The Honey Trap (2 page)

I nodded.

‘Sure, and how’s Charlie today?’

‘Fuck off.’

To wind her up I call Fiona Charlie. It’s a joke she doesn’t want to get. See, at a stretch, the set-up here is pretty much the same as in the seventies TV show,
Charlie’s
Angels
.

Once upon a time there were three very different little girls. They grew up to be three very different women, but they had three things in common. They were all beautiful, all
single mothers, and they all worked at the Honey Trap.

First off there’s me, Issy, and I’m Kelly ’cause of my brown hair. Next up is Nadia, the aspiring singer. She’s been aspiring for ten years, so strictly speaking
she’s an expiring singer. Nadia is Sabrina, mainly ’cause I don’t want to be Sabrina (too serious, too clever by half). And lastly there’s Trisha, the blonde one, the
‘I may look like a sexy flirty Farrah Fawcett type, but if you mess with me, I’ll burst your balls in one single squeeze.’ Trisha is strange, a gym freak, and I don’t trust
her one bit.

We share the common bond of raising our kids without significant others. This is where our Bosley comes in: Maria, a fifty-year-old Spanish granny, who by day is a charlady and by night the
babysitter, thus allowing us Honeys to go on our various missions. Everyone likes Maria. Max adores Maria. If you could choose your own mother, you’d want her to be Maria.

Which just leaves Fiona, the big boss. We don’t get to see so much of her, what with her impending op. She tends to drop by now and again to check all’s working smoothly, though
invariably at the wrong time, like when I’m making a personal call to Mexico. I swore to Fiona it was a one-off, but she didn’t believe me, checked the phone bill, and docked twenty
quid off my wages.

So nine months back I found myself in the middle of a vacant situation. Sitting in a dentist’s waiting room, waiting, and whilst in this state of limbo I perused the
Camden New Journal
and came across the following: ‘The Honey Trap, est. 2000, specialising in marital trust bonds, seeks a certain type of woman.’ It was positioned in amongst
the personals, which was odd. I found it directly below this assertive little PO box number: ‘U, commitment-phobic, co-dependent Oedipal wreck with financial problems? Me, early thirties,
work in media, low self-esteem, call now!’ Not that I, you understand, would ever consider using such a service, but I do enjoy laughing at the people who do.

I’d read on: ‘The Honey Trap is currently looking for women with attitude’. I have attitude, albeit like a stinky French cheese. ‘Women who like a challenge . . .’
I love challenges. After three years of interrupted sleep, there are times when getting up in the morning is a challenge. ‘Attractive women who know how to play the game and get away with
it.’ On a good day I scrub up well. ‘Flexibility a must’. Knew the yoga would come in handy.

In effect this job had my name written all over it. Issy Brodsky, 36 24 36. OK, so in the good old days. OK, so not even then, but following the advice of several self-help manuals on positive
thinking this was exactly how I’d learnt to regard my reflection. Why diet when you can lie to yourself? Plus, and here’s a good tip for any body-conscious females out there, always try
and befriend fatter people than you. Sure, over the years I’ll admit I have expanded a little, wear and tear, but I thank Christ that on the birth of Max I didn’t suffer from hideous
stretch marks, specifically the ones that wriggle upwards. Lucky that, especially seeing as I still had some left over from a pudgy adolescence. I digress, but Jesus, the fallout of pregnancy. If
only half of the stuff was common knowledge, I swear it would put women off breeding.

All in all, the position sounded intriguing. I called the number and enquired further on the specific nature of the job. Unbelievably, when I confessed my single-mum status to Fiona, she
didn’t flinch. This was an unusual reaction – for all the joys of motherhood, it’s a restrictive business. One is at the beck and call of another being twenty-four hours a day. I
required a job that would take that into account, i.e. in real terms, I could never be wholly relied upon.

‘A problem, not,’ declared Fiona. ‘All my girls are single mums. Come in, we’ll have a chat.’

How astonishingly refreshing, and though the thought crossed my mind that the company was an escort agency or something along those lines, it hadn’t put me off.

