Gilded Edge, The

by Miller, Danny

  ‘She worked this hotel?’ Sadie nodded to his question. ‘She was a working girl, like you?’ Again with the nod. Not good enough, Vince decided. ‘I need words, Sadie, information. I need to know from day one until the day she died, and anything else that might help nail the bastard who killed her. So, she was a working girl and you two met here?’

  ‘Working girl? I’ve tried to avoid that all my life. If you’re going to use similes, I’d prefer the term model.’

  Vince hadn’t really copped her accent before now. Down in the bar it seemed playtime and sexy and husky and come-hither. Now he noted how she was reasonably well spoken, middle class. The reference to ‘model’ was ironic. It was clear that Sadie had a line in irony. Good for her.

  From the chair she snatched up her clutch bag and pulled out a pack of Pall Malls and lit one with the ubiquitous gold-leaf match book.

  ‘I first met her six months ago. Believe it or not, she started here just as a maid, earning a bit of extra money beyond what she got from the hospital. But, even as a maid, the money was good. Discretion pays a premium in this business, and all the other girls gave her good tips, so she was doing more than okay. Plus it was good having a nurse about the place, in case you picked something up – if you know what I mean.’

  ‘So how did she end up on . . . I mean in the modelling game?’

  ‘Money, sweetie, what else? Root of all evil, haven’t you heard? Even though she did okay, she could see that we did better. And she wanted some of it, too. And she needed it quick.’

  ‘Why quick?’

  ‘She wanted to get out of London. She had her dreams, like everyone else,’ said Sadie, a twist of bitterness replacing the dryness now. ‘But, unlike everyone else, she was actually putting hers in motion. She wanted a new start, away from a vicious bastard of a boyfriend.’

  ‘Tyrell Lightly?’

  ‘That’s the fellow. He’d just come out of prison, and she wanted to get away from him.’

  ‘Was he her pimp?’ She merely shrugged. ‘Come on, Sadie, you can do better than that,’ he prompted.

  ‘All I know is that she wanted to get away from him.’

  Vince considered the facts. Something didn’t stack up here. ‘From turning down beds for a living to lying on them for a living is a hell of jump, no matter how good the money. Did she know what was going on here before she got the job?’

  There was another hesitant shrug from Sadie. Her head was dipped again. Not meeting Vince’s eye, as she urgently inspected the carpet she’d seen a thousand times before.

  Working for Vice in Soho had left its mark on the young detective. He’d questioned plenty of ‘models’ in his time, and been through the same grim routine when the occasional one had turned up dead or been cut to pieces by her pimp, or taken a beating from a sadist, when some S&M had gone painfully wrong. The girls had always rallied around and talked, because the underworld code of silence, fragile at the best of times, was completely shattered for the benefit of sisterhood and good sense. So why was Sadie now so cagey? Where was the sisterhood now?

  ‘You know what I think, Sadie? I don’t think Tyrell Lightly was her pimp. I don’t think he knew about it – not when she first started here, anyway. I think you got her into the game.’

  Her head shot up. Sharp and defensive, she spat out, ‘That’s shit!’

  Bingo! ‘That’s why you’re giving all the short answers, staring down at the carpet like it’s so fascinating. Look me in the eye and tell me!’

  ‘She was a pretty girl, so she had lots of offers. It was only a matter of time . . .’

  ‘She was a very pretty girl, but wanna see how she ended up? It’s not a pretty sight.’With his left hand, Vince grabbed her by the front of her satin dress and pulled her to her feet. With his free hand, he reached into his inside jacket pocket as if to retrieve the other photo of Marcy Jones he’d promised to show her.

  ‘I’ll tell you!’ she yelled.

  It was only a bluff. He didn’t have Marcy Jones’ morgue pictures in his pocket, but the gesture had the effect of pulling out a loaded gun. If there was any glint left in her eyes it was now completely extinguished by a wash of salted tears. And he doubted the irony would return either, since it’s a tough act to pull off through a guilt-racked crying jag. Vince let the bunch of grabbed satin dress unravel from his clenched grasp. It flapped down, torn at the seam and the strap, as she sat back down on the bed.

