by D. E. White
He was a good few inches taller than me, which also pissed me off.
The others called to him then, and the good-looking woman in the sexy black dress asked if he would rather sit this one out. She was laughing. They all were. Laughing and excited.
It was then I knew I’d lied to myself when I was a skinny teenager. I wasn’t sorry I had attacked Ellis. I was just sorry I hadn’t killed him.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
There was no way, Dove thought, as she walked into the plush marble-tiled lobby of California Dreams that evening, that she was ever going to be happy at the sight of her niece writhing around a pole in front of an audience.
Colin, the manager, was setting up goodie bags for tonight’s corporate event. It never failed to surprise Dove how many big businesses felt a strip club constituted a fun night out for the staff, or even how, in this enlightened day and age, they got away with it.
But Gaia had branched out and now ran pole-dancing fitness classes in the mornings, hosted hen parties in the afternoons, and still managed to keep her regulars happy at night.
“How’s she doing?” Colin asked now.
“Fine. As you probably know, she’s driving the hospital staff mad, but the X-ray showed there was some water in her lungs, so she had to stay in.”
Colin grinned. “That will be why she yelled at me when I asked if she was okay. I’m only doing texts from now on. She must be the world’s worst patient, but I’m just so relieved she’s okay. How can I help you, anyway?”
“Just popped in to pick up Delta. We’ve got a dinner date at her mum’s place. Sorry, I thought she finished at seven.” Dove jangled her car keys in one hand, keen to make a quick getaway.
“She was supposed to, but Poppy never showed,” Colin sighed. “It’s so tough to get reliable staff in this industry. Delta’s filling in for half an hour, but if you want to wait at the bar, I’ll go and shout into the dressing room to get her to hurry up as soon as she’s off stage.”
“Thanks, Colin.” Reluctantly, Dove made her way across the floor, weaving her way around tables, and seated herself at the bar, legs crossed.
She ordered a Coke and tried not to feel so uncomfortable in Gaia’s club. Ren had always said she would never willingly set foot in the place, especially now her daughter was actually employed there.
Several girls were working the floor, chatting to the customers, serving drinks, flirting and laughing. Dove caught sight of Delta pulling off a particularly raunchy move and turned hastily away, almost choking on her drink.
As she did so, her arm caught a girl walking past with two champagne glasses, and the glasses fell to the floor. “Oh, I’m so sorry,” Dove apologised, leaping to her feet.
The girl tottered on her high heels and stared at her like a frightened deer. She was very pretty in a delicate, elfin, blonde kind of way, and she had a distinctive and intricate tattoo on her bare shoulder. Dove’s photographic memory recalled Delta’s screensaver. “Abi, hi.”
The barman was already coming round with a dustpan and brush to clear up the mess, and he addressed a few amused and sarcastic remarks to Abi about her clumsiness.
Abi just stared at Dove, before she cleared her throat. “You’re Delta’s aunt.”
“Dove Milson. Nice to meet you properly. Delta’s always telling me about how the two of you are saving up to go travelling.” Dove smiled at her, noticing to her relief that her niece had been replaced on stage by another girl.
“Yeah . . . Yeah, we are.” Abi’s face was so milk-white, Dove worried she was about to faint. The pale blue eyes, lined with masses of black eyeliner and mascara, seemed huge, and emphasised her fragility. “You’re a police detective. Delta talks about you a lot too.”
“Well, I’ll let you get on then,” Dove said, as Abi just stood there staring at her. The girl was the total opposite of the sparkly, mischievous character Delta had always portrayed. Maybe she was just having a bad day.
“Yeah . . . See you.” Abi swung away in apparent relief, and something about the movement caught Dove’s attention. A half memory, the face in profile . . .
Watching Abi picking up another tray, serving fresh glasses of champagne, Dove was sure. Faces and facts were her thing, she had discovered early on. Sometimes it took a while to place things, but today it took mere seconds for her to be fairly sure where she recognised the girl from.
