Death is the New Black

by Dominic Piper

  Exeter Street is one of those roads that’re about as Central London as you can get, but still manage to look like an uninhabited no man’s land. People who work in the area walk past it every day and don’t give it a second glance. Two minutes’ walk and you’re in Covent Garden Market, a minute’s walk in the other direction and you’re in The Strand.

  Its two big claims to fame are the unobtrusive Joe Allen’s restaurant and the stage door to the Lyceum Theatre. Not a road where someone would live, which is probably why I live there.

  I’ve always been finicky about my security, which is why I had two enhanced Yale cylinder locks fitted to the front door of my flat, to make it difficult for potential burglars. You have to open them simultaneously with the correct keys. You can’t pick the lock on one and then go to work on the other, as the first one would click back to its original locked position after five seconds. Only a very skilled and talented burglar would be able to get past them and I’m hoping there are few of those about who would be interested in burglarising me.

  Once I’m inside, I walk down the short hallway and step carefully across my nightingale floor, avoiding the noisy parts. This was built for me shortly after I bought the place. Nightingale floors are a squeaky security device, and make such a racket when you walk on them that it would awaken the deepest or most intoxicated sleeper. Invented in Japan in the seventeenth century, they were meant to be a defence against ninjas, though I’m not sure how many of them lurk around twenty-first-century Covent Garden.

  I turn the heating on, fire up the computer and load my Siemens coffee maker with Bugishu coffee beans. That brief meeting with Olivia Bream has planted a few doubts in my mind about Sara Holt’s story. What if she really is making the whole thing up? She’s obviously an intelligent woman and seemed pretty together to me, but you never can tell.

  Her stress and anxiety seemed real, as did the tears welling up in her eyes from time to time, but those could be the symptoms of something else altogether.

  It may be that a few disturbing, isolated occurrences increased her paranoia, so that she couldn’t tell which were real, aggressive acts and which were ordinary London stuff. As I take my jacket off, I hear a slight rattling noise and remember that I’ve got her diazepam. Was that too cruel? I don’t think so.

  I sit down at the kitchen table with a coffee and start a more in depth search for information about Sara Holt. After ten minutes I’m still no wiser than I was this morning, then come across something called Victoria Ferguson’s Style Blog & Website and there’s an interview with Sara from fourteen months ago, if the date at the top can be believed.

  There’s a photograph of Sara to accompany the piece and I stare at it for a while. She’s still just as pretty and looks even younger that she did this afternoon when I mistook her for someone in their late teens. It’s impossible to know when this photograph was taken, of course, but there’s a little more weight in her face and her lips look fuller and more sensual.

  Her hair is longer and looks darker, though that could be to do with poor image replication. The photograph’s in black and white, so you don’t get the impact of those lovely amber eyes, but I can quite imagine some guy coming across this article by accident, seeing Sara and thinking wow.

  Of course, I’m still in the mind-set of Sara having a proper stalker, which DI Bream disagreed with, for various logical reasons. Still, I think it’s worth keeping in mind that there are images of her on the net, but when you Google her name for images, you generally get photographs of catwalk models wearing her clothing lines.

  The interview deals mainly with her work. There’s something about it that makes me think that it wasn’t done face to face. The questions are all a little nebulous and non-specific and I’m guessing that all interviewees are sent the same list of queries by email, which they then fill in and email back. I read the whole thing, though. I’m looking for something, but I’m not sure what it is.

  She mentions that her father died when she was nine years old. Her mother remarried six years later and they relocated to New York City. I can’t begin to imagine the culture shock that would inflict on a fifteen-year-old girl, travelling from leafy Surrey to the Big Apple, but it doesn’t appear to have been particularly traumatic for her and she seems to have enjoyed it.

  This, of course, would explain the slight American accent I detected in her voice. She doesn’t mention whether her stepfather was an American or not, but I’m assuming he was.