  He took a pause for some soothing breaths, worked up some equanimity and let the facts sink in. The confirmation that Marcy Jones had been a prostitute both widened and narrowed the investigation. Random killers and known killers became indivisible; personal and impersonal became one. Men can get as physically up close and personal as possible or permissible, simply by tendering money. Yet at the same time they remain impersonal, denied the intimacy of the kiss on the lips, the loving cuddle, the meaningful post-coital conversation or cigarette. And they can even disappear completely, blocked out, nullified from the girl’s mind even whilst it’s happening. They’re known and unknown. They’re merely James Smith, or Brown, as Vince himself had signed in as.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Vince, gesturing to her dress. ‘I’ll pay for it, of course.’

  ‘Yeah, that’s right, copper,’ she said in an acid tone, ‘it can all be bought and paid for.’ She took a tissue from the box on the bedside table and dabbed the corners of her eyes.

  ‘Come on, Sadie, give me some answers.’

  ‘She was a sweet girl. She wanted to get away from Lightly as fast as possible. For all sorts of reasons.’

  ‘Name one.’

  ‘Her daughter. She didn’t trust Lightly around her, if you know what I mean.’

  Vince did, but only from the tone of her voice. Because from what he’d so far witnessed of Tyrell Lightly’s sexual practices, having busted in on him twice, all Vince could confirm was that the wiry gangster liked his women big. But then again, Marcy was just a slip of a girl, and was only fourteen when she had his child. So he said: ‘Are you saying Tyrell Lightly is a child molester?’

  ‘Not exclusively. That’s just one of the things he likes. So you can understand why she wanted to get away from the bastard; he’s a real sick dog. And working here was a quick way for her to earn money.’

  ‘All the same, you must get more than your fair share of sick dogs coming in here?’

  ‘No, we’re strictly slap and tickle and a bit of pantomime. All harmless fun.’ Sadie stood up, went over to the fitted wardrobe, and slid open its mirrored doors. ‘You lot are well represented in here,’ she said, putting on a policeman’s helmet. ‘Hello hello hello . . .’

  Inside the wardrobe were WPC uniforms, WRAFs, Wrens, nurses, and even a traffic warden’s uniform. But they were all shorter and more revealing than the standard government issue. Amongst the non-authoritarian civvy-street delights were PVC catsuits, leopard-print leotards, rubber corsets and masks, medieval-looking bondage gear, vicious-looking bull whips, fluffy handcuffs, leather handcuffs, rubber handcuffs . . . a pickelhaube helmet, a bearskin, a mortarboard, a nun’s habit; and, on the very top shelf, a serried rank of dildos, double-enders, baby’s fists and butt plugs.

  ‘Everyone loves a gal in uniform – especially a nurse or a matron. Strong medicine, you see. How about you, Detective, what’s your poison, pleasure or perversion?’

  ‘I vacillate between Brigitte Bardot and Sophia Loren.’

  ‘Why limit yourself? Why not both?’

  ‘Why, indeed? But the likelihood of finding them stashed in your wardrobe is pretty slim. So let’s get on with the business in hand.’

  Sadie took off the policeman’s helmet, put it back on the shelf and slid the door shut, then took her place back on the bed.

  ‘Did she have regular punters?’

  ‘It was different for Marcy. She was propositioned and offered a lot of money. She refused at first, then the money being offered went up. Plus the fact she didn’t have to have proper sex with
him.’

  ‘What did she have to do?’

  ‘Dress up, do a little dance for him . . . other stuff.’

  ‘What other stuff?’

  ‘Are you getting off on this?’

  ‘How much did he pay her?’

  ‘Fifty quid, sometimes more.’

  Vince was surprised. ‘That’s a lot of money for a little dancing, especially when you’re not even a dancer. Who was he?’ Sadie shrugged. ‘Was he a regular?’ Sadie shrugged, again. ‘I get it – keeping loyal to your punters, eh?’ She didn’t need to shrug, but she did need to start talking, so Vince turned it up. ‘Where do you shoot it, Sadie?’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  Vince winked knowingly. ‘The brown, baby, the brown.’

  Indignation ripped through her body as she proudly displayed her arms: milky white and untouched. Not even an imprint left from her kinky collection of handcuffs.

  Vince shook his head, unconvinced. ‘Not in your arms, Sadie, too unsightly. I hear that between the toes is a popular alternative. Take off your shoes and stockings.’

  ‘You bastard!’

