Tara (68 page)

If someone caught her she would just act thick and make out she was looking for evidence that Harry was two-timing her. But she didn't intend to get caught.

Footsteps made her duck down behind a dustbin.

'I don't fuckin' like it,' Needles' voice rang out. 'Marcia's been with us since we opened and until Harry signs over the club to Duke, she should stay.'

'Don't make waves, Needles.'

Tara crept back down the alley and peered nervously out into the road. Needles was wearing the overalls they always put on for beer deliveries. Tony was almost running beside him to keep up, his short legs going like pistons.

'I can't take much more of this,' Needles snarled. 'If I didn't owe 'Arry I'd be out of 'ere now.'

They were out of hearing range now and Tara came out of her hiding place.

It was odd that Alec wasn't with them, she knew the three usually had their meals at the same time. But maybe now Harry wasn't around things had changed.

As she got back to the front door she could hear the sound of the Hoover coming from the bar and Mrs Knight shouting above it to her helper. Taking a deep breath Tara darted in, paused for a moment to get her bearings, then made a dash past the bar door to the stairs.

Everywhere looked so odd without lights. Sunshine came in the open door, a little more from the curved window over the stairs, but it was gloomy, a bit like being in a church.

Her feet were silent on the thick stair carpet, but as she reached the gallery she heard two men's voices coming from the direction of Harry's office. There was no time to consider who they were. She had to hide.

Running along the corridor to her left she darted into a windowless storeroom and hid behind the door. Her plan had been to reach the empty rooms, above this floor. She intended to settle down and wait until everyone left and the club was locked up, then she would have several hours to search without fear of interruption.

She could hear the men coming closer, talking softly. Suppose they came in here and caught her?

'The signal should come on Friday,' one of the men said. She didn't recognise this voice at all.

'I just hope they handle it properly.' She was sure this was Duke's voice, and she held her breath as they went on past the storeroom.

'They've been training for long enough,' Duke said, but his voice tailed away as if they'd gone into one of the gaming rooms.

'Joe's a good man, he won't let us down.' The stranger's voice drifted to her, suggesting they were coming out of the room again. 'We ought to send some replacements down for the others, though. They aren't used to being cooped up.'

'There's no-one else to replace them.' Duke sounded angry at the suggestion. "They knew there would be a lot of waiting, it's part of the deal.'

Tara held her breath, terrified they might just pull the storeroom door shut and lock it. There were spirits in here, boxes and boxes of them, and it shouldn't have been open. But they were going down the stairs now, their voices retreating. After a quick peep to make certain, she dashed for the small wooden staircase at the end, holding her bag firmly under her arm.

At the far end of the narrow, dusty passage upstairs was the room she was making for. Harry had brought her up here once when he had the idea of making it into a flat.

This was the room he'd thought of using as a bedroom. Because it was on the end of the building it had funny little arched windows on two sides. If she peered down from the front one she could just see the paper shop across the narrow street. The side one looked on to an alley, on her right a tiny glimpse of river. The room hadn't been cleared. Still the old armchair with one castor missing, a tea chest and a cardboard box of old printed price lists.

Tara turned the tea chest on its side as a precautionary hiding place, opened her bag and sorted through the equipment she'd brought. A torch, a flask of coffee, a pack of sandwiches, assorted fruit, sweets, cake and a book. She didn't anticipate staying beyond nine or ten,, but it was as well to be prepared.

Getting in here had been a piece of cake, getting out would be far more hazardous. She would have to go downstairs in the early evening and hide in the cloakroom until someone came to open up for the evening, then, when an opportunity arose, nip out the door. But if she was caught! But she wasn't going to dwell on that! For now all she had to do was listen.

One of the advantages of this hiding place was the fact it was over the foyer. If Harry hadn't had delusions of grandeur, insisting on that oak staircase and a chandelier, there would be another room beneath this one. As it was, sound carried clearly up here. Harry once told her he came up here for a cigarette sometimes when they had a stand-in doorman, just so he could discover how many entrance fees went in his pocket.

