Simon Kernick - The Business of Dying

'Well, it would be difficult to avoid the fact that you've got a motive for wanting her out of the way… but then so have a few other people. She was clearly the sort of girl who attracts enemies. Did you kill her?'

She looked me in the eye. 'No, I didn't. I had nothing to do with it. I might have had a motive, but not a strong enough one. Even if someone had believed her, I wouldn't really have been losing that much. I'm getting tired of the job at Coleman House anyway. It never seems to be doing anything to improve the lot of the people I'm meant to be helping, and I doubt if it accounts for more than a third of my earnings these days. I certainly wouldn't kill anyone over it.' She finished her wine and poured the last drops from the bottle in equal measures into her glass and mine. I doubt if there was more than a mouthful each. 'Do you believe me, Mr Milne?'

It was a good question. On balance, yes, I did. Her story sounded plausible. Coincidental, but still plausible. More so than any alternatives I might have thought up, and I was almost certain she hadn't delivered the fatal blow. She was tall and lithe, but it had been a man, and a strong one at that, who had killed Miriam Fox. That meant that for Carla to be guilty she would have needed to have got someone else involved in the plot, which, as far as I could see, would have defeated the object of it in the first place. And she was right too. All to defend a job managing a care home for delinquent kids? Somehow I didn't think so.

I sighed. 'I'm not going to take it any further, put it like that.'

'But you don't believe me?'

'I don't really know what to believe. It's a pretty strange story, you've got to admit that. One minute you're a high-powered social worker managing a kids' home, the next you're an escort girl with a nice line in kinky customers.'

'You certainly know how to make it sound degrading.'

I gulped my mouthful of wine. 'Well, isn't it? Getting fucked for money by middle-aged men who'll dip their wick with anyone who'll take the cash off them? It's hardly what you'd call satisfying and useful work.'

'I'm not going to apologize for what I do. I provide a service, nobody gets hurt, and sometimes, you know… sometimes it is quite satisfying. And if I get paid for it too… it's all the better, isn't it?'

'I don't know. Is it?'

'Have you ever paid for sex, Mr Milne? Dennis?'

I smiled. 'Why? Are you offering?'

She smiled back. 'I'm very choosy about who I sleep with.'

'Well, I guess that's me out then. A nosey, cynical copper's hardly a prime catch.'

She didn't say anything and we sat in silence for a few moments, both, I think, pondering our positions in the world and what we'd actually achieved. It struck me then that the two of us weren't really all that dissimilar. Both of us were leading murky double lives we'd far rather keep deeply buried. The difference was, I'd kill to preserve the secrecy of mine. At least I hoped this was the difference.

'Do you want another drink?' she asked me eventually.

I looked at her, not sure whether she actually wanted me to stay or not. She gave a weary smile back, which I took to mean yes. 'Are you having one?'

She nodded. 'Why not?'

I watched her as she turned round in her seat and removed a bottle of brandy from a cupboard behind the sofa. Her bottom looked remarkably pert.

'Will this do?'

'Perfect,' I said as she put two fresh glasses down on the table and poured a hefty slug into each.

I offered her a cigarette from my pack, but she opted for a Silk Cut. I lit mine and sat back in my seat, thinking that there was something about her story that turned me on. The prim, well-spoken manager who turns into the whore by night. I know it's the fantasy of a lot of men, and in that respect I was just like everyone else.

'So how did a respectable lady like yourself get into… escort work?'

She took a drink of the brandy and pulled the sort of face you pull when you're quaffing neat spirits. 'It's a long story.'

'That's just the way I like them.'

'I was married for a long time to a man I really cared about. He was a social worker, like me. We met at university, fell in love, and that was it really. Neither of us really believed in marriage, but I think we wanted a way of showing how committed we were to each other. We both totally believed in what we were doing; I suppose people do when they're young. We didn't have a lot of money, but it didn't really seem to matter. We rented a nice little two-bedroom flat in Camden, and things were good. You know what it's like when you're in love. You're happy with your lot.'

I nodded to show I understood, but I wasn't sure if I did.

'Then, one day, he told me he'd met someone else. A girl in the department. He didn't even seem that sorry about it. He talked about it as if it was one of those things; something that couldn't be helped. All our time together, eight years of marriage, the whole relationship… it ended just like that.' She gave me a look that demanded understanding, if not sympathy, her face a combination of sadness and anger. 'He moved out the next day and applied for a transfer to York, which was where she came from. Apparently she was pregnant and wanted to be closer to home. Sometimes I think that's why he went for her. Because she wanted kids, and I wanted to wait for a while.'

'It must have been very hard on you,' I said, stating the fucking obvious.

'It was. I was suddenly on my own for the first time in a long time, and what made it worse was that without Steve I couldn't pay the rent on the flat, so I had to move out of there too, and that part really hurt. I'd worked so hard to make it a home, spent hours and hours getting it just right, and in the end it was all for nothing.

'So, there I was, broke, single, and depressed. Even the job didn't seem to be going right. I was moving up the ladder, but not as fast as I'd have liked, and the work was providing a lot of frustrations. Kids who you put so much time into, who you really thought were going to make it, ended up overdosing on smack and barbiturates, or turning their back on you, and all that bureaucratic interfering. It was a real low point in my life, probably the lowest. At one time it even crossed my mind to, you know…' She trailed off.

'But eventually I pulled myself together and life went on. But I was a changed person, Dennis. I lost a lot of my idealism, I was harder, more focused. Then, one day, I read an article about a housewife who worked in the days as a part-time call girl. She didn't do it for the money. I think she was more interested in the adventure, and maybe the sex, but she seemed happy with the way it worked out and at the time money for me was still very, very tight, so I thought, I could do that. I'm attractive. I'm quite good company. And I'm certainly lonely enough to appreciate the attention, even if it was from people I wouldn't normally have associated with. So I decided to give it a go.'

'You've been doing it for a while, then?'

'I suppose I have. I've never really thought about it. It's a part of my life now.'

'I still can't believe it,' I said, taking a sip of the brandy. 'When I first met you I'd never have guessed that, you know, you were involved in this sort of thing. I'm not condemning it. It's just a bit of a shock.'

Carla shrugged.

'And do you enjoy it?'

She appeared to think about it for a moment. 'Sometimes. Not all the time. Maybe not even much of the time. But sometimes. So, how about you? Did you always want to be a copper, or did you just fall into it?'

I took a long drag on my cigarette. 'I think I always wanted to be one. You know, when I was growing up, I had this real sense of justice. I hated bullies, and I hated it when people did something bad and got away with it. I thought it would be really good to do a job where you could stop that sort of thing from happening, and when it had already happened you could punish the perpetrators. I also thought it would be a bit of an adventure.'