Who's That Girl Read online

  The harsh Liverpudlian accent was an endearing part of the act, and the coarse language coming from such a pretty thing made it all the funnier.

  “You’ll be amazing.”

  Patty shuddered.

  “Oh God, I can’t stand the waiting around.”

  The words were barely said, when the temporary light they’d rigged up in the storeroom flashed red, calling her to the stage. Joe kissed the air either side of Patty’s face, careful not to smudge any make-up.

  “You can do this,” he said.

  Patty smiled. Joe turned her around and propelled her towards the door.

  “Wait,” she said, tottering back to the make-up table. “I need my feathers!”

  And with that, Patty was gone in a chorus of support from the other acts, feather boa wafting behind her, one final “Ooh!” called over her shoulder in chorus with Madonna. Joe smiled at the retreating figure. Patty made a great woman. Ankles, cheekbones and an arse to die for.

  “Everything alright back here then, ladies?” Joe asked. “Got everything you need?”

  “Glorious,” one of them said in a voice like gravel and honey. “Just like the fucking Palladium, love.”

  Reg Blakeley—or Mrs Saddlewick as her fans knew her—was one of the longest serving and most admired female impersonators on the scene. She spent so much of her time in drag that most people could be forgiven for thinking she was Mrs Saddlewick.

  She was a great act, but, boy, did she like the sound of her own voice. With a sharp tongue, a keen mind and vocabulary that would make a navvy wince, she was never backward in coming forward.

  As tonight’s star turn, she’d kicked up a hell of a fuss when she’d realised she was going to have to share the cramped storeroom with the other performers, but fortunately Danny had quickly stepped in to smooth things over. He knew her well, and was able to talk down her tantrum with little more than the offer of free drinks all night. Joe didn’t want to set her off again.

  “Excellent,” he said. “Well, good luck all, I’ll be cheering you on from the wings.”

  As he stepped back into the corridor, he could hear Patty’s opening number kicking off to rapturous applause. This was the closest to a home crowd she would probably ever see. Hopefully they’d be kind.

  Joe intended to watch her from the sidelines, so that he could be there to support her when she came off. As he headed back towards the wings, he was barged aside by someone running away from the stage.

  “Hey,” he called, turning to see the same drag queen he’d had to navigate around earlier hurrying down the corridor. Dark wig, plain dress, blue heels clattering on the lino floor as she made off towards the dressing room. There was something wrong with the way she was running. Uneven. As though she was limping.

  Joe didn’t know who she was, but she wasn’t on the line up and he didn’t want any trouble tonight. He started back down the corridor after her.

  “Hey! You can’t be back here. This area is for performers only.”

  She didn’t even turn at the sound of his voice. If anything, she seemed to move even faster, as though she knew where she was heading. But she ran straight past the dressing room, and Joe slowed. There was nothing down there apart from the emergency fire door.

  Joe heard the metal door slam open and then bang closed again, the sound echoing angrily up the hall. The slam had barely faded when it was replaced by a piercing scream from the side of the stage.

  Russell saw Patty falter as the scream from offstage rose above her warbling performance. A terrible moment of hesitation as she tried to figure out whether it was a joke or if something awful had happened.

  Russell knew from the hollow desperation in the scream that it was no joke. He was on his feet and hurtling towards the stage before he could think about what he was doing.

  Among the theatrical flats that made up the temporary stage wings, Russell found the source of the scream: the first performer of the night, Maybelle Leen, was on her knees beside Danny’s body.

  Danny’s once crisp white outfit was stained with a line of blood from a single stab wound to his chest. His hat had rolled across the floor when he fell, but his cane was still tightly gripped in his right hand. His glass lay broken beside his body, the contents staining the cuff of his jacket.

  Russell gently lifted the traumatised performer away from the body and crouched down beside Danny, feeling for a pulse. There was nothing. Danny was dead.

  Patty appeared in the wings, her fellow performer now whimpering at the sight of Danny’s blood on her hands. Russell looked up at her.

