“Do we have any idea what March is up to?” Danny continued. “I met the band on Saturday. They were on top of the world, on stage, gig packed full of fans. Everything seemed to be fantastic. But then two days later March turns up and within two days of that, one of them’s dead and another’s on life support. And we’ve got no idea where Holly is. Have you tracked her down, by the way?”
“Not yet,” she replied. “But we’re looking. As for March, Danny, you know as much as I do.”
“I know, but isn’t it weird?”
“I can see why you’d think that.”
“Actually, I don’t think it was all fantastic,” I said. All eyes were on me.
“What wasn’t?” asked Amy.
“There was something going on. The girls were hardly talking on Saturday. Steve said it was hard trying to keep up the momentum, trying to keep everyone happy. Then when I did the pictures on Sunday, there seemed to be some sort of massive tension. At the end Holly came over to speak to me and I said it had been fun, but she said it wasn’t, not really.”
“Did you have any idea what it was about?”
“No, but then when I went to the studio on Monday to show them the pictures, there was only Holly there. The others should have been but they weren’t. Holly said they were supposed to be rehearsing but she hadn’t heard from them.”
“She didn’t know where they were?”
“No. That’s the point. But then, as I was leaving, she said not to worry. That they worked hard and just had creative differences. So it could just be that - but she just didn’t look right. She looked sad. Troubled.”
“We’ll look into that too.”
“And I’ve still not managed to speak to her. I keep calling but there’s never any answer. The only time there was an answer, Leah had her phone and said Holly had gone, but didn’t say where. I don’t even know if Holly’s still got the phone.”
“She possibly hasn’t,” said Amy. “We’ll keep trying to track her down and when we speak to her I’ll let you know, okay? Just to put your mind at rest.”
I thanked her. The interview drew to a close. Amy and her colleague thanked us in turn for our time, and then they left us in peace.
“How are you feeling?” asked Danny, once we were back on our own.
“I’m still tired,” I admitted. “I think it’s the shock on top of everything. Are you all right?”
“I’m fine, just worried.” He left it at that. I didn’t delve further as I thought I knew what he was referring to. Perhaps he wasn’t, in retrospect. “I’m going to phone the office, tell them I won’t be in and see if they’ve heard anything.”
While Danny made the call, I took the cups through to the kitchen and started loading the dishwasher. Eventually he came to join me.
“There is one other thing,” he said. “It’s following on from what you were saying last night.”
“Go on.”
“It’s just this. You mentioned playing the piano and how it’s really hard.”
“Ah yes. My alleged stroke of genius?”
I still had no idea what I’d said that was supposedly so clever.
“Exactly. Bear with me. Presumably if you’re going to be any good at piano, you need lessons. And lessons are probably really expensive if you have a lot of them, which is what you’d need if you wanted to do it professionally.”
“Agreed.”
“So, Leah, at some stage, has presumably had supportive parents who spent a lot of money on her. And she’s not very old, so it probably wasn’t all that long ago.”
I could see Danny’s thinking.
“So how do you go from there to being homeless in London?” I asked. “It’s not like she was an orphan growing up in a children’s home, presumably. Has there been some big falling out? Has she discovered a rebellious streak and run away? Or is it something more?”
“Precisely,” he said after a moment. “We need to know more. I just hope she’s okay. She’s clearly the key to this and yet...” He drifted off.
“And yet what?”
“Well, I just don’t know how it all connects, or even if it does. I can’t see how it has any connection at all to the trafficking stuff. So why are they getting attacked? And who’s doing it? It’s only because of March that there’s even a link. And even then, it’s tenuous. He may be using the shelter as a front in some way, but even so, what’s that got to do with the band?”
“Nothing as far as I can see.”
“Exactly. So even if he met Leah there and decided to get into the music business, which is possible but weird, how does that explain anything else? Why did someone kill Steve and try to kill Leah? And where’s Holly?”
We were about to find out the answer to that, and it was far from what we expected.
20
MY phone started ringing. I ran through to the front room, expecting Mitch, but when I answered the call I could only hear background noise.
“Hello,” I said again.
And then I heard a voice, and it definitely wasn’t him.
“Anna?” She sounded upset. Shaky.
“Holly?”
“Oh God, Anna, I’m so scared.”
“Holly, where are you?” Danny heard me and came running through.
“I’ve got nowhere to go,” she said. “I just don’t know what’s going on. It’s Steve, Leah...”
“I know. Where are you now?”
“Waterloo. I can’t go home. They’ll find me.”
“Who’ll find you, Holly? Who’s doing this?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know anything any more.”
“Listen, can you stay there? We’ll come to you. We can be there very soon, probably half an hour. Can you do that?”
“I can’t stay here. Too many people. They’ll be looking for me.”
I was thinking out loud.
“Can you get on the Underground?”
“Yes, but I can’t go home.”
“No, don’t worry about that. Can you get to Camden Town? Straight up on the Northern Line.”
