Authors: Jessie Keane
‘You haven’t. Have you?’ she asked, to be sure.
‘Nope.’ Max accelerated toward a delivery van that was blocking their path, then swerved out and overtook with a honk of the horn.
‘Christ. You still drive like a fucking lunatic,’ said Annie, her right foot automatically stamping on a non-existent brake, her hands clutching her seat.
‘You can get out and walk if you like.’
Annie loosened her grip as he veered around an obstacle. She dragged her hands through her hair. ‘All right, this doesn’t
look
like Mafia style, but who really knows? As for
any threat to us, forget that. That’s rubbish. Alberto wouldn’t have it. We’re Layla’s parents.’
‘Fucking Redmond. That sick bastard just
won’t
die like the rest of that family.’
‘Maybe Redmond found out that Gary was getting calls off Gina,’ said Annie. ‘Maybe he found out the content of those calls. When Constantine arranged that
“accident” way back for Redmond and Orla – maybe Redmond knows about that. Maybe he even knows Constantine’s still alive. Maybe he was trying to beat Constantine’s
whereabouts out of Gary before he realized Gary didn’t know, and finished him.’
Max threw her a sombre look and swerved the car into the pavement. ‘Maybe he
did
beat Constantine’s whereabouts out of Gary. And
then
he finished him.’
Annie looked at Max in horror, but they didn’t have time to talk about it, not now.
They’d arrived at the Blue Parrot.
Inside the club, things were hotting up for the evening. All the girls were in, getting ready, and a hush fell over them as Annie stepped into the doorway of their dressing
room while Max carried on into the office.
‘I’m looking for Caroline,’ she said. ‘She’s not at the Palermo. Do any of you know where she is right now?’
There was a long silence. Then one of them, a tall corn-gold blonde, her eyes alight with interest, said: ‘Is it right, what we’ve been hearing on the news? That Gary Tooley’s
dead?’
‘Yeah, it’s right.’
‘Christ!’
‘He was
such
a bastard,’ said another – shorter, dark-haired, pouty-lipped. ‘I heard he got knifed or something.’
Max stepped into the doorway behind Annie and she felt a seismic shift in the girls’ postures and attitudes. Breasts pushed out, stomachs in. Smiles suddenly super-bright. Irritating.
‘So you don’t know where Caroline is?’
‘I got her old home address out of the book in the office,’ said Max to Annie.
‘We ain’t seen her,’ said a girl with Schiaparelli-pink streaks in her ash-blonde hair and dangling pearl earrings that brushed her equally pearly shoulders. ‘Not that we
want
to. She was after Gary from the get-go, she was bloody shameless. Thought she was better than the lot of us, she did. Started queening it about the place after he slipped her
one.’
‘Girl,
you
were after him too,’ the blonde reminded her with a smirk. ‘You’re just mad because she got him and got bumped up the ladder to take over the Palermo
after Dolly Farrell got done.’
The pink-and-ash girl blushed. The blonde had hit a nerve. ‘And look how that
turned
out,’ she shot back. ‘Dolly Farrell’s dead, Gary’s dead. You ask me,
that place is
cursed
.’
‘You know what I think? I think it could have been Caroline up there in Dolly’s room who answered Pete,’ said Annie when they were back in the car.
‘Maybe she was there talking to Dolly, telling her to fuck off out of it and let her take over the club. Maybe Gary had hinted to Dolly that she ought to be put out to grass and let his fancy
piece be in charge, and Dolly – being Dolly – would have told them both to go fuck themselves.’
‘You seriously think Gary or Caroline could have done the job on her?’ asked Max, flicking her a glance as he drove them over to Caroline’s old place.
‘Yeah. Maybe a combined effort. And by the way, where’s Tone? I thought I said I wanted my driver back.’
‘You did. But why bother Tone when I’m right here?’
‘Yeah, driving like a ruddy maniac. Tone’s steady, I like him driving me. This isn’t Formula fucking One.’
‘Shut it,’ said Max, but he was grinning.
They went back to Holland Park. When they got there, DCI Hunter and DS Duggan were on the doorstep, waiting for them.
‘Problems?’ asked Annie, coming up the steps with Max following, thinking that just last night Jackie had been propped right here against the door, dead. It made her shiver with
horror all over again.
‘Thought you’d like to know,’ said Hunter. ‘Pete Jones the bar manager
didn’t
see Dolly that night. She shouted through the door.’
