Say You Never Met Me

by Martin Yallop

  “Its is too much! We cannot pay! We will not!”

  “I’m sure you can pay. You fly first class and you stay in a Park Lane hotel. You can pay and you must. You see, we have cameras too,” she nodded towards the small security cameras in the corners of the room, “and I am sure that you would not wish your wives or your employers to know about this visit. We could show them your photographs as well as ours.” Deborah noticed that Tony and George had quietly taken up position behind the two men and that Tony was holding the man’s camera. “We do not want any unpleasantness to spoil your memory of this experience so it really is best if you just pay our cashier, Tony, who is standing beside you. Come along Deborah.” Deborah hurriedly rose, smiled briefly at the two men and followed Angela through the curtain behind the bar. “Don’t worry. They will pay,” said Angela. “The only thing I am not sure about is how much cash they have on them but we can leave that to the boys. They will get the money and probably without any violence. These two are Muslims. They may not care if their wives know they have been to a strip club but they will not want them to know they have been ripped off. They would be terribly embarrassed by the loss of face and authority. They will just pay up and then pretend – even to each other – that it never happened. Two and a half grand is not a great result for two of us for more than an hour’s effort. Let’s get back to work. Handbags and glad rags time, eh!”

  Deborah’s first client was English and in London for a training course on knowledge management. He was from a small Midlands town she had never heard of and said his name was Rob, that he was forty-two and was not married. Deborah doubted all those pieces of information, largely because the name on the credit card with which he offered, unsuccessfully, to pay his ‘three drinks, no show’ bill was ‘Mr D A Tanner’ and because of his Scottish accent. They had talked about the weather, football, the price of housing, petrol and drinks and he had seemed happy to be in the company of a scantily dressed, attractive girl who took a close interest in him and spoke with a sexy, foreign accent. Tony had gently taken him off to the nearest ATM to get cash from his card. Deborah was not particularly proud of her performance because she felt that almost an hour was too long to get less than a thousand pounds but both Angela and Barbara were encouraging telling her she had quickly picked up the ethos of her new job. She would very soon improve her performance. Next Angela separated a German from twelve hundred pounds before packing him off with George and a peck on the cheek to stiffen his resolve for his visit to the young, Asian girl he had hesitantly requested.

  “She used to live in Southall. That’s Asian, isn’t it,” said Angela with a grin.

  The American came back while Angela was with the German and, to Deborah’s surprise, had a Russian with him. The first man was now showing off his knowledge of Soho to his Muscovite client and asked where the first girl he had seen was.

  “She’s busy for half an hour or so. I’m Deborah and I can look after anything you need. Why don’t you come in and we’ll talk about it while you buy me a drink? Where are you guys from? I was at college for a while in New England. It sounds as if you come from a bit further south. I’ve never been to Moscow but it’s high on my list of ‘must-see’ cites.”

  Almost before they knew it, both men were seated at one of the little tables drinking champagne while Deborah reluctantly sipped her fourth tequila sunrise and made a mental note to change her cocktail before she began to look like an orange. Two bottles of champagne, one short strip show and over three thousand pounds later, Tony and George gently showed the two tipsy men to the front door.

  “Do they never complain to the police?” Deborah asked Barbara.

  “Almost never,” the barmaid replied. “And so what if they do? What are they going to complain about? That they went to a strip club and didn’t have the sense to ask the prices before they agreed to have the service? Anyway, by the time it could get to court, one will be home in Wichita and the other will be back in the USSR with the wifey. How’re they going to explain a trip to the UK…’Er, darling. I just have to pop over to London to give evidence that I was stupid enough to get ripped off in a clip joint in Soho. Don’t wait up, huh’.” Deborah smiled at Barbara’s cynicism but could see why there would hardly ever be any comeback from the scam.

