Kiss Me When I'm Dead

by Dominic Piper

  ‘As I said, she sought oblivion, but I was ill disposed to let her have it, for her own good and for mine. I personally injected her, usually between the toes so the puncture marks would not be too obvious. Sometimes in the back of the neck, sometimes in the armpit, anywhere there was a vein. I thought it best that she always had to come to me for her fix, as it were. If I left it to her, she’d have had track marks over her forearms and that would never do. Oh no.’ He sighs and looks wistful. ‘I like to think that she thought of me as a father figure. Is that too precious of me, Mr Beckett?’

  ‘Precious? No.’

  I suddenly get Raleigh’s face in my mind. I’ve been so wrapped up in listening to Novak’s hellish narrative that I’ve almost forgotten what I’m doing here. So far, though, he hasn’t given me much I can use.

  ‘She was a whore,’ says Jeremy, usefully.

  I’m glad Jeremy spoke. I’ve been so focused on Novak that I let myself forget he was there for a few seconds.

  ‘Ah, well you would know all about that, Jeremy,’ says Novak, grinning at his slimy abettor. He turns to me and turns both palms up, in a gesture of honesty. ‘Jeremy and his chums gave Viola a dose of Rohypnol one night, Mr Beckett. That and a little pinch of the finest cocaine, plus some other high-class stimulants.

  ‘You should have seen her displays. Such wantonness! She was like a pig at a trough, Mr Beckett, a pig at a trough. I am so glad that I had the foresight to film it. A pretty penny was made there, I can tell you that for nought.’ He flashes a sly grin at me. ‘If you think it would help you in your investigations, I could sell you a DVD of the occasion at the reduced price of fifty pounds. All the fun of the fair.

  ‘To be quite honest with you, it was difficult to categorise it. My regular DVD customers like to know what they are getting, but this had absolutely everything. We even got a couple of my sleaziest girls in to spice things up a little. Old in body, but young in enthusiasm; I’m sure you know the type, Mr Beckett.’ He laughs and waggles his stumps. ‘I even indulged myself with a brief cameo appearance. I had ambitions to tread the boards when I was young, but it was not to be.’ He sighs at the memory. ‘We even got young Viola to lick the toilet clean at one point. Hilarious. It was almost like one of those art films they show at the ICA. Do you think Blu-ray will catch on, Mr Beckett?’

  ‘She was like a filthy fucking pig,’ says Jeremy, his eyes twinkling at the memory. ‘She was like a hog, a dirty fucking hog.’ Jeremy looks sick now. A few more minutes and he’ll be lying on the floor. I do hope he doesn’t go into shock and die. ‘The bitch,’ he adds helpfully, laughing weakly.

  ‘Not all of my girls are aficionados of the poppy, Mr Beckett, lest I give you that impression. Oh no. That only happens in cases like Viola’s, where her addictions outweighed her finances and she was a suitable candidate for whoredom. In most cases of payment arrears, Jeremy here will use a hammer on the miscreant, sometimes a knife; it all depends on his inclination at the time of the event.

  ‘He is a jolly fellow, don’t you think? Obedient to the last. I have no doubt, Mr Beckett, that he would like to use a hammer on you, as would I. Does it trouble you at all, Mr Beckett, being in a room where both of the other occupants would like to hammer you?’

  ‘Have you ever thought of getting a treadmill up here? It would save you having to go down in the lift to your little swimming pool every day.’

  ‘Ah! And you respond with a hammer blow to my soul. Well done, sir. Bravo.’

  ‘So Viola Raleigh worked as a prostitute for you in exchange for drugs.’

  ‘Not that simple, I’m afraid. I think she actually enjoyed the prostitution. Very unusual; most of the girls don’t really like it, but I think young Viola did. This is only my humble theory, but I think she thought that being at the mercy of multiple partners, being used so heartlessly and repeatedly, would somehow eradicate whatever it was that was eating away at her soul. Cod psychology, but it’s the best I can do under the circumstances. So sorry. I shall read a book on the subject before you visit me again. I do so hate being unprepared for an intellectual chat.’

