Desperate Measures

by Stephen Leather

  There was only one person I could think of ringing and that was Vince. I phoned him and I started crying and he said that he would come around to see me and he did, he was there after twenty minutes and he was very worried about me. He sat on the sofa and held me while I cried. I told him what had happened and he said that he was sorry. He was so gentle and kind. He is a real friend. I asked him why there hadn’t been a story on the television. He said television didn’t usually report murders unless it was someone important or unless children were hurt. There were more than two hundred murders every year in London, he said. And he said that sometimes the police kept the details quiet because they didn’t want anyone to know about their investigation. He asked me if I was sure that Bee had been murdered and I told him everything that I had seen and I showed him what happened when I phoned her number. The phone was still switched off. I said that I was sure but he said that he would go around in the morning and ask some questions and see what he could find out.

  You know, Vince was so kind. He didn’t try to kiss me or do anything, he just held me and talked to me. He was just what I needed, a real friend who cares about me. He stayed with me all night and we lay on the bed together and he held me and told me that everything would be okay even though I know it won’t be okay because nothing will bring Bee back.

  Chapter 67

  Thursday June 25. I hardly slept last night. Vince did and he snored a bit but that was okay because even if I had my eyes closed I didn’t feel as if I was alone. He went out in the morning and came back with croissants for breakfast but really I wasn’t hungry. I phoned Bee’s number but her phone was still off. At about eleven o’clock Vince said that I should show him where Bee’s flat is so I went with him. All the police tape had gone and it was as if it had never happened. I showed Vince where the flat was and where to press the bell and he said that I should go home because it wouldn’t be good for another Thai girl to be seen nearby so I did what he said.

  About half an hour later he came to my flat. This time he had brought two coffees and a whole watermelon with him. It was so nice of him to remember that I liked watermelon and actually I did manage to eat some even though my stomach did not feel good at all. Vince said that he had rung Bee’s bell but that no one had answered. Then he rang a neighbour’s bell and a neighbour said that yes, a girl had been killed and that she was Asian. Vince said the neighbour didn’t know how the girl was killed because the police weren’t saying. Vince said there was no CCTV at the entrance to the flat so the police wouldn’t know who had been to the building. I am surprised that Bee didn’t live in a building with CCTV because all working girls need CCTV to be safe.

  I am worried about Bee’s family because I am not sure if the police would know who she is or where she is from. When a girl comes to England on a contract that somebody has paid, she usually has to give her passport to her sponsor for security. That means that Sandra will have Bee’s passport and maybe her ID card too. If Bee rented her room in her own name then the police would know who she is but a lot of working girls don’t use their real names. I don’t know what to do because if I contact Neil to tell him what I know then maybe I will get Sandra and Oliver angry at me and I do not want that.

  At noon Oliver phoned me to say that I had a booking for one o’clock. I didn’t want to work but I had no reason to say no so I said yes. He asked me if I was feeling okay and I said I was fine, that my stomach wasn’t hurting any more. He didn’t sound as if he was happy with me,

  Before the customer came, Vince went out and got two free newspapers. We read them both but there was nothing about a girl being killed in Paddington. There was a story about an Arab boy who had been shot and the police were asking for anyone who had seen anything to call them. I don’t understand why there wasn’t a story about Bee in the paper. In Thailand if there is a murder the Thai newspapers have photographs on the front page. You can see the blood and everything. Actually it is quite gory. Vince said that the police might know who the killer is so they keep the story out of the papers so that they won’t scare him off. I didn’t understand that but I think that Vince knows more about the police than I do.

  He went just before my first customer came. During the day I had six customers, all of them incall and all of them for one hour. I had sex with six men and I earned £600 for me and £300 for Oliver. I was tired and sore when I had finished, which was at three o’clock in the morning. I was too tired to send good night texts to my customers but I did send one to Vince to thank him for being such a good friend. I did sleep but I kept having bad dreams, mostly about somebody killing Bee with a knife.

