Nightside - Hell To Pay

      “Charlie, I told you to bring back Eleanor Griffin. What is John Taylor doing here? Did I ask you to bring back John Taylor?”
      The messenger squirmed unhappily under his boss’s gaze. “Well, no, Mr. Libby, but…”
      “Then what is he doing here, Charlie?”
      “I don’t know, Mr. Libby! He sort of…invited himself.”
      “We’ll talk about this later, Charlie.” Libby finally deigned to notice me. He nodded briefly, but didn’t smile. “Mr. John Taylor. Well, we are honoured. Welcome to my very own little den of iniquity. I’m afraid you’re not seeing us at our best, at the present. Me and the boys got a little carried away, expressing our displeasure with Marcel. I do like to think of myself as a hands-on kind of manager…And since I’m the owner of the Roll a Dice, I take it very personally when some aristocratic nonce comes strolling in here with the express purpose of cheating me out of my hard-earned…”
      “My husband doesn’t cheat,” Eleanor said flatly. “He may be the worst gambler that ever lived, but he doesn’t cheat.”
      “He came in here to play without the money to cover his bets, or the means to pay off his debts,” said Libby. “I call that cheating. And no-one cheats me and lives to boast of it. I do like to think of myself as a reasonable and understanding sort, but I can’t let anyone get away with cheating me. That would be bad for business and my reputation. Which is why we are using Marcel here to send a message to any and all who might think they can welch on a debt and get away with it. What are you doing here, Mr. Taylor, exactly?”
      “I’m with Eleanor,” I said. “Her father asked me to see that she got home safely.”
      “The Griffin himself! What a thrill it must be, to move in such exalted circles!” Libby smiled again, like a shark showing its teeth. “You and he have both made a name for yourself in the Nightside, as people it is very dangerous to cross. But you know what, Mr. Taylor? Uptown reputations don’t mean anything down here. Down here you can do anything you want if you can get away with it. It’s a dog-eat-dog world, and I am top dog.”
      “If I’d known, I’d have brought you some biscuits,” I said brightly. “I could throw something for you to fetch if you want.”
      The other thugs stared blankly. People didn’t talk like that to Mr. Libby.
      “Funny man,” Libby said dispassionately. “We get a lot of those in here. But I’m the one who ends up laughing.”
      He grabbed Marcel’s bloody chin and forced the battered face up so I could see it more clearly. Marcel moaned softly, but didn’t struggle. All the resistance had been beaten out of him.
      “We get all sorts in here,” said Libby, turning Marcel’s face back and forth so he could admire his handiwork. “They come into my club, big and bold and full of themselves, and they throw all their money away at cards or dice or at the wheel, and when the time comes to make good, surprise surprise, they haven’t got the money on them. And they expect me to be reasonable. Well, reasonable is as reasonable does, Mr. Taylor. I extended Marcel here a longer-than-usual run of credit because he assured me his father-in-law would be good for his debts. However, when I take the quite reasonable precaution of contacting Mr. Griffin about this, he denies this. He is, in fact, quite rude to me. So, if Marcel can’t pay, and the Griffin won’t…where am I going to get my money?”
      “Don’t tell me,” I said. “You have a plan.”
      “Of course. I always have a plan. That’s why I’m top dog of this particular dung heap. I was going to show Eleanor what I’d done to her deadbeat husband, then send her home to Daddy with her husband’s ear in a box so she could plead for enough money to save him further pain. Fathers are often more indulgent with their daughters than they are with their sons-in-law; especially when the daughters are crying.”
      “My father will have you skinned for this,” Eleanor said firmly. “Marcel is family.”
      Libby just shrugged. “Let him send his heavies down here if he likes, and we’ll send them back to him in pieces. No-one bothers us on our own territory. Now where was I…Oh yes, the change in plans. I will keep you and Marcel here, while Mr. Taylor goes back to Griffin Hall to beg your father for enough money to ransom your miserable lives. And Mr. Taylor had better be very persuasive, because I’m pretty sure even an immortal will die if you cut them into enough small pieces…”
      “You really think you can take on the Griffin?” I said.
      “He could send a whole army in here.”
      “Let him,” said Libby. “Him and his kind, they know nothing about life down here. We stand together, down here. It’s dog-eat-dog, but every man against the outsider. If the Griffin turns up here mob-handed, he’ll find a real army waiting to meet him. And no-one fights dirtier than us. I guarantee you, Mr. Taylor; if the Griffin makes a fight of this, I will take out my displeasure on Eleanor and Marcel, and he’ll be able to hear their screams all the way up on Griffin Hall. And what I’ll leave of them he wouldn’t want back. So, he’ll pay up, to save the expense of a war he can’t win. He is, after all, a businessman. Just like me.”
