The Cuckoo's Calling(113)
Ciara and Strike emerged into flashes like gunfire; Strike’s retinas were in sudden, dazzling whiteout; he ducked his head, his hand closed instinctively around Ciara Porter’s slender upper arm, and he steered her ahead of him through the black oblong that represented sanctuary, as the doors opened magically to admit them. The queuing hordes were shouting, protesting at their easy entry, yelping with excitement; and then the flashes stopped, and they were inside, where there was an industrial roar of noises, and a loud insistent bass line.
“Wow, you’ve got a great sense of direction,” said Ciara. “I usually, like, ricochet off the bouncers and they have to push me in.”
Streaks and blazes of purple and yellow light were still burned across Strike’s field of vision. He dropped her arm. She was so pale that she looked almost luminous in the gloom. Then they were jostled further inside the club by the entry of another dozen people behind them.
“C’mon,” said Ciara, and she slipped a soft, long-fingered hand inside his and tugged him along behind her.
Faces turned as they walked through the packed crowd, both of them taller by far than the majority of clubbers. Strike could see what looked like long glass fish tanks set into the walls, containing what seemed to be great floating blobs of wax, reminding him of his mother’s old lava lamps. There were long black leather banquettes along the walls, and, further in, nearer the dance floor, booths. It was hard to tell how big the club was, because of judiciously placed mirrors; at one point, Strike caught a glimpse of himself, head-on, looking like a sharply dressed heavy behind the silvery sylph that was Ciara. The music pounded through every part of him, vibrating through his head and body; the crowd on the dance floor was so dense that it seemed miraculous that they were managing even to stamp and sway.
They had reached a padded doorway, guarded by a bald bouncer who grinned at Ciara, revealing two gold teeth, and pushed open the concealed entrance.
They entered a quieter, though hardly less crowded bar area that was evidently reserved for the famous and their friends. Strike noticed a miniskirted television presenter, a soap actor, a comedian primarily famous for his sexual appetite; and then, in a distant corner, Evan Duffield.
He was wearing a skull-patterned scarf wound around his neck and skintight black jeans, sitting at the join of two black leather banquettes with arms stretched at right angles along the backs of the benches on either side, where his companions, mostly women, were crammed. His dark shoulder-length hair had been dyed blonde; he was pallid and bony-faced, and the smudges around his bright turquoise eyes were dark purple.
The group containing Duffield was emanating an almost magnetic force over the room. Strike saw it in the sneaking sidelong glances other occupants were shooting them; in the respectful space left around them, a wider orbit than anybody else had been granted. Duffield and his cohorts’ apparent unselfconsciousness was, Strike recognized, nothing but expert artifice; they had, all of them, the hyper-alertness of the prey animal combined with the casual arrogance of predators. In the inverted food chain of fame, it was the big beasts who were stalked and hunted; they were receiving their due.
Duffield was talking to a sexy brunette. Her lips were parted as she listened, almost ludicrously immersed in him. As Ciara and Strike drew nearer, Strike saw Duffield glance away from the brunette for a fraction of a second, making, Strike thought, a lightning-fast recce of the bar, taking the measure of the room’s attention, and of other possibilities it might offer.
“Ciara!” he yelled hoarsely.
The brunette looked deflated as Duffield jumped nimbly to his feet; thin and yet well muscled, he slid out from behind the table to embrace Ciara, who was eight inches taller than he in her platform shoes; she dropped Strike’s hand to return the hug. The whole bar seemed, for a few shining moments, to be watching; then they remembered themselves, and returned to their chat and their cocktails.
“Evan, this is Cormoran Strike,” said Ciara. She moved her mouth close to Duffield’s ear and Strike saw rather than heard her say, “He’s Jonny Rokeby’s son!”
“All right, mate?” asked Duffield, holding out a hand, which Strike shook.
Like other inveterate womanizers Strike had encountered, Duffield’s voice and mannerisms were slightly camp. Perhaps such men became feminized by prolonged immersion in women’s company, or perhaps it was a way of disarming their quarry. Duffield indicated with a flutter of the hand that the others should move along the bench to make room for Ciara; the brunette looked crestfallen. Strike was left to find himself a low stool, drag it alongside the table and ask Ciara what she wanted to drink.
“Oooh, get me a Boozy-Uzi,” she said, “and use my money, sweetie.”
Her cocktail smelled strongly of Pernod. Strike bought himself water, and returned to the table. Ciara and Duffield were now almost nose to nose, talking; but when Strike set down the drinks, Duffield looked around.
“So what d’you do, Cormoran? Music biz?”
“No,” said Strike. “I’m a detective.”
“No shit,” said Duffield. “Who’m I supposed to have killed this time?”
The group around him permitted themselves wry, or nervous, smiles, but Ciara said:
“Don’t joke, Evan.”
“I’m not joking, Ciara. You’ll notice when I am, because it’ll be f*cking funny.”