Two hundred and fifty years on and now it was the drugs squad, not vice, who worked these streets every night. The sniffer dogs did what they’d been trained to do but Thorne thought it was pretty much a waste of time and effort. A lot of hard work and resources to nail the odd casual user, the occasional two-bit dealer if they had a bit of luck…
“You know you’re always saying how you need a bit of luck sometimes?”
Thorne had stretched out on the sofa by now, the phone pressed to his ear, the other hand reaching down to rub Elvis’s belly. “Are you ever going to get to the point, Kodak?”
“Well, this is it. Your bit of good luck. I scanned the photo into my computer, blew it up big-time, okay? You can do all sorts of stuff if the quality of the original’s decent enough, yeah?” Thorne would have said it was impossible, but Bethell’s voice was actually getting that little bit higher as he got more excited. “So, I pixel-ated the bastard, zoomed in, and then I could suddenly see what that brown smudge was. I recognized it, see.”
“Recognized it?”
“It’s a burn mark, like a scorch on the white backcloth. I recognized it ’cause I was there when it happened. I was shooting a threesome nine months back and some silly tart, done a couple of pills too many, knocks over a big lamp. Fucking whole lot could have gone up, but all it did was leave this big burn mark up the roller. I remembered the shape of it. Tight fucker that runs the place never bothered to replace it…”
By now Thorne was sitting up. “Tight fucker’s name and address would be good.”
“Charles Dodd. Charlie, really, but he insists on Charles. Likes to pretend he’s posh, even though the cunt comes from Canvey Island…”
“Kodak…”
“The place is above a fishmonger’s on Brewer Street.”
Thorne knew the shop. “Right, listen…”
“You’ll have to wait a few days, I’m afraid, Mr. Thorne. He’s in Europe. I checked.”
Thorne was thinking it through. Should he wait? Could he get a warrant and turn the place over while Dodd was away…?
“I think I did a pretty good job, Mr. Thorne,” Bethell said. “What d’you reckon?”
“I want to know the second he’s back…”
Now, three days since that conversation, Thorne watched Dennis Bethell in the bookshop on the other side of the street. He was browsing through the remaindered art books, though some of his own, slightly racier stuff was almost certainly on sale downstairs.
Thorne moved to cross the road and was bumped roughly by a man coming fast, from his left. Thorne’s response was typically British. “Sorry,” he said. The other man grunted, raised a hand, and carried on walking.
Bethell was waving at him now from inside the bookshop. Thorne nodded toward the other end of the street and began walking. Bethell put down a coffee-table book of nude freak-show photographs, squeezed out of the shop doorway, and followed.
Welch laughed as he strolled away up Wardour Street. He’d learned a few things during the years he’d spent in various institutions. Never say sorry was one. How to recognize a copper was another…
Since his release he’d spent a lot of the time just walking around. The hostel was depressing, and he’d really enjoyed being out and about. The weather was amazing; a couple of days out in the open and he’d already got a bit of color back. If he looked better, less prison-pale, he thought that the women who were walking about, wearing next to nothing, looked gorgeous. Seriously horny. Fuck it, if this was global warming, then who gave a toss about the ozone layer?
There were windows all along the street with adverts in each for a new film. Welch stopped and looked at a couple that he liked the sound of. Maybe when his welfare money came through he might spend a couple of afternoons catching up. He’d enjoyed the cinema before he’d gone inside, tried to see most of the stuff that came out, providing it wasn’t too arty.
He’d been to the pictures the night before he was arrested, of course. The Blair Witch Project. She’d been all over him then, snuggling up in the scary bits, hand on his knee all the way through. Well up for it, she was. He could read the signals. It was only later that the bitch decided to change her mind. To fuck him around.
To this day, it amazed him that they could do that. Take a bloke all the way there, get him worked up, get him so as his balls felt like they’d explode, and then just turn around and casually announce that they didn’t feel like it. That it was too much too soon, or some such crap. He’d decided that it was crap, that she just didn’t want him to think she was a whore. That all she needed was a little persuasion…
He’d been astonished when the police had come knocking the next afternoon. Couldn’t fucking believe it. He was still shaking his head while they were taking the swabs.
