Candleland (26 page)

“Why should I?” Karen spat back.

Larkin could think of a few answers to give her, but held his tongue. “You work it out. Then you decide.”

“I decided a long time ago I didnae want him in my life.” She stood up, walked to the furthest wall. “You know why? Because every time I did want him he was never there. He was out makin' the streets of Edinburgh safe, he always told me. Lyin' bastard. He was out drinkin' wi' his mates. Tryin' tae get into the funny handshake club. Get himself fast-tracked.” She leaned against the wall, as far back as she could go. “Other kids used to say, ‘It must be excitin' havin' a dad who's a copper, like
Miami Vice
.' An' I used to say ‘Yeah'. I never told the truth.”

Karen, Larkin soon realised, was speaking more for her benefit than his. He waited to see if she had anything more to say. She did.

“And then later on,” she said, “when I needed him – not just wanted him, needed him – he was missin' then as well.”

Larkin let her words be carried off into silence, then spoke again.

“He's changed, Karen. He's a different man.”

She gave a harsh, mirthless laugh. “Oh we've all changed, haven't we? I mean, look at me. See how much. And I've got a hell of a lot more changin' to go through.”

She broke off, biting her bottom lip, trying to contain what was inside her. She didn't want to let it out, Larkin knew, didn't want herself or him to see it. Her body twitched and trembled as she fought for control, her eyes, jumping with fear and anger, flitted all over the room, darting about like swallows trapped in a barn.

Larkin felt for her. He managed to catch her eyes, steady them with his own calm, empathic gaze. He spoke, his voice pitched low and soothing.

“What can I say, Karen? Yeah, I know it's difficult, but he just wants to see you, that's all. He knows what you think of him, he just wants to see that you're all right.”

Karen gave out a long, juddering sigh, and with it came the tears.

“I'm not alright,” she said, sobbing, “I'm not alright …”

She moved away from the wall, slumped back on the bed. As she cried, the tension and rage left her body too. It seemed to be replaced by something far worse, something beyond sadness. She sighed, shook her head absently.

“I just wish … I wish I could just curl up and go to sleep for a long, long time,” she sobbed. “Years, even. Then wake up and it'll all be over.” She looked at Larkin, eyes wet with pain. “But it's not going to happen, is it?”

“No,” said Larkin.

She nodded. It looked like the answer she was expecting.

“So what happens now?” she asked.

“That's up to you, Karen.” She sat in silence.

“There is another reason why I'm here,” said Larkin at length.

Karen nodded. “Charlie Rook,” she said.

“Yeah, Charlie Rook,” said Larkin. “Want to tell me what's going on?”

She nodded again, and started her story.

“He killed Hayley.” The words, carrying the gravitas of a final statement, started her crying again.

Larkin sat in the chair, powerless to help.

Karen's head dropped forward and the tears rolled down her cheeks. She struggled to hold it in, face contorting like a wounded animal.

“Nuh – not him personally,” she said. “But he had it done.” She looked up, face creased in pain. “Oh, Hayley …”

“Tell me about her,” asked Larkin.

They had met while they were both on the game. Karen was hooked on smack, doing punters to pay for it. Hayley was another runaway. “Because her dad used to fuck her.” Karen gave a flat laugh. “I suppose I should be thankful for small mercies. At least mine never did that.”

Then they fell in love. “And to this day I don't know what she saw in me. I'm just glad she did.” The tears stopped, her face brightening at the memory. “We totally fell for each other. I was shocked, because until then I'd never been with another woman. Well, apart from work, but I don't count that. But I never thought of myself as gay. Neither had she. Although when you think about it, it's not surprising.”

“Why?” asked Larkin.

Karen gave him a challenging, confrontational look. “The things punters try an' get you to do … you have little love left for men.”

Karen's expression changed and she was again lost in a memory. “She was everythin' … I told her about the heroin, she'd already guessed, mind, an' she sorted out a methadone clinic for me. She knew Diana. And Diana knew Mickey. Mickey Falco. He helped. It wasn't easy, but I wanted to try my best, you know? I had someone who loved me. I wanted to do it for her.”

“Did it work?” asked Larkin.

