Lee looked at Derwent assessingly. ‘You’re not our target demographic. Too old.’
Drew cut in before Derwent could recover himself to respond. ‘We’re too old too. Don’t feel bad. We’re aiming at the student crowd, pushing up into the recently employed – nineteen to twenty-five, basically. They’ve got time on their hands and they want to find interesting ways to entertain themselves. The ones who are working have money; the students make us look good by dressing up and really going for it. Everyone’s a winner.’
‘How did you find the warehouse?’
‘The Internet. There are a few websites about derelict buildings – everyone’s interested in something, am I right? It was featured on one as easily accessible, no security. We’re always looking for interesting spaces – new challenges. An industrial space was perfect for this party. We liked the contrast between the dereliction and the glamorous people. That’s where we got the theme.
The Beautiful and the Damned
. Everyone who came was supposed to be one or the other, but preferably both.’
‘F. Scott Fitzgerald,’ I said. ‘Have you read the book?’
‘No.’ Drew laughed. ‘Does that shock you? We’re not that thorough. Besides, there’s no need to read it if you’re just borrowing the title. I don’t think our night was what he had in mind when he wrote it.’
‘How much do you charge?’
‘Depends on the event. If it’s a big one, fifteen or twenty quid will cover it. The smaller ones, like the speakeasy – they were more expensive. Up to fifty quid but if you booked in a group of six you got a reserved table and a bottle of champagne thrown in. Those events cost a lot to set up. But it’s worth it, believe me. We don’t get complaints.’
‘How do you spread the word about your events?’
‘Email,’ Lee said.
‘May we have a copy of your mailing list?’
‘I’m sorry. It’s commercially sensitive.’ Drew sounded genuinely sad not to be able to help and I had to remind myself that he was bullshitting us.
‘Do you really think the Met police are planning to go into event management for teenagers?’ Derwent snorted. ‘Do me a favour. Give us the fucking list, Drew, and stop pretending you can’t.’
Another glance passed between Drew and his brother before he sighed. ‘Right. We’ll let you have it. But you must promise to keep it out of the public domain.’
‘Not sure I can do that.’ Derwent stretched. ‘Freedom of Information Act. It’s a bugger, believe me. If anyone wants to see it—’
‘—we’ll find a reason to say no,’ I finished calmly. ‘Don’t worry. We’ll look after it.’
Derwent handed over a piece of paper with Colin Vale’s email address on it. ‘Send it to that address. Now, if you don’t mind.’
There was a laptop open on the coffee table and Drew leaned forward to do what Derwent asked, his fingers flying over the keyboard as he typed.
‘It’s just a starting point, you know. The email is the beginning. It’s the stone in the pool. The ripples go a long way. Half the people on the list won’t have considered going. But they probably passed it on to a few of their friends, and
they
passed it on to their mates, and we ended up turning people away on the door.’
‘Cheyenne got in. She was only fourteen. Not quite in your target demographic either.’
‘We weren’t checking IDs.’ There was a tightness about Drew’s mouth that I hadn’t noticed before and I put it down to guilt: if they had done their job properly, Cheyenne would never have made it through the door. ‘I sort of remember a girl with long fair hair and a ton of make-up, but there were lots of girls there who looked like that. And it was a masked event, remember, so I couldn’t see most of her face. I can’t be sure if it was her.’
‘Who else worked the door?’
‘Not Lee. He was managing the bar. We had a couple of temporary guys – freelance door staff. Bouncers to you and me.’
‘How did you recruit them?’
‘They’re friends. We got to know them at the gym. They’re a bit rough and ready, but they sort out the troublemakers and no one argues with them. If they say the place is full and it’s one out, one in, that’s what happens.’
‘Rough and ready? Does that mean they might have criminal records?’
‘We don’t ask that kind of thing. They’re just useful to us, that’s all.’
‘I’m going to need their names and contact details. And anyone else who was working for you that night.’
‘Sure. We had a couple of DJs and three girls working the bar. And one of our mates helped with the lighting rig – setting it up and taking it down again.’
‘Was he there on the night?’
‘No. He doesn’t like loud music.’
‘What time did you get there to set up?’
‘We were there from lunchtime. I drove the van over with the lighting and sound stuff and met Sam. Lee was getting the booze so he took the car. We unloaded in the yard, then hauled everything up two flights of stairs. Never again, am I right?’ He grinned at Lee. ‘Ground-floor events only.’
