Bodies

by Robert Barnard

  “Proper see? Meal?”

  “Yeah. I want to talk.”

  “Right. I’ve got to be here till two a.m. tonight, bet I should be able to take an hour off early evening. What about six-thirty at the Knossos?”

  We struck lucky at the Knossos. It was only just open, and the atmosphere inside was funereal. Mr. Leonides, in fact, sported a black armband, and I supposed he had catered for a Greek funeral earlier in the day, and not a very jolly one either. The kitchen, however, did not seem to be affected, and the Dolmades that we began with were excellent. I stuck to lager because I was on duty, but Charlie insisted on a half-bottle of wine. We didn’t talk until we were well settled into our food.

  “What’s happened?” I asked.

  Charlie took a sip of his Bull’s Blood.

  “It was yesterday, when I finished work. Sometimes I go through the whole evening shift till nine—evening’s our busy time, especially just after the working day finishes. More often, though, I finish at six, and one of the chaps takes over—one of the muscle boys wanting to earn a bit and train at the same time, or the boy you call the Anatomy Lesson. Well, last night I finished at nine, and I was just about to leave the office and lock up when I saw he was waiting for me in the corridor.”

  “Who? Vince?”

  “No. Mick Spivey. I don’t like this organization: it seems like the dirtier the job, the lower down the person who undertakes it. Todd Masterman delegates the dubious stuff to Vince Haggarty, and Haggarty delegates the practically untouchable stuff to Mick Spivey. Anyway, Mick looks the part to a T, and very out of place in a gym: barbel curls and cross-bench pullovers couldn’t do much for him, I’m telling you. Anyway, he said he was pleased to see I was free—though he obviously knew I would be, and obviously knew the night I would be working late. I felt I had been watched. So he said would I care for a drink?”

  “You’re really getting out of the wholewheat and tomato juice circuit,” I observed, watching him pour his second glass.

  “I never was in it. So we went along to the Horse and Plough, strolling along in the dark, and we chatted as if there was no ulterior motive around in the world, and Mick asked me how I’d enjoyed the sessions so far, and I did my gushing schoolgirl act, about how great it was, and how I was looking forward to seeing myself in the mags, and what a great photographer Vince was, and how great he made me look, and I sickened myself, but that got us to the Horse and Plough, and the custom was fairly thin by then, because the theatres weren’t out yet, and we found a table to ourselves. Mick insisted it was his treat, since he’d asked me along, and he got two pints, and later another two, and I let him, because I felt I’d earned that just by listening to his voice, which sounds like a pen nib scratching on glass. When we were halfway through the first pint, Mick said: ‘I’m glad you’re enjoying the sessions, because Vince thinks you’re good. Says you’ve got talent. And I agree.’ So I smiled a Cheshire cat smile, said ‘Gee, thanks,’ and waited.”

  “Then Mick said casually: ‘We’ve got something coming up a bit out of the ordinary, if you’re interested.’ And I said: ‘You know I’m always interested.’ ‘This one’s for the fladge market,’ Mick said, looking at me from under his eyelids, but real sharp. ‘Lord, man, don’t you ever make anything with straight sex?’ I said, but laughing. ‘Give me a break some time! You must have lots of dolls lining up to appear in a bit of good, old fashioned bedroom sex. Why not do some of that for a change?’ ”

  “Good,” I said, when Mr. Leonides, who had been fussing round the table as he brought our lamb, had gone. “You didn’t jump straight into it. That’s right. But do you think the character you’re playing would have understood what the fladge market was?”

  “We’re pretty wised up in Brixton. And all sorts of things circulate there. I thought I shouldn’t jump into it shouting ‘Hooray! My life’s ambition!’ though.”

  “Oh no. Absolutely not.”

  “Anyway, then Mick started to explain. They’d been operating now as a going concern for five or six months, and as far as straight sex was concerned, they’d got a great little store of reels, with all the usual variations, and most of the obvious colour combinations. They were doing roaring business, especially in the video trade, and those films were going round and round like a fairground horse. Of course, he said, some of their early films were pretty amateur—”

  “I can imagine,” I said. “I’ve seen some of that kind of film.”

