‘. . . that’s my point, Gaz, you can’t trust the fuckers . . . you got to show them who’s boss, you know . . . otherwise someone’s gonna get seriously fucked up . . . later, Gaz.’
He hangs up. Talks on the two-way radio.
‘. . . yeah, Stevo, it was George Street . . . number eighteen . . . bottom buzzer.’
The controller looks past me at the young woman. ‘Five minutes, love.’ His gaze lingers on her short skirt and her rangy legs. I can almost smell his torpid lust.
Finally, he turns to me and we reciprocally decide to hate each other.
‘I’m looking for this girl. You might have seen her a couple of weeks ago. Tuesday, late afternoon.’
I slide the photograph through a gap in the glass security screen. The controller holds the photograph up to the light like he’s looking at a high-denomination banknote.
‘Who is she?’
‘A friend of mine. I’m trying to help her.’
‘A friend? How are you trying to help her?’
‘She’s in trouble. Have you seen her?’
I want to take the photograph back. I don’t want him touching it.
‘Can’t say I have,’ he wheezes. ‘But if you leave it with me I’ll ask some of the drivers.’ He pushes a scrap of paper towards me. ‘Jot down your name and number. I’ll call you if I come up with anything.
‘I can’t leave it with you. I don’t have any more photos of her.’
The obese controller has unfolded the strip of shots and now he’s studying the pictures of Charlie and Sienna together. He runs his thumb over Charlie’s face.
‘So who’s this other girlie?’
‘Nobody important.’
A smile extends across his face. ‘I’m sure that she thinks she’s important.’
‘Just give it back to me.’
Again that same predatory leer. Pinching the strip of photographs between his thumb and forefinger, he extends his arm towards me. I have to tug it once, twice, three times before he lets it go.
A car pulls up outside, the engine running.
‘That’s your car, love,’ says the controller.
The woman rises and straightens a skirt beneath her coat, checking out her reflection in the darkened front window. I hold the door open for her but she doesn’t acknowledge me. It’s as though she’s trying hard not to be noticed despite how she’s dressed.
The minicab driver gets out of the car and opens the door for her. He’s wearing jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt with a slogan on the back: ‘Happy Hour - Half-Price Sex’.
When he turns I can see his pale, narrow face and the tattoos running down his cheeks like black tears dripping from his chemical green eyes. It’s the same man I saw standing outside the restaurant when I had lunch with Julianne.
The minicab controller interrupts my thoughts. ‘He’s got a photograph. He’s looking for a girl.’
The driver doesn’t answer, but takes a step towards me. Every instinct tells me not to show him Sienna’s photograph, but he takes it from me, cocking his head to one side and studying the image as though committing her face, her hair, her budding body to memory.
Then slowly he raises his face to mine. I can smell his aftershave and something else, lurking beneath.
‘What’s this girl to you?’
‘It’s not important.’
‘Really? Try me.’
‘No, that’s OK.’
I reach out for the photograph.
‘Maybe you should leave this with us,’ he says. ‘I’ll keep an eye out for her.’
As he says the words, he raises two fingers to his face and traces the dripping tattoos down each cheek, dragging his flesh out of shape. Something inside me shudders.
‘Forget I asked,’ I say. ‘I’m sorry to bother you.’
‘No bother. What’s your name?’
‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘Yeah, it does. You should leave your name and number - in case she turns up.’
He’s in front of me now. What is that smell? Reaching out, I take the strip of photographs from his fingers, not wanting to touch him. Lowering my gaze, I step around him and keep walking, not looking back. I don’t want to think about this man. I don’t want to know his name or where he lives or what he’s done.
The minicab pulls away from the kerb and accelerates along the street past me, carrying the sad-eyed girl and the crying man. As I watch the car turn the corner, voice inside my head is whispering that I’ve been wrong. This is bigger and darker and more complex than I imagined.
23
Annie Robinson opens the door. She’s wearing a yellow dress and her hair is pinned up in a messy, casual way that probably took her an hour to achieve. I feel the coolness of her lips on mine and can almost taste the brightness of her lipstick.
‘You came.’
‘What did you expect?’
‘I just thought you might find an excuse.’
‘Why?’
‘I can be rather pushy. I wasn’t always, but when you’re pushing forty and you’re a notch below Bambi in the beauty stakes, you either grab your chances or languish in boredom listening to your girlfriends talk about Botox injections or their latest diet.’
Her voice tails off. She pours me a glass of wine. Her glass is almost empty. She refills it.
‘When I get nervous I talk too much - I’m doing it already.’
‘You’re being charming.’
‘I should just be indifferent. Men find indifference sexy.’
Annie looks at me for confirmation, but I don’t know how to answer her.
‘It’s true,’ she says. ‘Why do twenty-five men in a bar always chat up the single prettiest woman when the odds of success are so poor and she’s probably not going to want to go home with any of them? Meanwhile every other single woman in the bar is wondering what they have to do to get some attention.’
Annie lives in a listed Georgian terrace converted into six flats and backing on to the old Kent and Avon Canal in Bath. Her flat is on the ground floor and has a walled garden with trellises and a small patio dotted with terracotta pots.
After giving me a tour of the garden, she points to the sofa and we sit, sipping wine. In the next breath she puts her arms around my neck and pushes her stomach against my thigh, kissing me urgently, wetly. Next thing she’s pressing my hand between her thighs, grinding her crotch against my knuckles and I’m reacting like a man dying of thirst who has crawled a hundred miles across a desert just to be here.
The kiss continues as Annie pulls me up. Standing and kicking off her shoes, she edges me towards the bedroom. Breathlessly, we topple backwards on to her bed and she lands on top of me with a grunt.
‘Ow!’
‘What?’
‘Your elbow.’
‘Sorry.’
Annie slips her fingers beneath the elastic of her knickers, pushing them over her thighs. I try to negotiate the zipper of her dress.
‘My hair! It’s caught! Don’t move.’
She sits up on my thighs, reaching behind her to loosen the zip.
‘It’s jammed.’
‘I’m sorry.’
She laughs. ‘We’re hopeless.’
‘It looks a lot easier in the movies.’
‘Maybe we should start again.’
‘I’ll just use your bathroom.’
Rolling off the bed, I escape for a moment, feeling the cold tiles through my socks. The bathroom is nicely renovated, with a wall-to-ceiling mirror. There are shelves of shampoos, pastes, powders and moisturisers, which she appears to be stockpiling.
I study myself in the mirror. My mouth is smudged with her lipstick. How long has it been? Two years without sex: more of a drought than a dry spell. I’ve crossed the Sahara. I’ve forgotten how to drink.
She’ll be under the covers now, waiting for me, which is depressing rather than exciting. I look at my penis and wish it were bigger. I wish it would boss me around more often and stop me rationalising things.