Abi had been the second attacker in the car park, where Alex Harbor had suffered a few broken bones and loss of dignity. Dove watched her thoughtfully as she sipped her drink. It was more of an impression than a memory, but the girl moved distinctively, lightly, like the dancer she was. She exchanged a couple of words with a performer in red lace lingerie sitting on the smaller stage, tossing her hair to one side as the woman laughed at something.
Dove drained her glass and set it down with a little thump, thinking hard. If the second person was Abi, who was the man?
As Dove considered grabbing Abi for a chat, Delta came out of one of the side doors, dressed now in loose tracksuit bottoms and a cropped yoga top, her hair tied up in a ponytail, make-up washed off.
“Delta!” Colin paused on his way past them. “I’ve told you before not to come through here when you aren’t dressed.”
“I am dressed,” Delta said, but she held out a placating hand. “Okay, sorry, I know. I just forgot, and Dove’s been waiting for me.”
Delta waved to Abi as they left the club, and the other girl, preoccupied with customers, smiled back half-heartedly, her eyes straying to Dove once again.
“It’s great of you to give me a lift,” Delta said, chucking her bag in Dove’s car.
“No worries.”
Her niece shot her a knowing sideways glance, dark blue eyes narrowing. “But it clearly wasn’t to save me getting the bus in the boiling heat. I don’t need another lecture on my job choice.”
Dove pulled her sunglasses on and considered which topic to tackle first. It was only a fifteen-minute drive to Ren’s place, and she needed to probe the subject of Abi without getting her niece involved. She decided to switch gears. “I imagine you still keep in touch with your friends from that online vigilante set-up . . .”
Delta pulled out a packet of salt-and-vinegar crisps from her bag and ripped it open. “You want information.” She sounded pleased, as Dove had known she would.
“I do. Ellis Bravery. Does the name ring any bells?”
“One of the men who was murdered at the escape rooms? Nope, but I’ve seen the pictures in the paper. He’s never come up on our hit list. I mean . . .” she corrected herself quickly, “historically, I mean.”
“Right.” Dove waited. “What about the website Fantasy Play?”
“Mmmm . . . I have heard of them.” Delta licked sticky fingers and hooked around in her crisp packet for the last crumbs. “I’m starving, do you have any sweets?”
Dove pulled open the glove compartment, and Delta swiped a couple of packets of multicoloured jelly sweets.
“They started in 2018 as an online pay-to-watch outfit, but last year they began to organise local hook-ups.” Delta looked over at her aunt as they navigated a busy roundabout. “You know this.”
“I do, but carry on.”
“Right. They were legit when they were online only, and had a strict moderator, but word is since they started bringing their fantasy play time out on to the streets, it’s become a go-to for prostitutes and their pimps.”
“So?”
“So it’s not just sad people who want sex their partner doesn’t know about. It’s become a lure for actual pay-to-play,” Delta explained. “The Nicholls brothers apparently have a business interest.”
“Why would they go from legit to doing business with those bastards?” Dove wondered aloud. She wasn’t entirely surprised, but it would make it harder to investigate. The Nicholls were a local crime family, notorious for evading arrest, with a whole nest of criminal lawyers who got them off charge after charge. They had both done t
ime in prison, but it made no difference to their business interests. Their families ran things while they were put away, and as soon as they were out, they took up the reins again.
Delta made the ‘money’ sign, rubbing her fingers and thumb together. “Some people have got some weird fantasies. The harder it is to make happen, the more they’ll pay. As we know,” she added carefully, as always mindful that her own father was currently serving time for, among other things, running a paedophile ring with the once notorious Glass Dolls Killer.
Dove leaned over and squeezed her hand, sensing where her thoughts had gone, her heart wrenching at the sick legacy her former brother-in-law had left his daughters. “Hey, have you just eaten four packets?”
“They’re very small packets,” Delta informed her. “And I’m still hungry. Did you get to talk to Abi?”
Indicating the coast road, which should have been a shortcut to Ren’s house but was currently rammed with tourist traffic, Dove took the conversational gambit smoothly. “Not really. She was in a hurry. I did think she was very unlike your descriptions, though.”
