Courting Trouble (34 page)

‘Oy! Stop!’ He was on me in a flash, his big, muscled arms around my waist. I went down to the ground with a painful thud. He flipped me over as effortlessly as he would a pancake. He pinned my shoulders to the ground. His brows hitched in amazement. ‘Matilda?’

I saw something flash in his eyes. He had just noticed that I was clutching the mask. Everything suddenly crystallized.

‘Well, fancy seeing you here.’ He spoke to me as though addressing a cat that had strayed into his yard. ‘Rather inventive place to hide things, don’t you think? Most people are too scared of stings to go near an apiary. Not you, though, of course. Your mind is just a hive of activity, isn’t it?’ he jested blithely.

I was suddenly on a white-water raft in a category-five hurricane. The air seemed thin, insubstantial, and it was a conscious effort to breathe.

‘Yes, I guess you could call it a sting operation,’ he bantered on. His expressionless eyes bore into mine. ‘Shame our fun is over, though. I was so enjoying myself.’ He got to his feet. ‘You’ve given me quite a ride,’ he said salaciously, though his voice was thin and diffident.

Still winded, I sat up on the grass and spoke in my best, imperious barrister voice. ‘Well, I suggest you start thinking about what kind of gang you’re going to join in prison.’ It was a bluff, attempted to hide my fear, even though my heart was a jackhammer in my chest and blood thudded in my ears.

‘Prison? I don’t think so. The colour of those drab uniforms would be a total nightmare for my skintone.’ The man was unflappable and totally beyond the reach of insults.

My only thought was to keep him talking while I thought of a plan. ‘You’re right. You’ll be locked away in a mental-health ward after the evidence I give against you.’

Nathaniel eyed me like a cobra rising up out of its basket. ‘I don’t think you’ll be giving evidence against me, Matilda.. . . Not after your whorish behaviour the other night.’ Nathaniel’s tone had changed. He now sounded ruthless, cold, plausible. ‘Who’d have guessed that you, Little Miss Prim and Proper, would go off like a firecracker? I wouldn’t have believed it . . . if I didn’t have evidence.’

Then he started laughing. Not a nice laugh. With a bitterly triumphant look on his face, he drew his mobile phone from his pocket, tossed it up into the air, then caught it again with casual mirthlessness. He thrust the phone towards me, pressing a button. I heard muffled groans and cries. Then a voice I recognized as my own. As my eyes adjusted to the footage, I realized it was me. Naked. Moaning. I felt the sickened sensation I sometimes did after seeing a dead squirrel on the pavement, or a leech dropping off my leg, gorged with blood.

‘Quite an Academy Award-winning orgasm. You got really wild on me after I doctored your drink. You rode me so hard I nicknamed you Annie Oakley. You sang like a bird, too. Told me all about Chantelle leaving the hospital to go with her gran. That snippet of information was the exact “Get my boys out of jail free” card I needed.’

Each word he spoke was a bitter bullet. ‘I – I – don’t understand.’

He gave me a flat, measuring look. ‘Basically, unless you forget everything you’ve seen here today, I’m going to put this footage of you up online.’

Every ragged breath I took felt as though I were inhaling fire. Sweat trickled down my face as I stared at myself gyrating and writhing on his iPhone screen.

‘It’s so simple. I just hack into your Facebook page and replace your profile picture with a naked, compromising photo of you and a link to the videos I filmed that night.’

A mixture of terror and revulsion struck me like a blow from some gargantuan hammer.

‘After that, the photos and video will start popping up everywhere, with your name on them. You’ll drive yourself crazy chasing images across the Net. You’ll have to change your name. And, obviously, your career will be in tatters.’

His words pumped out like darts from a lethal blowpipe.

‘Sure, you can employ “reputation restorers”. But they charge thousands of pounds to stop Google links that lead to your family name, and the images will just keep popping up in other places. Then an anonymous source – namely me – will alert the Bar Standards Board to your secret life as a sex worker and you’ll be defrocked, or whatever it is they do to you lot. De-wigged, I suppose. You’ll probably end up killing yourself, from the shame. Especially
you
, Matilda, as you’ve told me how much you hate being seen naked.’ His smile lines hardened into a leer. ‘Oh, look. It’s time for your close-up . . . Pandora’s . . . box. Quite literally. The biggest opening night in London.’

The focus of the footage shifted from my face and body to down between my legs. I stared at the screen in a funereal stupor. This was a tectonic-plate-shifting moment. Something in my stomach churned and twisted. ‘I think I’m going to be sick.’