  “—so they’d need renewing eventually. Mind you, I think he was just saying that to keep me interested. I suspect most of their customers don’t give a monkey’s how amateur the thing is, provided they see what they paid to see. Anyway, the gist of the situation is that they’re going all out after the other markets now.”

  “I can imagine,” I said. “What role in this fladge epic does he have in mind for you? Will you inflict, or suffer?”

  “Oh, inflict. I expect suffering would come under the heading of stereotyping—maybe get the film banned by the licensing board. So what he had in mind for me was an amusing little number, probably a fifteen- or twenty-minute job, he said, showing a birching. Me birching a white boy, or maybe two.”

  “I see,” I said. “I wonder what Archie the Vice would say to that. Probably shrug his shoulders and say if that was all they couldn’t touch Haggarty for it.”

  “Well, that’s about what I did—shrugged my shoulders, and said I supposed I could do it, at least if they thought I would be convincing enough. Mick Spivey smiled and wheedled, and made me want to throw up at that. But that wasn’t the end of it.”

  “No?”

  “No. Mick leaned forward, all the time watching me with those sharp little eyes, and said: ‘As to it being convincing, you don’t need to worry about that. It’ll be convincing all right. The trick is, you see, it’ll be for real.’ Well, that really got me, and I gawped at him quite genuinely. ‘For real?’ ‘Yes—at least the first five or six strokes. More, if possible. The rest we fake, and re-use discarded shots from earlier strokes. That way what we show really carries authenticity—the twisted expressions on the boys’ faces, the screams, the sweat. It can be very powerful.’ Now that really got me. That did turn my stomach.”

  “I must say it doesn’t do any good to mine,” I said, pushing aside my plate.

  “So I said: ‘But who on earth can you get to do it? They must be nutters.’ And he sat back in his chair, and smiled, and said: ‘There’s hundreds—thousands—of lads sleeping rough all over London. Girls too—we use them as well, quite a bit. They’re desperate for money for food, often for drugs. The trick is knowing where to find them, because the police are always moving them on. I’ve got the trick. They know me. We use them in all sorts of films. Often they’re only about fourteen or fifteen, and at that age you can make them look a lot younger. They’re pretty desperate, you know—come from shocking homes, do anything for a square meal. We’re a sort of charity, in a way. Like in this case, for example: we pay them for the appearance, then we pay extra for every stroke that’s done for real.’ ”

  “Oh my God,” I said. “I love his charity.”

  “He really is a horrible guy,” agreed Charlie, obviously murderously indignant. “I think all this really is sick. They get these poor bloody starving and bewildered kids, and then they do that to them.”

  “We certainly could get him on a charge for that, and that’s some consolation. Pretty obviously they’re also involving minors in straight sex films—we can get them for that too. How did the interview go from then on?”

  “Well, I reacted normally, and I think that was right. It’s not something anyone normal would like doing.”

  “Good. I expect yours was the usual reaction.”

  “Mick Spivey played down the nasty side. Said they wouldn’t feel it next day, they were well paid—five pounds a stroke, it was riches to them, and so on. We went on discussing it for a bit, me making it clear I wasn’t jumping over the moon about it, but gradually c
oming round. I said I was a bit uncertain, because after all there was acting involved, even if it was for real, and I wasn’t an actor. Mick said I would do it fine, but if I wanted I could come and see another film of the same kind being made.”

  “Ah.”

  “He said that, the same evening he had in mind for filming me whopping these boy, there’d be another of the same kind done earlier on in the evening. They really turn them out wholesale, don’t they? He said it wouldn’t be the same, because this would be just pretend. The scenario they had, he said, was a man being whipped, and you just couldn’t risk doing him an injury.”

  “Quite apart from the fact that grown men aren’t likely to let themselves be whipped for five quid a pop.”

  “Exactly—though it was the industrial injuries side that he stressed. He said I could come along early to watch that, and it would give me some idea of the sort of feeling they wanted to get into the film.”

  “Christ—I can imagine what sort of feeling that would be.”

