Death Of A Diva (10 page)

Chapter Twenty-Four

              “Christ almighty. You look awful,” Caz boggled and then flung her arms out to catch me.

              “I’m dead,” I said.

              “I’ve been calling your mobile all night,” she pulled me over to the sofa, my knees gave way and I dropped into it.

              “I’m so dead.”

              “Where’s your phone? Why didn’t you call me back? What happened to you? What’s going on with the Lyra thing?”

              I looked around her living room, the curtains still drawn against the winter morning and noticed a rather large selection of stuff from the pages of
Glamrag
strewn around the place.

              “I need to flee the country,” I said and, hearing myself, wondered if I could possibly sound gayer.

              “I’ll put the kettle on,” Caz announced. “Brandy or scotch?”

              She made to move away and I grabbed her wrist. “Really, Caz. I need to get away. Please...”

              Caz must have seen or heard something, because her whole demeanour changed. She sat down beside me, put her arms around me and pulled me tightly to her. “I don’t do touchy-feely,” she murmured in my ear, “so if you ever tell a soul what I’m about to say, I will tear your left arm off and beat you to death with it.”

And she pushed me back so she could look directly into my eyes. “You will not go to prison for what happened to Lyra. Because you didn’t do it. I know that and anyone with any sense will know that too. We’ll get through this and you’ll be fine.”

“Ali took all the money.”

“The what?”

“I’ve been back to the Marq,” I said. “The tills are empty. The safe is empty. And I can’t get hold of Ali. The takings. From tonight. Last night. They’re gone.”

Caz opened her mouth, but no sound came out. “Gone?” She finally asked, as though struggling with the concept.

“Gone,” I confirmed and proceeded to fill her in on the night’s events, from the moment I’d been dragged out of the Marq by the law through my interrogation by Reid and on to my
Horse’s Head
moment with Chopper Falzone.

“But you need to pay Chopper his cash,” she rather needlessly informed me. “How are you going to do that if the money’s gone?”

“I’m not. Hence the requirement for a fast car to Dover and a ticket out of the country.”

“Wait.” She took her hands off my shoulders and held them out in front of her as though willing the world to be calm. “We can sort this out.”

“With a magic wand?” I asked incredulously.

“We can make this better,” she insisted.

“Are you doing some sort of NLP voodoo on me?” I asked. “Only, if you are, this is
so
not the time. I don’t need positivity, Caz; I need seven grand and a signed confession from whoever did to Lyra Day what the rest of us only wished we had the guts to do.”

“The money can wait.”

“Oh. Right. I’ll get Chopper on the phone, shall I? Let you tell him that yourself.”

“Danny.” She gave me her best
stop being so fucking negative
look.

“Caz. I am dead,” I repeated.

“Chopper wants his money,” Caz stated and, before I could ask her whether she thought I had, maybe forgotten this fact, she added “but I bet he wants the mess stirred up by the Lyra thing sorted out even more. Am I right?”
              I frowned. “Well he didn’t mention money till the very end.”

“And the police seem to have decided you throttled the old sow yourself, which means that they won’t be looking too hard for the real killer. So, there you go.”

“Where I go, Caz, is straight to Calais and then off east to somewhere that stays dark till June.”

“No. You stay. You sort out the Lyra mess.”

“And what? He’ll be so grateful he’ll forget the seven grand from the opening night and fifteen hundred a week he’s waiting for?”

“It’s a start. You run, you’re running forever. And that’s not you.”

She was right. “So I stay.”

“You stay.”

“And I sort out the Lyra mess?”

She nodded and I wanted almost to cry at how glad I was to have a friend like Caz in my life. “OK. Kettle,” I said. “And brandy with the coffee. Thanks.”

“Attaboy!” She slapped me on the shoulder and tottered off to the galley kitchen.

Chapter Twenty-Five

              “Has she turned up yet?” The concern – even down a telephone line – was evident in Caz’s voice.

              I looked around the empty bar, shrouded in the half darkness of a dingy Saturday afternoon and sighed. “
Yet
? Caz, if she’s done a runner with Chopper’s cash, she’ll not be seen till sometime in the next century.”

              “
If
,” Caz reminded me.

              “I know: she was a bit of a misery, but she didn’t seem like the type who’d do this. Still, what do I know about people? Christie even made a few comments that, now I think about them...”

              “Well the ASBO twins are all accounted for. They were shipped out of the joint at the same time as I was and headed off to Soho. Ray reckons Ali was allowed to stay behind to cash up, but the cops were on site the whole time. So: what next?”