  When she was eighteen, she did a bachelor’s degree in liberal arts at Brown University. I have to look this place up as I’ve never heard of it. It turns out to be a private Ivy League university in Providence, Rhode Island, established in the eighteenth century, one of the most prestigious in the country and very selective about whom it accepts. I check it on a map, not very far from New York, really. Just up the road.

  When she finished at Brown’s, she returned to the UK to do a master’s degree in fashion at Central Saint Martin’s. That’s where Isolda went for her bachelor’s. I wonder if they knew each other. Unlikely, I would think, though they might just have overlapped.

  But after a term at Saint Martin’s, she had what sounds like a nervous breakdown and had to take some time out. No particular reason is given for this. In her interview, she just said that she’d bitten off more than she could chew, and that could be true. Brown’s looks like a place that leaves you to your own devices, so she may have found Saint Martin’s more stressful than she imagined it would be.

  The MA in fashion at Central Saint Martin’s lasts for one year and two terms. Unless she went on further courses that aren’t mentioned here, that means that it took her about five years to get where she is today, which I think could be described as meteoric, to say the least.

  The tone of her interview is light and playful, no signs of paranoia or anything that might lead to my thinking that she’d imagined her recent harassment issues, but the nervous breakdown thing is still interesting, if only mildly so.

  I stretch back in my seat, close my eyes and think about Isolda. Considering the clothing she favours for a day at work, I can’t imagine what she’d choose to wear for a date, if that’s what this is. Then I remember Sara saying earlier that Isolda was probably having a row with her boyfriend and Gaige rolling his eyes and saying that it made a change, so perhaps this is some sort of revenge date for her, of which I’m the beneficiary.

  Still, I should care. When you have the opportunity to take out a woman who quite literally makes your mouth water when you think about her, then her relationship problems don’t matter a shit. Besides, I’ve been on quite a few revenge dates in my time and they always turn out to be pretty stimulating to say the least.

  I finish the cold remnants of my coffee, get undressed and take a long, hot shower.

  *

  I arrive at The Korova approximately ten minutes before I’m meant to meet Isolda. I somehow expect her to be late; she seems the type. The place is fairly crowded, so I sit at the bar, sip a double vodka and soda and stare at my reflection through the bottles on the wall. I’m thinking of nothing, but then get a little alarm bell ringing in my head. Something’s not right. It’s the bar noise. It’s as if someone just turned the volume right down.

  Instinctively, I turn my head towards the entrance and then see what’s caused the sudden silence. It’s Isolda. Her appearance is so arrestingly and deviantly exotic and sexual that everyone in the bar, men and women, are staring at her open-mouthed.

  I’ll start with the provocative, figure-enhancing, black under-bust corset, shall I? Made from thick, ridged leather with five burnished silver clasps down the busk, this pinches her waist in such a way that not only draws the eyes to her spectacular bust, but also weaponises her breathtakingly wide hips. Under it, she wears a plain, white, thick cotton shirt with the top four buttons undone. This doesn’t actually expose a huge amount of cleavage, but you feel it might if she moved in the right way.

  She’s moving in the r
ight way.

  At a glance, it’s impossible to tell whether she’s wearing any sort of bra or not, but I’m already past the point of caring about trifling details such as that.

  Her skirt is black, short, perhaps twelve inches above the knee and the look is completed by sheer black stockings and four-inch heels. She’s done something with her hair which makes it seem, well, bigger, and it’s glistening with some sort of treatment or other. Add to that a slash of bright red lipstick and a touch of green eye shadow and the overall effect is stunning, deeply sensual and worryingly overpowering.

  Slightly dizzy with sensory overload, I have to put a hand on the bar to push myself up to a standing position. We kiss each other on both cheeks and I get a blast of that musky perfume again. In those heels, she’s almost as tall as I am. I briefly rest a hand on one of her hips. Our mouths are about six inches apart and I can smell mint on her breath.

  ‘You look absolutely amazing.’

  ‘Thank you, kind sir. I thought if I was going to have dinner with a genuine private detective I’d better look the part.’

  ‘You’re a real femme fatale.’

  Did I just say that? I do believe I did. She looks pleased and grins.