      “My father is nothing like you,” said Eleanor, and her voice cut at him like a knife. “Marcel, can you hear me, darling?”
      Somehow Marcel found the strength to jerk his chin out of Libby’s hand and turn his bloody face to look at Eleanor. His voice was slow and slurred and painful.
      “You shouldn’t have come here, Eleanor. The service is terrible.”
      “Why did you come here?”
      “They wouldn’t take my bets anywhere else. Your father saw to that. So this is all his fault, really.”
      “Hush, dear,” said Eleanor. “Mr. Taylor and I will get you out of here.”
      “Good,” said Marcel. “The place really has gone to the dogs.”
      Libby back-handed him across the face, hard enough to send fresh blood flying through the air. Eleanor made a shocked sound. She wasn’t used to such casual brutality. I looked at Libby.
      “Don’t do that again.”
      Libby automatically lifted his hand to hit Marcel again, only to hesitate as something in my gaze got through to him. He flushed briefly, lowering his hand. He wasn’t used to having his wishes thwarted. He looked at the messenger goon.
      “Charlie, bring the lady over here so she can get a close-up look at what we’ve done to her better half.”
      The messenger grabbed Eleanor’s arm. She produced a small silver canister from somewhere and sprayed its contents in the goon’s face. He howled horribly and crashed to the floor, clawing at his eyes with both hands. I looked at Eleanor, and she smiled sweetly.
      “Mace, with added holy water. Mummy gave it to me. A girl should always be prepared, she said. After all, there are times when a girl just doesn’t feel like being molested.”
      “Quite right,” I said.
      Libby actually growled at us, like a dog before regaining his composure. “I saw you in action, Mr. Taylor, during the Lilith War. Most impressive. But that was then, and this is now, and this is my place. Due to the nature of my business, I have found it necessary to install all kinds of protective magics here. The best money can buy. Nothing happens here that I don’t want to. Down here, in my place, there’s no-one bigger than me.”
      “A gambling den, soaked in hidden magics?” I said. “I am shocked, I tell you, shocked. You’ll be telling me next your games of chance aren’t entirely on the up and up.”
      “Gamblers only come here when they’ve been thrown out of everywhere else,” said Libby. “They know the odds are bent in my favour, but they can’t afford to care. And there never was a gambler who didn’t know he was good enough to beat even a rigged game. But enough of this pleasant chit-chat, Mr. Taylor. It’s time to get down to business. You keep Eleanor under control while I carve a decent-sized piece off Marcel for you to take back to the Griffin. What do you think he’d be most easily able to identify, a finger or an eye?”
      “Don’t touch him,” I said. “Or there will be…consequences.”
      “You’re nothing down here,” Libby said savagely.
      “And just for that, I think I’ll cut something off Eleanor, too, for you to take back to her father.”
      He raised his right hand to show me the scalpel in it, and smiled. The other thugs grinned and elbowed each other, anticipating a show. And I raised my hand to show them the piece of human bone I’d shown in Hecate’s Tea Room. Everyone stood very still.
      “This,” I said, “is an aboriginal pointing bone. Very old, very basic magic. I point, and you die. So, who goes first?”
      “This is my place,” said Libby, still smiling. “I’m protected, and you’re bluffing, Taylor.”
      I stabbed the bone at Libby and muttered the Words, and he fell dead to the floor.
      “Not always,” I said.
      The remaining thugs looked at the dead body of their erstwhile boss, looked at me, then looked at each other. One of them knelt beside Libby and tried to find a pulse. He looked up and shook his head, and the other thugs immediately knelt and started going through Libby’s pockets. They weren’t interested in us anymore. I still covered them with the pointing bone while Eleanor produced a delicate little ladies’ knife from somewhere and cut the ropes holding Marcel to his chair. He tried to stand up and fell forward into Eleanor’s waiting arms as his legs failed him. She held him up long enough for me to get there, and together we half led, half carried him out of the cellar and up into the main room of the Roll a Dice. Noone tried to follow us.
      “So you weren’t bluffing in the Tea Room,” Eleanor said as we headed for the door.
      “Sort of,” I said. “I’ve never actually used the bone before. I wasn’t entirely sure it was what I thought it was. I stole it from old blind Pew, years ago.”
