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underneath, and he thought, wait a minute, and then the girl got to her feet, and he saw the shoulders, the hips, the . . . well fuck me, thought George.

      He hadn’t rescued a girl at all.

      It was a boy.

      * * *

      The boy sat in the back of the taxi that George had flagged down, hugging himself, his teeth clattering together like casta-nets. George kept glancing at him, wondering what the hell he was going to do now. The words ‘where can I drop you?’ had been met with silence. So George had given the driver his own address.

      The boy was in shock. That much was obvious. He couldn’t just leave the kid out on the streets at this hour of the night. Look at what had been happening in that alley.

      Yeah, look at that, George.

      George thought about it. Something was off here, something was wrong.

      He glanced again at the boy. Big, blond, overlong thatch of hair. Elfin face. The boy was tall and long and thin. Not like him. He’d been heavy, solid, robust, just about forever. The boy had only been wearing a white t-shirt and jeans, no coat. It was perishing out there, bitterly cold.

      ‘What’s your name?’ George asked, and he saw the cab driver’s eyes flick to the rear-view mirror, saw the judgement in them. He obviously thought that this was a pick-up, a meeting of two strangers heading home for some hot and impersonal sex.

      The boy didn’t answer. He was shuddering, although it was warm enough in the cab. George took his jacket off and thrust it towards him. He flinched back. How old was he? wondered George. Fourteen, fifteen, around there?

      ‘Go on. Put it on, mate. You’re cold.’

      After a moment’s hesitation, the boy grasped the jacket and slipped it on. It was miles too big for him. He looked lost in it.

      Poor little sod, thought George.

      ‘You can stay the night at mine,’ said George. ‘If you want. It’s not a problem.’

      The boy looked at him with limpid blue eyes. Slowly, he nodded.

      What is he, deaf and dumb? Or just demented? Hell, what am I inviting in here?

      He caught the look from the taxi driver again.

      Pair of queers, said the look.

      But it wasn’t like that. Not at all.

       Chapter 7

      Harry’s booking was a divorce party in a pub. There was a three-tier cake set up on the buffet table, red and white balloons suspended on either side of it. On top of the cake was a prone, headless, bloodstained groom, and an upright, rather pleased-looking bride, all in white, holding a shotgun to her shoulder. There was an inscription, too. Happy Divorce, Laura! The minute Harry saw the cake, he thought oh shit, because he knew what he was in for.

      Laura Dixon, fashion designer, may have looked demure, dark-haired and solemn in her photo, but in the flesh she was nothing like that. She was wearing a skin-tight sheath of pink satin and four-inch-high gladiator sandals. Her skinny arms and legs and her over-made-up face were all dyed orange. Above her dress, the top halves of two over-inflated pale fake boobs were exposed. As Harry arrived at her front door in Lambeth, neatly suited and booted, and announced himself, a chorus of shrieks went up and a bevy of semi-clad women descended upon him like he was a prize boar in a pig sale or some fucking thing.

      ‘Ain’t he gorgeous?’ said one.

      ‘Fuck me, just look at the arse on that,’ said another, circling him.

      He was pinched, prodded, and then the limo arrived and he was somehow swept along on a bevvied wave of oestrogen. In the car, they drank champagne, leered at him and squeezed his thighs. He kept smiling but he was glad when they arrived at the venue, until he saw the cake and understood that he was the token male at this shindig, and all men were bastards, up to and including him.

      Oh happy days, he thought glumly.

      They’d started the evening drunk, and as it progressed the twenty-strong group of women grew rowdier still. After the cake had been cut and the food consumed, an oiled and muscled male stripper came on to hoots and catcalls, and Harry – so glad that he’d been paid up front; that was always the deal and thank god for it – grabbed his chance to slip away to the Gents. From there, he was planning to slip away home, but when he turned from the urinal to wash his hands, Laura was standing there, watching him with a predatory glint in her eye. The thump and grind of the stripper’s music – it was Relax, Frankie Goes to Hollywood – was a distant, heavy, background beat.

      ‘Hi,’ he said, smiling brightly because that was what he was paid to do, after all.

      ‘Hi yourself,’ she said, and without another word she popped both enormous white tits out of the top of her dress, and launched herself at him.

      Harry got back late to the flat. He let himself in, worn out, shagged out, quite literally, wanting only a shower and then bed, to find George sitting in the lounge with a good-looking blond teenager.

      ‘Oh!’ he said in surprise.

      George looked up and said: ‘Hiya Harry. We’ve had a spot of bother.’

      Harry would remember that later. George, master of the huge understatement. A spot of bother.

      ‘Who’s this?’ asked Harry.

      ‘This is Alfie,’ said George.

      ‘Right. Hi, Alfie.’ Harry was bewildered. The boy was too young to be one of George’s stable of loud, fun-filled mates. And . . . ‘Holy shit, what happened to that?’ he demanded, alarmed.

      Alfie was still wrapped up in George’s jacket, and Harry could see that the arm had been slashed right through.

      ‘It’s nothing, we’re both fine,’ said George.

      ‘That’s not nothing. That’s your best jacket, you paid a lot for that jacket,’ said Harry. ‘What is that – a tear, or did someone swipe you with a razor?’

      ‘A knife,’ sighed George. ‘It was a knife.’

      ‘Fuck me, George, what happened?’

      While Alfie sat silent, staring at the floor, George outlined the events of the evening.

      ‘You hit him with a scaffolding pole? Was he all right?’ asked Harry, flopping down on the sofa beside Alfie, who flinched.

      George gave Harry a look that said are you kidding me? ‘I told you. The bastard was waving a knife around, threatening this poor kid. I didn’t . . . I couldn’t just walk away and leave them to it, could I? So I, yes, I admit it, I did hit the guy with the pole, and what I didn’t do, Harry, was hang around and wait for him to come round. He was okay when I left him, that’s all I can say. I didn’t stick around to enquire after his health and give him the chance to have another go, all right?’

      ‘So why’d you bring him back here?’ asked Harry, getting irritable. He was tired. He’d had a stressful evening. The last thing he wanted was to hear about George’s troubles.

      ‘What else could I do?’ asked George, glancing at the boy. Poor little sod. ‘He’s told me his name, but that’s all. He was shit-scared, Harry, I’m telling you. He’s in shock maybe. I couldn’t just let it go. You wouldn’t have. Would you?’

      ‘I think I would.’ Someone waving a knife around? Oh yes, he’d have let it go all right. He didn’t fancy being a dead hero.

      ‘No you wouldn’t. Look, Alfie can stay the night on the sofa bed, I’ll sort him out with a pillow and we’ve got a spare quilt, it’s no biggie.’

      Harry looked at Alfie. He was almost effeminate in his beauty. He certainly didn’t look like any sort of threat. They weren’t going to get shot or shagged in their

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