Dangerous Lady (37 page)

‘Hello, Mawsh.’ His voice was slurred.

‘Sit down, Les, before you fall down.’ She looked around the table. Her six remaining brothers were all sitting, looking like clones of one another, all in different states of inebriation. Only Michael was even remotely sober. He stood up and offered her his seat.

‘Sit down, Maws, and I’ll get you a drink. What’ll it be? Scotch?’

Maura sat down and nodded at him. He went to the bar.

‘Well, you lot seem to be enjoying yourselves.’ She made her voice sound jovial. Five pairs of eyes ‘stared at her blankly. Maura felt for the first time the impact of their combined wariness and it hurt her. Only Geoffrey looked different and she realised that he looked smug. Smug and very, very sure of himself. Maura mentally chalked one up to him. ‘Well, Roy, you got a son at last.’

He nodded at her, a silly grin on his drunken face. Maura began to search in her bag for her cigarettes. It was obvious that she was not welcome. In her present state of mind she was not sure if it was over Benny or because it was a boys’ night out. Michael came back with a tray of drinks and she took the double Scotch he gave her and drank it straight down.

‘That bad, Maws?’ Michael’s voice was soft.

‘No. Actually it’s worse. If you boys will excuse me, I have got some work to do in the club. OK?’

She picked up her bag and left as quickly as possible. Outside in the freezing night she breathed a deep sigh. It was still snowy, though most of it had turned to slush and black ice. She walked carefully up Dean Street to Le Buxom. The main damage to the club had been in the foyer. The little reception desk where Sheree Davidson had been sitting on the night of the bombing had taken most of the blast from the petrol bomb. The damage to the club had turned out to be minimal. Mainly cosmetic. But as Maura walked inside she was acutely aware of the fact that Sheree would never again walk in there with her tall stories and deep braying laugh. She had been popular with both punters and the other hostesses. She had left two children, who were now in the care of the courts. Their father, or fathers, no one was sure, were nowhere to be found. If indeed Sheree ever knew who they were.

As for Gerry Jackson, he had been taken to a Burns Unit in Billericay. His wife had already been made an interim payment of two thousand pounds to get her over Christmas and the New Year. She would receive a substantial weekly amount until it was decided by the doctors what would happen to Gerry. If he never worked again he would be more than amply provided for.

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The club was once more up and running. It had been reopened less than a week after the ‘trouble’. As Maura walked into the familiar blast of warm air she could hear ‘My Eyes Adored You’. Her mind registered that Louise Barton was doing her act. Maura looked at her watch. It was nearly eleven and she was surprised that it was so late. She slipped off her fur coat and locked it in the little cloakroom just inside the entrance to the club.

Picking her bag up off the floor she went over to the meat seats and started her night’s work. A new girl called Monique, for once a real Frenchwoman and not a phony, had started a few weeks previously. She was a very very beautiful girl, very intelligent, and not at all the usual class of tom. There was just one thing that had puzzled Maura: she would take literally any punter. And another of the girls had told Maura that she would ‘go case’ for as little as fifty pounds. The minimum that her girls usually worked for was one hundred pounds plus their hostess fee. That told Maura one thing: Monique either had a violent pimp who insisted on a night ‘quota’, or she had a drugs problem.

Maura guessed it was the latter, and if it was, then it would not be long before they were busted. The busts were well staged. They were told at least a week in advance when one was going to occur so they could put off any well-known citizens, such as judges or more rarely politicians. The police had no qualms about arresting any of the girls that were taking, or happened to possess, drugs. It gave the so-called raid credibility. But Maura did not work like that. She would not, like some club owners, employ ‘stooges’ to give their busts a veneer of realism.

Monique was sitting with two black girls. They were chatting together amicably, which was unusual in itself. There was a fierce rivalry between the black and white

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toms, but Monique seemed to be liked by everyone. Maura went to where they were sitting, and smiled.

‘Hello.’ She nodded at the three girls. ‘I wonder, Monique, could I see you upstairs for a few minutes?’ Maura’s voice was friendly. The other girls would assume that Maura had a ‘homebird’, a regular punter who had arranged to pay for the girl over the phone. That entailed stumping up for two bottles of champagne, fifty cigarettes, and a small administration fee. The girl would then be cabbed to the man’s address.