He could see that the male copper, the detective sergeant, thought it was rubbish, that they were all wasting their time. When he’d told them how randy the silly bitch had been in the cinema, he was nodding, for fuck’s sake. He could see exactly what had been going on. The woman officer was different, though; she’d had it in for him straightaway.
“Good at reading signals, are you?” she’d said. Her expression blank, the spools on the tape squeaking as they turned in the recorder. “Tell me what I’m thinking right now…”
“That you’d fancy me if you weren’t a dyke?”
Looking into the window, he saw himself smile, remembering her face when he’d said it. The smile faded a little when he recalled the look on the same face eight months later; the grin from the other side of the courtroom as he was taken down.
He moved on to the next window. There was a poster advertising the new Bruce Willis blockbuster. Some new missile and Bruce’s cheeky smile and a tasty blonde with fake tits. Maybe next week, the week after, whenever he started getting the welfare checks, he might go and see it. He couldn’t afford it just yet. The discharge grant wasn’t going to stretch much further, and besides, he’d need a fair bit tomorrow night, to pay for the hotel.
“You sure he’s in there?”
“He’s in there, Mr. Thorne. Got back from Holland yesterday. Went over to pick up a few bits and pieces.”
Thorne nodded. Flowers weren’t the only thing that came across from Holland in vans…
They were standing across the road from the fishmonger’s, the flashing neon sign above Raymond’s Revue Bar reflected in the shop window. The reds and blues dancing across the shiny heads of salmon, herring, and turbot. Next to it, a narrow brown door.
Bethell forced his hands into the pockets of tight leather trousers. Shifted his weight from one expensive training shoe to the other. “Right, I’ll get out of your way, then, shall I?”
Thorne reached for his wallet, wondering if the tightness of Bethell’s trousers might have something to do with the height of his voice. He counted out fifty in tenners. Bethell took it and handed over an envelope in return.
“There’s your photo back…”
Thorne took a step into the road, turned, and held up the envelope. “I’d better not see this popping up on the Internet, all right?”
Bethell laughed. A series of shrill peeps. “I didn’t know you visited those sorts of sites…” Thorne was already starting to cross. “Listen, you won’t mention my name, will you…?”
Thorne stopped to let a car pass, spoke without turning. “Oh, so I can’t say, ‘Dennis sent me,’ then?”
“Seriously…”
“Relax, Kodak. Your reputation will remain squeaky-clean. No pun intended…”
Thorne pressed the button on the grimy white intercom and stepped back. He glanced up at an unmoving gray curtain, and right, into the black eye of a large, ugly-looking fish he couldn’t put a name to. The shopfront was original, the tiling that edged the window ornate, but the prices and stock were firmly in line with the twenty-first-century trendiness of the location. Sword-fish steaks at a fiver a pop, and not a clam to be seen…
“Yes…?”
“Mr. Dodd? I was
wondering if I could talk to you about renting some studio time…?”
Thorne could hear suspicion in every crackle of the speaker. He looked back at the ugly fish, found himself raising his eyebrows. What d’you reckon?
He was buzzed up.
Charlie Dodd stood at the top of a narrow, carpetless stairway. He was in his fifties with thin lips and a comb-over. He smiled, barring the way and trying to make it look like a welcome.
By the time Thorne had reached the top of the stairs, warrant card in hand, the smile had become a grimace.
“Have you got a warrant?”
“I don’t need one, you invited me up.”
“Listen, you obviously aren’t one of DCI Davey’s boys. Everything’s been sorted…”
Plenty of things in Soho were still the same forty years on. Thorne made a mental note of the name as he stepped past Dodd and pushed open an unpainted plywood door.
Dodd scuttled after him. “What the fuck’s your game…?”
