Bad Angels

by Rebecca Chance

  Poor man, Aniela thought sympathetically, hearing him breathing stertorously though the nose that Dr Nassri, flown in from his own holiday in Sharm el-Sheikh, had painstakingly reset yesterday. This is not how he wanted to be spending New Year’s Eve.

  Mind you, he’ll be so out of it for the next couple of days on painkillers that he won’t even know the date.

  Aniela had been alerted at lunchtime yesterday of the patient’s arrival, and had busied herself calling in another theatre nurse and an orderly from the emergency service they used; by the time Dr Nassri and the patient, Jeremy Bingham-Smythe, arrived, she had everything set up with her customary efficiency. Dr Nassri had operated, resetting not only Mr Bingham-Smythe’s nose but his broken cheekbones and one orbital socket, declared the procedure a success, and left Mr Bingham-Smythe to rest overnight, with Aniela and the agency nurse taking turns to check in on him; this morning the surgeon had returned, and pronounced Mr Bingham-Smythe doing well enough to be moved to Limehouse Reach to convalesce. Aniela had tried to suggest that the patient go to the third apartment the Canary Clinic owned in the building, but what she hadn’t realised was that the third one was having rewiring work done and was not in a fit state for a patient to occupy.

  Dr Nassri was really odd about Jon, she remembered. I honestly don’t know whether he was relieved that Jon had taken off unexpectedly, or freaked out. Probably a mixture of both.

  So there had been nothing Aniela could do to prevent Mr Bingham-Smythe being settled into Jon’s apartment. It’s been a couple of days, she told herself. If Dasha Khalovsky sent anyone to kill Jon, they’ll have come and gone by now. Found that he’s not there, and left.

  There was nothing else she could do: she had no way to get in touch with Jon. But she was planning to spend most of her time in the apartment. That way, if Dasha Khalovsky’s goons did turn up, she could open the door and tell them that they had the wrong apartment, that Jon had left two days ago, and that the Clinic had installed a new patient.

  And pray to God that’ll work, she thought grimly, as she followed the orderly into the bedroom, and helped him move a happily sedated Mr Bingham-Smythe, his pupils dilated with Cocodamol, into the bed that she had once shared with Jon. The cleaning service had come, of course: the sheets had been changed, everything fluffed up for the new arrival. But the pillows she was stacking to keep Jeremy Bingham-Smythe’s upper body propped up, so he could breathe through his splinted nose, the mattress he was resting on, even the duvet she was pulling up and smoothing over his chest, had not been changed, might, conceivably, smell of Jon still under the fresh new sheets...

  ‘All right, you can go now,’ she said more curtly to the orderly than she had meant.

  He folded up the wheelchair and picked it up. She snapped:

  ‘No, leave that. I might need it for taking him to the bathroom.’

  ‘Okay. Sorry, lady,’ he mumbled; he was African, she didn’t know where from, his English not great; but he’d picked up the harsh tone, and looked really hurt.

  ‘It’s fine,’ she said, walking him to the door, feeling guilty that she had upset him. ‘Thanks for your help.’

  ‘I just do job,’ he said, shrugging as he left.

  I’m getting everything wrong, she thought miserably as she closed the door and went into the kitchen to make a cup of tea. At least Mr Bingham-Smythe’s relatives won’t be visiting till the New Year – that’ll give me a few days to calm myself down and get into a better mood.

  English people are really odd. If I’d been on holiday with my husband and kids and I’d skied into a tree and needed plastic surgery, they’d all have come home with me. Jeremy Bingham-Smythe’s family, however, had decided to continue their ski trip and come back to London on the 3rd of January, as planned.

  ‘No point in ruining the whole holiday because Jeremy’s been stupid enough to get himself all crocked up,’ Samantha Bingham-Smythe had said airily to Aniela on the phone yesterday when Aniela rang her to confirm that all the arrangements for her husband’s care had been duly made, and to give her the phone number of the Limehouse Reach apartment he would be staying in. ‘And anyway, he’ll be too drugged up to notice if we’re there or not, lucky thing!’

  Aniela pulled out her own mobile and rang Melody’s: a few floors above, Melody responded almost immediately.

