Girl Seven (7 page)

‘So what’s that?’ I asked, pointing at a multi-coloured plastic bird with what looked like a lump of misshapen brown playdough for a beak, balanced atop a pile of books.

He followed my gaze and indicated for me to sit in a wide reading chair. My skirt was almost too short to sit down but I man­aged to avoid prematurely flashing anything by crossing my legs.

‘It’s a bird with a turd for a nose,’ Darsi said matter-of-factly.

‘And you just buy that sort of thing... around?’

He sat also, in a swivel chair by one of his two desks. There was no sofa or TV.

‘No, I made them.’

I looked around the study, at the files and photos and the dolls with dog heads attached to their plastic shoul­ders and I laughed. ‘OK, either you’re a Mike Kelley fan or you’re a mental serial killer.’

‘I spent my PhD interviewing serial killers. It could be both. Would you like a drink?’

I stared at him. At first I’d had no idea why Noel had sent me. I could be perfectly affable in a large group, but everyone could predict I’d be terrible at house calls. I found it too hard to hide my boredom or distaste in a one-on-one situation, when there wasn’t a wall of background music and other women and alcohol to distract people with. But now it was becoming more apparent.

‘So what do you do?’ I asked, too intrigued to acknow­ledge his offer of a drink. ‘Noel said—’

‘I’m a forensic criminal psychologist.’

‘And what exactly have you done recently for Noel that’s so great?’

He sat there, owl-like in his shirt and delicate glasses with his foppish hair, and swivelled. ‘Nothing great enough to warrant this but... he insisted.’

‘Well, I’ve never done this before.’

‘No?’ He smiled. ‘Neither have I. I don’t go into Noel’s club, really.’

I couldn’t imagine anywhere he would be more out of place. It made me wonder what he was like in bed; whether his bookish demeanour was masking something perverted. The dolls and figurines made me think so.

‘So...’ I hoped my phrasing of the question wouldn’t make me sound too suspicious. ‘If you’ve interviewed all these serial killers, could you spot a proper psychopath in the street now? I mean, if you spent a bit of time with them, could you tell who was likely to be a raging psycho murderer?’

‘Quite a lot of people have psychopathic traits: it doesn’t mean they’re going to go out and murder someone. Most of the time they end up owning businesses or running a govern­ment department.’ He picked up a mug from the desk next to him and checked it for liquid, but didn’t find any. ‘But the longer I’ve talked to psychopaths and
​... sociopaths, it does become easier to spot them. A surprising amount of them.’

‘Am I a psychopath? Can you tell me that right now?’

‘The very act of asking that question, or asking yourself that question, probably means that you’re not.’

‘Why?’

‘A psychopath would almost never self-identify as such, unless it was the result of some cataclysmic event, like a murder for example. They would simply think that...’ He trailed off, his face tightening in thought. ‘They think that the world works in a certain way, and that they’re working it to their advantage. They think they’re right, in short. They think of others as pawns and opportunities and they also think that’s how all people should be, if they want to succeed.’

I snorted. ‘Did you just try really hard to dumb that answer down for me?’

‘Only a little. I hoped you wouldn’t be able to tell.’

‘Look, I’m here to do whatever you want,’ I said, deciding to propel the situation forwards. ‘I’d be happy to sit here and talk to you about your job and ask you questions, but I was also sent here to do other things and... I really want you to do whatever you want, even if it’s weird or... especially if it’s weird. I’d like that. I don’t want you to think you have to be polite to me or make small talk with me. It’s fine for you to ask for anything.’

I wasn’t sure if I’d said the right thing, or if girls were even meant to talk this much on house calls, but I suspected Darsi would need some prompting.

‘Just be yourself,’ Noel had said. Now I understood why.

‘Sorry,’ I said, covering myself. ‘Sorry if that was too forward.’

‘No.’ Darsi took a long breath, as if he were stifling a large smile.

I waited, trying to contain how eager I was to know the sort of thing that turned him on.