  “Finally I said I thought it probably would be all right—that I’d ring him before tomorrow if I changed my mind.”

  “When is this little job set up for?”

  “Next Tuesday. So even if I don’t do it, they’ve plenty of time to find a replacement.”.

  “No,” I said. “Say you’ll do it. From our point of view it’s practically an ideal set-up.”

  “I don’t want—”

  “No, of course you don’t. What, do you think I am? Say you’ll do it, we’ll have the joint cased, and the moment the thing starts being for real, we’ll come in and take them.”

  • • •

  Later that night, when I had an odd half-hour free, I drove over the river and down to the Elephant and Castle. Of the four addresses I had got from the local men, only one really matched up to Charlie’s description. It was a two-storey warehouse near a little slum of prefabs, but well away from anything else. There were heavy curtains over such windows as there were on the second floor, but they could not hide the fact that there were lights on—very powerful lights, I thought. I parked the car two minutes away, and went up to the building. I walked around, and found at the side a door that led—I could see through a dirty window just beside it—to a flight of stairs. I felt the hinges, and they had had oil applied to them recently. As I stood there in the eerie darkness, with only the sound of the distant traffic to be heard, I realized that remotely, from inside the building, there were coming the sounds of people making love. What sex they were I was not quite sure, though I did suspect they were augmenting their cries, even hamming it up, for the sound-recording apparatus. But I heard enough to convince me that that night, too, Vince Haggarty was making one of his special contributions to British Film Year.

  Chapter 16

  I HAD A WATCH put on the building the moment I got back to the Yard, and I put the Elephant police on to making discreet inquiries into the ownership of the place. They found out that it had been empty since well before the current depression, and was let to Vince Haggarty for practically nothing. The firm’s accountant was an enthusiast for “the sport,” so presumably Vince had heard of the place through the old muscleboy network.

  The watch reported that Vince remained a night-worker, even though the old imperative no longer remained. He was never seen around the building during the day, which made our preparations much easier. In one respect the loneliness and near-dereliction of the place suited us fine: there were any number of spots where I could hide men around the warehouse—and I had figured that I would use seven or eight to be on the safe side. On the other hand, there needed to be an observer there other than Charlie, whose evidence, as a participant, could be taken apart by a good defence lawyer. I needed to observe, too, in order to coordinate the men and choose the best moment for them to go in and stop the thing.

  That proved rather less simple. I established (somewhat unorthodoxly, by going into the place) that the first floor was simply a large, high room, with no conceivable place to hide. There was a very large chest, but it was padlocked, and the lock of the padlock was oiled, so I figured it was likely to contain things needed during the filming. Most of the windows of the place were inconveniently high, but at the far end there was a lower one, over which the drape had been rather carelessly arranged, perhaps because most of the filming seemed to take place down the other end of the building, where the walls were hung with coloured materials. I walked around in the waste ground surrounding the place—which was a dump in every sense of the word—and picking through all the builders’ waste, kids’ discarded cans and glue bottles and general family effects, I found an ancient but substantial chest of drawers. I arranged to have it moved under the window after dark, and told the watching constable to make damned sure that none of the local scavengers took it.

  Charlie kept me posted about arrangements, and on the Tuesday that was scheduled for the filming he phoned in the morning to say that he was leaving work early so as to be at Vince’s Dedham Road flat at four o’clock. That should mean they would get to the Elephant by four-thirty, by which time it would be all but dark. The boys, Charlie said, were going to be fetched later, when the first piece of quickie-porn was in the bag. Charlie’s adrenalin was running at the prospect of an exciting evening, but he repeated over and over that he wanted the thing stopped before it became serious. I assured him that he couldn’t want it more than I did, and told him I’d be watching so as to pick the best moment.

  I took Joplin with me to the Elephant, and six other sergeants and constables. Joplin’s job was to marshall the forces, mine to give the signals. We left the detailed deployment till after the party began, though Garry had selected most of the positions: one was in the undergrowth of what had once been one of the prefab’s vegetable patch, one was in the area steps of one of the derelict houses, the rest were in the cat-infested wastelands around the warehouse. I was at the back, waiting to climb on to my chest of drawers.

