‘I understood you and your wife run an agency for maids from the Far East.’ Joe spoke quickly, before Martin could hang up.
‘Who told you that?’
The fact that Martin hadn’t yet cut him off was encouraging. The tape recorders were running and the editor was listening intently, deliberately not looking at Joe, as if anxious not to distract him.
‘I saw an advertisement in The Lady magazine for “Maisie’s Amazing Maids”. Your wife is Maisie, isn’t she?’
‘My wife and I run our businesses quite separately.’ It sounded as if Martin was relaxing, deciding he was dealing with a lightweight. ‘Who did you say you were working for?’
‘I’m freelance.’
‘I don’t think you have a story here, Mr Weston. My wife runs a small employment agency for domestic help. It’s not part of any great international labour movement.’
‘Are you aware that a number of the girls your wife brings over do not have work permits?’
Martin’s tone hardened again. ‘I think you have been misinformed. I think you should be talking to my wife. Or perhaps to her lawyers.’
‘And that they are all needing breast operations when they arrive here, which leave them badly scarred. Are you aware of any of this, Mr Martin?’
There was a long pause. For a moment Joe thought Martin might have hung up. ‘I know nothing of the day-to-day running of my wife’s businesses,’ he said eventually. ‘I suggest you channel your enquiries through her lawyers.’
‘Could you give me their number?’ Joe asked, innocently.
‘No, I could not,’ Martin’s tone was becoming more aggressive.
‘Were you aware that your wife was using these girls to smuggle drugs into the country?’
There was another silence and then Martin came back on the line with a new, gentler voice.
‘Mr Weston, it seems you are determined to get a story from nothing here. How about we make an appointment for you to come in and chat to my wife and me over a cup of coffee? I’m sure we could put your mind at rest.’
‘I would like to meet you,’ Joe said, an involuntary shiver running through him. ‘But I think I’d prefer a public place. How about the bar of the Lanesborough Hotel?’
‘We’ll be there tomorrow evening at six,’ Martin said. ‘I’m sure we’ll be able to answer all your questions and satisfy you that there’s no story here.’
Martin hung up and Joe sank back into his seat. The editor pulled his headphones off, and the technician who had been operating the tape machine rewound it.
‘We’ll wire you up,’ the editor said. ‘Although he’s bound to expect that. We’ll have photographers posted around the hotel. We’ll need to have proof that he turned up to the meeting. I doubt you’ll be able to get him to give anything away, but at least we’ll be able to link his name to the story. It’s a start.’
The moment he had hung up on Joe, Mike Martin pressed the button for his wife’s mobile number.
‘I’ve had a journalist on my private line,’ he said as soon as she answered. ‘Says his name is John Weston.’
‘John Weston is a journalist?’ Maisie asked.
‘You know him?’
‘I met him. He pretend to be a client. Also he ask questions at clinics in Manila and London. His real name Joe Tye.’
‘What clinics?’ Martin snapped.
‘Girls need plastic surgery. We help them.’
‘He thinks you’re running a drugs importation business.’
Maisie didn’t reply.
‘Whatever you are doing, you stupid bitch,’ Martin snarled, ‘you had better cover your tracks fast.’
‘Already working on it.’ There was an uncharacteristic quiver in Maisie’s voice, as if she was genuinely frightened of her husband.
Martin hung up and sat thinking for a few moments. Apparently having reached a conclusion, he shook his head sorrowfully and lifted up the phone again. He pressed a button and the line was answered before it had even rung.
‘Yes, sir.’
‘I’ve got a cleaning up job that needs doing urgently,’ Martin said quietly.
By late afternoon the flat in Gloucester Place was buzzing like a beehive. There were girls everywhere. The windows were thrown open and a strong smell of disinfectant had banished the stink of human waste. Anything that could not be repaired was being sacked up and taken out to be disposed of. The girls chirped happily to one another as they worked, and there were televisions or radios on in every room.
