High society Read online

  ‘French, Germans, Arabs! You have laws against drugs, you have laws against selling women, but you want the drugs and you want the women. Why don’t you just take them, for Christ’s sake? Take your drugs and your women! Put them in shop windows like the Dutch do, the only honest nation in Europe! Instead of hiding behind your stupid hypocritical laws that leave the rest of the world at the mercy of a bunch of gangsters.’

  ‘Look, Geets, you’ve lost me. Are we gonna ‘ave another fook or what?’

  Ghita stopped. ‘For sure, baby, right now. I’m going to make you feel so good. How do you want me?’

  ‘Ahhh, now that’s fookin’ better.’

  ST HILDA’S CHURCH HALL, SOHO

  Can you believe it? She’s tryin’ to tell me something important and all I’m trying to do is shag her. How pathetic can you get? That’s why I’ve got to clean up, see? I have just got to fookin’ clean up, because, honest, I am not the bloke I’ve been telling you about. I am not the sort of man that kicks birds outa limos and I am definitely not the sort of man that tells a girl whose family got killed and who speaks more languages than I’ve ‘ad shits that she gives good head. I don’t do that! That’s the bastard inside me does that. Charlie’s mate…I have got to clean up, I have just got to clean…’

  Suddenly tears appeared in Tommy’s eyes. ‘Oh, fook it. I’m going to the pub.’

  And Tommy walked out of the meeting. He did not stop crying until midway through his second double-vodka Bloody Mary. He told the barman he had hayfever. The barman didn’t care either way. It didn’t cross his mind that this red-eyed, red-nosed, sweaty, pasty-looking screw-up in the beanie hat was Tommy Hanson.

  THE PAGET HOUSEHOLD, DALSTON

  Peter Paget laid a fatherly arm round the shoulders of his teenaged daughters and for a moment attempted to extend his reach to include his wife but realized halfway through the manoeuvre that the four of them were beginning to resemble a rugby scrum.

  ‘Good morning, everybody, thank you very much for coming. We’ll be happy to pose for a family photograph for the next few minutes, but neither my wife nor my daughters will be answering any questions.’

  ‘Cathy! Suzie! Have you ever taken drugs yourselves?’

  ‘I think I just said that my daughters will not be — ’

  ‘Girls, do any of your friends take drugs?’

  ‘Are they available in your school?’

  Cathy, the elder of the two girls, laughed. ‘Of course they’re available at our school. Where aren’t they?’

  ‘Cathy, I thought we’d agreed that — ’

  ‘Oh, come on, Dad, don’t you think these questions are a bit sad, like it’s a big shock that you can get drugs in schools? The shock would be if you could get a decent education.’

  A woman at the front of the pack was recognizable even to Cathy. Paula Wooldridge was one of those columnists who have become half-celebrities themselves, having made occasional appearances on morning television and Have I Got News For You. She thrust her tape recorder forward.

  ‘So you take drugs yourself, then, Cathy?’

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘That’s not the issue.’

  ‘Isn’t it? Why not?’

  ‘Because my father isn’t conducting a campaign to legalize dangerous drugs.’

  ‘That’s my father, not me.’

  ‘You’ve chosen to associate yourself with his campaign.’

  ‘I’ve chosen to stand on my own front doorstep with my family. I’ve chosen to allow myself to be photographed, in the forlorn hope that it might stop you following me to school like you did yesterday, Paula. These things are not illegal…’

  Using the woman’s name, Peter thought, her first name, how superbly patronizing, coldly ingratiating, a brilliant politician’s tactic, and the girl was only sixteen. His daughter pressed her advantage.

  ‘But taking drugs is illegal, and I’m asking you if you take them, armed with the statistical probability that you do, seeing as how your profession is notoriously riddled with drugs. If you do take them and you admit it to me then I can make a citizen’s arrest and perform a public service. That is why it is the issue, Paula.’

  Almost everybody laughed. Not Paula, of course. Cathy had made a mortal enemy there. Not Peter Paget, either. He smiled, certainly, an indulgent, fatherly smile, but through slightly clenched teeth. Paget adored his daughter, but, bloody hell, this was his press conference.

