All that Glitters

by Les Cowan

  How they hide the amount we’re making I have no idea. Pat once said he pays £200 an hour for me. That’s quite an expensive chat some weeks. Actually, there are times I feel kind of sorry for him. His wife died two years ago and he says he’s never got over it. They hadn’t had sex for years before that anyway so it’s a wonder he remembers how. He just seems really lonely. Anyway, the weeks he is up to it he just rolls over afterwards and you can ask him anything. So £200 times the number of punters each of us has in a week. Four or five a night, times six nights, times six girls. I make that about £30,000 a week. Multiply that by the number of houses and fifty weeks a year. You can do the math. That’s going to be some account that’ll need special treatment before it gets to be clean money. Even in Belarus they’ve started tightening things up so it’s bound to be tougher here. Anyway, like I said, something’s going on. I hope they get them all but I’d like half an hour with a lead pipe with each of them before they make it as far as court. Then they wouldn’t need lawyers. They could take what’s left out in a cardboard box.

  One of the guys, Dimitri, has been particularly nervous. He’s incredibly overweight and just goes around the place sweating and puffing and losing things. Last night the phone in the office rang and he was in such a hurry to answer it he left the door open and his keys in the lock. It just took a couple of seconds for them to end up in my pocket. When he finished the call he started looking for his keys, couldn’t find them, and went totally ballistic. He was shouting and swearing in Russian, grabbing anyone in sight and smacking them around like crazy. One of the other minders had to pull him off Irena or he would have killed her. Of course by this time his keys were at the bottom of a bottle of shampoo in my locker. When he couldn’t find them, first he was shouting and swearing, then he just sank down on the floor and started crying. “He’s going to kill me,” he kept saying. “He’s going to kill me dead.” I had Pat that night so I asked him if he could do me a favour. Pat thinks I’m his friend. I told him I needed a couple of keys cut so that all the girls could at least have their own locked drawer to keep personal stuff in. “Do they not even get that?” he said. “That’s a crime. It’s not like you’re slaves or anything, are you?” He agreed so I told him I would have something really special lined up for him next week. I could hardly eat anything till his time came round again. He did a big wink when I came into the lounge where the punters wait. I could have killed him then and there. But he gave me the keys. I put the originals back where Dimitri would find them. He was just so relieved he didn’t seem to wonder where they had been for their holidays.

  I waited till the next night to use the new set. I took Elvira with me for company. She’s twenty-seven and been here a year. She’s worried what’s going to happen next since she gets fewer and fewer bookings. That’s one of the crazy things this place does to your head. You hate having to do what the punters want but you’re afraid of what’s going to happen when nobody wants you any more. There’s not exactly what you’d call a pension plan here. We met outside my room at 3 a.m. I thought my heart was beating so hard they’d hear it upstairs. At that time of night there’s only one security guy on the door upstairs and they keep one girl awake just for any latecomers – so to speak. We got to the office and tried the keys. We were on to the last one before it turned. I thought none of them was going to work. We didn’t dare turn the light on. There’s just a desk, a computer, and a filing cabinet in the office. They obviously think the place is so secure there isn’t any need for more. They probably think we’re idiots that can only do one thing. Elvira started looking through the filing cabinet while I tried the computer. These guys are such morons. I just touched a key and got the home screen with an Excel spreadsheet – no password or anything. I used Excel all the time for the accounts when I was working with Andrei so this was a breeze. It wasn’t even a very complicated set-up. Just one tab per house. Columns for girls and lines for nights. Each cell had the name of a punter – or whatever name they gave. That was disappointing too. I looked at my column. Big Boy, Bazooka, Gusher. Not very imaginative and certainly not very accurate – I should know. Actually each girl had three columns. Name, rate, and “Special”. So last week Bazooka paid a 20 per cent surcharge for – well, I won’t say for what. It’s too humiliating. When this is all over I’m going to make sure I track down every single last punter and give them a “Special” they won’t ever forget. Free. Then at the end of each week there are totals for each girl. It looked like if it was less than £6,000 it showed up in red. Elvira had a few greens early in the year but after that it was all red. There was a yellow comment flag against her most recent total. It just read “Retirement?” I didn’t show her it.

