Up the crime, up the stakes, up the reasons for betrayal.
A night run through Muscat, and three men in white call out, Hey, pretty lady, you hot, you sweet, you hot?
These men might be married, might beat another man to death for even looking at their wives, their sisters, their children, but when a lone Western woman walks through the streets of Oman, that’s fair game, because Western women are like that, aren’t they? They must be, to walk the way they walk, talk the way they talk.
You sweet, you hot?
Briefly, I feel the fear of being a woman in a strange land.
I am the queen of taster classes: self-defence, half a dozen different forms of martial art; fired a pistol on a range in Nebraska, a rifle in Kentucky. I carry a flashlight in my bag which may, with very little effort, be turned into a blunt impact weapon in an emergency, and I am prepared to hurt someone, to really hurt them, if my safety is threatened.
I carry on running, and count steps as I do, twenty-seven until the men are completely out of sight.
I have been caught by cops three times in my career.
The first time, I was seventeen years old, and I was nabbed red-handed shoplifting from a department store in Birmingham. The security guard who tackled me held onto my arm until the police arrived. They took my name (false), my address (false), and when they discovered the lie, the sergeant looked me in the eye and said, “It’s a shame, luv, cos we gotta put you through the system.”
They put me in the back of the police car and drove slowly to the station. I hunkered down low, silent, listening to the cops in front chatting about the game, what their missus had said, how one wished he had more time to see the kids, the other was worried about his dad. When they got to the station one said, “Cuppa?”
“Lovely-jubbly,” replied the other brightly, and so saying, they got out of the car without checking the rear seat, slammed the doors shut and went in search of their tea break, leaving me sat in the back, forgotten, wondering what I was going to do now.
In the end, a constable found me, and called the drivers of the car, and asked them what the hell was going on. They had no idea; they recalled being summoned to a shoplifting, but there hadn’t been anyone there to arrest.
“Then what the hell is she doing here?” demanded their superintendent. “Who is she?”
I said, “These guys just grabbed me off the street, they grabbed me and said they were going to do things and I don’t know why, they were just saying stuff like I thought maybe they were drunk!”
Then I cried, which, given the situation, wasn’t very hard, and the cops let me go, and asked me not to sue.
The second time I was caught, they got me through the darknet.
I was twenty-four years old, and had come to Milan for the food and the fashion. First impressions — my life is about making a good first impression. When one attempt fails, I will go away, and reinvent myself, and return to try again. Though first impressions may be the only thing I have, at least I get to practise until they’re right.
Milan during fashion week is full of strange crowds at unlikely venues. Turn a corner and there they are, the young and old, dressed in incredible shoes and ridiculous hats, waiting to see someone-who-knows-someone-who-is-someone’s-friend walk up the red carpet. Models abound, but are surprisingly hard to spot in the streets without their make-up and pout, the glamour gone, walking with legs, not hips. It is an exercise in transformation, one I was determined to study.
Getting into the Dolce & Gabbana after-party was easy. You walk in as a waitress, and once inside you change into a gown. That year, collars were high, skirts were short, and the look was paisley meets Star Trek. I noted every woman of power, every model climbing that greasy pole, and copied their smiles and walks, one foot in front of the other, a perfect straight line, toe to heel.
It was a spiteful whim that led me to rob Salvatore Rizzo, sixty-nine years old and the king of beauty.
“A shame, a shame,” he said, looking at me. “You could be someone, but you’re not someone, you don’t have the face, the eyes, the lips; and if you were going to be someone, you’d be someone by now.”
I thought about speaking my mind, and didn’t. I was twenty-four years old, and I was learning professionalism.
“These,” he said, running his fingers down first the gold-and-sapphire choker around a model’s throat, then the line of her collarbone, then the slope of her arm, “are the Tsarina’s Tears. They were worn by Alexandra of Russia the day the Winter Palace fell. Do you know what they’re worth?”
Approximately six million dollars, I thought. “Oh no,” I replied. “How much?”
“To ordinary people — money. To me — the human soul. The girl who wears this isn’t just beautiful, she is extraordinary, she is an icon, an icon of what women should be. Women should be beautiful, they should be diamonds, we should worship them, we should want them, we should need to be wanted by them, we should keep them safe and polished and perfect, that is what I believe in, that is what I fight for, I am a feminist you see, it is the only thing that is important in life. Women. And beauty. And the soul.”
I smiled and wondered if any of the on-site security personnel carried guns.
At the bar, a model from Riga, seventeen years old, whispered, “They told me I should sleep with him, but my friend let him do things to her last month and then got sent home without her pay, so I’m just going to keep working, stay in control, get to the top the hard way.”
“Why do you do what you do?” I asked.
“Cash,” she answered. “If I can keep this up, I can pay for university, but it’s hard — it’s a hard life, you have to change everything you do, how you eat, how you speak, how you exercise, how you sleep, how you walk; everything. But sometimes, when I walk down the catwalk, and everyone stares at me, I feel it.”
“Feel what?”
“I feel like… yeah. Fuck you. I am fucking amazing. I am fucking strong. That’s what the clothes mean, you see. When they’re good, I feel more like me, and I’m unbeatable.”
That’s what the smile means too, I thought, lips locked in place. I smile, and I do not speak my mind, because when I am restrained in my actions, I am more than myself: I am unstoppable.
“What do you want to study?” I asked.
“Urban redevelopment.”
“Not fashion?”
She shrugged. “I know about fashion already. But I don’t know enough about mass transit links.”
For a moment, the smile becomes genuine. “You should study,” I said. “I think it sounds like an excellent idea.”
Three hours later, I found her passed out behind the bar. Someone had slipped something into her drink, and her pants were torn. The hospital said there was no sign of penetration, but the management let her go, just in case. Two hours later, the Tsarina’s Tears vanished from Salvatore Rizzo’s room, taken by a woman whose face no one could remember.
Usual pattern of behaviour.
I offered the stolen jewels for sale, agreed an exchange in a café in Vienna, arrived, ordered sachertorte, and within five minutes was staring at an arrest warrant and a small man with the beginning of a premature bald spot who said, “Did you have a coat?”
So stunned was I by the situation, by the policemen swarming around me and the small crowd of tourists staring at me through the café window as the handcuffs were clamped on, that I didn’t register the question at first.
“What?”
“A coat,” he repeated patiently. “It’s very cold outside.”
“By the door; the blue one.”
“This coat?”
“Yes.”
He patted it down quickly, found nothing of interest, draped it over my shoulders. “All right then.”