Chapter 17
CLARA
The last place in the world I want to be is sitting on the low, louche red sofas of Delagado Sounds.
To add insult to injury, I see they’ve replaced me.
A slip of a girl with long blonde hair tied in a ponytail that she keeps swishing.
She’s clearly obsessed with her nails. Which are pretty, but they are going to present a problem when typing, phoning, filing, and just about anything else that comes under the remit of her job description.
I wonder why Betsy didn’t go back to Amy.
Amy at least knew the job inside out. Then again, maybe that was Betsy’s plan; she was cleaning out the old and making way for the new – Betsy’s brand of new.
My one consolation about being back here is that this time, I’m not alone.
I may have dropped Evelyn back home, but I have a different kind of secret weapon now – Fitz, and she’s on my side.
Fitz doesn’t have to sit on the red leather sofas, seeing as she kind of owns the place.
She’s with Betsy. I can see them through the glass panels of Marco’s office, which Betsy appears to have re-appropriated.
Their mouths are opening and shutting, but there’s no sound coming out.
I wish I could lip-read. Luckily, I won’t have to. Fitz turns towards me and mouths, ‘In.’
I smile sweetly at the girl with the ponytail as I pass by.
As I pull open the glass door to the office, I feel a hardcore gut wrench of fear.
I’m guessing Betsy’s going to ask me to sing.
I will need to prove myself. At Fitz’s, Evelyn had backed me up.
She’d heard the tape and could categorically confirm it was my voice that was on it, warbling away.
But Fitz hasn’t really heard my voice, just a scattering of notes.
I’m guessing Betsy’s going to want the full deal.
‘Close the door behind you and take a seat,’ Betsy says, barely looking up from (what has clearly become) her new desk.
It’s scattered with audition tapes and files.
I heard through the papers that Delagado Sounds is receiving two hundred files a day.
Two hundred people claiming to be the missing songbird. It’s proving to be great publicity.
‘So.’ Betsy flops herself into her cushioned desk chair.
Places her elbows on the table, clasps her hands, and leans forward so she can fire an eye glare at me.
‘You worked in the lobby then you were a PA for a matter of days.’ She raises one sceptical eyebrow.
‘And now you claim to be our missing songbird.’
I find my body tensing, which is difficult because the couch in Marco’s old office is low and like liquid jelly.
I wish I weren’t so low. I feel as though I have no control.
As though I’m a child, and that flippant rendition of all my recent past jobs makes me sound like a climber at best and a full-on flake master at worst. ‘That’s right,’ I say. ‘It’s my voice on the tape.’
Betsy takes a long breath in, pauses to scratch her chin for a moment. ‘So you came up here and recorded it?’
‘Yes.’
Her eyes narrow. ‘You’d only been working here for a nanosecond. How did you even get in? Marco?’ There’s a hard, caustic joy in her tone when she says his name.
‘No.’ I shake my head, trying desperately to adjust my flailing buttocks on the soft couch. ‘It was that first day. You wanted me to re-log everything in your format.’
‘The file that got lost.’ Her lips harden into a thin line.
‘Yes, but I did it.’ I glance awkwardly down at my hands. ‘There was a lot to do. I went out for supper.’ I don’t want to tell Betsy about my disastrous date with Robin. ‘And then came back to finish it off.’
‘What time?’
‘Sorry?’ This is beginning to feel uncomfortably like an interrogation.
‘What time did you finish?’
‘Oh, about one in the morning. I put it in your in-tray.’
There’s an awkward pause.
‘You’re asking us to believe that you recorded it all by yourself?’
I shrug. ‘It’s not so difficult. I’d been helping all day.’
‘And then the office is burgled.’
I cringe. Did I leave the door open? I must have done. ‘I realise it doesn’t look good. That perhaps someone was waiting outside and got in after I left. I guess you must have it all on the CCTV footage.’
Betsy pushes back in her chair. ‘It’s lost.’
‘Lost?’ Fitz sounds incredulous.
‘Well.’ Betsy moves around to the front of the desk, leans back against it, giving her even more height. ‘The tape was handed to Marco, and that was the last anyone saw of it.’
Oh dear. This just seems to get worse.
‘And you’re sure Marco wasn’t in here with you recording the track?’
‘No.’ I shake my head emphatically. ‘It was just me.’
She begins to pace the office; Fitz and I glance at each other. I’m not convinced this is going well. There’s an utter, overwhelming sense of relief when Betsy the dragon woman comes to a halt and folds her arms in a gesture of finality before firing off deductive analysis detective style.