  ‘But you have no idea what this thing was. The thing that was eating away at her soul.’

  ‘No. But whatever it was, a regular heroin habit and her dozen or so clients a day were not enough to keep it in check. It all went well for three or four months, but then I started getting complaints. These were complaints about her enthusiasm during performance, you understand. I began to get suspicious. I am many things, Mr Beckett, but I am not stupid.

  ‘We brought her up here, Jeremy stripped her for me and I examined every square inch of her body with a magnifying glass. I was truly the Sherlock Holmes of the demimonde. Then I found what I had been looking for. Puncture marks where there should not have been puncture marks. She had been supplementing her heroin diet, Mr Beckett. I have no idea where she was getting her supply from and I did not care. Her career with me was at an end. I had made back the money she owed me many times over and had no further use for her.’

  ‘The bitch,’ adds Jeremy, dribbling, his eyes going in and out of focus.

  ‘When did this happen?’

  ‘A little over eighteen months ago. I don’t remember the date. Sorry. I’ll mark it on a calendar the next time.’

  ‘So you just kicked her out and left her to her own devices?’

  ‘Oh no. That is not my modus operandi, Mr Beckett. She was still in good physical condition; she still had her looks, to a degree. She was a little skinnier than when she first came to me, but nothing that three square meals a day wouldn’t clear up if someone could be bothered to get her off the Horse.

  ‘She was from a good background, she was young, she had a good education and she was intelligent. Messed up beyond hope, perhaps, but still with many qualities to recommend her and with a lot of quality training and varied experience under her belt. There are people who are prepared to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, but I am not one of them. I simply don’t have the patience for that sort of thing.’

  ‘But you knew someone who did have the patience.’

  ‘Yes indeed, Mr Beckett. I did. I had, shall we say, certain suspicions about Viola’s nature and thought very carefully about who I could sell her to. It had to be someone very clever, sympathetic and perceptive. Someone who would be able to see past Viola’s troubles and use that body, that voice and that beauty to their best advantage. I am very capricious, you see. I had no more interest in her now.’

  ‘So who did you sell her to?’

  My voice sounds rough. I cough to clear my throat. I’ve been holding the gun for too long and my hand is sweating against it. I rest it on my thigh and wipe my hand on my chinos. I want to get out of here now. I’m sick of listening to this prick and keeping an eye on his drooling associate. I’m never doing missing persons again after this. It’s far too sleazy and time consuming, talking to stupid people who think they’re the smartest thing on the planet.

  ‘What you are asking me for has a price, Mr Beckett.’

  ‘I’m sure it does, Mr Novak. Here’s my deal. I took five hundred pounds out of a cashpoint machine yesterday purely for bribery purposes. I’ve already used two hundred of that. I’ll give you the three hundred if you give me the name. Obviously, I’ll also need a contact telephone number and/or an address. If that’s not enough money, I’ll just have to get the information out of you by other means. You have thirty seconds to think this over.’

  Novak slaps his hands against his thighs. ‘I knew this was going to be an exciting day as soon as you walked in here! Threats, violence; what else could a man in my position ask for? Three hundred pounds! Did you hear that, Jeremy? We’re in the money at long last.’

  Novak waggles his stumps up and down again. Jeremy looks at me with a dull expression on his face. He raises a fat hand to wipe his face and looks at it to see if there’s any blood. There is. Having discovered more about him in the last half hour, I really hope his nose hurts.


  ‘What are you going to do, Mr Beckett? Torture me? I have powerful friends in the police force, some of whom I have known for many years. Or perhaps you’re going to kill me. I can see that you’re capable of it, but then you’d have none of the information you seek, would you. No. I think I can safely tell you to fuck off, Mr Beckett. I shall do so now. Fuck off, Mr Beckett! Fuck off!’

  I have an Olympus digital voice recorder in my pocket. I think of it as new, but it’s already low-tech. Still does the job, though. I take it out and show it to Novak. It wipes the smile off his face.

  ‘I don’t have powerful friends in the police force, but I do have the mobile number of a detective who is criminally underused and hungry for promotion.’

