Nicci French - Blue Monday

‘You here for a service wash?’ she said.

‘Someone I know may have been in here a couple of days ago,’ said Jack. ‘A woman dressed in a bright orange jacket.’

‘Never seen her.’

Jack thought he should say something, decided not to and then changed his mind. ‘I’m a doctor, by the way. You might want to get that mole looked at.’

‘What?’

Jack touched his own face just above his mouth. ‘It might need checking.’

‘Mind your own fucking business,’ said the woman.

‘Yes, right, sorry,’ said Jack, and eased out of the shop.

Next door was a café, a real old-style greasy spoon. He stepped inside. It was empty except for a toothless old man in the corner, sucking noisily at his tea. He looked at Jack with his watery eyes. Jack looked at his phone: twenty past one. He sat at a table and a woman in a blue nylon apron came over; she was wearing slippers that shuffled along the not-very-clean floor. Jack looked up at the blackboard and ordered fried eggs, bacon, sausage, grilled tomato and chips and a cup of tea.

‘Anything else?’ said the woman.

‘There’s a woman, dresses in a bright orange jacket, blonde hair, lots of jewellery, does she come in here?’

‘What you want?’ said the woman, in a strong accent. She was looking at him suspiciously.

‘I wondered if she came in here.’

‘You say you meet her here?’

‘Meet her?’

‘Not here.’

There were several more exchanges of questions at the end of which Jack didn’t know whether the waitress knew the woman or even whether she had understood his questions at all. The food arrived and Jack felt strangely happy. It felt like the sort of meal that he could only eat alone, in an unfamiliar place, among strangers. He was just dipping his chips into the remains of the egg yolk and planning what to do next, when he saw her. Or, rather, he saw a woman in a bright orange jacket over tight black leggings, wearing high heels, her hair long and blonde, walking past the window. For a moment, he sat transfixed. Was it a hallucination, or had he really just seen her? And if so, what to do? He couldn’t let her go. This was real life. He had to approach her. But what could he possibly say? He jumped up, spilling tea over the greasy remains of his meal, and scrabbled in his pocket for change. He threw far too many coins down on the table. Several spun off and fell to the floor. He raced out of the door, ignoring the calls of the waitress. She was still visible, her jacket a vivid flare among the greys and browns of the other people on the street.

He ran towards her, feeling immediately out of breath. For someone in high heels, she walked surprisingly fast. Her hips rolled. As he got nearer he saw that her feet were bare and swollen in the sandals, which looked a size too small. He drew level and put a hand on her forearm. ‘Excuse me,’ he said.

When the woman turned her head, he felt a tremor of shock running through him. He’d been expecting someone young and beautiful, sexy at least – that was what Alan’s story had implied. But this woman wasn’t young. Her breasts sagged. Her face was lined and creviced, and under the thickly applied makeup, the skin was pasty. He saw a rash of red spots on her forehead. Her eyes, circled with dark liner and fringed with heavily mascaraed lashes, were flecked with red. She looked bleary and ill and wretched. He saw her draw her features into an approximation of a smile. ‘What can I do for you, darling?’

‘Sorry to disturb you. I just wanted to ask you something.’

‘I’m Heidi.’

‘Well – Heidi – I – it’s difficult to explain but -’

‘You’re a shy one, aren’t you? Thirty quid for a blow-job.’

‘I wanted to talk to you.’

‘Talk?’ He could feel her indifferent glance and his face flamed. ‘We can talk, if that’s what you want. It’ll still cost you thirty quid.’

‘It’s just about -’

‘Thirty quid.’

‘I’m not sure if I’ve got that much on me.’

‘Stopped me on a whim, did you? There’s a cash machine up the road.’ She pointed. ‘And then you can come and see me if you still want to talk. I live at forty-one B. Top bell.’

‘But I don’t think you understand.’

She shrugged. ‘Thirty quid and then I’ll understand as much as you want.’

Jack watched her as she crossed the road. For a moment he thought of simply going home, as fast as he could. He felt obscurely ashamed of himself. But he couldn’t go, now that he’d found her. He went to the cash machine and took out forty pounds, then made his way to 41B. It was above a shop that had once been a halal butcher’s, according to the sign, but was now closed down. There was graffiti all over its metal shutters. Jack took a deep breath. He felt that everyone who passed must be looking at him, grinning to themselves, as he pressed the top bell. Heidi buzzed him up.

She was wearing a low-cut, lime green top. Alan had said she smelt of yeast, but now she had clearly sprayed herself with perfume. She had applied fresh lipstick and brushed her hair.

‘Come in, then.’

Jack stepped over the threshold into a small sitting room that was dimly lit and oppressively hot. Thin purple curtains were pulled across the window. On the wall opposite, above the large low sofa, was a reproduction of the Mona Lisa . There were china ornaments on every spare surface.

‘I should tell you at once that I’m not what you think.’ His voice came out too loudly. ‘I’m a doctor.’

‘That’s all right.’

‘I want to ask you something.’

Her smile disappeared. Her eyes were watchful and suspicious. ‘You’re not a punter?’

‘No.’

‘A doctor? I’m clean, if that’s what you’re thinking.’

Jack felt slightly desperate. ‘You know this man,’ he said. ‘With grey hair, stocky.’

Heidi let herself down on to the sofa. Jack saw how tired she was. She picked up a bottle of sweet Dubonnet that was at her feet and filled a small glass to the brim, tipped it down her throat in one swallow that made her throat work. A small thick dribble worked its way down her chin. Then she took a cigarette from the packet on the table, put it in her mouth, lit it and inhaled hungrily. The smoke hung in the heavy air.

‘You kissed him the other day.’

‘You don’t say.’

Jack was forcing himself to speak. An acute physical discomfort was making him squirm in his seat. He saw himself the way that this woman, Heidi, must be seeing him: prurient, puritanical, smutty, an awkward young man who had not grown out of his adolescent anxieties about women in spite of his age and his profession. He could feel the sweat on his brows. His clothes itched on him.

‘I mean, you came up to him in the street and kissed him. Just near the café and the shop with the owl in the window.’

‘Is this your idea of a sick joke?’

‘No.’

‘Who’s set you up to it?’

‘No, honestly, you’ve got me wrong – but my friend, he was surprised, and I just wanted to find out if -’

‘Dirty dog.’

‘Sorry?’

‘Your friend. Strange company you keep, I must say. At least he pays, though. He likes paying. It gives him the right to treat us as dirty as he wants.’

‘Alan?’

‘What’s that?’

‘He’s called Alan.’

‘No, he isn’t.’

‘What’s his name with you?’

Heidi poured herself another brimming glass of Dubonnet and drank it down.

‘Please,’ he said.

He took the money from his back pocket, removed a ten-pound note, and passed the rest over.

‘Dean Reeve. And if you tell him I told you, I’ll make you sorry. I swear.’

‘I won’t tell. Do you happen to know where he lives?’