High society

by Ben Elton

  Nina had the answer to that. The other five hundred grand, of course. You think I’m going to walk away from that? Now listen to me, you do not have any time to lose, all right? Like I say, these people are very dangerous, and Jessie is no more than a sack of flour or a side of beef to them. A commodity. Who knows what plans they have for her? By next week she could be in Holland being forced to suck donkeys’ dicks for underground videos. Or worse. I’ve seen rape films, even snuff ones.’

  ‘Give her the money, Tony.’

  Tony put a small steel flight case onto the table.

  The woman took the bag and got up. ‘You have the instructions for the exchange,’ she said, her big, pointy, puffed-up mouth making her look like some sort of fish. ‘You’ll have the girl back tomorrow.’

  SAMANTHA’S FLAT, ISLINGTON

  It was eleven o’clock in the morning on the eleventh day of the month. Samantha read her poem aloud to herself. Eleven lines of predictable rhymes in which she spoke of her shame in ever imagining that anyone could ever take the place of her father. This fundamental mistake was, Samantha felt, what had brought all the troubles down upon her head. The public shaming of her, her mother, her friends. The media had created an image of her as some sort of man-eating monster who spun webs of lies around innocent, noble figures, destroying their careers while frolicking naked about the place at pretty much any opportunity.

  It was all so unfair. Samantha had never imagined the press could be so cruel and misleading. If ever there was a girl whose breasts were less likely to appear in the newspapers it was Samantha, and yet now the entire country was almost sick of the sight of them, if Britain’s newspaper readers could ever be said to be sick of naked breasts.

  ‘Sorry, Daddy,’ she said as she put the poem into a saucepan and set it alight. There was only ever one decent man in this world, I know that now,’ she said to the picture of her father that she conjured up out of the flames and smoke.

  Then Samantha counted out the sleeping pills into lines of eleven. There were thirty-five in all, so she discarded two of them, and at eleven minutes past eleven she began methodically to eat the first line.

  She did it very, very slowly, because in truth she did not actually want to die. For this reason she decided that it would be fitting for her to eat one pill every eleven minutes, and so she had fallen asleep long before completing the first line. When she awoke she felt sick but in a way rather better. She had tried, honorably, to kill herself, and she had failed. Her father clearly did not want her to die. What he wanted was for her to fight back. What he wanted was closure.

  A BROTHEL, BIRMINGHAM

  Nina had thought long and hard about how best to spirit Jessie from Goldie’s establishment. She had agonized over whether it would be best to try to get her out of the front door while the girl sat awaiting a new client or to wait until the morning lull when the girls slept and try to sneak her down the stairs while the establishment was at comparative rest. Eventually she decided on the latter and had crept up to the girls’ dormitory, almost identical to the one from which Jessie had escaped only a few weeks before.

  ‘Jessie…Jessie^ she hissed, shaking the girl from her drug induced slumber. ‘Come with me. I’m going to get you out of here.’

  At first Jessie refused to move. She did not understand what was going on and the heroin in her system had made her lethargic. Eventually Nina got Jessie partially to her senses and together they crept down the stairs, past the rooms in which the girls performed their labours and into the viewing foyer. Here there would normally be a couple of Goldie’s men lounging about the place, but it was a Monday morning, the slowest time of the week, and Nina reckoned that they would be downstairs in the kitchen going about their usual activities, making coffee or freebasing crack to sell. The room was empty and Nina led Jessie towards the front door.

  It was locked.

  This was a considerable shock to Nina, who held the keys and had checked that it was open only a few minutes before. The mystery was soon solved when the terrifying face of Goldie appeared from behind one of the couches.

  ‘Peek-a-boo. I see you,’ he said, grinning through his gold teeth.

  ‘Hello, Goldie,’ Nina stuttered. ‘I was just — ’

  ‘You were just what, babes?’

  ‘A client. We had a call…He wanted Jessie. I thought I heard him at the door.’

  Goldie went to the door and looked through the little hatch. ‘Nobody out there, Nina.’

  Nina had no answer.

