Death Of A Diva (23 page)

Chapter Fifty-Two

              “You’re sure about this?” Dash asked, a worried frown crossing his face.

              “I wouldn’t ask,” I answered, “but I can’t think of any other way. Look,” I sighed, reconsidering my request, “forget it. You two have been in enough trouble and if your mum – or Paddy – found out I was putting you up to this, they’d kill me. I shouldn’t ask.”

              “And we don’t take
nothing
?” Ray queried.

              “Absolutely nothing, Ray. I need to know if they’re there; that’s all there is to it. They should have been at Leon’s and weren’t.”

              “You could have missed them; maybe he’d hidden ‘em.”

              I shook my head. “Reid was thorough; his team took that place apart.”

              “And there’s no way he could have just – I dunno, ebayed ‘em?” Dash asked.

              “Or trashed them?” Ray enquired.

              I shook my head. “I know his type; he’d have sooner died than part with any of them. And that’s the point. If they’re there, then we have our killer. And the fact that you broke in provides the killer with the perfect get out of jail card.”

              “That we must have planted them?”

              “Exactly. Which is why you can only get in, locate them,
touch nothing
and get out. I’m hoping I’m right. If they’re there, then I’ll
know
I’m right.”

              “So,” Caz piped up, “why do I get the boring job?”

              “Because, my dearest friend, you are somewhat less than subtle and I have a distinct suspicion that you would either tidy up a messy kitchen, or empty the drinks cabinet.”

              Caz’s nostrils flared. “Daniel Bird. You have known me for a long time.”

              “A
very
long time,” I confirmed for the twins’ benefits.

              “It pains me that you would – even in jest – suggest that I would
ever
,” she shuddered at the thought, “
tidy
anything up
.”

              “It’s true,” I agreed. “But I need you to do my research. It’s there somewhere and, well, the whole place is
establishment
, which suits you perfectly.”

She appraised the twins and turned back to me. “Fair enough, but – assuming it’s there and assuming I find it – what help will it be?”

              “It’s the proof the whole thing hinges on. I can’t use what Dash and Ray find for obvious reasons – that’ll just confirm my suspicions. But I
can
use what you pull up.”

              We were sitting in the bar, a constant drizzle falling beyond the windows and the jukebox playing a selection of forgotten pop tunes from the 1980s. Ali bustled in, a crate of mixers in her arms and Ray leapt up.

              “Lemme help with them,” he said, rushing around to relieve her of her burden.

              Caz kicked me surreptitiously under the bar and raised an eyebrow at the two as the jukebox began to play John Paul Young’s
Love is in the air
. “Apt,” she murmured.

              Ali, seeming somewhat startled, released her grip on the crate and Ray hoisted it aloft. “Where d’you want it?” he asked and, realising that his brother, Caz and I were watching, blushed to the roots of his blond flat top.

              “Over there,” Ali mumbled and gestured towards the opposite end of the bar.

              “Ali,” a thought suddenly occurred to me, “how long have you worked here?”

              She shrugged, “Longer than I care to remember. Off and on, about twelve years. Why?” The old suspicion crept back into her tone.

              “You had many dealings with Chopper?”

              She tilted her head to one side and began picking at a piece of lint on her sweater. “Seen him around,” she finally admitted, in a tone that suggested she’d rather not be discussing this topic.

              “There!” Ray deposited the crate in its place. “Need anything else from the cellar?” he asked.

              “Need some orange juices and some ginger ales,” Ali perked up, glad of the distraction and made to head back to the cellar.

              “I’ll fetch ‘em,” Ray said brightly and bounded across the bar and off to the cellar before Ali could make her escape.

              “What d’you know about Chopper?” I asked.

              “Only what you read in the papers,” she answered. “Never been done for nothing, but everyone knows he’s the boss of everything dodgy that goes on round here. Cross him and you end up in the Pound Shop. Do what you’re told and he’s right as rain.”

              All of which was in keeping with my understanding. “What about family?”

              “Three sons and a daughter,” she answered quickly.

              “Tell me about the granddaughter.”

              “Right spoiled madam she is,” Ali announced. “But why you so interested in Chopper’s family arrangements?” she asked as Ray returned to the bar with a crate.

              So I told her and, as my suspicions were voiced, her eyes grew, at first, round, then her face set in a look of absolute personal offence and a string of choice words rarely heard outside of a truckers cafe poured out of her.

