by Mia Dolan
‘Be careful,’ Allegra said before Marcie had buttoned her coat.
Marcie pretended she hadn’t heard, but she had. She knew she had to be careful. Michael would be horrified if he knew, but she hadn’t yet told him that she was intending to run the Blue Genie herself. So far the manager, Kevin McGregor, had taken care of things. But at the end of the day, it paid for the owner to keep their eye on things and Marcie intended doing just that. There was also the matter of keeping her ear to the ground. Any whispers from the underworld were bound to be picked up there, not sitting at home waiting for things to happen.
She drove her car to the club. The pavements were wet and icy. The night was cold.
The weather wouldn’t make that much difference to the punters. Men liked to unwind and a nightclub was the place to do it in.
Olivia Oliver was dancing tonight. She was a great favourite with the crowds and had trained as a Bluebell Girl. Her legs were long, her figure looked as though she’d been poured into a perfect mould: full breasts, narrow waist and rounded hips.
There was also a singer tonight, a woman named Cressida Carter. She sang in bare feet like Sandie Shaw, though the dress she wore revealed more length of naked thigh than Miss Shaw had ever exposed.
After saying hello to Jimmy and Kevin, Marcie made for Michael’s office.
Kevin had looked apprehensive that she was here at all. She’d had to explain to him that she was not here to spy on him.
‘I’ll be in the office. Can you come along once I’ve got myself settled?’
He said that he would.
Once in the office she took off her coat and hung it on the hook behind the door. Fighting off the urge to shiver, she ran her hands down her skirt, took a deep breath and looked around her.
Michael’s office at the Blue Genie seemed cold and empty without him in it. It was swish all the same, a glass and chrome desk dominating the room, a six-foot tall rubber plant growing from a pot in the corner.
She contemplated what was on her mind. This was where someone had planted a gun. But who?
Everything seemed as it usually was. The desk and safe were firmly locked, but she had the keys.
Speculating about what had happened here was useless without concrete evidence. Nobody had a clue about the gun.
She opened the desk drawer, slowly pulling it out just in case something had been left behind, something that the police may have overlooked. There was nothing.
Closing the drawer, she eyed the desk itself and imagined his hands resting there, flicking through files or accounts books.
A pink blotting pad, a silver-plated inkstand and a writing pad drew her attention. She thought about sitting there and writing to him, telling him that she was not going to sell anything; telling him that she had every intention of taking his place.
Writing was so much easier than facing him. If she told him to his face he’d try to talk her out of it. On the other hand, she didn’t want to be dishonest. Like he’d said to her, ‘I want to be kept informed of what’s going on. I want top dollar for the place. Just remember that.’
Jacob would act in that regard of course, but not until she’d given him leave to sell – if indeed she did sell.
For the moment she needed time so decided not to write to him. There was bound to be something she could learn here. She’d tell him face to face the next time she visited. Telling him wasn’t so easy. She’d tried and failed on her last visit. The words never came. But at some point they had to, preferably before someone else told him. And what about Carla’s contact? Carla had promised to get back to her but hadn’t, not yet.
She pulled back the curtain behind Michael’s desk and looked in on the studio couch on which he slept when he’d stayed here into the early hours of the morning. Had anyone else slept there with him?
A knock at the door roused her from pretty miserable thoughts.
‘Come in.’
Kevin McGregor barely fitted across the width of the doorway. He fully accepted that she was overseeing things on her husband’s behalf, but had no idea that any sale, partnership or takeover was imminent. That was the kind of information she kept to herself.
Kevin’s expression was grim. It was never any different. ‘How are things?’
She shrugged. ‘As well as can be expected. I wanted to ask you about the gun. You saw Michael with it in his hand?’
‘He took it from the desk drawer and asked if it was mine. I told him I’d never seen it before.’
‘And then he put it in the safe.’
‘Yes.’
‘Did you see anyone else come into the office that night? Anyone who shouldn’t be in here?’
He shook his head. ‘No. I did not.’
Marcie sighed and hung her head. ‘No man. No woman.’
‘As I said, no. Everything was normal that night.’
‘Normal?’
It was the way he said the word ‘normal’ that caught her attention.
‘Aye. It was normal. Not like the night before when the police came by because of the fight outside. They suggested we close to avoid further trouble.’
Marcie frowned. This was the first she’d heard of any fight. ‘So who were they?’
‘Just blokes. Micks, I think.’
Marcie frowned. ‘So you closed early.’
‘As requested.’
‘There was nobody here?’
‘Only Jeff, the night watchman, though he was a bit late. Not that it mattered much. Everything had gone quiet. Old Jeff likes it quiet. He sets his alarm clock to do his rounds, but snoozes in between the times it goes off.’
Marcie nodded silently. She knew old Jeff’s routine as well as Kevin did. Michael often laughed at the old man’s antics, the large enamel-plated alarm clock complete with a pair of bells that clattered like an express train every two hours. Two hours was thought to be enough of a time lapse. Up until now it had been. Now Marcie was wondering whether old Jeff had missed something very important.
Kevin spoke. ‘Your father’s in.’