  ‘That’s right, I’m the bastard. You know what’s coming next? All back to your place, surprise your boyfriend, who’s probably got a bigger habit than you do, and is nodding out even whilst we talk.’

  Vince saw the shudder run through her shapely frame as his words struck a chord. It was all so grimly predictable. A big fat cliché for a skinny little junky. All those nice middle-class girls he’d met who’d gone on the game didn’t do it because they favoured the working hours, liked meeting people or had found some kind of mythical liberating empowerment through it. On the contrary, there was usually a bad habit enslaving them to it. And it was nearly always ‘the brown’, the heroin. The one that takes everything away – starting off with your soul, then working outwards. And the working girls didn’t shoot up in their arms, because track marks might put the punters off. So they take it in the foot. After all, a vein is a vein; it might take a little longer that way to hit the spot, but it does hit the spot.

  ‘What do you want?’ she asked.

  ‘Marcy’s punter.’

  ‘His name’s Lucky . . . What’s so funny?’

  Nothing was. But as soon as he heard the nickname, it struck him like an axe and a big grin split his face. ‘Tall, dark . . . droopy moustache, sort of stupid-looking?’

  ‘That’s the fellow. He sits in the House of Lords, when he’s not sitting here.’

  ‘How often is he here?’

  ‘More than he’s ever in the House of Lords. He’s even got his own room.’

  ‘Don’t tell me, number 13?’

  ‘Nice to see you’ve kept your sense of humour, officer.’

  ‘Show me.’

  ‘I don’t have a key.’

  ‘Not a problem.’

  CHAPTER 23

  Sadie led Vince up to the third floor, where Lucky Lucan kept a room. Vince sized up the door; a single Yale lock, no mortise or anything to really worry about. He flexed his right arm and girded himself. One – two – three, he ran at the door and bang! He felt the curved brass bolt and the metal holding bend and buckle. He stood back, did a windmill action with his arm to get some blood back in it. His shoulder fortunately was holding firm, a lot firmer than the door. He went at it again. The bolt burst its holdings this time, and the door flew open, with Vince falling into the room after it. Even with the door wide open and the light from the hallway streaming in, the room was still unyieldingly dark. It was like being sucked into a great black void. Vince hit the light switch by the door. Black paint covering the walls soaked up and killed the light. Thick black curtains covered the windows, blocking out the world and turning the room into a cell.

  Vince’s first reaction to the room was to leave it and leg it down the hallway. To get away from the evil that hung there, and away from the two men with their dead eyes, lifeless waxy pallors – and the Lugers they gripped in their smooth hands.

  ‘Jesus . . . so, this is what he’s into,’ said Vince, as he scoped the room with eyes that were wide with shock and more than a little amusement. The two men holding the guns were mannequins, of course, although very lifelike ones, with articulated limbs arranged in an attacking pose, and realistic wigs – certainly more so than that of the Arab joker manning the reception desk downstairs. The guns looked real enough, too. One of the dummies was dressed as an SS stormtrooper, and the other, his superior in rank, as a Gestapo officer sporting an eyepatch. The two Krauts were so realistic and detailed that Vince was tempted to flip the eyepatch over to check if his glass-bead eye was in fact missing. With their black uniforms, shiny leather boots, skull-and-crossbones decal and insignia, the fetishization of evil was overtly apparent. But, authentic as they were, they still looked as if they belonged in the wardrobe with the rest of Sadie’s kinky uniforms, the PVC gear and the dildos. Nevertheless, taken in context with the whole room, Vince saw that behind its occupant’s perversion lay a darker purpose.

  The black-painted room was draped with Nazi flags: the black Swastika set in a white roundel against a red background. There were German military banners featuring gold eagles and wreathed skulls. Framed photos featured images of Aryan supremacy, involving massed crowds with frenzied faces and straight-arm salutes. And the main attraction was the Führer himself, captured strutting in various poses and stances. A portable record player predictably had an LP with music by Wagner on its turntable, and a hardback translation of Mein Kampf sat on the bedside table.

  Once Vince had taken in this mise en scène, he felt a genuine chill pass through his bones. The air was thick and musty here, and the Nazi militaria – old, illegal, hated and hidden from view – carried a malodorous stench redolent of repression and evil. They say that in real life there are no genuine black hats or white hats, but, to Vince, this display seemed as pure a manifestation of evil as you could possibly get. The Hitler mob knew exactly what they were up to when they decked themselves out in these outfits and brandished these flags.

