The Price of Love and Other Stories (29 page)

“It’s you again,” Jackie said when she opened the door.

“Did you manage to get any rest?”

“A bit. Your lot were here until the small hours, then I took a Valium. It’s all right. I’ve got a prescription.”

“I didn’t doubt it for a moment.”

“I suppose you want to come in? I was just vacuuming the living room. Takes my mind off things.”

“Well, I’m afraid I’m going to put it back on them. What if we go out for a spot of lunch? I’m starving.”

“As long as you’re paying.”

“I’m paying.”

“Hang on a minute, I’ll get my jacket.”

She came back a moment later in a denim jacket with a suede bag hung over her shoulder. Her hair was tied back in a ponytail and along with the freckles it made her appear even younger than she was. For the first time, Banks noticed her shapely figure. He wondered if she was a good dancer, as she had told him Pamela had been.

“This one’s not bad,” she said, leading him to Punch Bowl just a hundred yards or so down the street. “Quiet, at any rate.”

And on a weekday lunchtime, away from the office crowds, it really was quiet. Banks and Jackie attracted a few glances when they went in, some disapproving, others envious. They settled at a table by the window. Someone had scratched their initials inside a heart, Banks noticed: JK=AM. He wondered who JK and AM were and what had become of them, whether they still felt the same way about each other. “What do you recommend?” he asked.

“It’s all pretty much bog-standard pub grub,” she said. “Take your pick.”

Banks picked bangers and mash and Jackie went for the chicken and chips. He lit a cigarette to go with his pint while he waited for the food. Jackie drank lager from the bottle.

“Not worried about your figure?” Banks asked.

“Should I be?” She did a little model’s wiggle in her chair.

“No,” he said.

“I seem to be able to eat what I want without putting on weight, and it’s not as if I don’t get plenty of exercise dancing.”

“I suppose so,” said Banks. “But it must get to you.”

“What?”

“You know. Dancing like that. In front of all those blokes ogling you.”

“You get used to it.”

“I can’t imagine how.”

“Well, you wouldn’t know, would you? You’re a bloke. Probably one of those blokes who goes to the clubs, for all I know. You’re all the same. All bloody hypocrites.”

“I’m not judging you,” said Banks.

“Of course you’re judging me. Everybody does. They can’t help it. All right, I’m a stripper and I turn the occasional trick. Does that make you happy?”

“I can’t say as it does, no.”

“There you are, then. Tough. I’m a big girl. I can take care of myself.”

Banks stared at her.

She shifted in the chair. “What?”

“Nothing,” he said.

She blew out a lungful of smoke and took another swig of lager. “If you must know,” she said, “things were crap at home, then my dad got made redundant and … well, I was going to go to university, but that went down the tubes, didn’t it, so it was a part-time job at a funeral home, for fuck’s sake, and evenings working at the local boozer to help out Mum and Dad. There are five of us altogether, but my brothers are too young to go to work. I got groped often enough by the pub manager and the funeral director that I thought I might as well make a living at it. All right? I did a bit of exotic dancing locally, like, but my mum and dad got wind of it and threw me out. In the end, what with the strike and all, and everybody at each other’s
throats, calling people scabs and blacklegs, I’d had about as much as I could take up there, so I came to London to make my fortune. The trains from the north are full of us, didn’t you know? ‘Thatcher’s Children,’ they call us.”

It was the first time Banks had heard the term, but it seemed apt. It struck him what a dubious legacy it would be for a politician.

“I’m saving up,” Jackie went on, “and when I’ve got enough I’m going to live in Canada, way out on the Pacific coast, and become a marine biologist. This country’s fucked.”

“Was your father a miner?”

“Fuck, no. You wouldn’t catch him down the pit. His father was, though. Died when he was fifty-five. Lungs. No, my dad was a steel-worker. We lived near Sheffield.”

“Mine, too,” said Banks. “Well, a sheet-metal worker at any rate. In Peterborough. He also got made redundant not long ago.”

“He did? Really?”

“Yeah.”

She held him with her level gaze, then held her hand out. They shook. “Life’s a bummer sometimes, isn’t it?” she said.

“It has its moments.”

