She almost ran to the opposite pavement. By the time the car pulled up, Robin was waiting, ready for Cosima to get out. The girl took her time about it, first brushing her long hair and reapplying lip gloss while looking in a flip-down mirror in the car’s ceiling, and typing out what appeared to be a text before finally putting her belongings in her bag and opening the passenger door.
‘Cosima,’ said Robin at once, as the doorman came rushing towards the pair, holding a large burgundy umbrella.
The girl looked at Robin in surprise.
‘My name’s Robin Ellacott. I’m a private detective. I wanted to ask you a couple of questions about Rupert—’
‘What?’ said Cosima, staring at Robin, while the doorman sheltered her from the rain with his umbrella.
‘—Rupert Fleetwood. What did he say to you at Sacha Legard’s birthday party?’
‘I – what?’ said Cosima again, but colour had flooded her pale face. ‘I don’t – leave me alone!’
‘Cosima, you must know Rupert’s gone missing,’ said Robin, hurrying alongside the girl as she strode towards the entrance of Dino’s. ‘Your sister’s incredibly worried about him, and—’
‘Leave me alone!’ repeated Cosima shrilly, and ducking out from beneath the umbrella, she ran through the revolving door and disappeared from sight.
The doorman, who was a tall man in his fifties, said,
‘You’ve had your orders. Get out of here.’
‘This is a public pavement,’ Robin replied coldly.
She retreated into a doorway a short way from Dino’s, wondering what her next move should be. She supposed there was a remote possibility that Cosima, like Fyola Fay, might come back to find out what Robin already knew, but she wasn’t banking on it.
Robin’s eye fell again on the parked Honda Accord containing the man with the nose like a button mushroom. Once again, he turned his head away hastily when Robin looked at him. She couldn’t see the Accord’s number plate at all from this position. Wondering whether it mightn’t be a good idea to move so as to make a note of it, she was distracted by the sound of heavy footsteps to her left, and turned to see Dino Longcaster approaching, large and beautifully suited, with his dully gleaming cannonball of a head.
‘I hear you’ve been pestering my daughter,’ he drawled.
‘Not pestering,’ said Robin, forcing herself to sound unruffled, because Longcaster was intimidating both in size and manner. ‘Just asking a question.’
‘Could you spare me five minutes?’ said Dino Longcaster, looking at her down his long nose. ‘Inside the club?’
‘Of course,’ said Robin.
‘Thank you, Joshua,’ said Longcaster, as they passed the doorman.
‘Mr Longcaster, sir,’ muttered the attendant, touching his top hat, and he looked away as Robin passed him, revealing his earpiece and microphone.
A delicious warmth met Robin as she stepped into an opulent hallway full of artfully tarnished mirrors. The walls were covered in midnight blue fabric patterned in gold with stylised 1920s women and greyhounds, the air smelled of amber and sandalwood, and a staircase wound upwards past a multitude of paintings, many of them of dogs. A real white canine Robin recognised as a Pyrenean Mountain Dog was waiting for Longcaster just inside the door, wagging its tail; it thrust its nose into Longcaster’s hand, and he patted it.
‘We’ll go upstairs,’ said Longcaster, and he turned to a gorgeous black girl who wore her hair in a chignon and a tightly fitting burgundy dress. ‘Montagu’s empty, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, Mr Longcaster, sir.’
‘This way,’ Longcaster told Robin, and he set off upstairs, the Pyrenean Mountain Dog padding after him.
There were more burgundy-clad staff on the upstairs landing, all of them good-looking, all straightening like elegant meerkats at Longcaster’s approach. Robin was busy telling herself that she absolutely refused to be intimidated by this man or by his club, because she’d met far more frightening people than Dino Longcaster during her detective career, but the increase in alertness and nerves that seemed to touch every member of staff they passed told her that it might take a certain degree of gumption not to be frightened of Dino Longcaster.
He led Robin past a couple of doorways bearing the name plates ‘Amarillo’ and ‘Dostoevsky’, finally leading her into an empty room even more opulent than the hallway, which managed to be simultaneously grand and cosy. The walls were covered in a swirling red paisley fabric; there were many more oil paintings, mostly of dogs and horses; a log fire was burning in the grate; scarlet roses were arranged in large crystal bowls; the velvet armchairs were deep and looked welcoming. A backgammon board and a chess set were laid out on small tables, and the impression of a private home was reinforced by the few pictures that stood in silver frames or hung on the walls, some of them black and white, mostly featuring Longcaster himself, or his most photogenic daughter. In one of these pictures, Longcaster was collecting a silver racing trophy from the Queen; in another, he stood in black tie, greeting the Aga Khan at the doorway of his club.
‘Please,’ said Longcaster to Robin, gesturing to a pair of armchairs beside the fire.
He hitched up his trousers at his knees before sitting down opposite her. The dog immediately placed its huge white head in his lap, and Longcaster began to massage it with long, spatulate fingers.
‘May I have the pleasure of knowing who’s been harassing my daughter?’
‘My name’s Robin Ellacott, I’m a private detective, and there was no harassment.’
Still stroking the dog, Longcaster extended his free hand to press a small brass bell on a side table. A uniformed waiter appeared so quickly Robin thought he must have been standing in readiness right outside the door.
‘Martini,’ said Longcaster.
‘Yes, Mr Longcaster, sir. Madam?’
‘No, thank—’
‘Bring her a Majesty,’ Longcaster told the waiter, who smiled and left the room. Longcaster turned back to face Robin. His deep-set grey eyes raked her from head to foot and back up again, before he said,
‘So, you’re trying to track down the jellyfish.’
‘Who’s “the jellyfish”?’ asked Robin disingenuously.
‘Genus Fleetwood,’ said Longcaster. ‘Species Rupert.’
He reached out a long arm towards a humidor sitting on another low table, opened it and extracted a cigar and a cutter. The dog peered reproachfully up at his master at the cessation of stroking, then, with a kind of low groan, settled down at his feet, head on its paws. Longcaster now set about trimming the end of a cigar, glancing up at Robin to say,
‘You shouldn’t wear black.’
‘What?’
‘Black. It ages you. You can’t be more than, what – thirty-five?’
‘Don’t you think that’s quite a rude thing to say to someone you’ve only just met?’ said Robin, forcing herself to sound amused.
‘Nothing rude about it. I’m giving you good advice.’
‘But I didn’t ask for any.’
‘Presumably because you weren’t aware you needed it. S’pose you think black makes you look thin, do you?’
‘No,’ said Robin, ‘it’s just easy.’
‘Good taste has nothin’ to do with easy,’ said Longcaster with asperity, now reaching for a large malachite lighter. ‘Black looks elegant on Asian women, on most black women, and on some dark-haired Caucasians, but there’s nothin’ cheaper lookin’ than black on a blonde.’