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  Rachel’s eyes swept the room, pricing the furniture, the hangings, the clothes the girls almost wore. Not expensive, not cheap. Definitely a step down from Mrs Dukes’s place.

  The two boys selected the girls they wanted and the four of them scuffled out of the room.

  ‘Won’t be long,’ the woman sniffed. ‘The amount they’ve had to drink.’ She turned to Rachel and smiled, ‘They’re the best kind: easy come, easy go, move on to the next bilk.’

  ‘Who are you?’ Rachel asked.

  ‘Mrs Bedwin. And you?’

  ‘Rachel Lovett.’ Rachel tilted her nose up.

  ‘Rachel Lovett? I’ve heard of you. Wasn’t you Darby Roach’s piece?’

  ‘I was.’

  ‘Lost all his money? Stripped his house they did. Betting is he’ll blow his brains out before long.’

  Rachel shuddered.

  Mrs Bedwin grinned. ‘You are down on your luck, my girl. Keeper’s lost his money, likely kill ’isself soon, thrown out on the street and the thief-taker after you. Thinking you’ll join Darby Roach in heaven?’ She laughed until she wheezed. ‘Nah, you’re mine now. I know too much about you.’ She snapped her fingers at one of the girls, who broke out of her artistic pose. ‘Celia, take Miss Lovett and show her a room. Get her changed and back here. Going to be a busy day, I can feel it in me water.’

  As Celia led Rachel out of the room, she heard a clatter of boots on the stairs. Young men, from the noise. Behind her, she overheard Mrs Bedwin’s whispered instructions to the posing nymphs, ‘Empty their pockets, girls. Wine’s two guineas a bottle now. Remember not to tell them till after. Get to it, girls!’

  Though her establishment was not as high-class as Mrs Dukes’s, Mrs Bedwin was an astute businesswoman constantly on the lookout for new opportunities. The gentlemen who frequented the house found girls who were plump, cheerful and willing to please. Want a chop? Sally will fetch it for you, sir. Only five shillings. Thirsty, sir? We have the finest wine for you, only two guineas a bottle. Every peccadillo, every taste, every craving was catered for at Mrs Bedwin’s. If a client had a particular secret urge that her girls couldn’t satisfy, she bought a girl who could and added the speciality to the menu of delights she laid out for the customers.

  Several times a day a sedan chair pulled up outside and a message came that they were to collect Miss Susan, or Miss Hart, or Miss Roseanne, a black former slave who was a particular favourite. These girls climbed inside and were carried off to the bagnios and the gentleman who had requested them specially. It wasn’t long before the sedan chair started to call for Miss Rachel.

  Mrs Bedwin had the magistrate in her pocket, and the house was never raided. She supplied girls for parties, transported them to some of the highest houses in London, and was said to have once bedded the Prince of Wales himself.

  ‘Keep your eyes on the prize, girls,’ she told them. ‘And don’t go soft on me. There’s no room for sentiment in business.’

  After Rachel had been at Mrs Bedwin’s for five months, Mrs Bedwin closed and bolted the front door behind the last gentleman to leave, and called the girls together in the seraglio.

  ‘I have good news, girls. We’re moving on.’

  ‘Leaving here?’ Roseanne cried.

  ‘Yes, dear. Going to a fine new place, mixing with the cream of society. A place where even royalty can be found.’

  She paused, and her gaze raked the room. ‘Girls, we’re going to Cheltenham.’

  CHAPTER

  FOUR

  Monday, 5 November 2012

  16:48 hours

  The name shadowed him to prison. Little Jimmy. His real name was James Little, but people always called him Little Jimmy, even at primary school, even his mam’s boyfriends. When he stumbled out of the prison van, the screws cacked themselves laughing when they saw him, with his pale skin and pigeon chest, his permanent sniff and asthma.

  ‘Little by name, little by nature,’ the screw who searched him said.

  Jimmy said nothing. People always laughed. Even Hammond had smirked.

  That first meeting with Hammond haunted him. He lay in the narrow metal bed in the narrow cell, with its smell of farts and sounds of men jacking off, and watched the grey light seeping through a high window. Like drowning in dishwater. The rough blanket scratched his chin. Spots freckled his throat and there was a dab of blood on the sheet where one had spurted. He was afraid to close his eyes, because then the dreams would come.