“Tell me something. Why do you do what
you
do? What’s in it for you?”

“I don’t know. I suppose there’s some satisfaction in putting villains away, making the world – or a little part of it – a bit safer, a better place,” Banks said. “Then there’s finding out the truth about something, trying to get justice done.”

“So you’re a romantic, really?”

“I don’t know.”

“You are. You think you can save the world. The rest of us aren’t like that. We just want to take what we can from it. You’re out of step. A throwback.”

“And you’re far too sharp to be doing what you’re doing.”

“Don’t be patronizing. Are you married?”

“Yes.”

“Kids?”

“Two. A boy and a girl.”

She fixed him with her disconcerting gaze. “I’ll bet you have a bit on the side, don’t you? And I’ll bet you feel guilty about it. You’re just that kind of bloke.”

Banks felt himself redden. “I really do need to ask you a few more questions,” he said.

She tapped out a cigarette. “Good deflection. Back to business. I know. I know. Go on. It’s all right. Oh, here it comes.” She set the unlit cigarette down on the table beside her.

Their food arrived. Banks went to the bar and got a couple more drinks and when he returned Jackie was well into the chicken and chips. He started on his sausage and gave up trying to find any traces of meat pretty quickly. At least it tasted all right. Someone put Madonna’s “Into the Groove” on the jukebox. Banks groaned.

“What’s wrong?” Jackie asked. “Don’t you like Madonna?”

“I could live without her.”

“I’ll bet you like Bob Dylan and The Beatles and all that crap, don’t you? You’re just an old fogey.”

“Less of the old. When were you born?”

“Nineteen sixty-four.”

“I’m not that much older than you, then. I just have better taste in music. But enough about me. What do you know about a man called Matthew Micallef?”

Jackie paused with her fork halfway to her mouth. “You don’t mess about when you get going, do you?”

“You didn’t tell me about him last night when I asked.”

“Someone else obviously did.”

“I’ve got my sources. I must say, he’s a bit of a mystery to us, though.” Banks had also spent part of the morning trying to find out what he could about Micallef, and it wasn’t much. “He doesn’t appear
to have a criminal record, though one of my colleagues thinks he’s into all kinds of nasty business.”

“He’s clever, that’s all,” said Jackie. “That’s why you haven’t caught him for anything. Or maybe he’s paying you off?”

Banks ignored her comment. “So he’s a pimp?”

“Among other things.”

“He calls himself a property developer. It took us a while to work our way through the nominees, but we finally discovered that his company owns the building where we found Pamela’s body.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“I suppose it explains why she was there. He must have set her up with the place to entertain clients.”

“I suppose.”

“You didn’t use it yourself?”

“Not that place, no. Somewhere else. I thought this was about Pamela, not me?”

Banks put his knife and fork down. “Come on, Jackie. I’m trying to find out who killed your friend and you’re not giving me much help. You could be in danger yourself, you know. Have you thought about that?”

Jackie looked at him with her serious eyes again and sighed. She pushed her plate away as if she had suddenly lost her appetite, took another swig of lager and lit a cigarette.

“Another drink?” Banks said.

“Might as well if you’re paying.”

Banks went to the bar and bought two more drinks. When he came back Jackie was smoking, staring out of the window and playing with her ponytail with her free hand.

“Micallef,” said Banks. “What do you know?”

Jackie paused, then said, “I’m sorry if I don’t seem to be very cooperative, but he’s not the sort of person who likes people talking about him.”

“How would he find out?”

“He has his methods.”

“I’m not asking you to finger him for the murder or anything. I doubt that he did that. But he might know something. I’m going to be talking to him soon, anyway. I’d just like to be forearmed.”

She shot him a nervous glance. “You’re going to question him?”

“Of course.”

“You won’t mention me, will you?”

“Of course not. Why should I? All I want is a bit of background on him.”

“I don’t know much about him. Most of us … well, we stay as far away as we can. Sometimes he takes a shine to a girl and … well, he’s very possessive. You wouldn’t want him to fix his eye on you, that’s all. He’s the kind who never gives up until he’s got what he wants.”

“Has he bothered you?”

“Me? No, I’ve managed to stay below his radar.”

“Pamela?”

