Chapter Thirty-Four

Around ten that evening Cassie found herself freezing her arse off in a queue of excitable Gen Z-ers outside a dance music venue in Camden Lock. She had Ethan to thank for the unscheduled night out. As a stranger to social media she'd've had no clue that SkAR – the dance-pop producer Bronte had worked with in Berlin – was doing a guest-DJ spot that night.

‘Maybe you can try to find out what happened over there to freak her out?' Ethan had said on the phone earlier. ‘I'd ask him myself but he probably knows who I am.'

Picking up the anxiety in his voice, she remembered how arsey Flyte had been with her about not speaking to him. ‘Has something happened, with the cops?'

‘They think I was with her when she died,' said Ethan, sounding miserable.

‘And were you?'

‘No! Look I did see her that evening but it was much earlier.' A pause. ‘You believe me, don't you?'

She made a non-committal sound. ‘So if this SkAR was involved it'd get them off your back.'

‘I know it's a big ask, Cassie. But you want to know what happened almost as much as me, right?'

‘Why would he even speak to me?' she asked, playing for time.

‘He has a rep for liking pretty girls,' said Ethan, having the grace to sound embarrassed.

Yecch.

But if the cops were homing in on Ethan then somebody had to check out this SkAR guy.

And so that evening she'd dug out her black spider's web tights, plus a short leather skirt she hadn't worn in an age and put on some make-up that wouldn't scare the normals. She had agonised over shoes – not possessing anything remotely girlie – and in the end had gone for her cherry-red patent leather Doc Martens. Now, catching sight of her red lips and bat-winged eyes reflected in a massive mirror in the club entrance, she pulled her skirt down, suddenly self-conscious: was she too old to pull it off?

Inside, a pumping dance track was playing but the stage was empty, just two guys setting up the decks. Skirting the edge of the gyrating crowd, she reached the front and caught the eye of one of them, a muscular guy in his forties wearing a T-shirt with ‘CREW' on the front, obviously one of SkAR's roadies. He came to the front of the stage and dropped to a crouch. She pressed a little card with a note on it in his hand and after checking it out he just nodded.

Then she took up position to the side where she had a good view of the stage. But by the time SkAR appeared, suddenly spotlit at his decks, a dance track pumping, she had to peer past the forest of arms holding uplifted phones to get a look at him. Dressed in black, and older-looking than she'd expected – in his late thirties, maybe more. Not that she could see much of his face: beneath a beanie he wore wrap-around shades and a dark beard shaped into a goatee.

Had the roadie given SkAR her card? On it she'd asked for a brief interview for her TikTok channel, borrowing the identity of someone called @beatzbabe who covered dance music and had a sizeable but not ridiculous following. It had taken a while to find someone who never actually appeared on her reels and whose profile image was a dark-haired pierced avatar vaguely resembling Cassie.

During the first track, she stood still so that she'd be noticeable amid all the frenetic movement and after a moment he looked over to check her out. She felt a jolt of anxiety: Would she pass ? What if he'd met this TikTok person? After a few more tracks – all sounding generically similar to her ears – she felt a tap on her upper arm. It was the roadie from earlier. Unsmiling, he handed her a black plastic card printed with the words ‘VIP' and ‘Backstage' before disappearing. When she looked up at SkAR, he tipped his head as if to say, You're welcome .

Twat. He must have a prearranged signal with his roadies. But she just smiled and gave him a little wave.

Twenty minutes later, he'd finished his set and announced the next act would be coming on after a short break. She left a decent interval so as not to seem overkeen before heading backstage. At the door, another unsmiling flunky nodded her through and pointed out SkAR's dressing room. The door was ajar.

‘ Virtus Omnia Vincit ,' she murmured, before pushing it open. Courage conquers all.

‘Hey there, hot stuff,' he said, spinning his chair round and splaying his legs. Stripped of the on-stage light show he looked .?.?. ordinary, a slightly overweight sweaty guy you wouldn't look at twice in the street. The air was thick with some sickly cologne that he'd slapped on in a (failed) attempt to cover the smell of his sweat.

After closing the door behind her, he handed her a shot glass already filled with some clear liquid. She felt her heart start to thump, before picturing Bronte wearing a scornful look. Don't be ridiculous, you're not allergic to anything .

‘Cool set,' she said, sipping the tequila – a drink she loathed. ‘I'm going to post about it.'

‘Oh yeah? You got a big following?' His eyes moving from her legs to her breasts.

‘Eighty thousand,' she said modestly, hoping she'd remembered right. Still, she hoped he wouldn't go online to check: it would be just her luck if @beatzbabe was right now posting live from some club in Ibiza.

‘You know, I usually go for black girls' – he put his head on one side, assessing her – ‘but I like an edgy chick too.'

Lucky me.

‘Thanks!' Time to change the subject. ‘It's so great you've got a new residency here and I was thinking maybe we could do a little interview?'

Lust wrestled with narcissism on his face, and he shrugged. ‘Why not?'

