by Alex Marwood
Chapter One
Three Years Ago
She wakes up with a stiff neck, slumped across her desk. The heating’s gone off and her circulation has slowed, and the cold has woken her. If it hadn’t, she’d probably have slept through until lunchtime. Wouldn’t be the first time…
She sits up, her head fogged and her mouth dry. Checks her watch and sees that it’s very nearly six. She’s tired. She’s always tired, these days. Night work really only suits the very young, and Lisa’s thirty-four – no spring chicken, in clubland. As of her last birthday, some of the girls who work here are literally young enough to be her daughter, and she’s feeling it. She used to get through the cashing-up by four-thirty on a Saturday morning, but tonight even the quadruple espresso she took up to the office hasn’t kept her awake.
She pushes herself up from the chair and stretches. At least she’s finished. She remembers, now, deciding that maybe she’d take ten minutes just to close her eyes before she took the cash to the safe, to try and ensure she wouldn’t crash the car on the way home. I’ve got to leave this job, she thinks. I don’t want to spend my nights seeing men at their worst, all slavering with lust and googly-eyed from whatever they’ve been at in the toilets, and I’m too old for these hours. These hours and the stress and the worrying I might end up in jail.
None of it adds up. It never does. She knows how many bottles of champagne are left in the cellar, and how many there would be if they’d sold them in the numbers the bar tabs add up to. It’s the same every week. Two hundred people in the club on a good night, and though sometimes they’re footballers or the modern robber barons of the City, slumming it among the tarts and the yobs, or silly young actors who think their stint in the soap they’re in will last for ever, £998 for a bottle of champagne is still steep enough to make them think about the choice between drink and dance; and most of them opt for a bottle of Absolut at four hundred and fifty pounds and a bunch of private dances at fifty pounds (plus tip) a pop. But every Saturday, according to the bar tabs, they sell a hundred, hundred and fifty bottles of fizz. And all of it paid for in cash.
She slaps herself about the face a couple of times to try to wake herself up. Come on, Lisa. Sooner you get this finished, the sooner your day off begins. You can think about this when you’ve slept. Think about handing in your notice before there’s police swarming all over this place. The Adidas bag is back by the desk, where Malik always drops it after he’s been to the bank in the morning. She picks it up and starts counting the bundles of notes into it, one by one. For God’s sake, she thinks – some of them are still in their wrappers. He’s not even trying to make the notes look used any more.
Of course she knows what Tony’s up to. Basildon lads with no obvious source of capital don’t end up owning nightclubs by twenty-six, with no investors. But a place like Nefertiti’s – yeah, get the pun; great name for a lap-dancing establishment, all flash and splash and paps on the door – is a licence to print money. Or if not print it, at least wash it greyish clean. That’s why he makes sure they’re always in the papers, why he bribes the grabby whoremongers of sport and pop and TV to come here with free drinks and girls all night in the VIP lounge. Get a reputation for being where the high rollers go, and nobody will question what you claim they spend, because everyone reads about such crazy profligacy every day in The Sun and everybody knows that footballers are stupid. Those clubs in town, the big ones, can take half a million easy on a Saturday night, on maybe twenty grand’s worth of booze, though they probably actually hand over some goods in exchange for the money, of course.
And here it is: she finishes counting and confirms what she already knows. The bag contains a hundred and eighty-five thousand pounds, give or take a few hundred, in fifties and twenties. And on Monday morning it will go into the bank, and from the bank it will go into the white economy.
She does a last check round the office. Now all she has to do is take the cash down to the safe that’s sunk in concrete in the basement store cupboard, do a last visual round the bar, and then she can lock up and leave it to the cleaners. She quite likes this time of night, despite the smell of spilled drink and sweat and poppers, the lonely smell of spooge from the back rooms. She likes it when the lights are fully up and she can see how this place the punters think is fairyland is made of smoke and mirrors. Velvet benches in pure, liquid-shrugging nylon; the light-up dance floor that’s black with sticky muck, the ornate Louis XV-style mirrors whose frames are made from purest polystyrene. Even Nefertiti herself, presiding over the entrance lobby with her black bangs and her golden crook, titties out for the lads, was cast in stone-effect resin in a factory in Guiyang. She turns out the office lights, turns the key in the door and walks down the stairs.
