by Mike Ripley
Plus, there were two uniformed policeman strolling up the lane towards the rear of Armstrong.
I started the engine and pulled out, signalling right towards Whitehall.
Party on.
The traffic was snarled in Trafalgar Square and it took ages to find a place to park in one of the alleys behind Frith Street. That plus stopping off to buy a wedding present (a bottle of rice wine in a set with a transparently thin china flask and two matching bowls on special offer in a Chinatown supermarket) meant I was well late for the hen night, if it had started on time.
On Dean Street, I pressed the intercom on the wall at the door of Gerry’s and said ‘Rudgard party’. The response was incomprehensible due to the background mix of music and high pitched screaming, but the door lock clicked open anyway.
Gerry’s is a discrete subterranean drinking club, founded for actors and theatre people. Most of the clientele of the flashier Grouch Club, virtually next door, stumble by the front door without even noticing it, for which most of Gerry’s members are eternally grateful.
The stairs go down to a blank wall and then turn almost back on themselves and take you down into the club proper. The noise washed over me before I turned the corner and could see into the place. It’s not a big room, but usually you can find a spare seat or at least see a square inch of floor space. Not today. I was looking down at a sea of women, all standing, all talking, some singing along to a piano being played in the far corner, the piano and pianist taking up about 20 percent of the floor space. Some seemed to be trying to dance, or perhaps they were just swaying in the tide. Most of them were smoking, holding their cigarettes up at eye level because their couldn’t lower their arms without making a pass at someone, such was the crush.
Behind the bar, besieged like a scene out of Zulu, Michael the owner and two T-shirted blondes who could have been twins (but the light was bad and I was wearing shades) were handing out bottles of wine and champagne like their lives depended on it. They probably did. Some of the bottles were passed, as if floating, over the heads of the revellers, others just sank into the mass and disappeared without trace.
I elbowed my way to the end of the bar, being twice bounced against the cigarette machine by soft but unyielding female flesh.
‘Angel, my dear chap,’ said Michael, proffering his hand over the bar when I got within range. ‘Sorry about the crush, but all the regular members were told there was a private do on.’
Even with a hundred thirsty women waiting to be served, Michael couldn’t resist the dig, but he did it with a twinkle in his eye and a grin thinly hidden by his blond beard.
‘Sorry I haven’t been in much lately,’ I said loudly, above the chatter, ‘but I’m invited to this one.’
‘You’re not the stripper they ordered, are you?’ Michael asked with a look of genuine horror.
One of the blonde barmaids said something to him and he listened, nodded then turned back to me relieved.
‘It seems he’s been and gone,’ he said. ‘Lasted about 30 seconds, I’m told. Usual?’
I nodded and he stretched out to hand me a bottle of Backs with the top off.
‘Sorry it’s warm. Fridge is full of champagne.’
I shrugged philosophically. There I was in a small room with dozens of women clad in their scantiest summer clothes, many of them already the worse for drink, with some already eyeing me up, and the piano player was making a decent fist of Bonnie Tyler’s ‘It’s A Heartache’, though few of the partygoers looked old enough to remember Bonnie Tyler, and yet the beer was warm. It was as if the gods had decided there had to be one thing to stop it being perfect.
‘I’m looking for Stella Rudgard,’ I said, hoping Michael could lip read.
‘Table by the piano,’ said Michael, pointing with an empty champagne bottle.
I turned but couldn’t see where he meant, even though the piano wasn’t more than 15 feet away. There was nothing for it but to push through the wall of female flesh, beer in one hand, present in the other, saying ‘Excuse me, coming through’ as I went. I was fondled once and groped twice, which, given the distance travelled and the factor by which I was outnumbered, was probably a fair average.
And then I was at the piano, my knees no more than an inch from the stool the pianist was sitting on, and I still couldn’t see Stella. So instead I tried to look as if I was enjoying the music, just swaying in time with everyone else.
The pianist was good and well worth a second glance, even from behind.
