Lulu’s face was dark. “My fault? Ah, but of course. Because nothing is ever the fault of a spoilt little princess like you! And you’re one to talk about using people, my so-called friend. You used me to get you introductions. And now you don’t need me, so you hardly ever bother to see me. You look down on me, like all your sort do. You always have—I just didn’t see it until now.”

“Maybe I don’t see you so much because I’ve finally realized what sort of a ‘friend’ you are. Bitter, faithless and false, eaten up with jealousy and determined that everyone else should be just as miserable as you. Well, congratulations, Lulu. I am thoroughly miserable. And it’s all thanks to you!” Genevieve was shouting at the top of her voice, and yet nobody so much as turned to look. Because at that moment, something louder and more explosive was happening right behind them.

Joseph Lazarus had come up behind Norman Betterson and tapped him on the shoulder. Betterson, who was deep in conversation with Violetta, flapped a dismissive hand at him. Lazarus grabbed Betterson by the shoulder and tried to yank him around—at which point Frederick Camby stepped forward and threw a fist in his beaky face. Lazarus fell, knocking over a table laden with drinks and almost dragging Betterson down with him. Violetta shrieked. Lazarus, now back on his feet, struck Camby across the head with a bottle. Lulu shrieked. Laurent, the one-eyed barman with the Croix de Guerre (two palms), vaulted over the bar, brandishing a cosh. Betterson got down on his hands and knees and started crawling away fast, heading for the WC. Someone threw a glass, which smashed through a window. Someone else picked up a table, aiming to bring it down on Lazarus’s head but misaiming and hitting Laurent, who fell to the floor in a dead faint. Janine, the hard-as-nails waitress with the scar, kicked the balls of the man who’d hit her beloved Laurent. Lazarus went charging across the room, squealing like a pig and heading right for Lulu and Genevieve, but skidded on something, tripped up Janine and dragged her down by the hair. Genevieve and Lulu both shrieked. Betterson emerged from the WC and shrieked, biting his lip with the sheer excitement of it all. With a towel clutched to his bleeding face, and leaning heavily on Violetta, Camby made it to the back door. As the gendarmes came in through the front, the pair slipped quietly away into the night. Laurent’s poodle lapped at the puddles on the floor: spilled drink, stage blood and real blood. Marcel’s spindly yellow fingers gentled over the piano keys.

( twenty-nine )

SHE ENTERED THE APARTMENT in her stocking feet, her blood-red Zacharis dangling from one hand. “I knew there was no migraine.” He was standing in the doorway to the salon, his collar undone.