She climbed in and put her bag on her knees. It was gaping open and Mike could see the packet of cigarettes squeezed in next to the baby wipes, her tools for the evening.
As he set off towards his usual place, the site of an old factory, now reduced to a concrete patch and dark shadows by the redbrick viaduct that overshadowed the town, he said, ‘I just thought you might remember me, that’s all.’
‘Why would I?’
‘Because I treated you nicely,’ he said.
She paused for a few seconds, and then she asked, ‘How many times?’
‘With you?’ He blushed. ‘Not many.’
She didn’t respond to that, and he guessed that she wasn’t interested in idle talk. As the car crunched slowly to a halt, just the dark walls ahead of him, she asked, ‘What do you want?’
‘Something more than this,’ he said quietly.
‘What do you mean?’
He shook his head. ‘Nothing, it doesn’t matter.’ And then, ‘Who are your regulars?’
‘Taxi drivers mainly,’ she said. ‘And men like you, who don’t like their wives any more.’
He looked down at that, suddenly ashamed, and picked at his fingers. ‘Take off your top,’ he said quietly.
‘An extra fiver for that.’
He nodded. ‘I know.’
‘Full sex?’
He nodded again, his cheeks red.
‘Thirty quid,’ she said.
‘It was forty last time.’
‘Call it a loyalty discount,’ she drawled.
He got out of the car to sit in the back. She clambered in there with him, climbing between the gap in the front seats, and slipped off her T-shirt. She looked thin and pale, her skin mottled, her bones too visible in her shoulders. Her fingers were grubby and her nails bitten short.
The leather car seat was cold on his backside as he pulled down his trousers. He felt ridiculous, exposed, his eyes darting around, watching out for the police. The car was filled with the noise of the condom wrapper being torn open, and then he gasped and closed his eyes as her hands worked it onto him.
She climbed on top of him and tears squeezed out between his eyelids, part shame, part relief. Then she started to move up and down quickly, functional, passionless, getting him from start to finish, her hair brushing against his face, the seat creaking beneath him.
He ran his hands along her back, felt her naked skin under his fingers, the ridge of her spine, the fine hairs in the small of her back, and then he leant forward to kiss her. She moved her mouth out of the way and shook her head, going faster, and then it came at him in a rush…just a release, nothing more.
She climbed off him too quickly and stepped out of the car to put her knickers and T-shirt back on. He pulled at his trousers and then tossed the condom and wrapper out of the car window. As he clambered out of the back seat, puffing and wheezing from the exertion, he went towards her, to touch her hair, but she pulled away and smoothed her skirt instead.
‘I need to go back,’ she said. ‘I’ll walk if you don’t want to take me.’
‘No, I’ll take you,’ he said. ‘I’d like to spend more time with you.’
She looked wary. ‘What do you mean?’
‘It isn’t just about this,’ he said, and he gestured around him, at the car, at his lap. ‘I want something more.’
She looked away and thought for a few seconds. ‘I’m not going to your house.’
‘No, it’s not that,’ he said, and then he sighed. ‘This will sound stupid, but it’s about feeling someone in my arms, someone who will hold me. I can make it better for you, more than this.’
She folded her arms and looked at him. ‘That would be expensive.’
He took a deep breath. ‘I know, I know. I’ll come and find you when I can arrange it.’
She didn’t say anything for a few moments, and then she said, ‘I’ll walk back, it’s okay.’
And then he was alone again. His breathing returned to normal, and he climbed back into the driver’s seat and started the engine, the noise loud in the shadows around him.
The early morning train to London was busy, filled with pensioners on cheap advance bookings. The journey was shorter than it used to be, just a couple of hours from Lancashire to the bright lights, and the aisles were busy as people tottered to the buffet car to relieve the monotony. A group of Scottish students swapped boyfriend-talk on the opposite table and the air was filled with the smell of sandwiches. I looked up as I saw Susie making her way towards me, two coffees in her hands, a magazine tucked under her arm.
‘I thought we might have gone first class,’ she said as she lowered herself into her seat. ‘We’re going to make some big money from this.’
‘You wouldn’t like first class,’ I said. ‘You get free coffee, but you’ll also get businessmen trying to impress the rest of the carriage.’
Susie smiled and slid one of the coffees over to me.
‘When do I get to meet Claude?’ I asked.
Susie didn’t answer at first, as she fiddled with the lid on her coffee. ‘Whenever he calls,’ she replied eventually.
‘But you know where he lives. Why can’t we just go there?’
‘Like I told you, he needs to know that you’re on your own, that he can trust you,’ Susie said.
‘You can vouch for that.’
‘How do I know someone hasn’t been following us since we met this morning?’ When I didn’t answer, she said, ‘We just go to where I’ve been told to go and we hang around. Claude will find us, don’t worry.’
I thought about the prospect of meeting Claude Gilbert, and it was hard not to smile. I took a drink of coffee, and then said, ‘Claude comes second though. I need to see someone first.’
‘How do I know you’re not speaking to the police?’ she said, shocked.
‘You don’t,’ I replied. ‘But these stories don’t sell themselves. I’m trusting you, and so you’ve got to trust me.’
Susie considered this before saying, ‘But will they let you write it up how Claude wants it?’
I looked out of the window as I thought about that. The truthful answer was that they would go with what they think will sell papers and they wouldn’t give a damn about Claude, but maybe it was too early for a lesson in the cold world of journalism. Fugitives don’t get copy approval.
‘If it is Claude, then yes,’ I lied, ‘but the story might change if he goes to prison.’
‘But he won’t,’ Susie said. ‘He didn’t kill Nancy.’
I turned away again and looked at the reflection of my cup in mid-air, a ghost against the backyards of some Midlands town that we were racing through, the landscape getting brighter. I could see Susie in the reflection too, but as London got closer, the cold reality of having to sell her story to a ruthless press started to sink in, and so I began to wonder whether her story really made sense, that Claude Gilbert could have been undiscovered all these years—but I was willing to gamble my reputation on the chance that I was about to write the best story of my career.
Mike