  DALSTON POLICE STATION

  Commander Leman had known what was in the brown card backed envelope even before he opened it. So sure had he been that he had even donned plastic gloves in the futile hope that he might not further add to the forensic confusion which an envelope that had been through the postal service might have attracted.

  The photographs were large and of good quality. In some of them Jo Jo was spread on a formica table. In others she was on the floor. One by one Leman passed the photographs across the desk to Detective Sergeant Sara Hopper. After studying them for some time, the sergeant ventured an opinion.

  ‘Four men. Three white, one black.’

  ‘How can you tell? It looks like there could be five or six to me.’

  The men in the photographs were hooded, besides which they could not be seen whole, being partly cropped out of the framing. Limbs, torsos, hands. And genitals.

  ‘There’s four of them. All unprotected.’

  Leman could find no voice with which to speak. He tried, but no words came. The Detective Sergeant continued.

  ‘We knew she’d been raped, both anally and vaginally. That was clear from the medical examination.’

  ‘Have you told her?’

  ‘She’s no fool. She knows how she feels inside. This was not a gentle attack.’

  ‘How is she? I mean, will she come through it? She’s a strong girl, isn’t she?’

  ‘I don’t know. I really don’t know if one can ever recover from something like this. I can’t see how she’ll be the same person, if that’s what you’re asking.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose that’s what I meant.’ Commander Leman’s mind was spinning, reeling. He could scarcely comprehend the scale of the tragedy that had befallen this girl and her family. And it was all his fault.

  The newspaper print, punk-rock-style pasted note that accompanied the pictures made that very clear: ‘HOW MANY OTHER FRIENDS DOES ANNA HAVE?’ They had done this to scare him. If they had hit his daughter then of course Leman would have had nothing left to lose, but this way, by using Anna’s friend…her friends…Leman held the arms of his chair and tried to breathe.

  THE PAGET HOUSEHOLD, DALSTON

  Peter Paget’s press conference received blanket news coverage, though it had to be said that the majority of it focused on his daughter Cathy’s now celebrated public debut.

  T can’t believe it. You’re actually jealous of your sixteen-year old daughter.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous. I’m not jealous of her. I can’t afford to be jealous of her. She’s clearly going to be Prime Minister by the time she’s twenty and I may well be looking to her for a job next parliament. I just don’t think she understands the risks she’s running in taking these people on.’

  ‘Peter, it was you who put us all on that doorstep in front of twenty cameramen, not Cathy. And it was you who wanted to parade us like shop dummies so that you could look steady and statesmanlike.’

  ‘Shop dummies!’ Peter protested. ‘When I said that you and the girls wouldn’t take questions I was trying to protect you from media intrusion.’

  ‘How does organizing a photocall protect us from media intrusion?’

  ‘Angela, this is just completely unfair. We agreed!’

  ‘Yes, we agreed. You said what we should do and we agreed to do it.’

  ‘Oh, come on!’

  ‘I’m sorry, Peter. I’m just a bit tired, that’s all.’

  ‘You’re tired?’

  ‘Yes, I’m tired! I know that I don’t have to carry the full burden of changing
society on my shoulders, but I do have a job and we do have a life, and currently I’m running it. The girls are worried about their exams. The freezer’s broken and all the food thawed and now the kitchen stinks of rotten fish and ice cream. Suzie got caught smoking and I’m supposed to attend a sodding counselling meeting at school with her, for Christ’s sake. I mean, even I fucking smoked at school. Your mother hates your dad and for some reason thinks I’m interested; what’s more they want to come and stay because apparently they never see the girls, i.e. we don’t make enough effort to see them. Meanwhile, incidentally, your effort to switch us over to internet banking has spectacularly collapsed, taking all our standing orders with it, and they’re threatening to cut off the phone and electricity, and I’ll have to find the chequebook in your bombsite of a study, which is definitely your job but you are never around any more, which I know you can’t help, but it is a bit of a shame that on the very first full day you have at home with us in months you organize a media photocall. It’s not that I mind, Peter. I don’t. I know you have to do it, but we’re a family, not a prop!’

