“So if you weren’t in the club, would you have given me a private dance for free?”
“No, of course not,” I said.
“Why not?”
“Because you’re an odious little shit. Besides the fact that you’re my manager and it’s inappropriate on just about every level.”
“You complete bitch,” he said. “Get the fuck out of my office!”
I went to see the Human Resources manager. If he was going to get nasty on me, then I could play the same game. I sat in her office, breathless and flustered and teary, and told her his behavior toward me amounted to sexual harassment and I was sick of it. She listened sympathetically while I explained that I’d seen him in a nightclub and he’d hit on me, and ever since then he had been making inappropriate suggestions. I showed her the leaflet.
“He put this in my drawer,” I said.
“How do you know it was him?” she asked.
“I went to ask him. He denied it at first and then he—he said something about how I should dance for him.”
“I see.”
She asked me to write her a report detailing all the incidents I could remember, all the times when he had said things to me or done things that I considered inappropriate. I was still anxious, stressed by the whole thing, and she said I should take the rest of the day off and she would take care of it.
I had work to do, and, realistically, I should have gone back to my desk, especially considering the new targets we were working toward. But the thought of having to face Dunkerley again was making me feel sick, so I did as I was told and went home.
I was looking forward to the weekend. Assuming they wouldn’t let my prick of a boss through the door at the Barclay, I was going to have a great weekend dancing, seeing my regulars, getting some good exercise, and earning money in the bargain.
I opened my eyes and almost immediately closed them again, because the light was too bright and everything hurt—everything, from my head to my feet.
It took me a second to realize where I was, then I saw I was on the floor and someone was talking to me, only I couldn’t hear them clearly. It was like being underwater—I could hear my own breathing, my heart, the blood rushing through my veins.
“Gen? Oh, thank God . . .”
“Malc?”
He went off somewhere, saying something—“Where’s the fucking scissors?”
In the drawer in the galley, I wanted to say. Why couldn’t I move my hands? Then it started coming back to me—there had been men in here, in my bedroom, on my boat . . .
I started to panic, and struggle, and then Malcolm was back. “Hold on, hold on. You’ve got a cable tie on your hands. I can’t find any effing scissors, it’s a bit of a mess back there.”
“There’s a pair of pliers in the hatch . . . in the box of tools.”
The hatch was a mess, too, apparently. That told me everything. They must have found the package. It was a miracle they’d left me alive.
He found the pliers under one of the pallets in the storage room. It hurt like hell, levering the jaw of the tool under the cable tie, digging into my swollen flesh, and then one snip and the plastic tie came free and I let out a scream of pain as my arms were released and the blood started rushing back to my hands and fingers.
For a moment I couldn’t move, I just lay on my bedroom floor crying my heart out. How did I get into this stupid, crazy mess? What had I done to deserve all this shit?
Malcolm was sitting on the floor, resting with his back against my bed, watching me steadily. “Take your time,” he said. “When you want to sit up, I’ll give you a hand.”
I gasped and sobbed into the carpet. My hands were in agony. “Oh, God, Malc . . . I was so scared . . .”
“Did you see who it was?” he asked.
I shook my head and tried to push myself up from the floor. He stood, and hooked his hands under my armpits, pulling me upright and then helping me to sit on the bed.
“It was dark . . . Oh, God. Have they trashed it, Malcolm? Have they damaged the boat?”
“It’s not so bad,” he said. “I think they’ve just thrown stuff around. If it was my boat you wouldn’t even notice they’d been in. Perhaps I should ask them to stop by Aunty Jean next time; they might actually straighten it up.”
I smiled despite myself.
“Do you want me to call the gavvers?” he asked, in a tone that suggested complete unwillingness to do anything of the kind.
I shook my head again. “I can’t.”
“This is shit, Gen, you know,” he said.
“What—not calling the police?”