              I sighed. “Just come back here. And bring some coffee.”

Caz and I had kicked the entire disaster around for an age until we’d fitfully napped, finally decided we needed to face reality and I’d gone to the Marq, let myself back in to the place, walked around it and – as I now did on my second trip round – wondered how my life had gone from the scent of Jo Malone to the scent of Toilet Duck; how I’d gone from kept man to keeper of the kill zone.

I left the bar and walked around the private areas: the parlour; the kitchen with its vast chest freezers; the living room, empty save for a distressed looking old sofa; the dressing room, closed off now with
Crime Scene
tape; and the office with its empty safe.

Then I made my way back downstairs and heard someone pounding on the front door. I crossed, wondering what new hell was waiting outside.

It was, instead, Robert.

My Robert.

Who wasn’t
my
Robert anymore, but who smiled comfortingly and said “Oh Danny. What
have
you gotten yourself in to?”

Chapter Twenty-Six

              Robert was still standing, his gym toned butt barely touching the cushions of a Victorian barstool, when I Iet Caz into the Marq.

              She stopped dead when her eyes fell on my ex. There was a moment of almost total silence before she switched on a beaming smile.

              “Robert, darling,” she sang, opened her arms wide so as not to touch him with either of the coffees she held and air kissed him on both cheeks.

              I knew Caz and I knew that this was not her usual manner.

              “Caroline,” Robert murmured in his oiliest tones.

              If there’d been a knife handy, I might have been able to cut the atmosphere with it.

              “So, what brings you here?” Caz, her tone still bright and breezy, asked.

              “Danny’s sister called.”

              “Babs,” Caz muttered, well aware of the mutual fan club that Babs and Robert had founded. She handed me my latte and shot me a look that said
Remind me to have your sister cut into little pieces one day
.

              “She’s very worried,” Robert said, turning his attention to me. “
Very
. I mean, first you reinvent yourself as some sort of,” he sniffed dismissively, “
Barman
. Then, there’s
this
.” He gestured at the newspaper on the bar, from where the headline
DAY DEAD IN DODGY DRINKING DEN
screamed.

              “I’m not a barman,” I objected, “I’m the landlord,”

              Robert cast his eyes once again around the bar. “
Landlord
.” He said the word in the same tones one would perhaps pronounce the phrase
anal warts
and settled his gaze back on Caz. “And what about you,
Lady Caroline
? What do you think of this little venture?”

              “
Venture
?” I bristled.

              Caz smiled sweetly at Robert and slugged back her espresso in one sweep. “Drink your latte, darling,” she sang to me, “before it gets cold,” and her eyes took on the look of a shark who’s just sighted a half dozen teenage surfers paddling from shore. “I hardly think of it as a
venture
, Robert. This is Danny’s new career.”

              “Career?” Robert smiled silkily. “Really?” He looked around the bar and his silence spoke volumes.

              “Look, Robert,” I ignored Caz’s look of warning; I could fight my own battles. “Thanks for coming, but really…”

              “Oh Danny,” Robert sighed, “please don’t say you can fight your own battles, because look where
looking after yourself
has gotten you.” He jabbed a finger at the headline.

              “Robert,” Caz asked flatly. “What do you want?”

              “To save
you
,” he said, fixing me with an almost-believable look of concern.

              “
Save me
?” I couldn’t decide whether to laugh or punch his smug face. “Robert, I don’t need saving.”

              “Danny, what you need – above almost anything else in the world right now – is rescuing. From yourself, if from nothing else.”

              I laughed. It seemed easier than punching him. “And just how are you going to rescue me? Throw me over your shoulder and drag me back to Windsor?”

              Robert blanched. “I don’t think Andrew would approve,” he murmured.

              “Of course, the
window cleaner
. How stupid of me.”

              “Andrew runs a very successful business. He’s got several teams of men doing everything from re-tiling rooves to re-laying driveways. The window cleaning was just what you knew him for. But he’s not just a window cleaner. He’s got some real business nous and–”

              “And I’m just a barman in a shitty boozer,” I finished for him.

              “That’s not what I meant.”

              “Look, Robert, this might not be your scene, but it’s a good living; it’s
mine
and I can make this pub pay.”

              “And just how do you propose to
rescue
Danny from his life?” Caz enquired.

              Robert turned his attention to me. “Danny. I know that things between us ended – badly. It breaks my heart to think of you here. I want to give you some funds, let you get away from London, set yourself up with a fresh start.”