  In the taxi on the way to Victoria station, Deborah felt desperately tired but still elated. Not a bad night’s work, she thought. Easy money and nobody got hurt and nothing got damaged unless you counted the egos of men who should know better. It was difficult to feel sympathy for fools even if the means of relieving them of their money were underhand. Serves them right, she told herself until she realised what she was thinking. The mindset of the business had started to rub off on her and this was dangerous. Probably, this was how lots of girls started before they got seduced by the easy money into a very dirty trade based on deception and intimidation. Fools deserved protection: not exploitation. And, the reaction taking over, she remembered she had not had the opportunity to talk to any of the strippers, masseuses or tarts who risked their health and sometimes their lives to make money for ruthless men from weak men for hardly enough to finance a modest drug habit. What had been the dreams of these girls when they had been recruited in villages in the Balkans and the former Soviet dependencies? Certainly not taking off their clothes in dimly lit basements, jerking off foreigners or opening their bodies for hardly enough to live on. She told herself firmly that she must not forget why she was doing this nor lose sight of her aim of exposing a cruel, oppressive trade.

  As the taxi drew up outside the station she thanked God for the existence of Gatwick Airport and its generation of round the clock trains that often stopped at Croydon on their way to the airport. God, she was tired! She needed some sleep. The sleep she got between the end of platform eighteen at Victoria and Gatwick was no compensation for having missed her station and she cursed under her breath as she viciously forced herself to stay awake and look out of the train window at the growing grey of the late summer dawn on the return journey. When she let herself into the house nobody was up. No sound came from the room shared by Conrad and Lydia but she could hear George snoring faintly as she passed his door. She undressed and fell into her bed, exhausted. Her last thought was that she needed to rest so she could do it all again tomorrow. And she must find an opportunity to talk to one or two of the freelance girls and find out how they came to be where they were.

  Chapter 27

  George was gone when Deborah came downstairs. It was almost lunchtime and Lydia said he had left a couple of hours earlier saying something about a meeting with someone called Lance. Conrad had got home from a delivery run three hours ago and was now in bed. At about the same time George was actually sitting in the waiting room of a probation office. He was waiting for the briefing he had been promised before Lance presented himself to apologise or whatever he was supposed to do. In the event, when the door opened and George looked up from his paper, the figure that entered was clearly not a probation officer. It was male, tall, skinny, scruffy, hesitant and topped off by a knitted woollen hat.

  It said, “Hello. Are you mister Hawthorne?”

  “Er… yes; near enough,” said George. You must be Lance.”

  “Yeah. That’s right. I just got here.” A pause. “What’s supposed to happen now?”

  “You tell me. Looks like neither of us have done this before.”

  “Yes, I mean no. Nor have I. Um… Well… it was me that grabbed your wallet in Gloucester Road and I got caught by the fuzz and I… er… I’m supposed to say I’m sorry. And I am. I really am. I mean… I apologise. I’m sorry.” Another awkward pause. “Are you all right? And everything… Considering.” George decided he had better play his part properly.

  “Well actually… It’s all very well you’re being sorry and all that but what you did had really serious consequences. I spent part of the next morning in bed getting over your attack.” He noticed that Lance winced at the word. “The
result of that was that I left London later that I had intended and arrived where I was going... well, an hour or so late. Half an hour before I got there, my girlfriend got killed by a hit and run driver. If I’d been there on time… Well, you get the point.” Lance looked aghast. George thought he was about to cry.

  “Fucking Christ! I mean… Oh, man, that’s terrible. But I couldn’t have known! It was just money… You’re not putting me on are you? You’re serious, right?”

  “Dead serious… no pun intended.”

  “I’m so sorry, man. I really am. Look, I’m sorry and everything, you know, but you can’t blame me can you?”

  “No. Not ‘blame’, but, as I said, what you did had consequences, even if neither of us knew that at the time.” George took a deep, slow breath and relented. “Look, I don’t blame you for that but one thing leads to another and there’s no getting away from the fact that if you hadn’t shoved me into the wall and grabbed my wallet, I might not have overslept and I might have got to Susanna before she left the house… If you want to know I’ve been feeling guilty about it too. I just thought you should know. That’s all. The magistrates or whatever probably just thought this was a sort of a modern idea, some way of reducing crime or something but… well, now you know. And I’m sorry too and, no, I don’t blame you. It just happened, it just… Look, enough, eh? Let’s change the subject. Did you spend the money before they caught you, the police?”

