Nightingale's Lament (7 page)

"Go on," I prompted him, when he paused a little too long. He scowled and took his cigar out of his mouth and looked at it so he wouldn't have to look at me.

"This should have been Ross's big break. Caliban's Cavern; biggest, tastiest nightspot in the whole of Uptown. Just the right place to be seen, to be heard, to be
noticed.
But it's all gone wrong. She's changed since she came here. All she ever sings now are sad songs, and she sings them so powerfully that people in the audience go home and kill themselves. Sometimes they don't make it all the way home. God knows how many there've been . . . The Cavendishes are doing their best to cover it up, at least until the recording contract's signed, but word's getting out. They do so love to gossip in the music biz."

"Doesn't it put people off coming to see her?" I said.

Ian almost laughed. "Nah . . . that's all part of the thrill, innit? Makes her even more glamourous, to a certain type of fan. This is the Nightside, after all, always looking for the next new sensation. And Russian roulette is so last week . . ."

"What are the Cavendishes doing to investigate the phenomenon?"

"Them? Naff all! They never even show their faces down here. Just send the bullyboys around, to keep an eye on things, and put the wind up any investigative journalists that might come sniffing around." He smiled briefly. "They don't much care for private eyes either, mate. You watch yourself."

I nodded, carefully unimpressed. "Where can I find Rossignol?"

"She's still my girl," said Ian. "Even if she doesn't have much time for me these days. Are you here to help her, or are you just interested in the bloody
phenomenon?
”

"I'm here to help," I said. "Stopping innocent people dying has got to be in everyone's best interests, hasn't it?"

"She's in her dressing room, round the back." He gave me directions, then looked away from me, his gaze brooding and strangely sad. "I wish we'd never come here, her and me. This wasn't what I wanted for her. If it was up to me, I'd say stuff the money and stuff the contract, something's
wrong
here. But she doesn't listen to me any more. Hardly ever leaves her dressing room. I only get to see her when I'm onstage playing for her to sing to."

"Where does she go when she isn't here?"

"She's always here," Ian said flatly. "Cavendishes arranged a room for her, upstairs. Very comfortable, all the luxuries, but it's still just a bloody room. I don't think Ross has left the club once since she got here. Doesn't have a private life, doesn't care about anything but the next show, the next performance. Not healthy, not for a growing girl like her, but then, there's nothing healthy about Ross's career, since she took up with the bloody Cavendishes."

I started to turn away, but Ian called me back.

"She's a good kid, but. . . don't expect too much from her, okay? She's not herself any more. I don't know who she is, these days."

I found Rossignol's dressing room easily enough. The two immaculate gentlemen guarding her door weren't everyday bodyguards. The Cavendishes had clearly spent some serious money on internal security. These bodyguards wore Armani suits, and each bore a tattooed ideogram above his left eyebrow that indicated they were the property of the Raging Dragon Clan. Which meant they were magicians, martial artists, and masters of murder. The kind of heavy-duty muscle who usually guarded emperors and messiahs-in-waiting. A sensible man would have turned smartly about and disappeared, at speed, but I just kept going. If I let myself get intimidated by anyone, I'd never get anything done. I came to a halt before them and smiled amiably.

"Hi. I'm John Taylor. I do hope there's not going to be any unpleasantness."

"We know who you are," said the one on the left.

"Private eye, con man, boaster, and braggart," said the one on the right.

"King-in-waiting, some say."

"A man of little magic and much bluff, say others."

"We are combat magicians, mystic warriors."

"And you are just a man, full of talk and tricks."

I stood my ground and said nothing, still smiling my friendly smile.

The bodyguard on the left looked at the one on the right. "I think it's time for our coffee break."

The one on the right looked at me. "Half an hour be enough?"

"Three-quarters," I said, just to show I could play hardball.

The two combat magicians bowed slightly to me and walked unhurriedly away. They just might have been able to take me, but they'd never know now. I've always been good at bluffing, but it helps that most people in the Nightside aren't too tightly wrapped, at the best of times. I knocked on the dressing room door, and when no-one answered, I let myself in.

Rossignol was sitting on a chair, facing her dressing room mirror, studying her reflection in the mirror. She didn't even look round as I shut the door behind me. Her face was calm, and quietly sad, lost in the depths of her own gaze. I leaned back against the closed door and looked her over carefully. She was a tiny little thing, only five feet tall, slender, gamine, dressed in a blank white T-shirt and washed-out blue jeans.

She had long, flat, jet-black hair, framing a pale pointed face that was almost ghostly in the sharp unforgiving light of the dressing room. She had high cheekbones, a long nose, pale pink lips, and not a trace of make-up. If she was thinking anything, it didn't show in her expression. Her hands were clasped loosely together in her lap, as though she'd forgotten they were there. I said her name aloud, and she turned slowly to face me. I did wonder for a moment whether she might have been drugged, given a little something to keep her calm and manageable, but that thought disappeared the moment I met her gaze. Her eyes were large and a brown so dark they were almost black, full of fire and passion. She smiled briefly at me, just a faint twitching of her pale mouth.

"I don't get many visitors these days. I like it that way. How did you get past the two guard dogs at my door?"

"I'm John Taylor."

"Ah, that explains many things. You are perhaps the only person in the Nightside with a more disturbing reputation than mine." She spoke English perfectly, with just enough of a French accent to make her effortlessly charming. "So now, why would the infamous John Taylor be interested in a poor little nightclub singer like me?"

"I've been hired to look into your welfare. To make sure you're all right and not being taken advantage of."

"How nice. Who hired you? Not the Cavendishes, I assume."

I gave her a brief smile of my own. "My client wishes to remain confidential."

