2 Thursday 6 July
Customer care is very important in my business. The next morning I’m awake at ten: in between bouts in the bathroom, retching on an empty stomach, I’m checking all my bookings on the website that I use, phoning today’s and tomorrow’s punters. “Hi, it’s Holly the GirlNextDoor here, from the GirlsDirect website, you’ve made a booking with me? Sorry, darling, touch of summer flu. Don’t want to give you a bug, do I? Tell you what babe, I’ll give you fifty quid off when we do meet. And here’s the number of a friend of mine, she’s new to escorting, a student on her summer break, she’s lovely, really likes guys like you, she lives not too far away, and I know she’s free today...”
My little story works a treat with every punter. Every john, even the weekly regulars, likes to try a new girl from time to time, and it’s nice to put a bit of work over to Abby, who truly is quite new to all this – no student of course, but she’s a webcam girl who needs a bit more cash and is moving into the skin-to-skin game full-time. She’s put up a profile on GirlsDirect, some nice photos, but so far she’s only had a couple of Client Comments, on which your rating depends – it takes time to build up a good rating, and I guess it’s like Google: only when you’ve built up a high rating do you appear on the first page of a punter’s search. You have to please a lot of guys, please them enough to make them leave good Comments, before you can hope for regular business, a steady income. But once you get that good rating, the money starts rolling in.
I finish the last call, and it’s like my business brain switches off, its work done, and the reality of what happened fills me: I see blood, the dead eyes look into mine, my whole body right down to my fingers and toes fills with fear and I start shaking. I go into the kitchen, sit down, look around the room, concentrate on what I can see around me: mugs, teatowels, the washing-up, the hot morning sunshine through the window, glinting on a bottle of Fairy Liquid. The shaking gradually dies down, and the relief is like heaven. I go into a trance-like state, I stand up, I drift aimlessly back towards my bed, lie there, stare at the ceiling, but then my eyes close and I seem to be neither awake nor asleep; nothing seems real: I drift in and out of dreams, evil dreams – dark corridors, running, scared, nausea. There’s darkness, then a sudden roomful of blaring light. And everything around me, stark in the glare, is covered in droplets of blood, like berries on a tree. Something in me forces me to stretch my arm out and touch the berries. I can’t resist, I hold one between my thumb and forefinger and I see my hand redden. I pick the fruit, put it to my lips, between my teeth and I bite, I feel my lips and tongue turning to liquid blood and melting down my face. It gets to the following day, and then the day after, and I stop seeing the blood everywhere. I feel a bit better. I’ve just showered: I’m sitting in the kitchen in my pyjamas, eating some Weetabix, first thing for 3 days. At least I’ll have something to be sick with when I next throw up.
The front doorbell rings. Can’t be a punter: sure I cancelled them all. And then I remember. For eight years I’ve shared this flat with Jazz, my best friend; she too is an escort, London_Courtesan. She’s away for the week. When she can’t make a booking, I log into her account on the GirlsDirect website, tell them that I’m Jasmine, deal with the punter, cover the booking. And she does the same for me. Not an unusual arrangement, other girls I know do it too: all you need is a vague likeness and the same colour hair, plus of course, both your phone numbers listed on your GirlsDirect profile. Me and Jazz, figure-wise, we both look pretty much alike: tall, size 8, wavy blonde hair, pale English-Rose skin, C-cup. If you look at our faces in real life, they’re totally different, but in my photos on GirlsDirect, my head is coyly turned away or in profile, and no-one making a booking through the website has ever realised. And would they care if they knew? In my experience, an escort – perhaps any woman – is a tick list to a guy: right price √, blonde √, slim √, young-looking √, big boobs √, etc etc. What might go in each box varies, and there are lots of minority tastes: right price, for some guys, might be £300 an hour – they think they’re buying class. That’s what Jazz charges for London_Courtesan outcalls, and she’s not short of business. Some might be turned on by a schoolgirly flat chest, or a redhead, or a fatty, or an oldie, or by a black, Asian, Chinese or Latin girl. But whatever’s in the tick boxes, it’s still just a simple list. Score over five out of seven and you’ve got a booking.
