Читать книгу The Rhythm Section - Mark Burnell - Страница 12

It was the smoker’s cough that woke her, a ghastly rib-rattling hack that repeated itself for the first hour of every morning. Stephanie was glad that it wasn’t hers. Then she remembered that it belonged to Steve Mitchell, Anne’s husband, and this reminded her of where she was. On their sofa, in their cramped sitting room.

Headswim brought on a wave of nausea. She swallowed. Her throat was dry, her skull ached, her nose was blocked. Anne and Steve were arguing in their bedroom, shouting between the coughs. The radio was on, loud enough to compete with them. Stephanie tried to ignore the noise and the smell of burned toast. How many consecutive hangovers was this? How long was it since Keith Proctor had bought her coffee? Four days? Five?

She struggled to her feet and tiptoed to the window. The Denton Estate in Chalk Farm, on the corner of Prince of Wales Road and Malden Crescent, had one high-rise building with several smaller buildings crawling around its ankles. It was a cheerless place, an ugly marriage of vertical and horizontal construction, in possession of one saving grace. The high-rise, where Steve and Anne Mitchell had their small eighth-floor flat, was a grim tower of red brick, but the view to the south was spectacular, worthy of any Park Lane penthouse. Stephanie absorbed it slowly, panning over Primrose Hill, Regent’s Park, Telecom Tower and the city beyond.

She went to the bathroom and locked herself in. She sat on the edge of the avocado bath, clutching the sink, wondering whether she was going to throw up. Last night, there had been gin, then some hideous fluid that passed for wine – possibly Turkish – before other drinks, the quantities and identities of which were now a mystery. She had no recollection of returning to Chalk Farm. But she did remember the foreign businessmen at the hotel in King’s Cross and how they had plied her with alcohol and yapped at her in a language that made no sense. With their droopy moustaches, their hairy backs, their potbellies, their gold medallions and their cheap polyester suits, they offered no surprises. Stephanie was regrettably familiar with the type.

At least it had only been alcohol. On the night after her second encounter with Proctor, she’d gone to see Barry Green and traded Proctor’s money for heroin. She’d asked Green to inject it into her – a service he sometimes provided for his regular customers – but he’d refused.

‘No punter likes to shag a slag with puncture points in her arm.’

‘What do you care?’

‘Plenty, as it happens. I don’t want to have to explain to Dean West why I put one of his girls out of action.’

‘I don’t belong to Dean West. I don’t belong to anybody.’

Green always found it hard to deny those who waved cash at him and so Stephanie got her heroin, smoking it instead of injecting it. As she had anticipated – indeed, as she secretly demanded – it was too much for her system; she threw up and passed out. When she came round, she was on a stained, damp mattress in a dimly lit store-room on the premises adjacent to Green’s ticketing agency. She was surrounded by cans of chopped tomatoes, bags of rice, drums of vegetable oil. She smelt the vomit on her jacket and the stench made her retch.

Green was standing over her. ‘That’s the last time, Steph, you got that? Any more and you’re gonna develop a habit. Are you listening to me?’ He bent down and slapped her face three times before wiping her saliva off the palm of his hand on to her leg. ‘You already do enough damage to yourself. You don’t need this.’

‘You’re right,’ she’d croaked. ‘I don’t need any of this.’

Anne Mitchell made Stephanie another cup of coffee. There was barely room for both of them in the kitchen. They sat at the small table, a tower of dirty plates between them; on the top one, tomato sauce had hardened to a crust. The gas boiler on the wall grumbled intermittently.

‘Steph, we need to talk.’

Stephanie had sensed this moment coming since Steve had gone to work. He was a plumber, which seemed unfortunately ironic considering his numerous infidelities. Whether Anne was fully aware of the extent to which he was unfaithful was unclear to Stephanie, but she knew he cheated on her and that she tolerated it because it was better than the alternative. Anne had been a prostitute when Stephanie first came to London and believed, for no good reason, that without Steve she was destined to become one again. He was still ignorant of her history and, in her mind, Anne had convinced herself that his infidelity was the price she should pay for concealing her past from him.