The studio was no bigger than an average double bedroom and the main feature was indeed a double bed. Unlike the average bedroom, the walls were painted black, there were lights hung from a ceiling bar, and Thorne guessed that the array of sex toys and costumes on display was only likely to be replicated in the bedrooms of a few high-ranking members of Parliament…
A man turned from the foot of the bed, lifted a large video camera down from his shoulder. Behind him, a foot or so away from the bedstead, Thorne could see the white backdrop with the burn mark in the bottom right-hand corner.
Two thin, pale girls lay on the bed. One pulled her arm from beneath the other and reached down to pick up a pack of cigarettes from the floor. The other stared at him, her face blank and white as new paper.
“What’s this?” the man with the camera said.
Thorne smiled. “Don’t mind me…”
Dodd raised a placatory hand to the cameraman and turned to Thorne. “Now listen, there’s nothing illegal going on here, so why don’t you fuck off?”
“What about the stuff you’ve just brought back from Holland, Charlie?” Thorne stepped forward and steered Dodd into the corner of the room. “Sorry, I know you prefer Charles…”
The watery green eyes narrowed as Dodd’s mind raced, trying to work out who had the big mouth. “What do you want?”
Thorne took the picture from the envelope. “This photo was taken here.” He handed it to Dodd. “I just want to know who took it. Nothing too difficult…”
Dodd shook his head. “Not here, mate.”
Thorne squeezed behind Dodd, stood close enough to smell the sweat and hair oil. He jabbed a finger over his shoulder at the smudge on the photo and then lifted up Dodd’s head and pointed it at the scorch mark on the backcloth.
“Have another look, Charlie…”
Dodd turned back to the photo. The man with the camera had put it back onto his shoulder. He was mumbling something to the girls, who were lazily shifting their position on the bed.
“If it was taken here, I wasn’t around at the time,” Dodd said, handing the photo back to Thorne. He inclined his head toward the bed. “Stuff like this today, run-of-the-mill, I usually stick around, get on with other things…”
One of the girls began to moan theatrically. Thorne glanced across. The camera was trained on one girl’s head as it busied itself in her friend’s crotch. At the other end of the bed, the girl who was moaning stared at the ceiling, still smoking her cigarette.
“You saying you don’t remember this picture being taken?”
“There’s times, customers would rather I wasn’t here. You understand what I’m saying? Maybe there’s things being shot I’d prefer I didn’t witness anyway and they’re paying good money for the place, so—”
“Bullshit.” Thorne pushed the photo into Dodd’s face. “Do you see any animals? Underage boys?”
Dodd swatted Thorne’s arm away, shook his head.
“This is top-shelf stuff, no stronger than that. There’s a whole series of these and they’re much the same, so start remembering, Charlie…”
Dodd was starting to get upset. He ran his hands back and forth through the oily strands of hair. As he spoke, Thorne watched a white fleck of dried spittle move from bottom lip to top and back again. “I wasn’t here. All right? I’d remember if I was, I can remember every fucking shot taken up here, ask anybody. Like you say, the picture’s harmless enough, so what reason have I got to fuck you about…?”
On the bed, the girl who was being worked on leaned across to stub out her cigarette on a saucer. The cameraman moved in closer. “Go on,” he said to the other girl. “Get your tongue right up her arse…”
“All right,” Thorne said. “Think about anybody who might have asked you to make yourself scarce while they were shooting. Last six months or so…”
“Jesus, d’you know how many people use this place?”
“Not a regular. Probably a one-off.”
“Yeah, but still…”
“Just one man and a girl. Think…”
The cameraman kicked the end of the bed in annoyance and spun around. “For Christ’s sake, can you two shut up? I’m recording sound here…”
The girl who had been going down on her friend raised her head and turned to look at Thorne. The lights washed out her face, exaggerating the job that the heroin had already done. Dodd opened his mouth to speak and Thorne was grateful for the chance to look away.
