Femme Fatale Read online

  FEMME FATALE

  Dominic Piper

  © Dominic Piper 2017

  Dominic Piper has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  First edition published by Opium Den Publishing 2017

  Contents

  1 A TAP ON THE SHOULDER

  2 THE BLUE LANTERN

  3 AND ALL THAT JAZZ

  4 THE MISSING FACILITATOR

  5 LUNCH WITH DOUG

  6 LETHAL AND GORGEOUS

  7 CITY OF WILLOWS

  8 HOT DATE

  9 HASSLE

  10 SHUTDOWN

  11 THE GIRL IN THE FLAT

  12 SOHO HOTEL

  13 BORDELLO

  14 CHAQUE BOUTON LCHE

  15 SO WHAT’S GOING ON?

  16 THAT TOUCH OF INK

  17 LUNCH AT THE DORCHESTER

  18 THE BOXER

  19 FIRST WARNING

  20 IRON BAR TREATMENT

  21 A FRIENDLY VISIT

  22 MR X

  23 ROUGH TRADE

  24 PAIGE’S PLACE

  25 CAFÉ ROYAL

  26 THE CUSP OF A RELATIONSHIP

  27 MORE SEX

  28 THE STEEL YARD

  29 BREAK-IN

  30 MARTON COMPUTER SOLUTIONS

  31 ELEEMOSYNARY

  32 MR BECKETT, IS IT?

  33 TEMPLE SECURITY

  34 RÔLE PLAY

  35 A FACE MADE FOR PUNCHING

  36 BERKELEY SQUARE

  37 SEEING STARS

  38 A BUNCH OF PUNKS

  39 NOT YOUR LUCKY DAY

  40 DIM MAK

  41 DÉNOUEMENT

  42 SOMETHING TO REMEMBER ME BY

  Books by Dominic Piper

  Kiss Me When I’m Dead

  Death is the New Black

  Femme Fatale

  Dominic Piper’s Amazon page

  1

  A TAP ON THE SHOULDER

  We’re in the limbo land between the end of the date and the ‘your-place-or-mine’.

  This phase of the evening has to be handled like a hothouse flower. Too much heat and it’ll wilt, not enough and there’s a risk of it dying of frost damage. Lame botanical metaphors are a weakness of mine and I’m glad I could share one with you.

  Her name is Annalise St Clair. It’s a name straight out of Knightsbridge, but she’s a black Mill Hill girl who’s made a good fist of eradicating her north London accent and now sounds like she’s from nowhere-in-particular. She has a low-pitched, carefully modulated voice and when she speaks it’s like listening to warm honey pouring out of a jar.

  She’s tall and sinuous with spectacular curves and a tiny waist which I’m dying to get my hands around. To make things worse, she’s tightly wrapped up in a blue/black cleavage-enhancing Agent Provocateur Brandi dress with matching five-inch heels that bring her almost up to my height.

  Beautiful too, with a sexy, contemptuous downturn to her mouth and striking hooded eyes made even more exotic by the burgundy eye shadow she’s wearing. She’s also a senior cardiologist at the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, in case you thought it was all about looks.

  I met her two nights ago. I’d just finished a tedious insurance fraud case and was winding down with a double vodka and soda in a quiet bar when the quiet bar became a noisy bar. A group of around fifteen people came in. A pharmaceutical company conference had just finished around the corner and a bunch of the attendees had decided to treat themselves to post conference cocktails.

  I saw her immediately. I let our eyes meet once and then looked away, keeping her in my peripheral vision while she was serially hit on by the entire male population of Nerd City. After a decent interval, she peeled herself away from her crowd and we started talking. I can’t remember who spoke first. I can’t remember what we talked about. I was too busy inhaling her perfume and watching her mouth as her words subtly told me she was available and interested.

  And now, two days later, we’re walking down Wardour Street after a great meal at The Spice Market accompanied by one too many of their spectacular cocktails. She’s linked her arm around mine and I can feel her hip brush against my thigh with each step she takes. She’s a little unsteady but nothing too serious. I take a look at my watch. Eleven-fifteen and it’s been dark for a couple of hours. It’s a warm evening with a cooling breeze so we’re in no rush. She staggers slightly.