  ‘So what was his interest in Marcy? I’d have thought he preferred blondes.’

  ‘Superiority, what else? Sometimes he’d make her clean his jackboots. Other times she had to just stand there whilst he read aloud to her – educating her, as he saw it.’

  ‘About the superior ways of the aristocracy?’ said Vince, in a voice thick with irony.

  ‘Exactly! He talked all sorts of bollocks, and he was pretty deeply into it all. He even told her how he respected her race, and so did Hitler. There was a purity about them and, according to Lucky, it was only when they came off the banana boats that they started to go wrong.’

  Vince stared at her, incredulous. ‘They went wrong?’

  ‘Oh, yeah, you couldn’t take him seriously. Me and Marcy used to giggle about it all the time. Got to keep your sense of humour with some of the clowns who pass through here.’

  ‘And that’s all she had to do for her fifty quid?’ asked Vince, but considering the room with its pervading malevolence, he now thought she had more than earned her money.

  With a nonchalant shrug, Sadie added, ‘He had the occasional wank, but that was about it.’

  ‘Classy,’ Vince said, wishing he hadn’t asked. Because then maybe he would have heard the man entering the room behind him. Vince turned just in time to see the interloper’s balled fist heading his way – he leaned back but still took a glancing blow to his temple, hard enough to throw him off balance and send him to the floor, on his hands and knees. As soon as he was down, in came an underside kick to the gut that jerked him up as if he was being yanked by his spinal cord, then sent him down again without a breath left in his body. Vince rolled over on to his back to get sight of his attacker, and saw only the tread of a large work boot zooming into view, and about to stamp its impression on his face. His hands instinctively shot up to protect his face, and grabbed the size twelve coming his way. He twisted the boot, then with his ow
n right foot kicked away the man’s supporting leg. The attacker fell to the floor with a considerable thud.

  Vince clocked him for the first time and saw he was a big lump with a big greasy pompadour, and dressed like a lumberjack in a pair of grimy-looking Levis. He had a nose that had been pummelled so many times it looked like spat-out chewing gum under shoe leather. His mouth was just as unappealing, for a severe harelip exposed an upper row of snaggled and buck-toothed decay.

  Vince scrambled to his feet, still gasping for air as he desperately tried to fill his compressed lungs. The greasy lump on the floor was faster than he looked, and he too was quickly up on his feet, with a wooden chair in his grasp that he sent hurtling towards Vince. He ducked and it crashed against the wall, splintering apart. Vince grabbed one of its dislocated legs, as the greasy lump let out a roar and came towards him with arms outstretched. Vince had the man sussed: he wasn’t a fighter, he was a frightener; all pompadour and circumstance and not one precision punch in his repertoire. But Vince was also sure that, if the lump got hold of him, he could probably squeeze the life out of him. He lunged for Vince, who twisted nimbly out of the way, so the lump was left grabbing the air in front of him.

  Vince cracked one sharp edge of the square chair leg on to the back of the man’s head, with enough force to feel the skull bone judder beneath. There was now blood on the chair leg, and a deep red gash in the fellow’s head, where the tight flesh had split open like a gaping mouth. Then, reckoning he didn’t need it any more, Vince let the chair leg drop to the floor. The lump turned round, his face creased in pain, his rotten teeth extending from his mouth as if he was trying to spit them out, and his arms raised to grab at the back of his split crown. Vince took this opportunity to shovel some fast two-fisted jabs into the lump’s gut, and get in some rib, liver and kidney work whilst he was at it, leaving the lump doubled up, with his arms crossed over his pummelled gut.

  Vince took a moment to look around and see if Sadie was still in the room – but she wasn’t. No surprise there. The surprise came in turning round to see the lump steaming towards him again, head first. Vince was cannonaded backwards, until he was stopped by the wall. There was a crack from either the plasterboard or his back, and he immediately suspected the latter. That took more wind out of his sails. The lump now had firm hold of Vince and spun him around like a rag doll, and then bull-charged again. What stopped Vince from slamming into the other wall was the bed. The landing was soft, but with the lump now on top of him, it was as uncomfortable a position to be in as any. The bed sagged as the lump grabbed Vince around the throat with both hands. He felt himself sinking into the mattress as though he was drowning in quicksand.