  ‘Thank you!’

  I let her walk in front of me so I can watch that hair cascade down her back, glance at the tight lacing and see the effect that the tightness of the corset is having on her rear. The result is uncompromisingly intoxicating, and I feel an involuntary twitch in my hand, like my mind is suggesting I give her ass a hard slap – a very hard slap.

  We sit down at the bar. I order another double vodka and soda (I need it) and Isolda asks for a Bitter Crush. She crosses her legs as she takes the first sip of her cocktail. She’s wearing hold-ups with a black and red lace top, not that I’m looking.

  The bar noise has gone back to normal now everyone’s had a good look. The perfume she’s wearing is something else; notes of lily of the valley, cloves, myrrh, orange blossom and cedar wood. It makes the air around us sparkle. The bar guy can’t take his eyes off her. I can’t remember why I’m here. I must say something.

  ‘I’ve got to ask you, Isolda. Who tightened and tied up the back of your corset?’

  She laughs. ‘I might have just slipped into it for all you know.’

  ‘I have my doubts about that.’

  ‘I asked the cab driver to do it on the way over here.’

  ‘Was that his tip? I’m in the wrong job.’

  ‘I had no idea detectives were so droll.’

  ‘I’m the only one like that. It’s a gift. And a curse.’

  ‘I got a friend of mine to come around and help me with it. Her name’s Kitty. She’s a freelance stylist for a couple of fashion magazines. She managed to force me into it so that all the bumps were in the right places. It’s quite a skill. You don’t think it’s too much, do you? This is the first time I’ve worn it out anywhere.’

  ‘Of course not. I’ll probably be all right in a few days. I can’t speak for everyone else in the bar, though.’ Even though everyone’s chatting again, the number of sly glances I’ve spotted in the last minute must run into hundreds.

  ‘I’ll let you into a secret,’ she says, conspiratorially. ‘It was a freebie. I went to a shoot with a friend of mine about a year ago. It was for some high-end fetish wear catalogue. Some of the companies sent two or three different sizes for each garment. As you’ve probably realised, I take quite a large size in most things and this was much too big for the model they were using, but fitted me perfectly. They said I could have it, which was amazing of them. I could never have afforded it. It would have been well over three thousand pounds if you bought it in a shop.’

  ‘It looks great on you.’

  ‘Thank you! I know it pushes my boobs up and makes my ass stick out and it’s a bit outrageous, but it just feels so great having it tight against my body. I couldn’t really wear a bra with it, but I don’t think it really matters with this shirt.

  ‘I always used to wonder what the fuss was about corsets, you know? The sexual thing about them? Now I can see. They make you feel, like submissively restrained but powerful and assertive at the same time. Both those feelings together make you feel, well, wow, you know?’

  I take a sip of my drink to kill the dryness that’s suddenly taken over the inside of my mouth. ‘I couldn’t imagine anywhere except Central London where you could go out wearing something like that,’ I say, uselessly.

  She leans towards me and places a hand on my knee. Her long fingernails are blood red. ‘I know. I barely got a second glance when I came in here. It was as if I was invisible.’ She laughs at her own gag. It’s a throaty, dirty laugh. She looks at her watch. ‘Shall we have another one and then go over to the restaurant? I’m starting to feel ravenous.’

  Me too.

  6

  THE PERFUME RIVER

  The Perfume River is fabulous and the food delicious. For her main course, Isolda has some sort of highly spiced shrimp kebab, but with lemongrass skewers instead of wooden ones. I have a grilled eel dish which is unexpectedly fiery and makes me perspire after one mouthful.

  More small dishes start appearing, as if we’d inadvertently ordered something by mistake, but we eat it all anyway. As she eats, I watch her mouth. I can imagine kissing that mouth, devouring it and devouring her. Making her gasp and cry out; finishing her off, making her submit, enslaving her.

  We have a break before ordering any sort of dessert and order a couple of Absolut Bellinis. I don’t normally drink cocktails, but they seem to go well with the exotic, colourful food that we’ve been eating. Isolda’s hand has found its way across the table and is resting on top of mine.

