A Darker Shade of Blue

by John Harvey

  Finding his way back onto Hurst Street, Kiley ducked into the first bar he found. He ordered a bottle of Kronenbourg 1664 and a glass from an Australian with cropped red hair and carried his drink over to a seat near the window, where, taking his time over his beer, he could think again about what he was doing and watch the couples strolling by outside, holding hands.

  When he went back to the bar, the barman greeted him as though they were old friends. ‘Ready for another? Kronenbourg, right?’

  Kiley shook his head. ‘You know a place called Kicks?’

  ‘Kicks? No, I don’t think so. What kind of a place is it?’

  ‘It’s a club.’

  ‘No, sorry.’ The barman shook his head and two gold rings danced in the lobe of his left ear. ‘Wait up, though, I’ll ask.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  Inside a few minutes, he was back. ‘You’re in luck. Tina says it’s off the underpass near the library. Paradise Circus. Some name, huh? Just take a right out of here and follow your nose.’

  ‘Okay,’ Kiley said. ‘Thanks again.’

  ‘Drop back later. I’ll keep one cold for you.’

  Kiley nodded and turned away, the limp in his right leg barely noticeable as he crossed towards the door.

  The steps led down below several lanes of fast-moving traffic, the subway itself tiled and surprisingly clean, the muted stink of urine cut through with disinfectant and the smoky-sweet drift of petrol fumes. Discarded newspapers and fast-food wrapping clotted here and there in corners, but not so much.

  He followed round the slow curve of the arcade, a faint, accented clip from his heels. Several small restaurants were open and as yet, largely empty; shopfronts were barred and shuttered across. Forty, fifty yards more and there it was facing him, the name in green neon over the top of a bright pink door. More fuchsia than mere pink. The door itself was closed, windows either side discreet with frosted glass. Posters gave some idea of what to expect inside, a smiling mostly naked woman spilling out of her leopard-skin bra, Mel B twinned with Lara Croft. Alongside the licensing details above the door was a sign: ‘PLEASE NOTE THIS IS A GENTLEMENS ONLY CLUB.’

  Kiley was surprised there wasn’t a doorman outside, muscles threatening the seams of his rented suit. No bell to ring, he pushed at the centre of the door and it swung slowly back, inviting him into a pool of tinted violet light. A sharp-faced blonde greeted him from inside a kiosk to his right and treated him to a smile that would have had no trouble cutting glass.

  ‘Good evening, sir. Are you a member?’ And when Kiley shook his head, ‘Membership fee is fifty pounds. That includes your first night’s admission. We take Visa,’ she added helpfully. ‘American Express.’

  Heavy velvet curtains shielded the interior of the club itself. The sounds of music, muffled, seventies disco but with a different beat.

  ‘Suppose I just want to pay for tonight?’

  ‘I’m afraid that’s not possible.’

  ‘Look, the thing is…’ Kiley moving closer, trying on the charm. As well try to charm an anaconda. ‘… there’s a girl, I think she works here. Adina.’

  ‘We have no Adina.’

  ‘I just wanted to check, you know. As long as she’s working then-’

  ‘We have no Adina.’

  ‘I knew her, in London.’

  But now she was looking past his shoulder, maybe she’d pressed some warning buzzer, Kiley didn’t know, but when he turned there was his doorman, two of them in fact, the Lennox Lewis twins.

  ‘Is there a problem here?’

  ‘No, no problem.’

  ‘’Cause if there’s a problem we can talk about it outside.’ One spoke, the other didn’t, his voice a soft mix of Caribbean and Brummie.

  ‘He was asking about one of the girls,’ said the blonde.

  They moved towards him; Kiley stood his ground. ‘Sir, please, why don’t we just step outside?’ Polite. Threateningly polite.

  ‘Look,’ Kiley said. ‘Suppose I pay the membership fee and-?’

  ‘I’m sorry, sir, I’m afraid membership’s closed. Now if we can step outside.’

  Kiley shrugged. The two men exchanged glances; the silent one pulled the door open and the talker escorted Kiley through.

  Wind rattled an empty food tray along one side of the underpass. The man was taller than Kiley by three or four inches, heavier by some forty pounds.

