by Hugh Fraser
Nick says, ‘Well, I’d better be getting off. See you both around and about I expect.’
‘See you Nick,’ says Lizzie.
When the door closes I say, ‘Who’s the boy?’
‘Some renter.’
‘Why did he bring him here?’
‘He can’t have them at his place in daylight, there’s a retired Colonel next door who’s spying on him.’
‘Why doesn’t he tell him to get stuffed?’
‘In case he tells the police he’s a homo. Do you want a cup of tea?’
‘I’ve got to go.’
‘Ok love.’
‘Do me a favour?’
‘Of course.’
‘Next time you see Lordy can you ask him if he can get Georgie into a good boarding school?’
‘Yeah sure. He’s coming tonight.’
‘Thanks.’
We kiss and I beat it to the car.
• • •
I park in Frith Street and walk towards the corner of Old Compton Street. It’s beginning to get dark and business is hotting up for the strip clubs and clip joints as punters grab a quick bit of tit and bum before catching the six-fifteen to Surbition. I get to Bielsky’s door and I’m let in by a big bloke with a mean look and a foreign accent. He takes me upstairs and opens the door to Bielsky’s office. He’s sitting at the desk and I put the money down in front of him. He counts it and puts it in a drawer then he gets up, walks round the desk and opens the door. The minder is waiting on the landing.
‘He will take you to your sister now. Meet me at the Glendale tonight at nine o’clock.’
I walk to the door and close it again. I stand in front of him and look him in the eye.
‘If you ever touch her again…’
‘Of course.’
He waits a moment to show that he knows I mean it and then opens the door and nods to the minder who leads me down the stairs. We go a few yards along the street to where an even bigger bloke and a blond girl in a flared skirt and a tight white sweater are standing each side of an open door. I follow the minder inside and down some narrow steps into a basement room with a bar in one corner and plastic tables and chairs. There’s smoochy music and pink lighting and men at a few of the tables sitting with girls in off the shoulder dresses or tight skirts and halter tops with a lot of make-up, all drinking what looks like champagne but probably isn’t. The girls pick the punters up in the street, bring them to the club and push them to buy overpriced drinks on a promise of going in the back room and doing the business if they spend enough money. When they’ve cleaned the punters out the bouncers get rid of them. There’s a couple of heavies at the bar in case a punter cuts up rough and an old bird with bleached hair pouring drinks.
I follow my man past the bar to a door at the back. He leads me through the door, down a dark corridor with crates of bottles stacked on each side, to a door at the far end. He unlocks it and when he opens it I can see Georgie sitting on a bed inside. Her head’s down and she looks as if she’s crying. I go to her and put my arms round her. She pulls away from me.
‘I fucking hate you!’
‘Have they hurt you?’
‘Get me away from here!’
I take her by the wrist, push the minder out of the way and lead her along the corridor, through the club and up the stairs. She tries to pull away from me when we get to the street but I hold on to her and people are staring as I drag her towards the car.
7
She does her silent bit all the way back in the car and when we get home she goes into her room and slams the door. I phone a locksmith who I robbed a couple of safes with a few years back and tell him I want new locks, a spy hole and a steel security plate bolted to the back of the door and I need it now. He says he’ll come round as soon as he can. I clean up the kitchen and straighten the furniture, then I put all my clothes back in the wardrobe, make the bed and get my dressing table back into some kind of order. As I’m finishing Georgie comes in and stands by the door. She doesn’t speak so after a bit I say,
‘I’m sorry Georgie.’
She comes to me and I put my arms round her, then we sit on the bed. ‘Why did they take me to that place?’
I look at her sitting there beside me and I feel so bad for what’s happened in her life. Her father shot dead, finding her mother after she killed herself with the drink, and her little brother who she loved dying of the whooping cough when he was only six.
‘It’s because of something I did.’
‘What?’
‘I can’t tell you.’
‘Why did you do it?’
‘I had to.’
‘Is it something from the old street and the horrible man?’
She means my killing of Johnny Preston when he was raping her.
‘In a way,’ I say.
‘Can’t we get away from that and start again?’
‘It’s not that easy.’
If I do a runner now Bielsky won’t let it go, nor will Tony Farina, and I’ll be looking over my shoulder wherever I am and waiting for a knock at the door. I’ve got no choice but to stay in the game and protect my reputation, and the truth is I like hurting bad men and the thrill of it and the money, and I love Lizzie, and I don’t want to leave her and have some dull job somewhere and dull friends and Friday night in the pub. I feel terrible about what Georgie’s been through, and I know that what I do puts her in danger, but all I can do is try to keep her out of it as best I can. I look at her frightened face.
‘Would you like to go to a boarding school?’
‘A what?’
‘A school where you live when it’s the term and just come home in the holidays.’
‘Like that one we went to that time?’
‘Yes.’
She thinks for a bit. ‘Away from here?’
‘Yes.’
‘A long way?’
‘If you want.’
‘In the country?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’d like that.’
The doorbell rings. It’s Gerry, the locksmith and another bloke who’s holding the steel plate.
