45

Emma had almost bitten her nails down to nothing; her nerves had got the better of her. She had smoked more cigarettes in the last few days than she probably had in her entire life, so many that she felt like throwing up; she thought it was the fags making her nauseous but she was worried for her friend too. Every time she thought of poor Kate and what she might be going through, she felt as if she would throw up. Emma knew that the chances of what had happened to her repeating themselves and happening to Kate were slim, but that didn’t stop her mind going into overdrive and making her fear the worst. After all, she knew Jay better than all of them; she had been the one to witness first-hand what an evil bastard he could be. She knew Jay would want the cash badly, but even he wouldn’t be stupid enough not to go through with the deal: surely?

Emma was behind the main bar, just like any other Friday night, except this wasn’t like any other Friday night. The time had passed so slowly, and every time Emma had had a chance to glance at the clock between serving people, it seemed like the clock’s hands had barely moved. The atmosphere was so charged it was like electricity thrashing through the club, everyone was on tenterhooks, just waiting.

Billy had looked a state when he had turned up, he hadn’t shaved and his clothes looked like they had been slept in; judging by his grey, shadowed eyes he had had very little sleep, Emma thought. She had been having trouble sleeping, too, and had been grateful that Billy had stayed in the flat with her; she didn’t think her nerves would have been up to staying there on her own, not with this crap going on. Her nerves were already shot to pieces, and knowing that Billy had been lying on the sofa downstairs had been a huge relief to her.

Billy was upstairs with Paul at the moment, in the gentlemen’s lounge and as she looked around at the amount of shaven-headed beefcakes dotted around the place she hoped with everything she had, that one of them came through tonight for Kate’s sake. He couldn’t get away with this. So many things could go wrong tonight. Emma hadn’t wanted to work, but Paul had insisted that everyone carry on as normal: they should keep their heads down and get on with their jobs no matter what the night brought. It was finally a quarter to twelve; there had been no sign of Jay. Emma’s mind was whirling and she had been mucking up orders all night. To make up for it, she had been dishing out free shots to keep people happy and was now surrounded by a pissed crowd who was laughing and dancing without a care in the world. She was trying hard to concentrate but she kept looking around, scanning the club to see if she could spot his face like everyone else working tonight seemed to be doing: just looking and waiting.

Paul was doing his best to keep Billy cool upstairs, they had been glued to the monitors for over an hour and so far no one had seen Jay enter the club. Paul was worried that if Billy saw Jay, he would lose all sense of reason and want to annihilate the fucker, and Paul didn’t want to risk anything fucking up getting Kate back in one piece. He had told Billy that the best place for them to be was upstairs, and it was true. The cameras were on every entrance, including every fire door, all the stairs were covered and, most importantly, so was the DJ booth. It was ten minutes to midnight now, and as they had discussed Paul was going to take the bag of cash and place it next to the DJ booth. In ten minutes, they would finally have a lead as to where Kate was: they all needed to stay on the ball.

46

The dance floor was heaving; sweaty bodies grinding to the music while drunken people chatted, laughed and sang along to the songs pumping out of the speakers. There must have been three hundred people bopping away on it and hundreds more standing at the sides or lounging on the huge comfy sofas or in the secluded booths.

It certainly was the place to be usually, but maybe not tonight. She was sipping from a bottle of something fruity and alcoholic, which was too sweet and too cheap, not her usual tipple, but then nothing about her was usual tonight. She felt she had surpassed herself, and was feeling very smug once again, lapping up every second of it. Earlier that day she had gone to a salon and had her long hair chopped off and had it styled into a shaggy bob with a fringe that hung into her eyes; she had then asked them to dye it black. The hairdresser had tried to persuade her to keep her lovely golden locks, but Tanya insisted that she wanted a complete re-style. The hairdresser had reluctantly done the cut, and actually said in the end that it quite suited Tanya. Some women were lucky that way and could do pretty much anything to their hair so that it looked great no matter what, she had admitted. With her new hairstyle and racy clubbing clobber, she looked like a completely different girl: unrecognisable. Tanya had hooked up with a bunch of lads when she had first come in to the club: it had been too easy. They looked as if they couldn’t believe their luck, drooling at the sight of her dancing up against them and acting like she was right up for it. She had no time for any of them, of course, they looked like a bunch of complete and utter losers but she needed to mingle and not stand out by being alone, which would draw attention to her. That was what she didn’t need tonight. Most of the time she had been there they had been plying her with drinks and compliments so it wasn’t that hard a task, she figured, to make a tiny effort with them.

She looked at her watch; she had been here for almost half an hour and Jay would be about to kick off the first part of their plan by making an anonymous call to the police. It was a fool-proof plan, Tanya’s handiwork. Jay would say that there was an armed gunman in the club and that he was about to open fire; any minute now, the club would be in complete and utter mayhem. Perfect.

Looking around, Tanya could see the security guys, all eyeing the bag that Paul Goldie had placed down carefully by the DJ booth as instructed. Glugging down the last mouthful of her drink for Dutch courage, she whispered to herself that it was now or never. Reaching under her very short skirt, she pulled out two very well-concealed smoke bombs that Jay had managed to get hold of from some dodgy ex-soldier he knew. Pulling off the tops, she threw them onto the floor in front of the stage. The smoke poured out within seconds and people started swinging their arms and coughing. A few of Paul’s security men looked at each other in alarm before making their way over amongst the coughing people and the now giant smoke cloud that had formed around them all. Tanya quickly threw herself down and crouched on the floor; crawling on her hands and knees to get a better view of the bag, she grabbed it with both hands then quickly made her move to the ladies’ toilets before the smoke started to clear. Taking her opportunity as she ran through the cloud Tanya screamed, as loudly as she possibly could,

              “Oh my God, he’s got a gun, he’s going to fucking shoot us all”.

It had the desired effect, people too pissed to think straight started panicking all around her, screaming and pushing to get away from the smoky dance floor in terror at the thought of a gunman amongst them. Everyone started running in all directions; there was chaos everywhere.

Hearing the commotion and seeing the smoke and panicked faces, the security moved in and was making their way through the haze to the booth. They thought that Jay might be there; maybe he was the one with the gun. They knew their orders: they had to get a visual and keep him in sight, but they couldn’t see anyone matching Jay’s description.

People were fleeting in utter panic, as they rushed about trying to get away. Paul and Billy had seen the commotion on the screens and had made it down there in seconds, desperately trying to see Jay. How had he got in without them seeing him, and armed too: it just didn’t make sense. Shouting to try and calm everybody down, Paul took charge of the situation.