The doorbell, I guess, is one of Jazz’s. She had to cancel her bookings for this week, because her Mum fell and broke her ankle and ended up in Watford General: Jazz has gone away for a few days to see her, and to sort her Dad out. He can’t cope on his own, he doesn’t even know where Tescos is. But just before Jazz left, she told me she’d had a new booking and not had a chance to deal with it. And then I forgot to check Jazz’s GirlsDirect account. Oh fuck. Can I face this booking, or shall I just let the doorbell ring? Well, there’s got to be a first one, I suppose. Like a first day back at work after a long sickie. I decide to open the door to him: pretend to be London_Courtesan, let him in and get the job done. Good job I’ve just showered. I seem to recall Jazz saying he’d texted her as well, to say he was a lingerie man. As the doorbell rings again I’m getting out of my jimjams, into lacy bra and pants and nothing else.
I press the button to open the front door of the flats, wait a few seconds as I hear footsteps coming up the stairs, and then open the door of my flat. I peer round it in my underwear, smile seductively. I’m looking at a thirtysomething busty brunette. But unlike the one in my wardrobe, her policewoman’s outfit isn’t in PVC.
The police interview room is just like the ones on the TV: small, a bit shabby, with the most uncomfortable chair I’ve ever sat on. I glimpse under the table. Yup, the cops have got comfier chairs than me.
I can’t remember coming here. It’s a blank: the last two hours are just shock. I remember hastily getting dressed, that’s all. I can’t seem to hold facts together. My brain is shot: how can I defend myself against what they are going to throw at me? Is this how it’s always been when the authorities catch up with you, whether you’re guilty or not? I remember a telly documentary about witches; in England they weren’t allowed to torture you, but in Scotland and in Europe they could do what they liked to you, break your legs, burn you with hot irons, anything. But just as many confessed to being fucked by the Devil and all the rest of that seventeenth-century shit in England as they did in the other countries. The confusion, the way being arrested and accused shakes you up, means you can’t defend yourself. And you’re a woman, and even though this is now the twenty-first century, you’re still a sinner. Lamb to the slaughter.
Not that I am arrested, yet. I’m just ‘helping them with their enquiries’, and the brunette, who told me she was Police Officer Jackie Simmonds, had said that that was best done down at the station. Then, I vaguely realised, I was inside a police car. And now here. I’m not sure which station it is.
Simmonds is still with me, sitting smugly opposite me, well pleased with herself like she’s a cat and I’m the mouse she’s brought in. I guess she’s been in the force a while, but still very junior, never progressed. A bit thick. Then two people come in and she goes out. One’s a skinny guy in his thirties, cheap gray suit: a plain-clothes cop, I guess. The other is a dumpy Asian woman, older than the guy, very smartly dressed: deep-brown business suit, expensive shoes. Low heels, even though she’s barely five feet tall. I can tell that she doesn’t feel the need to look taller. I asked Simmonds if I could have a brief: hopefully, this woman is her.
But they both sit down opposite me. The woman checks the recording machine to see that it’s working, and switches it on. She speaks.
“Witness interview at 11.30am on 6th July at Stoke Newington police station. Present are Detective Inspector Geeta Pawan, 92EO and Detective Sergeant Christopher Rainbow 35EO, and Miss Holly Harlow.” Then she smiles at me. “Thanks for coming here. We’re investigating a serious crime that took place a few days ago. When members of the publi
c such as yourself are willing to give us information that might help us – well, we appreciate it.”
The guy buts in. “Been treating you OK here? Did they get you a cup of tea? How was your journey here?”
“My journey – it was in the back of a police car. I didn’t realise I had a choice.”
The woman looks reassuringly at me. “I’m really sorry if you got that impression. We wanted to speak to you – to determine if you might be a relevant witness for a serious matter we’re investigating. That’s the purpose of this interview. The decision to co-operate was yours – that should have been made clear to you. So, thank you for coming here, anyway.”
I wish they’d get on with it. Maybe they’re trying to put me at ease, but I feel like that mouse again. Being played with by a cat. Two cats.
“Well, I’m here now. So how can I help you?” I try not to sound sulky, but all the same it comes out like that.
The woman says “Police Officer Simmonds will have explained to you that you’re entitled to a solicitor, even at this stage, if you want one.”