  “Yeah, I did I’m afraid. But I was wondering…”

  “Drugs, I suppose?”

  “No! No way! I don’t do stuff like that... I mean, a bit of a smoke and the odd pill before a gig or something, but not drugs. The court had got some stupid idea I’m into drugs. I gotta go to some stupid session tomorrow, some sort of ‘junkies anonymous’ or something but it’s pointless. Might be a laugh but still a complete waste of time. I don’t do drugs. I spent the money on stuff for the band. I need loads of stuff for my kit. But I’ve still got…”

  “You’re a drummer? Any good?”

  “Yeah… well… you know. We’re all right, I suppose. We’re not signed or anything but we do pubs and stuff. Sometimes we get paid. Why? What do you know about it?”

  “Whose material do you play?”

  “Mostly our own. We’ve got a good half-hour set with only a couple of covers. Dave, he’s the guy who does most of the writing, like, plays guitar and does vocals. Brilliant, he is. What we really need now is someone on keyboards… preferably with some cash: there’s so much stuff we need: kit, transport, studio-time, you know.”

  “Whereabouts do you play? Anywhere I’d know?”

  “We’ve done a couple of gigs in Camden – got paid for them, but mostly in pubs round where we live. I come from near the Elephant and the other guys mostly live in the Borough.” Lance remembered whom he was talking to. “I don’t suppose you’d like our stuff much. No offence, but it’s not jazz or anything like that. More rock and metal and stuff.”

  George smiled inwardly. “Well, maybe you’d be surprised at what I like. Anyway, I’d like to hear what you do sometime.” “We’ve got a demo. Only a tape, I’m afraid, but I could send you a copy. Are you in the business, then?”

  “No, ‘fraid not. I’m just a fan. Mostly I’m a sort of writer.”

  “Yeah? What do you write about?”

  “Well, at the moment I’m doing research for a book on trafficking of people… girls, from Eastern Europe for the sex trade here.” He changed the subject. “Has the band got a name?”

  “No… well… It’s hard. There’s several. We can’t make up our minds. Mostly we call ourselves Asylum.”

  “Fair enough. And what’s your name, Lance?”

  “Sharpe. Lance Sharpe.” Then, looking down at his feet, “ Well, actually it’s Lawrence. Lawrence Sharpe. You’ll see that, I expect, on the court papers. You have to give your real name, see.”

  George directed the conversation away from names on court papers. “What about this community service business?”

  “Oh, that’s no problem. I know blokes who’ve done it. It’s painting schools and cutting grass in graveyards, that sort of stuff. It’s cool. Tell you the truth, I’d do stuff like that if they asked me nicely and gave me a lift there and back. Don’t need a court order to help out, do you?”

  “No. I suppose not. Anyway, I’d like to hear the demo. I’m moving around a bit so why don’t you send it to my solicitor. And put a list of your gigs with it. I might look in. It’s important to keep live music alive.” George scribbled down Maurice Blomer’s address.

  “No worries, mate…er, sorry. Mr Hawthorne. But look, there’s one thing. Your wallet had some of those euros in it, a lot actually. The fuzz didn’t seem to know about them so they assumed they were mine or at least, not yours. I’ve got it here. In the circumstances… I mean, because of your girlfriend… not that I accept I’m to blame…but, well. You know… Here they are. It’s nearly all there.”

  “Tell you what, Lance. I’d written that off. You can keep it and spend it on kit but there’s one condition.”

  Lance looked suspicious. “What’s that then?”

  “When you’re famous. I want two free tickets to every single one of your gigs. How’s that?”

  Lance beamed. “Thanks Mr. Hawthorne. You’ve got yourself a deal! Thank very much! And sorry about the bump on the face, eh?”

