Free The Make by Jessie Keane Page A

Harry out of bother.
    Gracie reviewed the facts. Harry was in trouble, George was taking nil by mouth, her casino had damned near burned down and would have burned down if not for Brynn’s quick thinking. She was only surprised that something hadn’t yet happened to Suze or her live-in lover Claude.
    ‘You got a room I can stay in for the night?’ she asked wearily. She scooped the hair she’d been sent back into the bag and stuffed it into her holdall. ‘My old room will do.’
    Her mother opened her mouth to speak – probably to say a flat no, but Claude, the oily bastard, chipped in.
    ‘Of course she has.’ He was beaming with bonhomie. Gracie bent to pick up her coat and she didn’t miss how the creep’s eyes lingered on her arse.
    Gracie wondered what on earth her mother saw in him, but then Suze’s judgement had never been entirely sound. Her mother was the perennial good-time girl, preferring to dance on tables all hours of the night, play bingo and get bladdered rather than take proper care of her house and kids. Suze thrived on flattery, and seemed unable to distinguish between fake and genuine. Gracie had always thought her dad did the right thing in leaving her; she still did.
    ‘I’ll take my things on up,’ she said, grabbing her bag just as Claude reached down to get it. ‘Thanks,’ she said with a tight smile at him. ‘And Mum – can you dig out their addresses?’
    ‘Address,’ said Suze, looking at her daughter with a cold eye. ‘They got a flat together, it ain’t much.’
    But better than staying here with you and this arsehole , thought Gracie.
    ‘Jot it down for me, will you?’
    ‘Jesus, what did your last slave die of?’ asked Suze with a sniff.
    ‘Insolence,’ flung back Gracie, dismayed to find that when dealing with her mother she still felt like a snippy teenager. ‘You going to see George tonight at the hospital?’
    ‘No.’ Her mother’s eyes filled with easy tears. ‘Not tonight. Tomorrow. My poor boy.’
    ‘I’ll tag along then. If you don’t mind?’
    ‘Mind? Why should I mind? I’m only surprised that you care enough to bother.’
    Gracie gave her mother a long hard stare. But what was the use? They’d never got on; they never would. She turned her back and pounded off up the stairs to her room. Her mother hadn’t hugged her, and she hadn’t hugged Suze, either.
    Two hours later, she was awakened by grunts and bangs from the room next door to her own.
    Oh, terrific.
    As if she didn’t have enough to contend with, now she had to listen to creep features and her own damned mother doing the nasty through the thin partition wall. A perfect end to a perfect day. How the hell could Suze do that, in these circumstances? She thought of George, lying in a hospital bed. And Harry. Where the hell was Harry? She thought of the note with the hair. No police. Then she thought of gentle, easy-going Harry out there somewhere, in trouble, alone, and it pulled at her heart. Finally she turned over and pulled the pillows over her head. It was hours before she could get to sleep.

Chapter 13
    Some time after Laura Dixon had shagged him shitless in the Gents at her divorce party, Harry was crossing Covent Garden when he spotted his former client, the cougar – Jackie Sullivan – browsing among the blooms outside a florist. He stopped walking and stared. He was getting to be an old hand at the escorting business now; he had plenty of dosh; he was happy.
    It was cold today. Freezing. His breath plumed like smoke with every exhalation. The cougar was wrapped up in a white fake-fur hat and matching gloves. She wore black boots and was carrying a Kelly bag. Her coat looked expensive, patterned in a large black-and-white dog’s-tooth design. Harry thought she looked adorable; he started to smile, and approached her as she halted to stare in the window at a display of red hothouse roses.
    ‘Hey,’ he said, touching her shoulder.
    She turned. Her face was the same; small,