  ‘Shit!’ she says, laughing. ‘Those B-54 shooters have one hell of a kick. They don’t seem that alcoholic when you’re knocking them back. I feel quite light-headed.’

  ‘I had a word with the barman.’

  ‘I knew it. You seem the type.’

  ‘Do you need to get a cab?’

  ‘Not yet. I quite like walking like this.’

  ‘Where do you live?’

  ‘Battersea. You?’

  ‘Covent Garden.’

  ‘You’re kidding. Really? Whereabouts?’

  ‘Exeter Street.’

  ‘Isn’t that where Joe Allen’s restaurant is?’

  ‘That’s the one. I live above it. Third floor.’

  ‘That’s so cool. So it’s a flat.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘And you live there on your own?’

  ‘Last time I checked. You’re not fishing, are you?’

  ‘Now why would I be doing that, Mr Beckett?’

  We keep walking as Wardour Street morphs into Whitcomb Street, one side of which has been taken over by building works. I can smell coffee roasting and a strong aroma of rosemary and oregano, presumably emanating from a nearby Italian restaurant. The frequent roadworks and sections of roads closed to traffic are so disorientating that for a moment I don’t recognise where we are.

  ‘We’ll turn right at the end here into Orange Street,’ I say. ‘We can head towards Piccadilly Circus from the other side.’

  Orange Street is all road works, hotels, grey concrete, dirty-looking office entrances, joyless pubs and multi-storey car parks. It’s fairly busy with people using it to get from one area of the West End to another, just like we are. I can hear two contrasting bass thumps from a couple of nightclubs. Two drunken teenagers walk past and ogle Annalise. Someone is playing opera with the window open five floors up.

  ‘So what’s it like being a private detective, Daniel? I’ve never met a real one before.’

  ‘It’s all dames and guns.’

  ‘I had a feeling it might be. Is your middle name Danger, by any chance?’

  I look surprised. ‘Have you had me checked out?’

  She laughs. Great laugh.

  And then it happens.

  It’s as if my subconscious just tapped me on the shoulder and said, ‘Did you hear that?’

  I stop walking and place a hand on Annalise’s shoulder. I let my mind slip back about sixty seconds. I sift through the street noise, the music, the footsteps, the chatter of passers-by, the car horns and the taxi engines, trying to pick out the something my subconscious reacted to but I somehow missed.

  And then it comes back.

  It was a girl’s voice.

  Just one word.

  ‘No!’

  A young voice. Not someone joking with friends. Not someone arguing with a boyfriend. No petulance. No bad temper. Genuine alarm. Genuine fear. Genuine terror.

  I close my eyes and try to work out where I was when I heard it. About two hundred yards back. It came from my right-hand side. What was there? I open my eyes and turn to Annalise.

  ‘Listen. I’ve just got to do something. Wait here.’

  ‘Are you OK? What is it?’

  She looks understandably baffled as I run back the way we came. I can hear the click of her heels as she follows me. Oh well. When it feels rig
ht I stop and listen, attempting to get my breath back. These things always happen when you’ve been drinking.

  I can hear a male voice, no, two male voices coming from inside a small car park across the road from where I’m standing. There’s humourless laughter and there are scuffling noises. That’s it. That’s where the noise came from. That’s what my brain heard. Annalise catches up with me.

  ‘What is it? What’s happening?’

  ‘I don’t know yet.’ I nod towards the car park. ‘I have to go in there. Can you wait for me?’

  She’s nonplussed. She thinks I’m eccentric. ‘Sure.’

  The car park is closed and the entrance is dark. It’s one of those small ones that shut down at six or seven o’ clock. Maybe it belongs to a business or something. I don’t know. I walk into the interior, ducking under the barrier. It’s dark inside, too, but not that dark. I take in the scene in a millisecond. Three guys. Mid-twenties. Big. Sweaty. Angry. Aggressive. The type you’d cross the road to avoid late at night, particularly if you were a lone female. All wear smart suits: Canali, Thom Brown, Lanvin. In amongst the typical car park odour of piss and petrol is the sour reek of sweat and alcohol.