  Chapter 28

  Walking along the suburban street on his way to the station, George felt simultaneously conspicuous and anonymous. He was the only person dressed for the city in a pin striped suit and double-cuff shirt but he could safely assume that he would not bump into anyone from his previous life so his fear of persecution was well under control. On the train the conspicuousness and anonymity pretty much balanced each other, but the only glances he attracted were from people who assumed he was indulging himself in a late and leisurely commute but by the time he got to London Bridge, while he felt inconspicuously dressed, he suffered from the growing fear that people who knew him were looking and wondering if it was really him and what he was doing back in London. He pushed the terror of bumping into someone he knew from his mind and resisted the constant urge to keep looking over his shoulder. Despite his anxiety and his fear of being overwhelmed by it, his rational mind knew that acting suspiciously would be a certain way to draw attention to himself. Visiting his earlier haunts like this he felt he might have become a ghost without noticing. Walking through the tunnel towards the exit he was sure he heard someone calling his name and he hurried on with his head down. He pushed away the temptation to turn around and head back to Croydon, cursing himself for his weakness at thinking about doing it in the first place. ’ For God’s sake’, he told himself. ‘You’re only going to lunch with your lawyer and nowhere near where you used to work. Pull yourself together! You need to talk to this guy.’

  As he emerged into the bustle of foreign tourists on their way to be disappointed by the plainness of London Bridge and office workers hurrying or dawdling about their business depending on the urgency or otherwise of the reasons they were away from their desks and screens, it started to rain. Gratefully George bought an umbrella from a key-cutting, shoe repairer in the station forecourt. In the rain, everybody’s heads were down and the dawdlers quickened their stride. George slanted the umbrella into the rain and hurried over the bridge towards the damp but welcome shelter of Monument underground station. Fearing the confinement of the underground, he decided to take advantage of the station underpass but otherwise brave the wet and walk. It was only one stop anyway. Having left the necessary margin of time for delayed trains, he arrived in Leadenhall market half an hour earlier than he really wanted to and, rather than hang around watching a school party trying to identify scenes from a Harry Potter film, he doubled up the stairs to the first floor brasserie. Predictably Maurice had ordered a good table but George managed to persuade the headwaiter to move them to places in an inconspicuous corner where they woul
d be less likely to be overheard or observed. He ordered a kir and hid behind the menu. The menu had changed very little but he had forgotten that it was headed by soupe de poisson. That was a must. It was ages since he had had good soupe de poisson and many years since he had made the acquaintance of the real stuff where it was famously made in Le Touquet. It must have been an anniversary or a birthday or something but now, ten or twelve years later, he could not remember the occasion. He could remember the difficulty he had making sure that Susan packed the absolute minimum of luggage for a long weekend. Partly because George would not tell her where they were going so she could plan her wardrobe and partly because she found it difficult to travel light at the best of times, she had needed a very firm hand to stick to the limit. Thank heavens it was summer, otherwise the wardrobe requirement would have been even more extensive. The drive through Kent had not given her any clues and all her guesses at their destination had been well wide of the mark. Passing Ashford on the way to Romney had not helped her and her mystification was turning to irritation by the time George pulled into the car park at Lydd Airport. Airport was a bit of an exaggeration – it might have been better described as an airfield with a newly refurbished arrival and departure lounge and a couple of offices for HM Customs staff but it was the departure point for ‘Love Air’ for Le Touquet, Paris Plage just across the Channel. He remembered having to suppress his surprise at finding that the pilot of the light aircraft was a woman in her late twenties or early thirties and he sensed that the two other passengers had the same reservation. This was in the days when it still startled him to find a woman driving a black cab and when equality at work was something he had to consciously recall and apply, in the days before it became as automatic as it was now. Fortunately the other passengers were on a day trip and had little baggage so Susan’s extra five kilos was accommodated without upsetting the trim of the tiny plane. However, as the young pilot pointed out with a smile, the same could not be guaranteed on the return. She’d do her best but no promises. George felt properly put in his place. Susan had been too excited to worry about it, bowled over by the idea of flying ’Love Air’ to France.