      Eleanor looked at me. “What would you have done if it hadn’t worked?”
      “Improvised,” I said.
 
      Eleanor drove the goon’s car back to Hecate’s Tea Room, where she called for a limousine to take Marcel back to Griffin Hall. I did suggest an ambulance might be more appropriate, but Eleanor wouldn’t hear of it. He’d be safer at the Hall, and that was all that mattered. Marcel was an immortal, so he couldn’t die, and he’d heal quicker in familiar surroundings.
      “And besides,” said Eleanor, “the Griffin family keeps its secrets to itself.”
      The limousine arrived in a few minutes and took Marcel away. The liveried chauffeur didn’t even raise an eyebrow at Marcel’s condition. Eleanor and I went back into the Tea Room and sat down again in our private booth. The storm of gossip over our reappearance was practically deafening.
      “Thanks for the help,” said Eleanor. “I could have called Daddy, but he always favours the scorched earth policy when it comes to threats against the family. And I’m not ready to lose Marcel, just yet.”
      “So,” I said, “tell me about Melissa.”
      Eleanor pulled a face. “You are persistent, aren’t you? I suppose I do owe you something…and unlike my dear husband, I always pay my debts. So, Melissa…I can’t tell you much about her because I don’t know much. I’m not sure anyone does, really. Melissa…is a very private, very quiet person. The kind who spends a lot of time living inside her own head. Reads a lot, studies…She does talk to Jeremiah, though don’t ask me about what. They spend a lot of time together, in private.
      “I never cared much about her, to be honest. I was always more concerned with my Paul. I moved back into the Hall so I could be close to him. I wasn’t going to lose my son to the Griffin. What little I do know of Melissa is only because she and Paul have always been close. They spend a lot of time in each other’s rooms…Because they grew up together in the Hall, they see themselves as brother and sister. Though my Paul never took to Jeremiah the way Melissa did. I saw to that. I didn’t give up on my child, like William did.” She smiled wistfully. “Paul and I were very close when he was small. Now that he’s a teenager it’s all I can do to get him to come out of his room.”
      “I didn’t get to meet him,” I said. “But I talked to him, through his bedroom door. He seemed…highly strung.”
      Eleanor shrugged angrily. “He’s a teenager. For me, that’s so long ago I can barely remember what it was like. I try to be understanding, but…he’ll get over it. I raised Paul to be his own man, not Jeremiah’s. I just wish he’d talk to me more…”
      “Do you believe Melissa was kidnapped?” I said bluntly.
      “Oh yes,” said Eleanor, not hesitating for a moment.
      “But it must have been done with inside help to get past all the security. Not anyone in the family. I’d know. More likely one of the servants.”
      “How about Hobbes?” I said. “He seems to know everything there is to know about the Hall’s security. And he is a bit…”
      “Creepy?” said Eleanor. “Damned right. Can’t stand the fellow, myself. He sneaks around, and you never hear him coming. Gives himself airs and graces, just because he’s the butler. But no…Hobbes is Jeremiah’s man, body and soul. Always has been. What bothers me is that there hasn’t been any ransom demand yet.”
      “Maybe they’re still working out how much to ask for,” I said.
      “Maybe. Or perhaps they believe they can find the secret of Griffin immortality by interrogating her. Or dissecting her. The fools.” She looked at me appealingly and put her hand on top of mine. “John, I might not be as close to Melissa as I should, but I still wouldn’t want anything like that to happen to her. You rescued Marcel for me. Rescue my niece. Whatever it takes.”
      “Even though her return could disinherit you?” I said.
      “That’s only a whim on Daddy’s part,” Eleanor said flatly. She drew her hand back from mine, but her gaze was just as steady. “He’s testing William and me, to see how we’ll react. He’ll change his mind. Or I’ll change it for him.” She smiled suddenly, like a mischievous child. “William never did understand how to work our father. He always had to go head to head, and you never get anywhere with Daddy like that. He’s had centuries to build up his stubbornness. And William…has never been strong. I know how to get Daddy to do what I want, without him ever realising that it’s my idea and not his. Which is why I have a life of my own, away from the family and the family business, and a child of my own, and poor William doesn’t.”