“So what we gonna do about it?” she finally asked.

I looked around the bar. Four pairs of eyes eagerly looked back at me. “Well you two,” I pointed at Ray and Dash, “are gonna do some breaking and entering. You,” Caz this time, “are going to do some genealogical research. You, dear Ali, are gonna do what you do so well: run this place for me. Caz’ll give you the numbers of the paps she invited. Make some calls. Get them pictures. And I,” I slipped off the barstool, shrugged my shoulders and stretched, “am going to the reading of a will.”

Chapter Fifty-Three

              “Danny, I beg you: this is insane.” Robert dabbed, with a crisp white linen handkerchief, at a thin film of nervous perspiration above his top lip.

              “You agreed,” I answered calmly, though inside my stomach was roiling like a half empty Zanussi on fast spin.

              “We’re a corporate litigation firm,” he answered. “Nobody puts a will through a firm like Fitzgerald’s. They’re bound to realise that something’s up.”

              “Robert, take a look at them,” I gestured at the wall before us, where a bank of security monitors showed the feed from a large formal board room, wherein a rather motley group of people had gathered.

              “I’m going to get fired for this,” he complained.

“For Christ’s sake, Robert: man up. You are not going to get fired for this. You are going to get some raised eyebrows from the partners, but when the police acknowledge that your public-spiritedness put a mass murderer in a position where their wrongdoings could be exposed and their spree put to an end, you might well get some sort of promotion.”

He peered at the screens. “None of this lot look like Hannibal Lector,” he observed grimly, at which point the doors to the boardroom opened and a team of medics entered, pushing, what looked like a prop from some sci-fi movie, on which was the cadaverous figure of Barry Haynes.

“Jesus,” Robert recoiled momentarily, then leaned forward to peer at the screen. “I take it back. But I still don’t understand why it has to be this way? I mean, what’s wrong with getting them all to pop down to the police station and do it there?”

“Robert, if you were the killer, what reason on earth could possibly encourage you to set foot in a police station? Plus, there are a few people down there who would likely burn like vampires entering a church if they willingly walked into a cop shop.”

“
Cop shop
,” he turned to me. “Listen to yourself, Danny. When did you turn into Sam Spade?”

I chose not to rise to the comment; when Robert was stressed he tended to turn on the sarcasm.

Haynes looked around the room with undisguised contempt for everyone in it, held the vocoder thing to his neck, said something over his shoulder to the medic behind him, who shook his head and said something back before Haynes rolled his eyes, patted his pockets down, retrieved a slightly bent cigarette from his housecoat and popped it into his mouth.

“Right,” I said, that’s the last of them. “It’s show time, Robert.”

Chapter Fifty-Four

              “I don’t think you’re allowed to smoke in here,” Jenny Foster was saying as Robert opened the double doors to the conference room on the thirty-fifth floor of Fitzgerald-Parker.

              The room ended in a floor-to-ceiling window that provided a panoramic view of London, slowly – even at three pm on this December afternoon – lighting up like a Christmas tree.

              Between the view and us, a rectangular polished mahogany boardroom table stretched.

              “And what are you?” Haynes enquired in his tinny robotic voice, “the ciggie monitor?”

              “Cigarette out, please, Mr Haynes,” Robert commanded and Haynes, shocked by the tone, muttered something profane and stubbed the fag out on the armrest of his wheelchair.

              Dominic Mouret put a protective arm around Jenny and glared across the table at Haynes.

              Next to Dominic and Jenny sat Morgan and beside him was Liz Britton, her fingers fiddling nervously with the fringe on the suede handbag sitting on the table before her.

              On the opposite side of the table, next to the man in the iron lung and sandwiched between Christie and another rent-a-thug, sat Falzone, his custom made suit, starched off-white shirt and perfectly knotted silk tie making him look every inch the perfectly respectable businessman that he’d never in a million years be.

              Falzone was the first one to spot me as I entered the room beside Robert and his eyes – for a moment – registered surprise, before they focussed over my shoulder and the surprise turned into rage.

              “What the fuck are
they
doin’ here?” he demanded, pointing a finger at Reid and Nick.

              Robert said nothing, sailed past the assembled and took one of the two chairs at the head of the table. I took the other.

              The two policemen took up their positions on either side of the now closed double doors. I wasn’t sure what Nick had said to persuade his superior to take a part in this performance, but I was grateful for his presence.