He gestured at his books. Stacks of them. There was a step­ladder wedged between piles, to reach the tops of his shelves.

‘Pick a book from here,’ he said, taking off his glasses for a moment. ‘Fiction.’

It took the rest of the night and half a day for me to come to a decision; less time that I’d thought.

I returned home at just after four in the morning, to the shitty flat that had somehow become my base. It used to belong to a friend, whose doorstep I had appeared on nearly three years ago, still smelling of soap and copper and mute with shock. He’d let me stay without hesitation, giving me a bed and space for a permanent easel in the tiny living room. Then he’d gone. I didn’t know where. But he left me this place: the one flat in London where the rent never seemed to go up.

I could barely remember the guy’s name now. I’d always been more into having acquaintances than friends.

The flat had resembled a Far Eastern opium den when I’d arrived and smelt of incense and marijuana. Not much had changed. I’d come to like it too much.

When I got home I stood in the kitchen doorway holding the coaster in my hands.

Another phone number.

I knew what I wanted to do, much more so than I had done with Mark’s business card, but the fear was stopping me. It was just the fear.

It wasn’t as if anyone was going to get hurt. If anyone could afford to lose some money, it was Noel. It might even do him good to feel something less than invincible for once. What bothered me were the possible repercussions.

There were no two ways about it: I’d be dead within hours if either Noel or Ronnie found out what I’d done. Noel might have shown me affection, brief flashes of humanity, but I knew that deep down they were both beyond reason in a way that most people would never understand. Violence wasn’t a last resort to them; it was how they interacted with the world. I would die and they’d laugh. Fuck, they’d enjoy it.

But it wouldn’t get that far...

... and I could go home.

I slept on it, for about six hours, but when I woke up noth­ing had changed. It felt like most of the daylight hours had passed me by outside.

I could go home. That was the thought that overrode every­thing.
I could go home.

Repeating it over and over to myself, I went into the living room, picked up the phone and called Alexei.

‘Thanks for the tip,’ I said, sitting on the floor with my toes curled into the rug. ‘It was pretty generous. Look, I’ve had a think about your offer and I’m... interested. I think I’m interested. Just tell me in a bit more detail what you guys are actually thinking of doing.’

‘You think you are interested?’ He was smiling, I could tell. ‘Think is not good enough. For what you are asking for, we will need you to prove it.’

‘Um... prove it? How?’

‘Earn your first payment we gave you.’

‘My payment?’ My newfound resolve wavered a little. ‘What, my
tip
? How do you want me to do that?’

‘Be clever. Show some imagination
.
Then we will talk. I would like very much to talk to you again, Seven.’

Racking my brains for a strategy, I came up with nothing.

‘Right. OK, I’ll... get back to you then.’

‘We hope so. We do not like it when women lead us on.’

He hung up.

I rested the phone against my chin, trying to work out just how much of a threat his last statement had been. It made me feel uneasy, sitting on the floor obscured by the sofa. It made me look around, as if something were in here with me. I stood up and fixed myself something to eat, making as much noise as I could, so that I could almost forget how alone I was.

Before I went into the Underground that night I found a store full of gadgets, and asked to see some of their voice-activated recorders. They were expensive but, suspiciously, they all came to just under 150 pounds. I bought the most expensive one I could afford within my budget, and a USB stick.

Feeling too on edge to read the instructions back in my flat before work, I took a long bus ride around the West End instead. It seemed easy enough to use, but the more I thought about it the more insane my plans seemed. What was I doing this for? To prove myself to a couple of over-confident Russians who claimed they could pay me enough to return to my old life? Or was I doing it to give the middle finger to Noel?

A bit of both, I figured.

On my way into the club I was painfully aware of the USB and the recorder knocking around the insides of my pockets. When safely in the dressing room and hidden behind my locker door I transferred the recorder from my coat to the underwiring of my bra, and wondered just how I was going to get Noel or Ronnie to come out of their office.

It would be easier if Ronnie were here. He was the more social of the two.

