call a halt to the fun and games. At any rate, he told me to get dressed. They got to arguing a bit while I scrambled into my gear as fast as I could. I knew they were arguing about what to do with me. I thought perhaps I could run while they were distracted, and get outside. They wouldn’t want a scene in the street.
‘But then the first one – I don’t know any of their names – he grabbed my arm and shoved me along ahead of him down the hall, out and back into the car. He told me not to say a word or he’d take me straight down to the river and hold my head under till I drowned. The river police pull out bodies every day, he said. I’d just be one more, floating past. I believed him. I sat there almost too frightened to breathe. He drove me back to King’s Cross, which was where he’d picked me up. He gave me eighty quid and said, “Don’t try telling anyone it was rape, sweetheart. You offered and I paid.”’
‘Eighty quid,’ I said, ‘would hardly have covered it even if you’d agreed. That’s under thirty quid each.’
‘What was I going to do, argue? He tossed me out and drove off. I told you, Fran, I thought they’d kill me. I was just so pleased when he drove off . . . Afterwards, though, I couldn’t put the whole business out of my mind. I was too scared for the meat trade. So I took up with Jo Jo and we do all right, with me begging and Jo Jo watching out for me. I’ve had no more trouble with men since Jo Jo’s been around.’
‘What about the habit?’ I asked.
A dull flush stained her pale cheeks. ‘I’m clean now, Fran, I swear. That was when I was turning tricks to get the money for a fix. After the rape, I knew I had to break the habit because as long as I was on it, I’d take any risk to get the money. I went on to methadone and now I’m clean.’
I told her that was great, because it was. It had taken courage and perseverance but most of all, it showed that Tig hadn’t slid so far down the ladder that she no longer realised how bad things were.
‘What about you, Fran?’ she asked. ‘You seem to be doing all right.’
I explained that I was working temporarily at the newsagent’s, just while Hari was in India.
‘You haven’t cracked it as an actress, then?’ She gave a little smile.
‘Not yet,’ I said. ‘I will.’
‘Sure,’ she said. It niggled.
‘I also,’ I said, ‘look into things for people.’
That made her suspicious. ‘What sort of things? What sort of people?’
‘Mostly people who can’t get help anywhere else. Like a private detective, you know, only I’m not official. I’m not fixed up with a proper organisation or the tax and insurance people would get me. Anyway, I don’t do enough work for that. But what I have done has been all right.’
I suppose simple pride must have echoed in my voice, but why not? I’d been reasonably successful, considering.
Tig looked impressed but persisted, ‘But what sort of things do you do? Say, if someone came to you and told you they wanted something arranged but they couldn’t do it themselves, would you do that?’
‘I do anything legal,’ I said, perhaps not as cautiously as I might’ve done.
‘Should’ve thought that cramped your style a bit,’ said Tig. ‘Sticking to the law, I mean. Don’t the coppers get in your way?’
‘Yes,’ I said, adding airily, ‘but I can handle them.’
You know what they say about pride coming before a fall, don’t you? Tig didn’t ask anything else but sat scowling at the canal water and twisting one finger in a lank strand of hair.
‘You know,’ I said, breaking in on whatever deep thoughts she was having, ‘I was really surprised to see you the other day. I thought you’d have gone home long before now, back to where you came from.’
She gave a strangled little laugh. ‘I can’t go back, not now, not like I am. Can you imagine their faces if they
Barbara Boswell, Copyright Paperback Collection (Library of Congress) DLC