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Eyes with the glow and hue of wine
Like yours, can daze a man outright…
Emily Pfeiffer
A Rhyme for the Time
On 28 December, the ex-boyfriend of Miss Jones, who’d lived an apparently blameless life for weeks, finally slipped up in grand style, buying a large quantity of coke in front of Dev Shah, then taking it in the company of two escorts, before taking them home to Islington. The exhilarated Miss Jones insisted on coming into the office to see the pictures Shah had taken, then tried to embrace Strike. When he pushed her gently but firmly away she seemed more intrigued than offended. After paying her final bill, she insisted on kissing Strike on the cheek, told him boldly that she owed him a favour and hoped he’d call it in one day, then departed in a cloud of Chanel No. 5.
The following day, the mother in the Groomer case was sent to Indonesia to report on a catastrophic air crash. Shortly before her departure, she called Strike to tell him her daughter was planning to spend New Year’s Eve at Annabel’s with the family of a schoolfriend. She was certain Groomer would try to meet up with her daughter there and demanded that the agency place detectives in the nightclub to keep watch.
Strike, who’d rather have asked almost anyone else for assistance, called Miss Jones, who’d be able to take Strike and Midge into the members-only club as her guests. Strike was set on taking Midge with him, not only because the latter would be able to tail Legs into the bathroom if necessary, but because he didn’t want Miss Jones to think he’d engineered the situation in the hope of sleeping with her.
He felt a callous sense of relief when Miss Jones called him two hours before the proposed rendezvous to tell him her baby daughter had come down with a fever.
‘… and my bloody nanny’s phoned in sick and my parents are in Mustique, so I’m screwed,’ she told him petulantly. ‘But you can still go: I’ve left your names at the door.’
‘I’m very grateful,’ he told her. ‘I hope she gets better soon.’
He rang off before Miss Jones could suggest any further meetings.
By 11 p.m., he and Midge, who was wearing a dark red velvet tuxedo, were to be found in the basement of the club in Berkeley Square, sitting opposite each other at a table between two mirrored pillars and beneath hundreds of golden helium balloons, from which dangled gleaming ribbons. Their seventeen-year-old target was sitting a few tables away with her schoolfriend’s family. She kept glancing towards the restaurant entrance, wearing a look of mingled hope and nervousness. Mobile phones weren’t permitted in Annabel’s, and Strike could see the restless teenager’s mounting frustration at being forced to rely solely on her senses for information.
‘Five o’clock, party of eight,’ Midge said quietly to Strike. ‘You’re getting looks.’
Strike spotted them as Midge said it. A man and a woman at a table of eight had turned in their seats to look at him. The woman, who had long hair of the same red-gold as Robin’s, was wearing a skin-tight black dress and stilettos that laced all the way up her smooth brown legs to her knees. The man, who was sporting a brocade dinner jacket and a foppish cravat, looked vaguely familiar to Strike, though he couldn’t immediately place him.
‘D’you think they’ve recognised you from the papers?’ suggested Midge.
‘Bloody well hope not,’ growled Strike. ‘Or I’m out of business.’
The photo the press used most often dated from Strike’s time in the military and he was now older, longer-haired and carrying much more weight. On those occasions when he’d had to give evidence in court, he’d always done so wearing the heavy beard that grew conveniently quickly when he had need of it.
Strike found his observers’ reflections in a nearby pillar and saw that they were now talking with their heads together. The woman was very good-looking and – atypically, in this room – she appeared not to have had anything obvious done to her face: her forehead still wrinkled when she raised her eyebrows, her lips weren’t unnaturally plump and she was too young – perhaps mid-thirties – to have submitted to the surgery that had left the oldest woman at her table with an unnervingly mask-like appearance.
Beside Strike and Midge, a portly Russian was explaining the plot of Tannhäuser to his much younger female companion.
‘… but Mezdrich has updated it,’ he said, ‘and in this production Jesus now appears in a movie of an orgy in Venus’s cave—’
‘Jesus does?’
‘Da, and so the church is unhappy and Mezdrich will be fired,’ finished the Russian gloomily, raising his glass of champagne to his lips. ‘He’s standing his ground, but it will end badly for him, mark my words.’
‘Legs on the move,’ Strike informed Midge as the teenager stood up with the rest of her party, the ostrich trim on her mini-dress wafting fluffily around her.
‘Dance floor,’ Midge guessed.