  The film team arrived about four-thirty. Vince pulled up some way from the only streetlamp in the vicinity that was working, and he, Mick, Charlie and an unknown bloke quickly and efficiently transferred the equipment into the warehouse, watched by the Portuguese girlfriend. The cameras they took home, apparently, after each session: the rests and tripods and frames and other less valuable impedimenta they left there, as I had ascertained during my illicit tour of the place. We gave them a few minutes to settle down, and to remember anything they might have left in the car, but it was an efficiently run operation, and nobody came out. So Garry, quietly, with nothing but signs, began deploying his men around the place. I had perhaps brought rather more than I needed, granted that the warehouse had only two exits, one of them apparently disused and rusted into unopenability. But I knew that Vince was (in appearance, at any rate) a physically capable man, I didn’t know who else would be there, and I wanted to be safe rather than sorry.

  When all the men were deployed, I thought it was time to take up my watch position. I clambered silently on to the chest, and looked through into the brilliantly lighted room. It was a chaos of cameras, tripods and lights, but one that was rapidly reducing itself to order. Vince was either a good general, or the films he shot were pretty simple to stage. Charlie, Mick and the other man were humping stuff around, and it was only a matter of minutes before things were in position to Vince’s satisfaction. The Portuguese girlfriend took no part in this buzz of activity. She stood by the door at the far end from me, splendid in fur coat and caftan, coolly gazing at the scene as if it were nothing to do with her. Vince was shouting directions to the rest (the window was very ill-fitting, so I could hear talk, if it was not too low), but he never shouted any to her. If he had, of course, it is unlikely she would have understood.

  By about five, all was apparently ready. The place was heated by a couple of oil heaters, placed by the area they were filming in, which was at the draped end furthest from me. Well rugged-up outside, I began to feel sorry for them inside, if they
were going to take off their clothes. And of course they were going to take off their clothes. It wouldn’t be that kind of film if they didn’t. Charlie was all right for the moment, lounging against a wall in a dark blue track-suit, and occasionally coming to warm his hands against a heater. Vince, too, had a heavy tweed sports jacket on, and a woollen scarf. But the other two, I thought, were going to earn their money.

  It soon became clear how. Vince and Charlie brought over one of the heavy wooden frames usually used to fix lights to, and they placed it in the centre of the field of light.

  “Right,” said Vince. “Let’s go. Take your clothes off, Harold. I think a loincloth would be appropriate, don’t you?”

  Harold was a fair-haired, willowy young man, very much a contrast to the run of bodies I’d been seeing in the course of this case. He took his clothes off, piled them up neatly in a corner, donned the ready-made loincloth that Vince handed him, and stood there shivering and banging his arms across his chest over by the heater. He did not even look at himself in the mirror that stood over by the door.

  “Come on, come on,” said Vince impatiently. “We’ve got to get this in the can before we fetch the boys.”

  He was standing by the frame holding two lengths of rope. Harold went over, raised his hands up to the cross-bar of the frame, and let himself be tied roughly in a spread-eagled position.

  “Right,” said Vince, surveying his inspired piece of improvisation. “Let’s get a few shots of you before the action starts . . . Look terrified . . . Terrified, not tearful . . . Come on, for Chrissake—fear . . . Oh well, that’ll do, I suppose. I thought you called yourself an actor. You’d never get a job on Mutiny on the Bounty . . . Right, my darling: take your clothes off, as only you know how.”

  He gestured the act of undressing to his girlfriend, who was standing over by the other heater. In a queenly, almost contemptuous manner she complied. She slid off the fur coat, and let it lie on the dusty floor, pulled the caftan over her head, and then took off such Western underwear as she had on. Then she stood there, leant slightly backwards, surveying them, her lips turned slightly downwards in an expression of distaste. She was the most stunning sight I had seen in years—the only fine body I had seen in this case that did not have the stain of anonymity upon it, that feeling of mass production. She was square-shouldered, to go with her height, and her breasts were large but firm, and every part of her expressed power and force.