      “There is a story,” I said carefully, “about an adult grand-child leading to the Griffin’s death…”
      “No-one believes that old story!” said Eleanor, not even bothering to hide her scorn. “Or at least, no-one who matters. Do you think for one moment I’d let my Paul live in the Hall with the Griffin if I thought he was in any danger? No, that story is one of the many legends that have grown up around my family and my father, down the centuries. Most of them contradictory. I think Daddy encourages them. The more stories there are, the less chance there is that someone might discover the truth. Whatever it might be. I don’t know. I don’t think anyone does anymore, except Daddy.”
      She paused, and looked at me in a thoughtful, considering way. “I find myself…drawn to you, John Taylor. You’re the first man I’ve met in a long time who genuinely doesn’t seem to give a damn about my family’s wealth, or power. Who isn’t scared shitless of my father. Do you have any idea how rare that is? Every one of my husbands all but fainted the first time I dragged them into the great man’s presence. Could it be that I’ve finally found a real man, after so many boys…?”
      “I’m hard to impress,” I said. “You never met my mother…And you should remember that I’m only passing through your life, Eleanor. I have no intention of staying. I have my own life and a woman I share it with. I’m just here to do a job.”
      Eleanor put her hand on top of mine again. There was a sense of pressure, not unpleasant, as though she could hold me there by force. “Are you sure I can’t tempt you, John?”
      I gently but firmly pulled my hand out from under hers. “You haven’t met my Suzie. Has it ever occurred to you, Eleanor, that what you’re looking for isn’t a man, but another Daddy?”
      “I am never that obvious,” said Eleanor, not insulted.
      “Or that shallow.”
      “I don’t have time for this,” I said, not unkindly. “I have to find Melissa, and I’m on a very tight deadline. I can’t help feeling I’m missing something…I’ve talked to everyone in your family now, except Paul. You said he and Melissa were very close. If I were to go back to the Hall, would you happen to have a spare key to his bedroom?”
      “He isn’t there right now,” said Eleanor, looking away for the first time. “He has…friends he goes to see. At this club…He thinks I don’t know. If I tell you where to find him, John, you have to promise me you’ll be gentle with him. Treat him kindly. He is very precious to me.”
      “I shall be politeness itself,” I said. “I can be civilised, when I have to be. There just isn’t much call for it, in my line of business.”
      “You have to promise me you won’t tell anyone else,” Eleanor insisted. “People wouldn’t understand.”
      I put on my most trustworthy face. Eleanor didn’t look entirely convinced, but she finally told me the name of the club, and at once I understood a lot more about Paul Griffin. I knew the club. I’d been there before.
      “It’s so good to have had a real conversation, for a change,” said Eleanor, a little wistfully. “To actually talk about something that matters…” She looked out of our booth at the Ladies Who Lunch, and her gaze was not kind. “You have no idea how lonely you can feel, in the middle of a crowd, when you know you have nothing in common with any of them. Some days, I could turn my back on the family and walk away from it all. Make a new life for myself. But I couldn’t leave Paul to my father’s mercies…and besides, I don’t know how to do poor. So I guess I’ll go on being a goldfish in a bowl, swimming round and round, forever. I enjoyed meeting you, John Taylor. You’re…different.”
      “Oh yes,” I said. “Really. You have no idea.”

SEVEN - Divas! Las Vegas!

      There are all kinds of clubs in Uptown, and Divas! is perhaps the most famous. Certainly the most glamorous, Divas! is where men go to get in touch with their feminine side by dressing up in drag as their favourite female singing sensations. They then channel their idols’ talents so they can get up on the big raised stage and sing their little hearts out. At Divas! girls just want to have fun.
      I’d been to the club once before, during the Nightingale case, but I was hoping the management had forgotten about that by now. It wasn’t my fault all the trannies got possessed by outside forces, attacked me and my friends, and we were forced to trash the place. Well, technically, yes it was my fault; but for once I was pretty sure I had the moral high ground as I did save the day, eventually. It really wasn’t my fault that the club had to be practically rebuilt from the ground up afterwards.
      I stood outside Divas! and looked the place over. It looked as I remembered it—loud, overstated, and tacky as all hell. That much flashing neon in one place should be declared illegal on mental health grounds. You couldn’t criticise the club’s taste because it gloried in the fact that it didn’t have any, but I still felt the neon figures over the door engaged in what I’d thought at first was a sword-swallowing act was way over the top.
      Bright young things and gorgeous young creatures sauntered and sashayed through the main entrance. They came in groups and cliques, in ones and twos, laughing and chattering and arm in arm, their heads held high. This was their place, their dream, their heaven on earth. And this…was Paul Griffin’s club. I wondered what (or who) he’d look like when I finally tracked him down.
