A Secret Life

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A Secret Life Page 21

by Christobel Kent


  What did three women on a night out have to do with Eddie’s business? Frank still had no clue.

  Seven brothels in the suburbs. Frank wasn’t stupid: he knew what those places were like because now and again one was raided and you saw it on the news. Eddie would have them in someone else’s name. He’d have his people keeping it separate.

  He leaned down and picked the piece of paper from the floor, where it had ended up: for a second he’d forgotten where it came from then he remembered, in the dust at the back of the club, all that was left of Eddie’s boxes. It told him almost nothing, at first glance. It was the headed notepaper of an accountant. Eddie’s accountant. He stared at the name and address.

  The police might well have it in for Eddie, they might often get it wrong, but Frank figured they also probably got it right now and again. Mum might be old but she’d never been stupid. Frank turned the piece of paper over, then back again. It was about the sale of a house in Wanstead Flats to a property company. All above board, no doubt.

  He held the paper in his hands and thought of Matteo’s profile picture disappearing, of Eddie holed up out there in Epping, where the big houses sat hidden behind hedges and security lights, a shiny car on the front drive. He held very still, thinking.

  Brothels were one thing. If Mum was right – if Benjy was right about the building Holly had died in belonging to Eddie, that was a bit different. Lucy’s outrage on the subject hadn’t been convincing. And strip clubs were one thing, brothels worse, but a woman strangled then raped? After she was dead.

  That would mean, one way or another, Eddie was involved with some horrible people. He thought of Matteo, pale and urgent. Is not your business, Frank. Of Lucy desperate to get past him in the corridor and back to Eddie.

  And Frank was involved, too, after that trip out to Eddie’s, shifting boxes while Eddie talked business and all of it no doubt on the security cameras. Not moving fast enough when Lucy stepped close, placing her hand on him, and it occurred to him that there were probably security cameras in there too. That made him part of the family: Frank moved his head from side to side, trying to work it out.

  Outside the crash and clink of shifting bottles stopped, there was the loud rattle of a metal shutter and then a sudden silence. Frank remembered being hip high to his mother, her standing at the sink while he pulled on the strings of her overalls. She had worked as a cleaner for forty years: she’d seen it all.

  And she was right: he needed to get out. Out of the club, out of Soho, and start by getting out of this flat. It wasn’t his, never had been, Eddie could have come in and out with his own keys a dozen times and Frank wouldn’t have known about it. Frank pulled on a clean shirt, tie in his pocket for later, passed a cloth over his shoes. At the door he hesitated.

  Lucy had known Holly, Georgie had known Holly. Matteo had said he didn’t know the lanky guy who left with the three women, that night; said he’d never seen Holly’s mystery man. Lucy kept saying, I don’t know what you’re talking about. The man who had reminded Frank of Joseph Cotten, old-time lanky movie star only with a bit of sleaze layered over the top.

  See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. Suddenly no one knows anyone, no one saw anything.

  Frank was fairly sure he’d seen the lanky guy somewhere before, eyes sliding away from him, standing in a doorway. Working the door at a strip club? Something like that. If he’d seen him, Lucy would have.

  Pulling the mobile out of his pocket he scrolled through the numbers till he got to hers. Somehow he thought he’d already warned her, because he’d said it in his head enough times, but he hadn’t. He dialled.

  It went straight to answerphone and he heard her say, This is Georgie Baxter but he didn’t get a chance to leave a message because the door opened in front of him, his own front door opened inwards.

  And there was Eddie.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Her legs felt like jelly, out at the big station with its soaring girder roof, the noise all around her, echoing. Georgie knew he was walking behind her.

  His head tilted, his face looking into hers, smiling in the crowded carriage. And everyone watching: her stomach turned to water. ‘Excuse me,’ she said and began to move through the carriage. The toilet was two carriages along, and mercifully unoccupied. It stank, but she sat there, staring at the smeared mirror, dirty water trapped in the little steel sink, the sticky floor, as long as she could stand. Longer: she only left it because someone rattled the door.

