The Rubber Woman

by Lindsay Ashford

  THE RUBBER WOMAN

  LINDSAY ASHFORD

  ACCENT PRESS LTD

  Published by Accent Press Ltd – 2007

  ISBN 1905170882/9781905170883

  Copyright © Lindsay Ashford 2007

  The right of Lindsay Ashford to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  The story contained within this book is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the written permission of the publishers: Accent Press Ltd, The Old School, Upper High St, Bedlinog, Mid-Glamorgan, CF46 6SA.

  The Quick Reads project in Wales is a joint venture between the Basic Skills Agency and the Welsh Books Council. Titles are funded through the Basic Skills Agency as part of the National Basic Skills Strategy for Wales on behalf of the Welsh Assembly Government.

  Printed and bound in the UK

  Cover Design by Emma Barnes

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter One

  Megan Rhys was getting ready for a night in Cardiff’s red light district. She dressed carefully. She mustn’t give the wrong signals. Scooping her long dark hair off her shoulders, she caught it up in a silver clasp. After a hot day in the city her eye make-up was smudged. She stared at her face in the mirror, seeing it as the punters might see it. Did the kohl eyeliner make her look too tarty?

  There was a tight feeling in her stomach. She always got it a few minutes before walking out of the door. Before she’d come to Cardiff, she’d thought nothing could shock her. She couldn’t have been more wrong.

  Her mobile phone rang out and she grabbed her handbag from the bed.

  ‘Hello.’ The female voice at the other end was husky. Pauline Barrow had been smoking two hundred cigarettes a week for the past thirty years.

  ‘Hi Pauline – you still okay for tonight?’

  ‘Yeah – is nine o’clock all right?’ Her gravelly voice had a strong south Wales accent.

  ‘Fine,’ Megan replied. ‘Shall I meet you by the factory again?’

  There was a pause before Pauline answered. ‘Yes, but be careful where you park. Did you hear about the stabbing?’

  Megan had seen the report on the evening news. A prostitute had been knifed in the factory car park. She had been thrown out of a car and left bleeding on the tarmac. If another woman hadn’t heard her screams she would have bled to death.

  Since the crackdown on the vice trade, things had become much worse for women who sold sex. There was an election coming and the government wanted votes. ‘Make Our Streets Safe’ was the slogan on the posters. But the problem wasn’t going to go away. The red light district had simply moved to a darker, more dangerous part of the city.

  When Megan next spoke to Pauline, night was falling over Cardiff. The last rays of the setting sun were blocked out by the huge factories on the industrial estate. Long shadows fell across the car park where they had agreed to meet. It was deathly silent now that the factory was closed for the night. Megan glanced around her. Suddenly she caught sight of a figure bending over the boot of a car. It was the shape of the head that told her it was Pauline. Her hair, which was dyed a wild shade of red, was gelled and sprayed into a spiky crown. In daylight she looked quite scary. Now she looked like a busy insect, the spikes sticking out from her forehead like antennae.

  ‘Pauline!’ Megan called out while she was still a few yards away. She didn’t want to scare her by suddenly appearing out of nowhere.

  ‘Hiya, Meg.’ Pauline looked up from the box of condoms she was unpacking. ‘I’ve got a new one tonight – called “Virgin’s Prayer”, would you believe? It’s supposed to taste like rum and orange!’ She gave a throaty chuckle and Megan smiled.

  Despite her scary look, Pauline’s laugh was never far away. She gave out condoms to girls on the streets, and their assorted flavours and designs were always good for a giggle. Megan had learned that this was how she broke the ice. It was a way of getting the girls to open up and talk about their lives.

  A thin beam from a security light on the wall shone on Pauline’s face. She was only ten years older than Megan, but the deep lines round her mouth and eyes made her look well over fifty. She’d worked Cardiff’s red light district from the age of fourteen. Selling sex was the only job she’d ever had until two years ago. The police used to call her ‘the oldest tart on the beat’, but now she was on the other side of the fence. She was an outreach worker, paid by a local charity to help women get off the game.

