The Eyewitness (17 page)

Sasha walked slowly up the marble staircase, carrying the half-full bottle of Black Label. He walked down the landing, past a line of identical doors. There were two dozen bedrooms in the mansion but Sasha hadn't been inside most of them. He had paid an interior designer a small fortune to decorate and furnish them and they were kept scrupulously clean by the Albanian housekeeper and her assistant, but most of the beds had not been slept in.

He opened the door at the far end of the corridor. The girl was sitting on the edge of the king-sized bed and stood up quickly. Her face was tear-stained and her mascara had run. She wiped her face and sniffed.

Sasha kicked the door closed and took a swig of whisky. He looked slowly around the room. The designer had used a leopard theme. There was a fake leopards king cover on the bed, and a real leopards king on the floor. On the walls were framed paintings of the big cat, and there was a life-size porcelain model of one under the window.

Sasha wiped the back of his mouth with his hand.

“You told him, my name.”

The girl sniffed again and looked down at the floor.

“I'm sorry.”

“You told him about my business.”

“I didn't,” she said.

“No more lies,” said Sasha. He took another swig from the bottle.

“Take off your dress,” he said.

She complied immediately, unzipping it at the back and stepping out of it. She placed it carefully on the bed. She was wearing her working underwear. Black bra, pants and suspenders with white stockings. There was a small gold cross at her throat.

“Everything off,” said Sasha.

The girl began to sob.

It had been a long time since Sasha had seen Inga naked. It had been in Belgrade. She hadn't been that special, and he'd probably overpaid, but he'd needed girls quickly and she had a good figure, and the friend who'd road-tested her had confirmed that she'd been well trained. She'd put on a bit of weight since the auction: now her figure was fuller and her breasts were bigger than Sasha liked. Sasha liked his girls young with boyish figures, but what he was about to do to Inga had nothing to do with sex and everything to do with control. She had to be taught a lesson.

Inga stood naked at the end of the bed, her right arm covering her breasts, her left hand over her crotch.

“Look at me,” hissed Sasha.

Inga slowly raised her tear-filled eyes.

“I'm sorry,” she whispered.

“I didn't tell you to speak, whore,” said Sasha.

“Turn and face the mirror.”

Inga did as she was told. The mirror was on top of the dressing table. She closed her eyes.

Sasha walked up behind her. He grabbed her neck and pushed her down so that she had to lean on the dressing-table. Then he undid his belt and took her from behind, roughly, cursing all the time. He didn't bother with a condom he never did with his girls. They were checked by a doctor every two weeks, and if they were discovered to have an infection they were fined and beaten. A day off sick was a day's money lost, and that had to be made good by the girl. And a beating was necessary to make sure that they didn't make the same mistake again.

Sasha pounded into her until he came, then zipped up his trousers. Inga stayed where she was, sobbing quietly.

“Stand up,” said Sasha. She began to shake, but Sasha grabbed her by the hair and hauled her upright. He slapped her across the face, hard but not hard enough to break anything. She clamped her mouth shut, knowing that if she screamed the beating would be all the harder.

“You don't take a phone number from a punter,” he said.

“Ever.” He slapped her again.

“You don't meet a punter outside work,” he said.

“Ever.” He slapped her a third time.

“And you don't ever tell anybody my name.” Slap.

“Or my business.” Slap.

“Do you understand?”

Inga nodded and sniffed.

“Yes.”

“Lie down, on the bed.” Inga lay on her back.

“On your face, whore.”

Inga rolled over. Sasha slid off his belt and folded it double. He stood over Inga, swinging it gently. Then he laid into her.

Sasha's mansion was in West Hampstead and it was only when they drove past Maida Vale station that Solomon realised the two men really were driving him home. They hadn't said a word from the moment they'd climbed into the Mercedes and he had been gearing himself up for a last-ditch effort at either fight or escape. The two men were both bigger and stronger than he was and Solomon doubted that he could overpower one, let alone the two of them.

As the Mercedes drove down the Great Western Road, passing under the A40 Westway, Solomon asked the driver to pull up on the left. He didn't want them to know where he was staying.