‘Well, the burglary and the missing songbird could be two separate things. So, let’s look at your claim first. You say the missing voice is yours.’
I nod.
‘I heard her do some scales,’ Fitz says. ‘It’s the same.’
Betsy shoots Fitz an irritated glance. ‘Scales?’
Fitz shrugs. ‘A bit of scat singing, and she had a friend there.’
I’m not comfortable with them calling me ‘she’. It makes me feel like some subspecies, but I get the feeling I’m in no position to protest.
‘Her friend was actually Clara’s choirmaster.’
‘Choir?’ Betsy is looking totally bewildered.
Fitz sighs. ‘Clara sings with a choir.’
Betsy turns her attention back to me. I squirm slightly.
‘It’s her,’ Fitz says casually. ‘And she’s said without a doubt there was no coercion or promises of favours. Marco wasn’t even in. Clara did it all by herself.’
Betsy swings the back of her chair around so the seat’s open and ready for her and lowers herself onto it.
‘Okay, suppose what you are saying is true.’ Fitz flicks all the files and demo tapes piled high on Betsy’s desk. ‘It’ll stop this headache.’
Betsy nods. ‘It’s certainly one problem solved.
Okay. Let’s make it Thursday. You come into the studio and record something.
The same number on the tape and one other.
’ She shrugs. ‘You know the tape. It would be easy enough to impersonate it. If the tape is you, you get the contract, but…’ She slices the air between us with her hard eyes.
‘…not the reward money. This entire mess.’ Betsy waves her hands across the piles of submissions on her desk. ‘This was all unnecessary.’
That seems reasonable enough. ‘Okay,’ I say. I should be able to do it. I know Terry and Jeff. They like me. They’ll support me. It’s not as if I’ll be singing solo in public for an audience.
Fitz gets to her feet. I have a feeling this meeting is over. ‘You’ll drop the harassment charges against Marco?’
‘If this girl is our missing songbird.’ Betsy eyes me critically. ‘Nobody else has come forward.’
I get the nasty feeling she’s been pushing people to testify against him. Poor Marco. This really is a witch hunt.
‘So yes.’ Betsy sighs. ‘Yes, those charges will automatically be dropped. But she…’ Betsy shoots me one of her hard dragon looks yet again. ‘…she is going to need to prove to us beyond doubt that she’s the one we’re looking for.’
* * *
MARCO
The red carpet is gone. The stone steps look exposed and hard. There’s no valet parking today, only the doorman dressed in white livery and gloves, standing beside the door with an instant smile on his face.
‘Mr Delagado,’ he says, standing and pulling the thick glass panel back so I can walk through.
The Beaumont looks very different now all the party people and the media show has vacated.
The lobby sofas are back, and there are flower arrangements dripping over tables and sideboards.
There’s a guy playing a baby grand in a corner.
Tinkering away, filling the air with ambient sound.
‘Can I help you, sir?’ an androgynous woman says as she steps out from behind a low, teak reception desk. Like everything else at the Beaumont, the woman is immaculate.
‘I…’ I hesitate, not sure how I’m going to explain all of this.
I certainly can’t say I’m looking for a woman.
That wouldn’t go down well, and my half-baked idea about playing the rich card – looking for valet parkers – just seems all-out daft now.
I should have thought about this more. My brain is spinning, grasping for plausible storylines as the woman with the slicked back hair and perfect red lips places her head gently to one side. Waiting.
Then, bingo I’ve got it – the perfect line.
‘At the gala, I gave one of the valets my jacket to look after.’ The excuse sounds okay, but will it fly?
She looks confused. ‘You didn’t put it in the cloakroom?’
‘Cloakroom?’ Of course, why wouldn’t I put it in the cloakroom, but now I’m in the swing, it only takes me a beat to muster up an excuse.
‘There was a queue. I was in a hurry. The valet said he’d take it.
He was, I’m guessing, five ten. Fair-ish curly hair.
Stubbled chin.’ I’m slightly staggered at how easy I find it to recall so many details.
I don’t normally pay much attention to anything.
But now, in this instance, there appears to be no end to my observational prowess. ‘He was kind of–’
‘Sorry, sir.’ The woman holds up one hand.
‘Just stopping you there. We have a lot of casual staff working at the Beaumont. However.’ Her eyes glow with assured satisfaction.
‘They are all excellent and very reliable. If he said he would drop it in the cloakroom for you, then it’ll be there.
I’ll ask housekeeping.’ She picks up the phone on her desk. ‘Could you give me a description?’