‘Our Doris’, as Cordelia and Annie had christened her, was still on the phone. Every Doris she had contacted had given her two or three numbers for others who they had travelled with or stayed with at some stage in their journey from Manila. She was following them all up. The web just seemed to be spinning out into infinity.
The flat was already heaving with young Filipino girls who had been working in London and had been able to get there immediately. There were still more to be brought in to safety, girls who either lived out of the centre or who hadn’t yet been reached. They were all talking at once as they worked, exchanging horror stories about the families they had been working for. Most of them had lost their breasts.
‘You must come,’ Our Doris was saying to the girl who still stubbornly refused to leave the house on the hill overlooking Brighton. ‘They know where you are. They come find you. It not safe to stay in house. Come here. We protect you.’
‘I’m frightened, Doris,’ the girl admitted. ‘Max say he kill me if I run away from family here.’
‘Max gonna kill you anyway. We protect you from Max.’
The girl fell silent, torn between her fear of going outside the house and the thought of Max coming back to find her again. She was still sore from his last visit. Her breasts were also hurting. They seemed to have grown hard over the previous three weeks and one of them had moved, rising frighteningly up towards her shoulder. She had no one to tell about her worries. The thought of going to be with other Filipino girls was tempting, even if it did mean she would have to leave the sanctuary of her scullery.
‘Okay,’ she said, eventually. ‘I come. Same address you gave before?’
‘Sure,’ Our Doris gave a little clap of excitement, almost dislodging the phone which she had wedged between her shoulder and ear. ‘See you soon. Call if you get lost in London.’ She hung up and dialled the next number on her list.
The girl in Brighton went to her bedroom, which nestled behind the washing machines in the utility room. She swiftly packed all her possessions into the small sports bag she had arrived with in England just a few weeks before. She checked the pile of small change she had been accruing since coming to work at the house, one day finding a pound coin down the back of a sofa, another day finding a fifty-pence piece on the floor of one of the children’s bedrooms. She had squirrelled away just enough to buy a ticket to London. Our Doris had told her how much it would be.
Quickly brushing her hair and pulling it into a ponytail, she hurried back out into the kitchen, desperate now to get out of the house and away from the street before any of the family came home and stopped her.
Max was waiting by the Aga. He was wearing gloves, a long black overcoat and a very nasty smile.
‘Where the fuck do you think you’re going, Doris?’ he asked, turning her name into a savage sneer. ‘Going to visit your friends?’
The girl couldn’t answer. She had frozen to the spot, her jaw rigid with fear, her mind a blank.
‘Where do you think you’re going?’ Max asked again, his voice rising in anger at her silence, like a school bully determined to prove his authority. He slithered towards her, adjusting his gloves as if preparing for a surgical operation. She let out a whimper of fear but was unable to make her legs move.
He grabbed her around the throat and threw her back across the Aga. She could feel the heat from the lids of the hotplates. Within seconds it became painful. But it was Max’s grip on her windpipe that hurt the most, and he se
emed very reluctant to let go.
‘Tell me the address you were going to!’ he insisted, tightening his grip. Her arms hung loosely at her sides. She couldn’t muster the courage to fight back. ‘Fucking tell me!’ he screamed into her face.
‘Same place as before,’ she managed to gasp.
‘You sure?’ Max held his face close to hers. ‘They’ve gone back there?’
The girl nodded and Max could tell she was too frightened to lie. Completely terrified by the situation, the girl passed out and slumped lifelessly against the hot Aga. Max released his grip and dropped her on the floor. He would come back for her later and finish the job if necessary, but first he had to get back to the flat in Gloucester Place and put a stop to things once and for all.
Now that Max had started, there was no stopping him. As he drove towards London he breathed deeply through his nose to keep himself calm and to ensure the adrenaline didn’t take over until he wanted it to. He parked the car in a side street off Gloucester Place and walked deliberately slowly towards the block.
He didn’t expect to be given any trouble by the porter. Max had learned long ago that men tended not to want to get into arguments with him. He liked to see the fear in other people’s eyes when they saw him approaching. Even when he was walking along the seafront in Brighton he could see people crossing to the other side of the pavement in order not to encroach on his space. It had taken many years to make himself look this frightening, but it had been worth it.
