by Greg Keen
The spectacle lasted five minutes, during which time Charlie slipped into the room and took his place next to me. By this time, the girl’s crimson buttocks were latticed with blood. I was both relieved and disappointed in equal measure. The trio trooped back through the door, the brunettes continuing to keep the blonde under close control. The lights went up and the oboe music was replaced by something poppy and upbeat. People began chatting and getting to their feet.
‘What did you think?’ Charlie asked.
‘Quite a show,’ I said. ‘Are they all like that?’
‘Sometimes there’s breath play and other variations, although I’m more of a spanking man myself.’
It was as though we were discussing the merits of German cars, or the state of our golf handicaps. ‘Does it ever go too far?’ I asked.
‘As long as there’s a safe word, everything’s fine.’
By now we were alone in the room, apart from one other person. Standing in the doorway was the guy I’d bunged the monkey to. He couldn’t have looked more pissed off if the banknotes had been photocopied.
‘Michael wants a word,’ Charlie said. ‘You really shouldn’t have shown me that girl’s picture, you know. Terrible faux pas.’
‘You told him?’
‘I told someone. Still, I’m sure she’ll understand, what with you being a new bod.’
Before I could ask who ‘she’ was, Charlie patted me on the back and walked past Michael. He closed the door behind him. I considered bolting through the door the girls had used to make their exit, but what was the point? All Michael would do was throw me out. The last thing La Cage wanted was bad publicity.
‘Obviously I didn’t make myself clear,’ he said. ‘And now we’re both in trouble. Although you’re in a bit more than me.’
‘If you’re talking about the phone, I had no idea it was against club rules. But now I do, I’m more than happy to . . .’
Michael put his finger against his lips in a sign that I should shut the fuck up. ‘There is one bonus, though,’ he said.
‘What’s that?’
‘You get to see the second floor.’
NINETEEN
We stepped out of the service lift into a passage carpeted with runners. Its walls were clover-green, and the light came from halogen ceiling studs. We could have been in a country-house hotel, apart from the fact that Michael wasn’t carrying my luggage, and I probably wouldn’t be tipping him. He led me past three doors and tapped on the fourth. A woman’s voice told us to enter.
I was standing in a child’s bedroom, or at least how a kid’s room might have looked in the fifties. The faded wallpaper was covered in fairies. In the corner nearest the window was a doll’s house, so exquisite and antique it belonged in a museum. On a shelf running around the room at head height were perched dozens of porcelain dolls kitted out in crinolines and gingham. There was a simple oak school desk and a four-poster bed with fat white pillows and a plaid bedspread. The only incongruous thing was a wall-mounted TV.
The woman in the armchair had too much bone structure and not enough skin. Her short hair was grey but she had young eyes. Time, and whatever else had ravaged her face, had spared them; a pair of emeralds pushed into a parchment skull.
A cylinder housed in a plastic unit stood at her feet. From it ran a thin tube to a clip attached to her nose. On a table by the chair were strewn bottles of pills, an open packet of Sobranie Black Russian and a half-full ashtray.
‘Good evening. My name’s Arabella Sherren,’ she said, ‘although people call me Bella. You’ll forgive me for not shaking hands. My joints are rather painful this evening.’
I could well believe it. From Bella’s silk peignoir emerged a pair of pipe-cleaner wrists that Michael could probably have snapped between finger and thumb.
‘I’m Kenny,’ I said. ‘Pleased to meet you.’
‘Charlie tells me that you’ve been showing him photographs, Kenny. And Michael has confessed that you bribed him to gain admittance.’
‘I’m trying to find out if someone was in the club recently.’
‘Harriet Parr?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Charlie recognised her.’
‘She was a member, then?’
‘Why do you want to know?’
‘Because I think she may have been in here shortly before she went missing. And if I can find out who she was with, then . . .’
‘You may be able to discover who murdered her?’
‘That was the idea.’
