Free London Noir by Cathi Unsworth Page B

a thing from the other room—but her orgasm-detector was spot on. I went into the kitchen and shut the door, leaving it open a tiny crack so I could see who was coming out without him seeing me. I always liked to get a look at the bloke Vanya had been with immediately before me. Just natural curiosity, I suppose.
    Half a minute later Vanya appeared from the bedroom and left the flat for the communal toilet on the landing.
    Then out he came.
    I knew I knew him as soon as he came into view. Someone famous, but I couldn’t think who. A newsreader maybe? No, not that well-known. An MP? Not sure, but someone …
    He picked up the overcoat he’d left on the settee, then pulled out a tenner and handed it to Rita.
    Rita smiled and took the tip. “Safe journey now, it’s bitter out.”
    “My overcoat will guard me against the cold, my dear,” he said. “And I shall savor your delicious non sequitur the length of my secure passage home.”
    The name hit me.
    I waited till I heard his footsteps disappear down the staircase before coming back into the room.
    “Do you know who that was?” I didn’t wait for an answer. “Nicholas Monroe. The lawyer. He’s …”
    Vanya teetered back in from the toilet.
    “He’s famous. Well, for a lawyer anyway …”
    “Fahmous? Fahmous who? Frederick?” Vanya asked, taking the £60 I had ready for her.
    I followed her into the bedroom.
    “No, yes—no—his name’s Nicholas Monroe. He’s always on the news. He got that gang off who killed that black kid in East Ham a couple of years ago. And that gangster from where you’re from …”
    “From Croatia?”
    “Somewhere like that, I don’t know. Albania maybe, it doesn’t matter,” I said, shutting the bedroom door. “The point is, he’s fucking well-known, got shitloads of money.”
    “He’s not from Croatia, silly, he’s English,” she said. “Very fine English man. Now what shall we do? Talking or fucking?”
    “I mean, what the fuck’s he doing here?” I said, ignoring the question.
    Vanya plopped herself down on the bed and started inspecting her fingernails.
    “If he wants a shag he could go to some discreet high-class place in Kensington or somewhere. What’s he doing coming here?”
    Her eyes narrowed. “He like me,” she said. “He like the way I speak and how I—”
    “What, has he been here before? He’s a regular?”
    “Yes, of course.” She said it as if it was obvious, as if I was the stupid one. “He come to here every week nearly. I speak to him in Croatian and put my finger up his ass and he …”
    Fuck me. “You put your finger up his arse?”
    “Yes, of course, this is normal, what’s wrong with this?”
    “Fucking hell, Vanya—it’s not what’s wrong with it, it’s what’s right with it. He’s rich. He can’t afford this to get out. He’ll pay us not to tell anyone.”
    Vanya had a habit of being a bit “kooky,” like she wasn’t quite all there. Like everything was a game, everything was happening in some surreal Eastern European kiddie film. But now she became more serious, more real. I felt a rise of something in my belly.
    “Pay us? How much pay us?” she said.
    “Dunno. Ten grand. Maybe more.” Fifty, at least. “It’s nothing to him. He can earn that in a week probably …”
    “In a week? Nemoj me jebat!”
    “Exactly.” I spoke calmly now, took the tempo down a notch. “We just have to do it properly. Plan it right …”
    I didn’t know a lot about Vanya, but I knew she wasn’t a whore by choice, that she hadn’t known this was what she’d be doing when she was brought to England. And I knew that, like Anna and Katarina in the flats upstairs, she wasn’t seeing much of the five grand or so a week she was earning for the management. She listened carefully as I went through the plan, nodding slowly as I showed her how to work the camcorder, where the record button was, and how to tell if it was on or not. Then I marked the exact spot on the wardrobe