Absentmindedly she checked the duty roster for the doormen and general security staff. Her father’s name wasn’t on the list. ‘It’s not his night to be in.’
‘I think he’s drowning his sorrows.’
‘Think his latest girlfriend has chucked him out?’
‘Probably.’
Marcie swore and rubbed her forehead with fingers that had become stiff with tension. ‘I’ll deal with it. I’ll be right out.’
Tony Brooks ordered himself another double Irish then immediately changed his mind. ‘Make it Scotch. Stuff the bloody Irish!’
The barman did as directed.
‘And put it on the tab,’ Tony added.
He downed the drink in one swift move, the taste in his mouth sour and his head throbbing with too many thoughts, every one of which was a problem.
First his son-in-law charged with murder, then Babs filing for divorce, swiftly followed by the news about his mother. Worst of all was the guilt he was carrying around with him. How the bloody hell would he explain what he’d done? How could he explain?
‘Another. Make it a triple,’ he said to the barman.
‘No. You’ve had enough.’
Marcie’s voice was crisp – just as her mother’s used to be. Tony looked up at his daughter with bloodshot eyes.
‘Babs wants a divorce.’
Marcie cocked one eyebrow as though surprised, which was far from the truth. Her father’s visits to the Isle of Sheppey were becoming less frequent. Even when he did go back, he didn’t stay long visiting his mother, seeing his kids and avoiding his second wife if at all possible.
‘That’s a surprise. I thought your latest girlfriend had thrown you out.’
‘What girlfriend?’
Marcie grimaced. It was no big deal that her father was lying and she couldn’t totally condemn his behaviour. Babs was hardly a saint.
‘Dad. I’m all grown up.’
He chose to
disregard her comment. ‘I’ve got a lot of worries in my life. Like they say, it never rains but it pours.’
‘Oh, yeah. Like what?’ She couldn’t help the mocking tone.
‘Your gran’s on her way out.’
Marcie felt her breath catch in her throat. Her father getting divorced she could cope with. Her grandmother being seriously ill was something else. Rosa Brooks had brought her up and was everything to her. She didn’t know what to say. She didn’t know what to think or how to cope with this. Being young it had never seemed to occur to her that something bad could ever happen to someone she loved. She wanted to ask for more details but couldn’t. Why was that, she asked herself? The answer came swiftly: you’re afraid of what you might hear.
She watched her father’s finger circling the lip of the glass.
‘What’s wrong with her? She seemed OK when I last saw her and I’ve phoned her since. She didn’t say anything.’ To her own ears her voice sounded clipped and uncaring, but she knew that wasn’t true. The fact was if she showed her emotion she would burst into tears. She wouldn’t be able to cope.
If what her father said was true, why hadn’t she noticed anything? She hated herself for being so wrapped up in her own life and taking her grandmother for granted.
‘You’ve got enough on your plate,’ her father said, glad that he’d cottoned on to something that made sense to his getting drunk. There was no way on earth that he could tell her the truth about what had happened with regard to her husband. She’d never have anything to do with him again. Michael will get off without your help, he’d said to himself. The truth was he wasn’t sure of that at all. The booze had dulled his senses so that he didn’t notice her tears or the trembling of her voice. But that was Tony Brooks. If he didn’t want to notice something, he wouldn’t.
‘Want a drink?’ he asked, lifting his own glass with hope in his eyes.
Marcie shook her head. ‘I don’t drink on duty.’
Her father looked as though she’d slapped his face. ‘You sound like a copper.’
‘Hardly likely at this moment in time,’ she said with a glower. ‘My husband’s in prison, remember? Now come on, Dad. You’d better get off home. I’ve had enough of you for one night.’ She gritted her teeth. There was so much more she could say and none of it good. She was hurting but he hadn’t really noticed.
‘Can’t I stay here?’ he asked hopefully.
She sighed. He could be as boyish and appealing as Arnold or Archie when he wanted.
Silently calling herself a sucker, she gave in. ‘Get in the back room.’ Anyway, what did she care where he was? Tonight she felt weighed down with worry. Tonight he could do what he wanted.
The back room she referred to was the small sitting area behind Michael’s desk in the office and the studio couch she’d eyed with such trepidation earlier.
On her first night at the club following Michael’s arrest, she’d lain down on the studio couch where he himself had admitted to grabbing forty winks when working to the wee hours became too much. On that particular night she’d stroked the rough red moquette wondering if he had lain there with Linda Bell. The thought of it had clamped around her heart like an iron fist. She could not believe that their marriage was a sham and his fidelity pure fiction. He’d told her that Linda Bell was a liar and she’d chosen to believe him. She had to believe him or she couldn’t love him any more.
She gave her father the key to the office. ‘I’ll be along in a minute.’
‘That’s my girl,’ he said blithely, relieved that she’d noticed nothing odd about his behaviour. You’ve given nothing away, Tony my boy, he thought to himself and breathed a deep sigh. With nervous fingers he held on to the bar counter for support.
The guilt suddenly crept up on him. Of course he had to say something! What sort of father would he be if he didn’t?
‘There was something . . .’
He started to think about doing the right thing, but Marcie was already checking the barman’s stock receipts. Nobody got any booze from the cellar without a signed stock receipt. She didn’t hear him.
