Stay Dead - [28]

, she thought. ‘You’re going to be sorry you did that,’ she said flatly.

‘Yeah? We’ll see about that. Now get the fuck out of here.’

Annie left him there and went back down the stairs. She stepped outside the club. It was still raining. Traffic flowed past and she saw the yellow light of a taxi and stuck her hand out. It pulled in to the kerb. ‘Shalimar club,’ she told the driver, stepping into the back.

Once buckled in, she sat there, her mind racing. Dolly was dead. It was so painful to think of her gone, it broke Annie in two. And it galled her that someone was walking about free when they should be punished for that. And Max… oh God, Max! What was going on with him?

What Gary had said chilled her. Nerves were crawling in her stomach as she thought of the one thing she had never told Max. The one thing she couldn’t.

If he knows…

No. He couldn’t.

But she couldn’t make herself believe that.

27

‘Ellie, I need a word. Seriously,’ said Annie.

They were in the kitchen of the flat over the Shalimar; Ellie’s domain, hers and Chris’s. They ran this club and so far they’d run it well. Annie had always believed that Ellie and Chris were her friends. That she could depend on them. But since she’d been back, she wasn’t so sure. She knew she wasn’t imagining it – there was a strange wariness in Ellie’s face, and Chris? So far, he hadn’t spoken a single word to her, and that bothered her. Particularly after what Gary had said today at the Blue Parrot.

So here she was, doing what she thought of as testing the water temperature. And so far, it was icy.

‘Can’t it wait? I’m up to my arse here, we’ll be opening soon,’ said Ellie, pausing at the cupboard.

‘No. It can’t. Spare me a minute.’

Annie could see the reluctance on Ellie’s face as she sat down opposite her at the kitchen table.

‘What is it?’ asked Ellie.

‘Gary said something odd to me,’ said Annie.

‘Oh? What?’

‘That I ought to behave myself.’

‘What?’

Annie nodded. ‘I don’t know what he meant by that, and he wouldn’t explain. Do you know what he meant, Ellie?’ She was gazing intently at her friend’s face.

Ellie’s eyes slipped down and she shrugged. ‘Gawd knows. Gary’s never liked you. You know that.’

Chris passed by the open kitchen doorway.

‘Chris!’ called Annie.

There was a moment’s delay, then Chris appeared. Sheepish, she thought. That’s how he looks. Like he don’t want to see me here. Like he don’t even want to know I’m breathing.

‘Can I have a word?’ she asked.

Chris looked at Ellie, not Annie. ‘I’m busy,’ he said, and walked on.

There was a tense mood in the kitchen now as the two women sat there. Ellie was staring down at the tabletop, Annie was staring at her friend.

‘Ellie,’ said Annie.

Ellie didn’t glance up.

‘Ellie, what the fuck’s going on?’

Ellie stood up suddenly. She pushed her chair in, her eyes everywhere but not once resting on Annie’s face. ‘I can’t,’ she said, and seemed about to bolt from the room.

‘Wait! All right. Forget about that. But look – Dolly. Do you know anything?’ Annie stood up too, and looked urgently into Ellie’s face. ‘Come on, Ellie. This is Dolly we’re talking about. The police want anything we can give them. We have to give them everything we can.’

Ellie paused. Her eyes flicked to Annie’s face and then away.

‘All right,’ she said with a sigh.

‘Her family – can you think of anything about them? Any little detail, no matter how small? If you do, tell me.’

Now Ellie did look at Annie. ‘Why? So far as I know, she wasn’t even in touch with them. Hadn’t been for years.’

‘Does she have brothers, sisters? What about her parents? Are they still alive?’

‘I don’t know. I’ll have to think. Now I really must…’ And she was gone, bolting for the door, leaving Annie sitting there alone.

Next morning, after a sleepless night, Annie got up and was out of the club before anyone else had stirred. She hailed a black cab and went to an address across town and mooched around the shops on the high street until she saw a BMW pull into a space. A man got out – squat, solid as a tank, dark-haired, and dressed neatly in a black suit, pale blue shirt and matching tie. Annie walked over as he stood at the door of a shopfront, over which the logo Carter Securities was emblazoned in gold on a black background.

‘Hi, Steve,’ she said, and Steve Taylor, Max Carter’s right-hand man, once his most dangerous attack dog, turned and looked at her with mud-brown eyes as he shoved the key into the lock.

‘Fucking hell,’ he said.

‘Nice to see you too,’ said Annie.

When they were inside, Annie asked him the same question she’d asked Ellie.

‘Going on? What do you mean, what’s going on?’ Then he changed the subject. ‘You heard about Dolly?’

‘Yeah. Tone phoned. Where is Tone, by the way?’

‘About.’ Steve shrugged. ‘Don’t see much of him these days.’

‘I can’t get my head around it. That happening to Dolly.’

‘Tragic,’ he said. ‘I thought you might come back, thing like that happening.’

Annie stared at him for a beat. ‘Well, at least you’re talking to me,’ she said.

‘Shouldn’t I be?’

‘Gary gave me the heave-ho from the Blue Parrot. Ellie’s acting weird. And Chris won’t say fuck-all.’