16 Wednesday 2 August
Ever since I left James and Marcus’s house, I’ve been trying two phone numbers, one given me by Jurgita, the other by James. Here goes again, let’s try Tasha one more time. But when the call’s picked up, I get a surprise.
“Hello, Diamonds, Cressida speaking. How can I help you?”
“Cressida! Is that really you?”
“Holly.”
Cressida worked for the same agency as me, we used to be really close. She’s black, stunningly beautiful, and when we were working together, she was studying as a postgraduate maths student. Cleverest person I’ve ever met. The escorting was an income for her, and she once told me it was a bit of a laugh too, a release from all that seriousness and brainwork. But she used to have arguments with the tutors at the university: whatever she was doing, they didn’t like it, or they didn’t understand it, it didn’t work out somehow. They all seemed to hate her. I remember asking her if there was racism, some reason that her face didn’t fit. “It’s more complicated than that” was all that she would say. Anyway, at that time, I was having problems too, with the management of the agency that’s now calling itself Diamonds. I always clicked with Craig Garrett – him and me, we’re alike in some ways – but then I found out that he and his mates were dealing in more than just girls, and I expected a police raid every day. The stress was doing my head in. So I started using the GirlsDirect website, and after a couple of months I realised that I didn’t need the agency at all. I kept in touch with Cressida, and we meet up every blue moon. But it’s weird to hear Cressida’s voice answering this number. And to think she’s still there, working at that place. I’ve moved on: she hasn’t.
“Cressida! Look, we must, must, meet. Kirsty’s hen-do was the last time. Two years ago. A night out soon, yes?”
“Totally. I’ll text you with some dates. But Holly, this isn’t my phone, it’s the Diamonds call number. Why phone me here? Did you want the agency? I can’t believe you’re wanting to join again.”
“Actually, I had no idea that I was phoning Diamonds. I was given this number. It’s supposed to be a contact number for a girl called Tasha?”
“Tasha, I know her well. She works here, she’s lovely. But sorry, your luck’s well and truly out. She’s not working today, and I can’t put you on to her. And tomorrow, she’s on a job, and after that she’s back off home to Lithuania. For a whole month, I’m afraid.”
“Any time tomorrow I could catch her?”
“Like I say, she’s on a job.”
“All day and night?”
“Look, Holly, I can’t say much, on this line. We supply Raw Silk.”
“Eh?”
“Call them, here’s the number. They’re on tomorrow night. Tell them you want to go along. You’ll find her there. Ask a guy called Scott.”
And she puts the phone down on me. She’s not being rude. I know that Craig has just walked into her office, he’ll be listening to everything she says. And he’s not a man that you want to annoy.
I’ve vaguely heard of Raw Silk. I phone the number Cressida gave me, I speak to a very la-di-da woman. She tells me to got to their website and fill in an online form and attach a recent photo of myself to it. “Sorry, it’s our bureaucracy. You’re a single woman aged under thirty, so between you and me, it’s a formality, darling. You’ll be most welcome tomorrow night.” I also have to do an online payment of two hundred pounds for ‘annual membership’. Once that’s gone through, the woman phones me back and tells me an address in Wapping.
I breathe out as I put the phone down. It’s nearly midday, but today’s a bit cooler, at bloody last. They said on the radio that July was in the record books, third hottest this century for London. My favourite client is coming round at one o’clock. Mr Attwell, a well-spoken sixty-year old, has been seeing me for seven years; never uses anyone else. And he’s a delightful gentleman, who also happens to be bisexual. He’s been with his partner for donkey’s years, they’re very close. But not physically, not any more.
“Godfrey. Great to see you. Usual?”
“Yes please. The massage to start. I’ve brought along that scented oil that I like.”
“Like you always do. And every time, I say, leave it to me, I’ll buy some. Last time, I did buy some, here it is. Let’s use my supply for once.”
I make him a cup of tea while he strips. I strip too, and he admires me.
“How’s Derek?”
