Scarlet Women (19 page)

The Alley Cat club was busier in the evenings. In fact, the place was heaving, with bare-titted hostesses in little frilly skirts shimmying through the seated throng bearing trays of wildly overpriced drinks. ‘Get Back’ was pounding out of the huge sound system until Bobby Jo swaggered on to the stage in a long gold-sequinned gown and huge red bouffant wig to a wave of rapturous applause. He promptly started turning the air blue with his jokes.

Struggling to see through the rising smoke of a hundred cigarettes, Annie and Tony descended the stairs and took a table while Bobby Jo did the build-up to the next act. Annie was annoyed and worried. At her instruction, Steve had checked out the canal bridge under the Mile End Road last night, and Mira hadn’t been there, only Jackie.

When asked, Jackie had shrugged and told Steve that she hadn’t seen Mira and it looked like she
was gone for good, and while he was there how about a blow-job for a fiver?

Steve had graciously declined. Asked how Rizzo was doing. Told her to go get a life, kick Rizzo to the kerb. Jackie graciously told Steve to fuck off.

‘That one won’t bail out,’ he told Annie on the phone when he reported the news. ‘Thinks the little runt loves her or something.’

‘Don’t worry about Jackie,’ said Annie. ‘It’s Mira I’m concerned about. She’s a friend from way back. I want her found.’

‘I’ll put the word out. And I’ll check again tonight, okay, but don’t hold your breath. She won’t be there.’

Annie had said: yeah, do that. She looked at the Rolex on her wrist and hoped and prayed that Mira wasn’t gone for good.

‘Now the ONE, the ONLY, SASHA!’ Bobby Jo roared at last, and stepped down from the stage. Spotting Annie there, he came across to her table. On the way, he snapped his fingers at one of the hostesses, pointed to the table. She instantly swerved around a punter’s grasping fingers and made her way back to the bar.

Bobby Jo pulled up a chair as whoops and shouts erupted all around them.

‘Nice to see you in again, Mrs Carter,’ he said loudly in her ear. ‘Welcome back to the jungle.’

‘Thanks.’ The hostess was back with Bobby Jo’s ice bucket containing an opened bottle of Krug.

Expensive tastes
, thought Annie again.

‘Drink?’ offered Bobby Jo.

Annie shook her head. Tony too. He looked as though he wished he’d brought his paper, like last time. Annie saw him glance at the act unfolding on the stage. Sasha was up there doing something obscene with a boa constrictor. She turned her attention back to Bobby Jo.

‘Do you own this place, Bobby Jo?’ she asked him.

The sharp black eyes met hers from beneath their concealing forest of fake lashes.

Talk about Halloween
, thought Annie. She really didn’t like this man at all. There was something sinister, something deeply hidden, about Bobby Jo.

‘Nah,’ he said shortly, turning his gaze back to Sasha and her pet. ‘Wish I did,’ he said, pouring himself a glass of champagne. ‘I’d make a mint. This is a fucking Wednesday night, can you believe it?’

There was no accounting for taste, that was for sure. Annie refused to be sidetracked.

‘So who owns it?’ she asked.

The ferocious painted face of Bobby Jo was still for a moment. The black pebble eyes looked coldly into hers. Annie didn’t look away.

‘Consortium of businessmen,’ said Bobby Jo. ‘You know the sort of thing. Tax write-offs…’

‘Money laundering?’ suggested Annie. ‘Clubs are good for that.’

She knew that all too well. Years back, this had been the main function of the Carter clubs. But now she made sure that any cash that passed through them was squeaky clean.

Bobby Jo gave a grin, shrugged.

‘As I said, I’m only management.’

‘And you don’t know any of the owners?’ Annie stared at him. ‘That’s hard to believe.’

Bobby Jo gave a tight, mirthless grin. ‘I’m paid to know nothing,’ he said. ‘That’s the deal.’

‘How about the tattoo parlour next door?’ She and Tony had paused outside the little parlour on the way in, looked in the dirty windows, seen the faded pictures of clients and their tattoos, the charts detailing all the many and various designs a person could have tattooed on to their body. The CLOSED sign was up. In the flat above the shop, a dim light burned behind closed curtains. ‘They own that too, these businessmen? I heard Pete Delacourt runs it.’

Bobby Jo looked at the act. Annie looked at Bobby Jo.

‘No, they don’t,’ he said.

‘You know who does?’

Bobby Jo turned his head and his eyes met hers. ‘No.’