  ‘You not from round here.’

  Kiley shook his head.

  ‘In town for business?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  The man held out his hand. ‘No hard feelings, huh? Why not try somewhere else?’ His grip was swift and strong.

  ‘Look,’ Kiley said, stepping back. ‘I wonder if you’d take a look at this?’

  He had scarcely reached inside the lapel of his coat when a fist caught him low, beneath the heart. Before he could touch the ground with his knees, two hands seized him and swung him round. The brickwork alongside the club door closed on him fast. As he buckled and started to slide, another blow struck him in the kidneys and finally a punch to the side of the head. A pool of darkness opened at his feet and he dived into it — as Chandler might have said.

  Kiley worked out of two rooms above a bookshop in Belsize Park, a chancy business with a good address. A little over a year now since Kate had rescued him from the lower depths of Upper Holloway and invited him, lock, stock and baggage, to her flat in Highbury Fields, thus enabling him, most weeks, to pay the quite exorbitant office rent.

  ‘You do realise,’ he’d said, the first or second evening after supper in her three-storey late-Victorian house, ‘keeping that place going’s not going to leave me much to contribute here.’

  ‘Contribute?’

  ‘You know, towards the electricity, gas, the council tax.’

  ‘We’ll think of something,’ Kate had laughed, and poured the last of the white burgundy into her glass.

  In the outer office were a filing cabinet, a computer with printer attached, a Rolodex, a telephone with answering machine and fax. Two mornings a week, Irena, the young Romanian who worked across the street at Cafe Pasta, did his secretarial work, updated his accounts. In Bucharest, she had been a high-school teacher with a good degree; here she fetched and carried through six long shifts, linguine con capesante, penne con salsiccia — black pepper, sir? Parmesan? — bottles of house red.

  It had been earlier that month that Irena had mentioned her friend, Adina, for the first time.

  ‘She wants to meet you.’ Irena blushed. ‘She thinks you are my lover.’

  ‘I’m flattered.’

  Irena was slender as a boy, slim-hipped and small-breasted, with deep brown eyes just a fraction too large and a mouth that was generous and wide. Her hair was cut short, close-cropped, severe enough in strong light for her scalp to show through.

  ‘I tell her,’ Irena said, ‘of course, it is not true.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘You are making fun of me.’

  ‘No, not at all. Well, yes, maybe a little.’

  Irena returned his smile. ‘This afternoon, when I finish my shift. She comes then.’

  ‘Okay.’

  What, Kiley wondered, was the Romanian for chalk and cheese? Adina was taller than Irena and more voluptuously built, raven hair falling past her shoulders to her middle back, lips a rich purply-red, eyeshadow a striking blue. She wore a slinky top, one size too small, tight jeans, high heels.

  ‘Irena has told me much about you.’

  ‘I’ll bet.’

  Irena blushed again.

  It was warm enough for them to be sitting at one of the pavement tables outside the cafe where Irena worked.

  ‘So,’ Kiley said, ‘you and Irena, you’re from the same part of Romania?’

  Adina tossed her head. ‘No, not really. I am from Constanza. It is on the Black Sea coast. Irena came for one year to teach in our school.’

  ‘She taught you? Irena?’

  ‘Yes.’ Ad
ina laughed. ‘She is much older than me. Did you not know?’

  ‘Not so much,’ Irena protested.

  For a moment, Adina touched Kiley’s arm with her own. ‘I am only nineteen, what do you think?’

  Kiley thought he would change the subject. He signalled to one of Irena’s colleagues and ordered coffee for himself, mineral water for Irena, for Adina Coke with ice and lemon.

  ‘So what are you doing in London?’ Kiley asked, once Adina had offered them both a cigarette and lit her own.

  ‘I am dancer.’

  ‘A dancer?’

  ‘Yes. Perhaps you do not believe?’

  Kiley believed her, though he doubted it was Ballet Rambert. ‘Where do you dance?’

  ‘Club Maroc. It is on Finchley Road.’

  ‘I have seen her,’ Irena said. ‘Pole dance. It is remarkable.’

  ‘I’ll bet.’

  ‘I study for three weeks,’ Adina said seriously.

