I logged onto the forum, promising myself that I wouldn’t read any of the posts, just find the contact details that I needed, and leave. I would not let myself get sucked in. I found Danger’s profile and drafted a quick message.
Danger, it’s Dee. I need your help urgently. Somebody’s life is in danger. Please call me on —
He must have been online, because he replied almost straight away.
That’s nice isn’t it? You have not written to me once since the weekend, and now you want a favour.
Oh for heaven’s sake! Hadn’t he read the bit about somebody’s life being in danger? I wasn’t fond of manipulation, or sucking up to people who didn’t deserve it, but in light of the impending murder, I managed to muster a suitable response.
That’s because I haven’t needed a strong man with security training before now. I assumed you’d be too busy writing your next masterpiece to want to be bothered by little me. However, tonight humanity needs you to take a break from perfecting that masterpiece. Save the life you were born to save 00-Danger.
My finger hovered over ‘Send’ for a while. Typing the words had drained me of all dignity and self-respect. I feared that clicking ‘Send’ might actually kill me. Was it possible to die from depleted pride? I thought of Netta Lewis, and how my short story had as good as signed her death warrant, and the guilt gave me the strength to send the response.
It worked a treat. I’d obviously pushed the right buttons. Why wasn’t I always this good at getting what I wanted from men? Danger agreed to meet me as soon as possible. He claimed to have freed up the entire evening for me, but I knew that his Dungeons and Dragons friends would understand.
* * *
It’s difficult to undertake an undercover mission accompanied by somebody who’s angry with you, but somebody needed to protect Netta. So, I put up with Danger’s angry glares, I put up with his short responses, and I put up with his frosty silences.
We were supposed to be disguised as a pair of misguided tourists — a disguise that allowed us to wear large hats and sunglasses in March. However, it was difficult to pretend to be having the holiday of a lifetime, when my faux travelling companion was clearly reluctant to share the same airspace as me.
Danger looked greyer than I remembered, and bonier. I realised that I hadn’t pictured his face once since leaving Pompomberry House. In fact, in my mind, he’d become a neutral, beige cube.
We were standing outside Netta’s Kensington flat, pretending to read a map, when I decided that I’d had enough of Danger’s sulking.
“Have I done something to offend you, Danger?”
“No,” he replied, turning his face away from me.
“You’re not still upset because you’re missing Rafe’s live Skype chat are you?”
“No.”
This was ludicrous. How were we supposed to combine forces and save a life, with Danger operating in power-saving mode?
“She’s on the move!” I cried. Netta Lewis appeared behind the large, French doors. Moments later, they opened and she strutted out into the garden.
“Wow,” gawped Danger. I knew he was impressed, because his jaw almost hit the pavement. However, there was little change to the tone of his dreary voice. I’d never heard ‘Wow’ said with so little enthusiasm.
Netta wore a tight little black number, which meant that her ‘assets’ splurged out in every direction, giving them the impression of being even more ample. She was carrying a helmet.
“Put your tongue back in your mouth.”
“That’s who we’re saving?”
“Yes! Haven’t you seen her before, on YouTube or something?”
“No.” Then the tiniest flash of colour gave his face a slight glow, and I knew this was the most excited that Danger Smith had been in his entire life. “What does she do on YouTube?”
“Nothing sexy.”
“Oh,” he said, disappointedly. Great — a sulker and a sleaze.
We watched as she straddled a fuchsia moped. I knew exactly what Danger would have wished for, had a genie appeared at that moment.
“Look — stop gawping. We need to follow her! Get in the car!” I led Danger to his own car — a knackered old red Volvo. “Get in!”
He started the engine. We had to be careful about tailing her. With a killer on the loose, she might imagine that we were the enemy and speed away to greater danger.
We followed her for about three and a half minutes before she pulled up outside a posh bar. The sort with a guest list torn from Hello magazine. It had maroon, velvet pillars and a tunnel of fairy lights led inside, between two suited valets. Both seemed to light up when they saw Netta and quivered on the spot, willing her to approach them. She chucked her keys to the one on the left, briefly giggled, and disappeared inside.
“Where am I supposed to park?” moaned Danger.
“The bouncers don’t know you?” I asked, sarcastically.
He moaned.
“Well, I’m sure we’ll find somewhere near here,” I said, optimistically. “At least now we know where she plans to spend some time.”
Some thirty-five minutes later, exhausted, we staggered in through the twinkling tunnel. I’d walked all of five steps when a bouncer stepped into my path.
“Got some ID?” he asked.
“Seriously? I’m in my thirties.”
“It’s not your age I’m interested in.”
“What are you interested in?” I demanded, abruptly.
“Allow me,” said Danger, stepping in. He opened his wallet and flashed something at the bouncer.
“Apologies, sir, we didn’t recognise you.”
I couldn’t wait to get out of earshot, so that I could ask Danger what had just happened. We turned a corner and entered a lobby. We were alone.
“How did you get us in?”
“As if I would reveal my secrets to you!”
