But Michaela had always been a selfish, two-faced liar; it was in his nature. Two grand was two grand after all. He needed money to go to South America and get The Op, the surgical procedure that would change his life.
A girl had to look out for number one - especially when that girl was in fact a man.
Louis Bardell was twenty-eight. His smooth olive skin, deep green eyes and thick black hair made him strikingly attractive. He knew people looked at him and he enjoyed it. He was also a homosexual with a taste for the exotic: young boys.
As he and a pair of soulmates came out of his Kensington flat, Louis saw a large thuggish-looking bald man leaning against his dark blue Mercedes. Glancing at his friends, he pulled himself up to his full height and said loudly: ‘Get off my car, there’s a good chap, before I call the police.’
The man stood upright and Louis saw just how large he was. His two friends took a step back.
‘I am the police. Shall we go inside? I need to talk to you about something.’
‘I’m sorry but I’m on my way out for the evening . . .’ His voice trailed off as Richard Gates smiled threateningly down at him. ‘Inside, please, all of you.’
Back in the house Richard watched as Louis and his friends all seated themselves in the high-ceilinged drawing room.
‘Nice place.’
Louis snorted. ‘Take a good look, dearie, it’s the nearest you’ll ever get to real money.’
Richard said pleasantly, ‘If you don’t shut your fucking mouth, I’ll see to it that you’re banged up in Brixton for the next few days, helping me with enquiries - and that’s the nearest you’ll ever get to having your arse torn out!’
Louis and his friends all shuddered.
‘Pain is a horrible thing, isn’t it, lads?’ Gates went on. ‘I know I don’t like it, not personally, though I enjoy inflicting it on people. Funny that, isn’t it? I could take out a knife and cut off your ears and laugh me head off, but if you accidentally scratched me, I’d do me crust. You see, I hate pain, personal pain.’
Richard smiled at Louis.
‘And that’s something we have in common, isn’t it? Because you like hurting people, don’t you? You like hurting little boys and girls. I know that’s true because I have a video of you doing just that. You see, Trevale sold those videos he made of you in action. It wasn’t such a private party. You’re number one in the paedophile electric blue charts all over Europe. You’re famous, mate.’
Louis was now a sickly white. His whole demeanour had changed in a few seconds. Licking his lips, he shook his head in confusion. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘Your big green eyes are striking, hard to mistake. I understand you also have a rather unusual tattoo on your right buttock: a snake chasing itself. Want to take down your trousers and prove me wrong? No, thought not. You’re looking at a long stretch, Sonny Jim,’ he concluded. ‘There ain’t enough money in the world to stop this prosecution taking place.’
‘You’d better be very careful what you say, Mr . . .’
Richard smiled. ‘Gates. Detective Inspector Richard Gates. Would you like me to tattoo the name on your other cheek, by any chance? In case you forget it?’ He turned to the other two men and smiled once more. It was one of his better smiles, a cross between a grimace and a death’s head. ‘You two gentlemen are quiet. What’s wrong, cat got your tongues?’
The two men, one a computer analyst and the other a professional footballer, stared at him in distress and fear.
‘What exactly are you after?’ This from the analyst.
‘I’m after the location of Terry Campbell’s little soiree, the one he’s having tonight. I heard through the grapevine he was having one of his private parties. Well, they would have to be private, wouldn’t they? I mean, it’s hardly the type of occasion you’d invite your mother or sister to, is it?’
The footballer, a twenty-five-year-old Frenchman, had the grace to look ashamed and instinctively Richard knew he had his man.
He looked at Richard and spoke softly. ‘No one knows the location until an hour before. That’s how it’s always worked in the past.’
‘OK,’ Richard decided, ‘we’re all going to sit here together and have a lovely little chat, a few Scotches, and when we know the location, I can get along there and fuck up the night’s entertainment.’ He rubbed his hands together in a parody of Uriah Heep and squealed in a girlish voice: ‘Boy, am I looking forward to that!’
