this, she added: ‘When you get home this evening, are you going to tell your wife you went to see a hooker? That you paid her money?’
‘I’m not married.’
‘Your girlfriend, then. Anyone …’ Proctor didn’t need to say anything. ‘I thought not. So don’t come here and talk to me about the truth.’
Not only was her tone changing, so was her accent; south London was being displaced by something less readily identifiable. Just as her opening remarks had been laced with a dose of sleazy tease, now she was cold and direct.
Proctor was equally blunt. ‘I think your real name is Stephanie Patrick.’
This time, he knew he was right. The surname betrayed her and she froze, if only for a fraction of a second. He saw her try to shrug it off but he also saw that she knew he’d seen it.
‘I’m right, aren’t I?’
For the first time, she looked openly hostile. ‘Who are you?’
‘Your name is Stephanie Patrick, isn’t it?’
She looked down at the money in her fist and said, ‘Let me give this to the maid and then we’ll talk. Okay?’
It took Proctor a couple of seconds to realize that the ‘maid’ was the fat woman who had admitted him to the flat. ‘Okay.’
Lisa – for that was who she still seemed to be – turned away and left him alone in the room. When she returned, a couple of minutes later, she had transformed into a man who was six-foot-four and built like a weight-lifter. He had no neck, his huge shaven head merging with the grotesque bulges of his shoulder muscles. His white T-shirt was so tight it could have been body-paint.
He didn’t need to raise his voice when he pointed at Proctor and murmured, ‘You. Outside. Now.’
Proctor rolled over, vaguely aware of the soggy rubbish that was squashed beneath his body. The drizzle fell softly on to his stinging face. One eye was closing. Through the other, he saw two walls of blackened brick converging as they rose. He was in an alley of some sort and it stank.
The beating had been short, brutal and depressingly efficient; the administrator was clearly no novice. After a final kick to the ribs, he’d hissed a blunt warning: ‘If I ever see you here again, I’ll tear your fucking balls off. And that’s just for starters. Now piss off out of here.’
With that, a door had slammed shut and Proctor had been by himself, lying on a bed of rotting rubbish. For a while, he made no attempt to move. He lay on his back, his arms wrapped around his burning ribs. He tasted blood in his mouth.
He looked up and saw smudges of buttery light seeping from cracks in drawn curtains. And from a partially-opened window, he heard Bing Crosby crooning on a radio.
I’m dreaming of a White Christmas …
Proctor saw her before she saw him. He was standing in a restaurant doorway, trying to keep dry. The drizzle of the previous night had matured into real rain. When he glimpsed her, she was heading his way, so he retreated from view. Inside the restaurant, staff were preparing for lunch, placing tall wine glasses and small dishes of chilled butter on tables draped in starched white cloth.
He waited until she was close. ‘Lisa?’
She stopped but it took a moment for her to recognize him beneath his mask of bruises. Proctor raised his hands in surrender. ‘I don’t want any trouble. I just want to talk.’
She looked as though she would run. ‘Leave me alone,’ she hissed.
‘Please. It’s important.’
He saw the hardness in her gaze again. ‘Which part don’t you understand? Or maybe you just enjoy getting your head kicked in.’
‘No, I don’t. That’s why I waited for you here and not in Brewer Street.’
‘How’d you know I’d come this way?’
He shrugged. ‘I didn’t. But I guessed you didn’t live there so you’d be coming from somewhere else. And then I guessed you’d come on the Underground, not a bus. And since this is on the shortest route between the nearest station and Brewer Street …’
‘Smart,’ she said, flatly. ‘But I could’ve come another way. I often do.’
‘You could’ve. But you didn’t.’
According to Proctor’s information, Stephanie Patrick was twenty-two. The woman in front of him looked at least ten years older than that. Her dyed blonde hair was dishevelled and with her make-up removed, her face was as colourless as the rest of her. Except for the dark smudges around both eyes. But now, in the morning, they were natural, not cosmetic.
She wore a tatty, black, leather bomber-jacket over a grey sweatshirt. Her jeans were frayed at the knees and down the thighs; given the weather, this seemed more like a financial statement than one of fashion. Her blue canvas trainers were soaked.
‘How long have you been here?’ she asked him.
‘Since nine-thirty.’
She glanced at her plastic watch. It was after eleven. ‘You must be cold.’
‘And wet. And in pain.’
He saw a hint of a smile.
‘I can imagine. He’s not known for his subtlety. Just for his thoroughness.’ She examined Proctor’s face. ‘You look like shit.’
Proctor hadn’t slept. When the paracetamol had failed, he’d resorted to alcoholic painkiller, which had also failed. And not being a seasoned drinker, the experience had left him with a hangover to compound his misery. His body was peppered with bruises, his left eye was badly swollen, his ribs ached with every breath and his right ankle, which had been twisted on the stairs, was aflame.
‘Look, if you’re not going to talk to me, fine. But let me ask you one question. Are you or are you not Stephanie Patrick, daughter of Dr Andrew Patrick and Monica Patrick?’
He needed to hear the answer that he already knew. She took her time.
‘First, who are you?’
‘My name is Keith Proctor.’
‘Why are you asking me these things?’
‘It’s part of my job.’
‘Which is what?’
‘I’m a journalist.’ Predictably, she grew yet more defensive, her posture betraying her silence. Proctor said, ‘Your parents were on the North Eastern Airlines flight that crashed into the Atlantic two years ago. So were your sister and your younger brother.’
He watched her run through the phrases in her mind before she chose one. ‘I’ve got nothing to say to you. Leave me alone. Leave it alone.’
‘Believe me, I’d like to. But I can’t.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because it wasn’t an accident.’
The bait was cast and she considered it for a moment. Before ignoring it. ‘I don’t believe you.’
‘I don’t expect you to. Not yet. Not until you’ve given me a chance.’ She shook her head but Proctor persisted. ‘I need a cup of coffee, Miss Patrick. Will you let me buy you one, too? I’ll pay for your time.’
‘People pay me for my body, not my time.’
‘They pay for both. Come on. Just one cup of coffee.’
Bar Bruno, on the corner of Wardour Street and Peter Street, was half-full. It offered fried breakfasts