John Harvey - Good Bait

‘Not so’s you’d notice.’

Cordon switched it off with the remote; sat at the opposite end of the settee, legs crossed at the ankle. Letitia had replaced her father’s old sweater with something of her own, softer, closer fitting, a skirt instead of blue jeans. Let down her hair.

‘You’ve not heard anything?’ Cordon asked. ‘Anton, no calls?’

A shake of the head.

‘Maybe he’s calmed down, seen sense.’

‘Yeah. An’ pigs can fly.’

The curtains had been pulled most of the way across, leaving space enough for the lights of the odd passing car to shimmer through. Quiet enough to hear the occasional cat cry, the footsteps of someone out walking their dog. Cordon thought he could hear, lifted on the wind, distant and indistinct, the occasional taint of music from the town, but he was never sure.

He reached down and refreshed Letitia’s glass and then his own.

‘Anton,’ he said. ‘You want to tell me about him?’

‘Like what?’

‘I don’t know. Anything. You and him, for instance.’

‘What? Our romance? How true love found Letitia at last? Rich Ukrainian sweeps her off her feet like Cinder-fucking-rella.’

‘If you like.’

‘Fuck off, Cordon.’

Cordon shrugged, took another drink.

‘You want to know the truth?’ she said.

He shrugged. ‘Up to you.’

‘The truth is this, this story, I’m the Ugly Sister, right? Running some knocking shop in Streatham. Nursemaid and matron to scabby little whores from every godforsaken bit of Eastern Europe, selling their skinny arses to send money back home an’ pay off what they owe. Forever bitching and bloody complaining. Not that I blame them.

‘Anyway, one night there’s this big party. Anton’s there, guest of honour, fifty-pound notes spilling out of his pockets like bloody Kleenex, everyone kowtowing to him like he’s something special. Coke. Champagne. Enough pills to start a fucking Salsa band. The girls putting on some kind of lezzy sex show. Anton, he’s got the pick of the crop, and fuck if he don’t choose me. “What I want’s a real woman,” he says. “Not some kid, doesn’t know what it’s all about.” Crap like that. As if I’ve got any choice. So, anyway, I show him, don’t I? Not a lot to lose. Wants to see what a real woman can do, why not?’

She grinned, remembering, enjoying the discomfort on Cordon’s face.

‘Only sent for me again after that, didn’t he? Couple of nights later. Bloody great limousine. Roses in his hotel room. Coke laid out on the pillow like them little chocolates the maid leaves, hoping for a tip. More fucking champagne. Wants me to blow him in front of the mirror while he pretends to slap me around. No pain, no gain, right?’

A quick glance at Cordon to see how he’d take that, make sure he was paying close enough attention.

‘After all that palaver, instead of chucking me out he says he wants me to go and work for him. Reckons he can trust me. This place in Feltham, out near the airport, that’s where it was first. Hostel. Sort of. Finsbury Park came after. Asylum seekers, that’s what it was, mostly. Little more than kids, some of them. A lot of them. They’d stay there a few weeks, month maybe, then move on.’

‘Move on where?’

‘I don’t know.’

Cordon looked at her until she looked away.

‘Move on where?’

‘I don’t know. Wherever he wanted them. Could be anything. Anywhere. Anything he had a hand in. Him and his brothers, the guys they used to hang around with. Pizza parlours, that’s where a lot of ’em went, this chain of pizza parlours, all across the fuckin’ Midlands. Working twelve-hour fuckin’ shifts. Some, they went off to cannabis factories, worked there, least that’s what I heard. Never knew for sure.’

‘And brothels? Massage parlours? How about those? Like the one in Streatham.’

‘Maybe.’

‘And that was okay?’

‘Okay? How d’you mean?’

‘Helping pimp these people — kids, isn’t that what you said? Little more than kids. Pimping them into prostitution.’

‘Christ, Cordon! Listen to yourself, will you? When did you take holy fucking orders?’ She brought her glass down hard against wood and the wine splashed up over her hand. ‘Let me tell you about those girls, yeah? Over here from Bela-bloody-Rus or somewhere, illegal, broke, barely speak half a dozen words of the fucking language, it’s either lay back and spread your legs or get sent home and freeze your arse off on some autobahn, looking to suck off lorry drivers for the price of a salami and a loaf of bread.’

Cordon was slowly shaking his head. ‘Social Services, then, that’s what it was? What you were doing? Picking up the slack from the local council. Part of what’s his face’s Big Society?’

‘Sod off, Cordon, you sarcastic bastard.’

‘Yes, right, fine.’

He got as far as the window, lifting back the curtain to look out. The street lamp nearest to the house was no longer working. Lights were still showing faintly, here and there along the street; the darkened silhouettes of parked cars. Then, deep in the shadows, a movement. Cordon tensed, uncertain. Someone local, she’d said, a possibility, someone he’d used before.

He looked again: there was nothing.

His imagination.

The boy whimpered in his sleep and as Cordon turned, Letitia got to her feet.

No further sound, she sat back down.

‘Danny,’ Cordon said, with a glance towards the stairs. ‘You and Anton, having a child together, that seems like something serious.’

Letitia reached for her cigarettes.

‘Once I was there, working, Feltham, things running smoothly, I didn’t see him for weeks at a time. One of his brothers, sometimes; Parlo usually. Checking up. Then, when he did come by, Anton, sometimes he’d ignore me, part of the furniture, sometimes not.’

Smoke lingered at the corners of her mouth.

‘One of those times, I got careless.’ She smiled a rueful smile. ‘Got myself knocked up. Okay, I thought, stupid cow. Termination. Not the first time, likely not the last. Made the mistake of saying something and it got back to him. And, course, when he learns it’s a boy, he’s bloody beside himself. Next thing you know he’s waving flowers, making promises, threatening what he’ll do if I abort his child. Sets me up in a flat he’s got in Pimlico and insists on this gynaecologist with umpteen letters after his name and fingers like spiders. Soon as Danny’s born and we’re out of hospital, he takes us into this place of his outside London. Down in Surrey. Like a bloody mansion, i’n it? Swimming pool, Jacuzzis, the whole bit. Woods all around.’

She set down her cigarette, sipped some wine.

‘So there we are, we’re living together, right? Two, three months it’s like fucking paradise. Then he starts getting bored, you can tell. Bored with me, bored with the kid. Half the time now he’s not there, and when he does come home, four in the fucking morning, I can smell these other women all over him. First I tell myself I don’t care, but then I realise all I am’s a fucking nursemaid and housekeeper, so I try and have it out with him and he loses it, each time I try and talk to him about it, he loses it …’

‘He hits you.’

‘He loses it and wants to throw me out, but there’s Danny, and by this time he’s crawling around, bumping into things, breaking things. In the end he suggests I go and look after this place in Finsbury Park, take Danny with me till he can go to nursery. For a time, this is fine. Finsbury Park’s a dump, the house is filthy, falling apart. But at least it’s calmer. Anton’s — well, Anton’s being really nice again. Charming.

‘Then things start to go wrong. I don’t know the ins and outs, so don’t ask, never did. Some kind of dispute, that’s all I know. Business. Anton and me, we have this furious row. So bad, I’m frightened — for the first time, truly frightened. I lost it, totally lost it and did a runner, an’ he sent some of his people after me. Dragged me back.’