              I’ll admit my first thought was
He’s having me committed somewhere
. I looked at Caz and she raised an eyebrow.

              “I want nothing from you.” I said flatly. “You can go now.”

“Danny, be serious. You’ve gone from a nice little job in an office to running this place, dealing drugs and stumbling over corpses. How much further do you have to fall before you’ll let your friends help you?”

“I hated the office job. It meant running around being subservient to smug bastards with overinflated senses of their own importance – no offence,” this last to Caz, who nodded serenely. “And frankly, I got enough of that at home. I have never dealt drugs in my life. In fact, as you well know, my only involvement with illegal pharmaceuticals was as a result of
your
stupidity,” (here, he had the good grace to blush). “It was a corpse, singular. And as for my friends,” I put my arm around Caz and pulled her closer, “they’re standing by me – as they always have.”

              And at that moment, Ali’s voice rang out. “Oi, Danny! You in there?”

              Caz’s eyes widened. My jaw dropped. We both leapt for the door. I got there first, unlocked it and dragged Ali into the pub.

              “
Where the fuck have you been
?” I demanded.

              “Danny, calm down,” Caz said soothingly, before turning to Ali. “We’ve been calling your mobile all morning.
Where the hell were you?
”

              Ali bristled, pulled herself up to her full, diminutive height, cast a suspicious glance over my shoulder at Robert and turned her attention back to me.

              “At my mum’s. The phone was out of juice cos I didn’t have my charger with me. Went round there last night and she insisted I stay over. Spent most of the morning trying to get me to move back in. She was terrified of me coming back to this place. Thought I’d be hatcheted while bottling up or summink.”

“Ali, the cash,” I interrupted her. “Where is it?”

“The cash?”

“The takings. From last night.”

“Well, they’re in the safe. Wait – they’re not?”

“You’ve been robbed, too?” This from Robert, with a gesture of exasperation.

“Robert, keep out of this.”

Ali had gone pale. “I emptied the till – started cashing up, but didn’t bother finishing, Danny, cos, well, after everything...”

“Go on...”

“Have you called the police?” Robert demanded.

“I put the cash into the bank sack and put it in the safe.”

“Did you lock the safe?” Caz asked, looking for an explanation.

“Christ almighty, Danny: you haven’t, have you?”

“Robert;
I am handling this
.”

“
Clearly
.”

“Ali?” I turned to the woman, whose eyes were darting around the bar, fear etched plainly on her face.

“Yes... I don’t know... Wait! Yes! Definitely. I locked the safe, went downstairs – I was still spooked about everything – and then – I remember now – I went back upstairs and rechecked the safe. It was locked.”

“Right,” Robert pulled his mobile from his pocket, “I’m calling the police right now.”

Caz stepped over to him and grasped his wrist with such force that he winced. “I wouldn’t,” she muttered.

“Oh Jesus!” Ali put her hand to her mouth, her eyes wide and looked every inch the silent movie heroine.  “Chopper’s cut.”

“Chopper’s
what
? Who’s Chopper? Danny, what are you messed up in here?” Robert’s voice had the tone of someone who’s popped off on a short break and discovered that Thomas Cook has dumped them in the middle of a civil war.

“Was the place locked up when you left?” I pressed on; I had decided to ignore Robert, which was easy, considering I’d had fifteen years practice.

“Tight.” She was definite now. “I even set the alarm and if there’s anything still open – doors or windows – it won’t set.”

“It wasn’t set when I came in this morning.” I stepped away from Ali.

“Wait.” Robert again: “Chopper Falzone? That nasty piece? Jesus, Danny. What have you done?”

This was too much. “What have I done?
What have I done?
Robert, I’ve walked out on you after fifteen years. I haven’t got a pot to piss in, nor a window to throw it out of. So I have done whatever I needed to do to get my life restarted.”

“By hooking up with a notorious gangster and employing a team of kleptomaniacs?”

“Oi!” Ali bristled. “I’ve never pinched so much as a packet of nuts from here.”

Robert snorted, “A likely story.”

“Right,” I’d had enough. I grabbed him by the arm. “You’re not helping.”

“Helping? Danny, we need to talk. You’re in over your head.”

“Well I don’t need rocks in my pockets, then. Go home, Robert. Give my love to Andy the entrepreneur.”

“Danny...”

“Goodbye, Robert.”

And I bundled him out of the door, slammed it shut, locked it and turned back to the two women.