When it ended, Bindie back-announced the track. ‘What we’re all hearing tonight is that somebody poisoned Robbie. Me, I can’t get my head round that. You gotta be a twisted individual to dose somebody up with a poison that takes days to kill them. That takes a lot of hate. And I don’t see how anybody could have hated Robbie enough to do that to him. How could you hate a man who loved this next track?’ She was right. There was an infectious bounce to the music that had Carol’s feet tapping in spite of herself. She checked the clock. They would be in London about half an hour before the end of Bindie’s show. Hopefully she’d still be wired with performance adrenaline and willing to talk. Carol needed Bindie to open up about Robbie. Making that happen tonight would help her keep the momentum of the investigation going. That was much more important than Bindie Blyth’s beauty sleep. Or, come to that, her own.
Eleven o’clock and Amatis was just starting to warm up. The lighting was subtle, the volume crushing and the air heavy with the stale smell of alcohol, cigarettes, perfume and hot bodies. Paula and Kevin had left Chris in the manager’s scruffy little office, ploughing through interviews with the bar staff and the door crew. She hadn’t held out much hope of getting anything from them. ‘By the time Robbie was hanging out with his old mate, it would have been Karno’s behind the bar,’ she’d said. ‘Too many punters trying to catch their eye. I doubt they’ll have even noticed who he was with. If any of them saw something hooky going on with his drink, it would have been pure chance and they’d have been on the bell to us or the red-tops by now. No, if anybody’s going to get lucky tonight, it’ll be you two.’
Somehow, Paula doubted it. For most of the people who came to Amatis, the idea of a good night out involved consuming sufficient drink and drugs to diminish to vanishing point the possibility of any detailed memory of the outing. Those were the ones who looked bemused when Paula asked if they had been there the previous Thursday. Once Paula had managed to convey who she was and what she wanted by a mixture of gesture, the display of her warrant card and a photo of Robbie, most of them mimed a yes or no, followed by a shrug that conveyed forgetfulness or indifference. The only variation on the theme came from those who had a mission beyond getting legless and/or laid–to spot someone whose name they could drop casually into conversation at work the next day. ‘Oh yeah, like I said to Shelley last night…You know Shelley, Shelley Christie, off
After an hour, she had to concede that luck wasn’t going her way. The stargazers she’d spoken to were either crestfallen that they’d missed the last chance for a happy snap with Robbie Bishop or bitter that they’d seen him but failed to record the fact. The nearest she’d got to a witness was one lad who’d admitted to seeing Robbie at the bar, drinking in company. ‘Was it a man or a woman he was drinking with?’ Paula had asked eagerly.
‘Some bloke. I didn’t recognize him, so I didn’t pay him any attention, like. I would’ve asked him to take a pic of me and Robbie, but I’d forgot to charge my phone and it was dead, so I never bothered.’
‘You ever seen him before, this bloke?’ Paula wasn’t prepared to let it go just yet.
‘I told you. I never paid him any mind. I dunno if I’ve seen him before. Maybe, maybe not. I didn’t notice anything about him.’
‘Tall? Short? Fair? Dark?’ Paula tried not to let her exasperation show.
The witness shook his head. ‘Tell you the truth, I’d had a few. I never took much of a look at him. That’s the thing about running into somebody like Robbie. You’re so busy checking them out, you don’t notice who they’re with. Unless it’s somebody else famous. Or some cracking bird. You’re just like, “Fucking hell, I’m standing next to Robbie Bishop.”’ He looked momentarily rueful. ‘Poor bastard.’
Dispirited, Paula pushed her way through to the corner of the bar and tried to catch the eye of one of the bar staff. She was sweating like a pig, needed to get some water into her system. Finally, one of the black-clad staff took her order. As she waited for her change, Paula gazed absently down the bar.
And drew her breath in sharply when she spotted the tiny video camera nestling among the spotlights that shone down on the sticky granite bar top. ‘Oh, you beauty,’ she said softly.
When the barman returned with a handful of coins, he was surprised to see his customer had disappeared.
The heavy door that shut off the studio from the production booth opened and Bindie Blyth emerged, a half- empty bottle of mineral water dangling from one hand. With her other hand, she pulled off a headband in the colours of the ANC then shook her dark corkscrew curls free. They must have made a striking couple, Carol thought. Handsome Robbie with his traditional clean-cut Englishness and olive-skinned Bindie, small features resembling a pixie from an illustrated children’s fairy tale, framed in a riotous mass of ringlets. The volume of hair and the black jeans and clinging black top she wore emphasized the slightness of her frame. Carol reckoned she could probably get away with wearing kids’ clothes. ‘All right, Dixie?’ she said to the plump woman at the controls.
‘Spot on. Nice one, Bindie. You’ve got visitors,’ Dixie said, jerking her head towards Carol and Sam perched on the other two chairs.
Bindie glanced at them her shoulders slumping. ‘Do we have to do this now? I’ve just finished work.’
‘And we’re still working,’ Carol said, producing her warrant card and introducing herself. ‘It’s our job to find out who’s responsible for Robbie Bishop’s death.’
‘Yeah, well, he’s dead, isn’t he? What difference does it make who did it? All that matters is that Robbie’s gone. There’s nothing you can do to alter that.’ This was a very different Bindie from the one who had spent two hours playing music to celebrate and honour her dead friend. Now, she simply sounded bitter and angry. Dixie, the producer, was transfixed, her eyes swivelling between Bindie and Carol.
‘I’m sorry about Robbie,’ Carol said. ‘But in my experience, people who commit cold-blooded crimes like this generally don’t stop at one. I want to stop whoever killed Robbie from taking someone else’s life.’
‘Fair enough. So why are you here? Why aren’t you out there doing whatever it is you’re supposed to do?’ Bindie moved to a rack of coathooks and grabbed a dark green fleece.
‘I have a colleague, a psychologist. One of the things he’s taught me is to pay attention to the point where a victim and his killer intersect. The more I find out about the victim, the more chance I have of getting closer to that point of intersection. And when it comes to knowing Robbie Bishop, you’re one of the experts. That’s why I need to talk to you, and why it needs to be now.’
Bindie rolled her eyes. ‘You sound like that wanker in
Out in the corridor, Bindie said, ‘Meet me back at mine. It’s only a ten-minute drive.’ She looked at Sam for the first time. ‘Got a bit of paper and a pen?’