Annie nodded and looked at what Sasha was doing with the python. ‘Did Sasha know Teresa?’ she asked.

‘Yeah, I suppose. But I told you. All the girls in here hate each other. They compete. They don’t do bosom buddies.’

‘Did
you
know Teresa?’

Bobby Jo squinted at her. ‘Sure I knew her. I told you, she pissed me off by passing around her business cards in here.
And
she was nicking stuff from behind the bar. I can’t prove that—but I’m sure it was her because the minute she went AWOL, the thieving stopped.’

‘I
mean
, were you intimate with her?’

‘Intimate?’ The grotesque face was a picture of shock, then suddenly Bobby Jo was laughing. ‘What, me and that little slapper? Jeez, I wouldn’t touch her with someone else’s, let alone my own.’

‘Then who was? Someone must have come close to her.’

‘Nobody in this place,’ said Bobby Jo. ‘Not that I know of. I told you. She was a right little cow, good at making enemies, shit at making friends.’

‘You don’t know much,’ said Annie. ‘Considering you run the place.’

Bobby Jo turned his face to hers. No flicker of amusement there now.

‘I keep my head down and do my job,’ said Bobby Jo. ‘Best that way. Safer.’

‘You don’t mind if I have a chat to the staff?’

Again the shrug. ‘I’ve no objections.’ But he didn’t look happy.

‘Good,’ said Annie, and stood up. ‘No time like the present.’

After about an hour it became clear to Annie that the bulk of the staff neither knew nor cared whether Teresa Walker was dead or alive. But the hard-eyed hostess who had waited on their table, Tamsin, visibly wobbled when questioned about Teresa’s love life. Bobby Jo was watching Annie’s progress around the room; she could feel those cold shark eyes boring into her back everywhere she went.

‘Hey,’ Tamsin said above the roar of the crowds, her eyes darting nervously around the smoke-filled room, ‘I don’t know nothing about that. I keep my head down and do my job.’

Echoing, with spooky accuracy, Bobby Jo’s own words.

Annie told her thanks, and Tamsin hurried gratefully away.

When Tamsin emerged fully clothed at the end of the night into the alley at the back of the club, Annie and Tony were there, waiting for her. Tony moved in.

‘What the fuck’s this?’ whined Tamsin, eyes anxious in the semi-dark as they moved between Annie and Tony.

‘I’ll tell you what the fuck this is,’ said Annie. ‘It’s about you telling the truth for once in your shitty little life.’

‘Oh Jesus, I
told
you…’

‘You told me nothing, and that’s not good enough because I think you know something more.’

‘I told you, I don’t know nothing.’

Annie nodded at Tony, and he moved in closer still. Tamsin shrank back.

‘Hey, there’s no need for this,’ she yelped.

‘Yeah there is,’ said Annie.

‘I don’t know a thing. Not a
thing.
’

‘That’s a pity,’ sighed Annie. ‘Tone…’ she said, and started to walk off.

All Tamsin could see was blackness as Tony loomed ever closer. He raised his hand.

‘All right, all right! I’ll tell you, okay? Shit, there’s no need to go getting all
physical
about it.’

Annie walked back, and Tamsin started talking.

She knew nothing about the flame tattoo, nothing at all, but Teresa’s boyfriends? Well, maybe she knew
something
, but they didn’t hear it from her, was that clear?

Annie said that it was.

‘Teresa always thought she was a cut above,’ said Tamsin breathlessly. She was still watching Tony with a worried look in her eye. He had drawn back, but he was still close enough to do damage. ‘She liked the high rollers, the men with plenty of cash to
splash.’ Tamsin tried a shaky all-girls-together grin at Annie. ‘Hey, don’t we all?’

‘Anyone in particular?’ asked Annie coldly. Tamsin bit her lip.

Tony moved forward again, big as a barn door and with a face to frighten the kids.

‘Okay, okay,’ gabbled Tamsin. She swallowed nervously. ‘Hold up. No need to get nasty. She said she was seeing one of the club owners sometimes, but none of us believed it. She was so full of crap.’

‘Who?’

‘She never said who,’ said Tamsin, and Tony came forward. She winced but stood her ground. ‘It’s the truth! I only know because I heard Teresa bragging about it backstage on the phone. She liked to rub people’s noses in it—“Look what I got,” you know the type. It was all bullshit anyway. I’ve never seen any of the owners, they never come here, they run a con…cons…’ She faltered.

‘Consortium?’ supplied Annie.

‘That’s it! Yeah. A consortium.’