  Hurrying along the platform, weaving between the other passengers, she saw a baseball cap, bobbing among the heads, not far back and when she swayed, looking for him, something hard caught painfully against her ankle. Georgie stared down at a wheeled suitcase; reaching a hand to rub at the spot, looked up at its owner whisking it irritably out of the way. Not Holly, of course not Holly: a man.

  She couldn’t see him but she knew he was there. She dipped down towards the tube, hurrying, faster, faster. Knowing it was useless.

  A train had just left: the tube platform was empty except for a cleaner in a fluorescent tabard. The illuminated display said the next train would be in one minute, and Georgie stood, paralysed, waiting, exposed. She could hear a far-off rattle, it receded, then returned, the rails began to click and whisper, the warm wind that always came before a train blew, soft, in her face, pushing back her hair.

  Jump, she thought, out of nowhere, just jump, but instead she stepped back, with a jerk, back from the platform, just as the train rattled out of the tunnel. There were suddenly more people on the platform, a small group of Italian tourists had drifted from somewhere chattering, cushioning her and as the doors opened she thought, It’s all right. Stepped on to the carriage, only registering it was half empty, Georgie moved blindly to a seat. The Italians had got on in the next compartment, looking along she could see their black leather jackets through the greasy window. At her ear the beep of closing doors, an announcement, and she sat back.

  Someone blocked the doors and they juddered, then slid open again to admit two, three more bodies. Georgie didn’t look, because she knew whoever it was, he would be among them.

  ‘Don’t—’ she said, as he swung into the seat beside her, stretching out his legs. Long legs, to chase you with.

  ‘Calm down,’ Mark said easily but softly, looking around, restless. Down the tube carriage. Whoever had got on with him was standing in front of the doors, strap-hanging with his back to them, though there were plenty of seats. She could see earplugs, his head nodding.

  Turning to her, he smiled. Mark. He started talking, as if taking up a conversation, as if they knew each other. Like they were friends.

  I don’t know you, Georgie thought, looking at him, frozen. Unable to do anything but look. His hands with bitten nails, his restless long legs, his jawline, his hair. Darker than Tim’s. Thicker. Tim’s nervous movement, his hand always moving to his head, tentative, smoothing his hair.

  She felt herself nod, stupid, hardly daring to look around. Not wanting to draw attention to them. He was talking about the woodland, could have been cleaner but then what can you do so close to the city, his little hiking weekend, a nice B and B. Her mind jumped and started at the thought of him, in someone’s house not far from hers, hanging up his clothes at night, going out to walk the streets.

  The whole weekend. He’d known where to find her. Since the flowers arrived at the school, before. Since that night, when she’d babbled, about her job.

  Now he was saying something about people looking for mushrooms out there, about nature. Georgie couldn’t take it in, she just sat very still in the neon-lit train with his voice talking softly, staring at the ads overhead without seeing them, alert for the sound of the wheels slowing. She was running ahead in her mind now and fixing on the police station. He wouldn’t follow her there, would he? She tried to think about what she had to say to the police but her thoughts scattered.

  Leaning her head back a little Georgie looked up at the tube map – how
many stops? and he was in her face, quick. ‘Am I boring you?’ Smiling, easy, but with an edge to it. She looked away, up and down the carriage, but there was only the strap-hanging boy and an old man leaning forward, looking down at his shoes.

  ‘No,’ she said, ‘no, I—’ Three more stops. Just be polite. Tried to smile. ‘What were you doing out there, did you say?’

  ‘Oh, I always do a bit of walking, weekends,’ Mark said, leaning back, elbows on the armrest, hands steepled together. Pleased with himself. ‘Gym gets a bit boring, doesn’t it?’ She said nothing and he leaned towards her. ‘I’m not saying you living out there had nothing to do with it.’ Smiling, his eyes crinkling, conspiratorial and she felt it, the panic. What if, if he – if Tim – But Tim had been away, hadn’t he?

  ‘Nice pub, too. Friendly.’ He took hold of her hand then, in a quick easy movement, without asking, and as he did so the boy standing beside them turned, with his earbuds and she saw the baseball cap stuffed in his top pocket. Him. The lad from the train. His head still bobbing to the sound in his ears, holding his phone up and peering down at it.

