Career of Evil

Strike paid an exorbitant amount for a vodka and lime, which she sipped primly on a seat beside him, most of her breasts hanging out of the dress. The texture of her skin reminded him of the murdered Kelsey: smooth and firm, with plenty of youthful fat. There were three small blue stars inked on her shoulder.

“Maybe you know my friend?” Strike said. “Noel Brockbank.”

She was no fool, little Orla. Suspicion and calculation mingled in the sharp sideways look she gave him. She was wondering, like the masseuse back in Market Harborough, whether he was police.

“He owes me money,” said Strike.

She continued to scrutinize him for a moment, her smooth forehead furrowed, then apparently swallowed the lie.

“Noel,” she repeated. “I tink he’s gone. Hang on — Edie?”

The bored barmaid did not take her eyes from the TV.

“Hmm?”

“What was the name of yer man that Des sacked the other week? Guy who only lasted a few days?”

“Dunno what he was called.”

“Yeah, I tink it was Noel who was sacked,” Orla told Strike. Then, with a sudden and endearing bluntness, she said: “Gimme a tenner an’ I’ll make sure for ya.”

With a mental sigh, Strike handed over a note.

“Wait there, now,” said Orla cheerfully. She slipped off her bar stool, tucked the tenner into the elastic of her pants, tugged her dress down inelegantly and sauntered over to the DJ, who scowled over at Strike while Orla spoke to him. He nodded curtly, his jowly face glowing in the red light, and Orla came trotting back looking pleased with herself.

“I tort so!” she told Strike. “I wasn’t here when it happened, but he had a fit or sometin’.”

“A fit?” repeated Strike.

“Yeah, it was only his first week on the job. Big guy, wasn’t he? Wit a big chin?”

“That’s right,” said Strike.

“Yeah, an’ he was late, and Des wasn’t happy. Dat’s Des, over dare,” she added unnecessarily, pointing out the DJ who was watching Strike suspiciously while changing the track from “Are ‘Friends’ Electric?” to Cyndi Lauper’s “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun.” “Des was givin’ out to him about being late and your man just dropped to the floor an’ started writhin’ around. They say,” added Orla, with relish, “he pissed himself.”

Strike doubted that Brockbank would have urinated over himself to escape a dressing down from Des. It sounded as though he had genuinely had an epileptic fit.

“Then what happened?”

“Your mate’s gorlfriend come runnin’ out the back—”

“What girlfriend’s this?”

“Hang on — Edie?”

“Hm?”

“Who’s dat black gorl, now, with the extensions? The one with the great knockers? The one Des doesn’t like?”

“Alyssa,” said Edie.

“Alyssa,” Orla told Strike. “She come runnin’ out the back and was screamin’ at Des to phone an ambulance.”

“Did he?”

“Yeah. Dey took yer man away, and Alyssa went with him.”

“And has Brock — has Noel been back since?”

“He’s no bloody use as a bouncer if he’s gonna fall down and piss himself just ’cause someone’s shoutin’ at him, is he?” said Orla. “I heard Alyssa wanted Des to give him a second chance, but Des doesn’t give second chances.”

“So Alyssa called Des a tight cunt,” said Edie, emerging suddenly from her listlessness, “and he sacked her too. Silly bitch. She needs the money. She’s got kids.”

“When did all this happen?” Strike asked Orla and Edie.

“Couple of weeks ago,” said Edie. “But he was a creep, that guy. Good riddance.”

“In what way was he a creep?” asked Strike.

“You can always tell,” said Edie with a kind of hard-bitten weariness. “Always. Alyssa’s got fucking terrible taste in men.”

The second stripper was now down to her thong and twerking enthusiastically towards her scanty audience. Two older men had just entered the club and hesitated before approaching the bar, their eyes on the thong, which was clearly about to come off.

“You don’t know where I’d find Noel, do you?” Strike asked Edie, who seemed too bored to demand money for the information.

“He’s living with Alyssa, somewhere in Bow,” said the barmaid. “She got herself a council house but she was always bitching about the place. I don’t know exactly where it is,” she said, forestalling Strike’s question. “I never went round or nothing.”

“I tort she liked it,” said Orla vaguely. “She said there was a good nursery.”

The stripper had wriggled out of her thong and was waving it over her head, lasso-style. Having seen all there was to see, the two new punters drifted to the bar. One of them, a man old enough to be Orla’s grandfather, fixed his rheumy eyes on her cleavage. She sized him up, businesslike, then turned to Strike.

“So, you wanna private dance or not?”

“I don’t think I will,” said Strike.

Before the words were even fully out of his mouth she had put down her glass, wriggled off the chair and slid towards the sixty-year-old, who grinned, revealing more gaps than teeth.

A hulking figure appeared at Strike’s side: the neckless bouncer.

“Des wants a word,” he said in what would have been a menacing tone had his voice not been surprisingly high-pitched for a man so broad.

Strike looked around. The DJ, who was glaring across the room at him, beckoned.