by Adam Maxwell
The fire behind the bar was bleeding into the building, spraying flames upwards like a severed artery. The dropped ceiling was ablaze above the dance floor, which, at that moment, had a detective with what appeared to be a death wish running across it. He was reluctantly followed by a firefighter who looked like, at any moment, he might just hit the detective over the head with something heavy and drag him out of there.
Perhaps sensing the impending loss of life, the firefighter put on a burst of speed, reaching the detective and putting his hand on his shoulder. But it was too late. The doors at the end of the bar exploded, throwing the detective into the firefighter, knocking them like skittles to the edge of the dance floor.
After the aural abuse of the explosion, a quiet calm descended. The kind of background noise you might expect on a beach, but instead of the tides washing in and out, it was the contented roar of the fire devouring the building. Through the calm came a tapping.
You might have heard it if you had been standing in the middle of the dance floor. If it was midday on a Tuesday and the music wasn’t playing. And if the building wasn’t on the verge of collapse.
If you’d turned around, away from the bar, you might have noticed a movement on the opposite wall. Behind one booth, something was happening. The light glinted off an object that wasn’t there a moment earlier. And then it was gone. The object returned, this time in a tiny puff of masonry dust and the light glinted off it once more. Finally the head of an axe was picked out in the dying disco lights before the whole of the lighting rig finally gave up the ghost and the club collapsed into darkness.
The plaster of the wall burst open. In the hole that remained stood Katie, resplendent in her firefighter uniform, torch flicking around, hoping, praying, that this time there wouldn’t be another damn wall in the way. She disappeared for a moment before returning with Violet over her shoulder. This was it. The final stretch.
She stepped through the hole she’d created, knocking over glasses as she clambered over the table top. She could see the foyer, the doors. This was it.
Katie picked up speed, desperate now to get away from the flames, but as she reached the far edge of the dance floor she saw them. Two bodies lying prone on the ground. For a moment she didn’t waver, just kept going for the door, but a few steps later she stopped, lowering Violet to the ground.
Violet propped herself against the wall.
“Wha…?” was all she managed through the coughing.
Katie gestured towards the men and Violet hesitated for a moment before nodding.
Katie hadn’t been asking permission, but that was beside the point. She moved quickly, hooking her arms under the armpits of the man who wasn’t a firefighter. She dragged him away from the danger zone, his heels scraping along the floor. His head twitched as consciousness leaked back into him.
She strode back to the dancefloor and repeated the process for the firefighter in his matching yellow uniform.
The non-firefighter had propped himself up on the soaked carpet. He tried to say something but it just came out as a croak.
Katie nodded her response and waved towards the fire as a warning. He blinked sore eyes at her and nodded back.
Now that those two were safe… escape. Violet was still coughing as Katie scooped her up and over her shoulder one last time. Striding forward, she shoved open the doors. She stood for a moment, grateful for the cold night air, even through all the layers of protection she wore.
Roach’s consciousness was returning like an adulterous girlfriend trying to sneak into the house unnoticed at 4:30 a.m., still so inebriated that she falls down the stairs three times on the walk of shame back to the bedroom. His senses seemed to be drifting back to him as though they were all being rebooted at different speeds.
Until his rescuer opened the door.
There was a rush of cold air and in an instant all his senses came back online. He sat bolt upright. He could instantly feel the damp seeping into the arse of his trousers. It would look like he’d pissed himself when he stood up.
He’d been dragged to safety. The adrenal swell of frustration rose inside him as he stared at his rescuer about to leave. Roach got to his feet and immediately regretted it, a woozy feeling flooding his body like a waterfall from his brain.
His rescuer had scooped up another casualty and was carrying her outside, her dark bobbed hair flopping loosely and obscuring her features.
Her black bobbed hair.
It was her. The suspect.
Katie ducked her head to fit through the door and Roach suddenly knew how the tiny woman with the bobbed hair had taken down three people whose primary purpose in life was to fuck other people up. She had a… a… giant on the payroll.
Roach turned to make sure Steve was moving in an ‘out’ direction then ran for Katie, trying to shout, the smoke still stuck in his throat turning his words into hisses.
Katie was already en route into the crowd and to Barry’s recently acquired ambulance, parked exactly where he’d promised it would be. Seeing that she was carrying an apparently injured member of the public, even the other emergency services scuttled out of Katie’s way, allowing her to get away from the Palace unhindered.
Violet raised her head far enough to see the results of her handiwork. The fire wasn’t just pouring out of the first floor windows. The whole of the nightclub was ablaze, with the majority of the adjoining side of Elias’ office up in flames too. She smiled and let her head drop into the small of Katie’s back once more.
seventeen
Detective Roach’s thoughts were like quicksilver now. How could he have missed the fact that the suspect had an accomplice? He squelched forward in pursuit but found himself pausing for a beat by the cloakroom, his mind circling back to that woman. The woman with the dark bobbed hair.