              Robert settled himself in his chair, opened a manila folder, flicked through the contents, glanced surreptitiously at me, coughed gently – more, I suspected, to remind me that this was my show than to clear his throat – and then looked around at the small group and smiled.

              I sat next to him, placing my mobile on the table before me and trying to make eye contact with as few of the people in the room as possible.

“Detective Inspector Reid and DC Fisher are here at my request,” he announced. “You’ve all been invited here today to attend the reading of the will of the late Lyra Day.”

“Lyra’s will,” Morgan said, “is with Taylor Marks Price. They’ve already been in touch.”

“Ah, but there could have been a second will,” Robert responded.

“Regardless,” Foster returned, “who the hell are all these people? Lyra left everything to me.”

This got a snort – made without the aid of the electro-larynx – from Haynes.

“Maybe she didn’t leave everything to you,” Dominic Mouret said as though talking to nobody in particular.

“Perhaps,” Robert suggested, “I could ask Mr Bird to do some introductions?”

I smiled, nodded, “Morgan: obviously you know Liz Britton; Jenny, your daughter and her fiancé Dominic Mouret.”

“On the opposite side of the table we have Mr Barry Haynes, who first discovered Lyra, managed her, fell in love with her and was abandoned by her. The dapper gentleman is a local businessman called Martin Falzone. The bald-headed person to his right is James Christie, a former boxer and debt collector. I don’t know the name of the gentleman on Mr Falzone’s left.”

“This is Grant,” Falzone provided, not making it clear whether Grant was a first or family name. “And – since everyone else is already pointing out how it makes no sense that they’re here – I’d just like to add my voice to the chorus. What the fuck you playing at, Bird?”

I glanced at my phone.
Nothing
.

Foster frowned, opened his mouth to say something, shut it.

I glanced at my phone, prodded it hopefully. Still nothing.

Foster turned his face towards me. “What the hell is going on here?” he demanded.

Chapter Fifty-Five

              “There’s been a slight misunderstanding,” I announced, glancing around the table.

              “We were invited to the reading of a will,” Jenny stated boldly. “So: is there a new will?”

              Chopper, a face like thunder, turned and whispered something to Christie, whose eyes never left mine. When Chopper had finished issuing his instructions, Christie nodded once, a shark-like smile spreading across his face.

              “We’re done here,” Chopper announced, standing and, as he did so, Foster and the Lyra camp also moved to leave.

              “I know who killed Lyra!” The announcement had the desired effect on half the table. Liz Britton dropped her handbag. Dominic Mouret put an arm around Jenny Foster and pulled her closer. Morgan Foster paused in the act of picking up his briefcase.

              “I know who sold her the coke too,” I stated to Falzone. “And who stole the takings from the safe at the Marq.”

              “Stole the takings?” This was news to Chopper. And not – from the tone in his voice – good news.

              At that moment, there was a muted knock on the door.

              Chopper paused, looked from Christie to Grant to the door and, seeing the people on the opposite side of the table begin to resettle themselves, slid backwards into his seat.

              The door opened and into the room, dressed in a smart business suit that was only a half-size too small for her, stepped Ali.

              Christie, seeing her, bristled.

              Ali glanced around the room, crossed directly to me and placed an A4 manila envelope on the desk. “You were right,” she murmured and withdrew to stand against the wall behind Liz Britton, who cast a nervous glance over her shoulder.

              “Go on, then,” Christie snapped, “get on with it.”

              “I’m not really sure where to begin,” I finally announced, glancing once again at the mobile in front of me, “so I guess the beginning is as good a place as any.”

              My phone vibrated.
At last!
I touched the screen. A junk text offering me cheap Viagra.
Bugger
!

              “Mate,” Barry Haynes offered, “the docs don’t give me much more than six months, so I’d like to know who did it before then, if poss.”

              “The biggest problem was knowing where the beginning was,” I admitted. “This whole thing had so many strands that seemed to come from nowhere. But, of course, nothing ever arrives fully-formed. There’s a history to everything.”

              “Danny,” Mouret smiled at me, “if you
could
just get to the point...”

              “Lyra. Eliza. Same woman, but a million miles away from each other in so many ways. Lyra, by the time I met her, was – despite recent setbacks in her career – a very wealthy, very glamorous star. To begin with, I couldn’t understand why she would even consider playing anywhere as tiny as the Marq. Then I met Morgan, and – though it took me a while – I understood.”