Especially from behind.
She was another blonde – long, straight hair flipped back over her ears – and she wore a tight, short-cut white top and tight, low-cut jeans. Between the bottom of the top and the top the jeans, she had a breaching dolphin tattooed right in the small of her back. As she bent forward over the keys of the ancient stand-up piano, which was almost in tune, the dolphin seemed to fly even further out of the water. As she straightened her back, it dived into the beltless rim of her Wranglers.
‘Angel! You made it!’
I heard that above the music and the background noise and turned to see Stella sitting at a table no more than a yard away. She had seen me only because two women had decided to change positions, probably to avoid cramp. I pushed between them to get at Stella, and one of them said ‘Oooh!’ and flashed me a killer smile, but then Stella’s arm was round the back of my neck and she drew me in until my knees hit the table to kiss me full on the lips. I had a beer in one hand and her present in the other. I was powerless to resist.
‘That was nice,’ she shouted in my ear. ‘I’d forgotten just how nice. What have you done to your face?’
‘I didn’t do anything to it,’ I shouted back as the pianist pounded out the opening bars of ‘Satin Doll’. ‘Are you really getting married?’
She nodded, her face about an inch from mine. ‘Tomorrow morning at 11.00, down in Sussex. Very posh do, not allowed to misbehave. No smoking, no drugs, no boozing, so, naturally, you couldn’t be invited, but I wanted one last night on the town. What dyer think?’
She shooed away the two women sitting at the table with her, then she pushed the table away so that it almost collided with the pianist’s stool. The pianist didn’t seen to notice; she had her head down (dolphin rising), concentrating on the high register chorus and making a good job of it.
I squeezed into the space Stella had made and examined her as she stood, hands on hips, her left leg bent slightly at the knee.
Stella was taller than me barefooted, and in heels she towered above me. She was dressed almost entirely in black: a black chiffon tie shirt over a black lace-panel corset top, and a narrow black hook-and-eye skirt that ended at the knee, with a slit up the left side that showed a lot of leg and the lacy top of her hold-up stockings plus a glimpse of white flesh. The only splash of colour was in her shoes, three-inch-heeled pink sandals trimmed with black lace from Kurt Geiger, which cost £159. Amy had a pair of them.
‘You on the pull, then?’ I said, leaning in to her hair, which she’d had cut almost boyishly short since I’d last seen her.
‘No, just the tease.’ I should have known. Stella had a PhD in Tease. ‘That’s why I’m not wearing my engagement ring.’
‘I’d noticed that,’ I said. Well, I would have eventually.
‘Not that the insurance company would let me,’ she said casually. Then she put her hands gently on my face and pulled me in for another kiss, and when she broke for air, she said: ‘We could hock it and disappear somewhere.’
‘But I haven’t finished my beer,’ I said, ‘and you haven’t opened your wedding present.’
I handed over the box I was carrying.
‘Prezzy!’ shouted Stella, and in one deft movement she ripped off the gift wrapping the girl in the Chinese supermarket had slaved over.
‘Oh, sweet!’ she said, then placed the box on the tab
le and pulled the small bottle of rice wine out of its holding slot. She tapped the bottle on the shoulder of a small redhead in a green satin dress. ‘Ask Michael for some glasses and some ice for this, would you, Randy?’
Randy’s eyes cut her through a pair of rimless octagonal glasses. ‘Certainly, miss. Will there be anything else, miss? What did your last slave die of, miss?’
‘Oh, shut up, you old tart,’ said Stella with a grin.
‘Slag.’
‘Slipper.’
‘Hag.’
‘Bitch.’
‘Minger.’
‘Er ... it’s supposed to be served warm,’ I said.
‘Then tell Michael to stick it in the microwave,’ said Stella.
‘I don’t think he’s got a microwave,’ said Randy, blowing cigarette smoke as us.
‘Then stick it down the front of his trousers for five minutes,’ said Stella, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.
Randy cheered up at that, took the bottle and headed for the bar.