Kitty was terrified. When she had seen Michaela at the school she had at first been concerned, fearing that her mother was ill. But Michaela had been quick to reassure her that her mother was in fact OK; Desrae was holding a private party and he wanted Kitty to be there. The story about Cathy’s being unwell was just for the school’s benefit.
It wasn’t until they had hit London and she had been taken to a strange house that she’d realised something was not right. Her first sight of Trevale Campbell had been terrifying. He just stared at her, then made her put her arms above her head and turn around slowly. All the time she did it he watched her critically.
Michaela was nowhere to be seen. When Kitty attempted to walk to the front door, the man took her roughly by the arm and slammed her into a chair so hard it jarred her spine. The girl realised she was in danger, but had no idea why this was happening. What could the man want with her?
Then he put on a video and told her to watch it, and learn.
It was only after she had seen the video that she understood just how much trouble she was in.
Trevale Campbell was loving every second of her distress.
This was pay back in a big way.
If that bitch’s mother thought she’d get away with desecrating his home then she had another think coming. And when he had sorted out the daughter, he was going to sort out the mother as well.
He was going to force her to watch the video of her daughter’s coming of age.
Eddie Durrant was very big, and handsome with the dark, almond-shaped eyes of his father and perfect coffee-coloured skin. A violent criminal, he hated his half-brother Trevale with a vengeance. Eddie’s mother had been a young white East End girl called Renee. She had given birth at sixteen, and his father had abandoned her though he always kept an eye on his son.
Like Trevale, Eddie was his father’s son.
He’d urged his boys to be hard, to be tough, to be the best. He’d forced them into violent confrontations as children, made them fight when they were together, making the victor his best boy for the day.
Eddie had always resented the fact that his father had lived with Trevale’s mother after discarding his own.
As he grew into adulthood he had the same kink in his nature as his half-brother. Both took kindness for weakness, and both respected strength, and strength alone. Both used and abused everyone and anyone. Both saw money as the only commodity, and violent sexual activity as something that was their right. It would never have occurred to them that feelings were involved. At least, the feelings of other people.
When Eddie had found out that his brother was making a small fortune with his sex films business, he had made it his own business to hop in and take a slice of the action. Not because he needed the money or because he wanted a new venture, but because it pleased him to put one over on Trevale. Michaela had come up trumps as Eddie had known he would.
Now, as he heard the latest development in the story, Eddie felt annoyed and elated all at the same time.
‘You’re telling me that my brother has taken the daughter of Cathy Pasquale and is going to use her at one of his parties tonight?’
Michaela nodded, worried about what he had done. Seeing Eddie had made him realise he had a foot in both camps and that could be a dangerous thing. A very dangerous thing. But he wanted to score a little more money before he made his departure for Rio.
Michaela put on his little-girl-lost face and said breathily: ‘I had to do what he asked, Eddie. I mean, if I’d refused to go and get her, he’d have hu
rt me bad, wouldn’t he?’
Eddie looked at the man-woman before him and felt disgust rise inside him. ‘That Pasquale woman has been good to you. Don’t you have any loyalty to anyone, Mickey?’
Michaela shrugged. ‘Of course I do, but I can’t fight Terry, you know that. Once you go back to South America, I’ll be left to fend for myself again. I can’t afford to have your brother as an enemy.’
Eddie laughed humourlessly. ‘But you can afford to have Cathy Pasquale as your enemy, is that it?’
Michaela was not at all pleased with the way the conversation was progressing. ‘Look, Eddie, I just did what I had to do, OK? I’m sorry, I liked the girl, I like Cathy . . . fuck me, I like them all but I have to watch my own arse. This could be an earner you know, for us both. If we tell Cathy we can get her daughter back she’ll pay well, I know she will.’
Eddie sat opposite him, resting his chin in one large cupped hand. ‘You don’t say?’
Warming to his theme, Michaela nodded furiously. ‘At least ten grand, maybe more.’
Eddie waved his hand dismissively. ‘You are willing to sell the life of a young girl, the daughter of a woman who was very good to you. Who loaned you money for your breast op, who gave you a job when you needed one, who has taken you into her club and by the sound of it, her family. I just want to get this straight in my own mind, see. I want to know for sure that you really are that fucking low! Christ, I thought Trevale was a piece of dirt, but you, Michaela - you take the biscuit.’
