Rough Cut: Rosie Gilmour 6
Read Rough Cut: Rosie Gilmour 6 Online
Authors: Anna Smith
First published in Great Britain in 2016 by Quercus
This edition first published in 2016 by
Quercus Publishing Ltd
Carmelite House
50 Victoria Embankment
London EC4Y 0DZ
Copyright © 2016 Anna Smith
The moral right of Anna Smith to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Ebook ISBN 978 1 78429 314 7
Print ISBN 978 1 84866 432 6
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
You can find this and many other great books at:
www.quercusbooks.co.uk
The Rosie Gilmour series
The Dead Won’t Sleep
To Tell the Truth
Screams in the Dark
Betrayed
A Cold Killing
For the cherished McGoldrick sisters – my beautiful aunties, Cathy, Sadie, Cis and Anna.
And Uncle Hugh.
‘Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add colour to my sunset sky’
Rabindranath Tagore
Glasgow, January 2000
Nikki stood staring down at him in disbelief, paralysed with fear, willing him to utter a noise – any noise that would mean he wasn’t stone cold dead. She scanned his naked, lifeless body slumped on the floor where he’d keeled over. His fleshy mouth hung open as though in mid-sentence, and bubbles of saliva formed at the side of bloated jowls. The belt was still rigid around his neck, and purple welts began to appear there, creeping up towards his ears. One arm was raised above his head, the other draped across his thigh where a streak of fresh semen glistened under the harsh ceiling light. It crossed Nikki’s mind to reach down and loosen the belt. Maybe he’d come round and splutter back to life. She took a step closer, then stopped. No. This was really happening. This bastard was dead. Her whole body jerked at the sudden, shrill ringing of her mobile, and she stumbled as she clambered around
the body and across to the double bed where she’d placed her handbag when she came in. She snatched the phone out of the bag, but it flew out of her hands onto the floor, still ringing. Jesus! She dropped to her knees and picked it up, clutching it with both hands. It was Julie.
‘Hey, Nikki. You about finished yet? Or are you doing a bit of overtime?’ Julie’s twenty-fags-a-day voice rasped.
Nikki opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out.
‘You there, Nikki? Everything alright?’
‘Ju-ulie,’ she managed to squeak. ‘This guy’s dead . . . Oh Christ, Julie!’
Silence. Nikki pressed the phone to her ear and could hear her own blood pounding in her head. Her legs wobbled and she began to sit down on the bed, but stood up again. Better not touch anything.
‘What . . . What do you mean, dead?’
‘Fuck’s sake, Julie! What do you think I mean? I mean dead . . . as in not breathing. Oh Jesus! I-I think I’ve killed him!’
‘What?’
Nikki tried to breathe, her chest tight with panic.
‘I didn’t mean it . . . He . . . He wanted me to do this thing with a belt round his neck . . . and . . . I had to pull it harder. He kept saying, “Tighter, tighter”. Then . . . then . . .’ She burst into tears. ‘I didn’t know what I was doing . . . I must have pulled the belt too hard. I . . .’ Her voice trailed off in muffled sobs.
‘Oh fuck!’ Julie whispered.
Silence. Nikki heard Julie take a deep breath and clear her throat.
‘Right. Calm down.’ Her tone was suddenly firm, in charge. ‘Just stay where you are. I’m on my way. Don’t answer the door, unless it’s me. What room you in?’
Nikki couldn’t remember. Her mind was a blur. She pictured herself coming in through the crowded hotel foyer less than an hour ago, taking the lift and walking along a quiet corridor. Then it came to her.
‘Room three-two-four. Hurry! Please!’
She stepped backwards towards the bathroom, her eyes still fixed on his body, watching for any movement. There was none. Her bare feet on the cold tiled floor made her look down, then up again. When she caught sight of herself in the bathroom mirror, her hand automatically went to her mouth as she gasped. Tears and smudged mascara blurred her reflection. She glanced over her plumpish body, breasts pushing over the black lace bra, its thin straps too tight for her beefy upper arms. The black suspenders held up fishnet stockings, and tripey mounds of fake-tanned flesh at the top of her thighs spilled over like blancmange.
‘Christ! Look at you!’ she whispered, shaking her head slowly. ‘You’re disgusting! What the fuck were you thinking?’
How could she have been stupid enough to allow Julie to
talk her into this? She’d convinced her they’d both make a few extra quid – a lot more on some weekends. And nobody would be any the wiser. Why the hell had she agreed? But it was too late now to ask stupid questions, too late for moral high ground reproaches. She broke down in sobs, slumped against the wall, as the sordid little scene five minutes ago ran through her mind like a low-budget porn flick.