“Okay, that’s it!” I wanted to slam him against the wall, but that wasn’t really my style, so instead I glared at him. “What is your problem with me?”
“Fine. I used to work in computers. I know a bit about fake ID.”
“Thank you. But it’s not just about the ID, is it? You’ve been funny with me all night. What is wrong?”
“Nothing,” he said, shuffling his feet.
“Obviously it’s not nothing. Come on!” I grabbed him by the arm and led him into the main bar area, forgetting for a moment that we were supposed to be being discreet.
I caught sight of Netta at the bar. Even though I was wearing dark glasses in a dark bar, she blazed like a sparkler. As expected, she was flirting. On this occasion, she was toying with a dumpy, bald, middle-aged man wearing a suit. He was holding a martini; a trumpet case leant against his bar stool. Was he the one she’d come here to meet? What was the matter with her? The guy had assassin written all over him.
Did this mean that the killer wasn’t one of the suspects on my list, or had the killer hired him? Surely no run-of-the-mill indie is affluent enough to hire a hit man.
Apart from Netta and her companion, the bar was very quiet. I looked at my watch — 9pm — the place was probably too trendy to be busy during the evening. I bet it was one of those places where celebs roll in at 5am, off their faces, and drink a whisky to sober up.
“It’s her!” whispered Danger.
“Yes,” I said, unimpressed. “It’s her.”
We scurried into a booth and peered at her from around a black, velvet partition.
“Do you think that’s him?” I asked.
“I do not know. He looks suspicious. Does he not?”
“You bet!”
Then, he returned to his silent disgruntled looks.
“Danger, are you going to tell me what I’ve done to offend you?”
Silence.
“Danger! Tell me what’s the matter, or I’ll walk over there right now and tell her that you’ve noticed the ladder in the inner thigh of her tights. And I know that you have noticed the tear, so it
will be pretty embarrassing for you.”
“All right! Fine!” he said, hurriedly.
Bingo!
“It’s Enid Kibbler.”
Enid? That name seemed to come up a lot.
“It is what she said about our book.”
Dammit, why did I keep forgetting to check the review? Anybody would have thought I had a murder to stop. “What did she say about the book?”
“Oh, do not pretend that you do not know!”
“I really don’t! Rafe quoted a bit of it, but that’s all.”
“You are trying to torture me!”
“I’m not! I really haven’t read it. But if quoting it hurts you that much, I can always look it up on my phone ...”
“She said ‘Busty and Giving’ was the only bit worth reading.”
“Oh, that.”
“Oh, that.”
“Well, look Danger, it’s only one review. And you know what she’s like. She loves to criticise.”
“She didn’t criticise yours.”
“She did! Rafe told me that she called it ‘a blemish on the face of literature.’”
“Yes, but she called the rest of the book ‘a viral skin disease set to destroy everything that serious literature has set out to achieve throughout history.’”
“Oh.”
“Oh.”
“Well, at least she was moved.”
“Dee!”
“Look, Danger, if you think that the opinion of an idiotic woman who repeatedly sets out to read books just so that she can slate them, is worth getting upset about, then you’re clearly misguided.”
“So you do not think that she is right?”
“No. Of course not.”
“You do not think that Foot was one dimensional and uninteresting?”
“Uh ...”
“You do not think it was full of pointless, unintelligible imagery and attempts at horror that were so bad that they were funny.”
“Uh ...”
“You do! You agree with her! You look down on me! How are we supposed to protect Netta when you look down on me!”
“Uh ...”
I was stuck. Either I could be honest, and risk Danger walking out right there and then, or I could lie. Telling one of the most insipid writers in the world that he has talent must be a crime against literacy, but intellectual integrity could result in a crime against humanity.
“No, Danger, your story is brilliant. It’s revolutionary, it moves the genre forward, that’s why Enid Kibbler can’t appreciate it. It’s ahead of its time.”
“Really?”
I gulped. “Yes, really.”
“You are just saying that though, are you not? You are just saying that.”
“No. I loved it.”
“Really?”
“YES!”
“What was your favourite part?”
Oh crikey! “Um ...” Think Dee, think! “I liked the bit where the foot washed up on the beach.”
“But that’s the whole story.”
“Exactly! I liked the whole story.”
Then he did something that amazed me. He got up, walked around to my side of the table and gave me a massive hug. It was peculiar; in the space of ten minutes, I’d seen Danger exhibit two emotions. That was two more than I’d seen him exhibit in two days at Pompomberry House.
As he sat back down, I wondered if I’d got him all wrong. Perhaps he wasn’t an apathetic bore after all. Perhaps he was passionate. Perhaps he was a killer!
The stupidity of my plan hit me. Yes, if Danger was the killer, then keeping him close could help protect Netta, but wasn’t I putting myself in incredible danger?
“You never told me what you thought about all the copycat events,” I said, quickly.
“Well, they are bad, obviously,” he said, returning to monotone.
“But who do you think is responsible?”
“I do not know,” he said, monotone.
“You must have some thoughts on the matter.”
“I do not know,” he repeated, with the same lack of expression.
