Paul Finch - Strangers

‘See,’ the Scouse girl said to her mate. ‘Told you she was clever.’

‘You’ve got to be joking,’ Lucy said, suspecting they were bluffing but now knowing she had to call that bluff.

‘This look funny to you?’ The black girl offered the blade again.

Though its glinting steel tip was now right under Lucy’s nose, less than an inch from severing her septum, she was determined to remain composed. That was all you could ever do in this job, pretend. It didn’t mean that, deep inside, her heart wasn’t going like the clappers.

‘Go on then,’ Lucy said. ‘Cut me up. I wonder what would make Mr Merryweather angrier? That … or the fact I had to share his hard-earned to buy you two off?’

The two prostitutes didn’t exactly flinch, but the blankness of their expressions said more than words ever could.

‘You don’t work for Nick Merryweather,’ the Scouse girl finally replied.

‘Not directly,’ Lucy agreed, ‘but we know whose pocket you’ll ultimately be picking, don’t we!’

She was onto a winner; she could tell. No one would believe that she had some kind of hotline to the Crew’s whoremaster-in-chief, but the mere fact she knew who he was would indicate that she was no novice, that she wasn’t just playing at this.

‘So go on, cut me!’ she urged them. ‘Or maybe you can put the sodding blade away … and just to show there’s no hard feelings, because yeah, I am trespassing a little bit, I can give you something to be going on with.’ She filched two twenties from under her sleeve, and offered one to each of them. Oddly enough, probably because this kind of thing had never happened before, they were hesitant to take them.

‘I’ve never seen you round here,’ the black girl said, still snarling, but the blade now lower. ‘Who the fuck are you?’

‘I’m Keira,’ Lucy said.

‘Keira?’ The black girl hooted. ‘Jesus wept, couldn’t you think of anything more fucking original?’

‘Who are you ?’ Lucy asked her.

‘I’m not telling you my fucking name.’ The girl pocketed her switchblade, but snatched the twenty and backed away. ‘Just piss off, you silly fucking mare.’

The Scouse lass gave Lucy a long, searching look – as if somehow suspecting this thing still wasn’t right – then helped herself to her own twenty, taking it almost gingerly between thumb and forefinger, before turning on her heel and hurrying to catch up with her mate, the pair of them dwindling off along the leaf-cluttered verge.

Lucy watched them as she slowly calmed herself down, wondering if any kind of bridge had been built there or perhaps if it was quite the opposite.

‘You won’t make friends that way, love,’ a voice said from somewhere to the right, seeming to answer the question for her. ‘They’ll just mark you as a soft touch and try and scam you again.’

Lucy turned to the trees and had to squint through the darkness under their half-naked boughs. The dull yellow glow of the streetlights didn’t penetrate too far. However, her eyes were now attuning, and she realised that a third party was close at hand. Another girl, younger than the others by the looks of her, with longish red hair and a very short dress, was seated on top of a picnic table, high-heeled shoes resting on the bench in front of her, as she swigged from a bottle of vodka.

‘And you’re not part of Necktie Nicky’s stable neither,’ she said, screwing the cap back on and giving a satisfied belch. ‘You wouldn’t dare give that much of his dosh away if you were.’

Lucy ambled towards her. ‘I admit I’ve never met Mr Merryweather personally …’

‘No one has who’s so far down the food-chain that they have to walk these streets, love. Anyway, you can spare me the bullshit …’ The red-headed girl climbed down. ‘I know what you really are.’

Lucy held her tongue, unsure how to respond.

The girl slid the bottle into her shoulder bag, and struggled with the zip of her scruffy fleece jacket before finally drawing it up. She was shapely but short, not much more than five feet tall. There was no threat here, but the last thing Lucy needed was to be outed on her first night. She wondered what it was that might have given the game away.

‘You’re an independent, aren’t you?’ the girl said.

Up close, even in the gloom, Lucy could see that she had a pretty face, though she smelled strongly of alcohol. If Lucy hadn’t been very used to it thanks to all the drunken prisoners she’d wheeled in over the years, it would have been nauseating.

‘And you’re new to the game,’ the girl added. ‘You know how I can tell? Because you haven’t got the thousand-yard stare. I’m Tammy, by the way. And that’s my real name too. I was christened Tamara. Can you fucking believe that?’

It was an odd way to introduce herself; delivered in a casual, only half-interested tone, as if the information barely mattered.

‘Keira,’ Lucy said.

‘Yeah, I heard. So what’s the story, Keira? Lost your job? House repossessed? Kids hungry?’

‘Something like that.’

‘And you thought this’d be a piece of piss?’

‘Not exactly a piece of piss.’

‘Easy money then?’

Lucy shrugged, took the wad of notes from under her sleeve and screwed it up into a ball. ‘You telling me I just got lucky when I met that gang of workmen?’

Tammy eyed the money as it disappeared into Lucy’s bag. ‘Sometimes we get lucky, I suppose.’ She took a step back, this time eyeing Lucy herself. ‘You don’t look the worse for wear considering you’ve just been star-attraction in a backseat gangbang.’

Lucy realised her mistake. She should have smeared her lippy and mussed her hair a little. But it was too late now. She could only brazen it out.

‘How many were there?’ Tammy asked.

‘Three.’

‘Jesus! Talk about getting off to a flyer. Anyway … your minge must be killing you, which means this one’s for me.’

Lucy hadn’t realised it, but another vehicle had drawn up at the verge just behind them: a grey SUV with tinted windows. The front nearside window rolled downward.

There were two guys inside it, one behind the wheel and one in the front passenger seat. This immediately struck Lucy as a potential problem, though if Tammy needed the custom, who was she to object? As the girl teetered across the grassy verge in her ridiculously high heels, the passenger grinned, white teeth splitting his thick black beard. He was somewhere in his early thirties, brawny and wearing a lumberjack-style plaid shirt.

‘You gents looking for a good time?’ Tammy tittered, leaning down at the window.

Plaid Shirt’s expression rapidly changed – from lewd grin to twisted scowl.

‘YOU MURDERING SLAGS!’ he screamed, before throwing something into her face.

Lucy caught a fleeting glimpse of a dark, lumpen object wrapped in what looked like white tissue. The next thing, Tammy’s hoarse voice rang out, an exclamation of horror and disgust, as she tottered backwards. The SUV sped away, howls of mocking laughter echoing from its interior. When Tammy turned to face Lucy, the excrement was smeared down her left cheek and around the side of her mouth. Solid fragments of it spattered her décolletage; a strip of filthy toilet paper had tucked itself into her cleavage.

Quite clearly, the two most recent murders had finally hit the headlines.

‘Dirty bastards!’ Tammy stammered, eyes glimmering with tears of shock.

Lucy hurried over to her. ‘Here, let me help.’

She had some face wipes in her shoulder bag, but Tammy tried to pull away, too embarrassed in front of the new girl to allow herself to be assisted.

‘No,’ Lucy said, refusing to release her arm. ‘Let me help.’