  ‘Pole dancing?’

  ‘Of course. Table dancing also. I have diploma.’

  Irena leaned forward, glass in both hands. ‘Adina thinks I should take lessons, go and work with her.’

  ‘Instead of this, of course. With me you can earn two hundred, two hundred fifty pounds one night. Here you are slave.’

  ‘At least,’ Irena said, ‘I keep on my clothes.’

  Adina poked out her tongue.

  Kiley saw her again two weeks later, unannounced in his outer office, her hair tied back in a pony tail and her makeup smeared. ‘Adina, what is it?’

  She looked at him helplessly, suddenly awash with tears.

  ‘Come through here; come and sit down.’ Helping her first to the couch, he hurried to the bathroom he shared with the financial consultant upstairs.

  ‘Here. Drink this.’

  She sipped from the glass of water, then set it aside. Dabbed at her eyes.

  ‘All right, now tell me; tell me what’s wrong.’

  It was enough to set her off again, and Kiley pressed several clean tissues into her hands, sat back in the chair opposite and waited for her to become calm.

  After several moments, she blew her nose and reached inside her bag for a cigarette; while she fumbled with her lighter, Kiley fetched the saucer that served as an ashtray and placed it near her feet. An ambulance siren, sudden and shrill, broke through the steady churn of traffic passing outside.

  ‘Coming to this country,’ she began falteringly, ‘it was not easy for me. I pay, I have to pay much money. A lot of money.’

  ‘How much?’

  ‘Five thousand pounds.’

  ‘You had that much?’

  ‘No, of course not. I pay it back now. That is why… why I work as I do. I pay, each week, as much as I can. And last night… last night the man who arrange for me to come here, he tell me I must give him more. Five thousand more. The same again. Or he will report me and I will be sent home.’ Ash spilled from the end of her cigarette and she brushed it across her jeans. ‘Since Ceausescu, there has been much change in my country. My parents say, yes, this is better, we can do, say what we like. Travel if we want. But what I see, there is no work. No money. Not for me. For Irena, maybe, she has qualifications, degree. She can work there if she wish. But me… you think I can dance in Bucharest, earn money, wear nice clothes, you think this?’

  Kiley didn’t know what he thought. He got to his feet and didn’t know where to go. The light through the window was muted and pale, the sky a mottled grey.

  ‘What if you refuse to pay?’

  Adina laughed: there was no pleasure in the sound.

  ‘One of the other girls did this. He cut her face. Oh, not himself. He told someone. Someone else.’ Lightly, she touched one hand against her cheek. ‘Either that or he will have me sent back home.’ She stubbed out her cigarette. ‘You know what will happen to me if I go back home? Where I will be? Standing beside the road from Bucharest to Sofia, waiting for some lorry driver to pull over and fuck me in his cab for the price of a meal and a pack of cigarettes.’

  The room was suddenly airless and Kiley opened the window a crack and the sound of voices rolled in; early afternoon and people, some of them, were heading back to work after lunch. Others would be waiting for the first performance at the cinema up the street, going into the bookshop downstairs to browse and buy.

  ‘This man, the one who says you owe him money, does he have a name?’

  ‘Aldo. Aldo Fusco.’

  ‘You want me to talk to him?’

  ‘Oh, yes. Yes, please, if you will.’

  ‘When are you meant to see him again?’

  ‘I don’t know. For certain, I mean. Sometimes he comes to the club, sometimes he sends message for me to meet him. Usually it is Soho, Berwick Street.’ She placed the emphasis on the first syllable, sounded the middle letter. ‘He has office above shop that sells jewellery.’

  ‘You meet him there, his office?’

  Adina shook her head. ‘Coffee bar across the street.’

  ‘If he contacts you, phone me,’ Kiley said, giving her one of his cards. ‘Let me know. Meantime, I’ll do what I can.’

  ‘Thank you. Thank you.’ She caught his arm and kissed him hard, leaving what remained of her lipstick like a purple bruise beside his mouth.