  ‘You were stealing my property, weren’t you, Nina? That’s what you was doing. You gotta understand that a man does not survive long in my line of business without being naturally suspicious, see? So when my madam says to me she needs a morning off an’ a car to borrow on a specific date, I’m suspicious.’

  Two of Goldie’s men joined them from the next room. ‘So I had Bernie and Jah here follow you just to see what was up an’ lo an’ behold you has some sort of meeting in a service station, of all things! Hardly the sort of place a glamorous girl like you would choose to spend her morning off. Give us your keys, will you, darling? You won’t be needing your set any more.’

  Nina handed them over and Goldie walked around her and Jessie and slipped the bolts back on the front door. ‘We never close, eh? Although someone else is going to have to greet the clients till I can get a new door bitch.’

  ‘Please, Goldie,’ Nina spluttered.

  Goldie was enjoying his little moment of drama. He sat down at a table and produced a big bag of rocks of crack cocaine. He felt that he had earned a celebration and began to prepare a pipe. ‘And what do Bernie and Jah see happen at this weird little Road Chef rendezvous? Why, only a fuckin’ bag drop. Only a fuckin’ dump!’

  Jah now produced the flight case that Tony had given to Nina.

  ‘Broke into your flat this morning, Nina,’ Jah said. ‘Hidden in a kitchen binliner. Not bad, too big for the cistern, after all.’

  ‘Got fucking scrambled egg and yoghurt on me strides,’ Bernie interjected.

  ‘Now what we need to know, Nina, is who the fuck is paying you half a million fucking euros for this little slagbag, who is quite frankly three parts shagged out already.’

  Jessie was not listening to the conversation. Her consciousness was drifting about the place on a drug-fuelled cloud. However, one firm thought was beginning to coalesce in her head, pushed to the surface on crystals of amphetamine.

  The thought was that Goldie had unlocked the door.

  ‘You see, I just presumed,’ Goldie was saying, putting his arm around Nina’s shoulder, ‘that you was trying to get into my trade, flogging birds to other cunts like me, so frankly I was just going to kill you straight off. But then when we found all this money I started to wonder. Now I got to tell you that little Jessie here is cute, I’ll give you that, and she’s still got a bit of youth and strength about her, useful bit of goods, no doubt. I’d pay three, maybe five thousand for her…The Albanians might give you five hundred and a herd of fucking sheep. But half a million euros, three hundred and fifty thousand quid? Like I say, Nina, who the fuck wants Jessie that much?’

  Til tell you if you promise to split the — ’

  Nina’s suggestion ended in a dull, agonized exhalation of air as Goldie buried his fist in her stomach.

  ‘You’ll tell me anyway, darling…Pick her up.’

  Bernie and Jah picked up the groaning woman and slammed her against the wall, holding her there while Goldie shoved his face into hers.

  ‘So, let’s have the question again, shall we?’

  Jessie still wasn’t listening; she was trying to focus. Focus on a series of observations. Beyond the table Goldie and his men were busy with Nina. On the table was Goldie’s bag of rocks of crack and the set of keys that he had taken from Nina. Jessie was standing near the table, and behind her was the front door.

  And nobody was looking at her.

  Goldie, Bernie and Jah were staring at Nina and Nina, a h
and choking her neck, was pleading with Goldie.

  Jessie slipped off her stiletto-heeled shoes and took two silent steps towards the table. Still she went unnoticed. Now she reached forward and gathered up the bag of drugs and the keys, terrified that the keys would tinkle as she lifted them.

  Nina was choking loudly as Goldie tightened his grip upon her throat. ‘Who were you selling her to, bitch?’

  Jessie walked backwards to the door as Goldie continued gleefully.

  ‘Do you know what? I think I know. Yeah, see, I don’t read the papers much, but Jah here does and he saw something in them the other day about a pop star. Tommy Hanson, no less, looking for a bird, a bird he’d met in Birmingham…’

  Jessie opened the door. The latch was well oiled and efficient. Goldie needed to be able to trust his locks; in his business doors needed to shut quickly and cleanly. The hinges were in equally good repair and the door swung open noiselessly. Jessie stepped through it and shut it behind her. Then, from the outside, she inserted the Chubb key into the deadlock and turned it.