  That spreadsheet confirmed what we thought. There are seven houses listed. It looks like we are the main house where all the records are kept. The guys that run this operation are so crap-for-brains. Andrei and I could have shown them how to run a proper illegal business in our sleep. Each house even had a name: Salamander, Craigmillar, Muirhouse, Wester Hailes, Granton, and Victoria Quay. I’ve picked up enough about Edinburgh to know what that means. One to five are the poorest areas of town where there’s going to be the least chance of standing out and the best chance that police won’t care. Victoria Quay is where all the government offices are, along with the top guys with money to burn and influence. I wonder if they think they’re a better class of customer? I’ve had a few. I can tell you they’re not – just a nice Burberry coat over the same brutal, heartless wretches. Anyway, this was interesting but wasn’t giving us anything we needed. Then Elvira tapped my shoulder. “Look at this,” she whispered and handed me a document. I held it up in the light of the computer screen. I couldn’t believe it – names, titles, phone numbers, email addresses, even IP addresses. It was on two pages. The first page was called the White List. Unless I’ve got it completely wrong, it looked like all the great and the good who’d had the pleasure of our services. Titles were things like JP, MP, MSP, MEP, QC, CID, then names of girls and houses – I suppose these were their preferences – and next, a percentage. It wasn’t clear if that was a discount or what they paid: eighty, fifty, twenty, or zero. It doesn’t take a genius to know what that might be worth in the wrong hands. The second page was called the Black List. This time it was only names and IP addresses. No titles but some had designations – journalist, police, academic, banker. I only had time to notice the couple of names at the top. “Mike H: Banker” had a red line through it. The next one was “David H: Pastor”. By this time I was shaking so badly that every creak or noise outside made me jump. My mouth was dry, my shoulders stiff. I looked at Elvira and nodded towards the door. She closed the filing cabinet. On an impulse I shoved the document down my jeans. I know that was crazy but it just seemed too valuable to leave behind. We tried to leave everything else exactly as it was, then pulled the door carefully shut and headed back to our rooms. We paused at Elvira’s door. She gave me a brave smile and we had a hug. I think we felt like the little shepherd boy when the first stone landed in Goliath’s forehead.

  I was nearly back to my door when a heavy hand landed on my shoulder.

  “What have you been up to, little lady?” said a voice. I almost collapsed right there. It was Boris, who does security on weeknights.

  “Are we not even allowed to go the toilet any more?” I asked.

  “Fully dressed?” he shot back.

  “There was a Special on tonight,” I bluffed. “That’s what he wanted. Normal clothes and a nice slow strip.”

  “That was hours ago. You should be getting your beauty sleep.”

  “Well, we took a little coke. I couldn’t sleep. Is that against the rules?”

  “Get back in your room; I’ll have to log it – unless we have another little Special right now. I quite fancy a nice slow strip. Just you and me.”

  “Oh come on, Boris,” I said. “You know that’s against the rules.”

  “For me they’re more like guidelines,” he s
aid and pushed me against the door. “There you are, Princess. Do you want it logged or not?”

  The thought of that hulking brute at almost four o’clock in the morning turned my stomach. And I needed to hide the lists somewhere until I could figure out what use could be made of them.

  “Just a minute, Boris. Wait here till I get ready. I think I can give you something you’ll like.” You could see him beginning to water at the mouth, big, greedy eyes looking me up and down. “Just a few things to get sorted,” I said, went into my room, and closed the door. First of all, what to do with the document? Sometimes there are searches if something goes missing. They rip your room to shreds. There’s nowhere that’s safe. I’d noticed a peeling length of wallpaper that week. I wondered if it might just peel back a little bit more then maybe seal up. Surely they wouldn’t take the wallpaper off the walls. The bottom edge felt loose. Gently ease it away. Then the two sheets slipped inside. No chance to seal it down yet but maybe no need. I didn’t plan to be entertaining Boris this evening. Now over to the washbasin. This was going to be desperate but I needed something convincing. The shampoo bottle that I hid the keys in was lying with the lid off. I grabbed it and didn’t let myself stop to think, just gulped down two huge mouthfuls and opened the door smiling at the slavering Boris. I just had time to put my arms up around his neck when the liquid hit my stomach and came up quicker than it went down. Boris got it full in the face. I think his mouth was actually open at the time. Green slime dripped down his cheeks and chin, and his shirt was covered. I fell onto my knees and kept on retching for real while Boris took a step back and started wiping his face with his hands, making the most disgusting groaning noise.

