Rose and Dan showed their yellow wristbands to the bouncers and the bouncers waved them through. Rose felt a rush of adrenalin as she entered the building. In London she used to enjoy going to nightclubs with her friends but she and Dan had never done anything like that. She had no idea if he liked to dance but she expected she was about to find out.
Rose dumped her jacket in the cloakroom and they went through to the dance floor. The music hit them like a tidal wave; it was so loud Rose could feel every muscle and bone in her body vibrating. She loved it. They pushed their way through the crowds, looking for their friends. The former cinema had been transformed out of all recognition. The seats were gone and the floor had been levelled and covered in flashing squares that lit up in all colours of the rainbow. The walls were black and hung with thousands of tiny lights that sparkled like stars. Where the old cinema screen must have been was a huge LED screen displaying the video of whichever song was playing. The dance floor was already packed with a sea of writhing bodies. Coloured beams of light swung from the ceiling, lighting up the party-goers in fluorescent shades of lime green, orange and purple.
Sophie bounded over to them and mouthed something which Rose couldn’t hear but which she assumed was, “Hello.” She held up a glass of pink liquid and pointed across the room where Rose could just make out a bar. Rose nodded and let Sophie lead her and Dan over to the drinks. Sophie poured them both a glass of the pink liquid from a punch bowl. Rose nodded her thanks and took a sip. God, it was strong. Someone must have tipped a whole bottle of vodka into it. But it felt good as it warmed her from the inside and she gave Sophie the thumbs-up. The DJ put on one of Rose’s favourite records.
“Dance?” she mouthed at Dan, pointing towards the centre of the room.
Dan looked aghast and shook his head. OK, so he wasn’t a dancer then. Well, you couldn’t have everything.
“Hold this.” She pointed at her glass and thrust it at Dan. She slipped her mobile phone into his shirt pocket, not having anywhere in her skintight dress to put it, then she and Sophie wove their way through the mass of bodies to the centre of the dance floor.
Rose let herself go, twisting and pivoting to the beat of the music. She could dance all night.
~~~
Dan stood on the edge of the dance floor and took a sip of his drink. Yuck, it was disgusting. It tasted like cherry soda mixed with paint stripper. In a minute he’d dump it and go fetch himself a Coke but for now he was content to just stand there and watch Rose dance. Boy, could she move! He’d had no idea. And the way that dress clung to her - she was easily the sexiest girl in the nightclub. He felt a surge of love for her and vowed that never again would he let anything bad happen to her. But he had no intention of venturing onto the dance floor and making a right dick of himself, at least not whilst the fast tracks were playing, the ones where you actually had to, like, dance. Maybe at the end of the night the DJ would play some slow stuff and he could take her in his arms, swaying to the music, their bodies entwined in a close embrace.
Someone slapped him on the shoulder, jolting Dan out of his reverie. He turned to see James standing there, looking even more out of place than Dan felt. He was holding a can of Coke and was wearing a Darth Vader T-shirt that he must have outgrown when he was thirteen. Dan nodded at him. The music was too loud to talk. That didn’t deter James who started chatting to Dan about something or other. From James’ body language and facial expressions Dan guessed he was talking about a new computer game featuring zombies. Dan tried to nod and look interested, but just as James was doing an impersonation of the walking dead, something caught his eye.
Scarlett was standing on the edge of the dance floor, her arms wrapped around the neck of her new boyfriend. So Rose had been right. Scarlett was going out with the motorcyclist, the guy who had been following him around and who, he suspected, had broken into their house and tried to steal his mum’s diamond bracelet.
Scarlett’s two girlfriends, the weird sisters as Dan thought of them, came up to her then and dragged her off to the dance floor, leaving Mr Harley-Davidson on his own. Dan saw his chance. He thrust Rose’s unfinished drink into the hands of an astonished James, then marched up to the motorcyclist, determined to get to the bottom of what was going on.