  Only then did the thugs inside notice that Jessie was no longer in the room.

  But even as they realized this, once more Jessie was running from one of Goldie’s houses. It would take Goldie over a minute to descend into the kitchen, get his own keys from his coat and return to the front door. Even then he would not be able to open it, for Jessie had had either the good sense or simple good fortune to leave the Chubb key in the outside lock. Goldie would not get his key in. He would need tweezers and a nailfile to work out the key that Jessie had left.

  She was free.

  THE HOUSE OF COMMONS, WESTMINSTER

  It was, as Peter Paget and the Prime Minister had both predicted, one of the most radical and reforming monarch’s speeches in the history of the British Parliament. George VI, Queen Elizabeth’s father, had announced the nationalization of health and medicine; Edward VII, her great-grandfather, had delivered the great Liberal reforming budget that introduced old-age pensions, but nothing had ever quite electrified the country and indeed the entire world as the speech prepared by Peter Paget, Minister for Drugs, for Elizabeth II to deliver.

  ‘My government,’ she said, ‘will introduce legislation to legalize, license and control all recreational drugs.’

  Peter Paget had achieved that thing denied to most men and women: he had fulfilled his destiny.

  SIMPSON’S RESTAURANT

  After the State Opening of Parliament, Peter hosted a splendid lunch for family, colleagues and friends at Simpson’s on the Strand. When the Paget family entered the restaurant every diner in the room rose to applaud them. There was a genuine sense of celebration in the air. The general consensus was that Britain had finally broken the terrifying deadlock which the drugs war had imposed upon society for so long. Once more the British were world leaders, and, whatever the future held, at least something new was finally being tried. Of course there were many doubts, the greatest fear being that young people would simply descend into a life-long drug-induced stupor, but in reality people asked themselves, How likely is that? The nation was not continually drunk, and the use of tobacco, one of the most highly addictive drugs of all, was on the decrease. The popular presumption was that if a man of such obvious intelligence and integrity as Peter Paget, a man who could produce such an extraordinary daughter as Cathy Paget, felt that all would be well, then surely all would be well. Besides, as was said over and over again on that happy day, really, who cared how many drug addicts there were as long as they were not breaking into one’s home and mugging one’s granny for a fiver?

  At the end of the meal Peter Paget rose to make a speech.

  ‘Today, as you all know, is a very special day for Britain and in particular for me. I have been truly fortunate in having been able to be the guiding hand in what is clearly a world-historical piece of legislation. Many kind voices have been joined in my praise and I cannot deny that it is sweet indeed to suddenly find oneself loved and admired after so many years of feeling that one’s voice would never be heard. But today as we sit here, family, friends and colleagues, I should like to state unequivocally that I do not deserve one iota of the praise and good wishes that have been heaped upon me. For whatever the country owes me,

  I owe tenfold to my wife, Angela, and so it is in Angela’s debt not mine that the country now finds itself.’

  There was of course much cheering at this, although Cathy Paget noted that her mother did not smile or look up.

  ‘And what I should like to say right here and now is that I am nothing, nothing whatsoever without Angela. She is my life and my love and the enabler of all my happiness. I adore her and I thank her from the bottom of my heart for her kindness and patience in the face of my imbecility and my far too common weaknesses. I love you, Angela, and I’ll love you for ever.’

  There was a brief silence. Peter had clearly finished and stood looking at his wife. Angela eventually returned his look with an attempt at a smile, but she seemed strangely unmoved by such a glowing tribute. The assembled company were a little perplexed. Nobody knew what to say. As was now becoming common in the Paget family, Cathy saved the day. She had noted her mother’s apparent unhappiness and she did not understand it. More urgently, however, she had noticed that an embarrassed silence had fallen on what had until then been a very jolly lunch. What was more, the embarrassment was spreading to other tables. Damage control was required, a bit of family spin.