  ‘No,’ Georgie said, feeling sick suddenly. Pulling her hand away. ‘Mark,’ she said, trying out his name, her mouth dry. ‘Look, this is – I don’t know what you think, but nothing’s going to happen. I’m married.’

  The train was slowing, they were approaching a station, the sooty tunnel walls giving way to advertisements but even as she felt the surge of relief, other people, other passengers, the world coming in through the window he leaned down across her, he was on her. He was kissing her, his mouth hard then soft, pressing down on her, she pulled her head back, struggling, overwhelmed by his different smell, different taste. Horrified. He was holding on to her too tight, the train slowing, slowing and then just as it came to a halt he took hold of her hand and thrust it down between his legs. She could feel it. His erection.

  Over his shoulder she saw the young man, his face turned their way.

  ‘You can’t,’ she said, frantic now, pulling back. And as she broke free she saw the young man, grinning. He had his mobile in his hand, the mobile that was also a camera, these days.

  ‘Married?’ he said, standing up and the tube had stopped now, the doors were opening and Georgie sat there as if pinned back in her seat, a hand on either armrest. ‘You didn’t seem very married last week, darling,’ he said, malicious, and as he said it the doors slid open and he turned and stepped out through them, not looking back.

  The youth stepped out of the way with a little movement, the beginnings of a bow and then followed him, sauntering, reaching to pull the cap out of his top pocket and slapping it back on his head. Tugging down on the visor and sliding a glance back her way as he stepped through the doors, and then other passengers were getting on, someone sat beside her with a sigh.

  When the train moved off it caught up with them, standing in the entrance to the white-tiled tunnel leading off the platform. They didn’t care what she saw, they didn’t bother to look at the departing train, and as she watched, hypnotised, she saw him, saw Mark clapping the boy on the shoulder with one hand, the other passing him something, folded money. And then the train was in the tunnel and she could only see her own white-faced reflection.

  Trembling, Georgie sat back in her seat. Why, why. She didn’t know what had just happened – and then she did. Didn’t know why, still, but to the roots of her hair she understood, she’d been shamed, publicly, she’d been exposed. She’d been set up.

  One night, a taxi ride, a polite goodnight on the doorstep, flowers. That hadn’t been enough for him.

  She knew what this looked like. She knew. He was her lover, meeting her a week later, kissing her, holding her in his arms in a public place, shameless, heedless. She rubbed her lips, rubbed and rubbed until they looked at her. She reached her stop and got up, tasting blood in her mouth.

  All the way up the escalator, the dirty stairs, Georgie had to fight panic. Around her everything felt squalid from the gritty tile underfoot to the posters to the other passengers, old men scratching their crotches with dirty fingernails, a girl in front of her whose skirt was so short her knickers were visible, a long ladder in her tights. She came up out of the exit as if she had been diving, gasping for oxygen and Soho was bright around her, dazzling. The sunlit curve of old dark brick fronts shone away from her into Chinatown and she turned along them, into the sweet smell of dried glazed meat, hanging burnished red in the windows.

  In her head Georgie knew where she was going, she had mapped her route out in advance and now followed it like a blind person. Right, then right, across the choked traffic of Shaftesbury Avenue, threading between buses straight on then left. A motorbike roared behind her, so close she felt the wind from it move her hair but she barely flinched.

  The police station was in a building from the nineteen-thirties, Georgie could even visualise it as she walked, head down, a building she must have passed dozens of times in the old days, the days when she was a Londoner. The blue lamp over the doorway and the plain handsome lettering of the period, a sober building. You never thought a police station applied to you, it was something glimpsed on a television screen, it was a backdrop. She had never thought, consciously, that she would ever climb the steps, walk inside. Georgie had never spoken to a police officer.

  He could still be following her. How had he known Georgie would be on the train, how had he known she wouldn’t be at work? It seemed almost supernatural: every nerve in her body jittered, uneasy.

  Hurrying now, outside an old-fashioned restaurant with dusty red lampshades Georgie sidestepped a big man in a camel hair coat who seemed to have planted himself in her way. She stopped, risking a second, had to look up because otherwise she would have bumped into him.