“He’s doing well, thank you. I’m trying to persuade him to take early retirement, like I did. Best thing I ever did, quitting that school and trying to teach plate tectonics to another batch of uncomprehending fifteen-year olds. Once he retires too. we can do more together. I’d like to tour Europe, properly. There’s a lot of places I’d like to share with him. But Derek – he’s in a rut, as I say to you, every time I visit. Him and his comfort zone, it never changes.”
“I’ve never asked you. Does he know? About – our arrangement?”
“Oh no. It’s lies, I know, but Derek wouldn’t understand. Basically, I’m gay, I’ve only ever loved men – but it’s women that turn me on. Even when he and I were in the first flush of being in love, the sex – it didn’t do it for me. I just needed to be with... a woman. I guess a lot of people would call me confused.”
“Just be yourself, Godfrey.”
“I can be. When I’m here.”
We go into the incall bedroom, he lies on the bed face down, and I begin to knead his back, his thighs, his buttocks. He’s in heaven. We carry on chatting, bits and pieces of conversation.
“Are you ready? Shall I get on the bed with you now?”
At that moment my phone rings. Of course, I never answer calls when I’m with a client. The call goes to answerphone, as it always does, but then the phone rings again; they’ve redialled. Then it happens a third time.
“Do get it, please, Holly.”
It’s an unknown number. I speak. “Hallo, Holly, the Girl Next Door?”
“I’m John. Are you free for an hour incall?” An uncommon accent, in London anyway. I guess Manchester? – it’s northern, but with a hard, urban edge.
“When?”
“Now.”
“Sorry, no, in fact I’m with a client.”
“When will you be finished?”
“I’ll be free at two-thirty.”
“OK.”
“So, what would you like?”
“The regular, normal stuff. Your profile says one eighty for one-hour incalls.”
“That’s right. So, shall I give you directions? Where are you coming from?”
I talk him through the directions, but it’s one of those conversations where I feel he’s not really listening. I give him my postcode twice, just to be sure he’s paying attention enough to find me. Then he rings off. I go back to Mr Attwell. After fifty-three minutes of the booking, we’re done.
“Thank you so much. I needed that, I really did.”
“It’s a pleasure, as always. Decent blokes like you, you make it all worthwhile, you know.”
“Very kind of you to say so, Miss Harlow. As you know, Derek and I have been away for a few weeks, summer holiday break you know, but I’m back now, so can we go back to our normal pattern? Same time next week?”
“I’ll put it in my diary right now. Where did you go?”
“Our usual place in Cornwall. Derek likes it... May I use your loo?”
I’m used to this. The one gross thing about Mr Attwell is that after sex, he sometimes needs a poo. Oh well, another little foible. Every punter has them, and his are relatively harmless.
“Problem is, I’ve got someone coming at half-two. If you don’t mind sitting on the loo while I’m in the shower. I really need to shower right now.”
Which is what we do. We chat through the shower curtain.
“So you had a good time in Cornwall?”
“Oh yes. It’s a bit – unvaried, year after year, but all the same, it’s spending time together t
hat’s the main thing, isn’t it? Also, it was nice, I must admit, to get a bit of sea breeze in this heatwave. London always gets so muggy.”
“I agree with you. Everyone seems to want hot weather, but when we get it – well, for me, it’s a bit too much. Day after day. I could have done with your sea breeze, the last couple of weeks.”
“But your flat is always lovely and cool. You’ve got new pictures up, I see.”
“A lot of stuff was damaged. My flatmate replaced it all. We were burgled.”
“My goodness. Were you here, when the burglar broke in?”
“Fortunately not. But it was horrible, coming back and finding it. I even had to replace the crockery.”
“Yes, I noticed you gave me a new mug for my tea. Well well. Thanks for seeing me this week, after all that you’ve been through. It’s really appreciated.”
I hear the street-door buzzer. Oh hell. My next punter’s early.