~~~
After almost thirty minutes of dancing, Rose was hot and thirsty. Plus, she felt guilty about leaving Dan standing on the edge like a wallflower so she indicated to Sophie with hand gestures that she was going to go and get a drink. A soft drink this time, she told herself. The cocktail she’d drunk earlier had left her feeling light-headed. Rose pushed her way through the sea of bodies back to where she had left Dan, but there was no sign of him. He must have got fed up waiting for her and had gone off to speak to his mates. She didn’t blame him. But then she spotted James standing on his own with a can of Coke in one hand and a half-full glass of pink liquid in the other. So where was Dan? James smiled and held out the pink drink to her.
“Mine?” mouthed Rose at him, pointing at the glass.
James nodded.
She took the glass from him and gulped the liquid down. It burned the back of her throat. She really ought to get herself a glass of water or she was going to have one hell of a hangover tomorrow.
“Where’s Dan?” she shouted.
“What?” James cupped a hand to his ear.
“DAN? WHERE...IS... HE?” She mimed looking for him.
James got the message. He pointed towards the exit. From the shape of James’ lips Rose understood the words, “He went that way.”
She gave James a thumbs-up sign then headed towards the exit. She hoped Dan wasn’t so hacked off with the party that he’d want to go home straight away. She’d have to try and persuade him to dance; show him that it wasn’t that hard.
There were loads of people hanging around the lobby area, almost as many as on the dance floor. Her ears were ringing from the onslaught of decibels. She couldn’t see Dan amongst the crowds of people, but she spotted a door marked Ladies and decided to pop in there first before looking for him.
She opened the door and found Scarlett leaning towards the mirror above a row of marble sinks, reapplying her lipstick. Great, thought Rose. She had hoped to avoid any direct encounter with the birthday girl. At least her two girlfriends were nowhere to be seen.
“That’s a fabulous dress,” said Scarlett.
Rose stopped in her tracks. She couldn’t help but be wary around Scarlett. The way Scarlett had always treated her, there was clearly no love lost between them, but Scarlet’s compliment had sounded genuine. Maybe having a stunning new boyfriend had helped her get over Dan and put the past behind her. Rose decided to give her the benefit of the doubt.
“Thank you,” said Rose. “I like your dress too.” Scarlett was wearing a silver and black strapless dress that glittered with sequins. “It’s a great party,” she added.
To her astonishment, Scarlett linked her arm through Rose’s and said, “Come with me. There’s something I want to show you.”
~~~
When Dan approached the biker in the nightclub he expected to be shoved aside, but the guy just shrugged and nodded and indicated that they should go outside if they wanted to talk. It was cold outside, but at least they could hear themselves think.
“You’re Dan, right?” said the biker.
“Yes,” said Dan, not bothering to ask how the guy knew. “And you are?”
“Chris.” He reached into his leather jacket and pulled out a packet of cigarettes and a lighter. He offered one to Dan.
Dan shook his head. “No thanks.”
Chris lit up and blew the smoke into the night air. “So what did you want to talk about?”
“You’ve been following me, haven’t you?” Dan tried to sound confident but he had no idea how this conversation was going to go.
There was an infinitesimal pause, then Chris said, “Yep. ’Fraid so.”
“Why?”
“It was just a job.”
“Was it you who broke into our house the other day?”
Chris inhaled deeply and blew the smoke out slowly before answering. “You can’t prove anything.” Not a denial, thought Dan.
“Who are you working for?”
Chris shrugged. “Sorry mate, can’t tell you that.”
This was infuriating. Chris was completely unruffled by their conversation, but Dan was pretty sure he knew who Chris was working for.
“It’s Max isn’t it,” said Dan.
Chris said nothing, but was that a flicker of something behind his eyes?
“I knew it.” Dan stamped his foot. Somehow that bastard had survived the capsizing of the yacht last summer and had come back to haunt them. Except he was getting someone else to do all the leg work. That was how Max operated: other people did the dirty work and took the flack if things went wrong. Like Dan’s dad.