  Smooth looking, old, swept back grey hair. He stared, then made a sound and was out of her way.

  ‘A word,’ Eddie said.

  The first thing Frank saw as he stepped aside to let Eddie in was the piece of paper on the table, from Eddie’s accountant. He stopped, looking down: he had his phone in his hand and he set it down on the table slowly. Face down.

  The letter was official side up. He focused on the letterhead again, the name. The address. He frowned, and then there was Eddie, beside him and without a pause Eddie leaned past him across the table and took the piece of paper, folding it, tucking it into the pocket of the camel coat. He sauntered over to the window and stood in front of it, his overcoated bulk blocking the sun, and smiled.

  ‘What do you want?’ said Frank, just letting it happen. The first time he had ever spoken to Eddie that way.

  ‘Frank, Frank,’ said Eddie in that easy way he had. And sighed. ‘You’re involving yourself in something that is not your business. You see? You’re just a barman. Just a fucking barman.’

  ‘I’m leaving,’ said Frank immediately, before he knew he was going to say it but he could see straight away that wasn’t enough.

  He couldn’t just walk out, get on a bus to Brockley and Mum and forget all about it. Lucy had made her own bed, but Matteo? Musclebound Matteo running scared. Maybe he could leave Matteo, too, he was a big kid for all he was still a kid. It was Georgie – the thought of Georgie, standing there looking scared with her little girl on the pavement outside the bar, that made his chest tighten.

  Even if Eddie let him walk away, it was too late.

  Stepping back from the window so that the sun flooded back in Eddie said, ‘It’s too late.’

  And in that still bright instant Frank felt his own head move back, a small involuntary recoil, as he worked something out. Or saw something, more like: he saw the man’s face, looking down at a woman. The skinny guy waiting in the doorway opposite Fanelli’s: Frank knew where he’d seen him before. The realisation came with a tingle of shame, because where he’d seen him before was in a porn movie. Not even a movie, a clip on the computer, how long ago? A couple of years. Between girlfriends, after the Spanish bird who’d gone home and before the roller-sk
ating waitress.

  An appearance in a porn clip didn’t make you an actor. It made you someone who’d do a range of things for money. Frank couldn’t remember the woman, but he could remember the man: that was the thought that made him swallow, uneasy. He remembered the man, and the settee they’d been having sex on but the woman’s face had gone.

  Eddie was turning towards him. Of course he could be involved with porn, of course he could. It was bigger business than ever. Frank’s head hurt from trying to make this all connect, like holding wires up in a Bond movie, except that would be to defuse the bomb, wouldn’t it? Not set it off.

  ‘I need you here, Frankie,’ said Eddie easily. ‘I don’t think I’m going to let you go.’

  ‘What?’ said Frank, feeling stupid, on the tip of his tongue to say, you can’t stop me, but once anyone went head to head with Eddie, they were going to lose. He had to keep it quiet.

  ‘You knew that girl, didn’t you? The one that died,’ said Eddie smoothly and Frank went cold.

  ‘Holly,’ said Frank, feeling his scalp prickle, ‘No, I didn’t know her.’ Speaking slowly. Lucy did, he wanted to say but managed not to. Lucy did, Matteo did.

  ‘You sure?’ Eddie’s pouchy eyes, hard as stones. ‘You sure you didn’t have a quick one with her, round her place? You were seen over there, I’m sure someone said that.’ Scratching his chin ruminatively, stubble coming through white, Frank noted, mesmerised. ‘And she was easy, you know. She was anyone’s.’

  Trying to goad him. In the certain knowledge that he was being fitted up Frank said slowly, ‘What are you on about?’

  Eddie slotted his hands in the slanted pockets of his camel coat and tilted his head to one side. ‘You want to be careful,’ he said gently.

  ‘It’s to do with that night,’ Frank said before he could stop himself, because it slid into place, the wires joined. ‘The night when those girls came in, Holly and the other two. And that guy was hitting on them.’ And then he realised he needed to keep very quiet indeed.

 

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