‘It’s Steve,’ she said, staring into her mug.

‘That’s what it sounded like.’

‘I’m sorry. Did you hear?’

‘Just the volume. Not the content.’

Anne had been pretty once; fine-featured with strawberry-blonde hair and freckles on her cheeks. Ten years ago, her regular clients had taken her away for weekends and bought her gifts. But when Stephanie had first met her, just two years ago, and shortly before she met Steve, she was selling herself cheaply and indiscriminately, and still not making enough. Now, she just looked exhausted, fifteen years older than she really was, suffering from too little sleep and too much worry.

‘You said a night, maybe two. It’s almost a week now and –’

‘It’s okay.’

Anne scratched a sore on her forearm. ‘If it was up to me, you could stay as long as you like. But you know how he is.’

Stephanie knew exactly how he was. Steve might not have known she was a prostitute but he regarded her as one, or as something equally deserving of his contempt. He never overlooked an opportunity to grope Stephanie, or to press himself against her. On one occasion, when she’d been in the bathroom, he’d barged in and locked the door behind him. Anne had been asleep on the other side of the flimsy partition wall, which was why he’d whispered his instruction to Stephanie, as he dropped his trousers: ‘On your knees.’

Similarly, she’d whispered her reply. ‘You put that anywhere near my mouth and you’re going to end up with a dick so short you’ll need a bionic eye to find it. Now put it away and get out.’

Since that incident, Steve had been increasingly hostile towards Stephanie. Consequently, her visits to Chalk Farm had become less frequent. Stephanie never stayed anywhere for long. It was nine months since she’d paid rent for a room of her own, in a flat for five that was home to eleven. Since then, she had rotated from one sofa to the next, stretching the charity of her ever-decreasing number of friends on each occasion.

‘How long have I got?’

‘You can stay tonight.’

Anne’s expression suggested that it would be better for her if Stephanie didn’t.

Stephanie sat in the last carriage, where a bored guard amused himself by hanging his head out of the door every time the train pulled away from the platform, reeling it in just before the tunnel. The Northern Line was running slow. It took half an hour to get to Leicester Square from Chalk Farm.

Stephanie preferred Soho in the morning, when it was quieter, when street-cleaners and dustmen were the ones who congested the pavements, not tourists and drunks. She stopped for a cup of coffee in a café and recognized three prostitutes at a table. None of them appeared to recognize her. She sat at the counter with her back to them. In her experience, friendships and solidarity were scarce among prostitutes. In a world mostly populated by transients, one hooker’s client was another’s missed opportunity, so there was little room for sentiment.

She overheard their conversation. They were talking about a Swedish hooker who had been gang-raped after stripping at a drunken stag night. Stephanie had recognized one of the girls at the table in particular. She called herself Claire. She was a seventeen-year-old from Chester, or Hereford, or Carlisle, or any one of a hundred other English towns that offered total disenchantment to the teenagers who grew up in them. Claire had come to London at fourteen and had been selling herself ever since. The previous year, she had spent three months in hospital after a drunken vacuum-cleaner salesman from Liverpool had beaten her to a pulp and left her for dead in a sleazy hotel off Oxford Street. She had deep, livid scars around her eyes and Stephanie knew that the reason she grew her hair long was to disguise the burns her attacker had left at the nape of her neck.

They were commenting on the Swede’s injuries with the indifference of accountants discussing tax rebate. Claire was as outwardly unmoved as the other two. As unpleasant as the facts were, they were not uncommon; if you were on the game long enough, you were bound to encounter violence. Stephanie was no exception. It was a risk run daily, a risk run hourly.

When working, Stephanie usually arrived in the West End during the late morning, from wherever she had spent the night, and then killed a few hours before being ‘on-call’. Most often, she watched TV with Joan, her ‘maid’. They drank coffee, smoked cigarettes and read the tabloids. At some point, she might eat – this was usually the only period of the day that Stephanie considered food – rolling all her meals into one. Sometimes she went to McDonald’s or Burger King, or sometimes she bought tourist fodder; grease-laden fish and chips or huge, triangular slices of pizza with lukewarm synthetic toppings and bases like damp cardboard. On other days, she visited the few friends she had made in the area; a nearby Bangladeshi newsagent, a Japanese girl from Osaka named Aki, or Clive, a diminutive Glaswegian who had a stall in the Berwick Street market and who allowed her to take a free piece of fruit from him each time she passed. When her mood was wrong, she drank before work, most often at the Coach and Horses, or else at The Ship.