The bars are based along a white-painted brick corridor lined with curtains in more velvet, royal blue trimmed with gold fringes this time, all hanging from long poles that allow the staff to pull them across and cut off rooms for privacy or move the VIP area around to suit the crowd that’s in, and even close off sections altogether. The reputation of all nightclubs rests on the punters having felt that they were in a crowd, and in Nefertiti’s they can make a crowd of a couple of dozen people if they have to. She walks along the corridor, checking each room as she passes it, making sure no strays have stayed, or passed out unnoticed behind a couch, turning off the lights as she goes. It’s only when she’s halfway to the end that she realises that she’s not alone.
Something’s going on in the Luxor Lounge. Something physical, repetitive and energetic. Sex? Is someone shagging in there? Who is it? Someone left behind? Her own staff, doing the worker’s fuck-you to the bosses?
She slows her pace, quietens the sound of her steps. The corridor is thickly carpeted in black with a gold border and little gold stars. Just a small amount of pattern will hide a multitude of sins. As she approaches, she becomes less sure that it’s sex she’s hearing. There are grunts, and sighs, but also, she’s sure, the sound of groans; and, behind it all, low laughs and chat, as though whoever’s making the sounds is providing the entertainment for a corporate shindig. As she nears the curtain that’s pulled across the entrance, she slows her walk down to a creep, positions herself against the wall and peeps in through a crack in the cloth.
The Luxor Lounge is black and red, dark colours that don’t show the dirt. A good thing, because what’s coming out of the mouth of the man on the floor will never scrub away.
There are six people in the Luxor Lounge. There’s the man who lies still on the floor, as though he has long since given up protecting his vulnerable parts, whose face is so swollen his mother wouldn’t recognise him; Tony Stott, her boss, the big man, the wunderkind, four years younger than she is and millions of pounds richer, all designer suit and gold cufflinks, clean-shaven even at this time of night, his tight curls cut close to his head; a woman she’s not seen before, low-key in a grey suit that, from its cut, she knows didn’t come from Debenhams; a much older man, late fifties, maybe, who wears a dark wool overcoat as though he’s at a funeral. The three of them stand by the bar with an open bottle of Remy, drinking from snifters, watching Malik Otaran and Burim Sadiraj kick and kick and kick. As she watches, she sees the man’s head snap back on his neck. A spurt of blood arches from his crumpled nose, beautiful in its elegance. Malik stands on one foot, lifts up the other to knee height, and stamps down.
She gasps.
The Luxor Lounge falls quiet. Five heads, smiles freezing on faces, pupils still distended with arousal, turn and look in her direction.
Lisa runs for the exit. Knows that she’s running for her life.
Chapter Two
He’s a magnificent cat. Rangy and black and swaggering, with great vampire incisors that extend most of the way to his jawline. Green eyes and a kinked tail that speak of oriental blood, and a scarred left ear that shows that he’s not afraid to fight.
Today he is asserting his mastery of his territory by visiting. He’s been attached to the h
ouse for so long that no one remembers who originally brought him here, or if, indeed, anybody did. Some tenants shoo him away with angry hisses, afraid of his panther grace and unblinking stare, some sweep him into their arms with coos and growls of admiration, give him a warm place to sleep, and weep when they, as they all do, have to leave him behind. Twenty-six tenants have passed through the house on Beulah Grove since he took up residence, and he has never gone hungry enough to move on himself. He has had many names and for now it’s Psycho.
He stands in the window – The Lover has thrown it open because the heat inside is so stifling he’s afraid he’ll make the air damp with his sweat – and surveys the space, then leaps on to the back of the chair where the girl sits. He leans forward and sniffs her ginger hair, touches an ear with his fine damp nose. Affronted by her failure to respond he raises his face and looks up at the man. Blinks.