‘I need names. Or a name, at least.’

‘I
told
you…’

Tony moved forward and grasped Tamsin very gently by the throat. She let out a startled cry.

‘Something more,’ said Annie, staring into Tamsin’s widening eyes. ‘Anything. Come on. A name. Give me a name.’

Tamsin did just that, and it was the last one Annie expected.

When Annie got back to the Palermo later that night, she was still thinking about the fruitless evening spent at the Alley Cat club, questioning people who neither knew nor cared whether Teresa Walker had lived or died. Teresa Walker was nothing to them. Teresa Walker might never have existed, for all they cared. But Tamsin’s news, now that had been interesting.

In the lounge, she looked at the mountains of red roses. Looked at the phone. Hesitated. Then picked it up and dialled.

‘Yeah?’ Constantine was yawning.

‘You still working? It’s late,’ she said. She could picture him there, at the big tooled-leather desk, the banker’s light cosily aglow.

‘Oh. It’s you.’

‘Thanks,’ said Annie. ‘For the flowers.’

‘Pleasure. Was there something else? Something you wanted?’ He paused. ‘Or
needed
, maybe?’

I want you
, thought Annie. And then wondered if she was right to want that. Wondered if she really was on the rebound; if this was just a physical thing, nothing more than that. Just sex, not love.

‘I just want to ask you something,’ she said, trying to shake her own brain clear of all this.

‘Ask away.’

She told him.

‘Why would you want to know that?’ he asked. ‘And why can’t you get information like that yourself?’

‘I want to know because when I asked the manager he was evasive. So maybe there was some link between Teresa Walker and one of these businessmen who own the Alley Cat? Maybe not. Whatever, I’d like to know.’

‘Your boys could ask him,’ said Constantine. ‘Simple dark alley job.’

They both knew how persuasive the boys could be, down dark alleys.

‘I’m trying to keep it down. Had two warnings off the police.’

‘Okay. I’ll see what I can do. Oh, Mrs Carter?’

Annie sighed. ‘Annie. Call me Annie, for God’s sake.’

‘Something wrong?’ He’d caught the sharpness in her tone.

Everything.

‘Nothing. Just a long day.’

‘I’m going back to the States at the weekend.’

‘What?’

‘Just over the weekend. Business.’

‘Right.’

She sounded blasé, but anxiety was clamping down on her breathing. He’d said something
similar last time. I’ll be back soon, wasn’t that what he’d said? And it had been three months. He didn’t even
live
here, although he owned the Holland Park place and the clubs up West. He lived in New York. His
life
was there. Not here. Not with her. This whole thing was doomed, why couldn’t she just face that?

‘Remember. If you need me, I’ll be right there. All you have to do is say it.’

She wanted to say it. Knew she mustn’t.

‘Goodnight, Constantine,’ she said, and put the phone down.

She went to bed, and slept. Then she awoke with a start, her heart pounding madly in her chest because there was someone hammering at the main door. She groped for the light, switched it on and looked at the clock. It was three-fifteen in the morning.

Groaning, she slipped on her red robe and got out of bed. She went out of the flat and down the stairs to the main doors, which were securely bolted.

‘Who is it?’ she asked.

‘Me, Boss. Barney.’

Barney was the man who was currently keeping an eye on the club from outside, doing nights because the word was he couldn’t stick the sight of his rampant, plug-ugly old lady and he jumped at any chance to escape the marital bed.

‘What’s up?’ She threw back the bolts and opened the door, flicking on the outside light. The door stuck a bit, felt—weirdly—heavier than normal.

Barney stood there, a thin balding bundle of aggression, his face tinted yellow by the light. He was blinking worriedly.

‘What is it?’ she asked again, and it was then that she followed the line of Barney’s eyes and saw the small dark shape on the door. She reached out a hand and touched black fur, and dampness. Her hand came away bloody.

‘Oh
God
,’ she gasped.

It was the cat. Someone had killed the poor damned cat, and nailed it to the club door.

‘I didn’t see who did it,’ said Barney. ‘Honest.’

By a quarter to four, Steve Taylor and Gary Tooley had arrived on the scene. Barney was looking more nervous than ever, and Annie found that annoying. He hadn’t been bothered about
her
reaction, but he was shit-scared of theirs.

Squat Steve and lanky blond Gary stood there with faces like the wrath of God, looking at the cat on the door.

‘You didn’t see who did it?’ asked Steve in disbelief.

‘I went for a piss,’ whined Barney.