High society (33 page)

PADSTOW HOLIDAY COTTAGES, CORNWALL

A
t around the time that Peter and Cathy Paget finally retired to their beds, Commander Leman was driving out of London, arriving at the family holiday home at ten in the morning. There he exchanged places once more in the Thompson family car with Jo Jo’s father. Craig Thompson had dined highly visibly and until very late with Christine and Anna Leman at the Angler’s Arms on the previous evening and, having slept fitfully on the couch, had been on a lengthy walk on the promenade with them from early that morning. In fact, they had dropped in at the newsagent’s before six, less than two hours after DS Sharp’s death four hundred miles away in London.

Craig Thompson drove off and Barry Leman, having listened on Radio Four to the breaking news of two terrible murders of Drug Squad officers in London, sat down at his computer to compose a message for his personal website.

T knew both Detective Sergeant Archer and Detective Sergeant Sharp,’ he wrote. ‘Both were fine officers, shock troops in our so-called war on drugs. These two men and countless other dedicated policemen and women stand every day in the front line facing an enemy that is better armed, better funded and better motivated than they are. An enemy which knows that it is winning, an enemy which knows why it is fighting. The fact that these criminals, these gangsters, these low-life animals who grow fat in the sewers of our society feel that they can gun down Drug Squad officers in such an open and casual manner shows to just what levels their confidence has soared. I had recently decided because of threats to my family to bow out of the drug debate. But now I feel I must return to it. While neither Sharp nor Archer was mar ried, they had families too, we all have families, and for the sake of every family in Britain, and in the memory of the two decent officers who died last night, let us take away the motive for this and a thousand other crimes of violence which occur every day on our streets. Let us legalize drugs now.’

A BROTHEL, BIRMINGHAM

T
ommy approached the door making full use of his legendary swagger. The man he had robbed had had good taste in clothes and over a hundred pounds in his pocket. There had also been some credit cards with a signature on them that Tommy felt he could copy with ease.

‘All right, babes,’ he said through the intercom at the heavy, barred front door. ‘Gentleman about town in need of a little extracurricular R and R, which I believe this establishment is in a position to supply.’

All Tommy’s life he had known that weakness invites abuse. Confidence, on the other hand, can carry much before it.

The door opened.

‘Evening, darling,’ Tommy said to the madam, and even with the bruises he was able to win a welcoming smile from her. Some people just have charm. Tommy knew that he was such a blessed individual. ‘Lovely to be back, best shop in town, this, beautifully run, clean, tasteful and your young ladies are just that — young ladies.’

‘You’ve visited us before, sir?’

‘Oh yes, but I don’t remember you, my love, and I’m quite sure I would. Must have been your day off, or else perhaps you were upstairs showing some of these young girls how a real beauty handles a punter.’

This was laying it on thick, but the plump and painted madam preened herself nonetheless.

‘So now, my darling,’ Tommy went on to say, ‘I phoned ahead to make sure that the girl whose charms I appreciated so fully on my last visit was still employed at this establishment. I mean, it wouldn’t surprise me if she’d gone and got proposed to by some well-heeled punter and was now out of the game altogether.’

Tommy described Jessie to the madam as he had done previously on the phone. ‘Beautiful girl, Scottish, small-boned but nice big boobs. Large dark wild eyes. Cute legs, good calves, bit short for some but I’ve never been as into tall birds as some blokes. Raven-haired, but with lots of copper in there ‘Jessie,’ said the madam.

‘Yes, that’s it. Nice name, too,’ Tommy remarked, struggling to appear casual, desperate not to show the thrill that had shot through him like a bolt of lightning at the mention of her name. ‘Yes, that’s the girl. That’s who I want.’

‘Well, she’s with a gentleman right now, sir, but I’m sure she won’t be long.’

Just as sharp as the thrill of hearing her name was the pain that this revelation caused to Tommy. They hadn’t been slow in putting her back into harness. Somewhere in that house, literally a few metres and a few sheets of plasterboard away, Jessie, the girl who had changed his life, was being used as a sexual slave. Tommy swallowed hard to contain and control his rising emotions. Desperate not to succumb to the desire to grab the painted crone by the throat and choke her until she told him the room that Jessie occupied so that he might liberate her that instant, Tommy was painfully aware of the two thugs who lounged against the opposite wall. He knew that there would be more downstairs in the basement. Violent men and armed. He would have to wait.