  I’m thinking of DS Bream. That’s an unfair and totally inaccurate description of her, but it’ll give this dick something to think about. I remember her stretching back in her chair in the wine bar and that husky voice. Did I promise her dinner? I can’t remember. Jeremy looks at Novak, as if awaiting instructions.

  ‘Now I’m not sure how much this recording of our conversation would be worth in a court of law, but if I was a detective sergeant on the make and this fell into my lap, I’d certainly investigate you until your teeth rattled. I might even discover some police corruption as an added bonus, considering what you just said.’ I lean forward and catch his gaze in mine. ‘And who knows what else. You do have a licence for this firearm I take it?’

  ‘Ah,’ says Novak, with not a little resignation in his voice. ‘It is not difficult to call my bluff nowadays. In my prime, I would have personally eviscerated you and fed you your own testicles, but those halcyon days are over. I like a quiet life nowadays, Mr Beckett, so I’ll reluctantly take the three hundred. Can I see it first?’

  I open my wallet, remove the notes and fan them out so he can count them. This is good enough for him. He licks his lips.

  ‘Jeremy, would you be so kind as to fetch me my address book, a sheet of paper and a pen?’

  Jeremy just about manages this before collapsing in a heap on the floor. Novak rolls his eyes, chews the top of his Biro and scribbles away.

  ‘I shall remember you, Mr Beckett. I shall remember this little episode that we’ve shared today. I have friends.’

  ‘Shut up.’

  8

  A PIN-UP COME TO LIFE

  I make sure I’m a little early for my meeting, or date, or whatever it is with Anjukka. I don’t want her turning up and I’m not there. I stand next to one of the pillars beneath the Selfridge’s clock and stare into space, blocking out the passers-by and their chat. Every time someone comes out of the store, there’s an accompanying whiff of perfume.

  On my way out of Novak’s place, I encountered a sallow young girl in a short skirt who asked me if he lived there. She can’t have been more than twenty and had an accent that I couldn’t place. I told her that I was a doctor and had just been treating him for an infectious disease. He probably wouldn’t last the night. She looked concerned, thanked me and walked off quickly along the street. I’m not sure if that was a good thing to do, but it felt right at the time. I may, of course, have sent her on a trajectory to someone or something even worse.

  After that, I’d got a cab straight back to Exeter Street, had a shower and got changed. I needed the shower to get the atmosphere of Novak’s place out of my system. I’d decided to put all of today’s work out of my mind and think about it in an analytical way tomorrow, but it was difficult. Once someone like Novak has put images in your mind like those inspired by his description of Viola’s ‘training’ regime, they keep sliding up to the surface and are hard to shake off.

  I was surprised my little digital recorder threat worked on Novak, to be honest, but I think his type are on the way out and the services I’ve seen advertised on the net are the future; marginally safer, more autonomy for the girls and a little freer from the base exploitation of the type that Novak had specialised in, where the girls are basically cash cows.

  I tried watching a film, but turned it off after half an hour and went back to Fisher’s Viola file, pulling that A4 photograph out and staring at it for a while. It was a hypnotic image; there could be no doubt about that. The blonde hair, the intelligent eyes with that hint of flirtatiousness, the full mouth; you could stare at it for hours. This woman was definitely a cut above most of the escorts that I saw on all those websites. Many of them were strikingly attractive, but none as beautiful as Viola Raleigh.

  It’s no exaggeration to say that she could have been a model; not that a woman with looks like that would have to go into that line of business, but it would surely have been preferable to the horrors that Novak had described. Perhaps there wasn’t enough oblivion in modelling. Perhaps there wasn’t enough debasement in modelling. Perhaps there wasn’t enough horror in modelling. I use my mobile to photograph both of these prints. You never, know, I may need to show them to someone at some point, though I’m tempted to make the one taken by the professional photographer my background.

