Bitter Sweet (28 page)

32

The next morning Mike fetched me from the new apartment and we went straight to my bedsit in his car – the police still had mine. At seven in the morning there were no journalists about. One of the guys in the house, who was up that early, told me that there had been quite
a circus the previous afternoon with the press interviewing anyone they could. I fetched everything that I needed – clothes and all my study books.

Having watched the story of my court appearance unfold on the internet news, a ghoulish desire to see it in print got the better of me.

‘Stop,’ I said, seeing a newsagent’s.

Mike braked hard, divi
ning what I wanted. I jumped out off the car, hurried into the shop and grabbed half a dozen papers including the local rag. I avoided looking at the front pages until I was back in the car.

Obviously, the local rag led with the bomb hoax. I was shattered when I looked at the national papers. I had made the front cover of all the tabloids with a full facial taken leaving the courtroom. Thankfully the sunglasses and the base
ball cap went a long way to hiding my face. I opened one of the papers; on the inside page was an artist’s sketch, and a photo of me – it looked dramatic – leaping towards Mike’s car.

I closed the paper. I was front-cover national news. I stared at the title.

Heartless Tart.

33

Back in the apartment I sat down and started to read the articles. Mike brought me a mug of tea and put a hand on my shoulder.

‘It’s outrageous,’ I said.

Mike grunted in agreement. He was being sensible by keeping his mouth shut.

‘They even tried interviewing my mum. I’ll have to phone – don’t know what to say.’

‘Um.’

My dad had died when I was twelve – one of those inexplicable tragedies; a blood clot in the brain. His death had devastated me and my mum, of course. I think his early death had catapulted me into the tomboy phase, one which had lasted until I left school and discovered my feminine side. Or maybe it was just that I was more like my dad; sports, outgoing, adventurous. The Taekwondo had helped fill the gap of not having a protective father about.

Mum had taken his death real hard; she still hadn’t got over it, I reckoned. She’d always li
ved her life in the yummy-mummy strawberries and cream milieu. And with the death of my father she had kept herself ultra busy with church fayres and charities.

‘She’ll take it hard,’ I said. ‘The reaction will be; how could you?’ I set the paper down. ‘Next will come; what will my friends and the neighbours think?’

‘Instinctive reactions.’

‘I wonder if my brother will
get in touch. He’s in the Far-East, works for BP.’

‘Uh, huh.’

‘No doubt my mum will blame herself for me becoming an escort. She’s like that, always looks to see if she’s at fault.’

‘Is she?’

‘Don’t be stupid. It was my decision.’

‘And why did you?’

‘Money, Mike, money. When my dad died the life insurance paid out, left us with a roof over our heads and no mortgage. Mum got a good pension, well comfortable – enough that neither I nor my brother qualified for the full maintenance grant. My brother got scholarships and I didn’t. I suppose that was down to my dream of being a model. Went from tomboy straight to thinking I was the next catwalk wonder.’

‘Yeah?’

‘I did. Anyway, in my first year at university I did the sums. The bedsit costs three hundred a month, add in the university fees, books, food, clothes, the list goes on and on. I knew I’d finish with a degree and some thirty grand of debt – not even what I’ll get as a first year salary. Then I’m supposed to find a deposit for a flat, or continue to pay exorbitant rents. It’s debt, debt, debt.’

I glared at Mike.

‘You don’t get it. Your generation, the generation which brought in the university fees, didn’t have to pay them. Your generation sits in government, forces us to pay fees and to crown it all, we have to pay twenty percent VAT, from borrowed money.’

‘You’ve got a point,’ Mike said, ‘and you can’t even offset the interest.’

‘More than one point. And some clever toad in Whitehall has it all worked out. We as students are investing in our future. Get the word;
investing
. At least you got that right, interest and costs can be offset against profits. The profits on my investment, well what do you know, they’re subject to income tax.’

‘Can’t argue with that,’ Mike said, sitting down on the sofa opposite.

‘No you can’t.’ I looked at the newspaper again. The national press had labelled me a heartless tart, I was facing a jail sentence with next to no chance to reveal the truth and prove my innocence.

‘Was it worth it?’

‘No friggin’ way.’ I threw one of the papers at Mike. ‘The worst nightmare. Exposed as a hooker? Accused of human trafficking? No.’

Mike set the paper down and crossed his hands. ‘I didn’t mean the exposure—’

‘Well, you should have.’ I glared at him. ‘You’re blinkin’ curiosity got the better of you again.’

Mike opened his hands. ‘Talking helps.’

‘A punch bag would be better.’ I jumped up from the sofa and went to the window – penthouse apartment, super view. I was way too bitter to care.

I turned to see Mike looking at the ceiling. ‘Have you nothing better to do?’

‘I was just wondering,’ Mike said, ‘if the ceiling would take a punch bag.’

‘Ha, ha.’

‘I’ll fetch one if you like?’

I curled my lip. ‘No.’

‘Do you want me to go?’

‘Yes, I mean no, not yet.’ I sat down opposite Mike and looked into his eyes. ‘I’m sorry about the outburst.’

He shrugged. ‘I understand.’

‘I know you do, but still, I’m sorry.’ I kicked
off my shoes and brought one foot up on to the sofa. ‘I don’t regret being an escort.’ I looked at my neglected fingernails. ‘I did it for the money. Maybe there was a bit of rebellion as well. The tomboy fails to be a catwalk wonder and rebels. Once on the job, I started to live out my own sexuality – that faded. There were men with interesting lives and stories – that was an attraction. Some of the men were sweet,’ I smiled at Mike, ‘way too sweet.’

