Stay Dead (11 page)

When they got to the Blue Parrot she paid the driver and hurried inside. The bar staff were getting ready for the evening’s trade: polishing glasses and bringing up crates of mixers from
the cellars. Like the Palermo Lounge and the Shalimar, the décor in here was dark chocolate and gold, angels and cherubs, faux tiger skin on the chairs and some of the banquettes. In fact,
all three clubs looked damned near identical.

But there’s a difference
, she thought as she stood there in the big room that constituted the main body of the club. At the Shalimar, Ellie’s motherly presence gave the place
a warm ambience. And at the Palermo, Dolly had imbued her territory with a brassy sweetness. Here, there was only Gary and a coven of ever-changing girlfriends to run the place. The atmosphere was
not cosy, not welcoming. Strictly business.

‘Shit, not you,’ said a male voice from behind her.

Annie turned around and there he was: Gary Tooley. Over six and a half feet tall, and so skinny it was as if he’d been stretched on a rack. His eyes were devoid of any humanity;
she’d always thought that and clearly nothing had changed.

Gary Tooley looked like what he was: a vicious thug. His straight straw-blond hair had been restyled since she’d last seen him; he now wore it swept straight back, giving him an even more
hawkish air. He was wearing a dark designer suit, a white silk shirt open at the neck. Working for Max had given him a good lifestyle; he’d come from the East End gutters, but today he looked
rich and she knew that would please him, because Gary loved money – it was his god, the only thing that mattered to him.

‘Hi, Gary,’ she said, and then her eyes went to the minuscule blonde at his side. Big calculating blue eyes rimmed with black lashes, a sneer on a face plastered with too much fake
tan and make-up, and a too-short pink leather dress showing off a taut little body.

‘And who’s this?’ asked Annie.

‘I’m Caroline,’ said the blonde. ‘Who the fuck are you?’

‘This is my girlfriend,’ said Gary to Annie. Then to Caroline he said: ‘This is the boss’s wife, hun.’

The woman linked both arms possessively through one of Gary’s. ‘Gary and me, we’re together.’

Looks like a match made in heaven
, thought Annie:
a horrible cow and a soulless, sadistic bastard
. Ignoring the blonde, she addressed Gary: ‘You heard about Dolly?’

‘Yeah. Big friend of yours.’

‘She was. Yes.’ He didn’t say sorry for your loss, what a nice woman she’d been, nothing; but then, Annie hadn’t expected that. Not from him. She diverted her gaze,
glancing around the place in case he should see any weakness in her eyes at the mention of Dolly. You didn’t show vulnerability in front of people like Gary, they’d eat you whole. She
knew that.

The club was starting to come to life: lights flicking on over the bar, doormen arriving, giggles and chatter from girls heading to the dressing room to get ready for the evening. There was a
female cleaner working late, moving in and out of the chainmail curtains over to the right of the room, pushing a vacuum cleaner. There was a smell of lavender polish in the air.

‘So how’s business?’ she asked, looking back at Gary.

‘Good,’ he said, and his eyes were wary.

‘A private word?’

‘About what?’

Annie looked pointedly at Caroline, clinging on to him like ivy on a wall.

Gary stared at Annie for a moment, unblinking. Then he patted Caroline on the backside and said: ‘See you at six thirty, babe. OK?’

Caroline gave Annie one last look and moved off toward the door. Then Gary said, ‘Gimme a moment,’ to Annie and followed Caroline’s wiggling leather-wrapped arse over to where
the doormen were standing. He saw Caroline out the door with a peck on the cheek, then spoke to the men there. One of them handed him a newspaper. After a couple of minutes, he headed back to
Annie. ‘Come on up to the office,’ he said, and turned to lead the way.

Once inside the office, Gary went around the desk and sat down. He gestured for Annie to sit, too. She did. They could hear the DJ firing up his decks now, could hear Queen
thrumming up through the floor, Freddie Mercury’s superb voice singing ‘A Kind of Magic’.

‘So what’s on your mind?’ he asked her, throwing the paper on to the desk.

Annie glanced at the front page. O. J. Simpson had been charged with the murder of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Lyle Goldman outside the Simpson home. And a hacker had been charged for wire
and computer fraud. It all seemed removed from reality, about a million miles away.

Gary looked pissed off to see her. His loyalty was to Max; they’d been part of the same gang since school. For as long as she could remember, Gary had despised her. Gary screwed women but
hated and mistrusted all of them – and he viewed any deep involvement with them as foolish. Annie wondered if Caroline knew that yet. Well, she’d find out. Gary had always seen Annie in
particular as a female bloodsucker, a vampire who would draw the life out of Max, weakening and sapping him. Well,
fuck
Gary.

‘You’ve been phoning Max a lot lately,’ she said, by way of openers.

‘Have I?’ He leaned back in his chair, linked his hands behind his head, very casual, and stared at her with that pale blue unblinking gaze.

‘Yes, you have. And I’d like to know, about what.’

Now he was smiling, a flash of teeth that was more like a snarl than anything else. ‘You better ask Max, not me.’

‘I can’t,’ said Annie.

‘Why’s that then?’

‘Because Max has gone somewhere. Left with no explanation.’ Annie leaned forward in her chair, her eyes holding his to emphasize her point. ‘He’s just
gone
. Said
he had stuff to do, and took off. I don’t know where to or for what reason, but what I
do
know is that he’s had a lot of calls from you lately. And so the question remains
– what’s he been talking to you about?’

Gary straightened and shrugged. ‘This and that,’ he said.

‘Yeah? Can you be more specific?’

‘Private stuff. You know. Man to man.’

Annie nodded slowly. ‘Private? Well, we’re married, Max and me, so I think you should make an exception.’ Her eyes were hard dark green pebbles as they held his. ‘So tell
me what the
fuck
is going on, Gary, will you?’

‘Hey.’ The smile dropped from his face. He sat up straight and leaned both hands on the desk and stared into her eyes. ‘Don’t come in here flinging your weight about. I
run this place for Max, not you.’

‘You run it for both of us, Gary. I told you. We’re married. Joined at the hip.’

‘Yeah, like fuck! He’s gone and you don’t even know where.’

‘Do you?’

‘What?’

‘Know where? Only, what with all those phone calls, I’ve got a feeling that if anyone knows, it’s you.’

Gary shrugged but his eyes were steely as they stared into hers. ‘If you want to keep Max sweet then you ought to start bloody behaving yourself.’

Annie’s jaw dropped and a skitter of fear shivered up her spine. ‘What the fuck’s
that
supposed to mean?’

‘It means this conversation’s over,’ he said, and stood up. ‘I don’t have to take any of your shit.’

She started shaking her head. ‘No.
No!
You tell me what you mean, Gary. You can’t just say a thing like that and think I’m going to leave it there.’

Gary came around the desk. To Annie’s shock, he grabbed her arm and hauled her to her feet.

‘Now you listen to me,’ he hissed into her face from inches away. ‘I
told
you, this conversation’s done. I got nothing to say to you. Now
get
.’ And he
shoved her toward the door.

Annie stared at him.
Fuck it, he knows
, she thought. ‘You’re going to be sorry you did that,’ she said flatly.

‘Yeah? We’ll see about that. Now get the fuck out of here.’

Annie left him there and went back down the stairs. She stepped outside the club. It was still raining. Traffic flowed past and she saw the yellow light of a taxi and stuck her hand out. It
pulled in to the kerb. ‘Shalimar club,’ she told the driver, stepping into the back.

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.

‘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.’