Death Of A Diva (25 page)

“She didn’t really know,” he said. “And I might have bluffed it, just kept out of her way that day and never seen her again. Then Jenny started going on about the wedding, about wanting to invite her, about wanting to include her in the family more and I knew I’d never not see her again. And, sooner or later, one drunken night, she’d start asking questions.”

“Wait: you were actually going to go through with the wedding?”

“Of course. I
love
Jenny. It started off as a way to get closer to my mother and I realised, out of the whole stinking mess, the only good thing I found was Jenny.”

“So to show your love, you murdered her stepmother, her aunt and her stepmother’s biggest fan.”

“Leon,” he sighed the word. “Somehow, he figured it out. Probably the same way that Doris did; he had a huge set of old photos, memorabilia, a – what did he call it? – an
Encyclopaedia Lyrannicus
of a brain.

“He thought he knew everything there was to know about her,” Dominic sighed, “and once he realised who I was, he acted like he’d found buried treasure. He had no idea I’d killed her; only that I’d been keeping my identity secret. And he, of course, loved that; cos it gave him something to control. He wanted me as a fucking prize, some sort of trophy. Something to add to his Lyra memorabilia collection. He tested his limits.”

“The dress,” I prompted, “you used Lyra’s dress as a way in to his house.”

“I didn’t have an option,” Mouret responded. “‘I want something of hers that nobody else can have’, he said.”

“When the sequins turned up on Leon’s body, I knew there had to be a connection with someone in the family. And the last number he called was your mobile, Dominic. Jenny, by the way: you really need to lay off answering your fiancé’s phone. It nearly put you in the frame for Leon.”

“I’d planned on shooting him,” Dominic said quietly. “My stepfather had a big collection of guns. I inherited them when he died. Sold most of them, of course, but kept a pistol.”

“Only, when I got there and he was waving around a pair of silk stockings.
Stockings!
Like they were the Holy Fucking Grail. Going on about how he was going to look after me and make sure that I learned all he could teach me about my mother. And I wondered what he’d look like if I wrapped those silk stockings around his neck and told him – as I squeezed the life out of him – that I’d strangled the old bitch myself.” Dominic giggled. Then he raised his hands above the table.

The gun wasn’t a surprise; he’d just told us he had one, so I’d been half expecting it. The surprise was that it was so big and that it had gotten past the x-rays downstairs.

“Robert,” I enquired as the rest of the room gasped collectively, “is Helen Keller your Chief of Security?”

“Mouret.” Nick spoke from his chair. “Don’t do anything stupid.”

Dominic snorted. “Bit late for that. Stupidest thing I ever did was trying to go backwards; to find her and fix it. ‘Cos it was never really broken was it? It just never existed at all.
My mother
,” he spat the word as he gestured at Jenny to stand and wrapped an arm around her neck, “abandoned me. Gave me over to a life of misery and pain. So she could be rich and famous. And never thought about me again.”

“You’re wrong, Dominic,” I said. “I think she thought about you all the time. I think that sadness was what destroyed her eventually. I think it ate away at her little by little, till she was walking around with a hole inside her.”

Mouret smiled sadly at me, “Then you’re a fool. Life’s not a Hallmark card, Danny; much as you’d like it to be. It’s brutal and it’s horrible. And I made the mistake of fighting that. I’m sorry Jenny,” he poked her in the ribs with the pistol and began to move slowly down the room.

Reid tensed in his chair, “Please don’t,” Dominic said, his eyes flicking towards the copper and then back to me. “I’d hate to mess up the paintwork in here, Mr Reid, but I promise you, if anyone makes a move, I’ll shoot.”

“Be sensible, Dominic,” Foster muttered, as Dominic, his back to the wall, edged his way down the room, Jenny held before him like a shield.

“Sensible? If I’d had any sense, I’d have stayed a million miles away from Lyra and all the poison that floated around her.”

“You won’t get away,” Reid answered and Dominic laughed mirthlessly.

“I can try.” He was at the door now.

“Dominic!” He turned his eyes towards where the electronic tone had come from. Haynes sat in his chair, a look of total tragedy in his face, “My son. Please–”

“Too late,
Dad
,” he spat back. “
Too little. Too late
.” And opening the door, he slipped out, pulling Jenny with him and was gone.

There was silence for a moment and then, before any of us could move, from the other side of the door, the sound of a struggle, a woman’s voice, her cry strangled midway, the horrible explosion of the pistol going off, a loud thump and hysterical shrieking.

Chapter Fifty-Seven

              Nick was the first to the door. He wrenched it open and stood agog.

              I elbowed my way through the crowd.

              Just outside the door, the unconscious body of Dominic Mouret lay sprawled. On the other side of the room Jenny slumped, her back to the wall, her frenzied keening continuing unabated.

              And over Dominic’s body stood Caroline, a still smoking cigarette between her lips.