“Yeah, I can do that.”
“Do it now, and we’ll meet you there. Take the left exit. It’ll take you twenty minutes. We should be there by then. I’ve got Danny with me. If we’re not there just wait, okay? We’ll only be a few minutes. We’ll set off now.”
“Thanks, Anna,” she said. “But hurry.”
“I will.”
She rang off. Danny was already putting his shoes on. I followed suit. We grabbed our jackets and keys and headed down Camden Road towards the station.
We arrived before Holly. The wait was interminable. What if she didn’t show? What if they’d got to her first? What if right at this minute she was being scraped up, having been pushed in front of a train? Why hadn’t I suggested a taxi for God’s sake? I hate the bloody Underground at the best of times and this was far from that.
But just as the panic was starting to really take hold, she appeared at the top of the escalator, carrying a nylon holdall. She saw us and gave a very brief wave, looking terrified. She came through the barrier and ran straight into my arms.
“I’m just so pleased to see you,” I said.
In fairness, she looked terrible. She’d clearly been crying, but I could only imagine the trauma she’d been through. Danny took her bag.
“Come on, we’ll take you home,” I said. “You’ll be safe there.”
Within fifteen minutes we were back at the flat.
“I can’t go home,” Holly said again.
“That’s okay,” said Danny. “You can stay here.”
“Really?”
“Of course. We’re just so pleased you’re safe. We’ve been so worried about you.”
“You can have my room,” I added.
“No, I can’t do that. Can I just stay on the sofa?”
“Seriously, it’s no bother. I can share with Danny.” I looked at him. We’d shared a bed several times while looking for Clare and it had always gon
e surprisingly well, even if there’d been a regrettable absence of anything sordid. Things might have been a bit frosty over the last few days, but secretly I was pleased at the prospect. Obviously, I wouldn’t mention it to Mitch. God, I wasn’t cut out for this level of subterfuge. Danny nodded. That was agreed then.
“Have you got clothes and things?” I asked.
“Just what I’ve got in the bag,” she said. “It’s all right, though. Just till I can get something sorted.”
“You can stay as long as you like,” I said. “Don’t worry. We’ll make sure you’re okay.”
I offered to make tea and she accepted. Everything always looks better with a nice cup of tea, but in truth it could hardly look any worse.
“Have you got any idea what’s going on, Holly?” I asked, when we were all back in the living room.
“I don’t know. I really don’t know,” she said.
“Who’s looking for you?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know anything any more.”
I moved to sit next to her on the sofa, and held her hand.
“I’ve got so many questions,” I said. “Are you up to talking?”
“Of course. But I don’t know that I’ll know the answers.”
“Don’t worry. But first, have you spoken to the police? Do they know you’re safe? They’re looking for you.”
She shook her head.
“I’ll call Amy,” said Danny, and he went to get his phone.
“What happened on Monday?” I asked. “I came to the gig but I couldn’t get in. And Graham March. What was he doing there?”
“Oh God. The old fat guy? Fuck knows.”
“But how did he even come to be involved?”
“I don’t know. It was the first time I’d ever laid eyes on him. That’s where Leah and Steve were that afternoon, apparently. Meeting him, without me. The first I knew about it was that night. Apparently he knows lots of venues and stuff but I think it’s bullshit.”
“They went without you?”
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
She just shrugged. It was interesting, though. The two who’d been with March were the two that had been attacked. What had they seen? What had they got involved in? Danny had been listening in from the doorway and he seemed to be thinking the same. He looked at me. He keyed a number into his phone. I assumed it was Amy’s, and then, when he made the connection, he left us, pulling the door closed behind him.
“Holly, can I ask you a difficult question?” I said.
“Ask anything. I don’t mind.”
“It’s just when I saw you at the studio you told me there were some creative tensions but it was just because you all worked hard. Sorry to go on about it again, but what did you mean? Is that all there is?”
She looked at me for a moment but didn’t speak. It was as though she was deciding whether or not she could trust me.
“And during the photo shoot, too,” I added. “I said it had been fun, but you said it hadn’t, not really. Was something else the matter?”
There was a rueful smile.
“Oh, Anna,” she said.
I didn’t want to pry, but it seemed important.
“What is it? You can tell me,” I said, almost in a whisper.
But instead of answering she had a question of her own.
“Do you know how the band came about? How we met and how we started?”
“No, not really. I just assumed you were all friends.”
“Sort of. But it was more than that, originally.”
“In what way?”
“Steve and me. We were, well, together. Going out. The music was a hobby. But then we met Leah one night in a bar and got chatting to her. She seemed a bit lost and I felt sorry for her.”
“Was that when she was homeless?”
“Yeah, kind of. I don’t know really. She didn’t really talk about it much but she seemed to have been through a lot. We kept in touch. Then one night she came to see us at our flat, and started playing on one of my keyboards. She was brilliant. It was a revelation.”
“And then?”