The madam had noted Tommy’s fallen face. ‘Don’t worry, dear, we can’t keep girls for your exclusive use, can we? They have to earn a living, just like anybody else. You can wait, or else we’ve got some absolute peaches on offer this evening, some of them only just arrived from overseas.’ Tommy allowed himself to be shown into the ‘lounge’, where half a dozen girls sat about in various stages of undress.

‘Perhaps you’d like to take one upstairs, sir, and when young Jessie’s finished we could send her up to join you?’ the madam suggested.

‘No thanks, darling,’ Tommy replied casually. ‘Never been a threesome man meself, never know where to put anything. I’ll just ‘ave a beer and wait.’

Shortly thereafter a man whom Tommy would gladly have killed came into the room, took his coat from the madam and shuffled out, avoiding anybody’s eye.

‘Jessie will just be a few minutes,’ the madam assured Tommy. ‘She’s just making herself nice. This is a very clean house. In the meantime it’s seventy-five pounds for half an hour. If you stay longer we charge you on the way out.’

Tommy paid by stolen credit card, which the establishment was happy to accept, and was shown upstairs and into a small cubicle containing a bed, a washbasin, the sort of shower unit to be found in cheap holiday chalets, a box of tissues, a packet of condoms, and Jessie.

She was sitting on the bed wearing white ankle socks, pink shorts and a white Nike sports bra. The pupils of her eyes were like pinpricks.

‘Jessie?’

‘Hello, handsome,’ Jessie slurred. ‘Is it full sex yez after?’

‘Jessie, it’s me…Tommy…the boy who tried to steal your coat this morning.’ He could see that Jessie was as high as a kite. The pupils suggested a big hit of heroin, but God only knew what else she had in her.

‘Oh, yeah,’ Jessie said. ‘Hello…Ah remember…Is it full sex yez after?’

‘No!’

‘It’s the same price as oral, no refunds, all takes much the same time.’

‘Jessie, I’ve come to get you out.’

‘I’m never gettin’ out, pal. Now do you want sex or no’?’

Jessie was not really there at all. Just her body and her name; the rest was gone. The eyes had lost their sparkle, the voice came from a different person, a different soul.

‘Jessie, please…’

But Tommy knew enough about drugs to be able to see that Jessie was doped up good, no longer a person of free will. Besides which, it was pointless to ask Jessie to run. She couldn’t do that even if she wanted to. She was the bonded property of the house. He sat down on the bed and tried to think. What had he been hoping would happen? A convenient window that he and Jessie might leap through? A balcony to jump from, hand in hand? Tommy realized that in his haste to find Jessie he had not really considered what he might do when he did.

‘Come on, baby,’ said Jessie. ‘Don’t ye want me?’ Even in her raddled state Jessie knew that her livelihood depended on customer satisfaction.

Tommy looked at her. He knew that he did want her, one day, one glorious day, floating on a cloud, lost in love somewhere. For now, though, all he wanted was a plan. They sat together for a further twenty minutes, Jessie lost in her dreams, Tommy’s mind working furiously. Eventually, when a suitable time had passed, he got up and went to the door.

‘Goodbye, Tommy,’ Jessie said.

FALLOWFIELD COMMUNITY HALL, MANCHESTER

T
hat were the last thing Jessie ever said to me. Because I fooked up her rescue like the stupid bastard that I am. If only I’d just left it there and then. If only I’d said, ‘See you tomorrow, Jess,’ and fooked off out of it. If only I could’ve had the courage t’leave her in that house for one night, leave her to half a dozen more blokes.

What difference would it have made after all she’d been through? If I’d done that, then the next morning I could’ve gone back with the fookin’ SAS! The fookin’ Wehrmacht! I could’ve got every security bloke, every lawyer, every off-duty copper, every mercenary soldier, every gun for hire in the British Isles an’ banged on that fookin’ door an’ said Oi! Hand over the birds! Not just Jessie, but all of them. Every one of ‘em could ‘a been in a safe house or a hospital or whatever by lunchtime with a civil rights team workin’ on their cases, wi’ me an Jessie on a private jet to the most humungously luxurious detox clinic on the planet! That’s what could ‘ave ‘appened if I was not such a stupid, stupid cont!

A BROTHEL, BIRMINGHAM

T
ommy swaggered down the stairs, a look of studied but casual arrogance on his face. ‘Lovely girl. Lovely, lovely girl, that Jessie.’

‘Glad you enjoyed her,’ the madam replied. ‘Do call again soon.’

