The paramedics were gathering up their equipment as we came into the hall. I looked down at Georgia. She still seemed utterly dazed.
‘How’s she doing?’ I asked.
‘We’re going to take her to Casualty and get her checked out properly,’ one of the paramedics said and I nodded, relieved.
‘There’s no need.’ Georgia waved a hand. ‘Don’t need to go anywhere.’
‘You got a hell of a knock. Better safe than sorry.’ I looked around. ‘Where’s Bianca? She was here a few minutes ago.’
‘I – I don’t know. I didn’t see her go.’ Georgia winced as she turned her head. ‘I thought she was standing right there. I’m sure she was.’
‘What’s up?’ Derwent had arrived behind me.
‘Bianca Drummond has disappeared.’ I was looking around, hoping to spot her. ‘She was here a minute ago. She was standing beside—’ I broke off. ‘Damn it.’
‘What’s wrong?’ Liv asked.
‘Where’s Carl Hooper?’ I stalked over to the enormous grey-suited man who had been stationed at the top of the stairs. He was coming down slowly, looking wary. ‘Where’s your boss?’
‘No idea.’ He shrugged, his shoulders almost swallowing his head. ‘I called him on the radio and he didn’t answer.’
Shit. ‘He said something about a door at the rear of the building?’
‘Yes. Downstairs. Past the kitchen.’
Derwent was already moving in the direction he’d indicated. ‘Leave that to me. Liv, get the warrant sorted out. And someone grab the officers from outside. We’re going to need them to search the place properly.’
Liv was leaning forward so she could see into the dining room. Whatever she saw made her eyes widen. ‘We’ll need to clear this place out too.’
I turned to the squat grey-suited man. ‘Did you hear that? You can tell your colleagues the party’s over.’
Once we had our warrant, we were allowed to roam the entire building. It didn’t take long to confirm my worst fears: Bianca Drummond had disappeared and so had Carl Hooper. I took the details of all the staff who were still in the building: chefs, waitresses, foreign kitchen hands who were palpably terrified to come in contact with officialdom, the grey-suited security staff and the porters. None of them had seen Bianca leave, they assured me, not meeting my eyes. None of them had seen anything.
Derwent found me in the staff changing room.
‘What have you got there?’
‘Bianca’s jacket and bag.’ I showed him what was inside the bag. ‘House keys, phone, money, cards. She wouldn’t have left this by choice.’
‘You think something happened to her.’
‘I do.’ I shoved the jacket and bag into an evidence bag and wrote a label for it, my writing an edgy scrawl. ‘I should never have left her. Carl Hooper must have realised who she was. Or maybe she saw something she shouldn’t have. I should have arrested Hooper the minute I identified myself.’
‘For what? He hadn’t done anything wrong then.’ He was watching me closely, his arms folded.
‘If it comes to that, we don’t even know he’s done anything wrong now. But I have a bad feeling about him.’
‘I’ve just been talking to Pettifer,’ Derwent said slowly, reluctantly, as if he didn’t want to be the one to break the news. ‘He’s got the background information on Hooper. Multiple convictions for violent behaviour.’
I swallowed hard. ‘So a little light kidnapping would fit in very nicely.’
‘You’re overreacting.’
I glowered at him. ‘You don’t know that. I hope I am. But it wouldn’t be the first time a woman connected with the Chiron Club disappeared into thin air, and nothing good happened to the others.’
Derwent would never admit I was right, but he did abandon the argument. ‘There’s nothing else here. Come on.’
I followed him into the deserted kitchen. Trays of glossy petits fours lay where the staff had abandoned them, unserved because we had brought the evening to an end early. Derwent pulled a clean linen napkin off a stack in the corner, unfolded it with a brisk shake, then opened a massive freezer and disappeared inside it.
‘What are you doing?’
He emerged with a handful of ice on the napkin which he bundled up and pressed against my neck. ‘Hold it there. It’ll help with the bruising.’
I put my hand up cautiously to keep the ice in place. ‘Does it look bad?’
‘It’s a proper bite.’ He shook his head. ‘It’s not really your style. Keep that on there for a few minutes.’
I knew I should be grateful to him for thinking of it, but I didn’t care about my neck at that moment. What was shredding my nerves was the thought of Bianca being scared. Worse was the thought of her being silenced permanently. Why would Hooper take her away unless it was to make sure she couldn’t tell me what she knew?
‘Where’s Liv?’
‘Collecting the drugs she found under the tables in the dining room.’ Derwent grinned. ‘Half of London’s coke supply is all over the carpet upstairs. It looks like a blizzard hit. The members did not want to be caught in possession of illegal substances.’
‘What a shame for them.’
‘I’ve got a list of all the members who attended this evening. We can interview them when they’ve sobered up and find out if anyone saw Bianca leave.’
‘They won’t have seen anything.’
‘Pettifer is reviewing the club’s CCTV.’
‘That might be more helpful,’ I allowed.
‘If she was wearing a recording device it might have been transmitting to her phone. Let’s fast-track it and see if the tech guys can download anything useful for us.’
‘That’s a good idea.’
‘It’s not your fault. She came here because she wanted to play investigative journalist. You tried to warn her.’
‘I’m well aware of that.’
Derwent raised his eyebrows. ‘OK. I’m only pointing it out.’
‘I’d better get a move on.’ I tipped the ice into the nearest sink with a clatter, and carried my evidence bag out to hand it over to someone who could make Bianca’s phone talk to us.
