they’ve forgotten the words.
After we’d pigged out, I showed Davy the latest Commander Keen game I’d got for us both. I extracted a promise from him that he’d go to bed in half an hour when Chris told him to, and left him bouncing on his pixel pogo stick through Slug Village. Ten minutes split between the bathroom and the bedroom was enough to knock me into shape for the night. My lightweight walking boots; my ripped denim decorating jeans over multi-coloured leggings; a Bob Marley T-shirt I won at a rock charity dinner; and a baggy flannel shirt that belonged to my granddad that I keep for sentimental reasons. I tucked my auburn hair into a dayglo green baseball cap, and slapped on some make-up that made me look like an anaemic refugee from Transylvania. Grunge meets acid house. I found Chris in front of the television, watching the news. Bless her, she didn’t turn a hair at the apparition. ‘I really appreciate this. And believe me, Richard will need a bank loan to express his appreciation when all this is over. I take it Alexis filled you in?’ I said quietly, perching on the arm of the sofa.
‘She did, and it’s horrifying. What’s happening? Any progress?’ That’s probably the shortest contribution to any conversation I’ve ever heard Chris make.
‘Not really. That’s why I’m going out now. I’ve got one or two leads to follow up. Are you OK to hang on here?’
Chris patted my knee. ‘We’re staying till this is all sorted out. I brought a bag with me, and I’ve moved us into Richard’s room, I hope that’s all right, but it seemed the most sensible thing, because then Davy can sleep in his usual bed in Richard’s house so you can come and go as and when you please without worrying about waking any of us, and then we’re on hand to take over the child minding as and when you need us.’ I swear she’s the only person I know who can talk and breathe at the same time.
I gave Chris a swift hug and stood up. ‘Thanks. I’ll see you in the morning then.’ I walked out of the house, feeling a sense of purpose for the first time since I’d had Ruth’s phone call.
Chapter 9
I started off at the Delta, known to Richard and his cronies, for obvious reasons, as the ‘Lousy Hand’. That’s where he’d been the night the car was stolen. The Lousy Hand occupies a handful of railway arches in a narrow cul-de-sac between the GMEX exhibition centre and the Hacienda Club. Since it was only half past nine, there was no queue, so I sailed straight in.
The decor in the Lousy Hand has been scientifically designed to make you think you’ve dropped a tab of acid even when you’re straight. God knows what it does to the kids who are really out of their heads. Everywhere I looked there were psychedelic fractals mingling at random with
Feeling about a hundred and five, I crossed to the bar. As well as the usual designer beers, the optics of spirits and the Tracy-and-Sharon specials like Malibu and Byzance, the Lousy Hand boasted possibly the best range of soft drinks outside Harrods Food Hall. From carrot juice to an obscure Peruvian mineral water, they had it all, and most of it was carbonated. No, officer, of course we don’t have a drug problem here. None of our clients would dream of abusing illegal substances. And I am Marie of Rumania.
The bar staff looked like leftovers from the club’s previous existence as a bog-standard eighties yuppie nightclub. The women and the men were dressed identically in open-necked, wing-collar white dress shirts and tight-fitting black dress trousers. The principal differences were that the men probably had marginally more gel, wax and mousse on their hair, and their earrings were more stylish. I leaned my elbows on the bar and waited. There weren’t enough customers to occupy all the staff, but I still had to hang on for the obligatory thirty seconds. God forbid I should think they had nothing better to do than serve me.
The beautiful youth who halted opposite me raised his eyebrows. ‘Just a Diet Coke, please,’ I said. He looked disappointed to be asked for something so conventional. He swivelled on one toe, opened the door of a chill cabinet and lifted a can off the shelf, all in one graceful movement. I don’t know why he bothered. I couldn’t have looked less like a talent scout from MTV.
‘Wanna glass?’ he asked, dumping the can in front of me. I shook my head and paid him.
When he came back with my change, I said, ‘You know the street outside? Is it safe to park there? Only, I’m parked right up near the dead end and there’s no streetlights, and I wondered if a lot of cars get nicked from out there?’
He shrugged. ‘Cars get nicked. Outside here’s no worse than anywhere else in town. A thousand cars a week get stolen in Manchester, did you know that?’ I shook my head. ‘And two-thirds of them are never recovered. Bet you didn’t know that.’ Never mind the Mr Cool image, this guy had the soul of a train spotter in an anorak.
Ignoring him, I went on, ‘Only, it’s not really my car, it’s my boyfriend’s and he’d kill me if anything happened to it.’
‘What kind is it?’ he asked.
‘Peugeot 205. Nothing fancy, just the standard one.’
‘You’re probably all right, then.’ He leaned his elbows on the bar and elegantly crossed his legs. I prepared myself for a lecture. ‘Six months ago, you couldn’t park a hot hatch anywhere between Stockport and Bury and expect to find it there when you went back to it. But with these new insurance weightings, the bottom’s dropped out of the second-hand market for boy-racer cars. So the professionals gave up on the sports jobs and started nicking boring old family cars instead. Less risk as well. I mean, if you was the Old Bill, would you think the Nissan Sunny cruising past you was being driven by any self-respecting car thief?’
I giggled. Not because he was funny, but because he clearly expected it. ‘Only,’ I persisted, ‘my boyfriend’s mate had his car nicked from outside here the other night, and he was really pissed off because he’d only bought it that day. And it was a beauty. A brand new Leo Gemini turbo super coupe.’
‘I heard about that,’ he said, pushing himself upright again. ‘That was the night they had the benefit, wasn’t it?’
‘I dunno.’
‘Yeah, that’s right. The gig was finished, because we’d shut up the bar and the lights were up. The guy came storming back in, ranting about his precious motor and demanding a phone.’ So much for not mentioning the car to a soul. ‘Mate of yours then, was he?’ the barman asked.
I nodded. ‘Mate of my boyfriend’s. He reckoned somebody saw him parking it up and coming in here. He said he thought they must have been coming to the club too, or else why would they be down the cul-de- sac?’
The barman grinned, unselfconscious for the first time. ‘Well, he’d have plenty thieves to choose from that night. Half Moss Side was in here. Drug barons, car ringers, the lot. You name it, we had them.’
With a flick of his pony tail, he was gone to batter someone else’s brain with his statistics. I swigged the Coke and looked around me. While I’d been standing at the bar, there had been a steady stream of punters arriving behind me. Already, the place looked a lot fuller than it had when I entered. If I was going to have a word with the bouncers before they had more important things to think about, I’d better make a move.
There were two of them in the foyer, flanking the narrow doorway that had been cut in the huge wooden door that filled the end of one of the arches occupied by the club. They both wore the bouncer’s uniform: ill-fitting tux; ready-made velvet bow tie that had seen better days. As I approached, the older and bulkier one slipped through the door and into the street. Intrigued, I got my hand stamped with a pass-out and followed him. He walked about fifty yards up towards the dead end. I slipped into the shadows beyond the club and watched him. He looked around, then simply turned and walked back, carrying on past the club for another fifty yards or so
