The overall impression Lucy gained of SugaBabes was that of private gentleman’s club combined with old-fashioned bordello.
It comprised six or seven ground-floor rooms, all leading off the vestibule, and all plush: richly carpeted, furnished with couches, divans and armchairs, and yet each with its own theme. There was the Egyptian Room, the Oriental Room, the African Room, the Russian Room. In some ways, Lucy supposed that was reminiscent of London’s famously lavish Victorian brothels, but that was the only thing in the entire establishment that leaned towards the tacky. A couple of the rooms had their own bars, but to maintain the classier aura, there were no gaming tables in there, no big TVs screening porn twenty-four/seven.
Though Lucy found that her duty was relatively straightforward, she shared it with a blonde Polish girl who went by the unlikely name of Delilah. All they had to do was stand behind their counter under the staircase, and take charge of every item of apparel that was handed to them. While their uniforms might consist of black high heels, seamed black nylons, short black tunics trimmed with gold, and black brimless bellhop hats that fastened under the chin with gold straps, this wasn’t especially demeaning garb. She’d seen worse in legit establishments like wine-bars and nightclubs. The girls serving – either the barmaids or the waitresses – were similarly dressed, while the Talent Team, as they were called, descended the staircase from about eight o’clock that first evening, looking elegant and glamorous.
Their order of play was evening gowns, expensive hairdos, lots of jewellery and intoxicating perfume. No indecently plunging necklines were on view, likewise no stocking tops. Admittedly, on a couple of occasions the impression was only just this side of slutty – several gowns were perhaps a little too sheer, or maybe if they were backless and split to the waist rather than the thigh, exposed a little more flesh than might be permissible in normal society (though film stars and fashion models did that routinely on the red carpet these days, so what the hell!). But one thing was certain, these girls were the most beautiful and chic that Lucy had ever seen who were actually in the flesh trade. There were no tattoos on show, no pierced belly buttons, no stretchmarks, no varicose veins, much less any needle-tracks or inflamed, coke-reddened nostrils.
Delilah meanwhile, who spoke English well and was pleased to have company, proved immediately to be something of a chatterbox. She named all the girls as they came down from upstairs. Quite a few were Eastern European, but overall they were an ethnic mix. Some were local, from right here in Manchester, but there were girls from much farther afield too – Australia, South Africa, Japan, the Philippines.
‘How do they end up here?’ Lucy asked. ‘How does Jayne actually recruit them?’
To this question, Delilah’s response was cagier. ‘Girls travel, you know. They seek better life. There are many things they … well, they wish to leave behind. At least here they safe, no?’
Well, Lucy thought, safe-ish.
She’d already been told that she’d never have reason to go upstairs, and so didn’t know what actually went on up there, but nothing unseemly appeared to be happening downstairs. Apparently, according to Delilah, that was another house-rule. As she furtively watched, the girls sat and talked with the customers on couches or at the bars, laughing at their jokes, courteously accepting drinks, though never anything alcoholic – lime and soda was the usual preference. There was no fondling, no groping, no sitting on knees.
The clients themselves were initially an unthreatening group; well-to-do men for the most part – Lucy could tell that from their suits and coats and silken scarves, and from the way they bore themselves and spoke. Most were in middle age – they were probably the only ones who could afford this place – and tended to be clean and polite. Invariably, they were in relaxed and jovial mood when they got here. Letting their hair down, she assumed, after a stressful week CEO’ing their companies or managing their local authority departments, or taking care of whatever else it was they did that put them into this gold-plated category.
Of course such geniality of spirit did not extend right across the board.
That very first night, from about ten o’clock onwards, villains started arriving at SugaBabes. Not in great numbers, but what they lacked in quantity, they made up for in quality. Lucy sucked in a tight breath when she found herself face-to-face with the disfigured visage of Vinny Scott, who was well-known around Manchester as a professional armed robber. She’d never had personal dealings with Scott, so it was unlikely he’d recognise her, but she couldn’t fail to place the famously broken nose and the weirdly right-angled razor scar on his left cheek. He barely looked at her as he handed over his black leather overcoat. Underneath it, he wore a string vest and neck-chains, while his muscular arms were covered with tattoos and other cheap bling. He snatched his ticket without a word, and sauntered away into the Egyptian Room, where a couple of the girls immediately attended on him.
Lucy’s accelerated heart rate had no sooner begun to slow again when Curtis Laidlaw approached the counter. His racket was importing heroin, speed and skunk cannabis. He was also known as a pimp, as his dyed-blond curls, alligator jacket and brilliant red silk shirt appeared to attest. At least Laidlaw was inclined to be friendlier, or more of a charmer. He responded to Delilah’s greeting, by taking her face in his large, dark, jewel-bedecked hands and planting a moist kiss on her lips, before accepting his ticket with gratitude.
Clearly, Laidlaw was here to discuss business with Jayne McIvar, because he then disappeared into her private office.
But more frightening than any of these characters, and more of a loose cannon generally because house-rules just didn’t apply to her – as Lucy was imminently to discover – was Jayne McIvar’s sister, Suzy, who was official Head of Security at the club. The first Lucy saw of her came half an hour after Laidlaw had been admitted to Jayne’s office, when Suzy walked quickly downstairs, crossed the vestibule, opened Jayne’s door without knocking and slammed it closed behind her.
Similarly beautiful to her sister, but in a wilder, more tigerish way, Suzy wore her orangey-red hair in long dreads bound together at the nape of her neck, and a stud through her left eyebrow. She was slightly taller than Jayne and of a heavier build, as if she worked out, but there was no mistaking her female shape, even though it was currently clad in rocker attire: a tasselled black leather jacket worn over a black T-shirt bearing a blood-and-thunder metal band logo, tight jeans with a studded black leather belt, and spike-heeled, black leather boots. Her fingernails, which, whether real or false, looked lethally long and sharp, were painted bright green. There was one curiosity: on Suzy’s left hand she wore a single, fingerless glove. After she had vanished into the office, Delilah confided in Lucy that this was to conceal a nasty scar.
