Caz opened her mouth, but no sound came out. “Gone?” She finally asked, as though struggling with the concept.
“Gone,” I confirmed and proceeded to fill her in on the night’s events, from the moment I’d been dragged out of the Marq by the law through my interrogation by Reid and on to my Horse’s Head moment with Chopper Falzone.
“But you need to pay Chopper his cash,” she rather needlessly informed me. “How are you going to do that if the money’s gone?”
“I’m not. Hence the requirement for a fast car to Dover and a ticket out of the country.”
“Wait.” She took her hands off my shoulders and held them out in front of her as though willing the world to be calm. “We can sort this out.”
“With a magic wand?” I asked incredulously.
“We can make this better,” she insisted.
“Are you doing some sort of NLP voodoo on me?” I asked. “Only, if you are, this is so not the time. I don’t need positivity, Caz; I need seven grand and a signed confession from whoever did to Lyra Day what the rest of us only wished we had the guts to do.”
“The money can wait.”
“Oh. Right. I’ll get Chopper on the phone, shall I? Let you tell him that yourself.”
“Danny.” She gave me her best stop being so fucking negative look.
“Caz. I am dead,” I repeated.
“Chopper wants his money,” Caz stated and, before I could ask her whether she thought I had, maybe forgotten this fact, she added “but I bet he wants the mess stirred up by the Lyra thing sorted out even more. Am I right?”
I frowned. “Well he didn’t mention money till the very end.”
“And the police seem to have decided you throttled the old sow yourself, which means that they won’t be looking too hard for the real killer. So, there you go.”
“Where I go, Caz, is straight to Calais and then off east to somewhere that stays dark till June.”
“No. You stay. You sort out the Lyra mess.”
“And what? He’ll be so grateful he’ll forget the seven grand from the opening night and fifteen hundred a week he’s waiting for?”
“It’s a start. You run, you’re running forever. And that’s not you.”
She was right. “So I stay.”
“You stay.”
“And I sort out the Lyra mess?”
She nodded and I wanted almost to cry at how glad I was to have a friend like Caz in my life. “OK. Kettle,” I said. “And brandy with the coffee. Thanks.”
“Attaboy!” She slapped me on the shoulder and tottered off to the galley kitchen.
Chapter Twenty-Five
“Has she turned up yet?” The concern – even down a telephone line – was evident in Caz’s voice.
I looked around the empty bar, shrouded in the half darkness of a dingy Saturday afternoon and sighed. “Yet? Caz, if she’s done a runner with Chopper’s cash, she’ll not be seen till sometime in the next century.”
“If,” Caz reminded me.
“I know: she was a bit of a misery, but she didn’t seem like the type who’d do this. Still, what do I know about people? Christie even made a few comments that, now I think about them...”
“Well the ASBO twins are all accounted for. They were shipped out of the joint at the same time as I was and headed off to Soho. Ray reckons Ali was allowed to stay behind to cash up, but the cops were on site the whole time. So: what next?”
I sighed. “Just come back here. And bring some coffee.”
Caz and I had kicked the entire disaster around for an age until we’d fitfully napped, finally decided we needed to face reality and I’d gone to the Marq, let myself back in to the place, walked around it and – as I now did on my second trip round – wondered how my life had gone from the scent of Jo Malone to the scent of Toilet Duck; how I’d gone from kept man to keeper of the kill zone.
I left the bar and walked around the private areas: the parlour; the kitchen with its vast chest freezers; the living room, empty save for a distressed looking old sofa; the dressing room, closed off now with Crime Scene tape; and the office with its empty safe.
Then I made my way back downstairs and heard someone pounding on the front door. I crossed, wondering what new hell was waiting outside.
It was, instead, Robert.
My Robert.
Who wasn’t my Robert anymore, but who smiled comfortingly and said “Oh Danny. What have you gotten yourself in to?”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Robert was still standing, his gym toned butt barely touching the cushions of a Victorian barstool, when I Iet Caz into the Marq.
