Her Nightly Embrace Read online

  “Imagine if this footage got out,” Roger said slowly. “If we’re lucky, only you two will go to fucking prison. If we’re lucky, we won’t get sued.”

  Benjamin was already scrambling to get his gear together to go back to Holcomb’s flat to remove the cameras.

  “Just you, Benjamin. Make sure you remove all the cameras and microphones. As for you, Ravi, get out there and earn your bloody wages.”

  I moved Holcomb’s video file into the trash and deleted it. Olivia was laughing with the monks as they spoke rapid Mandarin while Cheryl served them all tea.

  “Looks like you’ll have to kick it old-school after all, eh?” smirked Clive from his desk.

  Ken and Clive were enjoying watching the newbie squirm.

  “Ain’t no cuttin’ corners when it comes to legwork,” Ken said. “You’re not gonna catch anyone red-handed sittin’ behind a computer.”

  Ken and Clive were much less amused when Roger ordered them to go out with me to make sure there were no more cock-ups. He was putting the training wheels back on.

  At least he let us take out the company BMW.

  SEVEN

  To Belgravia, off Eaton Square, within walking distance of Harrods on Knightsbridge side, to conduct a quick interview.

  “Mind your manners,” Clive said. “Don’t say anything rude. Don’t fucking judge. This is a classy manor, got it?”

  “You’re on thin ice as it is,” Ken said. “Roger pulled a lot of strings to get you an audience here.”

  Clive rang the bell, and one of the most bored-looking beautiful women I’ve ever seen opened the door. She wore Chanel, her earrings and jewelry all gold and diamonds. She showed us into the living room.

  The house was something straight out of Country and Town House magazine, the décor all velvet and Laura Ashley, and the proprietress, Madame Felicity, was immaculate in makeup and Gucci. She was the type of woman who used femininity as a weapon. The withering contempt of her gaze was the type to shrivel men’s balls. She and Roger went way back. He’d never tell what kinds of favors they did for each other to earn this much trust, but that she was willing to talk to me spoke volumes.

  “This isn’t any old knocking shop, love,” she said. “We get all sorts around here: celebrity chefs, sultans, sports stars, tycoons, politicos. They pay us as much for discretion as for the girls.”

  The girls here were all supermodel-levels of symmetry and sultriness. Not an ounce of fat on any of them, all slim waists and long legs, pert breasts that defied gravity and probably at least forty grand’s worth of cosmetic surgery to achieve this level of flawlessness. Lips Botoxed to varying degrees of subtlety. Blondes, brunettes, the occasional redhead, chiseled noses and diamond cheekbones. The costs of the surgery would have been paid off after about ten clients. Some of the girls were so posh, you could practically name the finishing schools they went to. Others were paying off university fees and student loans. Ken and Clive told me not to ask about the occasional famous actress from Hollywood or Europe who did a bit of moonlighting here when acting work was thin on the ground and the bills were high. The men here looked like GQ covers. This was the sex equivalent of getting to test-drive a Ferrari or Lamborghini. Not for Ken, Clive or me, though, not with our salaries. For us, it was strictly “look, don’t touch.” Ken and Clive preferred rougher trade than the guys on offer here, and they were already a couple, anyway.

  “We vet our clients as much as they depend on our discretion,” Madame Felicity said. “Not everyone gets to come through the door, no matter how rich they are. We don’t do underage stuff or pedos. Beyond that, anything goes between consenting adults.”

  “Did Rupert Holcomb come here?” I asked.

  “Just the once,” she said. “His minders from the party brought him here after his girlfriend passed away. His whip, McLeish, thought he just needed some relief. He looked like a little boy who had lost his mummy at the pier. Barely looked at my girls. Just spent an hour sitting on the sofa drinking a gin and tonic, then he muttered to his minders and they took him home.”

  “Fuck me, that’s discipline,” Clive said.

  “I wouldn’t call it discipline, mate,” Ken said. “More like grief. He was still gettin’ over his dead girlfriend.”

  “Do you get paparazzi or press hanging about outside? Could anyone have seen Holcomb leaving this place?”