“I’m fine, thanks.” Although I did ask Simmonds about a brief, I now realise that refusing to talk to them unless I’ve got a lawyer might raise their suspicions more. Try to keep calm, see how it goes. “I asked her about a solicitor, because I was surprised, this all came out of the blue. I’ve never been inside a police car in my life. She said she’d see about a lawyer for me. But I might not need that, because I have no idea at all why I’m here. So I can answer your questions now, if you like.”
The man shuffles in his chair. “I’ll come straight to the point, Miss Harlow. We have reason to believe that you met a Jonathan Wycherley, at a hotel in Bloomsbury on the night of Monday 3 July. Did you?”
“No.”
It’s all I can bring myself to say. Now that the question that I dreaded has finally been asked, I feel that hard, pushing pressure in my chest again. The feeling of fear. The woman’s eyes are like an X-ray, seeing straight through me. I try to breathe evenly, then I look at the man. Hard-working, ambitious, lean. Hollows in his cheeks and under his eyes. Hungry. Wants a kill. Me.
There’s a silence, and my nerves make me fill it in. “Why do you ask me about this?”
He speaks. “Let me put it another way. We have reason to believe that you met someone – a man you may or may not know as Jonathan Wycherley – in a room at the Excel Hotel on Brunswick Street, on 3 July, at around 10pm. We believe you may have been with him for about one hour.”
All I can do is look at the desk and try to keep control of my breathing. I speak, with effort. “I wasn’t there. But what do you think – I was doing with this man – who I’ve never heard of – for that hour?”
The woman speaks again. “I’ll be direct. We believe that you and he met for sex.” She’s clear, calm, measured. She’s making judgements, assessing me – but what she really thinks of me, I can’t tell. But I glance up from the desk to the man, and I can tell by his gray eyes and his straight lips what his opinion of me is. Slag, slapper, body for sale cos I’ve got no brains.
Again, the effort to speak. “I’m sorry – I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
The woman is, I can tell, trying to be gentle. But of course, she has to ask this next question. “You do – we believe – work as a prostitute. A sex worker. Is that correct?”
I get the words out. “It’s – yes, that’s correct.”
Rainbow takes over. He catches my scared look, holds me in his gaze. “We believe that a man named Jonathan Wycherley met a woman for sex at the Excel Hotel. We’re investigating this matter because we believe that – while he and the woman were together – he was murdered. Were you that woman?”
This time, I really struggle to speak at all. “Why do you think this – woman – who was maybe, you think – with this man, could be me?”
The woman takes over again. I can tell, she thinks he’s too – harsh? or just direct? Yes, I can see it in her eyes. Tired, creased eyelids, but her eyes are alert, aware of everything. She’d like to get to the same place as him, with a suspect on a murder charge under her belt. The only difference: she’s using a different satnav, she thinks that a more roundabout route might be more successful for getting me there. I can tell, she’s clever, or at least she thinks she’s clever. “We’re only asking for your help, Miss Harlow, that’s all. If you were not the woman who met Jonathan Wycherley for sex on 3rd July, then of course you can’t help and you’re free to go on your way. On the other hand, being deliberately unhelpful to a police enquiry is a serious offence. A court would take a dim view of someone obstructing a murder enquiry by giving incorrect information.”
Hold it together, Holly. I take a deep breath; amid a flurry of feelings, I try to hold on to what I actually know, and what I can tell from what they’ve said. I tell myself: they’re asking me if I was there – so, they need me to admit to being there.
Therefore, they’ve not got anything that proves I was there.
The woman goes on. “Let’s take it step by step, start at the beginning. Do you meet men, who...”
“Pay me for my time and companionship...”
“Prostitution.” Rainbow cuts in again. And I sense that she’s annoyed with him.
“I don’t know the legal technicalities. I do what I do. I know that what I do is not a crime.”
“How do you know that?” he asks. And I’m guessing, but I’m sure of it now. The slight twitch in the woman’s lip, her look as he muscles in on her questioning, is not just annoyance at his crude directness. It’s also an act. It’s part of her showing – to me – that she’s different from him. Each of them has a different game plan. He wants to intimidate me, get me to make a slip. She wants to pretend to be my friend.
“What I do for a living... I know it’s legal, because I take advice from a legitimate organisation, call Sexwork Helpline. They’re a registered charity. A close friend of mine, my flatmate in fact, is actually one of the trustees. Because she has seen over the years that people in my line of work maybe need people helping us and advising us, rather than judging us. Sexwork Helpline advise on health matters and legal matters.”