Monique stood up and Maura noticed that she was very bright-eyed. Her pupils were dilated. She followed Maura upstairs to the office. Maura turned on the lights and, walking to the window, shut the Venetian blinds. She turned back to face Monique and, smiling still, offered her a chair. The girl sat down. Instead of walking around the desk and sitting in her own chair, Maura stood in front of Monique, leaning on the edge of the desk. ‘Monique, hold out your arms, please.’ ‘But why?’

Maura cleared her throat. She hated this. ‘Would you please hold out your arms? You know why.’

Monique had long black hair and dark hazel eyes. In the bright light of the office Maura was surprised at how hard-faced she really was. In the muted light of the club she looked much younger. Maura had thought she was in her twenties. Looking at her now, though, she put her much nearer forty.

‘Please, Monique. Don’t make this any harder than it already is.’

Monique held out her arms. Maura checked them for track marks. There was nothing.

Monique looked at her triumphantly. ‘You see, Miss Ryan. Nothing.’

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Maura smiled apologetically. ‘Take your stockings off, please.’

Monique’s faced dropped. ‘I beg your … how you say?’

Maura finished her sentence for her. ‘Pardon. I beg your pardon. Now, if you don’t mind, take your stockings off. I want a quick shufti at your calves and your shins, OK?’

Monique’s eyes glittered with malevolence. She reminded Maura of a cornered rat.

‘Take your stockings off, Monique. Either you do as I ask or I’ll call one of the bouncers up here to have them forcibly removed. It’s your choice.’ She saw Monique’s eyes go to the beaded bag on her lap. ‘And don’t even think about trying to shiv me, darling. It would only end in tears. And they wouldn’t be mine.’

Maura’s voice was as hard as concrete now. Monique surveyed her, weighing up the pros and cons. After a few seconds she dragged her tight black velour dress over her thighs. Slowly she began to undo the suspender belt. Monique rolled the stocking down to below her knee and held her leg out for inspection. Maura grinned. She was used to every ploy in the book. She took off the black patent leather shoe that Monique was wearing and pulled the stocking off completely. The bottom of her leg was a mass of needle marks. Even between her toes. Maura threw the stocking back at her and sighed.

‘You’re a bloody mug to yourself. You know that, don’t you, Monique?’

The woman shrugged. She began to put her stocking back on.

Maura carried on talking. ‘I know for a fact that you can speak German, Arabic, and even a smattering of Japanese. You’re not a fool. Why do you take drugs?’

Monique slipped her shoe back on and took the cigarette that Maura offered her. Maura offered her a light.

Monique puffed on the cigarette.

‘You people make me laugh. Oh, don’t look so … how you say? … shocked. I come here night after night and I sleep with strange men. Some of them are very nice men. Very kind. Some, they are rough and they want to hurt you.’

She saw Maura’s face change and laughed. ‘You are a very funny girl. You do not want me in your club because I take drugs. Well, let me tell you, I have been a prostitute since I was seventeen. Over twenty years. I have to have something to give me a bit of happiness and I find it in drugs. I have slept with thousands of different men and while I work for people like you, I make you very much money. How many of my men have refused to pay their bills, eh? None. I can sweet talk any man I want. So please don’t lecture me!

‘I will leave your club. It’s shit anyway since the bomb was thrown in here. All the girls are nervous.’ She stood up and put her cigarette out in the ashtray on the desk. ‘I will say one thing before I go. Who is worse, eh? Me because I sell my body, or you for earning good money off that fact?’

‘I give all the girls a good deal here. I offer them a degree of protection that they would not get anywhere else in London.’ Maura’s voice was defensive.

Monique laughed. ‘True. True. But you are still a pimp in my eyes and theirs.’ She gave her Gallic shrug. ‘Goodbye.’

Monique walked from the room and Maura suddenly felt flat. It seemed that she was not ‘Miss Popular’ these days. Even her own brothers were wary of her. Except for Michael, of course.

She laid her arms on the top of the desk and rested her head on them. What she would really like to do now was

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walk out of this office, out of this club, and in to her car. Then she would like to drive and drive and drive until she arrived somewhere where no one knew her and she could be exactly what she really was - a twenty-five-year-old girl. Not woman … girl.