  “I’m so sorry, Boris,” I managed to gasp. “I think it must have been the coke on an empty stomach. I’m really sorry.”

  “You filthy animal,” he managed to splutter. Apparently he didn’t enjoy tonight’s Special after all. The vomit and the retching was 100 per cent real and so was the smile on my face as I watched him reeling from one wall to the other, still spitting and groaning in search of a washroom. With a bit of luck he would stink till the relief came in at nine o’clock and then he’d have some explaining to do.

  The next time I saw Dimitri he was very pale. His eyes were bloodshot and he had a huge bruise on his left cheek. He spent his entire shift going through every paper in the lounge, then we could hear shouting and swearing in Russian from the office. Then they started the search. By that time I’d managed to seal the wallpaper with a thin film of Nestle’s milk – when it dries it’s better than glue – and Boris didn’t report me. They never said what they were looking for and they found some things the girls had hidden but they didn’t find the document. I haven’t seen Dimitri since then and I hope my suspicion of what’s happened to him is right. Elvira and I speak in whispers at breakfast or in the afternoon when a lot of the girls are asleep. We reckon we’ve got a stick of dynamite. The question is how to set it off. The top name on the Black List keeps going round in my head. Who is “David H: Pastor” and how can I warn him? If Mike H. already has a line through his name maybe David H. will be next. The way things are going this place is getting more and more jumpy. Maybe there isn’t much time.

  A few days later it was Elvira’s birthday – you know, the one day in the year you’re supposed to be special and everybody pays attention to you. She just cried all day. Nobody has any money here and we can’t go shopping even if we did, but the girls tried to make her something. Lara is a bit of an artist and had wanted to do her portrait but couldn’t find her sketchpad. Then, suddenly it appeared again exactly where she’d left it. She did a brilliant head and shoulders that made Elvira look lovely. Marta made her a beautiful paper mobile for her room and the rest of us did what we could. We made her birthday cards. That’s when I got an idea.

  Chapter 16

  HQ

  Can’t say it looks any safer than any of the others,” Gillian commented, looking at the nondescript three-bedroom detached house in front of them.

  “Ah well, appearances can be deceptive,” DC Carmichael replied. “There’s more technology in here than at Apple HQ – motion detection, body heat sensors, dampening fields for sound, secure communications, bulletproof glass, the lot, not to mention the more traditional security – two burly blokes outside 24/7.”

  “Sounds convincing,” David said wearily. “I was tempted to think this whole thing was verging on overkill but, well, I think it maybe is required, at least in the meantime.”

  After the shot came through David’s window they had lain on the floor, too shocked to move for a minute or more, listening to Carmichael’s urgent radio call: “All patrols to look out for a yellow cherry-picker vehicle heading east from Bruntsfield at speed with at least two men on board.” As they began to pick themselves up it became clear that the sticky zip David had been bending over to undo may have made all the difference. The bullet hole showed up clearly on the door lintel. Fragments of glass were showered all over the bed and the floor, but this time at least there wasn’t any blood mixed with it. They carefully brushed themselves down.

  “No maybes,” Gillian said pointedly as they walked up the garden path. “Something is definitely required.”

  Carmichael let them into the safe house and immediately pointed to a control box on the wall.

  “Fifteen seconds to key in your password or all hell breaks loose. Right now it’s ‘SeVastoPol-969?!’ – don’t ask me why. And you need the punctuation and the capitals. You can change it to your own choice but then you need to let the team know. I think it’s easier just to leave it unless you have a real problem with that.”

  David shook his head and they went on through the living room into the kitchen.

  “Fridge, freezer, and cupboards fully stocked. Anything more you buy, keep the receipts. And upstairs there’s a double bed made up. We’d recommend no mobile phones, no outings, and definitely no visitors. Any questions?”