We arranged a time, and I trawled through my wardrobe in search of something befitting an interview situation. My sad wardrobe, so obviously geared towards my status: cheap, worn-out and
stained. My clothes had seen better days; guess I’d seen better days. Comfort and endurance were the usual criteria. I reckoned an investment in my future was long overdue, trotted down to
the local charity shops, and finally found a short skirt and top that would do the trick.

Let’s face it, jobs of real satisfaction are hard to come by for someone in my predicament. A nine to five would mean full-time child care – expensive, and you had to be committed to
a type of bureaucracy I had always abhorred. Before I gave birth I’d worked, well, to be frank, as little as possible. I had a degree, a Master’s, had done a stint in France (i.e. a
year of intense passion with
un mec
who screwed up my head), worked for a casting agency, a modelling agency, a photographer’s agency. On reflection I’d always been an agent of
one kind or another. My laissez-faire or fairly lazy attitude meant I wasn’t ever in the position of earning large enough stacks to afford a full-time nanny, and my positions were never such
that there was a major pull to go back to work. But the desire to do something other than slave to my child had seeded, and I’d begun to cast around at what was on offer.

There really wasn’t much.

At the job interview Fiona put it to me bluntly.

‘There’s only one rule here: on no account are you ever to sleep with a client’s husband. Do you understand?’

‘I don’t do married men.’

‘Why not?’

‘Moral reasons,’ I replied, then, hoping to support my case, added, ‘I’ll never forget the look on my mother’s face the day she found out about my father’s
mistress.’ (Actually it was one of relief: it later turned out she’d been shagging his best friend.)

Next up I had to assert what I considered to be my qualifying strengths for the position. I stated that of the many men I’d encountered during my life a fair few had called me a
prick-tease, basically because I’d refused to sleep with them.

‘Interesting,’ she replied.

Actually it’s rather tedious.

‘Do you hate men?’

‘On the contrary, I’m fascinated, but to be honest, there’s few and far between who I’d ever, well . . . consider an appropriate partner.’

‘What are you looking for, Mr Perfect?’ she snorted rather condescendingly.

‘See the thing is, Fiona . . . I’m not actually looking. I enjoy male company but I guess, what with Max, my time is stretched as it is.’

Hey, and there was absolutely no way I’d be able to deal with a second kid.

‘Hmm . . . so do you think you’d be interested in the job?’

‘Yeah. Definitely.’ Sure would beat working as a supermarket cashier.

‘OK, Issy, we’ll try you out.’

As interviews go it was easy enough. Max and I celebrated with ice-cream cones from Marine Ices: a double scoop of pistachio and morello cherry for me, and for Max, strawberry with strawberry
sauce.

‘Max, this is the beginning of something big,’ I proclaimed, to which he’d replied, ‘More, I want some more.’

‘Max,’ I continued, ‘I love you.’

‘I want to do a poo, Mum.’

Ended up having to sprint the buggy home to avoid a minor accident.

Eight months back I joined the Honey Trap and became a special agent of sorts, an agent provocateur, a fidelity barometer, a sticky honey strip (like the yellow ones my Gran
hung in her kitchen attracting hosts of summer bluebottles to an early demise – though it must be said, not the most appetising sight when sitting down for a Sunday roast).

Hey, at the end of the day I have a job and a reinforced sense of self-worth. It’s amazing what a brown envelope can do. The added bonus being I’m able to get out a couple of times a
week with a free babysitter thrown in for good measure. In a nutshell there’s enough cash, which, topped up with Child Benefit, lone-working-parent tax relief et al, is enough to keep Max and
me bobbing sweet.

Eight months later and Fiona was screaming at me, ‘What the fuck is this?’

‘What does it look like?’

‘It’s a finger,’ shouted Max. ‘Look, Mummy.’

He’d picked it up and come sprinting over to me. Pointed it at me and said, ‘See, it’s a finger.’

‘Sweet fuck!’

I usually do my best to cut down on the bad language, I swear. OK, so I confess, part of me, the weak-pun part, harbours delusions of being a stand-up comedian. No, really, upon motherhood I
have had to amend my vocabulary accordingly.