As a rule, the later the hour, the rougher the trade so, given a choice, Stephanie preferred to stop working by ten. Generally, however, she found herself working later than that. And whatever the final hour, she was exhausted when it was over, even on a quiet night. Even on a blank night. Staying emotionally frozen bled all her mental stamina.

Stephanie drained her cup, left the three girls in the café – they were still discussing the attack on the unfortunate Swede – and walked to Brewer Street. She climbed the stairs and noticed that the reinforced door on the third-floor landing was open. A familiar voice came from within.

‘In here, Steph.’

Dean West. She felt her body tense and took a moment to compose herself before entering. West was drinking from a can of Red Bull. He wore a burgundy leather coat, a black polo-neck, black jeans and a pair of Doc Martens. As usual, Stephanie found her own eyes drawn to his eyes, which bulged out of his head like a frog’s, and to his teeth, which were a disaster. His mouth was too small for them; a dental crowd in an oral crush, a collage of chipped yellow chaos.

‘How was last night? Some hotel in King’s Cross, right?’

She nodded. ‘But there were two of them when I got there. Bulgarians, I think. Or Romanians.’

‘So? Twice the money.’

‘They wouldn’t pay twice.’

‘What?’

‘They didn’t speak English. They thought they’d already paid for both of them.’

‘I don’t care what they fucking thought. Money up front. That’s the rule. Always.’

‘Not this time.’

His anger deepening, West’s brow furrowed. ‘What the fuck’s wrong with you? We used to get on, you and me. I thought you was smarter than the others but now I ain’t so sure. What was the one thing I always said? Money up front! How many times d’you have to be told?’

‘I got the money up front.’ Stephanie handed West his cut. ‘For one.’

He began to count it. ‘Ain’t my fault you didn’t collect right. I want my piece of the second. And before you start, I don’t care if it comes out of your cut.’

‘They were both drunk when I arrived. They wanted me drunk too. Given the mood they were in, I thought it was best to go along with them. So I did everything they wanted and then I drank them under the table. That was when I lifted these.’ Stephanie produced two wallets from her pocket and tossed them to West. ‘You can take your cut for the second one out of there.’

West’s bloodless lips stretched into a smile as he examined the wallets. ‘Credit cards? Diners, Visa and Mastercard. Nice. What’ve we got in the other one? Visa and Amex Gold. Very tasty. Barry’ll be well chuffed.’ Barry Green, occasional vendor of drugs to Stephanie, also had a line in reprocessing credit cards, using a Korean machine that altered PIN codes on the magnetic strips. West’s good humour vanished as quickly as it had materialized. ‘But only sixty quid in cash? How much are you charging these days, Steph?’

‘The usual.’

‘And after that they only had sixty quid between them?’

‘I wouldn’t know. I haven’t counted it.’

‘Bollocks. You’ve trousered a little for yourself, ain’t you?’

A total of three hundred and fifty-five pounds. All she’d left them with were their coins. ‘They must have blown what they had on all that cheap wine they were throwing down my neck.’

‘Don’t try to be funny, Steph. And don’t try to pull a fast one on me, neither. Now cough it up.’

‘Just what Detective McKinnon was always saying to me. I’ve still got his number somewhere, you know.’

Superficially, West’s anger dissipated but, internally, he was seething and they both knew it. ‘Don’t push your luck, Steph. One day, it’s gonna run out.’

‘I know. And so will yours. We’re both on borrowed time.’

