Running Girl (11 page)

On Top Pitch, at lunch time, Garvie Smith sprawled on the grass, exhausted. He'd been to three lessons
one after the other
, and was seriously beginning to doubt if he could keep up this level of attendance any longer. With Smudge he shared a calming Benson and Hedges as they listened to Felix report on the funeral, which he'd witnessed earlier in the morning during period one.

It had been a private family affair at Five Mile Methodist Church. But by chance Felix had been on the roof of the newsagent's opposite at the time.

‘Nothing private about it,' he said. ‘Massive crowd. Super-massive. All these reporters and photographers. Cameramen, TV crews. About a thousand coppers in the line, looked like. But the weird thing was how everyone was really, really quiet. Eerie quiet. Like it was a ... a ...'

‘A funeral,' Garvie said.

‘Well. Yeah.'

‘What were you doing on the roof?' Smudge asked.

Felix looked vague. ‘Just looking for something.'

Smudge said, ‘I reckon this is the biggest thing that's ever happened in Five Mile. Can't turn on the TV without seeing her face. And think how many rozzers we've had here.' He paused and looked at Garvie. ‘Have you been interviewed yet?'

‘No.'

‘Really? Everybody else has. Even me.'

‘I'm not cooperating.'

‘You told them that?'

‘Not exactly. They told me.'

It was strange, the way the police had ignored Garvie. As Smudge said, they'd interviewed everyone else, not just Chloe's friends but almost all of Year Eleven, and teachers too, even the caretaker and the school nurse. Every day kids were called out of their lessons to go to Tech 2, the ‘interview room', and sit at the end of a row of tables borrowed from the dining room for what was always called a ‘little chat about Chloe'. It was meant to be confidential. But information given in the strictest privacy in Tech 2 circulated freely in the rest of the school, and at any given time the kids knew significantly more than the police did. It was no surprise to them that Chloe had been the victim of rumour and petty thefts, and that Jessica Walker was behind a lot of it. Or that Chloe was herself the source of other rumours involving luxury cars, millionaire admirers, modelling contracts and besotted teachers. They were familiar with the notion that she had not just one but several stalkers. They even had a shrewd idea what sort of testimony was being given by the teachers; in fact, they could have informed the police themselves that Mr MacArthur often gave Chloe a lift home after her training sessions at the track.

But some interesting information came the other way. Conducting his own interviews over cigs up on Top Pitch or in Marsh Fields snicket, Garvie had learned about police interest in three key issues: a black Porsche, the fact that something had upset Chloe on Thursday night, and her unexplained absence from school on Friday afternoon. He'd also learned that the police had been disappointed not to find Alex at the Academy; they were keen to interview him again.

‘All that about the Porsche is bollocks though, Garv.'

‘Is it, Smudge?'

‘You know what she was like. “It's so comfy riding in a Porsche, Smudge. It's so quiet, Smudgy. Everything matches, Smudgster.” Just Chloe-speak, Garv. Like a fantasy.'

Garvie thought for a moment. ‘What about Thursday night? Anyone know where she was?'

Smudge shook his head. ‘The one question of theirs I couldn't answer, to be fair. Word is she was down Market Square, at some bar. The Black Cat. I don't know.'

‘Felix?'

‘Apparently she said she was going to Jess's, but she never.'

‘And Friday afternoon?'

Smudge shrugged. ‘Taking it easy, probably. Friday afternoons I like to go home for a nap. You know, before going out. I need my beauty sleep.'

Felix said, ‘You need more than a nap, my friend. You need to sleep for a thousand years.'

‘What's your theory, Garv? Know what I reckon?'

‘What do you reckon, Smudge?'

‘I reckon a vagrant done it. One of them drifters sleeping rough at Four Winds.'

‘Very likely.'

‘Yeah, but this is the best bit. Not any old vagrant. Her dad. Her real dad.'

‘Her real dad's been dead ten years, Smudge.'

‘Yeah, but come back. From the dead.'

Felix chipped in. ‘Yeah. 'Cause he's been in hiding.'

‘That's it. In Bolivia, or Kathmandu, or maybe down the Town Road, you know, above a shop.'

‘'Cause he's a drugs baron.'