‘I interviewed Bronte you know, just before you two worked together.' She crossed one leg over the other, a move he followed with dog-like attention. ‘What was she like?'

Still looking at her legs, he said, ‘She was high maintenance.' He gave ‘high' two syllables, standard in urban street-speak but fake-sounding in a guy his age. Cassie remembered her grandmother's reaction the time she'd come home from school talking like that: We might be poor, but we can still speak the Queen's English.

‘Really? High maintenance?' she asked, mirroring the long ‘i' sound. ‘I thought it would be amazing to work with someone that talented.'

‘You're not recording this, right?' he said, frowning.

‘What, no!' she lied, making a show of pocketing her phone. ‘We'll do the interview in a minute. Go on, tell me about her, I was a bit of a fan-girl.' Putting her head on one side and playing with her hair like she'd seen silly women doing. ‘She was soo beautiful.'

He leaned over and put his hand on her thigh, saying, ‘She wasn't as pretty as you.'

Panic flared in Cassie's chest. She wasn't in any danger, was she? Nah. With a packed dance floor just metres away she only had to scream her lungs out for someone to hear.

So she just smiled and said, ‘She must've been totally thrilled for the chance to cut a track with you.'

‘You'd think, right?! But we didn't really see eye to eye.' The feel of his clammy palm through the spider's web tights was making her want to puke.

‘Oh really?' Dropping her voice, she asked, ‘Was she a diva?'

‘She was a diva all right,' he said darkly. ‘And she wasn't very .?.?. friendly' – taking his hand from her leg to pour them some more tequila.

Cassie could imagine how this creep defined ‘friendliness' when it came to women.

His face darkened. ‘I'm probably not allowed to say ballbreaker these days.'

Except you just did .

‘Was it a case of too much fame too fast, d'you think?' she asked.

He took his fleshy lower lip in his teeth, a vulpine gesture. ‘That's exactly what I told her. She was just a pretty girl with a half-decent voice who got lucky.' His voice rose in anger, lost in a memory. ‘She thought she could lay the law down – to me! Lecturing me about "musical authenticity" and being true to her "roots". You know what I said to her?'

Cassie shook her head.

‘I told her, you're a fucking nobody and your so-called "roots" are a one-donkey shithole down a dirt road in the Troodos where they don't marry outside the family.'

His voice was full of entitled rage. It was blindingly obvious to Cassie then that he'd tried it on with Bronte and when she'd fought back had thrown insults at her – and worse? She remembered Ethan saying that SkAR and Bronte shared Greek-Cypriot heritage – had their families come from the same area? Maybe even the same village?

‘Did you know her hometown then?'

But just then the next set started up, the baying voice of the DJ and a frenzied electronic dance beat booming out. As if a switch had flipped, he reached over and slid his hand up her leg to her crotch, fumbling hotly at her knickers.

Cassie threw her tequila in his face and he leaped back with an angry shout, rubbing at his eyes. She scrambled to her feet and went for the door, but couldn't work the lock quickly enough. Then he was behind her, one hand on the back of her head, pressing her against the wood face first, so hard it made her cheekbone hurt. His body had her pinned against the door and his other hand had cranked her right arm painfully high up behind her back. She scrabbled to reach him with her free arm but she couldn't land a blow.

He said in her ear, ‘You're just a fucking scammer, here to dig up dirt' – hot spittle landing on her cheek and his erection pressing against her lower back. She tried to scream but was horrified when nothing came out. But in any case the music was so loud the vibrations were using her skeleton like a tuning fork.

One hundred and thirty beats per minute.

Now he was pulling her skirt up over her butt with his free hand, sending waves of panic through her.

Fuck fuck fuck !

Tugging at her knickers, he murmured in her ear, ‘You know what happens now, right?' – savouring the moment, enjoying the power he had over her.

This couldn't be happening .

Closing her eyes tight, Cassie saw Bronte's face, looking fierce, mouthing something – and knew what she had to do.

Forcing herself to go limp, to stop resisting, she felt him relax.

‘See?' he crowed. ‘This is what you all want, you bi— ' His words curdled into a half-scream. She had slammed her boot heel down with brutal force and found his foot. Pulling free, she spun round and kicked him full in the groin. He folded like a cheap deckchair onto the scuzzy carpet, curling into the foetal position, hands over his groin, emitting a high-pitched moan.

Bending down, her face was level with his, Cassie said, ‘What's up? I thought you liked edgy chicks.'

But by the time she reached the street, the fierce rush of the adrenaline that had held her together was ebbing fast and, leaning against a lamp post, she threw up the tequila. As she wiped her mouth, a bouncer approached her and bent down so their heads were level. ‘Are you OK? Can I get you an Uber?' The concern in his eyes seemed genuine. For a fraction of a second she almost said, ‘I've been assaulted, call the cops.'

As if. Everyone knew how that went down. He said/she said. The flunkies who would say she went willingly to his dressing room. The unspoken and look at what she was wearing – the rapist's get-out-of-jail card. The cops would think just another encounter where a silly girl bit off more than she could chew. Ha fucking ha .