  She shook her head.

  “Darling, this place is a bigger secret than GCHQ. If the press ever writes about us, it’s Game Over. Besides, we have more than a few editors and publishers using our services. And would you care to guess the types of people who invested money in this place? At this location, hiding in plain sight?”

  I didn’t answer, but I did start to guess. The kind of money that could buy this place under a shell corporation, the paperwork for taxes, the sheer clout . . . We’re talking a conglomerate of Establishment figures investing in Madame Felicity’s business plan: a haven for secrets and sex. I wondered if Roger had a small stake in this place. It wouldn’t surprise me if he did.

  “You look a bit shell-shocked, old son,” laughed Ken as we drove away from Belgravia.

  He and Clive always had a good giggle at me getting another shred of innocence stripped away as the vastness of the world’s sordid secrets opened up under my feet.

  Only a call from Marcie saved me.

  “Dude, we got a lead. Freelance bottom-feeder trying to sell dirt on Holcomb to the tabloids.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Jonah Vankin. Used to be a stringer for the News of the World for their juicy scandals. He has a rep for creating them, throwing girls and drugs at celebs, then cashing in on the stories.”

  “You think he might be the type to hire a hooker to fuck Holcomb in the night and fit him up?”

  “Politicians and spies may not have the imagination for that kind of high-concept scam,” Marcie said. “But a tabloid twat might. Texting you his picture and details now. He hangs out at the Shoreditch most nights trying to get dirt, so he won’t be home till late.”

  Sure enough, the picture of a grinning dickhead in a cheap jacket popped on my screen along with his address and number.

  “Happy hunting,” Marcie said, and hung up.

  “I think we have our bad guy,” I told Ken and Clive.

  Relief all around.

  EIGHT

  Back to the office.

  I asked Marcie to call Vankin. Better to have a cheery American chick call a toerag-on-the-make than a burley ex-copper or former schoolteacher. Didn’t want to scare him off. Best to start with the path of least resistance.

  Who could resist Marcie Holder in her cheeriest PR Woman voice with the promise of business and perks, especially when her default mode always sounded like she’s flirting?

  “This shit I got needs to get out there, darlin’!” Vankin said on the speakerphone. We were, of course, recording it for evidence. “The public needs to know!”

  “Is it documents? Pictures?” Marcie asked innocently.

  “Aw, man! Pictures! Future PM Holcomb in flagrante delicto! Sucking, fucking! Drugs! What have you! This is six figures’ worth of scandal!”

  “The trifecta of naughtiness,” Marcie cooed. “We’re interested.”

  “Christ,” Ken muttered. “He sounds like a shopkeeper in Soho trying to sell us a dodgy porn DVD.”

  “So what area of six figures are you asking?” continued Marcie.

  “This is top shit, babes! Could bring down the whole Conservative Party! Half a million ain’t out of the question.”

  “Hold on, cowboy,” Marcie said. “No publication pays half a mil without getting a taste first, no matter how much public interest is at stake here.”

  “Come on! I thought I was talking to someone serious here! It’ll be well worth your while!”

  I could feel him now: his cocky, coke-addled desperation, like an older version of some of my old students in North London. I used to catch them during break trying to s
ell baby powder saying it was gak, or orange tablets passing for Ecstasy, or a badly scratched-up Sony PSP they said fell off a lorry, and certainly looked it.

  “Baby,” Marcie said. “I represent a very serious conglomerate of interested parties. We’re willing to talk.”

  “You gotta promise, yeah? This doesn’t get bought up and then buried. This needs to be out there! And I get to write it up!”

  “Believe me, you’ll get your shot. We have ties not only with the papers, but outlets in the States like TMZ and Fox News.”

  “Good! I don’t want some security people or private investigators trying to silence me. That’s why I’m askin’ half a mil, yeah? Danger money! I don’t want Special Branch coming round my place, bumping me off, and making it look like I hanged myself while trying to have a wank!”

  “What a charming image,” Marcie said. “So what kind of pictures are these? Are they negatives and prints or is it all digital? We want to get an exclusive, not have you turn around and sell it to a bunch of other people.”

