Issued to: Mr. J.C. Storrs
“How the hell does he think I got my ticket at Oxford without showing that?” asked the Senior Fellow of Lonsdale.
“He’s only doing his duty, poor lad. And he’s got awful acne.”
“You’re right, yes.”
She took his hand in hers, moving more closely again. And within a few minutes the PADDINGTON sign passed by as the train drew slowly into the long platform. In a rather sad voice, the Senior Conductor now made his second announcement: “All change, please! All change! This train has now terminated.”
They waited until their fellow passengers had alighted; and happily, just as at Oxford, there seemed to be no one on the train whom either of them knew.
In the Brunel Bar of the Station Hotel, Storrs ordered a large brandy (two pieces of ice) for his young companion, and half a pint of Smith’s bitter for himself. Then, leaving his own drink temporarily untouched, he walked out into Praed Street, thence making his way down to the cluster of small hotels in and around Sussex Gardens, several of them displaying VACANCIES signs. He had “used” (was that the word?) two of them previously, but this time he decided to explore new territory.
“Double room?”
“One left, yeah. Just the one night, is it?”
“How much?”
“Seventy-five pounds for the two — with breakfast.”
“How much without breakfast?”
Storrs sensed that the middle-aged peroxide-blonde was attuned to his intentions, for her eyes hardened knowingly behind the cigarette-stained reception counter.
“Seventy-five pounds.”
One experienced campaigner nodded to another experienced campaigner. “Well, thank you, madam. I promise I’ll call back and take the room — after I’ve had a look at it — if I can’t find anything a little less expensive.”
He turned to go.
“Just a minute!... No breakfast, you say?”
“No. We’re catching the sleeper to Inverness, and we just want a room for the day — you know? — a sort of habitation and a place.”
She squinted up at him through her cigarette smoke.
“Sixty-five?”
“Sixty.”
“Okay.”
He counted out six ten-pound notes as, pushing the register forward, she reached behind her for Key Number 10.
It was, one may say, a satisfactory transaction.
Her glass was empty, and without seating himself he drained his own beer at a draught.
“Same again?”
“Please!” She pushed over the globed glass in which the semi-melted ice cubes still remained.
Feeling most pleasantly relaxed, she looked around the thinly populated bar, and noticed (again!) the eyes of the middle-aged man seated across the room. But she gave no sign that she was aware of his interest, switching her glance instead to the balding, gray-white head of the man leaning nonchalantly at the bar as he ordered their drinks.
Beside her once more, he clinked their glasses, feeling (just as she did) most pleasantly relaxed.
“Quite a while since we sat here,” he volunteered.
“Couple o’ months?”
“Ten weeks, if we wish to be exact.”
“Which, of course, we do, sir.”
Smiling, she sipped her second large brandy. Feeling good; feeling increasingly good.
“Hungry?” he asked.
“What for?”
He grinned. “An hour in bed, perhaps — before we have a bite to eat?”
“Wine thrown in?”
“I’m trying to bribe you.”
“Well... if you want to go to bed for a little while first...”
“I think I’d quite enjoy that.”
“One condition, though.”
“What?”
“You tell me what you were going to tell me — on the train.”
He nodded seriously. “I’ll tell you over the wine.”
It was, one may say, a satisfactory arrangement.
As they got up to leave, Storrs moved ahead of her to push open one of the swing doors; and Rachel James (for such was she), a freelance physiotherapist practicing up in North Oxford, was conscious of the same man’s eyes upon her. Almost involuntarily she leaned her body backward, thrusting her breasts against the smooth white silk of her blouse as she lifted both her hands behind her head to tighten the ring which held her light brown hair in its ponytail.
A ponytail ten inches long.
Chapter five
Then the smiling hookers turned their attention to our shocked reporters.
“Don’t be shy! You paid for a good time, and that’s what we want to give you.”
Our men feigned jet lag, and declined.
Geoffrey Owens had a better knowledge of Soho than most people.
He’d been only nineteen when first he’d gone to London as a junior reporter, when he’d rented a room just off Soho Square, and when during his first few months he’d regularly walked around the area there, experiencing the curiously compulsive attraction of names like Brewer Street, Greek Street, Old Compton Street, Wardour Street... a sort of litany of seediness and sleaze.
In those days, the midseventies, the striptease parlors, the porno cinemas, the topless bars — all somehow had been more wholesomely sinful, in the best sense of that word (or was it the worst?). Now, Soho had quite definitely changed for the better (or was it the worse?): more furtive and tawdry, more dishonest in its exploitation of the lonely, unloved men who would ever pace the pavements there and occasionally stop like rabbits in the headlights.
Yet Owens appeared far from mesmerized when in the early evening of February 7 he stopped outside Le Club Sexy. The first part of this establishment’s name was intended (it must be assumed) to convey that je-ne-sais-quoi quality of Gallic eroticism; yet the other two parts perhaps suggested that the range of the proprietor’s French was somewhat limited.
“Lookin’ for a bit o’ fun, love?”
The heavily mascara’d brunette appeared to be in her early twenties — quite a tall girl in her red high-heels, wearing black stockings, a minimal black skirt, and a low-cut, heavily sequined blouse stretched tightly over a large bosom — largely exposed — beneath the winking lightbulbs.
Déjà vu.
And, ever the voyeur, Owens was momentarily aware of all the old weaknesses.
“Come in! Come down and join the fun!”
She took a step toward him and he felt the long, blood-red fingernails curling pleasingly in his palm.
It was a good routine, and one that worked with many and many a man.
One that seemed to be working with Owens.
“How much?”
“Only three-pound membership, that’s all. It’s a private club, see — know wha’ I mean?” For a few seconds she raised the eyes beneath the empurpled lids toward Elysium.
“Is Gloria still here?”
The earthbound eyes were suddenly suspicious — yet curious, too.
“Who?”
“If Gloria’s still here, she’ll let me in for nothing.”
“Lots o’ names ’ere, mistah: real names — stage names...”
“So what’s your name, beautiful?”
“Look, you wanna come in? Three pound — okay?”
“You’re not being much help, you know.”
“Why don’t you just fuck off?”
“You don’t know Gloria?”
“What the ’ell do you want, mate?” she asked fiercely.
His voice was very quiet as he replied. “I used to live fairly close by. And she used to work here, then—Gloria did. She was a stripper — one of the best in the business, so everybody said.”