~~~
“Where are we going?” asked Rose as Scarlett led her out of the Ladies and through the lobby. Was it possible that Scarlett could have changed from bitter rival to best buddy in the space of one evening? Maybe there was some magic ingredient in the punch and on the stroke of midnight Scarlett would turn back into a snarling vixen. I’m probably drunk, thought Rose, otherwise I wouldn’t be doing this.
“You’ll see,” said Scarlett. “Be patient.” She led Rose to a staircase tucked out of sight round the back of the lobby. It was narrow and didn’t look like it could have been used by cinema-goers. It looked and felt like a utility staircase, used by employees rather than paying customers.
“Up here?” asked Rose, peering up the steep, badly-lit flight of steps.
“Sure. After you.”
Rose felt a moment of unease, then told herself not to be silly. Scarlett was smiling at her and was nothing like her usual angry self. And besides, it wasn’t as if she was concealing a weapon in that strapless dress. Rose led the way up the stairs with Scarlett following close behind.
As they climbed, the noise from the lobby grew fainter. Rose was definitely a bit tipsy and almost missed her footing a couple of times, wobbling in her unfamiliar heels. She put her hands out to the walls on either side to steady herself. How much further was it?
They came to a landing where the stairs turned one hundred and eighty degrees. The second flight was even more badly lit than the first with just a dusty wall-mounted light to guide the way.
“Nearly there,” said Scarlett, right behind her.
This had better be worth it, thought Rose. She’d come this far and there was no going back now. She ploughed on up the second flight of stairs until they came to a small landing. There was a glass-panelled door off to their right.
“This is what I wanted to show you,” said Scarlett. She pushed open the door and walked in to the room beyond. Rose hesitated for a moment, then followed her inside.
They were in a small room, high above the main nightclub space. Up here the music was less intense, but still pretty loud, the bass pulsing through the floorboards. Rose walked over to the window that overlooked the main nightclub space. From up here she had an amazing view of the coloured lights and the video playing on the LED screen. The people on the dance floor looked like toy figures.
“Where are we?” asked Rose.
“This used to be the projection room when the Futurist was a cinema,” said Scarlett. “It’s where they kept all the equipment and the films.” The room was empty save for an ancient looking fire extinguisher hanging on the wall. Rose remembered reading something in Lilian’s memoir about how flammable old film had been.
“My great-grandmother worked in the box office here, back in the 1920s,” said Rose.
Scarlett didn’t reply. She was biting her nails and looked distracted. What was the matter with her? She couldn’t make Scarlett out. But she really ought to go and find Dan. If he was looking for her, he’d wonder where she was.
“Well, thanks for bringing me here,” said Rose, walking towards the door. “I’m going to find Dan now.”
“Wait.”
“What?” Rose was impatient to be off. She didn’t know why Scarlett had brought her all the way up here but if she had something to say then Rose wished she’d just spit it out. It wasn’t like Scarlett to be so reticent.
There were footsteps coming up the stairs. Probably other students had discovered the staircase and had come to take a look. But then a figure appeared in the doorway and Rose shrank back in horror. The last time she’d seen this man, he had been pointing a gun at her. She had hoped he was dead. But he was here now, in the flesh, alive and well and as menacing as ever. He had come back for her.
“Well done, Scarlett,” said Max, walking into the room.
Rose tried to run for the door, but a second figure blocked her path. One of the bouncers who had been guarding the entrance to the nightclub was now standing on the landing and he was pointing a gun at her.
Without looking at Rose, Scarlett ran from the room. Rose heard her footsteps clattering down the long flight of stairs. The bitch. Scarlett had tricked her, luring her into the trap with her nice-girl act. But Rose was angrier with herself for being taken in by Scarlett’s deception. How could she have been so stupid? A leopard doesn’t change its spots that easily. Rose backed towards the glass window that overlooked the dance floor. If only she could attract the attention of the people down below. But everyone was having too much of a good time to notice her trapped in this room with a madman. With all the flashing lights they probably couldn’t even see that there was a room up here.
Max walked towards her but stopped a couple of feet away. He looked thinner than the last time she’d seen him, but meaner, if that was possible.
“What do you want?” she asked.
He smirked at her. “The last time I had the pleasure of your company, things ended badly.”