  “Call the police,” he said, as pandemonium broke out front of stage. “There’s a phone behind the bar. And try to keep people in the building until they get here. They’ll want to talk to any witnesses.”

  For once, Patty didn’t panic, but dashed back onto the stage and disappeared into the confused audience, heading straight for the bar.

  Russell guessed by the noise levels out front that containing people until the police showed up would be a tough job. He could hear Ron, the barman, trying to tell people to stay put and calm down, his own voice filled with panic. No one was listening.

  “What’s going on?” Joe asked, arriving on the scene and stopping in his tracks as he saw Danny’s prone body. “Oh God. What’s happened? Is he alright?”

  “Stay back,” said Russell. “He’s been stabbed.”

  “What? But I was just speaking to him not ten minutes ago.”

  Joe hovered behind him, trying to get a better look at the body to confirm what he’d just been told. Strange, thought Russell, the way we humans always have to see for ourselves.

  Russell lifted Danny’s suit jacket to reveal the stab wound—small, round, deep, straight into the chest.

  “That’s right in the heart, I’d hazard,” Russell mused. „He would have died pretty quickly, if that’s any mercy.”

  He let the suit jacket close again, and raised Danny’s right hand, still clutching the cane. The rounded white handle had the smallest scuff of dirt on it. Looking closer, Russell realised it wasn’t dirt, but make-up—foundation with a glittering hint of rouge. Whoever had attacked Danny would be sporting a nice bruise on her cheek for a few days.

  “Looks like Danny tried to fight back,” Russell said. “See?”

  Joe crouched down beside him and looked closer.

  “Make-up?” he asked.

  “Exactly.”

  Russell picked up the bottom half of Danny’s broken glass and sniffed it, wincing.

  “What was he drinking?” Russell asked.

  “Cinzano, as far as I know. That’s what he usually drank.”

  “Smells disgusting,” Russell said. “So sweet.”

  “Bloody rocket fuel, that. Especially the way Ron makes them,” Joe replied, lifting Danny’s left hand and peering at it closely. Several strands of dark hair were wrapped around his fingers. He picked one of the hairs free and examined it between his fingers.

  “Look at this,” he said.

  “What is it?”

  “Synthetic,” he said. “A wig. And a pretty cheap one at that.”

  He held the hair up to the light for Russell to see.

  “Dark brown,” Russell said. “Which is neither Belle nor Patty. So who’s the brunette?”

  Joe let the hair drop, looking at Russell wild-eyed. And then he was on his feet and sprinting down the corridor towards the fire escape.

  Joe burst through the fire door, hearing it slam back against the wall just as it had before when he’d seen the dark-haired drag queen running away. He should have gone after her straight away.

  He looked up and down the street. It was still surprisingly light outside—the sky only just beginning to fade into that late summer twilight.

  Groups of drinkers—a heady mix of suited yuppies, flamboyant artists, tattooed punks and general layabouts—gathered around tables outside another bar further up the street, laughing and chatting, utterly oblivious to what had
just happened inside the pub.

  The pavement in the other direction was clear and empty. A streetlight flickered to life. A neon pink sign flashed on and off, advertising the live show on the corner. It would be dark soon.

  There was no sign of the mysterious woman in either direction. Joe had wasted too much time coming after her. He turned back to the fire escape and stopped.

  On the floor just outside the door was a single stiletto shoe. Dark-blue and glittering. Joe crouched down and picked it up, turning it over in his hands. The heel had snapped off at the base and was now dangling by a thin thread of overlapping fabric.

  Danny’s attacker would never have been able to run in this. No wonder she’d looked like she was limping.

  He realised that the end of the heel had left a smear on the palm of his hand. It looked like blood. Joe almost dropped it.

  Not wanting to get locked out, he eased the fire escape door back so it was almost closed but not locked from the outside, and set off along the pavement, still clutching the shoe. He was acting on instinct here, nothing more than a hunch. She couldn’t have got far in one stiletto on these filthy Soho streets, could she?