  Chapter 68

  Friday June 26. I was very busy yesterday. So was Vince. He phoned twice during the day to see if I was okay which was nice of him.

  My first customer came at eleven o’clock which is early because usually customers come after mid-day. I was actually quite tired because I didn’t sleep much the night before. I had two more customers in the afternoon, both incall. I was running out of condoms so I went to buy some. I looked through the window of the pharmacy and I didn’t see the Indian guy so I went inside but you know what, just as I was at the cash register he came up behind me and said ‘Sawasdee krup’ and made me jump. Then he looked at the twelve dozen condoms in my basket and the KY Jelly and he smiled like he knew what I was doing. I really hate him so I just paid for what I had bought and didn’t say anything to him.

  At six o’clock Oliver phoned and told me that I had an incall booking from a new customer and that Simon had booked me for three hours incall at ten o’clock. I barely had time to think all day, which was a good thing really because every time I think about Bee I feel sad, sad, sad.

  I FaceTimed my mother I spoke to Ice and he kept saying that he missed me and wanted me to go back to Thailand and then I started to cry so I had to cut the phone call short because I didn’t want him to be upset.

  Simon left at one o’clock in the morning. He kept asking me to be his girlfriend and to stop work, which is a bit boring actually.

  At two o’clock in the morning Wanda phoned me, very excited. She said that Julie had come to talk to them again and that this time she had said that she had been murdered. Can you believe that? Julie said that it was her own mother who had killed her by smothering her with a pillow. I am not sure if they are really talking to a ghost, I think it is more likely to be someone pushing the glass, probably Sandra, but I didn’t tell Wanda.

  Chapter 69

  Saturday June 27. When I woke up yesterday morning I was itching a lot and there was a white discharge again so I phoned Wanda and asked if she would go with me to see her doctor and she said that she wasn’t busy so she would. I went around to her apartment. The glass was still on the coffee table and she said that Julie had spent ages talking to them. Everyone was very sad. Nancy had bought a teddy bear for her and Julie said thank you for that but then Sandra wanted to know how Julie had died and that was when the whole story came out. I asked Wanda if Julie had said anything more about danger and she said no because they were all interested in how Julie had died. Julie had said that she didn’t know why her mother had killed her with the pillow but said that her father had left home when she was a baby. Actually I still think that it is all a joke, that someone is pushing the glass but I didn’t say that to Wanda because I know she believes in it. But I did buy her the doll called Julie because if she is real I do not want her to be sad.

  Wanda had phoned to make an appointment at the clinic she uses and they weren’t busy and said we could go at eleven o’clock. We got a taxi to Harley Street and the doctor was a handsome man from New Zealand who was really sweet and didn’t ask me about my job. He tested me for everything including Aids and gave me a full examination and that was funny because I was lying on my back with my legs wide open and usually when I am like that the man is paying me but this time I was paying him. I kept laughing because it was funny and he thought he was tickling me and kept saying sorry.
What also was funny was that he asked me some questions which he said he had to ask me before he could give me the Aids test and one of the questions was how many men I had had sex with in the last six months. I think if I told him the truth that he would be very shocked so I just lied and said three.

  He said I didn’t have gonorrhoea which was good news, or syphilis, but he said I did have Chlamydia which I probably caught from a man with NSU which is an STD. STD stands for sexually transmitted disease but I don’t know what NSU stands for but the doctor says it was not serious and I just need to take antibiotics for ten days and just to be on the safe side he would give me an injection too. He said I should tell my sexual contacts that I have Chlamydia and that if they are worried they should go to the doctor to be checked but I don’t think I can tell all my customers that I have an STD because then they will think that I am not professional.

  When we were going home Wanda asked me what I thought about Oliver taking our passports and our ID cards and I said I thought it was okay if it meant we got new visas but she said she was a bit worried because if the police caught her then she would be in trouble because she didn’t have her passport. I said I didn’t think Oliver would keep them for long.

