now. “Mrs Holroyd”,’ Crystal said, making rabbit ears and laughing because it suddenly seemed absurd that she should be this person, Crystal Holroyd, when the life she had really been destined for was sitting in front of her twitching to get out on the streets and earn her next fix.
‘Yeah?’ Fee said. ‘Any relation to Tommy?’
‘Tommy?’ Crystal echoed, little warning flags going up all over the place in her brain.
‘Tommy Holroyd. Worked for Tony and Mick in the old days. Oh, wait, I think that was after you left. You were before Tommy’s time with them. He did really well for himself after – he’s the Holroyd in Holroyd Haulage.’
‘Haulage?’ Crystal echoed again.
‘Yeah,’ Tina snorted derisively. ‘That’s the nice word for it. Don’t tell me you married him? You did, didn’t you? You did. Fucking hell, Teen.’
Crystal had been hit in the stomach once by a bloke, a big bloke looking for a punch-bag and finding Crystal, or Tina as she still was then. The blow had been painful beyond belief. Took her breath away, literally, so she ended up curled up like a bean on the ground, wondering if her lungs were ever going to start up again or if that was the end for her. But that didn’t compare to now. Everywhere she looked she saw her world collapsing.
Turned out that Fee had known Tommy a lot longer than Crystal had. Knew a lot more about Tommy than Crystal did as well. Tommy and his associates. ‘Do you really have no idea what he’s up to? You used to be the smart one, Tina.’
‘Not any more, apparently,’ Crystal said. ‘I’ll put the kettle back on, shall I? And then you can tell me everything I don’t know.’
The thing about the past was that, no matter how far you ran or how fast you ran, it was always right behind you, snapping at your heels.
‘Fuck, fuck, fuck,’ Crystal said as the whistle on the kettle screamed.
She gave Fee fifty quid – all that she had in her purse – and Fee said, ‘What about your watch?’ so Crystal gave her the Cartier too, the one that was inscribed From Tommy with love.
Crystal had never stepped inside the Palace Theatre before. It was a cheap version of something more opulent. It had a grand staircase and mirrors, but the paintwork was old and the tartan carpet was worn. The smell of stale coffee had drifted into the foyer from the café. There were already posters up advertising the Christmas panto. Cinderella. Rags to riches. No one ever wanted it to be the other way round, did they? Tony Bassani had taken her and Fee to the pantomime, as though they were kids. Which they were. Peter Pan. Someone off the telly was playing Captain Hook. Alan something. No one remembered him now. Tony bought them a box of Black Magic to share and they’d sung along to all the songs when they put the words up on a board. It had been a great evening, they’d really enjoyed themselves, and then Tony took them backstage afterwards and introduced them to Captain Hook in his dressing room. ‘Christmas present for you, Al,’ Tony said when he left them there. ‘A token of thanks – it’s been a great panto season.’
The place was quiet, the matinée must have finished, and she had to ask someone in the box office where to find Harry. They didn’t know who Harry was so she asked for Barclay Jack instead, said she was his niece when they looked doubtful and said, ‘Are you sure? He doesn’t like visitors.’
‘Neither do I,’ Crystal said. They directed her backstage to his dressing room and she knocked on the door.
You couldn’t have got more people in the room. It was like a game of sardines. The magic circle had liked to play a version of that. Fun and games, Bassani called it. The detectives from earlier were in there, but Crystal shelved this fact, she already had enough to think about. Ditto the fact that Barclay Jack looked as though he was about to expire and that there was also a drag queen, without a wig (this must be Harry’s new friend Bunny, she supposed). No sign of Candy, and Crystal felt a spasm of panic until Harry pushed his way out of the scrum with her in his arms. She looked as if she’d been shot by sequins. Crystal shelved that thought as well.