  Cathy got to her feet. ‘Dad never did know how to end a speech,’ she said, and then, raising her glass, ‘To Angela and Peter Paget, my mother and father.’

  The toast was enthusiastically drunk and the embarrassment passed.

  SAMANTHA’S FLAT, ISLINGTON

  For God’s sake, there must be something! Some small thing proving he’s been here,’ Laura said, her head emerging from beneath Samantha’s bed.

  ‘He doesn’t deny he’s been here,’ Kurt pointed out rather testily from a stepladder from which he was inspecting the top of a cupboard. ‘He admits he was here many times, working with Sammy. That’s how he’s got away with it.’

  ‘Look!’ Samantha said. ‘He shagged me in this flat loads and loads of times. We live in a DNA world. He must have left some trace.’

  ‘What? Cum on the sheets? Sammy, you’re the cleanest woman I ever knew, you wash your sheets every other day.’

  ‘I know, I know. That’s why I haven’t found anything till now, but we’ve never really looked, I mean really torn the place apart…I don’t know what I’m hoping to find, but we have to search every single millimetre of this flat until we find something — a note, a condom, a hotel check-in receipt signed by the bastard. Something that links him sexually with me!’

  And so they searched. Samantha shed tears over every diary entry that she had written about her love for Peter Paget but found nothing in his hand beyond a few discarded parliamentary notes, with not so much as a love heart or swalk scrawled in the margin.

  ‘It’s quite obvious that he deliberately left no traces from the very start,’ Kurt observed.

  They examined every bill and receipt. They looked under carpets, between floorboards and between the neatly piled pairs of spotlessly clean knickers in Samantha’s underwear drawers.

  The bastard bought me these,’ Samantha said, holding up the lingerie which had been his first present to her. ‘But I can’t prove it. I’ll throw them out, I think.’

  ‘I’ll have them,’ Laura said.

  Then Kurt pulled the black plastic binliner out of the swingbin in the kitchen.

  ‘You can’t be going to search that,’ Samantha protested. ‘That’s only the last couple of days’ rubbish. Paget hasn’t been here for ages.’

  ‘You may have only just thrown something away that was left from his time…I don’t know, a match book with the number of your preferred sex shop on it, a pair of his underpants you’ve been using as a rag…We said we’d search everything.’

  ‘You’re right,
we must,’ Samantha replied, although she was beginning to lose enthusiasm for what was looking like a thankless task. Then she happened to glance into the empty swingbin. Into that unpleasant place normally concealed by the binliner, which in most kitchens means a soiled tissue or two and a squashed carrot made all moist by the rank liquid residue from leaking binliners.

  But Samantha’s swingbin was not like that. Samantha emptied her bag long before it burst and leaked. There were never any soiled tissues lurking beneath the bags in Samantha’s bin. It was pristine.

  Except not quite. There at the bottom Samantha saw two tiny bits of rubbish. Two screwed-up bits of paper rolled into tiny balls, each not much bigger than a pea. One was the pale yellow of a credit-card till receipt, the other was shiny white — the shiny white of a Switch payment slip.

  THE CABINET ROOM, TEN DOWNING STREET

  The Cabinet were busy discussing how to distribute the predicted cash bonanza that drug legalization would surely bring. Even if tens of billions of pounds were put aside for hospital services on the unproven prediction that addiction would rise dramatically, there would still be countless billions left over.

  ‘The police will be dripping with surplus,’ the Home Secretary grinned. ‘We won’t have to vote them any more for decades. Same goes for Customs and Excise.’

  ‘If we make as much out of it as we do from cigarettes,’ the Health Minister gloated, T shall have twenty new hospitals this time next year.’

  ‘New schools!’ added Education.

  ‘A new generation of fighter aircraft and a decent medium range missile,’ said Defence.

  ‘An aid budget we don’t have to be ashamed of,’ Overseas Development added.

  ‘Tax cuts. Tax cuts. Tax cuts!’ thundered the Chancellor of the Exchequer. ‘There’s no point improving people’s lives if the bloody Tories get straight back in and reap the benefits.’