She stopped dead when her eyes fell on my ex. There was a moment of almost total silence before she switched on a beaming smile.
“Robert, darling,” she sang, opened her arms wide so as not to touch him with either of the coffees she held and air kissed him on both cheeks.
I knew Caz and I knew that this was not her usual manner.
“Caroline,” Robert murmured in his oiliest tones.
If there’d been a knife handy, I might have been able to cut the atmosphere with it.
“So, what brings you here?” Caz, her tone still bright and breezy, asked.
“Danny’s sister called.”
“Babs,” Caz muttered, well aware of the mutual fan club that Babs and Robert had founded. She handed me my latte and shot me a look that said Remind me to have your sister cut into little pieces one day.
“She’s very worried,” Robert said, turning his attention to me. “Very. I mean, first you reinvent yourself as some sort of,” he sniffed dismissively, “Barman. Then, there’s this.” He gestured at the newspaper on the bar, from where the headline DAY DEAD IN DODGY DRINKING DEN screamed.
“I’m not a barman,” I objected, “I’m the landlord,”
Robert cast his eyes once again around the bar. “Landlord.” He said the word in the same tones one would perhaps pronounce the phrase anal warts and settled his gaze back on Caz. “And what about you, Lady Caroline? What do you think of this little venture?”
“Venture?” I bristled.
Caz smiled sweetly at Robert and slugged back her espresso in one sweep. “Drink your latte, darling,” she sang to me, “before it gets cold,” and her eyes took on the look of a shark who’s just sighted a half dozen teenage surfers paddling from shore. “I hardly think of it as a venture, Robert. This is Danny’s new career.”
“Career?” Robert smiled silkily. “Really?” He looked around the bar and his silence spoke volumes.
“Look, Robert,” I ignored Caz’s look of warning; I could fight my own battles. “Thanks for coming, but really…”
“Oh Danny,” Robert sighed, “please don’t say you can fight your own battles, because look where looking after yourself has gotten you.” He jabbed a finger at the headline.
“Robert,” Caz asked flatly. “What do you want?”
“To save you,” he said, fixing me with an almost-believable look of concern.
“Save me?” I couldn’t decide whether to laugh or punch his smug face. “Robert, I don’t need saving.”
“Danny, what you need – above almost anything else in the world right now – is rescuing. From yourself, if from nothing else.”
I laughed. It seemed easier than punching him. “And just how are you going to rescue me? Throw me over your shoulder and drag me back to Windsor?”
Robert blanched. “I don’t think Andrew would approve,” he murmured.
“Of course, the window cleaner. How stupid of me.”
“Andrew runs a very successful business. He’s got several teams of men doing everything from re-tiling rooves to re-laying driveways. The window cleaning was just what you knew him for. But he’s not just a window cleaner. He’s got some real business nous and–”
“And I’m just a barman in a shitty boozer,” I finished for him.
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Look, Robert, this might not be
your scene, but it’s a good living; it’s mine and I can make this pub pay.”
“And just how do you propose to rescue Danny from his life?” Caz enquired.
Robert turned his attention to me. “Danny. I know that things between us ended – badly. It breaks my heart to think of you here. I want to give you some funds, let you get away from London, set yourself up with a fresh start.”
I’ll admit my first thought was He’s having me committed somewhere. I looked at Caz and she raised an eyebrow.
“I want nothing from you.” I said flatly. “You can go now.”
“Danny, be serious. You’ve gone from a nice little job in an office to running this place, dealing drugs and stumbling over corpses. How much further do you have to fall before you’ll let your friends help you?”
“I hated the office job. It meant running around being subservient to smug bastards with overinflated senses of their own importance – no offence,” this last to Caz, who nodded serenely. “And frankly, I got enough of that at home. I have never dealt drugs in my life. In fact, as you well know, my only involvement with illegal pharmaceuticals was as a result of your stupidity,” (here, he had the good grace to blush). “It was a corpse, singular. And as for my friends,” I put my arm around Caz and pulled her closer, “they’re standing by me – as they always have.”