He threw me an icy glance. Gone was the affable, compassionate philanthropist, replaced by the coldest, smoothest man I’d ever met. It took the effort of every muscle in my body to stop myself from vomiting all over his biker boots.

‘I put off screwing you at first, as you’re really not my type – far too old and way too curvy. But I really did enjoy fucking you, you know. You’re quite hot-to-trot.’

‘But why?’ I managed to mutter, dry-mouthed and nauseous.

Nathaniel shrugged. ‘I’m an entrepreneur. Kids will always be addicted to something – designer clothes, boy bands, alcohol, danger . . . drugs. Someone might as well make money out of it.’

‘But . . . but what of all your talk about being so passionately anti-drugs?’

‘Drugs do less damage to the decor than guns and are quicker and quieter than other forms of self-destruction, such as going into banking to impress your father,’ he said with light malice. The monster was finding himself so amusingly urbane. A smile was acid-etched on to his face.

I staggered to my feet. My incomprehension of what had transpired was so intense it made me dizzy. My mind was clattering – none of this made sense. ‘What happened to your mantra, that the best things in life are free?’

His eyes suddenly became as sharp as sword points. ‘Wealthy family members are renowned both for stinginess and long lifespans. And when they finally
do
become food for worms, imagine the distress when you discover that they’ve left their entire estate to their Cavalier King Charles spaniels. What can I say? It embitters one.’ His voice was chilly and self-absorbed. ‘Just because of a small misunderstanding at my bank, my holier-than-thou papa said I’d “blackened the family name”. That I’d never amount to anything. Well, if only the pompous prig could see me now, eh?’

His monologue was glutinous. Pushing through it was such an effort, like swimming underwater. ‘What about your so-called epiphany?’

‘The only epiphany I had was that I could make much more money dealing drugs than moving other people’s money around. The international business I’m a part of is extremely lucrative. Which is why I couldn’t let my boys go to prison. I need them. I’ve got a big shipment coming in. I’ve been working all year on this little project.’

I swallowed a sob. Was the man about to measure me for a body bag? I suddenly began to regret not filling out my organ-donor card. I mean, it couldn’t be good that he was boasting to me about his crimes, now could it? ‘So why . . . why are you telling me all this?’ I asked in a tiny voice.

‘Because no matter how clever one is, relying on others is unavoidable. All kingpins need minions. Loyal minions. Stretch is my chief recruitment officer and stand-over man. Bash is my money launderer. It’s imperative I keep them on the streets. But ever since your insane granny shot at their testicles and dragged them into a ridiculous trial, I’ve had to develop numerous tedious tactics to avoid detection – failing to turn up for pre-booked flights, then taking different routes, always paying in cash . . . It’s meant developing a totally new criminal shorthand, indecipherable to all but a few of my fellow conspirators.’

That explained the ledger. ‘What’s a “little fella”?’

‘Ecstasy tablets.’

‘A “ticket man”?’

‘A courier. And a “quid” is a thousand pounds.’

‘What are the DVDs with girls’ names on them?’

‘Films of their rapes,’ he said nonchalantly. ‘Stretch then blackmails the girls into working as couriers or granting sexual favours to clients.’

Despair and disgust was a heavy blackness that let no light in or out. Unfortunately, studying law hadn’t prepared me for this kind of scenario. Of course, time is a great teacher but, sadly, it has a tendency to kill all its pupils. I found myself backing away, slowly. ‘Are you planning on trying to . . . silence me?’ What was left of my mind was racing. I contemplated jumping over the wall into the river. I’d no doubt be drowned in the treacherous undertows and found washed up in some Dutch dyke, but it would be better than relying on the kindness of a passing psychopath.

Nathaniel clicked his tongue in consternation. ‘Don’t be so melodramatic, Matilda. I’m telling you all this because I need a lawyer. Legal assistance is the one thing missing from my enterprise. But who to trust? . . . I took that naked video of you as an insurance policy. I now own you. Which means you and Roxy are on call. If you don’t look after me and my interests, when required, I’ll release that rather frank footage of your “Pandora’s Box” . . . I’m moving all this evidence to a safety-deposit box to which Bash has the only other key. Go to the cops, and your vag goes viral.’

His voice coiled around me like a snake. I couldn’t speak, in case my own betrayed the explosion of horror I was feeling inside.