Mickey pouted. ‘Well, when you put it like that, of course it sounds bad. But you’re not looking at it from my point of view, are you? I’ve worked my butt off in that club for Cathy, night after night. She ain’t given it to me for nothing, has she? I mean, it’s in her interest to treat us well, isn’t it? She is a nice woman, granted, but at the end of the day she’s still my employer - it’s not like it’s family, is it? She’s rolling in it, fucking stinking rich. Why shouldn’t I have a bit of what she’s got, eh?’
‘You really think you can justify what you’ve done, don’t you?’ Eddie’s voice was high with disbelief. ‘Look - I asked you to help me set up my brother. That was personal. Then you go behind my back and work out a completely new deal with him. Then’ - he laughed - ‘this is the bit I really like, you think you can come here and make even more money by using me to blackmail the woman who has been good to you, and who incidentally has never done a fucking thing to me. Is that right? Am I reading all this correctly?’
Eddie stood up. ‘Get your coat back on. Me and you are going to pay this woman a little visit.’
Michaela nearly fainted. ‘I beg your pardon?’
‘You heard me. You are going to see this bitch and tell her what’s happened to her daughter - and if she decides to kick your ass, I ain’t going to stop her, honey pie. In fact, I might just give her a hand. In all the years I’ve known you, Mickey, I knew you was a user, but this lot takes the fucking red rosette. But then, you see, there’s another side to all this. Now I can get my brother wasted without even raising my hand. That, to me, sounds like good business.’
Michaela was stunned. ‘Come on, Eddie, you wouldn’t sell me down the river? You wouldn’t do this to me?’
He smoothed his hand across his shaven head and said gaily: ‘Oh, but I would. You just watch me.’
Eddie finally tracked Cathy down to the club where she was waiting with Susan P and Desrae to learn the location of the party. When he walked into the office with Michaela, Susan and Desrae both stared as if they had seen a ghost.
‘Eddie Durrant and the Lovely Michaela - to what do we owe this pleasure?’ Susan P’s voice was heavy with malice.
‘Long time no see, Susan. You’re looking good, baby. But then, you always did,’ Eddie said smoothly. He smiled at Cathy, holding out one perfectly manicured hand. ‘Mrs Pasquale? A pleasure I’m sure.’
Cathy stared at him with relief. If this was Trevale’s brother, the one who hated him, then they were in with a chance. The coke had kicked in by now and her mind was razor sharp though her hands were trembling. Then it registered properly that this was Michaela standing with him: Michaela who had taken Cathy’s baby from school and delivered her to the man who would destroy her innocence.
As Cathy flew across the room and grabbed at him, no one else moved a muscle.
Ripping his wig off his head, Cathy proceeded to punch, kick and pummel the slim-hipped young man lying abjectly on the floor before her. Grabbing his face in her hand, she looked down into his eyes.
‘I’ll see you dead, you bastard, over this night’s work. I’ll see you screaming in fucking pain and I’ll laugh, mate. And if you think you’ve got a handful with me, you wait until the girls get their hands on you!’
As Michaela, crying and wailing, tried to explain himself, Eddie Durrant said: ‘Can it, Mickey.’ Then he told Cathy and the others exactly what Michaela had done. As he spoke Mickey saw his chances of survival slipping further away with every word.
In the club the night was just picking up. Red, a large-boned Irishman with a Danny la Rue laugh and the clothes of Carmen Miranda, was just going into his opening number. They could hear him singing ‘I, I, I, I, I, I love you very much,’ in a strangely mixed Irish-Mexican accent.
It always went down a bomb, and tonight was no different.
Susan P listened then said: ‘So where’s the girl, do you know?’
Eddie nodded sagely. ‘But I want something in return.’
Desrae snorted. ‘Well, spit it out, nigger, we ain’t got all fucking night!’