  A year ago his conviction sheet listed shoplifting, a few taking without consents, theft and a public order offence. No biggies. And then he met Dave the Nutter. Not met. Their paths crossed. Jimmy was in McDonald’s nicking a woman’s bag from the back of her chair while she shovelled soggy fries into a kid’s gob. He slid the bag from the chair and shoved it up his jumper, then strolled from the store. Soon as he was out, he legged it. Down the High Street and round the corner, up the alley near the Indian takeaway, over the bins and smack into Dave the Nutter.

  ‘Watch where you’re going,’ Dave said. He clocked he was running, clocked he was up to no good, and clocked the bulge in his jumper. ‘What we got here?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Jimmy stammered.

  ‘We’ll see about that.’ Dave thrust a paw down his jumper and yanked out the bag. He raised his eyebrows at Jimmy. ‘Little thief, are you?’

  ‘No, it’s my sister’s,’ he stammered.

  Dave the Nutter had hold of his arm. He was a heavyset man with a shiny bald head and air of pent-up aggression. If he held him any longer, Jimmy thought he’d piss himself. Dave was looking at him and breathing heavily through his mouth, weighing something up. Jimmy prayed he wasn’t a bum bandit. Not here, on the bins amongst the garlic sauce and cat piss.

  ‘I’ve got a proposition for you, my lad,’ Dave the Nutter said. ‘You can come along with me, or I’ll call the police.’

  ‘Go where with you?’

  ‘See my boss.’

  Jimmy nodded. There might be a chance to run. Besides, if he called the police he’d definitely be sent down for nicking the bag and he’d get bummed anyway.

  Dave the Nutter dragged him off to see Hammond. ‘Thought he might be useful, Boss.’

  Hammond sized him up, nodding, running his tongue over his teeth. ‘What’s your name?’

  The voice was smooth and posh. Not what he expected.

  ‘James Little. Jimmy.’

  Hammond laughed so hard Jimmy got a flash of his fillings. ‘You’re Scotch, eh?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Little Jimmy. What d’you say, Dave?’

  Dave chuckled. ‘No one’s going to think a squirt like him works for you, Boss.’

  ‘I think you might be right.’ Hammond circled him. ‘Right, Little Jimmy, you work for me now. You do what I say, and I’ll see you’re all right.’

  Hammond sent him on errands. Jimmy slipped unnoticed into places where Hammond, with his big personality and swanky clothes, couldn’t go. Dave the Nutter was sarky to him and pushed him around. Jackie was all right, though. She made him a cup of tea when he came in out the cold. Asked him how his mam was. Didn’t make fun of his puzzle books.

  She still called him Little Jimmy, though.

  Thursday, 5 February 2015

  10:00 hours

  The prison gate slammed shut behind him. He stood on the street, the wind whistling up the road, and chips of ice in the rain. He was wearing the suit he wore in court when he was sentenced and had his bus fare in his pocket. He supposed he ought to go to his mam’s.

  As he trudged up the road to the bus stop, a car drew alongside. The passenger window descended.

  ‘You Little Jimmy?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Get in.’

  He hesitated.

  ‘I’m not telling you again. Get in.’

  He opened the rear door and got in. The car reeked of cigarettes and the upholstery was tacky. The air was all fugged up with smoke and he fondled the blue asthma inhaler in his p
ocket.

  The car set off across London. He didn’t know where they were taking him. The two men up front – the driver and the bloke in the passenger seat – never spoke. They just smoked. Cigarette after cigarette. Lighting the next with the smouldering stub of the one just finished.

  The car stopped in a street of terraced houses. Some of them were boarded up and graffitied over. Metal gates barred the front doors. Pakistani kids in flowery dresses played in the road, talking scribble to each other. A woman shielded in black from head to toe pushed an old pram along the pavement.

  The men got out of the car and dragged him from the back, hustling him into a house and slamming the door. It was gloomy inside: all the windows were either boarded over or masked by curtains. They shoved him through the front room and into the back. A kitchen led off it – orange chipboard units with the doors hanging off. A tap at a drunken angle hanging from the wall. No sink.