              She bent down and picked up the capacious Gladstone bag she’d just decked him with, slung it over her shoulder, kicked the discharged pistol across the room, took the cigarette from between her lips, blew a long thin stream of blue-grey smoke into the air, turned to me, smiled and said “Hello sweetheart; did I miss anything?”

Chapter Fifty-Eight

              The jukebox was playing selections from the 90s. Lots of pumping bass, bizarre raps and wailing vocals hammered out at breakneck pace. The Marq was packed; the lights dim enough to make it look magical.

              Ali, Ray and Dash were behind the bar, all three scrubbed up and smiling – yes, even Ali – as they served the three deep mob of punters.

              I stood, arm in arm, in the doorway with Caroline, my mouth open in amazement.

              Across the room, hanging from the ceiling, was a sign bearing the words ‘WELCOME BACK TO THE MARQ’. The crowd included half the style journalists of London, a stack of reality show wannabes, two winners of a popular TV talent show and three of the five members of Britain’s biggest girl band.

              Sitting inside the door were my family, dressed in their finest and sipping champagne which was being poured by a shirtless waiter with a model physique.

              My mother, seeing me, tottered to her feet, rambled over to me, hugged me, gave me a kiss on the cheek and held me at arm’s length a moment. “Now,” she said, “make the best of this; and no more murders, d’ye hear?”

              I looked at Caroline. “How?” I asked.

              She guided me over to my family. My father and Paddy raised their glasses at me. My sisters, spotting some hunk off the telly, waved briefly, blew kisses and charged off to hunt him down. Caroline accepted a glass of champagne from the waiter and, when I had mine in my hand, clinked our glasses together and smiled.

              “We weren’t the last of the sackings at
Glamrag
,” she said, sipping her bubbly. “Yesterday, Aubrey called. He’s been sacked as editor.”

              “Can this day get any better?” I wondered aloud.

              “Possibly,” Caroline said. “He’s got another job.”

              “He bloody would,” I muttered darkly. “His type always land on their feet.”

“It gets better. Aubrey is, as of next week, the new editor of
My Story
.”

              I did a double take. “What? Isn’t that–?”

              “Yes, sweetheart, it’s the favoured weekly of anyone who’s ever considered a shell suit a viable fashion statement. This week’s cover, if I recall correctly, is ‘I gave birth to a three-headed baby’
.
”

              I sniggered. “And he’s editing that? It’s got to be his idea of hell.”

              Caz shrugged and sipped her champagne. “I think he might surprise you. Aubrey’s an old hand; he’s been around long enough to know that a job is a job. And,” she gestured at the glossy crowd, “he still has his address book.”

              “
He
arranged this?”

              “With a little prompting,” Caz admitted.

              “What’s he want?”

              “Want?”

“Caz: Aubrey St John has never done a favour for anyone in his life.”

“He wants to take
My Story
upmarket. A little.” She put the glass down, reached into her bag and offered me an envelope. “And in order to do that, he wants you to accept this.”

I accepted the envelope, frowning as I ripped it open and withdrew a cheque.

“Let’s call it the redundancy pay out you should have received,” Caroline said.

I looked at the sum on it, closed my eyes, opened them and stared, once again, at the amount. It was still there.

I raised my eyes and looked at Caroline, who smiled back. “He’d like next week’s cover story to be ‘My Hell at Hands of Psycho Disco Diva Killer’.”

I opened my mouth and no words came out, till... “This…”

“Will pay off your debts, put a little in the bank and maybe allow you to put something towards paying off Chopper.”

“Chopper’s sorted,” I smiled, putting the cheque back into the envelope and handing it to her for safekeeping. “He was so grateful to me for exposing Christie’s treachery that he wrote off the first week’s takings. On condition we never speak of the whole mess again.”

“What’s happened to Christie?” Caz asked.

I sighed. “I don’t know; but I suspect it won’t be pretty.”

Just then, the door opened. Nick stepped in looking sheepish.

“Danny.” He smiled nervously, his eyes darting around the table at a sea of curious gazes. “Can I have a word?” he jerked his head to suggest we step outside the bar.

I looked over my shoulder towards the bar. “Can you give me a minute, Nick? There’s something I need to do first.”

He nodded and stepped back outside.

I pushed my way through the crowd, ducked behind the bar and tapped Ali, who was just giving change to a customer, on the shoulder. “You got a minute?”

She frowned, gestured at Ray to cover her area, turned back to me and shrugged. “What’s up?”

“Back here,” I said, gesturing to the hallway.

“This gonna take long?” Ali asked, “Only, in case you hadn’t noticed, we’re a bit busy.”

“I’ll make it quick,” I said. “How long have you been a barmaid here?”

“Too long. Wait – what’s this about?”

“You were here before, when money was going missing and you took the blame for it. Why didn’t you just quit?”

“I needed the job,” she said. “’Sides, I’m good at this.”

I frowned. “That’s the problem,” I said at last.

“Danny, what’s goin’ on here?” Ali asked, her hands on hips.