Eddie faced him and smiled, his eyes hard. ‘I ain’t no one’s nigger, and if you think I’m after money, I’m not. I am after the cessation of my brother’s power of breathing - if you understand me?’
Cathy nodded. ‘Don’t you worry, if I get my hands on him he will never draw fucking breath again.’
Eddie appeared satisfied with this. ‘The house your daughter is in is just off Kensington High Street,’ he told the assembled gathering. ‘It’s my half-sister’s house, but she ain’t there. He packed her off today with the kids. I assume he’ll move your girl there just before the party begins.’
He looked at his watch. ‘It’s just after nine-thirty, and the parties usually don’t start until around eleven, eleven-thirty. All the heroes like to get well tanked up beforehand, prepare themselves for their night’s entertainment. We should catch her then.’
‘And we should catch Trevale there, too, shouldn’t we?’ Cathy asked, her voice a whisper.
‘Of course.’
Everyone moved at once. Michaela was still lying on the floor, scared and bloodied. Cathy looked down at him. ‘I’ll deal with you later, Mickey.’
‘I’ll watch him,’ Eddie promised. ‘You get yourselves off and when you come back you can tell me all about it.’
Cathy nodded, her eyes dead. ‘You can bank on that, Mr Durrant.’
The big black man grinned and spread his arms in a gesture of friendliness. ‘Please, call me Eddie. All my friends do.’
No one answered. They left the office in double-quick time. Eddie smiled down at Michaela. ‘Now then, they have a well-stocked bar, can I get you a drink after all?’
Michaela stared up at the man he had slept with on numerous occasions and said thickly, ‘You bastard.’
‘But of course! Everyone knows my daddy never married my mummy,’ Eddie said pleasantly. ‘It’s the root of all my problems.’
Helping himself to a large Remy Martin he savoured the taste, anticipating the moment when he would be told his half-brother was dead.
Chapter Forty-Four
Johnny Cartwright watched as Terry Campbell forced the girl into the room. She was terrified. Her hands were tied behind her back, and he felt sorry for her, really sorry, because he knew that she was to join him as tonight’s entertainment. With her long dark hair and her huge blue eyes she was stunning, and he knew she would take a lot of the heat off him.
As sh
e lay on the floor he could see her whole body trembling. She was already in a state from either drugs or shock, maybe a mixture of both. One thing was for certain: she had no real idea what was going on around her. Her eyes were wild, like a trapped animal’s, a long streamer of spittle was hanging from her mouth and her lips were pulled back over her teeth in a grimace of terror.
He found it in his heart to feel sorry for her.
He had been in this room for hours, and as the day wore on had become resigned to what was going to happen to him. He had been selling himself for a long while so the thought was frightening but not exactly new to him.
This girl, however, was different. You could tell she wasn’t in the life by her abject fear, her neat clothes and her cleanliness. He guessed, rightly, that she was a stolen child. His deep green eyes were sad as he saw Trevale pulling her on to the large bed. Her skinny kid’s legs were on show, and her underwear, school issue navy blue drawers, were baggy on her. Johnny knew that this would be a major selling point for the people who were to come to this so-called party.
She was tall for a young one, but had the fresh-faced look they craved, neither girl nor woman. Flat breasts and sparse pubic hair were the order of the day for these people, he knew that himself. After all, he sold himself on a daily basis, knew more about it than all the so-called psychologists and social workers. They merely observed, had never participated.
Kitty had decided to fight back and tried to claw the man as he dragged her on to the bed. He punched her as hard as he could in the thigh, careful not to mark her face. The dead leg penetrated even the Demerol with which she had been injected and she screamed in agony. Two minutes later she had her mouth taped and her arms tied to the headboard, pulled above her head.
Terry was just lighting a joint when the first visitors arrived. Johnny sat quietly, watching the man and the woman as they came through the door. They were in their fifties and well dressed in matching leather jackets. Terry greeted them like a maître d’ in a fashionable restaurant. The woman was heavy-set with exaggerated eye make-up and backcombed hair. Johnny took her to be an ageing prostitute; the man beside her was obviously her partner.