The Lover is weeping. He sits in a folding chair against the far wall, his face buried in his hands, and rocks. The tears come more quickly every time. He used to have a few hours – even a day or two – in which to savour the company, enjoy the romance, before the despair overtook him; to hold the hand and stroke the cheek and take pleasure in togetherness. But each event seems less delightful than the last, seems to pass so quickly that, almost as soon as it’s done, the yearning begins again, the loneliness breaking over his head like a wave.
He’s apologising, as he always does. ‘I’m sorry,’ he says, and the words catch, salty, in his throat. ‘Oh, Nikki, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean it.’
She doesn’t reply. Stares, vacant, past his shoulder, her mouth half open, surprised.
‘You just…’ he says. ‘I was afraid you were going to go away again. I can’t bear it, you see. Can’t bear it. I’m so alone.’
He continues to weep. He’s consumed with self-pity, eaten up with the emptiness of his existence. My life is full of busy-work, he thinks. I do and I act and I help and I organise, and at the end of the day it’s always the same. Just me. Me, alone, and the world going on as though I had never existed. They wouldn’t notice – none of them – for months, if I disappeared. Families like mine, no money, fractured marriages, siblings only half-related and homes already full to bursting, we drift apart when someone goes away. I don’t speak to my half-brother or sisters from one year’s end to the next, just bump into them sometimes when I make the trip back at Christmas. Worst of all, my mother always sounds surprised to hear my voice on the phone, though she hears it, regular as clockwork, first Sunday of every month, while Songs of Praise is on. They wouldn’t notice. Nobody would notice. I would vanish in a puff of smoke and make a nasty clearing-up job for someone further down the line.
He raises his eyes and looks at Nikki, the source of his suffering. A pretty girl. Not spectacular, not anything that anyone would say was out of his league, though he supposes that eyebrows might be raised at the difference in their ages. It was all I ever wanted, he thinks. A nice girl. No great ambition, no overwhelming passion like they play out in the movies, no champagne and roses. Just someone to stay with me, someone who wouldn’t go away.
The cat is standing by the wardrobe now, sniffing at the crack between the doors. The Lover leaps to his feet and shoos it off, claps his hands and hisses so that it tenses; then, with a baleful yowl, it jumps on to the bed and out of the window. He considers closing it to keep the cat out, but in this heat his dwelling space has become stifling, overwhelming, and he’s afraid that the smells it draws out will spread through the house. He wipes his salty face on his sleeve and tries to pull himself together. We can have a nice evening, at least, he thinks, as he looks back at his silent companion. I’ll have a glass of wine, hold her hand. Maybe she’d like to watch a film with me, before we begin.
Her right hand, knocked by the cat’s passing, slips suddenly from the arm of the chair and hangs in mid-air, still and soft. Such a pretty hand, he thinks, the nails always clean and scrupulously shaped. I noticed that about her the first time I saw her; always wanted to take that hand in my own, to press its smooth skin between my palms.
No time like the present. He fetches the fold-up chair and plants it beside the armchair. Funny, he thinks. She looks smaller than she used to. More fragile, more frail. More like someone who needs my protection. He puts the forearm back, along the chair’s arm, and goes to the kitchen drawer to fetch the scissors. Cuts, very slowly, very carefully, through the duck tape around her neck, then lifts the plastic bag it holds there – thick, heavy, transparent from her head, carefully, so as not to mess up her lovely hair. He’ll give her a bath, later. Strip off her stained clothing and run it through the washing machine, shampoo her sweaty locks and comb them down, dust her with baby powder. In heat like this, it’ll all be dry in no time.
‘There,’ he says kindly and plants a loving kiss on her temple, where no pulse beats any more. He takes his seat and lifts the hand, just briefly, to his lips. ‘There,’ he says again, and enfolds it between his own, larger, rougher palms, as he has always imagined.
‘This is nice, isn’t it?’ he asks, rhetorically.
Chapter Three
Despite the cloying heat he wears a cardigan that smells of tobacco, frying, and those dark creases on the body that the air never reaches. His male-pattern baldness is accentuated by a scurfy comb-over, and a pair of smeary spectacles hide his eyes. And he’s fat, front-buttock fat, bulge-over-your-waistband fat. He wheezes as he leads the way slowly up the front steps, his bulk making a flight that was designed as a graceful decoration for a house of substance look narrow and mean as he climbs.