The last place we searched was the Chiron Club’s administrative offices, housed in three poky rooms right at the top of the building. I sat on the floor, my torture-device heels next to me, and worked through the contents of a filing cabinet while Derwent and Pettifer ransacked the desks and drawers and Liv yawned through correspondence. It was punishingly late, but I didn’t want to leave until we had gleaned every last detail from the files. The only advantage we had was surprise. I hoped that meant we would find something useful, but so far we had found nothing that helped with any part of the investigation. Even the CCTV had been useless, the camera covering the back door unaccountably failing to record for the period where Bianca had disappeared. We would try to get something from cameras on the streets around the club, but for the time being we were groping in the dark.
‘Anyone got anything good?’ Derwent asked at last.
‘Not me. Nothing but complaints about the food and the fixtures and the conversation at the members’ table during weekday lunches.’ Liv waved a handwritten letter at us. ‘This one is about the paper in the lavatories. It goes on for pages. I would honestly go mad if I had to deal with these people all the time. The administrators are saints.’
‘What about you?’ I asked.
‘I found the accounts.’ Derwent tipped open a giant ledger that looked as if it had been used for decades, the used pages puckered and yellowed. ‘The membership fees seem to vary a lot.’
‘Everyone pays according to what they can afford. That’s what Sir Marcus told me.’
‘Most people can afford a lot.’
‘Have you found expenses? Petty cash?’
‘Yeah, there’s another ledger for that.’ Pettifer brandished it.
‘Can you look up the twenty-second of July two years ago?’
He started flipping through the pages. ‘What am I looking for?’
‘A payment in cash. Several thousand pounds.’
He ran his finger down the page. ‘Four thousand, eight hundred quid?’
‘That’s the money they gave Antoinette as a pay-off to stop her from reporting her rape.’
‘It’s got “repaid in full x 2” written beside it.’
‘Then I guess they passed the cost on to the guys who did it. That proves they knew all about the rape and they knew who to ask for the money.’
‘Only if a court is prepared to believe Antoinette’s story,’ Derwent pointed out. ‘They can say that money was paying another debt. Gambling or something. A bar bill, even. There’s nothing to say it was a rape pay-off.’
‘Yeah, I can’t imagine why they didn’t write it down.’ I got up, tugging my skirt down. ‘Let me have a look for a second.’
Pettifer turned the ledger around and I read the next few entries, frowning.
‘Problem?’ Derwent asked.
‘What do you think PPCS is?’
‘No idea. Why?’
‘It’s listed here as a payee the weekend after that party when Antoinette said she was raped and Iliana Ivanova disappeared. Two payments of cash, but it doesn’t say how much – there’s just a symbol. And the money was never repaid. This bill was covered by the Club, not an individual member.’
Derwent considered it. ‘What do you think it was?’
‘I don’t know but the admin staff are meticulous about noting how much cash they spend. It’s weird that they won’t even write down the amount for this. Who gets paid secret money in cash? Apart from contract killers and drug dealers?’
‘There’s a safe in the other room,’ Liv said from the doorway. ‘I can’t open it but they could have quite a bit of cash on the premises.’
‘We’ll have to get one of the administrators to open it for us in the morning.’ I checked my watch. ‘In about four hours.’
‘PPCS,’ Derwent said, more or less to himself, and pulled out a drawer in the desk. He pawed through the pen tray and found a white biro with blue writing. He turned it to show us. ‘PPCS. Contract killers don’t usually bother with promotional stationery.’
‘Can I have a look?’ Beside the initials was a complicated line-drawing logo of a cat, dog and horse. I stared at it, trying to remember if I’d seen it before.
‘Could it be veterinary supplies? They could be sourcing their drugs through a crooked rep. Horse tranquilliser is a lot of fun.’ We all turned to look at Liv, who shrugged. ‘So I’ve heard, anyway.’
I did a quick internet search on my phone and scrolled through the results. ‘That is a surprisingly popular acronym.’
‘Search PPCS and animals,’ Liv suggested.
‘Postoperative pulmonary complications in dogs.’ I put my phone down with a sigh. ‘Not much help.’
‘We can look them up properly.’ Pettifer yawned massively. ‘Tomorrow, maybe.’
‘Bored?’ I asked with an edge in my voice.
‘Tired.’ He pointed at Liv. ‘And so is she. We’re all tired.’
‘Then maybe you should all go home.’
‘What about you?’ Derwent was throwing the white pen up in the air and catching it, apparently absorbed.
‘I’ve got to finish going through the filing cabinet.’
‘You’re not going to find Bianca Drummond in there.’
I was tired, I thought, or I wouldn’t want to cry. I rubbed my eyes with the heels of my hands. They came away black and I stared at them in horror. ‘Oh God. Have I given myself panda eyes?’
Derwent got up and shook out an evidence bag.
‘Come on. We’re not the only people who are looking for Bianca and Carl Hooper. A briefing has gone out to all the Met response teams. His car will ping any ANPR cameras it passes. If Bianca is out there, someone will find her.’
I nodded, knowing he was right.
‘Let’s take as much of this paperwork as we can carry.’ Derwent held out the bag for Pettifer to drop his ledger into it. ‘I’ll get an officer to stay here until we come back so they can’t clear the place out. We can have a bit of a rest while we’re waiting for analysis of the phone and the CCTV images we’ve requested. The most important thing is finding Bianca, but we’ve gone as far as we can here. Time for a break.’
‘Maybe we could get something to eat,’ Liv suggested.
‘Good idea.’ He picked up my shoes and handed them to me. ‘And if you’re very good, Kerrigan, we can stop on the way to the office and get you some bamboo.’