And at that moment, Ali’s voice rang out. “Oi, Danny! You in there?”
Caz’s eyes widened. My jaw dropped. We both leapt for the door. I got there first, unlocked it and dragged Ali into the pub.
“Where the fuck have you been?” I demanded.
“Danny, calm down,” Caz said soothingly, before turning to Ali. “We’ve been calling your mobile all morning. Where the hell were you?”
Ali bristled, pulled herself up to her full, diminutive height, cast a suspicious glance over my shoulder at Robert and turned her attention back to me.
“At my mum’s. The phone was out of juice cos I didn’t have my charger with me. Went round there last night and she insisted I stay over. Spent most of the morning trying to get me to move back in. She was terrified of me coming back to this place. Thought I’d be hatcheted while bottling up or summink.”
“Ali, the cash,” I interrupted her. “Where is it?”
“The cash?”
“The takings. From last night.”
“Well, they’re in the safe. Wait – they’re not?”
“You’ve been robbed, too?” This from Robert, with a gesture of exasperation.
“Robert, keep out of this.”
Ali had gone pale. “I emptied the till – started cashing up, but didn’t bother finishing, Danny, cos, well, after everything...”
“Go on...”
“Have you called the police?” Robert demanded.
“I put the cash into the bank sack and put it in the safe.”
“Did you lock the safe?” Caz asked, looking for an explanation.
“Christ almighty, Danny: you haven’t, have you?”
“Robert; I am handling this.”
“Clearly.”
“Ali?” I turned to the woman, whose eyes were darting around the bar, fear etched plainly on her face.
“Yes... I don’t know... Wait! Yes! Definitely. I locked the safe, went downstairs – I was still spooked about everything – and then – I remember now – I went back upstairs and rechecked the safe. It was locked.”
“Right,” Robert pulled his mobile from his pocket, “I’m calling the police right now.”
Caz stepped over to him and grasped his wrist with such force that he winced. “I wouldn’t,” she muttered.
“Oh Jesus!” Ali put her hand to her mouth, her eyes wide and looked every inch the silent movie heroine. “Chopper’s cut.”
“Chopper’s what? Who’s Chopper? Danny, what are you messed up in here?” Robert’s voice had the tone of someone who’s popped off on a short break and discovered that Thomas Cook has dumped them in the middle of a civil war.
“Was the place locked up when you left?” I pressed on; I had decided to ignore Robert, which was easy, considering I’d had fifteen years practice.
“Tight.” She was definite now. “I even set the alarm and if there’s anything still open – doors or windows – it won’t set.”
“It wasn’t set when I came in this morning.” I stepped away from Ali.
“Wait.” Robert again: “Chopper Falzone? That nasty piece? Jesus, Danny. What have you done?”
This was too much. “What have I done? What have I done? Robert, I’ve walked out on you after fifteen years. I haven’t got a pot to piss in, nor a window to throw it out of. So I have done whatever I needed to do to get my life restarted.”
“By hooking up with a notorious gangster and employing a team of kleptomaniacs?”
“Oi!” Ali bristled. “I’ve never pinched so much as a packet of nuts from here.”
Robert snorted, “A likely story.”
“Right,” I’d had enough. I grabbed him by the arm. “You’re not helping.”
“Helping? Danny, we need to talk. You’re in over your head.”
“Well I don’t need rocks in my pockets, then. Go home, Robert. Give my love to Andy the entrepreneur.”
“Danny...”
“Goodbye, Robert.”
And I bundled him out of the door, slammed it shut, locked it and turned back to the two women.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
What could I do? Ali insisted she was innocent and I believed her.
And yet...
“Maybe she did take the money,” I sighed.