‘Well, do you know what, love? I’m that taken with the dishes on offer here I was thinkin’ of seem’ if I could arrange a little carry-out. Y’know what I’m sayin’? That Jessie’s a top shag, but to be quite honest I don’t reckon much to ‘avin’ to gi’ ‘er one in that little room, not that it in’t lovely an’ all that, but you know what I’m sayin’? It in’t exactly romantic, right? I’m in that cubicle getting one leg caught under the basin and one bangin’ against the wall an’ I’m thinkin’ ‘ang on, I’ve got a top hotel suite up at the Halcyon wi’ a fookin’ Jacuzzi bath an’ I could be bangin’ in that. So what I’m sayin’ is, What do you charge to rent ‘em out, eh? What will it cost me to take Jessie back to my hotel for a few hours?’

‘I’m afraid we don’t do home or hotel visits, sir. This is a brothel. What you want is an escort agency.’

‘Ah, but you see Jessie works for you and it’s her I want.’

‘I’ve told you, it’s not a service we provide.’

Just then Goldie appeared at the doorway. Tommy knew him from the stories that Jessie had told him in KFC.

‘Two grand,’ Goldie said, ‘till seven a.m., then one of the boys’ll pick her up.’

Tommy did not want to appear suspiciously eager. ‘Two fookin’ grand? Fook off! She can’t turn more’n seven fifty in a night. I’ll gi’ you eight hundred.’

Two grand, mate. Take it or fuck off.’

Tommy shrugged. ‘All right, I don’t care. I wipe me arse wi’ two grand.’

‘Then you’re a very stupid bastard,’ Goldie replied. ‘Two grand’s the price and not any two grand you’ve wiped your arse with.’

Casually Tommy produced his stolen credit cards and handed over a gold Amex. Gold? Did they have a spending limit? If they did it had to be more than two thousand, didn’t it? Everything depended on the card being good for the money.

The seconds ticked by after the madam had swiped the card. Tommy tried to appear unconcerned, but every atom of his being was focused on that little telephone credit card machine. Goldie seemed almost as focused on Tommy. ‘The line’s busy,’ the madam remarked.

Just then Jessie came into the room. No further clients having been sent up to her, she knew automatically that her job was to come down and sit in the lounge until another punter was attracted to her. Tommy smiled at her, the smile that an owner might give to a favourite dog. Inside, his nerves were quaking, but he was determined to play the part of the casual, rich dilettante for all it was worth.

‘Card refused,’ the madam said.

Tommy’s world collapsed.

‘Fook. No way! That’s outrageous.’

‘Not really, considering the card’s been reported stolen.’ Took.’

The thugs who lounged casually by the walls stirred a little at this.

‘Well, well,’ said Goldie. ‘Who’s a naughty boy, then? Trying to buy birds with a nicked credit card.’

‘No, you don’t understand!’ Tommy bleated.

‘I understand very well, mate, and now it’s for you to understand that you have ten seconds in which to fuck off.’

Tommy continued to gape, his mind racing, the penny dropping swiftly that his best and only move was to leave immediately. Leave her there. Leave Jessie sitting waiting for her next client.

FALLOWFIELD COMMUNITY HALL, MANCHESTER

I
would have gone too, I think. At that point I would ‘a left, but then the bastard did it, didn’t he? That shit turns to Jessie an’ says, ‘Come on, girl, you’ve got a living to earn here, get your tits out.’ Well, he done it just to ‘ave a go at me, obviously. All bullies ‘ave a cunning. They know how to really twist the knife, an’ this bloke was just ‘having a laugh at my expense. He knew I wanted her and couldn’t afford her. Punters are fallin’ in love with prossies all the time, any pimp knows that, an’ this cont wanted to make me squirm. So just as I’m about to leave he makes Jessie get ‘er tits out. An’ she did. She just takes off her sports bra and sits there in her socks and shorts wi’ her tits hangin’ down in front of her, her eyes a thousand miles away.

‘Well, that were it. I just ran forward and grabbed her by the hand. I turns and starts to pull her to the door. Of course I didn’t get two steps. I hardly got one. I don’t think Jessie even raised her arse off the chair she were sittin’ on. I saw the butt of a gun comin’ towards me an’ that was it. Nothing more.

‘Not for a week, as it ‘appens. That’s how long it took for me to wake up from the coma they left me in. An’ do you know what? When I did come round, the first thing that happens is I get arrested for the muggin’ I done.’