  One of them is busy ripping the clothes off a young Chinese girl who’s lying on the floor, struggling wildly and trying to kick him in the head. She has a scram mark down her face, a bruised lower lip and a look of terror in her eyes. Her turquoise blouse looks like it’s already had an arm torn right off. All the buttons have popped out and you can see her bra. It’s difficult to tell her age in this light. Fourteen? Sixteen? Eighteen?

  The other two guys stand and watch. They’re agitated. Drugs as well as booze? Doesn’t matter. One of them is rugby-player huge. He takes his jacket off and looks for somewhere to hang it. There isn’t anywhere, so he drops it on the floor. I can see huge sweat circles under his armpits. The third guy stubs out his cigarette, runs a hand across his mouth and starts to undo his trousers. They haven’t seen me yet: too pissed, too busy. I put as much ki into my voice as I can.

  ‘Hey!’

  Huge Guy turns around to look at me. He has an expression of stupid surprise on his face. ‘Who the fuck are you? Fuck off, mate. This is nothing to do with you. Fuck off.’

  I’m surprised to hear a rather plummy, posh voice.

  Crouching Boy glances at me, sniggers, then, unconcerned, continues with the girl.

  ‘It’s everything to do with me,’ I say, heading towards him.

  ‘We’re going to sort you out, matey,’ says Cigarette Man, laughing and fiddling with his belt. ‘Go on, Derek: fuck him up.’

  Huge Guy laughs and strides over to meet me half way, his palms outstretched, as if he’s going to try and push me over. He’s easily over two hundred pounds and looks like he can take a punch or two before his brain computes what’s happened. I’m going to have to get him out of the picture quickly so I can deal with Crouching Boy and Cigarette Man.

  He looks downwards, pursing his lips, shaking his head and avoiding eye contact as he warns me for the very last time. ‘Just go, friend. This doesn’t concern you. Just leave it. This is private business, OK? Just go to the pub or something. Best you leave it be, got it?’

  He’s approaching rapidly, his face serious, his eyes dead. He takes a sudden lunge at me, but he’s way, way too slow. When his hands are about a foot away from my chest, I grab both sets of fingers in mine and flick outwards and upwards, breaking both of his wrists. He screams. While he’s considering that, I bring my right knee up to my chest and kick him hard, at close range, in the solar plexus. He rockets backwards into Cigarette Man, knocking him down.

  Now Crouching Boy realises things are getting out of hand. He punches the girl in the face to keep her down and gets up to sort me out. He takes a swing at my head, which I block and give him a swift knuckle strike just below his nose, knocking a couple of incisors out. I grab the lapels of his suit, pull him towards me and head-butt him while kneeing him in the balls as hard as I can. Twice. Three times. And one for luck. It’s not his lucky day.

  He bends double with the pain, so I grab the back of his head with both hands, pull it down hard and knee him in the face, just to be on the safe side. Safety is an important factor in matters like these. When he’s on the floor, I kick him in the head, just because.

  Cigarette Man gets up from under Huge Guy and charges at me. He’s furious, but there’s fear in his eyes now. Just before he makes contact, I turn away from him, grab the back of his collar and pull him down while whacking him full in the throat with the side of my hand. Amazingly, he gets up for another go, so I give him a three-finger jab beneath the chin and slam his head into a concrete pillar. Tilt.

  All three are down and won’t be getting up any time soon. I turn around to see Annalise attending to the girl. In all the excitement I’d forgotten she was a doctor. She gently rubs the girl’s cheek with the back of her hand and turns to look at me.

  ‘She’s OK,’ she says. ‘Bloodied mouth, but no damage to the teeth that I can see. Bit of a scratch on her face and one on her shoulder but they’ll be gone in a few days. I think she’s in shock. You got here just in time. Another few minutes…well, it isn’t worth thinking about.’

  She stares hard at me as I run a hand through my hair and do a quick visual inventory on my new unconscious pals. It wasn’t fast enough and I was a little sloppy, but I had been drinking and the light was bad. Those are my excuses, anyway.