Dean West raped me once. I say ‘raped’ because that is how it appears to me now but, at the time, I was less sure. Anne Mitchell was the one who introduced me to him. She was still a prostitute in those days, working for West, and I think she did it purely to please him although she said it was in my best interest. She told me that for a small percentage of my earnings he would provide protection for me and that, anyway, without his authority, I wouldn’t be allowed to operate in this area. That was a lie. So were most of the things that Anne said in those days. But I don’t hold that against her. She was no different to anyone else in this business, no different to me.

It occurred here, in Brewer Street, in the very room in which I am currently standing. In fact, I am looking at West right now and I am wondering if he is also thinking about it. It seems a lifetime ago. Or rather, it seems like another life altogether. Not mine, but someone else’s. I barely recognize the Stephanie who features in my memories. If I was ever really her, I no longer am.

As I entered this room on that morning, he was polite in an old-fashioned way. Courteously, he held out a chair for me to sit in. This, I later learned, was typical of West. One moment he’s charm itself, the next he’s a savage. I have never discovered whether this is genuine or whether it’s something he has cultivated but, either way, it’s part of his legend. What is beyond dispute is that West has always enjoyed his reputation as a man not to be crossed. He’s thirty-five years old and has spent twelve of his last nineteen years in custody.

To look at him, you would never think he was so vicious. There is nothing in his physique that suggests menace. He is not particularly tall – five-nine, I should think – and he’s very thin with fine features; he has hands as delicate and long-fingered as a female pianist’s. His lank, light-brown hair falls limply from a centre parting, giving a rather effeminate appearance. In a crowd, he is invisible. But when the rage is in him, the bulging eyes threaten to pop out of their sockets, the pale skin becomes so bloodless it almost looks blue and he radiates a feeling that is unmistakable: pure evil.

There is no bluff with West. Everyone knows it. If he says he’ll play noughts and crosses on your face with a pair of scissors, you know he will because if you know anything about him, you’ll know that he’s done it before. When I first entered this room, about two years ago, I never even noticed the screwdriver on the table next to where I was sitting.

At first, he told me how sexy I was, how I was going to make so much money. He told me that if there was anything I needed all I had to do was ask him. Then he came round from the other side of the desk, picked up the screwdriver and stood behind me, before stooping to whisper in my ear, ‘I want to see what you’ve got. And then I’m gonna try you out. Now get your clothes off.’

He never threatened me verbally, or with the screwdriver. He didn’t have to. And the fact that he didn’t somehow persuaded me at the time – and for some time after – that it wasn’t really rape. Now I know that it was because my compliance was automatic and was based on the certainty that, one way or the other, West would have sex with me. There was no choice in the matter. Compliance was self-preservation. And this was before I knew of his fearsome reputation. I could feel the menace and I knew it was genuine. I think he would have preferred me to protest, or even to struggle, just to provide him with some justification for violence. But I didn’t. Instead, I stripped and let him take me as he wanted. It was mechanical, brutal and painful but I never let it show.

This disappointed him. So over the following fortnight, he forced me to have sex with him on a dozen occasions. Each time, he was rougher than before, determined to provoke some reaction from me, but I never gave him that satisfaction. My icy composure remained intact, each humiliation only serving to strengthen me. Every time he finished, I held his gaze in mine and we’d both know whose victory it was. With every attempt to break me, West unmanned himself a little more.

I see now how stupid this was. Sooner or later, his patience would have snapped and I would have paid a fearful price for his humiliation. Fortunately, it never came to that.

An East End heroin peddler named Gary Crowther fell out with Barry Green over some money that Crowther owed. As a favour to Green, Dean West agreed to teach Crowther a painful lesson, choosing to deal with him personally. Unfortunately, Crowther had come off a Kawasaki on the M25 the previous year. The accident had left him with multiple skull fractures and had required two operations on the brain to save his life. West’s first punch knocked Crowther unconscious and he never recovered. What should have been a mere warning ended up as murder.

I never saw the blow that killed Crowther – by all accounts, it was more of a slap than a punch – but I did glimpse the unconscious body through a partially-opened door. Just for a second, but a second is all it takes.

I was the only witness that West couldn’t trust. Those who dumped the unconscious Crowther in Docklands were West’s closest men. They were never going to be a problem. But considering how he had treated me, West had every reason to be nervous.