  Sure enough, he saw a black cab take a left turn out of the end of the street. In the back seat was the same drag queen he’d seen running from the club. The straight dark wig, the fine features, angled cheekbones, panicked eyes staring at Joe. She looked vaguely familiar. Who was she?

  Just like that, the taxi turned the corner and she was gone. Joe looked down at the shoe dangling from his fingers. Not quite a Cinderella story, but at least it was a clue.

  Russell arrived on the pavement outside the club, letting the fire door slam shut before Joe could stop him.

  “Dammit,” Russell said, realising what he’d done. “Sorry. What’s going on, Joe?”

  “Look at this,” Joe said, holding the broken shoe out for Russell to see. “It’s covered in blood. I think this might be what did for Danny.”

  “What?” Russell said, peering into his open hand. “Wow. Talk about a killer heel.”

  “There was this girl,” Joe said. “I saw her in the club earlier, right by the stage. She didn’t really seem to be that into the performance, but I didn’t think that much of it because Belle was on, and she’s not everyone’s cup of tea, is she?”

  Russell nodded an agreement as they headed off towards the corner of the block. They’d have to get back into the pub through the front door.

  “Anyway, I went backstage, chatted to Danny, then went into the dressing room to see Patty. When I came out, the same girl ran past me and out of this fire door. And then, obviously, I found you with Danny.”

  “What did she look like?”

  “Well, a bad drag, if I’m honest.”

  Russell looked at him sideways, seeking an explanation.

  “Just a bit cheap,” Joe clarified. “And plain. Like, her wig was this lanky, shoulder length bob. Cheap synthetic from the way the strands were all sticking to each other.”

  “She wasn’t one of the acts then?”

  “No, I’ve never seen her before,” Joe said. “She was tall, though, especially in these.” He held up the shoe. “But everything else was a bit plain. Apart from the heels, she looked more like she was going to a parents’ evening than a drag night.”

  “Maybe she was trying to blend in? If she’d come with murder on her mind, she wouldn’t want to stand out of the crowd too much, would she?”

  “Well, if that was the case, she’d have been better off overdoing it a bit more, wouldn’t she? She stood out like a sore thumb in that crowd.”

  They rounded the corner and Russell faltered.

  “Oh great,” he said.

  Joe looked up to see what was troubling him, and spotted Detective Skinner—the nasty, homophobic cop, who had been instrumental in getting Russell removed from the force—climb out of an unmarked Ford Sierra and stride towards the pub.

  Skinner had been the detective supposedly in charge of Chris’s murder case, too, and his lack of interest in pursuing the case had been what had encouraged Russell and Joe to join forces and solve it themselves. When they’d handed the killer in at the station, Russell had hoped the complaint he’d made would result in some kind of disciplinary for Skinner. Obviously it hadn’t been enough to remove him from the job.

  “Come on,” said Joe, taking Russell’s arm and guiding him towards the door. “It’s better we talk to him first, before he starts on any of that lot in there.”

  Joe was right, of course, but Russell still felt a sense of dread at the thought of having to deal with Skinner again. Whilst looking into Chris’s murder, Russell had confirmed his suspicion that Skinner was a vicious, bent cop, who was on the payroll of some of Soho’s shadier characters.

  He had made no bones about his disgust at Russell’s sexuality, and he had deliberately obstructed the investigation into Chris’s death, simply because Chris was gay and Skinner thought that was a free pass to a short life.

  His active hatred of the gay community would be a problem again with this case, Russell had no doubt. He would take one look at the clientele of the pub that evening, and deduce that Danny’s death was just an inevitable outcome of the depravity that Skinner maintained went hand-in-glove with London’s gay scene.

  Nonetheless, Joe was right—it was better he spoke to Skinner himself, rather than leaving it to the shocked punters inside. So, Russell steeled himself and led the way back into the pub, with Joe hot on his heels.

  Skinner was already on the stage, looking around at the assembled crowd of bedraggled queens. Mascara-smeared cheeks and lopsided wigs. No one here, apart from Skinner, cared. They had all just lost one of their own. A great supporter. A lovely man.

