Death Message

Saving it up.

Instead, he turned and walked quickly past, pushed back through the crowd towards the raised platform at the far end of the room. Plenty of people mouthing off at him now as he barged across the floor. Leading with his head, sending drinks flying and lurching up to the DJ booth.

Reaching up to slap his warrant card against the glass.

‘Turn it off…’

The DJ peered down at him as though he were mad. Thorne moved round swiftly and climbed up the short staircase. Realising that this was no ordinary request, the DJ was already pulling off his headphones as Thorne leaned across the decks to grab a handful of his shirt.

‘TURN. IT. OFF!’

It was odd, that second or more before the dancing stopped. The lights still swooped and wheeled around the floor as all heads turned towards the platform. A few shouts above the hubbub; arms raised as clubbers demanded to know what was happening.

Thorne leaned into the microphone. ‘Phil?’

There was a torrent of abuse from the dance floor. Demands that he be thrown out.

The microphone distorted as he pressed his mouth against it. ‘Phil Hendricks?’

Thorne stared into the light, waiting, his warrant card held out for the benefit of two enormous bouncers who were barrelling towards the platform. Five long seconds had almost become ten when his phone rang.

‘Maybe that’s him,’ someone shouted.

With the phone still buzzing in his fist, Thorne dropped down to the dance floor. He shook off grabbing hands, pushed the heels of his own into somebody’s chest as he rushed to get out. He caught sight of Holland fighting his way towards him, while the music started up again and he drove his shoulder into the door, hurrying outside to take Louise’s call.

‘I’m on my way to Waterloo,’ she said.

‘What’s in Waterloo?’ Thorne crossed over Wardour Street and took shelter in a shop doorway.

While Louise was telling him about the sighting at The Adam, he saw Holland come out and scan the street for him. He raised an arm and Holland jogged across through the downpour.

‘I’ll get to you as quick as I can,’ Thorne said.

‘No point. Anyway, I’ve got Ke

When Thorne told her, Louise suggested that he and Holland check out every bar and small club on Old Compton Street. None of them were regular haunts, as far as she knew, but she guessed that Hendricks had been into most of them at one time or another. ‘It can’t hurt,’ she said.

Thorne smacked his hand against the shop window then started walking. ‘Waste of fucking time.’

At his shoulder, Holland pushed back his wet hair and asked what was going on. Thorne grimaced, shook his head.

‘What else are you going to do?’ Louise asked.

Porter wasn’t paying, obviously, but she clocked the fifteen-pound entrance fee as she went in. The other places had been cheaper, but not by much. Three or four different clubs, and four quid a pop for drinks, she couldn’t help wondering how much cash Phil Hendricks got through during a typical Saturday night on the razzle.

She and Parsons might have waltzed to the front of the queue and past the ticket office, but there was still an awkward moment when a security guard – with the obligatory long black coat and earpiece – put out a hand to stop them at the door to the club itself.

Porter just stared. Parsons told the man to move.

The bouncer looked awkward, reddened when he spoke to Porter. ‘I’m not sure if I should search your bag or not.’ He stepped back when Parsons put a hand on his arm. ‘I don’t know, you might be carrying weapons.’

‘Several,’ Porter said.

It might just have been the newness, but Vada seemed classier than The Adam. The music was less insistent, and there was more space to move; the dance floor itself took up only a small area of the main room. The atmosphere was not as frenzied, and Porter imagined the place would fill up later, as clubbers looked for somewhere to talk or wind down.

Men danced close, to synthesised voices and a soft beat, as she and Parsons made their way across the room towards the bar. The designers had tried for something louche and late-sixties in the black and red velvet of the furnishings, fibre-optic table lamps, and blown-up portraits of Caine and Jagger on the walls.

Porter got nothing useful from the bar-staff, so she and Parsons split up to explore the rest of the club.

Unfortunately, the lighting was just as moody and atmospheric as the sound. Plenty of dark corners and pools of shadow, as Porter searched; looking for a black, maybe a silver shirt; a cropped hairline, softer at the back of the neck, where a tattoo began. Listening for a familiar, filthy laugh as she moved close to the tables and banquettes, in the areas where the music was deadened by walls of glass bricks.

Trying to stay optimistic.

There was a quieter bar at the top of a small staircase. Porter stalked from corner to corner, aware from some of the looks she received that her expression of frustration was perhaps being mistaken for disapproval. It couldn’t be helped.

The barman here was no more help than the one downstairs, suggesting to Porter that her friend probably hadn’t come in yet.

She felt another rush of anger at Thorne. He would say he hadn’t lied, of course, that he’d been protecting her, but she knew that was bollocks. The anger subsided when a man who matched the description of Marcus Brooks walked past her and smiled; as she found herself wondering how many coppers there might be in the place, aside from herself and Ke

On cue, the DS appeared at the doorway of the bar and shook his head. A look that suggested he’d done enough arse-licking for one Saturday night and was ready for home.

They walked out of the bar and down the stairs, with Porter checking a series of small lounges as they went, determined to cover every inch of the place before she gave up. She was on the verge of doing exactly that – wondering what the fuck was going to happen now with Thorne, what she could say to comfort him, should anything happen – when she finally saw a face she recognised.

The man was sitting in the third of the chill-out rooms, near the door, with two other men and a woman. There was a fair selection of bottles and glasses on the table between them.

Porter had no time for introductions, so let her warrant card make them for her. ‘I’ve met you before,’ she said. ‘With Phil Hendricks.’

‘Almost certainly,’ the man said. He ground out a cigarette, blew a thin stream of smoke across the table, then looked up; over Porter’s shoulder and beyond. ‘He’s knocking around somewhere.’

Porter felt something give in her stomach. ‘Where?’

The man’s eyes were still searching. ‘He was with some skinhead type. Getting very cosy.’

Porter turned, looked out through the doorway for any sign of Hendricks.

‘They were here ten minutes ago…’

Porter bolted for the door, with the man and his friends still discussing things behind her. She was scrabbling for her phone as she caught sight of Parsons at the other end of the corridor; dialled as he came ru

‘Tom, he’s here, or he was, and maybe Brooks. You should probably get over.’ She left the address and hung up.

‘Where the fuck haven’t we been?’

‘Offices?’ Parsons suggested. ‘Toilets?’

Parsons rushed towards the gents’ and Porter made for the ladies’ at the other end of the carpeted corridor. Inside, one woman stood at the marbled sink and stared as Porter slammed back cubicle doors. Nothing.

Before the door had swung shut behind her, Porter was moving down to the far end of the corridor. She took a left and found herself in the kitchens; stared past the two waitresses sitting on the counter and backed quickly out again.

There was nowhere else to go.