Damaged Goods (8 page)

Lilly wasn’t about to give up. ‘She got killed last week. It was in all the papers, you must have heard about it?’

Randy Mandy shook her head and tossed her lifeless hair over her shoulders. The breasts remained static.

‘What about Max Hardy? You must have heard of him?’

Mandy’s smile vanished. She seemed to age ten years.

‘Doesn’t he run this site?’ asked Lilly.

‘Not any more. He move on.’ Mandy frowned and picked up her shirt. ‘If that is type stuff you want you don’t find here.’

‘What type of stuff?’ asked Lilly.

Mandy covered her breasts with her shirt and leaned towards her camera. ‘I go now.’

The screen went dead. She had locked them out.

‘Well, that’s it, she’s not going to talk to you again,’ said Miriam.

Lilly smiled at her friend, a twinkle in her eye. ‘If the mountain won’t come to Mohammed …’

Barrows watched his wife work the crowd. She shook hands with the party faithful and accepted their support and congratulations with aplomb. Hermione was the hero of the hour and she sparkled with a new sense of purpose, her smile broader, her step lighter.

He waved to her and mouthed ‘well done’. She waved back, but when their eyes met he didn’t find warmth. Instead he saw something colder and darker.

He reaches for a glass of water and gulps it down together with his fear. He’s being ridiculous, of course. She doesn’t know. How can she? In all the years he’s known her she hasn’t been able to work out how to programme the video recorder let alone the blackest recesses of his mind.

Hermione curses herself as she walks towards the car. She had been taken over by the adulation and let her guard down. She had let her husband see beyond her façade, and he would now know that she saw beyond his. After twenty years of pretence they would have to confront the truth.

Barrows drove his wife home in silence. The woman beside him, who he thought he knew, who he thought he controlled, was beyond his reach. Does she know?

And if she did–what would she do now? Would she hand him over to the police? And ruin her newly ascendant star? He thought not. Even when he’d met her at Oxford she had lived life as if she were being watched. While the other students danced and drank with abandon, Hermione felt that what she wore, what she read, what she ate were matters of grave importance. She had waited her whole life to be somebody, she wouldn’t blow it now. Instead she would insist it stop, insist he give up the hobby.

He pictured his life without it and rage began to swell in his temples.

He sped faster and faster through the streets of Luton, his hands gripping the steering wheel so tightly they hurt. He considered unlocking her seatbelt and slamming on the brakes so she would hurtle through the windscreen. He’d seen it done in a film and knew he had the guts. He had never allowed anything to stand in his way before.

He glanced at the locking mechanism. Hermione’s hand rested on top and held her belt in place. A coincidence, or could she now anticipate his every move? He imagined she could read his thoughts, then berated his paranoia.

Eventually he swung the car onto their drive, a crunch of gravel beneath the tyres. He killed the engine and they sat for a few seconds, side by side, both staring straight ahead. His heart was pounding so loudly he was sure she could hear it.

‘Do you have something to say, darling?’ he asked, his voice stagey.

Hermione took a deep breath. ‘I don’t think so, William.’

Barrows was shaking but he had to know. ‘I disagree.’

She spoke looking away from him, so that her voice sounded distant although they were only inches apart. ‘I have known for some time now about your other life.’

He tried to sound surprised. ‘Whatever do you mean?’

He wondered how she would put it. Would she use careful, deliberate language or the gutter expressions of the tabloids she loved to court? If she called him a child molester he would punch her until she could speak no more. He balled his fist, ready.

‘Cut the crap, William, we both know you’re gay.’

Barrows didn’t speak, didn’t dare to breathe.

Finally Hermione got out and turned to face him. ‘We’ll have to find some way to work it out.’

As she closed the door behind her he let out an audible sigh of relief.

‘This is beyond stupid,’ said Miriam.

‘Way beyond,’ Lilly agreed.

She wrote down her mobile number for the babysitter and felt a pang of guilt that if Sam woke up he wouldn’t find his mother at home, but she needed to act quickly. If Max had sold his site it would be to someone local – Lilly doubted the man had ever even left Luton. That meant Mandy was probably still working in the area, but in a week’s time, or even a couple of days, that could change. Girls moved parlours and brothels with ferocious speed, trading with whoever would pay the most. Websites opened and closed on an almost daily basis. Loyalty was in short supply for women in the oldest job in the world.

‘Have you considered how we’re actually going to do this?’ Miriam asked.