  There was little he could do but wait. Walking in and confronting Fusco direct, always assuming he could find him, would likely cause more trouble than it was worth. For Adina as well as for himself. So Kiley waited for the phone to ring, attended to other things. One morning, after meeting Kate for coffee in Maison Bertaux, he strolled up through Soho and located the shop in Berwick Street, costume jewellery in the window, the door leading to the upper floors firmly closed, several bells with no name attached. In a cafe a little way up the street, half a dozen men, leather-jacketed, dark-haired, sat around a table playing cards. When one of them chanced to look up and see Kiley through the glass, he held his stare till Kiley turned and walked away.

  Two more days, three, then four. Irena came across from Cafe Pasta, concern clouding her eyes. ‘I went to the club looking for Adina and they told me she didn’t work there any more. That is all they would tell me. Her flat, the place she shared with two of the other girls, most of her clothes have gone too.’

  ‘The girls, did they have any idea where she went?’

  ‘No. All they knew, that man came to the club, the one she owed money to. The next thing she was packing her things into a bag, there was a car waiting downstairs.’

  Irena sighed and closed her eyes and Kiley placed one hand on her shoulder and she lowered her head until it rested on his chest. ‘It’ll be okay,’ he said quietly. ‘Don’t worry.’ When he kissed the top of her head, he was amazed at the softness of her hair.

  ‘Aldo fucking Fusco. Claims he’s Italian. Sicilian even. It’s all so much horse shit. His real name’s Sali, Sali Mejdani. He’s Albanian. From Tirana.’

  Kiley had called his friend, Margaret, a solicitor who dealt with a lot of cases involving refugees, applications for asylum — ‘Was there anybody in Immigration who might talk to him, off the record?’ Which was why he and Barker were walking between Westminster Bridge and Vauxhall, tour boats slowly passing both ways along the river. Two fortyish men in topcoats, talking over old times.

  ‘This girl,’ Barker said. ‘Adina? You think she’d give evidence? In court?’

  Kiley shook his head.

  Barker broke his stride to light another cigarette. ‘They never do. Even if they say they will, when it comes down to it, they won’t. Too frightened about what might happen. Getting deported back to whatever shithole it is they come from. So these people go on squeezing money out of them. The lucky ones, like your Adina, they work the clubs. For others, it’s massage parlours, brothels. Twelve, fourteen hours a day; hundred, hundred and fifty cocks a week.’

  ‘You haven’t got enough,’ Kiley said, ‘without her, to have him arrested?’

  ‘Sure. Every once in a while we do.’
Barker released a plume of smoke out on to the air. ‘He can afford a better solicitor, better barrister. We can never hold him. So we keep a watch, as much as we can, wait for him to slip up. A container ship stuffed full of asphyxiated bodies we can trace back to him direct. That would do the trick.’

  ‘And he knows?’

  ‘Fusco? That we’re watching him? Oh, yes. And he loves it, makes him feel big. Important. A made guy.’

  ‘If I want to talk to him, you’ve no quarrel?’

  Barker shook his head. ‘Til come along. Ride shotgun. Margaret might not forgive me if I let you get hurt.’

  They were playing blackjack, five of them. Fusco had just bought another card on eighteen and gone over the top. ‘Fuck!’ he said.

  ‘Nice,’ Barker said from the doorway, ‘that you know your name.’

  Three of the men round the table started to rise, but Fusco waved them back down. A couple by the wall drank their last mouthfuls of cappuccino and headed for the door. Barker and Kiley stood aside to let them past.

  ‘Hey,’ Fusco said, looking at Barker. ‘You never give up.’

  ‘You know a girl called Adina?’ Kiley said. ‘The Club Maroc’

  Fusco eased back into his chair, tilting it on to its rear legs. ‘Sure, what of it?’

  ‘She says she owes you money.’

  ‘Not any more.’

  Kiley moved closer. Behind him, someone came breezily through the cafe door, caught the eye of the woman behind the counter and stepped back out. ‘You mean she paid you? What?’

  Amusement played in Fusco’s eyes. ‘No, she didn’t pay me. I sold her, that’s what.’

  ‘Sold her? What d’you mean, sold her? Where the fuck d’you think you are?’

  The man nearest to Kiley was half out of his chair and Kiley levered him back down, hand tight against his neck. Across the room Barker was thinking a little more backup might’ve been nice.