“So you thought you’d make it up to me? Well, thanks, but no thanks.” She made a move towards the door. He grabbed her by the arm and hauled her back.
“Let go of me!” She wrenched her arm free and tried to punch him but he took hold of her wrist before she could hit him.
“I suggest you calm down, young lady.” He spoke in a slow, measured tone. “You won’t get hurt if you co-operate, but I need to keep you up here for a bit whilst that boyfriend of yours does a quick job for me.”
“You’re holding me hostage?”
Max shrugged. “That’s one way of putting it, I suppose.” He walked towards the door. “I’m going to leave you here, and my good friend outside is going to make sure you don’t try to escape. You’ll be free to go when your boyfriend brings me what I want.”
Max stepped out of the room. Rose ran towards the door but it closed in her face and she heard a key turning in the lock.
“Let me out you bastard!” She banged on the door with both fists, but Max had disappeared down the stairs. On the other side of the glass panel the armed bouncer stood impassively, refusing to make eye contact. She was trapped.
~~~
Dan didn’t know what else to say to Chris. The guy was obviously only going to give away the barest of facts. He wasn’t going to admit to burglary or working for Max. Dan had been out here too long already and he really ought to go and find Rose. If she was looking for him she’d think he’d done a runner. Dan turned to go when Scarlett suddenly appeared, looking red in the face and slightly breathless. She wrapped her arms around Chris and he bent down to kiss her on the lips. Dan really didn’t want to watch Scarlett making out with her new boyfriend and started to head back inside, but then she called to him, “Hang on, Dan, don’t go.”
“What do you want?” he asked. Why couldn’t Scarlett just leave him alone? Scarlett glanced at Chris and something passed between them: a look of understanding as if they shared a complicit secret. Scarlett stepped up to Dan and said, “You need to come with us.”
“Get lost,” said Dan. “I’m going to find Rose.”
Scarlett took hold of his arm. “Y
ou won’t find her.”
“Why not? Where is she? Has she left? What’s going on?” He shook himself free of Scarlett’s grip, but then suddenly Chris was standing on the other side of him and Dan felt like a cornered animal.
“Rose is fine,” said Scarlett, not meeting his eye. “She hasn’t gone home. But you can’t see her just yet.”
“Why ever not? Stop playing games Scarlett. I’m getting really fed up of your bullshit.”
“I’m not bullshitting.” She gave him a pleading look. “Just for once you have to trust me.”
“I wouldn’t trust you if you were the last girl alive.”
“Okay, that’s enough,” said Chris. “Dan, you need to come with us. Now.”
Dan gave up. What choice did he have? These two had been plotting something and if Chris really was working for Max, as Dan suspected, then he dreaded to think what it was. He was worried sick about Rose but he wasn’t going to get any answers arguing with Scarlett out here in the freezing cold. He followed Chris back inside, Scarlett trotting at his heels.
Chris led him to a small room that looked like it could once have been a manager’s office or something. Hidden behind a plain black-painted door, Dan hadn’t noticed it when they’d first arrived at the nightclub. As Chris stepped to one side, Dan saw an all too familiar figure sitting behind the desk, a sneering grin spread across his ugly mug. Max. God, how Dan would love to punch that face.
Dan stormed up to the desk, leaned on it with his fists and shouted, “Where is Rose? What have you done to her?”
“Good evening to you too.” Dan noticed Max was thinner than he had been in the summer, and pasty-looking as if he’d spent the last few months shut up inside. If Dan had anything to do with it he’d spend the rest of his life shut up behind bars.
“I asked where Rose is.”
Max sat drumming his fingers on the desk. “Rose is fine. She has a splendid view of the party.”
“For God’s sake, just tell me where she is!”
Max clasped his hands together and leaned forwards on the desk. The tattoo of his name stood out clearly on the knuckles of his right hand. “She’s taking a little time out in the former projection room at the top of the building. She won’t come to any harm as long as you do something for me and do it quickly.”
Scarborough Ball (Scarborough Fair Book 2) Page 19