An hour passed. The men came back. She could hear Mrs Knight clearly, grumbling about the mess in the ladies lavatories. She heard her bang her equipment into her cupboard, then shout goodbye to Needles. Then one by one Alec, Tony and Duke left.

Finally the front door was banged shut, Needles' voice drifting up from the street below as he shouted something to the shop owner opposite.

There was no sound other than the buzzing of the chiller unit down in the bar. She started to walk down, but the sudden, unexpected sound of the telephone made her stop in her tracks. The click of someone picking up the receiver reverberated through the silent building and she heard a man's voice speak. Hastily she turned and went back to her hideout.

Voices woke her. Startled, Tara sat up and checked her watch. It was almost nine in the evening. She had waited and waited for the person on the telephone to leave. But he hadn't, and she'd reconciled herself to searching at night instead, then waiting till morning to get out. Finally she had lain down on the dusty floor and fallen asleep.

Needles was in, she could hear him quite distinctly, Tony, too, and maybe Dennis and Alec, though she couldn't be sure. A girl with a harsh Cockney voice shouted out that they needed more mixers, then there was a peal of dirty laughter from her and one of the men.

Did she dare use the toilet along the passage? Maybe she should wait till the music was turned on and people arrived.

Tara sat shivering. It wasn't very cold but it was creepy. She could hear scratching under the floorboards, creaking from the old hoists outside. It was one in the morning now, but still people arrived to gamble and drink. She could no longer hear the music, it was buried beneath the noise of people enjoying themselves.

She shone her torch on her watch. Three o'clock! It was quiet now, the music turned down to a mere hum, but there was a big card game going on and so the bar was open in the main gaming room. Every now and then a drunken girl's laughter spilled out. Tara could see the scene as if she was in the room, she'd so often been part of it. The laughing girl would be sitting on a bar stool, possibly in a long evening dress. Her man is in the next room, deaf and blind to anything beyond the cards in his hands. She's getting drunk because she's anxious. She'll talk and laugh too loudly, trying hard to justify why she's there, and all the time he's losing more.

Harry had come to hate gambling and gamblers. He said he'd heard all the stories about fortunes won and lost. That he was sickened by men who dragged their families down, of women who came crying to him asking for help. She felt Harry's presence tonight and it made her feel brave.

At last she heard the door of the card room opening, and feet shuffling out. Someone down there had won, but there was no joy or laughter. The silly girl was crying now, saying stupid things she'd regret tomorrow. Needles' voice came from the foyer, she could hear him clearly as he comforted the girl and jollied her out into a taxi. Harry said they always paid for taxis for people who'd lost a great deal; he'd laughed and said he had to, in case they were still on the doorstep the next morning.

Cars were driving away now. If only she could see which was which and mentally check off each man.

'Come on, man.' Needles sounded irritated, he wanted to go home. 'It's late and I've had it with being polite.'

She had never heard Needles be anything but polite. His size was enough to deter most troublemakers. Tony said goodbye, quickly followed by the barmaids, Dennis and Alec. More voices she didn't recognise, discussing something about a car, then they left too.

'Good night tonight!' Duke's voice wafted up to her. "That prat lost over two thousand to Reg. Both bars exceeded their targets, the door money was up, too. I hope you'll stay on with me once the sale's finalised, Needles.'

'I need to speak to 'Arry before I make any promises,' Needles said staunchly, and his cold tone revealed his loathing of the man.

'Your loyalty's touching.' Duke's sarcasm chilled Tara. 'But I'm going to be the boss here permanently. It might be a good plan to think on what that means!'

Tara heard the door open and a man's feet stepping down on to the pavement. She heard a click which could be Needles setting the alarm, then the front door slammed and keys were turned.

One set of feet went off to the left, stopped, then she heard a car door open. The others crossed the road and within seconds two cars pulled away. Tara watched the red tail lights till they were out of sight, then she made her move. She was stiff through sitting still for so long and her heart fluttered with fright. The narrow passage to the wooden stairs was pitch dark. Remembered tales of how Harry had found a rat playing in the men's urinal one morning made her flesh creep. She didn't dare switch on her torch, not until she was safely in the office.