“Thing is, Ali, I don’t need a barmaid. The twins are picking things up quickly and, well, barmaids are fairly easy to get hold of.”

“
You’re firing me
?”

“No.” I shook my head. “I’m promoting you. I can’t run this place. I thought I could. Thought I’d walk in and just get on with it. I mean: ‘
How difficult could it be to run a pub
?’ Well, I learned how difficult.”

“
Promoting
?”

“To Bar Manager,” I said. “I’m still the one that Chopper has down running this place and I think the original idea is still sound. But we could do more: the food’s been going down well. I’m thinking I could focus on that area. But if I’m trying to run this place – figure out how to stock it, when to kick off at suppliers, when to discount what’s not selling, how to get the locals back in, well, I’ll be bankrupt by Easter. But if you’re managing it – for a share of the profits – we might just make a go of it.”

“But don’t you already split the profits with Chopper?”

“So we split a little more. Won’t be much. But if we work together, we might just make enough to make it worth our whiles.”

“Manager.” Ali savoured the word, allowing it to roll across her tongue, as a smile spread slowly across her face.

“
Bar
Manager,” I corrected. “Do we have a deal?”

She held a hand out to me.

Chapter Fifty-Nine

I could almost taste the ice on my tongue as I stepped out into the night. Snow was on the way, it seemed. Perhaps we’d be having a white Christmas after all. Behind me, the
thudthudthud
of the music made the door vibrate but out here, the street was silent, the orange halogen lights making pumpkin-coloured pools of brightness in the vast silent coldness that was London two nights before Christmas Day.

Nick was leaning against the wall, trying to look nonchalant, but shivering slightly.

“You’re freezing,” I said. “Come inside.”

He pecked me on the cheek. “I’ve been colder. Did a stakeout once in Rotherhithe. Minus three, it was. Anyway, I can’t stop. I just wanted to drop this by.”

He reached into his coat pocket and withdrew a small jeweller’s box.

Uh-oh
.

“Listen, Nick,” I held a hand up to stop him proffering the gift. “There’s something I need to say.”

“I know,” he said. “I screwed it all up, didn’t I?”

I shook my head. “No. I screwed it up. I’ve spent my whole life being someone else’s. I was my parent’s son. My sibling’s brother. Then I was Caroline’s friend and Robert’s – well, I’m not sure I’ll ever really know what I was to Robert but when I left there, I decided I didn’t want to belong to anyone else anymore.”

“So you want to be alone?”

I shook my head no. “I wouldn’t be anything without the people who love me. Without my parents, my friends, my family. Even Robert – in his fucked up, selfish way – helped make me who I am. And I want them. God, I
need
them.”

“Just not me?”

I sighed. “What do
you
want, Nick? From life?”

“To have some more time with you would be a start.”

“Why? You started off wanting to be with me cos you thought it would give you an entrée to Chopper. That didn’t work. I’m a mess.”

“Why do I want you? ’Cos you make me smile; cos you’re smart and funny and you’re one of the few people I’ve ever met who made me feel comfortable being me. Maybe
I
need
you
…”

I shivered, the night chill biting through my shirt. “Robert, for all his bravado,
needed me
. He had no clue how to run his life, or where anything was. He didn’t get a boyfriend when he got me; he got a social assistant; a PA; an old-fashioned nineteen fifties
wife
. And what did I get?”

“I’m not Robert,” he said quietly, slipping the box into my hand. He clapped me on the shoulder, like we were two old mates meeting in the street. “Call me,” he said, “after Christmas.”

“Maybe,” I said, reaching out to brush a stray curl out of his eyes. “
God, you’re beautiful
,” I heard myself say.

“Then why don’t you want to go out with me?” He asked, smiling softly.

“I don’t know,” I said, smiling softly back. “Like I said, I’m a mess.”

And at that, his phone buzzed and he, instinctively, pulled it from his pocket and glanced at the text. “Shit,” he muttered.

I opened the box. It wasn’t a ring. It was a two-inch round domed piece of crystal.

“A souvenir,” he said, as I frowned inquisitively at it.

I lifted the glass from the box and held it to the light. Engraved around the edge were the pods of the London Eye, hanging in the air, as Nick and I had been that first night, gazing down at a tiny crystalline version of London, a toy for us to play with.

And in the middle of the glass, suspended in the dead centre of the dome, was a single twinkling sequin, its silver-green sparkle turning orange as it caught the street lights.

“You’re better than you think you are, Danny Bird,” he said and kissed me on the lips. “And I need you.”

I looked at him through tears. “I’m scared,” I whispered.

He smiled softly. “Scared is good. I’m
terrified
. Call me. Soon.”

Then he turned and strolled down the street. I watched him go, till the orange haze turned to a green filthy fog, and he was swallowed up, and the noise of a Brighton-bound train mixed with the drum machine from the pub.

Then I went back inside to the light and the noise and the love.