‘So . . .’ said Annie.
‘So possibly it wasn’t Dolly Farrell who answered. Quite possibly it was another woman in there with her.’
Maybe it was Sarah and now she’s just acting all shook up to throw us off the scent
, thought Annie.
But she didn’t think so.
Maybe Caroline?
And then she thought of Nigel, with his high-pitched, almost womanly voice.
When they got to the block of flats in Stepney where Caroline lived before she started jumping Gary Tooley’s bones, they went up to the second floor in a piss-stinking
lift, then past graffiti-clad concrete walls and along a covered walkway strewn with dead pot-plants and grimy lines of washing. When they reached the flat door, Max hammered on it. Nobody came.
Max hammered some more. There was a murky window beside the door, but they couldn’t see in; the curtains were closed.
‘No one here. Was this her parents’ address?’ said Annie.
‘No, she shared it with a flatmate. I remember Gary saying so.’
‘Well, the flatmate ain’t here then.’
‘Let’s see,’ said Max, and stepped back and kicked the door. It juddered back on its hinges, the lock shattered. ‘After you,’ he said, standing aside.
Annie stepped straight into a grubby-looking living room. It wasn’t exactly Ideal Home Exhibition territory in here. There was a cheap sofa, with a dirty red-and-blue woven Indian rug
thrown over it. Hectically patterned carpeted floors that had seen much better days. A Bush TV with an inch of dust on top. A scratched and stained teak G-Plan coffee table cluttered with empty
cider cans and the remnants of last night’s takeaway meal. Not a lot else.
‘I can hear something,’ said Max, pushing in front of Annie and moving along a dingy hall. He toed open a door and there was a bedroom, thin purple curtains still pulled closed, a
crumpled bed and a dark-haired girl half-sitting up, looking in surprise at the two who had just busted their way in here.
‘What the fuck . . . ?’ she wondered, rubbing her eyes and then her sleep-matted brown hair.
Annie looked around at this shit-hole and tried not to inhale. There was a crack pipe on the bedside table, burned-out matches, another cider can. The bedding smelled stale. The girl was
blinking at them as if they’d landed from Mars.
‘Hi,’ said Annie. ‘And you are . . . ?’
‘What the
fuck
. . .’ demanded the girl again, her tone turning angry.
‘We’re looking for Caroline. Used to be your roomy, right?’ asked Annie, as Max moved off further along the hall. She could hear him opening drawers, looking in cupboards.
‘Yeah, she did, but what the fuck are you doing in my flat? Get the hell
out
, right
now
!’
Max came back. ‘The other bedroom’s empty,’ he told Annie. ‘Nothing in there at all. I suppose all Caroline’s stuff was still in the wardrobes over at the Palermo?
The police checked that?’ He looked at the girl in the bed. ‘You – did Caroline leave stuff here? Has she been back? Have you seen her in the last couple of days?’
‘I ain’t seen Caroline in
months
,’ said the girl. ‘She’s too hoity-toity to talk to me now. Moved on up, kicked all her old mates aside. Got herself a
nightclub manager, I heard. Too good for the likes of me now. And I ain’t been able to find another girl to share. The landlord’s tearing his hair out for the rent, but what can I do? I
ain’t got his money. Is that it? He sent you to get it? Well, good luck with that, because
I don’t have it
.’
‘We’re not here for the rent. So you haven’t seen Caroline?’ asked Annie.
‘No.’
‘Really?’ asked Annie. She moved closer to the bed. The girl in it leaned back, sensing trouble as she stared into Annie’s eyes. Annie grabbed a hank of dirty hair and shook
the girl’s head about. It made her damaged rib shriek, but she didn’t care.
‘Hey! Come on!’ yelled the girl, squirming.
‘Only, if I find out you’re lying, you see that pipe there?’ said Annie. ‘I’m going to get this bloke here to shove it up your arse sideways. And that, I promise
you, is going to hurt.’
‘I ain’t lying! Let go of me, you raving
nutter
.’
‘Sure?’ Annie picked up the pipe and eyed it.
‘Sure!’
‘Damn, that’s a shame,’ said Annie, and moved suddenly. Pain gripped her middle as she pulled the girl’s head over to one side, shoving hard at her shoulder, and flipping
her over like a landed fish. The girl let out a piercing yell that was instantly muffled by the pillows. She looked at Max. ‘Stick this thing up here, will you?’
