Читать книгу The Girl Who Broke the Rules - Marnie Riches, Marnie Riches - Страница 10

I did a really stupid thing & I can’t tell anyone else. I’m losing my grip. Call me. Paul.

George read the words out loud, as though giving voice to them would reveal the truth behind the cryptic, partial revelation. Should she call? She had been sitting on his text all day. Staring at her phone, as the train had carried her back from Broadmoor. Her heart told her to respond to this wonderful, troubled man. Didn’t she spend at least as much time with him during her trips to Amsterdam as she did with her boyfriend? Pottering at the allotment. Talking about music. Life, the universe and everything. Hadn’t their bond become the elephant in the room, whenever Ad questioned why she had grown distant and disengaged?

‘All right, darling? What you looking so shifty for?’ Aunty Sharon asked, grabbing her in a bear hug and planting a lipsticky kiss on her cheek.

‘Just a text,’ George said.

She made to turn the phone’s screen off and slip it into her back jeans pocket beneath her overalls. But surprisingly for a woman of small statue and large volume, Aunty Sharon was agile enough to reach around and snatch the phone right out of her George’s hand.

She gazed down at the screen, grinning.

‘Aunty Sharon! Gimme the phone, man.’

Her aunt brought the text back up and read the words. ‘Paul? Oh, yeah?’ Fixed her niece with a knowing look. Nudged her joyfully and a little too energetically, so that her flamboyant head attire wobbled – a sculpture fashioned from a scarf, the colours of the Rasta flag, intertwined with platinum blonde, curly hair extensions that looked incongruous next to her mahogany skin. ‘You two-timing that poor Ad with some geez named Paul? Girl, you’re harsh!’

George snatched the phone back. Jammed it into her pocket. Relieved that in the dingy light, Aunty Sharon would never suss she was blushing. ‘I’m not two-timing anybody. I told you about Paul. It’s just van den Bergen.’

‘The Dutch cop?’

George nodded. ‘He’s just a friend, yeah?’

‘Oh, really? That why you hiding your phone, then?’ For all George’s qualifications and finesse and Aunty Sharon’s lack of them, this one-time Jamaica Road rose in Betty Boop heels and laddered sparkly tights had the measure of her, all right.

George was searching for a way to change the subject, when three men entered the club. Two of them were tall, burly, wearing outmoded single-breasted leather jackets and cheap shoes. Cropped hair, dark eyes, olive skin. The third was small in stature and somewhat older-looking than the man-mountains that flanked him. Had the beady-eyed look of a coke-head, George swiftly estimated.

‘Get out the way and keep your gob shut,’ Aunty Sharon said, grabbing the bucket. Thrusting the mop into George’s hand. ‘Don’t attract no attention to yourself. Thems is bad news.’

As she ushered George behind the bar, the men escorted inside four bewildered-looking white girls, who were quickly divested of their fun-furs by a sycophantic, scuttling Derek. Beneath their coats, they wore either string bikinis or lacy lingerie, all covered only by sheer net babydolls, as if they had been provided with uniforms. Heavy makeup. Fluttering eyelashes and bouffant hair. Flawless, tight behinds, which only the really young could boast, George noted. On their feet they wore identical Perspex-soled platform shoes.

‘Jesus,’ George said, pretending to dust down the vodka and whisky optics that lined the walls when in fact, she was scrutinising the girls. ‘They don’t look much more than about fourteen.’

Walking uneasily in the vertiginous footwear, they advanced towards the main stage and came to a halt, as if awaiting instruction.

‘They’re crippled in them bloody stripper shoes, that’s for sure!’ Aunty Sharon said, wiping a wine glass with a tea towel. ‘They’re gonna end up with fallen arches.’

The sound system was not yet switched on. George could clearly hear the girls chattering nervously to one another in an Eastern European language. Could have been Russian. Could have been Polish. Who knew? Not George. They blinked fast. Flutter, flutter, butterfly lashes. Taking in their new surrounds, while their escorts spoke to Derek. Clapping him on the shoulder. Nodding. Smiling like old buddies at a reunion.

‘Listen that! See how they’re chatting in Italian?’ Aunty Sharon said, raising an eyebrow. She sucked her teeth long and hard.

‘That why he’s going round asking everyone to call him Giuseppe?’ George spritzed the till with anti-bacterial spray.

Aunty Sharon shook her head. ‘He’s into something, that scrawny fucking idiot. Well out of his depth. Them geezers been round here three or four weeks running, now. New girls every time. Young foreign girls. They dance for a night or two. Rake it in. Then they’re gone. Sometimes it’s African girls. Sometimes from the Far East. They don’t talk no English. Derek thinks cos his grandfather came from some tin-pot shithole outside Rome that he’s fucking mafia or something.’

‘Porn king that owns this place know?’

Aunty Sharon shook her head. ‘Nah. Don’t reckon so. These girls ain’t legal. He’d lose his bloody licence. Dermot Robinson ain’t that daft. But I’d put money on it that Derek’s on some kind of fiddle. Fucking Uncle Giuseppe. Rarseclart.’

The tallest man locked eyes with George. Started to walk towards her.

‘You!’ he said. Clicked his fingers, as though she were a willing waitress. ‘Come here!’