I put my bathrobe on, go and press the button. I hear heavy footsteps coming up the stairs, and I look through the spyhole, but all I can see through it is the empty landing. Weird. I speak through the door. “Hello. John, is it? You’re – a bit early, I’m still getting ready.”
“No worries. I’ll come in and wait.”
“Well – I still have another client here.”
“That’s OK. I’ll come in and wait.”
Something tells me: send him away. But then the image of Krasniqi flashes into my mind, and I remember that midnight phone call from him, me standing there with his unseen eyes watching me in the darkness, the sick feeling of fear. I have to keep that fucker quiet: I need as much money as I can gather, I need this booking.
“OK.”
I undo the chains, the bolts, turn the key. All new since the burglary, when the door was forced open.
I pull the door back. John the punter stands there. He’s wearing a hoody, and under it, I see with a shock, a gimp mask.
“John?”
For answer, he pushes the door wide, strides in. He’s a huge bloke: six foot three maybe, wide shoulders too. He must have spotted the spy hole, crouched low down so I couldn’t see him through it. I feel like a hand has reached right inside my tummy and is twisting my guts round. I try to speak.
“Who are you?”
“None of your fucking business. Where’s this other client, this guy who’s still here?” He doesn’t wait for my reply, but goes straight through my living-room, into each bedroom in turn, then into the bathroom. I hear him threatening, his voice rasping.
“Get out, old man. It’s my booking, now. Yours is finished.”
“No.”
Say that a-fucking-gain.”
“No. I’m not going. I heard what happened at the door. I can’t see your face. I can tell that you’re here – well, not for the right purposes. I don’t want to think what might happen to Miss Harlow if I go. So – I’m staying.”
“You’re not. You’re fucking going, if you have any sense.”
“Leave him alone.” I’ve stepped into the bathroom, behind Gimp Man. It’s a mad scene: he’s looming over poor Mr Attwell, who’s still sitting on the loo, trousers round his ankles.
“It makes no difference. I don’t care what this old pisspot hears. I’ve come here to tell you something. To give you a message. I can give you the message with or without our shitting friend here.”
“You’ve come here to tell me? – what? I’ll tell you something. You burgled me, you trashed my fucking flat.”
“No.” One flat word. But something in the way he says it tells me something. He wasn’t the one who burgled the flat. And I wonder, about Krasniqi. How he claimed to get my address from the police, from Rainbow. Was that a lie? Who else knows where I live? For some reason, Cheriton’s look of fear when he looked at my phone flashes into my mind. As I stand there, in this crazy situation with Gimp Man glaring at me, and Mr Attwell, mid-shit, unable to get off the loo, I dimly realise something: there’s a single key to it all. There’s something here I don’t understand, at the heart of this whole matter. It’s like that drawing of the old woman, with the hooked nose, but if you stare at the drawing long enough you suddenly see, it’s also a picture of a young woman, facing the other way. I can’t see the young woman.
Mr Attwell farts.
“The burglary is fucking irrelevant, bitch. I am here to tell you: you have been sniffing around. The Soames Hotel, for instance. Sniff around more, and you won’t be alive to sniff anything. Understand?”
I don’t speak in reply. Or even nod. I stare at the mask, at the eyes that I can just make out. I can’t tell the colour. I notice a thick neck, bulging muscle, under the edges of the mask. I sense no anger, if anger comes from feeling hurt or threatened, deep inside. Just hardness, a job being done. This is a paid thug, a hired hand.
“You know where I live. But I might move.”
“It makes no difference. Move if you like. But it’s not only you who might be hurt. Your flatmate, your special friend. We’ve watched you both. Maybe there will be a fire here, maybe she won’t be able to get out. Things like that, they happen. Will happen.”
I can’t speak.
“So, Miss Fucking Harlow, you’ve not said yes to me, but I know you’ll do what I tell you. You, and your friend. Both of you, you stop trying to find out about that man who died in the hotel, and about the Soames, and the guests who use it. And all your other little enquiries. Or, you and her will be dead. Both of you. Guaranteed.”