  “It’s all on a drive. I give you my personal guarantee you will get all copies. My word is my bond!”

  Clive snorted in contempt.

  Marcie set up a meet. That night at the club in Shoreditch. Of course we weren’t going to pay him a penny. While Ken and Clive went with me, Benjamin and Olivia would break into his flat to look over his computer. Hopefully, she could break whatever encryption he had on his drives to grab the photos.

  “You owe me,” Marcie said. “Help with my stalking case when you have a chance.”

  With that, she went back to reading her client Delia McCarthy’s bestselling chick-lit novel, Memoirs of a Bunny Boiler.

  “Is this research?” I asked.

  “She’s gonna ask me what I think of it when I talk to her,” Marcie said. “I’m obligated to be able to quote it chapter and verse. Writers are needy like that.”

  NINE

  Vankin insisted on meeting at the Shoreditch that night, his “place of power.” This was not good. Too many variables, things that could go wrong. We couldn’t control the space. Even on a slow night, this place was chockablock with Essex Girls, soap stars and, well, people like Vankin. That and the noise factor would make trying to talk to anyone a complete nightmare. We also didn’t want Vankin to vanish too quickly, and there were too many nooks and crannies for him to slip away to if he decided to hop it. Knowing the layout of the place didn’t help, since the crowds would be an added hindrance.

  Ken, Clive, and I parked across the road and watched the queues form. At ten p.m., Vankin strolled up, cheap suit and hair gel, bypassed the queue of hopeful clubbers, shook the bouncer’s hand, twenty quid folded in his palm, and was let in.

  “Cunt’s just the type to do a runner,” Ken said. “Guilty conscience. You can smell if off him.”

  We were to meet him at ten thirty p.m. I looked at the crowd outside the club and decided I wasn’t having any of that. We got a text from Benjamin: he and Olivia had gained entry into Vankin’s flat and found his computer.

  I waited till 10:35 p.m. and picked up our burner phone.

  “Speak!” shouted Vankin over the din of crappy electrodance.

  “I believe we have an appointment this evening.”

  “Where’s the American bird I talked to? She sounded well fit.”

  “She’s the facilitator. You’re dealing with us.”

  “So where are you?”

  “Outside,” I said. “Where we can negotiate with some peace and quiet.”

  “Aw, no way, brah! We agreed to meet in here!”

  “Mr. Vankin, we are taking you seriously enough to engage with you. We are, however, not willing to have to shout to be heard.”

  “Too fucking bad, brah! You come in or no deal!”

  “Mr. Vankin, I have with me twenty thousand pounds in cash as a down payment for you in good faith. If you do not meet me outside in five minutes, I will be gone. You will never see me again, and I will make sure no outlet will hear your pitch, let alone make you another offer. Five minutes.”

  I hung up.

  “Ooo-er!” Ken said.

  “Please, sir, don’t give me detention,” Clive said.

  “Don’t spank me, sir,” chuckled Ken. “I ain’t done nothing wrong.”

  I rolled my eyes and stepped out of the car.

  I had my speech all prepared. I was going to introduce myself as part of an international media conglomerate with political ties. Ken and Clive were here as muscle, of course. Of course we didn’t have twenty grand on us. We just wanted Vankin to think we were either stupid or callously rich enough to throw that much money around for a dodgy set of naughty photos. The point was to keep Vankin talking long enough to suss out whether he was for real and for Benjamin and Olivia to go through his computer.

  Vankin came out of the club, looked around, saw me, and started across the street. I put on an air of bored professionalism to set him at ease. Ken stepped out of the car.

  I’d never felt the air change this much before I even said a word.

  Vankin’s eyes went wide with terror and he turned and scarpered like a hamster on fire.

  “OY!”

  I found out later that it was perfectly normal to see a guy getting chased down and beaten up in Hoxton late on a Thursday night. As it was, I only wanted to catch Vankin. Couldn’t speak for Ken, though. One thing he and Clive taught me is that cops absolutely hate before forced to chase down a punter. It makes them really want to take it out on him later. That meant I had to get him before Ken did.

