Alex Palmer - The Labyrinth of Drowning

‘We’ll be waiting.’

Grace hadn’t been to the Royal Hotel before but it was easy enough to find. A renovated brick building, it had the look of a popular local watering hole with several bars, gaming and a restaurant. The sign said it offered long-stay budget accommodation. Was this all Lynette could afford? Or was she saving her money for a rainy day?

She was in the bistro, drinking a glass of white wine. This late on a week night, there were few diners at the tables. Grace bought a mineral water and went to join her. Lynette looked tired, and the jacket robbed her of whatever glamour she’d had in the brothel.

‘I know it’s not that warm but do you want to go outside?’ she said. ‘That way I can smoke.’

‘Sure.’

‘Don’t you drink?’

‘Not when I’m working,’ Grace replied, this being the easiest explanation.

‘What about a cigarette?’

A former smoker, Grace mentally gritted her teeth. ‘No, I don’t smoke,’ she said.

‘You’re healthy.’

Lynette bought a half-carafe of house white and they went outside. The beer garden was empty. Lynette lit her cigarette with relief. Grace smelled the smoke and was glad she’d said no.

‘How did you get away tonight?’ she asked.

‘I rang what’s-her-features upstairs and told her she could close up, I was going home. She screamed at me! Said she had the police there and she couldn’t do it. I said she’d just have to cope. I won’t have a job as of now but it doesn’t matter. I’ve had enough. As soon as I can book one, I’m getting on a flight to Perth.’

‘Why Perth?’

‘My son’s in Western Australia, working up north with Woodside Petroleum. He’s been asking me to come out and see him for a while. I will now. With a bit of luck, I might be able to get some work over there. There’s a lot of single men working up there besides him. Someone must need a receptionist somewhere.’

‘Some details, Lynette. What’s your real name?’

‘Jacqueline Ryan. Before you ask, yes, I live here. It’s cheap. I’ve got money but I don’t spend it if I can help it. When I quit the business, I’ll buy my dream home.’

‘Who owns the brothel?’ Grace asked.

‘Don’t have a clue and I don’t care. I deal with the accountants. Stamfords. They’re in Parramatta. They do everything. If you want to know more, go talk to them.’

‘Marie’s new, isn’t she? Where did she come from?’

‘Stamfords.’ Lynette blew out smoke. ‘They rang one day and said she was on her way. She was the boss and I had to do what she said. Fine. Why should I give a shit? Look, I don’t ask anybody any questions. In this business, you don’t.’

No, you just did what you were told by a hysterical girl half your age without a murmur, Grace thought. The same way you took on an illegal and unwilling sex worker without batting an eyelid. Whatever’s in the pay packet must be good.

‘Coco,’ Grace said, pushing along. ‘When did she arrive and did she come alone?’

Lynette shook her head over her glass. ‘No. She turned up with Marie, about two months ago now. When I heard she was dead, I didn’t know what to think. I honestly don’t know anything about that.’

‘Marie brought her down by the fire stairs,’ Grace said without pity. ‘You handled the bookings.’

‘I did not handle the bookings. Whatever that nasty little cow says, she did it all.’ Lynette took another mouthful of wine. ‘Cheap white,’ she said with a grimace.

Grace could guess what it tasted like. Alcohol was a caustic poison moving at the edge of the blood, twisting your mind into such a disfigured shape you couldn’t recognise yourself. Others could drink; she could not.

‘What about the other workers? Didn’t they know she was there?’

‘That’s what I used to say to her ! They had to see her taking the customers down there. She just laughed at me.’

‘How did the customers find out about Coco?’

Lynette looked at her sharply. ‘You know, don’t you? No condoms if you didn’t want to. On the fucking net!’

‘Yes, I know about that. How did you deal with it?’ Grace asked. ‘Normally you’d never do that, right?’

Lynette wouldn’t meet her eye. ‘There’s plenty of men who don’t want that. They like the protection themselves. I couldn’t help her. I wasn’t the boss any more.’

‘It can’t be good business to do something like that. Didn’t Marie know that?’

This time Lynette did look at her. ‘Anything that gives the clients what they want is good business. There’s a fair few arseholes out there, you know.’

‘Who put it on the net?’

‘Marie. It said Ask Marie .’

Marie was the front. Possibly even the sucker. The one pushed out there to do the dirty work. From Lynette’s description, she’d got a kick out of it.

‘Marie isn’t a big woman,’ Grace said. ‘How did she control Coco?’

‘She had someone to help her. Some guy, I don’t know who he was. He used to bring her down and take her up.’

‘Can you describe him?’

‘I hardly ever saw him. He was a big guy, black hair, Italian probably. Head like a bullet. Never washed. You could smell him before you saw him. I stayed out of his way.’

‘Did you ever talk to Coco? Find out anything about her while she was there?’ Grace asked.

‘She didn’t speak enough English. One thing though-I’d give her a break sometimes when there was no one else around. I couldn’t let her go, but I’d let her out of that room and get her a cup of tea and something to eat in the kitchen. She wanted to use a phone one day. She kept pointing to my mobile. She was crying so I let her use it. I think she called Peter, whoever he was.’

‘Peter. That’s all?’

‘That’s all I could understand. But I do know that whatever that call was about, it made her happy. That’s when she started to jack up.’

‘What did she do?’

‘When the men came into the room, she’d be curled up in a heap. Sometimes she’d be in the corner on the floor. She wouldn’t move, wouldn’t even look at them. If they wanted sex, they’d have to force it. Look, the place we run-a lot of our clientele is suburban dads. This is their break. They want someone to give them a good time. Marie would leave the clients there, and often enough they’d come back to me and say they didn’t want that. It wasn’t what they’d paid for. Then Marie started getting angry with Coco because she wouldn’t cooperate. One day, madam dragged me down there and told me to sort her out. What was I supposed to do? Coco was wrapped up like this tight little ball. You could see her shaking. I lost it. I shouted at that little bitch for once. I said, you can’t fucking do this! It’s creating too many bad vibes. That shut her up. Anyway, after that Coco disappeared.’

‘Disappeared?’

‘She wasn’t there any more. That was maybe three weeks ago. I never saw her again. Then a bunch of cleaners turned up and went through that room like a dose of salts. Marie came and saw me. She had that look in her eye. She hadn’t forgiven me for swearing at her. If I told anyone about Coco, I was going to regret it, she said. She meant it, too.’

Easy enough, once the brothel was closed, to take someone down in the service elevator and out the back door to a waiting car, Grace thought. But where to from there?

‘Were you expecting us tonight?’ she asked.

Lynette shook her head.

‘You were, weren’t you? Someone called. When? Early? Late? And what about your workers?’ Grace asked. ‘Quite a few of them weren’t there tonight. You had customers waiting. Did you call them or did someone else?’

Lynette refilled her glass. ‘It was just a normal night.’