On Sunday afternoon, Shelley meandered along Pilgrim’s Lane. Although running late, she couldn’t stop herself slowing down to peek through the windows of the grand houses.
Feeling the chill in the air, she tightened the scarf around her neck. The cold found another route to her bones, through the holes in her jeans. She stopped under a cherry tree in bloom and fastened the hook and eyes that were undone on the lower half of her faux-fur coat.
Standing at the door of The Magdala, she saw Angel sitting at a table in the back of the saloon. As she sashayed past the shabby, wooden furniture, making her way over to the corner, she felt as though she’d entered a bygone era. It was more like a Sunday afternoon in April 1957, than in 1997.
She bent down to kiss Angel’s cheek and tripped on the leg of her chair.
Angel caught her arm. “You missed.”
“You missed out.” Shelley smiled. “I’m sorry I’m late. I got stuck on a call with a punter,” she lied. Of course, it was her checking that held her up. Due at three o’clock and arriving at twenty past, she was like Railtrack, lacking the commitment to resolve the issues responsible for delays.
Angel picked something out of Shelley’s hair. “Very pretty,” she said, holding the pink cherry blossom under her nose.
Angel was so obviously meant to be a woman. Had Shelley not met her on a job, she would never have known. She had a delicate bone structure, light brown skin and large brown eyes. Every part of her body curved naturally, with the exception of her breasts, which Shelley recalled felt rigid and rocklike. In contrast to the evening dress in which Shelley had last seen her, Angel was wearing tight jeans and an equally tight, white jumper. Apart from lip-gloss and mascara, her face was bereft of make-up. She was striking.
At the bar, Shelley bought herself a pint of snakebite and blackcurrant, and a vodka and coke for Angel. She joined Angel at the table, and sat on the bench opposite.
During their call a week earlier, Shelley hadn’t gone into detail. She hadn’t said anything other than asking Angel a hypothetical question. What would she do if she knew of a madam who was sending a rapist to working girls?
Sat at the corner table in the quiet end of the pub, tucked away from the sparse clientele, Shelley told Angel the situation. She explained what happened to her and to her friends and the call that Tara had overheard.
Angel’s expression turned cold. Her soft eyes hardened.
Shelley felt the toxin twisting in her stomach. The pain caused by the rapist piled on top of the pain the other warped excuses for men had caused her throughout the past thirteen years. The poison pushed up to her heart, and when she began to cry, Angel came around to the other side of the table and sat next to her. Shelley cried into her shoulder.
“It’ll be all right. We’ll put a stop to this, Kiki. I’ll make sure of it.”
Shelley looked into her deep brown eyes. She felt like she was sinking. She’d be safer in those eyes.
***
After two more pints of snakebite and black, in conjunction with numerous cigarettes, her tears stopped and the conversation veered in a less macabre direction. Shelley asked Angel about her job in Ibiza. Angel told her she’d hardly had to do any work. She’d enjoyed most of the stay on her own even though she was being paid a good few thousand pounds to be there.
“I go away with him five or six times a year. You should come with me on the next trip. He’s really nice, not a fascination fuck. He bought me this,” Angel said, showing the gold, solitaire diamond ring on her slender middle finger.
“That would be amazing. I’d love to. Thanks.” It was the truth, but Shelley knew she couldn’t go. She couldn’t work through cold turkey, let alone travel through it. She’d have to ride it out in London before she left the country. And with her recent attempts being unsuccessful, she had little hope for those yet to come.
She could have done with the money one high-fee booking would pay. Since The Lanesborough job, she’d been working infrequently and spending her way through her savings, which were meant for university. Even though she doubted she’d be embarking on that plan now, a tiny part of her wouldn’t totally admit the idea had no legs. She reminded herself to call the madams when she got home. She had to start putting herself out to work more often.
Once she felt ready, she returned to the subject of their meeting. Quietly, she shared the idea she’d devised with Nicole and Tara.
“You’ll need to meet them before we can do anything,” Shelley said. “I’ll sort it for in the week, if that’s okay with you.”
Angel nodded, twirling the end her sleek, black ponytail in her fingers. “I’m not sure about the one who uses her real name and address. That madam can get to her any time she wants.” She sipped her vodka and coke. “I know she’s your girl, but she could be a liability. We can’t afford a weak link in something like this.”
“She’d never grass us up, I’m sure.”
“You need to be. This ain’t a small thing. Our liberty’s at stake.” Angel laid her hands flat on the table. “If she doesn’t know exactly what we’ve done and where we’ve done it, she can’t nark on us.”
“She wouldn’t.”
“Whether she wants to or not, it’s irrelevant. That madam or the police could put pressure on her, but they can’t force her to tell what she doesn’t know.”
Shelley tried to reassure her, but Angel wasn’t to be assured. She did agree, however, to withhold her final judgement until she’d met Tara herself. And Shelley verbally agreed that Angel had a point about Tara staying out of it, saying she’d mull it over – but really, she wouldn’t be mulling anything. The probability of pulling it off successfully increased with the number of them participating.
Shelley took her cigarette packet and her Clipper from the table and put them inside her handbag. “I’m Shelley by the way,” she said, standing to leave.
“Hello Shelley.” Angel’s pink-brown lips swelled into a smile and dimples appeared in her cheeks. “I’ll be Angel for a while if you don’t mind, ’til I know you better.”
As Shelley moseyed back along Willoughby Road, she regretted not sharing The Lanesborough secret with Angel. She felt a need to talk about it to someone, to unburden herself of the fear. But what if it wasn’t a secret? Then she could talk with Nicole. But then, if Nicole knew, why hadn’t she mentioned it? Perhaps it was because she had enough to deal with. With the court case and now the justice they had planned for the rapist, Nicole didn’t need another problem from Shelley.
If she were to tell Angel, it would be useful to have another pair of eyes scanning the newspapers daily. There’d been days she’d missed when she hadn’t been able to leave her flat. She didn’t want to miss any more. The news might have been reported already and her current efforts could be in vain.
When she got home, she decided to keep it to herself. In time, if she came to know Angel better, maybe she’d confide in her then, but the time wasn’t ripe now. She didn’t even know Angel’s real name. Though she felt an affinity with her, it was foolish to follow her gut instinct. On this, she needed to think and act with her head.