She was right. Ten minutes later, Strike and Midge had secured a vantage point in a niche off the tiny dance floor, from where they had a clear view of their target dancing in shoes that appeared a little too high for her, her eyes still darting frequently towards the entrance.
‘Wonder how Robin’s enjoying skiing?’ Midge shouted up to Strike, as ‘Uptown Funk’ began pounding through the room. ‘Mate of mine broke his collarbone first time he tried it. D’you ski?’
‘No,’ said Strike.
‘Nice place, Zermatt,’ said Midge loudly, and then something Strike didn’t catch.
‘What?’ Strike said.
‘I said, “Wonder if she’s pulled?” Good opportunity, New Year’s—’
Legs was gesturing to her schoolfriend that she was going to sit the rest of the dance out. Leaving the dance floor, she snatched up her evening bag and wound her way out of the room.
‘She’s going to use her mobile in the bogs,’ predicted Midge, taking off in pursuit.
Strike remained in the alcove, his bottle of zero-alcohol beer already warm in his hand, his only companion an enormous stucco Bodhisattva. Tipsy people were crammed on the sofas near him, shouting at each other over the music. Strike had just loosened his tie and undone the top button of his shirt when he saw the man in the brocade jacket walking towards him, stumbling over legs and handbags as he approached. Now, at last, Strike placed him: Valentine Longcaster, one of Charlotte’s stepbrothers.
‘Long time no see,’ he yelled when he reached Strike.
‘Yeah,’ said Strike, shaking the proffered hand, ‘how’s it going?’
Valentine reached up and pushed back his long, sweaty fringe, revealing widely dilated pupils.
‘Not bad,’ he shouted over the pounding bass. ‘Can’t complain.’ Strike could see a faint trace of white powder inside one nostril. ‘You here on business or pleasure?’
‘Pleasure,’ lied Strike.
Valentine shouted something indecipherable in which Strike heard the name of Charlotte’s husband, Jago Ross.
‘What?’ he shouted back, unsmiling.
‘I said, Jago wants to name you in the divorce.’
‘He’ll have a job,’ Strike said loudly back. ‘I haven’t seen her in years.’
‘Not what Jago says,’ shouted Valentine. ‘He found a nude picture she sent you, on her old phone.’
Fuck.
Valentine reached out to steady himself on the Bodhisattva. His female companion with the red-gold hair was watching them from the dance floor.
‘That’s Madeline,’ Valentine shouted in Strike’s ear, following his eyeline. ‘She thinks you’re sexy.’
Valentine’s laugh was high-pitched. Strike sipped his beer in silence. At last the younger man seemed to feel no more was to be gained from proximity to Strike, so he pushed himself back upright, gave a mock salute and stumbled out of sight again, just as Legs reappeared on the edge of the dance floor and collapsed onto a velvet stool in a flutter of ostrich features and palpable misery.
‘Ladies’,’ Midge informed Strike, rejoining him a few minutes later. ‘Don’t think she could get phone reception.’
‘Good,’ said Strike brutally.
‘D’you think he told her he was coming?’
‘Looks like it.’
Strike took another mouthful of warm beer and said loudly,
‘So how many people are on this skiing trip with Robin?’
‘I think there’s just six of them,’ Midge yelled back. ‘Two couples and a spare bloke.’
‘Ah,’ said Strike, nodding as though the information were of only casual significance.
‘They’ve been trying to fix her up with him,’ said Midge. ‘She was telling me, before Christmas… Hugh Jacks, his name is.’ She looked at Strike expectantly. ‘Huge axe.’
‘Huh,’ said Strike, with a forced smile.
‘Haha, yeah. Why,’ Midge shouted in his ear, ‘don’t parents say it out loud before they choose the name?’
Strike nodded, eyes on the teenager now wiping her nose on the back of her hand.
It was a quarter to midnight. With luck, Strike thought, once the new year had been rung in, their target would be scooped up by the schoolfriend’s family and taken safely back to their house in Chelsea. As he watched, the schoolfriend arrived to drag Legs back onto the dance floor.
At ten to midnight, Legs disappeared once more in the direction of the Ladies’, Midge on her tail. Strike, whose stump was aching and who wished he could sit down, had no choice but to lean up against the gigantic Bodhisattva because most of the free seats were littered with bags and discarded jackets he didn’t want to move. His beer bottle was now empty.
‘D’you not like New Year’s Eve or something?’ said a working-class London voice beside him.
It was the woman with red-gold hair, now pink-faced and dishevelled from dancing. Her approach had been masked by an upheaval in the seats ahead of him, as nearly everyone had stood up to flood onto the too-small dance floor, excitement mounting as midnight drew closer.