“Her, too. The way it works is that Matthew befriends young runaway girls. He usually has a kindred spirit hanging around King’s Cross station to offer a bed for the night to a pretty girl just off the train. Someone non-threatening. Another girl with a similar story. Then Matthew comes round in a day or two and introduces himself as a friend and ends up seducing the newcomer. He’s a very attractive bloke, really. And quite young. About thirty. I know he’s Maltese, but he doesn’t look it. I mean, he’s very fair-haired and all. His mother was English, apparently. He doesn’t even have an accent. Anyway, he’s authoritative and seems to be in control. The sort of person you want on your side, someone who’ll take care of you.

“He showers her with presents, sets her up in a nice flat, takes her to the best restaurants. But there’s a price, of course. There always is. When it comes to the nitty-gritty, he doesn’t lie. He plays straight. He tells the girls he’s got some work lined up for them if they want to continue their new lifestyle – and who wouldn’t if they come from Rotherham or Cleckheaton? – and it involves exotic dancing,
hostessing, escort services, massages, and maybe even photos and movies. That could lead to the big time, of course. They all want to be film stars.

“He plays down the sex angle. He says he’ll leave the choice up to the girls, however far they want to go, but by then they don’t have a lot of choice. If someone approaches him and wants one of them, he puts on the pressure. They don’t walk the streets, none of them. They work through the clubs, escort agencies and massage parlours. That’s where the johns come from. They’re usually businessmen in town for a few days. Some are regulars, live here. And the girls usually go along with what Matthew says once he’s got them started. If nothing else, he’s persuasive. Some of the girls even fall in love with him.”

“Not you, though?”

“I like to think I saw through him the first time we met.”

“But you still work for him. He’s still your pimp.”

“You’re a real bastard, you know,” Jackie said, reaching for another cigarette. “You know that? Besides, if it wasn’t him it’d be someone else. There’s worse. I had no illusions.”

“We all have illusions at some time or other.”

“Well, I lost mine a long time ago.”

Banks paused and took a sip of beer. “Have you ever seen him behave violently towards any of the girls?” he asked.

“Only once.”

“And?”

“It wasn’t pretty. One of his girlfriends two-timed him and he found out about it. He smashed a bottle in her face. Just like that.” Jackie swung the lager bottle with a speed that surprised Banks and stopped a couple of inches from his nose. “She needed fourteen stitches. Her nose was flat against her cheek. Ruined her looks. I never saw her again after that. And he said that was someone he loved.”

Banks sipped some beer and lit another cigarette while he digested what Jackie had just told him. “Why don’t you leave?” he asked.

“Because I’m almost there. It’s good money. And I manage to stay out of his way most of the time. He doesn’t like me. He knows I can see through him. But he tolerates me because I’m a good earner.”

“What about Pamela? What was his relationship with her?”

“Purely business. There was something about Pam – maybe a touch of innocence, that northern naivety, the ingénue in her, whatever – but it drove some men crazy. She was good business for him. Better than me. And she was a terrific dancer, too. She did have classical training, though her parents couldn’t afford to keep it up to the point where she might have made something of it.” She gave a harsh laugh.

“What?”

“She was going to have her breasts enhanced. Pam. She thought her breasts were too small. That was the sort of thing she dreamed about.”

“Did she sleep with him?”

“Pam and Micallef?” Jackie thought for a moment and shook her head. “No, I don’t think so. She would have told me. She wasn’t his type.”

“What about Gerry Cornell?”

Jackie blew out some smoke and laughed. “Blow-job Gerry? Give me a break. He’s strictly lightweight.”

“So Pamela wasn’t involved with either Micallef or Cornell, and you don’t know of any boyfriends she had down here?”

“That’s right. Only the one she dumped back up in Yorkshire. Nick, or something like that. She said he was about as much use as a spare prick at a wedding.”

“Has he been around pestering her or anything?”

“Not that I’ve ever seen.”

“Do you know if Pamela had any regular clients?”

“I’m sure she did. We all do. After all, if you like something, you go back for more, don’t you?”

“But do you know any names?”

“No. It’s a very private thing. We don’t keep lists, you know.”

“Any clients she talked about as being troublesome, violent, weird in any way?”