Delta was biting her nails now, long hair falling forwards to hide her expression. “Yeah . . . Hey, look, I can see Mum in the garden.”
Cursing the sudden gap in the traffic and the bad timing, Dove pulled up outside her sister’s house and waved.
Her eldest niece, Eden, was playing with her son in a paddling pool by the roses. His delighted giggles and splashes made Dove smile as she opened the gate.
“Any more news on Gaia?” Ren asked, after she had hugged her daughter and sister.
“I rang her this morning, and she said they were going to let her out tomorrow, but I’m guessing you probably spoke to her more recently than that?” Dove said. The sun had come out properly again, but the sizzling heat of the past few weeks had passed, and a light breeze rustled through the hedge. The clouds were light and drifting briskly across the blueness.
“She’s got another phone now. Colin brought it in for her, apparently. You know, she must be more shaken up than she admits, or she would have walked out by now,” Ren said, worry creasing her forehead. Her mop of glossy black curls was tied up in a red headscarf, and she was wearing a forties-style white summer dress, which showed off her curves.
“I agree, but at least we can be sure she’s on the mend. She said she’d already booked in with her hairdresser, and she was going back to short hair to sort out the mess her stitches have made.” Dove smiled fondly. Gaia was always perfectly groomed. She must be going nuts in her regulation hospital gown with half her head shaved and no make-up.
“And Uri and Colin have got her back at the club,” Dove commented. She hesitated, a memory of Abi flitting through her mind, and quickly changed the subject. “You look amazing. How do you always look so gorgeous?”
“Natural talent,” Ren winked. “Don’t be stupid, I’ve been trying to diet all summer, but you know how much I love trifles and white wine . . . and . . .”
“Ren, for God’s sake, you don’t need to lose weight.” Dove rolled her eyes, and picked up a strawberry tart from the wooden table in the centre of the front garden. It was a perfect suntrap, even in late evening, with the high hedges creating enough shade to sprawl on blankets tossed on the grass.
Today, as the lawn and garden furniture were wet, Ren had brought out a few chairs from her kitchen. Dove sank down on to a red-and-white-check cushion and stretched her legs out, closing her eyes briefly. “God, I’m so tired.”
“I feel a bit like that too,” Ren admitted. “I think it must be the worry about Gaia. Worse for you because you were actually there . . .” There was a note of concern in her voice.
Dove managed to smile at her sister. “It’s okay, honestly. Now we know she’s fine and coming out of hospital, I think about it a whole lot less.”
While Delta and Eden played with the little boy, sailing boats in his paddling pool and getting far wetter than they needed to, the older women caught up with family news.
“I can’t believe it’s still this warm at nine o’clock, especially after the rain earlier,” Dove said, gulping down her iced juice.
“Mmmm . . . Do you know who attacked Gaia yet?” Ren asked, returning once again to the subject that was clearly foremost in both their minds.
“Not my case, as you know, but I am keeping an eye on it.” Dove was wondering how soon she could get Delta for a quick chat, or whether she should just see DI Rankin in the morning. Delta had been about to say something before they arrived. Oh shit, on top of everything else she was going to have to explain to Rankin she thought she might have identified one of the Claw Beach suspects based on an impression. In the dark.
“And you had your head bashed in fairly recently,” Ren prodded, leaning closer to Dove.
“Wrong place, wrong time,” Dove reassured her. “It was a robbery and I walked in on it.” She could see how Abi might be able to lure men into meeting her through her job at the club. Presumably her accomplice lay in wait and then provided the violent aspect. It was a classic move. And he would be what? A boyfriend? Pimp? Did Abi do drugs?
“I don’t want any more hassle,” Ren said now. “I’ve got my family and my business as my rock and I need to keep it that way.”
Beneath her air of maternal confidence, her generous hugs and smiles, Dove always hurt for her sister because she could detect traces of the scars left by her ex-husband. In this spirit, and because it was an ongoing police investigation, she didn’t feel she could share any of what was currently on her mind. She hastily searched for less sensitive topics. “Quinn and I have set a date.”