I have a look at the new locks they’ve brought, offer them a cup of tea and leave them to get to work. I bring Georgie into the hall, show her what the men are doing and tell her that no one’ll be able to get through that door again. Gerry says you’d need a Sherman Tank to break it down when they’ve finished with it and he gets a smile from Georgie. We go in the kitchen, I put the kettle on and she takes a book off the sideboard, sits at the table and opens it. I look over her shoulder and see that it’s Pride and Prejudice. I remind myself to get my own copy. I look at her sitting reading and I hope I can get her into a boarding school and that maybe she’ll be able to make some friends there.
‘Did they hurt you when they came in here?’ I ask.
‘The short one tried to but I punched him in the throat like you showed me.’
‘Good girl.’
‘Then the one in the hat told him to leave me.’
She goes back to her reading then she looks up and says, ‘Will you come and see me when I’m in the boarding school?’
‘Of course I will.’
The kettle boils and I make the tea, give a cup to Georgie and take some to Gerry and his mate. Georgie seems settled with her book and so I go across the hall and knock on Lizzie’s door. When she opens it I get a flash of her studded leather bikini under her floaty silk dressing gown and I know I’m in luck and His Lordship is with her. I go in and she closes the door and we have a cuddle and I enjoy the studs digging into me while I move my hands over her back and her thighs. There’s moaning coming from along the hall.
‘You want to see the old scamp about a school for Georgie don’t you?’
‘Not if you’re in the middle of…’
‘It’s ok, I’ve just finished him. Go in the bedroom a tick while I get him dressed and I’ll bring him in.’
She slips off her dressing gown and gives it to me
. In the bedroom the curtains are drawn back from the mirror and it takes a minute before I spot His Lordship. He’s under the bed, curled up in a ball inside a net that is stretched tight around his naked body. Lizzie enters, pulls him out from under the bed, unties the net and picks him up off the floor. While he stands trembling and biting his nails like a little boy she gathers his clothes up off the floor, throws them at him and tells him to get dressed. She picks up a whip, cracks it near his arse and shouts at him to get a move on because there’s someone who wants to see him. This puts him in even more of a panic and he scrambles into his trousers and begs Lizzie to help him with his collar stud. She gets him dressed, ties his tie for him and calms him down a bit before she opens the door and ushers him into the hall. I close the curtains so he won’t know I’ve been watching.
The smart older gentleman who enters the bedroom moments later looks relaxed and self-assured. He shakes my hand.
‘Hello, I’m Gordon.’
Lizzie puts her arm through mine and says, ‘This my friend Rina. She wants to ask you about boarding schools.’
His Lordship gives my body a quick shufti and says, ‘How interesting; and what is your subject?’
I look at him a bit blank and he says, ‘I assume you wish to teach?’
‘I want to find somewhere for my younger sister to go.’
‘Ah, I see.’
‘She’s fourteen.’
‘Do you have anywhere in mind?’
‘I tried Leavenden but the headmistress wouldn’t have her.’
‘Margot Rainsford?’
‘That’s her.’
‘A pity, I believe it’s excellent. Why wouldn’t she take her?’
‘Because she’s not posh,’ says Lizzie.
‘Ah,’ says Gordon.
‘So we need you to oil the wheels.’
‘I see.’
Lizzie goes to her dressing table, writes on a piece of paper, gives it to His Lordship and says, ‘That’s Rina’s number. Get it sorted and phone her.’
Lordy puts the paper in his inside pocket and smiles at me.
‘Your sister’s name is…?’
‘Georgina Walker.’
‘How old did you say she is?’
‘Fourteen.’
‘I’ll see what I can do.’
He shakes my hand, gives me a little bow and leaves. Lizzie goes with him and then comes back in the bedroom a few minutes later with a bunch of fivers in her hand. She puts them in her bag and says, ‘I wonder what he’s got on our Margot eh?’
‘If she’s anything like him I’m not sure I want her to go there.’
‘She can fight her off with her hockey stick.’
There’s a banging noise and the sound of a drill.
‘What’s occurring out there?’ Lizzie asks.
‘New locks.’
‘You had trouble?’
‘Nothing much. I’d better get back and see to it though.’
I put my arms round her, get the studs again and I want to stay but I can’t because I’ve got to meet Bielsky. We kiss.
‘Thanks Liz.’
‘Look after yourself, eh?’
I go across to my flat and find that Gerry and his man have finished the job. They show me how they’ve fitted a metal strip down the door jamb, new locks and the steel plate with a spy hole. I can see that although a pro could still get through it he’d need to either blow it open or use a massive battering ram. I call Georgie, show her what Gerry’s done and tell her to always look through the spy hole and see who it is before she opens up. She looks at me as if I’m stupid and slopes off to her bedroom.
The lads want sixty-five notes for the job. I remember that I’ve given all my cash to Bielsky and I’ve only got a few quid in my purse which I’ll need for tonight. Gerry says he’ll take a cheque as he’s all legit now and he knows me so I give him one from Harrods Bank and sign it in the false name that I use for that account. I’ll need to go up Kensal Green later and get some cash. Gerry gives me two sets of the new keys and they pack up and leave. I go into the kitchen and give a set to Georgie, then I put the frying pan on the stove, light the gas and look through the kitchen cabinet for something for our tea. I find some sausages that smell ok and some sliced bread. I put the sausages in the frying pan and open a tin of beans. The phone rings and I ask Georgie to put the beans on and watch the frying pan while I go in the hall and lift up the receiver. It’s Tony Farina.