“Danger, Biff was murdered. You were there when Biff was murdered. You helped to cover it up. Don’t you have any feelings about this?”
“I do not know who wants to kill Netta,” he droned.
“But you do think there is a killer?”
“Yes.”
“Well, you must have some reason for thinking that.”
“Yes.”
“Well?”
“You told me there is.”
Was it really that simple? Was Danger really just a sponge, waiting to absorb whatever was said to him? No wonder he’d agreed to help hide Biff’s body. No wonder Dawn and Montgomery had found him so easy to persuade.
Mind you, with Annabel, Rafe and Emily now crossed off the list, Dawn and Montgomery were my prime suspects. Should I really trust somebody who’d helped them cover up a murder, to help me prevent one?
It felt like Danger was anybody’s. He’d take the side of whoever asked him. Still, if he was so eager to please, perhaps I could use it to my advantage.
“What did they do with Biff’s body in the end?”
“I do not want to talk about it.”
“Danger! This is important!”
“I do not want to talk about it.”
“Just tell me one thing — did his body go in the ground with a foot.”
“What are you suggesting?”
“Just wondered.”
Suddenly, a subject change. “Can I have your autograph?”
“What?”
Netta picked that exact moment to get off her bar stool. Was she on the move again or was she just heading to the ladies? If it was the latter, should I follow? At this time of night, the toilets were likely to be empty. Was it safe for the fated charity rep to go to the toilet alone?
Still, if I went in there, it was likely that she would recognise me, after all a hat and shades are nowhere near as effective as the movies pretend that they are.
Then, I realised that she wasn’t going to the ladies, or leaving, she was meeting somebody. A greasy little man entered wearing a crisp suit. He had a horrible, wiry moustache and a receding chin that gave him an air of rat. He carried a briefcase in one hand and a trilby in the other. He looked even more like an assassin than the previous man. What was wrong with that woman? If you’re expecting to be murdered, the last thing you do is hang around with men with hand luggage.
The first guy took one look at the second, rapidly drank up and left.
“Nice to have met you, Netta,” droned Danger.
“What?”
“That is what the first said.”
“You can lip read?”
“Yeah.”
Wow.
“He was not the guy she was here to meet. He was just some guy who bought her a drink.”
“You can tell all that?”
“She just got his name wrong.”
“How do you know that?”
“Micro-expressions; he frowned when she said it.”
I found myself surprisingly impressed. “And who’s this guy?”
“I do not know. He has not said anything yet.”
We watched as Netta shook hands with the greasy man. She rolled her shoulders, tilted her head to the side and fluttered her eyelashes. This told me three things: they hadn’t met before, she’d planned to meet him and she was keen to impress.
Netta knew that her life was in danger, so why would she risk spending time with somebody she didn’t know? With only a few hours left before the voting closed, it was likely that this person was related to her campaign. But who was he? A real TV producer perhaps? A radio presenter? A killer?
I surveyed the greasy little man. Could he be the copycat? He didn’t look large enough to take on a towering inferno like Biff. Mind you, if he had had a knife ...
“He is the killer,” said Danger.
“What! How do you know?”
“The deathly micro-ex
pression.”
“Really? There’s an expression for that?”
“Yes.”
“What’s it like?”
“I cannot show you, it’s a micro-expression. They are so fast that you have to be trained to read them.”
“Why have you had so much training? Who do you work for?”
He tapped his nose, implying that if he told me, he’d have to kill me. Perhaps Danger wasn’t boring after all. Perhaps the monotony, the blank expression and the insipid clothing were all part of his guise — a guise that allowed him to complete intense, undercover protection missions.
“What do we do?” I asked.
“Watch them like an eagle. Do not let them out of our sight.”
I nodded enthusiastically, prepared to bow to Danger’s superior judgment.
“Anyway, about that autograph ...”
“Were you serious?”
“Of course I am serious — I loved The Red River,” he said without a hint of enthusiasm. He began scrambling around in a folder that was so bland (black, dimpled plastic) that I hadn’t noticed him carrying it.
He pulled out an A4 book and flicked through a few pages until he reached a blank, plain page. He handed me a pen.
“You wouldn’t rather I signed a postcard or something?”
“No, I am going to put it in a frame.”
Really? “Oh, um ... right. Shall I sign in the middle then?”
“Can you sign at the second third? That always looks best.”
“How many autographs have you got?”
“Seventeen.”
“Seventeen?”
“Yeah.”
I scrawled my name on the paper, feeling less special than I had done a few seconds before. Seventeen framed autographs? Where did he put them all? Did he have a really big house, or was there just one room cluttered with signatures? “Um ... Whose signatures am I going to be amongst?”
“All sorts. All the writers from Pompomberry House, obviously.”
Dammit.
“Stieg Larsson, the Virgin Student ...”
“How did you get the Virgin Student? Nobody knows who she is.”
“You are forgetting that I am highly trained.”
“Wait … isn’t Stieg Larsson dead?”
Danger tapped his nose with his forefinger and raised an eyebrow.
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