“Yeah,” she replied. “A few backslides, but … one day at a time. I'm doin' alright.” She nodded, seemingly to convince herself. “And she didn't mind I was HIV either.”

“Was Hayley HIV positive?” asked Larkin.

Karen shook her head. “No. We took precautions with each other.”

“And with punters?”

Karen stared at him confrontationally. “You tryin' tae be judgemental?”

“No, I was just asking.”

“Well for your information, I always used a condom. Which is more than a lot of them do. Some punters refused and wouldn't listen to anythin' I said about AIDS.” She laughed. There was rage in it. “Last thing you want is a lecture in sexual health from a whore, isn't it?”

She looked away. “I just let them get on with it. Some of them liked it better that way. More of a thrill. Like Russian roulette.”

Larkin nodded. He made no comment but instead asked, “So how did you come into contact with Charlie Rook?”

“We got sick of workin' the streets as independents, dodgin' pimps, not havin' enough control over the punters, that kind of thing. And we needed more money.”

“What for?” asked Larkin.

“HIV and AIDS isn't the life sentence it used to be,” she said. “They've got drugs on the market, treatments out there so good they're closin' hospices.” There was a large element of self-conviction in her words.

“I know,” he said.

“But it's not the side-effects that are the problem with them.”

“It's the cost.”

“Right,” she said. “An' the NHS don't make priority cases out of ex-junkie prossies.”

“And that's where Charlie Rook came in.”

She gave a watery smile. “We met Melissa, his recruiter. Have you met her?”

“The ice goddess? Yeah, I've met her.”

“Cow,” spat Karen. “She knew we wanted money, said she worked for this guy, real upmarket stuff, he'd look after us, pay us well. We said, yeah. We were interested. So she took us to meet him, he liked us, asked us to work for him. He's got this place in the City. Lot of rich punters.”

“I know,” said Larkin. “I've been there.”

She gave him a fierce look, and opened her mouth for something to accompany it, but then stopped herself. “Oh, yeah. Mickey said.”

“It wasn't for pleasure, believe me.”

“Right. Anyway, Melissa does health checks on all the new girls. She helped me fake mine.”

“Kind of her.”

“Wasn't it?” said Karen. “I should have known something was up then. But I didn't.”

She sighed, shook her head. “So Hayley an' me are workin' there, servicin' the punters, makin' good money an' gettin' no hassle when Melissa comes up. She's got a proposition for us. Wants us to steal somethin' from Charlie. Set up a blackmail scam. She knew we wanted money; this way we'd get it.”

“And what did she get out of this?” asked Larkin.

“Charlie's business. The thing she wanted us to steal would have destroyed all his credibility. He would be ruined. Melissa would then step in and take over. We'd get our money. We all live happily ever after.”

“So you said you'd do it?”

“Yeah.” Karen sighed. “What fuckin' mugs.”

“What happened?”

“We went through with it. Stole what we were supposed to, we found it where Melissa had left it, went to the place Melissa had organised and waited for the call. Never came, did it?” Her voice began to waver. “We waited for days, still nothin'. But Ringo an' Lenny. They called. I was out shoppin' buyin' food. I had the thing on me. They took Hayley an' I … I ran. I couldn't …” She broke down in tears again.

Larkin looked on helplessly. He wanted to go to her, comfort her. Put his arm round her shoulder, let her cry into his chest. But he didn't. The girl was hurt, damaged, but she'd started to talk to him. He had established a kind of trust with her in a small space of time. He didn't want his actions misconstrued, the trust broken. So he sat there helplessly, watching her break her heart all over again.

“She might not be …” He couldn't bring himself to say the word.

Karen said it for him. “Dead? Oh, she is. Charlie Rook's got a special place for that. For people who've upset him or outlived their usefulness.” The words were choked out of her. “Hayley's sleepin' wi' the fishes now, alright. If there are any fishes in that polluted shite.”

“What?” asked Larkin, confused.

“Dagenham,” she said, raising her tear-stained face. “He's got a place at Dagenham, his father's old scrap metal yard. Backs on to the Thames. That's where they get rid of the bodies.” Her sorrow had tipped back into anger again. “That's where Hayley went …” She dropped her head again.

“So what did you take?” Larkin asked. “What was so important?”

Karen looked up, eyes glistening. “I'll show you,” she said.