Bella fiddled with a dial on her oxygen tube. She took several shallow breaths before speaking again. ‘Did you really expect simply to waltz in here and question my guests?’
‘Actually, that’s not necessary. You could run off the footage from the camera in the hall.’
‘You noticed that?’
I nodded. ‘Do you keep the recordings?’
‘When did Miss Parr visit?’
I supplied the date. Bella looked at Michael. ‘Check when she signed out,’ she instructed him. ‘Then pull the footage off the system and bring it up.’
‘We’re just going to let him watch it?’ he asked.
‘If you hadn’t been so damn greedy, we wouldn’t be in this situation in the first place. Come over here . . .’
Michael approached the chair and bent down. Bella whispered something in his ear. He nodded, stood up and treated me to a smile that would have frozen paraffin. He left the room and Bella reached for her cigarettes.
‘Is that wise?’ I asked.
‘Do I look like I’m going to get better?’
I tapped my nose. ‘I was thinking more of this.’
‘Oh, yes. Wouldn’t do to go out in a ball of flame.’ She unclipped the tube with one hand and offered the fag packet with the other.
‘Not for me, thanks,’ I said. She wasn’t an advert for the habit.
Bella wedged the cigarette between her desiccated lips and stared at me expectantly. I noticed the Dunhill lighter on the table, sparked it up and applied the flame. She inhaled deeply. ‘My oncologist wouldn’t approve.’
‘No shit.’
‘It’s vulgar to swear.’
‘Sorry.’
‘He only allowed me home on the understanding that I would look after myself.’ Bella chuckled. ‘Damn fool told me I’d be pushing up daisies two months ago. Shouldn’t think I’ll be round much longer, though.’
‘You never know,’ I said.
‘Yes, I do. How old d’you think I am?’
‘Sixty-five?’
‘Don’t be absurd.’
‘Sixty-eight?’
‘I’m seventy-two.’ She took a drag on her cigarette and coughed a couple of times. ‘Aren’t you going to tell me I don’t look it?’
‘You don’t look it.’
‘Liar.’
Bella was about to take another hit on her Sobranie but thought better of it. She stubbed it out and reattached the oxygen clip.
‘For whom are you working?’
‘Harry’s father.’
‘The famous Frank.’
‘You know him?’
‘I know of him. He’s a working-class boy made good; I’m a posh girl who went in the opposite direction. We’re opposite sides of the same coin.’
‘You don’t seem to have done so badly.’
‘The club happened more by accident than design,’ she said. ‘And in a few weeks, that will be the end of it.’
‘You’re not leaving the place to anyone?’
‘Would you believe the RSPCA? Somehow I don’t think they’ll continue using it for its current purpose.’
‘No children?’
‘No family of any description. How about you, Kenny? Have you been blessed?’ I shook my head. ‘Then who will inherit your estate?’
‘I’ll probably divide it between several charities. What’s left will go to the National Gallery.’
‘Is it a significant amount?’
‘Almost two
hundred quid.’
Bella’s laugh led directly to a coughing fit. She spat something gelatinous into a Kleenex, examined it briefly, and dropped it into a wicker wastepaper bin.
‘One of the many joys of old age is that your body gradually becomes a stranger to you,’ she said. ‘Eventually you scarcely recognise one another. Do sit down.’
I occupied a high-backed wing chair and made polite conversation. ‘How long has La Cage been going?’
‘Unofficially, since 1969.’
‘Always here?’
‘Sherrens have lived in Causal Street for over two hundred years. I was born in this house and I intend to die here. Sooner rather than later, unfortunately.’
‘The place must hold a lot of happy memories.’
‘What makes you say that?’
‘I’m assuming you could afford to leave.’
Bella looked around the room. ‘Not everything has been entirely marvellous,’ she said, pulling her gown more tightly around her shoulders.
I sensed there was more to come. Perhaps when the end is nigh you want to use all the words you have left before your mouth is stopped forever. Or maybe Bella just liked the sound of her own voice.