‘Sam is the one who set up the lighting,’ I checked.
‘Yeah. He’s an electrician. But like I say, he was gone by seven.’ Drew pressed a button on his laptop and a printer in the corner whirred into life. ‘That’s the staff list. Names and numbers. Matthew Dobbs and Carl McCullough were the door people.’
‘Any idea where we might find them?’
‘Cotter’s Gym.’ The brothers spoke in unison, then laughed at one another.
‘It’s in Kentish Town,’ Drew added. ‘They spend most of their time there. It’s sort of a social club as well as a gym. If your idea of chit-chat is talking about muscle-building supplements.’
‘And do you hang out there too?’ I was looking at Lee.
Drew was the one who answered. ‘We work out there. But we don’t stick around to chat. Too busy.’
‘Being the Brothers Grim keeps you on your toes, does it?’ Derwent sounded frankly sceptical.
‘It takes a lot more effort than you’d think,’ Drew said defensively. ‘We put on at least two events a month. Not always nightclubs or bars. We do exhibitions in unusual venues. During London Fashion Week we organised a shop in a vacant retail space so young designers and fashion students could sell a few pieces to the buyers that were in town. We had a model-scout working in the shop, taking Polaroids of likely looking girls. That drove a lot of business our way. Everyone wants to be a model these days. Easy money.’
‘I’d have said everything you do is easy money.’ Derwent slid an inch further down in the sofa, as if he could barely keep his eyes open. ‘What do your parents think? Don’t they want you to get a real job?’
‘Our parents aren’t around any more. It’s just the two of us. And we’re happy doing what we’re doing.’
‘Are you finished?’ Lee asked abruptly.
‘For the time being.’ Derwent got to his feet slowly and winced, leaning from side to side to stretch out his back. ‘I’m getting stiff. Must be my age.’
‘I didn’t mean to offend you by saying you were too old for the Brothers Grim events.’ Drew smiled. ‘We’ll add you to the mailing list, if you like. You can come along. See if you fit in.’
‘Not sure I’d like to. We’ve been tracing people who were at the club – people who have convictions for violent offences. What do you think about that?’
Drew shrugged. ‘I’m not comfortable with sitting in judgement on anyone, okay? I just provide the venue. I don’t care about people’s pasts.’
Derwent shook his head, disgusted. ‘The two of you have no idea, do you? You created a perfect hunting environment. It was dark, it was badly supervised, it was in a building that was borderline dangerous and certainly full of places to hide. You did things on the cheap, and it shows. No booze licence. No proper bouncers. Tickets sold on the door to people you didn’t know, whose ID you didn’t check. Cash only at the bar so we have no receipts to trace. If it wasn’t for the fact that your punters are as dim-witted as the pair of you, we’d be struggling to find anyone who was there.’
‘You’re making it sound seedy, but it isn’t. You should come along to our next event.’ Drew was still working his charm offensive on Derwent, seemingly oblivious to the fact that he was never going to succeed. ‘I’ll send you an invitation if you give me your email.’
‘Don’t bother. I think you were right the first time.’ He looked down. ‘What about you, Maeve?’
‘Not my speed either, I think. No offence.’
‘None taken,’ Drew said lightly.
‘What’s your first name again?’
I looked at Lee, surprised, and Derwent replied for me. ‘Maeve.’
‘How do you spell it?’
‘Mike alpha echo victor echo,’ Derwent said. ‘Not too bad, considering it’s an Irish name.’
‘Thanks a lot.’ I glared at him, then smiled at the brothers. ‘And thank you. We do appreciate you taking the time to talk to us.’
‘Anything we can do to help. We’re just really sorry that you didn’t find her alive and well.’
‘Us too.’ I followed Derwent to the door, turning to shake hands with both of them before we left.
Derwent made it all the way down the stairs to the street before he started to take the piss. ‘Well, you pulled, so that’s something. “How do you spell your name?”’ he mimicked.
‘Maybe he was curious.’
‘Yeah, maybe, but why would that be?’ He cocked his head to one side, waiting for an answer.
‘I have no idea.’
‘Don’t you?’ He laughed all the way back to the car, where a yellow and black penalty charge notice wiped the smile off his face.