      I strolled casually towards the main entrance, feeling positively dingy in my plain white trench coat, hoping against hope that I wouldn’t run into anyone who was involved in the previous…unpleasantness. The big and burly bouncer at the door was Ann-Margaret, in a leopard-skin print leotard, a flaming red wig, and surprisingly understated makeup. The illusion was fairly convincing, until you got close enough to spot the over-developed biceps. He moved quickly to block my way, a distinctly unfeminine scowl darkening his face.
      “You are not coming in,” the Ann-Margaret said flatly. “You are banned, John Taylor, banned and barred and banished from this club for the rest of your unnatural life. We’d excommunicate you and burn you in effigy if we thought you’d care. You are never setting foot in Divas! ever again, not even if you get reincarnated. We’ve only just got the place looking nice again. And even you can’t force your way in now, not with all the really neat new protections we’ve had installed since you were here last. I have new and important weapons to use against you! Mighty weapons! Powerful weapons!”
      “Then why aren’t you using them?” I asked, reasonably.
      The Ann-Margaret shifted uneasily on his high-heeled feet. “Because there are a lot of really nasty rumours going around just now as to how you really won the Lilith War. They say you did some really awful things, even for you. They say you burned down the Street of the Gods and ate Merlin’s heart.”
      “Does that really sound like something you think I’d do?” I said.
      “Hell, yes! Whatever happened to Sister Morphine? What happened to Tommy Oblivion? Why have their bodies never been found?”
      “Trust me,” I said calmly, “you really don’t want to know. I did what I had to, but I couldn’t save everyone. Now let me in, or I’ll set fire to your wig.”
      “Beast!” hissed the Ann-Margaret. “Bully.” But he still stepped aside to let me pass. The painted and powdered peacocks waiting to get in watched in disapproving silence as I entered the club, but I didn’t look back. They can sense fear. The hatcheck girl in her little art deco cubicle was a 1960s Cilla Black in a tight leather bustier. He clearly remembered me from last time because he took one look and immediately dived beneath his counter to hide until I was gone. Lot of people feel that way about me. I could sense all kinds of weapon systems tracking and targeting me as I strolled through the lobby towards the club proper, but none of them locked on. Sometimes my reputation is more use to me than a twenty-third-century force field.
      I pushed open the gold-leaf-decorated double doors and stepped through into the huge ballroom that was the true heart of Divas! I stopped just inside the doors, stunned by the make-over they’d given the old place. The club had gone seventies. Las Vegas seventies, with a huge glittering disco ball rotating and sparkling overhead. Bright lights and brighter colours blazed all around, gaudy and tacky by turns, with rows of slot machines down one wall, a mirrored bar, and a row of long-legged, high-kicking chorus girls slamming their way through a traditional routine up on the raised stage. It was as though the seventies had never ended, a Saturday Night Feverdream where the dancing never stopped.
      Gorgeous butterflies in knock-off designer frocks fluttered around the crowded tables on the ballroom floor, crying out loud in excited voices, catcalling and laughing and shrieking with joy. It was all almost too glamorous to bear. The chorus line trotted off-stage to thunderous applause, replaced by a Dolly Parton in hooker chic hand-me-downs, who sang a medley with more enthusiasm than style. I wandered through the tables, nodding appreciatively at some of the more famous faзades, but no-one ever smiled back. They all knew me and what had happened here before, and they wanted to make it very clear I was not at all welcome. I get a lot of that. Up on the raised stage, the Dolly gave way to a Madonna and a Britney, duetting on “I Got You Babe.”
      I was still looking for Paul Griffin, or somebody like him. Eleanor had given me a rough description of her son and what he might be wearing, but all I knew of him for sure was a frightened voice on the other side of a locked bedroom door. I was going to have to ask someone; and getting answers here wasn’t going to be easy. As in Hecate’s Tea Room, the girls at every table grew silent as I approached, glared at me as I passed, and gossiped loudly about me after I’d moved on.
      And then I caught a glimpse of Shotgun Suzie, moving among the tables on the other side of the room. My Suzie, in her black motorcycle leathers, with a shotgun holstered on her back and two bandoliers of bullets crossed over her chest. What the hell was she doing here? She was supposed to be hunting down a bounty out on Desolation Row. I pushed my way through the tables and the crowds, but even before I could call out her name she turned to look at me, and I saw at once that it wasn’t my Suzie at all. He stood and waited as I went over to him. People scattered in all directions, fearing a confrontation, but the Suzie look-alike stood his ground, calm and cold and unconcerned. Or perhaps he was just staying in character. Up close I could see all the differences. Still looked pretty dangerous, though.