Most of all, I remember the confusion in his face because I don’t think I’ve seen it since. He was truly scared. He knew that if he was convicted, he was looking at a life sentence. As for me, he wasn’t sure whether to try to sweet-talk me or whether to resort to violence. As it was, he did neither because I made up my mind before he made up his. I said to him, ‘If I was never here, you’re never going to touch me again. Do you understand?’

Dumbfounded, he’d simply nodded.

‘Let me hear you say it.’

‘I understand.’

Since then, I’ve kept silent and West has kept his word and Detective McKinnon – the officer who headed the investigation – has remained frustrated.

As for the rape – or should I say, the first rape? – I have analysed it constantly since it happened. I cannot pretend it was the brutal assault it could have been – the type that makes the news, the type that leaves a mutilated corpse in its wake – but it was a horror to be endured nevertheless. Having been endured, however, I think the experience has been strangely empowering. Primarily, having survived such an ordeal, it taught me that I could survive such an ordeal.

I began to be able to see myself as West saw me – as a thing, not a person – and this has enabled me to divide myself in two so that there is a part of me that nobody can reach, no matter what abuses they visit upon my body. This has allowed me to do what I do, to cope with the repulsive acts I perform for my repellent clients. It’s allowed me to live with the threat of violence without it driving me crazy.

West still makes me nervous and my hold over him is tenuous. There is no guarantee that I won’t become a victim of his violence at some point. As the months have passed and the Crowther incident has receded, West has become more intolerant of me. Thinly-veiled threats are starting to seep into our conversations. I’ve seen the way he looks at me and I know he’d like to try to break me again, even though he says I am no longer attractive, that I’m disgusting to him.

It is true that I don’t look good these days. I’ve lost so much weight. My skin has no real colour, except for the red blotches. My eyes look permanently bruised but aren’t and my gums are always bleeding.

Perhaps the most humiliating thing that has happened to me in this, the most humiliating of trades, is that I’ve been forced to lower my prices. Anne once said to me, just as she was on her way out of the business and I was on my way in, ‘You don’t know what true degradation is until you have to discount yourself, only to find out it makes no difference.’

I am not in that position yet. But I am not far away.

I am twenty-two years old.

Joan was peeling the wrapper off her third packet of Benson & Hedges of the day. ‘You’re shaking.’

It was true. Stephanie’s hands were trembling. ‘I’m tired, that’s all.’

For Anne’s sake, she hadn’t returned to Chalk Farm, so the next two nights had been spent upon the lumpy sofa currently occupied by Joan’s sprawling bulk. Uncomfortable nights they had been, too; once the heating cut out, it had been freezing, so she’d curled herself into a ball and pulled two coats around her to keep warm. Then she’d sucked at the gin bottle until she’d passed out, managing three hours’ sleep the first night and two the second. Now she was paying the price for it.

Shrouded in smoke, Joan was chewing peanuts while flicking through the TV channels with the remote. On the floor, next to her overflowing ashtray, there were three phones, waiting for business. None of them was ringing. She said, ‘He’s ready when you are.’

‘What’s he like?’

‘Big bloke. I think he’s had a few.’ She glanced at Stephanie through her tinted lenses and shook her head. ‘Better pull yourself together, girl. You don’t look a million dollars.’

Joan looked like a beached whale. In Lycra. Stephanie said, ‘Who among us does?’

She poured herself half a mug of gin, stole one of Joan’s cigarettes, and went to the bathroom. She washed her face, the cold water bringing temporary refreshment, before applying foundation and mascara. When she looked this bad, Stephanie always tried to draw attention to her mouth and to her eyes, which were deep brown beneath long, thick lashes. The lipstick she selected was a bloodier red than usual. No matter how emaciated the rest of her became, her fleshy lips looked as ripe as they ever had.

She changed back into her lacy black underwear and fastened her suspender-belt. There were mauve smudges on her thighs, souvenirs from anonymous fingers that had pressed into her too eagerly. The bruises around her wrists had faded to a band of pale yellow that was barely noticeable.

