Davina Smith had been on the game for two years.
Like most of the other working girls in the small town of Worksop, she did it to fund her heroin habit. She’d hated being a sex worker at first, but now she’d settled in to the life she found it wasn’t too bad. She had a half-decent flat and some nice clothes and she enjoyed the social life, such as it was: it consisted of the chance to talk to some of the more intelligent punters and the superficial camaraderie she’d established with the other girls. They were still rivals for business, but if the chips were down and there was danger she hoped they’d support each other. This was important for Davina, because, unlike most of the others, she hadn’t caved in to being managed by a pimp. Several had tried it on, but Davina was still together enough to be able to tell them to piss off. The key to independence was getting a decent fee for her services. While she could manage this, she’d never be in debt to her dealer, so wouldn’t be in need of ‘protection’.
The great advantage of working alone was that she kept all her earnings. The drawback was that she was isolated; she saw other sex workers as they walked the streets, usually followed at a discreet distance by their pimps, but once she was with a client there was no one to look out for her, not even in the self-serving, hit-and-miss style adopted by most pimps. She’d had a few scares: one punter had hit her in the face with the flat of his hand and another had made her strip and fastened her naked to railings on a bitter evening (she’d been rescued by a copper on his beat, so dazed with cold that she’d felt gratitude but no shame when he set her free). These experiences had made her wary of strangers. She preferred to go with regular clients, even if few paid generously and some made disgusting requests. She reasoned that it was better the devil you knew.
Davina stood out from the ordinary Worksop girls in other ways, too: she came from a ‘good’ home; had grown up in a nice house on the outskirts of the town. Her parents had divorced, but her mum had kept the house and got a good job in insurance. Davina had been a middle-of-the-roader at school, practical rather than academic, popular and ‘with her head screwed on’, as one of her teachers had said. She’d been destined for a career in nursing, which everyone thought would suit her. Instead she’d accepted a gift of Ecstasy at a pop concert and from that rapidly escalated to the hard stuff. At first, she’d stolen just from her mum, then from students at her college, to pay for her drugs. She’d been caught and the college had pressed charges. She’d been handed a suspended sentence and then kicked out of college. Her mum hadn’t abandoned her, but Davina couldn’t trust herself not to steal again if she went home. They still met up for coffee sometimes, but her mum’s bleak face was getting harder and harder to bear. Not that she ever reproached Davina, but there was worry etched in every line.
Anyway, it was because she was posh that Davina was a favourite with the punters. They liked the way she spoke and the gentle little attentions that came naturally to her. Made them feel less squalid, probably – more as if it was a proper relationship.
It was Friday night and she was walking through the town centre now, watching out for a bloke called John who’d picked her up the last three or four Fridays. John was okay; he just wanted straight sex and always paid up without grumbling about the forty quid she asked for. She’d put the price up a bit for him: instinct had told her he’d be good for an extra tenner.
Winter was closing in; although it was barely 8pm, it had been dark for a couple of hours. Some of the shop windows were dimly lit, but as many had been boarded up, Davina stood for a while in the shadows of a derelict pub. It was the spot where she’d first met John. She’d give him ten minutes or so, to see if he showed up. She glanced across the street, saw Vicky with a bloke in tow, a stocky little guy. It wasn’t John. She paced the pavement, a few steps one way, a few the other, not moving away from the old pub. A gust of wind powered round the corner. She shivered, drew her fake fur bomber jacket more closely around her. She was wearing knee-length boots, but under her short skirt her thighs were bare.
Tights were too much of an encumbrance.
A car passed her slowly and the driver wound down his window. She walked towards him.
‘How much?’ he said, grinning.
Too late, she saw there were two or three guys in the back, waving and jeering at her.
‘The knave of hearts, he stole some tarts…’ one of them chanted. She gave them the finger and walked rapidly away, past the shadowy pub and into a pedestrianised area protected from the road by a row of bollards. She hated kerb crawlers.
She was thinking about where to pitch next when she felt a light tap on her shoulder. She spun round.
‘Hello,’ said a soft voice. ‘I’m glad I’ve caught you.’