‘For the tape, please,’ Davy says.
‘Yes, I was facing Snowdonia Way; Mr Ross was walking towards me, facing me when he fell. There is one other thing,’ she says. ‘I saw someone. I saw someone in the wood. I saw a boy. A black boy in a hoodie.’
Birdie
‘Out of interest,’ I said to her, ‘why the name Angel?’
‘A while ago, I met a child called Angel. At first, I thought what a cheap name, like calling your kid Chardonnay or Mercedes. But this girl was so feisty, she had so much kick in her. And this was a kid who’d had it rough. For me it became a charismatic name, because of that kid. And then I thought, I’ll call my own daughter Angel.’ She shook her head and turned away, whispering, ‘But that didn’t happen.’
‘Angel suits you,’ I said.
‘Why, because I’m not one?’
That evening, we watched The Hotel – whole minutes of interview with the hotel florist, the teams of chefs. A giant televisual puff piece but worth it for the glimpse of unbridled luxury – tellies set into the bathroom mirrors, jacuzzi baths in the bedroom, that sort of thing. Then came seemingly spontaneous chat between chambermaids about the lost items they’d discovered behind the headboards. All the way through, Angel was tutting and letting out these bitter asides. ‘This is a joke. You should see what really goes on in that hotel.’
‘What sort of thing?’ I asked.
‘Depraved stuff.’
I looked over at her and she was scowling at the screen.
‘Like what?’ I asked again, but the news was coming on and Angel had pushed down on her footrest to take the plates out.
Fiona Bruce was standing there in a white trouser suit of the kind only worn by television presenters, giving the news headlines, when I heard the plates clatter to the floor. I turned to see Angel in the doorway, staring at the screen.
‘Wha—’ I said.
‘Shush.’
Fiona was saying, ‘Police investigating the murder of a City banker in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, are appealing for information. Jon-Oliver Ross, 38, from Holland Park, died from stab wounds. His body was found in parkland in the Hinchingbrooke area a week ago.’
Angel was pale, staring at the telly.
When the item was over, she sort of slid to the floor in the corner of the room, knees up to her chest, her arms hugging them. She was rocking a bit. I asked her what was up, did she know the chap on the news? Was he a friend of hers? It seemed to me from her reaction that he’d been more than a friend.
She just rocked, staring straight ahead.
I went to the kitchen and got a box of M&S mince pies, which had been reduced because they’d got bashed up. I pulled out the plastic tray, which made a loud crackling noise, and tore off the cellophane bag. I offered her some of the rubble of pastry and brown mincemeat but she shook her head. The sugar on top was in large, crunchy grains.
‘Cup of tea goes nicely with these,’ I said. ‘Shall I make you one?’
She shook her head.
‘Shall we talk about Spain?’ I offered. I knew talking about Spain made her happy, but the truth was, it made me happy too.
‘It’ll be so hot, we’ll wear nothing but loose dresses and flip-flops,’ she whispered, as if she was looking at the scene in her mind. ‘We’ll walk down paths covered in pine needles, down to the sea for a swim when the salon’s shut for siesta.’
‘I’ll be so thin,’ I sighed and we both laughed.
‘You won’t be thin, but it won’t matter. You’ll be brown all over and your skin will be smooth from the salt and the sand. We’ll be as unworried as children,’ she said.
‘Not like now,’ I said, and her eyes filled with enormous tears, her lips trembling.
‘This is all my fault,’ she said, her voice wobbly. ‘I went after them and now they’ve killed him.’
I could see she was panicking, so I said, ‘How will you make the hairdressers different from all the other hairdressers?’
She swallowed, looking at me earnestly. ‘I would never charge people for a blow-dry on top of the price of a cut or colour. I mean, that’s just criminal.’
I nodded. I don’t really go to the hairdressers, so I’m not one to judge.
‘And when customers are waiting – like under the heat lamp while their colour takes, they’ll get a nice hand massage or manicure if they want it, instead of just sitting there doing nothing.’
‘Very good idea,’ I said. ‘Those little extras make all the difference.’
‘And we’ll have a proper stack of magazines, not a couple of falling-apart ones from six months ago,’ she said.
‘All the latest about Peter Andre,’ I said.
I took her hand, put it on my knee and patted it there. We were both looking ahead at nothing, sat there on the living-room floor, up against the wall.
‘They’re going to kill me as well,’ she said.
‘D’you want to tell me from the beginning? Was he your boyfriend?’
Saskia
He was a client, one of many. But he was good – Jon-Oliver wasn’t rough. He had loads of money, didn’t go at us like a butcher and I wanted to get out. True love.
I was a hooker. I am a hooker. My name is Saskia, Elle, whatever you want. Une pute de luxe. Escort to the rich and powerful. One of Titans’ girls. This is what these ageing, priapic, bald men call themselves: Titans, Emperors, Gods. The club that is run for their pleasure is called Titans VIP. It’s like an addiction. They can’t travel and not have girls.
They are foreign dignitaries, politicians, arms dealers, Saudi oil billionaires, Chinese businessmen. They’re in finance or global retail or property. They run countries. I once had the head of the Kazakh police, nasty piece of work. They fly in private jets and they take escorts with them – beautiful girls, like racehorses. The girls they buy are models, dancers, they speak languages, they have PhDs. You would not believe how beautiful they are. They’re all natural, dressed in Chanel, Isabel Marant. Perfect bodies, gorgeous faces, and they can bang all night.
I got into it through modelling. I was modelling for catalogues and this guy came to a shoot, Lebanese guy called Moukhtar but everyone called him Moukie, told me I could earn ￡5k if I had sex with him. I was disgusted, told him where to get off, but it planted the seed. My mum had a new boyfriend and he chucked me out, I had rent to pay and there were too many models and not enough work. Next time Moukie came back, I asked him to tell me more. Turned out he was a fixer for Titans – he tried out the girls, gave them a diamond rating according to how much fun he had.