Caz and I were in the filth-encrusted kitchen.
I’d had no intention of opening tonight and had told Ali as much, which had only added to her paranoia. “It’s not cos of you,” I insisted. “It’s cos – Christ, Ali, Lyra’s dead. A woman died here, less than twenty-four hours ago. How can we open a boozer after that?”
“Listen,” Ali fixed me with a desperate looking stare, “I didn’t take a penny from that safe. I don’t know who did, but I know it wasn’t me. And I tell you something else I know: if you don’t open this pub tonight, you’ll be passing up your best chance ever to get back some of what was pinched.”
“Ali, who’s gonna want to have a fun night out in a room below the one where a woman was strangled?”
“Oh, you have no idea,” she said. “Open it up and I guarantee that you’ll be beating them off with a stick.”
So I told her to refill the shelves with whatever she could find, get the twins in and shout if she needed me.
Then Caz and I had set to cleaning the filthy cuisine, more as a way of taking my mind off everything and providing me with an excuse for not going into the bar than anything else.
Caz flipped her fringe out of her eyes, sighed and stopped sweeping the floor. “If she did steal it, why would she come back?”
“She’s not stupid, Caz: she knows its Chopper’s money and when he finds out who stole from him, they’re gonna be fitted up for concrete UGGs.”
“So, what? A double bluff? She comes back to prove her innocence? By that logic, maybe Chopper took it himself.”
“Why would he do that?”
“This way, instead of a share, he gets all of the takings.”
I shook my head. “If Chopper had taken the cash, he’d, well he wouldn’t exactly tell me, but he’d enjoy dangling it in front of me. No: something else happened here. And when I figure it out...”
“What?”
“Well, I’m gonna get the cash back and pass it on to Chopper.”
“And till then?”
There was a cough from the doorway. I looked up and Ali was stood there. How long had she been there and how much had she heard? “I think you’re needed out front,” she said simply, before turning and vanishing back towards the bar.
I stepped into the hallway and could already hear the thudthudthud of a disco track cranked up on the stereo. As I walked towards the bar, a high pitched
laugh drowned out whichever current diva was singing her heart out over the beat.
My mobile rang. I pulled it from my pocket, glanced at the words Unknown number and flipped it open.
“Hello,” I said, as the sound of two scaffolders practicing who could bellow the word cunt loudest echoed from the bar.
The line went dead.
I shrugged and stepped into the bar and there were Christie, the underage tart he’d had with him the previous night and a selection of broken noses, chipped teeth, protruding jaws and wide brows, all overhanging a clutch of already half-emptied pint glasses gripped in a series of fat and/or tattooed knuckles.
The place reeked of expensive cologne and testosterone.
“Ah! Mein host!” It was three pm and the whole group already seemed to be lively. Christie gestured expansively at me, finished the gesture with a deliberate limp wrist, squeezed the girl round the waist with his other arm and winked at me lasciviously. “Thought some mates might enjoy your hospitality, know what I mean?”
“Jimmy,” I nodded and glanced towards the left end of the bar where two or three paying customers were being served by one of the twins.
“Mr Christie,” his eyes glinted menacingly, “but you’re right; let’s not stand on ceremony. You can call me Jimmy and I can call you Dan, I’m sure.”
“It’s Danny,” I stepped forward, realising I was less afraid every time I met this worthless tub of lard. “What can I do for you?”
Ali appeared at my shoulder. “He wants champagne,” she murmured sotto voce.
The door opened. Another customer entered and made his way to the right end of the bar. I glanced in his direction, frowned, wondering why he appeared familiar and turned my attention back to the mob before me. I was glad Ali had called me rather than just opening the bubbly; I had exactly four magnums in the cellar, all of which had been obtained on “Sale or return,” with the intent to display them, pour cava into champagne flutes and return, untouched, the vastly overpriced champagne.
And now, here was Christie demanding the most expensive booze I’d hoped never to serve in the place.
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