  She was a lucky find. Megan had been sent to Cardiff by her university to find out what effect the crackdown on the sex trade was having. She was there for six weeks, and as she didn’t know the city, she needed a guide. Who better to take her into the dark world of Cardiff’s vice scene than an ex-prostitute?

  ‘Shall we get started, then?’ Pauline handed her a white plastic bag full of condoms and slammed the boot shut. The heels of her boots clicked on the tarmac as she and Megan walked towards the road. Pauline was the shorter of the two, but her snakeskin boots made up for it. She wore tight black jeans tucked into her boots and a white PVC jacket zipped low to reveal her cleavage.

  Megan had been surprised at the way she dressed when they’d first met. She would have thought that after a life of selling sex Pauline would be glad to cover up a bit. ‘Not my style, love,’ Pauline had cackled. ‘And besides, the girls can relate to me better if I look like ’em.’

  Megan soon realised she was right. On her own first outing she had worn a black hoodie and tracksuit bottoms, trying to make herself blend into the background. But now she wore the sort of thing she might wear for a night out at a club. Not as revealing as Pauline’s outfit, but not dowdy either. She hoped she’d got it right. She wanted the girls on the street to feel they could talk to her the way they did to Pauline.

  For Megan, the research was about more than just facts and figures. She’d worked with the police in Birmingham on cases of rape and murder. Three of the victims had been prostitutes, one of them only sixteen years old when she died. The sight of her pale, lifeless eyes staring up from a mortuary slab was something Megan would never be able to forget.

  To her, these women were already victims. A crackdown might make the streets safer for some, but not for the prostitutes. It was as if they’d been written off by society. Pauline’s charity was the only group she’d come across that seemed to give a damn what became of them.

  ‘That’s where they found Jackie Preston.’ Pauline cocked her head at the entrance to the car park.

  Megan frowned. ‘They didn’t say on the news if they’d got anyone for it – was it a punter?’

  Pauline nodded. ‘I went to see her in hospital this afternoon. All she could remember was that he was white and had a local accent. She said he was wearing shades.’

  ‘At night?’

  ‘I know.’ Pauline shrugged. ‘You’d think she’d have been a bit suspicious, wouldn’t you? Thought twice, I mean, about getting in with him.’

  ‘You would,’ Megan said. ‘And no-one saw the car?’

  ‘It had gone by the time she was found. She says she can’t remember what
make it was – just that it was dark blue or black.’

  ‘Is she going to be okay?’ Megan asked.

  Pauline drew in her breath before replying. ‘He’s ruined her looks,’ she said. ‘He stabbed her in the face and neck as well as her stomach.’ She jerked her head towards the building across the road, where Megan could just make out the figure of a woman standing in a doorway. ‘I don’t think she’ll ever be doing that again – hell of a way to get off the game, though, eh?’ Pauline’s chest rattled as she made a sound that was a cross between a chuckle and a growl. Her black sense of humour had shocked Megan at first. Now she realised it was Pauline’s way of coping with the tragic stories the women told her.

  Few of them sold sex out of choice. Some were runaways from children’s homes. Others had been forced onto the streets by men who started off as boyfriends but turned out to be violent pimps. Many had a drug habit and sold sex to pay for their next fix.

  ‘What will Jackie Preston do when she gets out of hospital?’ Megan asked.

  ‘There’s a place for her in the safe house,’ Pauline replied. ‘She and her kids can live there for a bit till we sort something out. The charity’s promised to find her a job in one of their shops.’

  Megan nodded slowly. She wondered if Jackie Preston had thought of giving up the game before she was attacked. Over the past couple of weeks she had put that question to many of the women who worked in the red light district. Most said they would if they could, but gave lots of reasons why they couldn’t. Some were afraid of being beaten up by pimps. Even if they went to live somewhere else, they said, the pimps would track them down.