‘It is a loading bay,’ I pointed out.
‘I was on police business. I had the fucking card in the window.’ He flung both the card and the ticket into the back seat.
‘Were you really not interested in interviewing them?’ I couldn’t help asking. ‘What was all the fake yawning?’
‘Who says it was fake?’ Derwent got into the car and slammed his door. I hurried to do the same on my side of the car since he was quite capable of driving off without me. ‘I hate hipsters. I hate all those bullshit jobs they do. You know that pair probably earn more than we do? And for doing what, exactly? Sending out emails and renting space so people can imagine they’re cool. Do me a favour.’
‘You can’t stop people from wasting their money.’
‘Shame, isn’t it? And now we have to go and see these bouncers too.’ Derwent sighed. ‘Would it have killed them to make sure the people they hired were clean?’
‘They don’t strike me as too worried about that kind of thing.’
‘Me neither.’ He glanced across. ‘You might want to do up that top button on your jacket, love. I’m guessing you’ve never been to a real gym before. They won’t know whether to throw you out or hang you on the wall if you walk in with your tits on show like that.’
It killed me to do what he suggested, but looking down, I had to acknowledge that he had a point.
Cotter’s Gym was a small, white-painted square building that lurked down an alleyway off Highgate Road. No frills didn’t even begin to describe it: the place was bleakness itself, with basic equipment and rubberised flooring. A couple of large men were using the free weights, hefting dumbbells the size of bin lids. They were not Dobbs and McCullough, they conveyed by grunting. But if we wanted Dobbs and McCullough, we should go through to the back room.
The back room was the social hub of the place, by which I mean there was a kettle and a collection of chipped mugs, a few posters of naked women stuck on the walls as Derwent had predicted, and a couple of small round tables where you could sit and soak in the ambience. Five gym members were doing just that. Three of them were playing cards, while the fourth looked on. A heavyset black man looked up from his paper.
‘The Old Bill, if I’m not mistaken. What can we do you for?’
‘We’re looking for Matthew Dobbs and Carl McCullough.’
‘In connection with what?’
‘Murder,’ Derwent said baldly. It didn’t have quite the sensational effect you might have expected. The card players didn’t miss a beat, and the man who had spoke to us licked his finger and turned the page.
‘Sounds exciting.’
‘Come on. I haven’t got all day. Which one of you is Dobbs?’
The man who had been watching the card game raised a finger.
‘McCullough?’
‘That would be me.’ The black man folded his newspaper and laid it to one side with an air of resignation. ‘What murder? Who died?’
‘A little girl who shouldn’t have been playing with the big boys.’ Derwent spoke softly but that made it all the more menacing. Without knowing why, I shivered. It had something of the same effect on the two men, because Dobbs moved over to McCullough’s table. The two of them were older than the Bancrofts, late thirties at least, and solid with muscle.
‘Are we talking about the girl who went missing on Saturday? The one from the warehouse?’ Dobbs asked.
‘Cheyenne Skinner.’ Derwent pulled out a copy of the school photograph and showed them.
‘She’s dead?’ McCullough shook his head. ‘Oh dear, dear, dear.’
‘Did you know she was missing?’
Dobbs said, ‘Drew mentioned it to me during the week. He asked us if we’d seen anything strange. We didn’t, though.’
‘No more so than usual at one of those events.’ McCullough looked disapproving.
‘Do you remember seeing Cheyenne at the warehouse?’ I asked.
There was an infinitesimal pause before Dobbs replied. ‘Possibly.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘They wore masks. But there was a girl like that. On her own.’
Another pause and then McCullough shrugged. ‘We weren’t going to let her in. Not alone. We wouldn’t if she’d turned up to a proper club like that. We’re professionals, you know. We just do the boys’ events as a favour.’
‘So if you weren’t going to let her in, who did?’
‘One of the brothers. I can’t recall which.’
‘He came and picked a few people out of the crowd. It’s something they do to liven up the queue. She was at the front. I suppose about ten of them got in at the same time. Mainly girls.’
‘Drew said he couldn’t remember letting her in.’
‘No reason why he should, if it was him. It was pretty quick. “You and you and you and you.”’ McCullough folded his arms. ‘We only remember because she was begging us to let her in. She said it was life or death.’