  Vankin dashed down Shoreditch High Street and turned into Bateman’s Row, then into Anning Street. Must have been all that cocaine in him that was making him run this fast. Ken was trailing behind me, cursing up a storm.

  Vankin was nearly a hundred yards ahead of us when he turned around, confident that we wouldn’t catch up by now.

  “Come and have a go if you’re hard enough, then!” he shouted, offering two middle fingers our way.

  He totally missed Clive barrowing up behind him in the BMW and bouncing his scrawny stick figure off the bonnet.

  Time slowed. Vankin in a graceful arc over the top of the car. Unpleasant crunch sound as he impacted on the tarmac.

  “Jesus Christ! Was that really necessary?!”

  “Stopped the fucker, didn’t I?” Clive said.

  “Eh, we’ve done worse.” Ken shrugged.

  TEN

  No, he wasn’t dead. Thank fuck.

  He hadn’t landed on his head. More like a hard belly flop. Yes, it hurt as much as you think. We called an ambulance anyway. Of course the police showed up to take a statement. And they turned out to be friends of Ken and Clive. It was pretty clear we weren’t going to be arrested when they started laughing and clapping each other on the back as Ken and Clive told them it was a misunderstanding with Vankin snorting a bit too much gak while we were chatting, getting paranoid and running right into their car as they were driving up.

  My karma was in the toilet for this, though. Among the onlookers, I could sense Lord Buddha, just out of focus, watching and judging me.

  Vankin had a couple of broken ribs, a mild concussion, and a twisted ankle. As he was getting loaded into the ambulance, I tried to talk to him again.

  “Why did you run, man? We just wanted to talk.”

  “Those two big fuckers with you,” he moaned. “They had the smell of Special Branch.”

  “They’re not. They hate Special Branch.”

  “That’s what they all say. Or they could have been MI5!”

  “You think the domestic services might want to bump you off.”

  “I know shit, brah. I am a primo depository of illicit intel.”

  “Leave it out, son,” Clive said, rolling his eyes. “I’ve seen the list. You ain’t on it.”

  Vankin’s face fell like a little boy’s who wasn’t getting presents for Christmas.

  “But I know shit!” he protested. “I know all kinds of shi
t!”

  We let the ambulance take him away for the end of the most disillusioning night of his life.

  “Is there really a list?” I asked Clive.

  He just rolled his eyes and shrugged.

  I phoned Benjamin to tell him Olivia could take her time with Vankin’s computer. He wasn’t coming home that night.

  “No need,” he said. “We’re done.”

  “And?”

  “You got me to give up my beauty sleep for this?” Olivia snatched up the phone. “It’s all rubbish.”

  “Wait, what are you talking about?”

  “First of all, Vankin’s computer setup is strictly Amateur Hour. He doesn’t have any security software installed, hasn’t updated his OS for ages—he doesn’t even have a sodding password for signing in! He’s still running Windows Vista, for God’s sake!”

  “Did you find the photos?”

  “If you can call them that. It’s all piss-poor Photoshop!”

  “Seriously?”

  “He took a photo of Holcomb at a pub from the Mail and pasted a naked slapper next to him.”

  “Oh.”

  “And get this, there’s one of Holcomb sucking a ten-inch cock in a gay threesome? He took the shot from Holcomb bobbing for apples at a village fair and pasted it into a spread from a gay porn magazine! It’s full of bad cutting and pasting!”

  “All right, I get the picture—”

  “Not yet, but you will. I made you a copy of all of Mr. Vankin’s stash. You know, in case you ever run out of cheap wank material.”

  “Thanks a lot.”

  Back to square one. No suspect. No resolution. And me one step closer to getting the sack for not solving Roger’s Big Favor to the Tory Party.

  Shit.

  Shit. Shit. Shit!

  ELEVEN

  It’s happened again!” screamed Holcomb.

  Barely four hours of sleep before I got his call. And I didn’t have the benefit of taking Rohypnol. Quick shower, my clean suit and tie, no time for coffee. Cab down to his flat. Arrived to hysterics.

  Holcomb in his dressing gown, red faced, shaking.