The bars are based along a white-painted brick corridor lined with curtains in more velvet, royal blue trimmed with gold fringes this time, all hanging from long poles that allow the staff to pull them across and cut off rooms for privacy or move the VIP area around to suit the crowd that’s in, and even close off sections altogether. The reputation of all nightclubs rests on the punters having felt that they were in a crowd, and in Nefertiti’s they can make a crowd of a couple of dozen people if they have to. She walks along the corridor, checking each room as she passes it, making sure no strays have stayed, or passed out unnoticed behind a couch, turning off the lights as she goes. It’s only when she’s halfway to the end that she realises that she’s not alone.
Something’s going on in the Luxor Lounge. Something physical, repetitive and energetic. Sex? Is someone shagging in there? Who is it? Someone left behind? Her own staff, doing the worker’s fuck-you to the bosses?
She slows her pace, quietens the sound of her steps. The corridor is thickly carpeted in black with a gold border and little gold stars. Just a small amount of pattern will hide a multitude of sins. As she approaches, she becomes less sure that it’s sex she’s hearing. There are grunts, and sighs, but also, she’s sure, the sound of groans; and, behind it all, low laughs and chat, as though whoever’s making the sounds is providing the entertainment for a corporate shindig. As she nears the curtain that’s pulled across the entrance, she slows her walk down to a creep, positions herself against the wall and peeps in through a crack in the cloth.
The Luxor Lounge is black and red, dark colours that don’t show the dirt. A good thing, because what’s coming out of the mouth of the man on the floor will never scrub away.
There are six people in the Luxor Lounge. There’s the man who lies still on the floor, as though he has long since given up protecting his vulnerable parts, whose face is so swollen his mother wouldn’t recognise him; Tony Stott, her boss, the big man, the wunderkind, four years younger than she is and millions of pounds richer, all designer suit and gold cufflinks, clean-shaven even at this time of night, his tight curls cut close to his head; a woman she’s not seen before, low-key in a grey suit that, from its cut, she knows didn’t come from Debenhams; a much older man, late fifties, maybe, who wears a dark wool overcoat as though he’s at a funeral. The three of them stand by the bar with an open bottle of Remy, drinking from snifters, watching Malik Otaran and Burim Sadiraj kick and kick and kick. As she watches, she sees the man’s head snap back on his neck. A spurt of blood arches from his crumpled nose, beautiful in its elegance. Malik stands on one foot, lifts up the other to knee height, and stamps down.
She gasps.
The Luxor Lounge falls quiet. Five heads, smiles freezing on faces, pupils still distended with arousal, turn and look in her direction.
Lisa runs for the exit. Knows that she’s running for her life.
Chapter Two
He’s a magnificent cat. Rangy and black and swaggering, with great vampire incisors that extend most of the way to his jawline. Green eyes and a kinked tail that speak of oriental blood, and a scarred left ear that shows that he’s not afraid to fight.
Today he is asserting his mastery of his territory by visiting. He’s been attached to the house for so long that no one remembers who originally brought him here, or if, indeed, anybody did. Some tenants shoo him away with angry hisses, afraid of his panther grace and unblinking stare, some sweep him into their arms with coos and growls of admiration, give him a warm place to sleep, and weep when they, as they all do, have to leave him behind. Twenty-six tenants have passed through the house on Beulah Grove since he took up residence, and he has never gone hungry enough to move on himself. He has had many names and for now it’s Psycho.
He stands in the window – The Lover has thrown it open because the heat inside is so stifling he’s afraid he’ll make the air damp with his sweat – and surveys the space, then leaps on to the back of the chair where the girl sits. He leans forward and sniffs her ginger hair, touches an ear with his fine damp nose. Affronted by her failure to respond he raises his face and looks up at the man. Blinks.
The Lover is weeping. He sits in a folding chair against the far wall, his face buried in his hands, and rocks. The tears come more quickly every time. He used to have a few hours – even a day or two – in which to savour the company, enjoy the romance, before the despair overtook him; to hold the hand and stroke the cheek and take pleasure in togetherness. But each event seems less delightful than the last, seems to pass so quickly that, almost as soon as it’s done, the yearning begins again, the loneliness breaking over his head like a wave.