‘And a zombie. And he's come back to ... claim his daughter.'

‘And he shows her the tattoo on his wrist, to prove it to her.'

‘Yeah, yeah. Tattoo of a llama, like they have in ... wherever he's been.'

‘Yeah. But she fights back.'

‘So he kills her.'

‘Kills her dead.'

‘I reckon that's how it happened.' Smudge coughed modestly. ‘What do you think, Garv?'

Garvie took his time finishing his Benson and Hedges, and flicked the butt into the long grass, and said, ‘MacAttack is a teacher.'

There was a long pause while Smudge and Felix looked at each other.

‘So?'

‘So he doesn't drive a Porsche.'

‘Yeah, but all that about a Porsche is—'

‘Let's pretend for a second it's just as likely as the llama-tattooed zombie real-dad theory.'

‘I think you're pushing it, but all right.'

‘MacAttack doesn't drive a Porsche, so where would Chloe go to find one? Where would she go to meet some rich young tosser with a Porsche?'

‘Actually, that's pretty simple,' Smudge said. ‘That's easy, that one. Imperium, innit? Down the casino. Plenty of rich tossers in their shiny Porsches down there.'

Garvie smiled. ‘Smudge, my friend. You're a genius. In disguise.'

Smudge went pink and spent a long time examining his feet, and when he lifted his head, saying, ‘Yeah, but what do you think about the—' Garvie was already halfway down the slope towards C Block.

AT FIRST ABDUL
didn't recognize him. He was out of his cab, opening the back door and letting him in with all his usual little clicks and murmurings of politeness when he suddenly stopped.

‘My Garvie! Is you?'

‘The same.'

‘My Garvie man, what have they do to you?'

They had put him in a single-cuff Jil Sander shirt, vaguely purple, a black dandy jacket by Acne, some Ralph Lauren stretch chinos, also black, and a pair of black brogues. They had hung fake-gold bling from his wrists and neck, and had gelled his hair into shapes undreamed of even by Mr Whippy. And they had wrapped around his face a pair of nearly genuine Ray Bans, acquired – no one knew how – by Felix.

‘It's what they call dress code,' Garvie said.

Abdul made high-pitched clucking noises of disapproval. ‘Is foolishness.'

‘Is Imperium's. Same sort of thing, really. Can you drop me off by the bowling alley next door?'

‘
Oui, bien sûr
. We go quick quick so you lose all you money.'

They drove down Bulwarks Lane into Pollard Way and onto the Town Road out of Five Mile towards the city centre. The night was lit up with the yellow fizz of streetlamps and the white glare of shop windows and the pulsing red points of the cars' rear lights.

‘I trust the police are leaving you alone, Abdul.'

At once the little man began to gesticulate anxiously. No, they weren't. They'd questioned him a second time. Did he know Chloe Dow? Had he ever given her a ride in his cab?

‘They ask you yet about a black Porsche?'

‘
Oui
, they ask.' Abdul looked at him in the rear-view mirror. ‘You know black Porsche?'

‘Yeah, course. Do you?'

Abdul nodded confidently. ‘
Oui oui
. I see black Porsche.'

Garvie frowned. ‘Really? Where?'

‘Here, there. Big man drive. Big big like this.' He puffed out his cheeks.

‘There must be dozens of black Porsches in the city, Abdul.'

Abdul shrugged. ‘Big big man,' he repeated. ‘I see him here, see him there. I tell police. They write down their little book. Nothing happen. I know.' He tapped the side of his head significantly.

‘Who is he, this big man?'

Abdul shrugged again. ‘He big play ... big play ...' He sought for the right word and failed to find it.

‘Playboy?'

‘
Oui
, Garvie man!
C'est ça
. Big play
boy
.' He rubbed his fingers together. ‘He big big money.'

‘Well, that figures. He drives a Porsche.'

They came at last to The Wicker. Once full of warehouses and workshops, the road had been reclaimed from old industry for entertainment, and now it was a strip of bars and drinking clubs, fast-food outlets, bowling alleys, lap-dancing bars, comedy clubs, cinemas and casinos. Everywhere was the coloured wash of lights, the muffled thump of music and the faint, harsh odour of fried food, booze and aftershave. At nine thirty it was just beginning to get busy.