“No. What they’re doing. It must be that fucking package you told me about.” He was shaking his head, running a hand through his hair. “They could come back any time, couldn’t they? They could start on us, too; they could be threatening us next if they can’t get what they want from you, and Josie—”
“Calm down, Malcolm. I’m not even sure that’s what they were after.”
“Of course it fucking is! Why else would a bunch of heavies suddenly start searching your boat and beating you up?”
I wished I hadn’t told him about the stupid package. He was raising his voice now, pacing up and down.
“Look,” I said, “they’ve gone, right?”
“How do you know they haven’t taken your package?”
“I don’t know. They might’ve. But I somehow think they didn’t find it.”
“You want me to check for you?”
“No, I don’t!” I was losing patience with him now—always this bloody need to help, to interfere. “Thanks. Honestly, I’ll be fine. I’ll have a look in a minute, okay? I need to—work some things out first. I need to tidy up a bit. Will you come by later?”
“Yeah, if you want,” he said.
He looked peeved. He shuffled his feet, clearly not ready to go just yet.
“I wanted to tell you we buried Oswald,” he said gruffly. “We found a nice quiet corner of the park. He used to bring us back presents from there—you know, even a baby rabbit once. He’d like it, where we put him.”
“Is Josie all right?”
“She’ll be okay in a week or so. Right as rain. She’s already talking about going to the RSPCA over the weekend, look for another rescue cat.”
“That’s a good sign.”
He nodded, and then stood. “Are you sure you don’t want me to help you tidy up?”
“I’ll be fine, honest,” I said.
“I’ll see you later, then,” he said.
“Malcolm—thank you.”
He shrugged. “Would have come over sooner if I’d known you were lying here bloody well tied up and unconscious,” he said with a smile.
What did he mean? I looked at the clock as he left. I’d been out of it for hours. No wonder I ached all over.
I got up slowly, finding my feet, feeling the room wobble even though the tide was out and the boat was back to resting on the soft mud below.
The cabin was such a mess that I cried out. Paperwork everywhere, my drawings and measurements for the deck garden, scattered all over the floor. The drawers in the galley had been pulled out and emptied. The cabinet doors had been ripped off. The dinette seats had been removed and the storage space beneath, which was full of odds and ends, bedding, ropes, rigging, spare parts for the engine, had been emptied.
I looked back at the hatch. Malcolm had left the door open and I could see a black space. Was it even worth checking? I knew it had been turned over.
They’d even opened a can of paint, but thoughtfully emptied it down one side of the hull, presumably so they didn’t get any on their clothes and shoes. All the boxes had been tipped up. And the one at the end? The one helpfully marked KITCHEN STUFF?
I crawled painfully over the pallets to the corner, over tools and pieces of hardware and the cordless drill and spare lengths of wood I’d been keeping just in case. Some of them had been broken.
The box was upside down, but as soo
n as I lifted it I realized that it hadn’t been fully emptied. The false bottom hadn’t been touched. They had just kicked the box over, seen the kitchen things spilling out of it, and moved on.
They hadn’t found it. And at least now I knew who it was, targeting my boat: Fitz. And Caddy must have been coming to warn me. She must have known Fitz had found out about Dylan’s package, and they’d stopped her before she could get to me. She’d died because of me.
Chapter Twenty-Two
That night at the Barclay, Fitz turned up in time for my last dance. The club had been quieter than usual, and although the other girls were all busy, I’d just been doing my turn on the stage, interspersed with the occasional lap dance. None of my regulars had shown up. It was cold outside, a chilly February night, but inside the club the atmosphere was sensual.
I was enjoying the workout, getting a thrill out of watching the guys at the front of the stage watching me. Sometimes we had bachelor parties come in, but given the prices in this club they weren’t common. There was a group in tonight, however. The giveaway was the age range, considerably younger than the Barclay’s usual clientele. The young man who was about to plight his troth was probably the son of one of our club members. He and his friends were all suitably attired in suits, grouped around the stages and enjoying the show. One or two of them had had dances with some of the other pole dancers, but I suspected they were starting to run out of money.