              “She needed to perform,” Foster said. “Lyra
lived
to just
be
Lyra. If she wasn’t ‘on,’ she was unbearable.”

              “And you needed her happy,” I finished for him. “Because you had plans. And a guilty conscience.”

              “I loved her very much,” he said sadly.

              “But you’d fallen in love with someone else. Someone simpler than Lyra; less demanding. And both of you – consumed by guilt at having fallen in love – were torn between following your own happiness and abandoning a woman at her lowest ebb, or staying with an unhappy, unfulfilled and increasingly angry Lyra.”

              “She wasn’t a monster,” Liz Britton said quietly. “I know it looked that way to people on the outside. But, if you knew her, she was sweet and kind and charming.”

              “And scared,” Morgan finished. “You’re wrong: Lyra wasn’t that far from Eliza. Eliza had nothing; she’d been treated appallingly: abandoned by her father, mocked by her mother and sister, she came from nothing and she only counted – she
felt
she only counted – when other people – the Leon’s of this world – fawned over her.

              “She knew it was all bullshit. But when it was happening – when she was
being
a success – she was happy.”

              “And as long as she wasn’t a success, you two were doomed to remain as nothing more than sidekicks.”

              Morgan sighed. “After the scandal, she just collapsed. Even when she came out of hospital, she seemed, somehow, to have lost Lyra. This meant, of course, that she was nothing. And that made her angry and spiteful and all of that masked the simple fact that she knew, somewhere deep down, that Liz and I...”

              “So you decided she had to get Lyra back,” I prompted.

              “The gig was a start. We figured, get her on a stage. Remind her how good she was. And after that, it would be easier.”

              “Easier to get her back on tour and easier to leave her.”

              He smiled sadly and shook his head. “I’d never have left Lyra. She’d have left me. Once she was Lyra again, it was only a matter of time before someone else would come along.”

              I recalled her clumsy pass at Mouret, even in her stage-frightened condition and knew that Foster was probably right: once her confidence returned Lyra would have found some young dashing arm candy and Morgan and Liz would have been able to fade into the background together and guilt free.

              “So,” I noted, “if Lyra left you, you’d be entitled to a sizeable pay-out.”

Foster glowered at me.

“But then, Jenny: you enjoyed spending cash. This wedding was costing a sizeable chunk and my guess is you weren’t entirely oblivious to daddy’s predicament. If Lyra started closing the purse strings you’d be in a rather unpleasant place wouldn’t you?”

“You think I strangled her for
wedding cake
?” Jenny asked.

“No,” I admitted, “but I think you could have developed a deep dislike of her. And then, of course, within an hour of arriving at the Marq, she’s pissed off half the staff at the pub and most of her entourage, threatened to close the Bank of Lyra to you and started demanding drugs.”

              “Maybe you snapped at her willingness to blow cash on – well,
blow
– while refusing to pay for the proposed happiest day of your life. Or maybe,” I turned back to Morgan and Liz, “one of you got tired of waiting.”

              “Now listen here!” Foster went to rise from his seat, but Liz Britton restrained him gently and he resumed his place. “We never expected it to be easy. The Marq was the start; she’d be unlikely to leave me after a PA there.”

              “She’d been so clean,” Liz said. “I still can’t understand why she’d been demanding coke.”

              “I think she was demanding it for someone else,” I answered, “someone she wanted to impress. But her demands were heard by someone who was making a little money on the side by dealing in exactly what she needed.”

              I turned to Chopper, “There are people who reckon, Mr Falzone, that you run a – what was it DI Reid? –
criminal network of drugs, prostitution, gambling and murder
. Alongside having an illegal and well-hidden interest in the Marq.”

              Chopper glared at the florid figure standing to the left of the double doors. “DI Reid can think what he likes. But until he can prove otherwise, I’m a businessman, with a half dozen discount general stores, a couple of hairdressers and half share in a gym. I don’t deal drugs.”

              “But not all your employees are as anti-drugs as you, Mr Falzone. Mr Christie, for example, was present in the bar when Lyra made her demands, saw my point blank refusal to provide her with drugs and spotted an opportunity to make a few quid.”

              “Bollocks!” Christie growled.

              Chopper lifted a finger. “Go on,” he murmured.

              “Christie’d been around the Marq many times before – he used to hassle the previous owners,” I glanced at Ali.

