He nodded. “Yeah. Never seen you in daylight before.”
“And?”
“You could do with getting out in the sun.”
“Thanks. And you look like you could do with laying off the vodka for a while.”
It was true, he looked rough, his skin lined and his eyes red and tired. He hadn’t shaved and there was a rasp of stubble over his face as well as over his head, showing the shape of where his hairline would have been, if he’d ever let it grow.
“What can I say? It was a late night.”
I couldn’t get over how different he looked, how—normal. He was like any other guy out having a coffee on a Monday afternoon.
“How do you feel?” he asked.
“I’ve felt better,” I answered. “I’ve had such a shitty few days.” The skin around my mouth felt tender. My arms were sore, too, where Arnold had held me down, but nothing you could see.
“How’s the boat-buying going?”
“I went to look at some last week,” I said, “thank you for asking.”
“So you’ve got enough money, then?”
“No. I’ve got just about enough to buy the boat, but not enough to renovate it properly and take time off, which is all part of it. I can’t do one without the other. So I need to do a bit more saving. I’ll have to ask Norland if he’ll increase my hours. Or maybe Fitz will ask me to do another one of his parties.”
He was watching me steadily, evaluating.
“What?” I said at last, feeling worried about the intense expression on his face.
“I could help you,” he said, his voice low.
“Help me with what?”
“Help you with the money side of it.”
I ran through the possibilities. Whatever we were doing here, it wasn’t something he wanted to discuss in front of Fitz. Which meant he was taking a huge risk.
“What do you mean?”
“How much would you need to be able to leave London by, say, the end of this month?”
Two weeks away. “At least fifty grand,” I said, after a moment, feeling my cheeks flush.
“I can do that,” he said, without hesitation.
I wondered what I’d gotten myself into. If it hadn’t been for Dunkerley, I probably would have said no. “So?”
“I need you to look after something for me.”
“What?”
“It’s a package. Not very big. I need someone to hide it for a couple of months. Maybe not even that long. You’re the best person I know.”
“That’s it?”
“Just hide it and don’t let anyone get it. That’s it.”
“And for that I get fifty grand? Like, to keep?”
“Yours to keep.”
“What’s the catch?”
“The catch is, it’s not something you want to be caught in possession of. And after you leave, you won’t be able to come back. You’ll have to walk away from the club for good. You get me?”
I paused, drank the last of my coffee while I considered his offer. He watched me without blinking. He wasn’t nervous at all, which made me wonder what was at stake here.
“Where are you going to keep your boat, anyway?”
I shrugged. “Depends where it is when I buy it, I guess. The boats I saw on Thursday were in Kent. There was one I quite liked.”
He nodded. “Kent. That’d be all right.”
“Does that make a difference?”
“Far enough away for it to be safe, near enough for me to come and collect it from you.”
“When will you collect it?”
“I don’t know. I’ll give you a phone. When I’m ready to come and get it, I’ll call you to arrange a meeting. Is it a yes, then?”
It was a yes from the moment he’d agreed to fifty grand.
“I guess it is, Dylan.”
He smiled his best Dylan smile and offered me his huge meaty hand to shake. “Deal.”
I felt a curious sense of release, as though I’d been holding on to a thread somewhere that had finally snapped. I could go. I could afford to buy a boat, and I had enough money to take a year off, maybe even more than a year.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
I was back to planning my fantasy bathroom on the table in the dinette when I heard steps on the dock, followed by steps on the deck, and a woman’s voice that called out, “Genevieve Shipley? Hello? Can you come up, please?”
I went up to the wheelhouse.
On my deck were two people, a man and a woman, both of them wearing suits. The woman showed me her card. “I am DS Beverley Davies; this is my colleague, DC Jamie Newman. I wonder if you have a few moments to talk to us.” She spoke fast, as if she was in an extreme hurry and had no time for explanation or dissent.
“What’s it about?”
“It would be good if you could come with us, Genevieve. We need to have a talk.”
“What—now?”
“Yes, right now.”
“Where did you say you were from?”
“We’re from the Metropolitan Police Serious Crime Directorate.”
“But . . . Jim Carling—”
“DC Carling knows we are here. He told us where to find you. He did say you wouldn’t mind helping us out with a few questions, Genevieve. It won’t take long.”
I guessed she was trying her hardest to be encouraging, but all I could think of was how I could persuade her to fuck off and leave me alone.
It wouldn’t work, though. Maybe if I went along with her and answered her stupid questions they would go away and not come back.
“I’ll just get my shoes,” I said.
“Mind if I come with you?” Jamie Newman asked me. “I’d like to see your boat.”
“Sure,” I said, and went down the steps into the cabin, leaving the door open for him to follow me.
He stood there watching me while I pulled on my boots and did up the laces. He wasn’t interested in the boat at all, for other than a cursory glance around the cabin he hadn’t taken his eyes off me.
They knew about the package, I thought. Or at least, they knew I had something here to hide. Carling had told them. Newman was watching me to make sure I didn’t move or destroy whatever it was.
I gave him a tight smile, grabbed my keys and the two cell phones from the dinette table, and went back up to the wheelhouse.