I put on my best show for them, even blew the groom-to-be a kiss at the end. His friends liked that.
As I was leaving the stage, I saw Fitz in one of the VIP booths, surrounded by his usual mix of steroid-pumped associates: Nicks, Gray, and the others. Dylan wasn’t with them. Not then.
In the dressing room, I freshened up, and then I went back into the club to look for customers to entice. And maybe I was looking for Fitz, too.
He was still in the VIP booth, and to my delight when he saw me he smiled and waved me over. “Viva! Come over here, gorgeous.”
He waved away the two girls who had positioned themselves on either side of him and patted the seat encouragingly. The girls went off in search of other game, leaving me with Fitz. They hadn’t been talking business just now, judging by how relaxed they all appeared to be.
I sat neatly on the red-velvet cushions, next to Fitz. I’d half-expected him to touch me, maybe just a hand on my thigh, an arm around my shoulders, but he didn’t.
“I wanted to say thank you for the flowers,” I said, when the next dance started and the attention of the men was drawn to the stage. “I haven’t seen you since then or I’d have thanked you sooner.”
“Ah,” he said. “You liked them?”
“They were beautiful. I appreciated them.”
“Well, you know,” he said with a smile. “You did a good job. Especially that last dance.”
“Do you think he got his money’s worth?”
“You know he did.”
“I wouldn’t have done it for anyone else, Fitz. Only you.”
He laughed. “And a grand.”
Dylan was waiting for me in the dressing room.
“Are you allowed in here?” I said, looking around at the other girls, who were busy either disrobing or getting dressed again, depending where they’d been.
“Aw, leave him alone!” shouted Kay from the table next to mine. “He’s all right, aren’t you, Dyl?”
“I’m allowed anywhere,” he said to me.
He was sitting in the seat by my bags. I waited for him to move, but he didn’t. I wondered if he was still pissed off at me for some reason. I hadn’t seen him since the night he’d driven me home from the party.
“Come for a drink,” he said.
“What?” I replied. I didn’t know if he meant now, in the club, or . . . on a date. That would have been just bizarre.
He stood and offered me his arm.
“I’ve—er—got to be back onstage in twenty minutes,” I said.
“Liar. You’ve done your share, right? And the club’s nearly closing. So come on.”
Blushing, I took his arm and let myself be steered out of the room, with wolf whistles and catcalls following me out. He took me downstairs to the public bar, of all places. Dances didn’t happen in here, but sometimes the girls came down if it was quiet, to try and tempt the regular members of the public into the more exclusive, and more expensive, areas inside the club. They didn’t let just anyone in here, but there was always a line outside, and the bar was usually full of people.
“You’re costing me money, you know,” I said. I was only half-joking.
“Get over yourself. You can afford five minutes off.”
There were no free tables or seats anywhere from what I could tell, but Dylan gave a nod to one of the door staff and a few moments later some drunk-looking lads in suits were being escorted out the door while Dylan guided me into their warm booth.
“What would you like?” he asked me.
“Just water, please,” I said.
“I’ll have a vodka,” he said to the waitress, who had appeared the moment we’d sat down. Dylan wasn’t Fitz, but even so, his presence held a lot of weight in this place. I wondered what it would be like to spend the whole evening on Fitz’s arm.
I’d been half-expecting him to squeeze into the booth next to me but instead he sat on the stool opposite. I was used to being stared at here. I had no illusions about it, since I never got this kind of attention in my day job, apart from that infernal idiot Dunkerley, and, after all, that was only because he’d seen me here. He’d seen Viva. But Dylan was immune to Viva’s charms.
“This is a nice surprise,” I said cheerfully. It was noisy, and I had to speak up so he could hear me.
Our drinks arrived. I squeezed the slice of lemon into my water and licked my fingers, watching his face.
