‘She’s Polish.’ Mary O’Herlihy chuckled. ‘Appropriate, eh, for a Pole to be working in here. Maybe it’s their national sport; could be, because she’s bloody good at it.’
‘What’s her real name? For sure it’s not Harmony.’
‘No, it’s Hojnowski, Anna Hojnowski. That’s how she introduced herself to me when she did her audition, and that’s the name on her payslip. The other one, though, Harmony, that’s what she uses.’
‘How old is she?’
‘Twenty-three; at least that’s what she told me. I don’t ask to see birth certificates.’
‘Maybe you should,’ Pye observed. ‘What can you tell us about her?’
‘Not a lot,’ O’Herlihy said. ‘She’s a nice girl, she’s clean, she never lets the punters get out of hand, not even in the private booths, and she never gives me any bother. Also she gets more in tips than any of the other girls. Apart from that, I know nothing about her.’
‘Do you know where she lives?’ the DCI asked.
‘No.’
‘How about a phone number?’
Her attention was commandeered by one of the trio from the table, who came up to the bar with a drink order. ‘Gimme a minute,’ she told the detectives as she moved to serve him.
‘Fucking music’s doing my head in,’ Pye complained as they waited.
‘You’re showing your age, gaffer,’ Haddock laughed, ‘by that and by the fact that you haven’t shot the two birds on the poles a single glance, not one.’
‘It’s been said many times by many people, but I’ve seen better at home.’
‘Is that right? Funny, I’ve been to your house but I’ve never noticed a pole. Do you keep it in the garage?’
‘Phone number,’ O’Herlihy resumed, as she returned. ‘That I do have; two, in fact. One’s a mobile, the other’s a landline. They’re in the office. I’ll dig them out when Kyle, the barman, gets back. Cigarette break,’ she explained.
‘Do you know Dean Francey, Anna’s boyfriend?’
Her face darkened. ‘Him!’ she snorted. ‘I know about young Dino all right. He’s not welcome here. The laddie is nothing but trouble. I’ve told Anna she should do herself a favour and get shot of him, but the lass is in love. God knows why, because he’s nothing but a lanky lump of malice.’
‘You don’t like him then,’ Haddock said, drily.
‘Not a bit.’
‘What did he do to get barred . . . or is being in your black books cause enough around here?’
‘It can be,’ she admitted, ‘but in this case the offence was starting a fight. The first time he came in here when Anna was working I didn’t like the way he was looking at punters. The second time it got worse, and I warned him. The third time, Anna went into a booth with a punter . . . by the way, the girls aren’t supposed to touch the guys, but what happens in there, that’s their business . . . when they came out, Dino squared up to the bloke. The man didn’t back down and a fight started. Kyle jumped the bar to break it up and Dino started on him. I called Shane in from the door, because Kyle was getting battered, and the idiot stuck one on him as well. That was when I hit him with the baton we keep behind the bar.’
‘Technically that was probably assault,’ Pye pointed out.
‘I regarded it as damage control. Big Shane would have hospitalised him.’ She paused. ‘So that’s why he was barred.’
‘When all that was happening, what did Anna do?’
‘She screamed at him to stop, but he took no notice. The red mist was down. The laddie will do someone some serious damage one day.’
‘We think he may have done that already,’ Haddock confessed. ‘That’s why we need to find Anna.’
‘In that case I’m not waiting for Kyle,’ the manager said. ‘I’ll get you those numbers now. If anyone wants serving, tell them I won’t be a minute.’
She left the oval bar through an opening on the other side, and disappeared from their sight. One of the patrons at the bar disengaged his eyes from the gyrating form above him and stared into an almost empty pint tumbler, just as Kyle, the barman, returned to his post.
‘Do you still think Cheeky would want you to bring her here?’ Pye asked.
‘Once maybe,’ his colleague replied, ‘but not twice, that’s for sure. It’s depressing, isn’t it? I feel sorry for these women, doing this for money. Did you actually enjoy the stag do you came to?’
‘To be honest,’ the DCI chuckled, ‘I don’t remember much about it. It was mine; but I didn’t choose the venue, my best man did that. He told me afterwards that I wound up dancing on a pole in my Y-fronts. He was lying though; I know that ’cos I wear boxers.’
‘Is there photographic evidence of this event?’
‘No, a couple of the guests vetoed that.’
‘Bloody killjoys!’ Haddock snorted. ‘Why would they do that?’
‘Neither Bob Skinner nor Andy Martin fancied being in any of the pictures. Neil McIlhenney wasn’t too keen either.’
‘What about McGuire?’
‘He was on the other pole.’
‘Right, gentlemen,’ the returning Mary O’Herlihy declared, ‘there you are.’ She handed a sheet of paper to Pye. ‘Those are the numbers. I called the mobile while I was away; got no reply.’
The DCI frowned. ‘You didn’t call the landline, did you?’
‘No.’
‘Good. We’ll run a reverse check on it and find where it’s located. We don’t want to give Anna advance notice of our interest.’
‘What if she shows up here?’
‘Say nothing to her about our visit, but call me on that number.’ He took a card from his pocket and handed it over. ‘We’ll come back.’
‘What if the boyfriend’s with her?’
‘Little chance of that,’ Haddock answered, ‘but if he is, call us and have big Shane keep him company till we get here. I’m sure he’d enjoy that.’
Twenty-Two
‘Is there anything in this part of Edinburgh that isn’t a student flat?’ Sammy Pye wondered, as he and his sergeant walked along Davie Street, searching for number seventy-seven.
‘Not much,’ Haddock replied. ‘I lived here myself for a while when I was one of the rarely washed. My mum was terrified; she thought the place was a fire trap. She was probably right, but it looks as if it’s been refurbished since then.’
‘What was the number again?’
‘Seventy-seven, F two A. That’s it, look.’ He pointed to a backlit panel beside a blue-painted entrance door, then pressed a button.
‘Hi, who’s that?’ a bright young female voice asked.
‘Detective Sergeant Harold Haddock, Edinburgh CID, with Detective Chief Inspector Pye. We’re looking for Anna Hojnowski, also known as Anna Harmony.’
‘Singer? She’s out. I suppose she’s down at Lacey’s, dancing on her pole.’ The speaker fell silent. The DS pressed the button again.
‘What?’ The girl had a low annoyance threshold.
‘We need a word,’ Haddock said.
‘Sure you do,’ she drawled, sarcastically. ‘This is a raid, isn’t it? I’ve heard you lot have been cracking down on students lately, since the national shock troops replaced our so-called friendly local bobbies.’
‘So young and yet so cynical,’ the DS chuckled. ‘If this was a drugs bust, it would be two detective constables ringing your doorbell, and at least one would be female . . . in case of a strip search,’ he added. ‘We don’t give a bugger what you’ve been inhaling, miss. We need to talk to you about Singer, okay? You can come down here if you want but it’s fucking Baltic.’
The young woman gave in. ‘All right, all right. Come on up, if you insist.’ A buzzing sound came from the doorframe; the DS pushed and it swung open.
‘Nice touch about the female DC,’ Pye murmured as they jogged up the two flights of stairs.
The door of 2A was open as they stepped on to the second-floor landing; a tall blond girl in black leggings and a sweatshirt with Prince Harry’s face emblazoned on it stood, waiting. ‘I’m Celia Brown,’ she announced, in a polished accent that came from somewhere well south of Edinburgh. ‘Can I see your ID?’
‘We insist that you do,’ the DCI said as they produced their warrant cards and held them up for inspection.