She crossed to the PC, started it up, logged on. From a drawer in the desk she took out a CD-ROM and inserted it in the hard drive. Her fingers moved over the keys with practised ease.

“As well as being a pimp, Charlie has this other thing. His bespoke event management service, he calls it,” she said, fingers tapping. “What it means is anythin' goes. Anything. And that's where the money is. Anythin' and everythin' as long as you've got the money. Anythin'.” She turned to Larkin. “C'mere, watch this. If you can.”

Larkin looked at the screen. There was what appeared to be an operating theatre, sparsely equipped, with a naked body strapped to the table. The body belonged to a boy, about eighteen or nineteen. He was struggling, trying to snap the thick leather straps.

Into the scene walked a man dressed as a surgeon. Larkin began to get a bad feeling about it.

“Who's that?” he asked. “Should I know him?”

“No,” replied Karen, “but I bet you'll have bought something from one of his companies.”

The camera moved in for a close-up of the boy's terrified face. The man dressed as a surgeon roughly held the boy by the chin to stop him struggling. In his other hand he held a large needle trailing some coarse, black thread. As Larkin watched, he pulled the boy's eyelid out and stuck the needle through it.

“Oh fuck,” Larkin groaned, turning away.

“This has got sound too,” said Karen, her voice flat and desensitised. “I've turned it down, though. He does both eyes, stitches them up, then starts on the body. D'you want to see?”

“No.” If anything, he wanted to be sick.

“There's clubs round here where they do that kind of thing for fun,” she said. “Course the kick that bastard on the screen's gettin' is from the fact that it's not consensual. I'll find another one,” she said, her fingers clicking angrily. “Here.”

Larkin gingerly turned back to the screen. He saw what looked like a gym. A boxers' gym with a ring in the centre. Hanging suspended from the ceiling was a girl. Well-built, blonde. A man entered dressed as a boxer. He was middle-aged, flabby.

“Hey,” said Larkin. “Isn't that –”

“Yeah,” replied Karen. “The Right Honourable Member himself. Not so honourable now, mind.”

As they watched, the man put his right fist in alignment with the girl's face, drew back and sent it flying. Her head snapped back from the shot. He repeated the action with his left fist. The girl screamed, silently.

“Seen enough yet?” asked Karen.

“Yeah,” said Larkin. “I have.”

“There's plenty more. Some really famous faces.”

Larkin stared at the screen, frozen on the girl's agony. “This is …” He couldn't find the word. “Melissa. Where does she fit into all this?”

“I'll show you.”

Karen's fingers played over the keys again. Menus dropped down, the mouse was clicked, and the screen was filled by an image of what looked like a dungeon: stone walls, shadows, ominous-looking pieces of sharp, rusting heavy metal dotted about. In the centre of the picture, stretched into an X-shape and chained from floor to ceiling was a naked teenage boy. Thin and tired-looking, he couldn't have been more than fifteen. Slightly to the left of the screen Larkin could make out a figure. Old and frail, his back to camera, he sat motionless and blanket-wrapped in a wheelchair, oxygen cylinder at his side.

“Who's that?” asked Larkin.

“You don't want to know,” replied Karen. “He's too old to do anything, so he gets off on watching. And look who does it instead of him.”

Melissa strode confidently into the picture. She was dressed in full dominatrix gear; leather basque exposing her breasts, thigh-high, spike-heeled boots, severe hair and make up. She walked up to the boy, held his face in her hand and began to kiss him, working her tongue right into his mouth.

He soon became aroused by her pretence of passion as his erect penis showed. Melissa reached down for it with her free hand, began working it backwards and forwards. The boy began to writhe, losing himself to her.

She moved her other hand behind her back and drew from a pouch a pair of old, rusted secateurs. The boy, engrossed by Melissa's hand and mouth, was unaware as she positioned the cutters over his right nipple, but he certainly felt the blades being brought together. The boy's head jerked back, screaming soundlessly, as he struggled to pull himself away from her grasp. Melissa held on to his now withering erection and pumped it all the harder. Her face was contorted by a cruel ecstasy as she moved the cutters over his chest, trailing blood, and played them around his left nipple, ready to inflict more damage. The man in the wheelchair hadn't moved.