More than one woman in the world had dark bobbed hair. It could be someone else. What evidence did he have that she was the woman the toilet attendant had seen? The same woman who had got changed in the cubicle and left behind… The clothes. Where were the clothes? The adrenaline was surging through his system and he spun around, looking for the clothes he had rescued from the toilet cubicle. He must have dropped them on the dance floor. They would be burned to a crisp by now, except — No, one shoe was on the stair next to where the firefighter had dragged him.
He sprinted back for it and then turned and ran for the door. She was definitely the woman. He could feel it in his gut. Skidding to a halt outside the club, he surveyed the scene, her shoe held tight in his fist like he was a justice-seeking Prince Charming. She wasn’t hard to spot. The firefighter carrying her was taller than everyone else in the crowd. And the woman’s backpack poked into the air like a hunchback as she hung over the firefighter’s shoulder.
A backpack. Who takes a backpack to a nightclub? No-one, that’s who. Roach surged towards them, but a cadre of yellow-uniformed firefighters ran in his way, dragging hoses in their wake. The tall firefighter had lowered his quarry into the back of the ambulance and taken off his helmet. Not his helmet. Her helmet. It was a woman. A giant woman.
For a moment Roach had to have a word with himself, tell himself that this was not the raving of a man who had just had a near-death experience. What he was seeing was very real indeed. The giantess threw her helmet to the ground before discarding her jacket in the same way and folding herself into the back of the ambulance.
Roach shoved his way through the crowd, wrenching drunks and kebab-munchers out of his way, but it was like running through a swimming pool of inebriated custard.
The blue ambulance lights flickered to life and the crowds parted as the vehicle pulled away. Finally catching up with the ambulance, Roach banged on the driver’s window. The driver turned to look at him with a shit-eating grin. It was the helpful paramedic from Elias Croft’s reception area, which could only mean one thing. Roach had been played from start to finish.
He pulled at the locked door of the ambulance, but as the vehicle reached
the edge of the crowd Barry switched on the siren. Roach jumped at the sudden ear-splitting din but kept his eyes on the driver. Once Barry was sure he wasn’t about to flatten a piss-head, he turned back to Roach and saluted him before lowering his hand and curling back all but his middle finger. He gave the tip of the raised digit a little kiss and, accelerating through the red lights at an intersection, drove off into the night.
“FUCK!” Roach screamed after them. The words echoed back from darkened buildings that towered around him, doing nothing to assuage his rage. The bastards had got away with whatever the hell they had stolen and all Roach had to show for it was one lady’s shoe.
But there would be a next time. There was always a next time.
He turned around to see a television crew approaching the reception of Elias’ building just as the man himself was being led towards the main door, hands neatly and unavoidably cuffed behind his back.
Roach let out a little sigh that could possibly have been construed as relief. If it could be said that he had bigger fish to fry then this fish had just been delivered to him, freshly caught and with an enormous hook through its ugly face.
Elias wasn’t going to be able to buy his way out of this one and, more importantly, the evidence was overwhelming enough that no-one would help him. Not Scarfe, not anyone.
The blue light from the ambulance disappeared from view and Roach strode purposefully toward Elias Croft, ex-gangster.
eighteen
The shutters of the garage cut them off from the outside world. Barry turned off the ambulance headlights and, for a moment, there was nothing but darkness.
Then light spilled onto the concrete floor as the door to the inside of the house opened and first Lucas, then Zoe stepped out to greet them. Lucas fumbled around the wall next to the door, finally flicking a switch and causing the neon tubes above them to stutter to life.
Barry threw open the driver’s door and jumped down, his feet slapping on the ground and echoing around the bare walls.
Lucas and Zoe shared the same wide-eyed, expectant look.
“Well?” asked Lucas.
Barry grinned and pointed his thumb to the back of the ambulance. “They’re both in the back and so are the ashes. Got any beer?”
Lucas grabbed Barry by the hand and pumped it up and down. “You bloody legends,” he said. “In the fridge. We waited.”
“And the building?” asked Zoe.
“Both torched,” said Barry over his shoulder as he stepped past them and disappeared into the house. “Might be on the news.”
“The news?” said Lucas gleefully, turning to follow Barry.
“What about Violet and Katie?” Zoe asked, but before she could pursue the line of questioning any further there was a clunk as the back doors of the ambulance were thrown open.
Zoe darted around excitedly to hear the blow by blow account straight from Violet’s mouth but stopped short, her lips frozen in an ‘o’ shape at what she saw.
Violet was lying on a stretcher in the back of the ambulance. Her face was a patchwork of welts and bruises, the blood that had been running over it and into her hair caked dry from the heat of the fire.
Katie carefully took the oxygen mask from her mouth and revealed more; the fat, burst lip, more deep, purple bruises.
“Jesus fucking Christ, is she alive?” Zoe managed.
The smell of smoke was becoming increasingly noticeable with every passing second.
Katie looked at Violet, then at Zoe and, for a second, Zoe thought Katie might shake her head in the negative.
Then Violet sat bolt upright and coughed. Big, hacking, full-lung coughs that sandpapered her throat on the way out.
Zoe breathed out but continued looking at Katie for an answer. Katie raised her eyebrows, tilted her head to one side and held out her thumb and forefinger about an inch apart.
“Never… mind… that…” Violet managed between coughs.