‘You just can’t get the staff these days,’ Stella said, moving closer in to me than was strictly necessary.
I took a pull on my beer and reached for the pack of cigarettes Stella had left on the table. It meant I had to lean in to her, but she didn’t seem to mind.
‘Randy is staff?’ I said, fumbling with the cigarette packet and trying to ignore Stella’s left knee as it nudged its way between my legs. I was in danger of being assaulted in front of witnesses twice in one day. That would be a record even for me.
‘We have lots of staff now; we’ve expanded,’ Stella said, so close to me now she didn’t have to shout.
The pressure of her knee increased, and I drew heavily on the cigarette I had finally managed to light. Stella caught my hand and directed the cigarette to her own lips, tilting her head to do so, but her eyes never leaving my face. If she got any closer she’d be behind me. I had to break the spell.
‘Is Veronica here?’
‘No, she’s on a job on a cruise ship in the Baltic, trying to spot which of the crew are diddling the passengers.’
Her knee moved back a fraction and suddenly I felt a lot cooler. Talking about Veronica obviously had the same damper effect on both of us.
‘So she’ll be missing the wedding?’
‘Yes,’ Stella smiled. ‘But then, she’s not really a wedding person.’
‘I didn’t think you were.’
‘I was sure you weren’t, but, hey, what do I know?’
‘You must know something. You called me.’
She edged backwards, leaving enough room for cigarette smoke to drift between us, and then came to a decision.
‘Yes, you’re right, I did. We need to talk before I get totally trollied. Come on.’
She grabbed my hand and began to push through the crowd, smiling, talking, air-kissing as she went, ignoring the suggestions and nudge-nudge, wink-wink accusations thrown at her from virtually everyone in the room. At one point she responded with ‘It’s my party; I can do who I like,’ and she also managed to liberate an almost full bottle of champagne from someone. I had just time to grab her cigarettes and lighter from the table before she dragged me in her wake.
The pianist had started a very slow version of ‘I Wish I Knew How It Felt To Be Free’. She was good, even if, with my back to her now, I couldn’t see what the dolphin tattoo was doing. Some of the guests were swaying (as much as was possible) and humming along, and I caught snippets of conversation as they tried to remember which TV show it had been used as a theme for, which film it had featured in and who had done the previous year’s grim cover version. None of them would have ever heard of Nina Simone, but the pianist probably had. She was good.
‘Back in a few minutes. You enjoy yourselves. Get more drink. Call of nature, that’s all,’ Stella was saying to all and sundry.
As we came level with the end of the bar, I saw Michael tangling with Randy, who had managed to get behind the bar and was tugging at the belt of his trousers, waving the small bottle of rice wine in front of his face. He caught my eye at the same time he realised what Randy was suggesting, shrugged his shoulders and, with a smile, let her work the bottle down the front of his trousers, making lots of over the top faces and giving me the thumbs up sign with his right hand.
I realised that Stella was dragging me towards the toilets, and when Michael saw that, his grin broadened, and he put both thumbs up in the air.
Chapter Nine
There were catcalls and wolf-whistles loud enough to drown out the pianist as Stella dragged me through the door to the toilets. There would have been more if they’d seen her carry straight on into the Gents, slam the door behind us and then lean on it.
‘Tobacco me,’ she commanded, crossing her legs so that the skirt fell open again and putting the champagne bottle to her lips. When I had lit a cigarette from the stub of the one I had, we swapped.
‘You’re really getting married tomorrow?’ I asked between sips.
‘‘Fraid so. Missed your chance there.’
‘Just naturally lucky, I guess. You going to be in any fit state?’
‘Fuck it, I’m not going into that church sober!’ she laughed. ‘But don’t worry about me, Angel, I’ve planned ahead. Everybody gets shit-faced here, then we move round to the Rasa Sayang for some Malaysian nibbles about 7.00, then I disappear in a pre-ordered limo. Anyone still standing gets to go on to a club – whatever. I’m on my way to a five star hotel near Gatwick where my future mother-in-law is imposing maximum security.’