She drained the gin, took a final drag from the cigarette and rinsed out her mouth with Listerine. Then she took a deep breath and tried to clear her mind. But when she caught her reflection in the mirror, the feeling returned; the fear of the stranger, the fear of fear itself. It was in her stomach, which was cold and cramping, and in her throat, which was arid and tight.

To the cadaverous face in the glass, she whispered a terse instruction. ‘No. Not now.’

‘Hi, I’m Lisa. What’s your name?’

He thought about it, presumably choosing something new. ‘Grant.’

Joan was right about his size. Not only was he tall, but he was massive. An ample gut hung over the top of black trousers that looked painfully tight. Stephanie never knew that Ralph Lauren shirts came in such a gargantuan size. His sleeves were rolled up to the elbow, exposing thick forearms, each of which sported a large tattoo. His hair was buzz-cropped and a band of gold hung from his left ear. But the watch on his wrist was a Rolex. He looked as if he was in another man’s things. He looked like an impostor. Then again, they nearly always did.

‘What are you looking for?’

He shrugged. ‘Dunno.’

Stephanie put her hand on her hip, as she always did at this moment, allowing her gown to fall further open. In the right mood, it felt like a tempting tease. Today, it felt cold and sad. She watched his eyes roll down her body. ‘I start at thirty and go up to eighty. For thirty, you get a massage and hand-relief. For eighty, you get the full personal service.’

‘Sex?’

She wanted to snap but managed to restrain herself, forcing a smile instead. ‘Unless you can think of something more personal.’

Grant frowned. ‘What?’

Stephanie saw the fog of alcohol clouding his eyes. ‘So, what do you want?’

‘The full … thing … service …’

‘That’s eighty.’

‘Okay.’ When he nodded, his entire body swayed.

‘Why don’t we get the money out of the way now?’

‘Later.’

‘I think now would be better.’

‘Half now, half after?’

‘No. Everything now. It’s better this way.’

His mouth flapped open, as though he were about to protest, but no sound emerged. So he stuffed a hand into his pocket and pulled out a fistful of fives and tens. As he came close, she smelt the alcohol on his breath and the body odour that is peculiar to sweat. With fat, pink fingers, he sorted through the grubby notes and handed them to her.

She counted quickly. ‘There’s only seventy here.’

‘It’s all I got.’

‘It’s not enough. Not for sex. Perhaps there’s something else you’d like?’

He grinned stupidly. ‘Come on,’ he slurred. ‘Ten quid. That’s all it is …’

‘Yeah, I know. Ten quid too little.’

‘It’s my birthday on Saturday.’

Stephanie was aware of her irritation rising to the surface, the blood flushing her skin. ‘So come back then. And make sure you bring your wallet.’

Her change in tone seemed to have a sobering effect upon him. He straightened. ‘What do I get for seventy?’

The words seemed to echo in her skull. What do I get for seventy? The question was not new, nor was the contempt in the voice. Yet Stephanie had suspected there might come a moment like this. For several days, she had known something was wrong, but she had refused to accept it. Initially, she’d tried to ignore it, to convince herself she was imagining it. Later, as she felt the cancer of anxiety spreading within her, she had tried to crush it with reason. And when that had failed, she’d tried to blot it out chemically.

It had nothing to do with Grant. It could have been anyone. What do I get for seventy?

‘You don’t.’

Grant looked perplexed. ‘What?’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘You said you went from thirty up to eighty. Now what do I get for seventy?’

‘You don’t understand. I’m not doing anything. Not for seventy, not for eighty, not for one hundred and eighty.’ She thrust his money back at him. ‘Here. Take it.’

He swiped her hand away, the notes fluttering to the floor. ‘I don’t want it. I want –’

‘I know what you want. But you can’t have it.’

He took one step towards her and it was enough. Her right hand had already reached behind her and found what she knew would be there; on the table, by the bowl – an old champagne bottle, half a candle protruding from the top, its neck coated in dribbles of cold wax.