Abdul let him out at the bowling alley and tutted at him.

‘I know, Abdul. Is foolishness.'

The man nodded. ‘Lucky for you I know not tell your mother.'

The night was mild and damp. A group of men came past wearing fancy dress, and Garvie stood in front of the bowling alley looking across at Imperium Restaurant and Casino at the end of the block, a low sleek building of stone and smoked glass fronted with fake Roman columns and a row of miniature potted orange trees, all trimmed into perfect spheres. Soft blue light illuminated it all. The chunky doormen were ostentatiously dressed in dinner jackets and black bow ties. A brilliantly lit giant hoarding above them showed a young woman dressed almost entirely in tassels, clapping her hands next to a slogan that read
ALL YOU GOT TO DO TO
WIN
IS
PLAY! Garvie turned away, crossed the forecourt of the bowling alley and slipped down the side of the brick wall separating the properties until he was lost in the shadows. A few moments later he was in Imperium's rear car park, an irregular patch of broken concrete in no way compatible with the elegant front.

A two-minute search turned up nothing like a Porsche, black or otherwise. He strolled away into the shadows on the far side of the car park, where he lit up and lounged thoughtfully against a less-than-sparkling Renault Clio, waiting. In a little while a couple of cars pulled in, and as the people made their way round to the front, Garvie joined them, and together they went past the doormen – who gave Felix's older brother's membership card no more than a cursory glance – and into the casino.

The carpets were plush, the fittings posh. Garvie went down a hallway lined with slot machines to a sunken circular lobby done out like a miniature amphitheatre, where a woman dressed in a short white toga standing behind a fishtank in the form of a Roman urn gave him the eye. Smiling affably, he went on through the cocktail bar, past the restaurant, into the gaming rooms, taking it all in. It was ancient Rome, Hollywood style, a stage set of excessive effects made semi-tasteful by low lighting. The Imperium theme was everywhere: classical statues in ivy-hung alcoves, patches of mosaic on the floor, frescoes, vaguely erotic, on the walls and the soft sound of lyre music piping from hidden speakers. The Imperium logo, a gold wreath on a gold urn, blazed from the purple baize surfaces of the gaming tables and stood in small gold sculptures above the roulette wheels. It even featured in the plastic name tags pinned to the togas of the waitresses who circulated with trays of drinks: Agrippina, Sabina, Flavia, Livia and other famous women of ancient Rome.

It was crowded. From every corner of the place came the standard low-grade hubbub of people enjoying losing money, a soft chatter and occasional laughter titivated by the rattle of roulette balls, cards slapped on tables and the chunter of coins out of one-armed bandits.

Garvie stood in the bar looking around. About four hundred cut-glass bottles of liquor gave back a soft, comforting gleam. Had Chloe come here? She'd talked about Imperium, but then she'd talked about all the clubs and bars in the city. He thought again of that streak in her character, the love of risks. It was a good place to take a risk, to stake it all, to hope for a lucky break. To win. That was her style.

Taking a glass of complimentary sparkling wine from a passing ‘Agrippina', Garvie set off round the gaming areas, weaving through groups of punters and spectators. He sauntered into the baccarat and poker rooms, where a few older men sat silent and intent on the cards that the toga'd croupier flipped from the baize with a thin wooden spatula, and sauntered round the roulette and blackjack tables, crowded with people determined to have fun, and past the noisy slot machines glowing against the dark walls, and sauntered on further to the cocktail bar, where the crowd was thickest, people sitting with drinks and canapés while the white-toga'd waitresses went among them with trays of finger food and drink.

For some time he stood by the roulette table, watching. He hadn't seen roulette played before. It was interesting, mathematically. Thirty-eight numbered pockets on a shiny wooden wheel: eighteen red ones, eighteen black, and two – marked 0 and 00 – green. The wheel spun in one way in a red-and-black blur, and the white ball ran in the other. Like a little runner racing round a track, it ran until exhausted, falling at last, bouncing and clacking, into one of the pockets.

The house paid out thirty-five to one on a bet placed on any number. It didn't pay out anything on 0 or 00. Garvie thought about this.

A probability of
of winning your bet, a probability of
of the bank winning.