  There was a wooden chair in the back room. One of those with a shelf for prayer books. They pressed him into it and bound his hands behind him with plastic cable ties.

  ‘Delivery!’ The man from the passenger seat shouted, and the two men left the house. A few seconds later he heard a car start up and drive away.

  Footsteps on wooden boards. Someone came down the staircase in the corner of the room. It was a boxed-in staircase and Jimmy couldn’t see who it was until he was at the bottom. A lean, hungry-looking man, his neck, head and face garlanded with tattoos. As he clumped on to the last step, he grinned at Jimmy. His teeth had all been removed and replaced with steel fangs.

  ‘Hello, Jimmy,’ he said. ‘I hear you’ve been a naughty boy.’

  ‘No, no I haven’t,’ Jimmy said, struggling against the ties. It only ratcheted them tighter.

  ‘I heard you grassed someone up. Blabbed to the filth and got in the way of a very important operation.’ Fang Face licked his lips. He had a stud in his tongue. ‘You’ve made some very important men very angry indeed.’

  The knife was in his mouth before he knew it. The cold steel sharp against his lips. Fang Face pressed hard, and the corners of Jimmy’s mouth stretched and split, until his mouth spread the width of his face. Jimmy tried to spit out blood. It dribbled down his chin and dropped on to his shirt.

  ‘Blabbermouth,’ Fang Face said, and set about some DIY facial reconstruction.

  The copper was a rookie and hadn’t seen this kind of thing before. All he knew was Mrs Unpronounceable Name at number twenty-two was jabbering on about an empty house in her street. Her English was shit, and her ten-year-old son was translating for her. In the end, he gave up and promised to check it out. Probably squatters. Not his business but anything to stop her mithering.

  Number twenty was a sorry piece. Windows boarded up, hideous curtains mouldering upstairs. Could be a crack den. Maybe that’s what she heard. He tried the door. Stuck. Damp probably. Didn’t seem to be locked. Better check it out. He thumped his shoulder against it and the door opened.

  Kids gathered on the pavement. This was a new diversion. He fixed them with his sternest look and ordered them to go home. They ignored him.

  He stepped into the house. Flowery wallpaper that was a crime on its own. He felt a crunch beneath his boots. A syringe? No, a blue inhaler. The plastic case all smashed up.

  And there was a smell. What was it? Sweet and unpleasant, it caught at the back of his throat. Pressing the back of his hand to his nose, he inched further into the house.

  The back room held just a wooden chair, the sort you find in church halls. It was tipped over on its side, a brown stain underneath it. Beyond was a scabby kitchen. Empty.

  A boxed-in staircase in the corner of the back room. The copper called upstairs, the hairs on his neck prickling. Something wasn’t right here. Step by step he went up the stairs, his sturdy police boots rapping.

  ‘Hello?’ he called, his voice high and nervous. Pull yourself together, he scolded himself. You’re supposed to be a police officer, for God’s sake. Maybe he should radio for back-up? And say what? He’d got a nasty feeling on this one? They’d never let him live it down when it was only a sodden tramp or a feral cat.

  Top of the stairs. Two doors leading off. The smell was worse here. He tried to breathe through his mouth. Front room more hideous wallpaper. Back room bare floors, bare walls, and the festering remains of Jimmy Little.

  CHAPTER

  FIVE

  Tuesday, 24 February 2015

  13:58 hours

  Eden yanked up the heating in her car. The pale spring sunshine promised much and delivered little. Deceived, she’d dressed in a floaty long-sleeved top and ditched her thick sweater. Her leather jacket was built for style rather than warmth and she tugged the sleeves over her wrists, rattling her coloured bean bracelet.

  She yawned. After yesterday’s excitement of the skeletons in the trench, today was a slow day. A spouse she’d followed from his home to work and home again over several days, deducing nothing more alarming than a predilection for yellow socks. The wife was convinced he was trysting with some tart.