She swung her arm with all the might she could muster, creating a perfect arc. The glass exploded against the side of his face. Splinters showered on to the naked floorboards. Stephanie watched the lights go out in Grant’s eyes. He managed to raise a hand to his lacerated cheek but he was not aware of it. He lurched one way and then the other, before collapsing. The floor shook beneath the impact of his body.

It took Joan ten seconds to waddle through the door. She looked at the body on the floor and then at Stephanie, who was crouched over him, still clutching a fragment of the bottle’s neck in a way that suggested she might yet drive it into him.

Joan put a hand to her mouth. Stephanie turned to look at her, not a trace of an emotion on her face. Through her fingers, Joan muttered, ‘Oh shit, what’ve you done?’

Stephanie walked past her without a word and headed for the room next door. She shrugged off her gown and picked up her coat. Joan followed her into the room. ‘What’re we gonna do with him?’

Stephanie looked for the small rucksack that contained her worldly belongings. She opened it, checked nothing was missing and then fastened the straps. Then she started to put on her coat.

‘West’s gonna go fucking mental,’ Joan said. ‘We’ve got to get this wanker out of here.’

Stephanie looked at her. ‘If I were you, I’d get out of here. Right now. That’s what I’m going to do.’

‘You can’t just walk out. He’s downstairs, for God’s sake. For all we know, he could’ve heard it. He could be on his way up here right now.’

‘Exactly. And when he finds out about this, how do you think he’s going to react? Do you think he’s going to look for an explanation? Or do you think he’s going to look for someone to take it out on?’

Joan’s expression darkened. ‘Well, it won’t be me, love. I ain’t the one that done it.’

‘Fine. That’s your decision. But it’s not mine.’

‘I ain’t going. And you ain’t, neither.’

Joan reached for the phone. Stephanie grabbed her bag and ran.

Whoever answered the phone on the third floor took their time. The door was still shut when Stephanie passed it. The heels on her shoes slowed her on the uneven stairs but she reached the ground floor and was halfway to the front door when she heard the shout from above, followed by the multiple thump of descending boots.

She knew she had to lose them immediately. If her pursuers saw her, they’d catch her. She turned right and then right again, out of Brewer Street and into Wardour Street, before taking the first left into Old Compton Street and another first left into Dean Street. She never dared look back.

It wasn’t yet ten in the evening. The area was busy, which was a blessing. She turned right at Carlisle Street and only stopped running when that led into Soho Square.

The distance covered wasn’t great but her lungs were pleading for mercy. She slowed to an unsteady walk. It was then that she noticed that her coat was still only half-buttoned, which explained some of the astonished looks she’d seen on the faces that had blurred past her. Black underwear and a suspender-belt were all she had on beneath the coat. And given her appearance, she suddenly realized that if her hunters were asking pedestrians for the direction she’d taken, she’d be the freshest thing in the memory of just about everyone she’d passed.

She fastened the remaining buttons to the throat and forced herself into another run. She’d known she was unfit, but she’d never guessed that her physical decline had become so acute. For the moment, fear compensated but she knew it wouldn’t last.

She took Soho Street out of the Square and then crossed Oxford Street before turning round for the first time. There were no obvious signs that she was being followed. She headed up Rathbone Place and turned right into Percy Street. Her mind was starting to function again. The immediate danger appeared to have been averted but there was a more sinister threat ahead. If her pursuers returned to Brewer Street empty-handed, West would use his network to try to locate her. The word would go out and the search would be on. When that happened, anybody she passed on the street would be a potential danger.

She wondered how long she had and where she should go. Chalk Farm was out of the question. In fact, anyone she knew was out of the question; it was too risky to involve them. Which was why she chose Proctor. She felt nothing for him.

At the junction with the Tottenham Court Road, she turned left and headed north. She found a working BT phone-box outside the National Bank of Greece. She dialled and luck was with her.

‘It’s Stephanie Patrick.’

If surprise had a sound, it was to be found in Proctor’s silence.

She said, ‘Can we meet?’

He was trying to gather himself. ‘I guess … sure. Sure. When?’

‘Now.’

‘Now? Er, that’s not very convenient. I’m busy. Working –’

‘I’m in trouble. I need help. And I need it right now.’