“Two phones?” he asked, while I locked the door.
“One of them’s got a shitty signal on the boat, the other one’s got a shitty signal everywhere else,” I said.
“Where are we going?” I asked from the backseat of their Volvo. I’d never been inside a police car before, marked or unmarked.
“Medway police station,” Newman said. “They’ve kindly offered to let us use one of their interview rooms. Saves us a trip back to town with you.”
“Oh,” I said. “Couldn’t we just have had a chat on the boat?”
They didn’t answer. I wondered if they had other people onboard now, searching it.
I watched the streets of Rochester as they passed, thinking of the boat and the package and what it could possibly be. Something I didn’t want to be caught in possession of, he’d said. Which meant drugs, several kilos of them, hidden on my boat and waiting to be found.
The following weekend at the Barclay was my last. The traces of the bruising Arnold’s hands had left were finally fading.
It wasn’t even a full weekend, just Saturday night, and even that was cut dramatically short.
All week I’d been working up my courage to go back, telling myself that Arnold wouldn’t be there, that I’d be careful about private dances from now on, I’d check that someone was in the CCTV room when I was dancing, I’d ask who it was who had booked me—all of that shit. In reality I was going to hand in my notice. I was working up to that, too.
The club was quieter, as it often was toward the middle of the month. Some of my regulars were in, men for whom payday was a bit irrelevant, and I knew I’d be getting some private boo
kings later on. Would I be able to dance for them without freaking out? Dylan had said he would keep an eye on me, but I hadn’t seen him. What if he wasn’t even here? Who would watch out for me, then?
When I had a spare moment between my dances, I went to the bar to find Helena. They were short-staffed and Helena was doing some waitressing. If that was what you called it—there was an awful lot of socializing going on at the same time.
“Is Fitz in tonight?” I asked.
She shrugged. “Haven’t seen him. Go upstairs and ask Nicks, he’s in the office, I think.”
I was halfway up the stairs when Nicks appeared at the top. Someone was watching the CCTV monitors, at least, I thought with irony, looking at the camera that covered the staircase.
“What’s up?” he asked, folding his arms across his chest.
“I’d like to see Fitz,” I said.
“He doesn’t want to see you.”
The answer came back so quickly, I was shocked. He didn’t want to see me? Had Arnold said something to him? Had someone seen me meeting Dylan at Victoria Station?
My heart started thumping with alarm. “Why doesn’t he want to see me?”
Nicks shrugged and didn’t answer.
“Could you go and ask him? I only want a minute.”
The wall of muscle didn’t move. I looked behind him, down the hall. All the office doors were shut. If I tried to get past him, he would stop me. There was no way I’d be able to get up there, not now.
Nicks gave me a look that invited me to try. Clearly he would enjoy throwing me down the stairs.
I turned around, but instead of heading for the dressing rooms, I went into the main part of the club, scanning the VIP booths for Fitz, in case he was down here after all. No sign of him. Then, to my relief, Dylan came upstairs from the public bar. He was dressed smartly again, freshly shaved, immaculate.
He saw me and hesitated, as though he was unsure whether he should talk to me or not. I gave him a smile I hoped was encouraging. He smiled back and his eyes traveled upward very briefly to the CCTV camera above our heads.
The meaning was clear. We were being watched.
I walked over to him and said sweetly, “I’d like to see Fitz, but Nicks won’t let me in. Would you ask him for me, when you get a minute?”
“Sure,” he said in reply, and then he was gone, into the crowds of suits, heading for the bar. If they’d watched that little exchange they wouldn’t have found anything unusual in it. I hoped not, anyway.
After that I felt odd, panicky. I sat by myself at the end of the bar, ostensibly scanning for customers but at the same time trying to avoid them all. Across the club, in one of the booths, I could see Stephen Penrose. He was the owner of a chain of realty offices: I knew this only because I recognized him from an interview he’d given to the Financial Times a few months ago. Here I knew him as Steve, and I would never have let on that I knew exactly who he was. He was staring at me, smiling.
I was on the list for the pole, but for some reason I wasn’t called, or, if I was, I hadn’t heard it. It wasn’t the thought of Dylan’s money, that sudden pile of cash that made everything seem so much harder; since Arnold’s attack, being here wasn’t fun anymore. The few people I recognized, even the ones I liked, the ones I had joked around with week after week—they all looked different tonight, sinister, intimidating. I can’t do this anymore, I thought. I don’t want to be here.
Stephen Penrose, a man who wouldn’t hurt a fly, who paid me double for our private dances in the Blue Room and always sat there rigid, his hand over his crotch like a small boy who needed a wee, was staring at me, his smile of encouragement fading a little each time I cast a glance in his direction. In normal circumstances he would not have had to wait; I would have been by his side the moment I’d seen he was here. He probably thought I was waiting for someone, waiting for a better prospect than him.
He was safe, surely? Why wasn’t I over there, talking to him, easing him out of his working-week shell, making him feel wanted and happy and attractive?
