by Angela Dyson
“No not at all,” she acknowledged with a sigh and went off to take an order for a mint tea from table seven.
When she returned, she asked, “And what about you Clarry? I’ve been gabbing on about myself. Have you done anything interesting lately?”
“No, nothing really,” I answered without thinking. But that wasn’t even remotely true I thought. I said nothing to Tara but as I cleared away the cups and glasses and wiped down the tables, I recognised that now everything was over I would miss my investigations. In spite of everything that had happened, it had been interesting. And let’s not forget, dangerous I reminded myself. But still, it did leave rather a void and it was a void that I had absolutely no idea how to fill. I’d really have to think about getting a proper job sometime soon.
At twenty to twelve I left the restaurant and walked up the high street, my mind occupied with thoughts of a bath and bed. Conscious of a low-lying sense of depression, I felt weary and heavy-limbed. And so maybe it was that which caught me off guard.
I had been dimly aware of the sound of a car engine behind me, but it was only when I turned on to the Ridgeway that I realised someone was kerb-crawling me. It’s nothing to worry about I thought. Just some jerk who’ll call out something predictably disgusting and then be on his way. And so, I carried on walking whilst the car kept pace behind me. I flung a glance over my shoulder at it. It was sleek and black and expensive. I quickened my step. I looked about for passers-by, but Wednesday nights are quiet in the village and there was no one around.
A black cab with its yellow light on, tick-ticked past and as it occurred to me that I should have tried to flag it down, the car tailing me sped up and without warning came to an abrupt stop just in front of me. Two men got out. One stood directly facing me thereby blocking my path and the other was close behind me and before I realised what they were about, in one swift choreographed movement, they pushed me firmly but not roughly into the back of the car.
My heart thudded in shock and an icy-cold sweat of fear swamped my whole body. I tried to scream but no sound came out. One of the men sat beside me and the other slid into the passenger seat. The driver revved the engine and the door and window locks snapped shut. It was then that I found my voice but I couldn’t produce a scream, only a thin forlorn whimper. My brain didn’t seem to want to work. I felt stunned and stupid and so afraid that I thought I might pass out.
I looked at the man sitting beside me. Tall, lean and in a smart suit he had a goatee and was somewhere in his thirties. He looked steadily back at me but didn’t speak. Instead he reached for my handbag. I must have made a slight movement of protest for he held up a restraining hand. Then he went through my bag methodically until he produced my phone. This he placed in his pocket before handing my bag back to me.
Let him have it I told myself. Let him have it and maybe they won’t hurt me.
“Where are you taking me?” I could hear the tremor in my voice. It didn’t sound like my voice at all.
His eyes flicked dispassionately across my face but he didn’t reply.
“What do you want?” I cried, but this time he didn’t even look at me.
I took several big gulps of air, trying to regulate my breathing but that only made me choke. Stay calm. It’s vital to stay calm I thought through streaming eyes. Don’t let them know what you’re thinking. But I wasn’t thinking. I knew that. I wasn’t thinking at all, I was panicking. Recognising this fact helped me slowly, very slowly, to unclench my body and breathe normally.
I thought of my parents and of Flan. I thought of Laura and of Tim and of the dog, a spaniel called Pepe, which I used to have when I was a child. I forced myself to think happy thoughts until gradually I felt my powers of reasoning revive. My brain was back in business. Not fully, but enough to keep my fear clamped down whilst I tried to work out what the hell was going on. Who were these men and what did they want with me?
I looked at the back of the necks of the two men in the front seats but from this angle couldn’t tell if I had ever seen them before. And then I looked, for the first time, out of the window. We were on the A3 heading to central London.
As we sped through the darkness, ideas continued to pitch and roll in my mind. That this was connected to recent events I had no doubt, but weren’t all the major players either in custody or being monitored by the police? The image of Paula’s dead body flashed through my mind.
We were in the West End now and driving along Park Lane. Not once had a word been spoken by either the man with the goatee or his two companions. Five minutes later we pulled into one of the oldest and most elegant of London squares and came to a stop outside a large but discreet looking, double-fronted town house. The man with the goatee took out his mobile and dialled.
“We are here,” he said.
He listened for a moment, disconnected, and then got out of the car. Opening my door, he handed me out on to the pavement. This was it, my chance to scream, my chance to run, my chance to get away and I almost took it. I so nearly took it. But I didn’t. What would be the point? Someone obviously wanted to talk to me and if I didn’t face whoever it was now, I might be snatched again at a later date and that might be worse. A lot worse. Next time they might… I didn’t want to think about what they might do. Better to get it over with and so I followed him up the steps to a heavy blue door besides which was a gold plaque bearing the name of one of the most exclusive private clubs in the capital.
Goatee rang the bell and it was opened by a mild faced man in a braided concierge style uniform.
“Good evening,” he said but he didn’t stand aside to allow us in.
“She is expected,” said Goatee and gave me a slight push forward.
The concierge nodded and I crossed the threshold. Goatee didn’t enter with me but merely handed me my phone and then turned and made his way back down the steps.