‘Look, just
hold on
!’
‘For what? Fucking
Christmas
? I don’t think so.’
Max came over and picked up the pipe.
‘No! Don’t. All
right
. I saw her today. This afternoon. She came here. Let me up, you cow, I can’t
breathe
!’ It was a yell of pure terror. ‘Just
stop
, OK?’ she panted. ‘There’s no need for this, I saw her. Just
stop
.’
Annie stopped. She released her hold on the girl and the girl pulled her head out of the pillows and scrabbled back against the headboard. She eyed Annie like she was unhinged.
‘You’re both
mad
,’ said the girl, her voice shaking.
‘Remember that,’ said Annie.
‘All right! She said not to tell, but what the hell, it’s my arse on the line, not hers. Caroline said it had all gone tits-up at the club and she was leaving. She had some clothes
here and she took them, she looked scared to death – I mean really, honest-to-God, shit-scared – and she said she was going to her folks’ place and not to say anything and I
wouldn’t see her again anytime soon.’
Annie exchanged a look with Max.
‘Where’s her folks’ place?’ he asked.
‘Ibiza,’ said the girl.
‘Fuck,’ said Max on a sigh as Annie picked up the payphone.
‘What?’ she asked, dialling. They were squished into the phone box outside the block of flats, it was raining, and Annie was doing something that Max would never, ever do.
‘We don’t call in the Bill,’ he said, for the third time.
But Annie shook her head. ‘In this case? We
do
. They can get straight through to passport control at Gatwick and stop her. By the time we get there to do it, she’ll be
gone.’
‘Something going on, you and this “Hunter” dickhead?’
‘
What
?’
‘You heard. You seem very pally with him, is all I’m saying.’
Annie stared at him. ‘Oh sure. I’ve been fucking his brains out, him
and
Constantine.’
Max looked grim. ‘Not funny.’
‘Am I laughing?’ Annie clamped the receiver to her ear. ‘Yeah, hello? I need to get a message to DCI Hunter, it’s urgent. Is he there?’
Hunter was. Annie relayed the information they’d just received to him, put the phone down and looked at Max.
‘They’ll stop her,’ she said.
‘All right. So now what do
we
do, genius?’ They extracted themselves from the phone box and as they did so a cyclist zipped up and stopped right beside Annie. No
pizzino
this time. A slim man, dark glasses, helmet. Could be anyone.
‘What’s this?’ asked Max.
‘Constantine’s been asking for me.’ Annie looked at the cyclist. A thin, fit young man, totally anonymous, speeding through the London streets delivering messages on the order
of his masters. ‘I can’t come,’ she said to the man. ‘Not yet. Soon. Tell them.’
The cyclist gave the briefest of nods and shot away, weaving through the traffic; almost instantly, he was out of sight.
They went down the cop shop to see what developed. It was a long, long wait, but eventually Hunter arrived with DS Sandra Duggan, and she was holding on to the arm of a
swearing, struggling Caroline. When Caroline saw Annie there, she spat at her feet and surged toward her. ‘You
bitch
!’ she yelled.
Hunter grabbed the girl’s other arm, and they carted her off into the depths of the nick, kicking and screaming insults at everyone around her.
‘Well, that worked out well,’ said Annie. She turned to Max. ‘Can you get someone down here to pick her up when she comes out? Then have them bring her over to my place, OK? We
can have a chat.’
It was Tony who brought Caroline over to the Holland Park house when the police eventually released her. By that time it was gone eleven at night, and a lot of the fight had
gone out of her. She looked pale, exhausted and scared when Tony ushered her into the study at the front of the house. Annie was there, sitting behind the desk, and Max was standing nearby. Tony
manhandled Caroline into a chair beside the desk and then retreated to the closed door, where he placed himself, an impenetrable wall of muscle.
‘They give you a hard time, down the nick?’ asked Annie.
Caroline said nothing, just looked at her with eyes full of hate.
‘Witness to a murder, taking off like that? You can see they wouldn’t be pleased.’
‘I didn’t see anything,’ said Caroline quickly.
‘That what you told the Bill?’ asked Annie.
‘It’s the truth.’
Annie stared at her. ‘Not so hot then, jumping into Dolly’s shoes before she was even cold?’
‘Shut up, you cow,’ spat Caroline.
‘Tell us what you did see,’ said Max.
‘Nothing. I told them and I’m telling you.’
‘We’re not the police,’ said Annie.