  Novak seemed to be a little surprised at Viola’s enjoyment of the whole process and so am I. His theory about her reasons for this may have had more than a grain of truth in it. Was she eradicating something that was eating away at her? Was the heroin not enough? She was a functioning heroin addict, from what Novak was telling me, but after a while you just need a fix to feel normal. To get high on it again, to get the thrill of that initial buzz, you need to up your dose until the day comes when your body can take no more. This isn’t always the case, but it’s common enough. My brother was a good example.

  So if things were that bad, why didn’t she commit suicide? Well, lots of reasons. It’s just against the nature of some people; their survival instinct is much too strong. Or they’re frightened doing it for a variety of reasons, some of them practical. Also, suicide attempts can fail and leave you in a worse state than you were in to begin with. Maybe you have some last vestiges of religious belief. Novak told me that during Viola’s training period, he could hear her crying and praying every night while she lay on her mattress, which is a little sad, I guess, but it could be the reason she felt reluctant to finish things off by her own hand. Of course, there could be some reason that I haven’t thought of.

  So apart from a more brutal history, what did I get from Novak? Well, anything that came out of that creep’s mouth would have to be taken with a pinch of salt, but taking that into account, it doesn’t seem likely that it was him that reported Viola missing three weeks ago. I‘ve thought about it, and I can’t see any reason why it would be in his interest to lie to me about that, unless it was pure cussedness on his part.

  He and his monkey were not well pleased about my intrusion into their life and I’m sure he’ll already be on the phone to his contacts, checking up on me. That’s all I need; another reason to keep looking over my shoulder.

  So now I’ve got the name of the next person down the line; Mrs Bianchi. Novak sold Viola to her for an undisclosed five-figure sum. He seemed to think he’d got a good deal, though it’s possible that it was Mrs Bianchi who got the good deal. This would depend upon the plans she had for Viola, how smart she was and how she intended to exploit her. Just because Mrs Bianchi is female (and, presumably, Italian), it doesn’t necessarily mean that she was the person who reported Viola missing, but it’s better than nothing. I’ll check her out tomorrow.

  I start to wonder how long this is going to take. How many people am I going to have to speak to until I finally contact Viola? Will it ever happen? I have to keep thinking of that twenty thousand bonus. I’m still annoyed that I’ve had to go down this path when a little police cooperation would have sorted it out much earlier. But then it’s only taken me a little over a day so far, so there’s nothing to complain about. And I did make contact with DS Bream.

  ‘Wow. You look totally zoned out.’

  It’s Anjukka and she looks fabulous. She’s wearing a close fitting, short, strapless Fifties-style dress with a cinched waist th
at accentuates her wide hips and a boned bust that pushes her breasts up so it looks like one of the more voluptuous Gil Elvgren pinups has come to life and is walking down Oxford Street. I think they call them wiggle dresses and it’s obvious why. The pattern is just as outrageous: enormous, bright green tropical leaves and dazzling red and orange flowers. You could only get away with this in London. Anywhere else and they’d think it was fancy dress. I swallow the saliva that’s somehow gathered in my mouth and attempt to speak.

  ‘I was miles away.’

  We link arms and walk along the pavement towards I don’t know where. Her swaying walk means her hip keeps brushing against mine and I can hear the swish of her stockings as they rub against each other. Add to this an overpowering musky perfume which I can’t identify and it’s one of those times where you could get run over and it really wouldn’t matter; it doesn’t get much better than this.

  ‘So where do private investigators take their dates nowadays? Some low dive with sawdust on the floor where fights break out all the time?’

  ‘Or there’s an Italian Place in John Prince’s Street, maybe ten minutes’ walk from here. They’ve got a champagne bar. I’ve heard it can get pretty violent when someone orders an unfashionable type of champagne cocktail. Will that do you?’

  ‘Sounds wonderful.’

  Men keep staring at us as we walk along. That’s not quite true; they stare at Anjukka and then glower at me.

  ‘I just realised I don’t know your surname.’

  ‘It’s York.’

  ‘Anjukka York. Striking.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘So what does your fiancé do?’

  ‘Are you fishing, Mr Beckett?’

  Then I notice that she’s not wearing her diamond and sapphire engagement ring. I guess she dumped him when she met me. It happens so much that it barely surprises me anymore.

  ‘Just curious.’