I found myself in a large hallway painted midnight blue and decorated with gold leaf around the ceiling, in friezes and mouldings above the doors. I had an impression of rose marble and of gilt. Scrolled antique mirrors reflected the highly polished surfaces of walnut sideboards and the glimmer from a stately chandelier. A curved staircase led off and away to the upper floors. I had never been here before, but I knew of the club. A casino, a restaurant, a meeting place for the very rich it had been frequented in the past by the aristocracy, by politicians, and by Old Money. Membership was on a strict for-approval basis.
The concierge hesitated. “It has been requested that you join our member at the table but… we do require ladies to wear evening gowns.” He looked at my Abbe’s uniform of white shirt, black skirt, and low heels.
“And I look like I should be serving the drinks,” I said.
“Indeed Miss.”
“And that’s because it’s precisely what I have been doing.”
There was a pause.
“And that’s a problem,” I offered.
“It is. Perhaps you would care to wait in one of the…”
“Or,” I suggested. “Instead maybe I could be passed off as a member of staff? I could blend right in. That way you could do what was requested without offending the sensibilities of the Great and the Good. Would that work?”
A flicker of what may have been amusement crossed his face. And he had the face of a man who could not, and determinedly would not, be surprised by anything.
“It would. Follow me please Miss.”
Feeling oddly calm, I did so. The sheer solidity and history of the place was reassuring. We reached a pair of double doors opened wide to reveal the casino.
It was a magnificent room. A salon I supposed it would once have been. Two chandeliers even more impressive than the one in the hall sparkled overhead and low table lamps dotted about the room glimmered invitingly. Murals depicting French country scenes of nineteenth century ladies and gentlemen disporting themselves in rowboats
or picnicking besides a river, lined the walls. Heavy swathes of fabric looped and nodded above intimate alcoves hung with paintings in thick gold frames. One of the paintings was of a statuesque nude reclining upon a red plush chaise longue and gazing out at the assembled company with an expression not unlike that of the concierge.
And what a well-dressed affluent company it was. No, not merely affluent, rich. These people screamed money from every pore, and from every diamond. I’d never seen so many diamonds close up. They flamed and shone about the throats, around the wrists, and from the ears of women in evening dresses of every cut and colour. Lace, sequins, chiffon, velvet, in spaghetti straps or off the shoulder, sheathe like and body-hugging on the very slim or draped and ruched upon more substantial figures. No wonder the concierge had looked at me askance. The men uniformly clad in immaculately tailored suits were less interesting to look at, but I caught the flash of jewelled cufflinks and heavy linked watches as they sipped at their glasses of champagne or from cut-glass tumblers of whisky or of bourbon.
Through the tables set for blackjack and for poker I followed my guide until he indicated a table with a roulette wheel. I looked at him blankly. There were half a dozen people around it but I didn’t know any of them.
The concierge approached a woman sitting with her back to me. Diamond studded clips held her black hair up on top of her head and she was wearing a form-fitting, white sleeveless cocktail dress. When she turned around I could see that the dress was cut high at the neck and that it had hundreds of tiny seed pearls stitched upon silk chiffon. And then I recognised her. It was Maria Lianthos.
“You will wait here for me until I am ready,” she said and it wasn’t issued as a request.
I laughed at that. I wasn’t sure who I had been expecting, but it certainly wasn’t her. Relief that the mystery person was a woman, and was therefore in my mind less of a physical threat than a man, had dimmed the worst of my misgivings and I felt a return of confidence.
“And why would I do that?”
“You’ve come this far,” she said.
“Like I had any choice,” I cut across her.
“Have you been a guest here before?”
“Oh I’m a guest, am I? I do wish you had extended me the courtesy of an invitation so then I could have dressed for the occasion.”
She considered my Abbe’s uniform and the judgement she made clearly amused her.
I stiffened. I didn’t like being patronised and felt already at a disadvantage, and so said before she could make a comment, “No. I haven’t been here before. It seems a world away from your hairdressers in Camberwell.”
“And to the restaurant where you are merely an employee,” she said.
Touché I thought.
“So why not observe the play,” she continued. “I think you may find it entertaining.” Her smile was sardonic as she turned back to the table.
As the concierge left me I felt a desire to scamper after him away from this alien environment where, even if I had been dressed like Maria Lianthos or the other women, albeit without the diamonds, I knew I would never really feel comfortable.
I made to take the empty seat beside Maria when the dealer asked, “Is the young lady playing?”
I shook my head.
“I’m sorry but if you are just watching then you have to stand. House rules.”
So, I stood and feeling a little self-conscious, I watched.
Maria gambled a great deal of money. Small change it may have been to her and to her fellow players, but thousands of pounds were being bet upon the spin of a wheel and a small white ball ricocheting among its slots. And it seemed daft to me. To my inexperienced eye it appeared to be only a matter of chance, no skill involved, where the ball landed. Perhaps that’s the attraction for the very rich?
