by Jessie Keane
‘Maybe Redmond found out that Gary was getting calls off Gina,’ said Annie. ‘Maybe he found out the content of those calls. When Constantine arranged that “accident” way back for Redmond and Orla – maybe Redmond knows about that. Maybe he even knows Constantine’s still alive. Maybe he was trying to beat Constantine’s whereabouts out of Gary before he realized Gary didn’t know, and finished him.’
Max threw her a sombre look and swerved the car into the pavement. ‘Maybe he did beat Constantine’s whereabouts out of Gary. And then he finished him.’
Annie looked at Max in horror, but they didn’t have time to talk about it, not now.
They’d arrived at the Blue Parrot.
99
Inside the club, things were hotting up for the evening. All the girls were in, getting ready, and a hush fell over them as Annie stepped into the doorway of their dressing room while Max carried on into the office.
‘I’m looking for Caroline,’ she said. ‘She’s not at the Palermo. Do any of you know where she is right now?’
There was a long silence. Then one of them, a tall corn-gold blonde, her eyes alight with interest, said: ‘Is it right, what we’ve been hearing on the news? That Gary Tooley’s dead?’
‘Yeah, it’s right.’
‘Christ!’
‘He was such a bastard,’ said another – shorter, dark-haired, pouty-lipped. ‘I heard he got knifed or something.’
Max stepped into the doorway behind Annie and she felt a seismic shift in the girls’ postures and attitudes. Breasts pushed out, stomachs in. Smiles suddenly super-bright. Irritating. ‘So you don’t know where Caroline is?’
‘I got her old home address out of the book in the office,’ said Max to Annie.
‘We ain’t seen her,’ said a girl with Schiaparelli-pink streaks in her ash-blonde hair and dangling pearl earrings that brushed her equally pearly shoulders. ‘Not that we want to. She was after Gary from the get-go, she was bloody shameless. Thought she was better than the lot of us, she did. Started queening it about the place after he slipped her one.’
‘Girl, you were after him too,’ the blonde reminded her with a smirk. ‘You’re just mad because she got him and got bumped up the ladder to take over the Palermo after Dolly Farrell got done.’
The pink-and-ash girl blushed. The blonde had hit a nerve. ‘And look how that turned out,’ she shot back. ‘Dolly Farrell’s dead, Gary’s dead. You ask me, that place is cursed.’
‘You know what I think? I think it could have been Caroline up there in Dolly’s room who answered Pete,’ said Annie when they were back in the car. ‘Maybe she was there talking to Dolly, telling her to fuck off out of it and let her take over the club. Maybe Gary had hinted to Dolly that she ought to be put out to grass and let his fancy piece be in charge, and Dolly – being Dolly – would have told them both to go fuck themselves.’
‘You seriously think Gary or Caroline could have done the job on her?’ asked Max, flicking her a glance as he drove them over to Caroline’s old place.
‘Yeah. Maybe a combined effort. And by the way, where’s Tone? I thought I said I wanted my driver back.’
‘You did. But why bother Tone when I’m right here?’
‘Yeah, driving like a ruddy maniac. Tone’s steady, I like him driving me. This isn’t Formula fucking One.’
‘Shut it,’ said Max, but he was grinning.
They went back to Holland Park. When they got there, DCI Hunter and DS Duggan were on the doorstep, waiting for them.
‘Problems?’ asked Annie, coming up the steps with Max following, thinking that just last night Jackie had been propped right here against the door, dead. It made her shiver with horror all over again.
‘Thought you’d like to know,’ said Hunter. ‘Pete Jones the bar manager didn’t see Dolly that night. She shouted through the door.’
‘So . . .’ said Annie.
‘So possibly it wasn’t Dolly Farrell who answered. Quite possibly it was another woman in there with her.’
Maybe it was Sarah and now she’s just acting all shook up to throw us off the scent, thought Annie.
But she didn’t think so.
Maybe Caroline?
And then she thought of Nigel, with his high-pitched, almost womanly voice.
100
When they got to the block of flats in Stepney where Caroline lived before she started jumping Gary Tooley’s bones, they went up to the second floor in a piss-stinking lift, then past graffiti-clad concrete walls and along a covered walkway strewn with dead pot-plants and grimy lines of washing. When they reached the flat door, Max hammered on it. Nobody came. Max hammered some more. There was a murky window beside the door, but they couldn’t see in; the curtains were closed.