‘I need to see you.’
‘When?’
‘My office, now.’
I reckon I’ve got time to see him and still meet Bielsky at nine. He sounds peeved.
‘Half an hour.’
‘Ok.’
I go back in the kitchen and tell Georgie I’ve got to go out. She’s ok about it and I suggest she watches TV but she says she’s going to read in bed. I wish I could think of someone she could stay with but there’s no one. I’ve lost all my old friends since I came out of prison. I tell her I’ll ask Lizzie to look in on her later and she nods while she stirs the baked beans. I take a sausage out of the pan, wrap a piece of bread round it and go into my bedroom and eat it while I look through my wardrobe. The Glendale is a cabaret club in Beak Street that has a band and dancing girls and I need to look a bit glittery to get in by myself. I pull out a peach chiffon dress with a fitted skirt and a cotton lace top that’s got a low neckline. I hold it against me, look in the mirror and decide it’ll do the job. I put on silk pants and a Triumph bra for maximum cleavage, clean stockings, four inch heels and freshen up my make-up and hair. I slip a blade into my suspender belt, go through to Georgie’s room and ask her to zip up my dress. She seems quite happy in bed with her book and I say goodnight, slip on my fur jacket, sort out which keys close the new locks and head for the lift.
There’s a new porter at the desk who’ll be filling in for Dennis. He’s young and well-built and he looks as if he can take care of himself. I say hello and ask his name. He tells me he’s called Mike and opens the front door for me.
I drive to Knightsbridge, park in Hans Road and walk round the corner to Tony Farina’s building. The doorman lets me in when I say my name and I take the lift to the sixth floor. A young Italian looking bloke answers the door, shows me into the hall, offers me a seat, knocks on the door of Tony’s office and goes in. I sit in a leather armchair and look at a big colour photograph of a beautiful blue lake glistening in the sun on the wall opposite. I’m thinking how I’d like to be there and swim in the lake when the young bloke comes out of the office and holds the door open for me.
Tony is seated at his desk. He looks me up and down.
‘Always the beautiful blonde.’
I ignore the remark and look him in the eye. He indicates a chair in front of the desk and offers me a drink from the decanter in front of him. I shake my head and sit down. ‘What do you want Tony?’
‘Another girl killed last night.’
‘Where?’
‘Dukes Meadows.’
He means the open ground by the river next to Chiswick Bridge. It’s where toms from that part take men, known as Gobblers Gulch in the trade.
‘What happened?’
‘A man kills her with knife and puts her in boot of car.’
‘Who saw it?’
‘One of my girls, also in the Meadows. Too dark to see his face but Luca recognised a man who was in the club with her before and we know she used to meet tricks later.’
‘Who is he?’
‘Nazi bastard we know from prison camp.’
‘Prison camp?’
‘After death of Il Duce, Germans shipped me and Luca to camp in Bavaria, made us work with no food, beat us all the time. Luca nearly died. This bastard, Heinz, was one of the worst. We know he killed some prisoners.’
‘Do you know where he is?’
‘We have address.’
‘How come?’
‘Luca dipped his pocket.’
He passes a slip of paper across the desk t
o me. The name Heinz is written on it with an address in Catford.
‘No second name?’
‘Just Heinz. You just watch for now, see what you can find.’
I put the paper in my handbag and walk to the door then I turn and say, ‘Did the girl say what car it was?’
‘No.’
‘Ok,’ I say.
‘Call me.’
• • •
I drive into Soho and leave the car round the corner from the Glendale where I’ve got to meet Bielsky. There are two bouncers in black suits outside the club looking me up and down as I approach, and it costs me half a quid to get past them. I could have told them I was there to see Bielsky but the fewer people who know that I’m doing work for him the better. I walk past the cloakroom and wait while the cigarette girl with her tray and her fishnet tights comes up the stairs. I go down into the club and the smell of booze and fags hits me. It’s dimly lit apart from small lamps with red shades on the tables. The walls are a dark purple with photos of film stars and singers hanging between big gilt-framed mirrors. There’s a bar at one end of the room and a bandstand at the other, with a dance floor in front of it with tables round it.
As I walk towards the bar there’s a drum roll, the dance floor lights up and a line of showgirls in skimpy feathery costumes and silver tights appear from behind a screen and shimmy onto the dance floor. The band go into an up-tempo show tune and the girls prance about in some kind of formation, waving their arms and kicking their legs up to give the punters at the tables a good view of what they’ve got. I order a whisky and sit on a bar stool. The club belongs to Bielsky and he’s opened it to compete with the posh clubs in Mayfair and Knightsbridge where they won’t let him in because he’s foreign and he’s not a toff. The place is full, with hostesses sitting at the tables, drinking champagne and flirting with older men. I can see Poppy, the blond and busty one who came to the country with us, at the other end of the bar talking to a bouncer. She sees me and comes along the bar.