The driver did as Solomon asked and pressed a button to unlock the rear passenger doors. Solomon got out and waited for them to drive away before he walked to Danny McLaren's flat. He let himself in and tiptoed to his bedroom. He wanted to soak in a bath of hot water but that might wake McLaren. He lay on the bed fully clothed, staring up at the ceiling and wondering what he should do next.

Sasha walked through Soho, his head up, his jaw thrust forward, his fists clenched. Two of his men, Karic and Rikki, followed behind. They had worked for him for more than ten years and he trusted them both with his life. During the war Karic had taken a bullet meant for Sasha. He had been running black-market food and medicine into the beleaguered city of Sarajevo when a Serbian gang had decided that they had a God-given right to a piece of the action. They hadn't put it to Sasha as directly as that, of course. They had arranged a meeting at a warehouse, ostensibly to discuss a shipment of antibiotics, when half a dozen men had opened fire with automatic weapons. If it hadn't been for the bullet-proof vest he wore under his parka and Karic pushing him out of the way, Sasha would have died that night. As it was, the Serbian gang-leader died, with four of his men.

Two young men walked by, hand in hand, simpering at each other like giggling schoolgirls. Sasha sneered at them. He hated homosexuals, hated them for their mincing ways and girlish outfits. There were no homosexuals in the Balkans. Not out in the open, anyway, but in Soho they seemed to be everywhere. It made no sense to Sasha that the city's predominant red-light area should also be home to so many gay bars.

He told Karic and Rikki to wait at the entrance to the alley while he walked down to the entrance to three of his flats. The door was open. Sasha looked up. In each window was a sign saying MODEL and all were illuminated with red lights. When Sasha had taken over the flats, the signs had been used to show whether the girls were available or not. If the signs were illuminated by a red light, the girl was free; if the light was off, she was servicing a client. One of the first things Sasha had done was to change the system now the lights were on all the time. If necessary, the waiting clients could sit in the kitchen or the bathroom, or even a broom cupboard, and it was up to the maid to make sure that the girl kept working as efficiently as possible. If the kitchen, bathroom and broom cupboard were occupied, the maid could send the customer to another of Sasha's flats. It was all about keeping the girls on their backs with their legs open for as much of the time as possible. If they weren't screwing, they weren't earning. And if they weren't earning, they were no good to Sasha.

The girl on the first floor was a Latvian who worked under the name of Elsa. Sasha had bought her in Sarajevo for two thousand dollars and it had been money well spent. She had earned him a hundred times that over the past two years. He had introduced her to heroin smoking not injecting because needle marks put off the punters soon after bringing her to London on a tourist visa, courtesy of a corrupt official at the British embassy in Sarajevo. Now Sasha charged her ten times the street price for heroin, but she was so doped up that she was none the wiser. The heroin made her more compliant, too, and there was no service she wouldn't offer, provided that the punter had enough money. She no longer asked Sasha when she would have worked off her contract. She belonged to him now, body and soul, and Sasha reckoned he could get another three years out of her before her looks faded and he sold her on.

He went up the stairs and knocked on the door to the first-floor flat. The maid opened it, a fifty-year-old woman who had worked there for more than a decade. She smiled when she saw it was Sasha and ushered him into the flat's tiny kitchen. There was a stool and a pile of well-thumbed Penthouse magazines. Sasha sat on the stool. The maid opened a drawer, took out a notebook and handed it to him. It had Elsa's name on the front and was a record of every customer she had seen, the time they arrived and left, the service provided and the amount of money paid. Every girl who worked for Sasha had a similar book. He flicked through to that day's entries. From the time that she'd opened for business at eleven o'clock in the morning, there were barely any gaps between clients, four minutes at most.

“Well done, Liz,” he said.

Liz groaned.

“She's a good worker, the punters like her. Lots of regulars.” Liz and the rest of the maids who worked in Sasha's flats were the eyes and ears of his business, and he treated them with respect. Girls he could buy by the dozen, but experienced maids were hard to find. They could spot if a girl was ripping him off, if she was getting too attached to a particular punter, or if she was getting lazy or giving clients poor service. A good maid would always talk to the punter on the way out, to check that everything had been satisfactory, and that he hadn't been asked to pay for any extras mid-session. And Liz, like all Sasha's maids, would search the bedroom periodically for hidden money when the girls were in the bathroom.