  ‘He’s all settled in,’ Aniela reported. ‘But I should really sleep here tonight. His breathing’s still a bit shaky.’

  ‘Oh!’ Melody said, disappointed. ‘I was hoping we could have a girlie sleepover...’

  ‘I could come up around eleven, if he looks in good shape, so we can have company for the New Year,’ Aniela suggested.

  ‘Great! At least we can have midnight together! I’ll order some champagne and we can have a toast on the balcony. There’ll be fireworks somewhere along the river—’

  ‘I like fireworks,’ Aniela said, cheering up a little bit. ‘Did you hear from your agent?’

  ‘No,’ Melody said. ‘But,’ she added bravely, ‘I’m really hoping that no news is good news. They haven’t just turned me down straight away, which means that at least they’re considering me...’

  ‘I cross my fingers for you,’ Aniela said seriously.

  ‘Thank you, sweetie! I’m really trying to stay positive. Okay, I’ll see you later. Come up earlier if you think he’s okay.’

  Aniela clicked off the phone and put it back in her pocket. It was lovely having Melody here, another woman to hang out with – and to be honest, also because she’s another woman whose life is very far from perfect at the moment. Misery loves company, Melody had said to her yesterday when she got back from the audition, an English phrase Aniela had never heard before, but which seemed to sum up perfectly how Aniela felt. She didn’t want Melody to be unhappy, to have lost the part she wanted so badly – but if she has, at least we can be miserable together for a few more days, before she finds herself a rental flat and leaves Limehouse Reach.

  It was a particular kind of torture for Aniela to be here, in Jon’s apartment, having to sleep in the second bedroom, make it her home for a couple of days. Not knowing where he was, or what he was doing.

  He said he would come back, when it was all over. He said he would come back and find me. But who knew what he meant? Maybe just that he would check up on her, make sure she was all right, before he headed off to the ranch he had mentioned and left her behind for ever. Words that he had never said, that she wanted so badly to hear from him, ran through her head:

  I’ll take you with me to America, to my ranch. We’ll be together. I want to be with you.

  I love you, Aniela.

  She shook her head furiously: there was no point making up things that Jon might have said, but hadn’t. Other women might be happy living in fantasy, but Aniela wasn’t one of them. She had deluded herself already that her parents, her brothers were trustworthy; she’d wasted too much time with the useless Lubo.

  No more. No more fooling myself. From now on I’m going to make sure I tell myself nothing but the truth.

  The kettle had boiled. She made herself a pot of tea and carried it over to the dining table, setting it down and pulling out her pack of cards. She’d found a really complicated patience on the internet; she was going to play that for a while, see if it might even be distracting enough to stop her thinking about Jon.

  Even if I manage not to think of him, worry about him, for a few minutes at a time, she thought, that would be such a relief.

  She heaved a deep breath.

  Honestly, it would be like a gift from God.

  Grigor

  The party was already a huge success. Beaming paternally, Grigor watched his small group of carefully selected male guests whoop and yell like little boys, their eyes lit up with excitement, as the show began. His bodyguards had spent a large part of the afternoon rearranging the furniture in the great room, organising sofas and recliners into a wide semicircle facing the gigantic dining table, which was serving as
an impromptu stage: huge, wrought-iron candelabras had been set up on either side, their oversized white candles flickering, and the elaborate lighting installed in the apartment, which Grigor had paid an Italian professional over twenty thousand pounds just to design, had been programmed to send a wash of golden shimmer over the stage area, leaving the men in a comfortably cosy, shadowy haze. The occasional backlit spot gave them just enough light to see their brandy snifters and the Carrara marble ashtrays, the round orange tips of their cigars glowing in the comparative darkness as the men drew on them; the rich woody scent of expensive tobacco blended with the smoke from the open fireplace recessed into the wall.