‘You’ve obviously fried your brain cells sampling your own drugs, because there’s no way Roxy and I would ever represent you. Not ever! I don’t care about your little porn movie! Do what you like with it!’

Nathaniel gave me a dismissive look with a hint of barely suppressed animosity. ‘Oh, well, yes, I suppose you could always take another name. Get cosmetic surgery. Find another profession . . . But if only it were so easy for your darling daughter . . . I’ve been grooming Portia for a while now. And I don’t think she would get over a rape quite as easily as you have.’

The remarks hit me like a grenade at close range. I reeled. ‘Portia?’

‘Yes, I got her involved in my anti-drug campaign, through school. Didn’t she tell you I’ve been giving talks to the pupils? She’s agreed to be a fundraiser for my charity.’

She would have told me – if she’d been talking to me, that is.

‘Yes, we’ve become quite close . . . Gorgeous girl, and so bright. But ridiculously easy prey,’ he said with an acidic chuckle. ‘Boys would be queuing up to fuck her.’

His words were like a noxious gas, invisible, murderous, unstoppable.

‘Once she’s recruited and blackmailed, I could get a lot of money and favours by bartering that cute little morsel . . .’ His face was a mask of pure malice. ‘Especially to my Middle Eastern clients, because of her age, blond hair and blue eyes.’

I felt the colour drain from my face. My legs went cold and numb. Every particle of my body prickled with something more physical than loathing.

‘Keep away from her!’ Small beads of sweat studded my skin and ran down the recessed line of my spine. I’ve never had any self-defence classes, preferring just to rely on the fact that men tend to underestimate my sheer determination and anxiety. Which is why I simply lunged at his throat, took hold of his hair in my talons and yanked as hard as I could, screaming.

And that was when he punched me, hard, in the stomach. I hit the ground with a bone-cracking whack and lay winded as he loomed above me. ‘I need a lawyer on hand in case any of my boys ever gets arrested again. Then, if they’re stopped by the cops and can’t answer questions about why an apparently unemployed scrote is carrying hundreds of pounds in rolled-up cash, my boys can talk to their lawyers . . . you and Roxy. Two liberal, feminist Pollyannas. I mean, a Goody Two-shoes who would never take the law into her own hands. What could be better cover?’ he sneered. ‘I’d been cultivating you for a while but, once I saw you in court, I knew you’d be perfect, so I fucked and filmed you that very night. And you won’t be a liability like my last legal eagle. He turned out to be more of a legal budgie.’

I ground my teeth in rage. ‘Who was it? What happened?’

‘His addiction to charlie, ket and rocks left him hopelessly compromised. The idiot was arrested after a police surveillance operation. He was found guilty on two counts of perverting the course of justice . . . Which rather left me in the lurch. When Bash was arrested, I had to take matters into my own hands. Hence the trolling. And intimidation. And videoing . . . Well, occasionally I do like to mix business with pleasure. Hey, every job has its perks . . . But tweeting threats and doctoring film footage is so time-consuming. A tame lawyer on tap is quicker, simpler and safer.’

I stared at him in a wide-eyed parody of disbelief.

‘So’ – he offered me a hand up – ‘welcome to the team, Matilda.’

Too shell-shocked to cry, I walked on automatic pilot back to my car. Once the doors were locked, I gripped the wheel and closed my eyes, but horror exploded on the screen of my eyelids. All I could see was my daughter in distress, running, hiding, dark shapes coalescing and blurring, until the world was black on black. I punched her number on my speed dial. Nothing. I rang the home line. When Roxy answered, I tried to speak, but I felt as though I had a lip full of novocaine.

‘Where’s Portia?’ I blurted.

‘Under house arrest upstairs. Doing homework. We’re not long in, actually.’

‘Check, will you?’

‘Portia?!’ my mother fog-horned. ‘. . . Possum?’ I listened to Roxy’s footfall on the stairs. I heard the bedroom door creak. ‘Bloody hell. She’s not here.’

I let out a strangled sob. My nerves were shredded.

My mother’s voice went down a semitone. ‘What is it, Tilly?’

‘Ring around her friends. I’ll check Danny’s.’

‘What the hell’s going on?’

I tried to answer, but my tongue felt swollen and dry, my mouth taut with terror. I killed the call, then headed straight to my errant father’s flat. Danny let me in and gave a quizzical look as I searched his apartment. When I’d ascertained that she definitely wasn’t hiding there, I pressed my fingers to my temples and prayed the panic would pass, like a brief storm.