  ‘Angela! This is so unfair.’

  ‘You sound like Kevin the Teenager.’ That made them both laugh at least.

  ‘We agreed on this together. Royal tactics, give them a photo in exchange for their laying off.’

  ‘Yes, and when has that ever helped the royals?’

  ‘I’m campaigning on an issue of vital national importance.’

  ‘You’re not in the House of Commons now, Peter — ’

  ‘Well, I am campaigning on an issue of — ’

  ‘I know you are! Just give me a moment to adjust to the fact that suddenly I find myself married to a great man!’

  ‘Angela! I can’t help wondering if it’s you not me who’s jealous.’

  Samantha did not resent his new position in life. She loved him. Why should he put up with this when he was so very loved and truly admired by a beautiful and passionate young woman? A woman who did not resent his coming greatness but embraced it. A woman whose friends (scarcely less beautiful, passionate or younger than she) hung on his every word. At that moment, Peter longed to tell Angela the truth and show her how decent he was being in sticking with a wife of forty-two whom he so clearly irritated and two daughters who so conspicuously declined to hang upon his every word.

  Except, of course, he knew that he was not being decent at all. He was being dishonest and selfish, and his one hope in life was that Angela would never find out. Peter struggled to focus on the discussion that he and his wife were having rather than on the private knowledge that his marriage tottered on a precipice.

  ‘The fact that I am a family man, a family man with two daughters who are in the direct firing line of the problem that I am trying to confront, is clearly not a circumstance I either can or should ignore. My God, when I met that poor girl at that place in King’s Cross — the teenaged junkie I told you about — all I could think about was our girls. There isn’t a parent in the country who won’t empathize with us as the parents of teenaged children. It’s essential that I show that I’m not just some tourist on this issue, that my own life and that of my family will be shaped by the decisions that are made. I thought you agreed with me on all this.’

  ‘I agreed that if you pursued your Private Member’s Bill we wouldn’t be able to keep Cathy and Suzie out of it.’

  ‘And are you saying that you would prefer me not to pursue it? Because I’ll drop it if you are. I can’t do this without you, and I won’t do it without your honest support.’

  He meant it, too. He owed Angela a great deal more than that.

  To his surprise she kissed him.

  ‘No, no, of course I don’t want you to drop it, Peter, you know that…And I’m sorry for being mean. You’re under a lot of pressure at the moment. It’s no wonder you’ve been distant. I believe in what we’re doing as much as you do. You’re right to say the unsayable, you’re the only one who will. And of course Cathy and Suzie want to support you. This is their issue too. I’m proud of the girls. Very.’

  Peter kissed Angela back. Once more the pendulum of his tortured soul swung wildly. He was so lucky to have so generous and intelligent a wife.

  ‘I’m proud of them too, Angela, and I’m proud of you. And I was especially proud of Cathy today, honestly I was. The way she roasted that awful Wooldridge woman. All right, yes, I suppose I was a bit taken aback that it was Cathy who starred in our little media event and not me, but that’s just me being a completely pathetic and contemptible old arsehole.’

  ‘And that’s one of your better points.’

  ‘Well, even if Dad is an idiot, I am still Dad and we’re a family and families stick by one another, don’t they?’

  ‘Yes, that’s what they’re for.’

  Just then Peter’s mobile rang.

  ‘Hello, sex machine. Guess who’s got no clothes on?’

  Peter Paget had not spent a lifetime in politics without learning something about dealing with unexpected questions. ‘Oh, hello, Samantha. No, I haven’t forgotten my four thirty interview. Well done, by the way, for getting me such an instant right of reply. The Paula Wooldridge piece was the only negative copy we got.’

  ‘I’m touching myself where I want you to put your big cock right now.’

  ‘Yes, Cathy did do well, didn’t she? Angela and I are very proud of her.’

  ‘My nipples are hard just thinking about what you did to me in bed yesterday.’