He pushes past me, hurting my shoulder, my arm. And he’s gone. I’m standing in front of an old man sitting on the toilet, finishing his poo, while I compute murder threats in my mind. Mr Attwell speaks.
“Well, you don’t usually get death threats made in the bathroom.”
“Not while someone else is trying to have a crap in there.”
Suddenly, we’re both laughing uncontrollably.
It’s an hour later. Mr Attwell has finally left, repeating his offers of help, assistance, protection, all things that he can’t give me. I’m alone: in the silence I can hear my heart still thumping like a drumbeat, but I have to try and make the second of those phone calls. This number, I’ve phoned it four times already. First time I spoke to an answerphone. Since then I’ve not left messages: it already feels like I’m stalking.
“Elspeth Corr speaking.”
“My name’s Holly Harlow, my friend James Goldbeck gave me your number.”
“Really.” A voice like ice.
“Yes, James said... he said that, you might be happy... to meet me for a chat?”
“James often makes promises for other people. He should try keeping his own, once in a while.”
“Look, I’ll be absolutely straight with you. I attended an appointment at the Home Croft Clinic. I... well, I wasn’t totally comfortable there, I wasn’t sure that everything was above board. I felt uneasy. James works there and... he said that maybe what I felt... you shared it? A concern about the place?”
“I’ve never heard of that clinic. I don’t know what you’re talking about. This call is over.”
I get three words in quick.
“James says sorry.”
A pause. She’s not put the phone down yet. I try a bluff. I put the phone down. Give her time to feel, to recall, to regret. How long? Most men would need two minutes and then they would be trying to redial me. A woman of my age, maybe a day or two. To weight it all up, to overcome pride with hope.
An hour later I’m on the loo, and still trembling. I think of Mr Attwell’s bum on this loo seat. The phone rings. I finish my wee, let it ring a few times. Could be a punter, could even be Gimp Man, but of course I know it’s not. I walk over slowly, deliberately: pick up.
“We spoke about an hour ago?” It’s her voice.
“Thanks Miss Corr. We got cut off earlier. My signal is terrible.”
“How do I know, before I tell you anything, that you’re not some journalist who is interested in Ms Corr and her intimate medical
history, rather than in the Home Croft Clinic?”
I’ve already decided to appeal to her reason rather than her vanity.
“At Home Croft, you’re a rich patient. A VIP. But you’re not in the public eye. Given the clients of Home Croft, and the fact that they are very nearly a secret clinic, isn’t it much more likely that I’m interested in the clinic itself, than in you? Or that, if I’m after gossip, it’s not about you but about some of the other patients there?”
“In that case, why aren’t you talking to those other patients?”
“First, I’m not actually a journalist. Publicising the goings-on at Home Croft is not my aim. I just want to find out what’s going on there. And second: if this is worth following up, I’ll be talking to other patients, finding out their stories. Nothing you tell me will ever be used, except for one purpose: for me to know whether I’m onto something here, whether I should investigate further, or whether I am wasting my time.”
I pause, let her think in the silence between us. Then I go on again. “I could walk away and leave Home Croft to its business. It would be easier. But I have my own self-interest in this – everyone does, don’t they? If I told you I had no personal reason for doing this, you’d suspect me of being a nutter on a crusade.”
“Enlightened self-interest?”
Desperate self-interest more like. But I try to keep any excitement out of my voice at the thought that she might be weakening.
“And – what has James to do with this, Miss Harlow? Are you his lover?”
“Definitely not.”
“James still works there. Despite what’s happened, I don’t want to jeopardise his position there. I don’t know if he told you, but he uses his earnings to help his brother, who has a rare genetic disorder. Everything would fall apart if he had to rely on the State. He needs to remain in that job.”
“I know about his brother. I’ve met him, he’s lovely. James’s job will not be put at risk by anything I do. In fact, I believe James, in his heart of hearts, would be grateful to you, if he knew that you were helping to right possible wrongs at Home Croft.”
On the brink.
“Miss Corr, I think we understand each other now. Can we meet?”