‘Not my favourite,’ he shouted back at her.
She was extremely pretty and definitely high, though speaking perfectly coherently. Several fine gold necklaces hung around her slender neck, the strapless dress was tight across her breasts and the half-empty champagne flute in her hand was in danger of spilling its contents.
‘Nor mine, not this year,’ she shouted up into his ear. He liked hearing an East End accent among all these upper-class ones. ‘You’re Cormoran Strike, right? Valentine told me.’
‘That’s right,’ he said. ‘And you’re…?’
‘Madeline Courson-Miles. Not detecting tonight, are you?’
‘No,’ he lied, but he was in far less of a hurry to shoo her away than he had been with Valentine. ‘Why isn’t this New Year your favourite?’
‘Gigi Cazenove.’
‘Sorry?’
‘Gigi Cazenove,’ she said more loudly, leaning in, her breath tickling his ear. ‘The singer? She was a client of mine.’ When she saw his blank look, she said, ‘She was found hanged this morning.’
‘Shit,’ said Strike.
‘Yeah,’ said Madeline. ‘She was only twenty-three.’
She sipped her champagne, looking sombre, then shouted in his ear:
‘I’ve never met a private detective before.’
‘As far as you know,’ said Strike, and she laughed. ‘What d’you do?’
‘I’m a jeweller,’ she shouted back at him and her slight smile told Strike that most people would have recognised her name.
The dance floor was now heaving with hot bodies. Many people were wearing glittery party hats. Strike could see the portly Russian who’d been talking about Tannhäuser pouring with sweat as he bounced out of time to Clean Bandit’s ‘Rather Be’.
Strike’s thoughts flickered towards Robin, somewhere in the Alps, perhaps drunk on glühwein, dancing with the newly divorced man her friends were insistent she meet. He remembered the look on her face as he’d bent to kiss her.
It’s easy being with you, sang Jess Glynne,
Sacred simplicity,
As long as we’re together,
There’s no place I’d rather be…
‘One minute to 2015, ladies and gentlemen,’ shouted the DJ and Madeline Courson-Miles glanced up at Strike, drained her champagne flute and leaned in to shout into his ear again.
‘Is that tall girl in the tux your date?’
‘No, a friend,’ said Strike. ‘Both at a loose end tonight.’
‘So she wouldn’t mind if I kissed you at midnight?’
He looked down into her lovely, inviting face, the hazel eyes warm, her hair rippling over her bare shoulders.
‘She wouldn’t,’ said Strike, half-smiling.
‘But you would?’
‘Get ready,’ bellowed the DJ.
‘Are you married?’ Strike asked.
‘Divorced,’ said Madeline.
‘Dating anyone?’
‘No.’
‘Ten –’
‘In that case,’ said Cormoran Strike, setting down his empty beer bottle.
‘Eight –’
Madeline bent to put her glass down on a nearby table but missed the edge: it fell onto the carpeted floor and she shrugged as she straightened up.
‘Six – five –’
She wound her arms around his neck; he slid his arms around her waist. She was thinner than Robin: he could feel her ribs through the tight dress. The desire in her eyes was like a balm to him. It was New Year’s Eve. Fuck everything.
‘– three – two – one –’
She pressed herself into him, her hands now in his hair, her tongue in his mouth. The air around them was rent with screams and applause. They didn’t release each other until the first raucous bars of ‘Auld Lang Syne’ had been sung. Strike glanced around. There was no sign of either Midge or Legs.
‘I’m going to have to leave soon,’ he shouted, ‘but I want your number.’
‘Gimme your phone, then.’
She typed her number in for him, then handed the phone back. With a wink, she turned and walked away, disappearing into the crowd.
Midge didn’t reappear for another quarter of an hour. Legs rejoined her schoolfriend’s party, her mascara smudged.
‘She kept trying to find somewhere she could get reception, but no luck,’ Midge bellowed in his ear. ‘So she went back to the bogs for a good sob.’
‘Too bad,’ said Strike.
‘Have you got lipstick on you?’ asked Midge, staring up at him.
He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
‘Met an old friend of my mother’s,’ he said. ‘Well – happy 2015.’
‘Same to you,’ said Midge, extending a hand, which he shook. As she looked out over the jubilant crowd, where balloons were being batted around and glitter was exploding from party poppers, Midge shouted into Strike’s ear, ‘Never seen in the new year in a toilet before. Hope it’s not an omen.’