  There were none, so after a few minutes more wandering around DC Carmichael left them with a cheery reminder.

  “Tuesday, 2 p.m., Gayfield Square – don’t forget. Have fun, you two.”

  Gillian waited till she heard the front door go then collapsed onto the bed.

  “There goes a man with a dirty mind,” she commented. “If I was wanting to ‘have fun’ I wouldn’t be doing it here.” David sat on the bed next to her, then somehow as if by mutual consent they both lay back.

  “I was thinking of a tour of the Paradors for the honeymoon,” he remarked in an absent sort of way.

  “I was thinking of the Caribbean,” Gillian replied with a smile, “but once this is over I’d probably be happy with two weeks in Wigan.”

  David rolled half over and kissed her hair.

  “You look wonderful in the moonlight, darling,” he said, which made her laugh.

  “Do you think Mrs MacInnes would be scandalized if I stayed with the minister in his safe house?”

  “If you did, I don’t suppose all that police technology would be enough to keep her from finding out. I don’t think anyone’s much bothered, to be honest. They love you and I think they trust me not to corrupt you.”

  “You know you could have stayed at my place,” Gillian said, pushing herself up on one elbow.

  “Of course; I know. But I’ve had enough of you being in the firing line by association with me. This is better; I’ll survive. I noticed a DVD player down there. I can watch the first series of Sherlock again.”

  “Now that would be appropriate! But seriously – you are not Sherlock and I am not John Watson, or vice versa. We just need to get through this and get back to normal. A minister with a small congregation and a minor academic. Deal?”

  “Absolutely. None of this was by choice, I assure you. But I do still wonder where all that money’s coming from. Maybe we’ll find out at the case conference on Friday. The normal sources of big turnover cash are drugs and sex. I think the police have been keeping on top
of the drug trade recently, so that could mean prostitution. And that would probably link into people trafficking as well, which means victims from South East Asia or Eastern Europe living in slavery conditions for the pleasure of guys you might live next door to.”

  Gillian leaned over and stroked his hair back.

  “You think too much,” she said. “I know you don’t go looking for trouble; it just seems to find you. And I know that it’s in your nature to try to sort out something you find that isn’t right. I’m not complaining – I’m proud of my upright, do-the-right-thing husband-to-be – but let’s not forget each other in the middle of solving the rest of the world’s problems.”

  David smiled back at her.

  “Yet again,” he said, “the good and the bad, all mixed up. I do like the sound of that husband-to-be; even Mrs MacInnes won’t be able to complain, though she’ll probably get you a nice, sensible, knee-length nightie for the wedding night. I have to stop myself imagining what you’re going to look like.”

  “Don’t. But if you can’t think of anything, there are some fun shops on Hanover Street I could investigate.”

  David pulled her to him and kissed her, lightly at first, then in earnest – then as if his life depended on it.

  The week David spent at the safe house might have been the longest in his life. It was like he was in a holding pattern, not going anywhere, but with Gillian banned on account of “no visitors” there was no one to hold. He missed his Spanish classes, for the company as well as the cash. They did manage a few Skype calls but decided “that was an unsatisfactory way of communicating and gave it up. He even considered inviting Carmichael’s “burly blokes outside” to share whatever he’d been cooking but thought that would just come over as weird and didn’t. After all three series of Sherlock, he went back in time and watched both seasons of Life on Mars, then back to his younger self and the entire I, Claudius. In his nightmares the “prophet” of PCG, who turned out to be Maxim Blatov by name, became the smiling demon Caligula while he was the bumbling fool, “Clau, Clau, Claudius”. In both the history and the drama the fool came out on top, but not in his imagination. He didn’t sleep well in a strange bed, had no view, no contact with neighbours, none of the ingredients he was used to, no red wine, and he hated cooking in an unfamiliar kitchen where they didn’t have all the utensils he needed. Every time he needed a sieve he had to open six cupboards to find it. Nevertheless, Friday did eventually come and Carmichael came to cart him off to the case conference. Gillian was already waiting, and despite the temptation they managed to greet each other more or less professionally.