  Yellow socks left his office just before two, and she tailed him across town to a smart Regency building, waiting in her car while he went inside. Once she was sure the coast was clear, she went up to the building and read the discreet brass nameplate. Smothering a laugh, she returned to her car and drove back to what she grandly referred to as her office: one room in a former mews behind the High Street. The council had paid for the conversion and rented the units to new businesses to encourage enterprise in the town. Eden’s neighbours were a TV repair shop, a nail bar and a sandwich shop that delivered. Her unit was on the first floor, up a set of metal stairs and along a walkway.

  A brass plate on her door read ‘Eden Grey: Private Investigator’. She purred with pride each time she saw it. The door had swollen with damp and it took a kick to get it open. She was greeted by the smell of sausages cooking at the sandwich bar. Dumping her bag on her desk, she went to the kitchen unit at the back of the office, filled the kettle and plugged it in. Taking a cafetière from the cupboard, she spooned in coffee grounds, relishing their earthy aroma.

  ‘I’m absolutely sure,’ she repeated, a few minutes later, as the indignant wife squawked down the phone. ‘A hair transplant clinic. No evidence of an affair at all.’

  She sneaked a sip of the coffee while Mrs Townsend repeated at volume that he must be a cheating lowlife sleeze: she’d seen his diary, she’d smelled aftershave on her husband, he’d bought her flowers, for God’s sake. What more proof did she need?

  When she was able to get a word in edgeways, Eden said, ‘I’m sorry you feel that way, Mrs Townsend. I’m a very experienced investigator and I don’t think it would be worth any more surveillance on your husband.’ She took a breath, and as gently as she could, said, ‘You do know that you don’t need proof in order to get a divorce, don’t you? You can divorce him simply because the marriage has broken down.’

  Mrs Townsend ranted a little more. She had a voice like a dentist’s drill and Eden felt a pang of sympathy for Mr Townsend. It couldn’t be easy living with that voice day in, day out.

  A bleep on the line provided a welcome excuse to end the tirade. ‘Sorry to interrupt, I have another call coming in. I’ll put my invoice in the post today.’ Eden replaced the receiver and leaned back in her chair with a groan. The woman was impossible. Poor Mr Townsend. She suspected the sudden concern about his appearance was an attempt to keep his wife’s interest, perk up a stale marriage, even at the cost of having someone drilling into his scalp.

  The new call wasn’t a number she recognised. She pressed connect, praying it was a new client. Now she’d got rid of Mrs Townsend, there was no more work on her books.

  ‘Is that Eden Grey?’ a woman’s voice asked.

  ‘Yes. Who’s speaking?’

  ‘This is Staff Nurse Watson. I’m calling from Cheltenham General Hospital. Paul Nelson was admitted earlier today.’

  ‘Paul? What’s w
rong with him?’

  ‘We’re not sure, we’re still running tests, but he’s asked to see you.’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘You’re down as his next of kin,’ the voice said. While Eden was still digesting this news, the woman added, ‘Come as soon as you can. Mr Nelson’s condition is serious.’

  She was directed to the intensive care unit where Nurse Gail Watson buzzed her in and ordered her to sanitise her hands with gel.

  ‘What happened to him?’ Eden asked, as she was led down a corridor.

  ‘We’re still trying to find out. It looks like an extreme attack of gastritis.’

  ‘Vomiting and diarrhoea?’

  ‘Yes, but his heart is racing and he’s had convulsions.’

  ‘Poor Paul,’ Eden said.

  ‘Are you his partner?’ Gail Watson gave her a look of sympathy and briefly touched her arm. Eden went cold.

  ‘Has anyone called his ex-wife, or his daughters?’ she asked.

  Gail shook her head. ‘He asked for you. Said he didn’t want his daughters to see him like this.’

  The nurse showed her into a small room at the side of the ward. Paul lay with tubes attached to his arms and a heart monitor threading an irregular green line.

  ‘He’s been slipping in and out of consciousness,’ she whispered. ‘But sit and talk to him. It might help.’

  She left, soles squeaking, and Eden dragged an orange plastic chair over to the bed. Paul looked like hell. His skin was slack and white, and the bruises beneath his eyes bled into his cheeks.

  ‘Paul?’ she whispered. ‘Paul, it’s Eden Grey. They said you asked for me.’

  She squeezed his hand as it lay on the sheet, and his eyelids flickered. His hand was dry, the fingertips icy. She chafed them, trying to rub warmth into him.