The wheezing, she thinks. It’s not just the weight. There’s something more to it. He’s excited. Feeling pleased with himself. There’s… lust in those laboured breaths. I can feel it. The way he looked me up and down on the steps; he wasn’t just deciding if I seemed respectable; he was checking out my tits.
She dismisses the thought, impatiently. Get over yourself, Collette. And so what, anyway? A dirty old man getting a thrill: it’s not like you’re not used to that, is it?
The Landlord stops for a rest on the small landing outside the front door, one hand leaning on the wall, and stares down at her. She shifts the Adidas bag further up her shoulder, giving herself a chance to surreptitiously pull her scarf over the open neck of her shirt. She’s as modestly dressed as the heat of the day will allow, but she’s suddenly uncomfortably aware that her clothes are clinging damply to her skin.
He takes a couple of breaths before he speaks. ‘I wasn’t expecting anyone yet, you see,’ he says, clearly believing that he is offering an explanation for something.
She stands and waits, unsure how to respond. The bag is heavy and she wishes he would just move on to their destination, so she can drop it on the floor and shake out her arm.
‘They usually start coming round the next day,’ he says. ‘Or in the evening, anyway. After the advert goes in. Not, like, an hour after. You caught me on the hop.’
‘Sorry,’ she says, not sure why she’s apologising.
He takes a key from his cardigan pocket, whirls it by the tag around his index finger. ‘Luckily I was here anyway,’ he says. ‘Had a bit of admin to deal with downstairs. Thing is, it’s not ready. I was going to get a cleaner in to deal with it, but I thought we had all day.’
‘Oh, that’s okay,’ says Collette. ‘I’m good with a bottle of Flash. There’s a hoover, right? In the house?’
He has wet lips. They smack together, a nasty shade of blueish pink. ‘Sure,’ he says. ‘We’ve got one of those. But it’s not that.’
He turns to fit the key into the front door. It’s a heavy door, two panels of glass patterned with etched ivy leaves allowing light into the hallway beyond. A graceful door, made to match the aspirations of a Victorian on the way up, not the security needs of a run-down rooming house. ‘It’s the last tenant, you see. She skipped out on her rent and left her stuff behind.’
‘Oh,’ says Collette.
> ‘Must’ve wanted gone in a hurry, is all I’m saying,’ he says. ‘Because she’s left pretty much everything. I kept it all for as long as I could… but I’m not a charity.’
‘No,’ says Collette. ‘Of course not.’
‘So it’ll need clearing out. Just so you know.’
‘Mmm,’ she says, uncertainly. ‘I was hoping to move in today.’
‘Well, that doesn’t give me much time to check out your references,’ he says, smugly. ‘Does it?’
‘No,’ she says. She wishes he hadn’t followed him into the hall. It’s airless in here, even with the door open. The smell from his clothes bursts over her in gusts as he reaches round and pushes it to. She peers into the gloom and sees a stained grey carpet, a Utility table piled with post and a payphone attached to the wall. Haven’t seen one of those in years, she thinks. Wonder how much he gets out of it each month?
A drop of sweat works its way loose from beneath the bag strap over her shoulder and trickles down into her cleavage. From behind the door to her left, to her surprise, she hears the strains of a violin playing some classical air. Not what she’d expected to hear in a place like this. If she’d thought about music at all, she’d have put her money on hip hop. ‘But I really don’t want to have to spend money on a hotel, if I can manage it,’ she says.
‘Haven’t you got anyone you can go and stay with? In the meantime?’
She’s got her story all lined up and ready to go. ‘No,’ she says. ‘I’ve been living in Spain for the last few years. I’ve sort of lost touch with a lot of people. But my mum’s in the hospital and I want to be near her. And, you know, you come back and you realise you don’t really know anybody, any more. You know how people move around, in London. I lost touch with my school friends, and we never had any other family. It was just Mum and me…’
She stops, and, just as she’s practised in countless mirrors over the last few years, turns big, hurt eyes up to look at him. This look has helped her though more awkward situations than anything else. ‘Sorry,’ she concludes. ‘You don’t want to hear about my problems.’