When he stood up and crossed the club toward me, weaving his way through groups of people, I got up off my bar stool and headed toward the door, walking with purpose, and almost breaking into a run. If he called my name, I didn’t hear it. I went straight to the stairs, and this time there was no Nicks standing guard at the top. Maybe I’d taken them by surprise; maybe they hadn’t considered I would have the audacity to do this; or perhaps they’d all gone out somewhere and I’d find the doors locked.
I was almost expecting that to be the case, so when I reached Fitz’s office door I didn’t even knock, just tried the door and to my surprise it opened easily, propelling me into the room.
They were all in there. Fitz, Dylan, Nicks, Gray, even Norland, who looked skinny and pathetic next to this group of tough men. I had a second to take in the picture—Norland, Nicks, and Gray sitting on the sofas, cash on the desk, in bundles, a carryall on the floor, Fitz perched on the edge of the desk, Dylan standing as if about to leave.
Nicks stood up abruptly and took a step toward me.
“Oh,” I said.
“Viva,” Fitz said, holding up a hand, which stopped Nicks in his tracks. “Might be nice if you could think about knocking next time.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, not looking at the others, deliberately not making eye contact with Dylan. “I just need to have a word with you. It’s important.”
Fitz was watching me steadily. I stared him down, feigning a confidence I did not feel. My heart was thumping with panic, the need to get this over and done with so I could get out of here.
“All right,” he said. “What is it?”
“In private,” I said.
He laughed, a single laugh of disbelief at my nerve, but even so, he looked at the others and said, “Gentlemen, would you give us a minute?”
They all left. Dylan was the last to go. He hesitated in the doorway, and for a moment I had the terrible thought that he was going to say something, do something. Fitz gave him a nod, and then he went.
I took a deep breath. “Did you know Leon Arnold was here last weekend?”
He shrugged. “No. And?”
“He attacked me. He booked a private dance and then got his two heavies—Markus and the other one—to wait outside while he jumped me.”
At last Fitz looked up and met my eyes. And he laughed. “Did he really? Sly old git.”
So it was true, then. I’d seriously pissed him off somehow.
Maybe Dylan had been followed to Victoria Station? No, he was far too careful for that.
“There was nobody watching the monitors, Fitz. He could have killed me.”
“He didn’t, though, did he? You’re still here, aren’t you? Toughen up, princess.”
“Fitz—”
“You should go downstairs,” he said.
“One more thing,” I said. “I’m sorry. I need to give you my notice.” I knew I was pushing my luck but it just came out.
He didn’t even look up from the paperwork this time. “Talk to Dave or Helena about that.”
He didn’t seem remotely surprised. I got to my feet, left the office, and shut the door quietly behind it.
I went to see Helena in the bar. She didn’t seem surprised, either. I’d been there longer than a lot of the girls—some of them stayed only a couple of weeks, especially if they hadn’t managed to get themselves any regulars in that time—but even so, I was expendable. I hadn’t even made the house fee tonight, so I had to get some money out of my bag in the dressing room. And then I was free to go.
I walked away from the Barclay feeling unexpectedly relieved. I hadn’t realized quite how afraid I’d been, how tense, since Arnold had attacked me. I’d thought Fitz was someone who cared about what happened to his employees, maybe even cared for me, but I’d been wrong.
It was definitely time to go. I had something to look forward to now: Kent, the Medway River, and the Revenge of the Tide.
Chapter
Thirty
The police station was new, a big modern building that could have been an office block, a school, or a college.
I was shown into an interview room that contained a table and four padded reception chairs, a wall-mounted video recorder, and a window that was just about too high to see out of. It was bright, though. And very small.
I sat there on my own for half an hour before Beverley Davies and Jamie Newman came in and sat down in front of me. All the interview rooms I’d ever seen on TV had been cavernous by comparison, shadowy, with light from above illuminating the interviewers’ faces in a suitably dramatic fashion. This felt more like a job interview. I straightened in my seat. Concentrate. Think about everything.
“Sorry about the wait,” DS Davies said. “Do you want a drink or anything? Water? Coffee?”
“No, thank you. Am I under arrest for something?”
Jamie Newman stepped in. “No, you’re not under arrest. We just need to ask you some questions, and it’s easier if we do it officially. That’s all.”
Beverley Davies continued. “We want to talk to you about Candace Smith, the woman who was found dead in the river next to your boat.”
“Yes.”
“You told my colleagues that you didn’t recognize her, is that correct?”
“It was dark and I had just woken up. I didn’t really see much other than a body, a face. It was afterward that I thought it looked like Caddy.”
“But you didn’t share this information with DC Carling or any of the officers from Kent Police?”
“No. It was just a thought. I didn’t want to mislead them. When DC Carling told me it was Caddy, it gave me a bit of a shock to realize it was someone I knew after all.”
“Can you tell us how you knew Candace?”
“I met her through work.”
“What work is that?”
I looked from one of them to the other, at their calm, impassive faces gazing back at me. Waiting for me to slip up, to tell them something they didn’t already know. It was nerve-racking, trying to second-guess them.
“I used to do some dancing—in my spare time. She was one of the other dancers in the club I worked in.”