Daisy let herself into the room behind me and started count­ing to ten under her breath as she adjusted her hair in the mirror.

I hated it when other people counted out loud. It made me nervous.

‘What’s up?’ I asked, slamming my locker a little too hard and applying some lipstick.

‘There are some proper wank-stains out there tonight. It’ll be a flippin’ miracle if I don’t end up
killing
one of them. I stopped serving them a bloody age ago and somehow they still got fucking trolleyed!’

‘Is Noel or Ron here?’

‘Ron’s upstairs; not a clue about Monobrow. I don’t think I can get him to chuck them out until they actually
do
something though.’

She backcombed her hair and observed her hip bones, making a sharp edge above the line of her hot pants. Apart from Noel, Daisy was the only person here who could make me laugh. I’d hated her when we’d first met and I was sure the feeling had been mutual. But there was something so compelling about her brilliantly pretty features and reluctance to ever give a shit about anything.

‘Think I can
lure
them into doing something vile and start screaming?’ she asked.

I glanced down at myself and smirked. ‘I don’t know. Could I?’

She grinned. ‘Or we could just poison them all, eh?’

With an exasperated sigh, she walked out of the room. I followed her and instantly spotted the group of men she was referring to. It was impossible to miss them, even with the club this crowded. They were making more noise than everyone else put together and I didn’t recognize any of them.

Onstage, the Chinese girl was doing some contortion act, on her knees bending over backwards until the top of her head touched the floor. I could do that easily, I thought, but no one likes a show-off.

I watched Daisy flirting with the irritating drunkards and kept an eye on them, willing them to cause more of a scene. I held back, trying not to catch any eyes and become occupied by work until I’d had the chance to go upstairs.

Now I was here, actually doing it, my worry about getting caught far outweighed any guilt I felt towards Noel or Ronnie. Ronnie hadn’t done anything wrong, but I realized I had zero problem with screwing over Noel a little. All I needed to do was think back to his voice on the phone, speaking as if he suddenly didn’t know me, and didn’t want to...

Bastard.

What did I care if a couple of Russian upstarts took some cash from someone who was rich enough to have offered to keep me in a flat of my own more than once?

I’d always turned him down though. I hated the idea of being owned by somebody like that.

‘Eh, sweetheart, can we get some ales over here?’

‘We don’t have... Wait.’ I waved a hand vaguely in the direction of the voice.

‘Hey, are you deaf, sweetheart?’

‘Why don’t you call me
sweetheart
again?’ I snapped, meet­ing the eyes of the dick sitting at the table to my right. ‘I’d really like that.’

He shut up and I moved back and leant against the bar.

Daisy was pretending to laugh along with one of the men: the youngest-looking guy with one of those stupid mous­taches that had come into fashion in the more tragic and
happening
parts of the East End. She leant across him to get some empty glasses and he grabbed her ass. You almost couldn’t blame him.

‘Hey!’

She slapped him with surprising strength. He pushed her. Glasses dropped.

I ran towards them and caught the words ‘Crazy bitch!’ screamed into Daisy’s face before I grabbed his arm, twisted it up behind him and almost put my boot-heel through the back of his knee.

Daisy kicked him again, for little reason. ‘Fucking
touch
me...’

Even the girl onstage hesitated to stare at us.

‘Go get Ronnie,’ I said, and pushed the guy away from me on to the floor. ‘Now get the fuck out and take your friends with you.’

Daisy winked at me and made an upstairs gesture to another of the girls nearer the stairwell.

‘Who the fuck are you, bitch?’ one of the others sneered at me, trying to help his friend regain his footing. Their eyes were bleary and aggressive with gin or Bacardi or whatever it was I could smell on them.

‘I’m the one who could break your face before my boss even gets down here to throw your sorry ass out,’ I said, leaning in. ‘So run along.’

I left Daisy watching them with a smug smile and her hands on her hips, running over to the door to the stairwell as the Underground’s second manager, Ronnie O’Connell, came storming through it.