‘No one here. Was this her parents’ address?’ said Annie.
‘No, she shared it with a flatmate. I remember Gary saying so.’
‘Well, the flatmate ain’t here then.’
‘Let’s see,’ said Max, and stepped back and kicked the door. It juddered back on its hinges, the lock shattered. ‘After you,’ he said, standing aside.
Annie stepped straight into a grubby-looking living room. It wasn’t exactly Ideal Home Exhibition territory in here. There was a cheap sofa, with a dirty red-and-blue woven Indian rug thrown over it. Hectically patterned carpeted floors that had seen much better days. A Bush TV with an inch of dust on top. A scratched and stained teak G-Plan coffee table cluttered with empty cider cans and the remnants of last night’s takeaway meal. Not a lot else.
‘I can hear something,’ said Max, pushing in front of Annie and moving along a dingy hall. He toed open a door and there was a bedroom, thin purple curtains still pulled closed, a crumpled bed and a dark-haired girl half-sitting up, looking in surprise at the two who had just busted their way in here.
‘What the fuck . . . ?’ she wondered, rubbing her eyes and then her sleep-matted brown hair.
Annie looked around at this shit-hole and tried not to inhale. There was a crack pipe on the bedside table, burned-out matches, another cider can. The bedding smelled stale. The girl was blinking at them as if they’d landed from Mars.
‘Hi,’ said Annie. ‘And you are . . . ?’
‘What the fuck . . .’ demanded the girl again, her tone turning angry.
‘We’re looking for Caroline. Used to be your roomy, right?’ asked Annie, as Max moved off further along the hall. She could hear him opening drawers, looking in cupboards.
‘Yeah, she did, but what the fuck are you doing in my flat? Get the hell out, right now!’
Max came back. ‘The other bedroom’s empty,’ he told Annie. ‘Nothing in there at all. I suppose all Caroline’s stuff was still in the wardrobes over at the Palermo? The police checked that?’ He looked at the girl in the bed. ‘You – did Caroline leave stuff here? Has she been back? Have you seen her in the last couple of days?’
‘I ain’t seen Caroline in months,’ said the girl. ‘She’s too hoity-toity to talk to me now. Moved on up, kicked all her old mates aside. Got herself a nightclub manager, I heard. Too good for the likes of me now. And I ain’t been able to find another girl to share. The landlord’s tearing his hair out for the rent, but what can I do? I ain’t got his money. Is that it? He sent you to get it? Well, good luck with that, because I don’t have it.’
‘We’re not here for the rent. So you haven’t seen Caroline?’ asked Annie.
‘No.’
‘Really?’ asked Annie. She moved closer to the bed. The girl in it leaned back, sensing trouble as she stared into Annie’s eyes. Annie grabbed a hank of dirty hair and shook the girl’s head about. It made her damaged rib shriek, but she didn’t care.
‘Hey! Come on!’ yelled the girl, squirming.
‘Only, if I find out you’re lying, you see that pipe there?’ said Annie. ‘I’m going to get this bloke here to shove it up your arse sideways. And that, I promise you, is going to hurt.’
‘I ain’t lying! Let go of me
, you raving nutter.’
‘Sure?’ Annie picked up the pipe and eyed it.
‘Sure!’
‘Damn, that’s a shame,’ said Annie, and moved suddenly. Pain gripped her middle as she pulled the girl’s head over to one side, shoving hard at her shoulder, and flipping her over like a landed fish. The girl let out a piercing yell that was instantly muffled by the pillows. She looked at Max. ‘Stick this thing up here, will you?’
‘Look, just hold on!’
‘For what? Fucking Christmas? I don’t think so.’
Max came over and picked up the pipe.
‘No! Don’t. All right. I saw her today. This afternoon. She came here. Let me up, you cow, I can’t breathe!’ It was a yell of pure terror. ‘Just stop, OK?’ she panted. ‘There’s no need for this, I saw her. Just stop.’
Annie stopped. She released her hold on the girl and the girl pulled her head out of the pillows and scrabbled back against the headboard. She eyed Annie like she was unhinged.