Lilly picked up her car keys and ushered Miriam out of the cottage into the humid night. ‘We’ll head for Tye Cross. Someone will know her.’

‘We can’t just go to the nearest brothel and say, “Excuse me, we’re looking for Randy Mandy. Do you know her? Blonde hair? Big boobs?!”’

‘Why not?’ said Lilly.

‘Because they’ll want to know who we are and why we’re asking.’

Lilly put the car into gear and set off. ‘We’ll say we want you-know-what.’

Miriam looked at them both, a black dreadlocked woman in her early fifties with half-moon glasses and Birkenstocks and her colleague still in her now-dishevelled work suit and trainers.

She sounded unconvinced. ‘A pair of lesbian sex tourists.’

Lilly gave her friend a wink. ‘Just say you’re after some girl-on-girl action.’

Tye Cross was synonymous with sex. Everyone in the area knew that this was the place to find a prostitute. Lilly had seen the name appear in numerous court papers, as many of her young clients had mothers working there. Some of them went there themselves, particularly if the lure of drugs had already sucked them into a black hole. Lilly, however, had never actually been to Tye Cross and was surprised to discover what amounted to little more than a few dingy streets dotted with sex shops and strip-clubs. In between were flats where customers prepared to pay a bit extra could satisfy themselves in the comfort of a bed rather than the back seat of a car. A couple of pawnbrokers, an Indian takeaway and an all-night café were the only other signs of life.

Several prostitutes lingered in doorways or wandered along the kerbside and peered into passing cars.

‘Looking for business, love?’

Taking a deep breath, Lilly approached a prostitute standing alone outside a disused sari shop.

Everything must go. 50% discount
, declared the peeling posters above the girl’s head. Up close she seemed impossibly thin, and even tonight, when the temperature had not dropped below 65, her legs were mottled with purple honeycomb and she wrapped an oversized cardigan tightly around her tiny frame.

‘I’m looking for a girl,’ said Lilly.

The woman didn’t respond but blew smoke in Lilly’s direction.

‘Her name is Mandy,’ Lilly added.

The girl shivered, flicked her cigarette at Lilly and walked away.

Another woman, older and almost plump, called to them from her spot further up the road.

‘Don’t mind her, darling, she’s waiting on a fix.’

She smiled at Lilly’s blank expression. ‘He’s late tonight, the man that sells them young ones the drugs.’

Lilly nodded her comprehension. ‘I’m looking for a girl called Mandy.’

‘Oh aye.’

‘Blonde, early twenties, I think she’s foreign.’

The woman became distracted as a car pulled to a halt only a few feet away. ‘They’re all foreign these days, honey.’

Lilly realised that in one night she’d been called baby, darling, sweetie and honey by women she’d never met before in her life. It was intimacy at its most fake, and the women used these names without thinking.

The woman spoke over her shoulder as she moved towards a potential client. ‘Try the girl on the counter in Sizzle, she knows most of them. Me, I keep my distance.’

Lilly watched her lean into the driver’s window then crossed the road to Miriam, who was embroiled in conversation with two women who seemed to find the whole thing hilarious.

‘Honestly, I’m not from any church,’ said Miriam.

The taller of the two tugged absently at her holdup stockings whose elastic had clearly seen much service and better days. ‘Sure you are, sweetheart, you lot are always round here. Come to save our souls.’

Miriam persisted. ‘No, really.’

‘Never mind our souls, try our bloody arses,’ roared the smaller woman, ‘cos mine’s as raw as a frigging bullet wound tonight.’

The women collapsed into laughter and careered across the road, arm in arm.

Miriam sighed. ‘Any luck?’

Lilly was about to mention Sizzle when she spotted a familiar face. She gestured towards a group of young boys working the other side of the street. When they realised they were being scrutinised all but one scarpered.

The boy pulled down his baseball cap. ‘Fuck it.’

‘Hello Jermaine,’ said Miriam.

‘I ain’t doing what you think, Miriam,’ he said.

Miriam cocked her head to the left. ‘No?’

‘I’m clipping. You know, I’m pretending to work and then taking off with the money.’

Miriam kissed her teeth. ‘I know what clipping is, and I know it’s a stupid boy who thinks he can get away with it before someone gives him a kicking or worse.’

‘Take him home in a cab, I’ll stay a bit longer,’ said Lilly.

‘You going to be all right on your own?’ asked Miriam.

‘Course. I’ve got a lead I need to follow up.’