  Actually I wanted to talk to Wanda about Bee but I thought that if I did she might tell Cat and I would get into trouble.

  I had two outcall jobs and three incall jobs. Simon phoned to tell me that he had tried to book me for three hours but that he had been told that I was busy all evening and I said that yes that was true. Simon was sad but there was nothing I could do. The first customer to book me gets me, I cannot cancel a booking just because a regular customer wants to see me.

  At midnight I phoned Nancy to see if she was busy and she said that she was. She said she had spoken to Sandra and that Sandra was very busy too. Nancy said that Candy was having her period and that Vicky had cold sores all over her lips so neither of them could work and Oliver was giving us their customers. I asked Nancy if her period had come yet and she said that it hadn’t. I asked her if she was worried that she might be pregnant but she said she didn’t care and anyway her customers wouldn’t be able to tell. You know, if she is pregnant I don’t think she will know who the father is, which I think is quite bad really.

  By the time I had finished work I was really tired and I had earned more than £850. Do you know how much money I have hidden under the carpet now? Actually I shouldn’t tell anyone because it is a lot. I will send some more to my mother and I will ask Vince if he can send some to my bank. It is not a good idea to have too much money in my flat.

  Chapter 70

  Sunday June 28. Yesterday I went to eat Thai food and watch Thai soap operas at Candy’s flat with Wanda, Sandra, Dao and Nancy. After we had eaten, Wanda told Candy about talking to Julie using the glass and the letters and Candy and Dao said that she wanted to try it. I didn’t really want to but Sandra and Nancy said it was fun and so we did it. Sandra cut up pieces of paper and Nancy wrote down the letters and ‘YES’ and ‘NO’ and ‘DON’T KNOW’. The we put the pieces of paper in a big circle on Candy’s table and the ‘YES’ and ‘NO’ and ‘DON’T KNOW’ in the middle. Then we sat around the table and put our fingers on the glass. Candy asked what happened next and Wanda said that we just waited for a spirit.

  Actually nothing happened for about five minutes and I was getting bored and I wanted to watch television. But just as I was going to take my finger off the glass it started to move. At first it just moved from side to side a bit but then it started to move in small circles. Sandra asked if there was anybody there and the glass moved really quickly over to ‘YES’. Candy’s eyes were so wide that I almost laughed and Dao looked really surprised.

  Nancy asked if there was a message for us and the glass moved to the middle of the circle and then shot over to ‘YES’ again. I could feel the glass pulling but I wasn’t sure if anyone was pushing it or not. I am sure that Candy wasn’t pushing because she was too surprised and I know that I wasn’t.

  Dao was laughing and asking if it always happened and Nancy said yes, it did. If there were spirits around then they always wanted to talk to living people.

  Candy asked what the message was and the glass spelled out a word. It spelled D-A-N-G-E-R which is what Julie said in Wanda’s flat.

  Sandra asked who was in danger and the glass spelled out E-V-E-R-Y-B-O-D-Y. That is the message we got last time.

  Nancy asked if Julie was happy with the teddy bear she had bought but the glass didn’t move. She asked again but the glass stayed where it was. Then Nancy asked if Julie was there and the glass moved really quickly over to ‘NO’ and that is when I got a bit scared.

  Sandra asked who was there and the glass moved really slowly over to the letter B and I knew right away what it was going to spell. And sure enough, really slowly, it spelled out B-E-E. Everyone was shocked then. Except for Dao. She wanted to know who Bee was and I told her that she was a girl who used to work for Oliver.

  Then Candy said that the game was only to speak to dead people so it couldn’t be Bee because Bee wasn’t dead. I didn’t want to tell them that actually Bee was dead so I just stayed quiet. Nancy said that maybe Bee had died and she had something to tell us. So she asked if it was Bee who used to work for Oliver and the glass shot across the table to ‘YES’. Nancy asked if Bee was dead and the glass went slowly to the middle of the table and then shot back to ‘YES’ again.