“You have?” Ren glowed.
“Next summer. Twenty-sixth of July, and we’re going to have a church service . . .”
“You hate all that stuff, and you aren’t even a tiny bit religious.”
“I don’t hate it, I just feel a bit weird that the only time I go to church is for weddings and funerals. It feels hypocritical,” Dove explained.
“Where are you having the reception?”
“On the beach if the weather is good, but we’ll book a conference room at the hotel too. The patio opens right on to the shingle, so if it’s raining we can all stay dry and just look at the beach longingly,” Dove said, grinning.
“Sounds perfect.” Ren beamed and leaned over for another quick hug.
Dove tried to speak to Delta on the way home, but her niece determinedly changed the subject. It was dark when they parked on the side of the road, and the air was cool.
A red van was parked just behind Dove’s usual spot, and she had to inch her car in. There was a footpath on the left, cutting between two houses, winding through the back of the fish market and down to the beach. High hedges sheltered the path and as Dove turned to say something to her niece, she saw Delta was staring down the footpath, frozen.
Before she could say anything else, a hooded figure erupted from the hedge, running fast. The figure nearly ran right into Delta, put out his arms to steady her, muttered an apology, and ran on, trainers thudding on the pavement.
“Are you okay?” Dove was next to Delta, pulling her round to face her. The girl’s eyes were wide and terrified, but she recovered quickly, shaking off Dove’s hand and trying to smile. “Of course. Sorry, just freaked me out. I didn’t hear him coming.”
“Did you know him?” Dove’s own heart rate was slowing now, but she kept glancing after the runner. It had seemed like an accident, and nobody had been hurt. So why was Delta so shaken?
“No! Of course not, how could I? Come on, I’m knackered and I just want to get to sleep,” Delta said, leading the way in.
Quinn had made up a bed for Delta on the sofa, and left an ancient, almost-bald teddy bear, a relic from his own youth, on the pillow. Dove smiled. “He’s such a goofball.”
“You love him, though,” Delta said, dumping her bag and rummaging for toiletries. Toothbrush in hand, she turned towards the kitchen.
“Of course. Delta?
I’m not trying to pry or anything, but you would tell me if there was something wrong, wouldn’t you?” Even as the words came out, Dove knew it was a pathetic attempt to reassure herself.
“Yup, and I’m fine. I’ll just grab some water and go to sleep.” Delta smiled at her aunt. “Stop being a detective for like five seconds and go and have sex with your fiancé or something!”
“Delta!”
“What? I will tell you if I need help, okay?” Delta’s voice was sharp with irritation, and she was scowling at her aunt.
“Okay, okay.” Dove gave up and left her to it, wearily walking barefoot upstairs.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Quinn woke up as Dove was leaving the next morning, but Delta lay snoring in her nest on the sofa.
“How long is she staying?” Quinn asked, taking the mug of steaming coffee Dove passed him.
“Just a couple of days, she said.” Dove sighed, pushing her hair out of her eyes and yawning. “Something’s going on with her, and it isn’t just her row with Ren.” She told him of her suspicions about Abi.
His green eyes were serious, despite the tousled morning hair and stubble. “Do you think Delta is in danger?”
“No . . . I mean, she’s smart and I believe her when she says she would tell me if she needed help, but I think it might be more that she suspects Abi is up to something.”
“If she knew her best friend was involved in attacking Gaia, there is no question she would tell you,” Quinn stated.
“I know, which is why I think she’s just concerned about Abi.” Dove looked down at her phone. “Shit, I’ve got to go. See if Delta will go out on the boards with you this morning. She might tell you what’s wrong. See you tonight.”
“Will do. See you later, babe.” He sat back against the pillows, smiling at her, coffee in his hands. “Shame you can’t come back to bed for a bit.”
At that moment there was a clatter and thump downstairs, and Dove grinned at her fiancé. “Couldn’t do that anyway, sounds like the kids are up.”