‘Mother died while giving birth to me,’ she said. ‘My father was with his regiment in North Africa at the time. He was a weak man and he went to pieces. The army gave him an honourable discharge, although he was at a bit of a loss in Civvy Street. I suppose these days he’d be diagnosed as suffering with depression.’
‘Must have been tough.’
‘He had a considerable fortune.’
‘Sometimes money makes things harder.’
‘That’s not been my experience,’ Bella said. ‘Although it does leave you with time on your hands, and that’s where dear Papa came unstuck.’
‘Drink?’
‘How did you guess?’
‘There are worse things.’
‘Indeed there are,’ Bella agreed. ‘And despite his problems, I was devastated when my father died, so much so that I saw a battalion of counsellors.’
‘To cope with the grief?’
‘That’s where we started, although all roads lead to the same destination in analysis. The general consensus was that I was forming inappropriate sexual relationships.’
‘Define inappropriate.’
‘How about being lashed until blood gullies down your back, having your nipples chastened with a cigarette lighter and then someone squatting over you and—’
‘Yeah, I get the picture,’ I said.
A tight smile played on Bella’s thin lips. ‘Even Harley Street’s finest couldn’t rid me of these and other less wholesome inclinations,’ she said.
I reflected on what said inclinations might be. Was the urge to kill for kicks among them? Access the Darknet and you’re only a couple of clicks and a credit card number away from a snuff movie. And if people want to watch it, then people want to do it. The big question was whether Harry Parr had met such a person in La Cage.
The bigger question was whether his face had been caught on camera.
‘So I sacked the shrinks and invited my friends to the house,’ Bella said.
‘And that was the start of the club?’
‘Indeed it was. Far more therapeutic to admit who you really are than try to change. Wouldn’t you agree, Kenny?’
Before I could answer, Bella’s eyes closed abruptly. For a moment I thought she might have checked out ahead of schedule. Then she took a long rattling breath and an amber light on the oxygen unit winked a couple of times. Michael returned. The noise woke his boss up.
‘Ah, you’re back,’ she said. ‘Kenny and I were just catching up on some family history. Did you find what you were looking for?’
‘It’s on here,’ he said, holding a memory stick up.
‘Seems you’re in luck, Kenny.’
I wondered if that was entirely true. Hanging from Michael’s left hand was a rubber gas mask. It had Perspex ovals to see through, and a snout to which was attached a three-foot tube. I was pretty sure Bella wasn’t going to strap it on, and there were only two other candidates in the room.
‘What’s the mask for?’ I asked.
‘It’s so that you can keep your side of the deal.’
‘There’s a deal?’
Bella readjusted the tap on her oxygen supply. ‘Isn’t there always?’ she said.
TWENTY
The Perspex lenses had yellowed with age. They lent the room a jaundiced wash that reminded me of the patina on a Victorian photograph. Each time I inhaled and exhaled, the sound rasped in my ears like a wave sweeping a shingle beach.
My restricted view was focused on Bella, who was looking, if not vibrant exactly, then certainly perkier than she had half an hour ago. Not even the mask’s opaque lenses could cancel the shine in her eyes.
‘Can you hear me, Kenny?’ she asked. I nodded. ‘Just to recap, then, last the full minute and you get to see the footage. If you don’t, then you don’t.’
‘Harry Parr’s definitely on the recording?’
‘If Michael says so, then you can take his word.’
That good old Mike had admitted me to La Cage for a fistful of fifties wasn’t a character endorsement. Although he had assured his boss that Harry Parr was on the drive, and presumably he wouldn’t risk pissing her off twice in quick succession.
The mask was to prevent any cheating. Once the clip was closed, I’d be left with however much air was in the tube plus whatever was in my lungs. Whether that constituted a minute’s worth remained to be seen.
‘Do we really have to bother with all this?’ I said. ‘Frank Parr would pay a fortune for the stick.’
‘No pockets in a shroud,’ Bella replied. ‘And besides, this will be such fun.’