34

Once Mike left I changed the privacy settings on my social-media profiles to ultra private. Too late,
some so-called friends had already un-friended, leaving nasty messages. There were a few childish attempts at humour from the guys.

I phoned my tutors and told them I’d be working at home this week. I phoned Ivonne and brought her up to date.

I phoned my mum. The conversation went exactly the way I had predicted. It had fizzled out with; “Take care, I’ll be in touch.”

I ploughed my way through the newspapers, some contained pretty accurate biographies, including where I had been to school, which university I was attending and even my degree course – Sports and Exercise Science with Psychology.

By lunchtime nervous-energy burnout had left me hungry and tired. I ate and then fell asleep.

I awoke in the late afternoon and over a cup of tea analysed the whole chain of events
, starting with the very first phone call from Erjon seeking an appointment. One fact became evident; Driscoll had, by charging me, shifted the focus of attention away from the incident at the warehouse. In fact, so successfully that the national media was absorbed with the heartless tart, who’d made a bomb threat panicking and endangering the public in her utterly immoral attempt to make money.

I took Oscar’s advice, set out my study books and got stuck in
, determined to obtain a first-class degree and left the outside world to chatter and twitter about hookers, escorts and tarts.

The story of the heartless tart faded as the week progressed, allowing the politicians, the bankers and the TV personalities to regain the front pages. Five days of isolation in the apartment with the black and white print of text books and a backlit computer screen, left my eyes red and sore. On Monday I forced myself to resume the normal life of a student on campus.

I faced the accusing looks with hard blank stares. The girls either continued to treat me as the person I had been before my exposure as an escort, or moved away from me as if I were some kind of ogre. The guys for the most part grinned foolishl
y, I got some calculating looks and, of course, the odd locker-room prank – men were men. Most of the guys – which didn’t surprise me – were unable to behave normally at the mention of hookers, escorts and tarts. And the word tart seemed to possess endless innuendo.

Part VI

35

I sat my last exam on a Friday morning. A pre-trial meeting was scheduled with Oscar for the following Friday afternoon and the trial date was set for the Wednesday after that. Twelve days which didn’t allow any time for relaxation or celebrations. With that foremost in my mind, I met up with Ivonne early that Friday afternoon in a coffee shop. She congratulated me on finishing the exams and asked how I was. We chatted a bit before getting down to business.

Eileen had tracked down the owner of Martha’s ex-apartment. He lived in London, had bought the place as an investment and had engaged an estate agent
to act on his behalf. The agent had let the apartment, three years ago, to a man from the city whose bona fides had checked out. The rent had always been paid, promptly, by cash into the specified account. However, a woman had been present on the couple of occasions when the agent had needed access. That woman must have been Martha. When Eileen attempted to locate the man who had rented the apartment, she had drawn a complete blank.

Tracking down the k
eepers of the two black BMWs had been child’s play, and fruitless. The cars were registered to a construction company in the north of the city. On the day of my escape with the girls in the buses, the two cars had been reported as stolen, only to be found abandoned the next evening. The owner of the construction company had no criminal record and no known criminal associations. He was, however, originally from Bulgaria. Two and two make four.

Ivonne had asked around and had also drawn a blank. Martha had disappeared
, and, not even in a puff of smoke.

We stared at our coffee cups.

‘What about the cop you’d been dating,’ Ivonne said, ‘could he find something out?’

‘Paul?’ I shook my head. ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea.’

‘You’ve no choice.’

‘Even if he could, he’s too straight to tell me.’

‘Try him,’ Ivonne said, stirring the last of the foamed milk into her cappuccino.

My phone and my car had been returned by the police and Paul’s number was still stored in the phone’s memory. For some reason I’d checked.

‘I’ll think about it,’ I said, putting it off, ‘but if Eileen can’t trace Martha, then how can Paul?’

‘Maybe the police have a file of sex workers?’

‘Yeah, it’s called Driscoll.’

Ivonne set the spoon down.

‘What are you doing tonight?’ I asked.

‘Markus has just started at a nightclub.’

‘As a bouncer?’

‘What else? He said he’d get me in.’

‘How is he?’

‘Fully recovered.’

‘We’ll start there,’ I said, ‘do a tour of the nightclubs, massage parlours and the track. Ask about if anyone knows Martha.’

‘Might get some nastiness, especially on the street corners.’

‘Forget it,’ I said with an ironic smile. ‘They’ll all recognise Tina the heartless tart.’

36

By eleven o’clock that night we’d covered most of the nightclubs. They didn’t really start to fill up until late and accordingly the owners and the managers had been sympathetic. Once I had explained that finding Martha was a last ditch effort to clear my name, a few had v
olunteered to ask around. I didn’t bother to explain that in all likelihood, Martha knew nothing. I was hoping against hope that with all her years in the business she might know, or know someone, who knew something incriminating to use against Driscoll.

We wrote down a list
of massage parlours to visit and decided to check out a few street corners on the way. That was a mistake. The track was of a niveau I’d never encountered. We were told to fuck off, we were spat at and even had a beer bottle land on the roof of the car.  

   It was an eerie feeling walking into a massage parlour. And before I could even open my mouth, we were asked if we were lookin
g for work. Talk about a narrow minded reaction. I described Martha to the middle aged Madam at the desk with the impression that she was only listening because she knew who I was from the newspapers.

Two more parlours followed – it was like a film stuck in a loop, except that in the second one the madam offered us an instant start.

I dropped Ivonne off at her place and we agreed to give the outlying nightclubs a try the next evening. As to massage parlours, reluctance topped off with one-sided logic got the better of us and we decided to give them a miss.