He looks on, unimpressed, scornful.
“And Sexwork Helpline knows that there’s a difference between girls like me who work independently and legally, and poor cows from Thailand or Eastern Europe who work for pimps and gangmasters. I’m a self-employed taxpayer: those girls are victims. And those pimps are the sort of people that you should be going after.”
I’ve shocked myself with my boldness. Shocked them too.
“Keep to the point, please.” I’ve put him off his stroke, I can tell. He’s angry – it’s the first time he’s said ‘please’. And she looks like the cat that got the cream. ‘I told you so’ her glance towards him says. And that tells me something more. Their good cop / bad cop routine is not pre-planned. He’s not acting.
“Sorry about the rant.” I don’t want to piss them off. But I’m glad to find that I can still speak clearly, put my point across. And maybe it does me no harm, in Pawan’s eyes at least, to stick up for myself. “I just feel – that what I do for a living is neither here nor there in relation to your investigation. Me being a hooker doesn’t mean that I was there, at this hotel place, when I wasn’t.”
He’s about to speak, but this time she’s the one to hold him back, she holds her hand up to him, as if she’s telling him ‘This isn’t some simpleton you can frame up easily. Let’s play it my way.’
What she does is show me a photo. “Have you ever met this man?”
I look at it. And rather than a half-hearted ‘I meet lots of men’ – which is the first phrase that floats into my mind – I answer clearly, confidently – “No”. Because this is a game, and winning the game is nothing to do with the truth. The truth is always blended shades, half-light blurring into half-shadows, and the truth won’t help me walk out of this cop shop, or a courtroom. “No” I lie. “Never seen
him before, ever.”
Rainbow can’t resist. “How can you be so sure?”
I ignore the smirk that I think I see. “I meet a lot of men, obviously, in my work. But I’ve not seen that man in the photo before. I’m completely sure. I’ve a friend who’s a teacher: she remembers every kid she’s ever taught. It’s just a mental trick that goes with a job. So no, I have definitely never seen him before.” And I think: Pawan is swallowing this. And whether Rainbow believes me or not, he’s fuming too much to be a competent questioner right now.
Pawan’s speaking again. “Have you ever taken a booking at the Excel hotel in Bloomsbury?”
“No. I’m totally sure about that. I take almost all my bookings at home.” Another lie – in fact it’s probably 50/50 – but this time it might just be working, even on Bad Cop.
“So if we had a witness who said he’d seen you at that hotel? ...”
So, they have a witness: a he. A man. “Well, he – could be mistaken? I’m not unique looking, in my line of work, you know… Isn’t it more likely that someone makes a mistake, identifies a woman at the hotel wrongly, than that I would completely misremember both a hotel I am supposed to have been in, and a guy that you claim that I’ve slept with?”
The woman, at least, looks like she’s taken that point on board. But my heart’s still in my mouth with fear. Because I know that me winning a verbal battle with them is not going to decide the outcome. And as for the facts of what truly happened… that’s irrelevant. It’s a game of poker here, and at best I’ve got a pair of twos. There’s a power balance, and however clever I am about it, it’s weighted 100% in their favour. Like a casino: the house always wins.
A game of poker. And Rainbow shows their hand, a bit more. “We checked your Oyster Card records. They show that you travelled on the London Underground from Finsbury Park to Russell Square at 9pm on the night of the murder. And Russell Square tube station is just round the corner from the Excel hotel. Can you explain that to us?”
“Can I ask – what time was this – murder?”
“It happened, we think, between 11.00 and 11.15pm. And the witness we have, he claims to have seen you leaving the hotel at 11.20pm. So, you do need to explain to us: why were you in the Russell Square area that evening?”
“I went there to meet a guy. For a coffee, nothing more. To see if he fancied me, if he wanted to book me.”
“Is that usual?”