‘You’re both mad,’ said the girl, her voice shaking.
‘Remember that,’ said Annie.
‘All right! She said not to tell, but what the hell, it’s my arse on the line, not hers. Caroline said it had all gone tits-up at the club and she was leaving. She had some clothes here and she took them, she looked scared to death – I mean really, honest-to-God, shit-scared – and she said she was going to her folks’ place and not to say anything and I wouldn’t see her again anytime soon.’
Annie exchanged a look with Max.
‘Where’s her folks’ place?’ he asked.
‘Ibiza,’ said the girl.
101
‘Fuck,’ said Max on a sigh as Annie picked up the payphone.
‘What?’ she asked, dialling. They were squished into the phone box outside the block of flats, it was raining, and Annie was doing something that Max would never, ever do.
‘We don’t call in the Bill,’ he said, for the third time.
But Annie shook her head. ‘In this case? We do. They can get straight through to passport control at Gatwick and stop her. By the time we get there to do it, she’ll be gone.’
‘Something going on, you and this “Hunter” dickhead?’
‘What?’
‘You heard. You seem very pally with him, is all I’m saying.’
Annie stared at him. ‘Oh sure. I’ve been fucking his brains out, him and Constantine.’
Max looked grim. ‘Not funny.’
‘Am I laughing?’ Annie clamped the receiver to her ear. ‘Yeah, hello? I need to get a message to DCI Hunter, it’s urgent. Is he there?’
Hunter was. Annie relayed the information they’d just received to him, put the phone down and looked at Max.
‘They’ll stop her,’ she said.
‘All right. So now what do we do, genius?’ They extracted themselves from the phone box and as they did so a cyclist zipped up and stopped right beside Annie. No pizzino this time. A slim man, dark glasses, helmet. Could be anyone.
‘What’s this?’ asked Max.
‘Constantine’s been asking for me.’ Annie looked at the cyclist. A thin, fit young man, totally anonymous, speeding through the London streets delivering messages on the order of his masters. ‘I can’t come,’ she said to the man. ‘Not yet. Soon. Tell them.’
The cyclist gave the briefest of nods and shot away, weaving through the traffic; almost instantly, he was out of sight.
They went down the cop shop to see what developed. It was a long, long wait, but eventually Hunter arrived with DS Sandra Duggan, and she was holding on to the arm of a swearing, struggling Caroline. When Caroline saw Annie there, she spat at her feet and surged toward her. ‘You bitch!’ she yelled.
Hunter grabbed the girl’s other arm, and they carted her off into the depths of the nick, kicking and screaming insults at everyone around her.
‘Well, that worked out well,’ said Annie. She turned to Max. ‘Can you get someone down here to pick her up when she comes out? Then have them bring her over to my place, OK? We can have a chat.’
102
It was Tony who brought Caroline over to the Holland Park house when the police eventually released her. By that time it was gone eleven at night, and a lot of the fight had gone out of her. She looked pale, exhausted and scared when Tony ushered her into the study at the front of the house. Annie was there, sitting behind the desk, and Max was standing nearby. Tony manhandled Caroline into a chair beside the desk and then retreated to the closed door, where he placed himself, an impenetrable wall of muscle.
‘They give you a hard time, down the nick?’ asked Annie.
Caroline said nothing, just looked at her with eyes full of hate.
‘Witness to a murder, taking off like that? You can see they wouldn’t be pleased.’
‘I didn’t see anything,’ said Caroline quickly.
‘That what you told the Bill?’ asked Annie.
‘It’s the truth.’
Annie stared at her. ‘Not so hot then, jumping into Dolly’s shoes before she was even cold?’
‘Shut up, you cow,’ spat Caroline.
‘Tell us what you did see,’ said Max.
‘Nothing. I told them and I’m telling you.’
‘We’re not the police,’ said Annie.
‘I told you.’
‘Tone?’ Annie looked up at him. ‘Come over here and break a couple of her fingers. Just the little ones, we don’t want to cut up too rough yet.’
Tony lumbered over. Caroline shot out of her seat like she’d been launched from a cannon.
‘What the hell?’ she wailed, scooting up against the desk, eyes wide. ‘What did you say?’