  Others said the money was like a drug. They could go shopping in an afternoon, spot something they liked, and know that by the end of the night they could earn enough to buy it. Then there were the women with small children who said that selling sex was the only job that fitted in with looking after their kids.

  ‘Who’s that?’ Pauline’s voice cut across Megan’s thoughts. Pauline was staring at a figure on the corner of the street up ahead. It was a woman and she was heading towards a car that had pulled up. But there was something strange about the way she walked. As they got closer, Megan could see that she was on crutches. One of her legs was in plaster from the knee to the ankle.

  ‘She’s never…’ Megan’s voice trailed off as they watched the woman climb slowly and painfully into the passenger seat of the car. After a couple of seconds it drove off.

  ‘I know who that was.’ Pauline’s mouth slid into a twisted smile. ‘It’s Cheryl Parry. I saw her up the hospital this afternoon when I went to visit Jackie.’

  ‘Why is she…I mean how can she…’ Megan’s voice faltered as she watched the red tail lights of the car disappear down a side road between two factories.

  ‘Oh, there’s plenty of things she can still do with a broken leg, love!’ Pauline’s cackle cut through the still night air like a rusty saw. ‘Blow job, hand relief…’ She rolled her eyes up at the darkening sky.

  ‘But it’s…God, it’s desperate!’ Megan shook her head slowly.

  ‘Oh, I don’t suppose she had any choice in the matter,’ Pauline said. ‘I know her pimp. BJ, they call him. He’s a nasty piece of work. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was him that did that to her.’

  ‘What?’ Megan frowned. ‘You’re saying he broke her leg and now he’s sent her back out on the street?’

  ‘Very likely, yes.’ Pauline shrugged. ‘He’s on crack, see. It makes ’em even more violent, the crack does. He’s a bastard, but she’s hooked on him. Well, him and the drugs.’

  Megan sighed. The pimps had lots of ways of making women their slaves. The worst were the men who lay in wait outside children’s homes, luring teenage girls away with promises of new clothes and nightclubs. Starved of love, these girls were easy prey. Within a couple of weeks of running away they’d be on the streets.

  Pauline had once been one of this sad band of girls and it made her a bitter enemy of the pimps in the Cardiff patch. They knew she was trying to persuade their women to give up the game and they hated her for it. Last time Megan had gone out with her, they’d had abuse hurled at them by a man cruising past in a flashy car with blacked-out windows. Megan wondered if he was the pimp who’d sent Cheryl Parry out with a broken leg.

  ‘Hiya, Tash!’ Pauline called out to a tall woman standing on the pavement across the street. She was wearing thigh-length boots and a low-cut black mini-dress.

  As Pauline walked towards her another voice called from the shadows of a doorway: ‘Who is it, Tash?’ A skinny girl stepped out of the gloom, her arms clasped round her body. She looked nervous, shifting from one foot to the other.

  ‘It’s all right,’ her friend called over her shoulder, ‘it’s only the Rubber Woman.’

  Megan had heard other women on the streets use this nickname for Pauline. The word ‘rubber’ was still used around here as slang for a condom, and as Pauline always carried them, the name had stuck. She’d told Megan it made her laugh. ‘Makes me sound like one of those blow-up dolls, doesn’t it?’ she’d cackled when Megan first heard it.

  Pauline started chatting to the two prostitutes and Megan was about to cross the street to join them when a car pulled up alongside her. The window slid down silently. She could see a man’s eyes, glinting black in the twilight. The rest of his face was in shadow.

  ‘Hello, love,’ he said. ‘You doing business?’

  Chapter Two

  Before Megan could open her mouth, Pauline was bounding across the street. ‘Piss off, Mullen!’ she yelled. ‘She’s doing research!’

  The car door opened and a short, stocky man with a bald patch climbed out. ‘Oh, that’s what it’s called now, is it?’ he said, his eyes on Megan. ‘You going to introduce us, then, Pauline?’