“Well, you can guess the rest. She started having feelings for Steve. It seemed mutual. And the next thing you know we’re arguing and then we split up and eventually those two got together.”
“Wow, that must have been hard.”
I suppose it made sense, though. I’d been thinking all sorts, but ultimately it was a classic old-school love triangle. Cupid has a lot to answer for.
“It was. And then recently it’s been getting worse. As though they thought they’d be better off without me. You know, Leah’s the gifted musician. Steve’s the singer. Why have your ex hanging round?’
“But on stage, you were brilliant.”
“Ha. Thanks for that. I loved it, you know? But a lot of it was tapes and stuff. The rest was just for show. They probably would have been better off without me, to be fair to them, but I still loved what we were doing. I just didn’t love the situation and the thought of the two of them together.”
“No, I can imagine.”
“So yeah, there were tensions.”
“Understandably.”
“Don’t get me wrong. I didn’t wish them any harm, though.”
“No, of course not.”
“And I just can’t believe...”
There were tears in her eyes. I went to get her a tissue.
“Can I get you anything else?” I asked. “Something to eat, drink?”
“No, honestly, I’m fine.”
“Okay, but if there’s anything, just ask, okay?”
She nodded. Danny came back into the room.
“I spoke to Amy,” he said. “Told her you’re safe. She wants to come to see you. She should be about an hour or so.”
“Well done,” I said. Then turned to Holly and added: “Amy’s nice. She’s a detective sergeant. You can trust her. Listen, I’ll leave you with Danny for a bit and I’ll go and sort the room out.” I thought it would be good to give them time to talk. He was the one writing the story, after all.
* * *
By the time I’d changed the sheets and packed a few things into a suitcase, even though I was only moving to the room next door, Amy had turned up. Danny and I retired to the kitchen.
“What do you think?” he asked.
I recapped our conversation, with particular attention to the meeting between Leah, Steve and March.
“She didn’t say who she was hiding from?” he asked.
“No, she doesn’t seem to know anything, but it’s a natural reaction I suspect. You’re in a group of three, and of the other two, one’s dead and the other’s in intensive care. Of course you’re going to be worried.”
“She must be terrified.”
“I would be.”
We let that thought sit between us for a moment.
“She’s going to need looking after,” Danny said eventually. “Are you around today?”
“I am. Until this evening, anyway.”
“Brilliant. And is that okay?”
“Of course. If she says anything important I’ll let you know. Otherwise I’ll just make sure she’s safe.”
“Call me if you need me, okay?”
“Shall do. Will you be at the office?”
“Possibly. I’m going to see Mike. See if I can talk deadlines.”
“What else are you are up to? Do we need to follow March again?”
“Ideally, but we can’t really leave her, especially today. I’ve got an appointment this afternoon so I’ll give you a call after that, though. We’ll see how she is.”
“But you’ll be back by this evening?”
“Definitely. Why? Where are you off out to?”
“Oh, just meeting a friend.”
“A friend?”
“Yes, a friend.”
“Okay.”
I was pretty sure he wanted to ask, and equally pretty sure I didn’t want to say. I hastily changed the subject but
soon regretted that too. Heavens.
“What’s your appointment?” I asked.
“Ah, it’s nothing,” he said, sounding immediately shifty.
“Really? How can you have an appointment about nothing? You wouldn’t actually need to turn up.” I meant it as a joke, albeit not one of my funniest, but I’m aware it sounded more accusatory.
“It’s nothing, just an appointment.”
“Very mysterious.”
“No, not really.”
“What is it, then?”
“Nothing.”
I gave him one of my looks, arms folded, the works. Then waited.
“What?” he said. His tone of voice had changed. I could hear the frustration. But still I remained silent. He wasn’t getting off the hook that easily. (Double standards? Me?)
“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” he said eventually. “It’s at the massage parlour.”
I continued giving him a look.
“It’s research, Anna,” he said, in a failed attempt to reassure me. “Nothing’s going to happen.”
“And you need an actual appointment, do you?”
“Not exactly.”
“Right.”
“Okay, no, I don’t need an appointment. I’m just going to turn up, see what I can find out.”
“Right,” I said again. “Ah well, good luck with that. Try not to catch anything too nasty.”
“I’m not going to be catching anything. I’m not actually going to do anything.”
“Apart from get your kit off and get worked into a frenzy and then ‘make your excuses and leave’?”
“Not even that. I’m just going to talk.”
“Like that won’t arouse suspicion.”
“You’re the expert now, are you?”
“No. But it’s common sense.”
“Look, it’s not ideal, I’ll give you that. But I haven’t got an option.”
“Fine.”
“Anyway, I’ll be back around six, hopefully. Is that early enough for your ‘friend’?”
“Perfect.”
I was done with conversation for the time being. I edged closer to the living room door to try to eavesdrop on Amy and Holly, but that nearly backfired badly as the door opened just as I got there. Amy emerged.
Out Of The Red Page 12