Jessie Keane - Ruthless

‘OK, you can open them now.’

Layla’s eyes flickered open. She felt calmer. Her heart was beating slow and easy. She looked at Precious.

‘How did you do that?’ she demanded.

Precious smiled and returned her attention to her textbook. ‘Simple standard relaxation technique. A child could do it. And now you can too.’

‘What was that thing called again? The amyg-’

‘Amygdala.’

Layla nodded and let Precious get back to her work. Had she reacted emotionally, killed Orla because she was of low intelligence? No. Of course she wasn’t.

She knew she wasn’t.

She had acted in haste and in panic, to save her mother. To stop Orla Delaney. And God how she’d stopped her. She didn’t think she would ever forget the noise of the blast, or Orla flying back, or the blood trickling down the wall…

‘Precious?’

‘What?’ Precious looked up, her dark hair falling in her eyes. She pushed it back.

God, she was beautiful, thought Layla. Precious was beautiful enough to turn a straight woman gay. And Layla remembered – painfully – that look on Alberto’s face when he’d met her. He’d been bowled over, she could see that. All men reacted to Precious in that way. But Precious was more than just beautiful: she was warm and kind. Layla couldn’t believe it, but Precious actually sought her out every day. For the first time in her life, she had by some miracle acquired a real friend.

‘I’ve been thinking about what you said,’ said Layla, ‘accusing me of playing my looks down.’

Precious let out a laugh. ‘No, I didn’t accuse you of anything. And I’ve already apologized. It was tactless of me, I’m sorry.’

‘But you did say it.’

‘Yeah. I did.’ Precious looked concerned. ‘I thought I was forgiven.’

‘I’d just like to know what you meant, that’s all.’

‘No, no.’ Precious put her pen down. ‘Let’s drop this. I don’t want to offend you.’

‘I won’t be offended,’ promised Layla, knowing she probably would.

‘You sure…?’

‘Sure I’m sure. I want, need, your help with this. Go on. Tell me.’

‘Well… the hair, for a start.’

‘What’s wrong with my hair?’ Layla patted the top of her head nervously. Her hair was long and dark brown, like her mother’s. And thick, too. Mostly she wore it pulled back – no fringe – in a bun. Kept it out of the way in the office. And in a ponytail when she worked out.

‘Nothing. But you just don’t show it, that’s all.’

‘I can’t have it dangling all over the place when I’m working,’ said Layla.

‘Yeah, but you never let it down, do you? Not ever .’

‘Well, I…’ Layla felt defensive. I asked for it, she thought. And I got it, right between the eyes. ‘OK, OK. What else?’

‘No make-up,’ said Precious.

‘I’ve never worn it.’

‘Why not?’

‘Never occurred to me, I suppose.’

‘Why not?’

Layla thought about it. Shrugged.

‘And the way you dress,’ said Precious.

‘What’s wrong with the way I dress?’ She studied the plain black pencil skirt and camel jumper she was wearing.

‘You dress to play down your body, not flatter it. Which is – sorry – sort of odd. Wouldn’t you say?’

Layla felt a flare of indignation at that. ‘Well, I don’t dress like a tart, if that’s what you mean.’

‘You don’t even dress like a woman.’

Compressing her lips, Layla looked at the floor.

‘And I just have to wonder, why is that? Do you know? Have you any idea?’ Precious went on.

Layla didn’t know. She’d never given it a moment’s thought. She’d been busy studying, then working, and her family life, the bickering between her parents, had always been going on in the background.

‘See? I have offended you,’ said Precious.

‘No, but I think we’d better drop this before you do,’ said Layla stiffly, feeling the prickle of emotional tears behind her eyes. God, she wasn’t going to cry. This was ridiculous. It was stupid to get upset over something so silly.

She stood and headed for the door.

‘And your hands, what the hell happened there?’ Precious called after her. ‘You never heard the word “manicure”?’

‘Oh shut the fuck up,’ said Layla, and left the room.

Hurt as she was by the things Precious had said to her, Layla still found herself fascinated by her – and by the other girls too. There had been a time when she’d thought: Jesus, lap dancers! But now she knew these girls weren’t fools. China was supporting her family as best she could, Destiny was holding up a faltering marriage, and Precious was paying her way through uni, plotting her escape into psychotherapy.

That night, Layla ignored Ellie’s advice and went downstairs when the club was open, to take a peek at what happened down there. It was such an opulent place, like a palace, all tricked out in acres of gilt and faux tiger skin, with dark polished wood bars, cosy banquette seating areas and chandeliers dripping with crystals and tiny droplets of gold.

Away at the back of the room, behind a gold beaded curtain, she saw people moving. The VIP rooms for the private dancing were through there. Precious had told her about the private dancing.

‘We have strict rules here,’ she’d said to Layla. ‘No touching’s the most important. The girls don’t touch the clients, and neither the clients nor the girls touch themselves. Let’s keep this all decent. The girls dance. The client watches. That’s it.’

But Ellie had warned Layla off going downstairs. ‘I don’t want you in the club, Layla. You’ll only get some lairy banker trying to chat you up, then I’ll get grief off your mum and dad. You stay up here.’

Yet here Layla was, breaking the rules. It gave her a bit of a thrill, actually. She saw Precious, long dark hair flowing, wearing a midnight-blue dress that clung to her beautiful body, go through the beaded curtain with an older man. China was at a table, chatting to a group of men and a couple of women.

Destiny was at the bar, talking to a man who a moment ago had been drinking on his own. There was a gold bucket overflowing with ice on the bar, two bottles of Moët et Chandon chilling in there. Junior, behind the bar, opened one of the bottles, poured out two glassfuls. Destiny smiled and tossed her blonde hair, looking around.

Layla sank back into the shadows by the staircase, but not before Junior’s eyes met hers. He grinned and wagged a finger at her. Naughty naughty. He knew Ellie wouldn’t want her down here.

She looked again at the beaded curtain, still swinging after Precious and her companion had passed through it. For safety’s sake all the private dancing rooms were monitored from the room upstairs. She couldn’t help wondering what went on in those VIP rooms. Quickly she crept up the stairs, returned to her room and closed the door. Maybe one evening she’d sneak a peek in the monitor room, take a look at what went on.

‘You bastards !’ shouted Dickon.

There was a rusted bridge strung between two tall unused warehouses down in a disused part of the old docks. It was this bridge that Dickon, second cousin of the Delaney twins Orla and Redmond, found himself hanging from one dark night.

He was dangling upside-down, suspended by a rope tied around his ankles. The whole black and grimy night world was whirling around him, and his head felt as if it was about to be ripped off. Up on the bridge above him were several beefy types, all suited and booted and wearing black overcoats. One of them, grinning like a pirate, was now holding a knife. Dickon could see the thing sparkling in the moonlight.