  ‘Are you OK, Daniel?’ she says.

  ‘Me? Yes. Why?’

  ‘Uh – I don’t know. I just thought you might have been punched, or were traumatised a little. Or is this what all private investigators get up to on their nights off?’

  ‘They were just punks.’

  ‘Hey! Wait!’ she cries.

  The girl has pushed herself up onto her feet and made a run for it. In two seconds she’s disappeared. Annalise is plainly in two minds whether to go after her or not. She stands up and I place a hand on her shoulder.

  ‘Let her go. If she can move that fast there can’t have been anything major wrong with her.’

  ‘Who’s the doctor here?’

  ‘Good comeback. Can I steal that?’

  She punches me in the chest.

  *

  We head down the Haymarket towards Piccadilly Circus, her arm linked around mine again, but now she’s pressing close. We haven’t spoken for about five minutes and I wonder if she’s OK. Maybe that little display was disturbing for her. Out of the corner of my eye I can see that she keeps glancing at me.

  ‘That was pretty impressive back there,’ she says, still staring straight ahead.

  ‘What – me playing the Good Samaritan with that girl? It was nothing. Had to be done.’

  She looks up at me. Her eyes are shiny and her pupils are dilated.

  ‘Well, that, yes. But the – what you did. You know? I saw most of it.’

  I take a gamble. ‘You mean the violence?’

  She looks down at her feet. ‘Yes.’

  ‘You liked it?’

  She doesn’t look up. She licks her lips. ‘Yes.’

  I move the conversation away from where we’re headed, just to give her a brief break. ‘It could have been done faster,’ I say. ‘I couldn’t really see very well in there.’

  ‘It made me feel weird.’

  ‘In a good way or a bad way?’

  ‘In a good way.’

  ‘That’s OK,’ I say, gently, rubbing the small of her back. ‘It can affect some people like that. You mustn’t worry about it.’

  She swallows and licks her lips. ‘So what was that you did to those guys? Was that some sort of martial art?’

  ‘I guess it was a mix. A cocktail.’

  ‘Of how many different styles?’

  ‘Four or five.’

  ‘And where did you learn four or five different styles of martial art?’

  Time for a subject change.

  ‘D’you want to go for a drink? There’s a b
ar in St James’s Market that’ll still be open.’

  She pulls me around to face her and her mouth is on mine straight away. Her kisses are soft to begin with then swiftly get passionate. I hold her waist firmly, keeping her a little further away than she’d like to be, controlling her hunger, teasing her. She pushes her crotch against my thigh. She’s panting.

  ‘I’m so fucking turned on.’ she whispers.

  ‘I know you are.’

  ‘Bastard.’

  Exeter Street is ten minutes’ walk from here. It’s going to be a hell of a long ten minutes.

  2

  THE BLUE LANTERN

  I wake up the next morning with a mild hangover, probably due to the unintentional mixing of drinks that can happen when you’re with someone who wants to try out lots of different cocktails. I need a glass of water: it feels as if my teeth are superglued together in my mouth. I try to recall a few names, just to see if my brain has been impaired: B-54s, Sazerac, Caipirinha, Dark & Stormy, Chili Apple Martini – the list goes on and on. I start to feel mildly nauseous thinking about the sugariness of some of them.

  I reach down and pick up my alarm clock. Ten past eight. I turn over and put a hand around Annalise’s waist. She’s still wearing her bra and her suspender belt, but managed to get her stockings off at some point during the night. She hums contentedly and pushes her ass against me. Forget the water: I must have coffee.

  I get up and head towards the kitchen. I load up the Siemens coffee maker with El Salvador La Joya beans and hit the switch. I think we’ll both need a couple of strong Americanos after last night.

  When I get back in the bedroom, she’s sitting up in bed and the bra has gone. She rubs her breasts and the sides of her body. I can see the marks that the strap and cups have left on her skin.

  ‘That was really uncomfortable,’ she says, grinning. ‘Let me give you some advice, Daniel – never fall asleep wearing a bra.’

  ‘I’ll make a note of it. Can I give you a hand with that?’

  She turns around and lets me massage the marks that the closure and straps have made on her back.