Katie shook her head and swung the bag towards Zoe, who caught it and hugged it tight to her chest.
“We got a bite online. A buyer,” said Zoe, trying to distract, but her eyes remained fixed on Violet as Katie helped her to her feet.
Violet nodded and smiled. The smile only worked on one side, the other immobile from the swelling.
Lucas leaned through the door from the house, can of lager in hand. “You should see what’s on the telly,” he said, before noticing the state of Violet. “Do you need a hand?”
“She’s fine.” Barry’s voice was muffled from inside the house. “Doesn’t need any help. Hard as nails is Violet.”
Lucas raised a dubious eyebrow. “I know you said it would be risky but I thought you meant, you know… police risky. Incarceration risky. Not… Fubar risky.”
Zoe squinted at him in confusion. “Old man reference?” she asked.
Lucas clicked his teeth irritatedly. “I’m not old.”
“You are to me,” said Zoe, handing him the backpack. “Take this inside.”
Lucas took it and Zoe went over to Violet, letting her lean lightly on her shoulder as she walked slowly inside.
Katie moved off but stopped in the doorway when Violet spoke. “Katie,” she said, her voice as dry as sand.
Katie didn’t turn.
“Are we… okay?” Violet asked.
Katie turned her head, her powerful jawline picked out and backlit. She seemed to deflate slightly but she nodded just once.
“Some risks aren’t worth taking, you know,” said Zoe as they stepped inside. “We didn’t need to—”
“Reputation is everything,” said Violet, simply.
Zoe understood. She didn’t like it but there was no denying that this was a massive fuck you to anyone who dared cross them and a huge, skyscraper-sized hoarding advertising their services and talents.
The living room of the house they’d rented was so large they could have comfortably hosted a gig from a mid-level indie band, the television that hung on the longest wall so big it could have been mistaken for a cinema screen.
“…scenes tonight at the Tulip Street Gin Palace,” said the announcer on the news. She gripped her microphone and tried to rise above the drunken rabble hell-bent on exhibiting the sort of behaviour that would undoubtedly go viral online the following day. “The blaze took hold earlier this evening and quickly spread to the offices of notorious businessman Elias Croft. Miraculously there seem to have been no deaths and, so far, we’ve only seen one ambulance leaving the scene so casualties are expected to be in single figures.”
Barry reached down by his chair and, without warning, sent a bottle spinning through the air across the room. Katie caught it mid-air, inspected it, then uncorked it and took a pull. “I got the good stuff for you,” he said.
Katie nodded in appreciation and flopped backwards onto the sofa, taking up all of the room without bothering to spread out.
“Also I’m hearing,” the newsreader pushed her earpiece deeper to drown out the drunks. “I’m hearing that we’ve received footage… in the studio… security footage… proving that Mr Croft set the fire himself.”
“Was that us?” asked Barry.
“Of course it bloody was,” said Lucas, sipping at his beer. “Zoe set it up and I knocked it out of the park.”
“Don’t forget to give me that phone,” said Zoe.
Violet said something but Zoe didn’t catch it over the newsreader. She leaned in closer and Violet managed one word: bathroom.
“Just leave her, Zoe,” said Barry, his eyes fixed on the TV. “She’s just looking for attention.”
Katie scowled and Barry shut up.
In the bathroom Violet dropped to her knees and gripped the bowl.
“Go,” she said.
Zoe ignored her. “No, this is on all of us,” she said, holding back Violet’s hair.
“And it appears that Elias Croft is being escorted from his own building by the police.” The newsreader could barely disguise the glee in her voice. This was her BAFTA,
the perfect shot of the gangster being taken into custody while his nightclub and his office burn behind him.
Barry turned the TV up to drown out the sounds of Violet retching.
“Once a pillar of the community,” the newsreader padded. “Recently accusations of bribery have surfaced and there has even been suggestion of involvement in organised crime.” Her face said we all know he’s guilty. “And what’s this?” she said, as she intercepted Elias before he could reach the police van. “Mr Croft appears to have soiled himself. Have you soiled yourself, Mr Croft?” She thrust the microphone under his nose.
Elias Croft was done. Done with organised crime. Done with his business. Done with being a free man. Now he was a penniless ex-gangster standing in the street on national television having recently pissed himself.
He declined to comment.
“I can confirm that Elias Croft has indeed soiled himself and is being led away by the police.” If this was going to be her BAFTA she would make the most of it. “Officer? Will you be charging Mr Croft?”
Roach nodded. He managed not to grin but there was a smirk forming at the edges of his mouth. “Nothing’s happening until he’s been cleaned up,” he said.
“This is Sally Fowler for BBC News at the Tulip Street Gin Palace, Kilchester handing back to you in the studio, Mike.”
Violet & The Crew
will return
in
GET THE GIRL, KILL THE BADDIES
Acknowledgments
It may be my name on the cover but prising Kilchester diamonds from the word mines is most certainly a group activity.
Firstly to my wife Eve whose importance required that her thanks were in a larger font than everyone else. Thank you for putting up with my obsession with Violet and the gang and for being the finest muse to have existed down the ages.