      “Why?” I said.
      “I’m a tribute Suzie Shooter.” The voice was low and husky, and not that far off the real thing. “Shotgun Suzie is my heroine.”
      I nodded slowly. “I still wouldn’t let her catch you looking like that,” I said, not unkindly. “Suzie tends to shoot first and not ask questions afterwards.”
      “I know,” said the tribute Suzie. “Isn’t she wonderful?”
      I let him go. I sort of wondered if perhaps there was a tribute John Taylor out there somewhere, too, but I didn’t like to ask. With my luck, it would probably be a drag king. While I was still considering that, I was approached by a towering Angelina Jolie, dressed in shiny black plastic from head to toe, along with an absolute proliferation of straps and buckles and studs. She crashed to a halt before me, stuck her hands on her shiny hips, pursed her amazing lips, and looked down her nose at me. It was a hell of a performance. I felt like applauding.
      “I am the Management,” the Angelina said flatly.
      “What the hell are you doing here, Taylor? Wasn’t the contract we put out on you enough of a hint? Haven’t you caused us enough trouble?”
      “You’d be surprised how often I get asked that,” I said calmly. “Relax, I’m just here looking for someone.” I paused, looking thoughtfully down at the Angelina’s impressive exposed cleavage. “You know, those breasts look awfully real.”
      “They are real,” she said frostily. “Don’t show your ignorance, Taylor. Divas! doesn’t exist only for men who like to dress up pretty. I am a pre-op transsexual. Chick with a dick, if you must. Divas! caters to transvestites, transsexuals, and supersexuals. All those who through an unkind twist of fate were born into the wrong bodies. Divas! is for everyone who ever felt alienated by the sexual identity they were thrust into at birth, and have since found the courage to make new lives for themselves. To make ourselves over into what we should have been all along. Tell me who you’re looking for, and I’ll point you in the right direction. The sooner I can get you out of here, the happier we’ll all be.”
      “I’m looking for Paul Griffin,” I said.
      “Who?”
      “Don’t give me that. Everyone in the Nightside’s heard of the Griffin’s grandson.”
      The Angelina shrugged, unmoved. “Can’t blame a girl for trying. Paul comes here for privacy, like so many others. And he has more reasons than most for not wanting to be found or identified. The paparazzi always ask our permission before they take a photograph, ever since we impaled one on a parking meter, but even so…I suppose if I don’t tell you, you’ll just use your gift anyway…See that table over there? Ask for Polly.”
      “You’re very kind,” I said.
      “Don’t you believe it, cowboy.” The Angelina sniffed briefly. “You know, we tried to claim on our insurance after you happened here, but they wouldn’t pay out. Apparently you’re classified along with natural disasters and Acts of Gods.”
      “I am deeply flattered,” I said.
      I headed for the table the Angelina had pointed out. All the bright young things crowded around it were dressed up as Bond girls—female villains and lust interests from the James Bond movies. There was an Ursula Andress in the iconic white bikini, a gold-plated Margaret Nolan from Goldfinger’s opening credits, and of course a haughty-looking Pussy Galore. They all turned and started to smile as they saw someone approaching, then their painted smiles and eyes went cold when they saw who it was. But I’m used to that. I was more interested in the happy, laughing, blonde-haired teenager who sat among them. She wasn’t any Bond girl I recognised. In fact, she looked subtly out of place in this glamorous company, just by looking more like a real, everyday girl. She finally turned to look at me, and I stopped in my tracks. I knew that face from the photograph Jeremiah Griffin had given me at the start of this case. It was Melissa Griffin.
      Except, of course, it wasn’t. Small subtle things told me immediately that this wasn’t a teenage girl at all, and I knew who it was, who it had to be. Paul Griffin, dressed up all pretty, and the very image of his missing cousin. I moved slowly towards him, not wanting to scare him off, and he stood up to face me.
      “Hi,” I said carefully. Paul, or Polly? Polly would seem more friendly. “I’m John Taylor. I need to talk to you, Polly.”
      “You don’t have to say anything to him, honey,” the Pussy Galore said immediately. “Say the word and we’ll…”
      “It’s all right,” Polly said, in a soft and very feminine voice.
      “We can protect you!”