"And I do not get a say in the matter?"

"I'm afraid not."

"It is my life we are discussing, Mr. Taylor."

"Please. Call me John."

"As you wish. You may call me Ross. You still haven't answered my question, John. What makes you think I need your assistance? I assure you, I am perfectly safe and happy here."

"Then why the heavy muscle outside your door?"

Her mouth made a silent moue of distaste. "They keep the more obsessive fans at bay. The over-enthusiastic and the stalkers. Ah, my audience! They would fill every moment of my life, if they could. I need time to myself, to be myself."

"What about friends and family?"

"I have nothing to say to them." Ross folded her arms across her chest and gave me a hard, angry stare. "Where were they when I needed them? For years they didn't want to know me, never answered my letters or my pleas for but a little support, to keep me going until my career took off. But the moment I became just a little bit famous, and there was the scent of real money in the air, ah then, suddenly all my family and my so-called friends were all over me, looking for jobs and hand-outs and a chance to edge their way into the spotlight, too. To hell with them. To hell with them all. I have learned the hard way to trust no-one but myself."

"Not even your roadie, Ian?"

She smiled genuinely for the first time. "Ian, yes. Such a sweet boy. He believed in me, even during the bad times when I was no longer sure myself. There will always be a place for him with me, for as long as he wants it. But at the end of the day, I am the star, and I will decide what his place is." She shrugged

briefly. "Not even the closest of friends can always climb the ladder at the same pace. Some will always be left behind."

I decided to change the subject. "I understand you live here, in the club?"

"Yes." She turned away from me and went back to looking at herself in the mirror. She was looking for something, but I didn't know what. Maybe she didn't either. "I feel safe here," she said slowly. "Protected. Sometimes it seems like the whole world wants a piece of me, and there's only so much to go round. It's not easy being a star, John. You can take lessons in music, and movement, and how to get the best out of a song, but there's no-one to teach you how to be a success, how to deal with suddenly being famous and in demand. Everybody wants something . . . The only ones I can trust any more are my management. Mr. and Mrs. Cavendish. They're only interested in the money I can make for them . . . and I can deal with that."

"There have been stories, of late," I said carefully. "About mysterious, unexplained suicides . . ."

She looked back at me, smiling sadly. "You of all people should know better than to believe in such gossip, John. It's all just publicity stories that got out of hand. Exaggerations, to put my name on everyone's lips. Everyone claims to have heard the story direct from a friend of a friend, but no-one can ever name anyone who actually died. The Nightside does so love to gossip, and it always prefers bad news to good. I'm just a singer who loves to sing . . . Talk to the Cavendishes, if you're seriously worried. I'm sure they will be able to reassure you. And now, if you will be so good as to excuse me, I need to prepare myself. I have a show to do soon."

And she went back to staring at her face in the mirror, her chin cupped in one hand, her eyes lost in her own thoughts. I let myself out, and she didn't even notice I was gone.

Cavendish
Properties

I
made my way back to the club bar, the tune from "There's No Business Like Show Business" playing sardonically in the back of my head. My encounter with Rossignol hadn't been everything it might have been, but it had been . . . interesting. My first impressions of her were muddled, to say the least. She'd seemed sharp enough, particularly her tongue, but there was no denying there was something
wrong
about Rossignol. Some
missing
quality ... as though some vital spark had been removed, or suppressed. All the lights were on, but the curtains were a little too tightly closed. It didn't seem to be drugs, but that still left magical controls and compulsions. Not to mention soul thieves,  mindsnakes,  and even possession.  There's never any shortage of potential suspects in the Nightside. Though what major players like that would want with a mere up-and-coming singer like Rossignol . . . Ah hell, maybe she was just plain crazy. No shortage of crazies in the Nightside either. In the end, it all came down to her singing. I'd have to come back again, watch her perform, listen to what she did with her voice. See what it did to her audience. After taking certain sensible precautions, of course. Certain defences. There are any number of magical creatures, mostly female, whose singing can bring about horror and death. Sirens, undines, banshees, Bananarama tribute bands . . .

Back at the bar 1 used their phone to call my new Nightside office and see how Cathy was getting on with her research into the Cavendishes. The elf bartender didn't raise any objections. He saw me coming and retreated quickly to the other end of the bar, where he busied himself cleaning a glass that didn't need cleaning. The chorus in their wraps and dressing gowns now had a bottle of gin each and were growing definitely raucous, like faded birds of paradise with a really bad attitude. One of them had produced a copy of the magazine
Duelling Strap-ons,
and they were all making very unkind comments about the models in the photos. I looked deliberately in the opposite direction and pressed the phone hard against my ear.

I don't use a mobile phone in the Nightside anymore. It makes it far too easy for anyone to find me. Besides, signals here have a tendency to go weird on you. You can end up connected to all kinds of really wrong numbers, talking to anyone or anything, from all kinds of dimensions, in the past, present, and future.

And sometimes in between calls, you can hear something whispering what sounds like really awful truths ... I had my last mobile phone buried in deconsecrated ground and sowed the earth with salt, just to be sure.

My secretary answered the phone before the second ring, which suggested she'd been waiting for my call. "John, where the hell are you?"

"Oh, out and about," I said cautiously. "What's the matter? Problems?"

"You could say that. Walker's been by the office. In his own calm and quiet way he is really not happy with you, John. He started with threats, escalated to open menace, and demanded to know where you were. Jail was mentioned, along with excommunication, and something that I think involves boiling oil and a funnel. Luckily, I was honestly able to say I hadn't a clue where you were, at the moment. You don't pay me enough to lie to Walker. He once made a corpse sit up and answer his questions, you know."