If Tony Brooks was half the man he thought he was, he would have interrupted and confessed there and then that he might very well have had something to do with the gun the police had found in Michael’s office. The trouble was he couldn’t be sure about it.
Again and again he’d gone over that night in his mind, the night when a fight had broken out outside.
He’d been well and truly smashed just like on that other occasion when Alan Taylor had tricked him into thinking he’d murdered somebody. This time he’d been in the company of a gang of Irish bricklayers and such like; rough men over from Ireland brought in to raise tower blocks on the cleared bomb-sites left over from the war. Tower blocks were springing up like mushrooms all over London. ‘Cities in the Sky’ they were calling them, modern living for a modern age.
He didn’t rate them himself but much preferred a house with a garden front and rear – a bit like the one he’d grown up in. Still, if it gave some poor blokes a job . . .
The Irish had been talking tough and egging him on.
‘Tony, you’re just the broom that sweeps up the rubbish in the morning.’
That’s what they’d said to him when he said that he worked in a nightclub – correction – that he’d actually owned a nightclub.
‘And I’d slug any bloke who wants to tell me otherwise,’ he added with his usual gusto.
The plain fact of the matter was that he couldn’t bear anybody being tougher than he was. It was kind of like a right for him to be the toughest of all. In reality it wasn’t strictly true, but he had a reputation to maintain. He’d told them he was Michael Jones’ right-hand man because the owner of the Blue Genie was married to his daughter. In fact he told them that they were partners.
‘Yer lying. We don’t believe you, do we, boys?’
The others had chorused that they didn’t believe him either.
He was being egged on but the booze had blunted his judgement. Unwilling to appear weak and watery, he’d said he would show them, that he would prove he was telling the truth.
He’d taken the keys from out of his pocket.
‘Follow me,’ he’d said to them. ‘Come into my office for a nightcap.’
Nobody had challenged him. He’d heard about the fight and guessed things had shut down early on the insistence of the police. The fact was that some of the toffs who attended the club wouldn’t go near it with a ten-foot barge pole if the police were hanging around. Business would be too slow to bother with so everyone had gone home – with the exception of the night watchman of course and he only came round every two hours. Tony decided that if he timed it right they would be gone before he came round, and so he asked his Irish friends if they’d like to come into Michael’s office for a nightcap . . .
It had been Michael’s night off and somehow or other he’d managed to sneak them in just as the doorman was otherwise engaged. Even when he did notice Tony he only threw a quick nod of recognition in his direction. Tony was a face, a member of the family, and therefore beyond reproach.
After a few more drinks he’d gone to the bathroom, leaving them knocking back a few more whiskies. Immediately on getting back they’d said their goodnights – well, it was two in the morning. He himself had fallen into a deep sleep on the studio couch in the little restroom behind Michael’s office. That was where he’d woken up desperate to get out before he had to face Michael and apologise for drinking his whisky. Not that it would have been the first time. Michael kept good whiskies for visitors and business associates, though he knew Tony sampled a few.
Michael didn’t mind that, of course. Tony was family and this was typical of the nightclub scene – family and friends – whoever they might be.
Chapter Twenty-two
CARLA CASEY BLEW out a cloud of cigarette smoke with such force that Sam Kendal half expected her to hoot like a steam train.
‘I can’t un
derstand why you don’t just up and tell her. For Christ’s sake, Mary, she’s your daughter.’
The woman she addressed threw her a warning look. ‘Don’t call me that. I’m Sam Kendal and don’t you bloody forget it!’
‘OK. Sam. Whatever. I know you’re thinking about Leo, but is he likely to notice, the state he’s in? Anyway, she’s still your daughter. Are you going to help her out?’
Samantha Kendal was imposing, glamorous and as hard as nails. She threw Carla a warning glare. ‘Leo has been good to me. I won’t chance hurting him. Besides, it’s only a matter of time.’
Carla had lied to Marcie about her mother’s husband but felt no guilt. She’d failed to mention a lot of other stuff too – in fact she’d done a lot of lying on her boss’s account.
Leo was a lot older than Sam when they met and married. After being raped by Alan Taylor, the new woman who’d merged from the carcase of the old was bereft not just of memory but of some of her basic characteristics. It was as if the kinder part of her had been overruled by her strength and the determination to overcome anything. The good fairy had turned into something darker, something she herself sometimes found difficult to live with and was almost surprised at.
Sam Kendal was taller than her daughter, still attractive, her figure upright and not prone to middle-aged spread like Carla.
Carla watched her as she stalked the room. She feared but also admired her. The way she paced made her look as though she were the commander of an army contemplating the strategy of battle. In a way she was. Leo was knocking eighty-five. Not having any sons to carry on in his criminal wake and being unwilling to share responsibility with any of his closest partners, he’d decided that Sam would be the conduit for his will. Sam had been running things for a long time.
As it turned out the arrangement worked well. Sam fitted easily into the groove he’d carved for her. Leo respected her and, on seeing that he did, the hard men that worked for him respected her too. She had the maturity and she had his backing. She was a woman, but not one to be messed with and nobody ever did.