And here it is: she finishes counting and confirms what she already knows. The bag contains a hundred and eighty-five thousand pounds, give or take a few hundred, in fifties and twenties. And on Monday morning it will go into the bank, and from the bank it will go into the white economy.
She does a last check round the office. Now all she has to do is take the cash down to the safe that’s sunk in concrete in the basement store cupboard, do a last visual round the bar, and then she can lock up and leave it to the cleaners. She quite likes this time of night, despite the smell of spilled drink and sweat and poppers, the lonely smell of spooge from the back rooms. She likes it when the lights are fully up and she can see how this place the punters think is fairyland is made of smoke and mirrors. Velvet benches in pure, liquid-shrugging nylon; the light-up dance floor that’s black with sticky muck, the ornate Louis XV-style mirrors whose frames are made from purest polystyrene. Even Nefertiti herself, presiding over the entrance lobby with her black bangs and her golden crook, titties out for the lads, was cast in stone-effect resin in a factory in Guiyang. She turns out the office lights, turns the key in the door and walks down the stairs.
The bars are based along a white-painted brick corridor lined with curtains in more velvet, royal blue trimmed with gold fringes this time, all hanging from long poles that allow the staff to pull them across and cut off rooms for privacy or move the VIP area around to suit the crowd that’s in, and even close off sections altogether. The reputation of all nightclubs rests on the punters having felt that they were in a crowd, and in Nefertiti’s they can make a crowd of a couple of dozen people if they have to. She walks along the corridor, checking each room as she passes it, making sure no strays have stayed, or passed out unnoticed behind a couch, turning off the lights as she goes. It’s only when she’s halfway to the end that she realises that she’s not alone.
Something’s going on in the Luxor Lounge. Something physical, repetitive and energetic. Sex? Is someone shagging in there? Who is it? Someone left behind? Her own staff, doing the worker’s fuck-you to the bosses?
She slows her pace, quietens the sound of her steps. The corridor is thickly carpeted in black with a gold border and little gold stars. Just a small amount of pattern will hide a multitude of sins. As she approaches, she becomes less sure that it’s sex she’s hearing. There are grunts, and sighs, but also, she’s sure, the sound of groans; and, behind it all, low laughs and chat, as though whoever’s making the sounds is providing the entertainment for a corporate shindig. As she nears the curtain that’s pulled across the entrance, she slows her walk down to a creep, positions herself against the wall and peeps in through a crack in the cloth.
The Luxor Lounge is black and red, dark colours that don’t show the dirt. A good thing, because what’s coming out of the mouth of the man on the floor will never scrub away.
There are six people in the Luxor Lounge. There’s the man who lies still on the floor, as though he has long since given up protecting his vulnerable parts, whose face is so swollen his mother wouldn’t recognise him; Tony Stott, her boss, the big man, the wunderkind, four years younger than she is and millions of pounds richer, all designer suit and gold cufflinks, clean-shaven even at this time of night, his tight curls cut close to his head; a woman she’s not seen before, low-key in a grey suit that, from its cut, she knows didn’t come from Debenhams; a much older man, late fifties, maybe, who wears a dark wool overcoat as though he’s at a funeral. The three of them stand by the bar with an open bottle of Remy, drinking from snifters, watching Malik Otaran and Burim Sadiraj kick and kick and kick. As she watches, she sees the man’s head snap back on his neck. A spurt of blood arches from his crumpled nose, beautiful in its elegance. Malik stands on one foot, lifts up the other to knee height, and stamps down.
She gasps.
The Luxor Lounge falls quiet. Five heads, smiles freezing on faces, pupils still distended with arousal, turn and look in her direction.
Lisa runs for the exit. Knows that she’s running for her life.
Chapter Two
He’s a magnificent cat. Rangy and black and swaggering, with great vampire incisors that extend most of the way to his jawline. Green eyes and a kinked tail that speak of oriental blood, and a scarred left ear that shows that he’s not afraid to fight.
Today he is asserting his mastery of his territory by visiting. He’s been attached to the house for so long that no one remembers who originally brought him here, or if, indeed, anybody did. Some tenants shoo him away with angry hisses, afraid of his panther grace and unblinking stare, some sweep him into their arms with coos and growls of admiration, give him a warm place to sleep, and weep when they, as they all do, have to leave him behind. Twenty-six tenants have passed through the house on Beulah Grove since he took up residence, and he has never gone hungry enough to move on himself. He has had many names and for now it’s Psycho.
He stands in the window – The Lover has thrown it open because the heat inside is so stifling he’s afraid he’ll make the air damp with his sweat – and surveys the space, then leaps on to the back of the chair where the girl sits. He leans forward and sniffs her ginger hair, touches an ear with his fine damp nose. Affronted by her failure to respond he raises his face and looks up at the man. Blinks.
The Lover is weeping. He sits in a folding chair against the far wall, his face buried in his hands, and rocks. The tears come more quickly every time. He used to have a few hours – even a day or two – in which to savour the company, enjoy the romance, before the despair overtook him; to hold the hand and stroke the cheek and take pleasure in togetherness. But each event seems less delightful than the last, seems to pass so quickly that, almost as soon as it’s done, the yearning begins again, the loneliness breaking over his head like a wave.
He’s apologising, as he always does. ‘I’m sorry,’ he says, and the words catch, salty, in his throat. ‘Oh, Nikki, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean it.’
She doesn’t reply. Stares, vacant, past his shoulder, her mouth half open, surprised.
‘You just…’ he says. ‘I was afraid you were going to go away again. I can’t bear it, you see. Can’t bear it. I’m so alone.’
He continues to weep. He’s consumed with self-pity, eaten up with the emptiness of his existence. My life is full of busy-work, he thinks. I do and I act and I help and I organise, and at the end of the day it’s always the same. Just me. Me, alone, and the world going on as though I had never existed. They wouldn’t notice – none of them – for months, if I disappeared. Families like mine, no money, fractured marriages, siblings only half-related and homes already full to bursting, we drift apart when someone goes away. I don’t speak to my half-brother or sisters from one year’s end to the next, just bump into them sometimes when I make the trip back at Christmas. Worst of all, my mother always sounds surprised to hear my voice on the phone, though she hears it, regular as clockwork, first Sunday of every month, while Songs of Praise is on. They wouldn’t notice. Nobody would notice. I would vanish in a puff of smoke and make a nasty clearing-up job for someone further down the line.