“No, it’s not. The most usual, maybe two thirds of my new clients, it’s phone: the guy looks at the escort website, he likes my profile and my photos, sees my number on the profile, phones me and we take it from there. Next most usual is for the guy to make a booking online, through the website, so I never speak to him until I meet him. But every so often you get a guy who wants to meet first for a chat, and I’m happy to work that way if the guy wants to. I arrived at Russell Square, I went to Caffe Brucciani. I bought a coffee from the counter. The guy who served me was aged about twenty, very slim, Italian, dark eyes but with blond hair. Which is unusual, which is why I remember him. You can ask him if I went in there for a coffee and sat by myself for nearly an hour. The guy who had called me and asked to meet, he didn’t turn up. So I got a lift home to Finsbury Park with a friend, who was driving back from the centre to Walthamstow, at around 10.20pm. Then I got a tummy bug, don’t know why, nothing to do with Brucciani’s Latte Special. Just a summer bug. Last two days, I’ve been in bed. You can ask the young guy at Brucciani’s, you can ask my friend who gave me a lift home, and I can even give you the number of the guy who phoned me and asked me to share a coffee with him, but never turned up.”
But it’s funny, my mouth is talking, telling them all that, but I’m thinking about something else. About a strange little moment that happened half an hour before my life fell apart. When Wycherley took the photo of me in my bra, I asked him to show it to me. When he passed me the phone, I happened to swipe the screen and I saw another photo. Another girl. Maybe ten years younger than me – seventeen, eighteen. Long, dark hair, pale skin, innocence. Unlike my photo, fully dressed. Her eyes caught and held mine, like a connection, like she was sharing something with me. Then Wycherley asked what I was staring at, and I swiped back to my photo. It was over in ten seconds, but amid all that horror, what I saw on his phone comes back to me now, as the one thing from that evening that I’ll remember for the rest of my life. Her face, as if she were looking into mine.
These things roll around in my mind while I’m telling the cops all about the time I spent at Caffe Brucciani. Then I say, so it’s totally clear, and recorded on their interview machine – “So, I was in that area of London, for a while, on the same evening. But not at that hotel, and not at the time of the murder.”
“So you say.” Rainbow looks at me like I’m a liar. Which I am, of course – but even so, his look hurts. Like he’s judging my worth as a human being. Then he seems to come to a decision. Something in his face has changed, and I recognise his new expression all too well: brighter eyes, mouth slightly open, taking a deeper breath. It’s the expression my punters get when they know it’s time for the foreplay to be over and for them to fuck me, or for me to suck their dick. Because, with 80% of punters, foreplay is just the wrapping-paper on a present: they enjoy it well enough, but then it comes to what they’re really after. I’d say 40% prefer oral, 40% fucking, but one or other of those is almost always the real deal, the thing they’re paying me for. And when the suck or the fuck is about to happen, they get that expression – the slight smile, the eyes open a shade wider. And that’s Rainbow’s face at this moment. He’s anticipating satisfaction, right here, right now. What’s coming?
“You’re telling us that you never went near the hotel, and you were away from the area before the murder happened. But – our witness who saw you at 11.20 – he knew you. He told us your name. He claims to know you – intimately.”
“You mean, he’s one of my clients.”
He’s silent for a moment: a silence that says ‘Yes’. And then he says “So you see, it’s not merely a passing, random identification. It’s enough to justify me asking you to give your fingerprints and a DNA swab. You don’t have to agree, at this stage. But I’d advise you to.”
I’m sunk. I’m fucking sunk.
“Aren’t I allowed to know who this person, my accuser, is?”
“Witness protection. We will check his story carefully. But right now, it’s enough of a positive identification for us to need to eliminate you from our enquiries. So the prints and so on – well, it would make sense for you to agree.”
“What if I refuse?”
“Why should you? It’s routine, that’s all, and then you’re in the clear. Shouldn’t be a problem for you. In your line of work you’re hardly a stranger to sharing what’s personal to you.”
Cops United scored first, but I’ve just equalised. Own goal: scorer Rainbow.
“So you think that I should give you my prints and DNA – because of what I do? Because my privacy is worth less than other people’s?”
Pawan looks so pissed off with him. Because the net was about to drop on me, and now he’s snagged it.
I’m fighting for my life here: I push the one little advantage I’ve got. “I think, if I’m to help your investigation by giving you these samples, then I’m entitled to legal advice first. Because of what you’ve said, Mr Rainbow, I do want that solicitor after all. You shouldn’t, and you can’t, push me around as if I’m different from anyone else.”
“So you won’t give us your prints?”