“No problems?” Sasha asked.

“Everything's hunky-dory,” she said. She opened another drawer and took out that day's earnings, the banknotes folded into one-hundred-pound bundles. Seven in all. Seven hundred pounds, and Elsa was barely half-way through her shift. Sasha pocketed it.

“Do you want a coffee?” asked Liz. She looked a good decade older than her true age, the result of too many cigarettes, a liking for neat gin and twenty years on the game. Her main claim to fame was three years as mistress to a well-known TV game-show host who had put her up in an apartment in Knightsbridge, leased her a convertible Mercedes, and spent every Wednesday afternoon making love to her while he was dressed in a black cocktail dress and a long blonde wig.

“No, thank you,” said Sasha, pocketing the money.

“I just want a word with Elsa and then I'll be off.”

The bedroom door opened and they heard Elsa pad to the bathroom. Liz left the kitchen and showed the punter out. She came back grinning and waving a five-pound note.

“Another satisfied customer, and a tip too,” she said. She slipped the money into her purse.

Sasha went out into the hallway and banged on the door.

“Bedroom, Elsa,” he said.

“Sasha?”

“You're expecting someone else? And don't waste hot water. Do you have any idea what my bills are for this place?”

He walked into the bedroom and sat down on the bed. The room was illuminated with a red bulb. Girls always looked better under red light. Sexier. There was a vase of flowers on a table by the bed, and a teddy bear holding a red heart with "I love you' written on it.

Elsa appeared in the doorway, wearing matching black bra, suspenders and pants. She slipped on her high heels and smiled at Sasha, then her lip trembled as she saw that he was holding the bear.

“It's not mine,” she said.

“It was here when I came. It must be Abi's.”

Abi was the girl who worked the night shift. A Latvian. Her English was good and she loved to talk. She had the knack of making her more susceptible clients fall for her. It usually started with flowers and soft toys, then perfume, and before long they'd be offering to marry her or set her up as a mistress if they already had a wife. Sasha had already got heavy with two who'd lost their hearts to her, and he'd thrashed her twice in an attempt to teach her the error of her ways. She was there to screw, not to flirt. Encouraging repeat business was all well and good, but lovesick punters were at best an inconvenience, and at worst a danger. Many of Sasha's girls had overstayed their visas and a call to Immigration might mean deportation.

Sasha smiled at Elsa and put the bear back on the bedside table. He patted the bed next to him and told her to sit down. She did as she was told, her hands in her lap. She was a bit thin even for Sasha's taste, a result of her heroin addiction, but she looked about sixteen in the school uniform that a lot of her clients asked her to wear. And the uniform meant an extra ten pounds. Sasha had drummed that into all his girls. Whatever the customer wanted, he got. For a price. If they wanted to spank her, that was an extra twenty pounds. Oral without a condom another twenty. It was the McDonald's principle. A customer drops in for a burger, but McDonald's won't let him get away that lightly. You want fries with that? How about a Coke? If a punter walked in off the street for a hand-job or a blow-job, he was looking to pay thirty or forty pounds. If the girl could talk him into a few extras, he would pay sixty or seventy. And if she could talk him into the works she would get a hundred and sixty for an hour, which more often than not she could turn into a forty-five-minute session. Providing the guy had come and come well, there was no reason for him to hang around.

Sasha took the photograph of the Kosovar girl from his jacket pocket.

“Have you seen this girl?” he asked.

Elsa brushed her long black hair behind her ear.

“I don't think so,” she said.

“Her name's Nicole. Or Amy.”

“Sasha, you know I don't go out with the other girls.”

Sasha put a hand on her leg and squeezed gently.

“Elsa, I'm not accusing you of anything.” Sasha made it clear to the girls that they weren't to socialise with girls who worked for other employers, but he was enough of a realist to know that they would bump into other prostitutes from time to time.

“I just want to know if you've seen her. You go to discos in Leicester Square, I know that. I'm just asking if you remember seeing her. Or if anyone has mentioned a girl from Kosovo called Amy or Nicole.”