Jessie Keane - The Make

She turned. Her face was the same; small, sharply formed, anxious of expression. Her pale denim-blue eyes stared at him with something like panic.

‘Hey, it’s me,’ said Harry, beaming.

‘Um . . . hello,’ she said uncertainly, ‘How are you?’

Another woman came up beside her. This one was large, hard-faced, dark-haired and wearing a Burberry trench. Harry had thought the cougar was alone.

‘Jack darling, I don’t like the red,’ she said in a hectoring tone of voice. ‘I much prefer the cream – so much softer, don’t you think?’ The brunette’s eyes, full of curiosity, were now resting on Harry. There was a predatory half-smile on her crimson-painted mouth. ‘And who’s this?’

The cougar’s cheeks flushed the same hectic red that Harry had found so charming on the night they’d spent together.

‘Oh, this is . . .’ she hesitated.

‘Harry,’ he supplied for her, shaking the woman’s hand.

‘He’s a friend of my daughter’s,’ said Jackie quickly. Harry glanced at her. The blue eyes looked back at him without expression. ‘They were at uni together.’

Harry felt a stab of hurt at that. Like he was a dirty secret. Then he remembered her pushing him out through the door into the dawn, and realized that was precisely how she saw him – as something shameful and disgusting, to be concealed.

He shouldn’t have touched her shoulder. Shouldn’t have smiled at her. Shouldn’t have breezed over here like she’d be pleased to see him. It was patently obvious that she wasn’t.

Of course she wasn’t. Why would she be?

‘This is Camilla,’ said Jackie formally. ‘A client of mine.’

He understood that Jackie was marking out her territory, drawing boundaries. Jackie was an interior designer. She was posh. She spoke like thet. Like one of the nobs. She was way above him in the social scale of things; he was nothing but a good-looking chancer, living on benefits and selling his nubile young bod for undeclared amounts of money. He felt he’d made a major error, made a complete bloody fool of himself. He should have been more careful, more discreet.

‘Well, it was nice seeing you again, Mrs Sullivan,’ he said.

‘You too, Harry,’ she said, very polite.

Harry looked into her eyes again. Saw nothing there, no small spark of the connection that had been there on the night he’d stayed. He nodded once, then turned and walked away.

‘Emma’s a very lucky girl,’ said Camilla, her eyes following Harry as he walked off. ‘What, darling?’ asked Jackie vaguely, looking with intense concentration at the cream-coloured blooms that Camilla favoured.

‘What an exquisite young man.’ Camilla was still watching Harry, admiring the luscious fall of his shoulder-length auburn hair, his wide shoulders beneath the black leather bomber jacket, the tight fit of the stonewashed jeans on his long, long legs. Finally he was lost in the crowds. Camilla gave Jackie a louche look. ‘Imagine waking up to something as wonderful as that in the morning.’

‘Yes,’ said Jackie with a cool smile. ‘Imagine. A mixture of the gerbera and the roses, do you think? Yes?’

Chapter 14

‘Lefty in?’ Stew asked Gordon, who was policing the door of Deano Drax’s fetish club in Soho. Stew had nipped over from the strip joint over the road. They were both doormen, and they had become pals, so they often stood out in the alley beside the industrial-sized wheelie bins and had a smoke and a chat.

The immaculately attired Gordon ushered in a few more punters, stopping a couple, giving them a quick frisk. Perversions were all very well, but weapons were a no-no inside Shakers. Satisfied, he motioned the punters through into the dark, pulsing body of the club.

Gordon gestured for another of the bouncers to take over the door. He moved to one side, taking Stew Baker with him. Stew was a solid man, in build and in character, one of the best, a good mate to Gordon – and to the hapless Lefty, too.

‘You mean you ain’t heard about Lefty?’ asked Gordon over the roar of the club’s huge sound system.

‘Heard what?’

Gordon shook his head. ‘Man, you missed out on a treat.’ He explained about Lefty’s miscalculation with Deano’s latest young squeeze. ‘He is deep in the manure, I’m telling you. Deano is very taken with that boy and he’s spitting blood over this. You know Deano – he just loves to terrorize anybody smaller than he is. And, let’s face it, nearly everybody is smaller than Deano – including these boys he likes, and Lefty.’

Stew said nothing. He felt pity for Lefty’s predicament, but then if you mixed with shit one thing was certain – sooner or later, it was going to stick to your skin. He had no time for nonces, and Deano Drax was a bad one. He looked back into the club’s dark, gaping maw. Sometimes he thought it was like the mouth of hell in there. He’d looked inside it once, and there were dingy back rooms for orgies; dungeons too. He was glad he worked over the road in a nice straightforward strip club and not here. A few tits and bums never hurt anyone. He didn’t mind that, or the lap-dancing places – hell, live and let live. But people crawling around on dog chains, being pissed on or beaten and tied up for entertainment? Nah, he drew the line right there. He thought that Shakers told you everything you wanted to know about its owner’s mind-set.

‘Go through to the bar, see Chippy, he’ll sort you out with a drink,’ offered Gordon. Things were getting busy on the door and Gordon had to get back to work. People were queuing up now, weirdos wearing skin-tight plastic and fetish boots with heels so amazingly high they could barely stagger along. Which was the whole point, of course. If you couldn’t walk, you could be caught. You were easy meat.

‘Nah, that’s okay,’ said Stew hastily. ‘Got to get back. Catch ya later, Gord.’

Stew left the club and was halfway over the road when he saw Deano Drax’s big motor with its black-tinted windows pull into the alley at the side of the fetish club. He kept walking, tried not to stare but, despite himself, he couldn’t resist a look. Deano, massive and bear-like, was getting out of the back of the car. Huge bald head; neat goatee beard. Stew’s face wrinkled with disgust. That fat smarmy-faced nonce made you feel sick just to see him, swaggering about the place like he owned the whole damned world. In the shadows of the alley it was hard to make out much, but Stew was sure there were others with him, two smaller figures. Maybe kids, maybe not.

Stew shuddered and averted his eyes. He thought of Lefty, who was out looking right now for Deano’s grand amour. He didn’t think Lefty was a bad bloke at heart. Actually, he’d been fine until he started on the hash and the E and – worse – on the butane, and after that . . . well, now his brains were screwed, his lungs were black lace and he was Deano’s own personal lapdog, bought and paid for. Deano said jump, Lefty said how high? That being the case, Stew hoped, no he prayed, that the golden-haired boy he’d seen hanging round Drax a month or so ago, sometimes staggering a little like a crippled foal, sometimes staring around with drugged and bewildered eyes, Stew prayed that the boy was long gone, back home where he’d be safe, or that someone kind and good was helping him right now.

Kid needs a guardian angel, he thought. I just hope to fuck he’s got one.

Chapter 15

George sat in his local café, across the table from Alfie, the morning after their run-in with Lefty Umbabwe. George had a big smile pasted across his face. He couldn’t help it. The kid had devoured a plate of Full English in record time, knocked back two teas and two rounds of toast, and clearly wasn’t about to throw in the towel yet.