‘Oh, come on,’ said Annie. ‘Way I see it, you deserve a few breakages. The way you moved in on Dolly’s patch? You got to admit, that was nasty.’
‘It was Gary’s idea, not mine.’ As Tony approached, Caroline edged around the desk until she was on the same side as Annie. Max was over by the bookcases, watching with arms folded. Now Tony was on the other side of the desk. ‘Wait,’ said Caroline, scuttling behind Annie’s chair. ‘Just wait.’
‘Why? Are you going to stop bullshitting and tell the truth?’ asked Annie. ‘What scared you enough to make you run for the airport? What did you see?’
‘I told the police—’
‘Yeah. Nothing, right? And as I told you, we’re not the police. We don’t have to go by the rules. Go ahead, Tone.’
‘I didn’t—’ Caroline let out a yelp as Tony came round the desk. She darted for the other side, but Max had moved and now he was blocking her path. ‘Oh, come on . . .’ she said, half-laughing, a scared, disbelieving little sound, as Tony came up behind her.
‘Do it, Tone,’ said Annie, and Tony grabbed Caroline’s arm, gripping her hand, which she instantly pulled into a fist. Tony prised out her smallest finger and held it on the desk’s edge.
‘No!’ Caroline screeched.
Annie looked at her. ‘You really think he won’t?’
‘Shit, don’t, please . . .’ Sweat was popping out on Caroline’s face. ‘I don’t, I can’t . . .’
Tony brought his fist down hard. It hit the desk, just an inch from Caroline’s finger. She let out a strangled scream.
‘Next one hits the target,’ he warned, taking aim.
‘I can’t . . .’
‘You can,’ said Annie, her eyes hard as they rested on Caroline’s face. ‘What did you see?’
Caroline threw back her head and let out a sob. ‘I saw him do it!’ she said, and fell to the floor. Tony released her hand and she sat there, crying hard, cringing, both arms over her head.
Tony looked at Annie. She nodded, and he moved away.
‘Tell us,’ said Max, and Caroline finally started to speak.
103
‘I was so fucking scared,’ said Caroline in a small voice. ‘I was terrified.’
‘What happened?’ said Annie, looking at the girl with a mixture of pity and irri
tation. She did look shattered; none of her former aggression was in evidence now. ‘Get up off the bloody floor, for God’s sake.’ Annie flicked a look at Tony and he hauled Caroline back to her feet, half-carried her around the desk, and deposited her into a chair.
‘I was in bed, it was late, and Gary was in the sitting room watching the TV when there was a knock at the door and he let someone in. A man. I heard his voice. The bedroom door was half-open, I couldn’t see who it was, not then. I didn’t take any notice really. Not at first.’
‘Go on,’ said Annie when Caroline paused, rubbing her hands over her face.
Caroline gave her a look, a remnant of her usual attitude. ‘If you tell the Bill all this, if they ask me about any of this, I swear, I’ll say you’re lying, that I never said it, that it’s not true. I don’t want to get involved.’
‘OK. That’s fair. Go on.’
‘They were arguing. Just raised voices at first, and then they started shouting. I mean, it sounded vicious. And then . . . oh fuck . . .’ Caroline stopped, clutching at her face, her eyes tormented; remembering.
‘What?’ prompted Annie.
‘Then there were sounds like fighting. Something hit the wall. Christ, it was frightening. All the yelling and swearing, and then they were actually hitting each other, and then they were out in the hall . . . it reminded me of when I was growing up, and Mum and Dad would be knocking seven kinds of shit out of each other. It was scary. So I . . .’
Caroline stopped talking.
‘Yeah? You did what?’
Tears slipped down Caroline’s face. ‘I did what I did when I was little,’ she gasped out, grimacing. ‘I thought that whoever was there with Gary, I thought they were so angry they were going to kill him, and if they did, then who was in the flat too? Me. And then they would do me too. And so . . .’ Caroline heaved in a sob. ‘So I hid. I hid in the wardrobe. It had these louvre doors though. So I saw it. I saw it all,’ she said, and broke into a fresh wave of tears.
‘What did you see?’ asked Max.
Caroline swiped a hand across her runny nose and threw him a glance with tear-reddened eyes. ‘If I hadn’t moved when I did, you know what? I’d be dead. I’m sure of it.’