie to come here, but I knew I had to be convincing. Whatever I do now, the end is coming, isn’t it? You don’t buy a weapon like that unless you’re going to use it. You believe me, don’t you?”

  Eva listened to the high-pitched strain in Lauren’s voice as well as the words. “That sounds horrific, Lauren. I’m sorry you have to go through that. Any of it.”

  Lauren looked down at her coffee. She ran her finger around the rim of the steaming cup. Behind them, the young woman at the counter was listening in while pretending not to. They were both well aware of her, but Lauren didn’t seem to care either way.

  “You say this changes everything… so, do you still want to pursue the same strategy as before?” said Eva.

  Lauren stopped playing with the cup and she looked up at Eva as if she hadn’t quite understood her words.

  “I mean, do you still want us to undermine him – to find leverage on him as a means to get you free – or does this mean you just want to quit and get out now. Because I could help you do that too. In fact that’s easier. I could get you out of there right now. I helped someone else like that once. I helped a client get a clean break from her abusive son…”

  Lauren shook her head emphatically and Eva stopped mid flow.

  “That won’t work with Jamie, Eva. I mean it. He won’t back down until he hurts someone. That’s what he does. Maybe it’s possible that he only does it to compensate for what he lost. I mean, he’d never really had time to grieve for his wife before we got together. I told you that, right? Now I see that we got together too soon… I think I was in the way of his grief, maybe. So he pushed it down and we got on with our affair. But whatever his excuse is, I really don’t deserve it. But he won’t stop if I leave him, Eva. If I walk out, this only gets worse.”

  “And this man has no official record of mental instability? Nothing the police might act on if they were warned something bad is about to happen?”

  “No. Nothing. Jamie Blane is officially a healthy, successful, total catch of a guy. Only if you saw him at home, in private, you’d know he’s snapped. But I’m the only one who knows it.”

  Eva sighed. “Then from what you’re saying, we’ll have to play the longer game.”

  “The longer game? Eva, he’s hiding a murder weapon in his car. I’m the only reason he has that knife. I’m on limited time here. I’m serious.”

  “I know. But we still have to use what time we have. Don’t worry. I’ve already been working on it.”

  Lauren nodded. “And so have I. But all I ended up seeing is more reasons why he’ll do away with me sooner rather than later.”

  Eva shifted in her chair. “What did you find?” she asked.

  Lauren shook her head. “You first. I want to hear your plan. I need to have some hope.”

  “Understandable.” Eva caught the eyes of the girl at the counter, dressed in her baseball cap and apron. The girl was barely hiding her interest. But Eva was in no mood for making a scene. She ignored the girl and carried on. “First of all,” she said. “I wanted to sound him out myself. To get a feel for him as a person, warts and all.”

  “Haven’t I given you enough of that already?” said Lauren, slightly incredulous. “He leaves bruises. He’s got a serious knife in his car.”

  “I needed to know, Lauren. I needed to see who we’re up against. So I called his office. I got the office number from the web.”

  “And you found he wasn’t there,” said Lauren.

  “No. But I’ve learned a couple of useful things already just from that one simple call.”

  Lauren’s eyes flickered with new interest.

  “First off, the woman who answered the call showed more than a passing interest in my identity – my name and my interest in Jamie Blane – she even asked if I was you. Which seemed strange. She started by calling me Mrs Blane, assuming I was you, and she sounded defensive when she spoke.”

  “Why? That’s weird.”

  “I don’t know about that,” said Eva. “We’re the same age, and we were… well, we were best friends,” said Eva quickly. “Maybe our voices sound more alike than we knew.”

  There was a moment’s silence. Any mention of their past friendship was an acknowledgement of what had come next. It was an unavoidable stumbling block they had to move past each time it came up.

  “But what did that tell you?” said Lauren.

  “I think the girl I spoke to either has a thing for Jamie herself. Or she’s aware there’s a problem between you two. And it’s probably both.”

  “Why would you think that?” said Lauren.

  “The way she asked if I was you. Like that would have been a problem for her. Or at least a call she didn’t want to deal with. A good, servile member of staff with no personal agenda would have been very happy to pass a home call on to her boss, but this one didn’t like the prospect of dealing with you at all.”

  “Probably because I was the office ace. When I worked there, I was the star performer ten months in a row. There was a little jealousy around, shall we say? It could be that.”

  Eva nodded. “Then do you remember working with a woman called Suzie? She’s the one who answered the call.”

  “Suzie? What? Suzie Appleby? No. She’s just one of the newbies. She’s only been there less than a year. She’s halfway between a trainee consultant and a PA. She just does whatever she’s asked to do.”

  Eva nodded quietly and let her eyes do the talking.

  When Lauren cottoned on, Lauren nodded back slowly. “I see…” she said. “Suzie Appleby? She’s a good-looking girl in a tasteless, vacuous kind of way. Like your classic page three girl, only with less personality.”

  Eva smirked at that. “And Jamie Blane might be the kind of boss who sees potential in a new recruit in more ways than one.”

  “When things were good between us, I never worried about anything like that. And even a little while back I would have been glad to know he was seeing another woman… I would have thought of her as my way out. But now I’ve seen the knife in his car.”

  “I know, Lauren. But please focus here. Stay with me for a moment. We’re after collateral. Leverage we can use against him. Leverage to make him let you go on your terms. What if we’ve stumbled onto a romantic affair here? That’s leverage. At this stage, there’s only a hint of it. But I know what I heard.”r />
  “We’re not married, Eva. There is no affair. If he bangs Suzie Appleby, we’re all just consenting adults and I’m just the one he lives with. I don’t have any leverage.”

  “Wait, Lauren. How old is the girl? She sounds young. What is she? Twenty? Twenty-one?”

  “Something like that.”

  “And Jamie is the boss. And Jamie is in his late thirties? Happily settled with a woman his own age? In the new era, a guy doing what he is doing could look very predatory. Basildon’s own Harvey Weinstein. Not very MeToo, is it? That could be very bad for business.”

  Lauren nodded, with a glint in her eye. “I see… but I’m not sure the threat of some bad press is going to be enough. What else did you come up with?”

  “Eventually, when I told Miss Appleby I was representing a business who wanted to place a number of job vacancies, she patched me through to Blane himself. He was at home with you at this point, I take it?”

  “This morning?” asked Lauren. Eva nodded. “He was in his office at home, yes. You spoke to him? He’s a very convincing liar, Eva.”

  Lauren looked troubled, but Eva continued.

  “So am I, Lauren. I told him a bit about my supposed job ads and about my supposed business, and then I asked him about his company and about himself. I wanted to hear him thinking. I wanted to know what he was like, his work persona, the fake projection. And you know what, he seemed pretty together.”

  “He’s a very cold customer, Eva.”

  “And he’d have to be. He came across as witty, charming even. Right at the end of the call, when we’d done the preamble, and he started to talk numbers about the ad costs, I told him I’d have to talk it through with my MD. That was when he made something of an extra offer. He said he would be glad to run through some figures with me – that he could come up with some special offers over lunch.”

  “Over lunch?” said Lauren.

  Eva nodded.