The Make

have cash enough to speculate.

‘There’s money in anything,’ said Jemma, slipping him a bundle of crisp tenners. She gave him an arch smile and lowered her voice so the driver wouldn’t hear. ‘Even escorting, apparently.’

And there still was in banking, too; George saw that from the minute they entered the building in Canary Wharf. It was a steel-and-glass cathedral, a soaring, holy tribute to the great god Money. In the office where she worked there were already expensive silver and white Christmas decorations up. It was surreal, it was not yet November, but Jemma said the markets were hectic and they’d had to schedule this party into the nearest available free slot – which was now. Everyone was crowded in, sweating in tropical heat, jiggling along to Christmas songs, necking a lot of booze and loudly congratulating each other on the anticipated size of their forthcoming bonuses.

George could see he was going to have his hands full with Jemma. She was throwing the drinks back with abandon while he hovered around at the buffet table trying to get some decent food down him – not easy, because it was all poncy bits and pieces: blinis with little piles of red caviar, wraps of Parma ham and melon, goat’s cheese tartlets, one lonely little prawn stuck bog-eyed into a shot glass of spicy sauce. Not his taste at all, but he made the best of it, tucked in and tried not to drink too much, because this was work. It certainly wasn’t pleasure.

As the evening wore on and the revelry became wilder, he found himself policing Jemma’s behaviour like a maiden aunt. Pretending to be a developer, that was a piece of piss. He knew – vaguely – about RSJs, wet rot and dry lining. He could front it out with the best of them. But Jemma was going to be rat-arsed soon if he didn’t get her to put the brakes on.

‘Don’t you think you’ve had enough?’ he asked above the roar of the crowd and the noise of the sound system, when she returned to the drinks table for about the hundredth time. She was already slurring her words and staggering a little. Her white-blonde hair was falling into her eyes and her make-up was caking in the heat.

‘Not until I’m wasted,’ she grinned, and slung back another mojito.

They fell out of the building at just after twelve, along with a load of others who were all shouting and cheering like loonies.

I’m surrounded by bloody idiots, thought George.

He hailed a cab. ‘Southwark Bridge, mate,’ he said, and it was at precisely that moment that Jemma threw up all the drinks she’d spent the evening shoving down her throat. Vomit splattered the open back door of the cab and the driver rounded in fury.

‘Fuck off, I’m not having her in my cab,’ he said, and he reached back, slammed the door shut, and drove off.

‘Fuck that,’ said George.

‘Oh Michael you’ve been so good . . .’ Jemma was now telling George, turning a sick-streaked chin up towards him as if inviting a kiss.

George flinched back, disgusted.

‘Show’s over,’ he said angrily. ‘It’s gone twelve and I’m about to turn back into a ruddy pumpkin. I’m George, okay?’ He looked for an orange light in the gloom and was relieved to see one coming near. He hailed the cab and it swerved in to the kerb.

‘Southwark Bridge please, pal,’ he said, and hoped that this time Jemma didn’t throw up. He shoved her into the back, and closed the door.

Jemma started clawing at the window. ‘Aren’t you coming too?’ she mouthed at him.

‘No luv. Need a walk,’ he said, and the cab pulled away. Thank Christ for that, he thought.

If there was one thing he hated, it was the sight of a woman falling-down drunk. His stomach was complaining loudly after an evening of prissy little tartlet jobbies and mineral water. He longed to get some proper food down him, but it was too late to find a chippy. The crowds had departed, and he was alone in the crisp, chilly night air, a heaven full of stars above him and the open road in front. He breathed in deeply, relieved that was over.

His conscience niggled at him a bit. Maybe he should have seen her home to her door, but he thought bailing out when he did was the safer option. Next thing you knew, she’d be inviting him in for coffee, and he couldn’t have got it up for the skanky mare if his life had depended on it.

Then he saw another one – a girl in jeans and a pale top, crouched just around the corner of a building in an alley, obviously drunk out of her skull, her arms over her head. He walked on. He’d had a gutful of Jemma and her type for one night. But . . . his footsteps slowed. He could hear the girl crying. She was all alone.

He stopped walking.

Stood there, thinking about it.

Ah, fuck it.

He started to walk back to ask if she was okay as it was pretty obvious that she wasn’t. And it was then that he wished he’d just kept on walking, because now he saw there was someone else in the alley with her: a tall, stick-thin darkish man in a floor-length black leather coat.

Shit.

In the yellow light of the streetlamp he saw the glint of a long blade in the man’s hand. A thrill of fear shot all the way up George’s neck to the top of his skull. Suddenly all his senses were on high alert. The man was shrieking at the girl, looming over her threateningly.

George looked around. There wasn’t a soul about. No cops when you needed them, no fucking cavalry pounding down the street; just him – and he wished he was a thousand miles away.

‘You no-good bitch, you think you got the right to say yes or no when I’ve told you the way it’s gonna go? You don’t ever run out on him. You keep him sweet, okay? You keep him sweet or I’ll cut you, cunt, I’ll cut you bad. Give you a spell in the correction room, how’d you like that? You listenin’ to me?’

The girl was crying, shielding her head with her upraised arms. George caught a glint of thick pale hair. With no intention whatsoever of doing so, he stepped forward and said: ‘Hey!’

The man standing over the girl looked round but the girl didn’t move. She seemed paralysed with fear.

‘Hey,’ repeated George more quietly, wondering what the fuck he was doing.

There was a flash of teeth in the gloom of the alley. The man was smiling, like he couldn’t believe George had been so foolish as to intervene. Well, that was fair. George couldn’t believe it himself.

‘Walk on, bro,’ said the man, the smile dropping in an instant. ‘You just keep on walkin’. We got a bit of business here and you don’t want to get involved in it, I’m telling you.’

But George stood there, wanting his feet to move but somehow unable to make them. ‘What’s going on?’ he asked.

Now the man turned to fully face George. He was holding a knife in his left hand. It glinted in the cold sodium glare of the light.

Fuck it, this is crazy.

‘Hey! Move on. I won’t tell you again.’

He’s right. Do the sensible thing.

George started to walk on. Whatever was going on back there, it was not his business. Best to keep out of it. He quickened his pace. Yeah, he was going to get home, have a shower, bung something in the microwave, then go to bed and forget this whole frigging disaster movie of an evening. He passed a building swathed in scaffolding, like the ecto-skeleton of some huge insect. A few sticks and stuff were piled up just around the corner – insulation material, some discarded scraps of polythene billowing like ghosts in the faint, chilly breeze.

Sticks.

George paused and looked at the sticks. And . . . there were scaffolding poles too, just left there. He picked up a stick. Picked up a scaffolding pole, and turned on his heel.

Oh shit this is so stupid, Georgie boy, what are you thinking?

He went back along the street. The bastard was still there, flapping his arms, waving the knife at the terrified girl, shouting and bellowing. George felt as if his bowels were about to let go as he broke into a run and headed like