Max gaped at me strangely, and then from out his rosebud lips there trilled a sing-song tirade of ‘Sweet fuck’s.

Crouched down by his side I turned a greenish hue, due to the finger, not the foul-mouthed boy child whom I then ignored. At the same time I desperately tried to gulp back a recently digested
cheese sandwich that was trampolining on the lining of my stomach.

‘Where did you find it?’

I’d shuddered, expecting to see the rest of the body lying in the near distance. Together we searched our pathetic patch of grass with one solitary rose bush, otherwise known as the
garden. Thankfully there was nothing, absolutely nothing.

‘This is so weird, Max.’

‘Sweet fuck, Mum.’

To whom did it belong? Where had it come from, and more importantly, what the hell was it doing in my garden? So many possibilities, though I figured it probably belonged to a kidnap victim.
Some poor ultra-wealthy woman was walking around with only four digits. Which meant . . . I would be generously rewarded for finding the missing finger and get my picture in the papers.

In the distance I heard the doorbell buzz and guessed it was Maria.

Time to don my alter ego and go fight the evil forces of potential adultery.

I casually explained all this to Fiona, whose mouth curled at the edge in disbelief.

‘Anyhow I thought I’d drop it by a police station on the way, but I was running late so I just popped it into a freezer bag and left it in the fridge.’

Fiona wasn’t very sympathetic.

‘Issy, it’s disgusting. I want the finger removed.’

‘It already has been removed. Hacked off, in fact.’

She had no idea how long, and how much effort, it had taken me to get Max to let go of it. All the distractions and clowning about.

‘Mine, mine, mine. My finger!’ he’d howled, refusing to let go of it.

‘Max, you already have ten fingers – one more ain’t going to be of any use whatsoever.’

And so I’d had to chase him round the flat for twenty minutes, and then play hide and seek. This gets real boring ’cause Max only has one hiding place, under the covers of my
bed.

Fiona was furious.

‘Issy, I have a thing about fingers. Can you please get rid of it?’

‘Fine, fine. I’ll go to the police station right now. That OK?’

Fiona wasn’t even meant to be in the office tonight.

‘Actually no, I’ve got a job for you. Trisha’s had to pull out of it. I need you to take over.’

‘Why?’

‘Because it’s a case she’s been working on for ages and I don’t want to blow the account.’

OK, so Trisha is a six-foot-tall, slim, blonde, brassy dominatrix type, and I am none of those things.

‘How come she can’t do it?’

‘Her youngest has a fever. You’re going to have to do it.’

Fiona handed me a chipped mug of instant espresso and a case file.

Mr Bob Thornton, thirty-nine, married with two kids. His missis had been poking her nose into his computer and found plenty of virtual adulterous activity. His method of covering up such dirty
doings was to spell his name backwards. Clever that. Trisha, her alias being Trixi, had been communicating with him for the past three weeks, egging him further down the line towards maintenance
payments with lascivious emails of the like:

Figured I was in for a sophisticated night, not. Bob described himself as: having brown hair (a full head of), a six-footer and looking remarkably young for his age. Thankfully
Trisha hadn’t mailed him a picture of herself, but it was clear from the emails he was expecting one powerful dame.

‘Fiona, I’m not sure I’ll get away with this.’

My whole demeanour spelt out nice, gentle woman, not ball-breaker, bitch, emasculator.

Fiona, clicking her knuckles, regarded me with disdain, my skirt too long, my make-up too demure.

‘Borrow something from the cupboard.’

The emergency cupboard contained odds and sods of clothing for such situations. I had a rummage and found a short, tight skirt and a pair of high-heeled, knee-length black boots. I swept my hair
up off my face into a super-tight ponytail, Sade style, stretching back the skin on my face. Next up I smeared a real generous amount of blood-red on my lips and finished off the look with a false
beauty spot.

Time ticking onward, expected in half an hour and I was looking more the part till I put on my puffa jacket. Fiona eagle-eyed me whilst reading out bits and pieces from the file: Bob collects
cigarette picture cards. Bob’s favourite drink is beer. Bob has a caravan and every summer takes his family camping in France. Bob is a member of a bird watchers’ society.