  Pauline’s lip curled. ‘This is Mick Mullen,’ she sneered. ‘Sergeant Mick Mullen – of the Vice Squad.’

  Megan’s eyebrows arched. She’d had to get clearance from the police to do her research, but she hadn’t met this man.

  ‘And you are?’ Sergeant Mullen’s tone was as rude as Pauline’s. He looked Megan up and down like a piece of meat.

  ‘Doctor Megan Rhys,’ she said through gritted teeth. ‘Forensic psychologist. I’m doing research on the vice trade in this area and I’ve had the okay from your boss.’ She held his gaze. ‘Tell me,’ she said, ‘is this really the best use of your time?’

  He frowned at her. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Going after the women when it’s that nutter with the knife you should be chasing.’ She folded her arms across her chest, glaring at him. ‘Not right, really, is it Sergeant?’

  His eyes narrowed. ‘Let me ask you something, Doctor Rhys.’ His nostrils flared as he said her name. ‘Is it right for psychologists to dress like the tarts they’re researching?’

  Megan took a deep breath before replying. Don’t sink to his level, she thought. When she spoke, her voice was calm and clear: ‘You want to get rid of these women, Sergeant Mullen – I want to protect them.’

  The policeman swore under his breath, but before he could say more, Pauline stepped between them. ‘Shut your face, Mullen!’ she hissed. ‘You know she’s talking sense.’ She dug her hand into the plastic bag she was carrying and pulled out a bunch of condoms. ‘Here,’ she said, thrusting them at him. ‘If you haven’t got the balls for a manhunt, make yourself useful and hand out a few of these.’

  Mullen gave her a tight smile that didn’t reach his eyes. ‘You’re too kind, Pauline!’ He tossed the condoms through the window of his car onto the passenger seat and stepped off the pavement. ‘Watch yourselves, won’t you, girls,’ he called over his shoulder. ‘Wouldn’t do to wind BJ up – know what I mean?’ Before either woman could answer he jumped into the car and slammed the door.

  Megan looked at Pauline. ‘What did he mean by that?’

  Pauline shrugged.

  ‘Do you think BJ was the one who stabbed Jackie Preston?’


  ‘Could be. Maybe he wanted her working for him and she told him to piss off.’ The edges of Pauline’s mouth turned down. ‘It’d be very handy for the cops if they could pin it on him. Mullen’s had him in his sights for weeks.’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘Takes one bastard to know another, I suppose.’

  ‘Obviously no love lost between the two of you.’ Megan gave her a sideways glance. ‘Is he bent?’

  ‘Not as such,’ Pauline grunted. ‘Not in the normal way, anyhow. He’s evil, is Mullen. He really hates women, that’s his problem.’ She sniffed as they wound their way down the darkening street. ‘He’s supposed to go out on patrol with a pal from the copshop, but every now and then he nips out on his own. He gets the girls in the back of the car and scares them shitless. Threatens them with prison or having their kids taken away unless they dish the dirt on their pimps.’ She glanced at Megan. ‘Doesn’t give a toss what the pimps’ll do to them if they find out who’s dropped them in it.’

  Megan frowned. ‘Do you have any proof – that he threatens them, I mean?’

  ‘That girl we met earlier – Tash – she showed me bruises once, on her arms. Said he’d pinned her up against a wall.’

  Megan’s eyes narrowed. ‘I’m surprised you haven’t shopped him to his bosses.’

  Pauline let out a throaty cackle. ‘I’m biding my time, love, don’t you worry.’

  ‘Does he know you’re on to him?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ she nodded. ‘He also knows I grassed up the bloke who had the job before him. Now he really was bent. Used to make the girls give him a blow job instead of getting a fine. That’s another reason Mullen hates me so much – for dropping his mate right in it.’

  They walked on in silence for a few minutes before spotting another woman lurking in the shadows across the road. Megan went to cross over, but Pauline put a hand on her arm. ‘Not her,’ she said.