  This was a deliberately intimate gathering, with Mikhail Fyodorov as the guest of honour. He was flanked by mutual Russian friends, other international businessmen, as he and Grigor liked to call themselves – ‘oligarch’ had such negative connotations nowadays. There was a sprinkling of footballers, a Formula One tycoon, the dealer who had sold Grigor the gigantic crystal bear, all like-minded spirits ready to celebrate the New Year in style, more than ready for the show Diane’s girls were about to perform. As befitted this smaller gathering, the cocaine was laid out on Venetian glass trays which were being brought around at regular intervals by the waiters: each guest had been given their own silver straw, a personal touch with which Grigor was particularly pleased. Ecstasy and Viagra were set out discreetly on a side table: as Grigor looked around, he couldn’t think of anything that the party lacked.

  What is it they say in English? he thought. The host with the most. I am most definitely the host with the most tonight.

  The lights all dipped. The men stirred excitedly, knowing what was coming; muffled giggling, high heels clicking on the floor, and whispers were heard, frenzied hisses and instructions as the table creaked, girls clambering onto it with rustling and swishing of fabric and net. Music rose in the background, Madonna’s ‘Angel’, and as the lights came up again, a series of spots directed onto the table, the men’s whoops grew even louder.

  Because the four girls posed on top of the table were all not only beautiful, but dressed in the most revealing white lingerie imaginable, as tiny as the white, marabou-trimmed wings they wore were enormous. On their heads they all wore silver haloes on little metal headbands, which trembled as they moved, much as their fake bosoms did.

  ‘Fuck,’ said Patrice, the footballer, devoutly. ‘It’s like the porn version of Victoria’s Secret.’

  In her sugar-sweet, little-girl voice, Madonna told her boyfriend that he was an angel as the men feasted their eyes on the girls: Kesha, as befitted the deviser of the show, had placed herself in the centre of the tableau, her tiny white basque and thong showing off her dark skin wonderfully. She had rigged some sort of invisible string to her wings, so that they swayed slowly back and forth as she bent and kissed Jaycie, kneeling in front of her, whose breasts were already beginning to spill out of her abbreviated white chiffon babydoll nightie.

  Valerie and Lyndsey, lying elegantly on either side of them, sat up, wriggled around, and mimed shocked ‘No’s at the two girls who were now kissing passionately; when that didn’t work, they came to their knees – with difficulty, as it was hard to manoeuvre on a table top with six-inch Perspex platform heels strapped to your feet – and each mimed pulling at Kesha and Jaycie, separating them.

  ‘Spoilsports!’ Patrice yelled. ‘Let ’em snog!’

  ‘Vot imenno! Poslushay ego!’ shouted Fyodorov eagerly. ‘That’s right! Listen to him!’

  Kesha, breaking the fourth wall, looked over at the audience and flashed them a huge wink before she and Jaycie piously folded their hands between their breasts: the music segued into Madonna’s ‘Like A Prayer’, and all four girls shuffled into a kneeling line on the table, turned sideways to give the watching men a good view of their bottoms, which they were, perhaps, sticking out more than was strictly necessary to say their prayers.

  ‘Spank ’em!’ Patrice yelled. ‘Spank their bums!’

  Grigor stiffened at these continual interruptions.

  ‘Patrice!’ he snapped crossly. ‘Show some respect and let the ladies tell their story! They worked very hard to put this show on.’

  ‘Sorry, Mr K,’ Patrice said contritely, as the girls turned back to face their audience, still kneeling, took each other’s hands, and bowed their heads: the music dipped, a slow, deep, sexy pounding beat replacing the bright shiny pop songs, over which voices rose and fell: it was Massive Attack’s ‘Angel’, like a deconstructed version of ‘Enigma’. The men sat up, the music a signal that the mood was darkening, becoming erotically charged, and sure enough, a group of girls emerged from the shadows.

  They were dressed in black, bad angels, perfect counterparts to the good angels on stage; their wings, their lingerie, their heels, their haloes all inky dark. In their hands they held black sex toys – whips, collars, moulded rubber anal beads. They moved close together, a tight predatory group, and as they passed the men they gestured at them menacingly with what they held in their hands: Helen, the beautiful Gong Li lookalike, slapped the string of beads against her palm in a way that made the Formula One owner sigh loudly in pure happiness and anticipation.