  ‘I have got to come here again. This is just incredible,’ she says, stroking my hand slowly. ‘And these cocktails are delish, too. I’m afraid I’m beginning to lose track of how much I’ve drunk this evening. If it goes on like this, you’re going to be taking advantage of me. I’ve read enough detective novels to know what you’re all like. We’re all just dames to you, aren’t we. There to be ruthlessly ravished and tossed aside the following morning.’

  ‘That’s not true. You’d be gone well before the morning.’

  ‘Mmmm. That might be the sort of bad guy treatment that turns us dames on. Maybe we like to be used and discarded. Maybe that’s our thing. Maybe it makes us feel good. Maybe it makes us feel sizzling hot.’

  She breathes the last word, jokingly purses her lips, pushes her shoulders forward to accentuate her cleavage and dramatically flicks her hair back. To be honest, her cleavage doesn’t need any accentuating, but I let her do it anyway. One of the waiters catches my eye and winks.

  I rest my chin on my hand and peer across at her through half closed eyes. ‘Her name was Isolda. She had a mouth made for the worse sort of sin and a body that made decent, churchgoing men dream about pushing their wives and children off a cliff.’

  ‘I can see I must wear this corset more often!’ She leans towards me and whispers, ‘You wouldn’t believe what it looks like without the shirt.’

  ‘You’ve tried it?’

  ‘Oh yes.’

  Oh God.

  She laughs wickedly and takes another sip from her cocktail. I put that image out of my mind, but it’s hard in more ways than one. I’ve been waiting for her to talk about Sara without me forcing it. I want the moment to be natural, so she doesn’t think I’m mixing work with pleasure, which, of course, I am.

  ‘Are you ready to order a dessert yet?’ I say. She shakes her head. ‘OK. No pressure. I don’t really feel like one myself. I ate lunch pretty late today when I went to the Wallace Collection with your boss.’

  I bring us towards the subject of Sara. Now I swerve away from it.

  ‘I’ve never been there before. That’s a pretty amazing restaurant they’ve got. Fantastic food. It’s one of those places that’re in the centre of London that a lot of people don’t know about. The Laughing Cavalier’s there, did you know?
And if you’re a fan of eighteenth-century French musical clocks, you need look no further.’

  She laughs, looks downward and runs a finger around the rim of her cocktail glass. ‘Yes, I’ve been there with Sara a few times. It’s handy and usually quiet in the daytime.’ She looks up and looks me straight in the eye. ‘So what’s your take on the Sara problem so far? Oh, I’m sorry. You probably can’t talk about it. Forget I asked. Client confidentially and all of that.’

  For a second, I wonder if she’s playing the same game as me. I push the topic away, but not too much. ‘Well I haven’t got anything to talk about yet. I don’t really start work on it all properly until tomorrow. We’ll see what happens. It’s often useful to have some time to let the facts sink in to your brain. Sometimes a solution will reveal itself quite early on if you’re incredibly lucky.’

  I take a slug from my glass and look to my left as a group of six women come in, looking for a table. There isn’t one and they leave, disappointed. It’s a shame; two of the women look fabulous, both wearing low-cut backless maxi-dresses. I presume they’re going on somewhere later and I wonder where. Maybe I should ask. A place where women like that hang out might be worth a visit.

  So now I change the subject entirely. ‘This is a really popular place. I’m glad we booked in advance.’ One of the waiters is hovering and asks us if we’d like to order a dessert. He’s been hovering since we sat down; such is the Isolda effect. ‘No, thanks,’ I say, pointing at our empty glasses. ‘But could we have two more of these?’

  The waiter smiles, nods, takes a last grinning look at Isolda and heads for the bar. She flashes me a look of mock concern.

  ‘Are you trying to get me drunk?’

  ‘Any decent man would do the same.’

  ‘Are you a decent man?’

  ‘Not the last time I checked.’

  ‘Mm. I may have to put that to the test.’

  ‘I’ll look forward to it.’