He let himself into the building and walked past the reception desk without giving the porter a second look. As the lift doors closed behind him, Bernie lifted his internal phone and pressed a button.
‘Miss Jones,’ he said. ‘That friend you asked me to look out for. He’s on his way up in the lift.’
‘Cheers, Bernie,’ Cordelia said. ‘I’ll buy you a drink later.’
She hung up and clapped her hands to attract the attention of all the girls.
‘Quickly,’ she shouted, ‘he’s on his way.’
Like well-drilled soldiers they scuttled to their various posts. All the radios went off, leaving just one television in the sitting room. Our Doris sat on the sofa as if watching it. Everyone else vanished.
A few moments later there was the sound of a blade at the door. Our Doris gave it a nervous glance, before returning her eyes to the screen. The blade passed down the crack in the door and there was a clicking sound as the lock gave in to an expert’s wrist action.
The door burst open. Our Doris let out an involuntary shriek and jumped to her feet as Max came hissing across the room. He grabbed her by the arm, almost lifting her off the floor, and pressed the blade against her throat.
‘Cleaned the place up nicely, then,’ he whispered into her ear, looking around at the half-repaired flat. ‘Pity I’m going to have to get your blood all over the walls.’
‘Help me,’ she pleaded.
‘There’s no one here to help you, Doris,’ Max said. But in the time it took him to get the words out he found himself lifted off his feet and carried across the room on a surge of angry arms. Someone was clinging tightly to his wrist, pulling the knife away from Our Doris’ throat. The girl’s long, hard nails were breaking his skin and blood was beginning to seep out from between them. Max didn’t even have time to cry out as he was dragged down to the floor.
Piranha-like fingers were tearing at him from every angle as he thrashed around, trying to save himself. They yanked on the rings in his ears, nose, lips, eyebrows and nipples, holding him down in a dozen different places. He could feel the clothes being ripped from him, his skin being torn. Illustrations from tattoo parlours around the world, elaborate patterns, names and dates, were being muddied with his blood as the vengeful girls stripped him naked.
His knife was pulled from his hand and he was too busy trying to protect himself from the blows to be able to look for it. The next thing he knew it was pressed against his left eyelid and someone else, with strong, bony little fingers was gripping his exposed scrotum as if crushing walnuts.
His mouth opened to scream but no sound escaped as more fingers forced a damp piece of dishcloth between the sharpened teeth. It had been used to clean the walls and the cleaning fluids dripped into his throat, the fumes rising up into his nasal passages, making his eyes sting and his stomach retch.
‘We’re really pissed off with you, mate,’ Cordelia said, cheerfully, putting a little pressure on the knife and allowing the point to prick the skin of his eye socket. A small rivulet of blood ran down and he blinked to try to get rid of it. ‘We’ve spent all day cleaning up your bleedin’ mess. We don’t want any more of it. Do you understand?’
Max, too frightened to nod his head in case he drove the knife point in any further, gave a little squeak of acknowledgement.
‘What we want you to do,’ she continued, ‘is write a little letter to the authorities. Just telling them all about the Dorises here and who you work with. We know all about you, Max, so we’ll know if you’re leaving out any good bits. We know you’ve been killing ’em off. We know about Chris Rose and his little operations. We know who your employers are.
‘We don’t intend to shop you. You don’t have to worry about that, as long as you do whatever we tell you. We just want some insurance, to make sure you and your bosses don’t think you can ever interfere in one of our operations again. Copies of your confession will be lodged with a number of different lawyers and they’ll be under instructions to release them to the police if we tell them to, or if anything happens to me or my Dad or anyone else close to us. Which includes all the Dorises. Do you get it?’
