The Make

They were back in the drawing room. The fire had died down and the room was growing cold – like the atmosphere. They were sitting there, still wearing their coats. Emma was sitting on one side like judge and jury, Harry and Jackie were sitting opposite her like the accused.

Jesus, what a temper, thought Harry, impressed. Slow to anger himself, he admired anyone who could so easily kick off and let rip. Emma, it seemed, could do both quite easily. He could see her fiery nature might cause a problem or two when she became Mrs Doyle, but . . . what was he thinking? She was never going to be Mrs Doyle. He’d been exposed for what he truly was, and she looked pretty damned disgusted about it.

‘It wasn’t like that, Emma darling,’ Jackie was protesting.

‘Oh then, what was it like?’ said Emma, breathing hard with fury.

God, she was gorgeous.

‘I was lonely. I . . . I’d lost my confidence after your father died. Couldn’t seem to get it back. I turned down every invitation, terrified of going out alone. And then I stumbled across Harry’s website, and I thought, there’s the answer. I’ll just hire an escort, and it’ll all work out well. And it did. Harry’s become a very dear friend of mine.’

Emma was looking from Jackie to Harry and back again. Suddenly her mouth dropped open and her nose wrinkled like she’d smelled something nasty. ‘Oh. My. God.’

‘What?’ asked Jackie.

‘You didn’t. You two, you didn’t . . .’

‘Have sex’ hung in the air, unspoken.

‘Of course we didn’t,’ said Jackie forcefully. ‘How can you even think that?’

Nicely caught, thought Harry.

‘And you’re not an architect at all,’ said Emma.

‘No. Sorry.’ Harry looked at Jackie. Told you this wouldn’t work out, said his accusing gaze.

‘You just do this . . . escorting,’ she said, her delectable mouth now pursed in disapproval.

‘That’s it,’ said Harry. He felt better now it had all come out. Cleaner.

‘It’s just . . . disgusting,’ she said with a shudder.

‘Hardly that, dear,’ protested Jackie, hurt on Harry’s behalf.

‘Yes it is,’ said Emma. She got to her feet and eyed them both coldly. ‘Look, I’m going up to bed, I’m too tired for dinner. You two go on ahead. Okay?’

And she left the room.

Harry and Jackie sat there and looked at each other.

‘Dinner?’ he suggested.

She shrugged. ‘May as well.’

They stood up.

‘Do you think she’ll get over it? I mean, you can see it would be a bit of a shock.’

‘I don’t know.’ Jackie looked at him. ‘Harry?’

‘Yeah?’ He was rewrapping his scarf round his neck and wondering if it was too soon to tell Jackie that he had just fallen in love with her daughter. It was, he judged. Way too soon. And anyway it was hopeless. He was so far beneath her on the social scale, he could never even think of getting close.

‘Um . . . Emma. She must never know that you and I . . .’ ‘Had sex’ hung in the air again, unspoken.

‘Got it,’ said Harry. ‘She’ll never hear about it from me.’

‘Or me,’ said Jackie, and linked her hand through his arm. ‘Come on, let’s go and have dinner.’

Chapter 39

‘Ah, shit, shit, shit,’ moaned Lefty, and took another hard snort of the butane.

They were standing out on the cold street again. Mona wished she was somewhere, anywhere else rather than here with this crazy junkie.

More and more, he seemed to be losing it.

More and more, she was scared shitless.

He’d killed that cab driver. And she had been party to it; she’d seen it happen. And God, she still felt sick about it. When Lefty had approached her again in the club days later, she had shaken her head at him. She’d been up on her podium, jigging away in her thong and a leather mask. Looking down on the revellers, it looked like a scene straight from hell in here. People tied up in chains. Fat guys in skintight rubber suits, not very attractive. The big heavy curtains over the archway that led into the orgy room were pulled back a little, and she could see heaving naked bodies in there. But she was used to that; it didn’t bother her. What did bother her was this fucking lowlife Lefty who had grabbed her leg and was holding on.

‘No. Uhn-huh. Whatever you got to say to me, I don’t want to know. You just piss off, Lefty. I’ve had enough,’ she’d yelled down at him.

Lefty’s grip on her leg had tightened, the nails digging into her flesh.

‘Ow! For fuck’s sake.’

‘You can’t back out now, girl,’ said Lefty, having to shout too, to make himself heard over the crashing, grinding noise of the club’s huge sound system. ‘You are in way too deep.’

And she was; she knew it. She’d witnessed a murder. She looked into his crazed eyes and wondered if she ought to go to the police, tell them what was going on. But she couldn’t. The Bill would laugh in her face. She had a record. She didn’t want to get herself in more trouble than she could handle. She couldn’t handle this; how would she take the Bill coming on hot and heavy, looking into her background, checking up on the facts? What frightened her most was the prospect of social services steaming in and taking Josie away from her.

No – no police.

Lefty was right. She couldn’t back out. But every time she thought of that night, the cab driver squealing like a pig while Lefty hacked at his throat, and then the cab twirling down into the black depths of the Thames, she was filled with sick horror. What if the damned thing popped up again? She’d heard that could happen, gases and stuff from dead bodies, would that be enough to propel a car from the riverbed up to the surface? If it was and if it did, she knew she would be in deep, deep shit.

‘What now?’ she asked him, thinking, Oh God please get me out of here.

‘We’ll keep checking the cabs and the night buses. Do the underground again. Anything. Whatever it takes.’

And so they did. It was a long, long night; but hey, there was a bonus. This time, Lefty managed not to kill anyone – although several times he did come close.

Chapter 40

George was just about to start work. He’d got all togged up in his purple dealer’s waistcoat in the locker-lined staff room. He was dealing vingt-et-un tonight, good old twenty-ones. He had Alfie with him. There was a whiff of faint dis approval among some of George’s work colleagues as he joined them in the staff room, Alfie dogging his heels.

‘Jesus, it’s George. Where you been, Georgie boy?’ asked Ned, one of the mouthier lads who was half in and half out of his work clothes.

‘Caught a damned virus or something,’ said George. He knew he’d been taking far too many sickies, bunking off on far more lucrative escort work. People were noticing. People were getting resentful. He was sure Lorcan