A Lesser Evil - Lesley Pearse [126]
‘You ain’t listened to a word I said,’ Earl said contemptuously. ‘I don’t like that. So get hustling, doll! You owe me and I’ll be back to get it.’
She could barely walk out to the staff restroom, she was trembling so badly, and once in there she was violently sick. A couple of her girls came in and saw her, but she managed to tell them she must have got food poisoning.
She was still hanging over the toilet bowl when she heard John come up behind her.
‘I never saw food poisoning come on just through talking to a rat,’ he said, but he wasn’t mocking her, his tone was kindly and anxious.
She had to tell him all about it, and he got a wet cloth and wiped her face, then hugged her and let her cry on his shoulder.
‘I wish I could tell you they won’t carry out their threat,’ he said in a low voice. ‘But I’m afraid they will. You see, it’s not them your old man owed the money to, it’s their boss. And they’re as afraid of him as you are of them, so they have to get a result.’
‘What can I do then?’ she cried, realizing that John must know who their boss was. ‘I can’t get the money, I can’t go to the police, and they’ll track me down wherever I go! I can’t live in fear like this.’
‘I’ll hide you,’ he said. ‘You’ll have to leave the job and your flat. There’s no way I can protect you while you’re still around here. Now, do exactly as I tell you and you’ll be okay.’
John’s plan was that she had to go back into the club and act as if everything was normal. He said he expected they’d posted a lookout to make sure she didn’t run for it. Meanwhile he’d work out a plan and tip her the wink when it was time to go.
Nora was on tenterhooks all night. The club was packed to capacity, every one of her girls dancing and drinking with customers, and as she mingled, checking that the bigger groups had enough drinks, smiling and chatting, making sure everyone was happy, she felt she was being watched closely. She was familiar enough with Soho by then to know that a powerful man who employed enforcers would also have informers and spies, and if John helped her, he’d be in the firing line next.
But John didn’t come near her again, and by two in the morning when the band was close to ending their final set, she thought he must have had second thoughts about helping her. She was just chasing up a round of drinks for one of the bigger tables when Charles Lownes, a regular at the Starlight, came up and asked her to dance.
Charles was a bit of a joke in the club as he had the bearing and accent of an old Etonian. He always wore a dinner jacket, pleated-front dress shirt and bow tie. He was in his early sixties, and knocked back whisky as if he had hollow legs. Everyone assumed his wealth was inherited as he was usually one of the last to leave the club when it closed, and always seemed to be going off on little jaunts to Paris and the South of France, usually with a woman half his age.
Nora didn’t often dance with customers, especially at the end of the evening when they were drunk, and she hesitated.
‘Come on, my dear,’ he said, leaning closer to her. ‘John asked me to take care of you, and the only way I can do it is if you act as if you think I’m the answer to a maiden’s prayer.’
Nora glanced over her shoulder. John was mixing a cocktail, and he looked right at her and winked, then looked away.
Charles was a good dancer, light on his feet, and as usual none the worse for the amount of drink he’d put away.
‘Trust me,’ he whispered in her ear. ‘Whatever I say or do, go along with it.’
He kept up a show of trying to woo her right until the club closed, then said in a voice loud enough for everyone around them to hear that he was taking her somewhere for a nightcap. Nora thought this was because if the thugs saw her go with him they’d assume she’d taken their advice, and they’d be round in the morning to collect her earnings.
John was nowhere to be seen as she and Charles left the club. Duncan, one of the other barmen, had been left to lock up.
Outside in the street the night air was clean and crisp after