‘Hey, dropping out of your own hen night, that’s impressive. You must be serious about the guy.’
‘Not as serious as he is about me.’
As she said it, she licked a finger and drew it up her left leg from the knee to the stocking top, making a ‘sssss’ noise as if quenching a flame.
I handed back the champagne.
‘Down, girl, down. Exactly how rich is this guy?’
She licked her finger and made the hissing noise again.
‘I get the picture,’ I said. I handed the champagne back to her and lit myself another cigarette. For some strange reason I needed one. I was sure it was absolutely nothing to do with the way she was leaning against the door.
‘We’ll be going on our honeymoon tomorrow night,’ Stella was saying, ‘so we’ll be away for a couple of months.’
‘As you do,’ I said casually.
‘So when I found out what was going on, which was, like, just this morning, I swear it, I had to get hold of you.’ At that point she giggled, then said: ‘Well, you know what I mean.’
‘You’ve been following me,’ I prompted.
‘Not personally!’ she protested.
‘Of course not.’ I reached out and stroked her cheek slowly with the back of my hand, then relieved her of the champagne bottle. ‘I would have noticed you.’
When she opened her eyes she said: ‘You don’t fancy a quickie, do you? I mean, they all think that’s what we’re doing anyway.’
‘You were saying?’
God, I could be strict.
‘Okay, I really did only find out this morning, right?’ I nodded and had another drink. ‘Good, because if I’d known it was you, I would have told you, you know I would have ...’
‘Get on with it.’
‘Right. I was away from the office and Veronica was setting up the cruise ship job I told you about, when a client registered with us wanting some info on a guy called Keith Flowers.’ She paused, did some serious smoking for a minute, then narrowed her eyes. ‘You don’t seem surprised by any of this so far.’
I took off my Ray-Bans and for the first time she saw (and I saw in the mirror above the sink) the mottled bruising above my nose.
‘I’m ahead of you, I think,’ I said. ‘But carry on.’
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‘Okay, but just remember I wasn’t there. I only found out about this this morning when I saw the weekly timesheets.’
She held out a hand for the bottle and took a long swig.
‘I didn’t know we’d agreed to do a background check on this Keith Flowers. Honestly, I didn’t. It was one of the new girls – I said we’d taken on new staff, didn’t I? Anyway, it all seemed above board, and I had other things on my mind. Whatever, it wasn’t until one of our operatives started to ask about Amy May – just casually like, around the coffee machine, nothing formal – and I mentioned you and how I knew you – had known you – before, like ... and even then, I didn’t put two and two together until I saw a copy of her initial report and I realised she’d been dogging you.
‘Now, I don’t know what’s going on,’ she said between slurps on the bottle, ‘but what I read about this guy Flowers didn’t sound like he should get my vote in a Citizen of the Year poll. And when I realised that he was your Amy’s ex, I thought, o-oh, maybe I should give you the heads-up that somebody was interested in your sordid little life. For old times’ sake, if nothing else.’
‘Pity you didn’t do it sooner,’ I said.
‘Give me a break. I only saw the report this morning.’
‘When did the client see it?’
‘Yesterday, maybe,’ she said quietly. ‘Is that important?’
‘Not now,’ I said, moving over to the mirror above the sink and making a point of examining my bruises. ‘But I don’t think your client was completely satisfied with the report he got. Had to come and ask a few more in-depth questions.’
‘Hey, babe, don’t lay that one at my door.’
‘So who’s your client?’
‘I can’t tell you that, babe. I’d lose my licence.’
I took the bottle back from her.
‘Bullshit. You don’t have a licence. The only licences for private detectives in this country are Office of Fair Trading ones authorising people to do credit checks. Oh, sure, they’ve now set up the Private Security Industry Authority and they’re going to be issuing licences, but they haven’t yet. I bet you haven’t even got an application form filled in.’