  Candy asked what had happened to Bee and the glass didn’t move. Candy asked again and the glass started to move. It spelled out M-U-R-D and then it was just moving to the letter E when Sandra stood up. She shouted at me that I was pushing the glass which wasn’t true and then she picked up the glass and threw it against the wall and then pushed all the letters off the table. I was shocked because honestly I wasn’t pushing the glass. Sandra was really angry and I thought she was going to hit me but she left the flat and Nancy went after her. I was really upset and I started crying and Candy and Wanda and Dao all hugged me and said that it wasn’t my fault which was true but I don’t understand why Sandra was so angry.

  Chapter 71

  Monday June 29. Yesterday when we went to the Sloane Square flat there was another man there. It was the first time that I had ever seen another man at the flat. Oliver said that his name was Sacha and that he was a friend and I remember seeing him at the party at the house in St John’s Wood. Sacha is about thirty I think and he has short spiky hair and bad skin like he had lots of spots when he was a kid. He didn’t smile and he had very hard eyes like they were made of brown ice. He sat on the sofa and drank beer from the bottle and all the time he was watching, watching, watching.

  When we gave our money to Oliver I saw Sacha watching carefully and I saw Cat looking at him all the time like she was worried what he might say. After we had all given Oliver our money, Cat brought out some Thai food that she had cooked – Pad Thai and Tom Yam Gung which is spicy prawn soup, and Som Tam, green papaya salad, which is very very spicy and which all Thai people love to eat. Cat asked Sacha if he wanted to eat some and he just shook his head like he was angry.

  Sacha stayed on the sofa while we sat at the table and ate the food, which was delicious. Then we played cards. Oliver showed Sacha how to play and then he started to relax a bit and even laughed when he won. Actually he was quite lucky and won a lot of money, more than £500. Oliver won, too. I lost about £700 and Sandra lost even more. While we played Alice asked Sacha where he was from and he said Russia.

  Dao was drinking a lot and being a bit silly. She kept touching Sacha and blowing him kisses and actually he seemed to like it.

  Rachel asked Cat when we could be getting our passports back and something very strange happened. Right away Cat looked at Sacha, as if Sacha was the boss now. It was only for a second or two but I realised that something had changed and that Cat and Oliver were no longer in charge and actually I was a bit scared, more scared then when Bee’s ghost had come to talk to us. I t
hink something bad is going to happen. Something really bad.

  Then Cat smiled and said soon. We would get our passports back soon and we would all have one year visas that would allow us to work. Everyone clapped and cheered except me. I just smiled even though I didn’t feel like smiling.

  Chapter 72

  Wednesday July 1. I phoned Vince on Monday and asked him if he would come to my flat because I wanted to talk to him about my money. I was busy during the evening and so was he so he didn’t come until two o’clock in the morning and we were both very tired. I said that I wanted to send £10,000 back to my bank account in Udon Thani and he said he would help me but that it wasn’t a good idea to send so much at the same time. He said the banks got suspicious if someone sent £10,000 and they would tell the tax people or the police. It was better to send less than £5,000. It wasn’t a problem but he would send two lots of money just to be on the safe side and that was okay. You know, Vince was the first man I have asked to my room who was not a customer. But now I don’t really think that Vince is a customer, he is a friend. I got ten envelopes from under the carpet behind the sofa and gave them to him.

  Vince took out some cocaine and asked me if I wanted some and I said okay because I was so tired and thought I might fall asleep. He made four lines and rolled up one of his fifty pound notes and we sniffed two each and then I didn’t feel so tired. He kissed me and it wasn’t like kissing a customer, I had real feeling, and we went to the bedroom and we made love. Actually we made love several times and then I went to sleep in his arms. He had to leave early in the morning because he said he had something to do. He left some cocaine for me and said it might help me work or I could sell it to a customer. It was funny because when he left I realised that I had done FFF which I always said that I would never do. Though I suppose actually I did have sex for cocaine so really I did FFC.