“He knew the layout of the pub, so he let himself out, went around to the side alleyway and entered the pub via the back door before introducing himself to his new customer.”

“Boss, this is bullshit!” Christie protested.

Falzone didn’t even glance at him. “You heard, Mr Christie,” he said, his gaze never shifting from me. “You know my feelings around drug dealing. You got any proof to support this.”

I glanced down. Still nothing on the phone. I reached into my pocket. “Whoever Lyra purchased her drugs from was aware of the power of branding. They stamped each little packet of the powder with a little picture. Very, very distinctive.”

From my pocket, I withdrew a small plastic bag which contained the wraps that Ali had confiscated from the ASBO twins a couple of days ago. I flicked the bag into the middle of the table where it was visible to all.

Chopper glanced at the contents of the bag and a frown flickered across his face.

“So you got the wraps Lyra had,” Christie growled, a thin film of perspiration on his top lip. “So what?”

“Two
so what’s
, Jimmy: how do you know what Lyra had? And these aren’t from Lyra’s dressing table. The police still have those items. These are the wraps that you personally sold to some friends of mine this week. Wraps that I reckon still have your dabs on them.”

Christie jumped to his feet. “This is a fit up! I never touched that old bitch.”

“Never said you did, Jimmy. But you
did
sell her the gear that was sprinkled all over her body when I found it.”

Chopper slowly fixed his eyes on Christie. “Sit down,” he said.

“Boss,” Christie pleaded, “this is crazy.”

He got no further. Chopper slammed his fist into the table top, making the whole room jump.

Christie dropped back in his chair.

“Go on.” Chopper addressed me.

“Christie’s right: he didn’t kill Lyra. He was interested in money not murder. Which is why, later that night, while I was being interrogated by DI Reid over there, he arranged to have the Marq robbed.”

“You lying fucker!” Christie roared, lunging across the table at me and getting not much more than a few inches before Grant, who had been sitting as impassively as a granite carving, reached out, wrapped one arm around Christie’s neck, used his other arm to grab his wrist, stuck one of his size eleven’s between Christie’s feet and flicked it backwards, sprawling Christie face down on the table.

“I think Mr Falzone would prefer if you stayed seated,” Grant said quietly but firmly, before dragging the thug back into his seat. “My apologies,” he said to me, before resuming his own seat.

“Chopper,” Christie pleaded in a strangled voice, “this is bollocks. I was working for you that night. You know I was. I was sitting outside the cop shop waiting for this fucking pansy to come out. Croft was with me all night, for Christ’s sake.”

“He’s right,” I admitted, withdrawing the contents of the envelope that Ali had just delivered and sorting through them. “But remember what I said: Christie needed money. And he needed it because he had a rather expensive and demanding new hobby.”

Christie opened his mouth to say something and then closed it again.

“Opening night at the Marq that night. You know how it is: everyone has a camera these days. But we had some professionals there too. You know the sort of thing:
who’s been seen doing what at the opening of the Marq
. Never hurts to get some publicity in the press. Oh they wouldn’t have bothered with Jimmy here: he’s not exactly the photogenic type, is he? But his date was photogenic, even with him in the shot. I think you’ll recognise her, Mr Falzone.”

I slid the 8x4 across to Chopper, who glanced down, frowned, reached a shaking hand out to the black and white image and touched the face of the over made-up jailbait that Christie had taken to the Marq.

“Elaine?” he asked, as though addressing the girl personally, his voice a mixture of incredulity and outrage.

“I guess the sweet sixteen you were arranging for her wasn’t grown-up enough.”

“My granddaughter?” Falzone lifted his eyes. “You? And my Elaine?” He looked at Christie. “You robbed my pub to – what? – pay for trinkets for her?”

“Not quite.” I answered for Christie, whose mouth was wriggling soundlessly. “The night that the contents of the safe were removed while I was in the police station – Christie was sitting outside with a witness. But your granddaughter wasn’t...”

Falzone turned his eyes to Christie. Words seemed to be failing him. “You... corrupted my angel? You?”

“Boss...” Christie finally managed to get a word out and Falzone held up a hand that silenced him immediately.

I put the next photo in the middle of the table. “I’m not sure that Christie enjoyed much of the fruits of his labour.” The picture showed Elaine Falzone tottering down Bond Street with armloads of designer shopping bags.