“I’m not refusing. All I’m doing is saying, because of the way you’ve treated me, that I need to consider my position. My legal position, with a legal adviser. And – can I ask one more question? To help me decide about this so-called co-operation.”
“Fire away.”
“The witness. He claims to have met me. Was it an incall or an outcall? I explain my jargon, to be totally clear. “Did he see me at my home, or somewhere else??
??
He looks through some papers. “He claims to have visited you at your home.”
“OK. Because, like I said, I don’t meet many guys outside my home. So if he told you that he met me at his home, or a hotel, that would make his story unlikely.”
Pawan cuts in. “Look, we’re not disbelieving you. We don’t need a witness statement at the moment, because you say you’re not a witness. But we need to be sure, we need you to decide about those prints. If your story is true, then you have nothing to fear. You might as well have the prints done right now.”
“I’m not refusing. I just need time to think about it, and talk it over with a brief.”
Rainbow’s response comes straight back at me. “This is a murder enquiry. We need to move fast, and to do that, we need to eliminate you from the investigation. So – those prints please. Tomorrow.”
“What about my legal advice?”
“Your solicitor can see you this afternoon. Police Officer Simmonds contacted a duty solicitor for you, as you requested. The solicitor has just now texted you, and copied me in.”
“What? I thought a solicitor was supposed to be on my side?”
“Read the text.” He hands the phone to me. “Miss Harlow. I am duty police station solicitor at Thames Solicitors. I can attend you this afternoon at 4pm Stoke Newington police station, or more conveniently at our offices at 145 Seven Sisters Road. Please let me know location. Julian Caunce.”
Rainbow smiles a broad, evil grin. “So we’ll see you tomorrow. You’re free to go.” And he can’t help adding “For now.”
Harlow Town 1, Cops United 2.
So I can leave. Before I go, I get my phone out and read out some numbers to them. But, wherever there is a 5 in the numbers, I say 6. So they’ll dial the wrong numbers. Which gives me time, as I wait for a taxi outside the police station, to call Gary and Aftab, the two guys in my story, and ask them to say to the police what I need them to say – before the police get to them first. Gary’s a longstanding client who’ll happily say anything, and Aftab, an engineer who works shifts for London Underground, is an old friend who used to live in the ground-floor flat below me and Jazz until he got married. He’s a good mate, and since moving out he’s often gone a little out of his way home to Walthamstow to give me lifts back to my flat, when I’ve done a late-nighter at a central London hotel. Then, I phone the police station, say sorry, sorry, my fingers are a bit clumsy on my phone screen, I often type the wrong digits, so I’m calling them to check that I did give them exactly the right numbers.
And of course, the bit about the café is true. I went there that night, as I often do for Bloomsbury bookings, to put myself in the frame of mind for my booking. Just something I do, sitting there sipping a coffee, running through in my mind how I’ll react to the guy’s touch, how I will appear genuinely aroused when I don’t fancy the punter. Because most Bloomsbury hotel bookings are old, fat businessmen. So I’m quite a regular at Brucciani’s. The Italian guy was new there, but he’ll remember me. Because all he could do when I ordered that latte was stare at my cleavage. And because Wycherley was running late, I ended up sitting in that café for nearly an hour.
And only then, once I’ve shown how co-operative I am with the police, to get into my taxi and allow myself the relief of tears, of crying and crying into my hanky. Police interrogation. Even when you come out of it OK, and you’ve lied successfully, you feel you’ve been tortured into confession. The whole process leaves you feeling defiled – even when you’re a whore.
When I get home, I’m going to have the longest, bubbliest bath ever.
But first, the taxi takes me to the solicitor’s office. What a waste of time. He’s maybe the same age as me, not long out of some nice university, and completely out of his depth, I can tell, with most of the clients that he must represent. His Mum and Dad must be gutted that he’s advising lowlife above a shop in Seven Sisters rather than raking down hundreds of grand in the City. I tell him the same line I’ve told the police, of course. He notes it all down and says that he can be with me at the station if I have to go in again. He talks a bit about the cost of his work if I need his help and advice as a witness, and about legal aid, which seems to kick in only if I’m charged with the murder and he has to defend me in court, although if I’m lucky enough to end up as just a witness, I might get something for loss of earnings. But until I’m charged, he’s not going to be of much use to me.