  ‘Look, Samantha, I’ll have to go, I’m afraid. Family stuff. I’ll be fine with the paper on my own, no need to…Oh, all right, good, see you there.’

  THE M1 MOTORWAY

  The traffic jam had finally cleared and Jessie was on her way to Birmingham, still recounting her story to the old lady who sat beside her. Jessie’s life did not bring her into much contact with people who wanted to listen.

  ‘By the middle of the morning Ah was on ma own in Francois’ flat. The three other girls had already found themselves new 1 pimps. It’s true, they went straight out and got themselves another | vicious shithead slave-runnin’ bastard for the price of a hit-up of smack and a mattress to pass out on.’

  The old lady could not remember being so completely 1 riveted in her entire life as Jessie’s rambling monologue washed over her.

  ‘Ah nearly did the same, Ah swear. I was that strung out and | scared I nearly went out and got maseP a new pimp, but somethin’ inside ‘a me…like, a memory of the human being Ah’d bin before, stopped me doin’ it. Instead I searched the whole of Francois’ flat for money and valuables. The other girls had thought about the same thing but they’d been too frightened. The shadow of that woman-beating bastard still lay about the place heavy as one of his stinkin’ blankets. Ah felt it maseP somethin’ terrible as Ah checked behind the cushions of the sofa and under the sheets of that disgustin’ bed where he first broke me in.’

  The old lady offered Jessie a peppermint. It was the only gesture of support she could think of making.

  ‘Honest, Ah half expected the bastard tae rear up from under the sheets and put his fist into ma stomach like he’d done many times before. He rarely hit us in the face because even in the world of kerb-crawling looks count, although of course there’s a few that find black eyes attractive. Ah found about thirty pounds an’ a watch, and besides that there was some cutlery and a kettle and a telly and VCR. By the time Ah’d got it all down the pawn shop in a minicab Ah had over a hundred and fifty pounds and a plan.’

  ‘To kick drugs?’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

  THE GROUCHO CLUB, SOHO

  A wide, supercilious smile spread across Milton’s pasty jowls as his colleague joined him. She was ten years younger than him, much better looking and despite the fact that he was nominally her departmental boss she was rather more successful. Therefore her humiliation at the hands of the teenage Paget girl had been most satisfying. Sweet though it was, Milton had never dared to hope that Paula would f
urther compound her defeat so comprehensively with such a poor effort as the one he had spread out before him. As she sat down, Milton rested his beer carefully on top of her byline and photograph.

  ‘God, your column was crap this morning, Paula. The editor’s furious with me for even running it. But do you know, I just couldn’t resist it.’

  ‘What do you mean, crap?’

  ‘Going after Paget like that, darling, and of course his fragrant daughter.’

  ‘Why the fuck shouldn’t I go after them?’

  ‘A whole page, dear? It looks like sour grapes.’

  ‘What do you mean, sour grapes? What on earth would I have to be sour about?’

  Milton actually laughed at her. Paula was playing it all so terribly wrong. The only manner to assume under such circumstances was good-humoured acknowledgement. Put your hand up to it, admit you’ve cocked up and swear to get even. Toughing it out was not an option.

  ‘What have you to be sour about? Nothing at all, except being made to look like a complete arse by a juvenile on the national news. She really was awfully good, that girl. I think we should offer her a job, voice of youth and all that. Perhaps she could have your page.’

  Paula flinched.

  ‘Do you take drugs, by the way? Do tell, as if we didn’t know. She had you down right there, didn’t she?’

  ‘Look, Milton, I haven’t given Peter Paget or his smartarse sodding daughter a second thought since we doorstepped them. I wrote my piece because Paget is a shitty little careerist and his obnoxious brat is just one more cocky little posh kid who thinks the world was put there for her own personal amusement.’

  ‘You can’t call the Pagets posh, Paula. They’re not remotely posh. We’re both miles posher than they are.’

  ‘We are not the issue.’

  ‘Yes, that’s what you said to the girl, wasn’t it? They played it on all the channels and it didn’t sound convincing then, either.’