She was startled to hear the door opening. It was another of the hostesses, a very young girl by the name of Candy. Whether or not that was her real name was debatable. She was carrying a cup of coffee. Maura sat up in her chair and tried to smile at her.

‘I thought you looked as if you could do with this, Miss Ryan.’ She placed the coffee on Maura’s desk. Maura could smell the aroma of whisky. As if reading her mind, Candy smiled.

‘It’s an Irish coffee. A very strong Irish coffee.’

Maura smiled, her first real smile for days. ‘Thanks, Candy.’

Candy sat in the chair vacated by Monique. She was a natural blonde, her hair lighter than Maura’s which was unusual as Maura’s was nearly white. Candy’s was a silver blond and she had the most amazing brown eyes. It was a startling combination. A few weeks earlier, all the hostesses had put in five pounds each and Candy had shown every one of them her pubic hair. It was exactly the same colour as the hair on her head. She had stopped all the arguments about herself, and made herself nearly a hundred pounds richer.

The girl hitched up her strapless dress. The movement seemed to accentuate her childishness.

‘You look right done in, Miss Ryan.’

‘I feel it actually, Candy.’

The girl sniffed loudly. ‘I wanted to see you about something personal.’

Maura sipped the steaming and fragrant coffee and lifted

her eyebrows in an invitation for the girl to continue. ‘A bloke was hanging around outside the club earlier.’

‘What was he - a pimp?’ Maura sounded bored. This was the last thing she wanted even to think about. Let alone do something about.

Candy shook her head. ‘Oh, no. He was nothing like that. He was a policeman.’

‘A what!’

‘An old Bill. You know, lily law.’ Candy laughed.

‘What was he asking about? The night of the bombing? What?’ Her voice was anxious.

Candy relaxed into her seat. ‘No, nothing like that, Miss Ryan. He was asking about you.’

Maura’s mouth dropped open. me?’

‘Yes, you. He gave me this to give to you.’ Candy took a slip of paper from between her boobs. ‘He asked me if you would be in tonight. I said I didn’t know and then he offered me twenty quid to deliver that to you. So I did. I hope I haven’t done anything wrong?’

Maura’s eyes were devouring the words on the piece of paper. ‘No … No, Candy. You were right to take the message.’

She got up from her desk and, picking up her bag, slipped the note inside. Then she took out her purse and gave Candy three twenty-pound notes.

‘Oh no, Miss Ryan, I couldn’t. The bloke gave me a score.’

Maura pushed the notes into the girl’s hands. ‘You take it, Candy. You did very well tonight.’

Candy took the proffered money and smiled craftily. ‘Well, if you’re sure …’

Maura laughed out loud. She could feel the adrenaline pulsing through her body.

Candy stood up too and Maura did something that

would make her a friend for life. She hugged the girl.

‘Candy, can I trust you never to tell anyone about this?’

She put her hand gently on Maura’s arm. ‘Look, Miss Ryan, I don’t know what was in that note. I didn’t read it. And I’m not a grass. You’ve been good to me and if I can repay you somehow, I will.’

‘Thanks, Candy. I appreciate it.’

Candy smiled and went back downstairs. She liked Maura Ryan. Whatever anyone said about her, she looked after the girls. And Candy, being honest in her own way, admitted that she would not get very far without her. It would be back to a pimp and either Park Lane or, when her looks went, King’s Cross. At least she had the chance to get herself a little stake. And for that she would be eternally grateful.

When Candy left the room Maura snatched the note from her bag. It was from Terry Petherick! She could not believe it! She read it again.

‘IF EVER YOU NEED ME, CALL THIS NUMBER. LOVE, TERRY.’

Underneath was his phone number. Maura was ecstatic. He did still want her. Otherwise why would he bother to send her a note? She hugged the scrap of paper to her. Terry had put himself on the line to get this message to her. It crossed her mind that it was some kind of frame up but she had felt the attraction between them. And if nothing could ever come of it, at least she would always have the satisfaction of knowing that he had still wanted her, whatever she had done, because he must know everything that had transpired over the last few weeks. She sat back in her seat and drank the now stone cold coffee. The whisky bit into her taste buds and suddenly she realised that she was starving. She’d pack up here for the night and go home.