He was completely unimpressed. In fact, he laughed. “It doesn’t work with me,” he said.
“What?” I asked, my face a picture of innocence.
Dylan was serious again, quickly. “You need to be careful, you know.”
“What do you mean?”
He leaned across the table so he could speak normally. “Fitz.”
“What about him?”
“You know exactly what I’m talking about. Don’t get involved.”
“He likes me. You know he does.”
“Yes, I know he likes you. I’m not blind, or stupid. Just be careful.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
He sighed, took a long swig of vodka, with a grimace to follow it. “Because you’re smarter than the rest of them. You’ve got a future, and I don’t mean in here. Don’t get too close to Fitz. And don’t piss him off.”
I sat back. He was warning me away. Whatever his motives, he wasn’t doing it out of jealousy—all the more reason why I should listen to what he was saying.
“I don’t get you, Dylan,” I said.
“You don’t have to get me. Just think about it. It’s not a good idea.”
I sipped my water. It was icy cold and if I drank it too fast it would make my teeth hurt.
“Dylan—remember you asked me what the money was for?”
He nodded.
“You still want to know?”
“If you want to tell me,” he said.
“Just between us, right? Nobody else would . . . understand.”
He shrugged, as though it made no difference to him either way, but I knew I could trust him. I wasn’t sure why, but I knew. After all, nobody else had warned me off Fitz. And he had no clear motive for doing so.
“I’m going to buy a boat,” I said.
To his credit, he didn’t laugh or make some joke about a ship called Dignity, or any of that shit. “A boat? What sort of a boat?”
“A barge, preferably—you know, like a houseboat. I want to buy a boat and spend a year fixing it up.”
“Why?”
“It’s just something I’ve always wanted. And now everything’s starting
to go wrong here, so I want to get the money together as quickly as I can.”
His expression changed then. “Hold on. What’s going wrong here? You’re the top earner in this place, you know that. I thought you liked it.”
I shook my head. “I don’t mean here, Dylan. At my day job. Three or four weeks ago my stupid boss showed up in the club and recognized me. He’s been giving me shit ever since.”
“Really?”
“Yes. He followed me out of a pub the other weekend; he was making a scene down on the tube platform. I had to go and get a cab in the end. Now he’s started being all suggestive at work. I have to make sure there’s always someone there when I see him, that I’m never on my own with him.”
“What’s he want?”
“What do you think he wants, Dylan? He wants the same thing they all want. Apart from you.”
“You want me to take care of him?” he said. He was smiling but that didn’t mean he was joking.
“No, of course not.”
He finished his vodka, throwing it down the back of his throat as if it were water and he was dying of thirst. “Well, just say the word. I’ve dealt with pricks like that before. Thinking they own you just because you flashed your panties at them. Piece of shit.”
Dylan waved at the waitress who came straight over, despite the crush of people waiting to be served. “Another vodka. Viva?”
“I’m fine, thank you,” I said.
“So,” he said, when the waitress had gone. “A boat, eh? And how much are you short?”
“Quite a lot,” I said, wondering why he was so interested.
“And this is why you’re dancing? To get the money together?”
I sighed and drank some water. This was getting torturous; I almost wished I’d never told him. “I have a good job—during the day, I mean. It pays well. I thought I would be able to save up enough to buy the boat at some point, take a year’s sabbatical maybe. But it’s hard work, high-pressure, so I started doing this—dancing—for kicks, for some exercise . . . And what do you know? I’m really enjoying it. I can earn money doing something that to me is like a workout. So now I’ve got two jobs, the money’s coming in faster and faster, and the more money I make, the closer I get to my dream. Now, instead of two years away, I could be on my boat by Christmas. And it’s making me hungry for it, especially now I’ve got all the shit with my boss hanging over my head. So, yes, I’m earning money, and I want to make more money. And Fitz has lots of it. Doesn’t he?”