  Russell hurried over to meet Skinner as the detective headed into the makeshift stage wings.

  “Detective Skinner,” he said, sounding a lot brighter than he felt. “I see you’re back on the team.”

  Skinner turned, snarling with unconcealed distaste.

  “You?”

  “We’ve really must stop meeting like this,” Russell said, smiling a false little flirtation. "Anyone would think you were stalking me."

  He’d been Skinner’s boss once. He wasn’t going to let this weasel intimidate him. Joe caught up with them as both men squared up to each other. Skinner looked him up and down, lip curling again.

  “I see you’ve still got Boy Wonder in tow,” Skinner sneered.

  “Detective,” Joe said, flatly. He had no time for the man either.

  “I do hope you weren’t too inconvenienced by our last efforts,” Russell said. “We didn’t mean to get you into too much trouble. But it’s always nice to see a crime properly solved, isn’t it? Justice done, and all that.”

  Skinner took a deep breath. The reminder of his recent disciplinary would keep him vaguely civil for now.

  “I don’t have time to talk to you, right now,” Skinner said. “I have a death to investigate.”

  “Oh, I think you could call it a murder,” Russell said. “I’ve seen the body. In fact, I was one of the first on the scene, so I’m afraid you’re going to have to talk to me anyway.”

  He smiled disingenuously. Skinner tried to mould his face into anything but a slapped-arse, and failed.

  “I can wait while you get up to speed,” Russell said. But I haven’t got all night."

  “Have a seat,” Skinner said, head cocked to one side. “I’ll be over to take your statements as soon as I’m ready.”

  Skinner turned and stormed off into the wings, where a uniformed officer was already standing over Danny’s body.

  Russell and Joe headed over to the bar to wait and found the barman, Ron—another friend of theirs—trying to reassure distressed punters that everything was okay, and they’d be allowed to leave soon. He looked ashen himself, so his reassurances were falling on deaf ears.

  As soon as Russell and Joe sat down, the questions began flying from all sides.

 
“What happened?”

  “Was he murdered?”

  “Who killed him?”

  “What if they come back?”

  Most people there knew that Russell used to be in the police and, more importantly, everyone knew that Russell and Joe had been the ones to work out what had happened to Chris. Plus, they’d been the organisers of tonight’s fundraiser. So it was only natural that people were turning to them for answers now.

  “Hold on, all of you,” Ron said, placing a full pint each on the bar in front of both Russell and Joe. “We’ve all had a shock. Let’s just have a drink and see what the police want to do next.”

  Russell was grateful for Ron’s stoic pragmatism, even if there was a hint that he was just trying to break even on the bar for tonight. Ron had been running The Red Lion in Soho for longer than Russell had lived and worked here, and he’d always been a friendly ear. He took in all sorts of waifs and strays and rented them rooms above the pub, often in return for glass collecting and dishwashing duties if they couldn’t pay in cash. He was one of life’s good sorts.

  “But what’s happened? He is dead, isn’t he?” The questioner was a young man, wig and dress stripped off and tracksuit back on, but his face still caked with make-up.

  Russell didn’t recognise him, but then he had no reason to—Joe had been the one organising all the acts. Russell had been in charge of logistics—he was less likely to upset anyone that way.

  “I hope we’re still going to get paid,” the rasping voice of Mrs Saddlewick enquired.

  “Jesus, Reg,” Ron said. “The man’s dead.”

  “Look, I know you’re all shocked,” Russell said. “It’s a terrible thing, but we really don’t know much more than you.”

  Much tutting and muttering rippled around the room. They wanted more from him.

  “All I know is that Danny was in the wings, having just introduced Patty, and he was stabbed.”

  “Stabbed?” Ron said. “Bloody hell.”

  “Looked like it, at least,” Russell said, taking a much-needed drink of his pint. “The police will be able to tell us more.”

  “But when could it have happened?” Joe asked, as confused as the others. “Danny introduced Patty, right? And I left the dressing room moments after Patty went on stage. And Danny was already dead by the time I got back to the wings.”