  Kesha had worked very hard on the staging, and it showed. In a carefully choreographed sequence, the good angels feigned horror at the arrival of the bad ones, splitting up to crawl away along the length of the table. Helen climbed onto the table, pushed Kesha down to straddle her, and started kissing her passionately; Rosie, a pretty, dimpled Irish girl, and Teresa, a redhead, flanked Valerie, Rosie holding her while Teresa started to whip her bottom; Jaycie had been pulled from the table and a Japanese girl called Mia began to strip her gleefully as she struggled with big theatrical wiggles in the arms of a brunette called Lori with cascading dark curls, and a six-foot blonde called Beth.

  ‘Oh, yeah,’ Patrice moaned, shifting in his recliner to lean forward, his eyes gleaming. ‘Give it to her good, the dirty little slut...’

  He was fixed on the sight of Helen, who had turned Kesha over and had ripped open the back of her basque. Apart from her wings and halo, Kesha was now only wearing a tiny white lace thong, and Helen very deliberately pulled this aside with one hand while, with the other, she flourished the moulded beads, running them up and down Kesha’s back, over her round buttocks, lashing her between the legs with them, gradually targeting them where every man in the audience was now dying to see them put.

  Some of the men were now openly touching themselves through their trousers. Their drinks, their cigars, were totally forgotten, but the waiter, moving discreetly between the seats with the tray of cocaine, was being eagerly summoned over by Grigor’s guests, who were alternately sniffing and groaning. Like dogs, Grigor thought affectionately, looking around the group. Well, men are dogs. Dasha always used to say that, and she was absolutely right.

  Dasha was almost always right, to be honest, he admitted to himself. We made a great team, back in the old days. I’m very glad I don’t have to divorce her. A man should stay married to the mother of his children. She gave me two handsome sons, and I honour her for that.

  Usually it was Alek, his older son, the heir to Grigor’s empire, who brought an instant smile to his father’s face; but tonight, for the first time ever, the smile was for Dmitri. He may be a wimp, but he saved his old father from a catastrophe. What the hell would I have done with a young wife? Particularly Zhivana Fyodorova. Dasha was right yet again: she’s as wet as a boiled noodle just like Dasha said. The thought of having to have sex with her – spend time with her – Grigor shuddered.

  Dmitri saved me from that bullet. I had to make the damn deal – my influence in Russia is slipping perilously, now I can’t go back for fear of being clapped in prison like so many of my friends. I needed Fyodorov – he had me over a barrel. Dmitri took that girl off my hands just in time. Honestly, I always thought that boy was homosexual! Who knew he even liked women?

  Mind you, the little Fyodorova’s so thin sh
e’d be like a fourteen year-old boy if you turned her over...

  This thought amused the proud father so much that he picked up his brandy snifter, leant over to Fyodorov, and clinked his glass against his guest’s.

  ‘A great end to the year, eh, Mikhail?’ he said happily.

  Fyodorov was too busy shoving his straw up his nose and doing a big fat line to be able to raise his glass and toast back, but he grinned back at Grigor.

  ‘Excellent, my old friend,’ he said, when he had thrown back his head to make sure all the coke had been properly ingested. ‘Truly excellent. You throw the best parties.’

  A deep groan of agreement rose from all around the semicircle of spectators: Lori was eating Jaycie out eagerly as Beth licked her nipples; Valerie, completely naked and spreadeagled on the table, was being fucked by Teresa, who had a black strap-on fastened around her hips on a very smart black and silver-studded harness; and Helen had gradually inserted the full length of the anal bead string into Kesha, who was on all fours, her pretty little pointed breasts wobbling with each push of the next bead into her bottom.

  The show was in full swing, and Grigor judged that it was time for the audience to become participants.

  ‘Gentlemen!’ he said, standing up and clinking his straw against his glass. ‘I think it’s time to join the ladies!’

  He had seen that line on a BBC TV drama, and had been longing to use it ever since.

  ‘Yeah!’ Patrice was already off his chair, dashing towards the table. Other men followed; others preferred to summon the girls of their choice towards them. As usual, Grigor did not participate. The girls were lovely, sexy and willing; individually, he might have been interested in one of them. Possibly Lyndsey, a plump-cheeked little blonde.