Apparently, as a rumbustious kid in Longsight, Suzy McIvar had annoyed a local all-male gang by asking to join them. In retaliation, they dragged her into a derelict garage and gang-raped her. She somehow managed to tolerate all that, misguidedly thinking it a kind of initiation test. But afterwards, when one of them produced a carton of battery acid, which he intended to drizzle on her face, she fought back crazily, breaking two of their skulls with an iron bar, and raking another’s face – she had claws even then – so severely that his teeth were exposed through his cheeks. Suzy didn’t come out of the fight entirely unscathed, having at one point to fend off the acid as it was thrown. It drenched her left hand, rendering it a shrivelled talon for ever more, but at least it missed her face.
All of this tied in with the warnings given about Suzy McIvar beforehand, as did an incident several minutes later when Lucy heard muffled shouting behind the door to the office. It was a voice she hadn’t heard previously, almost certainly Suzy’s, and it was so sharp and fierce, and rose so rapidly in volume, that she could soon hear every word.
‘You think you can badmouth us whenever you fucking feel like it, Curtis! Is that what you’re saying?’
There was a mumbled response. It sounded like ‘no, no way’.
‘You think you can say what you want in this fucking town?’ Despite being clearly audible already, Suzy’s voice continued to rise, to steadily intensify. ‘You think you’ve earned that right?’
Unlike her sister, Suzy had evidently taken no elocution lessons, and still spoke – or rather shrieked – with the hard vowels and glottal consonants of inner Manchester.
As before, the response was only semi-coherent.
‘Answer the fucking question, you little shit! Do you think you own this fucking city? Tell – the – fucking – truth! Do not make things worse by lying!’
‘Course I don’t …’ Lucy heard Laidlaw stammer. ‘Suzy, come on …’
‘Course you fucking don’t! Bang fucking right! So why the fuck …’
Another customer approached the counter, seemingly oblivious to the tirade in the office, briefly distracting Lucy from her eavesdropping. When he’d departed and she had taken care of his coat, it was still going on. It was now echoingly loud in the vestibule, so it must have literally been deafening inside the office.
‘So how are you going to fix it?’ Suzy wanted to know.
Again, Laidlaw’s next response was only semi-audible.
‘Answer the fucking question! How are you going to fucking fix it?’
Laidlaw gave some meandering, long-winded response.
‘What … what did you fucking say? Are you serious? Are you taking the piss, Curtis! Because your life’s on the fucking line right now! I’m telling you.’
Lucy couldn’t help eyeing Delilah, who gave a relieved little shrug, as if to say, ‘Hey, count your blessings … that could be one of us in there.’
‘What’s to stop me killing you right now, I hear you ask?’ Suzy ranted on. ‘Well … nothing! Sweet fuck all!’
Someone else spoke, presumably Jayne McIvar, as it was calmer, more controlled, only for Suzy to tear in again before Laidlaw could respond.
‘Where’re your boys when you need them?’ she wondered scornfully. ‘I’ll tell you, Curtis … sitting at home with limp dicks and sweaty faces. You know why? Because they were too fucking frightened to come here … and with good fucking reason. But that won’t keep them safe, I can promise. Once we’ve finished with you, we’ll come after them! You know why, you treacherous, smart-arsed little shitbag …? For the simple reason they’re your fucking mates. And when we’ve done them we’ll go after your family … and all their fucking families …’
There was a further mumble of additional other voices.
‘Shut the fuck up!’ Suzy howled. ‘Don’t open that slimy yap of yours when Jayne’s speaking … the only reason not to fucking kill you on the spot – right here, right now – is so you can put this thing right first. So don’t get fucking smart, Curtis. You weren’t born with the brains of a fucking slug. In fact, get on your fucking knees. Now … do it now, you degenerate, scum-sucking prick!’
Lucy glanced again at Delilah, whose head was down, who would no longer meet her colleague’s gaze.
‘ON YOUR KNEES NOW!’
Lucy swallowed hard, wondering if they were about to hear a gunshot.
‘You little shit! You little bitch faggot. You think you’re the fucking man because you know a few names in Afghanistan and Morocco? You think that cuts any fucking ice with us?… What? What did you say?’
‘I’m sorry …’ Lucy heard Laidlaw’s voice clearly for the first time. He too was shouting, but in desperation, in panic-stricken terror; it was impossible to equate it with the cool dude who’d breezed his way in earlier. ‘I said I’m sorry. It won’t happen again, I promise …’
‘You fucking let us down again, Curtis … you wise off when our people come around, and they’ll be taking your body home in a fucking bucket! Last fucking chance … you hear? I SAID DO YOU FUCKING HEAR!’
‘Yes, yes, I hear,’ he blathered.
‘I CAN’T FUCKING HEAR YOU!’
And so it went on, for another ten minutes or so, Laidlaw all but begging, Suzy issuing apocalyptic threats, until the door suddenly burst open again and the McIvars’ guest tottered out. Gone was the smooth customer, in his place a staggering, goggle-eyed scarecrow of a man, whose shirt hung wetly open on xylophone ribs, whose bleached curls hung on his brow in damp ringlets, and who blundered towards the brothel exit without seeing anything else or any other person.
Suzy McIvar appeared in the office door, and watched him go. A sheen of perspiration gleamed on her own brow, but her mouth was twisted into an angry but satisfied smile. She turned, her eyes briefly locking with Lucy’s. Lucy averted her gaze.
With a resounding bang, the heavy office door slammed closed again.