Nightside 07 - Hell to Pay

after you happened here, but they wouldn’t pay out. Apparently you’re classified along with natural disasters and Acts of Gods.”
    “I am deeply flattered,” I said.
    I headed for the table the Angelina had pointed out. All the bright young things crowded around it were dressed up as Bond girls—female villains and lust interests from the James Bond movies. There was an Ursula Andress in the iconic white bikini, a gold-plated Margaret Nolan from Goldfinger ’s opening credits, and of course a haughty-looking Pussy Galore. They all turned and started to smile as they saw someone approaching, then their painted smiles and eyes went cold when they saw who it was. But I’m used to that. I was more interested in the happy, laughing, blonde-haired teenager who sat among them. She wasn’t any Bond girl I recognised. In fact, she looked subtly out of place in this glamorous company, just by looking more like a real, everyday girl. She finally turned to look at me, and I stopped in my tracks. I knew that face from the photograph Jeremiah Griffin had given me at the start of this case. It was Melissa Griffin.
    Except, of course, it wasn’t. Small subtle things told me immediately that this wasn’t a teenage girl at all, and I knew who it was, who it had to be. Paul Griffin, dressed up all pretty, and the very image of his missing cousin. I moved slowly towards him, not wanting to scare him off, and he stood up to face me.
    “Hi,” I said carefully. Paul, or Polly? Polly would seem more friendly. “I’m John Taylor. I need to talk to you, Polly.”
    “You don’t have to say anything to him, honey,” the Pussy Galore said immediately. “Say the word and we’ll…”
    “It’s all right,” Polly said, in a soft and very feminine voice.
    “We can protect you!”
    “No you can’t,” Polly said sadly. “No-one can. But it’s all right. I don’t think Mr. Taylor came here to hurt me. I’ll have a quick word with him, then I’ll come right back, I promise. And don’t you dare finish that story without me. I want to hear all the horrid, intimate details.”
    We moved away to a small empty table at the very edge of the dance floor. Polly moved gracefully, in a fashionable off-the-shoulder pale blue gown. The long blonde hair looked very natural. A dozen assorted Spice Girls sat at the next table, and after a few quick glances, made a point of ostentatiously ignoring us. I had a sneaking suspicion that one of them might be the real thing. Polly and I sat down, facing each other.
    “We all have secrets,” he said softly. “And Griffin family members have more than most. It’s as though we’re born with lies in our blood. This is my secret, Mr. Taylor. I want to be a woman. Always have. Even as a small child, I knew some terrible mistake had been made. My body was a foreign country to me. I grew up knowing that while I was Paul outside, I was Polly inside. And Polly was the real me. I had to keep it secret from the rest of the family, as well as the outside world.
    “Grandfather in particular would never understand. Could never understand…He can be very old-fashioned, sometimes. For him, a man must always be strong, aggressive, masculine in all things. He’d see…this as a weakness. So would everyone else. If our family’s enemies ever found out, they’d seize the opportunity to make me a laughing-stock, and through me, my grandfather. And I won’t have that. I won’t be used as a weapon against my family.”
    “There are any number of advanced sciences and sorceries in the Nightside,” I said, “that could change a man into a woman, or indeed, anything else.”
    “I know,” said Polly. “I’ve tried them all. Every difficult, painful, and degrading process I could track down…and not one of them would work on me. Even temporarily. The magic that makes me immortal is so powerful it overrides any other change spell or scientific procedure. Even simple surgery. I’m stuck like this, forever and ever and ever. The best I can manage is Paul dressed up as Polly. The only time I feel even half-real.”
    “I’m sorry,” I said. “There’s nothing I can do to help you. But I’m hoping there’s still time to help your cousin. I need you to tell me all you know about Melissa and her kidnapping.”
    For the first time Polly looked away from me, his whole body language changing, becoming tense, stubborn, evasive. “She was kidnapped. Never doubt that, Mr. Taylor. But I can’t help