Sizzle was clean, bright and spacious inside. Lilly had never been in a sex shop and was amused to find neat racks of magazines and ordered rows of videotapes. The assistant eyed her solitary customer without interest and went back to pricing up outfits from a box marked, ‘Fantasy Wear’.

Eventually Lilly made her way to the counter and peered in the glass cabinet displaying a forest of vibrators and dildos, the largest of which was over twenty centimetres and tartan.

The girl spoke through a wad of bubble gum, its saccharine smell filling the air. ‘You want one of those?’

Lilly shook her head. ‘I’m looking for someone.’

The girl’s jaws moved up and down like a piston. ‘This ain’t a dating agency.’

‘She’s foreign. Russian, I think,’ said Lilly. ‘Calls herself Randy Mandy.’

The girl shrugged.

‘Come on,’ Lilly smiled, ‘you must know all the regulars round here.’

The girl wasn’t disarmed. ‘I come in, do my job and go home. End of story.’

‘But you must hear what’s going on? Who’s working which patch?’

‘I make four quid an hour. It ain’t enough for chitchat.’

Lilly took out her purse and pulled out a twenty-pound note. ‘She does a chat room called Maximum Exposure.’

The girl took the money. ‘Most of the Russians work out of Fat Eric’s. I think he’s got a Mandy over there.’

Lilly smiled her thanks and turned to leave.

‘He won’t let you near her,’ said the girl, sliding the banknote into her back pocket, her gum pushed into her cheek like a hamster.

‘Why not?’ asked Lilly.

‘It’s regulars only, so the girls don’t get ideas.’

‘What sort of ideas?’

The girl went back to her uniforms and her chewing.

Outside, the air seemed heavier, and Lilly’s feet stuck to the pavement as she made her way to the small strip-club called Eric’s. The windows were blackened and an enormous man with a strangely small and shaven head sat on a stool in the entrance, one buttock hanging in midair. European disco music filtered through a velvet drape behind him. He was eating an equally colossal sandwich, and Lilly was transfixed by the white film of mayonnaise that covered his entire top lip in an oily moustache. A girl in hot pants and bra pushed aside the drape. She whispered something into the man’s ear and he nodded without taking his mouth from his food. She was just about to disappear inside when she glanced at Lilly. It was the eyes, they were unmistakable.

‘Mandy,’ shouted Lilly.

The girl looked surprised.

‘We spoke on the net, Mandy,’ said Lilly. ‘About Max Hardy.’

The man jerked back his head and Mandy scuttled back inside.

‘Can I come in?’ asked Lilly.

She heard the too-breezy manner and knew it wouldn’t wash.

The man swallowed a mouthful and shook his head. ‘Members only.’

‘I have plenty of money to spend,’ she said.

The man, who had already taken another bite, spoke through a mouthful of lettuce and chicken. ‘Spend it somewhere else.’

Lilly stood firm. ‘I just want to talk to Mandy.’

The man wiped his mouth with the back of his meaty fist.

‘Please,’ said Lilly.

‘Nobody by that name here,’ he answered and turned back to his supper.

‘Could I at least leave her a message?’ asked Lilly.

‘Listen, love, sling your hook before the boss turns up.’

‘Are you threatening me?’

He sighed and gave her a small push backwards with one slippery hand. Given the difference in their sizes Lilly hurtled across the pavement and landed flat on her back. The man gave her a pitying look and went inside, no doubt to eat his sandwich in peace.

‘You okay, honey?’

Lilly gratefully received a hand to help her to her feet from the doughy prostitute she had met earlier.

‘Something tells me I’m not on his Christmas-card list.’

‘I doubt that bastard’s even got his granny on it.’

Lilly smiled, but as the other woman let go her knees buckled.

‘Where I’m from they’d say you need a stiff drink.’

‘A cup of tea would do.’ Lilly leaned on the other woman’s arm. ‘I’m buying.’

Lilly sipped her tea. It was so strong and sweet she was filled with a longing for her home in Yorkshire. Or perhaps it was the incident outside Eric’s. Vulnerability had always sent her scurrying back up the M1. She’d packed her bags a dozen times since she found out about Cara, only to pour herself a glass of wine and empty them again. How had she ended up here, away from her friends and family? Where she felt out of step with the zeitgeist and often, too often, out of her depth. It was a question she regularly posed, and she knew all the answers, but at times like this they didn’t seem good enough.