Perverted septuagenarians with stage-four cancer and several million in the bank are bastards to negotiate with. Try it yourself, if you don’t believe me. Bella placed Michael’s watch on the table. When the second hand reached twelve, I was to close the tap and cut off my oxygen supply. If I opened it before the second hand returned, then I blew my chances of seeing the footage.
My chair had been borrowed from the desk. It allowed me to sit in an upright position, which Bella had said would constrict my diaphragm less.
What a sport.
The Seiko ticked away the final seconds. I filled my lungs and closed the tap. At the half-minute mark the pressure in my chest graduated to my skull. Emergency circuits lit up all over my brain. My autonomous nervous system would eventually go into overdrive; all I had to do was fend it off for a little while longer.
Bella maintained fascinated eye contact. I wasn’t sure if she was willing me to succeed or hoping I’d fail. At forty-five seconds I could stand it no more. Whatever was on the stick, I wasn’t going to see it.
Two huge arms folded around me from behind.
The fingers on Michael’s hands locked. If I’d been operating at full strength, I’d have struggled to break his grip. With zero oxygen in my system, I stood no chance. My arms were pinned to my torso but my legs started shaking uncontrollably. Bella’s receding gums and singular teeth were bared in a rictus of delight.
It was the last thing I saw before blacking out.
Someone was slapping me around the face. Irritating at the best of times; particularly irritating when all you want to do is remain asleep. But it appeared that the only way I was going to put a stop to it was by opening my eyes. When I did it was to see a very large man staring down at me.
‘D you know where you are?’ a posh lady asked.
‘No.’
‘What’s your name?’
I turned to face her. She didn’t look too hot.
‘It’s Kenneth,’ I said. ‘Kenneth Gabriel.’
‘And where do you live, Kenneth?’
‘With the fairy folk.’
The woman exchanged a sideways look with the man. ‘What’s your address?’
‘Toadstool Lane,’ I t
old her. ‘In a castle made out of cigarettes and gingerbread.’
‘He’s fucking brain-damaged,’ the man said.
‘Language, Michael,’ the old woman said. Then she asked me in a softer voice, ‘How old are you, Kenneth?’
‘Seven.’
‘Do you know who I am?’
‘Yes.’ I said. ‘You’re my mummy.’
‘I’ll drive him across town and dump him,’ the man said. ‘They’ll think he’s had a stroke or something.’
The old lady ignored him. ‘No, I’m not your mummy,’ she said. ‘Have another guess, Kenneth. Who else might I be?’
‘Are you . . . ?’
‘Yes . . .’ she said encouragingly.
‘Are you the old bitch who just tried to kill me?’
The comment earned me an ear-stinging slap from Michael. ‘Watch your mouth,’ he said.
‘Leave him be,’ Bella said. ‘He deserves to be a little disgruntled.’
‘I’m a bit more than fucking disgruntled.’
‘The deal was that, if you could manage sixty seconds, you got to look at the video. And with a little help from Michael, you went the distance.’
‘You loved it, didn’t you?’
‘It was rather thrilling.’
‘Show me what’s on the stick.’
Bella yawned. ‘Put the video on,’ she said to Michael.
‘Or I could just take it with me,’ I said hopefully.
‘Absolutely not,’ she said.
Michael booted up the smart TV, inserted the drive and pressed the remote. The screen filled with a shot of La Cage’s entrance hall. For a few seconds nothing moved apart from the digit counters in the bottom right-hand corner. It had just turned 11.32 when Harry came into shot, accompanied by Michael.
The quality wasn’t great but I had no difficulty recognising the dress that I’d seen at Bombaste and in the murder house in Matcham. Harry signed the ledger, after which Michael took a coat out of the closet and helped her into it. The pair laughed at something while Harry did the buttons up. Then Michael walked out of shot. So Harry had left the club alone. I felt a tidal wave of disappointment that the tape had turned out to be a dud, particularly after everything I’d been through to see it.
And then the Stetson made an appearance.