Free Ratcatcher by Tim Stevens Page B

him on the shoulder, jarring Purkiss’s own teeth.
    Inside it was the worst kind of place, the music so loud that the bass set up a vibration in the outer pinna of the ear rather than just the eardrum. It was industrial electronica and triggered a mild clench of nausea in Purkiss, whose musical tastes ran more to the classical. The air conditioning was fighting a losing battle against the humidity of sweaty flesh. On each of four podia spaced throughout the floor area a woman gyrated, clad in a bikini and what looked like a Second World War gas mask.
    Purkiss chiselled his way through the layers of dancers towards the bar counter. He signalled the nearest bartender with a hundred-kroner note held up between two fingers. The man, shaven-headed and burly as the bouncers, his leather vest revealing a phantasmagoria of tattoos on his arms, leaned across, his ear close.
    In Russian Purkiss shouted, ‘I’m looking for this man.’ He held up his phone with the picture of Fallon together with the caption he’d added: Julian Fisher .
    The man was straightening, shaking his head almost as soon as he had glanced at the picture. Then he frowned at it again. Beckoning Purkiss closer he yelled, ‘Englishman. He didn’t turn up for his shifts last week, so everyone’s assumed he’s moved on.’
    ‘How long was he working here?’
    The man shrugged. ‘Couple of months? Lyuba will know. I’ll get her.’
    He plucked the note from Purkiss’s fingers without looking at it and moved down the bar and tapped the shoulder of one of the other bar staff, bending to her ear. She stared at Purkiss, a compact woman with short punky hair and similarly bared and tattooed arms. Lyuba : a Russian name. Only briefly taking her eyes off him, she finished serving her order and made her way down the counter. Purkiss produced another banknote between his knuckles and showed her the photo. She glanced at it, then back into his eyes. Up close her face was hard and angled and seamed. She was perhaps thirty but looked five years older.
    ‘You know him?’
    She put her lips to his ear, but the music changed to something even more frenetic. He shook his head. She cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted, ‘This way,’ and jerked her head. He followed her further down the bar, where she lifted a hatch, let him through and took him down a corridor to where the noise was merely intrusive. Arms folded, she faced him.
    ‘Who are you?’
    ‘A friend of Julian’s from England. I can’t find him.’
    ‘He was here since February. Then last week – poof .’ She splayed her hands. There was naked hostility in her glare. In a moment Purkiss got it.
    ‘You were seeing each other?’
    ‘The famous English chivalry. One minute he’s all over me, talking about getting a place together. The next he’s saying he needs to move on. He’s not ready to settle down. It’s not me, it’s him .’ She delivered the last in a wincingly accurate parody of a well-spoken Englishman’s Russian. Her mouth twisted in bitterness. Suddenly her eyes were calculating. ‘And you can tell your whoreson friend , if you find him, that I haven’t forgotten the money he owes me, nor have those friends of mine he met.’
    ‘How much?’
    ‘Six thousand krooni .’ About four hundred pounds, Purkiss estimated. ‘He was always short.’
    ‘Perhaps we can help each other find him.’
    She studied his eyes, said, ‘I have to get back to work. My shift ends at one o’clock. Will you wait?’
    ‘Yes.’
    She hadn’t taken the note he’d been holding. He made his way back into the heat and noise of the dance floor. At the bar he bought a bottle of water and a Diet Coke, after which he wormed his way over to one of the walls and leaned against it, wincing at the stickiness that tugged at the back of his jacket. Lyuba reappeared behind the bar. She and her fellow bartenders swarmed back and forth, keeping up with the demand. Purkiss checked his watch. Twelve