It had only been her third time as an escort. In fact, calling herself an escort was an exaggeration, because that implied some kind of social interaction before you ended up on your back in a hotel bedroom with some random guy grunting on top of you. But at least it had been normal enough sex and not too unpleasant. Her second punter a few days ago had given her an extra thirty quid because she listened patiently for half an hour to his sad bastard life story before he asked her to climb on top of him. But this guy tonight was clear from the start about what he wanted. He’d been pleasant enough when he’d opened the hotel bedroom door to her – a fat, Asian bloke, Pakistani she assumed, with a northern accent. He’d said he was from Bradford and was up on a bit of business, but that was it. He then asked her to strip off, and she stood in front of him in her underwear, feeling a self-conscious flush in her chest. Whatever he’d been expecting, he didn’t seem disappointed. He told her to keep her underwear on, then he took the belt off his trousers and stripped naked, already
aroused. For a fleeting moment, Nikki thought he was some psycho who was going to use the belt on her. But he just drew his lips back in a smile, then knelt down with his back to her and put the belt around his neck. He told her to get behind him and rub herself against his back while he masturbated. Pull the belt tight, he told her. Don’t stop till I tell you. When she protested, he got angry. ‘Just pull the fucking belt tighter!’ She did. ‘Tighter’, he kept saying, groaning, his breath coming in gasps. ‘Tighter’, he repeated, gasping ‘yes, yes’. Nikki could see the colour rise on the back of his neck but he still wanted it tighter, calling her a bitch. ‘Just pull the belt’, he gasped. So she did. Then suddenly, he fell over. She let go of the belt, waiting for him to turn around. But he didn’t.
The loud knocking on the bedroom door startled her back to the present, and she dashed out of the bathroom, bumping into the door as she stumbled.
‘It’s me, Nikki. Open up.’
She unlocked the door and Julie burst in.
‘Christ! What’s happened?’
She saw the body on the floor.
‘Aw Jesus!’
Julie dashed over and dropped to her knees beside him, checking his neck for a pulse. She looked up at Nikki.
‘He’s fucked, Nikki.’
Nikki’s hands went up to her face.
‘Oh Julie! What are we going to do? Oh my God!’
Julie jumped to her feet and grabbed Nikki by the shoulders, prising her hands from her face. She looked her square in the eyes.
‘Right! Listen! Enough of that! Just quit it! We need to get out of here – fast.’
‘But . . . he’s lying there dead—’
‘Fuck that! It’s nobody’s fault. Kinky bastard anyway. What is it with these guys? I mean, what happened to an old-fashioned blowjob? No. There’s always some prick wants to do something stupid. Well, fuck him! He’s dead! At least he died happy.’ She looked at Nikki, her ruby-red lips curling a little.
Nikki looked around the room.
‘But what we going to do?’
Julie turned towards the body again, then went over to where his suit jacket was lying on the bed.
‘Let’s see who he is.’
Nikki watched, open-mouthed, as she went through his pockets and brought out a wallet. She opened it and held it in front of her, fat with wads of cash.
‘Christ, he’s loaded.’
She stuffed the wallet into her bag.
‘What you doing, for Christ’s sake? Stealing his wallet? Jesus, Julie.’
‘Yep. I am. And his mobile.’ She took his phone out of his trouser pocket and shoved it in her bag.
There was a holdall on the floor, and she rummaged
through it. It was only some clothes. Her eyes flicked around the room, and fell on a small hard shell silver attaché case.
‘What’s that?’ She turned to Nikki.
‘Don’t know,’ Nikki was confused. It was all happening so quickly. ‘It must have been here when I came in. It must be his.’
Julie crossed the room and lifted the case. It was light. She tried to open it, but it was locked. She shook it and it made a rattling noise.
‘It’s not clothes, whatever it is.’
She walked towards Nikki with the case in her hand.
‘Right. Listen, and listen good.’
Nikki nodded, swallowing.
‘In about thirty seconds, we’re going to walk right out of here, as if we were a couple of hotel guests on our way to a night out.’
‘What? J-Just leave him?’
‘Well, we can hardly call the bloody cops.’
‘But we can’t leave him lying there!’
‘He’s dead. There’s nothing we can do for him. There’s no crime been committed here. It’s his own fucking fault.’