“There was one, four or five months ago. It was like you said, a one-off. He just wanted the place for a couple of hours. Normally, even if they want rid of me for the shoot I stick around to set the lights up, but this bloke said he was going to do all that himself. Said he knew what he was doing.”
“What about the girl?”
“I never saw a girl. It was just him…”
“Give me a name.”
Dodd snorted, looked at Thorne in disbelief. “Right. I’ll check the files, shall I? Maybe ask my secretary to look it up. For fuck’s sake…”
Thorne took a step toward the doorway. “Get your coat on, Charlie. I need a picture of this fucker, and for your sake your memory for faces had better be as good as it is for tits and arse…”
“Sorry, mate, it’s not going to happen. That’s why I remembered him, as it goes. First I thought he was a messenger, you know, dropping off some negs or something. Head to foot in leather, with a dark visor on his helmet…”
Thorne knew straightaway that Dodd was telling the truth. It felt like something starting to press heavily against the back of his head. His piece of good luck turning to shit.
“You must have seen him more than once. He didn’t just turn up on the off chance…”
“Once to make the booking, once on the day.” Dodd was starting to sound slightly smug. “Never got a look at him, though. Both times he had the motorbike outfit on. I remember him standing out there on the stairs, in all the leather gear like a fucking hit man, waiting for me to leave…”
On the other side of the room, a vibrator began to buzz. The camera was rolling again.
Thorne turned and yanked open the door. The statement could be taken later, for what it was worth. He’d run headlong into another wall, and right now it felt as real, as black, as the one that ran around the tatty fuck parlor behind him.
He took the stairs down two at a time. The jolt that ran through his body at every step failed to dislodge the image that had fixed itself in his head. The face of the girl on the bed when she’d raised up her head and turned to look at him…
Her mouth and chin glistening, but the eyes as black and dead as those of the fish that lay on slabs in the window of the shop next door.
August 10, 1976
It was the first time in a long while that he’d seen anything at all register on her face. He wasn’t expecting a reaction, but it tickled him nevertheless. To see her jaw drop a little, watch her eyes widen when she saw his hand tighten around the base of the lamp…
“Pleas
e,” she said. Please…
In the few seconds that he held the lamp high above his head, he thought about the different uses of that word. The meanings that it could take on. Its many subtle varieties, conjured by the tiniest changes in emphasis.
He thought about the number of ways it could mislead.
Please don’t.
Please do.
Please don’t stop doing…
Please me. Pleasure me. Please…
Pleading for it.
As he brought the lamp down with every ounce of strength he had, he thought that, all in all, it was a pretty appropriate word. For her very last.
At least, the way she meant it now, it was honest.
With each successive blow he became more focused, his thinking becoming less cluttered, until finally, when she was unrecognizable, he could remember where in the garage he’d last seen the tow rope.
NINE
That dreadful hiatus between arriving and anything actually happening…
The plastic wrap, they were assured, would be coming off the buffet platters very shortly, and the DJ wouldn’t be too long setting his gear up. Until then, there was a hundred and fifty quid behind the bar, so everybody could get a couple down them and toast the bride and groom one more time while they were waiting for the fun to start. Everyone could mingle…
Tragically, there weren’t quite enough people in the rugby club bar for a significant hubbub to develop; there was no comforting blanket of noise for Thorne to hide under. He got a pint of bitter for his dad, half a Guinness for himself, and looked for the nearest corner. He sat sipping his beer and tried to summon up the necessary enthusiasm for Scotch eggs and pork pie and cold pasta salad. Raised his glass to anyone whose eye he caught and tried not to look too bored or miserable or, God forbid, in need of cheering up.
His father was certainly in no need of it. Jim Thorne sat on a chair at the bar holding court. Telling jokes to a couple of teenage boys who laughed and sipped their weak lagers. Informing any woman who would listen that he had a memory like a goldfish, because he had that disease with the funny name. He’d forgotten, what was it called again? Asking with a twinkle to be forgiven if he’d slept with any of them and couldn’t remember.
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