I studied the other players. A man in his fifties with a fleshy chin and jowls, staring intently at the carousel as it spun and turned. A sleek couple in their twenties who were much less serious about the business and who laughed and clinked their glasses together, despite a run of obvious bad luck. Two Chinese men who spoke in rapid undertones and who appeared to be in direct competition with each other although their only combatant was the House. And most fascinating to me of all, was a woman of Middle Eastern appearance somewhere in her sixties and elegantly dressed and who drew out great wads of cash from a crumpled plastic bag in exchange for chips. Mechanically she placed her bets and seemed totally unmoved whether the play proved to be in her favour or not.
Maria made gains and made losses and whether the figures were in line with each other I could have no idea, but like the Middle Eastern lady she displayed no outward emotion as the wheel rotated and the ball flew this way and that. That her focus and attention was one of concentration I could see, but I didn’t think anxiety about the outcome was the main ingredient. It was clear that she enjoyed the play for its own sake. Not once did she as much as glance in my direction and this fact was beginning to piss me off. I’d been grabbed off the street, abducted by her goons, and she expected me just to hang around watching her play this absurd game when I’d been on my feet all evening.
I was no longer scared, just impatient to know what she wanted with me. And I was thirsty. I hadn’t been offered a drink by any of the staff circulating the room, probably because they thought I was one of them.
I nudged at Maria’s elbow and pointed meaningfully at her glass. She turned and beckoned a passing waiter, issued a command, and moments later I was handed a long-stemmed flute of champagne.
Another twenty minutes passed.
“No more bets,” called the dealer.
The wheel did its stuff once more, but this time when the ball landed Maria cleared her chips from the table and stood up. “Come with me,” she said and led the way out of the casino with a slow swinging gait, the pearl beads on her dress shimmying with each movement. Her shoes, I was forced to concede, were to die for. Six-inch stilettos with a pointed toe and in soft silver leather, they had that tell-tale red sole that denotes one of the most celebrated of shoe designers.
We entered an empty sitting room that had the feel of a gentleman’s library. There were paintings of hunting scenes on the walls and serious looking leather-bound books on dark mahogany tables. A bust of a man with a pronounced forehead frowned down from a pedestal and the sofas and armchairs were upholstered in green and gold striped damask. Immediately a waiter materialised and, without consulting me, Maria ordered more champagne.
We sat opposite each other, both taking sips from our drinks as the waiter disappeared back to whatever hidden recess he’d come from.
Silence. I was determined not to be the first to speak. I’d been badly frightened in the car, and, since we’d moved into this room, some of that fear had reasserted itself. Maria looked at me and still I didn’t speak. She smiled and crossed her legs. I wanted to do the same but felt that my scuffed pumps didn’t bear scrutiny and so I simulated an ease that I was far from feeling, by relaxing back against the cushions. This woman was playing with me and I didn’t like it. I didn’t like it at all and if I had to, I’d sit here all bloody night rather than give her the satisfaction of betraying my anxiety. Eventually after what seemed an age, she spoke.
“You know who I am of course?” Her Greek accent was barely discernible.
“I do.”
“And you are Clarry Pennhaligan?” Her tone was mocking. “What kind of a name is Clarry?”
“The shortening of a more formal one.”
Her features were almost too regular I decided. There was something bland about her face as if it had been drawn by a child who had forgotten or was not sufficiently skilled enough to include any lines of individuality or element of character.
“And I expect you are wondering how I found you?”
I had been wondering that of course but I wasn’t going to admit to it.
&
nbsp; She opened her clutch bag, which was fan-shaped and encrusted with sparkling diamonds. Whether the gems were real or not, it was, I was gratified to note, perfectly hideous. And ostentatious. Good I thought; money doesn’t necessarily equal taste. From the hideous bag, she drew out her phone and dialled a number. Instantly my own phone rang. I riffled through my tatty old leather messenger bag and looked at the screen. Number withheld. Maria cut the connection on her phone and mine went dead. She smirked and I remembered all those silent calls I had received.
But I hadn’t ever given Chris my number I thought and so how had she got it? But I had told her husband that I worked as a waitress in the village. And it wouldn’t have taken much to ring around the half dozen or so restaurants and enquire if I worked there. And then I remembered Dave saying that someone had phoned for me that afternoon.
“Ah,” I said. “Abbe’s. So that’s how your thugs found me.”
“Thugs? Oh, I wouldn’t describe them as that. And didn’t you think Denny rather attractive?”
“The one with the goatee?”
“Yes. I find him an adequate if unimaginative lover, but then as I like to be on top he doesn’t have a great deal to do.”
“How fortunate for you both,” I remarked thinking the conversation was going way off topic. Except that I didn’t know what the topic was I realised.
“Weren’t my men’s suits to your liking?” she continued. “Or their manners?”
“Expensive clothes are no guarantee of respectability,” I looked pointedly at her. “And neither is an expensive club.”
“It helps. As does money. A lot of money because it allows entry into Society, into the world of The Elite and that’s where I belong. But you can see that…”
Her gaze dropped to her designer shoes and then travelled over the elegant furnishings of the room and I was reminded of her father and his belief in his infinite superiority over the sweating Perry. This woman was showing off to me. Why? Why did she feel the need to do that?