Max gave another little squeak. Our Doris pushed her way to the front of the crowd with a large pad of lined paper and a pen. Other girls released his right arm, but Cordelia kept the knife pressed into his eye and made no attempt to remove the cloth from his mouth. The naked, blood-smeared Max sat up gingerly, and lifted his knees so that he could press against them as he wrote. His hand was shaking. The girl attached to his scrotum neither tightened nor loosened her grip.
‘Okay,’ Cordelia said. ‘Let’s start this story from the beginning.’
‘The job’s done,’ the voice on the phone said.
‘Good.’ Mike Martin stood up from the table he was sitting at with several government ministers, a handful of civil servants and two offshore banking specialists. He walked to the window with the phone to his ear. ‘Are you clear of the place?’
‘There’s a complication,’ the voice told him.
‘What is it?’ Martin kept his voice steady. He wanted everyone else in the room to assume it was a routine business call. They were talking amongst themselves, taking no notice of him, used to him being interrupted by calls.
‘There was a boy at the flat with her.’
‘Explain.’
‘He’s some kid. Says his father is a writer called Joe Tye who’s a friend of your wife’s.’
Martin chose his words carefully. ‘Was he there when you were working?’
‘No.’ The voice sounded hurt that Martin could imagine he would do such a thing. ‘He was in the other room.’
‘Okay. Keep him safe and out of sight. I’ll contact you.’
He snapped the phone shut and went back to the group. They were deep in their own conversation, and obviously hadn’t been taking any notice of his. He sat down and resumed his place in the discussion. An hour or so later he glanced casually at his watch.
‘Gentlemen,’ he said. ‘You’ll have to excuse me. I’ve agreed to meet my wife for a spot of shopping before we go out to dinner. I’m going to have to leave you to it. I don’t think you need me any more, do you?’
There was a murmur of agreement and Martin left the building at a leisurely pace, talking to several people on the way out.
Rod had taken Angus back to his flat in Camden Town after dropping Joe at Sunday International. Actually, it was more of a bedsit than a flat. Angus was sitting on the edge of Rod’s un-made bed
in his vest, underpants and socks.
‘You know John Travolta in Pulp Fiction,’ Angus said, as Rod rummaged through his wardrobe.
‘Yeah,’ Rod said.
‘Well, that’s a good look. Very sinister. Very threatening.’
‘Okay,’ Rod pushed the hangers along the rail and pulled out a black suit. ‘Try that. You’ll need a white shirt. Do you have one?’
‘Well…’
Rod sighed. ‘Do you have any clothes of your own?’
‘Of course,’ Angus replied indignantly. ‘But I’ve always gone more for the Noel Coward style. Never seen myself as a “hard man”.’
‘Okay,’ Rod said, pulling open a drawer. ‘Let me look.’
Half an hour later Angus was standing in front of the mirror looking as if he were on his way to a funeral. Rod had managed to find a black tie and a pair of black lace-up shoes. A generous scoop of hair gel had pulled Angus’ hair back, giving his face a sinister, skull-like appearance which his thick, floppy fringe usually disguised. Rod was staring at him and shaking his head doubtfully.
‘It’s the eyes that give you away.’ Rod said.
‘What do you mean?’ Angus prepared himself to be offended. He had always prided himself on his ‘bedroom eyes’. When he was a young actor, casting directors used to compare him to Terence Stamp, and he was sure that over the years they had lost none of their darkly lashed allure.
‘They’re too soft,’ Rod said. ‘Anyone looking into them will see that you couldn’t hurt a kitten.’ He looked around the room. ‘Here,’ he said, ‘try these.’
He handed Angus a pair of small, round, Ray-Ban shades. Angus slipped them on and smiled menacingly at himself in the mirror. Rod was right. He looked deeply frightening.
‘Don’t bloody lose them, mate,’ Rod warned. ‘They cost me a fortune. Here, you’d better wear this.’
‘What?’ Angus lowered the glasses so he could see better. ‘Oh no,’ he said at the sight of the shoulder holster and gun. ‘I don’t think we have to go that far, do we?’
‘Just put it on and stop complaining or we’ll give the part to someone else.’
Pretty Little Packages Page 23