She hoped that no alterations had been made to the alarm system since it was installed. Harry had been like a child back then, making her walk about in the bar till she stepped on the pressure pads. She remembered too that all windows and exterior doors were alarmed, so she must stay away from those.

She noticed the smells that Harry used to speak of, now the extractors were turned off. Not just stale beer, cigarette smoke and perfume, but old musty smells from the time this was a warehouse.

The office door was locked. For a moment she panicked. She had to lean on the door and take a few deep breaths before she remembered how the spare key system worked. The office key was in the main gaming room, the key for that was kept on a ledge up above the office door. She reached up and groped for it, smiling as her fingers touched the cool metal. Harry liked these rather childish puzzles and playing his game brought him nearer.

A sudden buzzing noise startled her. Goose-pimples came up all over her, but then she remembered it was only the chiller in the bar below. She took a deep breath to calm herself, then carried on.

Across in the gaming room, she found the key on a hook underneath the bar. Her teeth were chattering with fright so she helped herself to a measure of brandy from one of the optics to steady her nerves.

As she opened the door of the office all fear faded away. This was Harry's domain. The leather Chesterfield was where he slept when he worked late or drank too much to drive home, the brass desk lamp with a green shade was the one she'd bought him. Even the signed framed photographs on the wall reassured her – famous old boxers Harry admired, one of him and David Bailey when he took the pictures for an article in a Sunday supplement, and a score of actresses and actors who'd been to the club.

The steel shutter over the window was locked. She pulled the curtains over and switched on the desk lamp. Systematically she went through each of the small cubby holes in the desk, reading everything. Receipts for petrol, reminders of an unpaid water bill, letters from the electricity board, some of them so old she wondered why they were still there. A brochure of villas in Spain, even a seed catalogue!

It was in the middle section she found something unusual. She was quite sure it wasn't important, just a small dog-eared car-park ticket, but it was for Lympne airport. It was because she had no idea where this was that she tucked it into her jeans pocket. It was dated just two weeks ago and was tucked into an electricity bill, paid on the same day. There were more bills in this section, all receipted as paid in cash by Duke. This seemed to bear out the fact that he really was taking over the running of the club.

When Tara looked at her watch again it was almost five. She'd been through the desk, a filing cabinet and a chest of drawers. But all she had found that was out of the ordinary was a list of telephone numbers.

At first glance there was nothing odd about these either. They were all in major cities – Manchester, Birmingham, Cardiff, Plymouth, Glasgow and Leeds. But by each of them, instead of a name, was a type of bird. Sparrow, Falcon, Thrush. Were they some sort of code?

She was feeling very odd now. Not so much tired as strung out, every sound making her jump nervously. Jotting the numbers and names down carefully, she tucked her copy into her pocket and put the original back where she found it. The poker room was the only other room used for secret meetings, she didn't feel searching the whole building was justified. The poker room was another with steel shutters, so she could safely turn on the green-shaded light, which cast a murky beam over the baize.

It was disappointingly bare. No boxes to delve into, no briefcases, just an unemptied ashtray, a couple of dirty glasses and a Capstan full-strength cigarette packet with two left in it. A small cupboard stood in the corner with a locked drawer above it. The cupboard held nothing but new sealed packets of cards and a set of dominoes in a wooden box. Behind the bar was just as disappointing, nothing out of place but a bottle of red nail varnish and a baby's squeaky toy. The knife for slicing lemons caught her eye. She picked it up and looked thoughtfully at the locked drawer.

'There has to be something in it,' she reasoned. 'Why lock it otherwise?'

Harry was a dab hand at opening locks, she'd seen him do it to the door of her flat when she forgot her key. He made it look simple, but it didn't work for her. She twisted and poked, pummelled and scraped, but it didn't make any difference. Just as she was about to give up she remembered the keys still in the door. It was obvious none of them would fit, they were all too big, but one seemed to turn the lock partially. She pushed it in with one hand and turned it, driving the blade of the knife in next to it, and to her amazement the lock turned.